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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
4-201-12-17 02:42
Mammoth Keep, Falskaar
We have a wash in the river and start running south. The bigger moon Masser is rather pale tonight, but still emits quite sufficient light to comfortably see where we're going. I run, as usual, a little bit ahead of my followers and am attacked by one of those brown forest-trolls. I yell to my girls to stay back. I'm curious to find out if I'm good enough to kill a troll in melee combat. Oops! Make that two trolls.
The second troll is approaching next to the nearest tree to my right.
It's excitingly scary with just an enchanted dagger, but I manage pretty well.
And on we run, to the south through the woods.
That thing that looks like a snowtroll is in fact just a weirdly-shaped rock.
There are several such in this forest, which is why I wouldn't recommend this area to the faint of heart.
They give even me the creeps.
There are several such in this forest, which is why I wouldn't recommend this area to the faint of heart.
They give even me the creeps.
Approaching the coast, we begin to sneak slowly and cautiously, but it's not good enough. A group of bandits who in all likelihood were hiding behind a low hill, charge at us. This encounter is brilliant proof of the bow's superiority over melee weapons. Those bandits are good strong men, but only one of them has a bow. The others are dead before they get close enough to hit us.
We can see the ocean from here, as well as the roof of a house. Just around the bend of the road is another wooden house, an open space with a hearth, and the ruins of a shack from whose direction we hear noises.
The shack is to the right from the hearth.
In the shack, there are four bound people kneeling – two men, a woman and a boy.
We untie them. They are very agitated and demand to know if we got all the bandits. I reply: as far as I can tell, yes. Maybe I don't sound too convincing, but eventually they calm down and three of them, apparently a family, go into one of the houses, while the second man walks unhurriedly towards the pier. His name is Wulf. I follow him and we sit down near the boats and I listen to him telling me about this coast and its past. I want to give him some time to calm down. He ends up sharing a tale of the nearby lighthouse which brings back sad memories, and I ask why, and he says there was a married couple Alvar and Janna who were close friends of his parents before he was even born. They kept the lighthouse, but then they disappeared mysteriously, and so did the guard who went to the lighthouse to investigate. After that, no one's been allowed there. It must be the same haunted lighthouse Njola mentioned the other day. The point is, recently Wulf found a dugout on the beach with some old coins and a letter in it, and the letter was from his parents. He'd like to have that matter investigated, hoping to find out what happened to his family's friends. When I say I can take a look at the lighthouse, Wulf warns me it can be very dangerous. Thanks, I'll be careful.
I think now it's appropriate for me to enquire if Wulf can take us to Dånstar. He says, yes, for 500 septims he'll do it.
Great. Now we at least won't be stuck on this island till the end of our days. Not that I ever really feared we were, but it's good to know how we can travel back and forth when needed.
I'm about to stand up when I remember about Svea's ring. I ask Wulf if he knows about a merchant ship that has sunken somewhere around here. He says he knows one sunken ship, but he doesn't know if it's the right one. Then he enquires if I'm looking for Svea's ring, by any chance. I confirm I do and mention I met someone named Harold in Amber Creek. Wulf says he thinks Harold is lying about having lost his home in Helgen. I'm glad he agrees with my suspicion.
Wulf makes it very clear he feels the ring belongs to Svea. Now, this is a strong argument for me to actually give the ring to Svea, should I ever find it. You will surely agree that legal and moral considerations are secondary compared to keeping friendly with the locals. Or you may even disagree. Your opinion is also less weighty than staying on good terms with the islanders. No offense.
I now leave the girls idling as well as keeping an eye out for possible late attackers, and enter the house into which the family went. I talk a while with the boy Galen who tells me about horrible mudcrabs who have chased people away from a nice beach west from here. The father of the family is none other than Henrik whom Jarl Agnar wanted me to talk to. He's also a trader. Henrik believes those bandits we just killed belong to a larger group that resides in an old disused fortress known as Hjalmar Armory northwest of here.
Back outside, I exchange a few words with Henrik's wife Freya who is doing her usual household chores.
Henrik and Freya are soon going to have their 10th anniversary and I'm so happy for them. Curiously enough, they both ask me to do them a favor without the other spouse knowing. Each one of them wants to make the other one a romantic surprise, and asks me to find a certain hard-to-get item to be used in the preparation of the gift. Those are both to be found in locations relatively near to Falskaar Docks, but they're too dangerous for Henrik and Freya to venture there themselves.
