Morndas, mid-night, 27th of Frostfal

Days Passed: 71

The Reach Bounty: 1000

Bjorn Tubewyyld had a crazy night. Left Markarth around nightfall, and looked forward to staying in the (mod-added) town of Granite Hall, a hillside settlement built into some roadside rock. He'd already passed through here once before, and found the place pleasant and fun to explore.

But there was some sort of attack going on. Skeletons were attacking the stable area here! At first, Bjorn sat on his horse, not wanting to get involved. And it turns out he shouldn't have gotten involved! Trying to impress the guards and citizens about (and still wearing his Markarth guard armor) Bjorn eventually decided to take action, and smashed a couple skeletons. These were one-hit kills when faced up against his battleaxe.

But then it all went wrong. Because it's so dark in my games now (mod) Bjorn accidentally hit and immediately killed one of the guards there. Ugh. Next thing we know, he's being attacked by everybody nearby (which was maybe 3 or 4 people). A guard tried to arrest Bjorn, but Bjorn chose to flee.

Later on, he was trying to stay in another village called Aurora, located on the way to Falkreath. Oddly, nobody bothered him until he went into Aurora's inn. As soon as he walked in he was attacked by several people at once. They all banded together, drew whatever weapon they had, and chased him out of there! Bjron ran outside, the ENTIRE village, everybody who was awake, was attacking Bjorn. Since we haven't been to Aurora too many times, it got confusing. Where did he leave his horse? Couldn't remember, exactly. He ran all over, wtih the entire town chasing him, until he found it.

By then, it was impossible to stay on the road, so many people were after Bjorn! He dashed his horse into the woods, where all sorts of creatures lay in wait, here and there. Firmly horseback now, the angry crowds now tfar away, he and his horse then got attacked by a lynx. He didn't bother to get off his horse this time...all he wanted to do was to find the road again so he could spend the night in Falkreath.

Bjorn got really lucky though. Didn't find a road, but he did find a path, and began to follow it, trotting his horse the entire time to stay ahead of the lynx (and whatever else might be back there).

All the sudden, he & horsey ran up onto some sort of wooden structure, which turns out to be a huge bandit camp called Bilegulch Mine. He found the place's gate, which was opened immediately by an orc. Bjorn got nervous about this, but then he could see the orc was getting ready to deal with the lynx, not Bjorn! While the orc was doing so, Bjorn rode safely into Bilegulch, thankful to have a haven of outlaws to spend the next day or two with.

Phew.

Poor Bjorn! I must say that is one thing I don't miss - friendly fire. ESO has the option to set friendly fire to off or on regarding friendly NPCs. Saves many unintended headaches in town.

OH yeah sure, I get it. Wouldn't make sense for Buffy to be getting attacked the say way Bjorn does, for simple, obvious mistakes.

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Tirdas and Middas, Frostfall 28-29

Whiterun Hold Bounty: 150

Uneventful days for Bjorn, which (in his case) is okay, because even big tough guys like Bjorn get tired of fighting & running from the law.

He returned to Whiterun without incident. Even though he has a bounty here, it's compartively smaller than the one he's got in The Reach. So nobody bothered him. He dressed in ordinary town clothes though, and wore a hood the entire time. Did some buying, selling, and smithing, and spent the night at Drunken Huntsman.

On Middas he walked his horse slowly east, and decided to stop for the night at Valtheim Towers, one of his favorite bandit locations.

I decided to add a mod to all my Skyrim games called Adventurers and Travellers, which is a well-endorsed one featuring a variable amount of ordinary travelers, as well as extra adventurers, robbers, Dovahkiin, and Khajiit adventurers. The adventurers randomly look for caves and ruins and forts to loot, and will attack Bjorn on sight, because I've got them set up to do this in the mod's MCM. I like this plug-in because I want to see what happens when some travelers try to walk by bandit hideouts, I wonder if the entire place'll go nuts!

Here are some pictures from Bjorn's last update, when he was in Markarth. (edit, never mind, I"ll put 'em in the screenshot thread)>

Renee, that sounds like a nice/fun mod! Wandering over the screenshot thread to check out Bjorn. . . .

Only a few more of these left to post. Hmm, well maybe more than a few more. Miss you, Lopov. You are posting alongside me, sharing your Skyrim season, in some alternate reality.


Loredas, Sun's Dusk 01, 4th Era 201

Level: 18

Days Passed:

Finally, a sunny day in the Rift. Bjorn returns to Riften with less hassle than he thought he'd face. Did some legitimate buying & selling, and then smithed up all the animal hides and ores he'd found along the way, not getting to bed (in the Ratway) until after 4 AM.

After sleeping for 9 hours he woke up and found Delvin Mallory, who gave Bjorn what seemed to be a couple hundred gold just to sell him a 'puzzle box' he found in Calcelmo's laboratory.

But it was once Bjorn was actually in front of Delvin (and there was no option to continue the main part of the TG quest) that Bjorn realized he was supposed to go to Winterhold first, so the rogue wizard guy who lives there can decipher Gallus' Encoded Journal. In other words, he came all the way to Riften when he shulda gone to Winterhold.

Ooops.


Bjorn ascended to Level 18 during this session. I gave him Stealth 3/5 (30% harder to detect while sneaking), and dumped +2 into Agility, +3 into Endurance, and +1 into Luck. The guy really needs some luck.

