Journal of Amanax Dragonstream


March 1, 1210

Dragons. They’re literally everywhere. I saw one flying over a frozen ocean just yesterday, and I thought they couldn’t take temperatures like that.

My name is Amanax Dragonstream, and I am a dragon researcher. It’s a fairly new field; the dragons returned only a month ago, but since then we have been reminded of their terror. They have sacked villages and camps, leaving the corpses to burn. The worst thing is I’ve confirmed by seeing that dragon over Everwinter Sea, the coldest place in Skyrim, that wherever you hide you will not be safe. Right now, me and my four accomplices are holed up in a small, icy crevice, along with two horses and a wagon full of supplies. My friends are Malek, a fellow human, Ka’zhat and Ka’hat, two Khajiit brothers, and Talen-Shei, an Argonian. I am currently drawing a sketch of the dragon we saw today. It was not like the others; It was larger and... sparkly. Yes, I am sure I saw glittering figments on it’s wings. I will look into this.

(You see a large sketch next to this entry)















March 3, 1210


The storm finally cleared up today, and the seven of us, including the horses, continued on our journey. We our on our way to the city... well, village really, of Winterhold to report our findings to our client, Axilmeos, an elf. He hired us three weeks ago to research these new sparkly dragons that have surfaced. On our journey, we have encountered four dragons, one of whom saw us and we were forced to kill. Miraculously, no one was hurt, and we were able to examine it’s body. We took a few scales, but for their size, they weigh a ton. We’ll give the location of the body to Axilmeos... for a price.

Wait.. something’s not right... the horses have been jumpy and skittish all morning, and now the Khajiit twins say they hear something as well. If they say they hear something, there’s definitely something around. Their ears are much more finely tuned than the rest of ours.

Now the solid black horse we’ve taken to calling Maggie is completely freaking out. Wait... was that something in the bu...


(The writing obviously trails off)


March 3, 1210


A sabre cat. It was a sabre cat. Pounced right at me, and I’d be dead if Ka’zhat hadn’t seen it first and shot it with an arrow, veering it from it’s airborne course. I now have a large gash on my arm, and Talen-Shei has a bite mark on his leg. He’s a tough lizard though, he’ll be alright. After the overgrown house cat had pounced on me, we all recovered our senses, pulled out our weapons, and attacked. The cat was instantly surrounded in a flurry of swords, magic, and maces. The old kitty managed to bite Talen-Shei, but besides that, he didn’t do anything. Well, besides nearly give Malek a heart attack. He hit it’s body with his sword six more times, just to make sure it was dead.



March 3, 1210

We looted the sabre cat’s body. Took his teeth (the prominent canines, of course) his pelt, and the one eye Ka’hat left alone. I could use these to make a potion later...

We left the meat for the wolves, as sabre cat meat is tasteless and unhealthy. We used the solid white pelt (that’s why we didn’t see him, he blended in perfectly) to make a coat for poor Talen-Shei. He’s cold-blooded and can’t handle the temperatures like a Khajiit can. Or a human, for that matter. Ka-zhat looked sick while we skinned the thing... I’m not surprised. Him being a cat, it was probably some kind of distant relative.

March 3, 1210

The rest of today’s journey went smoothly, and thanks to Malek’s healing magic, Talen-Shei and I are as good as new. We are now taking refuge in a cave we managed to stumble upon just as the sun started to set. The horses are no longer restless, Ka’zhat is tightening the string on his bow, Ka’hat is sharpening his strange malachite mace with a so called “perfect stone,” and Talen-Shei is asleep. Even high-strung Malek is fishing on the ocean bank next to our cave. All seems peaceful, but we must be wary. Caves in Skyrim are seldom unoccupied. Bandits, bears, trolls, and even the hideous, eyeless Falmer could all reside in here. Frankly, I think we should barricade both ends of the cave, the entrance and the passage inside, just to be doubly safe.


March 4, 1210


I found out what lives in this cave. Skeevers, about fifteen of the suckers, were holed up in a nest in the back of the cave. Skeevers are raylike creatures that are about as tall as a man’s knee. But while rats probably don’t deserve the bad rap they have, Skeevers definitely do. I decided to leave them alone, as I didn’t want to risk waking them up and getting us all infected with some kind of plague, and we were leaving anyway.

Malek is calling for me. I’d best be off.


