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Kalima Serano, dunmer sorceress and Faendal:
- Sold loot, slept in Bannered Mane, got Thaned
- took a carriage ride to Riften
- Met some interesting people, slept a night in Bee and Barb
- Headed out to explore wilderness around Riften. Saw a battle between imperial soldiers and stormcloaks (looted the bodies), rescued M'aiq the Liar from wolves
- Several more wolves, visit to Stendarr's Beacon and three frostbite spiders later located Dayspring Canyon and Fort Dawnguard
- Talked with Isran, got drafted in, last seen exploring the Fort.

Nelya, Bosmer huntress:
- battled a frost dragon and bought lumber at Mixwater Mill (didn't even kill the dragon, half health left...it just flew off to distance)
- Entered the Lost Knife Hideout, turned to werewolf and...hunted. Of course she reverted back to human in middle of a fight against three silverhands. On the otherhand, she needed her hands to retrive a fragment of Wuuthrad. Now she's backtracking to get the loot she missed in her beast-form.

I learned that I'm going to have to disable my antivirus every time I want to play Skyrim, so... Things went fairly well when I finally got in.

I returned to playing Vulom. She went to return to that Septimus fellow and, along the way, she happened to encounter Taron Dreth (or whatever his name is). I saw what looked like his guards and equipped the Aetherial Staff as fast as I could. He came running and Vulom used the staff to taunt him before he went hostile.

A little further down the road, Vulom was ambushed by a group of hired thugs for a crime that I don't remember her doing. Killed them no problem. Of course, I turned around to find a thief was now attempting to rob her. So the thief got killed.

After she spoke to Septimus, she found a rather insulting Nord on the road. She killed her immediately. And was then attacked by an assassin not thirty seconds later. And another one about five minutes later. And then another one of those annoying Nords. When she got a stealth kill on that one, I found the face she was making over her victim's shoulder to be rather funny; it was just the perfect look of annoyance.

When I got to the bandit tower on the road to Whiterun (the one that starts with a V), Vulom discovered those folks that were on their way to the wedding in Solitude fighting the bandits. She killed them all.

So... Apparently it was a day of wild world encounters. Vulom was actually supposed to be harvesting blood for Discerning the Transmundane, but I think she only got Dunmer, Orc, and Bosmer. I kinda lost track.

Now that's weird. Does it also object when you're playing with Steam offline?

I redid the Argonian druid I've been fooling around with from scratch - new name, new backstory, new starting location. Trips-over-Tail (that's his given name) was a labourer at the Riften Fishery living in Beggar's Row who shared his erstwhile lover Wujeeta's skooma addiction until he had (what he thinks was) a vision sent by the Hist during a severe period of withdrawal (so he's basically an ex-junkie who has Seen The Light). Hist-Tongue (as he has since renamed himself) now firmly believes he's being sent by the Hist to help the subjugated trees of Skyrim achieve sentience; intermediate steps on this agenda are befriending spriggans (I'm going to use One with Nature for that) and assassinating as many lumberjacks and sawmill owners as he can. I'm leaving it open to interpretation whether he's really under arboreal orders or just plain nuts (we can take it for granted that the skooma addled his brains to some degree), but it can't be denied that he's acquired certain magical powers since his vision that he didn't have before...

It's not Steam. It's the ATTK Power Loader. The program gives Skyrim priority compared to all the other stuff that runs in the background, which increases performance. A nice thing to have when your PC is as old as mine is. Apparently AVG has suddenly decided that the program is a Trojan. It has been on my computer for more than a year. If it was a Trojan, I think AVG (and other antivirus programs) would have picked it up a long time ago.

This is as bad as one of the other antivirus programs picking on SKSE. A while ago, one of them decided that SKSE as a virus as well. At least that got sorted out.

Of course, AVG has a history of pulling stunts like this with me. It has labeled files from Civilization V as viruses multiple times.



To make things even more fun, I discovered that messing around with the level trigger for Boethiah's Calling too much with Timing is Everything can break the quest entirely. Several months ago, I apparently set the level to 100 to avoid getting attacked by the Cultist. Now, even though the level is back at the default (30) I still don't get attacked by the Cultist and, despite the fact that the book is spawning, I cannot start the quest. I can't even start it with the console. Removing the mod hasn't worked. Nothing has, aside from leveling up past 100.

Methinks the mod has issues. If it weren't for the fact that it's the only way I can keep Miraak's little [&@%!] from attacking me around every corner, I wouldn't have it.

