Slel part 1

S'lel was an evil philosopher-priest who used his dark powers to be reincarnated in Tamriel from the Forgotten Realms, where he had collaborated with a vampire, a lycanthrope, and an anti-paladin to wreak havoc and rule an army of zombies until his untimely death at the hands of an adventurer wielding his own cursed fairy-hilt dagger.

He largely raised himself in a cave outside of Rorikstead, approaching and learning from a coven of necromancers.  As an adolescent, he taught himself various powers of illusion, and enthralled a couple of local farm-steaders, taking up residence in their hovel and gradually expanding it as he convinced them he was their master.

Finally he decided it was time to start rebuilding his dark powers.  He took up a wood axe and began making my way north to Morthal, killing a wolf and scaring off a sabre-cat with conjured flames.

Along the way I came across a couple of red-guard hassling a sassy woman, but it was a case of mistaken identity and they let her go.  I traveled with them the rest of the way to Solitude, and we got there at sundown, just in time to witness a public execution!  I headed to the inn to rest, where I heard a rumor of a fine young man in Windhelp who was apparently performing the Black Rite in hopes of summoning the apparently defunct Dark Brotherhood.  He might make a worthy apprentice!  So in the morning I purchased a new outfit more befitting of a daedric priest at the local clothier, then went off to commission a carriage ride to Windhelm.

Once there, I quickly found the boy's residence, glided into his home to find him, indeed, chanting the rite.  I posed as his contact, and agreed to his contract to murder the wench who ran his old orphanage.  Back to the carriage, this time to Riften.  I chop up Grelod, which apparently gets the attention of the Brotherhood because they hall me in the next day and make me perform an initiation ritual, killing Vasha the conniving khajit.  I'm in!

Heading out of their creepy cabin in the marshes, I come across a nearby shanty. A khajit child was they complaining about not having parents anymore... had I just killed daddy? I adopted my first orphan for my new children's army.

Then I traveled south to their Sanctuary to meet the rest of the Family".  Great folks!  Now back to Riften and I decided to also adopt the young Aretino boy, to see if I can raise him to follow in my footsteps. 

Back home to rest. Then I go do all the Helgen stuff.

Back to the Sanctuary, stopped in at Falkreath for a bite to eat in the Dead Man's Drink. Very gloomy here, a real dark forest feel with a massive beautiful cemetary. Caught a funeral for a 10-year-old girl who's been ripped apart as if by a wild beast, by some guy they captured... when a dragon attacked!  With the guards I slaughtered the fiend then a man gave me his friends ashes to take to the priest of Arkay... ha!  Did some business with some local merchants,  picked up a nice poisonable dagger.

Now heading North from Whiterun to Dawnstar for my 2nd assassination contract. Almost froze to death on the trip but stopped at the milquetoast Hall of the Vigilant for the night. Even got their Keeper to share some restoration tips with me. Ha!

Next day made it to Dawnstar, but got roped in to a situation where Vaermina was causing nightmares for the people. A priest of Mara recruited me to help... but I betrayed and murdered him, taking Vaermina's Staff of Curruption for myself.  Had to show little Sissel whats what... shes always whining about her father and sister beating her and wanting to be an adventurer like me.  Then it was time for the assassination. We stalked the smelter worker to her home in the evening... in a snowstorm.  Broke in, enthralled her, then took my time with a ritualistic killing. Building up dark mana for a black soul gem.

Then I heard about the attack on the Hall of the Vigilant, and increasing vampire activity. Went to scout out the Dawnguard, and made the acquaintance of Serena. Met her family and joined their sect of Molag Bal - became a vampire lord, then hunted down a vampire for the dark brotherhood and Movarth for Jarl Idgrod - she gave me Whitehowl Retreat as a reward. Now off to please Molag Bal further by hunting down that priest of Boethiah who's been desecration the House of Horrors in Markarth.

That done, I got embroiled in a murder mystery in Windhelm, was recruited by the Blades to help set up their new temple and exterminate some Forsworn, joined the Thieves guild to find a missing Blade, met an elder wyrm behind the Grey Beards, began to search for another elder scroll (maybe Serena can help with that?) to fight Alduin in the time stream, signed up to help Peryite spread a plague in exchange for a boon that might protect me in the seemingly increasingly high stakes situations forthcoming.  

