One of the reasons why I like this game:
With a new char. at level 6, I killed a conjuror and clicked on the large stone he was praying at. It gave me a daily power with which I could reanimate corpses for a couple minutes . (No spoilers). A couple of levels later, I found myself trapped at the end of a dungeon and faced with taking out a mad mage before I could possibly exit. (I had dropped down a well to enter the cave and couldn't go back).

My char. is using Archery and Sneaking mainly. However I had run out of arrows (meh). I searched all of the Dreughs I had killed (about 15) but nada. I was now level 9 and the mage would still wipe the floor with me. Besides, he was continually conjuring up replicas of himself as well. What was I to do? I didn't want to acknowledge defeat and go back to a save before I entered the cave.

I had an idea. The Reanimate power can raise up whatever corpses of animals and creatures are around me and they will fight for me. I had to wait 24 hrs between casting the Power spell each time but I wasn't going anywhere anyway . So I began doing that and getting them to follow me to the tunnel just before the cavern where the mage was doing his replicating act. He was continually reappearing on different platforms (no spoiler). It took a while but eventually I had about 6 Dreughs ready.

Then I had a stroke of luck. I saw a small platform I had missed earlier. I jumped on to it and fell down behind boulders. There was a Dreugh corpse there with around 14 arrows on him. (Who says there is no god?). However, even that amount of arrows would still not give me the edge on my own but with the Dreugh corpses as allies?

I got to the corpses, stayed in Sneak (Sneak was 40) and raised them all up with the Power spell. They charged the mage and his 2 other replicas which kept dying and reappearing. It was hard to know which was the real mage but a clue was in how easily the false ones died. Staying as hidden as possible, I gradually wore the mage down as the Dreughs hit on him and the replicas. With 2 arrows left, suddenly he went down, just as the Dreughs began to die and one of them was still hitting on him. The last replica vanished as the mage died. That battle took 3 and a half minutes (The time the corpses stayed "alive").

That showed me just how random and non-linear so much of the game is as well as how you can innovate and use different strategies at times. So many surprizes and that was just one dungeon episode.

Anyone got similar unexpected tales to tell?

I adore how everything has a story. As much as I loved Oblivion, every cave was the same, Ayleid Ruins were the same.

In Skyrim, every single cave is unique, and every single Dwarven Ruin is unique. They all have a story behind them, either big or small. Abandoned settlements with stories on why they're abandoned, hunters out in the wild in little huts, corpses that tell a story. It's simply spectacular how everything comes together to create this world.

This game has put a smile on my face so many times, it's unbelievable.

This game IMO surpasses Morrowind in every aspect except the MQ. I like this game too.

I'd have gone for the guilds, I like the MQ better than MW's (I'll never forgive that "Hortator and Nerevarine" quest, so similar to Ob's "Help for Bruma"). They only blew It up with a lackluster final boss and a lack of some mystery surrounding him (Heck, that dragon at the beginning should've been a Jill, with Alduin being huge and appearing at the end, destroying stuff, making him "fearable"), although the same happened with Daggoth'Ur in Morrowind, speaking of both the God and the Dwemer ruin.

Hallgerds Tale made me smile twas true lulz. read it if you ever find it.

They haven't topped the one-two punch of DAGGERFALL's main quest yet but in so many ways, SKYRIM is a return to the feel of TES II. The days of such sprawling epics are gone, which is not altogether bad, and TES V bodes well for the future of the series. I was very glad to see them put the lessons of FALLOUT3 to good use.

I'm of no particular opinion about how the character system has changed and I did find the Dragonborn story undercooked but it may well be that I still hold on to the hope of one day (one day!) seeing the promises of DAGGERFALL - never themselves realised - actually come to life.

Good show, Beth. Good show . . .

lol