{ === + === }
We head to an Inn in Riverwood.
Since the bigger one burned down, all the lesser ones are a touch busier as a result. We take a secluded corner of the room. A lot more rumors, too.
"First of all, what've you been doing lately?" I ask Aria as we all get situated.
…
[Exposition]
…
Hrm.
So…when she left us, she got called back to the Greybeards and met them in the middle of the night, more or less, which caused her to go get some artifact important to them. It's probably the Horn, but she's taking precautions not to tell us exactly what it is.
In-game, you now get the first step of Whirlwind sprint, the second step of Unrelenting force, and a quest marker to the dungeon with the Horn. After getting there, you find out that the Horn is taken by someone who got there before you.
In Aria's case, her innate clairvoyance could not tell her about the Horn's whereabouts, which implies to me that the ability has some finicky conditions before it can accurately predict the position of the item. Either way, she's spent a lot of time just trying to track down the dungeon. She then clears it without much loot to show for it, because apparently somebody already ransacked the place before.
"I don't know how they got past one of the security measures." She grumbles halfway through her story.
I assume she means the puzzle that can only be cleared with Whirlwind Sprint, or else the power known as 'Having Friends'. Either way, upon entering the final room, she finds…nothing. No note, no Horn, no treasure, nothing.
Well, that's not exactly true. She did find the corpse of an Aldmeri Soldier. The Soldier was keeping a rather…shoddy, journal (she shows it to us). One of the notes on the journal was the words 'Dragon' and 'Helgen' connected with a two-pointed arrow.
So, without more leads, she went back to Helgen to see what she could find. Apart from some bandits moving in and taking over the now burned down keep, she got nothing.
At this point she's more or less given up, and was on her way back to Whiterun when she ran into us, who she thought was working for the Aldmeri since Jake had a helmet of theirs.
"That thing is like half the size of my head." Jake observes.
"I know, and I'm sorry." Aria apologizes. "I haven't had a good night's sleep for the entire journey and I'm a touch exhausted."
On one hand, we now know what she's been doing.
On the other, we now still know nothing about what's going on.
"It's already late, so let's bed down for the night." I say. "We'll do some more intel gathering in the morning."
Jake agrees, and therefore by extension the rest of the party agrees. Aria sees my two girls but pays them no overt attention.
…
We rent some rooms and stay for the night.
…
Next morning, Aria's brain catches up to her eyes.
"When did you have kids?" She asks me. "I wasn't gone for that long, was I?"
"Special circumstances." I reply with a grin. "Things happened."
"I see. What's your name?" She asks Older Sister, who shies away and says nothing.
Until I can get 'em to open up I don't think we'll ever learn their names.
Anyways, we're going to split up today and do some intel runs around Whiterun. I'm going to talk to some people (Camilla and the Blacksmith respectively), Jake's going to retread the Riverwood Inn, Erik's heading up the expedition to find some murdering Redguards, and Aria is…
…well, truth be told I kind of expected her to sleep in given her exhaustion, but she's going to help Jake around the rubble and see what they can find together.
The T-Sisters are splitting into two groups. Blue and Red are going with Jake (in case something happens) and Orange and Purple are coming with me (in case something happens). I get the feeling that if something does happen that will only increase the body count by two, but it's nice that they plan ahead.
…
We head on over to the Riverwood Trader.
"Customers!" Camilla's brother says upon us entering his shop. I don't remember his name. "Lucan Valerius, at your service." He slightly overexaggerates his bow.
"Hello, Ash." Camilla greets me. I guess she remembers my face. "You brought friends?" She asks upon seeing the two catgirls. The T-Sisters only look odd because of their hair color and they now have cloth to wrap around their heads, so it's a lot harder for a casual observer to tell that they are strange for catpeople. At a glance, they just look like really busty warrior folk in leather armor.
I shrug. "It's been a whirlwind. These are new initiates to the guild…or something to that effect. Can I talk to you guys for a second?" I gesture to both Lucan and Camilla to avoid getting shanked by Sven, who may or may not have just walked in behind me.
"Sure. Is this about Delphine?" Camilla asks and I love how sharp she is. "You're not the only one interested about something like that."
"Remember, sister." Lucan says in a low warning. Hmm.
"Tell me what happened." I say.
…
[Exposition]
…
…Huh, ok.
It's pretty straightforward. One day, some Aldmeri guys walked into town, asked for directions to the Riverwood Inn. They went in, stayed for a few minutes, then left.
The Inn caught on fire during that night and burned down come morning. That's all these two know about the situation. Everything else would be speculation, and every time Camilla tries to speculate Lucan would rather brutishly shut her up.
…which implies that they know the Aldmeri are involved, but seriously who doesn't believe that the Aldmeri are involved…
While we talk, Sven and Faendal both visit the inn.
I question them too.
Sven worked at the inn on that day, and as far as he could tell the Aldmeri just asked some polite but very open-ended questions about Helgen and the Dragon to Delphine, nothing that would draw too much attention (and honestly he was working at the time so he wasn't paying too much attention).
Faendal thought he saw people scope out the Inn from the woods near Riverwood, but they were well concealed and, like Sven, he had a job to do, so he didn't pay them too much attention.
…Mmm…in the end, nothing that we don't already know or could have guessed, I suppose. Knowing that the Aldmeri made first contact changes things a little, but at least they didn't drag Delphine out in chains.
Depressingly, neither Delphine or Orgnar (the dude running the front desk) were seen after the place burned down. The Aldmeri made frequent returns to the burn site (until we killed them) so…whatever they were looking for here they haven't already found.
…
We then question Alvor the Blacksmith.
…
Nothing new here either. He was awake when the fire started but had to ensure that it didn't spread to the rest of the town, so he has no more information than anyone else.
…
Urgh. Well, it's not a total waste of time, I guess, but it's a total waste of time.
Let's see what the other guys did.
…
We head to the Inn.
We catch Jake's party wandering around the debris, all the while being onlooked by a small gaggle of…onlookers. I should've picked a better verb.
Anyways, Jake sees me coming. "Yo, found anything?" He calls out.
