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Magritte Ice-Veins, Nord warrior, and Brakh gro-Anonymous, Orc hunter, cleared Faldar's Tooth. When at last they reached the highest tower they confronted Brakh's former friend Lagdu about her murder of their common friend. Although Lagdu claimed that the dead man had been the true traitor, selling their group of hunters out to the East Empire Trading Company, Brakh didn't believe her and killed her. On her corpse Magritte found a letter which confirmed that she had spoken the truth, but Brakh would hear none of it [/3DNPC quest Hunter's Quarry].

His revenge achieved, Brakh seemed a bit at a loss as to what to do with himself now. Magritte has offered to keep him company, at least as far as back home to Falkreath, where she has a Stormcloak assignment.

Milady Winter, nord spellsword and stormcloak officer/battlemage:

- Visited her various property trying to remember where she's stashed all her daedric artifacts (and that took surprisingly long time). While she was at Lakeview Manor, she finished building the enchating tower. She also crafted and sold stuff. Stored all the daedric stuff she found to Hjerim. Put General Tullius' armor on display.

- She then visited Markath and entered the abandoned House. She didn't need much prompting to kill Vigilant Tyranus. She received a quest from yet another Daedric Lord.

Then I played around with dead-is-dead character, Nimue, woodelf, joined stormcloaks and she had to kill an icewraith. Then she travelled to Riften to join Thieves guild.

I also messed around with creating two new characters: Vayna, dunmer and Zafirah, Redguard. I'm going to play them so that I develop skills that already have those beginning-bonuses. Neither's gotten much past Riverwood yet.

Balsmelmo closes the wall up with Eastmarch dead but has to take a whole day off to sign all the closing papers for Hill House:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - The Stormcloaks are revolting and have ghastly fashion sense.

Achievement Unlocked: Hit 3000 hours on PC.

Ever since I started playing Narji, I've spent pretty much the whole damn time exploring, gathering materials, and leveling. She has not done much quests, but she has still covered a chunk of Skyrim. Today, she has begun the process of clearing out every Dragon Lair. The Nord made her way from Skyborn Altar to Shearpoint where I managed to grab a screenshot that looked as though Krosis was taking a selfie with the Forest Dragon that was present. From there, she traveled to Mount Anthor (killing everything on the way, including four or five frost trolls) and then to Bonestrewn Crest, and off to Northwind Summit. Narji had been on her way to Lost Tongue Overlook, but she has run out of time for today.

In other news... After ages of running without the ambient mist/fog, I've added it back (using ramccoid's mods). I was half surprised my PC didn't explode or something considering how sensitive it can be to small changes. I've also added a retexture for the shock spells (tested with Vulom. Looks okay), and a few other ones that I can't remember at the moment.

Zafirah, the gem of Elinhir (or as she's starting to resemble more: bloodied blade of Elinhir)
- Headed towards Whiterun. Saw imperial patrol and prisoner at the side of the road. I suppose they were having a break. All that was missing was nice fire and bottles of ale.
- She then helped to kill a giant and sold harvest to farmer. Instead of entering the city, she took carriage to Dawnstar.
- She gave a book to Rustleif and did some mining work.
- She then headed west from Dawnstar, following the coastline. She dug ore, killed critters and found herself scimitar. Finally a weapon that feels familiar in her hand. She walked all they way to Solitude.
- Zafirah sold loot, brought herself proper clothes (the Hammerfell garp, redguard boots and the hood) and then used pretty much all her gold to Ring of Alteration (fortify alteration). She played fashion model to Taarie to earn back some of that gold. She also agreed to find some bandit for Ahtar.
- Almost penniless, Zafirah agreed to take the job from Jaree-Ra. She had her doupts, which were confirmed when she reached the wreck of Icerunner and found the killed sailors. She killed all the marauders as a revenge and headed out to their hideout to wipe them out.

Ilyn Frond, Nord criminal. (Not typing up events from Helgen-Riverwood-Whiterun-BleakFalls-Mirmulnir-Riften, in detail. Mainly cos I can't be bothered..)

