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In Which Merawen Flees to Riften
This session pretty much amounted to doing the rest of the preliminary work to get Merawen established enough as Dragonborn that I could get to the point of failing to find the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller… and then bailing to Riften.
Highlights and commentary and such behind the fold!
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In Which the Dragonborn Scours the Land for Ingredients
This session was another low-key one, and mostly just focused on a) practicing more with the horse and b) running around getting ingredients for the side quest for Ingun Black-Briar in Riften. But I also eventually started working on one of the side quests from the Dawnguard, as well.
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In Which the Dragonborn Buys a Horse
This was a very low-key session as I was doing a bunch of side things, to take a break in between doing the Dawnguard plot and doing the Dragonborn plot. My main goals for this session were:
- Visit all my houses where I had loot stashes, and organize, sell, craft, or otherwise deal with a lot of the backlog of loot
- Visit all the towns I’m thane of and invest in any shops I hadn’t invested in yet
- Do the side quests on my queue from the college
- Visit Fort Dawnguard again and see if I could trigger the conversation to persuade Serana to cure her vampirism, and also see if I could trigger any Dawnguard side quests
- Experiment with a game feature I hadn’t played with: riding a horse!
And I did number five first, which helped out a lot with all the other goals for the night.
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In Which the Dragonborn Does a Whole Lot of Things Actually
This is a long one, so buckle up! Had multiple sessions yesterday, before and after dinner, and did a lot of things! Bought Proudspire Manor and the property where I could build Heljarchen Hall. Cleared out Raldbthar to get the second Aetherium Shard. Killed a whole lotta bandits. And kept having dead dragons drop on me in the middle of Whiterun!
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In Which Alarrah Becomes a Thane of Morthal
I’m afraid I broke my last Skyrim post’s mirror over to Dreamwidth, so for the benefit of those of you reading this post from there, here’s the link to my previous Skyrim writeup:
In Which the Dragonborn Goes to Morthal and Slays a Giant
And now we rejoin our regularly scheduled Dragonborn!
Tonight’s goal: finish off becoming Thane of Morthal, and seeing what all that actually gets me. Answer: my very own buildable house, yay! And a whole extra housecarl!
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In Which the Dragonborn Goes to Morthal and Slays a Giant
Still not entirely ready to take on main plot quests again, I decided for last night’s Skyrim run that my goal was going to be returning to Morthal and seeing if I could help a couple more of their people so that I could become Thane.
First, the obligatory shopping run. Got rid of a lot of things, and bought a few other things—including picking up some steel plate armor to better outfit Lydia, and some boots as well. That armor does not go well with the dwarven helmet and gauntlets. I need to get her a less silly looking helmet.
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In Which the Dragonborn Almost Loses Her Housecarl
Twitter thread from 5/14/2021, in which Alarrah goes hunting on the Whiterun plains, witnesses the Whiterun guards slaying a dragon, slays the dragon at Eldersblood Peak for Morthal, and buys Breezehome.
In Which the Dragonborn Almost Loses Her Housecarl, But Finds Her Again, and Also Finally Gets an Actual House:
1. Started tonight’s round of adventuring by clearing stuff out of the inventory.
10:47 PM · May 14, 2021So that meant doing more smithing with my leather from hunting, and also some alchemy with various things I’d harvested. Of note when I went into Warmaiden’s: OH HEY they got in a pair of Elven Boots! Why yes please I’ll have some!
10:48 PM · May 14, 20212. Then went out onto the plains to go hunting with Lyds. Took down a deer and a couple of mudcrabs; Lyds took out a sabre cat. Sneak made it up to 50.
10:49 PM · May 14, 20213. Spotted a bonfire from afar. Was advised by Paul that why yes that IS a giant campsite. We stayed very far and very sneakily away from it.!
10:49 PM · May 14, 20214. Wending my way back around towards Whiterun, as it was getting dark, nabbed some torchbugs and a couple of Luna Moths. And oh yeah another Nirnroot!
5. And there we are feeling all worked out from a nice afternoon of hunting, when suddenly ROOOOOOOOOAAAR overhead.
10:50 PM · May 14, 2021At this point I’d turned down the volume on the Switch because TV was being watched, so that roar first manifested as the device rumbling in my grasp. I thought “uh oh” and said out loud “Uh, why is the Switch rumbling?”
