In Which Kendeshel Slays Alduin in Sovngarde

Swinging back to March of this year for this Skyrim catchup post, featuring Kendeshel. This one features a lot of main quest action, running clear from Alftand all the way to taking out Alduin in Sovngarde!

Contains a few minor spoilers for Legacy of the Dragonborn.

Play by play

Play date: 3/8/2024
Session number in this run: 43
Picked up again where I left off in Alftand
Pretty standard run for the most part down through the rest of it
Since I was alone this time, tried to go Stealth mode when I could
Kendeshel’s Invisibility and Muffle were enough to get me past at least some of the Falmer, though I eventually started having to call in dremora towards the end
Reached Sulla and Umana and took them out, yet another episode of “Goddammit, we are both with the Legion and I am a Legate, stand the fuck down, soldier!”
Got into Blackreach
Hit Sinderion’s lab and mostly nothing too terribly different there either, except that I already had some crimson nirnroot
Also found the Jewel of the Rumare there
Commenced running the search for the rest of the crimson nirnroot; didn’t have to hit as many places in Blackreach this time, which was nice
Also found additional goodies put into Blackreach by Legacy; found two more Dwemer dig sites down there
Found a “magical chest” in the Silent Ruin, which contained a Dwemer compass
Meanwhile, also fished at the fishing spot but this attracted Falmer attention at least once
Periodically attracted other Falmer, but nothing that summoned dremora couldn’t handle
Also hit the Reeking Tower, the Derelict Pumphouse, and the War Quarters, but didn’t find any different loot
Finally called up the dremora squad and threw a Fus Ro Dah at the big globe to summon the dragon, just so’s I could get his scales for display purposes!
Made that my last major action before hitting the Tower of Mzark; nothing unusual in there
Remembered to take the damned Lexicon off its stand this time, before I took the Elder Scroll ;P
Then got out through the tower exit, and oh hey right I left the AHO right here, LOL
Popped in there long enough to confirm that yep, Snippy was still in there
Then walked over to Heljarchen Hall and HI GREGOR
Also, oh shit, I totally forgot about building out more of this house, so worked on that for a while
Built out almost everything in the main house, including the cellar, since I had a lot of iron to spend
Discovered that Gregor apparently was not set as my steward?
Hired him as steward just so I could make him sell me enough logs to do serious work on the house, mostly for purposes of gunning my Smithing skill up again
Thought briefly after that about walking down to Whiterun to get a horse, but then went fuckit and fast traveled to the Throat of the World
HI PAARTHURNAX GUESS WHAT I FOUND
Played through the cutscene to get Dragonrend
Cue Alduin! Fight took a little longer this time, my aim with Dragonrend was off, but I did manage to down him before he called up too many meteors
Yeah yeah yeah you big scaly bastard, I may not be able to kill you, but I sure as hell just made you hurt, didn’t I?
Got Paarthurnax’s advice to go talk to the Jarl of Whiterun
BUT FIRST: boinged to Septimus’ outpost to check in with him and give him the Lexicon
Got the essence extractor, and HI HERMAEUS MORA
Actually got prompted to follow Mora even before he showed up at the cave exit, LOL
Declined to follow him
Then finally boinged back onto the Dev Aveza to pick it up from where I left it at the college
Airshipped to Whiterun, and came in late, so slept at Breezehome
OH RIGHT I DID LEAVE LYDIA HERE, Lydia darling, I need you to follow me s’more as I feel lonely without the spouse
Got Balgruuf on board with the dragon trapping plan
Then went back to Paarthurnax and got him to teach me the Shout to call Odahviing
Aaaaaand right back to Whiterun, let’s do this thing
Did hard push at this point to run through Skuldafn
Was vaguely disappointed to remember that Kendeshel actually hadn’t run Dawnguard yet, so I couldn’t summon Durnehviir to help out with the exterior dragons and draugr, daaaang 😉
But that said, kept throwing the daedroth squad at all the Draugr Deathlords,. and that was entertaining
Did not find any interesting legacy changes in the exterior of Skuldafn, but Mangouste warned me to be on the lookout for a shiny thing inside, and which I remembered to fetch before jumping through the portal to Sovngarde
Dragon priest dropped two cloaks, which seemed buggy; there was one in his ashes, but also one just lying nearby
Took both of them as well as his staff and mask, then proceeded through the portal to Sovngarde
Kendeshel hadn’t finished the Companions questline either, so no seeing Kodlak this time
Did see Ulfric Stormcloak
You? Asshole, you’re here? Okaaaaaay fiiiiine, I guess I should keep Alduin from eating you
Mangouste also warned me that I could find a couple of food items in Sovngarde too, LOL, which I did
Finally went out to do the battle, and still very stirring to take out Alduin underneath Sovngarde’s glorious skies <3
Got Tsun to send me back for dragon epilogue
Fast traveled back to Whiterun to pick up the Dev Aveza, then returned to Solitude
Came in very warily but no sign of dragon
Pulled a bunch of Ruined Books out of my stashed supplies and handed them off to Latoria
Grabbed a bunch of stuff out of storage and tromped out into the city to sell it directly, since the sell chest was still very full
Sorry Lucia honey, yes I’m back, but Mommy is carrying a boatload of things she needs to sell and I cannot play tag with you in this state. Go tell Rulnik I’m here, won’t you? That’s a good kid. Swear I’ll be over there as soon as I get rid of all this stuff
Started investing in Solitude stores and I think I got everybody
Also sold a bunch of things and picked up a new book for display from Bits and Pieces
Returned to the museum and did a bunch of display managing
Retrieved some stuff I’d left in the Hall of Heroes office shipping crates, and then put a whole bunch of stuff on display; topped 1300 displays
Did a bunch of crafting to make craftable display items and replicas
However, the fucking game crashed on me while I was trying to use the guidebook to change locations in the museum, and I was thrown back to coming back from my Solitude shopping expedition
But hey: at least Solitude was dragon-free for the latter part of this session!
Number of sessions since last Solitude dragon incident: 2

