Chapter 39: The jester and the quarry

[11th – 19th of Sun's Dusk 4E 201]

Together with Aela and Farkas I had been called to Loreius Farm, where a bear and her two cubs had invaded the farmhouse. Kynareth herself had enabled me to use the special shout I had meditated on since my visit to High Hrothgar for the first time, and I had been able to peacefully guide the calmed bears away, impressing not only my companions and the farmers, but also myself.

On the way back to the main road, though, we found a broken cart, loaded with a coffin and some other stuff, and an oddly clothed male person was there, talking strangely. He was actually dressed like a jester, all some kind of dark red and not looking like proper clothes at all, and my companions did not really know what to do. The man noticed that we were just gaping and reacted by speaking in a weird way again:

"Poor Cicero is stuck. Can't you see? I was transporting my dear, sweet mother. Well, not her. Her corpse! She's quite dead. I'm taking mother to a new home. A new crypt. But... aggh! Wagon wheel! Damnedest wagon wheel! It broke! Don't you see? And the farmer refuses to help!"

Aela looked at me, and it was obvious that the idea of transporting a corpse sounded suspicious to her, and not only to her, of course. Vantus Loreius, the Imperial farmer, who had followed us, now chimed in:

"See, normally I do not mind helping people at all. But somebody with a corpse? He's completely out of his head. A jester? Here, in Skyrim? Ain't been a merryman in these parts for a hundred years. And he's transporting some giant box. Says it's a coffin, and he's going to bury his mother, in a new crypt. Mother my eye. He could have anything in there. War contraband. Weapons. Skooma. Ain't no way I'm getting involved in any of that!"

He was quite agitated and he also did have a point; if that person, who called himself Cicero, was indeed who I suspected him to be, he'd better be behind bars, although I was not sure if bars could hold him for long. I did not know how to proceed and how to best handle the situation, but fortunately a guard patrol was just approaching from Whitewatch Tower, and the farmer and Aela told the two hold guards about our suspicion. One of the guards approached Cicero and said:

"You there! Fool! Hold fast. You've been accused of a crime against the laws of this land. What say you in your defense?"

"Wh... What? A crime? Me? Preposterous! Poor Cicero is just standing here! Cicero loves order. Oh yes! He would never disrespect the law!"

"You look like a crazy man to me. And what's in that coffin, hmm? Step aside and let us do a thorough search!"

"You will not touch the coffin and my dear mother!"

"As I said, step aside and obey the law! Now!"

Apparently Cicero had a problem with the coffin being opened, and he crouched down and suddenly jumped the guard, who was just about to touch the coffin. That little person was stronger and much more dangerous than he looked, and in a few seconds the guard was down on the ground, unconscious or even dead. Farkas roared and leaped forward, and although the jester was quick, he got pinned against the wagon by the sturdy Nord. While Hanni and Nanni growled, I moved as well and removed the two daggers the jester had pulled from somewhere from his hands, and Aela bound his hands behind his back. The other guard claimed:

"You are under arrest for refusing a legitimate search and for attacking the guard. Come with us now, and we will get you into prison. Maybe some time in a cell will help loosen that lying tongue."

The guard who had been attacked by the jester was, fortunately, only wounded; his armor had prevented him from getting killed instantly. We spent two strong healing potions and most of my magicka to help him recover before we all walked back to the city, leaving the cart behind for now. Despite his binds Cicero tried to run a couple of times, but both times my cubs and I were quick enough to catch him within a few steps and leaps; this was certainly a dangerous person.

While we walked back, I had plenty of opportunity to think about that encounter. I could have insisted that we just repair the wagon wheel and let the jester move on, but unless he was a different person than in the game, and his attack on the guard suggested that he wasn't, he was quite a dangerous person indeed. Above and beyond that, even if I had been willing to let him go, Aela and Farkas might have objected. Getting him into the prison under Dragonsreach might cause some trouble there, and maybe he'd be able to escape despite all of the guards and the bars. Most likely, though, he'd just be charged and released a few days later. People around here were not keen on keeping bad people in jail for extended periods of time; rather, they should just feel some punishment and hopefully repent and change. If they did not, the next sentence might be death, and that usually helped to discourage offenders. I had a feeling like I might meet Cicero again, but I was not keen on that at all.

Back in the city, we helped the guards to escort our captive to the prison, and we made sure that he was safely placed and locked in a cell. I warned the guards to be extra careful with him, as he might have a few lockpicks hidden in his clothes, and they made sure that his cell's lock could not be picked from the inside. The guard who had been wounded was delivered to the local temple so that the healers could make sure he was completely all right again.

