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SPOILER INFO
This fanfic novel is largely based on the events that occurred in an actual game of Skyrim I played. Therefore, it's inevitably a spoiler.
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previous day
4-201-08-20 23:20
Bleak Falls Temple, Bleak Falls Barrow, Falkreath, Skyrim
This is the sight that greets me when I open my eyes:
And it'll get worse, I'm sure. Let's go to it.
Exploring grim and dirty passages and up- and downward staircases, we kill a few more bandits and arrive in a hall that has a closed grating that can be opened by operating a lever. The catch is that there are three switches which have to be in the right positions, or the lever won't work.
Relax, that man is dead.
You'd normally have to try out all possible combinations, but Bardslayer knows the solution and gives it to me, as I have no interest in that kind of nonsense and he fully understands it.
We soon arrive in a hall that is all in cobwebs. There are spiders too, really big again. I'm beginning to suspect that that's the usual size of Skyrim spiders. We kill them.
There's a man trapped in cobwebs. He can't move at all. He has the Golden Claw we're looking for, but in order to get our hands on it, we'll have to cut those cobwebs first. I'm very suspicious of that man. Indeed, as soon as he's free, he runs away at incredible speed. We are very fortunate to be able to catch up with him and kill him. (Why didn't I just kill him right away, and then cut him loose?? One moment I'm a real planning fetishist, the next moment I'm utterly thoughtless.)
Apart from the claw, the man has a diary on him from which it emerges that the claw is a lot more than a nice adornment. It can be used to open a door somewhere further down the dungeon. So we proceed, killing some walking corpses (or draugrs as they're properly called), pass by a cascade of bloody water (yuck) and there is indeed another puzzle door. You need to turn three disks into correct positions (Bardslayer gives me the solution again) and then put a claw into the space in the middle and the door opens. The best part is I get the claw back!
We are now in another very big hall.
At the far end, there's a platform with a coffin on it. As I'm sure it has a draugr inside, we sneak closer with utmost caution, but the corpse is either actually dead or not in the mood to get up.
We hear an ethereal rhythmic sound, something between shouting and music, and there's a wall with glowing characters in a script none of us can read. I step closer, something strange happens, the glow vanishes and I'm magically informed that I have learned something called a dragon shout. Unrelenting Force – that's its name.
I also find and grab that Dragonstone thing Farengar wanted, and now the draugr in the coffin finally finds that all this commotion is too much and he has to do something about it. We help him return to the realm of death where he can hopefully rest in peace from now on.
There's an exit nearby. We end up on the edge of a cliff overlooking a long narrow lake. (Lake Ilinalta, says Heidi.) It's past 10 in the morning. I'm so happy I made the right decision to sleep when I had the chance.
We descend cautiously and wash ourselves in the lake. I reflect on those dim, grim, creepy burial halls we recently passed through.
I think the Nord way of handling their dead simply doesn't work. Laid out on open shelves, the corpses are (in the presence of some magic) tempted to open their eyes one more time and walk around a bit, as we kept witnessing in the Bleak Falls Barrow as well as in the Hviterun Hall of the Dead the other day. And who could blame them, what with living people walking in and out of the place as they please? What kind of a final rest is that? If you ask me, it's high time the Nords learn to bury their dead so that they'll stay dead.
But I'm keeping that thought to myself for the time being as the girls and I are silently getting back into our armors. We can see a village further west, but that can wait. Riverwood is in the east and that's where we're headed.
Soon we see a tent and a campfire on the opposite bank. (The lake is turning into a river here.) There's a man who seems not hostile, so I'd like to get acquainted with him, but we need to go a little farther where we can swim across without him seeing us naked. (Swimming with your armor on is possible most times, but very slow and cumbersome.)
Once on the other bank, we get dressed behind a large bush and walk back westwards to that tent. The place is called simply Fishing Camp and the man is a hunter. We exchange a few friendly words, find out he has nothing interesting to sell, and move on. Half an hour later, we're in Riverwood.
I'd like to try and improve our gear a bit at the smithy. Alvor is friendly enough to allow me to use his facilities. It feels a little weird at first, but I'm getting the hang of it little by little and Alvor gives me some tips as well.
Then I bring the claw we found to Lucan and Camilla, and it's indeed the one they had lost. I also sell our loot.