"Nothing that we couldn't already guess." I call back. "How's this side?"
"Still looking." Jake says simply. I assume he's looking for the same thing I think he's looking for, which is the entrance to Delphine's basement.
…that sounds a lot creepier than intended, yeah.
Either way, I help him look. I think Aria picked up on Jake going through the rubble in a systematic fashion, because she, like him, is sticking largely around the right side of the building.
After some thirty minutes of trawling around the rubble, I see something that could be interesting. "Jake." He comes over and we move around said rubble to reveal…
…a steel trapdoor. There is no outward facing handle, so…this isn't a door designed to be opened from the outside. Or openable after an accident. Thanks to the ashes and the rubble, it's near indistinguishable from its surroundings without knowing that something was there.
Hmm.
We knock on the trapdoor.
No response, as expected. Major hmm.
"Think we can force this open?" Jake murmurs. "Girls, wanna help us with this?" He asks. Then adds in a lone tone, "we need more dudes in this outfit."
…Ehn? I'm pretty ok with how things are. If I can get the T-Sisters to trust me more I can probably borrow them as mannequins for progressively more anime-lewd outfits. If I'm gonna be judged for my perverse incentives I'd rather it be by as few people as possible.
Anyways, the girls all come around and we…um. Jake puts his Greatsword into a niche that he could find and starts to use it as an oh my goodness
The sword flexes and bends, and goes deeper.
"Ash? You make some good shit." Jake grins. With Aria and T'mare's help, they pull the hatch back. In retrospect, it probably wasn't that heavy. By the looks of it this is probably…what, two hundred pounds tops?
…Which means my sword can handle two hundred pounds of weight without snapping. That's pretty good, right?
Anyhoo, the cover's off now. It leads down to a tunnel that's pretty short and reinforced.
"Lights." Aria commands, draws a dagger, and begins to advance down the tunnel. I shoot some lights into the room.
Aria enters the tunnel and disappears for a moment. "It's ok, it's clear." She says, still out of sight.
Jake follows, then me.
The tunnel is short and the room small (as expected). Let's see…well, Delphine's in the corner of the room, looking a bit ragged and grumpy, but otherwise healthy.
"I suppose I should blame you lot for exposing my hideout." Delphine says and folds her arms. "Who are you?"
Quick introductions get made.
"Hm." Delphine says simply after we're all done. "Why did you find this place?"
…Good question. "I was curious to see if we could find something that the Aldmeri missed." I say. "Also they're dead."
"Good riddance." Delphine smirks, then scowls. "I figured I was creating a significant amount of risk for myself with that little trick, but I didn't think it would bite me as badly as this."
"What happened to the other guy?" Jake asks. "Your, erm, bartender?"
"Orgnar?" Delphine sighs…strangely. "He's probably been taken, or else buried under the rubble. Knowing the Aldmeri probably the former, for better or worse." It's a strange sigh because it sounds like she's already moved on. "Either way, this hideout is no longer safe. I'll need a new place to conduct my operations."
Um.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of it." Delphine adds as it looks like we're about to ask her for details. "As you can see, this isn't child's play."
I can see that. "Well, if the Aldmeri are burning down random inns, then I think we have a vested interest to figure out what's going on. I'd like to keep my house from burning to the ground, thank you very much."
"Moreover, the dragons are back." Aria adds. "We should be focused on them, not fighting each other."
"Yeah?" Delphine raises an eyebrow. "Did you know that a dragon's back in Kynesgrove, too?"
Shit, we missed that? "We do now. When did that happen?"
"Five days ago, thereabouts." Delphine walks to a map laid out on the table in the middle of the room. "According to my network, Kynesgrove has been burned to the ground and the dragon in question was heading south."
"Oh, that one?" Aria notes. "I saw it fly overhead. It didn't seem to care much for my arrows."
…Yeah, if the dragon just doesn't want to fight, then Aria's ability to eat their souls doesn't account for much.
"Is that why you went dungeon crawling? You wanted to solve the dragon problem?" I ask Delphine.
"I considered it to have been a necessary lesson." Delphine replies. "At the very least, I still have the item in question."
…Oh, that's a good point. Delphine has the Horn of
Aria beelines to a barrel nearly indistinguishable from its surrounding stone walls, pops the lid, and nabs the Horn.
…Jurgen…Windcaller…she has no respect when it comes to quest items, huh?
"Well, now I have some questions." Delphine's sword pretty much teleports from its scabbard to her hand. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"I was looking for this." Aria replies plainly. "Why did you have it?"
"I was looking for the next dragonborn." Delphine narrows her eyes. "Were you sent by the Greybeards?"
T'ma leans over to T'mare and goes "What's a Dragonborn?" in a really low voice.
"I am." Aria gently sets the horn down on the table in plain sight of everyone. "I'll be taking it with me, thank you very much."
"I don't think so." Delphine's…not exactly angry, but she is definitely not happy about how this is all going down. "For all I know, you're in league with the Aldmeri dominion. I can't just let you leave."
…Well there's seven of us and one of you, so…
Aria, for her part, shrugs and wraps the horn in some cloth that she had. "It's not like this was yours to begin with." She takes the resulting package and secures it around her belt. "So I'm sure you won't miss it."
…is it me, or is Aria the Mary Sue of War really bad at dealing with people?
At this point, The T-sisters' ears all rotate to the outside.
"I hear something." T'ma says quickly. Her ears are pointed outside, which…can mean nothing good. "What do we do?"
I…want to turtle up in here, but Fireballs are a thing and being in here just means we can be bombarded forever and that would be bad. "Jake, Aria, get out there." I order. "If you're not boxed in then we're not boxed in."
"Yep." Jake draws a short sword and shoots out of our little bunker. Immediately we hear someone go "you there, stop!" followed by footsteps and the sound of rubble being scattered everywhere. Given that Jake did not stop I'm going to assume we're not dealing with friendlies out there.
Aria leaves next, and then things start dying.
About twenty seconds later, things stop dying, so…
We poke our head out of the tunnel.
…yes. Two blokes in elven armor are dead. More blokes in elven armor are engaged with Jake. One…five…seven of them in total. Yikes, seriously? More are coming, too.
