Chapter LXVI: Reprieve

The celebratory feast was prepared in record speed, the deeply ingrained Nordic need to get drunk after a good battle being far more potent than any exhaustion the defenders might have felt. Barrels of mead and ale were rolled out from the Thane's own stock and the abundance of supplies prepared for the siege was now being cooked up by the merry residents.

I had just finished reporting the entire thing with Harald to the new arrivals and went to relieve myself when a young Nord approached me. I recognized him as one of the lads tasked with sharpening the stakes for Gatecrasher during the siege and greeted him with a polite nod.

He seemed uncomfortable with whatever he was about to say, and I was not about to waste time waiting for him to gather himself "What do you need?" I ask not tersely but still urging him to hurry up.

He stills and lets out a fearful breath "Umm... I..." he slaps himself and nods in determination "I saw what you did to those Reachmen, and I was wondering... if you were willing to teach me magic?"

I smiled at his initiative, but my hands were already full "I already have two apprentices, and I took them on for far better reasons than them merely asking me."

He sighs as his eyes radiate disappointment, he looks ready to turn and leave but I interrupt "You could always join the college if you were so eager to learn."

He lets out a self-deprecating chuckle "Thank you for the recommendation sir, but I could never afford even to travel there."

"Hmmm" I scratch my chin "And why the sudden urge to learn?"

"Are you kidding?" He almost looks at me like I am an idiot "If this is where the lands are going I am going to need to do far more than merely sharpen stakes sir."

"Tell you what" I say as I pull out the notes I made on accessing Magicka "If you manage to do what is written here before we leave, I will see what I can do about getting you a... scholarship let's call it." There goes my good deed for the year.

His eyes blaze in excitement as he grabs the folded notes and gives me an earnest bow "I won't disappoint you, sir."

"See that you don't" and before he can rush back to wherever he is no doubt going to spend the entire night in meditation I ask "What is your name kid?"

He stills and looks aghast "Sorry about that, name's Onmund"

Onmund eh? Small world... "Good luck to you, Onmund"

I walk back to the large table where most of the upper crust were seated, my apprentices being seated nearby with the housecarls and my colleagues from the college, sharing stories about the siege.

I note the distinct lack of King and Elisif as I take a seat next to a bored Sybille "Not enjoying the celebrations Syb?" I ask as I grab a bottle of mead.

She rolls her eyes "As if there was anything to enjoy, just a bunch of sweaty Nords screaming their guts out while the corpses outside are still drying."

"So morbid madam" I tease, even though I agreed about the corpses not being dealt with, at least the new legionary recruits were finally being useful and piling them up while we partied... poor sods "Let them have their little party, we will be marching after the cave-dwellers as soon as tomorrow."

"Why were you so insistent about hunting them down?" Before I can interject she adds with amusement "Besides the obvious." 

"I have just a wee bit of a grudge against Namira" I shrug, not at all caring about saying the name out loud "And I promised the foul thing that whenever I found a temple of hers I would burn it to the ground, this is merely fulfilling that promise."

She tilts her head and shrugs uncaringly "Well, it isn't like someone needs a reason to destroy those disgusting things."

"A bit hypocritical coming from one of ole' Molly's" I raise an eyebrow.

She shivers in disgust "I don't worship that... thing!"

I raise my hands placatingly "Alright, I was just teasing."

"Well, kindly do not 'tease' about that" She grits out, while unconsciously crushing her goblet.

As I am about to apologize I notice something out of the corner of my eye, change of topic go! "Look over there" I say in a hushed tone.

She follows where I am pointing and lo and behold under one of the towers there stood Torygg and Elisif exchanging necklaces.

Sybille coos at how cute they are. Apparently, Sybille was a friend of Elisif's mother before she died and was something of an aunt figure to the future Queen.

"Oi Harald" I elbow the Thane who was dozing off nearby, he grumbles as I wake him up and immediately focuses on the scene as if following some supernatural instinct.

"Imma kill him" He states with finality as he pulls out his axe.

I roll my eyes "You will do no such thing"

He turns back to me and angrily starts "And how are going to sto-" just in time to see me grinding a soul gem on the blade of my staff, moving it in such a way that it produced sparks as if I was sharpening it.

"You were saying?" I ask with a shit-eating grin.

He knew damn well he couldn't go against me after my display today, not to mention that he did owe Torygg for saving his ass. So as any self-respecting Nord, he grumbled 'I am too sober for this' and downed an entire bottle of black briar.

Minutes later he could be seen dancing with the warriors and trying, emphasis on the trying, to join them in a rowdy song.

Noticing the opportunity Marco excused himself from his group and stood at the center of the feast, everyone quieted down as they saw him prepare his lute, and the complete madman started singing a song he improvised on the spot about our battle.

What surprised me most was the sudden feeling of elation and pride that assaulted me, and everyone around me if their reactions were any indication.

Perhaps the brat was actually good for something...

"Why didn't you tell me your student was actually competent?" Sybille muses as she visibly enjoys the performance.

