My Skyrim Adventures: Chapter 05

If needed, go to chapter 1 or chapter 4.

I didn’t want to run into the very married temptress Sigrid, so I bailed out of town before daylight to begin my trip to Whiterun.  Just before I reached the city, I happen to see some commotion in the distance on the other side of the river I walked parallel to.  A couple of novice necromancers were battling a pack of wolves and won.  I continued to walk, but then I heard them yelling and realized they were hurling insults at me and were standing at the ready to attack.  However, they didn’t enter the river to come after me, nor did they launch any long-range spells, but it was clear they wanted me dead so they could practice their necromantic arts.

I had no interest in helping them with their studies, but since they couldn’t touch me, I figured I’d taunt them back, using a quote from Monty Python — “I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”  That really made them angry and I was going to make general, vulgar motions with my arse and privates, but then I saw a Whiterun guard come up with his bow drawn.  The necromancers railed like mad and told the guard to get stuffed, so he put an arrow through the throat of the first mage.  The other one tried to run away, but the guard shot her in the butt before putting a second arrow in her skull.  Seeing her fall into the river dead, the guard nodded at a job well done and told me to help myself to their gear if I wanted.  I complied and now had two sets of necromancer robes and some other goodies.  Sweet.

As I made my way up the road to the main Whiterun gates, I noticed a large number of troops manning the towers and keeping tabs on things. A lieutenant told me that they weren’t letting anyone in other than residents, but he changed his mind when I told him I had word for Jarl Balgruff regarding the dragons. I was escorted to the Dragonreach Palace to see the Jarl, who was very interested in my dragon tale and immediately had his female, dark elf housecarl Irileth give the orders to have troops dispatched to Riverwood to defend the town.

The Jarl sent me to see his court wizard, Farengar Secret-Fire, who was researching dragons. I went to the room where Farengar was deep in work, but his dismissive attitude to me irked me as he wouldn’t even bother to turn around to address me.  I got the feeling that being a wizard in Skyrim wasn’t seen as a good career choice, no matter how good a wizard you become.  He told me that if I wanted to be helpful, I could bring him the Dragonstone, which he determined had been buried at Bleak Falls Barrow.  After he described it, I realized he was talking about the stone tablet that I’d taken off the body of the Draugr Overloard I fought earlier.

“Is this what you want?” I asked.  That got him to turn around and his attitude improved greatly.

“You already have it!” he said excitedly and took the stone from me.  “I hadn’t realized you are also a mage.  Excellent.” I wanted to say something snarky, but decided to let sleeping dogs lie.  He eagerly discussed his research on dragons and why they would suddenly appear again after so many years.

Our chat was interupted by Irileth, who said that the Jarl wanted to speak to both of us.  So, we walked back to his throne, where several military leaders had gathered.

“We have reports that a dragon has attacked the Western Watchtower,” he said gravely.  This tower guarded one of the approaches to Whiterun.  “Since you have experience with these monsters, I want you to go with Irileth and a squadron of reinforcement troops to stop this dragon before it can reach Whiterun and cause damage to our civilians.”

Considering my previous experience with a dragon had been running like mad and filling my pants with fresh dung, I wasn’t sure what use I could be in helping well trained troops fight this thing. Besides, the last dragon didn’t seem much phased by the Imperial troops that fought it, so why would the dragon be phased by some wannabe wizard and a group of Whiterun troops?

Farengar wanted to come with us as well in order to see a dragon first hand, but Jarl Balgruuf would hear none of it since if we failed, he’d need his only wizard to help defend the city.

With my heart in my throat, I followed Irileth to the gate of the city, where a detachment of troops waited for her.  She briefed them on the situation and we were off, hopefully not to meet out doom.