Chapter 16: The Hall of the Dead

[23rdof Last Seed 4E 201]

On the day before, I had helped to defeat Mirmulnir, the second dragon I had encountered, at the Western Watchtower. Fiona, the young Bosmer, had been finally confirmed as Dragonborn by absorbing the dragon's soul and being able to shout 'FUS'. After the fight, the wood elf, Freya and I had been guided back to the city by a guard, the Jarl has listened to our report, and he had strongly suggested that Fiona should visit the Greybeards up at High Hrothgar as soon as she got a chance to do so. While Freya and I had 'only' been recognized as citizens of Whiterun, Fiona had been named Thane, and after a very long day I had been happy about finding dinner and a bed at the Bannered Mare.

The sun was already up when I awoke, later than usual, but hey, I had helped fight and kill a dragon on the day before, and I had been forced to stay awake beyond my normal bedtime; in my estimation I had been able to go to sleep around midnight. Now, I got breakfast served by Saadia, the pretty Redguard, down in the main taproom, and while I ate I pondered my options for this day. Going to Ivarstead and up to High Hrothgar was probably not going to happen soon for the petite wood elf, and when it was due, she might not want to have me around for that. Aela had suggested that I might want to join the Companions, and they might and should be willing to improve my fighting skills, which was something I clearly needed. Besides, if they accepted me, which was of course not guaranteed – after all, I was not the main character here, and I could not expect everybody and everything just waiting for me – I'd have a bed and food for free. Magic was also on my list of things to do, but unless Farengar volunteered to teach me, I might have to travel to Winterhold at some time in the future. In addition to that, I had seen Whiterun only at night so far, and a stroll through the city in daylight would be nice.

So, breakfast first, then a walk around the city before checking out the Companions. The walk seemed to be a good idea, as the sun beamed from a cloudless sky and the temperature was quite comfortable. I did not know most people around, but with my tall frame and being a Khajiit, I did get some attention. At least the guards seemed to know that I was a citizen and allowed in the city now, and a few of them even greeted me in a friendly manner. While most people just looked at me briefly, if at all, some of the city's children openly stared at me, not even trying to hide their curiosity. I did not blame them for their attitude; as far as I knew, few Khajiit were usually allowed in the city, and some kids probably rarely left the safety of the city walls.

After I had done a little bit of exploring, a man in brown priest like robes addressed me directly when I ambulated in the Wind District:

"Excuse me, but is it correct that you were out at the Western Watchtower yesterday to fight the dragon?"

"Yes, actually I helped with that. Why do you want to know?"

"Well, I do need a fearless warrior to get something back for me. Tell me, do you believe in mighty Arkay, god of life and death?"

Fearless warrior? I was tempted to tell him that this was not me, but on the other hand I was curious to find out what he was getting at. Maybe that was the start of a side quest, and if my memory had been better, I might know something about it, but alas, it was not, and I would have to learn about it. Arkay had not been in my visions, and I was not fully sure if he was good or bad, although I suspected the former. But wait, all of the Divines were kind of 'good', and one only needed to be careful about some of the Daedric princes and princesses, right? This was kind of confusing for me; I believed in the one and only God, but here in Skyrim you had Divines, Daedric princes and princesses with some special powers, and more, and I would need to navigate those areas cautiously to avoid embarrassing or even dangerous situations. Thus, I replied:

"I am not really familiar with him. Can you please enlighten me, good man?"

"Oh, I guess that I should have introduced myself first: I am Andurs, priest of Arkay and caretaker of the Hall of Death in this city."

"Pleased to meet you, Andurs; my name is B'lushona."

The priest nodded and explained:

"Well, as I said, Arkay is the god of life and death. You'll find his temples and Halls of the Dead all across Tamriel. Priests of Arkay such as myself perform rites for the dead and sometimes console the bereaved. We also keep a constant vigil against those who practice the vile arts of necromancy. I asked the question because I was hoping you might be able and willing to help me to recover something I've lost."

"May I ask what it is you lost?"

"My Amulet of Arkay. It's the source of my divine powers and also a sacred badge of office. I actually misplaced it somewhere in the catacombs, I believe. I'd go look for it, but I've been hearing noises down there. I fear the dead have become... restless. Without that amulet, I'm powerless to confront them. Would you be willing to search for it?"

"I guess that I can do that. Lead the way, please."

"Oh, great. Please come with me."

