Always Lost, Always Hopeful (71) Did I Do Something?

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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






4-201-10-27 08:08
Seviana's House, Whiterun, Skyrim


The woman (whose name – surprise – is Seviana) is already up, as are my followers, fresh and ready. The man Luvien is sleeping on a bench. We take our seats and Seviana begins with her tale.

My followers are right there, eager to hear everything. In fact, they are the ones actually conversing with Seviana while I soon find myself struggling to keep my eyes open in spite of just having had a perfectly refreshing sleep. It's just that I'm not the slightest interested in the ancient history of, of all things, the Thieves' Guild. But my followers are so excited that Seviana doesn't even look offended by my yawning. They talk about stuff I have never heard of. About Anvil and Martin Septim and Nocturnal. If I'm not greatly mistaken, Nocturnal should be a daedra, and Anvil may be a city in Cyrodiil, or it may not. I completely lose the thread while the other four women seem to have the time of their lives. I can imagine my followers are rather disappointed when Seviana informs us that the adventure on offer will be available for me alone. No one who is not a Dragonborn can enter the place where I ought to go to take possession of an awesome relic called the Cowl of the Nocturnal  that makes the wearer look exactly like a legendary historical figure called Gray Fox. It's south-southeast of Falkert, in a mountainous area where I've never been.

Well... That was rather heavy. But thanks for the story and for the hospitality. I cast a quick glance at the statuette of a gracious woman wearing a very revealing dress and standing in a soup plate (Nocturnal, I presume),

as well as at the bench where Luvien is still snoring. Me and my followers hug Seviana goodbye and exit the house.

I tell the girls not to worry. I'll find a way to bring them along. That's all right, says Lydia, don't sell your soul or anything for our sake. I promise her I won't.

I'm not even sure I want this adventure anymore. That loony story about some past legendary "thief" (if you ask me, it rather sounded like a fraudster, robber and murderer) wasn't too appealing, and the place I'd need to find is called "initiation hall", which seems to imply I'll have to become a member of something. But even if I won't do the Gray Cowl quest, we're still going to The Rift, bypassing those extremely high mountains on which High Hrothgar lies from the south this time. Meaning, Falkert will be in our path anyway.

Since the direct way to Falkert is blocked by those unascendable mountains east of that big forn camp, we'll have to go to the northeast, cross the river south of Granite Hall and follow the highway to Northkeep. I'll have plenty of time to make up my mind about the Gray Cowl quest.

A view southeast from the northern bank near Granite Hall.
We came from the southwest and crossed the river here (from the opposite bank to this side).

Past Fort Unguard, we get attacked by forns again. This seems to be their regular ambush spot. This time I'm ready, though, and we kill the scumbags with ease. What is weird is that just as we've finished looting the corpses, an imp appears and looks at us in an obviously hostile way. He doesn't attack us, but tells us bluntly to make ourselves scarce. I hastily motion my girls to run on towards the intersection from where the major road leads towards Northkeep and Falkert. (How about I shall refer to it as Big Northkeep Intersection and the one where we are now as Little Northkeep Intersection?)

As it often happens, I run ahead of my followers again on the Northkeep road. I can't help it, I get a kick out of running really fast from time to time. A man who looks like an ordinary citizen rather than a bandit grabs me from behind and tries to wrestle me down. I succeed in pulling my dagger and cutting him, after which he pulls a sword and a moment later we're in fast-paced combat. We exchange blows and I can see him losing health steadily. Then my followers arrive.
"Need a hand, Laura?" I hear Lydia ask.
"No, thanks. I can handle this little piece of dirt."
Using my momentary lapse of attention, my opponent takes a potion and is almost at full health again. Hitting at him furiously, I succeed in injuring him more and more until he starts begging for mercy. Not on your nelly, jerk! You attacked me for no reason whatsoever. Now you'll die like a pig.
(Maybe not without a reason, says Lydia later when I tell the girls how it started. It looked like he was trying to rape me. I don't know what to say. She is probably right.)
Northkeep is full of life. We walk and talk and shop.

