A Crushing Victory

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

After the battle I quickly marched back to Jovasskr where I found the traitorous draugr Ria hiding under her bed. After executing her for treason right there, I took a quick casualty list around the town. Those that had died included the sorceress Golda, Fulmine Knight, Kayla Grunzwald, Manya Esperanza, Andurs the priest, Juliette the maid, and Sinchan the Stinky - though his 4 other compatriots and one travelling Blades named Angelica survived the ordeal. Also lost all but four of the guards in town but I knew their numbers would quickly come back given Whiterun's prime location in the scheme of things.

Mounted up alone to do another lure run and headed back to the two orsimer camps. The smaller one had only one soldier left so I took care of him right there, making him a pin cushion. Their main base however still had seven, and as an aside a bunch of Stormcloaks were trying to attack the base from Rorikstead but were intercepted by a small imperial contigent. Their battle ended really quickly when an ancient dragon decided to show up and roast them all. His appearance gave me a change of plans. Instead of luring the orcs I instead helped the dragon to fight them, letting him breathe his fire while I made them run circles.

It chomped only one of the orcs before they finally killed it, but by that stage the rest were really hurt so I called Dummy to distract a pair while I dismounted and slew four in close quarters before hunting down the remaining two. At the end, no more of their clan were breathing. I looted what I could from their camps and set them alight with fires of victory. Doing one last sweep I noticed there was an extra casualty here - Mai'q the liar was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I wanted to track down the coward Torvar next, and I had a good idea of where he would be. Rode quickly to Riften and snuck into the Ratway where lo and behold, Brynjolf was waiting for me. No longer protected by fate I challenged the conspirator to a duel and ran him through at the center of the little walkway. I then proceeded deeper into the Ratway killing a random vagrant before finally finding the coward Torvar hiding in Esbern's old hole in the wall. I wasted no time beheading the bastard - hopefully this time he will stay dead.

I breathed a sigh of relief with those lose ends tied up and headed back to the surface. Hopefully now this war torn region would know some peace. 

Whiterun turned Red

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

With Torvar in tow and me riding my new horse we travelled back across the plains to the orc camp (they had walked back) and found only a handful of adversaries left. Ofcourse I made the mistake of turning my back on my draugr companion and in a flash he had vanished - fled to who knows where. Damnit, I'd have to hunt down the coward later. First I had to deal with these orcs. I opened fire from horseback to lure them after me and I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because suddenly I was in their MAIN CAMP which has around twice the number of orcs than the first, as well as a towering commander who kept yelling stuff about eating my heart. Worse, nearby I found the corpse of Odahviing - he had been slain by these bastards, no wonder he no longer responded to my call. After eating his soul I continued leading them back to Whiterun and despite getting knocked off my horse a few times I killed a few more and managed to get the commander with five of his soldiers isolated from the rest of them.

Guess the others went off to chase misbehaving little kids?

This time the guards fought back, but they were cut down and I was pushed back into the city proper. Guards and random adventurers began engaging in combat now and I'm pretty sure one of the orcs got felled at that point. The remaining enemies though carved their way through the defenses so I fell back to Jovasskr where draugr Ria was supposed to help me. Instead she just smiled and let the enemies through - TRAITOROUS SCUM! Didn't have time to deal with her right there so I pulled back to Dragonsreach where the fighting continued and dead bodies were left in the wake of the orc threat. I led them all the way out to the top balcony and with a well timed FUS ROH DAH! sent two of the goons flying over the railing to their instant deaths. No such luck for the commander since he was too heavy so I lured him and his remaining two guards down into the dungeons where even more guards died fighting them.

Once it was just me I dropped down a little hole in one of the cells which was too small for the big orcs to follow, then made my way to the exit. To my surprise the trio appeared there behind a barred gate. A locked gate. That I could shoot through. They were screwed. Iced the two extras and hurt the commander terribly so that he fled. I went after him up into the guards barracks and got the last four guards in the city to smash him down, making him kneel before me for a few moments before one of them with a heavy warhammer smashed it down upon the commander's ugly face, killing the enemy leader right there.

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.

Enemy Number One

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

Marne and I found another falmer cave after dispatching a wandering blood dragon. Once inside I was hit by a new spell that took me (or should I say, my power supply) out of commision for a bit, but once I recovered it became pretty straight forward to clean out - I even jumped across to the opening that led to the "end" of the cave and cleared from there while Marne fought her way through forward. Once cleared we made our way to Whiterun for a few more misc thiefing tasks and to their credit, the guards again tried to arrest me.

They managed to slay Marne on the streets and chased me into the pub where they and the bartender inexplicably began attacking the new (companion mod) patrons there. With their help all my pursuers were slain and I decided to take a large barbarian dude called Cleve with me. After completing the thief tasks without incident I decided to stop by the Companion's hall to see if there were any more draugr to be lurking around. Farkas and Torvar were still dead and naked on the fire where I left them, but downstairs I found Ria who had revived from being crushed by a giant. I immediately set Cleave on her as a test and he easily ended her undeath with his heavy axe.

We then headed up to Dragonsreach to collect a bounty where again more guards got in our way. I left Cleave to distract them while I snuck to the castelan who was happy to pay the gold. Used the balcony exit to escape and fast travelled to hand in tasks at the mage guild, the "guardian" hunter" and Riften. I was a bit surprised when I noticed Cleave was no longer with me. I figured the guards got the better of him but then out of nowhere a thin lanky guy runs up to me - someone I recognize. The dark brotherhood initiate!? Is he a draugr too? Can't be sure as it may just be his twin brother...

Because everyone has an evil twin.
Got a special task from the thieves guild up next, again in Whiterun so we quickly made out way there and managed to return before the guards could replace most of their numbers. Seems that a clan of self confessed imperial lovers needed help in falsifying some records for one of their wanted kin. I begrudginlgy accepted and made my way back up to the Jarl's place where suddenly Cleve rejoined my group! He was also being chased by a small army of guards but between the three of us, they were all taken out. We fought our way up the castle again and since it worked well last time, I let my followers handle the defenses while I snuck around to complete the task.

Turns out I missed quite a battle as when I returned only Cleve and one guard was left standing, everyone else including the assassin, the new jarl and most of his court were all dead. To balance this out, after completing the task for the imperial loving Battle-born clan I decided to wipe them out as well in their own house. Conniving bastards didn't deserve to live in the first place. Will be interesting to see if Whiterun can still grow and function in its current state, but as of now I think I'm enemy number one.

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.