We're going to Solstheim at level one. The hardest content in Morrowind, hard even
for endgame characters, and we're going in at level one. And just to be a bit spicier, I'm not allowing
myself to use potions. So here's the rules. No prepping beforehand. Once I'm out of the Census and Excise office,
it's straight to Solstheim. No bugs or exploits. The difficulty must be turned up to 100 because
I hate myself. And no spellmaking. In fact, there are only two spell merchants
on Solstheim and they don't sell much of anything useful. I'm playing on the OpenMW engine using the
“I Heart Vanilla” Mod list. It's mostly just a collection of bug fixes,
graphical improvements, and quality of life tweaks like hotkeys in the UI. Other than that, there's nothing incredibly
game-changing here. This challenge would be exactly the same in
Vanilla Morrowind. It’d just looked way uglier, and that's
saying something. Who am I, Jiub? Why… I'm a guy that's totally not a werewolf. While we travel to Khuul to take the boat
to Solstheim, let me explain my character build choices. If you've watched my Tribunal From Level One
video, then you should throw out all that explanation because this build couldn't be
any more different. First of all, I'm choosing to be a teeny tiny
wood elf, not just because of the boost in marksmanship and sneak levels, but because they can command beasts
once per day for 600 seconds. Not every beast on Solstheim will be affected
by this power, but some will, and that'll be more useful than you think. Guy that's totally not a werewolf is going
to be an archer. There aren't very many good weapon choices
for archers on Solstheim, but melee is super risky and scary. Our marksman level is starting at 50, so our
accuracy will be pretty good right out the gate. And we can improve it pretty fast really early on. You'll see. I'm also taking sneak because maybe we can
get some sneak attacks. Sneak is weird in Morrowind, so who knows. Athletics and acrobatics because I'm going
to be running and jumping a lot, and I'm going to be running and jumping AWAY a lot. Illusion as a major skill will start me with
two spells, 10% chameleon and 10% sanctuary. How useful will they be? I don't know, we'll find out. Minor skills, mercantile and speechcraft for
bartering. Security because there are a lot of locked
chests on Solstheim containing enchanted arrows and bolts. Hand-to-hand because there's one quest that
forces us to beat up a Solstheim native in aid of a foreign occupation. And restoration because... What else? Maybe I should have taken a melee skill? Whatever. Speed and agility are my favorite attributes, so I can run faster and be a tiny bit more accurate. Stealth specialization to start with 10 more points in my stealth class
skills like marksmanship or acrobatics. And finally I'm taking the warrior birth sign. It adds a flat 10 points to attack, effectively
increasing our accuracy by 10%. And this is added onto our accuracy calculation
AFTER factoring in fatigue. No fatigue or full fatigue, this will add
10% accuracy regardless. Ah, we've made it to Solstheim. Just breathe in that really cold air. But like when you breathe it in really hard
it hurts a little bit because it's way colder than your lungs. We just ran here, so we're huffin' and puffin'. Let's drop everything first. The overwhelming collection
of loot I've accumulated on my travels through Vvardenfell... We don't need it. We're here at Fort Frostmoth and the soldiers
here won't interact with us until we sort out their alcohol problem. The problem being they don't have any. There's some in the office of the Fort Priest,
Antonius Nuncius, and we'll need some of it to get on the soldier's good side. So let's steal it. Why does the priest keep this booze tucked
away in a corner, like he's trying to hide it? We'll learn why soon enough. But the soldiers actually aren't that desperate because quest scripting demands them tell us to go see Captain Falx Carius, the guy running
the fort, before we do anything. When we meet him, he tells us that these soldiers
assigned to this fort have it rough. Fort Frostmoth isn't an
easy place to be stationed, and sometimes the men can get a little on edge. Cold, wet, and miserable. The island ain't that great either. But Carius's troops never shirked their duties
until now. They begrudgingly do what needed to be done,
but it'd still get done. Now, morale couldn't get any lower. Because we're just some random schlub from
the mainland, he figures we'll be able to glean a bit more info from the soldiers. I'm just a civvy, after all. Taking a lesson from the old school runescape
school of ingratiating myself to others, if I talk to soldiers with booze in my inventory, they'll smell it like a bloodhound, which is a way more metal name for an animal that
looks like it's melting. Oh, yeah. The guard will smell the flin so we can give
it to him, and then he'll reveal that Fort Frostmoth is a dry fort. Comments on a previous video told me what
"dry" means with respect to alcohol, so this means the fort is not sweet. Huh? It means there's no alcohol? Will these winos make up their damned mind? So it seems the captain banned liquor. When we confront the captain about it, he
says he never officially banned it. He doesn't care that the men drink. It's the priest that has a problem with it. But the alcohol shipment stopped coming months
ago for some reason, so banning alcohol didn't even matter. If we confront the priest, he also seems baffled
that the captain would ban alcohol. And when we ask him about the shipments no
longer arriving, he gets super defensive. Like, comically defensive. So he's definitely got something to do with
it. Fortunately, Tamriel doesn't
have legal protections against unwarranted searches
of people's belongings, and even if it did, I’m the Nerevarine. I’m above the law. Time to search his office once again. But let's just loot this crate out by the
docks first. It's full of weapons that we can sell to Zeno
Faustus, the fort's weapon master. I assume he's a weapon master. He sells weapons. His shop is just below the priest's office,
so it's on the way. In the priest's office, there's a locked desk. I don't have a lockpick, but surely there
must be a key hidden around here somewhere. It's pretty well hidden, though. And it's hard to grab the damn thing, especially
when you're so friggin’ short. Got it. If we unlock his desk, it's full of booze. And there's 256 septims with my name on them. I'm not gonna drink any of this booze, by
the way. You could argue alcoholic drinks are just
the products of culinary alchemy. A brewer's potion. I will give some of it to Zeno Faustus, however. We'll need his disposition higher for later. And we'll be doing a lot of bartering with
him, so anything that tips the scales in my favor,
even a little bit, is worthwhile. Before I leave, I'll buy an iron crossbow
and some iron bolts. Crossbows will be my weapon of choice for
this run. Not because they're inherently better than
bows, but because they don't have a damage range. The bolts do, but the range on bolts is much
tighter than the range on regular bows. The further back you pull, the higher the
damage it'll do. Crossbows don't really have a variable draw
distance, so its minimum and maximum damage is the same. The bolts do have variable damage. Steel does between two and four damage, for
example. It's negligible, honestly. The appeal of crossbows is that you can fire
them quickly without losing too much damage as a result. Upon returning to Antonius and confronting
him about the booze we found in his desk, we have a choice to make. We can either report it to Carius, or we can
keep his secret. I went with the latter because he'll give
us a key to his cupboard that is filled --like, just loaded-- with tons of booze. We could possibly sell that if we're strapped
for gold at some point. We'll keep that key in our back pocket for
now. Now that we've got this introductory Solstheim
quest completed, let's look into some more gear upgrades. So there's actually another shop on Solstheim,
but it doesn't exist yet. The East Empire Company has a presence on
the island, and naturally they want to set up a colony
to strip the island of its natural resources. The leader of this branch of the company,
Carnius Magius, lets us join the EEC, putting us on track
to help develop the colony of Raven Rock. If you've played Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC,
that name should sound familiar. This colony will eventually have a trader
after a few quests, of course. So let's backburner the main quest of Solstheim
for now, and do a bit of work for the EEC. The first quest for the company is to escort
a few workers from the docks to the Raven Rock settlement site. The site's a bit northwest of the fort, so
it's not super far. However, there is one thing I want to grab
before I head off. I feel like everything up to this point has
