The Elder Scrolls Roleplay Playthrough Thread

[Xzarloxara]

I should really post more often, I sometimes forget the exact sequence of events I follow...

In any case, I decided to give the star to Azura and also use the console to spawn a Black Star. Even though I have both, I doubt they will get much use due to the way this game handles them. Back at the college, I spoke with one of the other mages, Arniel Gane, who wanted my help on some secret project of his. He asked for dwemer cogs, so I figured this was as good a time as any to go to the Dwemer ruin of Mzulft to look for clues on how to find the Staff of Magnus. It was a long dungeon crawl, which resulted in a ton of dwemer metal type of loot, as well as the location of the Staff: a place called Labyrinthian. I stopped off at my stash to unload the loot, and then went to Whiterun to see if Ri'saad was there. He was not, but I heard a rumor at the local tavern that the Jarl had parenting troubles. I investigated and found that one of his kids was under the influence of Daedric Prince Mephala. This eventually led me to her artifact: the Obsidian Blade! She told me to kill people who trust me to empower the sword, but I had other things on my mind at the time. I returned to Winterhold to give Arniel his gears and report my findings to the arch mage, but things got kinda crazy. The scheming Ancano had somehow found out how to activate the Eye of Magnus or something, which resulted in an explosion that killed the archmage and created some kind of strange hostile creatures in Winterhold, which I had to fight. Defeating these things, I was told to go quickly to find the Staff of Magnus.

I think I will have to go to Labyrinthian quite soon, as it seems all the mages at the college are quite preoccupied with the crisis and are unable to offer me their services. Probably best to get that done before I need to buy more spells or training or whatnot again...

 

[Xzarloxara]

I set out for Labyrinthian immediately. Since I could not fast travel to anywhere near it, I decided to walk there all the way from Winterhold. On the way I past though Dawnstar briefly, but I stayed long enough to visit a "museum" in which I was given a task to recover the pieces of Mehrunes' Razor. After leaving Dawnstar I decided to swing by the place the greybeards had sent me to recover the horn of Jurgan Windcaller. To my surprise, the horn was not actually there, but in its place was a cryptic note asking me to visit the inn in Riverwood. I continued on my journey and finally reached Labyrinthian, but a quick check of my inventory made me realize that I was carrying to much to go inside at the moment. I went to Morthal, hoping to find a store, where I could unload my junk. Unfortunately I found no such store there, forcing me to return to my stash. I did steal the piece of Mehrunes' Razor while I was there, however.

Riverwood is nearby now, but I don't think I will go to the inn quite yet. I will probably return to Labyrinthian first.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I did quite a bit since the last update. First I returned to Labyrinthian, where I went through some kind of odd place called Shalidor's Maze before entering the main Labyrinthian dungeon. As I fought my way through the undead inside, I saw ghostly apparitions of Savos Aren, the now dead archmage of the college, and what appeared to be some of his former friends as their previous exploration of the dungeon went very wrong. I was also periodically taunted by a strange voice which drained my magicka when it spoke. Eventually I finally found the Staff of Magnus... Wielded by a Dragon Priest! This Dragon Priest was being contained by two ghostly mages, who were apparently two of Savos' old friends he sacrificed to keep this priest from escaping the dungeon. I killed all three without two much trouble and claimed the Staff for myself.

Before heading back to the college, I went to fetch another staff, one that I needed to convince Enthir to deliver an item to Arniel, which he needed for his experiments. This took a bit of traveling, but was easy enough to find and take from its owner. After recovering this staff, I traveled a little more and found yet another staff. This one was a very rare, valuable, and useful Staff of Paralysis! I imagine this will come in handy...

Back at the college, things seem to have gotten quite bad. There was a huge magical wall surrounding it and the mages were fighting with more of those odd magical creatures when I arrived.

I broke the wall using the Staff of Magnus and went inside the college to confront Ancano. He was still playing with the Eye and full of bravado and himself when I got there. After taunting me a bit he did something which caused the Eye of Magnus to open up and started to attack me.

Several more of the strange magical creatures appeared from somewhere during the fight and attacked both Ancano and I during the fight. Ancano was invulnerable while the Eye of Magnus was open, so I had to close the Eye by zapping it with the Staff of Magnus. Once I did this I quickly used my Staff of Paralysis on Ancano to keep him from reopening the Eye while I drained him to death with the Staff of Magnus (this took quite a while actually, and I had to recharge both staves a few times...). After Ancano died, some mage monks who had been guiding me throughout this adventure appeared and took the eye away for safe keeping. I was appointed as the new archmage of the school.

After dealing with the eye I returned the other staff to Enthir who gave me a special soul gem to give to Arniel. Arniel then sent me to find some dwemer machines in dwemer ruins that I could put this gem into for a special magical treatment. I immediately set out to do this. I needed to find 3 different machines, which wasn't too hard since I already had found two of them in Mzulft earlier. After finding a third I returned the gem to Arniel and he was happy for now.

I decided it was time to go to the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood to meet up with the mysterious person who took the horn that the Greybeards had sent me to get for them. There I met Delphine who was the last member of the Blades, a secret organization that was supposed to protect and serve the Dragonborn. She wanted proof that I was a Dragonborn so she took me to find a dragon to kill at some inn nearby Windhelm. There we saw the dragon that attacked Helgen, named Alduin apparently, resurrecting another dragon. Alduin then flew away and the newly raised dragon attacked us. I was quite used to killing dragons by now though and was able to quickly dispatch this one. Delphine was impressed and told me she suspected the Thalmor were behind the reappearance of the dragons. She left to make plans on what to do next.

