Skyrim: Matryoshka Orb

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

Following the map we found previously only led us to a dead guy being watched by a friendly flaming wolf named Wolfmeat. I imagine the corpse was of the seer, for on his person was a strange book, full of maps superimposed on dragon portraits. Thirteen of them. We decided to go check the first one out and found a friendly giant, two more dead mages (of the psjiic order), and a strange floating orb... which I could go in. Magically I suppose, since it looks rather small. Perdida could not follow.

Only good things sit inside magic orbs right?

Definitely not small on the inside though as I found myself in an arena type space, my opponent - another ascended mage named Samel. Dolan had nothing compared to this guy who was shooting all sorts of bad stuff from every orifice (so much I couldn't take screenies)! It took a lot of health pots and ultimately a few invisibility ones too (that I collected from those assassins awhile back) to give me the upper hand and slit his throat.

The journal he carried mentioned all sorts of strange things, like his soul seeking another vessel or some such. I didn't really pay it any mind as I spied a second orb hovering nearby. Determined to clear this matryoshka orb I jumped into that one too - into another arena. This one guarded by the dragon Aaldu. If Samel was a 10 on the difficulty scale, this thing was a 15. I needed to use the Arbiter's Decree to stun the thing when it was landed to finally deal fatal damage, and it still forced me to use heal pots! Welp, that's what they are there for.

Needed the Decree to force it to land too.

My victory dance stops suddenly when I see yet another floating orb in the distance...

Skyrim: Dolan

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

After retrieving the relic axe for the Dawnguard (a joke of a mission if there ever was one as it was guarded by only four forsworn), they sent me to another crypt in the North called Heimfeigr. It's an atmospheric place but with very few draugr and only one dragon priest it's more like a mission they would have gotten a weakling like Agmaer to do. Guess they're running out of folks to send?

All show, no substance.

Having decided to take a break from the Dawnguard missions for a bit I returned to Whiterun for Jarl-y duties for a short time. I mean really short, as one of the children who play in the palace discovered a disturbing note: someone named Dolan was trying to recruit court magician Farengar (who I killed long ago) into their new order - and they wanted Dovahkiin's eliminated. Perdida and I took offense to this so we went to hunt the fool at Labyrinthian. He wasn't hiding.

Well... that's new.

Dolan had powers I hadn't encountered before. Explosive lightning knock back ones he could chain which made it challenging to get up to him. With Perdida tied up fighting some nearby frost trolls I had to move from cover to cover. This must have freaked Dolan out as he panicked and ran into a hut, which was his last mistake. With no where to run in there he felt the full force of my stabby-stabby swords.

In his possessions was a map and instructions to kill some sage. That meant there were more like him lurking around...

Watch Dogs: Beginner Tips

I thought I'd just put up six quick tips to help people survive ctOS Chicago in Watch Dogs.

1 - "Open your World"
Lots of your cooler and more useful skills will be locked until you complete the act one mission with this name, so unlike the Assassin's Creed series where you probably should do all the side stuff as soon as it becomes available, just power through the main story until you get to it (it's near the start) before doing any of the side missions.

2 - Silence is Golden
You can almost clear out an entire gang base if you use your silenced equipment (which mostly means the starter pistol at the beginning) and aim for the head, which always nets a kill unless you are shooting someone with a helmet. Civilians also have less chance to call the cops since they don't hear gunfire (unless you keep missing). Use focus once you've unlocked it to help steady your aim.

3 - The Destroyer of Criminal Convoys
Once you do enough criminal convoys (10 I think) you get to unlock this rifle (called "The Destroyer"). Choose those first 10 missions wisely as some are much harder than others but once this gun is in your hands none should pose a problem. One hit from a rifle disables a vehicle and since NPCs NEVER get into a car that they didn't start with it makes all the chase x person tasks much easier as you can force your prey to be on foot. A head shot from this will also kill the heavily armored guys, just aim for the goggle section. Once again, focus is your friend.

