In Which Ysani Does More General Adventuring

Another general adventuring session, while I worked on leveling up to 58 so I could do the rest of the Potema plot. Ran Volunruud and Yngol’s Barrow, and fought two different Ancient Dragons!

Highlights

Play date: 3/10/2022
Session number in this run: 45
Hoofed it from Whiterun up across the plains
Decided to run Volunruud
Heard a dragon on the way up but did not see a dragon
Took me a few times to get through Volunruud, archer in one edge of the dungeon kept killing me; killed once as well running the boss chamber; finally made it through though and got the two weapons as well as the word off the Word Wall
Overloaded when I came out and had to potion up to make it to Heljarchen
Heard the dragon some more and oh there it is, Ancient Dragon, flying right around my house; it killed me once by chomping >_<
Second time through killed it, with dremora and Argis and Gregor since we were close enough to the house for Gregor to jump in; well done Gregor
Made some dragonplate armor off the dragon bits; also created a few pieces of jewelry for later enchanting
Boinged to Honningbrew to sell stuff
Boinged to Windhelm after that to sell more stuff; enchanted some jewelry and sold all of that to Niranye; sold other leftover building materials to Reyvn Sadri in his general store
Went out to run Yngol Barrow next
Hi Khajiit in passing
Snow bear on the way to the barrow
Ran the barrow; got Yngol’s Helm
Got jumped by bandits on the way out though; also a couple of frost trolls; got overloaded from bandit loot
Trudged near Traitor’s Post but decided not to engage because overloaded
Trudged back into Windhelm and sold a bunch of stuff to Aval and Oengul
Boinged to Solitude and sold stuff to Gulum-Ei
Boinged to Windstad to armor up, wanna be in Nightingale mode for a while
Hoofed it south and fought yet another Ancient Dragon right by Stonehills
Healed Argis after and heh, he was all ‘wait! that’s… kinda okay actually’; I think that big lunk maybe says twenty words in a day And he possibly kind of adores his tiny dragonborn thane
Quaff-traveled to solitude and sold a bunch of stuff including dragon bits
Quaff-traveled back to Heljarchen for materials dropoff and saved for the night

Commentary

Not too much of huge new interest here, given that this was a general adventuring sort of session, and I’ve done both Volunruud and Yngol’s Barrow before.

I commented during Merawen’s run that I really rather liked the rolling glowing blue balls that fill Yngol’s Barrow, and I liked them this time too!

Also, it was during this dungeon that I heard Argis struggle for words to react to an impressive view in the place. In French, his line was: “C’est… c’est… incroyable!”

Between that and his gruffly reacting to me throwing a healing spell on him after that second Ancient Dragon fight (“… c’est agréable!”), I’m really growing rather partial to the big lunk. <3 And yeah, I’m probably going to marry him, maybe after I run the Thalmor Embassy.

I’m seeing a narrative here where Argis, the most gruff of Ysani’s housecarls, may well have been nursing a crush on his thane ever since he committed to serving her. Whereas Ysani, who in the last many months probably hasn’t had the opportunity to really relax and be herself because of the rapid succession of fleeing the Thalmor, discovering she’s Dragonborn, becoming Arch-Mage, and becoming Guildmaster, may well find Argis rather soothing. I suspect Ysani might have a naturally bubbly kind of personality that’s had to be suppressed because of all the shit going on in her life.

But Argis’ gruff nature makes her inclined to try to draw him out, which makes Argis even more attached to her. Because here’s this dainty little woman, packing a ridiculous amount of power, showering smiles on him.

Makes a man want to kill dragons for her, that does!

So yeah. Just need to decide a narratively-appropriate point at which Ysani’s going to make with the Amulet of Mara! I think it’ll probably be after raiding the Embassy, just because that’ll be kind of be the turning point of Ysani’s backstory with the Thalmor. I can see her hitting the place letting her work out some of her hostility and trauma, which will put her into a nicer place to marry somebody.

Plus, I’m just a romantic sucker for the “big gruff hero, tiny perky heroine” dynamic!

Also on the topic of Argis: I already knew he was the only housecarl who had a blind eye, which is an interesting character detail about him. Also that he’s the only housecarl with any visible warpaint.

I did not however know that he’s apparently also the only housecarl you can’t hire as a steward? Which I suppose is why he hasn’t volunteered to be steward whenever I’ve shown up with him at Heljarchen Hall.

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Armure pendragon: Dragonplate armor
Tertre d’Yngol: Yngol Barrow
Poste du traître: Traitor’s Post

The names for Yngol Barrow and Traitor’s Post are pretty straightforward translations. But the use of pendragon for dragonplate really intrigues me!

As I think I said in an earlier Ysani post, the only referent I have for pendragon is the Arthur mythos. But there are interesting theories about where Pendragon comes from, even in that context, and speculation about whether it was a name or a title. Right now I don’t have any words in my French vocabulary that would explain pen as part of this in a way to make it a direct translation for dragonplate. So I have to wonder whether some sort of Arthurian connotation is coming in here? Maybe because of dragonplate armor being amongst the most powerful armor available in the game?

Next time

Hopefully, actually running the rest of the Potema plot! And by extension, getting Proudspire Manor and the thaneship in Haafingar!

Screenshots

Editing to add

11/21/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.
10/9/2024: Converted gallery to a single native WordPress image.