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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
4-202-01-10 07:36
Mages' Guild, Shimmerene, Summerset, Aldmeri Dominion
After an unhurried bath and breakfast, me and my followers go to the Shimmerene Village. At half past nine in the morning, the traders on the marketplace are energetically peddling their wares. I see some nice outfits, but only on people, not for sale. Such as this one:
Come to think of it, I wouldn't walk around like that in public. ;-)
(And Lydia tells me it's merely a variety of the Fur Armor that she has seen in Skyrim too. Um... okay. But there are still some other gorgeous outfits worn in Summerset that don't seem to be available in Skyrim.)
Our plan for today is to travel southeastwards along the seashore and find a location called Dusk where we might be able to locate some memorabilia for Syrius of Cloudrest and probably will have to fight bandits.
A stone's throw from the Shimmerene village, to the east on the seashore, is a beautiful inn called Shimmerene Sea View.
The innkeeper is a terrible man, though. He looks like a corpse and sounds like one. The waitress Drenwyn looks much less horrible, but even she could scare me to death in a torch-lit underground dungeon. I'm not surprised there aren't any visitors.
Who had the bright idea to build a pool five meters from the ocean?
A little way to the southeast, we find a Coruscate Mine. It contains Coruscate Ore. I have no idea what coruscate is. Its mining is very hard and time-consuming, which is why we leave most of it there.
It's half past 1 when we finally continue our journey along the coast. We see a small citadel and approach it most carefully, but it's empty, as is the tent nearby on the seashore at a most scenic spot under the palm trees.
Scenic maybe, says Jenassa, but if one of those coconuts that grow on those trees falls onto your head, it can kill you. Spoilsport.
A small river flows into the sea here. We go across the bridge and move on along the road, soon reaching a place called Silverwood.
We're not seeing anything like buildings, only the familiar stone barriers along roadsides. At first glance, everything looks as peaceful as can be. However, the road in the shadows of tall trees feels kind of ominous to me. That's why I slow down and we proceed very alertly.
Now I can sense someone behind those roadside barriers. I've no idea if it's enemies or just animals. One of them comes into the open and walks away. It's a goat. The other one hides very skilfully. If he knew about my Sense of Smell power, maybe he wouldn't bother.
It takes a lot of maneuvering until I can actually shoot an arrow at him. He's tough to kill, but finally he's so battered up by frost magic from my followers that I succeed in extinguishing his life. And I realize he's actually a she.
Half a minute later, another one approaches from another direction just as sneakily as the first one. She's a zombie, as was the first one.
We proceed cautiously and discover a low building. While we walk around it slowly, a third zombie appears. They would have had good chances, had they attacked all together. But I've told you many times before how monsters and even bandits have very little idea of combat tactics and coordination. That's surely the main reason why I'm still alive.
Most of the ground floor of the said building consists of a big veranda. We find a key lying on the floor, and also a door which it opens. We enter a nice room with a high curved ceiling like a small temple or something. There are many bookshelves and books lying about here and there. And an elven man dressed in a hooded robe and barefoot.
As we've guessed already, this place is a library and that man Galthradoth is a librarian. He says the zombies attacked and he was just barely able to lock himself in. He has no idea how long he has been here and he's so grateful we succeeded in defeating the zombies, and his food supplies are running out and he's really hungry, so would we be so kind and bring him some Varian's extra spicy spiced beef from Lillandril?
Now, the man has a piepsing voice and talks very quickly and excitedly. He is at the very least hyperactive, but more likely insane. He's right about the zombies, they were quite real and murderous, but when a man starving to death begs for spiced beef... I ask him if any other food would do, and he says: no, he just has to have that extra spicy spiced beef from Varian. Right. We're out of here.
I think they ought to fire their librarian.
