He was soaring high over the mountains of Skyrim, taking in the beauty of the land from his perch high in the skies. His gaze fell upon the vibrant sapphire waters of Lake Ilinalta in Falkreath. A line of smoke, likely rising from a cottage in the mighty pines of Skyrim's south, rose to greet him in the skies.

Flowing northward from the great lake, the White River followed a pass between the relatively small Brittleshin mountains and the mighty Throat of the World, where it was hugged by the walled town of Riverwood at the pass's center. A portion of the mighty river diverted to power the water wheels of the town's grand lumber mill. It then grew rougher, turning into a series of rapids before ending in tall waterfall, plummeting to the great plains of Whiterun hold, which bore its name.

He followed the river northward for a time, until it joined with another fork at the walled city of Whiterun and gently meandered to the east, flowing to join the Yorgrim and Darkwater in the swamps of Eastmarch, and from there the Sea of Ghosts at the foot of Ysgramor's City.

He flew northward along the road that connected Whiterun to Dawnstar in the Pale, banking west for a moment to soar over Heljarchen Hall at the base of the Stonehill mountains that barred Whiterun from Hjaalmarch and the City of Morthal.

There he was harassed by a flock of golden birds, which sought to peck and bite him, but they were met with fire and quickly turned to ash. He continued his journey northward a short distance, alighting upon the ground at the base of the Tower Mzark.

There he plunged into the dark reaches of the Blackreach, lit by glowing mushrooms the size of towers, great spars of turquoise crystal that rose from the ground, and the faint but ever present orange glow of the Dwemer city's artificial sun that hung at the center of the massive chamber.

The world seemed to hasten then, as he raced across countless peaks and cliffs in the dim light of the cavern, passing an underground waterfall until finally arriving in a secluded section of the cavern. Hidden from casual view by a jut of rock, a great wall was carved into the stone with an opening large enough for a pair of giants to march through, barred by a portcullis, and flanked by a pair of Dwarven Centurions.

He passed through the portcullis as if a spectre, racing down a long hall that plunged even deeper into the earth before being met by a great door of dwemer make that swung open to reveal a wall of darkness. He passed through unflinchingly and the world seemed to hasten again, barely comprehensible to even his keen mind.

He fought creatures wreathed in shadow at the base of a great tower of flame...

And then he raced through a forest as a wolf, the scent of blood keen in his nostrils…

He stood at the base of a great crater, with the ruins of a mighty palace about him as a dragon roared overhead…

He plunged into darkness once more, in tunnels familiar and yet foreign to the ones he knew, traveling deep into the heart of the earth where the world was lit by magma and glowing crystal…

And then he soared on golden wings over a sprawling port city in flames, set into the base of a mountain as armies clashed below, before slamming into a great shadow and tumbling from the skies, his vision fading to black…

Dragonborn

"Birger"

A voice called faintly to him as he floated, drained, in the darkness of his mind before another vision came to him softly.

He was standing in a glowing cavern, a scroll held aloft in front of him. He lowered it, dimly taking note of the ancient tree that stood in front of him, and the moths that had enveloped him scattering at his movement.

He turned his gaze slightly and was met by the sight of Serana standing a short distance away, braided raven hair hanging loosely about her shoulders as her glowing orange eyes met his own ice blue ones.

"Are you alright?" She asked, worry plain in her tone as she continued, "You're as pale as a corpse." She said before advancing to him and steadying him with an arm as he almost fell from where he stood, pain blossoming behind his eyes.

"Birger"

"I'm fine, These damn things always give me a headache when I read them, should really switch to the local newsletters instead." He replied jokingly as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand, the other giving the sealed scroll to his companion, who stowed it swiftly in her pack.

"I got what we needed anyway, I know where the bow is." he continued absentmindedly after a moment, other thoughts tugging at his mind.

'What was that second vision?' he thought for a moment before Serana returned her attention to him, a faint smile on her face, and said, "Birger, if you don't wake up right now I am going to put you out of your misery."

'Wait what?' The big man thought dimely, the words that had come from Serana's mouth not matching what her lips had said.

