That part about the brothers bothers me too. I wish you could just hand him skooma and send him on his merry way.

Sere...I'm as anxious as Veri...Is her Derda protecting her? If not, then who, and where is he? Such a tease you are, LOL.

Heh. Just at this point, I'm also being teased. I don't know what's happening yet, kind of like what happened with Idgrod, Raven Clan, and the hagravens.... Be sure I'll let everyone know as soon as I do! *laughing*

Serethil.... very powerful stuff!!!

The Ravensdaughter:

I put the sphere into the obvious receptacle. And watched a staircase.... unfold.... downward. I might hate dwemer ruins, but I had to admire the technology. There was something seriously elegant about this - that you put a key (in this case, a sphere with sigils all over it) into the appropriate "keyhole", and a sort of spiral staircase opened, flowerlike, leading you down into....

Hell.... I walked out into a darkness I couldn't fathom. There were patches of light here and there, and some odd chiming noise around some of them. But as for simply SEEING.... well, it was difficult in the extreme. There was a building directly across almost from where I entered this under-the-underground. I headed for it, as perhaps a way to get bearings.

There was - of course - a dwarven sphere waiting to kill me. I killed it instead. Hmmm. Can you actually "kill" something which isn't alive to begin with? Philosophy - Veri, stop that! Leave philosophy until you're not killing in order to keep from being killed.... Having sent the sphere's parts spinning into the dark, I tapped on the door - why, you ask? Well, because it was the polite thing to do? And receiving no answer, I opened it. It was a neat.... home, workshop, laboratory. There was a skeleton on the floor. Poor man, he'd died alone it seemed. I found his journal, along with more of the things that chimed - at least the sound was the same.

Sinderion was his name, and he was an alchemist of some note in Skingrad, in Cyrodiil. I put the journal in my pack, after reading a bit about the "crimson nirnroot". I thought I'd pick what of them I found. It was obvious that this plant was the entity making the chiming noise. I looked at the one in a bowl of soil on his workbench - regarding it warily. Plants shouldn't sing, should they? I wondered if it really WAS a plant.... However, I plucked it out of its bowl, and put it in one of the empty satchels littering the workbench. There were other bits and bobs of alchemical ingredients; I took them all as who knew what I might need before I got out of here.

Before I left the building, I gathered Sinderion's bones, and placing them in a neat pile, I set them alight. He had likely been one of the elvish breeds - he'd probably prefer his bones sent to ash rather than littering the floor....

I wondered how on Nirn I was supposed to be able to see in Blackreach. Even close to, such as when I looked down at my own feet on the path, I could almost not see them. And at a distance.... I needed to think about this some. I edged my way along to another building, killing another sphere and plucking another plant. The building had an apparatus in front of it - a button placed square into an elegantly curved construct of dwemer metal. Shrugging fatalistically, I pushed the button.

Nice that Veri did that for Sinderion, I always liked him. I lol'd at Veri's philosophizing too, though she was aggravated at herself! Very good!!

Eh, Veri's YOUNG. Young things - tend to get scattered....

Serethil... nice update... I too liked that Veri took care of Sinderion's bones.

RIP Sinderion. I was legit bummed when I went back and played Oblivion for the first time this year, and met Sinderion. Good read, Sere, i look forward to the Blackreach chapter.

Yeah, my "bummed" moment with Sinderion was the first time I hit Blackreach - so the first MQ playthrough after release.... I'd much rather they'd had him still alive, with some sort of quest, or the ability to make him a follower while in Blackreach - or something.... I suppose even elves don't live 200+ years. Huh. Interesting, I've never bothered to check life-spans!

I think they do, from what Ive read in the lore section. I wish Sinderion's death was more explained. I have a feeling the Falmer may have wounded him somehow.

Yeah, the way Avrusa talked about him it seemed she expected him to come back, meaning he would still be alive had it not been for the Falmer. Avrusa herself has been around since the destruction of Morrowind, where she owned an alchemy shop in Vivec, so it's easy to assume they're both well over 200 years old the time of Skyrim.

