Keolah found Ralof sitting in the Bannered Mare inn, drinking next to the hearth in the center of the room. She beamed and skipped over toward him.

"Ralof! Glad you could make it. Oh, by the way, meet Lydia. She's my housecarl now, apparently."

"You have a housecarl?" Ralof asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm Thane of Whiterun! Would you imagine that?" Keolah said.

Ralof stared at her for a long moment. "Was the jarl drunk?"

"I don't think he was, but you never know with Nords, I suppose."

"I've got the money from selling the loot from the barrow," Ralof said. "Although I'm tempted to keep half of it for myself, considering all the trouble you put me through." He smirked.

"Oh, let's see," Keolah said. "How much do you have here..." She brightened immediately. "Wow! That's just enough to buy a house in Whiterun!"

"Why do you want to buy a house in Whiterun?" Ralof wondered.

"So poor Lydia doesn't have to carry around dragon bones everywhere," Keolah said, to which Lydia looked immensely grateful.

"Wait, what?" Ralof said, eyes widening. "Where did you get dragon bones? Did you find one someone had killed or something?"

"I killed one!" Keolah said, beaming in pride.

"You?" Ralof snorted softly. "Nonsense. I'm sure it was the rumored Dragonborn who I've heard that the Greybeards were calling earlier."

"I'm the Dragonborn!" Keolah insisted.

Ralof stared at her incredulously. "You're the Dragonborn? Seriously?"

"She's the Dragonborn," Lydia confirmed.

"Talos help us all," Ralof muttered with a sigh. "I need more mead."

Keolah tugged at his arm. "Come on. Let's get up to the keep and give that money to the steward so I can buy a house!"

Ralof reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged out of the inn. "Why are you so eager to own a house, anyway? Besides for storage, that is."

"I've always wanted to try my hand at interior decorating," Keolah said.

"Scorch marks aren't really all that stylish," Ralof commented.

Keolah headed back over toward the keep, although she nearly wound up taking a wrong turn or two along the way. She was grateful to have people along who were less likely to get lost than she was.

"Ah, steward, steward, where's the steward," Keolah wondered as she strolled through the keep.

"There he is, my thane," Lydia helpfully pointed him out.

"Steward!" Keolah said, excitedly running up with her bag of coins. "I'd like to buy that house that was mentioned! I've got five thousand septims for it, right here!" She turned to Ralof and said, "See, I told you that stuff was valuable."

"You're not the one who had to carry it," Ralof muttered.

The steward gave Ralof an odd look. "You look like a Stormcloak, dressed up like that."

"That's because I am a Stormcloak," Ralof replied.

"Very subtle," Keolah said, nodding. "Anyway. Yes, I support Ulfric, and have not made any secret of that fact. Is that going to be problematic?"

"If by 'problematic' you mean that you're going to burn down the keep if I say otherwise, then no," the steward said. "But I would appreciate if you would refrain from causing any trouble and keep from starting any further fights with the Battle-Borns and other Imperial supporters."

"I totally didn't mean to burn down House Battle-Born," Keolah said.

"Of course you didn't," the steward said with a sigh, and handed her a key. "Here's the key to Breezehome. For additional fees, there are several upgrades that can be made to your new home."

"You're just trying to get more money out of me," Keolah said. "I just gave you five thousand septims. Isn't that enough for you?" She grumbled. "Not like I have much more than pocket change after that anyway."

"Come and speak with me again if you change your mind," the steward said. "The upgrades will still be available at a later time."

"Whatever," Keolah said, turning to Lydia and Ralof. "Come on! Let's go check out our new house!"

"Your new house," Ralof said, following after her as she skipped out of the keep again.

As Keolah headed down the steps away from the keep, she abruptly realized something. "Oh. He didn't tell us where this house is at."

"You'd probably still get lost trying to find it anyway, even if he had," Ralof pointed out.

"Oh well, we'll just have to go find it, then!" Keolah said, running off into the residential district. "Maybe it's here!"

She opened a door and charged into a random building. There were wounded soldiers laying about as a robed woman tended to them.

Ralof stepped in behind her with a sigh. "This isn't a house. It's the Temple of Kynareth. Which is probably just as well, seeing how you just barged in like that."

"Oh, I'm sure nobody would mind," Keolah said. "Unless I set their house on fire. And I totally promised the jarl I wouldn't do that again."

"Can I help you?" asked the priestess, approaching them. "Do any of you require healing?"

"No, that's quite alright," Keolah said. "I'm a pretty decent healer, myself. See?" She raised her hands and channeled healing magic into one of the soldiers. The man groaned, but otherwise the spell didn't seem to be effective. "Huh, normally that works."

"Your eagerness to help is appreciated," the priestess said. "But at the moment, what they need most is rest."

"I can't say I'm really impressed by this temple, all in all," Keolah said. "I mean, you've got this big dead tree sitting right outside! What an eyesore!"

