Tales of the Blight: Rail Roaded

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

It's a busy day in my home of Cousland Castle as everyone is preparing to fight the darkspawn (monster things) to the South. There's also a grey warden named Duncan here looking for recruits and asks what I think of that. I shoot him down immediately. Grey Wardens? Please. I'd much prefer to stay in the castle and bed all the visiting ladies and handmaidens, or just maidens in general. After getting my cute but effective war dog (who I name "Quickly") out of the pantry I do just that with an elf lass named Iona but our fun is interrupted when an arrow finds its way into her head.

Why didn't you dodge!?

Our supposed "ally" Arl Howe decided to attack once Ferghus, my elder brother, took the majority of the troops ahead to the battle. With only a handful of defenders it is clear the castle is falling, despite me thoroughly killing all enemy soldiers on the map I can find. Fortunately there's a secret passage to escape the carnage, but only Duncan, Quickly and I make it out alive. Duncan asks again if I can join the Grey Wardens since his other choice sort of died earlier. I strongly tell him again "NO" and then he goes all legal on me enforcing conscription. Way to railroad me dude. I suppose that's still better than the Witcher's Law of Surprise.

And so it's off to Ostagar to fight the dark spawn. Woo? At least Quickly doesn't seem bothered by it.

The War that Waited for Me

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

At last, we get to the "great" war that has been the backdrop of this epic setting from the very first scene. It's kind of disappointing to report that the enemy troops barely scratch me at this stage (a level 45 thief), but it puts a good conclusion to the tale.

Jarl Bossman of Whiterun decided to side with the legion and is the first to fall to the Stormcloak army. Stupid man. The game also prevents me from executing him and his housecarl after defeating him as is what should have happened. Anyway, this is followed by the Stormcloaks attacking many forts scattered throughout the map. The last one even had a pseudo-hero in a high level bounty hunter who was there to hunt me down, but none were a match for the army that had a dragon providing air support. Hell, they had trouble fighting my horse!

After being promoted a few times I reached a rank that let me purchase property in Windhelm which I did, and had another fun battle on my way to the rallying point for the final siege where I was beset by a dragon and an Ancient Dragon at the same time! That was great! Though I think I should really rebuild those Blades to put these critters down before they get out of control.

The final domino of this one sided war was Solitude where General Tullius soiled himself just before Ulfric chopped his head off. I made sure to strip and pose the corpse of the traitorous whore Rikke on the table too as a message to anyone who joins the empire. They get f... killed. At last, the war was over (and all my bounties expunged... muahahaha).

With the empire now mostly driven out of Skyrim and the world eater disintegrated in heaven (lol what?) I decided to rebuild the Blades to handle the dragon slaying for awhile. First I took Mjoll the lioness who was accompanied by her puppy dog follower guy. I was going to take Lob the last orc next, but he was killed by a giant upon my arrival so I decided to look in Whiterun instead. To my surprise now Vilkas had come back to life (after I killed him at Boethiah's pillar?)! Well if the Blades need anything it certainly is people who don't know how to die so I brought both him and Athis to sign up at which point spy girl said they had enough people to start handling the dragons on their own.

This is excellent news as it means I can enjoy some well earned R&R for a while, so I decide to empty out the hall at Jovaskar by marrying Njada who has really grown on me. I tell her to go live in my house at Solitude with Jordis, then get Iona to follow me and meet up with them there for some fun times... maybe playing Dungeon Defenders or something. :P

Because going to the beach was not an option.

The Bastardly Guards of Markarth

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

After closing a magical rupture and a short visit to Markarth which involved the usual guards attacking me throughout the city, Esbern, Athis, spy chick and I all decide to go locate Sky Haven Temple. What an awesome name. Doing so involves fighting through a large Forsworn camp and just for added fun a blood dragon attacks at the same time too. Somehow we all survive despite me clearly seeing spy girl and Athis being "killed". No matter. The two blades decide to chillax there while Athis and I return to Whiterun. Since he survived this rotation I let him take a break and continue adventuring with Ria the not so rookie now.

Up at the Throat of the World we meet the Grey Beard's leader Paarthumax who sounds a bit like Optimus Prime. His appearance also startles me and I accidentally shoot him a bit before he introduces himself. Fortunately he ignores my earlier attacks. After a nice chat involving plotting the downfall of the main bad dragon, I return to Riften with all my collection tasks complete and immediately become Thane there. My new housecarl Iona is stuck with guard duty for now since the place is crawling with theives. Ria and I also go to help an orc chief slay a giant leader in the name of Malacath. On the way we find a stray dog fighting a dragon, and after slaying the winged serpent the mutt decides to tag along. Turns out that it was a very bad decision on it's part as it, the orc chief and Ria were all smashed to pieces in the giant's lair.

Back in Riften I hire the spellsword Marcurio who thinks he is the bomb. He has some talents to back up this claim as he single handedly defeated a skeever army and crazy skeever man, survived an attack from THREE dragons simultaneously (we could only kill the frost dragon before the other two fled), helped defeat the funny named lich "Otar the Mad", and helped save the city of Markarth from an elder dragon that attacked it while we were there. Our reward for doing so? The guards attacked us again, and they killed Marcurio via arrow pincushion method.

Poor Marcurio, we hardly knew thee.
I hoofed it up to my house in the stone city when I could shake them off me. I wonder if the idiots ever thought of looking for me in here? Anyway I figured my odds of escaping would be better during nightfall (can't fast travel out of the city) so I took a nap to wait for dusk. Seems someone had other ideas though, because when I woke up I was no longer in the city but in a shack with three hostages and one representative from the Dark Brotherhood. She wants me to kill one of them. I wasn't going to, but the Khajit turned out to be a prick and in my mind had it coming anyway. Looks like I've made a new friend and she invited me into her little murderous clan. Once I got into their HQ I proved I really belong by trying to murder every single one of them. Alas they were ALL protected by threads of fate. Damn cheaters.