Salamander Dan's Salamander Slam [it's skyrim]

Update 6, Part 1:

Oh also for ease of thread-loading/reading the latest update can you stick the meat of the updates in a spoiler? I keep loading the thread to look at the latest post and then have to scroll down for 3 minutes as all the images load and push the page downwards.

I have done so!

SpoilerShow

We need to put the point into ALCHEMY, the most science of skills
Maybe we can make some health potions + sneakiness potions, no?

To break into Mzulift, we must alchemize a key out of cheese. 50 cheese shall be the price for entrance!

Of course, it’s so simple! Dan, calling upon everything he learned from reading a book that one time, comes up with the PERFECT PLAN to secure his freedom! All he’ll need… is cheese.

(I forgot to get a screenshot of the skill screen, but I put a perk into Alchemy.)



Here’s where we stand on the cheese situation. Taking wedges as the basic unit of cheese (because there’s no way I’ll find 50 cheese wheels in this small part of the world), the basic math is thus: 1 cheese wheel = 2 sliced cheese = 4 cheese wedges. By that metric, crammed into Dan’s seemingly-endless pockets is 3 wheels, 5 sliced, and 7 wedges, or 29 cheese. We’re already more than halfway there! This’ll be a piece of cake. Or maybe cheese.



First, though, Dan decides he needs to put his newfound alchemical knowledge to use. By… actually doing some alchemy, maybe. Dan immediately taste-tests every single ingredient he’s carrying, because he can’t afford books or something. Yes, that includes the full pair of deer antlers he picked up a while back. Eats ‘em right down. Good on you, Salamander Dan.



As Dan is hit with about thirty status effects at once, he reflects that, maybe, this wasn’t the best course of action. Oh well. Too late!

Head spinning from eating a dozen distinct varieties of poisonous flower, Dan runs back toward Mistwatch. He’s not entirely sure why he would ever think this is a good idea, but it’s a huge fort crawling with bandits. And if Dan knows anything about bandits, it’s that they. Fucking. Love. Cheese.

Dan doesn’t know anything about bandits.



As he dodges past a pack of wolves, practically a routine at this point, Dan notices an odd, bloody shrine he didn’t see last time. The moment he draws near, naturally, a bunch of skeletons pop out of nowhere. Dan’s first instinct is to run, as always, but his stamina is sapped nigh-instantly in the burning-hot sun. The skeletons are just faster than he is!



Only one choice, then: fight. It’s not like skeletons are sentient creatures or anything, so this doesn’t really go against Dan’s moral compass. It just goes against his coward compass. Dan raises his fists, emits a high-pitched scream, and thwacks a skeleton in the face. It falls apart immediately, bones spilling all over the ground. Dan grabs its fancy sword and shoves it in his pockets, then gets another arrow in the face. An archer!

Salamander Dan, still yelling out in terror, runs at the skeleton archer and flails his arms at it, knocking it to bits. It’s a wonder those bones could hold together enough to even hold a bow. Well, it’s Dan’s bow now.

Turns out it’s actually really easy to only get weapons in this game as random loot. Just not good weapons.



Looks like it’s a shrine to another of the divines - Akatosh, god of skeletons. That would explain a lot of things about this region, actually. No doubt this shrine is related to the skeleton ruin just down the hill, too. Dan feels a pang of guilt, wondering if the skeletons are the rightful inhabitants of this land. What if he’s just encroaching? What if they are sentient?

Nah, that’s probably ridiculous. Akatosh is a weirdo. Dan makes a point of not praying to him. He does, however, flip through a book he finds on the shrine: “Breathing Water”, by Haliel Myrm. Salamander Dan, being an amphibian, has no use for this knowledge whatsoever, but learns some fascinating tidbits about non-Argonians and what happens when they breathe water.

They die, usually.

Somehow, this knowledge gives him a boost to Alteration. Yay?



...These weirdos are still here. It’s been several days. Dan steers clear, marching up to the gates of Mistwatch.

Well, no, not yet. Dan at least waits until nighttime, reading through “Breathing Water” about three more times. It’s the only book he owns. It’s a terrible book. But after eight entire hours of sitting around, the sun finally sets, and Dan is able to approach properly. He feels an intense hunger, his vampiric powers growing ever stronger. He starts forgetting his fear of everything in the world, filled with a hunger he can’t satiate. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t. He’ll need all the nerve he can get for this next mission.



