We added a few pieces of food to our inventory, filled our waterskins, and headed out the north gate of the fort. This was dangerous, unknown territory for the both of us, but if Captain Carious was still alive, his safe return depended on us finding him. The Dwemer airship, and the Amulet of Infectious Charm would have to wait.

According to the location of the map that we had been shown, Skaal was a small village located just north of a medium-sized lake to the far northern end of Solstheim Island. This lake was fed by a river a short way east of the fort. Since there were no roads or markers here, we decided it would be best to follow the only road here, and that would be the river shown on the map.

A short walk east found us in a heavily-forested area. We could hear the sounds of birds and beasts all around us. Unlike Vvardenfell, while it was cold, this place was alive with creatures.

Laurenna put her hand on my shoulder, and I turned to look at her. She had her finger raised to her lips, then pointed up ahead. There was something there, and quite large, too. We advanced as quietly as the leaves on the forest floor would allow.

What we saw was a large plague bear, a very dangerous beast. Laurenna whispered in my ear that this type of bear is common in her native land of Skyrim, and is known to carry disease quite often, hence the name "plague" bear.

I decided to give some of those enchanted arrows a try. As I pulled back on the bow, the bear stood up on his hind legs, raising itself to full height, and I was very glad I was quite far away from him as I let the arrow fly. The arrow struck it's target dead-on. The bear, injured from both the arrow and the fire-damage spell within the arrow, now charged in my direction, with the full intention of ripping me limb from limb.

Rather than letting the bear make it all the way towards me, I decided to use a spell of God's Fire. The spell hit the bear about 40 yards away from me. Laurenna drew her sword, ready to attack the beast, should it make it all the way towards me, but it wasn't necessary. The spell managed to fry the bear before it got within 5 yards of my location.

Happy with our prize, we decided to keep the pelt for sale later on. We continued east, then south. I saw some items that I wanted to pick for alchemy usage. Belladona berries can be used for making potions to restore magicka. Since I cannot regenerate magicka by resting, I find such ingredients extremely valuable, and collect them whenever I find them.

As I was picking up a bunch of those much-treasured berries, I heard Laurenna draw her sword. A wolf was running to attack us, and right behind it was one of those fryse hags that we had been told about, tossing a nasty spell of some kind right at us. Laurenna took on the wolf, while I stepped in the way of the spell, absorbing it's effect without harm. Using a spell of God's Fire again, that hag went down like a ton of bricks.

Laurenna was a little upset that I didn't let her have the kill, but we were both glad that neither of us ended up with so much as a scratch, as the wolf never even made a dent in her armor.

It was just after we had dealt with that fryse hag that we finally found the river we were looking for. This river actually split Solstheim into two parts, east and west, and the lake we were looking for would put us just south of Skaal.

We looked at the sky, seeing that it was getting late. We knew that there was no way we'd make it all the way up there today, however, we decided to follow the river up for a way and see if there was a clear area where we could camp for the night.

"You know," said Laurenna, "it's almost like being at my Uncle's home near Riverwood. There's a river nearby, lots of trees like these, the air is fresh and crisp. We should visit him sometime!" She smiled.

"Well, let's just see how far up this river we can get before nightfall." I replied. "You can tell me about it tonight after we set up camp."

"You gotta deal." she said.

Within just a few yards of that last conversation, we were confronted with something I hadn't seen since my first visit to Lokken: a berserker, wearing nothing but boots and a wolf helmet ran to attack us both. The person must have been out of her mind: attacking a wizard and a fully armored warrior with nothing but an enchanted dagger. A spell of Medusa's Gaze froze her in mid-stride, and Laurenna put her down quickly.

How odd, I thought. Then again, we had been warned that there were crazy people like this wandering about.

It was getting later in the day, and not wanting to confront these crazy people in the dark, we decided to set up camp for the night.

We started a small campfire, cooking some of the food we had brought with us, and watched the sun set in the west, leaving us to the wild and crazy creatures of the night on this strange island.

As the last glimmer of sunlight faded, and the stars came out to greet us, we headed inside the tent, content to let the creatures of the night have their way with their forest, so long as they didn't disturb our slumber.