Skyrim Diary - Entry 25 - Dragonbane & Vulthuryol

Usually I write my blog posts on the PC but being awake since 6am & lazy to not get up. I just grabbed my iphone & using the Blogger+ app I am writing this post.

After last week Skyrim I started talking about swords with Abbas & he said have you got the sword from Sky Haven Temple? What sword ?!

A quick google search revealed an armoury in the temple that has blade armour & the Dragonbane sword.

So the first task was to return to the temple to visit the armoury. There is a small room to the right when you walk into the main hall with the giant table. The armoury also has some blade armour & other bits. The Dragonbane sword can be found on the table. It does extra damage against dragons & shock attack on other enemies.

I then paid a quick visit to Whiterun to use my smithing skills to improve the sword & blade armour. With my +one handed attack ring & necklace the Dragonbane now did 130 damage. The blade armour was not better than my dragon armour so I passed the set over to Jzargo.

With the Dragonbane & Red Eagle sword I was now dual wielding with 265 damage.

Back to Blackreach where I had lots of mining, crimson nirnroot to collect & a glowing orange orb.

I decided to leave the glowing orb for now and looking at my local map, I went walking into the dark undiscovered areas where I found lots of places to mine & enough nirnroot to complete Sinderion's quest (which now wants me to visit his colleague Avrusa Sarethi). There are lots of buildings on the outskirts, some inhabited by Falmer & some just filled with loot.

With nothing else left to do it was time to visit the glowing orb. The area is surrounded by Falmer & Falmer servants (who are brainwashed humans ZOMBIES !!). It's a shame there were no dwarven robots, I was expecting to be greeted by some centurions.

There are two buildings Hall of Rumination & Debate Hall. Both buildings also only have Falmer & Zombie Slaves. Not much in the way of notable loot. The Hall of Rumination has a stairwell which takes you outside onto a platform overlooking the glowing orb.

So without further ado & as suggested by William (HaggisHunter) I used the unrelenting force shout on the orb.

FUS RO DAH !!

I expected the orb to smash open & a swarm of dwarven bees charging to attack me. But no it was the roar of a dragon !! A fire breathing dragon !! Being so high up on the platform I tried to attack with my bow but it's very difficult to attack a flying dragon.

The dragon then decided to land very conveniently outside the dwarven city. I had to go and meet him then, because I had killed all the Falmer on the way it was just me & Jzargo.

But I did have my new Dragonbane sword. The dragon, actually his name is Vulthuryol (sounds like a cough medicine) landed just outside the main wall. I decided to just charge in with my two swords and Jzargo was launching his destruction magic.

I got roasted quite a bit by taking the dragon flames head on but with only losing half my health I managed to jump on his back for a cinematic final blow.

Collecting the usual dragon loot, it was time to look at the local map for the location of the elder scroll.

I entered the Tower of Mzark to which I laughed Mzark the word in punjabi means joke. At this point I deleted my old saves (I usually only keep around five at the end of a session) & created save number 378.

Tune in next week then for more exciting adventures in Skyrim.

Draw Something - Mario

Skyrim Diary - Entry 24 - Blackreach

Unfortunately Skyrim Friday did not happen due to many reasons. Thanks to a wrong number phone call at 5am Saturday morning (GIT !!) I was awake so decided to have some early morning Skyrim (Not for breakfast of course because I was fasting).
 
Blackreach is a really REALLY large cavern, so instead of following my quest marker I decided to wonder around and see what I could find.

The first building I came across was Reeking Tower which was occupied by spiders (lots of them). After that I found Silent Ruin which had a trap chair when you sat on it a spinning blade pops up to attack.

Wondering around also meant I could collect lots of Crimson Nirnroot, I think I am currently on 22/30. You also run into a lot of falmer but not many dwarven enemies. Some centurions seem to be offline in holding rings & when you attack them they wake up. Also mining lots & lots of places to mine for soul gems & ore.

There is a giant glowing orange orb in the center of Blackreach but I have not visited it yet just in case it advances the quest line.

Luckily there are a few great lifts in blackreach that take you back to the surface, I only tend to pick up loot that is worth more than 150 gold but I was full & Jzargo was a pack mule. So I took the great lift of Raldbthar. I was greeted by the roar of a dragon & I think it was Alduin so I went down the path to take him on but he flew off & another dragon Viinturuth came in to attack.

Viinturuth does a frost attack which was easy enough to counter by equipping the necklace & ring I had to increase my defence to frost attack by 70%. My trusty Red Eagle easily killed the dragon but I had to leave the bones & scales behind.

Looting & selling the loot can take many hours in the game. I currently have 80,000+ gold but the difficulty with the high value items I pick up is finding a merchant with enough gold to sell them. I usually fast travel to Whiterun first & visit Warmaiden's, Drunken Huntsman, Belethor's & Arcadia's Cauldron. Then off to Riften to see the market traders, after that depending on what I have left I sometimes go to Riverwood.

