Awesome!!...Just awesome stuff!!...

Apologies for not getting here sooner...Hopefully you're still around occasionally in order to keep this going!...

I loved the flight down the mountain and the crossing to the tower...

And while I appreciate you saying that you might have weakened the Dragon somewhat, bear in mind that whatever "Dovakhiin Level™" Fist is, my level 60-odd Khajiit has killed dragons in less than ten seconds...*Shrug*...It can be done...It is the first dragon they encounter, and as you say, it's been hibernating...

As for the translation...Maybe...

I'd like to know what they're saying, at least...

The Assassin's Creed books sometimes have the Italian (or Turkish in this one I'm doing at the mo.) word and then the translation straight afterwards like,

"Bene!" said Ezio. - Good! And then he went off and stabbed some more Templars.

Dunno...I'd like to know what it was without having to go to the wiki to research it... ...

Although, absolute stunning work Jackie-Boy!...Absolutely love it!!...

Nice one!!...

*Applauds heartily*...

PS...Also, more!!!...

Right now I'm busy getting caught up with all the reading I missed during my absence but I did promise a translation so here is the quick and dirty. To be honest I think I went way overboard here. Some words of Dragonish would have been fine as the final clue that yes, dragons are not just an unusually large animal. But when line after line are in, it just becomes a chore for the reader. Not to mention that I could have gotten away with Spar just narrating that it said something but she didn't know what, because she's as clueless as the reader is. Anyhow, let's just get started.

PS: as for Fist. I'm obviously not following the game progression of zero to hero with anyone. Spar is pretty insane for one given the chance and Fist is far far above the powerlevel a player is expected to have during the first dragon encounter. (Incidentally, the game helps out by giving you half a dozen archers to help out, and an immortal battlemage kinda woman. So it is very much possible to kill said dragon by hiding in the (indestructible) tower and twiddling your thumbs.

Alright, translation time. For reals this time.

Also, just because I have to mention it. Dragons seem to suffer from a bad case of capitalizing every single word. Maybe it is because they're always so loud. Also, there is no way to distinguish between the various forms of possesive. So my/your/his/her etc all get the same extension. Fortunately as the writer I know the context so I get to cheat.
"Tafiir Nikrin." The first words are said when Spar's (lousy) disguise fails.
(Tafiir - Thief) (Nikrin - Coward)


"Roti Nimuz. Rah Niwahlaan! Daedroth! Taazokaan Nisuleyksejuni!" Ok, this is a mouthful. It's the reply to Spar yabbering at it in Daedric. Also probably the last bit of Dragon that would have been necessary
(Roti - *your* words) (Nimuz - not men) (Rah - gods) (Niwahlaan - not to create) (Daedroth - Daedroth, it's not a dragon word but eh, whatever. It was what I'd built the rest of that outburst around.) (Taazokaan - Tamriel) (Nisuleyskejuni - not your dominion)

Since this was a pretty long thing, let's put the translation all together again to save you the trouble.

"Your words not men. Gods not to create! Daedroth! Tamriel not your dominion!"


We skip a few paragraphs for the next bit (huh, maybe I didn't write down as much incomprehensible nonsense as I thought I did). Anyhow, Nords throw rock and say manly words. Dragon is understandably pissed.
"Dukaanu. Ahraani."
(Dukaanu - your *plural* dishonor) (Ahraani - my wound)

"YYYOOOOLLLL!!!" dragon spits fire
(Yol - fire) Sometimes words and action are quite a literal thing with dragons


Spar stabs dragon and we get the following:
"Mal Sahlo Mun. Werid Nosi. Vikkil."

(Mal - little) (Sahlo - weak) (Mun - man) (Werid - praise) (Nosi - your strike) (Vikkil - your defeat)
Put together again: "Little weak man. Praise your strike. Your defeat."
I also just saw that Sahlo while listed in the UESP dictionary as a single word, can also be the words Sah and Lo, in which case it would be (Sah - phantom) and (Lo - deceive) Interesting and surprisingly applicable.

No more from the dragon, but a wild, shirtless, sweaty total machoman arrives and spouts some more.
"ROH-DAAAH!"
(Roh - balance) (Dah - push) We assume that Spar actually missed the (Fus - force)
"fus-ROH-DAAAH!" - "force-BALANCE-PUSH" And things go flying.

Not content with just hammering a big firespitting killing machine against the ground, he follows up with some good old-fashioned trashtalk.
"Dov!" He says, "Rotmulaagi Zol Mul."
(Dov - dragon) (Rotmulaagi - my word of power) (Zol - most *also could be zombie* )
(Mul - strong/strength)
"Dragon! My word of power most strong."

And finally we have a Thu'um that does not exist in the game but which I made myself by putting together a trio of words. I personally think it is quite fitting for (not so) Silent Fist.
"Haal Krii Slen!"
(Haal - Hand) (Krii - kill) (Slen - flesh) I thought of doing Haal Krii Dov(ah) first, but I don't like how specific that would be. So yeah, another example of very literally interpreted dragon-speech.


Wew, that was a mouthful. Hope it's been of some use to everyone.

(Note to self: Be careful with copypasting this. You wrote it right above the characterlist spoilerversion)




Ah, before I forget. Have a belated merry christmas and an early happy new year.

And here is the final part of this chapter.

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~~

Chapter 1.16


They came storming down the path, several dozens of men and women in rattling chain, spilling over into the grass on each side. Groupleaders barked encouragements or insults, whatever got their men moving. I got out of the way before I'd be swept along in the Nords' charge and trampled underfoot. I'd seen a lot of charges during the Great War, most of them under better lighting, but this one I firmly placed on the less disciplined end. This was no wave of soldiers in a tight unbreakable formation, it was a series of leaps, skips and stops. It was the charge of conscripts, torn from their daily life and put on the battlefield without training or preparation. People who didn't trust their fellow man, who let fear of death control their actions. The fact that they could barely see the man in front of them didn't help matters.

"You call yourself Nords?" A coarse voice shouted over all the others. "Look at yourself, shaking in your boots! Afraid of old wives' tales and shadows! I've seen Mudcrabs braver than you! Do I have to bring you your mother's blanket?"
A glittering swarm of green fireflies passed me by. An enchanted suit of armour, nothing else could make glow like that without lighting the environment. And only one person fit gear like that, and that voice. Irileth the Dunmer.


Under her guidance the warriors approached the dragon and began to hack at it. I wondered what Fist was thinking of that, though I couldn't see him in the crowd. Was he amused at the Nords trying to kill something that was already dead, or angry someone would 'claim' his kill once they found out their foe wasn't fighting back? It wasn't my problem, I suppose. All I cared for was getting the cube to Farengar without the Altmer getting close to it. One was by my feet, the other was stomping my way.


