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Casandra Serein, Imperial impersonating a Riften Guard (a.k.a. The Adventures of Princess Deathbell and Mister Stabby):

Upon exiting the Tower of Mzark, Elder Scroll in hand, Cassie made her way south and passed the Loreius Farm on the way to the Monahven. While there she had a very interesting conversation with Vantus Loreius, owner of the homestead: "Wait— rather than fix a wagon and get paid gold for your effort, you'd rather pay me to get rid of the fellow by jailling him? That is one twisted sense of wicked, sir. You might do well in the Dark Brotherhood. I'll see to it that you get a visit from someone in the Brotherhood very soon. Though— I cannot vouch for his disposition when he does show up..."

Cousin Sissy ended up in the clink, and Cassie changed course straight for Falkreath to become acquainted with her new 'family'.

Interesting things happened as my Nord, Leif Sleetshield, took the road from Riverwood to Falkreath. The first he saw was a Thalmor Justicar lagging far behind the rest of her group. He talked with her a bit, learned about her faction and admitted he was a Talos worshipper. This prompted her to attack him and he dispatched of her with a few sharp blows with his Skyforge Greatsword before disposing of her body in the river. A bit further up the road, he met the rest of her group, to which he quickly eliminated without hesitation. He did wonder why she lagged so far behind, though.

After his skirmish with the Thalmor (and now certain he's going to be on their death list), he continued until he met a hunter and her horse. The horse decided to wander off a bit and pick a fight with a flame daedra. Leif barely had time to get his bow out before the horse died and the daedra turned on him. He killed it, looted it and continued.

A bit further up the road, he was met with two skeletons clanking their way up toward him. He must've groaned in irritation before he shot them dead with his bow.

Sylmirie wants to know why Aicantar always has to be in her way? Why summon in front of her? And oh, why must he follow her around when she's trying to get decent coverage behind a pillar when they're fighting Dragon Priests? Why endanger her like that? She can't even look at him right now. Just...you're banished, Aicantar. Go wait in the car!

Kas'Lei has completed both Dawnguard and the main quest.
After the completion of the main quest, she decided to do a little back stabbing.

The Blades requested that she kill Paarthurnax when she went to speak with them. She did, of course. Paarthurnax never had the chance to fight back. Kas'Lei did enough damage in one sneak attack to take him down. After a fast travel, anyway... His health kept regenerating. Slightly annoying.

After that, she returned to the Blades and proceeded to kill both of them as well. She didn't like them and she didn't really like Paarthurnax and the Greybeards, either.
She got an inheritance from both Esbern and Delphine. Delphine's letter was normal... Esbern's was not. Apparently the Jarl of the Reach is actually a certain Khajiit named Inigo.

All right, then...
With that out of the way, Kas'Lei is about to start the Dragonborn stuff.

On another note, she's also the first PC character I've had in years to break the 150 hour mark. The saves had a nasty habit of breaking before that point.

Princess Deathbell and Mister Stabby returned to Falkreath in order to drop Morwen's amulet off to Runil and pay a visit to the family. Cousin Sissy hasn't shown up with Mother yet, but that's probably because Cassie hasn't taken her first set of contracts yet.

On the roadways out of Falkreath, Cassie decided to break out Mister Stabby's bigger, meaner cousin: a Nordic greatsword she bought while at the Skaal village in Solsthiem. She doesn't have much skill in two-handed melee, but it's come to the point she can afford "lessons" without paying too much by way of personal peril. With her one-handed weapons skill at 80+, it's high time I have Casandra explore some cross-training.

Today I started a new character, a Dunmer mine prospector named Falanu Romalen. She landed at Solitude docks (I use Live Another Life) and got a not-so-nice introduction to Skyrim by having to watch the execution instantly after entering the city. Then she made some purchases, exhausting most of her funds, and set out. Her first goal is Whiterun, since she has heard the tundra land around the city would be cheap (she's in search of a mine site). She got without incident as far as the dead merchant couple. From that spot she could see a camp across the river and swam there, finding an adventurer's journal. Directed by it she found Chillwind Depths. That was as good a place to search for ore as any, so she entered. Inside she found dead adventurers and a whole lot of Frostbite Spiders. Killing the buggers she penetrated quite deep into the tunnel. But then she heard something approach that was not a spider, nor a human being. She didn't wait to see what it was, but fled out. It was night already, and she slept at the abandoned camp.

