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: Hearthfire

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

After painting Raven Rock red I returned to Falkreath and recruited Rayya who seemed knowledgable in all things housing. In fact, she advised that there was more land being sold at Morthal and Dawnstar which I did buy for 5,000 gold each. Each property (including the one I previously bought in Falkreath) came with enough supplies to build a small house on site, which I did. It's pretty cool to see it come up piece by piece.

Makes me wonder if Stonehenge was just an incomplete house...

With three unfurnished little houses and a lot of room for expansions and furnishings I decided I'd have to settle on one spot and focus all my efforts there. Since the Morthal property was too close for comfort to ruins and the Falkreath one was a stones throw away from a necromantic altar (and the disturbing cave) I decided on the Dawnstar location, which is actually quite far South of Dawnstar, near the plains of Whiterun was the obvious choice.

Before I'm able to get to work though another message from Ralis arrives, asking for more help. Sigh. We go, find more draugr which Rayya clears out while I donate another 5,000 gold for the "final push" of the excavation. A random high elf mercenary also attacks us along the Solstheim shore but Rayya handles him easily. It's good to have talented side-kicks.

Skyrim: Worthless

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

With Solitude on its last legs I made my way to nearby Morthal where the jarl had assigned Valdimar as my housecarl. Interesting since I don't have a house in Morthal, but anyway... Fortunately Valdimar was interested in visiting Solstheim, because that's where we were headed. After unloading the deliveries for Neloth we learn that someone's been sending ash spawn his way as of late. A cursory investigation leads us to suspect his ex-apprentice Ildari, whom he tried to make a zombie. Yeah that would do it.

I guess "n'wah" is Dunmer for turd, because Ildari just pooped her robes.

We track her down to an abandoned fort and I let Valdimar demonstrate his skill... and it is quite lacking when facing multiple opponents. So, instead I let him go after Ildari while I take care of her adds. This works out much better for him as he finds victory in that battle. Neloth rewards us with membership to House Telvanni, which means exactly ... nothing. Great.

We stop by Ralis' dig on the way to Raven Rock and find that the draugr have again caused grief. Valdimar has no issues clearing them out (I suppose he's more familiar with Draugr) while I count out 3000 gold to help fund not only more labor, but some mercs as well. Pity I can't actually hire a new dig master, one who has foresight.

Skyrim: The Settling Dust

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

With Miraak gone, Frea would now fill her dead shaman dad's shoes and protect her village. Sero and I also informed Neloth of what transpired and like any decent wizard, he already knew. His apprentice Talvas was up to shenanigans though, having summoned an uncontrollable ash atronarch which slew Neloth's steward before we could intervene. The wizard tasked us with hiring a replacement.

On our way back to Raven Rock we stopped by Ralis' dig to find that progress has been impeded by draugr. Typical. While Sero went in to clear it out, I gave another 2000 gold for him to find replacement labor. We then did a much bigger detour as I remembered we had a key to some long lost pirate treasure and found the burial site of Deathbrand. This guy was buried in style, with piles of gold and treasure in the antechamber.

Now that's more like it!

Apart from the expected draugr we also had to deal with Deathbrand's angry ghost (because, why not). I wish I could say he was a decent fighter, but apparently you can slice the necks of ghosts? We cleared out that lair and returned to Raven Rock. For his services and for surviving the majority of Solstheim, I split the treasure with Teldryn Sero - giving him all of Deathbrand's gear too. I felt he was skilled enough now to be an adventuring hero in his own right, something that is rare for an NPC to attain if you've been following this journal from the start. :P

So many things wrong with this picture.

Skyrim: After the Fact

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

Continuing East, Sero and I came across an archeologist named Ralis who believed he had found the tomb of Ahzidal, but since it was covered in ash was looking for a financial backer to help him dig it up. Since gold is not something I'm short of, I gave him the 1,000 pieces he needed to get started then continued on the hunt for the source of ash spawn.

Apparently they were coming from some run down fort, and their general had some foreign ore keeping him alive (much like a briar heart). A few backstabs later and we were reporting our success back at Raven Rock, but our task wasn't finished. The guard captain suspected that a rival house had spies in town and so I got to teach Sero about breaking, entering and snooping. Or at least tried to.

He just couldn't control himself.

A mother, daughter pair were the prime suspects so while I cautiously snuck into their house like a shadow, Sero pulled out his sword and gutted them both. Fortunately we found proof that they were indeed guilty after the fact, as well as a location where their main force was waiting. The local councilman was nice enough to sent two guardsmen ahead but by the time we got there they had already been killed by the inhabitants of the place: Morag Tong assassins. They had some interesting traps in there, but nothing that posed any trouble for me or my bodyguard and soon they were the ones either getting backstabbed or ragdolled across the halls.

And you call yourselves assassins...

Back outside, we noticed the sun stone nearby we decided to free that too. Again Sero almost died but was ultimately successful against the lurker, saving one of the enthralled people. I think he's getting the hang of this.