8 8 - The Determination of the Free

'Screw the forsworn, this is my life and mine alone. I stood up, my eyes had a new fierce determination. A determination to get stronger, to make my own mark in this world and live my own life, free from worry, pressure or fear.

'From now on, my name is.. Leo Volts.

There was no special meaning to it, but it symbolised a new start. Free from others, free from the forsworn. I was the one to dictate my actions, my thoughts, even my name, I decided who I am, not someone else, especially the forsworn.

Pushing open the hatch, moving the rug as I did so, the room was revealed. The chest that was at the foot of the bed was wide open and empty while the floor had multiple plates and foods spread across the floor which had clearly been on the table at some point.

'It seems they came in and pillaged this house too.'

I made my way over to what could only be the pantry and saw that inside there was a fair amount of food along with some drinks surrounded by some lines of ice.

'Is that an ice-rune that's cooling the drinks? Aren't runes supposed to be really complex? Even if they're as weak as this, it wouldn't be easy to make a functioning rune.'

'sigh, no point thinking about it now, is there?'

Quickly loading a leather bag that I found with as much long-lasting food that I could find like a cheese-wheel and salted bear meat wrapped in cloth. 'This guy had some fancy food.'

I also stored as much alcohol as I could in the bag which was 6 bottles of mead and 2 bottles of wine.

Finally, I was ready to go.

Opening the wooden door, I looked around and saw bodies scattered around, with piles of blood beneath the bodies bearing various types of disfigurement

Wincing, I did my best to ignore them and move along.

Going from house to house, that were in various states of mess, I looked for any spare money or valuables that the forsworn might have missed.

It took 45 minutes to search each and every house and I managed to find an unsearched basement along with an untaken pouch of septims under a bed in the biggest house of the village which had 4 different bedrooms and 3 floors including the basement which was far bigger than most of the other houses in the village. I counted 14 gold coins in the pouch. I also found some normal coins scattered across the floors of various houses which added up to 20 silvers and 91 copper.

Another change that differed this world from the game was the currency system didn't just consist of gold septims but silver and copper ones too. 10 copper made 1 silver, with 10 silver making a gold septim.

I didn't have many encounters with money with the forsworn, but I did find out that gold septims were considerably more valuable than they were in-game. For example, while in game something like a steel sword would cost around 40-50 gold, here they're worth no more than 4-5 gold.

The books in each house were all still there, but only 2 houses had any magical ones.

One was from the house that I first entered. The man's armor was very high-quality and made of a metal that I've never seen or heard of but was obviously at least better than steel, and the only magical book that I found was not only very old, but very big and thick too. From the quick skim over, it contained all sorts of different spells, I even saw that one of the pages contained a rune drawn on it which I will read again later.

As for the other house, they had a single magical spell called 'Fire Cleaver' which was apparently a family spell that had been able to survive through the generations and be passed along. 'Can't be passed along any more, can it?' I thought bitterly.

In this world, magic knowledge was a lot rarer and harder to attain than the games suggested. There are of course, common spells like a simple fireball or ice bolt that can be bought or found in quite a few places but, this is real life, and magic is a lot more comprehensive than the game was.

Many strong, wealthy and/or powerful families have many unique spells that are exclusive to their family and protected from being learned by outsiders heavily.

Even Bitch, or 'Anla', only had some forsworn exclusive fire magic books with most being fairly common, probably stolen from others.

Back on track, I decided to spend the night in this village. The biggest house had a bed that while in the modern world would be stiff and uncomfortable, here it almost made me moan in delight from how soft it was compared to the shitty forsworn beds that were barely better than the floor.

Considering it was just barely evening, I decided to train the 'Fire Cleaver' spell in the basement.

My talent with the fire element isn't bad, but nothing to really brag about either, but I don't care, I'll learn this spell as fast as possible because, compared to a fireball, it was far more versatile when cast correctly

It shoots out a.. slice.. of fire that can be changed in width or size but is generally around 1 metre wide.

