Having looked through Elgrim’s inventory, dully inattentive to the possibilities, I’m now staring listlessly at his alchemy table. I feel as though my chosen profession is losing its luster; I can’t seem to focus. Elgrim’s irritable, vaguely mean-spirited chatter isn’t helping. Was he always this annoying? Did I really come here every day to practice, back when I first stayed in Riften, and not notice? Somehow I thought there’d be more to do here, but in my alchemy funk, there’s really very little. Jade and I visit the Bee and Barb, of course, but apart from an odd little colloquy taking place between Sapphire and Wander-Lust, everything is just as I remember it--Vulwulf Snow-Shod and the Black-Briars are as unpleasant as ever. I ask Keerava for news, and she hands me a note that she’s been passing out to travelers: I put the thing away. I don’t need yet another notice of derring-do to be done poisoning my mood. It’s not difficult to figure out the reason for my aimlessness, of course: it’s been a hard journey, a journey that I barely survived, and now, having done nothing but work toward its completion for several days, I am faced with the fulfillment of its purpose--to see Jade safely home, and say goodbye, and let her remain here within the relative safety of Riften’s walls when I finally depart. I’m trying, I suppose, to postpone that moment for as long as possible, but its imminence hangs over everything I do. But Jade seems cheerful, and her chatter keeps me smiling despite these sad reflections. “What about Peragorn and Valindor?” she asks as we amble around the marketplace, and I spend a few moments in bewildered incomprehension before realizing that she has turned to matchmaking again. “What, you don’t think they like each other? Or you think they don’t like other males?” As I’m pondering this dilemma, never having considered the romantic preferences of either of them before, a courier comes running up and, to my dismay, delivers another note: This is quite simply the weirdest missive I have seen yet. The Jarl of Falkreath wants to see me--because of the “fame of my exploits across Skyrim”? What could he possibly mean? Have I become known for gathering more armloads of purple mountain flowers than any one alchemist or interior decorator could possibly make use of within a normal lifetime? For occasionally delivering small packages to nearby recipients and being grossly overpaid for that service? For strutting back and forth in front of Jarl Elisif the Fair like a costumed chicken? Wait--is this a standard form letter that Jarl Siddgeir sends to anyone he wants see, for whatever reason? But it wouldn’t do to ignore such a message, would it? It’s from a Jarl, and there’s that tantalizing mention of a “choice parcel of land”--doubtless I would have to do something adventurous to earn it, but you never know; after all, I can’t possibly be famous for doing such things, so maybe I’m wanted for some purpose better suited to my limited capacities--perhaps the Jarl intends that I should dress up like a Penitus Oculatus agent and follow Dengeir around while scribbling meaningless notes and surreptitiously handing them to passers-by. At dusk we head to Haelga’s Bunkhouse to visit Kjoli and Inari, the lovers we met in Shor’s Stone. As fate would have it, we find them in the middle of an argument--Inari, it seems, is not pleased to learn of Kjoli’s intention to adopt a child. She runs up the stairs in a temper, and Kjoli, clearly confused by her vehemence, asks me to talk to her. I do, and at first her objections seem natural enough--she and Kjoli aren’t actually married, it turns out, and she wonders how he could possibly have thought it appropriate for an unmarried couple to adopt. But then she goes on to relate a surpassingly weird tale of meeting him at a temple where she had gone with the intention of committing suicide. He was praying, and as she plunged her dagger into her heart, he tried to save her. Something passed between them, and she has somehow, despite being dead, continued to exist on love alone. Kjoli overhears this, and tells her that she isn’t dead--a healer told him that the dagger missed her heart and she made a full recovery--and that he would gladly marry her in any case: the only reason that he never asked is that his own parents were unmarried and perfectly happy, so it never struck him as being terribly important. Inari is so moved by his words that she agrees to marry him immediately, and they ask me to help with the arrangements. Jade has been silent during the entire exchange. As we enter the temple of Mara, I decide to ask her to perform the ceremony. She tries earnestly to persuade me to ask Maramal instead, for the couple’s own good. I don’t know--I think it’s silly for her to be so worried about this curse; I would hope that she sees that any weirdness in Inari and Kjoli’s relationship was there long before she met them and has nothing to do with her. So I tell her to go ahead with it, and it actually goes off rather well. (You can watch the entire scene on YouTube.) I’m not sure I understand this stuff about Inari’s being dead or not being dead, but she’s happy, and Kjoli is happy, and that’s what counts, not some trivial detail about whether one is married to a corpse. The following morning, I say goodbye to Jade. Delaying the inevitable is just making me feel worse, and I don’t want to keep the Jarl of Falkreath waiting. It’s impossible for us to say anything adequate to the occasion--our hearts are too full, and the dialog options too limited. To protect me on my journey, I hire an arrogant young wizard named Marcurio. He promises to be a tedious companion, full of his own importance, but he’s eager to take my money and confident that he can blow my enemies to smithereens. Outside the tavern, I meet someone new--her name is Caylene, and she is either a beggar who does street performances or a very low-paid bard, depending on your perspective. For the price of a single septim, she performs a one-woman play for me called “The Jarl and the Jarless.” It’s truly dreadful; I feel thoroughly guilty for being so vastly entertained by it. I turn to Marcurio to learn his opinion, but he only observes slyly that I’m wearing an Amulet of Mara, and wonders that someone like me isn’t taken. I am grossly offended--someone like me, indeed! Someone who paid him five hundred septims not ten minutes ago and clearly has more where that came from--is that it? Does he really have no better sense than to propose to a woman he has just started working for? Is this his idea of professionalism? I tell him flatly that I’m not interested, and he says he’s sorry he brought it up. I should hope so! We depart Riften in mutual dissatisfaction, start heading north, and soon hear the tiresome noise of a bear up ahead. Then I notice another bear off to the side. I jump on my horse and gallop away in vexation, leaving Marcurio to deal with the angry wildlife as he chooses. He catches up with me at around lunchtime, as I’m devouring an experimental new dish that I think I’ll call Nona’s Rabbity Reagent Salad (I’ve recently picked up the Experimenter perk, which allows me to figure out two properties of any alchemy ingredient I swallow instead of just one, and I have a lot of ingredients to get through, as well as a nice bit of rabbit). Once my vision has cleared and I’m well enough to walk again, we go on with our journey, and I’m just starting to think that it might not be so bad traveling with Marcurio after all--he’s annoying, but that and the fact that he’s a hired mercenary combine refreshingly to remove any sense of responsibility I might otherwise feel for his welfare--when disaster strikes. It starts with a couple of wolves--nothing to worry about, as Vigilance and I are perfectly capable of killing such beasts as these without assistance. But Marcurio insists on showing off his skills, and his dodging this way and that while projecting bolts of flame from his fingers would make for a fine display if his aim weren’t so terrible. He fails to hit any appropriate target, and an errant blast finally catches Vigilance, whose fur bursts into flame. Vigilance turns on his attacker, Marcurio hits him with yet another firebolt, and I watch helplessly as my two companions, the animal understandably panicked by being set on fire, and the man who ought to know better than to torment such an animal, have at each other relentlessly, ignoring my attempts to calm them, until Vigilance, thoroughly outmatched, burns to death. I’m horrified--utterly dumbstruck. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I almost dismiss Marcurio on the spot, a mere four hours or so after paying his fee up front. And yet I know I can’t do without him--the roads are simply too dangerous, now, for me to travel alone. I’m trapped. I need protection, and being forced to receive it from the odious man who killed my dog makes me want to weep. Poor Vigilance! I hate leaving him here like this, his sad, furry corpse stretched out on the road, but I can’t pick him up and carry him, I can’t bury him--so here he will have to stay. I move on, numbly, with Marcurio following and at least having the decency to keep his ugly stupid mouth shut. The sun goes down, and although I was hoping to pass Valtheim Towers before making camp--the road leading up to them is so steep that I can’t find a clear, flat camping spot of any size--I tire of walking through the dark and set up my fire and my tent in the limited space available, leaving Marcurio to shift for himself. He knows where I keep the camping gear. Let him put up his own damn tent. The following morning, we pass the Towers and the turnoff to Whitrerun, taking the road that runs through Riverwood and along Lake Ilinalta. This is one of the most beautiful travel routes I know, but it brings me no joy; I feel stupid and miserable without my loyal, brave, incessantly-barking dog and my timid, self-doubting friend. And it’s a shame, because Marcurio is an astonishingly effective bodyguard--hostile beings are frequently burned to a crisp before I’m fully aware of their presence. (At least, I hope they’re hostile beings, and not just innocent passers-by or their pets.) With the security he affords me, I can walk all day without ever having to stop brooding about how much I loathe him. We arrive in Falkreath before 6 pm--not a bad time to present myself to the Jarl. I step behind a cart and change into my best clothes, the outfit that Taarie gave me to show to Jarl Elisif. We pass the general store and I can’t resist buying a couple of those scrumptious wheels of cheese. (Perhaps it is not the best idea to see Jarl Siddgeir while smelling strongly of cheese, but that thought only occurs to me after I’ve handed over my money.) Siddgeir turns out to be a pampered, self-satisfied young man, little more than a youth; any hope I might have entertained of his having a task for me that accords with my inclinations and competencies is quickly blown. “We’ll see if the stories about you are true,” he says, before describing his problem: there’s a group of bandits in his hold that he wants killed--not because of their crimes, but because they’re no longer paying him a cut of their proceeds. I don’t have any good way to respond. I can accept, I can flatly refuse, or I can turn away without answering. The latter options strike me not only as rude but as potentially risky: Siddgeir may be too great a coxcomb to think anything of telling a stranger about his chummy relationships with bandits, but there might be others looking out for his interests who have a grain of sense. I tell him I’ll do it. And not, I’m sorry to say, with the intention of appeasing him so that I can quietly leave Falkreath and forget the whole thing--I actually want to do it. I know how bad that is; I’ve willingly accepted a quest that goes against the basic principle under which I live my life: I am not a hero. I don’t kill bandits. (Well, I do, but only if they insist on attacking me as I’m going about my non-adventuring-related business.) But I want that land--that parcel of land that I can receive only through service to this silly young man. I thought I could marry my way into homeownership, but I’m too picky--I simply cannot find the house I want attached to the spouse I want. I would never have predicted that my dreams of domesticity would lead me down the slippery slope of adventure, but there it is; Nona Plaia will be a fallen woman. Best not to dwell on it--there will be plenty of time for self-recrimination when I’m done, if I survive. I need to focus on planning. I’m going to want some help, and not from Marcurio: the bandits are based in Embershard Mine, and narrow mine tunnels will make it difficult for a wizard to get clear shots at the enemy; plus there’s the more pressing fact that I absolutely detest the smug, soul-patch-sporting little creep. I want someone who will take the lead--someone with armor and weapons and courage and bulk. Someone like--just to pick an entirely random example that has nothing to do with my personal inclinations--that big, handsome fellow in Markarth with the goat on his shoulder. Vorstag? This needs to happen soon, before I can talk myself out of it. First thing tomorrow, I start breaking the rules.
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It’s morning in Solitude, and I find Atar, the executioner, standing next to my bed. Before I can get over my natural terror at waking up to see a man hovering over me with an enormous double-handed axe, he starts talking. “You wouldn’t be a sellsword, would you? I have a little problem you could solve.” It’s time to go. But first there’s the matter of poor old Angeline: she’s the local alchemist, and she is desperate for news of her daughter, who joined the Imperial Legion and hasn’t been heard from since being posted to Whiterun. I offer to speak to Captain Aldis for her, and he reluctantly tells me that the daughter was killed on a scouting mission. I feel terrible--not just bad for Angeline, but angry at Captain Aldis for being too much of a coward to inform a mother about the death of her daughter. Angeline is understandably heartbroken at the news, but she warms up to me quite a bit, telling me that my parents must be proud of me. I don’t know about that, but her glowing regard makes me feel better about using her cookpot to boil water. Then there’s Svari, Roggvir’s little niece, who is upset because her mother Greta has become very withdrawn since her brother was executed--she doesn’t even go to temple anymore. I find Greta at home; she tells me that she would feel bad about attending temple without a little religious keepsake from Roggvir--his amulet of Talos. This object proves challenging to acquire--challenging to my beliefs, that is: Roggvir has been placed in a coffin in the Solitude Catacombs, and reaching into that box feels ... ghoulish. (It doesn’t help that the game regards it as stealing.) I hesitate over this for a long time--but I promised Greta, and I promised Svari, and I’m not taking the amulet for myself, so I eventually do it. On the way out of the catacombs I bump into a crazy Breton woman named Gwyvane who talks in rhyming riddles about the end of the world--at least, I think that’s what she’s talking about; I can’t make any sense of it at all--but she doesn’t seem to want anything connected to any reality I’m familiar with, so I leave her be. I make a final round of the shops, visiting Radiant Raiment, where I buy a lot of clothes, including some Hammerfell-style garb (I have no qualms about culturally appropriating something with trousers). At the smithy, I find that my skill has progressed to the point where I can learn Elven smithing, so I take that perk, buy all of the available moonstone, and fashion myself a suit of Elven armor. Three-quarters of one, anyway; there isn’t enough moonstone to make the helmet. I’m immensely proud of my new armor: it’s wonderfully light, even lighter than leather, and I don’t care that it makes me look like a Thalmor agent who left her helmet in a tavern during a night of carousing and is now wearing a cheap hide substitute that she hopes her superiors won’t notice. I spend the rest of the afternoon at Angeline’s, preparing for my journey through the frozen north. I am very much afraid of the wild beasts that are said to inhabit the colder regions of Skyrim--snow bears, snow cats, snow wolves, snow trolls, you get the idea--and, lacking any sort of fighting prowess, I have turned to my one real area of expertise for something to keep me alive. I buy a recipe for paralysis poison from Angeline, but it calls for something called “briar heart,” which I have never yet seen. All is not lost, though: the other ingredient in the recipe, swamp fungal pod, is something I do have, and so I start mixing it with other ingredients at random, hoping to find another way to produce the paralysis effect. The first alternative that works--swamp fungal pod mixed with an imp stool mushroom--gives me a concoction that will not only paralyze my enemy, but heal its injuries; the very last thing I want in a poison. I keep trying, and find yet another combining ingredient: canis root. There are no unwanted side effects here, but there is the problem that canis root seems to be rather uncommon; it doesn’t often show up in shops, and I’ve never encountered it in the wild--or perhaps I have encountered it and failed to recognize it as anything special. I’ll have to keep an eye out. As I begin my journey the next day, I have reached level 12, learned another Alchemy perk, and, I hope, am ready to paralyze and then run away from anything that threatens me. I ride to Dragon Bridge, passing a pair of Redguard warriors harrassing a random woman while M’aiq watches impassively, then dismount and turn east towards Morthal. During the first hour or two I encounter nothing more alarming than a friendly dog that runs off into the woods to a shack in which his owner lies dead. A journal lying nearby informs me of the dog’s name--Meeko. I feel sorry for poor Meeko, living in a cold shack with only his dead master for company, but I can’t have a second dog, and so we go on without him. In the early afternoon the road brings us to one of those semi-ruined