Chapter 58: Madesi

[14th – 15th of Sun's Height 4E 202]

In Riften, I had been able to find Inigo in the jail, and I was very happy about that. As he had, according to his own claims, spent basically all of his time here imprisoned, he had not been able to see much of the city, and thus we spent some time looking around and do 'sightseeing'. This morning we had been outside and I had gone for a swim in the lake, not far from Merryfair Farm, and we had met Mjoll.

Now Inigo wanted to stroll through the city some more, and thus we walked back and entered through Riften's north gate. The guards looked like they wanted to say something, and one of them actually started like:

"Hello stranger, you know, visitors are obliged to…"

but my two saber cats started to growl, and he skipped whatever he had intended to state and opened the gate quite quickly instead. I made a point by appreciating the service:

"Thank you very much; my companions and I appreciate it!"

In my opinion, the guards' behavior was somewhat odd. While I knew that my body could easily intimidate people, specifically when I had Hanni and Nanni at my side, shouldn't those who were posted at city gates be more resilient to intimidation attempts, so that they could actually refuse entrance to those who were not desired inside? Well, maybe they had heard that I had arrived together with the Dragonborn and had thus only tried to make a feeble attempt to extort some money from me.

Inside, there was a big Nord leaning against a house wall, looking at us. He also looked like he wanted to mention something, but skipped it when Hanni and Nanni passed him. I smiled and walked on, and for now, we found the stairs down to the walkway next to the city canal or whatever they called it. On the northern side, there was a wooden door to a shop, and a sign outside designated it as 'Elgrim's Elixirs'. Oh, yes, that had been the place Ingun had claimed she needed to go to, to help with something. Elgrim was an elderly alchemist, and the young Black-Briar lady either wanted to learn the trade or had other reasons to help him. Maybe learning more about alchemy helped to refine operating meaderies or so? Or maybe Ingun was not really interested in her mother's businesses and wanted to find her own path for life? I did not know. Anyway, I did not feel like entering the apothecary, and we walked on. There were a number of doors on both sides, likely a few more than the game had, and there were also a couple of more shop signs, one of them indicating at some kind of general store and the other promising food, although the smell coming out did not appeal to me at all. Eventually, we reached the southern end. A male Dunmer with red eyes and bright, almost white hair, stepped out of the last door on the outer side, and when he saw use, he asked right away:

"You look like you could use a drink. What do you say to some cheap mead?"

"What? No, we are not looking for mead."

"You sure? I'm selling the best mead in town for cheap."

"Yes, we are sure."

"Ah, what a pity. I am Romlyn Dreth, by the way."

We also introduced ourselves, and now Hanni and Nanni, who had lagged behind, approached. The Dunmer reacted with concern:

"Why are two saber cats down here? Do you have them under control?"

"Yes, of course I do, and they are my friends."

"I'll just let you know that I'm not afraid" Romlyn stated, while with facial expression told a different story; he kept glancing at my girls repeatedly while he boasted:

"One of my ancestors is Valen Dreth, and he killed six Imperial Guards before they dragged him into the prisons! He fought off the Mythic Dawn when they attacked the Emperor!"

That did not ring a bell, and the Dunmer continued:

"You haven't heard of him? The famous hero in the prison area when Emperor Uriel Septim VII was assassinated? Really?"

What? Had that been the dark elf in the cell across from the player at the start of the 'Oblivion' game? The one taunting the soon to be 'Hero of Kvatch'? Romlyn added:

"The Dreth family is well known for their heroes. Madsu Dreth in Morrowind was well known at his time, and my cousin Taron Dreth will be very famous once his research into the Aetherium Forge finally delivers the results he deserves."

"Should we know him?"

"He wrote the book 'The Aetherium Wars', after all, the one and only reference on the current research into the Aetherium Forge and related Dwemer secrets!"

Wait – we had looked into the book down under Hamvir's Rest, but I had not paid attention to the author. But, famous researcher in the family or not, I wanted to get rid of the annoying Dunmer; however, he wasn't done yet:

"You know, I need someone to take a small keg of Black-Briar Mead to Wilhelm at the Vilemyr Inn in Ivarstead. Could you do this for me?"

"Unfortunately, we are going to head into a different direction; sorry."

"What a pity; now, you better get going."

I shook my head, but I was happy to leave him and his annoying and arrogant talking behind; we used the next stairs to get up to the city's main level again. Being glad to have the smell from the unclean water and the environment down there alleviated now, I told Inigo so:

"Phew, that smell down there is not to my liking; Riften really is dank and smelly."

"Yes, but in a good way. It grows on you. Give it time."

