THE UNKNOWN JOURNAL OF ANDRE LABOUCHE
By: Adoring Freak 

It’s that time again; the wretched and harrowing path that leads northward to Dive Rock from Bruma must be followed. 
No sense in making a fuss about it, I’ve got enough rope to tie a troll or lasso an ogre. Not that I’m any good at 
that fighting stuff, I try to keep to the rock ledges. My hands always seem to grasp onto a ledge automatically, I 
just can’t help it. Something I’ll never understand is how every time I lunge for that snow shelf, or even just flail
blindly for something to cling to, my fingers lock into the crannies and nooks like keys, maneuvering over and across 
various rock faces. My hands are as calloused as stone, I’m no “Soft-Breton-Spell-Hands” in case you were wondering. 
I’m the kind that loves climbing about, discovering new heights and buying daedric daggers in large abundance to 
serve as handholds. Once a hooded man in black asked if I wished to “traverse into the path of Sithis”, but I said 
I’d rather traverse across the ancient “strongholds” that tower over Bruma and divide Cyrodiil and Skyrim. I’m guessing 
he was one of those brotherhood associates whose occupation lay in... treachery. I didn’t care what vendetta he wanted 
to fulfill with the daggers I bought; they’re good ice picks and I’ve got a vendetta against Dive Rock. I’ve always been 
quite the acrobat, flipping and leaping whenever I go to the store. Bruma’s full of stuffy and unacquainted Nords. 
I hate their jokes like a plague... “How ‘bout you put those daggers to good use and learn how to fight, bastard?” and 
“Hey Skinny Limbs, where’s your guide?” No, wait, that last one was from an Imperial when I was leaving the North Gate. 
I don’t want to leave out South, there’s a stupid Nord who shoots at anything and anyone in her way. Or so rumors and 
dead horse bodies say. It’s no use complaining, however, I didn’t encounter her; my journey to the climb site was generally 
safe. Two guards shooting at one another was quite a sight, but I had to be on my way - adventure awaited. From the foot of 
the mountain nearby a camp, I let the negotiation between the ice wall and my magical hands and feet begin. I could just feel 
the dizziness taking over me as I got higher… five feet whizzed by, ten feet eventually came. The bones in my body were only 
support, but the determination was what drove me forth. For novelty, I decided to carve “Andre L” into a rock face about fifteen 
feet up.

 
At twenty-five feet, I decided to make camp. Not very high at all, but I had spent the entire day just getting there. That involved 
some other climbing as well. Before I had left, my daughter had found me in Bruma (me and my wife used to live in Chorrol, another 
good place for climbing.) She gave me a note, her face was too grim to say anything, but her eyes bulged out too much to keep in 
the tears. She wrote how worried she was about me. Maybe I left my wife for the climb, maybe I left her because sex wasn’t as fun anymore. 
Akatosh, I’m a bad man who deserves the worst. First a pervert, now a stereotypical Breton. We’re supposed to be better than the 
other races, not just as bad! But anyways, Chorrol... far too many beasts, if you ask me. The brutish ogres and the troublesome bandits. 
The roguish marauders and the gruesome undead. Hideous, they were all hideous! We’ve still got ogres in Bruma, but Bandits and 
Marauders don’t get many stragglers in the cold and most undead are so thin that they freeze over. They’re pests, though. Usually
 around the bottom of the numerous walls of stone and snow, you can get sheets of ice filling in jagged holes. Sometimes, tunnels. 
Sometimes, caves. All the time, zombie arms unthawed by me climbing over them reach out for my flesh and try to make their way through. 
Why there are corpses up about fifty feet not only bugs me, but it worries me. It seems the purge of necromancy is still evident when 
hundreds of feet off the loose and unstable graveyard soil. Maybe a battle, or there are Necromancers in the caverns? I don’t stick around. 
That didn’t happen much around Dive Rock, anyway, as I climbed. I confess, I was a fool for my wife, or at least the prospect of climbing the 
now narrowing giant of a rock was more important. I left her in Chorrol, she wasn’t extremely supportive of my climbing anyway. Maybe I’ll meet up 
with another wife… perhaps a beautiful dark elven woman, who also has a love for climbing. That’ll be the day though. It’s very unlikely to find 
one of those up here. I’m around eighty feet right now. The air can get as thin as it wants to, because I’m not stopping. I don’t think I can, 
I borrowed some potions from the mages guild to help me out. I don’t know any magic, but I joined the Mages Guild so I could borrow a concoction 
or two. It’s getting pretty hard to see, there haven’t been any storms but looking upward, all I can see is flat snow. It’s going to be hard to 
climb in the morning. I’m done for right now. Nighty night, Akatosh.


