Skyrim VR... Day 28

I waited around until dusk, and then we set fire to the king.

It was a raging success… drew quite a crowd, folks loved it, got some free food and wine and was a bit of a celebrity (word got around that I was instrumental in getting the festival back on).

And then the head bard was like “congrats, you’re a bard now”.

And I was like… uhmmm… I dunno what that means, but thanks?

So it seemed like I’d run out of most of my quests in this area (sure, there were a few I needed to do further afield, but I wasn’t headed in that direction).

I fast-travelled down to the Solitude docks (from inside the town). It was morning when I arrived… so I dunno if ‘fast’ was accurate.

I then paid the ferryman to take me to Dawnstar - because I had a quest there and why not?

We arrived after dusk. Quite a pretty town from the docks.

But turned out to be a bit of a strange one… for starters, a crazy dude invited me into his ‘museum’, which turned out to be his house - complete with bed right next to the ‘exhibits’.

He wants me to get some legendary sword fragments for his collection… and whilst I agreed, I kinda liked the sound of this sword and thinking maybe I should keep it for myself? I guess we’ll see.

Given it was night time, I started looking for the inn but ended up running into the old Jarl, who was yelling at a couple of his subjects who had fought for the empire in the wars a few decades ago. He said he would execute them for treason if they sent any kind of information to the empire. Guess he’s an Ulfric fanboy. He didn’t make a good first impression with me, that’s for certain.

The folks that were still awake were all complaining of bad dreams and a lack of sleep, but I grabbed a room at the inn and slept soundly until morning.

Leaving the inn, off to see the rest of the town, there was some sudden roarrage and burnination that I needed to deal with.

Another one bites the dust… I’m getting quite good at this dragonslaying gig.

After the fight, I met some south african accented priest of Mara who looked sus as hell, but he said he knew how to fix the nightmare problem, so I played along and we wandered up the mountain to that castle on top.

As I talked to him, he explained that the tower had been put into some kind of sleeping beauty curse with people sleeping forever and dreaming bad dreams. But he conveniently knew how to unseal the entrance and so we went on in.

Inside, the sleeping beauties (mostly orcs and cultists) started to wake up as we progressed through.

I say started, because as soon as they moved my x3 sneak attack arrows put them back to sleep again.

We got to a dead end with a force field that we couldn’t get through, but mister sus priest of Mara said he knew of a book in the library that would let us get past.

Well it was about this time I realised the priest of Mara was actually the goddamn loch ness monster, and I said damn it, monster, I ain’t got no treefiddy.

But he said he was a REFORMED loch ness monster, and truly a priest of Mara now, and to trust him and help him find this book and he didn’t need my treefiddy.

So he said something about “he’d look for the book downstairs” and wandered away, so I searched the library - there were a ton of burned books - and wondered why he hadn’t gone downstairs yet.

Well, I couldn’t find the book we were looking for, must have gone around the room three times before I went “well fine, if you’re not going downstairs, I will.”

So I went downstairs, killed a bunch more orcs and cultists, got some interesting looking potions, a couple more books, but still not the one we were looking for.

Then I went down the hall and… oh look, it’s the force field.

So I retraced my steps, and checked the library twice more. Still no book. Then I went UPSTAIRS in the library where there were literally no bookcases except for one surrounded by burning coals on the floor and still no book.

Then I went to like the dias up there and turned around and huh, there was a fallen beam.

And I could walk over the fallen beam.

And at the end of the beam was another book on a dias.

So I gave a giant sigh, picked it up and jumped down, handed it to the dude and we had a conversation.

“Next we need to make a potion, there’s a laboratory down the way, I’m sure we’ll be able to find the ingredients there.”

“You mean this potion?”

“Yes! Perfect. Drink it, it’s totally safe.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Pretty please, I promise I’m not the loch ness monster.”

“Oh very well.”

So this potion put me into a flashback, where I saw the fall of this castle through the eyes of a cultist who had been there. They were tasked with releasing the nightmare gas… so off we went, dodging past a number of combattants and pulled the sleeping beauty lever.

Then I woke up, standing on the other side of the force field and was able to lower it for ole nessy.

He said that I had vanished when I drank the potion and reappeared on the other side of the barrier, so I guess I’m The Doctor, able to travel thru space and time?

Finally, we were at the end of the line with one more task in our quest…

Destroy the cursed staff and raise the miasma that was causing the nightmares.

The only things that stood in the way were two of the priests’ buddies from the olden days, who were mightily disappointed when it turned out that he had actually turned to Mara for realsies and not just putting on an act that I had suspected the whole way through.

Two more dead cultists, and he went up to undo the curse.

At this point, some voice spoke in my head, saying that I should kill him because he was still going to betray me, but I felt that he wouldn’t have killed his buddies if he had really meant to do that.

So I let him live, and he destroyed the curse, and the folk of Dawnstar can sleep soundly at night again.

He said he intended to stay at the castle and repent for his sins, but if I needed help with anything, I should come get him (I guess he’s a follower option now).

Job well done, I hit the road again… I wonder where my feet will carry me to next?