Next I plan to return the horn to the Greybeards and then maybe check back with Arniel.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I returned the horn to the Greybeards as I planned, and then went to visit Arniel again. He was complaining that a package he ordered through Enthir didn't arrive. Enthir told me which route the currier was going to take and so I headed out to recover this package. I tracked the unfortunate currier's location to a small vampire hideout. After vanquishing the vampires I found the dead currier and the package he was carrying from Morrowind: the dwemer artifact Keening! I returned the artifact to Arniel and he conducted an experiment of some sort with the dagger and the soul gem I had helped him with earlier. Next thing I knew he had disappeared in a bright flash and I was able to summon a shade of him... I don't really understand what happened, but being able to summon an invulnerable ghostly mage should be useful.

I failed to mention this earlier, but a while ago I met with a crazy guy in an ice cave who was also seeking a dwemer artifact (of sorts). He believed the heart of Lorkan was hidden inside a dwemer lockbox and he apparently needed an Elder Scroll from a place called Blackreach. I decided to make this my next adventure. I set out for the dwemer ruin of Alftand and began to plunge into its depths. By the time I reached the entry to this Blackreach I got my bag filled with loot and had to leave two separate times to unload.

I will enter Blackreach next. I must admit I have a reason for going here now: my conjuration and destruction skills are starting to get pretty high, and I want the full benefit of a certain book I know I will get from going here...

 

[Xzarloxara]

I entered Blackreach and died almost immediately by taking a bolt from a dwarven sphere... This place was more difficult than I remember... But still, I persisted and had a marvelous adventure through the place and its beautiful scenery. I collected more than enough Crimson Nirnroot and explored most of the exterior without going into too many buildings. I took a lot of screenshots of the various sights there.
Giant glowing mushrooms.

Underground waterfalls.

Giant orange chandelier.

A throne with a view.

The orange chandelier and glowing mushrooms from above.

Jumped on top of the chandelier.

There was even a dragon down here!

Finally, I entered the tower with the elder scroll and took it with me.

I returned to the crazy guy who had sent me on this task and he said that only dwemer blood can open the dwemer lockbox he wants to open. Unfortunately there are no dwemer left alive... But there is apparently a trick we can use: by combining the blood of all extant elf species we could make a dwemer blood facsimile and open the box, so I had to find dead bodies of each elf specie, Altmer, Bosmer, Orc, Falmer, and Dunmer, and harvest blood from them. As I set out to do this my path was blocked by a mass of eyes and tentacles, which turned out to be Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora! He told me he was tired of having the crazy guy as his champion and wanted me as his new champion. Whatever... Time to get that blood! First I returned to Blackreach briefly and was able to find some Falmer I hadn't killed yet to harvest blood from. Next I ran into an aging Orc who wanted a glorious death, so I gave it to him and took some blood in the process. Then I found an already dead Dunmer who had run afoul of a giant in the giant's camp. I was honestly quite concerned about where I would find a dead Bosmer, since they seem quite rare in Skyrim, but I had a bit of luck next by running into a Bosmer hunter that was fighting with a Spriggan. He did not survive the encounter and I was able to get some blood from him. Lastly I found a shrine of Talos with a bunch of dead worshippers around it. The worshipers were Nord, but they had apparently been killed by a Thalmor who was also dead nearby. I harvested the needed Altmer blood from his body. I returned the blood samples to the crazy guy, and he opened the box as planned. Inside we found not the heart of Lorkan as expected, but a book: The Oghma Infinium! The crazy guy died somehow upon finding the book and Hermaeus Mora spoke to me again, saying I was his champion now. Whatever...

Not sure what to do next, but I will close this post with some humorous images of a dead fox I found. I don't know how it died or how it got into this position...

 

[Xzarloxara]

I read the Oghma Infinium and chose the path of magic, naturally. This put my skills in Conjuration and Destruction over 90 in level, meaning I could finally undertake some quests to learn the master level spells for these schools. I immediately returned to the college to start these quests. The Conjuration quest was easy, I just had to summon an unbound dremora repeatedly and beat the fight out of it until it agreed to fetch a Sigil Stone for me. Unfortunately, when I learned the master level conjuration spells, I was disappointed to find that my magica reserves were too small to cast these demanding spells. I then set out on the Destruction quest, which was a bit more complicated. I had to travel to 3 different locations in order to empower a book. The first location was near Dawnstar and fairly easy to reach. The second location was near Helgen and slightly harder to get at due to the rugged terrain. The third location posed a bit of a problem, as it was near Markarth and I had never been out that way before. I knew a guy who could get me out there in no time though. His name was Sam Guevenne (hmm... sounds oddly familiar...) he challenged me to a drinking contest and next thing I knew, I was in Markarth.

While in Markarth I met a vigilant of Stendarr who was looking into daedra activity in an abandoned building. I decided to help him, but things got a little crazy in there and we were both locked in and I was forced to kill him. Then I was spoken to by Daedric Prince Molag Bal. He set me on a task to find a priest of Boethia who had been defiling his alter. Apparently this priest had been captured by the foresworn, a local terrorist group or something, and was being held somewhere in one of their bases... I left markarth and set out for the last location to gain the master destruction spells. After completing the ritual, I returned to Winterhold and decided it was time to learn to enchant my own magical items. I took training from one of the mages at the college, but he could only teach me so much, and I needed even more training. I learned that there was one other person who could teach me, and she was back in Markarth, so I returned there. I went to see this woman, who was a priestess of Debilla and she was very upset that I had broken into their inner sanctum. She tasked me with finding a local little girl who was apparently able to commune with Debilla or something... I was told this girl lived in the nearby village of Karthwasten, but upon my arrival there, I found things are never that easy... The foresworn had kidnapped her and took her to one of their bases. Before I set out to rescue the girl, I decided to help the owner of the small village by chasing off a group of mercenaries who were trying to bully him into selling his property to the local silver tycoon (Karthwasten is a silver mining town). Normally I wouldn't mention such a minor feat, but after intimidating the bullies into leaving and reporting my success to the owner, one of the workers at the mine was apparently quite pleased with me. She was an orc, and she told me she would send word to all to all the orc strongholds that I should be welcomed as a friend! A very unexpected and awesome bonus on top of the gold I was paid!

