Skyrim: The Settling Dust

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With Miraak gone, Frea would now fill her dead shaman dad's shoes and protect her village. Sero and I also informed Neloth of what transpired and like any decent wizard, he already knew. His apprentice Talvas was up to shenanigans though, having summoned an uncontrollable ash atronarch which slew Neloth's steward before we could intervene. The wizard tasked us with hiring a replacement.

On our way back to Raven Rock we stopped by Ralis' dig to find that progress has been impeded by draugr. Typical. While Sero went in to clear it out, I gave another 2000 gold for him to find replacement labor. We then did a much bigger detour as I remembered we had a key to some long lost pirate treasure and found the burial site of Deathbrand. This guy was buried in style, with piles of gold and treasure in the antechamber.

Now that's more like it!

Apart from the expected draugr we also had to deal with Deathbrand's angry ghost (because, why not). I wish I could say he was a decent fighter, but apparently you can slice the necks of ghosts? We cleared out that lair and returned to Raven Rock. For his services and for surviving the majority of Solstheim, I split the treasure with Teldryn Sero - giving him all of Deathbrand's gear too. I felt he was skilled enough now to be an adventuring hero in his own right, something that is rare for an NPC to attain if you've been following this journal from the start. :P

So many things wrong with this picture.

Skyrim: Miraak

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Why read books when you can do this?

To keep my end of the deal with Hermaeus Mora, Sero and I returned to Frea's village where I rather easily convinced her shaman dad to surrender his secret knowledge of horkers (walruses). The daedric prince took it in a most violent fashion (involving tentacle insertion) and then kept his end of the deal, giving me a dragon shout that could counter Miraak. Humorously enough, to reach this final mission I simply had to read a black book in my backpack, which transported me near Miraak's temple in Apocrypha.

After the usual shenanigans with the resident abominations, I finally got to use my fully powered Bend Will shout on one of Miraak's dragons which let me mount it for some pretty cool (and quite uncontrolled) dragon flight. After a short jaunt, it set me down at the temple's summit to face his old master who was nice enough to talk first before starting the duel.

So shiny it hurts my eyes...

Miraak's use of dragon shouts was indeed impressive. He even had one which absorbed his remaining minion dragons to fully heal himself which was pretty cool. He was actually dangerous enough to convince me to use my swords too (I started by using fists, just to savour the combat). Ultimately though, Hermaeus Mora stole my kill and ended Miraak once and for all. Death by tentacle insertion. 

Miraak got raped. :P

The only worse fate is for your enemy to then make a stuffed figure out of you.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Skyrim: Off to see the Wizard

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Our reward for protecting the councilman from his enemies was citizenship and a house in Raven Rock! This is great as it provides a spot to unload all the junk I've been collecting. Since the quests in town have dried up, Sero and I head off to visit the wizard Neloth who literally lives in a giant shroom while his servants live in smaller shrooms. These dunmer are funny.

Kill... all... organics!

Neloth is the local guru of Black Books it seems and agrees to help me stop Miraak if I help him get his hands on the book at a nearby dwemer ruin, which also holds the new ballista bot enemies which are pretty cool. The whole steam powered place is sinking into the ocean, and getting power to open the book case from the lower levels involves a bit of swimming and water puzzles. The hunters necklace of water breathing is really useful here!

Hate to be the one to put those pages back where they belong!

With the target book finally in our hands, Neloth lets me read it first leading to the longest and coolest map of Apocrypha so far. Hermaeus Mora (who seems to come right out of the HP Lovecraft mythos) chats to me at the summit, revealing that he has been training Miraak all this time but now that Miraak is abandoning him, he will help me instead - if I give him access to some secret knowledge Frea's shaman dad was hiding from him. I don't really have much choice in the matter it seems.

Mr. Know it all.

After sending me back to Solstheim my little group is attacked by one of Miraak's dragons who was sent to assassinate me. Hah, an assassin dragon! As you might have guessed, it stood no chance.

Skyrim: After the Fact

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Continuing East, Sero and I came across an archeologist named Ralis who believed he had found the tomb of Ahzidal, but since it was covered in ash was looking for a financial backer to help him dig it up. Since gold is not something I'm short of, I gave him the 1,000 pieces he needed to get started then continued on the hunt for the source of ash spawn.

Apparently they were coming from some run down fort, and their general had some foreign ore keeping him alive (much like a briar heart). A few backstabs later and we were reporting our success back at Raven Rock, but our task wasn't finished. The guard captain suspected that a rival house had spies in town and so I got to teach Sero about breaking, entering and snooping. Or at least tried to.

