Skyrim VR... Day 25

Sofia had been going on about a tavern in Solitude for a while, and since we were in the neighbourhood, it seemed reasonable to go pay the town a visit.

I met some cat people out the front and traded some of my loot, then headed in the front gate.

What greeted me there was a bit shocking - an execution was in progress, and all the people watching were all like “not now, I’m watching the execution”. Now as we established earlier, I don’t really like it when others are calling the shots on executions, but there was a heavy guard presence and I didn’t think I’d be able to kill them all. So I watched as ‘justice was served’.

Apparently the fellow had been on gate duty the day the Jarl of Solitude (and allegedly High King of Skyrim) was killed by some other fellow called Ulfric, in the noble sport of single combat. The reason he was executed, was he allowed Ulfric to leave after said ‘muder’. Though surely if the king didn’t want to risk dying, he could have refused the combat?

It seemed a bit weaksauce to me, scapegoating the gate guard for a legitimate death, though apparently Ulfric had used a shout, so maybe that was against the rules of the combat? Perhaps it’s a grey area, but I still don’t like it.

Anyway, it was late at night so we went to the Winking Skeever and grabbed a room for the night. They had two bards on rotation there, in fact, it seems like this town is full of bards.

In the morning I went shopping to offload some more stuff. There was a fancy clothing store run by two elven sisters. Sofia gave them some serious lip… I’m guessing she’s had a run in with them before? Anyway, after insulting my Armor of the Old Gods, they offered me one of their outfits for free if I would wear it to the palace to drum up interest. I shrugged, I like quests, and took the free clothing.

Next shopkeeper had a missing daughter she wanted me to find out about. The one after that had some item they wanted me to deliver somewhere. I took those quests too and continued talking to everyone.

I ended up in the main military HQ of the imperials, and they asked if I would like to join up. Sent me to clear out some fort. I told them LUL, already cleared that, and they were like, oh! You MUST join up then. I said I’d think about it, then went wandering and chatting to the other members of the legion to see how they felt about it. They tried to pressure me into joining twice more, so I bailed before I accidentally said ‘yes’.

I’m not sure whose side I’m on, or even the politics of Skyrim… might have to do some more research in that department. It seems like there are a number of factions, and I haven’t decided who the ‘good guys’ are. They all seem to be in shades of grey.

There was a nice looking temple adjoining the military HQ, so I read their literature and had a chat to their (sleeping, it was night time again) clergy. Some minded more than others about being woken up, but were happy to chat about religion. I can’t say I paid too much attention to them, it is religion after all, but apparently folks aren’t allowed to pray to Talos because the elves don’t want the humans to pray to him? I think I’ve heard similar being mentioned by a televangelist in Whiterun.

So it was almost morning again, and I decided to just wait for a few hours instead of going back to the inn.

Chatted to the vendors in the market, played tag with a bunch of kids, one of whom was sad about her executed uncle. I told her a story about dragons to help cheer her up, and she asked me to go talk to her mum about going back to church.

The mum, sister to the recently deceased, didn’t want to go back unless she could go back with an amulet of Talos, as some kind of defiance toward the elves. Seems a bit complicated. I happened to have already, um, acquired that earlier, when I was at the execution. Nimble fingers and all. So I gave it to her and she thanked me, then yelled at me to get out of her house.

So I yes ma’am’d out of there and found myself face to face with a crazy dude.

He ranted and raved about how his master was on vacation and needed to come back. I was like, this dude is crazy, what do I say to make him go away? And quickly agreed to help him then ran off before he could ask me to do anything else.

Found a really nice view nearby, lookin’ out over the water, and there was a bard student hanging out there to chatter to. Turns out, the main school for barding is in Solitude, and I was at their front door.

Welllll, I had to go take a look. Nice place. They said I could join up if I help them find some long lost poetry, I assume in some long lost dungeon full of long lost undead or long lost bandits. I said sure, then went on and read every book in the joint.

Reading books with gravity gloves is quite a lot of fun, you pull them off the shelf like you’re Obi Wan, and toss them on the floor when you’re done.

This was an activity that took the rest of the day, and as I was leaving the college I bumped into a maid from the palace. I convinced her to give me the key to the off-limits wing that the crazy dude had asked me to investigate, so that was fortuitous.

Seemed like next stop should be the palace.

I went in and there were some ‘advisors’ mansplaining things to the new jarl, who was looking a bit out of her depth on the throne of a kingdom she had inherited when Ulfric killed her hubby. Naturally, I got in the way and talked to her and all her advisors. Made sure she got a good look at my fancy getup from those seamstresses.

Talked to her court magician - now there’s a scary lady. She had a load of spell books I hadn’t seen before, so I’ll remember to come back when I know what spells I want to buy.

Because it was night time, everyone headed off to bed, so I snuck about the castle and read all the books without disturbing them, and um… there was this ‘strange looking gem’ on the Jarl’s dresser that caught my eyes and got accidentally misplaced.

So while I was doing my sneaking, I figured I’d sneak into that off-limits wing of the castle and see what’s what.

It looked like it had been hastily abandoned, lots of unopened wine bottles everywhere which also found their way into my knapsack. I could have grabbed oodles of silver too if it was possible to melt down goblets and trays (maybe there’s a mod for that?)

Anyway, I’d wandered up some stairs to check out how much more stuff I could find, and… the game crashed?

No. Not a crash. A freeze.

Froze for a good 30+ seconds.

I think that happens when all my inventory is moved into a storage location for safekeeping… probably firing off hundreds of ‘item removed’ events that random mods are processing and ignoring.

Anyway, I woke up in a strange vibrant land with a couple of dudes arguing at a feasting table. When one of them finally left, I talked to the other. He’s the god of madness, I think? And the master of the crazy dude from Solitude.

He told me that I couldn’t leave this place without solving something, and gave me a strange staff that he called a wabbajack.

So I went about battling this dude’s mad visions with the wabbajack, which was fun. The problem was my followers glitched out, and so I was like stop it. Gave them a good slap with the wabbajack but they didn’t stop. So then I used the VR Wheel to change off the wabbajack to use burning hands to burn them to death and stop them glitching that way.

Trouble was, the wabbajack wasn’t selectable to go back to, and I couldn’t open my inventory.

Soooo. It wasn’t a CTD, but it was a gamebreaking bug and I will have to load and redo the whole quest, so I called it a night.