{ === + === }
…
[1st Person Camera]
…
…
Uh?
What?
What happened?
Why is it so dark?
Why can't I move?
…
…Hmm.
Well, now that my eyes are adjusting, I can feel a pressure across my face, so I'm being blindfolded. When I move, there's the sound of chains, so I'm also bound. It's probably a fair guess to say that I'm in a prison cell somewhere.
This is a long fucking cry from "we'd like to get your assistance", by the way.
Hum.
Well, ok. Let's feel around a little. My arms are held still, and I really don't want to call out as I am now. Let's see here…
Our magic begins to swirl and permeate the area around us.
…the cell's not big, and there's a lot of noise…so the walls are not very smooth. There's some holey obstruction in front of me, so that's probably the bars, and nothing else here large enough for me to pick up. Outside, there's a small path…maybe enough for two people to walk side by side…and…uh…at least one more cell beyond mine. Half of my information is detection based on magic and the other half is just…uh…guessing, really.
Hrm. I think it's safe to say that there's at least a dozen more cells beyond mine, otherwise I'd be hearing more sounds of living…or else I'm not being guarded, that's also a possibility. I don't think they'd throw me down here just to then do nothing, though, that seems like a waste.
We sit and calm down and focus, until we can eventually hear the sounds of torches somewhere 'in front of us'.
No footsteps, so these are fixed. The need of torches imply that, at the very least, this place is patrolled on a fairly regular basis. Also, the material over my eyes scratches, and has a faint smell, so it's probably some kind of fabric, which means it's probably just some flax or some shit. Tied up at the back, no doubt. The more I'm thinking about it the more annoyed I'm getting.
Fortunately for me I have the power of Infinite Bullshit™~
We focus on the fabric, especially the tie at the end, and Transmute it into strands of grass. The rest of the fabric immediately comes apart now that the knot no longer exists.
So overpowered. So, so overpowered. If I'm dealing with me I'd have me under constant redundant watch and even then I don't think it would work. Or maybe I'm giving myself far too much credit.
Next is…it's still quite dark in here. Whatever torches are outside are either barely burning or else hidden from my view. I can't see a foot in front of me.
We create a small magelight, very dim.
Ok, let's see. My arms are manacled. There's an iron pin running through each manacle. I look like a big X, probably. If I closed up my legs I'd be a Y. I'm getting progressively more distracted.
Anyhoo, so about this escape.
The iron pins get replaced with the fabric of the blindfold and immediately fall apart.
I love the smell of folding physics over my knee in the morning.
What does that smell like?
…I dunno, rejected papers and the tears of those who can't get grant money? Anyways, loose now.
…Hm. I realize that the mana I stored for the fight against the woman is completely gone, so it's been at least six hours since I was knocked out. Probably more. Given that people don't stay knocked out unless they're in a coma (and I don't think I'm in a coma) magic is probably involved.
My body state…I'm starting to feel hungry, but I'm not murderously dehydrated, so it can't be longer than a few days since I was last active. I should make securing food and water to be my priority, since restoring calories and water through Replace is a losing proposition. First things first, let's get out of here.
We crawl slowly up to the bars.
…The wall is extremely heavy, and the lock looks neigh-undefeatable. Built to last. Extremely solid.
We Transmute the bars (about the bottom two feet or so) into dirt. They immediately collapse and create a hole we can crawl through without difficulty.
No comment. Alright, let's take a moment to keep track of my surroundings.
…So, first off (to no surprise to anyone) I no longer have any of my gear. It would be nice if I can get them back but I'm not holding my breath on that. I also lost all my books and that's several orders of magnitudes worse, since they're fucking expensive to replace. Silver lining: Transmutation is sitting at home, and the only books that were lost were the relatively cheap ones. Still expensive, though. Fortunately, I've mastered all of the spells I frequently use, so from a firepower standpoint there is no loss.
We at this point can cast (forget Flame/Healing): Shock, Frost, Ward, Oakskin, Calm, Hero, Transmute, Magelight. For context, a high-class Imperial Battlemage can reliably switch between three spells with no book, one of them being Healing.
Boo hoo hoo on my material loss, really, but getting out of here comes first. Illuminate my path with a little dim magelight and…
We start sneaking down the hallway.
Hm. Where am I, anyways? It's a wee bit cold down here, though I don't know if that's because of the location or the…uh…location, but just downwards.
…
We continue to skulk through the hallways until…
There's a hard turn (left) in front, and there's a dull, flickering light. Brighter than the nearly burnt-out torches that lined the path I just took. Somebody needs to audit their dungeon budget.
Let's see here…
We stay close to the wall and peek past.
There's a big room that's still a bit further off, but I can see three shapes in the torchlight. Way out of my visual range though, so they're just shiny blurs. I don't see any objects that resemble a strongbox anywhere, though. Sad.
…So, what now?
Option 1: Hit them with literally all the fire. Pro: no survivors. Con: no survivors. Also, loud.
Option 2: Try to sneak past. Pro: no fighting. Con: I can't sneak.
Option 3: Lure them in. Pro: Easier to control. Con: Will likely spiral into option 1.
Hmm.
…Looks like my decision's being made for me. One of the three has stood up and is headed down the hallway. I need a place to hide.
Let's see…
…
[3rd Person Camera]
…
The Prison Guard (henceforth Guard B) yawns as he heads down the patrol path. They were told, in no uncertain terms, to keep watch on the man hidden beneath the dungeons and to keep him in their sights around the clock, without any break in their patrols.
Obviously, they've been slacking for the past seventy-two hours.
Still, they needed to make good on having a show of it, and therefore Guard B heads down the hallway, completely missing how the jail cell to his right seems to have bars that were far less shiny than usual.
