I should have named him Calvus...
After finishing, I was asked to choose whether I want to follow the Imperial or the Stormcloak. Obviously I chose the Imperial. I fought my way out of Helgen without much difficulty, although combat is immediately more thrilling, as I'd hoped. A good bit dispatches my foes with ease, but a couple of blows that they land on me very nearly kill me.
Upon exiting Helgen through the cave, I was greeted by this glorious sight:
Incredible! So much brighter and more intoxicating that vanilla Skyrim. Without my compass, I start to follow the road to Riverrun. I remembered there was a mine around here somewhere. But without my compass telling me every single thing that's nearby and how close I am, I had to... explore! I suddenly had a rush of contentment - the forest looked different to how I remembered it, nothing was spoon-fed to me, and I'd actually have to look for roads and signposts to navigate around.
I found the path that lead to Embershard mine, and began my adventure.
I cleared the mind without trouble, although every encounter carried with it the threat of death, so when I eventually dispatched each foe it really did feel like a proper fight in which I got the better of them, rather than two Team-america puppets flailing at each other. Archers proved somewhat bothersome, as their arrows did a lot of damage. I made use of terrain, and a technique of advancing towards them like Jon Snow when he tackled Ramsay Bolton. Sprint forwards, raise shield just in time to block arrow, repeat, then shield bash and an axe to the face.
After clearing the mine, I headed to Riverrun.
Wow! Finally, Skyrim is more beautiful than Cyrodiil! Why didn't the original designers go with this brighter, more 'fantasy' palette? Cos frost and cold and teh bleakz I guess. Well I can already feel myself starting to fall in love with Skyrim again, after years of maligning it.
I got the usual Golden Claw quest, but headed to Whiterun first. It's even more beautiful than Riverrun, and I spent a while just walking around and looking at things, marvelling at the changes and refamiliarising myself with the place.
I obtained a bounty for the leader of the Silent Moons camp, so I roamed the plains near Whiterun for a while and discovered the camp. I was slain almost immediately by a powerful mage. I tried a few times, but nothing I had could overcome her magic. Dejected, I started to head back to Whiterun, but I happened upon a Dunmer mage, who agreed to follow me! With his mighty magic we managed to clear out the camp (I let him do most of the fighting).
As I roamed the plains on my way back to Whiterun, marvelling at the brighter landscape, I spied a castle in the far distance, which I didn't recognise
You can't really see it in that picture but it's in the mountains straight ahead, wreathed in fog. I headed over there and it turned out to be Fort Sungard, which I cleared of bandits.
I took a southerly path back and ended up in Falkreath, which was far prettier than I remembered, no doubt on account of the mods. I spoke to the Jarl there, who asked me to bring him some Black Briar Mead.
I travelled back to Whiterun via Helgen and Riverrun, without much incident. At one point I encountered a fort filled with bandits who were far beyond my ability to tackle, and at another time I was slain by a wandering Necromamcer and had to reload and make sure to avoid him. I arrived back at Whiterun and pondered what to do. I didn't really want to have dragons showing up everywhere as I find that quite immersion-breaking. The Jarl's request sounded interesting; a journey to Riften would be a mighty and epic quest indeed.
Onwards, for honour, glory, and mead!
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