Veronica
Raul's gloved hands strummed the guitar for his next song, while the rest of the band scattered. There was a somber twinkle in the Ghoul's ancient eyes.
I was a trooper, a Radpaloosa I did ride.
rusty repeater by my side
Many farmers lost their harvest to my runs
Many soldiers lost their lives to my gun
The red ones hung me in fall seventy-five
But I am still alive.
I was a preacher
I was born to spread the word
and offer guidance to the herds
In the east lands tribals saw me as a beacon
they followed me into a war against the heathens
And when the legion won they said that I got killed
But I am living still
I ran a caravan across the valley deep and wide
Where hope and ashes would collide
A place divided by the old world and the new one
The earthquake came then and it swallowed everyone
It buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around.
David
I'll fly a spaceship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again...
Skjor had been watching him curiously the whole time. By the look on his face, he seemed convinced that David was an alien invader, which was pretty damned hilarious.
"Well Skjor my friend, you asked."
"Yeah I did," the giant of a merc admitted. "Wouldn't call it a proper warriors tune though. Hard enough to call that a song."
"Why's that now?" He turned to look at the big man with a shit eating grin. They were walking up the mountain to Bleak Falls and the tomb that dominated the summit.
"Not many warriors would sing about faking death and running, and any bard that made a song about someone doing it might still have to back up his words with an ax."
David shrugged. "Tell me, do you have a mission in life that goes beyond a glorious death? Do you have a family?"
"The Companions are my life and my family," the merc's answer was swift and brusque. It was the sort of answer he would expect from someone married to an organization.
"Okay then, made any babies with any of your family?"
"No."
"Okay then," David tried to switch gears a little bit. "If enemies stronger than your family stood to kill them because of you unless you disappeared, what would you do?'"
"Fight them of course," Sjkor was matter of fact, but did not quite understand the question. "What kind of Nord goes quietly?"
David looked at the man with a feeling of sadness. "A man whose existence will bring danger to those he loves, but still has to live so that he can provide for them."
"Those enemies don't sound like the empire."
He nodded in agreement. "The empire and I know next to nothing about each other and even if they did, I don't have any ties to this land that would pay the price of knowing me."
"Why do I have the feeling that you are going to have a bounty in every hold before the year is out?"
"For all I know of Skyrim, I very well might," David replied somberly. "These things happen in wars if you find yourself on the wrong side."
"How often has that happened to you?" asked the honorable hired gun.
David Ishmael Kelly thought about that one for a moment. There was Colorado, and the giant clusterfuck that some where calling the Montana wars. And that was all before he'd gone to California.
"Depending on how you look at it, I'd say at least twice, maybe more."
"Maybe more?"
"First war I saw, was more like few different wars happening about the same time."
"Don't tell me you lost in all of them," Sjkor spoke in a tone that seemed to be only half joking.
David laughed. "Just the ones that counted."
"You were a company soldier. Who exactly did you lose to?"
"Every other neighbor, I'd say. Glacier Company had a tendency to bite off more than they could chew and drag GNU into one conflict or another."
"GNU?" asked Skjor.
"Great Northern Union," clarified David. "They chartered Glacier company as a private means of furthering trade and recolonizing the frontier."
"I take it their neighbors weren't happy about it."
"They were not," he shook his head.
"The GNU had a lot of people, hell it had a lot of things not many could claim to have. Thing is when you get a lot of something, you either chase more of the same or you suddenly decide you need something else. In this case, farmland. Too bad it was already occupied."
"Let me guess, they attacked their neighbors for the benefit of your company?" Sjkor ventured a guess.
"Technically it was the opposite. The company sent 'surveyors' under contract from a real estate firm in Butte to a place called Drummond. The land got auctioned off once they could put a value on it. Once that happened the natives were squatters on their own land."
The big merc's jaw opened a little when he understood what was going on.
"So you're telling me that they managed to sell land they didn't own?"
"If it sounds ridiculous, that's because the game was rigged from the start. Glacier had a fair number of business partners who were in on the scheme. Mansfield of course was more than happy to call in the army in protect the interests of its citizens. Glacier got a contract to assist in bringing order.
