OOC : The Wolf Queen Quests

[EisforEnigma]

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Last night I played through the first leg of the 'Wolf Queen' quests in Skyrim to get ideas.

It starts canonically in Solitude, in the Blue Palace. A resident of Dragons Bridge comes before Jarl Elisef claiming strangeness in the Wolfskull Cave - that there are strange lights and sounds, and disappearances. Elisef is eager to ease the worries of her people, though her council urges temperance - she compromises by assigning a few more guards to the area.

When you confront Falk Firebeard, her chief councilor, about the matter, he admits he doesn't think it's much more than a superstitious reaction to wild animals or bandits hiding out in the cave, but he's happy to pay you for the trouble of checking the place out and dealing with whatever danger you might find inside.

The first thing you run into at the mouth is a pair of skeletons hidden from the road by thick trees and snow. If that doesn't scream necromancy, nothing will.

Inside, several necromancers and their servants - druagr and atronach - await. There is a ledge from which some can be attacked from above, and a more narrow, straight-forward path to charge down.

Beyond another door and deeper into the cavern, you come to a sink hole. There's no other way down but to drop. No way back.

In the depths of the cavern, you find a horrid, beautiful sight - one of my favorite settings in the whole game, if I'm honest. A subterranean castle, ruined with age, and swarming with necromancers and druagr. It's hard to concentrate on any of this, though, because all around, whirlwinds of arcane energy are being drawn to a sphere of summoned power at the peak of one of the castle's parapets. A glowing humanoid figure is suspended within, and when it speaks, its voice seems to come from all around.

"Yes! Yes! Return me to this realm!"

Another voice, dimmer, mortal, replies, "As our voices summon you, the blood of the innocent binds you, Wolf Queen!"

A host of voices reply, "Summoned with words. Bound by blood."

Though I mostly sniped the patrolling druagr and necromancers in my path, I had to cut a swath through a few more, and as necromancers do, many resurrected their friends to fight again.

As you get closer, you hear the spirit's voice again - furious this time.

"What! What are you doing? You fools! You cannot bind me to your wills!"

"Summoned with words," the necromancers intone. "Bound by blood."

"You ants don't have the power to bind me!"

The ritual continues unperturbed, until you grow close enough to the ritual that the spirit speaks once more.

"Something is wrong. There is an intruder."

Four more necromancers come down from the tower to attack. Defeat them and ascend to where the Ritual Master and her fellows continue the summoning. Once they're slain, the bright light disappears and you hear no more from the spirit.

After that, it's a matter of exploring the castle enough to find another route back to the surface, and back to Falk Firebeard in the Blue Palace. He's shocked to hear the truth of the matter, and honestly concerned to hear that necromancers were attempting to summon Potema. When he asks whether they succeeded, he seems relieved to hear they've been dispatched. You get paid for your services, and it is done, the matter sorted.

Or is it?

There's a second half I have yet to play. I'll narrate that when I get to it. For now, I'd just like to say that I'm going to play Potema as a much more sinister, less cookie-cutter-villain-spirit than she's portrayed here. Same with the necromancers involved. Lots of them there - and they all had to come from somewhere. I'll bet they'd have a great use for another Master Necromancer - especially one who specialized in spirit summoning or body manipulation (if you choose one of these as his specialty).