Chapter 13


After a few days of relaxing, Alcyra opened her shop back up and got settled back into her routine, giving no indication that anything had really changed.

Very soon after though, a rather curious and annoying event occurred. Curious in that, whilst she was debating whether or not to go back to Whiterun just to go buy some stuff and totally not to go chat up the redhead shopkeeper who she was admittedly rather enamoured with after just one meeting, a group of Thalmor Justiciars showed up, hammering on the door. When she opened it, they demanded she surrender herself to their custody and subsequently allow them to search her home on suspicion of illegal Talos worship.

She, of course, didn't surrender, but she was all too happy to let them search her home, mainly just to see what bullshit they would pull. It got more curious when they 'found' an Amulet of Talos in her home, which she knew wasn't there before because the only Amulet of Talos she had was in her Deep Storage, ready to be worn when the dragons woke up and she wanted to use shouts faster.

It left her in an odd position though. If she killed the Justiciars, while Jarl Korir would likely not give her up to the Thalmor, there was a good chance things would go from bad to worse, potentially igniting the Civil War early. Then again, it was meant to be kicking off very soon anyway since there were only 3 months left between then and Alduin emerging, so it wasn't like it mattered. Eventually, the Justiciars who were demanding she surrender with drawn swords had enough of her just ignoring them, and one of them swung their blade to behead her, yelling a wordless cry as he did so.

In response, Alcyra opened her favourites, equipped a shield, closed the menu, then shield-bashed forwards, smashing her shield into his hand and the base of his sword, sending the blade flying and breaking his arm from the force of her strike. "Try that again and I'll gut you like a fish and pin you to my wall." She growled, which only really succeeded in goading the other Justiciars into action, swiftly surrounding her as she stepped out further into the street, not bothering to equip a weapon and simply allowing her shield to hang on her arm. "So, let me guess-"

She started to speak, and through her hearing she knew one of the Thalmor behind her was attacking, so she pivoted counter-clockwise on her foot and swept her left arm out, smashing her shield into a falling blade and sending that blade flying as well. More footsteps as the Thalmor attacked allowed her to turn once again and this time push forwards, performing a shield-bash with her entire body and succeeding in knocking the one she'd hit to the floor in an uncontrolled backwards flip. Stepping over the fallen elf, Alcyra turned, now having the entire group to her front.

One tried to flank her on her right side, and in response she equipped a sword and pointed it directly at them, prompting them to raise their shield in anticipation of an attack as they continued trying to flank her. Smirking, she equipped Flames to her right hand and began to fire it low at their legs, forcing them to quickly move back or get burned. A fireball was fired from the group which she allowed to burst harmlessly on her shield, glaring at the mage who had cast it. Inwardly debating how to handle the situation, Alcyra cringed as lightning splashed across her shield and into her arm, her glare deepening as she focused on a second mage amongst the group.

"Fuck it." She said quietly, un-equipping her shield and magic, then flexing her hands. "You fuckers want to frame me? Well, just tells me the Thalmor are a bunch of pussies who are scared of one teenager." She said with a grin, immediately prompting the two mages to fire magic at her, a third revealing their own magic and firing off their own shot, an ice bolt. At the same time, the Justiciars who were flanking her moved to attack her from the sides in a pincer movement.

Equipping a single normal Steel Sword in her right hand, Alcyra applied her special hyper-powerful Jarrin Root poison to it, then closed her menu and moved to her left side, avoiding the magic and allowing her to pivot into an overhead strike, though she feinted it and instead swept her blade across and beneath the shield, applying just a single slash to the Justiciar she hit. Without hesitation she opened her favourites and applied another dose of the poison, dashing to her right and hitting her second attacker just as swiftly.

With a quick twist, she returned to her original position after just two brief seconds had passed, holding her sword wide to her right and smirking at the other Justiciars. After just a few brief moments, screaming was audible as the two she had struck began to be torn apart from the inside out, utterly shocking those who remained and making them vastly more cautious about her. "Heretic! What have you done?!" One of the Justiciars, a female from the sound of her voice, yelled out.

