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R.I.P. neildarkstar. Haven will miss you dearly.
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Tiercel's Peregrinations
Topic Started: Jan 10 2017, 09:00 PM (4,154 Views)
Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thanks Sis! Heh. After last summer, and a week of ash.... I know exactly how they feel.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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I can only imagine, after the fire!!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Well, aside from breathing ash for the week before we evac'd, we all got a pass. Yeah, we have one hell of a lot of burnt ponderosa. But no one lost anything here in the town.

Now as for the trees - ponderosa reacts REALLY well to fire. Those burnt trees will start to green up in a few years.
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neildarkstar
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Overlord
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A pleasant little journey... I was wondering, Sere... Did you ever deal with the ash from Mount St Helens?One thing about tha ash that's not portrayed well in the game is that if it gets wet it is far slicker than ice, and when it's not wet it gets into everything.

A guy I worked and I were in Nowhereville Nevada (actually someplace between Elko and Twin Falls) when his van just quit running. It took a while, but we finally discovered that the ash from St Helens had clogged his air cleaner on the engine and closed it off completely.
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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No, I didn't have that "pleasure". Nowhereville Nevada - must be Grass Valley, Eureka, Battle Mtn, Carlin? I did know that ash could turn into sludge.... but then again, that's real world not Skyrim!

Most of the "ash event" from Helen was north of us.
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neildarkstar
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I was directly in its path, and riding a motorcycle through most of it.
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Well.... just.... UGH. Obviously you lived over it. But still, seriously ugly.
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Before I can write this next part, I have to run White Ridge Barrow. Been ages since I was in there.... and I'm not sure I ever read the Black Book from there either....
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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82 - So - here we are. Can’t say I like the look of it.

Melki shook his head. “Hard to believe you do stuff like this by yourself betimes, sis.”

“Well, I’m no hothouse flower, after all. And considering, it’s a very good thing I’m not. So, this looks like a typical circular downwell, with corridors meeting in the back at the stairs down. You take left, I’ll take right. I don’t know what we might find - those dead reavers in the other room, and the bar on the door on their side - well, just be alert.”

Nodding shortly, Mel went left - slowly. Good man. And I set off just as slowly, and in stealth I might add, to the right.

Lots of webs. And some.... really odd spider bodies. Totally white, and the one that had its eyes open - they were pink. I shuddered - I HATE spiders.... We met up at the stairs, neither of us having seen a thing - beyond webs and dead spiders.

“So - besides draugr and reavers - I bet we have spiders like these, or similar. No telling what sort of venom they produce - or if these white ones are the only kind we’ll see. Keep your eyes open, Melkioran.”

“Uh. Sis.... Please, just go back to Mel or Melki, okay? I’m a git, and I know it. So you can quit squashing my nose in it.”

I huffed a laugh - silently - gave him a hug, and we went on deeper down into this barrow.

The oddest thing was that most everything in the place was dead. With the exception of some - egg sacs, I guess you call them. They weren’t themselves “alive” - but they throbbed to the beat of a heart somewhere, and I was pretty sure it was something inside the sac.

I tugged Mel away from the first one, whispering “Let me hit it from distance and in sneak-mode. Then we’ll see before we’re seen....” He faded back and slid behind a pillar. I settled a fair way from the sac, drawing down on it with bow and a nice ebony arrow. Pulling the bow to full draw, I loosed the arrow at what seemed a “seam” line on the sac. It burst open - squishily - and I shuddered again.

As the bits of the sac dropped to the floor, a glowing orange and fire-red spider stood there, looking around. Flames surrounded it. I nocked a second arrow, and killed it fast. It popped with an ugly sound, and then burned for a bit.

“Ugh, sis. I know you hate spiders. This isn’t like to be any fun....”

“No. It’s not. But there are worse things.”

He sent me an odd look. “Like what?”

“Molag Bal.” That shut him up.

Hours later, we’d found the remains of a laboratory of some kind - apparently concerned with making the damn spiders from eggs and gems. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough - but we still hadn’t found the book.

So now that the spiders were all dead, we lit torches and began poking back through the warren of corridors and rooms of the barrow, looking for a doorway or arch or something. Finally, back in the room with the deep cut where water flowed, we found an area covered in sticky webbing.

“Hmm. Let’s see what’s behind there. Hack away, brother. Don’t think they’re strong enough to stand up to a warrior’s sword-wielding! “

A couple of good slashes later, there was the opening we hadn’t noticed earlier. We crept through the remaining shreds of web to see a tomb - empty of the usual high-rank draugr this time - with behind it a pedestal - and the book.

“Sis. We’re going to set up camp, eat, get some sleep. You can deal with that DAMNED book later.”

I sighed, but agreed.
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Areial
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Et'Ada
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very well told... icky spiders!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Oh, no kidding.... Truthfully, IRL I don't mind them. Of course, we don't have - anything.... seriously icky here (which has NOT been the case elsewhere I've lived....)

