TESO: The Last March

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

Reaper's March is a breath of fresh air after the stifling forests of Malabal Tor. Apart from the Imperials assaulting this zone (led by Tharns no less) there's also an evil khajiit spirit called the Dark Mane (also conjured by a Tharn) raising scary looking Khajiit warriors wherever it goes. The main quest involves assisting a pair of twin sisters in stopping this threat, which is great.

Capoeira esquivas are useful here too!

Unfortunately that "threat" occupies only maybe 1/3rd of the region, with the rest occupied by local bandits, gamblers, an arena and skooma peddlers. I do get to free Barbas (the talking dog) from a prison of his master, Clavicus Vile, though. There is also an awesome side quest at a scary mansion with a massive cavern underneath occupied by Imperials who are looking for the Oghma Infinitum. Hermaeus Mora tells me they cannot have it.

Quite a literal army of bad dudes in the tunnels.

Finally I'm at a level where I can solo handle the group of 8 or so mobs here, and manage to take down the boss too. For all my work, Mora appears and snatches the Infinitum at the last moment - rephrasing that "no mortal" can have it. I manage to retain a single page, still enough to make most people insane.

After beating back the Tharns and destroying the Dark Mane, Queen Ayrenn seems more agreeable to an alliance or at least a cease fire with the Pact but I don't know. She looks, talks and smells like a Thalmor scum. Odds that she will keep her word are next to nil.

TESO: What is dead may never die

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

It turns out I was beaten to the very item I was sent to fetch by the Queen's own Vice Reeve who reveals himself as part of the Veiled Heritance who are present in large numbers here, as well as their sea elf allies the Maromer. Nearby orc clans also cause trouble for the locals but they are just road kill on my chase for the Vice Reeve whom I finally catch up to in an ocean confrontation thanks to a tip from Hermaeus Mora (seriously, don't steal from a Daedric Prince).

As for the Vice Reeve: I sunk his battleship.

The second half is more interesting, as the evil Prince Naemon who I had already killed last time had been revived as a lich by the late Vice Reeve, and is attempting to bring this part of the forest into the shadow realm. Slaying his undead minions, shades and ultimately the Prince himself (again) is quite fun as warping between the two states changes the spawn on the map. Doesn't matter so much for people who just kill everything but for a sneak like me I quite appreciated it.

Raz and Mai'q get honorable mentions for being my travelling "companions" in the zone since they keep showing up unexpectedly. Also on my journey I do ponder why some skeletons hold torches. Does it let them see better? Anyway it's then on to Malabal Tor which is under attack by... Redguards?

TESO: Daedric Tharn

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

With Stormhaven mostly freed from Vaermina's manipulation I rode on into Bangkorai, a region under attack by talking crows - and more reachmen. Where the heck do all these guys come from? After convincing the local Queen to do her job I am sent to stop this threat and quite humorously succeed in doing so by accident. You see I was racing towards a distant Dolmen which I ended up missing entirely as other heroes shut it down - and found myself near the main reachman camp. A little stealth and snooping about led me to their hagraven leader who I had no trouble in slaying.

That force turned out to just be the appetizer though, as the main threat soon revealed itself to be the Imperial army led by one Septima Tharn who are all allied with Molag Bal (of course). With the help of King Emeric and his timely army, we pushed them back into the Southern Desert region of this huge zone. Then I got side tracked in rescuing elf maidens from a Troll den and helping a nereid eliminate a bunch of Hermaeus Mora's followers. Take that you kill stealer. In the region I also have to outhunt Hircine's chosen hunter and defeat an avatar of Mephala - guess the Daedric princes really like this zone!

Explosions are effective against ghosts!

By the time I catch up with Septima Tharn after all those distractions, she has already defeated Emeric's army and killed the arrogant king. I sneak into her camp and have an epic duel against her, one of the best fights in the game so far - ultimately I slay the sorceress and have the Queen's forces wipe out the remaining Imperial douches. Through convoluted events I end up with King Emeric's soul in my backpack and have the option of resurrecting him. I am soooo tempted not to, but ultimately give in and revive him. In exchange I tell him to withdraw all his forces from the war. He says he'll think about it.

Skyrim: Miraak

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

Why read books when you can do this?

To keep my end of the deal with Hermaeus Mora, Sero and I returned to Frea's village where I rather easily convinced her shaman dad to surrender his secret knowledge of horkers (walruses). The daedric prince took it in a most violent fashion (involving tentacle insertion) and then kept his end of the deal, giving me a dragon shout that could counter Miraak. Humorously enough, to reach this final mission I simply had to read a black book in my backpack, which transported me near Miraak's temple in Apocrypha.

After the usual shenanigans with the resident abominations, I finally got to use my fully powered Bend Will shout on one of Miraak's dragons which let me mount it for some pretty cool (and quite uncontrolled) dragon flight. After a short jaunt, it set me down at the temple's summit to face his old master who was nice enough to talk first before starting the duel.

So shiny it hurts my eyes...

Miraak's use of dragon shouts was indeed impressive. He even had one which absorbed his remaining minion dragons to fully heal himself which was pretty cool. He was actually dangerous enough to convince me to use my swords too (I started by using fists, just to savour the combat). Ultimately though, Hermaeus Mora stole my kill and ended Miraak once and for all. Death by tentacle insertion. 

Miraak got raped. :P

The only worse fate is for your enemy to then make a stuffed figure out of you.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Skyrim: Off to see the Wizard

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

Our reward for protecting the councilman from his enemies was citizenship and a house in Raven Rock! This is great as it provides a spot to unload all the junk I've been collecting. Since the quests in town have dried up, Sero and I head off to visit the wizard Neloth who literally lives in a giant shroom while his servants live in smaller shrooms. These dunmer are funny.

Kill... all... organics!

Neloth is the local guru of Black Books it seems and agrees to help me stop Miraak if I help him get his hands on the book at a nearby dwemer ruin, which also holds the new ballista bot enemies which are pretty cool. The whole steam powered place is sinking into the ocean, and getting power to open the book case from the lower levels involves a bit of swimming and water puzzles. The hunters necklace of water breathing is really useful here!

Hate to be the one to put those pages back where they belong!

With the target book finally in our hands, Neloth lets me read it first leading to the longest and coolest map of Apocrypha so far. Hermaeus Mora (who seems to come right out of the HP Lovecraft mythos) chats to me at the summit, revealing that he has been training Miraak all this time but now that Miraak is abandoning him, he will help me instead - if I give him access to some secret knowledge Frea's shaman dad was hiding from him. I don't really have much choice in the matter it seems.

Mr. Know it all.

After sending me back to Solstheim my little group is attacked by one of Miraak's dragons who was sent to assassinate me. Hah, an assassin dragon! As you might have guessed, it stood no chance.

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.