Dragonborn Chapter 73: Thalmor

Good morning.

It's warm in here, completely unlike the outside. My survival instincts are telling me to not even think about getting up. This only because my fur tent kept the inside so d.a.m.n nice and warm. Even though I am a Nord, I have that bad habit of not waking up early in cold days.

I was still dragged out by force and had some snow shoved in my clothes. Jull was in a bad mood as it seemed that I have snored a bit in the night.

Even Nefert.i.ti joined the other side and bullied me. I just can't... *sob* this is too hard.

Breakfast was ready, of course, I shamelessly sat down hoping to get some food but Jull was not even talking to me.

I should never snore anymore.

Yep, I am sorry.

I can't make puppy eyes so I was still treated coldly and had a little food.

Nefert.i.ti who sided with Jull was chewing on her favorite dried fish. She has grown a bit since the time I took her in. Still, I won't allow her to get fat and lazy.

Well, she is lazy.

After some time, we said farewell to Aranea, the priestessof Azura. We took off on our Flame Atronach Horses that we conjured at some distance away from the shrine.

Looking back at that beautiful statue, I had an urge and remembered something.

'System, can you take a screenshot!'

Hohoho! This Augur, what a fine work he did here! Let's try this then.

'Save it under the name 'Statue with b.o.o.bs!'

Save what now?

What is that Folder thing I heard?

'Save it in.. hmmm! 'Skyrim Landscape' folder.'

The h.e.l.l!

He didn't tell me it can do all that?

'Hm! Proceed.'

What th...

'...'

What is in front of me is something like a menu, it has some options like 'Status', 'Magic', 'Equipments', 'Map', 'Saved Data'.

'Saved Data' was like this..

-Saved Data:

×Skyrim Landscape

▶Statue_With_b.o.o.bs.jpge

'.... huh?'

'Oi! Oi! Are you kidding with me! System, did you upgrade or something?'

'Main branch now? ... f.u.c.k you!'

<.....>

'Sigh! Contact the main branch!'

{Your call was expected!}

'Don't tell me you are going to open a KFC stall soon?'

{The idea would be tempting if I had a mortal body.}

'What in Oblivion did you do to the System?'

{I must apologize for the first attempt at updating the system, it was my first time, after all, think of the last one as a beta version.}

'Fine! Why did you change it anyway?'

{It is simply because I could comprehend more knowledge from your memories!}

'Did you finally turn red and started calling yourself 'Sky Net'?'

{No at all! My goal was to put more effort into a.s.sisting you!}

'Well.... thanks!'

{Please make full use of the upgrades, on the following updates, I will make sure to contact you beforehand.}

'Okay, I was just shocked! Thank you!'

Sigh!

My immersion is getting destroyed!

What would Lord MxR think of his faithful follower if he knew about this?

[A/N: MxR, famous Skyrim youtuber, known as the Immersive Lord!]

Sigh!

Can't stop sighing.

Okay, system! Show me what you got.

'Status!'

-Name: Jon Dare

-Race: Human (Nord)

-Age: 15

-Level: 17

-Attributes:

Health: 148/148 ↑

Stamina: 107/107 ↑

Magicka: 520/520

-Active Effects:

Astral Damage: 19%

Nothing changed here! It just doesn't show Magic anymore.

'Equipments!'

-Equipments:

+Head

+Upper

+Lower

+Accessories

+Weapons

Hoho! Let's check them all.

×Head:

-Hood: Black Fur - Cloth

-Mask: Black Linen Face Cover - Cloth

×Upper:

-s.h.i.+rt: Grey s.h.i.+rt - Cloth

-Curia.s.s: Scaled - Light (50% Resist Magic)

-Cloak: Black Fur - Cloth

-Gloves: Gloves - Light (MP consumption -10%)

×Lower:

-Pants: Black Traveling Pants - Cloth

-Boots: Leather (m.u.f.fled) - Light

×Accessories:

-Ring: Nurina's Ring (Magicka Regen 150%)

-Necklace: Amulet of Talos (Thumm cooldown -50%)

×Weapons:

-Saber: <..> - Skyforge Steel (Paralyze + Burden Enemy Gear)

-Warhammer: Agni-Ra - Steel (Sun Damage)

-Dagger: Steel

d.a.m.n!

