Dragonborn Chapter 87: Falkreath

Okay, everything was beautifully packed up by me and Jull. She is going to use a small two wheeled cart she bought to put things in, it will be pulled by a Flame Atronach Horse so we won't be struggling like before.

The next destination on this journey is Falkreath town itself. I know Jull has a bad history with the town but it will be a good chance to visit her mother's grave. I think it will at least give her some peace of mind and may be able to free herself from the bad emotions she is struggling with.

I also had a goal in mind. I currently have no armor and even though it doesn't really matter to me, a good armor is something that make Nords look with respect to the person he or she is wearing the it rather than someone who dressed in a mage robe with the insignia of the hateful College of Winterhold like me.

Before we head out, I felt like Jull wanted to look at Helgen one last time.

Unlike Winterhold, Jull is very popular here. She is not considered my follower or anything. On the contrary, I am the one who is considered a follower to her, and people really hate me.

They call me names like the 'Caveman' and the 'Barbarian' as well as many other worse names due to me living in a cave the last four months.

Jullanar, on the other hand, got few love confessions and secret admirers from the garrison soldiers and the town boys. Unlike the rest of Skyrim, Helgen is very unique. The people here are living on the trade route between the Empire of Cyrodiil and Skyrim, not just that, the people actually had many relatives across the other side of the borders. All this and that caused them to be more open to outsiders and don't give the racial differences too much thoughts.

This was what made Jullanar, who was a half Nord Human half Dark Elf, receive a very good treatment with how much she contributes to the community as an excellent hunteress.

They also disregard the issue with her blind left eye which made her feel good about the town and spend more time there.

The annoying this is, the townsfolk who wanted to free Jull from the evil me did really reckless things.

Some of them tried to challenge me head on, even though they were no match, they weren't willing to give up that easily.

But one day, a soldier from the Imperial garrison hara.s.sed Jull as I was around. Normally she should have taken care of it herself but my woman would only look at me with teary eyes as long as I am around. That day I made it clear that I was not really serious while beating up those so-called challengers. I used some magic and slapped the soldier ten meters away. After that day, a legend came out about my hand that can conjure the ghosts someone's dead ancestors with only one slap.

Anyway, I made a problem with the garrison Praefect and had to solve it with a big talk with the town's elders and some officers. I had to reveal my ident.i.ty as this year's champion as well as my College seal and my Thanes.h.i.+p seal. I had a better treatment but was still called the 'Caveman' in secret.

Now that I think about it, Helgen may be the most friendly town in Skyrim so far. Even though they are Imperial supporters because of the garrison in town, they are not really bad.

I also had the chance to meet with some NPCs that I never had to interact with in the game like an old man called Velod who was mentioned (and also appeared) by Ralof in the game's first cutscene. Apparently, the mead that Old Velod makes is a something to kill for. I made sure to buy from it whenever I had the chance.

All in all, the town is not really bad. It is busy, active, and very open minded. Too bad it is the very first town the dragon 'Alduin' destroys at the start of the game.

Jull was always in a bad mood whenever I mentioned this fact to her. For that, I had to promise her to save the townsfolk when the time comes few years from now.

After some talking with our acquaintances in town. We took our leave and used the western gate to head to Falkreath town. I was dressed in the new clothes and looked like some merchant myself.

We also had to turn down an escort job as we are going to travel fast on Flame Atronach Horses.

Speaking of Flame Atronachs. I managed to create another form and it looked super cool. I won't use it now as a mount because it will scare the living ghosts out of those who see it and the horse is still useful.

Anyway, the road was fine for a while but some wolves appeared along the way. Jull put them down using her bound bow and arrows so we could continue the travel smoothly.

From what I saw just now, I came to the conclusion that the wolves have faced a very strong enemy to fall from glory this much and attack people on the way. I guess Jull's a.n.a.lysis was right, something is driving them out of their territory.

This will turn into a big problem if the Jarl's hunters don't hurry up a take care of it. A beast that can mess with the ecosystem is on the loose.

I kept using scan all along the way and had some results.

Deers are thriving in numbers!

I don't understand what is going on but for the deers to live peacefully in the same area where the wolves are suffering is something unheard of to an inexperienced hunter like myself.

Is there some superhero that saves the dears and hunt the wolves?

I couldn't make my head around it no matter how I much thought!

Anyway, the forest had its own problems and I have to take care of mine. If by any chance the reason was figured out and it was worth my while then I'll go do something about it.

After few hours of fast riding, we almost reached Falkreath.

This is my first time in this town and I always hated coming here for the first time each playthrough in the game. There is some annoying quest about an annoying dog that requires me to make an annoying journey to an annoying cave and kill some annoying clutist to meet an annoying Daedric Lord and claim an annoying axe for him to get a cool looking helmet in the end. The only thing I remember good about the quest is the reward helmet though.

Anyway, before getting into town we had to banish our Atronach Horses and I started dragging the small cart by hand. Jull also had to cover her head just in case if anyone recognized her from her old acquaintances either from the townsfolk or the 'Dark Brotherhood' a.s.sa.s.sins.

