Twilight groaned as she got out of bed, not at all well rested from the worry of missing her deadline to get back to Whiterun. She sat down at a table in the Inn for another serving of her almost now famous mammoth stew and considered her options.

Should I go back to Whiterun just to see Lucia and give her more food and pay for additional days at the Inn? No… Lucia is a Nord also and she would probably be disappointed in me for not finishing the job I took. She is a big girl… she can take care of herself… hopefully… at least for one more day. I just need to finish the job.

She steeled herself for a hard day but knew what she had to do.

I’m going to finally meet and then kill some draugr, commit some grave robbing, and then, hopefully, find both the Golden Claw and the Dragon Stone. Easy. Right?

Twilight sagged in her seat. This was not easy. Equestrian law on stealing was solid enough without adding the moral ambiguity of stealing from the dead.

Who am I kidding? I’m doomed…

Delphine seemed to sense her mood from across the room. “Problems, Princess?”

Twilight stiffened. No one had called her a Princess since she had arrived in Skyrim. It was both welcome and yet, not.

“No… no problem. Just thinking. Why do you ask?”

Delphine raised an eyebrow while wiping the bar countertop. “You look like you’re about to keel over from stress. Is there an issue that you need help working out?”

Twilight swallowed. “It’s just the ‘adventuring’ lifestyle. Do all adventurers steal from the dead?”

Delphine paused and then continued wiping the already clean counter. “I’m a Breton, not a Nord, so I couldn’t tell you about the morals of exploring and then looting Ancient Nordic burial ruins. I will say that most Nords don’t give a fuck about who they kill or what they take as battle spoils as long as it’s ‘honorable combat’. When fighting draugr or bandits or vampires… it’s all honorable combat. The dead won’t miss it so take what you earn and don’t feel sorry about it. If it’s not you, it would be someone else, so enrich yourself and be happy about your battle prowess. I can’t tell you how many boastful adventurers I’ve had to host over the years.”

So, the moral ambiguity of Skyrim is that might makes right? What the buck?

Twilight nodded. “That actually does help… kinda.”

Delphine smiled at Twilight. “Happy to help. Now get moving… you’re burning daylight.”

That actually did get Twilight moving as she slowly climbed the mountain back to Bleak Falls Barrow. She couldn’t help but grumble to herself though.

Stupid Mountain and stupid snow. Stupid already looted corpses from previous battles. Why haven’t the wolves eaten them already? Oh yeah… I killed them too.

Opening the door to Bleak Falls Barrow didn’t bother her as much the second time. She walked past the slain bandits without a second glance. She approached the only path that led both forward and downward… deeper into the barrow.

This is it… I’m really going in there this time. No turning back.

Erring on the side of caution, she equipped her Imperial Bow and Steel Arrows, and went into a crouching ‘stealth’ mode, hoping to not alert any draugr. She passed through a few sets of spider webs and was immediately paranoid that a frostbite spider might be around the corner. She was happy to be wrong but also saw a burial urn.

Should I really be looting?

Twilight checked the three urns that she saw for curiosity’s sake and found two of them already empty with the third having 25 gold and a random gemstone.

The urns wouldn’t be here if nothing was in them originally… so someone has already done some looting here. Lucia is counting on me so maybe Delphine was right. Enrich myself because if I don’t, someone else will.

Continuing down the path set her on edge. No enemies so far but that couldn’t be true for long. She didn’t understand why the path had so many stairs, both up and down. It’s like they took a natural cave and added features to make it livable, although still inconvenient if you were trying to watch out for enemies.

Or maybe it made it easier to defend from enemies… I should remain on my guard…

Turning to the left, part of the ceiling crumbled and fell before me as dust and debris, momentary making me wonder if she was going to die in a cave in.

That would be an irony, certainly. Exploring abandoned ruins is a Tartarus of a way to make a living.

The path continued downwards now. Right turns, left turns, but all downwards. Twilight turned a corner and halted in her tracks. There was a bandit there. He didn’t see her and was walking away from her towards a lever of sorts. She decided to watch his actions to see what he was going to do.

