Always Lost, Always Hopeful (159) Rain of Ghosts

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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






4-202-01-24 06:44
Proudspire Manor, Solitud, Haafingar, Skyrim


Here is the Ancient Falmer Crown I promised to show you:

Even at this early hour, the inn is full of people, among them many seamen. I get a shocking news – the ship I wanted to travel with won't sail today and probably not anytime soon. Apparently it has some unexpected technical problems.

Part of its crew is at the inn and frankly they look like one crazy bunch, so maybe traveling with them wasn't a very good idea to begin with. Nevertheless, I'm devastated. Learning that the ship travels only between the islands north of Haafingar and The Pale without going anywhere near High Rock should make it easier for me, but I'm still extremely disappointed by having my plan thwarted at the last moment. I am like this, you know.

We'll go to High Hrothgar then, and from there up northeast to Winterhold and back to Summerset.

The southwestern suburb of Solitud. This road leads to Dragonbridge.

The nearest settlement on our route is Dragonbridge where we do some shopping. The general store is open this time, but the shopkeeper is not there, only his wife Aurelia. When I enquire about the shop, she tells us angrily to get out. Something must have happened that's very painful to her, or maybe she's annoyed by one traveler after another asking the same question.

The rest of Dragonbridge is nice as always. Eydis is still away. We chill at Jordis's parents' farm for some time and then head for Dunstand Grove, Elisdriel, Roriksted, Blackmoor and Hviterun. It's simply that the most comfortable route to Hviterun goes via Dunstad Grove and Elisdriel, and then Roriksted is so conveniently close that it would be a pity to not visit it.

The green dot is our final destination – High Hrothgar. The blue dot is Hviterun where we'll probably stay overnight.
Elisdriel is the little purple dot near Dunstad Grove. The large pink dot is our current location.

The weather is perfect. Nothing special happens in Dunstad Grove.

This time, we are taking Ma'isha with us to see Elisdriel. She is no less fascinated than we were when we saw it the first time.
[series of 4 pictures you can click through; click on the first picture to make it big, then click again to see the next picture etc.; press  Esc to return to the text]

We stay a few hours to let Ma'isha take a good look at everything. Me and my followers also use the opportunity to try on various clothes on the elevated platform in front of the entrance. This is the only place I know that is private, safe, warm and properly lighted (by the Sun, that is).

Jenassa mentions that while she was strolling around in the Solitud harbor last night, she succeeded in sneaking up on two Argonians who mentioned Jaree-Ra. Evidently they were his accomplices. She learned he has come up with a plan of robbing a ship that is due to arrive in Solitud in two months or so, carrying some very special and very valuable cargo. He intends to put out the fire on top of the Solitude Lighthouse at the right moment, so that the ship would run aground and Jaree-Ra's gang could rob it.
There is a catch, though. Someone has to sneak in unnoticed and put out the fire so it'll look like an accident. They can't attack the lighthouse openly, because that would cause an outcry not only in the city administration, but more importantly among all the seamen, and then even "she" couldn't protect them anymore.
At that point, the criminals heard someone approach and left hurriedly. Jenassa has no idea who that "she" could be they were talking about, and neither have we.

Well, I wish Jenassa had told me sooner, but you know how those elves are. I'll see what I can do about Jaree-Ra the next time we're in Solitud. But today we're going in another direction.

Having taken Ma'isha back home, we proceed towards Roriksted. Along the way, we get attacked by three roadside bandits. They barely even slow us down.

In Roriksted, we do some shopping and watch the children play on the street. Then we head for Blackmoor that is in the east, halfway to Hviterun.

The weather is beautiful all the way and Blackmoor itself is a very nice town.

This is the innkeeper Gaimund. I'm sure you would like her:

We visit the Blackmoor iron mine for the first time. It's very large and as we exit, I have little doubt we missed significant parts of it, but I've had my fill of this mine for the time being.

By the time we leave for Hviterun, it's already evening. Hviterun shops will be closed soon, but we were going to spend the night there anyway.

The western Whiterun plain is amazing – all those elks, and the warmth and the general feel of familiarity and safety.

