Throat of the world

After the meeting with Ulfric, I have to wait for another 3 days before the commissioned Shattering shield is delivered by Birna. I spend another 3 days helping the twins develop their style of fighting.

The warhammer Agisbane is a stamina intensive weapon while the shattering shield is a magica intensive weapon. I help them develop a style where one of them will hold the shield to protect both while other uses the hammer, when the hammerer is tired of stamina and shield bearer has exhausted their magica, they switch weapons to continue the fight, keeping each other topped of.

This strategy will work against multiple opponents as well as against single greater opponent as long as they can coordinate well. This really works well because the the shield is not just defensive, but also an offensive weapon. Furthermore, Because of protected ward, it can even cover multiple allies rather than just the shield bearer.

After I'm confident in their ability to develop by themselves, I leave them in charge of my businesses. They will have to report to Isabella and Birna for woves and goats of logistics business and will have to answer to Colette for food and alcohol business.

On my way to High Hrothgar, I stop at some noteworthy places, taking in the beauty of Skyrim. My first stop is at Elders Gleam sanctuary. I find this place to be very peaceful and soothing.

I meditate here for a few days. I greatly increase my understanding of the thum 'LAAS' while I meditate here. I can better understand plant life after having meditated on the roots of eldergleam tree.

After such a massive breakthrough of a long standing bottleneck, I decide to meditate for longer, but I add another word to meditate on. 'KAAN' , meaning kyn. This place is a sacred grove of Kynareth. Many worshippers make a tough pilgrimage to come here to worship the goddess of sky and spirits.

I didn't know how to measure progress in this shout. In the game, this shout makes animals non hostile to you. There are no carnivores in this grove as far as I can see, making it impossible to test is progress. But I didn't just meditate on 'KAAN' to gain strength or techniques. I genuinely respect and adore kyn.

I gain clarity of thought and some rest from the grind. Meditating on 'LAAS' is also relaxing to body, but it keeps feeding me information about lifeforms near me, making it less relaxing for my brain. Kyn is a goddess that represents peace, so meditating on her is much more relaxing to the brain.

Eventually, after a week of meditating on the word 'KAAN' , I am approached by a spriggan. It offers me a small piece of ember sap from the eldergleam tree. I thank the spriggan knowing that it can't understand me. But I take this incident as proof that my understanding of this thum has reached a breakthrough.

I hold the ember in my hand and continue my meditation on the Word 'KAAN'. In between, I would sometimes meditate on 'LAAS' to understand the life of hidden and invisible spriggans around me. Sometimes I would use the Thum 'LAAS' to detect a spriggan near me, and then focus on that spriggan as I meditate on 'KAAN'.

Eventually, I actually made friend with a spriggan. It didn't know how to talk to me, so it would give me gift of its Sap. It even Showed me a secret location behind eldergleam. It was isolated from rest of the area so I could meditate there without any disturbance of pilgrims here. I leave my goat to meditate among the pilgrims. It seems happy to be left alone.

Further meditating in isolation for a week, with my spriggan friend, resulted in a surprise. It appears that this spriggan has developed a crush on me. It would sometimes sit on my lap as I'm meditating and just stare at me.

One of these times, I feel her on my lap, staring into my eyes as I meditate. I open my eyes and stare right back into her eyes. I slowly close the distance between our faces and kiss her Woody mouth. It's not nearly as dry as I was expecting it to be.

I continue to escalate the situation and hold her hard wood ass. I start sucking on her neck, sucking some of that awesome sap directly from the source. I kiss her hard wood boobs and suck some sap from them.

I pull my cock out to show her. She doesn't know much about sex, but she has surely seen animals do their business. She seems to understand as her vagina opens up like Venus fly trap.

I put my finger in there to scout the area before I put my dick in it. I find the area to be smooth and plump, like a soft fruit. It feels even better than pussy. I finally make up my mind and put my cock in there.

We fuck reach other's brains out. I don't even understand how she is deriving pleasure from her anatomy, but somehow, she seems to be enjoying herself too. I climax inside her and we both cuddle as we rest.