"You were told to find us information on that thing, not kill it." The elf began the moment our eyes made contact. I made an exaggerated shrug with shoulders and hands while simultaneously kicking the cube behind my heels, then stood my ground against the witch.
"I learned they die." I said back. The woman got right into my face. I would have stepped back if it wasn't for the cube.
"We already knew that!" She yelled, "The Jarl had one's head mounted above his throne!"


I had to get this spy distracted somehow so I could smuggle Farengar's treasure away from under her nose. The Nords were still swinging their axes at the dragon. They were no longer so afraid of it, but judging by the sounds they weren't making much progress either. Their weapons rang as they bounced off the beast's armour and one soldier let out a curse as his axehead broke from the hilt.
"Uh, it's not moving. I think we're fighting a corpse, Housecarl. Or a castle." Another said.
"You think. You're not here to think, soldier. You're here to kill! So take it apart!"


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~~


The Altmer and I were still stuck in our standoff. I couldn't think of anything to say to get her off my back and as for her, she seemed to have plenty of words on her lips.
"You're injured." She remarked after a few more scathing verbal attacks regarding the dragon and my 'wannabe heroine streak'. "We need to get you to a healer, yesterday."
Her words were compassionate, but I didn't believe them for a second. Thalmor were not known for their kindness or love for others, not even towards their own. This could be nothing else but a ruse. To get me to drop my guard. Then would come the mindaltering potions, the poisonous words, the lies and an accident to round it off. I'd seen it too many times before. Too many times.


"It's nothing permanent." I snapped back. My heel went back only to nudge the stone cube, freezing me in place. "I don't need a healer and I don't need your help."
She came at me, ghastly glow dancing among her fingers. I couldn't move, couldn't give away the cube's location.
"I'll be the judge of that!" My skin pricked, itched and crawled in ways it shouldn't. "You look like an overdone roast." I had to stop her. Before she did something with her magic. Before she rewrote my mind into perfect obedience to her whims or broke it trying.
"And Divines know how we're going to get those furs off of you." My hands groped behind me for the boneknife. They grasped only the chilly air. The knife was where I'd left it, burrowed within the dragon's flesh. "They've practically melted into your skin. I don't see how you're even standing."


I shoved the elven witch away. It was all I could do without a weapon, or the surprise I needed to wring her neck.
"I'll live. Back off." I shouted. To my surprise, she did.
"Fine, keel over then! You impossible pighead! At least tell me you found the brick you were supposed to get in the first place." And there it was, just as I'd thought, the naked truth. The Thalmor wasn't concerned for my well-being, of course not, but for whether or not I'd gotten the artefact or whatever it was that sat in the box. My mind had been taken off of it by the sudden crisis and now I easily found the answer that had been impossible to find earlier.
"Maybe." I answered and jabbed a thumb at the remains of the watchtower. "Check the rubble."


The moment the Altmer stomped off in anger, I snatched up the cube and hurried to Irileth, the Jarl's bodyguard and apparent first response in case of dragons.
"There are two men in that tower. Possibly dead, almost definitely injured." I told her and the Dunmer ordered her archers to start digging immediately. I didn't like it, their efforts could reveal to the Thalmor that the cube wasn't where I'd said it was. But I owed those two that much. The cube wasn't worth it and I wasn't going to hold on to it for much longer myself. Irileth was looking at me in ways reminiscent of the Altmer's just before.
"You don't look so good yourself. Go to a healer." She said after a moment.
"I remember worse." My legs had held so far. And I wasn't in her chain of command. Changing the subject, I held up the cube. I made sure to shield it with my body from the Thalmor woman in case she would look. She was digging herself, moving vast stones with her mind.
"The Septim dynasty outlawed that spell. Hypocrite." I thought and lowered my voice to give instructions to the Housecarl.


"Take this to the court wizard and show or mention it to no one else." I told her and put it in her hand. The Dunmer looked at the cube for a second, feeling the carvings along its faces.
"I'd sooner take this to the Jarl, whatever it is." She then said. I shook my head.
"It seems to have a supernatural knack for drawing in dragons. I am certain that the Jarl would appreciate Farengar's opinion regarding its potential to be a threat more than your own." It was a simple statement of facts and she took it as such, showing no offense at what lesser people would have considered a denouncement of their talents.


"Did someone just say my name?"


Irileth spun around and, accompanied by a floating wisp of light, the court wizard walked up in his pyjamas. Or another set of robes, it was hard to tell.
"Farengar!" The Dunmer exclaimed. "You were told not to leave the keep! It is too dangerous here! How did you even," Her protests were cut off by a dismissive gesture from the thin Nord.
"Yes, yes. Just tell your butchers to leave that perfect specimen alone. I want to take some samples and run some experiments before it's been reduced to boarfodder." He said. Farengar walked by us. He tried to shove his way through the mass of soldiers while yelling at them to stop their 'mutilation'. I looked at Irileth who weighed the cube in her hands. Then I took it from her and marched over to the stupid court wizard.


I reminded him of my mission but he just ignored me.
"Did I? Are you certain you got the right one? Look at the size of it, simply magnificent!" There were a lot of words I would use to describe a dragon, but magnificent wasn't one of them. Especially not when the dragon in question was a pulverized oozing mass of red flesh. I rammed the box into his hands and turned away from him. I saw the Altmer's eyes on me and knew the ruse was up.
"Considering I bluffed a townsized mass of flaming screw you over it, it had better be." I said loud enough to be heard by everyone.


That was it, mission completed. Farengar had his little box and the killer of Helgen had fallen. The Thalmor was still around, but I would figure out how to remove her later. Now, I should rest.
"I want a healer."






OOC:
Originally I just had Farengar say "Are you certain?" Implying that he didn't even remember the quest. But I had to get in the 'bluffed a goddamn dragon' line so I changed it to questioning the cube.


Also, the end of the chapter means I need to get back to planning. I wrote up a plan for myself before Spar even got to Whiterun, but now I think I won't follow it. For several reasons. The next part as per the plan has been done before. It has been done better than I would and it doesn't develop Spar's story very well. All it gets her is a neat sword. And loot alone isn't enough. The good news is that it is perfectly interchangable so I'll probably plug it in at a later time.

But yeah, need to come up with a new chapter that's more relevant to Spar. I've got an idea already, but need to work out the niggly bits.

First the nits:

Just one, really, repeated a few times.

It concerns the use of apostrophes with plurals. You don't need to use that little floaty thing for plain plurals, like this:
You can just eliminate it.

The other situation refers to the location of the apostrophe when setting up a plural possessive: In this case you want to move the apostrophe to the right of the ess, as in this: . . . before I'd be swept along in the Nords' charge . . .

That's out of the way now.

