Riften, Windhelm, and the Coast: Imperial vs Stormcloak, Again

I kind of want to marry Brynjolf and his accent.

I've always had trouble with Riften. As Keah, I entered the city maybe a handful of times. But as Ella, I need to set up a different base of operations than my homes in Markarth, Whiterun, and Hjaalmarch. This means I need to be south or east, and Riften would so neatly provide a home for me.

In Eastmarch, there is unique fauna-- Creeping Clusters, Dragon Tongues instead of Mountain Flowers, more fish in the hot springs and along the coast. There are plenty of ruins around to provide Bone Meal, and vampires are around enough so that I have a constant source of Vampire Dust. South, in The Rift, Riften is a direct line to the Dawnguard, thief, and assassin quest lines. Windhelm, which is barely a couple hours travel, is the route to Soltsheim, and the mage's guild is just a bit further north. In this northern area, there are sabertooths instead of wolves, which provide alchemical ingredients instead of yet more hides.

Ending up having to jaunt up the coast within view of Windhelm.

But still, I find Riften and Windhelm both problematic. Both are full of deceit, prejudice, and poverty. Riften is an example of these qualities in Imperials; Windhelm shows these qualities in Stormcloaks.

Riften has both the Thieves' Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. The city is so poor that I picked up two quest lines on walking into the city to simply provide merchants with ingredients-- Fire Salts for Balimund's forge and Ice Wraith's Teeth for Marise Araval to help her keep her meat cold. Mjoll and Aerin try their best to keep the hatred to a minimum, but the people are frankly uninterested, and the fact that Mara's temple is here is a slap in the face of all of the citizens. They hate that priests and the presence of the Goddess of Love, when what they have to do to survive is make deals, bribe the thieves' guild, and bully others so that they can avoid being bullied: the first thieves guild quest is to steal a ring from the merchant Madesi so that Brand-Shei can be framed for it. The excuse given is that Brand-Shei needs to learn to keep his nose out of others' business. Whose business? Madesi's? The guild's? And Brand-Shei is nice. He's a Dark Elf who was raised by Argonians and wants to find out more clues to his past, even though he likes his Argonian brethren. The Jarl is mostly uninterested and her business is run by her steward. Maven Black Briar virtually owns the city.

Anyway, I had to finish up Brand-Shei's quest before I could head back into Riften, so I ended up bouncing between Riften and Windhelm for a while, killing Grelod and finding various things. After a quick jaunt to Loreius Farm, to meet Cicero before moving on with the Dark Brotherhood quest line, I ended up moving up to get the White Phial quest started for the alchemist in Windhelm and stopping at the Shrine of Azura on my way.

Along the coast from Riften to Winterhold are veins of iron and corundum. I also ended up clearing Mount Anthor, which got me the word Iiz for Ice Form. Up in the moutains around Winterhold are numerous cold-weather only beasts, like Ice Wraiths and Snowy Sabre Cats and Ice Wolves..

The Forsaken Cave and Crypt, where the White Phial are located, had another Wall, Aus, for the Marked for Death shout. I headed back to Windhelm to fork over the White Phial and made my way back down to Riften. Outside of town, I accepted a quest to get a Moon Amulet for Kharjo of one of the Khajiit caravans. I decided to sleep for an hour in the inn to kill time until I could meet with Brynjolf. I was promptly abducted by Astrid of the Dark Brotherhood. I expected this, but did not expect to be taken all the way from the Rift to Hjaalmarch! Regardless, I stopped in at Morthal while I was there to report to Idgrod, receiving the title and weapon of the Thane. I ended up cleaning up Eldersblood Peak (netting the word Haal of the Disarm shout) while I was nearby. The dragon here appears to eat Snow Trolls, so I bet there are some about somewhere nearby.

After ALL OF THIS I was finally able to go to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, where there was-- yes-- another word for the Marked for Death shout, Lun.

All in gold. Also, had to enter the Palace of Kings in Windhelm. Spent several minutes yelling at the screen/Ulfric.

