In Which Gyllerah Discovers the Infinite Archive

The second week of January was pretty eventful for Gyllerah. So this is the first of two posts to cover that week, in the interests of trying to keep the post length down! (But no promises. Y’all know how verbose I can get!)

Main action here: exploring the Infinite Archive, and by extension more of Apocrypha; doing a bunch of work to level up both Ember and Mirri as Companions; and some fun action in the Rift, including a bit of accidentally doing parts of its zone quest out of order. As Gyllerah tends to do.

Play by play

Play dates: 1/8-1/10/2024
Session numbers in this run: 328-330

January 8th

Main action was running some antiquities, specifically in Apocrypha so I could explore it–and find the entrance to the Infinite Archive
Took Mirri along with me to work on leveling her up
Ran three different antiquities, before and after running the Infinite Archive for a bit
Did two rounds of Archive before and after dinner
First round was Gyllerah in her Respite build
Mirri did not last long against the bosses, though she did okay against the trash mobs
Second round I swapped over to Gyllerah’s Solo build; that let me last longer against bosses myself
Ran a total of 12 stages and getting 14000 for my score? Not terribly impressive
Got 600 total Archival Fortunes and a bit of random good loot
After that harvested a bunch of ingredients on Artaeum to try to get heartwood for the last Deep Winter Writ I had; finished that up once I found enough heartwood
Also did a bunch of fishing, and got a Perfect Roe \0/
Put that on sale to see if it’d sell before Swamp Haven’s Guild trader stood down
Also put an Etched Corundum on sale
And since I had a large pile of gold for once, bought a bunch of purple-grade light armor for Mirri to wear, to work on making her a healer
Dyed Mirri’s outfit!
Finished up with inventory managing, and making a bunch of items to sell to Fezez to clear out the inventory, since the New Life Festival was finishing up

January 9th

Did several rounds of Infinite Archive, but was not able to get past a score of 20000
Got Mirri leveled up to 9 with all this fighting
Also tried Ember in the Archive, but found my ability to keep myself healed really needed the build i was putting on Mirri, so I swapped back to her
Meanwhile, also worked on leveling both Companions
Took Mirri on a daily quest for the Mages Guild
This required me to go get an artifact of Sheogorath out of the Lion’s Den in the Rift, a public dungeon I hadn’t been to
So I had to hit the closest wayshrine and hoof it from there
Very near Ivarstead, so found Shroud Hearth Barrow on the way
On the way triggered a quest at Taarengrav that turned out to be part of the zone activity for the Rift
Had to rescue some captured folks and recover a bunch of notes to see what the Worm Cult was up to investigating a barrow
This led me into a different barrow, where the Worm Cult was trying to imprison a spirit of one of Ysgramor’s five hundred companions
Killed a bunch of Worm cultists and liberated the captured spirit, who asked me to then go to Pinepeak and help another spirit–but since that was more zone action, hung onto that for later
After that, then made it into the Lion’s Den public dungeon, and this was a large and crunchy run
Wound up with three quests to satisfy while in there
1. Getting the artifact I came for to begin with
2. Taking out some hostile Covenant officers
3. Investigating some captured soldiers and finding out which one was a traitor, and freeing the other two
Killed a whole helluva lot of Covenant Lion Guard forces while in there, and did the quests layered over one another
Killed a few other bosses while in there as well, and got a skyshard
Finally got the artifact and mounted up on my cat to get the hell out, which prompted Mirri to mount up too
Returned to the Mages Guild to turn in that quest, and unlocked the Mages Guild skill line on Mirri
Also took a daily quest from the Undaunted, who sent me off to a delve in Stormhaven, Norvulk Ruins
My goal was to actually return relics to that delve, and also take out a specific hostile; did these things
Returned to the Undaunted enclave to get the reward, and unlocked the Undaunted skill line on Mirri
Lastly swapped briefly over to Ember so I could activate the Fighters Guild skill line on her
Took a daily from the Fighters Guild, and that sent me to Reaper’s March to destroy a Dark Anchor
And I realized I only had to destroy one anchor, not three
Waited a while at the Jodewood Dolmen, and killed a few wisps and crocodiles and a wispmother
The thing finally fired off, and I was able to run it with Ember
Since I wanted to rearrange Gyllerah’s gear some, ran a clothing survey in Stormhaven
Rearranged Gyllerah’s solo gear a little, see below
Overall made a bunch of Archival Fortunes to spend later, once I actually finish at least one cycle, and picked up assorted good loot
Including at least a couple of pieces of Night Mother’s Embrace gear for Marwyth
Parked back in Cliffshade until next time

January 10th

A whole lot of attempts at Infinite Archive
Made some Order’s Wrath weapons and jewelry, after buying enough platinum for the jewelry
Swapping that in for Winter’s Respite didn’t help my chances in the Archive, still couldn’t make it past 20,000 points and boss number four in the cycle
Last try, swapped over to Ember and put on the healer build I use in trials
That likewise didn’t get me past boss number four, but it did get me there
Meanwhile though I got Mirri leveled up to 10, and her Rapport up to Friendly
So her first quest launched, and I’ll be running that soon
Picked up a few tasty recipe and praxis pages, including one to make a Necrom style lamp
So made that and left it in Kelesan’ruhn

The Infinite Archive

These sessions marked the start of my attempts to run the Infinite Archive! And also, to explore more of Apocrypha in general.

I’m digging ESO’s version of Apocrypha. It’s a lot more detailed than Skyrim’s version, while still maintaining a similar otherworldly feel. I really like how a lot of the features of the world are made of endless piles of books–and how some creatures are, too!