I then set out to rescue the girl, and fought my way through the foresworn base with great difficulty (I really HATE foresworn enemies in this game...), and eventually defeated their leader. I was incredibly surprised when I looked around the room. Apparently this particular band of foresworn had been quite busy... They had both the girl AND the priest of Boethia, and in the same cell no less (that must have been fun... for both of them...)!

I freed them both and escorted the girl back to Markarth (after I let her father know she was safe). Then I took my training and left markarth for my stash. Though I had come close to mastering Enchanting through my training, I hadn't quite made it yet. I still felt I should try enchanting a few items, and so I made 8 items. A pair of rings, necklaces, and circlets that I could wear to completely eliminate the magicka cost for either my conjuration or destruction spells (depending on which set I wore) I also made some gloves and boots that would increase my carrying capacity. After making these items, I realized that I had left Markarth too soon, and had forgotten to check on what Molag Bal wanted. Well, he wanted me to beat a helpless old man to death... lovely... At least I got a nice mace out of the deal.

Like usual, I am not sure what to do for my next adventure...

 

[Xzarloxara]

I decided it was time to upgrade what is probably the most useful shout in the game: Whrilwind Sprint. After getting the Mace of Molag BalI, I headed north from Karthwasten to the ruins of Volskygge, which had a lot of bandits and draugr. At the very top of the ruins I had to fight a Dragon Priest, which wasn't all that hard. Next I headed southwest from Morthall to Dead Man's Respite, which was haunted by the ghost of a bard. The bard helped me at various points in the dungeon, including in the final chamber where we had to defeat a mass of draugr.

Having now learned all three words of whirlwind sprint, I returned to Whiterun to sell my loot. While in Whiterun I decided to join the Companions. My first mission for them was to kill some vampires near Rorikstead. I went to Rorikstead and found that I had been there before, while I was drinking with Sam Guevenne. I had apparently kidnapped a farmer's goat and sold it to a giant. It was not hard to rescue this goat from the giant and return it to the farmer, who finally told me that I used the goat money to buy a wedding ring from Ysolda in Whiterun. Back to the task at hand, killing the vampires wasn't too hard, except that one of their thralls was somehow able to kill me very quickly with lightning magic. I got through them eventually though and was able to kill the vampire leader easily. I returned to the companions and reported my success, and they sent me on an important second mission: Find a fragment of Wuuthrad, a weapon once wielded by their former leader. For this mission I was sent out with another Companion named Farkas. Farkas and I went to the ruin where the fragment was hidden, but it seemed we were not the only ones there. After poking around a bit, a group called the Silver Hand appeared and tried to kill us, but Farkas defeated them by transforming into a werewolf! Seems the Silver Hand is a group of werewolf hunters and that the higher ranking members of the Companions are all werewolves! Farkas and I fought our way through the silver hand and the obligatory draugr of the dungeon until we finally reached the fragment of Wuuthard. Taking the fragment caused a huge battle against a mass of draugr, but we came out on top. (By this time I was extremely happy I had upgraded Whirlwind Sprint earlier. I was carrying over 1,000 units of weight and had to use it to get back to Whiterun.) Back in Whiterun, the Circle (that is the high ranking members of the Companions, all of whom are werewolves) held a meeting and admitted me fully into the ranks of the Companions. While in whiterun I spoke to Ysolda, and she mentioned I hadn't paid her for the wedding ring yet. Apparently I had gotten betrothed to someone in a place called Witchmist Grove, so I had to go there and get the ring back.

My next mission for the companions was to kill a bear that was causing trouble near Ivarstead. I set out immediately and completed the task with great ease. While I was in the area, I finally found time to deliver the Crimson Nirnroot I had found in Blackreach to the only farmer in the world who could grow Nirnroot: Avrusa Sarethi. She was happy to receive the samples and sent me on a task to collect Jazbay grapes for her. Since Jazbay grapes grow in the area around Witchmist Grove I headed there to get the ring back. Upon arrival it seemed I had gotten betrothed to... a hagraven of all things... and I had to kill her to get my ring back. I collected the Jazbay grapes and headed back to Avrusa, who was happy to receive them. She even had grown some of the Crimson Nirnroot already!

I plan to continue with the companion quests next.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I returned to Whiterun to return the wedding ring and report my success on killing the bear. It seemed my next task for the companions was a secret meeting in a secret cave under the Skyforge in Whiterun. They had decided that it was time to make me a werewolf too. I didn't have any issues with this really, so I accepted the offer. After transforming into a werewolf briefly, I blacked out and awoke outside a Silver Hand base with Aela to greet me. Our mission was to kill the leader of the group there. Skjor had already entered their base. After Aela and I fought our way to the leader's room and eliminated all the Silver Hand people, we found that they had killed Skjor!

After leaving the base I found I was once again overencumbered, so I figured now was as good a time as any to try out my new werewolf powers. I transformed into a werewolf and ran around in a frenzy that lasted quite a while (by the time I was done, I had completely filled out my werewolf perks). When the transformation ended, I was back at my stash.

