Fragment retrieved from storm drain in Darktown:

… hazards to living in Skyrim, and I would be remiss if I did not warn you about them. Other than passive dangers such as the climate and the terrain, there are a lot of things out there which will be actively trying to kill you. As many of these creatures are quite valuable for their meat, pelts, and various other parts, this will save you some time, provided you kill them and not the other way around.

First, the wildlife. In addition to the usual giant rats, wolves, both singly and in packs, bears, wild boars, enormous wildcats and huge venomous spiders, Skyrim also has some creatures unique to it. There are mudcrabs, more of a nuisance than a danger unless you are swarmed while swimming, slaughterfish, which (I am not making this up, I swear) can and will crawl out on land for short distances to get to you, and chaurus, giant insects that look like earwigs. They're very poisonous and very dangerous, but they prefer to stay underground most of the time. Horkers, sea creatures that loll around on the beaches, are not aggressive unless threatened.

During the winter, and year-round in the permanently frozen regions, there are Ice Wraiths, Elemental spirits which manifest as something like icy, flying snakes with vicious teeth. In the warmer months, you may encounter spriggans, which are Elemental spirits of the forest. They look like a cross between a person and a tree, and are willing to leave you alone if you do the same, but they can also command forest creatures to attack you too. Trolls may be familiar to you from stories. Here they are not just stories…

Notes: This fragment seems to be not just part of the same document, but the same print run and perhaps even the same pamphlet itself. The paper is not cheap pulp but high-cotton rag, and the ink is iron-oak gall rather than soot. There is a wealthy backer behind this fraud.

"I've been thinking," Eryka said. "Nothing's decided yet, but there is something you could do other than tagging around after me. I wish I'd thought of it before. Back in Dawnstar, their alchemist, Frida, is getting on in years—really getting on in them. Her husband was called to Sovngarde a while back, and they outlived their children, or so I understand."

"'Called to Sovngarde'?" I asked. "Do you mean he passed away?"

"Yes, and I don't know of there being any grandchildren. You're a clever man, you're a healer, and you're right personable, especially when you smile. If you had five hundred to invest in the shop, and another hundred to be getting on with, it'd be like buying an apprenticeship. You'd pick up the trade in no time, I'm sure. Rustleif and Seren would vouch for you, and when I come by, as I do every so often, I'd stop in and see how you were doing. If you're good to Frida, then when she's called to Sovngarde herself, you'd step right into her shoes, like as not, and own the shop." Eryka darted a glance at me. "I'd loan you the money."

"That's, um, very generous of you. Is this your way of saying you don't want to travel with me?" I asked, while Justice was howling, No. NO! Secure her help! Win her! Which was easy for him to think, because I was the one who would have to do it. In truth, her suggestion stung, because I thought we had been getting along rather well. Also, I admit, I liked her already. She was intelligent and attractive and kind, she had a good sense of humor—what was there not to like? Other than her delusions concerning gods and dragons, that is.

"No," she denied, looking surprised. "It's a ways yet until Whiterun, and if I do decide against you, I'll come right out and say so. I won't be lending you any money, either, if that's the case. I just wanted you to know you had a choice in the matter too."

"Oh. Thank you. What is this place?" I asked, turning around in my seat to take in all of the area. Stone pillars and arches thrust up from the ground like the darkened bones of some tremendous beast, and we rode through its remains like beetles scuttling for cover. I could not know it then, but this was merely my first glance at a place which would later prove to be of the utmost significance.

"Labyrinthian," Eryka replied. "It's one of the tombs from the days of the Dragon Priests—well, partly, anyhow. Some of it was built rather later. Now it's just a way through the mountains. The caravans go through here from Rain's Hand through Hearthfire, weather permitting."

Those were the months from spring to mid-autumn, if I remembered correctly. "An old tomb? Any chance of encountering Draugr?" I looked around more carefully, seeing a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.

"Here? No, you don't often find Draugr outside the tombs. They don't do well when exposed to the elements. Their flesh falls away to dust, and they're reduced to skeletons. It's very easy to kill something when it's nothing but bones—although I have a nasty scar on my calf when one I thought was dead twisted around and bit me."

"Ouch," I winced in sympathy. "Is there anything here now that would pose a threat? I ask because I thought I saw something moving—and the birds have gone very quiet and still."

Eryka tensed up, looked around. "So they have," she agreed, casting a spell with her left hand while she scrutinized the landscape. I immediately wanted to quiz her on what it was and how to cast it, as I still knew little of Skyrim magic, but if there was something out there, now was not the time.

"There are at least two large and hostile creat—," she began but stopped abruptly when she looked at me. The glow in her hand died away.

"What's wrong?" I asked, looking down at myself.

"You look like a thunderstorm happening all at once, when I cast Detect Life," she said to me, very softly before she raised her voice. "Stop the carriage!"

"What?" the driver asked. "Ye want to get down here?"

"There's something hiding in the ruins, something deadly," she told him. "Stop the carriage and get down under it."

