CHAPTER 13: What's All This, Den? in Part Two - The Dragon, The Khajiit, And The War Trope
- Nov. 28, 2016, 5:01 a.m.
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- Public
Oh, Journal, I am so glad I brought you with me. You help restore my sanity, despite the odds. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Or behind myself. I’m definitely beside myself.
Anyway… so, before we headed for Swindler’s Den – which might be the least stealthy name for a criminal hideout ever – I decided to lighten my load by selling off some of the things I had accumulated over the past few days. So I had Lydia come with me to the market square, where it turned out everything was still closed as it was still early in the morning. I didn’t have a sundial handy, but my expert eye for the sun’s position told me it was a little after seven. Never mind that it was completely cloudy that morning. Perhaps I had one of those biological clocks that my girlfriend used to claim was ticking.
While I waited for time to pass, I looked through my stuff to see what all I had. There were a few fancy circlet headpieces, which I didn’t even remember taking, along with a fancy magic robe, along with a few other odds and ends. I still had the Gentleman’s Guide To Whiterun, a quick glance through of which told me it was nothing but useless bragging.
Somehow almost no time had passed while I had done all of this rummaging, which was frustrating to say the least. I wandered around the square, looking at the displays that had been left unattended by their vendors overnight. They were in full view of a nearby guard, but he didn’t appear particularly alert. I could probably have easily swiped a few of the rings and necklaces off of the jewelry cart, but then I remembered it belonged to the old lady who’d been bullied the other day, and my finicky code of ethics prevented me from robbing her at this time.
“One thing everyone agreed on,” said Lydia out of the blue, “this war is bad for business.” Well, I supposed that depended on the business. Weaponsmiths and armorsmiths were probably making a killing, if you’ll pardon the expression. (And if you don’t pardon it, I don’t blame you.)
Finally I decided enough time had passed that the doors should be unlocked, so I opened the door to a place whose sign read Belethor’s General Goods. As we entered, a raspy-voiced man said, “Welcome to Belethor’s General Goods. Welcome, indeed!” I would have sworn it was Lucan, but the man had no goatee, and said his name Was Belethor, so I must have been imagining things. “Everything’s for sale, my friend! You need visit no other shops today!” His voice was so uncannily similar and specific to Lucan’s, that I had to stare at him closely to make sure it wasn’t the same man in disguise. Where the goatee would have been, there were instead enormous sideburns. Combine them with Lucan’s and you’d have a full beard. I greeted him, and he said, “Everything’s for sale, my friend! Everything. If I had a sister, I’d sell her in a second.”
Between his low bar for friendship and his attitude toward siblings, I decided I might not like this man. But if he would buy my things from me, that would be enough. Despite most humans looking alike to me, I could somehow tell he was a Breton, so I asked, “What brings a Breton to Skyrim?” I found my own question a bit presumptuous, being a Khajiit in Skyrim.
Belethor smiled and said, “Isn’t it obvious? Why, the wonderful weather and hospitable people, of course!” I squinted at him, unsure if he were serious. He then sneered slightly and added, “Not to mention my great fondness for dragons and petty political power struggles.” Ah, okay, he was being sarcastic. Good to know. Perhaps I would like him after all. “Ah, but without a doubt the most compelling feature of this frozen wasteland is the volley of inane questions leveled at me on a regular basis.” Okay, I did not like him. If one question constituted a volley, then this man was the most impatient salesperson ever.
I asked what he had for sale, and he replied, “Some may call this junk. Me, I call them treasures.” I’m almost certain I’d heard Lucan say the same thing. They must have gone to the same store management seminar. I ignored everything he was selling, though I found it odd that he had everything from children’s clothes and daggers to goat horns and tubes of glass. His selection was almost as random as the contents of my pockets. I sold him my circlets and the magic robes, and took all of his money plus some steel arrows. When I was done, he said in the same sarcastic tone, “Do come back…”
In a fit of pettiness I knocked one of his pitchers off a shelf, to which he said angrily, “Watch what you’re doing!” followed shortly and strangely by “I can tell you’re a discriminating customer, perhaps you’re a wealthy one too, hmm?” If by wealthy you mean I now have all your gold, then yes.
