Always Lost, Always Hopeful (271) Accursed Greed

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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 inevitably reveals a lot about the game.
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previous day 






4-202-05-17 09:54
Canal House, Riften, The Rift, Skyrim


I go through shops with the girls unhurriedly. I won't bring up Luma just yet. I'll give it some more thought myself first. Maybe my hunches will become clearer or maybe I'll get a dream or something.

I am, however, most curious about the message I got in Forelhost. Who might possibly have seen such a strange metal envelope?
I don't have great hopes about the court wizard Wylandriah, but maybe I could ask Maramal. Priests tend to know a lot, as I have noticed.
Maramal looks at the brown metal message for several seconds without saying anything. Then the priestess Dinya, a Dark Elf, approaches, looks over his shoulder and says Cuomac is a Dwemer name.
Does this mean I have a chance to get to see a Dwemer? Could it be that they aren't extinct as everyone believes, just like the dragons weren't?
I notice an obvious decrease in enthusiasm. In fact, both Maramal and Dinya insist it's not a good idea to go to the "indicated location". They have looks on their faces like they wish they could lock me up to prevent me from pursuing this quest further. So I shrug and say I wasn't all that keen to begin with.

I exit the temple. The sky is partially cloudy, but the weather is warm and Riften is very beautiful.

Strolling alone towards the marketplace, I'm astonished to run into Ovacca.
"Wanna know something I heard?" she asks after hugs and how-are-yous.
"Always."
"It's about Razzada and Afanna."
"Oh! Tell me."
"Just don't ask where I got it from," she insists.
"Okay, I won't." I try to sound as serious as she just did.
"I'm not entirely sure it's all true, but I was told Afanna protected Razzada, because he promised to get for her a magical item that would make a man guaranteedly fall in love with her. Then he did get it for her, but apparently it misfired somehow and made that man fall madly in love with a completely different woman. Afanna was furious, but he couldn't do anything to Razzada, because he threatened to tell everyone and she couldn't bear the thought of becoming the laughingstock of the whole city. So she had to go on defending him when the guards wanted to expel him from the city, and even helping him out with money occasionally – until you turned up and went straight to the count, unwittingly solving her problem. Word is when she heard about it, she hired some mercenaries to find Razzada and kill him."
"Wait, why didn't Afanna simply have him killed earlier?"
"She couldn't risk arranging a murder within the city walls. She could have gotten into severe trouble. Although she did go as far as sounding out the Fighters' Guild, but they were afraid to go against a mage as powerful as Razzada was reputed to be."
I chuckle.
"Right," she says. "Afanna tried to tell them Razzada was a complete hack, but they thought she was just bullshitting them to persuade them to take the job."
"So, is Razzada dead now?"
"I don't know that. Maybe Afanna will tell you."
I laugh. "Yeah, right. Anyway, thanks for telling me. What brings you here?"
"I decided Cyrodiil was too unstable for me. This city looks really nice, though."
"Maybe not as nice as it used to be."
Ovacca grins and pats my shoulder. "Relax, Laura, I'm not turning back to banditry. Least of all in Skyrim. There are many ways to earn my daily bread without risking my life."
"Glad to hear it. And before I forget, the latter includes staying away from Maul."
"And Madesi?" she asks with a smirk.
"Yes, him too." I was never worried about Madesi's fidelity in the first place. And come to think of it, we can't seriously expect our casual boyfriends to go without sex while we are traveling around. Only it had better be with someone we never hear about.

Ovacca and I wish each other good luck and I walk on to the marketplace where I inform Madesi that regrettably I won't be able to be with him, because something he doesn't want to see should happen sometime during today. He says Argonians don't mind that. I say I do.

I see Jordis and Ghorbash come from the direction of our house, and we go together to fetch Lydia from the palace. I intend to visit several locations in The Rift today. I'm especially interested in finding out how the construction of Nimalten is progressing and if there's possibly something useful to do there. So far we've been doing little except running through it.

On our way to the west, I notice another one of those round Dwemer mechanisms. It must be quite near Largashbur. Funny I haven't paid any attention to it so far.

The weather gets even nicer by the time we reach the Orc village. Life has turned back to normal, everyone greets us enthusiastically, especially the men [grin]. The alchemist Atub who is some kind of a spiritual leader here (even though she obviously can't be a chief), tells me they've been succeeding very well in keeping on the good side of Malacath.