Just remember, grasshopper, it is the journey, not the destination.

Oh absolutely. I'm all about journeys & road trips, still though. It could be that Bjorn got attacked so many times as he was traveling that he lost track of where he should have been heading, ha ha ha.


Sundas, late afternoon, Sun's Dusk 2

Days Passed: 77
Days Jailed: 8

Eastmarch Bounty: 1,540

Bjorn arrives to the Windhelm area, and once again the guards get into his face: "Yoo have committed crimes against Skyreem, what say you in your defense?" And once again, he chooses not to go to jail, which pisses the entire group of guards who'd come after him, maybe 6 guards in total.

I mean, so far in this one day, Sun's Dusk 2, he's already been confronted by a Bounty Hunter (for accidentally killing that man back in The Reach), and then the entire mod-added hamlet of Vernim Wood!

He really wanted to just relax in Windhelm and craft some of the furs he'd picked up along the way, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen now. Sigh. Well, it's not like he has to stop in Windhelm. Winterhold is his full destination. He wasn't ready to get pulled over though. Dang!

Great story - I had always hoped that Mycharonna will one day rise from the...well, that she'll just 'rise' because she can't rise from the dead obviously. Is that the end or can we expect more from Mych?



Thanks, that's kind to hear. I'm back now...well sort of, I won't be very active, but I'll be here every now and then. I still have to cope with some life issues but there'll be time for visiting Chorrol too.

Renee, no rest for the Bounty Boy in Windhelm.

Lopov, very nice to see you! Best wishes to you and I hope things improve. You always have a group of friends here.

Lopov: That is the last "main" update for Mycharonna. She will occasionally post some of her weird poetry from time to time, perhaps.

I did roll a nu t00n by the way, his name is Sir Vyvoor. He is my main Nord Dovahkiin guy, my first true Dragonborn. I will eventually post some shortie updates about his life. He's really imm .... imm.... you know.

Acadian: Yeah totally. The guy's a real troublemaker. Fun to RP though, my gosh.


Tirdas, mid-day, 4th of Sun's Dusk

Bjorn spent all day walking around Winterhold and the College, looking for Enthir. Quite a difficult man to find. At some point, he got the idea to try looking beneath the Frozen Hearth, in its cellar area. And lo, there was Enthir, along with Karliah, the Thieves Guild woman who "saved" Bjorn from Mercer Frey.

Bjorn finally got to hand Enthir Gallus' Encoded Journal, along with the rubbing full of Dwemer translations from Skyrim's version of the Rosetta Stone. Enthir was then able to translate the journal. A lot of what he discovered went right over Bjorn's head (and over mine too!), but at least the Hard Answers quest moved forward.

Bjorn then had a chat with Karliah, who suggested they head toward Riften before Mercer "could do any more damage to the guild," and then she tried to explain a bunch of things about her role in all of this, but all Bjorn could say was "Uh-huh." "Uh-huh." "Got it." And so on. He's a bit of an oaf, not entirely aware of what his role is supposed to be in all of this. He's just playing along, looking for gold, and more gold.

Karliah told Bjorn to meet her in Riften at The Ragged Flagon, and this time, if she's not immediately to be found, he'll be sure to check for any hidden cellar areas!

Ghenghiz Cohen and his Temple Dancer side-kick Fuzz went to clear Treva's Watch, and on the way back to Riften decided to hit Faldar's Tooth as well. Just as they got there a dragon joined them, and attacked the old fort at the same time. But it soon got bored and went off to the nearby Heartwood Mill instead. They followed, and killed the dragon, but not before it got Grosta and the guard.

So Ghenghiz has adopted Gralnach, and he's living at Breezehome with Lydia.

---

Since Lydia is stuck at home, I've added an extra barbarian item to his game: each female housecarl, and any nubile young woman he does a quest for, is now pregnant when the quest is completed. Lydia, and Iona, Ysolda and Sylgja so far, and he has his eye on Saadia, Elisif, Areana, Illia, and a few more. All of which means I have to mod the outfits, before he can do the quests. It's a good thing there are men and older women as well. Married women like Adrienne the smith get a pass, but since Rhiada and Seren are supposed to be already expecting, they may get an updated appearance while I'm doing it.

There's already a mod or two for this, but I don't like most of the outfits, as they look uncomfortable, or unworkable (they'd fall off, in some cases). So I'm making my own, and might release the resources at the end.

Getting further into the Discworld stuff, and contemplating a game played as Nijel the Destroyer, with Conina the Hairdresser doing all the fighting for him. She is described as blonde, tanned, and with the fighting skills of her Barbarian father, and the looks of her Temple Dancer mother. She wears a lace dress with puffed sleeves.

So far, I've made her dress, and I'm working on Nijel next - he needs some weight 100 armor on a weight 0 body to look right. Rincewind will be harder to create, needing all-new stuff.

Conina1
Conina2
Conina and Belethor

Renee - Gosh, afore ye know it, Bjorn2B will be the Thieves Guildmaster!

Ghastley - Conina the Hairdresser!

MY GOSH THAT IS GORGEOUS, ghastley. Sorry for the all-caps, but WOW.

Seriously, I want that one. Will you put it up at Nexus?

Another quick screenshot: I'm playing as Nijel the Destroyer, with Conina as follower.

He's basically just blocking while she does the killing. He doesn't want to swing his sword in case he hits her, because he's not very good at it.