"Just a little poison. If you lot are going to be underhanded and try to frame me for worshipping a god that I don't give a shit about, then I'm going to poison you all and make you die horrific deaths, screaming in agony and regretting ever trying to attack me." She spoke lowly, glaring at the woman who spoke, then shifting to the side to avoid a firebolt launched from one of the group. "Do you want me to send your pulped corpses back to the Embassy, or should I just toss you all in the ocean?" She kicked the corpse closest to her as she said that, smirking as the group collectively took a step back, some raising their shields.

"Don't think you can get away with this. We'll be back soon to drag you, kicking and screaming, to justice!" Raising an eyebrow, Alcyra planted the heel of her foot on the head of the corpse at her feet, leaning over a little and grinning at the group widely as she twisted her foot and ground the heel of her boot against the corpse, then raised her foot and stomped down, crushing the dead Justiciar's head beneath her foot. "You dare!"

Snorting, Alcyra lifted her foot and flicked it, some of the blood smacking the Justiciars. "Oh, I dare. What are you going to do about it? Go now, run away and come back with friends, I'll kill every single stinking Thalmor that sets foot near my home ever again." With a few thrown insults, curses and vows for vengeance, the Justiciar group very quickly fled, leaving her with two dead Justiciars to clean up. "Well, this is a bit of a problem." Alcyra muttered quietly to herself, trying to decide the best way to get rid of them.

After maybe a minute of consideration, she opened her Deep Storage and tried to push the first corpse into the box that emerged. That failed though, as even when she just tried to get an arm in, it was blocked from entering. Huffing, she shifted the corpse so it was laid flat on its back, grabbed one hand, pulled it up towards her, then dove down and hefted the corpse up onto her shoulders, her other arm going between the legs and assisting to lift it up.

A little surprised at how light the dead-weight of a corpse that outsized her was, she put it out of her mind in favour of getting the corpse off the street, dumping it in her home, then heading outside again and repeating the process. With both corpses inside, she went outside a third time and kicked snow over the blood, hiding it as best she could before going inside and closing then locking her door, leaving her with two corpses, blood pretty much everywhere, and no clue on how the hell she was going to dispose of them.

She knew methods of disposal, sure, but they either required other people or the ability to move corpses without detection, like in the trunk of a vehicle. Looking down at the bodies, she dragged one by the limbs down into her basement, then the second, an idea popping into her head whilst she was back upstairs cleaning the pools of blood off the floor. Taking out a Glass Dagger from Deep Storage and twirling it around her fingers, she ventured back down into the basement, stripped one Justiciar completely, then plunged that dagger into the shoulder of the corpse, slicing through skin, tendons, muscles and bones, and after just a few moments of cutting, the entire arm came free. About to toss it away, she considered the arm, then ran her dagger along the flesh, cutting a slice free and picking it up. And, surprise surprise, it was usable as 'Altmer Flesh', so she'd just found a new potion ingredient, that was a plus.

Dagger in hand, Alcyra started to...well, butcher the two corpses she had available, cutting out pieces and either putting them in Deep Storage, or into a pile behind her. That pile was honestly really small, as almost every part could be used according to her interface. The skin was usable, and so were the bones, flesh, muscles, cartilage, and other parts. Organs were also of course usable, though curiously enough, the intestines weren't usable for anything, so they went into the pile. Even hair was usable, so as to not be wasteful she also took that. She didn't hold back, not even on their reproductive parts, she had killed a male and a female Justiciar, so she had both genders, both of whom had fully usable reproductive parts she could use for alchemy.

In the end, she had two fully-harvested corpses, a very bloody mess on her floor as well as blood pretty much completely covering her entire body, and a very small pile of unusable bits of an Altmer, which consisted of the intestines, bladder and, curiously enough, their tongues. Equipping flames to both hands, Alcyra burned the remains to ash, snorting in pure amusement when she was then able to loot the ash piles for aforementioned ash, so in the end, even the useless parts of an Altmer were usable for getting ash which was usable in a few bits of alchemy. Sure, gathering ash was piss-easy, but it was still usable, so it counted.