As we looked like the normal travellers to the guards, we were allowed in the town.

Falkreath is one of the major cities located in Skyrim. The town lies in the southwest of the province of Skyrim, near the borders of Hammerfell and Cyrodiil. At one period in history, Falkreath was part of Cyrodiil. Later, the town became a settlement in Skyrim.

The current Jarl of Falkreath is Dengeir of Stuhn, a Nord elder who is not fond of the Empire and will support Big Bad Ulfric in the Civil War as if he was the second coming of Talos. Eventually, it will lead to him being overthrown by his nephew Siddgeir.

Falkreath has a famous graveyard. The graveyard contains many famous Nords who requested to be buried here next to the other honored dead of past battles. The Hold itself is on the borders with two other nations which are Hammerfell and Cyrodiil, that gave the hold a very high strategic value and it was a place of many battles, thus came its famous graveyard.

And since the townsfolk were constantly living alongside the dead, they gave many of their shops and other buildings names related to death. For example; the inn was called Dead Man's Drink, the alchemy shop was called Grave Concoctions, a farm was called Corpselight Farm, and so on.

One of them is my destination and it is the inn to book a room for a few days, I had a few plans in mind and I needed an are of operation.

Just as we put everything into a room and locked it with magic, I followed Jull around the town.

She had a lot of memories in the town and showed me around the places she used to play in and the farm she used to live with her mother in too.

At the end of the day we went to visit her mother's grave.

It was a small grave far from the graves that belonged to the Nords under a big tree. The place was peaceful and calm. Jull who never cried in front of me before was crying her heart out. This was the first time for her to visit the grave. She wasn't brave enough to do so before.

She talked to the grave and introduced me to her mother. She also said that she avenged her mother from those who wronged her and she now can pa.s.s in peace.

Finally, she took out her journal and burned it in front of her mother's grave. I don't know what does that mean as I have never heard of a tradition like this but it seemed that Jull put her past behind and started to put a goal for her future. Lucky me, I was in a major spot of that goal.

As the sun went down, we returned to the inn and had a heartly talk with each other. She leaned on me like a girl in love most of the time now. Funny thing is, I am so tall compared to her, she could barely reach my shoulder.

"So, you told me you had a few goals you want to achieve in town. Will we get down to it?" She said.

"You still don't look fine. Sure about it?"

"Yes, I need to do something or I may start crying again. This time I don't think I will be able to stop."

"Fine! Fine! I'll tell." I said. "The first thing I am after is a very powerful piece of armor. Back in my past life, I learned it was obtainable through a certain mean but I have to wait four years and for a certain event to happen."

"What event?"

"See those people over there." I said as I pointed to a couple of man and woman with a four years old child on the woman's lap, they were just a small family spending the night in the inn, nothing strange about it. "These are Mathies and Indara as well as their daughter Lavinia. They own a farm in town. Lately, they hired someone to help them in the farm, a Nord called Sinding, and he is a werewolf. Four years from now, Sinding will kill Lavinia by mistake."

"WHAT?" Jull stood up and attracted some attention. The subject may have felt a bit bitter to her.

"Sit down!" I said. "Now Sinding haven't done anything yet. So I find it a bit bad to kill him, but he is a werewolf so it will be for the greater good anyway. The thing is, I need to find out if he has a certain ring or not!"

"What ring?"

"A white ring with a wolf head. If he have it then I will do something about him."

Jull thought for a while and kept looking at the young girl. After a few seconds she nodded and said she will do anything.

"First, I haven't found Sinding yet. We need to see if he is around then make a plan based on his circ.u.mstances. That's for now."

Jull nodded, looked around, then walked to the bar counter and asked for a drink. I also took Nefert.i.ti and joined some men playing dice.

After a few rounds, I pretended like I was willing to buy some crops and asked about the farms then strayed from a subject to another while buying more mead for the men.

After an hour. I walked away and signaled to Jull.

"What did you find out?" She asked.

"He hates gatherings of people and doesn't come to inns. What about you?"

"He joined a band of hunters in town from time to time. Some hunter bought me a drink and started talking about how mighty their party is. Sinding was mentioned few times."

"Good! There is a good chance that he might be around if there is many hunters in town now."

She nodded to me and followed me outside the inn.

I started scanning around until I located the farm Sinding works in and it looked like he was sleeping.

After pinpointing his location and making sure everything is under control, I turned to Jull.

"Who goes in? Who is the lookout?"

"Only one way to find out!"

""ROCK! PAPER! SCISSORS!""

-Bonus-

▪Alternative Game.

"Shouldn't we play a different game?" (Jull)

"How about tag?" (Jon)

"Fine, let's call for Don to join us." (Jull)

"Hey, Don! We are playing tag. Wanna come?" (Jon)

"*Pushes the gla.s.ses up in a cool anime way* You guys know how authors play tag, right?" (Don)

"??" (Jull) (Jon)

"*Takes out 'Gender Bender Tag' with two fingers* Jon, you're it." (Don)