Aria moves to head off the ones just joining the battle.
Jake's being pushed back because the Aldmeri are basically shooting him with lightning while they cut him open with swords. Let's intervene.
We get a good vantage point.
KA
ME
HA
ME…
We do the whole 'pull arms back and charge up' thing, too.
HAAAAAAAAAAAA!
The resulting blast of lightning scatters literally everywhere, but fortunately mostly aims forwards and does what it's supposed to do, also known as 'mentally shocking the shit out of everybody'.
In retrospect I should have thought that one through. "Engage!"
…
[3rd Person Camera]
…
Ash's massively overpowered Shock spell washes over the Aldmeri and Jake, and it makes them all temporarily numb.
Jake, rolling with it due to the lightning not affecting him at all, immediately goes on the attack as the Aldmeri recover from the surprise.
In the corner of his eye, he could see the T-sisters join in the combat as Ash hangs back with Mell. They take the formation they're told and begin digging into the Aldmeri's flank.
Yeah, that's about what I expected. Jake notes in his head as the sisters go to work. It's real fuckin' suspicious when you all make the exact same mistakes hours on end, you know? He eyes T'ma's sword work for a brief second before returning to his own.
"I can patch 'em up later if needed, but it'd be nice if you kept one alive!" Ash calls out.
"Aye." Jake replies, shoulder charges his nearest target, and then, with a homerun swing, brings the flat of his Greatsword into his target's helmet.
…
[1st Person Camera]
…
Whew. I mean, I didn't really do anything after that initial blast, but whew nonetheless.
In total, there were fifteen Aldmeri units operating in the area, not counting the five we already killed last night.
…That…is a big fuckin' number.
"Were they all out to get you?" I ask Delphine as Jake drags the one he stunned over to me. "Because, holy shit, somebody doesn't like you."
Delphine laughs. "That's an understatement if there ever was one." She punches Jake on the arm. "It seems I was wrong about you lot. Anyone who's willing to throw down with the Aldmeri like that is good in my books." She winks at him and Jake's harem counter increases by one. She'd be the denmother, I suppose.
I mean, he does know how to use his sword and he uses it vigorously. Wink wink, etc etc etc.
Anyways.
We pour some healing into the downed dude and bring him back around.
"Sup." I ask the now unarmed and unhelmeted man. "What brings you to these parts, stranger?"
He…huh. He starts foaming at the mouth.
We pump him full of healing magic and anti-poison type magic.
It doesn't work at great efficiency but I power through because I have quantity over quality. Eventually, I guess the poison subsides, and he looks around at us, a bit…I dunno, dumbstruck?
"I give you points for trying to kill yourself." I pat him on the shoulder and cast Calm on him. "Feel like talking? Why are you here?"
I'm using a…I'm going to call this a 'subtype' of calm, in the sense that I'm mixing the magic of calm with the magic of healing, and I'm specifically targeting his endorphin production. He's gonna feel real good when this spell is active, along with calm's base effect of making people calm. I kinda wish Skyrim had Charm, too.
By the way, the whole Calm Subtype thing? I am bullshitting with extreme prejudice. This is the first time I've used it in any capacity. Regardless, the Calm spell seems to take effect.
"We're sent specifically to find Grandmaster Delphine." The man says. "And to eliminate her as need be."
"Grandmaster?" Aria looks between the man and Delphine. "Grandmaster of what?"
"Of the Blades." The man says. "She is the last remaining master of the Blades, and continues to work in secret to halt the efforts of the Aldmeri Dominion."
Absolutely no response from the peanut gallery. So is this because the Blades are so buried in history that they're forgotten, or is this more of a 'he works for the CIA' kind of trope that everybody and their mother recognizes and therefore don't take seriously?
"Given the current circumstances it doesn't appear that I've succeeded." Delphine grumbles. "How did you know I was here?" She asks.
"One of my superiors recognized your face and your handwriting." The man says.
"He's quite old then." Delphine smirks. "I haven't written to anyone in years. Do the Aldmeri have anything to do with dragons?"
"What dragons?" The man asks, and I assume that makes him a mook.
…
We question him for a further five minutes for information, before finally coming to the conclusion that he…uh…doesn't really know a lot. So…yes, a mook.
I know exactly what's going to happen next so I'm just going to pretend I don't see any of it.
After confirming that the man has no more valuable information to give, Delphine separates his head from his body.
We all then take some time to quickly round up the corpses and, per Delphine's orders, toss them into her ex-bunker and set the whole thing ablaze.
I think she torched everything she had down there, too. "Now what?" I ask her.
"Now, we leave." Delphine grunts. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."
Let's abandon Erik to the wolves, yeah? "We have other business in Riverwood." I say. "I'd like to see to that first."
"Ditto." Jake says. "Girls, go with Delphine and get the cart ready. We'll go get Erik."
So they do.
"So…" Jake says softly as our parties split in a hurry. "You…know that the cats were bullshitting about never having fought before, right?"
Well… "I can't really tell, but I considered it a possibility." I nod. "Do you know why?" The fact that T-orange didn't break her wrist with the greatsword was a bit of a tell, in retrospect.
"No clue yet." He shrugs. "They seem real keen to deflect the question whenever I get close to the topic, so I figure it'd be good to avoid prying and just keep a knife close by."
Hmm. "Think someone's out to get us?"
"After today, yes." He nods. "But otherwise…"
Super hmm. "What are we doing after?"
"I don't really know." Jake sighs. "Normally we'd go and rescue Kynesgrove but obviously that's out. After this is the…what, the banquet?"
"Assuming if everything goes as expected, which it hasn't so far." I nod. "Do we need to relocate?"
Jake grumbles a little at that prospect. "Hope not. I want to at least be here for a year before shit starts going down."
Hmm. "Are we gonna have to join the Legion?"
"The game gives you freedom to avoid locking the player into a set path." Jake says. "And, like, I can see Aria getting special treatment."