Suddenly, he feels extremely cold. A layer of frost forms over his armor almost immediately, and he starts to shiver. He wants to yell out for help, but his lungs would not respond, for there was now something in his throat.
After thirty seconds, he collapses, choking silently.
…
[1st Person Camera]
…
That worked out better than it had any right to be, but he hit the ground kinda hard and I'm sure everybody heard that, so…
Frostbite, kneaded to be as powerful as I can get it, along with a Replace to the man's vocal folds (with layers of ice because why the fuck not).
…Alright, that's one, the other two are coming.
"What was that?" I hear one of the Guards say. "Go up and get some help."
Oh sure force my hand why don't you
We charge out from the hallway and sprint forward. Almost immediately, we begin to feel winded.
Fuck me I haven't eaten in a long while
"Oh SHIT!" The Guard on my right shouts loudly (on purpose, probably) and draws his sword. "Get help!" He calls out. "HELP!"
The Guard on my left draws his sword as well, looks around in surprise, and turns to run up the staircase on the opposite side of the room. No you're not.
A layer of ice coats the stairs, and the guard slips, trips, and falls. The right Guard (Guard C) charges towards us at roughly the same time.
Knead my fire, and…
A small beam of fire flies towards the Guard and strikes him in the chest, the impact doesn't go through the armor but it knocks him spinning.
No fire, got it. FREEZE! STOP! IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!
We knead together two casts of Frostbite and layer the Guards with them. They writhe around and try to call out, but after a minute they freeze to death. Technically speaking, none of them (except the first guy) died from the Frostbite: the spell is powerful but also is applied for too short of a time. You can imagine that they're basically comatose due to being overpowered by the spell, but their innate High Elf nature and the magic-resisting features of the armor stops them from actually freezing to death. The first guy suffocated because his throat stopped working.
Whew…oh shit
We collapse as well due to fatigue.
Ok. The guards are obviously face down, so I can't just strip them of their body armor, but having gloves and shoes is a plus. I also strip down their inner clothes with replace to give myself more layers. In about ten minutes.
…
So, the room, apart from the two guards, is barren. There's the staircase leading up to god-knows-what, and…well, there's three chairs, a table, some cards, and leftovers of a morsel of fish and bread.
…Can't be too picky now, I suppose. I'm doing a lot of crawling around today.
We eat the leftovers.
Given by how badly I'm still out of breath, I think I was down here for a lot longer than my original estimate of 'a few hours'.
We sit for about five minutes and slowly Replace nutrients from the two downed guards into our body.
While I would very much so like to just sit and regen mana, the fact that I'm apparently starving is cutting dramatically into my regeneration rate. The sooner I return to some kind of battle status, the better. This is stupid inefficient, but as long as I'm getting some kind of nutrients it'll pay off later. I'd be better off with actual cannibalism.
…I'm not a fan of actual cannibalism.
When the five minutes are up, we stand up.
I've gotten my breath back, though I still feel woozy. Let's see what the upper level is like.
…The staircase leads to what I think is another level in this prison/dungeon, except this one is better lit. I will have to pass this level in order to continue, since I don't see any other way forward, and…going by the torchlight, I can see at least four guards patrolling down this hallway. It's hard to tell, but…the hallway itself is…ten…fifteen? Cells long, and each cell is however large it may be.
…So what do I do? I almost certainly don't have the energy for a long-term battle, and if this place is so well lit, then we're now close enough to reinforcements that slowing down and taking them out one by one is almost certainly guaranteed to critically fail at some point.
It might be safer to wait for a better opportunity, but…I don't have a healthy enough body to make that worthwhile. Either I do this now or I become too weak to do anything.
To that end…let's get Calm and its Variant up and running.
We take a few minutes to remember the spell Calm Variant.
Alright, let's do this. Sucks that the first field trial is in such a high-stake situation.
…
[3rd Person Camera, Whiterun]
…
Alma and Atra found themselves home after a period of three days of hard but surprisingly comfortable travel.
"Time is money." Solar rumbles contentedly. "Now stay put while we go and get an adult."
The two girls were tired from the trip: Solar had driven the caravan hard (for their sakes) and as a result there wasn't much time to rest. Also Solar's kind of imposing (nevermind being a Khajiit) and the girls are a bit scared of being eaten.
They wait for about twenty minutes before T'mare shows up. After a short exchange with Solar, the girls are hustled into Whiterun and into the Warwolf Guild. She hurriedly ushers them into a side room with her sisters and Erik in tow.
"What happened?" T'mare demands as gently as she can after they made sure they were about as alone as they can be.
Now in a friendly environment, the girls' stress finally unbottles, and they both break down and bawl their eyes out. It is another two hours of calming them down and piecing together fragments of information before T'mare finally gets something resembling an idea of the situation.
At the end of those two hours, she lets T'yanna, who gets along the best with the girls, lead them by the hand to her bedroom so they can sleep while under supervision.
"What kind of story is that?" Erik says after he and T'mare share a moment of uncomfortable silence. "It doesn't even make any sense."
"I suspect we'll get a clearer picture when the captain returns." T'Mare says. "Let's just make sure they're well looked-after for now." Erik agrees to that: he always wanted siblings and the girls were as close as it got.
The day after, Jake returns to Whiterun atop of a giant summoned Wolf. Given that he left with a cart and an entourage, this was understandably quite shocking to everyone who saw, not that he cared any.
First order of business: trading information. Most importantly, the information that their building may be under constant Aldmeri surveillance.
"At least they're safe." Jake sighs after seeing Atra and Alma.
"What do we do?" T'mare asks. "About Ash."
"Given our current situation, our hands are pretty tied." Jake says. "I can't say I'm not worried, but there's not much we can do in our current position." He felt terrible even saying that, regardless of how true it is.
"Then let's focus our efforts elsewhere." T'mare says, pulling out some contract papers. "While you were gone, the war situation has developed."