"Mansfield?"
"It's an old courthouse in Butte," answered David. "Its more or less like Dragonsreach for Whiterun."
"Hmm," Skjor wondered. "Why couldn't the people there just invade their neighbors without the intrigues?
"The answer is land rights. There was some good farmland to be had run by a bunch of tribals who could barely grow enough to feed themselves, when company farms could easily feed the union from that valley. If the clans were admitted or even absorbed into the union, separating them from their land would be more time consuming and more expensive."
"What happened after they were forced off the land?"
Joshua Graham would later talk about the gentle road that led him, a model Mormon of New Canaan to co-found Caesar's Legion. For him the deportations were the first step on his own path to hell.
"A lot of them became bandits. Army ended up deporting everybody they could round up to a penal colony in the east." He still remembered the discomfort he felt at the time.
For a man now cursed to wander, there was something about watching a couple hundred natives getting loaded on a cattle train and forced from all they knew. All they had to do was prod the terrified tribals to the cattle cars.
With angry guard dogs on leash nearby and rifleman posted on the roof of every other cattle car, the Grey Coats from the Lodge would finish uprooting them just as Nebuchadnezzar had once done to the Judeans.
The Nord shook has head in disgust. "I think I can see how you found yourself on the wrong side."
"In time we paid dearly for our greed," he responded in sorrow. "Before long we suddenly had new neighbors in the mountains, some tribe who lived up there mostly for game, who were itching for an enemy to raid. Then we laid tracks to the west and spooked the valley clans of Missoula. After that everyone else from that Eden's Gate cult to the fucking Eaters of Man started nipping on the frontiers."
"What happened to the union?"
"A coup happened. The Brotherhood of Steel, or least the Montana chapter started putting out hits on our leadership after a couple Green Tundra expeditions too many."
"A green tundra?"
David chuckled. "Nothing like Whiterun, its a joke. A pretty dark one at that."
"Well it wouldn't be a tundra with too much grass."
"It has nothing to do with grass. It's in the water which still tastes like metal. It's in the air which burns you inside and outside over time. There are great treasures to be found in the bunkers and the cities if one is smart enough and tough enough to tell the tale. Things of which the Brotherhood of Steel guards jealously."
"Brotherhood of Steel? Are they supposed to be assassins?" Skjor wondered.
"Not quite, though they do operate in shadow an awful lot. But no, they're just another order of zealots who believe that they are mankinds best hope for survival. Sadly, the only way they know how to save the world is to try and keep weapons of mass destruction away from anyone who isn't them. There were a few good elders up there, but to most of them, information is a commodity that they'd sooner hoard then use to benefit the human race they claim to help."
Skjor barked a laugh. "That's a guild for you. Good things only happen to everyone else when the members can benefit and still control whatever line of work they stand for. The Thieves Guild is probably the most honest in that regard."
"Not like the companions I hope."
Skjor gave him a stink eye with his remaining eye. "The Companions were never about being the one and only place for mercenary work." The merc dryly disavowed him. "Also we don't waste time trying to get involved in politics."
"Tell me about the guilds in Skyrim," David had spilled enough of his own story.
"Well, there's the Thieves Guild in Riften. A group of scumbags who steal things and shakedown anybody with a shop. Supposedly, a merchant can hire them to deal with competitors and other dishonest kinds of work. They are a blight on Skyrim, always taking never giving."
"Then there's the Dark Brotherhood. They solve problems for coin just like us, except their solutions are all about murder. They are almost as bad."
"There's the College of Winterhold, which is kind of like a mages guild. Most of the court wizards have studied there."
David grunted. "I got jumped by a mage when I first got here. Won't lie, life might be a little easier if I could shoot fire out of my hands."
"The college tends to turn out just about as many unsavory characters, as they do decent ones. Lot of the smartest people in Tamriel had their start in Winterhold. There are others though who turned to banditry, and became problems that the Companions were called upon to end. Needless to say, we're the only group that can be called a guild and still be respected."
