Every city in Skyrim has good points and bad; among the merits of Solitude, for example, are its excellent shops, its beautiful location, and its colorful local personalities, including the instructors and students at the Bards’ College, the sailors that crew the Red Wave, and the Argonian prostitute who can generally be found leaning on a wall in the middle of town and who keeps calling out to me to come see him if I get bored. On the negative side, I have to go all the way to Dragon Bridge whenever I need to refill my waterskins and then invade someone’s home in order to cook. Still, I wake up the next morning with the cheerful prospect of puttering around the city all day, making up for my inability to do any productive work in Dawnstar. First things first, though: I’m running low on arrows and really need to replace them before I forget. Thinking to make some of my own, I walk down to the sawmill to fetch some firewood (my supplies are getting low). The weather turns thoroughly miserable as soon as I’m out of the city gates: a furious storm rises up and rain pelts down so thickly that I could just as well jump into the ocean and swim to my destination. And of course I discover, upon actually reaching the mill, that there’s no axe handy and I haven’t brought one with me. I chat with Hjorunn, a Nord, and Kharag Gro-Shurkul, an orc, who run the place together. Kharag tells me that he likes working with Hjorunn, who treats him much better than the city folks do; the only problem is that Hjorunn is sometimes too drunk to go anywhere, so Kharag has to conduct their business in town. I trudge back up to Solitude—that’s the entire morning wasted—and go through Snowberry’s saddlebags. I could have sworn I had an axe, but I can’t find it; perhaps I left it at Lakeview. I visit the local merchants, including Ma’Dran in the camp outside the gates, but none of them have one for sale. The smith doesn’t have one either, so I consider making one—but it turns out that despite having learned to smith many different weapons and armor pieces from various materials, I somehow haven’t picked up the technique of making a simple woodcutter’s axe. I make some arrows anyway, dipping into my firewood supply—I probably won’t run out if I continue to do my cooking in other people’s houses. I’m very pleased with the new arrows: they’re Bosmer-style, greatly superior to the iron arrows I’ve been using until now. After lunch, I mix potions and sell them to the three merchants who are interested—the apothecary Angeline, Sayma at Bits and Pieces, and Ma’Dran. I’m able to do quite a bit to make up for my recent dry spell. (Sales of Nona’s All-Natural Conjuring-Enhancing Magic-Suppressant continue to be impressive.) The weather clears in the afternoon, and as I go out into the marketplace I see hawks soaring over the rooftops, tracing languid circles against the clear blue sky—a sight so beautiful that I am overcome with the desire to shoot down these magnificent creatures and pluck out their feathers. I head down to the docks—shooting at hawks within city limits seems wildly antisocial, even if I will be firing my arrows into the air—where I discover that I have enough trouble just hitting these small, moving targets, let alone ensuring that they fall in places where I can easily reach them. I use all of my remaining iron arrows and hit only two birds, both of which plummet into the sea. But then they bob to the surface and float there, retrievable after all. Why not? I strip off my armor and jump in to get them. After swallowing a hawk’s beak for educational purposes, I return to the Winking Skeever with my little retinue. Over the noise of the usual crowd I can hear Nythriel, the incorrigible Blue Palace gossip, asking a woman named Veralene how her search for a spouse is going. Curiosity piqued, I chat with Veralene myself—I’m not sure what I want out of this conversation other than a little shared venting about the frustrations of trying to get married in Skyrim—but Veralene is incapable of expressing anything but pity for herself (she used to be rich, but lost everything when the dragon attacked Helgen) and contempt for everyone else. And yet I continue speaking to her even after she tries to drive me away with personal insults: her naked interest in marrying for money (and it appears that, for all her hostility, Veralene would be willing to marry me for that reason alone) amuses me no end. Even I was never that desperate. Neither was I ever so rich, of course; Veralene is clearly accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and considers death to be but a tiny step down from living on an inferior income. I doubt that Nona could afford to keep such an expensive wife, even if she found one worth keeping. I’ll be leaving Solitude tomorrow, and my next destination will be Winterhold. I’ve wavered over this decision for some time; Winterhold, from what I’ve heard, has only two points of interest—its College, a school for wizards, and the Shrine of Azura, which is said to be well worth seeing. The former tempts me not at all, the latter only somewhat, and I’m not entirely sure that the sightseeing is worth the risk—Winterhold is one of the snowiest parts of Skyrim, and snowy areas mean snowy cats, snowy bears, and snowy trolls. And yet I want to make the journey, if only so that I can say that I’ve visited every hold in the province. (And there’s always the possibility of discovering something exciting and new—an alchemical reagent that grows nowhere else, an attractive single gentleman in want of a better place to live, etc.) We head out the next morning, reaching Morthal with a few hours of daylight left; I gather ingredients in the marsh while Vorstag and Meeko fend off the spiders. We go on to Dawnstar the next day and stay only long enough to find out whether Frida’s shop is open—it isn’t—and then take the road south. I once more attempt to bypass Fort Dunstad by riding around it at a full gallop, but this time one of the the local bandits takes an interest in one of my followers, and I turn around to find that both Vorstag and Meeko have become embroiled in a chaotic melee. While I’m hesitating—reminding myself sternly that I am paying Vorstag to protect me, and shouldn’t feel obligated to protect him—Meeko comes running out of the fort, pursued by two bandits. I make a brief and foolish attempt to fight them, but they are far too tough for me to fend off alone. Mustering my inner reserves, I command them with every ounce of authority in my being to leave me be. They cannot resist the Voice of the Emperor, and immediately sheathe their weapons, but the sounds of battle from inside the walls continue—most of the bandits are out of range of the Voice—and I can’t afford to hang around waiting for Vorstag forever, as the two I’ve calmed down will recover eventually. I mount up again and ride away from the fort. Vorstag, to my relief, catches up a few minutes later. We stay at the Nightgate Inn, continuing east in the morning. Not far past the inn, a snowy path splits off from the main road, leading up to some sort of monument. I’m normally a lover of broad, clear, trustworthy roads with reassuring signs endorsing them, and distrustful of unmarked side-paths; but this one looks wide and inviting, and the view promises to be spectacular. I make the climb and find a small Nord burial site which my uncanny instinct for naming things tells me is called Yorgrim Overlook. Peering at one of the coffins is a tall man in College robes; before I can offer any sort of greeting we are surprised by a couple of animated skeletons clattering over with weapons