A Long Way From Home - A Skyrim AAR [updated 20th May 2018]

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Merchant, you're very generous. Thank you.

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to you. Real life and a cold have kept me away from TWC for a while, sadly. The good news (at least, I hope it's good news!) is that I have a couple of chapters already written, so once I've sorted out some pictures, I should be able to get this moving again without having to take the time to write a chapter first.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Training

After last night, I remember why I had started to think buying a house was a good idea. Or at least, why staying at the Bannered Mare, with its all-night Skyrim-style-karaoke-and-bar-brawl entertainment, was a bad idea. Maybe I don't need to buy a house, though – it's still not as if I'm staying long. Maybe I can find somewhere to rent. First things first, though. I have to find these “Companions” Shulgak mentioned, and see if they'll train me. I also need to keep practising magic, or the wizards won't talk to me; perhaps I should see if Farengar can teach me – or sell me – some new spells. And all of that is going to take money, so I need to find a way of earning money, too. It's going to be a busy day…

- - -

Well, finding the Companions was easy. I asked a guard. It's hard to tell with those helmets most of them wear, but I rather think he gave me one of those looks you give to really stupid people, and then pointed to the huge building at the top of the steps behind me. I've liked that building ever since I first saw it, but it's a strange-looking thing, like an upturned Viking ship. It even has shields decorating it! Getting in to see the Companions was also easy – you just walk in. In my case, right into the middle of a fight.

Nobody seemed particularly bothered by the fighting. The long tables set by the huge firepit in the middle of the room bore plates filled with food and jugs presumably filled with drink, and people sat at the tables, eating and drinking calmly. People wandered in and out of the building's doors, or chatted to each other as if no chairs were being overturned nearby, and nobody had just been thrown over one of the room's low balustrades. I heard shouts of encouragement and advice – I think for both participants – and I'm sure I heard someone say “They're not fighting again, are they?” but apart from that, people seemed to be just going about their normal business. Since their 'normal business' – even eating and drinking – seemed to involve being heavily armoured and carrying lots of weapons, I stayed by the door, hoping I'd be out of the way, until a huge, bearded man carrying a mug (of ale, by the smell) spotted me and came over.

“Don't mind them.” He nodded at the fighters. “They say it keeps them in good practice. I say it gets in my way. Are you here with a job for us?”

Slightly intimidated by the sheer bulk of the man, I explained I'd been hoping they could train me to fight a bit better so I could travel round Skyrim without needing a bodyguard.

“You should speak to Kodlak. He's downstairs in his office –” he waved his mug in the direction of a staircase behind the – still ongoing – fight. “Kodlak decides who we recruit.”

“No, I don't want to join. I just want to be trained...”

“If you want training, you join. After that, you can decide not to accept any work from us, if you want. But we don't train people we wouldn't have at our sides in a battle.”

Well, that was a blow. If Shulgak's views were anything to go by, nobody would want me at their side in a fight. Still, what did I have to lose? If I didn't have to do any work for them – and I couldn't help shuddering at the thought of the kind of 'work' these people were likely to do – then the worst that could happen was that they refused to train me. I waited for a pause in the fight, and dashed across to the staircase before I could end up in the way of a thrown plate.

Downstairs there were more people wandering around, all of whom turned to look at me. One of them was clearly very drunk, and one of them – at last – wasn't wearing armour. She seemed the safest person to talk to.

“Excuse me, do you know where I could find Kodlak?”

“Oh, I'm only a servant here. You want to talk to one of the Companions.” She smiled at me unhelpfully, and then, as she turned away, added, “You could speak to Kodlak, if you like. He's in his rooms at the end of the corridor.” She pointed, leaving me uncertain she'd heard a word I'd said to her, but better informed about Kodlak's location.

I took a deep breath and walked down the corridor towards the room indicated by the servant, knowing that everyone else in the corridor was still watching me, and expecting that they'd all be talking about me as soon as I was out of sight. I could only guess what they'd be saying, but I didn't think it was likely to be complimentary.

There were two men in the room at the end of the corridor, and I was obviously interrupting a conversation, which stopped abruptly as soon as the men noticed me. The younger man was saying something about being “called by the blood”, or something like that, which rather reinforced my fears that I had somehow ended up in the middle of a team of assassins, or at least a criminal gang that wasn't averse to – well, things like leaving horses' heads in people's beds. The older man seemed to be saying something about resisting this “call”, though, which is a bit confusing.

Surely Shulgak wouldn't have sent me to a bunch of assassins, though. I mean, why would she do that? If she wanted me dead, she could just have left me to die at the hands of that fire-wizard. And she hadn't sounded as if her suggestion to ask here for training was a joke. How would it be funny for her, anyway? She'd never know what I did about her suggestion.

The two men stopped talking as soon as they noticed me, so I was still wondering what to think when one of them spoke to me.

“Are you here for our help?” It was the older man who had spoken, grey-haired but still clearly fit and strong. I guessed he was Kodlak. The fact that he expected people to ask the Companions for help reassured me a bit. Only a bit, mind. Presumably people who hire assassins would say they wanted the help of the assassins. I just answered the question.

“I need training.”

The younger man snorted derisively. “You can't seriously think of allowing him to join us. He's a nobody who just walked in from the street! Where's his reputation? What honour does he have?”

“Now, Vilkas. Some people achieve fame before they come to us: others come to us before doing their great deeds.” Great deeds? I had to do great deeds before they'd train me? If I could do great deeds, why would I need training? “What matters is the heart, not the reputation. Besides, I believe this may be the man they say has escaped alive from two dragon attacks. That seems like the start of a reputation to me.”

Vilkas sniffed. “'Escaped' is hardly an appropriate word to describe the actions of a true warrior.”

“Be still, Vilkas.” Kodlak turned to me. “Can you fight?”

