A Stranger in Skyrim 11

Chapter Eleven: Workhorse

In which she doesn't get to quit her day job.

“Come on in,” a woman called, as Lucia led her into the Bannered Mare.

She took a moment to let her eyes adjust, as Lucia walked ahead. The girl disappeared into a side room, humming quietly to herself.

The place was cozy, lit and warmed by a large, open firepit in the middle. Patrons sat around the fire, or at barstools by the bar, or at the various tables. She walked up to the bar. “How much does it cost to rent a room?”

“A room? Well, I have one available. One hundred Septims for a night.”

She balked a little. Okay, she had guessed a hundred gold wouldn't equal much, but still … “And how much for a meal?”

“Well, I've put some stew on. It'll be about forty Septims for a bowl.”

That … that was her entire budget. She winced slightly, sighed. Reluctantly, she shrugged her backpack off, producing the coinpurse. She handed over the entire thing, minus a whopping nine gold pieces.

Ouch.

“I'll show you to your room. Right this way.” The woman walked away from the counter, headed toward the back of the building, and she found herself facing her first moral dilemma. The counter was completely unguarded, no one was looking, she could easily take whatever she wanted, provided she could pocket it fast enough.

But no. She wasn't any kind of criminal, really. She turned to follow Hulda.

They passed through the kitchen and up a narrow stairway, to a small room that was decorated with various wall hangings. It was lit with a small plateful of candles; they provided just enough light to see by. The woman gestured for her to enter the room. “I'll bring the soup up when it's ready, then … ?”

“That'll be great.” She smiled at the innkeeper, feeling exhausted.

Despite how tired she was, she still stayed up an hour or two, devouring the book about fire magic as quickly as she'd studied the book on lightning. Somewhere in there, Hulda brought up the soup, and sometime after that, she ate the soup, but she honestly couldn't have commented on its flavor; she was completely enthralled with her reading.

When she was sure she'd be able to work the spell, even going so far as to conjure tiny flamelets in the palm of her hand, she set the book aside and blew out the candles.

Her head hit the pillow …

… and she felt her mind grind to a halt. She was staring at her computer screen, her mouth open. She had been in the middle of a sentence, she knew she had, but she didn't know what she was saying. Frantically, she clicked through the customer's account, trying to figure out what exactly they'd been doing. She usually took her notes after the call, and that habit did not help her now.

She stumbled awkwardly through the rest of the call, then went to break half an hour early. She hid in the bathroom, holding her head in her hands.

This, she decided, was all kinds of not fair.

Bad enough she'd been dropped into another world, with another language, foreign customs, strange people, and magic, but no, she still got to keep her day job, too.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Her short breakdown done, she returned to her desk sitting heavily. She stared at the ceiling for a little bit, then glanced down at the phone's clock.

Back to work.

She answered a handful of calls, doing her best to help her customers. She was good at what she did, and what she did was talk to angry people about their money. It was easy for her; talking to people always had been. It was actually almost a relief to be able to do something so utterly normal. She got to talk about the weather, how their kids were doing, how their lives were going, and she could just completely ignore her own slipping sanity.

Most importantly, she decided, nobody really expected her to go die for them.

That was certainly a plus.

She made it through the day, making small talk with her coworkers between calls. When lunchtime came around, she got up again, headed over to her mom's desk, and gave her a hug. She didn't do that enough, she decided. It was comforting to be able to do so.

Then, she ate her lunch, then, she returned to her desk.

For medical reasons, she had been limited to six hour days for a while now, and although she had been so sure she was getting better, she wasn't sure she was ready to return to a forty-hour work week yet, especially not now that she was finally losing her sanity completely. In practical terms, her reduced hours meant that she got out of work a couple of hours after lunch, with no final break.

This was fine with her.

She kept waiting for the return trip, and that put her on edge for the rest of the night. She sat down to play more Vampire, and nothing happened. She finished up the creepy-ass haunted hotel quest, and nothing happened. She laid down to sleep, and nothing happened.

Her hand drove the sword up and into the man's back, and oh, gods, his blood was all over her arms. She dropped her weapon, and he flopped to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. She smelled blood and worse. As she froze, another man cut her in half.

But she felt no pain.

A pair of wolves backed her into the cliff face, and she froze.

One wolf pinned her to the ground, ripping her throat out, while the other tore her robe open, its teeth ripping into her stomach. She didn't feel a thing. Staring glassy eyed off into the distance, all she could hear was the cheerful burbling of the nearby river.

The headsman's axe went up; the headsman's axe came down. Her head fell free of her body, and the world spun around as she landed on the ground beside the box. All around, she saw flames and carnage, but she could do nothing about it, because her body was over there.

She fell from the tower, and her legs snapped like little twigs when she landed on the hard ground below. She could see bone poking from her thigh, her shin. She tried to move, but she couldn't. She tried to scream for help, but all that escaped her was a low moan of pain. Eventually, she succumbed, dying in a pool of her own blood as the whole world went dark.

The dragon was terrifying. It's face alone took up her entire field of view; she could see nothing but black scales, black horns, and the malevolent red eyes that stared her down.

Found you.

She shot awake, tumbling awkwardly out of the bed. For a moment, she had no idea where she was. Everything was dark, though, and the floor was a woven rug over hardwood flooring. That suggested not her room.

Dammit.

She heard voices downstairs, but she couldn't make out what any of them were saying, nor did she care to. She curled up on the floor.

What the hell kind of dream was that, even?

Generally, she dreamed of grand adventures and saving the world. Her worst nightmares generally involved being naked in awkward places, and that was only uncomfortable, not … not whatever the hell that had been.

A warning.

That was what it was. What would happen if she did nothing, what would happen if she failed.

Cheery.

The last face though … the dragon.

That? That was her enemy.

She shook her head, almost laughing at herself. Like she was going to save the world from a dragon. Like there was any way in hell she could even begin to fight a dragon!

Ha.

She'd leave that to the guards and soldiers. All she had to do was go fetch a tablet from a tomb. She'd keep her eyes open, avoid any traps, and get rewarded handsomely for her troubles.

Hopefully, “handsomely” would cover more than a single night's stay at the inn!

She got up, smoothing out the oddly wrinkle-proof robe. She pulled her shoes back on, wriggling her toes in them. Then, she headed downstairs.

Her stomach growled at her, but she couldn't do much about that. She headed downstairs to the inn proper, streeeetching and yawning sleepily. She noted that she back room was largely unguarded. She suspected no one would even notice if she stole pretty much anything for … quite a while. Looking around guiltily, she swiped some kind of sweet roll with icing on top.

It wasn't like anyone would miss it, she was sure. And after she'd gotten gouged by the innkeeper for basically her entire budget, she didn't feel guilty in the slightest.

Well, maybe she felt a little guilty.

The roll probably wouldn't do her diet any good.