Thank you Alwyn and Caillagh for the kind comments^^ @Caillagh Fighting a beast, of which many don't believe they even existed and discovering an unknown tower plus the mask might have 'a little' effect XD
Jeyred's Stories, One: A fateful day.
"When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world
When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped
When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles
When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls
When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding
The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn."
(In the 'The Book of the Dragonborn' by Emelene Madrine)
Jeyred heard creaking wood, blowing wind and the puffing of strained horses. Slowly began the darkness around him to dissolve. His neck hurt, his chin touched his chest and a rope around his wrist cut into the skin.
"Ah, you are finally awake. Thought you had pegged out. Didn't move a bit when I kicked you."
Jeyred looked up. He sat in carting carriage with three Nords, all of them were bounded, which raised an odious thought in him. He looked around and was blended by flashing white snow on the branches of high fir trees.
"Whe- where am I?"
The man sitting in front of him anwered wry: "In Skyrim of course! 17 of Lastseed. Currently we four are being taken to Helgen to be executed."
"Oh, I thou- Wait what?" Jeyred was suddenly wide awake.
"Yes yes, you had the bad luck of getting cought by the imperials. This is these day not a good idea."
"Wh- why? I am just a traveller from Anvil, I just crossed the border. I have done nothing wrong!"
"Hah, me neither. They denounce people at waill. If was fighting for my freedom, how can someone proscibe a just cause?"
"Just cause? Curse you and your fight for freedom", another prisoner, a bony guy, spoke, "If it wasn't for you damn stormcloaks I would have stolen that horse and would be already on my way to Hammerfell! And what's his problem?"
The man pointed with his chin at the garve dressed man in front of him. He had a piece of cloth in his mouth.
"Careful what you say horse thief. This is Ulfic Stormcloak, the true High king of Skyrim. He-"
"Shut up at the back, rebel scum. We are in Helgen", shouted the carter.
Helgen was a small village with only a few houses. Men and women carried clay pots not minding the passing by prisoners, chickens crossed the streets in front of the carts and children were sent to play inside the houses. High stone walls and a keep would offer them saftey and act as a safe haven in case an enemy managed to break through the first line of defence. A block was placed at the town's square. The prisoners had to step out of the carts and were inspected by guards. A bulky man with a list in his hands walked to Jeyred:
"Name. Birthplace. Reason for your sojourn here in Skyrim."
"Erm- Jeyred, sometimes called Strong-Vox. Birthplace? An - Anvil in Cyrodiil. Erm, what was it again? Ah! Pilgrimmage to High Hrothgar. Look, I have done no-"
"Silence, go over there!"
The man's imperious voice and the fact that he pointed at the block in the middle of the square made Jeyred almost to give away. It took him great strength to walk to the line of condemned men, that has formed up in front of the rotten wood chunk. Almost all of the men were accoutered with the same type of garment. Thin brown gambeson with a blue cloak. Some of them even wore helmets, roughly done but crested with engraving of various animals. Jeyred had to watch how one after another was decapitated by the biggest axe he has ever seen. Their dead bodies were thrown into a hole next to the block. After the fourth was his turn! With knees like pudding he walked to the blood-covered piece of wood. He kneed down, his head placed on the block. He looked into the cloudy sky.
This is it? This is my end? In my ancestors' homeland?
He imagined that he heard a loud scream somehwere in the distant. It was definitely not Sovngarde calling out form him. He had no right to dine in the hall of valor with Ysgramor and the other nord-heroes who died in battle. The man with the enormous axe raised his weapon. Jeyred imagined dark wings appearing above the eyecutioners head. The wings of death? Will some wicked Daedra keep him in Oblivion for all eternity?
A loud bang brought him back to reality! Chaos surrounded him. Burning guards and town people tried deperately to get rid of their blazing clothes and battlemages were shooting ice spikes into the air. Jeyred saw the dead executioner lying on the ground. He slowly crawled to the axe and cut the ropes of his wrist with the sharp and bloody axe. He then stood up and looked into the sky. He could not believe what he saw! The heaven was an inferno - a sea of fire. Big lava drops fell down like hail burning everything they touched. Inmidst of this infernal sight was a black-winged creature, as big as a gigantic rock, spouting flames. Jeyred knew what this creature was. There were many tales about them, but almost no one in Cyrodiil believes them. Believe they even existed.