Sighing, she looked at the blood coating the floor, then equipped Flames again and vaporized the blood, leaving only a bit of brown residue she was able to just sweep into a corner with a brush. She also needed to worry about the blood outside though as it wouldn't take long before someone walking just happened to step deep enough in the snow to reveal the blood, and since it was pretty much right outside her house, questions would be asked and fingers pointed. As long as she left no evidence of what happened though, even if someone actually heard or even saw the fight, it wouldn't matter, there'd be no evidence of what happened.

As such, took out some water from her inventory and poured it over herself to clean off the blood out of her hair and off her skin, drying her hair off as best she was able to. Then, she equipped a different set of gear and checked herself in the mirror, wiping away a few small visible spots of blood before nodding. Heading back outside, she equipped Flames to both hands and began to burn away all the snow nearby, as well as vaporizing the blood that was fairly frozen already, boiling it and evaporating it, again leaving only a little brown residue on the floor.

Her excuse for why there was no snow outside her home was that she wanted to clear it out, and the good thing was that she already did that, it made getting to her shop easier after all, so nobody could question why she cleared out the snow, it was just something she did for convenience. The residue she swept around with a brown, scattering it and sending some into the air to be carried away, leaving no trace of what had happened aside from the cleared snow, which she could easily excuse as just her clearing out the snow that had built-up.

With that, she headed back inside and straight to the bathroom, inwardly wincing at how hard it was going to be to make sure her hair was actually cleaned of all the blood.


A week passed before she finally let go of that inward worry that she was going to have a group of guards hammering on her door soon.

Of course, she knew that Jarl Korir supported the Stormcloak Rebellion canonically, so doing anything to support the Thalmor was unlikely, but she still kinda expected him to at least make a cursory attempt at 'finding the perpetrators' to shut the Thalmor up, but nothing. No guards investigated the area, nor did any of the patrons of her shop seem at all off, all in all, it was like it never happened, aside from the new alchemical supplies she had in storage.

One thing she was firmly mindful of though was that she would not start contemplating every corpse for its alchemical worth. That way led down a very dark path, and she only butchered those two corpses because it was the easiest and most efficient way to hide the bodies, by turning them into ingredients and using them for her own personal-use potions. She wasn't about to start making products that she was going to sell to people out of the deceased, she didn't exactly want to start feeling like Sweeney fucking Todd after all, turning the dead into potions and then selling them to unwitting customers.

What she did do though was experiment with the new ingredients, and wasn't surprised to find that most of their effects could be replicated by other, much less illegal, ingredients. For example, the Altmer Flesh was good for Resist Magic potions, but there were plenty of other ingredients for that. Thanks to that, she was able to rationalize away using those parts without wanting to get more of them. She was just disposing of them in an untraceable way, and after she was done, she would just use other ingredients.

She didn't feel any urges to make any 'better potions' out of higher-rarity or quality ingredients, she could do that easily enough with the mechanics available to her, so that was good. Sure, she always had it in the back of her mind that she now had a great way to get rid of corpses, but that was more from the fact that she outright knew that the near future was going to be filled with conflict.

A future that was coming far too soon if what she could hear being discussed in her shop was any indication. Sure, she was pretending to just be busy reading whilst waiting for people to shop, but her Khajiit side meant she could still make out what two men were discussing in the shop...Ulfric had just challenged High King Torygg to a duel. It was due to occur in a few days time, more than enough time for her to get over to Solitude and see if she could maybe make Ulfric be a bit more intelligent about things. If he used the Thu'um to attack Torygg, that was the equivalent of hiding a dagger somewhere and suddenly shanking him with it, a hidden weapon and a dishonourable move overall. Either don't use it, or announce it first, those were the two options he should have picked from.

Though, personally she didn't really want to change anything like that. Her intentions were to support the Imperials after all, so giving Ulfric any measure of legitimacy by making the duel unquestionable was a stupid idea. No, letting Ulfric go ahead with his stupid plan and kicking off the Stormcloak Rebellion would make things easier. With Skyrim in a civil war, the Imperials would have to rely on getting supplies over the Jerall Mountains, so if she could ease that by being a local supplier, providing the Imperial Legion with arms and armour that simply could not be produced in such high quantities by anyone else, she would be looking at a very profitable venture.

