A Series of Unlikely Gaming Stories 5 – A Missing Dragon

There I was, just trying to cross the border into Skyrim, when I managed to get caught in some sort of war zone. I’m not an idiot, I immediately surrendered. Alright, I know, I know, I shouldn’t have been crossing the border as I was, but how was I supposed to know that this normally empty area was going to be full of soldiers? I was just trying to get back home to the last of my family in Whiterun for the winter holiday! Honestly, the path was open literally a week ago anyway! Now I was going to be late home. Assuming these men don’t execute me right here…

But luckily for me, they didn’t. They rounded everyone up, me and some horse thief included, shoved us into carts then took us to the nearest town.

Helgen. A shitty place even when I lived in Skyrim.

There were Imperials everywhere. Everyone was tense. I hadn’t realised why until that horse thief explained that the gagged guy in the cart with me was Ulfric Stormcloak himself. The idiot causing trouble for Skyrim, who killed the High King and made such a fuss about everything that the Thalmor ended up sticking their noses in. We were all quite happily worshiping Talos on the quiet until that bastard started killing people in His name.

Anyway, yeah, there were lots of people. Worse, I think they had me confused. They thought I was a Stormcloak too. I’m a big, strong Nord, I wasn’t wearing much, but I had just been arrested alongside what seemed like half a legion of Stormcloaks. Of course they didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t one of them. The Imperials were going to kill us all.

That was, until something dark came by. The sky had been clear, but all of a sudden, grey clouds had filled the sky. Something stank of sulfur. A roar. No, two roars.

Out of nowhere, a dragon attacks. Ulfric and his buddies legged it, but the Imperials were immediately trying to get people to safety. Myself included. Never mind they were literally just about to execute me. I guess death by dragon is considered “cruel and unusual punishment” or something.

Either way, this Imperial soldier told me to follow him towards a bunker. He must have guessed that I wasn’t a Stormcloak because otherwise I would have escaped with them. He cut my bindings, shoved a sword in my hand and led me to the jails, which were the least wood-filled buildings around. The plan was to hunker the civilians down until the dragon either died or buggered off.

A fair idea, until that dragon swooped down and grabbed me. All I could do is flail and stab its leg with my sword as it flew around, breathing fire on everything. As we went higher and higher, I closed my eyes, still stabbing, but not daring to look down.

Suddenly, it felt like we’re falling. I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to see my impeding doom.

We hit the ground with a large crash. I’m pretty sure we skidded and crashed into the side of a mountain. I opened my eyes and that was almost exactly what had happened. The dragon had crashed into the side of Helgen, slamming itself into a secret exit where Ulfric and his buddies were all hiding.

And even better, it had let go of me.

I scrambled away from the dragon, and was helped to my feet by the same Imperial fellow who had freed me from my bindings. Imperial soldiers had arrived, all armed to the teeth and ready to kill.

Without warning, the dragon’s body began to glow with energy. Most of the energy swirled above the dissolving dragon and shot up into the sky, but just a little part of it left the dragon and swirled around me. I felt a warm glow of energy flow through me, before everything calmed down.

“Is it dead?” I heard people whisper.

“I think that guy killed it…”

People slowly realised what was going on. I was still confused as heck. But everyone seemed very happy and pleased. They seemed to think that I had killed the dragon. Had I? I had no idea. They all saw it though. They saw me absorb part of that dragon.

Immediately, I was put on a horse and paraded to Whiterun, where the Jarl (nice guy, actually) thanked me and gave me a house and a housecarl.

The housecarl turned out to be my sister, Lydia.

Awkward.

Anyway, I still don’t know what happened, even now. But I haven’t seen any dragons since that day in Helgen. That’s probably for the best.

In hindsight, maybe Akatosh using that “Make All Essential Beings Killable” mod was what caused the problem.