CHAPTER 9: I AM A DRAGONBORN
Wherein our hero dies and then is reborn! (quicksave is our friend)
Previous: Chapter 8, Mace Raiden, Statue Fondler

Finally at the greybeard temple, I'm here for mental help, I need a therapist, will someone psychoanalyze me please? Magical walls and white rocks are talking to me, dragons are scaring the jeepers out of me on a fairly regular basis, it seems as though everyone in the entire world is dumber than I am, my wife is a goat, and I have come to you, sane and sensible psychiatrists, to help me through my problems. The greybeard in charge tells me that my mother was a dragon and he wants to taste my voice.

After staring dumbly at him for a few minutes, debating whether to draw my axe and proceed a-thwacking or just sit down and weep, I take the middle ground and scream at him with all my force.

Well, that was new. I've shouted a lot before, but never had my voice actually physically make people stumble away from me. Is my breath really that bad?

The guy reiterates his previous statement about my flying reptilian parentage and tells me that he's going to train me to use my voice. To make a long story short (too late), after quite a bit of dialog, exposition, and apparent training in the Voice, it turns out that I am a Dragonborn, someone who can kill Dragons and steal their souls and shout really loud and my voice is a gift from the gods that isn't just like a different sort of magic at all, no sir, it's not magic, it's a gift from god. Arngeir (one of the fake psychiatrists) tells me that I've got to go to a nordic ruin and retrieve a magical maguffin. I ask him if there may be bandits and draugr at this ancient nord ruin, and he tells me that I may expect a generous helping of draugr with a sprinkle of bandits on the side. I decide then and there that I'm never going to any more nordic ruins ever again, no matter what.

On the way out, I decide to pick a couple of the flowers that are just lying around. I quickly discover that the greybeards may be an ancient order of religious monks dedicated to peaceful contemplation of the sky and maintaining the harmonious balance of nature and the universe, but they REALLY don't like it when you knick their stuff. One of them punts me across the room by shouting at me, another one turns me into an ice sculpture, and the other two proceed to beat the living shit out of me. Message received guys. Don't touch the plants.

I had previously wondered about how the greybeards still existed. They obviously don't allow women (no beards to be grey), accept no new members, and have absolutely no interaction with the rest of the world. Now I get it, though - people join them who want to become seriously badass in the vocal department, and they keep getting supplied by other people because if they don't get their daily bread they'll huff and puff and blow the entire goddamn world apart. They are bullies and extortionists, and I reaffirm my vow to never get their maguffin. I am NOT going to be like these assholes. And I think I'm done with being a courier too - on my way out, I grab the bag of food I previously delivered. Let the fuckers starve. Maybe I'll try Solitude next, I hear the Imperial Legion is hiring.

Next: Intermission 1
Start at Chapter 1