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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
4-202-04-20 08:53
a house ruin, Borvald, Falskaar
Looks like we slept in. Jarl Agnar informs me we're going to attack Staalgarde, but he has sent Ulgar ahead with a small task force to clear the Emerald Valley Gates, the outpost that controls the approach to the only actual road to Staalgarde. Agnar would be most grateful if me and my followers gave him a hand, so would I agree to talk to Ulgar just this once?
I agree.
Yngvarr's capital Staalgarde should be somewhere on that plateau northeast of the green marker.
In the south is that cave next to a pond where we searched for those svengarberries for Freya. Just reminiscing, never mind.
In the south is that cave next to a pond where we searched for those svengarberries for Freya. Just reminiscing, never mind.
We're going to Amber Creek first, though, to give Svea the ring and I guess we'll bathe there as well. Surely we will make it to the rendezvous with Ulgar before Agnar arrives with the main force.
Svea thanks me cordially and gives me some money, probably the fraction of the ring's market value, but the girls and I have just hugely improved our standing in this village.
But now we really must hurry back to the mountain pass and then to the southeast.
We arrive near Emerald Valley Gates well before sundown. It's very cloudy, though. I'm as sure as can be that it's going to rain cats and dogs later today.
Ulgar explains us the plan – we'll run in and kill everyone. Great. I love simple plans.
I'm astonished to see Ulgar and his men run off so fast we can barely keep up with them. They kill most of the bandits, but I'm sure we were of some help as well.
What happens now?
We'll wait for Jarl Agnar, explains Ulgar. They should't take long.
The rain starts, as a mere drizzle at first, and increases gradually into a real downpour. That doesn't keep Jarl Agnar from delivering an incredibly long and incredibly tedious speech. But the men seem to like it. By the time it's properly raining, I feel like I'm in a cage with dozens of lions eager to get out and tear the enemies in pieces, except that the cage walls are imaginary and will disappear as soon as Agnar would deign to finish speaking. And now he does. He pulls his sword and jumps off his expromptu podium and the whole herd... sorry, army runs after him with a deafening roar.
But I run faster. ;-)
We still have pretty decent visibility. The battle is long and chaotic. I'm rather astonished by our superior numbers.
When I discuss it later with the girls, we come to the conclusion that Yngvarr must have wasted a significant part of his forces ambushing us outside Fort Urokk. Which would mean his force had been much smaller than we had presumed to begin with. If so, he's truly an amazing bluffer. The other possibility is that he has neglected the defenses of Staalgarde and fortified Fort Urokk very strongly instead, mistakenly expecting our attempt to conquer it back. The second hypothesis is supported by the city being empty of civilians. They have been evacuated – maybe to Fort Urokk, maybe somewhere else.
But that's what we'll be reflecting upon later. Right now, we're running through the city with a completely unfamiliar layout, searching for targets. I can't see any traces of tactics or coordination on our allies' part, but as I said, there are so many of us that we simply overrun the defenders. And then I jump when fireballs begin to fall upon the houses behind us. The same kind of big fireballs we saw from a distance outside Borvald. Looks like Jarl Agnar has somehow captured (or created?) some of the devices those devastating fireballs were launched from. Evidently he has decided to destroy Yngvarr's capital for good. What bothers me is how could he have been sure we would be able to smash between the defenders so quickly? Or doesn't he care if the fireballs hit his own troops (or possibly himself, because he is personally leading the attack)?
I observe with horrified awe how one fireball after another hits a house and none fall onto the streets and squares.
Incredible as it seems, they have apparently been able to aim them with superb precision, doubtlessly using the help of someone who knows the city's layout intimately. That still doesn't answer the question how the jarl could have known the civilians would not be in the houses, and maybe it's a question I'd better not ask. But now I really have to run after the soldiers, because there are more neighborhoods to explore and more enemies to kill.
Human enemies, I mean.
In the pouring rain and fading light, we finally reach a smallish castle called Unnvaldr Keep. Running closely behind Jarl Agnar, I enter a hall of the size of approximately half of Windhelm throne room with almost no furniture. Behind a row of soldiers stands none other than Yngvarr Unnvaldr. He tells us sneeringly he knows where the Heart of the Gods is, and Agnar demands to know how he found out. Well, apparently Yngvarr got wind of us coming to liberate kidnapped Jalma and Wilhard, so he hurried into Amber Creek without delay and succeeded in sneaking into the jarlery and taking a peek at the book me and my followers brought from Vizemundsted.
"What are we doing here chit-chatting?" I'd like to shout. "Let's just kill the bastard and be done with it." Since no one else shows any intent of interrupting this exalted display of mutual contempt, I raise my bow. That instant Yngvarr leaps out the back door and his soldiers attack us. Together with Agnar's men, we cut them down without much trouble, but it causes a delay long enough for Yngvarr to vanish without a trace. Or maybe not. Agnar says that with mountains on all sides and the streets securely under our control, there is only one road by which Yngvarr could have escaped. It leads to the north, into the mountains.
I give a sign to the girls and we run in that direction. The uphill road turns and then leads to a log fence with a narrow gate. There are a few soldiers whom we kill easily.
We look back, down the road to Unnvaldr Keep, waiting for Agnar to catch up with us.
Houses of Staalgarde are practically invisible by now, except when lightning strikes. We can still see the fireballs flying seemingly from the vicinity of the Emerald Valley outpost.