been, let's do this one thing, but first let's do
this thing. This NPC outside the fort, Reinhardt Redspear,
has something I want. How do we get it from him? It's a Huntsman crossbow, although not deadly
on its own. It is known to cause car accidents when it
drops into someone's lap from under the sun visor. That's probably too subtle of a joke. Huntsman's SPIDERS are harmless on their own, but they sometimes cause car accidents because they like to take up residence in parked cars,
and they'll scare drivers at inopportune times. This is apparently a thing in Australia. There are Huntsman spiders in other parts of the world, so it probably happens in those places too. The crossbow deals 25 damage, 5 more than
the iron crossbow, a 25% increase. There's actually another Huntsman crossbow
available on the island, but it's much more out of the way. It's easier just to kill a man. Gonna wear his armor too, so I'm not naked. The armor is unlikely to do anything, but…whatever
is cold, I need to bundle up. My nipples are rigid. These three fine fellows need an escort. Solstheim is full of wild beasts, naked nords,
and Fryse hags, although they just seem like ladies with daggers. Something I'm confused about is how sneak
attacks work in Morrowind. I know if you attack while undetected, you'll
do extra damage. And you'll get a little pop up--oh yeah,
get him boys. You get a little pop up on the bottom of the
screen, saying you performed a critical strike. But sometimes if I attack from a distance
while sneaking, the first hit will seem to do more damage
than the next hit, but I don't get the pop up. Do I need to be within sneak range of the
target to get a sneak attack? Or can I sneak attack from far away with a bow? Oop, we got a straggler. Well, thanks for hitting me in the crossfire, dude. Uh... What? It seems the most dangerous creature on this
island is man. Well, I guess he's technically a Mer, but…*sigh* You know those dinosaurs from Jurassic World that would attack anything marked with a laser
pointer for some convoluted reason? It was in Morrowind first. It's a little different. Got a new hat and a dagger that should sell
for quite a bit. Good job, guys. You too. When we make it here with the boys, Falco
Galenus, the site manager, asks that we bring some ebony back to Carnius to prove to him and the colony's investors
that Raven Rock is worth it. Oh, uh, bless you. We need four more pieces of ebony. And fortunately, there's some right nearby. How convenient. That's just how rich the island is. Time to exploit it. I ran out of bolts on the way back. Fortunately, wolves are easy to outrun. That's not survivalist advice, though. Don't try to outrun a wolf. They will catch you. I'm no outdoorsman, but I'm pretty sure wolves
got humans beat in the naked combat competition. Get guns involved and it's a different story. I mean, it's not fair because wolves don't have thumbs. We give Carnius the raw ebony, and he pays
us 100 gold. Oh, but we also get a stock certificate. Wow, we're paid with stock options. If we do more quests and improve Raven Rock, the certificate will appreciate in value. I...feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Before leaving, let's buy some more ammo from Zeno. 400 iron bolts should be good for now. Even turn a profit thanks to that enchanted
dagger. Back to Raven Rock. Fortunately, we can charter a boat from the
Fort Frostmoth dock now and get there just a bit faster. When we return, Falco tells us about this Nord, Hroldar the Strange, who's disrupting the
company's operations. Carnius would just prefer we kill the guy, but Falco suggests we just rough him up. H-he's a...he's a kinder...He's a kinder fellow. Falco. And this is why I took hand-to-hand. A fully drawn back fist deals half your
hand-to-hand level as damage to the enemy's fatigue before knocking the
opponent down. With a low hand-to-hand level, we'll be missing
a lot and doing very little damage. With a level that's too low, we might not
be able to out damage Hroldar’s natural fatigue regeneration. He doesn't attack us back though, so we can stand behind him in sneak mode and get free sneak attacks by punching him
in the butt. It still takes a while though. But after we punch his butt enough, he gives up and Falco pays us a thousand gold
for our efforts and then sends us off to Carnius to tell him
the news. But we gotta walk back because there's no
boat available at Raven Rock. Yet. Soon though. Rather than fighting these two wolves by myself, let me show you the power of the Wood Elves. And now he's our friend for 600 seconds. Oh man. What the- oh. Don't you hate it when you backpedal into
a polar bear? If I had a nickel… Here's something that crossed my mind while
doing this quest. Why is ebony a mineral? In real life, ebony is a type of wood, and not like a specific species of wood, but like a category of dark hardwood. So what's the deal with ebony in the Elder
Scrolls? What's going on? Well I looked it up and it's actually the
blood of Lorkhan. Allegedly at least. After Au-Riel and Trinamac ripped out
Lorkhan's heart at the adamantine tower over in modern day
High Rock, they chucked it across Tamriel. It landed in Vvardenfell, Red Mountain, where it remained for thousands of years. As it flew, Lorkhan's blood spilled across
the land leaving ebony deposits behind. This is why there's so much ebony in Morrowind and trace amounts in Skyrim. It makes the crafting of Daedric Armor in Skyrim much more sensible. Add the heart of a daedra to the blood of
an aedra. A padomaic aedra, but whatever. Carnius is disappointed that we didn't just
off the Nord, but as long as the work continues, he's satisfied. After waiting three days for our next task, Carnius tells us a supply ship should have arrived from the mainland and he wants us to check up on the delivery
with Falco. Of course, when we get back to Raven Rock, we learn the ship never arrived. Falco's not all that surprised since Carnius never commissioned a dock to
be built. At least not one big enough to accommodate
a supply ship. We do have a small dock though, so we can travel back and forth from Fort
Frostmoth now. It's nice. But the missing supply ship is our priority. Gamin Girith, the putz that punched me to
death in a different kalpa. Headcanon: all branching save files are
different kalpas. He says he saw some lights to the northwest. Raiders? Reavers? Suppliers? Who can say? Maybe he should have told Falco. On the way out of the camp, we jump once and are now able to rest and
meditate on what we've learned. Level 2. Strength, agility, and speed. In case I miss any level ups, come back to this part of the
video and rewatch it because all my level ups will be
exactly like this. Strength, agility, speed. All the other attributes, I don't care about. Ugh, dark brotherhood. Oh my god. This is going to be a pain in the ass. Should have installed that mod that delays
their attack. Oh well. We're coming up to the first real challenge
of this run. Draugr. If you're only familiar with Skyrim's Draugr, or Oblivion’s Zombies for that matter, you're in for a surprise. Morrowind's Draugr are fast. It's not so bad since we're out in the open
right now, but imagine entering a tomb and having one of these guys bolting right
up to you. Thankfully, they don't hit very hard. I can actually survive a hit or two from these
guys. They stagger pretty reliably too, assuming you can actually get a hit off, and they look stupid as hell when they do
get hit. Even with no fatigue like right now, my accuracy is still around 60%. It's not that bad. But having full fatigue is still better, so running into new cells to rest up is still
a viable option. I'm going to have to rely on it pretty liberally. This cave is public property, so I can't rest to restore my health for some
reason. Full fatigue is good though. Oh no, wolf, don't start with the- Wait, I can tame him. Get him, pup. Good job. Hmm... Betrayal Perhaps I should have foreseen this. One Draugr left. Something I was wondering was why Draugr are so damn fast in this game, but not nearly as fast in Skyrim. You know, what changed? They're based on real folklore creatures, Scandinavian in origin, so it makes sense that they'd be in Skyrim. So I looked into them. They're not zombies in the sense that they're just reanimated corpses. They're more like corporeal ghosts, so they have all these wacky supernatural
powers like superhuman strength and the ability to enter dreams and create
darkness. Just create darkness. They just...they just make it dark, I guess. Oh, and they could shape shift and swim through
stone. Yeah. What I'm imagining is a bunch of medieval
Norse folk sitting around a hearth, one upping each other about some monster they
said they saw, everyone adding something
more and more ridiculous. “And I was able to escape.” “That's nothing.” “I saw one that could do roundhouse kicks.” Anyway, I think the speed
