Entry One, Helgen

Dear Journal,

I have awoken in some sort of carriage or something, and I am not necessarily sure where I am going. Things are a bit blurry and my mind is fuzzy from the night before. I actually can't even remember the night before. Perhaps it will come to me sometime later in the day, I think. However, it didn't seem too good for me when I looked down at my hands and realized that they were bound in shackles! "By the Nine, what in all of Tamriel have I done to myself?" I thought, but realized that I couldn't even speak. My tongue was too sore from chewing on it in my sleep. Nasty habit, I know. By the time I finally get the blur out of my eyes, I finally realize that I am not alone.

I stare into the eyes of a blonde-headed Nord in some strange type of armor. He speaks to me about how I am finally awake, and then I hear the voice of another person, and look to the side. This man is sitting in front of me to my right, and is wearing torn and very tattered cloth much like the cloth that I was wearing at the moment as well. He had short brown hair, and his face was covered in dirt. I began to wonder if I was also covered in dirt. He spoke about how the Stormcloaks were to blame for the position he was in, etc. I wasn't listening to him because he seemed to be quite the angry fellow.

I was more focused on the other passenger in the carriage with us. He had a white cloth wrapped around his jaw, shutting his mouth like a muzzle. His hair was a reddish brown color and he was wearing the same armor as the blonde-headed man from before. I wondered who these two could be. As the conversation in the carriage continues I can only listen for I still cannot speak due to my tongue being so swollen and sore inside of my mouth. My company seemed curios enough so I didn't feel too inclined to speak.

Apparently we were all captured trying to cross the border, or at least I was. The two men in the strange armor seem to think that I was caught at the wrong time in the wrong place, and that I did nothing wrong, but I can only hope that is the truth. The two men in armor reveal themselves to be Stormcloaks, the other half of the war in Skyrim at the moment—and the man sitting next to me was Ulfric Stormcloak himself, the leader of the rebellion.

The man in the rags, whom was given the name Thief by the other man in armor, whose name I had yet to catch, said that they were all brothers in shackles now in this carriage—and I thought he made a rather intense point. I was pretty focused on the conversation ahead, and hadn't even though of the fact that I may be losing my head very soon.

The man in armor said that The Stormcloaks were heading in on the empire across the border and there was a huge Imperial ambush and they were all taken in. I suddenly felt like I didn't much like these Imperial guys. Considering they had me out of my normal comfortable, but fancy, cloth attire and now shoved into these disgusting rags and shackles for Talos sake!

The man in rags, or rather, Thief in Rags begins to go into hysterics as the man in armor asks him where he is from, saying "A Nords last thoughts should be of home."

Which really rang true to me. I wondered what exactly I would do if I was home at this moment. In my warm little house, with my cheese wheels and alto wine. I'd love the feel and the smell of my goat leg roasting over a fire right about now. But I doubted I would ever experience those things again as we rounded a corner, I could hear a conversation between a son and father. The son was curious as to what the Imperial soldiers were doing, and wanted to stay to watch—but the father, knowing much better that the son should not see this, makes his child go inside.

The realistic aspect of this all set in with me, then. I realized that I would be lost in death in a few moments and I hated that I couldn't even remember what I had done, or where I was moments before I woke up in this stupid carriage with these strange men! At that moment, I could hear a loud man's voice shouting out;

"General Talius, the headsmen is ready!"

And that is when we realized that it was going to happen. Our true demise would happen in only moments from now. The man in armor whose name I had still not known yet scoffed at General Talius's name and identified Gen. Talius as the Military Governor of the Imperial Army, and said that he also spotted the Thalmor with the general. I personally couldn't remember having too much negative encounter with the Thalmor, but I had heard of their snotty attitudes and crude taste in fashionable armor.

But who was I to judge, I was sitting here in tatters!

This is when the man in armor said that we were in Helgen, and I was glad to know the place that I would die. About that time, a loud voice from before shouted that all of the prisoners need to be let out of the carriage.