"I don't think so, my friend, but I appreciate the advice nonetheless."

The conversation with the Dunmer had been interesting. Another reference to the Aetherium Forge, and the name of a person – Taron Dreth – who was looking into that. I had sure done this quest, the one related to finding hints and items eventually leading to the location of the Aetherium Forge, two or three times in the game, but, as usual, I did not recall many details. There had been a large underground area with rocks falling down from the ceiling at occasion, and the ghost of a female person had helped to get through and find important hints. But how had that Dunmer, the cousin of the local resident, been involved?

For now, we entered the central market area, browsed the wares and talked to the various vendors; the sun shone brightly now, most of the clouds were gone, and the temperature was very pleasant. As I had seen earlier, the marketplace was larger than its counterpart in the game, but some of the vendors were familiar. Specifically, there was Madesi, the Argonian; Fiona had already mentioned him when she had told me about her earlier time in Riften. In my previous life, I had joined some kind of Elder Scrolls fanclub in an online forum, and one of the female people who frequently posted comments had claimed that she loved Madesi and was so annoyed that he was not eligible for marriage in the vanilla game; naturally, she had found console commands and such to change that.

Here, in the real Skyrim, I could hear Madesi's calls already from a distance:

"Beautiful baubles and gleaming gemstones over here!"

and

"Jewelry with legendary Argonian craftsmanship!"

When Inigo, Jordis, my saber cats and I approached, he greeted us:

"If you have any jewelry to sell, I'd be glad to pay you a fair sum in gold for it."

As a matter of fact, I did have some; when I had traded in some surplus armor and weapons the other day, Asbjorn had not bought gems and such, and I now offered those to Madesi:

"Indeed, I do have some gems left; would you care making me an offer for them?"

He looked at the wares I presented for him, and he exclaimed:

"Marvelous! I had been looking for flawless sapphires for quite some time, but have not been able to come upon any; these will make wonderful settings for my rings."

He bought almost all of the gems and jewelry I had left, and I got a nice amount of septims for that. I also asked him:

"Madesi, do you make your own jewelry or do you get it from somewhere?"

He did not ask why I already knew his name; maybe he assumed that the names of some of the vendors here were public knowledge, which was reasonable. He proudly replied:

"I'm one of the few traditional Saxhleel Jewelers that remains in Tamriel; it's becoming a lost art."

"Saxhleel?"

"Forgive me. It's a term I haven't used in some time. While most in Tamriel call my kind Argonian, we prefer the term Saxhleel."

I was about to continue the conversation with the polite Argonian merchant, but other customers were approaching, and I stepped aside. With a side look at my saber cats, a male Nord confronted the vendor:

"Madesi, what's this bill for 300 septims?"

"Begging your pardon, milord. Your wife has run up quite an account in the last few months."

"Outrageous! Who does she think she is?"

"I believe she's trying to look as ravishing as possible for you, milord."

"Oh, well... I suppose that's a noble cause. I'll settle this bill at the end of the day. Thank you."

When the Nord was gone, Madesi explained:

"That was Bolli; he owns the fishery. His wife does have a tendency to buy a lot of jewelry, and she's one of my best customers. She always has her husband pay the bills, though. If she continues buying like this, I may soon be able to afford a house of my own."

I was about to ask more about that, but now a loud voice from the background was trying to gain attention:

"Everyone! Everyone! Gather 'round! I have something amazing to show you that demands your attention!"

Madesi sighed:

"Brynjolf again, of course. He's always having something special and amazing, but I'm convinced that this is all lying; he's probably going to sell sewage water and calls it miracle potion or something."

Some of the other vendors stepped closer to the red-haired man, and one of them asked:

"Come on, Brynjolf... what is it this time?"

"Patience, Brand-Shei. This is a rare opportunity, and I wouldn't want you to get left out."

"Yes, Brand-Shei." Madesi commented. "He also does not really believe what Brynjolf claims, and for some reason they don't like each other. I feel sympathy for the Dunmer, though; after all, he was orphaned at a young age and was raised by Argonians in Black Marsh."

Meanwhile, Brynjolf continued his advertisement speech, and Madesi told me:

"A few weeks ago he presented 'Wisp Essence', and it turned out to be crushed nirnroot mixed with water. I wonder what it's going to be today."

Today turned out to be something the Nord called 'Troll Elixir', freshly extracted from trolls which had just been killed. He was a little bit vague on what it was good for, but nevertheless he found a few people who paid good money for it. Specifically, Brand-Shei stated:

"That Wisp Essence didn't help, but maybe this will. How much does it cost, Brynjolf?"

"Only twenty gold septims! Hurry before my supply is gone."

