Skyrim The adventures of Azar "the Paladin"

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

azarhal

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Some context first.

I decided to play Skyrim again (because backlogs aren't meant to played it seems)[s/] while waiting for Deadfire TB to go out of beta. I wanted to play something "different" than what I usually play *cough*stealth archer thief*cough*. I never bothered with shields before so I decided to make a "Paladin": one-handed, shield, restoration, alteration, marksman with a crossbow who never steal, doesn't do evil things and protect people. His name is Azar because I name all my Skyrim characters like that (it's the only game where I do that). He is a Breton.

I found a mod (just a few months old) that allow you to worships the gods/daedra of Tamriel and made Azar a follower of Stendarr.

  • Unofficial patch
  • SkyUI
  • Cutting Room Floor (add back things Bethseda cut)
  • Total Makeover (higher quality faces for all, yeah!)
  • Consistent Older People (required to have old people looks like old people)
  • DLC Spells Vanilla (add DLC spells to Vanilla Vendors)
  • Rebalanced Leveled Lists (fix the leveled loot list to not be crappy)
  • Legendary Skyrim Crossbow (put Dawnguard crossbow into base Skyrim, add missing types and crafting)
  • Obsidian Weather (change lightning and weather based on seasons and area)
  • Zim's Immersive Artifacts (rebalance the artifacts to makes them cool again)
  • Wintersun - Faith of Skyrim (the worship mod)
  • Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim Cities (I needed a not respawning chest that was easy to access for all my crap until I got an house)
  • Forgottten Cities (a content/quest mod that looked cool)
  • Nether's Follower Framework
  • Equippable Tomes (add craftable tomes that increase magic school efficiency and show up on your character, fix base Skyrim magic scaling issue and is great for role-play)
  • Namira for good guys (a good guy option for that quest ending)
  • KS Hairdo Lite
  • Immersive Citizen - AI Overhaul
  • Immersive Horses
  • Realistic Water Two (I like pretty water)
  • Experience (change the leveling to be quest/exploration XP based, skill still improve with usage but they have a cap based on your level. I love it)
  • Craftable Horse Barding

Azar is already level 8 so here is his journey so far:

Following Hadvar after avoiding execution by timely dragon intervention, because he seemed like a nice and compassionate person while the Stormcloaks looked mostly angry, Avar made it to Riverwood. There Hadvar's uncle asked him to go to the Jarl in Whiterun to announce a dragon attacked Helgen and request help for Riverwood. Before doing as such, he made it to the local merchant to do some shopping and learned about a robbery and where the thief went. Getting the Jarl's help seemed more important.

Once in Whiterun, Avar talked to the Jarl and was hired to fetch a tablet for his court Wizard in, surprise!, the same ruins the thief run off to. But the wannabe-Paladin didn't feel sufficiently equipped to assault a ruins full of bandits and undead yet. He did some questing for the locals at Whiterun, including saving a horse from bandit who was "adopted" and named Smoke. Then Azar set off to meet his brethren at the Hall of the Vigilant near Dawnstar for some religious contemplation.

The trip to Dawnstar was full of encounters, mostly wolves, but also a courier assaulted by spiders whom was saved from certain death by the Paladin-in-training. After talking and praying, Azar decided to set off to the College of Winterhold, because that is his best change to improve his magical skills. More wolves, including ice wolves, were encountered in the snowy region (I had 47 wolves pets by the end of Whiterun to Winterhold). A disease was also contracted, so Azar first idea when reaching Winterhold was to find a way to get ride of the it…no potions or healer could be found!

Joining the College was the only way to get access to their healer. So Azar did so, but ended up in a training session and then told to show up at Saarthal in a few hours. It was super late (or early actually), no healer/potion were found still and Azar was dead tired and went to bed. On the morning, he made the trip to Saarthal and, luck on his side, meet a Vigilant of Stendarr who happily cured the disease.

Exploring Saarthal started rather academically, but then something strange happened, draugrs were fought and a huge magical orb was found. The Archmaster of the College was notified of the discovery and asked Azar to research the subject…but it was late, his bed was calling.