Differences in Sinderion’s laboratory for a Legacy playthrough

Since I’d already run Wyrmstooth in this run and picked up extra crimson nirnroot from Dimfrost (a.k.a. “not-Blackreach”), I got to Sinderion’s laboratory with a supply of 6 crimson nirnroot already on me. So when I read his journal and activated that quest, my pointer came in at 6 plus the one I’d just picked up off his counter. YAY!

Also, I liked the cover that Legacy gave to his journal. It had a nirnroot on it. <3

I found an actual new thing in the laboratory as well, a strongbox put in by Legacy of the Dragonborn. This contained a ring called the Jewel of the Rumare–which is an artifact that appears in Oblivion. Since my Oblivion playthrough hasn’t gotten very far yet, I have yet to encounter this ring in the game in which it originally appears!

And from poking around a bit on the wiki, I see that apparently the Rumare is a lake that contains a particularly dangerous variety of slaughterfish. So apparently Rumare slaughterfish will nibble you to death faster? LOL.

(And oh, okay, yes, I’ve seen the recipe for Rumare Slaughterfish Pie in ESO!)

The ring has an enchantment on it to boost your stamina regen and allow you to breathe underwater. I would have been more interested in this if I hadn’t learned the Waterbreathing enchantment long before setting foot in Blackreach!

It’s pretty though, I will give it that.

Dwemer Compass discovery

In the Silent Ruin, while looking for Crimson Nirnroot, I found a Magical Chest that contained a thing called a Dwemer Compass. I looked this up on the Legacy wiki, and found that it is a super nifty device.

Kind of an equivalent of Mark/Recall from Morrowind! I.e., it lets you set a few places and instantly port back to them. As of this writing, I’ve experimented with it a bit, and it is helpful. Not as critical as it might be if Legacy didn’t also include the Stash Supplies spell–because with that spell, I don’t have to worry about emergency ports out of anywhere just to stash loot.

I made a replica of the compass and kept the actual thing in my inventory, just so that I could experiment with it. On my next playthrough, which will also include Legacy, I’ll need to think about better ways to use it. In Kendeshel’s run, I feel like I’ve picked it up a bit too late to really put it to good use.