4 - Bad boys go to the beach, and sleep in their cars
The Chicago police are ridiculously aggressive, willing to kill bystanders to get to you. While unlocking your magical phone abilities to use the city infrastructure against them is certainly a good way to slow them down, an easier method is to head for the nearest marina and catch a boat since they are incredibly allergic to water and will not chase you there. The helicopters will, but your magic phone can disable them. And if they have snipers well, bullets (especially from the Destroyer) can help with that. If there are no boats nearby a good alternative is to use a blackout doohickey (or cause one the old fashioned way) then hide in your car, especially if you have the related bonus skill. I've managed to hide in the middle of a freeway, with a police cruiser right beside me. It looked at my smoking wreck of a vehicle for a bit then drove off. :P

5 - "Steal a Vehicle" contracts need Skill
The "steal a vehicle" fixer contracts were the hardest ones in the game for me, since you can't really get out of the car for longer than 20 seconds. You'll definitely want as many/all of your skills unlocked before attempting them, along with pockets full of consumable items. Being familiar with how various vehicles handle and the various short cuts and back road ramps as a player is also handy.

6 - Be Crafty
Crafting stuff is great, but since its a pain to go buy equipment or collect them it might help to know what stuff is used most (or at least, what stuff I used most). The number one item is: Jam Communications, followed by Blackout, followed by Focus pills. Frags and IEDs had some rare moments, mostly during campaign missions but I didn't really use any of the others so unless your play style widely varies from mine, save your resources! I found lures to be especially useless, but perhaps have some value to those who want a "no kill" play through (yeah, good luck with that).

That's it, hopefully it's of use to someone out there! :)

Skyrim: Some form of Suicide

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

The unremarkable cave gave way to an unremarkable tomb, one guarded by an ancient skeletal guardian who liked summoning infinite minions. Between two dragonborn they were easy. Past them was a mage of some skill with explosive magic and teleportation, hopping from platform to platform in a large open chamber. The idiot didn't know when -not- to teleport though, as it became predictable when he was porting to the point that I'd swing into air and he'd teleport into it. I'm sure that's some form of suicide.

 

Guess he couldn't see well with that mask.

The next foe was more interesting. The teleporty mage was guarding a floating sword, "the spellblade", and upon touching it Perdida and I were thrown into a non descript cube with an invisible opponent, who was actually dealing decent damage. Fortunately Perdida managed to aggro the spirit and effectively tank it, while I backstabbed it to death. I do that a lot in this game.

Cool!

A few more ghosts and an atronarch lab later, we find ourselves descending into a huge dark cavern. A dragon's lair! This dragon summons undead instead of using breath attacks though - which is a good change of pace. After slaying all the guardians the beast itself lands and... shapeshifts into a guy? What?  Said guy has some strange ability but since he's focused on Perdida, it's easy for me to take advantage of his human sized form and end him swiftly.

With him out of the way, we are free to loot his small hoard and leave the cave, with the spell blade safely tucked away in my pack.

I love loot!

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.

Watch Dogs

Where you play as a gun-toting wizard with a magical mobile phone.

Ubisoft has a thing for open world games, and in this one you get to explore modern day Chicago as a very flawed, hypocritical and ultimately boring murdere vigilante with a magical cell phone. This is to make up for his lack of parkour ability when compared to the other well known Ubisoft open world series: Assassin's Creed. The many nods to that game here are pretty funny.

The city is huge, and as expected there are a good number of mini-games to do and skills to unlock while exploring it. Fortunately getting around via train, car or boat is pretty easy once you get the hang of it - complete with a decent enough selection of radio music to listen to while traveling. Another thing to get a hang of is the magical phone which simply gives too much information on the many NPCs. You can turn off the profiler, but most/all the good things only happen when its up.

Doubles as a handy cultist finder!

While it is certainly an entertaining game (and possibly addictive if you like Grand Theft Auto type chaos) there are a number of things that I found annoying. First it's a soft game audio wise, I needed to turn up the volume a bit to hear anything. Also, the protagonist and most of the other characters (specifically those related to him) are morons. I guess it runs in the family? Some tasks fail because you killed the main target, despite killing all his henchmen, some civilians and possibly some police officers in the process, while others it's ok to just go on a killing spree? 

Also half the missions are working as the exact type of person the protagonist is supposed to hate (killers), but if you want total completion then... oh well? There's also one part where you run the same map three or so times (because plot device), when really if you just did the "third" time first it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. At least the difficulty (on Realistic anyway) is good, but there's just something lacking. A likable protagonist maybe? I didn't really give a crap about him or his feelings throughout the entire game.

The game is alright for one ride but pretty much becomes "meh" soon after the first act. I give it two and a half stolen cars out of five. If you want an open world title where you actually care for the protagonist, try Assassin's Creed: Black Flag instead. Edward Kenway is awesome.

