This is part of my playthrough of the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim. You can find my playthrough of the Dawnguard DLC, and earlier bits of this adventure on the Ongoing Series page.

I stood at the gates of Miraak’s tower in Apocrypha. The final quest was upon me. I was to find Miraak himself, and destroy him, returning peace to Solstheim, and becoming the last Dragonborn in the process. This meant slaying seekers and other baddies, and solving puzzles of course.  I also needed to learn the final word of the Bend Will shout, which would allow me to tame Dragons (yeah, I wrote that out wrong in the last post, I had only learned the 2nd word to this point).

After defeating the seekers guarding the final word, I was accosted by a Dragon named Sahrotaar, whom I quickly tamed with Bend Will. He then offered to let me ride him, and to take me to Miraak.

Flight was a bit underwhelming. It was cool to be able to fly don’t get me wrong, but without being able to directly control the Dragon, I was relegated to watching him go where he pleased, and could only issue commands to attack particular targets. It suited its purpose though, and was only for a short while anyway.

After dispatching some creatures, we moved on to the island where Miraak was waiting. Sahrotaar dropped me off, and of course Miraak went into the typical villain monologue.

Sahrotaar and a couple of other Dragons landed nearby, but only sat and watched as Miraak engaged combat. He came equipped with many magic spells and shouts, but he was no match for my might. I had him down to nearly zero health and was thinking to myself “this is way too easy” when he became ethereal and vanished. He reappeared near one of the Dragons, and absorbed its soul, restoring himself to full health. I see, he didn’t want to go down without a fight. Nearing death again, he continued this pattern two more times, killing off all of the Dragons who were hanging out. Eventually though, when he was nearing death for the last time, and there were no more Dragon souls to revive him, he was attacked by Hermaeus Mora himself.

It turns out that by accepting the words of power from Mora, Miraak had entered a pact, which is why he was bound to this dimension. He was plotting escape, but it was clear that Mora had known about this all along. It was unclear why I hadn’t been bound to the dimension since I had also been granted these words of power, but after dispatching Miraak, Mora addressed me. He told me that I was now in his servitude, and that if I was to do as I was told, further power and glory would be mine. But if I was to rebel, I would see a fate similar to Miraak. He did let me leave though, so I returned to the village of the Skaal, right in the place I was standing when I had read the Black Book.

Frea greeted me upon my return. She mentioned being able to feel that Miraak’s power over the island had diminished. She also asked about her father, and whether or not I believed that his sacrifice was necessary. I said what needed to be said, and she went about her business. She is now the new Shaman of the Skaal, though I don’t think our paths will cross again.

At this point I have called it done. I have seen all of the major questlines to a close, and completed a large chunk of the smaller side content. I still have some trophy clean up to do, along with some sidequests in my journal, but I have had my fill of Skyrim for the time being. I have had an on again off again relationship with the game since it came out, so I will probably come back to do these things at a later date. For now, I’m moving on to other games in the backlog, and will have a new playthrough write up coming soon, once I decide what it is I’m going to play. Thanks for reading, and as always, happy gaming!

#Skyrim #Dragonborn #DLC #theelderscrolls