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After adventuring in the Reach, Souissi and Froa Bear-Foot were back in Markarth. Souissi disenchanted her Nordic war axe and enchanted the Nordic war pick found in Liar's Retreat, with a grand soul gem, naming it War pick of bitter cold, because it damaged one’s health and stamina. From Calcelmo the court wizard she learned how to summon a flame atronach, and from a spell tome she learned how to summon a bound shield that not only protects her from physical attacks but from magical as well.

After a peculiar meeting with a blind priestess Souissi decided to head to High Rock to discover what was the priestess rambling about, and possibly find out more of her own fate, but Froa Bear-Foot decided to stay in Skyrim. As the carriage which Souissi and other travelers heading to High Rock, was leaving Markarth stables, Froa wondered whether she'd ever see her Imperial friend again.

Liar's Retreat? At first I thought this was added by the Hideouts mod we're using but apparently that place is vanilla! Nice. So my characters haven't been to every nook and cranny, even after ... what? .... seven years? Cool.

Also, I'm not familiar with that opening Solitude quest either. But it sounds like Souissi has definitely changed her former ways. I like that you are exploring magic. ~ See, you won't even need mods for this, since a lot of vanilla magic stuff has not been tried by any or yours yet, right? Like,.... you won't need that Third Era Spells mod I have in my games.

Whoa, Mooch her bare-footed friend stayed behind?

I've discovered Liar's Retreat for the first time in Souissi's game as well. Because I don't use map markers, I found it by coincidence, it's not easy to find without them because the entrance is obscured from most sides. I won't spoil for you, where it is. It's an interesting place to explore and has a backstory about the events that transpired there shortly before you arrive. You can also find a unique weapon deep inside.

You mean the opening quest in Markarth? I knew what to expect when stepping in the town so Souissi struck the assailant immediately. My previous characters were too slow.

Beyond Reach is apparently follower-friendly but Froa is too overpowered. I don't mind it if followers are slightly more buffed than in the vanilla game but she finishes off most enemies in two hits, making combat much less interesting and challenging.

Whoops, I'm thinking of Solitude, not Markarth.


This is why I raise difficulty in my PC games. On Xbox I mostly use Apprentice, but on PC I have to raise this to Adept, because with followers and mods, the game becomes too easy otherwise.

The moment has passed though. Mooch-Foot is gone, I get it.

Morndas, 15 Evening Star, early afternoon: To appease his posse's growing anticipation, Sir Vyvoor decides to take a contract to kill the bandit leader of Fort Skull Lookout. Nothing but a bandit-run today. Hopefully later he will be able to follow Markarth's steward. See where he lives. Then he can *spoiler* *spoiler* *spoiler*

Edit: what a neat lair this is. Half of it is as though it were in some earthquake or something.

Turdas, 3:58 PM, 25th of First Seed, 4th Era 203 Gentle reader, you will not understand a word of what follows unless you have read and commited to memory the first three volumes of this series, 'Beggar,' 'Thief,' and 'Warrior,' which leades up to this, the conclusion. I encourage you to seek them out at your favorite bookseller.

Lord Haaf-Mersey sits in Riften, on yet another sunny day. Taking a break before he needs to rush off toward Falkreath, where some sort of monster in Bilegulch Lair must be killed. It will be nice to legitimately return to the Falkreath area, which is where his home is. Home. Wife. Adopted daughter, and Rayya the Overkiller, his bored-out-of-her-mind Thane.

After reading the words above, which are from the book "King", he decides he must follow the author's advice, and heads off to Pawned Prawn, to see if Bersi has any of these books.

The Boy has been unleashed.

I usually play Skyrim modded as hell, but since I'm playing this alongside a project, I decided to go a little closer to vanilla. Well, I have Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul installed along with SPERG, but otherwise it's all vanilla aside from textures and the like. :v

Nice! What is SPERG?

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Middas, 9:12 AM, 24th of Evening Star, 4th Era 201 Sir Vyvoor leaves Frostfruit Inn, headed somewhere north, toward Morthal I think. He finally was able to convince the steward of Markarth to divulge some information to the Stormcloaks; the solution was easier than I thought it would be.

