Always Lost, Always Hopeful (86) Strange Holiday Season

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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






4-201-11-11 07:48
The Grinning Goblin Inn, Karthwasten, The Reach, Skyrim


After quick shopping, we leave by the road that goes to the southwest. I want to check out Morpork one last time.

My followers tell me that when they sat in the taproom last night while I was away, the locals told them in great detail about the Silver-Blood family that rules in Morpork. They're a really bad lot. Whoever stands up against the rampant corruption in the city, or simply asks questions about something he's not supposed to, will find himself arrested by the city guards (who are on the Silver-Bloods' payroll) and thrown into the silver mine (that belongs to the Silver-Bloods) where he has to work as a slave.

That was not too surprising, but it's further rumored that occasionally the Silver-Bloods instigate forn chieftains to attacking Morpork. They promise to secretly assist in the attack, but in fact they capture the forns, thereby getting new slaves for their mine and at the same time convincing the jarl and the population that without the Silver-Bloods, the city would be overran and its population massacred in no time.

If that's true, the Silver-Bloods are the worst mafia family yet. They make even Maven Black-Briar look like a pleasant person.

We pass by the Blind Cliff Cave, but our hope to be able to slay a few more forns is frustrated ‐ the place is deserted.

We make a stop at the Kolskeggr Mine to say hello to Pavo and use the opportunity to mine us some gold.

Now that we've chased the bandits away, the authorities have even sent here a guard.

Soon we arrive at the crossing of the Hviterun–Morpork highway.

In Morpork, Jordis is visibly very eager to be with Hreinn (I can see she's got him hooked as well), so we stay a couple of hours. Nothing has changed in the city, though. The marketplace is still abandoned, the jarl and the steward are unreachable and most merchants won't trade. I give up trying to understand. We just walk around sightseeing. When Jordis is done, we head east.

Even though I would like to reach Hviterun tonight, and along the way we should visit a place not far from the highway in order to search for a book Urag wanted for the College library, I decide to pay a brief visit to Dushnikh Yal. On our way there, we see a battle between storks and thalmors.

The poor fox has realized he's in a terribly wrong place.

I have so far been strictly neutral in stork-imp conflicts, but thalmors are different. Apart from which, they carry really cool gear. So we enter the battle on the storks' side and help them kill the thalmors. The storks remain cautious, because they can't quite figure out what our game is. Neither are we going to hang around and socialize. Having looted the corpses, we move on.

In Dushnikh Yal, everything is normal. I sell some stuff and buy some metal ingots and then we move on. Nearby is a small Dwemer tower named Reachwind Eyrie.

It's just a little tower, nothing more. Some loot, no enemies. Nice view from the top.

We make another shopping stop in Granite Hall. On the outskirts, we see the dead body of M'aiq the Liar. I guess I haven't told you about him. He's a wandering Khajiit philosopher or madman, I'm not sure which. (It's basically the same thing, says Jenassa.) I've never been able to make sense of his statements, but he's completely harmless. Not even a narcotics dealer. Now someone has killed him. I'm not going to ask the guards if they know who did it. Dead is dead. There's nothing we can do for him now. The town priests will take it from here.

We can, however, do something to save our own lives when a group of Pigmasks attacks us just outside of the Granite Hall guards' sight. These ones are pretty easy to kill for a change.

The sun is beginning to go down as we continue running to the east:

We've plenty of daylight left to reach that Sunderstone Gorge place or what was it called, but we probably won't be in Hviterun tonight. It's no problem. We can just as well spend the night in Northkeep.

To get to Sunderstone Gorge, we'll have to turn right at the Little Northeep Intersection. We reach it at 7 o'clock in the evening and are attacked by several mages:

I'm baffled when I realize it's Pigmasks again. Are they bored in Solstheim, or standing in for the Skyrim bandits who have lost their lives?

We destroy this group. And then an elk comes charging downhill from the southeast:

Every elk I've ever seen so far has been afraid of humans, but this one almost runs me over and then keeps running around me as if he wanted something from me. I wonder if I'm carrying something that smells like a female elk.