Well, the obvious answer to that was “Not well enough,” but I'd already told him I needed training. On the other hand, I could mysteriously fight far better than I thought I should be able to. I hesitated for several moments, and eventually decided to say I thought I had a lot to learn.

“Excellent! Vilkas here will take you out to the practice yard and see what you're capable of.”

So I found myself trailing behind Vilkas, back up the stairs to the main hall – where the fight still wasn't over – and then out to the back of the building. In daylight, standing, facing me, with a sword in his hand, Vilkas looked almost as large and intimidating as the man who'd spoken to me in the hall. And Vilkas was clearly not happy about Kodlak letting someone like me join the Companions, which made me somewhat uncomfortable about fighting him. What if he decided this wasn't just going to be a test of my abilities, and made use of the most irrevocable method of terminating my membership?

I took a firm grip on my shield and my axe-haft, and tried not to run away.

And then, abruptly, we were fighting. Vilkas was strong, fast, and – unsurprisingly – a far better fighter than me, and he seemed to be fighting pretty seriously. I blocked and dodged frantically, only managing to aim one blow at him for five or six of his at me. Not one of my blows got past his guard. After a couple of minutes, I was gasping for breath, with sweat running down my forehead. I think that's when I began to believe Vilkas wasn't trying to kill me. Surely, if he could block everything I threw at him so easily, he could have finished me off much earlier in the fight. I was tempted, for a moment, to yield – but I was sure yielding while I was still standing, and still holding a weapon, wouldn't get me a good report when Vilkas told Kodlak what he thought of me. So I gritted my teeth and kept trying to block.

Then there came the moment when Vilkas almost relaxed, and by some reflex I didn't know I had, my axe leapt towards him. The beard of the axe hooked around his blade, and I twisted, disarming him. Even as it happened, I was staring, struggling to believe it.

And then Vilkas's shield was heading for my face, and moving fast. I had just time to see it and flinch, turning my head away, hunching my shoulders and swaying backwards, before the blow landed, and landed hard.

Except it didn't. Another one did; a massive clap on the shoulder from Vilkas – now apparently slightly less displeased.

“Well, maybe Kodlak was right,” he said. “You're not quite as incompetent as you look, and you don't give up easily. Maybe we can make you into a fighter.”

[theSilentKiller]

Yeah a new post!! Yannik will be chopping down his enemies like crazy, after training with the Companions. Though maybe he will be surprised by them one day on one or another way... Sounds like he has quite the fighter nature somewhere deep within him!

[Alwyn]

Yannick's descriptions of life in Skyrim - such as a typical evening's entertainment in the Bannered Mare - sound both authentic and entertaining. I like the mutual confusion between Yannick, as someone who asks questions which local people would know the answer to (such as asking a Whiterun guard where to find the Companions), and the people of Skyrim (such as the reaction of the guard, when he asks). The reference to the 'call of the blood' and Yannick's ability to fight well (even though he is from Earth, not the world which includes Skyrim) are both intriguing.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Indeed; Yannick's ability to fight is something of a mystery.

I'm glad you liked the description of the evenings at the Bannered Mare. The room you can rent in the game has a kind of balcony that overhangs the main room of the inn (where all the quaffing, singing and brawling take place). There is no door between the bedroom area and that balcony, so you have to be good at sleeping through whatever happens down there if you want to get a good night's rest at the Bannered Mare!

(I'm having a bit of trouble with the chapter I'm currently writing. Chapter 30 will go up once I've managed to get the one I'm writing to make some sense!)

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Chapter Thirty – the Companions

The last couple of weeks… Well, I say “the last couple of weeks”, but I don't know, really. Now I'm realising how good Ma'Jhan's advice was when he told me I should write an entry in this journal every day. I haven't done. I've been busy – and exhausted – with all the training, and, to be honest, I haven't had a lot of time when I've been both awake and alone. For some reason, the thought of writing this journal with other people there makes me uncomfortable. I suppose I don't want to have to explain that I'm not from here, in case people think I'm mad. Maybe I am, of course, but I'd still prefer them not to think it. So I haven't written anything in here for at least a couple of weeks – but since I know I do stuff while I'm having blackouts (how else did those skins Shulgak took as payment end up in my pack?) I could have been having blackout after blackout after blackout. As long as I was still turning up to train, would anyone have noticed? As long as I don't behave too differently during blackouts, maybe not…

So, the last couple of weeks – or whatever it actually was – have been a blur of different kinds of training. Hours and hours every day. Archery practice, axe practice, sword practice, battleaxe practice, greatsword practice, fighting with a shield, fighting without a shield, running, jumping, wrestling, climbing and even minor smithing – to be able to mend shields, weapons and armour that aren't too badly damaged. Not to mention all the time I've spent cleaning armour (mine and other people's), cleaning and sharpening weapons, and just running errands.



I did eventually manage to find out what the Companions do. They seem to be some kind of combined dispute-resolution and law-enforcement agency. (Except I'm not sure there are any actual laws for them to enforce.) If bandits kidnap someone and demand a ransom, the victim's family can hire the Companions to try and rescue the victim. If a criminal has escaped from custody, the guards of the hold where the criminal was imprisoned can ask the Companions to help track him (or her) down. If dangerous wild animals take up residence on a farm, the farmer can hire the Companions to get rid of them. If a person thinks someone else owes them money, or has broken a promise to them or treated them badly in some other way, the injured party can hire the Companions to sort it out. In those cases, the Companions only take the job if they are persuaded the injured party has a good reason for wanting restitution – and even then, they only send someone to have a bare-knuckle boxing match with the person accused of bad behaviour. Apparently it's a very old tradition in Skyrim – rather like the one where anyone can challenge the High King to a duel for the title. In this case, though, rather than the winner being High King and the loser being dead, the winner is considered to have proved their righteousness, and the loser has to make appropriate reparations. It reminds me a bit of those trials by combat in the Middle Ages.