The quiet of the grove was shattered by the screech of a gargoyle and the pair spun towards the entrance. The movement however, caused the Dragonborn's aching head to spin far further than his body, landing him on the stone floor of the cavern. He was staring up at Serana's worried face, before his world faded to darkness again.

==X==

He opened his eyes to find Serana gazing down at him, much as she had been a moment before, through the cavern that had once loomed over her was now a thatched roof.

"Uggghhh." He managed, briefly closing his eyes once more. his head ached far worse than he thought it ever had, even worse than after reading all three of those scrolls in succession in the underground grove of the ancestor moths. 'Maybe that time I got in a drinking contest with Sanguine...'

Serana's face quickly shifted from worry to relief above him, before flitting to anger in an instant. A hand smacked his already aching head. causing the world to spin above him. lights played not just at the corners of his vision, but danced merrily across it as if Sheogorath and Sanguine had decided to have a party together.

"That." He managed with a groan after what felt like a few minutes "Didn't. Help." He finished, sitting up for a moment and pulling his legs close in front of his chest to curl up into a ball.

"Don't you ever do that again." His longtime companion said, anger lacing her voice as she stood by the entrance to what he now recognized as the stables of his homestead, Lakeview Manor, in the woods of Falkreath.

"I could have killed you!" She practically shouted now, anger causing the glow in her eyes to seem almost menacing; if one wasn't a nearly seven foot tall giant of a man who had already been to the afterlife, and consequently thought the place wasn't all that shabby.

"Well, that puts you in good company." The Dragonborn said faux cheerfully, as he slowly uncurled and drew himself to his feet, stumbling a bit and bracing himself against one of the several beams that reinforced the small stables. "Half of my best friends have tried to kill me at some point."

He couldn't quite muster his normal levels of cheerful sarcasm and cynicism however, the pounding in his head drawing too much of his attention. "Why exactly are we in the stables again?" He asked his quietly fuming companion as he moved from beam to beam on his way towards the exit.

"The house isn't exactly a good place to be right now, you should see for yourself." She said, most of the anger draining from her as she opened the doors to the outside.

Sunlight filled the clearing, birds chirped and alit in the many vibrant pine trees as the pair exited the only intact building left on the estate.

The manor itself was a burnt out husk, still smouldering timber beams collapsed on top of one another, with the east side armory being the only relatively intact section of the once great building still standing. He noted that magical frost clung to the wood there.

"How long was I out?" The tall man asked finally, all traces of levity, or even false levity draining from his voice as he surveyed the damage trying to recall what had happened, and unfortunately for his sense of humor, succeeding.

"Two days." Serana said quietly from beside him before continuing. "I had Lydia and Erik take the children to Fort Dawnguard. Rayya, Llewellyn, and Gunjar didn't make it." She said, pointing to a pyre that had been assembled at the edge of the clearing, on which the bodies of his friends and servants lay.

Birger hung his head in silent respect for a moment, "May they find there way to Sovngarde" he said quietly, hobbling his way over to the pyre.

"Yol." he whispered under his breath, the heat and energy of fire coursed through his limbs for a moment, driving away his pains. The pyre caught, wreathing the men and women who had died to protect his family in flames.

He turned back to face Serana, who aside from pulling her dark hood over her head, had not shifted from her position at the entrance to the stabes. As he neared he noticed she was examining a large crystalline Soul Gem that glowed with a faint inner light, seemingly lost in thought.

"I…" The woman stated hesitantly as he returned, "I need some time alone. To think." She said holding the gem out to him.

He gently took her other hand and closed it on top of the gem, saying, "I gave that to you for safe keeping, in case we needed it again."

"Birger, I just-" She started, some anger returning to her voice, but he cut her off.

"Did what you had to do to survive, and I was ready to pay any price for that." He finished for her firmly, before guiding her hands and the gem within to her pack. After a moment she reluctantly released it back into its enchanted folds.

"I need some time of my own." He stated after a short period of silence between the pair, his mind considering what he had seen as he slept.

"If you need me… I think I need to visit Blackreach again. Just check in on Sofie and Lucia if you decide to come looking for me. Uncle Isran might decide they need to be taught how to fire ballistas, or call down Meridia's holy fire, or something." He said, a trace of amusement returning to his voice.

Serana spared no more words for him, simply giving him a somber nod before fading into a black mist and disappearing into the shadows of the forest.

