In Which Elessir Opens an Oblivion Gate and Joins the Dawnguard
Short-ish post for Elessir’s Skyrim run, just because nothing terribly new here. But I do as always have some commentary!
Main action here: finishing running The Cause; getting the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal and the sword Bloodthirst; a bit of Thieves Guild shenanigans; and finally joining the Dawnguard.
Play by play
- Play dates: 11/15, 11/18/2023
- Session numbers in this run: 35-36
Wednesday the 15th
- Picked up at Lakeview
- Attempted to head out to run Darkshade and get Roggi’s family shield, but crashed shortly after passing the Guardian Stones
- Take two coming out of Lakeview: fought a bear just after coming down the hill
- Heard another bear just shy of the bandits near the Guardian Stones
- Invested in Alvor’s forge in Riverwood, then sold him the glass battleaxe I was carrying
- Proceeded from there to Darkshade, and killed assorted critters en route
- Ignored bandit out at Valtheim Towers
- Reached and ran Darkshade; got the shield from in there; killed assorted trolls
- Hit three gold veins while there, then proceeded on my way
- Stopped at the iron vein along the road
- Passed a couple of Vigilants of Stendarr while heading towards Faldar’s Tooth
- Killed more assorted critters: cave bears, frostbite spiders, wolves
- Left the road eventually and cut cross-country
- Came up behind Faldar’s Tooth and started running it
- It dinged as cleared even before I set foot in the place, because one of the bandits who came at me was a bandit chief
- No real issues taking out all the exterior bandits, what with summoning my daedroth
- Very very overloaded though after looting a bunch of bandits
- Headed inside to find the note about Bloodthirst, and killed a few more bandits
- Got the note about the sword and got out again
- Whistled for unicorn and rode to Riften
- Slept at Honeyside
- Sold assorted things to Bersi and Balimund
- Smelted some of my iron loot into ingots
- Boinged from Riften to Windstad to drop off building materials but realized I was out of corundum, so stashed building mats there for now as well as the Blade of Hjaalmarch
- Boinged to Kynesgrove and checked in with Iddra about Roggi
- Slept at the inn
- Got up in the morning and gave Roggi his shield; got his offer to journey with me
- Rode down toward Red Scar Cavern to run the rest of The Cause, but crashed on the way down
- Thrown back to coming out of the inn at Kynesgrove
- This time fast traveled down to Shor’s Watchtower and rode from there
- Killed a few critters and bandits en route
- Took out the exterior guard and swiped her robes to infiltrate the place
- Saw cultists attacking Thistle; HEY YOU ASSHOLES LAY OFF MY BUN
- Got overloaded again so ran the rest of the cavern, as well as the Deadlands, very slowly
- Got Scourge and Torment, and the Conjure Daedric Horse spell
- Fought some of the cultists on the way out to help out the Vigil (but avoided calling the Dremora lord, ‘cause, well, they would have frowned on that)
- Got out again and boinged down to Riften to drop Scourge and Torment off in Shadowfoot Sanctum
- Cleared my ingredients satchel there and had forgotten I’d left goldfish there! So got goldfish to bring to Mila
- Boinged to Whiterun and dropped off that goldfish for the kid
- Boinged to Lakeview and Hejlarchen, to pick up building mats
- Boinged to Windstad and worked on building the Main House
- Saved there until next time
Saturday the 18th
- Started back up at Windstad
- Went over and got the bone wolf to clear that quest out
- Went to Solitude and parked Lucien in Proudspire
- Robbed Erikur’s house to get the info on the deed
- Gisli woke up and spotted me, oops, but got out safely
- Got Lucien back on duty the next morning
- Got courier with Mila’s second request for a goldfish
- Sold assorted loot
- Convinced Gisli to sell me the deed to take the problem off her hands
- Boinged to Whiterun and dropped off second goldfish with Mila
- Rode over to Broken Fang Cave and got the Bloodthirst sword
- Boinged to Windhelm to take care of my double Sweep/Bedlam job
- Punched Rolff’s lights out
- HI ASSHOLE GUESS WHAT! THIS GRAYSKIN IS THE DRAGONBORN
- Parked Lucien by the gate, then went over and broke into Viola’s house
- She spotted me just as I nabbed item number three DAMMIT, but again got out safely
- Un-parked Lucien and continued
- Boinged to Silverdrift Lair and ran the place–slowly because overloaded ;P
- Heard a dragon while coming out of there, but it didn’t get close enough to engage
- Boinged to Heljarchen for supplies check, and to smelt down a bunch of iron weapons I brought out of the barrow
- Boinged to Riften and checked in with Vex and Delvin, and got payment for their jobs
- Got new jobs from each but didn’t bother to line them up in the same city
- Sold a bunch of stuff to Tonilia
- Dropped Bloodthirst off in Shadowfoot Sanctum
- Came back topside and sold stuff to Bersi and Balimund
- Also ran the rest of the Gray Cowl quest at the gravesite
- Got fishing contest quest from Viriya
- Finally headed over to join the Dawnguard
- Found Vigilants vs. Dremora at the bridge; Vigilants won the fight
- Made it to Dayspring Canyon without incident; as per usual, Agmaer walked up with me
- Did intro scene with Isran and Tolan, and got directive to go to Dimhollow Crypt
- But first actually went to Lakeview!