In their spare time, the Companions seem to like hunting. And fighting with each other. And – since the (re)appearance of dragons in Skyrim – trying to track down a dragon so they can attempt to kill it. They don't all go out to find a dragon, though. That would leave nobody in their hall - “Jorrvaskr”, they call it – to accept work, and nobody available to do any work. No, they generally go out to find dragons alone, or maybe just two of them together. Which – even allowing for the fact that they're much better fighters than I am – is insane. So far none of them have successfully found a dragon to kill. Or be killed by. Maybe after the first failure they'll be less enthusiastic. I'm not sure about that, though…

So, anyway, the Companions seem to be pretty much the opposite of the organised crime gang I'd feared they were. There are still one or two things that worry me about them, though. There's the insane dragon-hunting (I'm hoping that won't turn out to be a compulsory part of training), and there's that weird conversation I heard Vilkas having with Kodlak. The one about blood.

The Companions are run – if “run” is the right word for the way they seem to do things – by a group they call “the Circle”, which seems to be made up of senior members of the Companions. Kodlak and Vilkas are both in the Circle. So is Vilkas's brother Farkas, the huge bearded man who told me where to find Kodlak when I first arrived. Oddly, they say Kodlak isn't their leader, even though they take everything he says really seriously. The Circle are the people who decide which jobs to accept and which to refuse – which also makes them the people the other Companions go and talk to if they want work.

Fortunately, the Companions have allowed me to sleep in a shared bedroom in Jorrvaskr during my training. “Fortunately” because I don't really have anywhere else to go, except the Bannered Mare, and I don't want to have to try to get any sleep there unless I have no choice. Where I'm going to sleep when my training is over is a thing I'm trying not to think about. One of the errands they sent me on the other day was up at the Jarl's palace, Dragonsreach – collecting a fee from one of the cooks for a job they'd done for her. While I was there, I managed to speak to the Jarl's steward. He's the terrifyingly over-cautious one who never wants to do anything that might upset another Jarl, never wants a single guard to leave the city of Whiterun because that would leave the city less well defended, and never, ever agrees with Irileth about anything. He's also the one you have to talk to if you want to buy a house in Whiterun. He probably would be the one you have to talk to about renting a room (or flat, or house) in Whiterun – if “renting” was a thing here. He didn't even understand the word. So my choices are: 1) buy a house, or 2) endure the nightly torment of the Bannered Mare (and Lydia's undying hatred and contempt for not being a proper thane, although provided I don't have to be here too long, I can live with that). You can't buy a house without permission from the Jarl (which I have). If you want to sell a house in Whiterun, you have to sell it back to the Jarl. And his steward deals with all of that. It seems to me that the Jarl (or possibly his steward) could easily be making a lot of money out of this scheme – except that I get the impression people don't move house very often in Skyrim.

The steward – Proventus Avenicci, his name is – says there's a house I could buy. The only problem is that even counting every last coin I have, I wouldn't have enough money. And obviously I don't want to spend all my money on a house. I need money for food, for a start, and then more money for a “getting to Winterhold” fund. Even if I don't know how long it'll be before I'll be able to travel to Winterhold, it makes sense to put money aside for it. I still have no way of earning any extra money, after all. And, oh, gods, I'm going to have to pay Lydia at some point. I'd forgotten about that. If I can find an excuse for visiting Dragonsreach tomorrow, I'll pay her then. I'm not sure I know what her job is – or whether she's doing it – while I don't have a house, but if I don't pay her she apparently doesn't get to eat, and I don't want a starving housecarl on my conscience. Or ruining my reputation, since it looks as if I'm going to be stuck here for a while.

[waveman]

"and Lydia's undying hatred and contempt for not being a proper thane, although provided I don't have to be here too long, I can live with that.. And, oh, gods, I'm going to have to pay Lydia at some point. I'd forgotten about that. If I can find an excuse for visiting Dragonsreach tomorrow, I'll pay her then. I'm not sure I know what her job is – or whether she's doing it ..."

Loved these two parts, and I can't wait to see how Yannicks interaction with Lydia goes

Would give rep but I need to spread it around a bit...

[Alwyn]

I wonder what is happening during Yannick's blackouts and whether Yannick will be caught out because he won't remember something important. I enjoyed Yannick's discovery - and explanation - of the role of the Companions. I agree with waveman, I also look forward to seeing how Yannick's interaction with Lydia goes in future.

[theSilentKiller]

I leke how you (or rather Yannik ) describes Lydias attitude towards him and considering her personality I could imagine that to be realistic. The way you describe what the companions do is very well done. The black outs seem to be something that might cause some serious issues later (or who knows what already happened because of them)

[Merchant of Venice]

Amazing last two chapters, I love your decision to have Yannick join the Companions (nice Godfather allusion as well) and his musings on being paid and buying things and his almost fear of Lydia's disapproval. Can't wait to see what's next in stall for poor Yannick, maybe he's going to have to go out on one of those insane, dragon hunts..

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Loved these two parts, and I can't wait to see how Yannicks interaction with Lydia goes

Thank you!

Yannick seems to have mixed feelings about Lydia, I think - he's a decent enough human being to feel responsible for her, since she's apparently his employee, but he's completely intimidated by her. It's not much of a spoiler to say that (sadly) you'll have to wait a little longer to find out how Lydia and Yannick's eventual meeting turns out. I'm tempted to apologise for making you wait - but I've already written that chapter, so I know you will get to see that meeting.

I wonder what is happening during Yannick's blackouts and whether Yannick will be caught out because he won't remember something important. I enjoyed Yannick's discovery - and explanation - of the role of the Companions. I agree with waveman, I also look forward to seeing how Yannick's interaction with Lydia goes in future.

