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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
4-202-02-08 06:04
Uthgerd's House, Hviterun, Whiterun, Skyrim
I leave Lucia sleeping and go have a bath at the inn. The marketplace is abandoned at this early hour (if you don't count one guard):
When I meet my followers, I'm surprised to see they're not hung over at all. We can't be bothered to wait for the three sisters to wake up and come out of their bedrooms, so we leave without saying goodbye. We do say goodbye to Lucia, though. She has told me she absolutely wants me to wake her up before I leave the city.
The shops won't open soon, but a Khajiit caravan has arrived last night. The trader Ri'saad looks so cool and calm and wise that I'm close to asking him if he knows how I could get my lost memory back and why there aren't any female dragons.
I'll ask him if everything else fails.
I could hang around with the Khajiits for hours if it wasn't for the nasty drizzling rain and my followers' obvious disinterest. Even so, this brief encounter has energized me to the point that the run from Hviterun to Blackmoor under the gray sky feels as if I were in the midst of the lush grass and palm trees of Summerset.
However, by the time we reach Blackmoor, I'm fed up with the rain, so we sit a while at the inn. We hear a rumor that some Redguard warriors have made camp in Swindler's Den a little way to the west. That's what the people are saying – "warriors", not "bandits".
This gets me thinking. Maybe they are the same ones who are looking for Saadia? I recall they told me the Roriksted inn will be a contact point if I have information for them, and the said cave is not far from Roriksted.
I planned on remaining neutral in this case, but recently my determination has been shaking. We can at least go and take a look. Flimsy as it may be, this is the best lead to Saadia's harassers so far (apart, of course, from that man in Hviterun jail), and it's not much trouble to go and check it out.
As soon as the rain ceases, we go out and a dragon appears.
Fortunately, he chooses not to attack and flies away. Maybe his fire glands had gotten wet or something. Come to think of it, dragons generally seem to shun the rain.
Whatever. We do some shopping and then head towards Swindler's Den. We were in its vicinity four months ago, so we know the way.
We are received by a large number of quite common, quite hostile Nord bandits. For some reason, I'm a complete mess today, but fortunately my followers are perfectly efficient and we come out as winners, whereby almost a half of the bandits choose to surrender. Grateful they didn't make us have to kill them, I let them go free and I don't even strip them of their gear.
In one of the caves, we find a book wanted by Rustleif, the blacksmith of Dånstar. I pick it up, since we've already come all the way here.
The bandit dungeon is followed by water passages. There is a group of dark-skinned men in foreign-looking robes.
There's half a dozen more on the left side.
They are indeed alikrs. Their leader's name is Kematu. When I ask him why they're after some mysterious Redguard woman, he tells me she betrayed a city in Hammerfell to the Aldmeri Dominion, and that's why she is wanted alive to be tried and punished.
This throws me off balance. His story is certainly more plausible than Saadia's who told me she was being persecuted because she opposed the Aldmeri Dominion. Jenassa has assured me that's not something you get persecuted for in Hammerfell.
Wait, you would if Hammerfell was occupied by the Aldmeri Dominion. Is it? Me and my followers,we have no idea. People in Skyrim don't know much about the goings-on in Hammerfell. Rayya might know, but she is no more.
Well, the point is, there's no way of telling which one of the two adversaries is telling the truth, so there's no sensible reason for me to take sides. On the other hand, if we just left, it would mean we killed all those bandits for nothing.
I walk away into a dungeon branch where the alikrs can't hear us, and sit down on the ground, utterly unable to decide what to do. I'm completely lost here.
It's Jenassa the Mature and Sensible who cuts the problem into a digestible size, so to speak. She points out that there's no way of judging over those past happenings in Hammerfell without conducting a proper hearing where both Kematu and Saadia could present their case and be cross-examined. We can't arrange that. Therefore, we ought to disregard that part of the problem completely.
What we can judge is the situation at hand here in Skyrim. I am a thane of Whiterun and Saadia is a law-abiding member of the community. She is making herself useful by doing honorable work as a waitress. Alikrs, on the other hand, are roaming about Skyrim harassing innocent citizens just because they happen to be female and have a dark skin, as we have repeatedly seen with our own eyes. Therefore we must destroy the group of Kematu, so Saadia can get on with her life. If the alikrs were legitimately pursuing a traitor, they could approach the jarl and ask him to extradite her. They may not take the law into their own hands on our territory.
Yes. This makes sense. We'll do it.
We sneak closer and attack without warning. The men clearly didn't expect any danger from us. On the other hand, it's rather dark here and there's very little space, which makes it very difficult for me. We still win, but I'm not feeling too good about all this.
Shockingly, two or three enemies beg for mercy during the battle, but then attack again after we've turned our backs on them. I've never seen such dishonorable behavior before. My decision to help Saadia was evidently right. One enemy surrenders for real and we only take all his gear. He's really handsome, at least from behind, but never mind that. We're leaving.
Our general destination is Solitud. The most convenient route goes through Roriksted that is to our west. We arrive there under partially cloudy but still sunny sky after having been attacked by two sabercats and seen a nice elk on the outskirts. We rest a little and let the children playing on the street tell us the news.
It's still early enough for us to get comfortably to Dunstad Grove and probably even Dragonbridge by tonight. However, I suddenly feel like going to Morpork. It's not too far and we haven't been there for some time and there might be a place or two we haven't yet explored.
My followers point out that it would make more sense to go to Solitud first and visit Morpork on our way to High Hrothgar.
I agree. It does make more sense to inform General Tullius about the peace negotiation plans without delay, and then travel around some, leaving him time for his journey down southeast.
So, we head for Elisdriel. Halfway there, we end up having to kill a group of highway robbers, and then we follow the familiar route down the hill and across the streams.
In Elisdriel, I am deeply touched by the sight of a hare who is sitting on the wooden walkway and lets me get very close and take this amazing picture:
Even though I'm not wearing Spriggan Soap today, the cute little animal doesn't seem afraid of me at all. Eventually it still gets up and returns to its hare affairs.
Then we ascend the stairs and admire the view from the platform in front of the entrance. You will probably laugh, but after we've stood there a couple of minutes looking down at the river, I feel I don't want to go anywhere tonight.
The place is so beautiful and soothing. You have no idea.
It's past six in the evening and it's still light. We go back down the stairs to the ground, sit down around a small table, admire our surroundings including that friendly wild boar who lives near this house, and talk late into the night (with each other, not the boar).
next awakening
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