Chapter One: Adventure start
Bleak Falls Barrow.
An ancient tomb build by the Nords long ago to bury their deceased. The entrance to the tomb was once a glorious temple that stood on top of the mountain. The temple was build large enough to accommodate the numerous people that would come and pay their respect to their ancestors. But now, the temple was mostly forgotten by the newer generations as time passed, laying in ruins as it's walls slowly deteriorate and crumbled whilst being buried in snow.
Right outside the Temple there were a three people currently loitering around. They were part of a group that came here earlier today. The rest had already entered the temple while the three were told to stay outside in the unforgiving cold to freeze their balls off. Thankfully, one of them was a woman and therefore, has no balls to freeze off.
These people that had entered the temple were not here to pay their respect to the dead. They came here with the intention of doing the exact opposite and desecrate their graves instead.
Bandits, they called themselves. A breed of scums that are commonly found in doves all over Skyrim. Most of them were too lazy to do proper work and instead turned to the life of thievery mostly because it's easier to earn gold this way. Some were just desperate for the coins, maybe to pay off debts that they have or for the mead that they wanted to drink.
This gang was gathered by a man who believed that there was treasure to be found deep within the tomb. Being the uneducated swines that they were, they failed to realised just how dumb the idea sounds and followed him eagerly like puppies, their minds only focusing on the gold they would receive at the end of the day.
Two of the men were by the stairway leading to the temple keeping watch for anyone coming towards the temple. Their job is to keep anyone from entering the place either by intimidating them or killing them. But as time passed, they grew lax as you would have expected from a bunch of people without discipline. They weren't really keeping an eye out for any trespassers and chatting away with each other to pass the time.
Sadly, despite knowing that they were heading towards the top of a snowy mountain, they were unprepared for the cold. Severely unprepared in fact.
"W-W-W-Why do we even need to stand guard f-f-f-for!?" one of the man who was standing shouted so that his companion could hear him through the howling winds. He was shuttering as he hugs himself close while rubbing his hands around on his arms, trying to generate what little heat it could in a futile attempt to keep himself warm. "It's not l-like anyone would even come to this forsaken place a-a-anymore."
"T-this is seriously the worst m-m-man. I c-can't even feel my f-f-f-fingers anymore." The other bandit who was sitting by the stairs complained loudly to the other as his teeth made chattering sounds as they repeatedly smash together.
"Y-yeah, the guys inside have it easy, at l-least they could make a fire in there." the first guy replied as he shivers uncontrollably, each breath he took emits a white vapor from his mouth. "Just why are we so under dressed on top of a mountain that's freaking covered in snow in the first place!?" True to his words, the two males were dressed only in basic leather armor with nothing underneath but their underwear. There were large gaps all around their armor that did nothing to protect them from the cold. Their clothing made them easy target for the freezing gale that kept blowing on relentlessly, trying it's best to kill them via hypothermia. They could feel the wind biting at their exposed skin, numbing them to the point where they could barely feel anything anymore.
Why none of the two ever thought of taking shelter from the unforgiving wind behind one of the many pillars around the place or using the many ancient cloth laying around to cover themselves is anyone's guess.
There was an annoyed sounding 'Tsk' coming from behind the two males that drew their attention. "How can you call yourselves men if you can't handle a little cold?" the quite literally dick-less one among the group spoke up in a disappointed tone. The woman in question was quite large and muscular like a body builder. And like the two men, she was also dressed in leather armor that somehow only consist of a skirt, bracers and boots while her torso was wrapped with some kind of brown cloth to cover whatever modesty she had...and also to keep her breast from jiggling in full view.
Anyone in their right mind would question the protective properties of what she was wearing and whether or not they could actually protect her from harm with all the places being exposed but sadly, neither of the three were smart.
"Easy for you to say. You're a-a-a Nord. Of course the c-c-cold doesn't bother you!" The one that was standing snapped angrily at the barely cladded woman.
"Ahhh, I can't take this anymore. I'm going to go take a piss." The one that was sitting said as he quickly got up and walk away to the side to do his own business, leaving the two behind to bicker as they saw fit.
"Just because I'm a Nord doesn't mean I won't be affected by the cold. You guys are simply wimps." The woman huffed, tilting her face to the side as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"N-n-no we're not!" The bandit growled shutteringly. "You're probably just too fat to even feel the cold."