P.S. Avar didn't kill the bear in Helgen intro (sorry Joxer)
P.S.S I'll post a pic of Azar and Smoke later, I'm not the screenshot-gamer type so I don't have any right now.
 
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It really was a small list of mods, I’m surprised.:biggrin:

No alternate start live another life mod? You could have started as a vigilant of stendarr and lived in thier headquarters. Nice little mod for role playing.
 
No alternate start live another life mod? You could have started as a vigilant of stendarr and lived in thier headquarters. Nice little mod for role playing.

I almost did, but I wanted to play the "original story" and do the main storyline (that I have never done) so I decided against it because I tend to use live another life to pretend the story is something else. I instead considering that Azar was captured on his way to the Hall (probably should I wrote that in the first post).

Azar (he has very pale eyes, almost looks white at a distance) and Smoke:
D64918D820B454995B4806A2EE9A92AF22E193D7

(larger version on steam)

---playthrough update ---
A new morning at the College.

Azar talked a bit with his fellow students and teachers. All the students had "requests". Bralyna wanted to test spells, started with everything looking green, ended as a dog. J'zargo gave Azar scrolls to tests, there are supposed to be good against undead, this should be nice. Onmund had a fishy request which lead to talking to a fishy member of the College who gave a fishy quest to Azar to go fetch a staff given to a fishy person.

But Azar had more important things to do than doing all of that. He had to find books about Saarthal. It looks like they were stolen by unscrupulous mages who slit form the College. The trip took one day. There was a short shopping stop at Windhelm, with some night training of blocking against mudcrabs near a waterfall halfway. At the destination, Smoke was almost rosted by a fire mage. Turns out they were very unscrupulous mages too. They were doing experiments on people and vampires (all the vampires meet a fiery death). After coming back at the college with the books, Azar saw that Tolfdir and the others brought back the big orb. It seems to have unnerved Ancano, or maybe it's the guy from the Psijii order showing up that did that. He's twitchy Ancano.

The adventure to find back the books resulted in Azar finding all sorts of junks laying around. There was even a Thalmor vs Stormcloak battle that happened on the way and Azar couldn't leave all those armors and weapons laying around, some people might use them for bad things. The merchants in Winterhold aren't that great though, so Azar went to Windhelm for more shopping (running low on health potions). He doesn't like the feel of the city one bit, but merchants have deep pockets and the owner of the White Phial gave an life depending quest to the Paladin: find the white Phial it might save his life.

Azar also heard a rumor about vampire hunters called the Dawnstars near Riften. They might be an interesting order to join.

The bridge at Riverwood to show how pretty my game is without a bazillion of texture replacer nor ENB:
B6FD5F77B91CD6CB2561ED0FF251653C91C8B265

(larger version on steam)
 
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I don't remember why I turned the subtitles on when I installed the SE version (like two years ago), but I learned today that draugrs do battle barks when they mumble intelligibly (in dragon tongue). That was helped by practicing blocking with a shield against a few of them (they die too fast otherwise lol).

I also installed another mod: Craftable Horse Barding. Smoke was looking a bit too cheap to be a Paladin horse, so I crafted him a chain/leather barding. He's now a not too fancy warrior horse.

-----
As promised, Azar went to retrieve the White Phial for the old sick alchemist in Windhelm. It was hidden in a tomb/cave called the Forsaken Cave. Not nefarious at all. As expected, the place was full of draugrs, puzzles and traps, lots of traps. Always amusing seeing draugrs trigger them. Azar also took the opportunity to test some of J'Zargo scrolls meant to be used against undeads, a task the fellow apprentice asked Azar to perform. Looks like they still need some tweaking. Oh and one strange thing happened at the end of the tomb, some strange music and a glowing writing on a wall that seems to have been absorbed by Azar. Puzzling.

