Posted by
Paul M May 28, 2014 -
560 views
There's a heavy snowstorm when we arrive in Windhelm, giving the place a strange twilight feel. The city is big, but my first aim is to find an alchemy table to mix up the ingredients I have collected on my way here, and I decide Calixto's curiosity shop is a likely candidate to have one. Clearly at one time Calixto was an adventurer like me, but has decided to retire for some reason, possible because of an acquired injury, and now keeps a house full of mementos. No alchemy table though, so I move on.
There are some big clan houses in the city, and all of them are locked tight. I note that the graveyard is poorly kept though, suggesting people who deep down don't care for their heritage. It seems strange then that from earwiging a few conversations I hear that this is a Stormcloak town. Perhaps they're thinking about the taxes they would pay to the empire, rather than any matters of ancient Nordic pride.
I chat to Brunwulf Free-Winter, who seems like a reasonable chap. He doesn't have much nice to say about Ulfric Stormcloack, who is in town. It seems Ulfric doesn't much like outsiders, and will only act in the interests of the Nords of Skyrim. I won't be expecting a birthday card then. I find a blacksmith, and then a market area with an enchanting table, but still the alchemy apparatus eludes me. Eventually I realise I've missed one of the buildings, and when I check again I find the White Phial.
Inside there is a sickly old alchemist, which piques my interest as, depending on how strongly the old boy clings to this mortal coil, there may be a job opportunity here for someone with my unique skill set. His name is Nurelion, and he wants something called a white phial. It's in a cave west of here, so I agree to go have a look. I then mix up my potions and clear him out of coins, buy a few things off him that I haven't seen before, and then take back the gold by selling some more potions. I wander about upstairs and try to read his business accounts just in case I do get chance to take over, but that puts a 5 coin bounty on my head and annoys Nurelion. On my way out a city guard confronts me, but I agree to pay him the 5 coins and we're all square.
At the king's palace I talk to Captain Lonely-Gale who mentions that three ladies have been murdered recently. That bothers me, and I make a mental note to ask people about it. But for now I want to see Ulfric, and I think it's a good bet he's set himself up as the king in the city's palace.
I join Ulfric and his general Galmar as they are discussing an attack on Whiterun. I nonchalantly chat to Ulfric when he returns to his throne in the hope I'll be able to elicit some of his plans from him. He vaguely remembers me, but then the only way to keep talking to him is to join his little band of rebels, and I'm not sure that fits with my own beliefs at the moment. I leave the palace and head back to town, as there seems to be little else going on.
It's dark outside, so I head to what I correctly guess is the tavern. The patron Elda rents me a room for the night, and then Lydia and I head out just before dawn. Windhelm is okay, but I still have my ambition to get to Winterhold, and even with the enquiries at the alchemy shop and the murder mystery, there is nothing about this place that is desperately urgent to my mind. I decide we'll press on with our travels, and I consult my map while Lydia kicks some of the well trodden snow by the city gates. There looks to be an easy way and a hard way to Winterhold: either over snow covered mountains or around the northern coast of Skyrim. Both are likely lethal to me and Lydia at this moment in time, but it seems a shame not to even try. I decide to err on the side of caution though and tell Lydia to head back to Whiterun. I will hook up with her again when I get back there, but for now I wouldn't want anything to happen to her.
There's another heavy storm today, which although bone chillingly bleak I hope will keep any would be bandits or predators from seeing me as I head out into the wilds. I consider buying a horse, but eventually decide that being on foot has done me little harm so far, and I may as well stick with what I know. I head up the northern coast, passing a boat and some walruses before an unidentified fugitive runs up and hands me an enchanted bow to hold on to for him. It's too much weight for me, and if I want to carry it, which I kind of do given that the fugitive has threatened to kill me if I don't, I'll have to drop something else. Just as I'm done eating all my cheese wheels and throwing away my ale and wine, a hunter runs up and asks me if I've seen someone shifty. I point him at Sir Slit-your-throat, who for some reason has run off into the sea even though he's clearly not a great swimmer. The hunter pops arrows at him till he's dead, but doesn't seem too fussed about the bow. Given he's clearly already found an adequate replacement, I figure he won't mind if I hold on to the one I've got, which I can no doubt disenchant later.
