I just sunk a couple perks into short weapons, and daggers suddenly became about 700% more effective. I can actually kill stuff with them now, omigosh. Skill level still sucks, though, and I can't for the life of me get the game to equip both daggers with one button press. Or even two presses; if I bind each dagger to a separate button it just toggles between the two in the right hand. Every fucking time I cast a spell or switch to my bow I have to manually re-equip the left-hand dagger and it's getting daaaaamn tedious.
Found two black soul gems too just now, in a necromancer base well up north. My first. Haven't killed any humies after finding them though, I stumbled upon them in the prison after clearing out the lot of those evil bastards.
They kept resurrecting each other too, was hilarious to see them running around in the snow and cold attacking me after I'd already looted all of their clothes off of their bodies!
I noticed they sometimes turn to ash, but I hadn't figured out any sort of pattern for when it happens. If my helper will just turn to ash too if i resurrect him I don't think it's worth bothering. Coz her's undoubtedly just going to go charge a mammooth, or a giant, or a dragon, or whatever next big nasty thing I put an arrow into, and get stomped again.
So... Scratch that plan then, I guess. Suppose I just have to wait for the mod kit to be released so I can make some kind of uber tanky gear for him so he simply CAN'T die. Don't want anything like that for myself, I don't even want him killing stuff really (cuz he tends to get in the way all the time and eat MY attacks); I just want to be able to carry more loot out of the dungeons by loading it onto him.