Always Lost, Always Hopeful (109) Anomalies

———————————————
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






4-201-12-03 10:35
a tent, Pale Imperial Camp, The Pale, Skyrim


I'm feeling great. It's light outside, although there's barely a clear spot in the cloudy sky.

Wading through the thick snow on our way to Dånstar, we pass by some bandits at some distance who seem to be excited to see us, but they can't be bothered with this snow.

In Dånstar, I'm happy to see the Khajiit trader Ahkari with her two assistants. I admire her almost black face with lighter gray on the sides.

It's early enough, so I can go through all the traders in town and do some mining as well, and Lydia has time to go on a patrol or something with her boyfriend. One of the miners named Gjak seems quite likeable in his unsophisticated way. I can't make up my mind if I should seduce him or use the opportunity to reach Winterhold in daylight. Or maybe try to get through that mysterious Black Door north of the town which the locals say is very bad and dangerous?

I decide to stick to my plan and proceed to Winterhold. There are two possible routes.

We could take the road (yellow arrow on the map) and spend the night in the Nightgate Inn (green dot), but the problem is it's almost three times longer than the direct way along the northern coast (blue arrow). The downside of the shorter path is that there's nowhere to spend the night and the terrain is so bad you don't travel there in darkness if you can avoid it.

After some councel with Jenassa and Mikki, I decide we'll head for Winterhold along the coast without delay. That is after we've found Lydia and then spent some time admiring a group of lovely horkers having fun. We see many more horkers along the coast. There are also bears whom we won't bother to fight. We just run past. The only time I make a stop is when a bear is attacking a horker.

We kill the bear and move on.

Once again, I look at this island and wonder what's that structure,
but I'm not yet curious enough to swim over and find out.

A little more than halfway to Winterhold, between Hob's Fall Cave and Saarthal, I stop when I suddenly hear some weird rumbling, or it could be an unusually low-pitched roar. We look very carefully in every direction, but we can't see anything stirring anywhere. We run on. A little later, we see a dragon north of us. That weird noise might have been the echo of his roaring between the mountains. I tell the girls to just go on running without slowing down. Let the dragon come to us if he wants to.

He doesn't. Soon we arrive on the coast north of Winterhold and spend some time looking for the way uphill and arrive in the town well before dark.

Now, my instinct tells me strongly that there'll be some serious trouble later today and I ought to go and report to Savos Aren as soon as I can. Yet, I can't help going to the inn first and then shopping. I won't let my followers go, though. I instruct them to be on the lookout all the time. They sense my nervousness, but they don't ask what it's about, and if they would, I couldn't explain anyway.

We go to the College and check out the vendors as well as the gossip.

Master Tolfdir tells me he has misplaced his alembic somewhere and he would be very grateful if I found it. I don't even know what an alembic is. Mikki informs me it's that thing you do alchemy with. Whatever, I can't think of that now. I'm getting increasingly nervous. When I run into Onmund who tries to chat me up, I finally realize I've been walking through dormitories and striking up meaningless conversations merely in order to postpone my meeting with Savos. Such attitude won't do, I tell myself. I must face whatever horrors may be awaiting me, and, come to think of it, there hasn't even been anything out of the ordinary so far. Everything is peaceful. Possibly I'm being anxious for no reason at all.

I have to go and find Savos. He may be in his quarters. So the girls and I just walk across the courtyard towards the entrance of the study hall, each one of us very much alert in spite of the lack of any signs of danger.

In the foyer from which staircases lead to the library and to the Arch-Mage's quarters, I meet Savos and Mirabelle. The path to the study hall (where, as you may remember, the Eye of Magnus is) is blocked by a somewhat frightening greenish-blue glow.

The Arch-Mage suspects Ancano is doing something in there and we need to get through the barrier and I should help. I'm not quite sure what it is I'm supposed to do, but Savos and Mirabelle succeed in shrinking the forcefield, so we can run in. Indeed, there is Ancano doing something.

I shoot a few arrows, but they fail to damage him. Savos shouts to Ancano to stop, without any result. Then Savos tries to cast a spell. It results in something like an explosion. I'm hurled out of the hall into the foyer.

When I come to, I see Mirabelle sitting on the floor. She wants me to go and find the Arch-Mage. I'm worried about her, but she insists she's fine, she just needs to catch her breath.

