Soul Indecision 2013: Monk blindness, J.K. Rowling's Vampirism & Long lost Gods.

Another fine selection of photo BLISS from me to you, my adoring fans.  Yes, look at the muscles on me!  M'yessssssss.

So; when we last met, I was being acosted by a smokey bone gentleman within the Soul Cairn area-place.  There was a spooky castle nearby complete with glowy energy ruined crumbly-towers so I figured enh? why not.  The fact that energy is just constantly beaming up into a swirling maelstrom of what should be 'sky' is nothing, right?

Right?  You guys?

There is no Skyrim, only ZUUUUUL

Oh well turns out it was just Serana's mom, trapped behind a giant barrier-force-field-magical-wall thing.  Because those IDEAL MASTERS assholes are all about screwin' you over.  So she's there, bein' all moody because she's been trapped for ages, but she has an Elder Scroll we need.  I try to steer the conversation onto the whole saving the whole of Tamriel, but she and Serana are havin' none of that.  No.  Time to get into it over a few hurt feels.  Fuck'em.

Daddy issues are all THE NORM nowadays.

 F'real ladies, there's more at stake than the shitty family dysfunctionality y'all been livin' with for the past few centuries.  Whatever.  I'm told that to get rid of the wall, I have to destroy three Keepers who're powering it from within three ruined tower sanctuaries and stuff.  Onwards!

♫ Wraith-Man! Wraith-Man! Does whatever a Wraith doe--OH GOD STOP AAAAAAGH ♫

 Wraith men SUCK.  They come out of thin air and make those bone guys look like CHUMPS.  URGH.  Thankfully there's a tower nearby and...

What's up with his foot.

So Keepers are like, the lost souls of dudes like me?  'cause that's clearly dragon bone armor he's wearing, while his left foot is glitchin' HARD into the pavement.  He's tough, make no mistake.  That dragonbone sword he's swinging around signifies he means business, and from the piles of bones laying around I'd say his business is good.  Until I came along.  FREE ENTERPRISE, SON!

"We're coming to get you, Dovahkiin!"

And no sooner as I kill the Keeper, these guys show up to swarm me like crazy.  Gettin' real tired of your shit, Soul Cairn!

Guess who got Fus Roh Dah'd right off the goddamn platform?  Aww yiss.

Does it count as cheating if I use my "Unrelenting Force" Dragonshout to drop the last Keeper off the side of this super tall tower so he takes fatal fall damage, or is it just absolutely BAD ASS?  I'm thinking FUCK YEAH, DOVAHKIIN.

Is that... a soul dragon?  What?

So Serana's mom gives us the skivvy on this guy; he's a dragon who made a deal with the IDEAL MASTERS to gain more power, because being a GOD-LIKE ENTITY wasn't enough.  The deal was he'd get more power and could leave this place when he killed Serana's mom.  'cept they forgot to tell'im that they'd trapped her behind an impenetrable wall.  Cocks, the lot of them.

♫ WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE ♫

 He is rugged; and spent most of his time in the air, where my FATAL FISTS OF FURY were to no avail.  Though I punched him SO. HORD.  that instead of dying, he just kind of exploded into green/purple mist.  AND he didn't give me his soul, which sucks, but we're in the Soul Cairn where all souls go to rest or something, so I figure I lost the bidding war.  Serana's mom does tell me she doesn't think he's dead.  Thanks for that load of confidence, lady.

Elder Scrollin' Scrollin' Scrollin' WUT.

She does however cough up her Elder Scroll, since now that I've liberated her from her self-imposed prison, and proven that I don't want to harm her daughter (despite being a vampire hunter and killing MANY of her kind), that really all I want to do is stop her crazy-as-balls husband.  Which is why she's down here in the first place.  So yeah.

Hold on, you're dead.  I killed you.

 OH WHAT THE HELL MAN.  WHY ARE YOU  Oh.  You just want to talk.  Aparently, he's GLAD I beat the shit out of him.  And wishes to return to the surface and be a regular dragon again, but his time spent in the Soul Cairn has essentially bound him here.  Another cruel joke played on him by the IDEAL MASTERS.  Sucks.  So; he asks me to learn a specific shout, that can summon him to Skyrim for a brief time, and he'll do whatever I say.

I CHOOSE YOU, DURNEHVIIR!

This is great, as I've got an accumulation of dragon souls and no shouts to spend them on!  YAY I CAUGHT CHARIZARD.  I AM, THE VERY BEST.  LIKE NO ONE EVER WAAAAAAAS.  Level 3 Dragon shout: DRAGON.  WOOP WOOP.  Carrying on.

Back to reality-ish.

Time to head on back, now that we have another Elder Scroll for Dexion to read.  Hopefully this one will be good, and explain what the hell's up with this dumb prophecy and what I gots to do 'bout it.

Vampirism: makin' you look malnourished as fuck.

I forgot; I'm still a vampire from that whole descending into the land of the dead nonsense.  Hopefully no one will notice... inside the castle filled with hardened and veteran vampire-killers.

Bad Advice Monk should be a meme.

Goddamnit Dexion.  Appears that being a Moth Priest, and training your entire goddamn life to read Elder Scrolls, you fuck up one time ONE TIME, and BLAM.  Blind.  So y'know its all good, there's an alternative where I can go to this sacred glen, carve a but of special tree, gather a whole buncha  moths to me, and through their cognitive powers combined, I am Captain Planet I can read the scroll myself.  WISH I HAD KNOWN THAT BEFOREHAND, YOU STEVIE WONDER-LOOKIN' JACKASS.