Once we were all out and the carriage drove away, I could feel the dirt between my toes and it was cold. I was suddenly very cold as I stood behind the man in armor and next to the thief in tatters. One of the Imperial soldiers starts to read off the names.

Ulfric Stormcloak

Ralof of Riverwood

So that was the man in armor from before. Ralof….

Nokir of Rorikstead

Nokir began to shout about how he didn't deserve to be here, and then took off running. The Imperial Captain order the archers to shoot him down. Then I am asked my name by the Imperial Soldier holding the roster.

"My name is Ophelia of Whiterun, Sir." I state quietly. Finally, my tongue is not so swollen that I cannot speak.

The soldier then turns to his captain and asks what they should do with me because I was not on the list. For a brief moment I thought of what I would do if I was let go from here now. If I would turn and run and leave the others to die, or if I would have to go back and try to do something for Ralof and the others. But the captain looks to me and with coldness in her voice, she shakes her head and tells him to ignore the list and to send me to the block.

The soldier apologizes and I sense a little bit of hospitality in this particular soldier and I put that down in my head that maybe all Imperials are not the same. Just maybe…

I am pushed to the chopping block and forced to stand next to all of the others who are about to get cut down. A priestess steps forward to read the rights, but a soldier stops her, and forces another soldier down onto the chopping block. Once I see that head roll to the side, I close my eyes and pray to Talos to save us all from this. I did not care how he did it or what happened to the soldiers in order for it to happen, but I prayed and prayed for Talos to guide them all out of here safely.

I open my eyes as one of the soldiers approaches Ulfric Stormcloak and tells him that a true man of Skyrim wouldn't use a power like The Voice to murder his king and steal his throne. I am dumfounded, what exactly is The Voice, and did Ulfric sincerely kill the King? If so, why in all of the world would you get in his face? A loud roar is heard in the distance and we all begin to ask questions about and we are wondering what could make such a noise, however, my thoughts were broken when the lady captain, who I have to admit must have been inflicted with the bleeding for that month, because she had quite the sour temperament, called me up to be next to receive my head to be chopped off.

I am pulled forward after having to make the lady repeat herself, and shoved down onto my knees. I have a wonderful view of the executioner or headsmen if you prefer, standing over me with a giant axe. However, in the background I saw a black blip in the sky. It was huge, and soon after I saw it I heard a horrible roar—-exactly like the one from before.

The huge winged thing from my nightmares landed on the stone building behind the executioner and a couple of Imperial Soldiers and everyone began to scream and duck for cover. The headsmen was knocked down and the winged thing looked down at me. Right at me! He stared into my eyes and I felt him hate me. I felt him hate me for a moment, and I had no idea what to expect from all of this. I closed my eyes again.

From behind me, I felt someone grip my tattered cloth, and pull. I heard screaming and then the winged-thing shot another blue sparkling wave out of his mouth that knocked some rocks over which sent me tumbling. Things were blurry again much like when I awoke on the carriage, and I was faced with the kind soldier from before and Ralof calling to me to come with them. I choose to follow Ralof because I don't trust the imperials just yet. How could I?

Ralof leads me into a building where Ulfric and he begin to discuss what that winged-thing was, and they finally decide on it being a dragon. A dragon! No way! It can't really be, but now that I look back at it, and remember those cold eyes—and that stuff coming out of its mouth—it had to be. I am instructed to climb up the tower, by Ralof, but as I do, the dragon breaks through the wall and shoots another wave of whatever it is through the rocks on the side of the tower, causing me to fall to the side. As I stand back up, Ralof has followed me and points to a burning barn below, and tells me to jump there, and to meet him by the Keep, that he will be there when I get there.

I do as he says because that is the only way to get out of here alive, I have decided. My whole life is put in his hands. I climb to the edge of the broken wall and jump. I take a little bit of injury because I land on fire, but it doesn't burn for too long, my hands are still bound so there isn't much I can do but fall if I lose my balance. I jumped from the high story in that barn to the lower one, and then run out. I look up and the dragon is still flying high above, and Helgen is burning. Burning to the ground.