gives them the appearance of swimming through walls when you're in a
crypt. They just kind of show up out of nowhere, like they no-clip through the scenery. Know of any other weirdly overpowered folklore
creatures or obscure facts about commonly known ones? I'd love to hear it. This isn't just a ploy for engagement. I'm actually curious. This stuff is interesting. Did you know Sphinx and
sphincter share etymologies? I'd explain why, but I have to escort this lady back to Raven
Rock. Well, actually, I have to get some picks off
the ship. It's an optional part of the quest that I thought was mandatory at the time, but it's optional and if I had known that, I wouldn't have actually done it. But you can get 3,000 gold for bringing all
six back to Falco. But how on earth do you get onto the boat? Well, let's skip ahead a bit because I spent a good 15 minutes trying to get up this dumb friggin' rock. I guess the assumption is you'd use a levitate
spell or a potion or something. Or you just have higher acrobatics because you wouldn't be level TWO and you'd be able to clear this jump pretty
easy. By stripping down and dropping everything
in my inventory and jumping around like a lunatic, I realized I should try jumping from an angle. And sure enough, it worked. I collected the picks, picked all my stuff back up, and headed back for Raven Rock. But where was the lady? Oh, she's up on the ship. You know, in most scenarios, the dickhead you're escorting needs to be
right up against you to actually load into the new cell with you. But this woman, she was standing on the rocks
in the ocean and still managed to follow me up into the
ship, loading into the ship's interior cell, trapping her on the goddamn boat. So I reloaded, told her to stay put, went through the whole process of dropping
my stuff, jumping on the ship, collecting the picks, jumped off, re-geared, then had her follow
me, now we can return to Raven Rock. This berserker looks different. Oh my god, how much health does he have? What the, I'm not even making a dent. Oh my god, this is a werewolf. Oh, I can't do this. Come on, lady, just run away. I... *sigh* Y'know, all things considered, good on her for surviving this long. It's like a horror movie. Look at him. All right, I got an idea. I just can't thank you enough for rescuing
me from that horrible shipwreck, guy that's totally not a werewolf. Why does everyone keep saying it like that? I'm not a werewolf. Falco gives us 3k for the picks and he tells us to report back to Carne Asada who gives us 300 gold. How generous. If we wait three days, he tells us to go bother Falco for an assignment because he doesn't want to look at us. And he's rude. Excuse me. Excus-- Dude. Move. I... *frustrated sigh* Why are the halls this narrow, Bethesda? And shouldn't they spiral the other way? So a right-handed defender attacking from
above would have an easier time attacking the attackers coming from below? Or is that just a myth? Maybe the majority of people in Tamriel are
left-handed. Perhaps this is a mirror universe where the chirality is flipped. Ooh, the consequences for chemistry is staggering. That's where magic comes from. If you flip the chirality of all of our biology, we become magic. Or we die. Can you tell this part of the voiceover is being recorded on a different day? At this point in the Raven Rock quest line, we can either side with Falco or Carnius. But it doesn't matter because we're ditching
this quest line after this next quest, the one that gets the trader into the colony. I'll go with Falco just because I'm here already. He asks if we want to bring in a smith or
a trader. We'll go with the trader because they have the potential to carry some interesting marksman items. It's random, so it might
not be all that interesting, But, hey, let’s roll the dice. But before the trader will get built, we have to go back to Carnius and let him know our decision. While we're here, again, let's carry on with the main quest. With a matter of the Fort’s morale being
solved and the alcohol being discovered-- Oh, the shipment was found! The captain now wants us to investigate some weapons that are being smuggled away
from the camp. We can proceed with the help of one of two
soldiers, Sanius [sic: Saenus] Lusius or Gaea Artoria. The former is more a talker than a fighter. The latter is a fighter, not a talker. I'm going with Gaea because we need a fighter. Trust me. Lusius would actually be the better option if we had an invisibility spell. I'll explain why in a bit. It makes sense that Zeno would know something about the missing weapons and because we raised his disposition earlier
with booze, he's more than willing to tell us what he's
heard. To the northeast in the Gandrung Caverns, a few soldiers are storing weapons there, likely the weapons that are going missing. They're the smugglers. But we're not going to go there just yet. That’s how it always is. There are some really good items I need to
loot first. Super good items. Items we're gonna want before we go into this...next phase of the main
quest. We'll stop by Raven Rock again and update Falco so we can get started constructing the tradehouse. We'll need to talk to Carnius again before it finally opens, so that too is back burnered. But right now we got to go to Thirsk. It's this little, not a village, it's like a mead hall, kind of in the middle of the island. And if you've played Bloodmoon before, I'm pretty sure you know what's waiting for
me there. So if this were happening in real life, obviously these guys wouldn't survive a dozen crossbow bolts to the chest. And if they did, they wouldn't still be running at full speed
at me. But if they could survive these attacks, how long do you think it would take before both sides just realize that we're both wasting our time? How long does a fight have to go on before everybody just forgets why they're
mad? And we all just walk away. Well, I guess if the Hundred Years War is an indication of anything, quite a while. At least we got a level out of it. Strength, agility, and speed. Loot from these guys isn't that interesting. Ooh, lockpicks. Somewhat interesting. And a new hat. This is, uh, this is a wolf, I guess. Behind the Thirsk Mead Hall is a hollow stump. And in that stump is a pair of enchanted gloves with fortify sneak and fortify security for 20 points each. Constant effects, by the way. There's also a ring that gives 20 points of
night eye and 20 points of marksman. Super powerful for this build. There's also shadow sting, a sword with a weird enchantment. Five points of poison for 20 seconds. Cool. And 200 to 100 percent chameleon for 20 seconds on the target. 200 to 100%... And you turn the target invisible. Err... What? Finally, five ebony arrows of slaying. Damage health, 5,000 points for one second
on target. Basically, I have five instant kills. Quite powerful. Quite dear. To be treasured and used only when absolutely
necessary. I already know one enemy I'm going to use
this on. For sure. Try to guess what it is. Ooh, engagement. Gundrung cavern. Jesus, Gaea. Chill out. It's-it’s just a rat. I love the gumption, but I need you to save that passion for the
other guys. Okay, here's the first enemy. They're really strong. They have a lot of health, and they shrug off my bolts like I'm shooting
them with spitballs. Gaea does pretty good damage. The problem is, if I want to run away and not get one shot, she has trouble catching up. One piece of good news though, their attacks are so strong, it doesn't matter that all their weapons have a paralysis effect on them. I die in one hit regardless, so effectively, I'm immune to paralysis. Oh yeah, they heal up to full at half health, too. You see why I took marksman? That took about five minutes of constant kiting, and we'll sell his enchanted axe. An on strike paralysis enchant, sounds useful, but my axe skill is like five, so I have no interest in using it. And here's why I took security. These chests are all over the island, and they can contain decent loot…sometimes. In this case, 15 viper arrows, poison four to seven points for 10 seconds. Not bad. I just need a bow to use them. We'll get one later. Ooh, more lock chests. Scroll of Ondusi’s unhinging. Cool. That's actually a good sign, because that means these chests can roll on the random scroll loot table, so we might find some pretty powerful scrolls. Or we might not. We probably won't. Also a weak fire damage ring, and a short duration blind ring. I don't know if I'll actually use these, but I'll take them since rings barely weigh
anything anyway. Wish I could pick this level 80 chest. What mysteries do you hold? We'll never know. Hey, this is working pretty well. He's not covering much ground between the
