Chapter 12: Retrieving the Dragonstone (2) — Ver. 2.0
Trigger Warning: Threat of Suicide
I exhale a breath I was unknowingly holding, and look for the chain. I pull it, and when the girls walk up to me, Jenassa slaps me. It wasn't a hard slap, but it still stung.
Jenassa had a frown on her face. It looked like a mix of emotions, but the two that was most visible was rage and disgust.
Uthgerd shakes her head in disappointment. "That was not the most admirable of actions I've seen you take today. The first time you had guts, but just now? You're clearly trying to die."
"Oi. I thought ye were fuckin' crazy, not stupid." Even Bror is disappointed in me.
"Do you think your life is something that can be easily replaced?! You are arguably my first true friend, and you treat your life as if this is no more than a game?" Jenassa berates me. Her character has flipped and switched throughout this entire time I've known her. So has Uthgerd's, actually.
"Yeah? Well, what's going on with you two?! Or, for that matter, all of you?!" I exclaim, anger and confusion in my voice. "None of you were ever like this in the gam-... Ah, shit."
Their faces changed completely. "In the *what*? What are you talking about?" Jenassa is the one asking the hard questions.
Hadvar looks at me with a hard look to place exactly. He was definitely conveying a feeling of, 'If this what you're going to do, you'd better do it, right, because otherwise you'll die.
Faendal's eyebrows are creased, he's confused. "I thought you said something like that earlier. When you woke up. I heard someone yelling something that sounded like 'The game.'"
Jig's up. Time to come clean. Well, this is going to be mind breaking.
"You all are going to want to sit down for this. No. You need to. This is going to hurt your minds. A lot. Ah, speaking of hurting yourself, I'm gonna need all of your weapons. I don't want you to hurt me, each other, or yourselves." I say in a quiet voice.
We all sit down. They don't want to hand their weapons over.
"Fine. Just promise to not use them on each other or me."
"We won't," they promise. I sincerely doubt that, but I let them have their weapons.
"So. What I was saying earlier... This world is but a game. Or, rather, this world *was* a game, a fantasy role-playing game where we play as the main character of this world, or at least the being closest to, and we complete quests and raise our skills in order to become stronger. And as the player of the game grows stronger, so too, does the monsters and creatures they face. That's the thing. It's also probably the reason I'm so reckless with my life, because the traps here are simple enough to be played around with, even in a game. *Especially* as a game. It's what they were made for, after all. But recently, I was transported by a being called the Benefactor *into* this game, as the 'player', the main character. Or, at least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. But that's the thing. This world is only *similar* to the game. *Very* similar, actually, but as you may notice, it's still real life. And, I can be as careless as I want, because this..." I look at my hands and flex them, before letting them hang loose. "Mortal body is just flesh. Just a vessel. This is already either my second or third life. The Benefactor is keeping me alive through some unknown means. The first time I died was when my soul was brought here. Regardless of my previous life, my soul and maybe my body? I don't know, I could swear that I died before I was brought here. In any case, they were brought here, and that was where I woke up on the carriage. Hadvar, y'know when I woke up?" I start.
"Yes... I remember you looking very confused, as if this wasn't where you should be. I see. It's making a lot more sense now." Hadvar answers a lot more calmly than I expected.
"That was the opening scene to the game. This game was extremely popular in my world, and that opening scene became a meme." I continue.
"What's a meme?" Bror says, curiously.
"It's a phenomenon that occurs in society when specific idea or joke, usually funny, becomes really popular. Eventually it becomes widespread." I explain. Bror promptly writes it down.
"Wait... If this world is simply a game, what was it about? Was there a plot to this world, like out of a book?" Jenassa asks.
"Well, yeah, see that's the problem. There is a plot to the game. And it's not a good one. I, as the player, am the Dragonborn. But we have to kill the enemy up in there," I point to the doorway we have to go through next. "Before we can even get close to revealing this, however. Now, it's not *now* that I have a problem with. It's in the future. I will soon have to face Alduin." I continue.
"Wait, Alduin? The dragon-king? But he's- he's dead!" Uthgerd says.
