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[3rd Person Camera]
Aria departs from Whiterun with more than just a little bit of doubt in her mind.
The court mage of Dragonsreach, Farengar Secret-Fire, had come to an epiphany concerning the issue with the dragon. After days of arduous research, he has confirmed that a short-term solution for the dragon issue was to place the scale that was obtained from the dragon in a high place and then incinerate it, thus creating a new focal point for the dragon to focus on and diverting its attention from Whiterun.
Everybody who knew even a little bit of magic knew Farengar was bullshitting. Farengar knew he was bullshitting. He was just doing this as an experiment to learn more about the properties of dragonscales. He would much rather have liked to do the experiment on his own, but Balgruuf needed an immediate patch to a long-term solution (general fear of Dragon attacks), so…
Farengar watches from his perch atop Whiterun's Southern Watchtower and sees a small party of eight guards or so approach. Trailing them is a cart holding the Dragonstone, and leading them is the Housecarl Irileth.
"Ah, it's about time." Farengar calls down. "I thought you would never show up!"
"I considered sending a substitute." Irileth calls back in good cheer. "Now hurry it up with your magical nonsense before we all die of old age."
Farengar smirks. "Alright, our guards are here." He says to his two assistants. "Let's begin."
The two assistants light the steel brazier that acts as the light on top of the watchtower, throw in some fire salts, and then toss in the small piece of dragonscale with barely any fanfare. All three of them then grab their rolls of paper and stare intently at the dragonscale.
"Hmm." Farengar muses after about a minute. "The dragonscale seems to be largely impervious to fire; I see no difference in its lines." He's referring to the scale's magic lines. The magical lines on a human, when exposed to damaging elements like fire, would shift and move according to the flames.
"Confirmed." Helper A says. "The lines seem to absorb the fire's strength and bleed it. If only we could study it further." None of their tools were very useful in the art of breaking down the scales in any way.
The three of them continue to make little to no progress in understanding the dragonscale over the next hour.
Above, over a bank of clouds, Mirmulnir felt the faint string of his magical power below him. All dragonscales are inherently magical objects, and dragons can detect each other over long distances through the power radiated by these scales. In a way, this is why dragons are able to stay away from each other unless there is a seriously good reason to come together.
This is also why Alduin is special: he can detect a dragon's soul rather than its magical power. This will in no way backfire on our poor Aria in the future.
Mirmulnir, curious about why he felt his own power, banks a little lower to see a small fire atop a rock building.
"{Interesting.}" He mumbles.
Aria perks up. Previously she was hellishly bored, and now she thought she heard something. Not willing to take unnecessary chances, she stands and begins to scan the sky.
Irileth, hearing Aria stand up and having the experience to take cues, does so as well. "Farengar, we might have company!" She calls out as a warning.
"Yes, yes." Farengar says dismissively with a wave to his guards. The six guards, half of the normal garrison at the tower, all notch their bows and watch the sky.
"Laas Yah Nir." Mirmulnir says in a low, rumbling roar, revealing the entirety of the possible threats beneath him. Of the thirty beings in attendance, four had high enough magical power to be considered a human 'mage', and the rest were…chaff. He laughs. "Su Grah Dun. {The battle will be joined.}" He begins to circle as the shout of elemental fury infuses his body.
Aria's stomach pulls suddenly, as if responding to something. "It's coming." She says as a warning.
The lack of confusion in her voice tells Irileth all she needs to know. "Farengar! Pack it up!"
"Aye." Farengar may not value Irileth's knowledge of the methodology of research, but he wasn't dumb enough to ignore her instincts. "Everybody! Indoors, now!" He yells.
A fraction too late.
"Yor Tool Shul!"
A massive blast of fire suddenly rains from the sky and bathes the stone tower. Farengar feels himself shoved through the tower's open-air spiral staircase, and stumbles down a few steps. He turns just in time to see the six guards form a shield wall toward the sky.
The shield wall stands no chance against the blast of dragonfire and melts under the flames. Farengar feels the tower's temperature spike and coats himself with ice to counteract some of the effect.
"Shit!" Irileth readies her bow. "Spread out and kill it!" She orders the remaining soldiers (two dozen men in total) who dutifully fan out and ready themselves for the dragon that they could see was coming.
"Wuld Nah Kest!"
