If you haven’t done so already, here is chapter 1.
The following morning, I took the house clearing junk I’d gathered from Alvor’s house and dragged it to the Riverwood Trader’s store. No sooner than I’d walked to the door than this stupid Bosmer named Faendal wanted to help him with his love life, as if I had time for that. Still, I might get some coin out of the bastard, so I agreed to help him. He wanted me to set up this other dude named Sven with a fake letter. Ugh. I decided I’d accept his request, but I planned on screwing him over big time.
Inside the store, his intended Camilla, the sister of the store’s owner Lucan, swept up. I let her know about Faendal’s scheme and she thanked me, telling me I should tell Sven. Fine, I’d do that after I sold all of this crap I was lugging around.
Lucan bought all my junk and said that if I did him a favor, he’d reward me for it. Apparently, some thief named Arvel robbed the place the night before, but had only taken one item, a family heirloom called the Golden Claw. I had wanted to get to Whiterun as soon as possible to get these people some troops to help them should a dragon attack, but then I thought, “Troops didn’t help the people of Helgen and probably won’t help the folks here either.” In that light, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make a quick run to Bleak Falls Barrow, where Arvel was rumored to have holed up with his band of bandits.
Camilla walked me to the bridge going out of town to make sure I went on the right path. She wistfully stated how much she wished she could go adventuring. I looked at her and thought, “she’s not a bad looking bird.” It then occurred to me that since I hadn’t talked to Sven yet, if I injected myself into this contest for Camilla’s heart, her brother would probably give me better prices for my goods and sell things to me at a family discount. Something to think about.
I left Camilla and walked to the Bleak Falls Temple. The place was gorgeous, though the wind was terrible, blowing the snow on the ground up and over the path, cutting to the bone with its chill. Some bandits made the mistake of firing arrows at me and I flamed them to death before looting the bodies and moving on. I couldn’t shake the feeling that a dragon might suddenly pop up at any time, but thankfully, I made it inside before anything happened.
Inside, more bandits had made camp in what was a plundered temple. I overheard them talk about their Dark Elf leader having gone to the barrow for something and how they were glad not to have to deal with the undead that guarded the place. Too bad they had to deal with me because soon, they were eating flames and dying. I could tell my skills with setting things on fire was getting better and I was excited by this. After all, I might need to burn some places down before all was said and done.
The Barrows themselves were what you’d expect — dead bodies filling cavities in the walls where they’d been laid to rest. Unfortunately for me, not all of these dead bodies were resting and these “Draugr,” as they were called, would groan, get up, and come after me. They were mummified corpses still wearing their battle gear and carrying their weapons. Oddly enough, they were also carrying gold from their former life. I decided to help these poor souls and end their lives for good, relieving them of the burden of carrying around anything any longer, much less gold coins. Granted, some were harder than others to put to rest, but the undead don’t seem to do well with fire and the more I used fire, the stronger I got.
It didn’t take long for me to see evidence of giant spiders at work. Great. Did I mention I hate spiders? I heard a voice yelling names, saying that they needed to come get him but to also make sure and kill the spider. He then yelled that it was on the move and I got ready. Sure enough, the biggest spider I’d ever seen came running to me. Fine, eat flames you stupid spider! The fire did make the spider pause a moment, allowing me to back away a bit. I poured the flame on, but it wasn’t enough. Thankfully, I still had magic potions and fumbled for one to guzzle it to recharge my batteries.
The spider closed the distance and I managed to flame the sucker in the eyes. It still managed to get a hit on me, but fortunately it was a minor one as the last of the flames left my hand into the now dead spider. I carefully looked for more spiders, but saw none, only some egg sacks which I set alight as soon as I got some energy back.
Meanwhile, the Dark Elf thief Arvel yelled at me to quit wasting time and get him down. I told him I wasn’t doing it until he gave me the claw. He said the claw was actually a key to a treasure and he’d share it with me if I freed him. While I believed his story of the treasure, I didn’t believe him, but I saw no other recourse but to free him from the webbing. I set it on fire and he dropped to the ground and took off running, calling me a sucker. He darted around the corner of a now revealed cavern and was gone. Bastard. Fortunately, I’m a good runner so I took off after him.
Turns out, I needn’t have worried. A scream from Arvel followed by the sounds of clashing metal and then the unmistakeable sound of something getting sliced echoed down the passage. I cautiously moved forward and saw Arvel dead on the ground, a rather large Draugr looking down on his victim. He then turned to me and it was all I could do to kill the mummified warrior with my streams of flame before he took me out. I removed the gold from the Draugr, then did the same for Arvel as well as retrieving the Golden Claw. Well, if it was a treasure key, no reason I couldn’t help myself to said treasure and then return the claw to its owner for more gold, eh? With that in mind, I pressed forward to find this treasure.
Goto Chapter 4.