Always Lost, Always Hopeful (164) If We Go Back

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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






4-202-01-29 06:17
Dwelling E-1a, Dusk, Summerset, Aldmeri Dominion

Ever seen a sunrise in Dusk?

I let Bradwin have his good morning and then we eat breakfast together. I hug and kiss him goodbye and go to fetch my followers from the inn. We explore the rest of the dwellings. The higher ones are really difficult to get to.

This is one of the easy ones. Really.

One is inhabited by two bandits who are women – in the broadest possible meaning of the word. And very hostile.

Some have ghosts similar to the ones we encountered yesterday:

And this is one of the most glamorous-looking Khajiits I've ever seen (never mind the worn-out clothes):

A little before 11, we leave this somewhat deadly but generally nice place and travel to the west. Near that bandit village, we have to fight our way through another group of mages.

After that, there's nothing but the road and spruce forests and giant mushrooms ahead of us.

We wash ourselves in the ocean. Dusk is somewhat substandard in this respect. I wonder how the inhabitants keep themselves clean. Maybe we didn't explore quite everything.

We bathe only one at a time, the other three keeping watch. You can't be too careful in Summerset.

A little way to the west, we discover a strange village called Archen Grangrove that has houses shaped like spheres and half-spheres. In one of them, we encounter that nice Orc woman Dam we met in this region the last time.

There are no people on the streets. We move on without bothering to explore the place thoroughly.

When we approach Aro Pass, several bears rise to their feet in the long grass on the roadside. Of course, that's the bear colony we saw and bypassed by walking on top of the hill to our left last time. This time, we're right in the middle of it. I feel reluctant to kill the bears. After all, we are the intruders here. I remember I have the dragon shout Animal Allegiance. I use it and the bears near us become indeed friendly. However, that has the result that they attack the other bears further ahead who are still hostile.

I didn't count with that, but there's nothing I can do about it now. Animal Allegiance  has a cooldown period like all dragon shouts have, and by the time I'll be able to use it again, their fight will be over. So all we can do is keep running. Should have just run away when we saw the bears. As I've told you, we can outrun even wolves, so bears have certainly no chance of catching up with us.

We admire the delightful pond west of Aro Pass and then we discover a place called Fort Sul. It consists of two citadel ruins almost entirely submerged in the mountain slope.

Inside one of them is a locked door. The lock is too complicated for me to pick, so we just continue our journey to Sunhold, taking a shortcut over the hills. We smile at the grumpy Orc who is guarding the mine entrance. (He's kind of cute in his grim way.) We mine a little and then go down the hill and in through the gate of Sunhold. It's quarter to three in the afternoon and we're in high spirits.

I visit Valante first to ask her if she has any new healing quests for me. She instructs me to go and cure a vampire hunter who was bitten by a vampire and is now in danger of turning into one herself – the worst imaginable thing to happen to a vampire hunter, as you can imagine. She's supposed to live east of Sunhold, near Aro Pass where we just came from.

Now I go to report to Lord Ish, the Summerset equivalent of a jarl or a thane. I'm asked to wait, and then he appears, looking very sleepy. He takes some time to realize that not only is his scouting party no more, Holly Falls has sunken underground and the surviving inhabitants need a place to live. He says he has no houses to give them, but he'll set up a refugee camp at somewhere called "North Platform".

That's obvious bullshit. There are, if I'm not greatly mistaken, three vacant houses – actually called "Vacant House number so-and-so" in this town. But I remember that, being a foreigner, and an official enemy of the thalmors at that, I maybe had better keep my opinion to myself.

I'm to bring word to Ocaro, the leader of Holly Falls, and that's in fact where we head right now, I mean after I've walked around in the town a little and talked to a passerby or two.

We leave by the northwestern gate and run to the northeast, approaching Holly Falls by the road this time.

Ocaro is visibly disappointed, but agrees that a camp is better than nothing. He says he'll start planning the trek and he'd appreciate if I checked back with them in a few days, to give them protection during the journey, because they'll be quite vulnerable, traveling slowly with women and children and all their stuff..

