So as I'm writing some of these chapters I'm basically playing them as well, and ironically when I was writing the part with the bear a bear did in fact attack me, unlike the one in the story this one got Shouted off the mountain.
Ivarstead, like Riverwood, was a very small village. Harald had slipped in, put three Septims on the counter, then taken on of the unoccupied rooms, punched the pillow till he was actually able to sleep on it, and then cast a sleeping spell on himself, this was perhaps not the most wise course of action, however it was the simplest. Harald was tired in body, if not in mind, and he wanted to rest before the seven thousand steps up to High Hrothgar.
In the morning he was awoken by the smell of cooking, and ventured out of his lair, into the common room. It was around noon by his count, and the innkeeper wiping down his counter looked moderately surprised, but then held up three gold coins. Harald nodded at him, and the innkeeper gestured expansively for him to make himself comfortable while he was brought food.
As Harald ate an apple pie, washed down with a pleasant mug of water from the river, he thanked Skyrim's economy and the various servers he had come across. The culture of the Nords dictated complete honest in their dealing, there was no haggling, the seller would give a price, the buyer would meet it or go elsewhere, if you wanted something for free you contributed to its production. For instance, if Harald wanted to have a chair for his house, he could do to a lumbermill, and ask the foreman if he could cut a few logs, the foreman would agree, and then Harald would manoeuvre the tree into position on the saw, and the log would be but. Then Harald would take the wood to a carpenter, who would make him the chair. Either he would leave an excess quantity with the carpenter, as he had the Fire Salts and the Gray-Manes, or he would tip the man for his service. Much of the Skyrim economy actually operated on a system of bartering of services. That was one of the reasons thieves were so despised by the Nords, if you were in true need you could take something from another man, who would give it to you gladly, seeing that you could not pay for it normally, on the silent agreement that you would pay him back when you could, but a thief would take things they did not need and disappear off into the night with them.
"Heard any news lately?" he asked the innkeep when the man came to take away his plate.
"Most of its coming out of Riften these days." The man replied, "The Lake's beginning to clear."
"Good news." Replied Harald.
"Aye, and the Jarl's son Istlod sent half the Legion there it seems, went 'imself to help with the rebuilding." Said the Innkeeper proudly, as if he had something to do with it.
Well, good for Istlod. Thought Harald, he didn't just send a contingent but went himself, good man.
Harald nodded to the innkeeper, then walked out of the Inn, he saw a sign just outside with 'Vilemyr Inn' written on it, he had missed that last night. He headed off down the road, following it past the mill and another little grouping of huts around a farm. Harald crossed a bridge over some random river, to the north he could only see a blue haze, possibly the horizon joining with the sea past the mouth of the White River at Windhelm. Then he took his first step on the seven thousand he was climbing to meet the Greybeards. He paused on his twenty-third step though, as there was a receptacle in the path. He lit the shadows with a handful of flame, and read the etching.
Before the birth of men, the Dragons ruled all Mundus;
Their word was the Voice, and they spoke only for True Needs;
For the Voice could blot out the sky and flood the land
What was that supposed to be? A history lesson? To tell the layman of the history of the Voice. Perhaps a warning, 'do not seek the Voice for your own gain'. Only use the Voice for 'True Needs' as it was powerful, 'with great power comes great responsibility' and all that.
He zigzagged up the mountain, the steps at times cracked or broken, though he knew that High King Harald at least had repaired one when it was broken by a dragon. By his count he had barely passed two hundred steps yet, and he was already quite high, perhaps the seven thousand steps referred to each individual stone, as some of the steps were actually made up of several different stones. He saw a barrow just outside Ivarstead, perhaps he would investigate later on.
Men were born and spread over the face of Mundus;
The Dragons presided over the crawling masses;
Men were weak then, and had no Voice
Slightly annoying how it didn't actually mention where Men came from. Harald thought, there seemed to be no data on that, the Songs of the Return implied that the First Men, the Nords, were 'formed at the Throat of the World when the sky breathed onto the land.', though poetic, it was unhelpful. A cave bear emerged in his path from behind a rock, two cubs in tow. It was the end of winter, the hibernating animals would be coming out around now. The mother bear roared at him, standing up on her hind legs. Harald did not want to kill her, leaving the children to most likely die, so he set the path on fire, dividing it so that he could walk on one side and the bears on the other, in this way they passed each other amicably. He started to climb up past the Nordic biome and into the arctic one. Snow covered much of the steps, and he reapplied his Warming and Imperturbable Charms, directing a stream of intense fire forward in front of his feet, melting the snow and giving him safer footing. The path leveled out, a small cairn of rocks with a faded red cloth fluttering in the wind was passed, and he came to the next etching.
The fledgling spirits of Men were strong in Old Times;
Unafraid to war with Dragons and their Voices;
But the Dragons only shouted them down and broke their hearts
Harald failed to see why this rebellion was not obvious to the Dov, the spirit of man would always endure, no matter how oppressed, he pressed on, what he would ask for if he had to fight a dragon was a Stinger Missile, that would soon sort it out. Alternatively, just put a SAM battery in each major city; create a no-fly zone across Skyrim.
He passed three more cairns, but felt a slight tug from one. He stopped there, looking at the third such red cloth he had found on his journey. Harald felt the tug again, like the feel of a Portkey, a feeling somewhere near his navel. He materialised the Ring on his hand, and extended it, passing partway into the wraithworld, pulling out a spirit that inhabited the cairn. Some shades preserved their form in life, but some took their form in death, this one was the later, a tall man, his beard coated in ice and his right hand missing from frostbite as well as his ears, two black stumpy growths in place of them on either side of his head.
