I remember waking that morning to the sound of screaming, like a hundred Banshees were standing outside my room, and the smell and sight of a jet black smoke that seemed to creep into room like a thief entering a dark room, barely visible. I shot up in bed but then fell back once I got two lungs full of the thick smoke. I rolled off the bed, getting up only for a second to grab my iron axe of the wall before falling to the ground again. At this point I noticed the eye damaging red light coming from outside my window but due to the smoke I couldn’t get up to see it. I crawled out of my room, down the corridor and out of the front door where I got up and ran forwards without looking back only doing so when I reached what felt like a good distance. When I turned round I gasped with shock as I saw my family’s house on fire and falling apart piece by piece. I started running back to the house when I realised that the screaming I heard before was that of my mother, father and sister but as I reached the house and was about to enter the whole building collapsed throwing me backwards and crushing everything inside. I fell to the ground where I lay for many hours with mixed feeling of sadness for the loss of my family and anger towards the person responsible for this. That was one year ago and now I am on my way to see the rebel leader beheaded.
I should explain: I’m Liam, I was previously a Nord farm boy from a small farm just outside of Solitude but, after that day I have been searching the lands of Skyrim for the person responsible for the death of my family and the destruction of everything we worked so hard to achieve, a man by the name of Ulfric Stormcloak.
The year is now 4E 201 and as I’ve said the rebel leader Ulfric Stormcloak has been captured by the Imperials and sentenced to death by beheading in the town of Helgen and here I am, standing in the crowd waiting to watch it. I look as the carriage comes in the main gate and I follow it to the centre of this town where the chopping block and executioner stand, I watch as a man is beheaded and then a weird Argonian is dragged up to the block. Time seamed to stand still as I remembered my family and what Ulfric murder of the high king had done to me and my family and then I heard a roar, it wasn’t a normal roar like a bear or a sabre-toothed tiger, no, it sounded much bigger and it came from the sky. Suddenly the sky turned red as blood and black as the night and meteors started raining from the sky in various sizes as a magnificent charcoal coloured dragon blocked out the sun and perched itself on top of the tallest look out in the town. In all its glory it started walking backwards but tripped and hit my head on a rock that was lying on the ground, knocking myself out.
I later awoke still lying in the same position on the floor, I pulled myself up and looked around, the town was destroyed, and barely any stood standing. I got up and started walking towards the city gate as fast as I could clutching my head as I walked. I stumbled out of the town and kept walking along the street, nobody in sight. It felt like I had been walking for hours when I came across a small encampment with two white tents stained with blood and the bodies of two grown men and a bear, it was obvious what went on here. I rummaged through their stuff and luckily I found a potion of healing which I quickly consumed. Feeling much healthier I looked around rest of the camp finding some steel plate boots to replace my leather ones and a weird book with the picture of a fire ball on. I put on the boots, placed the book in my bag, made sure my axe was still attached to my side and started walking along the road I had come from.
The next day after finding an inn to stay at for the night I started my walk to the most central city of Skyrim, Whiterun. The trip was long but eventually I reached the point where all I could see in front of my were fields of green and gold with lots of people working hard to collect crops and behind it, encased in a thick wall, was the city, all white and majestic in the light. Suddenly from my left a tree crashed to the ground as an extremely tall overweight giant ran out from the forest destroying walls and picking up livestock with no trouble at all and stuffing them into a large sack he slung over his shoulder. Behind him was a group of three people who seemed to be dressed in furs and covered in tattoos who looked to be chasing the giant but that didn’t seem to bother him as when they got to close he would just knock them over with his club. I stood there watching as the strange people swung their weapons trying frantically to wound the monster. One of the group, an average sized woman with red facial tattoos wielding a sword in her right hand and a small knife in her left stood back to catch her breath before throwing her knife at the giant’s leg. Her aim was spot on and she hit it in its upper thigh, the giant stopped for a minute and turned to look at her.
After standing in shock for some seconds she started running towards the forest with the giant following behind her, and after thinking me behind the giant. The woman later revealed to me to be a woman called Aela, the Huntress took out a basic grappling rope and hook and threw it at a tree and used it to swing to a branch on the large oak tree just a head of that one. When firmly on the branch she turned round to see the giant just below her, just too short to reach her, she breathed a sigh of relief but it was too soon as the giant picked up a sharpish rock and started hacking at the tree with it, very slowly cutting through it, that’s when I sprang into action. I finally caught up to the rampaging giant and the huntress where I signalled to the woman to throw the grappling hook over the giants shoulder which she did after working out what I meant, I caught the hook cutting my hand in the process and threw it round another branch over the giants other shoulder and with Aela’s end tied to the tree it mean that the giant was attached to the tree, thank goodness they are oblivious and un-intelligent and that was it, the trap was set. I ran backwards some and threw my axe straight at the giants head, it hit it but didn’t injure him; it only gave him an annoying itching feeling. He pulled at the axe but due to the bad angle was un-able to remove it, that’s when he turned around and saw me shouting and waving my hands like a loony. He became interested when he heard the words “free food” come out of my mouth and started walking towards me; little did he know that he was walking slower than normal as he was pulling the tree behind him due to the rope round his neck. Slowly but surely the giant inched forward but as he did his demise the great oak tree followed behind him becoming more and more up-rooted as he inched towards his food.
While the giant was walking towards me I look out my enchanted boots that I gained from defeating a group of thugs on my way here, the boots had a basic enchantment that increased my speed hopefully giving me the ability to save Aela. Finally after what felt like an age the tree fell and the forest was full of breaking branches, birds cheeping and the sound of a falling woman. I ran left running around the giant and the tree that was crushing him and dived to catch Aela but unfortunately a branch hit me as it fell and I hit the flood before hearing and feeling an average sized woman fall on my back causing excruciating pain. It turns out that she injured her leg and knocked herself out due to the fall and after managing to push her off me I stood up and picked her up putting her over my shoulder and holding her there with one arm. I went over to where the crushed giants head was, blood and guts everywhere. I grabbed the handle of my axe, put my foot on what was left of the giant and pulled my axe out wiping it on some nearby shrubbery before walking off back towards Whiterun.
Just out of the forest I saw two of the other fighters and their dead friend, after approaching them one of them turned to me and shouted “WHO ARE YOU? WHERE IS THE GIANT? AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH AELA?” before his friend slapped him and said with a commanding voice “Obviously this person has slain the giant and Aela has injured her leg, you idiot” The first guy picked up his dead friend and walked off in a rage towards Whiterun, the second on turned and apologised for his friend before running to catch up with him, I just walked after them slowly as not to damage Aela’s leg anymore.
Approaching the gates I looked up with awe at the size of the wall and the uniform of the guards. I wonder what adventures I’ll have here……