These are exactly the kinds of errand I love. A little danger, not too much traveling and an opportunity to help two people who love each other give each other great pleasure. A happy couple celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary – few things in the world are more touching.
That's Freya and Henrik's son Galen.
By the way, I succeeded in selling so many things to Henrik that I don't even need to go to Dånstar. I think we'll stay in this region for a while. There are great many things to do in southeastern Falskaar. Depending on how much loot those will yield, I can then decide if I should return to Amber Creek and do my crafting there, or indeed make a brief trip to Dånstar.
What pleases me a lot less is a discovery I make when going through all the stuff I have picked up today. I detect a handwritten note which originates from Reinaldur Farmstead and contains instructions on how to find the key that opens the locked door in the basement. How could I have missed it when we were there? I know, logically I should be glad that I have found the solution to the mystery after all, but I can't help being angry with myself.
Now then, it's 10 o'clock in the morning and there's half a dozen nearby locations where something needs to be done. I decide we'll follow the ocean shore to the west first, to get a certain very special gem for Henrik from a place called Grimrott Grotto. It's as far in the west as you can go from here, right at the foot of the mountains that separate western and eastern Falskaar. Along the way, we'll kill those huge mudcrabs Galen is afraid of.
The mudcrabs turn out to be neither all that huge nor difficult to kill for a seasoned warrior, but undoubtedly they would be highly dangerous for a child, and there are many of them. Here's one of the groups:
Near where those crabs lived is an entrance to something called Sandyshell Hollow. We go check it out.
There's a big cave that gets some outside light through a hole in the roof, thanks to which even some trees grow inside. It's quite beautiful in here. Very beautiful for a cave, in fact.
A switch on the rock wall opens a secret panel. A passage takes us into a small maze of drier and wetter caverns where we have to fight mages here and there. I lose sight of my followers and shoot my way forward while hearing sounds of fighting from undeterminable directions. Suddenly I sense that Borgakh is near death. But where is she and how can I get there? I frantically run through narrow passages and see a couple of my followers fighting a mage, and I try to maneuver myself to where I could shoot at the enemy, but there's no room. Eventually we kill that mage and Borgakh is alive, just barely. I use a Grand Healing spell on her and she says a true Orc lets her wounds heal by themselves. Shut up, will you? Found a time to play a toughass!
It was quite unexpected, this encounter that could have turned out fatal, and I can't really think of anything I could have done differently. I guess Borgakh is just too weak. I'd better replace her with Jordis when I get the chance. I can't afford to let a follower die on me.
We descend along walkways of earth-covered rock, killing an Arch-Necromancer along the way, and then we're in a big cavern with some impressive big natural-looking stone columns, as well as many plant-like things hanging down from the roof.
Could be roots of the trees which grow on the ground above us. But the actually important thing is a pedestal with a purple-glowing crystal shard on it at the far end. It's similar to the ones we've found before.
I take the crystal shard. Nearby is an exit. I smile at the sight of a fine blue sky and the calm sea, and we proceed to the west. We pass by a small bay with an Ancient Nordic site called Ruins of Holmr.
Running further along the coast, we soon reach the entrance of Grimrott Grotto. There are utterly lovely waterfalls:
Too bad we'll have to go into this cave mouth instead that looks like a gigantic anus:
There's a huge cavern with an underground lake and a sunken ship. Orientation is not easy with stone walkways going up and down and skeletons and draugrs distracting us. It's exciting, though. Sometimes I'm happy to see a skeleton at a distance before my Sense of Smell detects it, other times I almost shriek when Sense of Smell suddenly reveals an enemy where my eyes believe to see solid wall.
The skeletons fall easily, but the draugrs are really tough. Luckily, there's so much open space here that we can kill all the enemies from a decent distance.
Quite early in this dungeon, we see beds, exactly for four people. It's only late afternoon, but we've been up for 13 hours already, so I wonder if we should get some sleep now. After all, there's no way of knowing how long this'll last. Then I decide to go on anyway.
We finally reach the shipwreck, glimpses of which we've been seeing most of the way. Near it on the shore, behind the last Draugr Deathlord, is a stone platform with several fire bowls and one of those funny small mummies, a dragon priest or what's it called. I poke it with a finger, but it just lies there showing no signs of life intent. Well, all right. The Exotic Rubied Sapphire we've come to get is in a chest nearby, and farther ahead is a word wall. Looking around me, I must admit this is actually a nice place. The small lake and the shipwreck look kind of cool.
