In Which Merawen Does a Circuit Around Skyrim

Low-key session for the most part, mostly with the goal of satisfying the Briarheart Necropsy quest. And what I had time for aside from that was basically hitting all my houses and doing a loot check, and selling things in various places, before finally returning to Solstheim.

Highlights

• Play date: 9/29/2021
• Session number in this run: 60
• Aw, both my kids were sweeping when I got up at Proudspire the next morning, what good kids!
• Yes, Runa, you can totally be a bard
• Courier found me, even in Solitude, with the next message from Ralis; nice work there, courier
• Sold stuff to all the vendors in Solitude except Angeline, because she wasn’t at the counter
• Khajiit were outside though, so I sold stuff to them!
• Boinged to Markarth next, sold stuff to Endon, said hi to Argis
• Boinged to Lost Valley Redoubt
• Killed several Forsworn, including a Briarheart
• Leveled up to 63
• Got lost looking for the Word Wall; found Cradle Stone Tower
• Backtracked and found Word Wall, and the hagravens trying to make another Briarheart
• Took them out and got the last word for Become Ethereal
• Jumped off Bard’s Leap Summit; landed safely thanks to Become Ethereal
• Addressed by ghost of Azzadal who played me a song, and my Speech went up two points
• Boinged next to Lakeview for loot check
• Took out three skeevers in the basement because fucking basement skeevers, man
• Picked up a bunch of books to take to Heljarchen for the library
• Hoofed it to Riverwood; saw fish leaping up the river near Riverwood, a thing I don’t think I ever noticed before? Neat
• Imperials + Stormcloak prisoner near Honningbrew; one gave me a warning about my presence “interfering with Imperial business”, and I didn’t feel like fighting with them, so I let them get ahead of me
• However, SURPRISE: right by Honningbrew all three Imperials suddenly drew the bows, and I was all wtf are they shooting at oh okay HELLO FROST DRAGON
• Frost Dragon tried to fly off and breathe on other things across the river and up the hill? Probably White River bandits?
• It came back down though, and Jenassa and I took it out
• Whiterun guards came running over and were all “in all my years I’ve never seen such a thing!” Dude, were you not around the last time I killed a dragon in Whiterun?
• Sold stuff at Honningbrew and also in Whiterun
• Boinged to Heljarchen after quaffing one purchased and one crafted potion for boosting Carry Weight, so I could fast travel
• Dropped off a bunch of books for library wing
• Came back out and heard a giant but did not see a giant, apparently the giant didn’t render properly? Went back inside and came out again, and then I saw the giant
• Jenassa took him out, because Jenassa is badassed that way
• Off to the mage college for level 63 training
• Sold a bunch of things to all five trainers, and also got training
• Boinged back to Solstheim and parked at Severin Manor for next time

Commentary

Another pretty low-key session, since the main goal for this one was simple, i.e., killing a Briarheart and evaluating the remains for Neloth. Chose Lost Valley Redoubt for the target locale, as I’d been there before, and there were a couple more objectives there to help make it be about more than just “go kill this guy for Neloth”—which, yeah, no.

But if I’m there for other reasons, like, say, making it to that Word Wall, that does help!

So I did get to the Word Wall, and I also did the thing where if you jump off Bard’s Leap Summit, you can see the ghost of the last bard who tried that. I don’t think I ever did this as Alarrah, so I wanted to try it here. Because it was worth a couple extra points to your Speech skill!

After that it was just all about visiting the various houses and making sure all my housecarls are still alive and kicking, and rearranging some loot. As described above, took a bunch of books to Heljarchen to have them in the library wing there.

Notable creature encounters were that Frost Dragon near Whiterun—I really wish I’d have thought to take screencaps of those Imperials all drawing their bows at the same time to fire at the dragon! Because that did look pretty neat. And I suspect, but was not able to confirm, that their Stormcloak prisoner may have gone BYE I AM OUTTA HERE as soon as their backs were turned.

The giant encounter at Heljarchen was weird, too. Just because when I first came out of the house, the giant’s noises were playing, but the actual giant wasn’t visible! Which was kind of spooky and amusing, because oh shit invisible giant. That must have been a helluva big Invisibility Potion he quaffed.

Going back inside and coming out again did render the giant properly (clearly whatever assets were needed to render the giant just hadn’t loaded correctly the first time), though I will be amused for a while with the mental picture of a giant chugging back an entire barrel of Invisibility Potion.

The mage college visit this time was surprisingly dragon-free. I’d initially thought I’d go into the Midden and make more salts at the Atronach Forge, because boy howdy do I have a lot of spare gems and soul gems. But I’m otherwise not hurting for ingredients, including things to make the types of potions that Fire Salts and Frost Salts are good for, and I’m not hurting for Void Salts at the moment either.

(And I know there are other interesting things to make at the Forge, but none of those seem particularly urgent? Plus the really cool stuff, the Daedric armor and weapons, I can really make myself anyway as long as I have Daedra hearts.)

Next time

I returned to Solstheim at the end of last session, and I have two known things that’ll need doing: checking in with Ralis again at Kolbjorn Barrow, and checking in with Neloth to report back about what happened with the Forsworn Briarheart.

I’m pretty sure that’ll let me proceed to the quest to take out Ildari. But we’ll see if I get to that point.

Also, I need to go cleanse the Water Stone, see if I can track down Wulf’s werebear brother, and also find the Deathbrand treasure hoard!

Screenshots

Only a couple of screenshots this time. Two of which are me doinking around with Merawen in Alik’r garb. I got a shot of her in the dark red Alik’r outfit I took when I destroyed the Dark Brotherhood already, but I took another one just because I really liked the shot of it from the side angle, it was a more flattering look for her in the light available in Severin Manor Plus, I got hold of a gray-colored Alik’r hood and I wanted to compare.

It occurred to me as well that that kind of headgear might actually be useful in Solstheim’s ashy environment–because you might be able to rewrap that turban to protect your mouth and nose from having to breathe in ash when ash storms blow across the southern part of the island. Which also makes some of the stranger helmet styles I’ve seen on Solstheim, with the bonemold and chitin armors, make more sense to me.

All the Dunmer NPCs in Raven Rock have an outfit style that seems to account for this, too. There’s a hood involved that looks like they might be able to cover their faces with it when it gets really ashy.

Editing to add

• 11/17/2023: Fixed missing gallery, and added a session number.
• 10/4/2024: Added a play date to the highlights section. Converted the gallery to a native WordPress one.