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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
4-201-10-20 04:13
Proudspire Manor, Solitud, Haafingar, Skyrim
After a bath, we have a pray in the temple. Then we go to the harbor. I have decided that we shall travel to Doltania. I want a completely new kind of adventure.
We board the flying ship and depart. To my disappointment, it's very cold and windy high in the air, so we have to remain inside the ship and there are no windows. After a surprisingly short flight, we ascend to the deck and find ourselves docked next to an extremely high weirdly-shaped tower.
A walkway leads to a gate. A guard bids us welcome to the lower docks . Lower?? This must be a mistake. We are in the height of hundreds of meters. The ground and houses and the ocean can be seen far below us.
Whatever. We enter the town. The architecture is very different from Skyrim. Everything is made of stone and very clean and the walls are straight and smooth. There are not many people about. We enter a huge but rather empty palace where we meet Mayor Joffred. He tells us he administers this town, but the actual ruler is a Grand Magister who resides in a place called "the Mansa". Doltania used to be ruled by a Merchant Council, but the Arch-Mage of the academy seized power, supported by the Marshal of the guards.
A page from what appears to be a periodical summary of the citizens' concerns.
The girls and I walk around and indeed end up in the so-called upper town, connected to this lower town by an elevator. The lower town is called Maedlesburg and the upper town is called Hollensburg. In the upper town, there are even fewer people about.
Frankly, Doltania is giving me a bad claustrophobia even though it's located in open air on either extremely high towers or floating islands. The problem is that everything consists of narrow passages. There are very few places where you could, say, take three steps to the side without either running into a wall or stepping over the edge. The latter would mean falling into a canal (if you're lucky) or to your death. It's a real nightmare. Even though we are high in the air, all you can see are walls of nearby houses or distant mazes similar to the one in which you currently are. How they managed to build like that is beyond me, but the fact is that you ought to have spectacular views but instead you feel more cramped than in most dungeons.
Nothing special, just another dead end in a narrow space.
That said, there are some places with a beautiful view:
Walking around on empty narrow streets of Hollensburg, I'm delighted to actually see a small square – without a living soul in sight. We enter a building that's called The Mansa. There we meet the ruler, a tall haughty man Frederick Montforth. He asks us to get a Dwemer soulstone from an old cavern. I promise to do it. I ask innocently if he became the ruler only recently. He says he did seize power because Doltania used to be ruled by a council of merchants. He makes it sound like a ludicrous perversity. In his own words, the merchants' astoundingly gross ignorance, and the laws they had passed, were preventing him from reaching great magical goals about which he doesn't wish to talk in more detail. For that matter, I don't care to hear more. We are not going to do his quest. I wouldn't help that raving megalomaniac reach the toilet, let alone any great goals. The sooner that man is ousted from power, the better.
We also drop by Arcane Academy and observe acolytes doing scary-looking things in the midst of horrible-looking weird items. A guard barracks is a comfortingly mundane sight after that. There are many guards of various ranks, including a Marshal Trident Hewel. He must be the man who helped Montforth gain power.
"Come to my office!" he orders.
It's not clear if he means all of us or not. I tell the girls to take a walk, and follow the Marshal alone. Apparently he is fine with this.
I chance a smile and he smiles back for an instant. Then he gets serious and demands to know who I am and what I'm doing here. I tell him demurely I'm just an adventurer from Skyrim and I came here because I saw a flying ship in the Solitud harbor and got curious.
Trident looks so powerful – which is not surprising, given that he was the muscle behind the recent coup. I struggle to not eye the lower part of his body.
"We are not done yet," he says sternly when he apparently has run out of questions. "Meet me at 18:00 sharp in The Pickled Pike inn."
"Yes, Mylord," I reply with my most seductive voice.
The Marshal turns his back. I am sure he is suppressing a smile.
I return to the lower town. At this hour, there are quite many people on the streets, including many traders. Unfortunately, I haven't got much to sell. There's a kind of a hostel, but it's not the inn I need to find. In one of the apartments, I meet an Argonian named Tony. He has a magical orb that can show many places in the past. He talks a bit weirdly, but seems harmless and maybe even kind of cool. He invites me cordially to drop by later. I'm curious how did an Argonian end up with the name Tony, but I'll leave that question for our next meeting. Right now, I want to see more of the town, as well as find that inn by 6 o'clock.
After a brief visit to a beautiful alchemy shop (picture above), I talk to a woman Francesca who is a kind of spokeswoman for the merchants' guild. She is very keen on buying certain wares from Skyrim.
Half an hour before the appointed time, I find The Pickled Pike. Among the guests is a man Billy Barfly. He looks nothing like his namesake the giant east of Darkwater. He tells me a Lord Tallstar has been executed and his corpse is hanging in The Mansa, and he had a glass eye. If I would bring that eye to Billy, he'd pay me 250 septims. Right. I didn't see any corpse when I was up there, but I can go and give it another look. Maybe.
I go up the stairs. In the biggest guest room is a woman Dierdre who looks very much like a prostitute. She's not interested in talking to me. Finding no sign of Trident anywhere, I return downstairs and wait.
Trident walks in at half past six. We go into another room upstairs. I play shy and inexperienced. I have the feeling Trident would like it. After some time, I forget myself and get louder and then he comes to soon. I don't mind. It was great fun regardless. And it can be very useful to be close to such a powerful man, especially when I'm really going to help the merchants oust the "Grand Magister". Or was it "Great"? How about "Gross Magister"?
With a smile still on my face, I go out to the street. The sun has set already. I meet up with my followers. They have learned that visitors are rare in Doltania, yet the people are surprisingly well informed about the goings-on in Skyrim.
One guard, and not just a guard but a Lieutenant, tries to extort money form us, ostensibly a fee required from all new visitors. We tell him we'll have to go and get the money from our inn, and he leaves us alone for the time being. Then a priest asks us to kill some undead in a crypt. We'd love to do it if we had any idea where the crypt is, but the priest returns to his chores before we have a chance to ask.
We walk around some more and then return to the inn to get some sleep.
I'm having thoughts of returning to Skyrim tomorrow. I feel I'll go insane if I don't get into an open space soon, even if it's just snow and ice. Quite frankly, I'm no longer surprised that the ship ride from Solitud to Maedlesburg is free.
next awakening
