Skyrim: Adventure Game (Board Game) - The Traitor

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Now officially on the run, the team decide to split up and go to their various contacts for assistance: DL helps a suicidal bard get through some Hagravens, mom helps the Black Briars torch their opposition in Riften, Rose helps some cannibals defeat some vampires (huh?) and Sky helps some Talos worshippers, now illegal due to the White-Gold Concordat, obtain his helm from a crypt. Each of them indicate that there's a traitor in the Blades, but before they can work out who it is they are invited to a meeting by the local Blade grandmaster. Luckily they arrive late, as they find everyone else dead. By process of elimination, the only one whose body they don't find among the dead is the traitor.

As Thalmor agents begin becoming more and more prevalent, the team split up to go undercover again while still trying to glean information about Moivva's whereabouts. Rose does this by peacefully rebuilding Rorikstead and acting as a healer, mom becomes a performing artist (and pickpocket) in Solitude, and Sky listens to the daedric prince Mephala in trying to assassinate a local Jarl in exchange for information - but he fails in this task. DL goes the completely opposite way and tries to face Mephala on her own plane of Oblivion where she takes his likeness. That does not go well at all and DL ends up trapped in Oblivion for a long, long time (which is a seriously terrible design decision because its basically, on your turn roll 3 "6"s on a 3D6 to continue playing, and that's not fun at all).

Somehow, he manages it eventually while the other three simply keep the random events at bay (its a long session) but at least by that time they have the location of Moivva. The trio fight her, her goons and the traitorous Blade in a pretty easy battle and end up executing her. With sweet vengeance dished out, the four decide to split up again to continue hiding from the Thalmor in semi-retirement.

For some reason all the combats in these particular chapters was really boring / easy. Possibly because we leveled up so much while DL was stuck in Oblivion (can't complete mission without all players being at X location).

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. 

Fall of Fort Greymoor

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

Decided to investigate this new orc threat (Urukhai mod) and not far from the Western Watchtower I found my first group. There were only three or four of them, fighting bandits, a pair of mages, and an ancient dragon; and they were tough as NAILS. Maeci made the mistake of trying to duel one and she was soon impaled right through one one of their wicked blades. I summoned Odahviing to the chaos and the fight ended up near Fort Greymoor where the Stormcloak guardsmen came to my aid. Many of them died in the combat but we managed to kill all the orcs. Worse was their "leader", a strange cloaked figure called a Black Swan. One shot from her bow would kill me instantly, so (after a few reloads) I decided instead to sneak up right behind her and backstab her to death. Turns out she wasn't even an orc, but a redguard!?

Who knew ballerinas were so deadly?

A second Black Swan soon appeared and out of nowhere the kid from Falkreath, Chelsea came running - firing back at my foe. I was also surprised to learn she could use basic Thuum! Between the two of us we killed the next sniper as well as a random Nightingale Assassin who appeared shortly after. Damn that Brynjolf. Looks like he escaped the guards afterall. Anyway, we reported back at Riverwood and agreed that what I had just spend 20-30 minutes fighting was a scouting party. Holy hell. I got Lighting and the cleric Aluna to go to Fort Greymoor with the remaining soldiers because we were going to need them. I tried to get Chelsea to stay there too but she stubbornly refused so together we went off to scout the plains for more orcs, and it wasn't long before we found their camp, South of Rorikstead. There were maybe 8-12 of them here in a tight group.

According to plan, we opened fire from far and began sprinting back to the Fort. Didn't realize their dual wielding beserkers could run faster though and for all her shouting Chelsea was soon cut down by the rampaging mob leaving me to sprint away from them all on my lonesome. I tried calling Odhaviing again to cover my back but for the first time he didn't show. Through stamina potions I finally made it back to the Fort which was by chance being reinforced by a wandering dunmer named Talon Dreth and his mercenaries. Almost immediately my pursuers arrived and the battle began in earnest with everyone engaging the orsimer forces, but they were just way too strong. The guards and the mercenaries were cut down, as was Lighting whose throat was cut on the stairs. The cleric Aluna tried to flee to Whiterun but she was mobbed before getting very far. Maybe only one or two of the orcs had fallen.

Being the last one left I lured the mob up into the parapets then jumped the wall, giving me a head start run. I actually did manage to kill a few more of them because they were quite injured from the battle - even beheading one that strayed too far ahead of his buddies, but I was still falling back. Back to Whiterun - where the guards wanted me dead. No choice though since these enemies were simply too powerful. I was in for a surprise when I reached those gates though - the guards and orcs ALLIED against ME and didn't fight each other AT ALL! What the HELL? I got myself out of there quickly, trying again in vain to summon Odahviing. I did ice a few more of the orcs though but at least half their number remained as I hid in the distant hills until they got tired of looking for me. While there it suddenly clicked. The orcs and Jarl Bossman were in league with each other, that's why the two forces were so friendly. Angrier than ever, I marched back towards Whiterun - it was time to get some answers.

A Test of Skill

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

Moved on to the last bit of training using some of the challenges found on the Skyrim Blog. For obvious reasons, some of these had to be reloaded either because I died, killed someone I didn't want to, or temporarily paid my bounty to run the challenge. Also it seems some of the towns have also been reading the blog, since they were hiring skilled unscroupulous people to test the defenses and skills of their guardsmen! Since I fit the bill, they granted me a short truce to put them to the test. ;)

A bit like this!

