1. Be grateful for little things. The next morning I discover something so extraordinary, so thrilling, so wonderful, that I must seriously consider the possibility that my non-adventuring days have come to an early close, because Jade and I have arrived in Sovngarde: the selection of produce at the Bannered Mare is better than that of every shop in Riften and Windhelm combined. (If you were expecting a revelation that was genuinely extraordinary and thrilling and wonderful, then it’s about time you realized that you are reading the wrong blog. Sorry. Tell your friends.) Hulda, the Mare’s proprietor, has everything, even the rare and elusive leeks that I have heard tell of but never yet been able to purchase. I buy cabbage and potatoes. I buy green and red apples. I buy garlic and herbs. I scroll lovingly up and down Hulda’s inventory for several minutes before deciding that would be silly to spend hundreds of septims on food when I can only eat so much. I content myself by making a roast leg of goat and cabbage-apple stew and then head outside into a thunderstorm. (My first thought, oddly enough, is that the weather is sort of nice. Even in the driving rain, Whiterun has a cheerier look than Riften or Windhelm.) I browse Belethor’s shop, hoping to buy some new clothes (I still have only one outfit apart from my armor and the rags I was wearing when I arrived in Ivarstead), but the only thing I can find is a black robe that reminds me of the two wizards who inexplicably attacked me near Riften, and I don’t want to dress like that. I suppose I’ll be wearing the same old thing for a while yet. Admittedly, a stained brownish dress is perhaps the ideal costume for my chosen profession. 2. In marketing, novelty trumps utility. My next stop is Arcadia’s Cauldron, where I can practice said profession. Arcadia turns out to be an Imperial, like me, who develops a little edge in her voice when I ask her whether she’s ever considered returning to Cyrodiil. She tells me defiantly that she’s lived here for over twenty years, and it seems best to let the subject drop. Her ingredient selection is inferior to the White Phial’s, but she’s happy for me to use her lab, and I’ve gathered so much lately that I have no shortage of combinations to try out. I mix a few staples--healing and resistance potions--and then start to experiment. I happily mash butterfly wings and tundra cotton and flowers of various sorts and what must by now be some pretty nasty-smelling fish in the hopes of discovering new alchemical properties. (Despite having played Skyrim with a bunch of different characters, I’ve never paid much attention to alchemy, because (a) I find crafting in general to be rather boring and (b) alchemy in combination with smithing and enchanting can be really overpowered. Nona is therefore the first character I’ve made that makes serious use of this skill, and I’m rather enjoying the whole process--since I’m not looking up alchemical combinations in advance, new discoveries are a genuine pleasure.) My most satisfying innovation is a mixture of blue butterfly wings and blue mountain flowers, which I decided to combine for the highly scientific reason that they are blue. Also, I have a lot of both. The result is a potion, or rather a poison, that both stunts magicka recovery and improves the duration of one’s conjuration spells! Now, you might think that this is easily the most useless concoction ever to be shaken out of a grimy mortar and slapped with a big, flowery “all-natural” label, but Arcadia’s willing to pay me over a hundred septims per dose. Huzzah! 3. Be calm of mind and steady of hand. Despite the rain, I decide to leave the city and go exploring; I’ve made a new hide helmet (it’s actually worse than my previous helmet, but it doesn’t have a nasal protector, so Nona’s a bit more comfortable in it) and a hide shield, and if nothing else, I need to refill my waterskin. (The mod that allows me to carry water doesn’t seem to recognize the waterways inside Whiterun properly.) After walking down to the river, I explore the region to the west, leaving Snowberry behind in the stable. The terrain is relatively open and the weather soon clears, enabling me to see a number of temptingly large elk in the distance. (I don’t know why larger elk are so tempting; you don’t get more meat or bigger hides from them.) I stealthily approach one and take a shot, and of course it bounds away barely harmed. Jade and I run gleefully but unproductively after it until I am suddenly distracted by a nearby pool with insects buzzing near the surface. Ingredients! I pause to catch some dragonflies and fish, but then spot another elk, and take a shot at that one. It, too, runs away, and once again we give chase, still unable to either land a punch or get a second shot off. And I get distracted by another pool. This one is strikingly different: there’s a skeletal arm sticking straight up from the center of it, grasping a sword in its bony fingers. That this sword should be poking up out of a nice little fishing hole like this, and have remained so, undisturbed, for perhaps a very long time, and so near to Whiterun, seems highly unlikely. Could this mean that the blade was placed here by some unknown agency, and intended specially ... for me? That seems even more unlikely. But I can’t help wading in to get a closer look, and perhaps even reaching a little toward--but then all of a sudden something shakes the skeletal limb, or perhaps I bump into it clumsily, I’m not sure, and it collapses into a small heap of bones, and then I can’t find the sword anywhere. The