10:51 PM · May 14, 2021More ROOOOOOOOOAAR. Yep. Dragon. We got in a couple potshots at the thing until it finally LANDED RIGHT OUTSIDE WHITERUN, at which point I went “OH SHIT”, drew my sword, and ran to catch up.
10:51 PM · May 14, 20216. By the time I got there the guards had already killed it. But as I was in fact the Dragonborn, as soon as I got near I did slurp up its soul.
10:51 PM · May 14, 20217. Also noticed that the dragon had killed at least one of the guards! Hope it wasn’t one of those who’d been wandering around going “My cousin’s out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty.”
10:52 PM · May 14, 2021Let it also be noted for the record that I did NOT loot the dead guard, given that his compatriots were still _right there_, so that seemed unwise as well as disrespectful!
10:52 PM · May 14, 20218. Needless to say, after that surprise burst of end-of-day adrenaline, Alarrah felt it appropriate to go back to the inn and conk out.
10:53 PM · May 14, 20219. Next day: decided to take a crack at one of the other pending side quests, helping out a couple more of the people in Morthal to see if I can get that Jarl to declare me her thane. Got there, rented a room, and asked the innkeeper if she knew of any work to be had.
10:53 PM · May 14, 2021She handed me a bounty about ANOTHER dragon that had landed up on a nearby peak. “Right then,” Alarrah says to Lydia, “let’s go kill another dragon.”
10:54 PM · May 14, 202110. This was a short tromp southwest of Morthal, and I cut over there cross country. Bit challenging to sneak in snow, particularly on steep mountain slopes, but I eventually found my way up to the right place. And it was very obviously the right place because ROOOOAAAAAR.
10:55 PM · May 14, 202111. We found signs of a wiped out bandit camp as well as a dead Frost Troll, as indicators of having found the appropriate path up the mountain. Eventually started finding arches marking the path as well.
10:55 PM · May 14, 202112. Tried to take a few potshots at the dragon while it was flying overhead, after switching off to the better arrows. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do much damage to it, but its hit point bar did go down in size some.
10:56 PM · May 14, 202113. At Paul’s advice though I hastened further up the mountain, to get to a flat spot where I could take the beast on properly. And yeah, it landed and came at me. My leather armor took most of the damage, but I had to gulp down several of my healing potions to stay alive!
10:56 PM · May 14, 202114. Also finally managed to use Unrelenting Force a time or two in this combat, which is I think the first time I’ve managed to use a Shout in a proper fight.
15. AND remembered to actually block with my friggin’ shield. Which got me a bump of the Block skill.
10:57 PM · May 14, 202116. Good hard battle and I finally killed it… only to realize oh shit, where the fuck is Lydia?
10:57 PM · May 14, 2021A little concerned that the dragon might have killed her, I headed cautiously at Paul’s urging back down along the path I’d come to get there.
10:58 PM · May 14, 2021Grabbed loot out of a chest (including, notably, an Elven Shield to go with those boots) on the way, as well as hide off a cow the dragon had hauled up there, and Troll Fat off another downed troll.
10:58 PM · May 14, 2021At this point though I’m thinking Alarrah is also going “oh shit oh shit LYDIA” and maybe running a bit back down that path.
17. No sign of her, dead or otherwise. Dara and Paul both then suggested I fast travel back up to the top of the mountain to see if Lydia resets and catches up with me. And she did. WHEW!
10:59 PM · May 14, 2021Cue Alarrah going “OH THANK DIVINES c’mere you big brawny Nord goddess”. Maybe or maybe not in her Outside Voice. 😉
11:00 PM · May 14, 202118. With that, our weary heroines fast travelled back to Morthal and collected the bounty for the killing of the dragon. This got me up to just over 4500 gold, not quite enough to go back to Whiterun for the house.
11:00 PM · May 14, 2021So I popped into the thaumaturgist’s hut and sold her a bunch of potions, enough to kick me up over the 5000 mark. Also sold her the dragon bits as ingredients.
11:01 PM · May 14, 202119. This dragon killing did NOT, I note, actually tick over the “help the people of Hjaalmarch” quest to 2/3. I PROTEST. I think if the Jarl’s put out a call to kill a dragon haranguing her people, killing the damn thing helps ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Hrmph. 🙂
11:01 PM · May 14, 202120. Anyway, back to Whiterun to get the house!
