In Which Ysani Defeats Alduin in Sovngarde

This post, as anticipated, covers Ysani’s final session! Started with the peace council at High Hrothgar, hit two different dragon lairs, and then finally reported to Dragonsreach to call Odahviing–leading to Skuldafn, and finally, to Sovngarde!

Highlights

Play date: 5/8/2022
Session number in this run: 102
Put on noble dress to go to the peace conference, then boinged to High Hrothgar for the negotiations
Traded Riften for Markarth, and declared Ulfric had to pay up for Karthwasten
Got the Odahviing Shout from Esbern
Then buggered the hell off before Delphine could finish talking about Paarthurnax, because BYYYYYYYYE I gotta go trap a dragon i’m sure you can handle whatever else has to be discussed without me BYYYYYYYYE
Boinged briefly to Western Watchtower just to get out of High Hrothgar, then went back to dragon armor
Boinged to Lakeview to get within range of Ancient’s Ascent, and oh shit wolves attacking my critters! FUCK OFF, WOLVES! They got the chicken but at least not the cow and the horse, so c’mon back into your pen, cow, it’s okay
Headed south of Lakeview and WELP, DRAGON! Elder Dragon this time, called up storm atronachs and then wailed on it with Chillrend when it landed
Then for good measure also had to kill a nearby cave bear that got cranky at me
And a trio of bandits as I crossed the river heading south
Made it to Ancient’s Ascent and killed a Revered Dragon there; got first word of Animal Allegiance Shout
Climbed down from lair to head east towards Arcwind Point
Killed ice wraith near Greywater Grotto (but did not enter the cave)
Found Fort Neugrad as I was derping around trying to find the right road east
Finally found it once I got back within range of Helgen
Proceeded eastward and passed hunter heading back to her horse near Haemar’s Shame
Also noble on horse catching up with his Imperial escort
Additional creatures killed en route to Arcwind Point: two wolves, one cave bear, giant frostbite spider, two frost trolls
Veins mined: corundum, iron, quicksilver
Reached the core stretch of Arcwind Point and in fact the dragon came to me before I reached the wall; Legendary Dragon! Though I killed it surprisingly quickly :O
Also killed a couple of draugr and several skeletons
Decided not to go up the rest of the steps at this lair once I got the word off the wall though
Instead, briefly boinged back to Solstheim so I could invoke the Black Book and do some skills rearranging
Sold a few things to Glover (hi Glover!) while I was there, before taking shelter in Severin Manor to do the Black Book stuff
Spent dragon souls and pulled perks off of Illusion, Smithing, Sneak, and Enchanting to build up enough to drop all over One-handed, Archery, and Light Armor
Back to Whiterun! Got in late so sold stuff to Elrindir
Stashed a lot of stuff at Breezehome so I wouldn’t have to carry it through Skuldafn
Erith greeted me this time! Gave her a doll <3
Slept the night then got up the next morning to do the dragon trapping thing
Played out the endgame pretty much as I’ve done before, from the questioning of Odahviing clear up through the final fight in Sovngarde
Had the epilogue with the dragons <3
And returned to Whiterun and Breezehome and family, and as soon as I get in the door, Lucia greets me to show me a fox!
Fini!

Commentary

This was a very heavy dragon-kill kind of final session! Total dragons killed:

Elder Dragon near Lakeview
Revered Dragon at Ancient’s Ascent
Legendary Dragon at Arcwind Point
Ancient Dragon at Skuldafn
Regular dragon at Skuldafn
Alduin!

This may be a new record for number of dragons I’ve killed in a single play session. Usually I average 2-3, just because of dragons showing up a lot for fast travel! But this time I explicitly sought out two different dragon lairs, and I hit Skuldafn. Once you’re in the end game, that’s three dragons right there.

Other than that, was generally pleased with the playthrough of Season Unending. I decided to go with choices I’d made before in negotiation, just because I recognized those in the dialogue prompts even though I was reading in French.

