Sat down to play last night and kicked off a quest in Whiterun that had me running to the far north-west corner of the map. Since I very rarely use fast travel, I set off on foot, and as usual in Skyrim, rand into a number of new locations and adventures along the way. Mostly I just wandered past ruins and dungeons to add them to my map so I could return to them later, as I really did want to do the quest I was working on.
Eventually, I reached some big mountains and I started to move up them, looking for a shortcut to where I needed to go to meet some others who were going to assist me. Clearly I wasn't on the right path, but I kept thinking that if I could just top over the ridge, I'd be able to get there. I couldn't climb the mountain, but I did discover a wall with a Shout word on it and immediately went to claim it.
Of course, one of those nasty uniquely named dragon priests jumped out of the crypt, and an epic fight ensued. We battled back and fourth, each of us dishing out as much damage as we took. It was a hard fight, but eventually I was able to take him down.
After looting his corpse I returned to the wall and checked to see if I had missed anything. There weren't any more chests or loot to be found, but I did discover a door that I hadn't noticed before, and barely noticed this time. I went inside to see what was happening, and it turns out I was actually going in the back door, which you're suppose to come out at the end of the dungeon. I was immediately confronted with one of those nasty undead lords and another epic fight ensued. Eventually I won that one too, and elected to delay my original quest while I explored this new place.
I worked my way through the dungeon, taking out spiders and undead along the way, but eventually I reached a gate that I could open from my side. Having realized long ago that I was actually going backwards through the dungeon, I eventually decided to back track and see if I could find the other entrance. I did, and it was guarded by some bandits, which I dispensed with quickly and went inside.
I spent the next hour or so clearing the other side of the dungeon and finding the gate that I had been stuck at before. Throwing a switch, the gate opened and I stepped through, took a look around, confirmed that this was the same spot I had ended at before, and decided to backtrack to the front. Half-way there, I discovered that a puzzle that I had to solve on my way in had closed another gate behind me, and I wasn't able to go back the way I came. That meant I had to trudge back through the dungeon yet again, just to get back out the mountain top door that came through originally. Fortunately, I had slaughtered everything in the place, and just needed to avoid some traps along the way.
When I did finally get out, it was nearly 1 AM in the real world and I needed to get some sleep. I still have to go back and finish the original quest that I was on that took me to that part of the world to begin with.
This game is amazing. So many things to pull you away from what you intended to do, and yet it doesn't detract at all. It truly is a vast world filled with things to see an do.
