In Which Gyllerah Meets Mirri and Vastarie, and Acquires a Dragonhorn

Finally getting down to the end of my backlogged 2023 posts! Here’s the very last one I’ll be putting up for Gyllerah on ESO, before I start getting into Gyllerah’s action in 2024.

As per several previous recent ESO posts, I’m only counting “sessions” as play days where I do so something above and beyond crafting or fishing. Any day in this post not explicitly described, you may assume I logged in and did basic crafting, writs, fishing, etc.

Main highlights of this post’s action: running the Gloomreach delve in the Reach and adventuring down into Blackreach; running the quest to pick up Mirri as my second official ESO Companion; meeting Vastarie the necromancer; and pushing the quest further along in Northern Elsweyr.

Play by play

Play dates: 12/24-12/31/2023
Session numbers in this run: 317-320

December 27th

Did some antiquities hunting on the Telvanni Peninsula for the first time, mostly just to explore the place, but also to get antiquities I hadn’t found yet

December 29th

BIG play action all over this day
Ran writs, then ran a bunch of treasure chests to see if I could get stylesheet leads
Answer: YES
First treasure map: Bangkorai; got an Ancestral Orc Shields lead from that
Second treasure map: Reaper’s March; got an Ancestral High Elf Shields lead from that
Also ran a dolmen while in Reaper’s March
Third treasure map: Blackreach: Arkthzand Cavern
Boinged into Markarth first to try to get there, and visited ESO’s version of Understone Keep for the first time–but it was not where I needed to go to get to Blackreach
Saw on the wiki after doublechecking was that my best bet for getting down into Blackreach was going to be to run a delve, Gloomreach
So I went out from Markarth towards Gloomreach
Just outside the delve, talked to a recruit to the Psijic Order, Calis, and got his quest
Accompanied Calis into the place so he could study tonal disturbances to the plant life more closely, and try to find his missing master
Started taking out assorted Falmer and chaurus, as one does in caves in Skyrim, even in ESO
Partway through decided I’d better call in Ember as well
Eventually found Calis’s master’s journal, and shocker! Master Pythis was totes evil!
So Calis and I had to try to figure out how to deactivate one more doohickey
It was about to get away from us, but another Psijic Order member showed up and helped out; she and Calis beat a retreat back to Artaeum when we were done
This left Ember and me to try to figure out how to get down into Blackreach
Checked the map and confirmed that the asshole Psijic guy who’d tried to set up his apprentice was in fact the delve boss
So I went over and stabbed him to death, while Ember zapped and shot the fuck out of him
Then did some more exploring until I finally found the trapdoor down into Blackreach, which then meant more exploring
Marked Nighthollow Keep and had to fight a few ghosts around it (pretty sure that’ll be super relevant once I run the rest of the Dark Heart of Skyrim plot)
But my main goal for this session was to get to that treasure map, and after a lot of exploring, finally found the way to it
And that got me an Ancestral Reach Mace style page
Right near the dig site, found a dead body with a note with a quest lead; when I read it, I saw he’d made off with a relic from a temple
Got objective to take the relic back to a high shaman
Headed down to the bottom of the Reach map to find the antiquity, and ran a harrowstorm on the way
