Hello everyone! Welcome to my... Let's see... I guess it would be sixth fanfiction I wrote (not including oneshots and quite a lot of stuff I wouldn't dare to call decent fanfiction back from when I was learning). It is however the first time I publish anything on Fanfiction. Were you ever in situation when one idea invaded your mind and refused to leave until you wrote it down? That's the case with this story. What to expect? Comedy, Adventure, Humor, Friendship, maybe some Romance, trolling, scheming, dragons acting mysterious just for fun, multiple questlines, cheese and lots of Dovahzul. For now, rating is T - in my opinion a few curses are nothing for teenagers these days. Enjoy!

EDIT: Now with edits made by DeathLord-92

That's it. The first time I get a chance, I'm going to beat up that sack of maggot shit I call a friend.

Oh, sure, no one is perfect, Ted was aware of that. He himself wasn't great friend material, at least according to others, though it was beyond him why so few could stand a sarcastic gamer with a knack for scheming. Sarcasm is just a type of humor and scheming wasn't aimed at his buddies... usually.

But Jerry? No, no, you don't want to have that kind of person as your friend. Let me paint you a picture. You invite all your bros for a party. What does Jerry do? He comes in the middle of a party, no matter if he was invited or not, already drunk and advancing towards the legendary realm of ultimate intoxication. He immediately proceeds to flirt with every girl in sight, right after he's devoured all of the best snacks that is. Few minutes later he starts a fight because of someone "thinking too loudly" or something like that. Just before or after that he throws up either at someone or at your rug. The series of disasters continues for hours and ends in one of three ways. First ending, someone has had enough and knocks the asshole unconscious. Second ending, Jerry does that himself with a great deal of booze. Third ending, Jerry loudly demands of you to drive him home, since you are the host. You usually obey, since the only thing worse than driving anywhere with a drunk Jerry in the backseat is him trying to reach sobriety in your house, hence why third option is best.

I suppose now you more or less understand what kind of a guy Jerry is, even if I skipped how he behaves while sober (not that it's much of an improvement). However, when he is sober, he is also great at convincing others, which brings us to current situation.

Ted hated camping. He was a city person, a gamer. As for mountains, they were nice, but only on pictures. So Jerry, being the terrible person he was, combined two and, by winning a bet, made him go with him to camp in the mountains. Apparently Jerry was one of those people who thought that the only reason others don't like things they do is because they didn't have enough of the stuff.

And that rises a question. What does Jerry do after making a camp? No, surprisingly he doesn't get drunk. At least it seems like that. There was no way to confirm, since he disappeared. Idiot left a note on his sleeping bag from which Ted learned that he went to "check out some cool caves nearby".

Now, don't get me wrong, Jerry was a plague to this world. Ted honestly wouldn't care if he had, for example, broken his leg, except for the part in which Jerry would demand extensive medical attention from him. The problem? If that was the last time anyone saw Jerry, who do you think would be blamed?

Ted wasn't a bad person, really. If it was anyone else, he would without any hesitation go for a search. In the end he did that for Jerry too, though for a moment he considered strangling him as soon as he found him. The thing is, he just knew Jerry would be fine. It doesn't matter what kind of mess the bastard stepped in, in the end every time he will be more or less fine, either due to his luck or because someone reluctantly helped him. In other words, Jerry was a proof karma doesn't exist.

And here we are. Ted, with a flashlight in hand, was marching through the first cave he found. In the other hand he held a bit of chalk, just in case he found crossroads. Unfortunately, he didn't have any weapon. It was unlikely he would find anything really dangerous in this area, but it would come in handy in a meeting with a mutated killer racoon, or whatever attacks campers these days.

"Jerry?" Ted asked, sweeping the cave in search of his annoying friend... colleague...companion... associate, yes, let's go with that. "Jeeeeerryyyyy..." grumbled our protagonist and chuckled. Yeah, while it is still creepy, "Gary" is so much scarier. "Come on, man, I know you are somewhere. I swear, if I'll find you sitting in a corner with an empty bottle, I'll smash it on your hea... GOD DAMMIT!"

He stopped at the last possible moment. One more step and he would find himself in a freefall - there was a pit in the floor of the cave, as if someone made it for a single purpose of making Ted fall to his death.

"Someone out there is out for my blood." he muttered, crouching in front of the hole. It wasn't too big to jump over it, but big enough to make it risky. What are the chances Jerry went in this particular cave and jumped over the gap instead of falling in, like he almost did? Ted nodded and stood up, turned around and... Wait, what was that?

He narrowed his eyes. There was some sort of weak blue light deep in the pit, barely noticeable due to distance. He pointed a flashlight into the hollow, but it wasn't strong enough to light it all the way.

"That's one deep hole," said Ted and immediately facepalmed. Why was I born with mind so corrupted I make innuendos without even trying?

Let's take a break for a moment. Personally, I, mystical storyteller, prefer that you learn something from stories, no matter the genre. There are so many things I could tell you about, from proper techniques of spelunking to quantum physics and a possibility of warping between dimensions. Fortunately for you, I realize the best lesson is the one you learn at the expense of someone else. This particular lesson is the same one you could learn by reading the first chapter of "Alice in Wonderland".

Never ever lean over a large pit if you are not sure how trusty is the ground under your feet.

*CRACK*

"OOOOH SHIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~!"

Children, don't do that at home.

Have you ever tried to swim while partially paralyzed? Ted just did. Not that he had much of a choice, mind you.

"Blargh!"

That was a terrible first attempt.

