Knight Errant

I found Isobel again talking to Aurelia near the jousting arena, this time at the other end, near a large platform where the Knightly Orders' representatives were waiting to receive the quest items. The ones I was carrying, in my role of second to the aspirant.

A herald announced us, and we climbed up the steps. We presented each of the items we'd collected: the Hilt, the Lute and the Staff, to the Orders that had requested them, and even Isobel's silly little ditty about the Lute went down well enough.

Since we'd got them all, and none of the other aspirants had returned anything, it was indisputable that Isobel had won the tourney. She received her promotion to knight, becoming Dame Isobel, from the Knight Commander herself. As expected, and greatly to Aurelia's relief, Isobel requested that Aurelia be freed to make her own decisions.

Speaking to Dame Jourvel in her offoce afterward, I got the impression that the whole "daughter's hand" thing was a ploy to light a fire under Aurelia, and get her to make up her mind what she wanted to do, if it wasn't going to be becoming a knight herself. I mentioned that Azura seemed to want me to become well-traveled, making sure Aurelia heard me, in case she took the hint.

I wasn't sure if she did. Mostly she seemed relived to have escaped the clutches of Langley and Mortens. Hopefully she'd see the advantages of putting some extra distance between them and her.

Isobel was told she was now a Knight Errant, which meant that she should go travelling herself, and find some worthy quests to do. She needed experience, and there was a limit to what she could get on High Isle. At Azura's prompting, I offered to take her with me on my travels, as I had the same objectives myself.

I now understood that one of the reasons we'd stopped at Vulkhel Guard on the way to Shimmerene with Clark, was so I could go back there and join the Guilds. The Fighters guild, the Mages guild, and the Undaunted all had paying work for adventurers that would be perfect for us. I could also get certified for crafting writs, which would be another source of both gold and experience, as well as letting me upgrade my equipment, when I needed to do so.

The first thing we did was to get Isobel into a costume that matched her idea of what a Knight was supposed to look like. It was a traditional Lion Guard light plate, so not the heavy, clunky kind that a dedicated tank wears. More of a medium armour, which matched much of what she'd actually be wearing. She had skills for most support roles, but they could all do with a bit of development in the field, so a middle-of-the-road approach suited best.

We gave it a dye job, so she wouldn't get confused with the actual Lion Guard, making it a bit more blue and shiny, and maybe even more Breton than the original.

Although we joined the guilds at Vulkhel Guard, we'd need to travel a bit more to pick up some daily quests to get us started. "There are job brokers on High Isle, in Gonfalon Bay. I suppose we can do those, now, too," Isobel suggested.

"The whole idea is to travel, not go back home. But we'll go there once we have seen a bit more of Tamriel, I promise."

We joined a group of travellers going to Elden Root, as we could pick up the guild dailies there. Travelling as a group meant only one of us need to know the wayshrine there, and once we'd visited, we'd have another landmark. We would still probably need to learn more of them to actually do the quests we were getting, but we'd handle that when it arose. I had my guar, and Isobel had a horse, so we could ride when we needed to.

Elden Root is the biggest tree I've ever seen. The top can't be seen from ground level, it just gets lost in the clouds or haze. I was amazed by the tree, but apparently Isobel was more amazed by the Undaunted Enclave, judging by her reaction when we first went there. "Look at all these people! Look at all this stuff! I just hope we get to see a fraction of the dungeons this must have come out of."

"One at a time," I reminded her, and we went to get a daily delve quest from Bolgrul. We were lucky, and he gave us the task of retrieving stolen goods from a tower just outside Daggerfall. Isobel had been there before, so she knew the wayshrine. It was a port city, and she'd been taken along with her parents on a business trip.

There was another wayshrine just beyond the tower, so we added it to our portfolio before tackling the quest itself. "If we miss any of the stolen goods and have to come back, this one will be quicker," I reasoned.

