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| Dragon Bridge, west of Solitude |
After the revelation of
Aduin's Wall in
Sky Haven Temple, the
Blades secret fortress, I agreed to meet
Delphine and Esbern at
Karthspire, a Dwemer ruin located in a river valley South West of
Solitude in a mountainous area of Skyrim called The Reach. Sky Haven Temple was suspected of being located in the vicinity of Karthspire. However Solitude, the headquarters of the
Imperial Legion and
General Tullius was relatively close by and suddenly, I realized I had been carrying around the
Jagged Crown for far too long. In a previous entry (No.29), I had seized this crown, preventing the
Storm Cloaks from getting their hands on it. This was a perfect time to hand over the crown.
Lydia and I fast traveled to Solitude arriving there at night. Bestowing our presence on the lucky patrons of the Winking Skeever, we relaxed, drinking some brew, while being serenaded by the lovely and shapely Lisette, the local bard. After Lisette made several suggestions that we spend the night, I plunked down some gold for a spacious room and we invited her up for a night cap. The night turned out to be less restful than I had hoped, and in a short while daylight was peering in through our window along with the chirping of birds. After some moments of contemplating what a good life this was, I yawned whiling nudging Lydia. With persistence I finally got some life out of her. We arose to get ourselves presentable for the business of the day while Lisette burrowed deeper under the covers. Saying fond farewells to our favorite entertainer, I kissed her cheek, before heading down the stairs for a bite of something other than bard thigh...
Feeling completely sated after a breakfast of goose eggs and skeever sausage we walked to the Solitude Castle in search of
General Tullius. Compared to questing, this was easy, finding him adjacent to the map room. I turned over the
Jagged Crown and Tullius seemed pleased. He responded by handing me a message for the
Jarl of Whiterun. The essence of the message was that it was time to make a choice,
Legion or Stormcloaks. More than not, Whiterun has been my home so I really hoped
Balgruuf would choose my side.
Stuffing this message into my pocket, I had a niggle in the back of my brain realizing that some time ago, I had been summoned by
Falk Firebeard, the steward of
Elisif the Fair,
Jarl of Solitude over at Solitude's
Blue Palace regarding my previous action at
Wolf Skull Cave. You may recall this is where we prevented the
Wolf Queen, Potema from resurrecting herself. Turns out that Potema was still around trying to return herself to flesh and blood status.
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| Father Styrr in Solitude |
Falk wanted me to fetch her bones from a catacomb to prevent this from happening and pointed me at Styrr the local priest who informed me that The Wolf Queen caused trouble 500 years ago and no one wanted her, the most infamous of necromancers, alive, much less returning to the throne, which as a direct Septon descendant, she would be entitled too. I slotted in this task at the No.2 on my important-things-to-do list after locating Sky Haven Temple with Delphine and Esbern.
I can say this for Skyrim,
it's never dull!
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| Glimmering Falls in The Reach |
Despite the shadows growing longer, Lydia and I left
Solitude late in the day heading West, South-West for
Karthspire. After passing out of the serenity of close proximity to Solitude, along the East-West road, we cut South into the wilderness. We were not disappointed coming across raging rivers and beautiful water falls plunging over jagged rocks, under a moonlit night. Along the way we fought hostile wolves, a bear, forged rivers, climbed mountains, tangled with bandits, and Forsworn until finally hitting the river that would take us to Karthspire.
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| Aftermath, Karthspire Camp |
Walking up the shores of the running water, I had no idea of the firestorm we were approaching, until we were in the midst of it! We came across
Karthspire Camp, a
Forsworn encampment consisting of elevated platforms and walkways connecting both sides of the river.
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| Red Alert! |
We had plunged into an undesirable three way, consisting of battle against effective Forsworn combat veterans and an aggressive Elder Dragon spewing frost across the landscape.
Delphine and Esbern were there and immediately lept into battle upon our arrival. The Forsworn were mostly distracted by the circling dragon, while we kept our focus on them! One of the reasons this battle was tough was that I was surprised on multiple occasions tripping over Lydia's body. Stumbling over her after a night of debauchery was not bad, but I've been careful not to hit her with my Dragon Shouts during combat, and this was unacceptable! After multiple back-in-time spells (reverts-to-save), we finally eliminated the Forsworn and could concentrate on the Dragon who just happened to be the toughest beast to date.
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| Another Notch on my Belt |
While it could not make one-breath kills, it was powerful and its health was legendary. I kept calling Lydia to me to keep her alive. One time, lacking situational awareness, the beast charged, seized me in its mouth, shook me like a rag doll, then spit me out against some rocks. Revert to Save, saved me multiple times that night! After tons of abuse, the sucker finally laid down and died, whooshing me with it's soul! After such a fight, it felt especially good, tingling all over.
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| Karthspire Cavern |
In fact, we all seemed invigorated and ready for more. Hiking up the mountain side to Karthspire Cavern, our party headed into this cool subterranean space with puzzles!
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| Karthspire Party |
After a couple of not to challenging puzzles, we came to a large face engraved in a wall, behind an emblem inscribed into the floor that required the spilling of a Dragonborn's blood, my blood to open the door. Being a worldly person, I noted some similarity in appearance of this blood collector to one depicted in the original
Hellboy Movie, but I guess it's mostly a good way to collect human blood sacrifices.
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| Authentication Via Blood |
A few drops of my blood was all it took although I wondered if I'd ever get used to cutting myself if I wanted to visit Sky Haven on a regular basis? After hearing a disembodied "yummy" sound, the face pivoted back into the wall allowing us to pass into
Sky Haven Temple, an ancient Blade refuge, fortress. Not having to fight our way in was a nice change of pace. Walking into a large hall, there was Alduin's Wall, an impressive pictorial representation of Alduin history! It revealed to Esbern that a Dragon Shout was required to defeat
Alduin. Despite Delphine's protests, who would know more about Dragon Shouts than the
Greybeards sitting high a top their snowy mountain?
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| Alduin's Wall |
Now I was forced to consider which was strategically more important to handle first, the long trek across Skyrim and way up the mountain to the practitioners of the Voice or into The Wolf Queen's catacombs? Decisions!
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