Always Lost, Always Hopeful (73) On Big Stage without Audience

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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






4-201-10-29 04:42
Jauffre's Rooms, The Ratarseway, Sancre Tor, Cyrodiil


I've slept well, but I'm no less disdainful of this appalling dump. I'm not going to make the slightest effort to find their stupid four keys or six journals or seven sacred spittoons. I'll go on exploring until I'm completely lost and then Bardslayer will help me out. I know he hates shitholes like this just as I do. And a shithole this location is. A grim, drab, dreary, wretched shithole. A network of dunghills that sucks everything positive out of you.

Wait, I hear my inner voice say. Are you suggesting this place is worse than Miraak's horrorworld?

Without the tentacle monsters, it'd be pretty close, I reply. Those Black Book worlds at least looked kind of curious in their horrid way. The Ratarseway is just a huge system of common dungeons without anything even remotely interesting.

Enough of the whining, Laura. Better get a move on. You know that if you give your best and still fail, Bardslayer will help you out. Most people aren't that fortunate.

So I explore the other rooms and kill a few more hostile human ghosts.

I find so much loot that I have to leave less valuable items behind. That's the only good thing that can be said about the Ratarseway – there are many unusual items lying around places.

The task of finding the four keys  turns out trivial. Those ghosts killed by me carry one each. With the four keys, I get through the last door and end up in a room with two huge sarcophages.

That wooden grating is impossible to open, so Bardslayer helps me through. (Yes, there's a switch on the ceiling visible in this picture. I noticed it months later.) Then I reach a portal to the Imperial City Prison. Now we're getting somewhere! Imperial City is, if I'm not greatly mistaken, the capital of our Empire. I'd be most fascinated to see it.

The portal takes me into a prison cell. There's a white flash and I witness a mute scene with some people glowing like ghosts in blackish light-blue.

I realize it must be a flashback of something that has happened in the past. Those ghostly people walk back and forth and finally open a passage in the stone wall and leave the prison. There's another white flash and I'm back in the reality. My cell door is now open, but there's no opening in the wall. In one of the other cells, there's a fight on between someone hostile and someone friendly. Before I can begin to pick the lock, the celldoor is opened by a thalmor who attacks me. I kill him after a not-too-tough fight, and enter the cell. There are two naked men chained to walls. One appears to have been tortured rather badly. Neither one would talk to me.

In another cell, there are two naked women in a similar state. While looking for a way to free the prisoners, I run into another thalmor and kill him without any difficulty. In one of the other cells, I find the skeleton of someone called Valen Dreth. Something tells me he wants his remains to be buried in Falkert, so I take them with me.

I can't find a way to do anything for the prisoners, so I'll just have to leave them here.

I must have picked this up from those thalmors.
I dread to imagine what they use it for.

Unfortunately, the door that leads out can't be opened in any way, and neither can the wall of my cell where the secret passage in my vision was. However, I notice I have picked up a spellbook titled "Ancient Vision". Spellbooks work in such a way that when you read the book, it is destroyed and you acquire the ability to cast the spell whenever you want to (as long as you have enough magicka). This spell Ancient Vision  is unknown to me. The book says it's supposed to make me able to "see the ancient past".

I learn the spell, stand in front of where the secret passage was and cast the spell. A strange purple glow appears, everything goes kind of faint and the wall opens. I go through and a few seconds later it closes behind me. I proceed along the passage until I reach a dead end. After some confusion, I realize I have to use the spell again. Another passage opens for a few seconds. Going on like that, I reach a really big cavern.

I descend to the bottom of the cavern, explore it and find some really cool loot but no way out. Finally I remember about the spell again. Its casting materializes bridges that lead onto that floating island and from it to the other end. I reach what looks like the inside of a citadel. There's a wide spiral staircase like in many citadels in Skyrim, as well as passages in the basement just like any old basement in Skyrim. Seriously, the place looks like created by a Skyrim fortress interior designer with no imagination and very much spare time. Apart from the kind of loot you usually find in dungeons, there is nothing worth mentioning. Neither is there any sign of any kind of life.

Having explored everything (I believe), I end up in front of a grating, behind which is a statue of a human and a dog.

I use my new spell again and get through the grating. The statue can be activated in order to reach a place called Umbra. I do it and find myself in a very large amphitheater. You know, a large round arena with several levels of stone seats all around it. There's a man and a woman who attack me. They're quite weak. After a few blows, a man starts to beg for mercy. No, asshole, it's too late for that now. You attacked me without any provocation and I was on my last nerve even before you did. There'll be no mercy. He runs quite fast and I have to chase him across the arena, but finally I get him. The woman looks like she can't make up her mind if she ought to attack me or try to look like she's just passing by. I cut her down too.

I hear clanking from somewhere above me. I ascend the stairs to the spectator seats and find a blacksmith at work at his forge. He's not hostile, but he won't talk to me either.

I walk around the place, looking everywhere.

There is no exit. My spell does nothing. Now I'm completely lost and clueless. Bardslayer agrees I've done everything in my power, and teleports me (as well as my followers) to Falkert.

I can barely sit down before that dork Wilaar approaches and informs me triumphantly that he has finally found a shortcut through the mountains. That really the last thing I was missing. I cut him short rather rudely and leave the inn.

You have no idea what a delight it is to walk on a street in a human settlement and look at the houses while the first drops of the beginning rain are falling down on me.

I set to work on our loot. At least my unadventure in The Ratarseway has given me some really useful items. Among other things, we all get to wear those pretty Glass Helmets now.

By the time I'm done crafting, it's dark and the shops have closed. I remember that Valen Dreth dude. I go to the cemetery and bury his bones. After I've done it, his ghost appears for a minute to thank me and to give me a ring that is supposed to "light my way". I'm not sure what exactly it means, but thanks. Rest in peace, Valen Dreth, whoever you were.

I walk around the town and chat with several people.

Believe me, there are places much worse.

I wouldn't mind some sex, but I can't find any man that would attract my fancy. Come to think of it, I've been sleeping around in this town so much that maybe I should exercise some caution. So I just return to the inn and go to sleep.



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