Ragnar The Conqueror Chapter 2, a X-overs + Elder Scroll series Crossover fanfic

Positive reception to this story ended up being more than I thought I would get. Ended up making my day the other day, I couldn't stop smiling lol

I started my second day in Skyrim by waking up at the crack of dawn, eating some spare red apples for a breakfast, grabbed a tankard cup and keg full of water, and got back to work swinging away in the mines. Minutes turned to hours, and little by little I manage to get 10 feet deep into the mountain. After lugging the second support and setting it up, I stood up, wiping my forehead clean of sweat, and checked my notifications. I had raised my mining level by 2, and for my hard work I had earned +2 to STR. Grinning, I grab my tankard strapped to my side via some leather strips and stepped out of the mine. Right next to the entrance was my keg of water. Tankard in hand, I filled it with water and downed it within seconds. I strapped my cup back to my side and placed my hand on my neck, cracking and stretching it as I gazed at the sun rising further into the sky above the mountains near Helgen, and isn't that a thought?

I wonder when I've arrived in Skyrim. I doubt that I will be Dragonborn, as it seems counter productive to what the system would wish for me. Sure, as Dragonborn I'm pretty sure I have an unquestionable shot for the throne of the empire, unless the destruction of the kings amulet means that being dragonborn would be meaningless in terms of succession, but at the same time I would never have time to establish control over land. I could become thanes to the various holds, but that doesn't establish any actual control. Hell, in the games the title was just a glorified empty position, only useful for getting away with murder with just a slap on the wrist for consequence, and for getting some semi-useful followers/marriage candidates. But if I do end up being Dragonborn, I couldn't complain. In the lore of Skyrim, the Dragonborn is a warrior of unparalleled power capable of doing feats other mortals couldn't even dream of. So, either way it doesn't matter to me what I end up being. Even if I'm not the Dragonborn, I am a system user, or a 'player' as it would refer to me. Power will come, it's just a matter of when.

My thoughts were interrupted when the other members of Tusk trickled out into the main courtyard of the Fort. Umak went to his little Alchemist hut, no doubt about to be hard at work creating potions for us. I saw Morbrukk and Guruk drag dummies and began to practice with their chosen weapons. I couldn't see where Kragrau was, but I figured he was still inside, probably in a quiet place to continue practicing with his Magicka. The sound of leaves and twigs snaping and crinkling under boots drove my attention to Gavnuk walking towards me.

"Ah, good morning Gavnuk. Here to join me?"

"Yeah," he looked behind me and let out an approving grunt. "Seems you've been busy, been working all morning, have you?"

"Since the crack of dawn."

"You Nords sure are tenacious, I got nothing to do so I figured I'd help out."

"Not going to practice your axe skills?"

"I'm more of a builder than a fighter, if given the opportunity I'd simply spend my days practicing my craft. I just carry the axes to make myself appear more intimidating than I already am. Don't misunderstand, I know how to use them, and I don't mind doing so, I just enjoy carpentry more than fighting, that's all."

"Don't fret Gavnuk, I'm not going to bash you for having interests that don't involve fighting."

"Bash?"

"Just a term that equates to insulting and belittling someone over something, like your interests."

"Starting to like you more than Ghunzul already."

"Did you not like Ghunzul?"

"I was one of his newer recruits. I joined just days before we settled here two weeks ago like I already told you. He never 'bashed' my interest in carpentry, but he certainly voiced his disproval for my disinterest in fighting."

"So you don't enjoy fighting?"

"Not that, I just don't particularly care for it."

I hummed in acknowledgement, "Good to know. Now, let's get to mining. If we both work together, we might be able to get 2 more supports placed. We can save the last one if we so wish, but with the supports in place we'll be able to mine into the sides of the walls, granting us 6 separate sections to mine, but we should only mine in every other section. We also shouldn't mine near the entrance of the cave. While doing this would result in us not digging very far into the mountain itself, we would be greatly increasing our chances of finding ore. Plus, the spare support could be used if one of us is lucky enough to find any ore at all. And if neither of us can find ore, we'll just use it like it was intended to and use it to dig further into the mountain.