A sharp gasp emitted from the woman before she snap her head towards the man and glared at him man with righteous feminine fury burning behind her eyes. Even as dumb as he is, the male knew that he'd done fucked up when his survival instincts, something that seem to have been missing for a while now, screamed at him in warning and he realised he had said something he shouldn't. Especially since the woman was muscular enough to wrestle an Orc on equal grounds and crush people's skulls with her bare hands.
"What. Did. You. Say?" The woman growled out each word threateningly as her teeth grate against each other, her eyes narrowing into thin silts as they hone in on their target. She cracked her fist together as she stomp her way towards the man, the sound of snow crunching loudly accompanied her steps while the man started backing away hastily with his arms held up in front of him.
"Nothing, nothing!" He told her in panic as he shook his head and hands repeatedly like there's no tomorrow, the cold temporarily forgotten. Considering what might happen, there really might not be a tomorrow for him if he doesn't calm the woman down soon.
Thankfully, his salvation came in the form of the other bandit that went to take a piss. He returned in a hurry after doing his business and shouting to them as he had something very important to show the other two. The other two's attention were drawn by the urgent sound of his voice and the crunching of the snow as he ran towards them.
"Guys! Hey! Check this out!" He shouted to them frantically and waving his hands like a maniac as he approached them.
"What in the- By Ysmir's beard!" The other male bandit exclaimed in awe at the sight of his companion before bursting into a laughing fit and dropped onto the snow, his legs kicking wildly as he held onto his stomach. The female was absolutely stunned by the sheer absurdity of the sight before her that her anger towards the one who called her fat was extinguished and replaced with complete bewilderment.
The male that had went to take a number one came back bringing something he didn't had before when he left.
There was a long, thin icicle arching down coming straight from his crotch area. Apparently, his piss managed to freeze itself from the cold temperature right when he was still emptying his bladder.
"Ha ha ha ha. It goes straight into your dick too. Ha ha ha ha ha." The male on the ground said between his laugh as he tries to force himself from laughing so much so that he wouldn't die via asphyxiation. He failed. "This is so stupid yet so awesome at the same time!"
"I know! But one of my balls fell off while I was pissing though." the guy informed the other while holding a ball shaped object frozen in an ice cube in his hands. That got his companion to laugh harder and is wheezing for breath. The guy with the missing testicle was probably too cold to even feel the pain of having an important body part drop off like that.
"Men". The woman in the group scoffed in disdain and shook her head in displeasure before turning around and walked away so that she doesn't get infected by their idiocy, leaving the two to indulge in their stupidity. She had better things to do than watch a couple of idiots showing off their missing testicle like a trophy.
Still, she briefly wondered just why Arvel seem so on edge when he was ente-
The female bandit's thoughts were cut off when she heard a whistling sound coming from the side. She would not have heard it if not for her sharpened senses from years of being a bandit.
As she turn her head around to see just what was making that sound, an arrow made it's itself known when it impaled through her skull. it instantly ended her life without her even noticing. To the bandit it was like everything just blacked out without any warning and her consciousness was shut down with a snap of a finger. The last thing she ever saw was a black blur heading towards her head.
Her head snapped backwards from the momentum of the arrow, dragging her body along with her as she fell backwards. The bandit's body crashed into the ground, the snow muffled the sound of fall and the other two were none the wiser of her sudden demise.
While their comrade was dying, the guy with the icicle in his crotch decided to see if he could remove it and thus, place his hands on the icicle and pulled.
It came off alright.
Along with his genital.
"I found myself a new weapon!" He exclaimed as he wield the icicle with a genital at the end like some sort of spear to stab someone with.
The guy on the ground couldn't breath anymore because of what his friend just did. He wanted to see if the female bandit saw what his friend just did and turn to face her direction all while feeling pain in his stomach from all the laughing he did.
He was undoubtedly confused when he saw her laying on the ground. Even more so when he saw that something seem to be sticking out of her head. Thinking that she was asleep instead of being on duty, he decided to voice his displeasure at her. "Hey, why the heck are you sleeping on the floor for!?" He shouted at the dead female. "How come we're freezing our asses off here hard at work while you can taking a nap!?"
And of course, there was no reply from the corpse.
Thinking that he was being ignored, his laughing mood was gone and he pushes himself up from the cold ground and glare at the dead body. "Why you! Can you believe that bitch? She's just ignoring us like we're not even worth her attention." He complained to his partner.
