The Elder Strolls, Part 6: "One Is Worth a Whole Flock"
\[post\]The Elder Strolls, Part 1: "Just Off the Boat"\[/post\]
[post]The Elder Strolls, Part 2: "That Elusive Feeling"[/post]
[post]The Elder Strolls, Part 3: "Towards the Storm"[/post]
[post]The Elder Strolls, Part 4: "Nordric the Envious"[/post]
[post]The Elder Strolls, Part 5: "Spring Break"[/post]
I don't care about Riften. Although wait, that's not true. I hate Riften. I hate Riften, and I want it to burn to the ground, and I want all its citizens to burn to ashes as well, and I want a gang of giants to come and cover the ruins with dirt and rocks, and I want everyone who asks what that stinking heap of burnt corpses where Riften used to be is, to get nothing but a confused shrug from the giants.
That is what I wish for Riften.
It all went wrong long before I even got to the city. When I approached the gates late at night, the guards told me that this entrance was closed, and I would have to go through the north gate. Fine, why not. Walking around the city, I ran into a necromancer who attacked me, then three bandits who attacked the necromancer, and then decided to attack me as well. When they all found eternal rest and their bodies were stripped of their unnecessary armor and weapons, I finally made it to the northern gate, where another guard demanded a bribe just to let me in. I may have complained loudly enough that he got flustered and let me enter.
I know it’s not the best moment, but will you marry me?
Taking two steps past the gate, I bump into a big guy, who rudely tells me to not cause any trouble. Another guy eyes me suspiciously and then decides that my wealth (wealth?) was gained through unjust means and that I should help him pull off some shady deal. A woman at the tavern tells me to get out of her sight even before I can cross the room and start flirting with her. The inhospitable nature of this city can be perfectly illustrated by a simple pile of hay I found in the Ratway, the filthy area beneath the city where I hoped to spend the night for free.
Pwned.
Uh-huh. This pile of hay has an owner. AN OWNER. A filthy pile of hay covered in dirty hides in a dirty basement where beggars frequently come is too good for me.
After spending the night at the tavern, I enter the Temple of Mara and ask the priest how I could get married. I buy from him a (rather expensive) Amulet of Mara, which, when worn, will signal to other NPCs in Skyrim that I am seeking a partner, and they won't wonder why I'm looking at them weirdly. The priest also gives me the bad news that I already know: in order to win someone's heart enough for them to want to marry me, I first need to do something for that someone. In Skyrim, marriage begins with deeds.
Deeds. Why must it be deeds? I don't do deeds. Normally they lead to adventures, excitement, wealth, power, intrigue… All that nonsense doesn't interest me. I want to chop wood, make boots, and catch butterflies. And yet, I hope there are NPCs with safe, simple tasks that I can complete to win their love (and their property).
The difficulty is that the deed needs to be completed before I know that this way I could convince someone to marry me. No one will just walk up to me and say, "Hey, ugly, I'll marry you if you bring me a magical toilet from the Cave of Mouse Crap." I will have to fight bats and fetch the toilet before I even knew that this NPC was remotely interested in marrying me.
The more people, the more problems. I'm sure even that crab has a quest for me.
So, I spend the next two days roaming the city, talking to the local NPCs, figuring out what deeds I can do for them and pondering whether they are doable and if they could ultimately lead to marriage. Yes, I know there's a wiki for that, but I try to play it straight. It quickly becomes obvious that this will be practically impossible.
There’s a blacksmith who needs fire salts for his forge, and he tells me that the best way to get it is to kill a few terrifying fire monsters. Pass. An elf from the meadery wants me to smuggle a barrel of booze to a buyer outside the city. Smuggling? I'm not Han Solo. One waitress is unhappy with her boss and wants me to procure proof of his marital infidelity. A redguard has problems with local bandits. One guy from the farm wants me to return items stolen from him by the Thieves Guild. The list just keeps growing. Finally, I meet a quiet, pleasant woman who doesn’t need anything from me at all, but only because she’s dead.
I like low-maintenance women, but…
Desperate, I decide to visit the local orphanage in hopes that someone will just adopt me. Looking at these poor orphans and realizing they have it even worse than I do lifts my spirits a little, but not much.
People with good housing conditions can adopt this big ugly kid for free!