I really enjoyed seeing more of Spar's ironic practicality at work here. The encounter with the Thalmor spy was quite engrossing, as was the discussion with Irileth. I got a kick out of Spar's perception of the Dunmer's enchanted armor earlier.

It was quite the first chapter, and a lot of fun to read. I look forward to more!

Oops, fixed it.


And it's time for part two. But first, a recap!



Spar was given the mission of recovering an artefact for Whiterun's court wizard. To accomplish her task she hired on a Companion by the name of Silent Fist. After some trouble involving spiders, zombies and a lich, Spar found the artefact. Her return to Whiterun was made difficult however by the attack and relentless pursuit of a dragon. Finally out of options, Spar chose to face the dragon on her own and try to stall for time so that Whiterun's army could bail her out. By the time the army arrived, the dragon had already been slain by the Companion Spar had hired.

We pick up the story some time later.


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CHAPTER 2.1: Tale of a Black Demon


Whiterun outskirts


If I thought that one dead dragon meant the end of Whiterun's troubles, I would have been mistaken. If one dragon could fly straight out of myth, so could others, and Whiterun's forces engaged in a crash-course on dragon fighting. But a dragon was unlike any known opponent, so simply teaching the optimal tactics and formations wasn't enough. First the tactics and inventions had to be invented. To that end Jarl Balgruuf formed a council. On it were himself, his brother Hrongar, the chief captain of his guards, Irileth, Farengar, and myself. I didn't relish the attention but I was one of the few who had seen a living dragon up close in detail. One of the few who had seen what did and what didn't hurt a dragon, how it might fight. But most importantly, I was the only one who could put into words what I'd seen.


Even with so much expertise unleashed upon the same problem, it wasn't easy. The Jarl had little time for anything after running his city, and Farengar seemed more interested in researching the corpse we had than finding ways to make more. There was also a clashing of egos. While Irileth and I were of the opinion that magic would be crucial in any battle with dragons, Hrongar was adamantly opposed to the idea. After we'd argued for half the day on just that one point, Caius the captain pointed out that it didn't matter anyway. The only combat-capable mages in Whiterun were Farengar and the Thalmor. Not the kind of thing one could build an army around and training more would be impossible for various reasons. And we couldn't exactly put all our hopes on one man. What if Fist got a cold or something?


I couldn't say I was happy with what we did come up with after a few weeks of breaking our heads. The methods we devised and rolled into our training program were less of a way of killing dragons than it was to keep up a constant stream of near useless arrows while minimizing casualties. I wasn't eager to test our theories. Fortunately we received no confirmed sightings of flying lizards, though there were plenty of rumours. And not just of dragons. Bandits, savage lizardmen, an Orcish warlord, giant wolves and even vampires, everything one could imagine was out there if you asked the refugees. It told me how fearful the rebellion must be for the small villages and farms. Neighbour pitted against neighbour, never knowing if a raiding group was coming down to burn your home and field. In a way it was worse than the Great War. At least back then we knew our enemies and allies.


It was all too mindnumbing. I took every chance I got for self-improvement, just to get away from all the futility. I worked out with the troops, studied my spelltomes and even convinced Silent Fist to try his hand at teaching me the magic yells. On top of that I occasionally joined patrols outside the city walls. It was one of these that brought me where I was now, high up on the forested mountainside to the east. On my belly in the snow, pressing a fist into my guts to keep it from growling, the other holding up my scarf to catch the clouds spilling from my mouth.


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~~

Between me and Whiterun was a camp consisting of three tents, some crates and two campfires. One of the fires was in use right now to make a meal of the day's catch. Six men and women sat on fallen logs and smacked their lips appreciatively.


Bright-haired Nords who wore their affiliation on their swordarms in the form of blue scarves. They treated the coarse fabric with more care than even their weapons, making efforts to keep them clean and stroking them often as they spoke among each other. It was a Stormcloak camp I was looking at. General Stormcloak had set up several of these along the mountains and forests to the east of Whiterun. While the camps were too small to pose a threat to the city, this was still an act of war. Hrongar, Irileth and even Proventius had all urged their Jarl to remove these camps, whether by force of arms or diplomacy. But Jarl Balgruuf did not retaliate.


It puzzled me. Imperial doctrine was to engage any known threat pre-emptively, before it could grow sufficiently to cause large-scale damage. A doctrine that had stunningly failed in the leadup to the Great War. General Stormcloak's camps were such a threat. At the moment all they could do was interdict the trade route between Whiterun and General Stormcloak's own city of Windhelm or raid outlying farms. Fortunately they hadn't done the latter in respect of Whiterun's neutrality, yet. But we all knew it was only a matter of time. And yet the Jarl did nothing.


I couldn't understand the General either. He wasn't a man of open conflict, of regiments marching in unison, of the codes of formal warfare and conduct as laid down by Uriel Septim I. The Thalmor torturers made sure to excise that. The General I knew was someone who believed in striking at the heart of the enemy at the expense of all else. None of this nibbling at the edges of a vague front that now cut Skyrim in half. He would set up camp for no longer than a single day, and move during the night. These people had been around long enough to set up and harvest hunting traps, and to talk loudly about when their next resupply would be or when the main army was going to move. In fact, they expected to stay here throughout the winter which even for Nords couldn't be comfortable. It was as if someone else was running this war.


I had to wait quietly till the dark of night before performing my own extraction. Just three days before we received some heavy snowfall. I'd thought it was a sure sign that winter had come, but the weather turned around again and the snow was now a wet grey sludge. It made sneaking much harder. Not only was it difficult not to leave signs of my passing, but the squelching sounds each time I moved were hard to suppress, no matter how slow I went. And that was when I could see where I was going. My current position wasn't perfect either. One of the Nords had but to turn and climb a little up the mountain to spot me. That said, they had so far shown no interest in what happened in the direction that didn't let them spy on Whiterun.


They left only one soldier to keep watch while everyone else went to bed. That was rather negligent but suited me fine. I circled back around and carefully made my way down to the road. It was a clean night, with Masser and Secunda looming above amidst the stars. Not a sound to be heard except that of my own feet. No, not just my feet. Something splashed through the snow outside my own rythm.
"Did I get spotted leaving the camp?" The Nords wouldn't strike on a single traveller in the middle of the night and I carried no fire. At this distance I should be invisible to them.


"Ecwuse us, fwend." A voice called out from behind me. They weren't the Stormcloaks from the camp. I would have recognized any of them after spying on them for so long. None of them stumbled over their own teeth. I quickly scanned the area before me and seeing no threats on that side, turned around. Two people stood behind me, barefooted and wearing just a few rags.
"We aw fwarmers fwom Ivawstead. Could you pewhaps heljp us with zomefing?" Skin iced over, dry eyes and most importantly, their breath left no trace in the air. All the marks of a walking corpse, but lacking the fire of the Draugr and they looked too fresh for one. Nevertheless, I'd seen their kind before. My hands went behind my back for the knife as I watched them.
"Vampires. So that story was true after all."