There’s still a lookout up there. Dan levels up his sneaking as he creeps closer, but against all odds, he’s immediately seen and the guard raises the alarm. Salamander Dan dives behind a rock, cowering for his life and forgetting everything about “hunger” and “nerve” instantly. Fortunately, the guards aren’t too bright, and they immediately forget about him and go back to whatever it is they were doing. Dan opts to sneak around the wall, finding a convenient hole in it no one’s bothering to guard.

The physics engine bugs out, and I spend about five minutes trying to push Dan over a smallish rock in the way. But perseverance wins the day, and Dan makes it inside!



Ah, familiar territory. Same old lookout he failed so shamefully to knock out last time. He won’t make the same mistake again. He raises his fists, and… is immediately spotted and has to run off and hide again. But when he sneaks back in a SECOND time and tries once more, his fists finally connect with the back of the guard’s head, knocking her out cold!

Dan hates to have to do this, but it’s the most humane way he can deal with people without killing them! Besides, they’ll be back up and completely concussion-free in ten minutes. It’s a secret technique known only by Salamanders like Dan. Completely injury-free, really! Can’t even cause real ha-



…

I’m sure she’ll be fine.

Dan takes the opportunity to search through her belongings, looting an amethyst and some weapons. He checks her pulse, breathes a sigh of relief, and creeps away before he has a chance to realize he’s not a doctor.



Dan waits a while for his chance, then knocks out this patrolling guard, too. Unfortunately, he’s noticed this time, by basically everyone else in the fort’s courtyard. Without any other choice, he leaps from the wall and performs the classic Salamander Dan “run like hell and scream” escape maneuver!

The guards pursue him all the way down to Skeleton Island. This time, Dan says a traditional prayer to Akatosh:

“O Great and Powerful Akatosh, deliver unto me your bony servants, that they may lend their most spooky aid in my hour of need.”

Exactly zero skeletons show up, as Dan realizes he’s also not a priest. Akatosh is dumb. This is dumb. Dan just springs back up to Mistwatch, hiding outside as the guards continue searching around Skeleton Island.



It works perfectly. The guards saunter back to Mistwatch at a walking pace, leaving the fort totally undefended. Dan slinks upstairs, lowers the drawbridge, and waltzes right on in through the front door. You finally did something right, Salamander Dan. Don’t screw this up now.



Inside! Salamander Dan breathes in the musty, desaturated air. Now, there must be cheese around here somewhere. Just have to find out wh-

“You - over here, quick,” a voice calls from around a corner, from someone who couldn’t possibly be aware of Dan’s presence. “Before any of them show up!”

Maybe this guy’s just been shouting this to the open air every few minutes just in case someone shows up? Who knows.



Who the hell is this. He’s not a bandit. He’s dressed in the same clothes as every farmer in the entirety of Skyrim, so… he’s probably a farmer, who somehow managed to get past security without Salamander Dan’s secret techniques. He’s not a even a Salamander!

“Stendarr’s mercy - you aren’t one of them. Please, you’ve got to help me!” he yells at Dan’s approach, loud enough to alert any bandit in a fifty-foot radius. Somehow none of them notice. Maybe this guy just lives here, and tries to give quests to random bandits.

“What’s going on?” Dan asks, utterly baffled. He’s not sure if he should keep his voice down or not.

“It’s my wife, Fjola! I think she’s being held in this tower,” he yells at the top of his lungs.

“C...calm down,” Dan says, getting nervous about all this shouting. “Just tell me what happened.”

“I’m sorry, I just… you’re right,” Christer says, lowering his voice to the level of that guy who talks on his cell phone too loudly and annoys everyone in the room. “Let me explain. Fjola, my wife, left the farm on errands and never came back. It’s been months, blah blah blah the bandits are ransoming captives life story blah blah.”

He goes on to claim to be no warrior, asking Dan to do his work for him. Because the unarmed and ridiculously-dressed Salamander Dan totally looks like a warrior, I guess. Dan presses him for information, and he reveals he actually has no idea if she’s here. Great.

Dan says he’ll keep an eye out. “Thank you!” he shouts louder than ever, spittle spraying all over Dan’s relatively-clean shirt.



I guess we have a quest now? Dan decides he might as well look for some lady who is either not here or is nothing but a skeleton now. If she’s still alive, maybe she knows where some cheese is.

In the meantime, Dan creeps around Christer’s terrible hiding place, looting a couple potions and a soul gem from the bookshelf. He also finds a chest, but surprise surprise, it requires lockpicks he doesn’t have.



