Change Log
15/05/2014: ver 1.0
AN: thanks to maximsk for their review, always nice to know that someone cared enough to review. (hint, hint, nudge nudge).
Of Dragons and Daedra
Chapter 9: 'Loss without Care'
I should have slept fitfully that night, I should have spent the night tossing and turning. That I didn't was perhaps a testament to just how tired I was, both emotionally and physically, I had been through enough, so I slept like a baby.
The next morning, however, were quite a different story, I woke at the crack of dawn, and found that all the aches, bumps, bruises and cuts had come back with a vengeance, it wasn't debilitating, but it meant I was particularly careful when rising.
As I pulled on my leather armour I considered how I was going to tackle Bleak Falls Barrow, it was obvious that it was not going to be small barrow, nor that it would be a simple get in-get out mission. A good breakfast, I decided, would probably be the best first move, then find Farengar and see what he had dug up.
With that in mind I gathered all my things into a simple rucksack and walked out into the main room, which, in contrast to the previous night was a silent as the grave, aside from me, only Hulda showed any signs of life, when she saw me she pottered over to me, with a smile that said she handled early mornings better than me.
"Morning, sleep well?" she asked
"yes, though getting up was a different story" she nodded and asked if I wanted anything
"what have you got?"
"hmm...well we have bacon and eggs, or we have tomato and basil soup, with some bread, only 12 septims each" My stomach growled slightly and perhaps for the first time I realised that the last time had eaten was in Riverwood
"I'll have the bacon and eggs" she directed me to one of the many empty tables and disappeared into the kitchen.
About five minutes later she came out of the kitchen with a fairly large plate laden with bacon and eggs, I handed over the 12 septim's and she placed the plate down.
As I ate I considered what was likely to be in this Bleak Falls barrow, from what we encountered as we escaped Helgen, aside from the soldiers there had been spiders and bears, I frowned thinking back, trying to remember any particular weak points, Bears had tough hides, tough enough to only be annoyed by arrows, but the underside was comparatively weaker, not weak, but a better chance at a killing blow, something I knew I needed, a bear was far too much for me to take on alone. The spiders were a much more dangerous foe, though they lacked intelligence they made up for it with a sense of cunning and a long ranged spit of some kind of freezing acid, if they caught you unawares in light armour, then you would be lucky to make it out alive, at least according to Ralof, on the other hand Ralof admitted to not liking the spiders, so perhaps his description should be taken with a grain of salt, not that I intended to let my guard down.
In my reflection I had failed to realise just how quickly I was eating, in fact I had actually done, so I put my knife and fork together, in a gesture I only vaguely remembered and headed back to Helga.
"was everything alright? You certainly wolfed it down quickly enough" she commented
"It was fine, thanks. Say is there somewhere I could buy paper and charcoal from?" I asked
"sure" she answered "Belethor's general good store, just go out and it'll be right in front of you" I nodded in thanks and walked out into the morning light, my backpack light on my back. The stalls were empty, indeed ,aside from a single guard leaning against a wooden post the market was devoid of life.
As Hulda had said, Belethor's store was indeed right in front of me, something I had missed the night before. Inside was what appeared to be the contents of 100 cleared out attics, several piles of rubbish and anything the owner could get his hands on.
"Just let me know if you need anything" in a much too cheery voice for being so early in the morning.
Charcoal was easy to find, in a small box that also contained white chalk and quills, paper was proving to be harder to find, after a few minutes of fruitless searching I gave in and asked Belethor
"yes, paper, I keep it behind the counter, how much do you need?"
"erm...how big are the sheets" I asked, and he pulled out a rolled up sheet and laid it flat across the table, it was a square slightly longer than a foot and half, and while the edges were ragged the paper was of good quality "and how much per sheet?"
"hmm...it's ten septims a sheet, but buy 5 and they're yours for 45" much as I would like to bargain with him, I didn't have a lot of options if I wanted paper.
"fine, 5 sheets and the charcoal" I placed the charcoal on the table, as he got the other four sheets of paper out
"that's 67 septims" I grumbled under my breath as I counted out the septims and handed them to him. Then I carefully rolled up the sheets together and placed them upright in my backpack, so they stuck out the top, and put the charcoal in a side pocket.
"Do come back" he said as I left, in by far the creepiest tone I had ever heard, which was about as likely to bring me back as was a guarantee that everything sold would give me an incurable cough of death.
On the way up the vast number of stairs to Dragonsreach I considered what I was going to do next, obviously all that Empire vs Stormcloak business was going to be nasty, but both sides would be in need of all the help they could get, and in times like these unscrupulous men, and women, could rake in vast fortunes, if they played their cards right.
When I finally reached the top I was stopped by a guard "hold citizen, are you expected?"
"yes, by Farengar" I answered shortly, in the back of my mind I made a note to start exercising, being tired out from climbing some stairs didn't say good things about my former lifestyle.
"fine, go in" he jerked his head inside.
