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 - Dustman's Cairn

Dustman's Cairn is very similar to the other tombs I've entered so far - rows of shelves carved into the stone walls house ancient Nord bodies in various stages of decomposition. Farkas seems keen on running ahead, though he has to stop often to wait for me to catch up. It's not me being slow ( and I resent the implication), I'm just clinically searching every urn and body that we pass for treasures to fund my adventuring.

It doesn't take long before some of the Draugr arise from their somewhat incorrectly described "eternal slumber." Farkas proves to be an immense warrior, and rarely needs my assistance in putting the Draug back to rest. Whether this will impinge on the report for my trial is unknown at this time.

We soon find that the Draugr are not alone in the cairn - few Whights rear their very ugly and decompsing heads. I'm no anthropologist, but in my limited contact with the Draugr, I believe them to be the hoi-polloi of this society, and the Whights to be their betters. I might be wrong, it has happened on a handful of occasions.

Skeevers also run around these dark halls, but they prove of little entertainment to Farkas and I - a single sweep from either of our blades ends them in an instant.

We enter a large room, where I spot a lever in a small ante-chamber. I absent-mindedly pull on it, and a gate swings shut. "I have the worst luck" I think to myself. But then Farkas is approached by almost a dozen bandit-types calling themselves Silver Hand warriors. It looks like this is the end of our very brief friendship, but then something curious and strange occurs - Farkas turns into a slavering beast. The Silver Hands don't seem perturbed in the slightest, and carry on trying to have at him. This beast-that-was-Farkas jumps on them all, killing each and every one of them.

He disappears around a corner, and comes back as a human after pulling another lever to open the gate and release me. We have a little chat about what I just saw. He isn't embarrassed by the bestial display, and tells me that this is what can happen to the upper "Circle" of Companions. He doesn't even swear me to silence. Not that anyone would believe me. Although Lydia might.

We walk into an even larger room than the last after navigating a series of skeever infested tunnels. Obsidian coffins line the walls, clearly filled with more Draugr ready to awaken and feast on our flesh. Yet they stay put for now. As we progress through the room, stairs lead us up to an altar where in plain site, I spy the fragment I'd been tasked to acquire.

Already knowing that picking this chunk of cut rock up would raise the dead, I begin to charge my firebolt spell. Then, while doing so, I reach across and put the fragment into my pack.

Crash. A number of stone coffin lids fall open, and the Draugr advance on me and Farkas from all sides. Flame shooting from my hands, Farkas engaging them with sword, we best them swiftly. Even the Restless Draugr and Draugr Wights are no match for our combined arms.

The battle is soon over, with undead corpses lining the stone floor. I do a quick search of the chamber for more treasure - those Ancient Nords knew how to send their dead off in style, and I find plenty of gold and jewels. Turning my attention back to the altar, I notice a large semi-circular carved wall.

Things go a bit funny for a minute, as my vision blurs and a great gust of wind and knowledge hit me. I have learnt a new dragon word it seems - my head buzzes with "Fire Breathe". There is an exit to the upper world just behind the wall, and Farkas and I ascend it and head back to Whiterun to deliver the fragment to the Companions.

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 - Smithing in Whiterun

It turns out that the magic blade I took from the bandit chief in the fort earlier in the day is actually the family heirloom of an Amren in Whiterun. Returning to Whiterun from our recent reconnoiter, I instantly begin my search for the Redguard.

Amren is very grateful for the return of this sacred sword, and gives me lessons in one-handed combat techniques, free of charge. Of course, future ones will cost me gold, but his tutelage is excellent. I'll be going back for more when my coin stretches that far.

Due to my recent mining, I have a large haul of iron ore sitting in my pack. It weighs heavily on my mind, and my back. On previous visits to Whiterun, I've done some smithing at Warmaiden's, the armoury shop run by Adrianne Avenicci. She is appreciative of my skills, my yearning for further knowledge of the smithing art. She lets me use her equipment pro bono.

First, the smelter. This melts down the chunks of iron ore into iron ingots. All I have to do is shovel enough coal in to keep the fire hot enough to melt the raw ore. With these new ingots, I walk over to the smith and start to hammer out some iron helmets and iron daggers. The daggers only need iron ingots, but the helmets require some leather straps to keep them on heads. I've already got some leather, I just need to cut it into strips at the tanning frame.

I could sell my newly-built battle equipment now, but I'll make more money by improving my already excellent work. I sharpen the daggers, and improve the helmets further on the workbench before walking into Warmaiden's.

I buy some more arrows and other bits from the humourously named Ulfberth War-Bear. He is somewhat bearish in build, and sports the best beard I've seen in Whiterun. He doesn't seem to mind at all that I've used his tools to make the very items I'm selling to him.

Leaving Warmaiden's, I walk up to the Companion's headquarters of Jorrvaskr. I speak with a variety of people in there. In all honesty, they're all quite similar. Maybe I should learn their names if I want to join them, which I do. They accept me on board, despite my badness with faces.

I'm told that my first quest for them is to travel to Dustman's Cairn, a lovely pit of undeath located near to Whiterun, and retrieve the "Fragment of Wuuthrad." I don't really know what I'm looking for, but luckily another Companion called Farkas is assigned as my "Shield Brother." I'm trying to take all this information in, its all a bit cliquey.

Of course, with Farkas as my new battle-brother, I am forced to leave Lydia back at Breezehome. She's doesn't seem too bothered by this, just goes to sit in her room and have a sleep. With that, Farkas and I turn for the door, and head for Dustman's Cairn.