Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, don't own Skyrim or The Elder Scrolls franchise.
Chapter 2
The time had come, it didn't matter how much Arthur wanted to deny it, it was now clear that he was hopelessly lost.
One might think, rightfully so, that it should be easy to follow a straight line, and normally, they would be right. Unfortunately, Skyrim's geography didn't care what those people thought, for it was a mess of hills and mountains that weren't as scalable as the game would make you believe, nor was falling from great heights any good for his health.
Arthur closed the map with a sigh, deciding to do maybe one of the most stupid things he could have done, following the road.
To be fair, such action would have been a no brainer for most people, unfortunately for Arthur, he was a skeleton held together by magic he didn't know of and would have most likely only barely understood.
And given the small fact that the vigilant of Stendarr both existed and regularly patrolled the roads of Skyrim, well, one can quickly see why that becomes a problem.
Fortunately, his survival instinct, in the end, won over his annoyance at not being able to read a fucking map and so he decided to stay on the path and make it off-road instead of making the obvious, if incredibly more dangerous, choice of following the road.
In the end, he shouldn't have bothered, for it seemed that if he didn't bother to go looking for trouble, then the trouble would go looking for him.
And so it was truly by accident, that he stumbled in a small bandit camp, At least fortune seemed to smile upon him because only one bandit seemed to be present.
COMBAT INITIATED
The bandit seemed to notice him and raised his hands, he could feel it, feel the fire quickly gathering in the mage's hand as he prepared to launch a firebolt.
Unfortunately for him, Arthur could not let him get that attack off, and so he attacked him with ferocity, advancing into the slash and trying to cut him from shoulder to hip in a single draw, but the bandit took a step back, blue magic flashing over his form as an armour spell went up and managed to get away with nary but a shallow cut on his arm.
Arthur snarled, using the tip of his sword as a shovel, sending dirt into the bandit's eyes making him cry in pain. He advanced quickly, not giving him time to recover, and stabbed him in the chest, his sword impaled to the hilt in his torso.
He stared at it in shock, disgusted at what he had done in the heat of the moment before a deep unnatural coldness settled in his mind.
"Better them than me." Arthur muttered, dismissing the body with nary a thought once the end combat window opened up.
COMBAT ENDED… CALCULATING REWARDS
Bandit mage lv 4 killed… +70 EXP
LEVEL UP! PERK POINT GAINED
CHOSE A BAR TO ALLOT +10 TO
STAMINA: N/A
MAGICKA: 100
HEALTH: 100-110
Arthur nodded allotting the points, feeling his bones strengthen, his… being for lack of a better word, becoming stronger, firmer.
He grunted, grabbing the hilt of his sword and tugging it back, wrenching it free from the corpse, thinking back at what he had felt before during the fight, at the magic the bandit used.
He looked around himself, deciding that maybe experimenting with magic in the middle of a bandit camp wasn't the best idea, and proceeded to loot the place, pushing away thoughts of magic experimentation for now.
He found some knickknacks, a pair of iron gauntlets 'Probably shouldn't be called gauntlets, they are more like a couple of leather gloves with pieces of Iron stuck on top.' He thought, putting them on, being surprised by how comfortable they were, hell, they fit him like a glove.
"Probably the system's doing, the Dragonborn didn't need to resize the loot he found after all" he muttered while rummaging through the various tents in the encampment, finding nothing else of interest apart from a simple bow in bad conditions and a quiver with about 6 arrows.
"And you are certainly going with me," he muttered slinging the quiver on his back, grabbing the run down bow with the other hand and hightailing it out of there, he already took too much time as it was.
He ran through the woods again, hearing the bandits coming back to camp and finding their slain comrade, their voices echoing behind him for a few moments before being lost. If there was anything good to come out of his condition was his stamina, after all, you can't cough up your lungs if there are no lungs, to begin with.
He stopped near a small cave, getting inside and putting himself out of the forest, hoping that was all that he needed to avoid the bandits, while he could defend himself he didn't like his chances against more than one opponent
He strained his earing, letting out a sigh of relief as he didn't hear anyone coming. He felt hot warm air coming from further down the cave, looking on as the small cave slowly opened up a passage, going further down into the earth.
Quest Added, Into the depts: Explore the cave.
Reward: 100 EXP, 1 skill level to be allotted to any skill available.
"On one hand, I probably should just leave, on the other hand, the bandits are probably patrolling the area for me right now…. Fuck it suspicious cave it is."
He said, picking up the pace, one hand firmly gripping the sword's hilt the other tracing a line on the stone walls watching as the bioluminescent mushrooms dimmed slightly under his hand before returning to their merry twinkle after he passed them.