Madesi sighed again:

"This is ridiculous. Don't listen to him, he's making this up. He gives other merchants a bad name."

Brynjolf continued ranting in the background:

"Who knows what powers the elixir will unlock! Only twenty septims a bottle! Please hurry, I have only a few bottles left!"

Eventually, after what what appeared to be some lucrative deals for the man, he shouted:

"Well, I see that my time is up. Come back tomorrow if you wish to buy."

Madesi sighed once more:

"What a waste of time."

A female wood elf now approached the Argonians's stand, and he was quick to ask her:

"Ah, Nivenor. What can I sell you on this fine day?"

"I'm looking for a necklace. Do you have anything with garnets?"

"I have a single one left, quite expensive, but also very elegant."

"Posh. I'm not paying for it. Put it on Bolli's account if you please."

The desired item was handed over, and when she had left, I asked Madesi:

"Bolli's account? Is she the wife who likes jewelry so much and has him pay for all of it?"

"Indeed. Once again the amount on that account has gone up by a considerable margin."

Another group of customers was approaching, and I took my leave to not distract the polite Argonian any longer. Now, as I had talked to him, I could understand that Fiona liked him. On the other side, maybe his behavior here was just for show, to attract customers.

For the rest of the day, we strolled around, and Inigo visibly enjoyed being able to see the city. While he had been around for quite a few months, he had not really seen the city, as he had delivered himself to the jail. The blueish Khajiit was a good companion, and his comments were frequently full of fun and humor; I liked having him around a lot. At the end of the day we got back to Honeyside, where we met Fiona; She did not tell anything about her meeting with the Jarl, but that was her choice entirely. I only asked if our plan to find Fort Dawnguard on the next day was still on, and she nodded.

On the next day, we assembled early for breakfast and soon left the city through the southeastern gate. For the first hour, nothing happened, and we walked briskly on the road in the direction to Morrowind. Fiona yawned a few times, claiming that she did not like getting up that early; the fresh morning air, though, seemed to be good for her, and soon she looked more happy. Both she and I continued our effort to improve our spell casting, and we likely confused our companions again by saying 'Eiche', the German word for 'oak', to correlate it to the 'Oakskin' spell. I could not feel a difference yet, but as Irene had pointed out, this was likely going to take a lot of time to help, and we were both determined to make the attempt at least.

The road we were on was not a busy one in the game, as it ended at a border gate and one could not proceed further; accordingly, there weren't many people around, maybe except those traveling to and from Stendarr's Beacon. Here we actually encountered the occasional merchant and traveler, coming from the other province. Apparently, the border between Skyrim and Morrowind was not closed, as opposed to the border between Cyrodiil and Skyrim. We passed a circular small ruin to our left, which I recalled was a bandit lair sometimes in the game, but we could not see anybody, and we did not want to spend the time to investigate. Once we had walked past the side road to the Black-Briar Lodge, which Iona pointed out, a larger number of people came running from the east, including some who looked like bandits; they all looked scared and in a hurry. I managed to stop one of the running folks, and he shouted:

"Dragon! There's a dragon there, and we sure won't wait until it comes out!"

The man struggled and clearly wanted to continue fleeing, so that I released him. A dragon? Maybe it was time for such an encounter again, but so far no flying creature was visible. Further ahead the rock walls got closer to the road from both sides, and in the game, the entrance to the canyon leading to Fort Dawnguard would be coming up soon. Before I could start to look for the entrance, though, a dragon's characteristic flying noise could be heard in the distance, a low frequency noise created by the huge dragon wings beating the air, and I thought that I also heard distant fighting noises from men or mer. However, while the noise seemed to originate somewhere further northeast, the canyon walls prevented us from seeing in that direction. Was it possible that the dragon attacked people in the area around Fort Dawnguard? If so, the humans around there should at least have decent cover.

Fiona was, likely driven by the need to collect dragon souls for unlocking more shouts when she learned them, eager to locate the dragon, and we all looked for any opening in the rocks left of the road. Contrary to the game, the entrance was not quite as obvious, like with braziers on both sides. However, a few minutes later Jordis called out:

"Look, there's an opening!"

"Maybe a cave entrance?"

Indeed, the opening looked not really like a passage to the Fort Dawnguard area, but more like a cave. However, as we could not see any other option, we decided to have a look, prepared ourselves and entered. Inside the daylight from outside soon changed to almost full darkness, but thankfully there were a couple of large braziers located further away. We proceeded slowly and cautiously, but our progress was interrupted by a somewhat familiar male Orc voice:

"You there! Glad you managed to come here!"

