Balgruuf is not surprised by Ulfic's warmongering, but feels a bit more confident about Whiterun's Stormcloak free future now the empire has sent him some troops. A legate pipes up that the enemy has been spotted marching toward the hold. This is it then: war has commenced!
On the external ramparts my fireball spell does well enough to account for about 40 percent of the attackers, albeit with a pretty high degree of collateral damage. Once the frontal assault is dealt with I turn and hack my way through the troops that had climbed up the rocks I'd thought were protecting our flank.
After much slaying the battle is over, and the Jarl comes and commends us all for a battle well fought. To the victor go the spoils, and I set about picking over the bodies strewn about the formerly peaceful battlements. It's while I'm doing this that I turn to speak to Lydia and realise she is nowhere to be found. Distraught, I hunt the battlefield for some trace of her but find none. Just when I've given up hope I head back in to Whiterun and find her waiting just inside the gate. Relieved, we head out to finish this war, particularly so given all the places we might go to in Whiterun are behind impassable barricades.
Outside the stables are aflame, and there is no sign of my preferred mode of transport: the horse and cart. I figure the choice then is to either give Whiterun a day or so to get back on its feet, or head to Solitude on foot to coordinate the next move with the general. I have business in Riverwood as it happens, so Lydia and I decide to head there to wait for the local economy to recover.
Delphine meets us at the tavern and explains a plan she's come up with to infiltrate the Thalmor embassy. Again, I'll need to get to Solitude first, so Lydia and I rest up then head out the next morning. I decide not to risk Whiterun still being a shambles, and we turn south instead to find the route to Falkreath, which I'm hoping will also have a stable or horse trader of some sort. We take a little diversion through the Embershard Mine when a dragon shows up, but come to the southern hold by late afternoon.
It's a small forest based settlement, with a young jarl supported by a pleasant enough steward. Lydia and I don't get too involved with the locals, and get on with looking for the stables. After a lot of looking I eventually have to conclude the town isn't big enough to have a set of stables or horses for hire. Furthermore, looking at my map I agree with Lydia that we will have to spend the night at the local tavern, and then either swim across the lake to Brittleshin pass or head west around the lake and walk north to Solitude.
Before settling down for the night I have an interesting chat with a man whose daughter has been murdered. The culprit is being held in custody, so I decide to go and see what the story is here. He's bang to rights, as he's wearing some sort of cursed ring that causes him to turn into a beast in the moonlight. I suspect that helping this man would bring me onto a path where such transformations are the norm. But I will have none of it, having seen the father's grief in this matter I will not help the culprit, and I leave him to whatever fate awaits him.
We head out early on Tirdas and put the disappointing backwater behind us. I've decided overnight to head west and then north and walk the roads to Solitude. We follow the cobblestone route into early afternoon, making the occasional stop to investigate along the way. The highlights are when Lydia and I recover the shards of a broken sword from a band of Orc bandits, and when we stumble across a nirnroot grove where some spraggans and a bear appear to have dispatched a young alchemist.
Eventually the path threads between the Brittleshin mountains and a lone snow capped peak to their west. Circling the pass is a large dragon which in the fading light is enough of a threat to deter us from our mission. We turn back and then around the south side of the lone peak, encountering a wounded hunter next to a cave that he reckons has a bear and some spraggans within. We agree to help him, myself in the hope that the cave traverses the whole mountain. It doesn't, but the wildlife is easily within our capabilities, so there is no great drama, and we head back out to continue circling clockwise round the western peak.
The path north is perilous, and frankly a bit of a slog. We meet bandits, and bridges, and bizarre natural formations of ingredients and geology. The tales of Lydia and I are not the kind to be told in legend, other than to record that it is 6pm on Middas the first of Frostfall when we finally trudge back to the castle in Solitude, and begin prowling the corridors for a debriefing from the General.