Nijel and Conina.

She, on the other hand has been given full Barbarian perk, plus Devastating Blow, and is currently 4 levels higher than he is. She starts at 6 and he's still only at 2.

And Cohen the Barbarian has completed Saadia's quest.

Lol. Looks like Sadia had a visit from Clark a few months ago.

A lot depends on my current game. It may spin off a Nijel/Conina mod, or I may just do the dress as a resource for others to use. Also, the bone-weighting isn't quite right yet, and there's a bit of clipping with the calves.

Also considering replacing the headless horseman with DEATH on Binky.

Pfft, I don't care if there's clipping. I want it if it becomes available.

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

Evening, Middas, Sun's Dusk 5

Days Passed: 80

Level: 18

Health: 292
Magicka: 102
Stamina: 190

Bjorn stops at Fort Kastav to repair his gear (3 hours) but then stops for the night in Helarchen Creek.

Just to familiarize everyone, this is the place in which his horse got into some sort of brawl with the entire town, causing Bjorn to flee several weeks earlier! Luckily, nothing crazy like this happens this time. It's always hard to predict how people will react to my bandit/thief.

Here is the file I'm working with. The dress is only at weight 100, as it's only for her so far. The esp contains the NPC as well, so you can "player.placeatme xx000D62" to get a companion to check out. Otherwise "help Conina" will get the ID of her dress if it fits your character.

Awesome, thanks ghastley.

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

Afternoon, Turdas, Sun's Dusk 6

Somewhat foggy day, but with a lack of rain. Bjorn stopped at one of his favorite places, Valtheim Towers. There was a huge fight here, and a group of Adventurers (added by the Adventurers and Travelers mod) tried to take my Bjorn down!

This pleased me quite a lot, and I'm glad I found & added this mod to his game. Dang. Shoulda taken some pictures.


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Mid-afternoon, Loredas, Sun's Dusk 8

Days Passed: 83

A rare sunny day in Riften (there you go). Bjorn returns here without any trouble, repairs all his gear, and makes a killing selling a bunch of loot. Not just to Brand-Shei, but also to the Khajiit caravan just outside of town, and he has to go here because Brand-Shei quickly dispenses all 757 gold he's got to buy stuff with. Waiting for him to restock can take forever.

Bjorn ascended to Level 19! I gave him the Barbarian 3/5 perk (2-handed) and +3 Endurance, +2 Agility, and +2 Personality.

So I'm back in Skyrim with Lissa and it's so fun. A spell from the future plucked her from her time in TES4 and she woke up in Skyrim 200 years I to the future! She ended up at the border and was picked up by Empire soldiers and taken to Helgen.

She's already progresses through the MQ. Turns out she was plucked out of her time as she is the last dragonborn and as she would have no heir, who everver brought her to the future knew she was needed. She came to this conclusion also.

After defeating alduin she expected to return to her time... but alas she remained in Skyrim.

After travelling and doing the odd do-gooder quest, she heard about the Dawnguard returning. She knew they were vampire hunters... and she loathes vampires (her father was killed by one).

She is now progressing through that storyline and almost finished.

I think after this, depending if it gets activated, she might do the Dragon born questline.

Sweet, I am glad to see Lissa again. Where do you go during your long absences from Chorrol, Rihanae?

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Morndas, late at night, Sun's Dusk 10

Bjorn spent most of this day being lazy around Riften, because it was another sunny day ha ha. One thing he did (on a more productive note) was he managed to find Maven Black-Briar, and actually he spent a couple hours searching for her, but later on while he was having supper at The Bee and Barb, Maven casually pulled up a seat at his very table (I was amazed...this part of the quest is optional, so if we didn't find Maven, we would have dropped this part).

Bjorn spoke to her about this guy named "Vald", who is supposed to live in Mercer Frey's estate 24/7. There is an option to just beat Vald up and get him out of the way, but an alternative to this would be to "pay Vald's debt to Maven." Doing this will cause Vald not to attack us (I'm assuming) but honestly Bjorn doesn't care about paying the guy's debt. He only wanted to talk to Maven so he could get as much information as possible.

Left Riften at about midnight and headed for Fort Greenwall for a good night's rest. Big day tomorrow.

Bjorn spent most of his gold during this session, taking lockpicking lessons from Vex. This was sorely needed. Because of the mod I use, he has only been able to pick Novice locks so far. Now he'll be able to go for Apprentice

Work 😂 I work in the healthcare industry which means long days and not a lot of downtime. But since I've got my PS4 I've been able to play again.

I love your character. I think I've gone through the thieves guild questline once, but I didn't enjoy it very much TBH. I felt it deviated from theiving quite a bit so I lost interest.. . But I'm glad you're enjoying it!

Lissa is currently doing the dragonborn questline. After the main quest I wanted to avoid doing any more 'main' questline... but Lissa couldn't ignore the events that take you into the Dragonborn questline. We are enjoying it though.

Wow, long hours as a medical person, yikes! Well that's good to know because sometimes I wonder where people go.

Bjorn update now. I think I have a half-dozen of these left. And yes, you are right Rihanae...the Thieves Guild does require somebody who is not a pure thief; they also have to be somewhat of a tough guy, a ruffian, a rogue. Once you're in the guild (and the bullying parts are done), you can then concentrate on being a thief-only, if this is what you want to do. There are thieving quests and "sneaky manipulative"-type quests. Bjorn sucks as a thief, so he tends to concentrate on the latter. He also is doing the main TG quest too.

