WARNING: ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM SPOILERS!
Death, Devotion and Darkness
A little shaken up after the ordeal with Sanguine, the team carried on with our routine of clearing out caves and tombs going on artifact hunts or killing bandits for bounties. Lydia seemed more agreeable than she used to be, but her Familiar didn’t seem to get on well with Vigilance. They had a few snapping matches between each other.
The guy who had sent us after Guardian animals had sent us to hunt a few tougher customers, including this guy.
Fortunately, my new friend Kenny was available to give an extra hand in slaying the beast.
One of the bounties we went after was a giant who had been causing some trouble. We fixed him, but left him broken.
Giant slaying team!
On our way to help some dead lovers or something, we spotted that dragon again in the middle of resurrecting a friend! He flew away before finishing though and left a half awake dragon underground. I shouted ‘Whirlwind’ and the dragon replied that I should only bother talking to him if I had something worth saying. Rude.
So anyway, we found the two lovers.
And brought them together. They floated away happily. Nice to have a change from all the slaughtering I’ve been doing lately.
Headed back to Whiterun as I do every so often to drop off my loot before it gets too heavy to carry and was called to meet up with a couple of the Companion leaders Skjor and Aela. Aela was there in beast form.
It was an interesting meeting. Lydia and Vigilance weren’t allowed in and uh yeah..
Now I’m a werewolf…
When I came back to myself, Aela had brought me out with her to give her a hand and wipe out a band of Silver Hand guys hiding out in a fort.
I’d left Lydia behind at Whiterun. I’m not sure how she’d have felt about this anyway and I figured she was well due a rest. Besides I was getting fed up of the bickering between her familiar and Vigilance, which she had started taking personally and taken a few swipes of her own at the poor doggy.
Aela and I destroyed the Silver Hand, though they were tougher than we expected. I tried out my beast form on them again and it seemed they were totally in the practice of killing werewolves.
A pic of me.
So anyway, I’ve been accepted into the Thieves Guild properly now and they’re giving me all the dirty jobs just like everyone else in this damn country. Met the boss Mercer Frey.
Headed back to the College to drop something off for Arniel Gane who keeps asking for help in his experiment. While I was there I grabbed Onmund, another student, to come and help me out with some practical work. I figured it will help his studies to get some real experience.
All armoured up:
It was a bad sign when I went out to the College Roof and neither Onmund or Vigilance followed me out. Especially seeing as a Frost Dragon attacked at that very moment.
I single handedly defeated the bugger but it’s left a nasty mess on my lovely tower.
Went back in to find my ‘companions’ looking quite sheepish for not being there.
I was quite annoyed so I made them look at what they had left me to deal with. Vigilance felt particularly sorry so I decided to forgive.
Bought myself a nice little place in Riften called Honeyside..
And was assigned another housecarl in the shape of Iona. She seems even more grumpy than Lydia.
I paid for a garden, and it came with chickens. Nice to have pets, but I’ll leave it to Iona to feed them.
The guys at the stables have been nice enough to let me make use of their horses. I’ve taken this one. I call her Snowberry.
I left Riften via the docks and was asked by a half crazy Argonian to take away a Lexicon. Whatever that is. I agreed, but decided it best to get rid as soon as possible in case I ended up like her. She told us to go here. Nice place.
Maybe it was the Lexicon doing it, but somehow we were shown visions of what happened when the Argonian had been here before.
I’m glad they had come through first and killed plenty of the guards.
Apparently it hadn’t ended so well for all of them though.
We could see why as we carried on. Onmund nearly didn’t make it himself.
In fact it wasn’t until we’d got out of the place that he got his breath back.
This was something I’d hoped could be avoided ever since first seeing one of the buggers…
But if Lydia could do it, then so could I!
The last of the first team…
Onmunds first dragon kill. Making up for last time.
My next job for the Thieves Guild meant breaking in to a high security mansion and emptying a safe to find some documents and then leaving them a powerful message. I got dolled up in thief gear and had my team wait at Honeyside.
The target: Goldenglow Estate.
Job done. Admittedly with more dead guards than I had hoped..
Met the revellers again. Not so much revelry going on this time though.
I decided Vigilance should stay safe at Honeyside while we went out adventuring. He did get under my feet a lot while I was swinging my axe.
After passing through another dungeon and battling an ancient warrior ghost I decided that Onmund wasn’t cut out for adventures either. He’d spent most of the time on the floor while Kenny and I did all the work so I told him to go back to the College.
I went past Whiterun again and found Louis Letrush had been experimenting again.
Not long after I picked up a new ally: Kharjo. His job was being a trained guard, so I figured he’d be handy in a scrap.