Ilyn was arrested for attempting to steal a couple of horses, along with his "accomplice".
Escaped Helgen with the aid of Ralof, mainly because Ralof never attempted to kill him.
Made it to Riverwood, agreed to help the lady who owns the mill. Mainly because she gave him free stuff.
Robbed the blacksmithy, and pickpocketed the local drunk whilst he was ranting.
Reported the dragon attack to Jarl Barlgruuf, agreed to find something called a "dragonstone" for the wizard, as long as there was coin in it.
Returned victorious, and a little annoyed that nobody warned him there would be actual fighting involved.
Bravely agreed to help fight a dragon. In reality he hid behind a rock until it was near enough to death that one or two sword swings would finish it off.
Yelled at the other soldiers after they called him "dragonborn".
Immediately took a carriage for Riften upon returning to Whiterun.

The story begins...

Zafirah, Elinhir's most precious gem (with cutting edge):

- Killed the Blackblood Marauders in Broken Oar Grotto...That cave's really challenging on low level characters. She was level 4 when she entered and level 6 when she walked out. Especially Captain Hargar was tough: If he got closer, poor Zafi was pretty much killed in one hit. (And she got killed a lot). With combination of sneaking, archery and hit-and-run tactics (or hit and hide until they stop looking you) she managed to take out the Marauders one by one. At one point she survived only by jumping into the water. In the end, Hargar got stuck in a spot where Zafi got to pepper him full of arrows from safe distance.
- After looting the cave (and not being able to took all of it with her) Zafirah returned to Solitude, sold loot and reported Ahtar that his escaped prisoner was dead.
- She returned to Wreck of Icerunner, tossed some bodies overboard and slept inside the ship.
- Then she headed out to Whiterun to warn the Jarl (about week or so late and nobody seemed to notice anything).

Finally got around to getting the Oblivion Walker achievement. Had to exploit ""Ill Met By Moonlight" in order to get both Daedric artifacts. (I let Erandur live during "Waking Nightmare", thus forfeiting the Skull of Corruption.)

The Daedric quest I saved for last was "A Night to Remember", thinking it would be a lark and a light way to wrap things up. I was wrong. I combed the Map at least twice looking for Sam, and then covered it again to satisfy the far-flung fetch & deliver sub-objectives. This quest definitely puts the "Walker" in "Oblivion Walker". It did provide some laughs, though. (Is there a Foot Bath mod?)

I have to say, Sheogorath's quest was a real disappointment. Short, flat, not entertaining at all. It's almost as if the game was finalized and ready to be manufactured when some developer noticed they forgot about Sheogorath, so they just threw something trivial together at the last moment, and hoped the fanbase would love it by having Sheo mention The Fish Stick. Sad to see how far Bethesda has let Sheo fall since Oblivion's Shivering Isles, probably one of the most entertaining expansions ever.

New character, new world, walking north from Robber's Gorge (sound familiar?) when I spied a Redguard (the "Go home to your mother!" variety) walking south to the bandit hideout. This time I followed to see how much trouble this fellow would face before the others peeled that Banded Iron suit apart and roasted him alive. Mind you, I was at Level 5 at this time.

Redguard takes down the bandit guarding the path closer to the river, then dispatches a bandit rushing forward to the fray. The Redguard then moves up the bridge, takes out one archer with ease, then totters around a bit before finding the second archer and killing her as well. This is when the Redguard alerts another Bandit and the mage, both of whom fall to the blows of his mace.

All the while I'm trailing behind and looting the bandits he's taken out. The Redguard holsters his weapon, task finished. But not quite: the Bandit Chief is still inside the hut. Being the helpful little [&@%!] that I am, I attract the attention of the Chief and lead him out to play with the Redguard.

Redguard draws his mace and lands a blow. Twilight glints off the edge of the Chief's steel greatsword, and the Redguard is lain out with a single cut. That's when I give a stifled chuckle and mutter "Awww, nuts..." before I begin running. And running. Shall we run some more? Add in some rocky terrain to open the distance, plus a little (lot) of ranged attacks to stay away from the Chief's sword (one blow halved my health easily) and once again Robber's Gorge is cleared.