Andurs had mentioned something about a vigil against necromancers, and that was good enough in my book; while I did not know all about what necromancers did, I had a feeling that it was not good, and for now I trusted the priest's assessment. I shuddered a little when I thought about one of my earlier games when I had played the Dawnguard quest line. I had had Serana, the beautiful and powerful young vampiress at my side for quite some time, and she had had this annoying habit to temporarily revive defeated and dead bandits to fight on our side; I had found that slightly repulsing, but had not been able to tell her that I did not like her practicing necromancy, or whatever what she was doing was called. So, indeed, doing something for Arkay seemed about right, and I followed the priest up the stairs to the Gildergreen tree, past the Temple of Kynareth, and into a building there. Once were inside, the priest point into a corner where a large dog was curled up on a blanket:

"My husky, Garm, usually aids me whenever I venture down into the 'Hall of the Dead'; for some reason huskies have a special gift for finding and fighting undead. However, since a few days ago he has been sick, and on my own and without my amulet I am helpless down there."

"What kind of sickness does Garm have, if I may ask?"

"I do not really know. I even had Danica look at him the other day, and she claims that his body is just fine. Nevertheless, he barely moves."

"How often do you usually walk him?"

"Walk him? Oh, I let him out three times a day, just outside the house."

"But how much do you walk long distances with him?"

"Long distances? Why should I do that? My job is here, not wandering around the city."

Back in my old life I had known a few people with dogs, and while I would not consider myself a dog expert, maybe Garm needed some change of scenery and more movement? I might have to think about that at another time, though, as we stepped down into the basement, and Andurs guided me to a sturdy looking door:

"Whenever you are ready, please enter, and I'll just wait here and make sure nothing foul escapes the catacombs. Please be careful!"

I nodded and stepped through the door. While I was not sure what to expect, this was a 'Hall of the Dead', so maybe some skeletons or draugr becoming, what had he called it, 'restless'? On the other hand, if there were draugr and walking skeletons, wouldn't it be better named 'Hall of the Undead'? Apparently I spent too much time thinking and too little time looking around, as a skeleton had been hiding on the right side and managed to stab my right arm. Ouch! I had not even readied a weapon, and almost by instinct I reacted with a flame spell from my left hand, so that the skeleton crumbled to the ground. I used the rest of my magicka to heal my arm, and just when I was done, two more skeletons came up from a lower room, fortunately at a slow speed. As I was out of magicka now I got my axe out, and I managed to ward off the two even with my clumsy wielding. One of the skeletons I got with a lucky strike of the axe, and the other one with a more carefully placed hit. Most likely those were not very high level enemies, or else I would have been in big trouble.

Now, where to look for that amulet? The rooms had a large number of niches and alcoves, and I did not really want to disturb whatever was placed there. I spent quite some time on looking into niches, just to find out eventually that the priest's amulet was on a small table, next to a wreath. I picked it up and left the catacombs, handing the amulet over to a happy and relieved looking priest.

He was thankful for my help and gave me a very small coin purse, and I had done my good deed for the day, or so I thought at least. While I was here, I recalled that I wanted to learn about something which bothered me, and I used the opportunity to raise a question:

"Andurs, I need to ask you something. I was in a Nordic Ruin recently, with the Dragonborn, to retrieve an important artifact. The barrow had many niches with skeletons and draugr, and some of those came alive when we passed. In many rooms we found urns with some valuables, like small amounts of septims and some gems, and I wonder if it is morally acceptable to take those."

"Morally acceptable? Where do you come from, young man? But I understand your point, and others have asked the same before, though with other words. You don't want to incur the wrath of the Divines by plundering sacred graves or such, right?"

I nodded; that was my concern indeed. Andurs put a hand on my shoulder, not without some trouble as I was so much taller than he was, and explained:

"It honors you to think about it, young man. Here, in the Hall of the Dead, you might indeed cause problems by taking valuables, but in a ruin with walking draugr we can assume that it is no longer a peaceful resting place, it it ever was one. Some of my colleagues even believe that there are dark magical forces active, resupplying the urns with more valuables once they haven been emptied, so that the attraction to plunder those places does not diminish over time and the draugr get more human food or so. No, don't be concerned; you are not doing anything wrong, and whatever you find in places which are not sacred resting places is free to take, even in a place which is called a 'barrow'."

I thanked the priest, and when I had left the building, I spent a few more hours walking around the city and kind of behaved like a tourist. Consequently I used the time to explore most areas of the city, and I was only missing a printed guide to enlighten my experience. Wait a second, wasn't it the 'Oblivion' game which had such books, like Alessia Ottus' guide to Skingrad, advertising proper locations for getting food and finding a bed? I had used that for a Skyrim fan fiction story I had recently published in my previous life, with a female Khajiit Dragonborn as my companion, so that's why I recalled that book. Well, Whiterun was small enough to be explored in a few hours. While I did not check out all of the houses, I got a general idea at least, and I met lots of people.

