The Premise
Skyrim is a vast sprawling game, you can pretty much do anything you want, so I decided to live in Skyrim, to see how an old man coped with the harsh environment and bizarre folk that inhabit this land. This is my tale!

The Rules
80 year old man in Skyrim.
Only doing what an average 80 year old can do.
No constantly running, using shouts (special powerful magics), magic or fast travel.
No murder or stealing or anything unethical, should always try to run away from a fight.
Read part ten here – https://radiothax.com/2013/11/05/old-man-in-skyrim-part-10/

Previously on ‘An old man in Skyrim’
My only friend and protector is locked in mortal combat with two giant mammoths, I can’t stop him fighting them but they cant kill him, he’s stuck in an endless loop of violence.  I had two choices kill both mammoths and their giant protector or abandon Meeko forever, leaving him to fight for ever!

The story continues….

There is no way on earth or Skyrim I could kill both mammoths and the giant, if Meeko can’t do any damage to it, what chance do I have?

I have to apply some cold hard clinical logic here, I do the only logical thing I can do!

I make camp 20 meters away from the mammoths, it takes 3 days but eventually Meeko snaps out of his blood lust and comes running back to me. Tears fill my old eyes are he jumps into my arms, he is weak and shaking, I take him into my tent and feed him the last of our meat and wrap him up warm while he sleeps. Silly boy, had me scared there!

Day 17
Meeko is once again by my side and we continue our journey. Ahead I see a group of three humans, my heart leaps for a second, I think it’s my original drinking buddies, but it can’t be them, they were beaten to death in front of my eyes. I sneak up close to the new possible new chums, It’s the wedding party! My silent grumpy friends! I re-join them, they totally ignore me, just like old times. Soon the guard disappears again, like last time, I stick with the husband and wife, maybe the guard needed a plop.

Minutes later the guard re-joins us, and we continue our slow walk. I’d forgotten just how slowly they walk, I’m 80 and I don’t go this slow, even when I was freezing to death I walked faster than them! We reach the point in the road where I had killed two wolves, the couple stop and look at the wolves then at me, it clearly dawns on them what I am capable of, fear fills their blank faces and they continue on their walk, but now I think they have slightly more respect for me, more respect and a lot more disdain, if that were possible.

Then our path intersects with the happy group of prisoners and guards I met before near solitude, they harvest meat from the dead elk, I knew it would belong to someone! The two groups pass without a word!

The our journey comes to the section I was most afraid of, we’re going passed the fort!
Suddenly there is a deafening noise, a roaring, I look up, fire is filling the sky, smoke and flames tearing over my head, I’m sure I hear a loud scream, then a ball of fire, smoke and light come crashing down out of the sky onto a nearby house, reducing it to a chard burning mess of wood and debris.

I cannot wait for the wedding party to slowly amble over, I rush ahead (read, walk slightly faster than snail pace) and investigate! I make it to the house, no one from the fort has come out to have a look, there is a pit in the fire place with a twitching white sphere in it, it’s talking! It’s obsessed with ‘space’, there’s lots of space all around, what could it mean? It has an orange glowing eye as if fire has been captured and held within a metallic white sphere. I carry it out of the burning building and show it all the space around, then all our eyes fall upon this huge structure! What is it? Where have we come?