Skyrim: Monsters Sighted!

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

Reports from the College of Winterhold claimed more beasts had been sighted in the Northern Sea so Tharas and I quickly went to investigate. Are we seriously the -only- adventurers in the whole of this region? Anyway. We come across: a giant charrus! Yep, it's one of those giant sea monsters. Fortunately it doesn't take too many explosive arrows to take down.

Yuck!

A roar from a nearby island gets our attention though and sure enough there's a named dragon in the skies, and an unknown ascended mage controlling it. Tharas opted to take the wizard while I handled the dragon which was a good call since I have this technique down pat now. Slow time, hack hack hack. Dead dragon. Trouble is the mage was actually the bigger threat: throwing walls of fire every which way and incinerating any who came to close.

Getting really good at using the speed force.

I was too late to save Tharas Gull, he was already screaming in immolating flames when I finished off the dragon so it came down to me (the horse dislikes swimming) and having used my shout against the dragon I couldn't use it now. Even with the shadow armor it was tough avoiding the flames so I opted to do the next best thing. Drink an invis pot. As I thought, with no target the fool didn't know what to do. Even his flaming shield couldn't save him from the fatal one hit back stab he had coming.

Totally extinguished his life.

As I looted his body on the shore of the little island I could see yet another dragon circling on the next isle over. My task wasn't over.

Skyrim: Samel Returns

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

I must admit I got a little lost when hunting the next ascended mage but Tharas and I eventually found the correct crypt, with the ascended named "Apostle" guarding another floating sphere.

To his credit Apostle took more than a back stab. He actually took a few power attacks which kept him staggered and unable to counter with whatever magics he had. With him out of the way I was free to enter the orb to find myself alone in another arena, one that drains life, and that had the dragon "Samel of the Void"! Oh great, Samel again, and much worse than before!

 

Dragon form is definitely stronger than human form!

It takes a number of healing potions and exploding arrows before he lands. On the ground he is vulnerable so a "slow time" shout (fast becoming my favorite) is all I need to chain combo strike him to death. There are two more levels to the orb: one guarded by another dragon (whose name I forget) and the final one with "Great Dragon Samel" (him again lol). Both make the same mistake of landing and both get hacked to death in my slow time trap.

Pfft. Not so great.

With this orb cleansed, the land is finally free of the ascended and their dragons - or so I thought.

Skyrim: The Quick and the Dead

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

Samel's journal leads us straight to Parna the Flame, who unfortunately can't keep up with my healing potions so she is an easy face tank. Notes on her then lead to the spell sword brothers Gaern and Ramel. We manage to catch them unaware, with my opening move slitting Ramel's throat for the insta kill. Gaern goes berserk with his dual wielding and actually starts winning against Tharas Gull, but I've fought speedsters before. With the "Slow Time" shout it's like he's moving in slow motion and easily dealt with.

Head-splosion!

Correspondence on them leads to the next guy, a water mage attacking Whiterun. It's pretty cool to watch him toss people about with magical waves then seeing him turn into water when hit only to reform elsewhere. He couldn't defend against what he's not looking at though which made him another easy victim. The next one, Lana the Blood was even easier. I don't know what her powers are. Didn't care. One hit back-stab assassination is fantastic.

You snooze, you lose.

At least the next guy, a mage of stone was more alert and actually put up a fight - magically throwing obscenely large boulders at great speed that hit with extreeme knockback and decent damage. As you might suspect with that element he was more defensive than the others, but that strategy gave me time to think. Using "Slow Time" I just did a direct charge at his position, easily avoiding his projectiles and cut him down. These so called "ascended" wizards were falling like flies.

Skyrim: Where one List ends, another begins

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

Kneel before me, servant.

To replace Perdida (after she got eaten by the Storm Dragon) I recruited the orc dovahkiin, Tharas Gull, at Death Mountain to continue the dragon hunting quest. Thankfully, the next few are nowhere near as bad as Zuvulom. One just spits tar. The next, a dragon of madness doesn't really have any effective attacks which makes him easy prey. Then a "death dragon" only has a "machine gun" bite going for it but has a terrible hit rate and couldn't even survive one of my regular combos. The third was a holy dragon, who shone beams of orbital bombardment instead of breathing directly.

This was pretty cool since the light negated my "moves faster in darkness" armor, but the stupid thing left itself vulnerable when it landed to munch on some wandering forsworn. At last we came upon the final dragon, a flaming beast who only looked menacing. Slaying him revealed the true enemy though: the flame dragon was just a summon of Gorel, another ascended mage.

You missed.

This necromancer had some nasty spells but since the ruins he stood in offered lots of cover it was easy to dash around to his flank and hack him to death. It became clear that these ascended bastards were behind the dragons re-emergence - I mean, it's almost like I hunted them to extinction before these wizards showed up, so Tharas and I agreed that it was now time to hunt the ascended mages and give them what they deserve.

Skyrim: Unremarkable

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

My next task for the Dawnguard was to retrieve some sort of axe relic, and Agmaer rejoined me for this quest. He was clearly no Brutus though, nearly dying to some random night lord vampires near Deepwater Crossing. Fortunately I had his back.

I also had the vampires' back.

It's always good to follow through.

We stopped by Whiterun where I was made aware (as the acting Jarl) of some weapon the Thalmor were interested in an unremarkable cave to the South, so our mission quickly diverted to check it out. Bodies of adventurers paid by Thalmor gold lay near the entrance, and what seemed to be an ordinary bear in the first chamber turned out to be of the "killer" variety, slaying Agmaer in one strike!

I returned the favor to the beast then opted to go recruit more suitable assistance back at Death Mountain. The place was really running low on Daedric guards now, a fact a wandering ancient dragon was using to its advantage. With the other dovahkiin's Perdida, Zuna, and Tharas Gull we took it down after it landed and asked which of them was hungry for more adventure. Perdida jumped at the opportunity, and so with her in tow we returned to the unremarkable cave.

I always wonder how large caverns don't just naturally collapse.