Life of a Thief. Part 1

• Posted by j.sh July 7, 2013 - 1,204 views

  Well, this is awkward. Where should I start? My name is Matthias, just Matthias. My last name is still back somewhere in High Rock with the rest of my childhood memories. All I know about my departure from my homeland was that it was rather “political”, which to a Breton, translates directly into “messy”. I spent my teen years all across Cyrodiild, mixing amongst other orphans and scallywags, moving from place to place. Things became a little too political for me though, and some disagreements in politics, morals, and pretty much everything else, forced me to search for my fortune up North. That’s how I came to Skyrim.

  Needless to say, the freedom of a new country did not last long to say the least. I ended up in a little town called Helgen. It turns out that a small town like that takes a very different view of folk with “light fingers”. Perhaps I misjudged the Nordic mindset. The jail in Helgen turned out to be my temporary home, a rather small home. Even in my small time there, I realized that old Helgen had a much darker side than I thought. Being right next to the border made the Imperials stationed here very comfortable, knowing that reinforcements were just a bowshot away. Executions were a common occurrence, anything from common criminals, to the much louder Stormcloaks that the Empire had  captured in the recent skirmishes. That day started just like any other day in Helgen. Some people were acting quieter, some were getting very loud.

  I remember talking to one of the guards, a lad named Hadvar, who mentioned who was going to be there at the executions today, a Jarl in fact, the leader of the Stormcloaks. Hadvar, he is a good guy, actually saved me from a block one time. An Imperial lass had come by the prison, thinking that she was going  to make some more space. I had been less than polite, making several remarks about her rather nice figure that got me a steel gauntlet to the head. Now, I’m not the type of guy to brag about hitting a woman, I didn’t feel bad at all about the head-butt to the nose I gave her. After that, things became very, very political. Needless to say, Hadvar had to do some very quick thinking, and even quicker acting. I mean, when she had her sword out and ready to do some slicing, it was only the blood in her eyes and Hadvar rushing in that stopped me from losing limbs. I guess he wasn’t very happy with me for a bit after that little episode. I’m glad that he was there with me that day though.

  Like I wrote above, it started out like any other day. I could hear the wagons going by, some shouts, and things got a bit quieter, meaning that the actually chopping had started. It always got quiet; all the bravo from both sides fades away in it ends up being grim, cold business. That day though, the quiet did not last long. There was some awful noise, and then everything dissolved into chaos. Fires broke out, and that little prison suddenly felt about a 20 times hotter. I remember hearing some shouting from the mage that had been captured recently, something like “Is there anyone out there?” His cry was answered by quick footsteps and the cackle of shock magic. His scream still echoes in my ears even as I write this. Let’s just say, I didn’t make the same mistake, I was as silent as the now dead mage. Luckily, things did not last that way for long. A few Stormcloaks did just as their name suggests, they stormed through the dungeon like a Hagraven oblivion bent on catching a rabbit. Let’s just say the battle was over pretty quick. Leather armor does little to cushion the blow of an iron war hammer. I had risked letting out a quick shout after I heard the Stormcloaks starting to talk again, figuring either they had won, or had suddenly become best friends with their arch rivals. They of course were more than hospitable. I mentioned a hidden potion stash I had seen Imperials going to after their torture sessions went a bit too far; after that the Stormcloaks became as friendly as a guard with a belly full of mead. I declined their offer of escort, it was tempting, but I was not about to get into a civil war on my first day of freedom.

  Matthias scanned the prison around him, looking for anything to grab. A pouch on the table bared a treasure of precious lockpicks. Pockets for the lockpicks were another matter however. Matthias contemplated scavenging a set of imperial armour, but there was abundance of blood, and even a bit of guts left on the torn armour. Not to mention, the possibility of being mistaken as an Imperial by some Stormcloaks. Come to think of it, any Imperial would see him as a murderer if they saw him in their armour. His mind was made up pretty quick. Nothing stopped him from grabbing a pair of boots and some bracers though. A nice steal dagger also made its way into the pouch that once held lockpicks, now fastened around Matthias’s waist. An iron dagger also ended up tucked into his boot as well. An iron sword lay there on the ground, but he left it alone. Now was not the time to learn swordsmanship, he would probably hurt himself before ever dealing damage to a target. Daggers didn’t require much training, just a basic understanding of “pointy end goes into bad guy”.