"No enthralling my students Sybille" I narrow my eyes in exasperation.

"Not even a little?" She gives me puppy eyes, and let me tell you vampiric puppy eyes were a terrifying weapon.

I shoo her away with my hand "Go get your own"

She pouts "You don't give me anything nice."

There is an idea... I grasp at my heart "Is my time and affection truly so worthless?"

She rolls her eyes "Fine, I guess you can keep him."

We share a chuckle and go back to listening to the performance.

----------------------

All the mages present spent the following morning burning the massive piles of Reachmen corpses, after they were thoroughly looted of course, the don't look the dead only really mattered when it came to dead Nords apparently.

I had to actually kick Marco into continuing when he kept constantly vomiting at the sight, at least he didn't whine this time...

Minthara on the other hand had no problems burning the corpses, naturally that couldn't be all so I had to constantly monitor the over-enthusiastic demigod in case she decided to practice her fire breath. I had to cover it up multiple times by appearing next to her when she did it, but by some divine intervention no one suspected a thing.

The glare I sent her after the third time promised all manner of pain but she had apparently gotten used to my threats, so I turned the threats into promises and now she was stuck reading the second volume of the tome of anatomy with a look of pure suffering.

Being the gracious employer that I was I offered most of my share of the loot, close to a good half of the whole thing, to the mercenaries I hired, and as I expect they all chose to remain with our punitive force until we were done with the Forsworn.

Rikke grumbled about mercenaries being undiscplined but she knew damn well we needed all the help we could get, preliminary scouting done by Scorch and the Dunmer had shown that even heavily diminished the Forsworn would be a threat, now with the added annoyance of fortifications on their end.

Speaking of my 'brothers in faith' I questioned them on the true reasoning of their presence here, and as I had guessed Mephala wanted me to fuck over yet another Daedra in her name.

The ease with which she used my presence for her own ends annoyed something deep inside me, but I wasn't an idiot. Our relationship was completely based on give and take, and if she wanted to direct her worshipers into making my life easier I would not protest like a petulant child.

I disliked literally all of the Daedra, they were like the chaos gods, just not nearly as destructive... this didn't mean however that I was above accepting the assistance of some of them. The fact that being blessed, and apparently chosen (first time I've heard of it) by Mephala, would give me a very big reputation boost with most Dunmer was a nice bonus.

So I swallowed my pride and made a plan to desecrate the temple the Forsworn had built atop 'Hag's end', an old Nordic ruin that had been overtaken by the Reachmen about a decade ago and made into something of a town/base of operations, the proper way.

A short ritual, that included the slaying of the resident priest, and the shrine would be for all intents and purposes 'conquered' by Mephala, giving her a big win in whatever celestial game the Daedra were playing among themselves.

On a much brighter note Torygg decided to announce to everyone present that he and Elisif, who was madly blushing the entire time, had decided to marry, and without even consulting Harald he declared the wedding would be held a week after we returned from our expedition.

Sybille and I had a great time counting the different expressions of rage and fury shifting on the Thane's face as he listened to the speech, the man looked ready to smash Torygg's head off, but a nice heavy dose of telekinesis and a wink from yours truly made him shut up and remain seated.

Two days after the King arrived we set out once again, lines of legionaries, both veteran and fresh, now followed by mercenaries and Harald's own men, marched toward the west, and toward our final confrontation with the Reachmen.

Just as we were about to leave, a very happy looking Onmund rushed up to me and showed me a small flickering flame in his palm. I left him with a signed note and instructions to wait for me in Solitude.

As we rode I decided to finally check up on my progress, a part of me always wanted to look at it every day but something about seeing big numbers go up always made me wait patiently.

And boy was I satisfied.

[Str: 15=>16]

[Dex: 16.5=>17]

[Mag: 370=>400]

The way my stats were growing confused me, I didn't spend any time training physically yet my strength and dexterity kept growing, and my reserves grew exponentially even without rituals... 

The first hypothesis I could come up with was that the races of the world reacted to combat differently than my previous one, maybe we all evolved in such a way that we grew when challenged in a more literal sense?

The second however rang far truer than the first, taking into account the fact that runes worked to some extent on belief, it was not too much of a longshot to then apply that to the growth of strength. After all, if I proved to the world itself that I was stronger, would the magic in the air not work to make that a fact, much like it made runes actually have concrete meaning?

Food for thought...

[Destruction-expert: +Runecasting]

[Conjuration-adept: +Umbramancy(strangle), Bound shade]

[Adept tongue: Fire breath (YOL, TOR, SHUL) Unrelenting force (FUS, RO, DAH) Whirlwind sprint (WULD) Slow time (TIID) Become ethereal (FEIM)]

I close the notification with a satisfied smile, things were progressing well. My eyes narrow as I start seeing darkened Magicka attempting to latch onto our supplies.

It appeared the Namirans were welcoming us.

----------------------------------

I see seas of red

Forsworn heads too

And I think to myself

If you didn't give me your stones you would join this wonderful view!

(Poetic genius, I know.)

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