The bandit pulled the lever, presumably to open the barricaded door that was further in… only to be shot with dozens of poisoned arrows. He fell, death quickly taking him.

She gulped. Well buck me… how do I open the door?

Twilight took the time to loot the bandit while exploring the room and avoiding the lever. To her left was three statues that you seemed to be able to rotate the side facing outwards and above her was similar symbols in the mouths of a craving of giant heads, with the middle head having fallen to the ground near her. She noticed that the symbols on the rotatable statues didn’t match the ones in the mouths of the effigies. Then, it dawned on her.

It’s a puzzle lock. I need to make the rotatable statues match the symbols in the effigies.

Rotating the statues, she made them match.

Snake, Snake, Whale.

Twilight pulled the lever with a gulp, but the door opened, and no poisoned arrows struck her.

She walked through the door and noticed a book, a treasure chest and a soul gem. She looted the chest of all its riches and took the soul gem, leaving the book for last. The book was titled ‘Thief’ and when she opened it, her pickpocket skill increased by one point to 16.

Huh. So a skill book. A book that helps improve a skill simply by reading it. I’m going to keep this one. I really must read it later in its entirety.

Twilight headed down some stairs and heard some scurrying up the same stairs. She backed up a respectful distance and waited for what was approaching to appear.

A pack of three skeevers topped the stairs and headed straight for her. It was the first time she had seen a living skeever.

She adopted a Fluttershy-like tone. “Ah. Aren’t you cute… Do you want to be my pets? I’m sure I could… AH!!! Stop biting me!”

The skeevers had jumped at her, not caring about how friendly she was trying to be and persisted to try and eat her alive. Twilight didn’t really have time for this anyways and so she proceeded to roast them alive with fire magic. They died quickly but not as painlessly as she would have preferred. The smell of cooked meat made her hungry, and it reinforced her notion that if cooked properly, the skeevers shouldn’t have any diseases to infect people and wouldn’t taste that bad. Still might be a hard sell for anyone that wasn’t despite for food, though.

She looted them of their tails, useful as an alchemy reagent and harvested the meat, to experiment on later, continued down the stairs. Upon reaching the landing, she found a Scroll of Fireball and a Weak Paralysis Poison on a table and continued to walk cautiously.

In the distance, she could make out a male voice. “Is someone coming? Is that you Harknir? Bjorn? Soling? I need help!”

She slowed her pace further.

Was this the bandit that stole the Golden Claw?

Looking to the end of the passage, she noticed a skeleton at the end of what appeared to be a dead end but then noticed that the spider webbing here seemed extra thick. Shooting it experimentally with Flames, it melted to reveal a hidden treasure chest. Looting the chest made her slightly richer with the items that she would be able to sell but there was nothing of note worth keeping for herself.

Rounding the corner, she noticed that the next passage had been blocked by frostbite spider webbing. It was a simple matter to melt the webbing with fire magic, but she continued to proceed cautiously.

If the voice was coming from beyond this webbing… then the spider is probably still close by…

She walked through the doorway only to have the biggest frostbite spider she had ever seen drop down from the ceiling. Calling it a Giant Frostbite Spider was no exaggeration. Twilight ran around in circles while dodging piercing legs and acid spit while peppering it with fire. While a normal frostbite spider died fairly quickly, from a single weapon stroke or brief spell hit, this giant frostbite spider had endurance. It died from extreme exposure to fire, and she was grateful not to have suffered a direct hit. She wasn’t sure her armor would have helped against something three times her own size.

Twilight turned to the thief with disdain. He spoke very quickly. “You did it. You killed it. Now cut me down before anything else shows up.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Where is the Golden Claw?”

The thief seemed to grin; despite being trapped in frostbite spider webbing. “Yes, the claw. I know how it works! The claw, the markings, the door in the hall of stories. I know how they all fit together! Help me down and I’ll show you! You wouldn’t believe the power the Nords have hidden there.”

She growled, fearing a trick. “Hand over the claw first.”

The thief grunted. “Does it look like I can move? You have to cut me down first!”

Twilight grunted in reply. “I don’t trust you. You did steal the claw after all. What is stopping you from running away the second that I help you?”