The weather being this ghastly, I decide against waiting. What if Agnar has been delayed with some urgent business? I'm not going back down to the city and start looking for him. Let's go forward.
There's a good road that leads almost straight to the north between high rocky mountains.
We see some ancient-looking ruins here and there, but no more enemies.
By the time I'm already expecting to reach the ocean any moment, we see a big structure on the roadside. It's called Mountain Mist Temple. Didn't Brother Thorlogh mention that name sometime in the past? Yes, he did, the girls reply. Let's go in, they suggest. There's nowhere else to go and at least we'll get away from the rain.
I wouldn't think of objecting. Of course we'll have to find out what's inside the structure.
We enter a large hall typical of the robust architecture of the ancient Nords. There is halfway decent light and we can see a small podium or pedestal at the farther end. On it are five yellow round things. Still no one is attacking us.
We proceed through a wide corridor and a big door, reaching a huge cavern. At the end of a plateau is something glowing in Eye-of-Magnus color. Beyond it is a drop of maybe ten meters. To our right is a comfortable path down. The glowing thing itself is a cylinder maybe three meters high and three in diameter. In the middle of it is a pedestal, above which floats an object of irregular shape and roughly half a human head's size. It's impossible to reach it, because the blue glow is impenetrable.
"Maybe this is the Heart of the Gods?"
"And maybe those five yellow things were where you put the five Keys on," says Lydia.
"Maybe the Keys had already been put there," suggests Jordis.
"But surely then the Heart would no longer be blocked by this energy barrier," I reply.
"If this even is the Heart," says Jenassa, "although I too am inclined to think it is."
"Let's wait for Agnar and the others to arrive," I say. "Jordis, would you go out to the road to look out for them?"
She leaves.
"It seems to me that if we just sit here and wait for Yngvarr, we can prevent him from using the Keys," says Lydia.
"Where is the jerk anyway?" I wonder. "He should have arrived here long before us."
"There must be a catch somewhere," Jenassa states the obvious, after which we fall silent for some time.
We could of course explore the cavern, but here, next to the blue glow is undoubtedly where something is going to happen, and considering the delicacy of the general situation in Falskaar, I'm sure we'd better wait for Agnar and Thorlogh or someone rather than act on our own.
However, I soon get bored of hanging around here and we join Jordis outside. I rather have water falling onto me than look at those brownish-green stone things and the crazy architecture and listen to the complete silence.
It doesn't take long for Brother Thorlogh and Jarl Agnar to turn up, soon followed by Agnar, Ulgar and a dozen soldiers. Agnar and Thorlogh look at each other and then the jarl takes me aside and tells me I'd better leave with my followers and let them take it from here. He will be eternally grateful for what we have done, but this is their fight, and they will not mess it up this time.
All right. This doesn't look like anything I would enjoy, and in fact it was impossible not to notice the look of unusual confidence on Thorlogh's face while he was running towards the temple at such speed that Agnar had trouble keeping up.
Before leaving, I tell Agnar there's a pedestal with five yellow thingies, and then a black thingy inside a blue glow. His impatient nod looks like he already knows all about it. Very well. I wish him good luck and give the girls a sign to follow me. We run past Ulgard, Svegard and all the others without looking at them. I don't care if destroying Yngvarr is a matter of honor for Agnar like he said or he doesn't trust me not to grab the opportunity and misuse the Heart of the Gods for my own purposes. I just run back towards Staalgarde slightly ahead of my girls, feeling the rain and looking at the lightnings.
It doesn't take us long to reach the wooden gate that used to block the access to the Mountain Mist Temple road. Actually, we could have found out where the road to the north would have lead to, but my tiredness was much greater than my curiosity. Besides, the bombardment of Staalgarde has not yet ceased, even though the city is under our control. Under the control of Jarl Agnar's army, I mean. Seems like no one has told the fireball launchers. All the better for us, because now we can find out how they cast those burning things into the air, and to such unbelievable height and distance at that.
My tiredness has gone. We walk towards the origin of the fireballs, having to watch our step carefully because it's pitch dark. Occasionally we stop and wait for another launch to check our bearing, or a lightning flash to see what the terrain in front of our feet is like. I don't want to use a lighting ring or circlet, because it would ruin this stunning, incredible interaction of light and darkness. I would gladly wear a magical object that repels water, but I don't have any.
Soon we can faintly distinguish the contours of a wooden structure 2 or 3 meters high. There's a burning thing on top of it and a soldier seems to move around it doing something. Stepping closer, we can see it's an apparatus with some kind of a spring mechanism which is suddenly released and casts a fireball as if with a very big arm.
[series of 4 pictures you can click through; click on the first picture to make it big, then click again to see the next picture etc.; press Esc to return to the text]
It's called "catapult", nearby soldiers inform us. The only light being the next fireball-to-be-launched, I can't see how the catapult is built. All I can see is a long wooden lever, indeed resembling an outstretched arm, pulled back and then quickly released. There must be one or two similar devices somewhere in the darkness behind us, because occasionally fireballs fly over our heads towards Staalgarde which is a few hundred meters to our north.
[series of 3 pictures you can click through; click on the first picture to make it big, then click again to see the next picture etc.; press Esc to return to the text]
I have no time to study the amazing device further, because a group of enemy soldiers has turned up near us. I hurry after Agnar's soldiers and we kill the enemies. After a moment of reflection, I decide I've seen enough. We run to Falskaar Docks and board the ship to Dånstar.
next awakening
