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Long time no post again, and much has happened. Magritte talked to Ulfric about dragon souls and shouting and was directed to the Greybeards, went to visit them and was told she was a Dragonborn like Talos himself, which awed her to no end. After some training they asked her to retrieve the Horn of Jurgen Windbreakersurfercaller as her final test, but she decided to postpone that until after the liberation of Falkreath hold, which in turn had to be postponed because of an intervening full moon. After two nights of rampaging from Ivarstead to Falkreath, across the Whiterun tundra and back in werewolf form Magritte met her fellow Stormcloaks outside Fort Neugrad. Of the soldiers sent to take the fort only she and Ralof survived, but they managed to free the prisoners and kill all Imperials just in time before the third full moon night fell and triggered Magritte's last transformation for now. Back in human form she reported to Ulfric who gave her the title 'Bonebreaker' and rewarded her with, very fittingly, a Wolf Sword (from Immersive Weapons).

Her next goal is to behead a Glenmoril Witch in order to cure Kodlak from lycanthropy. She chose to travel from Whiterun to Falkreath via Brittleshin Pass (where she freed 3DNPC Zora Fair-Child from captivity with the resident necromancer) and Shriekwind Bastion, where she narrowly survived a dire fight with some vampires but was rewarded beyond her wildest dreams, finding a set of ebony armour in the boss chest. I think this + Ancient Nord helmet will be her definite look for the rest of the playthrough.

Balsmelmo scents a conspiracy, Jyrik Gauldurson is afraid of heights, and Tolfdir thinks Draugrs' vision is based on movement:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - An ancient secret, a worthy adversary, and a well-placed ally.

The Merethic Diet doesn't work out so well for Malyn Varen, the Caller takes the tainted bait, and Farendal now has enough kits to outfit the Dragonsreach rec-league necromancer squad:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - All of Skyrim has gone astray, and I am here to correct it.

Balsmelmo evicts Malyn Varen from Kal-El's Fortress of Solitude, Quaranir tries to activate the Cone of Silence, and Tolfdir is soggy and hard to light:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - Psijic provocateurs may muddy waters, but the keenness of my intellect will shine through!

Today I killed some Draugar and bandits, not sure how, I was just mashing buttons.....

Left Heljarchen Hall and headed for Riften. I had a few minor things to do in town and I have several active quests in the Rift to manage. After I completed my transactions in Riften, I left through the back gate and headed for a source of power to the south. I got there, headed up the path and was zapped by a magical trap that killed me before I could react. I thought I had knocked the soul gem powering the trap off of the stand/hold....whatever. Clearly, I was mistaken.

That's when I realized I hadn't saved since I was standing in front of Heljarchen Hall. I'm almost positive that I saved before heading up the path since, you know, I've died here a few times on previous characters. I just put the controller down.

The Midden turns out to be the last refuge of the Beta XII-A entity, Ancano gives Nirya the Darlington job, and Balsmelmo moves back in with General Tullius:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - Ancano will rue the day he slandered me!

So far today I... died at the hands of a frost troll trying to get to High Hrothgar... *sad face* but then I redeemed myself and found a new word of power. So not a total loss I suppose... still haven't made it to High Hrothgar though.

Rikke's deployment continues to rack up the steps on Balsmelmo's Fitbit, Tullius manages not to get fragged, and Ulfric's sinuses are finally cleared:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - It is time to collect my due.

I re-created today one of my favourite characters, Eryniel, since her last run was disappointingly short and easy. This time around I'm using Skyrim Unleashed, though, so at least things are a lot harder now. I tried to make the character look exactly the same as the last time, but changed her hairstyle. I don't know if it's that or the sliders, but a certain charm that was in the previous one seems to be a bit lacking. Also, changed her backstory a bit: Instead of being captured by the Imperials, she reaches Falkreath without a hitch.

So, directly after she woke up in Dead Man's Drink, Valga decided for some reason toss her out. Somewhat miffed by that, Eryniel donned her trusty armor she wore in the Great War, took her bow and hunting sword (from the same war also) and got out. Having no clear plans, she decided to head into the forest and gather some ingredients to polish her alchemy skills. While doing so, she stumbled upon a camp where a young Bosmer woman huddled by the fire. She told Eryniel she was looking for her mother, who roamed the woods as some kind of shapeshifter. Eryniel promised to keep an eye out and went on.

