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.
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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.
How beautifully blue the sky, The glass is rising very high, Continue fine I hope it may, And yet it rained but yesterday. To-morrow it may pour again (I hear the country wants some rain), Yet people say, I know not why, That we shall have a warm July. Hello, people who for some unfathomable reason enjoy reading about the life and times of a very boring person in Skyrim! Mewness here. This isn’t a Nona post; I’m just announcing some minor changes that are (possibly) on the way. First, I’m going to remove the Feedburner widget on the right side of the page. As far as I can tell, only one person has subscribed, and I believe that this is someone who signed up because I asked them to test it for me. If anyone is actually deriving some benefit from this thing, please let me know. I am also regarding the column of links to individual posts with an increasingly disapproving eye: I’d love to put tuck these into collapsible lists, but I am too much of an html duffer to do so. Second, I’m a little disenchanted with Climates of Tamriel--this is the mod that produces the weather effects and cloud textures in my game--and I’m thinking of replacing it with the Realistic Lighting Overhaul weather plugin, currently in alpha. This would cause a noticeable difference in my screenshots: the sunny weather would be a bit less bright and washed-out looking, with a bluer sky and more vibrant colors in general; severe rainstorms and snowstorms would have a darker sky (which might lead to problems in getting the screenshots to come out at all). Sadly, CoT’s marvelous cloud textures and sunsets would also go away. Here are some rough comparison shots. (I can’t do exact comparisons, because Climates of Tamriel uses its own weather patterns and takes a while to worm its way into the world, so simply reloading a game with the mod switched on or off doesn’t necessarily show the same weather.) All of these screenshots were taken around noon, game time. This is what sunny days currently look like for Nona. I find the quality of the light in this shot generally pleasing--the contrast is perhaps lower than is entirely realistic, but I don’t actually want to feel as though I have to squint at my monitor as I would squint outside on a sunny day, so that’s fine. But the scene has a slightly washed-out look and the sky is rather flat. Shadows look much darker in screenshots than they do in the game, so if I switch to the RLO weather alpha, there are going to be some pretty strong shadows, like this. But everything looks more vibrant than it does under CoT, and I like the color of the sky. Pity about those clouds, though. Also, the grass on the left side of the screen looks completely different. I honestly have no idea why. This is just bad, in my opinion. It looks more like an explosion of blinding light than a snowstorm. At one point, Nona was considering heading up to Dawnstar. Having to look at weather like this was a strong argument against doing so. Here’s a somewhat snowy day in the RLO weather alpha. Different, eh? And here’s a blizzard in the RLO weather alpha. Yes, this really was taken at noon, and I had to adjust the levels considerably in order to get anything to show up in the shot at all. Nights are also very different--under the RLO weather alpha, clear nights are fairly bright, and cloudy nights are just about pitch-black. Under Climates of Tamriel, the sky stays fairly bright even on a cloudy night. I can’t get nighttime screenshots to look like anything much, though, so I won’t show any comparisons here. Making this change brings with it certain problems--the replacement mod is in alpha, so it’s going to change from time to time, and the quality of the light won’t necessarily be consistent. I also don’t like the way that the clouds look against the more brilliant blue sky. If anyone has an opinion on this, I’m happy to hear it. Finally, if you are a regular reader and haven’t yet posted a comment, liked Nona on Facebook, or breathlessly extolled my brilliance on a web forum, please do something of the sort. (Breathless extolment not actually required.) I can’t tell how many people are actually reading, as opposed to clicking a link, waiting for the page to load, and then promising themselves never to visit this blog again while wishing they could have those two minutes of their life back. Hearing from people who like this really does give me the warm fuzzies and motivate me to keep posting; if, on the other hand, you’d rather I just stopped writing this pointless drivel already, silence is the best method.