I have to say I was pretty sad to find his corpse down there, too. To think of all the hours Yannick spent collecting Nirnroot and http://67.media.tumblr.com/21900338caa5bb13d328ec5d277c6b23/tumblr_nkyxquvtF71slawspo1_1280.png. One of the less "fun" nods towards Oblivion.

Ake...#84

Given that.... they should have had him alive, and needing help with a quest when you get into Blackreach.... *sigh*

Veri's Tale:

Anti-climix. Thank the gods! All that happened was the bars over the opening slid into the floor…. I slithered into the dark maw – hmmm. It looked like any other dwemer "lift" - so I pulled the lever, and when the device stopped, I saw Skyrim - and another lever to my right which opened the gate. So, that was one escape route if I needed it - and could get back to it. I pulled the first lever, and returned to Blackreach. This time, I took a serious look around for anything which could help with the visual acuity issue.

Well, the best I could come up with was to take a couple of unusual "candle" type things along with me. I'd gone back to Sinderion's home, and pulled them off the walls - they were dwemer-make, and the lights on the ends glowed with some sort of luminance that while not perfect, did cut the impenetrable darkness better than simple torches. I wondered how long they would shine - probably not long enough for what I had to do, but there were likely more of them around....

Then I set off into the huge black of this place. There were "roads" - but I wasn't sure following them was a good idea. I would bet on there being all sorts of automata here, other than those I'd already killed. And Falmer.... ugh. Well, it is what it is. So I slunk along away from the road by a good margin. Which saved me an ambush almost immediately - two Falmer, and the killing of them "woke" one of those huge automated sets of dwemer armor.... Fortunately, small and agile and good with swords does help against something large and clumsy (though it was fast enough - it just couldn't turn around quickly). And once I got my breath back, I realized I was going to need to mend my swords if there was much more of this - I doubted I was going to find a handy grindstone.... Damn Veri - going to have to invent something portable, that can be hauled along in its own belt pouch.... I filed that thought away in my mind, along with bathing houses and carriages.

The odd thing about this place was that the light level seemed fairly constant - what there was of it. So I had to rely on internal knowing and such things as hunger and tiredness for clues as to what the time might be. When I got hungry, I stopped to eat a bit - I didn't make a fire and cook though. And when I was all but stumbling over my own feet with weariness, I called it a "day", and made a reasonably secure camp inside a fairly intact building - after I rooted through the rooms and made sure there wasn't anything inimical in there before I settled in the farthest room from the door.

In the "morning" (that is, after I slept and woke more or less rested), I headed out again. Somewhere southwestish should be this tower - at least that was my impression. I had to kill some chaurus, and there were so many places I should like to explore but didn't - I felt as if time was my main enemy with this. Finally, I took to the road itself, as the black was even more impenetrable in this area than I'd seen elsewhere. I thought the dwemer light things weren't as strong now as originally - so I might need to find more of them somewhere. I looked up to check the area....

And saw the giant.

Oh Sere...Neat, taking those dwemer lights! I love Blackreach, though I didn't the first couple times there, LOL. Not to mention again poor Sinderion. I still get lost in it though! Veri is thoroughly determined though, a survivor, and I like the ways she thinks outside the box in there!

Yeah, I had to go look up which way Mzark actually is, because when I'm in there, it seems "northeast" to me, certainly not southwest! I really don't like Blackreach - it's damned hard to see, and even with the Ring of Light at Firehawk 4x distance, it's just.... impenetrable. It was a LOT worse on my antique screens at release though. Perspective.... heh.

Hmm. Interesting - what's Gerdie got in mind? Can't wait to read it!

Good stories ever'body! I've been pretty occupied with the competition and all, so I haven't done a lot of reading or writing either. Now I get to see what I've been missing. I've also been busy trying to track down and replace all of my mods, and today has been spent getting them reinstalled. What a PITA! Almost enough to make me give up skyrim... Nah!

