{ === + === }
[First Person Camera]
…
So…
Aria left to fight a dragon, came home in entirely different clothing, looking like hell, and then, the next day, the dragon gets paraded through the street, and the next day after that I get like a hundred pounds of bones and scales dumped into my workshop.
…Like, what?
What the fuck? What am I supposed to do with a hundred pounds of dead dragon crap?
…Ok, so let me back up for a second here.
I am not complaining about the fact that she is giving me free stuff. I like free stuff, especially when the free stuff is of a quantity and quality that I would not get to touch otherwise.
I am complaining because dealing with the Dwarven metal has shown a serious lack of functionality for my forge. Namely, it can't really deal with Dwarven metal.
Since my forge can't deal with Dwarven metal, I have absolutely zero belief in my forge's ability to deal with dragonscales and dragonbones either.
How could it not deal with dwarven metal?
I'll go over it later.
Anyways…uh…Aria came home with serious exhaustion and more than her share of burns. Mell took a look at her and administered some potions for fire resistance and helped trim her hair down so the burned sections don't look as out of place.
As shallow as this sounds: dealing with that dragon has seriously marred Aria's Mary-Sue-esque beauty…but she's still pretty, just, y'know, no longer in the "porcelain-doll" kind of sense. Though I couldn't see the rest of her skin (for obvious reasons) I imagine she has a shitton of burns on her body. Her hair's short now, which is a little bit of a bummer.
I like long hair. I really like long hai-ok you know what let's just get off of that topic
Following the battle, Aria's now sleeping inside our house. Mell wakes her up on occasion to feed her potions, but for the most part she's hibernating.
…well, I'm just glad it worked out ok. In game, the fight against the first dragon was basically a tutorial on how to not die to a dragon, which meant it was a pretty safe thing to do. Here…well, the bodies they brought back, and the ceremonial guard armors offered to the catacombs to honor soldiers without recoverable bodies…
…yeah. Not a pretty sight.
…
[One Day Later]
…
Four days after the end of the last chapter.
A sound like clapping thunder tears through the balmy summer sky. I assume that it's the Greybeards calling for the Dovahkiin.
But, yeah, without being the Dragonborn, the sound is basically a rumbling of thunder rather than, y'know, an old dude calling for the Dovahkiin.
Aria sleeps through it, because of course she does.
And what are we doing?
More of the same? The stack of dragonstuff brought to our house meant that people now come to gawk. I can't really expend it right now, so it's just kinda…sitting there, under a large piece of cloth I kinda…y'know, threw over it. With the free time that I've had so far, I've managed to put my hands on some of the scales and bones and have so far made no progress, but at least I know that my current tools (plus a bonecrafting kit that I bought) are fucking useless. Maybe my arms just aren't strong enough?
To explain further: the forge and our innate nature to use magic is infusing the dragonic material with magicka, which is making them tougher to work with, which causes us to use more mana in the flames, and so on so forth. We're not alone in that spiral.
I did eat some of the dragonmeat though. It's pretty good, if a bit tough.
So…oh, hello.
We see Irileth strolling towards us.
She's in street clothes (kinda, sorta) rather than her standard leather armor. If memory serves, she was also in the fight and thus would have gotten the shit burned out of her. I hope she's ok.
As she gets closer, we see but don't really register the burn patches on her face.
"Can I help you?" I ask as it becomes clear that she's here for us. I'm alone, there's really not much street presence, and I'm bored. My regulars are at work, after all.
Jake and Eric are out on their escort duties, and Mell is administering anti-burn potions to Aria.
I think she's giving Aria a rubdown, given the quantity she's using. I don't know why she's doing this, to be honest, but I'm not an alchemist, so eh.
"Yes…" Irileth says, and hands over a…slip…of paper. How's the literacy rate in Skyrim, anyway?
We take the paper and read it. We don't notice Irileth's slightly proud look.
Huh…Really now? "Uh…" I tap the piece of paper. "Is this considered money?"
"It is a contract made with the blessings of the Jarl." Irileth says. "As such, it might as well be."
Hum. "Well, I can't guarantee the results, because I'm not sure how the production method actually works. Is that ok?"
She frowns. "Do what you can, I suppose."
She sticks around a little longer to scan the surroundings and politely inquire about the state of Aria's health before leaving. What was that about?
She's giving me a purse of 5000 gold to create a set of six throwing knives for her, of the same kind as I provided to Aria, with all of my expenses covered by the Jarl, no questions asked. Reward given upon delivery.
I assume it's because there was something special about the knives that I gave to Aria, but apart from the fact that they seem to explode I can't say I know why she would want them so badly.
…Why did the knives explode anyway? Why did the dwarven cores not explode? Up until this point I didn't have the knives…Irileth brought over the cores of the daggers that were used on the dragon.
One of them had a shorn-off tip, one with just the core, and one that seemed to be ok, if a little bit sticky despite the guards' best effort to wash whatever was on the knife off. It's probably dragon blood.
…mmm…well, I created the knives with the hope that they will stab the dragon that Aria was up against. It's probably safe to say that the wish caused some kind of special effect to be applied to the knife, much like that Gleaming Sword business.
Which means that I should probably create these knives with a similar feeling, no?
Speaking of the knives…
Ah, yeah, the issue with Dwarven Metal.
I've done a little bit of research, and…well, first things first. Metals in this 'real world' of Skyrim doesn't follow a straight upgrade path. In game, Dwarven is basically a straight defensive upgrade over Steel, and Orcish is a straight upgrade over Dwarven (and of course dragon is the best there is). In this world, the metals kind of have their own perks and weaknesses. So…Let's say that Steel is the 'average' that we're comparing everything to, and remember that I've only done a little bit of reading.