Some kind of giant white wolf runs past me and kills a hunter up ahead, and then continues on to kill some arctic foxes. I take the hunter's gold and carry on trying not to distract the creature from killing everything that isn't me. Alas, that plan does me no good against what turns out to be a very angry snow sabre cat, and before I can say healing potion I'm deader than a necromancer's idea of a hot date. The grizzly vision of my own demise then fades, and I'm back chatting to the hunter who killed the fugitive. I decide to try heading north again, and maybe this time I'll take to the frozen water when the monstrous cat appears.
I see the cat before it sees me, and have a bit of a think about what to do next. I look through my bag of tricks and see I have two scrolls of mass paralysis, which will give me 10 seconds to run past the critter. I try it and it seems to work, although now the hunter that had previously been killed by the sabre cat decides to lob fireballs at me as I pass him. Perhaps he was caught in the paralysis blast and took offence. I take to the water and swim past him, and figure when that cat catches up to him it'll buy me yet more time to flee.
Sure enough, I'm soon back on dry land, humming a surprisingly orchestral tune as I journey north. I check my map and I reckon I'm about halfway there, give or take a bit. In the gloomy distance I think I can even see a rectangular keep on top of a rocky foundation, so I try to take a coastal route in that direction. I do quite well hopping between ice flows, which I'm guessing the wild Beasts won't be so keen to follow, but other than what can be stripped off the animal carcasses there aren't many ingredients for an alchemist in these parts.
I continue further up the coast and find an island with another sabre cat that I manage to slip past. I hop along the ice again, and eventually come to Winterhold. The only problem with my master plan is that the city is at the top of a pillar of rock, that can only be reached from the neighbouring mountain. My final trick for this ill-conceived sojourn will be to find the way up without the wildlife tearing me to pieces.
I head for an inviting looking slope. Inviting that is until I find two skeletons, one of whom was carrying an apothecary satchel. At first I take this as on omen for Lydia and me, but then I remember I told Lydia to leave me back at Windhelm. Feeling suitably hopeless I reach a plateau and see some standing stones that seem free of hostiles. There's a little altar with a dead mage called Rundi. I've no idea what killed him, but it seems to no longer be here, which I think is positive. Strangely on his altar is a book that I also found in the apothecary satchel at the base of this hill. I indulge my whim for distraction and read this bestseller: Mannimarco King of Worms. My alchemy improves and I find I am now a level 12 big shot. The book itself is possibly one of the best I've so far read, and tells the tale of the fell necromancer Mannimarco, and his more noble contemporary Galerion, who was clearly friends with the author. Ultimately a mage army fought the risen dead in a mountain pass. Both commanders died in the battle, but not before Galerion had brought the mountain down upon the undead army. The artefacts recovered from Mannimarco are now with the mages guild, which is something of the living legacy for Galerion.
As I step off the plateau a lightening trap zaps me and takes my breath for a moment. I keep going but get a bit disorientated when I walk off the edge of one bit of jutting rock, and then find I have to head a ways south before I'm able to turn north again. I soon spy Winterhold once more, and it's now pretty much level with where I'm standing. The way looks tricky, but no more than an hour's walk.
I first have to head down a bit, almost taking another unprotected tour of the safari coast. It's clear initially, but then as the path splits and rises to the north I come across three black wolves. I decide to use the few seconds available as they close the distance between us to try oak flesh out, and then switch to flame magic, with my imperial voice in reserve. They fold before my mighty magics, like a highly efficient laundry maid, and I continue to climb what I reckon is the last slope before Winterhold.
