Trouble never comes alone Options

[jack cloudy]

Yes, so I just couldn't resist and had to get this off my chest. We'll see how long it lasts. Same deal as with redemption, I'll be using this post as a character list and the first part will be in the next one. For now the list is simple.

A question. Should I add a separate entry for Spar at the very bottom that is basically the extra-spoilers edition?

Spar: A female Imperial and the main character of this story. Is guided by 'Them'.
(Portrait)

Silent Fist: A Companion Spar hires to escort her into Bleak Falls Barrow. He doesn't speak, wear shirts or use weapons. Click here for portrait

Faendal: A wood elf who lives in a small village known as Riverwood. He works as a hunter and lumberjack.

Lucan Valerius: The shopkeeper of Riverwood.

Jarl Balgruuf: The Jarl of Whiterun, a city located in the center of Skyrim between the fronts of the Imperial and Stormcloak factions.

Hrongar: Jarl Balgruuf's brother. Looks like he walked off the set of a Conan-film.

Irileth: A Dunmer who serves as Jarl Balgruuf's bodyguard.

Proventus Avenicci: Jarl Balgruuf's steward.


Vilkas: One of the Companions, a mercenary group in Whiterun
Vignar Grey-Mane: Formerly of the Companions, now retired.

Ulfric Stormcloak: The rebel leader in Skyrim, once on of the Emperor's generals.

Arkarik: Someone Spar was supposed to meet in Cyrodiil.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Aug 1 2013, 06:34 PM

[jack cloudy]

We'll hear more regarding the vampires later. Not this update though. No, this one is completely irrelevant.


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Chapter 2.3


I told the captain everything. How I'd been 'met' by the vampires on the road. What they looked like, their lack of weaponry, how they moved. What they'd said, down to an attempt at recreating their peculiar speech-pattern, and finally what happened or didn't happen after I killed one. I left out my failings or Them's involvement. He didn't need to know. When all was said and done, the actual report on the Stormcloak camp was almost an afterthought.


By the time the captain was done with me and I'd hauled myself up to the castle, it was almost morning again. My body and soul ached for the sanctuary of a soft and warm bed, but I couldn't. Early in the morning the Jarl had another meeting. I was not invited to this one, but I knew the Thalmor agent would be present which by extension made my own presence required as well. So instead of getting some much needed sleep, I had to satisfy myself with a thorough scrubbing and digging into Farengar's stash of homebrew energy potions. I wouldn't say that alchemy was the court wizard's strong suit, but his fare tasted better than the stuff the guard's got. And given how often he used them himself, I could be assured that there were no crippling side-effects.


It was about dragons again which with the Stormcloaks and vampires on my mind, was almost refreshing again.


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I made my way to the meeting room which was the same balcony/hall combination that Hrongar used as a training area for the palace guards. Currently the place was empty, but the longtables, weaponracks and fresh strawmen were already waiting. I sat down on the edge of one of the tables to wait for the Jarl and his entourage to arrive. A light gust of wind picked up a bit of straw from the floor and had it tumble along.
"Since no-one is here, I might as well see if I can't figure out what I did wrong."


I got back to my feet and walked over to one of the targets. There I brought up my hand and repeated all the motions I'd read in the tome, all the motions I could swear I'd performed the previous night. Palm up, spread the fingers, flatten out the hand completely. Feel the magicka in my flesh, my blood and my bones. Touch it, draw it out from the extremities and bring it together in a tight bundle in my chest. Coax the bundle up into the shoulder and back down through my arm to bring it to my hand. Split it into five equal portions and send each to the very tip of a different finger.


Now came the hard part. I had to let out a measured and even part from five different foci simultaneously, and weave the leakage into the spell with tiny motions of only the outermost fingerjoints. Pull, push, prod, squeeze. A blazing orb of light rose and hovered over my hand connected to me by five near invisible strands. A tinkling like tiny bells was in the air but gone the moment I focussed on the sound, to reappear when I gave up.
"One magelight. So far I seem to be doing it right." I thought as I observed the spell through half-closed eyes. What else could I have done wrong?


I turned my eyes on the straw dummy. The magelight spell was supposed to be thrown and stick to any surface it touched. Perfect for the mage who was too lazy to get out of his seat and search for a candle to light. The tome had described everything that counted as solid. All the lifeless matter, as well as vegetation such as trees. Even the surface of water would supposedly catch a magelight. I turned my palm toward the figure and pushed while clenching a fist to break the strands.


