Doing All the Things: Skyrim Edition Pt. 3 - Of Werewolves and Vampires

Here we are, another week has passed, and I can't believe how much content I've managed to play through since last I popped by to chat about Skyrim, not just for the sheer amount of things I did, but for how I managed to find the time to do them. The laundry list of adventures I went on include going to the Soul Cairn, helping the Companions with all their troubles, joining the Thieves Guild, and I even built my own house.

Going through the quests for the Dawnguard expansion, I'm beginning to see that the thing has a lot to do in it. Each leg of the quest has taken a fair bit of time to get through thus far, and it does sort of peer into the distant past since the whole arch involves 4000 year old true blood vampires and actual elder scrolls. So, being a bit of a lore whore, this little blood sucking romp has been quite interesting.

Family time.

It's just a shame that travelling the Soul Cairn isn't quite as exciting as the actual lore surrounding it. The place is a fairly desolate void where the souls of the dead sometimes find themselves. From the perspective of playing a game, it was a bit tedious to go running around there in search of Serana's mother, passing blackened ruins, talking to the occasional ghost, and getting jumped by undead constantly. There was even a quest to help a dead author find the pages of his manuscript that were scattered across the realm. I can't help but wonder if the quest was intentionally so tedious as an attempt to leave my soul just as shattered as the denizens inhabiting this particular quadrant of Oblivion. When we finally found Valeria and completed the quest, I hightailed it out of there as fast as my legs could carry me, the game quietly mocking me for not having enough mana to summon the undead horse that allows faster travel in the cairn. Sure, I learned how to summon an undead dragon into Tamriel before going home, but it felt like this was the game's way of giving me a half-assed apology for suffering through such a boring area.

Thankfully, my time with the Companions was been far more exciting. On one of my visits to Whiterun to dump yet more books in my chest, I decided on a whim to pop by Jorrvaskr and say hi, but wound up just steamrolling through all of their quests. I'd done some of their quests on past treks through the game, but never saw it to fruition. This time around, I decided to do the whole thing. As such, the fact that the higher ups in the group are werewolves didn't come as a surprise. What did bother me was that in order to do the latter quests with the Companions, I'd have no choice but to become one myself. While I was given a choice whether or not to become a vampire lord, no such offer was made regarding becoming one of these hairy mongrels.

At least Kodlak was nice, and hopes of helping him find a cure to his lycanthropy were what kept me moving forward with these quests, even if my motivations were a tad selfish as I hoped to cure myself of the condition in the process. As leaderless as the Companions like to say they are, it's hard to imagine the group doing well without him. Everyone else comes of as either a hot head, a bit thick, or still wet behind the ears. Without this guy as the Harbinger giving some form of guidance, I could see the Companions splintering into all sorts of factions and devolving into a huge mess. It would explain why he made me their new Harbinger after his death. There just isn't anyone else capable of the role. Imagine if Aela or Farkas were in charge. Yikes.

I hope you appreciate all of the
spiders I had to get through to help
you, Kodlak!

There was one thing that really sucked about doing the Companion quests, though: spiders were back. It all started when Kodlak asked me to kill some witches and bring back their heads as part of the cure to become human again. The whole thing seemed simple enough, but a short while after entering the cave where they were holed up I began to hear the skittering of many legs off in the distance. Well, crap. I only needed one head to complete the quest and could have gone straight back to Whiterun, but figured I'd need at least one more to cure my own lycanthropy, and so pressed on. At least I saw the not-so-little buggers from a ways off and was able to pick them off with some arrows, but in order to get some of them I had to work hard to land my shots, pegging some off through the narrowest of areas, arching over obstructions, and what not. I did whatever I had to in order to kill those pests from as far away as possible.

Not long after this, Kodlak was dead at the hands of a particularly bold raid by werewolf hunters, and all of the Companions headed to Ysgramor's tomb in search of the Harbinger's spirit as a last ditch effort to save his soul so that he could go to Sovngarde. It was a large, ancient Nord tomb, so pretty standard stuff in terms of architecture except that we had to prove ourselves in battle against the spirits of long dead Companions, as opposed to the usual legions of draugr that tend to inhabit such places. Unfortunately, after we made our way a little deeper into the tomb I noticed one doorway covered in webbing. Fuuuuuuuu~

The nice thing about doing the quest here is that not only do you have whatever house carl or sidekick you normally have in tow coming along for the ride, but Aela and Farkas join you as well, so there's some strength in numbers. That being the case, I made sure to keep my distance from the door and lob several arrows at it in order to clear the way, revealing several spiders in the next room. Farkas, Aela, and Serana all went charging in, making short work of the creatures, but then Farkas walked up to me and was all, "Sorry, I hate spiders. I'm gonna wait by the entrance with my brother until the rest of you are done."

