Fredas 27th of Last Seed 4E 201

We’re in Morthal, at the Moorside Inn, and I’m writing this while I wait for it to get dark so I can go to the cemetery to play Hide & Seek with Helgi, the ghost of a little girl who I’m positive was murdered by her father.

It’s been a busy day.

It started quietly enough. As we were packing up to leave Labyrinthian, I could hear fighting outside. We broke camp and rushed out to see three dead travelers, along with the frost troll they’d fallen to. We bested the troll (it was very wounded) and left. Luckily, the road wasn’t far down the hill.

The worst part is that we were absolutely FREEZING. The snow up there was wet and dripping, and sort of crunchy like an ice treat you get from the street vendors in the summer. It melted as soon as it hit us, and soaked into my boots like rain. I quickly cut more firewood, and we started a small fire. A passing traveler even stopped to join us in the heat.

Once we’d warmed up and dried off some, we went on our way. We stopped to investigate a small tomb beside the road where I found a book for a shelter spell (I can’t wait to try it!). Aside from that, the walk was uneventful and we were soon in Morthal.

As we walked down an embankment, which wasn’t an actual road but clearly used as one, a courier ran up to me. He handed me a letter from the Jarl of Falkreath. She’d heard of me, and wants my help. She’s offering a reward, along with the right to purchase a plot of land in her hold to build on.

I have no idea what I would do with two houses, but building my own home might be nice. I wonder how much it costs. Would I have to do the building myself, or is there a crew to hire?

At any rate, I was pondering the idea as I walked into the town, and saw a group of people arguing with another man on the steps of the Jarl’s home. I was too far away to hear much, but they were going on about a dangerous wizard and misfortune in the town. I asked one of the men what was going on, and he complained about needing a leader instead of some mystic.

The guards didn’t have anything useful to add, so we went to explore a bit. Morthal borders a swamp, and half of the buildings are along walkways that ring the edge of the water. There’s an apothecary, a mill, and an inn, along with a guard house. Sadly no trader or smith to take the armor we picked up this morning. That’ll have to wait. There’s a handful of homes, with a burned-out house a bit back of the Jarl’s – It happened recently.

I’ll explain the fire in a bit. Before I learned about it, and while I was exploring (Morthal is small, so there’s not much to see) a small boy running past stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me. It was creepy – It felt like he was looking right through me! He didn’t greet me or anything. He just said that I wasn’t like the others, like anyone in Morthal or even in Skyrim.

Then, he ran off.

A slim young woman was following him, and stopped to apologize to me for her little brother Joric’s strangeness. She said her family’s gifts were strong in him. I was curious, and she explained that he has visions, like the Jarl. I looked to Lydia to see her reaction, but she seemed unconcerned. Did the other Jarls know? Maybe this was common knowledge. It certainly was in town.

She then asked if I could deliver a letter to Danica of the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun for her. The Priestess had helped with Joric’s… Situation (I’m not sure what to call it. Clearly he’s not mad. He knew right away when he saw me. I’m not wearing a sign that says “Dragonborn” and I don’t tell people. The boy Knew.) and she wanted to write her to let her know how he’s doing.

I’ll have to go back when I done talking with the Thalmor – If we live - So of course I agreed to help.

After that, I went into the alchemist’s shop. Lami is a nice lady, and has a similar view to potion-making as I do! And by that I mean – Try everything and see what works. She asked if I ever find a copy of “Song of the Alchemists“ to bring it to her – She’d lost her old one. I agreed. It sounds like a good read for me, too!

Lami had a lot of ingredients that I hadn’t tried yet, and I spent more than I’d intended just buying ingredients to study. Lydia scolded me a little for that, but I did get some recipes, too.

We were both getting hungry, so we went to the inn for some food. The innkeeper, Jonna, explained that business was dead lately, and was happy to see new faces. I also met Lurbuk, an Orc bard who’s pretty good with the instruments. I asked around about what happened with the burned house, and was told to go talk to the Jarl. So, we got ourselves some food and drink, then headed across the way.

Jarl Idgrold is very old, but looks strong and bright for her age. She fixed me with that same stare as the boy, and greeted me in verse. We spoke a bit, and she explained that the house had burned down recently, tragically killing a mother and her child. The husband, Hroggar, blamed his wife, and said that she’d spilled bear fat into the fire. The ashes were still warm when he married Alva, and went to live with her.

She caught my knowing nod at this. I’d heard this story dozens of times before back in the Capitol. A few of my friends growing up had mothers (and one father) who met the same sort of fate, except they’d simply been abandoned instead of killed. Jarl Idgrold smiled at us, and I caught the creak of Lydia’s armor as she crossed her arms tightly.