Said dragon suddenly bullets onto the scene and slams onto the top of the watchtower with its massive claws. The stone battlements of the tower shatter under the pressure and fly every which way, becoming their own threats even as Mirmulnir breathes another blast of fire onto the watching guards below. He manages to catch one guard with the breath and scorch him inside his own armor. Another guard is struck by the falling masonry and is crushed.
The rest of the guards fire a salvo of arrows in response. The arrows plink uselessly off of Mirmulnir's scales, dealing no damage. One particular arrow zooms incredibly close to his eye, but it misses his armored eyelid. Mirmulnir could laugh if he wasn't forcing himself to take this fight seriously.
"Damn." Aria readies another arrow and backs away. "Why does this place have to be a damned guard tower?!" She bemoans the fact that, apart from the tower itself (which the dragon was currently perched on) there was literally no cover anywhere else. Sure, there was the curved ramp leading up to the tower's entrance, but it wasn't protection because it was literally right underneath the dragon's nose.
Mirmulnir sights another guard and melts him down with a blast of fire before taking off into the sky again. Though it wasn't taking damage, the arrows plinking away at its back made it very annoyed at the guards it couldn't currently see. As it takes into the air, another arrow zips into his field of vision and strikes him dead-on in the torso. This strike actually catches his attention because it did damage. It was superficial damage, but this was the first time in a long time that anybody has landed such a solid hit.
Mirmulnir zeroes in on the culprit, the Dunmer, before pulling up out of bow range.
"Not deep enough, I see." Irileth mutters. "You two!" She yells at a pair of guards close to the tower entrance. "Open it up and get Farengar out of there!"
"Aye!" Two guards rush up the stone ramp and wrench open the door, then instinctively back away from the wall of hot air and the accompanying smell of fire and charred flesh.
"Farengar!" Irileth yells, running towards the ramp to visually confirm that he was safe.
"I'm alive." Farengar says as he tumbles out of the open door, his body glistening with flecks of ice and his robe smoking in various places. "Though I can't say the same for my assistants."
"Up above!" Another guard yells, letting loose an arrow.
Mirmulnir aims for the front of the tower and makes a low flying pass over the area, letting his massive size create an equally massive blast of wind that staggers the guards below him. Irileth, seeing the dragon zoom towards her, quickly falls flat on her back, draws her bow with her leg, and fires just as she sees Mirmulnir's belly over her head. She hits, and Mirmulnir visibly flinches at the impact…if only a little.
"{Again?}" Mirmulnir rumbles. He makes a quick turn and lands as Irileth rolls to her feet, her previous cover (the ramp) now suddenly turning into a wall behind her. "{Worthy of respect.}" He opens his mouth.
"Here!" One of the guards responsible for opening the tower rushes over and extends an arm. Without looking, Irileth takes the outstretched hand.
"Yor Tool Shul!"
Irileth and the guard dive off of the ramp just as the fire breath scorches the airspace. It passes over their head without dealing direct damage.
"Fuck me!" The guard cries and tears off his helmet as it heats dangerously due to the overflying flames.
Farengar, in retaliation, fires two ice bolts at Mirmulnir, but they melt and dissolve before reaching the target due to the fire breath's lingering heat. "As expect of dragonflames." He mutters, and then focuses his magical power to unleash a bolt of lightning. It scatters and fizzles before hitting its mark. "As expected of a dragon in general." He seethes as the dragon's fire breath ends, his interference having done nothing.
Mirmulnir had noticed a trio of guards attempting to strike at its flank. While its breath was active, it pretended to ignore them in favor of maintaining its breath against the stone ramp. Assuming that the dragon did not notice, the guards inch close and, upon finding their range, charge. Mirmulnir cuts his breath short and immediately swings his tail, putting the mass of his entire body into the three guards via that singular tail strike. All three guards splatter against the masonry and die on impact. As Mirmulnir slows and exits his tail swing, he notices the human with the highest magical power charge at him. "{Irritating.}"
Aria timed her strike at the precise moment when Mirmulnir slows down, forcing him to either come to a full stop or continue his very easily telegraphed strike. He took the latter choice and sped up, whipping his tail around to catch her in her charge.
Aria dive-rolls over the tail as it swings by, not losing a step in her stride and ram her sword full-speed at Mirmulnir's hide. The sword flexes and bends heavily for a second before the strength of her charge snaps it in half. Unconcerned, she draws a spare axe and hacks into his scales, chipping off a tiny piece…though she can't tell if it came from the axe or the scales.