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Tirdas, mid-afternoon, 11th of Sun's Dusk



Another sunny day in Riften. Seriously, I'm not kidding.

Bjorn found himself too impatient to deal with finding the secret, magical quill spoken of by Maven Black-Briar. This quill is supposed to be underwater somewhere, in Lake Honrich. As much as Bjorn loves to swim & dive, and the idea of spending the entire day swimming in warm water (for a change) is tempting. But he's too impatient to deal with helping Maven. In fact, it only takes an hour or so for him to find Riftweald Manor, the place Mercer Frey had been calling his home.

Outside of this manor though was Vald, the guy hired by Mercer to protect the place. On sight, Vald immediately began to attack Bjorn...

"Never should have come here!"

"Ooh a fight!"

But it did not last long. In fact, it only took a few head-butts from Bjorn to bring the guy down.

Riftweald Manor had a door located nearby, but this door appeared to be barred from the other side. He walked all around the place and even swam in Riften's water down below, in an effort to find a secret door. Luckily, he also remembered his notes, in which Brynjolf told him there's supposed to be some sort of mechanism Bjorn could "shoot", to lower some sort of ramp. After inspecting the rear of Riftweald Manor again, Bjorn could clearly see this ramp.

Just one arrow was all it took. Mercer wasn't in there, but from the sound of it, several other dudes were. From the sound of it though, all these 'other dudes' were also in the Bandit Faction, for they were all talking about "pulling that ace out of my boot", and wondering "which college he meant". Normally all these guys would be attacking Bjorn, but it's almost like they already know who he is, and left him alone as he searched the place.

He managed to find a wardrobe with a suspicious-looking inner panel, and it turns out this panel led into a sub-cellar down below, full of Mercer's treasure, a few books & notes, and a map which looked as though it might give a hint as to where Mercer had gone to. This map was difficult to decipher for Bjorn though, so he brought it back to the Ratway for Brynjolf to get a look at.

"Shor's beard, he's going for the Eyes of the Falmer? That was Gallus's project. If he gets his hands on that you can bet he'll be set up for good. Set up for life," Brynjolf replied.

There was some discussion between Karliah and Brynjolf then, after which is was decided to meet near "The Standing Stone," but Karliah is so soft-spoken that it was impossible to know where the heck she meant.

Time to cheat a little, I guess. Turns out, this stone is located directly south of Riften, so that should be easy.

But Bjorn was tired by this point, after hours of skulking around, trying to find secret doors and dealing with traps. Time for some deep sleep. Good thing Bjorn has his own bed down here, this way he won't have to walk all the way back to Fort Greenwall.

So my brother brought home a copy of skyrim special edition a couple of weeks ago and I finally got a whole weekend of no work or anything so I started a new character and, well, I'm hooked again.

So I'm rolling with a nord bard/cyromancer/necromancer named Eldys. I'll hopefully upload a few pics of her soon. Anyways, her adventure started in Falkreath (thanks to live another life), where she had recently arrived from Cyrodil. Since then she's been very busy, completing quests to revive the Gildergreen in Whiterun and retrieving the 'legendary' white phial for a grumpy old alchemist in Windhelm. Along the way she performed at every tavern she passed, and continued to grow her magical talents. Being a cryomancer in skyrim kinda sucks, as practically everything seems to have some kind of frost resistance so combat has been a struggle, but its been a blast regardless.

She's recently joined up with the College of Winterhold and, in keeping with the College's policy of independent research, has raised herself a permanent skeleton minion (added by the ordinator perks mod, which really helps make necromancy more viable). After proving herself to the College with this experiment, and her help in retrieving a rare book for Urag, she's been invited to participate in the research at Saarthal. Some interesting discoveries were made, although Eldys herself was less interested in the giant magical orb with absolutely no lore or context surrounding it and more intrigued by the strange amulet she recovered from a draugr, which seems to have some connection to the legends of the archmage Gauldr she's read about. Perhaps a new quest....

--

Anyway, its been fun catching up on all your adventures in Skyrim, and I'm glad to be back playing. The limited access to mods for console has really increased my enjoyment of the game, making it feel like a genuinely updated and improved version of Skyrim, and not just a next-gen port. I think I'm gonna have a heap of fun with Eldys' adventure

Glad to have you back, Vital. Sounds like you're really getting into it, after being away for so long. I know the feeling. Are you on Xbox or PC? .. I know the Playstation can't handle Live Another Life, unfortunately.

Renee, nice to see B2BW still skulksmashing his way around Skyrim.

Vital, welcome back to you and welcome to Eldys.

Cheers for the welcome back guys

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Middas, 10th of Heartfire, 4e 201

A dreadful shriek pierced the silence of the ancient chamber. More Draugr. Eldys tucked the ivory claw into her pack and refocused. A cool pulse of magicka ran down her forearm as she painted a rune onto the wooden bridge ahead. The pair of axe wielding undead charged dutifully into her trap, triggering an explosion of frost which sent the first flying into the lower levels of the room and left the second weakened, stumbling, and easily dispatched by a thrust of Eldys’ sword.