It floated sedately across the tiny distance. And stuck. The blinding little orb bobbed gently as the breeze tugged at the straw it was attached to, but it stuck perfectly.
"Then what? It can't stick to flesh?" I waited till I'd regathered enough magicka for another, then placed the next atop my own head. And going by the shadows I cast, it stayed there. So it wasn't a restriction in its sticking either. Maybe it was in the pause where I'd gone wrong. Another breather and another cast. No good, or still a perfect magelight depending on my point of view. There weren't many factors left that came to mind. Just speed and distance.
"Just how far can it fly and at what point does it go too fast to anchor itself?" The tome's writing still pulled me for a loop from time to time, but I was relatively sure it hadn't said anything on either. I resolved to test it for myself. From the other side of the room and throwing it out as hard as I could. It was a good thing I'd had so many memories of archery. My aim shouldn't be a problem. Still, I went for the center just to keep things simple.


Gather, split, weave and punch it across the room.
"What are you doing?"


I glared at the elf that had appeared on the balcony.
"Wasting time." I said. I couldn't admit I was stumped by a simple spell. That would be showing a weakness. Thalmor loved those. They kept lists of them, all the points on a person that they could leverage to their advantage. The women stepped off the railing, crossed her arms and surveyed the target.
"Wasting time? Coming from miss 'practice how to stab people while eating, drinking, reading and writing for maximum efficiency', that's rather hard to believe." She said with a grin. I felt the urge to plunge my knife into that heart and rid the world of at least one goldenskinned monster.
"Fine, I was waiting for the meeting. Don't want to be late and all. Or is my attention to time also hard to believe?"
"Tactics meeting isn't till noon, you're not invited to this one and blablabla. Now that we've gotten all the usual posturing and sniping out of the way, care to tell me why you made poor Siegfried of Strawstead into a Divine?"


I had aimed at its heart. With the speed, distance and droppage in mind it meant that I'd punched for the spot just over its head. Exactly the spot where the spell now clung to the wall. Against the vampire I'd aimed even higher.
"That one probably ended up catching a ride on a cloud." The good news was that I'd isolated the problem. Now I could start to work on turning it into reflex. The bad news was that it reinforced my view on the Altmer as a threat. Since spells didn't fall to the ground, she could literally just point directly at her target. And being an expert with decades to centuries of experience, she probably knew a better, quicker way of firing them.


I didn't give her an answer and she didn't push any further so we maintained a tense silence from opposite sides of the room. After some time the door opened to let in Jarl Balgruuf along with his foremost retainers. Irileth, Hrongar and Proventius. I was questioned on my presence but after pointing out my standing as the 'expert' on dragon anatomy they let me stay. Besides, I knew how to keep my mouth shut.


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"Bring them in."
At the Jarl's command a wheelbarrow was rolled in, filled with a clattering assortment of arms. Next to it were what I understood to be Whiterun's foremost weaponsmiths. Eorlund Gray-Mane and the steward's daughter, Adrianne Avenicci. The latter I'd seen at the castle a few times. Seeing the grimy and ripped woman always came as a bit of a shock next her father's clean dress, elegantly trimmed moustache and lacking physique. Today however I couldn't care less about familial resemblance. It was what was in that wheelbarrow that I wanted to see.


As was to be expected from the audience, the weapons the two smith's had come to demonstrate were not the run of the mill mass-production items sold to armies and individual buyers. These were made from the dragon's bones. It sounded like something an Orc would do, kill his enemies and make their remains into weapons to kill his other enemies with. Although I had to admit the idea appealed to me in this particular case. After all, I'd seen how ridiculously durable a dragon was and it had lost none of its near invulnerability in death. Besides, its corpse had to be taken apart anyway to keep it from resurrecting itself. It hadn't taken long till Hrongar voiced the idea that they might as well make use of all the 'junk'. Armour would have been my idea before weapons, but it wasn't my choice to make.


Eorlund Gray-Mane went first. An older man whose beard and wild hair went well with his name. He lifted a large swordlike weapon and offered it to the Jarl's brother. Proventius and the Altmer were already taking notes.
"Be careful when gripping it. The bone remembers the dragon. It still burns." He said and Hrongar took it by the grip that had been padded with chips of chalk. While the barbarian gave it a few swings to test the weight and balance, I fingered the knife at my belt. I was certain it was made of a dragon's bone as well. It possessed the same colour and the same outrageous hardness. But it didn't burn. The carvings in the Barrow suggested it once had and now Eorlund mentioned something similar. It had to be a matter of age. How long would the burn last and could we restore its effect by enchantment or something? I would have to discuss this with Farengar when he had time.


