Skyrim: Minecraft

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! can follow the rest of the story here!

Since Rayya has a head for all things housing, and is decent enough in a scrap, I assigned her to be the steward of Hjalmarch Hall - the Dawnstar property, and instructed her to buy a whole bunch of supplies and furnishings. While she did that, I returned to Riverwood to recruit B.T.'s sister in arms, Marauder, to loot my stash of ingots at Whiterun and the stash at Ravensburg castle.

Supplies!

With those we are able to construct the main hall which connects to the small house (now the foyer) and acts as the central hub to which other house "wings" can be attached. I start work on constructing the bedrooms but run out of quarried stone to finish the job. A courier finds me here, telling me that Ralis again wants my help at the dig so I instruct Rayya to put a whole bunch of construction items on the list of things to get too.

Two handy fast travels later and Marauder and I are at Ralis' site. This time -everyone- is dead, and based on his scattered journals, Ralis has been a servant of Azhidal this whole time, "feeding" people to him. Marauder easily clears out the risen draugr only needing my help in the final chamber where Ralis successfully awakens his dragon priest master, killing himself in the process.

Apart from all the draugr and the zombies Azhidal is raising, the dragon priest has an interesting shout that simply removes 25% of your total life. If only he used it more often. Upon his destruction, all the zombies and draugr "died" once more which happened to just save Marauder from being undead chow. After looting the place and collecting the black book at the end I am now at level 75, and it was time to head back and finish that house!

Yeah, house building sounds better than staying here with Shub-Niggurath.

Skyrim: Familiar ash, unfamiliar Darkness

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

Hey, I remember climbing that.

Apparently Solstheim island is part of Morrowind, which is cool in that you can see the ever active Red Mountain in the distance. The small town of Raven Rock is where BT and I make land fall, meet the locals (mostly dunmer as expected), and get a bunch of quests like hunting netch (flying jellyfish), clearing out ash zombies from the temple, and investigating a strange stone that seems to make people mindless zombies who want to build - something. Even BT began getting entranced by it.

BT: "It's just sooo big..."

An adventure into the local mine to find the remains of some guy's missing relative also leads to familiar looking ruins and even more familiar looking draugr. There's even a cool lazer sword inside, too bad it's kinda weak. While the enemies are no problem, the last pendulum blade hall proves too much for B.T. and she is cut to pieces half way.

At the end of it I find not only a new dragon shout, but an odd black book which warps me into the black/green/tentacled realm of Apocrypha. With walls made of books and scrolls it's easy to see why its ruler, Hermaeus Mora, is regarded as the prince of knowledge. There are some abominations lurking in there, but none really pose a challenge. Having a choice from three boons at the end of the level is a pretty good idea too.

Walls of books go well with Cthulhu.

Skyrim: About Jarling Time

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

After but a few days of Jarling Whiterun (Jarling: Sitting on the throne and pretending to be important), a courier came with interesting news of land being sold at Falkreath that I couldn't pass up, because property is always a good investment! One short trip and 5,000 gold later I had the deed to the land in my hand. B.T. and I also met Rayya, a Redguard housecarl gifted to me by Falkreath's Jarl. She was totally jealous of B.T. though and refused to join.

 

How can they even see?

Before we could even step out of town we were set upon by a pair of odd looking cultists, and after suffering a swift end I discovered that they were sent by something named Miraak from someplace called Solstheim. Probably need to think through what you write down on paper, bad guys! I opted to take a look at my new land first though and found... nothing. I'd have to -construct- a house! Whaaaat?

Instead of doing that I decided to visit Riften first, as I'd also received a letter recommending I try adoption. It was immediately clear that I wasn't a suitable candidate. Fortunately my trip wasn't wasted, as the town came under bandit attack just as we were leaving. Rallying almost the entire town into the battle, the bandits (who were led by two imperial soldiers), were cut down to the last man.

To battle!

At that point I decided it was time to see where those cultists came from, and hopped on a boat to Solstheim. Guess I should mention that due to my continued absence, the people of Whiterun elected a new Jarl on their own. :P

Skyrim: Non-Starters

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

Riften turned out to be a very short stop on my equally short bandit hunting quest. The trail of pushover brigands, some of whom fought each other because one was a werewolf (lol, what was going on there?) I finally found their boss, Fin, beneath the College of Winterhold. It was a short duel, and while he had decent speed I was simply too agile for him.

The surviving mages then told me of the return of the Master Dragons, Alduin's liutenants (who by this tale are a few years too late). Alas compared to the monstrous dragons I've already fought they are but a footnote and were easily hunted and executed. Finally I could get back to Jarling - but upon return to Whiterun I found it under attack by a group of bandits who were soundly being defeated by the guards. I watched with pride as my guardsmen sent them packing. I tailed a few of the good looking survivors back to Riverwood where they agreed to work for me instead of being executed. I got B.T. to join the party while her compatriots Bandit, Marauder and Bo guarded the small village.

It seems dragons come in all colors now...

Back at Whiterun the guards informed me of some Oblivion Gate opening nearby, but when I went to the spot there was nothing there. Looks like once again, they had everything under control! Finally back in town, Belethor let me take a look a new book in his shop - one that transported me to a modern motel with a horror motif. This asylum was indeed quite creepy, complete with mute people blankly staring into space, but with all the locked doors it soon became boring and I teleported my self back to Whiterun to do some actual work.

Why anyone would want a painting of that hanging around is a mystery.