I’ve never been much for religion, but I must say, Akatosh must be looking down upon me with a heavenly smile. Or up at me, I wasn’t sure how high 
I was now. But anyways, I constantly saw both apparitions of Dark Elven women, and all of my climbing idols. When I was a kid, we had ... Double Ledge 
Buck? Climbin’ Mara? Yeah, I saw them all on the next ledge above me. Normally, people would think that I was a fine Breton noble, but I’ve got lots 
of hidden secrets that no one knows about. Do they need to? I’m not highly religious, praying takes away from my climbing time. Am I not the God of 
Perseverance against the icy and the cold? My fingers aren’t bloodied yet, though the ends of them are bulbous with blisters. They feel less nimble, 
they always brush against each other as I climb. It aches when they touch, my masterful hands have to let go. Each one is a pustule that needs to be 
popped, an ache that needs to be relieved, because it’s taking away from my climbing power. My nails are worse. Us Bretons generally try to keep our 
hands in perfect condition due to the urban myth of slightly altered spell casting. We try to model our hands after the ideal “Breton Mage”; never again 
will there be a Breton hand like mine. Unless someone is as gallant, brave and daring as I am as to attempt to scale this behemoth. The air has gotten thin, 
and I’ve been using those potions. They work like a charm, I’m still on the first and I’ve only just begun. They rid of the danger of suffocation entirely, but 
it’s hard to hold such a delicate glass veil without having it smash while climbing. I’d best stop writing for now, I don’t want to lose my balance (I’m writing 
and climbing at the same time.)

 
I couldn’t believe it! The treachery! The madness! Someone’s body was on a nearby ledge! It looks like an elf, just tall enough to be a Wood Elf. 
Murder! Somebody help, come qui- and at that moment, I finally realize that I’m all alone up here. It’s so damn cold. Too damn cold. There’s 
blood all over that little elf, but I’ve never seen anything like him before. He has cone-shaped hair, yellow as Uriel’s teeth… but I’m sure his 
hair smelt better. What I find the weirdest is how the rest of his clothes are drab and arrow-torn, and ill matched with his flamboyant hair. What 
an odd little man. I guess I could take his gold for food and his dagger as an extra. The clothes, I’ll leave. I’m guessing I’m about two-hundred 
feet up, almost at that halfway mark that I have long desired. Not only is the air insufficient, but there seems to be a lack of ledges up here. I’d 
scream in frustration, but an avalanche is the last thing I need now. From here, it looks like I’ll have to rely on my daedric and one iron dagger 
to make my way up this treacherous, rocky face. Maybe I should rest now, I’m hardly breathing and I need another vial. I’ve still got a lot left with me,
I shouldn’t run out. But the first three vials have been long used, and I felt I was going through them too quickly.
 

My pack feels slightly lighter- I’m eating through these daggers very conservatively, but it seems like they’re almost all gone. My skilled feet pump 
across the now vertical wall, and I think I’ve been somehow going in circles. Maybe that’s because everything is white. I don’t know where the next 
ledge is, but it had better come soon. After all, it’s far too dangerous to climb up with the daggers. My rope would be useful, if I had something to 
latch onto. I’m hanging here, probably just past the halfway mark. The hardest is yet to come. Reusing the daedric daggers is my only option, in case 
I run out. But on the other hand, they become weaker after every use. I’m skilled with my hands, but not skilled enough with a rope to climb with it 
instead. Oh, my tendons are aching. It’s time to stop my orcish blasphemy and start believing in Mara, Akatosh, Kynareth and the rest of the holy ones. 
O Akatosh please, may I worship you in all of your greatness? Am I too sinful for ditching my wife, ignoring my daughter, and jumping that “M’aiq the Liar”
 who passed by me? But lord, that Khajiit is a pest! He used to bug the Chorrol guards with his fantasies about horseback combat and his misleading 
comments about “sweating, sexy naked bodies” that glisten in front of the midday sun. Maybe it wasn’t so sinful. Those daggers better work, because 
believe it or not, I see an object further up. My depth perception tells me it’s fifty, maybe seventy feet away. A lot of climbing to do, I’d better 
put this journal away until I reach the top.