fortresses that are so often occupied by bandits; despite the steepness of the terrain, I have some hope of keeping enough distance to avoid provoking the inhabitants--the fort sits a little way off the road--and so we pass by, staying as far from the walls as possible. My caution turns out to be more than justified: the inhabitants aren’t bandits, they’re mages, and as I’m watching, one of them takes the opportunity to express his world view by shooting magic icicles at a bunny. I’m a little shocked by this display, not to mention the animated skeletons that I’m pretty sure I can see milling around in the courtyard, and only too happy to put this place behind me. As we enter Morthal, a little crowd is gathered outside the Jarl’s hall to complain about the Jarl--something about letting mages into their midst. I don’t know about their midst; I think they should be more concerned about those bunny-hating necromancers in the fort to the west, but what do I know? I talk to a Redguard smith named Al’Hassan who’s set up shop here--he claims to be a maker of those nifty curved swords, but he doesn’t have any for sale yet--and then head off to search for ingredients in the marsh. I find swamp fungal pods, deathbells, and giant lichen, and I’m not nearly done exploring by the time the light starts to fail and I feel it necessary to return to town. In the Moorside Inn, a salty tavern wench named Ingarte speaks loudly in support of the detested local bard, an orc named Lurbuk. She acknowledges that he has a terrible voice, but maintains that the harshness of his singing is highly appropriate for certain kinds of material. I don’t mind Lurbuk at all, actually; he’s very friendly, and he doesn’t sing anything for the entire duration of my stay, which puts him ahead of most other Skyrim bards. I ask Ingarte how long she’s worked here, and she tells me it’s been a while. “Ain’t a chair or stool hasn’t felt me bottom. Could say the same for the men,” she tells me merrily. But she is adamant in declaring the rumors about her spending all of her time “on her back” to be scandalous lies, insisting that she much prefers being on top. Also in the inn is an Argonian woman named Anum-La, dressed in black and carrying a sword. She tells me that she always wanted to be a warrior, but only males were ever recruited as soldiers in her Black Marsh village. She taught herself to fight and eventually joined a mercenary company, telling them that she wanted to become a knight. (She says she had no idea at the time what a knight actually was; she had heard the word used respectfully and thought that it sounded very grand.) Her fellows dubbed her “The Swamp Knight,” a nickname that has stuck with her ever since. As much as I’d like to stay a while in Morthal, gathering reagents and getting to know the locals--I like both Ingarte and Anum-La--I don’t want to delay Jade’s return to Riften, and so we set off again the next morning. We haven’t had to do any serious fighting since leaving Solitude--there’s been nothing worse than a few frostbite spiders, easily dispatched by Vigilance--but the road from Morthal to Dawnstar proves to be far more dangerous. Past the Stonehills mine, we run into bandits--only two of them this time, but these are much tougher than any previous bandits we’ve fought: one of them knocks Jade down almost immediately, and after I shoot him with a poisoned arrow, he pursues me relentlessly despite the best efforts of my dog. I eventually resort to calming them both down with the Voice of the Emperor and we all run away before they come to their senses. We get only a brief respite before a creature that I would have given a great deal not to see, a snowy sabre cat, comes charging out of the snow. Tawny sabre cats are bad enough--they’re fast, tough, determined, and their attacks are extremely quick and damaging--but the snowy variety is worse (snowy anything is worse in Skyrim). Jade once again is knocked down within a fraction of a second, and I immediately coat an arrow with my new paralytic poison and fire. The great beast falls over, stiff as a board, and I start fleeing--but I’m already out of breath as it recovers and catches up with me. I coat another arrow, with a slowing poison this time--this effect lasts much longer than the paralysis--but it doesn’t seem to help; even with the cat slowed, I can’t seem to put any real distance between us, despite Vigilance’s efforts to engage its attention. I turn to face it with sword and shield, and it takes off nearly all of my health with a couple of quick swipes. I backpedal, chugging potions, trying frantically to find something else in my inventory that may help--but by this time the creature has been injured heavily by poisons and dog bites and wild sword slashes, so I risk engaging it once more, and it finally goes down. On the move again after we feel calm enough, we chat with a genial fellow bringing a cow to a giants’ camp as a sort of peace offering, return yet another stolen object thrust into my hands by a random stranger to its owner, and finally arrive in Dawnstar, a mining town on the frigid northern coast of Skyrim. My first tour of the place is dispiriting: almost everyone I meet complains of recurring nightmares, and I see the Jarl badgering a pair of ex-Legionnaires with what amounts to accusations of treachery. The one object of interest is Quicksilver Mine: quicksilver is rare, and I’d very much like to acquire some, as it’s useful in Elven smithing. I go in, therefore, and chip away at the veins with a borrowed pick. But I run into a difficulty--I can’t find the person I’m supposed to give the ore to. I end up smelting it all, taking a couple of ingots for myself, and then leaving the rest near the smelter, where the presence of a stationed guard offers me some assurance that it will end up in the right hands. It’s getting late, and I enter the inn, which is mostly occupied by discontented miners. One man, a dreamily poetical fellow named Jaspar Gaerston, tells me all about his efforts at writing fiction. This seems at first to be an interesting change from the endless talk of nightmares, but Jaspar has a slow, whispery way of speaking, without much inflection, that renders his conversation insufferably dull to my ears. I wonder if a general cure for the local people’s restless nights might be found in listening to him; I find a few minutes more than adequate to induce a gently soporific state, and I soon retire to my room to enjoy its effects.
[Aside: Someone recently asked me the name of the mod that adds all of the extra NPCs that Nona meets--Jade, Hjoromir, and so forth. I could have sworn that I’d mentioned this mod, but somehow I neglected to. The name of the mod is Interesting NPCs, and I’ve added a description of it to my mod summary page.] “I wonder if there’s a potion for my curse,” Jade says pensively. I am in mid-stoop, reaching for yet another clump of mountain flowers, as she goes on to speculate that her problem might be curable with drugs, like a disease. I’ve never heard this from her before; I would like to think that it’s an indication of her confidence in my alchemical expertise, or perhaps just a random musing, but I can’t help but suspect that she might be growing a little discontented--not with me, I hope, but with the constant travel and danger. She doesn’t keep me in suspense for long. “Fredas!” she says brightly the next day, as we head down to Solitude’s docks on an errand for Evette San, who makes spiced wine and sells it in the city. “The Bee and Barb will be bustling.” Wistfully, she tells me that we should go back there and see how everyone is doing; I never cared for the Bee and Barb crowd myself, but I know she’s fond of Sapphire, her former Guildmate, and I can’t blame her for being homesick, even if it is for a hole like Riften. I was hoping to find someone to marry while in her company--I still don’t think there’s any substance to this curse she keeps referring to--but I decide then and there that we’ll be returning to Riften after I’ve had a good look around Solitude, whether I’ve become engaged or not. I persuade Vittoria Vici to release Evette’s spice shipment, and return to the city, where Roggvir’s body has been taken away. I’m sorry to say that Solitude did not make a good first impression: the execution happened yesterday, just as we were arriving. Roggvir’s crime was facilitating Ulfric Stormcloak’s escape after killing King Torygg; for that, he publicly lost his head. After that unpleasant spectacle, I was a little afraid to learn what else might be happening around here, for so often it seems in Skyrim that bad only leads to worse. But Corpulus, the owner of the Winking Skeever, had nothing more alarming to divulge than that a fellow from Dragon Bridge had come seeking the Jarl’s aid; that a deranged man was walking about in the streets; that a certain Jaree-Ra was looking to hire someone for an unknown purpose; and that the Bards’ College wanted new trainees. I heard nothing at all in this list to excite me, which was a great relief--exactly the reassurance I had hoped for. Corpulus even threw in a story about how the inn