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The Real Delia Dalomax, Chapter 31

Delia Dalomax, a Breton, has been traveling around Cyrodiil mustering soldiers from the cities to help with Bruma's defense. Each count or countess agreed, but only after Delia closed a gate outside their own city. Seemed reasonable. I last saw her about to enter the gate outside Leyawiin, the last city in her "Allies for Bruma" tour.

During all of that, she found a new personal fitness trainer, Rusia Bradus, as Delia had exceeded Honditar's ability to coach her to new levels of athletic prowess.

The Real Delia Dalomax, Chapter 32

Delia Dalomax, Breton errand girl, closed the Oblivion gate outside Leyawiin, and Count Caro agreed to send aid for Bruma's defense. Having recruited soldiers from Anvil, Bravil, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Leyawiin, and Skingrad, Delia embarked on the mission given to her by Martin: Retrieve Tiber Septim's armor from Sancre Tor. So she traveled to Sancre Tor via Bravil, the IC, and Chorrol, clearing the roads of various bandits and monsters along the way.

Sancre Tor was a nightmare (though I think we could have successfully sneaked through most of it - in fact, we did sneak through the prison, fighting only Valdemar, as by that point, Delia was running low on certain supplies). But Delia did what the "four mightiest Blades of Tiber Septim's day" could not do - survive Sancre Tor. And she freed their ghosts, to boot.

Having acquired Tiber Septim's armor and a relic from each of the four Blades, Delia made her way to Bruma, detouring to Chorrol and the IC to trade and re-supply. She stored her Blade souvenirs at her Bruma house (it would be nice to be able to donate those to Cloud Ruler Temple - maybe she will "donate" them later, though I suspect the game will re-spawn the items out of existence).

Delia also visited with and cheered the soldiers who had arrived at Bruma to aid with its defense (all except Ulrich Leland, who wasn't very nice). The next day, she went to CRT and turned over Tiber Septim's armor to Martin. Not surprisingly, Martin had another task for her. This one would require a trip to the Ayleid ruin Miscarcand.

The Real Delia Dalomax, Chapter 33

To prepare for her next task, Delia Dalomax, Breton errand girl supreme, went to the CRT library and read the book "The Last King of the Ayleids." Unfortunately, it did not contain any hints for surviving an expedition into an Ayleid ruin. She would have to wing it.

Delia spent the next couple of days traveling to Miscarcand, parking Delia's Prior Maborel's Paint Horse at the Kvatch refugee camp after heading up to Kvatch to recruit some more help for Bruma (too bad we couldn't recruit the now bare-chested fighter Ilend Vonius, who had emerged from the Kvatch gate without his cuirasse). Then she circled back to the ruin on foot. There she found Goblins from the Bitterfish clan camped outside. They weren't too tough against the seasoned stealth-warrior that Delia has become. Inside, it was goblins vs zombies vs Delia. The zombies gave her some trouble and she contracted astral vapors three times. Fortunately, she brought just enough Cure Disease potions.

Delia put on her fedora and took the Great Welkynd Stone. But the King of Miscarcand was watching and did not care for her theft. The last fight took quite some time. Delia made good use of her abilities as an acrobat and athlete to keep distance between herself and the lich and his zombies. Can't risk getting the vapors again. Eventually the undead were dead and Delia went to Anvil for some R&R.

On the way to Anvil, she found that a new Oblivion gate had opened. So much for a couple days rest. Delia went back the next day and closed the gate, the 31st Oblivion gate she has closed since the crisis began.

Delia went to Skingrad for the night. While there, she went into the West Weald Inn for dinner. There, Else God-Hater revealed her true colors, so to speak. Erina, Maglir, and Alval all assisted in Delia's defense, not that she couldn't have handled the situation by herself. She's handled these undercover Dagonites several times before. They aren't so tough.

Delia then rode up to Bruma and CRT in record time and delivered the Great Welkynd Stone to Martin. Oh, you have a plan for ending the Daedric invasion? Fetch a Great Sigil Stone from Oblivion? But who's going to go inside to fetch it? Oh yeah... right.

Delia, Martin, Jaufre, and Baurus then went to Bruma to discuss the plan with Countess Narina. The Countess thought it was crazy enough to work. But first, there's a little matter of the Great Gate that has opened outside Bruma. The crowd cheered for Martin as he, Delia, and the Blades marched to battle. Oh, and Burd, too, who has decided to fight while wearing fine clothing (might have to set him to essential - a man so bold deserves to be saved). Outside Bruma was a full contingency of soldiers from the cities.

With all that help, it should be easy, right?

