Just a quick word before I begin. This is my first fanfiction! I fancy myself as a bit of a writer and I believe the plot I have planned is amazing (if I do say so myself). Please take some of your time to offer any criticism or praise by reviewing and I will attempt to respond to all. I shall endeavour to upload a new chapter every few days. This story is set in 4E 205. All events after the destruction of Helgen are fictional. The Elder Scrolls franchise is not mine. All of the characters, the world and its location are propety of Bethesda. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Graveyard of a Legend

Most wouldn't fancy the idea of gallivanting around Falkreath hold during the bitter nights of Morning Star. This is precisely how four silhouettes approached the old gates of Helgen without chancing upon a single soul.

Helgen is the graveyard of a once bustling town. It had met its end when some Imperial soldiers captured Ulfric Stormcloak and the Dragonborn and went to execute these high value captives. A great black dragon had arrived just as the Dragonborn was about to be beheaded and razed the town completely, allowing Ulfric and the great hero of Skyrim to escape. Now Helgen is simply a monument to that legendary story, which is perhaps the most popular among young Nords.

On this present night, Rasmus was shivering, not just for the cold, but in anticipation of what was to come. He, Faendal, Wolly and his loyal wolf Skooma had been tracking the group of bandits, no doubt asleep on the other side of this great slab of ancient wood, for 5 days now. The chief's head would earn him backslaps all round at Dead Man's Drink, not to mention a fair sum of septims from Jarl Siddgeir, whose horse the chief was unfortunate enough to have stolen.

Wolly was inspecting the gate.

'Shit! Rasmus, it's locked.' He whispered, 'I can blast it open but that's sure to wake them up!'

'There are two gates into Helgen,' added Faendal, 'they will bolt through the other one to safety the moment they realise they are under attack from this one!'

They were in a pickle it seemed.

'How could we be so stupid to forget a ladder, or at least hire a decent lockpick?' Rasmus thought to himself while surveying the high stone wall, praying that a gap or a rope dangling from the battlements would jump out at him.

As if reading Rasmus' mind, Faendal piped up, 'They wouldn't bother locking the gate if there was another way in.' It made sense, Rasmus knew that this was the case.

'Well,' he said, speaking for the first time in a while and turning towards Wolly, 'I think a fire spell is our best bet.'

Wolly and Faendal gave him looks of surprise, 'B-but we can come back tomorrow,' Wolly stammered, 'If we head for Riverwood now and set a good pace.'

'We will probably never find them again if they escape,' said Faendal, who was currently fidgeting with a roughly made arrow, a sign of nervousness in the elf, 'if prey knows it is being tracked, it is hardly ever caught.'

Rasmus took this all in and knew that his friends had spoken truthfully again, but he persisted with his notion. 'They will have moved camp tomorrow and have a days walk on us. If they are travelling further east, we will take a week to get home!'

Rasmus saw a flash of understanding in both of their faces and they agreed that blasting the gate was the correct course of action.

Wolly had a gulp of a deep blue potion, which he produced from under his shabby old robes, 'that shopkeeper at Riverwood charged me 50 septims for this petty thing. Robbery!' He then positioned himself around five metres from the gate and began to weave his magic. Skooma, who had been quite quiet and polite while her masters had been scheming, let out a small yelp as Wolly had produced two fireballs, one in each hand. Then, with a quick look at Rasmus, who gave a nod, he threw them at the great gate. The aftermath was instantaneous. The spell had blasted a crater in the wood, leaving a gap barely big enough for Rasmus, who was the largest, to squeeze through whilst making a tremendous crashing noise which could've been heard at the Black Marsh. In a flash, Faendal and Rasmus, who had been positioned just beside the gate, leapt inside the ruined town, weapons in hand. Skooma quickly followed suit and Wolly brought up the rear. By the time the wizard was in, two bandits, who had obviously been guarding the gate were dead, one with an arrow in his throat and the other had half of his innards splayed across the cobblestones. The adventurers knew that this particular band had 8 members; including the chief and that the other 6 now had sufficient warning.

Helgen had an eerie feel, which instantly made Rasmus feel uncomfortable. Human bones littered the road they were creeping along, which was lined with sorry shells of what must have been grand shops and homes. Even in the darkness of the night, massive black scorch marks were visible on the pale stone of the dwellings and thick grasses and vines were growing wildly all over the place. 'Skooma, drop it girl!' Faendal hissed in the quietest voice elfishly possible. Rasmus cracked a grin as Skooma dropped the child's skull she had been carrying in her jaws.