Finally my unusual admirer leaves and we can move on to Sunderstone Gorge. There's not a living soul there. We find the book Urag wanted, "The Waters of Oblivion". It's not too interesting as far as I'm concerned.

It's gotten pretty dark outside, but I figure it's not yet too late to travel to Hviterun after all. We should be able to reach it just in time to go to sleep and do some shopping in the morning and then proceed east-northeast to get that information about that weird glowing thing in Winterhold. Or should we visit Rudelphine in Riverwood first? Maybe even go to Aurora for the night??

Lydia reminds me that the jarl of Whiterun wanted a bandit leader killed in Rhothgar's Watch Ruins which is quite near. I decide we'll do that right now.

On our way there, we see a mage in combat against what looks like a spriggan.

The lightshow is quite beautiful in the darkness. The battle doesn't last very long. The mage loses and I shoot the winner from a safe distance.

It bursts out in flames which spread onto a wide area, almost reaching me. So it was a flame atronach, not a spriggan. But who conjured it? As far as I know, atronachs don't just walk around on their own. Well, your guess is as good as mine. I loot the corpse of the mage (it's a she) and we head east.

Rhothgar's Watch Ruins is located near the highway, just before the crossing with the Falkert highway. I remember the place now. It begins with large caverns and then turns into an underground ruin of some ancient fortress. It's the place where we had that messy fight against many enemies in narrow spaces. In fact, a few of those mysterious Summerset assassins  are still there. We kill them, but we can't find anyone who'd answer to the description "bandit leader". We look everywhere. There's not a living soul left. So we just have to leave none the wiser. Somebody must have beaten us to this quest. Either that, or the bandits got into conflict with that group of assassins.

I've made up my mind now. We'll spend the night in Northkeep.

It's a short run. We reach the town around midnight and go to sleep at the inn without any further ado.



next awakening

Always Lost, Always Hopeful (14) Not All Spooks Are Spooky

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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






4-201-08-30 03:36
Aurora Borealis Inn, Aurora, Falkreath, Skyrim


I get dressed and wake up my followers. They don't even look too drowsy. (Just in case you were wondering, we were all sleeping tonight. Outside of settlements, I require my followers to take turns keeping nightwatch, but in settlements we trust our safety to the guards. That said, the hour is obviously very early.)

It's still dark outside, so we can bathe in the lake without the fear of exposing ourselves indecently. Only the best inns have baths, and Aurora Borealis Inn is not one of them.

I know many of you are eager to see me naked. So here I am, covered with nothing but soap.  ;-)

I ask the girls if they did anything exciting last night. No, they didn't, just chatted with the locals in the taproom and then realized they'd better turn in because in all likelihood they would have to be ready to get moving as soon as I had slept my fill. Good! They're learning.

Today's plan is, firstly, to check out that place near Northkeep where we might find traces of a vampire; secondly, to head north from there to a place called Rhothgar's Watch Ruins and get that valuable sword which was stolen from that filthy rich elf; and thirdly, to head west and check out Arkngthamz, reputedly a Dwemer ruin. Dwemer ruins are... never mind, I'll tell you when we get there. Little point in describing something I've never actually seen.

We leave Aurora long before sunrise. I run first and before I know it, I've left the girls far behind. I can't help it. Running is such a thrill!

It's still dark when I arrive at a campfire next to a tent. There's a human standing there. When I step closer, he decides to attack me. How could I have been so careless? Then again, what was there to do? I don't want to get into the habit of shooting everyone just in case.

The fight is very tough, especially because my followers take their time to get there. But we finally kill the vampire. Yes, that's what he is. I find a diary of an alchemist who used to live in this place and evidently ended up killed by that very vampire.

We proceed to nearby Northkeep to report to Boldon. He's still asleep, but doesn't mind my waking him up. He thanks me and says there are probably more vampires and he's going to report to his order and whatnot. The point is, he has no more tasks for me, so we wish each other well and I waste no time heading north.

