The resist blind spell you cooked up seemed to be good enough to me. Why won't you use it?

Because things will be super dark. :<

Also I don't even know how powerful the blind effect was there as our resist spell had varying magnitudes. Could either just be a 20% effect or 50% effect or anything in between. I guess if that was 50%, then it might be alright but fuck it if it's 20%. We have no control over that, so we gotta aim for that 100 to 100 magnitude spell. Should just take one more level to have enough magicka for it and maybe a couple of levels to make it easily castable. Such is life.

Let's focus on the Nerevarine questline for a bit, because I have this hunch that we're the dragonborn... Go see what kind of boring quest the mage guild lady has for us, and make sure to join the thieves guild before anything becomes inaccessible.

Try not to do much gamebreaking potion stuff, it's not interesting to win that way. frt

Part 18: Grave Robbing





We were told to go find an Orc lady who knew more about the Nerevarine and the prophecies. She was supposed to be found at the Mages guild and this is the only Orc there.



As expected, she will not give us the information for free. She wants a skull.



As you can potentially do this quest very early on without any enchanted weapons, the game is kind enough to give you one here where you need it. We don't need her help, however.



She's not a necromancer, though.



I went back to the Fighters guild to get prepared and here's the equipment chest restocked already. I took the health potions.



I also went to the temple to buy a spell. Lowering our strength is the worst thing an enemy can do to us as we can't carry our items if we are too weak, so we need a quick way to restore it if needed. The Temple did not sell a restore strength spell, but luckily we don't need that exact one.



Any restore attribute spell gives us the effect to use for spellmaking, we can choose what we want from the list.



A person also wanted to murder us, but I think we know how well that went.






The night was strangely foggy and dark. We're going to have to make our way down the road we took to get to Balmora the first time.



The woman looking for the bandit is still here.



There's Pelagiad. We have no reason to go there now, however.



Ah, here we are. To the left, the sign that marks the forked road we were supposed to look for. Ti the right, the entrance to the tomb.






We saw a similar sight very early on when we stumbled into a tomb and got attacked by an angry ghost. All the tombs seem to start out this way...





Ah, there's a ghost.



Not that difficult now. I'm not sure if this ghost is weaker than the others as most enemies in this tomb are weaker versions, but I don't think the ghosts will be that difficult anymore.



This man wasn't as lucky. Let's respect him by taking his money.





I heard strange sounds behind this door, so I didn't go in just yet. We don't need any potential enemies to attack from other rooms.



These skeletons most likely would have gone after us if they heard a fight.






I'm not entirely sure what is happening here. The person on the left is Vivec, so this might be another scene from those strange books.





The tombs always seem to have some kind of offerings for the dead. I'll be taking the gold.



I went back to that door I skipped earlier and I found the source of the strange sound. This skeleton just kept walking into the wall.





I went back to the room with the other skeletons after taking care of the skeleton. There was a door.







Skeletons are no match for Yook.





Hm. I'm not sure if I was expecting to see a room like this in a family tomb. It seems like the living do spend a lot of time with the spirits of their ancestors.







Going back to the previous corridor, it seems like this thing is clipping through the door...



Hello there.



We found what we were looking for, time to head back and go through the doors we missed.










This bonewalker actually wanted to turn towards us.



That was it for this tomb. I tried to cast Almsivi Intervention to teleport us back to Balmora, but Yook failed 5 times in a row. Even though he can kill ghosts and skeletons without any issues, he still can't cast a simple spell...



Hello scrib.



Once I got back to town, I decided to go for another round of asking the people for information. This guard tells us of some transportation system in the Dunmer strongholds that apparently still works. You just need a thing called an index. I wonder what those are?



Larrius Varro is looking for us!





But it was time to turn this quest in.





Not sure if this was worth the tomb raiding, but what's done is done.



It is time to vote again with many of the same options as last time.


Will we go and give the information to Caius Cosades?

Shall we continue to work for Fighters guild and get the code book? This is our last chance to join the Thieves guild, if we agree to do this mission, will we join the Thieves guild and will we do this before or after getting the code book?

Would you like to take some time off to scout all the Great Houses to see which one we should join?

Larrius Varro is looking for us. We previously helped him to get rid of a bandit near Hla Oad. Will we go see what he wants to tell us?

Should we join another guild?

Or perhaps something else?

Definitely deliver the info to Caius, he may offer money or items in return.

I'd vote you explore the houses as well. They can be quite diverse in belief, so some research on them might be warranted. I'd never looked into Indoril and Dres, both holding no real presence on Vvardenfell, in my time playing, so I can't properly advise you towards any of them. But definitely see if any catch your eye. Most questlines do have something or other to make them worthwhile.

Ah, right. I do know (Or believe) Indoril is really big in the Mournhold area, so I wasn't sure if you could join it in Tribunal or what.

I'd really like to advise one or the other, cause of late-house-quest rewards, but spoilers.

Hlaalu's starting office is in Balmora, Redoran's is in.. Oh jeez, been so long, place with the huge Shell. Skor, or Skar, or something? No clue where Telvanni's is.

