Skyrim — The Death of Lydia

I played a little more Skyrim last night. The world still hasn’t opened up for me in the way I expect from a Bethesda game, but I’m still in it.

One of the main quest missions sends you into an area alone, with access to just whatever gear you have an NPC smuggle in for you. Lydia, the warrior assigned to me by the Jarl of Whiterun, had to stay behind.

I didn’t bother taking much stuff with me, anticipating that I would go for a stealthy, speech-based approach. It started out well, solving an initial hurdle through dialog. Then I got into the back area, and found myself stuck in an area I couldn’t sneak through successfully, and couldn’t fight my way through either. I turned the difficultly down, and the combat is now a breeze. Considering it hasn’t been the highlight of the game so far, it’s probably for the best.

So, I made it through, completed the objectives, and escaped through a trap door. Behind the trap door, I discovered that Lydia, my faithful servant, had apparently been waiting for me there. With a frost troll. So I guess that’s where Lydia’s story ends. She didn’t really have a lot to say even before the frost troll, so I don’t really know what I’ll be missing out on there.

I made my way back to meet up with the quest-giver to get my gear back, and then resumed what has turned into my favourite activity in Skyrim: smithing. The roleplaying centre in my mind fills in that my character must believe that perhaps if Lydia had been better armored, she might have lived, and vanquished that troll. And so she spends hours honing her craft, creating and refining better and better suits of armor. Banded-iron, steel — soon she will try her hand at Dwarven pieces. Her swords, war-hammers and axes are flooding the markets of Skyrim.

I’m starting to find the character now. Elissa, the warrior-smith who ventures out into the wilderness always searching for new materials to craft with, haunted by the knowledge that the armor will never been good enough.