"If the college produces people like Farengar who have decent jobs, why would so many chose to become bandits?" David had to wonder.
"Farengar is a pretty good man for a mage and he took care to study in the right schools of magic. Problem is, mages tend to be arrogant creatures. Destruction magic and Conjuration are probably the most popular types and I'd say the least useful for an honest life. Doesn't seem to take too long before they decide they could get more out of life by hiding out, killing travelers and using the bodies for slave labor or Hircine knows what else."
"You can do that here?" David felt his jaw drop.
"Not legally. Necromancers are usually executed on sight."
He shivered at the idea that someone could even raise dead people. God, this world was also pretty fucked up.
The path narrowed a bit as it started circling around the mountain, past the treeline with snow banks now on both sides. To the left he could see breath-taking beauty around him, mountain ranges spreading as far as the eye could see, snow-capped peaks covered by fluffy clouds. Far below in the valley, a river ran through a forest of trees, green fields far off to our right turning into farms nearer to Whiterun. He could have stood there all day and simply just taken in the view.
"Hold it." Skjor raised his right hand in a gesture as a tower came into view. The Companion took a knee and scanned ahead.
"What is it?" David asked as he came alongside.
"Ahead near the tower. Smell of death."
David couldn't see a damned soul ahead, let alone smell anything.
Must be the beastblood.
For being having the ability to turn into a dog bigger than a Yellowstone Snowhound, it shouldn't have been surprising that Skjor's perception was probably off the Vault-Tec charts.
"Let's move," he ordered.
They entered the tower weapons drawn. Fresh blood stains covered the floor, making trails to the tower staircase where they had been dumped. Skjor cursed as he went over the crime scene. In another world people would write detective stories about him.
There was one set of tracks that left the tower and headed up the mountain. Only one set, and they were still a little fresh.
Flokir
Less than an hour remained before sunrise, when the grim outline of Bleak Falls Barrow came into view.
Not a soul was about when he climbed the steps, and quietly slunk through the squeaking doors at the entrance of the barrow.
On the inside, he looked for signs of life. At the end of the hallway, he saw a handful of bandits asleep in their furs around the charred ruin of the campfire gone cold. With a sentry post dominating the approach to the barrow, they had grown careless.
He crept across the ruined hall slowly and methodically testing the ground on every step before taking it. When they were closer, he could see five of them wrapped in furs and surrounding a dead campfire. With graceful ease, he sneaked past them.
Just past the dead fire, a set of stairs descended into the barrow. He took the stairs, which led to near total darkness.
Flokir laid his right hand flat, and with the smallest amount of effort possible, he channeled his magicka to create a small flame scarcely bigger than a candlelight flicker. It would not do to put out too much light.
The damp passageway, had signs of recent passage and was oft used at that.
He could not say how long it took him to move through the tunnel that wormed its way under the mountain, before he could see dim light from a chamber ahead.
When Flokir entered the room, he noticed the body of one bandit in what Flokir assumed was a puzzle room.
The barrows so he had heard, were monuments to the paranoia of the ancient Nords. Every tomb had a safeguard of some kind to keep out looters, that would often kill those who dared to venture far enough into the ruins.
The body was cold, and by the ugly marks on his body, poison darts had been the killer. Around the wounds, the toxin had darkened the flesh.
Besides the corpse, was the lever that seemed to dominate the room, though it was no longer than his forearm. It was tilted towards him, and the gate it controlled hung open. It would seem someone smarter had opened it. He studied the surroundings quickly hoping to understand what what was needed to open the gate.
Like many of his former classmates from Winterhold, he had visited Saarthal to assist with its excavation. He had seen a few portions of the city beneath the frozen tundra of the Winterhold and remembered a lecture on the significance of ancient Nordic engineering.
The College had secured the ruins and tried to unearth the old city bit by bit in great secrecy, though that would likely grind to a halt once Ulfric returned to Windhelm and called his banners. With only enchantment services and tuition fees to sustain the college, Savos Aren would have little choice but to reallocate their resources for a war that most students would be indifferent at best towards, for a movement that viewed them with disdain at best.