Dragonsreach was far to hot, Skyrim may have had a reputation for being cold, but the massive fire, which never seemed to be put out, kept the room at an almost unbearable temperature, yet more psychological tricks I thought idly as I wandered past, around the table and into Farengar's small office.
Like the temple, the room stank of various plants and animals, thankfully it wasn't covering up any...less agreeable smells, but the smell still assaulted my nose. He had a large table, covered in ingredients, books and small purple gems, behind that,. Pushed against the wall were two smaller tables, about the same size. One, on my left held a variety of glass beakers and a small flame beneath one of them, though all the beakers were empty.
The other was mostly concealed by Farengar leaning over it, holding what appeared to be a sword, I coughed lightly "Farengar"
he stiffened, almost instinctively and turned around, then relaxed as he saw me.
"ahh, your here, nice to have someone who can keep time for once" he moved over to his desk and revealed what he had been leaning over. It appeared to be a skull, not a human skull, but definitely a skull, surrounded by lit candles, I suppressed the urge to raise my eyebrows, and instead focused on him.
"so, what have you found out?" I also moved around and pulled out a roll of paper and the charcoal, using some of the purple gems to hold the paper down, when I reached for them though they crackled with energy, it didn't hurt, but did surprise me.
"hmm, you have a lot of foresight for an adventurer" he said, as he selected 3 of the many books on his desk and flipped through them. "From the books I've read, bleak falls barrow is an ancient Nordic ruin, the oldest mention of a structure in the area is of a small Dragon Priest outpost, though the book references one I believe to be Altmer in origin. Anyway after this the area isn't referenced again until this book" he gestured to the middle book "nearly 500 years later, a cartographer found the ruin, but did not approach it, though in the manner he described it, it appeared that some faction had tried to destroy it, most likely the Reman Empire. No serious excavation or exploration took place until the writer of this book" he gestured to the final book "went with a team from the mages guild, about 300 years ago, they were forced back with heavy casualties, according to the writer the place is filled with draugr, and while they never managed to access the deepest parts, the number of traps was troubling large, particularly for the age of the structure, which the mages placed as near the end of dragon priests reign, when the Reman Empire began purging them, which is why I think that there must be something in their that the Dragon Priests didn't want anyone finding"
"That's pretty conjectural don't you think?" I couldn't help but ask
"On it's own, yes, but like I said, I have some outside help, whose information has always been correct. Now you'll probably want to know where it is, well, do you have a map"
"erm, no" he sighed and pulled out a map, opening it out and falttening it, making sure to keep it away from the charcoal notes I had been making as he talked
"we're here" he pointed to a small shield "Riverwood, which I believe you went through, is here" he pointed a bit further down the page, to an 'X' with the word Riverwood printed next to it "Bleak Falls Barrow is up, along the path to Riverwood, but once you reach the Stone bridge head right instead of left, just follow the path and you'll find it easily enough, it's about here" he picked up my charcoal and drew a small 'X' on the stylised mountains "just get in, grab anything that looks important and get out, no heroics"
"sounds easy enough" I said, as I rolled up both my notes and the map, placing both carefully inside my bag "thanks Farengar"
"it's no problem, just come back with whatever it is, and don't die in there"
"I'll try not to" I answered.
Outside it seemed that the rest of Whiterun was waking up,. I spotted a few people moving around, getting produce ready for sale, or just sitting enjoying the morning sun. I ignored all of them, carried on down the steps, past the market and out into Skyrim.
As ever reviews and comments are welcome, good or bad.
Also an apology, this was meant to go from Majolir waking up to just outside bleak falls barrow, however life, minecraft, sonic the hedgehog and a variety of other things intervened, so I had to get something out, hopefully the next chapter will be a bit faster, and remember, another three days (the 18th) and the poll is finished, so get voting and reviewing and loving and I forgot where I was going with this.
(note that the next bit can be safely ignored if you don't want a discourse on a gold based economy and the problems of reliance on foreign currency)
One thing that always bugged me about Skyrim was that there was only one currency, the Septim, of course this is true in all previous games, however in this game there are at least three political factions (Stormcloaks, Empire and Thalmor) and possibly four, if you count Whiterun as an independent. Of those three (Stormcloaks, Empire and Thalmor) only one can mint genuine Septim's (the empire, given that it is named after the Septim dynasty), the Thalmor, while technically at peace with the empire, are still uneasy neighbours and almost certainly use their own currency within the dominion, that they do not in Skyrim is understandable.
What is not, however, is the Stormcloaks continued acceptance and use of the septim, at the very least, unless they produce fake septims, the only way to gain more currency is to trade with the empire they are at war with, or raid the empire for more currency, no other method can produce a reliable inflow of septims. And if they do produce fake septims, why not simply produce a new currency? Surely if they had the capability to produce fake septims of a reasonable quality, then producing a new currency is a simple as producing a new mould.