Magicka was a heavily mental activity and relied on imagination quite heavily which was something I prided myself on in my past life, but even after 3 hours of trying, I just couldn't get the right ratio of variables to cast the spell.

The best result that I got was when I thought of a fireball becoming thinner and wider but that just lead to the spell falling apart after a few feet of being cast, not to mention how hard it was to keep my magicka flowing evenly in such a shape while making sure nothing falls out of place. For now, I've decided to to stop trying, but I will definitely get back to it tomorrow.

I also need to read the rare magic book that I found earlier, no matter how low-level the rune was, the only mention of it that I had about beforehand said that runes were very complex and rare but also incredibly versatile. They could be used to cause massive amounts of damage to the point of disrupting armies if they were high-level enough, to even cooling your drinks, however, even a single mistake, be it a disruption of magicka flow, a stray thought messing you up, to a wrongly drawn line, the rune would not only not work but even possibly blow up which could cause absolutely catastrophic results if done incorrectly making runes a very very dangerous topic

It didn't help that most of the strongest runes seen in history have been lost in time or hoarded by powerful families. The only family in skyrim that were known to specialise in runes and be actually powerful enough to use them in battle were the Nightshade family but even they weren't very public and mostly kept to themselves.

To put it simply, families keep their knowledge to themselves, especially magical knowledge, and only share it with their children or apprentices, and runes are even rarer and even more secretive with their knowledge.

It was pretty normal to do that, I mean, in this world, strength is everything, why would you share the secrets to your strength with others? Of course, there was the College of Winterhold, but you needed to prove that you had the talent and dedication to join them, which the average person lacks, and it's not like once you join, you have access to all of the knowledge they have, not many have what it takes to join the College of Winterhold and even less are able to master even one school of magic, overall, it would take a lot of effort, time and talent to reach the top-levels of the College and they're quite thorough in making sure you're not learning magic to take over the world or run around killing innocents or something.

Anyway, I decided to call it a night. I would cook some food, go to sleep, and make my way to the nearest major city to find out if there have been any dragon sightings or attacks. I imagine if there have been, it won't be very hard to find out, considering people would definitely be talking about something as big as dragons appearing.

Picking up the highest quality recipe book that I could find, I decided that I would cook a beef stew all to myself.

Luckily, I've always been good at following instructions and in the past, I was borderline OCD with preparing all of the right equipment and ingredients.. let's hope it wasn't stamped out of me with the horrendous food and hygiene of the forsworn. I mean, 80% of the food they ate was raw fucking meat and I was forced to eat with Bitch so there was no cooking it, no spices either. Not even salt.

It took 2 hours.

Wiping the saliva that was threatening to spill out of my mouth from just the smell, I slowly poured the stew into a bowl until it was filled to the brim and with a ridiculously steady hand cultivated after years of physical training, I didn't spill a single drop.

Placing it on the table, I puck up a large metal spoon, placed it into the bowl, picking up a tender meat chunk as I did so, and put it into my mouth.

In that moment, I don't think my instincts had ever been so strong. My hand had moved before I even willed it to do so and there was already another spoonful heading to my mouth. The stew that was full of juice, Sweet, slightly salty and so succulent and warm, I must be in heaven. Yes, this is definitely in heaven.

How can food taste so good? Never, in my past life, or this life, have I ever tasted something so amazing. I should become a chef, no, you know what, if there's a cooking skill out there, mine will reach level 100, that's goal number 2, just under getting as strong as humanly possible.

After drinking 4 bowls and having my stomach hurt from being so full, I waddled my way upstairs and threw myself onto the bed, I was asleep in seconds.

..

Waking up and groaning, I covered my eyes to stop the sunlight from beaming into my eyes.

'Fucking sun, what did I ever do to you? Can't you blast the corner over there? Why my eyes of all places.'

Getting up, I made my way downstairs and thought about what I would do today.

1: Make my way to Markarth, the nearest City.

2: Read the rare magical book that I found along the way

3: After the 5 hour walk, find out if the dragons are here.

4:.. Figure out what to do once i'm there.