Posted by
Paul M May 19, 2014 -
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Lydia and I knock around Fellglow keep till Fredas, 29th of Last Seed. I read some books, but only a fraction of what the mages here had in stock. I also make use of the soul gems that are lying around to enchant my sword to inflict some lightning damage on my foes, and in doing so I reach level 9 overall. The rest of my time is spent collecting the various ingredients littered around the keep and making up some potions, while Lydia politely coughs now and again to remind me she is still using up some of my oxygen.
We leave early in the morning on the Fredas though, as two days in the dank and cold stone halls of the keep is enough for anyone. I haven't been able to figure out if there is another part to the keep on the other side of the mountain, which might explain the erroneous red dots on the compass that Lydia has been shouting abuse at from time to time. To be sure on the matter I decide to head north and do a lap of the mountain, before aiming back at Riverwood, and our trip to see the Greybeards.
We come round the northern foot of the peak, and just before turning south I see a dragon's tail. I think about turning back, but I can't see that Lydia and I will ever be better equipped to fight a dragon, and decide we shall engage this one right here and now. I equip a longbow which I arm with poisoned steel arrows that should weaken the dragon's stamina and magic powers. I also ready my lightning spell and try to get as close as I stealthily can. Pretty close it turns out, and I pop two poisoned arrows in its hide, doing almost zero points of damage to it. The dragon jumps up, and seeing the fight is on I down some resistance tonics and try to position myself favourably for the forthcoming fracas.
The battle is hard, and while the dragon is on his last legs I have to stop and have a feast to pick my own health back up. I eventually switch to a mace and pummel the thing to death. In my moment of victory I look round and see Lydia on her knees next to a wizard dressed all in white. Just as I am starting to think who this might be, he shoots a fireball at me that sends my corpse tumbling down the mountain. As if the whole thing had been an ugly premonition I am back outside Fellglow Keep.
Now that I have the choice, I wonder if I should seek the dragon out. In the end I decide not to, remembering that I has wanting sometime soon to try and progress the missing Gray-Mane enquiry. I lead Lydia back to bandit bridge and to town, saving the encounter with the dragon for another day. At the monument stone we meet a young man called Balbus, who is out picking ingredients for someone called the gourmet. It makes a nice change to the angry cut-throats I usually run into at this point.
Back at Whiterun I see a tent with a cat like man trading goods. I off load most of the haul from the keep, and buy some moon sugar to help with my alchemy. I don't know much about these things, but this looks to me like ordinary sugar with a bit of colourful sand in it. Lydia and I then head into the home of clan Battle-Born. I slip stealthily in to a side bedroom and come to a locked door which thwarts my attempts to open it. There is a gent asleep on the bed nearby so I check his pockets and take a key from him. Turning back to the door, it suddenly swings open, and a lady walks out and says hello. I dash in to the little room behind her and read an imperial missive saying Thorald has been taken to Northwatch Keep. I check my previous notes but I haven't yet been there, so one would assume it is somewhere north of here. I'll have to park my enquiries for now then, and get back to the Greybeard business, as I still don't fancy our chances in that distant snow ruined country.
We head back to Riverwood, but after a short while I decide to take a route that follows the eastern riverside, rather than the trodden path I have followed a lot recently. I collect some flowers and mushrooms, and take in the beautiful day that is now turning to afternoon. We're back in the land of thistles and wolf pelts, and before too long I see the familiar buildings of Riverwood. At the back of town is a path that begins to climb the Throat of the World mountain, so Lydia and I head for that without stopping to say hello to Alvor or any of the others in town. The path snakes higher and to snowier environs, until we come to two sword wielding chaps blocking the path with their makeshift camp.
They are simple bandits, so I first relieve them of their lives and then their wallets. The path Lydia and I were on goes no further, so I look around for another path we can try and short-cut to. We end up heading a long way west, and demoralisingly away from the Throat of the World. I do find some wild snowberries, which I have only ever bought up to now, and we do find a nice view of the barrow that I've visited twice before. We bump into Ria of the companions, who seems happy with her lot. Turning then south we approach a fortress of some kind, which I guess is where Ria and her fellow companions reside. The approach road is spectacularly pretty, and there is an abundance of wildflowers and berries. At the gates though there are two rotten corpses impaled as some sort of warning sign, and the gate itself is locked. Not the companions then, but it's too far to try and go around.
