The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

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...

Before we move on to the next item on the main quest, a word on housecarls and companions. Throughout your journey, you can become Thane of any major hold you visit, by fulfilling some quests. This will often grant access to the purchase of a house in that hold, and an associated housecarl that will take care of the home, or follow you on your quest if you so wish. Other followers can be found all over the land as well – all it takes is completing tasks for people. Followers level up as they participate to your adventure, though you’re allowed only one follower, and they all stop at varying levels. As for battle prowess, they range from “Battle-useless pack mule to carry your shit” to “Would kick your ass if they were your enemy”.

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.

That's her now. Oh, how long a way we've come.

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.

I wished buying a home was that easy IRL.

It even has a cooking pot! Which I never use.

What’s to expect in a Skyrim home? A kitchen spot with chairs, some tables, possibly a second floor; a bed, saving you the trouble of paying 10 Coins to an inn; and any number of extra rooms you can afford to add over time. The most important, however, may be that a home always has a lot of chests and drawers in which you can stick all the random crap you collect throughout missions and dungeons – and trust me, you’ll be glad you have all these options for storage. If you can sort everything in an orderly manner, it’ll make things easy. The house can be upgraded several times, adding new rooms – not every house will contain every type of crafting facilities after all upgrades have been purchased, though. Breezehome, as an example, lacks what’s needed to craft weapons and armor or enchant items, but you live next door to the blacksmith and there’s an arcane enchanter in Dragonsreach. Breezehome can gain an alchemy lab, providing a close place to craft potions. That room even has a chest so you can store all of your ingredients!

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*

Nikaholaas has been tasked by the Greybeards to retrieve an item in the ruins of Ustengrav. Dangers? A handful, as usual. What, do you really expect to go around the map without meeting anything that wants to kill you? This is medieval fantasy after all. Within the ruins, more skeletons and draugr. That’s to be expected from ruins – let’s be honest, after you’ve seen a handful of places of each type, you’ve pretty much seen them all.

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?"

Back in Riverwood, we find out that the taker of the Horn is no other than Delphine, the innkeeper. She’s secretly part of a group called the Blades, who have fought the Dragons in a time long gone and are ready to fight them again now that they’re back. You’re invited to help their group, but you also get the Horn, thus allowing you to bring it back to High Hrothgar and finish the Greybeards’ quest.

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.

This dragon has just arisen?
I'mma put it down real quick.

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?

The Blade sets up an elaborate infiltration plot in which the Dragonborn will be tasked with distracting guests at a party, in order to sneak around and find relevant information that will support – or not – that theory. It involves meeting another inside man in Solitude, lending that man any equipment the hero needs to smuggle inside, and then going in wearing upper-class clothes. Heck, going to Solitude is a trip by itself, being located close to the north-western corner of the map.

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.

Esbern is in the Ratway, a daedalus under the city. It’s pretty easy to get lost in there – but to be fair, that can be said of most dungeons. What is to be found here? Mostly lowlifes and bandits, but also a handful of Thalmor soldiers. Nothing a prepared hero can’t fight.

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

Well, alright, you say that, Esbern, but I can still decide to go on half a dozen side-quests before coming back here, waste 10 hours of time (and who knows how many days in the world of Skyrim) before coming back. There’s only ever so much a hurry as I decide there is.

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?

You see a prophecy in this?
I'd prefer to have actual text on there.

The dungeon that leads to the Temple is much simpler, though it still has a few tricks to be wary of. Still, it should take no time for a heroic adventurer like Nikhaolaas to get through it and reach the temple, which is then opened by the two Blades, who were following just behind. And, lo and behold, among the wall carvings inside the Temple there’s a prophecy. You can’t walk five steps in this world without walking on a prophecy lying around, I swear. That stuff is like dog poop on the sidewalk. The carvings speak of the great dragon war between the ancient Dragon Cult (which worshipped dragons) and Nords of the time, who were capable of dragon shouts. They defeated Alduin using a special shout. The prophecy ends stating that Alduin may return, and that said return will coincide with the discovery of the last Dragonborn.

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.

Remember what I said in Part 1 regarding the tallest mountain in Skyrim? We didn’t quite get to the top the first time. Now – we’re headed for the top. Talking to the Greybeards again in High Hrothgar will yield a few interesting bonuses; first, with the horn returned, the Dragonborn will be taught the last word of the Unrelenting Force shout, unleashing its full potential. Telling Master Arngeir about the Alduin-defeating Shout, named Dragonrend, will make him hostile at first since it means Nikhaolaas has been working with the Blades, but if it’s necessary to prevent the end of the world, then so be it. The Greybeards’ master, Paarthurnax, lives at the top of the mountain, an area blocked off by harmful winds. To bypass this, the Dovahkiin is taught all three words of Clear Skies, a situational shout that will stop bothersome weather effects temporarily.

How majestic!

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??!?

!!!!!!

*audible man-squee*

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.

Before discussing with the Dovahkiin, Paarthurnax demands that you prove your worth by learning the Word of Power at the altar on the mountaintop, and then use on him the shout it unlocks. It teaches “Fire Breath”, what a coincidence! After the formalities, Nikhaolaas can finally ask about the Dragonrend shout, and the wise old lizard declares that it’s the one Shout he does not know. It’s a Shout that forces ageless and immortal dragons into a state where they can be properly killed, while also hindering their ability of flight for a couple seconds, turning them into easy targets.

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.