Valeria has died....or so it seems.

Last night I had a successful battle focused session which involved me taking on Skooma smugglers nearby Whiterun, followed by a return to Helgen to fight off some bandits that moved in there, and last of all a clear out of Embershard mine between Helgen and Riverwood.

The Skooma smugglers were quite tough. They were of the Outlaw bandit type which I am unable to solo without drinking potions. Two v’s one is really difficult as they can reduce poor Valeria to near death with a couple of swipes. I wasn’t going to fight them both at once and cleverly took them on one at a time. Still burned a few health potions in the process though. While looting their three more walked in. Don’t know where they came from or why they weren’t in the camp originally, but they didn’t like me nosing around their stuff and gave chase. There is a nearby outpost with Whiterun guards at it which I ran towards. Somehow, more bandits saw me while running there so I had over five giving chase. As I arrived near the guards, there was a battle going on with bandits at the outpost. It was quite frantic, but once I shook off the ones that were running immediately behind me onto some of the guards it allowed me to turn around and shoot at them with my bow which easily does the most damage. The bandits didn’t have a chase as the guards were well equipped to handle them. They all lay dead around the tower with plenty of great loot to sell off. I returned to the camp and completed my looting there.

Next destination was Helgen. I bought a horse for the trip with my new found wealth and it was a good thing too as there were quite a lot of bandits roaming around in the ruins. The horse helped out quite a bit in the fight, distracting the bandits while it gave me a chance to pick them off with my bow. Inside the old citadel there were even more, some of them the outlaw types which were much harder to kill off. Had a very solid fight against once with a mace and shield. A worthy foe indeed! This group also had a bandit chieftain with them. A female as well, this was one very tough fight. I burned through all my poisons on her, two potions of paralysis and lots and lots of food and health potions. Finally she succumbed to my cuts and I defeated her leaving me to loot a large chest down there with some pretty decent items in it.

Last of all I cleared out Embershard mine. This was pretty easy/straight forward. Some good ore to be found in there and some average loot.

With all the money that I’ve earned I took some more lessons in one handed fighting and paid off all my bounties. I’m no longer a wanted woman and can now breathe easier. I think I need to get to all main Skyrim cities and check them out. I also need a fence to get rid of stolen items as I am building up quite the collection of stuff which I’m carrying around but can’t sell off.

My level is now midway through level 11.

So how did I die? After playing the game I was plagued by the most horrible of dreams. I am getting over a cold, and had a disturbed sleep as well which didn’t help. The dream had Valeria once again fighting the bandit chieftain, but this time her hits went down close to 0. I’ve hit the tab button and my items have shown up but in the dream I couldn’t use any health potions or food. It kept saying error. When I tab’ed out the rest of my health vanished and I fell down dead. I felt completely helpless in the dream to prevent this and was quite annoyed. I knew it was a dream but in my half sleep I kept tossing over the various options I should have done to avoid that situation. I woke up the next day exhausted. Hopefully it’s not a vision of the future J

Comprehensive Looting of Whiterun

Last nights session has given me cause to re-think the whole training strategy.

The point of it was to make sure that on each level I was heavy with combat increases. Doing too much non combat ranking in skills early makes your character weak in combat. In the early levels, it's very easy to dilute your skills as everything can go up quickly.

Picking up all the free and easy loot in places like the Companions headquarters and the Dragonsreach itself yielded me plenty of gold which allowed me to train in several ranks to up to level 8. I am maxed on level 8 already.

Plates, pots, pretty much anything that I could pick up and on sell was taken. It was picked clean. This is a safeway to gain strength but it counterproductive.

I could easily go out and fight bandits and hunt down creatures without too much risk. I can rank my combat skills pretty easily this way as I'd be constantly using them. I'd hold back on crafting and stockpile things that I've found. This way I'd still be combat heavy on my first 10+ levels, but I'd have not wasted a fortune on training. It's quite expensive and it is tedious picking up junk to sell off. Better to fight and get combat loot, save my money and spend it on better armour and magic items.

Seems obvious now, I'll be level 9 when I level up and I'm obviously much more confident now as I've invested in increased hit points each level so I'm much stronger. Additionally, I'm armed with a good supply of healing potions, have invisibility and paralysis potions. There are a number of basic dungeons nearby which will allow me to clear them out and start gathering ore which I will stockpile for crafting later.

I'm confident I can comfortably reach level 20 without taking on too much risk with fighting. I'll then focus on upgrading my characters armour/items and focus on crafting. Level 20 through to 30 would be strong crafting levels. Of course improved combat through there would also be good.