This evening, when we sat together in Jorrvaskr, we first talked a little bit about the encounter with the jester and the coffin. Torvar mentioned:

"Not sure if this is related to your encounter, but some drunk person recently claimed that one of the last members of the Dark Brotherhood was a jester."

"But why a cart and a coffin, if it is the same person?"

"The Dark Brotherhood is supposed to worship the 'Night Mother', right?"

"And," Njada added, "I have heard some reports that the Dark Brotherhood in Cyrodiil had their seat of power in Cheydinhal, but rumors claim that their sanctuary is now deserted. Just a coincidence?"

"Maybe not. Maybe that wagon and coffin should have been searched thoroughly?"

"Surely the guards took care of that, right?"

Maybe we should have done that, but this was indeed a task for the hold guards and not really our business. Now we moved on to a more interesting topic, and everybody was curious to hear about the bears and my shouting. Fortunately, I did not need to retell the story, as Aela was more than happy to do that for me. Kodlak was sitting with us for some time, and he nodded with approval when he heard Aela՚s exaggerated version. Of course I had briefly informed him about my view on the day's events earlier.

When I went to bed later in my attic room in the evening, with Hanni and Nanni next to me, I was feeling happy about what we had achieved. I had been granted use of the shout I had wanted to learn, and it turned out to be as useful as I had expected. Not only that, but my shouting had actually helped people, and it had allowed us to not kill the bears for nothing. That was a comforting thought, and I fell asleep with a smile on my lips.

For the next few days, I had some work in and around Jorrvaskr and a couple of quests I was urged to join in.

On one of those days Vilkas asked me:

"B'lushona, you mentioned that you are more of a scholar than a fighter several times. This implies that you like to read books, doesn't it?"

I nodded:

"Yes, indeed, Vilkas, I like to read."

That was fully correct. Back in my previous life, I had liked to read books and magazines on science topics, but also many fictional novels in various areas, specifically thrillers, science fiction and fantasy. Even when playing the game, I had actually read many in-game books rather than just storing or ignoring them.

The Circle member continued:

"Have you had a chance to find many books in Skyrim yet?"

"No, not many. There was this book on the Dragonborn conveniently in Helgen, and I collected a few books as loot, but only very few."

"Have you tried to find somebody who collects books?"

"Well, there is Farengar, of course; he seems to own a lot of books. I bought a few spell tomes from him, but I have not dared to ask him if I could borrow books to read. I found the bookstore in the city, but books are too expensive for me there. Finally, they have quite a few books at school, but more the simple ones for the children, although I have browsed them, too."

"You went to the school?"

I told Vilkas about my time at school, and he actually smiled. Then he talked further:

"You know, I have a number of books in my room. Not everybody knows that I am not only a Companion and warrior, but also somebody who is interested in history and other topics. I think that I know our history almost as well as Vignar by now. Except I can remember it."

"So, it seems like you are something like a scholar yourself, Vilkas?"

"Yes, a little bit maybe. When Farkas and I were brought here by Jergen, who had rescued us from a group of necromancers when we were mere boys, we were too young to be full Companions at first. We talked them into training us nonetheless, but on the side I also started to read books. Over the years, I have collected quite a few, and you are welcome to have a look and borrow some if you want."

I liked his offer and went to his room with him, and there was indeed an almost ceiling high shelve with plenty of books. There were some I recalled, at least by name, but others I had not seen before. That did not surprise me; I had read somewhere that there were more than 500 books in the vanilla game already, potentially including notes, journals and letters, and the real Skyrim was likely to have even more than that. Of course, without having a printing press, copying those books was likely not an easy task, but I would not be surprised to learn that some magic helped with that.

I took two books from him to read outside, both volumes on 'The Black Arrow'. I thought that one or even both of them might have been a Skill book in the game, but nothing special was apparent when I opened them briefly. Well, improving a skill in something just by opening a book was somewhat unrealistic anyway, although it kind of worked with spell tomes. No, it actually didn't; with most of the spell tomes I had read I need quite some time of practice to learn the spell. Specifically the latest one I had acquired – 'Conjure Familiar' – still refused to work for me, even though I had practiced a lot and read the tome multiple times with all of the concentration I had been able to muster.

So, I gladly took the books, thanked the older Companion and moved out to the backyard, where I took a seat and started reading. I had read both books before, a long time ago, either while playing or on some Wiki page, but it was a good exercise to practice reading in a writing style I was not fully familiar with. After all, the books were not printed with an easily legible font, but some kind of handwriting was used, and I needed to take my time to decipher it.