"Are you sure that it's safe to dig the full distance within each section of the wall we'll be mining? I think we should dig halfway to prevent anything unfortunate happening"

"Mm, you're right Gavnuk. We'll still do it, but let's just mine at most 5-7ft in, not the full 10 or so. That should be deep enough to where we'll have good chance at finding ore, but also not deep enough to potentially cause a cave in."

"…Alright, I can agree to that. Let's get to work."

And so the digging continued. With Gavnuk by my side, we managed to mine out and place the supports before the afternoon rolled around. With two of the last three supports placed, we began digging into the walls. We only had 4 sections to work with, and we'd only be digging into two of them: one on each side of the wall. It didn't matter which one we dug, just that we would have to leave the next section we made alone. I made it easier to think of It by attributing it to strip mining like one would do in Minecraft. You don't mine every part of one side of the wall, you do it in strips. We got to work immediately, both of us eager to eat some of the leftover stew from last night for lunch.

"My section's done, Gavnuk. I found nothing. What about you?"

"Ngh, almost done on my end Ragnar. Just got a little mo- JACKPOT!"

I spun around and sped over to Gavnuk's section. I stood a respectful distance away as I watched him mine away at the wall eagerly.

"Finally we've foun- SON OF A WHORE!"

"What's wrong Gavnuk?!"

"We hit silver, not iron!"

"Oh shit."

That's really not what we needed right now. While silver is valuable and worth a good amount when selling, it's not useful for forging weapons and armor unless you're fighting the undead, and even then, you need to mix it with other metals to make sure that they don't break, because silver is considered a soft metal. None of us have the forging skill required to do something like that.

"We can still turn this around, while not ideal we do have a silver mine. That will end up making us a lot of septim if I can carry them to Falkreath and trade with the local blacksmiths. If we can smelt them down into ingots, I could also go to a Jewler if they have any, maybe set up a trade deal?"

"We could also use the septims we gain to buy more nails and screws so I can build more supports. Iron ingots or ore would also be fine, though we could potentially find iron ore deposits deeper into the mountain."

"Let's worry about getting the money first. If we make enough to splurge on it, I can see about getting some iron ore and ingots, otherwise I'll stick to nails and some better equipment like more pickaxes and tools for your carpentry. I'll also swing by the apothecary and get stuff for Umak, and I'll search around if there's someone selling anything magicka related for Kragrau."

"What about Morbrukk and Guruk?"

"I figured that Morbrukk would appreciate that we have a constant supply of silver for his Jewelry hobby, but I could see about getting a better bow for him if I see one. As for Guruk? I honestly have no idea what he'd want, I'll have to ask him once I bring all of this up tonight."

"I'll start mining the ore, would you grab the other support from outside? If we're lucky, we just stumbled onto a large deposit of silver. Once we have a good amount of ore I'll get to work on smelting everything,"

We didn't end up getting lucky. I did grab the support and dragged it inside, and with the help of Gavnuk we got it set up in the appropriate spot after a bit more digging. Then we dug past it to see if we could find more, and despite our best efforts we only found 2 other veins of silver. Though, unlike in the games, these veins were lucrative, netting us 8 ore per vein. We walked out of our new mine with 24 ore, netting us 12 ingots from just 3 veins. And not only that, but my mining skill also leveled up again!

We dumped all the ore by the forge and went back inside for lunch. I went to go eat at the table, but Gavnuk said he'd just eat while he worked and took his lunch with him, but not before taking 3 other bowls when I asked him to deliver them to the others. Left alone, I ate my lunch as I checked over my status. I'm still level 1, and that's unacceptable. Killing Ghunzul netted me a shockingly little amount of XP for killing someone, but I chalked that up to the fact that I appeared just as the fight finished. So, while technically I killed him, it was more like an…offline play? Sort of. I wasn't in control; therefore I didn't net the full experience. I could possibly test this by going out and finding some beasts to slay? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I couldn't take on a bear or anything, but there are plenty of wolves in Falkreath, shouldn't be too hard to find a couple.

