I head inside High Hrothgar--the building, not the mountain--and come across the old dudes Lisin had told me about. I clear my throat and present myself as the prodigal Dovahkiin, finally deciding to answer their summons.
The head Graybeard, Arngeir, seems pretty forgiving. All he does is command to shout at him. I don't quite follow at first, but then he rattles off some things about dragons and the voice and the Thu'um.
Oh, like this?
Of course the guy actually enjoys it. Feeling weird and very used, I want to leave, but they order me to show off my shouting power again a few more times, before ordering me outside for even more exercises.
So far, I can't say I'm particularly enjoying this. These men are surprisingly pushy, despite that three out of the four are mutes. Also, it's getting on high noon and the vampire in me wants to go back inside. But I told Lisin I'd do this in exchange for her help, so here I am.
Of course, that's not to say I can't learn something from these guys.
But things go well enough, and I pick up a few skills that I think might come in handy some day. Finding out that I only carry the soul of a dragon and am not a direct relative is a bit of a letdown--apparently I've been badly misinformed. That this lets me off the hook for my poor familial relations notwithstanding, I take to the heights to reflect on my newfound identity.
Or not.
Well, that's just rude. I climb all the way to the top of this mountain and then bad weather keeps me going further. But that's not a problem. I'll just come back later when the skies have cleared.
In the meantime, I need to see if there's a faster way down the mountain.
I'm not much of a mountain climber, but I figure if I just take it one step at a time, everything will be fine. It's not like I've ever killed myself jumping off ledges before.
But hey, first time for everything.
I reach the bottom in short order. Shame I can't do that up the mountain. Then again, I hope I don't have to be coming back anytime soon.
But as they're known to do, my wandering furry friends accost me amidst my labors, inquiring as to whether I've injured myself.
With all that out of the way, I suppose I'd best be getting back to Lisin. The Graybeards want me finding some dead guy's horn, but they don't know about the arrangement. So they won't notice if I put things off to the side again. They certainly didn't last time and I defeated an entire rebellion and pledged my eternal soul to a daedra.
So I head back to Riften to find my new friend.
To my surprise, she's not there. So I leg it over to Ivarstead, wondering why on earth she wouldn't leave that sleepy backwater for a real city, especially given my well-established proclivity for dillydallying and distraction.
But no, she is in Ivarstead, loitering around the bridge where I left her. I won't complain--it's nice to know she's as disciplined as she claimed, but I do fear for the soul of any woman who can tolerate that kind of boredom. Clearly, she's already beyond rescue.
So we get talking about how she's going to hold up her end of the deal, and it's occurred to me today, with the crippling exhaustion brought on by climbing a mountain in daylight, shouting at a bunch of old guys, and then jumping down said mountain, that my vampirism is becoming more of a hindrance than a help.
Besides, if I end up wanting immortality back, it's not like I can't go get myself vampired again. Shor knows I've left plenty of vampires around Skyrim. Many of who don't even know they're vampires. Actually, that could make it harder to get them to bite me.
But in any case, I ask Lisin if she knows of any cures for the condition. She says she hasn't done any research, but did talk to the local bartender while I was away. "Right," I say. "You put the mages at Winterhold to shame with your fact-finding." She tells me to go talk to him if I don't believe her.
So I do.
"Rumor has it," he says, "that Falion in Morthal is researching vampires."
As we head out north to the road, Lisin has the grace not to say, "I told you so," but I can't assure myself that that's not a smirk on her face.
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