My main focus at the moment is:
Archery (11 trained ranks in this so far)
Stealth
Speech craft (for the extra money it brings in - the higher I get this early the more it pays).
One Handed (7 trained ranks in this so far)
Heavy Armour
Block

I've also left a number of skill books lying around without using them. For instance, there's one on Smithing at the Skyforge. That can stay there, when my Smithing skill is up around the 80+ mark, that book would be much better to read then, rather than now as it is very easy to gain a rank in Smithing at the moment.

I wish there was a way to pick up skill books without reading them so I could stockpile them.

Balbus - shot down and killed.

Another two levels gained. Trying desperately to hold back on levelling so I can get 5 combat ranks per level in Archery at the moment.

Found more bandits and looted along with a treasure map to find a chest near Riverwood which allowed me to finance the next 5 levels. Unfortunately, I’d gained too many skill increases and I was forced to jump from level 5 to level 7.

It’s better than the level 1 to level 5 jump I did last. I think I should be able to control it from now on. I’ve now bought 10 ranks in Archery and levelled it quite a bit in fighting as well. I have over 30 skill points in it already.

Also found a guy called Balbus lurking around Riverwood on the outskirts. He was blabbing on about collecting ingredients for someone called the gourmet. With pick pocketing, I inspected him and decided he was a prime target for a bit of highway robbery. I shot him in the back with my bow while he wasn’t looking and he almost died after one hit. A second shot finished him off. All his stuff is mine including his fork!

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Balbus

Valeria has now made it to Whiterun and talked with the Jarl about the Dragon attack. There’s plenty of free loot lying around his home which she is picking up and selling off. It’s quite profitable. She’ll be seeking to level up one handed with training as it should be fairly cheap to do this for 5 ranks and get it out of the way. Definitely want to get my sneak skill higher as well. Doing triple damage from sneak attacks is really going to be a big advantage if I can get that in these early levels.

So Valeria needs heaps of money for training, and she needs to pay off some bounties. Whiterun guards haven’t bothered to halt her for the 25 gold bounty on her head there. That’s fine with me. She wants to clear the Falkereath bounty as soon as possible.

The Companions have also extended an invite to their organisation. I should go there and loot their building clean as well. I’m not too interested in what they do at this point of the game, but it does have an advantage of some paid work and a place to stay.

Hired Thugs – Battle of Riverwood

As Valeria returns to Riverwood, laden with loot from bandits and Talsgar the Wanderer she spies a few burly Nords walking towards her from the Sleeping Giant Inn.

 

A feeling of apprehension arose in her, but she walked forward. Sure enough, it was bad news. These were apparently hired thugs sent to teach her a lesson. They were all wearing heavy armour, two with two handed weapons the other with sword and shield.

 

Still on level 1, Valeria was clearly out matched by these guys. All she could do was run for it. The whoosh of a two handed weapon gave her extra incentive to sprint away and jump a fence to get out of the immediate danger. Maybe there was a better way out of this, she waited until they got close enough and used “Voice of the Emperor” on them and two of them sheathed their weapons, the third continued on with the attack.

How dare they! Time to fight back. She ran down towards the rivers edge and use her new evasive technique to outfox the pursing hired thug. All arrows were put into him and he was still up and running with about 33% of health. These guys were tough too! Then she remembered the paralysis poison. If she could coat her sword with that, paralyze this guy, and then hack into him, it may just be enough to take him out of action. The plan worked brilliantly. As the poison wore off the thug, he tried to rise to his feet but it was too late. The finally killing blow came as a cut scene. Ha! Serves him right.

 

On his body was a note saying that Orgnar at the Sleeping Giant Inn had hired them to teach me a lesson. What! I only stole a bag of coins from under his counter…there is no way he saw me do that….hmm.

As this news sunk in, the two other thugs showed on the other side of the river. A battle which now stretched out to around 30 minutes occurred. I quickly ran out of arrow recovered from the dead thugs body and ended up using my Sparks spell to range them both down. It took ages. They had a lot of health and I constantly had to move around using the river as a way to slow them down and gain distance from them. It was a pretty intense fight with two of them, but once one died, the other was easier to manage and it was another great victory despite still being on level 1.

 

I now had enough gold generated by selling all the loot from the fighting to buy training for archery 5 times. Gladly I leveled up and had enough ranks to push me midway through level 5. Missed out on training a bit then, but it can’t be helped. All level bonus’s were put into health. Now I need to find enough gold for another 5 training sessions.