My fetish for wearing black clothes is showing its full might here.

I approve!

Good Job Augur.

I think I already know the Map and the Magic but I want to see the new spells.

-Mysticism:

▼Necromancy:

Reanimate

Supply Undead

Corpse Explosion ☆

-Alteration:

▼Object:

Stoneskin - Flameskin

Acceleration (moved from mysticism - time)

Binding ☆

-Restoration:

▼Sun:

Sunrays

Sun Fire - Sun Rune

Holy Smite - Paladin's Aura

Ultraviolent ☆

Great, I can't wait to use them!

"Hooman! Someone coming, Nya!"

Dammit!

I raised a flag.

"Where is that?"

"Ahead, Nya."

I cast 'Scan' to detect any signs of life or energy but I found nothing.

I wasn't surprised!

Nefert.i.ti is a 'Mage Sentry Cat', her kind is terrifying when it comes to detection or finding stuff. Even those who go into stealth with magic or hidden by the powers of Oblivion can be detected by these cats. Nurina said that they can sense Magicka better than any living being.

To think Nefert.i.ti can do it at almost four months of age. That's my girl!

I couldn't help but kiss that furry tiny thing.

Now let's try to see further!

I cast two times and two Familiar Falcons flew ahead. I was curious about who would come to this barren place.

This is the area west to the Shrine of Azura, this place has nothing but snow, not even a road, I even have to cast scan on the ground from time to time just to avoid any surprises.

The idea of someone traveling in this place other than me is somehow worth looking into, I may have to hide if it is something I can't face.

Finally, my Familiars detected something over 300 meters away. d.a.m.n, girl! Can you hear all this distance?

I commanded the Familiars to descend and investigate.

These were some people, the vision I receive from the Familiars are vague but I can tell from the movement that these are mostly weak people, some looked like carrying some weapons but the others appeared to be carrying children.

What is this? A caravan?

It can't be!

Not in this place!

"Jull, we are advancing ahead! Take Nefert.i.ti with you. Something is not right."

"Understood!" Jull took the small basket Nefert.i.ti stayed in and I rode faster to scout ahead.

I have a 'Pinpoint' mark on both Jull and Nefert.i.ti so they mostly can appear on the Map.

'System! Minimap.'

<*map*>

Good! My allies are the blue dots, my Familiars are the green, those people are yellow.

Kinda cool.

The Fire Horse galloped on the snow and its speed was amazing as ever, not even a minute has pa.s.sed and I was facing a group of people. They were in a miserable state, some were even injured badly.

They were about thirty, mostly women and children with seven men holding weapons. They looked as if they went through Oblivion and back.

Once they saw a man on a Fire Horse, they easily panicked and fell on their knees, they looked as if their minds were on the brink of despair and they easily fell to it.

The seven men jumped ahead to face me.

"Peace!" I raised a hand, "I hope I didn't give you a scare. I am just a traveling mage."

I removed my hood and face cover in attempt to make a friendly face.

The people looked at each other as if not expecting to see a Nord. Well, sorry to break it to you.

"Is something chasing you people?"

"Master Mage! Please save us we are dying!" a woman broke in crying after she wrapped the situation up in her mind, she cried at me holding her son in her arms.

"Speak!" I urged the men in the front to speak.

The eldest man among them put his spear away and said, "Thalmor Sir Mage! The Thalmor are chasing us!"

The situation was simple. A cult of Talos wors.h.i.+ppers lived in a village south to Dawnstar. It was in the west of Winterhold, five days of walking apart.

These people appeared to be a cult that wors.h.i.+pped Talos in secret and was discovered by the Thalmor. The Thalmor forced the Empire to allow them to hunt the wors.h.i.+ppers of Talos in Skyrim after the accident of Markarth and what Ulfric Stormcloak did when he demanded for the free wors.h.i.+p.

