HERO BY MISTAKE
Full Description: Written in the first-person, "Hero by Mistake" is the story of Deborah, an American archaeologist who has a terrible accident on a dig site in Norway and loses consciousness. When she wakes up, she believes she's been abandoned by her colleagues, and doesn't know she's not in her own world. She believes that the first people she runs into are local Norwegian archaeologists, but is very, very wrong.
About the Story: This is not a self-insert, but rather the insert of a modern-day woman Dragonborn-to-be. In this story, Skyrim, as a game, does NOT exist, but the universe where Skyrim exists does. Almost all quests and plot lines from the game will be altered. No quest will be narrated as-is in the game. Nearly everything you read in this story, except perhaps the main plot points (yes, there will be a Helgen chapter) will be genuine, or will fill in gaps in the Elder Scrolls lore that might have been mentioned in-game but are never shown or experienced. In-game NPCs will be featured, in-character, but their in-game dialogues will not be used.
TL;DR: The following story is what happens when a modern-day non-combat-ready woman gets ripped into another reality where coffee and toilet paper do not exist but dragons and zombies do.
Disclaimer: All Skyrim in-game characters, themes, questline plots etc. are property of Bethesda Softworks.
Chapter 1 – Oops
I am an idiot.
Everything hurt after the fall, in particular my midsection and head. Not being able to see, though, despite the sun shining brightly when I had fallen into the depths of the cave, this was disconcerting. Panic began to set in. Wondering if I was in fact dead and in some kind of purgatory, I lifted my fingers to my carotid. A quickened, rhythmic beat tapped my finger pads.
"Nope, definitely not dead."
It was always me that did something stupid. Unintentionally, but it was always me. Last year, it was me that ruined the perfectly-sculpted walls of a five-by-five trench at an archaeological site in Scotland. I slipped, lost my footing just a little bit, but my boot took down a fair amount of the trench profile when I misstepped. I was fine; the profile was not. During the slip, I also threw my back out, so the next day I had to stay in bed. I was pretty sure the site director hated me after that day.
The year before that, in Romania, I was stung by a bee and my left arm doubled in size. My arm became so painful that I couldn't sleep, and I had to be driven to the nearest hospital, three hours away. That was fun.
This accident, though, this accident trumped them all. It only took a second for the wood scaffolding to collapse beneath me after I heard the first telltale crack, sending me plummeting down the shaft that had been cut into the earth. The last thing I remembered before blacking out was my back landing awkwardly on a pile of wood planks, followed by a sharp pain in the back of my head. When I came to, my first thought was that I probably had some sort of concussion. My second thought was that I would be stuck in a hospital here in Norway while the rest of my fellow crewmembers had fun in the dirt.
Fuck.
I prodded my eye sockets to make sure I still had eyeballs because, apparently, I thought it possible to have lost them. Everything was fine. I had, however, lost my glasses in the fall. I felt around for them, but they eluded me. A vision played of me finding them by hearing the crunch of resin under my foot, but even that didn't happen. They were just gone, as were my boots.
I called for help, but all I heard was my voice echoing down the stone corridors. No one answered, and no one came. The sound of my own heart beating, my increasingly panicked breath, and the occasional drip of moisture into puddles somewhere in the cave were the only responses to my pleas. To say I was terrified would have been an understatement.
Somehow, I found the energy to sit up, groaning and wincing in pain with the effort. I leaned forward, smoothing my hands down my legs to make sure they weren't broken or missing or cut to pieces. The jeans I wore were damp, but intact. I did the same to my arms. Fine. My back, ribs, neck and head were another story. And my butt – oh, fuck – I remembered this feeling; my tailbone was bruised.
I managed to move myself onto my knees, crying out from the pain that started between my buttocks and shot up through my spine.
Stupid, stupid useless coccyx. We don't have tails; we don't need tail bones.
I crawled down the pitch-black, cold, dank stone corridor, silently cursing nature for not getting rid of the vestigial element that plagued my existence twice, now. I wasn't sure if crawling or walking was better for a bruised tailbone, but crawling was manageable, so crawl I did. I also figured that at least this way I wouldn't slip on the smooth damp floor and finish myself off. Onward I crawled, carefully feeling for any change in the floor texture or level, but the corridor seemed never-ending and uniform.
When I heard what sounded like voices, I stopped crawling. Straining to hear who made the sounds and what was being said, all I could discern was the muffled, rhythmic vibrations of distant natural speech. Feeling around me, I was still flanked by two slick stone walls that created the narrow corridor. I continued on my hands and knees in the same direction, determined to find people and get out of this darkness that somehow hurt my eyes. I had been straining to see any kind of light at all, and my eye muscles were quickly becoming fatigued. Even closed my eyes hurt, so I just kept them open. I kept crawling, every moment agony, and then I finally saw it – dim, flickering light. Fire? At that point, I didn't really care if I was crawling into an inferno, I just wanted out of the cave.