In other words, Aria may become a Quaestor, but us joining the Legion would just add two more Auxilia into the Legion's ranks until the war ends. I in particular might be shipped back to the Imperial Capital to make bullshit gear for the rest of my life. No surprises there, if you think about it.
…Well, the current situation first. We can think about what happens afterwards.
We find Erik at one of the inns.
Perk of making everyone wear their Warwolf capes: super easy to find out what's going on. We took off ours during the whole "kill Aldmeri" section for rather obvious reasons.
Anyways, Erik has…oh come on.
Erik is nursing a bleeding nose.
I heal him. "What happened?"
"He punched me." Erik says…well, I can see that, but…
"Who?" Jake looks around the inn. Apart from Jake, there are about…oh, eight other people? None of them are looking in our direction and none of them appear to be Redguards. As far as the general atmosphere is concerned, Erik might as well have just lost a tepid barfight.
"They left." Erik says. "Didn't see where they went."
Well ain't that nice. That said, they shouldn't have gone too far if we found Erik with a fresh wound. "Let's take a look." I point to the door. Did we miss them on the way in?
The two of us hustle out with Erik following close behind still going "god that hurt" in a low tone.
Aha.
After turning a corner, we see a group of people dressed in Redguard gear. Let's see if I can't get their attention. "Excuse me!"
On the sound of our voice, the Redguards take off running.
In retrospect I don't know what I expected.
We take off running after the group.
"Beware of ambush." Jake warns as the group clears the northern Riverwood gate and why are there no guards on duty I mean come on
They turn the corner and disappear from sight.
Well we're gonna get stabbed as soon as we turn the corner aren't we
We turn the corner and get shivved.
Or, more accurately, Jake's greatsword turns the corner first and does a lot of blunt force shivving. I don't know how shivving works. Either way, Jake barrels his way through the first two dagger-armed Redguards and falls upon the four in the back. The four in the back are just getting armed with bigger weapons and frankly
Jake beats the shit out of them with the blunt side of his greatsword.
They don't really stand a chance.
As Jake kick ass and take names, we use our shock magic to keep the two dagger users stunned.
What was the phrase? 'Torture at will?'
Anyhoo, the fight ends about as soon as it starts, and the three of us quickly throw the idiots together in a pile with some rope to go along with it.
First off, "why'd you punch him?" I ask of the group in general and gesture to Erik.
"Because he was annoying." Redguard A says with a minor chuckle.
"And then why did you run?" Jake asks.
"Because you were annoying." Redguard B laughs. "So annoying we can't even run away!" Sounds like he's translating something idiomatic, for some reason.
But um…why does it feel like they don't understand what the problem is? "You're all being brought back to Whiterun on suspicion of murder." I announce. "Do you have any defense for yourselves?"
"No." Redguard A smirks. He's way too confident.
"There were seven of them." Erik muses in a low tone, which we catch a little late.
But there's six of them here.
…oh shit.
Jake unsheathes his greatsword as an arrow zips into our side.
GAAAAAAAA FUCK
OW
OWOWOW MOTHER PISS
We pluck out the arrow and OD on healing magic.
FUCKing hell that hurt. God damn. My kidney. Or spleen. It's somewhere around there.
Upon us getting hit, Jake zeroes in on the point of the arrow and vanishes in that direction.
About thirty seconds later, Jake returns with the last dude. His face has a large, rectangular red welt from when Jake bitchslapped him with his Greatsword (probably). He deserves it.
We do not notice every single Redguard (that's not the archer) staring at us. We also do not notice Erik pick up the arrow, look at it, and then stare at us.
I need to pee now and I'm not sure if the arrow had anything to do with it.
…
Ultimately we tie up the seven Redguards in a prisoner chain and hire a local mercenary group to transport them back to Whiterun. Jake takes a bit of their blood to put onto a guild scroll so he can claim the bounty later, and we return to the main group in good order.
I'm glad the arrow wasn't a bodkin point because that would have hurt.
It's been fifteen minutes.
And I'm still bitter, all's right with the world. Really, though, if I didn't get burned on a daily basis by my forge I'm sure the damage would have made it rather hard for me to focus on heals. Learning is fun.
"We're back." Jake says as we return to the group. They're gathered around the wagon and a map of Skyrim that Delphine's currently pouring over. "What are you doing?"
"Deciding my next course of action." Delphine says, engrossed in the map. "I've lost my hideout and Whiterun is no longer safe. I'll need to find a better place to hide and plan my next action." She methodically places some small gems onto the map, occasionally referring to some scribbled notes.
…is it just me, or do those gem locations align with where you can find dragons in-game? I don't know my map too well, but it feels about right. There's a gem on Kynesgrove, one near Whiterun, one near Helgen, one on the Graybeards, and some others.
"These are the locations of dragons that I know about." Delphine says. "After this attack," she takes the gem from Helgen. "The dragon leaves and is nowhere to be seen, until now." She puts the same gem on Kynesgrove. "A dragon supposedly wakes from Kynesgrove, and burns the village down before leaving." She removes both gems from where Kynesgrove should be.
"The Whiterun guard killed the one that showed up at the city." Jake says. Delphine nods and removes the gem from Whiterun. If Aria didn't tell us that she went and killed the dragon then we're just going to go with what the city announced officially.
"So…what's the one there?" I point to the gem that should represent Parthurnax.
"One of the Blade's oldest enemies." Delphine growls. "Fortunately he's not a threat yet." She takes the gem that probably represents Alduin and looks it over. "The biggest problem is this one." She says, showing us the gem. "I don't know who it is or what it is, but the rumors claim it to be Alduin himself, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they're right."
So…
"I need to know why Alduin is back." Delphine says. "And to that end, I need more information." She looks at all of us. "Will you help me?"
"Depends on the pay." Jake says breezily, cutting off Aria's likely altruistic response. "I have a business to run and, more importantly, I'm not risking my people without compensation."
Also we're like, not trained on information gathering and spy networks. At all.
"Fair's fair." Delphine nods. "I'll see what I can do."
…
Delphine doesn't actually have that much money. Instead, she's given us blueprints.
"Ash is the chief smith for your guild, is he not?" She said. "I believe these should provide ample compensation for the missions to come."
