Not too long ago there was a brief exchange of Skyrim mods using a program similar to WillowTree, a modding program used to create custom guns for Borderlands on the PC and Xbox. This program is more of a save editor though, not one that solely edited weapons, and most only use it for the Xbox, since the PC has a much better mod tool.
Anyways, someone decided it would be cool to actually create a mod that was much like the famous creepy pasta “jvk1166.esp” mod for Morrowind, which the majority of players claim to be a hoax and made up story, to which I agree. If you don’t know what that mod is, I suggest you Google it, it’s pretty interesting.
So this mod is a surprisingly small file that held only a few scripts. Most players downloaded it because it was easily removable. This mod is called, “jvksky1166.esm”, a supposed brain child to the Morrowind hoax.
Most players experience the mod to cause the Whiterun town crier, Heimskr, to engage in dialogue with you as if it were an event, but not actually having any dialogue. Other players report that the mod does nothing. Someone discovered that if you have a book titled, “Killing – Before You’re Killed” then some weird things begin to happen.
I have a friend that I met on Xbox live playing Borderlands 2 together, and he was using this mod. He was the first person I heard from about this. He was really involved in it and even maintained a topic on a modding forum about it.
The “activation” key for the mod is having the book previously mentioned in your inventory. Heimskr will engage in dialogue with you if you have the book, but he actually has something to tell you.
He simply says, “It’s time.”, and then moves from his regular town crier spot. If you follow him you find him go into the Dragons Reach Prison, under the Jarl's palace, but when you enter after he does he's nowhere to be found.
The mod does nothing else until you have played for a day (in-game time). After this time has passed, you can return to Whiterun and find that the entire city is empty, and that it’s night time, even if it were day when you entered the city through the gate or fast traveled from a nearby location. There’s no music, no sound, no guards, nothing.
The entire city was just...odd. All the torches were put out, almost to the point that I needed a torch. It even reminded me of a necromancer altar you find throughout the game. But the creepiest thing was that Heimskr was sitting on a bench under the tree. So Whiterun remains this way. No more buying iron bars from the blacksmith or doing quests for the Jarl.
The few players that have discovered this complained about story progress, saying that since the Jarl isn’t there then you wouldn’t be able to even progress the story, thus a flaw in the mod. But the Jarl does return. No one really knows what triggers this but you’ll eventually be teleported to Whiterun, as if you have fast traveled there. I was doing some potion making when I got teleported.
From every player I’ve spoken to they all say that the day is changed to being the 13th of Rain’s Hand. I did a little research and found that “The Day of the Dead”, a Breton holiday, is on the Elder Scroll calendar for the 13th of Rain's Hand. So on this day, the Jarl returns to his throne.
After being teleported to Whiterun thing really start to seem like another game. When you appear on the city you find a child-like figure standing in the distance, near the bar and general store in front of the well. You can’t discern any facial features or sex; it almost looks like a blob of darkness as a small humanoid shape. I went around to the rest of the shops, after discovering that the Jarl returned, to see if anyone else was back, and all through the city you’ll find this dark blob is odd places, watching you, like in between two houses, on the top of a building in the distance, and near the blood falls leading up to the Jarl's palace.
Every time you try and approach this being it just vanishes, almost like the game skips a frame, and then it’s gone, but right before it vanishes you hear this echo of whispering.
So I explored a little more, with the dark humanoid following me everywhere I turned, and decided to leave and go do other quests. But I found that the water everywhere else has also turned to blood and bones, while disposing of the vegetation throughout the lands. The ground even looked like I was walking on a living organism, because the grass roots now looked like veins.
Again, no sound, no music, and it was dark. Even after I left Whiterun, the little humanoid followed me. I could walk backwards and see the figure teleport closer to me. With every 10 steps I took, it moved closer. The thing would even sometimes be behind a rock with just its head being visible.
I didn’t really know what to do, because I hadn’t received a quest or anything. I visited other cities and found the same thing as in Whiterun. I ended up returning to Whiterun, thinking that since it were the first place to have changed and still have the Jarl and Himskr there, then there must be something significant. When you talk to Heimskr now, he starts almost prophesying, like he did as the town crier.
This time he said, “It’s near.” I didn’t know what it meant, but I figured this was progress.
The events weren’t really creeping me out too bad until the little humanoid started appearing right in front of me, very close to my face, with a facial expression that I cannot even describe. It was so just…disturbingly weird.
I mean, it was dark, no music, no sound, and this thing appears right in front of me, and when it does, my camera would automatically go to the first-person view and lock for the duration that she is standing there (almost a whole second). I have a subwoofer hooked up to my TV, so the only noise I hear is a very loud, deep bass note that faded after the humanoid vanished.
So, all of this happening over a day or two made me set the game down for a bit. I had friends that wanted to play Borderlands 2, so I was definitely up for that, but I really just needed to recover from something that disturbing.
A few days later I picked up Skyrim again, loading the game with the mod. The mod had been on my mind the past few days, and I wanted to know what Heimskr was talking about, What would be near? What time is it for? And why does the day still say the 13th of Rain's Hand? This time Heimskr was standing in front of me when I loaded up, almost like he was expecting me. The camera zoomed in on him, starting a dialogue event, to which he said,
“The time is here.”
After the dialogue I received a note with blood red text telling me to go to the Dragonsreach Dungeon.When I went into the jail I took a left, and saw this huge dial looking device, almost like the door that took the Golden Claw.
The door has several of the spinning dials on it, appearing to be in groups of 4 on 13 different dials. Much like the Golden Claw door, each dial had an insciption, but it wasn't an animal. The dials had what appeared to be Dwemer characters on it.
After messing around with the dials for awhile I turned around to leave and saw that the little humanoid was at the corner of the hallway, half of it’s body exposed. I was so freaked out that I rushed towards it with sword and shield. The figure disappeared with it’s whisper, dropping a skull.
I never got past this point, but others have reported, including my friend, that the Jarl tells you to find “it”. I'm guessing the "it" refers to the little humanoid or to an item. My theory is that this little figure can be killed, in some way, and drops a note with the key combination to the device. Or, there's this note hidden throughout Skyrim somewhere else. Or maybe Heimskr has it.
I’ve yet to hear from anyone else concerning further progress in the mod, but my friend said something about finding random skulls in his other play-through. A few others even said that they uninstalled the mod, but sometimes still saw the little humanoid in the background while in dialogue with other NPC’s.
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