If she could wrangle trade out of the Imperials, most specifically filled Soul Gems of varying strengths as well as raw material, she could produce them tons of top-tier equipment that would not only help against the Stormcloaks, but also against the Thalmor when the Second Great War inevitably kicked off, leaving them poised to take control of Tamriel as a whole. That would be good for her, since by that time she'd have made more than enough money to live comfortably and could pursue other interests, though she honestly didn't know what she'd end up doing with herself if she was left in that kind of position for a long period.

In her previous life, it had been filled with action and danger from start to finish, right up to the end, with her execution in front of trillions, and in her current life, the first 16 years were pretty much trapped, first by her age, then by her parents, then by Grelod. As soon as she had freedom of a sort she had done so much in just three short months, and she was honestly worried that if Tamriel stabilised, she would honestly find herself just...bored of life. Sure, she adored her shop, it was hers, she could look at it and say "I built this.", but it definitely wasn't going to stay as something she could do for thirty or forty years straight, she needed action and adventure.

Shaking her head, she put that out of her mind and refocused on her book. If the Imperials ever stabilised everything, she would probably end up killing someone important, maybe the Emperor himself, to throw everything into the familiarity of chaos again. As such, she stayed put in her shop and didn't interfere in the series of events unfolding in Solitude, allowing Ulfric to screw things up and plunge Skyrim into civil war. Though, she did stay very mindful of the date, her mind still distinctly recalling the one date and time that mattered, 7:10 AM, Sundas, 17th of Last Seed, the day and time that the Dragonborn is almost executed, and Alduin emerges.

It was currently the 20th of Second Seed, so there were 89 days left, which meant she had just under three months of unknown civil war events before Helgen. That was also three months she could use to try and set herself up as an Imperial supplier, and so, she started to once again spread the word that her shop was closing for a short period. As for how long, she didn't know, so she didn't say, she just spread the word that her shop was closing, fulfilling all the custom orders she had received at the same time.

A week later, whilst Skyrim was reeling from the death of High King Torygg and the ignition of the Stormcloak Rebellion, Alcyra closed up her shop, drank a few transformative potions, and then travelled to Solitude.


Okay, I really want to know, do people actually care about the status stuff down below this?

I made several pretty big mistakes with it that either nobody noticed, or if they did I wasn't told about them until I uploaded chapter 12, so I want to know if anyone actually cares enough to read this stuff, because I might stop adding it honestly, it doesn't really add anything. I removed the spells because I don't want to have to track what spells she has, it would end up being literally like 500 words on its own pretty quickly thanks to the fact that Apocalypse spells are available to her.

So yeah, please leave a review telling me if you want to keep the status screen or not.


Name: Alcyra

Age: 16

Level: 65

Exp: 657

Health: 280

Magicka: 410

Stamina: 160

Six Perk Points

Mage Skills:

Restoration: 100 - Novice Restoration, Adept Restoration, Regeneration, Recovery 2, Avoid Death

Illusion: 68 - Novice Illusion, Apprentice Illusion, Adept Illusion, Animage, Kindred Mage, Quiet Casting, Illusion Dual Casting

Destruction: 46

Alteration: 100 - Novice Alteration, Apprentice Alteration, Adept Alteration

Enchanting: 100 - Enchanter 3, Insightful Enchanter, Corpus Enchanter, Extra Effect

Conjuration: 76 - Novice Conjuration, Apprentice Conjuration, Mystic Binding

Warrior Skills:

Smithing: 100 - Steel Smithing, Elven Smithing, Advanced Armours, Glass Smithing, Dragon Armour

Heavy Armour: 10

Block: 62 - Shield Wall 3, Quick Reflexes

Two-Handed: 10

One-Handed: 81 - Armsman 4

Archery: 11

Thief Skills:

Light Armour: 45 - Agile Defender

Sneak: 80 - Stealth 5, Muffled Movement, Light Foot, Silent Roll, Silence

Lockpicking: 100

Pickpocket: 10

Speech: 14

Alchemy: 100 - Alchemist 5, Physician, Benefactor, Poisoner, Experimenter, Concentrated Poison, Snakeblood, Purity