For assisting the stormies, Vyvoor decided to take s bounty contract for the steward's good deed. Vyvoor and his crew wound up going somewhere north of Karwathstan to bring down a dragon, Vyvoor's third or fourth dragon so far.

Perk overhaul. I prefer Ordinator myself.

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"The king will have his tower, the dark mother will see to this..."

Words of the witchman that Souissi had just killed, didn't make much sense, but she wrote them down in her journal, hoping they'll make more sense in the future. What king? And who is the dark mother?

Prophecies of some huge creature that flew over Souissi as she was walking to the Divide, inviting little wolves to the feast, didn't make any more sense either. What was that creature? It was clearly not a dragon. Perhaps a gryphon?

She pondered over these questions as she was enchanting her armor in necromancer's lair. A few days ago she arrived to western High Rock, following an odd meeting with a blind priestess. If she had found people of Skyrim to be gloomy, they were in fact very cheery compared to morose and unfriendly residents of High Rock. Something was in the air, in the soil. Something...ominous.

Today she disposed of a necromancer from Sabbat that was sending his undead minions to attack the Divide, the first settlement she came across upon arriving to High Rock. In his lair Souissi now enchanted her armor to help her regenerate magicka, very useful for someone like her, born under the Atronach. Thanks to the nercomancer's tome she also learned how to reanimate weak corpses. Lastly, it was time for a new facial decoration. New land, new warpaint.

Bretons are even more morose than Nords! Souissi will survive and thrive though, she'll stay alive.

Morndas, 7:40 AM, 29th of First Seed, 4th Era 203

Days Passed: 589

Locations Discovered: 199

Hours Slept: 4751
Hours Waited: 2424

Gold Found: 306,276 (yikes!)

The Crusader of Falkreath suits for battle. He puts away his hide boots and green wool clothes (house clothes, basically) then dons his favorite cuirass and greaves: plated armor which increases his ability to deflect damage. "Steel Plate Amor of the Knight" these pieces are called. Other apparel are donned; boots and gauntlets, all of them magical. Overall, it takes nearly a half-hour for him to equip himself, and though there are others in his home to assist, he chooses to be alone this time, deep in thought.

"Honor to see you again my thane!" calls one of his housemates from somewhere close by. "Do you need anything?"

"Rayya, you shan't make they decision to commence despite my prior choosing. As mentioned on the day previous, you do have welcoming amongst the shoals."

"What do you need, my thane?"

Lord Haaf-Mersey shakes his head, and begins to make a motion which suggests he's about to palm his face, only he doesn't do it. His adopted daughter Lucia had just painted his countenance, using some of her homemade rouge and greasepaint. Best not to smudge all that. By this motion though, his disappointment is apparent. Because he'd shown up to Lakeview Manor two days earlier with Ingjard, a talented Dawnguard archer, because of this, Rayya had refused to join the pair. "Looks like you've got someone already," was her excuse.

"Suit thyself, Rayya." The lord turns to go, walks down the stairs, from his bedroom to its common area. He does not get far.

"PAPA!" Lucia greets, her pet rabbit following.

But she does not look up. She merely walks by, knowing her step-father is off to somewhere dangerous. Again. 'Tis no matter the paladin thinks. As long as this little one with safety may--

"Hello my love!" his wife calls.

"Mjoll." the lord nods.

"Do you need anything my love?"

Haaf-Mersey does that half-motion with his arm again, but stops, lest he smear the countenance that his adopted daughter had recently painted. Oh, he'd never hear the end of it.

Eesh, kinda late but SPERG is a perk overhaul. I kinda like the way it works since it automatically grants perks at the different mastery levels like Oblivion, but don't like that you need to have uncapped skills to use it. Also you it seems like you can become overpowered pretty easily but then I haven't played a full game with it yet.