The priestess sighed, and then proceeded to ramble off onto a long-winded story about how special this particular tree was, but Keolah wasn't paying much attention, having gotten distracted by some purple flowers growing in long planters along the walls.

"Lavender!" Keolah said, picking some. This could be very useful in alchemy, for... something or other. She wasn't sure. But it was probably useful.

"Thief!" the priestess shrieked.

"Oops," Keolah said. "Was this yours? Here, I'll give it back, sorry." Keolah tried to hand the plucked stems to her.

"You've already picked it," the priestess pointed out. "You can't just put it back."

A guard burst into the temple and said, "Halt! You have committed crimes against-"

"I know, I know!" Keolah said with a sigh. "I'm not going to jail over some flowers. Here, hold this." She shoved the lavender at Lydia, who was doing her best to not look too much like an accomplice, and failing at it.

The guard took some septims as Keolah tossed them over. "Smart woman. I'll just take any stolen goods and you're free to go." He then walked out of the temple again without taking anything.

Ralof peered at Lydia, who was still holding onto the plucked lavender. "I guess he didn't want to retrieve those stolen flowers too badly?" He snorted softly. "How do you even get yourself into these situations, Keolah?"

"Sorry about that," Keolah said, turning around to face the priestess again. "What were you saying?"

"To revive the tree outside, you need some sap from its parent tree," the priestess said. "But in order to tap it, you need to retrieve a special weapon from the Hagravens at Orphan Rock, called Nettlebane."

"Oh! And that'll make the tree all pretty again? Okay, I'll do it," Keolah said. "Uh, where's Orphan Rock?"

"That's very generous of you to offer. I'll mark it on your map."

"Right then," Keolah said. "I'll get to that eventually."

The priestess sighed. "It does seem like a less than urgent task, what with the war going on and all, doesn't it?"

"I'll totally get around to doing it sometime, though," Keolah said. "Promise!"

The three of them headed out of the temple and resumed searching for Breezehome. Ralof decided to head her off and just ask a guard for directions rather than having to apologize at everyone's house that they might barge into.

Keolah strode proudly into her new home, and then promptly sneezed. "By all the gods, look at this place!"

Breezehome looked as though it hadn't been occupied in years. Cobwebs were strung up in every corner, and dust covered every surface. There wasn't even much to speak of in the way of furnishings - some old boxes, a couple of chairs sitting upside-down on them, a table shoved into the far corner of the room. The firepit in the center of the floor didn't even have so much as a speck of ashes within it, much to her disappointment as she'd been hoping to get warm next to a crackling fire.

"I can squat in places better than this!" Keolah said. "Bandits live in places better than this! I could just kill them and take over their hideouts!"

"Well, you can still use it to store things," Ralof pointed out.

"Oh yeah," Keolah said. "And I've got the key to the place, so it's a lot less likely that someone will wander off with my stuff. Lydia, find a place to dump those dragon bones, would you? And, say, does being a housecarl include housekeeping?"

Lydia sat down the bag in the corner and said, "I can guard the place against intruders and clean it up a bit for you, my thane."

"Great!" Keolah said, and sneezed again. "I'm- I'm going back outside now." She hurriedly stepped out of the house and took a breath of fresh air. "It's nice to have minions. I really didn't want to have to dust that place myself."

"You know, I would feel more sorry for Lydia, but at least cleaning is safe. Following you around tends to lead into dangerous situations," Ralof said.

"Hey, let's go find a dangerous situation to get into!" Keolah said brightly.

Ralof looked at her strangely. "Are you joking, or just suicidal?"

"Neither," Keolah said. "Dangerous situations tend to pay well, and I need more money to throw at that steward to make my house suck less. Also, I'm the Dragonborn! I'm awesome! I can yell to push things around!"

"Somehow, I find that less impressive than the fact that you can throw fire and lightning from your fingertips," Ralof said dryly.

"Now, I've got a number of jobs people wanted me to do, but I'm afraid I've forgotten most of them," Keolah said. "So let's go talk to everyone."

Ralof reluctantly followed after Keolah as she wandered around town, and wound up in the Hall of the Dead.

"Huh, I totally didn't notice this was even here the first five times we passed it," Keolah said.

"Welcome, traveler," said a robed priest. "Tell me, are you familiar with Arkay, the God of Death?"

"Oh, yeah, I kill lots of stuff," Keolah said. "Although a lot of it is already dead to start with."

"Perhaps you can help me out with a small problem I have, then," the priest said.

"Certainly! This is going to involve incinerating undead, isn't it? I mean, this is a catacomb, right? Catacombs always have undead in them, don't they?"

"We generally prefer they didn't, but that seems to happen with distressing frequency," the priest said. "There have, indeed, been disturbing noises from within the catacombs. I fear the dead have become restless. What's worse, I lost my Amulet of Arkay somewhere within, and without it I cannot access my divine powers to deal with them."

"How did you manage that?" Keolah wondered. "Did you just set it down somewhere and forget about it? Actually, I could totally see that, I'd probably do that myself."

