Middas, 1st of Frostfall. Falkreath Hold. 7:30 am. Started secret mission diary. Best to keep this entire proceeding under wraps—wouldn’t want word to get around that I, Nona Plaia, might actually be able to solve the stupid problems people are always bothering me with. Took special care with clothes today: chose new Hammerfell-style outfit—loose trousers and shirt, turban, matching boots. Feel suddenly strange and different—like a character, a woman of mystery! Also, like a perfect fool. Suspect this to be the ideal state of mind for starting an adventure. Also possible side benefit: uncharacteristic behavior may be ascribed to mental derangement rather than foolish, misguided attempt at heroics. Goat cheese: not the breakfast of champions, but will have to do. Feel I should be eating proper adventurer food like iron rations or lembas, but can’t find any for sale and am not entirely sure what either of those things are. 8:01 am. Bought all blisterwort, rock warbler eggs, swamp fungal pods, and wheat for sale at Grave Concoctions. Made 22 restore health potions and several combination fortify-and-retore-health potions, using up everything. Actually starting to run low on blue mountain flowers. Horror! 9:08 am. Starting out towards Markarth on horseback. Marcurio has been silent all morning. Still can’t stand the sight of him. 10:31 am. Attacked by sabre cat. Marcurio too far behind to help. Tried to gallop away on horse, but cat is faster. Dismounted and shot it with poisoned arrow, then managed to finish it off with sword and shield. Gained level. Still feeling shaky; lucky to have so many healing potions on hand. 10:47 am. Still riding far ahead of Marcurio. Would rather take life in my hands than spend time anywhere near him, apparently. Weather awful. 1:19 pm. Arrived in Markarth after pushing Snowberry very hard all morning. Had lunch in Silver-Blood Inn. Much relieved to find Vorstag still there: told me straight out that he’ll join me but first I have to let my comrade go. Could hardly kick Marcurio out the door fast enough. Marcurio brought up Amulet of Mara again while I was telling him to take a hike. Suppose I should be grateful to him for being so disagreeable—might otherwise feel guilty for abandoning him so suddenly, so far from Riften. 2:29 pm. Paid Vorstag his 500 septims and conducted brief, candid inquiry into his strengths and weaknesses as a fighter. Learned that he has no training with the armor he’s wearing: only knows how to use heavy armor. Can’t blame him, I guess—that goat-pauldron thing is pretty stylish—but a little frustrated, as equipping him properly will add greatly to the expense. Must also replace low-quality iron axe and shield he’s carrying. Vorstag responding to examination with insinuating comments about Amulet of Mara. Very pleased to discover that he has such fine powers of observation: Amulet is entirely hidden by current outfit. Wish I could get him to talk about something else, though; may be far less offensive coming from him than from Marcurio, but still inappropriate and distracting and not relevant to subject at hand. Unable to think of correct response to Amulet question owing to sudden attack of giddiness; am therefore ending conversation abruptly while giggling like schoolgirl. 4:39 pm. At smithy, putting final touches on shiny new panoply. Had to buy 22 steel ingots and 6 iron ingots from Ghorza; hope result is worth it. Superior-quality steel armor, full suit, complete with sword and shield. Would have liked to make Elven sword, but Ghorza has no quicksilver in stock. Now spending a few minutes checking handiwork for flaws, which requires minute examination of Vorstag. Can’t be too careful. 4:53 pm. Visited Hag’s Cure. Not much in the way of useful ingredients to be had, but mixed a few random things anyway. Force of habit—too easy to fall back into usual activities. So difficult to stay focused on the mission! Wish I could just get it over with; would love to begin the journey back towards Riverwood, but already too late to start. Waiting around starting to make me nervous. Must be something I can do to improve my chances. 6:34 pm. Talked to Calcelmo in Understone Keep. Suddenly occurred to me to bring magical forces to bear on the problem—not forces contributed by idiot Marcurio, of course; but enchanted items could be very useful. Sadly nothing to be had in the way of a Staff Of Hideous Fiery Death From A Safe Distance, but scroll of Conjure Storm Atronach has intriguing possibilities. Not cheap—634 septims for just one scroll. Bought it anyway after taking a moment to remember who and what I am: for the true hero is one who relies ever on superior skill, clever improvisation, and personal grit; but the NPC prefers to throw money at the problem. 7:43 pm. Silver-Blood Inn. Nothing to do but stare at Vorstag and listen to Frabbi and Kleppr snipe at each other. Could be worse. Fellow named Sam Guevenne wants to have a drinking contest with me. Sounds like fun, but mustn’t get distracted. 9:13 pm. Very bored, antsy. Nobody new in here to talk to. Going to bed early. Turdas, 2nd of Frostfall. The Reach. 5:21 am. Still dark, but am setting out anyway. Have a long way to walk—and I am walking; no more riding ahead. Need to look for ingredients, and will be safer close to Vorstag. Also wouldn’t hurt to get to know him a little better. 