In Which Kendeshel Slays the Glenmoril Coven

There’s a big gap between my previous session of Kendeshel in Skyrim and this one–about six months. Part of this is because I decided I was going to go through Finds-the-Way’s and Elessir’s playthroughs, and finish them off before I swung back around to Kendeshel. As of this writing, Kendeshel’s playthrough is now actually finished, but her posts are not.

So here’s me swinging back around to get caught up on Kendeshel’s posts! Main action here is moving the Companions questline along, but with a side helping of working on Mehrunes’ Razor. So this post is fairly light on the commentary, since most of this is stuff I’d played before.

This post contains one very minor spoiler for Legacy of the Dragonborn (a custom location for an artifact normally found during the Fishing quests of the AE).

Play by play

• Play date: 9/29/2024
• Session number in this run: 44
• Picked up again at the museum
• Placed the Dragon Elder Scroll on display–or at least, a replica of it
• Also placed the Golden Urn I’d somehow managed to acquire even though Kendeshel wasn’t running the Thieves Guild; that went into the Hall of Secrets
• Placed Noble Gilded Wristguards, which I’d managed to get hold of even though Kendeshel also wasn’t running the Dark Drotherhood
• Slept at the Safehouse
• Talked to Latoria the next morning to see what she’d done with the latest round of Ruined Books
• Then headed down to Whiterun, with Lydia as backup
• Khajiit camp was on site, so stopped to talk to them; didn’t save in screenshots whether I actually sold anything to Ri’saad, though
• Killed a wolf near the crossroads
• Got the bandits and dead Breton with necklace encounter near White River Watch
• Took out a sabre cat, then another wolf
• Found Wintersun’s Altar to Rajhin
• Passed M’aiq the Liar at the bridge near Hillgrund’s Tomb
• Cut through the woods and fought a bear and a couple of hostiles that might have been necromancers? (Screenshots were not clear)
• Took out the troll near the river again, which had respawned
• Located Wintersun’s Statue of Phynaster
• Finally made it to Geirmund’s Hall, made camp, and slept the night
• Fished in the morning to get Swims-In-Deep-Water’s lucky fishing hat
• Ran Geirmund’s Hall and got the piece of the amulet from in there
• Also found another Nordic Dig Site, which kicked my Archaeology skill up to 46
• Found another Dragon Priest Cloak in there
• Once done there, killed a troll on the way to Sarethi Farm
• Spotted dragon in the air, but it was a flyby
• Arrived late at the farm, so camped out again to wait for morning
• Talked to Avrusa in the morning and gave her the news about Sinderion, and the crimson nirnroot
• Got Avrusa’s quest to bring her Jazbay grapes
• Leveled up Heimdall the horse via Convenient Horses
• Returned to Whiterun, then headed to Riften, and set out from there for Broken Helm Hollow
• Found dead bandit and peaceful horse not far from Riften’s gate
• Took out a frostbite spider right near the horse
• Found Imperial soldiers fighting dremora on the bridge leading to Broken Helm Hollow; there were also dead Vigilants nearby, so the dremora vs. Vigilants encounter must have spawned at the same time as the soldiers
• Harvested the nirnroot under that bridge
• Found and ran Broken Helm Hollow to retrieve a missing fragment of Wuuthrad
• Got an Orc blood sample for Septimus off one of the Silver Hand in there
• Took out everybody in there courtesy of my weapons + Lyds + summoned daedroths
• Killed another wolf on the way back to Riften
• Sold stuff to Bersi at the Pawned Prawn
• Then returned to Whiterun and checked in with Aela to tell her I had the fragment
• Asked her for additional work but she pointed me at Kodlak, so went to have the conversation with him
• Got the quest to go take out the Glenmoril witches
• Headed over to take care of that, and also to swing by Cracked Tusk Keep
• Fought respawned bandits on fortification near Lakeview; got Wood Elf blood sample off of them
• Ran Cracked Tusk Keep to get the shards of the blade of Mehrunes’ Razor
• Boinged to Hendraheim to get closer to the Glenmoril Coven cave
• Took out all the witches and got their heads
• Unsurprised to find a Shrine of Hircine added into that cavern
• Returned to Whiterun and OHNOEZ Jorrvaskr has been attacked! And OHNOEZ Kodlak is dead!
• Settle the fuck down, Vilkas, I was following Kodlak’s direct orders
• And goddammit, they took the fragments? I JUST GOT ONE OF THOSE BACK!
• Set out with Vilkas for Driftshade Refuge
• Killed sabre cat en route
• Fought some cultists and got yet another blood sample off of them
• Went past a Stormcloak soldier who was all I’LL FIGHT THE ENTIRE LEGION MYSELF IF THEY DARE SHOW THEIR FACES HERE
• Son, I am a legate of the Legion, and I was on hand for the death of Ulfric Stormcloak, you are aware the war is over, yes? Don’t make me drive that point home a little more forcefully
• Ran and cleared Driftshade Refuge with Vilkas, and got the fragments of Wuuthrad back
• Also found the Warlock’s Ring, since Driftshade Refuge is apparently where Legacy puts it, instead of it being a thing you fish up during the Fishing quests
• This let me complete one of the Auryen’s Notes quests
• Returned to Whiterun with Vilkas, and attended Kodlak’s funeral
• Did epilogue scene in the Underforge, and cue Eorlund Gray-Mane showing up with the reforged Wuuthrad!
• And that was an excellent place to stop for the session

