—4E, 201, Last Seed, 24th, 10:00 a.m.

Collier has been Lord of Winterhold for thirty years, and has experienced first-hand the "Great Collapse" that destroyed almost all of Winterhold, and the subsequent Stormcloak Rebellion.

In the battle between the Empire and the Stormcloak, her position was supposed to be hot, and both the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloak had to curry favor with her, the lord in a strategic position on both sides, but the collapse made this impossible, and with the loss of the port, Winterhold also lost its strategic significance, and the location of the northern confrontation between the two sides was moved west to Morningstar, which also had a port.

Now, with the inhabitants of the old land who are nostalgic for the old land and want to ask the mage academy for an explanation are leaving one after another due to the inconvenience of life, the population she has at her disposal as a lord is not even comparable to that of the more affluent villages.

Eventually, Collier declared his support for the Stormcloak in the civil war in exchange for material support from the geographically located city of Windhelm, but the Imperial Legion did not react at all, not even a letter reprimanding the lords who supported the rebels.

She was very unhappy with the mage academy that caused this result, but most of Winterhold's income had to be maintained by the consumption of those mages and admirers, and there was no evidence that Winterhold had anything to do with the Great Collapse, so she could only barely make ends meet while trying to find a way out.

"Aunt Lord~Open the door~I know you're at home~"

Hearing the call from the door, Collier couldn't help but turn dark, and motioned to the guard next to him to open the door and let people in.

The one who called the door should be Zela Pesh, a Nord girl born and raised in Wintercastle, she was only three or four years old at the time, she was found in the ruins by guards after the Great Collapse, she had a rudimentary talent for magic, she may have been brought by her parents to study at the Mage Academy, she didn't know what happened and was abandoned here, perhaps because the Mage Academy's methods of evacuating the crowd were too rough and separated, but no one has come to look for her relatives for many years.

The girl was adopted by Harlan and Dagul of the Frozen Forge Inn, and when she was young, she said that she wanted to learn magic to find her biological parents, but as she grew older, she stopped mentioning it when she understood the situation, and not long ago took the entrance exam for the Mage Academy and successfully passed.

A few days ago, the Mage Academy unearthed a huge green orb in Sattar, and when it was transferred to the inside of the Academy, it attracted a lot of onlookers from the residents of Winterhold, and then the mages seemed to be focused on parsing the thing and had no time to teach, and Zela, who had just become a mage apprentice, ran out to play again.

Of course, the apparent reason is that she wants to recover some rare books for the academy's library, but it is too exaggerated for her to ask almost everyone in Wintercastle, although she has learned many specious book clues, but more of them are all kinds of trivial commissions, because she can't contact her comrades, Collier's guards can't leave the guard without permission, and in the end they were all solved by Zela, and the residents even began to call her "Little Lord".

Finally, after the inhabitants had no worries or commissions for a while, she set her sights on herself as a lord, and Collier directly issued her the impossible task of "finding the 'Crown of Winterholder'".

"Winterhold Crown" is as its name suggests, it is the lord's crown worn by the lords of the previous dynasties, originally the lords of Skyrim Province were only allowed to wear forehead ornaments, but only Wintercastle was an exception, a Winterhold Lord several generations ago with his strong personal charm and skill, replaced the Lord of Dugu City to become the supreme king of Skyrim Province, this crown was cast at that time, although the successive city lords after that have not been so brilliant, but just putting it there also has an inspiring effect - unfortunately this crown and the Great Collapse are missing.

According to speculation, it may have slipped into the sea of the dead along with the collapsed part, and there is also a chance that the ruins that are still in the collapsed position will be buried, and it may also be brought into the lair by some monsters who love to collect treasures, if you want to find it, in the absence of any clues, I am afraid it will take at least half a year to initially narrow down the scope -

"Aunt Lord~I've found the 'crown' you want~" After the guard opened the door, the Zela people arrived before they could make a sound, and the content of the shout - if Collier was drinking water, it would definitely spew out.

"This girl ......" Collier was shocked and had already stood up, and it was not good to sit back at this time, so he shook his head and went to the door, ready to knock the lawless girl who was neither big nor small.

The door of the lord's longhouse opened, and a cold wind blew in the snowflakes, and Collier squinted slightly, and saw a swaggering, blonde girl stepping through the door, wearing a golden crown, a silver-blue skirt, and a wide dark blue plush cloak fluttering in the wind behind her, whose royal spirit was far greater than that of any lord Collier had ever seen.