Now I go to the inn and ask the proprietor Orgnar if he happens to know a man named Mandyn Hlaalu. He points at a man with a beard and red eyes:
This is the second or third time I'm called "Dragonborn". What does it mean? If anything, I'm khajiitborn. That doesn't merely mean I find Khajiits utterly adorable. The actually remarkable thing about me (apart from the Khajiit Sense of Smell power I've already mentioned) is that Bretons generally have an inborn talent of Magic Resistance , but for some reason I was born with the Khajiit Claws power instead. You can't see it, my hands look like perfectly normal human hands, but I'm quite deadly in fistfight – or rather clawfight in my case.
Dragons, though... I can't recall having ever had anything to do with dragons before Helgen. Then again, I can't recall anything before Helgen. Go figure.
Anyway, Mr. Hlaalu wants my help in catching an extremely dangerous criminal who escaped from the Morrowind province. I'm supposed to go to a village called Little Vivec which appears to be the same we saw earlier today. Why does Mr. Hlaalu think I can do what he can't is beyond me, but I wouldn't be so rude as to turn down his offer to pay me 1000 septims should I succeed. I just tease him a little by saying it's not enough, and to my surprise he promptly raises it to 2000. Fine. I'll see what I can do. He gives me a ring that protects against fire damage.
Before leaving, I ask him how he knew I was in Hviterun. He replies he didn't. The couriers have a magical way of tracking down addressees. Sometimes it takes more time, sometimes less.
Great. One bone less to chew on. Mr. Hlaalu and I wish each other good luck and go our separate ways.
I'm not sure at this moment if I want to make love to my boyfriend Hadvar or not. That's why I go to him – to give the decision off my hands. But he's not home. The door is locked and there's no one about. So I just return to my followers at the inn and we travel to Hviterun.
My friends the Khajiits have returned. Khayla is a trainer – she teaches sneaking for money.
At the door of The Drunken Huntsman, a man named Raven Dark eyes me weirdly, as he has done several times before. That's why I ask him, flanked by my two followers, if there's possibly something he wants from me. He makes a clumsy attempt to flatter me, and then asks my help finding her missing daughter Bronwen. I would have to talk to certain men who live in the eastern suburb and often hang out in the Honningbrew Meadery, the place I saw when I was coming from Riverwood for the first time.
I don't like the idea very much, partly because Raven refers to Honningbrew Mead as "piss". I have tasted neither, so I can't comment on the truth value of that statement, but it's not good to use that kind of language in the presence of a woman, especially when you are in big trouble and are asking her to help you.
Apart from which, the word on the street is that Sabjorn, the owner of Honningbrew, is in conflict with a powerful mafia family who runs a meadery and is trying to drive all competing meaderies out of business. That's why I can't help liking Sabjorn, and that's why I don't like Raven. But I'll keep his request in mind. Maybe one day when I have nothing better to do and feel particularly compassionate, I'll pay a visit to the meadery and ask around. Might be interesting to find out just how horrible those horrible men are.
My mood is significantly improved by my encounter with that adorable beggar child Lucia near the temple of Kynareth. I gave her a little money the other day, and now she's so fond of me. Looks like people haven't been too kind to the poor thing.
Actually, I have a plan. I've been noticing a morose middle-aged woman who is always sitting and drinking alone in The Bannered Mare. I have heard that her name is Uthgerd and that she challenges anyone to a brawl who irritates her when she's drunk, which she always is. In a brawl, the law says, you will not be punished even if you kill your opponent. The point is, Uthgerd has a house in the city. For understandable reasons, she has no family. Meaning, if I could kill her legally, I could make her house my home, because no one else would claim it. If I can kill her, mind you – of which I am not sure at all. But it's very tempting to get myself a place to sleep where I wouldn't have to pay 55 septims a night, and I'd be able to give Lucia a home.
I'm going to need some time to gather up my courage, but then I think I'll give it a try. Should the brawl really go sour, I believe to be able to run away and then, who knows, lure Uthgerd out of the city and call my followers to help and then kill her. Or maybe she'll get tired of the chase and give it up.
But right now there are more pressing matters. It's already evening and I have to rush to the palace and hope the important people are still working.
They are. I'm surprised to see Delphine, the Riverwood innkeeper's wife, with Farengar the court wizard, discussing dragons.
But I have no time to try and lure information out of her, because I'm grabbed and carried away (figuratively speaking) by the torrent of events. A moment after I've given Farengar the Dragonstone, Irileth arrives with the news about a dragon sighted near Hviterun, and we all rush to the jarl. He instructs Irileth to take her men and go and do everything in their power to defend the city. He asks me to go along with them, but not before he has bestowed upon me the privilege of buying real estate in the city. (Is he kidding? I can barely afford to sleep in inns at night. I think I'll stick to the Uthgerd's House plan. Naturally I won't tell the jarl that.)
