Chapter 6 - Planning for the Future and New Mission

(In the last chapter)

We separated in front of the store and each one of us went to do their own thing. I just wanted to sleep, some of the injuries I got couldn't be healed by Abjorn's spell so I needed to recover. I went straight to the inn and paid Delphine the accommodations costs for another night, I took off my armor and threw myself to the bed, feeling my eyes closing without any type of resistance.

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I woke up early in the morning of the next day. Putting on some clothes I went outside the inn and headed to the outskirts of Riverwood, specifically to the forest surrounding the guardian stones to do some tests.

'Since arriving to this world I've been practically going with the flow of things without knowing what my capabilities are. I need to grab a hold of myself and start making preparations for what's to come. Things like the dragon's return, the Dawnguard and Miraak won't just wait for me to become strong, so I need to up my game a whole notch.'

Arriving at the guardian stones, the first thing I decided to test was my flexibility. After that I went for some jogging and started running at the end of it to also test my max speed. Lastly I wanted to know my strength with both of my arms and test some kicks while I'm at it.

The overall result was that I have slightly above average capabilities, except for my flexibility that was enhanced a lot more than the other things. I know that it may seem like there isn't anything special about this results, but for me, a former normal human that rarely went out of his home for anything other than school, it's a really big boost indeed. The only activity that I'd done for some time in my early teenage years was jiu jitsu, but any physical progress that I made during that time was totally lost in the end.

Having come to the conclusion that I had a decent base to star working with, I became more infatuated with the idea of meeting the companions and ask for some training. I don't know if they'll put me through that test with Vilkas like in the game but I'll just hope that they give me an opportunity. Though with my looks they might as well just call me a milk drinker and brush me off.

I returned to the town and went for the store, as I wanted to do some more tests, this time with poison and diseases. I had a little of the frostbite poison already and bought some normal weak poison, coupled with some mushrooms that I was told would give me infections if I ate thes raw.

Before testing those I went to look for Abjorn as I wanted to see the effects of the magical resistance of my blood perk. He was against it at the beginning but I explained that my family heritage gave me a minor magical resistance and he reluctantly agreed to do it. He first used his newly acquired sparks spell, which I didn't believe he was able to use after only one day of purchasing the spell book, but then I remembered that he's the dragonborn and the protagonist. Plot Armor I guess, a really powerful perk.

After the testings with magic I found out that my normal limbs would take more damage than my Devil Bringer, which could block a little more of the magic that was used on the attacks. Abjorn healed me, I thanked him and we parted again as I wanted to test the poisons and he would be surely agitated if I told him. The first thing I did was preparing some cure disease and cure poison potions, in case that I don't have any resistances against it.

I took a sip of the frostbite venom and received a notification from the system.

*Ding* Warning! Host has been poisoned. The status effect <poisoned> will now be dealing 5 points of damage to health and 4 points of damage to stamina per second. Duration of effect-10 seconds.

Seeing that the venom had a normal effect on me I assumed that my body doesn't have any resistance against it. I tried again by cutting my palm a little and dropping some of it on the wound and the same notification appeared. I took the antidote and began preparing the mushrooms.

Feeling ready for it I grabbed one of them and took a bite.

*Ding* Warning! Host has been infected with the Ataxia disease. Lockpicking and pickpocket become 25% more difficult.

*Ding* Attention! The Host's Devil's Blood neutralized the status effect <Ataxia Disease>, it's effects will stop working now.

Well, it seems I have a resistance against diseases, but I don't know if it'll work against the more unique ones, like Lycanthropy and Sanguinare Vampiris.

After being done with the tests I felt more secure. Now that I know my limits and my basic capabilities I can start making plans for the upcoming events. The first will be to train myself for st least two months so that the effect of my forced awakening can wear off.

While thinking about this I went to look for Alvor as I wanted to order a custom piece of equipment. It feels weird talking to him when it was me that killed his nephew Hadvar, but the guy was asking for it. What I wanted him to make was a set of light metal gauntlet that would help me protect my left arm and hide my right one. He told me he would need a day and a half for it to be made, so after paying half the price in advance I went to my room at the inn.

I wanted to see if the book 'Thief' would give me something like in the game so I began reading it. As I opened the book, nothing happened so I began reading it.

'If the reader has not yet had the pleasure of reading the first volume in these series on the life of Eslaf Erol, Beggar, he should close this book immediately, for I shan't recap.'

'I will tell you this much, gentle reader. When we last saw Eslaf, he was a boy, an orphan, a failed beggar, running through the wildy winter woods of Skyrim, away from his home of Erolgard. He continued running, stopping here and there, for many more years, until he was a young man.'

