I’m up and out of Windhelm just before dawn, leaving several things undone: I haven’t refilled my waterskin or tanned my wolf pelts, and although I’m getting a little short of food, I’m not waiting until the shops are open to replenish my store. I still have some meat and cold soup from yesterday; that should last me until I arrive ... somewhere else. My first thought is to head north to Dawnstar so that I can deliver a message from Aeri to the Jarl. (She asked me to do this yesterday, and I refused.) I therefore make my way to Anga’s Mill, where, because of my early start, I have to wait for more than an hour for Aeri to come out of her house. But when she does emerge, she seems to have forgotten about the letter (or perhaps she somehow found someone else to deliver it during the night). By this time it is snowing so thickly that, with no message to carry, the idea of heading even further north loses the last of its limited appeal and I decide to take the south road instead. Before long, the weather clears, and I dismount to gather ingredients. The plant varieties are similar to what I found on the other side of the valley as I was approaching Windhelm--creep clusters and jazbay spread out over the stones and dragon’s tongue flowers distinctively at the roadside. The road climbs steadily, and at the top of a series of falls I find a beautiful, clear pool that is simply teeming with fish. I wade in eagerly after them, only to find that the water is deeper and the current much stronger than I was expecting--I’m soon swimming rather than wading, and my utmost efforts to regain the shore serve only to keep me from moving anywhere at all. And it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve completely forgotten to let go of my horse. (I can’t actually lead her by hand; what I’ve been doing is putting her in the auto-follow mode allowed by Convenient Horses and pretending that I’m leading her.) My odd position is very confusing to poor Snowberry: she runs distractedly up and down the road until I realize the fruitlessness of swimming against the current and start to drift; then her uncertainty abruptly resolves itself and she charges straight into the water towards me, so that we both end up being tossed over the falls. They aren’t very steep, and I’m not worried about myself--but I go into a momentary panic over Snowberry. (Horses seem to be especially bug-prone in Skyrim, not only having an alarming tendency to fall randomly out of the sky on my head, but to die very suddenly from small amounts of damage.) Fortunately, she survives the tumble without complaint, and we both clamber out of the water looking very foolish. Needless to say, I haven’t caught a single fish. Further along the road I find Mixwater Mill, run by a woman named Gilfre and suffering the usual shortage of workers. Gilfre, like other mill owners I’ve met, would love to have me lend a hand, but I’ve been dawdling today--all that waiting and flower-picking and unintended horse-bathing--and so haven’t come as far as I would like; I decide not to take the time to find out whether a few strokes of the axe here will land me yet another marriage proposal. The road turns around to the west, passing by a number of ruins that I am happy to not to inspect closely. But soon there is one in front of me that is not so easily avoidable: Valtheim Towers, a stone bridge that straddles the river with its namesake structures on either side. I can’t help but feel a little apprehensive as I contemplate this crumbling fortification: the southern tower sits on the road, and the terrain to the south climbs steeply, preventing me from simply circling around. Even from some distance away, I can see people walking back and forth on the bridge preparing to kill me. (Well, I can see red dots on my compass, which is as good as looking inside their hearts and seeing their essential murderous nature.) I don’t have much time to plan, though: a single bandit comes charging out from the base of the southern tower and attacks me without even asking for money. This turns out to be a remarkably foolish maneuver on her part--not only do I cut her down with astonishing ease, having earlier poisoned my sword, but her rush takes her well away from the bridge, beyond bowshot and so out of her allies’ reach. As easy as it was to dispose of a single bandit, I’m in no mood to tangle with the entire group, and so decide to mount Snowberry and simply ride past Valtheim Towers with all possible speed. This seems likely to get us shot at a few times, but with any luck the accuracy will be limited and the damage minimal. As it turns out, not a single arrow strikes either me or my horse--in fact I don’t even hear any being fired; perhaps the bandits are confused. Or maybe they’re shooting at Jade. In any case, we all manage to put the dreadful Valtheim Towers safely behind us. There’s little else to interrupt our journey to Whiterun. I get attacked by three wolves, which is nothing unusual, except that each one of these bears the designation “pit wolf.” If they were bred for fighting, it doesn’t show; they aren’t any tougher than ordinary wolves, and I’m not entirely sure what pit they are supposed to have come out of. One of them turns out to be carrying three septims, which leads me to wonder whether they might have been betting on pit fights rather than participating in them. Sadly, I’m not likely to find out the truth of the matter. We’re almost at the outskirts of the city when I hear signs of battle coming from one of the nearby farms, and a few arrows go whistling over my head. By the time I get close, though, the action has died down, and a small group of people seems to be standing around a dead giant. They all look rather dangerous, so it seems best not to bother them. The guard at the gate stops me; it seems that nobody is allowed in, because of the recent dragon attacks. Fortunately, I manage to persuade him to change his mind. (This is something of a relief--getting into Whiterun the first time is normally part of the main quest in Skyrim, and one of the mods I’m using interferes with that quest; not having used it before, I wasn’t entirely certain that I’d be able to get in at all.) I immediately run into an Imperial guard trying to pressure a smith into filling a huge order of weapons for the army. Except that he’s not an Imperial guard, just a fellow wearing Imperial armor. After I meet the smith, Adrianne Avenicci, and get a few crafting pointers from her, I head to an inn, the Bannered Mare, where I learn a little more about what this is all about--a feud between two prominent local families, one of which supports the Stormcloaks and the other the Imperials. The fellow who explains this to me is Jon Battle-Born, a man from the Imperial-supporting clan who earnestly wishes that the families would work out their differences. I’m sympathetic; Whiterun is easily the most pleasant place I’ve been to so far, an open, airy city with what appears to be a much lower concentration of jerks than Riften, and it’s a shame for it to be marred by this divide. The other fellow I speak to is named Larkspur, and he utterly fails to impress: he rhapsodizes fulsomely on the subject of Nona’s beauty while boasting about his sketchy past, and is entirely unconvincing on both counts, owing to his flat, unengaged tone of voice--a manner that seems more suited for putting a lady to sleep than seducing her. (Which I suppose would count as a form of seduction for a certain type of person, and I’m not sure that Larkspur deserves to be excluded from that class. He’s easily the most disappointing of the characters added by Interesting NPCs that I’ve met so far; clearly meant to be a dashing rogue, but unfortunately just obnoxious and dull.) After I finish this conversation, which happens long before I’ve bothered to find out most of what Larkspur has to say, I feel as though I need a bath. I’m certainly not inclined for further chitchat this evening, so Jade and I simply enjoy a little music before bed. More precisely, we enjoy dancing to some music, even if the music itself is pretty disappointing.