I quickly finished lunch, grabbed my shield and axe, some health potions Umak made, and left into the wilderness.

I decided to head north of my fort. The area is spacious, filled with trees and small clearings. Rock formations and boulders dotted the landscape as I strolled through the forested area. To my left way off in the distance I could make out the ruins that Morbrukk mentioned the otherday, but it was too far for me to make out any details. I decided to head right towards a large hill that I knew stood some ways away from the Twilight Sepulcher, if anything I'll have a better chance of finding something from the higher vantage point.

I passed by many foxes and rabbits, but I let them go. Well, more like they would have outrun me if I tried to chase them, so I didn't, but the sentiment still stands! Anyways, after passing many foxes and rabbits, and some shrine to a god that I didn't check out, I made it to the top of the hill that overlooked a good portion of my future territory. I could see a tower off in the distance northward, along with one of the archer towers that I knew was stationed at knifepoint ridge. Taking the tower will be easy, but knifepoint is an entirely different beast entirely. It would either be moderately challenging, or I would have to face the fucking champion of Boethiah. He was a weakling in the game, but it would be downright moronic to even assume for a second that a fight between us would be anything other than extremely challenging. By the Nine the bastard has a fucking daedric artifact, there's no telling what bullshitery that thing has to augment the wearer.

I violently suppress the greedy part of my soul that wants to claim it for myself, that's bound to get the attention of Boethiah, and without Dragonborn plot armor there's no way I could deal with anything that thing throws at me as I am now. If I do somehow end up in the position of any daedric artifacts, then they're going straight into the basement with the rest of the shit we have, like a certain piece of a dagger that has the possibility of killing anything.

My internal monologue was interrupted by the sounds of low growling. I spun around, shield raised in front of me and axe at the ready and was met with the snarling faces of 5 wolves. I shuffled back a bit, only to stop short of the edge of the hill. I dared not take my eyes off the wolves, but I knew that if I was pushed back anymore I would fall off the cliff, and I wasn't sure I would survive with all of those jagged pieces of earth protruding out of the cliff face.

I can still do this; these are all the basic ass wolves one would face in the beginning of the game. They should be relatively weak, and with my axe perk I'm guaranteed to at least hurt them. Besides, this isn't some game even if the system makes it seem like one. They're still living creatures, and I have a deadly weapon, fatal blows are still fatal blows. The question that remains is whether I'm skilled enough to land them.

I have to make the first move; I can't afford to allow them to close in on me when I have no option to fall back. I twisted my head side to side, hearing the satisfying cracks as I did so, and took a deep breath. With no warning, I charged forwards at full speed, gravity and the downward nature of the slope aiding me as I quickly gained traction and speed. The wolves, either stupid or brave, met my charge with their own. I sped towards them, shield raised, and barreled into the wolves, sending them tumbling in different directions. I immediately zeroed in on the closest one and slammed the rim of my shield into the side of their head, disorienting them long enough to slash them with my axe, dealing a harsh cut into their side.

I felt the claws of another wolf start to rake their way into my arm. Acting quickly, I tucked my arm into my body, making the slash of the wolve lose much of its force and damage, though my arm was still torn, but the cut was shallow, with barely any blood seeping out. I spun around and smacked the butt of my axe into the body of the leaping wolf that just slashed me, catching them mid pounce. Roaring, I completed my spin and launched the wolf away from me. I let out a cry of pain as the wolf I had attacked first clamped its jaws tightly around my leg as the other wolves bounded their way towards me. Gritting my teeth, I raised my other foot and slammed it into the neck of the wolf below me. With the force behind my stomp, the neck of the wolf easily snapped. The wolf, while dead, still had its jaws clamped around my leg, but with it dead I now didn't have as much resistance to my movements.