With the danger gone the young Nord paused for a moment. Her legs felt heavy from the journey behind her. Acting only on the rumours inscribed within a single chapter of the book 'Lost Legends, Eldys had travelled across half of Skyrim to uncover Folgunthur. Within she hoped to uncover the final resting place of Mikrul Gauldurson and retrieve his fragment of the fabled ‘Gauldur Amulet’.

This had taken her several days. For the dead dunmer from whom she had retrieved the ivory claw — the key to this ancient tomb — the Gauldur legend had been an obsession of eighty years. A life’s work now in the hands of another, more capable and perhaps more fortunate adventurer. Eldys looked back to the corpse of the old fool. She mustered just enough pity to return the amethyst encrusted ring she pried of his fingers a few moments ago before she pushed on.

As she moved deeper and deeper into the barrow, Eldys could feel the fragment hung around her neck begin to pulse. A network of passages blurred into one as she forged ahead. Caution subsided as the lure of ancient power took hold of her. The undead guardians of the tomb fell easily to her combination of magic and blade and the skeletal minion which sured up her rear saw little action as Eldys moved swiftly through the ruins.

Arriving in the hall of stories, Eldys took a brief pause to admire the intricate handicraft of her ancestors. Using the ivory claw she opened the door at the end of the chamber to reveal the final crypt; a tremendous chamber seemingly walled not by stone but by shadows. In its centre lay a single sarcophagus on an elevated platform. Hanging above it were two immense braziers adorned by roaring flames.

Eldys released an of orb pale light which surged forward to reveal a score of draugr amongst the darkness. As her frost atronach charged ahead the ground shook. Debris fell from the ceiling as Mikrul Gauldurson emerged. Beneath a menacing blue stare, Mikrul’s fragment of the amulet glowed fiercely on his neck. Eldys gripped her sword firmly, and gathered a ball of chilling magicka in her other hand.

The amulet would be hers.

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

Excuse my poor writing, just an attempt to breath some life into Eldys adventures. So she did successfully retrieved the second fragment of the Gauldur amulet in Folgunthur. From there she travelled back to the College, opting to pass through the Pale. This turned out to be quite a difficult journey, involving numerous stops along the way to fight off the cold. She almost froze to death about halfway there but luckily stumbled across an encampment of imperial soldiers who let her share their fire after she performed a rather unenthusiastic rendition of 'The Age of Agression' for them. Later she took shelter at Frostflow Lighthouse, where she cleared out a nest of chaurus. She did eventually make it back to the college, where is she is spending a few days to rest up and do some study (aka buy some new spells), before she sets out for more adventure.

Heh ha, that's not poor writing, Vital, that is very detailed writing. You're getting into your character's story, that's all. I can show you some examples of poor writing if you'd like!

I keep going back to the Frostfall thing. Because the base mod is waaaay too harsh, imo. I figure even the worst of Skyrim's weather is just below freezing, otherwise how would bandits and guards be able to walk around so casually in it all day? So I don't feel bad turning on FF's Lite setting, and dialing those settings even easier.

Well anyway, here is the continuation of a Nord man's tale who barely, if ever, feels the cold. Last we saw, he was doing some quest for the Thieves Guild. I remember it was rather extensive, though the details have slipped my mind a bit, since I wrote this probably back in January.




Turdas, mid-morning, Sun's Dusk 13

Days Passed: 88

Bjorn awoke after 11 hours of sleep, and headed to the Ragged Flagon for breakfast: salted meat, a carrot, and some Honningbrew Mead. Yuck.

He quickly found Tonilia though, the main merchant down here. Bjorn has never been wowed by shiny gems & trinkets, so he sold most of the loot he'd found from Mercer's place. Ironically, some of this loot (or all of it) was probably Thieves Guild property in the first place. Either way, Bjorn woke up that morning nearly broke, but left the Ratway with just over 1,500 gold.

Karliah and the Standing Stone were easy to find, and now that she and Brynjolf are both outside (rather than down in the noisy Ratway Cistern) everything she said can now be heard. ha ha. * I have never heard such a soft-spoken NPC before! Anyway, she explained that the cave nearby the Standing Stone is actually the Nightingale headquarters, and the place is heavily associated with the daedric goddess Nocturnal.

Just before going in the "Nightingale Hall," Bjorn turned to speak to Brynjolf, who explained "I'm just as puzzled as you are, lad."

Once inside, Karliah explained that she wanted Bjorn to don some Nightingale armor, meaning that he'd have to remove the magical Armor of the Squire he'd been wearing the entire time he's been in Riften. Well, this might be okay. This armor is just magical hide, and was beginning to stink after several days of running around Riften.

But Bjorn was also concerned about 'playing with the Gods". Although aligned with evil, he'd never had the desire to follow any of the daedra. Such things are just not what he aspires toward. But Karliah explained that Bjorn putting this armor on would be nothing more than a "business transaction", and that in the future, Bjorn would have the potential to become wealthy.

Well that's all he needs to hear. More gold? Pass the coinpurse, please. ... He throws aside his magical hide armor, and follows Karliah and Brynjolf once again.

Bjorn felt silly wearing this armor though, like some sort of evil sissy mage. But Karliah would not speak to Bjorn any further until he donned it all. She explained that to "defeat Mercer, we must have Nocturnal at our back." Brynjolf seemed doubtful, but at this point, both he and Bjorn agreed that getting rid of Mercer Frey would only be a good thing.



