Falkreath has been a little disappointing: I’ve haven’t found any good camping spots or shot any elk, I’ve nearly gotten myself killed (again), and I haven’t received any marriage proposals. Much of this is entirely my own fault, of course, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. To top it all off, I have only just noticed the book that’s been lying next to my bed during my entire stay in Dead Man’s Drink: it is Nords Arise!, a frenzied call to all those “true to your blood” to join the Stormcloaks and fight for Skyrim in Ulfric’s name. I can’t say I’m pleased about it. It’s not that I hate the Stormcloaks--I don’t; the actual soldiers I’ve met have seemed like decent, courageous people, earnestly concerned for their future. And while I, true to my own Imperial blood, am inclined to trust that the Emperor is acting for the greater good, I can hardly blame those Nords who feel betrayed by an Empire that allows the Thalmor a free hand to persecute Talos worshipers in Skyrim. But I am neither a soldier nor an admirer of Ulfric, and the placement of this feverish bit of propaganda right by my bed--though it could have been a mere oversight, perhaps a failure to clean up after a previous guest--seems like a personal rebuke. So, despite the ready availability of delicious cheese wheels in this town, I’ve decided to move on again. My confidence in this decision is shaken slightly when I run into Isobel in the tavern, and, shortly after we start to converse, she quite unmistakeably begins flirting with me. “Here I was, trying to come up with the nerve to come and talk to you,” she says. Not entirely trusting my own instincts in this matter, I steer the conversation to the most neutral topic I can think of--her home city of Kvatch. She speaks affectionately of her childhood for a while before returning to her favorite idea, that of smithing arms for true warriors. I tell her that her notions seem very romantic, and she agrees, confessing that she used to dream of being the wife--and personal smith--of a great hero. “Maybe I’ll meet the next great legend right here in Falkreath,” she says. “Maybe that might be you.” I tell her that I prefer quiet times and chat; she seems surprised. But, to my immense relief, she ends the conversation cheerfully and without awkwardness--though also, as far as I can tell, without shedding her alarming notions about my heroism--and I am left free to depart Falkreath unencumbered by the affections of this amiable, talented young artisan. No-one has yet overestimated me quite as flatteringly as she has, and I should find it hard indeed to refuse an offer of marriage from her, if she were to make one, were I not certain of being a cruel disappointment to her as a spouse. Jade and I head north, stopping briefly at Half-Moon Mill to catch fish in the lake. We also find a little lodge named Hunter’s Rest perched on a small, steep hill, and admire the view for a few minutes before moving on. Turning west towards Markarth, we meet some Imperial soldiers--going in the opposite direction, unfortunately--and, further along, we find an overturned wagon. Its driver, a Khajiit merchant, lies face-down in the dirt nearby, and there are large, nasty-looking traps set in the middle of the road. I’ve done well, for once, by dawdling at my usual flower-picking pace: those traps might have done serious damage to my horse, had I been riding. I carefully spring the traps; the Khajiit, sadly, is beyond help. A fortress high on the cliff overlooks this road, and after staring up at it for a few moments, uncertain as to the disposition of the inhabitants, I decide to take the same approach that worked so well with Valtheim Towers--to get on Snowberry’s back, gallop past this fortress as fast as possible, and hope not to be struck by any stray arrows. I have just mounted up in order to put this plan into effect when I am overtaken by a group of Khajiit. Their leader, Ri’saad, is the same fellow I purchased a dress from near Whiterun, and after the usual greetings are exchanged, it seems very natural to dismount once again and walk along with this cheerful company. They are all delighted to see me (they keep telling me that it is an honor to have me with them--which might be nothing more than a buttering-up technique to induce me to buy things, but it’s very pleasant all the same) and awed by Skyrim in general--its high mountains, its spectacular views, its frigid air. Nothing untoward occurs as we pass below the fortress, and Ri’saad and his compatriots deal swiftly with subsequent threats (skeevers mostly) using swords and spells. The company’s easy camaraderie is intoxicating; I find myself weaving in among them, mimicking their movements, searching the landscape for the objects of their chatter. And I feel a strong desire to be useful, to contribute to the group’s safety--so much so that