OK. I got a new one: Hag's End.
I had been there already, but I had to go back to "find the assassin of old." I decided to go alone because I'm getting ready to do the endgame -- got a Dragon chillin' in the stocks on the Dragonsreach porch. I had already sent Brelyna back to the College and I cut Jenassa loose as well... tried to anyway. For such a tough-ass broad she sure gives a heart-rending farewell speech. She didn't go back to the Drunken Huntsman. Derkeethus and I found her on the road between Solitude and Dragon Bridge offering to join up again for nothing. Left her there, got the dude's travel itinerary, went back to Solitude (she was still waiting on the road), left D at the house, did the hit by casting Mayhem on Captain Aldis while invisible. Reported back to Astrid & Co. and got to meet Shadowmere, who is adorable. I have avoided horses because you can't do anything while riding one.
Don't worry, I'm getting to the Deadly Dragon part...
I headed to Whiterun on the horse to go get my future read, then decided to follow that quest before dealing with Cicero. I knew Hag's End to be no place to take a horse, so I headed back to Solitude to leave him at the stables -- and Jenassa was STILL waiting there (I had cut her loose back at Proudspire). I started thinking about that speech she gives about loneliness, put it together with our first meeting when she was drinking all alone at the Huntsman and her offer to rejoin free of charge... I actually began to get sad over a character in a friggin' video game. HELP ME!
So anyway I'm back at Proudspire with Jenassa and D and I make the decision to go to Hag's End alone. Hag's end itself was no problem, but when I stepped outside expecting to fast-travel from the balcony... BOOOM!
A Bone Dragon and an Aspect of Alduin... and NO COVER WHATSOEVER!
No choice but to go back inside and come back out where I had entered. Maybe they would be gone...
Nope. They were still there breathing all sorts of damage at once, dropping bombs out of the sky, summoning undead and quickly snacking on all the Forsworn I was expecting help from. Good thing those Forsworn tents are built so solid. I sat there for a while working on my conjuration and heavy armor skills wondering how I was going to get out of here. There was really no place to get a shot without exposing myself to insta-kill attacks.
Finally I drank up my one remaining super resist fire/frost/shock potion and made a break for the most likely exit to Deepwood Redoubt. The terrain of Hag's End is totally unsuitable for fighting one dragon, never mind two -- all sorts of little knickknacks to trip over and fall off of when you are trying to make a mad dash for the exit. I ended up falling in the water, climbing out, and sprinting up this hill to the door of Deepwood.
The Forsworn inside were no match for my health/stamina absorbing Khajiit saber (Jswords mod) and I made haste to the bottom and emerged to find myself finally at ground level, but in no less trouble. This time, however Dragonrend managed to keep the Bone Dragon down for good because the remaining Forsworn must have hit it enough times. I made a break for open ground because I remembered fighting an epic Warzones battle here earlier and hoped to find some helpful Stormcloaks.
No helpful Stormcloaks around, but I did find a deluxe model Forsworn tent with a nice view of the Bone Dragon. It was very satisfying to get off three consecutive Daedric Arrows without being staggered or bombed, but uh-oh... the grounded Bone Dragon summoned up another batch of elite skeletons. I countered with a summoned Dremora Lord and finished the Bone Dragon off with three more arrows.
I was so happy just to be able to aim without getting staggered that I had forgotten to ask myself what the Aspect of Alduin could be doing. It didn't take long to get an answer; I popped out of the tent and there it was, attacking something else I couldn't see. Aspects of Alduin seem to have a higher resistance to Dragonrend than other dragons, but it touched down long enough for me to run towards what it was attacking...
...which turned out to be a group of Thalmor having a terrible argument with Shadowmere.
The last time I had seen Shadowmere was when I left him at the Solitude Stables to take poor Jenassa back to the house. His arrival on a battlefield leagues away resembled those old war movies where the cavalry comes riding in at the end. I got to say hi as we dodged meteors and squashed Thalmor, then Shadowmere bought me enough time to cast Dragonhide by getting right up in the dragon's face. With the 60 seconds of almost-invincibility Dragonhide offered, I was able to finish off the Aspect of Alduin, mount Shadowmere and absorb the Bone Dragon Soul as we trotted by.
2+ hours real time, 1 battle over 3 areas and easily 100+ corpses. EPIC!
Speaking of Shadowmere, we did it again on the way to Dawnstar right after the encounter described above, but this time it was a much shorter fight. Dawnstar is not a good place for the scaly folk to tangle with me at this stage; I know every inch of terrain there...
