Potions all around, indeed!

Did someone say "rum"?

So nice to follow along with Lothran's winter routine in Bruma. Has he volunteered his services to the guard force yet this season?

I wonder how many times he's cleared out Plundered Mine since 2007. Gotta be in the hundreds by now. 👺 Yet those goblins keep invading that cave like a horde of huns. What does his crowd control spell do?

OOOH!!! He's going to Olav's!!! Okay, let me shush. This is the big moment I've been waiting for, for months!

That was my Christmas presant last year. Made the rest of the winter go by smooth.

Not until new year's. First we gotta do the Pale Pass run


It paralyzes, absorbs health and damages health (all AoE). All timed of course but I'm not authorized to say for how long, nor the actual absorb/damage numbers. And I think there's another effect in there too...


And he's actually already been at Olav's, but I guess this is the more formal visit

It always seems like some weird stuff happens in Lothran's version of Olav's. Just weird moments here and there. I can't recall what, though.

Those weird moments often involve Ongar; he likes to go into sneak mode and steal food openly whereupon guards are summoned to come and hack him down

Tonight as many as three guards were there at the same time. Two hacked him down and the third struck up conversations with people

Oh gosh!

Today Lothran met two friendly female Khajiit bandits! One outside at the camp on the road eastward past Dragonclaw Rock and the other one inside Capstone Cave. He did find a hostile one as well though; just outside Bruma at the north gate.

Ah, that one hates Mondays.

As we're coming up on the Annual Christmas Ogre Hunt in Pale Pass™, Lothran decided to go clear out Plundered Mine once more. Didn't think it was necessary but yeah; plenty of gobs inside! Next up is Capstone Cave.

Oh, and we also had to clear the Abomb again. Number twelve if my count is correct.

Looking forward to hearing this years ogre teeth count from Pale Pass.

Place your bets!


.....................

Lothran's sweep of Capstone Cave was almost unnecessary. Only two occupants could be found this time. Beside the friendly female Khajiit bandit from before there was also one unfriendly female Khajiit bandit. Why?? If you don't count the totally unprovoked attack earlier, Lothran has been nothing but nice!

Also; last days before the big trip! Lothran is enjoying some time at Jerall View and will later take it to Olav's. One more festivity before the departure!

Pale Pass


Lothran set out early in the morning as usual after an evening chatting with the locals the evening before. He picked up his usual gear, including a few extra bottles of poison, and made his way out the east gate.
The forester was still guarding the bend in the road past the fork where the way south meets the way west towards Bruma and the way east, further into the Jeralls. The forester had been there now for many years, never tiring, never yielding. Forever vigilant and now with a torch in his hand as the morning was not yet light enough.

Lothran pushed on. Up north towards The Sentinel where a coule of Will-Os and a Billie were greeted by Lothran's Spriggan friend and her bear. Soon enough the old door to Serpent's Trail was opened up on its rusty hinges, and the Dunmer made his way inside.

The Spriggan met her match already in the initial fight within the cave system. Cause even though she's quite powerful, facing three ogres, a regular black bear and another Spriggan at the same time offers some challenge even for her. Moving on, she only needed to fight them one on one, something Lothran thought she appreciated.

Finally, after going through the entire system and picking clean the treasure chests along the way, Lothran stood before the door leading to his goal. And with the heavy door closing behind him he once again faced the legendary Pale Pass!

That's awesome. So a spriggan got involved this time as well?

I can still remember the first time heading into Pale Pass, it blew my mind. I mean, here I had this game which was huge. So much larger than any gameworld I'd ever seen on Playstation, and now I get to explore more???

Does anybody in Bruma say anything about us going into Skyrim? 🏔

I guess the Cavebosses got reinforcement from all the ass whopping they've had over the years


Same here. I absolutely loved Pale Pass right from the start and it fits Lothran nicely having this area to come to every Christmas


Well, they've heard all of Skyrim is under siege. The daedra allegedly lay waste to the old holds and apparently there is little to do to stop it

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

Soon after entering the snowy valley, Lothran encountered the first Ogre Caveboss outside of Serpent's Trail. The Spriggan got some well deserved rest now as Lothran decided to take it on himself. Standard procedure but with a twist this time.
Opening up with a poisoned arrow is usually followed on by one of the two Weakness spells and then either Goldbrand or Snowflake, depending on which spell Lothran chose. This time after the poisoned arrow Lothran used the spell as normal whereupon the ogre froze and fell onto the ground. But rather than following it up with either weapon he decided to just stand there and see if the poison could finish it off, and it could! Weapon in hand is always a good idea though, just in case.

