章節 8: A Realization

-One Month Later-

The following month after taking down the giant was a blur of pain and satisfaction for Brom. When He and Alea returned, there was a big party for their accomplishment of taking down a giant and when they heard of Brom's bravery and strength when fighting the giant, his respect in with the companions got raised.

After that night, there was only training. Each master and expert came to him, on at least three of the days, and schooled him in every advance technique and secret tricks that they knew. He learned Archery from Alea, two-handed from Vilkas, Heavy-armor from Farkas, one-handed and light-armor form Athis, blocking from Njada, and even some smithing from Eorlund.

While he was with Eorlund, he was given his new weapon. And Vilkas insisted that since he got a new weapon, he needed another training session with him. So, after that long month, Brom was now an expert in everything when it came to the physical side of combat. And even adept at smithing.

Brom then took his leave from the companions. He didn't want to stay long enough that they would invite him into the inner circle. That would give Hircine too much influence over him. (The inner circle of the companions are werewolves, a curse/reward granted by Hircine).

Now it was time to learn magic, this is what he has been waiting on ever since he got to Skyrim. Magic can make even the weakest men powerful, and Brom was ready to finally be powerful. The only reason he did not go to the College of Winterhold sooner, was that the trip could be dangerous if done on foot, and he was already in Whiterun.

So, with a new goal in mind, Brom first went to The Mine and stored all his unnecessary items. He even put away his new sword, if he wanted to learn magic quickly, he'd need to be completely reliant on magic. He took his cloak and his new modified steel plate armor that he looted from one of his many bounty hunts. This armor had been painted black with red accents and Brom used his improved smithing skill to refine it and make it a better fit. This was going to be a long trip, as the distance was all the way across Skyrim, north towards the sea. So he would need the cloak and armor.

Brom would have to make several stops on this trip, he planned on cutting through the mountains to Blizzards Rest, then heading to Fort Dunstad. From there following the road to Dawnstar where he would sleep and buy supplies. Finally continuing following the road to Winterhold. This whole trip would take him about a week and a half if nothing went wrong. But Brom knew that something always goes wrong.

Heading out on his horse that he had eventually named Friday. Brom set off leaving his temporary base locked up with even more security. During his free time, he had managed to come to The Mine and reinforce the doors made the place look abounded on the outside. But made sure it was as fortified as he could make it on the inside. He wouldn't want all his stuff to just disappear before he could even use it.

As Brom rode through the mountains towards Blizzards Rest, he started practicing his control over magic. How much magica he would let spells use to manage their power in accordance to what he was using it at the time for. And to pass the time, he also started studying the spell tome he got when he first looted The Mine, back when it was called Halted Stream Camp. The Transmute Mineral Ore spell. He opened the spell tome and for the first time actually tried learning a spell he didn't know previously in this life.

After studying the pages in the book it seemed there were a few steps in learning spells. First, the spell tome explained the basics of magica. How the entire world is full of magica woven into the very existence of matter. To be able to use magic the user had to access their internal magica. Then they would have to control this magica with their will and use certain techniques that can be found in spell tomes, along with a deep understanding of what the spell is supposed to do, to manipulate the weave of energy in the world.

This explanation was a simple overview as this was considered an adept spell tome and the full explanation was only found in the beginner tomes. But as Brom pondered on this he realized that this did not explain how dragons could use magic. They simply spoke what they wanted and it happened.

Brom thought on this for a day or two and came to a realization. Dragons naturally were able to use magic due to their immense wills and deep understanding of the words they spoke. Speaking these words of power in the dragon tongue was called Shouting. To shout in the game, you had to find words of power then absorb a dragon's souls to gain their understanding of the word. Then the player was able to exert their will on the world with these words. As he connected these dots, he realized the dragon's language naturally described words in their true meaning. Using their will power they are able to manipulate their magica into effects by simply saying these words!

Just as Brom came to this realization he leapt to another conclusion. He wouldn't have to absorb a dragon's soul to shout, he only needed to know the words of power and their true meaning! Given his past experience in the game, where he had used all of the shouts in the game multiple times. This knowledge of what these words should do was available to him. Getting excited Brom immediately tried Shouting the most famous one.