staggers, if... Shit. Gotta keep these fights 2v1. 2v2 is a fair fight, and fair fights are dumb. Okay, Gaea. Wait here, and don't run in like a maniac. I'll lure this guy out. Excellent. Now, we kite. Two down, three to go. Oh, thank Talos for these repair hammers, I tell ya. Alright, Orc's coming. Gaea: “Yes, friend?” Well, don't just yes, friend, me, help. I said earlier invisibility with Lusius makes this part of the quest a lot easier. If you picked Lusius, you can talk to the smuggler's leader and come to a deal. With invisibility, you can leave Lusius at the start of the dungeon, sneak through the caverns, and talk to the leader without fighting anyone. Lusius doesn't even need to be with you. Anyway, this Orc's kicking my ass. He's fast as hell, and Gaea is having a lot of trouble keeping
up with him. I'm bringing him to the front of the caverns because kiting him here in this long hallway is a lot easier than dealing with bumps and
rocks and weird tunnel geometry. And if I need to, I can run out of the cave and rest. Come on. Almost dead. Come on... Come on... Yeugh! [I guess that's how it's spelled?] Ooh... Man, it's like there's a wasp in the other
room, and someone in the house already swatted it, but you don't know if it's dying or it's just really pissed, and someone has to go back into that room. Gaea, what do you doing? Attack him. Geez. Okay, two more left. Oh, another Orc. Why are they so fast? Okay, I brought him to the kiting tunnel as
well. Buuuuut... I'm running out of bolts. I'll be right back. Since we're back in Frostmoth, we might as well check in on Carnius and get that whole trader thing sorted. Omniscient Narrator: "Omniscient narrator here." "This detour will cause a lot of pain." If we tell him the work on the tradehouse is almost done, that makes it done. Yeah. You know what? Let's actually go to Raven Rock and see what the trader has, because maybe they have something in stock that'll make the next two smugglers easier
to fight. Place is shaping up nice. This interior seems like 10% too big. Know what I mean? Which guy for me, Sathyn? Lots of unusable potions. Silver bolts. Silver darts. Those might help with fighting werewolves. Some enchanted throwing stars. Those don't restock though. I'll get them
anyway. Shock three to seven points for one second. Eh…could be worse, I suppose. You know, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't
a little disappointed. Really, not much of anything there. *sigh* No matter. Back to the caverns. Um, where's Gaea? I left her at the fort, didn't I? *sigh* Man, these darts really aren't doing any-- Wuh! Hey, I got a level. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. No. Did I just screw myself? Oh, good. Man, that would have sucked. The only thing worse would be saving during
the death. Surely that won't happen. Right? Hoo boy. Finally, fourth smuggler down. Time to deal with the leader. Sword? Okay, I need Gaea back and I need to repair
my crossbow. Please be at the fort somewhere. Ah! Oh, it's you. Man, Gaea's aggro as hell. Well, that was easy. I don't know why I didn't-- Eh, whatever. Let's go report to the captain. Look at that. They added a more convenient pathway through
the wall. That was nice of him. Bit messy, though. Oh, there was an attack while we were gone. Pretty fast attack. According to Luscious Lusius, the captain done gone and went missing while
the fort was being attacked by strange wolf creatures. You must find him, guy that's totally not
a werewolf. Dude, I understand the subtext. Don't go blaming me for your fort's poor planning. So to gain an audience with the Skaal, the nature worshipping Nord's native to Solstheim, Lusius suggests I bring them the skull of
a Skaal warrior. Personally, that seems a bit distasteful. If somebody showed up at my doorstep and presented
me with my great uncle's skull, I'd assume they were here to start some shit. But Lusius is apparently the clever one, so
I'll give it a shot. Might end up tripping neck first onto an axe,
but whatever, to the north. And here we are at the Skaal Village. Hello, Tharsten. I'm here to inquire about wolf monsters. So the good news is, he's happy we brought
him a dude's brain case. Bad news, he doesn't much care for the Imperials. They desecrate the land and they don't respect
the Oneness of nature. And that's Oneness with a capital O, so you
know it's important. Even with that in mind, though, the Skaal
said they would never dare attack them. They prefer watching the Imperials kill themselves
slowly, succumbing to nature itself. But the Imperials utter disregard for the
Oneness of the land has put things out of balance, and we, the mighty, not-technically-Nerevarine,
but-canonically-I-am-that-right-now, must perform the rituals to fix it. We must restore the power of the Skaal. We're sent off to Korst Wind-Eye, the Skaal
seer, and he gives us all the required paperwork
for the task before us, and a little bit of documentation outlining
the locations we need to visit. There are six ritual stones across the island
of Solstheim, and with each stone comes a specific ritual
that we must perform. Some are simple, some are grueling. Others require... creative solutions. You'll see. Well, let's get to it. We'll go to the Windstone first since it's
the closest, and there's a group of smugglers to the west
of the Skaal Village, some of whom are carrying bows. I'll still use the crossbow primarily, but it'd be nice to have a bow on hand just
in case. Make use of those enchanted arrows. It's only a short bow, so it's not that great,
but it'll have to do. Another level. Strength, agility, and speed. What an upset. The ritual we must perform for the Windstone
is to go to Glenschul's Tomb and free the winds from the Greedy Man's sack. I hope it's not a euphemism. The Tomb is southeast of the lake. We'll actually be passing by the Beast Stone, so we'll swing by that on the way. Rieklings are annoying, but at least they
aren't damage sponges. I know, I know. I chose to play on max difficulty. Everything's a damage sponge, but some mobs are spongier than others. These Rieklings, they're not that spongy. So the Beast Stone wants us to go south and
find the Good Beast. It's being attacked by Rieklings, and we gotta
rescue it. Easy because the bear tanks the damage for
us. Hard because the bear isn't Guardian Specced,
so he's squishy. If you don't play WoW, that makes no sense. We gotta kill the Rieklings before they kill
the bear. Those poison enchanted arrows should come
in handy. Spread some damage over time around on all
of them. Well. Damn it. Lots of luck involved with this. We did it. Just gotta pull this arrow out of the bear's
paw, wait for him to heal up, and then escort him back to the ritual stone. We can actually just run back to the stone without waiting for the bear. It all counts anyway. He'll be fine. He's…he's a polar bear. This place is great for him. One ritual down, five to go. Onward to Glenschul's tomb. So here's the deal. This tomb is full of Draugr and Bone Wolves. And outside the tomb is this Riekling Boar
Jockey. Now THEY are damage sponges. This is gonna be tough. I have no delusions about being able to fight
my way through this place. There's barely enough room to kite one Draugr, let alone the five or six that are in here. It might be more than that actually. But all we need to do is get to the end of
the dungeon, open the sack, and then run out. We don't actually need to kill anything, but that's easier said than done. Of course, the corridors are wide enough to
look like they can squeeze two people through them. But it's not so simple. These tombs are made by the same guy that built those fort stairwells, it seems. Are Bone Wolves tameable? Are they beasts? Nope. Look at this mess. Yes! Oh my god. To think in only 200 years these Draugr are
gonna be shambling corpses. That was exhausting. It took less than 10 minutes of attempts. I only have 10 minutes of footage of it, but
it felt like hours. I need a beer. You fool. I don't even like beer. This entire thing... was recorded in post. I'm not exhausted. The voiceover is separate. Everything is a lie. YouTube is a lie. You... can't prove you're not a brain in a vat. The tree stone wants us to collect some seeds. He who controls the seeds controls the trees. There's a riekling --incorrigible little things-- with the seeds and when we approach,
a bunch of spriggins attack at the behest of the Riekling, of course. We could kill the spriggins, but the problem is you have to kill them three
times before they stay dead. Rather if we focus on the Riekling, we can loot the seeds, and that'll make the
spriggins nice and docile. We trained for this with those Reavers. As long as we keep out of range, it should
be fine. Oop, a bear's joined the fray. Maybe she can help us. Nope. At least I'm accurate. 72 base marksman and then the ring brings us up to 92. 70 agility and 40 luck... Doing the math that works out to 82.5% accuracy when I have zero fatigue. Throw in the warrior birth sign, and I'm 92.5%
