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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
4-201-12-05 05:36
Calixto's House of Curiosities, Windhelm, Eastmarch, Skyrim
After a bath and a breakfast, the girls and I walk to the harbor and get on the ship to Folkvangr.
The ocean is nothing special. Just a lot of water. But then we begin to see land in the distance.
[series of 6 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]
We disembark near a large village on this seemingly not very big island. What baffles me is that it's still morning when we arrive. Are they using some kind of magic that makes the time stop while the ship is moving? If so, what purpose might it serve? Or is the time here different from the Skyrim time? I mean, Nirn is round and circles the Sun, as I assume, so in different parts of the world the sun should rise at different times and so the clocktime would logically be different too. Otherwise, in some part of the world people would have to get up at, say, 17:00 every day and go to sleep at about 10:00, which would be rather confusing.
Well, whatever. This is too complicated and it's pointless to wonder about such abstract matters when the time is obviously getting on seven in the morning and it's relatively warm and not raining and we have places to discover and people to get friends with.
I knock on the door of a farmhouse and peek inside. There's no one there. Nearby are some fields. On them are two women who are too busy with work to chat.
Beyond the fields is nothing but a river flowing past rocky mountains (see picture above), so we turn back, pass by the farmhouse and go in the other direction where we can see a defense wall and more houses, as well as a couple of horses and a friendly guard. (Well, the horses aren't exactly furious either.)
We enter a house of an elven woman Juniper. She's busy with her household duties, assisted by a little girl. We exit again and go from house to house. Almost everyone is nice, but no one is interested in conversation, not even at the inn.
There are few people about, because everybody is working.
There doesn't seem to be a shop as such, but we can trade with the blacksmith Hrothgi:
The most curious place is Folkvangr Bed and Breakfast. No one is offering food or lodging there, although there are some beds as well as two grim-looking and untalkative men. The curious part is a small room with shackles attached to the wall. I wonder if you could hire that room to play with someone. Or is it simply the local version of a prison? I can imagine that being a close-knit community, they will put an offender in there and ask him to stay there (the door doesn't have a lock), but when he won't sit tight, they shackle him to the wall. Well, I don't know. The two men, as I said, don't seem to be keen to answer any questions, and besides, judging by their looks, I maybe had better not put thoughts into their heads.
The stables look kind of cute here.
Outside the village, we find a tent with a couple of Khajiits. They're not buying or selling anything. On top of a hill at some distance is a small tower or citadel. We head that way, as there's really nowhere else to go. We find a welcome sign of sorts:
Then we find a farm called Crossroads. Something is burning next to the ruins of a small wooden house. There are three people inside.
I step over the threshold and say hello. They turn around and reach for their weapons. Lulled by the laid-back mood on this island, I had completely forgotten that people can be dangerous as well. I jump out the doorway lightning-fast, and run away. At some 30–40 meters' distance, I turn around and grab my bow. I'm glad to notice my followers had enough sense to do the same (or at least I'm not seeing them near the ruin). The bandits are not hard to kill, but they're good at hiding. We finally get them all, as well as one poison spider, but I damn near take a shot at Lydia. That's because, as I said, I have lost sight of my followers and the chasing of the bandits takes some time, and when I notice what looks like a spider at a distance too far for my Sense of Smell power, I ready my bow, but then the spider begins to move in a weird manner, and I go closer to get a better shot at it, and then I notice there's a human too and at the last moment I recognize a familiar-looking helmet. It's Lydia who happened to be near the spider and killed it.
Eventually Jenassa and Mikki turn up alive and well too. They were hunting down more bandits who were in the vicinity.
So this was a little messy, but we got away with a scare. Those bandits seem to have been a bad lot. Looks like they burned down the farm and cruelly killed the inhabitants, putting several dead bodies on display here and there.
Whenever close to the shore, we've been seeing boats and ships. Now we are approaching a really large ship.
I can't see if there's anyone on board, so we swim closer to find out. Only Mikki insists on staying on the shore – as a lookout, as she puts it. I don't object, because it's in fact a good idea.
We discover neither any signs of life on the ship nor any way to climb aboard, so we have to return to the shore none the wiser.
Now, how do we get to that elusive citadel (in the center of the picture above)? There are hills and mountains everywhere, and the paths and stairs and bridges lead us where their creators intended, which is not quite the same as where we would like to go. We end up discovering a shrine of Talos near what seems to be the highest mountaintop of this island – after having killed half a dozen people who, unfortunately, thought it a good idea to attack us.
Finally we reach that citadel, but it doesn't have an entrance we could find. And that seems to be all there is to see on this island.
Walking downhill to the village, I'm a little disappointed with this lack of adventure in Folkvangr. On second thought, I feel happy that the villagers can peacefully lead their productive lives in an agreeable climate among nice sights. (Lydia reminds me they had a farm burned down, so it's not all that peaceful. She's right, of course. I'm sorry.)
As to us, we'll take the ship back to Windhelm this evening. There's clearly nothing to do here other than perhaps take a break from all the hassle in the big bad world occasionally.
Dusk is falling right now and we're told we'll arrive in Windhelm in the morning and we'll be able to sleep on the ship. So my hypothesis about the different clocktimes was correct – when you travel from Windhelm to Folkvangr, you turn the clock back which makes it appear as if you've arrived in almost no time at all, and when you return, you turn the clock forward which makes it seem your trip lasted very long. Except, of course, that I don't have a clock to turn. I always know what time it is. It's a magical ability most people have.
And here's the ship and we can embark. Goodbye for now, Folkvangr!
next awakening
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