This, becoming the new standard, was used on every ogre on the path towards Fort Pale Pass except near the fort's entrance. Lothran saw an ogre and made a dash to freeze it with a spell and then finishing it off with Snowflake. But before that could be done, another ogre was spotted just behind the first one! So Lothran jumped back and gave himself some room between himself and the ogres, allowing him to prepare his crowd control spell often used against the hordes of goblins in Plundered Mine. Worked like a charm and only one blast was needed.

Now the tent has been set up as usual on the top floor of the ruin beyond the chasm where the floor has collapsed. Inside another pearl was put into a chest and some minor repairs were done on the equipment.
Before going to bed, Lothran jumped up on to broken walls over the tent and could from his vantage point spot another Caveboss in the distance to the left beyond the ice patches.

Tomorrow the hunt will begin.

Some nice new and creative ogre killin' tactics I see.

How can this be?

What's the news from the--- ooops. Wrong thread.

Hey, didn't know Lothran uses poison. Oh man. This sounds brutal. I actually feel for those poor ogres.

Lothran uses most anything at his disposal and as a Warlock rank in the Mages Guild, how can he pass up on posions?

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

Lothran has now made a sweep of Pale Pass (going clockwise) and hunted down the remaining Ogre Cavebosses. Last year he met, and I am not kidding, a friendly Caveboss! It was right to the left of the fort beyond the ice patches and he only found out it was friendly because he didn't shoot it first with an arrow like he usually does. Can't remember if Lothran got him in the end anyway according to the Leave Nothing Behind policy so we'll leave that question hanging*

Right now it's midday and Lothran is standing high up on a cliff overlooking the fort. As the hunting proper is basically over there's now free time to roam around the pass, partially looking for stragglers and partially just enjoying the area. We'll of course look up all the chests too



*I looked it up and apparently it originally happened two years ago and again last year. And the ogre did turn hostile when Lothran equipped the bow so it did get offed.

Lothran is now performing his duty as a voluntary guard in Bruma. He's making patrol rounds as well as maintaining guard points around town. Most notably by the north gate during nighttime.

Nice to have Lothran back on volunteer guard duty. I'm sure the Brumites appreciate it.

So what was this year's final ogre tooth count from the Pale Pass expedition?

Another day, another Septim


It was 17, with four I think from the Serpent's Trail

Lothran is again standing guard at the north gate with patrol routes around town as an occasional break.


When another guard comes to the gate, that'll be the cue for Lothran to go to the barracks and sit down for awhile

Wow, a friendly ogre. That's really bizarre.

Yeah I was quite stumped when it happened, and when it happened again


----------------------------
Lothran is now off his shift and is currently sitting at home. Soon he'll be paying a visit to Capstone Cave and Plundered Mine again, as well as Silver Tooth Cave on his way to Azura's shrine.

My decrepit Cyrodill avatar and the gang are paused after having crossed the short bridge they consider the halfway point between Bravil and Leyawin. It's evening, a rather dark and stormy evening I might add. Visibility is poor, relieved somewhat by Vilja's torch and frequent nearby lightning strikes. My avatar berates himself for not having the sense to call a halt for the day in Bravil, where they had stopped for a meal. In his defense, there wasn't a hint of inclement weather when they departed the city.

This stretch of their patrol is almost a non-event. As luck would have it, they ride a short distance behind a small legion patrol, who are handling most of the combat unaided. They hope to reach their destination before calling it a day, but don't rule out pitching their tent and camping until morning should sleep overpower them.

As for myself, I upgraded to the latest version of Wrye Bash, then rebuild my Bash Patch. This new version incorporates noticeably more esps into the Patch than did my old version. That process came off without a hitch. Updating from OBSE to the recent xOBSE is another matter. Three launch attempts in a row ended in the game returning to desktop within seconds, never reaching the opening screen. Next launch lasted a bit longer, gave promise to reaching the game itself, then froze solid, requiring a RESET of the computer via its case button. That out of the way, the next attempt actually reached the game opening screen before terminating. The next attempt succeeded, displaying two OBSE update messages in the process. My hope is that whatever needed to update itself was what caused all those fails.

