The Elder Strolls, Part 2: "This Elusive Feeling"
\[post\]The Elder Strolls, Part 1: "Just off the Boat"\[/post\]
I accomplished quite a bit on my second day in Dawnstar. I visited the Jarl and listened to him ramble about problems I had no intention of helping him solve. I bought my own pickaxe and did some more mining, extracting all the ore down to the last piece and selling it to Leigelf, that racist who owned the mine. On the outskirts of the town, I stumbled upon a group of wandering Khajiit and sold them some of my precious gems in exchange for boots, bracers, a hunting bow, and a couple of iron arrows.
And now – hunting!
Well, sooner or later – hunting: it takes a lot of time just to leisurely leave the city. Then quite a bit more time is spent trying to find someone to actually hunt. And when I finally find a suitable target – a moose or whatever they call them in Skyrim – it turns out that three wolves are already hunting it, and they immediately decide I’m a much more prestigious prey than some moose.
At least his nose isn’t in my groin now. I think.
It's my first battle! Suddenly I realize that it never occurred to me to buy any weapon besides a bow and arrows. I have no sword, no mace, nothing of the sort, just a dagger and my pickaxe. As it turns out, the pickaxe is quite a suitable weapon, and I manage to quickly knock the life out of the snarling wolves. The hunt continues: I come across another moose, but I can’t seem to kill it, and I manage to survive an attack from some skeevers, bravely killing an angry mountain goat that dared to stand innocently nearby. Upon returning to the city, I process the pelts into leather strips, and then I craft myself an iron sword and a helmet, just like that dude in the Skyrim ad.
Here’s a great piece of art for your game cover, Bethesda!
Despite the fact that my brand new helmet conceals my ugly face, the townsfolk suddenly stop chattering about their nightmares and start yelling at me that I look like crap. It turns out I caught an illness called “ataxia,” either from the wolves or from the skeevers. But it only affects my sneaking skills, and since I’m a harmless NPC, I don’t plan on stealing from anyone. So aside from the real flow of insults, I don’t find it inconvenient to be a host for rat lice.
The next day I set out hunting further – along the cold snowy beach to the west. In the distance, I spot the figure of a man pacing back and forth with a shield in hand. I think it’s one of the guards of Dawnstar, patrolling the area, but as soon as I realize I’ve wandered pretty far from the city, an arrow hits me in the head.
At least the new helmet came in handy pretty quickly.
Oops. This isn’t a guard from Dawnstar; it’s a bandit, and next to him is another bandit, and beside him is yet another one. I draw my sword and charge at the two closest, but both have shields, and they block all my attacks. Meanwhile, the third bandit, the one with the bow, is shooting arrows at me from a safe distance. Hmm. This could end quickly and badly.
Hey, guys, why do you want to rob me? You already have way more crap on you than I do!
While the bandits patiently wait along with the rest of the universe, I look for any tricks Nordrik might have up his sleeve (even though he doesn’t have sleeves). I discover that he has an innate ability – Shout – that can be used once a day, and in Nordrik’s case, it would be better named Cowardly Scream. I activate the ability, and the two nearest bandits flee in terror from my fright. I run after them, swinging my sword, but our speeds are equal, and I can’t reach them. The amusing parade of two fleeing bandits and one wildly swinging sword idiot fortunately passes right by the third bandit, who my magical scream of horror didn’t reach, so he remains standing still. I furiously chop him down, finishing him off with a couple of strikes. The two others regain their courage and attack again, but their shield skills don’t seem quite so terrifying anymore, and after a couple of minutes of intense slicing and running around the beach, they head off to the afterlife.
Oh. Whew. Wow. I just killed three people. Not wolves, skeevers, or goats, but people. For a couple of seconds, I ponder the transience of life, the inner darkness that causes a person to raise arms against another person, and then I mourn the senseless loss of human life according to the ancient Tamrielic tradition – relieving the dead fools of their gear and leaving their bare bodies in the cold snow.
That night I sleep in the camp of the dead bandits, very pleased that I found a free bed. While hunting in the morning (the prey – a snow fox and two wolves), I notice something in the distance that looks like a wrecked ship. I was going to head back to Dawnstar, but this ship looks very intriguing, and I want to check it out up close. On the way, I stumble upon an overturned boat inhabited by mudcrabs and a couple of useful items – a precious necklace, some great boots, and a curved sword that’s definitely better than my current sword because it’s curved. With the new sword and bandit armor, I seem to look quite impressive.
Three things in games you should always take a closer look at: campfires, waterfalls, and shipwrecks.
Finally, I approach the wreck site, and while I admire it, I suddenly hear a voice behind me. Some guy rushed up from behind and is now talking to my back. He tells me to take something for temporary storage and not to tell anyone, or he’ll kill me. Confused, I turn around only to see him running off somewhere into the distance. What was that all about? I check my inventory and, of course, find a HUGE MAGIC SWORD that this guy stuffed right in my pants.
