15th of Sun's Dawn
Eric and the girls were glad to see us return home. I've stocked the larder with Jenassa's help. Lydia's staying at the house with the girls. She's agreed to send the any of the couriers on to Bruma if I get any replies about Saadia. Saadia seems to dislike the Thalmor as much as the rest of us, but I haven't exactly been quiet about my feelings so it's possible that this is a ruse. One of Balgruuf's men mentioned that all Whiterun guards knew about taking down the entire fort full them to get Eorlund's son back from the Thalmor and that they all knew about Thalmor embassy. He told me that I at least have good taste in picking my enemies. Fortunately, I also seem to have equally good taste in picking my friends.
When we get back to Bruma, I want to go have a chat with this Count and see if I can take his measure. Then I can give Ulfric a considered opinion on keeping him on as Jarl or putting his own man in Bruma. I don't think most of these people care who's in charge as long as things are getting taken care of. Right now, what I see is a lot of Imperial troops lounging around their keeps and not patrolling. I've seen no signs of trade or industry. The businesses are dying so I've dumped a bit of gold into a few of them to try to get things moving again. I've also made it a point to sell off what we've been hauling in from the bandits to the businesses that I've invested in. They all seem to be turning a tidy profit on it, but there's no real industry here that I can see. There's just the one blacksmith for the entire county. That'd be like having one blacksmith for all of Whiterun hold. The mind boggles. These people seem to have all given up. Apparently no one needs to have a plow mended or an axe sharpened. These folks are so ground down under all the taxes, its no wonder that many of them have resorted to banditry to try to make ends meet.
17th of Sun's Dawn
Now that my little war band is complete again, we're headed back to Bruma to see what sort of trouble we can stir up there for the Empire. We got into town this time and there were a bunch of Thalmor harassing a congregation who reveres are different Septim as a saint from the Oblivion Crisis. We wandered over and arranged ourselves around the priest, which wasn't entirely lost on the Thalmor. They suddenly remembered that they needed to be somewhere else urgently. After they left, I told the priest not to worry about it too much and let us handle the Thalmor. I told him if they show up again to ring the church bell and we'll come straight away. If we're not here, send a courier. I promised that we'd stop in and let him know if we're headed back to Skyrim. I also told him that he can send one of the magic couriers, if we're not in Bruma, and I'd cover the expense.
If the Thalmor know what's good for them, they'll clear out of Bruma like they did Skyrim. I've been hunting them all across Skyrim and Solstheim. Unless they've managed to sneak in, there aren't more than five them outside their embassy. I've told Ulfric when the time comes, we're be putting an end of Elenwen and her personal torture dungeon. There for a while, I was paying Balgruuf's guards with the gold I was stripping off their sets of gilded armor. Now that food prices are coming down in Whiteurn, I've diverted that to the school. It's a good thing since those gilded sets are getting harder and harder to come by now. A good bit of what was driving the food prices was panic buying. People were afraid that that there would be shortages so they were snapping up everything they could afford, even if they didn't need it. With the new farms operating, the panic has stopped and prices are dropping. If the food prices reach a point that the farms aren't profitable, we'll start switching fields over to alchemical ingredients. That will keep the farms profitable and we'll be needing those potions for the war. The school I've set up is another thing that will likely end up helping us win this war. It will only be a few years before those kids are either ready to join us or take up a trade. They'll be about the same age I was when I joined up with the Jomsbrodiers. I've done my best to make them strong, resilient, and self-reliant. Every child in that school is taught Alchemy, Magic, Weapons, and host of other skills. They'll be able to forge whatever path they choose.
I've had the fisher folk, the Argonian dock workers, the hunters, and anyone else who roams widely watching. The only Altmer left in Skyrim or Sosltheim now are the ones who just seem to be going about their business like ordinary people. If I even get a whiff that they're spies, I'll deal with it. Ulfric's glad enough to have them off his back. I'm glad enough to see that it stays that way. If they're not here, then it makes it a lot harder for them to meddle.
Ulfric wants to build Skyrim into an economic powerhouse and get the war machine cranking so that we can take on the Thalmor. We talked about that and our best bets are establishing trading partnerships with everyone that hates the Thalmor - namely the Red Guards, the Bosmer, the Argonians, and the Khajiit. When we're done with this assessment of Bruma, I think Eric's going to get his wish. Our next stop will be Hammerfell and see how the resistance is going. Maybe lend them a hand in kicking the Thalmor out of Hammerfell too. If I can help them end their civil war like I did here, we'll have some staunch allies there. The rest will be a bit trickier. Who knows what the Hist thinks or even it does think, as we humans know such things? The Mane will be a tougher sell but I wouldn't mind having some Alfiq or Senche-rhat with us when step into Summerset. As fond as the Thalmor are of their house cats, the Alfiq would make excellent spies.
