Once safely inside, Hadvar made the uneducated guess that we were the only ones who made it. I had no idea why he’d think this, but I didn’t argue, since he was the only one who could cut me loose at this point.
“Was that really a dragon?” he asked. He was looking at me, as if I knew the answer. I mean, I did know the answer, that was definitely a dragon, but I thought it was pretty obvious, so I said nothing. I had a bad feeling that Hadvar might be as talkative as Braelof, and that I’d made a terrible mistake. But when life hands you moldy old moon sugar, make cheap, terrible Skooma. As the Khajiit saying goes.
While I pondered this, Hadvar babbled about the end times or something, adding that we should keep moving. But he could speak for himself, I was still nursing an amnesia migraine, which had not been improved by my near beheading and subsequent dragon scare. Speaking of “keep moving,” I felt the keep shake as the dragon roared somewhere outside. I hoped this building was more secure than the first tower I jumped out of.
“Let me see if I can get those bindings off you,” he finally said. At last, we were on the same scroll. He sliced through the ropes with his dagger, and added, “Take a look around, there should be plenty of gear to choose from.” Now he was speaking my language! And it was at that point that I remembered why I had been arrested. I was a thief, not unlike that horse thief from earlier, but I was not really into stealing horses, so much as trinkets and valuables. My focus was mostly jewelry, gold, precious metals, and the occasional really nice enchanted weapon, provided it wasn’t too heavy. I had a general rule of not carrying more than I could run away with at a moment’s notice.
I of course didn’t tell Hadvar any of this. In fact, I kept my mouth shut as a general rule. I figured it was my right to remain silent, after all. Who knew whether anything I said might be used against me later. I stood there for a moment to catch my breath and get my bearings, but Hadvar kept nagging me to loot one of the nearby chests for armor and gear, so I decided I should oblige him.
The first chest I encountered only had a light helmet, which would most likely crimp my ears, but that was a small price to pay for fire-proofing them. (Don’t worry, I won’t be chronicling the contents of every container I encounter. That would take forever.) There was a bit of gold in the chest as well, which I took, because it’s what I do.
Once I’d looted the nearby chests, my arms and pockets were full of gear, which was already starting to weigh me down. At the impatient behest of Hadvar, I put on the gear and gave the sword a few swings. I was not a swordsman, which was painfully obvious after just a few swings of the sword, which exhausted me almost immediately. I was more of a dagger type, or used just my claws in a pinch. But I kept the sword anyway, to sell at a pawn shop later if we survived this.
As if sensing my intentions to loot the whole keep, Hadvar urged, “We must keep moving, that thing is still out there.” As if on cue, that thing bellowed. (In case you’d forgotten, that thing was a dragon, despite Hadvar’s uncertainty on the matter.) I gave the room another once over, picking up any stray gold pieces, as well as some bottles of cheap wine, before following Hadvar down the torchlit hall. Hopefully we wouldn’t bump into old Braelof on the way.
As we neared the next section of the keep, Hadvar paused and said, “Hear that? Stormcloaks. Maybe we can reason with them.” Okay, one, how could you tell by their voices that they were Stormcloaks? All Nords sound alike to me. And two, reason with them? After you had basically sentenced them all to death? Good luck with that. I held back and waited to see what would happen.
In a turn of events that surprised no one, the Stormcloaks did not wish to hear Hadvar out, instead bellowing, “Freedom or Sovengarde!” I suspected I knew which one they would most likely achieve.
As I listened to the fight from the other room, I heard one of the Stormcloaks scream, “I’ll water the ground with your blood!” Which was a very vivid picture, I must admit. You might be wondering why I was taking such a cowardly approach, hiding in the shadows the way I was. Well, the reason was quite simple: I am a coward. At least when it comes to an upfront battle with hardened warriors. As a thief, I prefer to work in the shadows, using daggers as a last resort, and even then preferably without being noticed. I had considered expanding into bows and arrows at some point, in order to get more distance from danger, but availability was scarce in my part of Elswyer. Plus it’s harder to conceal a quiver.
Eventually the vestiges of my conscience got the better of me, and I went in to help my erstwhile ally Hadvar, though I held no ill will toward the Stormcloaks or their ground-watering methods. I decided to let my claws do the talking in the absence of daggers.
Luckily for me, it was down to just one Stormcloak, who by the time he saw me, I had wrapped my arms around his waist and managed to slam him into a nearby stone slab. Which, if I’m being honest. was not my intention, I merely lost my balance, an embarrassing thing to admit as a Khajiit. In my defense, I was still out of sorts, having only been conscious for maybe fifteen minutes.
(Yes! What I have related to you so far has only been over the course of fifteen minutes. But I can assure you that I will speed things along as we progress. There was just a lot to take in during those first several minutes.)