==

Anyways, Alois is out of Whiterun and in the College of Winterhold now. I was reminded of how powerless you end up being if you only use Frost destruction spells. Most of the time it just means reduced damage, but a lot of enemies outright resist it. It's the main reason the original Alois started using a sword. :U

Still sticking to frost, as it's his Thing, but I may or may not have grabbed Sunfire before he even begins Dawnguard. I feel like it should at least be the one sun fire spell that all Restoration vendors have. (Also, I'm loving what SPERG does with Ward spells. It basically summons and equips a shield on you that makes the ward when you block)

Dunno how long he'll stay at the College, but he'll at least upgrade all his Restoration and Destruction spells while he's there.

Yeah that would help if he had something other than frost, ha ha. Well, my ice witch used a lot of frost, but if she were against some enemy that resists it, she'd .... hmm. I don't remember what she'd do. It's been awhile.

There's a mod called Third Era Magic or something like that. It adds a spell vendor in the College's library who sells all kinds of cool spells found in earlier games. A lot of touch spells, for instance. Water Walking. Etc. I'll have to dig up that link if you're interested.

Yeah, it's one of the things I absolutely did NOT back down from when I first played the game. Ice is pretty. :v

Anyways, I have that mod! Although the version I've been using places the vendor near the border to Morrowind. I think there was another recent one that integrated the spells into leveled lists, but the mod creator discontinued support of the LE version.

For my purposes, though, I prefer the former. The spells are still "lost" in this continuity, and Alois's sister Genevieve is one of the few with any knowledge of them thanks to a late 3rd Era spell tome she inherited.

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Souissi enchanted most of her armor pieces. Her mercenary armor now helps her regenerating magicka quicker as does her headdress. Very useful for someone born under the Atronach, she almost negated the birthsign penalty of slower magicka regeneration. Her boots are enchanted with frost resistance, because witchmen attack primarily with long distance frost spells. Only her gauntlets aren't enchanted yet.

She also has a new ally - a sabre cat familiar, she learned how to summon it after reading a tome bought from a missionary in Arnima. The sabre cat is powerful but for enemies that attack from long distances or places that are hard to reach, her flaming atronach is still a better option, because it attacks with fire spells.

Although she has left a life of a robber behind, Souissi made some friends among beggars and criminal exiles of High Rock and now they consider her as one of them. As a result, renegade exiles living in wilderness, shouldn't attack her anymore.

Wow, so she's found some solace amongst the beggars of High Rock and can summon a giant cat now, along with that healer guy she met, she should be more unstoppable now.


I know. I absolutely love that there's some backstory. Because it fits with my personal version of why magic is so different in Skyrim than it was in the Third Era. From the getgo in 2011, I wasn't sitting around complaining about lack of Spellmaking, lack of touch spells, and so on. I just figured the College just did not continue to support or learn about the magic which was so prevalent during the Third Era. So it totally makes sense that somebody shows up who knows all this stuff, and the College accepts her because she's skilled in magics of which they are not.

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During her career of a criminal, Souissi would often want to be in someone else’s shoes, someone better, someone that people would look up to. However, after she exposed Mortifayne and ruined his lady’s Namira’s plans by fending off a Daedric invasion, and King Sigmayne granted her knighthood and appointed her as a Knight of Evermore for her honorable deeds, Souissi had mixed feelings. She couldn’t say why but something felt so very wrong. Not just because according to her friend Rados, King Sigmayne wanted to marry a nine years old girl in the past, but also because the joy after defeating Mortifayne seemed merely a silence before the coming storm. Nonetheless, being a knight has its duties and for the time being Souissi intends to perform them.

No kidding, she accepted knighthood. So now she is Sir Souissi, just like Mazoga. Oh wait, I think she'd be Lady Souissi.

She had her doubts but she assumed that becoming a knight and performing duties would grant her septims and lots of them. And she was right.

Oh, and the main quest doesn't continue unless one accepts the knighthood.

Dame Souissi.

That actually sounds better than Knight Souissi.
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In search of ectoplasm for a ritual, Souissi descended down a Direnni ruin of Umbasir. There an unknown entity trapped her inside and commanded her to do its bidding, else she remains trapped inside the ruin forever. Descending deeper and deeper, Souissi eventually opened a portal to Apocrypha, where the entity revealed itself - it was Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince, the riddle unsolveable, the book unreadable. In return for her release Mora demanded that Souissi steals a soul of a Direnni wizard, whose ghost still inhabits Umbasir. Bold as always and not willing to be ordered around by Daedra, Souissi and the wizard tricked Mora into believing that the delivered soul gem contains the wizard's soul, while it was in fact a soul of a wizard passed away long ago.