The sun is out now and the weather is very nice. A lovely day for going into mountains to kill people, what?

I had expected Rhorthgar's Watch Ruins to be a ruin of something. Actually it's a huge cave.

It leads to an underground structure, possibly a former mine. In it, we encounter half a dozen particularly nasty cutthroats. On staircases in narrow passages, you don't have any overview or control of the situation, you just strike at whomever you can, trying not to get backstabbed and not to hit any of your own. We're really very lucky to get out of this alive, the four of us. And we get that sword. We also find a couple of letters that tell about those bandits having been hired by someone, but I couldn't care less. I'll let that Varlais dude rack his brain with all that when I return the sword to him.

But right now we're going in the opposite direction. The fine warm weather raises our spirits after that close encounter with death. After a while we arrive in a curious town Granite Hall on the hills north of the road. It has massive stone buildings, partly underground. It's a former Dwemer city, so I can expect Arkngthamz to look something similar – albeit, I presume, in a significantly worse state of repair.

It's a little past noon. I use the opportunity to get rid of our loot and to reequip my followers.

What's truly appalling about this town is how I have to ask for directions at every step. The smithy is easy to find and I'm allowed to use it while the blacksmith is having a lunch break, but the traders and the inn – I could stray endlessly in those passages on several levels above and under ground. A friendly woman at the temple assures me it's the only such mazetown in Skyrim. I'm very relieved to hear that.

As soon as I've sold everything I can, we hurry onwards.

A brief stop at a nearby roadside shrine of Dibella.
By the way, I swear I'm not really so fat. It's the armor that makes me look like this.

Soon we turn away from the main road – to the south, up the mountains.

We arrive at the gate of a village called Dushnikh Yal. It's inhabited by Orcs who tell us they won't let us in, because we're not Orcs. Well, all right then. Somehow I don't think there's much to see behind that strong wooden fence anyway.

Orcs... I don't think I've ever seen more than one or two of them. I wonder if they're very different. But never mind that now. A short brisk hike uphill and we see unusually-shaped stone structures further up.

That must be it. Arkngthamz. Somehow the sound of that name sends shivers down my... um, let's say spine.

We enter through a large door and come into a passage which runs between massive stone walls and fallen colums. It's lighted by lamps of the kind I've never seen before. Then we hear a spooky voice urging us to turn back "before it's too late". Soon we are able to see the owner of the voice. It's a ghostly woman or a womanly ghost – well, a blue see-through shape of quite an elegant woman with a bow on her back who introduces herself as Katria. She says she used to be a treasure-hunter who met her death in this dungeon looking for a rare material called aetherium. It's something the Dwemers are believed to have invented. Katria makes a half-hearted attempt to persuade us to leave because the place is too dangerous, but I can see she's actually curious to find out the secret of aetherium. That's evidently the reason why she couldn't die peacefully and keeps hanging around as a ghost. You know how people sometimes say how curiosity "killed" someone. In Katria's case, it's the opposite – curiosity wouldn't let her soul die even when her body did.

We are on the edge of an abyss of unimaginable depth. We have to cross it along narrow stone footbridges, somewhat wider than logs.

Those are the ones.

Safely on solid ground again, we go through passages of stone and metal and get occasionally attacked by spider-shaped metal things, very strong in fact. And then by an ordinary flesh-and-blood human bandit for good measure. There are two gates opened and closed by peculiar mechanisms which Katria calls "kinetic resonators". We climb higher and higher along ledges where moderate drunkenness would almost certainly result in a deadly fall. After that, more scary footbridges. Don't ever use the expression "dizzy heights" if you haven't been to Arkngthamz.

Now we are attacked by humanoid creatures not unlike trolls but much smaller. Still larger than humans, though. Katria says they're called Falmers. It is most discouraging to see how my arrows can barely scratch them. Without my four helpers, I would have no chance of surviving this.

