Talking Horse - Chasing Dreams - Landfall - Old Friend
It was a beautiful spring day. Frey was running through the field of dandelions, towards the top of the hill. Trinica stood there. She wore a yellow dress and a hat. Her long blonde hair seemed to glow in the sunlight.
Frey approached her. “You look beautiful,” he said. He leaned towards her.
Something in the corner of his eyes moved. The perfect moment was gone. He stopped and looked around, looking for the intruder.
“Darian, what's wrong?” asked Trinica.
“Something’s not right…” he said. He noticed a forest at the bottom of the hill. There was movement between the trees. He looked at his girlfriend. “Wait for me here.”
Frey walked down the hill and into the forest. He took out his revolver. “Who’s there!” he shouted.
Some dark shape moved behind the trees. Frey pointed his revolver that way and walked forward. “Better don’t try anything stupid!” he shouted.
The shape behind the trees was well visible now. It turns out it wasn’t a bandit at all.
“A horse?” Frey said. In the forest, there was a horse. Very strange one. It had a midnight blue coat, mane shining with starlight and also… horn… and wings?
“The heck? Did I take too much Skooma again?” he asked himself. He slowly walked towards the strange horse.
The horse smiled at him. “Hello.”
“AAHh!” Frey shouted. He pulled the trigger, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
“Why are you so scared? Have you never seen a pony before?”
“Umm… horses cannot talk,” he said. Then it dawned on him. “This is a dream, right?”
“You guessed correctly!” the equine said and clapped her hooves.
“Okay. And why am I dreaming of talking horses?” asked Frey, quite confused.
“You are Captain Darian Frey, of the Freys of Everfrost, captain of the Ketty Jay?”
“Um, yes?”
“Say, do you want to find a great treasure?”
“Well, yes. Of course. I like treasures.”
“I have an offer for you.”
“You know what, dream horse? Since this is my dream, I think I would rather go back to dream Trinica.” Frey said. He turned back, and found himself face to muzzle with the strange pony.
“I think you misunderstood me. I am talking about great fortune and fame in the waking world.”
“How would you give me one?”
“Tomorrow at midday, Grog Hatch tavern at Kingspire. There will be someone waiting for you. Together you will be able to find the treasure.”
Frey looked at the pony carefully. “Let me get this straight. I should fly over a hundred kloms away to meet somebody in a tavern because a talking horse told me so in a dream?”
“Pony, not horse. There’s a big difference. And yes, you should do so. I am the Princess of Dreams, and I keep my word. I would help guide you towards this treasure.”
“Okay. What kind of treasure do we speak of?”
“One that makes Dwemer artifacts look like cheap toys. Tomorrow at midnight. Grog Hatch. Don’t be late.”
Frey wanted to continue the conversation, but by then, the dream was becoming muggy. Suddenly he found himself in his bunk at the Ketty Jay.
Frey thought for a moment. “Grog Hatch… strange dream... eh, what's the worst that could happen.”
Ketty Jay wasn’t the most beautiful airship in the world, but she did her job very well. She was a heavily modified cargo hauler turned into a frigate. Heavy armored, she was able to take quite a beating in a fight. Autocannon on top and a set of machine guns in the front were able to defend her against attacking enemy fighters. Despite her clumsy and thick look, she was actually quite maneuverable. Her aerium tanks were able to be filled very quickly if the circumstances called for a quick deport from her standing place. Prothane engines, heavily modified by the ship’s engineer, Silo, made her capable of flying quickly and over a long-distance.
Overall, Ketty Jay was a very formidable airship. But for Frey, she was more than just an airship. She was his home.
“Cap’n, can you tell me why you want to be in Kingspire tomorrow?” asked Malvery, the medic and autocannon operator.
“I got a hunch that we might find something interesting there,” replied Frey.
“Well then, I hope you are right.”
Frey wasn’t a superstitious person. Far from it. In fact, he was kinda sorta the reason that fortune tellers in Cyrodiil were on the receiving end of angry mobs all over the country. Yet, something told him that this Princess of Dreams wasn’t just a fragment of his imagination.
He wished Crake was still in the crew. Having a sorcerer on board was useful. Maybe he will search for a new one, now that magic was on its way to be legal in Cyrodiil again. Other than that, he needed a navigator if he wanted to have Ketty Jay run on full potential.
He turned towards the crew gathered on the landing pad. “Okay, folks. I hope you are ready for the flight,” he said, and walked through the ramp into the airship.
He moved through the corridors into the cockpit. He started the pre-flight check. Silo, from his position in the engine room, announced that all systems were working. Trinica, sitting next to Frey in the navigator seat, set up the course to Kingspire. From the enchanted earcuff, Ashua said that the Skylance fighter was ready for flight.