The countryside of Falkreath Hold is lovely; it’s a shame the weather is so terrible--it’s almost always grey and thundery, threatening to rain if not actually raining, and with poor visibility owing to the mist. There’s also the problem of a general lack of cooking pots; I’m now equipped to make my own campfire to cook with--which is precisely what I do--but it seems a little uncivilized to do this in town, and it’s difficult to find a good spot outside the town, one that isn’t too far away, but is flat and clear enough that the campfire doesn’t look as though it is perched weirdly on a slope or about to catch on to some nearby trees. Another problem is the lack of streams in the area: there’s no shortage of water in Falkreath itself, of course, but finding water is a problem if I want to camp out (and I do! I will endure the tedium!), so I spend the next couple of days exploring the region until the early hours of the evening, and then, failing to find a good place to camp, I scurry back to a warm bed in Dead Man’s Drink as fast as Snowberry’s legs can carry me. I start my morning with a large slice of goat cheese (it’s tasty, filling stuff--an excellent meal to fuel a day of hiking in the mountains--and Solaf seems to stock cheese wheels regularly in his store; if I didn’t have to boil water I could give up on cooking entirely), and then Jade, Snowberry, and I set off to explore the paths in the highlands south of Falkreath. To the southwest of the city we find a cave not far from the road that I instinctively name Halldir’s Cairn. There is nobody about, but a couple of burial urns sit outside, mostly in pieces, which is not a good sign. The one intact urn contains a few coins and a gem that, having no desire to violate an old Nord burial ground, I leave as they are. But I can’t just walk away from the place; there are too many mushrooms growing there. After harvesting everything within reach, I’m even willing to venture inside. Jade and I enter very quietly and cautiously, and I am rewarded with the finest, most impressive crop of fungus I have ever seen--half a dozen different kinds growing in large clumps everywhere I look. The interior of the cave is otherwise not reassuring: the wide ledge we’re standing on overlooks a spacious chamber with a column of intensely blue light rising from some sort of rock formation--the cairn of the place’s title, no doubt--in the middle. I neither see nor hear any creatures moving about, but there are bedrolls on the floor, I don’t like the look of it at all, and Jade is clearly uncomfortable. She soon expresses her dissatisfaction in an outburst that uncannily echoes my own thoughts: “Did something just touch me?” she says, her voice rising sharply. “I think something just touched me! I really don’t like caves.” I collect as many mushrooms as I can without climbing down from that high ledge; there are even more below, but my daring will only take me so far. Leaving the cave and continuing west, we arrive at an arch that stretches over an otherwise unremarkable section of road. Jade and Snowberry refuse to follow me though it, and I realize that we are very near the Skyrim-Hammerfell-Cyrodiil border. For some reason, I find myself, like my friend and my horse, unable to go further: it is almost as though I am blocked by an invisible wall--but this sensation is surely the work of my own fancy. Might not this “wall” be an obstruction built up entirely in Nona’s mind? She lives in Skyrim now; she has no desire to venture into unknown Hammerfell or return to familiar Cyrodiil--in fact, she has objections to both. Her home is here--somewhere--and she is bound to find it eventually. An orc charges us, sword swinging, as we head back east, and despite my exaggerated caution (I am, as usual, reluctant to strike for fear of hitting Jade as she and our opponent circle each other), we manage to kill him. Another pointless death--what is it that drives these anonymous orcs and high elves and others to forsake their communities and friends and attack random strangers? What would it take to reduce someone like me to a state of such mindless aggression--catastrophic career failure? The tragic, accidental death of my dear friend Jade? The loss of my horse? I have a brief, terrifying vision of a future in which Nona, maddened by grief, clad in weirdly mismatched armor and now known only as “Imperial,” assaults some innocent stranger in a senseless explosion of violence. Southeast of Falkreath, a bridge hangs over the road, suspended between a pair of wooden watchtowers. Seeing no guards in attendance, I crouch suspiciously in a shadow nearby while I scan the area for bandits. Jade’s powers of observation prove superior to mine: she’s