accurate. I don't know how much evasion chance the enemies
have, but it doesn't seem very significant. And when we loot the seeds, as you can see,
the spriggans stop in their tracks. That bear’s still a problem though. Now we just need to plant the seeds just a
bit northwest of the tree stone. And there we go. Ritual of the tree completed. Way easier than the wind one. Next is the ritual of the sun, not far outside
Fort Frostmoth. The stone wants us to go west and free the
warm sun from the halls of Penumbra. There's a nice path laid out for us too, look
at that. Straight ahead. Gotta be quick though, because the wildlife
is chasing me. I feel like that goes without saying, honestly. And now we're safe in the caves, so we can
rest and heal up from the damage that the wildlife did to us. Oh my god, what the f- Okay, we're not gonna rest. That summons the undead, I guess. Here's what we'll do. Backpedal to Fort Frostmoth, while donating a few dozen arrows to these
wolves and berserkers. Great, the guards are helping now. Uh, really guys? You're just gonna kill the wildlife? Not- can- can you help with these other lunatics? *disappointed sigh* Fine. We're gonna have to fight our way
past quite a few draugr, soooo... we want our crossbow to be as
mint as possible. Let's get some repairs. The condition of your weapon affects its damage,
if you didn't know. I'm also gonna buy some throwing stars, not because I think the damage would be great, but you can throw them quickly, and that might make it easier to stagger-lock some enemies. Probably not, but it's worth a shot. Okay, let's deal with these idiots. That was a bit tedious, would have been nice
for the guards to help, but at least I could sell their daggers. You know, thinking about it, I'm actually
gonna buy back one of these iron crossbows. It's not as strong as the Huntsman, but because
weapon condition is directly proportional to your weapon damage, it might
be useful to have more than one weapon. A weapon with 50% condition does 50% damage. So if my Huntsman crossbow gets to like 75%,
it'll be the same as a fully repaired iron crossbow. It's just good to have backups. The iron crossbow will be really good for
wildlife, because it's gonna take three or four shots from either crossbow to
kill the thing, regardless. So this will just save condition on the Huntsman
itself. Oh, and we got level six. Strength, agility, and speed. Now we're back at the halls of Penumbra. There are quite a few twists and turns in
these caves, with locked chests at the end of many of them. As much as I love to roll the dice for better
and better loot, I don't think fighting through all the draugr
is worth it. I think avoiding a draugr fight is better
than whatever loot the chest might have. Near perfect accuracy is so nice. Whoops. Yeah, don't rest. That attracts them. Rest outside. It's really hard to take draugr seriously
when every time you hit them, they dab. It was 2003, so I guess they were ahead of
their time. Cool. Enchanted arrows. Frost damage. Basically useless. Everything on Solstheim is either heavily
resistant or immune to frost. So you see that at the end of the tunnel? That's a Grahl. I'm honestly not sure what a Grahl is supposed
to be. Perhaps it's some obscure Norse mythical
beast? To me, it just looks like an elephant-troll. It's got tusks, but it doesn't have a trunk. I don't know. Regardless, they have a ton of health. And like the goblins and the Mournhold sewers, they deal damage at the beginning of their
attack animation. It makes avoiding damage kind of tough. Oh, and they have ridiculous health regen. I don't think I can kill this thing just with
bolts. This is worthy of an ebony arrow of slaying. You might think the enchant reflected back
on to me, but no, that was just an animation-less attack
from the grahl. Unless contact caused the damage or like charged
into me. I don't like them. All we need is the eye off its corpse, and then we can use it to thaw this ice wall. This makes all the torches in the caverns
ignite and undoubtedly fill the tunnels with carbon
monoxide. Ah, Draugr, what a headache. Sunstone's happy. That's...four now. I haven't returned to the windstone yet, so technically only three rituals are done. We can get back to that later. Let's deal with the earthstone now. It's pretty close to Raven Rock, so we can just return to Frostmoth and boat
on over. We can even restock on bolts and darts while
we're there. There's the earthstone up ahead. Just gotta take out these wolves. Not long now? Ugh, Who's that? Oh, Christ, it's a level 90 guy again. Umm...uh... I'm gonna have to take a long way around. Are you kidding me? He's at the stone? Screw it, we could probably outrun him. Let's just activate the stone and head off
to the trial. We need to learn the song of the earth from
the Cave of Hidden Music. It's not far from here. And now there's a... Oh wait, actually. The wolf can be a distraction. Fantastic. Have fun you two. Neat. A level. But can I rest with my wolf friend fighting
for his life all the way back at the earthstone? Ooh, I can. Cool. Strength, agility, and speed. The Cave of Hidden Music. Of course, there's Draugr in here, but only in the first half of the cavern. The second half has no enemies and has several chests we can loot. A level 80 chest. Ooh, it's not too complex. We can unlock it. Two rings with blind effects. 10 to 30 points and 1 to 40 points. Unlikely I'll ever use them, but I'll take them anyway. Ooh, fire enchanted bolts. It's a weak enchantment, but better than nothing. Not a lot of fire resistance on this island,
I think. And there's also a single throwing star. Poison ring. Decent, I suppose. And frost enchanted bolts. Eh... You know what? I'm just gonna run into the next cell. I'm right nearby. Don't gotta fight these guys. This next part of the caverns has a lot of
chests to unlock. They mostly contain around 15 enchanted arrows
or bolts and sometimes an enchanted item and maybe a couple repair hammers and soul
gems. The occasional piece of jewelry. I won't list all the loot, just the notable
things, like this ring that fortifies enchanting by
7 points for 30 seconds. I don't have a way to cast soul trap, so I doubt this will ever help me much. But who knows? Maybe I'll find a scroll that allows me to
soul trap something. Now that we're at the end of the cavern, we can conduct our trial. What we have to do is copy the pitch of the
stalactites gyasses by clicking on the correct stalagmites. It's not just “click the one that the gas
is flowing into.” You need to match the acoustic pattern, not the visual pattern. I think it's the same pattern every time though. So if you have trouble discerning pitch, you can just look up the answer. Middle, right, left, right for the first pattern, then left, right, middle, left for the second
pattern. Well, speak of the devil. Scroll of Farigiraf Soul Eater [sic]. We can enchant something. But what should we make? I'll think about it. Don't want to jump the gun too early. Oh, right, the draugr. Guys, please, I just want to leave. Here we go. So I'm thinking the best thing to do here is to take potshots at them to slow them
down while I run backwards and run away so I can get out without having to kill them. Shit, they blocked me in. Oh my god, stupid. Stop going to the right. These friggin' walls. Almost there. Come on. Almost. Man. Oh no. No. No, no. Oh, please. I saved mid-death. Well, at least I have an auto save at the beginning of this dual draugr gauntlet. Time to start this escape all over again. No, go left. Wait a minute. Darts are fast and they stagger just as well
as crossbow bolts. It's less damage, sure, but I don't care about damage. All I care about is staggering them. Oh my god, again, seriously? I hate this game. Okay, almost there. Please, please. Come on. *sharp inhale* Oh, fresh air and sunlight how I missed you. *relieved exhale* And that ritual is complete. Huh, they're still fighting. Weird. Not my problem. One ritual left, the water stone. Did you know in terms of human anatomy… Ugh, all this snow is going to add so many
compression artifacts to the video. Let's be real though, YouTube's compression
is iffy on a good day. For the water stone ritual, you're supposed to follow a horker along the
surface of the water and then swim into a cave deep underwater. But if you know where the cave is, you can just go straight to it. In the cave is the water of life and we got
to get it. Without any spell effects, you can hold your breath for 20 seconds. After those 20 seconds, you start taking three points of damage every
second until you surface or you die. Once we enter the cave, we need to swim through this winding tunnel. I have 53 health, so that means I've got less than 38 seconds
total to go from the surface of the ocean to the pocket of air at the end of this cavern. [I considered adding Sonic drowning music.
