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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
4-201-10-30 04:25
Dead Man's Drink, Falkert, Falkreath, Skyrim
It's much too early for the shops. Should I make love to Lydia while waiting? Or should we just go to Aurora?
On the one hand, I have a lot of stuff to sell, so I ought to make use of all the merchants I can find – that is, wait for the shops in Falkert to open. On the other hand, I have so much money that I really shouldn't sweat the loot. That's why we'd better travel to Aurora right away. Hopefully I can find my boyfriend Lorm and make love to him. Maybe this is a good time to hire him as my follower, so I'd have a man at hand anytime I needed one? I could let Jordis go. Or should I keep Jordis and let Jenassa go? Jenassa is a bit too patronizing at times while Jordis is a little too sullen.
After giving it some more thought, I decide that first we'll go to Sunderstone Gorge northwest of Northkeep to find the priest Runil's journal. It shouldn't take long and by the time we'll be done, the shops in nearby settlements will be open for sure.
In light rain, we run eventlessly to Northkeep and then further northwest to the western side of a mountain range that goes from south to north. Sunderstone Gorge is not hard to find. Technically the sun has risen by the time we reach the cave opening, but it's cloudy and raining heavily.
We enter the cave and explore a system of passages and caverns.
There are mages and a few walking skeletons and one skeever. I bungle this mission rather badly. At one point, I manage to end up in a melee fight against two skeletons in a place too narrow for my followers to help me. In another place, I sense from afar an enemy who is lying down, apparently asleep. I sneak closer most carefully, forgetting to use Sense of Smell again. In the less-than-perfect light, I see two other mages when I'm only a few meters away from them. They are standing and very much awake. Needless to say, they see me too, and while we're busy fighting them, the sleeper wakes up and joins the fight. There's a fourth one who had also been sleeping. I see her fall down from something cast by a follower of mine, so I focus on taking out the other three. When that is done, I sigh with relief and begin to look around. Suddenly I notice I'm taking damage again. That fourth mage is casting fire spells at me. I realize she was not dead, merely paralyzed. Inadmissible laxness on my part!
This experience confirms the suspicion I've been having – paralyzing is not a good idea. Recently, I gave Lydia a Staff of Paralysis , just for experiment's sake. I'd better give her one of the frost damage staffs again. Paralyzing makes the enemy completely incapable to fight, but only for a short time. Paralyzed enemies are easy to overlook when you're not careful, as well as much harder to hit from a distance compared to when they're standing upright.
This is the room. Those white splotches are traces of the magic effect called Ice Storm created by Jenassa and Jordis's staffs.
Not a very good angle, I admit, but I was too upset after that messy battle to think about taking a good picture.
Not a very good angle, I admit, but I was too upset after that messy battle to think about taking a good picture.
In addition to all the above, I keep walking into traps throughout the mission, and after we've killed all the enemies, we spend considerable time looking for a way to their storage room where Runil's journal is.
In the back, up the stairs on the right, is a wall with a dragon shout. (See the next picture.)
The only upside is that the enemies were not too strong. Had I come here a month ago, I would've become cat food.
We didn't kill those.
After I've acquired the dragon shout from the wall, we go to sell stuff in Northkeep, Aurora and Little Vivec.
Northkeep
We stop at the Half-Moon Mill to say hello to Hert. I mention the strange incident in Nothkeep three days ago when two Imperial soldiers attacked the town guards and were killed.
Hert has heard it told that an imp got very drunk at the inn some time earlier, harassed a woman and got beaten up by the locals. Three days ago, he returned with four fellow soldier to take revenge, but the guards cut him and one of his friends down and the others escaped.
Good gracious! No wonder nobody in the town wanted to tell me about it.
We thank Hert for the gossip and move on.
Little Vivec (left) and Aurora (right)
They shopkeepers have much too little money. The difficulty of getting rid of loot is becoming a real annoyance. Then again, as I pointed out earlier (and keep forgetting, as shopping is kind of in my blood), I don't need so much money anyway. So I'd better learn to not worry about it. What annoys me more is that I can't find Lorm in Aurora. People tell me he's alive and well, just traveling somewhere. This is the second time he's not there. What's worse, I find out he has a house of his own in the village. Why then did we make love at the inn? Why didn't he invite me to his house? Does he have a woman? I don't dare ask the villagers. I'm beginning to doubt if I even want Lorm so badly.
To put him out of my mind, I go to nearby Little Vivec to check out that playboy twin Taren. He turns out to be a boring jerk, as well as completely uninterested in me. I hate him.
We'll now go to Falkert and give Runil his journal. Then I'll have wrapped up everything in this region and won't need to return anytime soon. We'll head east and probably spend the night in the ruins of Helgen. Tomorrow we'll reach Ivarsted and hopefully High Hrothgar.
I've told you the mountains around High Hrothgar (red dot) are impossible to climb
except from the direction of Ivarsted. If you're coming from the west, you have to either
take the Hviterun – Valtheim Towers – Fort Amol – Darkwater highway (yellow arrow)
or the pass through the mountains east of Helgen (green arrows). The latter is where we'll be going right now.
except from the direction of Ivarsted. If you're coming from the west, you have to either
take the Hviterun – Valtheim Towers – Fort Amol – Darkwater highway (yellow arrow)
or the pass through the mountains east of Helgen (green arrows). The latter is where we'll be going right now.
The weather is joyless – without rain, but cloudy. I sell what I can in Falkert and give Runil his diary. I must say he looks ghastly. I mean, not because of the diary. He's just very old. But I don't suppose there's anything that can be done about it.
Now we run east. That place with a wooden bridge over the road has been occupied by new bandits, but only two of them, so they aren't able to give us any trouble. We also run into bandits in one of those "abandoned" bandit camps. It's not dark yet by the time we reach Helgen.
It's a sorry sight. I mean, it was just as sorry the last time we were here on our way from Orphan Rock to Falkert, but this time it really strikes home, those destroyed houses, heaps of charred logs, an odd household item lying about here and there.
The ruins essentially divide the village in two parts, and getting from one side to another is very difficult. That's why we need a long time to kill all the bandits (we have to, because they wouldn't let us sleep in peace) and find intact beds.
On the girls' insistence, we also take a look inside the citadel, or what's left of it.
I believe this is the room where Hadvar untied my hands.
We can hear voices of bandits that seem to be quite near. Nevertheless, I give my followers a sign and we exit. We'll sleep outside. No point killing the bandits in the citadel. They haven't done us anything. Or maybe I'm simply scared to be in there.
We lie down on beds in one of the less than totally ruined houses.
This setting brings my thoughts to how it all started. Me and my followers seem to be talking about men and shopping most of the time, but let's switch to politics for a change. How do we feel about the war?
Lydia thinks Skyrim ought to be ruled by Nords and not by Imperials or High Elves, just like, for instance, Morrowind should be ruled by the Dark Elves and not by the Nords. Therefore she hopes the Stormcloaks will win. Disapproving their enmity towards our elven population, she still holds thalmor terror in a Nord country for a much bigger evil.
Jenassa generally favors one world government that would establish law and order, so people could travel safely wherever they liked. Less power for the local rulers means both less incentive and opportunity for petty local wars like our civil war. That's why she's on the Imperials' side. It's not like they like the thalmors' religion police, she points out. As soon as the Empire will have had some time to recover from the war, they'll be bound to kick the thalmors out at the first opportunity.
Jordis is convinced that it's in Skyrim's best interest, militarily and economically, to be a part of the Empire. Apart from which, it's high time for the Nords to take their Empire back from the Imperials. After all, the Empire was established by a Nord, so why should the Imperials rule it in the first place?
For me, the biggest evil are the thalmors. Many Dark Elves like to call the Stormcloaks racist, but they're cosmopolitans compared to the High Elves whose haughty supremacist insolence is mind-boggling. Therefore I'd like the Aldmeri Dominion destroyed and the High Elves taught some manners. At the same time, I completely disapprove the Stormcloaks' xenophobic fanaticism as well as Ulfric Stormcloak's arrogance, cruelty and grossly irresponsible behavior. Skyrim needs the Empire to keep the High Elves at bay, that I am certain of. We can't afford any Morrowind-style petty bickering among ourselves. By killing Torygg and starting a war he can't win, the brat Ulfric is endangering the whole humankind.
The morale of all this is that in spite of everything, Lydia, Jenassa, Jordis and I are still best friends and that is more important than all the politics in the world.
Good night!
next awakening