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There’s little to do in Windhelm the next day--the White Phial hasn’t gotten any new stock in, for some reason--and staying cooped up behind those gray stone walls isn’t helping me decide whether or not to marry Scouts-Many-Marshes. I put on my armor, therefore, and set out on horseback to explore more of the surrounding region. After riding out a little way I dismount and start leading Snowberry so that I can stop to gather, er, snowberries. It seems that I’ve already begun to miss being on the road: walking slowly along with Jade and my horse, gathering reagents, taking potshots at the local wildlife, being mauled by psychotic wolves--it’s somehow very soothing. My wanderings take me west, then over the bridge to the north. Not far beyond this crossing I find another mill--Anga’s Mill, so my mysterious naming instinct informs me. This one is in somewhat better shape than the others: it is equipped with one spare axe and two surly workmen. The latter have little more to say than the former, telling me only that I should speak to Aeri, the owner, if I want a job. I’m only too happy to grab the axe and chop for a while. Ah, it was a good life I had in Riften, wasn’t it? That long, leisurely walk to Heartwood, that lovably ill-tempered Elgrim fellow, the cramped, depressing attic I slept in, the obnoxious regulars at the Bee and Barb, the boring--all right, it was actually pretty unpleasant. I bring a load of wood to Aeri, accept my pay, and she promptly proposes to me. Two proposals in two days?! I’d like to know what Jade thinks of that. Cursed, pshaw! I’d say she’s bringing me good luck. Although, when I look around for her, I can’t find her. She seems to have gotten lost somewhere. Perhaps she ran away from some wolves and hasn’t found her way back yet. It’s an odd feeling, being desired like this, and not one that Nona would ever have predicted being troubled with. I was planning to move on after receiving my pay, but instead I stand there bemused for the rest of the day, watching Aeri work. And she's really something--the way this slip of a woman loads those enormous logs onto the conveyor all by herself is--not something anyone should be doing if they want to retain the use of their limbs and/or spine, frankly. But she does it hour after hour while her big strong male employees go about their tasks with their cute little axes and grindstones. It’s an offer that deserves serious consideration: Aeri owns her mill and seems pretty successful, although she does complain about the Jarl of Dawnstar’s demands. She’s strong, hardworking, capable. She has her own house--a house I could live in, with her, in a very picturesque location that is both convenient to and not actually in Windhelm (a huge plus). On the down side, she seems a bit old for me, and a little too focused on work. And, well, there’s one other problem-- I like Scouts-Many-Marshes a hell of a lot more than I like her. Now, lets be clear: Nona is no romantic. She can’t afford to be. She wants to live in a house, and in Skyrim houses are for player characters--or for people who marry an NPC who somehow already owns one. You cannot get your own house without being willing to wander around in dungeons killing people; it’s just not possible. But presented with these two choices, side by side, it’s hard to imagine Nona’s being happy with Aeri when there’s a guy she likes much better, a guy who wants her, living really close by. It certainly wouldn’t be fair to Aeri. And if Scouts-Many-Marshes is preferable to anyone Nona might choose for more materialistic reasons--anyone she could meet in the Windhelm area and choose for materialistic reasons, at least--then he needs to be evaluated on his own merits, which are considerable: • He seems genuinely nice. Even when he was being paid almost nothing, his hostility was directed at the specific source of the ill-treatment, and not at Nords or humans in general, which puts him ahead of most of the other Argonian dockworkers. • He really seems to like me. And the favor I did for him was actually meaningful, something that feels like a good basis for affection--not something dumb like giving someone a septim or a mammoth tusk. • If I married him I could start calling myself Mrs. Many-Marshes, which would be awesome. • He’s got ties to his community and cares about his people and blah blah. • I’ll say it again: Mrs. Many-Marshes. AWESOME! But as admirable a fellow as he may be, Scouts-Many-Marshes is not without his flaws: • He is an Argonian. He’s got horns and spines and no lips. I don’t want to be crude, so lets just say that there are certain acts of physical affection that might be problematic owing to his anatomical characteristics. Also, Nona would like to have children someday, and I have no idea whether that would even be possible with an Argonian. • If I married him, we’d be living in the Argonian Assemblage, which is a big dormitory. We’d have no privacy as a couple. • Some of the other dockworkers hate me. Stands-In-Shallows hates me because I wouldn’t steal skooma for him. Neetrenaza hates me because I’m human. And I would have to live with these people. • The Argonian Assemblage is in Windhelm. That’s bad enough on its own, but there’s also the problem that, as a human, I would have privileges in Windhelm than my husband lacked, and I think that that would be unpleasant for us both. All in all, I’m inclined to think that we would both be better off with someone else. I have nothing to say against him personally--but it’s entirely possible for two nice people who like each other to be absolutely miserable together, and I feel it’s the probable outcome here. And yet I can’t quite let it go: for how likely is it that I will ever again find anyone so agreeable who actually wants to marry me? It’s getting dark as I return to Windhelm. Jade appears at my side somewhere near the gates, which is a great relief--I should otherwise have been obliged go searching for her in the dark, and hardly have been able to forgive myself if something had befallen her. Activity in the marketplace is starting to die down, but I head vaguely in that direction anyway--I have wolf pelts to tan, so it would be good to get some leatherwork done now that the smiths have gone home. I pass through the graveyard, and there, near the Hall of the Dead, a guard and three other people stand crowded around a pale corpse. Approaching with my lantern, I get a good look at the body, stripped and savagely mutilated--it’s Susanna, a young woman whom I saw only yesterday in Candlehearth. The guard tells me that she isn’t the first--something I already knew, of course, from Viola Giordano. But seeing a murdered woman lying right front of me is another thing altogether. And now that I have seen her, there’s nothing anyone could say that would induce me to stay here a moment longer than I must. Goodbye, Scouts-and-Mrs.-Many-Marshes. Goodbye, Windhelm. I’d run back to the stables and gallop away immediately if that weren’t completely insane--but I do need sleep, and the killer has, I hope--I hope!--killed enough for one evening.