Next I decided to pause my Companions quests to train myself in Alteration and Illusion magics. This involved casting Waterbreathing and Muffle on myself repeatedly. It took quite a while, but by the time I was done, I was ready for the master level spells in these schools. I immediately headed to Winterhold to get these spells. The illusion spells were easy enough to acquire, I just had to use a special spell to locate some books hidden throughout the college. The Alteration spells were another story, however. I had to track down a special dagger in a certain dungeon and then use it to get special scales from a dragon. The dungeon turned out to be home to another dragon priest, but that wasn't too much trouble for me. I found the dagger, slew the priest, and then found a dragon to get the special scales from, and returned to Winterhold with them to get my spells. After doing this I practiced my enchanting skills until I mastered them, and then used them to create some new magical equipment for myself.

Finally, I returned to Whiterun and did a couple of minor missions for the Companions. After this Kodlak, the current leader of the group, sent me on a mission to retrieve the heads of the hagravens who made the Companions werewolves so that he could be cured from the condition. This was a fairly easy mission, so I spent some time recovering the shards of the blade of Mehrunes' Razor while I was in the vicinity. Upon returning with the witches' heads, however, I found that the Silver Hand had attacked The Companions in my absence and killed Kodlak!

 

[Xzarloxara]

I set out immediately with Vilkas to kill some Silver Hand leaders to get revenge for Kodlak and to recover the fragments of Wuuthrad that were stolen. This job was easy enough, and we returned to Whiterun just in time for Kodlak's funeral service.

After the service, Eorlund Gray-Mane asked me to go through Kodlak's possessions to find a final fragment of Wuuthrad for him. I did this, but by the time I got back, the silly old man had gone inside his house and locked the door, so instead giving the fragment to him, I entered the temple of Kynerath to tell the priestess there I had recovered Nettlebane. She was arguing with a pilgrim when I got there, and after telling her I had Nettlebane, the pilgrim decided to come with me. We arrived at Eldergleam Sanctuary and when I started using Nettlebane to clear a path to the tree, the pilgrim got a bit upset and told me of a better way. Instead of using sap from the Eldergleam tree to repair the Gildergreen, he prayed to Kynerath and got me a new sapling to replace the old dead Gildergreen. I returned this sapling to Whiterun and gave it to the priestess.

By now Eorlund had decided to come back out of his house, so I gave him the fragment. Then I went to check on the Circle who were discussing what to do about curing Kodlak's spirit of lycanthropy like he wanted. They were feeling rather hopeless until Eorlund came in and presented the newly reforged and reassembled Wuuthrad (Wow, is he a fast worker...)! The four of us in the Circle then set out for the tomb of Ysgramor to try to heal Kodlak. The spirits of past companions tested our mettle and we fought them as we moved through the tomb. Finally we reached the end and were greeted by the spirit of Kodlak. By burning one of the witch heads I acquired previously, we were able to separate the wolf spirit from Kodlak and defeat it, thus curing him of lycantropy. As Kodlak departed, he named me as the new Harbinger of the Companions, and the others were happy to accept this decision.

Upon returning to Whiterun, I saw that the sapling of the new Gildergreen was growing nicely.

Next I did a series of minor missions for Aela in order to obtain the Totems of Hircine, which would allow me to select new werewolf powers. There were three totems, each in different places. The first one was the easiest to get, it was in a cave with a single troll in it. The second one was in a frozen ruin full of female draugr and ghosts, which were reanimated by a creepy lecherous necromancer. The third totem was in a ruin where a necromancer was trying to build an army of draugr to get revenge. This third location actually turned out to be the tomb of Fjoli and Holgeir, two lovers from a story book that I often find in my journeys across Skyrim. When I killed the necromancer, the spirits of the two rewarded me with a spectral sword called Ghostblade.

Next I plan on perhaps building my own house and maybe finding a wife and kids for myself.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I headed to Falkreath with hopes of acquiring some lakeside property to build on, but as usual I wound up having more to do than anticipated. Arriving at Falkreath, a guard asked me if I had seen a dog that the local smith wanted. Inquiring further with the smith, I was given some meat to try luring the dog. I then spoke to the Jarl who wanted me to kill some bandits he had past dealings with. Before leaving Falkreath, I came across a memorial service for a girl that had been murdered. The murderer had apparently been locked up in the barracks. I decided to investigate this matter and went to the barracks to see this man. The man told me he was actually a werewolf and he had lost control of his powers, which is why he killed the girl. He also had stolen a relic from the Daedric Prince Hircine, who had then put a curse on it. He asked that I hunt a great beast for him to appease Hircine and then return the relic, the Ring of Hircine, to its proper owner. I agreed and took the cursed ring from the man, who then transformed into a werewolf and escaped the jail. I was now wearing a cursed ring, and figured I should see to getting rid of it immediately before it caused something bad to happen. I set out after this great beast, which turned out to be a white stag of some sort that ran from me as soon as it saw me. Just as I was closing in on the stag, the ring's curse activated and I transformed into a werewolf. I finally caught up to the beast and killed it. Upon doing so, its spirit spoke to me, and it turned out that it was Hircine himself. He ordered me to take part in a hunt for the werewolf that had killed the girl. As I arrived at the werewolf's hiding place, the blood moon had risen indicating the hunt had begun.

I killed the werewolf and once again Hircine appeared to me. He took the cursed ring away from me and rewarded me with the Savior's Hide.

