The Dragonborn Comes

"Your lust for loot is unseemly." Skjor whinged as I securely tied down the last of my loot to my enormous homemade loot sled.

In a pile on the loot sled lay all the weapons and armor from the bandits we'd hunted down earlier in the day, their valuables, and a bunch of mammoth tusks they'd been stockpiling. It was a killer haul.

"You are going to want to climb on." Jack told him as she stood at the top of Mt. Murderhobo, "Grunt's going to want to get back before dinner time and he won't wait for your old wrinkly ass if you fall behind."

"If you think I will be outrun by a lizard hauling all of that," He indicated to me tying myself into a harness to pull the loot sled, "then you have lost your mind."

Two Hours Later

Skjor had fallen to his knees in front of the south gate into Whiterun as he struggled to both catch his breath and keep from puking after the pace I set on our return trip.

"Next time…" he gasped, "I ride the loot sled."

"Told you so." Jack mocked as she dropped down from Mt. Murderhobo like the queen of the world.

Despite having to navigate the streets of Whiterun at a sedate pace, we still made it back in time for dinner, and afterwards were inducted into the Companions in a ceremony I'd give a five out of ten. I'd been declared the Overlord of the Krogan and the Archon of the Hutts. Unless I get crowned the King of Asgard, I don't think I'll be attending any ceremonies that stick out.

The next morning I took up an apprenticeship under Eorlund, melting down the gear we took from the bandits into fresh bar stock and then beginning the laborious process of transforming regular steel into Skyforged Steel. Each bar needed to undergo one hundred folds using the heat of the magic forge to reach the quality expected in weapons made for the Companions and their associates.

While this process could be continued in perpetuity, each fold resulted in diminished returns. Hundred fold Skyforge Steel swords are comparable to elven swords, while thousand fold Skyforge Steel swords are comparable to glass swords. While the effort wasn't near worth the pay off, I did find that my prowess as a smith improved far faster in the last ten folds of a Skyforge bar that in the first ten.

It became apparent to me that Eorlund, despite his many years of experience, wasn't very smart. He basically grinded out his levels in blacksmithing forging iron daggers. Over his long career he had never thought to use fire salts to cut down on heating time, never experimented with alchemical quenches. It literally took me three weeks to dial in the right amount of fire salts to increase the forge efficiency without risking ruining the product and that using even the cheapest resist fire potion for quenching reduced the risk of stress failure to zero and hardened the metal even more than an ice water quench.

Unfortunately, some intelligent being has patched out the fortify skill potions and enchantments, so I couldn't just exploit the shit out the crafting system to produce the Iron Sword of OP Brokenness with world ending enchantments. Feels bad, man.

Despite Eorlund being a complete square, he was handy for helping me increase the grind speed on my smithing skill and connecting to the Smithing Stars. I found that the final quality of the Skyforge Steel also drew on the smiths metal lore, so I connected to the entire constellation and discovered that my hundred fold steel was now of the level of Eorlund's thousand fold steel, and I found it far more responsive to my shaping.

This discovery along with the love my fellow Companions now held for the loot sled and its more professionally crafted descendants made me the most popular member of our group. Not that it was hard as my only competition was Farkas, Kodlak, and Jack.

Who could have guessed that making badass weapons of badassery and increasing the profitability of our battles would make a band of mercenaries like me?

I made new suits of armor for Jack and myself as well as updated our weapons to use my new super alloy. Given our raw strength and the intense difficulty involved in killing us, I may have gone above and beyond in making the armor scary as fuck. When I was done with mine it looked like General Raam and Garrosh Hellscream had pulled off the fusion dance and become a heavy metal hell lizard.

I'd worked the skull of the mega bear into a workable visor for my helmet and armored my arms asymmetrically as the left arm would operate a brutal spiked pavis and wouldn't need any further protection. Then I studded the right arm with the mega bear's brutal claws like a prehistoric Shredder.

I covered all the darkened steel with nordic scrollwork in honor of the setting and The Mule 2.0 gave Torvar an erection that lasted longer than four hours.

Jack got similar upgrade and especially liked the hagraven feather mohawk crest I put on her helmet.

The coup de grace came in the form of the Skyforge Steel bows I made. Mine was more akin to a one man ballista and I carried a bag of javelins shaped like arrows for it, while Jack's was a more toned down reflex bow that could launch the heavy bodkin arrows I made her over 300 meters.

When Aela asked me if I was planning to takedown a dragon while we practiced our archery I told her, "Absolutely."

"Well, you will have to go a long way to Akavir to accomplish that." she nodded and continued her practice.

I chose to ignore her accusatory glare when one of the Jarl's soldiers ran into Jorrvaskr shouting about a dragon attacking the Western Watchtower.

The morale of the guard force improved greatly when we arrived at the rally point with Aela, Kodlak, and Athis. Mine; however, dropped significantly. I didn't see the horned badass from the video game trailer anywhere, and instead the only person who stood out did so for the wrong reasons.