The first thing I do in the morning is to deliver Hillevi’s nightshade to Wuunferth. For bringing his package an easy distance across town and handing it to him a day late, he pays me a whopping 250 septims. I’m a little stunned. What would he pay for real work? Fortunately he doesn’t seem to have any; it would probably involve testing dangerous new spells or retrieving artifacts from vampire-infested ruins. Next, I march right over to the docks and tell Scouts-Many-Marshes that I’ll talk to Torbjorn about his unfair wages. It’s completely ridiculous that the Argonians are paid only one-tenth of what Nord workers earn for the same labor; I can’t stay in Windhelm knowing that I didn’t even try to address this. It’s certainly not the sort of thing I see myself doing on a regular basis, sticking my neck out for people, but in this case the worst I can do is fail. Torbjorn’s not going to have me arrested or anything. Is he? I find Torbjorn in the marketplace with his wife. I feel kind of bad about bothering him when he’s in mourning, but I do it anyway. I get right to the point and tell him that he should pay the dockworkers fairly. His reply startles me: while I had no reason to doubt that Scouts-Many-Marshes has genuine grievances, I was nevertheless expecting Torbjorn to have a better response than to simply hurl crude insults at the Argonians. Despite his bluster, I manage to persuade him to increase their wages. I did it! I did something that might actually improve people’s lives in a significant way! It’s intoxicating. What else could I do to help others? Maybe I’m in the wrong profession, gathering ingredients and learning their combinations. Potions are useful, but how many of the effects are truly beneficial to ordinary, everyday people? Do they really need their Light Armor skill boosted or their fire resistance improved or their magicka damaged? Think of how much more I could benefit society if I could learn to aid the weak and oppressed, perhaps by taking up arms and-- No! I must put all such thoughts out of my head, right now. This is the way it starts! I’ll be dead in a dungeon before long unless I am lucky enough to have my adventuring career non-fatally cut short by being shot in the knee. I pull myself together and go tell Scouts-Many-Marshes the good news. He’s delighted. In fact, he’s more than delighted. There’s an interesting new warmth in his manner when he sees me now. The next time I talk to him, he comments on my Amulet of Mara. Then, he comes right out and proposes to me: “I’d be honored to walk by your side until the trees themselves fade away, if you’d have me,” he says. I’m not entirely sure I know what that means, but it sounds terribly romantic. I could be married! I could be the wife of a--of a lizard. I’m far too flustered to make any response, and spend some time walking hither and thither about the docks trying to clear my head. It doesn’t help, and Jade, for once, has nothing to say. A lizard. Could I ever marry a lizard? I return to the marketplace, passing a woman named Viola Giordano on the way. She talks about all of murders that have happened recently. Wait--murders? I had thought there was only one murder, but Viola rails bitterly against the guards for doing nothing even as women are murdered “time and again.” She has nothing to say about who they were or how they were killed, only telling me as she leaves to beware of “the Butcher.” Thank the Divines I brought Jade with me; if I were traveling alone, I’d be terrified. Not that Jade offers much in the way of physical protection, but her constant presence is surely of some use in dissuading attackers. In dissuading a single murderous sicko who hopes to escape notice, at least. I hope. Could I ever marry a lizard? My aimless wanderings take me back to Sadri’s, where even browsing my favorite shop fails to jog me out of my trance; to the White Phial, where I make a half-hearted attempt to work on my alchemy; then out the city gates, where I mount Snowberry, ride out to the nearby farms, and chat with some of the workers. The weather is getting worse by the hour, and by the time I return to Windhelm I’m riding through a blizzard. It occurs to me that the word blizzard rhymes with lizard. Could I ever marry a lizard? At suppertime I decide that I’m so sick of venison and goat that I’m going to eat something else even if I have to purchase it pre-cooked. I buy some leek-and-potato soup from Hillevi (I have never yet seen raw leeks for sale, anywhere, so I’m actually starting to wonder whether one needs to be a member of some secret, exclusive club in order to get them), and fall into conversation with a strange, nervous Dunmer woman named Rinori Imaryn. She speaks rather disconnectedly about the loss of her family and about the undead, focusing with morbid intensity on the question of whether a vampire is still in any way the person he was before he was ... taken. The very last of the daylight fades away as she talks, leaving us shrouded in darkness and whirling snow; trapped in conversation, I cannot light my lantern, and hearing her soft, hesitant voice floating out of the emptiness while I stand rooted in place is almost surreal. She tells me how Brunwulf saved her--but only her--from the attack, and becomes so emotional that she cannot continue. When I finally manage to get my lantern lit, she is gone. Could I have been speaking all this time to a vampire? And, more importantly, could I ever marry a lizard? Candlehearth is busy when I return. Adonato Leotelli tells me briefly about writing drama and wants to know whether I can deliver a copy of his latest book to the Bards’ College in Solitude. Pelgurt seeks desperately to hire someone to recover his family sword. I daresay I would have difficulty attending to their troubles even if they were the slightest bit interesting. Then I meet someone who shocks me back to awareness: Rongeir Ice-Eye is an elderly Nord man having trouble finding acceptance in Windhelm. His name reminds me of someone--I’ve occasionally bumped into an Orsimer woman, Shelur Ice-Eye, wandering around town. She’s a woman of few words; I’ve spoken to her in passing and hardly gotten more than a monosyllable in response. She’s also Rongeir’s wife. When I attempt to commiserate with him for the prejudice he and his wife must be suffering, he tells me