Jake takes the first paper and scans it with a vaguely dazed expression on his face. "Really?"
The Stormcloaks had made several incursions into Whiterun over the month. Some of those incursions hit upon strokes of good luck and dug in in caves, mines, sympathetic villages, and so on. The imperial forces stationed at Whiterun as well as the remnants of the Whiterun guard did not have the manpower to root out these pockets of Stormcloaks, hence, mercenaries.
"Here's to hoping Riften actually goes down like a chump." Jake sighs. "Alright, I assume we're already on these missions?"
"Aye." T'mare nods. "Without you, captain, our power is greatly limited, but it's not like we can't handle a few soldiers in the dark."
Jake tries his best to give a friendly grin. "Yeah? That's awesome." Without quite having his heart in it, he prepares to whittle away his waiting time.
…
[About the Same Time, The Aldmeri Mansion]
…
"Report."
The Thalmor Lady, entertaining a Thalmor officer, waves the messenger in.
The messenger sees the officer and makes a brief salute. "Update on the condition of the package in Northwatch Keep." He says.
The officer frowns. "I believe that is beyond my pay grade." He stands, gives the lady a courteous bow, and hurriedly vacates the room. He's already received his gift, anyway, though he's not quite sure why it was a shirt.
"Speak." The Lady says one the doors to her office closes behind the officer.
"Yes ma'am. As you expected, he's resourceful to a frightening extent." The messenger says. "Apparently, the bars of the dungeon keep were not enough to slow him down."
The Lady nods. "Where is he now?"
The messenger looks uncomfortable. "We lost track of him around two hours after his escape." He hopes she wouldn't pick up on his…slight manipulation of the facts.
The Lady scowls. "Explain."
"With all due respect, there's nothing to explain." The messenger says with a bit of panic. "One moment he was dually visible, and the next he was not."
The Lady's scowl deepens. It was a Thalmor practice to place prisoners under what's internally referred to as a 'dual vision'. The 'outside' vision involves standard observation by a mage and a Detect Life spell, while the 'inside' vision involves a specially enchanted food fed to the prisoner. The magic imbued in, say, a piece of fruit, inherently unstable, would dissipate into the prisoner's magicka and essentially make him glow like a lamp to all who had some knowledge in magic.
And they were the Thalmor, and all Thalmor has some knowledge in magic.
"I suppose this means we underestimated him." The Lady growls. "How long ago did he escape?"
The messenger shuffles his feet.
…
[Northwatch Keep, about two days ago]
…
The Keep was in an uproar.
Around twenty minutes ago, the entire lower dungeon area of the keep had mysteriously sprung open, and all the prisoners held there—around thirty or so—broke free, stole weapons, and killed their way through the fortress.
"How is this possible?!" The keep's captain demands. "Some of those prisoners have been there for YEARS! They're in no physical condition to piss, much less fight!"
The lieutenant has no explanation, not that her captain wanted one. "We're losing men left and right: this kind of damage isn't normal."
"Do we know why?" The Captain asks. He was situated in the highest point of the fortress, and his mage was busy looking at the situation through Detect Life. His safety let him calmly react to the situation. "Do we have a counter?"
"We're using shieldwall tactics." The Lieutenant says. "It's not great, but since none of the prisoners are mages, we're able to push them back to a degree."
"That we can only 'push them back' is in itself concerning." The captain mutters. "What about the rest of the fortress?"
"They should have heard the uproar." The Lieutenant nods. "But loud noises and sounds of struggle are normal for our prison. Unless a messenger gets out, nobody will move to assist us." She helpfully neglects to mention that it was because of the Captain that the rest of the fortress was so apathetic to the Prison Garrison in the first place.
The Captain knew it was his fault. "Then send for a messenger." He snaps.
As if on cue, there is a knock on the door. "Messenger." The person beyond the door says.
"Bless that man." The Captain quips as the Lieutenant goes to open the door.
She opens the door a crack, and sees a man she doesn't recognize pointing a finger at her.
The Captain jumps to his feet and draws his sword as the Lieutenant crumples to the floor. "Who goes there!?"
" 'sup." Ash says with a wry grin and a partially eaten apple in his left hand. He strides into the room, full of confidence.
No mages my foot. The Captain snarls in his head and conjures a bolt of lightning, ready to throw. The observing mage, caught flatfooted, spins together a fireball.
Ash snaps his finger at the Captain as an arrow zips from the door behind him into the mage's arm.
The Captain blinks, his vision suddenly spinning. He feels himself hitting the table he just jumped on top of before everything goes dark.
The mage, seeing the situation, makes a run for the window.
"No, don't, you have so much to life for." Ash says in a dull monotone as the mage blows open the window with a blast of fire and leaps out. About a second later, he hears the mage make contact with the ground below the window, along with a rather painful-sounding hit. "live for." He corrects himself in an undertone.
The archer responsible for putting an arrow into the mage's arm rushes into the room and to the window, where he sights the mage, draws her (stolen elven) bow, and puts arrows into his torso until he stops moving.
"Clear." Ash says conversationally. "That went way better than it had any right to."
…
[1st Person Camera]
…
So, yeah. Calm is the best shit. Well, Calm by itself is ok, but Calm with an understanding of human biology and the willingness to abuse it is so, so good.
Speaking of which. "Somebody tie them up."
So, uh…let's start from the beginning.
Ever since I knew Calm existed, I've been practicing with it to see what kind of effect I can make it do. Calm and Fury are two sides of the 'mental influence' type spells, and Calm, in particular, makes the body slow down. In retrospect I wish I practiced more with just using Calm so I had it fully memorized, but eh, it worked out.
We can currently ready it after a bit of preparation without a book, but there is still a significant lag time if we were to switch out of the spell and then go back.