It's been more than a week so,

Zafirah, redguard:
- fetched some stuff for Jarl and then she killed a dragon.
- Cleared Bloated Man's Grotto to get the nifty Bolar's Oathblade.
- Then fetched Noser's Helm from Shadowgreen Grotto (or tried, in the end I had to lower difficulty just to survive those spriggans and their pets).
- Returned to Solitude to sell stuff and give Noser his helm back

Dargar, orc bountyhunter:
- Got thaned, cleared more bandit lairs for bounty and fetched Amren's sword. Then he had made Whiterun safe (Hulda had no more bounty-guests) so he moved to Morthal.
- cleared Orotheim but had to go to Whiterun to sell loot. Morthal is such backwater that it doesn't have proper shops (Dargar has no use for alchemist unless he's buying healing potions).

Jurie gra-Morq and Ghorbash the Iron-Hand:
- Jurie and Ghorbash left piles of dead forsworns and witches behind them when they fetched Hrolfdir's Shield for the Jarl from Hag's End. To reach it they had to clear Deepwood Redoupt and Deepwood Vale first.
- Jurie really, really dislikes Hagravens *Blam* (crushes the Hagraven with Volendrung).

Sylmirie taught the guards of Falkreath an important lesson: she's stronger than they are.

While fighting a dragon, a townie (Indara) got in the way of Sylmirie's firebolt spell, so the entire town turned against the Dovahkiin trying to save their lives. Chaos erupted when Sylmirie summoned her daedra legions to fight off the guards, thus killing all of them.

Falkreath is now guard-less. Woops.

She was later arrested by the Jarl's chief commander, whoever he is, and served 3 days in jail for her crimes EVEN THOUGH she's a Thane. Sigh.

And to end with a hilarious moment: Upon returning home from jail, Sylmirie was met by an excited Lucia asking for money. Sylmirie obliged with 1000 gold, provoking a look of disgust (kid you not) from Llewellyn the bard, who shook his head and walked away. She's a terrible mother, I know. But guilt from never being home makes her spoil the kid. What can I say?

@Dohva.
She's the hero we need, but not the one we deserve.

It's not so much what I've done IN Skyrim for the past few days, but what I've done TO Skyrim.
It started when I saw the nice Chaos Dragons mod on the Nexus. I thought most of the meshes were pretty good (excluding those based off of the Serpentine Dragon, or the Xeno Dragons, the Crystal Dragon, and the Lava/Meteor Dragon). I wanted to use those dragons, but at the same time, I didn't want to remove Deadly Dragons. I probably could have done some fiddling and got them working together, but I decided to take the harder route.

The dragons from Deadly Dragons are nice, but they lack... Diversity. Most of them are just retextures of the vanilla dragons. I figured I'd spice things up a bit and replace as many of the Deadly Dragons beasts as possible with the most suitable meshes from Chaos Dragons.
It actually worked pretty well. The added dragon diversity is awesome.

Because of that, Narji has spent most of her time wandering Skyrim, traveling from dragon lair to dragon lair searching for a Deadly Dragons beast.
I've also decreased the time between assaults, but so far, she has only really encountered a modified Forest Dragon (the texture for which I'm not quite satisfied with. It's not green enough) and a Tempest Drake (ye Gods... The unleveler is... Maybe not the right choice for Narji. That was a one-shot).

I might play a bit more later, but it's 30 degrees in here. My PC does not like hot weather.

But... I have done some playing on PS3 as well. Heart-Of-The-Marsh is currently level 37 and has finally gained his Ebony Armor/Weapons. He, like Narji, has spent most of the time exploring Skyrim... Except he's doing his best to avoid dragons since he's not really that powerful yet. Stronger than Narji, maybe, but still not that tough in the grand scheme of things. He can handle most opponents, but I'm afraid his carrying capacity is a little low. I wish he could carry more Dwemer metals before being over-encumbered... Walking from city to city is a very long process.

I only started playing Marsh again when Arandis decided to bug out on a civil war quest. I've been considering deleting her since my only option is to do Season Unending. Eh. Heart-Of-The-Marsh works fine for now.

I've been more inspired to write about Skyrim than actually play it lately, but I've done a bit with Magritte inbetween. She had another lunar transformation and went on a rampage from Whiterun to Helgen to (almost) Falkreath and back, eating enough hearts for two or three werewolf perks in a single night. (I hadn't played a werewolf since the days of Sylvaine Emrys two years ago, and it was huge fun.) Most of her victims were bandits and scavengers, but she killed a few hapless hunters and a fisherwoman inbetween and incurred a bounty for murder. Back in human form, she was mortified by her deeds and gave herself up to the Whiterun guards.