I smile despondently. "If only that were the case. He was sent to the future a thousand years ago, not killed. I am to finish what the Dragonborns of old failed to do. However, we need to get the Dragonstone, before we can prove the fact that Alduin's returned. Once we have the Dragonstone, and I restore the Blades to their rightful place as the inheritors of the Dragonguard, I must summon a dragon by the name of Odahviing, who's currently under the command of Alduin, but he will betray Alduin for the chance that I might prove to be a stronger leader than Alduin."
I explain more and more about how the game worked, the story, and what might happen in the future. I mention the possibility of the vampire crisis, and how some technology of the age I came from, worked to a lesser degree. I also mention that the reason people saying things they don't intend to, or fighting things in a specific way, is probably because of a lingering effect of the games'.
The groups faces change quite a bit throughout the entire conversation, especially Bror's, who became fairly depressed he wasn't a named NPC like the others.
"There's two more things I have to say: First, I will need your help. I think instead of the one-on-one faceoff I did in the game, this is going to more likely culminate into another Great War, but this time against the dragons. If this is going to become as bad as I think it will, it'll be much more dangerous than a second Great War. Last time Alduin was here, he shirked his duty of ending the world. This time, I don't think he'll spare us that opportunity."
"Now, I'm willing to tell you more, but we must get the Dragonstone as soon as possible. If Alduin's rise is as time-sensitive as I presume it to be, then we must quickly gain the strength required to defeat him." After saying that, I stood up, dusted my armor off, and lent out a hand to the girls.
Jenassa grabs my hand, then pulls a dagger out and holds it to her throat. Uthgerd jumps back. Tears fall from Jenassa's eyes, as she cries out,
"Tell me why I should help you. If this is all just a game, and it means NOTHING! Why should I help you?! Why shouldn't I just kill myself and end it before it gets really bad."
I slowly move towards her, my arms raised as I quietly say, "Please. Put the dagger down. Put it down. I care about this world and want to see it live. I don't want you to die a death unworthy of the afterlife. I know it's real, because you're real. I'm real. I know. I won't be able to understand your pain, of finding out that the entirety of your life was more or less a lie. But I have to save this world, and the only way that will be possible is if I have everyone by my side. I'm going to take your hand, okay?"
She slowly nods with an angry and terrified expression on her face and gives me her hand. I hold it up to my face and say, "Do you feel my skin?" I blow on her hand. "Can you feel my breath? Can you hear my voice? Even if this just a game, it's real enough for me. I'm in this world, too, and I don't want to die. I'd rather kill myself, and start this life from my most recent 'save point' than have you dead in this one."
I slowly reach towards the dagger she's holding, and pull it away from her throat. I take the dagger from her hands and drop it far enough away that she can't reach it.
"If you truly wanted to kill yourself, you wouldn't ask me for a reason to not kill yourself. You'd just do it. You don't want to die, either." I continue.
I pull her into a hug. She cries her heart out into my shoulder. I can understand it. She had a certain kind of trauma only most unfortunate of people receive. Not only was her life a lie, it was no more than entertainment to people.
"Why... Why does... Why does it.... Why does it hurt so much? If I'm... just a character... in a game,... how... can I feel... such pain?" She sobs out. She falls to her knees.
"Because you're still real." I answer. A fake thing exists just as much as something real exists.
After a few minutes, she stops crying and wipes away her tears. She pushes herself away from me and grabs her weapons.
"I'm fine, now. Let's just finish clearing this place. We're going to talk more later, okay?" Jenassa says quietly.
I nod. We move on to the next room. It's the Hall of Stories. Along the walls were a series of murals. There's writing both above and under the images in the old Nordic language.
"If only the walls could speak. What stories they would tell us." Uthgerd says. Even she stares in wonder at the beautiful inscriptions.
As we approach the end of the hallway we come to the locked semicircular door.
The door has three rings on it. The outermost ring has the image of a bear on it. The middle ring has the image of a moth on it. The innermost ring also has a moth on it. In the center of the innermost ring the image of a claw print was indented into the door.
"This must be the door Arvel spoke of." Uthgerd says, pushing the innermost ring clockwise.