At Half-Moon Mill she stumbled upon a Thalmor patrol that was escorting a prisoner, a Bosmer man. Eryniel was dismayed; she had come to Skyrim to avoid the Thalmor, and here they were all the same. Then, suddenly, her old hatred flared and she experienced a kind of flashback. It was like she was a guerrilla in West Weald again and the war never had ended. Before she could think, she went Rambo on the patrol and shot the last man in the back. This was a bad idea, though, since the Thalmor trio was tough. Eryniel's only chance was to run in the hopes she could then fight the patrol members one to one. This succeeded, and she killed them all one by one, sniping at them from the bushes and changing position after every shot. Then she freed the prisoner, whom the Thalmor had badly beaten and learned that the Bosmer was a bard, just like her. Turned out he had sung "The Age of Oppression" in a wrong place. The Bosmer was grateful and offered to accompany Eryniel, but she turned him down. But she agreed to look for his lost lute.

After spending the night in the woods, our heroine returned to Falkreath, finding a spooky skull-adorned door next to a pool. She decided the wisest course was not to even try to open it and went on. While waiting for the shops to open, she watched a funeral service at the graveyard. Afterwards she talked with the priest, Runil, who asked her to retrieve his journal. She agreed and went to Halldir's Cairn. Turned out the task wasn't that simple. Some entity had mind-controlled and killed some bandits. Eryniel had half a mind to just run away after reading one bandit's journal. But she had promised to get the journal, and that she would do. So, she delved deeper into the dungeon, fighting ghosts and draugr tooth and nail. Then, although she had only barely survived the minions, she had to fight Halldir himself, who was some kind of magic-slinging draugr. If not for her sneaking skills and some convenient pillars, the monster would have fried her crisp with fireballs. The reward was worth it, though. Eryniel got a dwarven bow and some nice loot to sell. Suddenly, she found she had increased her capital many-fold in just one day. So, she happily played a few ditties before sleeping the night away in the cleared cave.

At dawn she went back to Falkreath, fetched her reward and sold the loot. After that she set out, in the direction of Helgen. When she got near the village, there came a strange feeling to her that something was terribly wrong...

It's been ages since I was lastly here. I've been mostly occupied by Dragonage Inquisition and vacation.

Licinia Selvanis, imperial battlemage and Serana, the vampire:
- Returned to Blackreach to fetch that scroll and collect all 30 crimson nirnroot. Killed lot of denizens of Blackreach.
-Then Licinia delivered the crimson nirnroots to that Sarethi-woman and found out that she has bounty hunters after her.


Scathach, orc sorceress
- She's been mostly clearing Bleak Falls Barrow with flames spell.

I'm pretty sure I played with Shani too but can't remember what she did.

Today Eryniel started the main quest. Nothing that remarkable happened until Bleak Falls Barrow. The draugr overlord there was, in fact, a Draugr Scourge Overlord and one tough SOB at that. It would have been a most unfair fight with the disarming shouts and what not, but Eryniel had by chance obtained a option of invisibility. She quaffed that, retreated into shadows and sniped the overlord down. So, it was an unfair fight after all, but not in the expected way.

After exiting the barrow, Eryniel made her towards Riverwood and stumbled upon Anise's cabin. At a moment's whim, she decided to sneak into the old woman's basement. There, after reading a letter, it dawned to her Anise was actually a witch! Also, she found a strange book where she herself featured as a character. That intrigued her, and she took the book deciding to check if there was something more about it. Eryniel then swiftly exited, undetected as she thought. But as she left the cabin, Anise started to spout Flames at her and sicced two familiars on her. She managed to defeat the witch and hid her body amidst the stones on rivershore.

Then she returned the golden claw and went back to Whiterun. There she learned that she was expected to fight a dragon! Well, off she went with Irileth and the guards, much to her chagrin. The dragon was tough, but eventually went down. Driven by a strange curiosity, Eryniel went closer to the dragon corpse, when suddenly some power moved from it into her.

So Eryniel learned she was something called the Dragonborn. After getting Lydia as a housecarl, she set out for the Greybeards, anxious to know what the fuss was all about.

