In Which Ysani Gains Windhelm for the Thieves Guild

This session was almost all Thieves Guild action! Got in a bit of side questing first, before finishing the required jobs in Windhelm to gain Niranye as a fence and get Torsten Cruel-Sea’s aid in giving the Guild a foothold in the city. Then I moved on to Markarth to do the same! Finished the required jobs in Markarth as well, and made it as far as recovering Endon’s silver mold to open up that city for the Guild as well.

Also, let’s pour one out for the horse bought at the beginning of the session, who didn’t even make it to the end of it!

Highlights

Play date: 3/1/2022
Session number in this run: 36
Did a small bit of building at Windstad
Then got Iona to buy me a horse; used that horse to fast travel with all my materials to Whiterun
Got more iron, malachite, moonstone from Warmaiden’s
Made myself a glass helmet to fill out the armor set
Returned to the horse to boing back to Windstad
Built out a bunch of things, the rest of the smithing setup in the cellar, the enchanter tower structure, and several of its furnishings, till I ran out of iron
Decided to go run the quest for Kharjo’s amulet at Bilegulch Mine
Boinged first to Falkreath to see if I could get a bounty to stack on top of that; answer: no, but I did get a bounty for a giant at Secunda’s Kiss
Boinged to Western Watchtower to get there
Hid the horse out of range to keep it from getting killed
Killed only one target giant by way of dremora boys; specifically left the other one alone
Boinged back to Falkreath to collect that bounty, and geez only 100 gold? Seriously, by the time you’re able to kill a giant, that’s pennies
Bought a bunch of malachite from Lod and sold him the giant loot, so I could upgrade several of the glass armor pieces; sold a potion to Zaria as well
Boinged back to Western Watchtower to see if I could ride to a point near the mine safely
Passed hostile armored Imperial; got off the horse to fight him; actually got to improve my Block since I have a shield now; killed him with Chillrend
Passed noble, horse, and Imperial escort
Wolf nipped at my horse’s back end but didn’t actually get in a hit, so able to proceed
Parked the horse within walking range of the mine; sent the dremora in to clear it ahead of me; found Kharjo’s amulet; nabbed a bunch of bandit loot
Returned to horse and then boinged back to Whiterun; sold stuff to everybody and bought more iron; improved a couple more bits of the glass armor set
Boinged back to Windstad for more building until I ran out of iron; started on the storage wing in back; made a couple of weapons to go sell, as well as some jewelry
Boinged to Solitude to sell things, and that got me over the 3K mark
Boinged to Windhelm to hit the Atheron residence (yet another example of NOT A WEALTHY HOUSE, there are outright holes in the walls and floors, this is a Dunmer house in the Gray Quarter for fuck’s sake, they are NOT WEALTHY); took the target items but left 3,000 septims
Angrenor Once-Honored Now-Asshole was looking my way when I came out the door, but fuck him, I take the liberty of assuming he didn’t see me, or if he did, he was drunk 😉
Boinged to Riften to report in; got a new job from Vex to hit the bard’s house in Markarth; got payment from Delvin for the Bedlam job
And cue the special job in Windhelm! Right back there to find Torsten Cruel-Sea!
HI BLOOD DRAGON; goddammit dragon do not fry my horse; Paul: “If you didn’t want a dragon to eat your horse, you shouldn’t have made him out of horse meat!” 😆
Leveled up to 54 during that fight
Nearby Khajiit reacted to the attack, Ra’zhinda was hurt and kept pitifully crawling, but I couldn’t heal her? Damn
Surprisingly, my horse survived the attack!
Torsten Cruel-Sea also showed up, and hey, just the man I wanted to see; got his info and took his job; next stop: talking to Niranye
But first, took the level up; took first Pickpocket perk so I can work my way up to the Extra Pockets perk
Found Niranye in the cornerclub, and she was all I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT because my Speech skill wasn’t quite high enough; right then time to go break into her house
(Went by Suvaris on the way out and she was all ‘We’re one and the same, you and I’…. aw, way to make me guilty about having just robbed your house there
Passed the Aretino house and overheard the conversation about Aventus between Grimvar and his nurse Idesa
Got the letters out of the safe in Niranye’s house
Noted Sofie sleeping nearby; yeah honey I’m going to have to come back for you later, I gotta go fuck up the Summerset Shadows first
Headed out to go fuck up the Shadows, but stopped at Khajiit first and sold them a bunch of stuff; also, my horse was by their tents; please look after my horse, I’ll be back in a bit, if I don’t come back in twelve hours you can have him
Killed en route: one ice wolf, one snowy sabre cat, used fireball on ‘em
Reached the hideout; spotted a couple of times when my invisibility ran out, oops; this is what I get for coming up on the hideout in increasing daylight
(The one guy was stuck in the rock again, same as in Merawen’s run 😆)
Got in without confronting the outside guys, wound up having to fight at the end when Linwe spotted me and the sound of the fight made three others run in; got out past the other guards though
Couple other Shadows seemed like they followed me as far as the river? I saw dialogue lines thrown and red dots on my compass a time or two, but no enemies got within range
Passed M’aiq the Liar on the way back to Windhelm
Sold stuff to Oengul to unburden
Reported back to Torsten and gave him his daughter’s amulet
Boinged to Riften to check in
Oh look, a thief very bad at doing his job; you got yourself shot, my dude, imma hafta help myself to your loot
Oh hey, we have a new merchant and also a new recruit, and Delvin thinks Vex might even start respecting me 😉
Also, hey Delvin I’m going to Markarth, hit me up with a Bedlam Job, will you? Plzkthx bye
Bought materials from the new guy with the forge
Got Tonilia to give me her job for Ri’saad; sold her some of the loot from the aforementioned bad thief
Went back topside; improved Linwe’s armor at Balimund’s forge; went into Honeyside to leave it there since I won’t be wearing it, but I do like the look of it on Ysani
Also did some alchemy, then sold several potions to Elgrim
Boinged to Honningbrew to sell Mallus some stuff, including more thief loot
Boinged to Markarth
Broke into Ogmund’s house and OH SHIT he’s actually there; ducked back outside just as he came out the door; weird sound triggered at that point, sounded like I ran over a kid 🤨
However, Ogmund actually headed out to the inn and didn’t seem to see me, so I went right back in, stole the three sweep items, and left him 3,000 septims; spend them well, old skald
Went back out to fetch my horse since I was overloaded
Boinged back to Windstad for more building; built out most of the stuff in the storage wing
Boinged to Heljarchen with horse to move building materials there; stashed stuff in outside chest
Rode down to Whiterun
Oh hey look a dragon attacking Halted Stream Camp! Did not engage since I was on horseback and my horse was squishier than me; also, fuck bandits
Reached Whiterun; no Khajiit, but did some shopping, sold some crafted armor, and nabbed more iron
Back to Riften to get paid for Markarth jobs; got new Bedlam Job for Markarth (after saving and reloading five or six times because dammit Delvin gimme a Markarth job)
Boinged back to Markarth
Yoinked the Stone of Barenziah out of the Treasury House; not quite as easy as Merawen doing it, had to be invisible the entire time and nearly got caught a time or two; but, in and out without actually getting discovered
Boinged back to Riften
Got five rounds of Pickpocket training from Vipir to clear level 54
Got paid for Bedlam Job, and boinged right back to Markarth to talk to Endon!
Hey Argis, wanna help me go kill some bandits?
Boinged with Argis and horse to Lakeview—aaaaaaand fast travel bandits, who killed my horse, fucking bandits
However, Lydia and Rayya were right on the scene and helped me take down the two bandits; couldn’t find a third?
So now, totally cranky at horse-killing bandits, I abandoned plans to go through Pinewatch in stealth mode; stormed through the place with Argis, Réjean, and André; bandits wiped; silver mold recovered; loot looted
Tromped overloaded back to Lakeview
Saved for the night

