Bab 52: Trusting Strangers
I dragged another body away from the Valtheim Towers to my workstation. In Nirn cannibalism is applied to any sentient being that eats the flesh of another sentient being, but when have I ever let the local customs come between me and a fresh kill. I doubt even the werewolves of the Circle deal with the mouthwatering craving when they enter combat, identifying the foe as prey rather than an enemy. And so I do my work well away from the others, butchering my victims and smoking the meat for future snacks as I treat myself to a raw morsel here and there.
The act would horrify my past self, but he wasn't a giant lizard man, and while memory and perspective may tinge the now, hormones and instinct are far more powerful than most realize. We are not what we eat, we are a culmination of millions of years of action and reaction, survival and success. Navel gazing and bemoaning your nature is for other men, weak men. The weak are meat and the strong must eat.
After all, waste is the only true tragedy.
The Companions of course know of my predations - the details of my close friendship with the bosmer brother's who own the Drunken Huntsman are well known in Whiterun - and they operate under a general out of sight out of mind mentality the same way in which I ignore their furry little problem. Thank the Divines they hadn't approached me with an offer of joining their merry little band of werewolves. Imagine this glorious body transitioning to mammality. Heinous, disgusting, unthinkable.
I made my way back to our camp after hanging the remaining meat to smoke and having sucked the marrow out of the best bones. Aela and Jack were instructing Brienne in a bit of target practice alongside many of the more range challenged fighters. The general consensus had us as dragon slayers till there were no more dragons to be slain, a glorious or disastrous entry into the Companions saga depending on how well we do, but with one win under our belts we definitely were off to a great start.
We drew straws for the night's watch and I drew the lucky last straw, my watch the hour before dawn. After a restful night's sleep I enjoyed the peaceful sunrise and doubled up as the cook for breakfast, something the returning Farkas appreciated as he finished lacing up one of his bracers.
"From the look on your face I can assume you did in fact spot the dragon where you expected it." I grinned as I scrambled some eggs Aela had scavenged up from nearby nests.
"Big white bastard was just sleeping on top of the ancient word wall!" Farkas smiled at the memory despite the likely exhaustion from both his transformation and running such a great distance.
"Then it is good everyone spent some time working on their archery yesterday." I told him and handed him a plate of eggs and sausage, "We will need to prevent the damn thing from flying unless we want to let it escape."
"We won't let that happen." he referred to the Skyforge Steel great bow I passed onto him before we left.
Standard arrow shafts were unable to impede the beast's capabilities unless they struck in the eye or nostril, any shots to the wing joint would either bounce off or break off with little hindrance, but the thick javelins fired from our great bows were more than enough to cripple the joint and prevent flight.
Only Jack and Farkas possessed the raw strength to operate the great bows out of the rest of my companions, making them far more valuable to a dragon slaying operation than the others. Torvar, Kodlak, and Vilkas all favored weapons heavy enough to be a genuine threat to our winged nemeses, while everyone else were only good for harrying strikes. They'd be able to bleed the dragons at the very least.
As the rest of our team rose with the sun and set upon the food and mead, Farkas explained the presence of the dragon at the Bonestrewn Crest. With target confirmation we set out on the road to glory.
Which was immediately waylaid by the presence of a man on the road south calling out to us.
"Thank the gods." the nord declared, "There is a necromancer in my family crypt defiling the bodies of my ancestors! My aunt has already gone in after him, but we need help."
"You let your aunt fight a necromancer alone?" Jack asked in disgust.
"It shames me, but I have had a crippling fear of the place ever since I was a child." He hung his head low, "Please, I beg of you, stop this madness."
Brienne looked to Kodlak who gestured for her to make the choice.
"We will help you hunt down the necromancer." Brienne nodded and allowed the man to lead us to his family tomb carved into the mountain side.
When we got there I noticed a problem right away.
"Your ancestors didn't build this place with accessibility for people like me in mind, did they?" I muttered as I looked at the entrance that would be tight for the normies, let alone a meat mountain like me.
