It’s Middas morning, the 20th of Last Seed. I’ve made an adjustment to Realistic Needs and Diseases, very slightly slowing down the rate at which I get hungry and thirsty. (It’s actually not so much the time intervals that bother me, as the amount of food I have to eat; unfortunately, I can’t adjust the latter.) I eat a huge breakfast, including more charred venison and salmon steak, and then contemplate my finances. Sadly, I don’t have enough money to purchase what I desire most--a bow and arrows. I’m going to have to hunt if I want to reduce my food expenses, but the only bow I can find for sale costs 151 septims, and after yesterday’s efforts I have only 133. At least I can afford to buy a lantern, which I do at the Pawned Prawn. Bersil, the owner, bitterly regrets having settled in Riften (he sold his boat, the Brawny Prawn, to get his business started) and conversing with him only reinforces my desire to leave. Even so, there are reasons to stay: I’ve been doing fairly well by fishing (if you could call it that), and the lake is quite large. Moving on to another city would require traveling through new, possibly dangerous territory. Plus, there are still many people in Riften I haven’t conversed with, and you never know--some of them might not be complete assholes. I haven’t even had a chance to visit the orphanage that Hagravi was raised in. I decide to stay in Riften for now. Leaving the city by the south gate, I step behind a bush and change into my new leather armor. It’s a grey, overcast morning, with a light mist that gives it a gloomy softness. I follow the edge of the lake west, wading in when I see fish near the surface, but the pickings aren’t as good as I would like. I find some barnacles and slaughterfish eggs in the shallow water, but little else. After a light, disconsolate lunch, I come across a mill. Heartwood Mill is on the southern shore of the lake, far enough from the main road that I didn’t see it during my journey from Ivarstead. I meet a little boy named Gralnach, who asks me to play. With my head full of my own problems, I decline, and he declares that I’m just as boring as every other adult. His mother, Grosta, has bitter feelings toward men: she runs the mill by herself, her husband having walked out on her some time back. She tells me I can help out by getting an axe and chopping as much wood as I can. Great, I think. Another joker. Sure I’ll help out, Grosta. Here I was actually feeling sorry for you for being left in the lurch by your worthless husband, and you have to take advantage of my kind, trusting nature. I’ll bet it’s fun swapping stories with the other Nords after work, isn’t it? “These Imperials think they’re sooo superior, sooo sophisticated, but just tell them to look for a axe that isn’t there and the idiots will run around for hours scratching their heads.” Well, I’m not about to fall for that again. I walk away, proudly. I walk so proudly that I practically trip over a chopping block with an axe sitting right next to it. I chop wood. I can’t believe it! Actual legitimate work! For actual legitimate money! Gralnach wanders here and there. A guard hangs about nearby. I chop more wood. Grosta watches the road, perhaps still hoping, after all this time, to see her missing husband. I bring a load of wood to her and go back to chop more. Little golden portraits of Tiber Septim dance in Nona’s eyes as she spends the proceeds several times over in her mind. She chops more wood. The pay is 5 septims per piece of firewood--a wage I would have considered absurdly high before I checked the price of soup. (Now I consider it only somewhat excessive. No, I’m not giving any of it back.) I overdo it a bit--it’s after 4pm when I finish, which means that it will be dark by the time I get back. Still, I talk to Gralnach again before I leave. I feel sorry for this lonely, fatherless child; perhaps, late as it is, I’ll take the time to play with him after all. But he’s no longer interested. M’aiq the Liar, whom I meet on the way back to Riften, isn’t much interested in me either. But I don’t care! Because I have money! It is in fact dark by the time I reach the city gates, and my lantern gets put to good use. I buy that hunting bow I’ve had my eye on, and 20 iron arrows. For dinner, I have the last of my venison. I refill my water bottles in the canal and then boil the water. (There’s no way I’m drinking water from the Riften canal without boiling it first.) There’s time for a bit of chat before bed, so I head over to Haelga’s and talk with a dark elf named Sadrin, who starts off on the subject of books and drifts to the topic of unfulfilled lust: he is staying at the bunkhouse only because he hopes to entice Haelga into bed, and cheerfully informs me of his dishonorable intentions with great animation. He’s an amusing fellow, and I’m actually sort of surprised that Haelga hasn’t gone for him. (If the gossip mill is to be believed, she’s not especially discriminating.) Wishing him luck, I head back to the Bee and Barb, lantern in hand. A guard tells me that Riften is no place for a nighttime stroll. Frankly, it’s no place for a daytime stroll; during my nighttime perambulations so far, I have been subjected to a total of zero criminal-recruitment efforts and witnessed a total of zero shakedown attempts. More evidence is needed to establish the superiority of nighttime strolling to daytime strolling, but the preliminary results are promising.
2 Comments
Laura
4/3/2013 03:34:39 pm
Go Nona! Regular nutrition is a good thing!
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Mewness
4/3/2013 04:18:51 pm
201 is the year in the Fourth Era when the big events in Skyrim are supposed to happen. The title is a lame reference to 1066 And All That, the mock-history book that excludes all dates apart from 1066 and 55 BC on the grounds that they are Not Memorable.
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201 And All That
Nona Plaia may well be the most boring person in Skyrim. Below are links to her "adventures" in chronological order.
A Life More Ordinary Mods An NPC is Born The Lady in the Lake Adrift in the Rift Opportunity Chops Studying Abroad Witches, Wolves Footwear is Not Enough A Modest Proposal Scales of Love Dances with Beers Five Rules to Live By Plain and Pusillanimous Watery Woes How Not to Stage a Murder Hot Heads and Cold Graves Run Nona Run Interlude A Fool Suffers Gladly The Markarth Discomfiture In Search of the Unknown It's Raining Bandits Down and Out No Holds Barred Beyond the Pale The Slippery Slope Mission Implausible The Nord in the Next Room The Only Living Girl Victory is a Gateway Drug Continuity Break Wherever You Go Archives
August 2014
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