That's Hviterun palace on the left, Secunda in the middle and, most likely, High Hrothgar on the right.

The sky fills up with clouds as we travel. By the time we arrive on the outskirts of Hviterun, one can see no moon or stars. The marketplace in the southwestern suburb still feels very cozy even though the traders have left by now.

We step briefly into the local inn, the Ram's Head Tavern. When we come out again, it begins to rain. I'm delighted to see Ri'saad's caravan just outside the fortifications, and stay for some time to chat while my followers escape from rain and thunder into the city proper.

The trader Ri'saad is a calm and wise middle-aged man. I catch him discussing their life with one of his followers. In spite of Skyrim's unfamiliar climate, Ri'saad enjoys traveling, especially when he can make good profits along the way:

The weather is truly horrid as I trot towards my house (the door on the left in the picture below). Lucia is at Carlotta and Mila's across the street (the door on the right).

I sit with them for a while and exchange news, then Lucia and I go home. I let her look at the things in my inventory (except, of course, poisons and such; and the Elder Scroll). Most of them are weapons and armor, but she is more interested in books, as well as the clothes.

"I wanted to tell you something, Mommy," she says as we prepare to go to sleep. She knows I'm not her biological mother, but she just likes to have someone to call mommy.
"Of course, honey." I smile at her warmly.
"If you want to be together with Valdimar, then it's no problem. I can be quietly downstairs or go to Mila's. I mean, you don't need to be ashamed of anything. I know what men and women do."
Wow. She's growing up fast. "Do you have any boy you like, Lucia?"
She falls silent for a couple of seconds and then shrugs. "I don't know. The boys are kind of dull."
I nod. Yes, they are. I try to explain her with simple words that in a few years from now, major changes will occur in her body as she grows from a child into a woman, and then she'll inevitably start looking at some things very differently, and come to appreciate those dull and sometimes very annoying, but yet so fascinating beings.

I also try to explain her that she can always ask me about absolutely anything that's on her mind, and she can ask Mikki or even Carlotta when I'm not around. Women share their minds with other women and that's our strength. It's important for a girl of her age to realize that her questions may seem stupid to herself, but actually they're perfectly valid questions that need to be asked, and they're not stupid at all.
She seems to understand.

We could probably talk all night, but I tell her she needs to sleep. As always, Lucia wants me to have the bed and she sleeps on the mattress.



next awakening






return to the table of contents

Always Lost, Always Hopeful (15) Stumbling in Light and Darkness

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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






4-201-08-31 14:12
The Mer Inn, Granite Hall, Whiterun, Skyrim


After reequipping my followers, I decide we'll travel to the northwestern Skyrim to liberate Thorald from thalmor captivity and only then return the stolen sword to Pelin Varlais. After all, the sword is just an inanimate object, very expensive as it may be, but Thorald is a human being possibly suffering horrible torture on a daily basis.

Our first stop is Roriksted which should be in the northerly direction, not very far.

Granite Hall is located in a strategic spot where you can cross the mountains from south to north. It's the friendly townspeople who lead us to the northern exit. On my own, I would have never even found out there was one.

Shortly after leaving the city, we see a castle which looks strangely new and kind of foreign:

We sneak in very carefully, but there's no one there. There are a couple of doors that don't lead anywhere. The place would seem to be abandoned if it wasn't for a cow and a horse in sheds, with heaps of hay nearby. But whoever is taking care of the animals is nowhere to be seen.

Mr. Siika Castle, this place is called.

The sun is about to go down soon. A heavy rain begins. I think there's nothing left to explore here. So we just exit by one of the gates on the northern side and notice there's another structure surrounded by stone walls about 100 meters away to our right:

As we get closer, I can see there are people there, and they are hostile. They're seeing us too. After looking into every nook and cranny in that abandoned courtyard of Mr. Siika Castle, we are now caught completely unawares by a whole gang of... thalmors? Seriously??