Skyrim: Tusaron

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

Do your curved swords do 900+ damage? Didn't think so.

Adventuring with Brutus is fun, as he is almost as good as me when it comes to killing things! Dovahkiin and Nerevarine high five! We wandered around the roads for a bit, taking turns dueling the many wandering challengers and even had a dragon slaying competition!

Brutus: "Jump on the head because then it is at your mercy!"

Me: "Just like handling an alligator then?"

Our journeys led us to some vampire nest at the request of the Dawnguard, and while exterminating them was easy it turned out that their master - an ancient thalmor bloodsucker, was away - journeying to Castle Volkihar to meet his buddy Lord Harkon. We caught up with him just south of Helgen... the Vampire Dread Lord Tusaron. I knew right away that this was a danger unlike we had previously faced so I opened with my paralyzing arrows which knocked him down.

Not one to waste an opening, Brutus charged in and wailed on the undead thalmor for a bit... until he finally resisted my paralyzing shots. On his feet, Tusaron was a whirlwind of death - agile and unrelenting. In just a second after slicing Brutus into tiny Nerevarine pieces he was already almost upon me at my sniper spot. The Arbiter's Decree made the ancient vampire hesitate though, and that was all I needed to get a number of power attacks to finish off the fiend.

Lived up to his name.

After paying respects to my fallen companion I began the cold trek back to Fort Dawnguard.

Skyrim: Ur Dead

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

Iverelle had mentioned reports of a disturbing cave to the South so Brutus and I made our way there for recon and clearing, and encountered corpus walkers, skinned hounds, and cultists of the sixth house before encountering Dagoth Vanis - who basically acted as the mouth of Dagoth Ur, challenging us to enter his fortress here in Skyrim and face him in combat.

Brutus (backstabbing him): "I got tired of his talking."

With that invitation Brutus and I moved quickly to get to the dwemer ruin where we fought more of Dagoth's minions, now including Ash servants, who didn't really stand a chance against the two of us. Their traps were more dangerous.

Nice to see his choice of head gear hasn't changed much.

Finally in the bowels of that place awaited Dagoth Ur. After a nice chat, where he explains his plan of enacting vengeance upon the only one who can stop him (the reincarnated Nerevarine) we get down to the business/fighty end. Or we would have. The idiot was so focused on me he didn't realize that I wasn't the reincarnated Nerevarine. It was the guy beside me.

He got brutalized!

Brutus exploited his moment of indecision and brutalized the poor bastard. After claiming the loot, which rightfully went to Brutus, we made our way around the holds executing any and all dreamers left. The corpus meat found on their persons proves this is the righteous and lawful thing to do.

No more dreams for you!

Skyrim: Reincarnated

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

Azura imparted some really obscure information to me which I didn't fully understand, but she did say I was free to take Sunder and so I did. For a "legendary" weapon it didn't come close to any of my current equipment. Before leaving I did have to ask Azura one thing... "Is your kung fu stronger than my kung fu!?"  I'm pleased she was game enough to actually participate, unlike that cheater Sanguine.

She'll be alright.

After a decent sparring session, I said thank you by knocking her out with an uppercut and took my leave. Mellori finally came clean when I gave her the hammer, saying she was doing all of this to try forge a weapon capable of killing the person who slew her dad. Someone really bad. She refused to name drop though, and said she'd send us a note when she was ready, since all her previous attempts at forging whatever she was making didn't turn out right.

There was one really bad dude who came to mind though, so Brutus and I headed to Whiterun to see if we could learn more about him. I'm talking of Dagoth Ur of course, whose Dreamers are becoming more frequent in each town. At the tavern, a traveling dunmer named Iverelle Savidri confirms my suspicions and what the dreamers have been trying to preach: Dagoth Ur has fully revived from his defeat at Red Mountain, and is reforming the Sixth House cult here in Skyrim.

Coinciding with an eclipse eh...

It is up to the reincarnation of the Nerevarine to stop him...

And his lackeys!

Skyrim: Tomb of the Nerevarine

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

Mellori was happy with all the trinkets I've been retrieving for her, and the next one was a doozy: a little hammer called Sunder. Supposedly it was buried with the Nerevarine centuries ago, the hero of Morrowind who slew Dagoth Ur in the Red Mountain. It certainly wasn't me because a) I'm still alive and b) I didn't kill Dagoth Ur with a hammer. I just pushed him into a volcano (which was awesome btw :P).

