Bab 55: Always Forwards
I just finished making adjustments to my shield when Brienne appeared in the ruins of the forge I occupied.
"I would like to apologize for losing my composure during the battle last night." the Dragonborn stated.
"Apology accepted, Tater Tot." I told her as I strapped the dragon bonemold spiked pavis to my arm, "Seeing Ria get cooked would be hard for anyone, let alone a girl who was a stable hand two months ago."
"And yet you and the others seem so strong." Brienne shook her head, "Like you were all ready to get back on the road as soon as the funerals were over. You all knew them better than I did, and yet Athis almost seemed happy for Torvar."
"All you manlings have a bit of Nord in you." I explained to her, "And if you believe in Shor and live a life of battle and honor you will have a place in Sovngarde when you die. "While all of us are down here eating trail dust and struggling he is up there where the mead flow never ends and the fists are always flying furious. Ria too. Athis can only hope that his true heart will see him born to Sovngarde, where he will join them again."
"But you won't be there?" Brienne asked the question she already knew the answer to.
"If I die, Ria and Torvar are going to have to invade the spirit realm of the Hist and snatch me up from the godtree's cycle of reincarnation."
"If?" Brienne scoffed, "You think dying is an 'if' for you."
"If you ever get as tough as me, you'll start to wonder if you are immortal too." I told her.
"I didn't know immortal's felt the need to run from dragons." Brienne needled, "You took one look at Sahloknir and ran for help."
"Had a very squishy Dragonborn with me." I told her, "You got good fast kid, but that fight was way out of your level."
"It felt like it was over everyone's level." Brienne looked down, "And he wasn't even the strongest dragon… if Alduin had fought we would have been done for."
"You're right, kid." I agreed, "If he had stayed that would have been the end for us and for the whole world, and for that… I am sorry."
"What do you have to apologize for?" Brienne looked at me in surprise, "You and Jack took on a dragon all by yourselves and helped with the other two."
"I got complacent." I shook my head, "My whole life I have taken every advantage I can get, but after coming to Skyrim, I felt like I could just brute force my way through everything this world could throw at me. But don't you worry kid, after I drop you off with the monks at the Throat of the World I'll chase down a lead on a hammer that should help make future fights way more simple."
"Sounds like one incredible hammer." Brienne grinned, "What were you doing before I interrupted?"
"Just getting my shield into a hands free configuration. So I can do this." I raised my shield activating my blocking powers and made the hand gesture for the healing spell, covering me in a warm light.
"I thought you and Jack couldn't use magic?" Brienne said in confusion.
"We used the Atronach Stone to switch birthsign powers." I told her, "We still have weak magicka pools, but the dragons' fire and frost attacks are purely magical, meaning the Atronach power absorbs half of its potency and turns it into usable magicka. We use the healing spell to boost our impressive natural abilities and we should be able to sit tight under their full power without too much issue. The solutions are there, we just have to think."
"I think I'd like to change signs when we go back south." Brienne told me.
"Good. We always have to be pushing forward, never letting the world push us back." I patted her shoulder and went back to adjusting Jack's shield.
Our trip south was mostly quiet except a brief stare down with the giants of the Steamcrag Camp and a detour trip up the Northwind Summit where we quickly took down another brown dragon and Brienne communed with the word wall. From then on it was a fairly normal journey for the roads of Skyrim. Brief tangles with the wild life and a couple of bandit parties that ran from the sight of us.
We arrived in the small farming community of Ivarstead in the afternoon and found a cheerful welcome from the denizens. After booking rooms for the night at Vilemyr Inn, we sat down to a hearty dinner where I addressed the Companions.
"We part ways tomorrow." I told them.
"Why leave when we are so close to the end of our quest? When the hour comes when we are needed most." Aela asked me.
"I've got a few leads on on things that will be of great use to us in the fight against the dragons, and you all are going to spend a fair bit of time up on High Hrothgar, training Brienne and making those old monks train her too. Don't let them bullshit their way out of teaching her the Thu'um."
"We won't." Skjor grinned.
"What do you seek?" Kodlak asked.
"Got a lead on the Hammer of Might south of here." I told them, "One of the ancient masked dragon priests as well."
"Volendrung in your hands would be a weapon most potent." Kodlak nodded in approval, "And denying the enemy a powerful spell caster is always a wise choice."