I…well, it's not money, but after studying these blueprints I do believe she's right.
She gave me three prints in total: Akaviri Katana, Akaviri Armor, and a "Breathing Steel" that's needed to forge both of those things. To be perfectly clear, there's nothing stopping me from making katanas out of normal steel, but for the weapons to have their power I need to use BS. The fact that it abbreviates to BS gives me great joy, I'm not gonna lie.
We are now en-route back to Whiterun.
I'm studying the prints as everyone else walks. My girls are napping nearby, wrapped up in super-duper cozy blankets I made just for them.
"It's a difficult metal to make." Delphine says as I find a good place to take a break. "The prints have been passed down for centuries, but to the best of my knowledge there does not exist a single smith who has succeeded in crafting this material."
Hah. "And you think I have what it takes?"
Delphine shrugs. "Every smith who has ever worked for the Blades have been given this blueprint, and there have been thousands. The closest man who has ever come close would be the master of the Skyforge himself, and Skyrim only has one of those each generation." She smiles good-naturedly, if a bit teasingly. "I will be happy if you succeed, but unsurprised if you do not."
…Hum. Sounds like this Breathing Steel is…well-oxidized? Is it a ratio thing? Either way, I'll keep it as reference if nothing else. If…well. "So how many people would recognize this steel if they saw it?" I ask Delphine.
"None." She laughs softly. "How can you ever believe something you've only ever heard as a fairy tale?"
…well, Alduin exists, so…
"In all of Skyrim, I believe there is only one person who can recognize the steel if it is forged." Delphine says. "Pity we have no clue where he is." So…Esbern.
Well, looking at the theoretical metal properties…it's basically the genius bastard child between water and diamond. Impossible to break, impossible to shear, unbelievably flexible, durable, supple. It also cures cancer and does my taxes too, probably.
…The closest analogy I can think of is Damascus Steel, and I don't know enough about forging techniques to make anything like that. Then again, I have bullshit cheating powers on my side, so I should be able to do something substantial.
Hmm. Well, whatever. I'll have time to experiment later.
Time?
Per canon, Delphine plans to party-crash. The Aldmeri party is due to occur sometime in spring, which is…a good Winter Season away, so roughly four to five months by my estimation. It's a lot of time, and going by Skyrim's weather, a lot of that time will be spent either indoors or around the forge, so…yeah.
…
…
We return to Whiterun. The trip takes us two days total.
The plan is pretty simple. Delphine will go into hiding at Dragon's Reach (she has good relations with Balgruuf). Normally hiding in the seat of power would be a terrible idea, but at this point Balgruuf already knows about Aldmeri incursions into his territory and has basically forbid them entry.
This sounds like a secondary problem called "Balgruuf's going to ally with the Stormcloaks" but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Anyways, Delphine's going to Dragon's Reach. Aria's going to officially join Warwolf and will be in charge of training everyone to the absolute bleeding edge of their ability. She's not a good teacher—too much talent—but when it comes to sparring, you either catch up or she'll bonk you with her sword, so that's at least straightforward.
I'm going to be…
…paying the bills, I suppose. Extermination missions for guilds tend to dry up during the winter season (not many people willing to travel to post missions in the first place) so my forge's going to keep Warwolf in the black. While I learn to Enchant, Forge, and Close Quarters Combat.
I am vaguely regretting my life choices. Again. For like the fourth time now, I think?
…
…
[And Time Passes]
…
…
Suddenly, it's spring. Or, at least, as spring as it could be. It's now…one week? After the weather has warmed up and the snow has melted.
Skyrim weather is weird. I don't remember my geography very well, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have that warm ocean current that the real Nordic areas do. Anyways.
Winter was uneventful.
Warwolf as a guild took quests mostly within the boundaries of the city since going out in the near constant snow would have been problematic. For the most part, the quests were of the boring variety—a lot of skeevers in basements—and the pay was pretty scant. The 'help the guard train' ones were better, and the T-sisters in particular were highly requested, despite Jake and Erik mostly doing the teaching. I would be lying if I said I was surprised.
T'yanna is the most requested, likely due to her (accidentally or intentionally) bouncing a lot.
Mell's apothecary formally reopened as an annex of the guildhall, and she does good business. Dumbfucks who cut themselves on the knives I sell them can go to her for a quick pick-me-up. Honestly I think some of the younger blokes (the ones just picking up their first knives) cut themselves on purpose just so they can see her.
What makes you think that?
The openly worn signs of Mara is a pretty good indication. Anyways…
Erik's seriously coming along. He, along with Jake and Aria, are improving constantly by sparring with each other. Aria's reflexes are so bullshit fast that he basically has to keep or get punched in the face.
I've largely just been practicing with my craft. Since we're basically expecting battles in the future, I do my day job and then put my night efforts exclusively on making some seriously refined gear for the group.
As a result, (slightly tangential), we've gotten a load of points. I've gained 89 skill points over the winter and Jake's earned 102. Since, again, we're expecting fights, we're spending all but fifty (or so) so we can accommodate any odd changes.
It's a lot of points, so let's get started.
…Actually I don't have a lot. I mean, I do, but I also don't…I put heal and multicast up to 50, and put my elemental masteries to 20 so I have a little more battlefield presence. I then put enchant, dechant, woodwork, and Weaponmaking all up to 20, because 20 is a nice number and I like it.
…By the way, it's 'dechant' and not 'disenchant' because dechant specifically deals with removing enchantments from equipment, while disenchant is specifically anti-spell/counterspell. In other words, 'disenchanting' a fire sword means that the sword stops being on fire before it carves into your face, while 'dechanting' a fire sword means that you get a fire enchant out of the deal while being safely free from being carved by said sword.
I thought these two were the same thing until T'nerem straightened that out, but if you think about it they really are one and the same, just with different levels of danger to your personal health.
Anyways, I should learn disenchanting in the future in case we need to do some counterspell combat. Hopefully it's not touch based because I think that would be rather problematic.
Tangent aside, I have 50 points left over at this point, so…Greater Masteries.