Very well. I stand up. My followers appear, panting and shaken. We go out into the yard. A group of greatly confused people has gathered there. Tolfdir tells me Savos Aren is dead. Keeping the crowd away, he asks me what happened inside. I tell him we must go and help Mirabelle. He promises he'll take care of her, but right now I am to go with Faralda, our most competent Destruction mage, because something utterly horrible is attacking the town below us.

Gosh. That's the last thing we need – another excuse for the townspeole to suspect the mages of playing with dark forces!

Me and my followers run after Faralda. I can see from the high bridge that there are some glowing blue things flying around. I try to ask Faralda if she knows more about what we're up against, but she acts like she's not hearing me. So all I can do is rush down the stairs after her.

There's a massive fight going on – guards, some workers, even horses are in utter panic, standing up on their hind legs and trying to kick with their front legs. Of course the poor animals don't stand a chance against those magical creatures. They are basically like icewraiths, except that they seem bigger and, as I said, glow in blue. Lucky it's dark so they're clearly visible – for what good it is with them flying so fast that they're virtually impossible to hit.

I grab my bow and start shooting. There's nothing else to do. I'm very worried about hitting people who decidedly don't glow in darkness. Horses are at least so big that they're difficult to overlook, but humans are impossible to see from distance. Yet, I have to take the risk. I can't wait until the sunrise, can I?

So, for the next I've-no-idea-how-much-time, I can think of nothing except running around with those blue things swishing back and forth all around me, and firing arrows of which at best one of six hits. I find out that the things are not only hard to hit – they're really tough to kill too. So is, fortunately, Lydia whom I hit once by accident.

When they're all dead and my followers are all alive, I see that approximately an hour and a half has passed, and I'm almost out of arrows. But only almost. Most amazingly, I went through all of this without taking any damage myself. It's more than I can say about those unfortunate horses. I'm not going to do a body count in the darkness, but at least there are two town guards nearby walking on their own two feet. Me, I need to hurry back to the College to see if Mirabelle is all right... and, well, how's the general situation near that greenish-blue energy bubble. (No, Jenassa, you may not leave yet. We don't know what the situation is like up there. Shame on you!)

Mirabelle is fine, more or less. She tells me the College mages are unable to defeat Ancano and his forcefield. I'm to hurry and find the Staff of Magnus . You may remember that the Cyrodiilian mage I met in Mzulft believed strongly it would be in Labyrinthian.

Mirabelle gives me an amulet that belonged to the late Savos Aren, just in case. She doesn't know what it does, but Savos has told her he got it from Labyrinthian.

Well, I certainly won't be going anywhere tonight. I'm exhausted. Not too exhausted to climb the stairs up to the library, though. (Before that, I let Jenassa go, after having admonished her not to act like that again. I haven't forgotten she's got a boyfriend and I wouldn't keep her from being with him just out of meanness.)

"Did you see how Faralda looked at you?" asks Lydia as we walk up the stairs.
"Um... I didn't, really, to be honest. But she seemed very upset because of the trouble at the College."
"No, it was not that. She was angry with you. It was not just her grumpiness on the bridge. I noticed during the battle how she was aiming her staff at your back. The moment she saw me, she pointed the staff elsewhere. I didn't leave her out of my sight since then."
That's weird. I don't recall ever having had any conflict with Faralda.

Up in the library tower, I'm greeted like a hero. Ertzebet doesn't say anything apart from the usual hello, but I can see the fascination in her face. So I take a deep breath and step up to her and look into her green eyes and put my hand gently onto her upper arm and ask if she would like to come to my house with me.

She would.

I whisper to Lydia to run ahead and tell my housecarl Brynjarr to make himself scarce. Ertzebet is shy enough as it is. She doesn't need to see a man walk out potentially guessing what we're up to.

Her body is of much lighter color than her face. How did she manage to get so tanned in this snowy place? But that's not the point. The point is, when I lick her down there, the modest quiet girl turns into a bomb of passion. She's so eager, so frantic that I even find it a little disturbing. She really needs a boyfriend. But I'm not going to tell her that. Not tonight.

next awakening






return to the table of contents

Always Lost, Always Hopeful (80) Girl-on-Girl Magic

———————————————
SPOILER INFO
This fanfic novel is based on the events that occurred in an actual game of Skyrim I played. Therefore, it inevitably reveals a lot about the game.
———————————————




previous day






4-201-11-05 03:08
Wreck of The Pride of Tel Vos, Winterhold, Skyrim


At 3 o'clock in the morning, I can make out the silhouette of some kind of a distant fortification against the night sky which could be the town of Winterhold. But the ground outsight the campsite is just one big blackness. The only thing that can actually be seen are snowflakes (when they get close enough).