Dragon Lairs and Dwemer Ruins

After leaving Darkwater Crossing, I was unable to find the falls where Derkeethus disappeared. In my search, I ended up further down the path to Riften than expected, so I decided to just continue travelling. I did find time to consult a map, however, and realized that the reason the miners are requesting aid from Windhelm is that Darkwater is, in fact, in southern Eastmarch!

The remaining road to Riften was very eventful. Over the rise of some of the hills, I saw a dragon attacking a mammoth. After some battle, I killed the dragon with the help of the giants nearby, who were none-too-pleased that the dragon had been eating their livestock.

I realized at this point that there was a dragon lair close by and went up to receive the first word of Frost Breath, Fo, from Bonestrewn Crest.

I also discovered the burial mound the dragon had been raised from, empty of its dragon, of course. It was nice to find all of the signs of dragon life near one another-- lair, feeding ground, burial mound. It was very pat and neat. Additionally, there were some iron ore veins nearby.

I continued south and eventually found that the road diverged to the ruins of Mzulft. I didn't enter the main part, but looked around the storeroom, where I found numerous materials for melting into ore (I did not take them, due to weight constrictions) and a glowing shard, which launched a side quest to identify it. I was intending to go to Markarth to do so, but realized that I had just looted a book, The Aetherium Wars, from the body of an adventurer outside, and it helped me identify the shard as an Aetherium Shard. It looks like a quarter of the whole, and the next should be in Arkngthamz, near (yes) Markarth.

The glowing shard. I love the Dwemer.

Very shortly after leaving the ruins, I was set on by hired thugs, who Hroggar from Morthal had apparently hired to kill me, for stealing from his home (with the Jarl's permisison, I might add) in my attempt to bring his vampire girlfriend to justice. Also, didn't I kill him?

Regardless, I killed the thugs, took the contract so I would know who to bother when I returned to Morthal, and continued ever-southward. I detoured off the path again to Northwind Mine, an iron mine with few deposits, but it proved a shortcut to Northwind Summit, a dragon lair. After having to do a quick cheat to make Lydia actually traverse the cave, since she chose not to accompany for reasons unknown, she engaged the dragon at close combat while I provided a steady stream of flames. Soon, the dragon was dead, I had the first word of the Aura Whisper shout, Laas, and a nearby chest revealed Meridia's Beacon.

Ah, will Daedric quests ever stop following me? Lookin' at you, Barbas. Go away.

Meridia, however, is one of my favorite of the Daedric Princes. She is... uncompromising, unflinching power. She doesn't see shades of gray, which makes sense, as she is only light. If I reunite her beacon to her shrine, the weapon she gives is glorious-- Dawnbreaker, a sword that brings hell to the undead.

Meridia must not realize that I'm a vampire as well. I have to get rid of it-- it really is a curse, and severely cripples my combat skills. I had to use numerous magicka potions with the dragon, and nearly died, since my magic didn't regenerate during the daytime. There are no noticeable perks, either, since the powers it gives are pitiful.

I was nearing Riften after this, thank the gods, and the pathway ran through Shor's Watch, where the watchmen had been killed by Imperial soldiers, and Shor's Stone, which is a mining community situated over Redbelly Mine. Annekke and Verner's daughter, Sylgja, lives here, where she works the mine and apparently brings other miners their food. I have no doubt that Annekke is less than pleased with her daughter's backseat role, but Sylgja can't be more than eighteen, considering how young her mother is. She asked me to bring her parents some letters, since she had been injured recently, and though a Priest of Mara had healed her before heading to Dawnstar, she still feels poorly.

I had intended to just do a quick run into the mine to see what was in there, but was surprised to find myself attacked by Frostbite Spiders! I killed them all, and looked around town to see if anyone knew this, and was rewarded with almost a thousand gold coins when one of the miners realized what I had done.

I continued on, and eventually reached the gates of Riften.