In Which Ysani Journeys Northward

This was the session for Friday 2/18, the second of two posts I’m putting up today. And even though this was a Friday night session, it was shorter than normal because I had an evening eye appointment to get to, and then a lot of errands to run on the way back from that.

Plus, I had to get up early for chiro today. So I didn’t want to stay up till stupid-o’clock playing Skyrim. Result: this mostly was a road trip kind of session, in between bigger action.

Highlights

Play date: 2/18/2022
Session number in this run: 25
Boinged from Lakeview to Honningbrew
Sold a bunch of stuff to Mallus, including all the smaller items swiped out of Mercer Frey’s house
Slept at Breezehome, then got up the next morning to sell stuff
Improved Chillrend up to perfect, it is now my best sword \0/
Boinged to Riften to drop off the Bust of the Gray Fox with Delvin
Got Sweep Job for Windhelm, got Bedlam Job for Markarth, and got quest to hit Yngvild from Vekel the Man
Did a little enchanting in Honeyside
Picked up Iona for housecarl duty
Headed out through the gates
HI BLOOD DRAGON! Took out the dragon with ebony bow, mostly the guards and Iona got it though
And there was a disturbing amount of clipping of the dragon through the ground o.O
Slain after that, four cave bears, frostbite spider, regular bear
Oh hey the dremora can heal himself, awesome
Non-hostile NPCS passed: mercenary in ebony armor; orc skooma dealer who was actually mining a vein, didn’t know they could do that; two Vigilants of Stendarr
Reached Windhelm and did a little buying and selling and smithing there
Got Chillrend improved to Legendary; did not do the thievery job yet
Proceeded onward towards Yngvild
Hostile creatures encountered: ice wolf, frost troll (who killed the Imperials), two gargoyles, flame atronach, two ice wraiths, three wolves (one regular, two ice wolves)
Non-hostile NPCs encountered: traveling Khajiit, three Imperials (killed by frost troll)
Killed one of the gargoyles with Chillrend, fuck yeah, while the dremora and Iona got the other one 😀
Also, now I have enough ice wraith teeth for Marise!
Reached Yngvild
Saved for the night

Commentary

Not a huge amount to say here since this turned out to be a shorter session than is normal for me on a Friday night.

As noted above, dropped off the Bust of the Gray Fox with Delvin at the Thieves Guild and got some more quests lined up. Because once I kill Mercer Frey, I’ll be targeting being Guildmaster, and I’ll need to finish out the rest of the side jobs before I can do that.

For once, also, I got the quest to get Arondil’s journals for Vekel actually from Vekel, as opposed to running Yngvild and only finding out when I’m done “oh hey here are these journals”.

I probably should stayed in Windhelm to do the Sweep Job, but was more in the mood for the road trip, so I kept to that!

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Philtre de l’Escarmoucheur: Skirmisher’s Philter (for fortifying the Light Armor skill)
Le Buste du Renard gris: The Bust of the Gray Fox
Vekel l’Homme: Vekel the Man

All of these terms are pretty much direct translations. Of these, I really like the word escarmoucheur! It rolls well off the tongue.

I still have to giggle a little at ‘Vekel the Man’ in either language. As opposed to what, Vekel the Cabbage? Vekel the Goat?

Relevant to the last post I put up, though, I’ll note here the followup about the translation of Chillrend over to Cristalgide: I think my friend Aaron from Facebook and Twitter probably nailed it! He proposes that it’s a portmanteau of ‘cristal’ and ‘algide’, which would make the sword’s name in French roughly mean ‘cold crystal’. Which is absolutely appropriate.

So short of any contradictory sources that can actually confirm what the Skyrim translators were thinking, I’m going with this as my operating theory. Nice job, Aaron!

Next time

Going to actually run Yngvild. From there, not quite sure yet. Likely possibilities:

Kinda feeling like going to Dawnstar and running the museum plot, I feel like Ysani probably wants Mehrunes’ Razor
Alternately, running the nightmares plot in Dawnstar to open the way for getting the thaneship there
Going to Morthal and running the vampire plot to get the thaneship there
Doing the Sweep Job in Windhelm
Doing the Bedlam Job in Markarth
Heading to Raldbthar to get the last aetherium shard
Running Irkngthand to take out Mercer Frey

Screenshots

Ysani in Mourner's Clothes — Ysani in Black Robe

Also, here’s a bonus video! This is a capture of the death throes of that Blood Dragon slain outside of Riften, and the spectacular amount of clipping it did through the ground while it was dying.

Editing to add

11/21/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.
10/9/2024: Converted gallery to a native WordPress one. Also added backend CSS tweak to improve the spacing after the gallery in the body of the post.