got its name: he used to have a pet skeever, and ... it winked. He’s a surpassingly dull man; I like him tremendously. I spent the rest of that first day just getting my bearings; the city was abuzz with talk of the execution, and after hearing the opinions of numerous inn patrons and passers-by I found a pleasant distraction across the street, in the form of Radiant Raiment, a clothing store. Although the ladies who run it seem to have adopted a business model under which their customers must be disparaged at every opportunity, that didn’t stop me from buying a dress and a hat and a new pair of boots and then vowing to return as soon as possible. Today, though, there’s much to be done in the form of little, innocuous favors for the locals. On my way back to inform Evette San of my success with her spice shipment, I meet Sorex Vinius, who claims to own the Winking Skeever. It turns out that he’s Corpulus’s son; the inn may not technically belong to him at present, but “it’ll be mine when he kicks off,” Sorex informs me with cheerful callousness. Like everyone else, he has an opinion on the execution, but his is personal, not political: “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” he sneers, explaining that, when they were younger, Roggvir discovered that Sorex had a crush on a girl named Vivienne, and thereafter used that knowledge to torment and humiliate him at every opportunity. Sorex is thoroughly uninterested in the rightness or wrongness of Roggvir’s actions in regard to Ulfric; as far as he’s concerned, Roggvir was an ass in his youth and maturity didn’t do much for him. I have just agreed to help Sorex out by delivering some rum to Falk Firebeard in the palace, when I bump into Taarie, one of the proprietors of Radiant Raiment, who tells me that if I’m going to the palace, I might want to rethink my outfit. She’s probably right; I’m wearing my brown, stained tunic, the one I like to do alchemy in, so I ask her for suggestions. “You’re really going to the Blue Palace?” she asks, pleasantly surprised, and immediately offers me a free new set of clothes if I’ll wear them in front of the Jarl and, if she likes them, tell her that they came from Radiant Raiment. This actually seems like a very silly thing to do, for two reasons: first, I’ve noticed that when I enter a Jarl’s hall, it is often the case that a very large, armed person will loom up in front of me and tell me in a menacing tone to stay away from the Jarl; bothering one of the most important people in Skyrim for the sole purpose of advertising a clothing shop seems like an excellent way to get myself tossed out on my ear. Second, I can’t help but doubt the sanity of anyone who would choose Nona to model their clothes, and I’d have to doubt my own sanity if I were to follow the suggestions of a crazy person. But I agree nevertheless, because: new clothes. My trip to the palace goes better than expected: I’m a little embarrassed by Vigilance’s constant barking--I really should have left him outside--but happily it escapes remark. As I arrive, the fellow from Dragon Bridge is petitioning Jarl Elisif for aid--something about unnatural magic and a cave; he gets less than he hoped for, owing to the skepticism of the court wizard, but Elisif herself seems nice enough--definitely not the sort to throw a stranger in prison for foolishly parading back and forth in front of her in an overly fancy outfit. So, after handing Falk Firebeard his rum, I screw up my courage and ask the Jarl whether she likes my clothes, and she actually responds positively, telling me that Radiant Raiment can expect to receive her order for some dresses in the near future. I chat with Nythriel, the court gossip--that’s not her official title, but it might as well be--who has all of the latest news on such lofty subjects as Thane Erikur’s sex life: she’s seen him leaving the dungeons carrying clanking bags of stuff--shackles and torture equipment, she has no doubt--and tells me conspiratorially that he’s not the one doling out the punishment, if I catch her drift. My desire to hear more is at odds with the feeling that the longer I listen to her, the harder I’ll have to scrub myself clean in the bath afterward. I’m enjoying Solitude, and there’s still a great deal to do here, but over the following days I become increasingly frustrated. My waterskins are empty, and in the morning I ride all the way back to Dragon Bridge to refill them. Seawater won’t do, and although Solitude has a well, Realistic Needs and Diseases won’t allow me to draw water from it. Then I spend the rest of the day searching the city for a cooking pot to boil my water in, and find nothing--not in the inn, not in the Bards’ College or Blue Palace kitchens, not in Castle Dour. (It’s a hazard of realism mods, and one I don’t know quite what to do with, that in their efforts to improve immersion, they create yet more absurdity. Why can’t I draw water from a well? Because having to drink water wasn’t a feature of the original game, and so a mod author who wanted it to be a necessity would have had to think of that specific possibility. There is, I have only now discovered, a mod that specifically allows users of Realistic Needs and Diseases to draw water from wells, but I’m reluctant to install yet another mod every time I come across some minor shortcoming in one of those I have already. Absurdity is a basic condition of Skyrim, and one I’m trying to embrace. And it is very, very trying.) Defeated, I return to the Winking Skeever, where Sorex notices that I’m wearing an Amulet of Mara and asks me quite plainly whether I’d be interested in having a life together. Having just spent several hours searching this stupid city for a cookpot, I am honestly flummoxed--not just by Sorex, whose tone even as he proposes leaves me in doubt as to whether he really likes me all that much, but by Solitude itself. I abandon the conversation with the question still hanging and head grumpily to bed. Tomorrow, I will do what my predecessor Nordrick thought best in these cases: I will stalk Sorex like some odious pervert and find out everything about him. I find out precisely nothing: Sorex spends the whole morning and most of the afternoon in the Skeever, either sweeping the floor, sitting at a table, or listening to Lisette’s singing. He doesn’t speak to anyone, except very briefly to me when I happen to get close to him. At around 4 pm, I follow him out of the inn and into the marketplace, where, for the next few hours, he hovers around the stalls, still without engaging anyone in conversation. Now, my travels through Skyrim have not exactly been a thrill a minute--in fact, I’ve avoided excitement rather assiduously--but I can honestly say that I’ve never had a duller, stupider day than this. Learning nothing new about Sorex, I spend the hours mulling over what I already do know: he’s a gruff, unvarnished fellow, even crass; a man of no invention, the sort who contentedly makes the same lame joke over and over (“The Winking Skeever isn’t just the best inn in Solitude. It’s also the only inn in Solitude!”); a man with no interesting opinions, but honest with himself, aware of his own resentments, as his story about Roggvir shows--a quality I find appealing for its very plainness. In fact, I’m struck by Sorex’s very ordinariness; I could almost believe that we were made for each other. But oh, Solitude, you were not made for me, nor I for you. It’s getting late as I break off my conversation with K’avald, a homeless Redguard whom I started talking to out of sheer boredom (he’s a happily deluded fellow who believes himself to be a wealthy nobleman, though he cheerfully accepts the coins of passers-by as “investments” in business projects which have yet to materialize) in order to follow Sorex back to the inn, where I eat fish soup for dinner as a cure for the mild case of Rattles that I’ve contracted from drinking dirty river water all day. Could I live in the Skeever, where there’s no room large enough to accommodate us both, save for that belonging to Corpulus, who seems unlikely to “kick off,” as his son delicately puts it, any time soon? Living in Solitude would force me to buy all of my food and drink, or light campfires in the street, or else cook in someone else’s home (someone in this city must have a cookpot), which all seems perfectly wretched; certainly I can afford to stop making my own food--alchemy is nothing if not remunerative--but living as a permanent hotel guest isn’t what I want. I just can’t do it. I’ve carelessly allowed myself to hope and dream, and in so doing have perhaps become overly choosy. But I can’t help it, now. I feel a terrible determination starting to take hold: I must have my own place. Somehow, I must become a homeowner--and maybe then I will marry Sorex Vinius, maybe not--but I will never be happy, Sorex or no Sorex, without a house of my own. I don’t like where this is going, what it’s likely to lead me to do. And I know that my friend Jade will likely blame my dissatisfaction on her mysterious curse. But I can look her in the eye and say this with total conviction: it’s not you--it’s Skyrim.