Once the Phial was returned to the old mer, he was annoyed that it was cracked. For the record Azar found it like that, not his fault. He gave 5 gold for a reward…at least his assistant properly rewarded the effort and took off to take care of his old dying master. :(

After this sad tale, Azar set off to Riverwood to get the dragon tablet for Whiterun court Wizard and the stolen golden claw from Bleaks Fall Barrow. A snowstorms greeted him at the top of the mountain, which covered his approach to the barrow. Those bandits barely saw what hit them. The tombs did have as much traps or puzzles as the Forsaken Cave, it did had harded draugrs though. Also, who actually use 25lb stone tablets??? How is that supposed to be carried all around? At least the claw wasn't too heavy and the merchant was happy to put it back in its place in his shop.

After the adventure near Riverwood, Azar set of to Falkhearth farther south. In part because Onmund's request to Azar require exploring something near that town and because the Jarl of the hold sent a letter to Azar requesting assistance and something about selling land in his hold. On his way, he found a few sad scenes: a Thalmor murdered a few Talos worshippers, farmers lost their farm to the dragon that attack helgen (Azar gave them some gold)…and poor bandits didn't realize that attacking someone in full steel armor with a feiry axe was a bad idea.

Once at Falkhearth though, Azar was very side tracked by a talking dog. The rejected puppy of Clavicus Vile, Daedric lord of Wishes. A devout fellow of Stendarr shouldn't deal with daedra, but Barbas mentioned a cult not far way and Azar though that maybe he'll be able to help the poor "dog" (and remove a powerful daedra from tamriel) or kill some evil cultists.

By the way, that "dog" is scary. It single handedly cleared the bandits that set up in burned down Helgen while traveling to the cult's shrine.
 
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More Skyrim means more Azar's adventures.

So remember how Azar ended his last journey near a cultist cave hoping they were evil so he could kill them. Well turns out the cultists were Vampires. No remorse cleaning that dens out, even the Daedra Prince was happy of the result. Unfortunately, Clavicus Vile didn't want to take back his "mutt" without some old rusty axe. Axe he gave to a dude who set up residence East of Solitude. Pretty much on the opposite side of Skyrim of where the shrine is actually…

So, Azar and Brasa The Mutt set up a trip to retrieve the axe. Adventuring near Falkreath has already came to an end. While traveling toward their new destination they encounters:
- a Dark Brotherhood assassin. Azar seems to have pissed off someone with some dark connections
- a group of Bandits who set up their large camp like right on the road. Azar had to clean them out. Can't leave bandits preying on travelers like that.

After fighting with the Bandits. Azar wanted to do some shopping. The nearest town was Mortal…but Mortal is like backswamp town. There is nothing there outside weird people afraid of magic. Azar changed course for Solitude instead. That's a huge city actually. Looks cozy, outside the first thing happening there when Azar arrived being a beheading, brought back some memories… There was some poor fellow in the city who request Azar help to put some sense into his master too. Looks simple enough, talk to the dude, tell him his vacations are over, etc…He should have known better, as if a talking dog wasn't enough.

Once that was dealt with the paladin was finally ready to get that axe. He encountered some vampires pretending to be Vigilants of Stendarrs along the way (promptly destroyed). Crossed path with an headless ghostly horseman too, but was too busy fighting things to look that up. The dude with the axe wasn't much trouble though and in his staff Azar found Meridia's beacon and with the shrine being close by this was a shift cleaning of that Daedra Prince temple of a Vampire necromancer that resulted from that discovery. Azar got a nice anti-undead weapon out of it: Dawnbreaker. That daedra doesn't mind getting rejected it seems.

After making it all the way back to Clavicus Vile's shrine, Azar finally got ride of the dog and was able to do what he wanted to do near Falkreath: find the staff of the mage fellow so he can trade it for Onmund's amulet. Where was the staff: another Vampire's master den.

After all those vampires encounters, a few more on the road beside dead Vigilants *sniff*, Azar decided it was time to go meet with the Dawnguards. But first a pit stop at Whiterun (some Thalmor Justicar wanted Azar dead near there, not sure why) and then Riften… The Paladin felt like everyone wanted to steal his money in that city, someone even suggested he stole it and wanted to recruit Azar to perform a crime! The Paladin decided it was best to avoid that city in the future.

