The Story

## The Beginning

***The Rising Blues***

                The afternoon
was beckoning, shining through the cracks of the wooden blinders into the
darkened room. As Lilliana awoke from her slumber enveloped in the warmth of
her familiar bed, Lilliana laid silent, reflecting on her dreams.  Weary from the sleepless night Lilliana rose
and began to get dressed, donning her green and brown leather outfit, buckles,
pouches and all. With haste, traveling over to her study desk, surrounded by
crumpled papers with scrawled writing, Lilliana gently placed her hand upon the
book of arcane knowledge, running over the indentations of a foreign complex
language... This book, her 13th birthday present meant something to her, even
after all these years (recently passing her 19th birthday), she knew it
somewhere deep inside her but no matter how hard her efforts had tried, she
couldn't connect it all. So many questions remained unanswered... A dark
bitterness surrounded her when she held this book within her hands, a complete
and total emptiness, filled with images unrecognizable... and then these
thoughts would vanish. Strapping the book to her side, Lilliana ventured into
her hometown of Falkreath to begin her daily routines.

                No different
than any other day, Lilliana traveled down the familiar beaten path spanning
throughout the majority of the city towards it's renowned cemetery, where her
father attended to as the head priest and grave keeper. Upon entry to the
graveyard, Lilliana strolled towards the small chapel known for its use in
congregation and last funeral rights; it was here Lilliana found her peace to
commune with her Divine Lady Kynareth, The goddess of the Nine Divines and the
deity that Lilliana had worshiped since she could remember. Walking through the
dusty, unoccupied chapel, Lilliana approached the stone slab altar, running her
fingers along to find a fresh layer of dust, checking behind the altar Lilliana
was greeted with the usual materials required for a holy sermon, pleased to
find everything in place; Lilliana rose and noticed something out of place... A
bone skeletal arm detached from the elbow, lying in the aisle, seemingly appearing
out of thin air. Had she not noticed this as she strolled down that very aisle
just moments ago?

                Mildly on edge,
Lilliana approached the skeletal arm and, while picking it up, inspected it
once over; fairly certain she had not seen this here before. As time passed,
Lilliana felt content that she must have overlooked this skeletal arm and
placed it with in her bag, zipping it up securely. Lilliana, finished with her
business with in the church, began to walk towards the wooden doors and heard a
crunch behind her, turning around, Lilliana gazed upon the skeletal arm she had
just securely placed with in her bag. Spooked by this occurrence, Lilliana
stayed stagnant, staring this skeletal arm down, waiting to see if anything
would happen. Just as before, the arm remained motionless and Lilliana grew
impatient, she approached the arm, bending down to grab it when it animated and
lunged for the precious object attached to her hip and successfully detached it
from her hip. Without thinking, Lilliana kicked the skeletal arm, sending it
flying across the room and prompting it to drop the book. After both Lilliana and
the skeletal arm recovered, they both began sprinting towards the book left within
the middle of the aisle, successfully retrieving the book, Lilliana made haste
towards the door and burst through, sprinting blindly onto the graveyard road.

                Running with
fear and disbelief and no clear direction in mind, Lilliana ran as long as her
destination was far away from the chapel she had, on any regular day, found
solace in. Running for what felt like hours, Lilliana slowed along the path
heading towards her home. Feeling comforted by her surroundings, her guard was
taken down for a moment and looking up from the path, out of the corner of her
eye, she spotted the item she was running from, the skeletal arm, laying
lifeless off the path. Approaching it, Lilliana dropped her bag and pulled out
a few feet of rope tucked away and began wrapping it up tightly, satisfyingly
securing it with a knot and placing it back into her bag.  She then started back on the road towards her
home.

                Upon arriving
home, greeted briefly by her mother in the kitchen, Lilliana scurried upstairs,
closing the door behind her. Now inside, Lilliana dropped her bag upon her desk
chair and began looking around the room for (character item), as time passed
relaxing throughout the afternoon and soon to be evening, Lilliana finished
dinner with her family before excusing herself to her bedroom. Upon entering
her room, curiosity took hold and she felt compelled to peek within her bag,
feeling safe that the arm was wrapped up tighter than corpse in a coffin, Lilliana
peered inside; moving the common items she kept held within and discovered… the
skeletal arm was missing.

                Taken aback by
this, Lilliana began frantically and thoroughly checking her room, high and
low, far and wide, in every crack and crevice. When certain it was nowhere to
be found, she checked the final place, the darkness underneath her bed.  Getting down onto her knees and peering under,
she saw something under her bed, but couldn’t make it out exactly what was
below, getting closer, Lilliana sighed as she grasped her childhood doll
Murielle and rose, locking eyes with it before placing it softly down a top her
bed. But the fear hadn’t subsided, still uneasy as the skeletal arm was nowhere
to be found, Lilliana decided to grab her things and travel across the street
to her uncle’s shop to purchase some supplies. She knew deep down that until
she figured out why this was happening, her family wouldn’t be safe with her
remaining within Falkreath.

