Storyteller: Skyrim

[Sparhawk]

A long time ago I tried posting a story in here, I don't actually remember why I deleted it again ( prbly was annoyed with my story ) so I decided to try again. This is of course directly inspired by Skyrim and is more a way for me to hone the writing skills that has been forgotten in a decade or so.



The world is a dangerous place, as I've discovered time and time again. I have a bad habit of wandering into trouble, or trouble more likely comes looking for me. My name is August and I grew up in the little town of Bruma in Cyrodiil, the heartland of the mighty empire that rules over Tamriel. I was born to be a warrior, being the younger son of the local imperial commander of the Bruma Garrison and being a good little kid back in the days I trained hard. After my father died in a raid on the city, a rare thing in the civilized Cyrodiil, but it did happen from time to time, I decided to leave the town and follow the strange feeling that haunted me through my childhood, that I did not belong here.
Now, twenty years later, having served honorably in the mercenary company of the Twillight Sun, I was crossing the border to the north, the only place I still had not visitied and the urge in my body was pulling me here.


I was walking down the rather crooked trail from the mountain range that was the natural border between Cyrodiil and Skyrim, alert as ever, but still relaxed as I was after all following the road and the worst thing to worry about was usually badly equipped bandits and a stray bear, easy pickings for me with my good mercenary armor and my trusty blade and shield. Suddenly a couple of mighty northen warriors stepped out from behind a tree and lowered their bows my way. I silently cursed, but situations like this was very hard to avoid from time to time in the borderlands.
-”Who be you? You look to be an imperial, are you with the empire then?” one of them asked me somewhat politely for what I had expected of the situation.
-”No, I am just a weary adventurer seeking a warm bed and perhaps a good meal – I walk to the city of Helgen and then onwards to seek what it is that draws me here!” I answered politely, I mean if he could play the politeness game so could I.
-”Let him be, he is not of the empire, from his armor I would say he is from the company of the Twillight Sun?” a loud voice said from the trees, a tall, bearded and obviously noble man stepped out from the shadow, he had a black cape with fur from one of the feared cave bears of the north and a fine sword at his side.
-”I am Ulfric, I bid you welcome to the north and please join me with news of the heartland!”
I bowed politely and was about to accept the obviously well-meant offer of hospitality when a dozen red-livered soldiers with bows suddenly stood up from the snowy bank behind the trees. More soldiers rode in on either side of us with an imperial general in front.
-”Throw down your weapons Stormcloak, you are surrounded with archers and we can as easily kill you here as take you to Helgen and let justice be done there!” he shouted. I saw the momentary spark of anger in the eyes of the Tall nobleman, but he obviously saw the truth in the words, 3 stormcloak soldiers against about 30 imperial soldiers was an un-even fight – even with me at their side. My hope that I would be deemed as not being of their group was quickly shattered as the general ordered all prisoners bound, weapons and armor taken away from them and only the nobleman was not in anyway molested, even though his sword was taken from him and he was curiously gagged with a cloth and bound as the rest of us.
Beaten and in a prisoners rags I was thrown into the back of a wagon and our ride towards Helgen started, I cursed my luck and that idiotic urging in my body that had pulled me here to Skyrim and most likely as it was now, my death on the headmans block.

A sullen little serf was sitting in the wagon, he was complaining about this and that, and honestly I felt a bit like using my sword on him. We were soon in the small village of Helgen, a border town of 100 souls, with a small castle and the empires flag flapping around in the screaming wind, I noticed a group of Thalmor waiting inside the gate of the city, waiting for the general, who spoke silently with them.
-”What is going on here, the Thalmor seldom have direct dealings with the empire?” I asked the Stormcloak soldier in front of me in the wagon.
-”The stormcloaks are leading the rebellion against the empire, we in Skyrim wish to have our own masters and not bow and scrape to the imperials, no offence intended towards you of course. It all originated in the worship of Talos, for some reason the Thalmor convinced the empire that the worship of Thalos was to be banned as being heretic and therefore all Talos worshippers caught by the empire or Thalmor are executed on the spot!” my jaw dropped a bit, this was definitely not what the empire was about, I knew for a fact that the God Talos was even the old emperor, Tiber Septim who was ascended to be the ninth god of the Tamriel Pantheon after his life had been so stupendous.
-”Something is amiss, this is not the way the empire would do things, normally they make great allowances in religious matters and seeing that Talos is supposed to be the God persona of Tiber Septim it even makes less sense? I think the Thalmor are more involved in this – did you see them talking to the general?” He nodded solemnly.
-”You're right, but now its too late to investigate it, we will die within the hour from their “justice”!

We were ushered down from the wagon and our names were written down in a book, I was a bit surprised to hear that the nobleman was actually the leader of the Stormcloaks, the very Jarl called Ulfric Stormcloak.The soldiers eventually came to me, the nord soldier noticed me being from Cyrodiil.
-”He is not with the Stormcloaks, what should we do with him Captain?” he asked the young woman standing next to him.
-”He goes to the block!” she hissed at him – oh how I would have enjoyed gutting that bitch before dying at their mercy, this was no way to go out. The soldier in front of me was heheaded quickly and the serf suddenly panicked and ran off, two arrows ended the flight and his life. I couldn't help but smile a bit, he really was annoying.
I was bent down over the block, for some reason the urging in my body that had drawn me all this way to Skyrim was so strong now that it was almost tingling all over my body, weird that it seemed to have drawn me here only to die. Then I heard it, a shattering scream that momentarily made my muscles spasm and my bones feel like jelly. A huge form swooped over us, bound and with my head on the block I only caught a glimpse, but it was a dragon, the mighty creatures from adventures and legend....could it be....