at the ready. The stranger whirls around and shoots one with an arrow fired from a glowing bow; Vorstag smashes the other with his battleaxe. The stranger turns out to be an affable high elf with a few daubs of paint marking his cheeks. Putting away his fantastical weapon, he introduces himself as Rumarin, an “adventurer, bladebinder, and grave-robber,” and invites me to partake of whatever valuables the Nords have carelessly left lying about. I tell him primly that I prefer not to steal from the dead, and his wise response is that I might do better as a priest, and steal from the living. He speaks in a steady flow of almost hysterical good humor, such that I am hardly surprised when he suggests traveling together—no man this entertaining could possibly be happy with only himself for company. As usual, I’m reluctant to accept, for fear of disappointing him with my complete lack of intrepidity, but it occurs to me that if he’s a member of the College of Winterhold, as his outfit suggests, we might visit it together. He is quick to correct my misapprehension, cheerfully explaining that his robes are fake—he knows a crafter with a talent for creating such counterfeits—and that he only wears them to impress people; he doesn’t know any spells other than the ones he uses to conjure weapons from Oblivion. “That would require … ugh … studying,” he explains in a dismal tone. I actually find his conjured weapons more impressive than his robes, but I suppose that’s proof of my ignorance. Letting Rumarin go his own way, we continue our journey into the mountains, only to be confronted with a military fort that takes up almost the entire valley. The road passes so narrowly around its northern side that there is little hope of getting by without attracting attention, and I haven’t recovered enough yet to use the Voice of the Emperor again. I get on my horse and ride very slowly closer, just to get a better look, and someone or something I haven’t yet spotted starts shooting at me; I wheel Snowberry around and ride away in a panic. When nobody emerges to give chase, I dismount and turn back again, only to discover that Vorstag and Meeko have rushed into the fort and are now engaged in a vicious fight with what sounds like wizards—I can hear the crash of magical icicles hitting the walls, the tinkling as they splinter into shards. As I wait, tensely, for the noise to die down, I catch a glimpse of Vorstag running along the battlements in pursuit of an enemy mage, an enormous icicle protruding from his head. Any lingering notions I might have had about the proper relationship between an employer and her hireling are suddenly extinguished, and I gulp down a potion of frost resistance and run into the fort in helpless anxiety for my bodyguard’s safety. My efforts turn out to be entirely unnecessary—the only remaining enemies are skeletons with bows that are easily finished off; Vorstag has slain all of the wizards. He’s also used a couple of the healing potions I made, which brings me some small comfort—I am taking care of him, in my own way. Past Fort Kastav, we run into a couple of Alik’r warriors on their harassment tour of Skyrim. They’ve just finished threatening some random woman as we approach, and as they’re heading towards Winterhold, we walk along with them—I’m always glad for extra company on the road. A few minutes later, a snowy sabre cat charges us; I’ve lagged a little behind by then, distracted by the scenery (the weather is very clear), and before Vorstag can catch up or I can decide which poison to use, both of the Redguards have fallen to a few lazy swipes of the beast’s claws. I’m a little stunned; fortunately, someone else arrives to help Vorstag and Meeko with the sabre cat. He’s dressed like a Vigilant, which is unusual—I’ve never seen a Khajiit Vigilant before. The three of them together dispatch the cat, and the newcomer introduces himself as Qa’Dojo, a simple monk on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Azura. He’s an interesting fellow, with a religious philosophy that finds an agreeable balance between the stability of the Divines and the change wrought by the Daedra—a philosophy that would most likely be considered heretical by the Vigilants. I ask him about his future plans, and he tells me a parable of a wealthy Count who hired a carpenter to hang a painting in his castle. The painting looked very good in the place that was initially chosen for it, but the Count insisted that the carpenter move about the premises, hanging the painting up and then taking it down. Only after the painting had been seen in every conceivable spot did the Count decide that its first placement had been best after all. He ends the story by asking me to be his carpenter: by following me in my utterly pointless wanderings, Qa’Dojo seems to be saying, he will realize that some place that he has already visited—or some other companion he has previously had—is, by comparison, greatly preferable. I love it! Providing a balancing contrast with more interesting people and places could well be my calling. I’m eager for further conversation with Qa’Dojo, but it feels terribly disrespectful to get acquainted over the bodies of these two unfortunate Redguards, so I invite him to travel with us and we continue on towards Winterhold. Winterhold barely qualifies as a town at all: collapsed and broken-down buildings almost outnumber the functional ones, and of those there are few--an inn called the Frozen Hearth, a large house that most likely belongs to the Jarl, a much smaller house, and what appears to be a general store. There’s no smithy, no mill, no mines, no farms; no signs of productivity other than a few chickens pecking at the frozen earth and a horse that someone has left near one of the ruined buildings. The road leads up to a precarious stone bridge that passes over a dizzying drop and into a massive fortress. A lone Altmer woman named Faralda stops me at the bridge, barring my way; it leads to the College of Winterhold, she tells me, and members of the College don’t care for casual visitors. With nothing more pressing than mild curiosity urging me to enter, I turn back and go into the Frozen Hearth. There’s not much of a crowd, so I settle in near the fire and take the opportunity to get to know Qa’Dojo a little. I’m especially curious about his association with the Vigilants: he explains that he trained as a priest of Stendarr, but his distaste for the more militaristic aspects of the religion led him to contemplate converting to Julianos. As he was packing to leave, he saw a book that he had been searching for, Aedra and Daedra, on top of a high shelf, and imprudently attempted to climb the shelf to retrieve it. The shelf tipped over, causing him to fall and hit his head, and at that moment he had a powerful vision in which he saw all of the Gods—Aedra and Daedra—as integral parts of the same constellation. I’m no expert, but I see no reason to assume that a heavy blow to the head is inferior to any other source of divine inspiration; surely people have received religious visions in many a sillier fashion. I’m actually rather excited to be traveling with this monk, who asks only that I go wherever I feel like going. (I can do that!) Tomorrow, therefore—because I’m just full of surprises—we’ll head for the place that Qa’Dojo was going to visit anyway: the Shrine of Azura. I don’t want to stay in Winterhold for long—the place is a depressing and not-so-scenic ruin, I have not exactly been overwhelmed by the attentions of attractive single gentlemen, and I’m not sure whether I can even fetch water or cook here—so we had best do our sightseeing as soon as possible.
