Ragnar The Conqueror Chapter 7, an elder scroll series fanfic

I had underestimated the amount of time I would need to get everything ready to move into my dorm. I haven't even moved yet but I've been scrambling to get everything coordinated with my roommates BECAUSE BOTH DON'T FUCKING COMMUNICATE AT ALL

I dashed passed the tree lining with Guruk at my side, speeding towards the small opening that acted like a door on the ruined tower. The two archers at the top noticed us almost immediately, one reading their bow while the other disappeared briefly shouting out an alarm to the rest. A howl pierced the air as Kragrau's ghost wolf bounded after us. The sound of arrows flying in the air passed my ears as Morbrukk and the random bandit shot each other.

I ran through the entrance and skidded to the side, turning as I did losing little momentum as I bounded up the stairs with my shield raised, barreling into two bandits that had groggily gotten up from their sleeping bags on the floor. I sent them crashing onto the ground, one even smashed into the side of a table that was sitting next to the wall. Guruk and the conjured wolf flew up the stairs and joined my side just as the first bandit from upstairs came charging down the stairs. Guruk grinned savagely and swung his greatsword with great force, the rando tried to block it with his sword, barely holding on as Guruks overwhelming strength caused the poor man to slam into the wall.

I didn't stand idly by as I continued forward to fight the two bandits that were starting to get up again. I moved quickly to the one that crashed back onto the floor and lashed out my foot against his stomach. The bandit wheezed violently, panicking as the wind was knocked out of his lungs. I twisted my axe around and smashed the flat end into the side of the other bandit in their arm, causing him to let out a yell of pain. I smashed my shield into their chest, giving the bandit whiplash that had his head smashing into the table again. He crumpled to the ground, not knocked out but in enough pain to where he wouldn't want to move again.

The other two bandits from upstairs rushed down the stairs. One in heavy iron armor the other in what looked like studded leather. I spared a glance at the two bandits I had fought, I whistled for the conjured wolf as he stopped in his assault of an already downed bandit and trotted over to me.

"Good boy, now stay guard here for me okay? If these two so much as get up show em' who's boss."

He wagged his tail, gave a bark of affirmation and stood guard in front of the two downed men, his fur bristled to show he was ready to attack at moment's notice. Satisfied, I turned and headed over to help fight with Guruk. The orc in question had backed up from the stairs and was now more on the main floor of the room, the bandit he had fought earlier sprawled on the stairs, breathing deeply and slowly. Yikes, we'll have to get that checked out.

The remaining two bandits were…laughably easy. Just like the rest of this damn place. The one in heavy armor swung their sword, the other slashed with their daggers, but they were so bad at fighting it was just sad. They over extended, swung with more force than necessary, the iron clad bandit didn't even use their shield OR their armor to their advantage. The other one was arguably worse. The man had TWO daggers and only used one of them, and he wasn't even good at fighting with the one knife he was using!

To call it a fight was an insult, I sighed in disappointment as I parried the heavy armored bandits sword and smashed my axe into the side of his helmet, his body toppled to the side, head slamming into the corner of the stairs and collapsing onto the floor, unmoving.

I turned my head and saw that Guruk had dealt with his foe in a similarly easy manner, even easier than mine actually. All he did was step to the side when the bandit had made another overly forceful swing and just tipped his lowered sword slightly upwards. The bandits uneasy feet tripped over the blade, and he took a harsh tumble down the stairs, landing on the bottom with a loud thud. We peered down and saw him sprawled on his back, eyes wide and heaving for air.

"Boss?"

"Hahhh, yeah Guruk?"

"Are..are you sure we should add these guys to our forces?"

"I..I'm not even sure anymore to be honest."

"Good to know I'm not the only one."

"Just..just go see if that guy's okay, I'll take care of the rest."

Guruk sighed and leisurely made his way down the stairs, the downed man at the bottom growing more and more panicky as he got closer and closer. I sighed and made my way up the stairs, passing the third floor and making my way to the roof. The two archers never even noticed me, too busy focusing on Morbrukk and Kragrau. I walked up behind one, and swung my foot upwards into his balls. The man let out a painful whimper and slowly fell down onto both knees, clutching his family jewels in his two hands. The other man turned around quickly but it was for naught. I just shoved him very hard, grabbing one of his ankles as his body started to fall over the small wall that had previously kept him from falling off the roof. The archer was now dangling over the top of the tower, the only thing preventing a painful death was my vice grip on his right ankle as he went deathly still in my grasp.

