It will occur to the observant reader that the story I'm about to tell you is familiar.

 

The basics: I was given a job in Markarth involving a simple investigation that turned into something crazy and dangerous. Have I mentioned that I hate Markarth?

 

The Sybil is the leader of the Dibella...cult, religion, whatever. She (always a she) is kind of like the Dali Lama - when the old one dies, a new one is "found" somewhere out in the world. It's usually a little girl who is taken from her family to be raised as a spiritual leader. The assignment given to me was to find the new one at the nearby town of Karthwasten and bring her back to the temple. Simple enough, right?

 

So off I went, though the gates of the city and on foot (my horse was long gone, naturally) through the surrounding hills. It was nice to get out of the city, finally (at least under my own power), even if it was just for a bit.

 

I noticed a few things right away. First, I did not feel cold, even a little. Granted, Markarth is in the southern part of Skyrim, but even when the wind picked up, I didn't feel anything but a light touch on my skin. Second, the food the priestesses had given me for the journey was unappetizing. The meat was cooked far too much. In fact, I realized with a sort of growing combination of horror and fascination, the only meat that sounded appealing was raw. And I don't mean cooked raw - just thinking about biting into meat fresh off the bones of some animal made me literally quiver.

 

Anyway. It took half a day to reach Karthwasten, which turned out to be a dinky mining town filled with people not mining. Some sort of labor disagreement, from what I could tell, but I didn't care about that. It took exactly three queries to find the father of the new Sybil, and wouldn't you know - the girl had been kidnapped by a band of Foresworn. I promised I would rescue her - not like I had a lot of choice, thanks to the priestesses' blackmail - but I didn't want to start at dusk, so I decided to spend the night. Except they didn't have an inn.

 

Enter John, a pretty good looking miner who bought me a drink and offered to let me stay with him. I was feeling quite frisky, so I agreed, and we went to his cozy little shack on the edge of town. He was rough and unskilled, so there wasn't much in the way of foreplay, but it didn't matter - I felt suddenly horny to the point of desperation and was more than ready when he shoved into me. I orgasmed almost immediately, and it was the most powerful sensation I had ever felt. All my senses were subsumed by it. I felt like an abyss suddenly filled; a vacuum cracking open and reaching violent equilibrium.

 

When I came back to my senses, seconds or hours later, I felt whole, complete, as if a missing part of me had suddenly been found and had been clicked back into place. John still lay on top of me, but his body was light, so I just laid silent for a bit, patting his shoulder absently while I reveled in the afterglow. It was the greatest feeling of my life, the kind of feeling that usually exists only in fiction, because sex that good only happens in fiction.

 

My reverie was interrupted, bit by bit, by a growing sense that something was...amiss. Not how it should be. He should be moving a bit more, the worrying sense whispered. And shouldn't his skin be warmer? Also, what's that odd rattling sound that happens every time you pat him?

 

I stopped patting. The rattling stopped. I gave his shoulder, which felt surprisingly chilly, a little shove. More rattling. With a deep sense of dread, I pushed on his shoulder while raising my head to get a better look.

 

The face of a desiccated corpse stared back at me. I screamed and jumped up, dumping the dried remains of my lover on the dirt floor. His brittle bones cracked as it hit, held together only by the thin membrane of papery skin.

 

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit. What the fuck! Shit!

 

I took some deep breaths and forced myself to calm down. Panic would not help. I needed to do something. I couldn't just carry him out the door - dawn had already cracked the sky, and people would be up and about. But I couldn't just leave his body here, either.

 

Fuck.

 

I'd have to hide the body. But where, in this tiny...my eyes fell on the fireplace. It would do.

 

I started a fire, then gingerly picked up the dried remains. Getting rid of it turned out to be much easier than anticipated - even the bones crumbled into dust at the merest pressure. Once the fire burned down, there was nothing left but ashes and soot. I grabbed my stuff, slipped out the door, and thanked whomever might be listening that the cabin was on the edge of town as I got the hell out of Dodge.

 

++++++++++++++++++

 

The new Sybil was surprisingly easy to rescue. Not because of anything I did, though. Just fortuitous timing.

 

The foresworn have encampments all over the area. The closest one to Karthwastern is an old fortress reclaimed by the Foresworn and called Broken Tower Redoubt (turns out the top tower is crumbling. There is a huge hole in the floor halfway up the stairs. These people are very literal with their naming conventions.)

 

By the time I got there, a squad of Imperial soldiers had already broken in. I’m not sure why they were wasting their time attacking the Foresworn when, from what I had gathered while making my way out of Markarth, both Whiterun and Falkreath had fallen to the Stormcloaks in the past month or so (which made me wonder about my status as a Thane of Whiterun – did that still count if Balgruff was gone? I never found out the answer to this question), but I used it to my advantage.

 

I just walked by the groups of combatants (I did help one or two soldiers who looked to be having a hard go. After the time in the mine, I'm not particularly warm toward the Foresworn) as I started a meticulous search from bottom to top.

 

Naturally, the law of reverse fortune exists in Skyrim - the last unchecked room, at the top of the Redoubt (the highest room in the tallest tower. A fairy tale come true, complete with damsel in distress!), was where I found the girl, huddled in a small cell. She didn't seem fazed by the news that she was the new Sybil and fortunately even accepted my story that we didn't have time to stop so she could say goodbye to her family - no way was I showing my face in that town again - and just like that, I had my freedom from Markarth.

 

It felt much longer than it really was – adding my time in the mine with the time under the domination of Molag Bal, by my best estimation, only about three months had passed. I've never managed to figure out this stupid calendar, so I'm not sure when I first entered that fucking city. All I knew, after I dropped the girl off at the temple and walked back out of the city gates, studiously ignoring anyone who looked remotely interested in speaking to me, was that I was never going back.

 

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

 

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