The Dragonborn's gaze fell once more upon the ruins of his southern home. 'It took me a year to build this damn place and it got burned down in a night.' he thought, traversing around the rubble to the entrance of the armory, which he pulled open roughly, being greeted with a puff of ash that had him coughing and sputtering.

'Next one is definitely getting a nice big stone wall.' He thought darkly as he summoned a magelight and examined what remained of his wide arsenal. The flames had not claimed this part of the structure, but everything was covered in a fine ash, the more base of his weapons already beginning to rust from the corrosive stuff.

He approached a small cabinet near the room's north wall, and forced it open. Inside was a long hand and a half sword. A blade made of ebony that seemed to shimmer with golden light, above a bronze hilt adorned with a ruby that glowed with an inner fire that spoke of sunlight and life.

He gently drew Dawnbreaker from its place and replaced the more conventional sword he bore upon his hip in his pack.

He rarely ever kept Dawnbreaker with him when he traveled with Serana, it had an unfortunate penchant for making nearby undead burst into flames at the slightest provocation, and she dabbled in necromancy on top of that.

He cast his gaze about the rest of the room, eventually settling on just a few quivers of more exotic arrows added to his pack. They had just returned from adventuring during the attack, so he had all of his normal weapons on him, Auriel's shield dangling on a strap about one shoulder, with his large battleaxe fastened to a hook on his other shoulder, where it could be easily drawn.

He left the ruins of his home and walked back to the stables, casting his gaze about the clearing as he did so, looking for signs of battle. He found them, a pool of blood here, a discarded sword there, and by the now roaring pyre he finally noticed several piles of ash clumped together about it, lines of faint blue light arcing through them like cracks.

'So that's where their bodies went.' The big man thought before turning and re-entering the stables. He reclaimed his helmet from near where he had lain, noticing that all the horses had either been run off or killed before leaving the building once more.

Without another glance he began to march away from his home. As he moved to take a shortcut down to the road that ran along Lake Ilinalta his foot struck something hard, drawing his gaze down to a discarded helmet. It was an iridescent gold and crafted in such a way as to resemble a bird's head; delicate feathers seemed to flow about the cheek guards.

He crushed it under foot and continued his trek down a small dirt path his household had worn into the hillside that overlooked the lake, passing the road too as he walked, before arriving at the stony beach that covered this part of the lake shore.

'I was flying in my dream, might as well see if I can make that a reality.' He thought Idly before raising his head to the clouds and calling out to another of his old friends that had tried to kill him.

"OD! AH! VIING!" The shout rang out, likely being heard by anyone within a dozen miles as clearly as if he had been standing next to them, but dragons could hear their name across continents when it was called in the Thu'um.

Birger sat down on a nearby piece of driftwood to wait for his friend to arrive, gazing out across the vastness of the saphire blue waters,. eventually he choked down a potion of regeneration when the warm comfort of his earlier shout had faded and allowed the throbbing to return to his head.

All the while he kept his thoughts studiously on the rise and fall of the waves, and the green line of trees just barely visible below the mountains opposite the great lake, rather than on the events of the past week.

The soft sounds of the waves lapping at the shore, and birds chirping in the trees behind him had nearly lulled him into taking a nap when he first heard the great thuds of a dragon's wings coming from the east.

The crimson and white dragon circled his position once before landing roughly on the shore, spraying pebbles and smaller rocks about him.

"Drem Yol Lok, Dovahkiin. You have called, and I have come." The dragon said, his mouth moving awkwardly to make the sounds of the mortal tongue.

"Odahviing." The Dragonborn said warmly, rising from his place to greet his old friend. "I would like to ask a favor." The human finished as he moved to stand a short distance away from the dragon.

"Name it, Thur, and it shall be so." His friend replied nodding his head slightly in acknowledgment of the Dragonborn's title.

"I was hoping to take to the skies on your back once more, I have a need to be at Heljarchen Hall quickly, and the horses of skyrim are no rival for a dragon in flight." The man said, while privately thinking that the horses of skyrim were hardly a rival for a human at a jog either.

Still the comparison seemed to please Odahviing, who had likely never actually seen one of the beasts run for more than the time it took for him to devour it.