"You-" Collier had just opened his mouth when the door to the longhouse was closed, and there was no kingly woman in front of him, but a Nord girl who was shaking off the snowflakes from her mage's robes, and the old woman beside her, wearing a thick cloth skirt, with a kind face and snow-white hair, revealing a deep tired look.

"—Lady Larina!" Collier perfectly picked up the previous gaffe, but the shock in his heart did not decrease: "You are still alive!" We thought ......"

Larina Frewint, a descendant of the original High King of Winterhold, her family has lived in Winterhold for generations, and is also responsible for the custody of the "Winterhold Crown", if any Winterhold Lord becomes the High King of Skyrim again, she will be responsible for crowning him, Lady Larina disappeared with the crown during the Great Collapse, and everyone thought she died to protect the crown.

"Oh, Kreel, I think you're looking for this." The old woman took out a silver-white crown from the package she was holding and handed it to the lord, it was silvery white and had three distinct tips, but the middle of the tip was in the shape of a tangled rope, exactly like the pattern on the mark of the town of Winterhold.

"Kreel?" Zerapesh shook off the snow and looked at the female lord, who was nearly half a hundred years old, with a strange gaze.

"You'd better keep it yourself," Lord Collier ignored the Nord Maiden's gaze and fixed his gaze at Lady Larina, "I don't think I'm qualified to wear it, even if I have it." ”

"Well, that's true, you don't want to see it until the civil war in Skyrim Province is over." The old woman muttered, and put the crown away again.

In this civil war, Winterhold chose to support Stormcloak, but it didn't make much political sense, and the Mage Academy didn't support it behind closed doors, let alone the economy, so the two sides didn't have troops near Winterhold at all.

But if the news of her possession of the Winterhold Crown spreads, it would not have been a righteous one, but the Storm Cloak, which was fighting to restore the faith of Talos, would definitely use it, and maybe she would be the second High King to fight against Toig in Dugu City, in that case, this civil war would never end easily, and even if one side was completely defeated, the question of which city's High King was orthodox would become a new trigger for civil war.

"How have you spent all these years? What's next? Collier asked.

"I'm going to move to the Mage Academy," Lady Larina patted Zerapes, who was standing aside and her eyes turned to the shoulder, as if she was thinking about Collier's real name, "just take care of her nearby." ”

"Grandma Larina was kidnapped by a group of scavengers, in a place called the 'Autumn Elf Cave', where those guys have been scavenging through the rubble of the Great Collapse and forcing her to do their laundry and cook," Zela chimed in, "For the sake of them not hurting her, I just tied them up, and if you got there in time, they wouldn't have frozen into ice." ”

Auntie and grandma or something, it's really easy to call...... Collier thought back to the strange name of the cave, and with some difficulty remembered where it was, at the foot of a snow-capped mountain southwest of Winterhold, in a snow-covered white ground, but warm as ...... In Autumn, its discoverers named it the "Autumn Elf" cave, but the lord naturally could not send troops to guard a worthless cave just because of this, so it was quickly occupied by various bandits, and it is said that there were many fires in order to grab the territory.

And in the end, the one who can occupy it is naturally the winner of the nearby bandit gang Fire, although Xiao Zela herself is very talented in magic, but she has only studied in the mage academy for a few days, it is completely impossible to clean up the robbers in the cave alone, there must be a mentor to help, plus Ms. Larina plans to live in the academy, which proves this.

Speaking of which...... There are a few elderly mages in the Mage Academy......

"If you need anything, please don't hesitate to mention it, although Wintercastle is not in good shape right now, it is no problem to have some household items for you." Conscious of discovering something, Collier said to Larina, glancing sideways at Zela.

"Oh, Aunt Lord Kreel, she is the 'Guardian of the Crown', the Mage Academy does not dare to slack off, but you, give me the reward quickly." Zela's eyes were fixed on Collier's back.

"Don't think I didn't hear the tone you deliberately changed." The female lord snorted, walked back to her seat, and removed a two-handed sword from the weapon rack on the wall.

Since Lord Collier is not from a civilian background, he is also very stable with a two-handed sword.

She turned around and gently rested the blade of her sword on the shoulder of the Nord girl who bowed her head slightly, and said, "In my capacity as Lord of Winterhold, I declare that Zela Pesh is appointed as Baron of Winterhold, and that he will be given the 'Blade of Winterhold', which will have all the powers except for the duties of a lord. ”

"It's a great honor~" The girl replied halfway through and her tone began to drift again.

However, what exactly is the "lord's duty" is not up to the final word? Collier thought as he looked at Zerapes, who was picking up his two-handed sword and offering his treasure to Larina.