Scroll 3. Lil waela lueth waela ragar brorna lueth wund nind, kyorlin elghinn
(The foolish and unwary find surprises and among them, waiting death).
There was a beautiful morning in the Gothway Garden, with birds chirping and all, the sun was low and the heat of the day not yet awakened, when in the portal room of the local Mages Guild in the flash of the violet light appears the four travelers. Then one of them, a beautiful girl with her hairs in a ponytail, said "Oh, my!" and faint. It was good that another of said travelers, a young man with the pigtail, catch her before she can hit the floor.
"Well, here we are,"- state the thin white-haired fellow who apparently was the one reading transport spell.- "Let's go to the inn, we need to... discuss something. And, Tendo Nabiki-san, here is your magic item,"- with this words he give the last of the arrived group, a very pretty girl with the page-boy cut, a small stone.
"A sapphire?"
"Yes, enchanted to heal the wounds, quite handy, you know. I would recommend you to join the local Mages Guild either, it seems you meet their requirements and the Guild got quite an impressive discounts for the members."
"'Mages' Guild? There is no such thing as..."
"Oh, so how you are end up here?"
. . .(Ten minutes later, in the Green Cow Inn)
"Well, we are in Gothway Garden, a small town not too far from the coast of the Iliac Bay in the kingdom of Daggerfall. The kingdom is the part of the Empire, and the laws of Empire are enforced there. All we need is to travel to the Daggerfall, and then you can return home. Originally I was planning to use some specific object as an anchor for the spell, but the damned Wild Surge just HAS to occurs before I leave it, so... Looks like an easy way to return is closed to you now..."
"So we cannot return home?"
"Wrong, Nabiki-san. You CAN do it, just not THAT easily. The scroll I have is useless without the material anchor, but you can use the slightly altered spell to return... just about only problem is for one of you to become a mage of the sufficient power, as the caster of the spell WILL teleport himself... But with the spell you can use our teleport here for homing the jump back. In other words, my earlier recommendation becomes a necessity for all of you, not just an option. As for your payment, Ranma-san, well... Your best shot is either one of the daedra lords here, or one of the Nine Divines. Either way, becoming good enough mage yourself is a good idea, as well as using the sword..."
"Weapons are..."
"Weakness? Well, it's a stupid mistake, but I suppose Saotome Genma cannot teach anything less... pompous. The only situation when no weapons is better then using such is a friendly sparring match, and your chances for it here are... zero, or just a little less. It's a far less friendly place then your home plane, called 'Arena' in the old texts for a reason, so adapt or die. Any orc outside the city walls will kill you without any remorse or hesitation if you would not do it first. Face the ghost or wraith barehanded, and you will be dead before it will be impressed. And don't forget that this will leave the girls who accompany you alone and unprotected, as they are non-combatant right now, and in this case soon will be dead too. The more you all teach each other, the better are chances to remain alive and in one piece for all of you, though right now it's your job to protect them. Oh, and Ranma-san, don't even start this 'girls are weak' line: right now any female mage around the Bay will be far better in battle. So, keep the sword for yourself and meet the smith to get information on the weapons quality. Nabiki-san, when your sister regain consciousness, please give her this dagger, the second one is for you. By the way, You would want these little amulets around- they have a 'Tongues' spell on them, so you would not be in the dark... too much. I am out to see the..."
A knock in the door interrupt him.
"Yes?"
A hooded figure ask only one question:
"Are you Seg?"
"Yes, so..."
"Die!"
Two spells strikes, one by their... visitor, another by Seg, and both of them vanished.
. . .(One hour later, the common room of the same inn)
"You here! No make fun of kajiit!"- Said kajiit was just outright royally pissed. Yes, this pathetic human... Was he Imperial? He surely look strange to kajiit... Ah, not important.
Well, IF kajiit was not that furious, he himself could say it was not this human fault. More like these dunmer manipulate him with their smart-ass comments on how much this human moves was more smooth and cat-like then kajiit's own. The only fault of the human was ignoring him, too busy almost literally inhaling his food (and making sure NOT to look on this NOT-the-mouse-chaser), yet NOBODY will be allowed to ignore kajiit!
"Kajiit kill foolish human!"- Well, nobody say this particular kajiit was too intellectual one. Yet he understand tactics good enough to use a distraction, so he lash with the sword at the companion of the human, a short haired human female, who 'eep'-ed and barely has the time to avoid the blade.
"You bastard!"- Well, kajiit was... partially successful. The human (Saotome Ranma, trying to enjoy his meal and NOT cause problems- the bit about "avoiding troubles" was Tendo Nabiki's idea, ironically) was beyond furious now. To attack him - well, it was... normal, but to put the non-combatant in the harm's way... This bully just buy himself a severe trashing, much pain included.
Two minutes later beaten almost to the status of the rug kajiit decide that a strategic retreat was in order, and invoke his Eye of Fear ability... immediately resulting in Ranma slipping right into the Neko-ken - while already knowing that this fight was serious. As so, Ranma-neko was not too playful at the moment. So he play with this cattish mousie in such way that it would remember it's lesson, and remember it good...
