AN: 12:55 AM, Jan 15th, 2019. Ok Cane-Jian, enough PLAYING Skyrim, now star WRITING about it! Or the elder scrolls in general . . . you get what I mean!
POV: "Russet"
I Trudged forward, the ground made uneven from the large number of roots in the area around me, making it a hassle just to walk. Worse, the constant walking over the past few days has given me a . . . stitch? I think that's the word. All I know is that one spot on my ribs hurts every time I take a step, like it's being pulled on.
It's been three days since I woke up here. In those three days, I have been attacked by not one, not two, four wolves. Luckily, the only time I had to deal with more than one at a time was, of course, the first time, when I was lucky that I didn't get mauled. To make a long story short, I had taken out a spare shirt when I herd the wolves coming, and wrapped it around my left arm before drawing the sword.
When the first wolf lunged at my throat, I had managed to get it to bite on to my left arm, using the shirt as cushioning(I still got bruises) and stabbed it in the stomach while it's hind legs were in the air. Then the next on tackled me and it was a blur of me keeping its face away from mine with one hand and trying to hit it with the other, ending with the wolf dead and me having more scratches then the last time I whipped out while biking.
The next two wolf attack had, of course, ended about the same way that the first one had(without the second wolf to throw me off), and the third one . . . well, I got tackled when I was taking a drink, and I lost 2 thirds of my remaining water. Luckily, the dumb animal was thrown of it's feet itself I was back to my feet first. I was just thankful that I hadn't run into any larger groups . . . or a bear, thank God.
I rapped my fist against a nearby tree three times and said. "Knock on wood." before continuing.
I glanced up at the sun. It was about mid day. I sighed and sat down against a tree, pulling another stick of dried meat from my pack. I was trying to eat them as slowly as possible, but was still half way through them at this point.
How much farther do I have to go to find a road? This is getting crazy!
Assuming that I'm walking at an average of a half meter per second(actually . . . all things considered that may be a high ball, what with the roots, the hills, ect . . .) I have walked roughly fifty kilometres over the past few days. How much farther do I have to go?
Seriously! I've been attacked, spend half my time starving so as to preserve supplies, nearly burned myself three times tending to my fires at night, which took three hours to light, by the way! I barely got any sleep, have been out of water since noon yesterday, and haven't had human contact in way to long! When the flipping hell am I going to find some sign of civilization!?
I sighed, slumped to the ground, offered a quick prayer, ate, and began the age old process of "counting your blessings".
I'm alive. I do still have food. I have a bunch of equipment instead of being stranded with nothing. The temperature is pretty nice, and the forest's are absolutely beautiful. I still have my faith and . . . oh yes.
I formed a small bolt of lightning between my pointer and index finger.
. . . I've learned magic. Now if only I could stop causing an explosion every time I use fire. I'd like to be able to actually light a camp-fire with pyromancy without setting half the forest on fire. Thank God I decided to learn frost first . . .
POV: "Russet"
Thank God! A road! At last! Sure, it's only dirt road, but those are wagon tracks! And, since no grass is growing, it's obviously well used! . . . or toxic, but that's the WCS(Worst Case Scenario).
Now, should I go left, right, or camp out on the road until someone comes by to ask for directions? You know, what? I think I'll risk option 3. If I take the wrong direction I could end up wandering for days, and I've already gone a day and a half without water. Also, gotten three cramps in that time. Forgot to mention that in my rant earlier.
So, I found a comfortable spot on the ground, leaned back, and in a bide to ignore the desert currently taking up residence in my mouth, I opened up the spell book on restoration: healing.
Over the past few days, I had spent at least two hours a day trying to get my head around the spell books, with limited success. Overall, I could now use basic sparks and frost spells, but for some reason flames wasn't working, resulting in an explosion every time I use it. Luckily I hadn't gotten any burns worth mentioning, but I had set some trees on fire. Luckily, I had learned frost first, so I had managed to put it out, though I was left feeling a odd sense of mental exhaustion afterwards, like the willpower had flown right out of me.
From what I understand, I either have a higher magicka pool then you start out with in game, or the actual mechanics of the spells are different, since I kept the spell going for over thirty seconds nonstop . . . or I'm placing to much stock in the game and over-reading it. Really, I should probably stop doing that, it will get me in trouble. I mean, according to lore the gauldur amulet it so powerful that it could make its wielder a nigh unstoppable force, but in game it only increases you stats 30%. assuming you level 1. so yeah, stop trusting the stats.
On the other hand, if the lore's to be believed . . . no, if what I've seen is to be believed, then some of the mages in the elder scrolls world are strong enough to create their own worlds . . . with a little divine help, but that doesn't change the end result, and that is scary . . . meaning, I should probably get back to reading.
Now, I've only been studying magic for about five hours altogether, but I've made some good progress if I say so myself. The spell I'm best with at the moment is sparks, followed by magelight, and then frost. I've already explained my . . . issue with flames. Now restorations giving me a bit of trouble, since I'm not willing to injure myself just to test my healing ability.
Sure, I healed the minor burns from the flames incident, and the scrapes from when I fell down a slope that came out of nowhere, but I fell like I've been brute forcing it. So, I've been re-reading the spell book(it only takes about half an hour to read the whole thing, small pages, big writing).
I'm currently watching for parallels between elder scrolls and real world biology. Thus far I've actually not found any differences. On the other hand, this is just the beginners guide, basically you just speed up cell division by bombarding them with "Life energy". Fun fact, apparently you can heal someone to death by forcing their body to use to many resources to quickly. The more you know.
