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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
4-201-12-07 19:15
Uthgerd's House, Hviterun, Whiterun, Skyrim
The sun has gone down by now and the weather has turned pleasantly cool. Filled with energy, I hurry to the palace. Farengar seems to have taken my hint from earlier. He keeps hanging around me while I'm doing alchemy until I ask him to let me work and promise I'll drop by later.
Then I go to Adrianne's smithy. She has finished working for today and I have the facilities all to myself. The marketplace has closed for the night as well. Lucia and Mila find me and keep me company and answer eagerly my questions about what this or that citizen has been up to in the meantime. When I send them home (because it's long past children's bedtime) and return to the palace to do my enchanting, Farengar has already gone to sleep.
The work takes me several hours, because enchanting requires absolute attention to get every detail right, and I have but little experience. When I'm ready at last, I enter Farengar's bedroom where I undress quietly and slip under the blanket. I hope I'm not acting too sluttily. It occurs to me that technically I shouldn't worry, because I'm higher-ranking than him. Then again, in practice a court wizard usually wields more prestige and influence than a thane. And actually, when you're naked, societal position becomes meaningless. All that matters is one of you has a penis and strong muscles and the other one has soft, smooth and beautiful body parts. At any rate, Farengar and I have worked together so much that we're so familiar with each other that he shouldn't be too shocked at my climbing into his bed like this.
My worry proves groundless. Of course Farengar won't fail to grab the opportunity. Still, I'm glad it's completely dark, because if we could see each other's facial expressions, the situation might become a little awkward. Now it's just the things we feel with our hands and such, so it's easier to let ourselves go.
I get my orgasm, but by the time we're finished, it's already getting light and Farengar realizes there's no point for him to go back to sleep. He's annoyed that I took so long coming to him and thus deprived him of his rest. I find it rather amusing, but I apologize meekly and hurry to take my leave.
I relax in the luxurious bath at the palace which I leave only when it's the shops' opening time. Lucia comes running and walks with me and now it's her turn to ask me many questions about what I've been doing while away from the city. I'm delighted to be with her and tell her things.
I won't fail to pick up the latest gossip from the innkeepers either:
Wow. I make a surprised face and refrain from comments.
Then I summon my followers. Contrary to my earlier intention, I don't ask Jenassa where she slept last night. She'll tell me if she wants to. However, Lydia whispers to me that Jordis let Mikael seduce her last night.
We all hug Lucia goodbye and walk towards the eastern city gate. "How was it last night?" I ask Jordis casually when the four of us are out of any outsiders' earshot.
She looks at me. I keep a perfectly serious face. Then she looks at Lydia, seemingly not quite sure if she ought to be cross. Lydia looks at her with an expression that can mean "Well, you wouldn't tell her yourself," or maybe "Well, she was bound to find out eventually." Then Jordis shrugs and says: "Nothing special. He's a man of big words but other than that... I guess I was drunk."
Yeah. Or maybe you were curious.
We exit the city and run across the nice plains towards the mountains in the north and west. More to the west this time. I was quite astonished yesterday to hear there's supposed to be a town where I used to think there's only wilderness. I want to find the place. That's why we're going to explore the area southwest of Labyrinthian today.
First, we discover a camp of giants. We give it a wide berth in order not to disturb them. Further west, there's a fortress which seems to be manned by bandits. Those we leave alone as well, for the time being. Less than ten more minutes running to the west, and we have another defense wall in front of our eyes, this time with houses on the other side.
That must be the place!
There's a farm outside the fortification walls. We walk past it and in through the gate. We learn the town is indeed called Blackmoor.
I like it here. Especially I like a brown-skinned woman called Neida:
But I'm leaving a thorough exploration of Blackmoor for another time. I'm too impatient to get to Labyrinthian. After a quick visit to the general store, I cast one more longing glance at Neida who is wiping the central square with a broom, and we head north, towards the forbidding sight of the high mountains. We find a pass that seems to be leading through.
Having gone over a hill, we reach a snowy valley. Soon there are massive stone constructions ahead.
Jenassa whispers me that there are often snowtrolls in places like these. So we proceed with great caution. Passing under high stone arches, we find ourselves in the midst of robust structures, fortifications and wide staircases.