"Drop your weapons or I drop you, got it?"

The bandit hurriedly dropped his bow, unfasted his quiver and even reached behind his back and unsheathed a dagger and threw it at the ground. I hoisted the man back up and dropped him on the floor. His frightened gaze met the floor upon seeing my utterly disappointed expression.

I sighed and turned to look down towards Morbrukk and Kragrau, who were now walking out into the open. I gave a little wave. Only kragrau waved back, sadge.

"Oi, how many healing potions do you two have left?" I shouted.

"We each have about 3 Ragnar! Why?" Kragrau shouted back.

"We definitely overprepared for this, we gotta heal these guys or else I'm afraid they're gunna not be able to recover!"

(-)

"Just take the drink man."

"Fuck you, you kicked me in the fuckin balls."

"Stop being a pansy and take the damn potion!"

I've been arguing with the man for the past three minutes. He refuses to take the damn potion even if it means he'll be in pain for like the next ten! It's even more infuriating that he's the last one we have to heal, the others are already healed and shamefully sitting against the tower. We kept going back and forth before I snapped.

"Gods damn it if you don't take the potion willingly I'm going to shove it up your ass and you'll take the damn thing anally!"

"That wouldn't even work!"

"I'm willing to try!"

We glared at each other, until he angrily swiped the potion from my hands and downed it. I let out a satisfied exhale of air and patiently waited for the man to join with his friends.

"That's all of em right Guruk?"

"Yeah boss, every person who was in the tower is here now."

"Fantastic. Oi! Which one of yous is the leader of your group."

The captured men looked at each other, almost as if they were confused on who would be the one to speak up for them.

"Do..do you guys not have a leader?"

They continued to glance at each other in silence, but ultimately one of the men raised his head to speak. He had short, messy black hair and light brown eyes that bore hard into me as he spoke.

"No."

I blinked. "I'm honestly surprised, I didn't expect a bandit group to be so democratic."

He spit angrily to the side, eyes narrowed as if offended. "If we had our way we wouldn't even have had to become bandits, not like you lot would know any of that would you?"

An angry huff came from Morbrukk of all people. I sent him a look, silently telling him to stand down. To my relief, he listened, and I turned back to my…prisoners?

"Careful with what you say, else face the consequences. But what did you mean with the first part?"

"Why do you care?"

"Just curiosity. You telling me or not is inconsequential, I'm still getting what I came here for."

The captured men spoke to each other in soft tones, I couldn't catch a word of it but the outspoken man seemed to slump a bit in acceptance.

"Whatever, guess it doesn't matter whether you know or not."

"…Ragnar?"

"Hm? What's up Morbrukk."

"Must I stay for their history? I'd much rather get back to the fort than stay here and listen to their drabble."

"Eh, sure. Kragrau you can go too if you wish. You can too Guruk, but I'd rather you stay."

Morbrukk gave me a thankful nod and turned to leave, Kragrau leaving along with him with a wave goodbye. Guruk sat down, getting comfortable on the ground for what could be a long story.

"Sorry about that, continue Arsin"

"Arsin? My name is Brojlic."

"Aaaand thank you for telling me your name!"

"…fuck."

I snickered and waved my hand for him to continue.

"Everything started a month ago, we were all just doing our jobs up at the mine across at that hill close to the mountains. Everything was going fine, but little things kept happening. Our equipment was disappearing slowly but surely. At first we thought we were just misplacing everything, but it became more and more apparent as the days passed that it must have been done by someone. We had assumed that it must have been bandits or something, so we had sent a message to the Jarl. We went ignored for weeks, not even so much as a response from him at all, so we sent someone to meet him directly. He couldn't have been ignoring us, we thought. He must have not gotten our messages, we hoped.

We were wrong.

The man we sent came back and told us everything. Siddgeir had read the messages but had dismissed them as unfound concerns. Told us to keep better track of our equipment. Didn't even so much as send a guard to come verify our concerns. We were alone for what came next. Bandits poured out of the woods and stormed the camp we had set up, killed our fellow miners with ease. Us seven? The only survivors of that slaughter, and only because we were at the very back, so we managed to escape into the mountains."

My face hardened, "Was one of the bandits wearing an all black piece of armor?"