I went back to the Sleeping Giant Inn and eyeballed Orgnar. He pretended everything was okay. If I hadn’t seen the note, I’d have never known. I told him all about these thugs that I beat up alongside the river so I think he got the message. Back off Orgnar, try that again and I’ll come back and personally run you though!

Talsgar the Wanderer - Encounter

My escape from Helgen was amazing. I’d learned some basic fighting skills from some of the caravan guards as we travelled through Skyrim and I put these new skills to the test as we fought our way through the dungeons underneath Helgen.

Stormcloak prisoners and escapees were within. My anger at my recent experience with them rose in me like a red tide. My dance of death was too quick for them as I nimbly worked them around the stone chambers darting in and out of their wild swings gradually wearing them down. It was quite satisfying to bury my sword up to the hilt into the back of one of them. That was the first time I’d ever hurt anybody let alone killed. A strange thing has awoken within me as I enjoyed it a lot. I hate these Nord Stormcloaks and death is almost too good for them.

I picked up some of their weapons. Big two handed swords, axes and hammers. How great would it be to take a huge swing at one of them while they were unprepared? With that thought in mind, I ran into the next room and did that very thing. The blow staggered back a bear like man and he was badly wounded. Now it was time to unsheathe my swords and finish him off with my flashing blades. He never stood a chance and his blood washed over me as I delivered the killing blow. This feels fantastic!

I escaped with a Nord called Hadvar, who helped me hide in Riverwood. I don’t really like Hadvar or his family, or in fact Nords in general (understandably). However, he is an Imperial Solider fighting the very Stormcloaks I’ve sworn vengeance on. I’ll tolerate them, but I really want to get out of this backwater village filled with hicks and go to some place more civilized like Solitude and get my life back in order. They offered to help me, but they said I need to go to Whiterun and inform the Jarl about the Dragon. I’ll do this, as it may help me in Solitude when I offer my services to the Imperial’s there. Hadvar’s father is a blacksmith and he said I can take what I need. His wife is strange though, she told me to keep away from her husband and when I took a hunting bow from a table downstairs she drew a knife on me. Silly bitch! I calmed her with my voice of the emperor ability and got out of there.

On the way to Riverwood, Hadvar and I had killed three bandits at a camp, and another guarding a mine entry, plus three wolves. These lands are certainly dangerous but Hadvar didn’t think much of it. Seems like anybody on the open roads is fair game. I returned to where our fighting occurred after my trip to Hadvar’s family for the purpose of looting the dead bodies. I was surprised to see a burly Nord running down the path towards me. I drew my weapon but before I could swing at him, he handed me some magic armour and told me that he would return for it later and I’d better not double cross him or he’d kill me. Bah…I’m not going to be threatened like that. I waited till he crept off some distance then I shot him with my hunting bow in his back. He took a few shots before he dropped dead. Good riddance, the man was obviously a scoundrel and wont be missed.

I walked further up the path and there is yet another person on the road, a hunter. He asks if I’d seen anybody running through here. I’m a bit embarrassed about the dead corpse down the road so I lie to him. He then carry’s on down the road towards where the body lay. Now I have to get rid of this guy as well, I don’t want any more trouble. He took two arrows only before he got down on his knee begging for mercy. I finished him with my daggers.

A cry goes up behind me and there is yet another person on this road. It turned out this was “Talsgar the Wanderer”, some kind of Bard. I also note due to him seeing me, I have a 1000 gold bounty in Falkreath to pay out. Anyway, I was still level one as I was holding back and trying to get five ranks in my training. I shot him with an arrow and it took off less than 5% of his health.

 http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Talsgar_the_Wanderer

This guy was mean, and to top it off, he was doing some kind of magic as well but thankfully not the destruction kind. I ran for it, ran down the road into the river and swam across it. Talsgar was on the other side yelling out at me but he did not cross the river. Instead, he spotted another Hunter camped by the river and started to attack him as well. What a psycho! I knew I had to do something here, so I got into position while Talsgar and the Hunter fought and started shooting him in the back with my bow. I didn’t do much damage to him, but I was gradually wearing him down. The Hunter eventually was cut down and Talsgar turned on me next. For the next 10 minutes we had a running battle in and out of the river and around rocks while I kept away from the reach of his dagger but constantly shot at him with bow. Eventually I ran out of arrows and I engaged with my big two handed attack and then with my one handed attacks to finish him off. He took a beating but he finally died and it was over. This guy was carrying plenty of loot too so it was good, potion of paralysis was the highlight.