Thank you, Alwyn. Yes, the blackouts could easily cause him any amount of trouble. They seem to have got him in a mess before, in fact - he has no idea why he was captured and taken to Helgen, which rather suggests he was blacked-out at the time...

I leke how you (or rather Yannik ) describes Lydias attitude towards him and considering her personality I could imagine that to be realistic. The way you describe what the companions do is very well done. The black outs seem to be something that might cause some serious issues later (or who knows what already happened because of them)

Thank you! It's really nice to know you think my version of Lydia works OK. (I hope that will continue; I suspect the next few chapters will tell you whether you like what I'm doing with her character.) And you're right about the blackouts - see my comment to Alwyn above.

Amazing last two chapters, I love your decision to have Yannick join the Companions (nice Godfather allusion as well) and his musings on being paid and buying things and his almost fear of Lydia's disapproval. Can't wait to see what's next in stall for poor Yannick, maybe he's going to have to go out on one of those insane, dragon hunts..

Thanks, Merchant! You're seriously tempting me with the idea about dragon hunts... but maybe not for another couple of chapters.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Chapter Thirty-One: Aela's Test

So much for my

plan to pay Lydia. I hope the money I gave her before I left for Windhelm can be stretched a little further, because I won’t be getting to Dragonsreach today. Vilkas told me this morning that he thought I was ready for a real test of my newly-trained abilities. Which, from Vilkas, means, “Stop whatever you’re doing and go and be tested right now or else you’ll fail.” If I pass the test, I can move on to the final stage of my training. And perhaps once I've finished that, I'll be able to make it to Winterhold without Shulgak having to rescue me again. Passing this test is the next step towards getting home.

Vilkas had decided that Aela should set the test for me – he said it was better if it was set by someone who hadn't been training me, someone who wouldn't already know what I was best at – so I went to see Aela.

Normally, I try to avoid Aela, because… well… OK;

Aela. She's one of the Circle, which tells you she's a seasoned, and respected, and feared – at least by me – fighter. They call her “Aela the Huntress”, partly for her ability with the bow, and partly because you don't ever want to be her prey. She will track you down, and she will kill you without hesitation. She's also a striking redhead, and, given her fighting ability, I really don't want to find out whether she has the temper they say often goes with the hair. And then there's her armour. She's still alive, so either her armour is effective, or she has no need of it, but for some reason there's… less… of it than there is of other people's armour. Aela's armour choices are obviously none of my business – I'm just here for the training – but all those gaps are just impossible to ignore. By which I mean they're pretty much impossible to look away from. Not that it's an unpleasant view or anything, but it isn't really all that polite to stare at bits of a woman other than her face while she's talking to you. At least, it's only polite in a very limited range of circumstances, and none of those are relevant in any of my conversations with Aela.

As a result of the likely – probably life-threatening – consequences if Aela decides she's offended by the direction of my gaze, every time I speak to her I spend the whole time concentrating on looking her in the eye. It takes so much effort that afterwards I usually have only the very vaguest idea what she said to me. To make it worse, I swear she knows I'm trying not to look down, and I swear she's amused by my embarrassment.

But Vilkas said Aela was setting the test for me, so I had to talk to Aela. I set off to find her, digging my fingernails into my palms with nervousness and clenching my jaw in my determination to behave appropriately. And despite all my apprehension, it went relatively smoothly. She was talking to Kodlak when I found her, which helped. Somehow it's easy to be calm and respectful around Kodlak – and Kodlak being there meant I could look at him some of the time so as to avoid looking at the wrong bits of Aela.

Aela's test turns out to be to kill (“eradicate” was the word she used) some wild animal – or animals. They've taken up residence in a place called Greenspring Hollow. Apparently there have been complaints from travellers that the area is difficult to pass through without being harassed. That sounds to me like a description of all the bits of Skyrim I know about, so I'm not sure why they were complaining – or why the Companions have decided this particular animal needs to be disposed of. Maybe they take these jobs purely to use them as a test for trainees. I can't say I fancy the idea of dealing with a whole pack of wolves on my own, so I hope that's true.

When I told Vilkas what the test was, he said it would probably be skeevers. That's what they call those enormous rat-things that tried to swarm up my legs in Bleak Falls Barrow. Vilkas reckons I shouldn't have any trouble, even if there's a whole crowd of them. Mind you, Vilkas thinks anyone who can't forge a sword before breakfast, kill six or seven wolves before lunch, and rescue a kidnap victim before dinner just isn't making an effort. I'd say if there are more than about five skeevers, they have as good a chance of winning this fight as I do.

- - -

Well, Vilkas was wrong. It wasn't skeevers. Not even lots of skeevers. It was a bear. An enormous, angry, brown bear.

I can still imagine Vilkas telling me I wouldn't have any trouble with a bear, though, just because he wouldn't… But he'd be wrong. I had trouble.

I found Greenspring Hollow without too much difficulty. Aela had told me it was a cave, but I'd expected, from the name, that it would be in – well, a hollow, a dip in the ground. It isn't, really. It's near a small river, but it's up a bit of a slope from the water. It might have taken me a few minutes to work out exactly where I was heading, if it hadn't been for the loud, annoyed growling sound coming from behind a large rock. I did my best to approach the growling quietly, but either my armour clanks more than I think it does, or I was upwind of the bear, or – more likely – I'm still not all that good at sneaking up on people (and animals). Well, I suppose animals are usually harder to sneak up on than people, so that might still mean I'm improving.

Regardless of the reason, my attempt to get a look at my opponent before fighting it was an embarrassing failure. I had taken only a few steps from the spot where I first heard the growling when the bear hurled itself toward me.

I ran.

