No.13- West to Iron Blind Barrow (Dragon 4)

A Stellar Moon (click images)

We popped out of Forsaken Cave into the chill of a frozen Skyrim night. At least there was no precip falling. It was refreshing as compared to the humid claustrophobic nature of this hole in the ground.  The large full moon was illuminating blankets of snow across the landscape, the trees, and the distant mountains, a veritable nocturnal Winter wonderland. For survival, if you don't freeze, you'd never have to worry about starving as there are Snow Berries in abundance which are sweet and tart just, like a candy I remember as a kid, but these are good for you and make a very good wine. We took a leisurely stroll West along the road and bumped into one bandit, easily dispatched.

Then later just outside of the Night Gate Inn, we bumped into a pair of travelers calling themselves the Vigilant of Stendarr, a order of holy warriors dedicated to eradicating Daedra and any other abominations, such as vampires, werewolves and witches  they find on behalf of  Stendarr the God of Mercy. Besides being placed in a awkward position when it comes to knowledge of man-size fanged and furry abominations (which I kept to myself, receiving a thumbs up from Lydia), it was a pleasant change of pace running into fellow travelers who were not intent on killing and robbing us.

One Room- 10 Gold

NightGate Inn (The Next Morning)

Uggy @ElderScrolls.Wiki

We settled down for the evening at the Inn, deciding to run the Iron Blind Barrow tomorrow and get Uggy's (director of the Mage College's Arcanaeum) book. It's just a bit up the road on the opposite side so we could hit it early after a hot breakfast. Did I mention Urag (Uggy) is an Orc, a real live intellectual Orc, can you imagine?

Warlord Gathrik (my flames not his)

The next morning, I picked up a bounty notice before, we ran through this interesting dungeon with elevated passageways, fighting Warlord Gathrik at the end. I found the desired book, a nice Armor of Alteration and the icing on the cake was a Word Wall for Becoming Ethereal! I've had extremely good luck finding Word Walls I tell you.

Many of the dungeons are designed so at the end there is a convenient exit, but I could not get this door open so we retraced out steps to the entrance. I'll reemphasize, Cryodiil has Skyrim beat for nice temperate weather, but Skyrim dungeons are better. In Cryodiil they were mostly brown and gray with more grey. Skyrim's have great features, colors and lighting.

Once outside, we made the standard loot run to Whiterun and Winterhold. I admit that I usually do fast travel between these locations. I just don't have the patience.

At the College, Arcano, the Thalmor advisor kept to himself as I churned some items through the alchemy table and disenchanted a few items, but I don't feel like I'm making substantial progress in these areas. One of the problems with Alchemy is that instead of seeing a list of what you have discovered for Alchemy effects, all you see are the effects for the items you have in inventory. Unless you've been keeping good notes, which I have not, then it requires an external Skyrim source to know what you need to collect for a desired potion. I'll work on this.

The quests are piling up and I have prioritized what I should do:
1. The Star of Magnus- search for, in an attempt to better understand the large globe discovered in the ruins near the College and now moved to the College's Central Hall.
2. Azura's Star- A quest from a Daedric Priestess at the Shrine of Azura to locate this Daedric artifact, a super soul gem. The quest was complicated when in Winterhold, I found a mage named Nelacar who told me a story about Azura's Star, that it drove a mage at the college crazy and for research purposes, he (the mage in question, not Nelacar) ended up killing a student. He was banished and was last seen headed for Illinalta's Deep with the item. Nelacar told me if I get my hands on it, whatever I do, don't give this artifact to the Priestess.
3. The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller- the final stage of the Dragonborn/Greybeard trial to become a full fledged Dragonborn and owner of The Voice.
4. The Silver Hand- a mysterious meeting planned at night in a crypt on behalf of the Companions. There is something furry about this.
5. Then there is a variety of sub-quests including joining the StormCloaks which I have specifically been avoiding and other challenges of a minor nature, but very important to those involved like saving Thorald Gray-Mane to keep a Whiterun feud manageable.

However, from my past experience questing in ElderScrolls settings, I don't necessarily need to rush through the main quest. I'm thinking that upping my skills in enchanting and my Dragon Voice are most important which would make finding Azura's Star and the Horn the top priorities with a side trip to save Thorald Gray-Mane, then followed by seaking the Staff of Magnus. If you don't know from past experience, according to every quest giver the task needs to have been completed yesterday, but in the ElderScrolls settings, quests are not perishable and wait until you are ready to tackle them.

Dragons are  becoming a real nuisance in Skyrim!  Preparing to depart the College, we were greeted by a dragon in the College courtyard, which we killed! What really irritated afterwards is that despite traffic through this area, I heard not one comment as in "good job"! These academics just ignored a large dragon skeleton laying at the entrance to the College!

Dragon No.4- BBQ anyone?