I take: Minor and Major Overcast (I can juice my spells more effectively), Forging Template (increased crafting speed), Enchanting Tailor ("can weave enchantments into clothes"), and MANA SHIELD (can use mana to soak damage).
Overcast is pretty bog standard. In this Skyrim you can already spend extra magic power to make your spells more effective, so Overcast is just tweaking the formula to be more efficient. I specifically use it so I'm basically spending zilch mana for regular spells.
Forging Templates is…a little weird? Descriptively it says that my speed increases, but the speed increase only applies when I make the same item over and over. That said, it's really good for mass production…except also it's not, because it apparently reduces my item quality somehow. I'll need to test this more to see exactly how it works, but for now if I'm careful I can mass-produce certain items with enough quality that I'm ok with the results.
MANA SHIELD is MANA SHIELD. It will stop me from being insta-gibbed by magic in the very foreseeable future. Given that this isn't a world with bars, I imagine that the shield is going to be lossy in the sense that a strong hit will overcome it.
I had Aria test my resilience against damage before and after mana shield. Pre mana shield she can knock me the fuck out with a single fire bolt. Post…two fire bolts. When I layer it with a ward (or, hell, multiple wards) then I'm basically invulnerable to magic.
Pity that mana shield basically works on the Soviet Defense though.
Which is…
To just throw boatloads of manpower (read: mana) at the problem and hope it fixes itself. I'll learn better methods with time, maybe.
Last is…Enchanting Tailor. I took it because, on the surface, it sounded like a very good idea. After reading it through, I'm no longer sure what it does, or what the implications are. The description literally just says "Can weave enchantments into clothes" and it hurt my eyes reading that, but…So does that mean I can literally weave enchantments into pieces of fabric, or does it just mean that I need this perk to put an enchant onto an article of clothing?
I'm literally just working off of my game knowledge, and this is a complete blindspot…but, either option would make this perk worthwhile, so I'm not complaining.
…I'm now realizing that I have yet to see a single set of magic robes up close ever since I got here. Huh.
Well, anyway. After all that, I got one finishing effect: Negative Cast. Weird name, straightforward effect. I'm allowed to spend up to 200% of my total mana bar in one spell. No constant casts like Healing, Flames, etc. It has to be a one-shot spell.
The bonus mana affects damage, range, splash range, and so on. It's basically a "Fuck you I lose" kind of button, because there is no way I'm using something this all-or-nothing as anything other than a last-ditch effort to get out of trouble. Chekov's gun would imply that I may be using this in the foreseeable future.
Anyhoo. Onto Jake!
He gets Counter up to 100 and calls it a day. That puts him to less than 50 points stored, so he's done.
As for his Greaters, he takes three ranks of Leadership (great/er/est). They boost his…I dunno, ability to lead people? The description just says that it increases his ally's strength, which is kinda vague.
He also takes three ranks of Sword Master (Great/er/est) and now he's even more dangerous with his Greatsword. Funnily enough, Aria still floors him.
Speaking of Aria: the reason why Aria is basically immortal is because she also has non-Dragonborn specific abilities (or so Jake says). Now, we are kind of guessing at these things because asking her to sit still while one of us stared into her eyes got real weird after thirty seconds.
Nevertheless, as far as we can tell, she has: Dragonborn, Underdog, and Adaptable.
Dragonborn is Dragonborn. It gives access to the Dragonborn tech tree (more or less).
Underdog boosts Aria's power based on the enemy she's fighting. You can think of this as being the equivalent of the in-game level system, where the mobs you fight will always be roughly your level. (Until you get high in the levels but let's not worry about that)
Adaptable, then, is the in-game equivalent of the difficulty system. Aria's difficulty slider is basically on 'novice', so she's functionally immortal as long as she's paying attention.
So…yes, Aria's broken. Back to Jake. Or, rather, back to Jake's finishing effects.
Jake got King of Blades, War Leader, and Unbreakable.
King of Blades: a result of sword master and weapons master, basically makes his swords hit even harder. The description specifically points out "final sword effect" which implies that it's a bonus that's applied after the other bonuses are applied. Which means Jake's greatsword effectively deals, like, a million points of damage per hit.
War Leader is a result of leadership and weapons master. Basically all his allies now get bonus xp. Again, we don't really know how this works.
Unbreakable is…weirdly named. Effect-wise, it gives him a second 'Unstoppable', where he gets a 50% armor break. So now he…I dunno, negates 75% of enemy armor? We'll see how this works.
…
Otherwise, having Delphine in Dragon's Reach was a definite plus for me specifically. Delphine is not an official guest of the castle and therefore can't stay for long periods of time (plausible deniability and all that) so she comes and goes to the Warwolf hall. In order to facilitate her easier travel, we basically gave her a makeover.
Basically, presentation is key. If you watched Delphine walk…well, Delphine has a very "I know what I'm doing" kind of walk. She exudes confidence in all matters, and there's a definite sense of danger with her that could only come from decades upon decades of rigorous training. Being in hiding in Riverwood hasn't changed that in any way.
Which, of course, means that anybody who has a pair of eyes could tell that she's no minor noble idling at court. Which means that we kind of have to force her to sashay a little, which…she does, kinda. Sorta. Ultimately it looks too stupid and we settle on a guard outfit. She also gets a job to train the Whiterun guards to help make that cover stick.
Anyways, Delphine being in Dragon's Reach is good for me, because it meant I got access to Farengar Secret-Fire.
Farengar is…also a shit teacher. He's better than Aria by virtue of not relying on inborn talent, but he has a tendency of doing a lot of showing off and not a lot of teaching. He is, however, rather well versed in the art of enchantment. I think. I don't have a lot of points of comparison.
Regardless, over the winter, I've taken the time to learn enchanting from him. It is, as expected, a time consuming and magic intensive process.
What we know already: You need a spell to enchant into an object, then failsafes so that the spell doesn't do literally everything else under the sun.
What we didn't know: how to get that spell to go into an object and stay there.
