On the way back, bandits attack us again near an nordic tomb called Volskygge. As we've done previously when we are attacked by night, we go inside to see if the bandits have a camp there, so we can sleep. It appears they do not in the entry hall, so we decide to venture deeper into the tomb to see what we can find.

Draugr is what we find. In spades. Luckily, Hoth and Elendyl and my trusty Flame Atronach are tireless in their defense of me. I really have a great team here, I have to say.



A peculiar feat about this tomb is that is goes up instead of down. Tactically, this puts us in a disadvantage, as the enemies on many occasions have the higher ground. Nevertheless, we are able to fight our way to the very peak of the tomb, where we find another one of these Walls.




Then, suddenly, everything goes insane. We hear a large cracking noise and a flying skeleton comes leaping from what we thought was an empty tomb. Before we can even react, it casts some terrifying magic, deafening and nearly blinding us.



It obliterates my Flame Atronach within seconds. Then it apparently uses cold magics to drain Hoth and Elendyl of their stamina and vigor. To make matters even worse, it conjures a Frost Atronach to harass me, so I cannot fully focus on assisting the boys. We put up a good fight for a minute or so, but it becomes clear that this is pointless. In disgrace, we have to flee down the mountainside away from this nightmare.

We arrive in Solitude in the dead of night. Wordlessly, I go to bed.

In a foul mood we descent down the mountain and back to Solitude. I vow we will come back to defeat that evil skeleton and rid the world of it's evil. But now we are too weak to face such a foe. So he'll have to wait. At least, he's confined to that lonely peak, so he will not trouble anyone.

In Solitude we present the Bard's College with Olaf's Verse. Viarmo convinces us to join him when he reads the verse to the Jarl. He wishes to sway her to allow him to hold some festival or other. Although I like history and books, Hoth and Elendyl are easily bored. The court seems to like it though, and so the festival may continue. Elendyl's nagging throughout the ceremony made me miss quite a bit though. He always starts babbling when he's bored.



After this, we ride for Dawnguard Castle. There must be something in the air or maybe our breakfast is disagreeing with me, but on the road back South East we make two strange encounters. Only one of which I can be sure was real.

First, we see a minotaur. It comes hulking out of the forest and we stand there staring for a second or two, not realizing that it's real. I thought they only existed in story books. Anyway, it lets out a shout before it charges out and that shakes us into action. Hoth and Elendyl using the same tactics as when they fought those giants a while back.



Then, when we near Helgen, a bloody Dragon appears from over the horizon and blazes the town! In the blink of an eye it sacks the city and flies away. There was absolutely nothing we could do about it. Now it's a certain fact that Helgen is in ruins, but it's hard to believe it was an actual Dragon that did it and I saw it for myself.



I better go inform the Jarl of Riften when we pass it on the way to the Dawnguard.

You should write a book, Very good story telling.

We're basically in the middle of nowhere and there's no inn for miles around. We were hoping to stay at Helgen, but seeing as the place got torched that's not really an option. So we decide to camp out for the night, it's been a while since we had to do that.



It doesn't have the luxuries of an inn, but it prevents us from freezing to death during the night.

The next morning we wake up early and ride as fast as we can for Riften to inform the Jarl of the Dragon. Sadly, she shows no interest and doesn't even want to discuss it. Divines save me, but I hate this town! She doesn't even send out a scouting mission to check if Helgen is really destroyed...



There's nothing for it but to ride to Dawnguard Castle. It was an idle hope that Isran would be interested in Dragons, though. He's completely absorbed by the vampire threat. I meet Sorine and Gunmar in the main hall, where Isran first tests us to see if we're vampires in disguise. He's really getting paranoid about this, but on the other hand, perhaps that's what has kept him alive for so long.



This post was edited by hATemOnkEy on Apr 26 2015 05:55am

Isran asks me to speak to him privately, so I follow him upstairs to a secluded area. I know he's a good guy, but he's strangely intense and I don't fully trust him. So I'm glad that Elendyl and Hoth are here to defend me if things go south. What happens next though, is nothing that I could have expected.
Serana is here! And she has betrayed her father, stolen the Elder Scroll and brought it to us. Predictably Isran is dismissive of her and wants nothing to do with her plans, but I can convince him to hear her out. Apparently, she wants to find this Moth Priest that can translate the contents of the Elder Scroll for us. Maybe it can teach us something about how to stop the vampire threat.
She offers to go with us to Winterhold, where we can gather more information at the Mage's College about the whereabouts of this priest. I accept, but when we go out to ready the horses, she summons that ridiculous horse again... I'm regretting my decision already.



