AUTHOR NOTE: This story is based more so on the lore than what is presented in the fifth game only. So expect a more varied landscape, greater populations, additional racial traits and cultural practices, more flexible magic etc. etc.
Chapter 1: A Preposterous Partnership
~~~~~~~~~~Orc~~~~~~~~~~
"So you need a stone tablet which may or may not be there at all?" asked a deep, gruff voice. It really grated on Farengar's ears; it belonged to the greatest epitome of Orcs. A 7'2'' musclebound giant clad in iron under a thick bear pelt. The craftsmanship was poor and the metal was rusted but otherwise thick and looked sturdy. Chainmail sleeves peaked out from under the iron chestpiece and hung down almost to his gauntlets, and everything was underlined by hide padding to make it comfortable and to keep the wearer warm. His tusks were thick and prominent, yet that was not the extent of his looks; there were bony protrusions mixed in with his dense black eyebrows. Below the tusked jaw was a thick black beard. The barbaric figure had his arms crossed, expecting a more concise answer.
"Oh don't worry. My sources are quite reliable, that is the most likely place to find the Dragonstone." Farengar assured, impatient.
With a sigh, though it sounded akin to a growl, the Orc asked, "Anything you can tell me about this Bleak Falls Barrow?"
"Well, its just south east of the miserable little settlement known as Riverwood. If you follow the pa-"
"I'll find my way to it," the Orc interrupted, "one of its arches is visible atop the mountain range from here. Anything you can tell me about the inside of the ruin?"
"No, seeing as I have never been there myself, as you may have guessed." was the cold response. "No off with you, the Jarl is not a patient man, and neither am I."
Leaving the asshat court wizard to his research, the beast lumbered out of Dragonsreach down towards the Plains District and its marketplace. The enclosed little plaza, surrounded by a myriad of imposing buildings acting as abodes to all sorts of enterprises and dwellings for their owners, was beginning to quiet down for the evening. Most stores were closed and very few stalls were still stocked with goods and wares on display. The one and only lively establishment at this hour would be the Orc's destination: the Bannered Mare. The light in the windows showed a small army of silhouettes, their merriness could be heard from down the street.
When he slammed the door open, the patrons closest to him first looked at him in shock of his ungraceful arrival, then glared in disgust when they realised the air was about to be stenched up by an Orc. Of course, none actually got in his way as he stomped over to the bar, far from it, most even stepped aside. The woman behind the bar, Hulda, had a steeled expression, not fond of the newcommer, but he was about to be a paying customer.
"I'll have any food you got left, all of it, as well as a room for the night." he grumbled out.
"Of course, that will be three silver. You can have the room for one more night for a mere one more silver septim though." she stated.
"No need," the Orc said as he pulled out a coinpurse and placed three silver coins on the table top, "I'm off to Bleak Falls Barrow tomorrow."
He could have sworn the Nord woman had muttered to herself "Did I ask about that?"
"Can I have it delivered to my room, if its not a problem?" he asked, knowing that most would rather he be elsewhere.
"Can be arranged." Hulda said with a tense smile. "Let me show you to where you'll be sleeping."
He followed her up all the stairs to the top floor and down one of the corridors to a tight little room. It had a bed much too small for his frame, perhaps even his weight, and a bucket in the corner. The ceiling was high enough as was customary to how Nords love their roofs built tall and steep. The room was quite cool and damp, more so than most other inns he'd visited. The door shut behind him, signifying that Hulda had left him to his own devices. In all honesty, that suited him a lot more than having her and her attitude around.
With a sigh, he unclasped the belt around his chest that held his greatsword, unslung the shield from his back and placed his war axe on the bed table. Doffing his armour, all that remained were a simple, tight brown tunic and a pair of formerly blue cotton pants. Rummaging through his pack, the Orc pulled out a book titled Uncommon Tastes. Sat on his bed, he flicked through the pages until there was a knock at his door; when he opened it, he found a Redguard woman holding two platters of food. Thanking the serving girl for his supper, he scarfed down the food in the privacy of his room and snuffed out the candles for the night after reading for about another hour. Had fatigue not taken him first, the Gourmet's recipies would have made him hungry again.
The walls and wooden beams groaned under the onslaught of the autumn storm, but more frustratingly, a cool breeze blew from the corner of the room, the same corner in which the bucket stood. With water droplets dripping in from the ceiling.