I now had a farm, a Manor in Whiterun, and a residence in Morthal, where I stopped off to pick up a squire, young Joric Ravencrone, on my way to assassinate Peryites rogue priest. Supposedly Joric is a "bad" kid. I made him into a vampire on the first night away from town. 

We start searching the Affilcted's dwarven ruin hideout... and Idgrod the Younger, Joric's mom, falls out of a vent! She'd been following us! Did she know about her sons transformation??  She would have to be turned as well, mother and son would be thralls both. Joric and I ritualistically shared the gift with her.

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Reboot, turned to a vampire in Morthal.  Set up a lair in an abandoned crypt, and began abducting victims to become cattle or thralls from Morthal and Riften.  Found a young assassin protege named Willow to help me hunt, if she's a good thrall may eventually turn her.  One of the Blackbriar sisters is into alchemy and doing demented experiments on people, will bring her into my nascent coven too.  Revealed the serial killer in Windhelm and took over his old lair as a secondary front.  Now to go investigate that Dawnguard group I've been hearing about to find out if they're a threat to my kind.

Melchior part 8, Ienarath's Machinations

Debriefing at Ft. Dawnguard once again, Isran revealed more intel: that there was a Dunmer vampire queen out of Blackreach named Ienarath, who was trying to enslave all the local necromancers (and was probably behind the Rorikstead incident), was known for worshiping Mehrunes Dagon and summoning dremora to do her bidding, and may be trying to gain influence with the Jarls of eastern Skyrim.  Auguries revealed that she may be building a subterranean army and plotting an invasion of the surface world!  

One of her minions was believed to be infiltrating the court of Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun, and since Carcette and I knew the area, Isran dispatched us to investigate and hopefully prevent Balgruuf from being manipulated by this rising force of darkness in the world.  So we headed back to the priory to regroup and reconnoiter the Jarl's court.

On the way we stopped in Riverwood, and were recruited into a clandestine group known as the Blades by Delphine the innkeeper.  She seemed to know I was Dragonborn, and plead for some help infiltrating the Thalmor to figure out why they were trying to resurrect dragons, and wanted me to go to an aristocratic party to find out.  It struck Carcette that members of Balgruuf's court might be there too, so this could be a good opportunity to investigate.  She decided to promote me so I could attend in my new role as an ecclesiarch of the Vigil!  And father would be proud that I'd be hobnobbing with the big shots.  Of course, the current Jarl of Markarth was a douchey Imperial puppet, but if I could somehow help my family overthrow him, again that might incline uncle Thongvor to give me a place of my own in Markarthian society.  

Welp, now it was time to meet Delphine to prepare.  Carcette went back to the priory, and I headed off to the big capitol city of Solitude!  I took a carriage from Whiterun, arrived at night, and... holy Divines, a huge mob of draugr were assaulting the city's front gates!  There was even a draugr behemoth swinging around a massive ebony hammer, knocking chunks out of the walls.  Luckily the city was well-fortified on a huge rocky outcropping.  I ran up to help, unleashed a a scroll of Tornado that ripped the mob apart, then felled the behemoth with Stendarr's might and the help of a squad of guardsmen.  This undead platoon could only be working for Ienarath.  She had to be stopped.

Finally I got into the Thalmor party with Delphine's contact's help (a guy named Malborn).  Balgruuf's toady Proventus Avenicci was there, but he wasn't a vampire and no one else from Whiterun made an appearance.  So I snuck off to get Delphine's intel.  I also managed to rescued a prisoner and had to put down a couple of vile interrogators with a Static Dome in their chamber.  Finally, I escaped with the prisoner and Malborn (who's cover was now blown) and headed back to Whiterun to finish purifying Balgruuf's court of the vampire infiltration.

Melchior part 7, a Vampire's NecRomance

We broke north for Rorikstead after meeting the Jarl of Falkreath and doing him a favor. The town could be seen from the mountain peak near the cave we went into, to deliver his message to the local bandit chief.  

We hiked down the mountain into the plains... but drawing near the town, we began to hear sounds of fighting and crying, and saw a scene of chaos - the town was beset by a dozen draugr!  Children screamed and ran helter-skelter as a few guardsmen tried to hold off the shambling horde.  Carcette and I began sprinting toward the action, and made it in time to help.  We took the heat off the beleaguered guards and double-teamed the zombies, putting them down one after the other.  Whew! The townies were grateful and let us rest the night.  Next morning we hitched a ride on a produce wagon back to Riften, on our way back to Isran.