And snowtrolls. Not many and not too perceptive, fortunately. After getting rid of them, we pass by something called Bromjunaar Sanctuary and then ascend an especially wide staircase leading to a platform with a ghost.
It's a bluish see-through humanoid shape. It doesn't answer my greeting. I look around and suddenly notice there's half a dozen of them. They begin to talk. One of them is the ghost of Savos Aren, the late Arch-Mage of Winterhold College! Apparently unaware of our presence, they discuss something they plan on doing inside Labyrinthian.
They are in disagreement about something, but I can't quite understand what it's about. Then they enter through a big door nearby.
I'm not sure what to make of this. Did Arch-Mage fake his death to come here? Or did he come here as a ghost because he was killed? Or was this a flashback of something that occurred in the past, a vision somehow created like the one I had in the Imperial City Prison? The girls tend towards the last hypothesis, because those ghosts were completely oblivious of us.
At any rate, we were clearly given a hint to enter through that big door.
There's a huge grim stone hall with parts of skeletons lying everywhere. The group of six ghosts is arguing.
I remember I've heard rumors of a group of College students having gone missing. Maybe it's them? I can see one of them is Argonian. (Not that it has any significance, I just noticed the others don't have tails.) There are both male and female voices among them. Clearly Savos is leading them to something of great value (either material or magical), and some of the students are enthusiastic and some are fearful of the dangers expected to lurk in Labyrinthian. One of them says that six College-trained mages are sure to be able to handle it. Then they move on and so do I with my followers.
We go through some passages and then there's a closed grating that can be opened by operating a switch visible nearby. But the switch opens the grating for a few seconds only. So we have to pull the switch and run quickly through, reaching another very big hall. The grating slams shut behind us and ten or more skeletons suddenly rise up in various places.
There's an even larger creature resembling a dragon skeleton in the middle of the hall. The awakening of this undead army gave me a bad fright, but I hope we won't have much trouble defeating them. After all, it's just skeletons.
I make sure I kill the dragon-like thing first. (It's called Skeletal Dragon, as I subsequently learn.) The rest is easy, although it takes some time.
[series of 2 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]
After the battle, we heal ourselves and search the hall for anything valuable. Then we enter the passage at the other end and catch up with the ghosts. They are discussing the recent death of one of them in the hands of something horrible. Some are getting more anxious, urging the others to turn back, some are confident that they can still make it if they just stay alert. They go through another door, and we follow shortly.
I'm now fairly sure we're being shown scenes from the past, because we've seen no signs of anything fighting or having fought against those ghosts.
After a massive door has taken us into another dungeon area called Labyrinthian Chasm, an ethereal voice begins to talk to me – in draugr language at first, and then in the human language. He's under the impression that I am his friend Savos Aren. Wow. The evidence that Savos Aren was up to something not quite compatible with his official status is piling up so fast it's threatening to bury us, pardon me the pun which I realize is rather inappropriate in the circumstances.
We move on killing draugrs, skeletons and dogs. These ones are glowing blue instead of the usual dirt-brown. I mean, they look like made of a thick web of thin lines of magical energy:
They're called "spectral" (as in Spectral Warhound ). In addition to those, we encounter a few common flesh-and-blood trolls here and there. The spectral draugrs are strong, but I like them, because they are easy to distinguish against the dungeon walls. For the privilege of being able to clearly see my enemies, I'm ready to put up with an occasional beating – which is precisely what I'm getting. At one point I'm dangerously battered in a matter of seconds. Fortunately, my girls are right there and I retreat quickly and they finish the draugr off while I heal myself.
By the way... In case you ever happen to be in Labyrinthian – there's a place where you can't see a way forward, and there's that thing that's glowing with frost magic and hurts you when you go near it. I was completely clueless as to how to proceed. I knew there had to be a way forward, but where was it and how to open in? I had to rely on Bardslayer's help on that one. You need to use the Flames spell on that frost thing and after a while a doorway opens. Later, there was a similar place with a magical fire. There I was already able to figure out by myself that I had to use the Frostbite spell to get a doorway to open.
Other than that, all doors in Labyrinthian are findable and openable without much difficulty. Every now and then, we see Savos Aren's ghostly explorer party. Each time they're fewer, and the alive ones are getting increasingly despondent. Yet they figure that moving on should be less dangerous than turning back.
