Master Thief

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

Decided to try go after the Elder Scroll I needed to defeat the main bad dragon today. Hired the merc Stenvar to provide support and while he did help kill a Frost Dragon on the way to the dwemer ruins and a bunch of falmer bastards inside he didn't last very long to a group led by a falmer shadowmaster, who turned his insides into ice. I just backstab those and kill them in one hit. Proceeded down, down, down to goblin town until I came upon... Blackreach. WHAT THE HELL. This place is HUGE, and crawling with nasties. It also connects to other large dwemer dungeons. I tried to map the alien landscape as much as I could until the damn glowy shrooms started to give me a headache so I took the nearest grand elevator out of there to do something else first. Picked up the orc warrioress Borgath too, since I was running out of followers to choose from elsewhere. :P

The Dark Brotherhood had tasked me with three kills, two of which were eliminating people who non-productive to society so I had no problem with that. The last one, a hardworking miner gal in Dawnstar, I had moral issues killing. Turns out the problem solved itself as we arrived because the city was under attack from an Elder Dragon and he happened to turn my target into crispy pata before I could save her. Also visited Solitude to shadow a contact of an enemy to the thieves guild. Borgath didn't do much shadowing though, she just tried to fight her way through guard after guard to no avail. Stupid orc. Saved her life a bajillion times in that warehouse. We also cleared out a dwemer ruin and encountered a named dragon when we exited... sounded like... Vin Diesel?

Anyway, Mercer - the leader of the Thieves guild has finally tracked this nemesis of theirs and wants me to help him take them down. Sure thing. Borgath is too afraid to come with us so she stays behind. For good reason too. Mercer is an absolute kickass when it comes to dustman dusting. Better still, at the end of that it turns out HE is the bad guy and manages to "kill" me. Fortunately Athis showed me his trick of coming back to life and it seems Borgath and the nemesis person who is actually good (to an extent) help me regain my health. We head back to Riften to clear the she-nemesis' name with the guild and slay a dragon attacking the town while doing so. After all things are settled (and after she gives me a really cool set of armor) the obvious quest to hunt down Mercer begins and I am more than happy to do so. Borgath again chooses to stay out of it knowing she'd just get in the way. For the record, the final fight against Mercer is perhaps the best one I've had in the game so far (for my build anyway, Juris who did this as a mage just let his dremora do all the work :P).

What a battle between real master thieves looks like:

Can't see anything? That's the point.
After defeating him I have been elected as guild master for the thieves guild. Really? Well that's just great. They request I help them rebuild their group by doing criminal acts across the land. I have a better idea. I turn them all in. Alas that option doesn't exist, so instead I let them rot in their squallor living in the sewers like the turds they are.

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.

Last City on the Right

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

It was Njada's turn for evaluation and I must admit, I do not really like this scarred chick. She talks back and is quite angry all the time. However I could not deny her talents after seeing her in action, seemingly pulling off finishing move after finishing move, including brutally murdering a champion of Boethiah. She also assisted in slaying an Elder Dragon and eliminating some (skilled) bandits disguised as soldiers. After a long walk filled with bears we finally reached Riften, the city of thieves. As usual there's a lot to do since it's my first visit, one of which is finding Esbern, a Blade in hiding. I locate the old guy just as he is located by Thalmor scum and find it fitting that I leave these "high elves" dead in the sewers where they belong. Lotsa crazy people down here too.

During all this I manage to infiltrate the so called thieves guild by doing some menial tasks and low level strong-arming. As I suspected they're just a bunch of bastards who deserve nothing more than beheading. When they allow me into their secret club quarters Njada, Esbern and I begin eliminating as many of the idiots as possible. Turns out I can only kill 7 of them, the remaining 4, their fence and their barkeep are all protected by what I call "threads of fate" (god mode). Being the losers that they are, they negotiate a truce and will forget that I killed over half their number for a mere 1000 gold. And they wonder why their guild is doing poorly.

I also learn that they are being backed by the Black-Briar family so at every opportunity I can I bungle their missions, stealing the family's prized horse, burning too many beehives, and generally trying to destroy them indirectly. My team also wipes out a druggie den, a spider filled mine, another deep dwemer dungeon with a centurion master, as well as help an orc village being attacked by a giant. At the end of all that we find ourselves back at Whiterun to unload loot. I have grown to like Njada quite a bit during our travels. Since she survived this rotation I let her take a breather and pick up Athis (the somehow still alive again) for the next trip out which I like to call the great collection expedition. For some reason Riften's quests have a hell of a lot of collecting various herbs and semi-rare reagents which takes me more than a few hours. Urgh.

It's a bit like that.

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.

