Skyrim: Adventure Game (Board Game) - The Blades

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The "Blades", undercover special forces of the Emperor are present everywhere - even during the great war. In the Northern lands of Skyrim, mom (a sneaky Khajiit) eludes a mercenary squad sent after her while Rose (a magus Altmer) barely escapes arrest as DL (sword wielding Imperial) defeats the guardsmen that held her custody (in a really tough fight to solo). Yazish the orc helps them escape to Whiterun where Sky (Me, a sneaky Nord: because I play how I played in the PC game) is helping to defend against some wandering Dremora.  

While Yazish is slain in this battle, he asks Rose to help his clan mates near Riften so she and DL go there and free their camp form a Nordic siege but when they decline to assist in helping the Orsimer to attack Riften the pair are thrown into a pit leading to an underground Dwemer City! At the same time Mom and Sky are in a different Dwemer city, laying a trap for those mercenaries still on her tail. Using an unstable dwemer device, Sky explodes them all and they find clues on who is hunting them: a khajiit named Moivva Karnai.

M'aiq thinks you need some skooma.

When all four return top side they meet at their rally point and using the information gained raid Moivva's hideout at Dawnstar for hard evidence of a massive conspiracy which they take to Solitude to present to the High King. Alas, instead of listening to their case he instead delivers the bad news: the war is over. The White-Gold concordat is signed. He tosses them each a bag of gold and tells them to go into hiding.

Pretty cool start with varying degrees of difficulty, though it did take people awhile to get that magic armor only protects against magic, heavy armor only protects against heavy attacks, and light armor only protects against light attacks. Yes, so the little dagger that only does light attacks will cut right through your +5 magical heavy plate of bullshitery. While the higher level enemies stack armor of each type to make them "tough", the players will almost always have at least one weakness.

TESO: The Last March

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

Reaper's March is a breath of fresh air after the stifling forests of Malabal Tor. Apart from the Imperials assaulting this zone (led by Tharns no less) there's also an evil khajiit spirit called the Dark Mane (also conjured by a Tharn) raising scary looking Khajiit warriors wherever it goes. The main quest involves assisting a pair of twin sisters in stopping this threat, which is great.

Capoeira esquivas are useful here too!

Unfortunately that "threat" occupies only maybe 1/3rd of the region, with the rest occupied by local bandits, gamblers, an arena and skooma peddlers. I do get to free Barbas (the talking dog) from a prison of his master, Clavicus Vile, though. There is also an awesome side quest at a scary mansion with a massive cavern underneath occupied by Imperials who are looking for the Oghma Infinitum. Hermaeus Mora tells me they cannot have it.

Quite a literal army of bad dudes in the tunnels.

Finally I'm at a level where I can solo handle the group of 8 or so mobs here, and manage to take down the boss too. For all my work, Mora appears and snatches the Infinitum at the last moment - rephrasing that "no mortal" can have it. I manage to retain a single page, still enough to make most people insane.

After beating back the Tharns and destroying the Dark Mane, Queen Ayrenn seems more agreeable to an alliance or at least a cease fire with the Pact but I don't know. She looks, talks and smells like a Thalmor scum. Odds that she will keep her word are next to nil.

TESO: The Dumb and the Dead

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

I don't remember how I ended up in the sea, but I'm sure glad I was fished out by a passing vessel that so happened to be heading to the Alik'r Desert, home of King Fahara'jad whose region is being plagued by a group of necromancers called the Withered Hand. Turns out the Redguards are a very superstitious lot, to the extent that "defiling" the dead in anyway is taboo. Even if said dead are reanimated and trying to kill you.

This leads to many ridiculous occurrences of so-called tough warriors cowering in fear to what an average adventurer would consider an average zombie. Obviously it's up to foreigners such as myself to save the day again, especially once the Withered Hand steal and corrupt the deus ex artifacts which previously prevented consecrated dead from being revived. A couple of dead necromancers, a vampire and one lich later, King Fahara'jad is proclaiming me a(nother) hero of the region.

Despite having a predictable quest line here the Alik'r Desert is one of the best zones that I've been in so far, not just for an aesthetic stand point. The open sight lines make it easy to spot material to farm and I suspect it's position at the very top of the "locations to warp to" list also makes it a very popular and highly frequented dolmen smashing spot. Makes sense since the rewards for shattering dolmens aren't zone specific.

Yeah, the dolmens in this zone have no chance.

