Steps Forward

I am resigned that I may never return south to my former homeland.  So I decided to put myself into the service of a local Yarl and enter a long dead place to retrieve an artifact that have something to say regarding the dragon.  So Faen and I set out heading south once again.  The land is much greener in the south and somewhat warmer.  We stopped by the city of Dawn to check my smuggler's hideout.  There was nothing new.  Perhaps it was an old stash.

The journey was somewhat long once again back to the southern mountains.  The site was on ridge overlooking Riverwood.  Riverwood welcomed us warmly, and after rest and food and trading a few items for some gold, we made the climb to the barrow.  We were not alone.  Bandits foolishly tried kill us, but Fain and I grow used to working as a team.

The barrow was a haunted place,  full of traps and puzzles.  It seemed designed to keep us out, or perhaps to keep something in.  Deep underground we crawled through the tunnels dispelling the dead and our fear.  We found the artifact but something that may be far more significant.

My blood arose.  My gift blossomed with a new talent, one I had never even suspected.  A wall glowed with strange ancient language beneath a large dragon head carved in stone.  The wall spoke to me.  I know that sounds strange, but the word sang to me and found its way into my soul.  But it will not speak forth for me.  I do not know why.  I feel its call to release, its hidden power.  But all attempts to this date to try to active this part of my gift fails.  I don't even where to start or who to talk to about this mystery.



So I decided to return to the college by way of the Jarl's capitol.  He rewarded me with title and I took what small money I had and purchased a humble home and a few furnishing.  If I must remain in the north, I will make a home in the north, such as it is.  But we stayed only a small time, for I felt the need to return to the college of mages. 

There is a mage here who seems more than he claims.  He is from a distant land beyond the sea and meddles in affairs not his concern.  He attempts to intimidate me, and I laugh inside for I who once sat at the pinnacle of the Citadel am now far beyond such games.  And interesting he claimed a mage of the Citadel had come asking for me personally.  I almost ran to meet this mage.  Was I being invited to return home?  Would I be welcomed into the fellowship again?  Only as I drew near did I ponder if perhaps he was here to expose my identity and take me back in chains to the empire.  But how would he have known who I was.  I have not shared that life with anyone.  I have even taken a new name.   And my skills are only a shadow of what they once were.  Surely they must thing I perished in Helgen.

But I was worried for naught, for the mage was not of the Citadel but rather of an obscure order concerned about this new source of power recently discovered by myself and the mages of the college.  He sent me searching for an oracle which I found from one of my teachers was rumored to be in the  halls far below the keep of the college.  He was right.  And the oracle warned of a coming disaster, a terrible tragedy brought about by human hubris and desire for power.  He sought me to find a staff to look through the power to help with the aftermath.  We shall see.

And I hear rumors of a dragon seen in the vicinity of my new home in Whiterun.  Hmmm... perhaps we'll see about that as well.

And I remember my promise to a group of warriors in Whiterun, who have welcomed me to their brotherhood, a fellow companion.  There are outlaws to the west that I should be seeing about.

I could find nothing in the college to help me understand power of the word.  But there is a story going around that a mighty noble of this land killed the king with the power of his voice. Perhaps the answer is out there somewhere.