already running toward one of the towers by the time I’ve spotted the man that provoked her. He activates a device at one end of the bridge, causing a trapdoor to drop; large black boulders tumble down onto the road, missing both me and Jade--me because I am still a considerable distance away, and Jade because she is already well to the side. But the man who released them seems to lose his balance while aiming his bow; he topples off the bridge, falls to the road, and is crushed by one of his own boulders. Jade and I wait tensely for a few moments, but nobody else appears on the bridge or the towers. Approaching carefully, I find the reason why--directly beneath the bridge lies a second bandit crushed under a rock. Not only was the first fellow stupid enough to die in his own booby-trap, but he had very likely seen the same thing happen to the last guy. It’s getting late, though--having liberated these watchtowers without the ugly necessity of unsheathing our weapons, we’re left with little time to enjoy the view, and head back to town rather than camping out. It’s raining quite hard when I get up the next day, so I spend the morning divided between mushroom experiments at Grave Concoctions and smithing practice at Lod’s forge. But I soon get bored in town; I’m not finding anyone new to talk to, so I sell my potions, browse the general store, and then off I go exploring again, despite the weather. Jade and I find a dilapidated fortress to the west of Falkreath; turning north to avoid it, we discover a shack that my naming instinct tells me belongs to someone named Lorne. This Lorne, an alcoholic judging from the number of mead bottles piled on and near his bed, is nowhere about, and though his place appears to be otherwise well-kept, it is not sufficiently rainproof to tempt me to wait around hoping to meet him. As we leave the shack, a black-robed necromancer and a dead-eyed Imperial woman come running out of the woods to attack us. The battle gives us little trouble--this wizard, like the other spellcasters we have fought so far, favors frost magic, which Jade (being a Nord) is highly resistant to; she has no difficulty keeping him occupied while I dispatch the woman, who turns out to be a reanimated thrall. Her master goes down soon after, and I spend a mournful moment contemplating my nameless former countrywoman, who was wearing a ragged outfit similar to what I had on when I first arrived, and in death has become no more than a faintly-glowing pile of dust. Here, perhaps, is the worst possible fate that might befall someone like me, given sufficiently bad luck: even the mindlessly aggressive, exclusively-race-identified thugs that I’ve encountered near roadsides have more dignity than this poor soul. Not far from where the bodies fell, we find a rough stone bench; it’s covered in gruesome remains, but there’s also a book, 2920, Frostfall, v10, that I make the mistake of reading. In thoroughly uninspired prose, it tells part of the story of a man so bitterly embarrassed by his own failures that he tricks a coven of witches into participating in a (surely ill-advised) plot to kill his former lord, the living god Vivec, who was one of the rulers of Morrowind in the Third Era. (It also improves my Conjuring skill.) I don’t know what, exactly, makes this book dangerous, but its position on this altar tells me that it is, and for a moment I consider removing it as a sort of public service (Nona saves the world from lackluster reading material, one volume at a time!). In the end, though, I decide that I would rather not have the nasty tome in my possession. Further on from the altar is a large, raised mound, and as I am speculating as to its purpose I notice a green, glowing figure in the distance. I’m developing a truly annoying and dangerous habit of continuing to gawk at things even as Jade starts to panic: it turns out that there are two green, glowing figures, neither of them disposed to be friendly. One of them sends a stream of glowing motes toward me that, as I turn and flee, causes my health to drain at an alarming rate. I run as fast as I can, chugging healing potions as I go. Nona is no sprinter--all of her efforts at physical improvement go into bolstering her health, which seems only reasonable, given how many poisonous ingredients she eats experimentally--and in almost no time at all she is utterly exhausted and the spriggan(s) are still chasing her. She gets hit with another draining attack, chugs healing and stamina potions, keeps running. It feels as though I’ve been running forever as I arrive back in Falkreath; I must have consumed a good third of my supply of restoratives. Jade soon catches up, and we stand in the rain, catching our breath.
