Skyrim: Altar of the Ascended

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

"Ominously dark" is a very apt way to describe the interior of the altar place that Vithdovah was guarding, and it was inhabited by horrible creatures not seen elsewhere. Fortunately they were all not very observant, and the shadows played to my strengths being a sneaky type. Especially with the armor that makes me run faster in the dark!

There were hounds that radiated smoke (or just farted a lot).

And a giant winged hound.

And giant shark men? These void gehenoths were often accompanied by scamps (like in Oblivion) or flaming guar (similar to those in Morrowind). As expected they could take a lot of punishment and throw me around with their melee attack.

They also have a creepy smile.

That's why I'd vanish into the shadows, reposition, and backstab (sometimes with slow time) their vulnerable rears, a flaw all the monsters in this place have. These particular ones are also quite slow and easy to get the drop on, meaning it was pretty basic to slay them all with just a little bit of patience.

Skyrim: Vithdovah

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

Since I couldn't risk melee against Vithdovah, nor could I out potion him given his huge pool of hit points the only strategy was to shoot him down with the exploding arrows, which took a long while! At half health he then decided to turn tail and flee. Having seen this strategy of fleeing and coming back with full HP before I hastily swam after him and fortunately managed to catch up on the mainland where some bandits managed to get his attention, and were in the process of being exploded.

Not willing to let him escape, I made sure to constantly then Dragonrend him to force him on the ground. While this ensured he didn't escape, it also made him much deadlier. Zuna was decimated in the fray so it came down to a one on one battle. Fortunately at that point I had managed to lure the beast into a forest where the tree cluster was too tight for him to spread his wings to take off. The foliage also gave me good cover against his crazy explosive breath.

Because in Skyrim, trees are immune to fire. 
And explosions. And any damage whatsoever.

In the longest dragon fight I've had so far, I finally slew Vithdovah after pelleting him with over 400 explosive arrows. This isn't counting the other explosive arrows Zuna had been shooting, nor whatever the bandits could do to him. With the guardian finally dead, I returned to the little island and found the entrance to the Altar of the Ascended.

The was one soul I particularly enjoyed consuming.

Skyrim: The Deadliest Dragon

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

Turns out I had missed one of the ascended, a blood marked zealot who wasn't really anything special. Zuna took care of him while I executed his bandit buddies. He did have a book marking the location of the ascended shrine though again hidden on an isle in the North sea. Must be the spawning ground of crazy up there. Upon our arrival we were greeted by the familiar roar of a dragon - Vithdovah the bombardier and HP sponge. Can you tell I'm making up their titles? Fun fact: This is now the dragon who has killed me the most times.

If only I could ram it with this boat.

Since the shrine is on a tiny isle, Vithdovah's usual attacks were to stay in the air and explode the ground beneath. Competent adventurers like myself would only get minor damage from this while side stepping. This is actually much worse when he is landed as I don't think you can fully avoid the rapid fire exploding spheres he spits out from close up. Still a little less painful than Auszeimrahgol's though.

Aiming through explosions is pretty tough.

His most powerful skill was that if I attacked him up close - I would instantly die. And not the "my health drops really quickly but I have time to press I to open the inventory screen to effectively pause and consume health pots" type with the previous dragons. Nope. One second you are alive, the next second you are dead. It took me awhile to realize the reason for this. In short - he reflects ALL melee damage. So yeah, power striking with a 900+ damage sword and a 600+ damage dragon slaying katana at the same time was killing me instantly. The clever scum managed to turn my own gear against me!