But, first things first.  Gots to get rid of this vampire-cancer inside me.  Time to see a specialist.  And by specialist, I mean the creepy guy in Markarth who never leaves his house.  Ever.

Curing Vampirism; 1 easy step.

Apparently curing vampirism IS easy.  In Oblivion it just took a ritual bath in some blessed water, and some vampire salts.  in Skyrim?  You just need to pray it away, oh and a filled Black soul gem.  These are somewhat harder to come by under normal circumstances.  Serana's mom had like twenty just LYIN' AROUND and free for the taking, so I helped myself.  Only difference between a Black one and a Grand one, is black soul gems can take the souls of humanoid enemies.  Big woop.  Anyways.  A few words later, cured!

Hidden caves of hidey-caveness

So this glen is secluded and very mystical; the caves are barren other than the vegetation, and then it opens onto this actually really cool valley hidden off in the mountains.

SANCTUARYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

 I kinda skipped about, because the place was just so... serene.  Like there's the moths and some deer and a babblin' brook and I'm like Yeah... I get you, super secret nature-place.  I get you.  This is cool.  All the abhorrent violence and carnage has taken its toll on me, but I can still appreciate the majestic fuckin' BEAUTY of your shit.

Silence of the Lambs' imagery can fuck right off, I got this.

MOTHMAAAAAAAAAN PROPHECIESSSSSSSSS Richard Gere eat your heart out. (of your butt.)  So now that I'm TEEMING with insects, lets take a look at this 'ere Elder Scro--

REEDING = BRIAN DAMEDGE

 Reading an Elder Scroll is akin to taking a hammer blow to the forehead.  And people wonder WHY I hate reading now!  Its these moments that cause me to have trust issues with books in general, as immediately after putting it down because the scroll drilled into my psyche what I had to do next, VAMPIRES ambushed me.  Like so.

IMA VAMPUR, I SHOOT YEW, PEW PEW PEW.

He's confident, I'll give him that!  Shooting his little shooty-balls like he's some DragonBall Z character or whathaveyou.  A few more punches though, and he changed his tune.

EXPECTO PATREUS or whatever.  CRUXIO.  I give up.

By 'We' he meant him and the one vampire thrall he brought along.  Y'know, for being at least one step ahead of me, Lord Hakron sure is skimping out on the minions when trying to kill me.  It's kinda like when villains start monologuing, and I just crack'em in the jaw because I'm impatient and got so much more punching to do in my Skyrim sorties.

AWWWWWWWW TAG TEAM BACK AGAIN.  WOOP.

BOOM SHAKA LAKA.  Kid went down like SHOCKMASTER.  So the forceful visions that were beamed directly to my dome tell me I gotta get Auriel's Bow, because it is part of the prophecy.  It is simultaneously the one item that can stop the Eternal Darkness Hakron wants to get on gettin' on, OR start it.  So y'know, I gotta make sure I'm the one wielding it, and not his dumb ass.  Darkfall Cave is where it's at!  (Supposedly.)

Scary Spooky

A cave entrance to Darkfall Cave.  Generic.  Unsuspecting.  Subtle.  Probs filled with horrible horrible Deaaaaaaaaath.  Let's go find out!

Gettin' my resources lo-jacked right in front of me.

OH LOOK.  Serana starts jackin' my Moonstone vein the second I turn around.  Seriously, this is why I don't want kids in Skyrim; I can't force them to do manual labor tasks, or make them give me all their stuff.  Whatever I'll go explore further down this tunnel he--

"OH HALLO THAR."

You'd think I would stop being surprised at these guys.  Nope.  They creep me out every. time.  They are considerably easier to smoosh now, though.  At least there's that.

Married to his job, much?

Wait whaaaaaaaaaaat.  A Frost elf?  But but but... I thought... they all got turned into Falmer!?  Whoa.  This is kinda cool!  And tragic.  Gelebor tells me that he and his brother are the last two (He suspects) Frost Elves left.  Even more sad, he wants me to kill his brother because he suspects that he's become corrupt, and was the one to unleash a whole bunch of Falmer within the super sanctum of Auriel, killin' essentially EVERYONE besides those two.

Sad.  I ask him about his race, and its a sad story filled with sighs, where the Dwarves essentially allowed the Frost Elves to live within their underground kingdom, but had to be blinded; becoming the Falmer.  I figure going blind makes you crazy and devolve into a Naked Mole Rat-like creature with a Smellsense or some shit.  Gelebor hopes that hey, maybe there are other pocket survivors, but doubts it.

WELL TIME TO GO GET AURIEL'S BOW, COOL STORY ELF-BRO.

Ye Olde Attunemente Queste

Oh wait.  Bow's protected by the same place his brother is, so I can't skip this part.  FINE.  I'll go to all the wayshrines, get some magical shrine water in your magical shrine jug, and open the way to Auriel's temple.  I GUESS.

I'll just mosey on into this weird-lookin' cave then...

Vagina flowers... what.

 And weird fungal growths, that look like lady va-jay-jays.  And of course true to life, the second I get close to one, it dissappears, hiding away from me forever.  Sigh.  At least there's no--

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I WAS WRONG.  THERE'S PLENTY.  OH GOD SO PLENTY OF THESE.

Until next time!  (I punch more dragons, and then fiddle with some ice statues! FUN!)