pool is small and crystal clear, and yet the weapon seems to have vanished utterly. For a moment I wonder whether Jade snatched it up quickly (NPCs do sometimes pick weapons up off the ground), but when I check her inventory, she doesn’t have it. Well, I hope there wasn’t some Fated Child of Prophecy who was supposed to wander over this way and take this special sword. It’s just like Nona to ruin a crucial world-changing event by tripping over a skeletal arm while trying to catch fish. 4. It's rude to stare. Turning away from the weird pool, Jade and I continue “hunting” in our own inimitable style (ineffective as it is, we’re enjoying ourselves), until I get distracted by yet another pool and my mysterious naming instinct kicks in, informing me that it is called Bleakwind Basin. There’s a reason that this area has its own name, as I soon realize when I spot the enormous bonfire: I’m next to a giant camp. One giant stands not far away, on the other side of the pool, his mammoth wandering nearby. Jade and I pause to take in this idyllic scene: the giant leads the mammoth with slow deliberation toward the pool. Dragonflies hover at the surface of the water. Fish swim fearlessly near my feet. I’m dimly, regretfully aware that we will have to turn and leave soon, so as not to allow the giant to come too close; their moods are unpredictable. But this one seems unconcerned by our presence, and I stay just where I’m standing, musing over the scene. And then it all goes wrong. I register only vaguely that Jade has moved from my side and is behaving oddly, running to and fro. I’m still gawking as the giant lowers his club, lowers it very suddenly, and then I can’t see Jade anywhere and my vision is clouded with blood. I turn sluggishly--it seems to take altogether too long for such a small movement, because part of me is clinging to the thought that I might do something to help my friend, even as panic sets in. I’m slightly injured. Only slightly? And then I’m running away in desperate fear for my life. I’m too terrified to look back, even for an instant, and my conscience chews on me all the way back to the Whiterun guard towers, where the general unconcern of the guards finally convinces me that there can’t possibly be someone following directly behind swinging a gigantic club. I turn to the west. There’s nothing. Nobody out there. Finally, she appears. She’s alive! 5. Even the people who love you may turn out to be assholes. As soon as we get back into the city I head over to Arcadia’s Cauldron once again. (Mixing potions relaxes me.) And I gain another level. That puts me at level 5, as I also leveled up yesterday from fighting the bandit. I put one perk point into Speech, to improve vendor prices, and the other into Archery. (Now maybe I’ll be able to kill a fox with one shot!) I leave at closing time and return to the Bannered Mare. As I walk in the door, a man tells me not to get mushy or sentimental on him, but he wants to give me something as a token of his esteem, and he insists I take it. “It” turns out to be three bottles of mead, and the man is Olfrid Battle-Born, the fellow I saw yesterday trying to convince Adrianne Avenicci to supply weapons to the Imperials. I’m quite astonished, first because I’ve never yet spoken to Olfrid Battle-Born and have no idea why he should have become so fond of me, and second because three bottles of mead is actually a rather nice gift--I like mead, and it’s an ingredient in some of my favorite cooking recipes. I use it all the time. I ponder the question for a little while--what have I done that Olfrid should like me so much? Are his pro-Imperial feelings so strong that he feels compelled to give me gifts simply because I’m from Cyrodiil? I decide to get to know him a little. He cheerfully tells me a bit about himself and about the quarrel with the Gray-Manes: the feud, according to him, is really all about money--the Battle-Borns have it and the Gray-Manes don’t, and this difference in fortunes has fueled their resentment beyond all bounds. He explains all this with such bluff, good-humored indifference to both the poverty of the rival family and the suffering of those on both sides that wish for an end to the feud that I almost feel complicit in his callousness. He actually seems to find the whole situation sort of funny. Somewhat dispirited by the fact that I seem to have become the favorite of such a tool, I look around for someone else to talk to. The woman I settle on is a mage named Eldawyn. She’s mostly interested in wine, though. And sex, apparently--not with me, although the fact that she admits to having slept with Larkspur suggests that she isn’t too picky. (“He does bathe,” she says indifferently when I express my distaste.) She goes briefly into the subject of the proper way to appreciate fine wine, and then tells me that she’s much more inclined to just drink it. I heartily agree with this, and she seems to take notice of me for the first time. “I like how you agree with the things I say,” she says. “Why aren’t there more of you?” It’s nice, for once, to be appreciated for being just what I am: a complete nonentity.
2 Comments
Cousin Vacua
5/5/2013 04:01:38 am
Dear Nona,
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Mewness
5/5/2013 05:45:51 am
My dear cousin, I am very sorry to be causing you distress. Jade is terribly concerned. I will do my best to make my letters less exciting in the future!
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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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