Now we'll go and see about that vampire hunter. Aro Pass lies to our southeast. In order to not travel along the road already so familiar, we go eastwards first and then find a way south across the hills. The trip is pleasant, apart from us getting attacked by those fish-like animals. The pond around which they lived is utterly adorable, I'm inclined to say even more so than the one at Aro Pass.

Looking at the water surface, I feel like I'm carried away into some kind of a different world, a realm of infinite peacefulness.
Lucky I've got my followers with me to bring me back to reality and remind me we have a job to do.

Nevertheless, Aro Pass is immensely heartwarming in the rays of the falling sun.

We find a woman Elara whose eyes are indeed of suspicious color. I use Valante's spell to cure her. Now, we ought to get moving if we want to make it to the Gemstone Cave before darkness, but I feel kind of dirty and decide to wash myself here in this scenic pond. I choose Spriggan Soap this time. No special reason, I just feel like it. The girls follow my example.

On our way towards the main south-north road, we are attacked by some magical abominations and by the time we reach the road, it's half past 9 and quite dark. We'd better turn south and return to Sunhold which is almost three times closer than any know settlement north of here.

This will also give me an opportunity to check out that interesting man Thoromhel whom I noticed the first time we were here. He lives alone in his own house.

While my followers make themselves comfortable in one of the Vacant Houses , I knock on Thoromhel's door and tell him I'm a traveler and have nowhere to sleep and could he possibly put me up for the night. I'm too tired to try and make up a more sophisticated approach.

Evidently recognizing me from the last time I was in Sunhold, Thoromhel goes along with the game, acting like such a request is perfectly natural. He offers me a half of his own bed and I accept politely.

Thoromhel is not what you'd call strikingly handsome, but he's really good. He's arguably the best lover I've ever had in my life. We do it deep into the night and it's hopeless to count my orgasms. (Not that I would.) I fall asleep immensely happy and immensely exhausted.



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Always Lost, Always Hopeful (146) Nice Places

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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.
———————————————




previous day






4-202-01-11 05:04
Dusk House, Cliffs of Dusk, Summerset, Aldmeri Dominion

All right, let's find a way up to that damned gate now.

Since we've ascended all the way to this house already, I feel we ought to try climbing just a little higher onto those rocks on which the fortress wall has been built.

This turns out not very difficult. And now we start climbing along the rocky slope trying to circle counterclockwise around the fortress wall and hopefully end up at the gate or at least somewhere near it.

It takes long and looks quite scary at times.

Finally we're there, right in front of the gate. From up here, we can even see a winding path that leads down to the path down below where we were yesterday. We missed the path because we were so busy fighting all those mages.

We climbed up onto the rocks near the farther left corner of the fortress, not visible in the picture,
and circled around the nearer left corner you can see in the picture. At this moment, we are
between the left corner and that round turret in the middle, too small to be recognized.
Observe the winding walkway descending from the gate to the place where we had our first contact with the bandit mages yesterday evening. We descended and proceeded slowly along the path, killing bandits all the way, to the small citadel beyond the bottom left corner of the picture, and it didn't occur to us this morning to come back and look for an easy way up to the gate.

I guess I forgot to tell you earlier that in the dreams I've had, the Dusk fortress has been a dark gloomy place filled with death, ghosts and hopelessness. Once we're entered, I'm surprised to see it's completely different. We have to kill a couple of things all right, but after it's done, it's really beautiful in here. There's a small orchard of sorts in the middle of the lush courtyard, and a number of small huts and a house called Slaughtered Lamb.

Also, there's a number of Dwellings  built right into the fortifications. (In the picture above, we have ascended to the platform in front of one Dwelling's entrance door. Another such platform is visible somewhat lower on the left.) They're apartments, most of which contain one large room with a double bed and a fireplace and such, and something like a pantry up the wooden stairs.