"I don't think anyone has ever built anything with people like you in mind." Golldir commented, "Perhaps it is best you wait at the entrance, be there to catch the necromancer if he runs from us. In fact, I might just stay with you… double the chances just in case."
"Suit yourself." I told him as I ripped up a nearby boulder and placed it in front of the tomb before sitting on it.
"How?" was all Golldir asked as he gaped at the feat of incredible strength.
"Some people are just made different." Jack smirked before following Brienne into the tomb.
"I bet they are getting to fight all sorts of undead." I mused while Golldir and I waited, "Draugr, skeletons, maybe some zombies. Bet they are having lots of fun hacking them to bits."
"Have a care." The man objected, "Those are the bodies of my ancestors they would be hacking to bits."
"Think they are tearing up your aunt's reanimated corpse." I idly spoke while I chewed on some smoked breton.
"I hate you." Golldir snarled, "I hate you so much."
"Don't let the whole you owe us for saving the day thing stop you from coming at me." I mocked, "You happen to be at the perfect place to drop off your craven body."
"That's it!" The man drew his axe and I snatched up his neck in one hand, raising him up into the air as he tried to hack my arm to no avail. When that failed he tried kicking me, to an even lesser reaction while I choked the life from him.
As he finally stopped twitching I dropped his dead body and laughed at the eye bulged expression on his face. I didn't risk eating him, as his cowardice is probably too contagious for even my immune system to handle, so I fleeced his pockets and pouches and tossed him into his family crypt.
About an hour later the crew came out of the cairn having successfully slain the necromancer.
"What happened to Golldir?" Brienne demanded.
"He caught a fatal case of stupid." I told her, "Happens sometimes."
"Really?" Brienne fake asked, "Because it looks like he was strangled by a man with very big hands."
"Big hand." I corrected her, "I strangled him with only one hand."
"Why?" she cried in outrage, "Why would you kill the man we were helping."
"Sometimes people turn on you, Tater Tot." I said while looking her in the eyes, "You just have to hope that when they do they are as stupid about it as your pal Golldir. The odds of it happening are a ratio of how scary you are to how dumb they are. Some people are just too stupid to live. Get comfortable with that. Killing them is a favor to the universe."
"Are you going to turn on me?" Brienne accused, "Is this the start of some crazy lesson?"
"Nah." I denied, "But that would be some good foreshadowing for the double cross if I was dumb enough to betray the literal Messiah. Sorry kid, you're stuck with me cause I got to get you to the Alduin fight or the world gets eaten."
"And after the world is saved?" she looked at me with wide eyes.
"Now those are some good instincts." I complimented her, "Keep thinking like that and you just might catch some smug asshole before he gets the drop on you."
"Goddammit Grunt." Jack interrupted, "Stop trying to traumatize the girl. You want her jumping at shadows?"
"Alright alright, I'll chill on teaching her lessons." I swore to the wife, "But if she winds up bleeding on the ground while some asshat monologues about what a fool she is and how she has been a pawn in his game the whole time I am blaming you."
"You think I haven't already told her how dumb it is to help out randos she meets on the road side." Jack hmphed, "You are like a whole half our late, Big Guy, been there and done that."
"Ahh." I sighed, "Well Golldir died like a bitch."
Ha! The last word is mine!
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
JManM
JManM I have some bad news. I will not beable to get back to a two a day schedule for the foreseeable future.
My employee turn over rate is terrible right now, and I am down to mostly my ride or die employees who have been working with me since before I founded my company, and because the contracts still need to get fullfilled I will be out in the field laying the concrete down myself for the next month or so.
Lots of people are in a similar position right now as the major companies snatch up as much of the labor pool as they can. Guys like me just can't compete with the payrates and benifits these corpos can offer.
On a side note if you live in the Phoenix area and aren't afraid of long hours of back breaking work, I am hiring.
If you want to support me and my family you can do so at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
Bab 53: Did I do that?
We cut our teeth on a pack of conjurers when our path led to Fort Amol. The various atronachs they summoned made the fight interesting, but the true standout was how well Brienne had come along in her combat training. She'd been with us less than a week and had transformed from a novice to a journeyman fighter. Her talent was truly incredible, able to learn from watching and understand from simple instruction. Seeing her managing her footwork and level changes after so little time as a warrior made me feel almost envious, and Jack and I had freaky fight IQ's.
