THE QUEST FOR SALT
The boy stared at the person who was rummaging madly through the trash barrels outside of the inn in Riverwood. The child had seen this warrior around the town before – they frequented the blacksmith's, had done some sort of quest once for the owner of the local general goods store and had, one exciting afternoon, fought some weird cultists.
A couple of the cultists' bodies were still lying unclaimed in the streets, an unsanitary condition that the adults in Riverwood didn't seem to care about. The boy wished that someone would take them to the nearest Hall of the Dead soon. They were beginning to smell. Maybe not as much as the warrior rummaging through the barrels, however, they were pretty ripe. They'd obviously done their fair of hard-traveling and hard-living.
"What are you doing?" the boy asked. "You know that's the trash, right?"
The armored figure gave the kid a withering death-glare. The child slowly backed away. "Um… okay, then," he said, knowing that the yet-to-be-blooded would do well not to bother a hard-bitten fighter. The warrior was shooting the child the look of someone who'd taken on dragons and had lived.
As the child wisely retreated, the disheveled adventurer returned to their work with the barrel. Tomato, tomato, tomato… This wasn't what they were looking for! They felt somewhat bad about frightening the kid. They liked children. If they didn't, they wouldn't have murdered that orphanage matron in cold blood.
"Dragonborn" – that was what they were being called – at least by the Greybeards. They didn't fully understand it all yet – just that they had some sort of grand, unwritten fate and that they devoured the souls of fallen dragons. The Dragonborn ate a tomato. It was half-rotten. They grunted and choked down the offending bite.
All that glittered was not gold and they were rummaging through every barrel in town seeking the one thing they found to be more valuable than gold: Salt.
Why was there never any salt? Tomatoes, carrots… potatoes… the occasional barrel of flour…
The adventurer remembered one time when they'd eaten about five sacks of raw flour when fighting a dragon that had dropped down on top of them as they were on the road to Solitude. They'd immediately lain down beside the bones of the dragon once it had been slain, rolling around and moaning pitifully from stomachache…
And that didn't even compare to the ten pounds of coleslaw in the form of raw cabbages and carrots they'd downed when they'd found themselves cornered in a cavern by a small herd of Draugar.
This was precisely why salt was needed. Meat provided a greater energy pay-off for relatively little carry-weight and fewer stomachaches, but any adventurer needed salt to roast and preserve meat properly and to make it tasty.
Salt. It was the most ubiquitous of household materials – the most basic need for the creation of varied foodstuffs, and yet, it seemed to be among the most difficult things to find in Skyrim.
Gold coins? Those could be picked off of almost any fallen foe – even some animals. JEWELS could be picked off of animals.
And, yet, the mighty Dragonborn had been to Whiterun, Riverwood and Falkreath just in the last week searching the apothecary shops, general stores and every storage barrel in each respective town to gather just three pinches of salt to use in their culinary experiments.
"Don't tell me I'm going to have to go all the way to Riften," the warrior grumbled to themselves. Riften was usually reliable for salt stores to raid since they were a fishing-town.
Solitude was hit-or-miss, Winterhold was usually a bust…
And they were all leagues from each other.
One would think that the stores would sell more of the stuff, with it being an alchemy ingredient and needed in almost everything anyone in Skyrim ever cooked.
"Oh, the things I do for my love of venison stew!" the Dragonborn sighed. They ransacked another barrel. Yep, they'd have to ride all the way to Riften if they wanted to cook some stew anytime soon.
What they would give in dragon bones and scales for a good hefty sack of mere salt!
Of all the cliff and cave dungeons with all their lost, arcane treasures, the thing that the legendary Dragonborn journeyed the longest and farthest for was the most simple of that which glittered in the sun: Salt! Salt! Salt!
Every run of the mill bandit could drop a well-crafted sword or battleaxe. None of them ever had any salt on them. And, so, a fated warrior runs and rides far and wide, searching through white winter for white treasure.
The only thing worse? The only thing even more precious than gold and blood?
Butter.
Gods-damned butter!
(And steamed crab legs were their very favorite dish)!
Shadsie, 2017. (My first and current Dragonborn is a thin female Khajit who likes to cook).