The day after we’d gotten back, I decided to sit down with my growing treasures. Dividing up the loot from the Barrow proved to be somewhat difficult, I’d never had to do more than divide by four until now. Jorman had recommended paying out the loot like a mercenary company would, via shares. He’d explained it as the company itself gets a quarter share of the total, that paid for food, repairs, healing, and new equipment. The captain, me, usually got anywhere from four to ten shares. I opted for six. Veterans of the company, the first to join and those who fought the most battles, got half as many shares as the captain, the rest got one share, and the wounded got two, dead got three.
A quarter share for the company at large amounted to just over fifteen hundred septims worth of loot. Jorman and a guard familiar with the ancient coins were a tremendous help with that end, they had a good idea of how much everything was worth. The other three quarters of the loot, divided by the seventy three shares I’d come up with, meant each share was sixty five septims. It was quite the pay for one night of work. A ten pound sack of flour, a live chicken, or fifty pounds of firewood all ran about one septim. A wild night at Winterhold’s tavern cost about a septim per person too. Sixty septims was about what an average laborer could expect to make in a month according to the twins, Galteir paid his tannery workers three a day if they hit their marks.
I came away with three hundred ninety septims worth of loot, but I didn’t take it in coins. For me, it was all soul gems. I may have cheated the company a bit too, because it got most of its share in enchanted items to be distributed out to those best fit to use them. The major objective was to deal with the necromancers, but I was hedging my bets for the future too. I had no intention to let some levy trained farmer from the village of Bumblefuck FrozenArse walk away with an enchanted weapon or a magic ring.
Those goodies were going towards the men, and woman, that I suspected would follow me down the road to wherever I ended up after this business was done. On that, there had been a little bit of loot for everyone. I’d given a ring to Riga, the weird pop ups had called it the [Ring of The Hawk]. It allowed mages to recover their mana faster, and learn more easily. It was a natural choice, really. Mirabelle had narrowed in on it at once when I walked Riga to the gate of the college. Apparently that specific magic used to enchant things like that had been lost a long time before, and they were quite the prize.
Though the recipient wasn’t around for it yet, there’d been another ancient ring to hand out. Jorn would get his [Ring of The Bear] whenever his contingent arrived from Frozen Wharf. The bear was Tsun, Nordic god of trials, and shield to the fox, Shor, also known as Lorkhan. The ring had a bolstering effect on the physical might and resilience of the wearer, it made sense for Jorn to get it. Lodor was no slouch, but his older brother stood a full head taller and weighed at least forty pounds more, not to mention his skill with that greatsword he was so fond of. A bit of extra steel plate, and we’d have a proper nordic knight.
Angven had already gotten his sword, and Anglin hadn’t been far behind his brother in getting something valuable. A cloak had been wrapped up in a sealed jar, with intricate lines of silver threaded in to the black fabric. Despite the fact that it should have been shiny and stick out like a sore thumb against snow, it was damned near impossible to spot the boy when he wanted to be sneaky now. The [Cloak of The Spider] was probably the most valuable thing we’d found in the whole barrow. It caused a blur to form around the wearer, blending into the background. The other side of that was that the cloak imbued a venom into his weapons, so long as his enemy was not aware of him. How that sort of magic worked, I had no idea. Why not just make all of his strikes venomous? How did the cloak know if the enemy was aware or not? It was spooky bullshit, but as long as it worked I wouldn’t think about it too hard.
Lodor had found his own prize as well, a steel reinforced round shield in one of the coffins. It had been identified as a [Bastion Shield] and lived up to the name. Lodor had been skillful with his axe and shield he’d brought into the barrow, but even Jorman had trouble getting around his defense now. The older Nord had told the younger to put his faith in his own arms, not arcane witchcraft, prompting a friendly duel in the yard. Lodor blocked or countered every strike Jorman put to him, until Jorman knocked him into the mud and kicked the shield away. Jorman had stopped short of kicking the downed man, he’d made his point. Seemed that skill boosting magic still ran into hard physics, sometimes.
There weren’t any other fancy pieces to share out, but if there had been, it would have been the same people getting them. Gromm was a hard fighter, and seemed to be better trained than the men that he’d brought, but I doubted he would stick around after the necromancers and bandits were dealt with. This was an unfortunate interruption of their lives, even if it was profitable. For Gromm, every night he spent with us was a night away from his wife and home. Harald, the retainer that had come along with Lodor, was a different story. He was one of the other second sons that the young noble had mentioned.