He soon reached a pair of chitinous totems, with a par of human skulls adorning the top, dried blood still on them.
"Fucking Falmers" he muttered, removing the skull from the totem putting them down on the ground with care.
He marched on inside the cave, at this point, it wasn't curiosity or greed driving him, but determination, how many others would die if he didn't stop them now? Those skulls were still fucking fresh.
He went a bit more into the cave before finding the first trace of falmers, namely a crude trap made from chitin and sharpened stone. He triggered it and moved on going deeper and deeper, before finding what seemed to be a small Falmer camp, with 2 falmers butchering some kind of animal and a couple of falmers acting as guard.
Combat started
He took out the bow, grunting in surprise at how light it was to draw and aim, taking in a breath and released the arrow, letting it fly and hit its target, taking down one of the sentries, quickly nocking another and taking out the other sentry as it went towards its fallen comrade.
At this point, the butchers noticed that something was wrong and went to check on them, and naturally, Arthur took the occasion to finish them, hitting the first one in the stomach, cursing as the second one avoided the arrow by luck, trying to grab an arrow cursing as he felt none in the quiver.
He dropped down the bow to the side of the cave to distract the bind falmer, falling on it as it turned it's back on him, stabbing his sword in his back, grunting as they fell on the ground, getting back to his feet and grabbing back his sword, calming down only when the End combat message came.
Combat ended
Calculating rewards
3 level 6 falmers 1 level 7 falmer…. 105 Exp awarded
Archery LV Up 15-16
Sneak level up 5-6
He cleaned his sword on the falmer's tunic, putting it back in the scabbard before he moved back towards the small encampment, wanting to ransack it for all it was worth it.
That feeling disappeared quickly once he saw what the falmers were actually butchering.
It was a human body once, of that he was sure, either a child or a young adult, most likely an elf judging by the ears lying a few inches away from the intestines.
"They were going to fucking eat it" he snarled, his hands gripping the chalky stone table hard enough to crack it, squashing whatever pity he might have had for the foul creatures.
No matter what they were before, no matter what atrocities were committed upon their flesh, there was not enough pity in him to care for them anymore, not after what they had done.
He gave a quick prayer to Arkay for the safe travel of the child's soul, crossing the child's hands over his chest to give it some décor before turning towards the tents in search of anything that could be useful.
He found nothing but a falmer helm, which he put on with disgust, and a handful of septims, spilled on the ground by a broken pouch, which he put in his backpack.
He went outside the tent, going back to the bodies to pick back the arrows, cursing when he found out that one of them had been broken when piercing the falmer's lungs, leaving him with only three.
He put them back into his quiver, picking up his bow from where he had thrown it, and started to delve deeper into the cave system, the bioluminescent funguses growing in number until they covered the whole surface of the small tunnel's wall, their brightness growing to match that of the evening sun, letting him see the room he was going in.
It was spacious enough to let the falmer's set up a camp slightly larger than the one from before, this one has some sort of… 'are those pens' he thought with a frown, looking at the animals down into the lower area, they were some sort of a weird cross between and an insect, a chitinous shell covering a slender body with 3 pair of legs coming from the size
of it and vicious mandibles stabbing into its last, unfortunate meal, 'probably another human' he thought, looking at the pale arm dangling from its jaws.
He shook his head in disgust, picking up one of his lasts arrows and aiming for a falmer carrying a twisted staff that prickled at his new magic sense, letting the arrow fly and grunting in success as it sank into its left eye, alerting the other falmers of his presence, he quickly nocked the other two, letting them fly towards the group of five coming to his position, catching one in the lungs and the other in the right knee picking up a stone and throwing it away from him to distract the last three.
He sneaked past them, hurrying towards the fallen falmer mage and picking up the staff, feeling a rush of magic coursing through it and pointing it to the three falmers, acting almost through instinct and pushing the magic he now felt in his veins into the staff(-5MP), blasting out a ball of fire, setting them ablaze and downing the 2 of the falmers, doing the same to the last one standing, ending them once and for all.
Combat Ended
Calculating rewards…
Sneak 06-07
5 low-level falmers and 1 low-level falmer mage defeated! 175 EXP awarded
LEVEL UP! PERK POINT GAINED
CHOSE A BAR TO ALLOT +10 TO
STAMINA: N/A
MAGICKA: 100
HEALTH: 110-120
Lv3 68/400
He allotted a point to Heath, as usual, looking at the message that popped down below it, trying to decide what to do.
Quest completed +100 EXP, Free Skill level token to seed.
