Rebel leaders and murderers don't like me

I finally got to the city at the west most point in the map, and when I got there I had to play CSI:Skyrim.

There was a murder in the graveyard (appropriate place) and I had to question witnesses, investigate the crime scene, get a warrant to investigate a house, follow up on clues, and then confront the guilty party. The first time through all the clues appeared to point at the court wizard, so I had him arrested (he denied it), but then I realized that I needed him around to buy magic items. So I loaded a save from before he was arrested and asked him about the crime, it turns out that some one else was really the murder and trying to bring his dead wife back to life. So killed the correct culprit just before he struck again and got a bunch of now powerful spells from the wizard!

Also the leader of the city is also the one running the rebellion against the empire, and since the rebels are a bunch of elitist racist jerks, I tried setting him on fire. Turns out you can't kill him, he just faints, and his guards can kill you really quick.

Long dead dwarves and stairs don't like me

Spent the whole time playing today trying to get through an old dwarven ruin.

First there were a band of bandits squatting in there, who we no problem to get rind of, and then there were more falmer to deal with. The real chalange were all the steam punk robots of various sizes to deal with, they didn't go down easily with any magic and at one point I had to use the most deadly opponent in the lace to kill them... the stairs!

Some sick dwarf thought it would be a good idea to put huge spinning blades of death moving up and down the middle of the stairs. Even touching one slightly would take off half my health, and I had to leave my follower behind since there was no way that her AI was good enough to avoid getting killed.

Cannibals and miners don't like me

Kinda slow day, mostly just cleared up a couple side quests. One quest was getting into a cannibal cult, but it only got me a useless ring (who would want to eat a bandit or a wildman?). The other quest was to clear out a mine that was taken over by outlaws. It was rather easy and outside the mine was a smelter to convert all the gold ore I found into easier to carry bars. Then when I get back I find that an NPC there boght gold ore at full value, not the 45% i get for the bars...

Robot spiders and ball-mechs Don't like me.

Cleared out a old dwarven ruin today. Not only was the place filled with giant spiders, but it also was crawling with falmer, and if that wasn't enough it had every sort of robot attacking by the end of it!

But I finished the missions related to that place and finally bought the 2nd rank magic spells for fire, ice, and shock. I also got a nifty spell that reanimates the dead for a short time to fight for me.

Daedric princes and town guards don't like me.

Got to a third town (of 9) today and it's a rather large one all carved out of stone. While exploring some monk asked me to help clear out a house that was used for daedric worship. turns out there was a magic mace possessed by a daedric prince there and caused the monk to attack me. after dispatching the monk the mace then told me to tack down a follower of a rival daedric prince.

The follower was in a heavily guarded wild-man camp and by the time I cleared it out I have almost half a ton of loot to sell. So I finally bought a hose so I could fast travel between towns and sell it all off. While inside the towns I used the speed forwards shout, which caused the guard to keep telling me to stop disturbing everyone.

In the end the follower died and I got the evil mace, which has a spell to automatically fill soul-gems.

Rats and hagravens don't like me

While exploring I came across a house that was over run by giant rats, there was half a dozen in the yard and even more in side the house. It looks like the guy living there was raising them but died in his sleep so they went feral.

I also came across a weird creature that was art witch art bird called a hargaven, fortunately she had a bird brain couldn't figure out moving around my simple cover. I also fought some weird wild men wizard that had an artichoke in place of their heart (big gaping wond and all showing it).

Challengers and thralls don't like me

I made it to another town today, 2nd of 9, and right off the bat there is some big brouhaha about a new wizard and a burnt house. So I investigate the house and at firs it sound like the husband killed off the wife and kid to marry again. When I get to the house though the ghost of the girl says that she wants to play hide and seek at night. since it's 5 am it's just barely night still, so I go around the back of the house and the dead wife, now a vampire attacks me! I then found that the vampire was digging out the girls remains to try and turn her to a vampire too, and this is told by the girl's voice from her little coffin. Really morbid stuff!

So I tell the head of the down they got a vampire problem and I'm set to find evidence that one of the residence is a vampire. I break into her house, torch the vamp, and bring her journal back. The head of the town then organizes a group to hunt down the master vampire, and I'm supposed to lead them. Out of nowhere though comes some idiot that challenges me to am magical duel. I decline but he still attacks, so I'm trying to kill him in the middle of this mob of angry villages out for vampires. I wind up scorching some of the locals and then the whole village turns hostile to me!

So I had to reload the auto-save and the idiot wasn't there the second time. I then stormed the vampire master's lair and fight him and his thralls. It was a ridiculously hard fight and I had to re do it 6 times! Meanwhile all the villagers are too afraid to even go into the cave! There wasn't even much loot in the cave, but the vampire had a very extensive boot collection (weird).