21. Which proved surprisingly difficult, as I popped a couple of times into Dragonsreach and could not for the life of me find the Steward.
11:01 PM · May 14, 2021Finally had to go back to the inn one more time, keel over there for some rest, and go back to Dragonsreach the next morning.
22. At which point, finally, the Steward! Hey, dude, I have money, gimme the house mmkay?
11:02 PM · May 14, 202123. He gave me the key to the house! And now Lyds and I have actual crash space! Looks pretty pitiful at the moment being filled with mostly cobwebs and crates, so I need to throw more money at the Steward to pretty it up. But that will be for tomorrow’s adventuring!
11:02 PM · May 14, 202124. And oh yeah–finally discovered what that Nirnroot is good for. Potions of Invisibility! And got a guard going “You couldn’t possibly be the Dragonborn of legend. Could you?” at me. My rep, it is definitely spreading.
11:02 PM · May 14, 202125. And OH OH OH the other important thing I found in the second dragon’s chest: Meridia’s Beacon. Took that thing out and an otherworldly voice sounded off about how her shrine was profaned by darkness and I was going to go clean it up for her. “Wait,” says Alarrah, “I AM? WUT?”
11:07 PM · May 14, 2021Editing to add
- This post was originally written on 3/17/2022, but backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
- Post updated on 12/30/2022 to reconstruct the original Twitter thread in the post body, and remove links to Twitter.
- 11/30/2023: Corrected typo, edited the name of the Hold Morthal is in to “Hjaalmarch”.
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Yeah okay Skyrim IS pretty awesome
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve turned into a console gamer thanks to Paul giving me a Switch!
And I gotta say, while Animal Crossing continues to be highly entertaining, I’m getting just as much enjoyment out of playing Skyrim. I’ve been doing play by plays of my progress on both Facebook and Twitter, since multiple people are telling me they’re highly enjoying experiencing Skyrim again through my first-time eyes.
So I’m not going to go into the play by plays here, but what I will do is talk some about overall things I’m really enjoying about the game play experience.
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Next round of Skyrim catchup
Twitter thread from 5/9/2021, in which Alarrah does a lot of smithing and crafting and selling, and then sets out in search of the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller.
Next round of Skyrim catchup since I did play a bit more before I went to bed last night:
1:15 PM · May 9, 20211. Hung out at Warmaiden’s to make some stuff. I had enough leather on me to make three leather armors, which turned out to be better than the Imperial armor I was wearing. Gave one to Lydia, put one on myself, and sold the remaining one
1:15 PM · May 9, 20212. Also made a better helmet, and some boots
3. AND since I had silver and garnets on me, made my first ring
1:16 PM · May 9, 20214. Which I then enchanted. I had a couple of magical armor items on me, and Paul told me I could take those up to Dragonsreach to destroy them on the wizard’s enchanter table so I could learn their enchantments.
1:16 PM · May 9, 2021And since I ALSO had some Petty Soul Gems on me, with actual Petty Souls in them, I was able to enchant the ring I made. Which will now give me a 1% boost in Alchemy making potions. Yay? 😉
1:17 PM · May 9, 20215. While I was up at Dragonsreach, took the stewart the sword his daughter asked me to give him. Dude gave me 20 gold for the trouble. Gee thanks!
1:18 PM · May 9, 20216. Took a screencap of what the new armor looks like, and I do like that better than the last stuff I was wearing. Also took a screencap of Lydia from the back when I got a look at her greatsword and HOLY CRAP THAT THING IS AS TALL AS SHE IS
1:18 PM · May 9, 20217. Was surprised and pleased to learn from Paul that orcish weapons are actually better than what I was carrying on me. I’m used to the stereotype of orcish weaponry being shitty in Nethack, but not so here.
1:18 PM · May 9, 2021So I nabbed an orcish bow at the Drunken Huntsman, and since I had an ingot of orichalcum on me that I’d found as loot, I also got to improve it
1:19 PM · May 9, 20218. Since I was also lugging around dragon bones and dragon scales that I’d gotten off killing the two dragons I’ve killed so far, Paul heartily advised me to get those sold and out of my inventory, because ZOMG HEAVY.