Lake Ilinalta, in Falkreath Hold, must be my favorite place in all of Skyrim: it’s beautiful and interesting and (so far) relatively safe. Following my trip down the mountain, I spend a little time hunting and exploring there; I’ve picked up the Eagle Eye perk (after my lessons with Angi, it seemed appropriate), so now, when I shoot an elk, it appears so much closer as it flees with my arrow sticking out of it. I even go diving and manage to find a sunken boat. There’s nothing left on it except for a steel battleaxe, which I struggle, pointlessly, to bring to the surface. I also find another of those tall, smooth stones, this one carved with an image of a kneeling woman. It looks so utterly harmless that I reach out and touch it, and its magic activates, shooting a ray of blue light into the sky. I now have the blessing of the Lady Stone, which helps me recover more quickly when I’m tired or hurt. Huzzah! So the day passes enjoyably enough, and on the following morning--the 17th of Heartfire, my one-month anniversary in Skyrim--I feel ready to begin my journey to Solitude. The first leg is uneventful and full of impressive sights--in fact there’s so much to see in the region west of Whiterun that I have great difficulty keeping to the road. I find a pool containing an enormous brown crab, or rather the shell of one; the actual animal is dead, but several of its smaller cousins appear to be using it for shelter. I find a tall stone monument (Gjukar’s Monument, my naming instinct informs me) shaped at the top like the head of a predatory bird. Somewhere in the same general area I successfully bring down an elk with two shots and gain another level. After lunch, I climb a hill and see Rorikstead in the distance; the road has long since been forgotten, and we scramble over gentle slopes and outcroppings to the farms lying just outside the town. In Rorikstead, the talk is mostly of war and agriculture; the town has so far been fortunate in the health of its crops, but its leader, Rorik, sees only a bleak future if the fighting continues. The local farmers are proud of their livelihood and serious in their work: they regard any interruptions, including my attempts at conversation, with deep suspicion, so I leave them to it. The most cheerful reception I get comes from a young man named Erik, who says he would become an adventurer if not for his father Mralki, the innkeeper. Erik reminds me slightly of Hjoromir, but he’s much more down-to-earth, and as it’s rapidly becoming obvious to me that Skyrim needs more adventurers, if the frequency with which people ask Nona to attempt dangerous tasks for them is any indication, I decide to intercede with his father. Mralki, as expected, is not at all fond of the idea, but he clearly wants Erik to be happy, and eventually accedes to his son’s wishes: he even agrees to buy some basic adventuring equipment. I stay the night in Rorikstead, walking out the next morning into the worst rainstorm I have yet experienced. The rain is so thick, the sky so dark, that I would be tempted to delay our journey for another day, if there were anything at all to do here. Rorikstead has no shops, no crafting equipment. I can’t see anything of the countryside in this rain, and the inn is almost literally haunted by a shut-in named Sonja, a former Stormcloak who has decided to withdraw permanently from the world rather than face--it isn’t clear what she’s facing, but she claims to have experienced all manner of disturbing visions, which she describes to me at considerable length. She’s a little worried about her ability to continue to pay for her accommodations, and talks with apparent seriousness about the possibility of marrying Erik so as to be allowed to stay for free. (In arranging for him to become an adventurer, I may have done him a far bigger favor than I could have imagined.) So Jade and I press on through the storm; and with the visibility as poor as it is, a party of bandits is practically upon us before I notice them at all. Jade and Vigilance immediately fight back--Jade has gotten more courageous of late, perhaps because of the dog, and that worries me; I’ve given her a couple of healing potions, and I only hope that she has the presence of mind to use them if needed. I can’t shoot effectively, as I’m practically blind without a lantern and I need both hands for my bow, so my companions kill two bandits without my help and rush off into the rain; I can’t tell where they’ve gone, where the sounds of battle are coming from, so I stand around uncertainly, holding my sword ready in case I am suddenly assaulted. But the noises fade, no more enemies show themselves, and my dog and my friend eventually return looking none the worse for wear, having either killed or routed the rest of the bandit party. Our troubles aren’t over, though. North of Rorikstead, the road leads to a bridge. Visible on the other side--even in this driving rain--is a structure not unlike the pair of wooden towers south of Falkreath with the walkway suspended in between, although here the walkway hangs over what looks to be a natural ravine. This place, too, is likely occupied by bandits--quite a few of them, judging by the additional buildings perched on the cliffs--and the name that drifts through my consciousness, Robber’s Gorge, seems to confirm my suspicion. After a few minutes of indecision--during which Jade gets struck by lightning right in front of me (fortunately, the lightning mod is set to produce non-lethal lightning strikes)--I decide to proceed by passing around the structure to the west, following the north bank of the river; this will require us to scramble over some rocky terrain, but I know that the road will, after passing through the gorge itself, bend back towards that bank. There’s only one problem: getting my companions to come with me without making a ruckus. I have little doubt of being able to keep myself inconspicuous in this weather, but neither canine nor human friends can be relied upon to stay calm and quiet. Leaving Snowberry on the south side of the bridge, where I hope she will not get spooked, I creep to the north end and watch the structure carefully. A bandit appears on the walkway; I seize the moment and release an arrow. It’s a perfect shot: the man is already dead as he tumbles onto the road and the storm masks the sound of his fall. My companions stay quiet, and I spend a few brief moments in dizzy elation at the thought that this will be easier than I expected. But, as I am adjusting my position, Vigilance suddenly gets excited about something and charges off into the rain, followed closely by Jade. Nobody has spotted me yet, and, as before, I have no idea where the actual fighting is taking place. I fear for my friends, but I doubt that going after them will be of any help; so I creep along the edge of the river, just as I was planning to do before, and hope for the best. On the west side of Robber’s Gorge I find a barrier of sharpened stakes; near that, a bandit is shooting at one of my companions. I have no trouble taking him out, and Jade and Vigilance manage to find me soon after. No other bandits come to investigate--either they have all been taken out, or those that remain are studiously ignoring the deaths of their comrades. Finding the road again, I leave Jade waiting a safe distance from the Gorge--she hates to be left alone, but she at least has Vigilance for company--and go back for my horse. I have some small difficulty getting Snowberry over the rocks near the bridge, but soon we are all together again and able to continue. In Dragon Bridge, as in Rorikstead, the war is an urgent topic: Horgeir fears that the bridge the town is named for, an important strategic crossing, could be destroyed in the course of the conflict; Azzada Lylvieve tells me angrily that neither the Imperial nor the Stormcloak scouts that have been by recently have shown any consideration for the town whatsoever--both stayed at the inn without paying and one even tried to have his way with Azzada’s daughter. I visit an outpost of the Penitus Oculatus (this is the Emperor’s personal security force) where an agent named Orenius tells me of his obsessive pursuit of an Imperial thief called the Raven of Anvil, who, it turns out, is his own daughter. (She sounds interesting, actually; according to her father, she is a very accomplished bard.) There’s probably enough time to reach Solitude before nightfall--not that daylight has a lot of meaning in this storm--but I’ve had enough slogging through the rain for today. In the Four Shields tavern, a Dunmer woman named Gilsi asks me whether I consider her attractive. I don’t, actually, although I’m too nice to say so, and at any rate her self-regard seems unassailable by the likes of me. The one whose esteem she actually covets is a wizard named Nelos, who apparently has run off with Eldawyn, the wine-obsessed Altmer woman I encountered in Whiterun. Gilsi tells me that their group, the Radiant Dark, is working to bring about a phenomenon called “The Long Night,” her explanation of which is just coherent enough to suggest that it would be a Very Bad Thing. Fortunately, Gilsi appears to have no thought for anything but Nelos and her own pride; I’m no magician, but I would assume that a drunk and an obsessive groupie are unlikely to be capable of whatever feats of concentration are required to bring on the Magical Apocalypse. Nelos’s power must be great indeed if he is to accomplish his sinister purpose while relying on the assistance of such silly allies as these. Before retiring, I chat with Skjarn, the local bard. The conversation is brief, as he is insufferably vain and arrogant, and quite unhampered by conventional notions of decorum. (I cut him off while he is crudely describing a sexual encounter he supposedly had with a woman who accused him of being a werewolf; perhaps I’m being overly nice.) But, after listening to all of his boasting, I can’t resist hearing him sing: against my better judgment, I request a performance of “The Dragonborn Comes,” a song I pretty much despise. Skjarn’s voice is not at all what I was expecting; his singing has a tentative, faltering quality--I would have expected him to be more of a belter--and his arrangement of this simple tune is startlingly good. If I was seeking to confirm my dislike, I failed, and I head to my room with the dissatisfaction of having been charmed by an obvious creep.