OOC: I shamelessly stole the teeth problem from Elisabeth. Trying it out myself to get an idea of what it would sound like was rather awkward though.

So after Spar spoke to that snobby fellow back in Whiterun(gods, I hate that court mage). I do like your battle scenes, as they are well-written and a joy to read.

This chapter was a fun read, as well.

Welcome to Tamriel, eh? Seems to be daily problems of many people throughout the provinces. I did like the fact that the Thalmor had some involvement in the change of Imperial military tactic. Huh. Those elves got their dirty little golden fingers everywhere.

And our dear friend is goes on a stroll at night( a bad idea, especially in a place like Skyrim) to be met with a few odd individuals. Never ceases to amaze me how . . . unsettling some of these nosferatu can look. They shouldn't even be talking to people with their disfigured faces, unless of course they're directly from the Cyrodiil clan.

Better hope that knife is made out of silver . . .

I do recall the teeth goof of Elizabeth's No Elves in Sovngarde. Hilarious. You'd think after a few centuries these creatures would develop a bit of a speech improvement.

Good read!

I enjoyed the brief summary of the next few weeks. It was a great way to wrap up what could essentially be a very boring interlude for the readers. And then we dive right back into the present with Spar as she spies on the camp.

I loved the "tripping over one's teeth" line, especially as it was followed up by the unique dialogue of the vampires. I'm sorry I missed the original reference, so this was new to me. Even though I know where it came from, I still laughed at it.

I look forward to more!

Need. More. Updating.

Get to it

The teeth-part was for a reason beyond just aping Elizabeth. Ok, same reason as she did but still valid enough.

And err, apologies for my latest absense. Anyhow, on with the show.



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Chapter 2.2


There was only one kind of 'help' a vampire could want and I wasn't willing to give it. Not that I'd ever heard of a vampire who was stopped by being told 'no'. Still, I tried.
"Go away, blood drinker."
No other options came to mind. Fighting a vampire, especially two of them, would be suicide. I remembered a few raids into a vampire's lair, but those always had the odds stacked in our favour. Entering when the vampire was least dangerous, preferably slumbering, bringing special equipment and making sure the fanged vermin was outnumbered four to one at least. I any case, my words seemed to have surprised these two, going by the flailing of their arms and half-hearted refutations. Evidently they'd thought their deception to be better than it actually was. That, or they had no idea what effects weather like this had on the cold body of a vampire.


"Now now. We weem yu no hawm. Jut a sip." One replied, surrendering the charade. Just a sip? Who was it kidding? A vampire was never stuffed after 'just a sip'. The other began arguing with it.
"Do we haw to do wis? Can we nob dwink vwom a cup? Like people?"
"I diwn bwing won. Diwd you?"


It gave me more time to think and to carefully loosen the knife in its sheath. Drawing now would be almost instantaneous, but still too slow, the distance to them still too great. And just why had I seen through their deception in the first place? Vampires made a habit of studying the arts of illusion and seemed to have a strange affinity for it. Instead of looking at these undercooled corpses pretend to be alive, I should have taken them at their word and seen whatever they wanted me to see. Or was this what I was supposed to see? Why weren't they carrying any weapons? They might not need them, but most vampires did anyway because there was no reason not to.
"Vampires who reveal themselves don't tend to live long. Especially those without even as much as a kitchen knife. This stinks."


Then there was this bickering. Why? If it was some trick to make me misjudge them, it wasn't working. Vampires weren't supposed to stop and debate what was the most civilized way to murder people and suck them dry like an oversized mosquieto. Did no one brief them on their vampirehood? Now there was a possibility. Perhaps it wasn't a trick at all.
"If their infection was accidental, they could be clueless."


Vampires were born through two methods. First was when one vampire deliberately infected a mortal, watched over the corrupting process and properly educated its kin. The new vampire would usually end up subservient to its 'parent', often delivering prey and the like. The other came when a victim of a vampire attack didn't die. If a healer was on the scene in time and didn't recognize the symptoms, the victim could be stabilized with the infection left untouched. Then within the next few days the diseased would enter a coma indistinguishable from death. A few more and the new vampire would awaken, often within a fresh grave and always craving blood.


It would explain a lot. But not their ability to reason. They were obviously well-fed, yet behaved as if this was their first time. Still, even that I could explain. A hungry vampire was like a rabid animal, completely incapable of reason and possessing only the impulse to leap and bite. That included the ability to memorize. We'd confronted but failed to kill one such feral once. The next time we faced it, it had held no recognition of our earlier meeting or any fight at all.


For all I knew these two really had been farmers from Ivamsstead or wherever. Not that it mattered. I tried one more time to convince the vampires to leave me alone before I would resign myself to having to fight them off somehow.
"What if I leave? No harm."
"Sowwy, we haw to dwink. Cawn't be piwkey."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~


"So be it." I thought. I would take away their guard, make them trip, then Them could rush the monsters. I braced myself and filled my lungs to the limit.
"Fus!"
Ribs crushed my lungs.
A spasm of the throat.
A gust of hot air burst from my lips.


And nothing else.


"Wha? Dew iz no need do zwere." The vampires complained. "We down do diz fow fun. We haw to."
"If only I could become Fist. It would make things so much easier." I thought and chewed on my lower lip in frustration. In truth I had known that the pressure of the danger I was in would not magically endow me with the skill needed to make it work. But it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for the Breton to be able to do it without practice or without even knowing how or why. I hated that.
"And I'm Kettle. Next plan then."


"Go away, or I kill you." Two of them, and only one knife. I'd have to use magic to bolster my offense. The problem with that was that I had no mages among Them so I'd have to do this myself. At least until I'd launched my spell. One was all I'd be able to cast. I began the handmotions to draw out and shape the magicka-pattern.
"I should have studied the destruction tome first."
"Hoy hoy. We aw wampiwes." The one who was nearest said. "We can't be kiwled. Bows swed zo. We aw de bewst fiwtews in Skidjim."
Vampires are better than their mortal host in every way, that much was true. Stronger, faster, tireless, every sense sharpened to a fine edge. But being physically able was one thing. Vampires were not magically imbued with all the knowledge and instincts needed to fight. I was having the feeling these two hadn't been informed of that little detail. Or they were very good at faking it.
"In which case I am very dead."


My fingers began to prick and tingle and I held the spell. I kept giving up enough magicka to sustain it, but not the spark that would turn it into light. Them was ready. Yet I needed to better the odds first before launching my attack.
"Ok. Come here. You can drink." I said and lifted my chin. The vampires grinned and one came closer. Ideally I would have drawn in both but I'd take whatever I could get.
"Yes. Daws bewter. Thiw won huwt, I pwomiz." It said, placed its hands on my shoulders and leaned close. The veins flanking my throat felt like they were about to burst and I swallowed. Was that vampire magic or just me becoming hyper-focussed on that spot because I knew what it was about to do? Letting a vampire get within biting range ran counter to every rule of vampire-combat. It was suicidal. It also got it within stabbing range.