It’s only my first night camping out, and I’m already bored silly. Unless I can find something to occupy my evenings, I’m not sure how I’ll cope. I suppose I could just sleep for 12 hours at a stretch, but that seems like a waste, and there’s no piece of equipment I can make or buy--no pocket alchemy lab or portable anvil--that could help me fill this time productively. (I know I’m starting to sound like some sort of obnoxious workaholic here, and there’s not a lot to say in my defense, although I did consider bringing some books with me. But even that wouldn’t help, as time in the game freezes when you open one.) The man letting us share his fire--a fisherman I’ve come to know only as “Fisherman”--is friendly enough, but not the most stimulating conversationalist. (His years of fishing in these parts have apparently left him with nothing to say; perhaps he’s been alone for so long that he no longer knows how to entertain a pair of young ladies.) It’s too dark to swim or gather ingredients, and I’ve already heard Jade’s entire life story several times. Not that it’s all bad--it’s a lovely night. The stars are out, the weather is calm, and we’re camped on a little island in the lake west of Riverwood. I could hardly have asked for a more idyllic spot. Unfortunately, it’s hard to lie on the ground so as to stare wistfully up at all those tiny points of light in the infinite expanse of Oblivion when the camera insists on pointing down at me whenever I try it. It wasn’t my intention to go camping at all; Jade and I started out towards Falkreath this morning, and I was intending to stay on horseback at least until we reached Riverwood--I had already denuded the roadside plants growing between the two settlements of their blooms, after all. But the absence of flowers didn’t seem to have reduced the butterfly population, so naturally I climbed down from Snowberry’s back to catch some. As a result, our progress was exceedingly slow, and stymied by further delays--I stopped off at Embershard Mine to chop more wood (I’ll eventually need fuel, and it’s not possible to gather wood from fallen trees), and I also wanted to avoid the road that goes through Helgen (what with the rumors of a dragon in the area), which meant that we would be taking a somewhat longer route. Much to my regret, I made one further detour: I followed a side-path up a hill in search of a cottage that my instincts suggested lay in that direction, and found instead the scene of a horrific crime--four dead people, men and women, all apparently murdered in the act of worshiping at a shrine of Talos. The offerings placed about the statue’s feet seemed undisturbed, and some of the worshipers had coin in their purses--details that argued against the slaughter’s being the work of common bandits, and toward a conclusion that I didn’t much care to contemplate. As much as I’ve been hearing about the atrocities of the Thalmor, I might yet have believed that even they would have qualms about leaving their victims--however objectionable their beliefs--out to rot like this. But it does me little good to turn this appalling scene over and over in my mind; am I shocked? Certainly. Will I investigate this massacre and bring the perpetrator(s) to justice? Hardly. There is nothing that I, Nona, can do to end religious persecution in Skyrim; that is a task for someone made of sterner stuff. I can but content myself with the thought that should I ever meet such a person, I will inform them of these matters; I will, when I find this individual, do exactly as any conscientious, dyed-in-the-wool non-player character should. I will beg. I will plead. And, if necessary, I will hire a player character whom I have just met to handle everything. ... If the conversational option is there. It was clear by the time we had returned to the main road that we would not reach Falkreath before dark. We might have camped easily enough by roadside--I had enough supplies that a fire would not have been absolutely necessary--but a late-afternoon swim in the lake led me to Fisherman and his campfire, and we were able to rest in relative comfort. We don’t have a lot of ground to cover the next day, but the inhabitants of Skyrim do their best to make those last few miles as difficult as possible. Strictly speaking, our first assailants don’t qualify as inhabitants, as they are only animated skeletons: nevertheless they attack fiercely, and, as far as we can tell, independently--I see nobody who might have created or be directing them. One of the skeletons carries a well-made shield, and I pick it up (my first piece of, how you say, loot)--I don’t like to take people’s belongings, even dead people’s belongings, but a skeleton is more like a thing than a person. Even so, it was a person once, a person whose remains have been subjected to.... The shield falls from my hands. Hasn’t this body been violated enough already? The next person who wishes to express violent opposition to our reaching Falkreath is a high elf. He engulfs Jade in a cloud of magical frost while I shuffle from side to side with my bow drawn and Jade dodges back and forth blocking my shots. To my shame, she ends up killing him almost without assistance. (And here I thought we had an understanding that she was to be an even less capable fighter than I.) Perhaps I should make a better weapon for her. By mid-morning, a thick fog has settled over the region; we reach Falkreath around noon. The very first man I see who is not a guard asks me to deliver some ashes to Runil, the priest of Arkay; apparently, dealing with human remains is so much a part of daily life here that Thadgeir thinks nothing of asking a complete stranger to help. I stop briefly at the general store, where Solaf, an ex-Stormcloak, warns me