I get up the next morning no less determined to leave the Reach than when I went to bed. I march straight over to Bothela’s shop, buy most of her ingredients, sell some mixtures; my Speech skill advances from all of the buying and selling, and I am suddenly level 10. Level 10! If I were a hero, I would feel a sense of arrival, of personal significance. But seeing that nice round number is actually a little unsettling--once again, the world has gotten more dangerous, and I have not. Not much, anyway. At the Markarth stables, I buy a dog from Banning. “A war dog is good company and good protection,” he says, and I believe him. Yes, I know that dogs are a pain; they’re stupidly aggressive, they bark incessantly--but I can’t resist: I feel that I need more protection, that my friend Jade deserves more protection, and 500 septims is a pittance for something that will make us feel even a little bit safer. And Vigilance, the dog I’ve just bought, doesn’t look like a war dog; he’s got the same shaggy fur in his eyes, the same grinning face, the same hopeful, dopey expression as every other dog in Skyrim. In short, he’s completely adorable. My general plan is to head to Solitude, the seat of Elisif the Fair (High King Torygg’s widow) and the base of Imperial power--such as it is--in Skyrim. But there’s more than one way to do that: before yesterday’s fight with the Forsworn, I might have taken the road north past the mining town of Karthwasten, then headed east and then north through Dragon Bridge. But this entails a substantial journey through Forsworn-occupied territory. The other option is to go east, back the way I came with Ri’saad, and turn north toward Rorikstead when I reach the lake. This would be a longer walk, but most likely less dangerous, and it is therefore this route that I choose. The weather is fine as we set off, and not having a party of Khajiit to keep track of allows me to admire the landscape, which is startlingly lovely. I stop to pray at a roadside Dibella shrine, fish in a pool while Vigilance paddles around happily, and then leap hastily out of the water when I see a sabre cat in the distance. Vigilance, belying his name, hasn’t noticed a thing, and I manage to get horse, dog, and companion safely away without alarming anyone. A little later I meet an orange-skinned gentleman who claims some sort of association with the Daedric Prince Peryite; naturally I don’t care to inquire too closely, and the journey continues uneventfully until the weather suddenly turns foul and a complete stranger runs up, hands me a pair of faintly glowing hide bracers, and tells me to hang on to them or else. He then crouches down and attempts to sneak away ... in the same direction I’m already headed, so I just walk along awkwardly pretending not to see him. A little bit later another fellow runs up and asks me whether I’ve seen the first one. I immediately hand him the bracers, saying boldly, “I presume this [sic] Hide Bracers of Major Lockpicking belongs to you?” (Even if I weren’t naturally inclined to return stolen goods, how could I resist the opportunity to say something like that?) Bracers received, the fellow thanks me and informs me that he is going to track down that thief and murder him. The tracking doesn’t take long, as the thief is still crouching near enough to be seen even in this horrible downpour, and I hurry away before I can get caught in the crossfire. We reach the lake without further incident and make camp for the night--it’s not actually night yet, but in this blinding rain it might as well be: even with a lantern lit I can hardly see well enough to find a flat spot on the ground large enough for my tent. (Thank you, Realisitic Lighting Overhaul weather beta!) The very first thing I see when I awake the next morning is another campsite not a dozen steps from my own: despite my fellow camper’s having lit her own fire, I entirely failed to spot it last night. As I pack up my own equipment, taking in the scene--tall trees, buzzing dragonflies, sunlight playing on the surface of the water--I realize that I’m not ready to rejoin civilization just yet; I’m starting to see camping in a new light. Before, it was the self-sufficiency that appealed to me, and having extra time to forage for ingredients--but these advantages turned out to be largely illusory. I have to carry a load of wood around order to light my cooking fires (owing to the limitations of the game, I can’t just collect it from fallen trees), and it’s usually too dark at night to search for ingredients, so in the end I am neither self-sufficient nor productive. But there’s a far greater benefit to camping, one that I hadn’t previously considered: the prospect of getting the hell away from the craziness of Skyrim’s settlements for a while. Now that’s worth a few armloads of firewood! So I turn south instead of north. I spend only a little time in Falkreath itself--enough to put together another tent and camping bed (Jade hasn’t complained about not having her own, but I really feel that she should), buy several bottles of mead (for cooking), and try a few new ingredient combinations. I think there may be some real value in the principle of cosmetic similarity that I applied when concocting my conjuring-enhancing magic-suppressant: I caught some luna moths last night, and I combine their faintly glowing wings with matching faintly glowing chaurus eggs to produce--an invisibility potion! It has an unfortunate side effect (it drains magicka), but I’m not going to cry over losing a little magicka when I’m trying to hide from bandits or necromancers or who knows what. Lod the blacksmith asks me to help him find a dog that’s been hanging around town--he wants it as a pet--and so I walk around near the city gates to look. Almost immediately, a strange dog runs up and tries to persuade me to go on an adventure. (Even Skyrim’s dogs are not to be trusted, I see.) I tell it that I’m busy, and it runs off, but not before asking me to meet it outside a place called Haemar’s Shame. (Not likely.) I tell Lod that the dog didn’t pan out, and he’s grateful for my efforts, despite the extreme vagueness of my explanation. The weather has turned really bad again--I almost get struck by lightning while I’m wandering around--but I nevertheless leave Falkreath and head boldly up into the mountains. I am determined to enjoy the wild outdoors for as many nights of huddling inside an open-ended rain-soaked tent as it takes to achieve my bliss, so help me Divines. Past the towers where, during my previous visit, the bandits ran afoul of their own falling rock trap, I find a winding path climbing steeply to the south. By late afternoon it has brought me face-to-face with another small group of bandits. Vigilance acquits himself well in this sudden, savage fight, keeping two of them occupied while I kill the third, and despite the poor visibility, we are never in serious danger. The bandits have made their camp near a spring that feeds a lovely little stream; the beauty of this spot is marred only by some gruesome evidence of the sort of treatment we could have expected at the bandits’ hands, had they defeated us--a dead woman lying stretched over a fallen tree. Despite this unpleasantness, I set up our own tents nearby--If we go any further, I’m likely to lose the path in this rain--and we spend a miserable evening crouched around a campfire that illuminates nothing beyond our faces, with lightning crashing all around us. The next day is clear, and I’m eager to see where this path leads. As we climb higher and higher, the views get more and more spectacular; my enjoyment of them is interrupted only when I step unexpectedly on a bear trap. More traps are plainly visible on the path--someone living here is not inclined to welcome visitors, or has a serious problem with bears, or both. I hesitate for a moment, but no arrows fly at us from the higher slopes, and I’ve neither seen nor heard any bears; so after carefully setting off the other traps, I decide to continue, and we eventually arrive at a tiny, lonely house, perched almost at the mountain’s peak. The house belongs to a Nord woman named Angi. She wears ordinary clothing but carries a bow, with which she assures me very seriously that she will shoot me if I try anything stupid. Her story is straightforward and brutal: her family was murdered by a pair of Imperials, and she took revenge; afterwards, she moved as far from civilization as she could to avoid repercussions. I express my sympathy for her loss, which only irritates her. Her mood changes, though, when the conversation turns to the subject of archery: she asks me whether I know how to shoot, and in response to my modest assessment of my own abilities, offers to let me use her archery range for practice. We walk down to the range together, and she gives me some practice arrows, telling me to try hitting each of her targets in turn. The task is oddly thrilling--I’m doing simple exercises, and in no danger, but each time I succeed at one of Angi’s tests my skill with Archery improves. It’s a non-adventurer’s dream! The first three targets are easy to hit; the fourth is problematic, because it’s much farther away--distant enough that I can’t see the impact of my arrows, can’t tell a hit from a miss. I do manage to hit it after a few tries--Angi can tell, even if I can’t, and so she gives me a more demanding test: I have to hit each of the three nearest targets in a matter of a few seconds. It takes a few attempts, but I eventually succeed at this, too. The next challenge is harder still: I have to hit all four targets in less than ten seconds. I try. Over and over again, going through one bundle of practice arrows after another, I aim and fire at each target in turn, always going for the farthest one last, unable to tell whether my arrow has flown too high or struck too low. I spend the entire day doing this. Angi doesn’t get impatient, exactly; archery is clearly a passion for her, and she seems dedicated as a teacher. But she clearly doesn’t like me very much: she refers to me as “Imperial,” pronouncing the word in in the same tone that she might use when describing an unpleasant fungal growth, and often responds to my presence with nothing more than a brief, inarticulate noise, like an exasperated sigh somehow combined with a snort of contempt. At last, the light begins to fail, and I can hardly see the distant target at all, let alone tell how near my last shot has come to hitting it. Angi has made a move to walk away after each of my failures, and this time I let her go. I set up our tents near her house and snoop around a little while she stirs her cooking pot. There isn’t much to see. I read a book, The Gold Ribbon of Merit, that I find near her bed. It adheres to a rather obvious formula--a pompous archery expert instructs a stolidly inattentive pupil, who turns out to have been getting the better of the teacher all along--but the ending makes me smile. I wander back down to the archery range, and, idly curious about the actual distance to the farthest target, walk out to examine it close up. It is only then that I see my practice arrows: the target is made of hard, smooth metal, but the post that supports it is wooden, and my arrows have stuck there in a tight line. I’ve been aiming consistently too low. I go to bed in renewed hope, and wake up the next morning impatient to try again. My first attempt is slightly too slow; on my second, I nail it. Angi congratulates me warmly. She tells me that she’s enjoyed my company, that it’s nice to meet someone who isn’t out to rob you. (Which is a pretty low bar for friendship, but I have to agree with her.) And she gives me her bow, called simply “Angi’s Bow,” which appears to be a perfectly ordinary hunting bow, but to me is a marvel, a treasure--a unique item that I didn’t have to kill for, didn’t have to remove from a tomb or a cave or a dead body. Exploration in Skyrim is a slippery slope, fraught with risk; for visiting new places means finding new discoveries, and new discoveries can lead inexorably to adventure. But today I feel vindicated: I’ve struck out into the unknown and found no mysteries, no quests, no heroic deeds to be done--nothing more or less than a good book, a good lesson, a good friend.