Commentary

Really, I probably should have known better than to risk buying a horse. I knew they were fragile. And more importantly, I knew that when I fast travel to any of the built properties, there will be a risk of a fast travel encounter that would most likely kill a horse.

In my own defense, my line of reasoning here was that I still have a lot of heavy building materials to move around, and I don’t have Arvak yet! Plus, since I haven’t been investing in this character’s Stamina and I’m not using the Steed Stone, Ysani’s carry weight is still very low. So I’d thought that if I had access to a horse, this would allow moving things around a little more easily.

Also, I just wanted to see what buying a horse via steward was like, but that was a side consideration.

I thought that in theory, if I just used the horse to move materials around, maybe it would last longer. But the flaw in that logic: how frequently bandits, giants, and dragons spawn any time I fast travel into the built houses. Which is exactly what happened to this horse.

RIP, horse! You were lovely while you lasted. I hope you have plenty of noble horses to keep you company in Horse Sovngarde.

Also, sidebar: I had not one, not two, but three housecarls in the immediate vicinity when those bandits killed my horse. Uh, housecarls, aren’t you people supposed to be defending me and all I own? Howsabout defending my horse next time?

Lydia: “Yeah, well, my thane, this is the risk you take building houses out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Iona: “Maybe next time you have one of us buy you a horse, you might actually keep that horse stabled in a city if you want it to live?”

Rayya: “Crossbows would also be good. You may or may not have noticed, thane, but there are giants stomping around here.”

Meanwhile, did a great deal of Thieves Guild action. I tried to Nightingale my way through the Summerset Shadows plot, but it didn’t work out that way. My Sneak wasn’t quite good enough to make it in and out without Linwe himself spotting me, and once that happened, had to resort to open dremora-based warfare.

As for Pinewatch, all bets were off once my horse got killed! I choose to take the narrative that those horse-killing assholes were in fact out of the Pinewatch bandit camp. Because they were right next door, after all. Hence charging through there in full on fight mode. And storming through there with a strike force of four was very effective!

So now I’m almost done with all the Thieves Guild activity!

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Cruellemer: Cruel-Sea, Torsten’s clan name, directly translated over
La Grotte des Collines murmurantes: Uttering Hills Cave (lit. “the cave of the murmuring hills”)
Ombres de l’Automne: Summerset Shadows (lit. “shadows of autumn”)