Finally back at Castle Dawnguard several days later, we conferred with our comrades.  Gunmar and I discussed intel we'd received of a group of necromancers that had found a vampire to lead them and turn them into a brood.  This wasn't far from Rorikstead... had this "murder" of necromancers had something to do with the zombie plague?  Time was of the essence. We hurried back Rorikstead to  spend the night since it was close to their den (and we didn't want to attack at night), and decided to set out early the next morning. But, as soon as I set foot outside the Inn, we were ambushed by murderous vampire thralls! We vanquished them, but this was bad news: they were on to us and knew we were coming.

No use giving them more time to prepare.  We found the cave and peeked inside. By the Eight, they were just all right fucking there in a big group glowering at us!  A vampire and about ten assorted necromancer cultists wielding magic staffs and wicked daggers broke into a charge at us, and I had to use my new Dragonborn gift Fus Ro Dah to fend off the attack, and then we retaliated and finished them off.  But the master vampire fled further into the cave.  I whirlwind-sprinted and caught up with him, to his surprise, but he wheeled on me in a fury and began viciously clawing, rending my Shield of Stendarr and drawing blood!  I back-pedaled and began a hasty retreat as he pressed the attack... right into the loving embrace of Keeper Carcette's special vampire-killing Dawnguard axe.  Victory!

Melchior part 6, Penance

Finally, we made it back to the Hall and I arranged to meet the wise paladin Keeper Carcette for confessional. She administered the rites to absolve me and took me through therapy for several weeks.  As part of it, we went on a walkabout to reintroduce me to the world. We got in a tiff with some bandits, scared them off, and patrolled all around the valley.

Eventually, Carcette decided she ought to keep mentoring me, and we headed out for a spiritual retreat at a recovery center in Helgen.  But as we approached the town, a Dragon flew out overhead, having just leveled the town!  Crazy times indeed.  We headed back to Whiterun to warn the Jarl, but it was being attacked by the dragon!  I and my fellow Vigilants bravely helped the Town Guard slay it, and the Jarl rewarded the Order of Stendarr with a property in town!  We would use it as a satellite priory.  Oh, also I was apparently something called... Dragonborn?

I took Carcette down to check out the priory. A Dawnguard recruiter was there; we made friends and decided to go check out their movement.  There have been reports of an uptick in vampire attacks lately after all.  Getting involved would be a good way to honor Tyranus.  We took a carriage to Riften, spent a couple days there preparing for a hike, met a nice lady trying to reign in the thieves' guild named Mjoll, and headed out East.

Through the rocky passes, almost at the edge of Skyrim itself, we came to the sheltered valley containing Fort Dawnguard!  Outside, an orc named Duran practiced with a crossbow... he looked alarmed to see us, saying the Hall of the Vigilant had been attacked.  What?!?  We turned around and rushed back home at a breakneck pace for two days. It was true! The place had been laid to waste, our brethren lay slaughtered in the snow along with a couple vampire fledglings. 'Noooooo!' we howled.  We held each other and mourned; Carcette was broken up over not having been there to protect her flock. We then gave them a proper burial and returned to Ft. Dawnguard with grim determination. We were both on a mission of absolution now.

It turned out some Dawnguard were former Vigilants who wanted to pursue more radical methods than the Order countenanced, so needless to say after our horrifying experience, we fell in with them. Vigilant Tolan was there leading that contingent. Isran, the Dawnguard leader, was bitter that Carcette had once told him the fort was too broken down and it wasn't worth the effort to reform the Dawnguard.  Now she had changed her mind of course, so they came to an uneasy truce. Tolan wanted us to help investigate Dimhollow Crypt to uncover why the vampires attacked our Hall of the Vigilant in the first place, so we geared up with crossbows and headed out after him.

At the crypt, it appeared Tolan had gotten there before us and impetuously went in!  He must've been ambushed by vampires who we overheard talking about him, still snacking on his blood. We charged in, in a fury! We staked and hacked apart two vampires on Tolan's body, issuing a benediction for his soul, then headed deeper in.  We managed to solve a srange puzzle chamber, unearthing an ancient vampire. Somehow she seemed confused, and I sensed Stendarr willing me to spare her.  I let her go back to her family castle, then went back to report to Isran about it. He said we needed to build up our forces, and sent me out to recruit a hunter and an engineer. Carcette went back to the priory to organize the remnants of our personnel, and sent Emma out to join me in recruiting around Skyrim.