I try to meditate on 'KAAN' as I cuddle the spriggan, eventually falling asleep. Next few days I get in the schedule of eating, meditating, fucking and sleeping.

After having spent a month in eldergleam, I've decided it's time to go. By now, another 2 spriggans have joined me and my paramour for sex. They are sad to see me go and I'm sad to leave them, but I can't spend the rest of my life in this grove.

I point to the throat of the word from the groove to tell them where I'm going. They know I'm a worshipper of kyn and understand the mountain to be one of her sacred places, understanding my quest as pilgrimage.

As I and Scape leave the sanctuary, I tell them that I will be back, unsure if they could understand me.

Me and Scape reach the village of Ivarstead. We stay at the inn for the night and are told of some ghost stories in local crypts. I'm offer to investigate, finding some inconsistencies in the story, knowing the real story from the game.

Next day, I leave Scape outside the inn and go to investigate Shroud Hearth Barrow. I follow the clues and silver the puzzles until I'm attacked by a phantom. I easily beat him to a pulp , eventually killing him when he refused to surrender.

I take his journal and the potion he used to appear as a phantom to show to the inn keeper. The inn keeper is happy to know that there are no ghost and gives me his sapphire dragon claw as a reward. Afterall, ghost are bad for business.

I explore the crypt again till I reach the point where I have to solve the puzzle for the dragon claw. I make my way through the traps and undead, making quick work of them.

Finally enter a room filled with coffins. The decorations suggest that the Overlord will probably be in this room. Suddenly all coffins tops slide out as draugrs Wake up. I charge my assault of punches and magic as I weave in between them, dodging and blocking their attacks. The training with Brunwulf is really showing .

Eventually it's is just me and the Overlord. I pick up a hammer from its fallen friend and throw at it , breaking its skull, killing it. I loot anything of value and continue forward until I reach a word wall.

I know I'm probably not the dragon born, since the wordwall at forsaken cave didn't react to me. But this time I'm equipped with the understanding of word 'KAAN'. Kyn is the one who brought understanding of thum to mortals. I'm hoping meditating on her while being near a wordwall will give me some insight.

I meditate for hours and I actually made some progress. The first word I found was one that resonates most with kyn. The thum 'OV' can be translated to trust. I don't meditate on 'OV', instead continue trying to decipher the rest of the sentence.

The next word to resonate was courage as 'AHKRIN', then shield as 'SPAAN', then maiden as 'VAHDIN', power as 'MULAAG' , blade as 'TUZ' and finally borrowed as 'BODIIS'.

It took me almost a day each to translate each of these word, but rest of the sentence became more clear with each word I learnt.

Eventual translating the whole thing into "Here fell SHIELD MAIDEN Valkrys

who fought with COURAGE, but

was wrong to TRUST (the) POWER

of (a) BORROWED SWORD".

I feel the profoundness of each word. fascinating. I can't use any of them as thum, but I still understand enough to translate.

Once I'm done with my quest of translating the word wall, I'm happy that I've found a way to understand the dragon language. The goddess that initially taught the magic of thuum to the mortals, may aid my own understanding of the language of dragons.

I decide to leave the crypt and continue on my journey to High Hrothgar. I read the tablets that tell the story of how kyn brought the knowledge of thuum to mortals, so that they could fight back their dragon overlords. As I read the tablets, I further meditate on 'KAAN'.

Since I'm constantly chanting and meditating on 'KAAN', the wildlife and trolls leave me alone. I peacefully make my way to the temple.

I deposit a few bottles of Enchanté and Kyn'd Kiss in the box outside. I also deposit bags full of my bread and fish jerkys as well as 4 big 'Scape cheese wheels. I'm thankful that Scape was on this journey with me, otherwise I would have had to carry all that myself.

After depositing my offerings, I enter the temple and greet a greybeard by Bowing my head. The greybeard is silent as he stares at me. I get down on my knees and say 'KAAN'. The thuum surprises the greybeard and he greets me. "Welcome great traveller, devout of kyn. How could this old monk help you".