There were a few of those around Winterhold too, now that I’d made a name for my retinue. News had spread quickly of our triumph against the bandits of course, especially with the prisoners we’d brought back, but killing a vampire was a cut above. While I’d been out distributing the pay, a mess of young men had come around, asking to join up. The first had seen the pay sack I’d handed off to Harald in the tavern, clinking with coins. He was a logger, lean from being underfed, but strong where it mattered. Elsborn, that was his name, had done his stint with the city guard, and had his father’s old mail coat and axe. I’d made a critical error from there.
“If you can fight, and you’re willing to sign on for a while, I’ll take you. I can’t promise the pay will be consistent, but I’ll make sure you’re housed, clothed, and fed so long as you ride with us.” I put my hand out to him.
“I’ll fight, and I’ve got nothing to hold me here. No inheritance, no wife, my father’s passed and my brother runs the sawmill. The talk is that you’re fighting for the hold Ranger, and you’ve protected three villages already. Joining up to fight whatever devils they are will keep my family safe, the gold won’t hurt either.” He took my hand and shook it. We talked a bit longer, I told him to come by the Jarl’s longhouse in the morning so we could get him some extra equipment. A new fur coat, a semi-uniform set of clothes like the twins, Riga and I wore, a helmet, an extra blade, a pack for his supplies, the usual things a soldier would need. That was the error. Everything I’d planned to give him, just to make him useful, would have cost two months wages at least. The new clothes alone were something a local might only buy every few years. There were a few other men in the tavern that had seen and heard the whole thing, and could smell the goat leg, buttery potatoes, and eggs Harald was having for lunch.
By the time I’d gotten everyone paid at the end of the day, no fewer than a dozen men had asked to join my party. It really couldn’t be called a party at this point, next time we marched it’d be a warband. Some of the men were too old, others were still just boys. Three of them were the right age, with the right situation for me to consider. I told them to come by the longhouse in the morning. The four new men were a sign of things to come, if we won. It’d be a long time before there were jobs and positions that could beat the dangerous, but exceedingly well paid position of a mercenary. There was a reason that it was tied for the oldest profession. Killing and fucking would be in demand until the heat death of the universe.
The four men were waiting at the door the next morning, bright and early. Two of them had armor, three of them had a weapon on their belt. Jorman was going to be training a few guards, and the freshly recovered men from Seacrest, in the yard after breakfast. Jorman laughed as he saw the four trailing behind me like ducklings.
“Johannes, you aren’t supposed to feed the stray dogs around here. They’ll never stop following you after.” The housecarl eyed each man.
“That just sounds like making a friend for life.” I countered. Jorman conceded that point with a shrug.
“They want to join up, I need to see if they're worth the pay. Elsborn here says he was a guard for a while, but the rest I’m not sure of.” I pointed to the only man that had both a weapon, and armor.
“Elsborn’s a mighty axeman, he can hold his place in the shield wall. Orryn, Thalin, and… sorry boy, I’ve forgotten your name.” Jorman paused at the youngest one.
“Virgar, sir.” He was a bit nervous with his answer.
“Virgar, you’re the thief’s son.” Jorman changed his look a bit, but not for the worse. “Your father will be back soon, a few more weeks.”
“You can keep him.” There was a lot of venom there. Jorman turned back to me.
“We’ll put them through the paces. Come on now. Shields and trainers, take your pick.” Jorman led us through the morning’s exercise, along with a contingent of the Stormcloaks. Elsborn was every bit as good as he’d claimed, the rest were a work in progress, but good enough. It was just about lunch time when we finished, and I took the new recruits to the tavern. I’d promised to keep them fed after all. Next was to the twins’ house, to get them measured for new, all white clothes by the family of tailors. We’d also kept the massive stock of captured weapons and armor there, for lack of anywhere else to put it.
Chainmail, helmets, steel blades, belts, packs, gloves, bits of steel armor, if it fit, I issued it out. Angven and Anglin had both gotten the best pick of it already, having seen what happened to Jorn. Both of the twins had trended towards a heavier kit than just the vests we’d had made. Angven had snagged an old steel cuirass, his brother a brigandine jacket. Steel helmets were one thing we had plenty of, so everyone got one. Once the smithy was assembled, and I had some free time, I’d see about more fur lined brigandine jackets. It was one of the many things I was looking forwards to once this mess was over and dealt with. There was still more to do, and the sun had a few hours before it set.