After Nocturnal spoke to Karliah from the planes of the Daedra, Karliah explained that she has two new initiates to complete the 'Trinity'. Finally. Nocturnal was displeased about this, but in the end allowed the Nightingale trio to flourish. Now everybody is supposed to go to a placed called Irkngthand, a vast dwarven ruin, where they hope to stop Mercer Frey from "stealing the Eyes, and escaping from Skyrim with Nocturnal's Skeleton Key.

Finally, Brynjolf spoke to Bjorn just as the trio was about to leave the Nightingale cave, and told him that there's a chance Bjorn will become the next leader of the guild. Bjorn tried to turn this down, but Brynjolf wouldn't hear his protests.

A perpetual litterbug, Bjorn finished his business in Nightngale Hall by drinking some Nord Mead, and dropping the empty bottle right on the ground where Nocturnal spoke. Road Trip #1,043, here we come!

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Bjorn wearing some "sissy" Nightingale armor

Bjorn, Brynjolf, and Karlilah

Finally Bjorn can't stand it. As soon as the meeting with Nocturnal is over, he removes his Nightingale helmet! I'm not sure if he kept it, or simply dropped it on-the-spot. Probably the latter.

Ha, thanks Renee. The more storytelling oriented updates that the likes of yourself, Lopov, etc do, as well as the stuff on the fan-fic subforum have definitely inspired me to try some writing like this. As for frostfall, I am beginning to find it a little excessive, especially as the cold only seems to punish you and not any of the NPCs, so have already given all Eldys' armour 'excellent' coverage and warmth ratings.

It's been a while since I've done the TG quest, but I seem to remember it as one of my fav Skyrim quest lines, although this is a very different TG from that of Oblivion. I think the Nightingale armour is quite cool! Although I can see why Bjorn may feel a little dorky in it - it's seems more suited for a slender figure, rather than a bulky Nordic build.

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I have some updates on Eldys' story to catch up on which hopefully I can post in the next couple of days, although my attention has been diverted by a few other projects

I'm never sure with a lot of the quest lines, if there wasn't a deliberate attempt to make them greyer than usual. Things like there being no clear choice between Stormcloaks and Legion. The Thieves Guild questline is full of that. Are you saving it from Mercer, and Maven, and were those two even on the same side? Is Nocturnal testing you with the ritual stuff, and are you supposed to rebel at least a bit?

I tend to play TG as a continuation of Oblivion's in the sense that Nocturnal is basically well-intentioned, but her methods are highly suspect.

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I've been test-playing my own Conina mod, but the Nijel the Destroyer and Rincewind player characters are deviating badly from their archetypes. Both are become quite competent without Conina's help!

That'd be cool if you can post some more, Vital. I am not playing Skyrim until September or October, yet I have a few more Bjorns I can share over the summer.

Yes, Thieves Guild is supposed to be grayer. For sure, both Bjorn and I were confused about who was doing what to whom during the main parts of the questline.

Unlike the Oblivion TG, in my opinion Skyrim's version really does demand that the player-character be a specific type of guy or gal who is more of a rogue than a straight-up thief. I had a spellsword a few years ago who was mildly evil for instance, and he was looking forward to doing some sneaky/thievery kind of stuff, but the shopkeeper bullying totally turned him off. He couldn't do it. Of course, with Bjorn, he has no problem bullying people around; it's a good thing somebody made a Be a Highwayman mod for him, so he can bully people on the road, too!

Morndas, Sun's Dusk 17, late afternoon.

Days Passed: 92

Current Quest: Blightsighted

After three days of lollygagging, traveling slowly from Riften to Nightgale Inn (and staying at two different bandit locations: Fort Valtheim and Silent Moons Camp along the way), Bjorn finally got deep enough into Irkngthand to find Karliah and Brynjolf, but before he found these two, he was glad he still had his Staff of Flame Atronach. As a man who can't even cast his own healing spell, having this magical staff could be a life-saver at times. By the time he found his friends though, he was getting tired, especially after fighting several dwarven spiders and spheres.

Bjorn told the others to "stay where you are", while he headed back to an earlier part of the ruins where he saw some bedrolls. After sleeping for 6 hours and having some goat-meat and ale, he was ready for action again.

I don't think I've ever gone back and slept in a dungeon. I've left completely and camped outside, but that's a bit different.

I rolled up a new Dremora babe to play through building my Hearthfires tower as a hand-to-hand specialist. I discovered that the mod treats her as an archer, as she doesn't use magic much, and her one- and two-handed skills don't advance using her fists. That gives her a melee housecarl at present. I may artificially tweak her stats to make it an archer instead.

I'm also trying to create Smurfette, just because. Blue skin, blond hair, and a garden gnome hat. The hat's the hard part, as nothing in the game looks similar.

Dee Dee the Dremora has just made her spiked gauntlets, and taken some training to reach the Fists of Steel perk in Heavy Armour. That gets her extra damage to pile onto the Brawler ability, and the mage armour boost to hand-to-hand. She bought the gloves from Belethor that have the Fortify H2H enchantment, but doesn't have the Enchant skill to make much use of it.

It all depends which character of course, but most of mine have no problem sleeping in dungeons. As long as they get cleared first, of course. I've had some characters who are sort of germ-phobic (meaning they don't want to sleep in some crummy bedroll) but Bjorn has no sort of problem like this. From what I remember of this dwarven ruin he is in, it also wasn't so bad of a place. Clean, lots of metal everywhere. Warm, even, from what I remember.