March 4, 1210


If there is one kind of meat that is found up here in the Winterhold Region and incredibly delicious, it is the chewy blubber of the horker. The horker is a pinkish-brown, fat, blubbery thing with three tusks sticking out of a whiskered mouth. Here’s a sketch of one...

(You assume it looks like a walrus
from the neck down)




I know. And the lower part of it has four flippers, and is so... fat. Luckily for us, they’re also slow. The ivory from their tusks can be worth a bit, about 200 septims, and we made 1,800 septims today. We also have enough food to last us a MONTH. I will tell you though, even though horkers are slow on land, they’re like horses underwater. Fat horses with tusks. I’ve heard lots of stories of horkers, be it attacking an innocent trapper to saving little girls from drowning, but the vigor of these creatures as they flopped toward us was immense. I don’t believe the little girl stories anymore.

March 4, 1210


I can’t believe it! The five of us are hiding behind a rock right now, (We sensed danger when the horses bolted with the wagon) but right in front of us, a mere thirty meters away, a dragon is drinking from a pool of water! It’s one of the new versions that started popping up a few days ago, the sparkly ones. All of us have a mixture of fear and joy. The five of us have been adventuring together for four years, but we’ve never come across something like this! We’re upwind from it right now, so we should be able to examine it closely from here.

Okay. Note to self- the dragon is NOT sparkly. The flashing pigments on it’s wings are actually pigments of frost, reflecting off the sun. Talen-Shei also noted that the temperature out here dropped several degrees since we found the dragon. It appears this dragon was literally made to live in the cold. It’s wings also appear to be made of a different material than the leather-like wings of all the other species of dragons we’ve seen... this material is thicker and bluer than that. It’s most likely there to protect the dragon’s vulnerable wings from the harsh cold. It also has massive black spines on it’s back. Could these be used to display dominance among packs? I can’t wait to report our findings to Axilmeos!

The dragon has flown off, and with it’s departure the normal sounds of the north have returned. The birds brave enough to live here are chirping again, a nearby snow fox is hunting mice, and it has even warmed up a bit. We’ve found the horses once again. Maggie was still attached to the wagon, peacefully grazing some long-dead grass, but our other horse, a cream colored male named Frost, somehow detached himself and was scratching himself against a tree. We’re now in the marsh-like regions of the Eastern Shore of Winterhold, and the village’s most distinguishable trait, the massive Mage’s College of Winterhold, which I am a proud to attend, is poking out of the mist. We’re nearly there, and the Khajiit brothers are fantasizing over a well cooked venison dinner, as the always are. I don’t have the heart to tell them we probably won’t make it there today; a storm is blowing in. We’ll be out here for at least another day or two.


March 5, 1210


What do you know? I can tell the future. The storm ended up reducing our vision heavily, but thanks to Talen-Shei’s amazing sense of smell, we found a capsized shipping boat. Unfortunately, it was inhabited by bandits. I always laugh at bandits. They’re so confident. They charge right into battle with their tiny daggers screaming “victory or Sovngarde!” and usually die. These ones were no exception, and now, I have a new friend at my feet, gnawing on a horker bone. The “great” battle went as follows...


We heard the first bandit within twenty feet of the ship, and we were instantly alert. Ka’zhat drew his bow, and Malek his enormous sword. Ka’hat heaved his mace onto his shoulder. My left hand was suddenly ablaze with fire magic, and I drew my scimitar with my right. Talen-Shei remained weaponless. The first bandit shot at us from the railing of the ship-which I noticed was completely torn in half. The arrow whizzed through the air, and promptly struck the ground five feet in front of us with a clink! Ka’zhat responded by firing an arrow at the bandit, which lodged itself in his skull. We charged, and the rest of the bandits emerged from their various hiding places. I assume there was around 24 of them. Several of them aimed bows, but they were terrible shots.
Another brave (or perhaps stupid) bandit shot out from a rock at about 200 miles per hour, then stopped, spun around, and landed in a heap. A large spike of ice protruded from his side. Talen-Shei grinned and lifted up his magic staff, which he had made appear out of thin air. Now the bandits were in trouble.

Rounding around the stern of the ruined ship, we cut down another bandit and ran up a set of stairs in the shattered hull. Once on deck, we went into a frenzy, cutting this, smashing that, burning this. I burnt seven of the glorified bank robbers to a crisp, and cut up two others. Talen-Shei ice-spiked five more, then gave up and started hitting the bandits in the head with the staff instead. Malek chopped six of them to sushi, and four of them were claimed by the Khajiit twins. I laughed. There were only three of them left.