about his brother, who hates everybody. Solaf’s inventory is practically overflowing with tempting articles: I buy a new pair of boots, some groceries, a tinderbox, and, most extravagantly, an enormous wheel of goat cheese. For some reason my pleasure in making this last purchase exceeds even my elation at obtaining a tinderbox without having to find troll fat. And then Solaf ruins it all by telling me that, if I steal anything from his store, I’ll regret it. (After I’ve bought over a hundred septims worth of stuff from him!) Stepping jauntily out the door in my new boots, I find my way down to the graveyard, where Runil is conducting a rite for a grieving couple’s 9-year-old child. I watch from a respectful distance until he is finished before offering my sympathies to the parents. The father, Mathies, tells me the gruesome details of his daughter’s murder with so little reserve as to provide sure indication that the end of his sorry tale holds a quest. I forbear asking who tore his little girl limb from limb, therefore; my errand gives me a convenient excuse to take my leave. I deliver the ashes to Runil at his home, accepting a generous cash reward and refusing to retrieve the journal he “left in a cave” (dare I ask? NO!), before having a chat with Melea Entius, a woman who has come to pray to Arkay. She is obviously very ill, and relates her sad history to me--how she became afflicted with an incurable and terminal disease, how she lost her husband. She is remarkably stoic, concerned only that her daughter Henrietta, whom Mathies and his wife Indara have agreed to care for when she passes, will forget her. I suggest that she write Henrietta a letter, and she thanks me profusely for this simple idea, asking me whether I wouldn’t mind checking in on the child once in a while. I can hardly refuse such a request. I meet Jerulith, a severely handsome Altmer woman dressed in Thalmor robes, whose coldly hostile manner would be more than enough to dissuade me from further conversation, were my memory of the scene at the Talos shrine not a scab demanding to be picked at. But she assumes, perhaps rightly, that my desire to talk must necessarily result from a wish to vent my hatred--and, her voice dripping with sarcasm, goes on to list so many possible crimes for which I might hold her responsible that I soon find myself hating her very earnestly indeed. I finish my tour of Falkreath at the mill, where Bolund, Salof’s unpleasant brother, declares that he can’t believe that provincials like me are allowed to wander Skyrim. I stare in disbelief. Provincials? Did he just--that I--I’ll give you “provincial,” you illiterate, backward, axe-faced northern goat-turd! Let the Thalmor have your snow-covered, bandit-ridden, pyscho-wolf-infested--aaaah. Deep breath, Nona. Tight smile, brisk nod, back away quietly. Smile, nod, back away.... I manage to calm myself at Grave Concoctions, the local alchemist’s shop, owned by a Redguard named Zaria. At her table I discover an interesting new property or two; I also discover that a single dose of troll fat costs more than my tinderbox. I discover no new formula as profitable as my conjuring-enhancing magic-suppressant (BUY NOW!), but selling my latest batch of mixtures does improve my Speech and get me to level 8. I have time for some smithing before dark, and I chat with Lod, the local smith, and his apprentice Isobel, a fellow Imperial who tells me that she’s on a sort of smithing pilgrimage--apparently her family is famous for its smiths, and her personal quest is to prove herself worthy to inherit the family forge, which is blessed with its own guardian spirit. She’s actually a little ambivalent about the whole thing: back home, she will be making fancy items for nobles, when she would rather make weapons for the use of warriors and heroes. I feel more than a touch of envy: how wonderful it would be if, having mastered the alchemist’s trade in Skyrim, I were able to return to a shop back home, a prestigious shop, complete with its own benevolent haunt. I shouldn’t at all mind working for the nobility; let them use my drugs to hide their disfigurements or poison their enemies or make their offspring fall in love with appropriate marriage candidates--a safe, lucrative business would fulfill all my fondest wishes. For a town in which death seems so close, Falkreath is certainly crowded with the living; the inn, Dead Man’s Drink, is packed. A woman named Narri says that I’m going to have the men here wrapped around my finger in no time. I’m concerned at first that her sight might be failing, but the little girl, Henrietta, tells me that Narri says something of this sort to everyone. A distinguished old man, Dengeir of Stuhn, is so wary of Imperial spies that he tries to get me to spy for him. (So--by complaining about Imperial spies he actually hopes to recruit one. Clever. Very clever.) Finally, knowing I shouldn’t, I talk to Jerulith again, to hear why she is no longer with the Thalmor: she explains that she had a disagreement with Ondolemar, her superior in Markarth, whom she found insufficiently ruthless. She had suggested that an entire Talos-worshiping family be put to death, including the children, though her colleagues thought that children, being malleable, ought to be spared. When the entire family was murdered--nobody knows by whom--Ondolemar decided to blame Jerulith, whose opinion on the matter was well-known, and paint her as a rogue agent. In this manner he disposed of her, appeased the Jarl, and stoked the general fear of the Thalmor, which from his point of view was all to the good. Worse and worse. Even we non-player characters should learn to keep our stupid mouths shut once in a while.
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.