I ask her what's that Dwemer thing in the west. She says they don't know and don't care. Just one of those long-abandoned ancient sites you can find all over Skyrim.

Well, I'm going to check it out.

The path passes under really pretty stone arches.

I particularly like this column:

Note the winding stone walkway on the right that leads to the top.

We climb higher than that curious mechanism and find a Control Port, but we can't activate it and I'm not even sure we should. Nearby is one of those pipes that seem broken but still keep releasing steam every once in a while:

I've told you I don't care much about technology, but those Dwemer machines are so different from everything else that I can't help getting curious. I mean, they look so unbelievably powerful. When put to proper use, they might be able to achieve things we can't even imagine.

Now what about that building over there?

It's really hard to get to, and we can't get inside from there either. So we just welcome this as an educating workout and leave for Sunguard City.

Oh... In case you're interested, the name of the place is Avanchnzel.

Sunguard City is not far.

I am informed that the local government is giving me a house as a gift, to show the people's gratitude for all the good deeds that I've done. Well, thank you very much. The house is not awfully large, but roomy and comfortable. An ideal place to stay, should we want to spend some time in Sunguard City.

Not today, though. We proceed towards Ivarsted.

We reach the village when it's getting dark. I ask Lynly how Fastred is doing. It would appear she's not entirely aversed to the idea of getting together with Klimmek. Lynly has been dropping him subtle hints whenever he's at the inn. I suggest maybe she should be a little less subtle.

I ask Lynly if she's ready to tell us about Sibbi. She is hesitant, or rather reluctant, but she probably realizes that I'll keep asking her whenever I'll be in Ivarsted, and there's no escaping it. So she tells us.

I'm not going to repeat our entire conversation, but in a nutshell, Sibbi kept a harem, most members of which were genuinely in love with him. Lynly was among them. She assures me Sibbi knew how to allure, and to be prefectly honest, judging even by the little I got to see of him, I can totally believe it.
However, that was evidently not enough for Sibbi. Some girls he had essentially bought by rescuing their parents from dire poverty. But those girls were still content, because they were, firstly, grateful for him helping their parents, and, secondly, realized that life as Sibbi's concubines was likely to be better than anything they could have achieved on their own in this merciless world.
But there were also girls who had refused Sibbi, after which he had blackmailed them into becoming his pleasure toys by threatening to have their family members thrown into prison, their home set on fire or such.
Sibbi treated his girls well, Lynly says. He wasn't sadistic or anything. The bad part were frequent sex orgies with Sibbi's friends where he, generous and jovial as he was, supplied the females. He also routinely rewarded his henchmen for good services by letting them have sex with one or another of his girls. In very special cases he actually gave a girl permanently to a "business" partner or a cutthroat who had served him exceptionally well. Svidi had seen this happen several times.
There was no information of those girls' fate. No gory rumors. Still, this was not what they had counted with when they gave themselves to the man they loved or at least were very grateful to. They put grudgingly up with having to share him with other women, but being given away as gifts like a cattle or household item was just too much. That's why Lynly snapped when she was told she was going to have to marry another man she had never even laid her eyes upon.
"The word is you tried to kill Sibbi," I say.
Lynly explains that after crying her eyes out and realizing it was not going to make anything better, she contacted Hafjorg from the alchemy shop. (Sibbi never considered it necessary to lock his girls up or have them watched or something. After all, this was his mother's city. Where could they go?) She bought some poison and mixed it in Sibbi's mead. Unfortunately, his sister Ingun, an aspiring alchemist with a particular interest in poisons, noticed the subtle difference in the mead's scent and recognized what it was the drink smelled of. Lynly succeeded in escaping at the last moment. She doesn't want to say who and how helped her reach Ivarsted, and we won't insist.

Lynly looks very sad. I'm having the feeling she regrets recalling it all and telling us about it.

It's still not too late, so I decide we'll go to Nimalten this evening after all. It's so close that if there's really nowhere to sleep there, we can easily return here.