Mirmulnir, now rather pissed, stops his spin so as to bring his claw into this white-haired eyesore. Her two strikes were sufficiently powerful enough that he had to shift his attention to her and reinforce his scales before she strikes again. This shift in attention allowed a barrage of arrows to strike in the opposite flank, and the sudden pricks of pain caused him to roar in anger. The damage caused him to reflexively shift his focus, which, in turn, allowed Aria to bury her axe much deeper than she had anticipated.
He gives his body a dog-like shake, forcing Aria to back off or be hit by a wing. "{I underestimated you.}" He concedes, and takes to the skies again. "{I will not do so again.}" As he ascends, a second barrage of arrows plinks at his tail for no damage.
"I guess that means it gets to leave." A guard mutters as Mirmulnir climbs above the increasingly thick layer of clouds. "How many did we lose?" He asks Irileth.
"Half, by the looks of it." Irileth mutters. All this damage and nothing to show for it. She seethes internally. How am I going to explain this to Balgruuf? She gives a signal for her men to rally and prepare.
"Wuld Nah Kest!"
Mirmulnir, having reoriented himself above the cloud line, zeroed in on the puny little humans and made another high-speed dive onto the ground. He lands on the stone ramp and cracks it in half, sending shrapnel and debris every which way. The impact also knocks everybody who's not Mirmulnir back and on their feet.
He pays special attention to Irileth. The guard next to her, sensing danger, splits and runs as fast as he can to a new position.
"Yol Tool Shul!"
Irileth, ever nimble, felt the flames lick at her heel as she scrambles to her feet and dash towards the dragon.
In response, Mirmulnir makes a sweep with his tail while corralling in his prey with his breath, cutting it at the last possible second to save energy.
While doing this his fire breath smothers and incinerates two more guards.
The flames ignite Irileth's bow, and she could do nothing but ignore it as the tail comes zooming into her field of vision. She jumps and dives over it, landing with a ramshackle roll that dislocates her shoulder and snaps her already burning bow. She tosses it aside just as Mirmulnir's head twists around again.
"Fus Roh Dah!"
The blast of pure kinetic energy sends Irileth flying, and she feels her organs compress painfully against her ribcage as she is sent sprawling back a good twenty feet. She lands in shambles and rolls to a stop, but nevertheless scrambles to her feet through the pain of several broken bones.
The guards (and Aria and Farengar) see Mirmulnir's hell-bent focus on Irileth and let loose their bows and spells, striking into his rear and dealing a little damage. Mirmulnir slams his tail on the ground and creates shockwaves that slightly stagger the guards, throwing off their aim just slightly enough for their shots to strike his scales at less-than-useful angles. Regardless, he's bought himself time.
"Yol Tool Shul!"
Irileth, despite her best efforts, could not help but be engulfed by the flames.
Mirmulnir then feels a hefty strike aimed precisely at his head. The massive ball of ice throws off his aim. Figuring that the annoying one is dead from flames, he cuts his breath to zero in on Farengar. At the periphery of his vision and beneath his notice, Irileth crawls away.
The fire had burned away her leathers, eating away the straps so the bigger pieces could be shed before they melted to her skin. The air around her burned into her skin even as she scurried away, and she had to abandon her spare swords as they scalded to the touch…but she was alive, despite taking a full-blast fire breath for a few seconds. Disregarding her new state of nakedness, she quickly scrambles over to the burned corpse of a guard and liberates him of his sword (his bow was quite fucked). Knowing that she now lacked the ability to make meaningful contribution to the battle, she bides her time and observes.
Mirmulnir, for his part, unleashes a breath of fire at Farengar in retaliation to getting hit by a massive thing of ice. Farengar, not having moved very far from the tower, hurriedly retreats back into the tower, shuts the door behind him, throws up a ward, and then blasts the door with a stream of Frost magic to prevent it from overheating.
While Mirmulnir's breath did not reach into the tower, he did burn down the door and melt its copper hinges. He was about to unleash a second strike when he suddenly noticed a blur at his feet.
The sheer shock of seeing someone—anyone—this far inside his zone of control caused him to freeze for just a moment. Aria, not one for missing chances, pulls out one of Ash's throwing knives and, gripping to stab, aims it right at Mirmulnir's eye.
The dragon overcomes his shock quickly enough, and he turns his head away from the strike just enough for Aria's arm to catch on his maw, sending the knife onto his armored snout. The knife, like all other weapons, hits and glances off with no effect.