To say that I tricked the company was a bit too much, I’d just told them we were going to do something that would make them fight better. With all my magic and the growing legend around me, I couldn’t fault them for thinking it was going to be some sort of blessing or magic potion. It didn’t change the fact that they were huffing, puffing, and cursing my name after the fourth lap around Winterhold. By the sixth, we’d lost half the company, they were strewn about, barfing up whatever they’d eaten or keeled over trying to catch their breath. By the eighth, I was just about ready to join them. Karliene and Icefoot were disappointed by our lack of fortitude, the two wolves had been literally running circles around us the whole time. Riga found us laying around like corpses in the Jarl’s hall.
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“What happened?!?” Riga fast walked over to me, the exhaustion and fatigue had left a mark.
“We ran.” I put on a bit of a haggard voice, it wasn’t hard.
“Ran? From what?” She sat next to me, concern clear in her voice.
“Laziness… Heh! We ran around the town for a few hours.” I laughed. Jogging wasn’t a common past time it seemed. A few muttered curses sounded from the rest.
“You just ran?” Riga seemed confused.
“Need to get these guys in to shape. Running helps with that. Riga, meet the new guys.” I gestured at the four recruits.
“You and your strange ways. I thought you were training in the yard this morning.” Riga and I chatted for a while about what they were teaching her at the college, she showed off a new spell that she called Enduring Ward. It kept a bubble of protective magic around her, but it wasn’t as strong as a focused ward spell. It was hard to get her to stop once we’d got going, she couldn’t stop gushing about the college.
“You’ll have to teach me that radiance spell once you get it down. An anti-undead magelight sounds useful.” I smiled at Riga as we ate. Dinner had come around, and the hall was packed. Stormcloaks, guards, my company, the Jarl was feeding a small army. How much he’d have to send to the Rift would be a question if this kept up for long. The Jarl was probably eager to get the whole thing finished and done with. He’d groaned when I came by to get the pay for my company the past month, it had totaled out to a little over a thousand pieces. My earlier suspicions about the state of the treasury seemed to be playing out.
After dinner, I excused my self and fell into bed. Every part of me was going to be sore in the morning, but the merciful embrace of sleep let me put that off. Images of armored warriors surrounded by darkness had been plaguing my dreams, terrible howls and bloody snow. A different kind of nightmare hit me in the face when I woke up. It seemed I’d been putting off the funny windows again for too long.
[Level Increased, 13->19!]
[Multiple Skills Increased!]
[6 Challenges completed!]
[8 Perk Points Available]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[Quest Assigned: Corpses of The Coast]
[Quest Completed: Corpses of The Coast]
[Quest Assigned: Death March]
The incessant windows piled up, one after the other, and they wouldn’t let me swat them away this time. It seemed that whoever, or whatever was behind them, really wanted me to read through them. The skills I’d gained weren’t anything to scoff at. The list seemed to prioritize the skills I was actually using the most.
[Restoration: 46]
[One Handed: 38]
[Two Handed: 49]
[Heavy Armor: 34]
[Block: 35]
[Stealth: 42]
[Speech: 36]
[Smithing: 27]
[Destruction: 31]
The rest weren’t much to look at, even archery was still pretty poor. I’d done enough shooting to be familiar again, but I wouldn’t be winning any competitions. I’d started on a theory about what the skills really meant, but it wasn’t worth dwelling on until I had time to prove it. The next thing to look at was the perks. It seemed that I’d stopped gaining them on level ups, instead I was getting them for challenges, and I’d gotten two for finishing the quest I hadn’t realized I was on.
I’d told my self that I was going to pay more attention to the windows after I got my hands on the map, but it hadn’t really gone that way. For all I’d bitched at Jori for not helping, I had something to answer for as well. The perks I had access to were horrifically powerful, I doubted even a master enchanter could replicate. Had I bothered to check before we went into that cave, maybe some of the others would have lived. Restoration was my first look, after seeing how close we’d come to losing Jorn and some of the other wounded.
[Blessed Healing]
[Description: Your healing spells can now fight off disease and poison. The strength of this effect is directly tied to your restoration skills. Especially dangerous toxins and diseases are difficult to cure, but can be staved off for a time. Your healing spells deal additional damage to the undead.]
Easy buy.
[Corpse Hunter]
[Description: You can now detect and track undead auras with great efficiency. The strength of this new sense is directly tied to your Restoration skill. Any perks, abilities, or racial traits effecting the senses will provide a benefit to this perk. The base range of this sense is one hundred feet, with an additional one hundred feet per ten points in the Restoration skill. Undead may be able to detect your aura if targeted by this sense.]
Yes please.
[Crippling Counters]
[Description: When you counter attack with a two handed weapon, it results in brief, excruciating pain to the target. This may cause targets to drop their defense, stumble, or otherwise present you with another opening to strike. Only targets that can feel pain are affected. The degree of pain experienced is governed by both your skill with Two Handed weapons, and the severity of the strike. A serious blow may cause an enemy to instantly fall unconscious.]