"I don't know how long it will take to make Brienne into a deadly warrior and a master of the Thu'um." I said after taking a big draw on my mead horn, "I plan to take a route west to Markarth, and then to Solitude and Dawnstar when I have finished in the Rift. If you finish her training before I return, send word to those places and I will cut our campaign short."
We spent the rest of the evening enjoying our friends, and set out for our own adventures the next morning.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
JManM
JManM The breaking of the Fellowship already? Well, our Boromir already died, so the time was now.
In other news I have decieded that Daedric Artifacts are going to have infinite charge because they are supposed to be legendary weapons created by demon gods.
Volendrung is going to be Grunt's ultimate weapon in this story as it will gain power over time in his hands similar to the way the Ebony Blade does. Not sure what Jack's weapon will be. Maybe the Mace of Molag Bal maybe Dawnbreaker. Don't know. Perhaps Goldbrand or Chrysamere.
If you want to support me and my family you can do so at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
Bab 56: Video Games
"Dafuq iz zat?" I complained as I heard the sounds of distant explosions causing my terrible hangover to pulse my brain with pain.
"That would be Alduin." said a familiar voice that I just couldn't quite place, "Hair of the dog?"
He offered a drinking horn, deep and long and black as midnight with a golden mouth and tip.
"Yes please." I grumbled and took up the horn feeling the long forgotten burn of ryncol sliding down my gullet.
"How?" I gasped.
"After the week we have had my friend, I knew my Rose wasn't the gift I needed to give." the man, a dark skinned daedra with bright red tattoos, spoke in a rising tone, "So I tracked down the Xivilai with the greatest rack I had ever seen, tore off his horn and dipped it into the Origin of Hedonism. The gold was a personal touch."
"But… the ryncol?" I put my words into such intelligent phrasing.
"The horn has an unlimited supply of whatever liquor you want!" Sanguine put his hands on his hips and bellowed in joy, "It's a direct line to the concept of liquor, leave that shit turned over and you will flood the world in booze eventually. My finest creation for my finest friend. I call it the Horn of Party Hardy!"
"Dude. Sweet." I gaped at the unexpected boon.
"You think that is cool, look around." Sanguine urged.
We were definitely in the Temple of Dibella, the white stone and full figured female statuary told me that, and all around us were various followers of the slut goddess in various states of completely railed silly. In the center of the temple were thirteen of her priestesses tied up and ravished in a circle while wearing what I easily identified as all the dragon priest masks except Miraak's.
Fuck me how long have we been partying. It would take months to trek across Skyrim and Solsthiem to gather those things. I think he said a week?
I gathered my thoughts and could remember letting a giant hulk smash a cowardly orc chief so Malacath would give me a dope ass hammer, then leading an assault on the dragon cult at Forelhost to get the Rahgot mask, then going to Riften and getting a drink at the Bee and Barb where I ran into Sam the Man and the rest was blackout drunken revelry.
Another explosion rocked the temple.
"Fucking cock sucking dragon thinks he can eat everything and we are just going to stand around and let him. Newsflash! The Myriad Realms of Pleasure are a part of everything you asshat!" Sanguine screamed at the ceiling, "So when you started blabbing about where his priests all were, we did some light murder on their mummified asses, and then came here to the Temple of the Slut Goddess, thank you to your wife for coining that beautiful description of Dibella by the way, and used those masks as part of a ritual to inflict pain on the spiky dickwad for every once of pleasure we brought to these slutty priestesses. And we brought them unimaginable pleasure, my friend."
"So Alduin is outside now?" I shook the cobwebs out of my head.
"Oh and he is really pissed off." Sanguine grinned.
"Well at least we have a Daedric Prince here to smack his ass around." I grinned.
"About that…" Sanguine rubbed the back of his neck, "I may have blown my magical load usable in Nirn on the murder and sex ritual. SO… this is definitely a you problem."
"Well… shit." I mumbled in response.
"Don't worry homie, I got one last little trick that you are going to love!" Sanguine grinned and with a raise of his hand two armor sets were pulled together from various spots around the temple and the dragon priest masks slipped off the priestesses of Dibella.
"Are those the Archmage's robes?" I asked as a familiar set of robes floated over.
"We totally robbed the Archmage of Winterhold." Sanguine smiled at me.
"Babe." Jack growled from atop a pile of round asses, "Go outside and kill whoever the fuck is blowing shit up."
"You gotta real goddess right there." Sanguine said as he tilted his horned head over to her.