In the alchemy shop, I end up telling the shopkeeper Viene all the details about the recent attack. Maybe I'm still in a shock. Viene is a Breton and talking to her makes me feel relaxed and comfortable.

At one moment we hear the guards in a fight, but I can't be bothered to go and check it out. Later I see the dead bodies of two imps.

The other one is nearby, just out of the frame.

This is getting really weird. Now, I can understand that imp we met on the intersection earlier may have been on the edge for any number of reasons. But Imperial soldiers attacking a settlement? What's going on with the world?

Falkreath Hold is actually on the Empire's side, adds Lydia. Right, it is. I remember now. That makes the situation weirder still.

At about 3 in the afternoon, we move on. A hello and a hug with my friend Hert at the nearby watermill (her husband is home, so we won't stay long), and soon we are in Aurora. I sell the last unnecessary items we're carrying, have a little chat with the alchemist Skarla and take a quick peek into the inn, hoping the see my boyfriend Lorm. But he's not there and I'm too shy to ask people about him. We just move on.

Now Jordis has a Glass Helmet too.
In case you're curious, amulets are more powerful when worn on top of armor, slightly uncomfortable as it may be.

I remember at the last moment that I wanted to check out that mysterious structure high on a mountain slope one can see from Falkert. As you may remember, Aurora lies directly to the north from Falkert. Now, there is one of those Nordic ruin type of things just across the road from Aurora. It leads into the mountain. Since it's called North Shriekwind Bastion, I can well imagine it having another exit on the other side of the mountain, and it's quite possible that that other exit is the very structure one can see from Falkert. However, I don't feel like going in there right now. I opt for trying and reaching the other entrance by climbing around the mountain counterclockwise.

It's a tough climb which would surely be deadly to the overwhelming majority of human beings. Even I with my unusual climbing skill end up falling and hurting myself a couple of times, but finally I'm on the southern side. I can indeed see what appears to be the southern entrance to that very cave I was talking about. I can also see the houses of Falkert far below me (on the right side of the picture below, behind those high spruces):

Those birdhead sculptures mark the entrance to the South Shriekwind Bastion.

Sneaking closer, I can sense someone undead in a small stone hut at a slightly lower height than my position.

I mean that yellow silhouette you can faintly see. It's a woken-up undead (because its glow is yellow)
and it's on the other side of the wall, that is inside the hut.

I feel playful, so I take my Aetherial Staff and conjure a Dwarven Sphere near that undead. I'm not sure if it'll work from such a distance, but it does. I manage to place the automaton exactly where I wanted to – just inside the entrance of the hut. The two start fighting and my automaton kills the thing which turns out to be a skeleton.

I go into that stone hut and out the other side and am noticed by a draugr who attacks me and is promptly killed. I go closer to the gate of that Shriekwind thing and see another creature that looks like a draugr. It's not seeing me. It is quite far, but I have a perfect shooting position, and I kill it. Going closer, I see it was a draugr all right.

Now I summon magically my followers from the other side of the mountain.

I'm standing approximately where he was standing before I killed him.

The mystery of the structure up the mountain has been solved. But Jenassa and Lydia feel bad from the teleportation. So we sit on the edge you can see in the picture above, admiring the view and trying to guess who are the tiny people walking on the streets far below us.

Maybe this is a suitable moment to ask Jordis how she ended up in Solitud?
She says she left home with her boyfriend Jurger when she was 19. She had never been good at farm work, but in the city she went through a soldier's training and did remarkably well. However, on Jurger's insistence she studied at the Bards' College for a while, just to get some scholarly education. At one time, Jurger had to go to war. Before leaving, he made Jordis swear she would never join an army. Maybe he had some kind of a premonition. At any rate, he was promptly killed, possibly in his very first battle.
Jordis felt awfully lost alone. She worked in the prison for some time, but she says it was too horrible. Then she got a job as a palace guard, about a year before she met me, and she really liked it. Still, she volunteered to become a housecarl to the new thane (me) and didn't have to regret it.
Jordis had a number of short-lived affairs after Jurger's death, once in a couple of moths or so, but she never wanted to establish a steady relationship. Mostly she went with seamen whom she never saw again.
After some coaxing, we learn that Jurger had been Jordis's first. They never dared to have sex in the village, but as soon as they were on their way to Solitud, they did it in the bushes on the roadside, too impatient to even wait until they'd reach the city.