Shouting to summon Vulthuryol in Blackreach

One of the things Legacy wants you to fetch for display purposes is the scales of Vulthuryol, the dragon you can fight in Blackreach. So I had to do the thing where you throw Unrelenting Force at the big globe you can see coming down from the ceiling of the great cavern, which summons the dragon.

But even with running Legacy, I still don’t have a suitable narrative for why the player would ever know that throwing a Shout at that globe actually summons a dragon. There doesn’t seem to be any info on the wiki about clues in Blackreach that would actually tell you this.

Not to mention that throwing a Shout around in Blackreach in general seems like a foolish thing to do, in general, if you’re a stealth-oriented Dragonborn. You start throwing Shouts around, every single Falmer in the place is going to know where you are!

The wiki says that that globe is a “Dwemer gong”. Out of all the characters I’ve run in Skyrim to date, arguably Kendeshel is in the best position to actually know what the thing is. But even if she does know that, she still has no reason to throw a Shout at it, or to expect that it would actually accomplish anything if she did.

This didn’t stop me from doing the thing, mind you. But it would be nice to have an actual canon explanation for it.

Hermaeus Mora and Wintersun

When I went back to Septimus’ outpost to get the essence extractor from him, I was amused to see Wintersun prompt me to follow Hermaeus Mora even before Mora actually manifested at the exit.

Heh. And I think that if Kendeshel weren’t an active follower of Julianos, she’d actually be tempted by Mora. As of this writing I’m fairly far along in Dragonborn, and that has impacted her sentiments about Mora some. But at least as of when I played this session, I think she was actively tempted.

But I declined to follow Mora at the time. Probably for the best for this character.

Shiny thing for Legacy inside Skuldafn

I am still not entirely used to scouring every corner of an area of Skyrim just to find artifacts for Legacy’s museum. Which means that it was a damned good thing that Discord friend Mangouste warned me there was in fact a shiny thing for the museum, inside Skuldafn.

Which I actually totally fucking missed, but luckily remembered before I jumped through the portal to Sovngarde. I ran back inside to get that Jade Priest sculpture, came back out again, and then jumped through the portal.

Props to Mangouste for the tip!

Food items in Sovngarde

Mangouste also tipped me off to food items available in Sovngarde to bring back to the museum. I found both of them, but was a trifle confused that only one was actually marked as displayable.

Still, this unlocked a ‘Food of the Gods’ achievement with the Curators Companion mod, lololololol.

Yes yes, heroes of Sovngarde, be right with you. Just wanna grab a snack first if that’s okay? Because do y’all know how many draugr and dragons I killed to make it here? I’m famished.

(Also, let us not inquire too closely about how long food brought out of Sovngarde would actually keep. This is after all the same game where you can find viable food items in containers in draugr hives, after all.)

Post-Alduin shopping and display action

Finally made it back to Solitude after going to Sovngarde, and heh, felt a little guilty telling Lucia I couldn’t play tag with her. But that wasn’t happening when I was overloaded with stuff to sell.

Also a little salty that the game crashed on me, which made me lose all the display work I did at the end of the session.

But hey, I did at least have a dragon-free shopping run in Sovngarde!

I learned later as Kendeshel’s playthrough proceeded that I did not eliminate dragons from spawning completely. But taking out Alduin did at least slow the spawn rate down significantly. Especially on Solstheim–more on that to come when I reach Kendeshel’s Dragonborn posts in this push to get my playthrough posting caught up.

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will feature coming back to her after a six-month break, and clearing out a bunch of side quests!

Dropping off crimson nirnroot with Avrusa Sarethi
Going to Geirmund’s Hall and getting that piece of the Gauldur amulet
Fishing up Swims-In-Deep-Water’s lucky fishing hat
Retrieving a fragment of Wuuthrad from Broken Helm Hollow
Talking to Kodlak Whitemane and getting the quest to take out the Glenmoril hagravens
Getting the pieces of the blade of Mehrunes’ Razor from Cracked Tusk Keep
Taking out the entire Glenmoril coven
Returning to Whiterun and finding out about Jorrvaskr being attacked
Clearing Driftshade Refuge with Vilkas
And last but not least, attending Kodlak’s funeral and getting the restored Wuuthrad from Eorlund Gray-Mane

Stay tuned!