that I have it wrong: the locals don’t shun him because he married an orc, but because the orc he married is his daughter. His theory, you see, is that because Nord-Orc pairings result in children that take after the mother, his daughter is not in fact related to him; she is, in effect, an exact copy of his dead wife, and therefore there should be no objection to his marrying her. I’ve heard this general idea of inheritance in interracial pairings bandied about before (the Elder Scrolls games have, to my vague recollection, been somewhat inconsistent as to whether orcs can interbreed with other races and what the results are, though of course that inconsistency has generally manifested in the in-game books, which are in no way required to represent the “truth”), but I’ve never heard it taken to its logical extreme and used to justify marrying one’s own child. I can’t help but suggest that in spite of appearances his daughter must have inherited at least some quality of his, and he responds savagely, impugning both my ancestry and appearance in a torrent of abuse that lacks even the merit of being halfway clever. Too angry to say anything further on the subject, I turn and head down to bed. So here I am, unable to get my head around marrying a lizard--whom I really should start referring to properly in my thoughts as an Argonian if I’m going to continue to contemplate marrying him, because “lizard” is rather insulting--and this horrible man is walking around married to his daughter and daring anyone to say anything against him. It really puts things in perspective.
I’m trying to like Windhelm--at least, I’m trying to like it better than Riften, which ought to be easy enough--but whenever a pulse of warm feeling threatens to find its way into my heart, the city shoves some new obstacle in its way. Windhelm’s gray stone walls and cobbles present a bleak appearance even on a sunny day such as this, and the people seem to talk of nothing but war and grief. And then there’s the racism. Sure, Riften has casual street crime and sarcastic beggars and the Thieves’ Guild supposedly running everything somehow, but at least in that city certain disadvantaged groups aren’t required to live in particular neighborhoods so as to facilitate the Thieves’ Guild’s ability to find and oppress them efficiently. There’s a good deal of unhappiness to go round in Riften, but go round it does; in Windhelm, it seems to blow directly into the Gray Quarter and onto the docks, and settle there. I spend almost the entire day in the city after rising a little late, around 10 am. There’s almost no raw food available in the marketplace for some reason--I had the same problem yesterday in Riften--so I eat cooked and seasoned meat once again. (Nona’s going to get very tired of roast goat and venison chops before long.) I tan all the hides from yesterday’s travels, make more leather items, and sell them. I visit the White Phial, the local alchemist’s shop, where I buy all of the cheaper ingredients, mix potions, and sell them. Once again, I make a tidy profit doing this, and I gain yet another level. I’ve progressed enough with alchemy to learn the Physician perk, which will make my healing potions more effective. I’ve now finished work for the day. In fact, if I don’t go hunting or gathering or find a mill that needs wood chopped, then I’ve already finished work for two days, because that’s how long it will take for the White Phial to restock. For a moment, I picture my future existence--living in a city with a loving spouse and only having to work every two days. Assuming that I can find an acceptable city and be an acceptable spouse, which will require me to shape up a little: I’m going to have to stop hating every city I visit, and I’m going to have to start doing some favors for people--you generally have to do a little something for someone in Skyrim before they’ll deign to notice that you’re wearing an Amulet of Mara. I practice doing favors by telling Hillevi Cruel-Sea that I’ll deliver something to the court wizard for her. (I’m pretty sure she’s already married, but it’s a simple delivery. Also, Jade sometimes wonders aloud whether we’re doing enough in the service of Mara, which I take both as a gentle indictment of my selfishness and a hint that I should be flirting more.) Then I walk around and socialize: I meet a fellow named Calixto with a large and largely uninteresting collection of junk that he seems very sentimentally attached to, as it reminds him of his sister. I meet Tova and Torbjorn Shatter-Shield, a couple in mourning for their daughter. I wander over to the Gray Quarter again to browse through a shop, Sadri’s Used Wares, that was closed when I came by last night, and what I find there gives me more pleasure than anything I have yet seen in Windhelm: a pair of shoes! (I’ve been looking high and low for ordinary shoes since arriving in Riften; Nona loves her clumpy leather boots, but they have an annoying tendency to clip through the back of her skirt when she walks. Now if only she could solve her embarrassing helmet problem.) I visit the docks next, where I meet many discontented Argonian workers and a couple of indifferent guards. Stands-In-Shallows asks me to steal some skooma from Candlehearth Hall. I refuse, and he gets very rude. Scouts-Many-Marshes complains about the treatment that the workers receive at the hands of their bosses, the Shatter-Shields. I have the opportunity to volunteer to talk to Torbjorn for him, but I don’t, and I immediately feel terrible. Most of the Argonians here seem like decent, hard-working folk whose lives are desperately hard. Talking to Torbjorn Shatter-Shield for them wouldn’t be so difficult, would it? It’s just talking. But it’s facing-one’s-betters and standing-up-for-the-weak talking, heroic talking, and that makes me uncomfortable. I spend so much time wandering around feeling vaguely dissatisfied that I suddenly realize it’s getting late and I completely forgot about Hillevi’s delivery. I’ll have to do it tomorrow. (Hopefully Wuunferth doesn’t urgently need his eye of newt or whatever it is I’m supposed to give him.) I return to Candlehearth and talk to some of the patrons, including a likeably dense Nord woman named Valla whose tales of getting into fistfights with various people keep me tolerably entertained until bedtime.