I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had hotkeyed DropLitTorches_OBSE. I swore it was "O". Nope. That failing, I tried a number of keys a random, then gave up and left illumination for Vil to handle. At the session's very end, it finally dawned on me that the hotkey is not "O" but "0".

The decrepit avatar is once again patrolling the roads of Cyrodiil? Can this be true??

Oh thank Akatosh! We were worried, you see .... the Daedra.

Lothran is now performing his primary duties whilst in Bruma; clearing caves and mines. He just did Plundered Mine and is on his way to Silver Tooth Cave, also clearing the roads of course.

He planned on recharging his primary weapon at the Mages Guild before departing but Volanaro apparently needed a sleep-in today so Lothran went home and switched his mace for Goldbrand which was fully charged.

Lothran keeps keeping the Jerall roads clear. This time he's headed westward a bit past Hermaeus as usual, smacking down ogres along the way. No bandits yet but perhaps on the way home he will spot one or two.

And the daedra met up past the stairs by Mora was a Daedroth. Man, those things are weak compared to an ogre. At least if the time the Spriggan's fight lasted is any indication

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

Today was spent selling looted weapons and armor, recharging own weapons and most importantly; making potions and poisons. Lothran does this once a year and he has a few recipes since many years back that he uses, and some that he doesn't anymore. He mostly focuses on two potions and three poisons.

Lothran has an Iron Bow set aside at the Fighters Guild in Bruma. He uses that to target practice using the dummy whenever he feels like it. Along with that he uses iron arrows. He doesn't shoot that often and so it takes a great while before the bow breaks down and has to be repaired, but just that happened today! I think it's two years since last it was repaired so now I reckon we have until 2025

That is true. Lady Saga has a bunch of bows, but sometimes she'd use just one exclusively for awhile, maybe for an entire dungeon or some such. Its Health (or whatever) would barely get affected. Maybe it'd still be in the 90s. Then again, it was rare she'd need to use it to block an enemy. Most enemies simply get nowhere near my elf.

See, but it's nice to know how long a cheap iron bow can last before it needs attention.

The Forester



East of Bruma, at the bend in the road before the long straight towards Dragonclaw Rock, is a forester. He's been patrolling that area for around ten years now, and I'm not exaggerating. He arrived on scene after having chased a deer and then stuck around. From time to time though he's been edging his way out of that spot whereupon Lothran has always coaxed him to come back.

Today the forester was nowhere to be seen. Lothran made a sweep of the immediate area but to no avail. Not giving up, he made his way up towards Serpent's Trail but could only find the minotaurs he slayed upon exiting the Trail from this season's hunt. But making his way down towards Dragonclaw Rock, there he was. Apparently he had followed another deer, killed it, and then decided to patrol this new area instead. Well, we can't have that, can we? So Lothran had to once again coax the forester back to his spot, and now all is well in Cyrodiil again

NPC management...rather like herding cats?

These days I allow myself some NPC management, yes. As with the weather in Cyrodiil, if I can control something then I will

Nice, what a beautiful little story, mirocu!

Thanks, Renee!

Capstone Cave was cleared yesterday and today it was Plundered Mine's turn again and as most of the times something interesting happened in the lower section.

As always Lothran ran through it all whilst attracting the attention of all the goblins and when he came to the big cave at the end he summoned his Spriggan to let her and her bear have some fun. Not always but often enough, and true about this run, the goblins started an infight! Well, either that or there were goblins from a rival tribe present, I can never tell really.
The goblins started out by attacking the Spriggan and a couple went for Lothran. Summoned shield in hand, he was ready, but the first blow sent him down in a paralyzed effect and before he even got back up again the goblins ran away to fight the shaman! They all did! It was like six or seven regular goblins against one shaman so it was quite good fun to watch.

This spectacle went on for some time but Lothran prevailed in the end, thank The Nine. And now he's back in his home in Bruma with the spoils consisting of a gold amulet, a gold nugget and of course quite a few gold coins and some lockpicks so not too shabby

Very nice, especially the gold nugget. 🪙

He can summon spriggans? Hey, let me ask you this. Is there any magic schools that he does not touch, or does not use as often? I'm guessing Destruction is one he doesn't use. I don't remember any mentions of him throwing fireballs and such.