As Lydia and I left, I looked through my things once more, and noticed I still had all of the items I’d stolen from the guards. I wondered why it hadn’t even occurred to me to sell those things to Belethor. It was like I had a blind spot to them whenever doing business with people. Perhaps it’s because I knew he wasn’t a fence, but… even so, it’s not as though the guards were actively looking for their cheese.
As we went down the street, a little girl who looked a lot like Lucia but wealthier was running the other way. As I looked to make sure it wasn’t her, the girl said as she ran past me, “What are YOU looking at? I’m not afraid of you, even if you are my elder.” I wondered if this was that girl who was bullying Lars. I didn’t know her from anyone, but in the off chance it was her, I said to her from across the market square, “You need to stop bullying Lars Battle-Born.”
She didn’t seem fazed. “Yeah? Why?”
That was a good question. I mean, I hadn’t actually considered how I was going to stop a bully from bullying. I’d never found sufficient argument with the ones I grew up with, which was why I was so good at running and hiding. Finally I just said, “He has a terrible disease. It’s very contagious.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll leave him alone. I was just kidding around. Besides, if he’d only kiss me, I wouldn’t have to beat him up all the time…“
Hmm. I had to admit, I’d never thought to kiss the bullies to make them stop beating me up. Though I doubt their motivations were the same.
“We done?” She said, and then walked off.
One more good deed done, one or two more to go, I thought to myself. I went to tell Lars the vaguely good news. I entered the Battle-Born house, and as I did so, I remembered that this was the home I’d considered robbing later after my informative chat with the snotty cantankerous head of the Battle-Born clan. I found Lars, and went to tell him that his worries were over, but he seemed to have no interest in discussing it, having already paid me for services to be rendered. So, to keep it from being a total waste of time, I took his sweetroll. In my defense, he gave no indication of wanting it.
I took a brief little tour of their home – after all, the door was unlocked, which was practically an invitation, and the Jarl had granted me the right to buy property, and made no stipulation as to whether the property already had owners – okay, now I was sounding like my lawyer uncle, J’ochran. Anyway, I was good, and didn’t take anything other than the sweetroll, but when I came to a locked door in the house, my curiosity got the best of me. While Lydia was lookout, I crouched down and tried to pick the lock. I went through a half dozen lockpicks, which is pretty bad for me, but at this point I was invested and couldn’t give up. Eventually it opened, and I opened it up to find a boring office. What a waste of lockpicks.
I glanced around, and saw a book labeled, “Missive From General Tullius.” That was the man who Hadvar said I should speak with to be ‘pardoned’, if I wasn’t mistaken. Wondering what he had to say, I opened the book. It read, “It has come to my attention that inquiries have been made about Thorald Gray-Mane.” Why did that ring a bell? I had a feeling I had written about him, but my journal was in Skype’s saddlebags, so I couldn’t cross-reference at the time. I continued reading. “It is my duty to inform you that Thalmor agents –” THORALD! That’s right. I was getting Thalmor and Thorald confused. He was that old lady’s missing son, the one she ‘felt in her heart’ was still alive. Anyway. “Thalmor agents have taken possession of the prisoner and escorted him to Northwatch Keep.” What? So he’s alive, and that Battle-Born bastard knew it? Assuming he’s literate, that is. And he lied to that old woman’s face. And to mine. Both of our faces, lied to. I closed the book, and headed out the door to show it to the old woman. She deserved to know.
As I approached her stand, she said, “All I can think about is my son, my Thorald…” Funny you should mention that, because – “They say that he was killed…” – well, if you’d look at this book– “But I know better. I know my son is alives” – Me too, so if you’d just – “Those Battle-Born, they’re in with the Imperials.” – You’re right, because I found this – “They know it too. And yet they lie to my very face!” I know, right?