So... Vulom has spent her time doing quests for the various Daedric Princes. Hermaeus Mora, Molag Bal, Namira... I can't remember how many I did.
But the fact that Boethiah's quest will not trigger has halted my progress. If I can't get it to start, then I think I'll just have to ignore it. Which will be a first for Vulom. She does all the Daedric quests (usually in the nastiest way possible).

Bah. Skyrim is starting to annoy me again. I might just switch back to Oblivion.

Edit:
Aaand it goes beyond Boethiah's Calling. It's doing that for the Solitude Wolf Queen quests as well. It was fixed, but the mod seems to be overriding the changes from the unofficial patches. Same for the Grimsever fetch quest. Even vampire attacks. Can't say I've had this happen before.

It seems that I have no choice but to level Vulom further (because there is no [&@%!] way I'm restarting her again. This one isn't even close to finished). Otherwise multiple quests she needs won't start.
Eh. Note to self: for Divines' sake, don't change the levels that certain quests start at. Either that or ditch Timing is Everything.


Anyway, Vulom just finished the remaining Daedric quests that she could do. She then started running around, investing in shops, and selling all the potions/poisons she just made. She has made close to 300k already. If not more.

Once I've got that done, I think she'll do the Thane stuff in every hold. Then it's the Companions.

Today Felinia and Marcurio went to the Markarth area, finished getting the Gauldur Amulet quest done. Attended to some Thieves guild business in Markarth. Talked to Vorstag in the Inn there.
Avoided the guards like the plague. Out of order a bit, went to Morvunsker for more of the Sam quest. Finally got the Alto wine bottles out of my inventory and the Giants toes. (WTF?)
As a reward for good coverage, Marcurio recieved a smithed and enchanted helmet and was allowed to keep some gold he took from a chest.
Back to the Thieves Guild to talk to Vex and get the next assignments. Felinia did use her power of the Beast in Morvunskr, fed on 5 conjurers and recieved a new Werewolf perk.

Hist-Tongue né Trips-over-Tail, Argonian druid in the making and emissary of the Hist,
- celebrated his freedom from skooma addiction by going swimming in Lake Whatsitsname (the big one in the Rift); caught a lot of fish and collected a lot of ingredients which he converted into potions at Elgrim's alchemy table which Hafjorg kindly allowed him to use;
- helped Shadr settle his debt with Sapphire;
- agreed to fetch Filnjar's oar sample from Shor's Stone and did so, giving Fort Greenwall a wide berth (he managed to kill a wolf or two on the way but a fort full of bandits is more than he can chew yet); collected more ingredients on the way, made some more potions, sold them to Elgrim and thus was able to buy a Healing Potion for Wujeeta which should help her overcome her own addiction;
- explored the Ratway, got himself a set of fur armour off Drahff and the Gloves of the Pugilist off Gian the Fist;
- explored the immediate surroundings of Riften; did some honest work for honest pay at Snow-Shod Farm and Merryfair Farm; joined forces with Synda Llanith to fight off a wolf attack while the guardsman was standing around and crying, "Somebody do something!", and was told by Synda that the two of them were kindred souls and she was glad to have met him; who says Dunmer and Argonians can't get along?
- thought he saw a spriggan from afar, but it wouldn't talk to him;
- got lucky and stumbled over a dead Imperial patrol just outside the city gates; he left them their armours for dignity's sake but sold their weapons and cloaks to Balimund for enough cash to buy a copy of The Craftsman's Manual (a Requiem thing, you need it to take the basic smithing perk) and the raw materials to craft himself an iron battlestaff.

Today evol continued his run to whiterun and stored all but his sword and dagger. He then ran to falkreath to catch some zzzz and continued on to glenmoir cave to get a head to clear his lycanthropy. He then ran to his house at winstad manor to ride the carriage to winter hold. He then went to cure his lycanthropy and continued doing college of winter hold quests and from the tavern

Vulom sold enough potions to make over one million Septims. After that, she ran around and did a bunch of random quests. She didn't do too much today.

Sa'Zyrr also didn't do much. She simply did the Lost to the Ages quest.

On PS3, Arandis attempted to level her sneak to 100. I got there, but I made the mistake of forgetting to save after that. I went back up to the surface, realized I hadn't helped Cicero, and attempted to do Delayed Burial. The man I was supposed to speak to (Lorieus?) didn't respond when I entered conversation with him. In other words, he had an unending staring contest with poor Arandis. I had to shut off the console because it wouldn't let me reload.

After that happened, I gave up on redoing the sneak leveling (which is extremely tedious when things keep detecting you instantly despite being fully muffled, invisible, and hidden quite well) and simply started a new character. Nord sword'n'board. Well, mace... Her name is something like Naja River-Stone. I think. I can't remember. All she did was wander around, gather ore, and do some smithing.