The ring smoothly spun and stopped at a new animal. An owl.
I pulled out the claw and compared it. That was the order on the claw, as well.
Uthgerd looked at the images of the animals. "Is this supposed to be Tsun, the bear? And that owl is Jhunal, right? I forget who the moth is though..."
"...what?" I have no idea what she's talking about.
"The Elder Gods, before St. Alessia combined the pantheons. Tsun and Jhunal had animal forms. I read about them in the books at The Bannered Mare." Uthgerd explains. Uthgerd reads? I wonder what books she's read.
"Oh...hmmm." I put the claw inside the indentations. I push it in, and something inside it turns counterclockwise, then clockwise, then back to the middle. The rings rotate all to the owl. I put the claw back in my backpack.
The door and the ground shake. Dust falls as the door scrapes it's way down the walls. Dusty air flowed into the Hall of Stories as the door made it's way down. Small clouds of dust kicked up, and we start coughing.
When the dust clears, we look behind the door, and there was what might as well have been part of a cave. Stone walls, formed by time, stood high up all around us and large teal glowing mushrooms lined the walls.
The mushrooms provided enough lighting to see by. Waterfalls and streams flowed cheerfully thought the room, and lit braziers on a podium stood on the sides of a black sarcophagus. Behind the sarcophagus was a black stone altar and even further back was a giant, curved grey wall, with inscriptions on it. We were too far away to make out what the inscriptions were, but I knew what it was.
It's the Word Wall where I'll get my first Shout.
We step up the stairs to the podium and I walk over to the Word Wall. I see the Draconic inscriptions on it. A specific set of markings start to glow. Shades of blue, green, and silver peel off from the markings and flow into my head. My vision darkens for a few seconds, and my head gets dizzy.
My head hurts a little and I realize that what flowed into me was a set of information. I could partially read the Word Wall now. It's the first Word of the Shout Unrelenting Force, Fus. Behind me I hear a loud *CRACK!* and then a thud.
"Draugr!" I hear from behind me. When my vision and the other effects clear up, I look at the draugr.
It's a completely different kind of draugr, a Draugr Scourge Lord. It stands at least seven feet tall, much taller than any other draugr here. A rusted corroded helmet sits atop i's head, with horns twisting up and back. This draugr's eyes glow more white than blue, and it has a thick cuirass of ancient Nordic armor. In it's hands were a glowing ancient Nordic war axe and a banded iron shield, which looks practically new in comparison to the helm.
It looks straight at me, before opening it's mouth and saying, "Dein Mah Lohk" and Shouting, "FUS ROH DAH!"
I fly backwards, a wave of energy in the air throwing me back. I slam against the wall and slide to the ground. The air is forced out of my lungs. I look for my potions. They're smashed, leaking out of my backpack. I feel the liquid draining out and pooling under me.
I start casting Healing with my left hand. I pull my backpack around and search for any potions that might have survived. I'm lucky I didn't break anything. I can't keep my concentration while trying to breathe though, and my spell weakly sputters out.
Across from me, Hadvar, Uthgerd, and Bror were tag-teaming the Scourge Lord, Hadvar would tank hits with his shield, while Bror and Uthgerd dealt damage. Whenever Uthgerd took it's attention, Bror would jump in, and deal several quick strikes in the span of a second, and jump back out, only for Hadvar to whack it in the side with his sword. Faendal and Jenassa would fire an arrow at him to get his attention every few seconds, but it looks like the draugr's body was extremely strong.
You'd think these series of attacks would be enough to actually stunlock and damage the draugr, but the draugr was strong enough to just take the hits as he fought them. My allies' attacks don't even break skin. We're little more than annoyances in the draugr's path.
"Je... nassa!" I weakly call out. "Need... a po... tion!"
She sprints over to me, pulls out a potion, sits me up and makes me drink it, before running back to help Faendal deal long-range damage. I shakily get to my feet, and cast Healing again. When I feel that I'm good enough to fight, I stop casting it.
I get up, pulling out my axe and cast Flames at it. When it sees me casting magic, it's eyes widen temporarily, then it casts a spell on itself, while holding his weapon. It's a spell that increases his physical force it looks like, as when he changes movements and hits Bror, Bror goes flying, like he got hit with Unrelenting Force, as I did.