Competition Brand is dead, my mods are now reinstalled, and I'm about to see if the game will even load up. Assuming it does, I'm going to restart Brand and see if I can pick up the story. It'll be good to get back to more casual play style, and especially to mods like "Convenient Horses".

EDIT:

Oh, I was going to mention, last time I was in Blackreach, I got hit by a known and very nasty bug. After using the lift, if "save on travel" isn't disabled, it will start teleporting you back to the bottom of the shaft about every thirty seconds. I even fast-traveled far away, and thirty seconds later, there I was in Blackreach again... the bug is difficult to fix if it hits you, too...

Andra... Seem's Big Sis...has an idea... and generally those end in hard work and muscle soreness.

Serethil.... Veri is very good at survival...

I adore Blackreach... probably because I it's very different looking... plus I will never go underground IRL.. I take the stair's instead of an Elevator as long as it's not more than 5 floors..up... down.. I take the stair's.

I've been going back and forth between Kurdan and Tyler... so I have some stuff written for Kurdan, but it's pretty short ATM.. I love NMM..

Neil... you know with NMM... you can "copy" or save a characters preset's and then move them to a different "save".. I have my "Base" mods.. those I don't play without Role Play.. period.. ( USLEEP...When Vampires Attack... convenient Horses...etc).. Then I have my "Base" Competition mods...Which is just USLEEP and other non Advantage mods.. though I have occasionally use the wrong Base and have to un-check things... I just copy the "Competition base" ( which is what it's called) and then rename the new file after the character.

This of course saves ton's of time switching between one character and the next or starting a new character.

I had previously been using Mod Organizer, but this time I thought I'd see how NMM does... WELLL... I've spent the last three or four hours just getting the game to run past the opening Skyrim logo. Anyway, the crux of the problem was the NMM showed about 25 mods as active, when they weren't and the Bash Patch was kind of counting on them, I guess.

Then there was an issue because unlimited Bookshelves requires the Unofficial Skyrim Patch to run... but the USKP is no longer supported, and the game won't run with the patch installed. So, I had to get rid of both the bookshelves and the USKP. Anyway, it's been a nightmare. At this point I wouldn't know how to move between the save you're describing in any case...

If I ever do this again, I'll go back to Mod Organizer, I guarantee you!

I've never had a girl who WASN'T good at survival - because I am myself. And I just can't play girls who have no clue.... Some of them are more clueless than others, those tend to be the ones that live in cities and play with house decorating, and do "local" city and town quests and not much else.... And yeah, thank goodness NMM got it's stuff together and is SO much better now than a few years back....

Veri:

Ugh. Why is there a giant down here? I'm sure I had to pick my jaw up off my belt buckle.... I slid into a small cove area in rocks, where there was a bush of some sort between the rocks, me, and the road. I really didn't want to have to fight a giant - and it didn't look as if he was very happy or calm. I just stayed quiet, closed my eyes, and waited until his thumping gait receded into the distance away from me. I felt sorry for him - he'd probably never find his way home.... Would it even occur to him to look at the lift I'd opened, and pull the lever?

And where were the female giants anyway? I'd never seen one.... "Eh, get on with it, Veri. Woolgathering does not find this tower." So I started back on the road, trying to go carefully, and not wind up having to fight my way clear to the tower. A few more falmer and chaurus - but then a long quiet spell. Then there was some huge glowing ball above an edifice of stone, and I headed toward it cautiously - might this be the tower I was seeking?

Well. No. It probably wasn't. I sneaked around below the walls, and saw not only Falmer, but human slaves. I overheard some of the slaves talking about the Falmer in tones of seeming reverence.... some sort of mental control? I decided I'd wait until I'd exhausted every other option in this place before having to take on what was likely a small army of Falmer and their slaves.... I slithered back away from the walls toward the road, thankful I'd not tripped anything to alert the area.