Oh, and I found M'aiq the Liar is camped out at the remote dunes too. Not only did he survive the wounds from that Orsimer attack, but he retained his sense of humor as well.

"M'aiq speaks the truth, except for when he doesn't. With you, always the truth." - M'aiq the Liar

TESO: A Boon for my Servant

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Having been sent back to the Rift to deal with the problematic Reachmen who are allied with the Worm Cult, I make a detour to Riften (one of many to unload gear) and while there complete both Mages and Fighter's guild quest lines. For the Mages one, Shalidor uses the tomes to transport us to his missing island of Eyevea which Sheogorath has left littered with dremora. After cleaning those up we get to keep the island though Sheogorath does take the now insane tome decypherer, Valaste, with him back to the Shivering Isles. Shalidor still rewards me with a "library" type function (recall all books / papers through a menu).

Afterwards, I went to track down the murderous Argonian fighters guild master with the Fighters Guild to Coldharbour, where she openly admits to the murder of the previous leader - all because Meridia demanded to get the Fighter's Guild involved against Molag Bal. Conveniently, his "back up" weapon is here and I end up assisting her in destroying it along with a traitorous khajiit who Molag Bal transforms into a Demon Dragon thing.

Molag Bal should hand out boons more often - that looks cool!

The murderous Argonian is spared, but stripped of the guild master title which goes to Mr. replacement guy. I'm just happy that's all done and I can go back to exploring!

TESO: Elf Nazis

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

It is with good fortune that we arrive at the Khajiit isle of Khenarthi's Roost right after an unnatural hurricane destroyed most of the Dominion ships in the harbor. While helping out the survivors it is made clear that the local Sea Elf pirates are behind the magical storm and thus forfeit their residency when a Dominion envoy arrives. The pirates continue to be a nuisance on the larger isle of Auridon, which is my next stop where I am surprised to already run into Queen Ayrenn while saving her from an assassination attempt and am recruited as one of her spies.

Those magic storms are cool though!

With the help of a most humorous khajit named Raz, we protect the newly crowned Queen and her retinue as they tour the island from the Veiled Heritance, who are basically High Elf Nazis. It's strange that there are worse elves than Thalmor huh? Most of the Veils turn out to be turncoats from Ayrenn's own court with their "Veiled Queen" being Ayrenn's demonized sister in law, who coincidentally worships Mehrunes Dagon and allies with Mannimarco too. After most violently dealing with the Nazis and their dremora I feel optimistic about the Queen's outlook for the peace truce.

Worth noting that the side-quests here strangely are all heavily focused on "mages who screwed up". One who petrified a town to cover up his experiments, one who feeds people to his vampire son, and so on and so forth. Trust the Altmer to try fix what ain't broken.

Skyrim: Falskaar

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After our adventurers in Lull-Mor, Sofia and I regrouped with Bandit (who basically missed out on all the fun) and returned to Riften to check on my adopted kids Sofie and Lucia. After giving them gifts and absurd amounts of coin (because I can) we are approached by an old guy who asks us to check on a nearby mine as he saw some never-do-wells nearby. Thinking it would be a quick task, I accepted, only to find a bandit army and their reverend dragon camped out there! Fortunately Riften's Jarl had sent out some guards to assist, while led to another overwhelming victory.

Strength in numbers!

The cave itself has a few more bandits but more interestingly a magic portal! This one way trip sends Bandit, Sofia and myself to another ruin where we are immediately met by a guardsman who asks for help to save someone from bandits further in the cave. We do so easily, and are rewarded with a delivery quest to the nearby town of ... Amber Creek? Where the heck are we?

Welcome to Falskaar.

There's no shortage of things to do when we finally get to the town, as almost everyone has either misplaced or needs something from the surrounding areas. One of the main themes is that the local thugs seem to all be organizing and thanks to a warning given to one of the townsfolk, my team is sent to stop that attack from ever happening.

This looks like the place.

This leads us to raiding a fortress full of them, and during the attack Bandit (my ally) takes a fatal arrow to the head by a khajiit sniper who won their ranged duel thanks to his superior position up in the ramparts. It takes us awhile to get in there, but when I find him I make sure to separate his head from his shoulders.

Skyrim: Crazy Cats

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There's no cat like Skullcat!