A little down the road, we discover Fort Nettle. It consists of three small tilted and crumbling towers, one of which offers just barely enough foothold for those two mages casting something very nasty at us. It's hard to describe. A prickling and paralyzing sensation that seems to permeate every cell in your body. Something similar to what I got from a couple of traps in a dungeon a long time ago. The mages are called Electromancers. The word means nothing to any of us.
I feel like checking out the seashore. It's not far, but very much lower than the road. We descend carefully. It's good exercise. The sandy beach is delightful. We run south for some time, but then the sand ends to be replaced by cliffs that go all the way to the water.
Fortunately, the ascent to our right (i.e. west) is not difficult. We reach the road again just opposite a place called Mana Grove. That smells of spriggans.
As you can see from the picture above, something hostile is moving towards us already. When it comes closer, we see it looks like a white ball of energy. I shoot it dead. Without approaching the grove, we proceed along the road. That Dusk place shouldn't be far now.
Indeed we soon see a not very wide stone bridge.
Turning carefully around the rocky hill, we get onto the bridge and sneak towards a high tower that can be seen in the distance. The bridge is arched and as we ascend it, we can't see practically anything of what might be waiting ahead.
The bridge ends and there's a few meters of grassy ground and a staircase that goes up a little and then turns. Up those rocky mountains seems to be a magnificent castle. To our right is a slight descent to a river, on the shore of which are some weird green animals who look harmless:
Beyond the staircase, another stone bridge leads over a ravine, all the way up to the fortress. It's quite a steep ascent and while the castle is visible in all its might, we have once again no way of knowing if there's someone lurking in wait at the top of the bridge.
Well, it's not so bad. We reach grassy ground. Straight ahead is a rocky hill I'm seeing no way to ascend. A wooden walkway leads to a path to our left.
Following the path, we turn (clockwise) around the hill and see the entrance gate of the fortress to our right and maybe 20 meters higher. I've no idea how to get there, as our path proceeds steeply downhill and there aren't any other paths. Apart from which, we have no time to wonder about reaching the gate, as there's a much more urgent problem down the path – enemies. They're so far away we can barely see them, but they are very competent mages and we have no chance of remaining undetected. They send hurtful magic in our way and we retort with arrows.
Since magic doesn't care if it has to travel uphill or downhill, the elevation isn't giving us much advantage except maybe for good visibility. What is to our advantage is the terrain. The path ahead and below us leads to a citadel you can see in the above picture, and turns right. It's behind that corner from where new mages keep appearing. They seem to be scattered over a considerable area. Luckily, that's the only direction for them to come from, because north of the path is a practically vertical wall of rock and to our left (south) is a very high drop to the ocean shore. Thanks to this extremely favorable landscape constellation, we're in no danger of getting surrounded. Even so, we've just barely enough time to heal ourselves between the attacks. The enemies are many and none of them are bawling axemen.
[In hindsight, I feel it's a pity we ended up destroying this formidable battlegroup for, let's face it, a reason that could have hardly been more trifling. But that's hindsight. At the time we were there, I felt only thrill and excitement, as well as a strong desire to stay alive. And I was worried about my girls. Well, you get the general idea.]
After we've gotten rid of the main enemy group, we advance slowly towards that corner citadel, killing new enemies that turn up every few minutes.
Finally we're there and no one is coming anymore. The place is called Cliffs of Dusk. Speaking of dusk, it's time for us to keep an eye out for lodging. The sun goes down much later in Summerset than it does in Skyrim (possibly because of a more southerly latitude), but it is getting darker now.
The aforementioned citadel is in a very bad shape, but there are small wooden houses on the hillside nearby. Only one house in the whole village, the one on top of the hill, has lights in its windows.
I'm very much alert as we sneak into the house through the front door. I spot a bandit and kill him immediately. And then I'm hit from somewhere and it takes me a long time to see where the second enemy is. (To my right and slightly behind.) The girls kill him for me and I'm most grateful for that.
There's a quite comfortable large bedroom in the basement and we're going to spend the night here.
next awakening
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