So! Iron gear is cheaper than steel and inferior, but easier to produce. Orcish gear is superior (by far) but isn't too flexible, and if you're using it to build armor (without compromising the joints) then the wearer would have to be pretty strong to make effective use of said armor. Strong Orcish warriors in full Orcish armor are therefore well respected, because holy fucking shit are they good at their jobs.
We are speculating.
Dwarven, then, is…physically less defensive than steel, but is more resilient to magic and other forms of damage (and is heavier). This is basically the problem. Because of the inherent resiliency to non-physical damage and—what I believe is—its natural resiliency towards heating, it's incredibly difficult for me to heat the ingots to the point where I could have the time to work with it.
Now obviously my lack of skill hampers working with the material as well, but in general it's just not a good situation. Still, I'm going to put in the effort and make the cores as well as possible, if only because I don't want Irileth to die.
…
It takes us the better part of three days to craft the knives.
Of the six knives, two are straight upgrades, with the other four being stockier and broader for more generalized utility. Since the knives I made for Aria had a penchant for exploding, I figured that having some knives that didn't blow up would be good for long-term use.
…that said, it's pretty doubtful that the knives will explode when it comes into contact with anything other than a dragon. Why did it explode when it came into contact with a dragon is another question entirely, and one that I…can't really answer at this point.
Meh, whatevs.
…Speaking of dragons.
It seems that the message of "Greybeards are looking for the Dovahkiin" has now become common knowledge, as I'm just hearing it everywhere now. Since business has slowed down a little, it gave me some extra time to walk around the town and hoo boy is the Dragonborn business a big deal.
In game, you don't really get to see how it affects the lives of literally everybody else. One of the guards goes "maybe I'm the Dragonborn" or something and that's more or less it.
In reality, when it becomes common knowledge that a) Greybeards are summoning and b) Nobody knows who the Dragonborn is, it…well. Let's just say that it's not only the guards idly wondering if they're actually the Dragonborn and didn't know it.
I mean, yeah, you can make the argument that 'only the people who could understand the Greybeards are actually Dragonborn' but a loud rumble during the daytime is just not a good way to suss out the fakers.
So…yes. There are now a lot of mid-to-high class families preparing for a trip to the Throat of the World, and the 7000 steps.
Hmm…well, anyways.
I finished the knives and I outsourced the creation of the sheaths to a leatherworker here in the Clover. He's known for making things that are "rugged, dependable, and pants-shittingly-ugly."
His words, not mine. They cost 120 gold in total.
I figured Irileth wasn't one for pomp and circumstance, which was why I outsourced that part of the job. Anyways, he made them out of wood with his leather bindings on the outside. When I got them back, I Replaced some steel strips into the wood, and added a steel tip to the sheath itself. The point of this is so that if push came to shove and the knives are all used and lost, the sheaths themselves would be able to act as ad-hoc weapons as necessary. They can't guard worth shit, despite the steel strips, but eh…
…Anyways.
As I'm not allowed into Dragonsreach (too poor, basically) I hire a courier and send message to Irileth that her knives are ready.
About two hours later, she arrives, still in plain clothes, along with…
…Jarl Balgruuf in disguise. Bad disguise.
He's wearing what would normally be a worker's outfit, but everything about him is immaculately clean, and he gives off this impression of being well-fed and physically fit. He also, and I think this is why his disguise sucks, gives off a very strong sense of being a fatherly figure, and radiates a kind of authority that can only be attributed to a true member of nobility.
…Or else his hair reflects so much light my house will catch on fire. Either or.
The two of them approach our shop.
"Yo, Irileth." I greet her. "Who's your friend?"
"Company from the castle." She says slyly. "I hope you don't mind."
I laugh. "No, not at all." I then wait for them to get into normal voice range before continuing. "But it's kind of obvious he's the Jarl."
The two of them blink in surprise.
"Is it that obvious?" Balgruuf asks.
"You…don't hide too well, sir." I grin. "But hey, it's not my problem." I take the set of six knives and present it to Irileth. "Here you go. You're free to test them and see if they're to your liking."
"I'll do just that." She says and takes the knives and examines them at length. "They feel heavier than the ones you made for Aria." She observes.
"The ones for Aria were exclusively for the sake of killing dragons, and they didn't work too well." I shrug. "So I'm compromising supposed deadliness for general utility."
"I see." Irileth balances the knives on her finger. "It's not bad." She appraises. "Can you set up a target?"
"Sure."
So I do. I place the round archery target in front of a barrier of hay so the knives don't just clatter on the ground or whatever. Irileth sets herself up in front of the target and gets to work.
The two of us watch her throwing arm for a little bit.
"So…" Uh… "What brings you here?" I ask Balgruuf. I legit don't know why he's here.
"I heard that Aria was predisposed and I was curious." He says cheerily. "Also Proventius was being a bit of a dunderhead."
That's probably closer to the real reason, I guess. "Well, whatever works for you." To be honest, if Balgruuf isn't about to tell me why he's here then I'm not going to ask.
"These knives are decent." Irileth remarks after throwing things for a good five minutes. "You've done well."
She's disappointed that the knives don't track targets despite wishing REALLY HARD that she would hit the target, but it wasn't as if something like that was intentional in the first place.
She pays us the 5000 gold for the knives plus the 1500 gold development fee, as outlined in the Courier's message.
…
So…yay. Also, Balgruuf sneaked out of town for the express purpose of going on a bar crawl. He just came with Irileth to my place as a justification for "well I wasn't really sneaking out" if (when) he gets caught.