1:20 PM · May 9, 2021Problem was, I kinda wiped out Belethor’s gold supply in the general store and nobody else in Whiterun would buy those from me. So at Paul’s suggestion I fast travelled to Riften and sold them there
1:20 PM · May 9, 20219. While in Riften, I triggered the opening hook for the Dawnguard DLC plotline, when some dude came up to me and was all “we’re recruiting for the Dawnguard to deal with the rising vampire menace!”
1:21 PM · May 9, 2021Given that I had literally just finished clearing out a vampire nest, I was kinda not in the mood to deal with additional vampire-related plotlines–and also I’m PRETTY sure I’m not quite powerful enough to take on that plot yet, so I told him I wasn’t interested
1:21 PM · May 9, 202110. Some other dude named Maul made snarky commentary at me about watching my back on Riften’s streets, and dropped hints about Maven Black-briar.
1:21 PM · May 9, 2021I played innocent because yeah not really ready to deal with Riften’s local thieves-related drama yet, even though Paul is a huge huge fan of the Thieves’ Guild and is urging me down that path, lol
1:22 PM · May 9, 202111. Really though I was mostly just in Riften to sell stuff, so I went to the shop Paul recommended and sold the dude my bits of dragon. Then fast travelled right back to Whiterun!
1:22 PM · May 9, 2021Me: Lydia’s all “You dragged me all the way to Riften just for this?” “Yeah, and now I’m dragging you all the way back to Whiterun!”
Paul: “I’m the BEST BOSS. And if you’re REALLY good, I’ll let you go kill another bunch of draugr!”
Me: “Oh wait we’re doing that next!”
1:23 PM · May 9, 202112. Got the inventory back down to a much more manageable weight, and then fast travelled back to Morthal to get situated to go after the horn
1:23 PM · May 9, 202113. The locale for the horn turns out to not be that much farther northeast of the vampire nest we cleared out. Found the place after just a little bit of tromping across the marsh.
1:24 PM · May 9, 2021Also found a bandit camp, and two bandits and a necromancer came charging at us yelling YOU’RE PATHETIC, for about five seconds before Lydia killed them
14. And at the entrance to the barrow, that seemed like a good place to stop and save
1:24 PM · May 9, 2021Tune in next time for the recounting of how many draugr and how much loot we nab in the search for the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller!
1:24 PM · May 9, 2021Notes
- This post was written on 3/16/2022, but backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
- Post updated on 12/27/2022 to reconstruct the Twitter thread in full in this post, and remove all links to Twitter.
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More Adventures with Alarrah the Dragonborn
Twitter thread from 5/8/2021 in which Alarrah slays a dragon, saves Morthal from vampires, and gets offers of thaneship from both Morthal and Falkreath. And in which Alarrah’s player finally learns how to frigging aim, and also, why it’s a very bad idea to leave the game idling when you’re in a shop that’s about to close.
More Adventures with Alarrah the Dragonborn and Her Long-suffering (and Smartassed) Housecarl Lydia:
1) Discovered that the house I needed to investigate, the one owned by Alva, was of course locked.
8:10 PM · May 8, 2021Given my last experience with lockpicking I was reluctant to try to do it with guards wandering around right behind me–so I wandered off for a bit, thinking to wait for dark and just harvest and hunt some
8:11 PM · May 8, 20212) Got a bead on an elk just southeast of the town, and actually managed to shoot it down–at which point I heard a VERY PROBLEMATIC ROAR overhead, and oh shit dragon!
8:11 PM · May 8, 20213) Managed to kill it and absorb its soul, which let me unlock the third Shout I’d picked up earlier, and really Alarrah was kind of a little fruck out about this, I think. 😉 “We… uh… actually killed it? Yay? I just wanted to shoot the elk…?”
8:12 PM · May 8, 20214) Paul encouraged me to take a crack at the door anyway, just to make sure I was sneaking. Turned out though that the lockpicking wasn’t anything my Sneak couldn’t handle. Got in even though it was an Adept-level lock…
8:14 PM · May 8, 20215) … and promptly got attacked by both Alva _and_ Hroggar. Who were both quickly dispatched
8:20 PM · May 8, 20216) Went down into Alva’s cellar and found her coffin, and her journal, which ever so helpfully totally laid out her evil plan–which involved helping her master vampire take over the town
8:20 PM · May 8, 20217) Took this journal back to the Jarl, who went “THAT BITCH” (justified), but also “So go kill this master vampire for me”.
