Dear Diary,
I woke up from my camp outside Dawnstar, heading west toward Solitude. I wish I could say the short trip was peaceful and uneventful, but a mere dozen paces away from camp, cresting a large rock, I was set upon by a dragon! I drew out Aether and fired two quick arrows into it, drawing it's attention. It soared back around by Dawnstar then came to land by me. However it's attention was on something else! It landed a stones throw away below a drop off in the land, so I ran up quietly and had a look. It had skipped right on past me and was pestering a poor (in context) Troll! The Troll was trying it's hardest to put up a fight, but all it could do was swat at the dragons face, then run away a bit to seek cover. As their dance took them a bit further away I dropped down and checked out the Trolls nook in the rocks, and on a dead body found an interesting book I had not seen before. Score! Trolls can't read anyway, so he won't miss that. Returning my attention to the duel just in time to see the Troll get swallowed whole, I began peppering the dragon again. The frost enchantment was effective, which might explain the dragon being so irritated being in the frozen north and all. The dragon turned and looked at me, but I saw arrows coming from another direction and hitting it in the rear. It bucked, took to the sky and circled upon it's new second adversary. I again creeped forward to see who my rescuer might be. It was a ruffian who must have not seen me yet. Maybe he thought the Troll and the dragon were the only ones in the fight. Regardless, he did a decent job hitting his mark with his bow and pissing the dragon off. The beast flew in and breathed fire on the man, then flew off. With the dragon leaving, the man looked around and spotted me and drew his bow again, but I nonchalantly flung an arrow his way, dropped him and turned back to the dragon. I expected the dragon to be right behind me, but of course he had found something else more tasty to interest him (I can at least take it as a compliment on my figure!). I ran over to the edge of a small cliff to see, and it was a poor family of about a half dozen Horkers! The chubby critters were no match for the giant dragon, and it promptly began tossing them into the sea. This was right out, I wasn't about to let this grumpy monster destroy an innocent family like this, so I drew my mace and shield and charged in! With a few whacks I had distracted it's attention and it turned to me. Between some ice magic, my ice enchanted mace, and a handful of one ton Horkers flopping into it, we finally took the dragon down. The Horkers seemed grateful as they flopped back over to their island and looked at me, so I waved goodbye and moved on.
I made my way to Solitude, picking plenty of flowers for alchemy along the way, and spent a couple days there selling off a lot of spare gear and things I had found along the way. I am starting to gather up a good bit of gold. Maybe I will move out of Whiterun soon.
Leaving Solitude the morning of the second day, I headed off to a small pond where Urag thought another rare book might be. It was a short trip, and I found the book on the body of a made collecting ingredients, but I did not see who might have killed her. Maybe she tasted the wrong mushroom.
I continued straight through to the south, my next goal a couple spots on the Cyrodiil/Skyrim border. However I did not get far until I had another encounter. Climbing up the side of a large rocky hill off the side of the road gathering ingredients, I heard a roar and saw another dragon fly overhead and to the other side of the hill. I stepped back a bit and drew my bow. I knew we were fairly alone out here and I wouldn't be quite so lucky as before. He looped back around and as he crested the hill, I realized this was the biggest one I had seen yet! It was massive, and breathed some scorching hot fire. We traded blows for a bit, fighting both face to face and firing at each other. After a time I realized even with magic I was outmatched. As it began to look bad for me, the dragon whipped it's head around and spotted something to our left and down on the road beneath a rocky drop off. It took off after it and began to chase, breathing fire down on it. Curious what could wander by and be so fast, I slid down the hill as fast as I could, and dropped down onto the road, but they had rounded the hill and all I could see was the dragon above the crest of the rocks. It whipped around, so it's quarry must have as well, so I ran forward to meet it. It rounded the rocks and stopped, whinnying - a horse! It had come back for me, knowing we were both in hot water. I hopped on and we took off to the southwest as fast as he would carry me. I could see a wooden fort in the distance so I decided to head there. I had no idea who was in it, so we could be finding more trouble, but I figured at the very least the dragon could be distracted by whoever was in there.