I step up to the word wall and get the shout. And then a moderate hell breaks loose behind me. The dragon priest or whatever it is has decided to wake up after all. We're completely taken by surprise, with my followers sitting and laughing and reminiscing on the battles. Now, that floating mummy is very hard to kill, especially so because it retreats into the cover of some of those stone columns nearby. Arrow after arrow flies into it and some of my followers are using frost staffs. Slowly the monstrocity's health declines and now it's near death... DAMMIT, BORGAKH, YOU ARE BLOCKING MY SHOT!!!
At least she delivers the death blow herself, so technically I don't even have a cause to reprimand her. Well, all well that ends well.
I decide I'll have a swim. I mean, I want to see if there's anything valuable underwater.
Well, it's not easy to tell, because the visibility is nonexistent. I swim around for a while and then give up. I put my armor back on and we leave this cavern by an upward walkway which I hope will lead to the exit. Indeed it does – past a few draugrs here and there.
It's almost 8 in the evening now, but there's no way I'll go back looking for the place where those beds were. We'll proceed to Jalmar Armory in the northeast. If it's a bandits' nest, they must have at least some sleeping mats.
It's quite amazing how Masser gives so much more light in Falskaar than it does in Skyrim. Admittedly, both moons are in the sky right now, but I remember that last night there was only one and we could still see our way pretty well in the forest. Is Falskaar closer to the moons? I can't imagine how it's physically possible when Nirn is round. "Different type of clouds?" suggests Lydia. Maybe there are clouds in Skyrim's latitude that are so thin that you can't see them, yet thick enough to absorb a part of the light? Yeah, that makes sense.
At any rate, we are climbing up a gentle slope under the most spectacular play of northern lights above us. And then we can clearly see a turret's silhouette against the glowing sphere of Masser.
Observe the smaller moon Secunda in the upper right corner.
This hill between us and the fortress – should we bypass it from the left or from the right? The ascent on the left seems steeper, so I decide we'll go from the right.
I suddenly remember I've had dreams about this place and although I can't recall any details, I know that the approach can be very deadly in daytime. Hopefully they're less alert in the evening. I mean, we attacked the docks less than 24 hours ago. There's a good chance they don't know about it yet, and therefore have no reason to expect danger. If they even belong to the same group.
The path I have chosen turns out very suitable. It takes us straight to a gate, or more precisely a collapsed section of the defense wall fortified with an Orc-village-style sharpened log fence – which, I must say, is not in the best possible state of repair either.
We approach very carefully. They have sentries here and there all right, but luckily for us they don't go in pairs, so when we shoot one bandit, the others become at worst a little restless and run around nervously because they believe they heard something strange, but they can't see anything in darkness and calm down again, giving us an opportunity to sneak forward.
We have real luck with a man standing in the courtyard who would certainly see us and raise alarm if he weren't looking in the other direction, watching a gate. I happen to notice him first and kill him before he would get the idea of turning around.
The hardest targets are two men on the highest ramparts. They're in cover most of the time. We stand in the courtyard with our bows at the ready, trying to catch them with their heads sticking out. Of course, I'm the only one with the Sense of Smell power here. My followers have no way of knowing the location of a man who walks behind a stone wall.
One of the two men is in the westerly direction and very well covered. At one moment, I see him standing with his head exactly at the level of the wall, so he's just barely out of my line of sight. I hazard a shot nonetheless, trying to send my arrow just over the wall so that it would hit the bandit's head when it (the arrow) falls a little due to the gravity. I'd hate to have to climb up there to hunt him down.
Indeed, my arrow hits the man and he's dead. I suppress a jubilant yell and turn to the other man in the northeast, higher still. I aim my bow to where I sense him to be and follow his movement. He has the misfortune of getting too close to the wall for a moment, and he's a little taller than the wall, so I can see his exposed head. I shoot quickly and this shot hits as well. This is awesome success! I reward myself with a delicious tomato and order the girls to find a stairway. Then we climb up to the ramparts.
Just look at that! I think this was the best shot of my life so far. (It's that last man we killed on the ramparts.)
We notice a door and enter the fortress interior. Having killed a few bandits, we find some beds. This is absolutely the perfect time to get a good night's sleep.
next awakening
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