And I was definitely pleased to be able to haul ass out of the council chamber literally just as Delphine was starting to complain about Paarthurnax. But I got out the door before the dialogue hook grabbed me! So I get to ignore the whole idea of the Blades bitching about killing Paarthurnax at me. Which is good, given that I brought them three whole recruits and all. 😉

Whipped pretty damned quickly through Skuldafn. I was very glad to have taken the time to bump up my weapons skills, and that I was able to keep summoning my dremora lords to get them to help me with the draugr all over the place. Takeaway from this: even if you can’t bring a mortal follower to Skuldafn with you, being able to summon backup from Oblivion is extremely helpful.

I doublechecked my previous Skuldafn posts to be sure, and yeah I hadn’t noticed this before: there are eight skulls lying around right by the puzzle door where you use the diamond dragon claw. Which is rather disquieting when you think about it for a moment! Makes me wonder exactly how many previous adventurers died at this point. Or if, before the Dragonborn shows up finally, anyone had ever made it successfully through that puzzle door.

The dragon priest Nahkriin was not very challenging an opponent, honestly. Not even quite as much as the higher tier draugr, possibly because I got close enough to him fast enough that I was able to deal several quick blows with Chillrend to take him out.

And I whipped pretty quickly through Sovngarde as well. Only souls I encountered between arriving and the challenge with Tsun were a couple of Stormcloaks and one Imperial. Did Tsun’s challenge, proclaimed myself as Dragonborn to claim my right to pass, and got him to proclaim me worthy after I fought. And once I talked to Ysgramor, I went straight to meeting the three heroes so we could go out and take down Alduin.

Which we did in one go. Maybe because the air was clearer and brighter than at the top of the Throat of the World, I had a much easier time hitting Alduin with Dragonrend.

And the finale with the dragons at the top of the mountain still makes me tear up a bit. This time through I found myself trying to decide whether they were rejoicing, mourning, or both. The repetition of the line “Alduin mahlaan” packs a powerful punch. And I did finally find the entire chant of the dragons documented here on the wiki, too.

Then, of course, I had the final conversation with Paarthurnax. Who was definitely mourning rather than rejoicing.

And the final conversation with Odahviing, who did in fact acknowledge the power of my Thu’um. <3

I just had to giggle and giggle, though, when I made it back to Whiterun and Breezehome–and was greeted at the door by Lucia ever so eager to show me the fox she’d brought home!

Okay, honey, yes, you can keep the fox. Even though I suspect the dog is not going to be amused by having another animal around. And I think Ysani is going to have to consider moving everybody to one of the other houses just for space!

But that’s going to be off-camera–because with this post, I call an end to Ysani’s run.

Adieu, Ysani Demers!

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Folpertuis: Karthwasten
Ascension des Anciens: Ancient’s Ascent
Grotte de Griseau: Greywater Grotto
Fort Néograd: Fort Neugrad
Dragon légendaire: Legendary Dragon
Pointe d’Arquevent: Arcwind Point
Panthéon des braves: Hall of Valor

Boy howdy is it not intuitive to figure out how you get from Karthwasten in the English build to Folpertuis in the French one! However, my best guess is this: fol (meaning mad) + pertuis (meaning narrow passage). And I only discovered the latter is a valid word in French as I wrote this out! So since they couldn’t do a direct translation of Karthwasten, maybe they’re doing a name that carries an implicatIon “this is a very ill-advised place to put a mine”?

The translation of Hall of Valor is a lot clearer. Pantheon is a word I expect most English speakers would define as “the gods of a given mythology or religion”. However, Merriam-Webster has a definition that I think is applicable here: “a building serving as the burial place of or containing memorials to the famous dead of a nation”.

So my read on this translation is basically “the Hall of the Brave”. And again, this is an instance where playing Skyrim in French actually taught me something new about English, because I had no idea about this definition of the word pantheon!