Turns out the Khajiit's of Elswyr also submitted to the Thalmor after the White Gold Concordat was signed, but this particular group were rebels which made me really happy. After clearing the woods of some mini dinosaurs and huge spiders, Bo, Sofia and I were given an airship whith Khulam the telepath khajiit navigator and Skull Cat the khajiit pirate to stop a small Thalmor incursion (with their Igma, monkey allies) into the jungle which culminates in airborne boarding! Sofia executes their commander in his quarters.

Airship boarding!

After beating up some argonian pirates we also handle their other problem in the form of a fat Sload who wants to eat everything. He's stupid enough to get us to find food for him though which gives an easy opportunity to poison and subsequently kill him while he is weakened. Oh, and he had some sort of viral bomb which we "disarmed" (by killing an infected dinosaur) too.

Fat bastard.

With that done and the rebellion trully underway here it's time to bid farewell to my new crazy cat friends and head back to Skyrim. I'm going to miss them.

Aww... I'm going to miss them a lot!

Our first stop upon getting back was my house where Rayya had made absolutely ZERO progress in decorating it. Where the hell is all my gold going you incompetent steward? Anyway, since that is going nowhere I decide to convert the alchemy lab in my Riften property into some children's bedrooms to adopt two little girls: Sofie the flower seller at Windhelm and Lucia the beggar Whiterun. I think Njada would have liked that. And at least here, they get to play with the other kids at the orphanage.

So strange. So strange.

Skyrim: Moonpath

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After dropping off the Elder Scroll at Whiterun (which in hindsight is silly, I should leave it with the Dawnguard) the town once again came under a bandit attack, this time with Morag Tong in tow. I let Bo lead the guards while I observed from the parapets. The enemy had no chance, inflicting zero friendly casualties. While inspecting the battlefield I happened to come across an inebriated and almost naked lady asleep on the hay in the stables.

Lol!

Waking her up, she introduces herself as Sofia and pretty much insists on being my stalker joining the party. Bo has no issues with this so I give her some of my previously acquired gear and head out to Falkreath where I've been informed of a visiting Khajiit caravan. The cat couple who run it are about to head back to their home of Elswyr, and since I could use a vacation from the cold, we all tag along.

The resident beast of burden.

It's a decent journey, with stops to clear a bandit blockade (Khajiit bandits ofcouse) South of Riverhold and a detour around a broken bridge at the edge of the woods but soon we reach the Heart of the Tenmar Forest where the Pahmar (talking tigers) welcome us and give us a cool canopy home, complete with talking tiger guards! Of course they had problems of their own and were counting on us to help them.

She asks the important questions... :P

Skyrim: Simple Clarity

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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: Moving Target

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My training is interrupted when a bunch of bounty hunters come wandering into Morvunskar, and while Einer easily dispatches them the notes in their packs clearly illustrate that I'm now the target of the Sinister Seven (Prepare to Die), a band of deadly assassins who again I assume work for either the Empire, the Dragonslayers or both. This prompts me to continue my own assassination missions, leaving Njada under Sanguine's protective care.

Einer and I rejoin Aurora and Twilight at a small inn where they tracked down the next Dragonslayer, a khajiit named Rolan Nightkiller. The extremely agile, life stealing bastard manages to down Twilight before being Einer kills him via shouting him through a wall. From his correspondence we learn the location of another target, hiding in a tomb where we travel to post haste.

Khajiit's all share the same weakness... their tail! :P

There we are met by more assassins and a dragon! While my comrades deal with those I head on inside to face Arvale Staggerlow who turns out to be an easy opponent. The fight outside is not going well however as both girls are being downed multiple times to what seems to be an endless stream of assassins. Fortunately there is a small gap mid wave where we manage to escape into the mountains.

Also made gaps between some heads and shoulders.

Skyrim: Nine Lives

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I had returned to Whiterun to unload loot from the undead invasion and to check on the town when I met the Khajiit jester, Strogan, who wanted assistance in hunting a vampire. Seems like the Dawnguard accept just about anyone these days. Also found two gorgeous Blades members, Aurora and Twilight (guess I'm not the last one of those either) who asked my help in finding their dad at Helgen. Obviously I chose to help them first.

Whatever you say, blondie.

Helgen's never really been the same since my first visit, the ruins only inhabited by random bandits these days. One of them managed to plant an axe into Aurora's face which killed her instantly. More interesting is that because of their "system" I found I could actually respawn her, albeit a little differently. While an exact clone of the one that died is still dead, this actually increases both the girls longevity by literally having nine lives (more like 16 I think). For the purposes of this journal I'll just say they are "downed" instead of killed, until they actually are.