Sylmirie and Aicantar invested their hard earned savings into the excavation of a Nordic barrow on Solstheim. They're excited to see what handy artifacts the workers are able to dig up.

Also, Sylmirie returned the Black Star to Nelacar. She thinks that he should find a new place to live. No respectable Altmer would house himself in a tavern. That's unacceptable.

What did I do during Weekend:

Kalima Serano, Dunmer sorceress and Faendal:
- Left Fort Dawnguard and Riften. Raided the burned down Hall of the Vigilants. Quickly back to Whiterun to sell stuff.
- Entered Dimhallow Crypt and rescued trapped Serana. Escorted her to Castle Volkihar with round-about route that took them to Morthal and Solitude and all the places between. She also chased around a ghost in the swamps of Morthal.
- Accepted Lord Harkon's gift and became Vampire Lord.
- After brief shopping stop in Whiterun, gave boot to Faendal, allowed him to keep some of the gear, like enchanted hide armour.
- Entered Redwater Den and started playing around with her powers. Found out she can't fit in doors or stairwells in Vampire Lord-form.

Kyra Frostblade, Nord barbarian

- Denies having any knowledge of werewolf attack on Druadach Redoupt (or something...forsworn camp anyways),
- Recruited Sorine Jurard
- generally wandered around Reach and discovered locations and killed bears and forsworn.
- Retrieved piece of Wuuthrad from Redoran's Retreat. Trip there was eventful, lot of random encounters and she had mudcrabs help her kill a dark elf that attacked Kyra out of nowhere (and then got distracted by the crabs).

Nelya, bosmer huntress
- Returened with piece of Wuuthrad to Jorrvaskar.
- Rescued Nazeem from vampire lair...was tempted to leave him there.
- Hired Jenassa and went to look for Mjoll's sword in Dwemer ruins.

Malandor, bosmer assassin:
- dropped off some stuff to Lakeview Manor and then travelled to Dragonbridge. Stole travel plans without troubles.
- Saw the headless horseman.
- Decided to get finally rid of Meridia's Beacon and is now middle of cleaning up her temple.

Yup, was busy weekend.

Today Evol got a lot done. He finished the quests he started in winter hold and ran to whiterun to catch the carriage to solitude. I finished the imperial unification of skyrim by liberating winterhold then the windhelm hold then windhelm it self. I almost never go to markarth so I decided to go and buy the house there. I then spent a few hours doing organizing at my houses I own thru hearthfire then moved my family to markarth.

Vulom finally finished the last few Daedric quests and then moved on to the Thane stuff. She has finished with Markarth and Solitude.
While in Solitude, she also did the Bards College quest (mostly so I could get the book and the claw out of her inventory). As she was helping Viarmo come up with the missing verses, I had the image of her jokingly saying that Numinex was Olaf. And Viarmo took that seriously.

I think I should be able to finish the rest of the Thane crap (aside from Windhelm, anyway. That's not until after the Civil War) tomorrow. Then she does the Companions. And then after that's over she finally becomes a vampire.

Kyra Frostblade, nord barbarian:

- Tried to locate the treasure from the treasure map she found in Redoran's Retreat (I just can't find it)
- Returned to Jorrvaskr, got next assignment from Aela
- Returened to Fort Dawnguard, listened Isran's speech, was surprised to see Serana there.
- Picked up few quests from Sorine and Gunmar, got also full dawnguard-set to wear.
- Leaving the Fort, got attacked by two vampire scout.
- She and Serana killed everyone in Broken Helm Hollow, so she could "steal" Silverhand plans for Companions.

Malandor, bosmer assassin:
- continued cleaning up Kilkreath Temple and killed Malkoran. As far he's conserned, Meridia was just another client and Malkoran the mark. His reward was the Dawnbreaker, plus the large amount of gold he found from corpses.
- Malandor returned to Lakeview Manor for bit of rest and crafting.

Sylmirie and Aicantar lost the almost 10,000 gold they invested into Kolbjorn Barrow. Hijacked. Taken for a laugh. But Sylmirie is a fair woman, so she let the [&@%!] live. Hey, at least they own a Nordic Barrow now, even if nothing can be done with it. Maybe take the apprentices for another training session once more draugr wake up, aka Saarthal #2.

But for the time being, the couple is spending time in their Markarth home and taking Meeko out for some long walks.

I am so confused right now.