One of the three wolves charging me leaped into the air and sailed at me. Raising my shield, I caught it's body and pushed with all of my might to the side of me, launching the wolfs body away leaving me to face his two friends. The two wolves attacked me together, one leaping at me while the other paced around me until the other was done. Both alternating to try and wear me down while they waited for their two other friends to join them. I never gave them the chance, as when one of the wolves tried to attack me again, I lashed out with my shield arm, slamming the rim of the shield into their throat. It gasped for air as it landed as it tumbled to the ground, and I attack immediately, bringing down my axe and cutting open its already bruised neck. The other wolf, snarled and slashed at my other leg. Growling, I kicked the fucker in the side, probably cracking one or two of its ribs in the process and slammed the blade of my axe into their spine, leaving a terribly large gash on their back. In a moment of mercy, I readied my axe again and slammed it into its skull, cutting through it and hopefully granting it an instant death.

Three down, two to go.

Claws raked against my iron armor, creating a terrible sound that sounded like nails on a chalkboard times a thousand. Wincing, I stumbled a bit as the sound surprised me. The wolves capitalized on my momentary incapacitation and slashed my exposed arms, slicing my arms with long gashes. Gasping in pain, I regained my bearings and raised my shield, my hands fumbling for one of the health potions I have strapped to my waist. Blocking one of the attacking wolves with my shield, I quickly downed most of the potion, and with the rest I dumped it onto my wounded axe arm. My health bar increased in the corner of my vision. Sighing in relief, I grit my teeth and quickly got down on one knee, shield still raised against the wolf holding their body back, barely holding it's snapping jaws away from my face. With a roar, I heaved upwards and launched the wolf into the air. It's flailing body proved no match as I cleaved my axe in an arc, slicing open its abdomen spraying the area in its blood. I readied myself quickly against the last remaining opponent. The already damaged wolf glanced around at its former allies, and lowered its body, growling at me dangerously. Suddenly, it tried to outmaneuver me and run away.

Like I'll let it.

I readied my axe with my right hand, reared back, and tossed it with all my might. Before the wolf could even react, my axe buried itself in the back of its head. It collapsed on the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut. I stood, panting heavily in the wake of the battle I just had.

You have defeated five wolves!

+2 Levels Axe Proficiency

Axe Proficiency [12/100]: The user's skill with an Axe. Chance to score critical hit increases by 1.2%

+3 levels Blocking

Blocking [8/100]: The user's skill with a shield. Damage reduced by a successful block 3.2%

+100 XP

You have leveled up! +2 SP, +1 PP

Choose which stats you would like to increase!

Add one into DEX, and the other into INT

Allocating Points…

Profile Updated!

Name: Ragnar

Race: Nord

Level: 2

EXP: 25/150

Health: 140 Magicka: 110 Stamina: 120

STR: 14

INT: 11

END: 12 (14)

DEX: 12

SP: 0

PP: 1

Land Controlled:

-Cracked Tusk Keep (+2 END)

People under your leadership:

Happy: 2

Neutral: 3

Unhappy: 0

Hm, so wolves -the basic ones at least- grant 20XP per kill. While beneficial to know, these wolves aren't like mobs in a video game. They won't just spawn indefinitely, which means I can't rely on them for a steady income for XP. Besides, killing all the wolves would be a sure-fire way to kill the entire ecosystem of Falkreath. A perfect example being what America did with their wolves in Yellowstone Park. Sure, Falkreath is much bigger than a national park, but the point remains that it would have massive effects in the food chain.

Still, killing animals and people are the most reliable way to gain XP. I'm still unsure of what other methods I have to gain XP, that means I just have to work with what I know. I'll just have to be selective with what and who I decide to kill for now, and once a more stable and profitable XP method comes along, I'll switch to that, because I can't just kill people for XP. Not for some morally righteous bullshit, but because of something that stands out in my profile. It keeps track of the people I lord over and their whether they're happy under my rule. Combined with the systems brief mention that it has something to do with receiving benefits, means I can't just be killing bandits and other nasties left and right. They're still people that would constitute as subjects, and it's imperative that I have as many subjects as possible under my rule for maximum gains. I'll still kill those who refuse to kneel, but it's crucial that I show mercy to those who I can afford to offer it to.

