My Mishaps and Adventures in Skyrim

I recently bought The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim during the Steam Holiday Sales, for a dirty cheap price; I thought that I had waited long enough, and for £3.74, it was practically a steal! Then came my decision to write a record of how I react, both in game and out, to the adventures that befall my character. Why? Because I tend to have peculiar and quite amusing experiences in games (some might put it down to my essentially non-existent gaming ‘skill’). The idea arose when I recalled previous experiences of playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind when I managed to die a couple times by either accidently breaking into someone’s house or just picking up an item in a store, and they assumed I was stealing it. Additionally, people have remarked that watching me play a game is a ‘funny’ experience because it takes me ages to work out what to do, and I tend to get easily scared (I have been known to scream whilst getting attacked during a game of Team Fortress 2 because I wasn’t expecting an enemy behind me).

Literally straight after starting my first Skyrim experience, I must confess, I was very confused. I was just thrown into some storyline I had no idea about. I did also think I must have accidently skipped the selecting a class stage because I wasn’t sure if you could be a particular class or race, or have certain skills. So in the midst of my confusion I tried to take in as much of the story as possible. When I finally reached the stage where I could select my race and alter the looks of my character, I must have spent practically half an hour perfecting them, like I would do on The Sims. I know, it’s sad, but it gives me a sense of pride walking around Tamriel knowing that I’m a foxy-looking lady elf.

After perfecting my character, the guards still concluded that I was going to be executed, which was fabulous to be honest. I mean, what better way to start a game? By being executed, you know? So I went to lay my head down the executioner’s block and then – A DRAGON. “Great, now I don’t have to die at the hand of the guards for a crime I didn’t even commit; instead I can burn to death by dragon breath. This is going to be a short game.” Then I heard a voice, calling me over, and no joke, I was wandering around in an endless circle for at least five minutes trying to locate where the voice was beckoning me from. Seriously, if this were real life, (you know, because elves and dragons are so totally real) I would definitely have been dragon fodder. When I eventually found the man who was calling me, he whisked me through the crowds of panicking villagers and debris of buildings and led me away from this dragon who wished to compete with Smaug to see how much of a village he can destroy. I think it was pretty safe to say that any confusion I had before was amplified ten-fold.

I found a rebel (I’m still not completely sure what they’re rebelling against, but I thought I’d just go along with it) who was captured alongside my character and had also been freed in all the chaos, so we stuck together going underground, collecting some weapons and gold and slapping some bitches along the way. We did encounter another woman along the way but she died in the next room we walked in to. She was a little useless, and come on, this is coming from me, Miss Useless of the Year. SHE DIED BEFORE I DID. Even I didn’t die in the tutorial (which is actually pretty good going for me). I also chose this point to become Sherlock and inspect everything and be a magpie and TAKE ALL THE THINGS. But then I soon realised that I couldn’t take everything because I could only carry so much and this saddened me very much so. I mean where were all the merchants? It wasn’t like there was a massive dragon attacking or anyth- oh… On the point of the dragon, seriously, how long does it take to destroy an entire village? It can’t be that hard if you have FIRE BREATH. We get it, Smaug (the name of the dragon was not revealed to me so I shall name him/her Smaug), you are fire; you are death, blah, blah, blah.

Now is the list of my brainless, yet entertaining, coming-of-late realisations and reactions:

1. I wish I was kidding when I type this but it took me half an hour of wielding a weapon, to discover why I couldn’t hold a weapon and a shield at the same time. It turned out I was carrying a mace, and apparently a mace is a two-handed weapon (it didn’t say it anywhere, that is my excuse) so it wouldn’t let me hold a shield at the same time, but when I held a sword, which is a one-handed weapon, it would let me hold a shield at the same time. I felt very silly after.

2. Spiders jumped out and attacked me, so needless to say, I screamed. I did gain a few funny looks from my family at the time. The fact I’m terrified of spiders kind of makes up for that, though.

3. I heard some wolves howling at one point…I did not jump at all, no…

4. I couldn't work out how to slow walk until I accidentally nudged the shift key and went noticeably slower. I admit, there is no excuse for this.

5. The first time I heard the level up music, I thought that it meant someone was about to attack me and I jumped. I’m easily scared, okay?

6. One part, I was incredibly stuck. I was trying to work it out for ages and I only managed to grasp half of it. I gave up and just asked my younger brother what to do, but honestly if I didn’t I would have been there for another hour at least! But I must confess, I was ashamed of myself.

This has been a lot of…fun so far, to say the least, and I’m only a smidgen of the way through the game (even though I’ve got 6 hours on record of playing it. I like to take my time!). I think there will be more mishaps and adventures to come in future.