"What the fuck do I put it into" he muttered, running his gauntlet covered hand on his bony face, trying to decide which skill to put it into.
Magic was an obvious consideration, he had finally found a way to use magic, but which one should he pick?!
'Enchantment is out' he thought 'No matter how overpowered it would be in the right conditions there is no way to use it right now, and I need something effective in the short term,' he paced, being careful not to step over the bodies 'Same with conjuration while having a companion to fight for me would be useful I have no idea on how I could eve summon one so that's getting a pass.'
'This leaves Restoration, Illusion, Destruction, and Alteration,' he thought, entering one of the tents and finding the clothes of the people they captured, sorting through them for something that could be useful, finding a tunic and some roughspun wool pants and jacket of his size, quickly removing the dirty and almost falling apart robe and putting on those clothes, and his gauntlets,
"Restoration is out as is Illusion, the first wouldn't help me much as I don't have any flesh to heal," he muttered, almost snarling at the reminder of his state, the hot emotion simmering back like all the other emotions he was feeling lately.
"Illusion is useless too, even if I could use one to pass myself off as human there is still the risk of it breaking, that and going into the town without being able to speak or read the language with the constant threat of being found would be stupid" he muttered, going from tent to tent in search of anything useful, fining nothing but a battered pair of leather shoes.
"This leaves Alteration and destruction." He said, grabbing one of the corpses ad taking back his arrows, stuffing them back in his quiver, picking his bow, and slinging it on his back.
He looked at the Staff in his hand, feeling the magic coursing through it, its charge barely lessened from before, moving his hands over it, feeling its warmth, in the end, the choice was obvious.
"I need armour," He said, his hand clenching on the chitinous staff "Right now I only have the clothes on my back to protect me and I doubt that they'll be all that useful against blunt weapons." He muttered, passing a hand over the wool jacket, gripping it with his bony, gauntleted fingers.
He let out a sigh, more out of habit than need, and picked alteration, his mind Expanding, new knowledge pouring in from the ether, more instruction, and feelings than memories, snapshots of pages and lessons.
ALTERATION UNLOCKED 0 - 1.
D̷̗͙ͥͧ̓ͩͫ̚ ͆̓̋ͯ̈́̀͏̖̞͔Ǫ̴̼̝̺͕̑̈́ͣ̾ͥ͋̍͊́ͅ ͍̞̩̓ͭ̀̒͛̊̈W̘̻̝͔̮͙̜̩̐ͨ̂́ ͎͚̰̖͉̌ͨ̈̚N̢͖̥̝̲̰͎̾̓ͩͪ̓́͞ ̶̡͍͎̦̥͚ͪ͆͟L͖̝̣͈̖͇͆̇̌͡͡͡ ̶̰̬͙̰̱̄ͪ̃ͧͅȮ̡͍͈͓̱͊̔ͩ̊͋ͥ͒̏ ̦̖͈̯̯̟̊ͧ͂ͧ̒̚͢Å͚̙̱̦ͧ́ ̵̷̱ͨ͒D̸̬͇̬̏̏̓̇̉̏̾̔̀ ̢̜̠͎͔͉̒̑͊͠I̜͙͈̲̭͔̗͎̔͆͋̔͒ͣ ͚̺͌͂̔͆͗̓Ṉ̬̺͍͎͔̓ͤ̍̓͘͞ ̵̛̘̳͇ͯͣ̃̔̍̀G̴͚̗͇̲͚͓͚̉ͨ̅̒̾͢ͅ ̹̜̺̤̣̼̪͎̆́
Due to unlocking a magic skill for the first time, a basic spell has been added.
Alter I (Cost, 20 MP): Use magic to change the shape and form of any object in a 20 cm radius of the user's hand.
Arthur rose from where he fell, the headache rapidly dwindling as the knowledge on how to use the spell settled in his mind.
He picked up his tattered robe, pushing magic through it until it enveloped the part that he wanted to change, intoning a quick [Alter], a useless step for a better mage but a necessary one for a novice like him, watching with bated breath as the cloth started to mend, its tears returning to their original unbroken form, just like he had envisioned.
"This has possibilities" he muttered picking up a pebble, using alteration to quickly change it into an arrowhead shape.
"So many possibilities."
Welp, another chapter done, even if a little later than I would have liked; Ah well, that's the exam period for you I guess.
I always loved the magic in the Elder Scrolls, with alteration being the one with the most potential, in my opinion, one that hasn't been properly reflected in the games, but they are games in the end, and I hope I can show the potential it has in this fic.
A.N over, see you guys next time.