Kharjo had an early chance to prove himself when we rode past a fort full of tough bandits being attacked by a dragon.
For some reason both enemies decided we were the bigger threat. Proved to be true and we came away as the only survivors carrying a nice lot of loot!
Left this book where it was though…
He was a dog person.
I was a little confused by Kharjos choice of headwear.
We came to help some orcs who felt like their god had cursed them. Their leader was told by Malacath that to redeem himself he must kill the leader of the tribe of giants that had been causing them trouble.
The leader, Cheif Yamarz was convinced that this was my fault and insisted that I went along with him and make sure he made it out alive.
I’ve done better…
Malacath was happy anyway. The giant was dead and so was the supposedly useless orc.
He gave me a nice warhammer called Volendrung as a reward. Although I felt a bit like I hadn’t been much use seeing as their was only one orc in the camp who had survived the whole ordeal. Poor Atub, all alone in that place. Probably waiting for one last giant revenge attack to finish her off.
I let Kharjo borrow the warhammer. I prefer my axe.
Went back to the College again, dropping something off for Arniel again. While there Brelyna Maryon asked if she could test a spell on me. For some reason I agreed. For the next ten minutes I could only see green..
After that, she turned me into a cow, a horse and dog before finally thanking me for my help and giving up. I felt it was time to leave too.
Kharjo and I carried on with the dungeon, cave and tomb routine for a while. I found a Staff of Paralysis which I let Kharjo have. I suppose not being much used to using magic he overcompensated. This bandit was left braindead. I didn’t have the heart to kill him. We’d already slaughtered the rest of his gang and destroyed his brain. We left him to continue standing there staring at the wall..
I figured it wasn’t wise to keep a Daedric Prince waiting so it was about time to go find that priest Molag Bal was after. We rescued him from some Forsworn but even after clearing out the entire camp and sparing him he wasn’t convinced we were there to help.
I had to convince him to let me undo his bonds! He seemed quite happy to stay where he was and not be rescued. I very nearly left, but that nagging feeling of an all powerful Daedric Prince on my back made me sort it out.
On the way back to Markath a dragon attacked. A group of Thalmor were nearby and helped us kill it.
We made it back to Markath and the priest was trapped in the cage as I had been.
Molag Bal then asked me to beat up the priest. I had already decided I didn’t much like the arrogant git so was happy to rough him up a bit.
Molag Bal was satisfied with that and then told me to finish him off. I hesitated, but Kharjo was happy to do it for me..
Molag Bal let me keep the nifty mace as a reward.
We headed out and passed through a ruin on the way to our next stop. Some strange coloured people started spitting green acid at us. We didn’t much like that obviously so we killed them but didn’t stick around.
I found Kharjo an orcish helmet, but it didn’t seem to fit properly so he somehow stretched it out.
He also found a staff that let him summon up his own friend. My Flame Atronach who I have taken to calling Flamborghini seemed to enjoy the company.
Our next stop found us meeting a somewhat friendly Hagraven called Melka who needed help taking back her tower from a her sister Petra. We were happy to help.
Went back to Markarth. All this adventuring was good for lining the wallet. I emptied it a bit and got a nice new place called Vlindrel Hall.
Me in my new place.
My lazy new housecarl Argis the Bulwark.
Finally made our way to Solitude. Heard a lot about the place and had a whole lot of people asking me to go there and do them favours. On arrival the first thing we saw was a guy being executed for opening a gate. Seems harsh.
I haven’t yet made up my mind about joining a side in the war, both sides seem to have reasonable motives. The only thing I have noticed though is that the Empire seem pretty happy handing out executions. I mean I was on the chopping block merely for waking up in the wrong place. If someone put a knife to my throat and forced me to choose I’d probably join the Stormcloaks.
Some crazy guy started raving at me about how he needed to get back to his master and that I should look in one of the castle wings to get him. I don’t know why I followed the advice of a madman, but I did and ended up being transported somewhere very strange with a new set of clothes.
Some people were having a chat and a feast.
Turned out one of the peoples was Sheogorath, prince of madness and he had put me inside the other mans mind: Pelagius an age old emperor who had gone mad.
To get out I had to help Pelagius with his madness. Sheogorath gave me a staff called a Wabbajack to do this.
It was a weird place and I had little idea of what the Wabbajack would do for me next.
I was pleased to get out of there, and Sheogorath even let me keep the Wabbajack, though I wasn’t sure what use it would be…
For the Theives Guild I had to stalk a guy called Gulum-Ei and find out what he was up to. Kharjo didn’t seem to get the hang of sneaking..