  Matthias’s eyes drifted over to the dead mage. His face was a mess, but his robe was actually intact. His stomache turned, but Matthias also knew that he wouldn’t make it far running around half naked. A few prods amongst the tumblers opened up the rusty cage. A grim minute later and Matthias was fully clothed, not even minding the fact that they came off a dead person. Anything was better than those sweat and dirt stained rags. A glint caught his eye as he suddenly noticed a few coins spread at the bottom of the cell. Feeling a bit guilty, he swiped them, consoling himself with the thought that the gold wasn’t helping anyone if it just laid there. He also picked up a small book that bristled with energy, stuffing it into the pouch as he turned to leave. The shuffle of footsteps made him whip his head to the left. Moving quickly, he took off at a run past his cell.

  The stuffy prison soon turned into a slightly less stuffy tunnel, an eerie one at that. The continual sound of someone running after him already had Matthias’s heart rate up. A dead Stormcloak lay to the side of the tunnel. Matthias snatched up the dead soldier’s iron hand axe, not able to see what injuries had killed the soldier. The body did feel deathly cold; much colder that it should have. These ran through Matthias’s head as he shuffled up against the tunnel wall right close to the entrance of the prison, his axe ready. It really did real good to have a hefty weapon in his hands.

  “Just like chopping wood.” He muttered quietly as the sounds drew extremely close. A brown clad figure blew past him into the tunnel. Matthias let out a startled cry, lunging forward with his weapon. It collided with the wood of a shield. The same shield then collided with his head. Make that wood AND steel; there was definitely a cool smoothness to at least a part of the slab that smashed him up against the wall. Matthias closed his eyes, expecting another helping of that cool steel to slide into his body. Nothing came.

  “By the Gods, that is you isn’t it Matthias?” The familiar voice of Hadvar filled his ears. His eyes opened to the face he expected to see. It was very stunned, no doubt from the attack and his new clothes. “I see you’ve decided to take up a new profession then?”

  Matthias’s back straightened. The last comment was either directed at his new mage robes, or a hint that he should give up his thieving career. He suppressed any witty remark though, if Hadvar had meant the second thing, perhaps it was a veiled option to escape.

  “Never was any good at that thieving business. From the looks of it though, I think the people here actually like them better than mages. Nothing complicated about a thief, they just want something that is yours.”

  That drew a thin smile from Hadvar. “I take it you weren’t involved in that skirmish I just walked past then?”

  He didn’t have to lie about that at least. “No, I was locked up for that. The Imperial even killed the mage that I got these robes from. Nope, so far these hands are clean from any crimes against the Empire.” He left out the fact that he had assisted some Stormcloaks in a game of potion treasure hunt. Hadvar had no reason to know about that.

  “Let’s just get the hell out of here.” Hadvar started down into the tunnel.

  Getting out of there was much simpler than it sounded. Strange spiders apparently lurked the dark underground, spiders whose venom left a stinging cold. Matthias rubbed his arm, trying to force some warmth into it. The last attack left a nasty spider’s bite on his arm, just above where his bracer covered. Yes, that venom was nasty stuff. Matthias had scavenged an empty wine bottle from the cave floor and was slowly filling it with each fallen spider. Spiders weren’t the only danger in those tunnels though. Matthias was surprised just how many Stormcloaks had survived the dragon attack. He hated playing sides, but Hadvar was too damn efficient at hacking men apart to even consider joining the other side. He stared as Hadvar stood over the bodies of three Stormcloaks that had fallen to his sword and shield. He barely even needed Matthias, just to launch a few arrows with his scavenged bow and toss a healing potion whenever Hadvar took a particularly nasty wound.