I returned to Falkreath and began looking for the dog that the smith wanted. I left town a short ways and was approached by the dog. The dog then spoke to me and said it was named Barbas, and companion to the Daedric Prince Clavicus Vile! Apparently the two of them had been having a bit of a quarrel and had separated. I followed Barbas as he lead me to a vampire filled shrine where I could speak to Clavicus Vile. Clavicus Vile sent me to the opposite corner of Skyrim to recover an axe before he would consider taking Barbas back. Aside from the time it took to travel there, this turned out to be an easy task. I recovered the axe and returned to the shrine of Clavicus Vile and he asked me to kill Barbas with the axe. I refused to do this and he finally agreed to take Barbas back and reward me with a better artifact of his, the Masque of Clavicus Vile!

After this I finally found time to get rid of the bandits for the Jarl and buy my property and start building my house. After spending a lot of time building the house, I set out in search of some people to live there with me. First, I hired a steward to take care of the place for me. I decided that this would be Faendal from Riverwood. Next I decided to look for children to adopt. I heard there was an orphanage in Riften so I went there, but the caretaker was a nasty old crone and would not let me adopt any of the children. I learned that one of the children from there had run away to Windhelm so I went there next. On the way, I finally found time to stop to find Sam Guevenne and the staff he was supposed to give me. I found Sam in some kind of strange place, I assume somewhere in Oblivion, and he turned out to be Deadric Prince Sanguine! He gave me his staff and returned me... to Whiterun. After traveling back to Windhelm again, I found the runaway child. He was doing some kind of ritual in an attempt to summon the Dark Brotherhood so they could kill the mean caretaker. When he saw me, he assumed I was someone from the Dark Brotherhood and had come to take the job. Not sure what else to do I went back to Riften and killed the mean old crone and then returned to Windhelm to tell the kid I had done his job. I returned to my house after this and a currier delivered me a mysterious note.

Seems the Dark Brotherhood is aware of my actions...

I continued to search for a family next. First I adopted a girl named Sofie from the streets of Windhelm, then I adopted a boy named Blaise from the Solitude stables. Now all I need is a wife. There are 3 people I have my eye on for a wife, but I am not sure who I like most. The three possible choices I narrowed it down to are Aela the Huntress from the Companions, Avrusa Sarethi the nirnroot farmer, or Shahvee a cheerful fellow Argonian. I am not sure who I will decide on yet, so this decision will have to wait for the next update.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I decided to marry Aela. After the wedding I went over to Fort Dawnguard and joined up with the vampire hunters led by Isran. He sent me to a cave that he heard the vampires were interested in. The vampires were indeed there and after removing them from the area I was able to unlock a secret container which contained... another vampire... This vampire was named Serana, and she seemed quite a bit more friendly than the other ones. She also had an Elder Scroll. She seemed decent enough so I escorted her to her family home, Castle Volkihar. There I was thanked by her father, Lord Harkon, and he offered to make me into a powerful vampire lord. I declined his offer, and he banished me from his castle. I returned to tell Isran what had happened, and he was not pleased with the turn of events. He sent me to find two of his old friends and convince them to join the Dawnguard. The first one was some kind of beastmaster who I found hunting a bear near Ivarstead. The second was a Dwemer researcher who was near Markarth. While I was in the vicinity of Markarth I hunted down the final piece of Mehrunes' Razor. I then investigated the Dwemer ruins of Arkngthmaz, and met up with the spirit of another Dwemer researcher who had died while trying to find the fabled Aetherium Forge. Her name was Katria, and together we fought our way through the centurions and falmer of the ruin until we found a shard of aetherium at the bottom. Katria then told me about four other ruins that were known to be linked to aetherium and I set out to search each of these for more aetherium. While I was doing this, I found time to return the pieces of Mehrune's Razor to the guy who sent me to get them. We then set out for the shrine of Mehrunes Dagon, where Dagon ordered me to kill the other guy. After I did this, Dagon repaired his razor and gave it to me, before sending some dremora who tried to kill me...

Having visited all 4 Dwemer ruins, and finding all 4 shards of Aetherium, I set headed near Ivarstead to find a 5th location, which turned out to be the Aetherium forge itself!

Before using the forge I had to defeat all its guardians, which was difficult, but I managed, Having done this I used the aetherium shards I had collected to forge an item for myself. There was only enough aetherium to make one item, and I chose to make a staff that could summon centurions for me. After accomplishing this great feat, Katria bid me farewell and was finally able to rest.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I returned to Fort Dawnguard and was quite surprised to find Serana there (and that Isran had not killed her or anything). She had come to get my help. Apparently her father, Harkon, was trying to find out about some prophesy or other that would kill the sun so that vampires could rule the world. Serana was apparently was uneasy about this for some reason, so she left looking for me. Good thing she still had the elder scroll with her. Isran was very dubious about the whole prophesy thing, but he sent me to look into it anyway. Serana and I set out looking for a Moth Priest, someone from an order of scholars who were some of the only people who can actually read elder scrolls. We were lucky that one happened to be in Skyrim on business, but we weren't sure where he went. I asked the caravan driver in Riften and he said that the priest was likely in the village of Dragon Bridge. We asked around in Dragon Bridge and found that the priest had left town not long ago. We followed his trail and found that he had been ambushed by the vampires and taken to a nearby cave where they were holding him captive in a force field.

We killed all his captors and removed the force field. The priest then attacked us, because he was enthralled by the vampires. Fortunately the effect didn't last long and he came back to his senses fairly quickly. His name was Dexion Evicus, and he thanked us for his rescue and made his way to Fort Dawnguard.