Anyway, Brutus would have to stay behind again because he had to help clean up the town after being caught littering.

"But it doesn't fit in any of the bins..."

The ship to Morrowind was really fast. Pretty much instantaneous even. If I wasn't reading carefully I'd even think the Nerevarine's tomb was IN the ship. A small Imperial party was idling in the tomb when I got there. Apparently they all tried to take the hammer and were deemed unworthy - turning into Hollows (someone certainly watches Bleach) who forever were trapped in the tomb.

While not openly aggressive immediately, I obviously had a conflicting opinion with their captain and ... well. I set them free. Finally I reached the burial chamber myself and who do I find waiting there?

Azura, the Daedric Prince(ss) of Dusk and Dawn

Skyrim: Flames of Oblivion

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

Upon easily returning to my own time (I'm an expert now I guess) and exiting the ruins, Brutus reported finding a nearby crashed ship high up on the frozen cliffs. We went to check it out to find it's a gold transport, still with safes and loot intact.

A redguard named Burgundy was already there and had claimed it as her inheritance though, and since gold is something I have lots of I left her and her guard, Fawadin, there to handle it while we returned to Mellori. Her next task was very fun: to collect a weapon from an oblivion realm! The portal to this was near the Thalmor Embassy so Brutus entertained himself while I went into the red realms of the dremora - who are still susceptible to good ol fashioned throat slitting.

Very, very red.

Their boss, Graff Von what's his face, was the only one to insta-detect me. He also offered a trade for what I was after: either I gave him my first born infant or duel to the death right now. Is that even a choice? To his credit, the dremora lord put up a decent fight and could take my hits - but was simply too slow with his two hander to hit me in return.

Too much sitting on your ass and not enough training!

After doing the classic samurai dash-finisher, I collected the broken artifact weapon and made my way out. Oh, and I finally found a fireball tome! Yep, I only learned that spell now.

He also had some funny books.

Skyrim: Simple Clarity

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

Brutus stayed outside while I went into the dwemer tunnels, finding it haunted by ghosts and ghosts in armor? They were led by someone named Kenneth and apparently were not aware they were already dead. I simplified this for them the best way I knew how. I gave his unique "panzer" shield to Brutus afterwards.

Since we were near Markarth we decided to make a detour there to pick up more of Shalidor's writings only to find they were hiding a small group of Thalmor in the palace!? Brutus and I lost our sh!t composure and so commenced the murder of those worms and any one else who decided that killing Thalmor is a crime (because it isn't). In record time Brutus and I had free run of the city and left with what we came for.

He's learning a thing or two from me. :P

After dropping off the loot, Mellori dispatched us to some frozen ruins to collect a lock box. Brutus waited outside again while I navigated the traps and skeletons to find a portal back in time. This again? At least it was more straight forward this time, the khajiit thief who had the box got stuck in here and gone mad. I offered her clarity with my tried and true method: Death.

Some of those traps were a little nuts.

Skyrim: Mellori's Minions

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

The dreamer wasn't doing anything criminal (I think) so we left him and headed down to the ratway. Fortunately all the thieves I previously killed were still dead, only Galathil the face changer was there. Unfortunately she admitted to having Imperial and Dominion clients which led me to punching her in the face, followed by Brutus running her through.

There was a new weapon shop in town too, "The Iron Lass" run by Mellori who had some tasks for us. First was to help her friend Old Jako clear out a draugr tomb. The veteran didn't have it in him to do in his old comrades so I let Brutus watch over him while I did the deed.

The Iron Lass needs to make more light sources in her store.

Next we were sent to find a clockwork heart in a dwemer ruin, near Nerelia's house. After briefly dropping in to check that she was ok, we continued on and found a bandit running from a pair of angry giants and their mammoths. We watched as the bandit we splattered, and then one of the mammoths attacked Brutus. Big mistake.

One hit KO, but not the way you'd think.

I simply sat back and watched him demolish all the enemies with ease, single handedly.

Skyrim: Return to Nirn

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

And you thought Death Mountain was weird!

After eight or so maps of falling I finally ended up... on a UFO? What? Someone call XCOM! Haha! The view was amazing though. There were also some really cool shoes that negate falling damage just sitting there, which I figured I'd need - on the way down! LOL! Definitely one of the strangest adventures I've come across so far.

Prepare for re-entry!