At dawn she got to Robbers' Gorge, where she got into a fight with a bunch of bandits. Those were a whole lot tougher than what she expected, and she survived only by luring most of them to Dragon Bridge, where guards killed them. She spent the night at the inn and returned to Gorge, only to find there were two bandits still living. She had a sniping duel with them, which she won after spending most of her arrows.

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This time around I used Skyrim Unleashed's NPC and item plug-ins. I have to say I'm ambivalent towards them, to say the least. On the other hand the fights are gruelling at low levels, and the loot is unleveled. On the other hand, good quality stuff was supposed to be very rare, but I've already found two dwarven weapons. Plus, it's good that prices for quality things are higher than in vanilla, but in this mod all prices are raised to ridiculous levels (seriously, 350 septims for a fur armor and some 15000 for a circlet of eminent archery?), and merchants only pay a pittance (1/8 of value) for loot. If this is "balanced" as the mod author claims it to be, I don't want to know what he would consider imbalanced. But well, I'll play on and see if I can bear it.

Sounds a lot like Requiem . To be fair, I'd class dwarven weapons as middle-range gear, good would be glass or ebony. 15000 for a circlet is a lot, but for a character specializing in archery such an item with a real good enchantment could be a game changer early on, so I'd be inclined to agree with Laast that it's kinda balanced. I remember paying 11000,- for a Virtuous Ebony Bow with Requiem, which was nearly all the money I had at the time, but by Sithis, wasn't it worth every septim! It was this weapon which allowed me to finally start tackling undead with a lightly armoured rogue character whose main offensive skill is archery and stand a chance. Also if Unleashed is anything like Requiem with regards to leveling I'd expect buying and selling prices to improve a lot once you've improved your Speechcraft and put some perks into it.

OT: Magritte, Nord warrior, took Sinmir up on his complaints about security in Whiterun being lax and challenged him to improve it by helping her clear some nearby bandit lairs (i.e. I made him a follower with AFT). So far the old warhorse has acquitted himself quite respectably; they've cleared Halted Stream and the unnamed camp west of Dragonsreach and are now looking to Silent Moons.

Well, I wouldn't rue the purchase prices that much if the selling prices were closer to original. In vanilla they are a bit high, granted, so much so that I have never bothered to sink points into the better prices perks. But I don't think going to the far opposite end is preferable either. Namely, it's quite ridiculous that raiding a bandit camp of eight strong enemies with big risk and fuss yields so little money it can't even recoup the cost of the iron arrows spent, much less to buy even the crappiest armour. That's not challenging anymore but plain frustrating. And if we are speaking about "realistic economy", as Laast calls it, what's realistic about having to pay seven-eight times the item's true value, while at the same time receiving only one-eighth when selling? That's a rip-off of a deal which even the dullest adventurer would refuse.

But I think I found a solution. I downloaded Skytweak with which one can alter all sorts of settings, including prices. Tweaking sell and buy multipliers to something more reasonable (4-5x value for purchasing, maybe 20% of value for selling at skill level 15), yet still more stringent than vanilla, could do the trick. I'll experiment today and see if that works. In any case I can dispense at least two mods that simply alter values, so the mod list will be cleaner. Win-win.

I restarted Falanu because installing SkyTweaks. I also took the opportunity to remake her looks less girlish and a bit more weathered. She's supposed to be an experienced wilderness traveler, after all. Her first adventures went very much like in the first time around until finding Chillwind Depths, but this time she ventured deeper. She was horrified by the stunted, blind creatures she found within but went onwards sniping them until her arrows were nearly spent.

