——4e, Year 201, Last Seed Moon, 17th, 7:00——
Asa was awakened by the moist cold wind and the creaking sound of the old carriage wheels running over the frozen soil. Then he found himself sitting on a carriage, his hands tied tightly with ropes, and the same carriage was surrounded by other people. Four or five cars.
He looked at the man in front of him whose face was dusty, whose light blond hair was tied into strands, and who was wearing tattered blue leather armor, and tried to recall what happened.
"Hey, you're finally awake." The man turned his gaze to him, his voice low but inexplicably kind: "You just tried to cross the border, and ended up stepping into the trap of the Empire, just like the unlucky thief over there."
"You damn stormcloaks, Skyrim would be fine without you." The carriage was not only dilapidated, but also narrow. It was called a "thief". The red-haired young man wearing shabby khaki linen clothes almost Sitting side by side with the man in blue armor: "If you hadn't been causing trouble, I would have reached Hammerfell on the stolen horse."
Seeing the aura of death wrapped around this thief, like traces of black smoke, Asa finally remembered something.
He is a hunter. In this province where most of the land is covered by ice and snow, the most common hunter wears fur armor, carries a long bow and seven or eight arrows. If conditions permit, he also carries a one-handed iron sword or a leather-clad round sword. With the shield, you can hunt with those ferocious wild animals.
Since four of the five tallest peaks in Tamriel are in the Interprovince, the living environment is harsh. Herbivores have developed excellent escape skills, and carnivores do not mind taking advantage of humans who try to hunt them. Da Da Ya Festival.
Although furs cannot be sold at a high price, there has always been a great demand for various meats as staple food in cold areas. After Asa hunts animals, he usually sells the harvest to the southernmost city in the province, which is also the closest to Buddha. Falkreath.
Before he was caught on this carriage, he was tracking a seriously injured snow tiger. It exuded a strong "black smoke" representing death, and the smell of the beast would also make other wild animals afraid to approach. He did not want it at all. He might have been lost, but there was no other danger, so he relaxed his vigilance.
As a result, he was captured by a group of imperial soldiers who appeared inexplicably in the mountains, and the snow tiger naturally ran away.
"Hey, you and I, we shouldn't be in this car," the thief said to Asa: "The ones who really deserve to die are these storm cloaks. Listen, I seem to have seen you somewhere. In the following trial We have to prove to each other that we are not one of them.”
"Ha, do you think those Imperial people will give you this opportunity? 'Judgement'?" The man in blue armor burst out laughing.
"Shut up! Prisoners!" the imperial soldier driving the car shouted angrily.
"Is it because of him?" Arthur tried to speak, his voice a little hoarse.
The man in chainmail sat side by side with the thief. There was another man sitting next to him. He was blond, blue-eyed, and tall. You could tell just by looking at his gorgeous sable cloak and full-body chainmail. He was definitely not a character. Not only were his hands tied, but his mouth was also gagged.
Asa looked around the carriage. The few knights who kept patrolling were naturally not looking for thieves, hunters, or ordinary Stormcloak soldiers.
"Oh, it looks very rich." The thief made a professional assessment.
"Watch your attitude!" the leather-armored man suddenly shouted: "What you are talking about is the real supreme king of the Interprovince, Lord Ulfric Stormcloak!"
"No, you are the city lord of Windhelm City! The leader of the Stormcloaks!" The thief looked completely stunned, and then his face turned pale: "If even you are caught - where are we going? ?”
"Sovngarde, 'brother'." Seemingly satisfied with successfully scaring the thief, the man in blue armor chuckled.
"No, no, that's impossible, they can't do that." Thief Liu Shen muttered to himself.
Sognard, that is the soul destination of all Nords. It is said that after fighting bravely during life, they will be taken to the [Hall of Valor] in Sognard after death to enjoy eternal carnival and battle...
Hiss - Asa's head started to hurt violently, as if the injury he had suffered when he was knocked unconscious by an imperial soldier recurred.
No, the Hall of Heroes is not like that, he thought with a headache. If he has not done a great deed that makes him famous, he is not qualified to enter the Hall of Heroes. At most, he will wander in the wilderness around it.
But why would he know such a thing? Even his parents and sister hadn't told him—no, wait? Does he have parents and sisters?
Asa was obviously an orphan in the last war. Even the name "Asa" was chosen by himself. He was picked up and raised by an old hunter and inherited his bow and arrows and wooden house after his death. But at the same time, , and he felt that his parents should be lords of a certain city, and they should have a tall but hot-tempered sister.
He must have been knocked unconscious by the imperial sword hilt...
"Hey, brother, where is your hometown?" the Stormcloak soldier continued to ask the thief.
"Lo, Loristed——" The thief came out of another large village further north that Asa had visited.
It is located on the north side of Lake Ilinalta, on the whiterun plain with almost no snow. The main source of food is cultivated crops rather than meat. If the weather is not bad, Asa will occasionally carry it. The last batch of meat was sold there.
Maybe he actually met this thief face to face.
"The Nords believe in returning fallen leaves to their roots," the Stormcloak said, "At least you don't have to worry about dying in a cave in Hammerfell unknown to anyone."
