The woman who I've just found buried inside a stone coffin for who knows how long has a name. She's called Serana, and she's a vampire. She's also been in there for at least a thousand years.
She doesn't get a chance to say much else before all the statues come to life and attack us.
We fight our way of the crypt and Serana proves herself a wickedly effective fighter. Color me impressed.
Outside, we take a breather while she tells me that she needs to go to her home and see what's become of it. Unbelievable. She's been in a box for a thousand years, and she still has two things I don't: a home and a family.
Okay, so I kind of have a home, a shack in the woods, and I do have a family. But my family tries to kill me on a daily basis. Hers is probably better. Right?
In any case, I sympathize with Serana's plight, being a vampire in this weather, so I'm happy to help her get home. It's up to the north somewhere, so I suppose this Dwemer ruin should work as a shortcut.
By now, I should have learned to distrust my intuition, but Serana doesn't have to know that.
She does give me a bit of a chill when we head inside, and she immediately starts resurrecting the bandit corpses lying around the entrance. I mean, I can see the utility of it, but...well, no, I guess there's only utility. And she's not cackling like a maniac while she's doing it, so it's kind of neat.
As the ruins go deeper and deeper and it becomes apparent that I've taken us completely off track, I get a bit embarrassed and do my best to hide it. But Serana's a good sport about it, and makes a big show about how beautiful everything is. I know she's just doing it for me, but it's nice.
For my part, I'm trying not to sound so jaded about everything, but all of this is really nothing new to me. Fortunately, we have a brief encounter with a sort of Falmer I haven't seen before, so I finally get the chance to show Serana that I'm more than some cynical old guy.
I mean, this thing is pretty cool, right?
But it's hard to keep up my interest for long. Now I just want to go back to the surface. We encounter another hidden passage and, with my back to Serana, I roll my eyes.
I have a growing suspicion of where we're going. I can feel the cold hands of fate conspiring to drag me down into the depths of the earth, taking my present companion with me.
I sigh. I mean, I'd love to take a pretty girl for a walk, but Blackreach isn't exactly what I had in mind.
I finally break down and admit that I've taken us way off course, but Serana doesn't seem to care. I mean, it is Blackreach, I guess. It'd distract anyone. Anyway, we find one of the old elevators and pop out somewhere on the south edge of the glacier east of Solitude.
The weather is a bit weird.
I check the sun's angle and realize this is the weirdest three-in-the-afternoon I've ever seen. Serana still manages to complain about the light, but I give her a break. It's not like I didn't do my fair share of griping when I was like her.
Still, that doesn't mean I'm above spending the night at Solitude, or at least until the weather clears.
But sunlight is bad for more than one reason--it also makes it easier for dragons to find me.
On the bright side, this gives me a chance to explain the whole Dragonborn thing to Serana. I mean, I don't know how it would have come up otherwise, but it's still nice to have her hear it from me and not from every guard in every city in the province.
Serana's home is on an island off the coast, so that's where we're headed. We run across a pair of down-and-out tourists, who are so sniffy and rude I don't bother to tell them they're headed in the wrong direction.
I suppose they could be headed to that castle, but the more I learn about Serana, and especially considering the fact that she's a vampire, I get the suspicion that ordinary folks would do well to stay away from that island.
But when we get inside the castle, it turns out it's very much alive.
Well, sort of. They're vampires. All of them. Their leader, Lord Harkon, is a stately sort, and, it turns out, Serana's father. I'm not surprised--it figures two people of such poise, notwithstanding the cannibalistic buffet arrayed before me, would be related.
Harkon offers me repayment for my bringing his daughter home, although this is one of those few times where I wasn't expecting any. Spending a day with his lovely daughter was my pleasure. But when he tells me he'll make me a vampire, I'm intrigued.
Now, I know I've put that whole vampire thing behind me. But that was because it became an inconvenience, not because I have anything against vampires in particular. Sure, the vast majority I've met are vicious barbarians, but these people seem nice. If Serana can be a vampire and be a very decent sort of person, then why can't I? I could learn from her.
"Sure," I say.
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