Ch 5: Leech Like Your Life Depends On It_It Just Works

Hadvar threw the door open and re-equipped his shield. There were shouts of “Imperials!” from the next room, quickly followed by the sounds of metal on metal as Hadvar and Larenia stormed in.

Standing pressed against a wall, mere feet away from a fight that sounded more like a fork in a blender than combat, Simon probably should have been afraid. From the sounds of it, he wouldn’t have lasted long against the Stormcloaks. But, he didn’t feel any fear at all. Blessing based fear immunity seemed like something that could come back to bite him.

Simon’s idle concerns dissipated as he heard the drumbeat of a level up. Then, mere seconds later, he got another and another and another. He stood there, counting, barely even paying attention to the fight on the other side of the wall. He was levelling faster than he ever had in the game. Admittedly, that was because he’d started at level 0 instead of level 15. Still, numbers were getting bigger.

Just as he reached level 7, the sounds of combat fell silent. There must have been more Stormcloaks than in the game because he had levelled far too quickly for just two. He didn’t know for sure, but the fight couldn’t have taken much more than half a minute. It made him wonder what his Sneak Skill considered “aware” given that he hadn’t known how many Stormcloaks were in the room.

Regardless, he felt much better now that the extra 70 Stamina had negated the exhaustion from his sprint. Although, it felt like some of it had been used up in the process. Hmm… Was it possible to work out the conversion ratio from calories to Stamina?

Shaking away his curiosity, Simon made to walk into the next room and stopped. He looked down at his foot and watched, fascinated, as he stepped in just the right way to avoid making a noise.

That would be the “knowledge, proficiency and experience” promised by the Changelog. He knew how to walk silently, the exact range of vision from peaking through an average keyhole and the approximate shade of dark blue that was best for nighttime sneaking. He even knew that he wouldn’t be nearly as quiet on more loose ground because he just wasn’t skilled enough.

The addition to his mind had been seamless and, on the one hand, that should have been kind of terrifying. On the other hand though, it was really cool.

Simon shuffled over to the door and poked his head out, just in case the Stormcloaks had won. To describe the scene in the next room as carnage would have been a severe understatement.

Pools and splatters of blood covered the floor and all four of the Stormcloaks in the room had been cut into at least two pieces. One poor sap had been vertically bisected from head to groin.

“Jesus,” Simon muttered as walked in, once again thankful for his blessing’s protection from fear and PTSD. “Did you have to make such a mess?”

Larenia threw him a withering look and returned to wiping her swords clean with a piece of torn Stormcloak armour.

“It’s what happens when the Damage from a smithed weapon isn’t stopped by Health,” said Hadvar from his position at the open portcullis on the right side of the room, opposite the door through which the Stormcloaks must have entered. An indoor portcullis seemed a little odd to Simon but he had more pressing questions.

“Smithed weapons?”

Larenia snorted. “Don't you know anything?”

“Not really.” Simon raised an eyebrow. “Which part of “from another reality” didn’t you understand?”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Weapons made with the Smithing skill have a Damage value that gets magnified by Skill Bonuses and strength. You can feel the Damage of a weapon if you have a few levels of Pocketry.”

“We need to keep moving.” Hadvar said before Simon could ask any more questions. “It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else in this part of the tunnel but things could get dicey if all the Stormcloaks came this way. Did you get your Sneak levels?” he asked Simon.

“Let me just double check.” Simon tried to will his Skills menu open and watched time all but stop as the list appeared on top of his vision.

[Skills]

Summary

Stage

Body

+7%

Mind

+7%

Health

100/100

Magicka

100/100

Stamina

63/100

Warrior

Archery

Two Handed

Block

Skill Level

Skill Bonus

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One Handed

Heavy Armour

Smithing

Skill Level

Skill Bonus

Mage

Alteration

Destruction

Restoration

Skill Level

Skill Bonus

Illusion

Conjuration

Enchanting

Skill Level

Skill Bonus

Thief

Sneak

Locksmithing

Speech

Skill Level

Skill Bonus

35%

Skill Bonus

Light Armour

Pocketry

Alchemy

Skill Level

Skill Bonus

“You shouldn’t look at your Skills in a hostile environment,” Hadvar said. “You’re defenceless while the menu is open.”

Simon frowned. It was interesting to know that everyone else had Skill menus, but that didn’t explain Hadvar’s concern. “I already looked,” he said, confused. “I got seven levels. There were more Stormcloaks than I thought so I levelled quicker. Do your menus not stop time?”

Hadvar and Larenia gave him the two-heads-look again. The Imperial took a deep breath and shook his head a little.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said. “I’ll take point, Larenia just behind me, Simon hang back a bit in case we meet hostiles.”

