2nd Hearthfire

'Why are we skipping a day?' asked Lalaine. 'I thought we were on the first day of Hearthfire, not the second.'

'You're not missing anything,' Phane explained. 'The orc left Markarth, killed some forsworn in the hills, saw a dragon that wouldn't fight back... and that's about it.'

Drelis nodded slowly. 'He's not far off I'm afraid. Although I would have tried to illuminate the story in a more exciting manner.'

'Let's not waste any more time. Our ale won't last all night, so tell us what happened on the second day of Hearthfire.' Phane took a gulp of the bright beverage.

'Ah yes, well the important events of that day were the slaying of the forsworn in a place called Broken Tower Redoubt, as per the jarl's bounty notice; passing through the village of Rorikstead; and investigating the barrow of Rannveig's Fast.' Drelis leafed through the three documents he had. 'The jarl's steward did not write details on what happened at Broken Tower Redoubt, and I'm sure we can imagine that for ourselves. A pity though, I would have liked to know how Khargol dealt with overwhelming odds when facing the forsworn.'

'Wait a moment,' said Lalaine, pointing at Drelis. 'You have a copy of the jarl's steward's report?'

'Well... yes. It's only a copy though, it's not the original.'

'How did you get your hands on something like that?'

'There are so many marvelously mundane books that end up in the library,' Drelis explained. 'Travelers, adventurers, merchants, many different people visit. They know that we will take anything and everything, regardless of its origins. I spoke to a khajiit, once, who sold me the records from a Telvanni stronghold in Morrowind; he was quite brazen and frank about having stolen them. At the time he had thought they would have been useful as blackmail material, but when he discovered otherwise he simply hanged onto them and left Morrowind, hoping they would come in useful elsewhere.'

'You actually buy books and documents from thieves?' asked Phane, amused.

'Don't get me wrong, I don't act as a fence to these people,' Drelis held his hands up, warding off any false assumptions. 'I'm not commissioning thieves to grab the personal diary of the king of Daggerfall or anything like that.' The others looked at one-another, eyebrows cocked. 'Let's just get on with Khargol's story shall we?

'Rorikstead was a small village named after the man who founded it. Rorik had fought in the Great War and had earned a large plot of land on the border of The Reach for his service to the empire. There he had founded Rorikstead. The villagers had worked hard to turn the cold soil into arable farmland, but once the initial effort had been put in, the crops of Rorikstead were growing successfully and the farmers even had surplus food to sell at Markarth and Whiterun.

'Rorik worried about his people during the civil war in Skyrim. He had already seen the horrors of war when the Imperial City fell to the Thalmor. He could only pray that the same barbarity would not find its way to Rorikstead during such troubled times. And, of course, on top of the civil war we have dragons returning to Tamriel. Times could not be more uncertain.'

'Did anything important happen in Rorikstead?' asked Phane, impatiently.

'Not much,' Drelis admitted. 'The records I have of Khargol's movements there come from the journal of a young man named Erik. Erik was tired of a farmer's life and wished to be a sellsword, an adventurer, a mercenary for hire. His father ran the Frostfruit Inn and had forbade him to leave Rorikstead. Khargol offered to pay for the lad's first sword and set of armour, leaving the choice entirely in Erik's hands.'

'Did he become a mercenary in the end?'

'He did. And more than just a mercenary, but that comes later. Lydia's diary goes over what Khargol told her about his journey back to Whiterun from Rorikstead. He hiked over the damp, mossy rocks, patterned with lichen and shallow pools of rainwater. He met a legion soldier waiting in ambush for a stormcloak courier, but never saw the legionnaire's mark. With the rain unrelenting, and the sun sinking behind the mountains,Khargol looked for shelter by the northern mountains. It says here that he saw a dragon flying between rainclouds; a dim silhouette against the darkening grey sky.

'That is when he found Rannveig's Fast, one of the ancient nord burial grounds. He knew that there would be shelter inside, but likely draugr as well. The chance of encountering the undead was, however, weighed off with the chance of finding one of the word wall murals that would teach him a new shout.

'Rannveig's Fast was unlike many other barrows in that its draugr were already slain within. Searching the ruins, Khargol encountered ghostly warriors who assaulted him. His weapons was, fortunately, enchanted, and he was able to defend himself from the spectres' attacks. Even as they slashed at him with their phantom blades, they cried out that they did so against their will - that someone else was dictating their actions.

'In the gloomy word wall chamber, a chest stood unlocked and inviting. Khargol was wary of such easily-gained treasures, however, and so he avoided walking straight towards it. There was a trapdoor on the floor before the chest; stepping on the trapdoor would have sent Khargol plummeting to whatever doom awaited below. He used the word wall, and then explored further, intent on finding the secret behind the ghosts and the trap.

'The trap had been set by a cruel and wicked man named Sild the Warlock. Sild had fashioned the trap to attract and imprison adventurers and treasure-seekers who he would then torture to death before using their spirits as his ghostly guardians. His workshop was filled with the tools of death and pain-bringing. I should imagine he found himself on the receiving end of both pain and death when Khargol unsheathed his axe.'

'How horrible!' Lalaine exclaimed. 'Why would anyone do that? Torturing people to death, keeping their souls trapped as ghosts, it's awful.'

'I agree, certainly,' said Drelis, putting down his documents and taking up his tankard. 'But there are cruel people in this world, whether driven to evil because of their nature, or greed, or something worse. We will have to take solace in the swift and brutal justice that Sild met when Khargol discovered his lair.'

Phane shuddered.