Once Azar reached Fort Dawnguard, he learned a very sad news: the Hall of the Vigilants was destroyed by Vampires. He promptly joined to become a Vampire hunter and avenge his fellow Stendarr's worshipers.

-----
This session was super weird. Not only doing 1 daedra quest leading to doing 2 others, but everything was sending me into vampire caves/forts, lol. Also, I love Dawnbreaker.

Oh and I saw the triple road random encounter at some point. A Khajiit bandit attacked me (I killed him), then two skeletons showed up (killed them, I think they were going after a hunter though) and then a travelling bard did the pocket of a dead skeleton and then exclaimed (what...what happened here?) over the dead Khajiit.
 
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My last night playtime was kinda a wash.

After learning the Hall of Vigilant was destroyed, Azar decided to rush there and see it for himself. The next Dawnguard quest is nearby too so it was perfect. He found a lonely horse on the way too (no killing or stealing involved from Azar this time, it's also Azar's 3rd horse. He saved one from a bandit before reaching Dawnguard Fort). So now Azar has Smoke, Terra and Bronze.

Once at the destroy Hall, Azar prayed and made some graves (in my head, no mods for the graves). Then he reached the place nearby that he learned about at the Dawnguard Fort. About half-way in that cave, killing vampires and other undesirables…I had a power lost along the rest of my street.

When my power came back, I played around a bit with my follower stuff because Dawnguard force Serana on you in that quest and some stuff was behaving strangely with my horse mod but it's apparently normal after I checked online. Saying that,
it accelerated my "do I play with followers" questions I've been having for a while (hence the other thread). And playing with followers less or more means adding more mods to give them more "personality". Well, Serana doesn't need more personality, but the others do (especially base Skyrim).
 
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Azarhal,

Azar is the Portuguese word for the English expression "bad luck". Seriously. You can check it here :)
 
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Oh fun tales of Azar and I think he looks great. Like the circlet on his brow. Must be risky with the horse across that narrow bridge to the college.

Does sound like some fun along with some of the Skyrim oddities. My second character was Varg the Reluctant Paladin. I played him mainly to be a master at restoration, smite, and swords. He was a lot of fun. He was my one and only NON werewolf character and only non-rogue like character. He was blunt melee and forthright. It was fun having him the arch-mage.

It was cool to read about someone else's play through and view point. I to a lot of ad-hoc RP myself and, as I am sure you know, mod my game to the teeth with visual enhancement mods :)

My landscape:



My main character, with 4.5 books of history over 6 years of playing, Grim and his half-brother Wolfgar (the wolf).



Anyhow thanks for posting some of your adventures, enjoyed reading them.
 
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Azarhal,

Azar is the Portuguese word for the English expression "bad luck". Seriously. You can check it here :)

Bouahahahaha!

Thanks, I didn't know but I guess it's kinda fitting. ;)
 
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--Small update--

So Azar saved this woman, Serana, from a totally not creepy, weird, suspicious contraption at the bottom of a strange crypt. She was rather forth coming with her undeadness condition. Azar should have killed her on the spot, but considering she's the first vampire who didn't try to blood-suck him at first sight and that she had an Elder Scrolls, he decided against it. They then escaped the crypt together and Serana asked Azar to bring her back "home". But first Azar, run back to the Dawnguard to tell Isran the news of his discovery. Serana didn't want to come close to the fort.

The journey to Serana's home was rather uneventful, outside her complaining about the weather all the time. She also doesn't know anything about the Empire, which means she spent 600 years in that thing? The Paladin already wish he could forget what he saw in the castle Serana's call home. The bodies, the vampires…her father. He was even offered to be bitten to become a Vampire but refused and was then banished from the castle leaving Serana's behind.