The thief sighed. “Fine. I’ll introduce myself. My name is Arvel the Swift. Like you, I am an adventurer by trade, which at times, requires some morally questionable choices. I’ll admit that I did steal the claw from the Riverwood Trader but it’s not like Lucan Valerius would have sold it to me. Nords don’t write or read a lot, so most of their history has been lost as the masters of oral history have died in battle or of age. The various claws are a key to the inner sanctum of Dragon ruins. There are 11 Dragon Claws in total, each lead to treasure beyond most adventurers’ wildest imaginations. I promised to share the treasure with my travelling companions but if you’re here that must mean that they are dead. So… you saved me from the Giant Frostbite Spider and I’m grateful. Cut me down… and we’ll travel to the inner sanctum together and I’ll spilt the treasure with you in equal halves. Sound good?”

She nodded slowly. “I’ll set you free. But I’m warning you. If you run off with the claw, your death is certain. Just because we haven’t seen draugr yet doesn’t mean that there is none in here… it would be safer for us to travel together.”

Arvel smiled. “I promise that you won’t regret it.”

Twilight used her fire magic to carefully melt the webbing away, doing her best to avoid injuring Arvel.

He sounded excited. “It’s coming loose, I can feel it.”

Once free, he turned to run. “You fool, why should I share the treasure with anyone.”

Twilight watched him run away and sighed. “Well buck me. I saw that coming.”

She continued to proceed cautiously, in no hurry, and not at all worried about catching up to him. She looted burial urns as she came across them and was happy to find another lesser soul gem. Walking down a pathway, she saw a draugr in the distance, laying down in a burial alcove.

This one had a weapon at his side and looked like he was wearing armor. This was a far cry from the mere bones or bodies that were wrapped in linen cloth. She remembered Faendal’s advice and lined up a shot. It would be better to waste an arrow than to risk letting it attack her.

She let loose the arrow and was very shocked at the draugr wincing in pain before actually dying, the sneak attack damage being enough to kill it.

Nice to see all those archery lessons starting to pay off…

She turned to her right and saw another draugr standing there. She quickly lined up another shot, killing it with her sneak attack damage. The sounds of battle awoke another one, further off to my right and she was forced to fire three arrows to kill it due to no longer having a sneak attack advantage.

It was at that point that she found Arvel, dead. He was lying beside a button trigger hidden in the ground that seemed to activate a swinging door of iron spikes. She huffed as she shook her head.

And he called me a fool. Barely dodged a set of draugr and died at the very first trap that he encountered after I set him free. It’s a wonder that he got past the rotating statue lock.

She looted the corpse, cutting off the ears just in case she could get paid for having killed yet another bandit, and verified the claw.

Yes, definitely gold and recovered. But I’m not done. I still have to find the dragon stone, which should be in the main chamber, and if anything that Arvel said was true, then I’ll need this claw to open the final door. But how do I use it?

Searching through her newfound loot, she found a journal. She had to hope that the answer was in there, otherwise, she’s kinda screwed. She opened it and read.

‘My fingers are trembling. The Golden Claw is finally in my hands, and with it, the power of the ancient Nordic heroes. That fool Lucan Valerius had no idea that his favorite store decoration was actually the key to Bleak Falls Barrow.

Now I just need to get to the Hall of Stories and unlock the door. The legend says there is a test that the Nords put in place to keep the unworthy away, but that “When you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands”.’

Twilight frowned at the very vague instructions and looked more closely at the golden claw itself. On the palm of the claw itself were three symbols.

Bear, Moth, Owl.

Oh… so the final door has a puzzle lock too. These symbols must be the answer key. And then… like a key… I’ll have to insert the claw somehow to open the door. I suppose I’ll see when I get there.

She walked past the door trap and spotted another draugr in an alcove and almost causally shot it.

Only, this time, it didn’t die. It stood up and she realized that this one was one of the stronger ‘Restless Draugr’ and slightly panicked as it started to run towards her.

Twilight shot it again and again, but it wouldn’t die. She was terrified when she had managed to shoot it through its mouth and out the back of its head, and it still didn’t die.

