Old Acquaintances

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! In this entry I am following my custom scenario "A Curse of Iron". You can follow the rest of the story here!

After a quick resupply at Fort Dunstad, avoiding a wizard fighting various wild life, and examining a Shrine to Dibella that I had missed before I finally made it back to Dawnstar and went into the tavern to find clues. It was dinner time and there were a fair number of people here but none of them seemed to be the thalmor agent. Decided to stop by the iron mine again to get more ores but could only get two this time since the ones I harvested from my previous visit had not returned. Continued investigation on the docked boat but the sailors were all clean, then finally found the scum in the museum - that traitor Silas whom I had helped earlier! He hid his involvement well, but there was no tricking me. I asked him for a bowl of stew and he obliged - as he stirred the pot I shoved my sword through his back, killing the traitorous bastard. Should have let the dremora eat him.

On my way out of town I happened across a Khajiit caravan, the one with my friend Kharjo! I got him to join me and I asked him why he was previously imprisoned. Turns out he was selling drugs to kids. Just like the caravan is doing now. He refused to kill his fellow cats though, so I backstabbed all his compatriots for their sins and warned him that the same would happen to him if he didn't pay off his debt to society (me). Then the curse must have gone into a second phase because out of nowhere, Ria's corpse appeared and began floating around like a wisp mother. We all attacked it and when it "died" she vanished (no, it actually crashed the game so I had to reload). Now I'm seeing things. Great.

Trippin' balls!

Pushed on to Morthal passing two empty imperial camps on the way. I couldn't upgrade my sword though because I had forgotten to smelt the damn ore! Didn't matter as it was a quiet and uneventful run, and we snuck into the tavern in the dead of night to get some info. Since no one was there I decided to look around, finding Falion fighting a mudcrab for some reason on the street. Since he was busy I continued to the Thaumaturgist's hut but found no one there. Next building was the Jarl's longhouse but I knew that always had guards so I went back to Falion and found the fool cowering behind a house. When I asked him what was wrong he pretty much blurted out that he was the thalmor agent and ran to the edge of town with Kharjo and I right on his heels. It wasn't hard to beat him into submission, breaking his will. Fortunately for him threads of fate still protected him, letting him live another day. Satisfied that his role in this was over, our next stop was Solitude - gaining entry by swimming across the bay and climbing up the less used side-gate.

Joe to the Rescue

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

With most of my tasks now lying on the outskirts of Markarth, I hired the mercenary Vorstag and bought the war dog Vigilance to tag along finding them useful against the pockets of forsworn we kept running into. The first major task was to pickup a "marked" child for the temple of Dibella, but it turned out she had been captured by a large band of those forsworn scum. Joined by her father we assaulted the ruined tower they were holed up in but alas during the opening assault he was stabbed to death and Vigilance was roasted alive. Vorstag and I massacred the remaining defenders and secured the girl whose name I cannot pronounce. I just call her 'the kid'.

It seems the kid didn't want to just trade one prison for another straight away and pleaded to come with me. After getting her old man killed how could I refuse? On the road we'd play hide and seek, and she looked like she was able to take care of herself; making herself scarce during combat and pointing out dead bodies for me to loot afterwards. Apart from that one time where Vorstag and I had to rescue her from a rampaging ice bear.

Speaking of Vorstag he was really beginning to show his powers, using all sorts of weapon combinations and being a general kickass, even summoning flame atronarchs every now and then. He even stood toe to toe against a zombie death overlord as well as a lich living at the top of Volkswagen tomb (or something similar).

It's a scary place!

Also came across a captured priest of Boetheia and freed him too, warning him that an altar of Molag Bal back in the city intended to do nasty things to him. The first thing the idiot does is head straight there. Well, he has it coming. Pushed on to the next major rescue for folks from Whiterun. The three of them had been camping out in the snowy mountains for weeks waiting for me to show up. Whoops. The hostage is being kept prisoner by a large group of well armed Thalmer (elf) bastards. I try to convince the barbarians that a sneaky approach is best, but before I can even finish sniping the first guard with my bow they all charge head on. It is a bloody skirmish, and while all the elves were killed we lost two of the three plainsmen as well as the mighty Vorstag (again in the opening assault). The remaining survivor and his brother (the prisoner we released) head off into hiding and it's now just me and the kid on the road.

After backstabbing a sleeping blood dragon that was full from eating imperial soldiers at a nearby outpost (quickest dragon kill thus far - under 10 seconds!), I helped a captured hagraven reclaim her tower from another witch allied with more forsworn. These guys seem to be everywhere in these parts. Well, the hagraven proved to be very helpful, had a good sense of humor and since she didn't try to kill me I left her in peace. If only more monsters were like that. :)

As an aside: Photo above is courtesy of AndreaS, who has more pics of abandoned and ruined places which is also an interest of mine. :)