บท 5: The Noob God Wakeths I

The Great Grind Ends

"Man, I am fucking beat... But I learned some valuable info during this week though, like this book that tracks quests I receive, what's better is that I can write my own quests. I did a couple of self-made quests, mainly hunting game, fishing, chopping wood, smithing, and even clearing out the bandits."

"The downside of self-made quests being it's more for tracking quest progress and there are no rewards. Speaking of the week, it's an actual week, no time acceleration so I've had plenty of time to grind. I can also check the levels of those who follow me, but for anyone else, I have to be in combat to see their information, but it's all question marks for people much stronger than me."

"Saw that when I "bumped" into Delphine while getting drunk with Embry after having had a hard day at the mill. Then there's my map, it functions just like in the game so nothing new there. I've gotten Camellia to drop that lazy bastard Sven in favor of Faendal and have been having him train me and Lokir up in archery while getting him to join my party with some convincing about how Camellia is just waiting for a dashing hero to sweep her off her feet."

"I've also been sparring with the two of them to get them combat-ready, our last test as a team was clearing out those bandits in Embershard Mine. Also went back and got the Thief's Stone blessing, where I noticed a small stone that asked me to trade a dragon soul for a perk point, and been grinding out those skills."

"Then there's the smithing apprenticeship with Alvor, the basic spells I bought from Lucian, the ore from the mine, and leather from my hunting to craft some basic armor and weapons at the forge. I learned that with crafting, so long as I have the basic knowledge I can either follow the schematic for a standard piece of equipment or experiment on my own, but that doesn't always work."

"Probably need a higher smithing level. Also, dialogue options still exist, but it's more of a mental suggestion and I have the ability to tailor what I say however I like to say it, and everyone seems to respond like a normal person would, so I doubt these people are elaborate AI, we both know what Bethesda is like."

"As for coin, I would sell the meat I don't eat from hunting, and firewood to the innkeeper, also got a tidy sum from picking the bandit camp clean and selling it all to Lucien. Speaking of, already got that letter from the Jarl of Falkreath so may go there after I get some free time. Now, I think I'm ready to head on to Bleak Falls Barrow with Lokir and Faendal to get the Dragon Stone and head off to Whiterun to kill that dragon."

"Thanks, Stump, you're such a good boy, yes you are!" I say giving the dog a few good belly rubs before checking my character profile.

Character Info

Name: Silvantus Malborne

Level: 18

Race: Orsimer

Gold: 2,592

Reputation: Unknown

>Riverwood: Trusted- The citizens have noticed your good deeds and have a good impression of you.

Standing Stone: Thief's Stone- Those with the mark of the Thief's Stone receive a 20% increase to related skill experience.

Health: 115 -> 165

Magicka: 110 -> 150

Stamina: 115 -> 165

Health regen: 1.0% -> 1.75%

Magicka regen: 2.75% -> 3.5%

Stamina regen: 5.5% -> 6.25%

Carry weight: 400 -> 475

Racial Abilities

Mind of the Gamer: This allows you to rationalize all your actions from a detached perspective. Suffering little to no mental degradation from poor morality.

Body of the Gamer: Your body suffers no ill effects from damage, instead health, mana, exposure, wetness, hunger, thirst, and stamina bars represent your durability, available mana pool, degree of exposure to the elements, degree of wetness in your clothes, your level of hunger, your level of thirst, and your remaining stamina respectively.

Bonus Experience: Through selecting a random race at the start of the adventure, the individual will receive a 15% to experience gain when performing related tasks.

Bloodlust: When entering combat, gain 25% movement speed and 300% Magicka and Stamina regeneration. Bonuses gradually decay to zero over 20 seconds.

Shockwave: Once per battle, jump to cause a tremor that staggers opponents and may knock them off their feet.

Strength of Steel: Weapons and armor are 20% stronger, but enchantments on them are 20% weaker.

Quest reward - Stagger 150 enemies with Shockwave to unlock... 10/150

Berserk: 1/day - Doubles attack damage and critical strike damage and halves spell costs for 15 seconds. While off cooldown, may activate randomly in combat.

Perk List: 15/18 Skill Levels

Alchemy- 0 16

Alteration- 0 15

Archery- 2 25

>Archery Mastery (2): Ranged weapons do 40% more damage, and critical strikes with ranged weapons do 2% more critical damage per level of Archery.

Block- 0 18

Conjuration- 0 15

Destruction- 0 22

Enchanting- 0 15

Heavy Armor- 0 20

Illusion- 0 15

Light Armor- 0 19

Lock Picking - 2 42

>Lock Picking Mastery (2): Weaker and weak locks are easier to pick.

One Handed- 0 21

Pickpocket- 3 36

>Pickpocket Mastery (2): Increase pickpocket chance by 40% and carry weight by 100.

>Thief's Eye: When you enter a major city, illuminates a random citizen for 300 seconds. If you interact with the target during this time, they will carry valuable items based on your pickpocket skill once every 12-60 hours.

Restoration- 0 19

Smithing- 2 39

>Smithing Mastery (2): You can create steel and bonemold items at an anvil or forge and improve them twice as much.

Sneak- 4 51

> Sneak Mastery (2): Sneaking is 40% more effective.

>Spot Detection: Once a day, outlines all humanoids within 150 feet that are detecting you with a green glow for 180 seconds.

>Light Foot: You won't trigger pressure plates.

Speechcraft- 2 31

>Speech Mastery (2): Sell items for 20% more. Your intimidation attempts are four times as likely to succeed.

Two-Handed- 0 18

Not too bad, should definitely be strong enough to solo the Barrows, but this would be a good team-building exercise. And I have some new toys to play with, made a few throwing daggers and bolos I'd like to practice with on a few draugr.

Lokir seems to be actually trying to turn over a new leaf, guess a life-and-death experience with a dragon really makes you question your priorities. He's now level 12 and has gotten pretty good with the sword and shield, and I used the iron ore we gathered from the mine to forge him a nice set of customized heavy iron armor. I built it in the bonemold plate style, so it does its job quite well. Faendal may only be a level 10, but his archery is top-notch, I made him a solid hide armor set, pretty standard but I made a few tweaks with some bandolier designs to increase what he can carry.

And I made a standard set of steel armor, with some leather padding in-between the plates to muffle its noise for me, our standard tactic is for Lokir to take point, tanking and dealing damage where he can, Faendal to support the rear with archery, and I would switch between the two and magic use depending on what's needed.