Mirmulnir then whips his head back. Aria, being more or less attached to said head, is flung away with her knife still in hand. She lands with a light hop to keep her footing, and sees Mirmulnir's claw reach for her. She ducks and rolls back, using her knife as a little bit of additional guard against his talons just in case. The claw catches the tip of the knife and shaves it off with no effort, revealing the tip of the dwarven metal core inside.
Aria sheathes that knife and pulls another one while beating herself up about not having enough spare weapons.
Mirmulnir takes another barrage of arrows and angrily sweeps the offending guards (hiding behind the tower's walls) with a blast of fire. The guards retreat further behind their cover but still feel the heat of the breath singe the air.
Aria, about to charge the dragon once again, watches as it launches itself into the air with a…jump? It zips over the tower, barely clearing it with its claws, and drops right onto the guards that had retreated from its breath. The guards, barely having the time to react, nevertheless toss their bows and ready their axes.
Mirmulnir, having way more initiative in this case, swats at them with his claws. The first swing cuts deep into a guard's armor and, though not fully penetrating, nevertheless still winds him severely. The second swing was aimed a little high and shears off the other two guards' heads despite their best efforts to guard with their axes.
The first guard makes a weak, retaliatory swing at the dragon's arm. Mirmulnir, in response, tears his talon away from the guard and then slams it down over his head.
Aria, seeing Mirmulnir's head barely unblocked by the watchtower, readies a second knife and throws it at him with all of her strength.
Mirmulnir sees the girl to his distant right and the throwing motion she just executed, and immediately leaps into the air with a powerful burst from his legs.
The knife, unseen by everybody, curves slightly upwards in its flight and nicks Mirmulnir's tail. It makes a small cut that Mirmulnir doesn't notice and shatters rather extravagantly, leaving just the dwarven metal core to fall uselessly toward the ground. Mirmulnir switches his attention to Aria.
Aria, sensing danger, readies her bow. As the dragon swoops down at her, she lets loose an arrow before bolting forwards at top speed.
The arrow strikes Mirmulnir's chin, causing him great annoyance. He lands with the intention of crushing this annoying pest of a girl, but she was already behind him, on her feet, and running towards him again. Before he could turn around, the feeling, the unmistakable weight of…someone, trying to crawl onto his back, suddenly occupy his mind.
Mirmulnir, momentarily surprised, decides that he doesn't care. "Wuld Nah Kest!"
Aria suddenly found herself without footing, as the dragon bullets into the sky without her. She was still a good five feet off the ground before he launched, and the sudden change of footing means that she slams into the ground, flat on her back. She is winded.
Mirmulnir twists his neck to target the ground, but otherwise still doesn't care. "Yor Tool Shul!"
Aria wraps herself in layers upon layers of biting frost as the blast of fire engulfs her dead-on. Fortunately, her position of lying flat on the ground shields her slightly.
Again, Mirmulnir feels a surge of magical power and feels his head blasted by lightning. He cuts his fire breath early and is now extremely pissed at Farengar.
Aria shrugs off the burning scraps of her armor and draws the one remaining knife. She coats her hand with frost to avoid being burned by the metal until they cool.
Mirmulnir lands on top of the tower once more and sticks his head into the staircase entrance.
"Cripes." Farengar mutters as he beats a hasty retreat out of the tower. He barely clears the stone door before the dragonfire sears the entirety of the tower and sets everything inside alight.
Mirmulnir climbs down the tower like a giant, overgrown bat, taking sporadic arrow fire for no damage. He has only one goal at this point, and that is to eat this irritating magic-throwing human that keeps interrupting its breath attacks. He was so annoyed that it never really occurred to him that Farengar's magical attacks were working in the first place.
…Though to be fair Farengar has no idea why his magical attacks were working either, and honestly he's a little too preoccupied right now to worry about that little piece of information.
Either way, Mirmulnir makes it a point to crawl right up to Farengar to assert dominance before noticing a blur of white running at him.
Aria, unarmed, picked up the closest thing she could get as a weapon (a block of stone) and just hurls it at Mirmulnir with every ounce of her strength. Mirmulnir, suitably surprised by this, takes the hit full-on in the face. He is, understandably, a little bit angry at this.
"Yor Tool Shul!"