Also that ethereal voice keeps addressing me, although I never reply. By the change in his tune, I'm starting to believe his "my friend" was only a figure of speech and he and Savos weren't in fact friends at all.
When we end up in one very large cavern, the voice seems to have understood I'm not Savos Aren.
Across that very cavern, I can see several things made of blue magic. They're flying around fast, not unlike those Magical Anomalies we had to fight in Winterhold. This time we succeed in shooting them dead from a distance before they can understand where we are and attack us.
This one came the closest. Not close enough to hurt us.
More dungeons, more spectral undead, hour after tedious hour, and then it looks like we're approaching the end:
Seems to me there's no one left but you.
The next door leads to another very large cavern. I can see a sphere of energy maybe 2.5 meters high. Two mages are casting thick energy beams at it.
It's too far to find out if they're friendly or hostile. Remembering all the horrors we've faced today, I won't go closer to find out. We just shoot the mages dead. Then a third mage approaches who scares the living daylights out of me. I can't explain what makes him so frightening, but I know somehow he's our toughest enemy in this location. I quickly take a potion to enhance my Archery skill and begin to shoot poison arrows at him. I'm dismayed, because I can see him sending blue energy beams to somewhere behind me and I can hear my followers scream. I wish he'd attack me instead. Frantically, I keep shooting at him, as do my followers, and finally he's dead. The girls are all alive. And from his corpse, I get the Staff of Magnus we came here for.
That purple heap on the right is all that remained from the boss mage.
The light blue thingy somewhat higher and to the left are the remains of a minor mage.
The orange glow behind it is just fire burning in one of those lighting bowls.
The light blue thingy somewhat higher and to the left are the remains of a minor mage.
The orange glow behind it is just fire burning in one of those lighting bowls.
The girls and I hug each other and laugh happily. It was frightening, but very exciting – even though we're sad about all those students who got killed.
As we walk towards the exit, Savos Aren's ghost shows himself once more. He says he's so sorry, but he had no choice – this was, in his own words, "the only way to make sure that monster never escaped". And now he's going to seal this place and, as I presume, return to his duties as the Arch-Mage of the College.
Come to think of it, maybe we had it easier thanks to Savos Aren. I remember a scene where one of the ghost party asked: "Where's [name I don't remember]? She was right behind me," and another one replied:
Me and my followers, we had no one grabbing us from behind. That could be thanks to Savos Aren having "sealed away" or severely damaged that "monster" he mentioned (who might have been that powerful mage we fought, or someone else). So I guess we have a reason to be very, very grateful to the late Arch-Mage and his helpers for what they did in here during that past fateful journey we got to witness.
As for the present moment, we open a barred door that should lead to the exit. We are surprised to see a High Elf man coming towards us. I'm kind of not in the socializing mood right now and he looks if not outright aggressive then unpleasantly decisive, which is why I reach for my bow and the girls follow my example. (Jenassa is actually faster than me.) The man falls down, pierced by arrows. Estormo was his name and he's not carrying anything written. Soon we reach a door that takes us into the fresh air.
We descend to the ground and check out that Bromjunaar Sanctuary I mentioned earlier. It's just a weird round structure with some garbage here and there. There's no dungeon entrance or anything.
The sun will rise in a couple of hours. The Morthal–Dånstar highway is not far.
That's a street lantern down there.
I feel complete emptiness in my head as well as in my heart. I suggest we'll find a warm and friendly place to have a little rest and discuss our plans. Such as the Morthal inn.
By the time we've run down all those stairs and reached the highway, I've begun to think of skipping Morthal and running straight to Dragonbridge. It'll be no less warm and friendly than Morthal.
Right. We'll do that! I'm a woman of quick decisions.
Lydia is about to say something sarcastic, but thinks better of it when she looks at me. The next moment we both chuckle.
We arrive shortly before the sunrise. I try not to let it show, but the leg from Morthal was really murderous on my... yeah, legs. "The leg from Morthal" was supposed to mean "the portion of our trip between Morthal and here". Well, you get the idea. Never mind my prattle. I'm so tired. Can think of nothing but sleep. I even want to stay the night at the inn, reluctant to disturb Jordis's parents at this hour, but Jordis insists we go to their place. She leads us to a spare bedroom quietly and then goes to sort it out with her mother.
next awakening
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