Tried to focus on keeping heals going on Ember while she did the damage, but still got killed a couple of times, harrowstorms are rough
Next stop: Blackwood!
Treasure map location was up in the northern part of Blackwood, almost at the border
And as it turned out, it was also right near the location where I could get the quest to pick up Mirri as a companion
But first, I hit the treasure map
Got yet another style page off of that one: Ancestral Akaviri Maces
Had to boing down to the bottom of the Blackwood map for that lead too
Finally dismissed Ember and boinged back to Cliffshade for inventory managing
(Note: while running Blackreach, got a warning that Ember didn’t have an ult slotted, but she’s not up to level 20 yet, can she even have an ult slotted?)
Managed to fuck up my solo build again by saving out the scrying build to the wrong slot in the armory 😛
So had to boing to Alinor to pay for clearing the solo slot at a Shrine of Stendarr, and boinged back to work for a while on setting up another solo build, more deets on this below
Also worked for a while on rearranging my chosen outfit and its colors
And realized the vast majority of my solo gear wasn’t enchanted, so made a bunch of glyphs to fix that problem
Finally boinged back to Blackwood and ran the quest to get Mirri
She and her little brother and some compatriots had been sent in to investigate a ruin, but had been ambushed by cultists
Told her I’d go in with her to rescue her brother and the others
Turned out to be a ruin that the Waking Flame cultists were trying to add to the Deadlands; lots of familiar imagery in there
Mirri showed me how to use a grappling bow to get across some chasms that were otherwise uncrossable, and that was cool
Rescued her first colleague, a Nord named Eolaf, and got him out safely after destroying some focus stone type things
The second one, the High Elf, did not survive what the cultists did to her
The third one, a Bosmer, was a soul-shriven zombie and that probably creeped Gyllerah out significantly
Finally rescued the brother after destroying some more focus stone type things
Got out of the ruin again, and Mirri told me if I ever needed her for anything, call!
So now I have Mirri as a Companion <3
Last major action of the session: went off to Deshaan to work more on the new build, and ran the rest of the Deshaan zone plot
Found the guy with the quest pointer to head off to Stormhold, so that prepped Gyllerah to run that part of Cadwell’s Silver
After that, did a small bit of additional antiquity hunting and got a High Elf altar on Summerset; thought about putting that in the Hall of the Lunar Champion, but it seemed weird to put a High Elf altar in a Khajiit temple
Then went to High Isle and did one there for a Draoife Stone
Boinged briefly back to Markarth to find that High Shaman, Glynroch, to give the relic to
Then returned to Cliffshade and worked a while on spending Champion points on all three of Gyllerah’s builds, especially the one for trials; dropped a bunch more healing-related points on that build
Decided to hide Gyllerah’s helm for a while, and put her back on the Braided Tresses hairstyle that looks good with the Wolfcrown of Solitude
Re-dyed the trial gear because I was tired of the color scheme, and hiding my helm also means I don’t have to look at the Symphony of Blades mask, which is kinda fugly
Also took the time to save all three builds out to Dressing Room’s UI, so in case I fuck up something else I can pull those out of backup, at least the skill bars
Finally called it a night, that was a lot!