Normally I like to leave perk choice up to audience selection, but given the circumstances, I went ahead and bought the second rank of Sneak Mastery to help out in here. I also increased stamina again, for ever-better Running Away skills. Perfect.



Dan creeps across an empty, cheese-less room, passing a few uncomfortable-looking bedrolls sprawled all over the place. Even though it’s night time, it doesn’t look like anyone here actually ever sleeps. He creeps up the stairs, and very narrowly avoids stepping right on a bear trap. For literally no discernable reason, there are a bunch of armed bear traps scattered on the floor halfway across the stair. Salamander Dan stops to wonder how many hapless bandit recruits have stepped on them on their first day on the job.

Dan employs the services of the ever-trusty Best Friend to disarm each and every bear trap. Just to be sure. Best Friend, surprisingly tough for a bucket, comes out of it unscathed.



Salamander Dan’s shedanigans are brought to a premature end, though, when a bandit pops out from behind the wall, walking down the stairs at a worrying pace. Somehow, he doesn’t even notice Dan standing right here. Looks like all those sneaking lessons actually did something to help. The patrolling bandit soon turns his back and heads back up the stairs. You know what comes next, folks.



THUNK.

Guy goes down in one swing. Dan digs through his pockets and finds 4 gold pieces. Well, it’s something. He creeps on into the next room, noticing another bandit hunched over an alchemy station. Uncomfortable memories flood into Salamander Dan’s head at the sight. He knows exactly what to do.



FWUMP.

Dan realizes she was probably just trying to mix up some potions for her friends, but you can never be too careful. Besides, she’ll be fine. They’ll all be fine.

Dan digs through her pockets and finds a spell tome: “Flesh of My Flesh”! What a weird and creepy name for a spell. It transfers the caster’s health into a summoned minion, which seems… kind of inconvenient and dangerous, but okay. He takes it with him, then slinks around looking for more treasure. He finds a magical helmet and 48 gold pieces! Hooray!

He climbs up a rickety old ladder onto the roof, and is immediately accosted by a mage. They must’ve heard him knocking out their friend. Dan dives back into the room.



But she follows, knocking him to the ground with an “annoying wind” spell. Dan clambers back to his feet, and, having no options left, resorts to the only distraction he can think of. He walks toward the bandit, posing like a runway model while seductively licking a wedge of moldy cheese with his freakishly long salamander tongue.



The bandit is frozen in complete and utter horror, unable to even form a coherent thought in her brain. Nothing escapes her lips but monosyllabic non-sequiturs, a lifetime of creative threats and magical insults gone in one horrifying instant.

Dan, satisfied with his work, goes outside. He walks across a precarious balcony and into another door, ascending ever higher in this cold, dark tower. With any luck, the next tower will be as sparsely-populated as the last one.



YEAH, UH, IT’S NOT.

Dan tries walking back out the door, but on walking back in, they’re all still right there. Well, that’s not going to work, and he’s all out of seductive power now. Thank god for that.

So, Salamander Dan does what Salamander Dans do best. He runs off, shrieking stealthily up the stairs.



Somehow, crouching in the bright light at the top of the stairs is Dan’s most effective hiding place yet. Not a single bandit manages to find him before they end their alert and go back to business like nothing happened. Dan takes a moment to catch his breath, and to realize that another set of clothing is totally ruined by his own blood. It’s a good thing he has a never-ending supply of it.

Now, the way forward is right next to him, but… Salamander Dan is absolutely positive he passed a lot of cheese as he ran screaming through the tower. And he’s not leaving until every crumb of that cheese is stuffed into his bloody intangible pockets.



Salamander Dan gets to the first wheel of cheese without incident. But there’s definitely more. He didn’t even see this one on the way up. So onward he goes.


A Game of Thrones reject with a tree trunk glued to his back walks right by Salamander Dan, none the wiser. Dan, with all the jollity of a blood-stained Santa Claus, dances and prances right up to him and bludgeons him on the head.



It’s like Christmas morning.







Okay, that…

That’s not really what Christmas is like at all, Dan. Not even in Skyrim. Salamander Dan, mind in a vampirism-induced yuletide haze, knocks every single person in the tower out with unexpected brutal efficiency.



Salamander Dan comes to, realizing that all the guards are unconscious now. He grabs a note off a nearby table, and discovers that the bandits beat some lady they kidnapped to death.

Welp, so much for Fajita or whatever her name was. Dan wonders if he should bother delivering the bad news.

…

Nah, not yet. There’s still more cheese to be plundered from this tower, probably. He’ll tell him on the way out.