Of course, that means Azar run all the way to the Dawnguard fort again to tell Isran the news. Stopping for shopping on the way. Once at the fort, it was under attack by a master vampire, he was dispatched promptly by all the Dawnguards. Well, minus Agmaer who was sleeping in his bunk. After telling Isran what happened with Serana, the paladin was given the missions to find two "recruits" to help out the Dawnguards. One of them should be easy to find, she likes Dwemer ruins. Their can't be that many of those in Skyrim right?

Azar also did a quick stop in a cave near Solitude at the request of the Jarl's steward. Turns out some necromancers were trying to summons Potema the Wolf Queen. What's wrong with the people of Skyrim? Azar is starting to think Skyrim has a crazy undeads problem but many fear dragons instead. The Paladin haven't seen a single of those big lizards since Helgen.

----
I really need to go deliver the stone tablet. Serana stopping over each corpses we encountered on the road to her castle saying "Oh!…" was something funny, the weather complaining not so much.
 
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---tiny update on Azar's adventures---

So Azar decided to go back to the College of Winterhold for some more training for the battles against the Vampires menace. He actually encounters some vampires on the road, then a group of necromancers who set up themselves in an old fort.

He also discovered a new species, the Falmers, in a cave with their little pets, the chaurus. They all love poisons very much it seems, the paladin made good use of his healing spells. There was also some bandits pretending to be Imperials not far from Winterhold that tried to kill Azar because he refused to pay a toll in the middle of nowhere! A local guard helped out.

Back at the College, Azar purchased new spells to use against undead and vampires: close wounds, Vampire's Bane (somewhat of a anti-undead fireball), Aura's of Stendarr (somewhat of a anti-undead aura) that the paladin can't currently cast for lack of magicka…but soon, real soon, he will. But first, he will try to talk to that Augur of something he was supposed to talk so long ago, he kinda got side tracked all across Skyrim.
 
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---And the adventures continue---

You know, when someones tell you "Oh the Augur, yes, he's lives in the Maiden under the College", you usually expect two things: someone to be in the Maiden and the place to note look like a creepy crypt where undead lives. Doesn't help that this Augur isn't exactly someone.

So your courageous paladin braved a few undeads and other spirity things to talk to this Augur. The discussion was weird, really not what was expected. In the end, Azar has now to find the Staff of Magnus to stop impending DOOM! Azar is actually surprised Skyrim haven't blow up at this point, everyone has world ending issues here.

After asking around to where he could find this staff, he learned of the Synod, Imperial college of magicians, who were snooping around not that long ago. They went to a Dwarven ruin called Mzulft (I'm actually surprised at the pronunciation, lol). It wasn't that far away from the college so he decided to run there on Smoke. On the way, the fort he freed from the necromancers was now occupied by Stormcloaks.

Mzulft is huge. It is also full of weird dwarven contraptions that works as defense mechanism…and Falmers? How did the Falmers gets there? Also, Chaurus can fly!!! So Azar exploration of the place ended up with many clang, cling, bang and poison. Once he reached a living member of the Synod, he finally learned where he might find the staff he is seeking. The Synod member though sounded very paranoid and crazy. Probably spent too much time inside the old ruins, the air is probably not that good to breath for too long.

Now Azar has to report to the Archmage where the Staff might be: Labyrinthian. The name doesn't inspire comfort for anyone who wish for a small stroll.
------
The Stormcloak spawning at the fort I "cleared" (it didn't wasn't mechanically cleared) was strange to me, it haven't even been 10 days for a respawn.

Also, with all the Bloodlines 2 "hype", I'm probably going to shift back to Dawnguards stuff…even if it is to murder all the vampires. The dragons will have to wait.
 
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--small update--

Azar made it back to the College safe and sound. It was super late though, so he went to bed. The next morning, he found Arniel, because the mage asked the Paladin to find some dwemer cogs not long ago for his research. Then Arniel asked Azar to ask Enthir for something he wanted to purchase…why does nobody want to talks to Enthir? Is it because he always ask you to go find a staff in a place fulls of crazy people?

