New Bad Guys and Allies

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Cleared a few more caves, ruins and groves of various scum (including a spectre, which I haven't encountered before) in the region before finding the heavily fortified Fort Greenwall. Even with Odahviing's support, the bandits there were so numerous that Anneke's archery skills couldn't save her when we got separated from each other. I tried, but was too just too far and could only watch as they butchered her before I reached them. This angered me somewhat and I figured it was time to make use of all those 40 dragon souls I had stored up, learning all the shouts I had in reserve with a few more souls to spare. After dealing with them I pushed North to Kynesgrove and picked up Roggi Knot-beard who owed me for retrieving his shield much earlier on and after a brief stop over at Windhelm for a thief mission we proceeded to Dawnstar for a letter delivery run, taking out large snow cats, more bandits and a revenant(!?) on the way. Also ran into my other cat friend Kharjo on the road ("This one says Hey.") and noticed that since the war was over, there were awhole new bunch of mercs waiting around taverns looking for adventure (thanks to the "CM New Companions Mod").

The new Dark Brotherhood sanctuary is looking pretty spiffy too and already there are two new nameless assassins on the payroll. Seems they also kidnapped a bunch of prisoners while I was away, each of whom eagerly told me of a treasure in hopes for freedom. Alas, I can't free them yet or it may blow my secret plan. The redguard also asked me to kill a few more people so I tested Roggi's loyalty with the nearest target, an argonian vulture who if you read between the lines, may actually be causing ships to crash (remember someone actually goes through a pretty intense ritual to mark all these guys). Anyway, Roggi had no problem murdering the scum in his sleep.

With a two handed sword.

Also decided to hit three of the nearby imperial camps, slaughtering all the imperial allied losers we found. Just so happened I also had a task in Dragonbridge to talk to an imperial agent about brotherhood business. After he gave me his gold I promptly eliminated him and all of his compatriots, lessening the imperial taint on this glorious land. Soon after we came across a shack with a shaggy dog named Meeko who was looking for a new home. Given my track record for "surviving npc helpers", I decided to adopt the fellow to my house in Solitude. Njada always had wanted a dog, and I think she is safer now with both Jordis and Meeko looking after the place.

Heroes of Darkwater

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the whole story here!

Decided to return some books to the Mage's college and promptly found that no one would talk to me because I had been expelled (from the last entry). Ironically the reasoning for this was not because I am an arch-mage with no magic, but because I got one of their own killed while hunting down said books. Talked to Tolfdir regarding this and apparently the going price for life here is 250 gold, which I reluctantly paid just so I could get rid of these tomes. I was almost tempted to leave the ancient dragon attacking the place out of disgust but I figured I shouldn't let such a thing roam around freely. Afterwards I decided to get the hell out of there and back to the warmer climates of the South.

With a new personal goal of finding and clearing all the areas in the land of those that oppose me, I found myself in Darkwater Crossing again and remembered something about one of their number missing upstream. Found a cave pretty high up near the waterfall inhabited by even more falmer, and during my cleansing of the place came across captured lizardman Deerkeethus who decided to tag along with me after I set him free. Turns out he must have dragon blood or something, as he survived numerous bandit camps, burial cairns, caves with alpha sabrecats, big mammoths, and my becoming Thane (finally) in Windhelm - no wonder the falmer just imprisoned him. During our travels we also found a tower full of witches and tried to help one of them (Illia) stop the others. Alas half way up Illia was eaten by a troll but we continued her task and slew her mother. Afterwards we revisited a cave I had already been in to eliminate another bandit crew that had taken up residence. The battle was somewhat made more complicated when we were knocked down into a lower cavern and had to fight our way back out. Was good to see J'zargo again - even though he was dead.

... Or asleep. Hard to tell with cats.
Back at Darkwater Crossing, Anneke Crag-jumper was so amazed by my skills that she wanted to leave her miner husband and come adventuring with me. I figured Deerkeethus was due for some rest so I agreed to take her along in his place. Wiped out -all- the slavers at Mistwatch tower and an elder dragon with her before heading to Riften (due to a questmarker regarding the Dark Brotherhood) where I formulated a plan. With the "No essential NPCs" mod I knew the thieves guild and brotherhood scum that had survived so far were no longer protected by their threads of fate, however I wouldn't kill them just yet. I figured if they actually became successful then perhaps I could attract all the scum to the one area and kill most of them in one fell swoop - or at least learn of who the scum are hiding in other cities, so with an evil grin I decided to buy all the upgrades for the Dawnstar Sanctuary and began picking up little thieving tasks to do at a later stage.

For now, I think there are still lots of areas here in the Southeast section of the map to find and clear out.

*As an unrelated aside, two of my favourite webcomics have combined powers this week with "Axecop and Lolbat"! Funny to see what Malachai does to Scott Kurtz's character. :D