"Anything else important happen while we were drunk?" I asked him as he began using his magic to slip the Archmage's Robes onto my armor and tie the three elemental dragon priest masks to my right pauldon and Morokei, Nahkriin, and Vokun to my wide nordic leather and fur belt.
"Hmm…" Sanguine thought as he tied the other masks to Jack's gear including Konahrik, "Found the Staff of Magnus, snatched up some elder scrolls, got the Oghma Infinium from the ol' tentacle monster, and most importantly… DPed a sexy vampire chick."
We DPed Serana? Using the vast powers of my lizard brain I pulled up some visual data from the liquor induced haze.
Nice.
I also was able to easily recall my time with the Oghma Infinium. I roughly pulled four times the amount of information out of it as a normal person, one for each life I carried, advancing my abilities with magic to expert levels and filling out my connection to the various stars in those constellations and my spell repertoire to match.
With all that ability and the enchantments on the gear Sanguine was tailoring for my equipment I would be a legitimate magical threat to dragons and other spell fingers.
I remember Jack reading over my shoulder while screaming 'Rogues Rule' so I guess she took a three part course in the thief base skills. If I remember right the other masks would be very handy for a rogue, even more so if they didn't share so much territory with being an argonian.
"Fucking sweet." Jack commented as the Staff of Magnus extended and wrapped itself around her dragon bone great bow.
"Alright, my friends," Sanguine grinned at us, "this is all I will be able to accomplish in the mortal world for a very long time, but I have faith that you two are going to fuck that scaly bastard up and we will see each other again if you ever manage to die. There is no way I'd let anyone else take my best pals ever to their afterlife."
With that the Daedric Prince revelry and debauchery faded away.
"That guy was such a bro." Jack stated as she gave her upgraded bow a few experimental tugs.
"He definitely saved us from going through a bunch of tedious bullshit." I agreed as I donned my empowered gear, "Could you imagine having to collect all this shit on our own."
"Imagine it?" Jack asked, "I was there. His portals dropped us right where we needed to go no bullshit. The only question is how the hell he was pulling all those locations from your brain?"
"You remember Fallout: New Vegas?" I asked her.
"Yeah, that game Legion brought over. It was the shit." Jack nodded her head.
"Same people made a game called Skyrim." I told her.
"No way. And that last galaxy, you kept calling it Star Wars." Jack questioned.
"Movie franchises that spawned endless books, video games, tv shows." I answered.
"And our galaxy?" she almost sounded scared.
"Excellent video games." I answered honestly while watching her with one eye.
"Holy shit. I'm a video game character? Are you a video game character?" Jack looked at her hands in horror.
"Yep on both accounts." I said solemnly.
"The fuck does that mean?" Jack grasped at the edges of an existential crisis.
"Who gives a flying fuck." I shrugged my shoulders, "At any point in our lives have you felt like things weren't real."
"Not until right now." Jack muttered.
"Then don't think about it and lets go kick the shit out of an apocalyptic dragon before I have to fuck us out of this reality like a pair of losers slinking off after getting humiliated at the party."
"We have done that literally every time we jump realities." Jack looked at me like 'how could you forget that'.
"Yeah, but those were parties for after we saved the day, so the loser was drowned out by raw winning." I disagreed.
"This really wasn't a good time to dump this on me." Jack muttered as she armored up.
"Yeah, well, you didn't ask before." I shrugged again, "Now keep your head in the game babe. Fuck that was a poor choice of words."
Jack snorted then laughed, "Nah. It was the exact right thing to say. Let's go kick the shit out Alduin."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
JManM
JManM
Jack and Grunt finally had the talk about their lives as video game characters. Most authors hit this point at a dramatic time in the story where it briefly tears the characters apart and there is all sorts of bullshit surrounding it like the MC just ups and tells everyone he can about it or someone figures it out.
Jack and Grunt don't lie to eachother so when she finally asked, he straight up told her, and at this point she has been involved in enough crazy shit to not be too unsettled by it.
Of course this is happening nearly 15 years into their relationship rather than 15 minutes, or hours, or days.
I wrote this chapter after thinking about how pedestian the story of them hunting the dragon priest masks down would be. It felt like busy work, just like hunting down all those stupid word walls.
So in the continued theme of cutting out tedious bullshit they borded the Sanguine Express and he ported them all over Skyrim. I feel it fits as he took you to all sorts of places in the game in one night and was operating an avatar on Nirn while doing it. Also with Alduin being a threat to everything you would think the Daedra would be happy to help defeat him even if the Aedra couldn't be bothered.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
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