He just couldn't control himself.

A mother, daughter pair were the prime suspects so while I cautiously snuck into their house like a shadow, Sero pulled out his sword and gutted them both. Fortunately we found proof that they were indeed guilty after the fact, as well as a location where their main force was waiting. The local councilman was nice enough to sent two guardsmen ahead but by the time we got there they had already been killed by the inhabitants of the place: Morag Tong assassins. They had some interesting traps in there, but nothing that posed any trouble for me or my bodyguard and soon they were the ones either getting backstabbed or ragdolled across the halls.

And you call yourselves assassins...

Back outside, we noticed the sun stone nearby we decided to free that too. Again Sero almost died but was ultimately successful against the lurker, saving one of the enthralled people. I think he's getting the hang of this.

Skyrim: Shouting at Stones

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With my new dragon shout prepared, Sero and I headed for the nearest obelisk: the wind stone. Just like shaman dad said, a single yell was enough to destroy the corruption from it - freeing the enthralled people. It also freed a lurker (fishman) from the dark world of Apocrypha though which succeeded in killing all but one of them. I probably could have saved more but I wanted Sero to learn how to fight these things.

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Ftagn!

The beast stone was next, and was a lot easier for Sero since the enthralled reiklings nearly killed the lurker themselves! At the water stone Sero is lucky to survive, saving only one person and needed saving himself at the end especially since a wandering dragon joined in the fight. I killed it easily once I could get up to it, but Miraak absorb-blocked my devouring of it's soul. That's ok, I have 60+ spare.

The earth stone, back at Raven Rock summons two lurkers but Sero finally gets the hang of things and saves everybody! Good job henchman. It's time to go exploring Eastwards and we don't get far when we run into the guard captain fighting off ash spawn near a dilapidated farm. After assisting him, he asks us to find the source of these creatures and end them. I love a good extermination!

Because Veleth can't win against three of them apparently.

Skyrim: First Encounter

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Miraak's Temple was near those Nords Sero and I assisted last time. It too had a mind-control stone and a lot more people working on it than in other places. The warrioress Frea was also here, trying to wake up her people to no avail. In true Nord fashion she then turned to me and asked for my help in killing everyone responsible. Hell yes! We go down into the depths of the temple underground, easily dealing with Miraak's cultists (side note: he has the smallest cult ever).

Pendulums, why is it always pendulums?

Near the base is another black book which I use to warp to Apocrypha but this time get stunned by Miraak's magic cutscene! Apparently the ex-dragon priest and self proclaimed "first dragonborn" now resides in this realm and has not only a few dragons under his command but all the horrible fish men too. Then he does the traditional bad guy mistake of letting me go. Guess he hasn't read the tomes on being a genre savvy villain!

I made friends with Cthulhu.

Back at Solstheim, Frea takes Sero and I to her village which her shaman dad protects with magic, just not very good magic since half his villagers are working on a nearby obelisk. Shaman dad tells me that I might be able to free those stones from their corruption with a new shout. Finally, a way to get back at Miraak - by yelling at his stones! That sounds like a job for a hero... :P

Skyrim: Ewok Slayer

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After inadvertently reopening the local mine, much to Raven Rock's benefit, I decided to hire a local sellsword named Teldryn Sero for the low price of 500 gold and began exploring the island - discovering more of those strange mind-controlling obelisks, hostile blue ewok goblins called reiklings, and that bandits here prefered to be called reavers, because it sounds cooler. We also take down a local serpentine dragon, massacre the reikling ice castle, and find hints of some pirate treasure.

Zeeg teeket!

We also help some reiklings whose chief can speak broken English. At least up to the point where he asks us to kill Nords, the same "weak ones" that ran from their own meadhall. We instead ally with said Nords to slaughter the blue dwarves and given that there was only one friendly casualty in the encounter - and that Sero and I hung back and watched - I'm wondering how the they lost to the reiklings in the first place. Getting their leader banished afterwards is a step in the right direction I think.

Dutak jadgreh!

Obviously I'm also collecting a bunch of new shouts and boosts from the ever entertaining black books. The ones where its really dark and that "the darkness hurts you" are my favorite ones. Also all the moving corridors are great, but the collision detection sucks balls requiring me to learn the power-hack tcl (no clipping mode) to get through those areas without falling through the floor into the acid muck below.

Ehda graks!

Before I knew it we had explored around 75% of Solstheim!

Skyrim: Familiar ash, unfamiliar Darkness

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

Hey, I remember climbing that.