The ride to Winterhold is uneventful and the mages are downright irritating. First they force me to cast a spell before they let me enter, then they insist on giving me a guided tour of the premises before allowing me to go in the College proper to glean some information out of one of these wizards. Finally, we find a library with a great stack of books and scrolls to browse, the librarian is a bit gruff but helpful enough to tell us that he knows of a Moth Priest in Dragon Bridge. He also asks us to locate some books for him on his travels. On our way out, we also hear of a mage doing an expedition to Folgunthur to find out more about some Gauldur legend or other. Seeing as that is really close to Dragon Bridge, I decide we'll pass that on the way.

Again, nothing much happens on the way West and we reach Folgunthur without any attacks at all. Maybe word has got around about Hoth and Elendyl..
Anyway, we enter the Nordic tomb and after fighting the obligatory Draugr, we find the body of the mage doing the research here.



We take the Ivory Claw and head further into the tomb where we find a great hall. Almost immediately the dead around us all awaken at once and rush us down. Even with Hoth and Elendyl going full tilt and Serana and I backing them up, this fight lasts for quite a while. Eventually the weaker ones fall, and only their leader is left.



With all of us focusing on him and without his minions to protect him, he is defeated pretty easily. We take an amulet of his body and the Ivory Clas to bring to the Mage's College, when we return there.

For now, it's onwards to Dragon Bridge.

We arrive at Dragon Bridge just after midnight. Nobody in the inn seems to know anything about this priest and we decide to go to bed and start our investigation afresh in the morning.

We sleep in late and ask the guard outside if they know of this priest after breakfast. They tell us that he just left down the road South of Dragon Bridge. In the pouring rain we have to saddle the horses and ride out to follow them. Only a mile or two down the road, we find a smashed carriage and the bodies of guards and vampires strewn about. One of the bloodsuckers had a note on him telling us that the priest is taken prisoner in a nearby cave.



What with this information and Hoth's tracking skills, we're able to find the cave within minutes. Hopefully the priest is still alive..

There are far less vampires that we had anticipated. On top of that, they seemed entirely unprepared for our rescue party, they didn't even post a guard at the entrance.
Inside, we can take a good look around before deciding to go into battle. We manage to sneak around the perimeter unnoticed, and attack them from the flank. Hoth and Elendyl take the front, while Serana casts lightning to fry their spellcasters and I focus on healing the boys. These bloodsuckers go down in seconds.
What was annoying though, but not insurmountable, was that they had cast a spell on the priest to prevent him from helping us. Driven by this vampiric madness, he attacks us. Hoth smacks him down quickly enough, and that seems to bring him to his senses. A bit of healing magic to soothe his aches, and he was ready to talk.



When he learns we have an Elder Scroll, he agrees quickly to come to Dawnguard Castle to help us decipher it. We agree to meet him there, and say our goodbyes. Having not much to do, and probably being faster than this old horseless priest. We decide to head to Whiterun, to stash some of our goods and do some trading and get resupplied. When we are talking to Farengar, Irileth interrupts us brusquely.

Apparantly, there have been rumors about Helgen being destroyed and that I was a witness to the affair. She asks me to come before the Jarl immediately.



I try to give him an as earnest and detailed report as possible, and it appears that he believes us. He orders Irileth to take a detachment of guards to Riverwood to see if they can scout the beast out. He also tasks me to find an ancient stone for Farengar to decipher to perhaps find answers to combating this dragon. It should be located in Bleak Falls Barrow near Riverwood.

I head out immediately with the detachment and travel with them to Riverwood, it's on the way to Dawnguard anyway.
We arrive at dusk and decide to gather information with the inhabitants first before heading to the caves. At the trader, the proprietor asks us to retrieve his Golden Claw that was recently stolen by bandits, who supposedly are also holed up near Bleak Falls Barrow.



First thing in the morning, we head out.