Handling how to display the Elder Scrolls at the museum

Not gonna lie, I felt like Kendeshel was a little dubious about putting actual Elder Scrolls on display in the museum. Which doesn’t make too much sense on her part–on the grounds that this is after all a museum that also contains a metric boatload of Daedric artifacts, many of which are equally dangerous to the untrained.

But most of those Daedric artifacts are stored behind wards. Not all of them–I was surprised to learn later in this playthrough (more on this to come) that the Black Books of Hermaeus Mora are not under wards. And neither are the Elder Scrolls.

There is space for them in the Hall of Heroes, and you do at least put them up behind a locked gate. But gates can be unlocked.

So I decided that I was going to leave replicas of the Elder Scrolls in the museum.

Altar to Rajhin and Statue of Phynaster

On the way to Geirmund’s Hall, I finally marked the location of the Altar of Rajhin, added into the game by Wintersun. This is not to be confused with the Shrine of Rajhin which was actually on the site in question.

So I’ll make a note here for future reference, especially given that my Tuxborn run does include Wintersun: there’s a difference between the location name, and any actual shrine on that location. I’ll do my best to set the location tags on relevant posts accordingly.

Either way, the shrine would not of course accept me as a follower, as Kendeshel was not a Khajiit. I did get a Lockpicking blessing off of praying at the shrine, though!

Same deal with the shrine of Phynaster. That one wouldn’t take me as a worshipper since Kendeshel was not a Breton, a High Elf, or a Wood Elf. But its blessing was a 10% boost to making potions and poisons, nice!

Shrine of Hircine in Glenmoril Coven

And speaking of Wintersun changes, I was entirely unsurprised to find a Shrine of Hircine in the cavern where the Glenmoril hagravens lived.

The shrine asked me if I wanted to follow Hircine; I declined. Because seriously, if I’m in there to kill all the witches and take their heads so that Kodlak can stop being a werewolf, it seems fairly hypocritical for me to then follow Hircine and keep being a werewolf.

Of course, that presupposes you’re disinclined to remain a werewolf to begin with. Kendeshel has so far been only the third character with which I’ve run the Companions, and each time, I’ve eventually given up on the beast blood. Were I playing a character who specifically wanted to remain a werewolf, I suppose I could see myself killing just one of the witches to satisfy Kodlak’s request–and then stopping at the shrine to explicitly pray for Hircine’s overlooking this little hunt of mine.

But Kendeshel? She was totally on board with wiping out all of the witches, for the stunt they’d pulled on the Companions.

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will also be fairly light, and will feature going to Ysgramor’s Tomb, as well as making a side visit to Nilheim and bringing Jazbay grapes back to Avrusa.

Screenshots