Watch the Adventure!

Here's a nice surprise for my fans!

The last two blog posts, captured in 3 videos, for anybody who wants to see Viriis in action; the blow-by-blow of my exciting dramatization.

Enjoy!

Sovngarde

Sovngarde is beautiful. I've never been one to think overmuch on the afterlife or where I go when I die, but if it's here, or somewhere like here, the thought of death doesn't frighten me so much. The sky is rich with colour and there's a deep fog that gives everything a dream-like feel.

Then Alduin swoops down and eats a dead Nord. Okay, now I'm less at peace. Apparently this fog is his and he uses it to hunt down souls to replenish his strength. That is not cool, and I will put a stop to it.

I make my way through the swirling mist and eventually arrive at the base of an enormous bridge across an apparently bottomless chasm. There's a bare-chested Nord who calls himself Tsun waiting there who approaches. It seems he guards the bridge to Shor's Hall and is less than satisfied by my claim to being Dragonborn. I suppose it is less impressive here. Anyway, he challenges me to the Warrior's Test before I can pass. This is not going to end well.

It actually ends alright, but I have to keep him distracted with my flame atronach, which he banished with a single swing of his sword. I'm able to keep up my summoning but boy that weapon looks nasty. One hit and I would fall as hard as my atronach.

At last he gives way, apparently I fought well. I avoid eye contact and slide past him onto the bridge.

Shors Hall is enormous, and as heroic as the name suggests. Inside are the fallen heroes of Skyrim, and a few faces I recognise. The Nords who talked a lot before banishing Alduin are here, and it seems they still like to talk a lot. For a group who seem to be all about action, I'm itching to get out there and face Alduin while they're discussing it at great length.

At last we head back across the bridge and combine the power of our shouts to push back Alduin's mist. He doesn't like that in the slightest, and we prepare ourselves for the final battle with this great menace.

It goes down much like before, except instead of Paarthunax at my side I have three Nordic heroes. I try to keep myself and them alive, as well as keeping Alduin on the ground with my shout. It's all going fairly well until my companions start sinking to their knees. I could handle them individually, but when they're all gasping for life Alduin has nobody left to attack but me. I'm burning through all my magicka just maintaining a ward spell and whatever healing I need to stay alive and it seems that when I can spare some to heal them, they fall back down just as quickly.

Slowly I get them back on their feet, and the relief from Alduin's assault gives me the excess magicka I need to restore their health fully. Alduin weakens and finally the battle comes to a close.

The heroes back off and I expect to see Alduin slump lifeless to the ground, but he doesn't. He looks defeated to me. There are no more flames or shouting and he's hunched over like an old Hargraven, but it's not over yet. I look over at the Nords. They look back at me. Is this some kind of Nordic honour thing? I'm supposed to deliver the final blow? I try to assure them that it's not necessary, but they won't budge.

I summon my atronach who just does a twirl and looks at me like there's not a giant world-eating dragon right behind it, that it could finish with a single blow.

Seriously, this is getting awkward. What do they all expect me to do.

I look at Alduin. I look at my hands. I look back at Alduin. The Nords look at me encouragingly. They must think there's something wrong with me. What, have they never seen somebody NOT deal any damage?

Apprehensively I let the magicka slip from my fingers and clench them into a fist. It feels weird and wrong, but it appears that it's what I must do to save the world... I walk over to Alduin...

And I punch the World-Eater in the face.

The result is spectacular!! He reels backwards, lines of energy splitting across the surface of his scales. He roars and screams and then it seems like the skin is ripped from his body and his soul is torn out! In his final moments he looks to the heavens and cries out to Akatosh, his father, but there is no mercy. With a final, fiery explosion that knocks us all to the ground, it is over. The purple mist fades, natural light returns to Sovngarde and the heroes cry out in exultation.

Personally I'm feeling extremely conflicted. I did what I had to do, but I don't feel that good about it. The warrior guard Tsun (who notably didn't lend a hand in the fight) comes over and seems about to express consolation in my moment of distress. Instead he simply tells me that my work is done and I need to leave. Will nobody ever show me sincere gratitude?

He bids me farewell and then uses a shout to return me to Tamriel. I arrive back the the Throat of the World, and it seems Paarthunax and I are not alone. There's a half-dozen other dragons perched on the mountain, and they're all shouting at me. It seems like some final recognition of my place in the world, and their respect for my power.

As each concludes their greeting, they fly off into the night. Finally it is just Paarthunax and myself. Old Parthy seems relieved, yet sad. Alduin was after all a brother to him, but he needed to be stopped. With a final farewell he takes off into the sky and it's just myself, the stars and the mountain.

I take a moment to reflect on my journey. Thrust into a violent world with no wish to do violence to another I've risen above adversity to forge my own path. I've defeated dragons and undead, bent hordes of enemies to my will and I even raised that little goat back to life... temporarily.

In return I've received thankless tasks, been left to fend for myself, even been met with hostility by those I've tried to help. I've been set alight, covered in cobwebs and everywhere in this damn place is cold.

I'm not really sure why I came to Skyrim in the first place, but this definitely wasn't what I had in mind. With the world now safe from Alduin's menace I'm leaving this place and never looking back. I'm heading straight for the Summerset Isle, straight for home.

Chaos at Skuldafn

Odahviing drops me at Skuldafn, almost but not quite at Alduin's portal. I can see it, just over there, but in typical Skyrim-inhabitant fashion, that last little bit that somebody else cant be bothered doing requires an enormous amount of effort on my behalf.

