Towards Helgen Keep

I blink as I begin to assess myself, doing so for one of the first times since I first arrived in Helgen. When my eyes reopen my perception of the world is radically transformed.

The fiat-backed enhancement I get to my senses hits me all at once as I study the chaotic scene unfolding in front of me. The dramatic boost to my vision is the first of the enhancements I begin to truly make sense of. On the confined bottom floor of the tower the stormcloaks and I are seeking shelter in, the easiest way for me to see the immediate boost to my vision is that I can make out previously imperceptible details in my surroundings, like the fine stitching of the armor worn by the stormcloaks, even ones on the other end of the cramped chamber we're waiting out a supernatural assault in.

As I study the armor I begin to perceive what I immediately know to be "Scent lines", visual representations of different scents and their sources. At the same time, my enhanced hearing intersects with the rest of my senses, and I become able to focus on distant sounds, such as the commands that General Tullius is shouting as he desperately tries to rally his troops.

This is how "Subconscious Sensory Combination", a handy perk I possess as a werewolf, manifests. It combines my senses and grants me a keen ability to parse through the sensory stimuli my senses manage to detect, giving me a powerful awareness of my surroundings that I don't doubt will be effective both in battle and when I do things like use telekinesis to navigate my surroundings.

The stormcloaks in front of me eye me suspiciously, but Ulfric takes a deep breath, grabs an axe, and walks up to me. He is shorter than I am and looks me in the eyes as he motions for me to lift my hands. I do as he silently bids and when my hands are up he cuts the binds that my imperial captors put on me before I, Luciano, possessed this body.

"Thank you, Jarl Ulfric." I remark, and internally pause as I hear my voice for the first time. I speak with a fairly standard nordic accent, and hearing the European-sounding "English" is a bit amusing and strange to me. He nods at me, before taking a step back and returning his gaze to the stormcloaks.

"Fellow sons and daughters of Skyrim, the divines have looked upon our rebellion and sent us a sign today. We must act on the opportunity they have seen fit to bestow upon us." He remarks, his voice sounding exactly like he does in the video game. His words hearten the warriors who were captured with him, all of whom nod and gesture excitedly. I know what is destined to happen here, and I decide to let this part of the tutorial play out as it happens in canon for the moment even if I intend to do something unintended by the developers of the game.

Ulfric hypes up his soldiers by delivering a rousing speech. I listen, waiting for the moment they begin to go upstairs, and as I listen to the jarl of Windhelm, a city to the northeast of my location, I hear the distant, explosive roar of the dragon assaulting the city.

I attempt to access my new "Inventory", a place where my personal-scale items, things like swords and axes, are stored. A mental menu appears in my mind's eye and I only barely manage to hide my smile when I begin to explore the thing and see assorted weapons, armor, and a handful of neat items. I focus on one of the items, a stylized cuirass made from some sort of brown wolf's fur which serves as a cushion for an elaborately made breastplate. The item is a daedric artifact, specifically the "Savior's Hide".

When the nordic forces loyal to Ulfric listen to him tell them to head upstairs and look for a way to leap to the neighboring building, his soldiers do as he commands. I wait for the last of them to be partway up the stairs when I open the door behind me and speedily bolt out of the tower.

As I speed past the door I have just opened I take advantage of several things at the same time. The first thing I take advantage of is my newly boosted speed. I am not just a nord, I am a lycanthrope and as a lycanthrope, even in my human form I am blisteringly fast. I am so breathtakingly fast that I see events around me occurring in slow motion, which under other, less dire, circumstances would be something I'd be delighted to think about.

As I haul ass out of the tower I turn slightly and look at the sky, only to see a veritable avalanche of burning rocks raining down around me, though none are close enough to worry me. Plus I have my telekinesis after all. I also see Alduin's gigantic form descending towards the tower I just left. He slams into the tower and causes the thing to quake violently thanks to his gigantic weight and massive form. The world eater doesn't notice me and proceeds to head butt the tower, demolishing a section of the top floor as he does so, all while giving me a chance to sprint towards and then past the headsman's block where just minutes ago I was almost executed without attracting the dragon's notice.

I will the subtle forcefield I have come to appreciate as a telekinetic during my time in Chronicle to flare to life an inch over my skin like a layer of translucent clothing as I move. I feel a tiny bit of my total pool of telekinetic energy become committed to protecting me, and I hear imperials gasp in surprise as they feel me surging past them.

Thanks to my hilariously fast speed I whizz into a narrow alleyway without being uninterrupted and then speedily shoot past the soldiers in the middle of running from the barracks I'm heading towards who are determined to head to the tower Alduin has latched onto. The monstrous dragon is, from my perspective in slow motion, beginning to breathe baleful jets of draconic flame into the hole to the side of the tower's top floor that his earlier headbutt created.