Inside three bandits greet us, lasting a matter of seconds against my fiery handshake. One is a weird looking lizard man who knew a bit of magic. Approaching one of the doors I see this place is called Helgan Keep. Having already cleared a keep recently I'm in no rush to go charging into this one, and instead look for a way to pass through and get back to the Throat of the World. We leave via a gate to the northeast, again adorned with wild flowers and the impaled dead. The mountain we want is now almost directly in our line of sight, so the journeying begins to feel much more productive. I step off the path to get a clear view of the south side of the mountain, and to see if there is any sign of the route we want to take. It looks like there might be a path up the eastern slope, and that the road we were on might lead us close to that.
I pick a direct route through the valley between the peaks, rather than retracing my steps back to the road. As the land flattens out again I see an archer come running up to us, but then realise it is Lydia, who must have dashed back to the road and taken the long way back around to me rather than climb down the rocks. She fires an arrow into a little wooded area, just as I see a mage charging up a fireball to hurl at me. I step back and ready my weapons, but Lydia seems to have it under control. As I step in to help something jumps on Lydia, and I see we are surrounded by witches. Two go down, but a third manages to toast me to death. I awake from my idle daydreaming just outside the bandit fort, and decide as far as possible to retrace my steps of a moment ago.
We don't meet the witches again, mainly because we stay on the path. This time though a storm sets in that seems to turn a bright crisp day into an oppressive night of swirling winds and snow. We take an eastern fork when the path splits and then between some trees I spy a horse, standing waiting for something or someone. We approach and I sense we are at a Stormcloak camp. I chat to a soldier who says old Olfric is now in Windhelm if I want to enlist. Lydia and I can't take the horses without stealing them so we continue our hike to find a path up the Throat of the World. The visibility has dropped substantially now though, and I can no longer be sure we are headed in the right direction.
Eventually the path gets too steep so we turn back the way we came. We come to the Stormcloak camp again and talk to Thorygg, who turns out to be a bit of a surly warmonger. We press on, heading back to the split in the path and taking the north branch this time. I see a couple of sticks planted in the ground and go over to investigate, only to be struck by lightning. The witches are here, and this time I give them no quarter. Even knowing what they are capable of these witches are possibly my toughest fight for some time, and Lydia and I only just prevail.
It's after 7pm, and the sun has now set on the stormy evening, making it almost pitch black. I only find one body to search, but that witch isn't carrying much at all. There is a strange glow up ahead and the conflict music is still playing so I ready myself for further grief. There are a couple of large explosions and then two massive fireballs come shooting down at me. I head back to roughly where the witches were and try resurrecting them using the skill I picked up at the monument stone. Sure enough, five of them come back to life and dash up the hill to confront captain firework.
They do some damage, but the enemy, call Hargraven, is in the strategically superior position, and appears to have a nifty trick that allows him to quickly recover about half his health. I leave it too late to approach, and only try after all the witches are dead. I can't get close because of the fireballs, and end up pinned down behind a tree stump. He is focused on me, and I don't see Lydia around so I fear the worst has happened. Finally I make my plan: stay in cover and heal myself using my healing spell; then wait for my magic abilities to recover and cast a light with my candlelight spell so I can see how to approach this fiend; then switch back to healing and use that to help me approach Hargraven without dying; then try using my shout abilities to incapacitate my enemy long enough to hack him to pieces.
I dummy left and the dive to the right of the tree stump, which works to draw the most part of his fireball away from me. What I thought was a bridge over to his position is not, and I end up dropping down and circling the base of a high rocky platform, searching by candlelight for a way up. Eventually, jumping over rocks I find the way to the top, and come face to face with the twisted goblin. He readies a fireball and I hit him with my unrelenting force shout, which seems to stop him casting it. Now that I'm up close and hacking at him he seems understandably reluctant to use the massive fireballs, and a mix of poisoned sword and my healing spell brings him down and keeps me breathing. As a cut scene of the death blow plays I see Lydia has also come up to the platform, and I feel such relief that it makes me realise how much I like having her character around.
It is now 10.30, and I make no bones about using Hargraven's rotten looking camp to sleep for the night, knowing that when the morning comes Lydia and I will continue our hunt for a way up the Throat of the World mountain.
