You know how sometimes you make a choice even though everything in you knows it is the wrong one? I don’t know why that happens either. People are just stupid.

We took a wrong turn, somewhere in the craggy hills that form the boundary between the Rift and the rest of Skyrim, and ended up coming out at the alkali flats that run eighty or more parched miles straight north before climbing back into the mountains to dump you at the doorstep of Windhelm.

The problem was that we did not want to go north – we wanted to go west. The only way to do that was to either turn around and hike all the way back up the steep road we had just egressed or turn left and make our way across the southern edge of the flats. In contrast to the hills, the flats looked…well, flat. My legs were screaming at that point and I quailed at the thought of several hours of climbing; it was an easy decision, in my head.

Kellan, being the wiser of us two, argued strenuously for the opposite route, pointing out the relative safety of roads versus unknown terrain, the relative safety of roads when it comes to wildlife, the relative safety of roads when it comes to bandits…he sounded like a pitchman for a road company, and I told him so as I started walking the direction I wanted, leaving him no choice but to follow, abandon me, or physically drag me the other way.

He chose the first option but not without reminding me that this was probably exactly the kind of boneheaded choice that had caused me so much trouble last time. My takeaway from this conversation was not the smart one (“Good point. I really should listen to people who have lived here all their lives instead of relying on the instincts of a pampered middle class suburban college student whose brain won’t even finish fully forming for another four or five years.”); it was, instead, a self-recrimination about getting drunk and telling him about my past life, thus giving him ammo to use against me.

Like I said, stupid.

The so-called “flats” are anything but – they are full of jagged rocks, surprise drops into (very) hot springs, brittle (and sharp!) shards of some glass-like mineral (I almost took a geology class as an elective but decided on History of Modern Dance, despite the fact that I would not get caught dead dancing, because the professor was a super-hot Latino with the most amazingly sexy accent I have ever heard. I could have listened to him describe paint drying (which is roughly equivalent to the interest I had in the class material). That (the geology, not the dance) would have been much more helpful in this new world, at least so I’d be able to tell you what the fuck I was looking at. I can tell you the differences between the Graham, Horton, and Limón techniques, though!)

Anyway. TL;DR, the going was very slow and very rough and we fought the entire way because I get defensive when I know I’m wrong instead of, you know, being an adult.

Kellan turned out to be right on only one of his three “safety of the roads” points, which was the terrain, as already discussed. We saw some wildlife, but not anything that came near to us (which was just as well – I was still a little unnerved by the talking rat from a few days ago. I had probably imagined it but I didn’t really want to find out for certain) and there were no bandits. Instead, we stumbled upon what I can only describe as witches.

To be fair to them, they were probably just some variation on the mages that populate Skyrim, but it was hard to think of them as anything other than witches when they were all gathered around a giant cauldron (of stew, it turned out, but at the time, it looked very much like they were doing the stereotypical witch’s-brew-making thing).

We didn’t get a chance to find out what the hell they were doing in the literal middle of nowhere because they screamed in panic and starting launching spells at the first sight of us. Remember that part where I said, despite the chafing of the escort law, it was really nice to have Kellan there? This is where that was hammered home.

I had been practicing with the spare sword Kellan gave me and had also started doing the exercises I had promised myself I would do. On top of that, I had a week of mining under my belt, so I wasn’t in the absolute worst condition I could have been in. But had I been there all by myself, my story (and the people of Skyrim’s (again)) would have ended there.

Instead, Kellan cast a spell of his own (which I hadn’t even known he could do) which deflected the witches’ magic – a ward, he later told me it was called - and charged.

As with the skeevers, I was no help whatsoever, but at least I didn’t just stand there this time. I ran forward with my sword held high, then tried to find space to swing the damn thing where it wouldn’t put Kellan, who moved constantly as he fought, in harm’s way. I ended up landing a solid blow on the kettle, which rang a lingering note (somewhere in the vicinity of E#) for a solid ten seconds, a glancing blow to the rickety table they had set up (which felled it – it was very rickety), and nearly lopped off my own leg.

Then it was over. Kellan, who didn’t even seem out of breath (I was heaving in gulps of air as if I had just run a mile), wiped his sword off and sheathed it, then started dragging the corpses. I jumped in to help, taking their feet, and we carried them to the edge of their camp and laid them in a neat row. Kellan stood for a moment over them, mumbling what I assumed to be some sort of prayer then, practical Nord that he was, stooped down and went through their pockets and pouches.

Between that and what was left of the camp, we netted 32 gold pieces, which sounds like a lot. But I have spent some time trying to convert Skyrim’s simplistic “one denomination is all you really need” monetary system into modern dollar equivalents. At best I can determine, 1 gold is worth roughly 30 cents USD, so that 30 gold pieces equated to about 9 bucks.

We ate the witches’ stew (it was delicious) and we stayed the night at their camp. I gave Kellan an apology blow job, which eased the tension between us, and mentally determined to do better – Sanguine had warned he wouldn’t be able to save me from myself this time, so the need to improve both my physical and mental fortitude was paramount.

Naturally, I completely fucked it up again the very next day.

Don’t feed the bastards. Feed yourself instead.

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