After the show ended, five more minutes was enough to calm down a little for everybody involved, though the dunmer jokers got quite an ashen hue at the sight that was the unfortunate kajiit. Their troubles, however, was not with the sight of the kajiit beaten into bloody pulp (which they pretty much approved), but rather with the way his steel armor was slashed here and there like it was nothing. Looks like this strange human was quite a nasty magic-user, and there is not much things worse then to anger a mage, especially mage capable to slice off sizable pieces of steel with apparently his bare hands.
Both Tendo present was wondering what troubles was ahead with this savagery, while Ranma was purring a storm, chafing around his girl companions like a real cat could. Then one of these dark-skinned fellows who made so much fun earlier, cautiously head to their table, and Nabiki sighed internally. So much for staying out of trouble...
"I am sorry, fair maidens, for indirectly causing a problems for you. Please accept this little excuse..."- an emerald landed at the table beside the unfinished meal, and the dunmer made a quick retreat to the relative safety of his own table. Nabiki at the moment was making a fair imitation of the fish out of water.
. . ."So, we basically muddle into some really weird training trip, am I right?"- Well, even if Nabiki was not a martial artist by any stretch of imagination, she was quite familiar with the conception itself.
"Yes, you are right, but that is not all. The locals aren't too eager to speak about it, but there is apparently a power struggle around the land as a whole..."- Kasumi has a contemplative look.
"That and the whole lot of the beasts and a bandits around. And they are NOT honorable."- Ranma was outright grim, remembering this... scum attacking a non-combatant... a girl, for crying out loud!..- "I guess we would need an advice. Are there any locals around who we can trust?"
"Why?"- Nabiki again was not too sure about the whole situation. First the 'safe little travel' suddenly become not so safe, then that boy... He does not even know her, yet a couple hours ago he literally beat the hell out of some local bully for her. She was not clueless enough not to notice a change of his mood AND intentions in this fight... the change tied up to herself being in danger. It was... unfamiliar, yet definitely pleasant feeling. The guy was surprisingly decent so far... and the whole 'life on the road' thing make him very proficient as a survival specialist, but they need some clever idea, not just blind running around.
"We need training and all the magical knick-knackery and stuff, and that means work or money, maybe both. Maybe this 'Mages guild' place could help us, or these 'Nine Divines' guys..."
"Sounds like a plan... By the way, what was this... state of you?"
"A N-neko-ken I guess. I don't like to remember the whole deal, but I guess I must tell about it. Well, oyaji is generally a good trainer, but sometimes he got these hare-brained ideas..."
Well, I guess some information for these not familiar with the TES series are in order.
There are three big groups of civilized races in Tamriel: human, elves and beastmen.
The more or less detailed descriptions on these races can be found at the official site of the TES series (www point elderscrolls point com), but here is the basics.
Human races are: Nord, Imperial, Breton, Redguard. All four races got their own advantages and disadvantages, but basically- it's just humans.
Elven races: High elves, or altmer (light skin, highly magical), Wood elves, or bosmer (very agile, resistant to diseases and often sneaky sort), Dark elves, or dunmer (dark gray skin, usually red eyes, highly traditional, resistant to fire), and Heartland High elves, or ayleides, also known as the Wild Elves (lost a war to Empire, never appears in the series). The dwarves, or dwemer, are presumably of elven ancestry either, but this race is deceased long ago (failed attempt to reach a godhood).
Beastmen: Kajiit (catfolk) - very agile, has a natural ability to scare the opponent; Argonian (lizardfolk) - immune to poisons, can breathe underwater, regenerate; Orcs - fierce warriors, has a natural ability to go berserk.
Other sentient and demisentient native races: Ogres (big, strong, dumb as hell); Goblins (average size, sneaky, barbaric); an assortment of other beings (from spriggans and nymphs to weres, vampires, liches and dragons).
Plus, there is... another group of beings. They are: scheming, cunning, immortal... and NOT native to this plane of existence. They are daedra. The nearest term in Earthen languages will be demons or gods (depending on culture involved). They are NOT undefeatable though, nor they are all-knowing, but anyway- it's one hell of a tough customers.
There are some trends in the interracial affairs.
For example, dunmer dislikes nords (because they were at war for centuries - and had their asses handed to them several times already), despise kajiits and argonians (both races used by them as slaves) and are divided in their perception of Imperials (who defeat them and enforce their laws presently). Kajiits and argonians both hate dunmer as a slavers, and often perceive the non-beastmen races as inferior to them... And so on.
Oh, by the way- the disappearance of Seg refers to one of the very common in the TES II (Daggerfall) quests ("Meet a person in the inn, hear the rant resembling one of the typical Ryoga speeches crossed with something Kuno Tatewaki would find familiar, then be teleported into the random dungeon").