As I walk into Ivarstead, it’s still dark, a couple of hours before sunrise on the 17th of Last Seed. I run into a young woman having some sort of argument that I don’t quite catch the gist of. She tells me that it must be very exciting to travel, and disappears into her house before I can respond. A guard tells me that Helgen was destroyed by a dragon, and a quest update invites me to investigate this further (this is the Random Alternate Start mod keeping the main quest alive, should I decide to pursue it). Of course, I won’t be investigating any such thing; Nona’s only interest in dragons is how best to avoid them.
Stumbling around in the gloom (maybe I should have supplied Nona with a light source), I manage to find my way to the Vilemyr Inn. Inside, I speak with a pleasant fellow named Hagravi Gray-Wave, who asks me whether I am here to climb the mountain, and then segues into a digression about hagravens. Gamely, I joke that I was once engaged to one (maybe Nona isn’t so unwilling to discuss her past after all), and we part on pleasant terms. I am then accosted by Bassanius Axius, who has almost nothing to say for himself, and yet accuses me of being boring when my attention wanders.
The innkeeper informs me that the barrow to the east is haunted, and that he has heard that some kid in Windhelm has been performing the Black Sacrament, the ritual for contacting the Dark Brotherhood. I shudder appreciatively before turning to a robed khajiit named Dar’Rakki, who admonishes me for interrupting him while he was walking the steps in his mind, then complains about the smell of betrayal in the air. This ominous but metaphorical odor turns out to be emanating from Dar’Rakki’s uncertainty about the actual number of steps leading up the mountain to High Hrothgar: do I not find 7000 a suspiciously round number? Dar’Rakki seems to think that if this number is not exact--and he strongly suspects it isn’t--then it is surely an indication that something is very wrong with the world, and nothing is to be trusted. My instinct at this point is to back away carefully, as it appears that Dar’Rakki will only be consoled if I volunteer to count the steps for him, and Nona isn’t about to count anything that might be inhabited by frost trolls.
It’s about 8 in the morning by the time I’ve finished chatting, so I venture outside to greet the day. Ivarstead is really quite picturesque, a little lakeshore village at the foot of the Throat of the World (if a throat can be said to have feet). Everyone here seems to detest it, though. Several people tell me in passing that I’d be wise to get out of here as soon as possible. This opinion is echoed by Boti, one of the farmers, and apparently by her daughter Fastred, the young woman I met as I was arriving, who is constantly being admonished by her father for being interested in talking to strangers.
I hang around the farm a little bit, hoping that someone will ask me to help out, but they are entirely absorbed in their hoeing and squabbling. At the mill, I meet the owner, Temba Wide-Arm, who tells me directly to grab an axe and chop some wood. I rush down eagerly to the chopping block, but I am immediately presented with a problem: there’s no axe. I search all over the mill. I go back to the farm and hunt around, hoping I’ll be able to borrow one, but there’s none to be had. I walk around the village, investigating woodpiles and other likely spots. I peer into a couple of barrels near the farmhouse, but they contain nothing useful. Is this some sort of local humor?
Well, this is unfortunate. I can’t chop wood, and there doesn’t appear to be anything else to do around here. It’s day one, and Nona’s already desperate.
I cross the river and head over to the lowest of the 7000--or so--steps, hoping to find some wild herbs. I haven’t seen an alchemy table anywhere, but anything I can sell would be welcome. I don’t find anything, though, except for a living, growling bear. Eeek! I head back across the river before it gets any angrier.
It’s lunchtime as I reenter the village, so I eat my apple, the only food I have. The day is fine, and the lake looks very inviting--the surface is practically bubbling with fish. Avoiding the allegedly haunted barrow, I go in for a swim, catching fish on the way, and cross to a little island in the middle, where I find some flowers to pick. There’s also a cave here, which my mysterious naming instinct tells me is called Geirmund’s Hall. There are mushrooms growing outside, so I go in--not far; I just want to see whether there are more pickings near the entrance.
I enter cautiously and am immediately rewarded with mushrooms to collect. Despite my efforts at stealth, though, I am spotted and attacked by two skeevers. I fight them off easily enough with my iron dagger, but quickly dismiss all thoughts of going in any deeper.
After snicking off the skeevers’ tails, I head out again, pick more plants, catch more fish. My bare elbows are now covered in blood from the skeever fight and it won’t wash off. Why are only my elbows covered in blood? I briefly wonder what the village folk will think I’ve been doing to get such bloody elbows when my hands appear relatively clean.
I cross the river again and find a ruined house inhabited by a poor, ragged fellow named Narfi. (When I say poor and ragged, I mean that he and I are dressed pretty much identically.) He babbles incoherently about someone named Reyda. I look around the ruin he inhabits and find that even this miserable derelict has supplies that I can envy--a bedroll, a few bottles of mead, and a stash of food.
Depressed, I head back to the village and, to my shame, root through the trash barrels near the farmhouse and retrieve two empty bottles. At least, I think they’re trash barrels; they seem to contain only junk. I’m going to need some way to carry water (Realistic Needs and Diseases requires me to drink as well as eat) and actually buying drinks from the inn is currently beyond my means. Instead, I pay the innkeeper 6 of my precious septims to have my bottles filled with clean water. We have a little chat about Narfi, and he tells me that Reyda is Narfi’s sister, who went off to gather ingredients around the lake some time ago and hasn’t been seen since.
Under normal circumstances, there’s no way I’d go looking for a woman who most likely has come to a bad end. But she disappeared in the exact same area that I’ve been wandering around all day, and the place didn’t seem at all unsafe, apart from the cave. There’s still some light out, so why not take a look? I leave the inn and walk to the lake, and sure enough, I find Reyda’s remains so close by that it’s a wonder that nobody yet has just happened to glance into the water and notice them.
Her satchel contains a variety of ingredients, a necklace, and 25 septims. I take all of it, save for some “human flesh”--whether that’s something she collected, or even (shudder) a part of her own body, I don’t want to know. I’m not touching it. I give the necklace to Narfi, and tell him his sister is dead, which upsets him, but he’s so grateful for the keepsake that he immediately thrusts two hearts into my as-yet unbloodied hands. Ugh! One of them is human. And the other is.... Never mind. Just ugh, ugh, ugh. What is it with this family? I can’t give his sister’s money to him directly, so I leave the 25 septims in the sack by his bedroll.
It’s now getting dark. The people of Ivarstead can say smugly that they told me so: I should have left this village at the first opportunity. Even if there were some way to make money here, there’s nothing to spend it on except food and drinks at the inn. I can’t even replace my ragged clothes. I’ve heard of sleepy towns; this place is comatose.
I head back to the inn, mulling over the dispiriting problem of whether to go without food or sleep, as my 11 remaining septims are not enough to purchase both. I decide to get some sleep; after all, without anything to light my way, I can’t accomplish anything at night anyway. As I’m negotiating with the innkeeper, though, I notice that he’s willing to buy the awful daedra heart that Narfi gave me--he’ll pay me over 80 septims for it! Divines only know what he wants it for, but I’m in no position to judge; I’ll just have to make a mental note to distrust his soup if I ever come back here.
I spend the night, then refill my bottles and purchase some food. In the morning, I run into Hagravi again. He’s as voluble as ever: he tells me he was raised in an orphanage, and spins an amusing yarn about once being menaced by attractive female warriors. He rambles on so pleasantly that I wonder whether he might actually like me, or whether he’s this nice to every homely, destitute woman that walks in. Best not to get my hopes up.