---

After that, things didn't go well... four times, it didn't go well, i.e., Martin kept dying, along with other people I wanted to keep alive. But no worries. It was late and I wasn't playing very smart. Maybe the results will be better next time.

Edit: I think I know why things didn't go well with the defense of Bruma. I was waiting for the daedra to stop spawning from the gate before going in. According to the wiki, they never stop spawning. That might explain why most of the good guys, including Martin, eventually died. Ha. Let's try it again.

The Real Delia Dalomax, Chapter 34

Delia, Martin, Jauffre, Baurus, Burd, Viera Lerus, Ulrich "Bad Attitude" Leland, and the rest of the contigency of soldiers from the cities marched and then ran to the plain where the Oblivion gates were opening outside Bruma. Martin gave a rousing speech while Delia applied poison to her bow and daggers. Delia drew her bow Electra and aimed for the gate, ready for the daedra. The speech was timed just right - good job, Martin - because as he finished, a dremora, a spider, and a storm atronach emerged from the gate. Delia fired and hit the atronach - she was aiming for the Dremora, but at least she hit something. And with that, the defense of Bruma was on.

Most of the fighting was in a large fray, so Delia sniped daedra separated from the main fray and occassionally assisted individual soldiers in isolated combat by casting Twilight Sparkles (paralyze + shock on touch) on their foes. Eventually, the Great Gate opened, and Delia entered Oblivion for the 32nd time.

No time for sightseeing, Delia was in a race against the Siege Crawler. Her prowess as an acrobat and athlete paid off again, as she was able to outmaneuver the intitial daedra and leap across the lava pools, avoiding combat and making good time. Nor did she slow down much after that (a very different experience for me, as I usually play a slow, stealthy game).

Delia nabbed the Great Sigil Stone with plenty of time to spare. "Ooh, wait til Armand Christophe hears about this heist," Delia the Prowler may have thought, while the pursuing Dremora futilely tried to hack at her as their world closed and Delia was teleported outside with the prize.

Back on the battlefield, Delia helped the good guys kill the few remaining Daedra. But the battle had not been without losses: The Anvil and Skingrad soldiers had been killed. And Delia noticed that Baurus had discarded his Akaviri Katana, which had been completely broken during the battle (I suppose a Dremora disintegrated it). Delia collected it, intending to repair it later when she gets a chance.

The surviving fighters cheered for her and Martin thanked her, but lest we think Delia's work is done, Martin has another job for her and there's no time to spare. Delia went to her Bruma house to drop off some things and repair her equipment. Next stop... Paradise?

Delia Dalomax, a Breton thief:
1. Killed Mankar Camoran and nabbed the Amulet of Kings.
2. Saw Martin Septim crowned as the (last Dragonborn) Emperor, but then things didn't go as planned.
3. Escorted Martin to the Temple of the One where... you know what happened.
4. Has a plan to convince Ocato and the Elder Council to name her Empress of Tamriel. Martin would want it that way, wouldn't he?

Long version

Edit just to say that I love the voice acting for Mankar Camoran. Well done by actor Terence Stamp.

Just got my fine steel dagger enchanted with damage fatigue and weakness to magica, gonna play a bit now and laugh at fat foes breaking down haha. (I'm using l.a.m.e. mod btw)
I also finished making some nice potions with lots of effects and have set my difficulty to the right side. Maybe I'll do some Black Bow hunting with Mazoga next.

I explored the sewers for the first time. I usually just go in for quests. I don't like being lost down there. It smells bad.

I also did the Ultimate Heist with a Bosmer Archer Atronach at level 14 with a +10 firebow and a +5 shock bow. I did OK until the very end of the Old Way catacombs when I ran low on arrows in the face of way too many Dread Zombies and had to run invisible to the jump-up point. I took 150 arrows but needed 250 or 300. Wizard's Fury spell (lvl 10) sux sewer pipe. I think I can be just as effective against Dread zombies with weak fireballs.

The only custom weapon/spell I'm using with this character is a [Soul trap 1s, 20 Drain Health] touch spell. It is obsolete now, so I'm using the store bought Soul trap spell.

I am still trying to level Seryna...

She wandered around Cyrodiil speaking to each beggar in each city, giving them a coin before she left. Once that was done, she received training for the last of her Speechcraft skill.

With her Speechcraft out of the way, I moved on to the last skill: Mercantile. Gods... This is going to take a long time. I collected hundreds of items (if not thousands) and I can tell it isn't going to be enough. I might have to install a Mercantile overhaul. I've sold all of the non-unique weapons, armor, jewelry, clothing, and scolls/books and her Mercantile only increased by six. It took an hour for six skill increases. My hand hurts from selling things one at a time.

