Skyrim - Much to do in Whiterun

As the gates of Whiterun welcome me once more into the local capital, I breath a sigh of relief, as I imagine must Stenvar. I am carrying a lot of loot from my recent explorations, and anything which proved too much for even my muscle-bound form would be passed to Stenvar to carry - remember, he's a hired mercenary.

A lot of the equipment is weaponry and armour, so I visit Warmaiden's to sell it off. Like any other trader, Ulfberth War-Bear only holds a certain amount of gold, so in order to sell a majority of my gear I need to purchase items from him to balance the books. A lot of arrows have been lost in my recent adventuring, and so I buy large quantities of these for each of our quivers.

I leave the shop and make my way to Breezehome. Even though no one is home to tend it, the firepit still burns well. As I ascend the staircase, I glance over to the still-shut-door of Lydia's room, but quickly steal my eyes back again and walk into my own. The chest in the corner contains a lot of my gains from adventuring, and it is here that I store the remaining items I was unable to sell at Warmaiden's.

While looking through the chest, I decide to pick up large amount of leather and iron ingots which I had stored their previously. I make my way back outside, and, after getting the nod from Adrianne, begin to use the smithing equipment to make iron daggers and leather bracers. As I make each item, I become more and more proficient at it, so that the next item is better than the previous.

Naturally, by the end of all this manufacturing, I am left with a pile of armour and weapons which I have no need for. Luckily for me, Adrianne has a separate purse to Ulfberth, and I am easily able to sell the lot to her. I have no idea how she'll carry it all indoors - I'm barely able to lift the lot myself. But that's her issue, not mine.

I walk up the hill and enter the Temple of Kynareth. The priestess is happy to see me, and even happier to know that I've returned with the sap to help the special tree. She rewards me with gold, but isn't keen on taking back the Nettlebane sword. Fine, I'll hold onto it myself.

All through this conversation, I am waiting for the priestess to ask me about her assistant - after all, he never came back with me from Eldergleam Sanctuary. Maybe she wanted him away, and possibly dead? Either way, not my problem. I leave the temple.

As I begin to head out of Whiterun to begin my adventures once more, I have a quiet word with a little girl who has been bullying a boy. This boy turns out to be the Jarl's son - I fear that by not standing up for himself, this boy will not grow up to be a strong Jarl (assuming the Hold functions under some rudimentary form of hereditary monarchy).

We leave.

Skyrim - Lydia-less

With Lydia no longer at my side, I drift down the mountain as if in a dream. A landmark comes into view, an abandoned watchtower called South Skybound Lodge. Without my erstwhile follower, I sneak into the empty tower. I find a chest and a spider, which proves easy prey.

I am aiming for Whiterun, but find myself in the vicinity of Riverwood. I don't mention Lydia to anyone, and no one asks. I worry that her impact on this world wasn't as great as it was on my heart.

I enter Lucan Valerius' shop, and find him knocking things over. I imagine if I were to do the same, he wouldn't be too happy - his shop, his rules evidently. The golden chicken foot I brought back for him days ago is now displayed proudly on the counter. I sell a few things, lighten my load for the trek back to Whiterun. I leave without much of a chat.

The journey is uneventful, and I enter Breezehome. I store the items I took from Lydia in the chest next to my bed, as they will come in useful in the future. I walk back across the floor to where Lydia's room is. I take one last look at the tidy quarters, before shutting the door forever. This was her home, and I'll be damned if anyone else will ever enter that room.

Grasping Nettlebane, the magical blade I was tasked with procuring, I walk up the hill to the Temple of Kynareth. Walking through the door, I present it to the priestess. But she is wary of it, and does not seem keen to use it. She asks me to visit a glade and cut another big tree to get her some sap to fix the tree outside. I'm beginning to feel like the sap here - sure, she's dealing with a lot of sick and wounded, but there are other things I need to be getting on with.