We returned to the fort and had Dexion read Serana's elder scroll. He gave us a few more clues about what was going on, but not much of use really. The scroll said something about Auriel's Bow but little else. Dexion said there were two more scrolls we were missing. I quickly realized that the one I previously got from Blackreach was one of the missing scrolls (Dexion was apparently too tired to read it now though...). Serana thought her mother may have the third one, but we didn't know where her mother could be. The only clue we had was that she told Serana that she would go to a place Harkon would never look. After a bit of thinking Lizard suggested that this may be within somewhere right under Harkon's nose, within Castle Volkihar. Serana thought that this may actually make sense so we decided to have a look at the castle again.

Before going to the castle, however, I decided to learn some Smithing skills and start to wear armor. This took quite a while and a lot of work, but I was soon a master smith, primarily by primarily by practicing to make a certain type of item... Which I now have a near bottomless supply of.

After mastering smithing, I made myself a shiny new set of glass armor and enchanted it (I chose glass armor because I like the way it looks and I knew I could easily enhance it to the extreme with my skills.)

After this I set out for Volkihar castle and Serana directed me to a side entrance that was never used. We fought through gargoyles and skeletons as we searched for her mother, Valerica. After solving a moondial lock and finding several secret doors, we found Valerica's secret lab. We looked at her notes and discovered that Valerica had been attempting to reach the Soul Cairn, a realm of Oblivion ruled by the mysterious, and soul hungry, "Ideal Masters". Looking around, we found the needed components and were able to open a portal to the Soul Cairn.

As I tried to enter the portal, my life force started to drain away. There was a problem... I could not enter the Soul Cairn like Serana and Valerica could, because I was fully alive. Serana came up with two possible solutions to this problem. She could either turn me into a vampire, or she could partially trap my soul and try to use it to trick the Ideal Masters into believing I had sold my soul to gain entry. Neither option sounded good to me, but I chose to let Serana try the Soul Trap plan. I felt weaker and lost some of my vitality, but much more crucially, I lost the ability to regenerate magicka (at all), and my health and stamina regenerated much slower. Luckily the enchantments I put on my armor allowed me to cast my destruction and alteration spells without expending magicka, so I was fine as long as I didn't use other schools too much.

We entered the Cairn and and had to fight powerful undead foes at every turn. While looking for Valerica we helped a couple of the trapped souls we met. One of them was a horse named Arvak, which I am now able to summon and ride anywhere I go.

While searching the Cairn I eventually found the soul gem that Serana used to partially trap my soul. As soon as I picked it up I could feel my life force return to me and I no longer had to worry about the regeneration issue. Seems we had indeed tricked the Ideal Masters quite effectively. We finally found Valerica, and she was not happy that I had been endangering her daughter, or that I was a vampire hunter, but she agreed to help us after Serana had a few words with her. In order to reach the elder scroll we had to defeat a dragon that guarded the Cairn named Durnehviir. It was a hard fight, but I eventually brought him down and recovered the elder scroll. After saying our farewells to Valerica, Serana and I started to head back to the portal out of the Cairn when Durnehviir appeared again and spoke to me. He recognized my prowess and taught me how to summon him with my shout. After this we left the Cairn.

 

[Xzarloxara]

After leaving the Soul Cairn, Serana and I returned to Fort Dawnguard to have Dexion read all 3 scrolls, but when we got there, we received an unpleasant surprise: Dexion had gone blind from his previous reading of the elder scroll! Apparently in his excitement, he forgot to take the proper precautions. All was not lost, however; Dexion told us about a ritual we could perform in a special glade involving the use of ancestor moths to read the scroll. After doing several side quests, we finally headed for the glade. Since my house was quite close by the glade, I stopped by to check on my wife and kids and, feeling somewhat guilty about spending so much time with Serana, I asked Aela to come with on our adventure. The three of us entered the glade and I performed the ritual, which involved gathering ancestor moths and then reading the elder scrolls.

The ritual worked perfectly, and gave me the exact location of a cave where I could find Auriel's Bow.

We set out for the cave immediately. A short way in, we were greeted by a snow elf. He told us about a ritual we had to do to enter the temple where the bow was held. He also told us we would have to kill his brother, who he believed had been corrupted by the falmer that had taken over the temple. It was a long journey to the temple through a hidden vale. We had to fight a ton of falmer along the way. We also had to fight two revered dragons at once! I summoned Durnehviir to help with this battle, and the four of us were able to beat the enemy dragons handily.

After fighting these two dragons and a city of falmer that rivaled Blackreach in size, we finally reached the corrupt snow elf. It turned out he was a vampire and he had started the whole prophesy as a way to get revenge on Auriel for "abandoning" him after he became a vampire. It seems he was the one controlling all the falmer and it was not the falmer who had corrupted him. After fighting through his minions, we killed the snow elf vampire himself. His brother came and gave us Auriel's bow as promised.

There was only one thing left to do: kill Harkon and bring this prophesy to an end.

 

[Xzarloxara]

In order to get to Harkon, Serana suggested we get help from the Dawnguard. We dropped off Aela at home before heading to fort Dawnguard. Isran was impressed that we found Auriel's bow, and rallied the Dawnguard. It was time to lay siege to castle Volkihar and kill all the vampires there. We arrived at castle Volkihar and I led the charge, with the rest of the Dawnguard following me. Vampires and gargoyles started pouring out of the castle. After defeating the advance group, we entered the castle and had to deal with the rest of the vampires. After making sure all the underling vampires were defeated, Serana and I headed into Harkon's cathedral where he was waiting for us. After a few words between him and Serana, he turned his attention to me, and demanded I hand over Auriel's bow (who is he kidding?). I said "no" and the fight was on. It was a very chaotic fight with Harkon flying all over the place in bats form and summoning gargoyle and skeleton minions all the time. Several times during the fight he would put up a shield which I had to use Auriel's bow to destroy.

Eventually, he succumbed under our attacks and finally died.