I wanna see Smurfette and your new dremora gal!

Smufette is ready for her close-up, but Dee Dee isn't showing until she's made her Daedric outfit. It wouldn't be proper to wear anything else!

Smurfette in Solitude

She's child-sized and proportioned to about six heads tall, instead of the usual eight. She wears Spiked Brawlers and iron boots, as she's using the Unarmed Helper mod, which expands on the Fist of Steel perk from Heavy Armour, and boosts it with help from Mage Armour spells, and enchanting tweaks.

She's already punched two dragons to death, (not Murmulnir, she needed to use a bow for him) and reached level 17.

Whoa, holy [censored], she really is a smurf ... ette! That is amazing.

Smurfette!

She looks like she's feeling kind of blue...

SubRosa: ... and it's Chorrol Blue!

She's taking over my game. Since getting the Fists of Steel perk, she can stop wearing the clunky boots, so she wanted new shoes. She's also learned Enchanting so she can add Fortify Unarmored on a few things.

Then she started throwing the Orcs at Bilegulch Mine around. Orc1 Orc2 Orc3

Then, after clearing the nearby Cracked Tusk Keep, Roadside Ruins, Falkreath Watchtower, and Evergreen Grove, she pointed to a location where she wanted me to build her a house.

You don't argue with Smurfette.

Smurfette's house

Smurfy interior - there's an anvil next to the fire, and the shelves are becoming bookshelves.

If I can find suitable intermediate stages for growing the house, it may become a Hearthfires mod later. I reduced the height of several items of furniture, so it suited Smurfette, but may not work for full-sized players, so maybe not. I still have ground meshes to do for the hat, dress, and her shoes (which are just barkeeper's re-textured), so she can have spares lying around at the house.

Smurferific!

Holy [censored], Batman. Seriously, Smurfette's home is fantastic. It actually fits the game too, it's not too cartoony. I don't know if I could play a smurf, but you should put her home up on Nexus. Or somewhere.

Alright, last we saw, Bjorn was about to plunder into one of Skyrim's Dwemer ruins, in continuation of the Thieves Guild main quest.

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Fredas, Sun's Dusk 21, early morning

Needing supplies, Bjorn took several days traveling back to Whiterun and Riverwood, buying as many healing potions as he could, along with plenty of food & drink, and a few "resist" potions as well. He's never been much of a dungeon-diver, and was surprised to find that those dang falmer were tough to deal with. Bjorn Tubewyyld may not be the brightest, but he's heard enough tales about dungeoneering from all his bandit buddies (who mention the adventures of Lord Haaf-Mersey, Claire Voyance, Lucius Caro, Thor a'Zaene, and many others) and one thing they often iterate is it's not good to go underground while underprepared.

OH.... and a torch. It is DARK in Irkngthand, really dark. Bjorn went into the place initially with just one torch, which can't possibly last very long. He actually forgot to buy a torch on his supply-run. Good thing he was able to take one from a fallen corpse right near Nightgate Inn. He bullied another torch from a male traveller (he don't bully females, usually).

Good to go.

Back underground, Karliah and Brynjolf were still there. They'd apparently managed to keep themselves amused for the past 5 days (ahem).

At one point the three of them got attacked by several falmer at once, and Karliah went missing. The fight was quick and brutal, big bad Bjorn needed to step back and gulp more healing potions than he would have liked. Afterwards, Karliah was nowhere to be found. Bjorn and Brynjolf thought she'd been killed, but then later on there she was, on top of a rather inaccessible platform. She'd gotten stuck up there.

Another neat feature was a hand-painted sign which was written backwards. It says this if we flip it around




Took Bjorn and Brynjolf a few to decipher this.

Yay, more B2BW!

Somehow, crafting his own potions or, for that matter, deciphering puzzles (like Mercer's sign) don't seem to be among Bjorn's stronger points.

Thank you Acadian, and anyone else out there following Blundering Bjorn. I believe this was the last update I wrote for him, too.

Bjorn actually did not make it, but I don't remember exactly what happened to him, poor guy. Anyway, when I begin my Skyrim Season again this fall, chances are I'll have a brand-new character try to do Thieves Guild all over again. And I also have the guy I rolled last February (Sir Vyvoor) who will FINALLY be my guy who does the Main Quest.

So yeah, poor Bjorn. I have a bunch of pictures to publish of him, a lot of real goodies; they will be up some time this week, hopefully.



Just after midnight, Sun's Dusk 23

Days Passed: 98

The final showdown against Mercer was brief and relatively painless, in comparison to some of the falmer faced along the way. Bjorn began using his Staff of Flame Atronach several hours before, meaning that the party of three would suddenly increase to four. Another advantage of conjuring this atronach was that it could see in the dark. Bjorn noticed it would always seem to know where enemies where hidden, and all Bjorn would then have to do would be to follow wherever the atronach was sending its fireballs.

All of this made killing Mercer Frey a piece of cake. By now, Bjorn had become entirely convinced this man was the real bad guy. Odd how he'd spent so much time not seeing things for how they clearly are.

After the death of Mercer, the chamber where he'd been located began filling with water. Bjorn is a good swimmer, but even the best can't hold their breath forever.

I was seriously thinking this would be it. His game is dead-is-dead. I thought he'd be done for. He swam all over the place as the water rose, eventually panicking. I thought he was done for (seriously, I would have moved on from his game).