Souissi was released from Apocrypha and as a reward received a black book from Mora, allowing her to visit his realm at any time. And the Direnni wizard finally found his peace.

Yet Hermaeus Mora didn't fall for their trick, instead he decided to play their game. He foresaw that in the near future Souissi will be in a dire situation, where reading the black book will be the only way to save her life, and when they'll meet again...then they'll have a long and friendly discourse.

To avoid ESO event burnout, I spent a bit of time with Clark in Skyrim, trying to add some screen-shots for his story. The hardest part was trying to get Katria not to be a ghost. Her effect script is re-applied in so many ways I couldn't track them, and ended up creating a clone for the pictures. Now I have to re-shoot them, as she has grey-face.

I also worked a bit on the Succubi, but that mod needs a lot of dungeon-building, which gets just as tedious as the ESO dailies.

ETA: Got my screen-shots. Clark had fun. Katria, too. But now I'm looking at all the pages that don't have a picture, and getting distracted from the Diablo mod.

I did some small tweak to the horns for the Diablo mod mni-bosses, but then got the urge to build a wagon again. So Bo (derived from the ESO one) made one, (and got the workshop rebuilt) all by level 8. Her tools were in Stoney Creek, Fort Fellhammer, Faldar's Tooth, and Uttering Hills, and the bosses gave her all manner if problems.

No screenshots, as I forgot to start Fraps.

Started a fresh play-through of the Diablo mod, so I can make sure all the various scripts work properly. I was experiencing save-bake (values already being in the save file, so my changes had no effect).

The new character is an Orc in the Succubus outfit, as there aren't any Succubi NPC's of that race. She's trying out their spells too, but that will probably put her at a disadvantage against multiple enemies. She'll have a decent bow as an alternative, as the mod rewards being a sneaky archer, to pick them off one at a time.

"You're like me eh? Don't favor those clunky two-handed weapons," said a guard to January.

A guard who was wearing a two-handed sword across his back...

Maybe it's been so long, since he used it, that he forgot, what he's carrying.

This is Skyrim's version of the enemy who says "Jump on my sword while you can!" ... while wielding an axe. A bow. Anything but a sword!

So am I the only one who thinks Bleeding Crown sounds like a STD, not a mushroom?

Yes, it does, but not as serious an STD as Stinkhorn.

Blisterwort is not a great name either...

With his memories slowly returning, the Dark Elf who was forced to forget his own name, made his way out of the prison and still dressed in shabby rags, found in the prison, immediately made his way to Fort Amol. He dimly remembered that the necromancers there captured him and tortured him as he was passing the fort a week? a month? long time ago? If he had been unprepared before, because he was deep reading while attacked, he was more than prepared this time. The Dark Elf made sure that the necromancers at Fort Amol will no longer capture anyone.

After collecting dozens of books from the fort and storing them in his bag of holding, he made his way north. A couple of foolish mages tried to rob him of his possessions, but he burned one of them before she could even conclude a sentence, then finished off her Khajiiti friend with sparks.

Deep within Cronvangr Cave he found a more appropriate outfit, namely the typical Dunmer clothes on some kinsman that fell as a victim to vampires. His corpse was encircled with candles, so the Dark Elf briefly thought if Luci Pheria had perhaps been the cause behind his death, but she should have been long gone by now.

He tried to resist but couldn't, the Namira's curse was too strong, he needed to consume some spider eggs to sate his appetite. He hoped to get some much needed sleep in the abandoned shack north of the cave, but couldn't sleep for long, because Vaermina was plaguing him in his dreams. He tried to read, as Hermaues Mora commanded, but couldn't, because Sheogorath was laughing like mad in his head.

After calming himself down, the Dark Elf continued north. He heard that a Shrine to Azura can be found somewhere far to the north, that's why he came to Skyrim. He hopes that the Goddess of Dawn and Dusk can help him with his curses.