I accept, and go to leave. Before I can, an acolyte called Maurice asks if he can come along with me, in pilgrimage to the Eldergleam Sanctuary where I am heading. After the hurt of Lydia's death, I am tempted to tell him to stay put, that death follows me around like a bad smell. But he is quite insistent. I tell him he can come along, but give no promises on his safety. Skyrim has already proven to me how cheap life is in the wilderness.

I look into another matter before leaving Whiterun - a man from House Gray-Mane is missing, presumed dead. The Gray-Manes belief House Battleborn has something to do with it, and so they have tasked me with finding evidence that proves this. I walk into the main abode of House Battleborn, brazen. Almost instantly I spot an out of place diary on some drawers next to a bed. Inside are details to where the Gray-Mane is being held - he's alive! As I pocket the book, I hear an old woman say "I saw what you did."

Turning around, a Whiterun town guard has been called due to my theft. But I placate him - I am a Thane of Whiterun, and certain leniency is granted to me. I'm not sure how far I can go with this, but the feeling of power is dizzying.

I return to the Gray-Mane with the book. She is terrified that I won't be able to release him, that I'd require an army to do so. I tell her that I will take care of things, without bloodshed (though we both know this won't happen).

I leave Whiterun with Maurice in tow, and head for the mysterious glade of Eldergleam Sanctuary.

Skyrim - Up into the mountains

A Companion named Vilkas meets Farkas and I outside the meeting hall. He leads as around the back of the building - I guess he doesn't want us traipsing our muddy boots through the hall. In fact, I am inducted into the Companions, and all because I brought back the Fragment of Wuuthrad.

Filled with hubris, I listen to my next assignment, but choose to not understand - I'll come back to them later. For now, I'm quite happy to walk around Whiterun with the town knowing that I am a Thane as well as a Companion.

 I deposit some items back at Breezehome, and get Lydia back on board. She seems keen for some adventure - so would I if I'd been stuck in this boring home of mine for days. No wonder I spend all of my time out in the country, battling bandits and dragons alike.

We exit the town, and I choose to lead Lydia on a quest to retrieve a magical blade for the priestess of Kynareth. It's right there on my "list of things to do" labeled "fix dead tree." Of course, it isn't a simple case of walking out of Whiterun and tripping over the blade, so I begin our rather circular trek into the mountains. Discovery is still very much the buzz word.

Lydia keeps the pace well, already I am impressed with her zeal. I enter the the village of Riverwood, where a lot of my old friends no longer seem to recognise me. Has my face become swollen with endless bashes from the denizens of Skyrim? Has my voice changed because I've been breathing strange fumes in mines? Where once they claimed that it everyday was a good day with me around, now they only grunt in acknowledgment.

Maybe its Lydia. Maybe Faedal has returned to Riverwood and spread bad word about her. We left on such good terms. I banish the thought from my head. I sell some gear, and we move on.

The road out of Riverwood snakes up into the mountains, and a bandit encampment comes into view. They don't seem to have notice us approaching, so giving Lydia a quick wink (I know she sees it, regardless of the heavy armour obscurring my eyes) we sneak towards them. When I'm in range, I stand up, and they are taken by surprise.

"Get out of here" one says, another growls "You'll do what's best for you." Which I do. We unsheathe our swords and remove the bandits from their mortal coils. Lydia seems to be relishing the attack, it breathes life into her.

I have a look around the camp and nab what I can carry. Spying a table and chair at the edge of camp, I sit down and take in the view of the valley. Birds sing, and I can barely hear the gurgle from cut-bandit throats over the gurgle of the river.

Skyrim - Fun on the road to Dustman's Cairn

Farkas and I go our separate ways once we leave the gates to Whiterun. "Meet me at Dustman's Cairn" he says, and runs off into the wild. Why do people do this to me, after all the good I've done for this world?