Big problem though, I have a 25 gold bounty in Whiterun due to my criminal activity in Riverwood, and I also have a 1000 gold bounty in Falkreath. The bounty wasn’t removed when Talsgar died. I’m going to be in big trouble if I got anywhere near Falkreath without the money to cover my bounty. I don’t like having this hanging over my head, I want to get a clean name as soon as possible. 1000 gold is a lot though.

Name meaning - background story

Her second name comes from her Grand Father. He was a famous bowman that patrolled the walls of the Imperial City. During a festival, a competition was held to see who could shoot an arrow the farthest from the city walls. Many attempted and it was quite an event but it was Valeria’s grandfather’s practiced arm that was able to have the winning shot with a convincing win over the nearest competitor.

The Emperor himself was watching and enjoyed the competition, especially seeing it was one of his own city guards that had won.

The prize was a handsome payout of 500 gold and the Emperor bestowed a new name that would be passed onto all descendants of the victor. The name was of course Arquebus which in old Imperial language roughly translates to “Long Shot” or “Far Shot”.

For this reason, Valeria will favour bow above all else. It’s in her family’s blood.

Valeria Arquebus - Mission Statement

Mission Statement:

For Valeria Arquebus the same rules of permadeath will apply as stated in Lormak’s mission statement. Please see “What are the rules of Permadeath in Skyrim?” on the link below.

http://lormakthebear.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/lormak-mission-statement.html

Details on “What is Permadeath” and “Spoilers” are also on the link. Yes, this blog will contain spoilers. This is not a guide but a log of events in my permadeath playthough.


Who is Valeria Arquebus?

Valeria the daughter of an Imperial merchant that has travelled to Skyrim to sell wares. It was a risky enterprise, with the war unfolding, but it was a calculated risk her father was willing to take. “With high risk, comes high rewards” he used to say to her.

They sold all their assets back home and pooled their wealth. The idea was that they would bring supplies, weapons, armour and luxury’s to one of the Imperial camps deep in Skyrim.  No doubt, these items would be in high demand they could command a high price. Better still, they hoped they could trade warm blankets and jackets for captured treasures. “What good are baubles and gems when you are freezing to death”, her father told her.

Valeria helped plan out the trip meticulously. At first she thought this trip was too dangerous and argued with her father. Overtime, he won her over to the idea. It did indeed have it’s merits, by modest calculations they could get 3 or 4 years worth of profit out of this one trip alone. At best case, they would have several years worth of profit which would set them all up for life. Valeria was under no illusions though. She made sure a large caravan guard was hired. This cut into the profits but it was foolish not to have, they’d be a prime target for any Stormcloaks or bandits.

The journey was going smoothly, they were very close to their final destination, an Imperial camp outside of Helgen. They’d offloaded a large amount of cargo through the Imperial controlled towns and fortress’s they’d passed on the way, each step deeper into Skyrim meant that their profit margins shot upwards, higher and higher. This last camp was full of front line troops and they would pay handsomely for the remaining items available for trade.

As the day drew to an end, they could see the camp fires in the distance to their final destination. Her father leaned over to her and gave Valeria a big hug and said “Well done Valeria, we’ve made it”. He had a proud look in his eyes and looked incredibly happy. All of a sudden, his body jolted, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forwards. Valeria caught him and felt warm blood run down her hands as they locked around his back. An arrow was sticking out of this back, it had gone in deeply and pierced his heart!

In horror she saw Stormcloak warriors leap from the bushes alongside the road and start to cut through the guards. These looked to be hardened crazed fighters. One was foaming at the mouth as he hacked off the head of one of the guards and let loose a blood curdling cry as the blood sprayed up over him.

Valeria didn’t have time to mourn, she knew it was all over. The caravan was being overwhelmed all she could think about was to save herself. She leapt into the bushes on the side of the road and started to yell. Somehow, nobody seemed to notice and she ran and ran. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity she slowed down and stopped and started to cry as the horrors of what just happened started to sink in. Her father was dead, she was lost in a foreign land, it was freezing cold and she had lost everything. The situation was utterly hopeless and she sunk to her knees with her over her eyes sobbing.

She didn’t hear anybody approach, but she did feel the cold steel blade on her throat and she certainly felt being lifted up by her hair. A couple of Stormcloaks had followed her after all! They turned her around and she could see in their eyes what they were thinking. One of them threw down his cloak on the snow, and then they threw her down onto it and told her to take off her pants. She froze, and they stepped closer ready to strike her when a noise of armour clanking could be heard approaching. In the darkness the Stormcloaks must have thought these were more of their friends but they were wrong. These were Imperial Legionnaires.