Vampires and cat's don't like me

When I started playing today I fast traveled to the last place I explored the horse that often appears when I fast travel was there (some bug). So I got on the horse and started riding to the next unexplored location, but along the way I got ambushed by some saber-tooth cats. I get off the hose and use my fire spell on it, but it's so close to the hose that both get hit. Now the horse is aggressive to me and tries to attack, this triggers my companion to see the hose as hostile and attack it. I use the "calm animal" yell to calm both the cat and horse, but my companion is still trying to kill the horse! I get on the hose and that stops the companion, but I can't fast travel because the horse is seen as an enemy and I can't get off the horse or else the companion would just start killing it again.

So I had to go back to my last save before that mess all happened.

The unexplored location turned out to be a den where a vampire and his 2 servants "lived", good thing that they are weak to fire! As far as I could tell I wasn't infected by the vampire, but it's really hard to tell when you get a disease in this game (unless I'm missing something).

Next I found an old tomb filled with traps, and the ghost of a bard gradually bringing me through it. In the end I found the bard's remains and read his last song, and then he opended up the final chamber where he helped me battle a hoard of undead knights and a dead king. Not only did I get a lot of good loot (but no lute), but I learned a new shout that zooms me forwards about 100 feet in a second.

Bears and the undead don't like me

More exploring today, nothing too crazy happened.

Found a couple of shrines protected by skeletons and mummies, and also cleared out another cave of bandits.

While walking along I found a old camp that a trapper was using, and then out of nowhere 2 bears rush me. I just barely made it to higher ground where I could snipe them. It was only after they were dead that I realized that I could have just used my "calm wild animals" shout...

Crabs and giants don't like me

I went exploring in a new direction today, and passed by another camp of giants with mammoths, but this camp didn't ignore me like last time. As soon as I entered into their territory one of the giants ran up to me and killed me in 2 hits, those things are stronger than dragons!

So when I reloaded I kept clear of that camp and investigated a mine that was taken over by bandits. The bandits were nothing strong, some were even killed by their own trap, but they had some good loot and one interesting spell book. The spell turns iron ore into silver ore and silver ore into gold, and I was in an iron mine. So I went around mining all I could then turning it all into gold. I figured this would be great way to get rich, but when I went into town to sell the gold ore it only went for 35$. It's a huge jump from the 1$ the iron was worth, but isn't going to get me rich until my merchant skills increase a lot more.

On the way back to get the rest of the loot from the mine there was a random dragon attack! I ran around after it, but the thing was more interested in taking out the mammoths, the giants didn't like that much though and killed the dragon before I could even get to it. The giants then turned their attention to and whacked me with it's club, triggering the hilarious bug where I get shot up hundreds of feet into the air, like when you stand on a dozen landmines in fallout!

I then reloaded (fortunately I saved right before fighting the dragon) and this time the dragon stayed clear of the giants, giving me more chance to attack it. This time though, while attacking annoying little crabs started trying to fight me, so I had to waste time and magic to kill them before continuing on the dragon.

After killing the dragon and selling my loot, I went to an old fort that was also filled with bandits, and along the way had another dragon encounter! This time it was around the tower that I fought the first one at so it was a pretty easy battle. The bandits in the fort were much stronger than the average ones, but I cleared them out and almost killed the maid (which they kept from the last residents) by mistake.

Falmer and robots don't like me

After finally figureing out how to buy a house and then locating it, I went exploring more.

First I found a cave where a bunch of thieves were hiding out, made quick work of them, and then found the cam of the rebel faction. Then I wandered found a cave with a couple trolls living in it, they're not any more... and then I visited Shimmermist cave.

Right when I enter I notice that the place is really dark with a glowing blue mist everywhere, very creepy and there's a goblin-lizard thing on a ledge across from the entrance way. I try to sneak up on it and trigger a trap, causing a big metal claw to fall from the ceiling on me, taking off a third of my life. I try fighting the thing, called a falmer, and it's really tough, but I eventually kill it and get some rather heavy armor.

After killing several more of these (each time nearly dying), and some very nasty giant black centipede creatures, I come to the final room. In the room is another falmer, but this one has super powerful magic spells... and a giant robot! Some how this one can control a dwarven steampunk robot! After they kill me a dozen times I found a spot where I hide and snipe at the robot with arrows, and when it finally died I attacked the falmer wizard with full fire magic, chugging health and magic potions until it was dead.

Guards and dragons don't like me

I went back to where all my stuff was kept and found that after I cleared the place out of wildmen, a troupe of imperial guards moved in, and they were not happy about me barging in to get my stuff. After killing them all I spent a long time hauling all my loot into to town (with the help of their horse) and selling it, I then started on the main quest line.

The first part was simple enough, travel from one town to another an talk to the guy in charge. The second part was even easier, go to a temple I already been to and fetch a stone tablet I already had. Finally I had to fight my first dragon!

