Posted by
Paul M May 15, 2014 -
377 views
It's a well rested Yuri that wakes on Tirdas, 26th of Last Seed. I'm not planning too much today, but the chief order of business will be to see the wizard about this Dragon Stone. I have some troll fat, small antlers and a human heart for breakfast, which while not the breakfast of kings is what flies for a practicing alchemist.
It all kicks off at the castle. A dragon has been sighted, and Farengar was having an intriguing conversation with Delphine. But before I can get on that the Jarl asks me to deal with the dragon, and in return gives me some armour and says I can buy a house in Whiterun. I guess he thinks that if I have a stake in the town I will be more likely to help protect it from the dragon.
Irileth the Jarl's bodyguard and I race through the town until we get to a militia, to whom she gives a rousing speech. At least I think it's rousing; I can't hear too well because some little girl decides to start talking to me and somehow manages to drown out the lady elf. Speech over, we move out, with me hoping that she didn't give us any useful tips about tactics for fighting dragons which I might have missed out on. We dash over to the western watchtower, which is softly smouldering in the haze of quite a pleasant mid-morning.
I poke around a bit, and pick up some arrows, at which point a dragon arrives and begins circling. I switch to lightning magic, as I figure fire won't be much use, and I down some fire resistance potions. The dragon is called Mirmulnir, not that he stops to tell me that. Between my lightning, my numerous healing potions crafted but not sold over the past few days, and my trusty short sword, I take the dragon down. In doing so I absorb the dragon's soul, allowing me to learn to speak with a dragon's voice, or some party trick like that.
I climb the western lookout tower to take in the country north of the mountains. The fort from last night looks much more inviting now, and I decide to take a little detour in that direction before heading back to Whiterun. It's definitely occupied by hostile forces though, as even dressed in the uniform of an unfortunately perished Whiterun militia-man I am not welcome. Heading back east a strange pop-in makes the dragon's skeleton jump in the air and gives me an idea involving my resurrection ability. All I succeed in doing though is shifting the bones about 100 metres down the road. It's still impressive, but not quite what I was after.
On the way to Whiterun there is an ominous earthquake, but no obvious cause. I pick some flowers by the road and suddenly can't run anymore. I decide I'm so close to town there's no harm in walking. After what feels like forever I make it to the gate and decide to eat some apples to get running again. In town I pick up a quest to find a red guard woman and convince her to return home, and then head to the alchemy shop. I mix up a fair few potions, and crank my alchemy skills way up. I'm hoping one day this will pay off in a big way, but even in the short term it feels like my journeying and picking flowers by the roadside is reaping an excellent reward. I also pop to Belethor's shop and sell some of my loot to date. In doing so I realise the reason I can't use any of the spells I bought from Faraghar is because I haven't read how they work. That's easily rectified, and by the time I leave I'm cutting the jib of an impressive looking battle mage.
It's late by the time I head up to the castle. I demand a reward from the Jarl, and he deftly changes the subject to my charming voice. Apparently the Greybeards, who live on the throat of the world mountain, called me to them with that earthquake. Eventually the Jarl caves in on the reward, and gives me his axe and names me a thane of the city. I also get a wench, called Lydia, which is a little awkward, as I don't have a house to put her in yet. I chat to her on the way out, and it's not quite the set up I pictured: she's like a bodyguard who'll follow me around and help me out in fights. It's dark outside, and there's another aurora even prettier than the one the night before last. I take Lydia down to my tavern of choice and rent the room there for a further night.
I barely feel like I've had a lie down before it's Middas, and the age old question burns of whether to progress the plot, tie up some loose ends around Whiterun, or strike out on my own to Winterhold to train as a magician. I think about Lydia, who I'll be dragging along with me whatever I decide to do. I don't want her to die just yet, and I'm almost certain that would happen if we left for Winterhold. If we went to Riverwood I could introduce her to Alvor, and see what Haldor is up to these days. And then from there we could climb the throat of the world and see the greybeards.
But then into my mind pops the cave that I found on the east side of the river, near to where I fought the assassin. It might be fun to see what that was about, and then on the way back we could look into our growing missing person files. We head out, and Lydia politely keeps quiet while I get diverted picking flowers and nirnroots on the way. On the east side of the river I pause, as I see flames up ahead. Could it be history repeating itself. Lydia in tow, I head over to take a peek. All is not quite as it once was: a flame atronach is hanging out at the spot where I have fought miscreants twice before. Well, now I have ice powers my friend, so let's see what happens shall we? Mere seconds later, the creature is dead. Feeling pretty chuffed, I notice it drops a mace. On closer inspection the mace was actually dropped by someone called a Vigilant of Stendarr. Clearly not vigilant enough, though he seems to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He carries an interesting amulet of Stendarr: a piece of jewellery made up of gold loops with a small bone or bit of polished wood shaped to look like an ivory tusk or trumpet. His clothes are also worth a fortune. If this is a cult then I want in. We carry on and come to Graywinter Watch. The narrow entrance quickly opens to a wider cavern, where there appears to dwell a large rough looking creature, I'm thinking maybe a troll. He hasn't seen us yet, so we could walk away, but I'm feeling bullish after the atronach, and decide Lydia and I can handle any ruckus that might kick off.
