No time for an intro, there’s a lot to cover, let’s get into it!
I LOVE LYDIA
She's um... not the smiling type. Here she is when we first meet her... |
Lydia, the housecarl that introduces the concept to the player, belongs in the second category. She participates in battles, stands by your side (and sometimes in your way, damn doorframes), and will gladly use most equipment you give her, even if it’s just your hand-me-downs. She has been my most trusted ally for pretty much the entire duration of the game, barring the start and a few quests here and there where followers can’t… er… follow.
I started the game as a one-handed specialist who sparingly used spells, so she was the one handling my two-handed weapons, staves and bows; she could rain down damage more efficiently than me. Additional bonus, she can only be killed by the player, so she’ll survive anything else and be back for more. (Not every follower has that bonus.) Lydia should have been the frigging Dragonborn in my place. She sure is badass enough for that. I would marry her, because the base game does allow that, but I don’t have time for romance on top of everything else… One way or another, I can’t imagine myself with another follower anytime soon. Maybe later.
BREEZEHOME SWEET HOME
On the topic of becoming owner of a home in a hold of Skyrim; chances are that the very first one you’ll get access to will be Breezehome, in Whiterun. It costs 5000 Gold to purchase – the price of other homes varies depending on the hold. Putting aside all the advantages it has, it feels good to be coming back to a place you can call home.
It even has a cooking pot! Which I never use. |
Also, Bethesda’s unfortunate reputation for glitchy games hit me in full force, as the dude in Dragonsreach who allows me to upgrade the house for a fee kept disappearing and I had to summon him back into the world every time.
Perhaps other homes in Skyrim are better. Perhaps building your own home in one of the DLCs is better. Perhaps it’s futile to remain in Whiterun. One way or another, it’s good to have a home… it’s good to be home.
THE HORN OF JURGEN WINDCALLER
*xylophoning intensifies* |
It’s one weakness with Skyrim – all dungeons fit into a handful of different categories, each with their own setting and feel. But only a handful, so after some time, you see the same type over and over. The big difference between dungeons of the same type is that some have main quests associated with them, while others contain quests of their own that you’re subjected to when you walk in – I remember stepping into a mine and immediately meeting a woman asking me to save her coworkers, when in reality she was a double-crossing treasure hunter.
Outside of a handful of exceptions, the abilities given over time in the main quest don’t really come up into the plot – Ustengrav is one such exception, as it contains a puzzle that requires the player to use the Whirlwind Sprint shout, which was learned before leaving High Hrothgar. Even then, the mission proves to be for nothing as when you reach the area of the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, the artefact the Greybeards asked you to retrieve, instead you find a note from someone who came in before you and took it away… into Riverwood? Dammit, someone stole my steal! People are so dishonest nowadays! Also, how did they do that? Did they know of a secret passageway? How else could they have gone past the puzzle that required a dragon shout?
"Yeah, I was secretly a dragon-killer all this time. So what?" |
The arrival of the Blades in the story brings up a topic not uncommon in large-scale action RPGs like this one: The coexistence of multiple groups with differing interests, and how you come to be associated with many of them throughout your journey. You now work for both the Greybeards and the Blades, who have opposite worldviews, and eventually you might find yourself having to decide who to side with… Other quests unrelated to the main quest would bring the Dragonborn to multiple other groups, even involving him in a Civil War questline. I'll talk about that again soon…
A BLADE IN THE DARK
We’ve learned from Delphine that dragons are coming back to life after centuries of being extinct, and there’s probably a reason for that. According to the stone brought to the court wizard in Whiterun, the next dragon to be awoken currently lies in Kynesgrove, east on the map. Delphine hurries there with the Dragonborn!
Or not; that's the cool thing with RPGs, you can take your sweet time and do a bunch of side-quests beforehand. Leave Delphine waiting for weeks on end before you decide to move the plot forward. She can't complain.
A scary sight awaits Nikhaolaas and Delphine in Kynesgrove: Alduin the World-Eater, awakens a dragon from its tomb. After speaking in the dragon tongue to it and the Dragonborn, Alduin leaves, leaving Nikhaolaas and Delphine to deal with Sahloknir, the beast brought back to life. Defeating the dragons allows the hero to absorb its soul and finally makes Delphine go “Oh, so you ARE the Dragonborn?” Just in case our past exploits hadn’t made that clear yet. This means that the next time he meets up with Delphine in Riverwood, she’ll have another mission for him…
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
Instead of blaming any sort of supernatural event, Delphine believes the return of dragons was orchestrated by the Thalmor. They're a shadowy, Nazi-wannabe group of elves that lives by its belief of its own racial supremacy, hoping to see the human races live beneath the various elven races walking not only Skyrim, but all of Tamriel. So yeah, they're assholes but I doubt they're the cause of the dragons' return. Nikhaolaas is a man of a few words, so he’ll begrudgingly follow along to that crazy theory until something more likely comes up.
