To start with, when I turned in the end of the previous quest: Crossing the Wall, I got a good chuckle out of Prince Azah telling me no one was more instrumental in busting through the wall than I was. "Uh, you've got the wrong guy," I told him. "You must be thinking of Syldras." Anyway!

The very beginning of the quest was a little off-putting to me because Skordo referenced an Argonian refugee who died trying to flee the Worm Cult and eastern Solstice, and I thought: am I supposed to know who he's talking about? Well, no, because he was talking about a no-name dead npc slumped on the side of the road that the player may or may not have even noticed upon approach (I figured it was a Stirk Fellowship person). But I brushed that off, because Skordo wasn't actually anything more than a breadcrumb guy at this point.

So I head on on and talk to Raz and Darien--both of whom I like (but not in a romantic way--in an adventure buddy way). I found it a bit of interesting lore in passing that the former Daedric ruin of Gristmung Hold had been repaired/restored since the Worm Cult took it over--I liked that Raz was bemused by that fact. I enjoyed the Raz-Darien dynamic with Raz saying, "Darien has no stealth" and Darien saying, "Raz said I walked silently like a dragon takes tiny bites." I thought: yeah, they are kind of a mismatch when their objective is ostensibly to quietly scout and that amused me. I also liked that Darien's attitude was, "Let's go rummage through their stuff!"

The first player response options we got for Darien seemed all right. The player could flirt (wasn't expecting that) or be supportive based on past adventures or give the more generic "you can do this" reply. So that covered a fairly good range of positive responses, but there was a lack of negative or truly neutral responses: basically, there's an assumption that the player character likes Darien and will respond from that standpoint. For me, that works, because I do like Darien. But for players who do not like him, they probably felt none of the options were good.

Well, time for us to invade one of their camps now! So off we go, murdering everything in sight and looking through all their stuff and, at one point, Darien gives me probably the best compliment any npc has ever given me. "You're an excellent rummager!" he says. I laugh and feel seen. I thought Darien as a tag along npc had better lines than they usually do and he didn't do the captain obvious remarks of telling me what I just read. He reacted to the pages I found, but didn't do that thing where the npc repeats the information on them as if I can't or don't read. In the post-rummage conversation at the overlook, I thought I was going to avoid being the dummy vestige, because at first I got to give an intelligent answer (I read the documents and figured out what was happening) but then I got an unavoidable question asking basically, "What's a shackle?" *sigh* Oh well. I did like the casual callback to strategy at the Crystal Tower when we were planning our next step. I also used a sneaky approach to take out the eyes--not sure that even mattered, but it was a fun change up in playstyle for me.

Took out the eyes, let my comrades "guard the platforms" and went on to light the signal fire. Met Jeetra and had the second player response options pop up. These were neutral-diplomatic, super friendly, or super gruff. I chose the neutral option, because it fit my character best, and overall I thought these were three good options. I realize there's only so many they can put in per dialogue choice, and these three fit the situation pretty well. I like that Jeetra doesn't overwhelm us with "hero" and "friend" talk, and I like her overall attitude. (I thought it was great when, later in the quest, she told Darien to "just stop talking and go already" after he gave one of his patented Darien hero lines.) At first I was pleased, thinking she didn't have some annoying name-replacement for me like "proxy," but then in our second conversation she started calling me "mainlander." It's ok, I guess, and at least she doesn't say it every other sentence--it was only there a couple times and made sense in context. I did find it interesting that her tribe was living in a daedric ruin before the Worm Cult got there, but I guess the stone doesn't need to be Xanmeer to work for the Stone Nest tribe.

Then we get a classic rpg moment of "into the sewers," though really it's just a small area inside the hold with a bit of sewer water in it. I did find it amusing that Jeetra led us to the sewer pathway and said she and her group was going to take a less smelly route.

The hold itself was pretty standard "quest leads you through a building to the objective" but I thought the whole "gate only stayed open for a few seconds" thing a bit weird. If I used the winch to open it, why would it slam shut again? Anyway, I spent a lot of time in that one room with all the bookshelves, reading some interesting lore about the Stone Nest tribe as well as a really cool book called "The First Dialogue of Mannimarco and Galerion." If that book was in the game previously, I never came across it.

The part where Darien couldn't get the light of Meridia to work was an unexpected wrinkle. I mean, I knew Mannimarco had sucked out all his inner Meridia light, but the lantern is something I could use, so why couldn't he? (Kind of seems like Meridia, in her infinite cruelty, is punishing him for having lost his inner light.) Anyway, I'll be interested to see how that plays out. Darien feeling lost and without purpose is interesting to me, because of how brash and sure of himself he's always been, and the player response options, again, worked for me but lacked a true option for someone who either doesn't like Darien or doesn't care that he's going through self-doubt.

It was surprising to exit Gristmung Hold onto Coldharbour terrain--actually gave me pause, which I think is a pretty effective use of terrain to convey story.

Talked to everyone at the little camp afterwards (liked that Raz is casually sitting atop some crates--different npc postures are nice to come across). I was glad to finally meet the "associate" who had helped the Great Mage. I think Prince Azah is written better this quest; his replies seem more measured and leader-like so far. I think Darien's characterization is good, too--he's still Darien, but more mature and even a little introspective, which is a nice touch of character growth. In view of his lack of Meridia light, he even asks the question "what was Gabrielle's sacrifice for?" It's a nice touch to have him a little somber.

I had thought we were actually going to capture Gristmung Hold and turn it into our base, but apparently not. We're just going to make do with a little camp on the other side of it? I think that's a missed opportunity, really. I wonder why they didn't have us actually capture it? I went back afterwards to see, and everything's like it was before we "took over" (minus the eyes and portals) and of course that gate still isn't open. I didn't try the sewer entrance--figured it would be locked now that I've done the zone story associated with it.

I really did want to get going on the next part: the Hunt for the Great Mage. But I know from forum thread titles that it's bugged. And my character has the skyshard bug, so I didn't really want to go exploring non-main quest areas knowing I couldn't pick up any skyshards along the way. I also think I'm not the only one holding back on questing, because the place was pretty empty the entire time I was there. Often times I was the only player in the vicinity, which rarely happens.

Overall I enjoyed the first story quest I did and am eager to see the rest of the zone. But I'm not going to try to quest with game-breaking bugs about, so...who knows when I'll get to do the rest. Hope the Great Mage isn't in dire peril!