It is a troll. We can't handle the ruckus. I back up while throwing ice at it, and eventually back completely out of the cave. Lydia follows, nearly dead, but thankfully the troll stays put. Definitely not ready for cave trolls. Instead, I decide we should take another look at Fellglow Keep, as with my repertoire of spells I should now be able to give pretty much any novice mage a run for their money.
We cross the river at bandit bridge, still reassuringly free of bandits. Stealthily missing an opportunity to kill a stag that's in our path bumps me up to level 8, which I like to think impresses Lydia. We come to the keep from the south and have the benefit of some high ground overlooking the exterior. Nothing much seems to be happening, and we make it to the front door without any drama. At the door I give Lydia a couple of potions that might come in handy, but I don't know if the game will be smart enough to have her drink them at the opportune moment.
A small room to the left briefly contains an ice mage and a necromancer. The other side is trickier, as there is also a conjuror, and Lydia nearly dies before we are able to rally and slay all comers. This is some sort of church hall, and we've still yet to find the dining area and living quarters which is where I'm guessing the rest of the gang is at. There's also a constant ring of metal being worked coming from upstairs, so we follow that sound. We find all the trappings one would expect of a magician, and a storm mage making weapons to then enchant. Three red dots appear on the compass after he dies, so I'm guessing this will be the formal welcoming committee. We search for them, but they appear to be stuck behind a collapsed wall, and while we can hear them shouting at us, and Lydia can trash talk back at them, we can't harm each other.
Further exploration leads to a dungeon, where a necromancer tries to baffle us with skeletons. They go down, then he joins them, before I resurrect him to aid our efforts. We then come down to the dining room, which gets hectic. I figure out how to poison my sword, and work through all my healing potions before we manage to take the breath out of all the mages waiting down here. Once it dies down, we hear a wolf howl, and creep through a shadowy back room to a rising stair, eventually leading to a heavy wooden door. On the other side is a sound of something clawing at the very air, snarling with each breath like the taste is causing it to become enraged.
There's a room with cages and levers, and a storm mage who before we killed him must have had the job of warden. There are wolves in one of the cages, which is something of a relief. Perhaps these mages used them for some sort of testing. From the middle of the room there is a murky stairway leading up to another heavy wooden door, and I suspect is may be a way back round to he other half of the upper halls that were blocked off by rubble.
Half right, in as much as it leads back to the upper halls, but only the ones we've already seen. The three voices behind the wall now seem to have vanished, and the only unexplored part of this place is the room with three levers. We head back down and I start pulling. Nothing too exciting, they just open the cages. One of the wolves runs off through a door I hadn't seen, so we continue exploring in that direction. Sure enough, three more mages. I see two die, but an ice mage either falls to Lydia or runs off. We're in some sort of lab. These ones were doing something to a master vampire, who I decide to resurrect and take with us once my magic regenerates. While we're waiting though the ice mage shows up again, and when I fireball him to death a neat little cut scene suggests he is the last bad guy for a bit.
When I eventually do try to raise the vampire I find he is too powerful for the spell to work. We press on to the furthest reaches of the keep. A magical trap bushwacks me, and then two lady mages leave me downing tomatoes and carrots to stay alive. They drop to the ice blasts I give them, and possibly more-so to Lydia's arrows. I resurrect one of the mages and then put my healing spell as active and hope that we are almost at the end.
Sure enough, we come to a door back outside and I step out for some air. It's dark and we trudge back to the front door of the keep. Inside is quiet, and I look to one of the beds for some rest. By some I mean 11 hours until 7am the following day.
We do one last sweep, mainly to see if we can actually get to the other side of the collapsed wall where we heard the voices. There doesn't seem to be a way, although the map on the menu seems to show another part to the keep behind where we are now. Still, we've only gone and done it Lydia: we've cleared this keep of vicious mages, who I probably would have paid to join if they'd only asked instead of trying to kill me. And to the victor go the spoils. The rest of today is going to be spent looting and seeing how much stuff Lydia can carry before she tries to kill me.