"No, no, Shur, Mara, DiBella, Genales, [Akatosh]... everyone is fine, please save me..." Loristed's thief became incoherent and began Indiscriminately calling on the name of the Holy Spirit.
The realm of the Eight Holy Spirits is high in the sky. They don't care about believers worshiping multiple Holy Spirits at the same time, but the pastors and priests of the temples to which they belong naturally cannot do that. And this kind of prayer to multiple Holy Spirits in one go will not trigger God's Punishment is already the mercy of the Holy Spirit, and there is no chance of any response.
While Asa was trying to straighten out his suddenly messy memory, he looked at the thief who suddenly mentioned the name of a god that made him somewhat concerned. However, he was shocked to find that the dense "aura of death" wrapped around the thief was just like the one beside the fire. The snow disappeared like that.
"This is impossible." Asa whispered.
The ability to foresee death allows Asa to see the inevitable death, which is manifested in the gradually thickening black smoke on the target. In addition to the prey that will be hunted by him, humans can naturally do it. When he was an old hunter, he wanted to die. When he was talking about the incident, he even scolded him angrily. As a result, he died of cardiac paralysis that night.
From the notes left by the old hunter, Asa learned that he had reached a deal with Hircine, the "demon god of hunting", when he failed in a certain hunting and was bound to die. One of them was transferred to him, so that as long as he hunted ten beasts older than three years old every year, it would be enough to live forever - but that was obviously impossible.
Not to mention how cunning and difficult to catch a beast of that age, this simple transfer of lifespan cannot prevent his aging, which makes it impossible for him to continue hunting efficiently. In the last few years of his life, he regarded teaching Asa as When Asa broke the news that he was about to die, he was actually convinced.
The last words left by the old hunter were that he hoped Asa would find a way to get out of the deal with the "Devil God". Perhaps he regarded Asa's ability to see death as a bad hobby of a certain Demon God.
Asa knew that wasn't it. This ability was innate and seemed to have given him great benefits, but he couldn't remember what it was.
At this time, it is unheard of for the "whirlpool of death" entangled in a mortal person to disappear out of thin air, unless a certain Holy Spirit who has just called the name of God intervenes.
The thick black walls and gates of Helgen appeared in front of the carriage. The Nords believed in force. Even women and children could decently pick up heavy two-handed swords and play with them. Naturally, their villages would not There are "weak" walls, unless the surrounding environment is too bad or some location has military value - and Helgen has both.
In order to protect it from being attacked by the Stormcloaks on the front line, the Empire even built two guard towers in the village.
"Look, General Tullius of the Empire and those damn Thalmor elves. Our capture this time must be the result of their sincere cooperation." The Stormcloak soldier said with a sarcastic tone.
Inside the city gate, a bald, dark-skinned man wearing high-grade imperial armor was riding on a tall horse. He was wearing something with another elf with pointed ears and a black robe beside him.
Asa heard that because the empire failed in the war with the elves, it had to sign an armistice treaty called the "White-gold Concordat", which clearly stipulated that belief in the "Ninth Holy Spirit Talos" was prohibited, which caused He was extremely dissatisfied with the Nords who worshiped him as their main god, and the Stormcloaks took advantage of this situation to rise up and oppose the Empire and the largest force of the "Platinum Agreement".
But are elves so ugly?
Asa turned his head and stared at the appearance of the man in the robe. He felt that he was completely different from the elf in his impression, but... in his impression? Had he seen elves somewhere?
"Prisoners! Get out of the car!"
The carriage convoy stopped in Helgen's square, where dozens of Stormcloak soldiers who had also been captured were already waiting, surrounded by twice as many Imperial soldiers as they did, and the tall stone platform in the middle of the square and the hooded The executioner, who wears a black hood and holds a long beheading knife, has proved how the empire treats these prisoners.
A sturdy woman in full Imperial armor and a brown-haired Imperial soldier with a simple and resolute face holding a clipboard stood next to the carriage.
"Loker of Loristed?" the soldier read.
"No! I'm not a rebel! You can't do this to me!" The thief was so frightened by the executioner that he stood up and jumped from the carriage in an attempt to escape. However, he tripped over something and fell to the ground, unconscious on the spot.
"Bastard, leave him last, no, second to last." The strong woman picked up the unconscious thief with one hand and dragged him to the side.
The three remaining "prisoners" on the carriage looked at each other and got off one by one.
"Ulfric Stormcloak, Lord of Windhelm City, it is an honor to meet you."
The voice of the imperial soldier was respectful, but this did not change the fact that he was about to be executed. The leader snorted and made no response.
"Larov from Riverwood..." "I'll be waiting for you in Sungard, Hadawa. It shouldn't take long."
The Stormcloak trooper and the Imperial Registrar glared at each other and finally looked away at the same time.
"Well, who are you?"
The imperial soldier known as Hadawa looked at Asa, then looked at the list in his hand, and asked.
who is he? Asa began to seriously think about it. He gave himself this name because he had the impression that someone was roaring at the top of his lungs in his ears, covering up everything else. If he thought about it carefully, that voice was not actually shouting " Ah-sa-", but-
"Arthur," he said, "Arthur Pendragon."