when a chaotic melee builds up around yet another vicious skeever, I ready my bow, take aim, and--to my utter mortification--shoot a Khajiit woman named Atahbah in the leg. She immediately turns around with a snarl and attacks Jade, who responds with a swipe of her own dagger. My sense of happy fellowship collapses almost instantaneously into despair: I put my own weapon away and stand passively, hoping vaguely to end the conflict even as I envision a more likely outcome, in which I am hacked and magicked to death by a justifiably furious merchant company--and all because of a skeever, a skeever, that would have been more easily dispatched without my intervention. But, miraculously, they respond to my gesture in kind: the Khajiit sheathe their weapons. Jade puts away her knife. Atahbah warns me that if provoked, she will use her claws--a pretty mild reaction, considering--but in the next moment all of her ill-feeling seems to vanish, and we continue on our journey. But something is missing, now--if not in the behavior of the Khajiit, which is unfailingly courteous, then in my own head, where my sense of shame will not allow me any peace. I keep pausing to look at the view or harvest the juniper berries that grow in these parts, and the Khajiit get further and further ahead. It’s a long way to Markarth, a much longer walk than I had anticipated, and by the time the light is starting to fail I’ve lost sight of Ri’saad entirely. I plod on through the darkness, lantern in hand, and a figure looms up before me, demanding that I hand over my money. I consider--briefly--giving it to him; it’s been a very long day, I’m still angry and ashamed--I just want this journey to be over and done with, and I really don’t fancy fighting this rude fellow in near-pitch darkness with a lamp in my hand. But being robbed allows me to focus my ire on a new object, and I only get angrier as I stare at his outfit: he’s wearing Imperial Legion armor. He’s robbing me, at swordpoint, in Imperial Legion armor. I feel insulted; I wonder whether this generally works--are the locals are so jaded as to believe that, when they encounter a thief dressed like this, they’re being robbed by an actual legionnaire? Yes, most likely, they are. And who knows, maybe he is a legionnaire. (He’s also a Khajiit; it’s like he’s bringing two sides down at once.) I’m too tired and angry to think about it any longer; I draw my sword and he goes down more quickly than I would have expected. I find Ri’saad’s group setting up camp outside the city, and it’s already so late that I decide to share their campsite. I buy a lot of stuff from Ri’saad--my clumsy attempt at an apology--including some tasty rabbit stew for dinner. But after I’ve set up my tent and camping bed I find myself quite unable to sleep. The reason for this, apparently, is that I can’t sleep while enemies are nearby. I have no idea where these enemies might be--perhaps there’s an irate mudcrab lurking near the river--and so, after issuing a few loud, self-pitying groans in the direction of the sky, I pack it all up again and walk the final stretch into Markarth itself. As I enter the gates, a man pulls out a dagger and stabs a woman in the marketplace, right in front of me. There is some shouting about the Forsworn; the guards draw their weapons and kill the murderer. It happens very quickly. Someone thrusts a note into my hand, saying that I must have dropped it. The nearest guard tells me to leave; the guards will handle everything from here. Whatever. I’m going to the inn.
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How beautifully blue the sky, The glass is rising very high, Continue fine I hope it may, And yet it rained but yesterday. To-morrow it may pour again (I hear the country wants some rain), Yet people say, I know not why, That we shall have a warm July. Hello, people who for some unfathomable reason enjoy reading about the life and times of a very boring person in Skyrim! Mewness here. This isn’t a Nona post; I’m just announcing some minor changes that are (possibly) on the way. First, I’m going to remove the Feedburner widget on the right side of the page. As far as I can tell, only one person has subscribed, and I believe that this is someone who signed up because I asked them to test it for me. If anyone is actually deriving some benefit from this thing, please let me know. I am also regarding the column of links to individual posts with an increasingly disapproving eye: I’d love to put tuck these into collapsible lists, but I am too much of an html duffer to do so. Second, I’m a little disenchanted with Climates of Tamriel--this is the mod that produces the weather effects and cloud textures in my game--and I’m thinking of replacing it with the Realistic Lighting Overhaul weather plugin, currently in alpha. This would cause a noticeable difference in my screenshots: the sunny weather would be a bit less bright and washed-out looking, with a bluer sky and more vibrant colors in general; severe rainstorms and snowstorms would have a darker sky (which might lead to problems in getting the screenshots to come out at all). Sadly, CoT’s marvelous cloud textures and sunsets would also go away. Here are some rough comparison shots. (I can’t do exact comparisons, because Climates of Tamriel uses its own weather patterns and takes a while to worm its way into the world, so simply reloading a game with the mod switched on or off doesn’t necessarily show the same weather.) All of these screenshots were taken around noon, game time. This is what sunny days currently look like for Nona. I find the quality of the light in this shot generally pleasing--the contrast is perhaps lower than is entirely realistic, but I don’t actually want to feel as though I have to squint at my monitor as I would squint outside on a sunny day, so that’s fine. But the scene has a slightly washed-out look and the sky is rather flat. Shadows look much darker in screenshots than they do in the game, so if I switch to the RLO weather alpha, there are going to be some pretty strong shadows, like this. But everything looks more vibrant than it does under CoT, and I like the color of the sky. Pity about those clouds, though. Also, the grass on the left side of the screen looks completely different. I honestly have no idea why. This is just bad, in my opinion. It looks more like an explosion of blinding light than a snowstorm. At one point, Nona was considering heading up to Dawnstar. Having to look at weather like this was a strong argument against doing so. Here’s a somewhat snowy day in the RLO weather alpha. Different, eh? And here’s a blizzard in the RLO weather alpha. Yes, this really was taken at noon, and I had to adjust the levels considerably in order to get anything to show up in the shot at all. Nights are also very different--under the RLO weather alpha, clear nights are fairly bright, and cloudy nights are just about pitch-black. Under Climates of Tamriel, the sky stays fairly bright even on a cloudy night. I can’t get nighttime screenshots to look like anything much, though, so I won’t show any comparisons here. Making this change brings with it certain problems--the replacement mod is in alpha, so it’s going to change from time to time, and the quality of the light won’t necessarily be consistent. I also don’t like the way that the clouds look against the more brilliant blue sky. If anyone has an opinion on this, I’m happy to hear it. Finally, if you are a regular reader and haven’t yet posted a comment, liked Nona on Facebook, or breathlessly extolled my brilliance on a web forum, please do something of the sort. (Breathless extolment not actually required.) I can’t tell how many people are actually reading, as opposed to clicking a link, waiting for the page to load, and then promising themselves never to visit this blog again while wishing they could have those two minutes of their life back. Hearing from people who like this really does give me the warm fuzzies and motivate me to keep posting; if, on the other hand, you’d rather I just stopped writing this pointless drivel already, silence is the best method.
The countryside of Falkreath Hold is lovely; it’s a shame the weather is so terrible--it’s almost always grey and thundery, threatening to rain if not actually raining, and with poor visibility owing to the mist. There’s also the problem of a general lack of cooking pots; I’m now equipped to make my own campfire to cook with--which is precisely what I do--but it seems a little uncivilized to do this in town, and it’s difficult to find a good spot outside the town, one that isn’t too far away, but is flat and clear enough that the campfire doesn’t look as though it is perched weirdly on a slope or about to catch on to some nearby trees. Another problem is the lack of streams in the area: there’s no shortage of water in Falkreath itself, of course, but finding water is a problem if I want to camp out (and I do! I will endure the tedium!), so I spend the next couple of days exploring the region until the early hours of the evening, and then, failing to find a good place to camp, I scurry back to a warm bed in Dead Man’s Drink as fast as Snowberry’s legs can carry me. I start my morning with a large slice of goat cheese (it’s tasty, filling stuff--an excellent meal to fuel a day of hiking in the mountains--and Solaf seems to stock cheese wheels regularly in his store; if I didn’t have to boil water I could give up on cooking entirely), and then Jade, Snowberry, and I set off to explore the paths in the highlands south of Falkreath. To the southwest of the city we find a cave not far from the road that I instinctively name Halldir’s Cairn. There is nobody about, but a couple of burial urns