Apparently Solstheim island is part of Morrowind, which is cool in that you can see the ever active Red Mountain in the distance. The small town of Raven Rock is where BT and I make land fall, meet the locals (mostly dunmer as expected), and get a bunch of quests like hunting netch (flying jellyfish), clearing out ash zombies from the temple, and investigating a strange stone that seems to make people mindless zombies who want to build - something. Even BT began getting entranced by it.

BT: "It's just sooo big..."

An adventure into the local mine to find the remains of some guy's missing relative also leads to familiar looking ruins and even more familiar looking draugr. There's even a cool lazer sword inside, too bad it's kinda weak. While the enemies are no problem, the last pendulum blade hall proves too much for B.T. and she is cut to pieces half way.

At the end of it I find not only a new dragon shout, but an odd black book which warps me into the black/green/tentacled realm of Apocrypha. With walls made of books and scrolls it's easy to see why its ruler, Hermaeus Mora, is regarded as the prince of knowledge. There are some abominations lurking in there, but none really pose a challenge. Having a choice from three boons at the end of the level is a pretty good idea too.

Walls of books go well with Cthulhu.

Skyrim: About Jarling Time

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After but a few days of Jarling Whiterun (Jarling: Sitting on the throne and pretending to be important), a courier came with interesting news of land being sold at Falkreath that I couldn't pass up, because property is always a good investment! One short trip and 5,000 gold later I had the deed to the land in my hand. B.T. and I also met Rayya, a Redguard housecarl gifted to me by Falkreath's Jarl. She was totally jealous of B.T. though and refused to join.

 

How can they even see?

Before we could even step out of town we were set upon by a pair of odd looking cultists, and after suffering a swift end I discovered that they were sent by something named Miraak from someplace called Solstheim. Probably need to think through what you write down on paper, bad guys! I opted to take a look at my new land first though and found... nothing. I'd have to -construct- a house! Whaaaat?

Instead of doing that I decided to visit Riften first, as I'd also received a letter recommending I try adoption. It was immediately clear that I wasn't a suitable candidate. Fortunately my trip wasn't wasted, as the town came under bandit attack just as we were leaving. Rallying almost the entire town into the battle, the bandits (who were led by two imperial soldiers), were cut down to the last man.

To battle!

At that point I decided it was time to see where those cultists came from, and hopped on a boat to Solstheim. Guess I should mention that due to my continued absence, the people of Whiterun elected a new Jarl on their own. :P

Skyrim: Non-Starters

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Riften turned out to be a very short stop on my equally short bandit hunting quest. The trail of pushover brigands, some of whom fought each other because one was a werewolf (lol, what was going on there?) I finally found their boss, Fin, beneath the College of Winterhold. It was a short duel, and while he had decent speed I was simply too agile for him.

The surviving mages then told me of the return of the Master Dragons, Alduin's liutenants (who by this tale are a few years too late). Alas compared to the monstrous dragons I've already fought they are but a footnote and were easily hunted and executed. Finally I could get back to Jarling - but upon return to Whiterun I found it under attack by a group of bandits who were soundly being defeated by the guards. I watched with pride as my guardsmen sent them packing. I tailed a few of the good looking survivors back to Riverwood where they agreed to work for me instead of being executed. I got B.T. to join the party while her compatriots Bandit, Marauder and Bo guarded the small village.

It seems dragons come in all colors now...

Back at Whiterun the guards informed me of some Oblivion Gate opening nearby, but when I went to the spot there was nothing there. Looks like once again, they had everything under control! Finally back in town, Belethor let me take a look a new book in his shop - one that transported me to a modern motel with a horror motif. This asylum was indeed quite creepy, complete with mute people blankly staring into space, but with all the locked doors it soon became boring and I teleported my self back to Whiterun to do some actual work.

Why anyone would want a painting of that hanging around is a mystery.

Skyrim: The One that Got Away

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Since the basement was a dead end, we decide to try the upper floors of Ravensburg Castle next - finding living mannequins dressed as bandits guarding the floor along with a good number of vampire mistresses and a lich!  We also learn the place is owned by the ridiculously named Count Bran von Lurk who makes his vampirism no secret, given the decor. While raiding his treasury we are jumped by three "devourer of souls" who are surprisingly deadly, managing to behead Braga before they are destroyed.

Excuse me sir, did you know you are on fire?

Finding the basement key, Van Helsing and I return there and find the path guarded by a gigantic skeleton. Van Helsing's magics and his summoned daedra are crushed like ants beneath this behemoth but it proves no match for me. After more vampire mistresses (von Lurk must be a real fox) I stumble upon the most unique companion I've had so far... a headless, tormented soul!

