The Gweden report, A story of the story of the stories. Options

[ghastley]

Until I complete the other mods, there's not a lot to add to their stories, so I thought I'd tell the tales associated with Gweden while I work on them.

That mod's anything but linear, as you can do the individual quests for most of the girls in any order. That meant I'd have to come up with a narrative that links them all together and creates a sequence. Rather than take the easy way out and describe it all from the Player-character's viewpoint, I thought I'd try a different approach entirely.

So I'm going to write a story, about a reporter writing a story, about the stories of the girls who work at Gweden. They'll tell them to him one at a time, and there will be a bit of extra narrative added beyond what actually happens when you play through each of the quests they're describing.

The Champion is arbitrarily male as before, and of no specific race. Because of the requirements of the mod for some of the quests, he's also the Madgod, Master of the Fighter's Guild, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Arena Champion, and Archmage, although I'll try to play those down as much as possible. All of those things are less important to his employees anyway. He's the boss, and he did something special for each of them, or they wouldn't be there.

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Prologue

"Listen up girls," Tsarrina began. "This one expects you've all heard the news by now. The Oblivion Crisis is over, and the Gates are all closed. Martin Septim is no more, and the Elder Council is running things ."

"Our boss is now the Champion of Cyrodill, and so everything he does is front-page news in the Black Horse Courier. They're sending a reporter down here to do a story about this establishment of his, in the next few days."

"This one doesn't want it to be just another story about the boss. He's getting a bit tired of that himself. This one wants it to be our story. Your story."

"We probably won't make the front page, as it appears they're sending a junior down to do the interviews. But that should work in our favor. He'll be young, and you'll all appreciate that. Especially Juliana. This one wants you to be ready if he's really inexperienced. The rest of you are to make the best impression you can. We can get some really good publicity from this."

"Should we start shopping for new clothes?" asked one of them, hopefully.

"No, you won't be needing those much," Tsarrina chuckled, "but make sure anything you do wear is is the best you have. And by that, this one means the most effective, not the most expensive. Unless it's both. Dark-eyes, get your uniform starched up and crisp. Cybeline, that red velvet number with the plunging neckline that you keep for special occasions. This is a special occasion."

Everyone looked at Prizna. She just laughed, and Tsarrina had to grin, too. "This one does not expect you to start wearing clothes now."

"This one wants you all to be ready to tell him how you came to be here, and what part the boss played in that. It will keep the stories relevant to his assignment, but they'll be about you as much as they are about the Champion."

"We'll make use of the old farmhouse as the interview room. It's nice and cozy in front of the fire there, and we'll put some comfortable chairs either side. We should keep the main rooms in the Lodge open for business. There's no point losing any trade while he's here, after all."

"Will he be staying at the Count's Arms while he's here?", asked Maeva. "I can walk up with him in the mornings if he does."

"No, we'll keep him here at the farm," Tsarrina decided. "He'll use the main bed in the farmhouse, and this one doesn't want him sleeping in it alone! You'll each get a turn to tell him your story. Make sure you also get a turn to show him what you can do."

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Future pieces will have each of the women telling her story of how she came to be at the Gweden Brothel, or the reporter putting the report together. I'll add a postscript article from the Black Horse Courier about Cousin Miranu's miraculous potion at the end, which should take a post or two to cover it. I have most of the stories drafted, as they come straight from the mod itself, but I'm still working on the wrapper narrative, and haven't finalized the sequence of the individual tales yet.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Oct 7 2016, 04:47 PM

[ghastley]

@Acadian: I think it must be because Weedum-Ja is the only one in the camp with a positive attitude. All the others are complaining about how they can't sleep, or the smell.

@Grits: Having two Mythic Dawn sleepers in the same town, and both working at Riverview, was why I decided she'd be the maid there, rather than anywhere else. In actual game play, she can be hired in the time it takes for the player to walk from the Newlands Lodge to Riverview, and she's already sick of the job when you arrive!

And while we're doing tales with tails....

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Shulassa

"I'm sure Tsarrina has told you she think's she's part man or mer. That's because I know my Grandfather was a Nord, and we find a lot of similarities between us," Shulassa told the reporter. "Would you like to hear the whole story?"

The man from the Black Horse Courier told her that he would indeed, and she began.

Like I said, my grandfather was a Nord, and a particularly big and strong one. That was his problem. Everyone wanted to prove themselves by challenging him. He didn't like fighting, even if did do it well, and he came south to get away from it. He settled in Skingrad, which is where he met my grandmother. She'd come north from Elsweyr looking for employment. She thought she might get a job as as a maid in the town, or else picking grapes in the vineyards.

They probably met in a tavern one evening. They both felt like outsiders, and that was all they had in common to start with. Gradually, the two misfits fell in love. Slowly was good, because by the time the moons made grandmother receptive, grandfather knew what to expect. He wore an old leather cuirass that night, and never felt her claws on his back.

By the time it fell apart, years later, the old armor had done its job, and they had a pair of healthy young kits to raise. The older one, my father, was large for a Suthay-raht, and many mistook him for the larger breeds. Obviously a lot of that came from his father. My aunt, in contrast, was small like her mother.

When my father grew up, he took a job as apprentice to a merchant in the Imperial City, which is where he met my mother. When he became a Journeyman, he returned with his wife to Skingrad and opened his own store there. I was born a year later and was their only child. While they struggled to make their business a success, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents .

They were both wonderful story-tellers. Grandfather's tales all took place in a frozen north of ice caves and dragons, with damsels in distress that needed to be rescued. Grandmother's stories were of desert sands, and hidden oases. Her damsels could rescue themselves, and steal the treasure as they left!

Sometimes we all went hunting. Grandmother taught me to be stealthy, not grandfather's strong point, as his great size was hard to hide. But he could chase off bears, so we made a good team. My parents were happy to sell the pelts and meat we brought back, too, so they encouraged my hobby. Before long I was hunting on my own, and earning my keep that way.

The life of a hunter suits the female Khajiit. She's happy to be alone most of each month, and she comes back for company when the moons tell her to. That's when mothers watch out for their daughters, as they have little self-control, especially when they're young and inexperienced. My mother was a bit worried when I seemed much too calm after my hunting trips. It made things easier for her, but was I feeling well? We had that talk, and she discovered I wasn't as innocent as she'd hoped.

What shocked her more was when I'd done it, as her calendar didn't agree. No the dates weren't wrong, I just wasn't as tied to them as she thought I should be. I was more like a Nord than a Khajiit in that respect, a bit of Grandfather coming through.

She felt she had a freak for a daughter, and she wasn't too pleased. So I stayed out hunting for longer and longer periods, returning only when I need to get my equipment repaired. Soon I learned to do that for myself, too. My father was too busy with his shop to notice. Other Khajiiti seemed to agree with my mother. The women all thought I was shameless, being ready all the time. The men weren't happy with the idea of a female who had to be seduced first. They were used to just being in the right place at the right time.

My grandparents were getting old, and pretty soon the bears stopped being afraid of my grandfather. After the funeral, my grandmother moved in with my parents, but she didn't last long without him. Now I really didn't have any reason to go back to town.

When I finally did, I found that my parents too were dead, killed by bandits on a trip into the Imperial City. Someone told me that my mother's cousin S'rathad was looking for me, and he'd be back in town near the end of the month. I stayed around and waited for him, and he gave me a bottle that he said my grandfather wanted me to have. He'd been given it by my aunt when she went south to Elsweyr after my grandparents died, with instructions to pass it on to me when I grew up.

That's when the boss came into my life. He had a reputation around town for helping folks out. Erthor, over at the Mages Guild, had been rescued from zombies at Bleak Flats Cave. And there had been a nest of Vampires just outside town that he'd helped clear out. So everyone suggested I show him the bottle and the note I found inside it.

All the note said was: "In the shed behind the Inn". It didn't say which Inn, or what was supposed to happen there, or anything helpful.

"The bottle itself is another clue," he told me. "It's Tamika's West Weald wine, so I'd bet the shed is the one behind the West Weald Inn." He ran off to look, and soon he was back with another bottle in his hand, just like the one I had. There was a note in that one, too.

Again it just described a location - on a rock by the south wall of the castle. We went there and found another bottle, with another note. "Above the guards' heads in the courtyard." That bottle was on one of the rafters over the walkway.

The next note told us to look on Nestarel's balcony. That house had been locked and uninhabited for years, so he made me wait in the Two Sisters' Lodge while he went for it alone. He didn't want me getting into any trouble if he had to pick the lock to get in. The town watch owed him a couple of favours, so he'd take his chances.

It turned out that the watch wasn't the danger with this one. He found the place full of undead. Zombies, skeletons, and wraiths attacked him when he went in. After that, I stayed behind on all the bottle hunts. The next note said "by the press" and it was in another Tamika's bottle. She had a wine press behind her house in town, but it wasn't that one. The next bottle was out in the vineyard, by the press there.

"Behind the well" wasn't very helpful either. There was a well near the press in the vineyard, so of course he checked that on his way back. No luck. That well was the closest to the press, and the furthest would be the one by the North wall of the city behind Summitmist Manor. I asked if the one we'd seen in the castle wouldn't be more likely, but he said he knew there was nothing there. He was right, of course, and the next note told us to look "near the Tomatoes".

"That capital letter makes me think they're special ones, like Undena Orethi's"

I had to agree that hers were the best, but did that mean in her house, or out where she grew them? We used the same logic as before and decided he'd look outside the city walls for the next bottle.

Except that it wasn't a bottle this time. He found a small box with a plain gold ring in it. No enchantment, nothing special about it at all. I looked more carefully at it, and then I understood. This was my Grandmother's wedding ring! Not valuable, but priceless to me!

I was so happy, I could have burst (except that I'm not a Bosmer). I told him all about my grandparents and their stories, and my childhood in Skingrad. I probably told him a bit more than that, because he noticed that Tsarrina and I had something in common. He told me how she'd come to terms with being more like a human or elf than a Khajiit.

That made a lot more sense than becoming a hermit hunter. I leapt at the chance to join her clan here at Gweden. Apparently, it was a good time to do so, as she was getting swamped with running the business, and didn't have the time for anything else. She always made time for Ma'iq, but he was special.

And as I told you, Khajiiti males don't find me to their taste. I'm more the exotic dish on the menu here., I cater to the adventurous types of all the other races, who want something different. Tsarrina always tells them she'll give them their money back if I use my claws or bite them. And there's Freija here to heal them, if it's really serious. It's hard to keep a straight face when she says that!

He'd abandoned his ideas of professional detachment days ago, and this was the last interview. He let her show him what "something different" meant. The rougher tongue, the surprises she could spring using her tail. He liked different, he decided.