After successfully outrunning the Whiterun guards – not my first and certainly won’t be my last time hotfooting it from the law – I find myself on the trail of High Hrothgar looking for these Greybeards that the Jarl of Whiterun informed me of. They’ve been calling me. I heard them roar like thunder across the sky after I felled the dragon, and now I feel compelled to heed their call.
However, little did I know about just how recluse these weirdoes are. 7,000 steps you say? Pah. It felt like twice that.
I meet a few interesting people on my journey however; some delivery guy at the foot of the climb, a religious type who makes the pilgrimage to High Hrothgar every year, and a warrior who appears to be carrying some very fine jewellery. The latter of which I of course decide is too wealthy for her own good, and knowing that no one else is around I decide to relieve her of her burden by force. She puts up little resistance, and I find myself in possession of some rather tasty looking stolen goods.
I venture further and see no sign of the bears the delivery man’s friend had warned me about, though I do spy a frost troll lurking about. I manage to stay out of its way as I journey further, and upon reaching the top pf the mountain there is little to welcome me. A shrine with an empty chest? Who are these people?
Entering High Hrothgar the Greybeards quickly gather around me in a slightly intimidating manner. They assure me that all is well and enquire about my experiences with dragons, soon asking me to demonstrate the power I had gained. They too refer to this as a ‘shout’.
They endeavour to teach me more, offering me great power in the form of words. I’m along for the ride, but somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder where this is all leading. A second word for my shout that appears to break momentum, and an all new word that grants me a shout powerful enough to gain my own; why would these Greybeards be so keen to offer me this power with nothing in exchange?
It soon dawns on me that this isn’t a one-sided deal. The Greybeards have an objective, too. The hero that this land has slowly come to believe I can be is the agenda they too are pushing for. They present me with a quest and warn of the danger that lies ahead; talk of battling more dragons and becoming a hugely powerful being for the sake of all of Tamriel. This is not what I bargained for.
I leave High Hrothgar without the enthusiasm with which I arrived. This isn’t the life I was bargaining for. Perhaps it would’ve been better had my fate been determined by the executioner those five long days ago?
via Mint VR