The Dockworker's Epilogue 4: I Come from the Land of the Ice and Snow

• Posted by Clement Bilhorn February 11, 2013 - 1,067 views

  My continuing investigation of the Thalmor investigation of the Khajit drug-runners sends me to the elves' camp in the desert. I'd forgotten just how fragile their bodies really are when faced with a well-placed arrow. My sword, on the other hand, has a bit of a struggle getting through their armor, and as much I hate to think about it, I may need to find a better one.

  

  But as always, I muddle through, dispatching the remainder of the Thalmor in this small part of Elsweyr. A note I pilfer is interesting, though--apparently I've attracted the attention of a very powerful and very angry Justiciar. 

  Oh goody.

  

  But though I'm anticipating the chance to square off against a figure of consequence in the Dominion's power circle, I fail to anticipate just how soon that chance will present itself.

  

  A Thalmor airship crashes into ours (deliberately, I suspect) on our way back north, and my gargantuan pirate friend and I do battle with the elves amid the clouds. 

  We finish them off and head below decks, where this strange episode in my vacation comes to a startlingly abrupt conclusion. The Justiciar is alone and so caught off guard that he gets not a single word in before I get in with my blade. Maybe the crash was an accident.

  

  But this is not to say our remain journey continues uneventfully. A friend of our ship's captain has been captured by some Argonian pirates, apparently, and since we're in the area, we might as well go rescue him.

  

  Sadly, while the sight of an entire island full of talented, though evil, Argonian mages is encouraging for my potential future with magic, I still have to kill them all, as is my way. One of these days, I suppose, I'll find a decent society of Marshfriends that I'm not compelled to murder, extort, blackmail, or generally dismember.

  

  The Khajit friend is alive and well, but insultingly content with his situation. He proposes, instead, that the island be converted to a hideout for the pirates. Or mercenaries. Or whatever. I haven't quite figured out how my present captain is otherwise gainfully employed when he's not ferrying me around the country.

  

  My unfinished business with the Sload takes me away from my airborne acquaintances once we arrive back at the jungle. Freshly burdened with hyena parts, I take them to Erid'or, who puts together a concoction that, if ingested by the Sload, should so weaken his magic that the protective shroud placed on the plague vector will waver.

  I return to his lair to make my delivery.

  

  The fat, greedy slug horks down the tainted meat without a second thought. I quietly exit and go back to my Pahmar tracker friend, Silkskin. 

  

  We're in luck, it seems--she's picked up the scent of the vector and points me to it. After a few minutes' searching, I'm able to find the thing (it's another one of my degenerate relations) and put it down.

  Such is the corruption of the Sload's magic that the thing disintegrates to a bloody pulp immediately upon dying.

  

  So I guess I'll just have to trust Erid'or that this will in no way pollute the water supply. 

  But with the Sload's leverage taken care of, it's finally time for me to deal with him directly.

  The wraiths are no great threat; I dispose of them with one arrow each, but Malsato himself takes an extraordinary amount of punishment. 

  Not to mention he's quite the prodigious mage, and I'm forced to take cover behind his dinner table while readying my next arrows.

  

  Such is his great size that he seems able to reach me wherever I hide, but my splendorous display of archer's talent at last brings him down. 

  He also disintegrates into a bloody pulp.

  I'm just going to trust this won't pollute the water supply either.

  So I've averted two catastrophes in one day, and Erid'or is pleased to hear it.

  But now? I'm actually growing weary of this place. I left Skyrim hoping to find some peace and quiet, but not only did I not find that, I also found a place unfamiliar and alien.

  In truth, I'm outside my comfort zone, having to deal regularly with Sloads and Imga and Pahmar and what-have-you. The things I do know, the Thalmor, the spiders, the wolv--hyenas, whatever--they all want to kill me. Skyrim may be a cold and inhospitable wasteland filled with racists and fratricides, but it's still where I belong, where I've made my place.

  That's not to say I didn't meet some charming folk. I may come back some day to visit. 

  

  Or maybe just to run some skooma back to the northern provinces for them. If they pay well. Well enough to make it worth it, that is. I hear crossing the border illegally can get you executed these days.

  So it's an uneventful ride back north, and before I know it, I'm back in Skyrim like nothing ever happened, like I never left.

  

  It's good to be home.