Meanwhile Hrongar had cleaved a few strawmen with a single stroke each. The targets smoked and sizzled along the cut. I really needed some of that for myself.
"The grip is becoming rather hot. What do I do with it, soak it in the well?" The man asked the smith who nodded in reply. On second thought, maybe restoring my knife's power wasn't such a good idea. I wasn't going to lug a bucket of water around all day just to keep it cool.


Eorlund Gray-Mane had a few more items for us to see. A hammer made from one of the dragon's molars, a humongous shield that came from the plates which covered the Dragon's spine and of course some variety of the Nordic axe. Proventius' daughter meanwhile came with a spear, some daggers and a prototype for a bow that no one in the room could draw. She said it was meant as a fixed weapon with all the strength of a ballista at less than a quarter the size. Everything the two smiths had made shared a common theme however. Use as many parts as possible with a minimum of reshaping work. When the two were forced to do something more than cobble things together with strings, they followed the path of natural fractures. Anything else was simply too ruinous on their bodies and tools.


The method of craftwork, weight, hardness, strength, inflexibility without brittleness, structure. Everything except colour matched another wondermaterial I knew. Ebony. Not exactly, but close enough that it made me wonder if there was a link. The significance wasn't lost on Jarl Balgruuf and his entourage either. The moment he'd dismissed the smiths he decreed that the dragon's corpse was the property of the Jarl and his line, to utilize solely in the defence of his hold. He needed those weapons and armour to ensure the neutrality of Whiterun at the heart of the war.
"Spin a good excuse for the public, Proventius." He said. "I'm not going to let a vital resource like this disappear in the hands of thieves, shady merchants or the Emperor's war fund."


I could understand his fear. Ebony had always been rare and mostly used in small but costly baubles. When it was crafted into a warrior's gear, the sheer cost of it would bankrupt most nobles. Yet the results were worth it. A man in Ebony plate was as close to invulnerable as possible even without enchantment. After the eruption of Red Mountain, the richest Ebony mines had become inaccessible, making it even harder to find and to buy. The final blow had been the Thalmor invasion. Emperor Mede, desperate for anything that could give his troops the edge over the Altmeri sorcery, had claimed all known pieces of Ebony and had them forged and enchanted into gear for him and his personal guard. Of course, there hadn't been enough time to get more than what was in northern Cyrodiil and southern Skyrim, but the royal decree had never been rescinded after the armistice was signed. If word came out, the Jarl could expect a similar decree on his new resource. Though personally I'd expect the Thalmor to make a move first.


"It may be too late for that." Irileth noted. "Did you hear what Eorlund said? He has apparently 'lost' most of his materials while learning how to do this. Melted down in his fancy Skyforge if you'd believe him. Hah! No doubt Ulfric will soon receive a winter gift courtesy of the Gray-Mane clan." She continued and Hrongar spat on the floor.
"I'm with her, brother. He's the best smith in all Skyrim and his clan will not let anyone forget it. To claim a failure would tarnish his honour and reputation. He's hiding something and when a Gray-Mane hides something, you know it will have something to do with the Stormcloak cause. Ulfric will want our weapons any way he can. No, he needs them."


Even Proventius added his support to the two.
"I won't claim any knowledge of the smith's trade. As much as Adrianne talks about it, I'm afraid it goes in one ear and out the other. But I do know a swindle job when I see one. Eorlund's weapons were made by splitting a single bone till he had a thin slice. How many more such slices do you think he could get from the same bone? Where does the forge come into it?" He said and went on after a breath.
"And my predictions came true, Jarl. The Stormcloaks won't be the only ones with knowledge of the dragon weapons. I am afraid that my daughter has also sent off some samples to prospective clients."


Balgruuf's fingers twitched momentarily, half-clenched in a fist, before he pushed his anger aside and regained his composure.
"So Stormcloak and Imperial alike will decide how much they want it." He stated matter of factly and turned to the steward. "How much did she take?"
"Not much. Flakes the size of a nail at most, just enough for testing. She knows she can't hide from me behind a rounding error. A lesson Eorlund Gray-Mane has yet to learn."