She asked us to investigate the ruins and talk to the husband about it. Everyone else in town is too scared to look for clues. They say the house is bad luck or cursed.

Bad luck is the last thing I need, but I usually make my own, so I don’t care. We agreed, and set out for the house.

It’s at the end of the walkway that goes past the inn. It looked as normal as a ruin could, and I went to look at the fireplace, where the bear fat was spilled to start the fire. I was looking for burn marks on the hearth when I felt a chill wind, colder than usual, blow through, and heard Lydia take a quick step back. I turned around, and saw Helgi’s ghost.

I asked Helgi about the fire, and she said that she was asleep when it got hot and smoky. She was scared, so she hid, and then everything got cold. I asked who set the fire, but she demanded to play Hide and Seek. She promised to tell me everything once I found her, but can’t play during the day because of “The Other One.”

I think she’d afraid of the Other One. I think I should be, too.

I told the Jarl about her, and she suggested that I check the cemetery. Yaaaaay… Wandering a cemetery at night when there’s a murderer, something called “The Other One” and possibly an evil wizard wandering around? That sounds like a GREAT time.

Seriously, there HAS to be something wrong with me.

We talked to the other townsfolk after we left the hall, and most of them were angry that the Jarl would let Falion, a wizard, move in. I wasn’t able to find him, and the door of his house was locked. Maybe he’s out gathering ingredients for potions? I WAS able to find Hroggar, though, and asked him about the fire.

He said it was “a shame.”

I hope he drowns in Daedra piss. It took every shred of self-control I had in me to not set his face on fire. Even Lydia, stone-faced as she usually is, sneered. He said it like he was talking about bad weather, or a broken shoe. He assured me that he was fine, because he had Alva to take care of him, now. Then he asked if I had any firewood to sell him. I said I didn’t, and left.

After that, we ran into another man, Thonnir, who kept asking if we’d seen his wife, Laelette. She’s missing, and he’s desperate to find her.

Now there’s mysterious disappearances to add to the list of strange goings-on in Morthal. Lovely.

So, we’re waiting for nightfall to play Hide and Seek with Helgi, and trying not to drink too much while we grumble about her poor excuse for a father.

Well, I’m exhausted, so I’ll make this quick. We went to the cemetery to find Helgi, and were immediately set upon by a vampire! We killed her, and Helgi’s dug-up coffin was nearby. It was still closed, thankfully.

Helgi explained that the Other One (the vampire lady we’d just killed) wanted to have her as her own, and tried to take her right before the fire. To make her like she was, but it didn’t work, and that she was still trying to do it, even after the fire.

Helgi was telling me how tired she was when Thonnir ran up to see what the commotion was. He promptly fell to pieces when he saw the vampire. It was his missing wife, Laelette. Once he calmed down somewhat, I asked him about her, and he said Alva told him that Laelette joined the Stormcloaks. I asked him if she and Alva had been close, and he said it was very strange; for the longest time they hadn’t been. Laelette couldn’t stand her, but suddenly they started being the best of friends. Then Laelette vanished, and Alva said she had left for the war.

Hmm. That’s not suspicious at all.

We went to Alva’s to investigate, and, well… Maybe I should have waited until morning and spoken with the Jarl, first, but I was tired and didn’t want to wait. I picked the lock, but Hroggar was still awake and right on the other side. He came at us with an axe, and I ran off. He gave chase, and Lydia cut him down.

Oh no. How tragic.

The guards didn’t seem to really notice or even care that he was dead, and he had a house key on him. Of course I took everything he had and left his naked body in the ditch. It’s better than he deserves.

We went down to the basement and found Alva’s coffin, along with some very fresh blood stains and human bones. She had left her journal in her coffin, so I read it.

She wrote about coming here to Morthal with the mission of helping her master, Movarth, take over the town. The townsfolk would be an infinite supply of blood for the vampire clan, like cattle, and the people would also protect them during the day when they were vulnerable. Alva had almost gotten all the guards under her control! She chose Hroggar to be her personal protector, and took Laelette to be her servant. Laelette wasn’t supposed to burn the house down – That was an accident – but was starting to lose her mind. She was convinced that Helgi could be turned, regardless of her body’s state.

I’ve heard that sometimes the stress of becoming a vampire can drive people insane. Considering that Laelette was trying to turn a charred corpse, I’d say that’s what was happening to her.

I feel bad for Thonnir, but it’s probably for the best that she’s dead. I know that people can be cured of vampirism, but if she’d already gone mad, turning her back probably wouldn’t fix the insanity.

Either way, Laelette is dead, Hroggar is dead, and I feel dead, so I’m going to sleep. I’ll show the Jarl Alva’s journal tomorrow.