"Damn!" he said, but he moved, halting the horse and crouching down under the vehicle.

We, in the meantime, slipped down off the back of the carriage and assumed defensive positions.

"What is it?" I asked, gripping a staff that was useless for casting magic. "More spiders? Ice bears?"

"Bigger than spiders. As big as a bear, or bigger, which might mean sabercats or it might mean trolls," she looked to me, drawing a sword from her pack on the carriage. "If it is trolls, use fire. If it's cats, use anything you can."

"Not a problem. The only spell I can cast very well, other than Healing, is Fireballs."

As I said that, I heard a tremendous roar, "HHHRAUUUGH!", and something heavy hit us, knocking us down on the icy cobbles. I gaped for a moment, because the thing that hit us was the corpse of someone with tusks, and then there was no more time for surprise or shock, because two frost trolls swooped down and did their best to pound us into red paste on the ice.

Large, white, ape-like, and smelling like rutting polecats mixed with rotten eggs, frost trolls were impressive foes, but I had fought bigger and smellier creatures. Namely, ogres, but the fighting styles of the two were too different to truly compare them. Ogres did their best to butt like rams and trample you underfoot, while trolls tried to unscrew your head, or failing that, bite it off.

I whacked the nearest troll in the groin with my staff (I have yet to find a male animal which isn't daunted by that, at least for a moment.) before sending a fireball into its midsection. Scrambling to my feet, I saw Eryka slashing at the legs of her troll with her sword, which left flaming wounds in its flesh. But my troll was on me again, and I slammed it with another fireball.

"YOL!" That was Eryka shouting, or rather, Shouting. The Word shook the world and fire bloomed forth from her lips. I only caught a glimpse of engulfing flames, but I saw and heard what it did to her troll. It screamed as two of its three eyes (three eyes? Yes, three.) cooked in its head, the lids sloughing away like dead leaves. The uppermost eye was better protected by the bone socketing it, and it opened again to glare upon her with a look of purest rage.

But my troll was not dead either, and it came in swinging with hands like shovels. Reaching for my head, it got tangled in the tent-cloak. I slipped out and down, leaving the empty garment in its claws, and tossed another fireball at it.

Meanwhile, Eryka Shouted again, "SU!", and began hacking and slashing away at her troll as though she had five more arms and five more swords. Everywhere her blade scored, she left flaming trails of blood bubbling forth from its veins.

One more fireball, and my troll was cooked. Eryka finished hers off with a thrust through the chest, but as she bent to yank her sword free, a third troll leapt down between us and swatted her like a kitten with a wad of paper. She skidded over the icy cobbles to impact against a stone pillar, smacked against it with a rattle of armor and a meaty 'thwack'.

I don't believe either I or Justice actually thought anything other than simply 'No!' Lose the one person with whom I had a connection here in this world? Lose the chance of bringing mages into a safer, friendlier world? No. Justice reared up and together we shaped that rage and fear into a spear of fire, drew back, and plunged it through the torso of the beast. The hiss of its innards cooking, the stench, the fluids that boiled up and out of its mouth!

I didn't simply kill the troll. It was half incinerated.

"Are you all right?" I asked Eryka, hurrying over. "Do you need healing?"

"I'm fine," she said, shaking snow off her hood, which was layered over a steel helmet. "This is why I wear such heavy armor. It spreads the force of a blow around." I helped her up.

Her breath hitched as she beheld the troll I had just killed. It was ghastly. "Don't be afraid of me," I tried to project reassurance rather than pleading in my voice. "You don't have to be afraid of me."

"Afraid of you?" she asked, looking as if I'd asked her how she wanted her weasel cooked. "Why would I be afraid of you? That was well done. Look what I just did." She waved at her dead and still smoldering troll. "Are you going to go around being afraid of me?"

"That hadn't occurred to me," I admitted. "At least not yet. So that was Shouting, was it? What would happen if I tried it?"

"Go ahead," she invited me. "'Yol' is Dragon for 'Fire'." That time she simply spoke it rather than Shouted it.

I turned my head away toward the ruins before I tried it. "YOL!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. Nothing happened except that I startled some birds into flight.

"See? Not so simple," Eryka said, recovering her sword.

"I suppose not. Say, why didn't you cast fireballs as you did at the spider earlier? Why rely on the blade?" I asked.

"Because…" she didn't complete the sentence immediately, and I glanced at her face. She mumbled, "Spiders are easy to kill, so I didn't bother with the sword. When I try to use magic and use a blade at the same time, I get mixed up and sometimes cast the wrong spell."

"Eryka, are you blushing?"

"Don't tease me! It's embarrassing!"

But I did, until we were halfway down the other side of the mountain.

A/N: Thanks to my reviewers! I send you virtual snickerdoodles in thanks. Ceg, you raise some fascinating questions and I'm going to have to read up and work out things. As my get-out-of-jail-free card, I can always say that since Akatosh is the god of time, he can put things together in any sequence he likes. He-heh-heh….