I should have just walked away. I would have saved myself sooo much trouble. The worst part is that I was only a few steps from the gate leading out of Markarth when it happened. But one thing I always lacked was money, so the opportunity to get what seemed like an easy payment was something I felt I couldn't pass up.

Good ol' hindsight.

I witnessed a murder. It was broad daylight, the marketplace by the front gates was teeming with people, and some idiot just yanked out a dagger and shoved it in some woman's back, right in front of everyone. It didn't take long before he, himself, was dead, but not before he could yell the word "Foresworn" about a dozen times. He was not vague about where he wanted the blame to lie; it was reminiscent of the suicide bombers back on Earth.

Terrorists. Great. They probably had weapons of mass destruction, too.

A voice spoke behind me, so close, I jumped.

"That was weird, wasn't it?"

I turned. A small man with nervous eyes and unkempt clothing.

"Um. Sure. Excuse me." I made to walk by, but he gripped my arm.

"Hey," he said, shoving a piece of paper at me, "I think you dropped this note."

I said, "What?" but my hand took the note reflexively and he slipped away through the crowd.

This is the point where I should have just dropped the note on the ground and left. The doors were RIGHT THERE. Instead, I opened it.

"I need your help investigating the murder. 500g is yours if you meet me in the Temple of Talos."

Five-hundred gold was enough to keep me fed for a decent amount of time. And maybe start a little savings account, so I could buy a house at some point. Apparently I was living the lower-middle-class American dream: make enough money to stop living from paycheck to paycheck (or, in my case, from dead bandit to dead bandit). So I turned from the doors (I know I keep mentioning them, but they were RIGHT THERE!) and, after another fifty-four inquires, found my way to Talos' shrine.

I'll spare you the detailed workings of Markarth politics. God knows I wish I could forget them. Suffice to say that the city is run by a corrupt rich guy (who comes from a long line of corrupt rich guys - they changed their last names to fucking Silver Blood, for God's sake) who doesn't like it when strangers covered in obscure tattoos ask even the most routine questions about murders that happened RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE FUCKING POPULACE OF THE CITY. In the space of about two hours I got a job as a private detective (the money was nice while it lasted), asked exactly two questions and read one journal, and that was enough for the local police force to show up en masse to arrest me. The charge? You'll like this: the murder of the woman in the market.

Needless to say (although I am damn well saying it anyway), "due process" does not mean the same thing in Skyrim's legal system as it does in America's. Even with Dibella's marks, I knew it would be suicide to fight an entire regiment of well-armed soldiers. I was summarily stripped (goodbye, gold, I hardly knew ye!) and dumped in Cidhna Mine (after all this time, I still have to look up how to spell "Cidhna") to toil away the rest of my life mining silver.

I resolved to stick to my vow: I was not going to be a victim. I still had Dibella's gifts, which included a nice arsenal of magical weapons that would appear with just a twitch of my hands, and I was the fucking Dragonborn, not that that had been as much help as one might think so far. Despite the mine's slogan ("No one escapes Cidhna mine!"), I was going to get the fuck out of there. First, though, I had to deal with the aforementioned Foresworn.

Some history is in order: The Foresworn were natives to the area that got defeated by the Nords. The leader of the Foresworn and many of his lieutenants were not killed, but instead dumped right here in Cidhna mine, where that asshole Silver Blood gave them favors as long as they kept their people from getting riled up.

None of this meant anything to me until the moment I stepped into that pit. I was outnumbered nearly as much as I had been against the city guard, and the ratio of males to females was approximately 3000 to 1. That might be an exaggeration, but as soon as that barred gate slammed shut, men swarmed like angry hornets toward me. I gave brief thought to activating Dibella’s gifts but decided to hold off – there was no way I was going to be able to kill all of them and once the weapons had been revealed, they would most certainly take pains to make sure I could not use them. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable and just hoped I survived.

Although, come to think of it, maybe I should have activated the gifts and just killed myself so that red asshole might be forced to rescue me. Probably wouldn’t have worked, but…anyway, I digress.

A terrifying roar stopped the horde; Borkul the Beast, the largest orc I had (or have since, come to think of it) ever seen, came to my rescue. But only, it turned out, because he wanted first dibs, although there was an odd moment when he first saw me where he stopped and squinted at me. Apparently I reminded him of someone because the entire time he was raping me, he kept muttering things like, “This is your fault, bitch” and “Just wait until I find you” and “You thought you knew was pain was but you have no idea.” In any other context I might have felt concern for this woman who was apparently the reason for his arrest, but at that point, had I had the chance, I would have gladly traded places and let her bear the brunt of his anger. And his dick.

You know what they say about the thickness of an orc's skull being an accurate estimate of the size of his penis? I can say with great authority that it is true. I could not have stood up after he finished with me had I wanted to. Not that I had a choice. The wolfpack closed in as soon as he heaved himself off me. Thank God I blacked out after the first dozen or so. I have no idea how I survived that first night, say nothing of the weeks that followed.

Don't feed the bastards - they'll just want more

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