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Diary of a Dragonborn Chapter 12: I'm Feeling Horny


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CHAPTER 12: I'M FEELING HORNY
In which our hero complains bitterly about ancient Nordic architects. Again.
Previous: Chapter 11, Oath of Celebacy... I Mean Fealty

 

Looks like the closest town to that draugr ruin is Morthal, but I really don't feel like trudging through a swamp today, especially one that is inexplicably located in an area where the average temperature generally hits no higher than "HOLY FUCK I'M FROZEN" on the thermometer. I'll head to Dawnstar and walk from there; it may be a snowy wasteland, but at least it's supposed to be a snowy wasteland.

 

The trip to Dawnstar is relatively uneventful. Life is quite peaceful when you just hire a carriage driver to take you wherever you want to go. The trip from Dawnstar to the barrow is... less so. Wolves, yes, of course there are homicidal wolves, why wouldn't there be wolves that attack everything they see like they've been infected with some sort of 28-days-later zombie virus. Beyond that, there are a couple of hostile giants, many hostile bandits, and a few trolls even. I cannot help but contrast my current level of combat prowess with what I was doing just a few weeks ago. These days I'm a serious badass who wipes the ground with anything that fucks with me (giants not included), whereas before, I was a weakling who ran from rats. Say what you want about Skyrim, it makes you tough.

 

The barrow itself is unremarkable on the outside. There's a necromancer waiting at the door with three zombified bandits in tow. Drawing on my considerable intellect and knowledge about summoning spells and how they work, I proceed to thwack down the necromancer first, knowing that his summoned minions (how did he get three of them at once, anyway?) will fall the instant he does. This does not actually appear to be the case here, though - his minions continue to fight on for a few seconds after he goes down, before they apparently realize that their reason for continued existence has been terminated and they fall into blissful ashy slumber.

 

Inside, there are yet more necromancers. They're having a conversation about how they hate bandits and how bandits are dumb, with which I can heartily agree. I'm about to step out and introduce myself to these apparent intellectual elites when they up and run off down the tunnel to get the fuck beat out of them by a bunch of draugr. I count five necromancers and three draugr at the start of the battle. By the end, there are two draugr and zero necromancers. I'm a little trepidatious, but I really want to try out my new crown of leadership on these draugr, so I stop sneaking and announce myself as their one and only leader.

 

They didn't take to me.

 

Personally, I blame the necromancers. I'm sure the draugr would have immediately started bowing down to me as their rightful ruler, bearer of the crown of the High King of Skyrim, except they got all excited about the invading evil mages. It doesn't stop me from destroying them, but it does make me feel a little bad about it.

 

The rest of the barrow is about par for the course. Twenty miles of narrow corridors, fifty thousand shambling undead, a chanting wall, a couple of spiders, some absolutely ludicrous "traps," all pretty much standard issue for ancient nord ruins. The only new thing was a different kind of trap that appears to make use of my newly-learned Whirlwind Sprint shout. Fancy that, I learn a new skill just before it becomes applicable. Neat how things work out for me that way, isn't it? Beyond this contrived progress blocker, and past the apparent nod to Indiana Jones, there's a narrow path between two pools of water leading up to an altar, where I suppose the horn I'm here to find is. As I walk down the path, statues begin to emerge from the water, but I don't find this out until after I've screamed like a little girl, hit them with my axe a few times, fired off a few arrows, and run and hid for a bit. Just statues, not horrible monstrosities from the depths of the world come to eat my flesh. In my defense, the statues do kind of look like huge snakes with wide-open mouths.

 

After my heartrate slows down from a whine to a steady purr, and I clean up my pants in the pool (keeping a weather eye on the statues in case they decide to come to life and try to steal my soul), and I head up to the altar to get the horn, but it's not there. There's a note saying that I need to go to Riverwood and rent a room at the inn.

 

All of that shit, just for a "the princess is in another castle" moment. Luckily for me, I don't have to traipse back through the entire dungeon, as there is a conveniently located escape tunnel that leads back to the start that is only accessible from this side so people can't just bypass all the content architecture the developers gods wanted them to see in their level ruin, but they put in the shortcut escape tunnel because the players citizens who managed to make it this far might be a little ticked off about having to walk all the way back, and might not buy their games anymore worship them.

 

So... off to the starting town Riverwood to rent the attic room, only this inn doesn't have an attic. I timidly walk up to the innkeeper and request lodging, and she directs me to one of the two rooms this place has. Once inside, I wait around for a minute, and the innkeeper comes in and hands me the horn. I'd listen to her talk, try to find out how she managed to get her hands on the horn without killing the draugr or setting off the traps in the ruin, not to mention making her way past that you-must-have-a-whirlwind-sprint-shout-to-get-past-this-point gate, but I really don't give a fuck right now. I'm taking this horn back to the Greybeards. What with the horn, and my horned crown, I could really insert some sort of "sexual frustration" joke here but I can't think of one, so... it's off to High Hrothgar again.

 

Back at High Hrothgar, I hand over the horn and Arngier tells me it's time for my next trial. I swear to GODS if you make me go and put this horn back for the next dragonborn who comes to see you guys, I'm gonna go absolutely apeshit. Luckily, before I can burst a skull-side blood vessel, they do some sort of song and dance number and initiate me fully into their collective. I now know all three words of the Unrelenting Force shout, and I can't wait to try it out on someone. I ask for a new quest from the Greybeards, but lo and behold, they don't have anything for me to do right now. I'm a free man! I can do whatever I want!

 

I'm gonna go get tanked.

 

Next: Chapter 13, Plot Armor
Start at Chapter 1

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I like the judicious strategic comic use of strikethrough.  I wish Twitter would let me use that, it's a great way to get  a sarcastic facetious passive-aggressive point across.

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I like the judicious strategic comic use of strikethrough.  I wish Twitter would let me use that, it's a great way to get  a sarcastic facetious passive-aggressive point across.

sometimes really hate the way this game operates, which is strange considering how much I love the game overall agree.

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