In Which the Dragonborn Retrieves a Lute and Quests Into Kilkreath

Twitter thread from 5/20/2021, in which Alarrah goes to Riften and battles a surprise dragon at the gates; in which she retrieves Finn’s Lute from Stony Creek Cave; and in which she goes to Kilkreath to answer the command of Meridia to cleanse her temple of a necromancer’s influence.

In Which the Dragonborn Surprises Riften AND Several Bandits, Gets a Lute, and Heeds the Command of a Daedra:

1. Starting off this run, I did another pass through the Solitude stores just to get my inventory cleared out and the amount of weight I was carrying down.

10:24 AM · May 20, 2021

Also nabbed any lockpicks I could buy to replenish my stock of lockpicks. Then it was off to the Bards College to find the last professor I needed to find to go do the third “fetch an instrument” quest!

10:25 AM · May 20, 2021

2. Finding the professor in question was quick and easy, she was pretty much right there on the main floor of the Bards College. Talked to her, got the quest, figured out where on the map it was, and then it was OFF TO RIFTEN!

10:25 AM · May 20, 2021

3. By Fast Travel, specifically, because the locale for this quest was pretty much due north of Riften and practically on the right edge of the world map.

10:26 AM · May 20, 2021

4. Didn’t do anything in Riften, was only there long enough to figure out where Fast Travel dropped me. Which is to say, inside the gates. So Lyds and I stepped outside to set off on the road trip…

10:26 AM · May 20, 2021

5. … at which point ANOTHER FRIGGIN’ DRAGON dropped out of the sky. Right outside of the gates. A woman could get nervous about how often dragons fall on her head as soon as she steps outside a city, y’know? Like they might oh, I dunno, KNOW SHE’S THE DRAGONBORN or something?

10:27 AM · May 20, 2021

6. As there were several witnesses to this, guards, Khajiit, and even one very alarmed horse, Lyds and I didn’t have to do much to hit the dragon ourselves. All I really had to do was try to get close enough to it to whack it a time or two before it died and I absorbed its soul.

10:28 AM · May 20, 2021

7. I heard a guard throw the line “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!” Cue Alarrah stoically not making a big deal of this. Also cue Lydia looking back over her shoulder at the guards, grinning, pointing at Alarrah, and mouthing “DRAGONBORN”.

10:29 AM · May 20, 2021

8. Alarrah would have run off, except there were Khajiit there, and Paul advised I chat with them to see if they had anything interesting to buy. Answer: YES. They had a Hunting Bow of Soul Snare, which Paul advised I nab so I could destroy it and learn the enchantment. CAN DO.

10:30 AM · May 20, 2021

9. Then off northward along the road. Noticed as we went that the landscape was very autumnal, we’re definitely heading into colder times of year in-game, but at least right around Riften everything was still autumnal with minimal snow.

10:31 AM · May 20, 2021

10. On the way, spotted a campsite of some kind at a distance. Did NOT approach once I registered a flare of magic. At Paul’s advice, veered around to the west to give that campsite a wide berth.

10:31 AM · May 20, 2021

11. Found where we needed to be. Lydia: “Oh look! A cave! I wonder what’s inside!” Alarrah: “My money’s on draugr.” Alarrah was wrong, as this cave’s opponents were just a bunch of random bandits. It was also a pretty simple dungeon to run and getting the lute was not difficult.

10:32 AM · May 20, 2021

Only real thing of note in there other than the instrument itself was a couple of moonstone ore veins, which I did take the time to stop and mine, for whenever my smithing gets high enough that I can improve elven armor and weapons.

10:32 AM · May 20, 2021

12. Then whoosh, Fast Travel back to Solitude to return the lute! Got back in at a late hour and by then the professor I needed to talk to had retired to her quarters for sleep, but she didn’t object to me waking her up and giving her the lute back.

10:33 AM · May 20, 2021

13. And, since that quest was surprisingly quick and easy, I decided to proceed to deal with Meridia’s beacon as it seemed unwise to put off heeding the command of a Daedra any longer. 😉

10:34 AM · May 20, 2021

14. Fortunately, the locale for the beacon to be dealt with was just west of Solitude and I didn’t have to go very far for that at all.

10:35 AM · May 20, 2021

15. From a distance, even without the quest marker on the map, it seemed pretty obvious where I needed to be—whatever place was generating that huge white beam of light shooting into the sky.