That was one amazing story. Now we need to somehow get to Falkert from here. The direct path is a vertical drop, certain death even for me.

Well, it's not too difficult. Near us is a creek flowing down the mountain in the westerly direction. Here the descent is more or less manageable.

I feel it would be a pity to waste an entire evening in Falkert. It's not even dark yet. It is, however, by the time we've finally climbed down the mountain. We look into the nearest house which belongs to Thaik the alcohol vendor. His wife Miniel is home alone. I get to cast a glance into their bedroom which is very neat and beautiful.

Thaik himself is at the inn, though. On our way there we say hello to the priest Runil. He asks us to retrieve his journal he lost in a cave northwest of Northkeep. Sure, we'll be glad to do that. We also drop by the jarlery and exchange a few words with the jarl and the steward. By the time we reach the inn, it's almost bedtime. We have a light snack and discuss our impressions of today's adventures, and then we call it an evening.

Lying in my bed, I ruminate on Jordis and Rayya. They both fancied seamen, but for entirely different reasons. Rayya was excited by adventures, big distances, cosmopolitism. Jordis, however, didn't want a steady relationship on account of her "real" boyfriend having lost his life. A big city like Solitud with new people arriving and leaving all the time is the perfect place for acting frivolously and pretending it's not serious.

I hope our company will be good influence on her and help her lead a normal woman's life and establish another happy relationship someday. (Possibly with Hreinn of Morpork.) Or, on second thought, I hope my company will not be a bad influence on her. Well, whatever. Good night.



next awakening






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General rehearsal game, hours 00..03

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SPOILER INFO
This story follows closely my actions in an actual game, so it's inevitably a spoiler.
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I'm going to play a new game as a female character.

How come I play a female? Most certainly not to enjoy the sight of a grotesquely made-up bimbo in a masturbation armor run around and kick men's asses. I play in 1st person view, so I rarely see what I look like (and, for that matter, often end up walking around naked because I forget to put my armor back on after sex). I only switch to 3rd person view for melee combat, because I have discovered that it's absurdly complicated in 1st person view, and for sex.

I am going to play a woman simply to have a different kind of experience. I mean, in the past I have done pretty much everything there is to do in Skyrim and I feel no interest going through the exact same experience again.

How can you make your Skyrim game different? With new lands and quests mods, of course (of which I do have many this time), but the vanilla part will still be unbearably same-same.

It occurred to me that if I played a female character, my game would be psychologically very different. Skyrim has great many NPCs who are infuriatingly insolent. If I were to imagine I was a woman, I would be better able to put up with them, as women don't have the kind of need to defend their dignity as men have. (I know that all things psychological are beyond the large majority of male readers. Never mind, just skip it and read the parts you feel you can relate to.)

It's been only twice in my life that I've played a game as a female. (Apart from one or two games where the main character was female and the user had no choice of gender.) The first one was a brief game of Fallout 2, the second one was Orwell  and that doesn't really count, because your "player character" is just a name and a face and it doesn't have any effect on the gameplay. I only chose a female character because all the male faces were unacceptably ugly.

Having such limited experience so far, I have very little idea how I will end up feeling, walking in a virtual world as huge and realistic as Skyrim in the proverbial shoes of a woman. And, needless to say, I'm perfectly aware that a warrior woman as such is a biological nonsense. However, it is a fantasy world, and I like trying out new things – sometimes even those that seem mildly outrageous at first glance. That's why, all things considered, I made a decision to try what it would feel like to be a woman in the imaginary reality.

