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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
4-201-12-16 02:28
Oudin's House, Amber Creek, Falskaar
Careful not to wake up Oudin, I tiptoe out and go inform my followers it's time to get going.
That's Oudin's house. My house is the next one to the left.
I have a little longer trip planned for today. First we'll go to the Warmth's Edge Cavern that is in the northeast not very far from here. It's the place where Audmund's cows have been escaping to. I'm not very interested in that quest, but it's rather conveniently in our path, so we can just as well take care of it now. After that, we'll find a passage through the mountains and travel to eastern Falskaar. We've been told approximately where the road is. I'm sure we'll find it.
It's still night, but the sky is clear and the big moon Masser gives enough light to see.
Halfway to that cavern place, we notice a small hut. There are two men, brothers Ulgar and Svegard. I like Ulgar, but speaking seems to be not among his favorite activities. Svegard does the talking for both brothers. He says they're hunters and do some smithing as well and they love to live in the forest. Both of them being young and strong and good-looking, I ask them if they have girlfriends. It would appear that Ulgar is a bit unlucky in this respect, because his sweetheart turned out to be a bandit. And that's apparently the reason he's not too sociable at the moment. As to himself, Svegard says noncommitally, that he hasn't anyone steady, but he'll establish a family sooner or later for sure. Yeah, I can imagine he has no hurry settling down with just one. I thank him for the conversation and we move on.
He is talking about smithing. Rangarr, as you probably remember, is the blacksmith in Amber Creek.
As we approach Warmth's Edge Cavern, we see a cave entrance and a wolf in front of it. I'm reluctant to kill it and thereby risk drawing attention to us, but I can see no way to get past it undetected. So I kill it and fortunately there are no mages lurking nearby. There are some in the caves, both men and women, and I'm really sad I have to kill them. I don't want to believe they're such bad people, even though all the evidence so far suggests they are.
When there are no more enemies left, I look at the carnage and I think it's quite incredible how Audmund came repeatedly to this place to bring his cows back home and survived.
Lydia says she's baffled by something else. Amber Creek lies almost on the direct line between here and Audmund's Farm. When the cows came here, they must have crossed the bridge there. How come the guards didn't see them?
Whatever. Maybe they swam. We search the rest of the dungeon and find yet another crystal. In one of the caves is a cow who starts walking when I pat her and tell her to go home. It's the same type of hairy cow that is common in Skyrim:
She's so cute!
We go to the south-southeast now until we find a road. It leads us to the east between the mountains. I suppose this is the road to Borvald Helena mentioned. I've no idea how far it might be to Borvald, but we'll be looking for traces of Helena's shipment on the roadsides.
Eventually, we notice a horsecart with dead bodies all around it, one of which is still alive as we realize while approaching carefully. I meant to say, among the corpses is a man who's not dead yet. It's a heavily wounded guard. He says they were attacked by the bandits lead by a certain Jarrik the Crusher. They killed everyone and he was spared only because the robbers mistakenly thought he was dead.
We cure the guard as well as we can and help him back onto his feet. He's shaky, but he'll be all right soon. He tells us where Jarrik's base is and warns us his gang is extremely dangerous.
The devastation here is unbelievable. Outside of actual war between soldiers, I don't think I've ever seen such carnage.
Oh. Except in Helgen, of course.
Anyway, we now have four places to go to:
1) the Reinaldur farm to our east (to see if the old peasant couple is all right);
2) Mammoth Keep to the east from there (to kill the bandits who robbed this caravan);
3) Pinevale to our northeast (to find information about Kalevi);
4) something harbor-like far in the southeast.
I think the most logical choice for our next destination is the Reinaldur farm. So we run to the east along the scenic riverbank. Soon we see a sawmill behind large rocks. Then there's an adorable farmstead with fields, a little house, a windmill and even a cow and chickens. The only thing we're unable to find is people.
The house door is unlocked. There's no one inside, living or dead.
In the cellar is a door I can't get open. We search everything around the house, but there are neither any dead bodies nor anything that would help us open that door. It's most frustrating.
I enjoy the forest very much, but that's a small consolation under the circumstances.
We have no choice but to leave for Pinevale in the north-northwest.
A country road leads through a cozy spruce forest between small mountain ranges. The fine weather suddenly reminds me of another warm land we recently visited. A very different one. Do you want to know what's one thing that makes me yearn to visit Summerset again? It's the clothes. They had clothes which were far prettier than anything I've ever seen in Skyrim. It's unbelievable how even the Skyrim nobility walks around wearing what looks like potato sacks dyed green.
The next bend interrupts my rumination and brings me back to the present moment. We are seeing a village or rather remains thereof:
How should we approach? Certainly not along the road that would take us between the house on the left and the ruins on the right, with a real possibility to get into crossfire. We'll sneak through the forest on our right.