The next morning I head to Belethor’s and persuade him to buy a case of my brand-new all-natural hand-made certified-effective true-blue micro-nutritive conjuring-enhancing magic-suppressant*. After making the sale, I find that I now have over 2000 septims--even with the food prices being what they are, that’s potentially enough for me to live on for weeks! Perhaps I should work on my smithing. I’ve been neglecting this skill, because it’s expensive to train--unlike with alchemy, the cost of the materials is considerably higher than the returns you get from selling finished equipment, at least at the beginning. And I’m certainly not looking for a second career; real non-player characters don’t have multiple professions. But a certain amount of smithing would be very useful--because a proper alchemist shouldn’t just buy preserved ingredients from apothecaries, I feel; she should travel through the different regions of Skyrim, learning where the various plants grow and how they look in their natural state, and gather them by hand in the wilderness. And wilderness travel means hunting opportunities, and hunting is fun, and if I’m going to be any good at hunting I’ll eventually need better equipment. This seems as good an excuse as any to pour my hard-earned money into a bottomless hole, so I wile away the morning at Warmaiden’s, making daggers out of iron ingots purchased from Adrianne. She watches me work for a while, and eventually asks me to deliver a sword that she made as a gift for the Jarl to her father, Proventus. Ever willing to take on a task that is unlikely to provide me with any undue excitement (even if Adrianne is probably using it as an excuse to get me away from her forge) I make the climb up to Dragonsreach. In the palace I find that little--perhaps even as little as nothing--has changed since yesterday. Which might seem unsurprising if it weren’t for the fact that the Jarl and his advisors are still engaged in their private discussion--in fact, they don’t appear to have moved. This is surely a false impression on my part, I eventually conclude; they can’t possibly have been there all night. I manage to take Proventus aside for a moment so as to hand over the sword. He tips me 20 septims--not much, but it’s not as though I’m hurting for cash at the moment. I stroll back down through the city with Jade, chatting a little here and there. It soon becomes clear that none of the people I’ve done little favors for have fallen madly in love with me; I’ll have to widen my circle of acquaintance once again. I’m also eager to get out of the city for a while: the weather is still fine, and I must have spoken to just about everyone in Whiterun by now (there are, no doubt, a few Battle-Borns and Gray-Manes that I have yet to interact with, but I can’t always tell one from another). I put on my armor, therefore, and head out to the stables to collect Snowberry, who seems to have been looked after well enough. The weather gets grey and thundery as we start along the road to the east and south. The journey is peaceful enough--we run into some Imperial soldiers escorting a prisoner with bound hands, and then some of the usual psychotic wolves, but nothing to give us any trouble. I am frequently distracted from my mushroom-collecting by deer and elk that go running into the river as if to drown themselves rather than be subjected to another mildly painful shot from my bow, which is very frustrating; they often don’t come up again. It doesn’t take us long to reach Riverwood, a small but well-appointed town to the south of Whiterun. (There’s a blacksmith and a general store.) It’s still early, and the woods are lovely, and I’m not about to waste all of that earliness and loveliness by heading inside just yet, so I park Snowberry outside the inn and continue exploring, following the bank of the river. Spotting another large elk, I crouch and shoot; as usual, it runs into the water--but it actually comes up again on the other side, and, amazingly, it hasn’t spotted me. I fire another arrow, and it dies. Two shots! I feel almost competent! But that glow of efficiency doesn’t last long, because getting across the river to claim my quarry proves to be a problem. It’s fast-flowing and deeper than it looks, and whenever I go in I get swept downstream so quickly that I’m afraid of going over the falls before I can reach the opposite bank. (At least Snowberry isn’t with me.) I make it only after several attempts that take an embarrassingly long time. But still--meat and hide, from an animal I killed, by stealth, using only two arrows. I turn around to Jade, internally beaming with pride (Nona’s actual face stays fixed in its permanently stunned expression, of course). She’s not there: perhaps she tried to follow me across the river and got swept away. It takes me a little while to find her. She’s still on the other side, engaged in a peculiar stand-off with a wolf on my side. They’re staring intently at each other from opposite banks, each looking ready to pounce at a moment’s notice if only there weren’t this torrent of water inconveniently in the way. It’s such an amusing sight that I shoot the wolf only with the greatest reluctance. After I’ve rejoined Jade on her side of the river, our wanderings bring us to a cave. My mysterious naming instinct