There were many of them too. They told the Stormcloaks to surrender, which they did. Unfortunately the Legionnaires also captured Valeria. They’d assumed that she was with the other two and was settling in for the night. She was after all found lying on a Stormcloak. Her pleas fell on deaf ears and the other prisoners seeing what was happening played along with her being with them. She started to argue and struggle and that’s when an officer struck her with the pommel of his sword and knocked her out.

Next thing she knew, she woke up on a cart heading into Helgen. Thankfully, it looked like those other prisoners hadn’t had their way with her, they were nowhere to be seen and she was with a new group of prisoners. One apparently was Ulfric Stormcloak himself. She kept silent, she hated him bitterly, and hated his army and everything he stood for. It’s due to him that all her dreams were ruined and her father was dead. As she stared at him, she knew that one day she would get revenge on this man personally.

As she was unloaded into Helgen, she had to give her name and found out unbelievably that she was to be executed. Nobody would listen to her, and as she put her head onto the chopping block it looked like this would be it....but then the dragon attacked.........this is where Valeria’s permadeath adventure begins.


Valeria’s Skyrim Strategy:

The stealth archer way technique is definitely the right combat style for permadeath. No doubt about it. This will continue to be used with Valeria.

Patch 1.5 of Skyrim introduced changes to the way Smithing worked. In my opinion, this is an improvement. Smithing is vitally important but the level rate will be slowed down. Being able to make good items and armour is critical. However, as it was much easier to level this with Lormak I feel that I became too craft heavy in my character without enough fighting. More combat experience will be needed to improve Heavy armour, weapon skills and Block.

Valeria will favour one handed combat and specialise in bladed weapons this time. Lormak’s love of the mace was good but it is a slower weapon. I’ll experiment between dagger and sword. Dagger should be much quicker but do less damage. The thing is, with each hit you can coat the blade with poison, so you can hit more poisoned attacks with a dagger v’s a sword or mace.

I’ll use the Warrior stone rather than the Thief stone at the beginning. This should make combat skills level faster. Picking locks, stealth will level slower.

Alchemy wasn’t particularly strong with Lormak. I see this as the weakness it is. Being able to make strong and deadly potions will give me a big edge. Poisons in particular were underutilised. The ones I did make were weak. I need to improve these and make strong ones and they will do big damage. Paralysis and invisibility potions are a must as well.

Valeria’s goal will be to always get 5 ranks of trained every level. This is going to require a lot of money. Valeria will be money focused, picking up everything she can and selling it. She can raise huge amounts of funds by doing this. Additionally, there are a lot of the miscellaneous quests that Lormak neglected that do pay out good coin. These are easy wins. She will focus on doing these easier quests to get income up to hit her 5 ranks trained per level requirement. She also has the “Voice of the Emperor” racial skill which I understand also gives a +30 in Speech which is handy for doing trades.

Housing – Lormak was hopeless, he owned only one house in Whiterun. Valeria seeks to rebuild her wealth as well as seek revenge on the Stormcloaks. Owning property and business’s will help her fund her revenge.

Main quest line for Dragon born. This is not a priority for Valeria. She will be unaware she is Dragon born until much later in the game than Lormak. While dragon’s aren’t really a big issue for permadeath on master difficulty level, Valeria’s objectives are to re-establish herself in Skyrim and build herself up for the revenge on the Stormcloaks. Only after this objective is complete will she take stock of the other opportunities she will have in this new land.

Weak in magic, very strong for health, moderate for Stamina. First 10 levels will put ranks in health only. More hit points, mean more protection from one shot kills.

Keep well clear of one shot foes. Anybody with two handed weapons, especially orcs with two hander weapons in heavy armour. A cut scene can trigger on these attacks even with health being near full. This foes are incredibly dangerous. With patch 1.5 there may also be the risk of cut scene triggering on ranged attacks. Best insurance is to always have high health, good items, and enchantments that protect you. Early levels in the game carry the greatest risk but clearly, it’s a risk at any level.

Slow and steady. No need to rush through levels. Take your time, enjoy the game. Level carefully.

Skyrim Permadeath - Valeria Arquebus

I've re-rolled and created a new character which I hope will take me further on my permadeath journey in Skyrim.

Her name is Valeria Arquebus, a female Imperial with an axe to grind against the Stormcloaks.

Her background story will be told in another post along with a mission statement. She will be bound by the same permadeath restrictions as Lormak.