Pick the one in your favorite town!

Part 19: The Great Houses





Our plan today is to report back to Caius Cosades and ask what Larrius Varro wants. As there was some interest in the Great Houses, we are also going to take a tour.





He's still going after information about the Nerevarine and the Sixth House. This time he would want to send us all the way to Vivec, the largest city in Vvardenfell.




Now, to the fort.



A nice present, hm? He has a story for us before that, however.




"For a long time, the good officer sighed, and said, 'What can I do? Because the bad magistrate has important friends, and nothing I can do will touch him.' But then, the good officer said, 'Say. Wait a minute. What about the bad peoplewho are BRIBING the bad magistrate? THEY haven't got important friends. And if they aren't around, then the bad magistrate can't get any more bribes.'"


Sounds like he wants us to murder "bad people".



"...willing."






Onto the Great Houses, then! I bought a scroll that describes all five of the houses with the ones on Vvardenfell having the most information written about them. We'll be using it to learn more about the Houses, where they can be found and what kind of an attitude they have.



House Hlaalu we know the best and the council seat is located in Balmora. They are the most open of the Houses, willingly working with outlanders. They are business-savvy, favoring good personality and finesse. We did hear rumors that Camonna Tong controls them, but we can only wonder what that is about. Camonna Tong dislikes outlanders after all, but Hlaalu is the most accepting of the Great Houses.



The houses in Balmora aren't very big, but the council manor is one of the largest. The noble manors follow a similar style with a large room with some smaller rooms upstairs. Comfy enough, I am sure.





House Redoran's council seat is in Ald'ruhn, and the lovely environment welcomes us with an ash storm. They don't happen here constantly, but they are a possible weather pattern which Balmora lacks. House Redoran is more traditional and xenophobic than Hlaalu, though they are more about honorable duels than silver tongues. The Temple is quite important to them.



It is to the north, in the aptly named Ashlands right next to the Red Mountain, the volcano. It's very dry, dusty and brown everywhere.



The thing that sets Ald'ruhn apart from the other towns with similar buildings is the Skar, the shell of an ancient, giant crab. While the smaller buildings look organic, they're actually not shells but something built to imitate them.



Under-Skar doesn't really look like much, but at least the ash doesn't get in here. There are some shops at the bottom, but these doors on the upper level lead to the manors of Redoran nobles.



Compared to Balmora, the manors are very big. Many large entrance rooms, twisting corridors, multiple levels and some smaller living quarters make them places to easily get lost in. Everything might be brown, but there is a lot of detail and decorations.



The shapes are very round inside, as well.





House Telvanni's council seat town is the last one on the list. This is actually the Gateway inn just outside Sadrith Mora, a place where all the visitors are supposedly stay. The town is said to not be open to anyone else without permission, a good example of how much Telvanni hate everyone else... But the game doesn't actually mind if we go explore the town proper.



Any Telvanni town will have a similar build to it: a big mushroom tower surrounded by smaller houses. Telvanni are wizards, so they can build whatever they want, growing giant mushrooms to live in with magic because they can.



Sadrith Mora is all the way to the east and we can just barely see the area we have been exploring in the left corner of the map. The Telvanni don't care about politics much, but they are taking over Azura's coast and the Grazelands just so the other two Houses can't claim them first.







The mushroom huts are tiny, though. There is a second floor where a bedroom usually is.



As the council seat, Sadrith Mora has the council hall. It too is to the side, so it seems like an afterthought. The Telvanni probably didn't care much about making one.



None of the Telvanni wizard-lords are here, staying in their towers all across the land. These people, the Mouths, are hired just to deal with others as the wizard-lords don't really care to.



The Temple actually is below the council hall in the basement, showing how much respect the Telvanni have for the Temple as well.



And we hear a rumor.



Sadrith Mora also has a slave market. We could buy them ourselves, too.



At the center is Master Neloth's tower, the wizard-lord of Sadrith Mora.



The insides are a bit bigger, but it still seems to be made of mushrooms and roots.



The thing about the towers is that you need levitation to be able to go much further. All of them will have a levitation shaft somewhere instead of stairs and this door here is too high for us to jump to. They really are keeping non-wizards outside.

The other houses, House Dres and House Indoril, aren't well represented in Vvardenfell and can't be joined. They both are very xenophobic and traditional. We'll be seeing members of House Indoril in the future, however.



I also got a level.



It is time to vote again.


Shall we go to Vivec and get information for Caius?

Will we help Larrius Varro again and kill bad people? If we decide to join House Hlaalu, finishing this quest will make us skip a Hlaalu quest and go straight to the end. It's nothing major, but the rewards will be slightly worse.

Are we going to join a Great House? If so, which? As a spoiler, we will be able to get our own house built in the style of our chosen House later on. This vote will most likely be open for a while as we are in no hurry to join a house.

Would we rather join a new guild?

The Gateway inn in Sadrith Mora is haunted, will we see what we can do about that?

Can't do Hlaalu quests unless we join House Hlaalu, mate. Unless that was a vote to joining House Hlaalu.