The celebratory feast was prepared in record speed, the deeply ingrained Nordic need to get drunk after a good battle being far more potent than any exhaustion the defenders might have felt. Barrels of ad and ale were rolled out from the Thane's own stock and the abundance of supplies prepared for the siege was now being cooked up by the rry residents.
I had just finished reporting the entire thing with Harald to the new arrivals and went to relieve myself when a young Nord approached . I recognized him as one of the lads tasked with sharpening the stakes for Gatecrasher during the siege and greeted him with a polite nod.
He seed uncomfortable with whatever he was about to say, and I was not about to waste ti waiting for him to gather himself "What do you need?" I ask not tersely but still urging him to hurry up.
He stills and lets out a fearful breath "Umm... I..." he slaps himself and nods in determination "I saw what you did to those Reachn, and I was wondering... if you were willing to teach magic?"
I smiled at his initiative, but my hands were already full "I already have two apprentices, and I took them on for far better reasons than them rely asking ."
He sighs as his eyes radiate disappointnt, he looks ready to turn and leave but I interrupt "You could always join the college if you were so eager to learn."
He lets out a self-deprecating chuckle "Thank you for the recomndation sir, but I could never afford even to travel there."
"Hmmm" I scratch my chin "And why the sudden urge to learn?"
"Are you kidding?" He almost looks at like I am an idiot "If this is where the lands are going I am going to need to do far more than rely sharpen stakes sir."
"Tell you what" I say as I pull out the notes I made on accessing Magicka "If you manage to do what is written here before we leave, I will see what I can do about getting you a... scholarship let's call it." There goes my good deed for the year.
His eyes blaze in excitent as he grabs the folded notes and gives an earnest bow "I won't disappoint you, sir."
"See that you don't" and before he can rush back to wherever he is no doubt going to spend the entire night in ditation I ask "What is your na kid?"
He stills and looks aghast "Sorry about that, na's Onmund"
Onmund eh? Small world... "Good luck to you, Onmund"
I walk back to the large table where most of the upper crust were seated, my apprentices being seated nearby with the housecarls and my colleagues from the college, sharing stories about the siege.
I note the distinct lack of King and Elisif as I take a seat next to a bored Sybille "Not enjoying the celebrations Syb?" I ask as I grab a bottle of ad.
She rolls her eyes "As if there was anything to enjoy, just a bunch of sweaty Nords screaming their guts out while the corpses outside are still drying."
"So morbid madam" I tease, even though I agreed about the corpses not being dealt with, at least the new legionary recruits were finally being useful and piling them up while we partied... poor sods "Let them have their little party, we will be marching after the cave- dwellers as soon as tomorrow."
"Why were you so insistent about hunting them down?" Before I can interject she adds with amusent "Besides the obvious."
"I have just a wee bit of a grudge against Namira" I shrug, not at all caring about saying the na out loud "And I promised the foul thing that whenever I found a temple of hers I would burn it to the ground, this is rely fulfilling that promise."
She tilts her head and shrugs uncaringly "Well, it isn't like soone needs a reason to destroy those disgusting things."
"A bit hypocritical coming from one of ole' Molly's" I raise an eyebrow.
She shivers in disgust "I don't worship that... thing!"
I raise my hands placatingly "Alright, I was just teasing."
"Well, kindly do not 'tease' about that" She grits out, while unconsciously crushing her goblet.
As I am about to apologize I notice sothing out of the corner of my eye, change of topic go! "Look over there" I say in a hushed tone.
She follows where I am pointing and lo and behold under one of the towers there stood Torygg and Elisif exchanging necklaces.
Sybille coos at how cute they are. Apparently, Sybille was a friend of Elisif's mother before she died and was sothing of an aunt figure to the future Queen.
"Oi Harald" I elbow the Thane who was dozing off nearby, he grumbles as I wake him up and imdiately focuses on the scene as if following so supernatural instinct.
"Imma kill him" He states with finality as he pulls out his axe.
I roll my eyes "You will do no such thing"
He turns back to and angrily starts "And how are going to sto-" just in ti to see grinding a soul gem on the blade of my staff, moving it in such a way that it produced sparks as if I was sharpening it.
"You were saying?" I ask with a shit-eating grin.
He knew damn well he couldn't go against after my display today, not to ntion that he did owe Torygg for saving his ass. So as any self-respecting Nord, he grumbled 'I am too sober for this' and downed an entire bottle of black briar.
Minutes later he could be seen dancing with the warriors and trying, emphasis on the trying, to join them in a rowdy song.
Noticing the opportunity Marco excused himself from his group and stood at the center of the feast, everyone quieted down as they saw him prepare his lute, and the complete madman started singing a song he improvised on the spot about our battle.
What surprised most was the sudden feeling of elation and pride that assaulted , and everyone around if their reactions were any indication.
Perhaps the brat was actually good for sothing...
"Why didn't you tell your student was actually competent?" Sybille muses as she visibly
enjoys the performance.