So, logically I should have been able to say to her, “You’re right! I know you’re right, because I read it in a book, that I have right here, and will give to you as evidence to show the Jarl.” But for some reason what came out of my mouth instead was, “How do you know that they’re lying?” Why would I ask her that? I knew the truth. Why could I not tell her? What about this land was bewitching my words? Why could I tell you, Journal, and not her?
“It’s not wise to discuss it here,” she said. “Please, if you truly wish to help, meet me at my home. I’ll tell you the whole story.” Yeah, I don’t think so. No offense, but all I need to know is they said he’s dead, but this book says he’s a prisoner. If you don’t want the book, that’s your problem. If I’m ever in the are of Northwatch Keep, I’ll put in a good word for him, but that’s the extent of my involvement. I was suddenly realizing just how stupid it was that I’d taken this book. If the Thalmor were dead-set against people worshipping towels – I mean, Talos, that they’d go to war over it, I probably didn’t want to get between them and a prisoner of war. I smiled at the poor woman and turned to walk away.
Lydia coughed at me and shrugged. Don’t judge me, Lydia. I know what I’m doing. We have other matters to attend to. Her son ain’t going anywhere. Though the lady was clearly heading to her home on the assumption that I would follow her. Hopefully she’ll soon figure out that I had no intention of doing so, feel silly for her assumption, and then go back to her stand.
Meanwhile, Lydia and I were off to the Den of Swindlers, finally.
As I approached the gates, a guard said, “Let me guess – someone stole your sweetroll.” I glared at him, and he backed up slightly, saying, “Oh, forgive me, Thane.” I could get used to that, perhaps.
We passed by the Whiterun stables again, and I grabbed my journal, deciding there was no point in not taking it with me, because you never knew. And I noticed some more unfamiliar scribbles in the back. It said, “Meet Fralia In Her Home.” Now, c’mon. How did anyone know about that, much less to write it in there? This combined with the earlier Watchtower instructions convinced me that my journal, much like my map and pockets, were magical. I definitely would need a magic-user (other than Ferengar) to explain it to me at some point.
We headed down the road toward Swindler’s Den, which took us in the direction of the Western Watchtower. As we approached, a giant dragon skeleton suddenly fell out of the sky in front of us, landing in a wobbling heap. It was very disconcerting and unexpected. I inspected it for anything of interest, but all that was on it were heavy bones and scales, none of which interested me. I also noticed several dead guards, which in my previous fleeing from the scene I hadn’t realized so many had died. Now I felt somewhat guilty for not contributing more to the battle. I honored their deaths as best I could by making sure their armor wouldn’t go to waste. Don’t worry, boys, I’m sure in Sovengarde they don’t care if you show up naked.
Lydia and I made a long trek across a field, staying off the roads, which sometimes contained people I simply did not wish to deal with at this time. We carefully avoided an impressive-looking fortress, and continued on a path parallel to the road, in the direction of Swindler’s Den. It was very lovely and peaceful, I had to admit. Butterflies were flitting about. I tried to catch one butterfly in the palm of my hand, but due to my deadly claws, I accidentally plucked its wings off. Oops. My bad. I didn’t see where the rest of it landed, but I’m afraid it now was a buttercrawl. Get it, buttercrawl? Because the wings… yeah, sorry.
As we came over a hill, I was treated to a sight that was new to me in Skyrim, and that was a big furry elephant stomping by itself through a field. Very majestic. I tried to go stealthily around it. I think it saw me but didn’t care. The ground shook with each of its furry stomps. Suddenly some skeletons showed up seemingly out of nowhere, despite it being broad daylight and not in a tomb, and started fighting the poor furry elephant. This would not do, so I motioned for Lydia, and we went to defend the elephant. By the time we’d gotten there, however, the elephant had made short work of the skeletons. I made a mental note to never mess with an elephant. Not that I had any plans to do so. But now it was official.