- Got Lydia to replenish the log supply, some quarried stone and clay, a chicken, a horse, and a carriage driver
- Picked up building mats from the cellar, then boinged to Windstad–and immediately realized I’d forgotten to retrieve the stone and clay Lydia bought, oops
- Built out most of the Main House and quarried enough stone to make the cellar
- Built stuff until I ran out of iron and saved there until next time
Commentary
It’s been a while since I ran Roggi Knot-Beard’s quest to give him his shield, but now I’ve done that again, so yay I have him available as a follower. By which I actually mean “as a steward if I want him for it”, but that’s the question! I’ve already got appointed stewards at Lakeview, Heljarchen, and Goldenhills. Which leaves only Windstad. And I’m not sure I care enough to get Windstad an entire extra steward, or if I’ll just have Valdimar steward it up there.
Running The Cause with Thistle following me into Red Scar Cavern triggered a weird wave of cultists attacking the bun. Which seems like possibly the same issue that causes the vampires in Fellglow Keep to attack Thistle! So this bun pisses off vampires and Mehrunes Dagon cultists. Snerk. Maybe Thistle is an avatar of Arkay? 😀
Getting spotted not once by twice during thievery efforts was just embarrassing. Clearly, I need to spend some effort on improving Elessir’s Sneak! I have several more Guild jobs to get through before he can become Guildmaster, after all.
While finally heading to Dayspring Canyon to join the Dawnguard, I came across my first instance of the post-Cause encounter involving three Dremora in the wild. These were fighting some Vigilants, and the Vigilants won the fight. But some Stormcloaks may also have been involved! I saw three of them walking away from the scene, but wasn’t sure if they were actually in on the melee–the action was too far away when I spotted it to know for sure.
Also, I wasn’t entirely sure if the Vigilants were pissy about my summoning the daedroth to try to help out with the fight. When it vanished, one of them yelled “Get him!” But none of them actually seemed to want to attack me.
Notable Lucien lines
I’ve noted this Lucien line before but he did it again while the Oblivion gate opened in Red Scar Cavern, so LOL:
“Do you know, I think this might be my favourite cave we’ve been in all day.”
And while we’re in the Deadlands, Lucien does his level best with an attempt at diplomacy. To exactly no one’s surprise, this does not work:
“Look, you’re clearly a reasonable sort of… Daedric entity… can we not just agree to differ and go our separate ways?”
This, son, is entirely why I keep snapping shots of Skyrim’s night skies!
“Nights like this, I wish I had my telescope with me. When I was a boy, I used to sit and watch the stars for hours. They’re just entrancing.”
I think you and I both know there are more of these bone wolves running around Skyrim, my dude, or were you not paying attention when I’ve killed them before?
“Phew! Those wolves were scary. Don’t think I really fancy the idea of them running around Skyrim. Let’s have an investigate – see if he made any more…”
Personally, if I’m going to have a pet following me around, I’ll go with the not-undead bunny:
“Oh look, I think he likes you! He’s rather sweet, really… in a decaying undead sort of way…”
Next time
It’ll be off to Dimhollow Crypt to find Serana! I’ve been looking forward to this, as this’ll be the first time I’ve run Lucien through Dawnguard. 😀
Screenshots
Editing to add
- 11/30/2023: Whoops, forgot all of the screenshots from the 18th! Added those in, and also some additional Lucien quotes.
- 10/20/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress one. Also added missing caption and description strings to a couple of the screenshots.
Angela Korra'ti
As Angela Highland, Angela is the writer of the Rebels of Adalonia epic fantasy series with Carina Press. As Angela Korra'ti, she writes the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series. She's also an amateur musician and devoted fan of Newfoundland and Quebecois traditional music.