I realise that I may have gone a bit farther there than I should have done, let me explain. IRL most of today's currencies are fiat currencies, which means thy rely on trust, that the country, or bank, issuing them can honour the debt, this has been the de facto standard since the 1970's, when the bretton woods gold standard broke down. A fiat currency has many advantages over other systems, not least that the government, or bank, can issue as much money as it needs, a good example, though not one that is strictly relevant, is that of quantitative easing, whereby a central bank credit's itself with a large amount of money it never had before, this then makes it's way into the economy, increasing the money supply. Of course another, far more common way is to make more dollars, or pounds or Euro's, or whatever currency is issued, the actual physical coins and notes, and then pushing them into the money supply, note please that not all new coins and notes produced are necessarily increasing the money supply, notes in particular have a short life span, and new notes need to be produced simply to keep up with demand.
Of course these advantages do have there drawbacks, notably that if large amount of money are printed then inflation, that is the increase on the cost of goods and services, increases, necessitating even more currency being issued to support the new increased prices, this is an inflation spiral and can destroy an economy in short order, see the Hungarian pengo and the Zimbabwean dollar for more details on this. Another trap is that most of these currency's are free floating, that is that they can appreciate and depreciate at any rate against any other currency, for example let us assume that ($1 = £0.5) to import a box of soap from America (and assuming no import duty, tax, surcharges etc.) that costs $250 would mean paying ($250*0.5 = £125), however if the rate of exchange was ($1 = £0.75) then buying the same box of soap would cost ($250*0.75 = £187.5) or £62.5 more, which makes the pound weaker, since it buys less, which would help an import based economy, the same is true in reverse, a stronger pound would buy more, which helps an export based economy.
With a free floating currency comes the risk to the economy, both of cheaper imports and more expensive exports, which can be ruinous. The other option is to peg the currency to another, today the currency most pegged to is the USD, or united states dollar, though the British overseas territories also produce there own currency, which is pegged 1:1 with the GBP. With an official peg this kind of system can be maintained for a long time, as both sides have agreed to it, and can therefore prop it up if there are problems, on the other hand, and to bring this discourse back to Skyrim, if the peg is unofficial then the side which has unofficially pegged the currency has to use major currency intervention to keep the peg, which can cause massive problems, see the Asian financial crisis 1997 for an example.
This is important to Skyrim because as I have just explained the Stormcloaks are not only accepting Septims, but they are using them as well, this may seem like a small distinction, but, in most of the western world at least, people may choose to accept anything as a form of payment, but government debts are almost always denominated in whatever currency the central bank issues, and given that people who represent the Stormcloaks do give you Septims in return for goods sold, or service's rendered, it can be safe to assume that these debts are denominated in Septims then the problems I enumerated above could exist.
There is always the possibility that the Stormcloaks use the Septim, not because of any value in the coin itself, but because it is in a system similar to the gold or silver standard, like the one used by great Britain in the 1800's and the bretton woods system after WW2, this is where a particular coin is worth some amount of a particular resource, typically gold, though silver has been used, the coin is typically redeemable at the national bank, and assuming that the national bank, or sometimes the lender last resort (Note that the two are not synonymous, JP Morgan was considered the ender of last resort in the early twentieth century, but was not the national bank, though I should point out that the USD was a free floating fiat currency at that point), has sufficient gold, silver, etc then the currency is incredibly stable, and assuming that reserves hold, consumer and investor confidence, or lack thereof, cannot affect the internal stability of the currency.
The main problem with this system has already been mentioned, the bank has to have sufficient reserves to allow people to swap the currency, and the bank has to maintain sufficient reserves to allow for the printing of more money, for the reasons I explained above. And this system is wholly unworkable in a war situation, the British suspended convertibility when WW2 broke out because in a war situation vast amounts of money need to be created to fund the war effort.
Which brings us back to Skyrim and the Stormcloaks, using the septim just shouldn't work, particularly in a war situation, which means they have to use their own, as no other currency has been shown (though presumably the Thalmor have created their own, but if there's is one entity that Ulfric hates more than the Empire...), and the Stormcloaks can hardly afford currency intervention at this point, so it will be, most likely a free floating currency (of course the question is, free floating against what...).
Majolir stats (total/current)
Health: 100/100
Magicka: 100/100
Stamina: 100/100
Majolir Perks
None
Majolir spells
(spell name, spell school, mastery, cost (without perks, mastery or cost decrease associated with casting the spell), number of times cast)
dominate mind, illusion, master, 325 Mu, 1
heal, restoration, novice, 2 Mu = 1 h, 1
flames, destruction, novice, 16 Mu/s, 1
Majolir Inventory
(e denotes worn)
180 septims (255 - 12 - 63)
Light Leather Armour (woman) e
iron dagger e
iron sword
armoured gloves e
iron helm (open) e
weapon cleaning materials
2 minor health potions
10 lockpicks
mages robes
spell book (sparks)
longbow
12 iron arrows
3 apples
pear
3 tomatoes
2 potatoes
cabbage