December 30th

Sold an Aetherial Dust to Amy, and got 800,000 gold! Fuck yeah!
Maxed out Gyllerah’s inventory and my bank space with that shiny, shiny influx of dosh
Ran Dreadsail Reef again with Swamp Haven, and got additional trial gear for the sticker book
Managed to not die at all when we fought the final boss, go me! 😉

December 31st

Ran a whole bunch of surveys to try to gather more Kuta runes for Marwyth’s gear, and more Rubedo Leather, so hit Clothier and Enchanter surveys all over the place
Woke up Ember to get her more XP since she was still only at level 11
One of the surveys I hit was in Northern Elsweyr; fought a dragon while doing that, but didn’t get into the fight in time to get any of the dragon loot, oh well
Also hit a couple of dolmens
Later went to work constructing some new gear for Marwyth, wanted to try craftable sets that would up her damage output; had to flip characters a bunch to get the gear into Marwyth’s inventory
Decided to run the quest to meet Vastarie since she’s an interesting character
This required me to go to Grahtwood, just a little ways north of Elden Root
Found some of Vastarie’s followers holed up in a tree house monitoring a nearby ruin
Took their quest to go over and check the place out
And heh, as soon as the guy mentioned Molag Bal, Gyllerah was all “I will put a stop to this”
Tilled a few daedra on the way in, then found a shrine to Azura, and Azura pinged me
Agreed to help, which required my getting into the place and finding Vastarie’s notes
That led me to finding an important tablet, and summoning a winged twilight named Irrai, who led me to a sigil geode and told me to charge it up with the souls of the lesser daedra outside
Took a bit for me to get the hang of that, but once the stone was charged, I used it to open the portal into Coldharbour
Once I got in there, I found Vastarie
And shocker, Irrai turned out to not be a servant of Azura, but rather, a servant of Molag Bal
She tried to gloat about that, but Gyllerah was not impressed
At Vastarie’s urging, imprisoned Irrai in the sigil geode, and got in to free the soul of Culanwe, who was already dead–and it went surprisingly quickly?
I got her remains though, and we got safely out of Coldharbour and back into the Laeloria ruins
Vastarie invited me to come visit her at her house, and made jokes about having measured how long she was trapped in Coldharbour with a timekeeping spell
Later, boinged back to Northern Elsweyr to move the zone plot there along
Met by Lyrrsazhi, a spy I’d encountered before at the Rimmen wayshrine, and asked to report to the palace to talk to Khamira
Went over there to report in
Khamira asked me to speak to Abnur Tharn, and we went in to try to figure out Euraxia’s last known orders
This required hunting around the library a bit for evidence
We realized she was trying to have the last Dragonguard assassinated, and also got info about a contingent of mercenaries at Sandswirl Manor
So headed off to there and infiltrated the place, mostly with sneaking, though I did have to fight a couple of hostiles
Found out that the manor house was on lockdown, and swiped the key to the cellar from a lieutenant’s lockbox
Found Prefect Calo locked up and talked with him about what had happened; he’d been arrested when he refused to go along with direct orders to help Euraxia
Calo urged me to go find a report he’d made in his office
Got into there along with Tharn, and Calo showed up there without my even having to free him, since his own Irregulars got him out
He and Tharn negotiated about getting Khamira to pardon his group if he agreed to help them
Meanwhile I headed off to the Stitches to try to track down the last Dragonguard, and make sure he or she wouldn’t get assassinated
Fought another dragon with Ember on the way, and this one I actually got loot off of
Reached the Stitches and Zamarak showed up there as well
Hailed by an NPC, Humble Zaham, who had rather pointed commentary about how I looked rich and therefore like robber bait; he suggested I earn Rajhin’s favor by stealing some stuff, but I declined to proceed with this
Instead proceeded to the hidden shrine to try to find the Dragonguard; found a few assassins dead on the way, killed by assorted critters
Made it into the Dov-Vahl Shrine and it was full of traps, which was kind of annoying; I died off of at least one of them
Zamarak and I conversed a bit about his history, and I told him violence was sometimes necessary
Finally made it to the captain I needed to defeat, Saulinia, and took her out
Found the Dragonguard, Orland, who’d been mortally wounded, but he handed me his ring and told me to use it to open the sanctuary and get the Dragonhorn
So I did that and found a huge horn with a smaller one atop it; took the smaller one
Returned to Rimmen to check in with Khamira and discuss next steps
Cadwell was getting more visions off of his reincarnated head, so this was becoming more of a problem; Khamira wanted me and Tharn to figure out what to do about that
But she ordered not using the Dragonhorn until we could be sure what it actually did
Left off there with the plot

Going to Understone Keep

One of the treasure maps I ran during these sessions was for Arkthzand Cavern in Blackreach. Getting into that was a bit of an adventure! The wiki said there was an access point to it near Nchuand-Zel–but I misinterpreted what that meant. So my initial attempt to get there involved wayshrining into Markarth and visiting Understone Keep for the first time.

Veteran players of Skyrim know that Understone Keep is the Jarl’s keep in Markarth, and contains an expedition run by Calcelmo, who’s doing a dig to get into Nchuand-Zel. Skyrim veterans will also likely remember that Understone Keep’s main entrance has a fair amount of rubble just in past the door, mounts of stone and a bit of dirt which make the path for getting over to Calcelmo a little odd.

But here’s the thing that startled me about ESO’s version of Understone Keep: the entrance was not a mess! There was no rubble just in past the door at all!

I don’t know if it’s known in lore why the keep is more of a mess in Skyrim’s era, though. I couldn’t find anything about it poking around on the two wikis I use for reference. But clearly something must have happened in Understone Keep between ESO’s era and Skyrim’s, something that caused enough damage that Jarl Igmund hasn’t been able to clean it up.

The immediate possibility that presents itself is maybe Understone Keep took a beating during the Forsworn uprising, twenty-plus years prior to the events of the game. We know Ulfric Stormcloak retook Markarth for the Nords. That had to have been intense fighting within the city walls, and within the keep in particular. Especially if Ulfric was throwing the Thu’um around, given that we also know from the game that the Thu’um is capable of great destruction–this being, after all, why most of the Greybeards don’t frigging talk like normal people, their Voices are too powerful.

