Life is More Than a Game: Restart

Chapter III: Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho

The Redguard broke surprisingly easily. All it took was plunging that dull, rusty spearhead into his shoulder before he began spilling everything from the number of bandits and places where traps were to what color his underwear was.

Most of it was gibberish that I didn't really care about, but I did let him keep talking to the end in case he said anything useful during his drug-induced frenzy. According to Victoria, he showed all the signs of a skooma addict and all the signs of someone high as a kite on the stuff. Honestly, I'd be more surprised if any of the bandits at Embershard weren't taking any.

Still, I got what I wanted out of him. Twenty-six - well, now only twenty-four - bandits, four male slaves serving as labor, and eight women of various ages being passed around for entertainment resided in the mine. It was likely that the whole thing was a lot bigger than both the game and my last time there.

The two most significant of the names the Redguard rattled off, though, were Vorkmar and Ravaru, by far. Vorkmar was a Nord man, the leader of the whole camp. When the Redguard said his name, Victoria's eyes practically lit up. Not in joy, but a burning hatred that I envied her capacity to hold.

I was more interested in Ravaru, though. According to the Redguard, whose name I didn't even bother to learn, she was a Dunmer mage, exiled from the College for a mixture of reasons. It mainly came down to a lack of potential and a thirst for blood. She never even made it past Apprenticeship levels and constantly started fistfights with the more talented students in her class out of envy. She was the one who had my staff this time around. It was a souvenir from the College she'd taken on her way out and the true cause of her official exile - not to mention the bounty on her head.

And so, we found ourselves nearing the incline that led up to the mine. The trail that split from the main road and led towards Embershard was littered with prints from Men, Mer, Beastfolk, and even some animal tracks here and there. Two against twenty-four, and the much larger force had the home-field advantage.

Of course, I refused to take my chances in just those prisoner rags. I'd, obviously, slammed that Redguard's own bludgeon to the back of his skull to kill him off and stored both of them into my inventory. Thankfully, it seemed to still do that neat trick where it cleaned and polished anything I put inside, so now I had mismatching armor. There was no blood and - thank the Nine - none of that stench on them.

I'm sure I looked rather stupid. The open-faced iron helmet was more similar to what the Legion wore than the horned Viking helmets of the game. But the worst was the visibly old chainmail under a worn-out tunic, the tattered remains of what seemed to have formerly been one of the Legion's armored skirts, and a pair of ratty fur boots. Still, it was better than those rags, which were basically tinder as far as I was concerned.

It's not even fair, though. Ulfric, Ralof, and the other Stormcloaks had all their armor and weapons when the attack happened. So, why is it that just the Player gets stuck unarmed and in rags? The logic, if there is any, really escapes me.

Shaking those thoughts away, I noted that we've nearly crested the hill. I couldn't lie, that decision to take Elementalist sometimes left me with a tinge of regret. An Illusionist or a Summoner wouldn't be out of place right now. Still, I wasn't in a position to change things, and I might not have Victoria to act as tank right now if I didn't make the decisions I did in my first run.

And that's why I didn't even hesitate to throw a Firebolt directly into the Khajiit lookout's face as soon as we made eye contact. The usual smell of burnt flesh was, for once, accentuated with burning fur.

Victoria, for her part, had closed the distance between herself and the other one - a Bosmer - and slammed her very large kite shield into the elf's face, disorienting her and leaving her flat on her back as she lost balance. Before she could reorient herself, a steel blade was already through her throat.

I didn't manage to ignite the Khajiit, but burning his face did manage to finish him off. "Hopefully, no one heard us..." The ex-Imperial Officer commented as I stored the extra corpses in my inventory. I began sorting through my new acquisitions, seeing if there was anything better, while she pressed her ear to the solid oak door separating the Mine from us.

The Bosmer had a bow, which I probably wouldn't find much use for until I could pick up a Ranged class later on. Interestingly, she also had an open-faced steel helmet that was in better condition than my current one, so I quickly swapped them out. Besides that, there basically wasn't anything I cared much for.

"Are you ready to head in?" Victoria asked. I gave a single nod and followed after her into the mine. Shutting the door as quietly as she'd opened it, we once more found ourselves in what would soon be a mine empty of life.

There wasn't anything that seemed to immediately be different about the mine, thankfully. The entrance was still narrow, with wooden supports erected every so often to keep the cavern from collapsing in on itself. Instead of the usual torches lining the walls, they were actually lanterns.

A bit further ahead, there was the tripwire trap that would release large rocks onto any trespassers, but Victoria and I both knew about it, so we simply stepped over it, rendering it useless.