We entered the Ilessan tower dungeon through the trapdoor, and started looking for the stolen silverware. It appeared that the bandits had shared out the spoils, as we recovered pieces one or two at a time from the individuals we encountered. Killing the boss was on our list of things to do, but we had all the silverware we were sent for by the time we found her. What she did drop for us, though, was a "companion's greatsword", of better quality than the sword and shield Isobel was using.

I noticed that I couldn't use it myself, nor would I be able to improve it, deconstruct it, or anything like that. But Isobel coul use it, and she'd trained with all weapons as a squire, so I gave it to her. In return, I had to take her sword and sheld. I'd also noticed that she had not been allowed to join the guilds with me, but I'd put that down to her already belonging to the Knightly Order. Apparently companion status was more complicated than I'd thought. It was most likely the same sort of considerations that made me a sorceror, and Clark a dragonknight. There were skills each of us had, that the other could never learn.

After we'd cleared the dungeon, collected the skyshard, (again, I could do that but Isobel couldn't), we stopped outside to discuss what companion meant. It turned out there were a lot of differences in being one. Different skill lines, different equipment, and a whole lot more. A useful one was that she could travel directly to me when I needed her, instead of us having to meet at the nearest wayshrine, like I did with Clark.

We traveled back to Elden Root, and climbed up the stairs to the first landing, where the crafting stations were, and the entrances to the Fighters and Mages guild halls. We went in and picked up their daily quests, to close a Dark Anchor, and retrieve an artifact of Sheogorath, respectively. I took the time to pick up the day's crafting writs, too, but decided to do them at the same time as deconstucting the surplus loot from the daily quests. Then we could turn in Bolgrul's quest and the crafting writs down at the ground level at the end.

Fortunately for us, both of the guild quests were in Auridon, and we already had a wayshrine there. We rode out of town to look for more wayshrines, and just as we arrived at the first one at Windy Glade, a nearby dolmen started up. We arrived in plenty of time to join the crowd of adventurers fighting the daedra, and the anchor was soon destroyed, and we had our first Fighter's guild quest done.

Now we had to find Toothmaul Gully, which my map told me was quite a bit further up the coast, if we decided to go that way. Alternatively, we could pick up a couple more wayshrines by taking the roads inland. We opted for the inland route, as we'd use those shrines again.

We encountered a traveling merchant on the road, and traded a few things. He didn't have any companion gear, but he bought the ones I had, that Isobel no longer needed. We also found out that Toothmaul was just around the corner at the end of the trail down to the beach. It was rumoured to be full of goblins, but they seemed to stay in the cave, and not venture out much. The merchant had never seen any outside it.

When we entered the cave, we didn't find goblins in the first part, but some Altmer fighting amongst themselves. I declined a request to assist, as I didn't know anything about what the two sides of the conflict represented. I wasn't here to get involved in their disputes, just to retrieve the artifact for the Mages guild.

There were a few hostile goblins in the next chamber, and we fought through the ones we needed to reach the exit that lead most directly to where we were trying to go. The were a couple more exits, but the crude map I had suggested they were just longer paths leading to the same place. The tunnel we'd picked had its share of goblins, and imps, but nothing major. My map suggested that the western route had significant enemies lurking along it, and the eastern one lead to the goblin chief's den. The main chamber, where all of them converged, would have a scattering of major enemies, but it was likely we could get in and out without having to deal with most of them.

By the time we emerged into the main cave chamber, Isobel and I had done about as much fighting as had in the whole of Ilessan Tower earlier. We still had to find our way across to the the chest containing the artifact, and deal with whatever was guarding it. Fortunately, there were other adventurers there, presumably on quests of their own. Perhaps some of them had agreed to help one or other side of the Altmer conflict.

So we could pick our battles, and wait for assistance with the harder ones. The strangler that we had to kill to reach the chest seemed to be on everyone's dance card, for one reason or another, and it went down from sheer force of numbers. "Now let's get out of here, and go turn this in for our reward," I declared.