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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
4-202-01-07 05:23
Grove Dwelling, Ebon, Summerset, Aldmeri Dominion
We wash ourselves in the river that is just a few paces from the front door, and Lydia and Jordis tell about their last night. Jordis's partner wasn't actually a merchant, but a tall handsome High Elf Idarron we saw working on the street. Jordis didn't quite figure out where he lives and what his role in the town is, but he looked quite cool to me yesterday and Jordis, unsurprisingly, shares my opinion.
Then we head west-northwest. I'm ecstatic from the nice weather and the delightful sights.
Tusamircil's Passage is actually a cave. There's a man sitting at a table. He seems to be collecting butterflies. He has several jars with living butterflies in them as well as pictures of butterflies on cave walls. He's neither hostile nor talkative.
There are passages that lead to a maze of waterways with Bloody Skeletons here and there.
They're relatively tough to kill once they've noticed you, but fortunately we get most of them from a distance before they can raise a shield or dodge. We easily find the book Quillinda wanted. But there's also a door to something called Coral Hall. I'm curious to see what that is.
There are staircases that lead down to a passage filled with water. You can't wade through or swim across it, you would have to dive and swim underwater. Therefore I order the girls to go back to the first cave. I strip (to be able to swim faster) and use the Waterbreathing spell.
I swim along corridors which have quite obviously been built by humans and then gotten flooded somehow.
I reach a hall, also completely full of water. The visibility is rather poor. After I've swum around a little and realized there doesn't seem to be anything of interest here, I'm no longer sure where the passage is. I'm getting a little panicked, because I don't know how long the effects of the spell will last. When it runs out, I won't have much time to find a way to the surface.
I finally locate the passage, but it leads me to a door. This means it's not the same passage through which I came. The door opens into a big pool. I surface on a staircase that goes up to a round gallery around the pool. I hurry to get dressed. Obviously, the last thing I want is to get attacked while not wearing an armor. As I ascend and reach the gallery, one skeleton already attacks me, and a little later another one does.
I walk around and find several locked chests which I open and empty. There are radial passages leading out of the gallery. Some of them have walking skeletons in them. One passage takes me to a wide spiral upward staircase.
It resembles very much a regular fortress tower of the kind I've seen in Skyrim, except that the material of the walls is an unknown stone of very beautiful light brown color with dark brown blotches. With just a little more light, this would be a most pleasant place to be. And without those skeletons, of course. Lucky I have my Sense of Smell power, and they also make a creaky noise that alerts me to their proximity.
After climbing up for a considerable time, killing a skeleton or two every once in a while, and emptying some more shelves and chests, I reach a door. Behind it, a short passage leads to a round hole, to the bottom of which I apparently need to get unless I prefer to go all the way back. I most decidedly don't fancy another session of underwater navigation, so I try to cling to the very uneven walls of the hole and jump a little at a time. I'm not very successful at that. Most of the way, I slide and fall, but the walls give me just about enough toehold so I can slow down occasionally and thus avoid falling to death.
I end up in the first cave where my followers are apparently not too successful in making conversation with that strange recluse Tusamircil.
I look him up and down and then suggest to the girls to wait for me outside.
Unresponsive as the man may be to verbal communication, he certainly knows what a naked woman is for. There's a quite comfortable bedmat and Tusamircil makes me thoroughly enjoy myself – as well as himself. I've never seen a man's orgasm last so long.
He doesn't say much afterwards either, but I hope I'll be able to return here often.
The whole world feels perfect when I step out into the sunlight – the blue sky, the lovely flowers, all those cute butterflies flying around.
The opening of Tusamircil's cave is on the left behind the girls.
We now go further to the west-northwest to find the book Yassanaro wanted from a place called Hedera.
The road passes between two mountain ranges. Approaching Hedera, I turn off the road a little ahead of my followers and almost run into a group of pahmars lying in the grass. This time I won't try and make friends with them. I retreat hastily and equip my bow. We kill them quickly and move on.
The approach to Hedera is guarded by a mage and a skeleton. Long staircases take us up the mountain to a cave entrance. Inside is a medium-sized maze of caves with very weak green light. It's full of big-dog-sized spiders who, surprisingly, don't attack us. We leave them alone as well.
The glow is (of course) created in my mind's eye by the Sense of Smell.
Then we encounter some of those disgusting liches. They don't seem to see in this semidarkness any better than we do, so we don't have difficulties killing them. We find the book and start looking for a way back which is not very easy. And now the spiders turn hostile. Probably they dislike strangers who remain in their home for too long. For that matter, we're not exactly keen to hang around here, it's just that the way to the exit isn't marked in any way and there's almost no light. So we unfortunately have to kill a number of those spiders. I hope we won't have to disturb them ever again.