There are many new faces in Nimalten. No inn yet, though. But the thane's headquarters seems to be complete:

We meet the thane too. Her name is Brasteir Stonevoice. We've seen quite a few Stonevoices in various parts of Skyrim. Brasteir says she was actually supposed to stand in for his brother until he would get some other things in Riften taken care of, but now it seems those other things are more important, so she's sort of permanently here.

After we've talked for a while, Brasteir seems to have decided she can trust me, and confesses she's in a bit of trouble. There's an ancient Nordic ruin called Vaalmungar just north of here. It's been sealed and off-bounds. Something to do with an ancient curse and a treasure. The thing is, she got curious about the treasure and sent a party of guards there, along with a mage.

It's the local dialect, never mind.

They broke the seal and went in, but haven't returned. Now she's lost some soldiers and the mage, and maybe something evil is about to come out of Vaalmungar. Not to forget that the treasure might still be in there...

I promise her we'll go and take a look. But is there any chance we can sleep here tonight, such as in the guard barracks?

Sure, she says.

And not share beds with male guards, I add, just in case.

With an amused look on her face, Brasteir gives instructions to have us accommodated.

next awakening






return to the table of contents

Always Lost, Always Hopeful (41) Could I Dance Instead?

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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






4-201-09-26 04:17
Vernim Wood Inn, Vernim Wood, Eastmarch, Skyrim


I wake up before sunrise. This gives me an opportunity to work on our gear without the blacksmith getting in my way and people distracting me with their chatter.

Yesterday we saw a dead man on the main thoroughfare, and now I'm seeing one on the street near the smithy. What's been going on here? There's no one to ask, as the guards don't want to say anything and in fact eye me rather suspiciously. Which may be precisely because of those unknown events that have produced the aforementioned dead bodies.

So I start working. Suddenly two cutthroats appear as if out of nowhere and attack me. With my followers still sleeping peacefully in our room at the inn, I have to rely on the help of the guards only.

Well, earlier, the town seemed full of them, but now there's not a guard in sight. So I'm on my own. I land a lucky death blow on one attacker, but the second one is really tough and I survive only thanks to health potions. It was a really close shave.

On one of the dead bandits, I find a note which reveals that they were sent by the people of Outcast Valley to hunt me down. Evidently, some of them didn't appreciate my killing their tyrant. Fine, now we can say we're even.

I have just a little time to wait until the shops open. After I've sold everything superfluous, we're off to the west again in cheerful sunny weather. The road is at great elevation and the views to that hot springs area where we were yesterday are marvelous. Even more scenic are the waterfalls in a place further west where the road will turn north towards Darkwater and Fort Amol:

There's a bridge over the river (you can partially see it in the picture above) and no sign of any missing person. We follow the road a little farther north to a crossing where we can turn left and take a path uphill towards the source of the waterfalls. However, we fail to find anything and I'm getting extremely frustrated. I just hate being in the dark (figuratively speaking) like this, having to find something on mountainous terrain where you spend most of your energy on merely finding a route across yet another mountain and when you've finally found it, you look at the map and see that you've actually ended up going in a wrong direction. Things like that. The girls see my irritable mood and run behind me on tiptoes.

We go a fair distance southwards and end up in a village called Nimalten:

I like Nimalten. The sight of people around me going about their daily business makes me feel calm and safe. I take off my helmet and walk around and exchange a few words with a number of villagers. Turns out Nimalten is being built. There's no shop here yet and not even a pub, for which vital need men have to walk to Ivarsted further south.

That's where we'll go too. Realizing that we've digressed so far south that Ivarsted (in the ancient times spelt "Ivarstead") is actually quite near, I figure we'd better skip that relatively unimportant quest in the mountains and head straight for the possible location of Aetherium Forge south of Ivarsted. On our way there, since we're already in this region, we'll drop by High Hrothgar. Has to be done sometime. You may remember, that's the holy place where I'm supposed to go, summoned by that elusive and mysterious order of Greybeards – or Gaybores, as Bardslayer calls them. He doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of them.

As a matter of fact, Bardslayer has informed me that the Gaybores' quest as such is pointless, but I still have to do it for one reason – since the Gaybores are revered by the Nords to the extreme, they are the only force capable of ending this unfortunate war that is ravaging Skyrim day in, day out. They hold themselves for so spiritual that it won't be easy to convince them to get involved in a matter as mundane as this, but I must at least try. That's why I'm going to heed the Gaybores' summons and go to High Hrothgar.