Knowing that Farkas won't enter the cairn without me being there (it's my trial to join the Companions afterall), I take the less than direct route there. I marvel at the wonders of nature - I shoot arrows through the hearts of wolves, I pick wild flowers for future use in my alchemical potions, I snatch butterflies out of the air, and I watch a herd of mammoths amble by.

So preoccupied am I by these displays, that I only notice a dragon is on me when it hits the ground in a great gust of wind, dust and bad breath. As with my previous altercations with the winged beasts, I am as far away from civilisation as I can get - and without Lydia, it really is just me versus the beast.

Or at least I think that's the case, as rather than coming to bite my head off, the dragon turns its attention to the mammoths. Regardless of the volume of poisoned dwarven arrows I pump into its leathery hide, the dragon maintains the viscous battle of winged-reptile versus furry-mammal. It manages to bring down on of the tusked leviathans, but I get the final word in with a swift arrow to the neck.

It collapses to the ground, and begins to burn to ash. I take what I can from the battlefield - dragon scales, some of its bones, a few of the arrows I'd loosed, and of course some bits from the mammoth.

I think about lugging these animal parts all through the cairn I'm heading to, and decide that these items would work better placed in a chest in my home. So I return briefly to Whiterun, and dump a large amount of my booty into Breezehome. I'll return at a later date and decide what to do with it all.

The killing of the dragon seems to have awakened the hunter in me, and when I leave Whiterun's gates once more, I set out to hunt a few wolves and elk. Their skins will be used to assist me with my smithing techniques through the future production of leather items.

I reach the outskirts of Dustman's Cairn after passing the remnants of the dragon battle, and am immediately ambushed by skeletons - if Farkas is already here, he's either a very bad scout or set this up as an initiation for me. It seems as though the skeletons are coming out of the very stonework itself. They are ineffective against my warrior instinct - not one makes it within a distance to inflict harm on me, as I pick them off in turn with simple iron arrow efficiency.

In finally make it to the entrance to the cairn. Farkas is there, but says nothing about the skeletons. I begin to doubt his competency. With a simple nod to each other, I crack open the iron doors and we enter the mound to begin my trial.

Skyrim - New Homeowner

Faedral and I set out for Whiterun - we know the route quite well by now, and nothing interrupts our gentle walk through the countryside. He is silent throughout our walk - clearly he is deep in thought, but I don't want to push it.

I have some business with the steward of Whiterun, who rewards me for slaying some bandits leader. He also reminds me that there is a house available to buy within the walls of Whiterun. By now, I have amassed a nice fortune, and happily spend almost all of it on the promise of property.

It is a small house called Breezehome, right next to the blacksmiths. I pray that he won't work all night - on previous trips to Whiterun, they tend to leave the forge around sixish, so I should get a good night's rest. The ground floor is a simple place, with room for racking weapons, and an ante-room for creating alchemical potions.

The first floor is one large room, with a chest for storing anything which I consider too valuable or heavy to carry around, and a nice double bed for sleeping in. Off that is another ante-room - this one is for my Housecarl, Lydia. She is already there when I enter my new house - clearly news travels fast around Whiterun, and the Steward has sent her ahead.

I can sense tension in the air. Faedal is standing there, and I have no idea how he feels - his face is hidden behind metal armour. Lydia, on the other hand, seems to want to actively talk to me. Faedal recent disappearance and reappearance certainly doesn't help things. I make my choice.


I walk over to him, and ask him for my bits of armour and weaponry back. He doesn't seem to have an issue with this, nor with me taking the gold currency stored on his person. "I'm going to have to let you go" I hear myself saying to him. "It's just now working anymore." Without any kind of antagonism, he says okay, that I can find him in Riverwood if I need him again, and walks off.

My voice catches in my throat as he walks down the stairs. I walk around the top floor to follow his progress out of the house and, just as he leaves, he glances around at me. There are tears in my eyes, and I'm speechless, but I know deep in my heart that I've made the right choice.