Scathach, orc sorceress

- she returned to Riverwood to deliver the Golden Claw and got hired thugs after her. She lured them outside of the village before killing them. They were sent by the Hunter. Scatchach couldn't remember what she's done to offend the hunter, unless she accidentaly lifted his ale.
- On her way to Whiterun, Scathach ran into another orc female, she called her milk drinker and Scathach fed her flames.
- She arrived to the town, met the Jarl and the courtwizard and used the enchanting table. She was asked to kill a dragon.

Today Eryniel wandered around Hjaalmarch and collected ingredients, since she had to wait until Morthal's blacksmith would get the sword she ordered ready. In the marsh she got ambushed by two chaurus reapers, but managed to frenzy them to fight each other. Then she finished the survivor off with two arrows. After getting back to town she picked up the sword, which was rather expensive. Still, the smith had even honed to best of his ability, so Eryniel was happy with the service. Then she took a bath and spent the night in the inn.

Come morning she was on the road. While traveling eastwards she came across a fight between Stormcloaks and legionnaires. There were a few Thalmor also. Peeved by the sight of them, she frenzied them from a hiding place one by one. The mage was the last one, and her end was quite spectacular. The legionnaires charged her with closed ranks and hacked her to death before she could get more than one spell off. Chuckling, Eryniel went on and passed through Stonehills.

I went diving in a Dwemer ruin searching for the Staff of Magnus. Ended up meeting a guy and helped him for a bit with this ocular piece. Then he wanted to get lippy and start accusing me of being a liar after I got the thing to work! That nearly cost him his life. Whatever. I let him live for now.

The guy from the Psijic order appeared before me again as I was leaving the ruins. He said I had to get back to the College quickly. I did. I just stopped by Heljarchen Hall on the way. I was loaded down with some loot that I wanted to keep and there's no place like home for the spoils. I then hit Windhelm to unload loot that I didn't want to keep and because the general goods merchant in Winterhold was killed in a dragon attack, it was the last stop on the way back to the College.

After a strange turn of events at the College, I took off after the staff. What do you know? I stopped by the house again. After a brief overnight stay at home, I was off again. Turns out, a new group of bandits had settled into Silent Moons Camp. Turns out, I evicted them. Then I paid a special visit to someone that I just discovered with my current character. I've never encountered this NPC before. During our first encounter, no words were exchanged, but I caught a few fireballs in the kisser and died soon after. It was time to visit Drela. His cottage would be a nice place to hold up if the storage were secure (X-box....no mods).

From there, I had to break camp and pick up my kid from work. Talk about immersion breaking.

I'm still playing on Legendary, with no exploits.

I decided to finish the main quest of Dragonborn. I made it a top priority to kill Miraak as soon as possible, ever since the little parasite teleported in and stole a dragon soul after I'd gone to all the trouble of killing it myself. I maxed all magic and elemental resistance using potions, hit him with Marked for Death, and then got in his face with dual dragonbone weapons. He was barely able to scratch me, so he tried switching to his weak melee attack. It wasn't long before he started running from me, ripping the souls out of his dragon servants just to stay alive a few seconds longer. After I took him down and stripped his corpse, I tried blasting his remains into the acid, but he just kind of skipped across the surface. I ended up not using any of Miraak's equipment, since it's weaker than what I already have.

Then I went after Karstaag just to see if he's really as tough as people say. I used the same exact strategy on him, hitting him with two dual power attacks and then backing off to down stamina potions. I found out that he has rather poor reflexes, and is quite vulnerable to hit-and-run attacks. He did connect with a ground pound attack once, but my armor was maxed out, so it wasn't too much of a problem. It turns out the most dangerous thing about Karstaag is the constant Blizzard effect that surrounds him. I reloaded and tried fighting him again in werewolf form, since I read that you can knock him on his ass with a power attack. However, I wasn't able to injure him that much, and the Blizzard effect drained my health too quickly.

I was rather disappointed with the reward for killing him. 10 ectoplasm, 5 filled grand soul gems, and a summon ability that can only be used 3 times. Hmph.

Licinia Selvanis, imperial battlemage and Serana:

- returned to Septimus with runed lexicon and met a cross mass of tentacles.
- Then they stopped by in Castle Volkihar with the Elder Scrolls and off they were sent again.
- They made it to Whiterun for shopping, and Licinia was challenged by crazy wizard in furs. The town's guard was helpful in defeating him.
- Next stop Falkreath. Unfortunately it was stop for a Blood Dragon and Dawnguard too. After that hassle died out (and dead were looted and loot sold), Licinia and Serana headed out to search for Ancestor Glade.

