The King of Orsinium is constantly surrounded by his forge-mother and wives. Whilst never far from his throne can be found his priests, nobles, guild masters, and soldiers… yet his reign is somehow friendless. For a friend might remind his King that when he begins to see his subjects as shadows, treason in every dissent, and greets division with tyranny, then he is in danger of becoming a traitor to his own throne.
S.K
It is not strange how some civilians who are neither stirred by blood-lust nor greed are drawn back to battlefields again and again by the threads of fate? Often to perform most meaningful deeds making them heroes in their own right, but never sung of in taverns or remembered in the spinners’ yarns. The truth is that of the four of us that broke into Frostbreak Fortress, only King Kurog will be remembered.
We found the Alchemist, the only survivor of his squad, cowering behind a rock near the entrance. I remember Alinon from Camlorn, a friend of Darien’s who brewed a cure for Lycanthropy that helped us to liberate the city. When we discover a sapling growing out of a corpse the alchemist assures us he can brew a solution to destroy the tree upon which he believes the Reachmen’s briarhearts are being grown.
As the tree burns the Winterborn arrive in number but fall as quickly as they come. It is time to deal with Ice-heart himself. Kurog is obsessed with claiming his barbaric blade as a prize, believing the trophy will convince the clan chiefs to finally accept him as the rightful king of all the Orsimer. But back in the siege camp I spoke briefly to the other tribe leaders who told me that it is new ideas that frighten the fiercely traditional tribes; ‘And Kurog is full of new ideas’ they said. By new ideas I presume they mean a new city, new alliances… and a new God.
No tribe, army, or kingdom can stand long against new ideas, they wash over a land like a tsunami and those that set their sails against these tides of change risk being swept away. But is it not also those who weigh their anchors with their faith and principles who keep a nation’s customs and traditions alive for future generations?
S.K
The Orc’s had a fairly sound plan to break the Winterborn defence of the Frostbreak Fortress. They sent a squad of their best archers up to the outside of the ruins to signal the catapults where to strike against the harpy aeries atop the fortress towers. This would in turn allow another squad to sneak into the fortress proper and put an end to the briarheart threat. Alas that the archers all seem to have disappeared without trace, and nobody now knows what fate befell their other squad.
A good General however knows that a sound plan alone is never enough, one must be prepared to improvise should that plan go awry. Kurag has decided he himself wants to go looking for the archers and in me he has found a kindred fool. Thus I find myself battling harpies and the Winterborn as I chase the Orsimer King up the side of the fort. We find the vanguard holed up in a tower, of their archers but one remains; the flighty Wood-Elf from the caravan, Eveli Sharp-Arrow. All this means is that we have but one chance to get this right.
Is it not moon-sugared irony that the future of this new Orsinium which by mulish treaty no foreign soldier may approach, rests now upon a Bosmeri arrow.
S.K
Whilst last in Orsinium the Forge-Mother Alga informed me that her son, King Kurog, had already left for Frostbreak Fortress to deal with the Reachman Warlord Ice-Heart. They believe this Ice-Heart to be the last remaining leader of the Winterborn in Wrothgar, whom dominated these mountainous lands under the Longhouse Emperor’s reign. His defeat they hope will bring the Reachmen’s legacy in Wrothgar to an end, and will perhaps also be a catalyst for the last of the recalcitrant Orc tribes to bend their knee to the throne of Orsinium.
The siege upon Frostbreak Fortress however seems to have stalled upon the old Breton ramparts. For weeks the Orc’s have laid siege but are no closer to a breakthrough now than when they began. The ancient walls hold firm against the Orc’s siege weapons, whilst harpy’s spy from their eyries atop the towers ready to pick off any soldiers that approach, and tales are whispered around camp fires of mighty Reach warriors whose hearts are grown from poisoned seeds. And on top of that, with the stolen supplies the Reachmen are perhaps in a far better position to see out the harsh winter than their Orsimer besiegers.
Kurog though has an inbred thirst for battle, he is set upon leading from the front in the hope that his gallantry will unite the clans behind. I find myself wondering if Kurog were to lead the Covenant upon the crimson fields of the Heartlands would this accursed Banners war be any closer to the cusp? One might ask however who would be so foolish to follow a king into battle who cannot even unite his own people? Well, as I charge after Kurog up the hill towards the fortress, I guess that fool is me.
S.K
I have been tasked by a wandering Dark Elf to retrieve a ‘magical whistle’ from a series of caves hidden in the foothills to the southwest of Orsinium. The whistle belongs to a reclusive Nord animal trainer who uses it to train her packs of durzogs, although the locals complain of her reptilian beasts running wild across the foothills.
These caves are also home to an Orismer Wise-Woman Ushuta. The blind old Orc is oblivious to the durzogs that roam the caves, let alone the giant spiders and trolls. She spends her time fishing at her secluded camp at the bottom of a waterfall, whilst spouting meaningless philosophical musings that one might expect to hear from a Baandari fairground ‘soothsayer’.
Nikolvara herself has renamed these caves as her kennels, and is about as welcoming towards visitors as the dogs she seems to share such a unnatural affinity with. It quickly becomes clear that she is in no mood to negotiate the trade of her ‘magical whistle’, even though she admits herself that it is really just a sentimental trifle.
People are too eager to attach magical or mystical properties to things they don’t understand, just as we are to eager to find profound meanings in the words of any self proclaimed Wise-Woman. The truth is when one plus one equals three it is not a miracle, it is just a miscalculation, an illusion, or a lie. Mostly a whistle is just a whistle, and a batty old hag is just that.
S.K
The Tamriel Drifter 