Finding their father's corpse completed the quest, and so we moved on to vampire hunting for Strogan. The silly cat stepped on a trip wire at the entrance of the lair and died from a simple rock foll trap. A large stash of skooma on his person probably hinted as to why that was. Unlike the Blades sisters though, he wasn't coming back and we had to execute the vampire ourselves.

Skyrim: There can be more than One

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After killing the boss early, I briefly stopped at Adal Matar to pick up Captain Ghoragdag (good work on guarding the two orcs btw lol), and informed Braga Clearwater of her brother's valiant death, inviting her to move anywhere else instead of living on a lonely frozen mountain. She refused. Respecting her choice, Ghoragdag and I headed right back up to Death Mountain to find ways into the many other chambers I didn't have access to yet.

This time I found a fence that I could whirlwind sprint over (with Ghoragdag being more practical just climbing over I guess), and found another key in a shrine that gave us access to "The step of giants" - an odd tunnel that housed giant spiders and three of the big guys who normally have mammoths. Sniped the lot of them and found a key... to the tower I broke into earlier? Lol.

We mangle giants.

Fortunately it also opened up a catacomb / prison area filled with draugr who for some reason had three hostages, a khajit, a nameless tortured lady and a chick named Nerelia who was the only one who wanted to get out of there so we took her along and soon discovered that she too was dragonborn!? She uses shouts. Well so do draugr, when you think about it but anyway...

Who is your Elder Scrolls Main?

Question time from me since all this talk of The Elder Scrolls Online is slowly seeping out from the bowels of the NDA. If you are going to play TESO or have played any of the previous Elder Scrolls game - who is your main character? The first one you create? Do you often change your protagonist? I don't and you probably can guess what I play just by my name.

If you don't / haven't / aren't going to play any Elder Scrolls related stuff I'd still like your input just based on races. Your choices are:

 

Top Row:
Altmer - tall high elves that favour magic
Argonian - agile lizard folk who favour magic and are resistant to disease
Bosmer - shortish, dextrous wood elves
Breton - fair haired humans that favour magic
Dunmer - dark (of skin) elves proficient in melee and magic

Bottom Row:
Imperial - everyday normal dudes that excel as crafters and traders
Khajiit - sneaky cat people, complete with whiskers - that enjoy making drugs
Nord - pretty much Vikings who like to punch things - especially dragons
Orc - green of skin with under bite, you won't like them when they're angry
Redguard - dark skinned human warriors - best fighters of the land supposedly

Just curious! Looking forward to seeing your answers! :)

A Crushing Victory

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

After the battle I quickly marched back to Jovasskr where I found the traitorous draugr Ria hiding under her bed. After executing her for treason right there, I took a quick casualty list around the town. Those that had died included the sorceress Golda, Fulmine Knight, Kayla Grunzwald, Manya Esperanza, Andurs the priest, Juliette the maid, and Sinchan the Stinky - though his 4 other compatriots and one travelling Blades named Angelica survived the ordeal. Also lost all but four of the guards in town but I knew their numbers would quickly come back given Whiterun's prime location in the scheme of things.

Mounted up alone to do another lure run and headed back to the two orsimer camps. The smaller one had only one soldier left so I took care of him right there, making him a pin cushion. Their main base however still had seven, and as an aside a bunch of Stormcloaks were trying to attack the base from Rorikstead but were intercepted by a small imperial contigent. Their battle ended really quickly when an ancient dragon decided to show up and roast them all. His appearance gave me a change of plans. Instead of luring the orcs I instead helped the dragon to fight them, letting him breathe his fire while I made them run circles.

It chomped only one of the orcs before they finally killed it, but by that stage the rest were really hurt so I called Dummy to distract a pair while I dismounted and slew four in close quarters before hunting down the remaining two. At the end, no more of their clan were breathing. I looted what I could from their camps and set them alight with fires of victory. Doing one last sweep I noticed there was an extra casualty here - Mai'q the liar was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I wanted to track down the coward Torvar next, and I had a good idea of where he would be. Rode quickly to Riften and snuck into the Ratway where lo and behold, Brynjolf was waiting for me. No longer protected by fate I challenged the conspirator to a duel and ran him through at the center of the little walkway. I then proceeded deeper into the Ratway killing a random vagrant before finally finding the coward Torvar hiding in Esbern's old hole in the wall. I wasted no time beheading the bastard - hopefully this time he will stay dead.