It didn't take long for them to spy the bandit camp, which was set up near the gallows on the east side of town. There was a clutter of shelters crafted out of animal skins and a couple of logs positioned around a smouldering campfire. The chief, wearing a particularly notable dwarfish helmet, was barking orders at his men who seemed dazed and confused as to why they were up in the wee hours of the morning. 'Perfect,' thought Faendal while loading his bow, 'they'll be easy pickings.' The adventurers were now behind their last cover before the camp, a single wall which must've once been part of a house, about 20 metres from the camp. Wolly, who wasn't the bravest of souls despite being a more than adept wizard, was looking positively terrified. 'They are packing up!' He squeaked, 'they are packing the fu*k up!'

Rasmus saw that Wolly was right and cast a nervous glance at Faendal, whose eyes gave away nothing. 'Get ready guys, they were bound to find their friends at the gate dead anyway. It has to be now.' Rasmus said the words a little too loudly, because the chief seemed to be starring right at them.

Rasmus, mouthed a countdown, his battleaxe in hand, then they sprinted towards the bandits, screaming like madmen. The sight of enemies appearing out of nowhere, just a stone throw away and yelling deafeningly loud startled the campers, but only momentarily as they had managed to produce an array of swords, daggers and maces before Rasmus, Wolly and Skooma reached them. However, Faendal had loosened an arrow and looked on in pleasure as the point imbedded itself in an eyeball. Five more. Rasmus and Skooma started double-teaming one bandit who had a particularly nasty looking curved greatsword. Skooma nipping his ankles and Rasmus trying to penetrate his mail with sweeping blows from his battleaxe. Meanwhile, Wolly, despite his nerves, had knocked three off their feet with a devastating ice wave and was proceeding to quickly giving each a running through with his sword.

Before long there flurry of weaponry had ceased and the companions felt their chests swelling in triumph. 'Now, for the chief's head!' Exclaimed Rasmus, looking around for the chief.

'He had that beautiful helmet,' Faendal reminded him.

Rasmus surveyed each of the corpses, then realised. 'There are only five bodies! He isn't here!'

This was the precise moment that the bandit chief decided to make his dash. He had been collecting his horse from outside the keep, with the treasure he had pillaged on his latest spree in a sack over his shoulder, laughing at how easily the adventurers had allowed him to slip away. Now he rode past them on the Jarl of Falkreath's steed at blinding pace, praying to the nine that he wouldn't meet the same fate as his accomplices.

Wolly, who was positively exhausted from casting such an advanced spell suddenly pointed, 'THERE! QUICKLY!' he screamed. Faendel had an arrow nocked in an instant and had almost no time at all to aim, due to the lightning speed of the white mare. The difficulty of the shot was especially evident to Rasmus when Faendal, one of the best archers in Skyrim, missed by a full length of the horse. A particularly small fireball shot feebly after the escaping bandit, but ended up causing the wall they had been hiding behind to topple over. The companions seethed as the chief laughed manically off into the night, well except Wolly, he was out cold from the effort of summoning that last fireball.

The air around the adventurers as they sifted through the bandits belongings for valuables was stale. The disappointment of failing at the final hurdle had ruffled all of their feathers. The fact that the chief had managed to take with him all of the treasure that the bandits had pillaged only seemed to compound their woe. At the end of it, they had found around 200 septims, a nice sword made of iron and a bit of wolf hide, which Skooma seemed to be eyeing off suspiciously. This haul would pay for the journey, but there was no profit to be seen at the end of 5 days of marching tirelessly.

Despite the fact he'd rather sleep naked in a cave with a frost troll for company, Rasmus agreed to spend the remainder of the night in Helgen, to allow Wolly to rest up. Skooma somehow managed to uncover some old mead which smelt of juniper berries in what must've once been the inn and was lapping it up gleefully. This would usually had produced laughs from the adventurers, but only lead Faendal and Rasmus to dread the reaction of the regulars at Dead Man's Drink back in Falkreath once they returned empty handed. He would make especially sure to avoid Skulnar.

Rasmus was awake long after the others that night. He had failed her again. He felt white hot anger and frustration coursing through his veins. He wondered if it was about time he got a real job, perhaps helping out at the graveyard or opening a shop. Sure, he loved adventuring, but he really couldn't afford to only come back with money one out of every four times. It wasn't that they were bad adventurers; they were just prone to making silly errors. He supposed that this time, the decision to alert the bandits was his fault. Last time, it had been Faendal who had accidentally led them into a Draugr infested crypt and the time before, it had been Wolly who accidentally killed the pet dog they were meant to be saving. Rasmus managed a ghost of a smile when he remembered the time a wolf drank the skoomas that they had seized from some criminal Khajiit. It had been worth the new friend he supposed. They were just an error-prone, no good pack of questers. He wouldn't mind if it wasn't for her, but he needed to pick up his act.