They made their way down the staircase on the other side of the portcullis. It was only wide enough for one person, but after a while it levelled out into a tunnel that just about had room for three people to walk side by side.

The tunnel was lit by wall mounted braziers with small, glowing metal balls in them. Simon guessed that the people who built it didn’t fancy dying from smoke inhalation.

They passed a handful of doors as they went. At each one Hadvar would stop and check that the rooms were empty. He didn’t want any Stormcloaks sneaking up behind them.

As they approached the sixth door, there was a rumble from above that grew louder instead of passing.

“Back!” Hadvar snapped.

The Imperial retreated with Larenia to Simon’s position several metres behind them as the ceiling started to bow. Just a few seconds later, the section of ceiling past the door collapsed. Chunks of stone and wooden supports completely blocked off the tunnel.

“Gods,” Hadvar muttered. “How strong is that thing?”

“Well,” Simon said, “I don’t know exactly how strong this version of Alduin is but the only way to kill him permanently is to chase his soul all the way to Sovngarde and kill him there.”

“Is that a metaphor?” asked Larenia.

Simon chuckled. “I wish. Oh,” he added, “there’s probably Stormcloaks in the next room.”

This situation had happened in the game as well.

Hadvar nodded and moved to the door with Larenia. Simon took that as a cue to plaster himself to the wall.

Larenia listened at the door for a moment before nodding and moving behind Hadar, swords at the ready. The soldier counted down and burst through the door. Shouts and the clashing of blades sounded out an instant later.

Simon waited a few seconds, then shuffled over to poke his head into the doorway. It was a slight risk, but the door had swung mostly closed after Larenia slipped through and his Sneak levels gave him the impression that combatants mid-fight would be unlikely to notice him peeking.

Simon counted seven Stormcloaks in total. Four were trying to surround Hadvar as the Imperial soldier retreated around the room, dodging the tables and benches that filled it. He lashed out with his shield or sword if one his opponents got too far around to his side.

Larenia was hounding the other three. She was clearly faster than any one of them, but together they seemed to just about hold her back. Every time she went to land a blow against one rebel, it would be caught on the blade of another.

Both Hadvar and Larenia landed several hits but each one bounced harmlessly off their enemies, much like Tullius’ arrows had bounced off Alduin. Presumably they were wearing down their enemies’ Health. While Hadvar managed to catch all of his opponents’ attacks with either shield or sword, Larenia took several strikes. She didn’t seem particularly fazed though. Even when one of the Stormcloaks caught her on the side of her head, she just moved with the force of the blow and went straight back to attacking.

Just after Simon’s fifth level up, Hadvar managed a killing blow. He struck out with his shortsword at the Stormcloak who kept trying to move round his right side and, instead of bouncing off like his previous hits, it chopped into the rebel’s shoulder. Hadvar’s blade sliced through the man’s flesh like it wasn’t there, pulling free as it reached the bottom of his ribcage.

As his opponents were briefly distracted by the rent corpse of their comrade falling to the ground in a shower of blood, Hadvar landed another two strikes. Unfortunately, neither broke through the Stormcloaks’ Health.

Over the next few level ups both Hadvar and Larenia felled another of the rebels. One, a whip thin woman throwing a two handed battle axe around like it was nothing, got bisected at the waist. The other, a burly man with a stolen Imperial sword, was all but scalped, chunks of brain spraying onto the floor as one of Larenia’s blades chopped into his head at the eyes.

Despite their decreasing enemies, Simon’s companions began to fight more defensively as the Stormcloaks managed to land several more hits. Hadvar maintained the same, slow rate of attack against half as many opponents and Larenia adopted a slightly more aggressive version of Hadvar’s endless retreat.

Still, with almost half the Stormcloaks dead, it was only a handful more levels before another two took killing blows. Left fighting one on one, the last two didn’t even have a chance to try and run before they were cut down.

In spite of the gory scene he’d just witnessed, Simon couldn’t keep a grin from his face. The higher enemy count and longer duration had given him even more sneak levels than the previous fight. He hadn’t even been awake for an hour yet and he already had level 18 Sneak. If he could manage the same for his other Skills, he really might be able to shred Alduin.

Simon eased the door open and walked confidently around the puddles, blades and body parts in perfect silence. He stopped behind Larenia where she was crouched, wiping her blades on one of the cleaner corpses.

“Boo,” he said, not too loud and pitched in just the right way to avoid it carrying through the tunnels.

He regretted messing around immediately as the elf tensed and whirled almost faster than he could follow. One of her swords punched straight through both his Health and his gut, impaling him all the way to the hilt.

Ch 5: Leech Like Your Life Depends On It

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