It can’t be that much higher of a level than me…

She dropped the bow and went for Flames again, hoping that the undead weakness to fire would give her the upper hand. To her great relief, it fell to the fire and died, only hitting her once.

I barely felt that. This armor was worth the time it took to craft.

She looted the draugr of its weapon and continued to walk down the stairs along the path, healing my wounds. The buzz of magic echoed loudly in the barrow and as one, three more draugr rose to challenge her.

I can’t fight three! I can barely manage one at a time!

Twilight retreated to a safe distance, careful not to trip the door trap again and was breathing hard.

“What am I going to do? I need a plan…”

Out of nowhere, behind her, she heard a voice. “Hiya, Twilight!”

Twilight jumped halfway out of her skin and towards around towards the voice. Her eyes became pinpricks with panic as a fully pony Pinkie Pie was behind her.

Pinkie giggled. “Wow! You look cool as a Anthro-Pony. I bet all the humans love you, you gotta be warm compared to how cold it is here.”

Twilight gasped. “Pinkie! What are you doing here? I’m supposed to be doing this alone!”

Pinkie giggled again. “I know! I was just taking a little vacation because Princess Celestia said you had this big secret quest to do. I guess I got lost on the way. I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque…”

Twilight sighed and Pinkie looked back up. “Are you sure I can’t help? I could be your pony and let you ride me and carry your things?”

Twilight giggled at the image of her riding a pink pony across Skyrim but then sighed in defeat.

“I’m sorry Pinkie. The horses here can’t talk so I’d have a hard time explaining you to the population. And I am supposed to be doing this alone and I really can’t ask you to put yourself in danger to help me. Can you find your way home?”

Pinkie blew a raspberry. “Oh sure, no problem. I just have that get out of this funny ruin first.”

She started to walk downwards towards where the draugr were and Twilight stopped her.

“No! Not that way! There are three enemies down there and I have trouble beating one at a time. You’ll get hurt!”

Pinkie smiled. “I know how to help you without helping you. I’ll distract them long enough for you to take them out while I’m going home, just like you told me to.”

Pinkie sucked in a large breath and yelled out. “LEEROYYYY JENKINSSSS!”

Pinkie bolted past the three draugr and deftly dodged three swinging axes in what appeared to be another trap. The draugr turned to pursue her but Twilight was able to shoot each draugr in the back, gaining sneak attack damage as they had tried to pursue Pinkie.

Twilight was breathing hard but was happy to have taken them down without taking any damage. She explored the large room a little more, giving Pinkie Pie time to escape the dungeon and giving any draugr she disturbed time to settle down. As part of her exploration, she went up a set of stairs that had no lighting and seemed to dead end. Casting Mage Light, she was able to see another treasure chest that wasn’t exactly hidden, but that you would never see without a torch or one of the two spells that created magical light.

Huh. Does Celestia raise the sun or does she cast a more powerful version of Mage Light?

She picked the Adept lock was some difficultly, breaking a couple of lockpicks until she got it correct but was happy with the skill she was gaining from her efforts. Taking her time to loot the draugr of yet more Ancient Nord gear, she studied the timing of the swinging axes trap.

I should be able to dodge them if I walk at a slow but steady pace and don’t hesitate.

Walking forward, she did manage to pass through the blades unscathed although hearing them swing passed her certainly terrified her. She didn’t know how Pinkie was able to do it other than with her Pinkie Sense.

Going back into a crouch and keeping her bow at the ready, she quickly recast stoneflesh on herself to increase her armor rating, now that she had remembered to use it. Heading down a narrow path, she saw another draugr standing in an alcove waiting to awaken and attack.

Drawing her bow, shooting it for sneak attack damage again killed it instantly. Looting it quickly and moving on, she turned a corner to the right and found another draugr in an alcove waiting for slaughter.

This is almost too easy.

Turning a third corner, she did the same, shooting a draugr in an alcove except that this time, killing the first draugr alerted a second draugr and losing the sneak attack advantage, it took three arrows to kill it, allowing it to hit her once.

Spending magic on healing wasn’t a waste but it certainly slowed her down given that she had to stand still and cast the spell until it was completed to avoid alerting more enemies.