Khora, khajit Ranger:
- Cleared Brittleshin Pass while looking for Runil's journal.
- After that, she discovered that the road to Whiterun is too crowded to her taste: Khajit traders and revellers. She did sell her loot to khajits and get a charmed necklace. Then she left the road and cleared Silent Moon Camp.
- She returned to Falkreanth, returned the journal to it's owner, got thaned, bought a plot of land and built a little cottage. Then she headed to Riverwood for shopping.

The victory tour doesn't quite go as planned, and Balsmelmo's come undone:

The Annals of Balsmelmo - What have I done?

^Bloody great last journal entry, Gbaji! Cool pictures too, esp. of Bals in his facepalm crisis.

So what's going to be his path to Total Domination? Considering he's already wearing vampire armour and wielding the Mace of Molag Bal...

^^ Dude, this is better than Game of Thrones!

"...I threw her down and explained how she was destined to be my consort..."

I will never look at the Diplomatic Immunity quest the same way again.

Well goddamnit...

After spending 250 hours on my current character, I found out that I can't finish a number of quests now, due to the game crashing to desktop every time I travel to Ivarsted or anywhere near it. I can't do any of the Dark Brotherhood radiant quests, but more importantly, I can't get anywhere in the Dawnguard storyline because one of the quests takes place in Ivarsted. I first noticed the crash problem when I couldn't travel along the eastern side of the Throat of the World on the way to meet Paarthurnax for the first time. While I was able to use "tcl" to get around the problem area, it seems like the whole region is affected. It's not a hardware problem, as I tried turning all the graphics down to minimum and it still happened in the same place, every single time.

So with that in mind, I've decided to blitz my way through the remainder of the main quest, just so I can see the ending. My character is already rather OP, so maybe it is time to end it. I'm on my way to Sovongarde right now.

Hopefully starting a fresh game with a new character after this, and updating the unofficial patches, will mitigate the problem. In the meantime, if anyone has any experience dealing with these crashes, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

During past week:

Licinia Selvanis, imperial battlemage and Serana:
- Found the Ancestor Glade, attracted butterflies (or are they moths?) and read Elder Scroll. Then they battled Dawnguard.
- Visited home and discovered that the mannequins in the armoury have all stepped down from the pedestals. They are now half buried inside their pedestals. Creepy, like it is haunted.


Zafirah, redguard:
- Delivered Meridia's Beacon, went thru the temple and got herself Dawnbreaker.

Khora, khajit ranger:
- sneaked thru Bleak Falls Barrow, delivered some items and killed a dragon. And some bandits. And lot of critters.

Attia Nikovius, imperial paladin:
- arrived to Skyrim, ran from Alduin, did the Golden Claw and Dragon Rising. Went to Halted Steam Camp to kill some bandits.

Fantastic.

I just found out the hard way that follower AI is extremely glitched, and tends to work when it wants to. I was doing some shopping (for black soul gems) at the Winterhold College. The moment I stepped outside, a dragon appeared in the courtyard. I figured, no problem, I'll let my follower and the college mages distract it while I attack it from the side. I'm playing as a melee fighter, so I would have to get close though. Well, not only did the college mages stand around and do nothing, but also, Lydia ran away and hid where I couldn't even find her. I checked inside the college doors, checked the entry pathway, and searched frantically for her body in case she'd gotten killed, but there was no trace of her.

I ended up having to shoot the dragon down with the Wabbajack, weaken it with Marked for Death, and use hit-and-run attacks with Unrelenting Force to create openings. It took a lot of tries, since my character is still low level, but I finally managed to bring it down. About 30 seconds after I beat the dragon, Lydia reappeared from out of nowhere and stood there like nothing had happened.

Just two brief gaming sessions:

Licinia Selvanis, imperial battlemage and her friend Serana:
- Went to look for Darkfall Cave, found lot of other interesting things, like dragons. Saved just outside the Cave.
Sometimes just wandering around in the best part of the game.


Attia Nikovius, imperial paladin:
-Delivered Amren his sword and gave Ysolda a mammoth tooth. After selling loot she headed out. She's heading towards Ivarsted via Helgen and Orphan Rock. (Got past Helgen but she's not reached the Hagraven's nest yet).