Its teeth touched, like two big thumbs pushing against the skin. That was the moment.



My hands flew out. Left first, a flick of the wrist around the waist, the spark that birthed the sun and gave it flight. Pass the baton.
Right follows, bringing the knife. I enter low then sweep it up as the blade splits everything in its path. Groin, belly, sternum. Shove with left, the first target falls. Move in on the second.


It says something, flailing its hands. My tongue spits a retort.
"Because you let me." It is Spar, clamp down on it, shut it out. The vampire shuffles back, too slow to escape. Sprint in close, lead with the knife. It is slapped away, spinning me to the right. Left hand rises with the momentum, fist aimed at throat. It parries, diverting my strike upwards. I continue my turn, pivot on one foot as the other thrusts out into a straight kick. The vampire escapes my last attack by simply outrunning it. It flees bouncing high up in the air like an oversized toad and covering an arrow's flight with each step.


I blinked away the spots as the second farmer vanishes in the darkness. What had happened to my spell? Did I miss, or did I miscast?
"If all I managed to do was half-blind myself, It was worse than useless." I thought angrily. Then something grabbed my ankle and swept me off my feet. I landed hard and twisted to try and see what had done it. It was the first vampire, gnawing on my boot in a mad frenzy! I could feel the teeth, their sharpness, drilling through the folded furs and leather!
"Let go! Die!" I yelled and stabbed blindly at the monster with my knife. Again and again, not caring where I hit, just that I did.
"Die!"




Simple fatigue was what stopped me. The bony weapon slid out of my cramped fingers and I resorted to beating its skull with my fists before that too, was too much. I fell flat on my back and drew in gasping lungfulls. The pressure on my ankle was still there, the teeth that tried to bite me, to kill or taint.
"Killed by a... Is this it...that doesn't even know itself...thrice-cursed vampire..." The thought came in fragments, repeating out of order. But the teeth weren't moving and eventually the panicky animal I'd become noticed. That gave room for more productive thoughts.


I lifted my boot and heard the Vampire's skull plop back down in the wet snow.
"Ok, I'm alive. Where did the second one run off to?" I looked around but didn't see anyone. That put a broad limit on the amount of time I'd wasted just lying around. There was no way the Stormcloak's guard could have missed the light from my spell unless he'd fallen asleep. And there was no way anyone else could have missed it either.
"The Orc said there was an army of the bloodsuckers roaming the province. What if these two were just the vanguard, an unarmed scouting party? They did mention a boss."
General Stormcloak's Nords or vampires out for revenge and blood, not necessarily in that order. I wasn't eager to have an encounter with either. With that in mind I forced myself back onto my knees and then my feet. My still shaking feet.


"Time to leave." The impulse echoed and my hand came up on its own to feel my neck. It was wet, but no odd pain or gaping holes. Just the snow then. I felt relieved to know that.
"Time to leave." I, Them, thought again and pushed me forward along the path. It was the best decision, the safest. For me, but not for Whiterun. The Jarl had to be informed and to do that, I would need proof. I also wasn't going to leave without the knife that had saved my life and which I had to admit, was growing attached to. So I fought down the chorus and knelt down next to the corpse. A quick look for anything of interest, that was all. Then I'd run, or march, or stumble, as fast as I could.


My repeated stabbing hadn't left much whole of its skull and neck. The knife had gone all the way through each time or whittled away big slices on a glancing blow. And going by the position of its arms and legs, how it hadn't used them against me, my earlier surprise attack must have damaged the spine. The flesh was oozy, only somewhat decomposed. Zombie-like, not draugr or dust.
"This vampire was new, just a few days at most."
I turned the body over and ran a finger through the canyon I'd carved through its torso I could definitely feel the spine, even the crack in the vertebrae. It was all very interesting, but not anything I could use as proof unless I miraculously received the strength to carry the vampire away on my back.


"Fifteen...sixteen...come on, just something I can grab....nineteen...maybe I should cut out its jaw....twenty-one." I counted the seconds as I raised my knife. At thirty, I told myself, I would leave. Not a second later.
"Twenty-three....twenty-four...what's that?" Something was lying in the snow, glinting in the moonlight. It was right where the vampire had been before I'd turned it over. I quickly snatched it up, two metal parts judging by the feel. They were curved pieces, with blunt spikes sticking out.
"Was it wearing this around its neck? Hmm, I think the other had something like it. The one that got away. Thirty-two." I was out of time and this had to do.


I got to my feet and half-ran, half-walked down the road to Whiterun. Knife in my hand and scanning the darkness around me all the way. The gateguards saw me stumble up the path and came down to meet me. I was grateful for their strength as I collapsed in their arms.
"Ho there, Whisperer. Are you alright?"
"Caius, now." I answered. They quickly ferried me through the gatedoor and into the barracks just beyond. Inside it was as it always was in the depth of the night. Soldiers wearing their uniforms to varying degrees, from full armour safe for the helmet down to their underwear. They gambled, drank and talked with loud voices, punctuated by laughter and shouts at a joke or a remarkable roll of the dice. But that all ceased the moment I was carried in. It always did, though I didn't know why.


The gateguards brought me up to the captain's office, saluted the man and then left. The captain was a heavily balding Imperial, with a prominent scar beneath his left eye and a tattoo on his arm that signified participation in the battle at Red Ring. He appraised me for a moment in silence, then drew out a seat on which I happily crashed.
"Did you slaughter the whole camp by yourself?" He said in a cold tone, "And then decide to bathe in their guts?"


I dug the bits of metal out of my vest-pocket and threw them down on the table.
"Forget the Stormcloaks, we've got another problem." I said, pointing at the two pieces. I now had the time to look at them properly myself.
"The Orc was right. Vampires." They were clearly two halves of the same thing. A ring, with spokes. I would have called it a ship's wheel, if the spokes didn't flare out into arrowpoints.


Caius' attitude instantly changed from thinly veiled displeasure to open concern.
"Shor's, is there even a drop left in you?" He asked me. I fingered my neck and the gaps bored in my boot. I then observed that my furs were all crimson. It made me laugh. No wonder the captain thought I'd gone berserk on the Stormcloaks.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it." I answered him. The captain frowned and walked over to a large cabinet. He opened it and took out a bottle and a large cup.
"That's what you always say. Drink." He commanded, looked at the bottle and then set it down on the table before me. The cup went back in the cabinet. "Make it the whole bottle."