His angry expression morphed into a confused, but focused one. "…Yeah? Yeah. There was one guy who was wearing all black armor, you saw em right Joric?"

The forementioned man tilted his head to the side, his long blond hair brushing passed his face, coal black eyes and blond eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "I..think so? No wait, yeah, there was a guy wearing black armor. He was the guy who came in last. The one we saw that had hung back, the dark elf fella."

"Yeah that was it! Why'd ya wanna know?"

My teeth grinded together anxiously, "I'll tell you in a bit, what happened after you escaped?"

"Oh, uh well we ran all the way over here and found this abandoned place. There were armor and weapons already here, so we figured that we'd just take it over. Since then we've had to do some roadway robbery to get food and supplies, none of us had money and we had lost faith in the capabilities of Jarl Siddgeir. After a bit we made a name for ourselves, 'bannermist bandits,' that's what we called ourselves. It made us sound more official, more confident. All of this has been so that we could bide our time and train so we could strike when the time was right, get revenge or die trying and all that."

Guruk made a noise of realization, "So that's why you lot couldn't fight back, you guys have no experience fighting at all!"

Brojlic's face flushed with embarrassment and a tad bit of shame at Guruk's blunt words.

"Yeah…well, now you know. You gunna kill us or something?"

"Kill you after all the effort we made to keep you lot alive? Fuck that, we came here to recruit you. Well, not you guys specifically, just whoever would have been here."

"…this isn't a choice, is it. We either join you or we die?"

"Fuck that, join me or leave I don't give a fuck."

"Ragnar we can't just let them leave, they could reveal us!"

"They won't do that Guruk, they can't go back to falkreath, they just admitted to robbing some of their citizens for shit. No doubt they're already wanted by the guards, and if they managed to escape the hold there's no reason for any of the other Jarls to care about us. Besides, they likely wouldn't make it out of Falkreath hold regardless, they're too untrained to survive all the bandits and wild animals that roam the woods and pathways."

"…if you're certain boss."

"Thank you for the faith Guruk. Alright you lot, what say you? If you don't want to join us then take your chances out in the wild."

None of them moved. A new person, however, spoke up.

"If we join, what will you have us do?"

"And you are…?"

"Erwans, sir."

"Well, Erwan, that'll depend on what you want. If you wish to stay here and train to get revenge, you'll be put under command of Guruk here. He'll be in charge of you lot, and in return he'll train you, mold you all into people capable of handling yourself. If you'd rather not have to fight, we do have a silver mine back at our fort, you'd be more than welcome to work there and earn payment from the trade agreements we have. We also have an alchemist and magicka caster you could learn from if your so inclined, but that's what we have to offer. What remains to be seen is whether or not you accept."

The assembled men huddled together and conversed in fast, hushed tones. Arguing back and forth until they all nodded their heads, some looked more resolved from before, Brojlic and Erwans patting two of the other guys on the back in what looked like determination. Brojlic turned back to us, and spoke for the assembled men.

"We'll take you up on your offer."

You have defeated 7 bandits!

+175XP

+Bannermist Tower added to territory (+1 STR)

+You have gained 7 followers!

Updating profile…

Profile updated!

Name: Ragnar

Race: Nord

Level: 9

EXP: 205/ 500

Health: 200 Magicka: 270 Stamina: 190

STR: 16 (17)

INT: 25 (27)

END: 18 (20)

DEX: 16 (19)

SP: 0

PP: 7

Land Controlled:

-Cracked Tusk Keep (+2 END)

-Halldir's Cairn (+2 INT)

-Bannermist Tower (+1 STR)

People under your leadership:

Happy: 6

Neutral: 6

Unhappy: 0

Congratulations! You have gathered ten followers and have earned your first of many follower benefits!

Perk added Gifted Training

Gifted Training: Your followers receive +10% chance to receive stat gains when training

Follower benefits will be distributed as you exponentially gain more followers. Territory Benefits remain locked until you gain five territories.

Wait a second…System add one Perk Point into Gifted Training

-1 Perk Point

Gifted Training [I/V]: Your followers receive +15% chance to receive stat gains when training

I can use perk points on actual perks?! I thought it would just let me grant perks to skills that I had, like a perk tree!

Pause for a phat minute brain. Focus on new members first, be in awe later.