 
The object looks like a ledge, firmly placed on the side of the mountain. But on the other hand, it looked as if it were ready to crumble. Dust, stone 
and snow hurtled down towards me, the wrinkles of my fingers seeming to tighten. I was totally unaware that the skin on my knuckles and finger joints 
were now scraped, chalky white and red gashes. I was hungry for food, I licked the blood on my hands but I remembered that I had always considered 
vampirism to be a horrible, ghastly “hobby” for those ill-minded necromancer cronies who wanted more out of their corpses. It was too salty, I was 
thirsty now. I took a chunk of ice out of the “icy fortress wall” and shoved it down my throat. Chewing was good enough for now, even though it really 
was just water. I preferred mead, but I needed to have a secure location before I started drinking. That ledge was only an arm’s length away now, it 
was more massive than I would have thought. Maybe the size of a waterfront home, but less run-down and less scummy. My daedric daggers are piercing 
the rock with ease, they cut through like thick butter. It’s difficult to dig through the rock, but it’s certainly easier than trying to climb it alone. 
However, it was definitely secure. When I grasped for it, due to the large number of daggers in my pack along with some other goods, it seemed as if 
when I was being pulled down, the rock dug upward into my hand. It was painful, but I felt valiant- like the king of the world. I hoisted my sack first,
then I toppled exhaustedly over onto the ledge. Rolling against the rock face, I realized finally that I was freezing. My fingers were so numb they felt 
brittle, the skin was peeling like bread crumbs in thin sheet designs, and I decided that maybe I should use a fire to warm up. Setting up a small 
sleeping bag and a fire, I know I will be ready for what lies ahead tomorrow. I think I’m almost there...


Such bad luck! My pack was feeling lighter for a reason- that iron dagger I had just carelessly thrown into my pack landed on the blade end, and dug a 
hole right in the bottom! Curse that Wood elf and his ridiculous butter knife! If I hadn’t noticed it sooner, I could have been a stranded goner. But 
otherwise, I made it to Dive Rock within the last four hours. I can’t believe it! I think I made it! A tall, tall overhang of rock separates a 
gargantuan slab of stone from the general cliff face, making it look like a figurehead or a bust of some famous general. From the bottom, I swore that I
could make out my own face. Maybe I could use some daedric daggers to carve in the final details, but I had to climb atop and show that I was there, as 
proof. Once on top, I took a breath of fresh air and felt my arms- they were weary, but tighter in my noble's robes than ever before. I was actually... strong! 
King of Tamriel! King of Nirn! This was huge, so much for my daughter Fiona’s letter. All she did was whine and complain about how I needed to “be careful” and 
“I might die”. Clumsy? I think not! However, when I took a look around, something was terribly wrong. There was already a fire started, and a tent 
was already set up. Someone was here before me?! That’s ridiculous! I thought I was the first person to master Dive Rock! Horrible people, they ruined 
it all! Damn, I wasted my behind climbing up here to become second place? Maybe I could find a safe way down and make a path up to the rock for others,
and then maybe I’d get some credit. The Andre Labouche Path. Let’s get started. It seemed to me that the safest way down was the route to my left, which 
swept downward towards a group of trees.
 
its staring

It wants to eat me 

leave me alone

big brown and hairy

its running now

theres a dead body here

Im sorry Fiona

im sorry wife

stop

I give up

I cant win

going to jump off dive rock

cant let it eat me

UDERFRYKTE