A quick bath in a nearby river, and a quarter of an hour later we're in the village of Ivarsted.

The young woman over there is called Fastred. She yearns to get away from this boring place.
She's in love with a certain Bassianus who has promised to take her away to great adventures one day.
Fastred's parents will have none of it, though. To them, she's a child utterly incapable of thinking for herself.

We chat with a few people on the street and pay a quick visit to the inn. Maybe I should have postponed the inn for later. The dusk is falling when we finally come out again and begin our journey up the mountains.

Next to the trees on the right edge goes a path downhill towards Nimalten. That's where we came from earlier today.
To the left of us is a bridge across the river. This is where we'll be going right now.

There's a staircase commonly referred to as 7000 steps  that leads from Ivarsted to High Hrothgar. Actually, a part of the path is stone steps and a part is just earth, so I wouldn't have even a vague idea how many steps there actually are. All I can confirm is that the windy path up the mountain is very long, although quite comfortable for running. By the way, the people of Ivarsted tell a tale about a Khajiit traveler who actually endeavored to count all the steps. As to what became of him, various people's versions differ widely.

As we get higher, the grass is replaced by the snow. Outside of some spider caves where we've been in the past, this is one of the most joyless places imaginable. Nobody lives here except snowtrolls and we kill even those because they wouldn't let us pass otherwise.

No, actually there are some goats as well, and they don't bother us. Anyway, soon the sun goes down and there's only moonlight reflected by the snow. The weather is quite horrid.

It's not easy to discourage pilgrims, though:

This is not the Dånstar bard. It's another woman with the same name.

In the castle that is at the end of the stairs, I have to search around for a long time before finding anyone who would talk to me. Saving the world, or for whichever other reason they summoned me by this Skyrim-wide thunder message, doesn't seem to be high on the Gaybores' priority list.

As we find out, the castle is inhabited by a group of old men in hooded cloaks. Their leader (of sorts) Arngeir holds me a solemn sermon. I spare you the details, especially because most of it goes through one of my ears and out the other. I mean, many Nords would probably be painfully shocked if they heard me talk like that, but the thing is, when someone walks up to me and says: "I have figured out a purpose for your life; now pay attention, I'll tell you what you need to do..." then this is precisely the degree of respect he'll get from me. A man needs first to demonstrate that he has the kind of personality that I can deeply respect and admire, and then I'll become receptive, indeed eager to prove I'm worthy of him. With people like the Gaybores, I'm just waiting for an opportunity to take my leave without being outright rude.

That said, they paint glowing runes onto the floor to teach me two new shouts (more precisely, one shout and an existing shout's upgrade) and that's kind of cool, even when the shouts aren't too useful.

One part of the training takes place in the back yard.

But all that blabber about understanding the way of the Voice and staying true to the genuine I-don't-know-what... Give me a break, really! I walk up to the glowing symbols and then I have the shout and can use it. What is there to understand and what's it supposed to have to do with my lifestyle? All right, maybe it's not so easy for you, but that is not my fault. I didn't exactly ask to be born with this "gift". I'd much rather have my memory back.

I'm relieved that Lydia is cool about my attitude. She's not much for religion either. She prefers things you can actually see and touch. We are very similar in this respect. As to my occasional sarcastic comments, she tells me playfully that I'll get it all back when we visit Breton territory.

I'm dog-tired by the time the Gaybores finally let me go – with the sacred mission to retrieve something called Jurgen Windcaller's Horn from a place called Ustengrav northeast of Morthal. It takes almost two hours to get back to Ivarsted and then I'm stopped by two sturdy men who wear masks that look like something between a pig and a devil. They ask me if I'm the one called Dragonborn.

Mr. Pigmask, do you have any idea how tired I am? No, he just goes on about some Lord Miraak and how they're going to kill me to prove I'm not really Dragonborn. Look, can you just kill the Dragonborn in me and leave the rest alive? Where are my followers anyway? Oh, they're right behind me. And two village guards observing the situation nearby. Yet, the Pigmasks won't leave me alone. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I was tired? Might have made them think I was an easy target. I'm not, in fact. They are. After that's taken care of, at almost 4 o'clock in the morning, I can finally get some sleep.



next awakening






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