"FUS" Brom yelled, but nothing happened. Brom gritted his teeth, "dammit"

Of course, it wouldn't be that easy Brom realized, he still needed to understand the real version of these words not just what the game showed. Still, these conclusions and theories all helped him grow in understanding how this world works. Besides, he was still many steps ahead of anyone else in learning these shouts as he did already have the base understanding of them.

Brom continued his journey and reached Blizzards Rest much faster than he had estimated. It had only taken him about 10 hours. He decided he would push on to the fort and rest there before going to Dawnstar. Along the way Brom used his new knowledge of spells and magica manipulation to create a novice level spell, he called it Iron Fist after the hero in his other life. This was a simple spell in concept but without the knowledge Brom had of the game and its shouts it would be impossible to make. Brom combined his extensive experience with using the word of power FUS and his deeper understanding of magica to create a spell that gives his attacks more force. So after traveling for another 12 hours, he finally reached the Fort Dunstad. After traveling for so long, and coming up with a new spell along the way, both Brom and his horse were exhausted, but he had one more task before he could sleep. He needed to clear out the fort.

This fort was infested by bandits and if Brom remembered correctly, it even had a fighting pit for skeevers and its own bar. Really wanting to put himself to the test, Brom tied his horse to a tree and just walked towards the fort. No weapons and only 3 offensive spells to use, Brom was confident he could clear out this fort.

As the first lookouts saw him, they shouted and raised the alarms, then fired their arrows at him. He dodged the majority of them with simple sways and side steps and the ones that hit him didn't do much damage due to his armor. He kept just walking towards the gate showing no emotion at all, and when he got to the gate the bandit leader had already shown up and was on the other side of it, along with 20 or so more bandits. Now that he was standing under the arc of the gate, and the archers couldn't hit him, he spoke to the leader.

"I'll give you one chance to surrender," Brom said in a calm unworried voice.

The leader upon hearing this laughed and looked at Brom like he was crazy. "Surrender? You can not even pass the gate unless I allow it!"

"Wanna bet on that?" Upon saying this Brom started walking towards the gate,

The bandits never saw the new spell Iron Fist cast on Brom's hands and when he suddenly struck the gate and the wooden frame blew apart, they were all frozen in place from shock. Brom quickly shot flames with both hands and quickly dealt with most of the weaker grunts. He then walked towards the Bandit leader who had now recovered enough to charge Brom. Casting Iron Fist Brom simply backhanded the leader as he came close and the hit blew the bandits head clean off.

Seeing this man's power, the remaining few that were not wiped out by either the gate being blown apart or the wave of fire that came immediately after, dropped their weapons. Between the uncaring look and the fact that arrows did not affect him, and the ease at with he destroyed their leader. They were completely demoralized and traumatized by this monster.

"No no. I already offered your chance at mercy." Brom looked at the nearest bandit with cold eyes and walked towards him. "Either fight on your feet or die on your knees!" with that he snapped the neck of that bandit.

Seeing that would get no mercy from this monster many bandits fled, but some of the braver ones rallied and got in a formation with their last mage casting a ward around them. (Wards protect against enemy spells). Then their archers started firing at Brom. He smiled and started running in zig-zag and easily dodging arrows at close range, silently thanking Alea for this lesson. Then as he neared he summoned Frost on one hand and Flames on the other. Using them more as gloves than streams Brom unleashed all his martial skills on the bandits.

He danced through them striking only vulnerable spots which were completely decimated with either frostbite or third degrees burns. He continued through the crowd until he neared the mage. he kicked out and broke the mag's knee then uppercutted him with his Flames hand, instantly killing him. Turing around he channeled the rest of his magica into Flames on both and hands and torched the remained bandits who were no longer protected by the mages ward.

As the last bandit fell dead screaming Brom walked to the nearby stairs that led to the top of the battlements and collapsed. He came very close to overdoing it with his magica usage and the wounds he suffered were now catching up to him. He had ignored both of these problems in the fight, knowing that his big advantage was his pure intimidation factor.

Brom retrieved his horse, put it in their stables and then headed to their barracks. He killed the majority of bandits here and the rest fled. He walked to the what was obviously the leader's room and looted it of the gold and even found a greater soul gem (soul gems trap a creature soul, only black soul gems can trap human souls). He then placed some trip wires near different doors to alert him of an intruder and went to sleep.