In my last Skyrim post, Iselia decided to hunt a bunch of wildlife so she could craft herself some new, warmer, better, stronger gear. During this hunt, she came across a Beacon of Meridia, allowing the daedric prince to make contact with her.
Meridia called upon her to come to her shrine and cleanse it of the filth infiltrating its walls.
And so, Iselia crafted her new armour and set forth for the shrine, eager to help one of the very few benevolent princes.
It helped that Iselia had decided that she was going to go tomb hunting and having an enemy of the undead on her side would be very beneficial indeed.
By the time she got to the shrine though, she was freezing! Of course Meridia's shrine had to be in the midst of the icy Skyrim snows.
She didn't want to waste her resources on setting up camp, not right now, and hoped that once she gained entrance to the shrine it would be much warmer.
Thankfully Meridia granted her access just in the nick of time, and Iselia hurriedly warmed herself by the lit braziers in the darkened corridors.
There was literally a darkness in here, but she could barely see it over the depths of her greed. There were burial urns in here! And they were filled to the brim with valuables. She still hadn't sold all of the last haul. This was fantastic!
The real test was the undead that loitered within this shrine. She had never faced such ghostly creatures before... corrupted blackened shades with gleaming red eyes and sharpened claws.
Thankfully they didn't have much armour rating and she was able to take them down with ease and move on through the shrine.
Meridia tasked Iselia with guiding her beacon's light through the shrine to make her way further inside to where a necromancer was performing his dastardly deeds.
And soon Iselia found her way out of the main body of the shrine and outside back in the chill as she headed for the catacombs on the other side of the shrine.
There was a corpse on this snowy bridge... and on it was a note speaking of great treasure!
Naturally, Iselia grabbed the note and stuffed it into her pack. She'd investigate this lead later.
Back inside the shrine, Iselia continued guiding Meridia's beacon's light down, down, down into the depths of the catacombs... where the necromancer stood, corrupting Meridia's greatest weapon. Dawnbreaker.
She was quite tired after all of this trekking, killing, and looting burial urns, she felt her mana reserves were lower than normal, but she would take care of this monster and please Meridia!
It required all of her health potions to survive the encounter with the Necromancer -- and then the Necromancer's shade after he had perished!!! But Iselia ultimately survived and was rewarded with Dawnbreaker itself.
This was now her weapon. She would wield it in Meridia's name, kill all that should be already dead with its power, and loot all the riches in all the tombs across Skyrim!
But before there would be any more tomb-raiding, she needed to rest.
Solitude, thankfully enough, was fairly close to this shrine and she hurriedly made her way there to restock potions, eat some hot food and rest in the tavern.
While she was in the city, a courier ran over to her and informed her that Falk Firebeard wanted to speak with her - he was the noble guard she kept reporting to, who kept rewarding her with the most measliest amount of gold. What the heck did he want?
It turned out that he had called for her aid due to her previous encounter with some cultists in Wolfskull Cave. Those cultists... they had really taken it out of her; it had been a miracle she had survived at all.
Apparently the ritual they had been doing had half-worked, and now the spirit of the Wolf Queen was trying to find a living host to take as her own. Undead minions of hers had already broken through the Temple of the Divines.
Since she had bested the cultists and sent the ritual awry, she was uniquely qualified to take on this threat.
Iselia grudgingly agreed and he sent her to go speak with the steward in charge of the Hall of the Dead there in Solitude.
This is where things started to appeal to her a little more. The steward wanted her to go down into the catacombs beneath the city - where there would be many burial chambers and burial urns filled with precious treasures! - and take on the spirit and the undead the spirit had been reviving.
With Dawnbreaker in her hand and Meridia's blessing overhead, she absolutely would do this! And steal all the treasure of the dead while she was down there.
Before she knew it, she was at the hole in the temple that led to the ancient catacombs beneath the city.
Grinning with glee, she prepared her satchel to take on more treasures. She was going to need a house for storage soon at this rate!
Until next time! 😊⚔️❄️