Showdown at Sky Haven Temple

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! In this entry I am following my custom scenario "A Curse of Iron". You can follow the rest of the story here!

Since he had done such a good job I offered Kharjo to join the Blades but he refused as I thought he might. I set him free of his debt, hoping he had a safe trip back to Elsweyr. Mjoll then called me over and asked how I was doing, taking me outside to the training area for a little chat. It was there that she revealed she too was working for the Thalmor, explaining her sudden disappearance from Riften before. Mainly it was to get back at me for letting Aerin die. Well that's too bad. I drew my iron sword and readied my hide shield while she pulled out my high level magical ebony blade. The hell? Seems she has all my old stuff too!

Our duel lasted for a long while, but she certainly had the upper hand with that magic blade. Furthermore each time I would get her to half HP she would fully heal! It was then I realized that she's using my potions! Things took a turn for the worse when Esbern appeared as well and began thowing magical fire at me. Great, he too is now the thalmor's bitch. No use continuing the fight out here so I pushed past into the temple proper where my large group of friends waited... and did nothing. It's like they didn't know if they should obey me or obey the leaders of the blades! Fortunately one of them decided to help out - Kharjo, who hadn't yet left took on Mjoll while I delt with Esbern, hacking him down as quickly as I could and then returning to the fight against Mjoll for perhaps the longest / best boss fight ever.

Kharjo and I would alternate as each of us would get knocked back, while she just kept healing. Eventually though she ran out of potions and in one furious backhand I sent her head flying from her shoulders. With their leader(s) dead, the remaining people stood even more gobsmacked as before... until they eventually took a knee and accepted me as their new leader. I thanked Kharjo again and the khajiit gave his farewells as he exited the temple. All that was left now was to get this curse off me which meant another trip to Winterhold, so I asked for a volunteer to come with and the knight Rayna jumped at the opportunity. We made our way out and the forsworn were nowhere to be found - they probably fled after their "leader" was killed, so we continued on the road where we passed Kharjo again, as well as Maiq, and upon reaching a pretty high bridge came across a patrol of imperial soldiers with a prisoner. I grinned to Rayna who knew what I was thinking and after slitting the throat of the guard at the very rear, charged the remaining two with sword held high.

Skyrim is for the Nords!

Taking a break from Skyrim again here, so I thought I'd leave you with a few extra goodies. :)

Skyrim Cosplay with Jessica Nigri
Skyrim Cosplay with Manzi de Young
Skyrim Cosplay & Music Video with Lindsey Stirling and Peter Hollens
Elder Scrolls Online

Fighting the Forsworn Army

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! In this entry I am following my custom scenario "A Curse of Iron". You can follow the rest of the story here!

Received a letter from Tolfdir via courier today, while he hasn't found a cure for my condition yet he has learned that the spell cast upon me has a limited range and must be done from a pretty high altitude. Given I was in Markarth the best spot would be from the city itself, but since that's too obvious the second best spot would be at Dead Crone Rock which is where I needed to head next. First I managed to finally upgrade all my gear again then with Kharjo in tow we followed the path, right into a wandering bandit chief party. What the hell. There were four of them! All chiefs, no indians. After that fight we ran into a witch and a Shadow Nightingale!? Seems like something really wants to keep me away from this place.

Managed to kill them too then had a bit of peace and quiet until we reached the forsworn camp at the base of Dead Crone Rock. Despite killing the sentries quietly and smoothly the sheer number of opponents here was problematic, but Kharjo and I persevered (mainly using lots of food) and slaying them all. We were in for a surprise at the higher level though, where my missing horse Shadowmere was fighting the Briarheart and his pet troll! WTF. No Idea how the hell that happened, but I'll take any help I can get! After we cleared out the outside we assaulted the tower itself, easily clearing out the few remaining forsworn and reaching the highest point with the Word wall. There I found the tome that had been stolen from the mages college, and after browsing some pages found what was afflicting me. More importantly I found what I needed to cure myself.

Other than a skilled mage (which I'm not), I was going to need bear claws, taproot and a giant's toe - and I already had all except the last. However I knew exactly where to get one - slightly annoyed I had to leave Shadowmere again though, due to the non-iron metals in his saddle (or being, what the heck type of horse is he anyway). We returned back down the road where we were ambushed by a lone wood elf (stupid girl) and then ran into Maiq the Liar. Chatted for a bit then moved on to Karthspire. I knew there was a dead giant there that would be easy pickings. What I didn't know was that all the forsworn had returned to the area, making it a hell of a task getting to it given I was out of arrows. In the end we just had to bolt, grabbing the toe while evading spells and arrows of the defenders then running quickly up into Sky Haven Temple where they refused to follow.

All that's missing is a Scorpion King.

Rites of Initiation

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

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.

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.