In Which Kendeshel Excavates a Sunken Barrow

Catching up with my Kendeshel playthrough in Skyrim, the one with Legacy of the Dragonborn! This session was from early March of this year, and includes action with one of Legacy’s side quests that featured excavating a barrow at the bottom of Lake Ilinalta. And also, beginning a push through Alftand!

Minor spoilers for Legacy of the Dragonborn after the cut.

Play by play

• Play date: 3/7/2024
• Session number in this run: 42
• Picked up again with Kendeshel finally after update-enforced hiatus
• Started at Honeyside in Riften, and wanted to get some side questing done
• So first item of business was to head over to Faldar’s Tooth and get the Silver Hand plans for Aela
• Did this solo + daedroth squad
• Took out all the exterior bandits and got the plans, and also loot out of any chest I could get to on the outside of the fort
• Then returned to Riften, and invested in the Prawned Pawn and the Scorched Hammer
• Took the Dev Aveza over to Whiterun and checked in with Aela
• Got her line about running interference for me, and being pretty sure nobody had caught on to our anti-Silver-Hand action yet
• Headed to Lakeview to follow up on the quest for excavating the sunken site at Lake Ilinalta
• Took me a bit to find where the actual treasure in the place was–and by then I was overloaded
• But fortunately could still quaff a potion of Fortify Carry Weight to get the hell out of the water before the slaughterfish nibbled me to death
• Also, since Rayya is Lakeview’s steward in this game, threw her money to replenish my logs supply since I needed logs for Madras
• Then returned to Whiterun, and found the Khajiit on site, so sold a bunch of loot to Ri’saad
• Went to Karagas Tower to try to find Madras for the rebuilding project, only to realize he was actually in Solitude
• So went back there, and followed up with Madras in the Guild hall
• Checked my supplies in the Safehouse, and did enough smithing that I think here was where I triggered a level up to 63?
• Got all my quarried stone and the requisite number of dwemer ingots for Madras
• He asked me to give him a few days to get things ready, and come back and check with him later
• So next item on my agenda: proceeding with the main plot
• Took the Dev Aveza to the College of Winterhold
• Was surprised to discover that my unicorn (Ran in this game) was not present at the college
• So wound up going on foot to Alftand because I didn’t have the Dwarven Horse yet either
• On the way, killed two trolls
• And a Blood Dragon showed up just as I was getting close to the outpost building I’d built for the Guild
• Made it into the building–and a third troll spawned inside the building, WTAF ^ 2
• Headed on over to Alftand from there since it wasn’t far; no interesting changes outside it
• Got in and started running the place, and Thistle the Bun caught up <3
• Found a Dwemer dig site partway in
• But didn’t run the whole place, stopped for the night partway through

Faldar’s Tooth

Surprising exactly no one, the bandits at Faldar’s Tooth were no match for a trio of rampaging daedroths. Muahaha. I didn’t even have to bother to try to get wolfy on them. But that was really kind of an appetizer for this session’s main course–which was excavating the sunken ruin in Lake Ilinalta, one of the side quests in Legacy of the Dragonborn.

Excavating at Lake Ilinalta

Given that it was a sunken ruin, damned good thing I had a Waterbreathing ring, wot? But also, I knew the lake had slaughterfish from prior experience, and I expected that excavating a ruin meant I’d have to be down there for a bit. So when I arrived at the spot, I threw a Flame Cloak spell, and also quaffed a crafted Potion of Light so I could see what the hell I was doing.

Not gonna lie, the submerged barrow was neat, and included drowned draugr for an extra level of creepiness.

But the slaughterfish were annoying. Once my Flame Cloak spell expired, I could not cast a new one underwater. And I was not actually able to fight the slaughterfish, either. So they were able to keep coming at me and nipping at me with little attacks.