Anyhoo.
…
[That Night]
…
"So I've noticed that the town is a little bit busy." Jake says at dinnertime. "This whole dragonborn thing is blowing out of proportion, huh?"
"No kidding." Eric says, excited. "Nobody knows who the Dragonborn could be."
The two of us resist from rolling our eyes.
Notably, Aria doesn't correct him.
"I vote that we go on a trip." I say with a grin.
"To the 7000 steps? Hell yeah!" Erik agrees vehemently. I think Jake's been teaching him vocabulary. "I've always wanted to make the trip as a boy, but we never had the time."
"I want to go too." Mell says enthusiastically. "It sounds like fun!"
"Sure." Aria shrugs. "I'd like to see how the Greybeards pick a Dragonborn."
…I don't know if she legitimately doesn't know or if she's just playing the part. Her acting ability is 10/10.
Either way, road trip!
…
[Road Trip]
…
The good thing about being an adult with expendable income is the ability to just close up shop and travel.
Anyhoo, for this trip, we rent a wagon (Aria's pulling it with her ethereal dire wolf) and stock it with supplies. The actual procurement of stuff takes the better part of the day though, so we had to put off departure until the day after.
Which isn't really a bad thing.
"Hey, Ash?" Aria asks me the night before. "Can I ask of you a favor?"
This is pretty rare. "What's up?"
"Can you make me a new set of innerwear?" She says, fidgeting a little.
…? Oh, oh right. Her undies were torched by the dragon. "Yeah, sure. I think I have your measurements somewhere in here." I get my small stack of paper and…nope, I don't. "Nevermind, I have to re-take them. Sorry."
"Oh, it's not a problem." She says, and I go to get my tape measure.
I get Aria's measurements—she's smaller than Mell, no surprises there—and, with a little bit of a detour to shop for materials, get to work.
She's actually smaller both in terms of bust size and hip…girth? That sounds so weird…but yeah, she's uniformly smaller than Mell (but is taller and has more muscles). Anyhoo, I get finished with the undies before bedtime. I made two sets, because I figured she would want to like…wash them, when given the chance.
I just realized that none of us have taken a formal bath in like a month.
Formal bath?
Like…for bathing (or something close to bathing) we'd leave the city and go upstream a little, and then just jump into the running water for a bit. It's not, y'know, fully 'bathing' as us two Americans consider it.
So…yeah. We're 'clean' by current standards.
…
Skill points?
I gained two points from making the daggers for Irileth, one for making underwear, and none for the three weeks or so of work. Which is…odd, to say the least, now that I think on it.
Anyhoo…I do want to get into enchanting in earnest now that I have spare cash, but I'm also bitter that my equipment built specifically for the purpose of fucking up dragons didn't exactly do a whole lot of fuck-upping.
Hmm.
…But I also want to branch out into doing more things, and it looks like I'll have time to do those more things right now. To that end, I take two ranks of woodworking (better results with wood products) and another rank of fire mastery.
I mean, if we're journeying to the 7000 steps then we're VERY LIKELY going to get into fights, and if I'm on a cart all day then I can't smith, so I'm going to either tailor or start making wood weapons. I have enough confidence—kinda, sorta—to do that now. Carpentry, I mean. Tailoring's still cool and all, but I can't make weapons with it. (Yet.)
For reference: after we brought up the skill point gains during the 3 weeks of work, we find out that Jake earned 58 points, giving him 3 more major perks as a result.
It's seriously not fair.
For major perks, Jake takes: Appraising Eye (makes Identify more useful), Enchanted Presence (increase the effectiveness of enchanted items and reduce their degrading speed), and Unstoppable (weapons skip armor somewhat).
That Enchanted Presence thing worries me because of its description. What does it mean by 'degrading speed'?
For minor perks: 10 levels of counterer, 10 levels of overwhelm, 8 levels of analysis, and 30 levels of general combat mastery (which makes him better at every facet of combat by a little bit).
At this point, when paying attention, Jake is a walking deathgod. Like how my perks work, if Jake isn't devoting himself in battle, they won't act to their full effectiveness and he'll get his ass kicked. Battles are inherently dances between two people where one of them tries to shank the other when attention isn't being paid, though, so let's see how it works out.
…still. I wonder what the difference in skill points came from?
…
[Day of Departure]
…
Like I implied before, we're not the only ones making this trip. Sure, there's a civil war going on, but it's not in Whiterun territory (for the most part) and neither side is going into total slash-and-burn mode, harassing civilians and burning villages or whatever, so travel is…difficult, but not impossible.
To that end, our wagon joins a convoy of four others in our pilgrimage to the 7000 steps, but obviously we're the only one being pulled by a horse-sized wolf, and it attracts some stares.
Joining us on the trip is…the Battle-Born wagon, the Grey-Mane wagon, the Rich People Wagon A, and the Rich People Wagon B. The two unnamed wagons are from families that are affluent but not as sizable as the Battle-Borns or the Grey-Manes. We are, obviously, the poorest wagon.
"Well, if it isn't Ash." Idolaf Battle-Born says upon noticing us. "Going on a trip too, I see?"
The other wagons notice Aria and, arguably, only her.
Our wagon, apart from ourselves, is packed with barrels, tools, and some rawmats. "That we are." I nod.
"Grandfather said you were the one that made that sword, right?" A young boy sitting next to him asks enthusiastically. I assume he's the Battle-Born kid, but I don't remember his name.
Active mind doesn't know that Lars is Lars.
