In Which Merawen Continues General Adventuring

Very low-key session in which I did only a little actual adventuring, really—and a lot of crafting to work on leveling up.

Highlights

• Session number in this run: 81
• Headed west again from Fort Dawnguard
• Khajiit skooma dealer: “This one has something sweet for the fellow traveler, if it entices.” No thanks
• Followed road west of Riften
• Took down assorted trolls, bears, spiders, and wolves with Flaming Familiar (or regular Familiar) + Bound Battleaxe
• Farmer going to join the Stormcloaks
• Two Vigilants killing a bear as I went by
• Courier as I got near Ivarstead; another Letter of Inheritance, for Garakh the smith dying in Largashbur, crap
• Found Pinepeak Cavern by going the opposite direction at the steps up to Throat of the World; cleared the place of bears
• Found what was apparently supposed to be an unmarked location, with a well, that was supposed to have a wispmother come out of it according to the wiki? I got the wisps but not their wispmother
• Came across Stormcloak camp and a Revered Dragon showed up
• Summoned Dremora Lord + Bound Bow; Dremora Lord and the Stormcloaks all fought the dragon
• “If you know any true sons and daughters of Skyrim…” But you, who just killed this dragon? Fuck it, we don’t want you
• And also yes yes l did just take its very soul, hi, I’m the Dragonborn
• Came out of the woods near Whiterun, so I stopped to shop and craft in Whiterun
• Stopped to shop and craft in Whiterun
• Killed giant frostbite spider near Western Watchtower, using Bound Bow; the corpse kind of disintegrated, visually? o.O
• Killed frost troll with regular non-flaming familiar and Bound Battleaxe
• Oh hey back way into Bleak Falls Barrow
• Found a dead treasure hunter with a note saying the “blessed iron greatsword” is in Shriekwind Bastion? I’ve already cleared that place twice, not sure I care?
• Discovered Anise’s Cabin; did not engage
• Found Falkreath Watchtower; killed Arch Necromancer there, with Dremora Lord
• Got a bear with chain lightning, destruction now at 89
• Took out Apprentice Necromancer with lightning, and also thank you, Steadfast Ward
• Found Knifepoint Ridge; bandits attacked as soon as I was in range, conjured Dremora Lord again; dremora yelled “I honor my lord by destroying you!”
• Called up my battleaxe again; took out several bandits there
• Revisited Bilegulch Mine; fought several orc bandits there again with Dremora Lord and Bound Battleaxe
• Leveled up to 76; took animage perk in Illusion
• Boinged to college for training; took two rounds from Tolfdir, two rounds from Drevis, and one from Faralda
• Set Enchanting Legendary; dropped all the perks on Light Armor and Two-Handed
• Also set Alchemy Legendary; dropped a bunch of perks on all schools of magic, bringing down the cost of a lot of spells and working my way up to Quiet Casting on the Illusion tree
• Did a lot of Enchanting and Alchemy work in Arch-Mage’s quarters
• Got nearly up to level 77; got Enchanting back up to 51
• Fast traveled to Windhelm to sell some of the stuff I enchanted
• Boinged to Thieves Guild to sell more stuff
• Boinged to Honningbrew to sell more stuff
• Flyby dragon, did not engage
• Shopped in Whiterun; made a guard cranky by casting Transmute by the smelter, heh; sorry dude I do have to cast my fancy magic here
• Sold a bunch of things at Warmaiden’s
• Boinged to Solitude; set Smithing Legendary again; dropped all the perks on Speech to get up to the Investor perk, then the rest on Archery
• Boinged to Windstad to stop there long enough to smith a few things and get Smithing going again and get up to level 77
• Bandits! Called up Dremora Lord and Battleaxe again; bandit yelled “Your kind has no place here!” I beg to differ, asshole, as you are attacking me in front of my own fucking house
• Enchanted a few things; level 77! Dropped perk on Illusion to get expert spell cost down
• Boinged to college for next round of training; Illusion x 3, Alteration x 2
• Sold all my excess stuff off bandits to Tolfdir now that I can sell anything to anybody; I figure he can raise money for the college by selling my stuff!
• Bought a bunch of soul gems off of Phinis; enchanted a few more things in the Arch-Mage’s quarters
• Saved for the night

Commentary, and next time

Only a small amount of general adventuring in this session, really. The main interesting things for me in this run were experiments with the Conjuration spells, comparing behavior of, say, Conjure Familiar and Flaming Familiar! I liked that the familiar you get in both cases is a wolf, but in the latter, it’s a wolf made out of FIRE.

I am amused as fuck that I can summon up a Dremora Lord to fight for me, and how eager he is about the fight seems to depend on the power level of the opponents! He was all over fighting a dragon. And it was highly entertaining to hear him roar “I honor my lord by destroying you!”

Hopefully he means me. As opposed, to, say, Molag Bal or Mehrunes Dagon. I’ll take the liberty of assuming he means me. ;D

I think I shall name him Charlie!

Aside from that, the other point of interest in this session was realizing I’d level up faster if I reset all of my crafting-based skills to Legendary. Because my goals for leveling up are still in play here:

1. Making it to level 80 so I can engage the Ebony Warrior
2. Getting one or more of my magic skills up to the necessary levels to do the high-tier mage college quests

And Enchanting, Alchemy, and Smithing are the fastest ways for me to level up based on my established play style at this point. I leveled up twice in this session, in no small part because of burning through all the crafting I did.

So at this point I’m three levels away from 80. That’s another 15 rounds of training I can drop on something, plus whatever I get from actually exercising the skills while in play. So I feel like both my goals are doable!

Next time, then, I’m just going to do another circuit around the map, buy up a boatload of smithing materials and alchemy ingredients, and go to town making things and selling them. I’ll throw Transmute on any iron or silver ore I get my hands on, and make gold jewelry till I’m up to my eyebrows in necklaces and rings!

I’ll probably also try to hit some of the various locales I skipped before, just to clear them and get in the combat exercise. This should all occupy me nicely!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/17/2023: Fixed missing gallery, and added a session number.