"Good! Alright then, let's get everyone situated, yeah? Whoever wants to leave with me back to the fort to do something that doesn't involve combat, step forwards. The rest will stay here and train under Guruk."

Only two men raised their hands and stepped towards me. One was tall, around 5'9 if I had to take a guess. Short chopped black hair with slightly narrow blue eyes, muscular arms – likely from swinging a pickaxe for hours on end. The other man was shorter, but not by much standing at 5'8. He had shoulder length redish hair, roundish green eyes, and had the same muscular arms as the first man.

"And you two are…?"

"Tuari, boss."

"Abelon, sir."

"Excellent, we'll leave for the base in a bit, I just have to hash out some details with Guruk and then we can leave. You guys can decide what you want to do when we get back. For now, gather your things and we can move out."

Both men nodded and stepped inside the tower, disappearing from the entrance as they headed up the steps. I focused my attention back on the leftover men.

"Alright, you guys will be under the leadership of Guruk here. While here you'll be training under him so that you can all be ready to do raids on passing merchantmen, or whatever else Guruk plans on."

"Wait, what about the bandits that killed our friends?"

"We'll take care of them eventually, and don't worry Brojlic, you and your friends will be a part of that. WE just have to get stronger and gather more allies."

"How strong could a couple of bandits be?"

"Oh not that dangerous at all, I imagine that the bandits there will be stronger than average, but I'm confident that Guruk and myself could take them with backup. It's that black armored dark elf that I'm preparing for."

"Why go through so much effort for one man?"

"That man is a daedric champion. That armor? A daedric artifact of Boethia."

Panicked looks rapidly spread amongst my men, Guruk himself even has paled quite a bit, turning his head to stare at me shocked, as if saying 'are you serious?!'

"I'm sure that I don't need to tell you why confronting that man without some serious planning is a bad idea. But don't be discouraged! That man is killable, we just need the right plan and the right approach. But that can wait until we plan to confront him. For now, just train and learn under Guruk. If you do well, you will be rewarded. If you become a liability? You're gone. Now go, Guruk and I have much to discuss regarding how we move forward."

Borjlic and his gang made their way back inside the tower, leaving Guruk and I alone outside.

"Boss, were you serious about taking on a daedric champion?"

"To be honest I can't remember if he's a champion or if he simply possesses the artifact. Either way, yes, I was serious. Even without Brojlic and crews backstory we would have taken them on eventually. With this unforeseen opportunity, we'll have men who are more dedicated to learning and listening to you."

I sighed, "But honestly? We won't even consider taking them on yet. If things continue the way they are I honestly think we could do it in maybe a month's time. Could that be an unnecessary amount of preparation? Quite possibly, but I'd rather not take that chance."

Guruk was silent for a long time.

"I honestly don't know how you so much, but it's none of my business. Besides, it don't matter none to me. I'm a fighter, not a thinker like you are."

"Thank you?"

"Hmph, anyways, what'd you want to discuss with me?"

"I was just gunna say that in terms of communication I'll personally make a trip here at the end of each week or so, that way we can go over the progress you're making, and we can go over notes or something. Don't worry, you have complete control over how you run things here, we just need to communicate so that we can plan around each other if need be."

"Got it boss."

"And Guruk?"

"Yeah?"

"If these guys show any signs of backstabbing us? Do as you see fit."

"…understood Ragnar."

Guruk stood up, stretching a bit to get the kinks out.

"Guess this is it for now huh?"

"Yeah, the base won't be the same without you Guruk."

Guruk let a prideful smirk rest on his tusked mouth.

"Of course it won't be the same, all the real men will be gone."

"Go suck a dick like a real man Guruk."

(-)

It was a silent walk back to the base, neither Tuari nor Abelon so much as whispered the entire trip. But honestly that was probably for the best, it allows me to mentally go over what I wanted to do with my remaining Perk Points. Do I go all in on Gifted Training so that my men can grow stronger, or should I be conservative with my points, as it'll become increasingly harder and harder in the future to level up and gain PP.

I could also distribute my points evenly amongst my current skills, but honestly nothing attention grabbing shows. The fact of the matter is I'm just not experienced enough with my current skills to get anything that would be even remotely useful, but getting stuff now could be useful in the immediate future…

It's a toss up, but I'm honestly leaning on the idea to just dump as many points as I can into Gifted Training. Getting stronger units faster would be incredibly useful, and if dnd has taught me anything in the short time I played was that action economy is everything. The only thing that keeps me from just dumping all my points into it is that I have no idea how expensive this will all be, because for some reason I can't see what the cost of next level of the perk is like I can with perks I get for skills. Also, I really don't want to get rid of ALL of my points in case I need the in future.

