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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
4-202-01-13 06:41
Grove Dwelling, Ebon, Summerset, Aldmeri Dominion
As Lydia and I bathe in the river with Jenassa and Jordis keeping watch, I mention I've been feeling guilty about wandering around here in Summerset while there are wars in both Skyrim and Falskaar where our help may be badly needed.
Lydia reminds me there are always people doing bad things to other people here and there, war or no war. I (or anyone else) can impossibly put an end to all the cruelty in the world, she points out, and even more importantly, curing the world is not my responsibility. "You have always said you don't care when someone comes and tells you he has found a use for your special Dragonborn gift," she says. "So why are you trying to invent for yourself a responsibility for the wars in the world? Your only real responsibility is to pass on life. Everything else is just, I don't know, setting."
She's right, you know, but I still feel I'd enjoy Summerset a lot more if we went and spent some time on the problems of Skyrim and Falskaar and then returned here. Lydia agrees that it's reasonable.
My general plan is to find Corgrad, then proceed to northern Summerset, and then back southeast to Shimmerene, skipping Lillandril this time.
So we follow the northward road. Soon we arrive in a village of half a dozen buildings well apart from each other among lush vegetation (and fields and an orchard and such).
It's Corgrad.
Having told the girls to go and walk around, I find Dothiel and she takes me to a pitiful-looking cute goat. Trying to look like I know what I'm doing, I raise my hands and cast the spell. The goat stands up with a slightly surprised look.
After a while, it begins to eat grass.
Dothiel is touchingly glad and indeed it's most gratifying to observe the goat feel better. I'm really very happy I was given this quest.
Moving on, I am greeted by a very tall man Aranath who enquires who I am and where I'm going. He looks cool and is very friendly for a High Elf. We chat a little and then he enters a house nearby, evidently his home. He smiles me before he closes the door and I can't help smiling back.
Next, I get acquainted with a nice married couple Erundil and Camandil, and then a Khajiit man Ra J'Dar who looks like a blacksmith.
He tells me he has lost a precious heirloom called Black Arrow and he suspects it's been stolen by a "smelly man" in a place called Old Falls further northeast. I promise him I'll look into it.
Ra J'Dar seems wise and philosophical, but at the moment I can't stop thinking about Aranath.
I meet my followers on the street. They inform me they found a trading house. We go there together. There are as many as four traders in there, including a mage who sells empty Black Soul Gems (the biggest ones that are very rare) and (gasp) a woman called Nona who sells various garments, including one that looks like the one Sylwia was wearing. I buy it and we're all so excited and I can't wait to try it on, but not in the middle of a settlement.
Now I return to Aranath's house and knock on the door. He lives alone. He asks me if I would like something to eat. I say no and just stand there, staring at him. (I must look really silly, as it occurs to me later.)
Aranath asks me if I'd like to go to the bedroom then. I nod and remain standing.
When he puts an arm on my shoulder, I awake from my trance and walk to the stairs ahead of him. Aranath follows me to the small bedroom where we undress eagerly and make love.
He's so great. I'm most thoroughly happy. I've found the best man in Summerset by far. (I was a little afraid of his size at first, but he was very gentle and then it was all right.)
Before leaving, I put on that dress. Yes, it's exactly like Sylwia's.
I ask Aranath how it looks on me and he says it suits me perfectly but he still prefers me naked. Yeah, I guessed as much. I'd better ask Jenassa. I'll have to find a moment when Lydia is not there. I'm afraid Lydia would say something ironical – not to hurt me, but simply because she'll think it's fun.
At any rate, I'm not bold enough to walk on the street looking like this. So I change back into my armor, hug Aranath with all my strength (which isn't much) and go to round up my followers.
Oh... What's with that staircase over there?
It leads to a building up on the hill which is large but still easy to miss thanks to all those trees. It's the Court House. There are three people in the entire building and none of them has much to say. In the basement is a prison with two empty cells.
Fine. Now we'll head northeast to take care of three tasks that are geographically close to each other.
The first one is in Nirn Scar Hollow where we'll have to find a substance called Dried Spider Silk for Bolwing of Shimmerene.