Aria dives away from the incoming breath of fire while still charging towards Mirmulnir. Her speed in the dash allows her to blaze by the fire before it has the time to seriously burn her skin through her coat of ice. She runs past his head as closely as she dares so he would have to spend more time to aim and less to maintain the breath (so she thinks).
Irileth, circling the battlefield, stumbles upon Aria's chipped knife. Remembering where the knife came from, she picks it up and palms it. As she watches the dragon track Aria with its fire breath and incinerate even more of the ground, she's struck with one memory, and forms one thought.
The memory was one where she saw the knife in Aria's practice, where it seemed to curve…
The thought is much simpler. I'm going to send this fucking thing right into his eye.
Irileth, temporarily abandoning her philosophy that the wielder of a weapon determines its usefulness, decides to place her full faith in the odd strength of this dagger and wishes with all of her heart that it would fly into the dragon's fucking eye, and, for once in her life, throws a throwing knife without really trying to aim it. She still throws it in the general direction of Mirmulnir, though.
Both Mirmulnir and Aria hear an otherworldly, faint wail in the air. Almost instinctively they both stop what they're doing to look around. Mirmulnir, in an effort to trace the sound, turns his head towards the knife, thus ruining the targeting solution of the knife had it been thrown directly at his eye.
The knife, of course, was not thrown at his eye, not even close. It sails high over Mirmulnir's head before making an exaggeratedly sharp turn towards Mirmulnir's eye.
Mirmulnir, hearing the wail grow louder, instinctively closes his eyes and readies himself to take flight.
Aria, sensing the sudden lack of aggression behind her, skids to a halt and almost trips on the burned grass. She hastily changes directions and sprints directly at Mirmulnir's face and screams her intent to commit bloody murder.
Mirmulnir, hearing Aria's battle cry, snaps his eyes open…just in time for the knife to bury itself deep into his left eye. As a bonus, the fragile steel of the knife shatters like a grenade and slices the eyeball to ribbons, causing Mirmulnir to scream in pain.
Aria, seeing this damage, notices strands of light flow from Mirmulnir and towards her. Suddenly, she…knew. She couldn't explain what she knew or how she knew it, but she had this sudden sense of understanding that was hard to comprehend and even harder to put into words. That said, though she couldn't place what she learned into words…what she learned were, ultimately, words.
And she wasn't about to just let the opportunity pass by.
"Fus Ro Dah!"
Mirmulnir, while still reeling in pain, felt himself buffeted by an unrelenting force. Staggering from the hit, he opened his good eye to glare at the source of the shout, fully expecting a rogue dragon. Instead, he saw the pale figure of Aria, with smoke rising from her devilishly grinning mouth.
"{Dragonborn.}" Mirmulnir growls, almost a warning to himself. "Wuld Nah—"
Aria breaks Mirmulnir's escape with another unrelenting force as she charges forward. Mirmulnir, now unbalanced, snarls at Aria's approach and readies himself for a fight with his claws.
"Wuld Nah Kest!"
Aria bullets forward, clear past Mirmulnir's defense, and lands on his snout. Before he could respond, she flips her last knife from Ash and jams it into his other eye. Though the strike was not as deep as Irileth's tossed knife, the pain was enough to cause Mirmulnir to flinch and roar.
Aria, not one to pass up a good chance for a great sneak attack, aims herself at Mirmulnir's open mouth.
"Yor Tool Shul!"
A blast of fire stampedes through Mirmulnir's body, scorching him from the inside out. The burning pain causes him to roar in reflex, blasting Aria away with his voice (she didn't have much of a good grip on him anyways). Still, the damage was done, and Mirmulnir was no longer able to maintain his focus.
The other guards take this opportunity to turn Mirmulnir into a pincushion before moving in with their blades. Mirmulnir, badly wounded, gives next to no resistance as Irileth, borrowing a greataxe from a guard, deals the coup de grace and separates his neck from the rest of his body.
Technically it wasn't a separation, just a deep cut, but who's counting?
…
With Mirmulnir no longer moving, the survivors of the fight gather around it to inspect their kill, taking care to avoid the many small fires now raging in the grassland around them.
"By Stendarr, what a battle." A Guard (Guard A) breathes. "Is it really dead?"
"It better be." Irileth mutters. "You there." She points to two guards. "Check the tower for damages. I want to know if it's salvageable after all this."
"And bring fresh clothing if you can find any." Farengar adds, his robes having burned to cinders. "I daresay all of us need some right now."