Bright lights don’t help! And you’re a Khajit! You have night vision!
I had him wait outside while I continued stalking Gulum-Ei alone.
My sneaking turned out to not be too up to scratch either and a guard found me. I used the Wabbajack. Surprisingly, he turned into a pile of gold and pitchforks…
After getting the information I needed from Gulum-Ei, Kharjo and I continued our adventures.
Delphine needed me to infiltrate a party because she believed that the Thalmor were behind the dragons returning. I got in ok.
Pretty dull party though.
I needed a distraction to slip away. So I bought a drink for this guy.
He was all too happy to make an exhibition of himself. I was a little disappointed I couldn’t stick around to see what happened. But I had to sneak off and find some clues.
As before.. sneaking didn’t end well.
I got the info that the Thalmor were trying to discover what was behing the dragons too and were torturing people to do it. One more mark against the Empire for being allied with these guys. I rescued the one prisoner who told me that the Thalmor were after a guy called Esbern who was meant to know what was going on.
I dropped off some stuff at Markarth…
..before heading back to Delphine, who told me to find Esbern. Turns out he’s another of the Blades.
I found him in the Ratway, under the protection of the Thieves Guild. The Thalmor had got here first though and we had to fight through a bunch of them to get to him.
I decided it would be useful to have an extra pair of hands about, so took a longer route back to Riverwood to meet Delphine, doing a couple of jobs on the way.
We went back to Delphine and she joined us too. We were supposed to be going to a secret Blades hideout but I figured this was a good time to go after some more bounties and treasures.
Stopped off at the College to give Arniel the last thing he needed for his experiment. He invited me to watch him complete what he was doing. I’m not sure what his intention was, but now he’s dead and I have the power to summon his spirit at any time.
As I was ready to leave the College, an Elder Dragon attacked. I’m not sure if the target was the College, or me and the Blades but it didn’t take long for myself, Kharjo, the two Blades and the entire College faculty to teach it a lesson.
The gang.
Mercer Frey had asked me to help him go after Karliah, a Thieves Guild traitor. I decided I would help him after he had helped me with a few things. The gang got an extra member!
Seems as though the Thalmor figured out it was me who hit them at the party. We were officially enemies. Well.. I was going to try and find a diplomatic way to rescue the Battle-Born boy, but they have forced my hand. When I get round to it, I’m storming in with my posse and wiping them out.
Went into a dungeon looking for a Gaulder Amulet fragment and half the team got seperated!
On the way out we saw an odd floating sword. Thought it best to leave it alone.
Stopped at Morthal where the Jarl was having problems with ghost stories. A house had been burned down and the people were claiming it was cursed. So I was roped in to investigate.
True it WAS haunted, by a little girl who died there, but the cause was a lot worse. Vampires. When the truth came out, the towns people rose up in force and marched to a nearby cave where the head vampire was meant to live.
On arrival, all but one of them lost their nerve. Thonnir was ready to go in alone and take on whatever he met.
I decided a better idea would be for him to come along with me for a while and I would help him later. I was quite liking that people were doing things for me for a change.
So with a good size gang, it was time to head out and clear some more caves.
The team was much better at dispatching dragons than I had been by myself.
Together we went and retrieved a song book deep in a cave that the Bards of Solitude were after.
A friendly ghost helped us find it, then helped us fight our way out through a horde of Draugr. It was a very tough fight. I don’t think I would have made it if I didn’t have my small army!
Myself, Kharjo, Esbern, Delphine, Mercer Frey, Thonnir, Arniel Gane, Kharjos Storm Atronach, Esberns Frost Atronach and the Friendly Ghost. (I figure that was the poet)
By the end only the ghost and I were still standing. Everyone else had to pick themselves up once all the Draugr had been destroyed. Madness.
Finally learned a second Shout for Whirlwind Sprint too. Been desperate for that ever since I learned the first all that time ago.
We travelled on, on the hunt for the final piece of the Gauldur Amulet. We went into the cave. I noticed a hole in the cave cieling.
I doubled checked outside, and couldn’t find it. What odd magic!
We grabbed the amulet piece and moved on. The next stop was the hunt for Azura’s Star. We had to go through a strange sunken fort.
On the way there Thonnir seemed to attract a hungry friend. It was quite funny to watch it keep nipping his behind while he yelled “What are you doing?!”
Dragons seem to be turning up the heat, turning up slightly more often now. Not that they’re much trouble for the team.
Anyway. I have unfinished business with the Dark Brotherhood. The next port of call..
Part 6 ‘No Rest For The Reincarnated’ Here
Chapter List Here