He got no reply from him either.
Feeling really baffle as to why his other companion was ignoring him too, he swivel his head around to see just why the other guy was being so quiet for. He got his answer when he saw that Mr. missing genitals was also laying on the floor with a wooden shaft sticking out of his eye socket.
It was upon seeing the red liquid that was seeping into the snow and dying it crimson did his numbed mind finally registered that they were dead. Panic arose within him and his mind shut down with only one thought in mind while his body started to move on it's own. He turn around and headed towards the stairs to the temple to call for help, to warn them that they were being attacked.
But he was slower than he used to be due to the rigidity of his body from the cold. Normally he would have reach the entrance at breakneck speed but now… he barely even completed three steps before he found himself gargling on his own blood as an arrow pierce through his throat and lodge there.
His eyes looked down and saw an iron arrow tip coated in red sticking out of his neck, red liquid was dripping from the tip and even more was pooling out from the wound. Breathing became a very hard and painful task, even harder than that time he was laughing like a madman.
He collapsed onto his knee as his hands reach towards the arrow, aimlessly clawing at it as a final defiance toward death. Darkness was creeping in at the edge of his vision. He was put out of his misery when another arrow imbedded itself into his brain.
His lifeless body fell to the ground and joined the others, the snow greedily soaked up their blood while the bodies lay motionless as the ever falling snow started piling up on them slowly. The entrance to the temple was now void of any living being, left completely unguarded for anyone to enter as they saw fit.
If one were to look up, they would find a person perched on top of the many pillars around the area like a hawk, wearing a wolf fur cloak with a hood that hides most of the body and face while shielding them from the biting breeze. Even with a glance, they could tell that it was a woman from the feminine shape of her body underneath the cloak. She was carrying a bow in hand and an arrow on the other, nocked and drawn. Her entire body was tensed as a pair of silver eyes slowly surveying the immediate area, searching for any remaining bandits that may still lurk around the place.
The bandit's assailant was using the pillar as a vantage point. Easy to snipe and hard to spot as nowadays people rarely look up to check if there was any threat above them. Why would they? It wasn't like there's any dragons flying about. Those creatures were extincted for as long as anyone could remember...at least they used to be until just recently.
Once she was satisfied that there was no longer any bandits in the vicinity, she started to climb down carefully, making sure that she doesn't slip and fall to her death.
Once she was low enough, she leaped off the pillar. A loud crunch was heard as she landed onto the snow with a roll to bleed off the momentum of the fall before stopping in a crouch. She stood up slowly and removed her fur cloak to shake the snow off.
Without her cloak hiding her appearance from view one could see that she was a Nord, quite a young one too. Barely twenty summers old. Her long red hair was tied into a ponytail while her silver eyes were sharp and always on the look out for any potential danger in her surroundings. She was wearing leather armor like the bandits and fur boots and gloves for warmth. Around her waist was a belt with leather pouches adorning her sides and a few slots for her to put potions on them. There was also a small steel dagger sheathed on the sheath on her back and a rust metal lantern hooked onto the side of her belt.
But unlike them, she was wearing a worn tunic and brown leather trousers underneath her armor, effectively covering every part of her body from exposure. The straps on her armor was binding her clothes to her body tight enough to show her lithe physique. One could clearly see that she was build for speed with her dense and well refined muscles. She could be considered a beautiful woman by many with just her looks alone but she had never really cared about them as she had dirt and mud coating her face and attire and a bit of blood too, none of them hers.
It goes to show that she is someone who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty to get things done.
She gave the cloak one last shake to ensure all of the snow is gone before moving it behind her back and fastens it over her shoulder.
The woman glace over to the corpse of the female bandit before walking over to her. She kneel down next to the body before searching it for anything useful that she could use. Some people would have issues with looting items the dead but to her, the dead simply have no use for them anymore. So why not take their items from them when it could be more useful to you than them.
Once she's done taking what she could from the female bandit, she wrap her hand around the shaft of the arrow lodged inside her brain and carefully remove it. The arrow came out with a splurt of red liquid, the head of the bandit swivel to the side as blood continue to pool from the hole in her forehead. She inspect the arrow under her scrutinize gaze to see if it was still useable.
The arrow in hand was mostly fine but a thin crack at the tip coated in brain matter indicates that it would most likely last one more use before she had to discard it.