Had to give him a mask so he'd stop freaking me out.

For someone without a head he's pretty efficient at dispatching the wraiths lingering in the underground graveyard nearby (because some things can't be buried deep enough? lol) culminating in a showdown with the Count and his coffin buddy, Lestat. Both are easily slain, but after shanking von Lurk he just laughs an disappears as a fine mist. Damn!

Still, that seems to have banished him from the castle as the once dark and cobwebbed walls are now well lit and shiny! This also ended the torment of "tormented soul" and set him free. With Ravensburg Castle cleared it was time to continue to Riften to finish Braga's bandit hunting quest. I owed her that much at least.

Skyrim: The Bold and the Clueless

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Having survived the ascended shrine I returned to Whiterun for some restful Jarling but that wasn't to be as my old student, Braga Clearwater, met with me just inside the gates. She was investigating a recent spike in banditry and asked if I could help. Of course I said yes! Her clues had led her to the local hall of the dead where indeed we found some strange folk hanging around like "Naura the Clueless" and "Manrik the Bold". I let Braga do her thing and we found further correspondence pointing to the Riften Ratway.

By coincidence a courier found us before we left town with a message from the Jarl of Riften, to investigate the (not so) abandoned Ravensburg Castle as bandits have been kidnapping people around it as of late. Since it's on the way we decide "Sure why not". It's pretty hard to miss, and quite devoid of life. The man we meet in the courtyard sets the tone of the place with just his name: Nikolai Van Hellsing. He's been investigating the castle too but has terrible direction sense and hasn't been able to get anywhere. LOL.

Nothing says sneaking like playing the organ at full blast!

Inside the spacious and dark interior we keep hearing a disembodied voice taunting us. It's also a non-standard map in that the doors teleport you around making the place slightly challenging to navigate and giving Van Hellsing's excuse some weight. Fortunately it isn't very well defended. In the basement we find some giant spiders, skeletons and hell hounds who are all bark and no bite. It's the number of key requiring locked doors that really block our path.

Hell hounds: the original hot dogs.

The Martian

Where it feels good to be isolated on an alien planet.

The premise of this movie is so simple: An astronaut (Matt Damon) is trapped on Mars. How can he survive and/or escape? After a strong opening that set the scene right away, he combats the despair of being abandoned and the incredibly high probabilty of various horrible deaths with... humor. It's awesome. There's no weepy Tom Hanks Cast Away here!

It's good to be him. :P

This movie kept me very entertained and definitely wide awake and for a plot about a guy stuck on Mars there are certainly a lot of characters in this, each one with memorable enough quirks which actually strengthens it. I don't think there's any particular "bad guy" in this movie, just bad luck, which is awesome and adds to the whole feel good thing it has going. I mean, at least you've got disco music right? :P

Definitely a good watch and one I wouldn't mind seeing again! I give it four potatoes out of five.

Skyrim: No Ascension

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After slaying a large, magic spamming charrus who was literally in a pitch black chamber (lol fun), I then encountered an enemy who was my equal: the soul of Samel. Yep, him again! Basically a small puff of smoke in a very dark room, he was very hard to see. He also moved FASTER than I could, easily outrunning me in my speed armor. On top of that he was a HP sponge, with no "weak spot". Oh also, he cast rapid, explosive orbital bombardments that chased after me wherever I went.

Holy sh*t!

Took a lot of dexterity and a lot of slow time shouts to finally destroy his soul. Past him though was the main boss of the place: the vessel of the ascendant that looked pretty much like an angry, living Stargate that had some interesting abilities up close.

Cannot tell you how many potions were needed to survive this.

It looks so angry, for a machine.

I worked out its weakness straight away though: it was big. Too big to fit through the door to its chamber, which made sniping it with explosive arrows the way to go, even if it did take over 200 shots. It took awhile, but in the end...

It went boom!

And that's what it looked like underneath the machinery.

I suppose it was some sort of beholder... or mutated mud crab.

With it dead, I had finally cleared all traces of "the ascended" in Skyrim and was glad to be back out in the cold, crisp air. As I headed back to Whiterun I was a little sad that there was so little monetary reward in my accomplishment.

On the flip side, I could now summon most of all the creatures I had defeated up to this point, including the special dragons, to serve me. Theoretically anyway, since the mana requirements to conjure them were absurd.

Skyrim: Bigger Baddies

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The bigger they are...

The enemies just got bigger as I went deeper into the altar complex. Giant knights, giant(er?) hounds, even this giant stone atronarch. Their size didn't matter though, as the same shadow technique served me well.