Dan momentarily wonders why they locked the cell door again after the lady was clearly dead, but just as he starts drawing conclusions about Terriblix’s influence in this part of the world, he notices the mother lode of cheese on the opposite shelf. Three wheels and a wedge? It’s like Christmas morning, again! Another Christmas. Time passes really fast in Skyrim.

He also finds 50 gold and a stamina potion in a nearby chest, and a “Long Taffy Treat” coiled up, unwrapped, on a dirty table. Must be Dan’s lucky day.



Another tower conquered. Just one more to go. Dan pauses on this precarious balcony to catch his breath, and to pose like Batman. It’s certainly ugly and desaturated enough for that. Let’s just hope he doesn’t do anything rash. It’ll be hard to get a new Salamander Dan.

Dan soon becomes lucid enough to remember what he was doing, and creeps into the next tower. As he slinks silently forward and grabs a purse of 21 gold, a voice comes out of absolutely nowhere.



This inadequately-dressed lady pops out from the same nowhere her voice came from, face painted up like a ketchup factory exploded in her face.

“All right, snowback. Who are you, and what are you doing in my tower?” she asks, teeth chattering from her lack of a shirt in fucking Skyrim.

“Stand aside, woman. I’m here for Fjola!” Dan apparently says, because literally the only dialogue option apparently involves shouting like a vaguely-sexist action hero, I guess. Dan definitely doesn’t actually say that.

The bandit leader, lips turning blue, demands to know how Salamander Dan knows that name. Oh, whoops, haha, Fjola is the leader of the bandits. Of course. Dan tries to ignore the icicles forming from her nostrils and asks how he’s supposed to complete this quest now. Fjola gives him a frigid wedding band that she still had around for some reason, and asks Dan to get rid of him. Dan tries to ask where the cheese is, but she’s already walked away.



Well, uh. Progress?

Dan digs around Fjola’s bedroom, finding a few potions and another book for his growing collection: “Hallgerd’s Tale”, by Tavi Dromio. A Quixotic tale of a man name Hallgerd, and his misadventures while wearing a comically oversized suit of armor across Tamriel. Dan’s Heavy Armor skill increases, as he learns that he should never, ever put on heavy armor. Or armor at all, for that matter.

Finding no cheese or anything else of worth, Dan walks back outside to the balcony. He realizes he has to get all the way back down to the bottom to tell Christer that his wife was beaten to death by bandits or whatever. Dan, just go down the stairs. Dan, no. Dan that wall is way too high.



DAN NO



A sickening crunch rings out as Dan lands right on his legs, fracturing his leg bones in several places. Good thing he’s a vampire, or that would takes weeks to heal.

He’s not down to the bottom yet - there’s still a big drop down to the drawbridge. Not like it’s a big problem, it’s just a few stairs to get back to the



Oh okay no that’s fine.

Dan’s legs actually break this time, and he very nearly dies on impact. It’s this event that finally snaps Dan back to the reality that he isn’t a superhero. He’s just a cowardly salamander man, whose legs now have a few extra joints in them. He chugs several healing potions and watches as his legs instantly snap back into place, good as new. The now-conscious guards definitely notice this, but they’re too afraid to actually say anything, I think.

Dan ducks back inside of the tower, rushing over to meet up with Christer.



There he is, standing exactly where we left him, making no attempt to hide whatsoever.

“What news? Why isn’t Fjola with you?” he demands at the top of his lungs.

“I, uh, found this ring, but…” Dan wracks his brain to think of a devious lie. Something to drive him away, to get back on with his life. “...Not… her?”

Brilliant.

“Her marriage band? Then there’s hope - she was here!” Christer bellows, dust falling from the ceiling. Salamander Dan coughs involuntarily. “I have to move on if i want to find her. Please, take the coin I promised. Blessings of Stendarr on you!”

Salamander Dan nods politely, his ears ringing too much to hear what Christer’s saying now. Christer sprints off toward the front door, making no attempt to be sneaky, and disappears into the night. Somehow, he instantly warps past all the guards and is gone forever. Probably removed from the game entirely, or knocked into the stratosphere by that one giant.



I’ll be honest, I didn’t actually notice this quest objective until I was picking screenshots for this update. So… I didn’t go back to Fjola after the fact. Just as well, since she doesn’t have cheese or anything anyway. Dan’s cleared the place out already, and he’s had quite enough of this bandit business. He runs out the door, across the drawbridge, and right past the now-conscious and perfectly healthy wall guards.