As I reached the middle of the book, describing what I believe we earthlings call stem cells, I heard a sound that, quite frankly, nearly stopped my heart. One I was intimately familiar with from the times I got mauled in Skyrim. A bear. In light of this, I grabbed the bag, leaped to my feet . . . and promptly collapsed as I got another cramp in my leg. If only restoration could fix that.
Quickly pulling myself to my feet through the pain, I hobbled over to a nearby tree and began pulling myself up. Unfortunately, the tree was an evergreen with some rather sturdy needles, resulting in me getting some future practice for restoration.
I only stopped when I reached thirty feet up the tree, and only then to look down. No sign of the bear, but I can still hear it grunting down their. And only then did the "charlie horse" go away. Murphy's law.
I sighed. Great, now what . . . guess I'll try to find a more comfortable position.
POV: "Russet"
Well, it's been a few hours, and I'm officially treed by the bear. As in it's walking back and forth at the bottom of the tree. Good thing the trees branches and relatively thin trunk mean all of the ursine's attempts to come up after me have ended in failure. Oh yes, it is now dark.
And to cap it all off, I'm bored. I can't afford trying to sleep, since I might fall, so I can't do that. The moons rather bright, but the thick branched above me result in enough light being filtered that I can't read another spell book(I still haven't read oak-flesh or conjure familiar), and I can't light the lantern with the flint. So, I try singing. Of course, I just go off singing the first thing that comes to mind that I can sing.
All around me are familiar faces,
worn out places, worn out faces,
bright and early for the daily races,
going nowhere, going nowhere.
Their tears are filling up their glasses,
no expression, no expression,
hide my head I want to drown my sorrow,
no tomorrow, no tomorrow.
And I find it kind of funny,
I find it kind of sad,
the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had,
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it had to take,
when people run in circles its a very very,
mad world, . . . mad world.
Hey, I never said It was a happy song. Mad world is one of the few songs I can sing without having to push my voice to the edge of it's comfort zone. Now if only I could remember more lines . . . maybe I should try "Oh Holy Night" that one I'm good at.
As I considered what song to sing next, the bear started stirring itself into, spinning around and snarling. What, did my singing get to it? As I asked myself that, I herd a zip, and a thumping sound. A second later, the bears snarling increases in rapidity, before the animal took off charging in off in a seemingly random direction. Another zip, and thump, and the bear collapsed mid stride and came skidding to a stop.
After a few seconds, I hear a voice. "Hey! You ok up there?" the voice, male with a slight accent I can't place, calls.
I perk up, but don't try to climb down. "Yeah, I'm fine, unless you count sore muscles. I got up here before the dumb thing realized I was there."
"Thank the divines for that!" the figure said as he walked out of the shadows of the bushed about, say, a hundred fifty feet away. From what I could see, yeah, he was an elf. What kind I couldn't tell. Should I climb down the tree? He doesn't look like a bandit in his well maintained green tunic and leather trousers, but you never know . . . well, if he was he could just shoot me and climb the tree anyway.
Climbing down the tree with some difficulty do to my leg still being stiff from the cramp, I jumped the last few feet . . . and immediately regret it as the crap came back. I fell to the ground growling in pain.
"Hey, you ok!?" The elf runs over concerned.
"I haven't had any water in two days, so I've got cramps." I reply, still rolling on the ground. In response the elf quickly pulls out a full water skin and hands it to me. In response, I guzzle it back. After finishing, I accept his hand up and return the empty skin to him as the pain in my legs rapidly begins to fade. "Thanks, my throat still feels like a desert, but at least I'm . . . I once read that it's a bad idea to drink water to fast when your dehydrated." I face palm. "Hope I didn't damage something."
The elf laughs a little, the motion shaking his whole body, making me notice he's a full head shorter than me. "Well, if you do end up hurting something, at least it's better than dying of dehydration while a bears treed you."
"True that." I groan. "Hey, are their any towns nearby? I'm so lost that it isn't even funny, and I've had to eat accept dried meat and nuts . . . come to think of it, where am I even." I ask, my face taking on an increasingly more exhausted expression as I neared the end of the sentence.
"Sure, I'll take you back to town as soon as I skin this bear. Might as well not let all of it go to waste right?" he asks cheerfully, taking out a knife.
"Sure." I respond, relieved.
I sit back as the elf gets to it, massaging my still sore calves as I watch with mild interest. My uncle was a hunter(when he wasn't a car repairman) and I had seen a couple of strung up skinned deer, but never a bear.
"It's a comfy little village." apparently he likes to talk while he works. "Names Hans Mill. Only about three dozen people, but that just means everyone know everyone. I've spent many a night just chattering away with my friends in Gretta the Grey's inn . . . my names Denniel, by the way." he offers me his hand, the realizing that he's gotten . . . bear . . . on it, he seems to think better.
'Hans Mill? Gretta the Greys? Just need a witch and we'd have ourselves a fairy tail.' I think, before realizing I should probably introduce myself. 'Should I use my real name or an aliase . . . hell will it, I'll just go with my SI alias.' "Call me Russet . . . or rusty, for short." I grab his had . . . then realize I just got . . . bear . . . on me.
AN: 2:53 Am, Friday, Jan 18th, 2019. Ok, this chapter is done. I've gotten three reviews, four favs, eleven follows and three votes on the poll thus far. Hope you liked the chapter, even if it is more or less filler/explanations.
Remember to vote on what year my SI starts in! I can't really get to plot moving until I know, so I'll try to draw the "Adjusting to Tamriel" arc out another chapter to three, so try and give me a reasonable number of votes!