I breathed a sigh of relief with those lose ends tied up and headed back to the surface. Hopefully now this war torn region would know some peace. 

Fielding All Assets

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After a quick stop at the lake to loot the broken king, my little band returned to Skyhaven Temple to swap out Bane for Anni the elven archer. For Bane's efforts I had promoted the khajiit to becoming a guard for Njada but understandably, he first wanted to see the current vampire threat ended. It was time to head back to Fort Dawnguard with Auriel's Bow but as usual we hit all sorts of side quests on the way: hunted a giant deer, two frost dragons, wiped out a bandit base, another master vampire and got Dummy to teach me the "Soul Rend" shout which seems pretty cool. He doesn't seem anywhere as useful as Odahviing though, so with our bargain done I think I'm going to let him rot in the Soul Cairn now.

We also stopped by the Mage's College to hand in some falmer tomes and it is becoming more and more apparent that other than Tolfdir, most of the other people there have a healthy hatred of me - and are becoming more open in their methods of disrespecting their "leader". I decide to let it slide for now since there are bigger fish to fry and we finally return to Fort Dawnguard, where we discover a small group of refugees(?) striking up camp right outside in hopes for protection. Isran isn't too thrilled about them, but his eyes light up when he sees the divine bow and after a stirring speech rallies most of his members for an all out assault on Volkihar Castle.

Agmaer and elf Beleval are to remain with the doggies and a few trolls to help the gate guard protect the refugees and base while we are gone. Knowing how strong the Volkihar clan is first hand I decided to field ALL my remaining resources for the upcoming battle: Anni, Lynn, Cutter, Bane and Jordis who was excited to get out to the front again. Even Njada, whom I would have preferred to stay safetly at home would have none of it after hearing what we were attempting, so she also came along. We met up with Isran's similarly sized group at the shore of the castle itself and when I asked what the exact plan was the crazy bastard just smiled devilishly, looked at me with excited eyes, and basically said "We charge the castle!"

This isn't going to end well, is it?

Bane of the Falmer

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

From the vision from the scrolls led us back to the dark cave I had previously cleared with Cutter. Fortunately all the shortcuts were now open so it was pretty quick to traverse down to the shrine. This time, the snow elf paladin Gelebor was there - explaining that he'd give us the bow provided we kill his brother - who happens to be sitting behind a swarm of falmer that wiped out this colony. "Great. Sign me up," I said.

Turns out the shrine, or "Wayshrine" as he called them was actually a portal that would lead deeper into their Sanctum. The three of us followed the deep dark path through falmer scum (including larger, general types) until we reached a very pretty valley high up in the mountains. Both Bane and Serana didn't like the cold. Continued finding wayshrines here and clearing out small caves of falmer until we reached an icy lake. NO sooner had Serana questioned the thin ice when suddenly two named dragons shattered their way through. This was a great fight since there was no cover and the dragons would occasionally dive, smashing more sections of the ice - Bane was caught in one such section and fell into the lake leaving Serana and I to down the fire breathers. I'm not the Vanquisher for nothing though, and soon enough the twins were dead.

After pulling the Khajiit out of the water we continued clearing the valley of falmer scum and the deeper we went, the more fortified their positions became. Still, with three of us we managed to do keep up a good pace - eradicating everything in our path until we reached the Inner Sanctum at the mountain summit. Inside all the falmer had been turned into icicles but that didn't stop some of them from attacking us. We also fought past a frost giant before reaching Gelebor's brother who turned out to be behind the whole thing.

"Imma stab you with my icicles," said the Ice King.

He made us fight through his army of ice statues (lots) before fleeing to the balcony and once there he revealed his hand, right before summoning more ice elementals into the fray. Given that the three of us were exhausted having spent hours fighting uphill I could see that this freak was aiming for a prolonged battle. I deftly got into position and let out a "Fus Roh Dah" when suddenly he pulled Bane in beside him. The Thuum sent both of them over the railing and I watched helplessly as they both fell to the icy lake below - it was so far I couldn't see where they landed.