Off he goes. Mission successful! Kind of. A lot of bandits chase him, but he’s used to running for his life at this point. He escapes into the night effortlessly.



Final count! Seven wheels, five sliced, and eight wedges. That makes 46 cheese total! Just gotta scrounge up a little more, and then… we’re Mzulft-bound. Assuming Salamander Dan actually knows what he’s doing, and he’s not just trying to cram a bunch of cheese wheels into an ancient keyhole.

Update 6, Part 2:

SpoilerShow

Now quite done with Mistwatch, Salamander Dan has to find somewhere else to get the last little bit of cheese he needs. One wheel will do, but sadly, he already took all the cheese in Shor’s Stone. Unless… Unless he can buy some! He does have money now, after all. Surely someone will be selling a respectable amount of cheese.



On the approach to Shor’s Stone, this weirdo appears out of nowhere, running full tilt at Salamander Dan. Dan glances behind him nervously, mentally preparing himself to run away from this strange man. But… Well, he doesn’t look dangerous. Probably not a warlock or whatever.

“I’ve been looking for you,” the man ominously announces when he gets close. “Got something I’m supposed to deliver - your hands only.”

Dan nervously accepts a letter, wondering who would even be writing to him. Homeowner’s association in the Pale? Angry tax collectors? Former lovers? Salamander Dan’s not sure he wants to know, but he can’t just live in the dark like that. Carefully, he unfolds the letter, looking over its contents.



Now what even is this garbage. “Riches beyond imagining”? “I’ve heard great things about you?” Salamander Dan smells bullshit of the highest caliber. He’s done, like, one thing in his life that could even be considered heroic, and that was just a distraction from his cheese-hunting! Dan doesn’t trust this letter for one second. It’s obviously just a ploy by Terriblix to capture Salamander Dan again! The letter even smells like Terriblix - the smell of garlic and regret.

Dan rips the letter in half right in front of the courier and tosses it on the ground. Take that, Terriblix.

That done, Salamander Dan hits up both shops in town, finding exactly one cheese wedge for sale in the inn. ...Well, it’s something, right? He buys it up.

Dan fails to realize that they’re probably out of cheese because he stole it all from their shelves already.

Anyway, that was a bust. Dan wonders if there might be any more cheese in town, locked away in… peoples’ houses. He knocks on some doors, but doesn’t get an answer. He probably has to make friends with someone before they’ll let him in their house, or something. Well, then, only one thing to do.



Busy work!

…

Dan doesn’t have an axe. So much for that. He asks around town, but only hears about trouble in the local mine. The mine! Miners need to eat, right? Maybe they’re keeping cheese down there. He doesn’t really hear the miners when the mention “giant spiders”, his mind far too focused on dairy products.



Yup, those sure are spiders! The air in here is also a deep red. Probably some unhealthy and toxic gases seeping from the earth. Staying in here seems like a terrible idea, but Dan makes a quick run around the mine, digging through barrels while dodging freezing-cold venom.

Against all odds, he finds a woodcutting axe lying deep in the mine. There is absolutely no wood to cut in the mine.

...Okay, sure!



Good god.

Dan murders about a dozen chunks of wood with his new axe, and turns around only to find that Urfid is nowhere to be seen.

What a waste of time! Dan puts away the axe and walks away in disgust. He starts talking to random townsfolk, seeing if any of them have anything they need help with that doesn’t involve mass murder. Everyone in Skyrim always wants you covered in other people’s blood before they’ll pay you.



Well, this is promising! Dan inquires about Darkwater Crossing, discovering that it’s another town nearby. Sylgja’s parents live there or something, and she’s too sick to make the journey there. She looks perfectly healthy to Salamander Dan, but who knows in Skyrim? She asks Dan to deliver a package to her parents, a task Dan accepts. Hey, a new town will probably have plenty of cheese in it, right? Might as well get paid to go there, too.



It’s right up here, too. Somehow Salamander Dan failed to notice it before. Maybe it was over past that bridge he didn’t want to go over? Oh well, time to find out.



Taking a roundabout path over the mountain, Dan makes a startling discovery - an abandoned archaeological dig, possibly, centered around a mysterious wall covered in words Dan can’t read, There are also pictures of what may or may not be dragons around it, but as everyone knows, dragons went extinct millions of years ago. Maybe it’s an ancient natural history museum? That makes sense.