Oh wait, there was a book on Whiterun, too, but it was the one written by that arrogant and self-complacent bard, and it was mostly about all of the women he believed to be his. No, that was certainly not the kind of book I was interested in.

Now, I had also planned to join the Companions today, or at least try to do so. However, as I really wanted to take my time for that specific visit and I was supposed to attend the banquet the Jarl had invited to, I decided to move that to the next day. As it was only late morning, probably close to noon, I opted to walk around a little, and I strolled towards the market area to see which kind of shops and stalls could be found there. As I had briefly seen in passing in the evening before, the market area was larger than in the game. The game only had three or four market stalls and, as I recalled, two shops plus the inn. The Bannered Mare was the constant here, but there were a few more shops plus a total of six or seven market stalls. While I still looked around, an unexpected but somehow familiar smell entered my nose, and suddenly I recognized it as smell from fresh bread. Following the scent, I found one building which was set back a little bit; it had not caught my attention so far. The house was pretty much nondescript from outside, but maybe the smell was advertisement enough. Once I had opened the door and stepped inside, the smell intensified, and I found myself in something which resembled a bakery. Wow! How cool was that? On second thought it made sense. In a smaller town, like Riverwood, people were likely to bake their own bread, but in a city like Whiterun, demand would be high enough to warrant a dedicated bakery.

The variation of bread and cakes was not really comparable with one of my favorite bakeries at home, but there was bread, obviously wheat bread, and some variations of rolls, sweet rolls, something which might be honey nut treats, and similar. They even had baguettes, or at least some long and thin white bread which looked like it, and when the other customers had been served, I bought one of those plus a couple of honey nut treats. I certainly would want to browse the other offerings as well at a later time, too, and I would surely come back again. Once I was done with my purchase, I walked up to the Gildergreen tree in the Wind District and took a seat on one of the benches around it to eat.

The bread was really good, and I was very happy that I had found this bakery. When I was half done with eating, I noticed somebody approaching, and when I looked up, I saw a little girl, maybe seven or eight years old, dark haired and looking like an Imperial. She was obviously impressed by my size, which was apparent even with me being sitting on a bench, and once she had stared at me for some time, maybe to collect her courage, she finally spoke:

"I'm so hungry…. Could you spare a coin? Just one gold? Please? Sir?"

I was a little bit confused about that at first, but then I remembered that there were some adoptable kids in the game, and quite a few were beggars. I kind of recalled that one, and I thought that it might be Lucia, usually the first kid I had adopted when playing, if I had bothered with adopting at all. Now, this was reality and not a game, but of course I did not even have a home, so that I could not think about adoption, if that concept was even available, and if it was applicable for a single person rather than a couple. However, I could offer some food, and thus I replied:

"What is your name, girl? Mine is B'lushona, or just Balu for my friends."

"I am Lucia, mister."

"So, if you are hungry, what about you eat one of the honey nut treats I have here?"

"Yes, please!"

Her eyes confirmed that this was a good idea, and I handed one of the snacks over to her. She did not hesitate and started to eat right away, while I ate the other one. Once she was done, she said:

"Oh, thank you! Divines bless your kind heart. I sometimes don't get enough to eat since … since Mama died. Will I see you again?"

"Maybe, Lucia, I will probably be here in Whiterun for some time, and I'd be happy to meet you again."

The girl nodded, and soon she was gone again. I kept my seat for now and started to do some day dreaming, and maybe I even dozed off for a few minutes. Later on I walked around some more, and when the sun was low on the sky, I turned towards the stairs again, ascended into the Cloud District and entered Dragonsreach once more.

In there, I found the three ladies, Fiona with Freya and Lydia, already in the hall, talking to Farengar, the court wizard. When I passed them, I heard Farengar asking about the dragon corpse and if he could get some of the bones and scales for examination; Hrongar chimed in and told them that some of those had already been recovered. We enjoyed a nice meal and the environment of the great hall of Dragonsreach, and after the meal itself Hrongar spent quite some time talking to Fiona, apparently enlightening her on the legend and the background of the Dragonborn. Judged by her face she was not believing all of that, though, but she might not be able to escape the implications; more dragons would find her sooner or later, if she believed in the story or not.