Since I had been crawling slowly, I managed not to completely crash into the wall ahead of me. I felt around, my eyes begging to find any hint of that flickering light. I realized the corridor turned to my left, and followed the stone path to wherever it led me. The light brightened, and I made out vague contours of the stone walls. I saw some white, dripping limestone that stood out from the grey-brown around it. Further down, visibility increased, and the voices grew louder but I still couldn't make out what was being said. I rounded another bend in the corridor, and then the full intensity of the light source hit my eyes.
I reeled back, squeezing together my eyelids and covering my face with my arm. I had inadvertently looked directly into the lamp or fire or whatever had just assaulted my dilated pupils. Giving myself a moment, gently rubbing my closed eyelids, I then looked up and saw a torch hung against the side of the stone. Some kind of metal thing held it in place. I was confused for a moment, because I never heard of archaeologists using anything but electric lanterns and flashlights. I didn't think anything more of it, however, and continued down the corridor. That is, until I saw a wooden door ahead. Again, I was confused. Another torch hugged the wall just before the door. I easily saw everything, but I saw it blurry. Very, very blurry.
When I approached the door, I reached up, grabbed the slender, cold metal handle and willed myself to stand. The wailing groan that emerged from my lungs was unavoidable, and likely alerted whoever was behind the door to my presence. When I stood firm on two feet and stopped whimpering long enough to catch my breath, I heard a ruckus behind the door – shouts, the sound of chairs scraping on a hard surface, and some sort of metallic swooshing sound. Male and female voices called out frantically to one another in a language I couldn't understand, but I figured it was just the local archaeologists and volunteers. I didn't speak much Norwegian, after all.
My hand was still on the door handle, using it to brace my broken body. I readied myself to push or pull open the door, but it was yanked away from me violently. I stumbled forward, crying out again as I fell hard to my hands and knees on the stone floor of the next room. I was surprised that I didn't break my wrists under my weight.
The group of people shouted and gathered around me. I lifted my head just enough to look at my current eye level and saw the blurry shapes of buckskin boots and dark, dirty khakis. I sighed in relief, thankful that I'd found other archaeologists. I didn't care who they were – they would help me, somehow.
"Damn, I'm glad to see you," I said, still trying to catch my breath.
Murmurs and foreign words followed my comment. No one moved, not to help me, not do to anything. I tried to look up, but my damaged neck refused the movement. I grimaced and grunted as I lifted one leg and planted one foot on the ground.
Really? Are these people really not gonna help me stand? If I had known more Norwegian I would have cursed them out; the word "fuck", however, was surely universal, and I uttered it repeatedly as I pushed myself to my feet.
I squinted, but it was no use. I couldn't see very well passed a hand-length in front of my face. Outlines, shapes... I could identify objects, but not details and facial expressions, and what I thought I saw confused me. What at first I thought was headgear of some kind, a hardhat or helmet with a headlamp, appeared to be metallic. And horned.
"Uh-um," I stammered, "I'm hurt. Real bad. I need a doctor. I also lost my glasses and can't see very well." I had prescription sunglasses in my backpack. I just needed to find my way back to the site.
My plea for aid was met only by more murmurs, and people glancing at each other. I was beginning to get annoyed. Every Norwegian person I knew under the age of fifty understood and spoke at least some English. I figured it couldn't hurt to try to say something in Norwegian.
"Hjelp," I tried, my accent probably horrendous. "Lege." Help. Doctor. I figured it would be good enough, but I was wrong. "Vaer så snill." Please. The only other word I knew was "toalett" and that was not something I needed right now.
The man in the horned helmet stared at me, and after a while the silent stand-still became truly unnerving, particularly because I couldn't see facial expressions. Actually, I was mostly unnerved because the man before me was wearing a horned helmet, and staring at me as if I interrupted some private, secret thing.
Shit, is this a cult? Wonderful. I was going to be killed, beaten, raped, and/or chopped up and eaten by a clan of cultists in a cave.
I took a painful step backwards and the crowd of men and women followed, taking one step forward. It was then I realized they were all dressed in the same sort of khaki clothing with metal accents, and from what my eyes could perceive, the women were really not dressed appropriately for an archaeological dig. I felt like I was in a bad "Lara Croft" porn movie.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I had literally crawled into the hideout of some cult, and I was surely going to be killed. As I was injured, running was futile, and soI tried one more time to ask for help.
"Hjelp meg!" Help me. Don't eat me, please. I know I'm fat and probably would be nice and juicy but really, please, don't eat me. I never thought I had such a will to live until faced with imminent cult cannibalism.
