Entry 12. - I have given up on the date for a while, every day is a bit of a blur at the moment...
I am now sitting at a campfire, fed, clean and dry, with a belly full of mead and probably the safest I have been since coming to Skyrim. I think. So picking up where I left off, I was sitting downstairs at Candle Hearth hall with this idiot Argonian named JarJar, when I caught a wink from the buxom barmaid, Suzannah, as she went upstairs. I excused myself from the rambling Argonian. He said, "Me sir be going upstairs too, okeeday?". Dammit.
Upstairs a Dunmer bard was singing a rousing tune and the patrons were drinking and laughing and generally being merry. I approached Suzannah from behind and said hello. She turned and just looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said "Can I help you?". Err, ahh, my name's Vianto. No response. Uuhm, I thought maybe we shared a moment back there. No response. Errm, yeah, look, I thought I saw you wink at me just now... She laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry, I had something in my eye," She looked me up and down distastefully. "You're really not my type," and then just walked away. I turned away, red faced to stare at an old candle on the hearth. I thought - Snotty Nord bitch! I'm a nice guy, much better than half those other a**holes out there! Mark my words she'll meet the wrong guy, then she'll be sorry!
So I stood for a while staring at this candle, it must have been hundreds of years old, sipping my wine. Until JarJar came up behind me and said "You sir look bomb bad! It not like Suzannah to pass up an offer!" I choked on my drink and spat it all over the candle. It sputtered for a second and then went out. Suddenly, the inn went quiet. Someone cried, "The candle has gone out! Who blew out the candle?!" No-one had seen me do it! Then the caustic old cow from behind the bar came storming up stairs, eyes flashing and started screaming "Who did it? Who did it?". She turned her baleful gaze on me.
"He did it!" I cried, pointing at JarJar. She started shrieking at him and about who had let him in here and he started shuffling from foot to foot and making Oh-uh noises and then basically the whole tavern jumped on him, raining blows and yelling. You could barely hear him yelling "hoo ooh!" and "Gooberfish!" and other such nonsense. I grabbed my gear and nearly made it out the door just when someone yelled "That's his accomplice! Grab him!" I charged out the door and barged into a guard who was coming to investigate the commotion. He gave chase as I went tearing up some stairs and around a corner. In a small alcove was a door way slowly opening so I ran for it and burst into a dark, stinking stairwell, knocking a young boy just inside flying. I slammed the door and listened to the sound of booted feet thundering along the street.
The boy looked up at me and cried "You came! You came!" I told him to calm down and he tried to tell me that I was a member of the dark brotherhood who had answered his summons. Although I didn't want to have anything to do with those freaks, I didn't want to get caught by the guards so I went along with it. I quickly discovered why the house stank so much when I saw the rotting corpse on the floor upstairs and suddenly I wanted to be away from this deranged kid more than the guards. He said he wanted to top some old bag in Riften, yah-dah yah-dah. Yep ok kid sure whatever I gotta go now ok? bye bye. And I slipped back out the door.
It had grown darker now and I thought that staying in Windhelm was no longer a good idea. I made it outside the main gate and was making for the stables to buy a horse when a guard stopped me:
"Wait! I know you!"
"No you don't"
"Well, I think I do..."
"I've never met you in my life!"
"You were the one from the hall, when the candle went out!"
"No, not me I swear!"
"Ok, maybe for a little something, I'll look the other way..."
Dammit, I thought. That wouldn't leave me enough to buy the horse! I thought for a second and then said:
"Wait, I have this enchanted quicksilver plate. It cooks while you eat!". The guard looked at me like I had two heads.
"The Skalding dinner set?" he said. "Everyone has one of those. I bought mine on sale at the marked for just 100 septims! They're all the rage!"
My jaw dropped. One hundred septims? That f**king Jarl of Dawnstar! Prick! A**hole! Motherf**ker!! (this went on some time). By the end of it I was sobbing with rage and the guard felt so sorry for me that he let me go. Fuming, I stormed down to the stables, bought a horse and went galloping up the road, not caring where I was going.
A few miles up the road, I saw another tavern, so I stopped and went in for a drink. I woke up the next morning, lying under a table, covered in food scraps and wine stains and the hang-over from Oblivion. I staggered outside to where my horse was tethered and in a nearby copse of snow-covered pines saw a tall, leather-clad Orc, firing some kind of bow-like weapon at a nearby tree. The projectiles were flying at tremendous speed and going right through the trunk.
