Daedra and Artifacts – Medic in Skyrim Bonus Time Part 2

Oh? Sorry, were you talking to me? I was busy talking to a statue. Last time you were here, I had started a quest to gather a bunch of Deitic artifacts, because secretly I am a very evil person. I’m being accompanied by Cicero, the guy whose cart breaks down outside some guy’s farm outside Whiterun. Just an FYI before we start, there ARE Skyrim spoilers ahead. Of course. Although the game is like 4 years old now, so eh, you should probably play it.

Anyway, back to adventuring. A statue of an angel just spoke to me. I think she’s a daedra as well, but she seems somewhat more reputable than the other guys…

UNTIL SHE MAKES ME FLY INTO THE BLOODY SKY.

Might need to change my lab coat now.

Meridia speaks to me, telling me to kill undead people in her temple. That’s perfectly fine, as long as I don’t have to walk very far. Meridia says the temple is right below us. At least she’s actually kinda doing stuff, the other daedra don’t seem to do much.

Honestly that temple was boring as fuck. Malkoran disintegrated in a storm of syringes and fire and just as I’m about to go around and take pictures of the temple, Meridia sweeps me off my feet again.

Well, it’s a cool sword, so why not? But not for you, Fraulein. She’s all like “whatever” and drops me back down. With another daedric artifact safely in Cicero’s backpack, I head back to Clavicus and give him his axe.

Oh and I give him back the dog as well. Good old Barbas is a pain in the ass to sneak with, but Cicero and I coped no problem. I could have killed Barbas, but come on, he’s cute and smart. Plus the axe isn’t part of my inventory anyway. I’m not Pyro! Anyway, off to kill Sinding.

I’ll be honest, I cheated here. I helped the werewolf kill all the hunters, went outside and spoke to Hircine then got pissed off that all I got was a ring that’s useless if you’re not a werewolf. So I went back inside and killed Sinding and this naked Hircine appeared and gave me armour made from Sinding’s skin. Which is probably worse but oh well.

I give both the ring of Hircine and the Savior’s Hide to Cicero, as well as the mask of Clavicus Vile from earlier. He looks horrible. Then I try to give him some other stuff and realise that I’ve got a really piss-easy daedric quest unfinished!

Remember that crazy guy in the iceberg?

Yeah, him. Turns out I forgot to finish my business with him. I head over, give the guy his stuff, get waylaid by a tentacle monster and get Septimus the blood he needs.

That tentacle monster is still looking at me.

Anyway, you know what Septimus DOES with this blood? He injects it into himself. Right off the bat. I’m crazy, but I know that’s not going to do anything. You need t-

The thing behind me just opened up. Forgot I was in Skyrim.

That’s pretty cool.

Turns out there’s just a book inside it. Septimus isn’t impressed, but he doesn’t complain for long before Hermaeus Mora turns him into a pile of ash.

So the daedra who isn’t nearly as cool as Vel’Koz gives me a book. I suppose that makes sense for the daedric lord of forbidden knowledge. Makes sense. Oh well, that one was easy. Didn’t need to wander far to find my next daedric quest, since it’s actually quite close.

Say hello to the fucking massive statue of Azura.

Who, you ask?

Yay me. She doesn’t seem to explain much more than that. Azura seems to be like Meridia though, not evil. I’m told to find a wizard who looks at stars. Obviously you’d go to Winterhold, but I actually stumbled across this by accident after I went to the inn there to sell some stuff. Yeah, the guy we’re looking for is in an inn, not the giant college of mages. He says to not take it back to Azura, but I dunno, I don’t trust this mage. And I’m being followed by Cicero, so that must hurt his feelings.

Anyway, he tells me it’s in a dungeon that’s flooded. I cheat and Wuld Nah Kest up the side of it, Demoknight style and grab the broken star.

Piece of cake. I take it back to the nice but freezing cold Dunmer and she tries to speak to Azura and fails. She suggests I try.

Hai Azura, how’s you, Fraulein? Good? Ja? Lovely. What’s that? You want me to go INSIDE your soul gem? Surely we should go on a date first, ja?

*sigh*, daedra.

Thing is though, this place is really cool, even if it IS filled with daedra and some random guy trying to be immortal. Should have spoken to me first, I can do that stuff. For a price.

It’s actually quite a fight. Ice magic hurts like a bitch. But I kill the bastard and Azura lets me keep her trinket. Up next, back to Dawnstar for another quest.

Apparently everyone’s been having nightmares. I thought Cicero was to blame for that (he’s getting pretty scary with all the artifacts I’ve given him) but no, apparently it’s due to the giant fricking castle that hangs over their little town. There’s a priest of Mara who I should speak to. Why do I feel you’re going to die?