"I would be glad to fly you. It is a sad thing, when a creature of the air cannot take flight on wings of its own." The dragon replied, before lowering his head and allowing the Dragonborn to take up residence between the join of his neck and the shoulders of his mighty wings.

With a heave the dragon leapt from the ground, spread his wings, and took flight; leaving Birger's stomach back on the ground in an altogether more pleasant than it sounds way.

The speed was thrilling, and as they rose he could see farther and farther, being able to make out smoke rising in the south from Falkreath's many fires, and beyond that the tips of the Jerall Mountains that shielded Skyrim from Cyrodiil in the south.

Odahviing circled the burned out manor from high above for a time, granting the Dragonborn a last look at the pyre that burned there before banking north, following in the passage of the White river far below; likely trying to spare the human the cold winds that blew atop the mountain peaks.

After a mere dozen minutes they flew high over the small town of Riverwood, a journey that would have taken over an hour on foot.

From his position atop Odahviing's back, Birger cast his gaze about, looking for familiar landmarks as they flew. He spotted the Guardian stones, proudly holding vigil over a small fall in the river as the road snaked its way down an incline.

He identified the shrouded entrance to Embershard mine, an iron mine that had a nasty tendency to house bandits during the harsh winter months, Talos knew he had cleared it half a dozen times.

As the pair left Riverwood behind them and soared out over the grassy tundra of Whiterun Hold he was just able to glimpse Bleak Falls Barrow through a layer of clouds that had been clinging to the peak of its mountain.

He wasn't sure what had possessed the ancient nords to build so many crypts on top of mountains… or how they made them so blasted big. It had taken him several hours to clear the thing of Draugr, and when he reached the main chamber he had followed a small side tunnel and ended up at the base of the peak, overlooking Lake Ilinalta. It would have been quite helpful to have known about that entrance before marching up the mountain during a blizzard.

After letting his thoughts wander for a few more beats of the Dragon's mighty wings the man returned to scanning the area below, glorying in the vantage such height granted. It was like standing atop the Throat of the World on a clear day.

Gazing westward as they passed far above the city of Whiterun he could just make out the distant walls of Fort Greymoor, the location of the Hold's Imperial garrison.

After a failed Stormcloak attack on Whiterun a year prior the armies had held an uneasy truce for a few months while they let Birger deal with the dragons rampaging across Skyrim. he had done a bit of mercenary work for the Imperials after that, but for the most part left them to their civil war.

From what he had last heard, a real legion had been diverted from the south to put an end to the protracted conflict, something that would doubtless make Tullius happy, the man had been unable to gain any meaningful ground, even with Whiterun's support.

After a bit more than an hour of flying, and a developing stiffness in the Dragonborn's legs, Heljarchen Hall came into sight several miles north of the Loreius farm along the main road. As the pair neared however, Birger began to make out a great deal of movement about the place, golden armor catching the sun and rendering the wearers visible for miles.

'Thalmor. So it wasn't just Lakeview.'. Birger thought, anger spiking energy into his veins and quickly banishing the thoughts of mere stiffness. He carefully twisted his battleaxe free from the ring that secured it to his back, and shimmied his shield onto his arm.

Odahviing seemed to sense his mood, though the speed of their travel rendered speech impossible. Birger felt a rumble pass through the Dragon's chest before an ear splitting roar was loosed unto the world.

'Bet they didn't think they would have to deal with two dragons.' The massive Nord thought, letting a not altogether kind smile creep onto his face.

They were nearing bowshot range when an arc of lightning flew from a black robed figure on the ground and connected with the soaring dragon, causing another roar, this one of pain.

Odahviing rolled hard to his right, and rather than hang on the Dragonborn allowed himself to be thrown, almost laughing with maniacal glee as the ground raced up to embrace him. When he was less than fifty meters from the ground he shouted, "Fiem!".

His body turned transparent as a spectre, he felt fuzzy, like a cloud held together by will alone, as he landed weightlessly on his feet a bare twenty meters from the doorstep of his hall.

A dozen golden armored figures with drawn swords rushed forward to greet him, a pair of black-robed mages keeping vigil on the sky behind them; trying to bring down his thoroughly angered companion.