In the dim light I recognized Durak, the Orc who had some time ago told Fiona and me about the Dawnguard and the rising vampire menace. He seemed to be alone, and he looked at us before he continued:

"You brave enough to fight a dragon?"

"We have fought some before, so yes, I guess" I replied.

"Come, this way!"

Not waiting for us to make up our mind he turned towards a narrow side passage we had not seen before, partially because it was not easy to notice when looking in the direction of the braziers. He stepped into it and went ahead, and we followed, one after another. After a couple of turns he called out:

"Stay close to the left wall!"

We did as he suggested, and when we passed that section, I more sensed than actually saw a couple of pressure plates on the ground, likely triggering traps when one stepped onto them. A few turns later the passage opened up and we were out in the open again; we had apparently found the entrance to Dayspring Canyon, or rather we had been shown how to get there. The fighting noises were much closer now; the dragon seemed to be not far away, and Durak rushed ahead. I already had my crossbow out, but our progress was halted soon again, as a few large rocks blocked the path ahead.

"Try if you can hit the dragon from here!" Durak requested. "I know that it's a difficult shot, but the rocks block the entrance, and it will take some time to clear the obstacle."

I was not sure if an earthquake or the dragon's efforts had managed to block the trail, and it likely did not matter at this time; as a result, the Dawnguard warriors, probably just a few of them at this early stage as I assumed, had to fight the dragon on their own, whereas others could not help them much. Durak's face, although I could not be sure if I read the Orc's face properly, seemed to show some frustration about the situation.

Fiona looked at the situation briefly, and instead of grabbing her bow, she approached the fallen rocks, opened her mouth, and shouted 'FUS RO DAH' at them. The result was, literally, devastating. Most of the smaller to medium sized rocks in the barricade were simply pulverized, and the larger ones were at least fractured. The barricade was still there, but while we took our shots at the dragon when we got a chance, Fiona shouted again as soon as she could, and this was good enough to allow a person to get through, which Durak did right away, with us following. The Orc seemed to have good self control, as he had not uttered a word when Fiona had shouted. On the other hand, the dragon was still here, and while we did and could not know to what extent the blockage had been the creature's doing, it now turned towards us, before we could proceed and join the people further ahead. Most of us had our weapons already out, though, as we had tried to attack the beast earlier, but we had to try to find cover when a 'YOL TOOR SHUL' from the dragon produced a big flame ball heading towards us. Durak managed to rush ahead to avoid it, and Lydia was right on his heels. Iona, Jordis and Fiona were able to find at least partial cover behind some of the larger remaining rocks, but I was right in the middle of the cleared area and unable to find proper cover on short notice. Lacking better ideas, I cast Oakflesh on myself and started to cast Ice Spikes right towards the flameball which approached, almost centered on me. If the dragon had been closer, this would have been a desperate attempt doomed to fail, but due to the beast's distance, the flame ball had already cooled off somewhat, and the three ice spikes I managed to send off helped to further cool down the part of the flame ball about to hit me. At the last moment I wrapped the cloak I wore tightly around me and my two saber cats and crouched down, making sure that my head was covered, and the pain of the flame started to hit. This was not totally unbearable, and the cloak probably helped a lot.

As soon as the heat effect diminished, after what felt like a long time but was probably only a few seconds, I quickly dropped the smoldering cloak to the ground; this part of clothing was beyond repair now, but it had sure saved me and my pets. A quick look at the sky confirmed that the dragon had turned around, and I saw a significant amount of arrows and bolts sticking out from joints and wings right when it turned. More bolts hit from further ahead, and a few seconds later I saw the dragon falling, and there was a big splash noise; likely the creature had dropped right into the small lake which should be on the right side further ahead. That reminded me that I had probably, despite the partial protection from the cloak, got a number of burns, and cooling them might be a good idea. Before the pain got a chance to really start, I rushed ahead, and indeed I could soon see the lake. At the far end, the dragon plunged around, and three heavily armored warriors worked their crossbows to further attack and hurt the beast. Lydia was close and helped with her bow, but the lake's near end was free and I quickly dove into the cold water. Naturally, the cold hit like a shock, but I tried to endure for a few minutes, before Jordis approached with a potion bottle in her hand. I crawled out of the water, as my energy was mostly spent and I started to feel dizzy, and my housecarl helped me to drink the foul smelling potion. Somehow alchemists had not yet really managed to brew healing potions with a nice smell and taste, I thought, before I passed out.

[Author's Notes: Once again Balu manages to miss something; let's hope that the others are doing better. Also, for now, I will go frome one new chapter per week to one new chapter every other week; writing progress is slower due to real life challenges those days.]