9 The Standing Stones (Part 1)

"Closest town from here is Riverwood my uncle Alvor is a blacksmith there I'm sure he'd be more than willing to lend us a hand" Hadvar spoke up as he led us down a small dirt path into the valley below.

"Whatever gets a roof over my head and mead in my stomach the fastest" Luna grumbled "I am completely done with today!"

I groaned in agreement, physically I was fine I noticed a while ago that my new body was leagues better than my old one and that I was barely even tired after running and fighting nonstop. But, mentally I was exhausted! Everything had happened nonstop from the moment I woke up in that stupid cart and now that I finally had a moment to breathe the gravity of my situation was finally sinking in.

I was in fucking Skyrim!

I couldn't have been reincarnated into something relatively safe like Pokemon or Stardew Valley, nope I lucked out and was transported to the medieval hellscape full of zombies, vampires, evil gods, immortal trolls, and giant fire breathing lizards!

"Sigh!"

'Whatever' I thought trying to look on the bright side, it could have been way worse since instead of Skyrim I could have been transported into something like Dead Space or Silent Hill... so yay for that.

I got shivers just thinking about the horrible ways I probably would have died if that happened.

All of a sudden the cold mountain breeze seemed a bit more pleasant and I realized for the first time just how beautiful my surroundings were.

The scent of pine trees filled the air and patches of wild flowers grew all around us as several butterflies and bumblebees fluttered about. And in the distance I could see several mountains larger than anything I had ever seen rising up over the horizon as the morning mist was blown away revealing an enormous lake with crystal clear waters off in the distance.

It was actually quite beautiful and peaceful here, as long as I ignored the giant pillar of black smoke rise up behind us.

"Anyway" Hadvar broke the silence "Listen you two should consider going to Solitude and joining up with the Imperial Legion we could really use people like you, the rebels have themselves a dragon now and General Talius is the only one who can stop them."

"Yeah, hard pass on that" Luna snorted "Putting aside the fact the Legion just tried to execute me for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not exactly the soldier type I'd probably end up causing more trouble than I'm worth."

"Fair enough" Hadvar sighed having excpected as similar answer. "What about you Brenton" he looked towards me?

"You know I have a name right" I replied getting a little tired of being called by my race.

"Forgive me" Hadvar rubbed the back of his head and laughed awkwardly "In all the chaos I forgot to get your names down. The Captain will skin me alive for that... if she's even still alive."

"...My name is Aaron" I eventually spoke up ignoring gruesome picture Hadvar just painted.

"I'm Luna" the white haired Khajiit gave her own name.

"Well, Aaron" Hadvar asked again "What do you think about joining the Legion?"

"Honestly" I sighed "While I'm not 'completely' against joining the Legion I don't think I have the time. There's just too much to worry about at the moment."

"Like what" Hadvar looked at me curiously and I could also see Luna giving me a side-glance.

"Haha" I laughed out loud "You wouldn't believe me if I told you!"

"Try us" Luna raised an eyebrow.

"Well" I crossed my arms and nodded sagely "Aside from stopping that black dragon we saw earlier from literally eating the world. I also have to try and find time to stop a group of ancient vampires from blocking out the sun, stop a Thalmor elf from using an all powerful magical device to do... something, stop the Wolf Queen from resurrecting, and search out and find all the legendary artifacts scattered around the country."

"Hahahaha oh, my" Hadvar lost it "You do have a busy schedule! Ahaha, you know if you don't want to join the legion you could just say so?"

I just shrugged while Hadvar laughed and ruefully shook his head while Luna gave me a skeptical look.

Eventually as Hadvar stopped laughing an awkward silence descended so to give us something to talk about I decided to ask Hadvar about the familiar ruins visible atop the mountain in front of us.

Hadvar frowned and glanced up at the enormous blackstone structure "That's Bleak Fall Barrow! It's pretty scary looking high up there on the mountain isn't it? It's funny when I was a boy that place always used to give me nightmares. I'd imagine the Drauger lumbering down the mountain and crawling in through my window at night. Still don't much like the look of it now that I think about it."

"What exactly is a Barrow" I asked since I've always wondered? "I understand it's some type of grave but, what makes it different from a regular tomb?"

"Good question" Hadvar answered "A Barrow is a holy or consecrated burial place specifically prepared for Nord dead. Most Nord families actually have an ancestral barrow" he glanced again up at the barrow "But, those are normally much more lowkey and are filled with considerably less Draugr than most of the more ancient barrows you'll find around Skyrim."

"What's up with that anyway" Luna questioned? "I thought you Nord's hated magic, necromancy especially. So why all the undead?"

"I don't rightly know" Hadvar scratched his chin "Most of the barrow filled with Draugr are old, really old and if rumors are to be believed predate even the First Era. All I really know about them is what every Nord knows, and that's that the ancient barrow are cursed and that you stay away from them if you value your lives."

"Hmm" Luna pondered.

I thought about speaking up, since I knew that the Draugr in those ancient barrows were mostly ancient dragon cultists. Who turned themselves into undead to serve their masters even in death but, decided to keep quiet. Since even if they believed me I didn't want to have to answer any question about how I knew that for now.