After serving her time in prison she slunk back into Jorrvaskr like a beaten dog, believing she had defiled the honour of the Companions forever, only to find all members of the Circle very understanding. She got a mission from Vilkas to rescue Ysolda, who was kidnapped and taken to Mouldering Ruins (which I know to be a vampire lair but she doesn't, so she has no reason not to go there yet, and I'm a bit apprehensive as to how she'll manage).

On their way there Magritte and Brakh ran into the Forsworn of Serpent's Bluff Redoubt, and although they slew the Forsworn and the resident Hagraven Brakh, too, was felled by a Forsworn arrow. This is the second time Maggie has lost a follower, and I can't imagine her being anything other than devastated right now.

ETA:
Magritte Ice-Veins, Nord warrior,
- rescued Ysolda from imprisonment at Mouldering Ruins. Fortunately for her, the resident vampire was not of the ebony variety but wore only steel plate and had but one thrall and a draugr with him (not counting the guards outside). Ysolda showed no signs of having been turned or enthralled either (which was fortunate, as Maggie was determined to slay her otherwise rather than let her return to Whiterun).
- single-handedly took on a Thalmor patrol to free a fellow Stormcloak soldier. She was reluctant to pick a fight while escorting a civilian, but there was no way she'd let them take a comrade to torture and death. Talos smiled on her that day and both Ysolda and the Stormcloak remained unscathed while her battleaxe mowed down the Thalmor.
No doubt this double victory did a lot to bolster her eroded spirits, but she'll still need some time to fully recover.

How many diseases can one Nord adventurer contract in one day? I mean... Really. As Narji was wandering around, she got more than I can count (mostly just Rockjoint and Bone Break Fever over and over again).

Because of that, I decided to start the Companions part a little early... And it isn't going well.
Went to Whiterun, entered Jorrvaskr... No brawl. Okay. Go downstairs only to find Vilkas running out of the room with his sword drawn. He makes a comment to Narji about another newcomer wanting to join the Companions, then disappears out the door.
She goes to talk to Kodlak (I'm chuckling with confusion at this point) and he basically just sits there talking to himself. Narji at least managed to get the Take Up Arms quest, but... Vilkas had run off. By the time Narji got outside, he was already at Riverwood.
She runs to the tree and checks on Vilkas again, only to find that he has somehow reached Helgen already.

At that point I just go, "Oookay." and qqq out of the game.
I have no idea what's going on there.

Edit:
Come to think of it, I've had some odd things happening ever since the update to remove the limit from the workshop.
Not sure if that broke every single old mod in existence (that would be seriously annoying... Haven't heard of that, either. Then again, I haven't looked) or if something else has [&@%!] up.

Either way, if I can't find a solution, I might have to do a full restart of all characters.

Edit #2:
Well, it worked perfectly on a brand new save, so... Yeah. I'm [&@%!].

It looks as though that last update, even though it didn't touch the game itself (only the launcher and the CK), has broken all my preexisting saves.
It messed with Kas'Lei, it has successfully broken Narji's Companions questline (which is very much essential to the character), and I don't even want to know what it did to Vulom.

Gods [&@%!] damn it. Looks like Narji and Vulom are both getting restarted. The seventh time for Vulom now. Vulom VII and Narji II.

Saying I'm annoyed right now would be an understatement...

^Bah, that sucks bigtime. My condolences on the demise of Vulom VI and Narji I (poor Narji, we hardly knew her...).

Magritte Ice-Veins, Nord warrior, cleared Bleak Falls Barrow and discovered its secret - another ancient carved wall which spoke to her and put a word into her mind. She's been ready for that for quite a while and, with a little tactics, hacked her way through the hordes of the undead as if chopping wood. When she left through the back door, however, she was greeted by a creature out of myth and legend - a veritable live dragon! Knowing she wouldn't stand a chance in an open battle she frantically ran for a defensible position and gained the old Bleak Falls Watchtower, where she took cover against the dragon's shouts while pelting it with arrows.