Challenge: Whiterun Crime Caper
5 minutes to cause chaos and rack up the highest bounty you can! No shouts, no potions, no switching of weapons and no surrender!
Lvl 49 using Daedric Bow of Freezing - Best score: 8401. Terrain was favourable for my bow here and got this first go.

Challenge: Windhelm Crime Caper
5 minutes to cause chaos and rack up the highest bounty you can! No shouts, no potions, no switching of weapons and no surrender!
Lvl 49 using Blade of Woe and Superior Ebony Dagger - Best score: 7281. This was nightmarishly tough for me as the guards constantly killed me in the tight confines of the tavern.

Challenge: Markarth Crime Caper
5 minutes to cause chaos and rack up the highest bounty you can! No shouts, no potions, no switching of weapons and no surrender!
Lvl 49 using Blade of Woe, Superior Ebony Dagger - Best score: 11520. My experience fighting the bastards of Markarth paid off here, since I already knew how to make them run in circles. They still killed me a few times though.

Challenge: Solitude Crime Caper
5 minutes to cause chaos and rack up the highest bounty you can! No shouts, no potions, no switching of weapons and no surrender!
Lvl 49 using Blade of Woe, Superior Ebony Dagger - Best score: 9285. Needed so many retries here for a totally different reason - I kept killing my witnesses and reducing my own bounty! Doh! :P

Challenge: Crimson Nirnroot Hunting (timed)
Starting at the Alchemist's Shack in Blackreach (near the Afland Lift) how long does it take you to get 10 crimson nirnroots?
After angering the guards in all those places I figured I needed to lay low for awhile, and there's not much lower a place than Blackreach! This took me 10:53.2. :P

Now that I'm feeling back in shape it was time to test out how my soldiers were doing and since Anni the elven archer was the longest "untested" one there she was up first. We went to visit Esbern at Sky Haven temple and to my surprise Mjoll had returned from being AWOL! She was very evasive when I asked where she ran off to before though. Disturbingly the bodies of the other two blades members were there too. Eww. Anyway, first up was a dragon hunt, and Anni had no problems taking down the blood dragon we were sent up against. After reporting our victory we headed to Rorikstead, where during my training I discovered some places I had "missed".

Before we got very far though we were attacked by a guard who had brought with him a mercenary in full ebony plate! Anni again proved herself here and was given that armor as a reward. She continued to impress in the Falmer cave of Gloomreach, though a shadow master did manage to hurt her leg at one point. After clearing the place I figured she had passed the test and was about to return her to the home base in Solitude when I realised I already had a -secret- base elsewhere. *facepalm* With secret agent girl having been killed by Mjoll awhile back, I figured it was up to me to rebuild the blades now and left Anni in the much more spacious fortress of Sky Haven Temple.

The Legend and the Champion

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

Found ourselves out at Rorikstead today where I recruited Erik "the Slayer" (after convincing his father that he should be allowed to go adventuring). The lad showed promise despite lack of experience, helping me retrieve a goat I sold to a giant (ehhh?), and a whole bunch of retrieval tasks involving more killing of forsworn. While helping the cannibal Eola clear a nearby cave of living dead (who she says tastes terrible) he stood up to another death overlord and survived. The kid, still travelling with me, seems to like him too and her ears perked up each time he told us stories of his favourite hero Red Eagle. It so happens I was investigating that partirular legend and we found his burial cairn atop a tall mountain. He also wasn't quite so dead. It was a drawn out battle, with the kid pitching in by throwing rocks and distracing the legendary dead man every now and then. By the end of it I finally struck down the ancient warrior, ending his unlife. We found Erik crumpled beside the sarcophagus, still and unmoving. He had been slain by his hero.

Overburdened with gear and a crying child I returned to Markarth to lighten the load. Decided to purchase property there as well and for my recent actions was proclaimed Thane of this region. Met my new housecarl Argis in my new home too and he agreed to join me on my travels. We also hired the priest -whatshisname- since Eola asked for one for some ceremony at the cave we cleared earlier. Wasn't quite paying attention again. Decided to first revisit the not so abandoned house to find the stupid Boethian I rescued earlier trapped by the altar I explicitly told him was going to trap him. -.-

The altar then proclaimed that it would win their duel of wills this time as it had a champion. Hah I think not stupid altar. Except it wasn't talking about me. Argis, influenced by the daedra, killed the idiot. The altar proclaimed him champion of Molag Bal and granted him an evil looking mace. Between myself, the kid and -whatshisname- we dragged him out of there before he was turned any further into a daedra's bitch. After dropping the kid off at her temple and a quick goodbye we went to Eola's cave and found a whole bunch of people waiting here, some I recognize from the city. Turns out they're all people eaters and -whatshisname- is for lunch. He's already mesmerized by Eola's voice. I have nothing against cannibals, but murdering some innocent dude whose name I don't even know for your happy meal is just not on. As she sashayed towards the altar I snuck behind her and in one awesome finishing move, slit her throat and tossed her body down the stairs. Her guests met equally bloody and violent ends and -whatshisname- returned to the city alive.

Argis and I then beat up some giants, delivered some items, and reunited a dog with its master before returning an artifact to the shrine of Meridia. She wanted us to clean out her temple from some defiling evil which turned out to be quite easy as the shades were no match against the champion of Molag Bal and his shadow. Indeed the most challenging part was talking to her statue which had a bad habit of bringing me high into the sky then dropping me to my death. With enough retries, I finally got through those sections without breaking every single bone in my body. :P