Anyway, Calm by default is basically a full-body mental anesthetic, which is a polite way of saying 'it's not very useful'. It's got uses, but by default it's kinda niche. Calm gets better if you know what to target, like, say, the muscles. Or, more specially, a specific set of muscles. Or nerves. Or…well, anything, really.
So, I've been using Calm to target specifically the nervous system at the target's neck. At the power I'm using and the pinpoint accuracy I'm using, Calm is basically causing the target to black out for around thirty seconds or so per charge. Imagine all those videos where somebody gets decked in the head and then crumple to the ground, and you have a pretty good idea of what Calm is doing. It's expensive (especially considering my current physical state) but it's so broken it's worth it.
Incidentally, I am fully aware that I can probably Calm the electrical activity inside a person's brain and just murder them outright. I am keeping that particular card close to my chest.
Anyhoo, I know about all this but never really, y'know, put it in practice until basically just now. My first target was a guard on the dungeon level…er, essentially dungeon level B2 (I'm on B3). I can't sneak for shit, so I just walked up behind him, he turned around, I saw his neck, and I Calmed him to sleep. Then I stole his weapons and armor.
Like…I'm not sure how well I can communicate the sheer fuckery that is…like, imagine being one of these guards, right? You're doing your job, somebody goes 'oops' behind you, like they tripped or something, so you turn around, see that the person is a guard who's like six feet away, and the next thing you know you're tied up in a prison cell with the prisoners stripping off your armor.
Incidentally, this place had like thirty-some prisoners. Half of it are political prisoners, and the other half are basically soldiers with questionable loyalty to the Imperial (read: Aldmeri) forces. And three jilted brothel workers for some reason.
"I think we were simply too fetching for the captains we were serving." One of them had said when I went 'wait, what?'.
After realizing that 'hey, I have an army here', I got all of them to swear that they would not do anything stupid like take revenge on their own and operate as a group (while we're still in prison), and then broke them out of prison with my bullshit 'metal bars into pillars of soil' Replace. Between that and copious uses of Knockout Calm, the rest of the prison building and its dozen of guards was a pretty easy task.
Of course, since I said this is just the prison building…
From my current position on the top level of said building, I can see that there is a larger fortress complex. The prison building is also not very tall (most of it is underground). There is also the main keep, an open-air forge, and what is very likely an armory next to said forge. So far, the rest of the fortress hasn't been alerted to the fact that the entire prison structure had just been gutted inside out.
It's a bit of a big blessing that, of all the windows that mage dude could've picked to jump out of, he picked the one that dropped him out of the fortress entirely. This is good obviously, and allows us to take a moment to eat from what little larders are kept in the prison building.
Which is great, because my adrenaline is pretty much petered out and I think I'm gonna just dry heave for like ten minutes.
So we do. We take a moment to stop and eat some apples and bread with the rest of the ex-prisoners.
As we rest, I do find that, indeed, one of the blokes here is a Gray-mane. I did not ask for his first name because I…uh…don't remember what it is, so even if he told me he is 'Ironsack Gray-mane' I would…well, I wouldn't believe that but, y'know. Also I'm not here to explicitly rescue him, either.
"What's our plan?" Nord Dude A asks as we finish eating. I don't know any of their names. Considering the circumstances, I don't care to ask.
"Given that the front door of the prison basically leads back into the fortress, we're better off trying to escape via the window." I point to the window the mage…flopped out of. "There's enough cloth in here for us to make a rope." The prison captain keeps some changes of clothing.
"Easy enough." Orc Guy B says, takes and rips some of the captain's clothes, makes a rope, and then ties one end to the table. "Might be a bit of a jump." He says after throwing the other end out the window. "I'll go first."
Without really waiting for us to disagree, he quickly flips over the windowsill and drops out of sight. A moment later, we hear a 'thump'. Given that there was no 'ow' I assume that means he made it.
Imperial Dude C glances out the window. "He's gone." He says. "Raise your hand if you were surprised."
None of us were surprised.
"Well, not like we're a cohesive unit." I shrug. "If you wanna run, by all means."
As expected, most everybody bugs out from the window. I'm staying back for no other reason than to catch my breath and recover my mana. With me are…the brothel workers, the Gray-Mane, and two burly Orc dudes.
"What's holding you back?" I ask them in general.
"Hey, you broke us out of a prison." Orc Bro A grins, revealing his tiny tusks. "I figure that staying with you is probably safer for the time being."
"We're slaves." Brothel Worker A (Breton) says, scratching his head. "Nobody in Skyrim'll help us."
Huh. "Why's that?" I don't remember my last dealing with slavery in detail but I remember that it was more of a professional thing than a racial thing.
"We'd likely get more help in Stormcloak territory." Worker A says. "Here, it's too hard to find someone who's also willing to make enemies with the Thalmor."
Makes sense. "Alright, but understand that I'm here for myself." I say. "If I need to drop you for my own safety, I will." I will try not to, but sometimes you need to shoot your friend in the ankle when being chased by bears.
"Sounds fair." Brothel Worker B (Breton) says with a small bow. "Our lives are in your hands."
After I consider myself to be rested enough, we descend down the rope and leave the fortress.
It will be roughly three hours before a dutiful guard—a friend of the prison captain—is relieved of his shift and enters the prison. At that point, they know something's wrong. The entire reason for why the reaction was so slow was because…well, there was no sound of battle: loud noises and steel is surprisingly common for a Thalmor prison.
…
[1st Person Camera, present time]
As in, roughly when the Thalmor lady received the bad news.
…
These shoes were definitely not made for walking. Oh god my feet.
For the record: no Giant Dire Wolf because the notes were stolen.
It's been…two days? Since we've fled from the fortress. Going to Solitude is right out, so we've headed south into the mountains.