In theory, Ted should be grateful that there apparently was a lake at the very bottom of the pit - the fall took several seconds, so water was the only reason he was still alive. He would be grateful, if not for one little detail - temperature.

Ice! Ice, oh God, why?!

After several seconds of desperate swinging of all his limbs in a very cold liquid, an action that definitely didn't deserved to be called swimming, Ted finally managed to grab an edge of massive rock and with unexpected difficulty pulled himself out of the lake. He lied there for a long while, breathing heavily.

"I hate water." Ted took a few more moments to gather some strength and raised his head. He blinked a few times, but all he saw was a great deal of nothing. "Wonderful. I might be blind as well at this point, it's too dark. I'm not diving into that pond for my flashlight."

Ted attempted to stand up. 'Attempted' was a key word here. He immediately lost his balance and tipped over, landing on his back and smashing his head on the hard ground. For some reason, while it was still unpleasant, it was much less painful than one would expect.

"Greetings, pain, my old pal," he groaned. He frowned. Did he suffer some injury? Most likely. His arms for example felt really weird. Maybe not "broken weird", but definitely not a good kind of weird. His bigger concern was an apparent loss of agility - he managed to stand on all fours and he could still crawl, but even that felt strange, as if he wasn't just moving, but also trying to pull something heavy. He looked behind to check it, but...

Why... Why can I turn my head so far?!

Terrified at the prospect of spine damage, Ted ceased to move. He stood still like that for almost a minute and then slowly lied down.

No, no, that doesn't make sense. If anything, a damaged spine would immobilize him, not give Ted more dexterity. But if that's not the reason... then what is?

Then, suddenly, it dawned on him.

That fall must have messed with my labyrinth. That's why he felt now so clumsy and disoriented. Oh God, I hope it's temporary. Hold on... Is that...?

Yes, it was. There was a silent, rhythmic sound, echoing somewhere from the darkness. Footsteps.

"Jerry?! Is that you?!"

Fjol blinked. What kind of name is Jerry? He shook his head. He will ponder the stupidity of some parents after he finds and "evicts" the guy who apparently already claimed the cave for himself. It took too long for him to find it, he's not going back into that rain... as long as it wasn't something too challenging, that is. Even his nordic might has limits. Roof over your head isn't a good consolation prize for becoming Telvanni's guinea pig. He shuddered and tightened his grip on the battle axe. Oh Talos, Telvanni. One meeting was enough, he will never try to steal from those psychos again. Then again, they live in the east, right? No danger of meeting one here.

Alright, enough of this. He was a barbarian and he solves all his problems in the same way - by hitting them a lot on the head. The warrior took one more calming breath and, aware that he can't sneak up on his target due to his torch, sprinted in the only direction the cave led to in hope of ending the fight before the enemy even knew what was happening.

Nord turned a corner and frowned. There was a big, dark object right at the edge of the underground lake. He took one more step onward and the light of the torch reflected on the shiny surface.

Suddenly, the thing shifted and Fjol realized it was alive. Alive and much bigger than him, which was never a good sign, especially in a setting like this. The creature slowly turned around and the man fully realized just how much he angered Akatosh by robbing and killing that priest last week.

"Is that you, Jerry? I can't see well, you dropped your torch... Dude, no one uses those anymore."

Fjol was no fool, despite what some may say about Nord barbarians. He knew what he could and couldn't do. He was also aware that, if some criteria were met, you shouldn't clash with a foe. Suddenly finding your pants filled with feces was definitely one of them.

"You are not Jerry."

Fjol did the only thing he could do in this sort of situation - turned around and, quickly increasing a distance between himself and the danger (yes, that sounds much better than escaping, gotta remember that for later), shouted the only word that was going through his mind.

"Dragon!"

What a weird man. Ted blinked a few times, looking at the place where but a few seconds ago stood a stranger in armor of all things. Probably some LARPer... Quite realistic armor though, I'll have to ask him later where did he get it. Helmet, not so much. It was clear he was going for a Viking barbarian, but he forgot the horns. It wasn't a Viking if there weren't any horns. Ted nodded sagely. And who in the world LARPs all on their own in caves? Oh well, at least he was kind enough to leave his stick behind.

Ted approached the torch, still haunted by an indescribable feeling of wrongness. Once he did get there he reached out... with... his...

Nope.

Error 427

A problem caused the program Ted to stop working correctly. Sheogorath will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

A/N:

So, what do you think? The proper story hasn't started yet, but that's mostly because originally it was intended as a one thousand words long prologue. How it ended up twice as long, I have no idea, I woke up in the morning and it was just there, taunting me. Taunt was a success, now I'm searching for a new laptop.

Fjol is the same criminal Larrius Varro, Legion Champion at Moonmoth Fort, wants us to punish in the name of justice. You know, the guy that waits in the entrance to Hla Oad and warns you of bandits, only to demand money if you mention murderous outlaws. No, he won't play any major role. I just like to use already existing, but underdeveloped characters instead of making OCs just for the sake of a single encounter. I simply find it more interesting to add more depth to what is already there, expect it to be a regular thing.

I guess you can already notice where am I going with this fic - a slightly manipulative dragon companion for Nerevarine. The best thing in Skyrim put in the best game. Sorry, but that's my opinion, in games it's the plot that I value the most and both Skyrim and Oblivion can't hold a candle next to the storyline of Morrowind.

Alright, I've wrote enough. I myself dislike long Author Notes at the end - I read, read, read and suddenly I'm attacked by the end of the chapter, even though there was supposed to be more text. Until next time, which should be soon - I pretty much already have second chapter ready.