Meanwhile Irileth, Jarl Balgruuf՚s housecarl, asked me to get upstairs with her, and I found the Jarl, his court wizard and a few men in guard uniform standing around a table. The Jarl introduced one of the guards as Commander Caius, captain of the city guard and he asked:

"B'lushona, I assume that you have eaten well?"

I nodded, and the Jarl continued:

"I don't want to take much of your time, but I would like to discuss the fight against the dragon. We have learned that there is at least one other dragon around, and if another one attacks the city or the hold, I would rather be prepared. What can we do to fight a dragon, above and beyond what has been done already?"

Irileth started:

"I think that our guards and soldiers may need better armor."

"Yes, but better armor does not help much when the dragon shouts fire" I objected. "Being nimble and agile to evade that may be more important."

"Or having a good large shield."

"Yes, if it is a sturdy one."

"What about weapons?" the Jarl wanted to know.

"Most arrows do not even penetrate the dragon's hide."

"Unless they hit more sensitive parts, like wings and joints."

"True, that has certainly helped to get the dragon at the Western Watchtower down to the ground."

"Can't we have higher quality bows and arrows to inflict more damage?"

"Yes, we can, but they are very expensive. Iron and corundum mines and veins are everywhere around in the area, so that having iron and steel weapons is standard and affordable, but anything else needs expensive raw material we don't have much in our hold."

I understood; other ore was probably around somewhere, but not easily accessible, at least not in larger quantities. In addition, I did not know to what extent the local blacksmiths even knew how to handle other raw material, like melting and forging glass or ebony weapons and armor. Did they just lack abundant raw material or did they also lack the proper skills?

I also had another topic to suggest:

"If the soldiers learned a little bit of magic, they could heal themselves partially at least, and they could attack from a distance, too."

Irileth snorted:

"My point exactly. How many times have I tried to make them understand that, but most of the guards are Nords, and they just don't do magic, well, most of them."

Farengar objected:

"Irileth, it's not as easy as that. While in general almost everybody has a potential for magic, for many the magicka pool is only tiny, and they may never manage to cast even the most basic spell. This does seem apply to Nords in particular, and I wager that only one out of five Nords can be trained in magic using even if they want to. However, I have to concede that even having one out of ten guards and soldiers being able to cast some restoration magic would be helpful."

The Jarl pondered that for a few moments and mused:

"I wonder if something should be done about it. Maybe I should issue a statement declaring that magic, at least when being used for healing, is something good and supported by me? Have some guards getting trained in restoration magic by Farengar or Danica, sort out those who actually can do it?"

There was no reply to that, and after a few more minutes I was dismissed; for now, I did not even try to talk to the Bosmer Dragonborn again. She still seemed to be uneasy around me, and I did not want to impose on her. According to what I recalled, I was supposed to offer my assistance and support, but not demand it to be accepted. I managed to get Freya into a conversation, though, and once we had talked about this and that, I asked her:

"Freya, you have seen a dragon fight now. Are you as eager as before now to meet more of them?"

She hesitated before answering:

"I am not sure. On one hand, a dragon is fascinating and amazing. On the other hand, they are also scary and very dangerous. I am not sure how I'd fare when attacking one of those in close combat, like you did a few times out there. But then, there seems to be reason why I carry my huge shield around and why I am called 'shield-maiden' in my dreams, and at least I could use the shield to protect others during the fight."

"I agree; that was very helpful."

Freya's eyes were still shining, and the way she looked at me made me wonder if this was just her normal look or if she harbored any feelings for me, like I thought I had some for her. Maybe I should ask her out and invite her to lunch or dinner, like a date, one of those days?

When I was back in my room in the 'Bannered Mare' later in the evening, it came to my mind that I had now been here in Skyrim for exactly one week. I almost could not believe it; one week only? I felt like I had been here for months or even years already, and my previous life seemed like eons ago. Once I managed to fall asleep, I had some nice dreams about Freya, nothing adult rated, but still nice, like the two of us walking in the moonshine, holding hands and so.

[Author's Notes: There is a mod called 'Garm the Husky Companion', and the husky can be found in the Temple of Arkay in Whiterun; it seems fitting for Andurs to have such a dog.

Most of the time I played the game I pitied the beggar kids, and Lucia, conveniently around in Whiterun, was usually the first one I adopted, once I had a proper home, preferably a large one, such as 'Skyfall Estate' (from a mod). Doing a little bit of role playing, I also usually waited until I had one or two housecarls to spare to stay at home with the kids and take care of them while I went spelunking and adventuring and saving the world.]