It was back to business when I was back on Nirn, as Brutus told me Njada had been kidnapped (again) by a vampire and his bandit cronies. We made a beeline for the shipwreck that served as their base, and Brutus showed off his talent by killing everything himself. All I did was free Njada. Why do I even give her weapons? *sigh*

Decided to head to Riften to see if there were any rumors about where those bandits came from, and instead I find a more disturbing encounter, a dunmer "dreamer" who keeps talking about his resurrected lord who speaks to him in his dreams: Dagoth Ur.

Not you guys again!

Skyrim: My One Weakness

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

With all the Thalmor events I had forgotten to return a book I previously retrieved to Urag Gro-Shub at the College of Winterhold. Once there I noticed he had a new parchment on his table though, a partial map to "the Bottomless Pit"?  Curious, I traveled there myself and sure enough - found a deep dark hole. With a shrug I decided to hop on down...

Oh cr*p!

Only to realize this map featured my one weakness: Gravity. Oh yes, did I die a lot. You see it's not just a hole. It's a hole with obstacles! Definitely a lesson in controlled falling. The second map even featured magic rings that you had to fall through in order to open gates at the bottom. Some sections had a "pick one of four tunnels" game. Three end in spikes. Fun! I certainly learned to appreciate the "Become Ethereal" shout here which offers temporary god-mode. :P

(sings) "Under the sea... Under the sea...!"

For a change of pace the fifth area was an underwater city where I needed to find three levers to open another gate down. Good thing I brought the Hunter's amulet of water breathing! After a short stint in rapids (with more spikes) it was back to falling and falling and falling...

Limbo

Appropriately named for the wrong reason.

This is stylistic/minimalistic(?) black and white puzzle platformer is pretty nifty and despite being on the short side of things has some good head scratching sections, especially if you are aiming to get all the extra easter eggs. For something that doesn't use any text or speech, it starts out pretty decent at teaching the player of their limitations and what things are fatal to your character: pretty much everything. :P

It also does a great job of imbuing dread and fear in the earlier stages, something that is unfortunately lost as you progress where things begin relying more on either prior knowledge or excellent gamer ability. The achievement of making it through with less than five deaths is almost certainly unattainable for a first time player as that method of teaching then practice quickly evaporates later on.

Pretty cool for something just in shades of gray.

I feel that the best bits of it are at the beginning. For some reason it seems to have the most care taken design wise. Towards the end when you are avoiding laser guided bullets and playing with gravity altering buttons it feels more and more like a slower Super Meat Boy experience. Doesn't help that the final bit required me to switch to windowed mode to avoid a game breaking crash and that the actual end is quite sudden. I guess much like the title, it's own spirit was lost in Limbo. Still a fun game but not a great game in my book, and it easily could have been. I give it three terrifying giant spiders out of five.

Skyrim: End of Eternity

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

The crypt was lightly sprinkled with draugr as one might expect. Deeper in was a nice surprise of a dragon priest turning into a spectral dragon though! Not that it was dangerous for me, just a neat effect. The last chamber was hilarious though: it was filled with "draugr Bob"!

This place looks familiar...

After killing the one true Bob (only one with a key), I found a sacred flame and touched it to find myself transported to... Sovngarde? The mead hall was very different now though. All the nord heroes were dead and burning in the pyre. I mean re-dead? Ahhh this is as confusing as Spirit Society in Bleach! The lone Thalmor Commander, Grand Duamus Rhonac had effectively destroyed it single handedly.

Too bad he and his second spirit form couldn't do the same to me.

After eliminating him I was fortunate enough to find a glowing ball of light that teleported me back to the fisherman's shack. A little annoyed I had to row back to the mainland by myself though!

Skyrim: Teaching them a Lesson

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

The underground cavern was massive, and far below I could see a small fort guarded by a handful of patrolling Thalmor. The bridges leading down had broken and were replaced instead by... lit floating torches? *Sigh* Someone likes jumping puzzles. A few hops, skips and jumps down and I was sniping the clueless guards. One shot, one kill.

Jumping puzzle with invisible platforms. Thanks crazy Thalmor!

The interior wasn't much better defended, and I managed to catch the guard captain and his "adventuring team" sitting at dinner. Shot him in the head and rushed the rest. Half of them were dead before they could even stand and draw weapons. The other half didn't fare much better. In their cheese filled basement below I did the Thalmor a favor by exploding their skeever infestation, then proceeded up stairs and stumbled upon a magic class.