"Probably?" I reply. "I heard you got into a bit of trouble with that sword."
"'Trouble' is an understatement." The man sitting next to him (Jon) laughs. "Lars stared death in the face."
I'm not overly talkative by nature, so as the other members of the cart get pulled into the conversation, I pull myself out.
According to the Battle-Borns, the trip will take about five days, assuming fair weather and no detours. It's kind of a similar situation to the Riverwood-Whiterun path, where the linear distance isn't long, but the natural obstacles are pretty huge.
Welp!
…
[Travel Day One]
…
We leave Whiterun and follow the path heading east (then north) and more or less hug the foothills of the Throat of the World. We get slowed a few times by mudcrabs wandering too closely to the roads. They're quite delicious roasted.
In-game, the path has a lot of things going on, like having a…what's it called, the stones where you can get a buff based on the sign? In-game that location is practically right up to the road. Here, it's about…oh…a mile off? A mage gave us a polite bow before detouring to said stone, possibly to resurrect the conveniently placed skeletons there for some nefarious deed. It's not really my problem.
My point is there's a lot of ground to cover. The road is not terrible, since it rained a while back, but it's still just a touch sticky. Ethereal Dire Wolf has bigger paws than a horse and a pawsitive attitude so it doesn't care.
Ugh.
Between the four carts there is quite a bit of cross-chatter, but I'm more or less ignoring it in favor of rubbing wood.
This time is…
For actual crafting duties. Before this trip started I made a bunch of small metal objects for the objective of creating a working crossbow, hence the wood preparation for that. When it's done, because I don't understand the value of minimalist design, I'm going to see if I can make the loading mechanism as painless as possible.
Regardless, I need to work on the base first.
To give context: Rich Wagon A is taking point, Rich Wagon B is right behind it. Battle-Born and Grey-Mane wagons are right next to each other, and our wagon is bringing up the rear. As we get our huge block of wood and some woodworking tools, Jon gives Idolaf a nudge to the ribs and nods towards our direction. On the Grey-Mane cart, Idolaf's rival Vignar notices the sudden attention and puts us on his radar as well.
We of course notice none of this, as we're too busy woodrubbing.
It's kind of hard to do this work on a cart with no suspension. The ground isn't perfectly flat, so things bounce everywhere. That said, by the end of the first day I've carved out the parts that I think are needed.
So…what is needed for a crossbow?
On the most basic level, it's a bolt being fired by a string through a transmission of elastic energy into kinetic energy. It's strong because…of mechanisms that transfer force being made by the user and, most importantly, the mechanisms that allow for the storage of force into the string in the form of that elastic energy.
So…hmm.
We work until dinner break.
I don't have anything solid, but a good time to rest is a good time to rest.
We circle our wagons and the rich people let their horses rest and graze as needed. Aria just unsummons her wolf because she's amazing, and we have dinner.
Following dinner, the two of us (Jake, me) find a nice little spot of grass and we stretch.
Read: we move like ten meters away from our campsite.
"What are you two doing?" Mell asks curiously.
"Practice." Both of us reply at the same time while stretching. Like Mell, a few people look our way.
Again, we don't notice, but the Battleborns and Grey-Manes home in on the two of us with a sense of professional observation abilities that the other onlookers don't have.
Alright, I'm warmed up. "Come at me."
Jake immediately throws a punch at our face.
No not like that OW
We block with our arm but it hurts like a bitch.
The sound of the hit makes some people pay more attention. My block lets me turn my body along with it, so I can counter with my other elbow.
So…
Yes, we are sparring. Like I said, I used to be a commercial black belt, and Jake did a little bit of everything with regards to physical skills.
Commercial?
In the sense that we, y'know, never took the idea that we would use the martial arts we learn as an objectively life-or-death-important part of life. So like, we'd practice, and get some hours in, and have fun, but it's not as if we cared about being good at it or not.
Which might be why Jake's kicking my ass right now, come to think of it.
Jake, by virtue of being more experienced with the whole fighting business and by virtue of having like a million fighting perks, is far and away the better fighter. That said, this is sparring, so he goes easy as I get my feet underneath me again.
Why spar now?
Because I learned Oakskin! I bought it with some of the money I got from Irileth and had everyone read it. It's the novice Alteration skill that increases defensive strength. I'll go into it later because I have some seriously amazing ideas after playing with it.
…In retrospect, it should be noted that the fighting we're doing is NOT the normal, brawly type of fighting that Skyrim's known for. Granted, we're doing half-sparring and half-form practice (training to make sure our bodies can react properly to threats), but the sharpness of our (read: only Jake's) moves definitely attract attention at the sheer…strangeness, of it.
"Thinking of fighting without a weapon there, friends?" Jon Battle-Born asks jovially as we stop to rest.
"Not really." I huff because I am fuckin' out of cardio shape despite the three weeks of blacksmithing work. "This is just to make sure I don't die."
"You specifically, eh?" Jon laughs. "No love for your friend?"
"I'm not worried about me." Jake grins. "He needs it, badly."
"I can see." Jon chuckles. "How does this work, anyway?" He tries to mimic Jake's movement. "Does it make you a better fighter?"
"Kind of?" Jake scratches his head.
"Mind if I give it a try?" Jon says with a very menacing voice in his tone. Jake, watch yourself, yeah?
Jake has a look of confusion. "Suuure…?"
Jon suddenly lunges for Jake with a punch.
"JEEZ!" Jake responds rather verbally before reflexively stepping back and countering. He hits Jon square on the chin.
Jon is not too good at being hit squarely on the chin (that's not a thing that normal Skyrim people do) and gets real wobbly after a moment. He does hold his ground though.
