Gaming

And I didn't get any of those planned things done because of Japhet's Folly.

Haldyn's magic was a bit deadlier than I expected and then it turned into a warzone as I'm also trying to fight off three pirates at once.
I'm glad my followers were there.
Well, I was when they eventually turned up...
And on those occasions when they stayed close enough to do something.
One of the explosions catapulted some of the pirates over the barrier fence that you can't normally get over and then Arissa insisted on trying to get to them rather than helping me. Another big boom sent Valdimar flying over a hut mid-battle leaving me surrounded, outnumbered and... dead.

"I hope you weren't caught up in the fire," says the idiot woman at the end.

EDIT: After a carriage trip I went back to Embershard Mine to get some of that much needed iron and the bandits had moved in again.
No matter, it doesn't take too long to clear them again and there shouldn't be a hard boss at the end of it.
And now that it's clear I'll start... Erm.. I'll begin... Um... Mining?
But where's the iron?
It hasn't respawned.

I haven't been back in here since I mined it all to build Lakeview and that was aaaaages ago. Surely it should have respawned by now?
Oh, well. I'll just have to use my own reserves from the Lakeview chest. 75 ingots? Here, carry all of this, Valdimar.

You had 75 ingots at Lakeview and still whined about not having enough?

and also... I always thought those explosions were mostly cosmetic They never seemed to actually hurt anyone when I went there...

Yeah, they didn't actually affect the health of anyone in the way. They just threw everything around scattering people all over the place where they were no longer helpful.

I see.
I guess I should be getting myself over to Sky Haven Temple. I've been busy piling various plates in my kitchen shelves. And now that I managed to get the steward dialogue going, I also have a cow and two chicken so I decided to put up a fence on the side where I remember the giant coming from. Not that I'm sure he'll be stopped by a knee high woven fence...

But it may stop the cow running away.

The first time a giant appeared at Lakeview my cow ran off and nearly made it all the way to Pinewatch.

Isn't pinewatch the cabin just over the knoll, though? Or is that another bandit hideout...

I just found a farm I never saw before and... cultists! I hope whoever lives at the farm don't mind the dead cultists in their garden. Might make for good fertiliser Then again the farm doesn't seem to grow anything, I've just seen a couple of chicken around.

Two blood dragons!
Not at once, the second one arrived just after the first one died.

Good thing I have that Conjure knapsack spell. Even if it feels like a total cheat.

The giant came up the other side of the house And Rayya chased after the chicken instead of helping my over encumbered *ss fight the giant which nearly resulted in my death, twice. Then, while I levelled up in the nick of time (3 hp left ) the giant just keeled over dead. Not sure what killed it? It did seem to have about 20% hp left the moment before...

Also, my cow is now missing. I looked for it on the road past Pinewatch and I waited for it to return and I looked all around the house and made sure it didn't get itself stuck in that fence I put up, but no cow. I couldn't buy a new one, though, so I suspect it's still alive. Over in Morthal or somewhere, probably.

Cows!
Giants!!

My cow did return by itself from Pinewatch.
Very slowly. Perhaps it was that slowness that made me think Pinewatch was further away than it is.
And I could eventually buy the chickens again after they'd been killed but I had to wait a while before the option appeared again in the dialogue.

Well the cow was still not back today and I even turned off collision and walked around under my house in case it had got itself trapped underground, but nope and then when I asked Rayya the option to buy a new one was there. So I guess it died Not that I ever saw it's furry corpse.

I also went to see Party this evening. Right after I started up the path I remembered that there's some ebony ore up there, and I didn't have a pickaxe. Luckily there was a pickaxe too. Then I remembered there was some funky snow too, but apparently you were supposed to find it through the quest marker. And I didn't have the quest. I returned to the game and.... it was right in front of me. I grabbed some but since I didn't have the quest it wasn't added to inventory. Hopefully when I DO get the quest (if I bother - the quest giver is annoying if it's who I think I remember it is) I can still get some.

Also, half of the stuff I've spent hours on arranging via console has now fallen through the shelves and down on the stuff below and pushed everything over.