The ruins are completely abandoned. Is there anyone here at all? Yes, there is. I can see a hostile human being on the porch of another farmhouse ruin. He's not seeing me yet and I kill him. Several other bandits notice us sneaking closer, but they're confused and we're well spread out, except for one occasion when someone decides to run through right in front of me, ruining my perfect shot. Who was that, I ask angrily after all the bandits have been killed. I get no answer. I know of course it was Borgakh. Lydia and Jenassa have learned long ago not to do something that stupid, at least not on an open field. I leave it at that. I'm sure Borgakh feels deeply ashamed and will pay better attention in the future.
Beyond the houses is an entrance to a mine with, in all likelihood, more bandits. But first I walk from corpse to corpse, taking their gear, as I always do after a battle.
The last one is the bandit I killed first. I see it's a woman, and a real beauty at that. What a pity she had to die. Wait, I was the one who killed her, wasn't I?
I suddenly feel like I'm waking up from a bad dream. For heaven's sake, what are we doing, girls? We are actually putting human beings to death just so a man can satisfy his curiosity? Now, far be it from me to deny that the question who his real parents are may be in Kalevi's thoughts day and night, but these people in front of us are actually dead and will never be thinking about anything ever again! This is crazy! Let's get out of here.
I know they wouldn't have exactly welcomed us – except, I presume, as sex slaves.
Still, it was so wrong of me to burst in like this and bring about such a bloodbath.
Still, it was so wrong of me to burst in like this and bring about such a bloodbath.
I turn around and start running away quickly before I break out in sobs. I feel I must go to the Bailun Priory, kneel down in front of the statue of Mara and beg her for salvation. I'm serious. I'm going to do it. And I swear I will think in the future before I start shooting. Never again will I rush to kill people just because someone wants to find out something.
We now follow the road in the direction of that highway robber stronghold Mammoth Keep. We see a bear chasing an elk, but fortunately the elk runs faster.
We too leave the unlucky bear behind. Then we have to turn off the road. Just short of our destination, we witness a most unusual spectacle – two bears fighting a troll.
On hind legs, a bear is just about as big as a troll, but a troll is much more agile. We'll have to make them all dead, because we can't sneak up to a bandit hideout with such an entourage. But of course we'll let them fight it out first.
It's most entertaining. To our surprise, the troll eventually succeeds in killing both bears. The next moment, he himself falls from my arrow.
Mammoth Keep is a formidable fortress. There's a bridge across the river and the stronghold is just on the other side.
It's pretty open country on this riverbank, but we're so good at sneaking that we manage to get close enough undetected for me to I shoot the one man who is outside the gate, after which we leap across the bridge. There are two bandits on the rampart above the gate, but the defense wall is so well built that we can't get a shot at them from the ground. Neither can they see us properly as we are sneaking at the foot of the wall. After the six of us have been running around confusedly for some time, we enter the courtyard. Fortunately, there's no one there, just the two up on the ramparts. We finally get them.
We examine all the ramparts without seeing anyone.
I can't even begin to guess what that cage might be for. But Lydia can.
She suggests they put a naked woman inside to lure passersby to come and try to rescue her,
running into the bandits' ambush. And that's supposed to be my best friend!
She suggests they put a naked woman inside to lure passersby to come and try to rescue her,
running into the bandits' ambush. And that's supposed to be my best friend!
In one of the corner towers, there's a trapdoor that leads into the fortress. Well, we have to enter somewhere and this entrance looks as good as any. So in we go.
After some blunders I've made in recent battles, I'm now extremely cautious. This mission is pretty easy, though. The bandits are spread out all over this extensive structure and they're not too hard to kill. Just the right amount of resistance to get our adrenaline flowing and to give us an opportunity not to forget how to cast the Healing spell.
A pity he chose to become a bandit!
From the dead body of the chief Jarrik the Crusher, we loot a key to his secret storage. Where might it be? Chasing the remaining bandits, we end up in a big round bedroom. I remember it from my dreams. I know there must be a chest here this key opens. After some searching, we find the right one. It contains some unusual fabrics and a shipping manifest according to which those were being sent to Helena in the area of Amber Creek. Great. We'll take them along.
Now it's half past seven in the evening. Having come so far east already, we'll naturally go and find that harbor before we return to Amber Creek. I feel in no hurry to leave Falskaar, but considering that we've picked up really very much loot, it may be a good idea to make a trip to Dånstar for crafting and trading.
The question is, should we head south right now, making the most of the remaining daylight, or go to sleep now and travel by night, arriving early in the morning? What do we think, girls?
We decide to sleep here. That is for two reasons. Firstly, if we leave now, we'll arrive in darkness and that would be a major inconvenience, should there be any trouble in the harbor, and my instinct says there will be trouble, and Jarl Agnar suggested there might be. Secondly, we don't know if there are any sleeping facilities in the harbor. This fortress is, however, full of beds of various sizes. We get to choose if and how many dead bodies we want in our bedroom.
next awakening
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