The greasy liquid was disgusting, it made me gag. Still, I wasn't going to disobey an order while sitting right in front of him. I forced myself to keep drinking. Quick sloshes down my throat, trying to taste as little of it as possible.
"Something was odd about them, though." I said during one long pause inbetween the gulps.
"I mean, I'm here talking about it. That's not right."


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OOC: I should probably stop stacking the deck so much in her favour all the time. But at the same time, I couldn't afford to have Spar get injured at this point. There was no support for her out there and unlike the excursion to the barrow, she had not been given the chance to load up for war. (Probably should have mentioned that)

I also should have properly worked out Them before I'd started writing. The idea is still the same in general, but the way it works is already shifting.

The vampires' dialogue had me rolling! I kept thinking of the Keystone Kops rolled up with Abbot and Costello and Laurel and Hardy in one!

And I share that niggling feeling that something is not quite right with those oh-so-polite bloodsuckers . . .

Someone must have smacked those vampires across the head, no?



Haha, priceless.

The blood-hungering newbie accidental dim-wit vampires sure are persistent in getting a sip of that red nectar.

Heh. I thought when the word Fus was uttered, there would be hell to pay. But only warm air came out

When magic or Dragon-stuff don't work, a good stabbing always does!

We'll hear more regarding the vampires later. Not this update though. No, this one is completely irrelevant.


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Chapter 2.3


I told the captain everything. How I'd been 'met' by the vampires on the road. What they looked like, their lack of weaponry, how they moved. What they'd said, down to an attempt at recreating their peculiar speech-pattern, and finally what happened or didn't happen after I killed one. I left out my failings or Them's involvement. He didn't need to know. When all was said and done, the actual report on the Stormcloak camp was almost an afterthought.


By the time the captain was done with me and I'd hauled myself up to the castle, it was almost morning again. My body and soul ached for the sanctuary of a soft and warm bed, but I couldn't. Early in the morning the Jarl had another meeting. I was not invited to this one, but I knew the Thalmor agent would be present which by extension made my own presence required as well. So instead of getting some much needed sleep, I had to satisfy myself with a thorough scrubbing and digging into Farengar's stash of homebrew energy potions. I wouldn't say that alchemy was the court wizard's strong suit, but his fare tasted better than the stuff the guard's got. And given how often he used them himself, I could be assured that there were no crippling side-effects.


It was about dragons again which with the Stormcloaks and vampires on my mind, was almost refreshing again.


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I made my way to the meeting room which was the same balcony/hall combination that Hrongar used as a training area for the palace guards. Currently the place was empty, but the longtables, weaponracks and fresh strawmen were already waiting. I sat down on the edge of one of the tables to wait for the Jarl and his entourage to arrive. A light gust of wind picked up a bit of straw from the floor and had it tumble along.
"Since no-one is here, I might as well see if I can't figure out what I did wrong."


I got back to my feet and walked over to one of the targets. There I brought up my hand and repeated all the motions I'd read in the tome, all the motions I could swear I'd performed the previous night. Palm up, spread the fingers, flatten out the hand completely. Feel the magicka in my flesh, my blood and my bones. Touch it, draw it out from the extremities and bring it together in a tight bundle in my chest. Coax the bundle up into the shoulder and back down through my arm to bring it to my hand. Split it into five equal portions and send each to the very tip of a different finger.


Now came the hard part. I had to let out a measured and even part from five different foci simultaneously, and weave the leakage into the spell with tiny motions of only the outermost fingerjoints. Pull, push, prod, squeeze. A blazing orb of light rose and hovered over my hand connected to me by five near invisible strands. A tinkling like tiny bells was in the air but gone the moment I focussed on the sound, to reappear when I gave up.
"One magelight. So far I seem to be doing it right." I thought as I observed the spell through half-closed eyes. What else could I have done wrong?


I turned my eyes on the straw dummy. The magelight spell was supposed to be thrown and stick to any surface it touched. Perfect for the mage who was too lazy to get out of his seat and search for a candle to light. The tome had described everything that counted as solid. All the lifeless matter, as well as vegetation such as trees. Even the surface of water would supposedly catch a magelight. I turned my palm toward the figure and pushed while clenching a fist to break the strands.


It floated sedately across the tiny distance. And stuck. The blinding little orb bobbed gently as the breeze tugged at the straw it was attached to, but it stuck perfectly.
"Then what? It can't stick to flesh?" I waited till I'd regathered enough magicka for another, then placed the next atop my own head. And going by the shadows I cast, it stayed there. So it wasn't a restriction in its sticking either. Maybe it was in the pause where I'd gone wrong. Another breather and another cast. No good, or still a perfect magelight depending on my point of view. There weren't many factors left that came to mind. Just speed and distance.
"Just how far can it fly and at what point does it go too fast to anchor itself?" The tome's writing still pulled me for a loop from time to time, but I was relatively sure it hadn't said anything on either. I resolved to test it for myself. From the other side of the room and throwing it out as hard as I could. It was a good thing I'd had so many memories of archery. My aim shouldn't be a problem. Still, I went for the center just to keep things simple.


Gather, split, weave and punch it across the room.
"What are you doing?"


I glared at the elf that had appeared on the balcony.
"Wasting time." I said. I couldn't admit I was stumped by a simple spell. That would be showing a weakness. Thalmor loved those. They kept lists of them, all the points on a person that they could leverage to their advantage. The women stepped off the railing, crossed her arms and surveyed the target.
"Wasting time? Coming from miss 'practice how to stab people while eating, drinking, reading and writing for maximum efficiency', that's rather hard to believe." She said with a grin. I felt the urge to plunge my knife into that heart and rid the world of at least one goldenskinned monster.
"Fine, I was waiting for the meeting. Don't want to be late and all. Or is my attention to time also hard to believe?"
"Tactics meeting isn't till noon, you're not invited to this one and blablabla. Now that we've gotten all the usual posturing and sniping out of the way, care to tell me why you made poor Siegfried of Strawstead into a Divine?"


I had aimed at its heart. With the speed, distance and droppage in mind it meant that I'd punched for the spot just over its head. Exactly the spot where the spell now clung to the wall. Against the vampire I'd aimed even higher.
"That one probably ended up catching a ride on a cloud." The good news was that I'd isolated the problem. Now I could start to work on turning it into reflex. The bad news was that it reinforced my view on the Altmer as a threat. Since spells didn't fall to the ground, she could literally just point directly at her target. And being an expert with decades to centuries of experience, she probably knew a better, quicker way of firing them.


I didn't give her an answer and she didn't push any further so we maintained a tense silence from opposite sides of the room. After some time the door opened to let in Jarl Balgruuf along with his foremost retainers. Irileth, Hrongar and Proventius. I was questioned on my presence but after pointing out my standing as the 'expert' on dragon anatomy they let me stay. Besides, I knew how to keep my mouth shut.