* * *

Before I'll start the actual game, I am going to do a "general rehearsal" like I've done before my previous Skyrim games. It is more than a mere test game. A test game is just going briefly into the game with COC  as the default character to see how one or another thing works. Like, you might attack someone just to see if you can kill him or will get killed yourself. In the general rehearsal, I'll do nothing of the sort. I'll create a player character the best I can (and presumably carry her over into the actual game later), set all MCM settings the way they are supposed to be, and start playing as if it was for real.

The general rehearsal will last 28 hours. That is the length of my last real game (555+ hours) divided by 20 and rounded up.

The purpose of the general rehearsal is to put my mod configuration to the ultimate test. Those 28 hours are going to be my last chance to play around with mods. During the subsequent real game, I won't touch anything in my mod configuration. Unless something is obviously wrong, I'll even avoid breathing too hard while Mod Organizer is open.

* * *

In order to minimize overlappings with the real game's initial phase, I shall avoid the Helgen–Riverwood–Hviterun area. I began the general rehearsal game by coc-ing myself to the town of Northkeep which is west of Lake Ilinalta and creating my character with RaceMenu. I am going to explore the town and unless I come up with something exciting, I'll head for Falkert and then explore the area around Pinewood (which I largely neglected in my last game). If there's still time, I'll check out Morpork, as I have added at the 11th hour a new mod New Markarth Adventure  about which I am somewhat skeptical because it screwed up the inn real bad, so I had to go to TES5Edit   and just kill everything it had done to the Silver-Blood Inn. Maybe the mod has ruined some other places too I failed to notice during my test game, so I'd better go and take a more thorough look.

* * *

Creating my player character, I came across a ludicrous glitch in RaceMenu:

As you can see, RaceMenu believes the left breast to be of size 0.92 and the right breast of size 1.22. In the nature, however, the breasts are of equal size. If anything, the left breast is a tiny bit larger. I couldn't give them equal values, because then they looked just grotesque.

I was slightly disappointed that I could alter a hundred little things on the head, but had almost no choice as to breast shape. I am therefore thinking about installing Bodyslide .

I was skeptical about my ability to create a beautiful character, but I ended up quite pleased with the result (I chose to not wear a helmet while in town, so as to get better screenshots):

There were several interesting hairdos to choose from, so I intend to get another one and take some screenshots and see which one I like more. I'm also not entirely happy with my nose, and I might choose a modest warpaint, and, as I said, I'd really love to slightly adjust the shape of my breasts, but I haven't yet decided if I'm going to bother with Bodyslide .

I noticed that there is something weird going on with Skyrim height settings. Converting Skyrim units to real-world units, my height is supposed to be 173 cm, and that's exactly what Player Size Adjuster  says it is, but it seems doubtful when you look at that picture. I don't mind being short per se. A woman is supposed to be smaller than men. Currently, however, even women are taller than me, so I end up looking upwards when talking to people all the time, and that is a little annoying. So I'm going to make myself a little taller.

* * *

I walked around in the town a bit. I was very hungry and very thirsty right from the start. I felt sorry to spend my meager cash reserves on food and drink, so I went into houses trying to steal some food. I wouldn't steal from a house with people in it, because it's very dangerous – they can sometimes notice that you're stealing even when you're not in their field of vision.

I was lucky to find "Marcu's House" (I made a note to go to TES5Edit   and correct the ungrammatical spelling; the owner's name is Marcus) which was empty. I stole everything I could, just in case I'll be able to use something. I also managed to steal a few things, including a fairly strong looking sword, from another house before someone returned home and I hastily took my leave. I found plenty of food, but I still had to buy some Honningbrew Mead from the inn. Non-alcholic drinks are almost impossible to buy in the Skyrim world. Fortunately I was later able to steal a few tomatoes and could make Tomato Juice. (Note to self: I'll have to buy some empty waterskins, so I can get water from the nearby lake.)

I need to sleep as well, but I don't want to waste the daytime and then have to travel by night. I'll explore the town during the day and then take a room for the night and head for Falkert (or possibly Aurora) in the morning.



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