"Impressive." Jon grins at Jake. "Real impressive."
"Don't jump me like that. Christ." Jake breathes. "Gave me a heart attack, dude."
"Apologies." Jon laughs…though I think he's shaky. "I was a little too curious." He goes back to his cart and sits down.
.
[3rd Person Camera]
.
Jon returns to his family cart and takes a seat.
"That man kicked your ass, eh?" Idolaf smirks.
"Without question." Jon rubs his chin. "I don't think I've ever seen fighting styles like that beyond the old books about the Akaviri."
"Really?" Lars perks up, having read those same books himself (albeit for different reasons). "That's so cool!"
"Cool or not, it means he's valuable." Idolaf muses. "Both of them are interesting characters, I see."
They watch as Jake lands a full-force kick on Ash's stomach and sends him flying.
"Yes." Jon agrees. "Interesting."
Jon doesn't rise from his seat for another two hours.
…
[Day Two]
Minor tangent: we are the only cart that drinks water rather than mead (or milk for the young'uns), and that's because both Jake and I make it a point to boil the water before storing it in our barrels, with which I've lined (on the inside) with iron that has been seared by flames.
Incidentally, searing iron with flames is really easy when you can shoot fire out of your hands.
I also have some steel mugs, and the fact that we can shoot fire out of our hands means that we can always have hot tea at the ready. I don't have tea leaves, so hot water on a cold morning is the best I can get.
Tangent over.
By the time we reach the towers (Idolaf calls it the Valtheim Towers) I've made, and fitted, the basic mechanism for what I'm trying to do.
So…shape-wise, the crossbow is pretty similar to the crossbows that you'd see in every fantasy game ever. The part that slides back for the bolt (the wooden sitting) looks like a wooden L if you see it in profile, with the small part sticking out having wing-like extensions to its left and right. For now they don't do anything, and their size would definitely hamper the crossbow's effectiveness, but I'm doing it for a good reason.
As the sitting is pulled back (through the part of the L that's sticking out) it slides along the housing. It slides until it hits the end, where a piece of metal stopper, connected to the first iron spring that I've ever made, acts as the block. The stopper is angled, of course, so that the sitting would slide over it when I'm pulling it back, while presenting a large enough barrier to the sitting that it wouldn't just go off accidentally.
Incidentally, I think I've made the first spring to ever exist in Skyrim. Weird feeling, that. It's not a very good spring, but it's a spring and I'm proud of it.
Pressure plates exist.
The stopper is then connected to the trigger, which is on the bottom of the housing, so I can hold it like a proper crossbow/gun type weapon. Pull the trigger, and the bolt goes flying.
Of course, everything is quite crude in terms of quality. Since I'm prototyping without really knowing what I need to make, everything is built such that they vaguely fulfill their intended purpose, but do so in a really ramshackle fashion. If I took it out for a field test I would not be surprised if it exploded and/or caught on fire.
That said!
At about noon, we pull the sitting back and arm the crossbow (without a bolt because we don't have any), and then fire.
The 'smack' sound of the sitting springing forward and hitting the bar of the crossbow jolts a few people to attention. It didn't break or anything, so that's good. I should pad the part that hits with some softer material to deaden the noise, though it probably would come at the cost of a little firepower.
The sitting sticks out slightly after firing a bolt like a little tongue, which is a feature that 'normal' crossbows don't have.
"Neat!" I grin.
"What is that?" Mell asks curiously. "You were working for two days on that thing."
"Aye." I nod. "But I can't tell you what it is. Sorry."
"Pah." She shrugs, then jumps again as I nock and loose the crossbow again. "It's loud."
"Yep, sorry about that." Do I have materials I can use for that padding? I probably do.
We give it a few more dry-runs, modifying the weapon as needed per each trial, and completely miss the attention being paid upon us by both Battle-Born and Grey-Mane caravans.
…
A little while after the crude prototyping gets finished, we come to the Tower. Came to the tower, since we're already here. In game, it's basically a stone bridge that connects one side of a wide and exceedingly shallow river to another while having a negative amount of OSHA compliant design patterns. In game, the site is occupied by bandits that you can kill for loot.
Here, it's…pretty much the same. The river itself is different, of course: instead of you breaking your legs in the shallow upon falling from the bridge a mile high off the ground, you disappear into the roaring river and is never seen again. Otherwise, it's still an occupational safety nightmare, except in reality you have to deal with shit like a sudden gust of wind knocking you off balance as you traverse the bridge.
Of course, the bandits are still there. We…ignore them?
To the left of the road is the tower, to the right is the jagged terrain of the mountain. There isn't much we can do in terms of actually 'avoiding' them, but…
We pass without incident. In-game, a bandit asks you for money before she dies horrifically at your hands because a pixel life is worth less than 25 gold. Here, there wasn't even a guard. However, there is a campfire with a piece of meat roasting in a pot, and I'm sure Jake saw shadows moving around within the tower proper, so we're definitely not alone out here. As we pass, I definitely see some guys poke their head over the top of the tower.
"Who are those guys?" I ask as we clear this checkpoint of sorts.
"Bandits." Noble From Cart A says cheerily.
…wait what
"Bandits?" Mell repeats. "And nobody does anything?"
"Nobody wants to do anything, girlie." Idolaf laughs. "If they're cleared out by either Whiterun or Windhelm, some other group will come in and take the location, and they may not be as interested in staying neutral as this group."
…so…the lesser of like a million evils?