So we've got a couple of hours at least until sunrise, and decidedly nothing to do on this lifeless snowy island. Should we start moving towards that fort silhouette, relying on the meager light given by my magic ring? Or maybe I'd better pass the time by making love to Lydia which we have both been getting increasingly impatient to try? The location isn't exactly romantic, but on the other hand it would warm us up nicely, and I wouldn't mind a physical climax in addition to the emotional one I got yesterday, and there aren't any living men around, and I don't know if I can find any in Winterhold today, and tomorrow will be too late.

I'm utterly unable to make up my mind.

Lydia thinks we should rather not make love in a dumpster like this. If we proceed very cautiously, we can make at least some headway towards Winterhold by the time it gets light. It may not be much, but it's better than sitting still. And then we'll have the whole of today. It's very likely I'll be able to find at least one attractive man in Winterhold, Lydia says, and even if I won't, the two of us can still find a private place in the evening. Even an inn room would be far preferable to this.

Actually, if we go the wrong way and end up somewhere between mountains and have to come all the way back, it'll be worse than sitting still. But I won't say it, because I see Lydia's point. And besides, this is a perfect opportunity to test how helpful this lighting ring will be in circumstances pretty much as shitty as one can possibly have.

So we study the map and choose the route where the waterways to be crossed can be expected to be as narrow as possible.

By and large, we head for that fortress-like thing we can see in the distance. Even if it's not Winterhold, a structure this big is bound to have humans or at least roads nearby.

This is the kind of visibility we're having – with the help of the magic ring.

After a while, we encounter a bear. I feel reluctant to fight it and remember that I have a dragon shout Animal Allegiance. I use it on the bear and it becomes friendly. So we can proceed without fighting.

We move from one small island to another. Nearly each one of them consists of a narrow strip of coast at the foot of very high steep mountains.

Sooner than I expected, and after but a little detour, we find ourselves near that weird structure, approaching it, strangely enough, from northwest.

There's a snowy slope that's not too slippery to climb up, and then we pass through a stone arch and there's level ground and houses of Winterhold. I can now take my purple-light ring off:

The large building with a tower behind us (presumably the mages' college I've been hearing about) is strikingly beautiful, the buildings of the town itself are ordinary wooden houses, and the population seems somewhat downcast. One of the few people walking on the street at this early hour apart from the guards is Birna, the local shopkeeper. She tells us how she made a bad deal buying a Coral Dragon Claw . It's supposed to open up a way to some mystical treasures in Yngol Barrow (the very ruin we walked past yeaterday, remember?), but there's no way she'll ever go there. She offers me the thing for 50 septims. I take it. Maybe it's a scam, but it's so cheap and maybe it'll come useful after all.

Birna complains about Ranmir (her husband as I presume), apparently a no-good bum who drinks away most of what Birna earns, which is why they can't afford to move to a better place. Indeed, the man himself is already wandering the streets looking for someone who'd buy him a drink. It would seem he's not very welcome at the local inn where we go next.

As we enter, we see innkeeper Dagur in conversation with an elf called Nelacar, evidently a mage. It seems that Dagur has been complaining about a stinking monster that came to life due to some magical experiment. I hear Nelacar say that it was just an unfortunate mistake. Dagur tries to explain him that the mages' casual attitude to such "mistakes" is precisely why the local population dislikes and distrusts them. I'm not sure his message is getting through.

Dagur informs us there's not much going on in this backwater town. Nelacar whose studies of something I briefly interrupt in one of the inn rooms tells me he used to work at the college, but is now independent and actually lives here at the inn, because he likes to keep in touch with his former colleagues, yet not to be bound by the college's rules.

There is also a mysterious man Borlan who is not interested in talking to us at all.

It's getting on 7 o'clock in the morning. I want to pay a visit to the jarl and then check out the college, but I'd better take a bath first. The girls are going to relax for a bit longer in the warm water, but I don't want to waste any time. Or, to tell you the truth, I feel silly for having suggested something as stupid as having sex with Lydia on that dreadful shipwreck. Luckily, none of the girls mentions it.