Or is he an actual Jack-of-all-trades? I'd imagine with a game lasting as long as it has (a decade and a half!) he's probably touched on a bit of everything at this point, if only to see what he likes, or not.

Yeah, and he has for some time thanks to SubRosa's Witchcraft mod


That's one of the schools he uses the most But not so much fireballs as he tend to use his own mix of Touch based spells where indeed Destruction is very much present.
I was gonna write here what school he uses the least but after a bit of research I can conclude he uses all schools about equally with Destruction being on top. Heh, shows what I know!


That's him for sure. He uses weapons as well as offensive spells, lockpicks as well as the spell variant, armor as well as shield spells; you get the picture. As you say, after all this time he's bound to have tried most everything, if nothing else out of curiosity

The other day I found THE post in which you learned about Witchcraft. And you said "I need that!" in so many words.



Very much a Jack of all, then. This is why a lot of us have multiple characters. There's so much to explore, for me it felt better to do it all with more than one. I was trying to do it all (all quests, all weapon types, all magic types) with my very first Renee Gade character) but her game started to feel very distracted. Very much unfocussed. But see, if I'd ONLY played RG over this past decade and a half...

What about some of the more useless spells, though? Does Lothran ever try spells such as Absorb Mercantile? Really, these sort of spells seem useless to me, but somewhere out there somebody needed THIS very spell to create that very specific roleplay. That's why it's good OB was so broad with its magic options.



Yes, the weapons I know about (Snowflake is one of them).

Absorb Mercantile is not a useless spell though, if you need money. Cast it on a trader before transaction for an instant discount! (Although casting it on Necromancers who are trying to turn you into a zombie may not be quite as helpful.)

Ah, see that's something I never even considered.

@Lena - Wish I had thought of that when I was new, trying to get Lothran rich


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

Another patrol route to the shrine of Azura. Not much has changed since last one but two bandits were disposed of at the hidden camp past Silver Tooth Cave and one ogre before that. Next session will see Lothran going home to Bruma.

Pretty much this again. I don't know if the decrepit avatar and Vilja patrol this part of Cyrodiil. If not; Lothran is up for it

And yeah, back in Bruma now and then a quiet evening at Olav's. Then it's once again off west to see if anything's happened since last time.

"Something's in the air"

Lothran thought to himself. After another raid in Capstone Cave which btw was quite empty still since last one, upon coming home to Bruma again and spending some time inside the gates, it by and by stopped snowing. Having seen nothing but snowfall for the last three months, this is noteworthy indeed. And Lothran knew exactly what it meant.


It's very soon time to leave Bruma and face the lush forests of Cyrodiil once again!

Woot! The first signs of spring in Cyrodiil!

WHAT??? But he just got there!!

Hold on a sec. Okay... December, January, Feb... oh.

Yup!


My thoughts exactly, Renee. He JUST got there, for crying out loud!

Lothran has left the Mountains. I repeat: Lothran has left the Mountains


Standard procedure was followed. The roaring fireplace was put out, regular gear picked up from storage chest in the upper hallway and Snowflake the dagger was put back in its drawer down in the bedroom, fully charged and ready. And with the bedroom door closed behind him, Lothran stepped out of his home.

Early morning, no one else out but the patrolling guards. As the season had come to an end there was no snowfall either. Lothran made his way through the clear and mostly empty town of Bruma. Standing by the north gate he took one final look back, opened the big door, and left Bruma.

Throughout the last few years he had mostly opted to go down the same way he came up in the beginning of the season and then take the Orange Road to Chorrol. Other times he had gone past Applewatch, over the bridge and then taken a left down towards the lush forest. This year however he felt inclined to go the longest route past Hermaeus Mora's shrine, something he hasn't done for many, many years. Nothing to fight along the way, only the strange feeling of seeing the mountains in clear view as opposed to through the usual blizzard.


Lothran is now standing in the Colovian Highlands, not far from Lipsand Tharn. He has changed into his huntsman's vest and from this point he will wander the forest with Chorrol in mind.


The winter season of 2022/2023 has concluded.