Then she returned to Dragon Bridge, where she sold her loot, bought arrows, made herself nordic leather boots and bracers and obtained the mead-stash finding quest from Olda. Falanu found her quite a shrew and thus hadn't the heart to steal Horgeir's precious mead. Instead, she returned it to him, figuring that the man needed some refreshment to be able to live with such a wife. When Horgeir made his "the punch of an angry spouse"- line, Falanu's heart broke a little. That man really lives in a miniature hell.

After that Falanu returned to the cave, determined to clear it out. She managed to creep a few bends deeper, killing three falmeri in the process. But then she came to a large room, where there were two or three falmeri, plus a chaurus reaper and a regular one in an enclosure. Falanu went a bit too far into the room to see in the gloom, and one falmer spotted her. She received a blow that very nearly killed her, but managed to escape. Outside, she bathed under a waterfall and went to the camp of the unlucky adventurers to spend the night. Sitting by the campfire, she pondered how to clear the cave. The only option seems to be to lure the monsters one by one out of the room and snipe them in the corridor beyond. But that has to wait until tomorrow, since our intrepid Dunmer has had quite enough adventures for one day.

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Installing SkyTweaks indeed did the trick and made Skyrim Unleashed playable. By tweaking some settings I managed to get the prices close to what I wanted: 20% for selling and 5x value when buying. Things are still very expensive, but at least adventuring now pays more than it spends. Plus, I was able to dispense with five other mods whose settings were covered by SkyTweaks, so I could shorten my 90+ mod list a bit.

Also, with Unleashed this playthrough seems to become very interesting. There was real tension in the cave, since I knew the things within could one- or two-shot me at any moment. The rattle of the chauri especially racked my nerves really bad because of this. Going through the cave must have taken three or four times longer than usual, since every step had to be slow and well planned. And I'm not even nearly done yet. As for combat in the open, even battling three wolves at once when retrieving Holgeir's stash proved to be nearly fatal. I had already become bored with my favourite sneak-archer playstyle, but now it's thrilling again. With a sword-and-board warrior it could well be insanely frustrating, though. Also, I already look forward to fighting dragons, now that I installed Deadly Dragons (loremonger version, of course) too.

Kas'Lei has been enjoying her time on Solstheim so far, especially the trips into Apocrypha. She has mostly been exploring (for once, I've actually bothered to discover the mountain peaks) and clearing dungeons.

Although I seem to have encountered a bit of an oddity with one area. This one.
I started CTDing there for no good reason today. If I move forward even a little bit from where I am in that screenshot, it crashes instantly.
I tried fast traveling to the mine above. Crash. I tried fast traveling to Bloodskal Barrow. Crash.
So I fast traveled back to the stone outside of Raven Rock and ran in that direction. No crash. Ran into that area and there was still no crash. But I did notice the bodies had yet to fall down (I had used the killall command to fast travel away since there were enemies nearby).

Apparently it's being weird again. I'll see if anything else can stop that from happening because Kas'Lei is not supposed to be fast traveling.
Would be nice to know what was causing it, though. I doubt it's mod related since I have nothing that changes that area (beyond the usual texture replacers). But who knows? Weird things can/will happen. Corpses frozen in time apparently being one of them.

Edit:
Cleaning the save also worked... On the first try, anyway. I'm assuming it was something bad in that cell that the save cleaner managed to remove.
Not sure, though. Eh. As long as it works.

Thorynn Battlemaiden, nord shieldmaiden:
- After some wolves and bear she arrived safely to Ivarstead. After talking with some of the people (and picking up quest or two), she headed up to High Hrothgar (but not before she cleared one small cave of bears).
- The frost troll was challenging at her low levels. Got killed by it once, used all her healing potions and was saved by level-up.
- The Greybeards taught her bunch of stuff about being dragonborn.
- Thorynn returened to Ivarstead and was attacked by cultists. The villagers were kind enough to kill them for her, while _she_ chased flame atronach all over place (don't ask).
- After resting in the Inn, Thorynn headed to explore Shourd Hearth Barrow. Ran into crazy guy named Wyndelius. Wilhelm rewarded her with dragon Claw, and she returned to Barrow.