Emma and I rounded up a couple of likely candidates, and being near Ivarsted, decided to climb up for a visit to the Gray Beards.  But in town preparing for the climb, I overheard the innkeeper complaining of the nearby barrow being haunted... a good job for Emma and I, only this time we'd be more prepared!  Turned out to be just a rogue robber, cleverly using a potion to fake seeming "spectral" to scare off the local townies.  We got rid of him, which was good for the Vigil's cred with the locals.

Then we headed up the mountain, climbing for two days and enduring a bitter cold camp-out over night.  Reaching the top though, the Gray-Beards explained some things about being Dragonborn and helped me harness my thu'um.  So then we went back down, back to Ft. Dawnguard, and were sent out on a couple more missions, to find some Dwemer crossbow schematics and hunt down a couple known vampires.  Finally we finished our errands, I returned Emma to the Breezehome priory and Carcette wanted to accompany me back to Ft. Dawnguard.  Once we got back there, we discovered Serana (the ancient vampire) had come forward to ally with the Dawnguard!  Isran was skeptical, but we might need her help, plus she had an Elder Scroll so we went with it.  Strange times indeed.

Melchior part 5, Thwarting the Lord of Domination

We hiked up through the mountains, passing through Karthwasten.  My family's mercenaries were there to protect them against Forsworn attacks, but the villagers didn't seem very grateful.  I guess the mine had to be temporarily closed to fend off an attack, and they resented it.  So, I privately conferred with the land-owner Ainathatch, and convinced him to just sell the holding to the Silverbloods to make it easier on everyone.  I offered to facilitate the transaction directly, and he bit!  Deal done, father would be proud.  Maybe now he'd help me get a place to live in Markarth.

Next, it was time to deal with those Forsworn.  We came to their redoubt, a fully outfitted cave.  We snuck in, I knocked out a female guard, we got in position, then we charged in and just wiped out the other few savages.  We found the Boethiah priest, and executed him mercifully.  He would not help further Molag Bal's plans in any way now, nor even the plans of his vile matron.  Phew.

We made our way past a couple other redoubts, taking out a few more Forsworn as we went, and realized we had happened to end up in the neighborhood of that prison the Gray-Mane guy from Whiterun was supposed to be being held in!  Sure enough, the brother was there waiting with his men for us to rendezvous.  We joined their camp to warm up for a bit, then prepared for a frontal assault.  It was a pitched battle but we succesfully plunged into the fortress's bowels and liberated the prisoner, slaying several Thalmor guards, then beat a hasty retreat.  We traveled back to Whiterun to break the good news to the fugitive's mother, though he couldn't stay out of fear of endangering them.  But she was extremely grateful.

Finally, I hiked back north to the Hall of the Vigilant, for some therapy and absolution from the wise Keeper Carcette.

Melchior part 4, Unavoidable Fratricide

We were now ready to investigate the haunted house.  We sent for an Inquisitor, Brother Tyranus, to assist us, then headed out to meet him at the abandoned building.

We all went in to poke around, and Tyranus found clues that evil rites had indeed been performed in worship of daedra!  After a while, Tyranus and Emma become agitated, and I start hearing voices telling me to... kill them.  Gradually, the whole house started shaking!  This was no ordinary daedra.  Tyranus snapped at one point, came at me murderously, and I had no choice but to defend myself - my mace clubbed his head, and I'm afraid I... he wasn't getting up... had I cracked his skull?  I killed a fellow Vigilant!  Immediately my perceptions went back to normal, and I collapsed in a sobbing heap as the weight of the realization of what had happened fell upon me.  Emma dragged me back out into the street and I passed out.

This was incredibly traumatic.  I woke up being ministered to at the Temple of Dibella.  Emma convinced me that I needed to retreat back to the Hall of the Vigilant for counseling, to beg Stendarr's forgiveness, and to memorialize poor Tyranus.  But Molag Bal was now whispering in my mind... that must've been the voice from earlier too.  He wanted vengeance on a priest of a rival daedra - Boethia, the deceiver and assassin.  I had to resolve this before I could seek closure, and told Emma as much.  But just as we left town, suddenly Emma and were set upon by a trio of hired thugs!  They claim Idolaf Battleborn wanted to teach me a lesson.  Those were the pricks hassling that old lady back in Whiterun.  They were about to defeat us when suddenly another Vigilant charged up out of nowhere - Giatheneoles - and turned the tide!  Together, we fended them off, and I invited her to join us in thwarting Molag Bal.  It seemed serendipitous that she just happened to be there to save us.  Was this a sign from Stendarr?