'Of course they got me the leaking room...' the Orc though before slumber began to take him.
~~~~~~~~~~Kjorik~~~~~~~~~~
'Right at the top of the stairs...' Kjorik repeated to himself in his head, '"at the end of the corridor is where the greenskin is."' Hulda's voice echoed in his mind. He hurried past the other dorms towards his destination. The stranger could be the company he was looking for if their goals really were aligned. Knocking enthusiastically, Kjorik waited and heard the begrudging footsteps of someone who had only just woken up, thanks to him. He was about to perk up and speak when the door swung open but found himself lost for words. His face was met with a wall of solid green muscle both wider and taller than the door frame. The Orc's chest and arms looked thick enough to wrestle a frost troll without breaking a sweat. Without the shirt on, his body was on show, and even the bloated gut showed definition lines demonstrating that he was broad due to immense core musculature rather than soft padding and far from Kjorik's chagrin the Orc bore a thick pelt of black hair from his arms up to even his cannonball shoulders and down his torso.
Composing himself as quickly as he could, and hopefully quickly enough to not have looked suspicious, he craned his neck to look up at the behemoth before him. The Orc was likewise staring down at Kjorik and taking him in. Kjorik, despite being of Nord ancestry stood at a paltry 5'9"; average for other races of men but on the short side for the children of Kyne. Similarly, his rather lean frame and long mop of auburn hair with just the merest of hints of facial hair had him stand out amongst his kin. He was dressed in a thin fur vest and cloak, with long emerald robes draped over his body. Most would find this too loose for Skyrim's chilly air but Kjorik was still a Nord. A handful of tribal paraphernalia dangled from his neck be it little carved bones or talismans engraved with ancestral runes and the embroidery on the cloth, whilst unrefined, was similarly culturaly rich.
"What?" the beast growled out.
"Well, erm... good morning I suppose. So I hate to intrude or interrupt but from I have just heard from the innkeeper you are headed to Bleak Falls Barrow and it just so happens I am travelling in that direction too." Kjorik babbled out.
The Orc closed his eyes and sighed audibly, knowing where this was going. "And you figured that it would be safer for you to travel with me?"
"Heh, truth be told I was thinking more of company for company's sake. What's more I had and still have no idea whether you're a capable fighter-" the Orc glared at him, "-THOUGH looking at you I presume you can handle yourself in a scrap."
The Orc stared daggers at him for a while.
"You do look tough of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise." Kjorik quickly added.
"What is it that you want with Bleak Falls?" the Orc demanded.
"Oh, there are records that speak of great power that the anciants have burried there. Now of course, my ancestors had a knack for poetic record-keeping, so I doubt that 'force to move mountains'" Kjoric air quoted, "is literal, but I long to transcribe what I can only presume to be some mystical knowledge from before my bretheren became so suspicious of magic."
"Ah, you're a mage of some sort. Right, so long as you either don't get in my way or can protect yourself, I guess you can follow me." the Orc decided.
"Oh that's... good to hear. Splendid. I'll wait downstairs ready to head out. Oh! What am I saying, I just woke you up-"
"That you did."
"-you probably haven't had any breakfast yet. Well I'll go order you something, my treat, any preference food-wise?"
"Lots of it."
.
.
.
"Right, of course. I should have known really. So I will be in the dining hall then." Kjorik mumbled out as he started shuffling away from the Orc.
But just behind him, as he was about to reach the stairs, the Orc called out to him. "I'm Garzash by the way."
Dumbfounded for a second that he didn;t even know the name of his new travel buddy, realisation caught up to Kjorik, as did his embarrassment, "Shor forgive me, where are my manners! My name is Kjorik Baftorson."
Garzash only nodded before turning away and shutting the door behind him
~~~~~~~~~~Garzash~~~~~~~~~~
"Mighty Malacath I know patience is not a virtue you espouse but grant me this strength." Garzash muttered under his breath. He picked up his tunic and donned his iron suit and armament and trudged down to the dinner hall. The inn felt a lot more atmospheric at this time. Without all the fanfare of a drunken stupor and rowdy crowds the clientele was merry in a subdued way. Murmurs of chatter filled the air without any need for anyone to shout over another to be heard. Kjorik sat at a tiny table with what looked like uncomfortably tiny chairs but to his credit the young lad had procured what the Orc asked for. The table contained five plates of food ranging from staples such as bread to warm aromatic stew and even a dessert of some sort.