  Finally, light appeared at the end of the tunnel. They burst into the bright morning. Hadvar seemed to have spotted the dragon and had crouched carefully by some stones, but Matthias was oblivious to anything other than the fresh plants and blue sky of the outdoors. He breathed in deeply, rubbing his face on the soft ground. “I almost forgot how good that felt!” He yelled to Hadvar, glad to be out of prison as well as that stuffy tunnel.

  They both walked down a surprisingly worn path. “I guess I owe you some thanks. I wouldn’t have survived without you.” Hadvar spoke, not a hint of sarcasm.

  Matthias didn’t believe a word of it though. He just smiled, eyes lightly darting for an opportunity to run from this dangerous man who was still obligated to arrest him. They walked past a trio of stone obelisks, one noticeably smoother than the rest. Hadvar gestured at them.

  “These are three of the thirteen stones around Skyrim. Every Nord goes to one when they are young, to receive their blessings. These three are the Thief, the Mage and the Warrior.” For the last one, he gestured at the much smoother stone, no doubt polished by the vast multitude of Nords that came to touch it. The Mage and Thief stones in comparison looked rather mossy and dirty. Matthias walked up calmly and placed his hand on the smooth stone, feeling a strange rush that started deep in his stomache. Hadvar nodded approvingly.

  “Well, as far as I can say, you are absolved from any of your previous crimes.” He said solemnly. Matthias’s eyes went wide, not expecting that. Hadvar continued, “You should head to Solitude, the legion is in good need of some soldiers like you.”

  He continued on, something about his family or what not. Matthias didn’t hear a word, this trying to process the fact that he was now a free man again. Hadvar paused to add, “I think we should split up. The Eight guide you my friend.” Matthias nodded and with a handshake said goodbye. Hadvar left down the road, leaving a motionless Matthias standing next to the stones. He waited until Hadvar was out of eyesight before laying his hand directly on top of the Thief Stone, a small smile starting to form on his lips.

  ***

  Wow you actually read all that??? By Talos I have underestimated you my friend. If you have made it this far, I should only warn you that this portion of the story is now finished, and that this wall of text will simply be a rant from a crazy Skyrim addict. Oh I do love writing a good rant. 

  So, first things first. The purpose of this little blog.

  One, I do love to write, and I do so love to play Skyrim. I also love reading lots of these playthrough stories and fanfictions. The number one purpose for this blog will be to show the life of a non-dragon born thief, in a very unorthodox adventure across Skyrim. I will try to keep it relatively close to my actual play-through event-wise, i will not describe a scene that you have personally played through multiple times, but I hope I can add a fun twist to some old quests. Basically, I want to tell the story of an everyday thief that lived in Skyrim at the time that the video game took place. It is partly influenced by THIS BLOG written by Christopher Livingston. I highly recommend reading it, as it shows the everyday life of a common citizen NPC in skyrim. No adventuring, no dragon slaying but a whole lot of lollygagging.

  Two, I want to do a story based play-through. I have never actually beaten Skyrim's main quests, and have no intention of doing it yet. I have just the character build for that when the time comes. Heeeheeeheeee (Start menacing laugh.) I have read some amazing fanfictions midst the crap that is the general sewage on fanfiction. To prove my point, I will give you a link. This fanfiction followed the life of the Dragonborn after Alduin, trying to find an end to the civil war, and being instructed to go undercover, hiding her Dragonborn powers, and infiltrate the Thieves Guild with the purpose to destroy it. This fanfic- no, this NOVEL was an amazingly written piece, and had something like 280000 words in it. The link to it can be found Here

  And of course number Three. To steal. A LOT. My first character i ever build on Skyrim, a breton spellshield, my most honourable character and the furthest in the main quest, reached 100 pickpocketing before level twenty five. I should mention that he was level 45 before ever reaching Riften and the Thieves Guild. I made another thief, and Imperial with several lockpicking perks consoled in to make treasure hunting just THAT much more rewarding. I originally wanted to tell the story about him, but found that i had played him past level twenty without even starting a story. 