I found another ruin to sleep in that "night". I still had enough food - not for a feast, but for one more day. After that.... well, I'd have to figure something out if I didn't find the tower "today". I was actually feeling depressed and disturbed - I think it was the sort of light, and the low level of it, and the ever-present blackness. I pulled a couple more of those light wand things off the walls of this building before I left. Walking slowly, trying not to run into anything I couldn't handle, I was heading - if my north-needle wasn't confused by this place the way I was feeling - south by west. As I heard things I didn't recognize, I'd slide into the deeper black away from the road until I thought it was safe again. By this time I was seriously not wanting to do much fighting - my swords had nicks and dings I had no way to fix....

I ate a little for "lunch" maybe. And then as I headed back to the road, I saw a bridge ahead of me, hidden until just then by this abominable dark. Across the bridge.... was that a tower structure? "Oh, Divines, please...." I trudged on, and by the middle of the bridge I could see that it was a tower. I could only hope it was the one I needed. I reached the door, and entered it with both swords out and in stealth mode - there could be anything in there.

There wasn't. Just a lift lever. Which I pulled. When I exited the lift, there was an obviously once-lived-in area with bits and bobs - a little food, not much, but I wasn't averse to taking it since it was eggs and dried meat. Some old falling-apart books. A few potions which might help. And a bedroll. So. I'd be able to come back here to sleep if I needed to, and it would be better than the cold hard stone beds I'd had the last two nights.

I stood quietly, listening. I stilled my heartbeat as Gramda had taught me, so that I could hear the bones of this place. There was nothing beyond the susurration of wind somewhere - which was likely due to dwemer mechanics, since there didn't seem to be any real wind in Blackreach. I rested for a bit. Opening the satchel, I counted the strange red roots - I'd collected thirty of them without even paying attention. I wondered what I'd do with them....

Neil, I didn't have that problem at all with NMM. I installed it, it found my mods, did what it does with them, and bingo. Now, as for USKP - you need to get https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71214/? instead (because USKP isn't supported any more), and you might need the https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71316/? script too. I did - but only for one mod....

Right now, I have around 200 mods - not all of which are active on any one girl. The most I have active on one girl is 183. I haven't had any issues at all with NMM keeping things sorted. [And that total's going up tomorrow when I get the stick from daughter with a dozen others....]

A nice description of moving through Blackreach! Eh, nothing to do with you Serethil, but I must be more tired than I thought. I could have sworn you just mentioned a "once-lived-in area with bits and boobs". I've been up since about 2 am and fighting with this reinstall steadily since about 4 am. My mind has turned to J-e-l-l-o...

I'm not certain if it's relevant or not, but I'm using a brand new updated version of NMM, just out a few days ago. I never heard of usleep before, but I have the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch, which is the recommended replacement for USKP. At any rate, I haven't tried to play yet, but the game now loads up to the cart ride which is a terrific improvement over what I've been getting all day. ...and I only have 47 mods, and re-selecting them one at a time was a terrible pain. Especially because the esp causing the crash was the bash patch right at the end of the load order. Only ASIS comes after it.

I'll bet I drove my friends crazy getting a Steam notification once a minute that neildarkstar was now playing Skyrim...

Bobs, hon, bobs. Not - the other thing. "Bits and bobs" is one way of saying "leftovers"....

USLEEP is the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch, yes - USLEEP is shorthand for it. And actually there's a new version of NMM since this morning (which fixes some crashes I at least wasn't having, and does stuff for FO4, which I'm not now nor ever will be playing) but I do keep it up to date. Um. What's "ASIS"?

ASIS is an overhaul I haven't tried before... theoretically, it gives NPCs more discretion on using spells and adds increased spawns with improved AI. I've never tried it before, but http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18436/? a link:

Neil... It does... I use it... really nice to see some of the NPC mages using spells from Grimoire....(errr when they aren't killing my PC with them )

At the header... it says "profiles"... when you first start it will only have one.. you have to add them. The Version you got had/has some issues...I'm still using 0.61.5 They are getting them sorted out though.