Unsupported Preparation

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

Slew a named dragon (something like Nasalgift?) and cleared out a mine that dug too deep to draugr territory, then decided to visit the Dawnstar Sanctuary again since the quests for the Brotherhood seem to have dried up. When we arrived the redguard and the female initiate were busily torturing the prisoners. Having had enough of these posers, Cleve and I wiped them out and freed the captives from their bondage. Alas the vampiric child was still protected by threads of fate so we instead just buried her alive with the talking corpse. Hey, at least she has company.

Not that she will talk much though.

Ran some more thief jobs in Solitude which is costing me some money (each time I do a job I leave gold to compensate the target, after all I don't really want to support the thieves guild). Also protip for the silly guards: if I save you from an ancient dragon, do not try to arrest me right after. Found an imperial supporting ex-Jarl that escaped the palace butchering at the tavern and got Cleve to eliminate her bodyguard while my daggers found her back. Also revisited Jzargo's cave -again- to retrieve a stolen necklace. I am beginning to suspect the dead khajit is actually leading these respawning bandits somehow.

After helping the Blades (Athis & Mjoll) hunt another dragon we were tasked to find and eliminate a rival thieves guild - the Summerset Shadows. Found their lair easily enough since I had been there previously, and managed to slow mo one-shot all of them save their leader who was an absolute tank. His daedric arrows were too much for Cleve (in full ebony armor) who ended up as a broken pincushion. After eliminating them I returned to Windhelm where Torsten Cruelsea and a fence named Niranye offered to support the Riften thieves. Needless to say they too felt my daggers sting, having outed themselves as criminal supporters. There was no one to witness their deaths.

Picked up the dark-elf archer Fynn at the run down pub then proceeded to Markarth for another "special" thieves task. On the way Fynn got himself eaten by the first normal dragon we came across so I got the barbarian Ren to join me once I reached the city tavern. Our contact, a local silversmith wanted to get his silver mold back - an item which I already had. He was so overjoyed he made the mistake of offering to support the thieves. So unfortunate that this otherwise good man would be so easily corrupted. Ren didn't hesitate when I asked him to bury his axe into the smith's skull right in the middle of the tavern's happy hour. Strangely, no one saw it happen. I suppose that is what happens when you drink to much mead.

The Cleansing

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

J'zargo didn't turn out to be as good as he thought he was, as he was slain by in battle with common bandits. With a delivery task back to Whiterun I discovered all the companions could now follow me. Not wanting to have a freaking werewolf I decided to take Athis the asshat, to evaluate his skills. I watched as he was knocked down and begging for mercy by four unarmed pirates. And again by one Khajit assassin. I don't know how he ever joined the supposedly best fighters guild in the region. We also went to assist an Imperial fleet take out a Pirate hold (pirates are more scum than the empire so it was ok for this short truce). Ofcourse, they sent me and Athis in alone to kill the leader - a task in which Athis was axed to death by a single pirate minion. I cleared out the pirate keep only to discover the imperial ships began bombardment... while I was still inside. TRAITOROUS SCUM! I should have known!

Not a face you can trust.

I made it out under all the explosions and had a stern word with the imperial lady in charge afterwards, Adelisa. She wanted to join my adventures? Sure. Let's see how you like being betrayed. A prime opportunity arose when we found the Cult of Boethia, who wanted me to sacrifice her on a magic pillar. I had other ideas though, we killed all of them instead. Adelisa also helped me get half way through a dwemer ruin looking for a powerful staff before she had her insides ripped out by Falmer bastards. Those guys are really ruthless. Also found and assisted an empire aligned mage there, but due to his obligation to report the goings on here to his superiors I had no choice but to slit his throat.