Actually quite interesting. Really it’s a standard dungeon crawl, but there’s a nice bit of back story. Clearly Erandur KNOWS something extra that he’s not telling me. Then he tells me he used to serve the daedra to whom this temple belongs. Knew it.

Ah come on, that’s just being lazy. But yeah I find the stuff and because I’m busy dreaming, my screenshot button decides to not work and instead turns off my wifi. It’s not interesting though. I basically enter Erandur’s dreams, run through how he ran through the castle unharmed, released the Miasma that made everyone sleepy then ran away like a baby.

Needless to say, the last two people here wake up and remember all this and boy are they angry.

Why Mara of all people? Akatosh has proven to be far more active in fixing things.

Anyway, we kill them. More like Erandur kills them and I just fire syringes around. Cicero isn’t even here, I left him at the entrance because Erandur said so.

Um, mein freund, I’ve been doing that all day.

So the classic choice pops up. Make a new friend or have ultimate power via the staff. I actually have never gotten this staff before, never used it. Not a fan of staffs anyway.

Mind the flames, he tried to set me on fire.

I try to start the next quest in Dawnstar, but I’m not the right level. I’ll have to come back. I decide to do a second round trip – Solitude, Markarth, Whiterun.

Solitude actually has little daedric activity apart from good old Sheogorath. I enter the BLU Palace and the apparently closed off wing with Cicreo before getting teleported away. Sans Cicero.

Oh hiya.

Pelagius the Mad. He was once in charge of Solitude and the empire, right? Cool. Sheogorath has been holidaying in his mind. His dead, zombie mind. No wonder he’s insane.

Apparently he was a good empire though. Sheogorath mentions he was there for the turning into a dragon god thing, which is very interesting *cough*Oblivion*cough*Shivering Isles*cough*. Finally he turns to me and introduces himself.

Hai!

So you want me to help Pelagius? Sure.

I actually kinda did see that coming. Been a bit of a loony myself for years.

A bit ashamed though. My armour has been stripped from me, so I look hideous. You can see my horrible Imperial hands.

He tells me to solve three problems. The first one is really easy. All I have to do is turn Pelagius’s nightmares into nice things by pointing this stick at them. Easy.

The next one is slightly trickier. Pelagius’s anger is beating up his confidence, so I make his confidence big enough to put up with anger’s punching. You have to be quick though, as anger’s punching will undo the changes you make to both him and confidence.

The last one is confusing. At first you think you’re supposed to mess around with the two elemental Thralls, but it turns out you can wabbajack the two guys sitting behind the first dude. They then attack him and kill him and you can talk to Sheogorath to escape.

Well, all’s not fixed. I know, I’ve done this sort of scary brain work before.

That being said, an arrow to the face is perfectly fixable. I just need the right tools. Sheogorath says I can keep the staff, which is pretty cool.

Cheers, Sheogorath! He’s probably been the most pleasant daedra so far, he even offered me a meal. Speaking of which…

Back to Markarth. Should have done this crappy quest earlier but I’ve been putting it off. I actually have no problem with the whole cannibal thing, it’s just that the roleplay me gets the better of me sometimes.

Brother Verulus, a priest of Arkay, wants me to investigate who’s been eating corpses in Markarth’s Hall of the Dead. It’s a woman called Eola, who accuses me of being a cannibal. It was for science, fool. Plus it was my own flesh.

You see, the woman standing behind Cicero (who is looking scarier and scarier with all that equipment) wants me to clear a cave of draugr and then bring her someone to kill and eat. So, eh, off I go, back across the continent again, making use of Feim to jump off cliffs with safety. Remember kids, always shout BEFORE you jump.

I also spot this mercenary. Looks cool but doesn’t want me to help him.

Alright, cave’s cleared out. Eola gives me some money to convince the priest I helped earlier into coming here. I actually manage to fail a speech test and have to bribe him to come, which he does. Eola then goes all Austin Powers on us and hypnotizes him into laying down on an alter for me to kill, which I do.

After killing him, having a small taste because human flesh is horrible raw and being given a crappy ring from Namira, I grab my resurrection spell from a mod on my previous character and resurrect the bastard. Then I kill everyone but him, he thanks me and walks home happy.

You see, one of my previous characters was in fact a priestess of Arkay. That’s why I can’t do it. No, having a character of my own called Arkay (pronounced AR-kay rather than the Elder Scrolls’ ar-KAY) isn’t the only reason. I’m not that vain.

Anyway, it’s by now that I realise I’ve missed a really, really easy quest. Malacath, the daedric lord of the spurned. Also he’s friendly with orcs. I head to Riften, kill a dragon and get thanked by the locals. This is the second time Riften has been attacked by a dragon while I’m in it.

