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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
4-201-09-06 04:33
Windpeak Inn, Dånstar, The Pale, Skyrim
We wake up and have an unhurried bath. I take the opportunity to improve our gear before the blacksmith comes to work. Then I sell our excess loot. This time I didn't bring any weapons or armor better than the ones we're already using. Just stuff to sell for money.
And coming back to something I mentioned about a week ago...
See how some armors make people look incredibly fat down there?
Then again, many men actually like big bottoms. Weird.
Then again, many men actually like big bottoms. Weird.
As we're ready to depart for Hviterun, I notice the tent of a Khajiit trader next to the town gate.
Now I finally have an opportunity to get rid of all those stolen things I've been carrying along for heaven knows how long. (Regular traders don't buy stolen items, but Khajiit caravans do.)
The merchant is a middle-aged woman named Ahkari. She tells me she has an unfortunate talent for getting herself involved in misunderstandings with the law, and it's a pity the Nords are most unfair to the Khajiits, calling them thieves and smugglers. She says she's glad to see I'm not like that. Mind you, she doesn't say she isn't a thief and a smuggler, and I don't ask.
Ahkari's entourage includes a young woman Zaynabi and two men; Kharjo is the younger one and Dro'marash is the older one. The one I have to tell you more about is – you guessed it – Kharjo. I'm dying to have sex with a Khajiit man. I mean, just close your eyes and imagine it for a second – a cute furry cuddly cat, only big enough to actually lie down on top of you and penetrate you down there. What more could a woman want? I don't know if we can have children with them. I suppose we can't, and even if we could, we'd maybe better not, as the result might be not too great. Yet, what better bed-warmer could there possibly be?
My girls don't share my Khajiit fascination and tease me about it, but they just don't have an idea. Do I, you ask. Well, I don't know. I don't remember. But I've gotten carried away again, telling you about irrelevant things. What I actually started to say is that Kharjo has had an amulet stolen from him. It's very precious, because he got it from his mother when he was a child. A touching story. Fortunately, Kharjo has a magical bond with the amulet, so he can show me on the map where it is at this moment. (I learn that the Khajiits are familiar with maps, but they don't need them much with their superb navigation instinct, unless in completely unknown regions.) For that matter, it's been there for quite some time, so he presumes that's the place where the thieves permanently reside. Unfortunately, he can't go after it himself, because due to the said magical bond, the person who has the amulet in his possession can always tell where Kharjo is, so the bandits would know he is approaching. But I together with my followers might well be able to find the amulet and get it back. It's halfway between Northkeep and Granite Hall, and we are headed roughly that way.
Yes, I will get you your mother's amulet, Kharjo. And then we are going to spend a lot of time together. I mean, I can't today. I really can't. But we'll see each other again, I swear.
Now the girls and I head for Hviterun. The highway passes close by Duskglow Crevice, which is the location of yet another one of those Welkynd Stones. We drop in while we're here and kill some bandits and Falmers, who coincidentally are fighting each other as well.
We get the stone, but the difficult part only begins.
We split up, looking for another exit. I reach a big hall with a staircase leading to a plateau maybe four meters high. There's a bandit up there fighting a flying something. He's shouting combat taunts at the creature as if he expected it to understand. I'm unsure whom I ought to shoot at. Probably the creature. But before I can come to a decision, the bandit falls down, dead, and the thing comes rushing towards me. By the Eight-and-a-Half... Do you remember that picture of a chaurus I showed you? Good. Now, imagine that that thing is not only alive but flying. A flying chaurus. That's what approaches me at this moment. If you think it's not scary, I assure you you're wrong.
The real problem isn't even that it flies. The real problem is that it spits something utterly awful at me. Fortunately, there's only one of them and I have my panic under control. A health potion keeps me afloat until the girls arrive running and we manage to kill the horrorbeetle.
There's no one else who wants to kill us. That's on the credit side. On the debit side (where did I learn such fancy words??) is that we can't get out of this place. There's a closed grating. We can see another large hall on the other side, but there's no way to open the grating. Too lazy to walk back all the way we came, we go over this hall most thoroughly, looking behind every stone and shelf and cobweb. No switch. I'm tired and annoyed and desperate. Should I ask Bardslayer for help? No, we'll go over this place one more time.
This time we find the damned switch. I'm not very happy, just fed up with it all. Soon we're back in open air. Our spirits rise as we look forward to reaching the city soon. Then we get attacked by several giant spiders. No big deal. More like a slight exercise. After killing them and healing myself, I notice there's a settlement nearby. It's a small village called Laintar Dale:
There's an Orc blacksmith couple Azuk and Murzush, a very beautiful warriorlike woman Olava, a middle-aged woman Margarte and probably more people inside the three houses. Overall, a nice place. They allow me to use their smithing facilities and buy most of my excess loot. Then we're off to Hviterun.
That's a quite common (and unaggressive) hare for a change.
We pass by a camp of giants. After a while, a windmill appears in the distance. As we get closer, we see a horsecart on the roadside and a man dressed as a jester. I mean, really, he is wearing jester's clothes, right up to the cap'n'bells hat. I have seen jesters only in books, but this is exactly how they look like.
The man has a weird name Cicero and tells us a woeful tale of how a wheel of his wagon broke and the evil people in the nearby farm refuse to help him. Now, from his high-pitched emotional tone of voice and his fast jerky gestures, it's plain obvious that Cicero is insane. I have no reason to doubt his words about the wheel and having been refused help, but the point is that the man is like an insect I just have to squash. So we proceed southwards, pretending to be disinterested in Cicero and his worries. When we are out of sight, I sneak back and shoot that jabbering hobgoblin dead. You can say what you want, I maintain that I did the world a service. It's like clearing a turd off the street so people won't step in it.
Behind the hill to our west is indeed a farm is inhabited by a Vantus Loreius and his wife Curwe. They don't seem to be too fond of neither passersby nor each other. After a brief and fruitless conversation, me and my followers continue our jorney south. We soon arrive at a Whitewatch Tower, apparently the northernmost watchtower of Hviterun. The guards happen to be in combat against a small group of bandits and we help them kill them. And then, as the dusk is falling, we finally reach the eastern suburb of Hviterun.
We pay a brief visit to the palace.
We took a picture without helmets for you.
From right to left: Jenassa, Laura, Lydia, Rayya and a palace guard.
From right to left: Jenassa, Laura, Lydia, Rayya and a palace guard.
Having released my followers for today, I go down to the temple to report to Danica. She doesn't even want to touch that dagger Nettlebane. She asks me to travel eastwards to a place called Eldergleam Sanctuary and use Nettlebane to get some sap from the holy tree which is the "mother" of the holy tree in Hviterun. Sure, why not.
About to leave the temple, I'm stopped by a man Maurice who says he's a pilgrim and a devotee of Kynareth and wants to visit Eldergleam, but since it's very dangerous, he'd like to travel along with me. He promises not to get in my way.
Something tells me that man can be big trouble, though, so I tell him I don't travel with strangers.
Was I wrong to turn him down, I wonder as I walk down the stairs towards the empty marketplace. Whatever. It's near midnight and I'm very tired. Just a quick peek into the taverns to see if anything exciting has come up in the meantime (no, nothing has), and I go to my house to sleep. (Lucia generously lets me have the bed when I'm home. She says she's just as comfortable on the mattress on the floor.)
next awakening
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