Falanu cleared today Chillwind Depths. In all it had taken four in-game days and multiple trips to Dragon Bridge to restock and sell loot, but was worth it in the end. She got some nice loot and valuable ingredients, plus gained six levels. She had already began to despair if she ever would be able to leave Dragon Bridge area. She also killed two Forsworn while on a short leather-gathering tour, and goofed around for a while wearing the kooky feathery headgear.

But now she went on, only stumble upon Robbers' Gorge. A drawn-out archery battle ensued, during which Falanu realized to her dismay that one of her opponents was using a crossbow. After two hits from that she had to retreat behind a rock to heal. After killing the other bandits she happily strolled towards the shack, ready to do some looting. That was a bad idea, since the bandit chief rushed out brandishing a nasty-looking warhammer. Falanu didn't wait to get a taste of it, but ran. She lured the chief into the river, and was able to pepper him with arrows until he died.

Then she returned to the Gorge, and looted everything, including the chief's hidden stash. There was some seriously good loot, such as a Circlet of Extreme Alchemy, a real boon for Falanu who already itches to get a chance to brew something from her store of ingredients. After looting it was already evening, and Falanu slept in the shack. She was awakened, however, by a group of four bandits, maybe returning from a raid. Quickly assessing the situation, Falanu fled to the cave, swam out and circled around back to the camp to shoot the bandits from distance.

They were too quickly on her, however, and she was obliged to run for her life along the road towards Dragon Bridge. Then something unexpected happened: A Thalmor patrol happened to be on the road. At the sight of Falanu they wheeled around and drew their weapons, to her dismay. But instead of her they attacked the bandits and slaughtered them all. Falanu approached the leader to thank her, but was rebuffed with a cold: "You want something from me?" "Damn Thalmor", Falanu thought gingerly. "They just have to be insufferable even when helping people for once."

After making another trip to Dragon Bridge to sell the loot, Falanu travelled the road towards Rorikstead. On the way she was ambushed by four bandits, and defeated them only after a running battle that brought her nearly back to the Gorge. She got some help from a sabre cat who decided to attack the assailants. Then she went on until approaching Rorikstead's gates.

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Well, now I'm definitely impressed with Skyrim Unleashed. The sneaky play in the cave was great already, but the outdoors battles are even better. Even at lvl 9 I have to use terrain smartly just to survive. It's actually much, much harder than vanilla at lvl 1. Battles feel very ruthless and murderous, which I like. With Duel also installed, the enemies are very dangerous with their improved behaviour. Plus, I don't know if it's Duel or Unleashed, but a bandit actually made a move I've never seen before. One of them didn't have a bow, but she didn't try futilely get to me as I was on an inaccessible rock ledge. Instead, she retreated inside a tent, where I couldn't shoot her, and emerged only when I jumped down from the ledge. I nearly got skewered by her. Also, the payoff-risk ratio seems to be very good: I found one or two great items in addition to normal vendor trash, but it took serious effort to acquire them. TL;DR: Skyrim is great fun again, because now it's actually challenging.

I did dust off Mânwe Stormbringer, altmer wizard (faithfully followed by Lydia).
(if you want to know how it's pronounced, please consult Silmarillion).

All I did though (after trying to figure out where I've left him...apparently just joined the College and had first lessons there) was walk from College to Saarthal, with Tolfdir and Brelyna. It was surprisingly fun, especially since Mânwe kept casting fury on goats and a ice-wolf. Tolfdir killed it while Lydia butchered the goats.

Today Falanu started the main quest. First she went through Whiterun Hold, but was a bit disappointed. The terrain was too flat, and the few metal deposits visible were just iron. She asked around in Whiterun and learned that a village called Helgen could be a good base for prospecting expeditions in the more mountainous Falkreath Hold.

So off she went, and reached Helgen without a hitch. There seemed to be something amiss, though, as she approached. And sure enough there was, since a huge black dragon took off from within the walls and flew right over Falanu's head. Fortunately it didn't notice or didn't care about her. After recovering from her shock, Falanu searched the village but found nothing save burned corpses, and a journal on one of them. In it was hastily scrawled entry about a cave, where some survivors supposedly should be.