After that Azar entered the main hall to talk to the Archmage, but something weird was going on. The idiotic Thalmor Ancano was doing something to the Eye of Magnus creating a force field around him and the big orb and spawning weird stuff in Winterhold. He also caused the death of the Archmage. Now Azar has to find that Staff of Magnus ASAP. Things just got worst.
 
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Enjoying the updates. I will be doing that down the road. My new guy, Wulver, is a rogue-mage and will be heading to the college for training. Maybe he will wait till Azar gets rid of that douche Ancano first though.
 
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---another "small" update---

On his way to Labyrinthian, Azar did some side activities. One of them lead him to a very pretty cavern to find an ex-soldier helmet and he gave an old Orc is cherished last good battle.

Then Azar arrived to Labyrinthian. The Paladin was expecting a huge ruin underground, not a huge ruin overground too. Ruin with Frost Trolls, the hardest things Azar had to fight so far, but weak to flames.

Around the area Azar found a strange altar with a skeleton holding a magical wooden mask and some crazy rambling on a rather well conserved piece of paper compared to the corpse. Azar put the mask on and…found himself in another place…or was it time…in front of a strange altar. He rapidly removed the mask and returned to the real world.

It was now time to go inside of Labyrinthian borrow, unfortunately the experience was so traumatizing that this is all that remains Azar was able to remember of the experience: gahOMG!ihjwaidaiwdSavosWhatDidYou?WhoIsThis?DoOooooooohLoot!WhyWhyWhy!!ThisPlaceIsHugeTrapsMORETraps!GhostDraugrs?SavosDammit!YeahTheStaff…OhEbonyArmorTooHeavy.

Once out of the ruins with the Staff of Magnus, a new set of Ebony Armor and an ebony shield, Azar made it back to the College. It was of course in worst shape than when he left. Using the staff, the Paladin made it inside and defeated Ancano. Then the Psijiic showed up and named him Arch-Mage, with Tolfdir agreeing.

Azar not really wanting to be Arch-Mage still took the key to the quarters and set off to find those potential Dawnguards recruits. The College can work without him, but those Vampires have to be stopped.
----------------
First time I've done Labyrinthian and this is my favorite dungeon in Skyrim so far.
 
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---recruitment---

After saving the world from a stupid Thalmor using magic he didn't understand, Azar is now fully committed at stopping the vampire menace.

This start by recruiting Gunmar and Sorina as Isran requested. Gunmar was hanging out near Falkreath. Hunting down a human hunting bear. Since when do bears hunt humans? Still his cave was full of corpse, probably from foolish people trying to "best the bear". Near the bear cave, there was a house and burnt corpses. Looks like a dragon is hanging nearby…that's much more dangerous than a bear.

After helping Gunmar and sending him off to Fort Dawnguard, Azar went back to Falkreath to go East, toward the Reach and where Sorine is exploring Dwemer things. The Paladin discovered a majestic valley once he reached the Reach…but unfortunately, also dead lovers in a secluded areas and crazy Forsworns. After recruiting Sorine, he made haste to the Dawnguard fort.

Once everyone was gathered at the fort, Isran asked Gunmar to suit up trolls so we could get armored trolls. Wait what?! As for Sorine, looks like she's some kind of weapon maker.

As for Azar, he got a new mission.

-------------
I remember going to Markham once and fighting the Forsworns in a previous playthrough, but I had never seen the valley and river. So awesome. I'm still discovering Skyrim, 7.5 years after release and with more than 250 hours into it.
 
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Azarhal,

Azar is the Portuguese word for the English expression "bad luck". Seriously. You can check it here :)

So Azarhal means - bad luck Henry? :D

On topic, I had more fun reading this thread than actually playing Skyrim. Keep it coming!
 
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---The new mission(s)---

Turns out Azar's mission was to find a Moth Priest to read an Elder Scrolls. Indeed, Serana showed up at Fort Dawnguard and Isran hide her in the torture room (really Isran?). There she explained her dad was obsess with a prophecy about Vampires not having to fear the sun again. Somewhat weird, because Serana walks under the sun with just a little hood. The whole conversation between Serana and Isran made Azar feel between a rock and hard place.