We likewise know that the Forsworn uprising happened after the Great War started. So if Markarth in general and Understone Keep in particular got torn up by the uprising, I could very easily see it not being a priority to clean up the keep while the land was still in turmoil. Jarl Igmund’s father, as well as Igmund himself, just may not have had the hands to spare for the work. Or the money to pay them.

(But that’s all Skyrim-era stuff, and this is an ESO post, so let me stop digressing here!)

Treasure hunting in Blackreach: Arkthzand Cavern

After doublechecking the wiki, I saw that the access point I needed to get into Blackreach was actually in a delve: Gloomreach. This is another location that I also know from Skyrim, of course, now that I’ve visited it in current Skyrim playthroughs. ESO’s version of the place, though, had a lot more going on.

I liked the local plot for this delve, which had me meeting a Psijic Order recruit called Calis. This guy asked me to help him out by escorting him into the cavern and guarding his back, while he studied the “tonal disturbances” of the local plant life and tried to locate his missing master. Given that Gyllerah is a member in good standing of the Order at this point, I figured she was happy to help a fellow Psijic. So into the delve we went.

Fairly quickly, and more than once, I noticed a thing about the Falmer in this delve: some of them were clinging to walls. Like they were Spiderman, or something!

I also saw some of them crawling. Which was creepy, but also made a kind of sense. I could see the blind Falmer being very accustomed to crawling low along the ground, as they doubtless rely a lot on their sense of touch.

In general, this was a very twisty-turny sort of delve. It took me a while to find the three MacGuffins I had to find to help Calis calm down the disturbances. And there was a skyshard of course, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to the damned thing. I’ll have to revisit that later, maybe when I officially run the Reach to finish up the overall Dark Heart of Skyrim content (since I do have more of that to run even though I’ve finished Western Skyrim).

Plot-wise, I was halfway not expecting that Calis’ missing master, Pythis, was going to turn out to be evil. But once we found Pythis’s journal and that reveal dropped, I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised by it. Pythis had written that he was totally trying to get power for himself, blame it on his apprentice, and show the entire Psijic Order what’s what. As one does when writing down one’s evil plan in a journal, at least in Tamriel culture, apparently. ;D

And I definitely need to up the priority of doing the Reach properly, if nothing else to be able to get properly down into this portion of Blackreach. There seemed to be quite a few interesting details down there involving vampires, and I want to be able to explore that plot fodder in depth.

Emergency respec, again

After running all that action in Blackreach with Ember, I boinged back to Cliffshade for the usual post-adventure inventory managing and such… and fucked up my solo build yet again when I accidentally saved the updated scrying build to the wrong slot in my Armory. Whoops.

So I had to visit the Shrine of Stendarr in Alinor yet again, and respec myself.

This time I actually tried something new: I went for a stamina Templar build, because I’ve gotten real fond of the dual wielded daggers and bow combo I’ve been running with Marwyth. And while Gyllerah’s primary purpose in trials is healing, when I’m running her solo, I still like having the ability to deliver some damage.

So I found this particular build on ESO-Skillfactory, which sounded interesting. And I respec’d my Solo build to try to achieve what the link recommended. I didn’t have quite all the relevant abilities activated, but I really liked the idea of using some Fighters Guild stuff.

As of this set of sessions I had three builds on Gyllerah’s armory, one for solo RP, one for scrying antiquities, and one for running heals in trials. I have since actually condensed that down to two builds: one for solo RP (a stamina/damage build), and one for trials or scrying (a magicka/healer build). Each of these builds has two different gear and skill sets I’m swapping between depending on what I’m doing, and all of those are backed up in Dressing Room and Caro’s Skill Point Saver.

My third armory slot (since Gyllerah has three, a situation I’d really like to extend out to Marwyth and my new alt Veghra when I get a chance) is now set completely blank. Because using a Shrine of Stendarr to respec is frigging expensive! And since I have now demonstrated to myself that I can and will periodically accidentally fuck up my builds, redundant backups and a quick and dirty way of resetting myself seemed absolutely called for.

