Skyrim Day 037 - What's Old is New Again

21 Heartfire, 4E201

Wilderness

~~~

Can no one do anything for themselves in this province? Maybe I am being a bit harsh, but today I have risked my life for very little, visited a place I have already been to, and am now ending the day in a freezing, broken tower with almost nothing to show for my troubles and discomfort. Meanwhile, the reason I am out here is probably settling down to a nice supper at a comfortable table in a heated hall. I must remember to murder Enthir when I next get the chance.

Before leaving the College this morning I dumped the engraved plaque I had taken from Bleak Falls Barrow and asked Tolfdir to take a look at it, maybe show it around a bit, try to figure out just what the thing actually is. The dragon's head on the plaque closely matches the engravings I have been seeing just before ancient, useless words are burned into my head, but I cannot quite make the connection between the two.

I had not planned on staying at the College today and I happened to run into Arniel as he was heading to breakfast, so I asked him if there was anything else he needed for his experiment. I really should have expected that he did. Unfortunately for me, what he needed could only be acquired through Enthir, my rapidly least-favorite individual at the College.

Enthir could provide what Arniel needed...for a price, of course. I was ready to hand over any number of Septims just to avoid another droll task from the slippery Bosmer, but the cost of his assistance was the retrieval of yet another piece of merchandise he parted with too hastily. The job was no more attractive for the fact that the staff had made its way to Fellglow Keep, the place where the late Orthorn had stolen away to with the College's books and where I was sent two weeks ago to undo that little event. 

Apparently more necromancers had moved in and started delicately sourcing magical items for some sort of ritual. Enthir, never one to turn his nose up at profit, sold one of their number a staff that he was now having seller's remorse over. He asked that I travel to the ruined keep and bring back the staff. The survival of his former customers was not a concern. I also strangled him right then and there. I wish I had.

And so it was back into the hills of north Skyrim. I passed by a wrecked horse-and-cart and its former occupants, all of them frozen solid into the ground.

Continuing along the rough-hewn path I came upon a shrine of some sort built up against the mountainside. There were mages examining the shrine's wall, but when I drew closer one of them shouted and started flinging spells at me.

I was very quickly engaged by four mages and spent a lovely time running and jumping all over the place, firing my bow when I could between the giant icicles and fireballs they threw at me. Eventually the last of them fell into the snow clutching an arrow sticking from his chest and I returned to the shrine to see what it was that interested them.

Unaccustomed to finding the things outside, I realized too late that it was another teaching-wall and before I could get away I had a terrific headache and the knowledge of how to spell "ice" in a language no one else is using. Very useful.

Cursing my luck and curiosity I resolved to waste no further time in getting to Fellglow Keep and immediately broke my own promise. Trudging along the road I heard two people arguing and just had to know what it was they were angry about. Their names were Salma and Beem-Ja, a Redguard and Argonian. They were undecided as to whether they should enter the barrow they were camping in front of, but my arrival emboldened the adventurers and they dove inside, calling for me to follow.

The two of them dealt with the spiders and Draugr that infested the barrow and we soon came upon a rather imposing dome of granite. They paid my warnings no heed and rushed up the stairs and inside what I knew to be the tomb of whomever the barrow had been dug for.

The barrow's owner, a hulking seven-foot armored Draugr, was not pleased to have visitors.

In its bony hand the Draugr wielded an Ebony blade, guaranteed to lop off an arm or a leg with a single blow. Against this and his retinue of skeleton archers I had a brave but rather inexperienced Redguard warrior and an Argonian mage above us. Beem-Ja was actually very helpful, killing the skeleton archers with bolts of lightning before turning his magicka against the Draugr Salma and I were dancing around.

The Draugr fell and Salma re-joined Beem-Ja above the little pit we had been fighting in, but they started arguing almost immediately, so I walked back to them to see what the trouble was after their victory.

Their trouble turned out to be the small matter of Beem-Ja announcing he would kill us both and use our blood to enact a ritual designed to siphon the Draugr's power into his own body. I have no idea why these sort of plans are always boastfully declared beforehand. The Argonian had hardly stopped speaking before my battle-ax cleaved his skull in two, greatly startling Salma. Understandable she was very upset and tearfully made an announcement of her own: a retirement from adventuring and a return to her father's home in High Rock. I wished her well and began to walk past the Draugr's ancient throne, when my head exploded.

I had not even noticed the wall of runes this time. A blast of pain and another word: "Fade", spoken and written in the ancient style. Two words in the same day and I could barely see for the pain lancing through my skull. I stumbled out of the barrow and back outside, the sunlight elevating my headache to new, undiscovered heights.

Fortunately the pain diminished somewhat to a dull hammering by the time I found the road again and when a thief jumped out of the bushes demanding my money I irritably asked him to look at the ax on my belt and reconsider his demand. He fled, wisely.

Fellglow Keep had not changed in the two weeks since I had last seen it and I remembered the layout quite well, enabling me to slay the entire group of wayward mages with not a single alarm or shout. Enthir's staff was in a chest stuffed into an alcove at the back of the ruin. When I exited Fellglow it was already night and I decided to investigate the two towers that spanned the river nearby. If they were still abandoned from the last time I visited I would stay there for the night, saving myself an hour's walk in the dark with my head feeling like it was about to split open.

Luck finally showed its hand to me today for the towers were free of inhabitants. I chose the least-frozen bedroll in the least-ruined of the two towers and am not looking forward to a very cold night. Still, I know I will fall asleep eventually and feel all the better for it tomorrow morning, frozen or not. 

Skyrim Day 022 - Just Books?

6 Heartfire, 4E201

Whiterun