The kind soldier from before is running now with yet another Imperial Soldier and a little boy. The kind solder tells the soldier to take the boy, and then instructs me to follow him. I assume that he is going to lead me to the keep, so I follow him. I have no other way to get out of here anyway, why not. He pulls me to the wall, because just then the dragon jumps down and launches another burst of flames over Helgen. I am so scared for my life but my adrenaline will not allow me to think about it, it will only allow my body to run.

I follow the soldier for a little while through a burning Helgen. There are burnt down houses that Hadmar, the kind soldier, leads me through until we come to the entrance to the keep. There is where I see Ralof running up to meet us. Without hesitation I run to Ralof, and stand behind him shyly. I am afraid of what will happen and afraid that I may not be able to defend myself because I am still bound. Hadmar and Ralof share words of anger at each other and I realize that he is not as kind as I would have expected. Ralof turns to me and tells me to follow him into the Keep.

I follow him into the keep and see that there is a soldier on the ground, his armor matches Ralof's and I deduce that he is yet another Stormcloak. I am sad that the soldier is dead and begin to wonder if he knew Ralof and if Ralof knew him. That is when Ralof begins to mourn the death of the man, whose name is Gunjar. Ralof then tells me that that thing was a dragon for sure, and that we needed to get out of there. He tells me to come to him, and I do.

He cuts me lose, and then instructs me to take Gunjar's gear because he would not be needing it anymore. I feel a little wrong stealing from the dead but realize that I have to. I have to do this to survive. It was a little odd, at first, removing the clothing off of the dead man and setting it aside. I stood there and watched as Ralof went around the room to feel to see if the doors were locked, at that moment, I quickly undressed out of my rags and dropped them to the floor—and then I changed into the stormcloak armor.

Ralof came back and said that all of the doors were locked and that the gate we needed to get through was locked on the other side so we couldn't get out. That's when he heard Imperials walking through the gate. We hid at the sides of the doors and then realized that it was that nasty Imperial Captain and two other soldiers. Ralof tells me to use the axe and try to find a key. I killed one of the soldiers trying to get used to the way the axe felt in my hands, but Ralof was strong and took the rest of them out.

He even found the key inside one of the Captain's pouches. I was glad to have him around. Then I followed him through the door that the key had unlocked and we went through a hallway and down a pair of stairs to the left. That's where we find a store room where two Imperial Soldiers are stocking up on potions and attack us. I kill the bigger one with the shoulder plates and steal his money and his potion, then Ralof tells me to search for more potions because we would need them later.

I find many potions of minor healing and magicka as well as a half loaf of bread and three salt piles. I put them in the large pouch that came with the armor that Gunjar had, and I walk to where Ralof was standing by yet another door. He asks if I am ready and when I respond with a yes, he turns to open the door and we go through it. When we get through it we find out that it was a torture room with cages and a dead mage inside of one of them. But there were two Imperial Soldiers waiting for us in there, but luckily, two Stormcloak Soldiers had already found them and were taking them down as quickly as possible.

Ralof begins to question them about the whereabouts of Ulfric and neither of them had seen him. I was kind of curious as to where the man had gone, as well. Ralof then tells me to open this gate to get the gold form inside of it. He hands me three lock picks and I take them and open the lock on one of the gates with ease. It didn't seem to be locked very expertly, almost any novice could open it.

Once inside I found seven pieces of gold, three magicka potions, one healing potion, and a spell tome for sparks. I put the potions in my satchel, and then read the spell tome as fast as I could so that I may learn how to use the spell when I need it. I then followed Ralof and the other two Stormcloaks to the exit to the left, and went through the exit with them through a cave. Once we got into a large opening in the cave there were four Imperials waiting for us in there.

I was beginning to get very sick of the Imperials infesting every area that we were in, so I charged in and shoved my axe through the head of another Imperial. After that I activated my fire magick and shot at a spot of oil on the ground, catching the archer imperial on fire while the other two took care of the others. Once they were done they met me where I was standing. Ralof suggested he and I follow through the next entrance and the others would go take care of some other business here for a while.