8:21 PM · May 8, 2021To which Alarrah went .oO (Say WHAT NOW), at least up until the point where the Jarl also said “And I’ve gathered some warriors for you to lead to go wipe out the vampire nest”
8:22 PM · May 8, 20218) I was pretty on board with leading a group of villagers into battle, but the villagers, not so much. They followed me to the lair, but stayed outside while Lydia and I actually went in there to clear the place
8:22 PM · May 8, 20219) Enemy tally: couple of frostbite spiders, a few vampire thralls, and the master vampire himself. Who turned out to be a PROBLEM.
8:23 PM · May 8, 2021He wiped me out in hand to hand combat multiple times, at which point I fell back to the strategy of “okay can I pick him off from a distance even though my archery is kind of ass?”
8:24 PM · May 8, 202110) Right about here was the part where I learned something very, very important. I was telling Paul where I was in the game, and he went “so put your aiming dot on him and hit him with your arrows”.
8:25 PM · May 8, 2021Me: “I don’t have an aiming dot what aiming dot OH SHIT OKAY THAT AIMING DOT”. I had somehow never managed to register that that symbol right in the middle of the screen _is also to help you aim_.
8:26 PM · May 8, 2021This is not a thing I have to give a shit about in casual games, so I feel like I can be forgiven for not figuring this out until now. 😀
8:26 PM · May 8, 202111) Also with Paul’s advice, I blew some of my poison potions on my bow, and managed to actually hit the master vampire a few times and do him enough serious damage that Lydia was able to finish him off with _her_ bow. GO LYDS! \0/
8:27 PM · May 8, 202112) This strategy bumped my sneak up several points, AND also bumped me to level 9. Tasty!
13) Also finally got to use the Candlelight spell, which made searching the rest of the lair (and taking out a few remaining pissed off thralls) a lot easier
8:28 PM · May 8, 202114) On the way out, found the little girl’s ghost, who told me her mother was much happier now and she was ready to go to sleep. Aw. <3
8:28 PM · May 8, 202115) Found all the villagers still outside the barrow being all LET’S KILL THE VAMPIRE! Too late, folks, Lyds and I already did it, and frankly you’re all better off, because seriously do none of you people actually have any armor?
8:29 PM · May 8, 202116) On the way back to report to the Jarl, got found by a courier who ran up and handed me a letter from an entirely different Jarl, the Jarl of Falkreath–who basically said “you have a rep, you seem pretty badass, wanna come be my thane?”
8:29 PM · May 8, 202117) So, went back to the Jarl to tell her “okay yeah so that vampire problem? Sorted”. She then offered to make me her thane, too, but if and only if I helped three people of her town. Which triggered a new quest.
8:30 PM · May 8, 2021At least the whole vampire thing counted as the first of these, so I only have to help two more of her people
18) Remembering that I really do still have to go get that horn for the Greybeards, decided to follow Paul’s advice and fast travel back to Whiterun
8:32 PM · May 8, 202119) And this was the part where I learned another very important thing: do not actually leave the game idling. And if you do, for the love of the Divines DO NOT DO IT WHILE YOU’RE IN A SHOP THAT’S ABOUT TO CLOSE.
8:32 PM · May 8, 2021Found out this results in the shop staff getting pissed at you for trespassing, and then the guards come running in, and Lydia starts wailing on them with her steel greatsword, and NO NO NO STOP REWIND okay shit I guess I need to go back to my last savepoint
8:33 PM · May 8, 202120) Whiterun, take two: went to the inn and slept until the next morning, and THEN sold my stuff; practically wiped out all the gold the general store guy had. Levelled up to level 10 while I was in there, on the boost to my Persuasion perk for selling him stuff
8:33 PM · May 8, 202121) Went to the forge as well to sell stuff as well as make new armor out of some of the raw materials I was carrying around; while there, the forge owner asked me if I’d take a sword for her up to the steward in Dragonsreach…
8:34 PM · May 8, 2021…since he’s her father and would know when to present the sword to the Jarl; was willing to do this, partly because the forge owner is nice, but also because this at least smells like less drama?
8:34 PM · May 8, 2021Oh who am I kidding of course they’ll be drama. So we’ll just have to see whether or not I can go get the horn first. 😉
8:35 PM · May 8, 2021Notes
- This post was written on 3/16/2022, but backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
- Post updated on 12/28/2022, to reconstruct the Twitter thread in the body of the post, and remove links to Twitter.