In the morning I awake to find Jade in my room: at some point during last night’s revels I must have asked her to come along with me on my journey, and here she is, ready and eager. Upon reflection I decide that this partnership will be good for us both--I get to have some company, and she gets to overcome her self-doubt by helping me find someone to marry. Assuming that her problems are owing to self-doubt, and not the result of the curse that she believes herself to be afflicted with. Well, it’s a bit late to tell her to go home now. It would hurt her feelings. I avoid making eye contact with people on my out of the Bee and Barb, as I dimly recall climbing onto Vulwulf’s table at some point during my little celebration. Fortunately he drinks so much himself that he probably doesn’t remember it, either. There are still a few things to do before we depart: First, there are provisions to buy. After checking the market, it turns out that there really aren’t, so I eat a leftover venison chop for breakfast. Second, I have to work on my whistling. (I need to be able to call my horse if I should happen to lose her, which can easily happen, as she will run away from fights, unlike a typical Skyrim horse.) I walk all over Riften merrily blowing in people’s faces until they start to react somewhat less poorly. Third, I visit the Temple of Mara for a little pre-travel blessing-with-possible-curse-removal (just to be safe). Perhaps Jade’s presence leads me to maintain contact with the altar for a little longer than I otherwise would. Finally it’s time to leave. I head to the stables for my horse--I’ve decided to name her Snowberry--and after changing into my leather armor I climb into the saddle and canter happily away from Riften. After a little while, I stop and dismount, as I’m leaving poor Jade quite a distance behind and there are plants to gather. Ahead, a couple of slender, black-robed figures appear to be having a flashy altercation with some other party. I freeze, hoping a little foolishly that I will not be seen, or if seen, ignored, but they are already advancing towards me in a distinctly unneighborly manner, the previous objects of their ire having been disposed of. I look around desperately for a good source of cover--even a seasoned warrior can be dispatched quite efficiently by hostile mages, and I hardly qualify as a warrior of any sort--but the only nearby hiding place is the nasty cave that leads under Fort Greenwall. I retreat to its mouth but dare not go in any further, and so my attempt at defensive maneuvering leaves me no less vulnerable than before. Jade rushes to my defense and gamely starts punching at one of them (she carries no weapons) while I, startled to find myself mostly intact and unhindered after their opening barrage of ice magic, cut the other apart with surprising ease. The one that is engaged with Jade soon falls to my sword as well, and I am left somewhat bemused by my own prowess. Gingerly, I check the bodies, but find no sign of who these women were or what reason they might have had for attacking two strangers that they found innocently picking flowers in the wilderness. The names that float into view (“Apprentice Necromancer”) are in no way enlightening. I leave the bodies and their belongings as they lie and we hasten away. Just before noon, it starts to rain. We’re now past Shor’s Stone and entering unfamiliar lands. I see a pair of elk ahead and shoot the larger one, which runs off. The smaller one seems rooted to the spot, perhaps stuck on some interfering piece of terrain, and doesn’t move an inch as I shoot it to death. We continue down the rocky slope around a switchback and into the valley. By the time we’re on level ground once again, I’ve collected all manner of meat and hides, some from animals I’ve killed myself, others from victims of the local psychotic wolves. Despite my indifferent success as an archer, I can’t resist shooting at the wildlife whenever I get a clear line of sight, and Jade has an odd habit of disappearing into the forest in hot pursuit of anything that’s still alive after I shoot it (which includes just about everything). Afterward, I can never find whatever it was that she chased down and presumably pummeled to death, so this does me no good at all, but she seems to be enjoying herself. A heavy mist hangs about the lowlands, blurring our view of the clear pools and geysers that make this area so distinctive. I’m finding several interesting new reagents as we continue north--dragon’s tongue, jazbay grapes, creep clusters--and my frequent stops slow us down considerably. Pausing near a sign that points the way to Windhelm, I notice that someone has left a note pinned to the signpost with a knife. It says that some giants have been given permission to camp nearby and should not be interfered with. Through the mist, I can see one of the huge bonfires that generally mark their camps; closer to me, a horse lies dead near an overturned cart. I’m curious to inspect it more closely, but as I approach, my mysterious naming instinct informs me that this area is called “Steamcrag Camp,” and I take this as an indication that I have come close enough. Not far from Windhelm, we run into a couple of travelers escorted by an Imperial Legion soldier. They’re on their way to a wedding in Solitude, and are understandably grumpy about being obligated to travel so far. The sun is setting as we reach the city itself, where a guard repeats the rumor I heard over a week earlier, about a child trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood. I’m not sure whether I should take this as an encouraging sign that he hasn’t succeeded yet, or a disquieting sign that he has succeeded and is trying again because there’s someone else he wants killed and it worked so well the first time. As soon as we enter the city gates we see a Dunmer woman named Suvaris being accosted by two Nord men who accuse her of being some sort of spy. She reacts in a tone of angry resignation, immediately turning to me as I approach and asking whether I, too, hate the dark elves. A simple denial is enough to earn her approbation; it must be genuinely rough for her people here. I’m curious to visit the Gray Quarter, and almost walk right past a ragged woman named Silda who asks me gently for money. Can less than a week in Riften have robbed me of all compassionate feeling? Ashamed of myself, I stop and give her a septim. In the Gray Quarter, Jade and I visit the New Gnisis Cornerclub, where the proprietor, Ambarys Rendar, mentions that a Nord woman was recently murdered in Windhelm. He seems little concerned with the incident and I am unable to get any further information from him. A woman named Morviah Hlaalu regales us with the story of her doomed love affair with a Nord man who left her to join the Stormcloaks. It’s after 1am by the time she finishes her mournful tale. As Jade and I are leaving, we run into one of the charmers that we saw harassing Suvaris at the city gates. He says something about the reek of “gray-skin filth” and continues past us, yelling more insults into the night. As Jade and I head to Candlehearth Hall to find accommodations, I can only hope that there are no Dunmer on the streets at this hour who might be assaulted by this foulmouthed imbecile.