After defeating Harkon, Isran came in and spoke briefly to Serana and I. It seems we both had finally won his respect.

I decided to strike out on my own for a bit after the affair at castle Volkihar. Without much else to do at the moment, I headed to Windhelm to look into something I had been putting off for a long time: find out what the deal was with these cultists that were constantly attacking me for someone named Miraak. I found the ship they had been using to get to Skyrim from Solstheim and booked passage immediately. I arrived at Raven Rock and had a quick look around. I could see the Red Mountain in the distance.

Asking around about Miraak gave me some unusual responses. It seemed everyone there had vague recollections of the name, but none of them knew much about it, other than mention of a nearby "earth shrine" and some kind of temple on the island. I went to this earth shrine and a mage named Neloth spoke to me. He was observing some of the townsfolk as they were building something around the shrine while in some kind of trance. I tried touching the shrine and fell into the same trance for a short while before I was able to break free. Very strange things are going on in this place...

I decided to start my investigation in the Raven Rock mine because the local smith said that a miner named Crescius Caerellius had taken an ancient nordic pickaxe from him, a tool that could be used to mine a substance called Stalhrim. I thought this would be a useful tool, so that is where I started. Crescius gave me the pickaxe fairly quickly, but he also recruited me to investigate the mine for him, and look for the body of his great grandfather. Sounded easy enough to me, so I went in and had a look. I eventually found a closed off section of the mine which had breached into a tomb full of draugr. I fought through them and eventually found a drop off which led to a chamber with a strange door in it. I jumped in and found the body of the great grandfather as well as a strange sword which could release blasts of energy. I had to use the sword and its energy to unlock the door, and inside I found a dragon priest guarding a word wall. I killed the priest and looked around a bit and found something unexpected. A large black book called "The Winds of Change". Reading this book had unexpected results, as I suddenly found myself in a place called "Apocrypha". I was welcomed by Hermaeus Mora, who said I could leave by reading the book again.

I looked around this Apocrypha, and had to fight strange creatures called "Seekers". I eventually found another large black book, which gave me a choice of special powers to have before returning me to the tomb I found the first book in. A further search of the area revealed a secret exit to the tomb through a hideout for people called "Reapers" I snuck past them without fighting and returned to Raven Rock to report my success.

I returned to Skyrim for stashing purposes and for some reason I felt like going to Dawnstar. I had heard that the people in the town were having strange nightmares, and in the inn I found a priest of Mara who apparently knew something about this. He led me to a tower overlooking the town. We had to fight through priests of Vaermina and orcs who had attacked them in order to reach an artifact of Vaermina called the Skull of Corruption, which was causing the nightmares. Once we reached the Skull, Vaermina spoke to me and told me to kill the priest so I could have the artifact for myself, so I did.

Next I plan on returning to Solstheim.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I returned to Solstheim and left Raven Rock. I immediately found a guard under attack by things called Ash Spawn. After some investigation I found that some long dead guy from Fort Frostmoth had apparently been sending them to attack Raven Rock. Having little else to do at the time, I set out to deal with this menace. It didn't take too long, really. Next I decided to check out Tel Mithryn and see what Neloth was up to. Turns out he was having a lot of trouble with a lot of things. I spent a lot of time doing a variety of chores and errands for him, ranging from finding a steward, to fetching various things, to being a test subject, to killing a vindictive ex-apprentice, to returning to skyrim to examine a Forsworn Briarheart. The list of chores seems to never end, and I still haven't finished his tasks at the time of writing. As a reward for one of these tasks, I was allowed access to one of his labs which contained another black book, which led me to another part of Apocrypha, which granted me another choice of powers. Also, while I was back in Skyrim doing the chore involving the Briarheart, I decided to ask Aela and Durak, an orc member of the Dawnguard, to accompany me on my adventures. I also was able to find the Dawnguard Runehammer while fighting the Foresworn.

Back in Solstheim, I finally found the temple of Miraak that I kept hearing about, and there I met a Skaal tribal warrior named Fera, who helped the group of us with our investigation. The temple was being built on top of ruins that went down quite a ways into the ground. We had to fight cultists and the usual draugr, but we eventually reached the bottom and found another black book. This time, however, reading the book made me run into Miraak himself. He was a smug jerk, who was actually a dragonborn like me. He had his minions kick me out of Apocrypha immediately after his cocky bravado. Back on Tamriel, Fera led the group of us out of the dungeon to speak to her father, the Skaal Shaman in their village. The village was sparsely populated because most of the people were brainwashed into working on a nearby shrine. The shaman, Storn Crag-Strider had some kind of magical barrier up pretending the remaining Skaal from Miraak's influence.

Storn said he didn't know anything about the black books, but he told me a bit of history about Miraak, and said before he could do anything to help me, I needed to save the rest of the Skaal from Miraak's influence, since he couldn't keep the barrier up much longer. He directed me to a word wall where I could learn a shout Miraak used to control his tribe, and we set out immediately. When we got there I saw a dragon fighting some draugr. I killed the dragon, but then Miraak suddenly appeared and stole the dragon's soul from me. Now that jerk is really starting to get under my skin! Miraak disappeared again after his usual arrogant taunting. After clearing out the remaining draugr, I visited the word wall and we started to return to the shrine the Skaal were brainwashed into working on. Before I got there, I realized I hadn't returned to Apocrypha after meeting Miraak there. I read the black book that brought me to him again, and this time he wasn't there to interrupt my explorations. I eventually found a word wall there after a bit of exploration.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I returned to Tamriel and used the Bend Will shout to cleanse the stone Miraak had been using to control the Skaal. The Skaal were immediately set free, and returned to the village. We followed them and spoke to Storn again. In addition to cleansing all the other stones, he suggested I should speak with Neloth about the black books. Before we left the village, I spoke with several of the Skaal residents. Many of them had quests for me, but one quest in particular caught my attention: I was to find the village smith, who had gone missing. We found him a short ways north of Raven Rock. It seems the Thalmor were holding him prisoner in hopes of learning how to make stalhrim weapons. I freed the smith and he told me to recover a map from the elves so they could not find a large source of stalhrim. We set out immediately for the ship they had been using as a base of operations and made short work of them. We returned to the village and the smith taught me how to use stalhrim for smithing as a reward.