You know what? They didn't take my money and I didn't feel like I need to screw them over, and more to the point they were dressed pretty nicely, so I'm gonna be ok with
Oh we're going to have to kill them on the return trip aren't we
Dammit.
Don't just jump to conclusions like that.
Yeah, yeah…
Afternoon work was the same as last time. My martial senses are getting back/getting better, which is nice.
We get 1 point out of it.
It goes straight into woodworking.
…
[Day Three]
The road quality is seriously crappy on this side of the mountain. By noon, we're deep in the woods and…uh, well…I think it rained yesterday because holy shit is it muddy everywhere.
I'm gonna have to walk like a fuckin' pleb.
Everybody's walking except for the children.
Yeah, yeah…
This does mean that I can't work on my proto-crossbow though, so…I pass my time by just casting magic. Whether if it's because of the rain or High Hrothgar, the temperature on this side of the mountain is significantly lower than the Whiterun side. So I'm practicing with my flames to keep myself nice and toasty, as well as Oakflesh just because. Oakskin.
We gain one skill point at the end of the day.
The formula for skill points is extremely stingy, or something. I put it into enchant mastery.
I do wish I had more clothing though. We packed additional clothes and furs, but those are too toasty for this kind of weather.
…
[Day Four]
Are we there yet?
Road quality is still pretty poor, but we've joined another caravan that came out of Winterhold. It's one wagon, but there are five, maybe six traveling groups. Or, rather, what feels like five or six groups…I'm grouping them based on the relative apparent wealth of their outfits, which…y'know, is not very good. Total of about fourteen people.
Anyhoo, I brought my enchanting reference book with me for a closer read. I am, by nature, a bit of a skimmer, so I end up missing a lot of key details when I read technical books. In entirely unrelated news, there is a surprising amount of foliage that happens to appear on the roads when I read for me to conveniently bump into in a fashion that is in no way related to how I'm not looking at the road.
We don't find out, but Lars is watching us read with literal sparkles in his eyes. We are, by all markers, a commoner, and pretty poor one at that (we don't exactly parade around our actual purse size). Literacy among commonfolk (in the sense of being able to read beyond the words required for your job) is pretty low.
…
…Mmm…I think I get it? I don't think I get it? I don't really know.
Also I'm really regretting leaving the Axe of cold at home. I wanted to travel light, so all I have is my failed cold enchant dagger with me.
We didn't melt it?
I don't need the materials back that much.
Anyhoo, one key thing that I think I definitely missed before: enchanted objects are inherently lossy. In game, non-weapon enchants (ring, armor, etc) are not lossy in the sense that the enchant is effectively permanent. Weapon enchants have a charge that decreases when you hit a target, but that's basically it.
Here…well, it's more accurate to say that 'enchants affect the objects they touch', and air, while invisible, is an object, so…yeah. Weapons and armor will bleed magical energy as soon as they're made. Maybe this is why my enchanting attempt failed?
One of many possible reasons.
That said, armor objects will automatically draw power from the wearer and the human body, resilient as it is, will adjust and tune the armor object until the magical cost over time turns into something manageable. With absolutely no data to back up my position, I'm going to assume that each enchanted item reduces the wearer's magic recovery rate up to the point where it zeroes out, and more items will cause each item to be diluted if they go above the person's recovery rate.
…I hope I'm wrong about this, because this would mean that you'd need to be seriously magically powerful in order to use multiple enchanted objects.
Also, and I'm just kind of realizing this…
We're mulling this over while buried nose deep in our book.
…but the illustrations of the weapons and armors in this book have some…really…interesting, designs. By which I mean that each illustration, as stylized as they may be, have a similar pattern of…lines, running through their bodies.
…huh.
…
So, our afternoon work.
I feel like I've gotten enough of a grasp on Oakskin that I can start categorizing what I know about it.
So…Oakskin is less "make skin oak" and more "hard wind". The spell effectively collects the nearby wind around the target (in this case, the self) and then 'hardens' it somehow to form a barrier against physical impact…I assume, with my out-of-context knowledge, that this is magically creating bonds between air molecules in some way. Like other spells, I can magnify its effect by pumping more magical power into the spell, which leads me to think that higher level variants of this spell have more sophisticated hardening patterns or something.
After a little experimentation, and with guiding advice from a scholarly mage from one of the traveling carts, I am now able to consolidate the spell so that it only activates around a small area, which means I can, say, focus it around my fists and guard or punch in the event of an emergency.
Incidentally, the spell's effect is the greatest when you coat it around something you can perceive, largely because, y'know, it's a lot easier to know what to protect when it isn't invisible. This means that the spell can't be used to draw random shapes in the air…or at least, the cost for doing so is just too high for it to be useful.
Hrm.
…
[Day Five]
I've learned, through listening in on the other people chatting, that the College of Winterhold is not looked down upon because of its affinity with magic. The College of Winterhold is looked down upon because it is considered to be irresponsible with magic. This is…interesting, I think, though it's not immediately useful information. It's just a fun fact, I guess.
…Though I guess that's how Winterhold was always perceived in-game, and I just never really picked up on it.
…
By the end of Day Five, our caravan of about a hundred people arrive at…uh…Ivarstead, the rest stop of the 7000 Steps.
…
This place is very poor. Counting roofs, the population can't be higher than 200, and almost all of the roofs show a need of repair in some way, shape, or form.
There is one Inn, and definitely not enough manpower to handle the sudden influx of visitors. Not counting our 100, there is already a group of 50 or 60 people here.
I guess that means we have to camp out…good thing we arrived before sundown.
…But we don't have tent equipment.
Fuck.