I do NOT understand why 1. Blood Dragons aren’t blood-coloured and 2 have those ugly fins on their backs.

Anyway, this Orc tribe is just down the road. I get there and it’s being attacked by a giant, who’s kinda killed everyone who’s outside while one of them just stands there and watches. I ask what’s going on, she says they’re all cursed and need a daedra heart and troll fat to continue. Amazingly, first time ever, I have both of those on me.

She does a ritual and an angry voice starts shouting at us, while Cicero starts photobombing me.

Okay, simple. Follow this orc, help him kill a giant, get Malacath’s favour. Or not. This orc is dumb and takes ages to arrive at our destination, then chickens out at the end and asks ME to kill the giant. Which I do. After which I kill him. And they had the nerve to call me a coward.

I take the giant’s club back to the tribe. The angry voice makes someone else the leader, not me (probably for the best, not interested in orcs, which is what being leader of an orc tribe requires) then turns the giant’s club into an awesome hammer.

That last quest gave me enough experience to hit level 20, so now I can go back to Whiterun, dump my stuff and do the last few quests.

While speaking to the inn keeper in the Bannered Mare, I start two quests, not one. The first actually requires no fighting what so ever. You speak to the Jarl of Whiterun about his kid, speak to his little brat, speak to a door, steal a key, speak to the door again and get a sword.

Yeah, speaking to a door.

I’ve spoken to worse, I guess.

Moving on, I’ve been avoiding Peryite’s quest for ages as well. Not because it’s a bad quest, but because I’ve been trying to get all the things needed. Being only level 20, flawless gems don’t appear often and I don’t have Prowler’s Profit, which makes gems piss easy to find. So it took me ages to get this far. Kesh seems like a nice kitty though.

Another thing about this quest is that even though Spellbreaker is absolutely bloody amazing as a weapon, it’s such a long, boring, slow chore to get the bastarding thing. You wander through a Dwemer ruin fighting people who vomit at you, going on for bloody ages since the place is so huge. It’s basically 2-3 gigantic areas you need to traipse through!

What’s worse is the fact that I’m Medic and I can’t cure them. Game won’t let me. Should have been an option, just to piss off Peryite. He’s not even an interesting guy, he’s just the embodiment of illness and disease, even though he’s sometimes depicted as a dragon. Which brings me into the fact that Spellbreaker and its ability to block magic attacks, makes NO SENSE as Peryite’s artifact. The Wabbajack makes sense. So does the ring of Namira. This one doesn’t.

Okay. Back to Dawnstar. Back to where I started.

This guy whose old family murdered an empire is making a museum admiring said old family despite everyone telling him otherwise.

Fair enough, you’re doomed to repeat history if you forget it.

But once again I’m sent traipsing across Skyrim. Past Markarth, past Falkreath and a quick stop in Morthal where I beat someone up with my bare hands, and I’ve got the three pieces of this blade that Silus wants. Since he’s got the fourth and fifth pieces.

We take all the pieces up to an alter and try and speak to Mehrunes Dagon. I never actually realised that he’d been carved into the rocks here until now. Dagon doesn’t want to speak to Silus and instead asks me to kill him. Which I do, since Silus is a slimy git who made me do all the work.

Mehrunes Dagon’s still not 100% happy and spawns 2 Dremora for me to kill. But Cicero is channeling the power from all the other daedra and he basically 1v4’s them to death while I loot their corpses for a key and steal everything that’s not nailed down from Dagon’s shrine.

Already been doing that, Dagon.

A quick tip for getting rich, this shrine respawns somewhat regularly, and the Dremora outside never do, just the ones inside. There’s a lot of loot, so it’s worth coming back every so often.

With the last artifact taken, I take them all back from Cicero. In return for his efforts, I give him some nice weapons, armour and jewellery, as well as some gold and tell him he can go home.

It’s time for me to go home now.

But before I do, a note. I didn’t bother doing Boethiah’s quest. Why? Because I didn’t want to grind to level 30. Once you hit level 25, leveling up takes a really long time, and my armour is no longer cutting it. It’s basically steel-level light armour, which I can’t upgrade further. Of course I could just syringe everything to death, but things are starting to 3-hit kill me now.

In the mean time, I’ve redecorated Breezehome. Much better.

That may be a slightly anti-climactic end to this mini-series, but it’s got to end at some point. In the mean time, carry on with Dawnguard Snipin‘, which is much more in character, and stay tuned for a later, undecided TESV adventure.

That’s it for now. Maybe one day I’ll show you all the fun I had doing the Dark Brotherhood quest line, but it’s time for me to get some rest.

So long, everyone!