Over the next few days I settle into a routine of sorts: I get up, go shopping, and cook food for the day. I then walk to Heartwood Mill, hunting game on the way, and chop wood for a couple of hours before returning to Riften. I have dinner, socialize a bit, and go to bed. Little by little, I buy the things--the non-food things--that I need. I get decent clothes; I no longer look like a homeless person who stole someone’s good leather boots. My walks to and from Heartwood go quietly enough, although I do have one scare--an encounter with an Argonian thief who attacks me when I refuse to hand over my hard-earned wages and knocks off more than half my health with a couple of blows. There’s nothing to do but puff out my chest and speak as commandingly as I can; he immediately calms down and I run away before the Voice of the Emperor effect wears off. That day I return to Riften by a different route. As soon as I’m back in the city, I buy a steel sword. My efforts at hunting have what might generously be described as mixed results: I sneak up on a deer and shoot it, my arrow causes only a slight injury, and the animal promptly runs off into the forest and I am unable to get another clear shot. Thinking that I need to hunt smaller game, I shoot a fox: I fail to take even this small creature down with a single arrow, and it runs away. I do manage to kill a rabbit with one shot, but getting that shot takes quite some time, and it turns out that a single dead rabbit does not provide even one substantial meal. After a couple of days I start to notice that whenever I shoot a deer, it’s injured already, which is rather puzzling, as I’ve seen no hunters in the area--even the psychotic wolves have been conspicuously absent lately. This leads to a growing conviction that I have been walking back and forth between Riften and Heartwood shooting the same exact deer every time I pass it, and it isn’t recovering from its injuries in between encounters with me. I do finally get my deer, but the dubious method I have employed seems only to argue against my pursuing hunting as a profession--it’s not just woefully inefficient; it’s cruel. And is it necessary? It occurs to me that Nona could go on like this indefinitely, sleeping in Riften and working at Heartwood Mill. It’s easy. It’s profitable. It’s dull. It’s everything she’s always wanted! Well, not quite. Nona’s not an ambitious woman, to be sure--but her modesty does not extend to a lifelong commitment to a career as an unskilled laborer. She wants a profession--a skilled profession. If chopping wood required a skill, an honest-to-goodness learning-by-doing Skyrim skill with actual perks (“Level 100: chop an entire tree down with one stroke”), then she might be interested. But it doesn’t. She isn’t. (And then there’s the fact that chopping wood is really, really boring. For me as a player, I mean. I know, I know, I’m playing Skyrim as a character who doesn’t do anything and walks everywhere; I must be immune to boredom, right? I laugh in the face of tedium! I monologue when set upon by monotony! Actually, no. See, even though playing Skyrim as Nona isn’t the most thrilling thing in the world, writing about it is actually a pretty interesting exercise. But I can’t write about exactly the same day over and over again. No doubt there are writers who might do that sort of thing and even find artistic possibilities in it, but I’m pretty sure I lack whatever natural gift, or natural lack of self-reflection, is required to pull that off.) So Nona trudges off to her unsatisfying job every day for one reason: in the evening after work, she can visit Elgrim’s and practice her alchemy. So far she’s been using just the ingredients she’s gathered, and there’s not a lot of variety. With her Heartwood income, though, she can afford buy ingredients from Elgrim and experiment. She discovers some new formulas, and even gains a level, putting her first perk point into alchemy. Progress! It’s all too easy to neglect your social life when you’re working to put yourself through school, so I try not to let that happen with Nona. The jerks in the Bee and Barb only get ruder the longer she stays there--I could swear that Vulwulf Snow-Shod times his anti-Imperial tirades solely for her benefit, and Maven Black-Briar and her son seem to approach every so often specifically to insult her--but she meets someone new every day. She finally gets around to visiting Honorhall Orphanage, where Grelod the Kind works tirelessly to ensure that no child leaves her care with even a trace amount of uncrushed spirit. I’m astonished that Hagravi could be at all charitable toward her: if I’d grown up in this orphanage, I’d probably hire someone to murder the old hag. But how would I ever find a person willing to do such a thing? I also run into Ingrun Black-Briar. She seems pleasant enough, and I hope that we might have a great deal in common, being students of Elgrim and all, so I ask her why she became interested in alchemy. She gleefully describes her fascination with watching the destructive effects of poisons on people. Um, yeah. I guess I’m not going to have a best friend in this horrible family after all. I wonder what the one who’s in prison for murder is like? There’s Wujeeta, an Argonian skooma addict who desperately wants a healing potion but doesn’t seem to find my homemade ones acceptable; Olette, a little girl who picks my pocket; Wander-Lust, a robustly cheerful Argonian woman who travels Skyrim seemingly as a way of channeling her dead son, who could never stay at home. (I actually have to cut our chat short; some of the Interesting NPCs have conversations that can last for hours and hours of game time--some day I’ll have to try this mod with a character who doesn’t have to eat.) There’s Bolli, an affable fisherman I meet in the Bee and Barb and wouldn’t mind having dinner with, but he always seems to be sitting