Some dwellings are inhabited by ghosts who attack us when they see us (I take really stupid risks a couple of times), and in some live actual people. Only men, for some reason. Their apathetic reaction to us could be summed up like "take whatever you want, but please don't kill me if you can help it". I find one of the Khajiits really attractive and I greatly regret that we didn't come here two days later.

Slaughtered Lamb is an inn kept by two men.

The place is in excellent state of repair and indeed really cozy, but there are no customers. I guess the locals will come later. It doesn't look like they have anywhere else to go in the evening.

In one of the dwellings, we find a diary that tells about the times apparently preceding the bandit attack that destroyed Dusk. I'll take this to Syrius and see if he likes it. That's all this formerly formidable town has to offer in terms of history.

I hope we can come back here some other time. It's really nice and delightfully peaceful (after you kill all the bad guys).

Jordis has an idea why there are only men here – the bandits took all the women.

Yeah, could be. [Shudder.]

After exiting the fortress, we are now headed west along the southern shore of the Summerset Isle. I prefer it over the road that runs more or less parallelly to it. The sandy beach with palm trees is just too beautiful to stay away from.

We discover a grove of giant mushrooms that are red with white dots. A most unusual sight.

Then I swim to a small island nearby, on which there is absolutely nothing to find, and some time later we run into a pack of bears. I've never seen five or six bears together in the same place. They don't have a chance against our weapons, but had I come here with what I was carrying three months ago, I would have surely ended up as their lunch. (No, silly, says Lydia, you would still have run faster than them.)

The coast turns from sandy to rocky again, so we turn north and go over a hill. There's the road right there below us. Another pack of bears is sleeping on the roadsides, but we won't have to disturb them. We run westwards on top of the hill until we can safely descend to the road.

Ahead of us is a bridge with a woman walking on it:

The place is called Aro Pass. We catch up with the woman. She's an Orc named Dam and she has nothing exciting to tell us.

We admire the scenic pond around us, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and then we continue traveling to the west, walking with Dam so she can have some company. By 5 o'clock, we reach a large walled town. We wish Dam a nice evening and go to check out the nearby mine (iron and silver). After that, we enter the town through the northeastern gate.

The gate's right here, that arch to our left.

There are many houses, but few people on the streets. To be precise, they don't really have streets as such. Just a hilly field, small houses all over, and some paths in the grass.

All that is surrounded by a very strong-looking defense wall. The place is kind of weird, but also pleasant. Quite a large settlement, but you don't feel crowded. It's called Sunhold.

We walk around and say hello to people, but no one is really interested in exchanging gossip, and we can't find any traders. It's late already, of course. We notice three or four houses marked Vacant House, but nothing like a shop or an inn.

There's a Court House, though, where we meet a friendly woman Erinthil as well as the town ruler. He's Lord Ish. (I mean, Ish is his name, and Lord is his title.) When I ask him if there's any way we can make ourselves useful around here, he suggests we check out a settlement north of here called Holly Falls with which they've lost contact.

We look around in a room with impressive trophies,

a room upstairs with shelves filled with scrolls, and large cooking pots in the cellar.

In one of the other houses lives a man Thoromhel who is quite likeable, but I have no use for him until tomorrow at the earliest. Jenassa seems too shy to chat him up, or maybe she's not sure if I don't want him for myself. Whatever. Most people here are married. I mean, most houses are inhabited by married couples, mostly elves, but there's also one seemingly single Orc man, and in one house lives a nice Khajiit woman Kasha. The weirdest, though, is the house belonging to a certain Beth. It has no furniture whatsoever! Not even a chair to sit on. The woman herself stands outside the southern gate and looks very unhappy. Yet, she wouldn't say what her problem is. Maybe she's intimidated by the four of us.

Well, it's dark already and in the absense of anything more suitable, we shall sleep in one of those Vacant Houses. I mean, if they're called "vacant", then I presume we can just go in. Vacant House 8-3 (I don't know what the numbers mean; maybe land slot numbers in the registry) has little furniture, but really comfortable beds up- and downstairs.

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