'Eslaf discovered that among the ways of getting food, asking for it was the most troublesome. Far easier was finding it in the wilderness, or taking it from unguarded market stalls. The only thing worse than begging to get food was begging for the opportunity to work for the money to buy it. That seemed needlessly complicated.'

'No, as far as Eslaf was concerned, he was best off being a scavenger, a beggar, and a thief...'

I knew this book from the game, it's part of a four books series composed of the books: Beggar, Thief, Warrior and King. Every one of these four books gave a permanent increase in one aspect of the skill trees in the game. They were respectively: Pickpocket (Beggar and Thief), Block (Warrior) and Two-Handed Weapons (King). Whenever I played the game I would always keep the books I found to put them in my house's library, and I think I'll do the same now, though it would be needed to purchase one of the Heartfire's DLC terrains and build my own house as I don't like the ones that are in the main cities.

Going back to my reading, I was at the last page. and when it finished I heard the system's notification.

*Ding* Congratulations Host for finding and reading a skill book. Awarding 15 XP and the skill <Pickpocketing>. Unlocking the 'Common Skills' section.

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(Common Skills): Pickpocketing lvl 1 (chances of success when Pickpocketing increase by 5%).

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'That's interesting. So there exist the common skills of the game besides my own abilities. It's good to know.'

When I was thinking about all the skill books I remembered from the game, there was a knock on my door. It was Lokir that wanted to tell me something.

(Lokir): "Nero. Abjorn says he wants to meet up with us in front of the inn, something about an urgent task I think he said."

(Nero): 'An urgent task? Oh it must be the one about informing the Jarl of what happened in Helgen.' "Alright, let's see what he wants."

Outside the inn we found Abjorn waiting , when he noticed we came out of the inn he started waving for us to come closer and that's what we did.

(Nero): "Hi Abjorn. Lokir told me you had something you wanted to tell us."

(Abjorn): "Indeed, I'll be leaving for Whiterun in the next couple of days, the townsmen asked me to go and deliver notice to The Jarl about the dragons sightings because Riverwood doesn't have enough defenses right now. I wanted to ask if you two will be coming with me or if you had any other plans."

(Lokir): "Well, I was planning to go there and earn some more money to buy a horse and return to Rorikstead so I might as well tag along."

(Nero): "I'm waiting for Alvor to make what I asked of him and it will still take around a day so if you are in a hurry you may as well leave today."

(Abjorn): "No worries my friend, I still got some preparations to make. besides, if we're going in the same direction, I can't just go without you when we've been through so much already."

Seeing Abjorn return to his loud and carefree attitude after what happened yesterday, me and Lokir felt relived, for a moment we thought that experience broke him or something. Him being the dragonborn, I knew that he would still play his role, but the idea of a serious and boring Abjorn didn't sit well in my mind. One of the system's notifications brought me out of my thoughts.

*Ding* Host received a new mission: Travel to WHITERUN and talk to the JARL about RIVERWOOD'S SITUATION.

After reading the notification I just kept talking with my friends a little more and after a while we decided to have something to eat. With food in our stomachs, me and Abjorn spent the rest of the day aiding some villagers that helped us when we arrived here while Lokir went to see Camilla and finally try his luck with her. Just like this night came and the townspeople trowed a small celebration for us, the ones who helped Lucan and were going to ask help from the Jarl. It seem that they were genuinely grateful for what we'd done. After Abjorn told the story of our delve into the ancient tomb and the people had their feel of laughter and enjoyment we all went to our rooms and the other returned home.

The following day when my gauntlets were ready the I tried them on and surprisingly enough they felt pretty comfortable, and that's unusual taking into account I don't really like armor. My set of leather armor still feels weird on me but I don't have any other choice, at least until I get my hands on a powerful protection spell (comfy clothes ftw)

The gauntlets were made from a light weighted metal and went from my fingers till my elbow. The right one had claws for fingers that resembled the ones from my right arm, while the left one was a normal steel gauntlet (They're the gauntlets of Sauron from LOTR but only the right one has claw shaped fingers and they both go till the elbow, kinda like a bracer-gauntlet I guess. I'll put an image in both the paragraph and chapter comments)

After getting all geared up we met each other near the bridge outside of Riverwood. They mocked my fashion style because of my new gauntlets but I brushed it off knowing that it was only friendly teasing. Like that we set off towards Whiterun in a trip that shouldn't take even a day so we'll probably be arriving before noon if everything goes well.

Of course, while travelling Abjorn began joking, singing and, to Lokir's suffering, he did pretty much everything you could imagine a crowd entertainer doing. This made the journey more lighthearted as we only found minor problems like wolfs and the occasional wild/lost skeever. That is until we neared the main road towards Whiterun's entrance and passed near one of the farms, where we saw some people fighting an over 3 meters creature that had a club and was trying to stomp on them...

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Chapter word count: 2144