We went back to Tel Mithryn and did several more chores for Neloth. One of these chores involved going back to Skyrim to find a special staff for him. This led us to a cave where we found a friendly hagraven (or as friendly as these things get...) that had been imprisoned there. She helped us through the dungeon in return for our help in deposing another hagraven that had taken control of the tower. I was rather surprised, but this hagraven did not turn on us once the task was completed, so we just took our reward and left.

We returned to Tel Mithryn and I asked Neloth about the black books. He knew about them, of course, and was somewhat impressed that I had read the Oghma Infinium. He took me to some nearby dwemer ruins where he knew another book was sealed away. It was rather interesting exploring these ruins with his help... he is such a character! We had to find several "control cubes" which would allow us to pump water out of the flooded ruins in order to unlock the door guarding the book. We were finally able to do so and I read the book which, of course, returned me to Apocrypha.

After fighting through the inhabitants again, Hermaus Mora spoke to me.

He was willing to help me against Miraak, but only if I convinced the Skaal to give him their secrets. He taught me the second word of the Bend Will shout. Back in Tamriel, I headed to the Skaal village and spoke to Storn. He told me that the secrets of the Skaal were nothing special really, but Hermaeus Mora coveted them just because he did not know them... Since I had cleansed all the stones I could at this point, Storn agreed to give up these secrets. This unfortunately caused him to lose his life as Hermaeus Mora forcefully took the secrets from his mind. Seems Hermaeus Mora can be a bit of a jerk too, but he kept his bargain and taught me the final word of Bend Will.

I don't think I will challenge Miraak immediately, now that I can. Neloth mentioned finding other black books, so I may do that first.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I explored several more dungeons and found a few more black books. A few were found with Neloth's help and some were found on my own. First, Neloth directed me to a cave full of Rikling that had a black book in it, and then he sent me to a cave full of strange spiders that had a black book. In the spider cave was a strange machine that could actually make spiders I could use to throw at my enemies with various powers... Quite odd...

I then found myself in a partnership to excavate a nordic tomb named Kolbjorn Barrow. Someone named Ralis Sedarys was interested in finding artifacts of some ancient enchanter, but the tomb was totally buried in ash. I gave him some money to hire miners to excavate the tomb and waited. He eventually sent me a message needing my help. All the miners had been killed by draugr and I was needed to sort out the mess and part with more money to hire more miners. This pattern repeated itself 3 more times. When I received the 4th message asking for help, things were a bit different however... It seems Ralis had gone crazy or something and killed all the workers in order to summon the ancient enchanter himself, who turned out to be a dragon priest! Once I killed the dragon priest, Ralis came back to his senses and was horrified by the carnage he had caused. I realized it wasn't his fault, so I spared him and he went to live quietly in Raven Rock. By the way, this barrow had a black book in it as well.

After all this time, I had FINALLY gotten my skill in restoration high enough to learn the master restoration spells, so I returned to Skyrim and the College. This time my test was given by the Auger of Dunlain. He challenged me to survive some spellcasting spirits while completely naked using only my restoration spells. This turned out to be quite easy, actually, and I passed the test before I really had realized what was going on...

I returned to Solstheim and decided to help a scholar who was visiting the Skaal village. He had hired me to explore a tomb on the island that was full of puzzles. There was no black book in this tomb, but I did find 3 word walls and learn a new shout. The tomb also had a dragon priest in it; oddly enough though, this was the first dragon priest that did not have a mask...

I think the time has come now to face Miraak.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I entered Apocrypha and Miraak's personal dragon mount was there to greet me. He was hostile at first, but quickly fell under my control with the shout that Hermaeus Mora Taught me. I rode him across Apocrypha to where Miraak was waiting.

Miraak had 2 other dragons with him waiting for me. As I rode my dragon I fired my Thunderbolt spell at Miraak repeatedly. Just as I would get close to killing him, he would go ethereal with his shouts and then call one of his pet dragons down and feast on its soul to restore himself.

The third time he did this, he did it to the dragon I was riding. Now it was a fight between just Miraak and I. It was really not much of a contest, to be honest. Miraak quickly fell to my lightning spells despite his frequent use of shouts. He tried to become ethereal again, likely to escape, but Hermaeus Mora caught him and finished him off for me.

I had finally defeated Miraak and had devoured his soul too.

Unfortunately, after doing this I felt I had accomplished a great deal with Lizard-Doth-Monitor, and decided to try a new character. I don't think I will write about this character's adventures though. I may yet return to Lizard and do more with him, but probably not for a while...

 

[Antimatter]

Thanks for this tale of Lizard-Doth-Monitor. It was full of humor (starting right with his name), adventure, magic, and lots of good screenshots. I enjoyed reading your reports, and they reminded me why Skyrim is such a good game, even 12 years later.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

This article I found on PC Gamer today gives another example of what modders can do:


https://www.pcgamer.com/i-downloade...k-it-might-not-really-be-the-elder-scrolls-6/

Someone got really creative with satirical elements and references to several games here.