Clean and joyful, I walk to the jarl's longhouse where I speak a few words to everyone except the jarl (who's still asleep), without learning anything of interest. Then I follow the main street back in the direction we came from earlier today. At its northern end, a stone walkway leads up to what I presume to be the college.

I'm met by a tall woman Faralda who informs me the College gate will not open for me unless she decides to let me in. She wants to know what it is I want with the College.

Better not tell her I wasn't joking.

After a few more questions, Faralda lets me demonstrate a simple spell I happen to know, and then she says I can be admitted as a student. I follow her across the long bridge and through the entrance gate into the College courtyard.

There's a lot to see, and I emphasize "see" – not just because of the alluring beauty of the structures' in- and outsides. The woman Mirabelle Ervine to whom Faralda takes me is so gorgeous that my heart misses a beat each time I look at her. She seems to be a Breton, but her skin is a little darker than usual. Overall, she just makes me go weak at the knees.

She's older than me, yet without any signs of aging, at least in the parts not covered by her winter clothes. In spite of that youthful look, she outright emanates astuteness and pragmatism. And she's a Breton!! I feel Mirabelle would be exactly the kind of mature companion I yearn to look up to and trust completely, and hold nothing back discussing things you can't talk about with men. And why not lie naked in passionate embrace as well? I suddenly believe to remember that Bretons (usually) consider it acceptable between close friends.

At the moment, I can sadly see no way of that dream coming true. Mirabelle, the acting leader of this institution, is far above me in the hierarchy. The College is headed by the arch-mage, but his mind is busy with important matters, which is why Mirabelle is leading the College's day-by-day affairs. She shows me around, first in the student dormitory (I get a small bedroom of my own, but that doesn't extend to my followers) and then in the main study hall known as Hall of the Elements . The latter is where she leaves me with the instruction to attend a class held by a Master Tolfdir.

Before I do that, I exchange a few words with two practising mages and then with a very tall High Elf named Ancano whom I upon my arrival saw with Mirabelle in what looked like a dispute. Ancano is a representative of the thalmors. He's very overbearing, but I act demurely and question him about everything he would agree to talk about. It's not much, but I learn at least one important thing – thalmors don't have any power in the College. Ancano is being tolerated with some reluctance, but at least on College grounds thalmors can't afford to drag people away to be tortured.

After that brief but not entirely uninteresting encounter, I join the group of students around Tolfdir, a very old man with one of those utterly silly knotted beards so popular in Skyrim.

Today's lesson is about Restoration magic, and more specifically the protective spells known as wards. (The entire field of magic is divided into five disciplines or "schools" – Alteration, Conjuration, Destructon, Illusion and Restoration.) Master Tolfdir chooses me as the first demonstration subject. He teaches me a ward spell and lets me try out its use – he casts some kind of an attack spell on me while I am holding up the ward. It's certainly a great feeling, even though in real combat I prefer to attack back.

My fellow students seem impatient to get into some real action while Tolfdir tries to make them understand how important safety is. Then, however, he gets them visibly excited by announcing he'll soon take our group to explore some mysterious ruins at a place called Saarthal west-southwest of Winterhold.

After the lesson, I use the opportunity to chat with the other students, and get a chance to talk briefly with the arch-mage Savos Aren himself who has come to see how the new students are doing. He has red eyes common among elves and a face that looks a bit otherworldly even for an elf. He's a friendly man, but I can't hazard the slightest guess as to his age. Of course, it is to be expected that more advanced mages would use magic to keep themselves look somewhat younger than their years.

I wander off to the door of the arch-mage's residence which is locked. The unlocked door opposite leads to the library. There's a High Elf woman Lilia, apparently an elder student who doesn't consider me worthy of her attention. The librarian Urag is a very old Orc man. He warns me sternly to treat the books under his care with utmost caution and care.

Wait, do you mean to say you were here before the Third Era? That's, what, more than 600 years ago??

When I ask if there's possibly a way for me to make myself useful, he informs me there's a rare book "The Waters of Oblivion" he's interested in acquiring for the library. It's supposed to have been seen in the Sunderstone Gorge that is located northwest of Northkeep. Urag has no one to send there, but he'd really like to have the book and would make it worth my while if I found it and brought it to him.

Great. That cave is already known to me. Urag is not at all close to my male ideal, but I'll be happy to do him (and the College) a service.

