//------------------------------//
// 35: The Whiterun Surprise 
// Story: Sonata's Crazy and Wacky Adventure in Skyrim 
// by Sonata Blaze 
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	Krovor had been true to his word when he said that he was going to show Sonata where Grul's main camp was located, but she was not prepared for what she actually saw. The orc stronghold known as Dushnikh Yal had been completely overrun by Grul's forces, though according to Krovor many of the citizens that called this place home had been forced into Grul's army. Apparently the warlock had pressed some twisted and demonic power into those that had lived inside the stronghold, because they had turned into savage warriors. It made Sonata sick when she heard what horrors the warlock visited upon the orcs he captured, which made her ask about the other races that existed throughout Skyrim.

The reason she was asking was because several of the apprentices and professors that attended the College of Winterhold had been kidnapped by the orcs the first time she visited the place... and she knew that Saerza was dying to figure out what had happened to them.

"Dead." Krovor replied, staring at the infernal gateway that was being built into the side of the mountain, where two statues of orcs warriors stood on both sides of where the portal would actually go, "Grul stole their magical powers and their life energy, pooling their collective energies into a dark green crystal that he carries around with him at all times. He's gathering magical energy to tear open a hole between worlds, which I heard thanks to his Lieutenants speaking about his plans. His plan is to summon something that will end this world..."

"I will not let that happen," Sonata told the orc, glaring at the portal they were staring at, thankful that they were at a safe distance so that the other orcs didn't notice them, "but we cannot take on all of these soldiers by ourselves... Kree, I think its time we put the civil war on hold and use what soldiers are available to attack this stronghold."

"Now that we know where Grul's main base is we should be able to convince General Tullius and Jarl Ulfric to come to a truce for the moment," Kree commented, as if she had been thinking about the war ever since they spotted the fortress, "Neither one of them would want to continue the war while there's another faction on the loose... one that's bent on destroying the entirety of Nirn. We could always call on that dragon that befriended you, but considering what happened to the last dragon these guys fought and captured I'd rather not give them anything that would make them more dangerous."

Sonata remembered what happened to the last dragon that Grul had captured, because she had been forced to fight the twisted beast when it attacked Solitude. It was clear that her enemy was allied with some sort of demonic creature, maybe one of the Daedric Lords that she had heard about, but that didn't change the fact that she needed to stop him from destroying the world. Unfortunately her focus was on finding and destroying Harkon, because stopping him would actually repair part of her necklace and allow her to access more of her former powers.

She also remembered when she had that brief conversation with Grul, at the same time she defeated his pet dragon, and recalled that he wanted her to defeat the dragons, the vampires, and the cultists. He had known that their leaders would hold the keys to her getting her powers back, though how he had come across that information Sonata had no idea.

There was also something about this whole situation that bothered her to no end; what did Lord Grul hope to gain from allowing her to figure out where his base of operations was located? He would have been found out eventually, either from the Imperial Legion or the Stormcloaks finding it themselves and giving the information to her. Krovor mentioned that his former master wasn't at the base at all, which was how he was able to escape like he had, but she was sure that the other orcs wouldn't have allowed a traitor to escape without seriously wounding them. She was beginning to suspect the orc that was walking beside her and her friends, because he was walking around without any scratches on his body, almost giving away that he had managed to slip out of the base without being detected.

Sonata was either being paranoid or she was right about the fact that there was a spy among them, though if her time as the Siren Queen taught her anything it was to be wary of someone who offers you something that is too good to be true... just like what Krovor gave her and her friends.

It also annoyed her that she had the very location of Grul's base, where her sisters were being kept, and that she couldn't simply storm the place and rescue them from whatever foul prison they were locked up in. It gave her a sense of urgency to deal with her remaining enemies, Harkon and Miraak, but she knew that she couldn't be blinded by her desire to see her sisters freed from their shackles. She hated to leave them there, after finally uncovering where they were being kept, but at the moment she had no choice but to walk away from where they were hiding and resume their journey to Whiterun. They needed an army to deal with the amount of orcs that were stationed at the base, which was something that they currently didn't possess but might be able to obtain if they spoke to Tullius and Ulfric.

As the group walked away from the area that Grul's base was located in Sonata could hear the cloud above them rumble and saw a flash of some lightning hitting a tree in the distance, which only made her smile as a storm opened up above the base and ignored her and her friends completely.





