Day 13:  Nordic diplomacy

Well my lord Clavicus, here we stand.  I've completed your quest, returned your faithful hound and I await your gratitude.   Tell me, oh mighty god, what boon will you present to your champion?

 Oh, good, it's one of those Henry the 8th helmets.

INTO THE BOX OF LEGENDARY CRAP WITH YOU!

See, I've started two chests back at the Dragonbjorn estate.  One of full of potion ingredients and one is full of everything else.  Like all the keys, legendary relics and gems I find.  Just, like, in a pile.  It's so people can't find that stuff and use it against me or hurt themselves by emulating the dragonborn and running around while dual-wielding daggers.  There are enough dragon bones in there now that I could drop the chest out of the window and kill someone.  The potion chest is going sort of well, except that I invariably confuse the "store" button with the "eat" button (occasionally a real life problem) and wonder why Dragonbjorn is gagging until I realise that I suddenly have lost 12 piles of salt and some butterflies.

When they eventually autopsy Dragonbjorn to find out what the hell makes him tick, they're going to be horrified.  It's going to be nothing but butterflies and giant's toes, perfectly preserved in salt because I don't think Dragonbjorn has ever eaten any normal person food.  He drinks a lot of potions though.  Maybe he'd be less prone to disease if I actually fed him and let him sleep once in a while.

But you know who sleep and food are for?

That's right.  People who play the Sims.

Oh hey, look at this:

 What a lovely neat table you've laid here.  It'd be a real shame if something were to happen t- FUS

 Neeever gets old.

I ran around mopping up more side quests.  I don't know why I'm even doing it any more.  It's not like I need the money or the skills (well, the skills are fine but money's just... stuff now).  Maybe it's the idea of getting everything that appeals to me but it lets me meet interesting new people and sometimes tells me to kill them.  The main quest wants me to go to some kind of party, but there's no time for play just yet.  We have dragons to kill and people to steal from.  Wherever a citizen is threatened by a terrible beast and their pockets are bulging with treasure, Dragonbjorn will be there.

 DEAR GOD.  What did you do to your eyes?!

 I found this place in a dungeon.  It was either a very elaborate mechanism to keep out particularly stupid thieves (I mean there are three handles and three rotating discs with holes in them.  This dungeon was designed for ages 3 and up) or I'd stumbled into the fun house from the end of Grease.  Not, I hasten to add, the Fun House run by Pat Sharp because that would have been awesome.

 Oh look, another celestial shiny light.  Well, it's not that lady that gave me the sword and it's not that lady who made me a nightingale so I guess this is a new god or something.  People keep calling her a necromancer but she sure looks like a god.

Ever notice that all the ladies in Skyrim come back as all-powerful balls of celestial light with access to incredible abilities and legendary weapons but all the guys come back as zombies?  Alright, some are awesome zombies with disarming dragon shouts, but there still seems to be a bit of an imbalance here.

Maybe I should campaign for the rights of dead men in Skyrim because I'm certainly making a lot of them and it'd be good to be on their good sides when I go to Valhalla.

Although when Dragonbjorn dies, he's probably going to be at, like, level 164 or something.  Maybe he can kill a million vikings at that point.

 Sure thing, peasant farm worker, I'll have a fist fight with you!  I'm sure that you stand a chance, dressed in your finest rags while I wield a pair of finely crafted elven gauntlets.

Oh dear.

 Man, I don't know what happened to this girl but I don't recall being able to mutilate people like this.  And I've killed an awful lot of people now!  More than I can remember!  Some of them didn't even deserve it!

I think I have a problem.

She wasn't really carrying anything of any interest, but then she didn't have much room to carry a big bucket of money, not dressed in her bra and sensible nordic panties, so I left this scene for a bit.

 I think I got imprisoned at some point.  There was like a guy, then some stuff happened and someone got possessed and I killed another guy, then the first guy was all angry that I was talking to him about forsworn or whatever and then I went to jail.

The first thing I got given was a shiv.

It's like they don't even know who I am.

Well, I travelled with my new friends, shivving people as and when I was asked to.  I briefly considered actually trying to mine until my debt was repaid but I sensed that this might not be an option.

 I wasn't sure what this thing was.  Either that magic gate thing from the end of Kingdom Hearts or else some kind of dwarven teleporter.  I was, unfortunately, not able to find a fly to bring through with me so I could get magic fly powers like that one movie with Jeff Goldblum.

We made our way to freedom, the people with us left me and the leader alone and he gave me some armour.  It was unique armour, so at least he knows that rewards should be interesting and not just 500 gold and an enchanted iron shield, but then he started prattling on about the forsworn and me being their ally or something and I decided I didn't like him so much so I killed him.

 That went super well, because then I had to kill like 4 warriors and 3 angry magicians!  But then I got outside and the guy who put me in prison in the first place was all "thanks for killing that douche, have a magic ring or whatever" and then I got two rewards for finishing one quest.  It was a good day!

 I decided to join the imperials because, as noted in the first day's blog, the stormcloaks are a disorganised, immature rabble.  So I'm going to stab them until they believe in the things that I believe in because I'm better than they are and this gives me the right to hurt them.

CUTTING SOCIAL COMMENTARY, FOLKS

 I took this screenshot because it's basically the most propagantastic image I could have captured, showing Dragonbjorn's first tentative steps into the group (quest text) over a background of a bold, imperial flag.