The second one is a little way to the southeast from there, in Old Falls where we'll have to ask around about Ra J'Dar's Black Arrow .
The third one is in the town of Cloudrest which we already know. We'll have to show Syrius the diary we found in Dusk on a chance he has some use for it.
After that, unless something unexpected happens, we'll travel to Shimmerene and return to Skyrim.
We trot leisurely northwards along the road, with me a little ahead of the others as usual. Reaching the top of another low hill, I almost step on a sleeping pahmar. There are four or five of them, catnapping in the low grass as they seem to be in the habit of doing. But it takes them but an instant to awake from their slumber and fill the air with polyphonic roaring.
We kill them all by they end, of course. I wish we didn't have to. They're so beautiful.
Further north, we reach a place where a very long looking staircase goes up the mountains. Might well be leading to that Old Falls place. We're going the other way, though – past the mountain to Nirn Scar Hollow.
It lies on a scenic seashore and is a system of caves with moss hanging from the ceiling in many places. There's an elven man Neltharion who doesn't know anything about Dried Spider Silk.
There are ladders leading to other caves, but I soon find out the navigation is utterly hopeless. So I have to ask Bardslayer to help me. He teleports us to a large cave that has countless poison spiders.
Really, they're at least 20 and each one of them takes several arrows to kill. Fortunately, we are at a somewhat higher place, thanks to which they have to spit their poison upwards.
After we've killed the main group and begin to search the cavern, new spiders turn up. It's a long and tiring battle. And then we search everything and still find no sign of anything called Spider Silk. Only after a tedious trip transported (without my followers) magically by Bardslayer through places weird beyond description, I finally get the damned thing. And then he has to take me back as well. It's very scary thinking that something might happen and I'd be stuck forever in a place filled with nothing that resembles anything earthly. I'm quite nauseous by the time I'm back, but I guess that was the only way of doing it.
I can't get out of this dungeon fast enough. Outside, the sun is already going down.
We hurry on to find Old Falls before the dark, only to end up circling the mountains clockwise and reaching a place that is just as close to Cloudrest as to Old Falls. That's as the crow flies, and the way to Cloudrest is easy while Old Falls is gods know where in the mountains. All that would be very disappointing if we hadn't made an interesting discovery along the way:
I mean, interesting in the sense that now I know that that beautiful stone I saw on those mysterious ruins past Tusamircil's Passage is apparently called "coral". It sounds like something normally found underwater, but I'm not sure. My followers have never heard the word.
So, as I was saying, the distance from here to Cloudrest is about the same as to the presumed location of Old Falls. But I'm determined to find the damn place tonight. So I just climb up the nearest mountain as high as I can and begin circling it clockwise while the girls follow me down below as well as they can. In my reckless climb, it's a miracle I don't fall to death.
It's past 9 in the evening when we're finally on normally walkable ground and seeing houses.
The first house is called Abandoned Hostel. It's unlocked and it's exactly what the name says. There's one bed on the first (ground) floor, two on the second and one on the third. Just what we need! I'm taking the third floor which I name "the luxury suite", because its walls and floor are somewhat less dirty. ;-)
However, I want to do a little exploring before going to bed.
The next house uphill is abandoned and in a really bad shape. The next one after that belongs to a man named Edgar. Now, Ra J'Dar mentioned a "smelly man". I badly suspect that for the Khajiits' acute olfactory sense, we all stink. But this man Edgar has indeed a strong body odor which even my nose can detect. Also, he acts suspiciously as if he were constantly expecting to, um, get caught? And on top of everything else, he proposes us to steal something together.
In short, all about this man stinks (figuratively speaking this time) to the heavens. I tell him he's going to strip naked and sit still, and we're going to thoroughly search his house and belongings. Indeed we find the Black Arrow we're looking for. I'm afraid that during the search I ended up hurting Edgar a little where it hurts. I'm really sorry, but it was his own fault. People ought to have enough sense to realize when they're hopelessly outmatched.
Now we can return to our hospitable Abandoned Hostel for our well-earned sleep.
next awakening
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