Turning another corner, the path headed back up and then back down in a winding pathway that still didn’t make sense to her. Continuing on the path, she hit a main open chamber with a treasure chest and a iron wrought gate that barred the passage further. Before she could figure it out… a draugr popped out of an upright casket like a jack in the box, forcing her to loose two more arrows in rapid succession. The chest was unlocked, which allowed her to continue her journey. There was a simple chain, that when pulled, opened the gate.

The ruin didn’t seem to be getting more dangerous, but it was larger than she expected. Probably had a lot to do with the fact that most of the barrow was underground. The path continued forward over a creek and Twilight wasn’t happy to get her leather boots wet, but at least her feet stayed dry.

The path took a right turn and all of a sudden, it felt like she was in a regular cave, not unlike the secret exit out of Helgen. Glowing Mushrooms grew on the walls, which she could see was an alchemy reagent, and the stream continued although there was dry land to walk on too, now.

She harvested the glowing mushrooms, hoping that they would be useful for something, and briefly explored the area. She found another skeleton with a pickaxe next to an iron ore vein. She hadn’t tried any mining yet and she had to wonder how hard it was.

Picking up the pickaxe, she used the innate magic of Skyrim to mine the iron deposit and was shocked to get 3 iron ores in less than 5 minutes before the magic faded and indicated that there was no more to mine at this location, at this time.

The steam in the cave dead ended at what became a waterfall, with beautiful sunlight pouring in an opening in the roof of the cave. To the right, was another unlocked treasure chest with more semi-useless things to sell. It was a little frustrating that the treasures here seemed more like junk, but she could sell the Ancient Nordic stuff to collectors or melt them down for more corundum ingots.

Twilight continued down the only way forward and harvested every batch of glowing mushrooms that she was coming across. The pathway led ever so downward into the depths of the ruin in a way that was starting to make Twilight lose a little hope.

This place is so big. Is it even possible to explore it in one day? I do not want to have to sleep here tonight.

Popping out an exit at the bottom of the passageway, she realized that she was in the large open area that the waterfall from above fed into. A lone draugr was on patrol and was easy to take out. To her right, there was a path that led even further down. The slopes were slippery due to the moisture of the waterfall but she made it safely to the bottom of the path only discover that it was a dead end with nothing of note except for a locked treasure chest with a basic novice lock.

The scrolls were useless to her but would be worth selling. Climbing up the slippery slope was harder than going down, but she did manage to navigate it without falling. Continuing down the original pathway, she was startled when the normal cave quickly returned to an Ancient Nordic Ruin structure, and she realized that she had to be getting closer to the end.

Peeking into the next huge room revealed a stronger Restless Draugr on alert, pacing back and forth with a two-handed great sword. She opted to kill it with flames, hoping that the draugr weakness to fire would be more beneficial than an arrow sneak attack, and she was fortunate enough to have been able to maintain a safe distance, peppering it with fire while it swung uselessly at her, never hitting her.

Taking her time to unlock yet another apprentice grade treasure chest, she became uncomfortable with just how much loot she now had, given that her storage portals had to be getting closer to full. It wouldn’t have been a problem if there was anything of real value but most of this stuff only had value from the standpoint of just having a lot of it.

Pushing through the next door, she could feel a shift in the local magic as the area appeared to change. Looking back at the door, she noticed that the innate magic told her where she was. She had been in the Bleak Falls Temple. Now she was in the Bleak Falls Sanctum.

Refreshing stoneflesh and muffle onto herself, she reequipped her Imperial Bow and proceeded with caution. The lack of anything to loot was almost ominous. The long corridor only led one way with no side paths and brought her directly in front of another narrow passage with a second set of swinging axe traps.

This set only had two axes instead of three, so getting the timing correct on avoiding the swings should be easier. Should be… being the key word.

The swing on these axes had slightly off timing so one of them did hit her, causing a fair amount of damage to her despite the good armor she was wearing. But more importantly, Twilight crying out in pain alerted, not one, but three draugr to her presence, and there was no way to avoid this fight. And no distraction like she had with Pinkie Pie earlier. It was hard for her to admit that she wished that she hadn’t sent Pinkie Pie away.