10:35 AM · May 20, 2021

Between that and the quest marker, finally made it to Meridia’s statue. Once I was nearby, her voice boomed off in my head to basically tell me to get a move on and restore the beacon to its rightful place.

16. (Geez, Daedra are PUSHY. Wait, did I say that in my outside voice?)

10:35 AM · May 20, 2021

17. Anyway, Alarrah puts the beacon where it needs to be, and suddenly WHOOSH, Meridian whisks her INTO THE SKY and manifests in front of her as a radiant ball of light.

10:36 AM · May 20, 2021

It’s not clear to me whether the player is physically whisked into the sky here, or whether it’s some form of enforced astral projection? I’m envisioning the latter.

10:36 AM · May 20, 2021

18. Meridian issues her marching orders (“my temple is defiled, kill the asshole who’s defiling it, get the shiny thing I’ll give you for being the instrument of my cleansing light”).

10:37 AM · May 20, 2021

As it seems extremely unwise to piss off a Daedra, I opt for the “I’ll do it” dialogue option. Meridia: “Of course you will.”

10:37 AM · May 20, 2021

19. She plunks Alarrah back down to earth, and I’m envisioning Lydia maybe seeing nothing but Alarrah stumbling for a few moments, looking strangely glow-y, before shaking it off and blinking back at her with traces of Meridia’s light in her eyes.

10:38 AM · May 20, 2021

Maybe muttering “we have to go into the temple” and striding off with a strange compelling speed to her steps.

10:38 AM · May 20, 2021

20. Into the temple we go. The place is full of swirls of darkness that remind me yet again of Tolkien, but this time of the Hobbit movies, when Gandalf is confronting Sauron in Dol Guldur and there are all these swirling wisps of darkness set off against Gandalf’s light.

10:39 AM · May 20, 2021

21. There are also a bunch of desecrated corpses. Yuk. But they also each have a bunch of gold, which Alarrah nabs, perhaps with a twinge of worry that Meridia might be pissed off if she takes the gold from the poor desecrated sods.

10:39 AM · May 20, 2021

“Liberal donation in Meridia’s name”, Alarrah promises herself.

22. And there are no draugr here, either. But there _are_ corrupted shades, which Lyds and Alarrah start taking down.

10:40 AM · May 20, 2021

23. And there are also a bunch of pedestals that need activating, as Meridia is sending her light down into the temple to guide us along, and each pedestal has to be triggered to let the light proceed to where it needs to be.

10:40 AM · May 20, 2021

24. This was an interestingly complicated dungeon, which needed at least a little analysis to make it through until I finally got down to where the boss battle would be. And a lot of urns and chests to loot, as well.

10:41 AM · May 20, 2021

Found a Dwarven Battleaxe and handed that off to Lydia, which she then promptly wielded. She DOES like her heavy weaponry!

25. Lyds also threw off “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” as we headed down to the boss battle.

10:41 AM · May 20, 2021

Star Wars commentary aside, Lyds was kind of right, because boy howdy did that boss necromancer Malkoran kick my ass. Three times in a row.

10:41 AM · May 20, 2021

Tried to hit him from afar with arrows—and at this point, I’m breaking out the dwarven arrows because those are the best ones I’ve got—and I’m able to only get in a couple of hits before the guy closes in and slams me and Lyds both with frost attacks.

10:41 AM · May 20, 2021

YIKES. And this is even after I chug down a bunch of resist magic and resist frost potions.

26. Checked with Paul to consider battle strategy, because I’ll be trying to tackle this again tonight.

10:42 AM · May 20, 2021

Paul recommends poisoning my arrows; I’ll need to doublecheck my potions when I fire up the game again tonight. Then hit him with a couple of arrows, and when he closes in, Fus Ro Dah his ass and chuck him across the room.

10:43 AM · May 20, 2021

Which should hopefully let me get at least one more arrow into him before I whip out the ebony sword.

27. Also remembered I AM carrying a Scroll of Conjure Storm Atronach, and this sure feels like a good time to deploy it.

10:43 AM · May 20, 2021

28. So stand by tonight to see the conclusion of this battle!

10:43 AM · May 20, 2021

Editing to add

1. This post was written on 3/18/2022, but is backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
2. 10/1/2024: Reconstructed the original Twitter thread locally, since I deleted my Twitter account. Also, noting for the record that the tweet where I typed “Meridian” was definitely not deliberate. I’m keeping that typo for posterity, though!
3. 10/3/2024: Converted timestamps on the reconstructed tweets from GMT to PDT.