Frey turned on the aerium systems. The liquid substance was boiled, creating an ultralight gas, which was then moved to the ballast tanks. With this, Ketty Jay lifted itself off the ground.
Once the airship was a few dozen metres off the ground, Frey turned on the prothane engines. The thrusters came to life, and Ketty Jay flew forward. Towards treasure, hopefully.
Trinica watched the moving landscape. The terrain was dominated by sharp mountains and deep valleys.
Cyrodiil, and in fact all of Tamriel, was a very mountainous place. This was the main reason why aviation was so developed. If you tried to move from one of the nine main cities of Cyrodiil to another one by land, it would almost be impossible. Hence, even the small rural villages had a landing pad and a small fleet of airships.
Trinica, daughter of an Imperial nobleman, was well educated, and knew that Cyrodiil wasn’t always so mountainous. Not long ago, it was actually a flatland, with railways connecting the main cities. Then, one hundred and sixty years ago, something catastrophic happened.
Gigantic, continent-vide earthquake shattered the land. New mountains arose. Large swatches of land sunk into the sea. The destruction was of apocalyptical scale. This event, called Landfall, was so impactful, many superstitious people claimed it a divine punishment. The last Emperor of Tamriel, Andreal Galen II, better known as Andreal the Demented, spent the few years before Landfall babbling of impending doom and falling into madness. Once Landfall shattered the country, surviving nobility overthrew the Empire of Tamriel, establishing the Nine Duchies of Cyrodiil in its place. Yet, the mad emperor’s ramblings survived, giving birth to the Awakener cult and the worship of Godhead.
Trinica obviously knew that Landfall was no divine punishment. It was just a natural disaster. The stories of Godhead’s wrath were as much of drunken peasant’s tales as the walking trees of Valenwood or that Skyrim was once ruled by dragons.
“What are you thinking about?” Frey asked, getting Trinica out of her thoughts.
“Nothing in particular,” she replied.
“I’ve been thinking about the future.”
“Really? Are you capable of that?” she said with a smile.
“Yes. I think we need to find ourselves a challenge. Well, maybe not something country-destroying this time, but something to work towards.”
“And you think you will find it in Kingsrock?”
“Yes. That’s my plan. Did I even have a bad idea?”
“I can think of a few hundred.”
Frey and Trinica laughed together. Their relationship went from great heights to the bottom of the abyss and back over the years, but she was glad they were together again. Besides, being an adventurer and a pirate was all about the company. Treasures were a nice bonus, but for her, she was just glad she had people that genuinely cared for her.
Kingspire was a small town. Just one of many stops for the airships traveling over Cyrodiil.
Frey and the crew walked towards the Grog Hatch. The tavern looked unremarkable. Frey entered it.
There weren’t many people in the tavern. There was ugly red haired lady that Frey vaguely remembered from somewhere. There was the bartender humming a tune.
“Frey! She was right, you’re here!”
Frey looked at who shouted at him. He saw a tall Nord. He had brown hair braided in traditional Nord style, blue tattoos on his face, and eyes of two different colors, green and blue. He was smiling widely and waving to him.
“Ugrik? What are you doing here?”
“Luna told me there’s a treasure to be found, and that I need a crew.”
“Luna? You mean…”
“The pony goddess of moon and dreams, yes.”
“Goddess?” asked Ashua, eyebrow raised
Frey just stared at the Nord in confusion. Ugrik was quite an eccentric person, and if Frey was being honest, he wasn’t too happy to meet him again. Granted, Ugrik did help him find the Dwemer city in Hammerfell, and helped him in not being devoured by Daedra on the way, so there were a few good things he could say about him.
“I heard you were quite busy here in Cyrodiil,” said Ugrik.
“Quite busy is an understatement.”
“Well then. Shall we go?”
“Wait. What do you know about the treasure?”
“Well, I don’t know about it, but I know how to get to someone who knows.”
“Right… Where should we go then?”
“Sun Tower.”
“Sun Tower? That’s in Summerset?”
“No. It is near the Sol Dawn Archipelago. Far to the east of Tamriel.”
“You want us to go outside of Tamriel?” asked Trinica.
“Yes.”
Frey thought about this. He turned towards his crew. “What do you think?”
“I don’t trust this man,” said Silo.
“Well, he did prove his worth back in Dwemer city. Besides, I’ve got a hunch,” said Frey.
“I always wanted to travel out of Tamriel,” said Trinica.
“Me too,” agreed Ashua.
“If your gut tells you the way to the treasure, I would follow it,” said Malvery.
Frey had made plenty of risky choices in his life. Some were good ones, some were bad ones. As a seasoned Rake player, he knew everything about risk. The cards picked by this strange horse were risky, but he went far with worse odds.
Well, what could get wrong, Frey thought to himself. Then turned towards Ugrik. “So, are you interested in becoming our new navigator?”