I went to the location that it was attacking and climbed to the top of the tower so I could shoot it with fire balls as it flew by. I managed to hit it, and it landed on the ground near the tower. Not wanting to waste any time, I jumped off the tower to fight the dragon!

The tower was higher than I thought...

After I respawned I decided to fight the dragon on the ground this time. After killing it I got the power to push things around by going "POOF!"

thieves and ghosts don't like me

I set out to try and find a city so I could sell my trunk full of loot, but the nearest one was at the top of a huge mountain. Half way up I found a ruined castle guarded by ghosts that kept screaming that they were being controlled against their will while attacking. Inside that castles was a mad wizard that was luring adventuress into a trap by placing a big chest in front of a trap door. First time through he caught me and quickly killed me, the second time I went around the trap door and found the chest was empty, but there was a word of power in the area (don't know what they do yet). I then found a back entrance and snuck up behind the mage and toasted him, the cleared out all his stuff.

Exiting from the far end of the castle I came across a injured mammoth who just won a fight against 3 saber tooth cats. With only half health left I was able to dodge back and forth long enough to barbecue it. Higher up the mountain the path was blocked by ice trolls. I was able to take out the first one, but the second was too much, so I decided to finally go back to the main quest.

While heading back to the first village I was suppose to go I came across a old mine that was filled with bandits. after fighting ghosts, mammoths, and ice trolls, these bandits were easy! I found in the center of their base facilities for crafting and forging weapons and armor!

I finally got to the town, but before I started the next step of the main story line I found a new side quest to retrieve a stolen golden claw. The thieves took it to a nearby temple, and after taking out the goons, skeletons, and spiders in the way I found out that the claw was the key to a treasure room. In the room I got some more great loot and another word of power!

Tomorrow it's time to get my trunk of stuff and cash it in!

Nature and wildmen don't like me.

Well the mammoths and giant were not aggressive and didn't even notice I was there.

While exploring I found a cave filled with wolves, bears, and dryads, all trying their bed to kill me (and the succeeding). took forever to clear it out.

I was running short of inventory space so I stated looking for a town. Turns what I thought was a town was a fort filled with a band of high level warriors wearing animal parts. Only by exploiting a glitch in their path-finding was I able to gradually pick them all off. Once the lace was clear I found a trunk and stashed all my loot in it. Now I really need to find a merchant and make a few trips back and forth...

Witches and wizards don't like me

Started Skyrim today, and it's very much like Oblivion, just with nicer graphics and an odd interface.

IT starts out that your a prisoner (like they all do) and just when you're about to be excited, a dragon shows up and touches the town, allowing you to escape. Seems that there is some kind of rebellion going on between the ruling imperials and some one who claims to control dragons. I haven't found out much about the plot yet since as soon as the tutorial was over I literally headed for the hills.

My first encounter was with an old woman living in a hut. She basically says "oh don't mind me", so I check the hut and find there is a basement. Turns out the basement is full of witchcraft stuff, so leaving everything as it is I go back to talk to the witch. She didn't like me going down there and before I can even ask for some lessons in witchcraft, she starts attacking me. After she's dead I steal all her stuff out of spite, and come across 2 more witches dueling in the woods. The are not any more friendly and after killing them I got a spiffy rod that casts lightning.

I continued south until I found a cave that cut through the mountain. The cave was occupied by a necromancer who was also not friendly. After several tries I killed him and took all his stuff too. On the other side of the cave was a rocky flat land with giants and herds of mammoths, so I called it a night before one of them could step on me.

Well that's fifty-six down...

Finished off Shadow of the Colossus today.

The final fight was against a huge giant that had a tower built around it. The first part of the fight was just trying to get up to it since it kept throwing huge fire balls. Then I had to climb up the tower and get to the exposed parts. The hardest part was figuring out what to do next.

I would stab it's back, causing it to bring a hand around that I jump on, then I tun up it's arm and stab it's shoulder, it's other hand would reach out and I would grab that. Then for the longest time I couldn't figure out what was next since there were no targets visible. Finally I discovered that if I stabbed the back of the hand it would hold still long enough for me to shoot an arrow at it's neck, causing it to move the hand to it's head. Then it was only a matter of climbing the head and stabbing the staby point until it died.

In the final cut scene it's revealed that all the colossi were the parts of a got that a religious order tore apart to remove it's power. The same religious order shows up just as the last colossus is killed, and try to kill the Wanderer. It's too late though and the god turns the Wanderer into a huge shadow monster. The order retreats and uses the Wanderer's sword to cast a magic black hole to suck up the shadows. The girl then comes back to life, finds that the Wanderer has turned into a baby with horns and brings him up to the garden above the castle.

I won't have time to finish Infamous before Skyrim comes out, so I'll take 10 days off to work on my other projects and pick back up on 11/11/11!