I checked the Stormcloaks for valuables before following Hadvar further down the hall, grabbing a few cabbages along the way, because who knew when I would next spot food? Even if raw cabbage is not my first choice. My pockets and invisible backpack were getting rather heavy. (I would explain my invisible yet roomy backpack, but the details are apparently lost to my selective amnesia. Just know that looking at me you wouldn’t realize I was carrying several swords, a couple heads of cabbage, gold coins, and some spare fur armor. In fact, it’s best not to think about it.)
Of course, no sooner had I stashed those cabbages, when we stumbled into a storeroom/kitchen combo, chock full of all sorts of foodstuffs. I immediately ditched the cabbages, and instead stuffed my pockets with bits of rabbit, pheasant breast, and various herbs and spices. If you’ve never had Khajiit Fried Pheasant, you’re missing out. I also grabbed some more wine, because there’s no such thing as too much wine, and some magic healing potions. I knew next to nothing about magic, but hey, free potions. We had to kill a couple more Stormcloaks, though I’m not sure where they kept coming from, since they would have not been welcome at the beheading. Perhaps they had been busy infiltrating the keep, not knowing there efforts would be thwarted by dragons? Sadly I could not ask them, as they were dead.
The next stop on our keep tour was what Hadvar called The Torture Room, adding “I wish we didn’t need these.” Never mind that torture doesn’t work, according to numerous Breton studies. I think people just like torturing. But I digress. There were more Stormcloaks, which made me wonder if this would have been easier had I gone with Braelof instead. Or maybe they were rogue Stormcloaks that would have attacked him too?
As we neared the room, we could hear intense, painful sounding battle. “Hear that?” said Hadvar. “Come on!” Er, yes I hear that, which seems like a good reason not to come on. But, he was my rescuer, so I felt obligated to come on. By the time I entered, however, the Stormcloaks were already lying dead on the ground, while the Torturer rattled off some rationalization for his job. Meanwhile Hadvar asked him, “Don’t you know what’s going on? A dragon is attacking Helgen!” In the torturer’s defense, there’s no way he could know this far into the keep that dragons suddenly existed. He might have thought the noise was a tornado or monsoon, though I don’t know if they get either of those in Skyrim.
The torturer either didn’t believe Hadvar or didn’t care, either way he didn’t want to escape with us. Which was fine by me. The guy gave me the creeps. Meanwhile I was distracted by an end table with some lockpicks – my favorite tool – and a book about something called a “Dragonborn.” Probably some ridiculous Nord myth, but it might make for good reading once everything had settled down, so I took it with me. (I was idly toying with the idea of starting a book collection. Which is not something I’d have even considered in Elswyr, but books don’t survive long there, and papyrus is at a premium.)
Hadvar talked with the torturer about something locked in a cage with a now-deceased guy whom the torturer said “screamed for weeks.” You couldn’t pay me enough to listen to a guy scream for weeks, but I guess if you enjoy that sort of thing…
Anyway, Hadvar resorted to yet another Khajiit stereotype, by assuming I could pick the lock on the cage. He happened to be right, but it was the principle of the thing, you know? Also, the torturer encouraged us to take all of his things, but looking back on it he may have been sarcastic. Ah well, too late now.
I picked the lock on the cage, and the dead mage had quite a lot of gold on him, making me wonder why the Torturer hadn’t pocketed it himself? I guess inflicting pain was its own reward. Anyway, once I’d taken his magical robes (what? He wasn’t needing them, plus they were worth more than the gold he’d had), I considered pickpocketing the Torturer. Sadly, a quick nonchalant perusal of his pockets revealed nothing of value. And yes, I am that good, that I can browse someone’s pockets without them caring. Or maybe they do care but are too shocked by my boldness to say anything.
We ran down the next hall, despite the torturer’s insistence that there was no way out in that direction. I figured there must be, since the Stormcloaks had to get in somehow. Plus who knew whether the dragon had busted more holes through walls.
Despite the torture’s claims, there was an entire maze of cave tunnels, which must have gone somewhere or there’d be no point to their existence, and we eventually happened upon a pleasant waterfall area with a bridge, which I thought would be a good place to stop and rest. Unfortunately there were some lost Stormcloaks wandering about, and while I would have happily just lurked in the shadows until they past, Hadvar the Horrible took it upon himself to call them traitors and exact justice upon them all. If I’d had a bow and arrow I could have helpd out, but there was no way I was wading into the fray with just my claws. Or the iron dagger I’d just found. Oh wait, that’s right. I had a dagger. Against my better judgment, I took out the dagger and went to assist him.
I’ll tell you how that went next time. I realize it’s not much of a cliffhanger, since I’m telling you this. That’s the problem with first person narrative, is unless I’m a ghost (and I’m not), you know I make it out relatively okay. But let’s pretend you don’t know that, okay? Okay. Besides, what do you care? You’re just my journal.
- Steve
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