The rest of our trip to Swindler’s Den was uneventful. We killed a couple of wolves, I picked some flowers and resisted the urge to disable more butterflies, and before I knew it we’d reached the hill in which Swindler’s Den was situated. Or so I’d thought. What we actually saw was some sort of shrine, and a giant man stomping around with another furry elephant. I checked my map and saw that we still had a little ways to go. So we clambered – or possibly scampered, I’m not really sure what the difference is – up a nearby side hill, and slowly made our way to where the entrance was. We were both crouched and stealthy, especially since I heard a growling nearby, the source of which I couldn’t readily identify. I was practically holding my breath, when Lydia said at a normal conversational volume, “Hey, a cave! I wonder what’s inside?” I turned and stared at her, but this didn’t phase her.
We inched our way forward, keeping close to the curve of the hill, as I moved to the edge to peer over and see if anyone was guarding the mouth of the cave. The more unnoticed we could be, the better. Behind me, Lydia yawned loudly. I saw a helmet on the edge of my vision, carefully aimed, drew back my bow, and let the arrow fly. A direct hit! The helmet flew off the pole it had been resting on with a clatter, and a voice further away from the helmet said, “What was that?!” Crap. Lydia took this as her cue to come out of hiding, and she clambered – definitely clambering, no scampering – down the hill to shoot the owner of the rather posh voice, which now said, “I know I heard something… it must be my imagination… is someone there?” Right, like we’re going to tell you someone’s here. Though Lydia answered by running at him.
As they fought, I got a bead on him, and he said, “I’m gonna– HURNGGH!” This last part was in response to my arrow through his face. I searched the man, but found nothing worth looting. He was clearly your everyday, run-of-the-mill bandit, probably in no way related to the Alik’r who supposedly were hold up in here. The den may have been a general hostel for criminals. Which should mean that I can walk in with nobody minding, right? After all, I’m technically a criminal, until General Tullius says otherwise. Plus I have all manner of stolen hats and cheeses on my person. If that’s not a valid calling card, I don’t know what is.
As we entered the tunnel, I could hear a bandit say, “I’m not sure I like these Alik’r warriors hiding out here. They seem like trouble.” Oh, so perhaps we have even more common ground than I had suspected.
“Keep it to yourself,” said another bandit. “They’re not paying us to talk.”
Well, shoot. That probably meant they were paying them, which would trump whatever cameraderie we might have otherwise had. Because I doubt they were being paid to welcome heavily armed strangers.
“They’ll be gone as soon as they’ve found who they’re looking for,” said the first bandit again. “And we’ll have all the more coin.”
I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, if I were in their position, I wouldn’t want someone making assumptions about me simply because of an offhanded conversation I’d had with one of my business partners. I could at least hear them out, yes?
I put away my weapon and walked into the room. One of the men was sitting at a table, but upon seeing me, he got up, walked over to me, and smacked me with his mace, asking, “Is this what you want? Huh?”
Ow, um, no. This was the exact opposite of what I wanted. But nobody could say I hadn’t given them a chance. Ignoring the mace bruises for the moment, I calmly got out my bow and shot the man until he stopped trying to mace me. Meanwhile, Lydia drew her bow and shot at the other man, saying, “Now you’ll pay!” Which felt like a pointless taunt to me. I saw no reason for taunting. But whatever worked for her, right? The strange thing was, even though Lydia was the one shooting him, I was the one he was shooting. Perhaps because I’d killed his partner, but he started it.
Soon he was dead, and Lydia said, “That’s the last of them.” I doubted that very much. And, unfortunately, these two had ruined it for everyone else here on out.