A shieldless pair took up positions in front of their comrades as they advanced, shimmering wards flaring to life before them. 'I could probably shout through them…' Birger thought as he willed his spectral body back into its more corporeal form. But the man still didn't feel as if his full strength had returned, and wanted to get his axe bloody anyway.

'Don't want to level another one of my houses either.' He thought, judging the distance between himself and his northern hall with a critical eye.

"Wuld!" The big man shouted, propelling himself forward faster than the eye could blink, batting aside one of the leading elves with his shield and taking the other's head with his axe.

He scattered the surprised would-be assassins, claiming another two with heavy blows from his axe before they reformed, attempting to encircle him.

"Fus!" He shouted, sending four of the tall mer flying backwards through the air before spinning about and narrowly deflecting a blow from one of the elves who had circled him, battle rage driving his smile wider.

He slipped his shield a bit too high, and one of the elves stabbed at his chest. The blow skittered off his heavy armor as his axe swept down and buried itself in the base of the Mer's neck.

A faint tug told him the weapon was stuck, and promptly discarded as he drew dawnbreaker from its sheath, blocking another blow with his shield. The moonstone shield had taken on a rippling glow and was beginning to feel warm in his hand, as if it were made of warm summer sunlight.

'Su!' He shouted, noting with little care that his chest had begun to flutter and tingle, as if he were made of air itself. He wondered idly if that was down to the specific nature of this shout or his perhaps overuse of the Thu'um.

In either case, he sidestepped a downward blow as if he were a leaf caught in a breeze, his sword lashing out as if propelled by a gale and cleaving through the armored arm of the mer who had attempted to strike him. The enchanted metal slowed only slightly as fire blazed into existence in the wound, followed by more as the blade rent open the elf's chest.

'Ah, I need to use this sword more often.' The Dragonborn thought admiringly as he parried a blow and cut half through his opponent's blade. He batted aside another blow with his shield as he removed a rather important limb that was holding the remains of a sword.

A roar broke above him, drawing his gaze for the briefest of moments. He was given just enough warning to sidestep the corpse of one of the mages as it fell from on high and landed upon his disarmed opponent. Seeing the rapidly approaching dragon's intention, he raised his shield above himself and drew in a quick breath as the world about him was wreathed in fire.

He closed his eyes, still being nearly blinded as the flames continued for a few more moments. The heat of them stung his skin, but the enchantments upon his armor and the shield he held sheltered him from the worst of it.

As the world returned to a more normal shade he quickly ran from the blaze that had engulfed his position, noting that there were several more corpses than he had thought should be there before letting himself draw breath once more. Breathing fire out was one thing, breathing it in was quite another.

'Ah, those other four made it back just in time…' He realized as he sprinted towards the doors to his hall, and the last mage that stood there, catching a lightning bolt upon his pale shield. There was a shadowy sword held in the Mer's grip now, the other quickly summoned forth a ward after its attack failed.

"I think I'm going to mount your head above my door!" the Nord yelled as he closed the gap, engaging in a time honored tradition of mocking one's opponents that ran in the blood of Skyrim. If bandits could do it, why not him anyway?

The tall elf sneered at him and countered his first strike, the oblivion bound blade seemed to screech at Dawnbreaker's touch but did not fail like the metal blades of the elf's compatriot. The brief burst of speed his latest shout had given him had faded by the time of their clash, and he was matched blow for blow by the Thalmor mage.

After several exchanges of blows his opponent's bound blade slipped under his guard briefly and found its way through a gap in his plates at his right thigh, passing through the gambeson there as if it were but parchment. The blade drew blood and an angry roar from the massive man, though the wound was ultimately not disabling.

Birger began to give ground in a hobble, attempting to and succeeding in drawing the elf away from his hall.

The Thalmor held his ward as Birger retreated, likely wary of his voice, though the fuzzy feeling had not left him as the effects of his shout had. The human sidestepped right to avoid a blow, and with pain flaring in his hip, he fell to the ground.

The Thalmor wasted no time in raising his blade to strike, releasing his ward and drawing it into both hands. 'Probably doesn't want to engage in something so dirty and human as grappling.' The big man thought, content that the elf had bitten.