His action led to another political break down between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion as allowing Ulfric to have the free wors.h.i.+p he asked for was a violation to the White-Gold Concordat that was signed to end the Great War.

Due to this, the Thalmor agents and soldiers started going around Skyrim hunting the secret wors.h.i.+ppers like dogs.

How hateful!

More to that, The Thalmor actually dared and ventured far this east. One must know that the policies of the Empire are more applied west than east of Skyrim as in the west was the Capital, Solitude, the center of the imperial power, and in the east was the ancient city of Windhelm, the stronghold of Ulfric Stormcloak and the future base of the Stormcloak rebellion against the Empire.

This was clear as daylight!

The Thalmor are provoking Ulfric!

They want him to find out about their crimes against Nords near his doorstep, else, why would they let those people run all the way from the north of Skyrim to the east where they know it would be safer?

These people are just some messengers to put more oil on Ulfric's fire.

How sly!

I tried to locate The Thalmor and they were not that far, just half an hour away based on how leisurely they where traveling.

Their elven armors and robes gave them away immediately under the vision of my Familiars, I couldn't let the Familiars go nearer as they will get discovered and alert the Thalmor.

Still, their number was almost thirty too. I can't face them alone.

If I am going to act, I have two objectives.

First, the survival of the people. I had nothing to give them. The food I carry is only enough for two and a cat.

Second, the Thalmor need to be killed.

Now, let's act based on what we can do.

I gave the people directions towards the Shrine of Azura. This is the nearest place of inhabitants anyway.

Jullanar finally caught up and it was the time to lay an ambush. The Thalmor will be here soon and there is an Amulet of Talos on me. I don't think they would let a random human traveler pa.s.s alive anyway. These Elves are lawless.

"Jull, hand me the Soul Gems bag!" I said these words and my heart was quivering in pain.

"What will you do?"

"Watch an learn! There is nothing called number superiority when it comes to Jon Dare!"

"Yeah, sure! Here, go and get us killed!"

Sigh!

This girl needs to learn some manners.

Anyway, let's get this over with!

I went to the tracks of the escapees and started to prepare.

I had eleven Lesser Soul Gems which will be used right now.

I am using a technique I learned lately, it is cla.s.sified as 'Conjure Frost Atronach' but this is called 'Conjure Frost Guardian'.

What is it you ask? Well, it is the same as 'Conjure Frost Atronach'.

The only differences are, one barely get to control them around, and they stay in place, the only orders one can give them is 'enemy', 'ally', 'hide', stuff like that. More than that, they don't just get conjured by normal Magicka and cast technique, they require a Lesser Soul Gem each.

Pretty wasteful, right?

Well, they also have a big advantage! They are not bound to Oblivion anymore, which means they are summoned permanently. Due to that, they are stronger than their normal summon and leave bodies behind when they die, not like the normal summon that gets it body back to Oblivion. The best part about their trashy control is that you can have a large number of them. Larger than the number one normally can control. With the flaw of their mobility, all Guardian summons are perfect for defense and ambush.

Now I am surrounded by eleven of those and I could hide them successfully around the tracks.

They looked like ice pieces if one didn't notice their Magicka.

This is perfect.

I am in good mood now.

Time to hide.

I ran from the place and went to a higher ground where Jull and Nefert.i.ti hid.

The last touch I wanted to add was some undead. To not harm the Frost Guardians with friendly fire. I had to summon only Mistmen, the floating black upper-half skeletons that cast Frost Magic, I can get eight of them.

In my hand was a 'Bound Bow', and Jull was carrying her bow.

We will hunt them in the fray.

Not long later, Nefert.i.ti heard them getting nearer. I was on my toes ready for the ambus.h.!.+

Slowly they walked like mice in the trap, not expecting what was waiting for them.

Almost there!

Now they are surrounded!

'Attack!'