When it became clear that dragonfire wasn't going to be stopped by some measly chainmail, all the guards still alive threw it off of them as quickly as they could. Some of them had their clothing burned by the dragon's fire, like Irileth and Aria, and were standing around entirely naked.
Aria is modest enough to try and cover up. Irileth, with her toned and scarred body, gave zero fucks.
"By Stendarr indeed." Irileth sighs. "Was this dragon powerful?" She asks Farengar.
"For obvious reasons I can't answer that." Farengar replies. "But it's fair to say that, after its defeat, the other dragons may become more cautious…or more deceiving." He inspects the dragon's shattered left eye. "What caused this?"
"No clue." Irileth shrugs. "But it might be the knife that I threw at it."
"Interesting." Farengar takes note. "I think I've learned much today." He says, more to console himself than anything else. "I'll be returning to catalog my findings."
"Escort him." Irileth nods to four of the healthiest guards. "Last thing we need is an accident after a fight like this."
"So…you're the dragonborn." Guard E says in an awed voice to Aria, taking care not to gawk.
Aria was not familiar with the term. "Dragonborn?"
"Someone who could Shout, like the dragons." Guard F says with zero issues gawking. "You did it against that thing, didn't you?" She then feels bad about gawking as she sees the swaths of scorch marks on Aria's otherwise perfect-looking skin.
"I…suppose." Aria nods slowly. She wasn't worried about what they were saying.
She was worried about the milk-like energy flowing from the dead dragon into her body. Given that nobody else was commenting on it, she assumed that nobody else was able to see it.
"Here." The two guards scouring the tower return with some sturdy but cheap looking clothing. "Also, I found this." One of them holds up Irileth's utility pouch.
"Thanks." Irileth gets dressed. "What a disaster…" She sighs again, the adrenaline in her body finally calming down. "You lot." She gestures to six of the guards. "Stay put and put out any fires you see." They nod. "Everyone else, we're heading back to Whiterun."
"What do we do with this?" Guard A kicks Mirmulnir's corpse.
"We'll call some workers and have them bring it home." Irileth digs around in her pouch to see what's left. "I daresay the butchers would love to get their hands on dragonflesh." She pulls out something like silver powder and tosses it away with a frown. "What about you, Aria?"
"She's the dragonborn, Housecarl." Guard B says with the tone of correcting her. "She deserves respect."
"All I care about is the dead dragon." Irileth replies with a tone of supreme indifference. "What will you do, Aria?" She asks again.
"I'm not sure." Aria replies, feeling the fatigue hit her all at once. "I think I'll rest for a while."
"I think we could all use a nap after this." Irileth agrees, scanning the now crumbling southern watchtower and the blackened earth around it.
…
[Post-Action Report]
…
Of the 30 guards sent on the mission, 14 returned with various injuries. Of Farengar's three assistants, none survived the initial attack.
Balgruuf, though unhappy about the loss of life, nevertheless celebrated the death of a dragon (which, of course, was paraded around Whiterun as a trophy). In the interest of finding out how best to counteract a dragon's breath, and taking heed of the fact that almost none of their equipment was effective against its scales, Balgruuf had the dragon dissected down to the last nail and had its resources spread out among the city's alchemists, mages, smiths, and tailors, in hopes of finding out just exactly how its defenses could be bypassed.
Remember that dragonscales are more effective when magic (in the form of the dragon's focus) is channeled through them. Though still quite tough, scales and bones by themselves are not too difficult to breach. At their current, inert, form, they have roughly the defensive value of steel (but a bit better) while having the lighter weight of elven armor (but a bit worse). Either way, it's impressive, but not really earth shattering.
Aria, credited by Irileth as the deciding factor of the fight, was promoted as a Thane of Whiterun, with Lydia assigned to her as a housecarl. As Aria opted to go home and Lydia has room and board in Dragonsreach, the two would not meet until Aria actually calls upon her services.
Irileth privately told Balgruuf and Farengar of Ash's smithy.
She is also blissfully unaware of the connection between why she survived being blasted in the face by dragonfire and her sudden loss of one silvery accessory.
As a part of her reward, Aria had claimed quite the sizable load of dragonscales and bones (besides her cash and enchanted item reward), and dumped them onto Ash.
To quote him: "What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?!"
.
.
.
{ === + === }
Author Notes:
So I've purchased and have been playing a lot of Mount and Blade and that is NOT AT ALL why this chapter came out so slowly.