So, an update on Skyrim Pacifist Adventures.
My character is now level 49. With Sneak and Illusion finally hitting 100, levelling has slowed down somewhat, though there's still skills in lockpicking, alteration, restoration, alchemy, smithing and enchanting to keep us levelling for a while. Currently sitting pretty on 160k gold, which could be a lot more if we were not stocking flawless gems/buying filled soul gems for enchanting, with all houses except the one in Windhelm and the built ones owned and fully upgraded.
Livia, for she is my character, has successfully become leader of the Thieves Guild, after Mercer Frey accidentally fell down a very long drop. Repeatedly. (I like to think the luck of the Skeleton Key ran out, and his earthquake caused him to loose his footing. He definitely didnt die due to me Fus Ro Dahing him in the face until he broke his neck, that is just a circumstantial factor). The Skeleton Key was returned, because it was making this whole thieving thing even easier than it otherwise was, and the guild's presence was fully restored to all the major hold capitals, without any loss of life.
Livia also became a Legate in the Imperial Legion without killing a single person in the civil war. After the initial quest of clearing the bandits (with the final one falling off a very high wall to his death...funny how that keeps happening), it was simply a matter of hiding invisibly on the battlefield, spamming Frenzy or Rally where appropriate, or else pickpocketing and coercing people (which is pretty easy when you're a master thief wearing the Amulet of Articulation). Ulfric was executed by General Tullius, naturally.
Our character then became a bard. Retrieving the Poetic Edda was child's play, and it turns out that the ghost of Svaknir, the Bard executed by Olaf One-Eye is in fact a complete boss. He doesn't even take the knee, he simply never takes damage. So, we frenzied some draugr to speed things along, and poked Olaf a few times with our sword before letting Svaknir finish him off. You can also retrieve two of the bardic instruments with ease, though Rjorn's Drum is only doable if you're willing to use the console - to escape the dungeon it's in, you have to kill the boss. Which makes no sense whatsoever, but such is. I TCL'd through the grate, since I managed to get through the entire dungeon without being spotted once, but if you're on console or want a more pure experience, I'd recommend just skipping the quest.
Livia then became Thane of seven of the nine Holds, with only Eastmarch and Hjaalmarch not yet done. The latter is simple, if somewhat annoying...Morvath needs to die before we can get the Thane quest and that means figuring out if I can frenzy him and let his coven finish him off. As for the other...I have some ideas on how to finish Blood on the Ice, but it's going to involve either power levelling alteration or reverse pickpocketing and simultaneously paralysing/frenzying the murderer while he is around a bunch of city guards. No Stone Unturned was also done, to get the final stone we did, regrettably, have to join the Dark Brotherhood. Which is surprising since, you know, we're not a killer. Constance killed Grelod the Kind, and then Astrid killed all the victims in the shack. My preference would have been to report the DB to the Penitus Occulatus and grab the gem while doing Destroy the DB...only that requires killing Astrid so obviously our pacifist had to join an assassin's guild instead. Urgh.
And of course to finish off that quest we also had to do quite a bit of the main quest, including Diplomatic Immunity. Dragons have been a surprisingly easy problem for the most part, the city guard and passing mages/Thalmor/Dawnguard patrols have given us about 11 dragon souls to spend. You can also get an extra dragon soul once you're confirmed dragonborn by returning to and activating the Tomb of Jurgen Windcaller, in case you didn't know. I took that and immediately put it in Become Ethereal, for obvious reasons.
Oh, and we also killed a Dragon Priest. I wanted the Krosis mask, for more empowered alchemy cheese, so I went up to Shearpoint Peak, and when Krosis popped out I frenzied him and went invisible. This led to the dragon perched on the Word Wall attacking him and while it didn't kill Krosis, it brought him down to about 1/3rd health before Krosis' staff of fireballs finally killed it. I finished him off by casting Rout on him and making him run into a pack of ice wraiths who, after being frenzied, happily killed him off.
So, the next step after acquiring the remaining Thaneships and houses is to join the Dawnguard, because crossbows are lit, go adventure for a bit in Beyond Skyrim: Bruma (read: raid the Bruma castle treasury) and then maybe go to Solstheim so I can pick up the Frenzy and Poison runes, as enemies are now strong enough they sometimes need softening up before someone else kills them.