Bandits and trolls are gonna love that.
[Disarming Defense]
[Description: Parries, counters, blocks, and other defensive measures that result in direct contact with an enemy weapon are much more likely to knock the weapon away, or at least unseat it from the foe’s grip. To activate this perk, simply will it to happen with your action. Overuse of this ability can lead to rapid exhaustion. The effectiveness of this perk is figured by comparing the relevant enemy weapon skill to your Block skill, along with several other factors.]
Gronvir isn’t the only one that can do that trick now. I don’t even have to say anything!
[Stalwart Plate]
[Description: Heavy armor that you wear distributes the force of a strike much more efficiently, softening the impact and effectively increasing the strength of all hard armor. This perk does not reduce the energy or force of a blow, it simply disperses it across a larger area. The effectiveness of this perk is tied directly to your Heavy Armor skill.]
Fuck physics, they’re for pussies.
[Bone Breaker]
[Description: Attacks with one handed weapons, especially maces, are much more likely to break or fracture bones and other hard structures. Bones that you break never result in a clean fracture, but are instead a jagged, splintered mess. The effectiveness of this perk is tied directly to your skill with One Handed weapons.]
Crunchy.
[Prospector]
[Description: You gain an innate knowledge of ores, gems, and stone. The methods of extracting, refining, and creating usable materials is known to you, but the skill must be learned normally. Items crafted with materials you have wrought are 10% more effective.]
Effective how? HOW? Magic horse shit. Does that pass on to enchantments? Or just sharper, stronger blades? Sturdier walls? Take your charlatan vagueries and blow them out your ass spooky window.
[Enduring Flames]
[Description: Fire spells leave a residual flame on everything they hit. This effect can be triggered at will, the flames will persist even in the absence of fuel. You may cast any form of ice or water magic to put them out. Enemies struck by any spell that inflicts damage via fire will continue to burn well beyond the usual duration of the spell. Your skill in destruction determines the longevity of the flames.]
I was happy with the selections I’d made. I kept to my pattern of loading combat potential pretty heavily, but I had made a few choices to help with exploring, and a possible career outside of murder for hire. The undead sense was one of those things that was unbelievably powerful, just being given away. Same with Enduring Flames. If I was any other pyromancer, it’d be helpful, but not great. With Sunfire as my most used spell, and all the extra damage against the undead that I got, it was absolutely lethal.
Prospector was me doing a bit of future preparation. Winterhold undoubtedly had massive amounts of mineral wealth beneath the snow, the ice, the mountains. Half-remembered ore veins along the coast flashed in my mind, silver and iron. That was just the sort of thing the Hold needed. A few miners, a few smithing apprentices, a land grant from the Jarl, and I could fill a very profitable niche in the arms trade in the months to come. There was just one window left in my vision.
[Quest Reward: Nordic Foot Knight Armor, Stuhn’s Blessing]
I paused before accepting the reward. It was very, very unlikely that I’d be able to play off having a brand new set of armor as salvage from the barrow. There was no one that I could have bought it from, and it’s not like I had a bag of fine possessions before I came to Winterhold. Any doubt of the nature behind the strange windows had disappeared. Stuhn, the nordic name for Stendarr, had to be pulling the strings. Collapsing in the snow, conveniently along the path of that undead, Bonin. Finding my way to Winterhold, being ambushed by those bandits, everything to this point. How much of it was pure chance? I wouldn’t bet on any of it being entirely coincidental. Granted, Stuhn didn’t exactly have to nudge things too hard either. The hold was fucked up enough that it wasn’t too hard to believe it had all been by chance.
So what to do about the armor? Last I remembered, the bag and the ring had appeared in a golden flash. It was quite the spectacle. It may be easier to just accept the reward where people would see it. It was beyond a doubt that Stuhn, or Stendarr, whichever, had picked me for a champion. I could come across as crazy, the sole witness to a miracle, and make the honest claim that it was a gift from the gods. Or I could steer a conversation the right way…
Adalvald and the Vigilants would be arriving to Winterhold soon. How would they feel about a living saint walking among them? It had to be worth something. I was stuck with the responsibilities I’d accepted either way. I was going to purge the hold of undead, I was going to fight the Volkihar, and I was going to get saddled with some sort of title or another from the Jarl for it all. That’s what I expected at least. Maybe I’d catch an arrow in the head at the start of our charge on the river. It didn't seem like there'd be much harm in orchestrating a miracle at dinner.