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"Bring them in."
At the Jarl's command a wheelbarrow was rolled in, filled with a clattering assortment of arms. Next to it were what I understood to be Whiterun's foremost weaponsmiths. Eorlund Gray-Mane and the steward's daughter, Adrianne Avenicci. The latter I'd seen at the castle a few times. Seeing the grimy and ripped woman always came as a bit of a shock next her father's clean dress, elegantly trimmed moustache and lacking physique. Today however I couldn't care less about familial resemblance. It was what was in that wheelbarrow that I wanted to see.


As was to be expected from the audience, the weapons the two smith's had come to demonstrate were not the run of the mill mass-production items sold to armies and individual buyers. These were made from the dragon's bones. It sounded like something an Orc would do, kill his enemies and make their remains into weapons to kill his other enemies with. Although I had to admit the idea appealed to me in this particular case. After all, I'd seen how ridiculously durable a dragon was and it had lost none of its near invulnerability in death. Besides, its corpse had to be taken apart anyway to keep it from resurrecting itself. It hadn't taken long till Hrongar voiced the idea that they might as well make use of all the 'junk'. Armour would have been my idea before weapons, but it wasn't my choice to make.


Eorlund Gray-Mane went first. An older man whose beard and wild hair went well with his name. He lifted a large swordlike weapon and offered it to the Jarl's brother. Proventius and the Altmer were already taking notes.
"Be careful when gripping it. The bone remembers the dragon. It still burns." He said and Hrongar took it by the grip that had been padded with chips of chalk. While the barbarian gave it a few swings to test the weight and balance, I fingered the knife at my belt. I was certain it was made of a dragon's bone as well. It possessed the same colour and the same outrageous hardness. But it didn't burn. The carvings in the Barrow suggested it once had and now Eorlund mentioned something similar. It had to be a matter of age. How long would the burn last and could we restore its effect by enchantment or something? I would have to discuss this with Farengar when he had time.


Meanwhile Hrongar had cleaved a few strawmen with a single stroke each. The targets smoked and sizzled along the cut. I really needed some of that for myself.
"The grip is becoming rather hot. What do I do with it, soak it in the well?" The man asked the smith who nodded in reply. On second thought, maybe restoring my knife's power wasn't such a good idea. I wasn't going to lug a bucket of water around all day just to keep it cool.


Eorlund Gray-Mane had a few more items for us to see. A hammer made from one of the dragon's molars, a humongous shield that came from the plates which covered the Dragon's spine and of course some variety of the Nordic axe. Proventius' daughter meanwhile came with a spear, some daggers and a prototype for a bow that no one in the room could draw. She said it was meant as a fixed weapon with all the strength of a ballista at less than a quarter the size. Everything the two smiths had made shared a common theme however. Use as many parts as possible with a minimum of reshaping work. When the two were forced to do something more than cobble things together with strings, they followed the path of natural fractures. Anything else was simply too ruinous on their bodies and tools.


The method of craftwork, weight, hardness, strength, inflexibility without brittleness, structure. Everything except colour matched another wondermaterial I knew. Ebony. Not exactly, but close enough that it made me wonder if there was a link. The significance wasn't lost on Jarl Balgruuf and his entourage either. The moment he'd dismissed the smiths he decreed that the dragon's corpse was the property of the Jarl and his line, to utilize solely in the defence of his hold. He needed those weapons and armour to ensure the neutrality of Whiterun at the heart of the war.
"Spin a good excuse for the public, Proventius." He said. "I'm not going to let a vital resource like this disappear in the hands of thieves, shady merchants or the Emperor's war fund."


I could understand his fear. Ebony had always been rare and mostly used in small but costly baubles. When it was crafted into a warrior's gear, the sheer cost of it would bankrupt most nobles. Yet the results were worth it. A man in Ebony plate was as close to invulnerable as possible even without enchantment. After the eruption of Red Mountain, the richest Ebony mines had become inaccessible, making it even harder to find and to buy. The final blow had been the Thalmor invasion. Emperor Mede, desperate for anything that could give his troops the edge over the Altmeri sorcery, had claimed all known pieces of Ebony and had them forged and enchanted into gear for him and his personal guard. Of course, there hadn't been enough time to get more than what was in northern Cyrodiil and southern Skyrim, but the royal decree had never been rescinded after the armistice was signed. If word came out, the Jarl could expect a similar decree on his new resource. Though personally I'd expect the Thalmor to make a move first.


"It may be too late for that." Irileth noted. "Did you hear what Eorlund said? He has apparently 'lost' most of his materials while learning how to do this. Melted down in his fancy Skyforge if you'd believe him. Hah! No doubt Ulfric will soon receive a winter gift courtesy of the Gray-Mane clan." She continued and Hrongar spat on the floor.
"I'm with her, brother. He's the best smith in all Skyrim and his clan will not let anyone forget it. To claim a failure would tarnish his honour and reputation. He's hiding something and when a Gray-Mane hides something, you know it will have something to do with the Stormcloak cause. Ulfric will want our weapons any way he can. No, he needs them."


Even Proventius added his support to the two.
"I won't claim any knowledge of the smith's trade. As much as Adrianne talks about it, I'm afraid it goes in one ear and out the other. But I do know a swindle job when I see one. Eorlund's weapons were made by splitting a single bone till he had a thin slice. How many more such slices do you think he could get from the same bone? Where does the forge come into it?" He said and went on after a breath.
"And my predictions came true, Jarl. The Stormcloaks won't be the only ones with knowledge of the dragon weapons. I am afraid that my daughter has also sent off some samples to prospective clients."


Balgruuf's fingers twitched momentarily, half-clenched in a fist, before he pushed his anger aside and regained his composure.
"So Stormcloak and Imperial alike will decide how much they want it." He stated matter of factly and turned to the steward. "How much did she take?"
"Not much. Flakes the size of a nail at most, just enough for testing. She knows she can't hide from me behind a rounding error. A lesson Eorlund Gray-Mane has yet to learn."


The Jarl debated the issue some more but I didn't pay it much attention. I didn't have anything to add and instead picked up one of the daggers. Compared to my knife it was smaller, less sharp and in general not as well made. For a first attempt though, I thought it was well made. Still far better than anything steel I'd ever wielded. As for the chalk, I wasn't sure how much good it did but it left residue all over my hands. And the weapon was definitely getting warmer as I held it.
"We'll have to make certain this does not happen again." The Jarl said. The finality in his tone of voice made me put down the dagger and look up.
"From now on I want all the dragon materials stored in the underground vaults. I want two keys and two locks, one on Proventius and one on Hrongar. You make sure you are together when that door opens and watch while the materials are removed. Make notes. Make them fill out inhuman amounts of paperwork. At sunset, any unused materials, finished products and unfinished ones alike are to be returned to the vault. Weigh them, scale them, whatever you need to know they're not keeping bits hidden. Any excuse, any failure to comply and their right to work with this stuff is revoked permanently."