I enter one of the ruined, burning houses that stands between the headsman's block and the barracks I need to enter to safely exit the settlement, darting into a hole in the thing's back wall and when I do I finally slow down. I find myself in a large multipurpose room, one that serves as a combination of living room, dining room, and kitchen. Ahead of me, on the other end of the room, is a door leading out.

As I slow down I sigh and feel a faint pain in my legs. This is strange, but after I take a beat and curiously inspect myself, I wonder if this is due to me pushing my legs as hard as I can. Thankfully a few seconds after I begin to feel this pain I feel my lycanthropic regeneration, one of the powerful and passive boons I now benefit from, begins to kick in, and the already light pain begins to dull a touch.

I stand in the back of a burning house, taking a beat to study my surroundings. The roof over me is burning and small clouds of smoke drift through the air around me. If I did not have telekinesis I'd be more concerned about this, but since I am armed with my fairly powerful telekinetic ability I don't seriously worry about something like the thought of debris crashing down on me.

The house is burning around me, and the flames are fascinating to study from a sensory point of view. As I walk through the burning house I focus on the menu I can see in my mind's eye when I focus on the idea of an inventory. I embark on a strange but thankfully brief internal journey that is weirdly like I am navigating video game menus and equipping a new set of armor, before I suddenly feel the sensation of my clothes dramatically changing. It takes a few nanoseconds for my clothes to go from dirty rags to gleaming and pristine metal armor outlined by the tanned hide of a wolf.

"'The Savior's Hide'... Let's see if it can help me here." I remark as I walk towards the other side of the multipurpose room. I reach the door leading out and I take a deep breath as I will myself to become more sneaky and stealthy. A visualization of my stealth appears in my mind's eye, in the form of what I know to be a closed eye. This signals that no one detects me at the moment. I opt to rely on my innate, assassin-sourced stealth, and step back out of the house, only to see multiple guards darting in the direction of the dragon.

They are sprinting towards the beast, bows drawn and arrows in hand as the monster hovers in the skies above the courtyard that now stretches out before me. I begin to sneak past the chaos, crouching and carefully moving away from the soldiers, while taking my time and wishing that I had a stealth spell of some sort to aid me in this moment.

As I wander towards the vast barracks I need to enter to safely leave Helgen without potentially butterfly effecting my way into an early and surely fatal encounter with Alduin I hear a fragment of an exclamation in Dovahzul, the language of the dragons, shortly before the explosive sound of flames vomiting forth from Alduin's maw fills the background. The flames are too far to affect me but I feel the ambient temperature of the already swelteringly hot village increase a touch as I round a corner and find myself a short sprint away from the militaristic stone structure I came here to find.

I dart towards it, opting to move at a normal speed so I save my energy for the more decisive encounters I am going to be having in and under the barracks. The stone structure has two doors that let people in or out that I can access from this side. I dart towards the one that Ralof normally runs into, since I have telekinesis and can use my abilities to get stuff open even without keys.

As I move towards the building, I am surprised to see Hadvar, the member of the Imperial Legion who is told to execute the dovahkiin at the beginning of the game dart towards the barracks from another part of Helgen.

"Is he just programmed to get here at the same time as me?" I wonder, quietly as we both move towards the barracks. He stops and turns to look at the archway I passed under to get here, spotting me and beginning to silently size me up. The symbol alerting me to the success of my stealth changes, showing me a golden, and open eye. This is the game's way of signaling that I have been seen.

Meanwhile Ralof is nowhere to be seen, so I guess he's bound by some semblance of realism… That seems a bit unfair.

"Lund… That armor. Are you looking to escape?" He wonders as he studies the armor I am wearing. "Lund" is the name I have been given in this setting, and I suppose that is due to its relative proximity to my actual name. I watch his hand drift towards the scabbard on his waist. I relax my efforts to be stealthy and stand up straight while looking at Hadvar.

In response to Hadvar's question I don't hesitate, nodding at him. It will be easier, and safer, for me to have an ally as I make my way out of this situation, and Hadvar is smart enough to think the same way. He considers my answer for the amount of time it takes for Alduin to distantly spew more flames, uttering more Dovahzul, and the sounds of the distant dragon seem to persuade him as to the importance of getting out of here. More flaming rocks plummet towards the village as well, hammering home the importance of getting the hell out of here.

"Do you wish for things to be made a touch easier?" He asks, and I grin, savagely, nodding again. He grins back at me and gestures for me to join him. I dart towards him, and we both move towards the door he was heading towards.

We escape the brutal outdoors of the burning settlement and find ourselves in a dimly lit chamber where beds line the walls and a narrow path exists between the beds that lets people navigate the room. I shut the door behind us, and once I'm done doing that I reach into my inventory and equip more of my items, specifically the "Wolf's Fang Sword and Sun Shield", a parmula steel-banded shield with an image of the sun in its middle, and a gladius-like sword decorated in such a way that it resembles the head of a wolf.