Flokir remembered the symbols on the walls. They were an indication of puzzles, ones that were known in many cases to be unforgiving towards those who did not solve correctly. He took note of the patterns in the room before moving on.
On the other side of the gate, was a modest burial chamber with a low ceiling. A plain sarcophagus stood against the carved rock at the end of a modest dais.
Beside it was a round staircase narrow enough to fit in a well. Its wooden planks though old, were still surprisingly solid. As he drew on his magicka to keep the light burning over his hand, he felt something below him emitting magic.
Could it be the stairs? Flokir wondered. He could not help but wonder if the timber had been enchanted to stay strong in the damp environment over the passage of a few era or more. Certainly it would take far more than a sloppy kick to bring down the wood.
At the bottom, he saw spider webs wherever he turned. Flokir gently waved the flame in his hand so that it would eat away at the thick webbing as he passed along.
"Is someone coming?" He could hear the low nasally accent of a Dunmer. "Is that you, Harknir? Bjorn? Soling? I know I ran ahead with the claw, but I need help."
Flokir rounded the bend to the chamber where the voice came from, and almost walked right into a web that spanned the doorway. He took a deep breath, and allowed the gentle flame in his hand to leap higher as it burned the thicker webbing. The flame was allowed to die as soon as he could slip through.
In the chamber, he could see webbing everywhere. That and spider eggs.
"Who are you?" the dunmer challenged him.
Across the chamber, he could see the figure trapped in the web.
"Oh never mind," spoke the elf before Flokir could answer. "Cut me down before that thing gets us."
Just as he finished speaking, shadow enveloped the room. They both looked up to see one a huge frostbite spider coming into view and poised to strike him.
"No. Not again. Don't let it get me!" The dark elf screamed in terror.
Flokir calm took a fighting stance and focused his vision on the spider's face as he channeled his inner magicka into a streak of lightning as it tried to leap towards him.
The bolt arched and struck the creature about where the fangs connected to the face. The attack caught the spider off guard, and the frostbite spider landed clumsily on the chamber floor.
He drew his blade and plunged it into one of the front legs before it could recover its stunned senses. As it did, Flokir danced to his left and slashed open two more of its legs while the big spider tried to turn to him.
Fire erupted from his open hand and bathed the wounded spider in flames where it was most vulnerable. It's movement slowed and Flokir took the opportunity to charge in close with his steel leveled for its head.
The blade cleaved through it with ease and instantly killed the animal. It shuddered one last time before collapsing on the floor. Flokir put both hands on the hilt and withdrew the sword from its brain.
"You killed it!" The trapped Dunmer shouted with excitement. "Now cut me down before anything else shows up."
"Where's the golden claw?" He began walking towards the elf.
"Yes, the claw," The ugly bandit replied, "I know how it works. The claw, the markings, the door in the Hall of Stories. I know how they all fit together. Help me down, and I'll show you. You won't believe the power of the Nords have hidden in there."
All he had to do to complete this job, was to simply take the claw from this man and make a break for Riverwood. It would be the smarter thing to do.
But the thief within him would never forgive if he did not try to find the purpose of the claw before giving it back to Lucan. And Flokir could smell opportunity.
"Let me see if I can cut you down," Flokir tried his best to keep his tone neutral.
"Sweet breath of Arkay, thank you." The bandit relaxed a little bit.
"Hold still Dunmer," his open hand spewed flame and he brought it around in the circular motion. "Good thing you people are resistant to fire, right."
The dark elf began tugging against the burning webbing, "It's coming loose, I can feel it."
A few moments later, he fell to the ground. The bandit got up and brushed himself off.
"About that claw now."
The dark elf swiftly bolted down the now open passageway.
He could hear noise from within.
Draugr
He had grown up with more than a few stories about them. They were often mentioned by parents (or a head mistress in his case) to frighten children from wandering too far out of sight. But nobody truly knew how the draugr came to be.