The inexplicable skeletons that pop out next also make sense - after all, Akatosh is also the patron deity of paleontology. That’s why he’s sometimes depicted as a dragon. Anyway, Salamander Dan beats these skeletons apart, having no more trouble than last time. He then takes a closer look at the wall.



As Dan approaches, ominous chanting fills the air. The world goes dark as a particular word on the wall begins to glow brighter and brighter, wisps of magical energy seeming to beckon Dan closer.

Dan walks away.



On the other side of the mountain… running water. Dan shudders involuntarily. Good thing the town is on the same side as he is.



And here we are! Darkwater Crossing, a town every bit as tiny and dirty as Shor’s Stone. And with a similar population of about 10. Salamander Dan wonders if this really even counts as a town. There were more people in that bandit camp he just looted.



Dan finds one Verner Rock-Chucker, Sylgja’s ridiculously-named father. He gives him the package, and Mr. Chucker immediately shoves another one in his hands, asking him to deliver it back to Sylgja. Dan wonders how you’re even supposed to pronounce “Sylgja”.

Instead of running back to Shor’s Stone like an errand boy, Dan ducks into the local inn, finding it to be… literally identical to the one in Shor’s Stone.





No, seriously. The exact same cheese wheels…



The exact same basket of potatoes (+8% speed!)...




The only real difference is the innkeeper himself, though he does have an appropriately ridiculous name. Dan decides to sell “Ulfvidr” some of his useless junk to get a little extra cash.

And… we’ve got enough cheese! More than enough, with all the clone cheese in this place. Dan looks around town for an alchemy lab, before realizing that no one in any of these small towns even knows what alchemy is. Well, no matter. Dan read a book! He knows how to build his own alchemy set in a pinch. He rents a room from Elf Deer and sets to work.



Perfect. Salamander Dan gets alchemizing, as Danny Elfman watches through the distinct lack of a door.



And finally… it’s done. A key fit for the gods. The greatest of cheesemakers would weep at its beauty. No door can stand in Salamander Dan’s way now. As long as that door is the door to Mzulft, because Dan is pretty sure the cheese key isn’t going to fit any other door. Finally, the path to science is laid out before him. Destiny awaits. Terriblix, your days are numbered!

...Well, your days of controlling Salamander Dan. It’s not like Dan is going to kill him or anything.

Before we head to Mzulft, though… What should we spend our perk point on?

Alchemy. Because you need to Science so hard you can beat Terriblix's magic (but nonviolently).

take a vow of right turns only, it's more efficient

Make a bunch of poisons and smear them on your fists for when you knock out innocent humanoids

Update 7

SpoilerShow

Alchemy. Because you need to Science so hard you can beat Terriblix's magic (but nonviolently).

Yeah, so… it turns out Salamander Dan, in spite of his reading and antler-gobbling, is actually a really shit alchemist. We’ll have to save this for later.



In the meantime, Salamander Dan creeps into the local shop (which, once again, looks nearly identical to the shop in Shor’s Stone). He steals some potatoes he remembers eating; takes some cheese he’s sure became a key. Even the skin on the wall, the steak on the table looks all too familiar. Salamander Dan shudders. He has to get out of here. He has to get out of this town now.



Dan sprints right into the Skyrim beach episode.

…

He feels compelled to remove his heavy cloak while literally standing, fully-clothed, in a hot spring, but stops there. He’s not about to join these weirdos. It’s still, like, 40 degrees outside. These people are probably going to die of frostbite the instant they leave the spring. Dan turns and runs away, out of the insidious Xerox town entirely.



Halfway between Darkwater Crossing and Mistwatch (they’re apparently right next to each other!), Salamander Dan comes across this thing. He instinctively knows it isn’t science - hell, it looks positively magical - but he’s drawn to it nonetheless. Maybe it’ll help him on his other quest, to become a powerful warlock in his own right! That’ll show Terriblix, if Terriblix doesn’t explode into particles upon contact with Science.



Considering how often people try to kill Salamander Dan, this is actually a pretty good choice. If he ever learns a healing spell, he can probably heal himself as fast as people can hurt him! Terriblix never let him read the magic books, though. He doesn’t have a single spell to his name, except for, well… that one. You know the one.



Dan pokes the mysterious stone, shooting a magical laser straight into space. This won’t have any consequences down the line, no-sir-ee.

He doesn’t even feel more magical later. He does feel vaguely nauseous, but that’s probably just all the potatoes he ate. Why did he eat all those potatoes, anyway? There’s also a moment of clarity for Salamander Dan. A voice speaks in his mind.