Well, who wouldn't? I was terrified. But I couldn't run for ever. I was fairly sure the bear could run faster than I could, and for longer than I could. I dodged behind a boulder, and tried to focus my mind on the new spell I bought from Farengar while I was up at Dragonsreach. “Firebolt”, he'd called it, but it had sounded to me like a classic fireball spell. I hadn't been able to resist the thought of myself launching spheres of fire at the next skeleton that tried to kill me. There didn't seem to be any skeletons available for me to test my new spell on, though, so a rapidly-approaching bear was going to have to do. I managed to wrench my mind away from thoughts of teeth and blood and pain just soon enough to hit the bear with a fireball. A rather small, shaky fireball, admittedly, but it scared the bear enough to give me a moment to breathe, and to think.

I decided my only chance was to avoid being hit – and my only chance of that was to keep moving. So off I went, round the bear, trying to keep just out of reach, dancing into range every so often to aim an axe-blow at it, and then backing away as fast as I could.

The reason I survived, I think, was that I landed a lucky hit, early on, which must have blinded the bear in one eye. It went kind of wild – well, even wilder than it already was – after that for a while, and it got a couple of good swipes at me. I suspect the bear broke my left arm – I couldn't even think about that arm without it causing me agony – but once I'd got myself out of the bear's way it had trouble following me. From then on, if I could strike from the bear's blind side, it didn't see me coming. After that, it was purely a question of whether the bear or I could move faster – the bear trying to keep me where it could see me, while I tried to stay on its blind side. It seemed to take for ever before I had regained enough magical power to throw another firebolt at the bear, but once I'd done that, the fight was more or less over. If the bear had managed to keep going just a little longer, I don't think I would have had any energy left to stay out of view of its good eye. I was, as I said, enormously lucky.

Luckier even than just surviving the fight, as it turned out. The cave the bear had been living in must have been used by people before the bear; there were two fur-lined sleeping bags and a fireplace made of rocks. Chests, and bags, and boxes full of human stuff, or, I suppose elf stuff… or maybe orc stuff, I suppose, if Aeri wasn't just winding me up about Shulgak being an orc… were strewn around. I even saw a tanning rack just outside the cave mouth, so someone had been living there in a longer-term sort of way than I'd have liked in a shallow cave in the middle of nowhere. All in all, it looked like a good place to rest and find out how badly injured I was. At least, it did to start with. I didn't notice till later that I was sharing the cave with a dead body and a couple of skeletons (the normal sort, fortunately, not the ones that are still walking around). I'm pretty sure the dead body, at least, was one of the bear's victims. The skeletons… I don't know. I don't know how to tell how long a skeleton's been dead. Maybe the bear's victim wasn't someone I'd have liked. I admit that when I noticed the body and bones, I didn't really care very much who they were. I just wanted to sit down, and for the pain to go away.

Sitting down was easy enough. Well, it hurt. Doing anything hurt. But I didn't need to put any weight on my arm to sit down; I could lean against the wall of the cave and kind of slide down to a sitting position, and still hold on to my arm. And then I cast a healing spell on my injured arm. At least, I tried to. Those firebolts take an enormous amount of power. Apparently, the sun and the stars shower “magicka” (that's what Farengar calls it) down on everyone all the time, and we all absorb it. Once we've absorbed it, we can use it to cast spells, and then we have to absorb more of it before we can cast another spell.

Which, yes, sounds like utter idiocy. I may be going along with the whole “I can cast spells” idea – although only because it seems to work in practice – but absorbing magical powers from the sun and the stars is just a little bit too far out into insanity even for me. Still, Farengar's description does seem to match up with my experience, at least in the sense that once I've run out of power for casting spells, I have to wait a while before I can cast any more. For some reason, I feel as if the magic “recharges” more slowly if I'm fighting someone. (Or something. I do seem to have fought more things than people…) That's probably just because everything seems to take ages during a fight, though. Someone once told me it's something to do with adrenaline.

So, I tried to heal my arm, and there was a little flare of light that just fizzled out immediately. I had to sit for what felt like eternity, cradling my arm and trying not to move, because moving hurt even more than not moving. And that gave me plenty of time for worrying that even if I managed to heal my arm, it'd mend wrong, since I couldn't line the bones up properly, or splint it, or anything. Unbelievably, I fell asleep like that, propped against the rock wall of the cave, clutching my left arm. Waking up was dreadful. Nobody should have to wake up to the pain of a broken arm. But by then I had enough magic to make the pain in my arm go away. So far the arm seems to work OK, and not to be the wrong shape. I mean, it bends in the usual places and it doesn't hurt when I do that. I haven't dared to try using that arm yet. I should definitely get someone to look at it before I try carrying anything in that hand. Someone at the temple, maybe, or one of the Companions, if they have a… team doctor kind of person, whatever they'd call that.

I'm sure I saw two moons last night, before I feel asleep. Both in the sky together. Maybe I was feverish. Or hallucinating even more weirdly than usual…

[Alwyn]

Yannick's reaction to Aela is funny and I enjoyed the prediction of Vilkas of what kind of animals he is likely to find in Greenspring Hollow (and Yannick's description of them). Yannick seems to be torn between accepting the evidence of his senses (he feels better after using healing magic on himself) and the bit of his mind which doesn't want to accept Skryim as real (like his reaction to seeing two moons).

[theSilentKiller]

I like how you (well Yannick) describe Alea. I still thing that armour like hers is magnetic and attracts the iron of weapons, so that they don't hit her unprotected parts XD The training with Farengar seems to pay off, a little magic might help him in future struggles, maybe we see some epic magic-out-of-scrolls action? That Yannick assumes he was hallucinatin when he saw Masser and Secunda doesn't surprise me, I would freak out... If he only knew why there are two moons

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Has it really been that long since I updated this? Oh, no...