She searched for the cave, and found a soldier named Hadvar there. The poor man seemed to have taken a hit in the head, since he thought Falanu was the dead adventurer. Or maybe the adventurer had been a female Dunmer, too, since for men all elves tend to look similar. However that was, Falanu gave Hadvar the healing potion he asked for and they set off for Riverwood.

After the meeting with Alvor she went to warn the Jarl, got told to fetch the Dragonstone, obtained the quest to retrieve the golden claw during a detour to Riverwood, and after that went to the said barrow. It was pretty easy until the last chamber, where Falanu got attacked by a draugr called something like Scourg Overlord, who had all sorts of unfair tricks such as a disarming shout and a frost sword with which he slowed Falanu's movement to a crawl. She eventually won, however, and left the barrow. Then she traveled back to Riverwood, chatting a bit with Anise at her cabin, and returned the claw. After that she headed for Whiterun.

Manwe Stormbinder, altmer wizard (With Lydia)
- Entered the Saarthal and started exploring the ruin, with and without Tolfdir.
- Had Psijic monk drop in for a call
- Flame Atronachs are wizards best friend when exploring draugr-filled dungeons.

Falanu killed Mirnulnir today. It was a rather tough fight, especially since the dragon's repertoire didn't stop at biting and breathing fire, but it also periodically made a series of annoying mini-meteors to fall on the hapless guards and Falanu. The accuracy of the meteors was very good, too, so Falanu couldn't stay at any cover for too long, but had to be on the move all the time. She delivered the killing shot to Mirnulnir, though. She was rather puzzled when it shouted "Dovahkiin... No!" Who on earth was this Dovahkiin? One of the guards? Well, turned out it was actually she.

Asked by Irileth to, Falanu ran back to Whiterun, still mightily puzzled. The weirdness didn't stop, however, because when Falanu arrived at the gates, earth shook and a crack of thunder echoed from a clear evening sky with a resounding call "Dovahkiin". Falanu began to seriously rethink if coming to Skyrim was such a good idea. The expedition was supposed to be a simple but dangerous get-rich-quick scheme, but now it's starting to turn into something really zany.

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Got only short playtime today, due to having to sort out an annoying mod tangle. Namely, Expanded Towns and Cities is otherwise good, but its Whiterun environ plug-in makes Irileth and Co always get stuck at a house corner when they're supposed to run towards the watchtower. So, I uninstalled and installed the modular version instead, leaving that part out. I also installed the mod's .esm patch. The mod description said I should press "yes" when prompted to overwrite. Did so, opened the game and tested, only to see the entire mod's contents had vanished. What good is a patch if there's no mod to patch? Well, installed both again and this time pressed "no" to overwrite, but "yes to all" when NMM began to ask about overwriting individual files. That fortunately worked, since a brief testing confirmed everything's working.

Deadly Dragons for its part seems to be a complete hit. Easily customizable, and the Insane difficulty really is insane; A lvl 11 Dunmer with added 22% magic resistance (thus with 72% fire resistance) could hardly survive a single bout of fire breath. Well, a little tweaking and something between Expert and Insane proved to be a very good combination. Looks like I got a good successor to Dragons Reborn, which was great, too, but lacked customization.

Manwe Stormbinder and Lydia (and Tolfdir)
- Defeated Jyrik Gauldursson (to be honest, Lydia killed him while the two mages ran around, casting spells and summoning atronach (that was Manwe )).
- After looting everything worth carrying away, Manwe and Lydia stumbled over one of those weird Wall's that burned a nonsense word (which Manwe still understood) to his very soul. The Altmer is very puzzled.
- They returned to Winterhold and courier delivered letter from some Jarl. Sold loot to Birna.
- Went to College to report to Arch-Mage and Manwe also borrowed his enchanting table.
- Talked with the grouchy orc at the liberary, got illusion lesson and job to clean some focal points. Prentending to be an apprentice is really tendious, Manwe thinks.