Now, what to do with these wolves. I could bring them back for skinning? Maybe, though we have plenty of leather and hide, but having more is better than having less of what we need. Nodding my head, I gathered the 5 wolves together, took the leather I fashioned into a loop that I used to hold my health potion and tied the tails together, grabbed it like santas sack and hauled ass. Fun fact that I didn't know about wolves, they're pretty fucking heavy as grown adults. I swear I'm lugging at least 350 pounds, upwards to maybe as much as 500.

"grrrrrrrrrr"

I paused midstep, not daring to move as the low growl permeated throughout the clearing. I cautiously tilted my head towards the woods where I heard the sound and saw a mother fucking bear staring daggers at me. Shit, this isn't good. I don't have enough time to get my shield and axe ready. And even if I did, my health was, well…

Ragnar

Health: 74/140 Magicka: 100/100 Stamina: 58/120

I'm in no condition to fight a bear of all things. Even at full health I'm confident that the bear would mop the floor with me. I took a cautious step back, but the bear just took another step forwards. Grimacing, I readied myself for a full sprint back to base when I noticed that the bear wasn't staring at me, but what I had dangling behind me. Focusing on the bear more, I saw the drool that escaped its maw, but also the faint outline of two smaller bears in the forest. So I'm dealing with a hungry mama bear and her two kids, now that I know what I'm dealing with I think I can get out of this without harm.

I never broke eye contact as I slowly and carefully, as to not scare the mama bear into attacking me, maneuvered my tied-up wolves from behind my back in front of me. With slow and precise movements, I undid the leather strap holding the wolves together, spilling their bodies on the ground in a haphazard pile of mangled corpses. Grabbing onto one of their tails, I gently, but firmly, tossed the dead wolf in front of the bear. It was startled slightly by the flying object, but otherwise made no move to attack me. It sniffed the wolf corpse, before pushing it behind itself with its front paw. It stared at me more, and I could already tell what it wanted. Maintaining my distance, I threw wolf after wolf. I didn't want to give them all to her, but she just kept staring at me even after I threw her another dead wolf. Once my supply of corpses was spent, the bear finally sat fully down and began to chow down, after her kids came out of the woods and had their fill of food first.

With nothing keeping me there, I made my way back to the fort. It's unfortunate that I couldn't keep the wolves for their leather, but me living is something I consider a higher priority, though that might just be me.

(-)

It was early even when I had gotten back to the base. Apparently, I was out for much longer than what I had originally anticipated, time flies when you're trying to do something productive, I suppose. Regardless, I realized we didn't have enough stew to feed all of us properly, so I grabbed some bread we had and a bit of the garlic and butter. A quick application of knife skills later and I had made something akin to garlic bread to go along with our stew. Either way, the guys liked it enough as they came to sit and eat. And now that we're all here, we can get down to business.

"Alright everyone, I got some good news and some bad news."

"We saw you and Gavnuk dumping some shit by the forge, did you guys manage to find ore?"

"Yes, Morbrukk."

"Finally!"

"Not so fast Guruk, while we did find ore, the ore we found was silver."

"That doesn't seem so bad, we can just forge stuff made from silver like how the vigilantes of stendarr."

"Umak you moron that's not how that wor-"

"Calm yourself, Guruk, I'll explain. Umak, forging with silver is not as lucrative as you might think. Silver is a soft metal, making it into swords or armor is not advised due to it having poor performance. Silver swords need constant sharpening because they lose their sharp edge quicker than other metals, except for gold but no one makes that kind of weaponry other than for decorative purposes. Also, even if you did make a silver weapon or armor, it would just be the same effectiveness of iron equivalents but weaker and less durable. Silver is just not effective for what we need iron for."

Guruk looked surprised at my knowledge, but all the same nodded in approval.