Melchior part 3, Hometown Terror Plot

We arrived in Markarth in the evening.  Just as we walked in the front gates, a Forsworn terrorist murdered a lady at the market!  I related my eye-witness report to the guards, then felt the need to head in to my family's tavern for a drink after that rude homecoming.  I made friends with a few barflys, and one guy mentioned my family's smelter foreman, Mulush, was overly harsh on the workers.  'Maybe I can have a few words with him,' I thought.  I slept off the wine, picked up some cash from the family coffers, and headed out the next day.  I did get Mulush to lay off, then walked around town enjoying the sights, until this guy Eltrys began chatting me up about the previous night's murder.  He talked me into helping him figure out what was with what, to him, appeared to be a pattern of Forsworn murders... I spent the next few days re-acquainting myself with the streets, and asking around.

My digging into the lives of the assassin and the dead lady revealed a strange conspiratorial web involving m uncle Thronar, and our accountant Nepo the Nose.  But I'd delayed long enough, it was time to pay a visit to Understone Keep.  There, uncle Thongvor embraced me warmly and was glad to see me, but he was in the middle of an argument with an Imperial priest who had just closed down the Halls of the Dead for some reason... his name was Brother Veralus, a monk of Arkay.  He complained of a discovery that some of the dead had been... eaten!  Veralus seemed like a decent sort, and we chatted for a bit.  When he realized Emma and I were Vigilants, he suggested that we might be rewarded if we could stop whatever was going on.  Sure sounded like a job for a pair of wandering acolytes!  Emma and I could barely hide our excitement.  He gave me the key to the Hall of the Dead.
Before embarking on this quest though, I went to meet the Jarl, but a dickish Thalmor bigot named Ondolemar was there lording over everything, manspreading and boasting about how he'd root out all Talos worship.  The Jarl seemed anxious about that, but mainly was concerned about the murders and the Forsworn attacks outside of town on trade caravans, local mining villages, etc.  I began hoping that if I could do something about that, my family would be able to pull some strings with him and get me my own bachelor pad here in town.  So I buttered him up pretty good, and implied that I'd get my Order to look in to helping out with these primitive heathens, who let's be honest, probably worship daedra anyway because they don't know any better.

Then if was off to see about this invasion of the body-snackers.  Emma and I secured our gear and cleaned our weapons at the Jarl's smithy, then headed to the Hall of the Dead.  Inside, we poked around until we found a strange cannibal lady who spoke in an unholy, blasphenously reverberating tone, and could only have been under the influence of a daedric power!  She tried and failed to seduce us with her words because of our indomitable faith, then summoned a fire spirit to chase us off, but we slew them both!  Brother Verelus thanked us profusely, then suggested that if this was our line of work, we might investigate a haunted house on the other side of town.  We agreed, but first we wanted to finish investigating the Forsworn murders.

We went to pay a visit to The Nose - turns out he was Forsworn, and had been secretly working against my family and the Jarl!  He and his house servants attacked us!  Emma and I had no choice but to kill them all.  Emma found an old wood axe, and was covered in blood by the end of all her hacking, and I saw a wild look in her eye.  It made me feel all sorts of funny.

Then we went back to find Eltrys and tell him what we'd learned about Nepo... but he had just been murdered by the Town Guard!  Emma managed to run off, but they arrested me and planned to pin all the recent murders on me!  In their custody I gleaned that they had been playing the Forsworn and the Jarl off against one another, taking payments from both sides.  They and the Nose knew the Forsworn King, Madanach, was imprisoned in Cidhna mine (which belongs to my family) but was secretly still ruling his subjects, sending missives out with his instructions to continue waging a war of terrorism on the Nords.