I was probably going to have to have that conversation with Luna regardless since she was probably the Dragonborn but, it would have to wait until we parted ways with Hadvar. Not that I didn't trust him but, it was basically a given that anything I told him would eventually make its way back to the Legion and I didn't want any of the bigshots knowing too much about me until I had gotten a bit stronger.

"Oh, we've finally made it to the main road" Hadvar spoke up as we finally left our small dirt trail and came to a much nicer looking stone path that overlooked a rushing river. "Riverwood is only a short walk downstream from here" Hadvar continued "If we're lucky we'll make it just before nightfall."

"Great" Luna shifted awkwardly "Because these Legion boots weren't made for Khajiit and are really killing my feet."

Hadvar chuckled "Don't worry cat like I said my uncles a blacksmith and I'm sure he'd be more than willing to refit those boots for you."

"Hey what are those" I asked shifting everyone's attention to the three giant stone obelisks that rested down near the river.

"Those are the guardian stones" Hadvar answered "Three of the thirteen ancient standing stones that dot skyrim's landscape. Each stone represents one of the guardian constellations that exist in the night sky which are The Thief, The Mage, and The Warrior respectively. They supposedly grant blessings to those deemed worthy but, I've never actually heard of that happening before."

"Let's go check them out" I dashed off before giving either of them a chance to respond!

"He's certainly excited" Hadvar blinked.

"Mages" Luna just shook her head exasperated "They go completely crazy whenever there's magic stuff involved."

"Indeed" Hadvar chuckled "Let us catch up to him before he falls in the river."

"Or blows himself up" Luna added.

As I sprinted down towards the stones I couldn't help being excited because they were exactly what I needed right now! Even though the Three Guardian Stones effects weren't the Stones with the best effects they were definitely the most useful for a weakling like me! They would make my Mage/Warrior/Thief Skills raise 20% faster depending on which one I chose.

The only question is which one would I pick?

The Thief Stone was already out since even though Sneak, Archery, and Alchemy were incredibly useful skills that I was definitely going to master at some point. The other skills in the Thief Skill Tree were things that weren't too useful in combat like Speech, Lockpicking, and Pickpocketing and also leveled up extremely slowly wasting the stone's blessing. And while Light Armor was another useful skill, I had no plans on leveling it since that involved getting hit in combat something I was planning to avoid as much as possible.

That left the Warrior and Mage Stones respectively and I was honestly having a hard time choosing between the two.

I could choose the Mage Stone and double down on my Magic but, I didn't have too many spells at the moment and my limited mana pool would stop me from casting too many spells even if I knew them. Leveling up wouldn't really solve that problem either since you only get 10 Mana per level up which wasn't a lot. The only real way around that problem was to find or make myself a set of good equipment that boosted it up to acceptable levels.

I mean just look at what I was wearing right now.

I only had a pair of Apprentice Robes and Hood the weakest set with most basic enchantments but, it already gave me +30 Magika and +50% Magika regen speed!

The only problem was that most of the good equipment were attached to strong enemies or given as quest rewards. So I wasn't going to be getting my hands on any legendary equipment anytime soon.

The other option was to make them myself which is what I usually did in game since the Enchanting skill in the Mage Skill Tree was completely overpowered. But, because of how powerful it was it also leveled equally slowly meaning I wouldn't be able to make anything worthwhile for a long time even with the Guardian Stone's bonus.

Which left the Warrior Stone as the final option.

The Warrior Skill Tree had a lot of useful skills like One Handed, Two Handed, Blocking, Heavy Armor, and Smithing that were relatively easy to level and would be a huge help in staying alive. And even though I was technically I mage I always leaned more towards a Mage/Warrior hybrid since I always seemed to find myself running out of mana during a fight and having to resort to close combat in the game.

Plus the Heavy Armor and Blocking Skills were basically a requirement for me since my goal was to take as little damage as possible. I'd have to do a bit of research about whether wearing heavy armor affected my spells at all since it sometime does and sometimes doesn't in Elder Scrolls games. But, even if it did it wasn't much of a problem since I could switch between clothes and armor in an instant with my system.

But, most of all I wanted to learn Smithing.

It was one of the fastest ways to level up in the entire game and would only be that much better with the Warrior Stone's effect. Plus once I mastered it I could make the best weapons and armor along with a nice amount of money from selling anything that I made. And unlike Enchantment and Alchemy which required rare and expensive ingredients all I needed to get started smithing was a forge and some iron.

So without any hesitation I stood below the massive stone monolith that was the Warrior Stone and slowly reached out and ran my hand across the intricate engraving of an ancient nord warrior causing a familiar prompt to appear.

The Warrior Stone

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Those under the sign of The Warrior will learn all combat skills 20% faster.

You may only have one sign blessing active at a time.

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Accept Sign Cancel

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I mentally clicked accept and everything was quiet for a moment before the engravings on the stone lit up and mysterious ball of energy appeared in the hollow of the stone before launching itself up into the sky creating a massive beam of light that must have been visible for miles.

'Thankfully it's still daytime so I doubt anyone noticed' I heaved a sigh of relief before taking my hand off the stone and sheepishly looking back at my companions who were still staring slack jawed up at the fading beam of light. 'Well anyone aside from them' I chuckled at their ridiculous expressions.