But some people watch these videos while going to sleep.] And I can't do it. I know if you reduce the ratio of your carry
weight to carry capacity, that allows you to run faster, but I don't know how much that affects swimming. I know higher athletics increases your swim
speed, but I don't know if dumping my inventory will
help me here. You know what? I have an idea. But I need to go back to the Skaal Village. I really wish I had Mark and Recall. Since we're walking past it on the way to
the village, let's just finish up the ritual of the wind
real quick. So there's a total of two spell merchants
on Solstheim, as far as I'm aware. Mirisa, an imperial cult monk who you need
to rescue, so that's a whole ordeal I don't want to deal
with. She could stay hidden after whatever the hell's
going on with her. Then there is Bronrod the Roarer in the Skaal
Village. He sells a lot of weak fortify skill spells and various absorb attribute spells, reflect,
dispel, you know, simple things. But most importantly, he sells a single healing
spell, Rapid Regenerate, restore 5 to 10 points of
health for 20 seconds. I literally have only a 1% chance to cast
this spell. Doesn't inspire much confidence. And unfortunately, there are no spell makers
on Solstheim, so I couldn't make a weaker version of this
even if I wanted to. Or could I? Let Soul Trap a Riekling using that scroll
I found. Soul Gems are in a bunch of the island's chests, so I made sure to grab a common Soul Gem while
I was in one of the tombs, and I looted a ring from one of them because
I had a feeling I might need it. All I have to do is enchant this ring with
a 3-point heal spell. My enchant level is low, and my intelligence
level is low. And that ring that we found earlier, the one that gives 7 points of enchant for
30 seconds, that's pretty weak. But when you think about it, it more than
doubles our enchant level, so it's significant. I have a 15% chance to successfully create
a 3-point heal spell over 5 seconds. There's an option within OpenMW that tells
you the success chance of enchants, by the way. You could toggle it on or off. 15% isn't that bad. And no lie, I literally got it on the first
attempt. This should do it. Before we leave the Skaal Village and go back
to the water stone thing, I want to talk to Lassnr and start his quest. It's a short quest. He's looking for his son, Tymvaul. He fell down the well. Lassnr gives us a key for the well, and we
can enter it, swim through the Flooded Cave system, although
this one's not as long, so we don't drown, and then we emerge in another cavern filled
with skeletons. They're easy enough to kill. We find Tymvaul deeper in the caverns, and it seems he's obsessed with the robes
he's wearing. Something, something, forces of darkness. Killing him is an option, or we can tell him
his father is looking for him, and that his father loves him. This breaks Tymvaul from his power-crazed
madness, and he gives us the robes. We can return to Lassnr to tell him the fate
of Tymvaul, that his son is going to leave Solstheim to
study true magic, instead of evil, dark, necromancy magic. And Lassnr will give us some animal pelts
as a reward. The better prize is the Mantle of Woe. And whoa, indeed. Look at this enchantment. It drains your personality by 100 points, increases your weakness to normal weapons
by 20%, and causes 20 points of sun damage per second. So it's basically a nightgown. But most importantly, is that it fortifies your conjuration by 50
points, and fortifies your maximum magicka by five
times your intelligence. These robes give you 500 points of magicka
if you have 100 intelligence. It's pretty wild, but I'm not going to use
it. I figured if I didn't talk about it, a bunch of people would say that I should
have gotten it, so I could cast a bunch of spells that I don't
have the level to successfully cast anyway. Whatever, I got it. I'm not using it. Anyway, back to the main quest. Now that we can heal ourselves at the same
rate that drowning damages us, we can freely drown without dying. Imagine that horror, that pain. Your blood is filling up with CO2. You have that constant urge to breathe, beating
against your chest. But every whisper of death is kept at bay
with a simple enchantment. And then when you finally emerge from your
eternity submerged, a goofy skeleton tries to kill you. We're just here for the water life. I feel like this is some
environmental storytelling. Someone came here, died, and became a skeleton. But why did they die? They didn't drown. They had potions. And the potions are in the cavern. It's a mystery. Welp... Back on the drink. My favorite eeveelution USED TO be Vaporeon. What a surprise. The internet ruins everything. There's a cavern west of the Skaal Village. Frykte. Yeah, I'm sure I said that right. And there's an item in there that I want to
loot before we return to Korst Wind-Eye. This cave is full of skellies, but they're
pretty weak. And even though a bunch of them have shields, you can't actually block ranged attacks in
Morrowind. Kind of silly, but it works in our favor. How do you think he died? Ah, here's what we're looking for. A second Huntsman crossbow. Always good to have a backup. Now that all the rituals have been performed, and the power of the Skaal has been restored, Tharsten Hartfang awards us with a really
powerful mace. But it's useless for this build, and it's
really friggin' heavy. So we don't need it. And now Tharsten wants us to prove our wisdom. By solving a crime. Rigmor Halfhand has accused Engar Ice-mane
of theft. He says that Engmar stole furs from his home, and sure enough, the furs were found in the
possession of the accused. The punishment for theft among the Skaal is
either exile or sacrifice to the wolves. Metal is hell. If we search Ice-Mane's house, we can find a note under Risi's pillow, clearly written by Rigmor. He's mad that Risi stays with Engar. He says that Engar is a lout because he's away for weeks at a time. You know, hunting and collecting resources to keep the village from... dying. But yeah, he's a selfish prick at Engar. If we talk to Risi, she reveals that she had a brief affair with
Rigmor. Give a mouse a cookie… When we confront Rigmor, he realizes the jig
is up, and accompanies me to Tharsten, who leaves it up to me to decide his fate. We can have him exiled or sacrificed to the
wolves. I'm gonna go with exile. It's Rigmor's preferred punishment, but I'm not doing it for him. He's probably gonna end up getting eaten by
wolves anyway. But this way, he'll be dishonored by the Skaal and stricken from their cultural history. But I'm pretty sure you actually have to watch
him get killed before you can move on with the quest, so it's faster just to exile him. As a reward, we get a new hat. Helm of the Wolf's Heart. It fortifies both agility and sneak by five
points. Next, we need to prove our strength. Korst Wind-Eye is waiting near Lake Fjalding, ready to explain exactly what we have to do. So the lake's discharging some kind of orange
magic. That's probably what Korst wants to talk about. Yep. Tharsten believes the Draugr Lord Aesliip is the cause of the disturbance on the lake. Beneath the lake is a frozen cave system. On Solstheim? Whaaaat? And Korst wants us to go in and deal with
him. More Draugr. Hooray. The Skaal fear this is the second sign of
the Bloodmoon prophecy. The first sign is the coming of the Hounds. Werewolves. Which we haven't seen yet. The second sign is Fire from the Glass Eye. That orange effluvia coming out of the lake. The third sign is the Tide of Woe. It's when a bunch of horkers start washing
up on the shore, massacred by the dozens. Perhaps hundreds. But at least that hasn't happened yet. I'm going to break out my fire enchanted bolts