YOU CAN’T TURN PEOPLE INTO LIZARDS, DAN. THAT’S STUPID.

...Dan decides to set that ambition aside for now. Of course, if it turns out the mysterious voice was actually Terriblix, he’s going to pick it up again purely out of spite.



While avoiding yet another wolf, Dan comes upon a smashed-to-bits wagon, a huge campfire, and a menacing-looking giant. There’s a street sign in front of this giant’s camp, containing an official warning, folded in half and impaled on the pole with a dagger, without the dagger even touching it.

This makes sense.

Attention citizenry:

The giant here has been given leave to keep his camp. Please do NOT attempt to make trade, disrupt the mammoths, gawk at, or otherwise disturb the giant. Resting here is not advised.



The note immediately falls to the floor after Salamander Dan reads it.

…

Dan sort of drapes it over the dagger that was never actually touching it, then walks away. He’s sure it’ll be fine.



IT’S NOT FINE AT ALL. An assassin immediately pops out of some bushes, screaming his head off, and does his best to slice Salamander Dan into a fashionable purse. He hadn’t bet on Dan’s ability to run away, though!

Salamander Dan’s stamina bar empties almost instantly. Straight away, the assassin catches back up and continues waving two katanas around like a colossal nerd. Dan slowly swivels his head around to look him in the eye, then slowly, lovingly, retrieves a wheel of cheese from his pocket and shoves it into the assassin’s face. It smells of sweat. Salamander Dan doesn’t have sweat glands.



Ol’ Drizzle here is stunned in absolute horror, able to do nothing but yell out in anguish before Dan feasts on his blood. Salamander Dan’s sunburn feels a bit better. On the bright side, no one actually saw th-



…

At least he won’t tell anyone the truth about this, right?

Dan quickly runs away and hides.



His hiding place, to the surprise of no one, is actually just right in front of Mzulft. Remember, folks, everything in Skyrim is crammed right together. It’s really a wonder that there’s all these untouched ruins everywhere. Maybe everyone else knows something Salamander Dan doesn’t.

Slowly, Salamander Dan twirls the Cheese Key in his hand. He trembles nervously. It’s all down to this, now. It’s all down to jamming a vaguely key-shaped lump of cheese into an ancient lock and expecting it to actually do something. With a shaking hand, Salamander Dan shoves the key into the lock with a squish.



Against all odds… the doors swing open, revealing the misty corridors beyond.

Well, the dwarves did love their cheese.



There are no signs of life around, but something’s amiss. Dan gets into his usual adventurin’ pose and creeps onward, silent as, well, himself I guess. Everything else in this game is pretty damn noisy. Giant brass faces watch him judgmentally. Between them, off in the distance… a figure, on the ground.



It’s a corpse. Obviously. Everyone’s always going off and dying in Skyrim. But there’s something troubling about it. Well. More troubling than the fact that it’s a corpse. It’s fresh. The blood isn’t even dry, and the body hasn’t decayed at all. Whatever a Synod Researcher is, this one only just died.

Which also means that he got in here without the cheese key. He didn’t have one in his inventory or anything! Maybe he had… the actual key? And lost it? Who knows. He’s got a cool magical cloak, though, so the next step is obvious.



New (and strangely clean) cloak donned, Dan takes some time to check out whatever this thing is. Some kind of inconvenient and dangerous light fixture, mixed with a completely superfluous bunsen burner. It reminds Salamander Dan of his high school chemistry class, which is… well, not promising exactly, and certainly not comforting, but. That’s kind of like science. He’s on the right track.

From behind, Salamander Dan hears a rhythmic clacking sound.



A robot spider! This is, without a doubt, the most scientific and hopefully not magical thing Salamander Dan has seen in his entire life! It’s also coming right toward him, and hissing menacingly. Or possibly just venting steam.

And then it starts stabbing him in the knees. Oh god, betrayed by science! Dan just stands there for a moment in disbelief before realizing that he’d really rather not die in such an embarrassing way. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out a war pick he found, and sets to disassembling the robot!





Quickly disassembling the robot.

Salamander Dan rips an intact gear out of it, but that’s really not going to be good enough. There’s also a soul gem on it, which is… kind of disconcerting, really. It’s not even a filled soul gem, though, so it’s fine.



It quickly becomes clear that Mzulft is both a labyrinth and a very well guarded labyrinth, with spiders patrolling all over the damn place. Dan’s going to have to keep his wits about him if he ever hopes to get through here. Especially since he’s really blatantly underleveled for this place.