11:59 am. Ran into party of Forsworn fighting Imperial soldiers. Arrived too late to help the Imperials—all dead. Forsworn came for us immediately. Vorstag acquitted himself very well—kept them all away from me, plus showed good grace when I accidentally shot him. Have been gathering ingredients, but cannot find a single blue mountain flower growing anywhere. Somebody has already picked them all. 6:15 pm. Arrived at Embershard Mine—the front entrance. Vaguely recall finding a back entrance once with Jade, but can’t remember exactly where it was. Will be dark soon; don’t want to spend a lot of time looking. Front entrance will have to do. Final preparations: Vorstag fully armed and armored? Check. Vorstag ludicrously oversupplied with restore health potions? Check. (Am retaining combination restore-and-fortify-health potions for own use on assumption that Vorstag, like Jade, won’t drink them.) Nona armed and armored, with plenty of arrows? Check. Poisons ready? Check. Scroll of Conjure Storm Atronach ready and within easy reach? Check. Snowberry safely out of the way? Check. Voice of the Emperor ready in case of emergency? Perhaps a little drink of water, just to be safe. Check. That’s it. That’s everything I can think of. Do I feel ready? Not really. In we go! 6:48 pm. Interior very dark—torches in sconces barely adequate. Already starting to feel poorly prepared—need better light but must use both hands for bow. Vorstag says he doesn’t like the look of this. Hoped he would say something reassuring; now feeling even worse. Am scrutinizing tunnel very carefully but can’t see anything dangerous yet—just a very obvious tripwire, easy to avoid. Might make fleeing difficult, though. 7:10 pm. Reached a large chamber with a waterfall and what looks to be an underground lake. Found two bandits here. Wooden walkway passes over their campsite—angle is awkward, and with the poor lighting, was unable to get a good shot at them. Told Vorstag to move to other end of walkway; that got their attention. Killed them easily, although fight was a bit noisy. Doesn’t seem to have attracted any other bandits, though. Several clumps of mushrooms growing here; couldn’t hurt to harvest a few. Can’t get further into the mine without lowering a bridge—have to figure out how. 7:41 pm. Found side passage leading to little room with lever. Don’t like the look of this: lever room is better-lit than the tunnels, and noise of bridge coming down is bound to attract attention. Don’t want to get trapped in this tiny room with bandits coming. Decided to pull lever and immediately jump into water below. Ended up being a pointless maneuver, as nobody noticed the bridge coming down after all. Bandits very inattentive indeed. All to the good, I suppose. Looked very foolish clambering out of water, but Vorstag nice enough to forbear comment. Didn’t expect interior of mine to look like this; would be sort of pretty if I could see it better. Vorstag wonders whether it would be altogether foolish to stop for a bit and build a fire, bless him. 8:42 pm. Was spotted by a bandit while getting in position to shoot, but Vorstag killed him before he could hurt me. Dead man was carrying a key that unlocks the door to what appears to be the bandits’ treasure room. Not that much here, actually; perhaps the bandits stopped paying Siddgeir because they weren’t doing so well themselves. Leaving it all here, in any case; no way to know who it actually belongs to. 9:37 pm. Reached a very large chamber with another waterfall. Quite an impressive sight. Could see only two bandits, but in such a space, with visibility so poor, no telling how many more might be lurking out of sight. Determined this situation to be ideal for releasing storm atronach: a large open area containing an unknown number of foes. Retrieved ordnance from scroll casing without further delay; deployed atronach at bottom of chamber, below entrance walkway. Results were well beyond expectations—received quest update reporting bandit leader’s demise within seconds. Atronach has cleared the chamber of bandits. With leader dead, quest is technically complete: could back out now and leave the way we came. Will continue and secure the entire complex, though: Jarl Siddgeir expressly asked that all the bandits be eliminated. Must not give him any reason to be dissatisfied with my performance. 10:41 pm. Reached back entrance without further incident. All bandits dead—and Vorstag still has entire stock of healing potions! Will retrieve Snowberry and head to Riverwood—very close by; can spend the night there. 11:43 pm. Sleeping Giant Inn, Riverwood. So relieved to be able at last to get a drink and climb into bed. Success! Need to contain my elation—remember that the Jarl made no promises; may have to reconcile myself to having done his dirty work for him while gaining nothing to show for it. If so, must not be despondent. Will head to Falkreath in the morning, and, whether Siddgeir chooses to be generous or not, get back to normal life as soon as possible. Tomorrow will tell.
5 Comments
Tjhom
11/15/2013 08:53:28 pm
This was a delight to read. Got to say I loved that when Nona tries to actually be a heroine she ends up performing pointless manoeuvres and resorting to using what amounts to being a one use poke'ball.
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Mewness
12/4/2013 11:10:30 am
Well, I figured that if Nona was going to go on a real adventure she had to accomplish her goals in as Nona-like a manner as possible.
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Cousin Vacua
12/3/2013 01:24:00 pm
We were pleased to receive another missive. Tedium is especially glad to hear that Marcurio, whom he refers to as "the dog hater," is no longer tagging along. Vorstaag sounds like a much better deal. I am curious. Did he eat the goat? I have been told they are tasty.
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Mewness
12/4/2013 11:15:10 am
Dear Cousin,
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To'ara
1/2/2014 11:37:18 am
Nona is so cute when she giggles like a girl...
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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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