Nightmare's End

We continue where we left off recieving the potions from the witch after waiting for about twenty four hours. I waited in her home inside, away from the the mercilessness of the weather. She gave me two potions, one for myself and one for the counts wife. Of course I guzzled mine down right away. The potion didn't taste like much and I didn't feel any different afterwords, I began wondering if it actually worked. I opened my inventory and looked at myself and my stats to see if they changed.

Indeed they had! I was cured! I jumped for joy a couple of times! I got my old beautiful self back! Val was happy about that too.
On my way back to Skingrad I ran accross my old friend the khajiit bandit again. Ah, memories.

 I laughed, happy to see him, and the motioned to my armor "can't you see i'm heavily armed?"

Hehe.

Here are my stats so far: Not soon after this picture was taken, though, I reached level 10.

Val and I reached the castle without trouble and I spoke with Hal, the argonian assistant of the count, and she agreed to take me to him. I followed her outside the castle through the castle grounds to ... a wall.. and she stopped and said "i'll wait here while you go see the count" or something to that affect. I just looked around confusedly, blinking "there's just a wall here.." As I was turning around in circles trying to figure out what she was talking about, Suddenly the wall opened up beside me making me jump nearly out of my boots!

Oh, cool.. I peered in hesitantly before shrugging to Val, and continuing.

The count keeps his wife deep in a cave where she is safe from any vampire hunters and suspicions. While it was dark and gloomy, I could definately understand the logic.

The witch was there.. huh? How'd she get here so fast?!
Ohwell, I handed over the cure to the count and the witch woke his wife so she could drink it. Upon doing so, she was immediately cured... then died "uh.... okay...." I shrugged and turned to the count in hopes of some sort of reward, or at least thanks, but he was only too depressed to talk to me and asked for me to leave. "Poor count.. okay." I totally understood his plight and felt really bad for him.

I left to get some well deserved rest at the local inn. On my way up to my room I met that man who had threatened me last time I was there. I cautiously walked up to him and spoke, and he actually spoke to me!

I didn't have anything to say to him so I left to my room, but he seemed friendly. I guess his anger was because I was a vampire last time..

In the inn room Val commented on having had to get some argonian blood for the vampire cure:

That's very sweet of you Val, but we didn't have to kill anyone.

In the morning I awoke, got my armor and gear in order, then stood to greet Val as usual. He had a little present for me.

Ah... okay.. got hungry did you? ...Thank you, Val >.>

I went back to the castle to see if the count was ready to see me yet. I had to wait for quite a while for him, but while I did I took a little tour of the entrance area. There was a painting. It must have been of the count before he became a vampire..

The count gave me a reward of one thousand septims and then we left.

My druidic gods had asked of me more sacrafices, one of some grass which I haven't yet obtained but figured I would later, no rush.. and one of mort flesh from a zombie. That was easy enough to find. It was simply a quick trip since I could now teleport myself to the temple and back with magic, thanks to my current level, and did so with the flesh. In return I was granted another ability:

I can now hibernate creatures. If I remember correctly this means for the amount of time specified once the spell is cast on a creature, that creature will become unresponsive and unable to move. This will come in handy when I need to flee!

Well, with all of that out of the way my next task was to do as the arch mage asked and fetch the two items for him from the people who had taken off with them. On the way to the first one, near Skingrad, I stopped to raid a bandit camp. I had successfully done so and turned to go back to my tricorn and ride off when I saw that my tricorn had picked a battle with a Will-o-the-Wisp. As anyone who has encountered them knows they are one of THE most powerful entities in the game, picking a fight with one is foolish. For this reason, at first when I saw my tricorn battling it I was mortified! I gasped!

I thought for sure I would be seeing my tricorn die soon! To my amazement and pride my tricorn killed it quite easily and I walked over to gather the glow dust. Glow dust is very rare and valuable because of the difficulty in obtaining it, and only comes from dead will-o-the-wisps. Then I heard this strange sound behind me... so puzzled I turned around. ...

Eugh! I stood scared stiff! Then, after a few seconds realized it wasn't attacking... just standing there posed like that. So.. not wanting to be attacked by the ugly thing I stepped backwards away from it a few steps ... only to see in my utter horror it followed me step for step, posing like that again!! I was completely creeped out now and had the shudders! I had to take a moment to calm myself down "ok.. it's not attacking you.. it's being nice... you don't need to freak out.." After that, I quickly turned and darted to the right a few feet. I stopped and looked behind my heels to see with relief it was gone! It hadn't followed me. With a satisfied sigh of relief I turned and made my way back to my tricorn..
I hadn't gotten but a couple steps when I realized, @.o with a twitch of my eye, the spider was doing the exact same thing to my tricorn.

Still, not fighting, maybe it only attacks if attacked first... but the sight of it from afar made it look even more creepy and disgusting! I stood there frozen in dusgustedness (what other name could I give it?) for quite a while until  finally overcoming it, and deciding the best course of action would be to get out of her as fast as possible! I sloowly creeped up behidn the spider... then darted past it! Hopped on my tricorn faster than I ever had before and streaked off into the distance!

From now on it was strictly business! I got very serious, no more playing games.The first cave I knew what to expect from previous incarnations. At the end would be waiting the mage who took the item I need to retrieve, and she would not be happy to see me. Every mage in there wold be after me once they found out I was there to take the item back.. in preperation for this, every mage who I spoke with on the way was promptly poisoned and left to die while the poison worked it's course. I ran full speed ahead from tunnel to tunnel, room to room poisoning those that crossed my path with only the predatory need to find that traitor mage and retrieve from her the artifact. My actions were swift and free of hesitation.

They never knew what hit 'em.

When I finally entered the room with the traitor mage I looked around and thought "mmhmm.. Just as I thought.."

This definately isn't the kind of room a friendly mage would be taking up residence in...

Of course as suspected I was attacked by caranya, the traitor mage, and killed her easily with the help of Val. I looted the item off her and took off for the next one.

The next was more difficult and I died many times going through it, having to enlist a conjured skeleton with my new found conjuration skills in order to get by. The boss was extreme, but easily exterminated with my helpers.

 The mage who had taken the artifact, it turns out, was actually a good one after all. His intentions were true and he wanted only to protect it. However, his attempts to do so were in vain because he was found dead. I snitched the artifact from his body.

After a long and arduous journey through the caves, battling the terribly strong monsters, but never giving up for an instant, my conjured skeleton stands victoriously over our prey, looking down at him. It was a moment to remember.

Val and I made our way out of the ruins, worn, battered but no worse for wear and holding our prizes, the artifacts. These will be returned to the arch mage immediately.
On the way out of the area, however, we were unexpectedly ambushed by a skeleton who was unexpectedly strong! Even with as strong as I had become I was forced to flee in circles to escape the skeletons swings of his axe! He could kill me with it with only two swings. I was half panicked after being taken by surprise and faced with the inability to fight back suddenly! I ran in circles panting heavily and wide eyed with Val running behind us like a chicken with his head cut off in his attempt to attack the moving skeleton! Suddenly I get this message from Val:

 What?! Val! This is no time for romance! You want to do that NOW?!

I jerked around to glare at Val and motion to the chaos trying to kill us! "There is a skeleton trying to KILL us!"
Sometimes he can be such an idiot. Eventually we got the skeleton killed and left.

Next stop, IC.