"I would walk with you, Dovahkiin. I must complete my pilgrimage." Said the frostbitten ghost.
Harald nodded, giving the man a place at his side, he always tried to fulfil the wishes of spirits, if their errand meant so much to them that they could not pass over he would do everything in his power to help them, the least he could do was allow this unfortunate man to walk alongside him.
Kyne called on Paarthurnax, who pitied Man;
Together they taught Men to use the Voice;
Then Dragon War raged, Dragon against Tongue
Paarthurnax, 'Ambition Overlord Cruelty' in the Dragon Language, so a Dragon helped Man? Harald beforehand thought that dragons were always cruel overlords, but this one was said to 'pity', so they were capable of the higher emotions, interesting, he would have far less compunction killing one now, he would much prefer the killing of a sentient over an animal, a creature that reasoned could know that it was attacking him and risking death, a beast acted on instinct. And he would kill dragons, this was certain, he did not know when, but it was inevitable, why else would a Dovahkiin, the 'Born Hunter of Dragonkind' be put on Nirn?
Harald walked past three more cairns, feeling pulls from two of them, he reached in and pulled the spirits from them. They were in similar states to the first, and bowed to him as Master of Death, then fell into rank behind him. He walked under a shadowed crevasse, another spirit rose up from a skeleton in a pile of bones, this one had been mauled and gnawed before it died. Silently the spirit pointed over Harald's shoulder, he heard a shuffling in the snow behind him and threw a fiery spear as he span. The missile transfixed the troll that had been sneaking up on him to the far wall, three metres of iron through the heart would stop most enemies, and the fire would prevent it regenerating. The spirit from the bonepile bowed, then disintegrated, its form being stripped away by the wind, an expression of bliss on its face. At the end of the cavern there was another etching:
Man prevailed, shouting Alduin out of the world;
Proving for all that their Voice too was strong;
Although their sacrifices were many-fold
Such was ever the case in war, victory required sacrifice. Harald walked on; behind him he felt the tugs as his following liberated more of their brothers. The Master of Death would always be a magnet to the unquiet dead. On Earth they were few, as only Wizards left ghosts, but here in Mundus, every sentient had a spirit form, not quite a ghost unless they were bound by a necromancer of similar, but they left imprints. This following behind him were all bound to the mountain, not by a malicious intent, but by their own desires.
With roaring Tongues, the Sky-Children conquer;
Founding the First Empire with Sword and Voice;
Whilst the Dragons withdrew from this World
The First Empire of the Nords, established by the ancient heroes of the First Era, Derek the Tall, Jorg Helmbolg, Hoag Merkiller, said to have scorned siege engines when assaulting cities, instead Shouting the very doors off the gates.
Harald walked along further, the next etching was much closer than the last. Before he read it he looked out over the head of rock it was set on. Looking down on the land he saw the Holds of Falkreath and Whiterun, divided by a ridge of mountains. Directly below him was Riverwood, the island with the sawmill on it clearly visible, then on the ridge the architecture of a barrow, perhaps he would delve into the burial ground in the future. When he read the etching he knew why it was so close to the last one.
The Tongues at Red Mountain went away humbled;
Jurgen Windcaller began His Seven Year Meditation;
To understand how Strong Voices could fail
Ridiculous tablet, the First Empire halted its growth because of one man's failure? That could have been anything, the tactics of the enemy, the terrain; anything could have decided that battle. It seemed blunt to Harald as well, just as the reader learnt how Man won the Dragon War with their Voice, and conquered their rightful taking of Nirn from the conquered Dragons, they were defeated. It was not the elves who defeated the Dragons, it was Men, now this 'Jurgen Windcaller' abandoned that mandate.
Jurgen Windcaller chose silence and returned;
The 17 disputants could not shout Him down;
Jurgen the Calm built His home on the Throat of the World
Well perhaps that was impressive. Yet it was the wrong use of the Voice. Man had been granted a power from the Gods, they should use it, not squander this great power in building a monastery. Windcaller need not have projected his own defeated attitude on others, it was cowardly, if he wished to be pacifist he could have used the Voice to grow crops, or divert rivers, to help the people of the land.
Then Harald thought he began to understand the Way of the Voice.
Windcaller could not use the Voice for these things, the Nords became the Sky-Children became who they were today, the Nords, founders of an empire that stretched a continent, because of their environment. If the Voice was used flippantly it would become commonplace, a triviality. Only for True Needs could this power be used, if not, the road to decadence and the Fall.
Harald walked around the last corned and smiled. He could see High Hrothgar, a great tower and bastion against the snow winds. But before it, he could see Talos.
The sun was setting, his climb having taken most of the day, and his God waited, stern of face, strong of arm, his sword poised to strike against a rearing serpent. He knelt and read the etching, holding his amulet, feeling something buoying him up inside,
For years all silent, the Greybeards spoke one name;
Tiber Septim, stripling then, was summoned to Hrothgar;
They blessed and named him Dovahkiin
And Harald was following in Talos' footsteps, he came to the last etching, to the right of the foreboding monastery.
The Voice is worship;
Follow the Inner path;
Speak only in True Need
His Voice would be used as all his abilities were, to fight evil, to protect his friends, as the priest in Windhelm had told him. And the Voice was worship.
But his God was Talos, not Kyne, and Talos was worshiped on the battlefield, the place Harald knew himself to be needed, he would fight, and he would Shout, perhaps not in True Need, but following his own philosophy and no other, the power would be used honourably, but as he saw fit, not the disciples of Jurgen Windcaller thought.
Harald walked up the steps to the door, a dull bronze facade with many waving lines scored into it. He held out a hand to push it open, and walked forward into the dark.