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Sorry to interrupt Nona’s story once again. It’s not the weather this time; it’s Vorstag. The man won’t behave. In the last episode, when Nona gained a level, he suddenly started refusing to use the armor that she had so painstakingly crafted for him and switched back to his old goat-pauldron thing. When I checked him out using the console, I realized that his class had changed, and he was no longer proficient with heavy armor (or one-handed weapons, for that matter). Thinking it was a bug, I simply changed him back. Well, it was a bug, sort of: what happened was that the Unofficial Skyrim Patch team decided to change his class to match his starting equipment. Except that the class they picked only fits the armor he starts with, not the weapon and shield he’s carrying. (There’s actually no class type in the game that fits his initial equipment set well.) In any case, I don’t want to have to readjust his class to match the equipment that I made for him whenever Nona gains a level, and I certainly don’t want to play without the Unofficial Patch, so I’m going to live with the change. It's an annoyance, though, because Nona can’t afford to make a whole new set of equipment for him at present. I’m therefore going to cheat a bit. I’ll sell the steel armor and pretend it never existed; I’ll ditch the elven sword, and I’ll create an elven battleaxe—Vorstag prefers two-handed weapons now—using the console. I’m not skilled enough to make a proper set of light armor for him: I’m certainly not going to put him in Thalmor-style armor—that would be horrible—and while Bosmer armor is a possibility, I’m not sure that Vorstag and Nona’s relationship has reached the stage where they can be seen in public wearing matching outfits. When you see him next, therefore, he’ll be wearing his original goat-pauldron thingy and using a two-handed weapon. Also, there most likely will be some sort of weather change at some point—I’m considering switching to Pure Weather (I still like RLO’s weather, but the light during severe rainstorms in RLO is so dismal that it’s nearly impossible to take screenshots that come out; and Pure Weather has the advantage of being compatible with Pure Waters). OK, I lied. I wasn’t able to avoid the subject of weather entirely. There should be some actual new “adventures” up within the next week. Thanks for reading!
Frida, the missing proprietor of the Mortar and Pestle, shows up in the Windpeak Inn as I’m getting ready for bed. She and Thordir launch into a discussion of the extreme aggression displayed by the local wolves, who, they observe, are constantly running into town in packs and attacking people indiscriminately. (If they only got out more, they’d know that this unfortunate psychosis afflicts wolves all over Skyrim.) I talk to Frida briefly; she complains that the Jarl Skald is a fool, and tells me that Brina is the one that people really turn to for help. This topic is not without interest—Skald practically accused Brina of treason in public once, for no better reason than that she used to be in the Imperial Legion—but Frida does not tell me what I most wish to hear, which is an explanation for why her shop has been closed all day and a promise to reopen it. I turn in, still determined to leave Dawnstar at first light. I decide to head towards Solitude, with its busy marketplace and multitude of shops. It’s a miserable snowy day, and I can barely see the flowers I’m picking. (They’re blue, as it turns out.) We trudge through the snow without incident until a faint rattling sound reaches my ears, and Vorstag is attacked by an ice wraith. These creatures are quite deadly—they weave about in the air and are translucent, almost invisible. Most of my arrows miss completely, and I can see Vorstag dipping into his supply of health-restoring potions as the creature strikes at him. But he makes steady progress against it until a heart-stopping moment when it breaks away abruptly and lunges at my horse. Snowberry runs into the woods in a panic, and Vorstag and I pursue—an exercise most likely doomed to failure unless the terrified animal randomly decides to change direction and run toward us. She eventually does, to my relief, and Vorstag finishes off the wraith. Later, I am attacked by hooded Khajiit assassin, whom I almost feel sorry for—he or she (it’s hard to tell, with the cat-like face and the very dark clothing) must have waited a long time in the dismal, freezing weather, in clothing that offered neither warmth nor camouflage, to encounter me, only to be unceremoniously hacked to death by Vorstag. I gain a level while fending off the assassin—I’m honestly too surprised to do much more than that—and retrieve a note, identical to the one I found on the assassin who attacked me outside Whiterun. It appears that this mysterious Astrid person still wants me dead. Well, I have no better notion than before of what I might be doing that could induce someone to take out a contract on me, so I can hardly stop doing it. I wonder when—and if—these attacks will finally cease; surely Astrid will run out of assassins to send after me eventually? I mean, if Vorstag slaughters enough of them, they’ll start asking for more money than anyone is willing to pay, right? Right? I mix and sell some potions in Morthal, and taste a few ingredients I haven’t tried yet, including, with some trepidation, the teeth of the ice wraith that Vorstag killed earlier. After recovering from the usual reagent queasiness, I take my mind off the possible long-term health effects of consuming ice wraith teeth by completing both the elven sword I made for Vorstag and my Bosmer armor set. Well, almost: there are a couple of extra pieces that I don’t yet have the materials for, but the basic outfit is done. Then I enter the wizard Falion’s house, right next to Al’Hassan’s smithy, where Falion immediately assumes that I have barged into his home to accuse him of sacrificing children and eating the hearts of the dead. I haven’t, of course: I’ve only barged in to boil water in his cookpot, which appears to be free enough of children’s hearts for my purposes—not that I’m generally inclined to be picky, to be quite honest. In the Moorside Inn, I talk to Gorm, housecarl to Jarl Idgrod Ravencrone. He tells me that he’s very worried about the Jarl and her mysterious visions, and seems to be trying to work up the courage to ask me to do something about it. From his hesitancy, I can gather that the something he would have me do is something that Idgrod might not like, and so I cut the conversation short before he can get to the point. I’m not about to get into the business of undermining Jarls, however lucrative such a business is likely to be in Skyrim. I pay for a bed for the night and go into my room to try on my new armor. I am pleasantly surprised to find Anum-La sitting in there, and we chat about her past. She was in a mercenary company, she tells me, that split up in disgrace after a terrible incident in which they mistook a group of mourners for necromancers and slaughtered them. (Gods be thanked, I tell myself for neither the first nor the last time, that I am not an adventurer.) She came to Skyrim in the company of a child who was present that day and would not leave her, and who may in fact have been a figment of her imagination. This leads her to the subject of the funereal garb she wears, which might be interpreted as mourning for the innocents who died that day: “There’s only one thing in this world I truly mourn,” she declares. “My sanity!” It’s a pity I can’t