In Which Gyllerah Seeks the Augur of the Obscure and Solves More Murders

Eventful session in which Paul and I found the Augur of the Obscure, which required a return visit to Wasten Coraldale, and in which I later visited Cey-Tarn Keep and assisted in investigating yet more mysterious deaths!

Highlights

• Play date: 10/21/2022
• Session number in this run: 20
• Started with writ running
• Found Felawen in Lillandril, to follow up on that little side quest with the vampire camp I’d found; gave her back her betrothed’s note and the necklace, and got a small payment from her for my discretion
• Then Paul and I decided to go look for the Augur of the Obscure for the Psijic Order quest
• This required us to return to Wasten Coraldale, one of the delves we’d run earlier
• Rather easier this time through, although so many salamanders, because apparently I was pissing off each and every salamander in the delve
• And quite a few sea elves as well
• But we found the Augur of the Obscure
• I fucked up reading the map we got with the skull, though; was supposed to read it right by the chest and didn’t realize this, so Paul and I went all the way back to the Summerset beach before I realized I had to come back again to properly advance the quest
• So we killed a bunch more salamanders and then got out again, then went looking for a few time breaches and found three of them before Paul decided to call it a night
• I wasn’t done playing yet though so I went over to Cey-Tarn Keep to see what Silurie was on about
• Answer: mysterious deaths in the keep!
• Agreed to help her investigate and initially pissed off the Divine Prosecution also investigating
• Saw Silurie casting a Daedra tracking spell and HEY THAT SEEMS USEFUL can I have that spell?
• Also she called on Stendarr and I feel like that also made Gyllerah perk up without really knowing why
• But while I was investigating and found evidence of a ritual that had another dead body, Silurie got herself arrested; I had to convince the Divine Prosecution justiciars to take her seriously
• So we tracked the Daedra down into the cellar of the keep, through a portal–and landed in an area that looked like it was supposed to be the keep but also covered in gore and yuck
• Killed several rather alarming looking Daedra, and got Fighters Guild credit for those, woot
• Finally found Justiciar Hyircil, who’d been wounded by Teraniel, the individual responsible for the summoning; he urged me to go after her and help Revelator Lindafwe
• Caught up with Lindafwe, and we pursued Teraniel, who’d taken Silurie
• Had to reverse engineer the ward the summoner had cast, which involved lighting sconces in the correct order on an altar
• Then we made it through that last portal and caught up with Teraniel; had to take her out and take out the Daedra she was serving, the Insatiable
• Good hard fight! And I got event loot off of it
• After that, still not done with playing for the night, so decided to try one of the daily Divine Prosecution quests–which required me to try to go kill Graveld, a giant salamander, and recover 4 Scrolls of Oath from dead Justiciars
• And LOL yeah I should not have tackled Graveld by myself, he handed me my ass very quickly
• Tried to go into sneak and snipe him a few times, which didn’t do squat
• But then some other players showed up, so I ran down to engage in full on melee–and that was better since I had the opportunity to back the fuck off and throw healing to keep myself alive longer
• Finally successfully got credit for killing him, and returned to Alinor to collect the quest reward
• Which was good stuff actually so I guess i’ll need to do this more often?
• But still not ready to log off for the night, so I did a fresh round of writs since the board had reset by then, and i did a boatload of crafting and selling things
• Bought another 10 slots in my bank space
• Went back out and killed a few more critters until I leveled up to 22
• Then finally called it a night

Finding the Augur of the Obscure

The most entertaining thing about finding the Augur of the Obscure on Wasten Coraldale: he sure sounded like the same voice actor who did Clavicus Vile and Barbas in Skyrim! I went digging to try to confirm this, and it seems like it’s explicitly not the same guy; Stephen Russell did Vile and Barbas in Skyrim, and Ben Diskin plays the Augur of the Obscure. But it sure seems like Ben drew some inspiration from Russell’s work as Vile in Skyrim!

By which I mean, the Augur is certainly entertaining as a talking skull kind of character. And Paul and I did a little further work to actually find some of the time breaches to seal, just so that we could move that plot further along.

The Taste of Fear quest

After we did that Paul was ready to call it a night, but I wasn’t, so I went ahead and ran the plot at Cey-Tarn Keep where somebody named Silurie has been annoying the Divine Prosecution by trying to force her way into investigating mysterious deaths. And after the entertainment of investigating the deaths at Russafeld, I was up for more of that action!

I really rather liked Silurie as a character. For one thing, her hair was very butch and kind of hot. 😉 For another thing, I highly approved of her having been a former member of the Divine Prosecution, who bailed on them because she was tired of their bullshit, and who was now dedicated to tracking down Daedra and killing them. She even had spells to track them that she could cast, and I watched her throw that spell a couple of times, calling on Stendarr as she did so.

And given what I’m setting up about Gyllerah’s backstory, I feel like that probably made Gyllerah perk up without really understanding why!

Also, that Daedra tracking spell seems super useful. 😀 Alas, I’m pretty sure I can’t actually score that spell for myself?

However, it was clear that Silurie had past history with the two Divine Prosecution people investigating the deaths, Hyircil and Lindafwe. She in fact had me bullshit my way past Lindafwe to infiltrate the keep to begin with–and I’m sad I didn’t get a screencap of Silurie making rude gestures behind Lindafwe’s back while I was distracting her! Snerk.

And partway through our investigation of the keep, they actually arrested Silurie. And would have also arrested me, but I was able to convince them to take her seriously once I presented additional evidence from another dead body I’d found. I.e., that somebody was killing people to feed something called “the Insatiable”.

Since tracking our quarry meant going down into the cellars of the keep and then through the first of several portals, it became rapidly apparent that we probably weren’t in the actual true cellars of the keep. We were in a space that looked like the cellars, but which were Daedra-infested and covered in gore and yuck. Pleasant.

It was cool though to be able to get Fighters Guild credit for all the hostiles I killed on this run, and at least one of the big Daedra I took out, a thing called a Watcher, was very Cthuloid. Or possibly very Galactor-esque if you’re into Science Ninja Team Gatchman, because it was a big ugly monster with a lot of eyes, and Galactor is fond of those!

Eventually made it out into the Vaults of Heinarwe, which I’d observed before–but not entirely sure how long I was actually there, either, because there were multiple portals to get through. And finally, I tracked down Teraniel and had to take her out, as well as the Daedra she was serving, the Insatiable. That was a good hard fight!

According to the wiki Teraniel was working for Tildacar of the Court of Bedlam, though this is not overtly obvious during the course of the plot. There’s a hint dropped about this with a letter I found partway through investigating, though.

And heh. Given that Paul and I had already killed Tildacar at this point, apparently Teraniel never got the memo?

Going after Graveld

I kind of suspected going after Graveld on my own was going to be an exercise in foolishness, and I was right. But I did it anyway, just to get a sense of how the daily Divine Prosecution quests actually work.

And boy howdy did Graveld pack a huge punch. Took me out in one blow that did like 35,000+ damage points to me at once. YIKES. Lesson learned: only come after the big named boss monsters when I have group backup.

Fortunately, a bunch of other players showed up just after I started trying to engage Graveld, so I was able to help kill him and get credit for the kill regardless.

Next time, though, I’ll definitely need to do this with Paul, and possibly also with yelling for help from the Guild.

Next time

More solo action as I investigate suspicious goings-on at the Queen’s menagerie, and then joint action with Paul as we close more time breaches, and then investigate a haunted hall!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/24/2023: Restored missing gallery.
• 10/11/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress one. Changed header graphic to the one I’m using on later Gyllerah posts.