Middas, 11:44 pm, 1th of Second Seed 4th Era, Year 202

Days Passed: 440

Lord Haar-Mersey gazes upon his fallen comrade, an orc named Durak. This wasn't how this was supposed to be. The lord had met Durak just a week before, in the confines of Dawnguard Castle. Their fight against the bandits of Lost Knife Hideout had been going well. Haaf-Mersey had been steadily defeating these bandits, one after one, needing Durak's assistance just twice.

It was that second time which proved to be the orc's doom. Too many of them swarmed at once. The vampire who'd been living with those bandit scums had also been in that final room. The lord was too busy to see what Durak had been up to.

He blames himself. He should have seen. He should have noticed. Durak had not the experience needed for such intense combat. His armor was cheap Dawnguard-grade material. His axe, old and dull. Should he even return to the Dawnguard?

Yes, of course he should. But it takes him a long time before he finally gets moving.

-----------------------

Glorious be to Arkay!

Time for reflection

Lopov, I hope Lady Azura can help before some of the nastier Daedric Princes try to drop dark anchors or open oblivion gates inside the poor dark elf's head!

Renee, aww, farewell to Durak. Will LHM raise his voice in a warcry, alerting Malacath that an orc warrior is inbound?

Lopov: Sounds like The Dark Elf needs a Custodian to mop out the insides of his head clean...

Renee: Durak died like a true orc, fighting in his prime. At least he was spared the shame of growing old.

In the meantime, in Jan's game, Sovngarde Awaits

@Renee - Durak is the one that travels around Skyrim in search of recruits? I didn't even know that he can be used as a follower. At least he died with a sword, or in Durak's case, with an axe in his hand.

@Acadian - I hope so too. Besides, none of my characters have ever even started Azura's quest, so it's high time that someone tackles it.

@SubRosa - Sovngarde looks great. Are you using any mods or does it look more or less the same as in the un-modded game?

Sovngarde is pure vanilla. The only mods in that pic are from January's gear.

Acadian: Haaf-Mersey did something to mark the passage of Durak, but I'm not sure what it is. Aw, thanks for asking. That means a lot.

Lopov: Oh gosh, I didn't realize this! Yes, Durak is the guy who recruits us for Dawngard.

Rosa: Aw Sovengarde is breath-taking. Hey, can you give us a couple paragraphs of story from January's game? That would be lovely, and I'm sort of curious how communication flows between you and her (or not). How her thought-processes work, outside of her Fanfic. I know writing has to come from the heart sometimes, so no worries if I'm putting you on the spot.

For numerous years Aranea Ienith, the high priestess of Azura, had visions of the tormented blind man, who would one day seek aid of the Queen of Dawn and Dusk at her shrine in Skyrim.

She had visions of the man's past, and even of his future. Once a respected scholar, the Dark Elf was becoming too curious and greedy, exploring spheres that were meant to be obscured, delving into secrets that were never meant to be unveiled, grasping for power that was beyond his understanding. Punished by some of the scheming Daedric Princes, they cursed the Dark Elf for eternities and reveled in his insanity...or so they thought.

Aranea knew that unlike most other Princes, Azura saw in this man great potential. He'd become her Champion, her messenger. Not only he'd proudly carry her Star, he'd fight against the eternal darkness that threatened Twilight, he'd cleanse the town plagued by nightmares ... the vision was unending.

Azura bestowed the quest upon him, and the Dark Elf followed.

He couldn't yet see it, but Aranea noticed that as the Dark Elf finished his prayer to Azura, his skin looked slightly less rough than before. She smiled, for she knew that Azura will be able to restore the beauty of this tormented man, who was many years ago known as Fero Hlaalu.

Nice job weaving Aranea and Azura’s quest into the Dark Elf’s story. It looks like she might be good for him.

Cool, the Dark Elf has a name after all. He sounds the protagonist of a Lovecraft story. He learned the things Man Was Not Meant To Know, and paid for it dearly.

So I've gone and done it . . .