The first volume started like this:

I was young when the Duchess of Woda hired me as an assistant footman at her summer palace. My experience with the ways of the titled aristocracy was very limited before that day. There were wealthy merchants, traders, diplomats, and officials who had large operations in Eldenroot, and ostentatious palaces for entertaining, but my relatives were all far from those social circles.

Woda? Eldenroot? From the next paragraphs it became obvious that the story took place in Valenwood, which was, If I recalled correctly, located in the southwestern corner of Tamriel and homeland of the wood elves, the Bosmer.

I wondered if the book store I had found in the city, the same one I had purchased my Skyrim map from, had a map of all Tamriel?

If I had enough space to keep books and, most important, enough money to buy them, I'd certainly start to acquire a nice collection, but alas, I could not expect cheap paperbacks being available, and for the time being, borrowing books from Vilkas would be a good compromise.

When I talked to Vilkas more about books one day later, I found that he not only had a lot of books in his room, but he had read all of them. While Tamriel books were on average smaller than the ones on Earth, with much fewer pages, the Companion turned out to be quite literate, and I enjoyed the times I could spend with him talking about some of those books and specific issues and topics mentioned there. When he was engaged in training or busy on a quest, Vilkas was mostly showing himself as stern, grumpy, and demanding, but when he talked about books and lore, one could see another facet of him, a much more friendly and benign one. It was of course also conceivable that his attitude was more friendly to those who were fully fledged Companions compared to outsiders and whelps.

When I studied the books in his room, I found one to be quite interesting, and it was called 'Temples of the Dragon Cult':

In the distant reaches of Skyrim, beyond the remote farming communities and hunter shacks, you may stumble over a broken stone, half buried and covered in moss and ivy. Look closer, in case these are effigies to animal gods, worshiped by Ysgramor՚s primitives. The deification of the bear, dragon, fox, moth, owl, snake, whale, and wolf have all been recorded by our field agents, and many believe these totems stand as sentinels over lost ruins. These tumbledown temples, guarded by half-woken draugr and worse, are from a time when the Dragon Cult supposedly ruled this province.

While no modern Tamrielan need believe these hopelessly fanciful fables, the Nords' simple-minded veneration for these places betokens their fear of the return of the Dragon Priests. During the worship of Akatosh (the dragon) as god-kings over men, these priests were the conduit through which dragons spoke, made laws, and were honored with grand and elaborate temples. When Alduin, Akatosh՚s firstborn, was defeated atop the Throat of the World during the mythical Dragon War, the cult that sprang up around these dragon guardians soon receded into the soil, buried among dragon mounds with the remains of these beasts. They were finally vanquished in the Rift mountains by High King Harald in 1E 140. The veneration of animal gods was soon replaced by the Eight Divines.

That reminded me of those cultists we had met on our way back from Valtheim Towers some time ago, who had claimed to work with or for the Dragon Cult. The book also explained why so many dragon remains were buried in those dragon mounds, but what I found particularly fascinating was the part about 'bear, dragon, fox, moth, owl, snake, whale, and wolf' being seen as some kind of ancient animal gods. It surely was no coincidence that those animals were used so frequently on dragon claws and puzzle stones. I had not paid attention to that part of the lore in the game, but now my curiosity was awake, and I wondered what else I might find out over time. In addition, reading such books also revealed that my knowledge of the language had a few gaps here and there. I could deduct it from context, but for instance I had not known the words 'veneration' and 'betoken' before.

A few days later, when I knew that I had at least the morning off, I left Whiterun for my morning run once more, starting with the small path west and northwest of the city. Once I had reached Whitewatch Tower and chatted with the guards there, I mentioned my earlier efforts with the construction workers, a few weeks ago, and one of the guards told me:

"See, over there, just behind that cliff to the east? There is one of those quarries, not a large one, but still. We use that when we need stone to repair some of the buildings around here."

"Is that also used for city building?"

"No, not much really. There are larger quarries much closer to the city gate."

When I left the tower, I had a look, and while there were some signs of use, nobody was using the quarry right now. Before I went south on the main road, I made a quick detour to the north and checked if the broken cart might still be on the road, but it wasn't. Most likely, the hold guards had picked it up, and that was good enough for me; I had no specific desire to get involved in that any further, and I certainly did not want to know what had actually been inside the coffin.

