In Which Faanshi Goes on a Crime Spree

Mostly, this session was all about running jobs to improve the reputation of the Thieves Guild! I re-established the Guild in both Whiterun and Markarth, got a couple of merchants willing to come sell to the Guild, and got a new fence recruited to move merchandise along.

Highlights

• Play date: 6/22/2022
• Session number in this run: 29
• Started in Riften
• Boinged to Markarth to do the Bedlam Job
• Yoinked a necklace out of Kerah’s display case; just had to pick the lock on it, and running that after dark meant I had a nice large area of shadow around her booth
• Then boinged to Whiterun
• Broke into Uthgerd’s house mid-day because she’s apparently never in there LOL
• Boinged back to Thieves Guild
• Got Vex’s payment for the Sweep Job; took another Sweep Job in Markarth
• Reported back to Delvin; got prompt for Olfrid Battle-Born’s special job in Whiterun
• Forged the registry and stole the letter for Olfrid; got Olfrid’s promise to support the guild
• Returned to the Guild and got payment from Delvin for prior Bedlam Job
• Hurray! Merchant number one now in the Flagon
• Got new Bedlam Job for Solitude
• Boinged back to Markarth to get the final job done there
• Rob Nepos’ house? Don’t mind if I do–whoops, somebody still alive in there! But that’s what I’ve got Invisibility for!
• Stopped in Vlindrel Hall and did some alchemy with the ingredients stash I had there
• Back to Riften!
• Checked in with Vex and got payment for the Sweep Job
• Checked in with Delvin, got the directive to return to Markarth and talk to Endon
• Briefly flirted with doing the Face Sculptor but discovered I can’t get a satisfactory mostly black fur layout, booooo! (How can Khajiit look the part of a servant of Nocturnal if her fur is not black? Or at the very least she requires ebony earrings.)
• Backed out of doing that, and instead got a new Sweep Job to stack on top of the Solitude Bedlam job
• Stopped in Honeyside and picked up my full suit of ebony armor off the mannequin there
• Boinged to Markarth to talk to Endon; recover a stolen silver mold, you say? Khajiit will take this task
• Boinged to Lakeview
• Improved the ebony armor and also a couple of the Nightingale pieces, as well as several weapons
• Got Lydia on follower duty
• Ran Pinewatch; had to follow the wiki, kept getting turned around; also killed once, but not thrown back very far, and kept calling up the dremora after that to solve that problem
• I hadn’t realized before that the bandit chief in this hideout had a cranky letter from her father, telling her STOP SENDING ME MONEY I DO NOT NEED YOUR CHARITY and also GET A REAL JOB, lolololol
• Made it to the treasure chamber and got all the loot, including Endon’s silver mold
• Got back out again and reported back to Endon, then sold him a bunch of stuff since now he’s a fence!
• Reported back to Riften to get the second merchant active in the Flagon; sold a few things to Tonilia as well as the two merchants
• Went topside and stopped in Honeyside; doublechecked the enchanted leather armor items I was carrying had enchantments I already knew
• Sold several things to Balimund and Bersi
• Boinged to Lakeview for some smithing and decorating
• Leveled up to 48; took Stamina bump, and Twin Souls perk, fuck yeah
• (Apparently forgot to document when I hit level 47 and was able to unlock the perk in front of that on the Conjuration tree? NO MATTER, I hit Twin Souls and that’s the important part)
• Saved for the night

Commentary

Since this session was all about running the Thieves Guild side jobs, and working up to the point of doing the reputation jobs to re-establish the Guild’s power and set myself up to become Guildmaster, this is all pretty much known territory to me at this point.

Still though there were a couple of new things I can report. I’d never had a Guild job send me to Uthgerd’s house in Whiterun before! Apparently breaking into her place is super easy, because according to the wiki, she is never there. She spends all her time in the Bannered Mare! So this certainly reduces the risk of getting caught once you’re past the hurdle of picking the lock on the door. 😉

Pretty nice sizable house for a single occupant too. The layout was similar to Amren’s and Saffir’s house, one big room with a loft overheard. Kind of nicely furnished, though not as nice as Breezehome.

I still gotta snicker though about how Olfrid Battle-Born goes to the trouble of reaching out to Delvin to hire a professional to sneak into Dragonsreach for him to steal the letter and forge the prison registry–but there is no acknowledgement whatsoever of the fact that you are thane of Whiterun, and you have free rein to wander around in Dragonsreach wherever the hell you want.

If it’d been me writing Olfrid’s lines, I’d have had him say something like “If I’d known you were involved with the Guild, I would have contacted you directly. No one would question a patriarch of a local clan and a thane of the city having business, would they? You did well to hide your associations–and your discretion convinces me we could help each other out now.”

And also: “Your unique position should make you well suited to accomplish what I need. But not even a thane is completely immune to consequences. I trust you will account for this in your plans.”

Next up: I’d never been in Nepos’ house to rob things before, either! I was very curious as to whether anybody would actually still be alive in the place, after doing the Forsworn Conspiracy earlier in Faanshi’s run. When I snuck in, I was in fact kind of surprised to discover one NPC of the household staff still alive and kicking!

I’m not sure if it was Morven or Tynan; I didn’t get close enough to him to really get a good look. But from a distance, just from what I saw of his clothes in the dim light in the house, I think it might have been Morven.

But I didn’t push it. Avoiding discovery by NPCs is what I have Invisibility for! So I made liberal use of that, scampered safely past the guy from across the room, and yoinked the three objects I came in for without him being the wiser.

“Do not mind Khajiit, she is simply here to help herself to these items. Please continue with sweeping your floor. This one will not disturb you. You never saw her.”

Last but not least, I was kind of startled and pleased to discover that there was a bit of extra backstory involving the bandit chief in Pinewatch, Rigel Strong-Arm. Apparently she’d been trying to send money from her banditry back to her father, but dear old Da doesn’t approve of her choice of profession, and doesn’t want her charity! And sent her a cranky letter saying so!

And she’d composed a cranky reply to send back to him, to tell him to stop trying to send back the money. And also, what the hell else is she going to do, because the Stormcloaks pay crap for their soldiers, and she won’t fight for the Imperials!

Hah! Possibly the most backstory of any bandit in the game, except maybe Fjola in Mistwatch? Shame I had to kill her, might have been fun to recruit her for the Guild. 😉

Her father, on the other hand? “Khajiit would like to have words with you about where she does and does not have business to be. And by words, she means blades. Let us speak.”

Thieves Guild job status

Almost there! I can clear this chart by doing the next pair of Solitude jobs, then I just need to queue up two stacked ones in Windhelm!

City	Jobs Scheduled	Jobs Done
Whiterun	5	5
Markarth	5	5
Solitude	5	3
Windhelm	3	3

Next time

Off to Solitude! And time permitting I’ll do the jobs for Windhelm as well, which will then let me proceed to becoming Guildmaster!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.
• 10/9/2024: Converted gallery to a native WordPress one.