spend more time with Anum-La; we enjoy each other’s company and she would even be willing to travel with me, but she’s clearly the heroic type—I’m sure she’d find my lifestyle stupefyingly dull. The next morning, I leave Morthal and head west, wearing my new Bosmer outfit. What a difference it makes! In my Thalmor-style armor I always felt sluggish and awkward—as though someone had drugged me at a party and left me dressed that way. Now I feel sprightly and competent: a dangerous sensation, as the most sober self-assessment I can dredge up informs me that I am neither of those things. Fortunately, no truly dangerous enemies appear for me to embarrass myself against, and I have ample time to consider a subject that has been weighing on my mind. We’ll soon be passing the area where I found Meeko, the dog who was living in the shack in which his owner died, and I can’t decide whether I should adopt him. I miss Vigilance terribly, and I’d love to have another dog. But if something similar were to happen to Meeko—Vorstag doesn’t use spells, but he might accidentally shoot Meeko with an arrow—I don’t know what I’d do. I never liked Marcurio to begin with; he was always a smug, irritating man, and in losing what little regard for him I had, I wasn’t truly losing anything. But I like Vorstag: if I were forced to send him away because I could no longer stand the sight of him, it would be a grievous loss indeed. I resolve this inner conflict by trying an experiment: I confiscate Vorstag’s hunting bow. If he can function without it, I decide, then I’ll adopt Meeko, assuming he’s still there. Vorstag doesn’t seem overly concerned by the loss of his bow, and in fact his tendency to close immediately with frost spiders rather than firing a few opening shots at them is, on the whole, a change for the better. We pass Fort Bunny-Killer without incident and find the dog, still hanging around his dead master’s shack, on the other side. He’s overjoyed to leave his ramshackle home and come along with me, and when I shoot and injure an elk, he and Vorstag merrily charge off in pursuit of it and don’t come back for several minutes. We reach Dragon Bridge just after lunch and continue north, having no pressing reason to stop. Past the settlement, we are attacked by an angry troll, and a few unarmed drunkards who are having some sort of party nearby come running over gallantly to assist me. I get very concerned for their safety as they crowd around shouting and punching at the monster, getting in the way of my shots and interfering with Vorstag, but to my great relief we manage to kill it before any of these well-intentioned morons get torn apart. They are so delighted by their victory that they offer me a bottle of Honningbrew mead in celebration. Caught up in the festive mood, I drink it down immediately and chase it with a big, gooey lump of troll fat. And then I … don’t feel so good. I’m not sure whether it’s the alcohol, the troll fat, the combination of the two, or perhaps something else that those nice fellows may have slipped into my drink, but this is even worse than Nona’s Rabbity Reagent Salad. Everything looks very wrong, and I begin to have trouble keeping my balance. I continue to totter vaguely in the direction of Solitude, hoping that nobody, except possibly Vorstag, will take advantage of my impaired condition before I reach the safety of the city’s walls. I’m feeling much better by the time I reach the city gates, where I vow never again to eat or drink anything that has been given to me by a random stranger or that used to be attached to a troll. I realize that only a complete fool would find it necessary to adjust her behavior to include a rule that should be glaringly obvious to everyone, but the first step to recovering from extreme stupidity is to admit you have a problem. I visit Radiant Raiment to buy a new set of fine clothes, then go by the smithy in order to craft some Bosmer arrows and a new hunting knife. At suppertime, I retire to the Winking Skeever, where a hooded and robed orc named Cassock engages me in what at first appears to be a friendly bar conversation but quickly takes a turn for the worse. I tell him I’m just here for a drink, and he rambles on in an increasingly sinister tone about thirst and blood and spilling. Rather than find out to what or whom these insinuations tend, I turn away from him (I’ve become quite adept at cutting people off before they can burden me with quests) and ask Corpulus for news. He hands me one of those helpful notes that I like to carry around to remind me of the many unique and interesting places in Skyrim that I would very much prefer not to visit. I spend the rest of the evening strutting around the Skeever in the hope that Sorex will notice that I’m with Vorstag and, I don’t know, get all stupidly jealous and make a huge scene that ends in his bursting into tears and being knocked out in a fistfight. Or maybe he should get into a fistfight with Vorstag and then burst into tears; I would think less of Vorstag if he hit a man who was already crying. Sadly, Sorex remains completely indifferent, no matter how determinedly I march back and forth through his field of view, and when I finally decide to speak to him, he immediately begins flirting with me even though Vorstag is standing right there. Confound the fellow! He won’t do even the simplest thing to make me happy. I can’t believe that I seriously considered marrying him.
I could hang up my travel gear, put Snowberry out to graze in the Falkreath Hold hills, and stay for the indefinite future in my beautiful new house, where I have just about everything I need—only an alchemy table is lacking, but I can find those in Riverwood and Falkreath, not far away. I’ve already been puttering around here for four days, and my vegetables are starting to come up. I took a little walk before going to bed last night and found luna moths fluttering around just outside the front door, which added to my ever-growing sense of satisfaction in the place. But I’m determined to build that alchemy table eventually, and it’s better done sooner than later. For one thing, there’s the matter of Vorstag’s wages, or lack of them; he asked for 500 septims when I hired him, but I have to assume that he intended that as a payment to be made periodically, and not as his price for selling himself into indentured servitude. There’s a chance that we’ll have a future together as something more than Ms. Timid Alchemist and her Hired Bodyguard, but until that question is resolved, I decide that I’ll pay him 500 septims a week; that means that his next payment will be due tomorrow, on the 8th of Frostfall. To Dawnstar, then. I have augmented my alchemical knowledge by adding the Poisoner perk—I still feel a bit weird about using poisons, but they’re becoming necessary, and so I may as well learn to make stronger ones. There aren’t many preparations to make apart from that, so after eating a breakfast of bread and cheese while sitting at my own dining table, I put on my armor and head out. (I’m also starting to think seriously about changing my armor: I could replace the Elven armor with Bosmer armor, which I would normally avoid because it exists only owing to a mod that I installed for use with characters other than Nona, but the two are about equivalent in terms of protectiveness and it would be nice to look like something other than a tubby Thalmor agent.) I stay on horseback until I’m past Riverwood—I’ve been back and forth so many times that the plants in between Lakeview and Riverwood have been uniformly stripped of any blooms, pods, and fungal growths that