Monday - 20 Hours In

It's been an interesting day, with much gold spent and new lands explored. I exchanged 1000 gold for a short-lived horse (more on that later) and 5000 gold for a house in Whiterun. Satisfying the explorer in me, I ventured North-East, via the geysers of Eastmarch and eventually on to icy Windhelm.

A beautiful morning near Whiterun

So, back to the horse. There's one thousand gold that I'll never see again. What good is a horse if it can't stand up to a simple vampire attack? Really, I expect better. Never fear, though. That cursed vampire won't be bothering any more unsuspecting travelers. Why not, you ask? Well, why the devil do you think? Because it's dead, of course! Burnt to a cinder under the blaze of my flame spell.

As luck would have it, I took a snap mere moments before the wretched creature leaped from the shadows. Here's horsey features admiring the Northern Lights, blissfully unaware of his imminent demise.

The Aurora Borealis in all its luminescent glory

Fortunately, my new Whiterun home proved to be more robust than my long-faced friend. Whilst, admittedly, it hasn't yet come under direct attack from a  vampire, it has managed to spectacularly out-live Mr Neigh-Neigh. It hasn't gone and died on me even once. What's that? Proof? Well I certainly wouldn't be running my mouth off about the virtues of a vampire-resistant house if I didn't have proof, would I? Here it is, standing firm, exactly where I left it (another way in which it is clearly superior to any for-legged beast). You'll notice, also, that there's a distinct lack of any vampiric presence in the vicinity. It's also vampire-repellent, you see.

Mine is the one on the right. Undead-free. Guaranteed.

Undeterred by the unfortunate events of the night before, I set off North in search of adventure. On foot, I might add. I followed the White River through a narrow ravine and turned East towards the aptly named Eastmarch. It's a pretty inhospitable place, I must say, with boiling geysers, saber-toothed lions and, during my visit at least, not one, but two dragons. At the same time.

Steamy

Almost as if they were telepathically aware of my burgeoning distrust of anything with hooves, a pair of mammoths came to my aid. I know that sounds unlikely, but it turns out that mammoths are pretty spectacular when it comes to slaying dragons. I was running for my life when the first of the winged beasts mysteriously died. The second one landed to assist its fallen comrade and got subsequently butted to death by two tonnes of mammoth tusk. I should mention that, despite what the previous sentence might lead you to believe, I am not an authority on the weights of tusks - I made a guess for the sake of effect. Anyway, I was so impressed with my new woolly friends that I was almost ready to forgive horsey boy for his shortcomings and untimely departure. Almost.

Slightly guiltily, I looted the corpses of the two dragons and found that I was so weighed down with pricey goods that I could barely move. I was sure that Windhelm couldn't be more than a couple of miles away (again, units of measurement not my area of expertise), so I began limping, almost painfully slowly, along the road to the North. It wasn't long, much to my relief, before the walls of the city rose over the horizon.

My first glimpse of icy Windhelm

I trudged my way slowly along the final approach to Windhelm (half a kilometre, if I had to make an outrageous guess) and back to safety. At the first inn I found, I fell into a bed in order to get some much-needed rest before setting out again in the morning.