In Which Kendis Acquires Auriel’s Bow

And now, time to get caught up on Kendis’ playthrough in Skyrim. Most of this set of sessions was my running the Forgotten Vale in Dawnguard, about which I’ve written extensively in previous posts, so I won’t replicate that detail here.

Play by play

Play dates: 4/29, 5/1, 5/2, 5/4/2023
Session numbers in this run: 59-62

Saturday the 29th

Didn’t really feel it so this was a really short session
Picked up at Gelebor’s Wayshrine
Initially very confused because I did not see the portal to Darkfall Passage, but it was present, just not rendering correctly
Went on through the portal and ran Darkfall Passage pretty much as per previous playthroughs
Once I reached the Wayshrine of Illumination, saw the “no visible portal” bug repro again; did however make it safely into the Forgotten Vale
Hit the frost troll’s lair and three silver veins, then realized I was already pretty heavily overloaded
Fast traveled out and dropped at Heljarchen
Was going to drop stuff in the exterior chest there, but realized i just should sell it
Boinged to Whiterun and sold a bunch of things
Boinged to Lakeview and dropped off a bunch of things
Then boinged back into the vale; landed at the start of the vale again
Saved there until next time

Monday the 1st

Picked up where i left off in Forgotten Vale
Ran the place up until fighting the twin dragons
Definitely saw the portal problem in the wayshrines continuing to recur but not always
Did another emergency fast travel out to drop off loot at Lakeview
Then fast traveled back in and parked at the first Falmer camp just past the Wayshrine of Resolution
Saved there until next time

Tuesday the 2nd

Picked up where i left off in the Forgotten Vale
Started running the Falmer hives area after the fourth wayshrine
Got killed once by the Emerald Paragon frost giant, but made it past the second time through
In Glacial Cave, used waterbreathing spell since I realized I didn’t have Volsung or anything else enchanted with waterbreathing
So I was paranoid about the spell running out, but finally made it through to the correct area
Gogh and Serana caught up (and with them along, stealth so not an option for getting past those Falmer)
Made it through there out to the next bit of the vale, and hit the Diamond Paragon frost giant
Ran all the intervening Falmer tents, kept getting turned around in that area as per previous playthroughs, but did find the Unknown Book and got other useful loot
Made it through the final cave and out to the last wayshrine
Filled the basin and tromped right on over to the Inner Sanctum
Paused just inside the door to confirm Gogh and Serana had caught up
Saved there until next time

Thursday the 4th

Picked up at door of Inner Sanctum
Ran the place as per previous playthroughs
Killed once by Vyrthur once we made it out to the balcony
But second time through got him, and remembered to summon the dremora once battle was on, and to stay the fuck out of Vyrthur’s range until I quaffed resistance potions
Got Gelebor to bless all my elven arrows and got Auriel’s Bow
Boinged out from there to sell a bunch of stuff in Solitude
Boinged next to Whiterun; spotted the Traveler from a distance but did not engage
Sold stuff to Elrindir
Boinged to Lakeview; did a bunch of alchemy, enchanting, and smithing
Leveled up to 52 and took Stamina bump, but did not drop a perk point yet because I wanted to reactivate Arcane Blacksmithing
Ran Smithing clear up to 59
Boinged back to Whiterun and sold more things to Elrindir
Spotted the Traveler again
Waited outside of Warmaiden’s until morning so I could sell more things
Traveler engaged! And unfortunately took out Lillith Maiden-Loom
Boinged next to Windhelm to sell more things there, to Oengul and Niranye
Finally boinged to Riften
Sold a bunch of things to Balimund, including a bunch of the armor I crafted at Lakeview
Got him to train me up in Smithing so I could go over 60 and unlock Arcane Blacksmithing again
Which also meant I was able to sell him a bunch of stuff because the training was expensive!
Sold a couple of things to Madesi
Sold a bunch of things to Brand-Shei as well after buying a bunch of soul gems off of him
Got down under carry weight \0/
Parked in Honeyside and dropped a few books onto the bookshelf
Saved for the night

Commentary

So while running the Forgotten Vale part of Dawnguard, I ran into what may or may not be a recurring bug with the AE port to the Switch: i.e., the various portals in the wayshrines not properly rendering. They did work for me, but a lot of the time they just looked like standard walls for the wayshrine and didn’t show the portal to where they were supposed to go.

I reproed this multiple times at multiple wayshrines. Not a hundred percent of the time, but often enough that it was definitely noteworthy. So if you’re playing Skyrim’s AE on the Switch, you may want to be on the lookout for this.

Main notable difference running the Vale this time was that I didn’t have Volsung or anything enchanted with waterbreathing. What did have was the Waterbreathing spell, so I used that to get through the shortcut underwater passage in Glacial Cave.

But I was paranoid about the spell running out! And surfaced a couple of times too quickly. I also got turned around in the underwater tunnel at one point, and came back out at the beginning. Which meant I had to do the whole damn thing again.

Still though, this was faster than trying to fight my way through the whole place. And as I’ve written about in previous playthroughs, I have less taste for just unilaterally slaughtering every single Falmer I run across. Particularly after the opening conversation with Gelebor in this very quest.

And the last thing I want to note about this set of sessions is that the Traveler did show up when I went back to Whiterun post-Vale, to sell stuff. Because that’s a risk for as long as the Dawnguard plot is active, and I have not as of this writing taken out Harkon, so the Traveler is still in play!

This time through, he did finally have a casualty: Lillith Maiden-Loom. So I guess i won’t be chatting with an old woman to do my good deed for the day! And this means there are at least two known casualties in Whiterun for me in this playthrough. I gotta wonder now if the previous time I fought the Traveler in Whiterun was responsible for taking out Fralia Gray-Mane?

Lillith is however fairly low down my list of priority NPCs in Whiterun, particularly since I know she’s all cozy with Maven Black-Briar. And kind of snotty about it. So I let her being a casualty of the Traveler stand.

Next time

I’m almost done with Dawnguard, but before I go back to Fort Dawnguard and rally the troops, I still need to hit Ruunvald and rescue Florentius. So that’ll be a priority task in Kendis’ next session.

Screenshots

Editing to add

11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.
10/18/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress image.