It's this kind of powerful imagery that causes, say, a major game company to consider sponsoring a handsome and charming young software developer to write blogs about their fine products and perhaps even receive free copies of the future projects.

Hey, it could totally happen.  Bethesda, if you're reading this, I'll totally sell out.  Seriously.  My integrity absolutely has a price tag.

 Brynjolf the vowelless looks kind of funny in his new armour and now I can't take him seriously.  He seemed pretty cool before.  Now he looks like a LARPer who had to get him gear from Oxfam and realised too late that it didn't even slightly fit him.

 Let's lower the tone a bit.  Now a thief, murdered, demon summoner and sex offender.  Superb!

It's amazing, none of these people have genitals.  Where are the children coming from?  Does a baby just spawn in your home one day?

 

 There's something hilarious about all of the wildlife in Skyrim.  It's like all the animals exist for me to laugh at or to grind into potions.  I know I should be intimidated more by bears, but after you've fus ro dah'd a few off of mountains they just become funny.

 Hoo boy, I thought I was in trouble here.  It turns out that Dragonbjorn can just walk down icy mountains and so long as he hits a few rocks on the way down, he's basically fine.  Just imagine him with a glazed look and his mouth agape as peasants watch him tumbling down the mountain in mounting horror.

 This guy was... well, he was weird, sure, but he had quite the magnetic personality and I grew quite fond of him.  Cicero, you're okay.  In a land of talking dogs and idiots, you're someone I can relate to but I hope to all that is good and holy in this world that you don't open that box because I think that once you do, I'll want to kill whatever horrible thing is inside.  And I think it's already dead.  Not that Dragonbjorn has anything even RESEMBLING respect for the dead.

 I realised that if I took off all Dragonbjorn's clothes, he was actually wearing a loincloth.  Just a little something for the ladies.

Awww yeah.

 THIS GUY.

I was talking to the jarl of Winterhold when this dick shows up and he's all "OMGLOL IMMA SHOOT ICE AT YOU OMGOMG".  He wasn't even hurting people, he was the lizard equivalent of a 12 year old forum troll.  I tried to go about my business and finish my quest but the people around were understandably upset that a dragon was here, so I trotted up and began to attack it.

It flew away.

I looked out at the horizon and saw its flapping bulk near the college.  Damned thing got stuck on a turret and couldn't path its way back.  I shot some spells at it but it generally ignore me and sat there.

I gave chase.  I followed it to the college.  It flew away.

I climbed down the mountain, confident that I could lay the smack down if it would just FRIGGING LAND but it flew around spitting ice and generally being a colossal prick.  Then it flew away again.

Quite angry now, I go back to Winterhold and look for the jarl again.  The dragon appears AGAIN.

If Dragonbjorn had have eaten anything but salt this week, I would have taken a great, steaming dump on its corpse when I finally killed it.  I shall dub it Dickwyrm.

 Notice that this NPC isn't even a little bit concerned that I'm being filled with magic light and continues to idly chat to me about questing.  I love little moments like this.  Little moments that prove that the people of Skyrim have no idea of what's going on in the world around them.  I've actually been able to sneak up on people who were staring at me and slit their throats.  You can't tell me that's right.

 Oh, a party?  Well, maybe I should take a little time off.  I decided to break out my fanciest, schmansiest gear and really paint the town red!  Falmer helmet, go!

 So I guess you could say this is going to be a...

Stag party?

YEAAAAAAH!

Jesus, that wasn't even funny.  I mean, I think that's why they're called stag parties.  I need to work on this material.

And I should buy some sunglasses so I can recycle that meme properly.  Goggles just make it confusing.

Hmm.

 Good afternoon, madam, and thank you for inviting me into your beautiful home.  I am Dragonbjorn, Nordic ambassador and thane of Whiterun and Winterhold.  I hope that this evening finds you well and I greatly look forward to the festivities of this evening.  Perhaps later I could regale you with tales of my forefathers and you in turn could share with me your own rich and fascinating culture.
I am quite sure that our peoples have much to learn from each other and that we will soon become fast friends.

JESUS CHRIST, YOU KILLED YOUR HOSTS.  This is not how you diplomacise, Dragonbjorn!  It's going to take more than a pyramid of ferrero rocher and an apology to set this one straight!

Well, perhaps it's time to leave and let someone else pick up the social pieces for me.  I'm sure this won't lead to anything unpleasant like a human-elf war.  It's certainly not like elves don't really trust humans that much anyway.

Bollocks.

 Hagravens are really weird.  They're just old ladies that know how to use a bit of magic and have a bird fetish.  Kind of like furries who are magicians.

 I went through a room filled with fire jets.  I suppose I could have waited half an hour until the jets ran out of fuel, but I didn't have that kind of time so I had to slink through all sly like.  I think Dragonbjorn may have been wearing a skintight leather cat suit at this point.

Fanservice!*

 Thought for the day
How come I have a speech skill of 50 and am, therefore, halfway to being the greatest weilder of words who ever lived but yet I can't utter more than two sentences at once?  Maybe it's just the way I say things.

*Dear Internet: please do not rule 34 Dragonbjorn.  He looks a bit like Jonathan Frakes, so let's just say that that's close enough 'cause I know he's been rule 34'd.