I now jogged south on the road, until I got close to Battle-Born Farm. While I had passed the farm multiple times before, I had only looked at the fields and farm animals, but neglected to recognize some other details. South of the farm there was an access road to the local windmill, but the road did not end there as I had initially surmised. Rather, the road went on, and as my curiosity had been raised, I followed it. Behind the mill there was a road branch, and one section went north and another one west. Following the north branch I soon got to a large quarry, right behind the farm. Some people, stonemasons most likely, were busy cutting huge blocks from a steep wall, and I recognized the cart waiting to get loaded. One of the men I had worked with a few days ago leaned against the rock wall, and when he saw me, he smiled and bade me a good morning:

"Hey, B'lushona, up early?"

"Sure, why not?"

Of course I had forgotten his name. I recalled the foreman's name, Irgnar, but although the others had introduced themselves, too, my memory had failed me. I tried to not show that and continued:

"So, is this the place where you get the large boulders from, the one you use for the city walls?"

"It sure is, yes. There are some other quarries usable for small to medium sized blocks, but this is our best source for the really large ones."

Maybe it was my fault for distracting the Nord with my questions, or maybe somebody else had neglected precautions, or both, but suddenly there was a loud shout, and when I looked up, a large block was on its way down from further up. I was not close enough to be in danger, but the poor man I had talked to had not expected any problems, and he was standing too close to the cliff. He tried to jump to the side, but was too slow, and the lower half of his body was buried below the rock. He screamed and lost consciousness almost right away, which was probably good for him. Everybody was shocked and needed a few seconds to react. The Nord who was probably the foreman here started to issue commands:

"Men, try to lift the block!"

Three men rushed there and tried, but only when I helped as well and added my strength, we were able to get the block off the poor man. His legs did not look much better than pulp, and I did not think that even modern equipment and progress in medicine of the 21st century could have saved the man's legs. I used my limited magicka to stop the worst bleeding, and somebody else wrapped some large bandages around the legs.

The local boss asked:

"Now, how do we get him to Danica very quickly? If we load him onto the cart, we'd have to unload the cart first, and the cart is not very fast either."

I suggested:

"Sir, I could carry him, and I can still walk quickly while doing so."

He looked at me and nodded:

"Yes, with your stature I actually believe that. Yes, please can you do this? This might be his best option."

I carefully picked up the man in some kind of fireman's carry, so that his head and shoulders were on my right and his legs on my left, tightly wrapped together, swinging freely. I straightened up, balanced my load properly, and started walking. One of the others told me that he'd go ahead and show me the quickest way to the city gate, and I followed.

We took the road back to the windmill and then turned right. Soon there was only a narrow path, and I needed to step cautiously; we passed behind Chillfurrow Farm and reached the small creek. It was not very deep and I could easily wade through, so that we got to the main road on the other side. Once there, I accelerated my speed on the mostly even ground and changed to an easy jog, so that the man guiding me had to run to stay with me. Keeping that speed I rushed ahead, turned tight at the stables, and followed the path upwards to the gate. My guide had run ahead, and the guards had the gate already opened. I paused for a moment nonetheless to use the part of magicka which had regenerated by now and focus it into another healing spell to keep bleeding under control, and off we went into the city. I took the first set of stairs up, the one we had used days ago for the big stones, and jogged towards the Whiterun Temple. An alerted Danica had the door wide open, and she directed me towards one of the beds there. Once I had carefully placed the man there, I stepped back, took a deep breath, and allowed Danica and her assistants to take over.

For now, there was nothing I could do here, and so I left the temple together with my guide. Slowly we walked back to the quarry, and we did not talk much at all. I was not in the mood to talk much and turned back to the city after that, and for a moment I wondered why I had actually gone out again. The foreman thanked me for my service when I was back, and I just nodded and sat down for a few minutes before I decided to slowly walk back to the city. First, though, I found a nice and quiet spot close to the windmill on the grounds of the Battle-Born Farm, and the noise of the slowly turning vanes helped to relax and calm down after the recent events. I probably sat there longer than intended, and I may have dozed off a few times, when my stomach reminded me that I had missed lunch, and thus I decided to head back, maybe towards the Bannered Mare and some great food.

Thus, still deep in thoughts but a little calmer now, I found the way back to the main road and turned towards Whiterun once more. Spending some time walking actually helped to get my thoughts focused again, specifically with my two saber cat cubs jumping around. After passing the road crossing and heading west, I had the Honningbrew Meadery to my left, and when I was about to pass the set of buildings, a voice roused me from my thoughts:

"Can you help us, please?"

[Author's Notes: Who might the person be who needs help?]