He manages to say, "Oh, fuck," right after he gets hit, so I'm pretty sure he's fine. He's been picking up armor as we've been going along, and is now in a full set of ancient Nordic gear.
'The fuck, man? How come you're able to cast magic? And a buff spell, at that?'
There are very few buff spells I'm Skyrim, most likely due to the levelling system used. Buffs in other games would increase numerical stats or ability effects, but Skyrim doesn't have stats because it uses a skill-based levelling system. In the games before Skyrim, you could cast buff skills and spells, but not in Skyrim. So instead, buff abilities and buffing spells increase the level, magnitude, or length of skill powers and effects. Magnitude in reference to combat skills increase the damage or speed of attacks. Raising the level raises the damage passively, but those are usually found more in potions. As you may notice, the ability to cast buffs or debuffs would be amazing. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near that kind of understanding with magic, because in this world, that's what it would require.
When Jenassa sees the draugr scourge lord, she runs to a corner of the wall and starts firing at it. Uthgerd pulls out the steel sword she had instead of her greatsword, and her new shield and attacks it from behind.
I pull out a throwing knife, and snipe it's face, gathering it's attention.
The draugr scourge lord ignores Uthgerd's swings and stalks over to me, raising it's axe to attack. I ready my shield, and brace my legs for it's attack.
I block it's first swing and chop at it's legs. It hops over my swing, but gets caught by Uthgerd's sword midswing. Her sword hooks it's grey arm, spinning it around, and the draugr falls to the ground.
I'm pissed. There's only one thing I see, and it's a chance for revenge. 'Throw me into the wall like that. Fuck up Bror. Face me and fight, ya lil bitch.'
I may not exactly have been in my right mind, but I was definitely in a good one.
Once it's on the ground, I slip my shield off and start smashing it's skull, even thought it's not. I drop my sword, fall to my knees on it's chest, rip off it's rusty-crusty-dusty-ass lookin' helm, and start going at it's head, trying to break it's skull.
The damage accumulates over time. First, a dent. Then, a crack. Now the crack gets bigger. So on, so forth.
The draugr scourge lord is now caught in an endless cycle of smash, try to get to it's knees, smash, try to get up, etc.
When it stops trying to get up, I stop smashing it with my shield. My arms are pretty tired. I lean back, gasping.
The draugr no longer has a skull. All that's left is bonemeal, a thin layer of crusty skin and a rusty, corroded, and now dented, helmet.
"I... Was not expecting it die like that. That was fairly... brutal for a draugr. You really took over there." Uthgerd says.
"I would never have expected to say this, but it did not deserve to die like that." Jenassa agrees.
"All's well that end's well, if you ask me." Hadvar puts in his two cents.
I drop my shield, lean back, and sigh. I'm sweating so hard right now. I weakly laugh. I look over to Uthgerd and see a bruised face. The space around her eye's purple now.
"I got thrown into a wall with the Voice. Bror was thrown, too. With one swing. It got what it deserved. You two good?"
I cast Healing Hands on Uthgerd. Her eye changes back to a normal color.
"I think we're fine, but are you? You experienced the Voice head-on. By all rights, you should be dead. Are you sure you're okay?" Jenassa asks me.
I shakily stand up and grab my gear. "My stuff's not okay, but I'm fine." I look inside my bag and find that it's a multicolored mess in there. I sigh, and suggest that we search around.
The axe the scourge lord was carrying glows a light blue, so we can tell it carries a frost enchantment. We look inside the sarcophagus and there's a fat sack of around a hundred ancient gold coins, a grand soul gem, an pile of a dozen emeralds, and an orichalcum ingot in there. We take the banded iron shield as well.
Checking around the Word Wall reveals there to be two large chests behind it.