"CRAP," I exclaimed loudly as Gelebor showed up thanking me for my help, somehow knowing his brother died just then. He also offered me the super magical bow we came for but it was the extra reward that was awesome. From out of the newly opened Wayshrine popped out a cold, and wet Bane. He had survived the fall by chance, falling into one of the large holes the dragons made earlier. I couldn't help but hug the silly cat while Gelebor laughed and Serana smirked. After getting Gelebor (who was going to stay there) to imbue the power of the sun into all my elven arrows it was time to head out. We looked to Bane if he was ready to go and he nodded, saying "You're taking us somewhere warm, I trust?"

Reading is Bad for You

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

Our next stop was to retrieve a holy warhammer for the guy who hears voices in his head at a bandit cave near Whiterun. The first thing I encounter when I get there is an angry face of a guard who attacks me out right (kinda wanted here too). He's soon joined by another, and then by a pair of bandits. Then out of the blue, a familiar cat figure appears - Bane who had been tailing us decided to come out of the shadows to assist. "Khajiit guards your back," he says smugly. With now three of us, there was little danger as we raided the cave and then a second location for more schematics before returning to Dawnguard HQ.

Alas, it turns out the moth priest had been blinded by his own folly and now I have to go do a ritual to read them. The place was easy enough to find, a well hidden and very pretty glade. After attracting some bugs to me (yuck) I managed to read all three elder scrolls in succession (I think purely to make use of the open scroll animation) and got a vision of a map before snapping out of it. At least I'm not blind!

Alternative Solution: Elder Braile Scrolls.

Seems our next task is to retrieve some bow of a god, which is also what Lord Harkon wants apparently. Just as we were on our way out a large mob of vampires and a pair of gargoyles show up! How did they know we were here? We are forced back by the overwhelming numbers and I lose track of both Bane and Serana. I opt to take the high ground on the opposite bank and setup a firing position from there. The exploding bolts and fast reloading crossbow sure come in handy here. One of the thralls actually makes it up to my position but I just shout him off the cliff to certain death.

Eventually I spot Bane far below fighting like a wild cat, even though he is knocked down again and again. It's still enough to keep the enemies in the open though and eventually I snipe the last one with a slow motion headshot. With the last enemy defeated I regrouped with both Bane who had survived the ordeal, and Serana who seemed to be badly wounded (crawling). Got her to feed on an enemy thrall (possibly the one that went sky diving) and upon leaving she was back to her usual self.

Rites of Initiation

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Next up was my queer dark-elf recruit Wynd who proved he (or she) was quite capable by surviving against two trolls, helping eliminate forsworn scum quickly in one of their larger camps, and actually defeating a Hagraven in one on one combat! Passing with flying colors I sent Wynd off to Sky Haven Temple and took Ono the orc next to try clear out a non "cleared" cave on my map: Wolfskull cave. Though he seemed hesitant to enter the draugr and necromancer inhabited place at first, he quickly found his courage and it was quite amusing to watch the various violent ways he would dispatch his enemies one he got his axe in them! To seal the deal we also went out with Mjoll to defeat an Elder Dragon and it was he that put the finishing blow to pass his initiation and graduate to the blades sanctuary.

Took the dark elf Mia and Lynn, both blades members with me next to clear out Radlbthar (damn wierd names). They were doing fine against the bandits and dwarven automatons in the ruin (though they needed a lot of direction to evade spinning blade traps) but when we reached the deep market we were beset by falmer scum and their pets. Mia got separated and quickly found a shadow master's wicked blade lodged in her leg. There was nothing Lynn and I could do as he dragged her away, kicking and screaming up into the darkness. Further in we found pieces of her dismembered body, some of which were used to jam dwemer gears. After getting revenge, Lynn used her remaining rage to absolutely destroy a master dwarven centurion all on her own (though I think it's arms were damaged). With the zone clear I sent her on ahead while I picked up the Khajiit, Bane.

I had planned to use him to try track down the other drug dealing Khajiit caravans that seem to have gone into hiding ever since I killed off that one group. We started out at Windhelm and immediately came under attack by an Ancient Dragon! It almost killed the horses (and me) but we took it down eventually. Journeyed a -very- long while to the West, killing an imperial patrol with a stormcloak prisoner and some wildlife in the process, but no caravans. We did eventually run into an Imperial Camp that I had not found before and massacred them all. Strangely their leader had already been killed by something or someone... investigating flashes of light nearby we came across a Dremora Succubus and an Arch Cryomancer in combat. Killed them both (dremora was tough, a random bear also came to help out) and since Bane was excellent all around, sent him off to Sky Haven.

That dremora succubus was nowhere as near as hot as Lost Girl, Bo.