We and the enemy seem to be about evenly matched, except there's a nasty archer up on the defense wall. He keeps shooting at us, but we are utterly incapable of getting a shot at him. So I run through the gate into the courtyard and ascend onto the rampart, trying to find a route to his position. I can magically sense my girls taking heavy damage, but there's nothing I can do other than run up and down staircases as fast as I can. I wonder why are the thalmors suddenly attacking random passersby? Oh, you don't know who the thalmors are? Sorry, no time! I'll tell you later. There's a guard sitting on the farther end of the defense wall, looking like he isn't even noticing the battle going on. He jumps up when I appear. No chance of a surprise attack – I couldn't sneak, I have to run to that dangerous archer as quickly as possible. This one here is not too strong. I kill him and rush onwards. Fortunately, everything is very well connected here. I finally get the archer and my followers slay the rest. We're all wet. From the rain, that is.

It's so dark by now that there's no point trying to explore anything here. We just head north towards (hopefully) Roriksted.

So, about the thalmors... They belong to a race known as High Elves. Their native country is called Aldmeri Dominion and they used to be at war against the Empire, our Empire. That's the war people mean when they talk about "The Great War". Now, evidently the Empire was getting a heavy beating, but they succeeded in making a peace, but one of the conditions in the peace treaty (that has a weird name White-Gold Concordate) was that the worship of Talos was to be prohibited in the Empire. Talos is one of the Nine Gods. Eight of those Nine are worshipped in the Aldmeri Dominion as well, only Talos isn't. And now the Empire has officially excluded Talos from the list of the gods. As the worship of Talos is a long-time tradition in the Skyrim province, its prohibition has caused widespread resentment here. In order to enforce the terms of the peace treaty, the Empire is allowing the representatives of the Aldmeri Dominion – the thalmors – to pursue worshippers of Talos in Skyrim. In other words, the thalmors are a kind of religion police. That's just about the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life – thalmor agents are actually roaming all over Skyrim, capturing Talos worshippers and bringing them into their prisons, to purify their souls by torturing their bodies or something like that. As if they really had nothing more important to do.

I have never encountered thalmors before, but I've been told that when you meet a thalmor patrol on a highway, they won't bother you if you just walk on and mind your own business. I also know from Jenassa that they have an embassy further north, but that's simply guarded and off-bounds to outsiders. They don't try to kill you just because you happen to be passing by. After all, Skyrim is not Aldmeri territory and the Empire and the Dominion are legally at peace. Therefore I haven't the slightest idea what the deal with this Fort Masser stronghold is. Maybe there's something top secret inside? Got to return there in daylight someday and find out.

And here is Roriksted, a peaceful, prosperous village of industrious people, as we're told.

Wait, did you just admit you were engaged in profitable business
while other people were risking their life and limb defending your country?
Incredible!

We talk to people at the inn. They seem to have more than their fair share of petty conflicts and enmity. I didn't notice this kind of atmosphere in Hviterun or Falkert. Could it be because there's nothing really bad going on here, and so the people end up making a big issue out of every little inconvenience they can get their hands on?

Anyway, it's late. This has been a rather short day, but there's little point going out where it's pitch-dark and raining cats and dogs. We're going to have a good night's sleep in this hospitable, warm, dry inn. I'll see you in the morning!



next awakening

What is the matter with Reldith?

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SPOILER INFO
Very minor spoiler. This article discusses the behavior of one NPC in Roriksted.
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In the village of Roriksted, there is that farm where an elf woman named Reldith is working. When I spoke to her for the first time, I chose the dialogue option "Your farm is doing very well. You must be proud." To my utter astonishment, she got angry and suggested I was sneering at her and informed me she was indeed proud and rightfully so. I was deeply shocked. Why did a nice compliment get her so hostile?

Eventually it dawned to me – in the English-speaking world today, "pride" is a four-letter word (unless, of course, preceded by the word "gay"). Thousands of new-age books and websites tell us that we have to be humble. To be proud is evil.

The developers of Skyrim are apparently so thoroughly inculcated that they assume "you must be proud" to be an insult. Maybe they even designed the character Reldith to be deliberately provocative. Maybe they think it's an act of great courage to suggest that it's okay to be proud.

Yeah, maybe it is in a country like the USA.



[originally published 2017-10-12]