Questions

My feet grow sore from all the walking.  And my head grows sore from the growing number of questions.  And my arms and shoulders are certainly sore for Faen and I have been sparing of late. 

We camped out a few days in the bandit camp, not feeling especially welcome in the town below.  About a half day journey to the east we spotted a castle on a rise.  Thinking to find warm food and a bed for the night we approached, but something seemed wrong, so we delayed and approached under cover of darkness.  We discovered more of the same tribesman holding the walls.  Bow fire thinned the sentries and we reduced the small force of about a dozen men without great difficulty.  We saw no sign of the original garrision, nor did I find any indications as to who these people are and why there are here.  We did discover in the base of one of the towers what appeared to be whole other under layer, but neither one of us could discover a way to enter.

The next morning we headed west making for the Companion lodge to find out more about why I was sent after these tribesmen in the first place.  Two days out we found a cave and once again thinking to find shelter for the night we entered.  We were rapidly beset by a life sucking vampire.  Vampires?  Here? In this age?  There were signs in the upper chambers that more than just the one was present.  Faen and I agreed, this was better left alone, and we departed the area making our way some distance before settling for the night.

The cold hard ground left me sore and was more conducive to thinking than sleeping.  I continue to ponder this connection of blood, dragon, and word.  I was half asleep and in this mid dream like state saw once again the face of Martin's father in my dungeon cell below the captial as he stopped and stared and said "You".  What was it he saw?  I woke and remembered a book I had been reading in my first days at the college. 

I recall an obscure text regarding the emperors of Skyrim that I had read back in the college.  I hadn't thought much of it at the time, as the emperors are now gone, but the text made an interesting suggestion that it was not just direct descendancy that gave the emperor a connection to the Avatar of Akatosh, the great guardian who stands between this created realm and the demonic.  The text mentioned the presence of dragon blood in the line of Uriel Septim. 

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was taken and imprisoned in the keeps below the capital for inability to pay my debts.  A modest swordsman at the time, I had failed to keep a contract protecting a caravan and its loss had ruined me.  But I had desperately needed the work as my wife was ill and the healers demanded a steady supply of gold.  But I failed to secure the gold.  When the emperor allowed me to follow him out of the dungeon and I escaped the city, it was many months before I returned to the small collection of hovels by the docks.  My home was still there, though foreclosed upon.  Neighbors told me my wife had passed quietly in the night.  But that story is of another time.

My thoughts returned to the blood.  What had the emperor seen in me when he said "you!".  Why had Martin trusted me?  Why was the gift suddenly blooming up in the midst of that crisis?  Why does it return quickly now? What is the power of this word that rests in me like a child waiting to be born?

I was still pondering when dawn arrived.  Faen stirred and we set out. 

Near the city we were stopped by a woman fleeing across the countryside.  She exclaimed she had escaped evil men camped out in Mistwatch and asked us to go kill them for her.  I don't even know where Mistwatch is.  She went her way, we went ours.

Near the city Kajit traders were camped out and we made tidy profit selling our looted weapons and armour.  The coins in our pockets were no where near as heavy as the packs on our back.