On the even of day one we, uh, raided a farmhouse for all of its food. In exchange for the theft, I offered to repair the tools of the farmer and its family. No smithy, but it worked pretty ok.
I think that stops being theft.
That's the point, yeah?
Anyways, the foraging of leaves and the rampant abuse of Replacement means we (the seven of us) have shoes that more or less fit the occasion, and sharpened sticks. One of the Brothel workers (Redguard Woman C) used to be a tailor, so she helped sew together the pieces of fabric my Replace/Transmutation makes.
At this point, we're wading knee deep in a small creek, heading upwards and southwards, so we can throw off scent (in case we're being tracked). Incidentally, using Shock to fish in a body of water is a very, very good idea. Standing in said body of water while doing so is less of a good idea.
…
[Day three]
…
We've made good progress (ish) and are better fed. Killed a tiger today and skinned it. Good times.
What is less good times is the fact that I'm starting to feel mana. Well, I guess that's not entirely true: there's a nagging in the back of my neck that's constantly making me want to look over my shoulder. I'm kinda paranoid to begin with, so I'm assuming we are being tracked somehow. I mean, magic is a thing, so…
Our sense is because we're picking up on a long-range Detect Life spell that's being thrown in our general direction. For an idea of how useful this is, imagine if the stealth detection available in-game only told you that you were Detected after you started to take damage.
My jumpiness is making the rest of the group jumpy too.
"Won't hurt to assume we're being tracked somehow." Orc Bro B agrees when I explain why I'm getting progressively more gloomy. "We should consider finding a road." We've been more or less heading south.
"Wouldn't it be better to avoid the roads?" Breton Worker A asks. "Harder to find us."
"That may be, but we don't know the terrain." Orc Bro B replies. "So it's better that we stick to the roads to avoid getting lost."
…Well I think we're kinda already lost, so…yeah.
For the record: we've essentially been following creaks upriver, since down is Solitude. It's not a very good plan, but it seems to work for us so far, so…
Anyways, we find a road and follow it more-or-less in the southerly direction.
…
[About two hours later]
…
And Patrol.
We run pretty much headfirst into an Imperial patrol. I would have liked to negotiate or at least just move along but the first word out of their captain's mouth is "BANDITS" so that's right out.
We murder them in cold blood.
Well, Knockout Calm for all of them, lift their wallets, and then leg it out of there. If Bandits are routine enough that the patrol assumes the worst immediately, then they're not going to be too interested in chasing down individual groups. That's how I think of it anyway.
The patrol, incidentally, eventually wakes back up and makes a report that they were robbed by members of the Foresworn.
…
[Three Days Later]
…
Eventually, the sense of being detected vanishes. I…I'm a bit confused as to why that's the case. I mean, obviously it's because we're no longer being tracked, but I'm confused as to why we're no longer being tracked.
In these three days, we've followed the path down to Markarth, stopping at some villages to trade clothing for our leftover Tiger Bits (easier to blend in, you see). The end effect being that we're just considered to be travelers by the patrol rather than, y'know, the poor.
…well, we're still poor, but not danger-poor.
Anyways, at the end of these three days, we've arrived at Markarth. I hope we don't meet any courtyard stabbers around. I'd like to quickly get back to Whiterun, too.
Why haven't we been going in that direction so far?
…is…is it not obvious? The only paths that I know about are the ones that lead from/to Solitude. There is virtually zero chance that I'd make it to Whiterun unharassed.
Anyway, we're here now. We need to make a bit of money so we can stock on supplies before we leave for Whiterun. Shouldn't be too hard.
Markarth, incidentally, is huge. I don't know if it's because of the fact that it's built into a mountain, or if it is actually just that large, but the sheer verticality of Markarth makes it feel scales larger than Whiterun or even Solitude. I imagine the actual population might be smaller than the scale of the city, but my god this place is scarily awe-inspiring.
…
So anyways I break all sense of physics and progression. I have scroll making, so I badgered a shop that sells magic trinkets to let me duplicate a scroll for 10% of the value of that scroll (gotta make the deal worth it) and I transcribed three working -skin scrolls for about 200 gold.
Afterwards, since it's proven that the scrolls worked, I transcribed a set of 6 fireballs for 1000 gold, which gave me enough gold to get everyone outfitted so we look better. Also food. A lot of food.
Following that, I bought everyone a shiny new dagger and seats on a caravan to Whiterun.
Total time spent in Markarth: about an hour. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'm amazing sometimes.
The caravan trip takes about eight days in total.
…
[Sometime During Ash's Trip Home, 3rd Person Camera]
…
A Thalmor patrol is chasing a woman through the marshes east of Solitude. A woman and her entourage of three other people. They run with grace and speed atop the otherwise very anti-grace campaign.
"Cripes they're fast." The lead woman mutters as she dashes through the woods. "What an awful place to run into Thalmor."
"Cripes they're fast." The Thalmor officer doing the chaser mutters as he tries his damnedest not to fall. "Mere Stormcloak agents can't possibly be this fast." He uncorks a small vial at his waist, drops in a small gem, corks it again, shakes it vigorously, and pours the contents onto a Fireball scroll.
The lines on the scroll glow eye-watering white, and the resulting fireball a second sun. Eyes squeezed shut, the officer chucks the ball of fire and brightness at the woman.
The woman, sensing that something was up when the otherwise twilight marshes lit up like a sunny day in the market, immediately went 'yep, that's a fireball' and threw herself onto the muddy floor for cover.
Given that the officer couldn't see where he was throwing the thing, the fireball sails some distance away from the two parties, going in roughly the right direction, before impacting a tree and exploding with resounding force.
