"Ruby, mage of Winterhold."

"...Winterhold? You're a far trek from home indeed."

"Am I? Where, ah, exactly are we?"

"...Markarth."

"What's the date?"

"The 22nd of Last Seed."

What the fuck.

What the actual fuck. What the shit. Holy crap. What??????

How is he in Markarth. How did he get to Markarth overnight. It's three weeks away by horse! What in Dibella's name is going on.

"Was a woman named Sam with me, last night, when I arrived?" he asks, a little bit unsteadily.

She frowns. "No, you were on your own. Oh! And I found this note, I assume it's yours?"

He takes it and reads it.

We need the following to repair the broken staff:

- One giant's toe

- Holy water

- One Hagraven feather

 

Sam

...the broken staff? What broken staff?

What in the name of the Eight and One happened here.

"That, uh, that toe. The big one. Where is it?"

"...it's in the pile of organic trash. Why?"

"Apparently I need it. For, uh, magic reasons."

Mages.

"Well, you're free to take it." Sigh. "Now pray excuse me, I need to attend to my duties."

Ruby puts it away inside one of his expandable pouches and then...

"One last thing, if I may? Where, ah, is Rorikstead?"

She marks it on his map: about five days' ride away from Markarth, to the east.

Map of the Trip

He thanks her, then steps out into the city.

...Markarth is gorgeous. It's an extremely vertical city, beautiful stone architecture carved into the side of the mountains, a river cutting and winding through the city. For some reason he was instinctively expecting something austere and, uh, ugly, just like Winterhold, but no.

He climbs down the steps from the temple to a ground level road and starts looking for a guard.

It's not hard to find one. "Hail, citizen," she says when he walks up to her. "How can I help you?"

...huh. Her uniform is—it would not be out of place in the College, just like the priestess's wouldn't. She's not naked but there's a lot more skin showing than nonmages ever do, there.

It's probably the weather? Markarth isn't a tropical city but he doesn't need Wolfskin here.

"Hi! I'm afraid I'm not a citizen of Markarth, I'm visiting. Could you give me a five-minute overview of the main places of interest in the city? Inns and shops and the like."

"—sure."

The verticality of the city works well, here: she can just straightforwardly point to the places she mentions. There's the jarl's keep, there's the market, there's the inn, there's the blacksmith, there's the communal baths.

Ruby thanks her and makes his way to the market. In his drunken stupour he ended up never grabbing the food he was meant to bring with him on this trip so he needs to restock.

(Other people in the city are also dressed in immodest ways, he observes. He wonders if Onmund generalised from his local experience too much, when he said Nords have nudity taboos? He does come from a small farm in northern Skyrim, perhaps that by itself would explain it.)

And then he needs to... think.

The trip was meant to be about three weeks long, tops, but more like two if he had been at all smart about it, which he had in fact wanted to be. Now he's three weeks away from Winterhold if he rides back at a trot and runs into no trouble on the way, and that's not counting trying to figure out whatever the fuck happened with Sam and... a broken staff? He really has no idea what this is all about.

So, what he's going to do is hire a courier to go to Stonehills and inform the customer that the sword's delivery will be delayed (a note of confusion: why does someone in a small mining town want an enchanted sword?) and then to Winterhold to let them know he's run into some trouble and will take longer to get back. Not that they really care, probably, they seemed pretty nonchalant about the Apprentices that actually died to a Daedroth, but it's the principle of the thing.

That decided, then, he asks a guard for the local courier office and hires someone.

And then it's time to ride. He definitely doesn't have enough Scrolls of Conjure Ethereal Horse to last him the whole journey, now, so he'll need to actually learn the spell, but he was planning on doing that anyway. He leaves Markarth, summons his ghostly mount, and sets off.

He follows the main road southeast and rides for most of the day. When the sun is setting he slows down and looks for somewhere to set up camp for the night. He spots a shrine to Dibella, which seems as good a spot as any, so he grabs a tent from his satchel and sets it up. Then he steps into the tent, grabs the Ethereal Horse book, and gets back to studying.

(Man, what the fuck happened, he rode all day and hasn't even gotten to Rorikstead yet, how did he get to Markarth from Winterhold in one night. Something real funky is going on, here, and he bets Sam Guevenne is at the heart of it.)

The following two days are spent on horseback, and when he gets to Rorikstead it's already dark, so rather than investigate he just goes to the inn to spend the night.

Fortunately(?) that, itself, turns out to be the right move investigation-wise.

"You!" exclaims a man as soon as he walks into the inn.