"No enthralling my students Sybille" I narrow my eyes in exasperation.
"Not even a little?" She gives puppy eyes, and let tell you vampiric puppy eyes were a
terrifying weapon.
I shoo her away with my hand "Go get your own"
She pouts "You don't give anything nice."
There is an idea... I grasp at my heart "Is my ti and affection truly so worthless?"
She rolls her eyes "Fine, I guess you can keep him."
We share a chuckle and go back to listening to the performance.
All the mages present spent the following morning burning the massive piles of Reachn corpses, after they were thoroughly looted of course, the don't look the dead only really mattered when it ca to dead Nords apparently.
I had to actually kick Marco into continuing when he kept constantly vomiting at the sight, at least he didn't whine this ti...
Minthara on the other hand had no problems burning the corpses, naturally that couldn't be all so I had to constantly monitor the over-enthusiastic demigod in case she decided to practice her fire breath. I had to cover it up multiple tis by appearing next to her when she did it, but by so divine intervention no one suspected a thing.
The glare I sent her after the third ti promised all manner of pain but she had apparently gotten used to my threats, so I turned the threats into promises and now she was stuck reading the second volu of the to of anatomy with a look of pure suffering.
Being the gracious employer that I was I offered most of my share of the loot, close to a good half of the whole thing, to the rcenaries I hired, and as I expect they all chose to remain with our punitive force until we were done with the Forsworn.
Rikke grumbled about rcenaries being undiscplined but she knew damn well we needed all
the help we could get, preliminary scouting done by Scorch and the Dunr had shown that even heavily diminished the Forsworn would be a threat, now with the added annoyance of
fortifications on their end.
Speaking of my 'brothers in faith' I questioned them on the true reasoning of their presence here, and as I had guessed phala wanted to fuck over yet another Daedra in her na. The ease with which she used my presence for her own ends annoyed sothing deep inside , but I wasn't an idiot. Our relationship was completely based on give and take, and if she wanted to direct her worshipers into making my life easier I would not protest like a petulant
child.
I disliked literally all of the Daedra, they were like the chaos gods, just not nearly as destructive... this didn't an however that I was above accepting the assistance of so of them. The fact that being blessed, and apparently chosen (first ti I've heard of it) by phala, would give a very big reputation boost with most Dunr was a nice bonus.
So I swallowed my pride and made a plan to desecrate the temple the Forsworn had built atop 'Hag's end', an old Nordic ruin that had been overtaken by the Reachn about a decade ago and made into sothing of a town/base of operations, the proper way.
A short ritual, that included the slaying of the resident priest, and the shrine would be for all intents and purposes 'conquered' by phala, giving her a big win in whatever celestial ga the Daedra were playing among themselves.
On a much brighter note Torygg decided to announce to everyone present that he and Elisif,
who was madly blushing the entire ti, had decided to marry, and without even consulting Harald he declared the wedding would be held a week after we returned from our expedition. Sybille and I had a great ti counting the different expressions of rage and fury shifting on the Thane's face as he listened to the speech, the man looked ready to smash Torygg's head off, but a nice heavy dose of telekinesis and a wink from yours truly made him shut up and
remain seated.
Two days after the King arrived we set out once again, lines of legionaries, both veteran and fresh, now followed by rcenaries and Harald's own n, marched toward the west, and toward our final confrontation with the Reachn.
Just as we were about to leave, a very happy looking Onmund rushed up to and showed
a small flickering fla in his palm. I left him with a signed note and instructions to wait for
in Solitude.
As we rode I decided to finally check up on my progress, a part of always wanted to look at
it every day but sothing about seeing big numbers go up always made wait patiently.
And boy was I satisfied.
[Str: 15=>16]
[Dex: 16.5=>17]
[Mag: 370=>400]
The way my stats were growing confused , I didn't spend any ti training physically yet
my strength and dexterity kept growing, and my reserves grew exponentially even without
rituals...
The first hypothesis I could co up with was that the races of the world reacted to combat differently than my previous one, maybe we all evolved in such a way that we grew when challenged in a more literal sense?
The second however rang far truer than the first, taking into account the fact that runes
worked to so extent on belief, it was not too much of a longshot to then apply that to the growth of strength. After all, if I proved to the world itself that I was stronger, would the magic in the air not work to make that a fact, much like it made runes actually have concrete
aning?
Food for thought...
[Destruction-expert: Runecasting]
[Conjuration-adept: Umbramancy(strangle), Bound shade]
[Adept tongue: Fire breath (YOL, TOR, SHUL) Unrelenting force (FUS, RO, DAH) Whirlwind
sprint (WULD) Slow ti (TIID) Beco ethereal (FEIM)]
I close the notification with a satisfied smile, things were progressing well. My eyes narrow as
I start seeing darkened Magicka attempting to latch onto our supplies.
It appeared the Namirans were welcoming us.
I see seas of red
Forsworn heads too
And I think to myself
If you didn't give your stones you would join this wonderful view!
(Poetic genius, I know.)
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