Out
In The Wilderness
The
next day I spent at the College talking a bit with my peers and
practising some magic. I worked out a very handy training routine: I
go up on the college's roof (a great place if you want to be alone),
summon a flame atronarch and then hit it with my frost-spells. This
way I train both my conjuration skills and hone my skills in
destruction too. I also find time to improve my abilities in
restoration-magic with - curing my burns.
Later
Onmund showed up and asked me to get a family heirloom back from
Enthir. It seems he got somehow in debt and had to sell it to him.
Really annoying that he asked me to solve this issue! So I went to
Enthir and tried to persuade him, but he wasn't too cooperative.
Perhaps I try again when he is in better mood.
 |
| Quite a different view: The college as seen from the shore. |
Having
worked on my magical skills (and spent a fortune on
conjuration-lessons) I found it a good idea to have a walk out of the
college and test what I have learned.
I
followed the steep cliff just east of Winterhold – with carefully
watching for clefts – until I found a safe passage leading further
down to the shore. I came past some iron ore veins until I spotted
something strange in all of this nowhere: an altar!
Carefully
I sneaked closer. Not careful enough though: An ice-run went off and
hurt me pretty badly. After I recovered, I send a fireball to the
ground in case I could trigger another one which might be hidden
under the snow. Then I inspected the altar. It looked pretty freshly
used, with flowers and alchemy ingredients arranged around a book
called “Mannimarco, King of Worms”. Quite a peculiar, lengthy
poem.
Just
when I was about to head on, I stepped into another rune-trap! Really
great.
As
I continued my exploration I ran into a number of wolves and bears.
Their northern variant is significantly tougher and more dangerous.
Also I learned – on the hard way – that I can't use fireballs yet
efficiently enough. Several times I ran out of magical energy when
fighting with these beasts. Its a tedious thing: you put so much
effort and concentration into a spell, and then it gets miss and just
burns a hole in the ground. And your target is totally unimpressed
and goes on trying to kill you!
While
practising spells up at the college, a shipwreck I saw far out on
rocky island woke my curiosity. A storm must have ran it against the
shore and smashed against the rocks. Now I saw it again in the
distance, somewhere north-east of me and decided to pay it a visit.
It looked strangely graceful, despite being torn in halves.
It
was already getting evening and the dusk comes pretty quickly in
these latitudes. Still I could see a thin line of smoke rising near
the wreck – a campfire!
As
I got closer I saw that bandits have turned the remnants of the ship
into their hideout. They haven't spotted me yet. Still my heart was
beating up my throat. I counted two of them. Pretty well armed, but I
had the advantage of mobility. You just can't move as fast when you
wear armor.
I
pondered my chances and sent a bolt of fire against one of them. They
returned their fire, but I was pretty well covered behind some rocks.
I sent them a hail of firebolts and after a short, but intense fight
both were laying smoldering on the frozen sand.
I
followed the improvised gangway up the ship's cabin and got greeted
by a hefty-looking silhouette, drawing a two-handed sword, which was
definitely too large for my linking.
This
guy was much tougher than the two others. He must been their leader.
I tried to stay in safe distance and sent my fire-magic against him,
while he did his massive swings with his greatsword. It wasn't
looking too good for me, to be honest. He knew how to use his weapon
and could endure quite the beating, while I hectically tried to
outrun him. I think what tipped the scales to my favor was summoning
an atronarch, which kept him occupied, while I could catch some
breath and take him into crossfire. He was able to smash the
atronarch to pieces, but the following explosion (flame atronarchs
don't die silently) weakened him, so I could finish with with my last
bit I had in reserve. Triumphant I stood over my dead opponent and
inspected him.
His
sword was indeed impressive. A rugged, orcish greatsword with very
lethal looking serrations on its blade.
When
examining the shipwreck I found a strange, glowing crystal. As soon I
picked it up a voice suddenly began to talk.
It seemed to come from everywhere. It identified itself as the
Daedric Prince Meridia and told me that I just picked an artefact of
her which she me to use to restore the glory of her shrine. Its quite
scary when a voice suddenly starts to talk to you and I don't know
what I prefer. That this was a hallucination or that a Daedric Prince
really talked to me...
I
also found the diary of a Telvanni refugee. It seems the ship was
“The Pride of Tell Vos”, which was full of Dark Elves trying to
escape Morrowind after the Red Mountain broke out. I pity them for
their faith that did await them on Skyrim's shores.
 |
| Somewhere at Skyrims coast: A shrine of Talos. |
Having had enough adventures for now I
headed back to the shore to return to Winterhold. While looking for
the road I found however a vast Nordic ruin, half-buried in snow. I
could later identify it as Snow Veil Sanctum. I tried to gain access
to it, but I couldn't even figure out how the locks at the two
entrances I found, work. While wandering through the ruins I ran in
two ice-wraiths which were levitating over a sheer bottomless pit.
They didn't stand a chance against my fire-magic. But I decided not
to get too close to that pit, despite the massive iron grid covering
it. It just looked too scary.
I found the road again and also spotted
to my delight the tower of the Mage's College on the horizon: I
couldn't been too far away from Winterhold!
The rest of my walk back - yes I almost
wrote the word “home” already - I met a group of stormcloak
Soldiers gathering near the road under a ancient looking stone-arch.
They looked alert, as if waiting to ambush an imperial patrol. I
didn't wanted to mess with their business really, so I greeted them
friendly and gained distance.
Back in Winterhold, the local
pawnbroker, Birna sold me an odd looking artifact: a sculpture in the
shape of a claw. It must be something ancient. It is made of corals
and has mysterious animal carvings on it. Very mysterious. I wonder
what it was used for.
After this I went to the College and
visited the Arcanaeum (as the library of the college is officially
called) again. That suspicious note and the key were still on Urag's
desk... I really wonder if that's some kind of bait to test novice
students if they would cause trouble or not.
Then I also had a rather odd
conversation with the college's enchanter Sergius
Turrianus, about innovative ways to charge soulgems – or something.
I got a bad feeling about it and quickly changed topic before he
could get into details.
As I was coming down the stairs from
the Arcanaeum, the college's “advisor”, Ancano stepped into my
way and started to question me about Saarthal. Well, not actually
question me. It was more that he told me that he knows that we
discovered something special there. And that I shouldn't insult his
intelligence, by denying that, because he knows that I know what his
position here is and therefore also should know that he knows about
the artefact we found – or something like that. The college can be
a strange place sometimes.
Back in the Hall of Attainment, I was
happy to see Brelyna again. She told me she did improve her spell and
was sure it would work now. I had no idea what it was supposed to do,
but agreed in trying anyway. She is just too cute to reject her!
The spell went... wrong. Utterly wrong
actually. I don't want to get into details though. Just that much: it
wasn't a pleasant experience.
She was just as embarrassed as I was
and together we agreed that this never happened. So please excuse me
for not getting into detail.
Anyway I'm glad the spell was
reversible. What a day again! I really need a strong drink now...
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