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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
4-201-10-08 06:31
Fort Greenwall Captain's Quarters, Fort Greenwall, The Rift, Skyrim
We run to Bitchen which is quite near. I feel awful, because I haven't been able to wash for a considerable time. It's not easy to find suitable bodies of water in mountains. Fortunately, Bitchen is on the shore of a lake.
Having cleaned up, we walk to the city gate. It's indeed locked, but when I look at the guards, they just unlock it and don't say anything.
Bitchen is a big city. There are so many people and so many things to see. I hear a crazy-looking man Jalamar complaining that no one would listen to him. Then there's a wimpish guy Aerin talking to Mjoll, apparently his girlfriend who has a large battleaxe on her back as well as her head in the clouds (and his undoubtedly between her legs). Her heart is in the right place, though. She gives me the beginnings of the general picture. The biggest menace in the city seems to be something called the Thieves' Guild. They reside in a place called the Ratway and she wishes she'd find a way to root them out.
The girls and I can take barely ten steps towards the inn when a man named Maul in a metal armor tries to intimidate us. He tells us that Maven Black-Briar is the absolute ruler in this city and her every command is to be obeyed to the letter.
Yeah, whate... wait, Black-Briar? Has she something to do with Black-Briar mead?
Yes, she has, and we get to hear how her meadery in this very city produces by far the best-quality mead in Skyrim, which means also in the world.
When we finally get rid of that wannabe bully, we continue our difficult quest to reach the inn which I've been having in my sight for quite a long time now. Our progress is blocked again, this time by an altercation between a woman Sapphire and a man Shadr. Apparently Sapphire lent Shadr money to buy some merchandise from Hviterun, then robbed the shipment and now demands payback of the loan. Yes, Bitchen couldn't have a more suitable name. We follow Sapphire into the inn where we have to listen to a priest Maramal urging people to give up drinking. He says the return of the dragons is not accidental:
Sapphire is the woman in front of me who is leaning against the wall. You recognize Lydia on my left, of course.
Finally the innkeeper Talen-Jei succeeds in gently removing him from the premises and I can walk up to Sapphire.
She's a lot taller than me and quite haughty, but my reservoir of politeness was completely exhausted on Maul. So I just tell Sapphire she'd better leave Shadr alone. I'm totally prepared to fight it out with her here and now, but I have evidently chosen the language she understands. She agrees that his debt has been paid, and indeed gives to understand I've earned her respect. Wow. Well done, Laura.
As instructed in that mysterious letter I picked up in Windhelm, I approach the bartender, an Argonian woman called Keerava and ask her if she's got a letter for Reginald. Indeed, she has. I open the envelope and learn that the writer who calls himself M stole a valuable gem from a caravan and hid it in a certain place west of Bitchen. That poor Reginald dude! When he finally gets his finger out and starts doing his part of the deal he has with M, he's going to be very disappointed.
I also get a bounty letter from Keerava. The jarl wants a dragon killed in a place called Lost Tongue Overlook somewhere south of Bitchen.
Now that it has become clear we're not in any immediate danger in this location, I tell the girls to continue to reconnoiter the city on their own. I head for the marketplace. It's seriously overwhelming with so many stalls and people and conversations.
I find a smithy and when I smile at the blacksmith and ask if I may use his facilities, he gives me permission. I have very much loot this time, but nothing really useful, just a lot of stuff to sell. And as you have probably guessed by now, Bitchen has a great variety of merchants.
I pay a visit to the palace where I use the alchemy lab and the arcane enchanter, coincidentally having a chat with the court wizard Wylandriah, an old woman who is clearly crazy. I also get to observe how the steward, an elven woman Anuriel, tells the jarl how everything in the city is in order and all that talk about drug trade is just malicious rumors. The jarl Laila is a compassionate woman who wants to do all she can for her people, but Anuriel is one sleek liar who has the jarl wrapped around her little finger.