I spotted a nord girl with straw colored hair hanging out of a homemade hide helmet, clutching a self forged iron dagger to her chest in a blood stained too big Stormcloak uniform. She looked sixteen and terrified, and I realized that Skyrim wasn't going to be saved by some unstoppable epic hero powered by the gamer's insatiable desire for loot and adventure. The fate of the world was in the hands of a modern hero. A scared teenager with no business being a hero.

Ah shit.

"With Bearsbane here we won't need to do anything!" Shouted someone who was much happier than I was right now, "He'll just pin the damn thing down and fuck it to death!"

I see that Whiterun's epidemic of limping females had only improved the mood of these former adventurers.

"I'll be remembering your mother the whole time, Mika." I told the chatty guard.

"She has been pestering me to get you back in her bed lately." the man admitted without shame, "I am glad the memory is so strong, makes my job convincing you all the easier."

What the fuck is wrong with these people.

"And don't forget my sister!" Shouted Sturn, "And we can get a drink when you're done at the Bannered Mare!"

Don't these people realize that fucking their mothers and sisters is supposed to be the end of our friendships. We aren't supposed to go out for a night on the town after I have plowed your sister into a blissful stupor, Sturn. You are supposed to fight me.

The emboldened guards followed Balgruuf's housecarl Irileth out to the Western Watchtower and we followed them with a shaking teenager trudging along with us.

"What's your name, kid?" I asked her.

"Brienne." quavered the young nord woman.

"Brienne." I repeated, "Nice name. I see you too cannot contain your excitement about the coming battle. I am also shaking in joy, you just can't tell because of all my neat armor."

"Shouldn't the armor make the shaking more noticeable?" she asked in confusion.

"You would think that..." I shook my head, "Do you think that some dragon bones will look good with all the others, or will it be too much? Maybe swap out the mammoth tusks for a pair of dragon horns? Change out the leather for some dragonhide."

"You definitely look like you have tried very hard with your look." Brienne stated with a bit more ease in her tone, "But I definitely think you should swap up to dragon parts after you finish fucking it to death."

"Don't let these foulmouthed barbarians taint you, kid." I chided her.

"Did you really lay with Mika's mom and Sturn's sister?" She asked.

"Yeah." I answered.

"Why?" her virginal question made me chuckle.

"Cause it felt good… and apparently didn't bother anyone." I told her, "Do they respond so well to this kind of thing where you are from?"

"No." she shook her head, "I had a friend Tifa who took up with a man and her family disowned her. I was her only friend left after the rumors got out. They called her all sorts of terrible things, but I couldn't believe that about my friend… but I should have. Tifa ruined everything for me back home."

"I am sorry to hear that, kid." I sympathized with her, "The last guy who betrayed me got cut into three pieces. I tried for four, but I didn't get all the way through both arms in one swing and taking another would be unsportsman like."

A few smoking corpses lay about the Western Watchtower as we approached, but no dragon. I kept my eyes on the sky while everyone else spread out looking for survivors. In preparation I stabbed a handful of my big boy arrows into the ground and strung my humongous Skyforge Steel bow.

Jack and Aela did similarly at other positions and we waited calmly.

"Hurry up and get in here!" A man called from the tower, "That thing is still out their.

A roar echoed off the nearby mountains and a green dragon came bearing down on us from above.

When I say dragon, that is only in the Elder Scrolls sense of the word. Physically he is a wyvern, as he lacks the forelimbs of a proper dragon.

I sent up an arrow that tore through his wing membrane, but did not seem to cause him any trouble flying, and soon the other archers began firing upon the approaching beast, many missing, and others bouncing off his scales.

I missed my next two shots while the beast rained fire down on us in passing, but a third landed in the beast's side and caused it to cry out. It controlled its descent and upon landing used a clawed foot to pull the arrow out.

With the beast on the ground I sprinted over to it with my shield raised and the new and improved Mule in my hand. The beast's deadly fire was reduced in power by my connection to the Block Stars, allowing me to close distance without too much damage and smack the damn thing in the face with my hammer. As it reeled from the blow I circled around it and slammed my axe down in near the joint were its wings unfold and I yanked the scythe like axe underjaw down, splitting the wing and ensuring the beast couldn't take off again.

The maneuver put me in perfect position for the retaliatory tail strike that sent me flying. Thank God I broke my fall with my neck, otherwise I could have really been hurt.

The dragon didn't get the chance to admire his terrific golf swing as Jack hit him in the face with a Warp attack, the grinding sphere causing him to scream until she detonated it with a Shockwave that lifted the dragon slightly and primed it again for the detonation she caused with her biotic Charge. Jack arrived at the dragon in an instant and buried her sword in its chest before twisting it and walking the weakened beast down while our friends harried it from the sides.

After I collected my scattered thoughts off the ground, I ran at the big bastard and executed a Critical Charge attack that bit deeply into the dragon's neck. A trio of Savage Strikes later and the beast's head came away clean.

I took off my helmet and licked the tasty blood off my axe while the dead dragon lit up like the northern lights and the beast's soul was sucked into Brienne. While most people gaped at the girl, I grinned at the dead beast who had not turned into a pile of bones.

"Mika, Sturn." I yelled at the stunned guards, "Run back and have them send down some carts full of mead. As for the rest of you, get a bonfire going. The enemy brought the victory feast with him!"