Ultimate stealth: Casting destructive ritual magic in the center of an enemy magic class and not being detected.

After dealing with them and some fire eles, I made my way to the top of the tower to deal with the head honcho only to find, he wasn't there. A note and key suggested he went into the crypts below, and so after a lot of looking I finally found a passage behind one of the many tapestries that led even deeper underground... People just love digging too deep.

Skyrim: Middle of Nowhere

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

Gotta dodge the laser beams!

In one of the deeper vaults on the island I found an army of dwemer spheres busy at work and proof of the Kraken's origin. I mean who else would construct a giant mecha right? After destroying Mazinger Z, I cleared as many more enemies as I could but then had to return, leaving the rest of Summerset Isle's conquest in the capable hands of the sisters and their soldiers.

This is because the mod is unfinished, and I ran into the speedforce.

Upon returning to Skyrim, Brutus told me that during his incarceration he learned of a secret Thalmor under the ocean. The best way there would be via rowboat, and would need to be a solo mission as to keep it low key. Because I like surprising people. This was fine since Braga Clearwater basically "graduated" and was now a competent adventurer. I gave her a big hug and sent her on her way, then found myself a boat.

Well, that's specific...

At the coordinates Brutus gave I found an unguarded tiny island and a fisherman's shack. Under the bed was a trap door that led to a huge cave system though, guarded by a ghost and his ghost dog. Yeeeah ok. After splattering their ectoplasm all over the walls I found stairs leading even deeper.

Skyrim: Summerset Isle

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

The soldiers of Skyrim were doing a pretty good job slaying the Thalmor defenders, despite taking losses of their own. I was pleased to see Aurora and Twilight with them in the fray, but I could not let them have all the fun. Using my super speed I made sure to get ahead of the main pack and slaughter as many of the enemy as I could, personally.

Though it was nice to watch the two NPC forces clash too.

During my rampage I came across a prison with a familiar face being slowly executed by a fiery boss Thalmor. After slaying the incinerator I freed Brutus Brutalus, the assassin who obviously survived my final attack last time and whose armor I now wore. Apparently he managed to crawl away, only to be taken hostage by the elves and tortured for information. He did manage to escape and cause some chaos though.

The very definition of a hero!

Since he now owed me (a lot) he offered his aid against our common enemy. I told him to go recover first while I thought about it, instructing Braga to take him back to the ships while I forged ahead deeper inland where more Thalmor, including one of their "master wizards", met their ends at my blade. Their paralyzing archer squads came close to putting me down though. Close but not enough.

For glory!

Skyrim: Plotting the Course

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

Braga's training continued as we hunted more master vampires and bandit bosses together. At Falkreath we received a strange request via courier: a local hunter wanted us to hunt down a monster in town. I let Braga take the lead on the investigation, which led us to finding the body of one female victim and ultimately into the "hunters'" house.

The price of guilt.

Turns out he was the monster too, but ultimately we didn't have to fight him since he took himself out with a dagger. After that slightly depressing mission we finally got word from Njada about the source of "the Kraken" from last time - Summerset Isle, home of the Thalmor. She had already arranged a fleet and loyalist troops to go and eliminate all the scum there. I was only too happy to join.

No place to run, assassin!

During the voyage I was attacked by a left over bounty hunter who had snuck aboard, but Braga and the nearby soldiers took care of him. Soon enough we reached the shores of the Thalmor controlled island, and charged onto the beach under enemy fire. The elf scum were waiting.

Skyrim: The Student

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

Less than a week had passed when Braga Clearwater of Adal Matar came knocking on my door. She sought me out to be her tutor in all things adventuring. Unlike her brother she had no combat experience so I thought we'd  start with simple things like recovering books for the College of Winterhold and hunting vampires for the Dawnguard.

Pierce the chest and remove the head.

I demonstrated how to sneak past giants, pickpocket vamps and obviously tested her combat ability against some Silverhand and Summerset Shadows gang members. She was also tested by the Augur of Dunlain beneath the College against some pretty tough ghosts, a test she passed easily and was rewarded with a powerful restoration ritual.

I then took her on patrol along the shoreline and found another gigantic enemy: the Kraken. Not what I was expecting though, as it was a giant dwemer spider bot! Fortunately the machination was malfunctioning and was easy for Braga and I to destroy. I did wonder where the heck this thing was built though, so I sent pieces I could salvage back to Njada to examine.

Not your typical kraken!