In the general store, I witness a tense conversation between the owner and his wife. Apparently she is falsifying the bookkeeping. Probably found some jewelry she can't afford with what her husband gives her. This time it looks she's still succeeding in talking her way out of it.
Back on the marketplace, I'm stopped by Brynjolf, one of those pompous jerks who think they can get a girl wet by insulting her. I'll kill him one of these days.
Yeah, I've met the scumbag already. He won't be a problem for very long. That I swear.
In short, Bitchen is so bustling with activity, I could fill chapters with what I heard today, and surely that is nowhere near all there is. But my mind is on selling as much as I can. By the time I'm done with all the traders, it's almost 8 in the evening. It's dark on the streets. In spite of all the organized criminality, I can't help feeling good. I mean, judging by what I've been told, the city of Bitchen breathes theft, robbery and extortion, but my girls and I like it here.
There's a river or canal running through the city, and there are wooden staircases descending from the street level onto walkways that run alongside the canal, and there are almost no passersby down here, and it's really peaceful with the faint bustling of the marketplace coming from somewhere above and behind us. At this moment, it seems it's not such a bad place. But I know I'll have a lot of cleaning up to do here.
Marise, the friendly market trader, is on her way home. We stop for a little chat.
Which reminds me: ever since I heard about Maven Black-Briar earlier today, I've been wondering if the Black-Briars are that mafia family who are rumored to be causing trouble to the Honningbrew Meadery outside Hviterun. I couldn't ask Maul, obviously, but now I ask Marise. She looks harmless enough.
Marise replies she doesn't know, and looks awfully hurry all of a sudden. I get the hint, apologize and wish her a good evening.
It's pretty clear to me now how Bitchen got its current name. (The historical name Riften is used almost only in very official circles.)
I stroll to the palace one more time where I talk to half a dozen people about this and that. Then it's almost 10 in the evening. Highest time to check out that orphanage.
There's not much to say. Grelod is clearly too evil to be left alive for one more day.
[series of 2 pictures you can click through; click on the first picture to make it big, then click again to see the next picture etc.; press Esc to return to the text]
Her assistant Constance seems to be doing all she can for the children. She urges me to leave in order not to the get the children's hopes up; also in order not to accidentally anger Grelod who would then take it out on the children.
I go, to return later. I drop by the stables with my girls and then I figure there's just about enough time to go to that place west of the city to fetch the Royal Moonstone Ingot which Mr. M has left for Reginald. It's not far from a house where M suspects bandits may live, but I sneak closer, find the hiding place under the pier and get the ingot without being noticed by anyone, while my followers are spread out keeping watch. A little after midnight, we're back in the city.
I have some chats at the inn. Bolli, the owner of the fishery, asks me to deliver a letter to the city of Morpork in the western end of Skyrim. I ask him to show me on the map where it is, but he says he can't. Evidently he has never used a map in his life.
When he has left, an Imperial man named Marcurio sits down at my table and insists on buying me a drink. I really don't want to get drunk right now, but he is so persuasive I end up thinking that just one drink won't be that bad. Marcurio informs me he's a sellsword and he'd be happy to accompany me on my adventures and protect me, but the way he says it it's rather evident he'd like to start our eventual cooperation with an adventure upstairs tonight.
I finally succeed in explaining to him that if he lays any value on doing anything with me in the future, work or otherwise, he has to leave me alone now and even forget he saw me tonight. Then I stand up and leave the inn, having, fortunately, finished only about a half of whichever local brew Marcurio had brought me, so my head still feels clear.
It's half past 1 in the night as I sneak into the orphanage. Everyone is sleeping. I kill Grelod without an effort, but somehow she makes a noise with her very last breath. Maybe I'm not entirely sober after all. At any rate, everybody wake up and run into her room. Constance begs me not to hurt the children – as if I would. I waste no time getting away from there.
It seems that the guards haven't noticed anything. Hopefully Constance and the children won't tell them either. I join my followers and we go to the inn to get a good night's sleep. Fortunately, Marcurio is no longer in the taproom when we arrive.
next awakening