Wow. I had no idea it had gotten so late.
Now, we could return to Ebon for the night, but I strongly feel there must be a settlement west or northwest from here.
Such as that one:
It looks quite formidable.
There's a farm on the outskirts. A group of Argonian workers is going home just when we arrive.
Nearby stands a middle-aged woman Laurina who tells me this town is called Lillandril and she's got a rat in her house. I go check it out, leaving my followers waiting outside, because I don't think one needs an army to kill one rat. Actually it's a skeever, but I still kill it easily. Laurina is most grateful.
In the meantime, my followers have been attacked by half a dozen pahmars. Why did the animals suddenly decide to hunt in a human settlement? My followers seem to be on top of it, but I give them a hand all the same.
Now we split up to explore the town separately. I always prefer to get a feel of a new location alone. Groups intimidate people who might otherwise tell you something interesting. In particular, as I hardly need to tell you, a group of four chattering and giggling women is a major interesting-people-repellant.
I walk past a couple of houses bigger than those farmhouses and arrive at the entrance gate in a defense wall.
What kind of a guard is that? She might get away with guarding
the Temple of Dibella in Morpork, but here she couldn't look more out of place.
the Temple of Dibella in Morpork, but here she couldn't look more out of place.
I hear characteristic sounds of a harbor and decide to check it out before visiting the palace or whatever it is behind this wall.
There are many ships and boats docked along the wooden piers.
There's also a one-storey wooden house with curious light-purple light in the windows. I step in.
In a very large semi-dark room, there's a bed in one corner and a Khajiit woman named Ma' Rasa. Although she doesn't say it directly, I don't need long to figure out she's a prostitute. She says she was struggling in Elsweyr, but here she's special and appreciated. Sure. Good luck. Thanks for taking the time to talk.
Further down the pier is an inn. It's really large, I'd say about 3 or 4 average Skyrim inn taprooms put together. Not many people, though.
The innkeeper Fostki is Argonian and among the guests are two Khajiit men. The women who sit alone at separate tables look like they're more interested in male company than mine. Nevertheless, all the people here are friendly and relaxed, just not too chatty. Not too drunk either, with the exception of a tall man in an armor who empties one beaker after another.
I check out a couple of ships. In the second one, I gasp at the sight of a Nord woman walking around naked. Then I see a naked man and later a naked elven woman. The Orc woman who is wearing clothes is either their boss or more expensive. Yes, this is a brothel.
They don't mind my prying around (which I do with passion). Neither are they enthusiastically inviting me to have a go at that exotic and gorgeous man, a master in all forms of love. (I made that up; he's really just an ordinary High Elf.) Looks like they cater for unsophisticated people here. Choose your partner, go into one of the niches behind shabby curtains, do your thing, pay up and leave. In short, they haven't made much effort with the ambience.
The niche on the right looks like their VIP suite. The other ones have just bedmats on the floor.
Not even the toilets have doors here. But I don't mind the lack of luxury. This is the only actual brothel I've ever been inside of, so I walk everywhere and take in the sights.
This must be the girls' dormitory.
In case you're curious, it's much too warm here to sleep inside a sleeping bag.
In case you're curious, it's much too warm here to sleep inside a sleeping bag.
On the next ship, a small one, I meet a very drunken man who urges me to help him. He explains he's in love with Ma' Rasa (he needs several attempts to say her name right), but she hates him because she hates elves.
The man is disgusting and I make no secret of it. She doesn't hate you because she hates elves, I tell him, she hates you because she hates stinking drunk retards. I want to tell him he ought to learn her name first and then talk about big love, but he won't listen to me. He runs away, shouting vile curses at me.
One by one, I meet up with my followers who have been wandering around like me. Exchanging our impressions, we saunter to that big gate. It opens into a large courtyard with a very high statue of a beautiful woman.
We walk around and then enter the palace. There are many people in- and outside. From the foyer, staircases go up into the throne room (empty at this hour but for a guard) and the dining hall, behind which is the kitchen:
Other staircases descend into the servants' quarters that have two wings with dormitories, apparently one for men and one for women, and a small socializing area in the middle. I learn that people are totally relaxed about prostitution here and it's indeed no shame for a woman to visit a brothel, be it for using the services or simply to see what it looks like inside.
We talk to people until I realize it's gotten incredibly late. I ask if there's a chance they could accommodate us in the servants' dormitory and they say it's allowed for travelers to spend one night here. Next time, we'll have to go to the inn at the harbor and hope they have enough spare beds.
next awakening
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