The Dockworker 10: How to Troll Your Dragon

• Posted by Clement Bilhorn June 24, 2012 - 512 views

  In my hurry to get back to Legate Rikke in Solitude, I almost forget about Jaree-Ra, my pirate-marshfriend. I also almost forget about how beautiful nights can be in Skyrim, provided there's a warm current off the ocean to get rid of all the snow.

  

  I check in with Legate Rikke and am formally inducted into the Legion. I have to take an oath, which I don't really mind doing, even though my heart's not in it. It's not like I have any competing loyalties anyways--I don't think the Legion will take the fact that I'm a Windhelmer too seriously. I get my next mission from them, and to my immense surprise, it does not involve me storming a fortress full of bandits by myself. Now I get allies. And I get to kill Stormcloaks.

  But I agreed to help Jaree-Ra, so I head to the lighthouse and do my thing. Almost on cue, the heavy fog from this morning returns--that ship the pirates are expecting is doomed.

  

  Midnight falls as I head back to Solitude. I discover a hidden entrance to the city that I wish I'd known about before--it's much faster than going the long way. 

  

  But Jaree-Ra isn't in the city--he's at the docks. So I go down to meet him.

  

  He tells me that the ship has crashed and his sister is overseeing the loot-taking, so I'm to meet up and collect my share. 

  I take a brief swim across the sea to where the ship is wrecked. The pirates outside are not all marshfriends, to my surprise--I had figured that a group of pirates led by two Argonians and calling itself the "Blackbloods" would've been...well...our blood is black. 

  The guys outside are busy shooting slaughterfish, so I leave them to their business and go below decks, only to discover that it's all been a setup. They used me! I'm not sure what for, actually, seeing as how all I've done at this point is snuffed a candle--maybe Jaree-Ra and his sister just wanted my stuff. I understand. I've killed dozens of people for their stuff.

  And I'm going to kill a few more until I get Jaree-Ra's stuff.

  

  I tear through the pirates on board the ship like a blade in the dark with a blade in the dark. I cut my way to the top and dive over the edge, swimming silently to shore to finish the last of the pirates.

  

  I then take a moment to look at the note I lifted off Jaree-Ra's sister's body--it gives me the marshenemy's location. 

  I make the long hike to the cave as the sun rises. Fort Hraggstad gleams in the distance, and I head inside Broken Oar Grotto.

  

  My vibe from the wrecked ship hasn't left me--I'm ready to cut through these pirates like nothing they've ever seen. Which is appropriate, I suppose, as I fully intend to never let them see me. I ready my bow and shiny arrows.

  

  I only have ten arrows, but it seems to suffice--I kill each of them with only one. Panic begins to spread through the cave, but it's too late for most of them. Including Jaree-Ra, who dies leaving his hideout to see what the commotion is.

  

  The rest of the pirates band together and make a blind, ill-advised rush in my general direction. Hidden in the shadows, I take them out one-by-one as they run down the slope. Carried by the momentum of their last moments alive, the bodies gather in a pile at the bottom. My work is finished.

  

  Well, not really. I came here for treasure, not revenge. I'm not a monster. 

  But as I pick over the bodies of the dead pirates, taking what I can, I reflect on their deaths. Particularly Jaree-Ra's. If I'm counting this right, and excluding the dockworkers I knew back in Windhelm, I've now killed half the Argonians I've ever met. 

  Huh.

  Just like after the fiasco at Japhet's Folly, I decide to hike it out rather than take a carriage. I need to clear my head. While heading south to Whiterun, though, I take a shortcut through some old ruins. In my defense, they looked safe.

  

  The trolls turn out to be a serious threat. I'm able to down one of them right off the bat with some well-placed arrows, but more soon show up. One swipe from them lets me know just how much danger I'm in, and I quickly discover that they're like me in one way--thankfully, only one way. They can heal in the middle of battle. My dagger's not even scratching them.

  So I run, leaving a small army of trolls in my wake.

  

  They don't let up. I head up the mountainside, hoping to get to a better vantage point, a rocky outcropping perhaps, where they can't reach me. A place where I'll be--

  

  --safe.

  As the dragon begins circling the mountaintop, letting out crackling blasts of electricity that send showers of icy razors down on me, I take cover by the ruins, beginning to consider trying to ski down the far slope.

  And then I discover there's something else the trolls and I have in common. I sure hope it stops there, though.

  

  The trolls tear into the dragon mercilessly, and he responds in kind. I take a moment to wonder why I keep running into dragons everywhere I go. This wouldn't be so frustrating if I had an army of trolls to save me every time one of my specially advantaged cousins shows up.
  

  Or is it the dragon saving me from the trolls? 

  

  I guess it doesn't matter.