I think so, too! The first time I saw Chris Hemsworth (in Thor) I could not believe it. Give him brown eyes and there stands Jerric! I suspect the bearded blond giant is a big part of it, though.

We pause the College questline after the Psijic monk encounter, too. I like having everyone back on schedule, especially the lectures in the Hall of the Elements. Plus the quest to get the books is so much fun! Poor Onmund’s greeting is some remark about the “Physic” monk while Good Intentions is forever active.

SubRosa, how fun to hear about Calindil in Persephone’s game.

Jerric and Darnand spent some time on the north coast and then hoofed it over the plains to Whiterun, checking for wood elves on the way. They’re taking care of some things for the Bard’s College. The plan was to head to the Reach in pursuit of a certain blade and associated adventure, but they got sidetracked in Haafingar by Jerric being helpful in Windhelm. I like how some of the simple little quests open the door to larger ones.

SubRosa - great shots of the Ice Queen. . . er, P-10!

Grits - wonderful to see J & D out traipsing around with the horses and Ulfe. Is Ishkrick (sp?) now thralable by Jerric so he can clomp along all the time?

Nice screens and stories, SubRosa & Grits. Really like Persephone standing on the mountain, and "On the North Coast" is a great one too.

So is Izzycrick there to keep the beer cold while they travel?

Today Persephone set out to reclaim the last piece of the Gauldur Amulet. She already had one piece from exploring Saarthal on Tolfdir's field trip, and another from a recent trip to Geirmund's Hall. So all that was left was the one in Folgersgunther.

On the way she took the time to explore a few areas left blank on her map, like Shalidor's Maze, the Morthal swamps, and the High Gate Ruins.

Eventually she got to Folgers, passed on the coffee beans, and put down the treacherous Gauldurson there for a second time. With the final piece of the amulet, she took all three down to the Reach. Naturally she stopped off in a few places to lend the locals a hand, such as at Soljund's Sinkhole. As always, her trusty companion was there whenever she called upon him.

Finally Persephone reached Gauldur's resting place, and lots of killing ensued. Afterward Darryl proclaimed that he hadn't gotten that much exercise in a thousand years. Finally, the Gauldursons defeated again, the spirit of their father reforged his amulet before Persephone. She took it, and then did something that surprised me. After trying it on for a moment, she took it off, and laid it gently around the neck of Gauldur's skeleton. It always belonged there in the first place, Persephone reasoned. Perhaps the old mage will rest a little easier now.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Nov 2 2014, 06:02 PM

That's so beautiful.

Jerric’s Conjuration skill has lagged behind his other skills, so Itchy is still just a temporary summoning. Jerric is not a stellar rider and Flash is no war horse, so he doesn’t do mounted combat. I use a mod so that Jerric can cast some spells from the saddle. With all of the wolves and skeevers everywhere now due to the Fast Respawn mod he just summons Itchy and lets him go for it instead of hopping off every ten feet to deal with the small fights. That plus training might get him to Frost Thrall in another couple hundred hours or so.

Anyway the skeevers and such don’t do enough damage to kill him, so Ishckrihk is a regular companion thumping down the road behind the horses.

SubRosa, Persephone returning the reforged amulet to Archmage Gauldur was a fitting and touching gesture! She of all people would understand what it is to be unrestful for four thousand years. That was beautiful!

Good on P-10 for giving back that amulet!

I don't blame Jerric for letting a summon do some of the travel protection. Buffy does the same with her critters. They take care of the smaller road foes and pin down the bigger ones. With a critter occupying a foe, Buffy's gotten quite good at mounted archery.

We haven't allowed Buffy to summon from the saddle, but we do a little tinkering around the edges. . . she has to summon her mystic bow on the ground, but then she can stow it on her back for riding, where it is readily available. And her summoned critter(s) are actually conjured by equipping a magic ring (hotkeyed of course) and stay around until she unequips the ring or their corporeal form takes too much damage. Extremely handy because that means she can conjure help from the saddle or even with her bow fully drawn if needed.

That is one way to deal with the annoyance of the constant fights while riding. More than one way actually. Grits, one thing to keep in mind with summoning is that it conjuring creatures or weapons only counts toward a skill increase if you are in combat. So unless you see a red dot on your hud and hear the battle music, summoning Izzy won't bring any 'experience' at all.

I found conjuration leveled up very fast with Buffy. As SubRosa said, you have to employ what you conjure in combat, but between her bound bow and popping out flame atronachs as 'scouts', conjuration was Buffy's first magic skill to hit 100. The combination of a bound weapon and summoned atronach in combat really makes the skill scoot upwards.

I’ve had the same experience that bound weapons raise the skill quickly, and using the Soul Trap spell or the humble Raise Zombie makes it rise very quickly! Darnand’s shoots up more quickly than he is willing to explain. Jerric has zero magicka regeneration since I changed the Atronach Stone to match his Oblivion Birthsign, so he is pretty conservative with his casting unless he is battling another mage. He only summons his critters, and even then it’s only when some action is going down. Itchy in the picture was still tagging along after some little scuffle or another.