I summon my girls and we follow Irileth to the city gate. The guards are... how should I put it... something between terrified and horrified, but Irileth keeps challenging their manhood until they raise their swords up to the sky and vow to kill the dragon, or ten dragons if necessary. Thus prepared, we all proceed to the Western Watchtower somewhat away from the city. We can see things burning, and it's not hard to guess the dragon is to blame. That ring from Mr. Hlaalu should come in handy here.
Apart from the fires and a little moonlight, it's completely dark outdoors by now.
The dragon doesn't keep us waiting for long. He's really big, incomparably bigger than those horrible spiders.
After a while, he takes off again.
He's extremely hard to hit flying around. Thankfully, he stops every now and then to burst gigantic flames at the people on the ground.
Then he flies around some more. He's really strong, but we are many. Gradually, our arrows begin to wear him out:
Clearly the dragon has too many targets to fight, so he can never properly focus on anyone. Sitting on the ground, he offers a very big target and I'm sending arrows into him as quickly as I can.
Here you can see someone hitting the dragon with some kind of magic.
It's not fire magic, unfortunately. I wish somebody would set our target on fire, even a little bit. That huge bright flame on the left makes it practically impossible to see where exactly the dragon is.
* * *
It has taken considerable time, but finally the dragon is dead. My immediate impression is that dragons are not as awful as they're cracked up to be. I assure you, two draugrs running at you from different directions are a lot scarier. But I realize this was probably because there were so many of us. The dragon was overwhelmed by our sheer numbers. Or maybe he was young and inexperienced.
What comes next is truly weird. I feel an unexplainable urge to step very close to the dragon's corpse. After a few seconds, it begins to glow.
But it's not fire. It doesn't feel warm.
I stand there at a few paces' distance from the dragon's head, while all except Heidi (whom you can see behind me if you look closely) observe me from a safe distance with horror on their faces. Then I sense something rising up from the dragon (I now know his name is... was Mirmulnir) and get inside me.
When I return to the others, the city guards begin to talk to me in a revering way, using again that strange word "Dragonborn". As they see my complete and utter puzzlement, one of them explains that I have absorbed the dead dragon's soul, and that is an ability only the legendary hero called Drangonborn has, which proves I am Dragonborn and I can do dragon shouts like dragons can. Irileth is the only one who remains skeptical and keeps telling them not to get so excited over some silly legends. But the guards urge me to try if I can actually do a shout. So I test it on Irileth. She falls down onto her butt, slightly annoyed.
Don't ask me who the Greybeards are.
The guys are ecstatic. Irileth remains a good sport and asks me to go and tell the jarl that we have killed the dragon while she and the guards start working on putting out the fires.
My girls and I walk back to the city in high spirits, albeit dog-tired. I think absent-mindedly about Irileth and that brings my thoughts onto my follower Jenassa. They're both elves, and as far as I know, elves live much longer than we humans. When I mentioned the other day that Jenassa is older than me, I meant her psychological age, meaning she appears somewhat more mature than myself. Considering that, her physical age must certainly be a lot more than mine. A human of her age may well be an oldster. I haven't yet dared to ask her how old she is in case she might find it offending somehow. I really know very little about the elves.
Shortly before we reach the city gate, there's unusually strong thunder (no rain, though), after which a loud ethereal voice utters something that sounds like "Do-vah-kiin". I'm too sleepy to care. If it was something important, I'm sure someone will tell me soon enough.
Just inside the city gates, I see two Redguard men in a dispute with the guards. (Redguards are humans with dark brown skin.) Looks like they are denied permission to walk around in Hviterun and search for something. When they see me pass, they tell me they're looking for a Redguard woman.
Naturally, I'm curious to know why. They say it's none of my business. In case I'll find out something, they'll be waiting in Roriksted, they say. I walk on. I've never heard of Roriksted, but I've seen at least three Redguard women in this city all right.
At the moment, though, I have something more urgent to take care of. I walk to The Bannered Mare, rent a room, hobble up the stairs and go to sleep. It's past 2 o'clock. Had a dead dragon become alive, one could argue that the jarl has to be informed without delay. But when a dragon who used to be alive is now dead – that is no reason to deprive the jarl of sleep. The same goes for me.
next awakening
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