In Which Delga is Inducted into the Companions

This post covers two different sessions–Sunday the 31st and Monday the 1st. Sunday’s was a super short session so I bundled that in with this post.

Main highlight of this action: my young orc passing her trial to be inducted into the Companions! With a side helping of bandits.

Highlights

• Play dates: 10/31-11/1/2021
• Session numbers in this run: 2-3

Sunday

• Went into Jorrvaskr to find Farkas and check in with him; he confirmed he’d be my shield-brother on this search at Dustman’s Cairn
• Told him I’d meet him at Dustman’s Cairn, he answered that I should not delay
• Went up to Dragonsreach to drop off the sword with the steward
• Lydia wouldn’t follow me, confirming that Farkas was locked in as my follower for the immediate moment, and that counted out going to clear Halted Stream; diverted to Dustman’s Cairn instead
• Talked to Idolaf on the way out and got his “Gray-Mane or Battle-Born” conversation I remember from Alarrah’s run
• Voted “Battle-Born” to show allegiance to the Empire, to Idolaf’s approval
• Headed out towards Dustman’s Cairn to meet up with Farkas
• Did a little hunting, and this is one of the few situations where I think it’d be appropriate for Delga to sneak, just because she knows she doesn’t want to startle the prey
• Got a couple more points of Sneak and a little bit of Archery but didn’t actually take out any elk or deer
• Made it to Hamvir’s Rest which I hadn’t realized is right by Dustman’s Cairn
• Found overturned cart and spilled cabbages, shades of MY CABBAGES from Avatar, lol
• Killed a skeleton; I think here was where I leveled up to 6?
• Found Farkas right behind me; HI FARKAS
• (Didn’t have enough money to take advantage of his being a Heavy Armor trainer yet, damn)
• Hit Farkas’s dialogue prompts to get him to tell me about the overall idea of this “trial”: i.e., i’m supposed to get the fragment, he’s here to make sure I behave “honorably” (which means what, exactly?)
• (Farkas is a dude of few words, and apparently not too many brain cells either)
• Headed into the cairn with him and killed an initial round of draugr
• Got to a room with an enchanter table and two ways out, plus another blocked by a gate
• saved for the night

Monday

• Picked up where I left off in Dustman’s Cairn with Farkas
• Got stuck behind a gate and witnessed the scripted encounter where Farkas turns into a werewolf and wipes out five, count ‘em, five of the Silver Hand
• Delga: WHOA!
• Farkas: I hope I didn’t scare you.
• Delga: OMG dude you are totally a werewolf. 😮
• Proceeded through the rest of the dungeon with Farkas
• Leveled up to 7 somewhere in the middle of doing all the fighting with assorted Silver Hands and draugr
• Lookit all those silver swords and silver greatswords, why yes I’ll have some, also silver ingots and other interesting ingredients, lots of hawk feathers in particular
• And whoo boy so many draugr in the final chamber with the Word Wall
• Got the fragment of Wuuthrad
• Also got overloaded looting all the draugr, so went into sneak + drawn bow mode to get back across the plains to Whiterun
• Oh hey look the Khajiit! Sold them a bunch of the loot I had, and made a tidy sum
• Returned to Jorrvaskr, and was sworn in as a Companion, which was pretty neat; I really liked the lines exchanged between Kodlak and Farkas <3
• Had a conversation with Kodlak as well about his background and motivations; he told me to go see Eorlund for a better weapon than “whatever that is”, lol
• Went to see Eorlund, and got a Skyforge steel greatsword
• Also got a set of wolf armor, and goddamn is the wolf armor boobtacular on a woman, right then, regular steel armor it is
• Got a few steel ingots from Eorlund as well
• Went to Dragonsreach to get Lydia following me
• Stopped to talk to Danica on the way out and got the quest for the Gildergreen
• Also talked to Ysolda and got her quest for a mammoth tusk
• Headed towards Halted Stream Camp
• Tried to run it a few times, killed by bandit chief multiple times, but finally made it through by just charging right down there rather than hanging back, HA, like a proper Companion then
• Once the bandits were down, I got Amren’s sword and the spellbook for Transmute Mineral Ore, gimme 😀
• Mined all the ore veins, mostly iron but also a little corundum
• Nabbed a mammoth tusk to give to Ysolda, two quests for the price of one bandit run!
• Got pretty overloaded as I mined my way back to the exit
• <DRAGON ROAR OUTSIDE> OH SHIT oh wait no it’s a flyby dragon
• (I think my young orc girl was a little alarmed about the prospect of taking on another dragon with only Lydia for backup)
• Tromped back to Whiterun for the night and stopped at Warmaiden’s
• Did a little transmuting to make some gold, not very much magicka so couldn’t do much of that
• Smelted everything else and improved a few things, including Amren’s family sword
• I think somewhere in the smithing I leveled up to 8?
• Took another perk on the Heavy Armor tree
• Saw Amren’s quest marker in the Drunken Huntsman, so I went in there and gave him his sword back
• Chatted with Vignar Gray-Mane, also Elrindir at the counter
• How the hell am I on my third playthrough and only just now finding out that Elrindir is the brother of Anoriath selling meat in the square? Lolololol
• Also just now finding out the history of how the shop got named? Lololol
• Also that Elrindir apparently sells stuff all the goddamn time? welp that’s convenient 😀
• Sold him a bunch of my extra loot so as to get unburdened, and also buy me an orcish bow
• Went to go crash at Jorrvaskr for the night
• Got up the next morning to go shop a bit more at the Skyforge and get a bit more steel
• Gave Ysolda her mammoth tusk and she gave me a Speech bump
• Shopped with Belethor and Arcadia
• Sold stuff to Arcadia and leveled up to 9 from the Speech improvement; took Steel Smithing perk
• Did a little alchemy
• Went to Warmaiden’s to smith there and sold Adrianne some stuff
• Also popped back into the Huntsman; couldn’t buy all his Orcish arrows but did at least buy some of them
• Came out to find the courier with the letter from the Jarl of Falkreath
• Saved for the night