So, we moved on. I came across a lever that looked like the only way to lower the tall wooden bridge that was blocking the exit—so I activated it. Once I activated it and Ralof and I walked through it, I looked back to see if the others had come through, and they hadn't made it yet. Just then, another loud roar from the dragon above ground came through—which in turn caused a bunch of rocks to fall down to the ground, crushing the bridge we'd just come across and blocking the doorway on the other side as well. We were stuck on this side, and they were stuck in there.

I was a little distressed but Ralof assured me that we would be okay and that they would find another way out. I believed him and so we kept on moving. There was a small waterfall looking thing in the middle of this area and we followed it down. Once we got to the end we realized that it was blocked but then we realized there was a walkway on the side that led to another cavern area. Ralof turns to look at me for a minute, and then turns around again to continue moving. He looks a little dismayed, perhaps he was worried about Ulfric. As we enter the small cavern, five huge frostbite spiders drop down from the ground. I am busy taking care of one, while Ralof is busy demolishing four of them.

I begin to feel a little weak beside this man, but I realize that there is more important things to worry about at that moment. We continue, and Ralof tells me how he hates frostbite spiders, he says, "Too many eyes, you know?" and I realize that he may have a giant fear of spiders.

We go through yet another area, and he hunkers down and tells me that there is a bear, and that we need to either sneak by the bear or kill it but he would rather not mess with her right now. On any other occasion I would have shot the bear from a distance, but I decide to lead Ralof through quietly. We make it and then go through the side area of that cavern where the bear was sleeping.

That's when we see the bright light that leads to the exit! So much excitement runs through our veins and we take off at a high speed running to the exit.

Once I get out, the bright light and beautiful scenery captures me and I have to stop for a minute, but Ralof brings me back to life and tells me to get down because the dragon was flying ahead. Once I got down and watched the dragon fly away, Ralof tells me he was glad that we made it out, but there was no way of telling if the others made it or not until later. He also tells me about his sister Gerdur, in Riverwood, he tells me that she will help us out for a few days. Then, he says that after those few days, we should split up because it would be a good idea because this is not Stormcloak territory.

I follow him for a long while and then he suggests that I join the fight to free Skyrim and I figure that he was talking about the Stormcloaks. I would have to think about that. As the road goes on he shows me Bleak Falls Barrow, a tall ruin in the distance on the mountain. I discover the Guardian Stones and he tells me that these are only three of the thirteen ancient stones in Skyrim. I choose the Warrior Stone and these blue lights are activated and I got the feeling of being stronger—-not really, I just saw pretty blue lights. I hope that stone helps me somehow.

We are attacked by three wolves and I hold my own pretty well against them, even though they are small. We reach a small, but beautiful town called Riverwood, and find his sister Gerdur. Ralof says to Gerdur that he owes me his life, and Gerdur says to follow her. Hod comes out and we meet him. Her son Frodnar comes to ask his uncle Ralof some questions but is sent away. Ralof commences to telling Hod and Gerdur the story of what happened.

Gerdur says to me, "Any friend of Ralof's is a friend of mine." and gives me her house key. Then, she asks me to go to Whiterun, my old home, and inform Jarl Balgruuf of the dragon attack. I accept to do that favor for her.

However, I feel like I need some rest after this long day, my legs are aching and the burns on my arms and legs from the fire hurts. I follow Ralof to Gerdur's house. He tells me, "See? I told you my sister would help us. May Talos guide you."

Once I make it inside of Gerdur's tiny house, I find an empty bed, but Hod speaks to me first. He asks me how big the dragon was and I told him it was the size of an inn. Once he is done talking to me I am going to go to sleep.

Will write tomorrow,

Ophelia

Authors Note:

Please Understand that I do not own any rights to Bethesda and it's character/game. I am only using them for fun. Also, do not take this so incredibly seriously, alright? It is for fun. Do know though, that this is based off of my game-play every single day and I will write about it every day. I will also make an entry every day. I apologize beforehand if a name or location is spelled incorrectly and if you notify me or if I notice it first, it will be fixed. Please keep up and review! (: