———————————————
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.
———————————————
previous day
4-201-12-03 10:35
a tent, Pale Imperial Camp, The Pale, Skyrim
I'm feeling great. It's light outside, although there's barely a clear spot in the cloudy sky.
Wading through the thick snow on our way to Dånstar, we pass by some bandits at some distance who seem to be excited to see us, but they can't be bothered with this snow.
In Dånstar, I'm happy to see the Khajiit trader Ahkari with her two assistants. I admire her almost black face with lighter gray on the sides.
It's early enough, so I can go through all the traders in town and do some mining as well, and Lydia has time to go on a patrol or something with her boyfriend. One of the miners named Gjak seems quite likeable in his unsophisticated way. I can't make up my mind if I should seduce him or use the opportunity to reach Winterhold in daylight. Or maybe try to get through that mysterious Black Door north of the town which the locals say is very bad and dangerous?
I decide to stick to my plan and proceed to Winterhold. There are two possible routes.
We could take the road (yellow arrow on the map) and spend the night in the Nightgate Inn (green dot), but the problem is it's almost three times longer than the direct way along the northern coast (blue arrow). The downside of the shorter path is that there's nowhere to spend the night and the terrain is so bad you don't travel there in darkness if you can avoid it.
After some councel with Jenassa and Mikki, I decide we'll head for Winterhold along the coast without delay. That is after we've found Lydia and then spent some time admiring a group of lovely horkers having fun. We see many more horkers along the coast. There are also bears whom we won't bother to fight. We just run past. The only time I make a stop is when a bear is attacking a horker.
We kill the bear and move on.
Once again, I look at this island and wonder what's that structure,
but I'm not yet curious enough to swim over and find out.
but I'm not yet curious enough to swim over and find out.
A little more than halfway to Winterhold, between Hob's Fall Cave and Saarthal, I stop when I suddenly hear some weird rumbling, or it could be an unusually low-pitched roar. We look very carefully in every direction, but we can't see anything stirring anywhere. We run on. A little later, we see a dragon north of us. That weird noise might have been the echo of his roaring between the mountains. I tell the girls to just go on running without slowing down. Let the dragon come to us if he wants to.
He doesn't. Soon we arrive on the coast north of Winterhold and spend some time looking for the way uphill and arrive in the town well before dark.
Now, my instinct tells me strongly that there'll be some serious trouble later today and I ought to go and report to Savos Aren as soon as I can. Yet, I can't help going to the inn first and then shopping. I won't let my followers go, though. I instruct them to be on the lookout all the time. They sense my nervousness, but they don't ask what it's about, and if they would, I couldn't explain anyway.
We go to the College and check out the vendors as well as the gossip.
Master Tolfdir tells me he has misplaced his alembic somewhere and he would be very grateful if I found it. I don't even know what an alembic is. Mikki informs me it's that thing you do alchemy with. Whatever, I can't think of that now. I'm getting increasingly nervous. When I run into Onmund who tries to chat me up, I finally realize I've been walking through dormitories and striking up meaningless conversations merely in order to postpone my meeting with Savos. Such attitude won't do, I tell myself. I must face whatever horrors may be awaiting me, and, come to think of it, there hasn't even been anything out of the ordinary so far. Everything is peaceful. Possibly I'm being anxious for no reason at all.
I have to go and find Savos. He may be in his quarters. So the girls and I just walk across the courtyard towards the entrance of the study hall, each one of us very much alert in spite of the lack of any signs of danger.
In the foyer from which staircases lead to the library and to the Arch-Mage's quarters, I meet Savos and Mirabelle. The path to the study hall (where, as you may remember, the Eye of Magnus is) is blocked by a somewhat frightening greenish-blue glow.
The Arch-Mage suspects Ancano is doing something in there and we need to get through the barrier and I should help. I'm not quite sure what it is I'm supposed to do, but Savos and Mirabelle succeed in shrinking the forcefield, so we can run in. Indeed, there is Ancano doing something.
I shoot a few arrows, but they fail to damage him. Savos shouts to Ancano to stop, without any result. Then Savos tries to cast a spell. It results in something like an explosion. I'm hurled out of the hall into the foyer.
When I come to, I see Mirabelle sitting on the floor. She wants me to go and find the Arch-Mage. I'm worried about her, but she insists she's fine, she just needs to catch her breath.
Very well. I stand up. My followers appear, panting and shaken. We go out into the yard. A group of greatly confused people has gathered there. Tolfdir tells me Savos Aren is dead. Keeping the crowd away, he asks me what happened inside. I tell him we must go and help Mirabelle. He promises he'll take care of her, but right now I am to go with Faralda, our most competent Destruction mage, because something utterly horrible is attacking the town below us.
Gosh. That's the last thing we need – another excuse for the townspeole to suspect the mages of playing with dark forces!
Me and my followers run after Faralda. I can see from the high bridge that there are some glowing blue things flying around. I try to ask Faralda if she knows more about what we're up against, but she acts like she's not hearing me. So all I can do is rush down the stairs after her.
There's a massive fight going on – guards, some workers, even horses are in utter panic, standing up on their hind legs and trying to kick with their front legs. Of course the poor animals don't stand a chance against those magical creatures. They are basically like icewraiths, except that they seem bigger and, as I said, glow in blue. Lucky it's dark so they're clearly visible – for what good it is with them flying so fast that they're virtually impossible to hit.
I grab my bow and start shooting. There's nothing else to do. I'm very worried about hitting people who decidedly don't glow in darkness. Horses are at least so big that they're difficult to overlook, but humans are impossible to see from distance. Yet, I have to take the risk. I can't wait until the sunrise, can I?
So, for the next I've-no-idea-how-much-time, I can think of nothing except running around with those blue things swishing back and forth all around me, and firing arrows of which at best one of six hits. I find out that the things are not only hard to hit – they're really tough to kill too. So is, fortunately, Lydia whom I hit once by accident.
When they're all dead and my followers are all alive, I see that approximately an hour and a half has passed, and I'm almost out of arrows. But only almost. Most amazingly, I went through all of this without taking any damage myself. It's more than I can say about those unfortunate horses. I'm not going to do a body count in the darkness, but at least there are two town guards nearby walking on their own two feet. Me, I need to hurry back to the College to see if Mirabelle is all right... and, well, how's the general situation near that greenish-blue energy bubble. (No, Jenassa, you may not leave yet. We don't know what the situation is like up there. Shame on you!)
Mirabelle is fine, more or less. She tells me the College mages are unable to defeat Ancano and his forcefield. I'm to hurry and find the Staff of Magnus . You may remember that the Cyrodiilian mage I met in Mzulft believed strongly it would be in Labyrinthian.
Mirabelle gives me an amulet that belonged to the late Savos Aren, just in case. She doesn't know what it does, but Savos has told her he got it from Labyrinthian.
Well, I certainly won't be going anywhere tonight. I'm exhausted. Not too exhausted to climb the stairs up to the library, though. (Before that, I let Jenassa go, after having admonished her not to act like that again. I haven't forgotten she's got a boyfriend and I wouldn't keep her from being with him just out of meanness.)
"Did you see how Faralda looked at you?" asks Lydia as we walk up the stairs.
"Um... I didn't, really, to be honest. But she seemed very upset because of the trouble at the College."
"No, it was not that. She was angry with you. It was not just her grumpiness on the bridge. I noticed during the battle how she was aiming her staff at your back. The moment she saw me, she pointed the staff elsewhere. I didn't leave her out of my sight since then."
That's weird. I don't recall ever having had any conflict with Faralda.
Up in the library tower, I'm greeted like a hero. Ertzebet doesn't say anything apart from the usual hello, but I can see the fascination in her face. So I take a deep breath and step up to her and look into her green eyes and put my hand gently onto her upper arm and ask if she would like to come to my house with me.
She would.
I whisper to Lydia to run ahead and tell my housecarl Brynjarr to make himself scarce. Ertzebet is shy enough as it is. She doesn't need to see a man walk out potentially guessing what we're up to.
Her body is of much lighter color than her face. How did she manage to get so tanned in this snowy place? But that's not the point. The point is, when I lick her down there, the modest quiet girl turns into a bomb of passion. She's so eager, so frantic that I even find it a little disturbing. She really needs a boyfriend. But I'm not going to tell her that. Not tonight.
next awakening
return to the table of contents