I mean, Elenwen, representative of the Thalmor in Skyrim, looks like she just woke up from a coffin. |
You call that a party? Where's the mead and the dancing? |
And because nothing’s ever simple, when I got to that mission, I screwed it up. After finding what I needed, I got caught and had to make my way around killing dozens of guards. Man, what one wouldn’t do for a quest. Then again, it wasn’t all for naught, as I found a torture chamber and learned pretty vital information from the prisoner, and also discovered documents with important data.
What's with these big-budget AAA releases of the early 2010s having a mandatory torture-for-information scene? |
As everyone could have guessed, the Thalmor, while they indeed are hateful shits, aren’t behind the dragon attacks. Also, to Delphine’s surprise, they are seeking a man named Esbern, an ex-Blade that she believed to be dead...
A CORNERED RAT
The next part of the main quest takes us to another corner of the map: South-East! Riften, to be precise; a city famous for being built partly above water… and also for its reputation as the alleged home of the Thieves’ Guild. Easy enough to get there from Ivarstead. Getting into the town isn’t too difficult either. As for Esbern’s whereabouts, we can always ask; the towns in Skyrim often feel large, but they’re still small enough that some people know what’s up. One guy who knows about Esbern’s location will only tell Nikhaolaas after he completes a quest that might eventually lead to the Dragonborn joining the Thieves’ Guild (see, I told you that you start joining all kinds of groups after a while). The other person that knows is Keerava, the Argonian bartender at the Bee and Barb, the local inn.
"Greetings. Don't mind me, just an old man locked up in the sewers." - Esbern. |
Sure enough, we eventually find the room Esbern lives in. He will open if Nikhaolaas recites a password, or if he says he’s the Dragonborn. The old guy actually predicted the return of the dragons and sees it as a sign of the approaching end of the world – therefore, he will go back to Delphine and become a Blade again, though first he needs to gather his belonging and any critical info that needs to be kept out of enemy hands. Oh, and it also means fighting through the Ratway again. It’s almost as if said enemies were waiting for us to find Esbern before attacking!
However, once we’re out, all that’s left to do is to guide our new ally back to Riverwood.
ALDUIN’S WALL
Back in the secret basement of the Sleeping Giant Inn, Delphine welcomes her fellow Blade back. There isn’t much time to reminisce, however; with Alduin back and summoning dragons back into the world, no second can be wasted.
I can post a dozen pictures of majestic places across Skyrim; there's more than square that |
It seems that the Blades, who’ve been around for a long time, have a prophecy written into one of their ancestors’ headquarters, the Sky Haven Temple. It's a majestic place in a sector right after Karthspire Camp, a location inhabited by a group of Forsworn, nasty and aggressive people whose organization hails from the nearby city of Markarth. They may be led by a Hagraven, a powerful spellcasting creature.
Talos almighty, how many hateful groups are roaming this land?
Talos almighty, how many hateful groups are roaming this land?
You see a prophecy in this? I'd prefer to have actual text on there. |
Well! Seems simple enough. Learn that shout, beat Alduin, world saved. After this long parenthesis spent with the Blades, it might be time to reconnect with our old buddies the Greybeards; surely they know about that shout.
THE THROAT OF THE WORLD
They could teach me everything. They choose not to. |
Thanks to this, we can climb to the very top of the Throat of the World, and we meet with… a dragon? Huh. Guess it makes sense that the one to teach the way of the Voice would be one. And Paarthurnax is voiced by none other than… Charles Martinet??!?
!!!!!!
This is the awesomest casting in the history of all video gaming! The man behind the voice of my favorite video game hero – voicing an old, wise dragon! I could joke that I’ve just had a geekgasm, but it might as well be true!
I bow before the one dragon I swear not to kill, for I respect his voice far too much. |
It cannot be taught, for no one in this era knows it. However, Paarthurnax theorizes that one could learn the Shout by using one of the mighty Elder Scrolls to access the past and learn it from its original users. That’s all fine and good, but an Elder Scroll surely isn’t an easy thing to find. It’s in the damn title to this entire franchise, after all; it’s like seeking the Holy Grail. However, the wise dragon states that he doesn’t know where to find such an item. That’s alright, somebody ought to know. Thus begins the search for that knowledge, which will then send me and my follower on a quest to retrieve the tool that may allow us to defeat Alduin for good!
…In Part 3.
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