Great. I just unwillingly took possession of a stolen item. I hate it when people just take and put something in my inventory without asking my opinion on the matter. It’s called “personal space,” people. I glumly walk around the deck of the ship, frustrated, then turn around and see another idiot running toward me. Oh, let me guess. This idiot is the victim of the previous idiot who stole his sword, the very one that is now hidden somewhere in my pants. Fantastic. See what happens when you try to avoid adventures in Skyrim: Skyrim doesn’t like it, it sneaks up on you from behind while you’re not looking and shoves a great stolen magic sword right into your pants, forcing you into an adventure.
Yes, I have a SWORD in my pants, and no, I’m NOT HAPPY to see you.
Well, I’m not going to get embroiled in anyone’s personal drama. I recently had to decide whether to take a nobody’s pickaxe or not, and for a guy like me, that was already freaking thrilling. I promptly hand the sword over to this new idiot, who seems a bit surprised by my honest gesture, which is completely out of character for an adventurer. He then runs off too, promising to kill the first idiot as a parting gift. Well, good luck! Just don’t rope me into it!
I’m annoyed, but you know what? It’s my own fault. I saw a shipwreck and decided to go check it out, thus hinting to the game that I’m ready for adventure. What was I expecting? Grandpa Nordrik also explored a couple of vessels in his time, and it didn’t end well. The first time he found himself in the middle of the sea surrounded by bandits; the second time, he encountered ghosts. This ship is probably packed with pirate zombies or vampire mudcrabs or presidential candidates from the Republican Party or something else horrible. I won’t even bother trying to find anything interesting on deck. I’ll just leave. Do you hear me, Skyrim?! Nordrik is LEAVING.
In a bad mood, I shuffle back to Dawnstar. I won’t even sleep in the camp of the dead bandits: they will probably respawn, or I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to find those two idiots back, trying to use my pants as a chest. From now on, being in the open, I will shoot at anything furry, armored, or looking like a goat and ignore the rest.
And now I regret not having a great magic sword in my pants.
Or maybe not. Skyrim hasn’t yet ceased its attempts to turn me into an adventurer. I’m approaching Dawnstar when the serene music that’s been playing in my head suddenly turns ominous. I turn around and see a massive, damn snow troll charging right at me. I begin to back away, peppering him with arrows, but he ignores them, instantly regenerating health and not stopping for a second. I manage to scramble up a rocky outcropping while the troll stays below, growling in frustration and trying to find a way up.
Well, this is not good at all. Trolls are damn dangerous fellows. I carefully walk along the cliff, spotting the roof of a building and realizing I’m already in Dawnstar. Maybe someone will help me deal with this berserk ice gorilla? I spot a couple of guards, looking concerned and holding their weapons at the ready, but they don’t seem to know from where the threat is coming.
Suddenly help comes from an unexpected place. I see Leigelf, that racially biased mine owner, rushing past me towards the troll, waving his pickaxe! Yes! Give it to him, Leigelf! I love you! I’ll forgive your mumbling racism if you just take down that troll ah wait he’s dead. Leigelf dies instantly. The troll kills him with a single blow, hurling the poor racist body aside. Ouuuu...
Another miner, Lond, rushes toward the troll, also holding a pickaxe. This doesn’t fill me with optimism: the guy isn’t even wearing a shirt. Lond lasts about 0.0003 seconds longer than Leigelf. The situation just got terrifying. I suddenly envision the entire population of the town falling to the hands of the troll I accidentally brought here. I try to set the troll on fire using a fire spell, but while the beast doesn’t much like being a torch, its health doesn’t drop much.
And now the troll comes into the town. At this moment, I feel like this is never going to end. From now on and forever in my life, there will only be one thing: endless running, days, weeks, and months down all roads, through all towns and villages, with an invincible troll on my tail who can knock the breath out of any NPC with a single blow, leaving behind a dead Skyrim filled with the bodies of its former inhabitants.
Or maybe not. Almost immediately, the troll gets stuck between a house and a stone wall and just stands there, bewildered. The guards start peppering him with arrows, and the creature finally breathes its last. I pull six of my iron arrows from its corpse and another eight steel ones that belonged to the guards (and a couple more from the wall of the closest house).
Final losses in the battle with the troll: three people. Leigelf, Lond, and one of the guards. I don’t want to loot the poor dead bodies and sell their belongings to local merchants. That feels gross, especially considering that I kind of bear responsibility for their deaths. So I just leave the dead in peace, head back to the tavern, munch on some fresh troll fat, and stand through the night asleep near the bed.
Poor inhabitants of Dawnstar. They’re already suffering from nightmares. And somehow, I feel that destroying almost all local mining industry right in front of their eyes isn’t going to make things better.