In Which Elessir Helps a Bunch of Rieklings

And now, swinging back to get caught up on Elessir’s Skyrim run! This is a pretty short post, covering Solstheim action played at the end of this past August. Mostly involving running the Thirsk Mead Hall plot, and the one to get the netch leather armor from the AE.

Play by play

• Play date: 8/30/2024
• Session number in this run: 55
• Slept at Severin Manor
• Thrown back to Miraak’s Temple and the Tree Stone; see previous commentary re: creepy!
• But this was conveniently close to Saering’s Watch, so I hoofed it north-ish from there
• Found Snowclad Ruins en route; fought and dispatched werebears
• Serana caught up with me just after that battle, since I’d gotten ahead of her again
• Marked Benkongerike for the map, but first went over to Saering’s Watch
• Took out the dragon–and Miraak soul-sniped me, fucking Miraak
• Took out assorted draugr and then also got the word for Bend Will off the Word Wall, which got me the objective to go clear the Wind Stone
• But first, went back to Benkongerike and ran it, since I wanted the Black Market power
• Did a surgical strike on the place and ignored most of the loot opportunities
• And of course Serana raised assorted rieklings
• Did nab all the copies of Lusty Argonian Maid, LOL
• Got word for Cyclone off the Word Wall
• Reached and ran the Black Book
• Got skill points for Light Armor, Lockpicking, and Archery off of skill books read in there
• Took the Black Market power!
• Then went to the Wind Stone; blew it up and liberated the Skaal
• Reported back to Storn in the village, and got objectives to clear the rest of the Stones and go talk to Neloth
• Sold assorted stuff to Baldor the smith
• Got quest off of Wuld to find his brother, and also got him to train me in Two-handed
• Afterwards, headed off again, and killed ice wraith en route to the camp with the dead guy near the village
• Got the journal there and kicked off the plot for stalhrim fur armor
• Swung by Thirsk Mead Hall, and decided to go ahead and run the place in favor of the rieklings
• Got the wandering bristleback back for the tribe by giving him clam meat
• Got objective to bring the chief some redgrass
• Read the peddler’s journal so i could get the objective to go talk to the other rieklings, and hoofed it over there to do so
• Got objective to go help the hunting party (and other options, but fuck it, i always help the hunting party)
• Proceeded southward and found Bujold’s Retreat, but did not engage
• Picked a bunch of scathecraw as I passed it
• Marked Nchardak for the map
• Marked the Sun Stone for the map, but didn’t clear it yet, instead went and helped the riekling hunting party
• Spotted husky puppy when I went back to the riekling island
• Talked to the chief and got access to the stuff in the chest
• Returned to Thirsk and turned in the scathecraw
• Then helped the rieklings take out bujold and her crew
• Then of course had to take out the riekling chief when he turned on me, and oh goody now I’m a riekling chief 😉
• Went back towards Tel Mithryn
• Decided to try to camp on an open spot close to the Sun Stone
• Gathered firewood and slept at the camp
• Aaaaaand woke up at the Earth Stone, HOW CONVENIENT
• Blew that up right good, then returned to Severin Manor
• Called up dremora merchant and sold him stuff
• Read the netch leather crafting guide, but didn’t have enough mats on me to make a full set of the armor
• Went back out again and gave Milore her netch jelly, and sold Fethis another pendant
• Then boinged to the Sun Stone, blew that up right good, and headed back to camp
• Took out a lurker en route
• Found a mage fight near my campsite, and dispatched both surly mages
• Returned to camp and saved there for the night

Commentary

This was by and large a fairly standard Solstheim session, aside from having Serana as my follower. And even with Serana along, there wasn’t too much out of the ordinary with her, either.

Though I do feel like Serana should have had some amusing commentary on things that happened in this session, though:

1. Being a bristleback herder for the rieklings
2. Probably doing her damndest to keep from laughing out loud at Elessir getting proclaimed the new chief of the rieklings, for that matter
3. And, this whole recurring thing with Elessir sleepwalking off to various All-Maker Stones while Miraak still had control over them

I also wonder about how Serana’s behavior might have changed, once Lucien elected to stay at Dumzbthar. I can definitely see a scenario here where, in Lucien’s absence, Serana and Elessir may well have gotten uncomfortably aware of each other in the romantic sense. 😉 Definitely seeing an uptick in snark on both their parts, though never with malice.

Also, Serana must surely have freaked out a bit every time Elessir walked off to start working on an All-Maker Stone. Which raises another question, since this has never been clear to me in any playthrough of Skyrim: if the assumption here is that you walked in your trance to go work on an All-Maker Stone along with anybody else there, are your followers also impacted?

Did Serana also sleepwalk to All-Maker Stones? Did Lucien?

Or did Serana manage to elude Miraak’s control because she’s a vampire?

And it must surely have occurred to Elessir that if he is vulnerable to Miraak hijacking his brain and making him walk off to work on a shrine, what does this mean for Lucien? I expect he kept reflexively looking for any sign of an enthralled Lucien showing up at the three All-Maker Stones he cleared in this session.

Next time

Elessir’s next post will be more Solstheim action, this time running Nchardak!

Screenshots