It took a lot of arrows to penetrate the wyrm's thick hide, but fortunately Maggie had some poisons to dip them into - all these alchemy lessons with Lami back home in Morthal proved useful at last. (What, poisons aren't honourable? Dear fellow Nords, there's a thin line between being honourable and being stupid, and when you're matched against a living bomber airplane and have nothing to fight it with but a large hatchet and a bunch of pointed sticks you find out exactly where that line is.)

In the end she shot the creature out of the sky, and when she examined the huge carcass something very strange happened: the dragon went up in flames and swirling light which streamed around and into her, and she suddenly felt like she was being remade in the shape of something ancient, fell and fierce, wilder still than the beast blood, and understood all these words the ancient walls had whispered to her.

Then, as she stepped into Riverwood to bring the Golden Claw back to Lucan, the earth suddenly shook and she heard a thundering voice (or was it many?) shout a word she didn't understand, but for some reason it sounded like a name to her, and the new ancient soul in her recognized it as her name. She is quite at a loss what to make of this unsettling experience, but it might be a good idea to talk to Ulfric about it, maybe he can help her make sense of it all.

Bleh. It was the only option I could think of. It was either that or I tried to console my way out of whatever happened, but I don't think that would have ended well. It's like what happened with Kas'Lei: I had no idea what was going on then, but I used the save cleaners and the console to push through. Character wound up dead anyway once whatever was going on became too annoying. I figured the only way to stop it from happening would be to restart.

See, normally I'd consider my mods as suspects (because it's usually one of them doing something funky), but this time that didn't seem right. Everything had been working perfectly fine with my mod setup for several months... Right up until the update was made to the Workshop. I just can't figure out why that would have done it. I can understand a large update to the game potentially breaking characters, but something that only edited the launcher and the CK to work with the updated Workshop? Something got [&@%!] up somewhere in my game.

Anyway, Vulom has been restarted. Thanks to some issues with #6, I'm leveling naturally with this one. We'll see how long this one lasts.
Actually, this is the second restart of Vulom today. The first I got rid of when I swapped back to my old CoT setup (because the most recent weather patch looks like [&@%!] without an ENB... And also has a horrible looking blue sun for some reason. It was only slightly lighter than the sky). I guess this would be Vulom #8, but the other one lasted only 30 minutes or so, so... I'll just call attempt #2 Vulom #7.

She really hasn't done much so far. Escaped Helgen, ran to Riverwood, realized all the barrels are now owned (had a moment of, "Who cares what happens to their garbage? That is how they treat these barrels. Am I going to get a bounty for stealing trash now?"), stole some salt (which didn't actually count as stealing, despite the barrels being owned), ran back down the road to the mine, took the ore, killed some wolves and a couple of deer, ran to Rayek's End, did some crafting, slept for 8 hours, and then posed for a brief screenshot before I shut the game off to have a late lunch.

Edit:
Those barrels aren't supposed to be owned, as far as I can tell...
So...
Something is still messed up somewhere.

Let's see if I remember everything:

Dargar, orc bounty hunter:
- Dargar solved arson/murder -case (Laid to Rest-Quest) in Mortal. He's vampire slayer now too.
- The next bounty took him to kill a dragon in Skyborn Altar. Reaching it thru Labyrinthine turned out to be challenging. (had to lower difficulty again). The frost trolls were tougher than the dragon to kill.
- After cashing the bounty, he headed out to Solitude for some shopping.

Tero Indarys, dunmer knight/smith:
- continued exploring Solstheim.
- Helped Glover to get his pickaxe back.
- Explored the Raven Rock Mine.... got himself nifty new blade. Had a hard time surviving the dragonpriest. He could zap him from a distance. Only when he got close enough, he could cleave him to bits and pieces.
- Then Tero helped the Captain to battle ash spawn.

Shani, dunmer rogue:
- Reforged Gauldur Amulet. About time.
- Then she fetched The Ebony Blade from her not-so-safe hiding place (pickpocketed the key from sleeping Court Wizard). Then she placed it in a safe in Heljarchen Hall. No more corrupting Jarl's kids okey?
- After getting rid of some junk in her inventory, some crafting and hunting (where had all the elks disappeared from plains of Whiterun?), she returned to Solstheim, where she still has some unfinished business.
- Soaked some taproots and delivered them to Elynea and helped to heal a house.
- the Apprentice, Talvas Fathryon, had some problem with his summon which she handled.
- bought new spell from grateful Talvas (bound dagger). Neloth was rude as usual.
- After checking out her Raven Rock-manor, she headed out to Vahlok's Tomb. On the way there, she met friendly Rieklings from her tribe. Now she has riekling warrior with her again (and apparently Riekling Hunter is tagging along too. Maybe they've worried she can't survive without them).
- Started to explore Vahlok's Tomb with Tharstan (and doesn't he sound just like Tolfdir from the College?) Shani had deja vu-moments there. And Draugr Deathlords.