Today Falanu got Lydia as a companion and started towards High Hrothgar. The highlight of the trip was a fight at Valtheim Towers, where Lydia showed her mettle. She must have been beaten to her knees at least five times, but always got up and rejoined the fray. Falanu definitely feels safer with her around. Also, Lydia isn't too chatty, and Falanu likes businesslike people best. After the battle the dame duo got safely near Darkwater Crossing, where a Khajiit suddenly and unprovoked attacked Falanu. He nearly eletrocuted her with a nasty shock spell, but Lydia leaped into rescue and gave the cat what he asked for. After a good helping of Dwemer mace the Khajiit crawled around begging for mercy, but Falanu was too enraged to grant it. Instead, she coldly shot a bolt into his back. Teaches him to mess with her.

Today my dunmer vampire warrior cut off a pesky dawnguard agent's head. He first beat her to her knees and allowed her to get up and have a warriors death, then he cut off her head

Falanu arrived at High Hrothgar today, and got some training and explanations from the Greybeards (although not as much as she had hoped). Lydia seemed to be very impressed by the place; she knelt nearby in prayer all the time while Falanu and Arngeir talked after the Whirlwind shout test. Falanu didn't want to interrupt Lydia's devotions, so she waited a bit until the housecarl rose to her feet. Then they returned to Ivarstead, where two Dunmer in kooky outfits attacked Falanu (rather stupidly) with fire spells. She's starting to loathe any and all mages at this rate. What have they against her, anyway?

Then the duo spent the night at Vilemyr Inn, Falanu having paid the fee with playing her lute. It warmed her miser instincts that the Nords apparently are so starved of entertainment that even her pretty amateurish playing can net money. At dawn the ladies went on, destination Whiterun. This time they took the westerly path around Throat of the World. They encountered the aftermath of a Legion-Stormcloak battle on the path, where there lay some eight or ten corpses. Falanu took the opportunity to swipe a plumed helmet from one fallen Legionnaire and give it to Lydia. Namely, Falanu had in one scuffle hit Lydia when she mistook her for a bandit. So the helmet with its scarlet crest serves as a nice distinguishing mark.

It proved to do just that shortly, as the dame duo reached Helgen, which some bandits had settled. Our heroes wiped them out and also cleared the keep. There they encountered a very tough set of bandits led by Dwemer-armor-clad chief. There was no room to effectively use the slow crossbow, so when Lydia repeatedly took a knee Falanu had to resort to hit-and-run tactics. She seesawed through the room, dealing a sword blow or two and then retreating before the enemies could retaliate. It was a very close call, but eventually Falanu and Lydia won. Falanu considers giving some nice reward to Lydia, as without her she would have been a dead woman more than once.

After looting everything that wasn't nailed down, the pair emerged to shining sunlight, ready to press on to Whiterun.

Today, Falanu first went to Riverwood, where she sold her loot and spent the night at the inn after uncovering Sven's fake love letter scheme to Camilla. Falanu started again early in the morning, but didn't even get out of the village before a dragon attacked. Fortunately no one but some guards were outside, so the dragon was the only casualty.

Then Falanu went to Whiterun, where she bought Breezehome. That and the decorations sucked most of her money to her chagrin. But she figured that since she seems to be stuck in Skyrim for the long haul, she might as well have a place to call a home. In Breezehome she found some very old journals of a previous occupant, which prompted her to explore a grotto under Whiterun, where she found the key to another house. Turned out the house in question had all kinds of useful magical perks. Falanu is very happy to have acquired two houses at the price of one.

Next day she left Lydia home and pressed on towards Ustengrav. On the way she killed two dragons and found gold at last. Too bad the vein was too small to be commercially viable. Then Falanu reached Morthal, where she took a good, relaxing bath at the local bath house (although the beds in two side rooms made her think it might be a cover for something else) and slept at the inn.