Thankfully, I had plenty of potions of Fortify Carry Weight–and I discovered it was possible to quaff a potion underwater. Practically speaking, I’m not exactly sure how the hell that’s supposed to work! I’ve written before about not being entirely clear about how exactly Waterbreathing magic works. Does it give you an air supply for the duration of the spell? Or does it let you physically get air out of the water, in which case, are you actually breathing water into your lungs?

Because if it’s the latter, I should think that might interfere with your ability to quaff a potion–on the grounds that taking in water while you’re also trying to drink the potion seems like a risk of diluting the potion. And/or choking yourself!

(Did I mention I’m into overanalyzing these things? You all knew that, though, given that I have an entire blog here all about my overanalyzing Skyrim… 🤣)

Really, my main point here is, the potion of Fortify Carry Weight saved me from being nibbled to death by slaughterfish. And this, children, is why you should never leave your house without potions of Fortify Carry Weight!

Rebuilding project with Madras

My next plan was going to be to try to follow up with Madras about the rebuilding project–but I misinterpreted where he was supposed to be! I thought he’d be at Karagas Tower, so took the Dev Aveza there. That was at least kinda neat, in that I got to see what the view from the landing spot for that looked like.

Since he wasn’t actually there, though, I had to return to Solitude. I found him in the Guild hall–at which point I realized I did not have all the materials on me that he needed. I’d forgotten where the hell my quarried stone was!

Happily, this was quickly sorted after doublechecking all my supplies in the Safehouse. So I was able to hand Madras all the things he needed, and move on to the next action I wanted to do.

Unicorn MIA

I was a trifle surprised to discover that my unicorn–Ran in this game–was not hanging out at the College of Winterhold when I showed up there. And I don’t think I’d realized at the time that I could have just called Ran, with Convenient Horses, oops.

I hadn’t yet run Forgotten Seasons (more on this in a future post) with Kendeshel yet either, so I didn’t have the Dwarven Horse.

So these two things meant together that I went to Alftand on foot. Writing this out, though, reminds me that in future playthroughs, at least ones that include Convenient Horses, I gotta remember to just use the mod functionality to get a missing horse back. (Assuming, of course, that it’s a horse Convenient Horses can work with! I.e., not the Dwarven Horse, or the reindeer.)

Unexpectedly super-lively troll and dragon action

I should never be surprised, when traveling in Winterhold, to be ambushed by trolls. This happens to me all the time. Sometimes I’ve even gotten two or three of them at once.

But I am not accustomed to getting three trolls in rapid succession, and a Blood Dragon! And bonus points for the third troll actually spawning inside the outpost building that I’d built for the Explorer’s Society!

As I write this, I note that I’ve since found out that in theory, that outpost was supposed to have a character staffing it: Egriss. But caveat here that Kendeshel’s run is v5 of Legacy! And I’m not sure whether this guy is supposed to show up in that version, or whether he’s specific to v6.

I wish he’d been there, though. It makes more narrative sense to me for that outpost to have a member of the Guild actually stationed there, just because a building with nobody regularly in it is a building asking to get taken over by bandits.

Or, maybe, destroyed by a pissed off troll? Because I gotta assume that that troll somehow managed to follow me into the building when I was getting away from battling the dragon and the other two trolls! I daresay that if it had been in there longer, it would have managed to smash the place up.

It’s probably fortunate for the troll that it didn’t. I put a lot of effort into building that outpost! If it’d destroyed all my hard work I would have had to exact some consequences.

I mean, I killed it anyway. But if it had destroyed my nice well-stocked outpost, I’d have had to kill it much harder.

Beginning of Alftand

I didn’t get all the way into Alftand in this session, just because by the time I started it, I’d already done a fair bit and ran out of gaming stamina.

But I did do enough to see that Legacy hadn’t added anything particularly interesting to Alftand’s exterior. I did find where it put a Dwemer excavation site, though!

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will feature a hard push through the rest of the game’s main quest–starting with finishing off Alftand, and proceeding all the way through to Sovngarde!

Screenshots