I have thought about taking up some perks on the speech skill but with 80K gold already & nothing to spend it on it's probably a waste of a level up perk.

After selling my loot back to Blackreach to continue my sweep of the area, next to the glowing orange orb building I saw a giant wondering around & thought why not. But rather than charge in & attack I used my sneak ability & crouched to attack with an arrow doing 3x damage. Jzargo decided to do the same & we quickly killed the giant.

Wondering pass the giant we came to some more buildings including a pumphouse & market. The pumphouse had a master locked chest which rewarded me with a +35% damage ring when wielding a sword. The market had some loot but when I opened the main door I was met by a brick wall. Odd ??! but with the voice of "Daddy" that was my Skyrim play time over.

Tune in next week then for more exciting adventures in Skyrim.

Completed - Friendle

I have only one games folder on my iPhone & occassionally a game comes along that drives itself into the folder & that game was Ticket to Ride. Thus I had to get rid of one game & Friendle was my least played.

It is a nice app that offers you seven games you can play against friends but I only really ever played Backgammon. In fact before Friendle I did not know how to play the game of Backgammon so the game actually taught me something.

The list of games in the folder so far are Words with Friends, Disc Drivin, Hero Academy, Carcassonne, Outwitters, Pocket Heroes, Tiny Tower, Matching with Friends, Ticket to Ride, Bang, Song Pop & Trivie. The latter two have their days numbered.

New Game - Ticket To Ride

I have two games on my iPhone that have been sat gathering dust till I can find the time to learn how to play them. Bang & Ticket to Ride.

Abbas has already played quite a few games  so we sat down for him to teach me the ropes.

The result of the first game was me winning :)

You start the game with the choice of selecting up to 3 tickets. These tickets are a train journey from one city to another. When you stat the game you have various coloured tracks & you need to have the correct number of he coloured cards to match the track you want to lay down. thus if you want to lay a red track of four, you will need four red cards but there is a special rainbow coloured card which can be any colour of your choice so you could place the track with only 3 red & the rainbow card.

You then carry on playing the game collecting cards you need to lay the tracks. Throughout the game your goal is always to complete the tickets you started the game with but you can during the game select more tickets but be warn any tickets you fail to complete will be taken off your final score.

Another enjoyable turn based game & I'm disappointed that I did not load it up sooner to play.

Draw Something - Kirby

Draw Something - Scrabble

Carcassonne - Waiing for the tile - luck needed

Still easily the best iOS game IMHO, in a recent game against the Monster we agreed that no farmers would be placed because it is difficult for him to understand. So we played kid mode which only gave us road or town pieces.

This led the Monster to attempt an assault on a large town I had built but not with one but three meeple's.

We still had quite a few tiles to play so I ignored his attack and carried on accumulating points but I forgot one important factor.

Luck !!

He had luck on his side & with only two pieces remaining I got the road piece & he ended up with the tile he needed to complete the town & take the points.

Was it luck, skill or the fact that he was brave enough to place three meeple's on the chance that he would get the tile needed?

Either way he walked off telling everyone that he beat Dad at Carcassonne & I just smiled.

Draw Something - Elmo

Draw Something - Batman

Matching with Friends - High Chain 11

I'm still playing Matching with Friends against some UGVM players & a random player Mmosie who is very good so i was good to finally beat them but also in the process get a high chain of 11.

If you fancy a game send me an invite.

Skyrim Diary - Entry 23 - Alftand

It's Friday so that can only mean Skyrim day !!

I am on the quest Elder Knowledge searching the dwemer ruin Alftand for an Elder Scroll.

You get to fight a lot of dwemer enemies who are basically mechanical robots. Easily defeated by my Red Bane Sword & fire spells.

There is a section in the ruins that has you walking down a spiral platform & whilst under attack Jzargo decided to jump off this platform to his death but managed to knock into me & I promptly followed him down to my doom. I then asked him to wait at the top of this section whilst I dealt with all the enemies before asking him to follow me.
 
Later the ruins you come across Falmer who are a more tougher opponent, especially the Nightprowler & Gloomlurker. I ran into a party of three & died a couple of times before I had to stop & think of a strategy which involved placing down a fire rune & ensuring after a few attacks retreating to heal myself.

Along the way you find various journals & dead bodies of previous adventures who have tried to search the ruins for treasure. You eventually will come across two who are fighting who fight with each & whoever wins will then turn on you. After you have killed hem you can then use the sphere given to you to reveal a staircase down to Blackreach.

Blackreach is an underground cavern inhabited by Falmer & dwemer machines. It looks very beautiful especially with the Avatar floating like mushrooms. I also started another quest (like I don't have enough already!) when I picked up a Crimson Nirnroot plant. Slightly further into Blackreach you come across Sinderion's Field Laboratory & inside you find Sinderion's skeleton clutching a journal which asks you to then collect 30 of these plants.

At this point it was time to open my fast so I saved. Tune in next week then for more exciting adventures in Skyrim.

Draw Something - Cactus