As the blade descended it was met by a glowing shield and knocked aside. The Thalmor appeared startled for the barest of moments before he was consumed in a flash of golden light, the strength of all the blows Auriel's shield had received released upon the world in a roar of thunder and sunlight, leaving naught of the Mer but ash.

Lying upon his back for a bare moment, the Nord summoned a healing spell to his hand and let it do it's work in repairing his injured leg.

"I guess I won't be mounting your head upon my wall. A shame, it looked to be a really nice head." The man said with a chuckle as he rose to his feet, casting his gaze around for more enemies but finding only dimly burning bodies and ashes. He noted that one body in particular had an axe protruding from its shoulder.

A roar echoed far overhead, drawing his gaze skyward to the departing form of Odahviing, the dragon likely returning to the Throat of the World now that he had seen battle and tasted blood at the Dragonborn's side once more.

'Well, that could have gone worse.' The man thought as he walked back to the initial group he had fought and examined his axe where it was still imbedded in an elvish corpse

Odahviing's flames had reduced the leather grip to ash, and the haft itself smoldered dimly underneath a coat of soot. He held his hand a short distance away from the metal of the head and decided it was better left where it was.

"I liked that axe." The Nord grumbled to himself as he made his way back to his home, sword in hand.

He carefully swung open the door and stepped back, shield raised so that he just peered over the rim. Nothing lept at him from the dimly lit interior of his second home so he proceeded inside.

He found no traces of the men and women that normally kept his home ready for him, which was perhaps for the better, he decided, thinking back on the state of Lakeview. He quickly searched every room on the main floor, finding no traces of anyone.

He briefly considered using the Aura Whisper shout to see the lifeforce of anyone nearby, but decided against pushing his luck. The Thu'um fed directly off of a being's Soul, rather than simply channeling power from Aetherius or Oblivion like normal magic. Pushing himself too far could reduce him to little more than a pile of ash on the floor of his home.

Instead he slowly cleared every room of his manor; all where empty with no signs of struggle or blood. He proceeded to a small hatch that was set into the floor of the kitchen and quickly passed into the cellar, where the all important casks of ale and mead were kept, as well as a rather less important shine to the Nine Divines.

"Ah, I should've thrown in a Talos taunt…" The big man lamented as his eyes fell upon the small statute of Talos at the shine's center, the Divine's sword impaling a serpent. He brushed his hand lightly over it and thought a short prayer. The slight fuzziness he felt receded somewhat as the Ninth Divine granted him a blessing.

He lifted his head from the statue and turned, climbing back out of the cellar and moved to enter this particular manor's armory.

It was less well stocked than the one at lakeview, but still equipped well enough to arm a small war party. several sets of armor stood upon racks in the room's center, swords and axes hung from the walls, and a few finer weapons were laid in glass topped display cases along the walls of the small room.

He quickly relieved the nearest wall of a large steel battle axe with a spike that allowed for stabbing and another more hook like protrusion on the back for piercing armor. He ran a finger lightly over the blade. Satisfied with the feeling as it tugged at the very surface of his skin, he slid it into the ring on his shoulder.

Casting his gaze about the room briefly, he turned his back on the cache of weapons and made his way back outside where the sun was still high in the sky. He jogged briskly to the stables and found some measure of relief that the carriage of Markus, his driver, was gone.

'They must have gone on a supply run.' Birger thought as he weighed what to do for a few moments before turning back to his house.

He looted some parchment, ink, and a quill from his small library and wrote a quick note, explaining that the area was no longer safe and that any who should return should find somewhere else to stay and wait for him to find them.

He wouldn't set the Thalmor on the trail of the Dawnguard, though Isran would likely teach them a thing or two about combat before he took care of them. Best for them to be left wondering where he was.

He pinned his note to the inner door of the entry hall with a dagger before acquiring some dried food, a few bottles of mead, and some mild ale from the kitchen.

Walking back into the daylight once more; He cast a last gaze around and decided, 'well at least this one didn't burn down… yet.' before beginning his march northwest towards the Tower of Mzark.

It was blessedly close to home as far as entrances to Blackreach went, if having the risk of Falmer potentially breaking through the Dwemer automatons and trying to slaughter one's family in their sleep could be considered a blessing. Still, it was only a little more than an hour's hike away from the Hall, though it was all uphill.