Urag is a trader as well, but he only buys books. I sell him two I don't need.

The library is big and comfortable. There are people coming and going, students as well as teachers. Siryn is another elder student, a High Elf, but somewhat friendlier the Lilia. Rather busy studying, though. Renna is a really nice girl with brownish red hair and pretty light-reddish-brown skin. She looks like she hasn't been here for much longer than I have. Nirya, in turn, is an advanced student, a very talkative High Elf who hates Faralda from the bottom of her heart. (Although she insists it's Faralda who hates her.)

She declares categorically that everything Faralda has told me about her is lies. I don't get a chance to say that Faralda hasn't mentioned her at all. My jaw drops when I see an unknown feminine figure walk past, but it takes me a considerable time until I succeed in loosening myself from Nirya's insistive diatribe.

I look around myself frantically. There she is, my angel descended from heaven! She introduces herself as Ertzebet.

Librarian's assistant? Good. It means I'll be able to find her in this library for some time to come. I wish she had much fewer clothes on, but even so I could stand there and look at her forever. To my greatest regret, she has work to do and neither do I want to come across as intrusive, to say nothing of weird. How can I get her into bed – and why am I so lesbian all of a sudden? There's no one to ask for advice, with my followers somewhere down below exploring the town. But what can I do when there are no attractive men around? One of the guys in that ward class was a Khajiit. Maybe I can catch him in the dormitory? I can't see any other men who would tickle my fancy. The only good thing around here are several trainers. I'll be able to improve my meager magic skills whenever I'm in town.

I return to the courtyard and enter what seems to be the teachers' dormitory. My tour with Mirabelle didn't include this one. There are very few people about, with most occupants apparently busy with their work and studies somewhere. The door on the upper floor exits onto the magnificent roof of the College.

If I'm not greatly mistaken, the arch-mage lives somewhere up there.

However, the view down leaves much to be desired due to the incessant snowfall. I go check out the upper floor of the student dorm. The most interesting person I meet is an elf called Enthir. He hints secretively that he might be able to get me wares that aren't officially approved in the College.

After I've finished talking to him, I notice that it's almost 6 in the evening already!! I have to hurry if I'm going to find a man for tonight. You might ask why it's so awfully important. It's not like I haven't survived several days without sex many times in the past. Well, I don't know. I'm just obsessed. I need to have an orgasm tonight, even if it's only with a woman. Come to think of it, with a man I might well end up without an orgasm. You know how it is. In spite of this rational realization, my body yearns for a penis. When I can't find one, I'll have to settle for Lydia. That'd have to be in an inn, as there's no proper privacy in the dormitory.

Well, enough of the gabbing! I'll check out downstairs and then I'll take a look around the town. Maybe there is one attractive man somewhere in Winterhold after all.

There's still daylight outside.

That statue must be the Shrine of Azura I kept hearing about further south.

Just out of idle curiosity, I walk around those arches beneath the university bridge. There's nothing of slightest interest there. After that, I step into every house that isn't locked, and speak a few words (or more) with everyone I see. I'm surprised that the jarl still hasn't turned up.

I learn that about 80 years ago, cliffs in Winterhold collapsed and a large part of the city fell into the ocean. The Mages' College took no damage, which is why many locals thought the mages had caused the disaster. That's why the hatred for the College and mages in general persists to this day. Now that I begin to pay attention to it, I'm already seeing some people giving me weird looks. They seem to be taking issue with my enlisting at the College.

However, the innkeeper Dagur assures me he has no problem with it, and his wife Haran even asks for my help after we've chatted for some time and the conversation turns to Ranmir. I thought he was the husband of Birna, but he's in fact her brother. Nevertheless, she shares her money with him and he spends most of it on alcohol. He's even managed to build up a considerable debt which greatly worries Haran. I promise I'll try and talk to Ranmir. In the meantime, though, the night has fallen and I've failed to find myself a mate. So I go with Lydia into the room I've hired.

I basically just lie back and let her satisfy me. She's not the one who's getting her period tomorrow, and besides it serves her right for teasing me with her smutty jokes all the time.

I get the climax I so badly needed. Several, in fact. Lydia seems very eager to please me, and for that matter I'll be happy to do the same for her some other time.

It's almost 3 o'clock in the morning when we go to sleep. Completely exhausted, I won't bother to return to the College dormitory.



next awakening






return to the table of contents