The tunnel, for the first time, sloped gently upwards as the light and the breeze grew steadily stronger. Soon, Larenia’s light orb became redundant and she allowed it to dissipate. Not long after, they turned a corner to discover a wide opening, partially overgrown with vines.

They pushed through the plants and stepped out onto a shallow slope near the bottom of a sprawling valley. A light smattering of trees dotted its wide, flat base and in the distance a river wound through its middle.

To the left, a far-off, blurry wall of mountains marked the valley’s end. Opposite their slope, the valley rose to meet a string of towering individual mountains which seemed, to Simon at least, geographically implausible. To the right, various streamers of rising smoke denoted the presence of villages and towns.

A quick glance over his shoulder, however, revealed a true colossus: the Throat of The World, one of the Towers of Nirn and the home of the Greybeards. Simon did not relish the knowledge that he would have to climb it.

Hadvar took a deep breath and let out a relieved sigh. “We actually made it. I have to thank the pair of you, if the Stormcloaks didn’t get me, the bear would’ve. We might as well stick together for a bit longer, shouldn’t be more than a day’s walk to Three Stones. Although…” he looked up at the sky, and the position of the sun, “I doubt we’ll make it before nightfall.”

“Three Stones?” Simon asked.

“It’s a major town built around the Guardian Stones, which I suppose you wouldn’t know about…” the nord paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. Simon kept quiet, interested to learn how the standing stones worked in this version of Skyrim.

“Every race in Tamriel has a collection of thirteen standing stones scattered through their homeland. They grant powerful blessings, though you can only possess one blessing at a time. You’ll be able to pick one of the Guardian Stones if you want, once we arrive. They enhance your ability to learn the Warrior, Mage or Thief Skills.”

“Wait,” Larenia cut in, “anyone can just pick a standing stone?”

“Yes?” Hadvar answered. “I mean, the Ritual Stone is locked away in a fort, but no one wants necromancy to be readily accessible. Other than that you just need the time to go to the stone you want. Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

The tiny elf grimaced. “The Thalmor keep a tight grip on standing stone access.”

“Oh… Well, you’re in the Empire now. We do things differently. I suppose you’ll be able to pick a blessing as well.”

Larenia smiled a little at that. “I suppose I will.”

Hadvar put his sword, shield and helmet into his Pocket. “Right, we’d best set off.” He looked over at Simon as they started walking in the general direction of a cluster of rising smoke. “You can ask your questions as we go.”

“Damage calculations,” Simon said, vanishing his own sword and helmet.

“Of course,” the Imperial soldier chuckled. “Damage is equal to base weapon Damage multiplied by Physique multiplied by Body Bonus plus 100%, added to base weapon Damage multiplied by Skill Bonus plus 100%... It might be easier if I write it out.”

Hadvar proceeded to scratch a formula into the dirt with a stick:

(Bwd*Phy*(Bb+100%))+(Bwd*(Sb+100%)

“Base Damage is used twice?” Simon asked.

“Yes, that’s part of why unarmed combat is so much worse than having a weapon equipped.”

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“So, what’s Physique?”

“It’s… a number expressing your overall physical ability. It’s what your Body Bonus actually modifies, mathematically speaking at least. You can work it out from unarmed combat Damage, since it’s low enough to check without risking any real harm.”

“Ooo, maths! What’s the unarmed combat calculation?”

“20 times Physique times Primal Stage. Primal Stage is the total level of your Warrior Skills divided by 30.”

“I see.” Simon gave Hadvar a quick, hard slap on the arm. “ How much was that?”

The nord looked at him, unimpressed, for a few seconds before he stopped walking and closed his eyes. Watching someone else access their menu really highlighted the massive advantage of his menu’s time dilation. He’d have to try it out in combat at some point. Probably not in real combat to start with; no sense dying because he tripped over when he closed the menu and suddenly experienced momentum again.

“12 Damage,” Hadvar eventually said. “I would appreciate it if you would at least warn me before doing anything like that again.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Simon waved him off distractedly while he did some rough maths in his head. “So that’s… 0.8 Physique. Is that good? It doesn’t sound good.”

“You’re right,” Hadvar replied, sounding distinctly amused , “0.8 is not good. The average human has a Physique of 1. It’s 1.1 for Nords; 0.9 for Bretons. Still, maybe your Intellect or Enlightenment will be higher to compensate.”

“What are they?”

“The Arcane and Mystic equivalents to Physique. I don’t know that much about them to be honest. Legion training is more focused on Primal theory. You don’t really need to know much about the other Forces unless you want to be a captain.”

“Intellect,” Larenia cut in, “is your mind’s raw ability to process and interpret information. It mostly affects spell cost, although low Intellect is kind of an issue in its own right. Enlightenment is your wisdom in general and your understanding of people specifically; its effects are pretty subtle, except in Alchemy.”

“Speaking of spell costs,” said Simon, his eyes lighting up, “how does magic work?”

She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, so, a spell is made up of three things: spell forms, runes and hand signs. A spell form is an image of Arcane significance that you hold in your mind’s eye to form the base of the spell; it provides the spell’s power and determines its nature. Every school of magic has five sets of spell forms, in addition to five runesets and five hand signs.

“Runes are overlaid onto spell forms and determine how the spell behaves. Journeyman spells, the lowest grade of spell, can only contain three runes at most but each rune contains about a sentence’s worth of information.

“Finally, hand signs determine how, when and in which direction the spell manifests. The Magicka cost of the spell is based on how far beyond your Intellect’s base ability doing all of that is.”

“Okay…” Simon said as he tried to process the info-dump. “So, if I wanted a beam of lightning I would need a lightning spell form, runes to give it a shape and constant flow and a hand sign to tell it where to point?”

Larenia’s already large eyes widened further in surprise. “Pretty much, actually. The only mistake is that you would use the continuous hand sign rather than a rune to make the spell constant. Other than that, you basically just made an accurate, if vague, description of a lightning beam spell.”

“Cool,” Simon said. “Go me. Is it possible to have enough of a Mind Bonus to just not need Magicka?”

“Yes and no. The main factor in spell cost is arcane weight, which is basically just the Arcane Force drawn in by a spell form. It puts pressure on your mind; that’s what caused that headache-y feeling when I opened the Master tome.

“A Journeyman spell has one spell form with an arcane weight of 1 ember. An Intellect of 1 can withstand half an ember, so to cast a Journeyman spell without Magicka only takes a Mind Bonus of 100%.”

Hadvar snorted. “Only, she says.”

Larenia gave the nord a dirty look; it felt strange that it was happening to someone else for once.

“An Adept spell,” Simon’s impromptu Magic tutor continued, “contains two Adept spell forms with a total arcane weight of 16 embers. So, to cast an Adept spell without Magicka would take a Mind Bonus of 3,100%.”

“Ah… I see the problem. You’d need over 250 levels in every Mage Skill to get that, wouldn’t you?”

“Exactly, and divines don’t grow on trees.”

“Still, 100% should be very do-able,” Simon said, frowning in thought and almost tripping over several times as he grew distracted.

What would be the best Skill to accumulate Mind Bonus with? It would have to be a Thief Skill… Oh, oh yes… He grinned as a plan began to form to abuse a Skill whose levelling was broken even in the game.

“How hard is it to take something out from another person’s Pocket?”