I know that I’ve reacted a little hysterically to the obvious failings of the various places I’ve visited--the rampant crime in Riften, the rampant racism and serial murders in Windhelm--but I can’t help saying it: Markarth scares the shit out of me. To begin with, there was that murder that occurred just as I entered the city gates, and the note that some stranger slipped into my hand in the aftermath. I have only just read it (I was so tired last night that I didn’t even remove my armor before falling heavily onto my hard, stone bed) and it says “Meet me in the temple of Talos.” It isn’t even signed. Kleppr, the proprietor of the Silver-Blood Inn, spends most of his time exchanging venomous insults with his wife, Frabbi, but he provides me with the local news when he can spare a moment, and it’s none too reassuring. The Hall of the Dead has been closed for mysterious reasons. A Vigilant of Stendarr is in town, convinced that some sort of daedra worship is going on. A fellow named Degaine got kicked out of the temple of Dibella. I’d love to hear more about that last item, as it sounds like just the thing to take my mind off the first two (and last night’s events), but Kleppr either doesn’t know or is unwilling to divulge any juicy tidbits. The bodies outside have been cleaned up (and put where, I wonder, if the Hall of the Dead is closed? Or is its closure somehow related to last night’s killings?) and the marketplace is open. I meet the Vigilant of Stendarr, who questions me about the house he’s investigating. I’m relieved to be able to say with complete honesty that I haven’t seen anyone enter or leave and I don’t know anything about it. Hastening away before he can ask anything else, I run into Clario Moorsley, a pioneer in the fields of culinary alchemy and magic-enhanced cookery. I’m fascinated by his work, especially the former kind--Nona would love to learn to make potions that are delicious as well as effective--but Moorsley is maddeningly reluctant to dispense any useful details, and in fact his discoveries sound less appealing the more I hear about them: apparently his potions are rather weak, and frequently have undesirable side effects (the price of adding extra ingredients to enhance the flavor). But the idea has promise nonetheless: a master alchemist should be quite capable of eliminating the side effects of extra ingredients--that is, removing harmful effects from medicinal concoctions and beneficial effects from poisons. Clearly Moorsley, for all his self-assurance, has not actually reached this level of skill. In the cavernous Understone Keep, which is so dark that I have to carry a lantern, I hear a heated exchange between Verulus, the priest of Arkay, and Thongvor, a member of the Silver-Blood family that seems to run things around here. Thongvor is expressing his very strong objections to the closure of the Hall of the Dead. Verulus assures him, and then me, that everything is being taken care of and that it will reopen soon. Well, that’s enough for me; the authorities clearly have the problem in hand, and what more need be said? But Thongvor is less than satisfied. I don’t linger for long enough get into it with him, though, for two reasons: first, he seems like an asshole, and second, I happen to notice some Thalmor out of the corner of my eye and suddenly feel as though I’m about to be caught doing something wrong. I almost have to reassure myself that I’m not doing anything wrong; I’m just carrying a note from someone who wants to meet me in the temple of Talos. Of course, going to the temple could easily be mistaken for worshiping at the temple, and carrying a note that mentions a meeting at the temple could be interpreted as.... It doesn’t matter what, frankly, because Ondolemar, the leader of the Thalmor in Markarth (and Jerulith’s former superior) seems little disposed to make fine distinctions. In fact he speaks to me in a tone of such staggering contempt that I pretty much depart the palace immediately. I wasn’t planning on going to the temple of Talos in any case, but now I’m a little afraid of having the note in my possession. But I can’t burn or eat it, and I don’t want to leave it somewhere where it could incriminate someone else. Less than an hour after I’ve left Understone, I’m asked to return--Bothela, the sardonic old woman who owns Markarth’s alchemy shop, wants me to deliver some medicine of a highly personal nature to Raerek, the Jarl’s steward, so I do that and get out of there again quickly as possible. Raerek thanks me and pays me for my help and “discretion.” (Who better to keep a secret than a silent protagonist?) My experiments at Bothela’s shop don’t yield any new breakthroughs, although mixing and selling my regular standbys gets me to level 9. I add another Alchemy perk to my repertoire. With well over five thousand septims jingling in my purse (or whatever container it is in which I contrive to stow thousands of septims conveniently on my person), I decide to practice my smithing, and I have ample time, as I work on this skill, to listen to an Orsimer smith named Ghorza gra-Bagol complain about her apprentice, Tacitus. Despite her harshness, I like Ghorza, partly because she really seems to care about her work, and partly because of her winningly un-orclike conviction that the best way to help Tacitus learn would be to provide him with instructional books. Now, I know that actively searching for the book that she wants will send me into a monster-infested cavern or dungeon or something of the sort, but Ghorza phrases her request so gently--“if you find a book called The Last Scabbard of Akrash, could you bring it to me?”--that I can’t help agreeing to keep an eye out. Why not? I found that Conjuring book lying on a stone table in the wilderness--I might well find this volume somewhere equally unlikely. As much as I enjoy my time at Ghorza’s forge, it doesn’t say much for the social environment of this city that its brightest spark is a hard-voiced, apprentice-bullying smith. The Silver-Bloods are everywhere, and everyone who isn’t actually a part of the clan seems to be either working for them, terrified of them, or both working for and terrified of them. I flee the city the next day, desperate for a few hours in the open, tension-free air. But my outing is an almost unmitigated disaster: I keep jumping into streams to fish and finding the water so swift-flowing that I spend all of my time struggling against it rather than catching anything. In a particularly unfortunate incident, Jade wades in with me and becomes obsessed with killing a slaughterfish that I have somehow antagonized. The strength of the current prevents her from actually making contact with it, but she refuses to abandon the attempt, and I’m unable to help as I can’t see the offending creature at all. (I only know it’s a slaughterfish because its name keeps drifting onto my display, indicating that it is somewhere in the area and it is hostile.) Leaving Jade to her swim-off with the invisible fish, I clamber out of the water and--as if I haven’t already shown enough incompetence for one day--immediately start shouting in my most commanding voice at nobody at all. (I do this because I was actually trying to check how hungry and thirsty I was, but I had accidentally left my Voice of the Emperor power selected as my special ability, rather than the usual Check Needs.) Less than five minutes later, I am attacked by a party of Forsworn, the crazed Breton tribespeople who live in the wilds of the Reach, and, owing to my having used up the only ability I have that would allow me to get safely away from them, am beaten to within an inch of my life during the ensuing fight. Bleeding, bloated with all the healing potions I’ve drunk, I flee back to the relative safety of Markarth’s walls before I can embarrass myself further. Banning, at the stables, asks me to deliver some meat for the dogs in the keep, and I take a moment to catch up with Wander-Lust, the Argonian wanderer I first met in Riften. Jade rejoins me and we spend a dismal afternoon and evening listening to Kleppr and Frabbi snipe at each other while their children pretend not to hear. I eventually join a fellow named Lundvar in toasting his brother, who was slain while defending against a Forsworn attack. Lundvar describes his brother in glowing terms--and if he was even half as brave and diligent as Lundvar believes, he must have been an excellent fellow indeed--but the more I hear about the events surrounding his death, as Lundvar says he heard them from someone named Wuuthmar, the more it appears that he must have been betrayed by one of his fellow guardsmen. The particulars of the story--oddities in the behavior of the Forsworn, a malfunctioning Dwemer arbalest, timing details--are all highly suspect. But Lundvar waves away the merest suggestion that there could have been foul play. I’m starting to feel as though I can’t trust anyone here--not even myself. Murders, daedra worship, Thalmor, Silver-Bloods, corrupt guards, Forsworn, and will these innkeepers never stop fighting? I need to get out of this city, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll survive the departure. A big fellow named Vorstag offers to protect me for the price of 500 septims. It’s highly tempting, and not just because he’s easy on the eyes--but I can’t have more than one companion at once, and stranding Jade here while I run off with this beefcake-for-hire would be an impossibly low thing to do. We’ll just have to chance it without him; I’ll check my potion supplies, and tomorrow we’ll ride. And I might actually ride: I hate to leave an area without making a thorough examination of the ingredients that grow there, but the Reach is just too dangerous.
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.
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.
