TESO: Unfriendly Terrain

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

Malabal Tor is perhaps my least favorite zone in the game so far. The cliffs and forest make the zone bloody annoying to navigate, exacerbated with the amount of back and forth travel required by the local quests. While there was a Redguard incursion, the main foes along the shore consist of pirates, some of whom are in talks of alliance with the Worm Cult and the Imperial Empire.

Which also includes bad breath Daedroths.

More troublesome are the orcs already in league with the Worm Cult, who are trying to summon Malacath to Nirn - a plan I obviously put to an end with some assistance from Malacath's nemesis, Boethiah. The overall bad dude here is "the hound", and his houndsmen of Hircine.

If you thought "werewolves" then you are right. Lots of them. Of course it is more difficult chasing the scum down than it actually is killing him, but I am elated regardless afterwards because it means I can finally leave this annoyingly designed zone. Side note: How is it that giant wasps make zero noise despite constantly flying? Stealth magic?

TESO: Daedric Tharn

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

With Stormhaven mostly freed from Vaermina's manipulation I rode on into Bangkorai, a region under attack by talking crows - and more reachmen. Where the heck do all these guys come from? After convincing the local Queen to do her job I am sent to stop this threat and quite humorously succeed in doing so by accident. You see I was racing towards a distant Dolmen which I ended up missing entirely as other heroes shut it down - and found myself near the main reachman camp. A little stealth and snooping about led me to their hagraven leader who I had no trouble in slaying.

That force turned out to just be the appetizer though, as the main threat soon revealed itself to be the Imperial army led by one Septima Tharn who are all allied with Molag Bal (of course). With the help of King Emeric and his timely army, we pushed them back into the Southern Desert region of this huge zone. Then I got side tracked in rescuing elf maidens from a Troll den and helping a nereid eliminate a bunch of Hermaeus Mora's followers. Take that you kill stealer. In the region I also have to outhunt Hircine's chosen hunter and defeat an avatar of Mephala - guess the Daedric princes really like this zone!

Explosions are effective against ghosts!

By the time I catch up with Septima Tharn after all those distractions, she has already defeated Emeric's army and killed the arrogant king. I sneak into her camp and have an epic duel against her, one of the best fights in the game so far - ultimately I slay the sorceress and have the Queen's forces wipe out the remaining Imperial douches. Through convoluted events I end up with King Emeric's soul in my backpack and have the option of resurrecting him. I am soooo tempted not to, but ultimately give in and revive him. In exchange I tell him to withdraw all his forces from the war. He says he'll think about it.