Odahviing did warn me that there'd be a lot of trouble guarding the entrance and he wasn't wrong. Fortunately I just mastered the art of fooling the undead, so things are going to get fun around here. I take a deep breath and just run in. No point hanging back, right.

There's a thunderous roar and a rush of wings but I just keep running. Flinging fury spells to either side I send the Draugr into a frenzy. They're attacking each other, they're attacking the dragon, this is awesome!

Things start to get really interesting when another dragon shows up...

I do a quick assessment of the situation and come to the logical conclusion. There are not enough enemies running around.

It sounds crazy, but I actually need more Draugr to fight these dragons for me. I sprint through the temple, casting spells at every Draugr I see and before you can say Dovahkiin the temple is a rush of activity. There's arrows and ice spikes and dragon breath flying through the air and all I have to do is keep the party going with my spells. And also not die...

The Draugr actually do an excellent job. There's certainly enough of them, and for the most part they seem happy to team up against the dragons instead of each other. My concern was that they'd slaughter each other and leave me to deal with two dragons (something decidedly beyond my abilities) but once the first dragon is grounded he falls to their ancient axes pretty quickly.

The second dragon is a little harder, as he seem to simply refuse to land, and these Draugr aren't the most accurate with their projectiles. It's at this point I realise the power I've been neglecting, my own ability to force these beasts onto the ground. The Draugr are all dead so I have to be clever.  Where all the corpses are there's no room for the dragon to land, so I drag one with a heavy axe off the edge and let him fall to the open space below. Then I get the dragon's attention and use my shout. As he comes to earth I reanimate my undead ally and then just concentrate on keeping the dragon on the ground. Who would have thought! Strategy amidst this madness.

With both dragons (and all the draugr) dead, I pause for a moment to admire my handiwork and then head through the heavy doors into the temple. Inside there are lots of draugr, but I just leave them to fight amongst themselves while I solve the Nordic puzzle doors and progress through the dark corridors.

There is a slight problem at one point. There's a puzzle door that requires a dragon claw, and I'm quite confident that the Draugr guarding the door is in possession of said claw. I calm him and try to pickpocket, but it's a no go. Apparently Draugr don't have pockets. Instead I have to lure him back down the corridor to where I have some corpses handy and then it's a Draugr Wight showdown.

Back outside, the dung gets real again as a few Draugr appear round the corners and two dragons swoop down. At the top of the stairs is a Dragon Priest, Nahrkiin, whose staff apparently controls the portal I need to enter. The dragons and the draugr are fighting away but really I need them attacking the priest.

I fling a fury spell his way to try to get him involved, but all it does is making him angry and I get a lightning bolt to the face. Just about singed off my mohawk!

A draugr runs up to fight him but gets fried. This isn't going to be enough. Putting everything I have behind my Fury spell, I give him a two-handed faceful of the stuff and it works! In a frenzy, he turns on his own dragons and sure enough they retaliate.

After that it's over quickly. The dragons aren't taking much damage, but after the Nahkriin crumbles to dust (no resurrecting that guy!) they fall back, apparently respecting my power for killing him. They seem to fail to notice that they killed him... Maybe Illusion does work on dragons after all.

With Nahkriin's staff in hand I reopen the portal. The ground heaves and breaks away, revealing a swirling vortex and a bright light.

Here goes. I'm off to the after-life...

A Scaly Gentleman

According to Paarthunax, Alduin has retreated to Sovngarde. Right, okay! Not hard to follow him, Parthy says, we just need one of Alduin's buddies to tell us how to get there. As in a dragon. Not a soft plushy dragon like Paarthunax, a mean cranky one like Alduin. This is going to be easy!

It turns out that my old hangout Whiterun actually has the facilities to trap a dragon. The Jarl is apprehensive but he seems to trust me. It might have been that Calm spell I quietly dropped on the floor but I'll always deny it.

Paarthunax taught me a shout to call this ally of Alduin's. His name is Odahviing, and that's exactly what I shout into the sky. We all gather on the expansive back verandah and wait for him to arrive.

It doesn't take long, and he's a rather impressive specimen really. He's a beautiful wine red, not a colour I've seen on any other dragons, but unfortunately he's in a bad mood. It seems the shout I used is a battle challenge, not an invitation to go out for some mead.

Using Dragonrend, I force him to land. Then he comes for me, crawling forward on those awkward wings of his as I lure him into the building. A friend might have yelled 'It's a trap!' but I'm not his friend of course, and it's my trap.

Boom! The yoke comes down and snaps closed around his neck. His head hangs in defeat and he's actually rather gracious about the whole affair. He praises me on my cunning and admits that he was too eager to fight me. What a gentleman.

It seems I'm a bit of a sucker for this well-spoken scaly creature as I fully appreciate and accept his ridiculous notion for me to release him, having just caught him.

Apparently the only way for me to follow Alduin is for Odahviin to fly me to Alduin's portal in the ancient temple of Skuldafn. Well, that sounds reasonable and rational and totally insane. Still, this entire place is insane and nobody else is volunteering to save the world so I figure I can make my own decisions. I let him loose and hop on his scaly back. He's surprisingly warm, and the scales I expected to be rough are smooth as satin. He effortlessly raises his head and I can feel his great strength. They're magnificent creatures, these dragons. It's a real shame that they're trying to kill everybody and destroy the world...

As the sun rises over the plains of the Whiterun Hold we fly into the frosty north by the only path that goes to Skuldafn. The one that passes through the sky...