That evening Aela rallied the Circle for a raid on the nearby Lost Knife Hideout. The place was full of members of the Silver Hand, fanatical werewolf hunters who knew the truth of the senior Companions. They returned before dawn with a fragment of Wuuthrad, Ysgramor's legendary shattered axe. I raided the cave for all the silver weapons and other valuables after breakfast, not one to allow a pile of valuable loot slip through my now perfect fingers.
Aela shuddered when she caught me tapping my claws on a silver greatsword.
Chill girl, I am imagining the money, not putting you mangy dogs down.
With Fort Amol cleared, we diverted from the path to Ivarstead, and headed southeast to Darkwater Crossing. As each day passed, the signs of dragons increased. Dragons, not a dragon. I knew there were three corpses at the Bonestrewn crest and this region was completely littered with dragon burial mounds.
With Alduin resurrecting his followers, even at a sedate pace, the number of dragons grew and grew.
The presence of the dragons put the modest mining town on edge, compounding with the recent uptick in miner's lung. They were happy to host us while I melted down our loot and cast a number of valuable silver ingots which both paid for our stay, our resupply, and netted me a tidy sum of septims.
On the evening of our third night at the Darkwater Crossing, Jack and I slipped away to activate the nearby Atronach Stone. For people like us, with almost no magical potential, the Atronach stone was all benefit. Upon activating the stone, our Magicka pools expanded six times over, and we gained the ability to absorb half of all incoming magic at the cost of our magicka pools restoring at only half speed.
Losing the benefits of the Warrior Stone didn't matter to us any longer as after three months with some of the greatest warriors in Nirn, we had expanded our skills as low tech warriors to great heights. At this point the extra twenty percent to our learning speed no longer outweighed the benefits the other Standing Stones could bring us.
Upon our return to the Crossing the sound of great wings beating overhead clued us into the inbound attack from a dragon. We got our bows strung in time to witness another green scaled beast breath a gout of fire from its mouth as it passed over the thatched roofs of the settlement. It regretted illuminating itself when a pair of javelins penetrated its side even deeper than my Skyforge Steel bow had managed.
Neither had landed in a way that impacted its wing joint, but the pain caused it to lose control and crash into a house.
"Deus Volt, bitch!" I shouted as I ran to the house at top speed and engaged the big bastard with The Mule.
The sonofabitch bit me!
Rather than allow me to rain down blows on it, the dragon locked its jaws around me and put down a painful squeeze. In honor of Kratos, I put a hand on each jaw and pushed out from my body, extending my arms until I heard a satisfying snap as the dragon's jaw dislocated and its pitiful wails of pain.
Animal lover that I am, I couldn't leave it in such a poor condition.
After a bit of messy knife work I held the dragon's severed head up as the gathered onlookers cheered. The light show that went off once Brienne approached got the appropriate Ooos and Aaas.
The party really started after all the fires were put out and we began carving up the beast to feast on. Dragons are just particularly juicy turkeys that breathe fire or ice or other Thu'um mischief. Their meat, when roasted, made for incredibly satisfying eating unlike my last flying enemies. The collectors truly were the lowest of the low.
I wonder if Javik would have been tastier.
Needless to say, our stay at the crossing extended as I now needed to process the dragon along with the leftovers from our previous kill to outfit the rest of the Companions. The young Dragonborn got a shirt and hoes made of the finer green scales of the beast to be worn under a more traditional set of nordic scaled horned armor made from the beast's wing leather and a few of the local sheep.
With her golden hooded cloak tucked into the ramskin and thick warriors girdle, she looked quite the riot of colors. The other members of the crew who wore light armor were similarly outfitted, while the heavies all got the dragon bone upgrade layered over their preferred gear.
The biggest advantage came from the whole crew using dragon bone bows. Our ranged DPS went through the roof and would hopefully hold up against the upper tier dragons.