Damn. A Thalmorian Fireball really is something. The woman snarls inwardly before scrambling to her feet again. She hears the footsteps behind her and quickly regain her pace…just as another whistling sound stops her in her tracks again. One of the Thalmor officer's underlings had tossed out her own fireball, and it impacts the ground much closer to her than his did.
The woman, making a split second decision, leaps into the air just as the spell explodes, allowing the force of the explosion to propel her outwards
"Good shooting." The officer commends. "Stop where you are!" He shouts to the woman. "Drop your weapons!"
The woman had no such intentions. With her feet back under her and not nearly enough room or time to make distance again, she quickly draws three daggers from her belt and tosses one at the man while backing up.
The officer didn't miss the toss action, and makes a haphazard step to his left, slipping in the mud but avoiding the dagger. The woman, capitalizing on his broken balance, throws another knife at his head. Anticipating the dagger to an extent, the officer straightens up as much as possible, since a knife to the chest was (somewhat) less fatal than one to the head.
The knife impacts his chest and, like striking a wall of stone, bounces off with a *plink* and sinks into the mud.
The woman, expecting the officer to stand up against her second knife, threw her third knife right after the second had left her hand, aimed slightly higher to capitalize on the fact that the second knife hit would cause him to bow forward, making the third likely to hit either his head or his shoulder on a miss.
Instead, the officer didn't seem to respond at all. As far as the woman was concerned, she missed all three throws.
I must be losing my touch. She snarls in her head and draws her dagger. While she dueled at range with the officer, the officer's subordinates had approached with furious speed.
The officer's underling readies her sword for a stab and follows through. The woman twists in a near-inhuman fashion and the stab zips right over her head. Capitalizing on the evade, she rams her dagger into the underling's torso, immediately pulls out, and then makes another stab into her neck.
The officer, at this point, had regained his footing and was barreling towards the woman. The woman, unable to break away fast enough from the underling after those two stabs, has no choice but to stay and fight.
Comparatively, the woman was better with a blade, but the officer's longer reach and the now caught up party of seven proves to be too much for the woman after a few exchanges. Bleeding from several cuts, the woman was ultimately saved by a flurry of extremely bright magelights thrown by her more successfully escaping compatriots, and by the time the officer's eyes cleared the woman was nowhere to be seen.
"Damn and blast." The officer spits. "How is she?" He asks out of courtesy as their team healer examines the double-stabbed underling.
"On the plus side, she's a very intact corpse." The healer sighs. "Saves us the money of repairing her before we send her home." He looks around. "So that was the Dark Brotherhood?"
The officer nods. "A high-ranking member of it, if our intel is to be understood." He puts a hand on his chest, feeling the several dagger hits that he took…or, rather, should have taken. "My thanks to the lady; if it were not for this gift, I'd be dead several times over." Though he wasn't about to question a gift (especially one that's saved his life), he was curious as to how this armor was made. Apart from a line from the gift giver to "beware of fire" when wearing it, he received no other information. "Either way, we've let our target go." He says, unhappy about failing the mission but otherwise thankful to be alive. "We're returning."
…
On the other side, the Dark Brotherhood woman and her party, after making a little more distance and arriving at a drier spot in the marshes, decide to stop. Immediately upon stopping, the party breaks out first aid equipment and healing spells. While the woman was the most severely wounded due to exchanging blows, the entire reason why she was caught in the first place was because she had been, up until that point, the least wounded in their escape.
A small girl was the first to speak up. "What the hell was that man?" She stomps her feet. "How was he still standing?" Her keen vision had caught the fact that the Woman had stabbed him to the point where, by all rights, he should've been leaking blood everywhere.
"I don't know." The Woman says. "But whatever armor he had, it had to have been highly enchanted." She pulls out her now chipped Ebony Dagger. "I couldn't even make a dent." She now vaguely regrets forging a slashing weapon, as her dagger was basically built specifically for the purpose of stabbing. "Where's the safe house from here?" She asks.
The girl points deeper into the marshes. "About five minutes that way." She expertly dresses the remaining of the woman's wounds. "This'll hold you up for now."
As they move, one of the other party members pipes up. "I think I've heard of an armor like that. One that basically blocks all damage."
"Outside of a myth?" The woman rolls her eyes.
"Well, no, I suppose…" The man admits. "…but there was talk in Solitude of an invincible giant from Whiterun. Maybe he knows?"
The woman laughs at that. "And the Dark Brotherhood is a nightmare that no one wakes from. As the group that uses it the most, we should be aware of failing to draw the line between information and hearsay." The man bows his head. "That said, it might be worth looking into." She adds.
The girl mulls the idea over. "The Thalmor have definitely stepped up their activities in Whiterun, so there may be some truth to that information. Ever since the war started, our presence in Whiterun has been strained…may be worth it to increase our manpower there."
The woman nods in agreement. "Plus, I'd like to look into why the Listener and our dear Mother have missed their arrival date. If they've been waylaid, then we'll need to assist them as needed." The two she mentioned were supposed to have traveled through Whiterun.
The girl frowns. "The Listener is an eccentric man, I've heard, as well as a talented murderer. Who would waylay him?"
…
[1st Person Camera]
…
I'm HOME!
The return trip was unceremoniously boring. Markarth turns out to be one of the more heavily patrolled regions (at least the main roads are), so we were unharassed by bandits and overly excited predators. Whiterun, too, was heavily patrolled by Whiterun and Imperial riders, so everything was safe. To the point where the caravan we were attached to felt safe enough to make extra time, making the journey…eight days.
Um.
Rain.
Anyways, since I had nothing to do, I spent my time with Grey-Mane and the other dudes. I learned that the Orc brothers are Desmo and Dali Gro-Kala (older and younger, respectively). The two used to be Empire Auxilia before being tossed into prison for fucking with the Thalmor, which means that they're now technically dead.