Dragon! A real dragon! A black dragon!
Jeyred has loved stories about dragons, Draugrs and their ancient language as a child. He would always listen all agog with with fascination to the tales his grandfathers told in front of the fireplace in their small house in Anvil.
Jeyred stood there in the middle of the square, surrounded by burning corpses, staring at the hellish spectacle until a man, the prisoner from before who woke him up, grabbed him by his arm and forcefully dragged him into the saftey of a round tower. The heavy wooden door closed and the noises from outside got only muffled through the thick stone walls. Several bleeding soldiers lay on the ground. Ulfic Stormcloak stood next to one of them.
"Ralof", said he to the man who dragged Jeyred to the tower, "We need to get out of here soon. Stone won't stop dragon fire.
"My lord, going outside will mean a certain death."
"And remaining here will get us roasted. You there!" He pointed a Jeyred. "Go upstairs and look if there is a way to jump to a roof!"
Hasitant climbed Jeyred the circular stairs as carful as he could, but the tower shoke as he was halfway trough. The wall in front of him was burst open and the stones began to burn. He slowly approched the burning hole in the wall. This was his only chance of escaping the tower! He closed his eyes and then leaped throught the ring of fire hoping that he wouldn't fall to his death. He fell for a few seconds, then he landed surprisingly smooth. His eyes opened and he saw that he landed ontop of a straw roof, which hadn't yet cought on fire. Jeyred jumped off the building and ran to the gate of something that looked like a keep. To his surprise greeted him Ralof inside, whom he believed to still be in the tower.
"Ah you made it too. Guess you weren't meant to die today, too."
"Ho- how? Weren't you in the tower? I left it first!"
"I left it through the door and ran unitl I reached this keep. Got some of my hair burned. And here look! My knee would have been crushed by a stone if it wasn't for my kneeguards." He laughed and examined Jeyred. "Maybe you should change your clothes."
Jeyred shifted his old 'clothes', if they could have been called that, since only a few burnt rags clung on his sweaty body, with a brown gambeson and blue cloak of a dead 'Stormcloak' rebel, as Ralof told him. And while he was at it he also took the unlucky one's sword.
"You finished? Good, come here and help me with the gate."
The two men opened a frozen door and carefully sneaked through the keep. They could hear thundering and shouts from aboves as they proceeded their way into the dungeons. They traversed though countless rooms filled with prisons, small cages hanging from the ceiling and dead people everywhere. The dungeons looked like a ferocious slaughter had taken place; one room was ankledeep with blood. The two men didn't dare to say a word, the sight was too horrible. They eventually entered a natural narrow corridor through a hole in a wall after what felt like an eternity. They ended up in big cave.
"Look", said Ralof, "a bear!"
Twenty paces in front of them slept a brown bear, huge and with thick fur.
"Should we shoot it? That fur might be worth a fortune."
Jeyred immediately shoke his head. As a pious person he would never kill an innocent creation of Kyne just for some more cains in his pockets. Ralof and Jeyred sneaked yaound the sleeping beast, almost risking being detected and managed to get safely to a fissue in the wet stone walls of the cave. Dazzling shafts of rays wormed through the narrow gap. The men squeezed through it and covered their eyes from the sun light. Jeyred lowered his hand and looked at the foggy view, that was presented to his small eyes.
So, this is Skyrim?
| spoiler |
Never would my hands, which I use to pray to Kynareth draw a bow to shoot such a beatiful creature
I was told that Skyrim was foggy and snowy... |
Stories from the North
. But this won't be an AAR about one story, but rather a collection of small stories about various characters (I have done many run-throughs and therefore many characters). So, sometimes chapters will be coherent, sometimes they won't. (Meaning, that between two coherent stories one o two chapters with somethig completely diffrent may come) This is just a small side project and I will write something whenever I feel like playing and writing. (And I still have my A.E.I.O.U AAR)
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(Real life and a bad cold both got the better of me, I'm afraid.)