sit outside, mostly in pieces, which is not a good sign. The one intact urn contains a few coins and a gem that, having no desire to violate an old Nord burial ground, I leave as they are. But I can’t just walk away from the place; there are too many mushrooms growing there. After harvesting everything within reach, I’m even willing to venture inside. Jade and I enter very quietly and cautiously, and I am rewarded with the finest, most impressive crop of fungus I have ever seen--half a dozen different kinds growing in large clumps everywhere I look. The interior of the cave is otherwise not reassuring: the wide ledge we’re standing on overlooks a spacious chamber with a column of intensely blue light rising from some sort of rock formation--the cairn of the place’s title, no doubt--in the middle. I neither see nor hear any creatures moving about, but there are bedrolls on the floor, I don’t like the look of it at all, and Jade is clearly uncomfortable. She soon expresses her dissatisfaction in an outburst that uncannily echoes my own thoughts: “Did something just touch me?” she says, her voice rising sharply. “I think something just touched me! I really don’t like caves.” I collect as many mushrooms as I can without climbing down from that high ledge; there are even more below, but my daring will only take me so far. Leaving the cave and continuing west, we arrive at an arch that stretches over an otherwise unremarkable section of road. Jade and Snowberry refuse to follow me though it, and I realize that we are very near the Skyrim-Hammerfell-Cyrodiil border. For some reason, I find myself, like my friend and my horse, unable to go further: it is almost as though I am blocked by an invisible wall--but this sensation is surely the work of my own fancy. Might not this “wall” be an obstruction built up entirely in Nona’s mind? She lives in Skyrim now; she has no desire to venture into unknown Hammerfell or return to familiar Cyrodiil--in fact, she has objections to both. Her home is here--somewhere--and she is bound to find it eventually. An orc charges us, sword swinging, as we head back east, and despite my exaggerated caution (I am, as usual, reluctant to strike for fear of hitting Jade as she and our opponent circle each other), we manage to kill him. Another pointless death--what is it that drives these anonymous orcs and high elves and others to forsake their communities and friends and attack random strangers? What would it take to reduce someone like me to a state of such mindless aggression--catastrophic career failure? The tragic, accidental death of my dear friend Jade? The loss of my horse? I have a brief, terrifying vision of a future in which Nona, maddened by grief, clad in weirdly mismatched armor and now known only as “Imperial,” assaults some innocent stranger in a senseless explosion of violence. Southeast of Falkreath, a bridge hangs over the road, suspended between a pair of wooden watchtowers. Seeing no guards in attendance, I crouch suspiciously in a shadow nearby while I scan the area for bandits. Jade’s powers of observation prove superior to mine: she’s already running toward one of the towers by the time I’ve spotted the man that provoked her. He activates a device at one end of the bridge, causing a trapdoor to drop; large black boulders tumble down onto the road, missing both me and Jade--me because I am still a considerable distance away, and Jade because she is already well to the side. But the man who released them seems to lose his balance while aiming his bow; he topples off the bridge, falls to the road, and is crushed by one of his own boulders. Jade and I wait tensely for a few moments, but nobody else appears on the bridge or the towers. Approaching carefully, I find the reason why--directly beneath the bridge lies a second bandit crushed under a rock. Not only was the first fellow stupid enough to die in his own booby-trap, but he had very likely seen the same thing happen to the last guy. It’s getting late, though--having liberated these watchtowers without the ugly necessity of unsheathing our weapons, we’re left with little time to enjoy the view, and head back to town rather than camping out. It’s raining quite hard when I get up the next day, so I spend the morning divided between mushroom experiments at Grave Concoctions and smithing practice at Lod’s forge. But I soon get bored in town; I’m not finding anyone new to talk to, so I sell my potions, browse the general store, and then off I go exploring again, despite the weather. Jade and I find a dilapidated fortress to the west of Falkreath; turning north to avoid it, we discover a shack that my naming instinct tells me belongs to someone named Lorne. This Lorne, an alcoholic judging from the number of mead bottles piled on and near his bed, is nowhere about, and though his place appears to be otherwise