Yannick's reaction to Aela is funny and I enjoyed the prediction of Vilkas of what kind of animals he is likely to find in Greenspring Hollow (and Yannick's description of them). Yannick seems to be torn between accepting the evidence of his senses (he feels better after using healing magic on himself) and the bit of his mind which doesn't want to accept Skryim as real (like his reaction to seeing two moons).

Thank you. I think you're right about Yannick both believing and not believing in Skyrim's magic. I think he had a bit of an excuse to be uncertain of the moons, though - he was tired and hurt at the time.

I like how you (well Yannick) describe Alea. I still thing that armour like hers is magnetic and attracts the iron of weapons, so that they don't hit her unprotected parts XD The training with Farengar seems to pay off, a little magic might help him in future struggles, maybe we see some epic magic-out-of-scrolls action? That Yannick assumes he was hallucinatin when he saw Masser and Secunda doesn't surprise me, I would freak out... If he only knew why there are two moons

I like your theory about Aela's armour.

(I think it's very likely that Yannick will get some future use out of the spells he's been learning, yes. And possibly some scrolls, if he finds any or can afford to buy some.)

And yes, TES lore is weird. I don't think we should tell Yannick too much just yet!

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Chapter Thirty-Two: A Dead Hunter

Before I left Greenspring Hollow, I checked the body of the dead man, and took his sword and a brooch I found pinned to his tunic. Perhaps somebody in Whiterun will be able to identify him from those, at least. Of course, if he was a bandit who killed other people (and I really don't want to think about why he kept their skeletons, if so), that might not work, since they might actually belong to people he killed for their stuff, but the only other way for anyone to identify him is by seeing his body, and I wasn't about to carry that back to Whiterun.

While I was there, I rummaged through the chests for anything useful, and packed as much as I could carry in my rucksack. The food was only going to rot if I left it, after all. My determination not to use my left arm meant that “as much as I could carry” was quite a lot less than usual, but at least I still have my rucksack, or I'd have struggled to carry much of anything.

One of the things I picked up was an old-fashioned lantern – the kind you put a candle in, with glass sides set into a metal frame so you can carry your light outdoors and have it protected from breezes. I still hadn't bought that ball-of-light spell from Farengar, and if I was going to keep running out of magic every time I got into a fight, having a non-magical source of light was probably a good idea, even if carrying it around would be a bit of a pain. I really needed some way of attaching it to my belt or shoulders without burning me or my belongings. I pondered how to do that as I trudged back to Whiterun through the cold, hazy morning light, but without finding a solution.

For the first time, as I passed through Whiterun's great main gate, I realised I'd started to think of Jorrvaskr as home. Just as I was on the point of having to move out. Not really home, obviously – that was either on another world, or on the other side of some pretty serious medical treatment – but a kind of temporary home. Somewhere safe, and warm, and where I was allowed to turn up and sleep in a bed without having to pay for the privilege. Instead of hating the all-pervading smell of woodsmoke, sweat and stale beer, dreading the mockery of the Companions, and doing everything I could to stay out of the way of the regular brawls, I was desperately looking forward to sitting by the warmth of the huge fire-pit with a plateful of smoke-flavoured venison and a tankard of good ale. And I no longer scuttle from the room when a brawl starts – although you'd have to be a fool not to be ready to dodge out of the way. I do, admittedly, still dread the mockery. But I think there's a little less of it than there used to be, so either my fighting skills are improving, or everyone else is bored of pointing out my incompetence.

When I found Aela, sitting near Jorrvaskr's main door, checking her bowstrings and counting her arrows; and – of course – wearing that distracting armour, the atmosphere seemed more strained than usual. A cold, heavy lump formed in the pit of my stomach. Was everyone feeling the discomfort I did? If so, that must mean something bad was going on. On the other hand, if it was just me, that probably meant – at best – that I'd failed Aela's test somehow. Maybe I'd taken too long to get back to Jorrvaskr, or showed insufficient skill with weapons. They'd have to have someone following me and spying on me to know how I fought, but maybe that was how they ran these tests. Or maybe there was a magic spell they'd used to watch me without needing to follow me. And if I wasn't good enough to pass Aela's test, then maybe I wasn't good enough to survive the journey to Winterhold. But I had to get to Winterhold, to ask the wizards to send me home! I tried to calm my breathing and walked over to Aela.

“So.” She gave me a look. A look that somehow combined the kind of look you get from teachers who think you're about to try to lie to them, with the kind of amused look that says 'I know what you're trying not to look at; how long do you think your willpower will hold out?' “You killed whatever it was?”

Which stopped me from looking at her body better than my willpower would ever be able to do.

She hadn't known what it was. She hadn't known. She'd sent me out to kill something, and she'd had no idea whether I'd be facing a couple of skeevers or a whole family of bears…
...but maybe that's not so bad. It must mean she expected me to be able to deal with whatever I found, right?

“I...” I shuddered, remembering how close the bear had come to killing me. I took a breath. “Yes, it's dead.”

“Good.” She nodded. Then, to my surprise, she picked up a leather pouch – the kind they keep money in, here – and handed it to me. My surprise must have shown; she raised an eyebrow at my ignorance, embarrassing me rather. “It was a test, but it was also a job we were paid for. You did the job, so you get paid.” And she gathered up her bow, strings and arrows, obviously intending to leave – and showing more flesh than I thought I should be seeing. Apparently even shock doesn't defeat my hormones for more than a few seconds. I hauled my gaze back to appropriate places.

“Er… There were some dead people.” She turned back to face me. “I picked up some things that might identify them.”

“Take your 'things' to the temple of Kynareth and see if the priests recognise them; most people need help from the priests sooner or later, so there's a fair chance they'll have seen your items before. I'll talk to you about it later.” She turned again, and strode distractingly out of Jorrvaskr.

