Skyrim: No Ascension

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

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: Samel Returns

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

I must admit I got a little lost when hunting the next ascended mage but Tharas and I eventually found the correct crypt, with the ascended named "Apostle" guarding another floating sphere.

To his credit Apostle took more than a back stab. He actually took a few power attacks which kept him staggered and unable to counter with whatever magics he had. With him out of the way I was free to enter the orb to find myself alone in another arena, one that drains life, and that had the dragon "Samel of the Void"! Oh great, Samel again, and much worse than before!

 

Dragon form is definitely stronger than human form!

It takes a number of healing potions and exploding arrows before he lands. On the ground he is vulnerable so a "slow time" shout (fast becoming my favorite) is all I need to chain combo strike him to death. There are two more levels to the orb: one guarded by another dragon (whose name I forget) and the final one with "Great Dragon Samel" (him again lol). Both make the same mistake of landing and both get hacked to death in my slow time trap.

Pfft. Not so great.

With this orb cleansed, the land is finally free of the ascended and their dragons - or so I thought.

Skyrim: The Quick and the Dead

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

Samel's journal leads us straight to Parna the Flame, who unfortunately can't keep up with my healing potions so she is an easy face tank. Notes on her then lead to the spell sword brothers Gaern and Ramel. We manage to catch them unaware, with my opening move slitting Ramel's throat for the insta kill. Gaern goes berserk with his dual wielding and actually starts winning against Tharas Gull, but I've fought speedsters before. With the "Slow Time" shout it's like he's moving in slow motion and easily dealt with.

Head-splosion!

Correspondence on them leads to the next guy, a water mage attacking Whiterun. It's pretty cool to watch him toss people about with magical waves then seeing him turn into water when hit only to reform elsewhere. He couldn't defend against what he's not looking at though which made him another easy victim. The next one, Lana the Blood was even easier. I don't know what her powers are. Didn't care. One hit back-stab assassination is fantastic.

You snooze, you lose.

At least the next guy, a mage of stone was more alert and actually put up a fight - magically throwing obscenely large boulders at great speed that hit with extreeme knockback and decent damage. As you might suspect with that element he was more defensive than the others, but that strategy gave me time to think. Using "Slow Time" I just did a direct charge at his position, easily avoiding his projectiles and cut him down. These so called "ascended" wizards were falling like flies.

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...