Reloaded TESV (the SE version) on my newish iMac (27" 2017 iMac with 5K display), used the STEP to build up a mod load out, and added a few of my favorite mods from "Oldrim" and boy, am I having fun with this game. It's been an enjoyable week bringing Lady Cora to this game and checking out a few scenes from her childhood here.

I was able to find SE versions of most of my favorite mods from 2015, but there were a couple that didn't get converted. I ended up learning how to do it for five or so mods, and so far I haven't encountered any immersion breaking glitches. I'm very careful though, especially with one mod, but so far so good. Of course, I haven't really tested those mods (made the armor, etc), but we'll see . . .

I'm impressed with the graphics, and how smoothly they play on the iMac - much smoother and better performance overall than on the old Mac I used before. Riften never looked this gorgeous, the details in the distance is stunning, and the sky is just amazing.

At some point in time, I do plan on downloading TESIV from the Bethsoft site ($14.99 - how can you beat that?) and loading it up with some new graphics mods, once I figure out what I want to use for it. I'm so glad Nexus keeps track of my downloads going all the way back to when I first started modding out Oblivion - I can use the mods I loved the most to act as my guide star as I rebuild Cyrodiil.

Congrats on a major task! The results look beautiful indeed!

Congrats on getting Skyland going. Before you buy Oblivion from Bethsoft, make sure it is the version with all the dlcs. Gog.com has it for $20 normally. But it often goes on sale for half that.

I am having so much fun playing Skyrim, that I've barely been playing ESO - just long enough to check in and do my daily stuff with my toons there. I brought Lady Cora Cardonaccum to Skyrim (not trying to retcon or anything), and having tremendous fun exploring the province with a few select mods added to the STEP Core. I'll post about those mods in the appropriate forum in a few.

For the first time I have not gone into the MQ. Lady Cora is now Level 27, and we only just got the quest for the Barrow where you recover the Dragonstone. She's been busy with other things Also for the first time I am playing a character who doesn't carry weapons (Lady Cora is not a fighter), but instead relies on bound sword and flame. I am thinking of experimenting with frost spells as well, since observing Valdimar with his (he's damn effective) has got me thinking . . . It's a Frost Spear he uses the most, right? Along with some kind of armor spell . . . In any case, I've also spent a fair amount of time adventuring with him and with Gregor, and they're both effective companions.

I am now adventuring with two well known companion mods - Inigo and Vilja. I remember Vilja from the Oblivion mod, though I have NEVER played with her until now. She's fun to listen to, and for those who can't stand the chatter you can toggle that off. I really rather listen to her talk as we walk/ride about the countryside. She does have a series of quests that are low priority, and they fit rather well into the vanilla quests we are doing. I'm not romancing her with Lady Cora, but I can see how she appeals to those who are attracted to females. She's kind, considerate, and very forthcoming. In many ways, she compares to Jordis with the FCO mod. Jordis is my favorite of the female housecarls because she has the BEST lines in the game (I'll never forget "Got any sausages?" followed by Argis's awesome laugh).

The other is another companion I've been hearing/reading a lot about, and been considering adding to my play through for quite some time. It's the blue Khajiit known as Inigo. I picked him up first in this play through, so we've completed his outstanding quests and are in maintenance mode. Still he is very well done, and I enjoy listening to his voice, which is much easier for me to hear than Vilja's. He is a good fighter, too, and between these two Lady Cora has hardly needed to strike a blow against enemies.

And Lady Cora has been adopting cats! Yes, cats. There are stray cats throughout Skyrim that she's been feeding to get them to trust her, then she adopts them, and they follow her around. She's already brought three of them home to Skyfall Estate, where they have their own beds and are now living the life of ease.

Also, Lady Cora is Thane in every Hold except for Whiterun. And she owns all the vanilla and Hearthfire houses except for Breezehome. So we've done a lot in just 27 levels, and have yet to kill a dragon . . .

I'm not sure how she's going to go about dragon killing with just magic spells, though . . .

Wonderful to know that Lady Cora is exploring Skyrim! I do recall that Inigo was a superb companion and low key enough to really have some longevity without becoming tiresome or annoying.