"We'll see about finding your amulet and cleansing this infestation," Ralof said with a sigh. "Wouldn't want the undead to wander out into the middle of the city or anything, after all."

The two of them headed down into the catacombs. The place was full of skeletons, but they were very weak compared to the Draugr that they'd encountered in Bleak Falls Barrow, and went down easily. Keolah proceeded to thoroughly search the place, scooping up weapons, coins, and tableware and handing them to Ralof to carry.

"We're supposed to be destroying undead and looking for the old man's amulet, not looting the place for everything that might sell for a few septims," Ralof protested.

"I'm not finding any amulet here, anyway," Keolah said. They headed back to the Hall of the Dead, and she told the priest, "Hey, I think we killed all the skeletons, but we couldn't find your amulet."

"Well, I'm sure it's down there somewhere," the priest said. "Go back and look for it some more!"

"Why don't you look yourself?" Ralof said. "The skeletons are all dead. Re-dead. Deader."

"Oh, no, I couldn't do that. I'm just a frail old man without my divine powers. The undead might get up again without warning, and what would I do then?"

Ralof sighed. "Fine, we'll go take another look around and see if we can find it."

They returned to the catacombs to scour the place a second time. Keolah spotted an unusual gem sitting in the corner of one of the alcoves that she hadn't noticed before and snatched it up. "Shiny!" She quickly pocketed it.

"I have no idea how you missed that the first time," Ralof said. "Or, for that matter, how we haven't found that amulet. We've grabbed practically everything else that wasn't nailed down."

Finally, in the deepest room of the catacombs, they spotted the amulet just sitting on a table next to a wreath and a candle.

"How did you not notice that there?" Ralof wondered.

"Hey, you can't talk," Keolah said. "You didn't see it either."

"I was busy watching your back to make sure skeletons didn't approach from behind," Ralof said.

"Uh-huh. Let's go."

Amulet in hand, they returned to the priest a second time. The old man was ecstatic when he laid eyes on it.

"Thank Arkay! Take this gold for your troubles." He took the amulet and handed a small pouch to Keolah.

She looked inside and counted out the coins. "Fifteen septims? That's all? Seriously? Oh, come on, I could sell that amulet for more than that!"

"Keolah!" Ralof scolded.

Keolah grumbled. "Fine, fine. Come on. Let's go hit the marketplace."

"Before he notices that there's so much stuff missing," Ralof muttered under his breath once they were safely outside.

It was late once they'd discreetly sold off the loot from the catacombs, so they headed back to Breezehome to check on Lydia's progress. Thankfully, this time Keolah did not immediately sneeze upon stepping into the house. The housecarl had even gotten a fire going in the firepit.

"Good work, Lydia," Keolah said, smiling. "That's so much better. Still crap, but there's not much you can do about that, I suppose. Well, not unless you were planning on sneaking into the neighbors' houses and stealing their furniture."

"I am not going to steal furniture, my thane," Lydia said flatly.

"Of course not," Keolah said. "That was a joke. After all, it's heavy and hard to move."

"Right, how about we just scrounge up some dinner and be glad we have a fire and a roof over our heads?" Ralof suggested. "And we can make plans for tomorrow."

"Plans?" Keolah said, looking at him in confusion as Lydia started some food cooking.

"You know. Deciding on what to do?"

"Oh, I don't tend to do that," Keolah said. "I always wind up forgetting what I meant to do anyway."

Ralof put his face in the palm of his hand. "Of course you do. Why am I not surprised? Alright, then, how about a suggestion? We should probably head to Windhelm and see Jarl Ulfric. He'll certainly want to know about the - uh - Dragonborn thing. And he'll probably have a good idea on what should be done about the dragons."

"Well, kill them, of course," Keolah said.

"I did mean more specifically than that," Ralof said.

"Oh, well, I suppose," Keolah said, then brightened. "It'll be good to have you along, though. I meant to go to Windhelm and join the Stormcloaks officially and all, but I was kind of afraid that I'd get horribly lost along the way. You can show me how to get there!"

"Will I be accompanying you, my thane?" Lydia asked. "Or do you wish me to remain here and guard your home?"

"Do you think anyone might try to steal my stuff?" Keolah wondered.

"I have put the dragon bones upstairs, my thane," Lydia said. "Given the state of the house, I doubt that any potential thieves would believe there to be anything of value here, regardless. But there is always a risk, I suppose. If you wish me to remain here to guard the place, I will protect your possessions with my life."

"Hmm," Keolah said, looking between Lydia and Ralof thoughtfully. "You know, you're both big, strong Nords."

"I would be glad to defend you in battle as well, my thane," Lydia said.

"You can help carry loot!" Keolah said. "With two big, strong Nords, we could haul twice as much loot out of a place than with just one!"

Lydia's face fell, and Ralof gave her a sympathetic look. "As you wish, my thane."

"You get used to it," Ralof said. "Are you good with a bow, by chance? It's far preferable to be behind her in battle, honestly."