with Haelga. And there’s Jade, a woman who left the Thieves’ Guild to become a disciple of Mara and speaks tremulously of her ineptitude as a matchmaker. (The competition between disciples to get people together is apparently rather fierce, and Jade doesn’t want to be stuck handing out Dinya’s insipid leaflets.) I like Jade. I find her whiny at first--her voice has a slightly hysterical quality--but her story is amusing (her parents used to lock her in a room, and she learned to pick the locks and break out; she ran away from home and joined the Thieves’ Guild because she had no other skills, but she couldn’t bear to actually steal anything). And, oddly enough, she likes me--she actually seems to want to accompany me on my travels! I’m going to have to give this some serious thought: Nona would love to have a companion, and in Skyrim you usually have to do a quest in order to get someone to join you, so this is a rare opportunity. If Jade were a tough adventuring type, it would perhaps be too much of an opportunity. But Jade seems highly reassured by Nona’s assertion that she keeps to the roads when traveling because there’s so much scary stuff in the wilderness. “Oh, then we’ll make great companions!” Jade exclaims. No need to decide immediately, of course--I’m not going to bore Jade to death by insisting that she trudge over to Heartwood to watch me chop wood every day. But talking with her gets me thinking about the future: Nona would like to get married, some day, and the quality she prizes above all others in a prospective spouse is that he or she not live in Riften. It would be best, then, to visit the Temple of Mara and obtain an amulet before leaving town: with money coming in, she can afford to do that. Greed battles daily with wanderlust in Nona’s head: every night she contemplates leaving this rotten city behind, and every morning discovers some new commodity she cannot live without and trudges off to work again. The very last thing she buys is a horse. Nona could buy a horse anywhere, but she finds the Riften horses especially pretty, so a Riften horse she must have. On Morndas, the 25th of Last Seed, Nona gets to the mill early, works hard and diligently; returns to the Temple of Mara to buy flowers from Yushari, a khajiit flower-seller who emphasizes romance in her sales pitch but is brazenly materialistic in her outlook; heads down to Elgrim’s to extract essences from the blooms. She is starting to turn a modest profit on potions and has everything she wants for the road; this, she resolves, will be her last night in Riften. She has a venison chop for dinner and visits Mistveil Keep, where she has never yet entered; chats with Dirassi, a hypochondriac maid; returns to the Bee and Barb. In a celebratory mood, she samples one of the local brews, a Cliff Racer, which goes down easy but has a tremendous kick. One foggy hour later, she stumbles into her dingy room for the last time.
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.
I decide to head to Riften next. That’s where Hagravi’s from, and he’s the most likable fellow I’ve met so far. The weather is fine as I leave Ivarstead, but it soon starts to rain, although not heavily. I meet a farmer on his way to Windhelm, followed not long after by two Vigilants of Stendarr. One of them, glowing with magic, warns me sternly against “cavorting” with daedra. I’m not sure why there should be a specific objection to dancing with them, but some religions can be awfully conservative. I don’t want to argue, though, because she’s kind of scary. Soon after, I meet another farmer, this one on his way to join the Imperial Legion. (Each to his own.) After a quick lunch of salmon steak, I come across group of Stormcloaks heading my way, and I am relieved to be able to continue on in relative safety (they either don’t notice or don’t care that Nona’s an Imperial). They complain about the Imperials and ask each other why they joined up; one says that his cousin disappeared one night, probably taken by the Thalmor. Then, a few minutes later, another says her cousin disappeared one night, probably taken by the Thalmor. The coincidence doesn’t seem to strike any of them as worthy of comment. (Maybe there’s a standard form that you fill in when you join the Stormcloaks: “Question 1: How many of your relatives are currently missing? Please specify the nature of each relationship in the space provided, entering “cousin” if unsure. Question 2: For each missing relative, rate your level of certainty that he or she was kidnapped by the Thalmor on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 indicating that you are highly uncertain, and 5 indicating that you are utterly convinced.”) We walk on for some time in this cheerful way, picking flowers, bandying jokes about the Imperials, and slaughtering wolves, and finally arrive at the south gate of Riften, where a guard tells me that “riff-raff” are supposed to enter by the north gate. I try to persuade him to let me in, but he isn’t having any of it, so I walk around to the north. Once I arrive, another guard attempts to charge me an exorbitant “visitor’s tax.” I’m now pretty annoyed; I start to raise a fuss. He abruptly relents and lets me in for free. I’ve arrived in a real city--there are people and market stalls all over the place. First I meet Mjoll the Lioness, who mistakes me for some sort of heroic type but otherwise seems very nice; she tells me that Riften is pretty much run by the corrupt Black-Briar family and the Thieves’ Guild, which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Hagravi never mentioned that his home city was a crime-ridden cesspit; maybe he didn’t like me so much after all. After I part from Mjoll, a fellow named Brynjolf spots me, comments on my obvious poverty, and takes it as an indication that I’d be willing to do something criminal. Furious, I turn and walk away, but he won’t take angry