There was even a familiar looking, reptile type critter: a daedroth! Ironically it was probably the weakest thing in this place, requiring only one combo to eliminate. It must help that I can close the distance so fast that it still counts as a sneak attack even if I come from directly front.

P0wned.

These giant goatmen did scare the heck out of me though. They were strong, resilient and most importantly - bloody fast. They could outrun me even with my darkness speed boost.

Might be related to Baphomet?

Every time I encountered them it required a decent amount of potion drinking: health, invisibility, stamina. The slow time shout also helped.

Skyrim: Altar of the Ascended

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"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.

Today I Smiled: Green Olympics!

I know I'm just over a week late but happy Green Olympics everyone! Sure there might be some holes that people are falling into, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with a little duct tape! They've got some skilled camera operators too, but that hasn't stopped some competitors from... not competing? You know those guys are good when they still didn't come last place. 

Too sporty for you? Maybe you can look forward to the bionic olympics instead! Or you know, just play computer games...

That moment when NWO turns into A Tale in the Desert.

I've not been on Neverwinter Online for awhile now though I suspect soon arriving "Storm King's Thunder" module will probably draw me back in a few days. In case you were wondering, no I've not been afflicted with pokemania, though I think it would be a good idea if some cops played a variation of it at awkward hours. Criminal Go: Gotta catch em all?

Instead I've been totally sucked into Dark Souls, which I am going to write about too because... that's what I do. :P It reminds me so much of Wizardry Online - just a way better version of it. Speaking of Wizardry Online, apparently Cthulhu is there now.

That's it for now, be safe/prepared if you are at or going to Rio. I'll leave you with this really cool Rubix Cube magic clip, and if you've already seen that - a family's reaction when a brown bear gets into their camp. Spoiler: Bear Hugs involved!

Skyrim: Vithdovah

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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

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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!

Skyrim: Battle of Experimentation

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Our return to civilization was short lived as another dragon sighting led us to the Southern mountains this time, where we faced a reverend dragon (easy normal type) and Auszeimrahgol, the f-ing cheating dragon of bastardly-ness. Much like Ziisizaan, he had an invulnerability shield too - only his was on 100% of the time. What the what? Also his melee and breath attacks were tremendously strong. I couldn't blame Zuna for running to a corner and wetting herself from fear.

Oh and exploding arrows did NOTHING.

It became a battle of experimentation. Arrows (exploding and not) didn't do damage. Magic didn't do damage. Swords were dangerous. How the heck do I hurt this thing? But something in my attacks did hurt it as his health bar was down a tiny sliver. But how? Can you guess what it was? If you said "a weak spot" then good work! You are a true dragon hunter!

He's vulnerable now! Sort of... :P

Where is this weakspot you ask? In his fricking mouth. Yep. Not the jaw, or the nose, or the chin, or the teeth. INSIDE. So to hurt it I needed to shoot into its open maw, which is only open when it is dealing insane damage to something. Right. Tried that for a bit but it didn't take, so instead I had to shout it down (because it prefers being airborne and constantly moving) and ... face tanked it.

Yep. I walked into its deadly fire, drank around 50 full health potions and hacked the inside of his face (while it was still breathing at me, so no time for screenies again sorry) until he died. Zuna couldn't believe it. Neither could I, but it was dead and we weren't. I call that a win.

Skyrim: Dragon God Mode

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Before hunting the next dragon I made sure to pick up the final surviving follower from Death Mountain: Zuna. She was terrified to come with me knowing the fate that had befallen all the others that did, but she agreed provided I'd help her look for her brother Xuru at some point. I agreed and so, we confronted Ziisizaan the stamina eater. Because he'd literally sap all my stamina away just by flying over head. This was only part of the problem though. The other problem was he was invincible. Yep! Nothing could hurt him!

My training was useless!

It took a long while before finding out that his invincibility was some sort of shield. When he shimmered white, he was on god mode. The trick was getting him to land where I wanted when the shield was off. This is more challenging than it sounds since it's like he's invincible 90% of the time and prefers to be airborne. It also doesn't help that at half health he flies off out of sight and returns fully healed. 

The silvery glow is actually his shield.

This made for a very long and annoying battle. Finally I just had to resort to convincing him to land without using "dragonrend" (by running around like a fool) so I could instead "Slow Time" and power strike him, drinking a gallon worth of stamina pots to actually deal enough damage to kill the scum before he flew off to regen to full health. Phew, obviously the enemies were learning to cheat too!