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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
4-201-09-02 05:06
Four Shields Tavern, Dragonbridge, Haafingar, Skyrim
I do the smithing and reequip my followers. When I'm ready, the time is half past 6. I absolutely want to sell my excess loot. So I walk around, waiting for the shops to open at 8. There aren't many passersby this early, and from the patrolling guards I hear nothing of interest.
Returning from the marketplace on the other (eastern) side of the river, I step into the alchemy shop called "Athragar's Antidotes". The shopkeeper, a man seemingly in his late 20s, is friendly and polite and talks to me with a perfectly neutral tone – except that when we has packed my purchases and hands them to me, he asks: "Wanna stay the night?"
"What??" I must have misheard.
"Are you going to stay the night in Dragonbridge?" he asks like nothing is out of the ordinary.
"I just did." I eye Athragar suspiciously, but he looks completely normal and shows no intention of leaping around the counter and assaulting me.
"Great." He smiles. "Looking forward to seeing you again."
I don't know what to reply and leave the alchemy shop greatly confused.
My followers are waiting for me at the other end of the village, where the road to Solitude starts (behind us in the next picture).
At 9, we leave for Lost Echo Cave. Half an hour later, we see a thalmor patrol on the road. We give them a wide berth. They pay no attention to us.
I remember something I forgot to ask last night: why did the Nords give up family names in the first place?
The girls explain me that the Nords hold that the other people's attitude to one must not depend on whether or not he has famous ancestors. It's only your own character and achievements that matter.
However, there are only so many personal names, and the society needs a way of telling people with the same first name apart. Patronyms are the optimal way for achieving that. Of course it can happen that two people have the same personal name and the same fathersname, but it's not too frequent. Nords have a great variety of personal names and keep inventing new ones.
"But adding the patronym to the personal name is still considered more respectful than the personal name alone," I say. "As you told me last night. Meaning, your respectability still kind of depends on who your father is."
"No. It's simply that we need some kind of a polite address and you can't call people Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so when they don't have a family name," explains Lydia.
Right. That makes sense. "But what about addressing the jarls?"
"The jarls are addressed only as Jarl Balgruuf or Jarl Siddgeir because the word "Jarl" carries more deference than the patronym," says Jenassa. "However, in history books you can absolutely see things like Jarl Balgruuf Roliandsson ."
"To distinguish him from other Jarl Balgruufs?"
"Exactly."
Got it. Thanks.
I think we're getting close to our destination now – which is not that structure with huge stone arches, not unlike Bleak Falls Barrow, in the distance somewhat off our course.
I won't bother to go and take a closer look. Navigation between mountains is hard enough without making detours.
Soon we reach the Lost Echo Cave, which is inhabited mostly by Falmers, but the most dangerous opponents are chauruses, insect-shaped creatures about the size of humans.
As I've told you, I've ordered my followers to not attack enemies until they attack us or I start a combat. The problem still remains that when the enemies are very near, my girls switch from bows to melee weapons and then necessarily engage the enemies at close range. That makes it virtually impossible for me to shoot at the enemies, because everybody moves around so fast that I would be just as likely to hit an ally as to hit an enemy. Drawing my sword and going into the thick of it would be even more pointless and dangerous. I just don't have a chance keeping up with properly trained fighters. Therefore, I have chosen a different tactic – I run past the combatants whenever possible, and engage the next enemies nearby, and if there are none, I turn around to the main group and shoot the enemies in the back whenever I can.
Of course, it would be safer for me to just stay behind my followers and rely on their speed and coordination which is far superior to mine. But I can't do that. I always feel I have to protect them.
That's why I get very close to death in one situation in Lost Echo Cave when we have to fight four or five chauruses at the same time. What luck that I'm on level 29 already, meaning that my health is about 4 times higher than it was in the beginning! Still, I have to remember to be more careful.
The Falmers are fierce, but they don't really have a chance against the four of us. Having killed all the enemies, we find that Welkynd Stone for Nuri and take a shortcut out.
Back outside, I hesitate between turning left and turning right. Our next stop Northwatch Keep is directly behind us, in the northwest. The straight path would require us to go through or fly over steep mountains. That being impossible, I must decide whether to head north or west. We have 4 or 5 hours of daylight left. It should be enough if we don't get (too) lost.
I decide to take the road north, hoping we'll be able to get close to the ocean, descend and then proceed westwards along the coast.
It works exactly as planned. In fact, it's merely an hour later that we're already on the hills overlooking Northwatch Keep:
This is too far to aim properly. So we sneak closer. We can see a guard on the rampart. I think he's even seeing us, but he isn't getting hostile, because he doesn't know we have thoughts of attacking him. Thanks to that, I succeed in killing him with a few shots.
We have to get closer still to get a shot at the guard who is standing on the ground just outside the gate. He's all alone. And now he's no more.
After that, things get a little confused. Two men in the fortress courtyard have realized something is going on. When we have killed them, we go into the yard ourselves and kill two or three more guards. Then it's time for us to enter the actual fort.
Now, that's a nightmare. There are archers and mages, and they are very strong, and there are many of them. It's more luck than skill that keeps us from getting slaughtered by those merciless fiends. After a horrible nerve-racking skirmish, the main group of enemies is finally dead.
A burnt corpse, apparently a victim of the thalmors.
We find Thorald, chained to a wall and interrogated by a thalmor. We kill the interrogator and free Thorald. There are cells with prisoners inside, but they all have master-level (this means extremely complicated) locks. I manage to open only two, breaking many lockpicks in the process. When I'm down to 8 lockpicks, I decide there's no point wasting those as well. I simply don't stand a chance. We leave the last prisoners and exit this terrible place through the back door. Thorald thanks me profusely and says he'll go into hiding. Returning to Hviterun would be too dangerous – that's the first place they'd go looking for him. He asks me to let her mother know he's safe:
Then he leaves and we are left in the midst of the massacre we have brought about.
The guards we killed were carrying amazing gear. We all get stronger (and better-looking) armors. In that other thalmor outpost, Fort Masser, we acquired two very strong bows. Now we have half a dozen of them. Zephyr, the bow I got from Arkngthamz, is still better, but I can now give bows with a very strong shock enchantment to all my followers. (Enchantment means that a weapon is magically enhanced, so it has a special effect in addition to the regular damage of that type of weapon. I'll tell you more about enchanting some other time.)
It's dark already, so we'll spend the night here. There are sleeping mats in the courtyard. They'll be adequate. I'll rather endure a little cold than go back inside that dreadful fortress.
next awakening