~~~

"Find Mirabelle" was the only task I had from the College's Arch-Mage before he left for Saarthal in order to speak with Tolfdir about the metal egg. So after another quick breakfast I started the day as I did yesterday: wandering around a largely deserted school.

I did not have to wander long before I nearly ran into Mirabelle inside the 'Hall of Elements'. I asked her what she knew of the Psijic Order and received information I already knew. She was even less helpful with the business underneath Saarthal and told me to speak with Urag gro-Shub instead.

Urag demanded to know why I had not returned with the 'Hanging Gardens' and I had to point out that I only learned of it yesterday and have so far been too involved with my studies at the College to allow for a trip to Morthal. He begrudgingly agreed and asked what brought me back to the library. When I told him I needed books about Saarthal he sighed and told me that he did not have any books on the subject.

But he used to. A former student named 'Orthorn' had taken several books from the College as he sneaked out some time ago seeking to join a band of necromancers practicing their art at a ruined castle called 'Fellglow Keep', near Whiterun.

On my way out of the College I was accosted by Ancano, the Thalmor which Faralda had warned me of yesterday. He wanted to know what Tolfdir and I had found under Saarthal, but the only response I had was the honest one: I did not know. He assumed I was lying and cautioned me about the consequences of betraying the Thalmor. I wonder what he would have said if I had told him I was already wanted by his particular organization.

The walk from Winterhold to Fellglow Keep was surprisingly without incident. I passed a large fortress apparently garrisoned by the undead and spoke with a patrol of Imperial Legionnaires for a few minutes, but was spared the bandits, assassins, and wolves my journeys are normally plagued by.

The exterior of Fellglow Keep was guarded only by a single necromancer and his Flame Atronach, neither of which felt the crossbow bolts that ended their lives. I could not open the main door to the Keep, but a few minutes of searching revealed a second door dug into the earth that, for some reason, opened into a small prison area. Why the Keep has a second entrance no more than thirty feet from the first one is a mystery, but it saved me the trouble of waiting outside until someone else's shift came up.

This entrance was guarded by another necromancer just as easily felled by a bolt, plus two giant spiders, each of which I sent tumbling down the stairs with more shots from my faithful crossbow. The jail cells were occupied by eerily calm vampires, all of which I was perfectly okay with leaving captive. Further on were more vampires, all dead and horribly mutilated. This was the group Orthorn hoped to win over with the gift of books.

I found the naive Orthorn in a cell of his own next to a cage of wolves. One does not have to wonder as to what his eventual fate would have been. He expressed relief at the College having sent someone to rescue him, but I replied that he had been written off by the College, I had only been sent to retrieve the books. He begged to be let free either way and I could not abandon him to dehydration or starvation. Freed, he promised to make up for his transgression by helping me fight the remaining necromancers.

As for the books, the leader of the necromancers who he knew as the 'Caller' were in possession of them, but for what reason he did not know.

Orthorn proved surprisingly skilled in a fight and was able to summon Atronachs of his own as well as wield fire and lightning magicka. Alas, he fell in battle against two foes after recklessly charging ahead of me into a room where he was cornered and overpowered before I could assist. I will report to the College that he fell bravely in battle, which is only the truth, after all.

This 'Caller' leader was waiting for me in behind a locked door in a room seemingly redesigned as a summoning chamber of some kind. She accused me of taking her hospitality for granted, which elevated her from 'deluded' to 'insane' in my eyes and then summoned three Flame Atronachs to distract me while she flung fire and ice all of the room.

I ignored the Atronachs as best I could and chased after her relentlessly. Every time I struck her she managed to teleport to another corner of the room, but eventually the sum of my blows started to tell and she collapsed, her Atronachs extinguishing as she did.

The books I had killed to retrieve were on pedestals placed around the room to some unknown purpose. One of the books is about Saarthal and its "Night of Tears" when the Elves attacked Saarthal only to be repelled with heavy losses on both sides. The book questions what reason the Elves would have had to provoke such an attack, but I do think Tolfdir and I have answered at least part of the question.

As always it was late in the evening when I stepped back outside and I decided to stay at Whiterun for the night rather than walk all the way back to the College in the dark.

Other than witnessing the end of a fight between a vampire and two guards the walk from Fellglow Keep was just as boring as the walk to it was. I paid my ten Septims at the Bannered Mare and will be returning to the College in the morning. I may make a brief stop near Morthal for Urag's book on my way there.