Yeah. Might have to find an overhaul. It's either that or I use some of the thousands of alchemy ingredients I have. I'm surprised my game doesn't crash when I open that chest. It does lag, though.

Collected near 70k gold from raiding necromancer dungeons. Bought Rosethorn Manor with all upgrades for my Argonian named Shadow Vapor.
Used frenzy on 2 of the 3 market district brothers out of rage. (Refused to open the shop) Guards cut them down. Reached expert alchemy and got expert alchemical devices and master calcinator.
Mastered sneak and got Meridia's Ring. Been making poisons and potions.
Have about 10k left from the purchase of the house. Will go to anvil to get blade training or chorrol for athletics.

I'm playing my first Max difficulty character and almost got stuck in the last room in Fort Blue Blood. I was locked in with Kalthar who was killing me with a single spell cast every time. After five different tries to get away from him, I found a picked up paralyze poison in my sack which let me get the upper hand with a damage health poison and my Nord frost spell.

Seryna finally reached level 51 (her maximum) not that long ago after selling nearly 2 million gold worth of items. That was the default setting of Smarter Mercantile Leveling. It took a lot of items, but it was still faster (and better overall) than the default. It would have taken forever to gather the items necessary to increase her Mercantile to 100.

With that finished, she ran around clearing the quests that she could do from her journal. At this point, she has only the Knights of the Nine starter quest, one quest in Bruma (that requires you to go to jail), and the starter quest for the Shivering Isles. Seryna isn't doing the Knights of the Nine (she could, but I don't feel it's appropriate for her considering her mental state after the main quest) and she certainly isn't going to go to prison to complete a quest. Not after her first (and preferably only) experience. This only leaves the Shivering Isles starter quest. She will be doing the Shivering Isles, but only once she has finished on Tamriel.

So... For that, Seryna has fought her way through the ranks and become the Grand Champion of the Arena under the name of Dragonheart (though, in story, I'd prefer that she challenged the Grey Prince as either the Hero of Kvatch, Savior of Bruma, or the Champion of Cyrodiil. It makes more sense that she be called that since everybody would know her as one of those three titles at that point). Now that the Arena is done, Seryna has nothing else to do in Tamriel. Aside from wandering. I'm not going to enter the Shivering Isles until after Seryna gets nailed by the a-bomb. She's probably a few hours away from it now (entering the 48E range for the problem byte; around 171 hours played) and it would strike before I could finish the Shivering Isles. I'm just going to wait in Cyrodiil for it to happen and, once it does, I'll make note of the hours played and reset.

Until that point... Seryna is just going to randomly explore a bunch of dungeons, even though she's cleared a good number of the dungeons around Cyrodiil multiple times now. Not really much else to do.

The Archer's Quest.

IMO--Umbra and Honorblade are in the game for low level fighters. Frostwyrm is in the game for low level archers.


Today, an aging level 2 Bosmer hunter confronted the horrible matron of the mountain. Facing her was his only goal in life.

In the sewers, he built up his heavy armor to +10 and collected rat meat. After exiting, he stripped bare and killed everyone in Vilverin, making sure to bring out all the bone dust. In the Imperial City, he collected Sacred Lotus seeds and then went to Bruma to watch two foresters fight north of the town. From the loser, he took a silver bow and some steel arrows. While there, he picked as much Mother Wort as he could find.

From Bruma, he went to Chorrel and picked plenty of St. John's Wort north of the wall. With needed ingredients in hand he began building his skill and questing for the dedicated Apprentice level alchemy equipment hidden in ancient forts near and far (and he collected some Ayleid statues for much needed cash).

When his minor skill archery and alchemy passed 25, he slept for his +5 in Endurance, Agility, and Intelligence bonusses, then he set to work with his ingredients. Armed with a silver bow, steel arrows and two dozen Damage Fatigue+Damage Health poisons, he went in search of the Horror of Dive Rock.

In blizzard conditions east of Aerin's camp, he climbed and climbed, onward and upward. Even in the cold, he could smell her stench--death, destruction, and desolation-- filled the air as he neared.

He peered around a rock, and saw her shimering at the edge of his vision, like Hel, the icy Jotun of death. From a crouch, he drew his bow and took his aim. True of eye and true of arm, his arrow cut the gusting wind. Her cry of rage, muffled by mist and falling flake, reached his ears as the second arrow flew.

Nimbly, he loosed a half dozen more as he backed away from her charge. Her blood betrayed her before she could strike a deadly blow. Sinking into the snow she sceamed and groaned as he delivered her end.