The man with the horned helmet turned to his right. The bald, tall man beside him nodded once.
Nodded! Maybe they're gonna help me after-
. . . . . .
I woke up some time later with an even more painful headache, a growling stomach, an incredible urge to pee, and hands tied behind my back. I was just grateful that I saw no signs of my captors prepping to cook me.
"What the hell, guys," I muttered, not caring that they apparently didn't understand me.
Someone came over and crouched down at my side. I turned my head to see a heavily muscled man with blood smeared in two streaks across each cheek. He was close enough for me to see that he was definitely not wearing khaki, but rather unpolished hide trousers. His chest was bare. When I saw him begin to raise his hand, I turned away and whined, convinced he was going to bash my head in with a rock. I waited for the impact, but it never came. The man grabbed my face with his calloused hand and forced me to look at him. The movement hurt.
I might have been partially blind, but I could certainly recognize a canteen when it was shoved in front of my face. I was confused, but also incredibly thirsty, so I drank what was thankfully plain, cold water. The man grunted faintly in approval and stood to leave, but I shouted for him to wait. The man turned back to me. I considered how I was supposed to indicate, with my hands tied behind my back and a language barrier between us, that I had to piss like a pregnant racehorse. I decided to do my best impression of a five-year-old. I wriggled my waist around, cringing from the pain of the movement, and squeezed my legs together, making my best "please let me go pee now" face. Thankfully, the man understood, and helped me stand. At least my captor wasn't an idiot.
The man held my upper arm as he urged me forward down another part of the cave. When I saw daylight, I was ecstatic. Fresh air and daylight. Or, rather, sunset light. Once outside I considered shouting for someone to save me, but I figured he'd drag me back inside. Just in case, I would make sure to pee and then call for help. He urged me to a stand of bushes not far from the cave opening. I was hoping he would untie my wrist bindings, but instead I felt his hands fumbling to try to undo my jeans.
They were tight on me. How one was able to readily gain weight while on a dig, I would never know, but it was one of my talents. He moved around from behind me to examine the front of the jeans. He finally got the button undone, but was entranced by the zipper. His fingers ran up and down the length of the closed metal teeth, and he flicked the tab several times.
"Seriously? It's a zipper," I said in my best condescending tone. I began to wonder if Norway had its own kind of Amish people, living a traditional life without modern technology, but instead of farmsteads and carpentry, they lived in caves and wore animal skins.
My captor looked up at me from his crouched position with an annoyed look on his face. Finally, he pulled on the metal tab, and down my zipper went. Suddenly, I was worried that he would get a whiff of my day-without-bathing body odor. I then remembered that he himself smelled rank, and I stopped worrying about that.
The man tugged off my jeans. My boots were somehow knocked off of my feet during or after my fall, so I was able to step out of the denim easily. He then unceremoniously tugged off my underwear. He gripped my upper arm again and moved us closer to the bushes. He then pointed, said something, and nodded at a bush.
"Yeah, yeah, I understand."
He let go of my arm, then moved between me and the rest of the thicket. I was stuck between a bush and a barbarian. A barbarian that refused to look away.
Fine, sadist barbarian, I'll urinate in front of you.
The pain of squatting was nearly unbearable, but there was no avoiding the need to empty my bladder. When finished, I waited for the man to wipe my crotch, but that never happened. I rolled my eyes and let myself air-dry, and then stood. He grabbed my upper arm again and led me back to my clothes, then re-dressed me in my underwear, but not my jeans. When he pulled me to go back into the cave, I resisted.
"My jeans," I said as if he'd understand. I guess he did, on some level, because he looked back to the pile of denim, shook his head, then grabbed me again and pulled me into the cave. "But those are my favorite work jeans!" I protested. The man grumbled something in reply.
Back inside the cave, we stopped at a wooden wardrobe. Inside were piles of what I guessed were more hide clothes. He grunted when he found something that he must have deemed appropriate, because he pulled it from the wardrobe and held it up to my waist. He nodded in approval and then set it down before reaching for my underwear again. I flinched back, unsure of what he was planning to do. This just angered the man. He grabbed my cotton ladybriefs and yanked them forward, effectively ripping them at the seams. They fell to the cave floor.
"Goddamn it!" I shouted at him.
He then came at me with the hide sheet and proceeded to cover my lower body with it, tucking in the hide fabric at my waist and securing it with a belt. I figured he'd done this for the simple reason that when I had to pee again, he wouldn't have to work so damned hard to get me undressed.
Lazy, sadist barbarian. At least he didn't rip off my simple, old and dirty, white cotton work shirt and sports bra.
After I was dressed in the hide wrap skirt, I saw the man in the horned helmet approach. A chill ran through me; the vibe I got from this guy was nothing short of raw, animalistic fear.