Proving Honor quest

Okay, that was actually pretty fun!

Not only for the amusement value of hitting a dungeon in Skyrim I hadn’t been in before, but also for getting to see a Companion in full on werewolf mode. And I do kind of like Farkas as a character. He seems to be a good-hearted guy, even if he’s decidedly not smart.

I find it kind of charming, in fact, that “dumb as a sack of warhammers” seems to be a defining trait of this boy, but the game doesn’t mock him for it. His brother Vilkas speaks of him affectionately, and Farkas’ vouching for the player to be inducted into the Companions is heard and respected.

Also, Farkas seems legitimately concerned about not scaring the player when he goes into werewolf mode, which was rather sweet of him.

As for the Silver Hand—there were an awful lot of them in Dustman’s Cairn, for no obvious reason? Very curious as to what the explanation for their presence there was supposed to be, whether they’re supposed to have tracked Farkas and the player there, or whether they’d been trying to use the place as a hideout, or what? Or were they hoping to ambush any Companions who showed up at the place?

Not too terribly different than fighting bandits, at least in terms of level of challenge. It was definitely interesting that they had a bunch of silver weapons—which I feel like I’d be more interested in if I could actually improve them. The prospect of doing damage to undead with them is certainly appealing, but I’ll get a way better weapon for that once I get Dawnbreaker with this character.

Also interesting that a bunch of them had hawk feathers on them—now that I know those are useful for potions of Cure Disease. Are they carrying them for that specific purpose, to make fresh potions? Hmm wiki says you can eat hawk feathers to get the same function as the potion, cool!

But does that actually cure you of lycanthropy or do the Silver Hand just think it does? I’m not seeing any sign on the wiki that a potion of Cure Disease can keep you from becoming a werewolf.

Anyway, I did quite like this quest as the gateway to getting into the Companions, and I did quite like the little ceremony in back of Jorrvaskr when Kodlak called upon Farkas to witness for me. That was really rather stirring. <3

And I liked the little chat I had with Kodlak after, that sets him up as really wanting to get rid of his lycanthropy so he’ll have access to Sovngarde when he dies.

Other Companions

It’s interesting to see the other Companions reacting to my presence in Jorrvaskr now. Athis, the one Dunmer in the group, makes some snarky commentary about how they’ll apparently let anybody in now, and well, gee thanks and fuck you, Athis.

Ria on the other hand seems nice, and has friendly commentary about how she was the newest Companion until I showed up, but now she can show me the ropes. <3

I don’t have much of a sense of the others, quite yet.

However, it does seem pretty neat that as a group, the Companions seem to have more to say to you as one of their own than the Dawnguard does. I’ll have to see if this is an impression I maintain once I get to the Dawnguard with Delga–and keep up the habit of trying to talk to everybody!

Talking to folks in Whiterun

Speaking of talking to folks–I’m rather enjoying taking the time to talk to NPCs in Whiterun, because it encourages me to slow down a little and savor the experience more. Plus, I’m hoping it’ll let me find out about any favor quests I might have missed!

It’s a nice change of pace as well from Merawen mostly infiltrating a city with intent to rob it, and barely talking to anybody except the smiths and her fences. 😉

Overall

So far, enjoying the Companions quest line. And I think I’m definitely starting to feel the impact of having the Difficulty kicked up to Adept already, only after a few sessions. It’s taking me longer to pull off battles than it did in Merawen’s run even at low levels!

Going back and checking Alarrah’s and Merawen’s posts, I see that I didn’t record how many times it took me to pull off doing the battle at the Western Watchtower. With Delga, though, it definitely took me multiple tries. And I’m pretty sure it took me longer this time.

Still not entirely sure how I’ll feel about being a werewolf, but we’ll see how I feel about that when I get to that in the Companions plotline!

Next time

Yeah I probably really ought to go check in with the Greybeards. 😀

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/18/2023: Fixed missing gallery, and added some session numbers.