In a nutshell, there exists two ways to get an enchantment to stay in its target. One is to use a shell spell to ensure that the enchantment stays where it should. This is the most common method, is the easiest skill-wise, and has the biggest drawbacks—namely, the enchantment needs to be refreshed on an almost daily basis. The best enchanters in this method can last for up to a month before the shell has to be repaired.
Option two is to weave the spell into the object, to put the enchant into the object on a fundamental level. This is more or less a lost art, since a lot of mythical old objects are enchanted in this fashion.
In practice, what usually happens is a mix of type 1 and type 2, with type 1 taking dominance. The enchantment will 'rub off' on an object after some time, which means that…say, a sword whose fire enchant has expired can be 're-enchanted' with the same or a more powerful enchant for reduced cost.
Type 1's also more common because, as I think I've mentioned before, people can innately regenerate enchanted objects with their own magical power. It offsets some of the problems, so that's nice.
Now, I'm calling it a 'shell' like it's a catch-all term, but…the reality is that I basically need a tangential power to an enchant in order to encase it, which…sucks, because such a power does not exist. In order to enchant an object, the tangential power is effectively unique to the object+enchant combination. It is a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of "oops I fucked up I guess I need a new item and have to start this entire process over again."
So…yeah. Good Enchanters are highly sought after. Farengar is, by his own unhumble admission, an Enchanter of "passing quality".
After learning about all this, I've basically spent my winter learning how to properly enchant with type 1. I want to do type 2 for massively overpowered shenanigans, but…learn to walk before running, and so forth.
To that effect, I've broken a total of…588 daggers with no result to show for it. I'm learning, I think, but the result is never satisfactory, and the dagger never survives the attempt. I've been making the best Daggers I can (along with a 'Please Be Good For Enchant' wish imbued into a small ruby). Obviously, it's not helping.
Sigh.
Welp, the 589th, here goes nothing. I suppose if nothing else, I've learned why people don't slap multiple enchants onto the same object. Having a 0.01% success rate raised to the fifth power or whatever doesn't strike me as being good for business.
Anyways.
We have our enchanter's table, five petty soulstones, the book of Fire Enchant, and the dagger in the middle.
There was a brief time in which I experimented with using more soulstones. That just added more overhead and made things harder.
Ok, here goes.
…The Fire Enchant goes into the first gem, and gems 2 and 3 act as power overflow.
…Looks good…looks good…aaand problem.
Wisps of the magic being used for the enchant is leaking.
Spin spin spin. I can stop the leakage by using the enchant itself as 'corks' of a sort. I don't know how it works, don't ask me how it works.
…Eventually, the leaking stops and the enchant stabilizes, which means that, instead of energy radiating out in wisps, it's now radiating out like heat. Time to apply the shell.
We build the mana shell over the enchant bit by bit, using the 'corks' as fulcrums to help keep the entire thing stable.
Easy, easy…
Suddenly, the entire setup begins to rumble.
WELP
Gems 4 and 5 come into play here.
The rumbling reduces, but it's not enough. The dagger's blade cracks down the middle.
Hmm. Before, I tried using more gems to help stabilize the rumbling somehow, but…nothing doing, I guess. Ugh.
We gather the broken dagger to melt it back down again.
Waste not want not. 490! Stiff upper lip, let's do this. 590. 590. It's actually 590.
We set everything back up again.
What haven't I tried yet? I've tried to leave the wisps of mana as-is, reducing the power, increasing the power, making the shell first…
…What if I make the shell along with the enchant? The idea of running power through the entire object had merit, and using a 'wire' to act as a conduit for the enchant…well…it didn't fail as badly as this, I guess. Which isn't to say that it worked, I suppose. Hrm.
…Yeah, let's try that. Let's try to apply the enchant bit by bit, like soaking a sponge.
…What if the Dagger is the sponge?
We prep a pile of soulstones.
I don't know how many I'll need for this. I still get stuck in the whole 'one soulstone, one enchant' mentality that the game espouses, and it takes me some tries to get out of it. Let's give this another go.
I ready five soulstones and put Fire into all of them. Then, I put the Dagger in the middle and allow their energy to permeate the Dagger before trying to bind the two things together. Before, I was just binding the things together.
The energy of the Enchant has some difficulty entering.
…That's weird. Usually it goes in just like that. Let's not force it. Allow the magic weapon sex to happen organically, and focus on building the shell.
…
…Yeah, this method shows more promise. The shell's coming out incredibly stable, and pieces of it that are not stable crumbles by themselves without taking the entire process with it. The shell making process is taking three soulstones.
…The Fire Enchant is going well. It seems to have completely stabilized, and the sheath is active without issue. The problem now is…the Fire Enchant has almost no power behind it. At its current condition, it may as well be the Firefly ring but worse in every conceivable way.
Let's try to add mo-NOPE
The instant we try to add power into the Dagger, the entire system starts to lurch.
Not doing that. Let's…no, adding power to a single gem also causes everything to lurch.
…So power has to be added uniformly along all five gems? Cripes. Let's use another gem to act as a distributive focus to help everything along.
Power starts dripping into the five Enchant gems, which then drips into the Dagger.
This is like…trickledown economics in its most bastardized form. I don't even know.
If the top gem's larger, then the trickle effect would be higher, I imagine. As it is now, it's going at a snail's pace. Adding more gems risks unsettling the system. Maybe if I added another tier? Like, have a starting gem that drips into different segments of gems, before they go into the enchant gems?
…then again, the problem right now is that the power isn't going into the Dagger fast enough. More would be better if there isn't a danger of the entire system shattering immediately.
Still, this is good. Everything looks good.
An hour later.
The Dagger has stopped receiving power and nothing is bleeding out. I consider this a rousing success. Let's see here…
The Dagger is cool to the touch.
…well, that's faintly disappointing. It's actually really disappointing, not gonna lie. It doesn't look like the Enchant took at all.
Maybe there's something else I'm missing. The Dagger has its own soulstone, so it's not like the enchant doesn't have a place to stay…this is depressing.
There's a knock at the door to my enchanting lab.
"Come in." I say. I feel very defeated right now.
Older Sister opens the door, then quickly darts away to clear the path for the actual client.
"Hello there." Farengar Secret-Fire smiles at me. "I take it today has been productive so far?"