Twilight took aim and quickly killed the draugr closest to her, which luckily only took two arrows this time. The other two draugr seemed to charge her at the same time so there would be no avoiding having to face both of them. Her custom armor had served her well but she just wasn’t ready to test the limits of it.

It was at that time that she noticed some red liquid on the floor in front of her, halfway in-between where she was from where the draugr were charging her from. Thinking back onto it, it looked like the same red liquid that she accidentally ignited while escaping from Helgen some days ago. There also seemed to be some kind of rigged fire trap above the liquid, something that would burn an adventurer alive if they tripped the trap while going through the ruins.

Lining up a shot, Twilight fired a single arrow into the fire trap, knocking it down from the rope it was hanging from and was satisfied by the trap bursting into flames, killing both of the charging draugr and saving her from tripping the trap herself.

Looting the draugr was slowly becoming routine but searching around this larger room gave no loot other than a single Potion of Resist Frost. Studying the bottle, she could see that it would give her 20% resistance to frost for a period of time long enough to fight the main guardian of the main chamber. If it was indeed a high level draugr, she would need that potion to protect her from his frost magic.

Heading up the stairs and across a stone archway bridge, there were more of the fire traps hanging from the ceiling, but nothing appeared to trigger them as she walked across the bridge to safety. The pathway continued until she reached an Iron Door.

She pushed it open and was shocked by what she saw.

On both sides of the corridor, there were very detailed engravings in the stone, apparently telling a story.

This must be the Hall of Stories that the elf was talking about.

It was too bad that there were no words to accompany the pictures because without knowing the history of Skyrim, the images were next to meaningless to her.

I need to try to find some books to read. Everyday can’t be one adventure after another.

Walking up to the puzzle door, I moved the outer ring twice, the middle ring twice and the inner ring also twice. Placing the claw into the keyhole, the lock opened, and the huge door seemed to sink into the floor.

Twilight knew by instinct that this had to be the main chamber so she cast Stoneskin and muffle again, noticing that her illusion skill was going up. The Stoneskin would lessen her damage but all that muffle would do is allow her a sneak attack, she hoped.

She sighed. There is no avoiding this fight.

She went back to Flames, hoping that her natural magic would overcome the draugr no matter what level he was. Abandoning any attempt to sneak, she walked straight into main chamber. The bats fluttering away startled her but she wouldn’t give in to fear.

Light poured into the hall from the ceiling and seemed to illuminate a large black wall. It looked like it was made out of solid obsidian. She drawn to the wall in the same way that was drawn to the engravings in the Hall of Stories. It was just ashamed that she didn’t know what they meant.

As Twilight approached the wall, she could swear that she heard chanting in some ancient language and could see a white magical glow just engulf her.

And then… all at once, she felt as if she had gained vast magical knowledge in the form of a magic that she couldn’t directly seem to use yet. Whatever Unrelenting Force was… it would be interesting once she could use it.

At that moment, the coffin behind her seemed to explode as the lid was thrown violently off and a draugr started to climb out of it. She was shocked to see a Draugr Overlord pop out of the coffin, as it was clearly the most powerful draugr she had ever seen to date.

She peppered the draugr with fire and then, out of nowhere, it used a strange type of voice magic. It caused her to stagger back, breaking the focus of her spell casting. Almost instantly, she realized that it had used the magic that she had just obtained but couldn’t use yet.

Fortunally, the Draugr Overlord wasn’t much stronger than a Restless Draugr but she was grateful to be a higher level than she would have been if she had tried this without clearing out at least two bandit camps first.

Looting the Overlord proved interesting. He had the dragonstone on his person, so quest complete, but his weapon was very interesting. He carried a ‘Honed Ancient Nord Sword of Chills.’ It was sharper than the standard Ancient Nord Sword and the frost enchantment gave frost damage to health and stamina. It wasn’t worth a whole lot of gold but learning the enchantment itself would be valuable.

Also in the room, was a total of two treasure chests. One was unlocked and beside where the Overlord had appeared from but there was a second Novice Locked chest behind the black wall.