Oddly enough, the farther I get from the roads in Skyrim, the less there is to hunt. At least, that’s the impression I get as I continue to explore the area around Riverwood: Jade and I spend the next morning climbing steadily up a ridge quite a way off the beaten path, finding neither reagents nor elk. (We do see another interesting-looking ruin, which we of course do not approach.) Our explorations yield only a cottage sitting in the middle of nowhere--a small, dilapidated building, but nevertheless significant enough to spur my mysterious naming instinct to inform me that it is Anise’s Cabin. Anise turns out to be an old recluse in a dark hooded robe who claims to be just a poor old woman and nobody worth bothering about. Now, if I were an adventurer, I should be very disappointed indeed after trekking all the way up here and finding nothing but a harmless old woman who doesn’t even have a quest for me. But I am only modest Nona, and my disappointment is likewise modest: when I encounter a harmless old woman (which is definitely the sort of old woman I prefer to encounter), I hope only for some chit-chat, maybe a little gossip. But this one doesn’t even provide that; she has almost nothing to say about herself, let alone anyone else. Passing M’aiq the Liar on the way back down--hello, M’aiq, fancy meeting you here--we cross the river again, only to discover the front entrance to Embershard Mine. It appears deserted, like the back way in--but, a little too late, we spot a Khajiit bandit hanging around outside. He becomes aware of us at almost the same instant, and immediately attacks Jade, who fends him off with a dagger--I’m not sure where she picked it up; she didn’t have it when we set out from Riften--while I shoot him. After he’s dead, we poke around outside the entrance. “I’ve passed a number of caves in my lifetime, but I’ve never had the urge to go in. Now I know why,” remarks Jade. (Amen, sister!) We find nothing of interest save a woodpile and a discarded axe. I chop some wood--I have a project in mind--and although I leave my fallen attacker’s personal belongings alone, as usual, I do decide to take the axe. It looks like nobody wanted it anyway, and I can never find an axe when I want one. This fight levels me up again, and I’m able to take a new Alchemy perk, Benefactor, which will strengthen my beneficial concoctions. (It probably won’t affect my conjuring-enhancing magic-suppressant, since that’s of absolutely no help to anyone, but it’s about time I developed some new product lines anyway.) A little further along the main road, Jade and I find a trio of stone monuments, each carved with a different figure in a threatening pose--a warrior, a thief, and a magician. I contemplate these curious objects for a few moments--I have no idea what they’re for, but the imagery suggests that they are not for me, so I prudently avoid touching them. Below us, near the river, there’s a fisher’s camp with an overturned boat. I can see someone in the camp, but she appears to be alone and not heavily armed, so I risk scrambling down the slope to investigate. The occupant turns out to be friendly enough--“It’s not like my poaching is hurting anyone,” she says cheerfully. (As a person who’s been shooting just about every deer and grabbing just about every fish in her path, I’m glad to hear this; I’m already ridiculously nice and law-abiding by gaming standards--I don’t want to have to worry about hunting rights.) She has a very nice fishing spot near her camp--at least, it’s very nice until I’ve swum noisily about in it grabbing all the fish. I ride back to Whiterun the next day. I’d like to continue hunting and exploring the Riverwood area, but there’s a problem--I can’t find any place to boil water and cook my food, and the daily search is getting a little annoying. I’m starting to want some independence from these towns and their cookpots--in short, I have conceived a desire to try camping out. One of my mods allows for this; I can, given the right materials, build a tent, a camping bed, a campfire, and a pot. Sadly, the plans for these objects seem to have been conceived with adventurers in mind: the tent requires only leather and wood, but the bed requires cow hide (a rare commodity for a woman who isn’t willing to simply slaughter someone’s cows, and I need two of them). And then there’s the most outrageous requirement of all--in order to build a tinderbox I’m going to need either troll fat or dwarven oil! I’m not about to venture into any Dwemer ruins, and troll fat--well. But hope, as they say, springs eternal; there’s always the chance that one of these ingredients will show up in an alchemist’s shop. I’ve already finished the tent, and I’ve also managed to buy a cookpot and one cow’s hide. (But I can’t make use of the cookpot without a campfire, and that will require me to complete the tinderbox.) After depositing Snowberry in the stable once more, Jade and I go hunting west of Whiterun, this time giving the giants a wider berth. We’ve climbed down a steep slope and are cheerfully going after the mudcrabs in the stream at the bottom, when I notice a distant, dark figure crouching near a bridge. It seems unlikely that he will take an interest in us, but he does, creeping purposefully past the bridge and down into the ravine, where he launches a sudden, savage attack on Jade. She tries to fight him off at first, but soon cowers and pleads for mercy. I shoot him a couple of times as he advances on me, but it’s not enough to put him down, so I draw my sword. He attacks with great determination but, happily for me, an indifferent degree of skill; the worst moment in the fight happens as he falls and I realize that the final blow was struck by Jade, who has recovered and come up close behind him. I was still swinging wildly and could easily have hit her. Our dead assailant is an Argonian wearing an ostentatiously sinister outfit--a tight black leather suit with a hood and subtle red trim. I go through his belongings--interested (as usual) not in profiting from them but in finding some explanation for this entirely unprovoked assault. And, for once, I find one. I read through this mysterious note several times in mingled horror and pride at seeing my name in print. “By any means necessary”--“the Black Sacrament”--“this poor fool”--how have I, humble Nona, deserved to be the subject of such a missive as this? And who is Astrid? I ponder the note for several minutes, wondering whom I could have provoked into seeking my death by such means--has the popularity and profitability of my conjuring-enhancing magic-suppressant angered a rival alchemist? Is Torbjorn Shatter-Shield furious over my efforts on behalf of his workers? Could Stands-In-Shallows have performed the Black Sacrament as revenge for my unwillingness to steal skooma for him? Does Vulwulf Snow-Shod have a drunken plan to hire one assassin for each and every Imperial in Skyrim? My mind careens back and forth between the various people I’ve encountered, evaluating one after another as a possible source of this contract, each unlikely scenario succeeded by one even less plausible. Someone is trying to have me killed--someone who, admittedly, was willing to send a highly ineffectual killer. But it would be foolish to bank on the next one’s making such a very conspicuous approach, and gloomy thoughts of being attacked by a stealthy assassin weigh on me heavily as I return to Whiterun. Even finding a silver garnet ring in the possession of a wolf that attacks me on the way fails to lift my mood. (All right, I lied for dramatic purposes. Finding jewelry on animals always cheers me up.) In the Bannered Mare, Carlotta complains loudly about Mikael--who, as she goes on and on about what a jerk he is, is standing no more than two feet behind her. I decide to participate in this bit of comic theater, and tell her just as loudly that I’ll talk to him for her. So I harangue Mikael for a bit, and he offers the appropriate amount of resistance before declaring dramatically that he’ll back off. I wonder how often a scene like this takes place in the Mare; it’s much more entertaining than a typical bard’s recital, but the audience doesn’t seem quite ready for it--they really should be yelling instructions (“He’s behind you!”), but they just watch politely. In any case, by the time we reach the end and are ready to take our bows, Carlotta has gone home. Still, my brilliant acting performance kicks me up to level 7. The following morning, I find an interesting camp to the north of Whiterun, with a horse, a wagon, and an occupant who appears to be busy unloading something. It’s an odd place for a merchant’s stall or a traveler’s rest, but it doesn’t look like a bandit camp. Nevertheless the sole visible inhabitant unsheathes his weapon as soon as he spies me and Jade, even before we’ve gotten close enough to get a decent look at him. We hastily retreat back to town. I’m in the mood for some alchemy and smithing practice anyway. Carlotta gives me 250 septims for talking to Mikael. Perhaps last night’s performance drew a lot of audience tips after all. The shops have restocked their wares, and everything is going well; I’m able to buy a second cow’s hide at Belethor’s to finish my camping bed, and after I’ve sold most of the day’s concoctions, my purse bulges with new wealth. Even after paying for smithing materials I have over 4000 septims. The only thing I need to complete my camping set is the troll fat or dwarven oil for making the tinderbox, but I’d best not hold my breath for either of those. As I eat my dinner I find, as usual, that I’ve forgotten to refill my waterskin, so a nighttime stroll is in order. Outside the city gates a group of Khajiit have set up camp, and I chat with their leader, Ri’saad, about his home before selling him a few potions and buying a third set of clothes. Now there’s something to cheer my evening. Let Astrid send her killers! They can swarm all over Whiterun in their flamboyantly sneaky poses--tomorrow, I’m fleeing the hold.
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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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