"Fuck you." I grumble.
"Indeed." Farengar laughs. "It looks like you have something that didn't explode at last." He takes the Dagger in his hands. "Is something wrong?" He asks upon seeing my face.
This is so frustrating. "I don't know what I'm doing and I keep feeling like I'm so close, but no. It's just not going to work." I'm not
This sucks.
"I think you're being rather hard on yourself." Farengar pats my shoulder. "Enchanting is an art that takes decades to learn, and you've made exceptional progress over the course of a single winter. Come."
He gently but firmly drags me outside. I just want to sit down right now, I'm…well, not tired, per se, but I'm depressed and it makes me want to sit down.
"More importantly, you've forgotten the most important part of an enchanted weapon." Farengar says with a coy smile and I want to punch his face so bad right now.
But I hold. "What?"
"Magic weapons do not radiate power. They should not radiate power." He says with insistence and points the Dagger to the ground. "I understand that you were expecting something else, but—"
A plume of fire erupts from the Dagger and slams into the ground.
"JESUS!" Faregar exclaims and drops the Dagger. "What did you do?!" He demands of me and the Dagger.
The amount of time we've spent together means he has taken some of our language when it comes to issues of sudden flares and dangers.
…What did I do? I don't know what I did. "I've just been soaking it inside the enchant." Which is certainly true. But…
We retrieve the Dagger.
It doesn't feel any different from what had just happened. Hmm…
We close our eyes and feel inside the Dagger for the magic source that makes up the enchant. We can't find it.
Was he fucking with me? "How did you make it do that?" I ask Farengar. I demand from Farengar.
"Enchanted weapons require an igniter." He says. "That igniter is needed to get past the shell."
…Make sense, in retrospect. Power locked in a weapon wouldn't just come out just because you're holding on to it. I'd like it if you told me what the igniter 'was', though. Still, if he's calling it an igniter, then that implies that it's something different from the shell itself. If I tried to make an anti-shell, that might just undo the entire system, and that would be bad…?
…then how did Farengar do it?
We concentrate on some Flames. Nothing happens.
Hm. "Farengar?" I'm a little desperate now.
"You of all people should know your magic." Farengar says. "Calm down and concentrate. This comes easier when you're more used to it."
Ok. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
…Actually, what is he doing here in the first place?
The sudden distraction in thought causes us to find the igniter.
HOLY FUCK
The Dagger, now in our hands and pointed very much so to the sky, ignites and creates a plume of fire that's a good twenty feet long.
HOLY…TOTALLY NOT USEFUL, BATMAN. WHAT DO I DO OH MY GOD
As quickly as it came, it evaporates again.
It…what just happened? "Farengar!"
"Hey, you made that thing!" He laughs. "You explain!"
…Is there a way for me to control the energy emission? Let's see…oh, the Igniter is super easy to find this time.
The sword of fire appears again for another five seconds before vanishing. We, now totally engrossed in our work, do not notice Farengar's shocked expression.
Some two minutes later, after we calm down.
Actually, let's get this out of the way before I forget. "Farengar, what are you doing here, anyways?"
Farengar's mirth has vanished and has been replaced with his professional snark. "As you know, Spring is here."
Yes, I think I noticed.
"The Imperial and Stormcloak armies are on the campaigning path, and we have reason to believe that Whiterun is the target." He waves to Jake, who may have just left the building to see what the giant flame dildo was all about. "Should be apparent to all, but Whiterun doesn't plan to simply do nothing behind its walls."
Hm. "Who are we aligning with?"
"The Imperials." Farengar says dispassionately. "Though the Jarl finds working with them distasteful, considering the presence of the Dominion within their ranks, it remains true that working with the Imperials is the fastest way to end this civil war. Only then can we begin to address the innate problems plaguing the Empire."
Ok, what about Delphine?
"So where do we play into this?" Jake asks.
Farengar gets to the point. "The Jarl would like to make sure that Whiterun isn't in a position of weakness. To do so, he would have to contribute to the war effort."
…Oh.
"When the Stormcloaks become aware that Whiterun has shifted its allegiances, they will attack." Farengar says. "When that happens, the Jarl would like at least two companies to devote to the cause."
Eek. A company in Skyrim is a unit of roughly 100 men, with a completely variable makeup. It is entirely possible to have a company of nothing but healers. That won't happen because healers are too rare to congregate into one company, but uh…the risk is there.
"So why are you telling us this?" Jake asks.
"Should be obvious." Farengar says. "The Whiterun guard has more tasks than just being mustered for war. The Jarl is relying mostly on mercenaries to make up these two companies."
Makes sense, I guess. "Who should we talk to about the pay, then?" I ask.
…
It takes around two days for the two companies to be mustered.
For the record, Jake and I are against this whole idea because it takes away from our flexibility, our ability to move as our own unit. On the flip side, Aria is not going anywhere, and our justification of being able to do whatever the hell we want doesn't hold up very well under examination.
…More pragmatically, this outfit pays well and is a good way for me to get experience without having to foist over my own resources, plus it advances the civil war storyline.
As such, Warwolf is now integrated into the 2nd Whiterun Company, and we make up…nine units, plus two hanger-ons (my girls). There does not seem to be a mission, or else any kind of company cohesion…Jake is basically the de-facto leader of the Company by virtue of being the man that everyone in the unit respects. The actual leader is some dude from a bigger Mercenary company.
Hm. Even though I called it 'mustering' there's actually no mustering happening. Everyone belonging to the two companies each have a semi-magic proof of…company…ship? It works the same way as the guild roster sheets.
Well, if we're not immediately being called up to do whatever then I can just get back to work.
…I just jinxed it, didn't I.
.
.
.
{ === + === }
Author Notes:
If you have something to say then please leave it as a non-guest review. There are a lot of good points being made that I want to address but can't because I don't like to put that kind of stuff on the story proper.
But as a general reminder about inconsistencies: Ash is usually the POV and he is…perhaps not the most reliable narrator. If you notice, he's not above flat out lying for the sake of making the narrative more interesting.
Though usually I come in and set things straight.