                Sneaking out, as
the nightly moon began to rise; she knocked nervously upon her uncle’s shop,
praying he was still open for business. A few moments had passed and her uncle Hilvar
opened the door, greeting Lilliana with his usual warm smile. Welcoming her in,
Lilliana began to ask her uncle if she could purchase provisions as she was
leaving town shortly. Concerned with his niece’s request, Hilvar initially hesitated
to give Lilliana what she requested. As Lilliana began to convince him, a loud
bang resonated from the side window of the small general store and out of the
corner of Lilliana’s eyes in the darkness of the night, she saw the shape that
drove her to this place; the skeletal arm had found her again. Frantic now,
Lilliana begged for the provisions, not knowing how much time she had left. Her
uncle yielded and behind the counter, retrieved a small bag filled with food
that would last a short travel. Snatching it without a moment of doubt and
leaving a few coins for his trouble, Lilliana sprinted for the front door of
the shop and bursted head first into the night, taking off with speed out of
Falkreath in the absolute silence of night.

Heading
north east, Lilliana followed the travelled path alone, still terrified of what
could become of her. As she travelled further into the night, a red glow caught
her attention a bit off the path. Unsure of what this glow could be, Lilliana
decided to investigate and stumbled upon a red crystal in the grass. With
curiosity taking hold of her, she approached this crystal only to be greeted
with fowl, unpleasant expletives belonging to the voice of an apoplectic male.
Brief conversation lead to Lilliana picking up and examining this crystal as it
tried to convince her to take it with her. Annoyed at this point, Lilliana
tossed the crystal back down on the ground and turned her back on it, despite
its pleas to take it with her; she continued her travels north east, leaving
the crystal behind.

Walking
for quite a bit began to grow tiresome and just when it was time for a rest,
Lilliana noticed Murielle sitting in the middle of the path, shocked and
motionless, an awkward standoff to those on looking, Lilliana turned and went
towards the side of the path into the bushes. Just then, the skeletal arm
appeared out of nowhere (from the grass), and locked its grasp upon Lilliana’s
book. Once secured, the arm tossed the book towards the path with little
effort. With this short opening, Lilliana drew her prized sword falchion, and
stabbed the hand straight through, pinning it to the ground. Although it was
too late, the book had landed directly on Lilliana’s doll Murielle and with an
unexpected explosion of purple mist; Lilliana shielded her eyes and waited for
the mist to disperse. As it did, what stood in Murielle’s place was a small,
cute purple doll which had taken upon calling itself Gespenst. Rather witty and
clever with its banter, albeit naïve and mischievous, Lilliana acquainted
herself with this new companion (although she was quite at a loss for words at
the moment.) After briefly acquainted herself with Gespenst, it waddled over
towards the skeletal arm and retrieved it, commenting that it’s important and
it belongs to his friend. Satisfied with this answer, Lilliana grabbed Gespenst
and placed him on her shoulder. With everything completed here, Lilliana
continued north east towards her destination.

With
day breaking, Lilliana and Gespenst approached the gate of Helgen. The garrison
had been closed off due to a local execution, the guard warned Lilliana and
told her to get lost and leave. After moving away from the gate along the wall,
Gespenst asked if Lilliana wanted to truly get inside, saying yes, Gespenst
began by revealing a few of his tricks to try to get past this obstacle. He
first attempted to create a two way portal using a rock by throwing it over the
wall, this plan sadly failed as the rock was unable to go high enough to pass
over the top. Next, Gespenst created a time reality dispersion, which allowed
both him and Lilliana to travel through the solid wall, unbeknownst to Lilliana
this had successfully gotten them through the wall at the cost of reversing
time by a couple minutes.

Once
safely inside the secured walls of Helgen, Lilliana hid behind the closest
house and peer around to watch the ongoing execution.  As she gazed upon the scene, Lilliana
witnessed a large man in distinguished armour run his entire first through the
head of one of the men kneeling at the executioners block. After the man
removed his gore covered gauntlet, he and another knight, dressed in blue
dragon armour began to argue. After they talked for what seemed like moments,
the knight in dragons armour took over the execution. At this point, Gespenst
used his magic to transform the outer appearance of Lilliana to that of an
imperial solider, this allowed her to walk closer into the crowd of on looking
soldiers and get a better look.

                Shortly, another
person she assumed to be a traitor to the imperials was put down to the block,
as the dragon knight raised the executioners blade, a form seemingly appearing
out of nowhere in the sky landed upon the tower, shouting a deafening noise.
Looking up, Lilliana couldn’t believe what she was seeing; it was none other
than a dragon, sending Helgen into absolute and utter chaos.

***Surviving Helgen: An Unexpected Companionship***