Finally, I manage to find a suitable candidate: an Argonian from the Riften docks complains about her addiction to skooma, Skyrim's main drug, and asks for a healing potion. An ugly, talking lizard with a drug addiction? Now that’s a dream come true for any man! And yet, this is the easiest of all quests, especially since I happen to have a healing potion with me. I give it to her, she thanks me… and then gives me a ring. A ring! Yes, I'll marry you! A thousand times yes!
Wait. No. She isn't proposing to me; she's just giving me a valuable ring as a reward for bringing her the potion. Silly drug addict, why couldn’t you just go to town, pawn the ring, and buy the potion you need so badly? Is this what adventurers face every day? Dealing with idiots who can’t complete a simple task without outside help? It must be a terrible job: being the systems administrator for every NPC in Skyrim.
As if my list of reasons to hate this city wasn’t long enough, another has been added: some headless jerk is wearing the same stupid hat as me.
First hay, and now THIS.
Come on, dude! That’s my hat! It’s my signature! You're copying me. And suddenly it hits me that I don’t even know where I got this headgear. I sift through my notes and find the answer: "HUT OF THE DEAD GUY – STUPID HAT." Oh, right. That hat belonged to the guy who got chomped by a saber-tooth in that hut and whose terrible and frequently reappearing remains drove me to this damned city. I take it off and throw it to the ground. Three townsfolk notice this, start arguing over who spotted the hat first, then whip out their weapons and start fighting over it. Now do you understand why I hate this city?
Okay, I need to take a break from the oppressive marriage hunt and all this hat nonsense. Luckily, I was planning to do something else. I'm a bit tired of the gloomy and shabby look of my iron armor, so I head to the forge, thinking it's time to craft something in steel. Strolling around and looking at the blacksmith's equipment, I notice something. There’s no smelter here. What kind of blacksmith doesn’t even have a smelter?
There’s another problem: neither the blacksmith nor the regular shop has any steel ingots for sale. Riften is getting worse. I can’t smelt any ingots, and I can’t buy them either. I can’t find anyone to marry. The hat I threw down caused a brawl. Plus, I completed a quest, and that makes me feel heroic. The local guard can’t help but add fuel to the fire: "I was an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee,” he says as he walks by. Yes, the guards always say some nonsense, but I find those words particularly hurtful right now.
I decide to spend the next day outside the city. Maybe there’s a mine nearby, and around mines, smelters are often found. Maybe Riften isn’t as bad as I initially thought. I head north, and sure enough, a mine pops up on my mental radar. Approaching it, I realize something’s wrong. Usually, around mines, you can find a settlement, a fortress, or something, but this one is just a door in a stone wall. Strange. And inside, it’s even stranger. No dirty but friendly NPC greets me at the cave entrance. There are no comforting sounds of someone mining ore here. I start to stealthily creep in, suspecting a trap, but neither bandits nor monsters jump out at me from nowhere. It’s just an abandoned mine. What’s worse, the people who abandoned it decided to leave all the ore behind. Other than a couple of mushrooms, there’s nothing worth finding in the mine.
Well, a logical conclusion to this stupid week. No ore, no smelter to refine it. No one to marry, and no house worth marrying for. In fact, I already miss my nasty, bloody, bone-filled shack by the river. I shouldn’t have left.
In a gloomy mood, I start my way back to Riften. And what do I see a hundred yards ahead? A trio of wolves. I sigh, draw my sword, but then notice they aren’t attacking me; they’re fighting each other. Wolves fighting each other? Never seen that before.
As I get closer, I see one of the wolves engaging two others, and he looks different from them. A bit bigger, perhaps? Wait, that’s not a wolf at all; it’s a dog! I rush in to help, and together we quickly dispatch the pesky wolves. I look around for the dog's owner. No one is nearby. He’s a stray.
Newbie "fetch me that thing" quests meets expert.
I can interact with him, command him to wait, go home (not that I know where that is), or follow me. I have a dog. Now I have a dog! I name him Jasper. My mood lifts. I head back to Riften, glancing back every few steps to make sure Jasper is following me. He’s always there, a few steps behind, panting and barking.
Okay, he’s certainly not a wife or husband, and there’s no house that comes with him. But hey, I’ve got a companion who's happy to sit in the tavern all night while I get drunk. What more could I ask for?