After placing the poor devoured mead queen beside her man, he covering her with furs and he headed back to Chorrol to face a band of goblins who were raiding a farm. One shot each and they were gone.


Note: I looked at the numbers from the Alchemy calculator after the fact, and having the character as a custom class with Thief birthsign and +5 custom luck (65 luck) significantly increased the strength of the poison from what the standard 50 luck could make (the health damage went from 20 pts to 33 pts per dose). Having the apprentice level aparati (mortar) added three points of damage (moved damage from 30 to 33) --not a big deal for poisons. There is supposed to be a permanent apprentice level calcinator (increases poison value) in Cloud Ruler Temple, but it is really novice level.

My bow and arrows were doing +4 damage each, while iron bows and iron arrows were doing +3 and +3. Therefore, each shot was doing 8+33 =41 damage against a monster with 500 hit points. It should have taken 13 shots (?), but the beast constantly regenerates health (2 pts per second?) so it took about 15 or 16 shots. I have tackled the monster without the damage fatigue and was very challenging. It was relatively easy to do with Drain Fatigue knocking out the monster.

At my level, the Frostwyrm bow has +6 base damage, plus the 15 frost damage. It is an enchanted elven bow so it is a top weapon early in the game even if you run it dry. It is also pretty cheap to shoot, giving 21 shots for 500 units (a lesser soul (300) plus a petty soul (150) gives you 450 units to recharge it.
It's too small for a common soul gem.

Today I fired it up for the first time in a long time, and I started a new RP character. A Breton sorceress who wants to study at the Arcane University, and I've started using Better Cities, Landscapes, and all those other overhauls, and now it's fun to explore Cyrodiil again!

More testing to find a minimalist attack strategy for the Uderfrykte Matron and Umbra (weakest character and fewest steps from the tutorial.)

I used the worst archer build I could think of, a custom Orc character just out of the sewers (no armor) with...

Alchemy 25 (minimum needed for the poisons)
Marksman 5
(Everything else in the build was useless to an archer alchemist)

He used...

Rusty iron bow + iron arrows (He never shot an arrow before he fired at the Matron or Umbra for the first time.)

Bone meal (Vilverin skeletons) 22 found
Rat meat (tutorial) 22 of 38 used
St. Jahn's Wort (Chorrel) 40 found
Sacred Lotus (Imperial City) 40 of 95 used

Poisons made* with a mortar (tutorial) and a bought calcinator.
22 Fatigue + Damage Health
18 Damage Health (16 needed without missing for the Matron.)

Results from going after the Uderfrykte Matron:
Eleven shots/hits with Damage Fatigue and Health poison made her collapse, then I pumped in all but two of the remaining poisons to kill her. The Fatigue effect wore off about 15 seconds after the last dose (22 hits of fatigue poison total before switching to the single effect damage health poison) so she regained her feet for the last two shots before she died. I repeated the first part several times to the point of her collapsing, and as long as I didn't back into a rock while shooting, I had a pretty easy time of it. This strategy could be used when playing a sudden death game, but not on max difficulty because I did get hit now and again.

Result for Umbra:
These poisons worked on Umbra but she is too fast to play dodge and shoot against her. My best luck was by carefully climbing over the upper railing and standing on one of the corner toe holds, sneak crouching and shooting at her as she tried to get at me from below. It's dark and the target area is small that way so I missed a lot. My success rate would have been better if I had more damage fatigue + health poisons because she usually got up before I was done killing her.

I thought that maybe the burden poison from the morning glories at Fort Nikel, combined with Amonita Fly cap, would work the same way as fatigue damage, but it had no effect on either the Matron or Umbra. The availability of those two ingredients would help build Alchemy to 25 as a minor skill on the way to Weynon Priory.

The gist of the testing is that 1) you have to go into at least one dungeon to get enough bone meal for the poisons. 2) if you want to do it all without any serious fighting before the main event, you might be able to pick enough motherwort north of Bruma. 3) Getting the Frostwyrm bow ASAP is a good and fairly easy thing to do. 4) to be safer getting Umbra (to fill soul gems for the bow) a little more preparation would be wise.

* I made six more Damage fatigue + health doses using other ingredients from Vilverin and the tutorial (wisp stalks, stink horn, mutton, zombie flesh).

My little altmer Fred just grew to lvl 3 and wanted a house. He didn't have a lot of money so he bought the shack at the Waterfront.
After buying some furniture, the interior seemed still to leave much to desire. Fred, brilliant as he is, figured he'd use the grab key to redecorate!
3 Game hours later...
Yes! He managed to place a pitcher and a cup next to each other on a little table close to the fireplace.
Exhausted, he went to eat his dinner and slept 12 hours after.

