On the morning of the second day, I left the Hall of the Dead and walked through the Golden Tree Square in the Wind District to the entrance of the Cloud District. As the lord's residence, Longxiao Palace is the only building in the Cloud District.

Perhaps because of the limitations of the mountains and its location in the hinterland, from the perspective I was in, Longxiao Palace didn't look as domineering as its name. A narrow staircase zigzags up the water flowing down from the top of the mountain, leading to the top of the hill, in front of the main gate of Longxiao Palace.

Andalls' letter of recommendation saved me a lot of steps to meet directly with the head of the dragon slayer, the lord guard Ireles. A guard entered the door to announce my arrival, and I leaned against the guardrail of the promenade in front of the door, preparing for the negotiation that was about to come.

……

"Flying Freely, Under the Moon?"

The other party pronounced my name in a confused tone. Not only him, but I also felt weird when I was called by my full name for the first time. Well, for the most part, people will only use the last two words, don't think too much, and to hell with the couple driving around a rented Ferrari!

"A nondescript name with a mixture of Nord and Tiger styles is used on the Brightons, and your pseudonym is very unprofessional. The Imperial Legion actually gave you a pass like this...... What a bunch of rice buckets. But I don't care about that, I just want to see if your abilities will help me. ”

The guards led me to the main porch of Longxiao Palace, an open-air square with a mountain as the base, the palace as the back, and the two sides sandwiched by the city walls, overlooking the snow-covered plain. Lord Guard Irelais is a female dark elf, and a simple and exquisitely crafted leather armor wears on her body, making her look shrewd and capable. She has a one-handed sword sparkling with flames pinned to her waist - the dark elves are said to have a natural affinity for fire.

After revealing the flaws in my pseudonym, the Dark Elves continued to comment on me: "The priest of Akai wrote a letter for this rare occasion, and I gave it to Fariga Secret Fire. The evaluation of a spellcaster should be up to him, but I also have my own bottom line. Ireles pulled his one-handed sword out of its scabbard, a fiery red visual around the blade, "At least you'll want to show your strength in a way I can understand." You make the first move. ”

What？ Let me play a fighter?

"Hurry up, three, two, one......"

Just as I was at a loss, the dark elf waved his hand inadvertently, and suddenly something flew in my ear, and the left side of my hair seemed to be pulled down. I followed the movement and turned my head sideways, a strand of hair slowly falling in the air, and the next sound of metal falling to the ground told me it was a dagger.

"Pretty calm, or did you just have no time to react?" Ireles pulled out a second dagger in his left hand, without a sword, and stared at me playfully.

"Wait! I'm not a combat mage, I'm good at illusion magic, and this kind of assessment is unfair to me! ”

"No one cares if it's fair on the battlefield, especially if we're going to face a brutal dragon." Unmoved by me, Ireles threw a second dagger without hesitation. Fortunately, her mercy allowed me to clearly see the whole process of the dagger throwing, so that I had time to react to dodge.

I threw myself on the ground, struggling to move away from the dagger's trajectory. Theoretically, I can dodge the bullet by just five centimeters to the side, but not making a big move would make me feel very insecure.

"Hehe, dodging a small dagger with such a big move, are you laughing at my attack?" The Dark Elf Imperial Sister didn't know what I was thinking, and she pulled out a third dagger.

It's abominable, it's tolerable to be embarrassed, but it's unforgivable if it's taken by the reader as a petty injury. I quickly got up from the ground, patted the dust off my body, and decided to use the only offensive tactic I had at the moment to give her some color.

“Fus－Ro－Dah！”

"Smack!"

The dark elf didn't expect me to use this form of attack, and the dagger in his hand was shaken off, and it rolled on the ground another four or five meters under the impetus of my roar.

"You even learned the dragon's roar from Graybeard? For a Brightoner, your experience is legendary. But compared to the dragon's roar I remember, your voice is like a cat's meow. ”

"That's enough, if I let out a dragon's roar with all my might, it's enough to shatter the gates of the plaza to pieces, but I'll also be weak for a while from trying my best. I don't want to waste my energy on something like this. Seeing that Irelis was about to pull out his fourth dagger after reacting from the roar just now, I quickly blew a cowhide in an awe-inspiring and unyielding tone.

The dark elf, lacking any knowledge of the Nord's roar, hesitated and shoved half of her dagger back into her waist.

"Okay, you've got it."

……

"Mr. Tsukishita, Lord Farenga Secret Fire wants to see you, please come with me." A guard rescued me from the clutches of the dark elves, and I said goodbye to Ireles with grace, and hastened back to the palace with the soldiers.

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

It seemed to be a chemistry lab, with several workbenches on one side of the room from which I recognized some of the tools used for distillation and extraction. On the other side of the room was a door, behind which a small library was recognizable through the half-concealed crack. In addition, there are cabinets, screens, maps and other miscellaneous items in the room.

A gray-blue man in a cloth robe sits at a desk flipping through a book. His facial features were not easily recognizable under the hood, but there was no doubt that he was the lord's advisor, Fariga Secret Fire. This is probably the first mage I've ever met in Snowman? Putting aside my curiosity about him for now, I first made my intentions clear to him.

"Hello, I am a scholar and adventurer from High Rock recommended by Andols, is your Excellency the magic advisor of Lord Barguf the Great Shore, Farenga Secret Fire?"

"That's right. It looks like you've been treated unfairly with Ireles, and I apologize. "Farenga took out a letter from under his desk, a letter of recommendation from Andols, and guided me to a screen with a map on it, explaining to me the current situation.