The first contained an enchanted orcish sword that glowed green, indicating a paralysis enchantment, which I take, combining it with my other orcish sword, and gift my old axe to Bror, who's picked up the enchanted axe the Scourge Lord was carrying. The red spellbook Oakflesh, was also inside. I take the book. A scaled armor cuirass inside made of orichalcum, clearly designed for a woman, was an easy gift for Jenassa, who immediately equips it, wearing her new leather rain cloak over it. The males of our group turn away when she decides change it right out there. All that was left inside was a potion of fire resistance, which we determined by tasting it, and another sack of 20 ancient gold coins.
In the second chest, there was a conjuration staff. We couldn't tell what it was, so I took it to show Farengar. There were a pair of steel boots that Bror took, replacing his shit-tier ancient Nord boots. There was an amulet in there, an amulet of Talos, which Jenassa picks up before walking over to me.
"If you're really the Dragonborn... You'll need this." Jenassa says as she places it on my neck. "I remember hearing from a bard that there was to be a blessing for the Dragonborn that wears one of these."
"Thank you," I say. I'm a little embarrassed, because I forgot our objective. "Have either of you seen the Dragonstone?"
"You mean that pentagon sort of map-looking rock over there?" Jenassa gestures over the altar in front of the Word Wall, where the Dragonstone was. I sigh in joy. I'm glad we're able to find it. It'd be real unfortunate, despite knowing the next location of Alduin's appearance already. I'd rather not be kidnapped and tortured to find how I have the knowledge that I do.
After checking what's left inside the chest, which is just a sack of 20 ancient gold coins, we look for the exit and find it behind the Word Wall.
A tunnel is the exit we find which we exit through. Before us is a lake, specifically, Lake Ilinalta, the lake that the river for Riverwood runs from. It's about 3 hours till dawn left, so we set up camp right outside the exit to the Barrow and sleep the rest of the night through, until the next day. Or rather, they do. I practice magic for the rest of the night, and for most of the day, playing with my Sparks and Flames, figuring out what I can do with them.
Because Jenassa doesn't have a bedroll, I just let her have mine. It doesn't cost much for a new one, anyways. It's pretty awkward for me to share with her, so the fact that she asked me to share it with her before is kind of weird. And/or suspicious. I don't want her to wake up next to me and stab me in fear I might try something. Not that I would, but I'd rather be careful than dead. What a revelation. I should've had that line of thinking earlier, I guess.
After they all wake up around 10, we eat a breakfast of soup, break camp, head down to Ilinalta, and follow it to Riverwood. The daylight hurts our eyes, so we've all got our hoods up.
We head down to the Riverwood Trader's and hire a cart to help us carry the armor and weapons we took off of the bandits, and the draugr. We make several trips back up to Bleak Falls Barrow and carry the gear we have to sell back down.
There was a lot of gear we had to sell: two steel helms, hide armor w/ pauldron, a steel tower shield, a rusty steel sword, an iron mace, hide bracers, hide armors w/ cloaks, two suits of banded iron armor, a set of steel armor, 9 leather boots, 3 hide, a pair of cowhide shoes, three steel daggers, three iron, an iron sword, only a dozen sets of ancient Nord armor; including but not limited to helms, boots, gauntlets, greaves, pauldrons, and cuirasses (the rest was either impossible to get off or too destroyed to even be considered armor), several ancient Nord weapons such as a war axe, five swords, two greatswords, and a bow (with 34 ancient arrows).
Depending on the quality of the gear and items we had, Lucan bought them from us at varying prices, but even he was surprised at the sheer amount of profits we made. We also showed Lucan the mysterious potion we found in the Barrow. He didn't know what it was either, but promised that if we lended him a couple vials, he should be able to find something about them, somewhere. I explain to everyone there that telling anyone about those potions would be a very bad idea, because those potions are very powerful, and limited in stock. That means they're extremely valuable, and the effects are more than good enough to kill over.
Lucan also looked over Arvel's journal, and after looking at it, he decided to sell it to a museum along with the majority of the ancient Nord goods. After all, were it not for Arvel, we never would've found the answer to the puzzle, right? (We needed an excuse to sell it. It smells like piss, and none of us want to carry it for any longer than we have to.)