well-kept, it is not sufficiently rainproof to tempt me to wait around hoping to meet him. As we leave the shack, a black-robed necromancer and a dead-eyed Imperial woman come running out of the woods to attack us. The battle gives us little trouble--this wizard, like the other spellcasters we have fought so far, favors frost magic, which Jade (being a Nord) is highly resistant to; she has no difficulty keeping him occupied while I dispatch the woman, who turns out to be a reanimated thrall. Her master goes down soon after, and I spend a mournful moment contemplating my nameless former countrywoman, who was wearing a ragged outfit similar to what I had on when I first arrived, and in death has become no more than a faintly-glowing pile of dust. Here, perhaps, is the worst possible fate that might befall someone like me, given sufficiently bad luck: even the mindlessly aggressive, exclusively-race-identified thugs that I’ve encountered near roadsides have more dignity than this poor soul. Not far from where the bodies fell, we find a rough stone bench; it’s covered in gruesome remains, but there’s also a book, 2920, Frostfall, v10, that I make the mistake of reading. In thoroughly uninspired prose, it tells part of the story of a man so bitterly embarrassed by his own failures that he tricks a coven of witches into participating in a (surely ill-advised) plot to kill his former lord, the living god Vivec, who was one of the rulers of Morrowind in the Third Era. (It also improves my Conjuring skill.) I don’t know what, exactly, makes this book dangerous, but its position on this altar tells me that it is, and for a moment I consider removing it as a sort of public service (Nona saves the world from lackluster reading material, one volume at a time!). In the end, though, I decide that I would rather not have the nasty tome in my possession. Further on from the altar is a large, raised mound, and as I am speculating as to its purpose I notice a green, glowing figure in the distance. I’m developing a truly annoying and dangerous habit of continuing to gawk at things even as Jade starts to panic: it turns out that there are two green, glowing figures, neither of them disposed to be friendly. One of them sends a stream of glowing motes toward me that, as I turn and flee, causes my health to drain at an alarming rate. I run as fast as I can, chugging healing potions as I go. Nona is no sprinter--all of her efforts at physical improvement go into bolstering her health, which seems only reasonable, given how many poisonous ingredients she eats experimentally--and in almost no time at all she is utterly exhausted and the spriggan(s) are still chasing her. She gets hit with another draining attack, chugs healing and stamina potions, keeps running. It feels as though I’ve been running forever as I arrive back in Falkreath; I must have consumed a good third of my supply of restoratives. Jade soon catches up, and we stand in the rain, catching our breath.
It’s only my first night camping out, and I’m already bored silly. Unless I can find something to occupy my evenings, I’m not sure how I’ll cope. I suppose I could just sleep for 12 hours at a stretch, but that seems like a waste, and there’s no piece of equipment I can make or buy--no pocket alchemy lab or portable anvil--that could help me fill this time productively. (I know I’m starting to sound like some sort of obnoxious workaholic here, and there’s not a lot to say in my defense, although I did consider bringing some books with me. But even that wouldn’t help, as time in the game freezes when you open one.) The man letting us share his fire--a fisherman I’ve come to know only as “Fisherman”--is friendly enough, but not the most stimulating conversationalist. (His years of fishing in these parts have apparently left him with nothing to say; perhaps he’s been alone for so long that he no longer knows how to entertain a pair of young ladies.) It’s too dark to swim or gather ingredients, and I’ve already heard Jade’s entire life story several times. Not that it’s all bad--it’s a lovely night. The stars are out, the weather is calm, and we’re camped on a little island in the lake west of Riverwood. I could hardly have asked for a more idyllic spot. Unfortunately, it’s hard to lie on the ground so as to stare wistfully up at all those tiny points of light in the infinite expanse of Oblivion when the camera insists on pointing down at me whenever I try it. It wasn’t my intention to go camping at all; Jade and I started out towards Falkreath this morning, and I was intending to stay on horseback at least until we reached Riverwood--I had already denuded the roadside plants growing between the two settlements of their blooms, after all. But the absence of flowers didn’t seem to have reduced the butterfly population, so naturally I climbed down from Snowberry’s back to catch