With our business at the crossing concluded, we ventured north through the volcanic hot springs to the Bonestrewn Crest. Somehow we managed the approach without spooking the sleeping Frost Dragon, allowing everyone to take aim and lose a volley of death at the lazy beast. Both its wing joints were penetrated, though not as deeply as the green dragon had due to the Frost Dragon's natural increase in toughness. A number of lesser arrows had landed in its neck and chest, but Aela's had struck it in the eye, blinding the beast's left field of view.
In response to the sudden wake up, the beast bellowed out a stream of icy air that caused a localized white out, preventing us from targeting it again as it charged through the cold blast.
I managed to whack it with a hammer strike before it bulled me over. Damn thing stepped on me as it passed, but I hacked the tip of its tail off before it got away.
The fight after that was a blur of teamwork as the crippled dragon went down in white blaze of glory. Athis and Ria came away from the battle with the worst of the injuries as the nords all were able to resist the magical cold and Jack and I absorbed it. We chose to make our way up to Windhelm to stock up on potions to better resist ice and fire attacks at the legendary White Vial alchemist shop.
After the battle against the white scaled Frost Dragon, the brief attack by one of the lesser brown scaled dragons barely got our blood pumping, but at least added another dead dragon to my Loot Sled.
Despite the dead dragons and the presence of the Companions, I was turned away at the gates of the ancient city, as Argonians were not allowed inside the city walls after the sun sets begins to set. In solidarity, the Companions and I made our way down to the docks where the local argonian population lived and worked. The conditions here were better than those further to the north, where the dunmer slums existed.
Unlike in the game where the dunmer refugees had taken up a segregated corner of the city, here they were forced to live outside the stone walls in a hastily constructed ghetto. They had over time made the place far more homie, but the stark contrast between the conditions of the nords and the other races in Windhelm set the Dragonborn off something fierce. She and Athis set out to the Grey Quarter that evening and had it out with various drunks who stumbled through the ghetto throwing bottles and shouting slurs throughout the night.
Jack and I didn't join them as the local argonians sensed the kinship with us and invited us to a big ol' Hist Sap group trip. Mistakes were made.
The wife and I exist in a state of quantum fuckery as we possess the DNA and Power of three distinct individuals while only expressing the advantageous and subconsciously desired traits of any of the constituent beings. It's why Jack and I became more physically imposing after eating Jabba, but did not change beyond our basic krogan and human forms, and why I gained a more hybridized argonian-krogan form while Jack remained largely unchanged.
You see, that quantum fuckery should make us sterile to anyone we encounter… unless we encounter a race of people who are constantly in flux controlled by a hallucinogenic sap that has connected their species evolutionarily to a species of godtrees that shape them into their ideal forms.
When we all woke from the trip I was surrounded by buffed up argonian girls leaking my seed from their every orifice.
Jack and I left the docks that morning having chosen to not speak to anyone about me fathering a new super race.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
JManM
JManM
I believe this is the first chapter I have ever writen with only a single line of dialogue, but I hope "Deus Vult, bitch!" was enough to tide everyone over.
Grunt can breed with argonians after a group Hist session, but not with Jack as they aren't argonian enough to have the hist reshape them into compatiable forms. Grunt on the other hand has fathered a new race of super lizards that will one day conquer Skyrim and establish an new Argonian Empire that worships thier ascended Godking Allfather.
I doubt anyone was thinking of this possiblity, I certainly wasn't until I reread about the argonian relationship to the Hist and how those trees basically shape the argonians like clay. While they couldn't outright turn the argonians into beings like Grunt, they could shape the females into receptive wombs capable of barring children with his ridiculous powers.
They won't have screen time, but will be lurking like a huge shadow over the fate of Nirn.
Had to get today's chapter out early as the boy's and I are going to the fight tonight. I was honestly stunned that Usyk vs Joshua didn't get more media coverage. I found out about it the day of the fight and caught it via youtube. It was an excellent fight, far better than Wilder Fury 3 is likely to be, but who knows. Maybe Wilder was able to improve his game enough that his big right hand can come into play this time.
If you want to support me and my family, you can do so at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
Status Power Mingguan
200+ Peringkat
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0 Power
stone 
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