As we went down the tunnel, I heard someone say, “Mead, mead, mead… kill ‘em to get some beer every now and then? Stupid bees and their stupid honey…” It was rather nice of the bandits to mumble to themselves, as it made it easier to pinpoint their location. Not that this was otherwise difficult, as the caves were excessively lit with torches, almost as much as the crypt and sewers. I saw a man start to sit down, so I fired an arrow and he sat down much more abruptly. Worried this might draw attention, I backed up slightly and drew another arrow, waiting to see if someone might try to cite the source.
A friend of the first man showed up to see why he’d sat down so suddenly, and I shot him as well. He was a bit louder about it, and his sword clattered to the ground a bit loudly, so I quickly readied another arrow for a possible triple-play, but there was no one. We entered the cavern, looted the area, and then moved on to the next tunnel. I saw a man on top of an elaborate watch-tower sort of wooden structure, begging to be shot, so I obliged him. This got the attention of several nearby cohorts, so I backed up and shot them as they came through. They got several solid wacks on me, but I quickly poked them full of deadly holes. One of them fell by Lydia’s feet, causing her to take a step back and whine, “Ohhh!…” Yeah, sorry about that, Lydia, but my body can only block so much of the corpse pile.
The next cavern was a very nice setup, and I now understood why they advertised. I was less sure why they were such horrible fighters. I mean, I am not a fighter first and foremost, but I was able to hold my own against several of these guys. If you’re going to call your place Swindler’s Den, you need to make sure your defenses or better. Maybe get one of those spiky gate traps or something. Anyway, I got a ton of gold, some gems, and jewelry. It was very nice, though not why we were here. Still, it was good to have some positive reinforcement for my larcenous side.
This sort of thing went on for a while. I was almost embarrassed for them, really. And feeling guilty. After all, they did not deserve to die just for being swindlers. But if the chatty duo up front was any indication, these particular ruffians were murderous, and therefore not worth losing sleep over. I probably still might, but that didn’t make it worth it.
Then the tunnel turned into a cavernous river of sorts, bending toward a waterfall.
As I stealthily – I really must stress stealthily – made my way forward, a voice said, “Alik’r, hold! You’ve proven your strength, warrior.” Was he talking to me? And where was he? “Let’s avoid any more bloodshed. I think you and I have some things to talk about.” I had a hunch that it was Kematu talking, though he sounded a lot like the guy who wouldn’t leave his cell. I walked through the waterfall, and saw that he had several warriors with him. I remembered the other man who’d told me I would be walking in to my death, and that if I entered I would not leave.
I considered what it was he’d want to talk about, and realize it was most likely to convince me to give up Iman’s location to him rather than protect her. But the only reason I was doing any of this was to protect her. Otherwise I could have just stopped by Rorikstead and said, “Yeah, she’s at the Bannered Mare, good luck to you.” So no matter what he offered, I could not accept. And would not accept. Also his other friends had been jerks to me, plus he was working for the Aldmeri Dominion, so…
I fired my arrow.
Here’s what happened next, as best I can remember.
First, the arrow did hardly anything to him. He was made out of rock, or something. And then, as one, all of his men drew their swords and came down the walkway at me, along with Kematu. Lydia, for her part, drew her sword and went for the nearest lackey. I backed up and continued firing, but I was a little disoriented, standing in the water and under the waterfall. We did a lot of damage, but soon Lydia was bleeding to death and they turned to focus their attentions on me. I turned and ran, occasionally turning around to fire an arrow. Eventually one of them said, “We are routed! Fall back!” Which gave me false confidence that my bleeding limbs did not support. I continued firing at Kematu, who took a few steps forward toward me, drew his sword back, and then ran it through my stomach like I was a kebab.
I collapsed to the ground, and he said, “That takes care of that,” and things went black, and I died.
The next thing I know, I’m standing at the entrance of Swindler’s Den, with Lydia right behind me. A voice ahead of me said, “I’m not sure I like these Alik’r warriors hiding out here. They seem like trouble.”
“Ohhh,” whined Lydia as I stepped on her foot as I ran past her and out of the cave, screaming silently in my own head.
To be continued, Journal.
Last updated November 28, 2016
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