I've talked to Ulfic about offering Letters of Marque to the Maormer to hunt their ships when the time comes. I've suggested that we offer them one of the unpopulated little islands off the coast as a potential homeland. Ulfric is balking at that but we'll need both a navy and a trade fleet. The Maormer have both but they want a homeland. I'd like to see if we can't reach an agreement with them so that we can get started building ships. Nord ships are good but the Maormer ships carry more cargo and more troops. We have forests with plenty of good timber. The Maormer want a homeland and they're definitely on the list of groups that hate the Thalmor. I'd like to see them become traders to rival the East Empire company. That's another Imperial institution that will need to be replaced so that we can get the Thamlor's meddling fingers out of it. If we can forge a partnership with Maormer, it could be very beneficial to both of us.
18th of Sun's Dawn
Eric's head is absolutely on a swivel. My farm boy is now in Cyrodiil. We're off to the inn so that he can try all the local food and beverages. I hate to tell him this, but I think it's going to be disappointingly Nord-like here. This place is where Nords and Imperials overlap. Most of them have forgotten that they're largely Nord and have adopted Imperial names, Imperial dress, and Imperial speech but if you take a hard look at the people, they're Nords. They just need to be reminded of that. I'll have to think on that for a while. Maybe bring in some of the bards from college in Solitude to start reciting parts of the Edda. We can call it a cultural exchange.
Tomorrow I'm going to go announce myself to the local Count. Count seems to be the imperial equivalent of Jarl in some ways but even more beholden to the many layers of authority above him. I've been doing some reading and talking to the locals to try to understand the Imperial power structure. Most of it seems like a lot layers of leeches who do nothing and are only entitled to tribute from those below them by an accident of birth. That's all going to have to be dismantled and I'm not naive enough to think its going to go quietly. I don't understand why all these layers are necessary. It just seems to create a lot of wealthy people who have nothing useful to do so they fall into disreputable and dishonorable behavior.
Jarls have a lot of authority within their own holds, but they also have a lot of responsibility both to the High King and to their own people. Jarls also operate like the Circle does for me, providing advice and council in addition to providing financial and military backing. That's why I'd rather see Falk as the Solitude Jarl than Elisif. I've suggested that Ulfric try to forge some kind of a relationship with Falk because between Balgruuf, Falk, and Korir, Ulfric's got three sound advisors. I trust Maven about as far as I can fling her. Sorli is power-hungry and grasping. Skald is just a jackass. I'm not sure what I make of Thongvar but he has to be benefitting from that Forsworn mess somehow. That bears some looking into and we might just have to go poking around the Reach to see what we can find.
19th of Sun's Dawn
We went to see the local count and he's barely out of short pants and, on the whole, he's nice enough, but I have to say that I'm not impressed. He's surrounded with a bunch of nobles who don't seem to do much of anything when it comes to ruling but do seem to collect a lot of coin. His guard captain and I got on well though. Someone managed to sneak into the castle and steal a load of Akavari artifacts that the count and his family have collected over the years. No one seems overly concerned about this, aside from the guard captain. He's not sure how it happened since no one bothered to tell him anything had happened until the next day. He's stretched thin as it is and doesn't have the man power to spare for this. I've agreed to investigate and see what I can find out about this because I do tend to like making friends among the guards. For one thing, most of the nobles treat them like furniture so they see and hear everything. Should I end up in the lockup here, it never hurts to have some friends among the jailers in case the Merry Band decides its necessary to spring me the hard way because it's urgent, like before the Thalmor can come cart me off to some dungeon.
If a thief can get into your castle and steal your locked up trinkets, who's to say that the next unauthorized entry won't be someone with poisoned blade? None of the rest of them seem worried by this. The count and his bodyguards should be terrified. I'm concerned about him. An assassination attempt, even an unsuccessful one, would give the Justicars more reason to come nosing around. No one needs that. Speaking of Justicars, there are already two of them here nosing into everything. I keep waiting for them to get outside the city and away from the guards. They'll go missing and just to make sure no one's blamed, I'll drag them into a troll den somewhere.
20th of Sun's Dawn
We had to go spend some time in the local lowlife watering hole. It's the Bruma version of The Ragged Flagon except that it's even seedier, more disreputable and more likely to result in leaving with fleas or dysentery. The bar tender finally coughed up that he knew the bandits that were planning to buy the trinkets stolen from the count and then promptly became quite hostile. I had to remind him that I can punch him into next week without ever drawing a weapon before he simmered down and let us leave. If anyone is strong enough to swing Wuuthrad with enough control to fight with it, you don't want to be on the receiving end of one of those punches. We went off to find the cave and cleared it out. We managed to recover the trinkets but haven't turned them in yet. This cave system seems to run under the town of Bruma but so far, I haven't found where it comes out. Once I find it and we can seal it, I'll consider this closed but not until then.