Most seemed to agree that the draugr where followers of the dragon priests of old. Some said they were cursed for serving the dragons. The most interesting theory he'd heard was that of Bernadette Bantien, who had claimed to have found a way to live among the undead.
Her theory was that the draugr were followers of whoever they were buried with, and that they were meant to worship whoever the tomb was built for. By worship, she seemed to mean roam the barrow and allow their undead overlords to feed of what he guessed was some kind of undead essense.
Whatever she had done though, Flokir did not have the time to try.
He entered the chamber behind one of the undead that was following the dunmer.
With ease, Flokir closed the distance and swung his blade at the unprotected neck. The steel easily cut through the draugr and removed the head.
He could see the thief fighting two others who were intently focused on him. The bandit gave ground as they bore down on him.
Suddenly, a huge iron grate swung out behind him and knocked him against the wall taking the undead with him.
The grate began to roll back into its original position, dropping the three on the way.
Flokir quickly snatched the dark elf's satchel, and wasted no time in slipping through the trap and down the next hall.
He peered into the bag. There was some decent loot, a journal, and after fishing around the bag, a golden claw.
The journal was put under light and Flokir opened it to the last entry.
My fingers are trembling. The Golden Claw is finally in my hands, and with it, the power of the ancient Nordic heroes. That fool Lucan Valerius had no idea that his favorite store decoration was actually the key to Bleak Falls Barrow.
Flokir smirked, as he stole a look at the shiny golden claw. His finder's fee could wait, he decided as his eyes went back to the journal.
Now I just need to get to the Hall of Stories and unlock the door. The legend says there is a test that the Nords put in place to keep the unworthy away, but that "when you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands."
Flokir slipped through burial chamber after another. Sometimes a draugr would stir, but without that fool Dunmer running around making noise, they were pretty easy to slip past. Especially when one already had to watch where they put their feet. All while lining his pack with the occasional artifact. He still had connections through the College who would be able to find buyers.
He continued to descend through the crumbling ruin, eventually arriving in a more caved in chamber with a waterfall that spilled from the left wall, it's stream cascading cross to a gate on the right. But it looked to be another dead end.
There has be a way through here, Flokir saw a chain near the gate and gave it a pull. It opened, and he followed the stream down the tunnel it carved over who knew how long.
It brought him to another cave which led him into another tunnel before he was in the barrow again. A lone draugr guarded a large double door, which Flokir dispatched with a forceful blade across its undead throat.
Beyond the Draugr and the chamber it guarded, he found himself in a wide hall. Stone carvings older than Tiber Septim lined its walls, and at the end was a strange door. In its center, were three little holes. He looked at the door and then the claw in his hand. Could it be that simple?
The barrow was every bit a testament to the brilliance of the ancient Nords as it was to their paranoia.
And yet the solution was obvious. Even without the key, the lock could have been easily manipulated. It was almost like the builders were more concerned with keeping something within rather than out.
For a mechanism made of stone, the locks adjusted easily with a combination that matched what the claw had. There was a loud click and then the door slowly started to lower.
Another set of stairs awaited him on the other side, this one feeling just a little bit more tiring than others.
He had woken early, and needed some food from his pack. He could wait however long he needed to rest up before continuing on. Those fools at the top of the mountain weren't going anywhere.
Author's Note: Semester just ended for me. Its been a crazy ride.
Song of the chapter is based on Highwayman (which was an inspiration for this story). Now that some of the nuances of Skyrim are finding their way to my word count, there is a certain humor to finding the most insane ways of rationalizing the Elder Scrolls universe in the name of making it feel lived in.
Some of my ideas concerning Montana are partially inspired by Mokidd's highly original (though possibly dead) fic Fallout: Montana. I didn't plan for the first section to be death by dialogue but thats where the current took me, and I used the chance to fill in a few blanks on my personal Fallout map (co-authored by Alexeij).
Next Chapter should be far more entertaining.
P.S. Let's try and not talk about Fallout 76. Aside from the incorporation of new soundtrack, concepts and items (mostly weapons and such), and points on the map, that game never happened in this universe.