- 13th of Mid Year, 4E 202 -
Yesterday we made the trip from Riverwood to Dawnstar. It's a dangerous route, littered with the likes of snow bears and frostbite spiders and packs of hungry wolves.
Yesterday we took a few shortcuts through the forest, and one such shortcut we came across an old shrine to Talos. I had barely time to admire the statue of the man-god when a pair of ice wraiths appeared out of nowhere. Within a few moments I was feeling faint from my injuries and had to seek cover. Luckily I was able to find cover and the wraiths went after Kharjo instead of pursuing me. Unfortunately they overpowered Kharjo not too long after.
As soon as he fell to a knee I sprinted back into the battle and let the wraiths have it with my mace. One of them was near death, and died right away. The other put up a testy fight and even with Kharjo rejoining the battle I nearly died.
We had no sooner recovered from this strife when I saw Kharjo pull his bow from his back yet again. I spun around to see a frostbite spider crawling out of the trees into the ruins. We dispatched the spider, and then another a few minutes later, before we left the shrine and made our way to Dawnstar.
This morning we awoke feeling refreshed from our difficult journey, but apprehensive for our coming journey. Today we were going to seek out Ustengrav.
We really only knew the rough location of it, and being that it was in the swamps of Morthal I knew it could be a challenge to find. The obvious route was to strike off into the mountains via the road from Dawnstar to Morthal, and then cut over to Ustengrav. But I know from previous experience that the road is unsafe, and we would also have no idea when to cut off the road to head toward Ustengrav.
So I came up with a second option. We would follow the coastline from Dawnstar all the way around into the swamps. With any luck we would either come across Ustengrav directly or we would find another landmark to use to guide us in. The route was a longer one, but also more safe and more sure.
It took us most of the day to walk the coast and enter the swamps. I was on high alert, expecting a spider attack at any moment .. or worse. But we saw only a chaurus and did our diligence to avoid it.
I caught sight of a ruin just over a small hill, so we approached it to investigate. As we got close I heard a shout, and then saw four men running toward us with blood on their lips. I backpedaled a bit, my mind racing as two of the men attacked Kharjo and the other two met steel with me. One of the men assaulting Kharjo was a mage. I could see him casting spells out of the corner of my eye.
My own assailants were quickly getting the better of me, so I retreated some more. They pushed the fight and I retreated again. I was running out of options very quickly. Kharjo was still in the thick of it, and I wasn't going to get any help from him just yet.
I jumped from a patch of ice to a tiny island of land with a small tree on it. My attackers paused. I'm not sure if they were afraid to make the jump or if they were just preparing to flank me and end the fight. Either way, this short pause saved my life. Right in front of my eyes the two men fell down dead on the ice ... for no reason.
Confused, I look over to Kharjo and saw that he was no longer in a fight either. The mage was lying lifeless on the ground at his feet. I stepped forward and examined the bodies and confirmed my suspicion. Although three of the men were dressed like bandits, they had been dead all along. The mage was actually a necromancer, and upon his death the others returned to the world of the unliving as well. This is something I will have to keep in mind in the future when I confront a mage with some warriors.
It turns out they had a little camp next to the ruins I had spotted. The ruins themselves turned out to be Ustengrav. As excited as I was to venture inside, or at least spend the night at this camp, I knew we should return to Dawnstar. There was decent amount of armor we could haul back to sell to the blacksmith, and I can always handle more gold in my pocket.
So we're back in Dawnstar tonight, after spending the day finding Ustengrav. We made nearly a hundred gold from the armor we hauled back, so it was worth the trip. Tomorrow morning, at dawn, we will head out and enter Ustengrav. Gods be with us.