for these caves. The last thing I need is a 2v1. When we approach the Draugr Lord, he stops us and begins to talk. As it happens, Aesliip isn't evil. According to him. The Draugr in this cave are not his kin. According to him. He was once a Skaal who was exiled for performing
dark magics. Over the years, he learned of a Daedric plot
to destroy his people. He erected a magical barrier to keep the Daedra
contained, but he knew his finite life would eventually
end. So he turned himself into a Draugr, gaining immortality so he can maintain the
barrier and protect the Skaal. He asks us to help him clear out the Daedra
in the caves. We'll agree, but really we just wanted the
Daedra to kill him. Listen, I don't have to help this guy. I could kill him right now and be on my way. But the Daedra, the Frost Atronachs in the
cave, they're way better equipped for killing Aesliip
than I am. So... He's weak enough now, I think I could finish
him off. And we can take his ring. Fortify willpower 10 points and Magicka 75
points. Not game-changing, but it's neat. Korst is pleased to hear that Aesliip is dead. What about the Atronachs? Who cares? On the way back to the village, we can enter the Thirsk Mead Hall to see quite
a tragic sight. It seems this place has been assaulted by
some unknown force. And this wood beam seems to be wearing a pair
of glowing boots. I... I must take them. Ooh, 10 points to athletics and speed. Thank you, beam, I'll cherish them always. Back to the Skaal Village. If we talk to Tharsten, he tells us he's too
busy to talk. It's a full-time job standing there with a
vacant expression. Maybe Korst has something- *Oscar-worthy gasp of genuine surprise* What's this? Werewolves are attacking the village. Wow, yep, that's... that's werewolves, all
right. Fortunately, the Skaal Warriors are pretty
good at killing werewolves, so I kind of just jumped around and poked
him where I could. Honestly, the Rieklings that followed me from
Thirsk were more of an issue than anything. With all things clear, we can report back
to Tharsten, but he's no longer in the Great Hall. Also, there's werewolves here, and they attack
us. They get a ton of health, so this is going
to take a while. Somehow, I managed to trick one into staying
downstairs, so we can 1v1 this one upstairs in the catwalk. What's great is that werewolves don't have
reflect, so I can finally put a bunch of these enchanted
arrows to use. This is pretty much the last chance we'll
actually have to use them. Can you guess why? With those two bad boys dead-- they're not good
boys, they're bad boys-- We can leave the Great Hall and find Korst
just having arrived, conveniently after all the chaos. He tells us that we've been infected with
a werewolf disease. Sanies Lupinus. Sanies Lupie-nus. Saini's Lu-penis. Korst says if we don't find a cure soon, we'll
become a werewolf ourselves. To protect his village, he tells us to leave
until we're cured, but here's what he doesn't know. We can't gettin’ cured. Outside the village, I rest for a few days
and… Awooooo. Look at me. I'm a good boy. I just need to kill a few humanoids every
night so I don't lose a bunch of health. It seems the Skaal want to tussle. This is so dumb. *laughing* Oh, it's like: we struggle this whole time
up to this point and then it's like, okay, y-you...you-you paid your penance. Here you go. Have fun. So if you're curious what lycanthropy entails,
here's the gist. Every night at 9pm, you turn into a werewolf. This lasts until 6am. You need to frequently kill humanoids lest
you lose health throughout the night. I think you also lose some stats. If you don't kill any humanoid NPCs, the next
day you'll wake up, reverting to your humanoid form, with some damage to your health. It's not a big deal, honestly. But if anyone sees you transform, the whole
world will know you're a werewolf, even if you kill the one person that witnessed it. That's an issue, but for this playthrough,
who cares? The benefits of being a werewolf is that you're
super fast, can jump really far, have powerful claws, and you're pretty damn
sneaky if you need to be. Also, you have night eye, and you constantly
restore one health per second, and you can detect humanoids on your map. And a lot of people run away from you in fear. Reasonable. We'll be finishing the main quest as a werewolf,
if you couldn't guess. I literally don't think
it'd be possible otherwise, and I'll explain why when we get to what I
think would be a roadblock. For the sake of transparency, OpenMW comes
with an option to make strength affect hand-to-hand damage. And you can toggle whether strength affects
werewolf claw damage. I have both of those options toggled off for
this run. This feels good. This… this is cathartic. After our first night of furry debauchery... whatever you're assuming I mean by that... you're right. We revert to a naked wood elf, waiting until
night once again, and we're given a vision of a Hircine. Daedric, Lord of the Hunt, and the Creator
of Werewolves. Hircine: "Your master has a task for you,
my hound. In the Tombs of Skaalara lies the Totem of
Claw and Fang. There, I wish it to remain. When the Skaal come for it, hunt them down,
kill them all, and protect the totem." If we had cured our lycanthropy and sided
with the Skaal, this part of the main quest would require
us to enter the tombs of Skaal-ARA, --or Skaalara, Sclera, Scleroderma--and get
the totem of claw and fang. Not defend it. As a werewolf, we need to defend it. Which is kind of weird. You don't think of werewolves as defensive
creatures. And that sounds simple enough. But instead of Skaal warriors, when we come
here as a humanoid, we need to fight through tons of werewolves. At the end of this dungeon is a chest with
a totem in it, so you need to go loot the chest and then
run back out while being chased by werewolves, or not being chased by werewolves because
you killed them all. Werewolves are hard to kill, and you need
a lot of space to kite them, especially when you're not doing a ton of
damage. I could barely fight Draugr in tombs. Werewolves would be an absolute nightmare. Rather, as a werewolf, I just need to kill the Skaal as they spawn
and try to take the totem. If they reach the chest at the end of the
dungeon, they take the totem, but they stand there
like idiots, so I can kill them really quick. Once they're dead, the totem returns to the
chest by magic. Taking this path does technically make the
challenge easier, but I just don't think the other path would
even be possible. I mean, maybe it would be, but I really doubt
it. I'll leave that as an exercise for the viewer. So this is fun. Werewolves get boosted sneak. It's almost a hundred. It makes sneak attacking way easier. I can just about one-shot them with critical
sneak attacks. After about two dozen Skaal hunters are killed, they abandon their quest for the totem. If we wait again, reverting to a wood elf,
and then back to a werewolf… Hircine: "You have performed well, hound. The totem is undisturbed for now, and your
master is pleased. I grant you this boon to aid you in your hunt. Your claws are now as sharp as the edge of
my spear. Let all who would stand before you feel their
edge. We will speak again." Our claws are now stronger by something like
40%. Not bad. Thanks, Hircine. If we wait again, revert to a wood elf, and
then back to a werewolf... There's a lot of this. It's pretty silly. Hircine contacts us once more. Hircine: "It is time to serve your master
again. The totem was stolen while the hounds slept, and the Skaal prepare to hunt the spirit bear
this night. Hunt the hunters, and slay the beast." Okay, so the Skaal got the totem anyway. I w-I was here in Skaalara this whole time. Now they're trying to hunt the spirit bear. They need its heart, and Hircine wants us