Balsmelmo writes to the Helgen Chamber of Commerce, Rikke leads from behind, and Hadvar is still waiting for Walder Frey.

The Annals of Balsmelmo - The Rift stinks like Mistveil Keep at low tide.

Yesterday, I restarted Narji after I went through and resaved all of my mods. That didn't have any impact on things, so my game still has issues. But... Whatever. Nothing seems to be severely broken this time. Narji II stays.

Meanwhile, today, Vulom VII is on a mission to pick up the Lover Stone. She requires it for faster leveling.
So far, she has journeyed from around Whiterun, through a few dungeons (like Bloated Man's Grotto), to the area around whatever the name of that Forsworn dungeon with the Become Ethereal Shout is.

Vulom also had the pleasure of witnessing a giant smash a necromancer to Masser. Haven't seen that in my game in a long while, so it was satisfying to watch. I think it took several seconds for the necromancer to hit the ground and, when he did, he bounced back up into the air for another half second or so. I was only disappointed that he didn't have anything interesting on him.

Shani, dunmer rogue:
- Continued exploring Vahlok's Tomb and defeated Vahlok the Jailer. As treasures goes, this dragonpriest was bit of a meh..not even cool mask or staff to loot.
- Then Shani went and conquered one of Solstheim's mountain peaks. Her attempt on second one was foiled by ancient dragon. You try to scale a mountain side with dragon breathing fire down to your neck. Couldn't find a decent ledge to shoot it down either. So she gave up and wandered a bit.
- Found one more East Empire Pendant, killed some hostile rieklings.
- Returned to Severin Manor for bit of a crafting.

Hadvar misses his cue again, Sybille flashes her fangs, and Elenwen puts Balsmelmo in the Friend-zone.

The Annals of Balsmelmo - A Conflagration of Dunces.

Shani, dunmer rogue:
- Shani and the riekling visited her friends the Skaal. Then she cleared the cave named Frossel (or something like that ) from the hostile rieklings.
- Shani and her riekling returned to Skyrim again. Of course, there was dragon attacking them just outside Windhelm...
- She continued to wrap up some unfinished business..finally helped to release that Gray-Mane boy from Thalmor. Returned the lexicon to Avanchnzel.

Licinia Selvanis, imperial Battlemage and Serana, the vampire:
- Continued exploring Blackreach, had to do couple side trips to Heljarchen Hall to drop off loot.
- Finally managed to transcripe the lexicon (forgot the blood Scroll though, so she had to get back there).

Spike, argonian wanna-be Shadowscale.
- Stole some stuff for the thieves guild.
- Met Jarl Balgruuf and killed his first dragon. Got Thaned.
- Went to sleep in Thieves guild, woke up in a shack with Astrid. Killed a prisoner, got finally the invitation to join Dark Brotherhood.

Reynard, redguard sorcerer:
- Killed a dragon too.
- After getting Thaned, he headed out of Whiterun.
- Killed a necromancer the Ritual Stone, spend a night in Stormcloak Camp.

Azura recognizes her champion, Balsmelmo aces the MCAT, and Phinis is going to make Ancano King of the Winterhold Carnival:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - What this frozen ruin needs is my flame, my Mace, and my glory!

After sacrificing Marcurio to Boethiah, Felina was overcome with guilt and thus buried him underneath a large tree behind a nearby bandit's den. She dragged his body all the way from Boethiah's shrine, down a steep and curvy hill all the way to the perfect place, where she gathered flowers and snowberries from the area and placed them around his grave, and shed a few tears for her former flame.

Now, to come up with a proper rumor to spread around Riften regarding his disappearance since he was last seen with her. It won't be easy to come up with something logical, but Felina is sure Cicero will have a few ideas for her.