Getting Mirri as my second Companion

Finally got around to running the initial quest to pick up Mirri as a Companion, since I found her location entirely without pre-planning in Blackwood! And I enjoyed that quite a bit.

The grappling bow was pretty cool, though I wonder if it’s useful literally anywhere else in the game? I’ve been playing for a while now and have yet to see any sign of it anywhere else. And ah, checking the wiki, I see there’s apparently more of this in Southern Elsweyr? (Which, as of this writing, I now actually have! More on this to come in a future post.)

I also liked the creepy moment where I found what was left of Mirri’s Bosmer associate, Ghalor. Mirri called him soul-shriven, and I think Gyllerah probably got a very distant look in her eyes as she said “Yes… I know.”

(Since at this point Gyllerah does have her soul back, she ought to look perfectly normal to everybody, right? Still doesn’t mean she’s not periodically creeped out by the memory of the Soul Shriven she’s seen in Coldharbour.)

Finishing up in Deshaan, and heading to Stormhold

I finally finished up running the plot in Deshaan with Gyllerah in these sessions, and played it slightly differently from Marwyth. Namely, this time I told Vox to go fuck herself, since I couldn’t see Gyllerah being the slightest bit interested in joining forces with anybody who kills innocent people.

And Gyllerah, unlike Marwyth, has no particular connection to the culture and religions of Morrowind, either pro-Tribunal or anti-Tribunal. So she had the luxury of coming into the conflict a bit more dispassionate than Marwyth did. Not to mention that Vox also barely blips up onto Gyllerah’s general Threats to the World meter, after her experiences with Molag Bal and Mannimarco.

And this time, and this time I actually remembered to take the portal back to Mournhold that Almalexia conveniently opened up!

I found the guy with the quest objective to send me on to Stormhold, but I got a bit turned around as to how to actually get there. I’d thought I was supposed to go through a gate. The quest marker, however, was pointing at Mournhold’s docks. I had to swim over to the boats, then jump up onto the dock so I could choose the right NPC to take me off to Stormhold.

That got it sorted, anyway, and set me up to run the next part of Cadwell’s Silver.

Finding that shaman in Markarth for relic dropoff

Since I still had a relic to return to a shaman, I doublechecked where I could find him–and it turned out he was right in Markarth itself. I didn’t have to go wandering out of the city to locate him.

In fact, he turned out to be in the building that I’m pretty sure is the Temple of Dibella in Skyrim–but in ESO, it’s a Temple of Hircine! Which I guess makes sense, if Markarth is in control of the Reachfolk at this point? And I could definitely see the Third Empire converting that temple right fucking fast once Tiber Septim takes over everything.

But anyway, gave the shaman back his relic, and had a short conversation with him about the symbol in question. I saw on the wiki that he has other symbols you can go recover for him, but I’m holding off on that until I actually run the rest of the Dark Heart of Skyrim content.

Crafting new damage gear for Marwyth

Once I gathered some resources to make some craftable high-damage gear for Marwyth, I considered the following sets:

Hunding’s Rage
New Moon Acolyte
Innate Axiom
Order’s Wrath
Briarheart
Spriggan’s Thorns

Briarheart and Spriggan’s Thorns are overland, but the rest are craftable. As of when I did that crafting work I hadn’t gotten the Orsinium DLC yet–but I have since done so, and now I do have several Briarheart pieces for Marwyth’s use!

But as of when I did the crafting, I settled on making pieces with Hunding’s Rage and Innate Axiom. Which are pretty nifty when I run Marwyth solo. This was knowledge I rolled into making gear for Gyllerah as well, for that matter! When I run Gyllerah solo and don’t feel like being in healer mode, I’ve got her wearing Hunding’s as well as Ancient Dragonguard.

Meeting Vastarie and running her intro plot

Since I ran across mentions of the character Vastarie while reading lore pages on the wiki, I thought she sounded like a very interesting character. The whole idea of an ethical necromancer who’s also a lich intrigued me. So the last major interesting thing I did in these sessions was to go run her first plot so I could meet her.

I liked the initial meeting with Vastarie’s followers once I found them holed up in Grahtwood, near the ruin I had to go to. Particularly when one of them mentioned Molag Bal being up to shenanigans–at which point Gyllerah was basically all right then, I’ll put a stop to this. Because yeah, no patience whatsoever for Molag Bal’s bullshit.