could possibly be of interest to anyone—and then continue on foot. On the descent towards Whiterun I’m attacked by a determined high elf who bathes me in a heady mixture of flames and ice while I stumble about blindly, wondering why Vorstag isn’t around to help. I have barely enough presence of mind to drink a potion that offers some protection against both fire and frost magic and then crouch behind a rock. Still no Vorstag, and the elf has decided to wait patiently on the other side of the rock rather than follow me around. I start to get panicky, because my protector is missing and I’m afraid that my potion will wear off, so I come out from behind the rock with sword in hand and slash hysterically at my attacker while hoping that she won’t get too many spells off before she dies. She barely manages to cast anything after I start swinging, but it takes about a dozen sword cuts to kill her, which isn’t very reassuring. (I should have used poison!) I manage to retrieve my bodyguard and my horse, who have gotten stuck a few turns up the road behind me, and continue north. As I reach the crossroads east of Whiterun, it starts to rain heavily, and the thrill of traveling by a new road lined with as-yet unpicked flowers is tempered by my inability to distinguish one color of bloom from another in the dismal grey light. As I pass the farms near Whiterun, I come across a lonely figure standing on the road, lamenting the fact that one of the wheels of his cart has broken and left him stranded. He’s transporting his mother, he tells me—his dead mother, in her coffin—and so he simply cannot go on until his wheel is repaired, and the owner of the nearby farm has refused to help, despite his offering to pay most generously. The man, Cicero, is a curious fellow, and not merely because he talks about himself in third person, has chosen a threadbare jester’s outfit as his traveling costume, and claims to be transporting a deceased relative around; he’s, well, creepy. And no, I don’t think that transporting a corpse is inherently creepy—it’s just that it’s not entirely clear to me that he believes his mother is actually dead. He says she’s dead, but he doesn’t seem entirely convinced—his manner conveys either mild amusement at his mother’s death or a lack of awareness of what that means; I can’t decide which. I pity him, though, waiting alone in the rain (I hope he’s actually alone), so I decide to trudge up to the farmhouse and see whether I can’t convince the owner to help him. In response to my inquiry, the farmer, Loreius, musters his very best arguments against helping Cicero, which are as follows: he’s weird. And he might be carrying anything in that box. But mostly, he’s weird. I can’t disagree, although I suspect that a real smuggler would pose as something less absurd than a mad jester carting his dead (?) mother around. Or maybe not--I’ve never tried to smuggle anything, so no doubt there are tricks of the trade, nuances to the work, that would surprise me. But when I ask Loreius what he thinks should be done, his best suggestion is that I make a false report to a guard, accusing Cicero of committing a crime. Suddenly, Loreius seems like a much bigger creep than Cicero. I’m outraged at his suggestion. I shame him into agreeing to help despite his worst instincts, and tromp back down the hill practically glowing with righteous self-satisfaction to give Cicero the good news. He is ecstatic, and presses 400 septims into my hands as a reward for my intervention—a sum I would find suspicious in itself if other people hadn’t paid me similar amounts on previous occasions for doing even less. I hear shouts of alarm as I continue north—a guard tower is under attack by a ragtag group of bandits. The guards don’t seem to need assistance, which is lucky, because I’m not about to offer any. Vorstag, oddly enough, doesn’t rush to join the fight either: he stands around calling for help until the attackers are dead. Apparently he doesn’t feel any need to intervene personally unless I’m being attacked, which, while a perfectly logical attitude for him to have, nevertheless takes me a little by surprise—people so routinely expect me to take an interest in their problems that I’ve come to assume that a general willingness to interfere is part of Skyrim’s culture. I could have the Nords entirely wrong, I guess: perhaps they only expect Imperials to solve their problems for them. Whatever the truth of the matter, I’ve wasted so much time today that I’ll not be able to reach Dawnstar without hiking well into the night, and the prospect of running into a snowy sabre cat while having to hold a lantern in one hand is not enticing. I turn off the road to the right, therefore, to stay at the Nightgate Inn, where Callen and Moris are sniping at each other in a manner that suggests that they have been doing so without interruption since my last visit. (Moris, speaking past Callen to the innkeeper: “Tell your tavern wench to bring some more ale.” Callen, speaking past Moris in a similar vein: “Tell your dog to do his business outside.”) (As an aside, I have to say that this is the worst day I’ve ever had while playing Nona: to begin with, I had my first-ever crash to desktop—crashes aren’t exactly a rare phenomenon while playing Skyrim, but I am very careful with my Nona saves, and up until now have never had a crash while playing this character—which forced me to replay the first part of the journey. I tried to do everything identically: I took a shot at wolf that I had killed during my previous session, but I missed, and it ran into the river and vanished. When I fought the high elf a little while later—she surprised me, not having been there the first time—and Vorstag didn’t show up, I backtracked to look for him, and found him staring at the spot in the river where the wolf had disappeared. It must have been alive in there somewhere, but I couldn’t see it, so I just took random shots at the water until Vorstag decided it was dead and stopped obsessing over it. Then, during the attack on Whitewatch Tower, he got stuck in sneak mode, which happens to followers sometimes; this was the real reason I couldn’t continue to Dawnstar—it would have been horribly slow and dangerous with Vorstag sneaking everywhere. I’ve been taking a break from Skyrim for some months now, and it really seemed as though the game was making a special effort to parade some of its choicest bugs in front of me just in case I’d forgotten about them.) The following morning is the 8th, so I pay Vorstag 500 septims for the upcoming week. The rest of the journey to Dawnstar goes easily enough; I pass Fort Dunstad by riding around it as fast as possible and hoping that Vorstag doesn’t get into a messy fight. (He doesn’t.) Later, I am attacked by giant spiders, and an Argonian fellow who happens to be loitering nearby decides to help me out. After they’re dead, though, the idiot attempts to rob me at sword-point: I tell him that I won’t hand over anything and watch with mixed emotions as Vorstag beats him to a bloody pulp. I have lunch in Dawnstar—fish soup, to help relieve the case of Rockjoint I’ve gotten from the diseased wolves crowding the roads—and take a walk around the town. There’s no quicksilver for sale at the smithy, but the ingots that I left near the smelter on my previous visit are still there. Strange. I enter the mine and start working, accompanied by Vorstag’s unhappy commentary. “I’ve heard that miners sometimes die from poisonous gases trapped in the ground,” he says pensively. He follows me all around as I attack one vein after another, keeping up a litany of murmuring