The Jarl debated the issue some more but I didn't pay it much attention. I didn't have anything to add and instead picked up one of the daggers. Compared to my knife it was smaller, less sharp and in general not as well made. For a first attempt though, I thought it was well made. Still far better than anything steel I'd ever wielded. As for the chalk, I wasn't sure how much good it did but it left residue all over my hands. And the weapon was definitely getting warmer as I held it.
"We'll have to make certain this does not happen again." The Jarl said. The finality in his tone of voice made me put down the dagger and look up.
"From now on I want all the dragon materials stored in the underground vaults. I want two keys and two locks, one on Proventius and one on Hrongar. You make sure you are together when that door opens and watch while the materials are removed. Make notes. Make them fill out inhuman amounts of paperwork. At sunset, any unused materials, finished products and unfinished ones alike are to be returned to the vault. Weigh them, scale them, whatever you need to know they're not keeping bits hidden. Any excuse, any failure to comply and their right to work with this stuff is revoked permanently."


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With that matter resolved, the Jarl had food brought in for an early lunch, which was breakfast for me. The next piece on the agenda was the regular anti-dragon meeting, the one I was expected to be present for. We still needed to wait for Farengar and Captain Caius though.
"Jarl Balgruuf, with your permission." I said formally. "There is something you should know."



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OOC: Now this update has absolutely nothing to do with Spar or her story. I did feel it was a good idea to put it in though as a possible setup for later events and more importantly, to show what Whiterun is doing with that dead dragon they found on their lawn.


Let me explain a bit further. In the game there is a skill-tree for smithing. Equipment in Tes games have always been separated into 'levels' which are indicated by their material. If fur/leather is level 1, then iron is level 2, steel level 3 etc. There is the separation between light and heavy armours which use different materials, but this will do for the basic idea. Now to be able to make equipment of a certain material, the player first needs to get his/her smithing up to the right level for it and then buy a perk. The Smithing tree has one such perk for each material, with the tree being conveniently split into the light and heavy paths. To get a perk for a high level material, you first need to buy all the lower perks in the same path.


And now we get to the importance of the 'dragon' material. The dragon perk is at the top of the tree, where the heavy and light paths come back together. To unlock it, you need to have your smithing skill maxed out, at a full 100 points. Daedric is 90, and Ebony 80 or 70 I think. So yeah, it is pretty awesome stuff. The ability to upgrade a fur bikini to a legendary fur bikini with as much protection as Ebony plate complicates matters a bit, but I digress. I don't know if Dragon gear actually defeats Daedric as far as basic non-upgraded stats go. It is powerful, for several thematic reasons, but it is also ridiculously easy to get. Dragons are everywhere and by the time you can use all those dragonbones and scales, you're likely swimming in the stuff. Daedric materials are much harder to get which in my mind means that it should be better for balance reasons.


In the game, no-one does anything with it. NPCs will gladly buy your bones and scales, but they don't craft items from it. Again, I can see why from a gameplay standpoint and to give the player more of a feel of accomplishment when they can finally turn the skin and bones of their enemies into weapons and armour. It just wouldn't be the same if you get the ding of level whatever and suddenly everyone is stocking mass-produced dragon-be-dead brand weaponry. But from a storypoint reason, it doesn't work. Someone would make use of the dragon skeletons the player leaves behind, even if it is just as a trophy. And if you can make so much awesome stuff from it, then why wouldn't all those self-proclaimed 'best smiths in Skyrim' not want to try?


So I decided that Whiterun would try to strengthen its position with new weapons. As for everyone in the room being rather anti-Stormcloak, that's how it is really. While not official, everyone considers Jarl Balgruuf to be on the Imperial side and Hrongar at least is vocally anti-Stormcloak.


And now before I shut up, three more random things.


I have no idea how well the chalk would work but if I understood the formula right, it takes a lot of energy to heat it up, making it a good barrier against the heat of a fresh dragon-bone. That, and it was one of the few materials I saw in the list I used that would be available to a medieval-level smith. I mean, plastics, advanced alloys and gasses would be a bit hard to believe.

Dragon-gear in Skyrim does not have anything heat-based. You need to enchant them like anything else if you want fancy effects. The dragon these particular weapons came from liked using fire and hey, I figured it would reinforce why this stuff is so important.

Dragons in the game burn away upon death, leaving only the bones, some tendons and a handfull of scales. This however only happens when the player (aka the mythical dragonslayer who absorbs their powers) gets close enough. Now the dragon in this story didn't burn. The reason for that was simply that I didn't want an obvious life-death marker and lightshow. I won't rule out future burnings though.