Approaching High Gate Ruins, I recalled by sight what this quest was. That woman who was after some scroll. She gave you the Flaming Familiar if you helped her, but she almost always dies if she actually follows you.

Seeing as I didn't have a heal other spell, and I currently did the most damage with Shouts, I decided to try and bypass her and let her trail after me without participating.

"Tiid Klo Ul!" I shouted once more. The world grinded slowly until there was an eerie silence.

Sprinting, I ripped through the door to the ruins, past the woman, and into the dungeon. Killing several draugr with my sword, time ticked by until the undead were moving at normal speed.

These normal varieties of draugr were barely more than one or two swings of my sword, and sprinting through the dungeon off of memory and with the heightened processing speed that my stats were offering me, I blitzed through the ruins in hardly any time.

Ignoring the loot was the biggest time save, besides knowing the puzzle solutions, and before long, I was overlooking the crypt of Vokun.

"VOKUN!" I shouted.

The coffin burst open, and the Dragon Priest Vokun flew into the air and righted himself.

"Konahrik!" it shouted in return. It gestured, and two Draugr Deathlords sheathed their swords and moved to a wall.

"Today is your last day, Priest." I declared.

"We shall see, Conqueror." it replied.

"Tiid Klo Ul!" I shouted again.

As I shouted the first word, Vokun flinched and shouted as well. "Feim Zii Gron!"

The slow ramp down to 90% meant that his shout resolved first, and he faded into the effects of Become Ethereal.

He was immune to damage for 18 seconds, more than enough time for my shout to wear off.

I smirked. "I, who am about to awaken.

Am the Heavenly Dragon who has stolen the principles of domination from God.

I laugh at the "infinite", and I fret over the "dream".

I shall become the Red Dragon of Domination..."

Vokun was looking mightily disturbed, glancing at the Deathlords he'd sent away.

"Just kidding." I reply, before launching myself forward. Vokun dodged backwards as his shout wore off, but the stab nicked his throat regardless.

With all of my strength, I leapt forward again, using my sword with a hand on the blade to push the edge into Vokun's throat, knocking him over, and letting my body weight drive the edge through his undead neck, decapitating him.

The Deathlords kneeled in some strange understanding, perhaps an old protocol for senior dragon priests.

"Return to your coffins. Ignore the woman coming." I ordered as I collected the notes and the mask on the corpse.

They obeyed, and I took a moment to breathe and calm down as the woman, Anska I suddenly recalled, approached.

"Uh, hello?" she called out, warily eyeing me, likely in part due to the mask I wore. "My name is Anska. I see you've defeated Vokun... singlehandedly... I was trying to recover a scroll from him about my family. If you've found it, I'd like to have it. I'll even give you a reward..."

She seemed to wait with baited breath as I pulled out the scroll and tossed it to her. She caught it easily and smiled. "Oh, thank the Gods. I've been trying to get this for a while. Here's your reward."

She handed over a hand-written tome that had 'Flaming Familiar' written on the front, and I accepted it.

"Keep safe. Draugr are not the only dangers we can face." I told her as she ran off.

In the next room, I slowly approached my first Word Wall.

The experience was actually rather disappointing compared to the game. It just read like English, a memorial that had a poetic interpretation of Strun, which meant Storm. I could probably use Storm Call, but it was not very useful unless I knew I didn't have friendlies nearby. Even as a backup, it wasn't as helpful to me as other Shouts I knew or could learn.

With that in mind, I opened the Flaming Familiar book, and was greeted with a prompt.

Learn Skill: Flaming Familiar?

Yes/No

I selected yes, and was given a nice description.

Skill added: Flaming Familiar

A familiar spell that summons familiars, only now they're imbued with fire! They also explode into friendly little fireballs when they die.

Skill: Conjure Flaming Familiar Lv. 10

Summons a Wolf Familiar for 60 seconds.

Out of curiosity, I opened my inventory and drank every potion I had to level the skill.

Skill: Conjure Flaming Familiar Lv. 25

Summons your Familiar for 120 seconds

Familiar has a fire infused attack that deals damage once per minute equal to 1x its' explosion damage on death.

"My familiar? Does that mean it'll be whatever my actual familiar would be?"

I cast the spell, and was mildly surprised to see a wolf sized Dragon.

"Huh. I guess that sort of figures. Drem Yol Lok, Dovah."

"... Drem." it growled back.

I grinned. Whether it was an aspect of the spell or not, any summon that could also use Shouts was immediately more useful than a normal one.

"Let's go. 2 down." I called as I left the ruins.