The only real worry on the way was that the Stonehill mountains had a larger than average giant population, but they were relatively peaceful unless provoked so far as twelve foot tall hulks of muscle were concerned.

The green spring fields at the southern tip of The Pale shifted quickly to gravelly stone and a thin layer of snow as he hiked along a rocky trail he had previously marked out. It wound up through the foothills, snaking around several massive spars of rock that could be considered low peaks before opening to a clearing.

At the base of another small peak stood the Tower of Mzark, standing vigil over the vast expanse of tundra below. The tower itself was hardly impressive by dwemer standards, little more than a stone cylinder of perhaps thirty feet in height with a small staircase leading up to its gate of bars, which hung wide open several feet above the snowy ground.

Looking to the sky, Birger judged it to be late afternoon, and with several more hours of daylight left to him, he began to set up camp.

A small single person tent was drawn from his pack and anchored a few meters from the tower. A bedroll was uncoiled and placed inside it, before the man scavenged some deadwood for a fire from the remains of a few of the sparse pine trees that populated this area of Skyrim.

He drew slightly upon the more mundane variety of magic to cast flames upon his assembled pile of wood and soon had a softly crackling campfire.

The nights of Skyrim could become deathly cold to those who lacked the Nordic blood, even in the spring. Birger was a Nord however, and built the fire more out of a desire for a hot meal before delving into the darkness of Blackreach rather than out of necessity.

The sun had passed below the mountains high above by the time his preparations were complete, leaving him in near darkness. He was, however, given a breathtaking view of the eastern plains as the shadows of the mountains raced across them, drawing a faint smile to the man's face.

Skyrim was truly a beautiful land, hash though it could be. It was wild and untamed, barely tolerating the mortal races where the southern lands of Cyrodil had been largely mastered by them. It was not afraid of reminding them just how small they were either, insects standing on the bones of the earth.

With that cheerful thought on his mind the man turned to the small pot he had hung over his fire to melt some of the snow to water for a stew. He ate his meal quickly, It was hardly appetizing, being for the most part boiled meat, but it steadied his stomach that had begun to complain at him for its several days without sustenance.

As night fully claimed the world he sat and looked to the sky once more, watching the waves of dancing light that so loved the northern skies play across the heavens, pondering the meaning of existence and contemplating other such deep but impersonal thoughts.

After a short while he drew himself fully armored into his tent, leaned his shield against the tent wall, and lay his axe beside himself. He would rest, such as he could, for the night and brave the dark depths tomorrow.

The countless automatons he destroyed the last time were doubtless repaired by now, though only the Dwemer knew how. After that he would almost certainly have to deal with roving bands of Falmer and their Charaus pets until he found the location of the door he sought.

He eventually drifted off, grumbling about how nothing ever stayed fixed, doom driven errands, Elder Scrolls, and just about anything else that could be peacefully grumbled about.

Author's Note

And there we have the first chapter, longer than the entirety of the original 3, I might add.

I decided to rewrite the beginnings of my story to improve the depth and quality a bit, though I still have absolutely no idea what I am doing (officially) though I did up the rating to M, to better do justice to the brutality of yada yada yada yada and whatnot.

As you may note (this section of) the story is starting a few days earlier than the original work did, that is because I am going to be opening up several POV's on the DA side, and I realized that I will probably have a good 30k+ Words in DA before I even hit the battle of Ostagar (I already have 20k on ONE origin that takes about 45 minutes to complete fully *shudders at the thought of DA being a 40+ hour game*. I am not planning to release that until I can tie the threads together a bit though)

I do not have a schedule for updates, I may not even finish the story. When I write I tend to do it in busts, much like I play my games. A massive amount of content in a short time (say, a playthrough of DA in 3 days/15k+ words in a week) but I suffer heavily from burnout. I started this chapter a little over a week and a half ago after writing 20k+ words in that time-span prior to my "author's note"

I will concede writing freehand like this is much more difficult (though far less tedious) than converting the plot of the original work(s) into a more novelish format so once I sync the universes it might come easier.

In short, updates will be sporadic, but generally huge, and happy birthday! (to me).