"I have read Andalls's letter of recommendation, I trust him, and it seems to him that your magic will be of great help to us. I don't have much time, so let's get straight to the point. The dragon has appeared here, here, and here in the past few days, causing a series of destruction and killing. It is very mobile, and whenever the troops get the news and rush to support, all we are left with is a scorched earth. These days, the lord has hired many people to search the territory for the dragon's lair, but to no avail. ”

"You mean I can find the dragon's lair?" The description of the court mage puzzled me, I don't remember that I had this ability in me.

"Precisely, using you to find indirectly. I flipped through the ancient collection of books in Longxiao Palace and got a clue that might be useful. You've been to the Temple of Coldfall, built by the Grunods, perhaps dating back to the time of the Dragon Wars, as a meeting place and burial place for ancient dragon worshippers. It is said that in order to continue serving the dragons after death, they were buried with them on a stone tablet that recorded the location of the dragons' nests or burial grounds......"

I remembered that the dragon language wall in the cold secret room was written "A dead man sleeps here to protect the dragon stone", and at that time I was still wondering why it was written "dragon stone" instead of "dragon language wall". It's just that I didn't find any information about the slate, and Musk didn't mention it, and the biggest possibility is that it was placed in the ebony coffin of the ghoul lord.

"I see, this slate should be there. You want me to sneak into the Temple of Coldfall and take it out? ”

"It's a shame you didn't bring it out the first time you went. The lord has been running to ask me about my progress these days, and I can finally make him stop for a while. ”

"The tablet is guarded by a ghoul lord, I can't get it alone, and I need some help."

"What do you mean......"

"I need a group of men who I can take with me to the deepest part of the temple and grab the slabs by force. Can you give me a group of helpers who can defeat the Ghoul Lord? ”

"Oh, it's just a stupid corpse, I'll let Ireles deal with it...... Don't be nervous, the lord's guards won't leave the lord's side easily. ”

……

"Can I ask some more about it?"

"If there's anything you don't understand, just ask."

"What did you just mean by the Dragon War? I want to know. ”

"Dragons and dragon wars are only recorded in books. After the events in Helgen, I began to gather information about the dragon. A long, long time ago, probably at the beginning of the First Age or even earlier, dragons were worshipped as gods by the Nords. There are still many huge ruins in various places, most of which are temples dedicated to dragons...... At some point, the Nords rebelled against the dragons, and eventually they overthrew them. However, there are still some dragons that survived the Dragon Wars and were active in various historical periods, such as the palace that was built to suppress a dragon. With the rise of the Dragon-Slaying Blade, the dragon has finally disappeared and is now back in our realm...... Maybe a friend of mine knows better, but I don't know when she'll contact me. ”

A court mage doesn't seem to have much more information than I do, so I'd better ask something else.

"Can I ask about anything else?"

"If you're talking about pay, go to Provantus Avinsi." The court mage put the books on the table into the drawers and prepared to leave.

"Uh...... We'll talk about the remuneration and other things after they're done. Can I take the liberty of asking you a question? ”

"Oh?"

"Xue Man is the first city I settled in after coming to Skyrim from High Rock, besides the priest, you are the first mage I have seen in Skyrim Province, I know that this is presumptuous, but I am curious about it......"

I think I had the experience of being asked a similar question, but Fa Renga interrupted me: "Well, to satisfy your curiosity, I'll give you a brief explanation. To be precise, I'm a court mage and a magic advisor, although my field of study is heavily weighted by alchemy and enchantment. If there is an unknown threat to the realm, I will explain it to the lord and propose a solution. Hopefully, this answer satisfies you, and if that's not enough, you can learn more about it at the Academy of Magic in Winterhold. ”

"Xie Lu Xie...... Another question, I felt a kind of opposition when I came to Snow City - I'm sure you also understand the feud between the two families. Which side do you think I should prefer? ”

"You're also a mage, don't you find this question boring? If it were me, I wouldn't care who my employer was as long as my research was going well. Don't ask me any more of these sore questions, come with me to the lord first. ”

……

"Those mercenaries are of no use! We must mobilize our troops to carpet search the territory so that we can discover the dragon's hiding place sooner. "This is the suggestion of the female dark elf Ireles.

"I think we should wait and see what happens. Mobilizing a large number of troops now will make the lords of Phocles mistakenly think that we have taken refuge in the Stormcloak and are preparing to attack them, not to mention that we can't let those people get paid for nothing to do......" Another dissuasion was the lord's chief of internal affairs, Provantus Avensi, who Farenga asked me to get paid for in the future.

"Can't hesitate any longer! There's a dragon out there burning my territory and slaughtering my people, and I'm not going to stand idly by, so I'll ...... now."

"Rest easy, my lord. I have good news for you, we will know the dragon's hideout in three days. "Farenga led me to the antechamber of the palace and interrupted the conversation between the lord and his butler's guard.

……

"This is really a significant development, Farenga, and I was about to give a slightly reckless order."

In the empty hall with stone walls and wooden roofs, a middle-aged Nord man with golden hair and beard rose from his throne, a ruby crown on his forehead and a majestic and ornate attire to indicate his identity - Balgulf, the mighty Shoreman of the Lord of Snowman, a descendant of the ancient Nord hero Olaf the One-Eyed.

=============== the author's words ===============

In 4E201, on the 24th of Lastseed, the protagonist came to the Longxiao Palace to meet the lord.