Ashes to Ashes

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

On the road to Markarth we came across a Thalmor unit with a prisoner. After getting into a theological argument with them, they attacked (as planned) and I tested Erandur's will to kill his own kind (elves), which he passed with flying colours. He is quite a violent priest. After freeing the captive we continued to the City of Stone for what was meant to be a simple pickup job for the mages college and a bounty retrieval from the Jarl's steward. This was not to be. One of the guardsmen at the main hall wanted to arrest me: on charges of treason for "aiding" the forsworn. I aided them by killing their leader? I knew quickly that the local Thalmor bastard (who was standing there at the time with his usual smug grin) had organized this. I told the guard "fuck you", and began a long fight back out to the city gates, but not before I made sure the Thalmor asswipe and his two lackeys were lying lifeless in pools of their own blood. Between Erandur and I we must have slaughtered half the guardsmen at Markarth before reaching the gates. Alas in the final melee, the priest was cut down and his body lay in a pile of other soldiers he killed.

Decided to steal a horse and make my way to a nearby orc camp which I was turned away from earlier. The blacksmith lady (orc) in town had told me I would be welcome now after helping her which I was. Upon arrival I did what is customary I assume. I challenged their chief to a fist fight and publicly humiliated him by knocking his lights out. Then I got his brother Ghorbash to join me on my next tasks which involved killing hagravens and as luck would have it, a great number of orc bandits. The stalwart warrior was not in my company long though when he met his end to a master necromancer who then raised his body to fight against me. Upon killing the wizard with my arrows the once mighty Ghorbash disintegrated into a pile of ash.

How many people end up when Necromancy or Fire is involved.
Back at Whiterun I found that the Silverhand had been busy and managed to actually kill the old leader guy. YES! One less werewolf. Vilkas, one of the twins, wants vengeance and demands to come with me. Ofcourse his vengeance can wait. First we go back up to High Hrothgar where I finish my training and can finally use the shout that all these dead men have been using against me (Fus ro dah!), then we go kill a troublesome giant, fight an elder dragon and the lich Krosis at the same time (that was tough), and find Azura's star. Also became Thane of both Winterhold and Dawnstar, and retrieved missing books and rescued the stupid student Orthorn for the mages college from a sorceress who calls herself "The Caller". When she saw me she instantly panicked and let me take whatever I wanted. Silly for her at that point I wanted her life for making me go through all her minions. Dagger to the back resulted in her instant death and prevented any stupid boss fight that may have happened.

Finally we get to Vilkas' revenge. The Silverhand stronghold is expansive, but generally they are no match for us. Also decided to free a captive werewolf who turned out to be wild (as I predicted). I let Vilkas deal with it to see if he had the cahones to murder his own kind. He did. I grinned and laughed. That should be the fate of all stupid werewolves (I'm a werecorgi, I'm not included in that generalization :P). I was tempted to backstab Vilkas right now but I knew from the fight with Krosis earlier that he was immune to death (damn game). Back at Whiterun we attended the funeral of the old leader guy where Aela burned his corpse on the pyre. I also learn that there's a cure for this lycanthropy, so with the twins Farkas and Vilkas and Aela we begin our run North to find it.

Triple Dragon

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

Dawnstar seems to truly be a "cursed" village. Apart from having the really strong vampire earlier and being plagued by nightmares it was also attacked by a frost dragon who was eventually slain by yours truly. I helped the priest Erandur deal with that nightmare problem, and it's worth noting the coward Benor stayed outside the shrine that was causing it. He really is a chicken. After helping the Dawnstar residents my cowardly companion and I continued East through the icy mountains to visit the hard to miss shrine of Azura and the city of Winterhold. After killing three random frost trolls we were attacked by yet another frost dragon. It had caught us on an open cliff and though it too died just as its sibing did earlier, it did manage to end Benor's miserable existence before doing so. I watched amused as his lifeless corpse slid down the mountain slope till I had to return to finishing off that dragon.

Finally reached Winterhold and discovered that it probably be renamed to Winterhole as most of the city collapsed due to erosion. My bet is Solitude will suffer a similar fate. Anyway while there I decided to visit the Mages College and by some misunderstanding actually enrolled as a student even if I'm not a mage. The first class concluded with a field trip to some dangerous ruins where we separated up and the teacher guy let me go on ahead to fight death lords solo. While this was ok with me, I'm wondering what happens to other novices who find themselves in such spots. :P

"What the hell, teach!?"
With many tasks calling my attention back West, I headed back that way picking up the elf priest Erandur on the way (he owed me for helping him fixing his problem earlier), and proved his combat ability by NOT dying to yet ANOTHER frost dragon on our travels. Also continued the usual clearing of tombs and bandits that were in the way, and at one point I was concerned the talkative priest broke his leg as he no longer wanted to follow me but a bit further down the road he caught up, seemingly fully healed. I was pleased that this frail priest guy was more badass than my previous companion. Also, wow three dragons in one post. They're getting more frequent!