Between the two treasure chests, was a Ring of Minor Blocking and a Ring of Minor Stamina. Blocking 15% more damage with a shield or weapon and gaining 20 extra stamina would definitely help combat. One of the perks of having ten fingers was being able to wear ten rings.

Following the stairs to the top of the main chamber, it looked like a dead end at first, but a handle embedded into a pedestal opened a secret passage which may have also served as an emergency exit. She was grateful to find no more enemies but was disturbed to find a human skull on what looked like a small shrine. There was also an unlocked treasure chest near the shrine and Twilight had to wonder if this was the personal treasures of the person buried there.

Opening the chest revealed gold, soul gems, potions and scrolls. It could be surmised that the person was a mage at some point in life. Looting the chest, she headed up and out, back into the wilds of Skyrim.

* * *

Twilight was grateful to be out of the dusty old Nordic ruin and took a deep breath of the crisp Skyrim air. Instead of the pleasant scent of the nearby lake and the surrounding flowers, she smelled the sticky scent of blood.

“Twilight… help me.”

She froze at the sound of the voice and followed it to behind a rock near the cave exit where she found Pinkie Pie laying on her side, gasping for air, with three Ancient Nord arrows sticking out of her flank.

“Hold on Pinkie, I can heal you.”

Twilight pulled the three arrows out of her side and used her restoration spell, healing hands, to heal all three of Pinkie’s wounds. When the last wound was healed, Pinkie leaped up and hugged Twilight tightly.

“Whoo… you’re a lifesaver. Those draugr things are scary…”

Twilight was beside herself with worry and grief. “I’m sorry that I tried to send you away. Skyrim is super dangerous, and you shouldn’t be here alone.”

Pinkie frowned at Twilight, her voice a mere whisper. “But Twilight… you’re here alone.”

Twilight was going to retort but found nothing coming to mind.

Hadvar told me that according to the legends, Celestia travelled with Tiber Septim and Luna travelled with Martin Septim. I guess I could have travelled with Hadvar, but our paths aren’t following the exact same trail. Buck it… I’m not doing this alone if the other Princesses didn’t.

Twilight placed a hand on Pinkie’s wither. “You can stay and come with me. Just help me carry my stuff, try not to freak out the locals too much, and for my sake, try not to get hurt again. Celestia sent me here to get stronger and I was supposed to do this alone or with local help… but you found your way here all on your own, so I guess it’s okay if you stay. For now…”

Pinkie cheered. “Yippee!”

Her voice echoed off the walls of the cliffside and the cave at large and Twilight looked around to see if any predators had been alerted.

Twilight sighed. “Alright… we are going to walk back to Riverwood first so I can return this golden claw. While we are walking, I am going to explain how Skyrim works. The magic. The people. The bandits. And the wildlife. If you’re going to travel with me then you’re going to have to take it seriously. This is not a party adventure, and this place is far from safe.”

Pinkie’s face took on a serious look. “I can do it. If you were meant to get stronger then maybe me accidentally finding my way here also means that I’m supposed to get stronger. It can’t be worse than my family’s rock farm.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Do the rocks try to kill you?”

Pinkie shifted her gaze. “Sometimes? Not on purpose though.”

Twilight nodded with a chuckle. “Okay then, let’s get started.”

As she started to explain everything for Pinkie’s benefit, she was reminded of the three tasks she still had to do. Return the Golden Claw for the reward. Return the Dragonstone for a reward. And make sure that she returned to Lucia before the child ran out of food and money.

It was hard to call Whiterun home… but she was glad to be heading somewhere that she could spend a couple of days resting. Having Pinkie at her side would make a world of difference.

* * *

Author's Note

My PS4 stopped working and it's almost impossible to write a story like this without playing the game. I finally got a PS4 copy of Skyrim on my PS5 and was lucky enough to be able to download all my saved data from the cloud.

I still have other ongoing stories that I'm also trying to finish but you can expect more chapters, more often, than the break between Chapter 10 an 11.

(I had no idea it had been over a year until I went to upload the newly completed chapter.)