Lucan compared the ancient gold coins we found to the septims of the current era using a scale, and it turns out the ancient coins had 5 times as much gold in them compared to the Septims, which explained their size. Lucan bought them from us at 6 times the price, however, because after Lucan sells them to a traveling merchant, they'd rise even higher in price in a location where they're rarer, especially to collectors and curators of museums, and Lucan would get a hefty bonus from the merchant. We also sold the rubies, emeralds, and sapphire we got from the Barrow.
Our total profits were 8,824 Septims, discluding the value of the loot from the Barrow we kept. Jenassa, was sad that she didn't come as a business partner or friend, instead of as a mercenary, having only made an extra 250 gold out of that, while me, Uthgerd, Faendal, and Hadvar each made an equal share of 2,206 gold. Bror wasn't here since the beginning of the venture, and didn't come as a friend, only ended as one, so he made no money at all. He wasn't very mad about that very much, after all, he said that he needed to go back to his home in the west anyways and check in on his children. I suggest for him to come adventuring with me for a while, but he was pretty adamant about going.
Quite a haul. Me and the girls, not having houses close enough to go to, meet up in the Sleeping Giant Inn in the room we paid for. I tell the girls I have to buy new gear, but I'd be back to celebrate later.
I go back to the Riverwood Trader. When I enter, Lucan frowns and says, "You're not going to scam me again, are you?"
I laugh lightly. "Thankfully, no. Come to think of it, I remember the first time I came here you were complaining to your sister about a break-in. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, but what happened?" I answer.
"Well, we did have a bit of a... break-in. But we still have plenty to sell. Robbers were only after one thing. An ornament, solid gold. In the shape of a dragon's claw." Lucan seems severely stressed about it.
"A golden claw, huh? Does it look something like this one?" I ask, setting the claw on the counter.
"You- You- You found it?! Ha ha ha. There it is. Strange... it seems smaller than I remembered. Funny thing, huh? I'm going to put this back where it belongs. I'll never forget this. You've done a great thing for me and my sister." He adjusts the claw's position and smiles at me. He sighs.
"Yeah, I uh... found it on uh.., Arvel's corpse."
Lucan nods. "I see. Well... I better get back to cleaning the store. This place is a mess."
|Quest Completed: The Golden Claw|
I glance at it before speaking again.
"Well, I do have things to sell to you. But I've also got things to buy from you." I say, and Lucan's eyes widen slightly. He crosses his arms and leans on the counter.
"Oh? What've you got?" He asks.
"A fine hunting bow, along with a quiver of good arrows. I'll take whatever price you've got."
"An investment of 500 gold into my store. In exchange, you'll get 15% better prices. I need money to be able to make money." Lucan has a proud look on his face. He's lost quite a bit of gold today, but despite that, he's got an investor now.
"Done."
I set the bow and quiver on his counter, and pull out five bars of gold.
"What else have I got in my backpack that I need to sell...?"
I pull out several blood encrusted giant toes. "Forgot I had these in there... You want them?"
Lucan has a confused look of disgust. "That's absolutely disgusting. Those are from giant's right?"
He sniffs a toe. "Okay, it's got the fungus that makes it valuable. I was really hoping you weren't just carrying around chopped off toes in your bag.
"Okay... There's my lantern and the axe. Lantern I didn't even use." I give him my steel axe and the lantern and he gives me 20 gold.
"That looks like that's it for the things I'm selling. Now, for things I'm buying, I need some actual steel gauntlets. Or whatever you have that's stronger." I continue, pulling off my iron gauntlets.
"Alright. That'll be 50 gold."
"Here you go." I hand him one of the sacks of gold he gave me.
He takes out 10 gold, hands them back to me, and takes the sack. I drop the gold in another sack of mine. He reaches under the counter, pulls out a pair of steel gauntlets with a nice some nice spiked knuckling similar to my iron gauntlets, and sets them on the table.
"That looks like that'll be all. Thanks for your gold," I say. "See you!"
"No, thank you for the goods, please come again!" Lucan answers back, smiling.
I leave and head back to the Sleeping Giant Inn.
• • •
"Uurggh... Finally, he's gone." Lucan did not like that man, Drake. At least in terms of professional liking. On a personal level, Drake was incredible, a good merchant, and a great person. Some of his exploits should be the stuff of legends, or so his group was saying. The problem was, Drake was *too* good of a merchant sometimes, like just earlier.
