I couldn’t make any sense of it, until the wall pounded the meaning of one of the words into my head. Right. So, ‘fus’ means ‘force’. Not that I’m going to forget that, the memory itches in my brain, which is either a symptom of head trauma, insomnia or strange wall magic. Also, the coffin did burst open. The zombie inside was more well-preserved than the others, and didn’t care so much about losing chunks of flesh. Perhaps the enchantments over the others were just weaker, and their leader was given the honor of being a particularly unpleasant and angry bit of jerky. Flames still worked eventually, though. The zombie was carrying a heavy but obviously enchanted sword (time to deploy another loot balloon), and a stone map. Why stone? Who thought this was practical? These and many questions are likely answered with “because Nords”. In any event, I managed to find a back exit to the crypt, just as the sun was going down. It was quite pretty, but I had no buggering clue where I was.
Opening this back up to the audience! We're actually quite close to Riverwood, but it's not apparent when you leave Bleak Falls Barrow. Anyone who's not familiar with the game or needs a brush-up can see where we are on this map here. Where shall we wander? How much destruction will we leave in our wake? You decide!
Vampires I'm not seeing, but there's a couple of places with other undead or necromancers just upriver. High-quality Fun could potentially be had there. (After I make an off-camera run back to Alvor the blacksmith to sell all the crap that's weighing me down by now. The angry, concussed little nerd only has so many pockets.)
And of course anywhere there's bandits, the mods I've got running have the potential to make it into an amazing heckstorm far beyond the Generic Angrypeople of the vanilla game. I do particularly remember the necromancers in the sunken ruin nearby kicking the ass of some other low-level characters I've run into there, though. Being damp makes them mean, apparently.
[General update: I was delayed by general IRL goings-on, and the fact that I had to replay a chunk to get me back to where I was. I installed a mod to decouple equipment style from crafting material, so you can make things like ebony dwemer armor or the like if you’ve got the perks to smith with it. I also have my eyes set on a functional boat mod, but I don’t have it yet. Pretend I do for this one. Offscreen boating happens, honest.] [To smooth over that suspension of disbelief: Have a high-fiving rabbit!] [That or it's flipping me off. Can't tell.]
With an hour or so before sundown, I’ve decided to make my way down out of the foothills and try to find better shelter than a damp, awful cave. I could see another one of those standing stones in the distance as well. I don’t know for certain whether the Thief one has done me any good, but the fact that I stole an entire town’s dishes might be a point in its favor. There wasn’t a single damned way I can be convinced to swim out to it, though. Fortunately, someone had abandoned a boat nearby at the ruined little jetty (Warf? Dock? I’m not the land’s most nautical alchemist and inventor on the run from the law). In any event, it gave me access to a nirnroot, and all the dragonflies you could zap with a spell. After watching a few of those disappear into a smug-looking slaughterfish, frying proved to be very effective on them as well. I also made it out to the standing stone, and accidentally touched it while trying to catch butterflies. [This is absolutely true. I did this by mistake.] It was about then when I noticed something red-tipped and sharp out on another island, next to a small camp. An Oblivion gate. Why? Why would you ever decide to make a fishing camp next to a daedric ruin? Maybe the fish were just easier to catch when they bellied-up from the effects of unearthly poisons. These things could still be dangerous, even in their destroyed and long-dormant state. Also, if I was right, this was the reservoir that Riverwood took its water from. Note to self: only use fish bits for potions intended for sale. Same with the dragonflies, just to be safe. Also, consider the fisherman out on the lake to be a possible daedra in disguise. Because damn it, this lake was not normal. Looking down through the water as I paddled slowly and clumsily away, I could see something. It’s been almost two days since I last slept, I now realize. But I did kill the aquarabbit, proving that it did exist. And I killed the wolf that tried to steal it. And an elk that was also swimming across the lake. Apparently those antlers are very heavy. I need a place to sleep, but the only place that was presenting itself was a mostly sunken fort. And the cave was too far away to care about it anymore, and the only other bedroll nearby belonged to the extremely ill-advised and/or daedric fisherman. In further unfortunate news, a cache in the shallows nearby included a soggy set of basic necromancy equipment. No sleep until everything in here is dead. Again. I’m having unpleasant flashbacks to Uncle Renel’s home decorating. Hopefully that’s just coincidence.
I've returned from my PhD interviews and I'll potentially have a post up tonight. Two things that came up in this previous post, though; Bug #9: The aqua bunny. I know this happens occasionally in vanilla Skyrim, but it still counts. That little bugger was running at full speed twenty feet down and five feet above the bottom, which is something rabbits are not known for doing. Bug #10: That last screenshot. See that darkness in the center there? I thought it was just a lighting effect, but no. As soon as I started moving again, I found out it wasn't. You'll see what I mean in the next post. Edit: Also going back through the thread, I'm unsure whether to tally "I killed the world by creating a geometrically impossible pile of eighty intersecting wicker baskets" as a bug. No, now that I write it down, I'm pretty sure that counts. Retroactive Bug #11.
Definitely hallucinating. That, or more necromantic unpleasantness was going on in that fort than first suspected. Climbing down into a pillar of darkness was not how I envisioned this starting. The skeleton at the door had a journal that talked about ghost stories, foul curses and the like. I would be more inclined to believe it if the skeleton didn’t have two left feet. That made it significantly less convincing. The whole place was flooded and appeared deserted. Except for the mountain of candles someone had lit in the entrance hall, and the fresh blood on the cairns. Those broke with what I believe was the intended effect. I proceeded as quietly as I could, up to and including the moment I viciously stubbed my toe. Fortunately for me, skeletons have terrible hearing. Animated ones, I mean. That goes double for the one I think they’d tried to make into a cook. It had managed two table settings of potato and salmon and had apparently decided to dismember one of its fellows and then just stare at the rest of the supper ingredients it had. Not to discount the fact that compared to most skeletons, this one was a genius-level intellect, but the necromancers still would have been bound for food poisoning or starvation if I hadn’t walked into their home and started killing them. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m the monster here, invading the home of a silly little commune that's got a fake ex-fisherman at the door and has their skeletons turned towards culinary pursuits. But I think it’s safe to say I’m not. I mean, cousin Radan tried very hard, many times to make everyone believe as much, but I saw what he did to that cheese. Besides, these necromancers were hiding spellbooks underwater. The ones above surely weren’t getting much better treatment, not with all this blasted damp. They were the true monsters. And cousin Radan. I’ve had enough of all this, I’m going to go steal a necromancer’s bed. Hopefully I won’t get zombie fleas. Those take forever to get rid of.