"Good thing we used fake names then." Desmo had said with a shrug when I pointed out the fact that they're now very much alive.
The two are roughly my age, and the fact that they're burly orc dudes mean that I can finally get Jake some wingmen that are not Aria.
The three ex-brothel workers are: Alvario (Breton Dude A), Cannas (Breton Dude B), and Qwen…Qwen? Quen? (Redguard Woman). They're 'brothel workers' in the sense that they were responsible for the operation of said Brothel: Alvario was a cook, Cannas was essentially the Janitor (bless him), and Quen, per her skillset, was responsible for maintaining the more frontline workers' dresses.
They were thrown in Thalmor prison because one of the workers of their Brothel was an Imperial Spy and was not of the pro-Thalmor faction, and the three of them were basically implicated by virtue of being said spy's friend.
"It sounds less interesting when you put it that way." Alvario had laughed when I summarized it to them. "But don't worry, we know better than to shoot our mouths without merit."
The three of them are uninterested in becoming members of the fighting portion of a mercenary corps, but under the proviso that 'shit will happen whether you like it or not', they're going to get some training as a fighting element on a just-in-case basis.
Anyhoo, hitting home was a bit weird, because nobody was home, so I got to get my party squared away in the guild quarters with the help of the maid and then…open the forge for about half a day until the home team came back, to no small amounts of confusion, no doubt.
At dusk, Jake's party (Jake, Mell, Eric, the T-sisters, My girls) came back. There was a brief moment of confusion as they walked into the guild hall to see the six of us taking our meal, followed by some rather intense staring.
We break the silence first with a rather nonchalant " 'sup" and then go back to our chicken.
"Well, shit, man." Jake (meaningfully) breaks the silence first. "Call me when you get out of jail, man."
"There were some complications." I then raise a hand to my party. "While we're here." And then I introduce them in turn.
Atra and Alma unfreeze and charge us. They ram into our arms and stay there.
Owie. "Sorry, girls, did I worry you?"
"You worried all of us!" T'ma says with a glare. "Why did you get arrested by the Thalmor?!"
Well… "Eat first, talk later." I gesture to the table.
…
So we do.
…
After a very confused and slightly stiff dinner as the two parties got to know each other, we share stories. Everyone (including the serving staff) is in attendance.
Jake's reaction to my escape was a hearty "Fuck, man. You are literally god incarnate at this point." I'm inclined to agree.
"I think the reason why the Thalmor stopped giving chase was because they knew you'd come back here." T'mare points out (rightfully). "No point spending resources on a chase if the target's just going to go back to where he can be observed."
Speaking of which. "Have you guys looked into that?" I ask Jake. "Like, whether if someone's got this place in their sights."
Jake shrugs. "We've asked the Clover folk to look around for anyone suspicious, but honestly we're, like, the most suspicious people here."
Fair. This also implies that whoever the Thalmor sent to watch us(?) is likely not sent, but a part of a cell that's been here for a long time. Hmm…
…also given the Thalmor's love for showing off I find it somehow unbelievable that they would do something like pretend to be poor. It's a lot easier to be a spying bastard when you're loaded, if only because of the political benefits…
…anyways, no point worrying about what I can't currently control. "Cool, so what's on the table, mission-wise?"
…
…A lot of 'help the Whiterun guard' type missions. Banditry's at an all-time low because Balgruuf instituted a program that grants criminals pardons if they're willing to serve as a member of the Whiterun Auxilia (plus wages), so a lot of the lower grade bandits (the ones that are just unlucky rather than outright evil) have more or less returned to a comparatively more upstanding life.
Speaking of which, apparently the Imperial Army that was sent to take Riften is (should be) scheduled to arrive today, so that's probably something we'll be dealing with later. Jake's got his eyes pegged on missions that take us to Riften, rather than searching around Whiterun. Given that none of us feel that this place is safe, I don't quite blame him.
…
Later that night, the two of us had a private discussion.
"So, uh, real talk time." Jake says. "I killed a clown."
Uh… "When?"
"About three days ago?" Jake frowns. "I mean, the dude was there and as much as I like Shadowmare I figured it just wasn't worth the hassle."
Uhhhhh… "So you cut off his head?"
"Split the dude right down the middle." Jake nods. "Then burned his corpse, burned the ashes, the wagon, the casket, the body on the inside, those ashes, and the remaining ashes." He smiles slightly. "I think I was thorough enough."
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. "And you're ok with that."
"I'm not really ok with it." Jake shrugs. "But if any of my kills are going to go on my conscience, the leader of a guild of fucking assassins is probably pretty low on that list."
For the record, Jake's favorite subquest line is the Dark Brotherhood line. "Don't like them much?"
Jake scratches his head. "Well, after realizing that the Thalmor can just pay a heap of gold to get some dudes to shiv the girls…"
…I get it. I know he knows that sometimes a good assassination solves a problem that otherwise would balloon to tens of thousands of lives lost on a battlefield, but I get it.
…
[The Next Week]
…
Life more or less returns to normal. We're a lot more…aware…of what may be around the corner now. I get around to making new defensive gear because all of it got stolen. Sigh.
On the plus side: Farengar Secret-Fire sold me a set of the books I had lost at a discount. Jake had made what had happened to me known to him, so I assume he's being a bit of a bro right now, which is nice.
Farengar actually knew that Jake came back alone, and figured that this would be a good opportunity to cut down some of the Thalmor agents they (the Whiterun government) knew about. He figured that, in the event of the Thalmor retaliating, they'd target Warwolf specifically rather than Whiterun in general.
Now that I got my books back, I'm making it a Warwolf Requirement to learn -skin and -ward spells by heart, especially for our backliners. Also, given that we now *have* backliners, I'm thinking of producing Crossbows for them to use when we're out on expeditions.
