The Dockworker's Epilogue 3: Dry Heat

• Posted by Clement Bilhorn February 11, 2013 - 800 views

  Mervar's friend, some hulking Khajit, lays it out for me. Apparently the Khajit are less interested in overthrowing their brutal Thalmor overlords, and more interested in just dumping a ton of skooma and moonsugar on the rest of Tamriel.

  I can get behind that.

  But the Thalmor are getting in the way, so at the behest of my new allies, I'm off to a nearby ravine to get information from a docked Thalmor "airship".

  

  Now, if I'd had one of these back in Skyrim, I wouldn't have needed Odahviing's help. I'm sure I could've spotted the Sovngarde portal from the sky.

  But their prodigious capacity for load-bearing is demonstrated not only by the dozen or so elves on board, but also by the Imga they brought with them.

  

  The brute impresses, but dies with the rest. He who slays the World-Eater slays all.

  But I first attend to the Thalmor mages, who are far more threatening once I've put my bow away.

  

  Though not entirely. I put down the Imga with a few more swift strokes of my sword, and send the remaining mage over the ledge and into the abyss below.

  

  Now, this is a pretty piece of machinery that I can appreciate, now that its vile, murderous overseers are gone. I don't know if they built it or if it's on loan from someone else in the Summerset Isles, but I could really see myself owning one of these someday. 

  Provided, of course, the stiff winds of Skyrim don't send it into a mountainside.

  

  But on finding the required information and being directed, then, to the outlying desert wastes of south Elsweyr, it never occurs to me that I might actually get to ride one of these things.

  So I'm understandably alarmed when I return to my temporary home to find another airship docked not two meters from the foot of my bed.

  

  It's staffed with an ornery pair of salty cats, the larger (and dumber) of the two being possessed of an infuriating jocularity. He reminds me of Cicero, minus the pointed shoes and subtle overtones of necrophilia.

  

  The captain is below decks and says we're to sail for wherever I need sailing, so, feeling a rush of power I haven't felt since I murdered an old woman in front of a bunch of orphans, I mark out our destination and we take to the skies.

  

  Sadly, our destination is a tragic, filthy dust bowl, beset with soft-talking Khajit merchants and even more Thalmor agents.

  

  I deal with both of them accordingly. 

  

  It is an understatement to say that I do not like this place. The sun is so bright I can barely see, and the heat intolerable. I love warm weather, but I believe a combination of my acclimation to Skyrim and my fondness for moisture makes this desert a place to which I hope never to return.

  

  On the bright side, it has hyenas.

  

  And huge disgusting insects, which is less of a plus and more an excuse to fill them all with arrows.

  

  But my brief excursion to this hell does hit a high note! It turns out there's another Argonian here, a lovely woman taking care of the oasis for the Khajit merchants.

  

  So it's nice to know I'm not the only crazy one around here.