I answer to him " oh honoured one, I have come here in pilgrimage to deepen my ties with my goddess kyn. This place is blessed by her and is a sacred source of spiritual warmth to anyone in Skyrim. Just the journey to here alone has deepened my understanding of 'KAAN'. I wish to meditate more upon this sacred place".

I use flowery and religious language to butter them up. I've already made a good impression with my performance, I can tell by looking at his face. He welcomed me to meditate anywhere I want as long as I don't disturbed the other's.

I continue my studies of 'LAAS' and 'KAAN' as I meditate for a few days. Once I feel like I'm not making much progress in these, I move on to the thuum 'SPAAN'. It means shield. With the way thuum works, it can be used to mean a physical Shield or just any act of protecting someone.

I leave to the courtyard and try to meditate on the word 'SPAAN' as I cast ward spells. After doing this for a few days, I can detect some reinforcement in the ward, but I don't think I'll make any true progress until I have something I need to be shielded from.

I've already spent a week in this monastery, meditating on different aspects of life. I'm not a formal student here, so the greybeards don't approach me much, and I avoid them add well for the most part.

After the week is over, I approach Arngeir and tell him that I want to go to the throat of the world. He tells me that it is impossible, that I'm not prepared for the storms and winds I will face on my way up as he points to a gate in the courtyard. The gate is placed such that it is just before a permanent raging storm.

I tell him that I wish to try anyway and greet him goodbye for now as I ask Scape to remain here. Instead of walking into the storm, I crawl along the path on my belly. This way is much slower, but I don't want to be picked up by the storm and thrown down the mountain. I'm physically strong enough to maybe survive it, but it will hurt like hell.

I keep chanting and meditating on both the words 'KAAN' and 'SPAAN', trying to create a ward around me as I crawl. Kyn is the goddess of winds that are trying so hard to harm me and the patron of this place.

Eventually I think I succeed as I feel my ward stabilize. It is much better able to protect me from the pushing and slashing force of the wind. I continue to crawl while incorporating my ward with kyn's shield as I've named the Thuum.

I still don't get up, not that confident in my ward, but now I can crawl at a better speed. It takes a whole day of crawling on my belly until I reach a point where the winds are resting. This must be the throat of the world.

I look up from my crawling position and see a giant dragon, the size of a castle, perched on a word wall.

I know him from the game , but looking at it, I can't help but feel some fear. I Shout 'KAAN' , more to calm myself than to let him know that I come in peace. He seems more amicable to me after that.

He asks me from his spot, Who I am , how was I able to come here. He asked if Arngeir didn't try to stop me . I answer truthfully. That I am here on pilgrimage and to increase my understanding of the thuum.

I was not able to eat much during my journey here, so I bring out my only 2 possessions in this mountain, some fish jerkys and a bottle of Enchanté.

I offer the bottle to Paarthurnax. He accepts it, crushing the glass bottle in his jaws. He is thrilled by the wine and enters a meditative state to think through everything that is happening around him.

I eat some fish jerky and enter a similar meditation. Eventually Paarthurnax comes out of his meditation and thanks me for the wonderful drink, Enchanté indeed. We talk about philosophy and other stuff as I ask him to help me in my quest to understand the mysteries of thuum and the song of creation.

I tell him that even thuum will just be a gateway for my persuit of this greater goal. I want to further learn about sword singing of the Redguard and tonal architecture of the dwemer.

I already use my thuum different than people like greybeard. My most often use case is to enhance my spell instead of thuum itself being the spell.

For example, I use the 'LAAS' thuum to increase the effectiveness of of diagnosis and restoration spells. I even used 'SPAAN' to reinforce my wards. I do use 'KAAN' for worship as well though.

He is impressed by my thirst for knowledge, but advises me to take heed from many who have fallen to traps of Hermaeus Mora, the deadra of knowledge.

He agrees to teach me what he can about Thuum, but tells me that only do much can be taught, best way to actually learn would be through lived experiences. He explains how mentality and empathy are the most important aspects of a thuum. The deeper and more wide your understanding of a word, the better you can use it to mould the world around you.