This post was edited by hATemOnkEy on Apr 30 2015 06:21am

The caves are only a short ride away, and we do not meet much resistance on the way. There are only three bandits camped outside of Bleak Falls Barrow itself and they are easily overcome. It is the same inside, and we can almost stroll to where one of these miscreants is trying to open a gate. Before we can even do anything, the poor bastard activates a trap and is pierced by poisonous darts. Luckily, he dies quickly.
The trap itself is easy enough to avoid once you get a bit used to these things, and it hardly stop us in our progress. A little bit further we find the thief of the claw caught in huge cobwebs. Heavens know how he avoided getting eating by the big spider guarding the web, but the slippery bugger managed to do it.
The spider is easily taken care of by Elendyl, and we proceed to cut the miscreant loose to bring him to justice.



Apparently, stupidity is catching between these bandits. This imbecile runs away unarmed further into what appear to be catacombs. Meaning he's running straight into a nest of Draugr. We don't even have to run to catch him up, only a couple of corners further we already find him dead at the feet of some fairly weak undead. After we take the claw from him, we continue on. I can't but help but shake my head at the idiocy of these criminals. Perhaps that's how Stendarr measures out His justice...

A bit further we find a tomb of sorts, with another one of these mysterious Walls. It seems like the most likely place to find this Dragonstone for Farengar.



I should have expected it, but the undead jumping out of that coffin when we're grabbing the Dragonstone nearly caused me to swallow my tongue. Luckily, the team had my back, otherwise I'd have been in some serious trouble.



After this final fight, we head back out without further harassment to Riverwood, where we present the trader with his golden claw. After that, it's straight to the inn to rest up a bit. Tomorrow, we ride for Dawnguard Castle. Isran will probably send us to the other side of Skyrim again, so best to get that out of the way first. We'll get back to Whiterun after that to give Farengar that Dragonstone the day after...

So on the way to Dawnguard Castle, we get hit by sudden freezing weather. Seeing a fire a bit to the North of the road, hopefully we go to investigate and maybe share a fire with some welcoming strangers.



Unfortunately, it appears to be a couple of hags crowding around an altar of sorts. They are immediately hostile and the boys have no choice but to cut them down. At leas their fire didn't go out during the fight. While warming up a bit, I investigate their campsite a bit and we find some notes and an expensive looking dagger named Nettlebane. I've heard Danica of Whiterun speak of this thing before. We'll bring it along and present it to her, next time we go home.

When we can feel our feet again, we ride further South East to Dawnguard Castle. On the way we have to stop once more to find shelter. You'd think the further you head South the warmer it would get, but the Skyrim climate disagrees apparently. So we head into the nearest cave we can see to hide from the elements. As you might have guessed, the cavern turned out the be inhabited by Draugr. One of them appearing connected to the Gauldur legend the Mages' College was investigating.



After clearing this den of undead out and warming up once again, we make the final stage of the trek to the castle. There we meet the Moth Priest and Isran. They have prepared everything for the reading of the Elder Scroll.



The thing is only partly decipherable though. It speaks of an ancient and powerful weapon and something about an ancient blood being very potent. It appears there are two more Elder Scrolls pertaining to these legends, which obviously we now have to go find but have no idea as to where we have to start looking.

After talking it over with Serana, we come to the conclusion that her mother Valerica might know about one of these Elder Scrolls. She has been in hiding for a very long time though, avoiding meeting Harkon. They really seem like a happy family, don't they... Serana seems uncomfortable telling the story herself, is she melancholy because she wants warm human interactions instead of the constant struggle for power that appears to be normal for vampires?

Anyway, by discussing our plans, we figure Valerica might be hiding in the vampire castle. Harkon would never think to look for her right under his own nose. So, after warming up by the fire and eating our fill, we head out as soon as possible.



The long trek back North West is not something any of us are looking forward to, so we decide to take the coach at Riften and ride for Solitude in comfort. Once there, we stock up on supplies and leave straight away for the castle. Luckily, Serana knows of a back entrance, and we can sneak in unnoticed. Once inside, we are met with a couple of skeletons and vampiric hounds, but they are put down hard and fast by Hoth and Elendyl. Exploring further in the bowels of the keep, we eventually stumble upon Valerica's study. There we find the information we need: Valerica has hidden herself away on a plane Oblivion called the Soul Cairn. Looking around her study, we learn how to perform the ritual to open the gate and follow her there. For some reason Serana insists on performing the ritual naked. I have no idea why, and I haven't seen it written down in any of the tomes here. She can do what she wants, but I'm keeping my clothes on! Hoth and Elendyl at least have the decency to avert their eyes..



The ritual seems to work fine without the need of me disrobing. The gate opens within moments of completing the ritual and hesitantly we venture inside into a dark and foreboding place...