Next morning she found Ustengrav, only to see that the place was already occupied. Namely, a mage strolled outside the ruin with three badits in tow. Falanu hasn't been seen, so she crept beside a bush and let fly with her crossbow. The bolt struck the mage straight in the middle of chest, whereupon he and the bandits promptly collapsed and died. Turned out the mage was a necromancer. There were more inside, too, but Falanu killed them all from the shadows. One was even Arch Pyromancer, who could have given Falanu serious trouble - if she had seen her. After clearing that part of the ruin, Falanu was a happy woman. Her score with the mages had been settled with interest. Now she is ready to delve into the deep parts to retrieve the horn.

Did Arniel's Endeavor for the first time in a very long time. This also means that the College of Winterhold quest line is complete too.

Now, about that knotted mess that is the CoW quest line: If these Psijiic Monk guys have the power to pack up The Eye of Magnus and carry it away, what in heck was the point in allowing me to fart around with the damn thing in the first place? The Psijiics could have swooped in and scooped it up long before people had to die because of it.

This quest line makes no sense whatsoever. The developers must have been swapping meds with grandpa when they pasted this nonsense together.

Sure, they would then have the Eye, but the Staff would still be locked away. Maybe they wanted you to release the power of the Staff and this was the surest way to compel this course. As well as delivering a friendly little "[&@%!] You!" to the College at the same time as reprimand for treading into Labyrinthian in the first place.

I've been playing but not posting, so let's see if I remember everything.

Thorynn Battlemaiden, nord shieldmaiden:
- cleared the rest of the Shroud Hearth Barrow, got the treasure and the shout.
- She then returned to Whiterun to sell loot and give the Nettlebane to Danica. Except she didn't want it and asked Thorynn to finish the business. A pilgrim named Maurice tagged along Thorynn.
- Her first stop was Dragonreach though, where's she is trying to get the Steward to sell him more upgrades to Breezehome. He's on lunch break apparently *sheesh, how long does the man eat?**


Marietta Pelerin, breton priestess (the mace-wielding kind) and Lydia:
- Killed a dragon attacking Falkreanth.
- Got a bounty quest to kill a dragon in Ancient's Ascent, did that, learned new shout. Returned Falkreanth to collect the bounty.
- Talked with captured murdered who then escaped. Chased him and killed a white stag. Since she was near, visited Angi's Camp for some shooting practise. Found and killed Sindig. While doing it she also did a daedric Lord's bidding which gave her moral indigestation.
- Finally had enough gold to buy a plot of land and start builing Lakeview Manor.
- While shopping for building material in Riverwood, killed a dragon...again.
- After three dragons, the house is progressing nicely though. Made Lydia the Steward.

Shani, dunmer rogue, travelling with Teldryn Sero and Riekling Warrior (until resently)
- Cleared the Northwind Mine in backwards order. After they left the mine, they were attacked by pair of frostbite spiders. Then...after that fight...did Teldryn just kill the Riekling? WTF?! Shani is not happy with him right now.
- Sold loot and then Shani visited her different properties and crafted. She got her enchanting to 100.
- Now spending some time with the family while pondering if she should kick out Teldryn.

Dargar, orc and former guard
- Escaped from Helgen with Ralof and made it to Riverwood.
- Smithed with Alvorn.

Maybe, but the Psijics initially tell you they are nothing more than observers. Allowing Arch-Mage Savos Aren to die for his youthful brashness and indiscretion all those years ago, and allowing Master Wizard Mirabelle Ervine to die for no good reason that I can see, removes the Psijics from being mere observers and into the haughty roles of judge, jury and executioner.

As far as the Staff of Magnus goes, well, if the Psijics have the ability to crate up and remove the Eye, retrieving a magic broomstick from a mundane dungeon shouldn't pose any difficulties for them.

Also, by not doing anything constructive until it's too late, they allowed those damnable Ice Wraithes in Hallowe'en masks, (aka: "Magic Anomalies") to terrorize the already stricken settlement of Winterhold.

The only thing I take away from the nonsensical CoW quest line is that the Psijics are nothing more than procrastinators with a high opinion of themselves, who are perfectly content to let others clean up the messes caused by their inaction.