I would’ve continued laughing if one of them hadn’t dodged Malek’s swinging sword and shoved a dagger in his stomach.

She was instantly dead. Ka’hat’s mace put her out of her misery in a single blow. Talen-Shei and Ka’zhat continued fighting the two remaining bandits while Ka’hat and I carried poor Malek into the lower deck of the ruined vessel. He wasn’t dead... the bandit was obviously and ametuer and aimed for the wrong spot on his stomach. That didn’t mean we didn’t have a problem on our hands though. Malek was still in bad shape, and none of us but him knew healing magic.
While Ka’hat patched up the wound as best he could, I found a cooking spit and lit a small fire in the bowl. Luckily, the bandits had managed to get their hands on a dwarven bowl, and the heat resistance of the dead race’s metal of choice was legendary. Meanwhile, the clang of metal against metal echoed above us like the spirits of the dead taunting us. The two bandits left must’ve been extremely good fighters. Either that, or Talen-Shei and Ka’zhat found a sweet roll and were fighting over it.
The two of them eventually made it to where we were, and Ka’zhat was in fact holding sweet roll. It turns out the last two bandits were experienced battlemages.
The creaky voice of Malek crept over our small shelter as he asked if they had any books on their bodies. Talen-Shei nodded, left the hold, and came back with a large, yellow, and seemingly ancient book in his hands. A broad smile broke across Malek’s face. “That,” he said, “is a spell tome. For a healing spell.”

I couldn’t believe our luck. Having a basic knowledge of how to use a spell tome, I flipped the book open and read the main passage, at the end of the book. As I read the words, the book literally dissolved in my hands. This was nothing unusual; all spell tomes were destroyed once you read them, but the one I had read when learning my fire magic had burst into flames. This was slightly more... passive.


In no time, thankfully, Malek’s wound was nothing but an annoying scratch. We decided to explore the rest of the ship, as bandits tended to steal shiny things and keep them in plain view. We found a few more spell tomes, a bear pelt, potion ingredients, several amulets, and strangely, a chrome plated mask. It glows. It’s fancy. Fancy things are worth money.

The last place we decided to check was the brig, or ship’s prison. It, unlike the hold we healed Malek in, was open to the full wrath of the outside world. Three cages were in the brig, which was ironically torn in half. The first cage was empty. The second had an unfortunate dead fisherman. The third cage’s occupant was struggling to get to a nearby bit of horker meat. It was a wolf. Bandits often keep wolves in cages to fight for their amusement. The poor thing was so thin I could see it’s ribcage. The five of us were wary though. We’d been attacked by wolves on more than one occasion. I decided that even if the pitiful thing did attack us, death would be a blessing to it; it was close to death anyway.

I opened the cage door. The wolf cautiously poked his head out, examined me, and ran straight toward the dead horker, eating it’s right flipper in two seconds flat. Hoping that it wouldn’t kill us when nourished again, we ran back to our main base, the room where I had left the fire going. At least there we were safe from the elements.

As we entered the room, a might “aaaaaaaah!” echoed through the room as an orc swung a massive, green axe at my head. It missed me by inches. He knocked me over with the butt of the axe, and I fell to the ground. This was obviously some kind of bandit chief. I was on the ground, a very bad position to be in in combat, when he lifted the axe high above my head. It took me a few seconds to realize he was going to execute me... via decapitation.
Suddenly, a brown streak shot through the air straight at the orc and knocked him over. At first I thought it was one of Ka’zhat’s arrows... then I realized it was the wolf. Within seconds, the orc was dead. The wolf had repaid me for letting it live again by letting me live again.


March 6, 1210


The wolf, whom I have decided to keep (he wouldn’t stop following me) and name Lupus (after the first part of his scientific name) and the rest of us, including the horses, are now all circled around the fire in the boat. The storm doesn’t show any signs of letting up, but that’s alright. The eight of us have plenty to eat, and Winterhold is less than a mile away. No doubt after what we’ve discovered out here, Axilmeos will pay a hefty price for what we’ve learned about the Frost Dragons, as I’ve appropriately named them. As I take a look at my six friends surrounding me, I remember that the only reason we survived all this is because we have each other to depend on. And out here, in the dangerous, dragon-infested land of Skyrim, that’s all the better you can get.