is unusually silent on the subject of this cave, which probably indicates that it’s a back entrance to something. It doesn’t look especially threatening--there are no body parts on spikes or conspicuous magical apparatus outside--so I venture in to see whether there are any mushrooms near the entrance. At this point I’m informed that its name is Embershard Mine, but it doesn’t look as though it’s in use--as a mine, at least. There are little arrangements of bones dangling from the ceiling on strings, like crib mobiles intended to amuse baby necromancers. And there are no mushrooms. Jade and I decide to take the prudent course and get out of there immediately. The sun is going down as we return to Riverwood. An old woman insists that she saw a dragon. Fearing that she might be correct, I don’t ask her about it. I stop by the general store, where the proprietor is arguing with his sister over what sounds suspiciously like an opportunity for adventure--a valuable object was stolen from his shop--so I ignore their conversation and sell him several bottles of my soon-to-be-patented-when-patent-laws-are-invented potion*, and I buy one thing from him: another outfit. Finally, a new dress! Well, new-ish. Why does everything come pre-stained? Is it something to do with why clothes are so much cheaper than food? In the Sleeping Giant Inn, I meet an impressive Redguard warrior named Gorr, who informs me in a deep, ruminative voice that he’s killed more men than there are minutes in a day. When I find out that these kills took place in an Imperial arena, and not, as I might have feared, on the streets of an Imperial city, I’m somewhat reassured. It turns out that his primary interest is in trying new foods, which might have been something we could bond over were it not for the fact that he’s developed a hankering to sample some dragon steak. Mistaking me (as people do) for a person of similar sensibility, he expresses a willingness to join me, but I feel that such a partnership could only end up disappointing him. (And, needless to say, I probably wouldn’t like him when he’s disappointed.) Also in the Sleeping Giant is a young fellow named Hjoromir who offers to buff my shoes, wash my tunic, carry my belongings, deliver my letters, and whatever else I might want done that requires no professional skill. He tells me that he’s held a variety of jobs--as a farmhand, kitchenhand, blacksmith’s assistant, laborer--but his bosses have always been disappointed with his performance. Which is of little concern to him, because his mind is always on the subject of adventuring. He has gone on so many adventures and fought so many battles in his mind that his confidence in his ability to do the real thing is quite unshakeable. I’m impressed despite myself; this young, bright-eyed incompetent might make an even better companion for me than Jade! But I can’t have two companions at once, and it wouldn’t be right to abandon Jade so far from her home--nor would it be entirely appropriate for Nona to travel with a young man. But I do wish I had someone to wash the stains out of my clothes. If only it were possible. *Made with equipment that is also used to process fish, shellfish, eggs, wheat, human remains, and maybe tree nuts if I ever find any.
Farewell, Last Seed! It’s Morndas, the first day of Heartfire, and despite the beautiful clear weather I decide to stay within Whiterun’s walls--I’m still a little shaken after yesterday’s narrow escape. Jade and I walk around the city, therefore, looking for new people to pester. A Redguard couple argues about a lost heirloom that the husband wants to retrieve and the wife would rather he gave up on; a little girl bullies a little boy. The sunlight casts an aura of warm benevolence over everything, and these squabbles seem as slight as the chirping of birds in the background. I find myself noticing instead how many little memorials for fallen warriors there are around Whiterun: each stone attended by candles, with its former owner’s shield leaning upon it. The things you notice when you never move above walking speed. I run into Danica Pure-Spring, priestess of Kynareth, and talk to her about the Gildegreen, a magical tree in the center of Whiterun that apparently used to be rather splendid. It is dry and dying now, and she tells me that restoring it would require securing a drop of sap from the parent tree by piercing its otherwise impenetrable bark with a vile dagger that is guarded by hagravens. Danica says she would have attempted to do this herself, were she not terrified of such monsters. They terrify me no less, I’m sure. (In fact I start laughing--I actually burst into laughter as I try to picture timid, ineffectual Nona attempting this elaborate task.) Unfortunately, a quest update has already wormed its way into my journal, forever to remind me of my inadequacy. And I realize that, limited as Nona’s ambitions are, and no matter how successful she eventually may become in her own small way, there is one small accomplishment that she craves but never will achieve--to be treated by other NPCs as one of their own. No matter how modest, how humble, how ordinary she may be, they will always see her as Other. In the Hall of the Dead--it’s not the obvious place to go to for lively conversation, but the memorials