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 (75) Fire and Snow

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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






4-201-10-31 04:45
Helgen, Falkreath, Skyrim


As planned, we run to the east.

Note Ivarsted's obsolete spelling "Ivarstead".

The sun ought to rise soon, but right now it's quite dark. The road is barely visible.

We reach the mountains in three quarters of an hour. Here the ground is snowy. We discover a cave named Haemar's Shame, but we're not going to explore it this time. Nearby, there's a fight on between imps and storks. It doesn't last very long.

In death they've made peace at last. You can't tell anymore who was Imperial and who was Stormcloak.

We get a lot of loot. Just when we're out of the soldiers' sight, we get attacked by three Pigmasks. I had almost forgotten about their existence. We kill two without much difficulty. Their spells look terrifying, but they're not actually that bad.

One of my followers is using a fire staff for a change.

The third Pigmask decides to run away, but I stop him with an arrow in his back.

It's what you might call daylight by now, but in the area east of the mountains the sky is filled with dark clouds and there's a pouring rain with an odd thunderstroke.

We spend the day in Ivarsted crafting and socializing. I find an opportunity to talk in private with Lydia. I've been curious to know about Jenassa's intimate relationships. We've gone to the table farthest from Bassianus, but he just walks over and takes a seat as if he were our close friend, and in fact talks like he's firmly determined to become one.
This is extremely annoying. The man is a sleazy retard who thinks he's witty. It's the type I can't stand. I threaten him I'll tell Fastred how he is hitting on every woman he sees. That makes him leave.
Now Lydia tells me Jenassa likes High Elves. A few years ago, she had a thing with that shopkeeper Cyrelas in the eastern suburb of Hviterun, but it didn't work out, mainly because he's married. He began to fear his wife might find out. More recently, Jenassa has been living with Anoriath, the Wood Elf hunter and market trader who is the brother of Elrindir.
I'm a little surprised. The way Jenassa was always hanging around in The Drunken Husband, I had suspected she had something going on with Elrindir.
Lydia smiles at the Husband . (It's really The Drunken Huntsman, in case you've forgotten.) "No, she actually sleeps with Anoriath. But it's more like don't-want-to-be-alone kind of thing."
"Maybe she sleeps with both of them?"
"I don't think so." Lydia shakes her head. "In fact, she suspects Elrindir is into men."
That's most curious. I've heard there are such men, but I've never been able to find out any particulars.
"What do they do? Suck each other? Or they actually do anal all the time?"
Lydia doesn't know either. For all she knows, Elrindir is doing nothing. He's just excessively friendly to male customers. Jenassa couldn't help noticing that. But there's never anything further. And he's never shown any interest in her or any other woman.
"He must be unhappy," I say just as Jenassa and Jordis enter the inn.
"If he is, he's hiding it well."
Yeah, what else can he do?

Jenassa and Jordis come to our table and sit down. I get an idea. Since we're not exactly busy right now, why don't we take a look at Shroud Hearth Barrow, that place between here and the lake which the locals fear because it's haunted?

We encounter a man named Wyndelius in there and learn he's been acting the part of a ghost in order to keep people away from the barrow. We have to kill him, he leaves us no choice. From his diary we find, it emerges he was researching something sinister:

The poor man. I'm glad we were able to put him out of his misery.

When I tell the innkeeper Wilhelm that the ghost was a hoax, he is very relieved.

It's now 7 o'clock in the evening. I decide we'll get some sleep and then go to High Hrothgar to give the Gaybores their horn. I'm sure the snow will give enough light for ascending the mountain at nighttime.

An earlier picture of a mysterious man who can often be found at the Ivarsted inn.
He's friendly, but always resists my attempts to start a conversation. No one seems to know who he is and what he's up to.

next awakening

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

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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






4-201-09-26 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 go along the road a little farther to the north 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