THE DIVINES CALL, LESSON 1 by SplintMan "24 septims? That's a cheating price!" "Well it's the best I can do, my friend!" "First off, I am not your friend, and secondly, a bloody bag of apples for 24 septims! You have to be joking me!" The vendor pauses, and then says smugly "How 'bout 22?" The enraged customer storms off, as Silden stares off at his ragged back going through the marketplace. "Phhh!" "Who needed him anyway, I have better starving victims than that vermin" Silden said quietly, not trying to get himself heard. Silden was a low class Nord in a low class district of Morthal, who lived in a shared house with other low class people. He always thought of him self as a 'deserving man''. He had always thought of himself as a worthy, smart man in a complete and utter scumhole, obviously infested with the scum. Others disagreed, as they called him "A cheating arrogant bastard." He had lived there all his life, and was always hated. When he was 14, he watched and laughed as an angry old Nord and a scrumping teenager, his friend, fight it out in a Morthal pen. The man scampered away after 2 minutes since they saw two guards strolling up near them. Silden's friend turned to him, and called him a coward milk drinker, since Silden was scrumping as well. Silden just shrugged, and walked home, still snickering. Thus began the reign of 'King Milky'. About 12 years later, the old man died, so Silden took over the house with just enough money. He had to get more septims, so he started selling apples from the same tree he scrumped off and some mushroom caps growing in a rotten corner of his bedroom. He made some money, but usually spent most of it at the Moorside Inn on ale and some imported skooma. The money he made was cheap money, as he inflated the price of his "Silden Treats" by a lot, and since the town was literally rotting away, there was a few buyers. In his years as a apple and fungus vendor, he did a lot of bad things, and most of the time he was either slapped or imprisoned. 'King Milky' was rude to the women, in which he got badly beat by men, mainly his old friend, stole other people's apples, stole the thatch off of the Moorside Inn, (The Inn Keeper did let him off though, Silden was his main source of income), stole cow milk at night and even got a mage to summon a Flame Atronach for him so he could burn down the wharf, (It didn't work, since Silden didn't think of the water underneath the pier). He needed a lesson dealt to him, or else he'll probably end up as one of Dagon's practice dummies in Oblivion. He needed a phenomenal lesson in fact, from phenomenal people, the Nine Divines. "Agh, it's snowing again, damn it!" Silden cried whilst looking out of is cracked, brown tinted window. "Young Silden has not got any time for this, my apples will get frozen!" he thought. "Ah well, tomorrows a good day to start." "Oh really..." A voice said, as it echoed though the petrified vendor's ears. "Uhhh, who's this... Then..." He shockingly said. "You do not respect us, and, more importantly, your hard working friends..." It said again. "Excuse me, odd echoing voice, in my head, I have no, uh, friends." "You did in, the past." "Yeah, until my only friend blamed me for bloody stealing from that tree a decade ago!" An angered Silden replied viciously. Don't you have any respect? I am Zenithar, god of work and commerce, and you have not been... Living to expectations." "Zenithar?" A quickly confused Silden said. "I am, sorry." "Besides though, Zenithar, why are you, the all powerful divine, contacting me." "So you can change." Zenithar replied in a more positive tone. "I am your... first lesson giver, and that, whenever you like it or not, is learning to be hard working" "Hard working?! I'm more hard working than all of Skyrim's Jarls climbing to bloody High Hrothgar!" Silden yelled. "You are truly... Something else... Just go to your apple tree, and pick the cold apples." "And you are truly stupid Zenny, they are frozen. I can exactly afford firewood to bloody heat apples!" "The get... Your own wood." "Go away, you must be hitting the 'divine' skooma! Ha ha!" "You have an hour, Silden..." The echo disappeared, and Silden slumped against the window. "That's that then." Silden sat on his crumbling chair and dozed off to sleep... An hour later, he perked up suddenly. "What the..." Silden muttered, still half asleep. "I... Warned you..." Zenithar said. "Oh come on, what are you gonna do?" Silden said smugly. "This." Silden awoke fully as he felt his soul being pulled outside of him, and he ended up in a, ghostly version of his house. It had a grey aura around every detail, and a whining sound drifted through the cold air. "Zenithar?" Said a scared Silden. A vision of his garden appeared, and it shown the day afterwards. The tree begins to wilt, and its apples goes rotten, and a ghostly Silden kneels there, crying at the rotten stump of a once living tree. A horrified Silden looks on, until his soul was clenched again and he appeared on his chair, in the real world. "You know what to do, Silden," Zenithar said, as his echo dissapears. Silden rushes out of his house, and sprints to the Moorside Inn. "D'you happen to have some spare firewood?" He asked. "22 septims, please!" Says a smug Inn Keeper. Silden sighs, and forks out the money for a lump of firewood. Before the Inn Keeper questions Silden further, he rushed straight out into the blizzard. Silden gets home, lights the firewood, and goes in to his garden. "Oh Divines sake!" He cursed. He set his first foot into the knee deep snow, which gives him a chill through his spine. Silden powers on, and jumps up into the tree, grabbing a branch, and shaking the tree so the rock hard apples fall out into the snow. He collects them, gets a dish, and balances the apple full dish over the fire, which slowly melts the frost. After all this, Silden sits, only just after realising his tree is going to die. Silden panics, cursing multiple times. He calms down for a second after a twn minute outburst, and thinks. He needs a new tree, so why not look for seeds? He grabs the lukewarm apples, and cuts them in halves. Strangely, all the apples had no usable seeds, since they had already died from the cold. He grabs the last apple, and cuts it. Anxiously, he opened the two halves, revealing a small, black pip. Sidlen's face turns into glee, and he parades around with the seed for a full hour before plunging it into the earth, ready to grow. Even though he had his future secured, his present was at risk, how would he get money? He may have some apples, but the tree will take years to grow! Silden worried on his rickety chair, rocking it in comfort. Then it him. His ale and skooma stash, it'll be worth hundreds! Every time he went for ale, he would always take a bottle back, the same for skooma, and stash it. He went hundreds of times, and is cupboard was bursting for space. Silden was overjoyed, he would never drink his stash! Once again, Silden ran in the snow to the Inn, making 14 trips back and forth with the ale, and began talking to the keeper. "Can I sell you this?" Silden asked. "Alright, King Milky, 5 caps a bottle." "5 caps a bottle! Surely it is wor..." Silden remembered what he has done before, so he stops. "Okay, it is a deal." The keeper hauls the bottles to the cellar, and comes back with a sack of septims. "2045 septims, don't spend 'em all here." Silden was overjoyed, this would last him over a year! He had learned how to be hard working! Continued in Lesson 2