have piqued my curiosity, and talking to Danica has left me feeling sober and pensive--I meet Iria, who speaks in a dispassionate monotone about her extensive researches into the arts of healing and the causes of death. Fortunately she enlivens this dreary disquisition with the occasional joke (delivered with no more affect than her lectures on morbidity). She describes how efforts to study healing led her at one point to experiment on animals, but the distress she was causing them (and especially the noises they made) eventually induced her to give up the practice. (“It’s as if they don’t understand the concept of research,” she tells me impassively. “Another jest.”) She now experiments exclusively on herself, she informs me. But medical research does not consume her attention entirely: she has also developed a lively admiration for Jon Battle-Born, although she refuses to go into detail about her feelings. (And what a shame! I should very much have enjoyed hearing her express her girlish hopes and doubts in that same dull monotone.) I also talk to Andurs, the priest of Arkay, who has left his amulet somewhere in the catacombs and wants me to retrieve it. I tell him with some alarm that I won’t do this, and he declares with an air of stern disappointment that Arkay may forgive me ... eventually. That my refusal should excite the god’s displeasure strikes me as grossly unfair; after all, Andurs is the one who was careless enough to lose his holy amulet, not I. Nevertheless I am made uneasy by the words of this priest, and I make sure to offer a prayer to the god before leaving. Nothing seems amiss, though; Arkay grants me his blessing. My wanderings next bring me to Jorrvaskr, where Jade and I and several of the Companions participate in the traditional Nord pastime of watching two people engage in a vicious fistfight, complete with shouted insults and death threats. After it’s over, I try to talk to the participants and to those who have gathered around to watch, but nobody is especially friendly. (Perhaps I have seriously violated local custom by turning up to an important fistfight without being invited or bringing a gift.) Returning to the marketplace, I find Jon Battle-Born leaning on a post. I’m reminded of Iria, and it occurs to me that Jon could do far worse--she may be a little severe, and somewhat lacking in vocal expression, but she’s not unattractive in her gaunt-faced way, and she seems like a conscientious person. I’m trying to decide how best to drop a few gentle hints when Jon suddenly opines that the problem with Skyrim these days is that everyone is obsessed with death. Poor Iria! This doesn’t bode at all well for her prospects with him. Carlotta Valentia complains that Mikael the bard’s attentions are getting obnoxious, and that men in general won’t leave her alone. For some reason, I don’t envy her, perhaps because I haven’t yet met any man in Whiterun whose attentions would please me (except for Jon Battle-Born, but he doesn’t seem interested in anyone). There is perhaps the possibility of Carlotta herself: I could offer to talk to Mikael for her, not that she really seems to need the help--because you never know when a little favor might be rewarded with a marriage proposal. (This is Skyrim, after all.) Carlotta insists that no man is going to come between her and her daughter. I wonder how she might feel about a woman coming between--well, never mind; let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t feel like going into the Bannered Mare to talk--or listen--to Mikael right now. It’s too nice outside. Continuing generally upward, I explore to Dragonsreach, where I find the Jarl in conference with his advisors; his Dunmer housecarl tells me that he isn’t receiving visitors, and I’m more than happy to go unreceived. I enter a side-chamber to speak with Farengar, the court wizard, who does not seem to be a part of the deliberations. I buy a Healing Hands spellbook from him--now I’ll be able to heal Jade, should I ever have the presence of mind to do so when she really needs it. Farengar asks me to take some frost salts to Arcadia for him, and I cheerfully head down to her shop. Arcadia, upon receiving the salts, says something about a love brew, perhaps to be tested on Farengar; I pretend to be too absorbed in my own potionmaking to hear this. Speaking of which, my Alchemy skill has climbed to 30--it’s really coming along. I emerge from Arcadia’s to find that time has really slipped by--I could have sworn it was not so late in the day, but it sure got dark all of a sudden. There’s so much more to do in and around Whiterun, but it’s time to head back to the Bannered Mare. I see no new faces, but the regulars are all there when I arrive, including Carlotta and Mikael. I stay in the common room for a while, acting on a prurient desire to see some sort of juicy altercation happen between them, but none occurs. Something is in the air in Whiterun: Carlotta and Mikael, Iria and Jon, Arcadia and Farengar, Larkspur and anything female with a pulse--there’s unhealthy or doomed romance everywhere you look. But for me, there is only dinner, bad music, and bed.
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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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