some. As a result, our progress was exceedingly slow, and stymied by further delays--I stopped off at Embershard Mine to chop more wood (I’ll eventually need fuel, and it’s not possible to gather wood from fallen trees), and I also wanted to avoid the road that goes through Helgen (what with the rumors of a dragon in the area), which meant that we would be taking a somewhat longer route. Much to my regret, I made one further detour: I followed a side-path up a hill in search of a cottage that my instincts suggested lay in that direction, and found instead the scene of a horrific crime--four dead people, men and women, all apparently murdered in the act of worshiping at a shrine of Talos. The offerings placed about the statue’s feet seemed undisturbed, and some of the worshipers had coin in their purses--details that argued against the slaughter’s being the work of common bandits, and toward a conclusion that I didn’t much care to contemplate. As much as I’ve been hearing about the atrocities of the Thalmor, I might yet have believed that even they would have qualms about leaving their victims--however objectionable their beliefs--out to rot like this. But it does me little good to turn this appalling scene over and over in my mind; am I shocked? Certainly. Will I investigate this massacre and bring the perpetrator(s) to justice? Hardly. There is nothing that I, Nona, can do to end religious persecution in Skyrim; that is a task for someone made of sterner stuff. I can but content myself with the thought that should I ever meet such a person, I will inform them of these matters; I will, when I find this individual, do exactly as any conscientious, dyed-in-the-wool non-player character should. I will beg. I will plead. And, if necessary, I will hire a player character whom I have just met to handle everything. ... If the conversational option is there. It was clear by the time we had returned to the main road that we would not reach Falkreath before dark. We might have camped easily enough by roadside--I had enough supplies that a fire would not have been absolutely necessary--but a late-afternoon swim in the lake led me to Fisherman and his campfire, and we were able to rest in relative comfort. We don’t have a lot of ground to cover the next day, but the inhabitants of Skyrim do their best to make those last few miles as difficult as possible. Strictly speaking, our first assailants don’t qualify as inhabitants, as they are only animated skeletons: nevertheless they attack fiercely, and, as far as we can tell, independently--I see nobody who might have created or be directing them. One of the skeletons carries a well-made shield, and I pick it up (my first piece of, how you say, loot)--I don’t like to take people’s belongings, even dead people’s belongings, but a skeleton is more like a thing than a person. Even so, it was a person once, a person whose remains have been subjected to.... The shield falls from my hands. Hasn’t this body been violated enough already? The next person who wishes to express violent opposition to our reaching Falkreath is a high elf. He engulfs Jade in a cloud of magical frost while I shuffle from side to side with my bow drawn and Jade dodges back and forth blocking my shots. To my shame, she ends up killing him almost without assistance. (And here I thought we had an understanding that she was to be an even less capable fighter than I.) Perhaps I should make a better weapon for her. By mid-morning, a thick fog has settled over the region; we reach Falkreath around noon. The very first man I see who is not a guard asks me to deliver some ashes to Runil, the priest of Arkay; apparently, dealing with human remains is so much a part of daily life here that Thadgeir thinks nothing of asking a complete stranger to help. I stop briefly at the general store, where Solaf, an ex-Stormcloak, warns me about his brother, who hates everybody. Solaf’s inventory is practically overflowing with tempting articles: I buy a new pair of boots, some groceries, a tinderbox, and, most extravagantly, an enormous wheel of goat cheese. For some reason my pleasure in making this last purchase exceeds even my elation at obtaining a tinderbox without having to find troll fat. And then Solaf ruins it all by telling me that, if I steal anything from his store, I’ll regret it. (After I’ve bought over a hundred septims worth of stuff from him!) Stepping jauntily out the door in my new boots, I find my way down to the graveyard, where Runil is conducting a rite for a grieving couple’s 9-year-old child. I watch from a respectful distance until he is finished before offering my sympathies to the parents. The father, Mathies, tells me the gruesome details of his daughter’s murder with so little reserve as to provide sure indication that the end of his sorry tale holds a quest. I forbear asking who tore his little girl limb from limb, therefore; my errand gives me a convenient excuse to take my leave. I deliver the ashes to Runil at his home, accepting a generous cash reward and refusing to retrieve the journal he “left in a cave” (dare I ask? NO!), before having a chat with Melea Entius, a woman who has come to pray to Arkay. She is obviously very ill, and relates her sad history to me--how she became afflicted with an incurable and terminal disease, how she lost her husband. She is remarkably stoic, concerned only that her daughter Henrietta, whom Mathies and his wife Indara have agreed to care for when she passes, will forget her. I suggest that she write Henrietta a letter, and she thanks me profusely for this simple idea, asking me whether I wouldn’t mind checking in on the child once in a while. I can hardly refuse such a request. I meet Jerulith, a severely handsome Altmer woman dressed in Thalmor robes, whose coldly hostile manner would be more than enough to dissuade me from further conversation, were my memory of the scene at the Talos shrine not a scab demanding to be picked at. But she assumes, perhaps rightly, that my desire to talk must necessarily result from a wish to vent my hatred--and, her voice dripping with sarcasm, goes on to list so many possible crimes for which I might hold her responsible that I soon find myself hating her very earnestly indeed. I finish my tour of Falkreath at the mill, where Bolund, Salof’s unpleasant brother, declares that he can’t believe that provincials like me are allowed to wander Skyrim. I stare in disbelief. Provincials? Did he just--that I--I’ll give you “provincial,” you illiterate, backward, axe-faced northern goat-turd! Let the Thalmor have your snow-covered, bandit-ridden, pyscho-wolf-infested--aaaah. Deep breath, Nona. Tight smile, brisk nod, back away quietly. Smile, nod, back away.... I manage to calm myself at Grave Concoctions, the local alchemist’s shop, owned by a Redguard named Zaria. At her table I discover an interesting new property or two; I also discover that a single dose of troll fat costs more than my tinderbox. I discover no new formula as profitable as my conjuring-enhancing magic-suppressant (BUY NOW!), but selling my latest batch of mixtures does improve my Speech and get me to level 8. I have time for some smithing before dark, and I chat with Lod, the local smith, and his apprentice Isobel, a fellow Imperial who tells me that she’s on a sort of smithing pilgrimage--apparently her family is famous for its smiths, and her personal quest is to prove herself worthy to inherit the family forge, which is blessed with its own guardian spirit. She’s actually a little ambivalent about the whole thing: back home, she will be making fancy items for nobles, when she would rather make weapons for the use of warriors and heroes. I feel more than a touch of envy: how wonderful it would be if, having mastered the alchemist’s trade in Skyrim, I were able to return to a shop back home, a prestigious shop, complete with its own benevolent haunt. I shouldn’t at all mind working for the nobility; let them use my drugs to hide their disfigurements or poison their enemies or make their offspring fall in love with appropriate marriage candidates--a safe, lucrative business would fulfill all my fondest wishes. For a town in which death seems so close, Falkreath is certainly crowded with the living; the inn, Dead Man’s Drink, is packed. A woman named Narri says that I’m going to have the men here wrapped around my finger in no time. I’m concerned at first that her sight might be failing, but the little girl, Henrietta, tells me that Narri says something of this sort to everyone. A distinguished old man, Dengeir of Stuhn, is so wary of Imperial spies that he tries to get me to spy for him. (So--by complaining about Imperial spies he actually hopes to recruit one. Clever. Very clever.) Finally, knowing I shouldn’t, I talk to Jerulith again, to hear why she is no longer with the Thalmor: she explains that she had a disagreement with Ondolemar, her superior in Markarth, whom she found insufficiently ruthless. She had suggested that an entire Talos-worshiping family be put to death, including the children, though her colleagues thought that children, being malleable, ought to be spared. When the entire family was murdered--nobody knows by whom--Ondolemar decided to blame Jerulith, whose opinion on the matter was well-known, and paint her as a rogue agent. In this manner he disposed of her, appeased the Jarl, and stoked the general fear of the Thalmor, which from his point of view was all to the good. Worse and worse. Even we non-player characters should learn to keep our stupid mouths shut once in a while.
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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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