She didn't say I'd failed the test, so that must mean I passed. Probably. But then, she'd also said she'd talk to me later, so maybe that means I've failed and she'll be throwing me out of the Companions later, once I've finished the job by talking to the priests. Well, that's later. In the meantime, I have venison to eat, mead to drink, and then a temple to visit.

- - -

The priests at the temple dismissed the sword as being of a popular design – far too many people owned one for it to be any use in identifying the body I'd found, but one of the younger priests picked the brooch up and looked closely at it.

“I'm sure this is Eirik's.” He

traced the curves and spirals of the metal pattern with his fingers, turning the brooch round and round as he did, apparently not noticing that he didn't seem able to stop.

“Eirik?” I had no idea who Eirik was, even if most of the priests were nodding.

“A hunter. Lived on his own, out in the wilderness. Every two or three weeks, he'd come into Whiterun to sell what he'd caught and buy supplies.”

“We haven't seen him for almost seven months,” interrupted the priest with the brooch, obviously distressed. “We assumed he must have moved on to another part of Skyrim… We should have gone looking for him…” Tears showed in the young priest's eyes, and an older priest led him away, comfortingly.

A priestess spoke. “Eirik always said he had no family, and Hrodulf, there -” she nodded at the departing young priest “- was his closest friend. At least that we know of. You said Greenspring Hollow? We'll send someone out to look. I rather suspect the body won't be Eirik's, though; not if the owner died as recently as it seems.”

So did I. If he normally visited Whiterun every couple of weeks, seven months was a long absence. The body I'd found was definitely more recent than that – although one of the skeletons might be Eirik's. Maybe the priests would be able to identify the body for certain, though, and say whether the bear had been responsible for all the deaths, or just the most recent.

I'd almost reached the temple door, wondering about Eirik and the dead body, when I remembered.

“Could you – is it possible for you to look at my arm and see if there's anything wrong with it?”

“Are you in any pain? Do you have any difficulty moving the arm?”

I shook my head. “Well, no… No, it seems fine. But the bear hit it, and then I tried to use a healing spell on it, and I'm not sure I did it right.”

“We would request a donation, if possible.” More of my money gone. Still, I suppose if I hadn't paid, I wouldn't dare to use my arm. I handed over several coins, which disappeared somewhere into the priestess's robes. She bent my arm in every possible direction while muttering and surrounding it with swirling lights, and then pronounced it perfectly healthy. It still doesn't look like magic to me. The only reason I even think about believing it is because it seems to work when I do things. And that could just be because I'm mad…

As I was leaving the temple, for real, this time, the priest who had been trying to comfort Hrodulf came and met me, looking slightly apprehensive.

“Would you mind if Hrodulf kept the brooch?” I was surprised; the brooch wasn't mine. “Naturally, you will keep everything else you found.” The priest was clearly trying to placate me, expecting me to be angry at having a valuable item taken from me. Presumably the custom here is that whoever finds a dead body can keep any valuables they find on that body. At least if the dead person had no family. The priest – obviously trying to compensate me for a loss I didn't feel – went on: “I seem to remember Eirik having one of those enchanted lanterns – you know, you can hang them on your belt, but the candle doesn't blow out, even if you jump up and down, and the lantern never gets hot. I'm sure that would be worth far more than the brooch.”

I agreed (of course) that Hrodulf could keep the brooch. And resolved to try the lantern as soon as possible, to find out if it really was enchanted.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Don't worry we all have breaks from updating our stories... some more than most.

Great couple of chapters mate, really enjoying it.

[theSilentKiller]

Great update!

With every chapter I like "your" companions more and more. Aela's indifference is on point! Enchanted lanterns.... might come in handy, if it actually is an enchanted lantern.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Don't worry we all have breaks from updating our stories... some more than most.

Great couple of chapters mate, really enjoying it.

Shankbot! It's great to see you!

And thank you. Your support (and generosity about my lack of recent updates) is very much appreciated.

Speaking of "lack of recent updates" (since you mention it), can we hope for a new chapter from you? Please? Please? (Why is there not a "begging" smiley when I need one?!)

Great update!

With every chapter I like "your" companions more and more. Aela's indifference is on point! Enchanted lanterns.... might come in handy, if it actually is an enchanted lantern.

Thanks!

I suspect Aela's view is that if you can't handle whatever Skyrim throws at you, it's better that Skyrim kills you off as soon as possible. She's definitely a "survival of the fittest" woman.

The lantern was enchanted for me - and everyone else - by Chesko. So the priest is right; you can attach it to your belt, and it won't get uncomfortably hot. No matter how much you run, jump, or (inevitably, in Skyrim) fight, it won't go out. And if you pick the right options in the menu have the right type of enchanted lantern, the candle will never need to be replaced. It's very handy if you're using a mod that makes nights darker (as I am). (That's probably a bit of a spoiler, because Yannick doesn't know how the lantern works yet. It's not interesting enough to keep it a secret, though, and it will have no effect on the plot.)

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Chapter Thirty-Three: Lydia

“Why do you think they did it?”

Lydia was angry. Everything from the tense line of her shoulders to the sharp angle of her eyebrows would have said so very clearly, even if she hadn't been yelling at me like a drill-sergeant.

After I'd spoken to the priests, I'd decided it was time – well, way past time, really – I went to talk to Lydia. And to give her the next instalment of her wages. I'd expected her to be annoyed that I hadn't paid her sooner, but I hadn't expected her to march up to me the moment she saw me, clamp a hand around my recently-broken arm, and haul me off to Farengar's study so that she could tell me what she thought of me with great vigour and at great volume. I had assumed the problem was that she'd run out of money, but when I'd asked, her response had been:

“Money? Who cares about money? This is far more important than money!”

So I least I hadn't left Lydia starving for lack of funds.

“They don't talk to me any more. They just laugh behind my back – and to my face – and spread rumours about my incompetence. They –”

I know it's rude to interrupt, but none of this was going to make any sense unless I asked.