The one who just economically stole almost all of his gold, but thankfully Lucan was able to get Drake to invest in the store. At least then, a percentage of the store would be safe. The trick from now will be to make Drake invest more, and more, and more. If he's a shareholder, then he's not going to make an insane amount of money like he just did, regardless of how many Barrows he grave robs.
Lucan went to the second floor, where he had a messenger's post, with messenger hawks all around. Lucan quickly wrote a note to one of his sponsors, the largest of them actually, the Imperial Financier. It was with the Imperial Financier's assistance that he was able to find this building, and use it as both his place of business and home. Lucan had climbed the ranks of the Financier's aid rankings in terms of credit until that Drake had come and messed things up. At first, it was alright. An almost realistic amount of goods flowed throughout the store.
But now? Now there was a flow of goods so great it could strangle his business to death. While the Riverwood Trader is a secondhand and a retailer store, it's not a specialty business. Goods like weapons and armor once in a while were alright but the amount Drake had just brought in? Insanity.
What Lucan needs to do is get more money, so that he can clean, repair, and refurbish some of the goods that were just brought in. The amount of cleaning that will be done is going to be expensive. Wait! What if Lucan outsources it, to the refugees of Riverwood? He could make their pay be as low as he wants, and once the contract was signed that'll be a done deal! No, actually... that'd be impossible... Lucan would rather have the work done right, and professionally than by people who don't know what they're doing.
Lucan sighs, grabbing his head. Ultimately, he'll have to send a lot of his new goods to a professional cleaning service. Calculations for the cost of going through all that work flicks through his head. It's going to cost nearly 3,000 septims!
Lucan barely had 500 right now, what with Drake's investment. He sighs again. He'll just have to try and make as much gold as possible, and maybe, just maybe, he can scrounge up a loan from the Imperial Financier.
After tying a loan request to a messenger hawk's leg, he releases it, sending his message.
Lucan then wrote letters to various companies and agencies that could take over the cleaning, repairs, and refurbishing of the goods. Carriages from all across Skyrim will be heading to Riverwood over the next few weeks, all to retrieve the goods, and do what they were hired to do for them.
Times were changing in Riverwood, and the Riverwood Trader will surely grow from this, right? Or so Lucan hopes. Better to be an optimist here, and just try to get through this.
Finishing up writing the last letter, Lucan sends out the a bunch of messenger hawks.
Hopefully, with all the hub and buzz, travelers will come through Riverwood and buy some goods. Unlikely as that is, just like before, better to be an optimist here.
• • •
-----------------
Funds: 2,608 septims
Weapons:
💠 - Orcish Sword of Paralysis
💠 - Orcish Sword
💠 - Quicksilver Throwing Knives {x5}
💠 - Nordic Daggers {x2}
- Elven Bow, Unstrung {x12 Elven Arrows}
Apparel:
💠 - Refurbished Steel Helm (15% more armor)
💠 - Steel Armor (HP Regen. Injury Heal Rate 25%↑, Light Wound Heal 50%↑)
💠 - Spiked Steel Gauntlets (+20 extra H2H damage)
💠 - Refitted Steel Boots (15% more armor)
💠 - Custom Quicksilver buckler (18% more armor)
- Winter Cloak (20% Cold Resistance)
Potions:
- Mysterious Potion x4
Food:
- Basket of Fruits and Vegetables; {onions x4, apples x8, leeks x5, potatoes x8, head of cabbage x2, carrots x6, loaves of bread x2}
Books:
- Stack of Stormcloak notes and letters to family {x15}
- Letter to Thrynn & Torturer's Ring
- Spell Tome: Sparks
- Spell Tome: Oakflesh
Scrolls:
- Scroll of Blizzard
Supplies:
- Backpack
- Bedroll
- Cooking pan
- Waterskin
- Metal Bowl
- Torches {x3}
- Tent
Miscellaneous:
- Lockpicks {x1}
- Vial for Mysterious Potion
- Golden Claw
- Potion bottle remains