"You got all that? Paid for it?" Garzash asked pensively as he sat down. The chair protested audibly but held.
"Well, I mean, its just some food." Kjorik replied humbly. "I may have been presumptuous earlier and wanted to make up for it."
"You have no need to apologise, if that's how you're feeling. If anything I was the brusque one." Garzash said.
"Who isn't groggy when woken up?" Kjorik mused. With that he reached into his satchel at his side and to Garzash's suprise, his entire arm disappeared into the little bag before the Nord had found what he was looking for and pulled out a map. Holding it for Garzash to see, he started pointing to the road to the south of Whiterun as tracing it south-east as it curved around the mountain range before turning towards it and breaking off. "This is the path we will have to take. We can take a couple hour detour to stroll into Riverwood if we need anything or if the weather turns bad."
"Or," the Orc began, "we travel westward. We can approach the mountain range from the north and scale the slopes. Im sure there were alternative paths to former Nordic settlements, they wouldn't only rely on one road."
Kjorik looked at the map thoughtfully, before his quizzical eyes landed on Garzash. "And this alternative path would be there? Presuming it exists, which may not be the case, it facing specifically northward is a big maybe..."
"Good enough for me. It might save us over two days of travel." Garzash stated as he stuffed his face with food, only half of which remained.
"Or if there's nothing there, it will delay us by over two days." countered Kjorik.
"We will climb."
He hear an quiet exasperated sigh from his new companion. Few ever really wanted to argue with Garzash once he made up his mind. And a scrawny little bookworm wasn't about to be an exception. 'Not even in a hundred years.' he mused to himself as he finished his food. All of it, to Kjorik's amazement.
~~~~~Hours Later~~~~~
Though not quite evening yet, the low sun was painting the sky in warmer colours. After a steady and uneventful ride out of and away from Whiterun, Garzash and Kjorik found themselves hugged by two arms of the mountain range, in a little sunken basin with a large pond and trees around them. Though they searched valiantly, no path up the hills revealed itself to them. They had ridden into a dead end.
Snowflakes had started falling and clouds were gathering in the distance and the very air was still and a icy fog hovered a couple feet above ground. The chill may have been pleasant to a well dressed Nord, but to Garzash it was beginning to bite, further fuelling his ire.
"Garzash, we should settle here for the night. There's going to be a snow storm and we shouldn't get caught in the middle of it without fire and shelter." Kjorik warned.
Not too stubborn to listen to reason, even as displeased as he was, he relented and they began setting up tents. Just as Garzash thought their camp was ready, Kjorik called him over to where the Orc thought the young Nord was setting up a campfire. Instead, what he found was a strange sigil drawn in the snow. At the edges of the circular rune, Kjorik drew two parallel diamonds and placed his hand on one of them before looking up at his companion.
"Place your hand here." he nodded to the other diamond.
Though reluctant at first, he saw no harm in such and kneeled down and placed his hand on the snow where indicated. His huge mitt didn't fit inside the outline Kjorik had made with normal sized hands in mind. But the Nord simply whispered a few words before the rune lit up in pale blue light. A translucent bubble formed around the rune and expanded outwards, phasing through the two -Garzash had almost let go of the rune in panic- and growing larger until it covered the camp and more. After a minute or so, the bubble was barely visible for it was at least 75 feet in radius. The rune shimmered down and Kjorik got up effectively notifying Garzash he could do the same. "Want to enlighten me as to what you just did there?" he inquired.
"Zone of Alertness. A usefull little Mysticism spell for giving us a heads up if something with ill intent towards us enters the bubble." he turned smiling at the Orc, "We can sleep more soundly knowing it will be difficult for anyone to get a jump on us. No need for a nightwatch."
"No nightwatch, eh? Can't say I oppose a good night rest but I've never seen anyone use this spell before." he said.
"Back at the College I loved to delve into the the more esoteric arts of Mysticism or Alteration, you would not believe how far those disciplines can be pushed but most people are only interested in casting fireballs and summoning atronachs." the yound Nord bemoaned.
'The College? He studied at Winterhold?' Garzash now looked at Kjorik with more appraisal in his eyes, 'Maybe if he's not as inept as he looks I suppose I can keep him around.'
AN: And that is that for the first chapter. Not much happened,just wanted to set up the fact that they would be travelling together. Hope you enjoy. PLEASE REVIEW IT HELPS MORE THAN ANYTHING!