"It's still summer, so we can sleep in the cart." Aria says, summoning what looks like a small ethereal owl. "Don't worry about us." She says with a sweet smile.
"I don't like sleeping in the open anymore." Mell grumbles. It rained on the night of day 4 and she got the worst of it.
In the end, we find a nice place between Ivarstead and the Barrow nearby (it's about a mile off) and make like a cover of a sort with the furs. The girls get to tuck in, while us dudes sleep wherever.
…
Come midnight, and I'm awake with Jake. There is something that sounds like talking in the air.
"You hear that?" He murmurs.
"Probably that dickhead." I murmur back, referring to the…whoever his name was, inside the barrow.
We watch the barrow for a little while and see something like a ghostly figure roaming the outside.
"Dude's got a damn good pair of lungs if we could hear him all the way out here." Jake chuckles and goes back to bed.
I so desperately want to yell something at him, but I'm afraid that Mell would kick my ass if I woke her up, so I resist.
…
[Next Day]
Mell's not going up the 7000 steps.
"It's too cold." She grumbles.
Which is true…in many ways. The 7000 steps is a staircase leading up a mountain that very drastically freezes on the way up. It gets cold up there with a speed that I can only attribute to magic. Moreover, there's a strong eastern wind today, and as a result the chilled air from the mountain is being blown down to Ivarstead.
What gave you that idea?
It's freezing! What other reason is there?!
I raise my hand. "I'm with Mell on this one. I don't like the cold much." Although in my case I never really wanted to go up the steps in the first place (I just wanted to keep the Main Aria Plot moving). Plus I have final touches I want to add to my crossbow and I can't do that while mountaineering.
...
In the end, the party splits. Aria, Jake, and Eric will go up the mountain, while me and Mell will stay down here.
I make a campfire next to our cart and Mell bundles herself like the toastiest burrito she can be.
So while she's doing that, I'm gonna add the last bits to my crossbow.
…
The biggest issue with a standard crossbow is its reload time. In Skyrim, when you discount the differences made by experience, magic is far and away the fastest thing there is when it comes to cooldown. It's magic, then bows, and then this crossbow.
It's very sluggish, this crossbow, and even a professionally made one wouldn't change the fact that by the time I'm done reloading, I would be, like, burned to death by a million fireballs.
…So I have a plan to fix that, which is why I brought the little metal bits.
The party split shortly after breakfast, with Aria's team going up the 7000 steps with the rest of the pilgrims.
Their overall size is like, 50 people. Based on the things I overheard, they'll be down by sunset at the latest. I hope they don't run into something untoward, like, say, an ice troll.
Anyways!
We work until lunch.
I got a stew going before lunch with some venison, potatoes, and mushrooms. It's pretty nice. Warmed Mell up enough that she stopped bundling up for like ten seconds.
We work for two more hours afterwards.
And…done!
So, you know how I said before that the crossbow had a pair of wing-like add-ons to it? Well, they're the stars of this final bit.
I built a pair of arm-like things out of wood and the metallic bits, and these arms are designed so that they give resistance in one way only.
I've carved into the base of the crossbow to add a pair of notches and a slider-like thing, similar to the grip you see on a pump-action shotgun. This slider is connected to the crossbow's base through that pair of arms, so I can 'arm' the crossbow just by using the slider.
Once I get more acquainted with enchanting items, I'll look into reducing the friction of the slider with the crossbow base, but for now, as a prototype, it's workable.
As a bonus, I also have something like a wooden box connected to the top of the crossbow. Every time the sitting is pulled completely back, a crossbow bolt will drop from this wooden hopper and load itself into the sitting. That way I don't have to do something time consuming like pull a bolt from the quiver.
The hopper will malfunction if I try to load more than five bolts at once, though, so it still needs work.
As a final, final bonus, the cross part of the crossbow (with the string) can be folded, which means I can carry it on my back with a sack meant for javelins, rather than worry about people stealing my shit. I'm pretty sure the hinges I installed for this task seriously reduces the crossbow's durability by a lot, but, again, prototype, so I don't care.
Lessee…there's nobody really watching, but at this juncture you can't be too sure…I got the feeling that, after the first day, there was at least one person who became very interested in me and Jake, and I want to delay that as much as I can.
Why?
Two words: Dark Brotherhood. If I start making seriously overpowered shit, how long do you think it'll be before somebody takes beef with it and sends assassins after me?
…Well, that's in the future, I think. For now though, I need to find a target. Like that nice little tree over there.
We find a small and unassuming oak tree.
Ok. Let's see here…
After stepping up to the tree, we turn around, mark out thirty paces or so, and put down the sack we're going to use for crossbow carrying as a line.
Alright, time to field test this thing! First off, accuracy.
Take careful aim, point it at the tree, and pull the trigger. Take care to reload slowly and methodically so nothing breaks earlier than it should…
Pew…pew…pew…
…
I fired ten shots at the target.
None of them hit. Most of them flew pretty wide, actually.
…I guess this means I need more woodworking experience.
Quite a lot of the wood has chipped off during usage, too…
…well, that's fine. Now for the firepower test. Originally I expected to get a feel of the firepower after making a shot or two during the accuracy test, but…yeah.
We walk right up next to the tree and fires. A hundred meters away, Mell jumps at the sound of splintering wood.
…Eh? About 25% of the arrow went into the tree. I have no experience with archery so I don't know how good this is, but considering the natural durability of oak, this should be pretty good.
…Alright, speed test. I prepared fifty arrows for this one.
Pew pew pew pew pew (stop to reload) pew pew pew pew pew (stop to reload)…
…
Oh god my arm hurts. I really should masturbate more with my left hand. Also, the arms snapped after twenty shots.
