A Few Skyrim Speculations
(Written 20/4/11-22/10/11)
(pre-Skyrim speculation) written in response to the suggestion that Necromancers might play a bigger part in Skyrim and if it was at all likely that they could have a guild.
(you are greeted at the heavy set mahogany doors by the look of him a recently deceased porter, who stares at you through vacant opaque eyes, spittle sliding unheeded down his chin. though no clear order can be seen or heard, the porter turns away from the door allowing you admittance. the flicking light cast by the braziers inside the door glint faintly on the back of his head drawing your eye to the steel axe that probably ended his life still embedded there. As you follow the ambling porter down the stone walled corridor you can feel eyes watching you both dead and undead from the shadows that seem to pour from the walls themselves. Pulling your hood further over your face you stare determinedly at the slightly tarnished breastplate of the porter, ignoring the whispers that follow in your wake like a Frostfall breeze. As you enter the main room you spy small groups scatted around the many shadowed alcoves gesticulating at bones piled at their feet and then to the vials of smoking liquid in their hands. Dismissing the heated arguments around you, you focus on the black and blood-red clad figure waiting near the altar. At last you reach your final destination.
"Welcome recruit, we are always looking for fresh minds... and bodies"
The echoing rush of chanting is the last thing you hear as the world fades to black....
(Written on the speculation of treasure map type quests and treasure maps (mostly what the little red X's meant on the promo map)
Imagine you are walking through the forested, sloping hills that surround the base of one of the taller mountains in Skyrim. You've heard rumour that there were ruins of the long lost Dwemer race supposedly in the area. So far your search has been fruitless, nothing but trees, rocks and little itching bugs that constantly find their way down the back of your vest.
Frustration sets in as you realise you are running low on your provisions and there has been no sightings of any animals in the area. You are just about to turn around, give up the ruins to the forests that had claimed them centuries before, when suddenly the ground begins to shake violently under your feet before falling away completely. There is no time to turn, no time to save yourself as you fall mercilessly into the gaping abyss below you.
Hours or maybe just minutes later you blink slowly at the weak light that filters down into the giant pit you've found yourself in. Unsteadily you find your feet, shaking loose the remnants of your bad vision you focus first on the way you came in, for such a earthly hole the sides appear smooth with nothing with which to use as handholds. casting your vision around the walls of your prison you spy a crumbling uneven patch on the wall, even more startling and perhaps more hopeful is what appears to be stones, definitely construction stones but never before have you seen them crafted so well. Excited you rush over and begin prying them from their resting place. Pulling out one well-placed stone suddenly brings several crashing down with it widening the hole in twice the speed it would have taken you normally.
Crawling through the hole you can't help but let out a whoop of excitement as you stare down the long corridor before you, it seems your luck has changed. You’re tired, abused body temporarily forgotten in the rush at your discovery and you set off immediately.
Sometime later finds you slumped against a wall at the end of a dead end, it feels you have been wandering these halls forever. You’ve just had the last of your rations though your stomach still protests. Your eyes glace at the spluttering torch at your side, its light is almost gone and non to replace it. it appears that this is the end of the line for you, with no way out and no way forward you will join the many other luckless treasure hunters to die, alone, forgotten and only your skeleton to remain as a testament to your existence at all. As these melancholy thoughts swirl around your head, the torch gives up the ghost gifting you with the wafting stench of burnt oil and blackness so deep it seems to hold a substance of its own. Sighing tiredly you lean your head back and immediately feel the stone give way, fearing another tumble you lurch forward and turn back towards the wall.
As you stare into the darkness a line of light appears out of nowhere and begins to trace what appears to be the shape of a door in the stone in front of you. Sure enough once the line has completed its course the section of the wall swings silently inward. Swallowing your fear, you venture inside....
(Written in response to speculation and a poll on what we thought would be the setting for the next Elder Scrolls, if I can remember correctly it was almost neck and neck for days between Elsweyr and Blackmarsh with lots of debate on conjoining Providences)
One moment you are crouched deep in the shadows of a towering, moss laden tree. The forest deer you've been tracking for the past hour is just scant yards ahead of you. You creep steadily closer, your breathing gets shallow as the excitement mounts. Suddenly disaster strikes! A dry branch cracks under a misplaced foot, the sound echoes loudly in the suddenly silently forest. Then like a wave crashing against the rocks all sound returns magnified, the alarming screech of awoken birds fills the air as en mass they take wing to the safety of the skies you quickly glance back at your prey.
The deer has gone stock-still and then in the single beat of your racing heart it bolts. You quickly give chase, racing through thick green foliage, the sound of insects buzzing in your ear, mingles with the harsh sound of air on the back of your throat as you close the distance with the deer til it all becomes white noise. As you lunge forward the deer makes a sharp right, loses its footing for a few heart stopping seconds before gathering its legs and bounding over a fallen tree. You put too much behind your leap and can't control your landing. The next thing you know you've made hard contact with the ground, the little air in your lungs is forcibly pushed out as you continue to make your mad descent down a rapidly vanishing landscape.
Desperately you reach out; snagging your hand in a dense patch of roots just as your legs fly out and meet open air before gravity reclaims them to slam into the side of the cliff you almost went off. Regaining some footing you pull yourself back onto safe ground and stare out down the sheer drop that was to be your fate.
Far below and as far as you can see the land lays bare of any greenery the harsh winds blow the sand and dirt until it almost looks like water, broken only sparingly by large rocks and dead trees sand-scoured almost bone white. Just barely in the haze covered distance you can see large buildings made of stone half buried by the sand that never seems to stop moving, lit only by the blaze of the setting sun behind it. You turn back to the dense greenery around you; the animals have long since scattered and will be slow to return.
There will be no deer tonight but at least you didn't join the bone trees of the desert.
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