Now wearing warmer gear, Laurenna and I headed further north to our next destination: The Water Stone. It was a bit unclear on the map exactly where it was. All I could see was that it was near the end of a mountain range to the northwest side of Solstheim.

Near the edge of a river we were suddenly attacked by a lone Rickling.

I decided to put the odds in our favor and used my Clanfear Ring to call one up. It certainly helped get rid of the little pest.

Suddenly, Laurenna put her hand on my shoulder and raised a finger to her lips. She then pointed to a spot a short distance ahead of us. The clanfear, sensing what was up ahead, directed its gaze at what we had already seen, and I heard a low growl emanate from it's throat. It was a group of Ricklings - a rather large number of them, too.

I got rid of the clanfear and told Laurenna to stay put.

Using the Amulet of Shadows, I got within a few yards of the group.

I then fired up a Wall of Fire spell right at my current location as the Shadow spell wore off.

Quickly, I started running backwards, setting off two more Wall spells as the Ricklings charged me.

The ones furthest away hit the first wall, while the others managed to run into the second and third walls.

Using a levitation spell, I put myself out of harm's way, landing on a rock.

From there, it was fun just watching these vicious little scamps try to get around these walls of fire, eventually burning themselves in it.

After making sure we hadn't missed any of them, we continued north, along a mountain side. There was a blizzard brewing, but we knew there wasn't anything we could do about it. Just as the blizzard hit, we came across a most unusual site. It was a ship, but a long, long way from any body of water.

Suddenly, we could see Dwemer equipment on the deck and scattered around the area. This had to be the airship that Louis Beauchamp had built. It was the ship we were originally up here looking for.

"It certainly doesn't look like they landed this thing very well." noted Laurenna. I agreed with her. Based on the fact that most of the pipes and running equipment were several yards away from the ship, it appears that they landed pretty hard.

We checked around the bottom of the ship and found a few dead bodies, crewmembers, obviously, all frozen to death.

As we rounded the stern of the vessel, I noticed a snowwolf near a couple of crates. It appeared to be eating something.

Suddenly, I realized it was eating the body of one of the crewmembers.

I used the Ring of Weapons, and the snowwolf, now aware of my presence, turned to attack.

It was no match for my broadsword, and the animal was quickly brought down.

Quickly, we raced to the side of this crewmember, only to find that he, too, had died from exposure to the freezing cold her. From the look of his clothing, he seemed to have a rank. There was a book nearby. In checking it out, I found out that this was the body of the captain of the vessel.

It appears that the crew had problems right after taking off from Ald'Ruhn, with pieces of the ship falling off here and there along the way. One of their crew even went crazy, attempting to crash the ship into the sea. Unfortunately, the captain had to kill him to prevent that from happening. Another entry in the journal shows that they actually located Hrothmund's Bane, the location of this amulet that Beauchamp seemed to need so badly. The next entry said that when trying to set the ship down, they were hit by a terrible blizzard, causing them to eventually crash on this hillside, the ship coming apart at the seams.

Two more entries indicated most of his crew died in the crash, and those that didn't froze to death shortly after, the final entry indicating he could see a wolf coming towards him.

We tried checking the deck of the ship but there was nothing of use there.

Louis Beauchamp's great experimental flying ship was a total loss. Chalk it up to poor planning, poor construction, and poor enchanting.

I decided that we'd take the captain's journal with us and try to find this amulet anyway. First, however, we still had to find the Water Stone, and the blizzard wasn't helping.

"What about this mountain?" asked Laurenna. "Is it on your map?"

I checked, but no mountains were marked or named, just vague outlines.

"Not sure." I replied. "Let's try going up the side here, then head a bit to the north and see what happens."

A few yards north of the ship, three more Ricklings came to attack. I evened the odds with a clanfear, but even so, it was still difficult to take them down.

Ice, ice, and more ice. Ice mountains. Ice rivers, Ice-covered rocks. And Ricklings, of course.

Naturally, no Water Stone in sight.