…that's kinda disappointing. That aside, the rest of the mechanics seem to work without a hitch. Now that most of the rough wood has flaked off, the slider works more effectively than before. I…wish I could say the same for the accuracy, but eh.
...? Also, I wish I knew how this whole experience reward thing worked.
We get 8 skill points.
Let's see…
The biggest problem with trying to do everything is that I can't do everything as well as if I specialized in only doing one thing. Erm…what can I take that can synergize with what I already have?
We take 2 ranks of replacement, 3 ranks of woodworking, and 3 ranks of weaponsMAKING mastery.
Why is weaponmaking different from weaponsmithing?
Well, at least now I'll be able to get a better result from refurbishing this crossbow. The fact that it barely lasted the better part of an hour sucks, not gonna lie.
…Well, whatever.
We walk back to our camp.
…?
Is it just me, or is Mell more of a burrito than before? Like, she's wrapped herself more tightly than before.
"Is everything alright?"
…I think she's saying something, but it's too muffled by the amount of material she has between her and the outside world.
"There's a ghost!" She yells when we make no sign that we heard her. "There's a ghost coming from the Barrow!"
…Well I mean, this is Tamriel, so ghosts are real, no?
I'm suddenly very glad I didn't say that out loud. "What did that ghost look like?" I would say something about her being scared of ghosts, but the first time I did the haunted mansion mission in Oblivion I got scared too, so I'm in no position to talk.
We were the same age and Oblivion Ghosts were not real on Earth World. So Mell actually has a leg on.
"It was scary!" She yells while still muffled. "I don't like it!"
…ok.
We pat where we think her head should be.
It's not like I can't relate, but in this instance where everything is bright and cheery and cold and nice, it's really hard to imagine a terrifying ghost showing up.
…Also we know the ghost is a dude who's lost his mind and has drunk a lot of potions, so that has something to do with it too.
…Either way, this is something that we need…er, well, not really need…something we should probably look into.
We're now just patting Mell on the head without really realizing it.
If we actually go looking into the barrow, then I need to be armed. I need to repair and refine the crossbow so it doesn't just explode again.
Hmm. Well, I can Replace the damage—the parts where the metal parts were fitted into the wood—and that'll go fast, but then…
As we think it over, we continue to use Mell—wrapped in furs—as our cat.
"Are you going to stop?" Mell says after some ten minutes.
…I think I've been petting her nonstop. "Sorry." I stop.
I miss my cat. I think I need to adopt a cat here.
Anyways, I need to get to work.
It takes us the better part of an hour to repair the parts that broke.
Given it took me the better part of six to make them, I daresay that's progress.
Also, the temperature is starting to climb back up, so Mell has stopped being a burrito in favor of roaming around our campsite with her small basket for plants.
One of these days I'll get her to actually teach me a little herbalism.
By night, everyone has returned from their trip up the 7000 steps.
The bottom of the path was infested with wolves (there were like 3 of them), and the top of the path had an Ice Troll just hanging out. They didn't kill it because the troll didn't feel like attacking.
Since the pilgrimage group was like, 50some people, the Greybeards didn't single Aria out from the crowd and crown her as the Dragonborn (so to speak). Instead, according to Jake, the group basically hung out in the Greybeards temple and prayed for like, two hours or so, before leaving.
"It was like, really calming." Jake says. "It was really nice, surprisingly."
Overall, though, the journey did not give them a whole lot of information to go on, and anything that Aria managed to learn, she's not sharing. Jake says he didn't hear any growling from the Greybeards, so…yeah.
…There was one instance in the game (when you first follow Delphine and go kill that dragon near Windhelm) where Alduin and the dragon he revived first talked to each other in draconic, before switching to normal people language to kind of exposition for the sake of the player. If we take that information as true to this world, then does that mean that dragons can just zip over Whiterun while going "Fuck all of you" and have the people understand it?
We take a moment to relish in the idea of a swarm of dragons zipping over somewhere like New York going "suuuck my diiiick" and the sudden deployment of fighters for the sake of preserving the innocence of children.
Also because it's a three word phrase "suck my dick" could be a legitimate shout…do dragons have a word for penis?
…Minor tangent aside, the progression of the Main Storyline is still dependent on Aria. If she's not going to tell us anything, then we're just going to continue to be in the dark.
"So, what do we do now?" Jake asks. "Are we going home?"
"We could take a look at the ghost thing that Mell saw earlier." I say with a glance towards Mell. She turns white.
…Why?
You just literally told her to dive into the lair of a ghost.
…oh yeah. She might not like that very much.
…No, no she doesn't.
She doesn't stop staring daggers at us even as the rest of the party enthuses at the idea of a dungeon crawl.
…I should start watching what I eat.
.
.
.
{ === + === }
Author Notes:
And the first piece of legitimately out-of-world weapon is built!
And also enchanting is complicated, because of course it's complicated.
If the explanation in the story didn't make any sense…
Basically, if enchants are effective because they 'touch' an object, then it stands to reason that they're constantly bleeding off energy because they're constantly 'touching' the air around them. Just because the air is unperceivable by the naked eye doesn't mean it does not exist, after all.
So…yes, additional safeguards are needed to make sure enchants don't bleed more power than needed.
For the record: NPC enchanters are aware that air must be safeguarded against. They just don't know what the composition of air *is*. There are documents about how magic swords bleed power faster in enclosed spaces or if there is a fire burning nearby, but they don't go into detail as to why that is.
This is one of the edges that Ash has over the others: high school chemistry.