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With that matter resolved, the Jarl had food brought in for an early lunch, which was breakfast for me. The next piece on the agenda was the regular anti-dragon meeting, the one I was expected to be present for. We still needed to wait for Farengar and Captain Caius though.
"Jarl Balgruuf, with your permission." I said formally. "There is something you should know."



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OOC: Now this update has absolutely nothing to do with Spar or her story. I did feel it was a good idea to put it in though as a possible setup for later events and more importantly, to show what Whiterun is doing with that dead dragon they found on their lawn.


Let me explain a bit further. In the game there is a skill-tree for smithing. Equipment in Tes games have always been separated into 'levels' which are indicated by their material. If fur/leather is level 1, then iron is level 2, steel level 3 etc. There is the separation between light and heavy armours which use different materials, but this will do for the basic idea. Now to be able to make equipment of a certain material, the player first needs to get his/her smithing up to the right level for it and then buy a perk. The Smithing tree has one such perk for each material, with the tree being conveniently split into the light and heavy paths. To get a perk for a high level material, you first need to buy all the lower perks in the same path.


And now we get to the importance of the 'dragon' material. The dragon perk is at the top of the tree, where the heavy and light paths come back together. To unlock it, you need to have your smithing skill maxed out, at a full 100 points. Daedric is 90, and Ebony 80 or 70 I think. So yeah, it is pretty awesome stuff. The ability to upgrade a fur bikini to a legendary fur bikini with as much protection as Ebony plate complicates matters a bit, but I digress. I don't know if Dragon gear actually defeats Daedric as far as basic non-upgraded stats go. It is powerful, for several thematic reasons, but it is also ridiculously easy to get. Dragons are everywhere and by the time you can use all those dragonbones and scales, you're likely swimming in the stuff. Daedric materials are much harder to get which in my mind means that it should be better for balance reasons.


In the game, no-one does anything with it. NPCs will gladly buy your bones and scales, but they don't craft items from it. Again, I can see why from a gameplay standpoint and to give the player more of a feel of accomplishment when they can finally turn the skin and bones of their enemies into weapons and armour. It just wouldn't be the same if you get the ding of level whatever and suddenly everyone is stocking mass-produced dragon-be-dead brand weaponry. But from a storypoint reason, it doesn't work. Someone would make use of the dragon skeletons the player leaves behind, even if it is just as a trophy. And if you can make so much awesome stuff from it, then why wouldn't all those self-proclaimed 'best smiths in Skyrim' not want to try?


So I decided that Whiterun would try to strengthen its position with new weapons. As for everyone in the room being rather anti-Stormcloak, that's how it is really. While not official, everyone considers Jarl Balgruuf to be on the Imperial side and Hrongar at least is vocally anti-Stormcloak.


And now before I shut up, three more random things.


I have no idea how well the chalk would work but if I understood the formula right, it takes a lot of energy to heat it up, making it a good barrier against the heat of a fresh dragon-bone. That, and it was one of the few materials I saw in the list I used that would be available to a medieval-level smith. I mean, plastics, advanced alloys and gasses would be a bit hard to believe.

Dragon-gear in Skyrim does not have anything heat-based. You need to enchant them like anything else if you want fancy effects. The dragon these particular weapons came from liked using fire and hey, I figured it would reinforce why this stuff is so important.

Dragons in the game burn away upon death, leaving only the bones, some tendons and a handfull of scales. This however only happens when the player (aka the mythical dragonslayer who absorbs their powers) gets close enough. Now the dragon in this story didn't burn. The reason for that was simply that I didn't want an obvious life-death marker and lightshow. I won't rule out future burnings though.

Well, this interlude may have nothing to do with Spar's storyline, but I really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at what appears to be one of the irksome issues of Skyrim (remember, I don't play it -- yet). I loved the interchange between the Altmer woman and Spar, and the question of why Spar's magelight didn't work earlier. Yes, I've noticed in Oblivion that spells fly straight, while arrows and other missiles follow a parabola. As I see it, spells contain no mass, therefore are not as strongly influenced by gravity. Energy does follow a parabola according to Einstein's theory of gravitation, but we only see that on the scale of the galaxy/universe, so on the much smaller scale that is Nirn we wouldn't notice such a deflection. Still I loved following Spar's thought processes as she tried to figure out her failure. After all, the key to survival is learning from our mistakes, right? Assuming we survive the mistake the first time!

I liked that the Jarl and his coterie focused on what to do with the dragon's corpse. I'd be bothered by that huge carcass sitting on my front lawn, too, and would be trying to figure out what to do with it. As the folks of Bruma did at the battlefield (butchered the dead elk, salvaged as many pelts as they could, used dead flame atronaches for funeral pyres, etc), I would expect no less of the folk of Whiterun. I also liked seeing how the smiths had to figure out how to work the material they were provided - it was nice to see that there is a learning curve here.

I do have a couple of comments about your random remarks. First, while chalk is extremely flame-resistant, it is also very brittle, and I have a difficult time imagining how it would hold up to hard use as a grip. Furthermore, it degrades into quicklime on exposure to heat, and quicklime is very caustic or corrosive and can cause chemical burns to skin. Also on exposure to water, it turns into slaked lime, which is a substance which, among myriad other uses, is used as a depilatory (hairless Nords, anyone?).

That said, I understand your challenge in finding a substance available to medieval era smiths that would be extremely heat resistant yet reasonably malleable and durable. Hmmm. I'll have to think about that one. Thank you very much for that mental challenge!

As for future burnings of dead dragons that you mention, I would wonder if they would burn off in response to how they died? Frost magic triggering an overenthusiastic response by the body's thermal system? Or shock? Something worth pondering, especially in the context of this wonderful story.

Edit: I looked into other substances that could be used on the grip of the dragon bone dagger. Have you looked into wool and gypsum? I think a combination of the two (gypsum impregnated wool felt) might be a workable solution to the problem you described in this installment?

I'd like to challenge your assertion that Dragon bone/plate is common as muck.

First, it wasn't available at all until they started being resurrected. Ebony etc. have been mined for centuries, and relatively large amounts should be in circulation, or stashed away at least.

Second, there's no indication that the materials become available to anyone who manages to kill a dragon, other than the Dragonborn. If his/her presence is required to release/preserve them, they're really hard to get.

I can't argue with the bit about the player selling it and not finding it used. It would have made more sense if no-one would touch it, being a material nobody knows how to smith yet. Even Eorlund can't train you to a level that supports that, as he hasn't a clue about Dragon material from his experience.

And for high-temperature insulation? Ceramics. Works for the Space Shuttle, and it's a very old technology.