Northbound Pilgrimage II

The upcoming expedition was starting to get kind of exciting.

Bishop and Aeyrin hadn't gone on a proper dungeon delving ever since their time in Hjaalmarch when they were killing the days, waiting for their Brotherhood trap to spring. Bishop had been incapacitated ever since then, but it seemed like Colette's treatment did make things better. He regained a lot of his mobility and precision, though he was surprisingly dutiful about not straining his arm too much yet. He likely didn't want to prolong this ordeal a second longer.

By now, he wasn't even teasing and interrupting Aeyrin when she continued the treatment.

After three days spent at the College, they finally left. According to Colette, it wouldn't take longer than five days for Bishop to fully recover, unless he got wounded again, so they decided to start making preparations for their Dwemer adventures already.

First of all, they needed to stock up on supplies. Really stock up.

They had no idea how long they could be stuck underground without other opportunities and they were determined to disregard the funds and buy as many supplies as they could. Who cared if it cost them all they had? They would take as many treasures back from the depths as possible. Surely without the key, nobody had a chance to plunder the crossroads yet.

They discussed where to stock up for a while. Winterhold wasn't exactly ideal for restocking, since it was mostly a glorified village outside of the College. And the College goods were all needlessly expensive. They expected to splurge, but they didn't have to be stupid about it.

From the nearby options, their best bets were Windhelm again or Morthal.

In the end, the two of them agreed on Morthal. They were in Windhelm very recently and besides, it was a pretty good idea to take the northern paths around Alftand itself to check out the surroundings and their best approach. Besides, in Morthal, they would likely not be delayed or tempted to drink their night away with some welcoming elves.

They really did spend almost all their money in the town. They bought a ton of rations, counting on the fact that they might not be able to cook anything for a while, they bought plenty of healing and magicka potions, soul gems to recharge their weapons, and they had their equipment properly checked and fixed up at the forge.

They were all set and the next day, after spending a calm evening at the Moorside Inn again, they headed out to the northern shores to camp in the wilderness until they went inside the ruins. Much to Aeyrin's dismay, Bishop said that the cold felt better on his arm. It made sense. Natural Nordic regeneration was known to do better in colder environments. It was still an unwelcoming prospect for her though.

But Bishop did promise to warm her up anytime she needed.

And she did take him up on that offer a lot.

In the end, they spent four more days traveling around the shores of the Sea of Ghosts – leaving them with plenty of time for Bishop's full recovery. They slept in various caverns around, both to retain some warmth through the night and to stay in a different place each day for security's sake.

The last day they agreed to spend outside, before they finally delved deep beneath the earth, they camped right next to Alftand – up on a glacier with golden domes peeking from below inside an enormous crevice in the earth. The ruins of the ancient city lay right there, almost hidden by all the ice and snow around them.

Despite the freezing cold, it was rather nice. They hunted some horkers during the day – even Aeyrin managed to hunt those – and so they had very good dinner prospects for days to come. It was a welcome change after all those rabbits before. And Bishop's arm felt completely back to its original state by now. He was looking forward to utilizing it with his bow soon.