Talwina Sero, dunmer sorceress:

- did the Bravil recommendation quest. Easy but costly.
- she then entered the Academy, got promoted to apprentice and tasked to made her mage staff. She started to explore the place and was soon expelled from the mages guild! ( caught pick-pocketing)
- rest of time she picked flowers, and killed creatures that disturbed her flower gathering.
- she got all the needed ones and got re admitted to the guild.

Debi did Dive Rock

Today Debi Dyzalot (Breton-Apprentice-Mage Lvl-8, max. dif.) killed the frosty phase Uderfrykte Matron using conjured Flame Atronachs and pork with pear sauce. The flickering-floozies wouldn't attack unless they thought Debi was in danger, so as the fireballs flew at the catatonic creature, she stripped down to a huntsman outfit and posed next to and took selfies for her peeps back in High Rock.

Well, according to Seryna's new changed backstory, she's now doing the Knights of the Nine.
So far, she has done the pilgrimage (had a freeze at the Wayshrine of Zenithar on the Prophet's map. Shame, too. That Wayshrine of Zenithar was a Wayshrine of Horse. Whatshisface's white horse was standing right on it. The game didn't like me trying to take a screenshot of that), retrieved the helm, and fought for the cuirass. Her next task is to travel to Chorrol to get the gauntlets.

In two hours of play time, Seryna also managed to jump from a byte value of 48FC to a value of 48FE. I'm going to have to do the reset tomorrow if it keeps going like that. She's at hour 196 and she'll go another hour. Two at most. We'll see.

Nailed it:


Seryna has completed the Knights of the Nine quests (after a brief interruption to reset the byte and several crashes). It took longer than it would have with another character because Seryna never fast travels. At this point, though, she's ready to begin the Shivering Isles... Almost. I still have to get her Shivering Isles gear. Only when she has that is she going to enter the Isles.

My Dunmer character became the Duke of Mania and eventually the Madgod of the Shivering Isles. He also did a number of side quests in the Shivering Isles, including finding the Fork of Horripilation for Big-Head. He also stole some sweet-rolls for Fimmion in order to get information out of him.

Now that I've returned to playing Seryna...

She has discovered all locations in the Shivering Isles (after shutting down many Obelisks and dealing with many crashes) and has now moved on to doing the Shivering Isles main quest.

So far, she has completed the tasks for Thadon and Syl, helped the Seducers slaughter the Saints at Cylarne (the route of treachery, of course. The formerly good character has committed her first murder. At least Lucien won't show up. Then I'd have to kill him, too), lit the flame for Dementia, and she has just made her decision that she is going to kill Syl. Doesn't make much sense for the very demented Seryna to side with Mania, honestly.

But... Killing Syl is going to have to wait for some other day. Seryna ran out of time for tonight.

So today I actually DID the Tears of the Savior quest, instead of just ignoring it as I went through the Mage's Guild halls to get into the Arcane University.

Who-ever came up with that quest can shove those tears somewhere dark and painful. I nearly rage quit.

Don't feel bad, I played it nearly a million times before I found out the Kajiit will give you super potions to protect you from the cold. It is one of the few places early in the game where you can fill a Greater soul gem, and one of the few quests that challenge you to use potions. Unfortunately, challenge = frustration.

Oh the whole damage thing didn't bother me, I kinda like that idea, it's just that the tears are bloody impossible to see. Even with the handy little picture chart here on the UESP, I devolved to smashing the interact key as I moved about.

Still not sure how I managed to get all of them without rage quitting.

So, new laptop, new install of Oblivion, so that means it's time for a new, fresh save file. It's another Julalla, Robert (pronounce that the French way,) Julalla. I dubbed him a "Transmuter," He has all sorts of magic, but no destruction skill what so ever. Relying on staves and summons for offense. Rather fun.

No Alchemy as a major, though that's because of how much I spam that after I get ingredients. Saves levels and modifiers.

I've also put on a few more rules to this character. I won't run all the time save when I'm outdoors until I get a horse. I can do so in few second spurts. It really makes a dungeon feel more... dungeony. And helps slow down the game a little bit. I've felt like I've gone far too fast in past playthroughs. Also, I got a mod that lets me use my magicka to restore the charges of my staves, but I'm only using that once-a-day. I got a little spoiled with Morrowind's recharging enchantments.


So, I went through the Imperial Sewers, and started doing a nice big long loop around to get the main bridge leading to the Imperial City. I've delved into a couple smaller Ayleid ruins, and "saved" Aleswell. I've left off there, for now, since I have other things to do. Will return later.