We rode up at full speed to the front of the gates with the dragon literally hot on our heels. As we were about to smash into the doors, I motioned the horse to pull a sharp turn and we rode along the front of the fort. When we had cleared the other side and I noticed the dragon was no longer on our tails, I turned and sure enough the monster was hovering over the front of the fort and breathing fire upon the people inside, but there were massive volleys of arrows coming from the inside of the fort, which hurt it greatly and made it land injured in front of the walls. A massive Orc ran out of the gates and began wailing on the dragon, which at this point was merely trying to shield itself from his blows. I dismounted and ran back, assisting the man. I jumped upon the dragons head and landed the killing blow (in hindsight a bit of a glory hog considering my previous strategy). With the monster dead, a few more Orcs ran out of the gates to take a look. They weren't too keen on talking to me, wary of outsiders and mourning the loss of their chief. I hadn't noticed in the brawl that the hero who ran out of the fort had died! I decided it was a good time to leave, as that was my fault and considering the situation the Orcs were being pretty nice. I turned and walked away, looking for my new friend, but the horse was gone! It was a touching moment to think about what had happened to say the least, but after a moment I gathered my wits and headed south again.
Checking my map, I was about halfway to Markarth at dusk, so I stopped at an old camp and spent the night. The rest of the trip south took a full day. I took the long way around Markarth, not ready to go in there again, and reached the summit of the mountain south of Markarth early evening. The ruins at Hag Rock showed obvious signs of a Forsworn camp, so I figured I was in friendly territory. I wandered up the hill and into a camp of about half a dozen and yelled hello and waved. To my surprise they all jumped up and started running at me. I took cover from a volley of arrows and magic, drew out my bow and looked for an opportunity at the edge of my cover. I saw a younger archer to the side and lacking cover, so I knocked an arrow and when his had past turned and dropped him. As I went to pull another I was jumped by a crazy woman wielding magic. I bashed her in the face with my bow and kicked her into the ground. I swapped out the bow for Frosty and gave her a two handed bash to the face, knocking her out. I finished her with another swing and got back into cover, as we were fighting with arrows flying around us still. I looked again and saw two people in front of an alchemy lab in a large open tent, and shot some arrows their way while avoiding theirs. One hit home, knocking the woman up onto the table, and the other dropped her bow and drew a dagger and charged. It was a mistake as her lack of armor and small weapon versus an enchanted mace and armor was no match. After a short duel she lay dead on the ground. I sheathed my weapon and searched the camp, and then head into the ruins.
The inside of Hag Rock was an old fort, containing barracks and a small prison. There were a few Forsworn inside but I stealthily took them out one by one. I found a tower in the back that went up to some more stairs outside. Cresting those I saw the door to more ruins and a large tent. I didn't hear anything, so if there was anyone inside i thought they would be asleep, so I snuck past. As I reached the door I heard a roar and turned to see a Forsworn and his pet Troll! We traded a few blows and I was forced to back off down the stairs. I ran a ways trying to separate them, and it worked. The chief lunged at me well ahead of his pet, and I tripped him and pushed him off the wall. I wanted to watch but now I had a Troll on my hands. I turned and shouted at the beast, freezing it solid. I caught my breath for a moment then recalled some words of fire magic and roasted the Troll best I could. Slightly toasted, the Troll rose and angrily swatted at me. I danced around his attacks and each time he made a wild swing ran in and smacked it in the face. Dazed and angry, it made one final wild lunge and I turned to the side letting it pass, then cracked its back with a powerful blow with my mace. I thought I was done, but as the Troll fell I heard a scream behind me. The master was back and more pissed off than ever that I had killed his pet. His rage was hard to contain, his wild blow dropping my shield. He attacked so fast I couldn't do much more than try and block them all. At a lull in the fight, I decided I should apologize by raising the Troll back from the dead, and cast a spell upon it's corpse. Rising, it attacked it's master. The chief unsure what to do, faced with the creature it loved, it halfheartedly fought the beast and was quickly ripped apart. The spell soon worn off and it fell head over feet backwards down the stairs. I laughed, and turned and entered the next tower.
What I thought would be another ruin was actually another tower open to the sky. I climbed the wooden stairs and found myself a ways across from an altar and a Hagraven with lots of strange magical fetishes on poles and ropes all around. I snuck up to watch her doing something strange to a dead goat. It wasnt long before I didn't want to see anymore and shot an arrow into her shoulder. It was quite angry and began to hobble over with some sort of foul magic ready. She must have forgotten the double fire traps she had set up to keep out intruders - when she cackled and began to cast a nasty spell at me she was set ablaze, caught in her own crossfire. She screamed and caught on fire, and angrily began to move forward again, but I quickly knocked an arrow, shot her at point black and knocked her back into the fire. I happily continued to do this until she was a pile of charred feathers on the ground. I snuck around and plucked the soul gems from the traps, and safely took the part I needed for Silus off the altar.
Feeling particularly tired, it being late into the night, I slept in the tent of the Troll and master, but not before pulling out the body of some poor Wood Elf. Tomorrow I'll head west and finally reforge these Gaulder amulets.
Until net time.
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