When I ran the session on January 8th, at the time I thought I specifically had to physically go to the Infinite Archive. I since learned that this isn’t the case–apparently you can get to the Archive even if you don’t own the Necrom DLC. You do need the DLC if you want to physically get to it. But even if you don’t have Necrom, the Archive can be reached by fast travel off a wayshrine.

(I later confirmed this when I tried to run the Archive as Marwyth. Marwyth hasn’t run any of the Necrom plot at all so she hasn’t been to Apocrypha. But she can still get to the Archive via wayshrine!)

Still, though, I’m glad I did the exploration! It was fun! And if you want to actually find the Archive’s physical entrance, take note: I found it a trifle difficult to get to. I got to the general correct area just fine, but wound up circling around a lot. The terrain the Archive is in has a lot of slopes and ridges and such, and I had to work my down to the correct cavern entrance to get in.

And being able to fast travel straight there is super helpful, to be sure.

All in all, I thought the Archive itself was pretty neat. I like the overall basic story to it, which isn’t complicated. And it doesn’t need to be, given that the whole point of the Archive is to give you a chance to beat up a bunch of monsters without having to worry much about plot details.

And most of all, I adore the Filers, the watchlings who show up to give you commentary during your fights. A few of them give you merchant services at the end of fights as well, so that you can repair your gear and sell things if you need to. Plus, I love their design. They’re tiny versions of Watchers, and have the same eyes and tentacles, but since they’re so small they’re just cute. And their commentary on the fights is great. <3

So far, I’ve found it challenging to run with a Companion, though. I have yet to be able to make it past the fourth boss on any of my runs, no matter what gear I’m wearing or which Companion I’m bringing in.

Now, mind you, I’ve since gotten Marwyth geared up for DPS so I may have better luck with her. But as of early January I still hadn’t done that work yet; more on this in Marwyth’s posts.

Since playing these sessions, I have also tried the Archive once with another player, and did in fact make it out of the first cycle. So that was fun too, and I should definitely try that again. But in the meantime I want to be able to get in there on my own and kick ass in the Archive if I can’t find another guildmate to play with!

So I need to keep refining gear on the characters I want to run the Archive with–and right now, that means Gyllerah and Marwyth. And I need to keep leveling up my Companions to make them as effective as possible. So this’ll be a while. I still need to pick up Isobel and Sharp-As-Night, and decide what type of builds I want to put on both of them.

And I’ll say this for the Archive: even if I can’t make it out of the first cycle on my own yet, the loot is good. I’ve learned to loot all the urns I see every time I run a level. They seem to drop a lot of tasty recipes and praxis pages! Also, the chests that spawn at the end of every boss fight tend to contain good loot as well, especially armor pieces. I’ve filled out more of my sticker book just by doing this! And even gotten a few pieces I wanted to explicitly keep.

Action in the Rift

A Mages Guild daily required me to hit the Lion’s Den public dungeon in the Rift, and on the way I picked up a quest at Taarengrav. I only realized later that the Taarengrav quest was specifically part of the zone quest for the Rift! Which made this something like the third or fourth time that I’d run a quest, only to discover later that it was part of the zone questline.

Gyllerah is indeed keeping up her playing of things out of order, heh. By now she’s more or less used to it, and so is her player! I continue to use the wiki a lot to doublecheck which things are and are not part of a zone’s story, and this is definitely helping me lessen the risk of either Marwyth or Veghra playing stuff out of order.

These sessions were my first sighting of Shroud Hearth Barrow near Ivarstead. I noted at the time how amused I was that it looked pretty much, at least on the outside, like Shroud Hearth Barrow does in Skyrim. Since then, I have in fact run the barrow. More on this to come later!

For now, let me focus on talking about Lion’s Den. That was a nice large public dungeon, with some good crunchy local quests to run. I liked that it had some more action to highlight the ongoing Three Banners War, namely, most of the hostiles in there being Covenant forces. And at least this time through the Covenant forces weren’t trying to use necromancy to further their ends!

Running dailies

Now that I’ve started accumulating Companions (four of the six now available to Gyllerah, two available to Marwyth, more on this to come), I’ve gotten more fond of running the various dailies to level them up. It’s an easy way to do that, and it’s a good way to explore the map. I’ve picked up a few locations I would not otherwise have gone into on my own, and while Gyllerah’s covered a bunch of the map already, she hasn’t gone everywhere yet. And it’ll be even more useful for Marwyth and Veghra.

I particularly like running the public dungeons, since I’ve advanced enough as a player that I can do that. Especially if I have a Companion along. I’m going to have to try to swing back to run Orcrest, which I hadn’t been able to clear before!

Rearranging Gyllerah’s gear

Running the Archive led me down a rabbit hole of rearranging Gyllerah’s gear. First, I made a replacement dagger via the transmute station on the Swamp Haven Guild island, so that it could be Winter’s Respite and fill out the weapons/jewelry pieces I was carrying for that set. This let me swap out the sash of Winter’s Respite I was carrying for a medium weight cp160 belt.

Then I swapped the Solo build’s Mundus stone over to Shadow, to see if it improved her damage output. Answer: only a little.

My conclusion from that was, I really needed better gear on that build for running the archive. Since that experimentation, I played with Hunding’s Rage and Order’s Wrath. Order’s Wrath, however, didn’t seem to help me much.

As of this writing, Gyllerah’s Solo build is currently made up of Hunding’s Rage and Ancient Dragonguard, and she’s doing some pretty good damage with that. I need to work on it more, though, particularly since I now know how to parse. More on that to come, too.

Next time

Gyllerah’s next post will feature more Infinite Archive, more dailies, helping out MIzzik Thunderboots in Riverhold, pushing the Ebonheart Pact plot further along, and last but not least, doing the denouement of the plot in Northern Elsweyr!