In Which Delga Gains a Handy New Dremora Ally

Main action of this session was running Benkongerike and the Untold Legends level of Apocrypha–and by extension, gaining the Black Market power that lets me summon a Dremora Merchant any time I want to sell stuff to. Boy howdy is that handy!

Highlights

• Play date: 1/22/2022
• Session number in this run: 81
• Ran Benkongerike with Iona
• Got final word for the Cyclone shout
• Ran the Untold Legends Black Book level in Apocrypha
• Got Two-Handed leveled up to 99 while fighting the Lurkers on that level of Apocrypha
• Took Black Market power from the book, and promptly used it to sell stuff to the Dremora Merchant to get unloaded!
• Fast traveled back to Raven Rock for remaining loot drop
• OH HI REVERED DRAGON
• Shot it down to land just outside the Bulwark, and cue fucking Miraak sniping the soul
• Grumpily went in to sell stuff to everybody
• And it didn’t help that I passed Galdrus Hlervu, an NPC I hadn’t encountered before, and he was an asshole
• Then went to Severin Manor for crafting work
• Handed off dragonplate armor to Iona; keeping the ebony armor, however, that shit is double enchanted!
• Sold a boatload of stuff to the Dremora Merchant after summoning him a couple more times
• Slept the night
• Went back out the next morning and headed up west shore of the island
• Killed a couple of wolves past Bloodskal Barrow
• Went uphill to Damphall Mine; killed reaver outside, but decided not to run the place, nothing in it I really want to go after right now
• Proceeded up the shore
• Engaged Blood Dragon, killed same! No sign of Miraak, good
• LOL, sailors I liberated from the Water Stone are still hanging around so they were all ‘in all my years I’ve never seen such a thing’
• Engaged trio of rieklings by previously cleared Deathbrand chest after spotting them fighting mudcrabs
• Reached Bristleback Cave
• Engaged rieklings outside and got more juniper berries out of the barrel there
• Started running Bristleback Cave–and the damn game crashed partway in, AUGH
• However only thrown back to beginning of cave, so proceeded to clear it
• Leveled up to 70 unlocking a chest; took perk for casting Expert Conjuration spells at half magicka
• Worked northward around the island; hit chest and ebony mine at Northshore Landing again
• Worked way around island; found the three werebears vs. horkers again, took the werebears out with Iona + Dremora Lord
• Re-found Glacial Cave
• Ran it and got Karstaag’s skull
• Summoned Dremora Merchant again and sold him all my excess loot
• Headed southward along eastern shore of the island
• Fought a skeever near Frossel
• Crossed water to get to Frossel, and saved there for the night

Commentary

Getting down to the wire here on things I still want to do on Solstheim, but I still had one major Black Book locale to hit in this session, and that was Benkongerike.

Getting to that Black Book is a little chagrin-inducing for me, just because I still feel slightly guilty attacking the rieklings! The little guys are half my size, and here I am coming into their space. I can’t exactly get cranky at them for defending it.

But that said, I do kinda have to go through them to get to Benkongerike’s Black Book. Not to mention that Word Wall with the last word of the Cyclone Shout. And with Delga not being exactly sneaky, sneaking past them isn’t an option! Hell, it’s not even really an option with a character that would be sneaky, I think? Because a good part of Benkongerike is ice caves and there’s not much in the way of shadows to be sneaky in.

Still though I did run that dungeon, and this time through I tried out what I think is now my new favorite power to get off of any the Black Books: the Black Market one which allows you to summon a Dremora Merchant and sell him your stuff. 😀

Given how I am chronically overloaded every time I play this game, an opportunity to offload stuff is incredibly helpful. And it’ll eventually make it easier to return to the mainland without having to worry about doing a circuit through all the cities to sell off the stuff I don’t actually want to keep.

I wound up summoning that Dremora Merchant three different times in this session alone, and I strongly suspect I’ll be calling on him at least a few more times before Delga’s playthrough is done!

That was definitely the high point of the session, and after that, it was mostly just a matter of continuing a circuit around the island. I covered a couple of things that had been undone by a previous rollback, i.e., re-encountering the three werebears and re-locating Glacial Cave. This time through though I actually ran Glacial Cave so I could get Karstaag’s skull.

And between running both Bristleback Cave and Benkongerike, I was able to get enough juniper berries to go satisfy the pending quest for Elmus at Thirsk Mead Hall, too!

One more new thing I can mention is that this time through, after killing the Revered Dragon at Raven Rock, I ran into an NPC I hadn’t encountered before: Galdrus Hlervu. He’s apparently a temple NPC and I haven’t actually set foot in the temple in Raven Rock before, three playthroughs in. And given that this guy was an asshole, I don’t think I’m missing much!

Next time

I’ll be running Frossel just because I’m pretty sure I haven’t been in there before, so running a new place will be nice. And I need to drop off those juniper berries with Elmus.

And now that I have Karstaag’s skull, I need to go after Karstaag, too! Which I suspect will probably be the main point of the next session, since it’ll be a Sunday night session and will need to be shorter as a result.

Which means tomorrow night, likely, will be when I finally finish up Dragonborn’s main plot and go after Miraak.

I also suspect I’m closing in on being done with Delga’s playthrough. Once I finish up on Solstheim I’ll probably just go straight to finishing off the main plot, even though I don’t think Delga will match Merawen for eventual final level. There are additional things I could do, but I’m also starting to get eager to start playthrough number four in French! So I want to just go ahead and get Delga finished up to clear the queue.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/20/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.
• 10/7/2024: Converted gallery to a native WordPress one.