Arrows are time consuming to make, not to mention tricky. She didn't want to waste her time making more when she had such an urgent quest underway. If she's lucky she could find some more on the bandits that she had killed. She had counted the amount she had before embarking on the journey. It should be enough if she encounter a few wild animals and bandits but dread to think what would happen if she ever ran out.
She is a Hunter, taught and raise that way by her father. Her bow and arrows were immensely valuable tools to her. Taking them away would mean removing one of her strong points. Sure she could fight without them to a degree but she prefer to stay out of sight and range and deal with the problem from there. Call it cowardly if you will but it kept her alive so far.
She leave the corpse and head to the one with the missing genitals and repeated the process all over all while periodically looking up into the sky, almost as if she was expecting to see something there.
Then, she head towards her latest kill at the top of the stairs and one thought went though her mind when she saw the bandit sprawled on the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut.
'Messy.' She frowned as she crouch over the bandit.
'Didn't take account of the sudden change in wind direction.' It was a mistake that could prove costly for her. But in her defense, she was in a panic to take care of the bandit before he could enter the temple. He almost had a chance to warn his friends of her presence, something she wanted to avoid at any cost. She don't fancy taking on a group of bandits on her own and be overwhelmed. She didn't want to think of what would happen if they were to capture her.
Probably something bad.
'Come on Ash, keep it together. You just need to do better next time. Let them split up first before killing them.'
The woman, whom was revealed to be called Ash stop herself from thinking of what could have happened if she failed to silence the man while berating herself. She started to look over the bandit to see if he had anything good on him. Afterwards, she found that, like his companions, they all barely had anything good on them at all. The most useful things that she had found on them were a few Septims. But it's something to be expected considering who they were.
Ash stood back up and walk over the corpse, her eyes gazing at the large double door that lead into the temple. Instead of heading in immediately, she decided to take a short break to rest her tired body. Climbing up a mountain without rest is exhausting after all. She sat down against one of the stone walls that provided decent cover against the howling winds and lay her head against it, feeling to cold seeping into her skin and letting out a sigh of relief as her tired muscles relaxes from the cool contact.
She let her mind wonder, trying to organize the events that happened today to see if she had missed anything. She wondered if she could actually find what was stolen from Lucan in there. She still haven't forgotten about the little request he had made to her when she was buying necessary supplies for the trip here.
Lucan was arguing with his sister when she had entered their little shop and somehow she got dragged into it without meaning to.
After managing to calm them down. Lucan had told her that some kind of claw was stolen from his shop by bandits who were now holed up in Bleak Falls Barrow. He told her that he will reward her if she returned to them their claw.
Why he asked a complete stranger for a request like that is a question that she didn't bother asking and seeing that she was already heading there herself, she agreed to help him. She unexpectedly got a fur cloak as a gift from Lucan which she had taken to wearing now. He stated that it's freezing cold up on the mountain and he didn't want her to freeze to death because of his request.
She was a Nord and the cold never really bothered her anyway but she still gladly accepted since it's free and there's no reason to deny free things. Besides, it's not like she particularly enjoy being in the cold even if she is a Nord.
After the entire thing was over, she bought what she needed from him: Food, potions and the much needed supply of arrows that she was running out after making the journey to Whiterun and back. They are cheaper to make on her own but with how urgent the quest she was given, she suppose she could spare what little coin she had on her to buy them. She hopes she would get compensated for all of her trouble after she found the Dragonstone she was looking for.
The thought about the stone tablet lead her into thinking about how she managed to get dragged into this expedition in the first place.
To think out of all the things she would see when she was awoken that day would be a dragon of all things. Something that should rightfully be extincted. She still remembered it clearly as it hasn't even been a few days since she saw the giant lizard.
She recalled being awoken by the sound of a loud voice and the earth rumbling like something large had fallen from the sky and impacted the earth. Her groggy mind instantly shaped awake at the smell of burnt flesh and smoke. She immediately got up and left her tent only to find that the sky had darken for a brief instance. She look up and saw a humongous black scaled dragon flew over her tent, roaring into the sky that somehow shook her to the very core. Just seeing the dragon somehow managed to invoke some kind of strange feeling in her.
She didn't know what that feeling was but for some reason, she got excited at the sight of the beast and wanted nothing more than to kill it. She dismissed it as nothing important of course, thinking that it was because her mind wasn't working properly at being woken up rudely.
With the dragon gone she focused at the more prominent problem at hand, mainly the burning settlement of Helgen.