Hadvar looks at me and I watch a glossy look momentarily fill his eyes as my "Secrecy Insurance" power makes him chalk up the instant appearance of my weapons to some sort of magic he doesn't understand. The two of us wordlessly move down the chamber we're in, walking past rows of beds and small desks before reaching the end of the room and stepping into the dark hallway on the other end of the space we've entered. When we reach it Hadvar turns and looks towards my right, before breathing a sigh of relief when he doesn't see anyone between us and our goal: a distant, and brightly lit chamber just past a wooden gate that is currently closed. The chamber is where people who play Skyrim will enter the keep if they side with the stormcloaks and escape with Ralof instead of with Hadvar.

We move down the dark hallway right as someone distantly opens the other door into the keep and I hear Hadvar curse. He draws his sword as we move closer to the handle we need to pull to lower the wooden gate, and I momentarily wonder who we're about to see, as my keen senses allow me to see an aura in the distance in the shape of a humanoid, even though I am not properly angled to see the figure. I have a passive ability to see animating energy, whether it's lifeforce or magic, thanks to my lycanthropic senses, so I can see things like invisible foes, if I encounter any, or even things like ghosts, since ghosts are still animated by some sort of residual, will-based energy.

When we reach the handle I angle myself to look into the large chamber where the figure is waiting for us, which I know since I can still see their aura in the distance. I realize the figure is deliberately hiding, waiting for someone to open the gate, and I silently warn Hadvar of this. He nods as he moves towards the lever we need to pull to lower the gate and move into the chamber. I listen as he pulls the lever and the gate drops, opening the way for us to slip into the room. I lift my shield and use it to cover my most vital body parts, as I dart into the room and look in the direction of the aura.

The room is huge, and several well-placed lit wall sconces provide brilliant light. There are a number of mounted animal heads affixed to walls located just beneath the sconces. A "door" made of iron bars in a door frame prevents entry into another part of the building, and a table sits at the back wall of the room. There is a piece of bread on a plate, on the table, and two chairs for anyone who is taking a break around the table.

A single nord, one dressed in the blue armor of the stormcloaks, is waiting to ambush Hadvar and I. He is crouching and trying to be hidden between my location and the door Ralof will use to enter the building when he gets here soon. His eyes widen in surprise when he sees me already aware of him, but he doesn't hesitate and he darts at me with his axe drawn. If he saw me earlier, in the chaos of what was supposed to be the execution of rebels and the end of the rebellion, he doesn't seem to recognize me. Since he is lunging at me I decide to embrace the moment to get some practice with my weapons.

I relax and feel years of muscle memory guide me as I move towards the figure and raise my shield in the direction of his attack. Memories of a life, of Lund's life, spent in northern Cyrodiil occasionally fighting bandits, bears, and even mages from time to time, as well as fiat-backed and newly installed genuine knowledge of how to fight with weapons surge to the forefront of my brain as I engage in medieval warfare for the first time.

The stormcloak's axe strikes my shield and when it does the room is violently illuminated and briefly by an abrupt magical explosion emanating from my shield. The defensive tool is powerfully enchanted, ensorcelled in such a way that when it is struck the attacker is hit by an explosive burst of solar energy, which in this case sends the warrior looking to ambush my temporary ally and I sailing back and crashing onto the floor of the chamber we're in. The stormcloak's skin is smoking, and he is letting out audible, pained grunts as he moves through the air.

I don't let this opportunity pass me by, and I dash towards the stormcloak, blade drawn. I violently stab him, impaling him with my equally magical blade, even as he sails through the air. My sword powerfully penetrates his armor and then sinks into him, and I feel his body heat begin to fade. The sword I wield has the opposite enchantment powering my shield on it, it is magically powered in such a way that it deals a generic sort of cold, dark, lunar damage rather than countering foes with explosive, holy energy.

The stabbed stormcloak exhales dramatically once he comes to a stop on the floor and as he does I watch a frosty breath leave his lips and his skin begins to turn a cool shade of blue. The energy animating his body quickly dissipates and as I pull my now blood-covered sword from his fallen body I get to see him let out one pained gasp and watch the life leave his eyes.

"Farewell Stormcloak, to Sovngarde." I remark as I shut his eyes. I get up and turn to see Hadvar gazing at me curiously. He is quiet for a moment, seeming to respect me a touch more now. He doesn't say anything, and I get up as he walks towards the door, before inserting a key into the lock keeping the thing closed.

"Let's go. We don't want to be here any longer than necessary." He tells me, grimly as he opens the obstacle and gives us a way deeper into the fortification. I nod at him and follow after the man. We reach another poorly lit section of the keep, a short hallway leading to a series of stairs that will take us towards the exit.