Also also, it's a pain in the neck to have fully customized gear for everyone (or, rather, it will be a pain) so I should consider standardizing the kit. I've had a lot of time to think on my hike and subsequent ride home.
To that end, I've spent the past week designing, and will likely spend the next weeks or so building.
…Incidentally.
Jake's patrols have earned him 76 points in total. My great escape netted me…uh…nine. I call bullshit. I totally call bullshit.
Jake spends (spent) all of his on Defender. I spent all of mine on Tailoring.
Oh well.
…
[Roughly six hours later]
…
Fuck standardization. Or, rather, since I want to get the most out of everyone, I'm pretty much forced to not standardize.
Well, for now, I'm just going to replace what I've lost.
…
[Next Two Weeks]
…
Over this timeframe, I Replace my armor with the Spidersteel Type 2, made of criss-crossing layers of wired steel with something stronger than steel mixed in (maybe?). Since steel is iron + carbon, I figured I'd experiment with Iron + Carbon + Something Else to see what happens, and the current material yielded the best results in terms of defensive strength without an appreciable gain in weight. The steel is also mixed in with strands of silver for good measure. This is the 'topmost' layer of the armor, not counting plates.
Underneath is a layer of leather spun into balls, arrayed to help cushion bludgeoning blows with their bounciness. A set number of balls are contained within one 'box', which is then attached to other boxes in a pseudo chobam armor kind of setup. The entire armor is reasonably supple until it takes a hit, at which point the metallic hinges between the armor pieces will snap to take on more of the force. I can Replace broken hinges out-of-combat, so this is nice.
The innermost layer is a layer of finely spun cotton, so it's nice and comfy.
…I should've also made a helmet, come to think of it. Like, considering my experience with the Thalmor a helmet (lined with aluminum) would likely have been a better investment.
Oh well.
Weapon-wise, I just have a traditional sword. Good build but nothing interesting otherwise.
Enchanting-wise, I've built like twenty iron armbands for experimentation. They're all engraved with what I'm dubbing the 'Barrier' enchant, which is just a -skin spell mixed with a -ward spell. Half are full body barriers, while the other half are more shield-like.
In other words, one uses the -skin spell as a base, while the other uses the ward.
Now that I know you can just low-effort the enchant, I figured I might as well go big and go home. Now, skin/ward spells have a unique property of being magically lossy. Well, unique in that they're like that no matter how skilled you are in those spells…the magic required to keep a skin/ward spell active are too concentrated and always bleeds off.
…I guess in that sense, all spells are lossy. I never really noticed it for anything other than a skin/ward spell, though. Hmm.
Anyways, the armbands have four enchantments placed on them, owing to the fact that the construction, despite being outwardly iron, is a layer cake of iron/iron/copper/steel bands, each with its own soulstone. The soulstone is flat against the armband to avoid taking up too much space.
The enchants are, from the topmost layer: Sub/Cover/Main/Cover, with Sub and Cover being either ward or -skin, depending on the role of the armband. The Covers are there to help reduce the bleeding from the enchant.
There is also a fifth layer, though it's technically not a layer: the armbands have an armguard that extends slightly back, like a leaf. This thing also has an enchant attached to it, and is arguably the reason why the entire thing works at all. The fifth 'layer' is enchanted with…null.
As in, the thing I do when I'm practicing magic. The thing that kids are eventually told not to do, because it serves little purpose. That thing. My reasoning is pretty straightforward: that kind of practice concentrates magic into one point. When enchanting, I want to have magic that is concentrated into one point. Ergo.
This means that, in effect, I have an armband that's essentially being juiced by a mini magic compressor, and the best part is, it works!
Kinda. Sorta. The Compressor's adds only a smidge of power to the enchant as a whole (when accounting for how much power it takes to maintain itself) so the overall increase is pretty negligible. I've experimented with it a little and I think the effectiveness scales with its relative size, but I don't have any solid data to back it up.
Still, the first pair of armbands lasted for eight days before running out of juice, and they can be used in tandem with each other, so I consider that to be a win.
Game-wise, the two equipment would have three levels of effects, detailed at the end of this chapter.
…
At the end of these two weeks, though, we have a problem.
Y'know how the Imperial Army is, like, in Riften?
Well the Stormcloak army isn't.
Like…
At the end of the two weeks, the main Stormcloak army, led by Ulfric's most trusted general (probably), parks itself outside Whiterun's gates.
…yeah. That. I hope Aria's doing alright.
.
.
.
{ === + === }
Author Notes:
Considering the tools at Ash's disposal and his willingness to find loopholes in problems (as well as how little the Thalmor knew about him), I didn't think it would be reasonable for him to stay locked up for any longer than he was unconscious.
New Enchanted Items, and their levels of activation:
Armor Band (-skin based):
1] While worn: +2 defense, +1 magic resistance.
2] While fighting: x5 defense, x5 magic resistance.
3] While max mana 50: x5 defense, x5 magic resistance, max mana -50. (stacks with the above two conditions).
Shield Band (ward based):
1] While worn: +10 defense, +5 magic resistance over a localized area (near the armband).
Conditions 2 and 3 are the same as the armor band, except, y'know, over a localized area.
Both items last for eight days without needing to be specifically recharged, and will recharge in areas of high magic density (i.e. in the middle of a battle with people slinging spells). As mentioned, they also stack with each other, so a wearer with both would, theoretically, have +120 defense and +60 magic resistance and be completely unable to cast any spells. By this story's standards, that's functionally a second set of armor.
It is worth noting that, since this is Reality and not Videogamey, the body is not just going to toss away 100 of its max mana, meaning that the actual defense offered by the bands are anywhere between 25 to 50% of their expected value.
Can use at full power: Ash (oodles of magic), Aria (dragonborn), Jake (full faith in Ash's crafting shenanigans).