Posted by
Paul M May 15, 2014 -
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I wake early on the Sundas after an interesting night in the tavern. I had a fight with the bard to teach him how to treat a local widow, earning me 250 coins. I also got to grips with the Battle-Born and Grey-Mane divide. Partly it's a class thing, with the Battle-Borns richer than the others, but also the Grey-Manes appear to support the rebellion while the Battle-Borns don't. After overhearing an old Grey-Mane arguing with some rival clansmen I have said I will look for a young farmer missing in action. It's sad work, as either he's been killed in battle or it will further divide the clans of Whiterun.
I find a door on the west of the city so leave in that direction and loop clockwise around the city walls. It's a nice sort of day, and the lands to the west look quiet. In the north I see a misty mountain, which I convince myself is the one I climbed over yesterday. There's an ocean beyond that looks to be within less than a day's walk, but I remind myself of the forbidding natural hazards of that region, and decide to stick with my immediate plan of heading back to Riverwood, after making some rudimentary enquiries about the missing Grey-Mane boy.
It turns out that to talk to the Grey-Mane lady I have to go back in to Whiterun, so after a lap of the city I do so. Apparently the man we're looking for is called Thorald. They want proof from the Battle-Borns that he's still alive. It's all in these people's heads at the moment, they have no proof of anything. I'll put this in the come back to later column, as I think it will require getting all up in the Battle-Born business.
And so I take an uneventful trip back to Riverwood, catching butterflies and picking flowers as I go. Rain starts to fall just as I arrive so I duck into the tavern to mix up some potions before heading to see my old pal Lucen, or whatever he was called.
There's a few more soldiers compared to when I was last in town, and by the time I've spoken to Lucen and uncle Alvor I figure it's about time to head to the old witch's shack where I'm planning to spend the night. As I leave town I see the waterfall where I found the iron ore. Now the proud owner of a pickaxe, I go and mine the ore for a bit. I'll sell that to Alvor when I get back I guess, but more importantly I feel for the first time like I've completed my own little quest. My other great ambitions at the moment are to get to Winterhold, and clear out those jokers in Fellglow Keep.
I head back to the path and retread the route I took on my very first foray to this place. Round the back of bandit tower I find some steps which I didn't take before, and decide these are preferable to slipping down the rocks, even if they don't have that nostalgia feeling. I descend into a wooded glade and see what looks to be a bandit taking an afternoon jog to the river. I've never really settled the bandit problem at this spot, and decide that today is going to be the day. As I turn towards their camp though I see a floating flame atronach, which appears to have also decided that today is the day to teach these bandits a lesson. I don't want to fight it, but at the same time I reckon I could take it down if the bandits have weakened it at all. And if I don't do it I'll have to go back to town to sleep tonight, rather than holding up in the old lady's crib.
I approach while keeping a tree between myself and the creature. Fireballs narrowly miss me as I go. I eventually leap out from the closest point of cover, hurling lightning at it as I go, which is the closest thing I have to an ice spell. That does half the job, and my enchanted sword does the rest as we dance between the trees, in a display I can only imagine to an outside observer would look like a sunset thunderstorm fallen to earth. Once it falls I manage to grab some fire salts, but looking around I see no sign of the bandits that frequent here, or their camp.
At first I think I've become disorientated by the battle, but within a few paces I come to the woodland shack and the pile of steaming ashes that I was aiming for. It's 6:15, and although the sun is setting it is still quite bright to be calling it a day. I sit in the old lady's chair for a bit and take in the view of the ruins on the mountain, half expecting to see a younger version of myself approach, all plucky and enthusiastic, looking for a way up to the barrow temple. I wonder how this place used to work, back in the day? I imagine the dead would be carried here in a ceremonial march from some capital within a day's journey. The Nords would maybe then camp out on the mountain, taking some of this woodland to make fires. And the cold hopelessness of their loss would become solid reality in the desolation of the snow capped mountains, until the hope of a new day dawned in the east.
As I sit musing at Bleak Falls Barrow an incredible aurora appears. The mountain itself seems to glow green and yellow, while the sky above burns with a mesmerising red curtain of flame. It lingers for a long time, slowly giving way to the growing silhouette of the mountains against the twinkling stars. If only what's her name was still around instead of being a pile of ashes, I'm sure she'd have loved this.
I get up from the chair at 9:30, and head in to the shack. I pop to the cellar and use the alchemy table, before taking 8 hours sleep in the simple bed. It's 6am on Morndas when I wake, the 25th of Last Seed. In the dim twilight I make my plans to find the rear door to the main Nord burial chamber, avoid the big whatever it was skulking around in there, find the stone about the dragons, and make a swift exit. I have a potion of invisibility to aid me, and a scroll that will call up a storm version of the flame atronach, so it should go okay.
I manage to walk up to a point where I can see where I want to be, but that's not going to help me get there. I pick a path up the jagged rocks until I think I'm pretty much above the point I'm trying to get to, but slipping back down strikes me as pretty risky. I assess my options though and figure it is the only option if I want to use this door, so I give it a go. I crouch, shimmying from ledge to ledge and manage to get to the point I'd seen from below, but it turns out not to be a door after all. That's aggravating. I keep sliding down and have another go at finding the point I came out of last time.
Eventually I come back round to the mammoth bones and the still fresh looking blood. This is definitely too far, and I resign myself to having to head all the way back to bandit tower to get back in to this place. As I go I keep an eye on the mountain for any sign of where I came out, and while I don't spot that, I do see a tricky shortcut that gets me to the main entrance of the barrow without having to go all the way round. This is it then: into the house of the dead.