The vampire might have tried to flirt with the Paladin too. Everyone knows female vampires are seductress. Azar will not fall for it.

Serana suggested to look at the College of Winterhold for information about where to find a Moth Priest. One apparently made it into Skyrim recently. What do they say, once is a coincidence, two is fate? Anyway, Azar being the Arch-Mage of the College had no issues to get the information, he even had to go there to give back a book to the librarian.

Because Serana fear horses*, on their ways to various place, the "Two Adventurers in Skyrim" did a few side jobs: get some sap from the Eldergleams for a Danica in Whiterun. Find the schematic for Sorine. Killed a few bears and wolves. Visited Riften, Serana didn't like the place either. Azar even received a letter from Falk Firebeard, the Steward in Solitude, there is apparently new developments about the Queen Potema summoning ritual, but Azar didn't have the time to go chat with him.

Once they tracked down the Moth priest, it was already too late. Vampire got him first. So the chase turned into tracking down Vampires. They didn't go very far. In fact, Azar wondered how the small village nearby never realized there was a huge cavern with an ancient gothic fortress inside at about 100 feet of them.

The battle inside was short live, the vampires felling to the Paladin's and his vampiric companion's attacks. They fried the Moth priest and told him to go to Fort Dawnguard (really, no escort? The guy was kidnapped despite having Imperial guards).

In the giant cave two important questions came to Azar:
1. Is sleeping upright in a coffin actually comfortable?
2. What do we call a zombified vampire?

Once back at fort Dawnguard, Sorine got her new schematic and got to improve the order crossbow. While the priest got to read the scroll and turns out two more a needed to get the whole prophecy. Serana had some suggestion, she wants to find her mother…but has no idea where she might be. Azar suggest to look at Castle Volkinar for clues.

Also, the Paladin also asked a few people about the Dawnguard orders and got conflicting information. Everyone seems to think they fought vampires, but Sorine's version was that they were meant to guard a vampire but then all accepted the power and became vampires themselves.

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* until the expac is over I can't make her use one, she's not a real companion yet.
 
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So Azarhal means - bad luck Henry? :D

No, because Hal doesn't translate into Henry :) (Henrique is the Portuguese version- since we don't translate names - for English name Henry)
 
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---Sneaking into Castle Volkinar---

Azar and Serana made haste to Castle Volkinar: mission find something of her late mother to discover where she might be and find one of the two Elder Scrolls required to understand the whole prophecy.

Getting near the castle and sneaking by the back entrance was easy for the duo. The garden courtyard was very different from what Serana remembered, but then a few hundred of years went back without her mother around, Azar was unsure why she was surprised. The two shared some talk about loneliness near a moondial. Azar was a bit perplexed how Serana can sound so human despite being a vampire and a necromancer. Maybe they aren't all evil?

Also, yes moondial, looks like vampires do not find sundial useful, but Serana wonder why anyone would find a moondial useful. Turns out the moondial was hiding secret entrance to a ruined part of the castle. The ruined part was full of skeleton, slightly boring for the Paladin to fight. Then a few gargoyles showed up here and that. That was more interesting to bash with a shield.

Once at the top of the tower they discovered a secret laboratory. Serana told Azar that her mother was probably working on her necromancy here. Effectively, her mother's journal explained how she created a portal to the Soul Cairn, a place where souls end up after a soul gem is used, to hide from Harkon.

The two successfully re-opened the portal with secret ingredients. Unfortunately, once Azar tried to go through, the portal started to eat away at him. The inhabitants of the Soul Cairn want payment.

After some chit-chat with Serana two options appeared:
1. Azar can be turned into a vampire
2. Azar can get partially soul trapped into a gem and used that as payment

The Paladin decided to take some times to decide which one to pick.

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I'm starting to get bored of the linear layout of all "dungeons". Also, I'm level 19 and that place was full of level 1 skeletons (there was a few higher level), when everything get one-shot, it's not very fun.
 
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