Orcs usually make me a little nervous. They're mostly towering, fanged and horned green muscle but I've never really talked to one, despite coming from High Rock. He turned and saw me staring at the weapon.
"Never seen a crossbow before, eh?" He went on to show me how it worked and let me fire a bolt at the tree. I put it right in the middle of the other bolts he had fired. Finally, something I was good at! The orc introduced himself as Durak and told me I was a natural. I loaded another bolt and was inspecting how the mechanism worked as he said I should go to Fort Dawnguard and meed Isran, maybe I could join the LOOK OUT IDIOT!!! Twang!!
Durak fell silent and I looked up to see a feathered bolt protruding from his forehead. I had accidentally killed him! A woman outside the tavern started screaming bloody murder, and some guards down the road came sprinting to see what had happened. I grabbed the bolt quiver as the Orc toppled over and leapt up on to my horse and galloped full speed away from the tavern. I pushed the horse for as hard and as long as he could go and then stopped by a landscape of hot, steaming pools so we could both get our breath.
The heat from the pools was lovely and there was a warm wind blowing across the landscape... which quickly became a searing blast of air which knocked me flying from the horse and head-long into a pool. Now I recall saying in my first journal entry that the dragons weren't bothering me that much. That's because at that point I hadn't even
seen a dragon. I now quickly changed my mind. This flying monstrosity swooped down, grabbed my screaming horse in its jaws and then landed a hundred feet away, making the ground shake. He bit the horse in half with one great clamp of its jaws, charred the pieces with white hot flame from its gullet and swallowed them whole. Then he turned his dreadful gaze on me, his broad-sword long fangs dripping with gore.
"Foolish man-thing!!" it roared astonishingly in the common tongue. "Meet your doom!"
"Wait!" I cried. "You just ate my horse! Surely you can't still be hungry, I'm just all skin and bone!" The dragon laughed.
"I care not for the playthings of the Daedra, fool! I answer only to Alduin, and he to Akatosh!" He reared his great head, flames billowing in his throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the fiery death, which never came...
A great shout erupted from behind me: "FUS!!" and I went cartwheeling back into the pool and became lodged under a rocky overhang. I lay there, semiconscious, for gods know how long listening to roars, shouts, battle-cries and the crack of steel on scales. After what seemed an eternity, a hand grabbed hold of my cloak and dragged me out from under the rock. I sat there in this warm pool, the once lovely turqouise water now a dirty yellow and looked up. A magnificent figure stood before me, clad in shining steel, burning sword in hand. His hair was flowing black, his eyes piercing blue, his teeth straight and white and he literally glowed. He was flanked, two a side, by four of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
Straight away, I fucking hated him.
He offered me his hand and he pulled me to his feet. He introduced his companions, a fierce looking redhead, a beautiful brunette in Nordic steel armor, a sweet looking blonde and a raven-haired beauty with the pale skin and glowing eyes of a vampire. He introduced himself as the dragonborn. What a wanker.
They escorted me back to my camp and started preparing some food. They told me that they were on the way to Fort Dawnguard. Never heard of it, I said. They were waiting for their companion, Durak, to join them. Never heard of him, I said. They told me that when Durak had caught up to them they could escort me to Riften, which was on the way. Ok, I said nervously. As the sun went down, Aela the red-head and Serana the vampire disappeared of into the woods, leaving me to take first watch with the blonde, Vilja. The dragonborn and his house carl, Lydia went off into the tent to get some sleep. Vilja immediately went into a non-stop dialogue about how she thought the dragonborn liked Lydia more than her, not noticing the sounds of love-making from the tent. Fuck I hated that guy.
Then after a while, Vilja went into the tent and Lydia came out and immediately started chewing my ear off about how all she ever was expected to do was have sex with the dragonborn whenever he felt like it and carry his burdens. She too did not notice the soft moans coming from the tent. That asshole!
Anyway, its quiet now. I'm a bit nervous about how long they intend to wait for Durak, but I'm so exhausted I just need to get some sleep. I'll be damned if I'm sleeping in that tent though...
Nighty night!
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