Eh.... I give full points to the devs for coming up with something truly different. However.... I'm SO not into breeding spiders to use for weapons.

Ugh. Poor spiders....
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neildarkstar
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Nicely told story Sere!

Yesterday, as I was driving to the Post Office, I had just gotten into a higher speed area when my vision was partially obscured... Swinging my head around and back, I could then see it was a quite large cat spider of a grayish color.

I reached up o the vehicle roof caught the spidey's drag line and moved him to the side before dropping him to the floor. Crazy bastard had been trying to land on my nose, I think... :)

We had a brief discussion about manners, and he (she?) abashedly vanished under the seat...

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Areial
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Et'Ada
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Nope.. I don't DO spiders.. they always seem to be where I don't want them to be!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thanks guys!

Truthfully.... I DON'T mind spiders. Mostly they're harmless - and it does really bother me to "housekeep" their webs. We don't actually have a serious number of common house spiders.

Unfortunately - most of the "common" ones we have are the ones that I'm marginally allergic to. Figures.
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Areial
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Et'Ada
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I think the only place worse for icky spiders than Florida, would be somewhere in South America...
Posted Image
which is where those buggers are from! imagine that puppy in her web, spread across a path, about head height to a rider ( horseback )...cause that's what they like to do.. to catch bugs..

edit...blast.. hit send... they migrated in banana's.. hence the name.
Edited by Areial, Apr 19 2017, 12:06 AM.
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Kane
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He's pretty cool looking!
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Kane
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I keep getting all kinds of nostalgia for Solstheim. Good reads, Sere!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thanks Kane! I just finished Dragonborn on Cyl yesterday, probably the only other stuff I'll do there is artifact hunting for the museum.... though I think a couple other Explorer's Society quests might send her there too.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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Well done once again Sere, even if it had me shivering in distate!! I hate spiders!!

Neil, I would have likely wrecked my car if that was me...

Gods, no more pics of spiders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Thanks Sis! Sorry about the spiders - they were necessary for this one....

83 - I hope I live over these Books. And that I can get something out of Mora....

Gulping, white and shaking, I picked up the Book and began to read. I was of course not really reading the text, as it was written in characters I didn’t recognize; as well, they revolved in disturbing patterns in front of my eyes - and somehow, behind my sight. Altogether, an experience I didn’t recommend to anyone, and one I didn’t want to keep repeating myself!

But here I am in this miasma of a place again. Hmm. Now this is odd. There’s those floating “light eyes” again. And those patches of dark.... Fine, torches it is. I lit one, and started for the far side of the first “room”. I was sneaking, but of course using a torch meant I’d be swapping out for bow if I needed to kill something.... Another time I thought myself short-sighted to have decided against magic....

Then there was a hallway, a small open room, and another hallway or corridor. And then - a larger room, and here I saw two of those slimy, tentacled things apparently vowed to Mora. So I put the torch down carefully, limbered my bow, nocked an arrow with another in my teeth, and took down the first thing, and then the second. The dark worked against them too. Shortsighted of Mora....

Picking up the torch again, I moved on into the next corridor. The only good thing about this was there wasn’t anywhere to get confused about where to go next.... I slithered out into a small area below a number of platforms rising upward into the distance. There was another of Mora’s servants to the right - dead as soon as I’d swapped torch for bow again. Then - well, damn.

There was an opening too wide to jump to the next area ahead. How was I going to.... oh. There’s a bridge which just - appeared - rising from below. I sighed. I really really hated magicks. Creeping across - well, I wanted to run, in case it decided to disappear just as readily! - I made it into another hallway. And my torch sputtered. I grabbed another out of my pack, but had to run for the light so I could set it aflame.

I drank a potion - that damn darkness HURT! And I didn’t think I could afford to ignore the wounding component. I’d no sooner got the torch lit, and my potion drunk, than another of the servants came into view. It died as easily as the others. I moved on cautiously, but that was the end of the “trials” apparently, as the next room held a set of stairs up to the Book pedestal, where I read it again and returned to myself in the barrow.

“Sis.... that’s really - hard to - watch....” Melki was as pale as I’d ever seen him.

“What do you mean?” I was puzzled - he’d seen it before this....

“I - saw the whole thing this time.... just you out there in some strange ugly dark green almost black space. I saw you trade the torch for your bow, and back. And I saw you bleeding....”

Well. That was definitely strange. I wondered if exposure to more of the books, through me, might be having that effect. Or if.... Melki was more - open than anyone knew. And I wondered who might know about that....

That was for later. Now, I was ravenous, and dead tired. So we ate, and then slept. It was well into next morning when we woke, and packing up hastily, we left the place, saddled the horses, and headed back to Raven Rock.

The first person I saw as we walked into the Netch was Var. He didn’t look happy.
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