Hmmm…I'll get the next level into Gifted Training and go from there.

-2 Perk Points

Gifted Training [II/V]: Your followers receive +20% chance to receive stat gains when training

Even with the grimace forming on my face, it was totally worth it. A one in five chance of getting stat boosts for my men? I'll fuckin take that in a heartbeat!

Another silent twenty minutes passed as we continued onwards, and soon we had made it back to the fort. I stepped into the open walkway with the two new guys behind me. Morbrukk, Kragrau, and Umak were nowhere to be seen, but Gavnuk was standing over the forge, adding fuel to the fire for whatever he was doing. As I made my way over to him I made sure to make my steps extra loud as to not accidently startle him. He spared me a glance and a grin stretched across his face. He gave a once over to whatever was in the forge and outstretched his arm, hand open in greeting.

I swung my arm out and grasped his hand tightly with my own, his squeezing mine with equal force.

"Welcome back Ragnar! Morbrukk and Kragrau came by earlier so I assume the mission was a success?"

"Was there any doubt?"

"Ha! I suppose not. Oh? And who might these two be?"

"Ah, thank you for reminding me Gavnuk. These two are Tuari and Abelon, they're here because they'd rather work on…actually you two never mentioned what you wanted to do?"

"Oh, sorry bout that boss. Tuari and I wanted to work in the mine, we just thought it was obvious because of our other occupation."

"Mhm."

I grinned, "In that case, meet your new boss. Hear that Gavnuk? We got some new blood to help us slave away in the mines."

Gavnuk unclasped his hand from mine and peered over at the two men, his eyes roamed over their forms, taking everything in.

"You, Abelon. You have experience forging don't you?"

Abelon blinked in surprise, "Uh, yeah. I made the ingots we sold. How'd ya know?"

"Your arms are more well defined, better musculature and more even spreading of strength along the body. You don't get that kind of build swinging a pickaxe all day like your friend there. Good, we can have you stay out here and man the forge while the rest of us dig for ore. As a matter of fact, daylight's still burnin. What say you all we get to work?"

"You got it boss."

"Yes sir!"

"Sure thing Gavnuk."

(-)

1 Elk killed

+15 XP

I swung my axe to the side, getting rid of any excess blood from the axe blade. Sighing, I grabbed out a piece of cloth hanging out of my backpack. As I got to work cleaning off the blood as best as I could, the familiar sound of four heavy footsteps made their way towards me, nestling down right next to my fresh kill.

"You back for more huh? Lazy bear, stealin my hard work. Weren't those wolves from days prior enough?"

An almost teasing sound left the mother bears maw as she chowed down on my latest conquest. I smiled in amusement at the bears antics as I stepped over the feasting bears' head. It stopped, not aggressive towards me as it gazed curiously as I held strong on the antlers of the elk and hacked away at them. Content that I wasn't stealing any of what should be my food, the bear went back to eating. It was a messy ordeal, but I managed to remove both of the large elk antlers and stuffed them into my backpacks inventory.

I stretched my arms above my head, sighing contently as the satisfying cracks sounded off from my back, neck, and arms. I glanced down at the bear, debating with myself before I shrugged. I came around and sat down next to the bear, leaning back with one hand, one leg propped up with the other laying flat on the ground. The bear paused her eating, turning her head towards me. I calmly, and slowly raised my hand and inched it ever closer to her. She made no sound, and with no signs of disapproval, I laid my hand on her head, rubbing it slowly like one would a dog.

For a tense second nothing happened, until the bear turned her head back to the dead elk, slowly eating the venison straight from the bone as my hand continued to stroke her head and ears. We sat in comfortable silence for a while, and even as she cleaned the whole elk clean, she continued to lay next to me on the forest floor. I slowed in my petting, and a small growl sounded from her mouth, and only when I went back to my previous pace did she quiet down.

"I should really stop spoiling you so much."

A small huff left her jaws as the bear yawned, her razor-sharp teeth proudly on display for the whole forest to see.

"Whatever, I don't have anywhere to be anyways, this seems like a perfectly good way to kill an afternoon."