They threw me in prison, and I resolved to see if I could find this monster.  I spent several weeks infiltrating his trust, subverted his messaging system to get a letter out to Emma to meet me in the Dwemer ruins connected to the mine (that I knew of from my family's blueprints), then I had to execute Madanach and escape out his secret tunnel before the other prisoners knew what happened.  After getting through some spider-infested tunnels, sure enough good old Emma appeared, thank Stendarr, and helped me get past some nasty Dwemer constructs.  When we got out, I found uncle Thronar right away and explained everything.  He was super thankful, and said he'd get the Jarl to pardon me for my arrest and punish the corrupt guardsmen.  Phew!  Now onto the real business of the Vigil.

Melchior part 2, Big City Initiation

We were now traveling, seeing the wide world!  Towards the end of the first day, we saw a fort in the distance, and as we approached there was a skirmish happening between Imperials and Stormcloaks!  The civil war I had only every heard rumors of was unfolding before our very eyes.  Emma and I saw an Imperial soldier monitoring the action from a hill top, and we snuck up behind him and knocked him out, taking his armor and weapons.  Then, a bit spooked, we skirted the battle, spending an extra day climbing over a steep mountain instead of walking through the pass containing the fort.  It was tough climbing, but we could see Whiterun in the distance from the peak!  We guessed we'd get there tomorrow.

We picked our way down the mountain the next morning, and come to the main road towards the city in the afternoon.  But it drew dark as we approached the outlying farms, and we encountered a strange clownish man with a broken-down cart, apparently trying to take his dead mother to her burial... but he complained that the local farmer won't help him fix his wheel.  I went to the farm and convinced the dullard to do the right thing and help someone in need.  Then we moved on to Whiterun, destroying a pair of wandering skeletons in the moonlight.  Odd that they should be just loitering in the tubdra so close to civilization... anyways, we entered town just as the next morning was dawning.

An Imperial soldier was hassling some poor blacksmith woman, trying to get her to make weapons for the Legion.  I interrupted and got him to leave, then did some business with the flustered smith.  I sold her some stuff, then wandered around the market district and sold more junk to a friendly Breton named Belethor.  Taking a lunch break after than, I overheard an old woman being harassed by some Imperials calling themselves Battleborn.  She was evidently distraught about her missing son, so I offered to help the poor crone find out what happened to him.  Fralia Gray-Mane was her name, and she introduced me to her other son who recruited Emma and I to go spring the missing son from a Thalmor interrogator, (those vile elves, working with the Empire of course).  The prison was waaaay northwest though, so I explained that I would need to stop home first and see my folks for the first time in years.  After planning to meet up with this Gray-Mane guy later, Emma and I hired a carriage and set out for my hometown of Markarth.  We would catch up on sleep during the ride.

Melchior Silverblood Origins

Melchior grew up as the youngest of the Silverblood brood in Markarth.  He was a problem child, didn't get along with his siblings, and didn't have much of a head for business.  So, the family patriarch arranged to have him sent to the Vigilants of Stendarr for boarding school in preparation for a monastic life of tribute to the Divines, and in this way he could still bring some honor to the family.

He is now an adult, and has spent years studying and training at a monastery in Hjaalmarch.  He is about to start his acolyte training as a journeyman daedra-hunter, and embarks on a trip back home to Markarth to celebrate his graduation with his family.  Little does he know, Stendarr has chosen him as a holy champion, and made him Dragonborn in order to fulfill that destiny.

Loyalty: High to Vigilants & Silverbloods, medium to Nords & other Divine-worshippers
Sanity: Low (hears voices of the Divines, and Daedric princes, may be hallucinations?)
Cruelty: Medium (will mercilessly purge/purify sinners and abominations)
Piety: Very high, can be self-righteous, scrupulously (naively?) lawful
Passion: Hates daedra, undead, and abominations
Selfishness: Low (except, selfish desires may masquerade as hallucinatory divine commands)

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Well, as a new Vigilant, it was time to pay a visit to my folks back in Markarth and share the good news that I'd graduated from being a neophyte and was ready to start adventuring!  They'd be proud of how much more mature and responsible I've become, I thought, thanks to my training at the Hall (and being away from their well-intended but suffocating presence).  I gathered up some supplies and headed out on the path to the Reach.  My comrades gifted me a Shield of Stendarr and a sturdy mace, and my friend Emma even agreed to accompany me (I half think she may have a cougar crush on me...).  We bade farewell to the faithful and our Stormcloak guests, and headed out South, hoping to make Whiterun in a couple days.