WHAT THE HELL?!?

I hate spiders too, Farkas, and I have no choice but to keep going. You should have to come along too. Utter bull. Now that I have the option to bring him along with me whenever I'm doing something, I think I'll bring him to help clear that one spider infested mine near Riften as punishment for his cowardice.

It took a great many nails to build this.

Down one big, sissy Nord, it was up to Aela, Serana, and I to get things done. Entering the room full of now dead spiders, I could see a short passageway to my left leading to another chamber. It was all white from the sheer amount of webbing in it, and I couldn't see the ceiling from where I was. Gee, I wonder if a huge spider will drop from the roof once I get in there. You won't trick me that easily, game! In order to tackle this conundrum I did what any self-respecting adventure would do in such a situation. I ran up until I was fairly close to the door, but not too close, then waited for Aela to catch up. Once she had, I proceeded to slip behind her, slowly push the huntress through the door until she triggered the spider to come down, and promptly ran away the moment it did. I have to wonder if Aela is a bit afraid of the things as well, because she ran off too. Thankfully Serana was unphased, and began unloading on the bug with magic, disposing of the last of the spiders, and allowing us to finish up the quest.

When we finally found Kodlak's spirit, we administered the cure and removed the werewolf from him, allowing the Harbinger to rest in peace. After this, I did the same for myself, becoming wholly dark elf once more. One nice thing about finishing the main quest line for the Companion's is that you get the pick of the litter from their ranks should you ever want to have them tag along while exploring some ruins or whatever. Really, though, I can't imagine bringing anyone other than Farkas or Aela with me. Moreover, I can't help but wonder if they'd just sit there, quietly judging me and my stealthy archer ways instead of running headlong into battle as they so often do. This is something I noticed throughout my time with the Companions. They would often complain of sneaky thieves and their "milk drinker" ways, but every quest I did for them used a ton of stealth to get things done. I'd have thought they'd pipe up at some point about all that, but I guess not.

Blackreach is a huge, beautiful subterranean area despite
the falmer and spiders. More on falmer in a future article.

Speaking of thieves, I really should start doing more of their quests at some point. This was a bit tough for a while, as I was sitting on the Dawnguard quest to go see Valeria at which time Serana absolutely refused to leave my side. Having a sidekick around when on stealth quests can really cramp one's style, so it's best to run those solo, but my vampire buddy would have none of that. Thankfully now that we're done with the Soul Cairn, it appears I can ditch Serana for a time if I want, so it'll be a whole lot easier doing Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests.

If nothing else, it'll be a nice break from building my homestead as I have been for the last couple of days. As big of a fan as I may be of player housing in games, building my own house in Skyrim feels like one big Nails and Iron Fittings Smithing Simulator. My place is almost completely furnished and the blacksmiths of Solitude, Whiterun, and Falkreath are probably talking about pooling their money for a time share somewhere thanks to all the iron I've bought from them, but wow was building that house a slog. I'm glad it's almost done, and have gotten to rounding up orphans to live there. I even dragged Jordis down from Solitude to keep an eye on the place since I pretty much never use her anyway.

Going forward, I'm thinking I'll try and get the Dawnguard stuff over with first, and then maybe hitch my wagon to the Dark Brotherhood for a little regicide. After that, I'm not entirely sure what I'll do. I still haven't stepped foot in Markarth, and there's a potential murder to solve in Morthal, never mind sorting out this whole civil war, hanging out with the Greybeards, and the entire Dragonborn expansion to muddle through. As much as I've done thus far, I still have a whole lot left to do...

Other Installments of Doing All the Things: Skyrim Edition:

- Part One: Getting Started
- Part Two: Picking Sides
- Part Three: Of Werewolves and Vampires
- Part Four: The F Words
- Part Five: Parenthood
- Part Six: Doing all the Things was a Terrible Idea