Decided to head back to Whiterun to handle a problem that's been nagging me for awhile. As guild leader of the companions, I wanted all werewolves OUT. To my surprise when I get to the hall I see Athis there - alive and well. Little bastard somehow made it off that island! No matter, next up for evaluation was Ria the rookie. We did minor tasks for the three circle wolves and she handled herself amiably, even managing to slay a dragon (normal type - haven't seen them in awhile). I had hoped the lycans would reconsider their condition especially since they knew there was a cure for it now, but alas they seemed to all be happy with their condition. I had no choice then, as guild master it was my responsibility to deal with this potential problem. With all three in tow I took them to the pillar of Boethia where the threads of fate (game immortality) could not protect them and I grinned as I ended their miserable lives. There would be no more werewolves coming from you three infected bastards. That felt so much better!

Next up for evaluation was Torvar the drunk, and I took him to assist in the problems up at Winterhold where he performed waaaay better than I thought he would. He survived defending the broken town against magical anomalies, against a skeletal dragon, a wisp mother AND a lich. He also got to fight the thalmor prick Ancano and his associate. Alas, in the final battle he had his jugular ripped out by a crazed magical anomaly. After avenging his death and fixing the main problem at the mage school I was named arch-mage, which is ironic since my level of magic ability is rather low. Guess these mages aren't so smart after all.

A whole lot of killing

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

Thanks to being interrupted by a Jester with a broken down carraige, I was left to catch up with the three fools at the dungeon itself where really only one of them was of any use. The first twin was too sad and the second was afraid of spiders (what? lol) so it was up to Aela and I to reach the deep crypt past all the warriors of old. Once there the ritual for the cure simply involved tossing a severed head into a flame. Easy enough. Since I brought extra, I decided to cure myself too. By strange coincidence I find myself now the leader of this Companions guild that has a few too many members that I dislike. The three amigos stay for awhile to worship the dead while I head on back to Solitude to infiltrate a Thalmor party at their embassy. I like this mission already.

After slipping away from the guests I make sure to assassinate every single Thalmor guard, assistant, official, or general supporter I find. Backstabbing and throat slitting has never felt so rewarding. Those I could not reach I had to kill using arrows through a fence, but I made sure none remained alive. With the information I needed in hand I was assisted by my housecarl Jordis to escape using a one-way underground tunnel (which leads me to question as to how she got in there in the first place). She also is a good fighter assisting me in defeating another Forsworn stronghold, a blood dragon, two elder dragons, and vasals of Mehrunes Dagon. Phew! That's a lot of killing.

Back in Winterhold the Mages College has tasked me with gathering more intel on this giant floaty orb thing as well, so I decide that it would probably be prudent to bring a mage on this task and with the novice Onmund offering to help after I retrieved his family necklace I told Jordis to take a break and meet me back at the house in Solitude. She was happy to do so, but first she pulled out her axe and began an uprovoked chopping on the Thalmor agent Ancano. Before I can do anything, Onmund is shooting lightning at her, defending the Thalmor scum! What the hell man. ANY SUPPORTER OF THE THALMOR MUST DIE. With daggers in hand I tore Onmund into tiny little pieces, leaving what was left of his corpse lying on display at the center of the hall. Ancano unfortunately is immortal (I did try killing him on our first meeting, stupid game), so eventually I managed to calm Jordis down enough to get her outside and on her way home. By luck and skill, no one actually saw me killing my fellow student, so I waltzed onto choice number two - the khajit J'zargo who had in a very sly way tried to kill me earlier I think.

This one thinks that it is you who is the fool.
Then it was off to Windhelm, a city of snow, racism and murder. By sheer first impression I already had an idea of who was the murderer anyway but no one was asking me to help solve the crime so I did the usual "talk to everyone and punch a few people in the face" routine. Finally also "properly" met Ulfric Stormcloak, leader of the rebellion. He has spirit and I am inclined to join his cause, but not yet - there still be the dragon mystery to solve. Apparently he's also quite racist (so am I, I hate all races that don't bow down to me) so it is a minor flaw compared to the many that plague the defunct empire.