We arrive in a place where Katria recognizes her bow from the time when her mortal body was killed. It lies on a horizontal tree-trunk that goes halfway across the abyss. Lucky it hasn't fallen down. Walking along that log to fetch it is far scarier than crossing those so-called bridges earlier. But it's worth it. The bow is amazing. It's four times stronger than the one I've been using so far. My visit to Arkngthamz has proven more worthwhile than I ever expected.

Finally we arrive at a clearing in front of a huge building. It has closed gates. Up on its facade are five of those "resonator" things:

Katria explains it's a "tonal lock". You have to hit (as in with an arrow) those five resonators in exactly the right order to open the gates. If you get the sequence wrong, something terrible will happen. Such as an earthquake. That's what caused the death of Katria.

I believe she's not exaggerating. Not only is she herself a, well, dead proof of that tonal lock's dangerousness, there are bodies in various stages of decay all around us. Fortunately, I haven't come unprepared. I recognize this place from that recent dream I told you about. In fact, I had a clear image of this structure with the five resonators (albeit without all those corpses) in my mind's eye before our arrival here. Even better, I know the correct combination. Don't ask me where Bardslayer got it from. Maybe I found it out in my past life. Maybe one of those dead bodies is a former me. I hope not.

Enough of that, Laura! This here is your life. There hasn't been anything before it.

I choose an ordinary bow and least powerful arrows, trusting that the resonators won't fight back. Then I take five shots at the resonators one after another. Each one I hit whirrs a little bit and then begins to glow. It's kind of cute. I'd love to play with those things some more, but of course that's not a good idea.

Yes, the sequence is correct. The doors open. We rush inside and find a piece of, um, something. Katria says it is aetherium. She's so happy. I'm touched to tears listening to her. I couldn't care less about aetherium, but I feel immense joy for having been granted the opportunity to help the ghost of that woman fulfill her dream and get the feeling that her life had a meaning after all.

Katria asks me to help her find the other pieces that belong together with the one we just found. Her journal contains a rough map of the places where they may be.

I certainly hope so. She's a great companion. Knows a lot and says the right things at the right time.

The ghost of Katria begins to fade away and then she's gone as if she'd never been there. Me and my followers, we have to use more mundane ways of moving around. This means going back along those ledges and across those "bridges". We're extremely tired. There is no place suitable for sleeping here, so we'll have to go all the way back to the town of Granite Hall. But first we'll need to find a way out of Arkngthamz.

When we came in earlier, there was one place where we had to climb on metal waterpipes and then jump down. The pipe was clearly too high to jump up onto it from the ground. So there must be another way out. I use the Clairvoyance  spell until it leads us into a solid wall. From that point on, we're on our own.

Now, there might be an exit further below. Maybe we can descend along the ledges. Maybe we can jump down onto one of those narrow footbridges below. Maybe we'd fall to death. Maybe some of us would survive and some of us would fall to death. Maybe we'd survive the descent only to find there is no exit. I'm not going to do that. So there's only one thing I can do. I perform a special ritual meant to contact Bardslayer when I'm in a really hopeless situation.

Stupid girl, he says to me. You can go back the same way you came in. Don't tell me you're in a hopeless situation when you haven't actually verified you are.

Really? We go back to that place with waterpipes. The pipe is too high all right, but we can climb across a low barrier and jump into the water below. It's a fall of just a few meters. One can easily wade through the water and reach the passage on the other side.

So, getting out of Arkngthamz turns out to be a complete no-brainer. Even those two gates with resonators  are still open. I'm so ashamed of myself.

The sun is about to rise soon. On our way to Granite Hall, we see a Seviana's House which has a lock I'm unable to pick (and yes, no one is at home; I did knock first). Then there's Valthume, a Nordic ruin thousands of years old, according to Lydia. Yawn... I yawn all the way back to Granite Hall. Just short of the staircase leading uphill to the town, we have a quick shower in the river ("shower" means it's raining) – I fear they might otherwise refuse to let us into the town, dirty as we are. And finally we're in Granite Hall. We gather up our last strength and are lucky to reach the inn without collapsing. Well, it's not really that bad, I'm just being witty. But we are very tired.



next awakening






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