I was, however, a trifle disappointed when Azura pinged me at the shrine of hers that I found. Just because this was a conversation that clearly assumed I had no idea who was talking to me! But given that that statue of Azura looked exactly like the one Gyllerah had previously seen at Pariah Abbey in Stormhaven, I shall take the liberty of assuming that Gyllerah knew damn well who she was talking to, regardless of the dialogue choices I was given.

Otherwise, it makes no damned narrative sense whatsoever that Gyllerah would somehow forget who Azura is. Gyllerah is still kind of amnesiac, but that’s only for the pre-Soulburst part of her history, not post-Soulburst! She doesn’t forget current stuff that happens to her. She hasn’t taken that many blows to the head. ;D

Once I finally actually found Vastarie in Coldharbour, I really did like her character design. She looked cool, with some unearthly radiance around her face, not what i’d expect of someone who’s supposed to be a lich. LOL.

No surprise whatsoever about the Winged Twilight named Irrai turning out to be a servant of Molag Bal, rather than a servant of Azura. She sounded just a trifle too evil to not be an evil character. For once, I’d like to see that trope upended!

It was kinda hilarious how she tried to gloat about her master, though, and how not impressed Gyllerah was. Especially given that I got to deliver this line, which made me LOL:

“When I fought Molag Bal, I broke a few of those teeth.”

Hee hee hee.

And I liked the final conversation I had with Vastarie as well, as she invited me to come visit her once she reestablished her house. She even made jokes about having known how long she was imprisoned in Coldharbour, because of a timekeeping spell. So overall, I very much liked this character, and will have to find her other plot that you can run in Northern Elsweyr, too.

More action in Northern Elsweyr

Last but not least, this set of sessions saw me moving the plot further along in Northern Elsweyr.

The main thing I liked about this part of the proceedings was meeting Prefect Calo, and learning that his forces had actually refused to go along with Euraxia’s plans–so he’d been locked up. Nice to know that at least some of the Imperial forces in ESO’s timeframe aren’t complete rampaging assholes!

And it was kind of a refreshing change of pace that I did not, in fact, have to break Calo out of his prison. HIs own Irregulars got him out! Well done, other NPCs being competent and stuff.

Heading to the Stitches to try to track down the last Dragonguard let me encounter an amusing NPC, Humble Zaharn, who dropped strong hints that I totally looked like robber bait and should earn Rajhin’s favor by stealing some stuff.

I accepted the quest at first, but actually bailed on it later–because Gyllerah is not a thief by nature. Marwyth would have been all over this, but Gyllerah, not so much.

Also, to tie in with the whole “Gyllerah has seen some shit at this point” thing, she’s not going to be any more intimidated by thieves attempting to rob her than she was by Vox in Deshaan. I’m not going to say Gyllerah is arrogant necessarily, but she is a seasoned warrior by now. And garden-variety bandits trying to rob her are a nuisance she could dispatch in her sleep.

(That said, I am totally holding the Stitches in reserve for Marwyth to later explore in depth. Because oh my yes, that’ll be a place way more suited to her.)

Once I finally hit the shrine where the Dragonguard was hiding, I found the number of traps in the place annoying. Narratively appropriate, sure, but also annoying to have to slog my way through. Especially given that I died off of one of them.

Zamarak, one of the more interesting NPCs in this whole plot, got a bit more character development here too. He angsted at me about his past, and I had the opportunity to advise him. I went with the option of telling him that violence was sometimes necessary–because yeah, Gyllerah’s had to commit a lot of acts of violence in the name of saving the world.

I did have to giggle a bit about having to retrieve a Dragonhorn, though, just because my Skyrim-influenced brain kept wanting to spell that Dragonborn. 😉

Next time

Gyllerah’s next post will feature finally reaching 2024 in my backlog of action of hers to post about. And more specifically, advancing the Ebonheart Pact plot for Cadwell’s Silver; side questing in Riverhold, and picking up the plot to find mural fragments in Northern Elsweyr; side questing in Auridon, and kicking the asses of Maormer pirates; and advancing the plot for Necrom, too!