#5 – Glad You Axed

Waaarg the Orc is in his mid-40s, has a GSOH, and likes nothing more than to bury axes in the skulls of imperial soldiers. He also loves long walks on the beach.

Sadly for these chumps, there aren’t any beaches in Skyrim.

 GRRARGH to you, sir. Just before these two guys suffer an unfortunate axe-based injury in the work place, I gave the prisoner I was trying to free one of my swords which I thought was awfully nice of me. He seems extremely grateful for the rescue and weaponry, and thanks me by being instantly butchered to death by the third guard. Oh well. It was a lovely gesture either way.

Back to these two gorps. Trying to unite my two-handed battleaxe with both skulls is thirsty work and I run out of stamina very quickly, so I spend most of the battle trying to prevent them attacking me from both sides while I slowly regain my mojo. Eventually I manage to take each one down individually, and it’s only at the end of the fight that I realise how close to death I was. But hey, at least I managed to achieve my objective of freeing a prisoner! I take back my sword from his lifeless corpse.

Given that I’ve just slaughtered a bunch of town guards, it’s probably not wise for me to now march through the gates and start asking the locals if there’s anywhere to get my bloodied axe serviced. I guess I’ll just keep wandering, waiting for the sun to rise. I do a one-eighty and walk the road back towards Boiled Arse Cavern with a renewed mission in mind for this adventure, as handed to me by the Nord prisoner: Get to Windhelm and join the revolution!

Speaking of Nord prisoners, I find another one. Perhaps I should free him, too?

I approach the head guard, who looks like some kind of bad-ass Dunmer mage with enchanted robes. His guards look pretty hench, too.

But I’m Waaarg the Orc, bitches, and Waaarg is on a holy quest to free my oppressed Nord brothers and sisters. Sure, a couple of standard-issue imperials may have nearly killed me a minute ago, but I’m not a real Orc if I get intimidated by a group of high-level battlemages. What are they going to do, distract me with a card trick? Mix up a potion to make me feel poorly? Bunch of gays.

I fearlessly step forward and approach the prisoner.

Just as I’m about to cut his bindings, everyone lets out a war-cry in unison and launches into defensive mode. I freely admit that it makes me jump.

But they’re not reacting to me; they’re about to throw down with a pack of wolves which has stealthily jumped out at us all from a rock outcrop.

BY AKATOSH’S SCROTUM! The three guards unleash a sorcery apocalypse the like of which have never been seen, raining lightning and fire down on the wolves (and unfortunate prisoner, who is instantly killed despite actually trying to help). I consider slamming the head mage with my axe while he’s preoccupied, but the battle only lasts… well, let’s just say there weren’t many frames of action from which to grab the above screenshot. The wolves don’t die, they practically explode and within scant seconds the entire pack is reduced to some wisps of singed fur floating on the air.

Without pause for thought, they return to their marching but before they do, the head mage squares up to me.

“Yeah?”
“Um… yeah,” I reply.

We go our separate ways. I probably could have had him, though.

After a full day of walking, I hook up with a couple of wandering pilgrims. They tell me I’m ill (am I?) and after some hand waving tell me they’ve cured me (have they?) which sounds like some dumb Reiki nonsense to me, but they’re friendly enough so I walk with them. Eventually we get to a bastion; it’s still night and has been for the last, like, forever. The bastion looks like a good place to rest, but the guy above has other ideas.

I try to reason with him but he yells something about Skyrim belonging to the Nords and hits me. What’s that about? I happen to agree with his politics. I’m forced to kill him which prompts another bandit to emerge from the gates and tell me I’m Orc scum and should die. This is a bit rich, given he’s an Orc himself.

Man, to hell with this place. I’m going to kill everyone in this stupid fortress and claim it for my own.

DENIED!

I WAS JUST AXIN’ YOU A QUESTION!

SOMEONE BEST SEE A BL-AXE-SMITH TO WELD THIS SLUT SOME ARMOUR!

DUDE! DID YOU JUST GET YOUR AXE KICKED BY A DOOR??

Okay enough of the axe puns. After ritually killing every bandit in here and taking all the loot, I’m left alone in the fortress with an elderly maid named Agnis. She’s not hostile, so I see no need to give her an axe enema. She does, however, follow me around with something to say as I go about helping myself to the potions and food.