  And there you have it. I do hope that i can muster the willpower to continue this blog, too many good stories end on the second chapter after the author gets bored with his/her creation. I will follow this standard format on all of my entries,

  Journal entry: everyone in Skyrim seems to have a journal, and it is incredibly handy for quickly covering some of the boring parts of the playthrough with minimum text. Plus it just adds a personal touch to the character.

  Story: the meat and potatoes. The play by play adventure in some of the more interesting and devious events.

  The rant: to simply add more info, let you the reader know what really happened and to simply release all of my craziness on you unfortunate souls.

  As to what really happened, I honestly tried to go with Ralof. I went with Hadvar first and was very disturbed that he first,

  Discussed reasoning with some Stormcloaks

  and then later in the dungeon,

  Full out assaulted a pair of Stormcloaks that wanted nothing other than to grab some potions and get out.

  This occurance stunned me so bad that i actually restarted to the auto save, determined to follow Ralof. I breezed through the intro, running far ahead of Hadvar as I came to the crossroads on which to choos Hadvar or Ralof. I ran into the door i assumed to be Ralof's, only to be struck with disappointment as i realized that i had actually chosen Hadvar's door AGAIN!

   As for the dead mage. I always found it a bit odd (Truthfully, I doubt there was ever a story about him, just a place to give some mage gear to the magic minded player.). I stretched the truth a bit I'm sure, but then again: The Torturer knows a Sparks spell. The cage was locked (no one opened it and kill the mage with a weapon.) and it would make sense that he was wounded through the cage by either a destruction spell or an arrow, and I didn't see any arrows. Therefore i can only assume that he was killed by the Torturer when all hell broke loose above ground.

  As for my character. I have decided that he will be very different from most thief builds. For one, he uses an axe. Now, while this might make you shake your head, consider these two points.

  1. Swords do take a certain amount of training to use, their are not something that you can simply pick up and start duel wielding like a boss.

  2. Maces are quite heavy, especially for a wussy little Breton thief.

  Axes on the other hand are common tools used for simple tasks like chopping wood. While it would still take skill and training to use one effectively, I can easily see an untrained warrior inflicting some damage with one. Like Matthias said, its "Just like chopping wood." I will have to admit, there is a certain fun about using a weapon and block (just leaving empty hand free, i don't image thieves carrying around big shields everywhere.) it adds just another element to combat that you simply don't get from duel wielding or spell swording through every enemy. The fact that it is just a single hand weapon means you still have to dance around those hammer wielding brutes, but I've found that a well timed block can knock back opponents without even needing to bash them.

  As for daggers, Matthias is a scrapper, but definitely not an assassin.

  I also plan to incorporate some Alteration magic as well as illusion, mostly for Telekinesis, invisibility and Quiet Casting. Sort of following the line of This build, minus the fighting skills.

  I don't think I'll do any of the main quests, I really don't see this character being a playable fighter, especially against Dragons. I might complete the first quest so that there will be random Dragons around for me to run from (like any NORMAL person should do in Skyrim.) As well, no speed leveling, meaning that enemies and items will stay basic a lot longer. I might have to console in the Fence perk, along with some simple rules, like all items stolen in city A must be either sole in another city, or at very least improved at workbench/grindstone as to change the look around. I really dislike the Stolen system on Skyrim. How the hell does a store in Windhelm know that an iron sword is stolen/pickpocketed from a civilian/pickpocketed from a bandit vs forged/found/retrieved from a bandit/taken of a murdered civilian's body somewhere in Whiterun. I will deal with that when the time comes. Anyways, hope you enjoyed, drop a comment if you did. Nothing motivates (or reminds me to actually do some writing) like a good comment or two.
  

  Cheers, Joshua the Kleptomaniac.