Okay, so I rebooted Wulf yesterday, and called it a day shortly after I finished "Dragon Rising". This evening I resumed playing, still in Whiterun, and I decided to tackle a few bounties to earn some money. I spent the night in the Bannered Mare, slept 'till morning, and then took off towards the north to clear out a bandit camp.
Along the way, I came across my first sabertooth. I remember these fierce beasts being scary as heck when I first started playing, and while they're still tough to fight with a level 10 character, I knew how to handle 'em. A few shield bashes and sword slashes later and I was stripping its pelt. I'd gotten a bit distracted, so I headed back towards the road. There, I found a farm and an old friend... Well, not really a friend, but you know. Dear old Cicero'd gotten stranded near Whiterun when the wheel on his carriage broke. Being such a compassionate soul (and since Wulf didn't know Cicero or who he really was), I convinced the farmer to fix his cart so the jester could be on his way.
Feeling proud of my good deeds, I carried on towards the north. I evaded a few giants on patrol, killed a pack of wolves that didn't much care for my name or the fact that I'm the Goddamn Dovahkiin, found a few poachers who'd taken down a mammoth and weren't willing to share and reached a cave I'd been warned of by an attentive guard... Shimmermist cave. It wasn't my objective, but I knew what lurked within. Throwing all caution to the wind, I headed inside.
The cave certainly earned its name. There was a faint mist obscuring my vision, making everything, well, shimmer before my eyes. While it was very pretty, I was on my guard, advancing slowly through the winding passages of the cavern. And then Wulf met his first Falmer. The vile elf was certainly tougher than anything Wulf had faced in his short time in Skyrim, but all in all, it went down pretty quickly, along with his kin.
Then came the Chaurus. The ugly fuckers gang-raped me if I tried to face them head-on, so instead I lured 'em back and jumped on an elevated spot. By the time I was done with them, they looked more like pin-cushions than deep-delving monstrosities. I felt pretty good about my chances for finishing this dungeon, which I somehow had never cleared in any of my previous playthroughs. Little did I know what waited for me at the end.
As is common with Falmer hideouts, the natural stone walls soon gave way to long-lost Dwemer architecture. I was heading in deeper and deeper, with only minor opposition from our ugly Falmer friends. A door waited for me at the end of a nearly intact Dwemer hallway. Cautiously, I opened it and stepped inside. A Falmer Gloomlurker arose from the shadows to greet me... I engaged, and quickly realized the skulking elf was too powerful for me to handle. I was so pre-occupied fighting it that I didn't notice the loud, clanking footsteps approaching us. The Falmer had awakened a Centurion.
Mind you, I was level 9 or 10. I couldn't handle that Falmer Gloomlurker, let alone an 8-feet tall mechanized monstrosity. I tried pitting the two against eachother, but they both focused on me and me alone. After dying several times, I realized I'd met my match. I popped an invisibility potion and tried sneaking past them, but to no avail, as my heavy armor gave me away. So I did plan B: run like a motherfucker.
Back on the surface world, I healed up and headed for the bandit fort. The outlaws, of course, saw me coming from a mile away, and greeted my approach with a volley of arrows. Luckily for me, they were piss-poor shots. My luck turned, however, when a dragon decided to meddle in my affairs and started attacking. At first, the aerial distraction helped me in slaying the bandits, but then I still had the dragon to deal with. On my own.
I let loose with the bow I looted from the Falmer lair, but my shitty aim didn't help me much there. The dragon seemed more interested in killing wolves and sabertooths for the moment, though, but eventually it turned its attention to me. I was still too weak to handle a dragon at point-blank range and my skills with the bow were nothing to write home about. So I initiated plan B again, and I ran. This time, towards a herd of mammoths that were grazing not too far away. The dragon got distracted by all that lumbering meat, and immediately went after them as I shot some more arrows at it. It quickly learned that mammoths are not to be messed with and lifted off again. It made a few more passes before landing a bit ahead, engaging an enemy I could not yet see. I sprinted forward, my bow still in hand, and reached the top of the hill.
The dragon was fighting mud crabs. Three of them. It tried burning them, but they didn't care. They pinched the motherfucker to death. I shot 'em with my bow, looted their chitin and the dragon's bones, and went the fuck home. I had loot to sell.
SKYRI- Oh shit, a mudcr-
. I think the next mission is Diplomatic something, how much more do I have for the main quest? Also