But then an odd thing happened. I've got this mod that makes eating, sleeping, and drinking a necessity, but if one of mine drinks some salt water (or water that's not entirely clean) then they'll start choking. This involves an animation that removes control of the player entirely, while the character stands there coughing into his/her fist. Well, I pressed the "activate" button on my controller at some point, and this meant Bjorn tried to drink some water, but began choking on it.

Oddly, during this choking part, the camera tilted upward, and I could see an opening leading out of the top of Irkngthand Sanctuary. Ha! He swam upward, and wound up in a small cave called Bronze Water Cave. So ironically, it was this 'bronze water' which saved Bjorn Tubewyyld's life!

He emerged with the Skeleton Key, and also both "Eyes of the Falmer", a couple of highly-valuable gemstones which Mercer had been trying to steal from this giant falmer statue, in that final chamber.

After getting into Bronze Water Cave, Karliah told Bjorn that she wouldn't be traveling with him anymore, and then she gave him her Nightingle Bow. She had disappointed Nocturnal overall, and felt she shouldn't travel with the group because of this. Bjorn was a little miffed about this; he doesn't care at all what the Gods think. Brynjolf also told Bjorn he'd be "staying behind" with Karliah, and that he'd see Bjorn later in the guild.

Mmm hmm.... I see what those two will be up to.

Meanwhile... Skeleton Key? ....Can this mean? ...

IIRC you mentioned a while ago that in the end he was overpowered by Falmer.

R.I.P. Bjorn.

Good Night, Sweet Bjorn. Well, maybe not sweet. In fact, I am sure the rest of Skyrim will breathe a little easier knowing that he is no longer around to rob them!

BTBW had a pretty good run, Renee!

Thanks for your kind words. Well, certainly my lady (it'll be a lady) who joins Thieves Guild is going to be much more of a thief than Bjorn was, and also she'll use spells and be much more of a dungeoneer, which should help her from getting pwned in underground places. She won't be a bully like Bjorn was, which means it might be tricky when she's supposed to bully shopkeepers as she joins the TG. But she'll have a high Speech skill, and from what I understand, it is possible to get around the bulying if we can talk our way through.

Weird. My new laptop did not underline the "word" pwn with red ink. Guess this means it's a real, accepted word now.

Anyway, I am thinking my Skyrim Season this fall will include this lady who joins TG, and I think her name is going to be Laprima Donna, which is the name of a nail salon near where I live. For some reason, I think this name will fit my nu th13v!ng t00n, because she's going to be a bit of a prima donna, a well-dressed diva who changes into dark clothes when the lights go out.

I will also begin Sir Vyvoor's tale, and maybe one other character...although I think I'll be busy enough with just LPD and SV.

It is September 2nd, 2017, and I've decided I will begin my 'Skyrim Season' today. I'm not actually playing yet, but I will begin posting the updates I've written for my guy who will do the Main Quest. I typed all of this a few months ago, and I have no idea what I wrote at all, which is kinda neat.



Turdas, late afternoon, Last Seed 21

Days Passed: 4

Sir Vyvoor's first four days back in Skyrim start off chaotic, but end with some form of normalcy. As a Nord, he'd initially been coming back to Skyrim with the Imperials. Like many other young Nord males living in Cyrodiil, he had initially been part of the Imperials, though this did not necessarily mean he thought any less of Skyrim's Stormcloaks. The actual beginning of war though began to change all of this.

It happened one night. One of the soldiers in the regiment of Vyvoor had been traveling with had accused Vyvoor of being some sort of traitor, and a spy. His regiment's leader was skeptical, but wanted to hear more. Everything that soldier had been saying was making sense, thought the leader. To absolve himself of 'guilt', Sir Vyvoor would need to stand in front of a cutting board, while a knife was thrown at his head. The thrower of the knife was an expert who could easily manage not to hit Vyvoor, but if Vyvoor flinched, that was proof of his guilt.

Vyvoor flinched, according to his regiment's leader. And everything changed. Within seconds, he'd found himself tied up, and hauled onto a cartful of prisoners, one of them very famous. One of them the most famous, perhaps.

Things got really chaotic once they'd reached Helgen, where Vyvoor and a other prisoners managed to escape. Vyvoor himself had managed to make it into a small village called Riverwood, where a calm had come over him, after days of fear. Here in Riverwood, living day to day, he'd merely been trying to earn a few coins so he could rent a room (because Hod and Gerdur the hosts who'd offered to put him up, was already quite cramped). Vyvoor knew a few things about the forge, and eventually managed to craft his own armor. He also chopped wood, did some hunting (to get some leather for free), and some local exploring. Though he'd lived in Skyrim before, he hadn't been here since he was a child. Much of it would be new to him, again.

When he encountered bandits or other scum, he would merely heed their warnings to "back off." Though Vyvoor can fight, he's also not the type who goes around looking for trouble. Even though the bandits he'd come across are "bad people," raiding their hideouts, looting their possessions, would be just as bad as if they'd come to Riverwood, to raid and loot the citizens who live there.

Such are some of the early philosophies of Sir Vyvoor.

A nicely thought out beginning for Sir Vyvoor that explains how he finds himself in Riverwood and not a friend of the Legion. I'm guessing that, at least for the moment, his is a dragon-free game?