Level 33 and still no dragon in the sky . . .

Heh, Lady Cora still hasn't gone to get the Dragonstone. But she is working her way through the Dawnguard quest line - she has already picked up the Dragon Elder Scroll in Blackreach (that will come in handy later, I think - for now it's hanging in the special storage in Skyfall Estates). Next on the agenda is Castle Volkihar, with Serana. I've noticed she's very quiet, with Vilja in tow chattering away. It's funny, I remember her being almost as annoying as Lydia the last time I played the DG content (which was only once, and a long time ago - six or seven years?). Inigo is also quieter with Vilja around, and I'm not sure if it's because of her, or because I completed his quests before picking her up. In either case, I'm good.

What I'm not so good about is the constant chatter she has with my favorite housecarl, Argis the Bulwark, now Lady Cora's spouse. That's due to the genius interactions with the NPC's that was built into the Vilja mod. It's insane! There is one particular conversation that happens between the two of them that kinda rubs me the wrong way. Jealous? No. Not. At. All.

I've been dumping all of Lady Cora's points into her magicka (a la ESO) and working on picking up higher level spells. She just switched from the flame spell to the firebolt spell. It's more challenging to use, because spells ARE slower than arrows, but so far she has managed to remain weaponless. I am trying to decide if I want to go with Healing Hands for her other hand, a ward spell, or another destruction spell (frost comes to mind). Has anyone played a pure magicka character in Skyrim? Any tips?

Lady Cora has also decided to find as many word walls as she can and learn as many dragon shouts as possible. We are focused on hitting all those dragon aeries as possible so we can learn the shouts without having to fight off the flying lizards. So far so good . . .

I have played some pure mage characters. You can use a Ward spell in one hand for defense, but they eat up your magicka insanely fast. I had to mod the magicka cost for the drain spells to make them viable. It can be difficult to keep one finger down on the key to use the ward while you move around as well. It would have been better if it was something you toggled on and off.

Otherwise I suggest doubling up with the same spell in each hand, and using them together to get the damage bonus. That is something else I modded to make it more useful.

The armor skin spells were very useful, especially when you take the perks that double their protection when you are not wearing armor (i.e. college robes).

Basically you want to think of yourself as a glass cannon: all offense, little defense.

"For the first time I am not going into the Main Quest"

Wow! I am still struggling to finish it! Chances are I will do so once I get playing again. Because 2020 is THE year I b34t Skyrim's Main Quest, folks!


(I've been saying this since 2015 or so)

Anyway, it's good to see you're enjoying some Skyrim. I've been craving it lately.

4000 hours in Skyrim and Buffy never did either of the 'main quests'.

The Imperials wanted to lop off her head and the Stormcloaks hate elves so why would she join either? Besides they're both too dumb to recognize the real threat - the Thalmor who are patiently and gleefully biding their time as the bickering humans kill each other off.

As far as dragons, my goodness! Alduin saved Buffy's life in the opening scene of the game! Why on Nirn would she try to harm such a magnificent and helpful creature?

Because Alduin is like the Thalmor? He left her alive to spread terror through all the land . . .

In fact, one of the mods in the STEP Core is Live Another Life, an alternate start, and I found its extension that offers more starting options. So she has not even gone through that starting sequence we all know so well. Well, except maybe for Mirocu . . .

Lady Cora has battled her first dragon - Durnehviir - and learned that while he is a formidable foe, he is also a creature of dignity and honor. Something that will come in handy when she first encounters Paarthurnax in the misty future. Right now she is too focused on ending Harkon’s plan on invoking the Terror of the Sun or some such nonsense.

She feels sorry for Serana. None of the other followers seem to like her, even garrulous Vilja hasn’t spoken a word to her. Serana has pulled her weight in battles, but I suspect her habit of raising the dead to further add to the confusion doesn’t endear her to the others. In any case, Serana hasn’t spoken a word in their travels from one end of Skyrim to the other and through the Soul Cairn. I suspect that is probably why Lady Cora sent Serana ahead to meet them at the Ancestor Glade. She’ll head there next, and hopefully she won’t go fully blind like the old Moth Priest.