When they returned to Whiterun they discovered that it was rapidly approaching nighttime, so they concluded that they would simply speak with the Jarl in the morning. The problem that Sonata faced next was figuring out where everyone was going to sleep for the night, or rather those that would be sleeping while some of the others watched out for danger. Sonata knew that Grul liked to march his soldiers up to the gates of whatever city or town that he was preparing to strike at, so it made sense that she'd have some of her friends watching for their enemies. In the end several of them were given small cots inside Dragonsreach, while the others slept outside the palace, giving a few of them the opportunity to be on first watch.

Sonata knew that it was another step towards being paranoid, but once again she knew that evil villains sometimes liked to attack their enemies while they were sleeping. She fully expected her sleep to be ruined by her enemy, which was why her ears were waiting for a guard to burst into Dragonsreach before such a thing even happened. Imagine her surprise when she managed to wake up in the morning, hear what all of her friends happened to witness during the night, and eat breakfast before a guard ran into the massive building with the news she had been waiting for.

"My Lord, I bring news from the soldiers near Fellglow Keep," the guard said, huffing for a bit to indicate that he had ran the entire way from where his post was located, "Unsettling news I might add."

"Well spit it out man!" Jarl Balgruuf demanded, eying the soldier as Sonata and her friends turned their attention towards them, "What exactly are we dealing with?"

"I... I don't know," the guard admitted, which immediately raised the alarms in Sonata's head, "One of the other guards mentioned that he saw something shinning in the area around the keep, something that resembled a caravan or something similar to it. The caravan, lead by roughly twenty orc warriors and one mage, arrived at the keep and disappeared for a few hours, leaving us to wonder what the orcs were planning on doing inside the fortress. We were debating whether or not we should send someone to investigate the fortress, and see what they were up to, but before we could reach a decision a jester passed by the watchtower, handed me a note, and said that I should make for Whiterun and inform the Dragonborn that her 'Enemy' has been found."

"Sonata, what do you make of this?" Jarl Balgruuf asked, though it was clear that he was worried that Lord Grul might very well be preparing for an assault on Whiterun.

"Cicero is repaying us for the help we gave him a few days ago." Sonata replied, a smile appearing on her face as she remembered the jester and his mother's coffin, "Apparently he's found Grul's latest hiding place... and this time he has no idea we're even coming. Come on guys, let's go show that warlock what happens when you mess with the Siren Queen."

At this point Sonata was beginning to not care about hiding who she really was, because everyone she was talking to seemed to know the truth without her even saying a word. Now she was just going to tell everyone who she was, and what she was for that matter, and see how they reacted to the truth that she was a walking legend in two different worlds. As she turned around and walked towards the opening of the castle she took a moment to wonder how Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn that had figured everything out about her and her sisters, would react to the truth that she was the Queen... and that she might have been able to change the tide of their battle if she really wanted to.

"So, what are we going to do when we reach the fortress?" Kree asked as she and the others fell in behind Sonata, though her tone said that she had some idea of what was coming.

"We're going to go to Fellglow Keep, find the orcs that are hiding there, and kill them before they do anything to Whiterun," Sonata answered, though a smile appeared on her face when she heard the sound of thunder outside the building, "Hopefully we find Grul in that fortress, so we can end this nightmare... but if not then we'll have dealt him another blow that he cannot ignore."

Even if they finished off Lord Grul, and ended his reign of terror, Sonata would still have to deal with Harkon and Miraak, the other two thorns in her side at the moment. She had no idea where Harkon had run off to, though she was sure that her vampire allies were hunting for him now that they knew their former master wanted the destroy the entire world and wasn't trying to fulfill an ancient prophecy anymore. Miraak, on the other hand, she knew next to nothing about, save for the fact that he was supposed to be on an island that was near Skyrim, Solstheim if her memory was correct. Harkon and Miraak were the people she needed to take out if she wanted to restore her power to its full potential, if killing Alduin was anything to go by.

Despite everything that was going on she couldn't help but feel like she was a pawn on Grul's chess board, that she was being used to wipe out any potential enemies that might stall his plans of destroying the whole of Nirn. She would show Grul that the Siren Queen wasn't a pawn in anyone's game... and that it was unwise to anger her or capture her sisters and keep them hidden from her.