Horn Helmet Guy started shouting something at Sadist Guy. Sadist Guy shouted back with equal fervor and tugged me by my upper arm backwards, toward him. I couldn't see Horn Helmet Guy's expression, so I didn't know why he was shouting. Maybe he didn't want Sadist Guy to help me. Sadist Guy spoke more calmly, then, and loosened his grip on my arm. I heard Horn Helmet Guy growl before he left.
Sadist Guy turned to me and spoke in a gentle voice. His face was close enough to mine that I could see his brown eyes showed no anger or hatred toward me. To my surprise, he gave my upper arm a gentle squeeze. The thought occurred to me that Sadist Guy was actually protecting me from Horn Helmet Guy. Compared to the alternative, I accepted this version of my fate, whatever was going to happen in the end.
It then dawned on me that I forgot to shout for help outside the cave. Before I could make a run for it, my captor had already led me to a different part of the cave. I smelled food. Glorious, glorious food. My stomach spoke its own language, and I was sure everyone around me heard the growls. Even Sadist Guy betrayed a little laugh.
He sat me down at a wooden table and plopped himself next to me on the bench. A skinny woman set in front of us plates of what smelled like meat and potatoes. They even had metal eating utensils. I looked over at my captor who was eagerly stuffing his face. I cleared my throat. Sadist Guy swallowed his mouthful and then smiled, either realizing I couldn't eat this way or perhaps, I thought, he had jokingly expected me to bend forward and stuff my face in my plate like a dog.
He unbound my wrists and tossed the rope away. I considered for a moment grabbing my fork and stabbing my captor in the eye, but the thought of Horn Helmet Guy doing whatever he wanted to do to me quickly relieved that urge, and I used the fork to fill my belly instead. While eating, I wondered why at this setting my captor decided it was alright to relieve me of my restraints, and not when I had to urinate.
Yup, definitely a sadist.
We finished our meal and I was led to yet another part of the seemingly endless cave. My captor pointed at a bed and nodded for me to sit on it. When an older woman approached, Sadist Guy found a chair, sat, and watched me. The woman asked a question, but since I didn't understand, I just stared at her. She began poking my body methodically.
Oh, finally, a doctor.
I pointed at the base of my back, the upper cleft of my buttocks, pressed on it, and squealed in pain. I then held a hand to my ribs and head and made a pained face. She understood. She laid me down on the bed, held her hands above my body, and I watched as a glowing, translucent yellow light emerged from her palms.
"What the fuck?" I blurted, but this didn't faze the old woman. She held her palms above my waist and in seconds I felt the pain in my backside vanish.
"Oh... oh dear god..." I sighed with the sudden pleasure of not feeling immense, constant pain. Her hands hovered over my torso and then my head. The pain in the back and side of my skull went away. My neck pain went away. All pain went away. I felt brand new.
The warm-glowing thing stopped and the woman took a step back, smiled, and helped me sit up.
I looked across the room to my sadist captor and realized that I could see him clearly. He was smiling.
"Oh, shit," I blurted, gawking. Whatever this old woman did with her glowy reiki stuff, it caused me to see perfectly well. I blinked back and forth between Doctor Lady and my captor. My very, very attractive captor.
I then turned to the old woman who had healed my body and fixed my sight. "Wait, what the hell was that!?" I grasped at her hand and looked at her palm, searching for some sort of device that would emit radiation or whatever could fix my body instantly, but found nothing but her hands. She grumbled something, pulled free of my grasp and walked away.
Sadist Guy walked over and said one word that I didn't understand, but he offered me his hand, and I stood. Seeing this well without glasses or contact lenses hadn't been something I could do for about twenty years, and I was not used to it. I was also not used to seeing someone who was supposed to be my captor smile at me and hold my hand as we walked to yet again a new area of the cave. He indicated for me to sit on what looked like a horribly thin bedroll. He then knelt behind me, grabbed my wrists, and rebound my hands behind my back. Not with a stiff, cutting rope this time, but a strong and supple strip of leather.
I let out a single sob, relinquishing any last hope of an actual decent human being helping me, and watched as Sadist Guy sat on a bedroll next to mine. He said something that sounded like an instruction as opposed to a request, but I had no idea what he said.
"I don't understand you," I annunciated, shaking my head.
My captor sighed and his shoulders sank. He lifted his hand with his index finger pointed out and looked me directly in the eyes. He spoke slowly, wagging the finger at me once with each word. He was definitely giving me an order. However, before I could attempt to figure out what that order was, he turned on his side to go to sleep. I figured I had nothing better to do, and did the same. It was either stay here with my non-scary sadist captor, or run and risk being taken, killed or eaten by Horn Helmet Guy.
So, stay and sleep I did.