silence for an answer, and thrusts his quest update forcibly into my journal. Humiliated, I pass by a woman shaking someone down in the street and head to Elgrim’s Elixirs--Mjoll mentioned that one of the Black-Briars studies alchemy there--and chat with Elgrim and his wife, Hafjorg. They ask me to pick up some ore from Shor’s Stone, which sounds easy enough, as Shor’s Stone is quite close. I use their alchemy table to experiment with the ingredients I’ve been gathering and munching. I make a Restore Stamina potion that is worth almost nothing, and discover a Resist Frost and Restore Stamina potion that they pay me 26 septims for. Not bad! Sadly, I don’t have the ingredients to make more of those. I’m now very hungry. I head back to the market and, having a mind to make soup, buy some raw food from Marise Aravel. But when I get to the Bee and Barb and find a cookpot, I realize that all the food recipes have changed--Realistic Needs and Diseases has made them much more elaborate, which is to say much more expensive. I can’t make anything with the stuff I have. I buy some pheasant stew, but it’s not enough to satisfy me. I buy a boiled egg and a carrot, and my stomach finally stops rumbling. The Bee and Barb is full: Aegir and Vulwulf Snow-Shod complain about the Imperials. Keerava, the Argonian proprietor, complains about the Thieves’ Guild and mentions the Shrine of Azura. Haelga tells me about the bunkhouse she runs and suggests that I not stay there. (I’m not sure how to take that.) I avoid the Black-Briars; after what Mjoll said, I’d probably get flustered talking to them. There are lots more, but I’m too depressed to socialize much. I’m spending way too much money--keeping myself from starving is ridiculously expensive. I wish I’d installed a mod called Reasonably Priced Needs and Diseases. After spending the night in a cramped, cheerless room, I’m down to just 11 septims. And I’m hungry again. I buy a carrot. Still hungry. Well, I do have something that will make a little coin--wolf pelts. I head to the blacksmith’s station and tan the pelts, cutting one into strips. What to make? After some thought, I make a pair of boots and a helmet, using up all my leather. The boots are for wearing, the helmet for selling. Poor Nona walked all the way to Riften with her feet in cloth wraps; her new boots feel great! The helmet sells for 20 septims and I immediately think of my stomach. But after another trip to the Bee and Barb to get some grub I’m down to just 4 septims--and I’m still not full! Heading out again, I meet Snilf, who declares that of COURSE I’m not going to give a beggar like HIM anything. Great Gods of Nirn, even the beggars in Riften are sarcastic pricks. What a town! And then comes the final touch--you can’t have a scummy shithole without shitty scumbags to threaten you, can you? The particular scumbag who accosts me as I’m leaving is named Maul, and he tells me not to cross the Black-Briars, or else. I’m about ready to cry. It starts to rain. On my way to Shor’s Stone, I pass by a fortress. There are no guards in the vicinity, so I give it a wide berth. It’s a peaceful trip, fortunately. I have no problem getting the ore sample from the smith, who tells me that the mine is full of spiders. (I make polite noises in response.) A woman named Sylgja asks me to deliver some letters to Darkwater Crossing. I decline, as I need to go back to Riften and I’m not sure where Darkwater Crossing is. I meet some miners who also complain about the spiders. There’s nothing else to talk about here, apparently. Time to head back. Hungry again, I eat a gourd I gathered earlier, which is better than nothing. Then I get attacked by the omnipresent psychotic wolves, which is something of a blessing, actually, as I can profit from the pelts and they aren’t hard to kill. As I’m circling around the nasty-looking fort again, I find a dead stag. Venison and a hide! Could my luck be improving? I also find a dingy hole in the ground called Greenwall Cave, which seems to go under the fort. I’m not even slightly tempted to explore. It’s about 4pm when I get back to Riften, so I decide to go fishing, which I do in the traditional Skyrim fashion by splashing noisily into the lake and grabbing at fish with my hands. My efforts are surprisingly successful: I get perch, histcarp, a river betty or two, and a lot of salmon. Time for some leatherworking! At the forge, I make some actual leather armor. I haven’t been doing much fighting, but I can always sell it if I’m desperate. Mjoll’s friend Aerin stands by the whole time I’m working and blathers on and on about how great Mjoll is, how deeply she cares--it’s a wonder that the woman can stand him. Next, I deliver the ore sample to Elgrim’s. Sadly, they pay me in potions rather than money. After selling those back along with a few of my own, though, I have a fair amount of coin, and I also have enough venison and salmon that I don’t need to pay much for my dinner (I have to buy salt to make salmon steaks, but the cost is a pittance compared to my previous expenditures). I wolf down meat and fish straight from the cookpot. After dinner, I visit the bunkhouse and chat with a Skyrim-born wood elf named Peragorn who claims to be of no interest to someone like me (like everyone else, he thinks I’m an adventurer). Actually, he is a little dull, a little long-winded on the subject of dullness, although I enjoy his story about traveling to Valenwood to explore his roots and discovering that he’s really a Nord at heart. The conversation takes so long that I don’t have time to talk to anyone else, which is a shame, as they seem like a more amiable lot than the Bee and Barb regulars. It’s midnight by the time I get back to my dismal accommodations.
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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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