He’s pretty much immediately spotted by this spider, and tries and fails to destroy it with a bow. The arrow really just plinks right off without any effect. Pick time!



A few rooms of tense (or boring) sneaking later, Salamander Dan can’t take the fighting any longer. There’s just too many of them. So instead, he does what Salamander Dans do best.

Run away in a vaguely comical fashion! But… the spider’s faster than him, so he has to smash it, too. This one has a book on it - a spellbook containing “Blessed Weapon”! It lets Salamander Dan summon a divine axe to “fight for him”, whatever that means.

...Dan stops for a moment to contemplate why there was a musty old spellbook lodged amongst the gears of an angry robot spider, but decides not to worry about it too much.



Salamander Dan very suddenly comes to something that is… clearly not Mzulft. It’s just a cave. A cave with a tree growing in it, no less! That’s absurd. Dwarves hated trees. Nature must be reclaiming the place after 3000 years.

Dan creeps along, coming to a large open cave that looks suspiciously like… every other dungeon in Skyrim, actually. Because obviously I’ve gotten tired of these ruins looking different from the norm.



Anyway, the cave is full of weird giant bugs, feasting on the corpses of more of those weird Synod guys. It’s probably related to some quest Salamander Dan doesn’t really care about, and will probably never actually do. Oh well.



Is it really necessary to tell you what’s going on here at this point? I mean… Come on.





Mzulft’s not out of surprises yet! The moment Dan gets back into the main part of the ruins, a sphere pops out of the wall and turns into some kind of orb man! An orb man with a beard, even. Truly, the technological innovation of the Dwarves knew no bounds.



Including the bounds of personal space.



Running deeper into Mzulft proves to be a terrible idea, as Dan attracts the attention of a second orb and about four different spiders. They instantly form a steam-powered conga line behind Dan, except instead of dancing and merriment they’re trying to rip out his spine.

Which, in Skyrim, is probably the same thing.



Against all odds, this turns out to be the perfect hiding spot. Maybe Dwarven science is still lacking after all.

Really, though, we’re beginning to see how stealth in Skyrim really works. You run away from whatever happens to be chasing you, duck, and step behind something, preferably in the shade. Everything runs around fruitlessly for a while, then gives up and returns to their patrols like nothing ever happened in the first place. They never catch on, because Skyrim is not a stealth game even when it tries to be.

Of course, we run into a problem here, since Dan is trapped in a big ol’ room full of patrolling, dangerous robots that he’d really like to avoid.

I’ve also leveled up again here, so… I decided to just spend the perk points I had and worry about it later. It’s not like I’ve really leveled anything except sneak anyway, might as well put it to good use.





Two perks, perfect for running away and not facing your fears! The Salamander Dan guarantee.





Salamander Dan executes a flawless, improbable, and entirely-indistinct-in-post escape! Jumping from pipe to pipe while resisting the urge to scream or do unspeakable things with potatoes, Dan makes his way out of the room, down a ramp, and even deeper into the bowels of the dwarven city.

The dwarven city with absolutely no living quarters, or indeed, infrastructure of any sort. Maybe they accidentally built a wall over the entrance to their living space and they all starved to death as a result.



Dan comes upon a ghastly sight now - a wrecked spider, sprawled out next to the fresh corpse of… a goblin? Salamander Dan shudders. This is the tallest and least green goblin he’s ever seen - it doesn’t even have eyes, for that matter! He then realizes - this is the goblin variant that only lives in caves, and is therefore much more dangerous than regular ones (though not as dangerous as, say, the kind that lives around volcanoes).

He’ll really have to tread lightly up ahead.

Continuing on, Dan finds a few more gyros and some other miscellaneous garbage, but not really much else worth noting. Man, this place sure is empty. It’d better be worth it down the road.



At long last, Dan comes upon… a door! A door labeled helpfully in Salamander-legible text, “Mzulft Boilery”. Must be where they get all their inexplicable steam.

Salamander Dan is sure he’s getting close now. But something still nags at the back of his mind. These guys… the Synods. They look like warlocks. Elves in dark cloaks, no doubt using magic extensively. But they’re all dead. Who sent them? Did any make it further?

...Why did Terriblix know to send the assassin to Mzulft?

WHAT LIES ON THE STOVE FOR OUR HERO IN THE BOILERY?

FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON SALAMANDER DAN'S SALAMANDER SLAM

Maybe the assassin is here to bring you back to Terriblix?