"That was the bad news, sort of. The good news is that we managed to get 12 ingots out of three veins of silver, and that's just near the entrance of the mine. If we can dig deeper, there's no doubt in my mind that we will have a profitable silver mine that we can trade for coin. As a matter of fact, tomorrow morning I plan to treck to Falkreath and trade the silver we smelted. With that money I plan to buy supplies for us, Gavnukk has already expressed his desire for iron nails when we found the ore earlier today, so I would like to ask the rest of you what you'd like from Falkreath. Keep it simple, as I have no idea how much money I'll gain from trading. Let's start with you Morbrukk, and go down the table from there."

"Hmm. I am running out of arrows, the silver we have from the mine can fuel my Jeweling hobby so I'm fine on that front."

"Hmm…some blue flower seeds would be good to have. They should sell them at any of the alchemist shops. If you'd be so kind, I'd also like some blisterwarts. We have a small little pocket in the mountain where they can grow, I'd just have to plant some in there and the roots will settle there."

"I'd like a whetstone, my greatsword is starting to dull."

"I…don't think it we could get what I would want."

"I'll decide on that Kragrau, say what you want."

"Well, some magick tomes would be ideal, but they're typically expensive. Honestly I don't even know if Falkreath even has any magicka shops, so the act of searching for one would be enough for me."

"Hm, I'll see if I can get one for you."

Now that I think about it, don't I have that transmute tome? I'll have to look at it later tonight.

"Alright then, tomorrow morning I'll make my way to Falkreath with our ingots to sell. Ideally, I should try and find a Jeweler and sell the ingots to them, but if I can't find one, I could always go to a general goods store. They'll definitely buy them even if it would be at a lower cost. With that settled, I'll be in my room for the time being."

(-)

I sat in my bed, armor resting on the mannequin in the corner, as I settled down and got comfortable. If I remember correctly, the system mentioned that it had added my transmute tome to my inventory, and if the method of seeing my status is any indication, I just have to mentally activate it.

Inventory

Inventory

[Transmute Tome x1] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

Hm, not endless as I would have liked, but 11 slots of inventory with possible endless stacking is still better than having none. With a thought, the thick tome was in my hand. Now in the game, I could just instantly learn the skill, is that true here? I focused on the tome in my hand, and sure enough…

Would you like to learn the spell Transmute?

Yes|No

I almost clicked yes, but stopped. System, is there a difference between learning the spell instantly and studying the tome naturally?

If you choose to absorb the tome, you learn how to use the spell for it's intended purpose. Choosing to read and study the tome will take much longer, but you will be able to experiment and play with the spell's limitations. In essence, absorbing gives you instant access to the spell, but you're limited to the intended function of the spell. For transmute, this would mean you can only transmute iron into silver, and silver into gold. If you choose to learn the spell by studying the tome, it will take much longer and requires practice. But you will be able to play around with the spell. An example being transmuting gold into silver, or iron straight to gold, etc.

That's very helpful system, thank you.

Now what to do…Transmute itself doesn't seem to be very versatile at first glance, but that doesn't make it entirely useless. With the right mindset, there could be so many different applications for the spell.

And now that I think about it, the game only had two locations where you could find the spell. Hell, I don't even think you could buy the spell from Tolfdir, a fucking master with alteration magick! Either transmute was a spell that was created and never shared with the public or…it's been made illegal/secret, possibly both. Which means that if I keep the tome, I have one of the only copies of this spell, it's too valuable to absorb and lose.

Selecting the no option, I shuffled a bit into my bed and opened the first page

Day 1

To whomever is reading this, I am Devas Erevan, owner of the Grayskin iron mine in Morrowind, and an adept magicka user. The goal of this journal is to detail my journey into developing a spell that will save my livelihood. A new mine has opened near mine, selling iron at much cheaper prices than my own. They're owned by an iron tycoon, and my guess is they're planning to run me out of business. Well, they can go kiss a dog neath its tail because I'm not going down that easily! With my knowledge of magicka, I'm sure I can come up with some sort of solution. It's time to brainstorm.

Ah, so it's more of a personal journal than a step-by-step detailed guide. I winced, this tome is pretty thick, so it must have taken him age. Alright, time to buckle down and finish this book within the next couple of days.