“Who's 'they'?”

“Everyone! All the Jarl's guards – the people I used to work with. Some of the other staff, now, too.” She glared at me.

I was still confused, but I felt I was slowly getting closer to knowing what was going on. I opened my mouth to say, sympathetically, that I'd heard military humour could be a bit… robust… so I could see why all that mockery might be unpleasant, when she started listing grievances again, counting them off on her fingers aggressively as she went.

“Last week, they burnt my bedroll, so now I'm sleeping on the floor.” That was pretty robust, as bad practical jokes go. The floors in Dragonsreach seem to be solid wood. And those rugs are pretty, but don't exactly provide much padding. I didn't want to think about how bruised I'd be after even one night sleeping on a wooden floor without a bedroll. But still – military humour. Maybe they intended to give her a new bedroll in a day or two. “Then they stole all the clothes I wasn't wearing at the time, and shredded them.” I had to admit that was going further than a practical joke should do. At least clothes can be replaced fairly easily – although if the guards were planning to repeat this more than a couple of times, Lydia and I were both going to run out of money. “And the day before yesterday they threw me off the stairs outside Dragonsreach. By the lower pool. I landed just in front of the statue of Talos. Danica at the temple of Kynareth said I was lucky not to hit the statue or the walls on the way down, or I'd be dead. As it is, she said I had to rest for at least five days. No physical exertion. My leg was broken in so many places she couldn't fix it properly in one go. If I strain it too much before she's finished healing it, it'll just break again, and she says she won't be able to mend it.” By now, Lydia was speaking through gritted teeth, and holding the fingers she'd been counting with in my face. “So the next time they want to throw me off something, I can't even fight back!” She whirled away from me, pushing me away from her in disgust, and leant on a wall in a way that suggested she was about to start thumping it, regardless of Danica’s prohibition of physical exertion.

However much I might try to excuse the theft of the bedroll and the destruction of clothes, throwing people off stairs in a way that could kill them was clearly not in any way a practical joke. I seriously doubted it had been meant as one. It was a terrible thing for anyone to do. But…

“Why would they do that to you?”

And that was the trigger for the explosion at the start of this journal entry.

“Why do you think they did it?” It was very obvious she thought I should know. I didn't. I must have looked blank. I know I felt blank.

“You traipse off to Windhelm – without me. You nearly get yourself killed at least twice – without me. You don't trust me to protect you, so you leave me here – but you leave me here with no duties at all. You don't even lend me to the Whiterun guard or the Jarl's guard in your absence. That would have been a statement that you didn't think I was trustworthy enough to travel with you – I'd have been mocked – but if a thane has to carry out particularly secret responsibilities, it's happened before. It isn't complete disgrace to be lent to the Jarl's guard, if it's just temporary. But no, that wasn't good enough for you, was it?” She was slowly getting louder, and angrier, and closer to me, and I was starting to fear for my safety. “Your own housecarl, sworn to protect you, and keep your sordid little secrets, and carry whatever burden you ask of her. And you treat me as if I don't exist! As if I'm no use as a housecarl at all!” She was inches from me now, her eyes like fire, her voice like knives of wrath, her whole body shaking with anger. “And you ask why they mock me and torment me! What else would they do, after you chose to dishonour me?”

I had thought the violence of Lydia's outburst was bad, but that was like taking a thunderbolt to the chest. The idea that the guards had humiliated Lydia, and stolen from her, and broken her leg in so many places even this world's magic couldn't heal it – and it was all my fault – was devastating. Unbearably so. Even more because I didn't really understand how my behaviour could have been so wrong. It was just obvious it had been very, very wrong. Wrong enough to get Lydia almost killed.

I had to try and find a way to improve things for Lydia – at least to make it so the guards didn't try to kill her again – but I didn't know how to do that.

“Is there some way I can… um… 'un-dishonour' you?”

I flinched in expectation of the outpouring of rage, and, sure enough, it came.

“You have no idea, do you?” She was pacing up and down the room now, thumping the furniture whenever she felt a word needed additional emphasis. I shook my head, not quite daring to say “No, I really don't have a clue, I'm from another world...” and hoped she wouldn't knock too many of my teeth out when she reached my end of the room.

“You have no honour, and no loyalty, and no idea!” The table she'd just thumped creaked and swayed. I edged towards the door. Suddenly, she turned to face me. I stopped dead, petrified.

“How can I have any honour until you recognise me as your housecarl? Until you let me protect you? Until you trust me enough to let me carry your confidential messages? Until you let me organise the protection of your household and help ensure its smooth running?”

She stopped, leant on the back of Farengar's desk-chair, and, looking at the chair-seat rather than me, said, in an almost normal voice, “And give me leave to sleep in the Bannered Mare for a few nights. Danica thinks if I sleep on the floor with no bedroll, my leg might not heal straight.”

That was a problem I could solve. I hadn't wanted to buy a house. It would use almost all the money I had – Aela's payment for the bear had given me just enough – so I'd have to start earning money again to afford the journey to Winterhold. And Lydia's pay, of course. But if the alternative was leaving Lydia crippled, and at the mercy of people who would throw her off Dragonsreach stairs without thinking twice, then there was no question about what I should do. Even if Lydia is just a figment of my imagination – and I'm not so sure she is – it would be utterly, hopelessly wrong to leave her to be killed.

Besides, I was going to have to move out of Jorrvaskr, and I had no hope of getting any sleep at the Bannered Mare.

“I… think I can do better than the Bannered Mare, if you'll give me a couple of minutes to arrange things.”

Lydia shrugged. She obviously wasn't expecting much help from me – she just had nobody else she could ask.

“You want to come with me?”

She shrugged again, but she came, and we went to find Proventus Avenicci, the Jarl's steward, the official estate agent for Whiterun.