complaint. I find his gentle dissatisfaction oddly delightful: he would seem a trifle false if he had nothing but admiration for both me and my lifestyle. I return to the open air, much to Vorstag’s relief, and smelt my ore. I leave the new batch of ingots near the smelter and take the ones I left previously—perhaps there’s something wrong with them, and they’re not up to Dawnstar’s exacting standards? They’re good enough for my purposes, I’m sure. At the smithy, I forge a new Elven sword—I’m planning on giving it to Vorstag, but I can’t finish it yet, as there’s no grindstone here—and start work on my Bosmer armor, which is mostly made out of leather. I don’t yet have enough for the full suit, but I make a couple of pieces. Then I pay a visit to the Mortar and Pestle and find it closed. I wait around a bit, wondering whether Frida has gone out for a late lunch, but she doesn’t make an appearance. I walk around town again, looking for her, and check Windpeak Inn. She isn’t there, but the proprietor gives me this charming note: I make several more visits to the Mortar and Pestle, but it remains stubbornly shut, and there’s no sign of Frida, so I waste the rest of the day in aimless, unproductive wandering. I’m starting to run low on funds—by “low,” I mean that I’m down to just over a thousand septims, which sounds like plenty, but doesn’t actually count for much when I can’t buy ingredients and do my work. By nightfall, I’m feeling thoroughly dispirited and lost, as though I’ve been abandoned. Dawnstar is a cold, dark wasteland, and I truly have nothing to do here. I hope I’ll never need any more quicksilver; this place just isn’t worth it.
It’s a beautiful day for our journey back to Falkreath, which turns out to be so thoroughly uneventful that even Nona’s a little starved for action. I’ve been going back and forth along this road so frequently that there’s nothing to gather—no plants or mushrooms of any interest at all—and we meet no-one along the way, save for a few hunters and a very rude orc who tries to pick a fight with me by calling me a milk-drinker. Even if I cared about some random idiot’s opinion, I couldn’t effectively prove myself not a milk-drinker by taking the bait and then watching Vorstag beat her to death, so I leave her be. We arrive in Falkreath in the middle of the afternoon, and I go immediately to see the Jarl. (I’m hoping he won’t notice that I’m wearing the same Radiant Raiment outfit I had on the first time we met; it’s still the only nice set of clothes I own.) Siddgeir is delighted to hear of the Embershard bandits’ demise. “Teach them to stop paying me,” he says with an air of grim pleasure. Then he adopts a confiding, friendly tone that sets my teeth on edge. “I like you,” he says. “You’re not afraid to get your hands dirty.” And he decides then and there to grant me permission to purchase property in Falkreath Hold. Here I was, enjoying a little glow of pleasure, even pride, at having accomplished something worthwhile—I mean, bandits are bandits, even if you’re going after them for the wrong reasons—and two minutes with Siddgeir has made me feel as though I’ve just finished wading through a river of slop and that he will be calling upon my vaunted slop-wading talents the next time he wants a priest blackmailed or an orphanage burned. I end the interview before he can ask me to do anything else. Well, I knew I was going against my principles when I agreed to kill those bandits in the first place: no sense in crying about it now. It takes me a while to find the steward—actually, it takes a stupidly long time: I walk all over the Jarl’s longhouse, and then I suddenly wonder whether she might have stepped over to the tavern for a drink, so I walk over there, and then I walk back to the longhouse and search the place from top to bottom again, before she suddenly steps out of a shadow and introduces herself. She’s an Altmer named Nenya, and she’s surprisingly agreeable for someone who has to deal with Siddgeir’s vagaries on a daily basis. This is most likely because she enjoys being the real power in Falkreath: she tells me that Siddgeir is wholly uninterested in actually running his hold, and so leaves everything to her and Helvard, his housecarl. She offers to sell me a plot of land for five thousand septims, and shows no surprise when I hand over the entire sum without hesitation. I now have the deed to a property called Lakeview, just off the road that runs east out of town. With all my expenses—including Vortag’s fee, the cost of materials for his arms and armor, the expensive scroll I bought from Calcelmo—Lakeview has cost me around seven thousand septims, and I don’t even have a house yet. But I am a landowner! I ride out eagerly to see my new property, but I’m delayed by those trapped watchtowers on the road—two more bandits have moved in, and these new ones aren’t quite stupid enough to kill themselves with their own falling rocks. Fortunately some Imperial soldiers just happen to be wandering by, and the bandits don’t last long against a hail of arrows. As Nenya directed, I turn off the road near a house called Pinewatch—my new neighbors, apparently. I stop by the door in the hopes of getting acquainted with them, but it’s locked and there’s nobody about. The path to the side—it’s not really a path, just an area open enough to ride through—is full of angry mudcrabs and wolves. The inhabitants of Pinewatch, if there are any, must not come out much. It’s getting dark by the time I reach Lakeview; a thorough inspection will have to wait until morning. Vorstag and I spend our first night on my new property camped near the spot where my house will likely be. The morning light reveals everything I could have wished for: the view of Lake Ilinalta is spectacular, and I have all the resources I need at the site to begin building—plenty of clay and stone, as well as a pile of sawn logs. In alarmingly short order I have built an unfurnished cottage that will serve as the entryway for a great hall. The size of the finished building will far exceed my former expectations; indeed Nona would have been perfectly content with a very small house, but Vorstag is staying over, so I need somewhere for him to sleep, and the cottage isn’t large enough for a second bed. I head back to town to buy more logs, passing along the way an extremely unpleasant Khajiit warrior named S’vashni, who can’t seem to open her mouth without saying something viciously insulting, and whose only topic of interest is swordsmanship. When I try to bring the conversation to a more civilized level, she tells me that talk is for cowards whose blades say nothing. I wish I could tell her that the message I’m getting from both her words and her blades is “I am a nasty, violent wanker with a dangerous sword fetish,” but I would most likely be both too polite and too interested in self-preservation to say that, even if the option were there. I leave her, then, to whatever senseless murders and/or diplomatic incidents she has planned for the day, and continue into Falkreath, where I find that I must purchase my lumber from that idiot Bolund who can’t believe that “provincials” like me are allowed to wander Skyrim. I also buy iron and corundum from Lod to make nails and fittings and locks, and, upon returning to the building site, use it all to put my main hall together. More wolves attack us while I’m working, so it’s fortunate that Vorstag is standing around wearing all of his armor with nothing to do. Once again, I’ve used up all of my materials in a burst of uncannily speedy construction, but I haven’t built any furniture yet. Another trip to town is in order, and there’s no way I’m handing any more money to Bolund, so I head down the slope towards Riverwood. Near the bottom of the hill I find a curious tableau: four skeletons stand unsupported and motionless, facing a large stone table with a haphazard collection of bones and soul gem fragments arrayed atop and around it. Leaning thoughtfully over the arrangement is a robed woman named Carmella, who asks me whether I have come to watch the dance of bones, to pay homage, or to learn the craft. I answer very cautiously that I’m not sure what she’s teaching, and learn, to my relief, that she isn’t taking on new students anyway. She introduces herself as a master of the necromantic arts—not a practitioner of necromancy, she is careful to explain, but a necromantic artist creating works that serve to illuminate the human condition. I can’t honestly say that I like this particular piece, but that is almost certainly not the point, and I find Carmella friendly enough, if a bit pretentious. The sun is setting as I get back from Riverwood. Carmella has gone elsewhere, leaving her artistic creation to whatever fate that hungry wolves and the elements might have in store. The skeletons stand as before, their eye-sockets eerily aglow, but they make no move to attack, and I decide that, on the whole, I rather like them. They seem lost and naked and vulnerable in the fading light, and—oh dear Gods, I’m actually standing here admiring the monstrous installation that this woman has left sitting practically on my doorstep. What will the neighbors think? Do the neighbors exist? Will they ever emerge from Pinewatch? I do a bit more work before going to bed—“a bit” meaning that I build a fireplace for the main hall, a washbasin, and two beds—and then fuss around at my property for a couple more days, riding to Riverwood now and again to mix potions and buy materials. (I want to have an alchemy table in my home, but it requires quicksilver and I haven’t any left.) I fish in the lake; I make soup; I put in a little garden and plant vegetables and flowers; and I build more furniture—a bench for the entryway, sconces, barrels to store food and water, shelves, endtables near the beds, a dining table. I build a wardrobe for my room, and inside it I place the Radiant Raiment clothes that I wore for my audiences with Siddgeir. I don’t think I’ll ever wear them again. Then it occurs to me that Vorstag has nowhere to put his things, so I build a dresser for Vorstag’s room. Vorstag’s room. How odd it is that I’ve constructed my house as though he lives here already! (That’s what happens, I suppose, when a single individual working alone is able to build and furnish a large house from scratch in two days with no prior planning.) And is it more peculiar that I have unthinkingly arranged things so that he can live here, or that I have unthinkingly arranged for him to live in a separate room? His interest hasn’t faltered: he still tells me from time to time that he’s surprised that I’m not spoken for. So why am I not spoken for? Now that I have no need to marry for property, Vorstag is everything I could want: he’s human and male, and, if I’m going to be especially picky, also strong and brave; he’s a decent enough fellow who hasn’t killed any of my pets, and he’s quite good-looking if you like a man with facial tattoos and a jaw that can crack walnuts. In fact he’s pretty much out of my league, and the only reason I can think of for his liking me so well is that he has entirely mistaken my character. And who could blame him for getting the wrong idea about a woman who makes him a complete new set of armor and weapons before hauling him off to a bandit-infested mine to slaughter all the bandits so as to collect a reward from the Jarl of Falkreath himself? I hate to admit this, but Vorstag may be under the impression that I’m some sort of hero, someone held in high regard, and not merely a timid, all-too-ordinary woman who needs someone to protect her from bears while she picks mushrooms. There’s only one way to resolve this: well, there’s several, but instead of taking the sensible route of thanking Vorstag for his help and sending him back to Markarth so that I can settle into a peaceful but solitary life of gardening, fishing, and alchemy in my new home at Lakeview, I’m going back on the road. With Vorstag. I’ll need him for protection, and once he’s spent enough time with me to disabuse himself of any silly ideas he might have about my courage or social prominence, I’ll know whether he truly likes me for myself. Maybe we’ll go back to Dawnstar; I’ll need some quicksilver if I’m going to make that alchemy table, and none of the nearby smiths are selling it.
Middas, 1st of Frostfall. Falkreath Hold. 7:30 am. Started secret mission diary. Best to keep this entire proceeding under wraps—wouldn’t want word to get around that I, Nona Plaia, might actually be able to solve the stupid problems people are always bothering me with. Took special care with clothes today: chose new Hammerfell-style outfit—loose trousers and shirt, turban, matching boots. Feel suddenly strange and different—like a character, a woman of mystery! Also, like a perfect fool. Suspect this to be the ideal state of mind for starting an adventure. Also possible side benefit: uncharacteristic behavior may be ascribed to mental derangement rather than foolish, misguided attempt at heroics. Goat cheese: not the breakfast of champions, but will have to do. Feel I should be eating proper adventurer food like iron rations or lembas, but can’t find any for sale and am not entirely sure what either of those things are. 8:01 am. Bought all blisterwort, rock warbler eggs, swamp fungal pods, and wheat for sale at Grave Concoctions. Made 22 restore health potions and several combination fortify-and-retore-health potions, using up everything. Actually starting to run low on blue mountain flowers. Horror! 9:08 am. Starting out towards Markarth on horseback. Marcurio has been silent all morning. Still can’t stand the sight of him. 10:31 am. Attacked by sabre cat. Marcurio too far behind to help. Tried to gallop away on horse, but cat is faster. Dismounted and shot it with poisoned arrow, then managed to finish it off with sword and shield. Gained level. Still feeling shaky; lucky to have so many healing potions on hand. 10:47 am. Still riding far ahead of Marcurio. Would rather take life in my hands than spend time anywhere near him, apparently. Weather awful. 1:19 pm. Arrived in Markarth after pushing Snowberry very hard all morning. Had lunch in Silver-Blood Inn. Much relieved to find Vorstag still there: told me straight out that he’ll join me but first I have to let my comrade go. Could hardly kick Marcurio out the door fast enough. Marcurio brought up Amulet of Mara again while I was telling him to take a hike. Suppose I should be grateful to him for being so disagreeable—might otherwise feel guilty for abandoning him so suddenly, so far from Riften. 2:29 pm. Paid Vorstag his 500 septims and conducted brief, candid inquiry into his strengths and weaknesses as a fighter. Learned that he has no training with the armor he’s wearing: only knows how to use heavy armor. Can’t blame him, I guess—that goat-pauldron thing is pretty stylish—but a little frustrated, as equipping him properly will add greatly to the expense. Must also replace low-quality iron axe and shield he’s carrying. Vorstag responding to examination with insinuating comments about Amulet of Mara. Very pleased to discover that he has such fine powers of observation: Amulet is entirely hidden by current outfit. Wish I could get him to talk about something else, though; may be far less offensive coming from him than from Marcurio, but still inappropriate and distracting and not relevant to subject at hand. Unable to think of correct response to Amulet question owing to sudden attack of giddiness; am therefore ending conversation abruptly while giggling like schoolgirl. 4:39 pm. At smithy, putting final touches on shiny new panoply. Had to buy 22 steel ingots and 6 iron ingots from Ghorza; hope result is worth it. Superior-quality steel armor, full suit, complete with sword and shield. Would have liked to make Elven sword, but Ghorza has no quicksilver in stock. Now spending a few minutes checking handiwork for flaws, which requires minute examination of Vorstag. Can’t be too careful. 4:53 pm. Visited Hag’s Cure. Not much in the way of useful ingredients to be had, but mixed a few random things anyway. Force of habit—too easy to fall back into usual activities. So difficult to stay focused on the mission! Wish I could just get it over with; would love to begin the journey back towards Riverwood, but already too late to start. Waiting around starting to make me nervous. Must be something I can do to improve my chances. 6:34 pm. Talked to Calcelmo in Understone Keep. Suddenly occurred to me to bring magical forces to bear on the problem—not forces contributed by idiot Marcurio, of course; but enchanted items could be very useful. Sadly nothing to be had in the way of a Staff Of Hideous Fiery Death From A Safe Distance, but scroll of Conjure Storm Atronach has intriguing possibilities. Not cheap—634 septims for just one scroll. Bought it anyway after taking a moment to remember who and what I am: for the true hero is one who relies ever on superior skill, clever improvisation, and personal grit; but the NPC prefers to throw money at the problem. 7:43 pm. Silver-Blood Inn. Nothing to do but stare at Vorstag and listen to Frabbi and Kleppr snipe at each other. Could be worse. Fellow named Sam Guevenne wants to have a drinking contest with me. Sounds like fun, but mustn’t get distracted. 9:13 pm. Very bored, antsy. Nobody new in here to talk to. Going to bed early. Turdas, 2nd of Frostfall. The Reach. 5:21 am. Still dark, but am setting out anyway. Have a long way to walk—and I am walking; no more riding ahead. Need to look for ingredients, and will be safer close to Vorstag. Also wouldn’t hurt to get to know him a little better. 11:59 am. Ran into party of Forsworn fighting Imperial soldiers. Arrived too late to help the Imperials—all dead. Forsworn came for us immediately. Vorstag acquitted himself very well—kept them all away from me, plus showed good grace when I accidentally shot him. Have been gathering ingredients, but cannot find a single blue mountain flower growing anywhere. Somebody has already picked them all. 6:15 pm. Arrived at Embershard Mine—the front entrance. Vaguely recall finding a back entrance once with Jade, but can’t remember exactly where it was. Will be dark soon; don’t want to spend a lot of time looking. Front entrance will have to do. Final preparations: Vorstag fully armed and armored? Check. Vorstag ludicrously oversupplied with restore health potions? Check. (Am retaining combination restore-and-fortify-health potions for own use on assumption that Vorstag, like Jade, won’t drink them.) Nona armed and armored, with plenty of arrows? Check. Poisons ready? Check. Scroll of Conjure Storm Atronach ready and within easy reach? Check. Snowberry safely out of the way? Check. Voice of the Emperor ready in case of emergency? Perhaps a little drink of water, just to be safe. Check. That’s it. That’s everything I can think of. Do I feel ready? Not really. In we go! 6:48 pm. Interior very dark—torches in sconces barely adequate. Already starting to feel poorly prepared—need better light but must use both hands for bow. Vorstag says he doesn’t like the look of this. Hoped he would say something reassuring; now feeling even worse. Am scrutinizing tunnel very carefully but can’t see anything dangerous yet—just a very obvious tripwire, easy to avoid. Might make fleeing difficult, though. 7:10 pm. Reached a large chamber with a waterfall and what looks to be an underground lake. Found two bandits here. Wooden walkway passes over their campsite—angle is awkward, and with the poor lighting, was unable to get a good shot at them. Told Vorstag to move to other end of walkway; that got their attention. Killed them easily, although fight was a bit noisy. Doesn’t seem to have attracted any other bandits, though. Several clumps of mushrooms growing here; couldn’t hurt to harvest a few. Can’t get further into the mine without lowering a bridge—have to figure out how. 7:41 pm. Found side passage leading to little room with lever. Don’t like the look of this: lever room is better-lit than the tunnels, and noise of bridge coming down is bound to attract attention. Don’t want to get trapped in this tiny room with bandits coming. Decided to pull lever and immediately jump into water below. Ended up being a pointless maneuver, as nobody noticed the bridge coming down after all. Bandits very inattentive indeed. All to the good, I suppose. Looked very foolish clambering out of water, but Vorstag nice enough to forbear comment. Didn’t expect interior of mine to look like this; would be sort of pretty if I could see it better. Vorstag wonders whether it would be altogether foolish to stop for a bit and build a fire, bless him. 8:42 pm. Was spotted by a bandit while getting in position to shoot, but Vorstag killed him before he could hurt me. Dead man was carrying a key that unlocks the door to what appears to be the bandits’ treasure room. Not that much here, actually; perhaps the bandits stopped paying Siddgeir because they weren’t doing so well themselves. Leaving it all here, in any case; no way to know who it actually belongs to. 9:37 pm. Reached a very large chamber with another waterfall. Quite an impressive sight. Could see only two bandits, but in such a space, with visibility so poor, no telling how many more might be lurking out of sight. Determined this situation to be ideal for releasing storm atronach: a large open area containing an unknown number of foes. Retrieved ordnance from scroll casing without further delay; deployed atronach at bottom of chamber, below entrance walkway. Results were well beyond expectations—received quest update reporting bandit leader’s demise within seconds. Atronach has cleared the chamber of bandits. With leader dead, quest is technically complete: could back out now and leave the way we came. Will continue and secure the entire complex, though: Jarl Siddgeir expressly asked that all the bandits be eliminated. Must not give him any reason to be dissatisfied with my performance. 10:41 pm. Reached back entrance without further incident. All bandits dead—and Vorstag still has entire stock of healing potions! Will retrieve Snowberry and head to Riverwood—very close by; can spend the night there. 11:43 pm. Sleeping Giant Inn, Riverwood. So relieved to be able at last to get a drink and climb into bed. Success! Need to contain my elation—remember that the Jarl made no promises; may have to reconcile myself to having done his dirty work for him while gaining nothing to show for it. If so, must not be despondent. Will head to Falkreath in the morning, and, whether Siddgeir chooses to be generous or not, get back to normal life as soon as possible. Tomorrow will tell.
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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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