to stop them. The task is similar to what we did in the
tombs of Skaalara. Rampant slaughter. West of Lake Fjalding are hunting parties, and we have to go there and murder them until
they give up. When they do eventually abandon their efforts, we need to track down the spirit bear and
kill it ourselves. Hopefully, there isn't another bear they can
just so happen to get a heart from. Hircine: "Your master is well pleased. The Skaal find no fortune with their god. I grant you this boon for your service, hound. When you walk in the day, you may now summon a companion to your side to aid you in your travels. Hunt well until I call upon you again." Yeah, so we can summon a corpse dog now when
we're not in werewolf form, but we're not going to not be in werewolf
form. So whatever. Wait. Wood elf. Wait. Hircine: "I have another task for you, hound. There is a castle of ice to the north under
siege from within by renegade servants. I have need of the master of this castle, and I don't want him
distracted by this foolishness. Go there, kill the rebels, and end the siege." Now this next quest would be torturous if
we sided with the Skaal. It might actually be impossible, too. More impossible than the Skaalara one. Let me explain. As a good boy, you can walk in through the
front door of Castle Karstaag, and the Riekling Dulk tells you to clear out
the Grahl and the caverns below the castle. Krish is some other Riekling who's using the
Grahl as mercenaries of sorts. If you side with the Skaal, you enter the
castle from the caverns themselves, and you need to help Krish kill the Grahl because they betrayed him and ate some of his friends. Typical mercenary behavior. The problem is, Krish helps you fight the
Grahl, but you can probably tell who's the stronger
combatant in a 1v1. Krish is squishy, but you need him in order
to enter the castle because… magical barrier. He won't help us enter the castle until after
we clear out the Grahl, so we have to kill all eight of them with
him first, and we can't tell him to hang back and not
help. So I don't think it would even be possible
to kill even a single Grahl before Krish gets turned into a fine paste. Ironically, when we take the werewolf path, we don't only have to kill the Grahl, but
we also have to kill Krish. Now that everything is dead, we can return
to Dulk, and he's happy the problem's been sorted out. Now, we wait for more treats from Hircine. Hircine: "You have ended the siege at Castle
Kaarstag, and your master is well pleased with your efforts. You have served me well, and I offer you this
gift, the hunter's wind. May you never tire in your hunting, my hound. I will seek you out, should I need you again." We can heal for a thousand points of health
over one second once per day. Powerful power. Useless because we can't use powers as a werewolf. Oh well, let's wait on another cycle. Oh yeah, it's normal for one to be bigger
than the other. Hircine: "Ah, you have arrived. The others have been here for days now, and
you are the last. It is time for my Hunt, and you are to take
part. I have chosen only the most worthy to take
part the Hunt--Carius of the Imperials, Heart-Fang of the Skaal, the frost giant Karstaag....and
you. You have proven yourself a worthy hunter,
and so you have been given this honor." You and the others are to find your
way to my Hunting Grounds. Take great care, as only one of you will earn
the glory of facing the Hunter himself in battle while the Bloodmoon lights
the sky. The others have gone ahead, so only you remain
to begin. Beware, mortal--my Hounds are about, and they
hunger for blood. Perhaps I will see you soon. Now go." People thought this would be the hardest part
of the challenge. Not so. When we first enter the maze, we find Captain
Carius. Remember him? I don't blame you if you forgot. That was a while ago. He recognizes us somehow and attacks immediately, and he's easy to kill because he's a man and
I'm a friggin’ werewolf. So you're probably wondering, how are we going to handle all these werewolves? There's got to be at least a dozen, maybe
two dozen in this maze. We could go through them one or two at a time, maybe get a sneak attack here or there, or just book it. I really don't know if Bethesda actually intended
for us to kill the werewolves. I think they expected you to run through the
place and get chased. If you do this quest as a Man or Mer, you need to find a chest containing the key so you get passed through the portal at the
center of the maze. And if you're fast enough, you can grab it from the chest and still avoid
the werewolves just fine. It's a bit silly when you got 10 wolf-men
tailing you, but if it's stupid and it works, it ain't
stupid. As a werewolf, we don't need the key. We can just run through the portal. And after we run through that portal, we encounter Tharsten Heart-Fang. He tells us he's been wearing Hircine's ring
for generations, and he wants the glory of facing down Hircine
himself. We're standing in his way, so we gotta fight. He was a werewolf this whole time. He takes on his true form, but little does he know I haven't been using
even 10% of my full power. Second verse, same as the first. Run. You can just loot the key you need from Tharsten's
corpse. And that's the maze. The final fight before we confront Hircine
himself is against the Frost Giant Karstaag. If you've played the Skyrim Dragonborn DLC, you might have found this guy's ghost. I considered reverting to wood elf form and just hitting him with an ebony arrow of
slaying. But where's the fun in that? Frost Giant. More like, uh, more, more like… Imagine I said something clever. Hircine: "So...you are the one. You have escaped my hounds and beaten back
the other challengers. I had rather expected the giant to prevail,
but no matter. You have proven yourself a worthy hunter,
and you have earned the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon a mortal: you are to
be my prey. I ask you, though: what is it that
makes a hunter great. Is it his strength? The speed with which he strikes? Or is it his guile, the ability to outwit
his prey? Answer me, mortal, and decide your fate." Hircine has presented us with a choice. Fight the Aspect of Strength, the Aspect of Speed, or the Aspect of Guile. Strength is a bear, Speed is a wolf, and Guile, G-Guile’s a dude. I never actually fought the Aspect of Guile, since the rewards from the other two are better, at least I feel. But let's mix things up. Let's go crazy. Hircine: "So you have chosen, and so shall
be your fate. To face me in all my glory would be less than
sporting, so you shall face but one of my aspects, the one you have chosen. We have little time--the Bloodmoon sinks low
in the sky. Prepare yourself, mortal, for now you are
the Hunted." Oh! So I need to keep away from him as much as
possible. Th-That's this challenge in a nutshell. Speedy little hit and run attacks. See the green? Jump the hell away. We need to turn back into an elf to loot his
corpse. It kind of undercuts the whole, I'm a werewolf and I won the fight sort of
a thing and just got turned back into a friggin’
Bosmer. Our reward is the key to leave this place. And the Spear of the Hunter. On strike 10 seconds of paralysis, 50 points of burden for 10 seconds. and 4 points of poison for 5 seconds. I feel like burden and paralysis is a bit
redundant, but look at those damage ranges. 40 to 60 points of damage on thrust. Strong spear. It's a shame this run will be over shortly. Hircine: "This cannot be! The Bloodmoon falls and the prey still lives? You have defeated my aspect, but I will return,
mortal. The Bloodmoon will rise again, and my hounds
will walk the lands. Let this world enjoy its brief respite, for
Hircine will hunt again!" Well, that's Bloodmoon from level 1. I'm exhausted. Subscribe or whatever.