That’s OK with him now that he can summon his ice buddy. He actually just got a skeleton tome from Ereshikagal from Rosa’s awesome Undead Summoning mod, so now he’ll be able to summon Slim once in a while for kicks.

I think Alteration was Jerric’s first 100 magic skill. He used to cast a Flesh spell before combat if at all possible, and that also cut into his magicka reserve for the fight. Now that he has the Atronach perk he’d rather spend the magicka on offense than defense. Actually he would always rather spend it on offense, but he needed that Master perk!

Jensa has a ball shooting from the saddle, but then she has to dismount and run around collecting all of the arrows. Buffy has the best idea with her mystic bow.

I'll join the others and say that it's really noble of Persephone to return the Amulet.

And since I'm only active in the Skyrim forums for a short time, I have to ask...who's Itchy? I really like this name.

Itchy is Jerric’s summoned Frost Atronach, Ishckrihk. Jerric learned to summon him in my fanfic Jerric’s Story. I think it was ghastley who christened him Itchy since only my spell checker knows how to spell his name. Acadian did a great job with it, though! He spelled it exactly like it sounds.

Off-topic but spellchecker always flubs up ghastly's name. See? ghastly. It takes some effort to get that E in there with my computer. ghastley. THERE.

I think Mycharonna got to 100 with Illusion first. She was always casting that Silence spell to muffle her feet, and then Invisibility later on. Conjuration may have also gotten up to 100, but I don't think I made this Legendary.

Shortly after leaving Gauldur's tomb, Persephone came across a Thalmor patrol with a Nord prisoner. One of the Thalmor immediately said that Persephone was interfering with their official business. Well, Persephone decided to show them some interference. She handed the prisoner the Gauldur Blackblade (which has a 25 point Absorb Health thanks to Persephone's level), and an enchanted shield. He actually survived the battle, and killed one of the Thalmor!

Heh, Persephone was simply initiating those Thalmor into the ranks of the undead!

Neat that the prisoner survived. Buffy simply cut one free once and started a fight. . . he didn't survive.

Another time, Buffy did what is more to her nature. The Thalmor said back off, so she did - to about 200 paces, then opened fire from stealth. The Thalmor were so focused on trying to find her that they ignored the (still hand-bound) prisoner. The prisoner survived. When Buffy tried to chase him down she barely got close enough for him to say "I'm getting outta here!" before he ran off on those long Nord legs. Buffy couldn't catch him of course. She hopes she figured out how to cut his bindings and maybe survive.

I think if you do it that way the prisoner reports you to the guards, and you end up getting a bounty. Though I was never able to figure out exactly what the circumstances were when you got the bounty or not. All I was able to find out for certain was that if you free the guy first, you never get a bounty. I think because technically the Thalmor attack you once you do that.

I also found that while you can share items with the prisoner, he will only use weapons and shields. He won't equip any armor, rings, necklaces, or other things you give him.

That's awesome that prisoner survived! LHM rescued a few of those prisoners here and there, usually the prisoner doesn't make it, that's for sure. Haaf-Mersey probably didn't have anything really worthwhile to give, though.

What a unique name for a frost atronach! It makes me feel cold as I try to pronounce it.

I didn't know that you can exchange things with captured prisoners. And I also didn't know that if you set them free first, you don't get a bounty. Could be useful...

So Buffy is, in addition to being the littlest Skaal, now the littlest Companion.

The Circle was not impressed when the most wolfiness they could coax out of Buffy was for her to turn into a little werefox and hide under a table until it wore off.

But they let her stay and, in fact, fully inducted 'Buffy the Small'.

At any rate, she’s loving the Companion radiant quests. Well except for the 'intimidate' ones - they know better than to ask her to do something that requires 'brawling'. She just tracked down an escaped criminal in the Reach. Found him cowering next to the body of a sabre cat. That dead cat was next to the body of another of the same. Standing nearby was (you guessed it) an old orc. Buffy’s never been able to talk these old orcs out of waiting around for a ‘good death’, even though she’s tried to convince them to join her in her travels. She’s never had reason nor the stones to fight them. Today, she confirmed that trying to fight one of them would not have been a good idea. She spoke to the cowering criminal who immediately went hostile. Before Buffy could summon her bow, the old orc intervened and within a second or two the criminal joined the dead sabre cats on the ground.

As Buffy’s quest journal updated ‘quest complete’, the old orc wouldn’t even accept a bounty reward from Buffy. Rather, he stoically remained by his growing corpse pile waiting for a good death. . . .

This is why Buffy is, and always has been, in complete awe of orcs. And why she is bloodkin to them.

That's a nice story, Acadian. Love the final sentence.