I spent something like four hours earlier happily playing my new Nord on PS3 (the name was Narja River-Stone. I missed a letter). Everything was going great.
Then, when I decided that I had better gather some Dwarven [&@%!] for smithing, everything changed. I'm not sure how, but I managed to get a 1000 gold murder bounty despite the fact that that character (as innocent as they come) hadn't murdered a single person. I was just innocently puttering along the road near the Honningbrew Meadery when I was assaulted by two very angry Whiterun Guards. Up until that point, I hadn't had an issue with a single one of them. Hell, I had only just exited the city itself a minute or so prior and not a single Guard in the city was hostile.

I'm not sure if they suddenly decided that picking the wings off of butterflies was the equivalent of murder or what (People for the Protection of Butterflies?), but I gave up on that character right there. My last save was about a minute before that happened, so I assumed the bounty was probably there as well. I deleted the character (she was only level 8...) saying that she had been executed in Whiterun due to (false) accusations of murder. The Jarl was not happy. Tamriel was [&@%!] by Alduin. End of story.


I loaded Arandis and finally managed to finish leveling her sneak. This time, however, I was smart enough to save after doing so. And probably another three or four times before I finally left Blackreach.
She also helped Cicero. Again. The quest worked properly this time. Arandis didn't do much else because I was too damn confused about what happened to my poor, innocent little Nord girl.

Kyra Frostblade, nord Barbarian, with Serana tagging along
- Returned to Riften, sold loot and smithed.
- Reported to Jarl about a skooma problem and Jarl put her to investigate it further.
- Had a brief but bloody battle in Riften warehouse
- and back to see the Jarl

And then I created a new characters for PS3:
Deera, female khajit
- Escaped Helgen, emptied a bandit camp (not sure what direction to go with her yet).

Sylmirie worked her butt off to score back the gold she and Aicantar invested into that worthless barrow. Robbed a couple bandit camps, killed some Forsworn, and found two books for Urag. She also collected some old money she's been owed for a while, and sold some of her stored items.

They also visited Solitude for a couple of days. Sylmirie left her husband at the tavern while she went shopping at Radiant Rainment, where she proved herself more high class over Taaerie and Endarie by denying their request to wear one of their dresses to the Blue Palace.

"I'm afraid you'll make me look silly." She snubbed.

Honey, all the high class outfits in Skyrim make you look silly. You're not in Alinor anymore, miss the memo?

All of Skyrim's default "upper class" clothing is ugly. Vulom would rather wander around naked than wear what others refer to as fancy clothes.
It's even worse with one of the texture replacers I have... The seams in the texture on the female versions of those clothes are so obvious that it's painful. It's like the sleeves/shoulders are a different color than the rest of the outfit. Actually, they are...



Vulom did the Companions quest today. Once she cured Kodlak, she cured herself and immediately became a vampire.
I had to redo that a few times. The first time I tried, the race menu crashed when I tried to fix her complexion.
The second time and her skin tone wouldn't lighten correctly (she wound up with a green body and a pale blue-grey head).
I finally got it to work on the third try. I did everything inside Breezehome since my race menu precache killer isn't working anymore.
Round one: fix skin tone. Turn Vulom into a vampire via custom spell. Round two: set completion to the ugliest one.


I did also mess around on my PS3, but I don't really think I did all that much. The only thing I remember doing is the Blessings of Nature quest. Or whatever it's called. The one from Whiterun. I can't remember what else Arandis did. If anything.

Deera, female khajit
- after visit shire of Talos, finally made her way to Riverwood.
- Talked with Gerdur, slept a night in their house
- sold stuff, helped Sven with his love-life and took him with when they headed out towards Barrows.
- Killed bandits bare handed...eh..bare clawed. Got a cool kill-cam.


Malandor, bosmer assasin:
- After some domestic chores and potion mixing, travelled to Riften
- Rented room in Bee and Barb, went to sleep
- When he woke up, guess who was sitting in a chair in his room? Yup, Gaius Maro, his target. Getting sneak kill turned out to be impossible so he had to pay bounty of 40 septims. But he got himself Penitus Oculatus armor-set.
- Traded a bit before returning to Falkreath and DB Sanctuary. Reported to Gabrielle, got his reward and find out that all is not well within the Family.
- Is currently reading thru Cicero's journals. Interesting stuff.

After meeting odd cannibal woman Eola in Understone Keep, went to Reachcliff Cave to clear out draugr from Namira's Shrine there.

Found a cult worshipping Boethiah, they suggesting luring someone to the shrine to sacrifice. Did not like this nastiness, so killed all of them, which displeased Boethiah, who spoke to me and asked me to bring a sacrifice to get out of her bad books. I clearly have no intention of fulfilling her request (the quest will annoyingly stay in the unfinished quests section).