She almost went to search the settlement for any survivors but her sharp ears managed to pick up the sound of struggle inside a cave nearby so she head there instead.
She was surprise to see two men, soldiers most likely judging by their armor, fighting against a bear inside the cave and losing badly too. She couldn't blame them seeing that they were already wounded badly and bleeding from multiple areas as they fought against the large beast. They looked tired and the wounds on their bodies came in the form of large gashes, most likely from swords instead of claws. This lead her to believe that they were fighting against someone else before the found the bear.
Seeing that they might not win against it, she lend them her aid and put one arrow between the bear's eyes, instantly killing it. It's quite easy, seeing that she had been hunting wild animals ever since she was a wee little lass.
The men were surprise when the bear suddenly dropped dead but were thankful of her aid nevertheless. She even found out who they were.
Ralof, a Stormcloak and Hadvar, a soldier from the Imperial Legion. As they traveled out of the cave, they told her what had happened in Helgen. The soldiers stationed in Helgen were in the middle of an execution of the Stromcloak rebels when a Dragon attacked. Then it shouted before it started raining rocks from the sky. Everything was a blur after that as everyone started running or trying to fight against the Dragon.
Ralof was among one of the Stormcloaks that were caught but managed to escape during the chaos. He met up with Hadvar somewhere along his escape and they both agreed for a temporary truce so that they may get out of Helgen alive.
But during their great escape, they encountered problems, mainly other people who were desperate to get out of the place alive but still have enough time to fight each other because they were on the opposite factions. Unlike Hadvar and Ralof, they didn't understand the importance of working together at times like these and declare them both of the traitors because they were working together and attacked them.
Human stupidity at it's best Ash suppose.
After Ash followed them to Riverwood and met with their families, she was given some supplies for saving them. Afterwards, they had asked her if she could go to Whiterun and ask the Jarl for aid. They worry that the Dragon Hadvar and Ralof mentioned would attack their small little village and without any Guards stationed there, it would be completely burnt to the ground.
Long story short, she wanted to deny them and head back to her normal life as a hunter but she saw how worried they were, for their home and their families. Not to mention that refusing would mean leaving them to their fates and she couldn't just live with that. Seeing that she couldn't just refuse their heartfelt request she agreed reluctantly.
It was after she set off for Whiterun did she realise that they could have just asked someone else to do it instead.
And so she continue on to the city all while grumbling about it.
Heading to Whiterun also lead to an interesting meeting with members of The Companion as they were slaying a giant but that's a story for another time.
Once she had met with the Jarl, after some careful persuasion with the gate guards, she told him about the Dragon and the lack of defenses in Riverwood. She was rewarded for her troubles of course but then the Jarl had dragged her off to meet with Farengar just because she had seen the Dragon and Farengar was studying about them.
After talking with the Mage, he told her to get the Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow and thus, starting this entire expedition that lead her here. At least she met Hadvar and Ralof again before they set off to do their thing, whatever it may be.
Ash sighed when she thought about all the problems that was pushed onto her, most of it her own fault because she was too kind to refuse.
Feeling rested now, Ash got up from the ground and patted her rear to rid it of any dirt or snow that may have gotten on her.
'It's alright, once you get him the stone then you'll go back to your normal life. Just spending the rest of your days worrying about which animal you should hunt next to feed your own belly and selling their leather.' She tires to cheer herself up with the promise of normalcy once her task is over.
Ash turn to face the doors once more, her eyes narrowing at the structure as she thought about what might await her inside. She'll need to be sneaky as she had no idea how many bandits that may be in there.
Ash went to check her lantern to see if there is enough oil in it, mainly because she didn't want to fumble around in the dark. Once she's satisfied with the amount, she pushed open the doors with some effort and headed in, completely unaware of the chain reaction that would follow after she retrieved the stone tablet that would make her wish she should've just stayed in bed that day.
AN: Hey there, thanks for reading this. If you have haven't guessed it yet then I should explain. This isn't normal Skyrim. This is Skyrim...with Mods! Already I have listed a few mods in there and if you're a modder like me then you should know what they are.
Please note that only Immersive ones will be in the main story while the un-immersive mods will be left in Omakes.
Anyho, I wrote the game's story from memory since haven't played Skyrim in a while now so I hope I didn't get anything wrong about the lore and storyline.
Do leave a review on what you think about this story. Pretty please?