Something further inward caught my attention, though. I could hear voices, which wasn't that abnormal considering the fact that there were over 30 people in the mine. What was unusual is that I should only be able to hear them from my left, where the entrance would usually give way to that underground lake.

Instead, I could also hear voices from the right. It was impossible to tell from how far away they were since the noise bounced around like crazy in these caverns. When we finally reached what should be an L in the hall, it turned out that it was a T.

To the right, it appeared to be an extension of the mine, with two of the male laborers that the Redguard had spoken of. They were hard at work, with a rather large orc watching over them. Unlike everyone else I'd seen so far, his equipment actually looked well taken care of, two one-handed Orcish Axes hanging from either side of his waist. He had a mixture of armor, with an orcish breastplate, unarmored trousers, steel boots, a pair of leather gloves, and no helmet.

He was alone, though, and that was what I really needed. Molding the mana in my right hand, I felt a soothing chill run through my body. Firebolt and Fireball warmed me up without being uncomfortable, and this was basically the opposite. It was brisk but not cold, as blue energy formed in my palm before solidifying into a large - and sharp - blade of ice.

Thrusting my palm forward, I watched as it pierced the back of his skull and then broke apart his face as it emerged on the other side. There was no sound from him, as his brain had been destroyed too quickly for even an involuntary scream of agony.

The forward momentum, however, did carry his body a few feet until it bounced off one of the stone walls and the corpse lay on its back. The two workers only stared in our direction, eyes wide in shock, as we approached. The residual energy of my spell had dissipated from my hand, but there was still a slight bluish glow in the dark space.

Rather reasonably, they dropped their picks and backed up into the wall they'd just been mining into as the woman in full steel plate glowing with enchantments and the mage who'd just slaughtered their captor without a second thought made their way forward.

I approached the Orc's corpse and stored his body within my inventory. "It might not be a bad idea for you to use some of his armor if we can get it refitted for your size." I pointed out to Victoria. "Though, I'm not sure if Adrianne knows how to work Orichalcum."

"I think I'll stick with my own armor. It shouldn't be too difficult to simply cover up to emblemage." The response was curt and to the point, but still quiet. She was probably right though. "Now, you two, listen to Orpheus and you'll make it out of here safely."

She directed her last statement at the two men, both Nords by their look. Actually, upon closer inspection, I noted that they were quite young. One of them didn't even look like he had hair on his face. They had to be… between 14 and 16, maybe? Well, that would explain the immense fear, and the inability to fight back.

"Child slavery, huh? I think that just about anything I could do to these fuckers will be justified by this point, even without the sex slaves. Alright, for reasons I won't go into, the two of us are here to kill these bandits and free the people they've taken hostage." I explained, which seemed to assuage some of the fear that they held. Though, they did glance at Victoria a bit. "Do you have something against my companion, by chance?" One of them looked like he was about to argue. "Stay quiet, or someone might show up."

The older one nodded and inhaled. "Is she… with the Legion?" I shared a glance with Victoria, but before I could respond, the boy continued. "My brother and I here… well, our da and older brother are with the Stormcloaks. Well… our older brother is. Da was too old, and he tried to protect us from these guys but… and now… we were told about how bad the Legion was. How they worked for the Elves, and wouldn't let us worship Talos no more."

"She's got the armor of the Legion, right?" I asked, to which they nodded. "And she's helping me rescue you, even though you're from a Stormcloak family, right?" They nodded again. "Do you really think she's evil then? They killed your father then? Is anyone else from your family here?"

"Our ma is usually in the cells." The younger one explained. "They… do things to her. We try to stop them, we really do. They just throw us off and hit us with their clubs, though." Now that he mentioned it, I could see some heavy bruises across their face, arms, and legs, even in the dark. "We still get to share the cell with her at night and try to comfort her, but she's… her eyes never seem to be able to focus on anything."

I could hear the soft scraping of metal and turned my attention to Victoria, who seemed very much like she was doing everything to hold herself back from immediately running in the other direction to kill every bandit on her own. "What're your names?" I asked them, while placing a hand on Victoria's shoulder.

It was the elder brother that answered. "This is Arrel, and I'm Forid."

"Well, Arrel and Forid. We're going to make sure they pay for what they've done to your family. That Orc is probably the one who'll get off the easiest. Something like that would've killed him instantly and basically painlessly. Fire seems to be really agonizing though."

There weren't nearly enough targets to give me Conflagration, but I'm sure I could make some significant progress while also blowing off some steam.

Quest [The Slavers' Judgement] updated

Secondary Objective Added: Ensure that Arrel and Forid survive

Reward: ?

And that's it!

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Orpheus out! See ya!