Killed a couple of elder dragons and an ancient one, using Dragonrend and Lightning Storm combo.

Revisted a grove to look for Spriggans, as I need 3 taproots to repair the Mushroom house on Solstheim. Found two in my alchemy lab in Proudspire Manor already.
No spriggans at the grove, so went to Witchmist Grove. Just one hagraven there (called Moira oddly) and a dragon.

Closed a magical anomaly near Riften.

Got first word for Aura Whisper shout. Didn't think I would use it, as I have the detect life/dead spells, but discovered that it has a wider range and can also detect automatons! Yey! I hate those pesky machines popping out unexpectedly.

Deera, female khajit, with Sven getting her way:
- sneaked thru Bleak Falls Barrow. Found out Sven's more annoyance than help, except for carrying loot. Leveled up several times and killed the draugr overlord with fireball-scrolls.
- When they came out and returned to Riverwood, it was late. She decided to stay at Sven's home for the night. Unfortunately she can't sleep in the free bed (it's marked owned), so she's killing time by sneaking around, emptying the house from valuables (nothing much to take really) and pickpocketing Sven's sleeping mother.

Hist-Tongue, Argonian druid in the making and emissary of the Hist,
- made himself an iron battlestaff, a vial holder belt and a couple of bags and pouches to help him carry stuff (c/o Bandolier mod);
- talked to Jarl Laila about Riften's skooma problem and got green lights to deal with it in any manner he saw fit;
- killed Sarthis Idren and his sidekick and dumped their skooma stash in Lake whatsitsname, Hondrich I think, where it's deepest, so if the fish act funny for a couple of days that's why;
- dealt with the organisation behind Sarthis in a similar way;
- ran into a drug-dealing wood-elf on the road shortly thereafter and offered him a chance to hand his stuff over and walk away, which the wood-elf spurned to his disadvantage;
- having stopped at Shor's Stone on the way, delivered Sylgja's letters to her parents at Darkwater Crossing; mined some corundum and sold it to Verner, also made some potions from ingredients picked on the way before returning to Riften, where Jarl Laila rewarded him for his selfless efforts with an Iron Axe of Fear which is of no use at all to him except for disenchanting, but level fivers can't be choosers...

Vulom finished the Companions stuff yesterday, became a vampire, and then started the College of Winterhold. Problem with that was that I couldn't get past Tolfdir's little ward lesson. My game kept freezing during the conversation either before or after. It was getting annoying.

The issue continued today. It only went away when I disabled FXAA temporarily. Pretty sure I've had that issue before now that I think about it. FXAA does strange things to my game. I've come to like how it looks, but it does strange things.

Anyway, Vulom did finally continue with the College of Winterhold quests. She's currently about to head off to Mzulft. I would have done more, but I'm getting too tired.

I was planning to start a Khajiit Warrior and today I started. Sometimes still pressing ctrl to activate sneaky mode lol. (Mostly playing as Sneaky, Thief-Assassin. So, attacking like an Orc... it's weird... lol)

Anyway, Khajiits are awesome

Hist-Tongue, Argonian druid-in-the-making and emissary of the Hist,
- failed at his second attempt to make contact with a spriggan at Autumnshade Clearing. (I'm using the One With Nature mod which allows you to customize the behaviour of animals and creatures towards the PC and have set spriggans to defensive so they won't attack him unprovoked, but he'll have to earn their trust before I'll set them to friendly or allied, e.g. by doing the Eldergleam quest the noninvasive way, helping them against hagravens etc.)
- returned to Shor's Stone to deliver Verner's letters to Sylgja, which he had forgotten on his way home to Riften;
- did a favour for Anneke Crag-Jumper by clearing Stony Creek Cave of bandits;
- discovered an apparently abandoned camp at an ancient Nord burial site nearby (i.e. Ansilvund; the mage who is normally outside was missing, possibly killed by a frost troll I spied from afar, but I didn' find a body) and was glad to find shelter for the night and a campfire with a cooking spit; also helped himself to some supplies but, considering that the campers might come back after all, thought twice and put about half of the stuff back into a barrel;
- travelled on towards Windhelm in order to fetch some medicine for Darkwater Crossing; stopped in Kynesgrove, where he beat some sense into Roggi Knot-Beard at Iddra's request and was shocked by the Uriel sisters' attitude towards the sacred grove: "What do you mean, you didn't know the trees were sacred? Every tree is sacred!" (cue Monty Python music) I wouldn't be surprised if those two would meet with some regrettable accident in the near future...