Soldiers running panicked around, the roar of a dragon and explosions surrounded me, to this day I still do not understand how I was able to get into the castle after a near nightmarish run through the village. I have a vague picture of throwing myself off a tower and landing on a roof, sliding into the house through a hole created by the huge dragon, I must have been driven insane. My memories return inside the small castle, I was joined by one of the Stormcloak soldiers that I'd met on the mountain. We ran into the castle finding a fellow soldier slain on the floor, I grabbed his armor and his and hefted it a few times to try and find the balance, miserable iron axe had about as much balance as a drunken bear but it would kill a man better than my fists so I took it. Unfortunately we were in a central room with portcullisses on both ends of the room, and of course they were locked, so trapped in here, with a raging dragon outside and the imperial army itching to kill me...what a perfect way to start an adventure.

Ralof, as my new buddie was called suddenly pushed me away from the portcullis and motioned to be quiet, I heard the captain that had ordered my execution coming down towards us from the other side of the portcullis. I pressed myself flat against the wall, time for payback bitch!
I let Ralof jump the soldier she was following as they walked under the now opened portcullis and as she turned away from me to face Ralof I buried my axe through her helmet with a nice crunchy feeling.
-”Payback really is a bitch huh!” I remarked as her twitching body fell to the floor, I kicked the soldier on the inside of his knee from behind and as he toppled out of balance, Ralof cut of his head.
-”Nice job outlander! See if they got a key so we can out of this place!” he grinned at me.
I quickly searched the bodies and chose to discard the horrible axe and instead grab the nice imperial sword that the captain had been carrying, it was balanced, though a bit heavy in the hilt, I missed my own sword, but this would do for now. I found the key and we snuck out the other portcullis with nasty grins on our faces, time to escape.
We found the little torturer engaged in battle with a few other stormcloaks in the basement, the fight was nasty as he appearantly knew some minor magic and was currently roasting a girl in her armor, the smell was sickening and I take offense when people hit on girls in that way. I have to admit that my action was born more out of anger than the dicipline that was kicked into my spine over the years, I still don't know why I reacted as I did. I threw my sword at him and found to my delight that the heavy hilt actually made the sword excellent for throwing. End over end it flew through the air and with a meaty suckling and swelching sound it embedded itself in the torturers chest and pinned him to the wall. He looked at me with huge eyes and then coughed once, blood pouring from his mouth and then his head sagged and he was gone.
-”Ralof, this way brother!” one of the soldiers cried and we all sped through the dungeon and down to the bottom of the basement. I hadn't been able to get my sword out of the wall, luckily one of the stormcloaks had a bow that he'd pressed into my hands with a quiver of arrows.
-”Don't shoot me outlander!” he grinned at me as we sped through the cave-like basement and suddenly we were in the central room, as was 6 imperial soldiers. I cursed and flipped and arrow on the bow and shot it, I missed by about 4 feet and the imperial running towards me laughed. I shrugged and threw my bow in his head as I dropped to a crouch and grabbed him in the shoulder and groin and hoisted him over my head and with a crunchy sound, smashed him on to a rock on the floor. His grin kinda stuck, but his eyes were dead, his spine had shattered so I grabbed his sword and threw myself into the grand melee.
For some reason the commander of this little party of imperial soldiers decided that I was his to take care off, our swords clanged and sparks flew as I defended myself against his furious attacks. Being mad in a fight is usually a bad idea, it leaves common sense behind and you make mistakes, he overextended a thrust and I grabbed his wrist, turned as I dragged him close and thrust my sword backwards into his belly. This little maneuvre had two advantages, one is its easier to yank the sword upwards and make a mess of his guts, the other is that you have a new sword as his hand slackens on his own, so I was able to continue fighting directly as he was coughing blood and moaning on the floor. The fight ended shortly after as the Stormcloaks cut down the remaining imperial soldiers.
I and Ralof ran onwards, while the rest waited to see if more were coming to escape from the carnage up above, we could still hear the terrible anger of the dragon. Somehow it seemed that the dragon had not found what it was looking for and was not taking it out on the castle and anyone still alive up there.
It took us about an hour, but then we were standing outside, in the shadow of the mountain, crawled out from a small crevice and hiding in the brush we saw the huge dragon fly off towards Skyrims central parts.
I have to admit that I was scared of that dragon, it was huge, but at the same time I admired the breathtaking view of the Skyrim vista, mountains, rivers, pines, a blue sky.
-”Outlander I thank you for the help, if you ever get to Riverwood, look up my sister Gertrude, I will be there before I go to Windhelm and see if the jarl got away. I think its best we split up from here, this place will be crawling with imperials soon! So move it!”
He started jogging away as I stopped to make sure I was properly equipped. A cheap leather armor, a rather bland imperial sword and a pair of boots that did not fit me...brilliant!

[Luvian]

It's interesting and well written. I like the part where you describe the capture. But I'd rather read one of your original stories. I already knew what was going to happen from playing the game.

[Sparhawk]

True that you know whats gonna happen...but its only the introduction - from now on the story is mine.

I remember seeing this once in the movie "Finding Forrester" you borrow a little ( okay I borrowed a lot here ) to get started on something that finds a life of its own.

I am currently working on a story with nordic mythology ( Thor, Loke and Odin stuff ) but its been restarted 5-6 times due to me thinking its crap.