The journey back to Jonestead was fairly uneventful, aside from a few jokes and conflicts here and there. We come upon the entrance to Jonestead seeing two men in beautiful and well-maintained ebony armor, that makes me feel quite jealous of my own mercenary company's lack of uniform, standing outside it.
"Hail! I am-" I start to say as I introduce myself before they begin to immediately attack as I approached.
They attack in silent unison, one swinging from right to left towards my head, while the other swinging from left to right towards my waist, with their ebony blades.
I feel a rush of adrenaline as my fighting sense is sent into overdrive. I use the shockwave ability to push myself backwards quickly and knock them off balance, but I'm shocked to see them almost immediately recover and close the distance once more.
I'm barely able to bring my buckler up in time to block this new clash of swords, feeling their mighty strikes carve deep groves into my buckler with each blow.
"FUS!" I shout, throwing off their almost impeccable rhythm once more, long enough for me to draw my sword and dive towards the one on my right as I feel two arrows wiz behind me towards my left, knowing that that was Inigo and M'rissi letting their arrows fly as I feel a heat pouring forth from my left. Most likely Sofia suppressing the left fighter with her flame as she closes the distance behind me allowing me to focus all my attention on my opponent.
Despite all this, my opponent seems unfazed, readying his shield for a strike from my inferior sword when I think of something.
Channeling magic into my left hand and turning my palm towards my buckler as I feel ice start to cover the pits and slashes in the buckler as I repeatedly slam it into his guard, not letting up until both my stamina and mana is at half and then I switch it up and begin channeling flame magic into my sword, turning it white hot.
Though as the ice magic from my left-hand stops flowing into the buckler it begins to quite literally shatter into splinters without the ice holding it together, it comes away
I quickly blast the rest of my stamina with heavy blow after heavy blow against the ebony shield with my sword, while using my now free left hand to blast the ebony shield with fire magic.
The sound of the ebony-clad warrior behind me dying to what seemed like an arrow caused my opponent to falter long enough to do what I had hoped. As I bring my blade down for a final time, shattering my blade but also breaking the ebony shield giving me the gap I needed to lunge atop the ebony warrior and jab the shattered blade of my sword into the opening of his visor, quickly ending his life.
"What the hell was that for?! What'd we ever do to piss them off?!" Sofia shouts, kicking the body of the ebony warrior she had helped slay, which I notice has two arrows through the slits in his helmet.
"I don't know, I don't think Sven could afford guys of this caliber and I don't know of anyone else i've pissed off recently." I say shaking my head before stripping them of their armor and weapons, taking a sword and the remaining shield to replace my now broken ones, and packing up their valuable armor. I should probably invest in upping my smithing to work on designing a uniform for the company. Oh? What's this?
I find a letter on one of the bodies, turns out he's something called a 'Hero of Nirn'.
[Defense Order]
[Change of plans. I am going to need your help, my brothers. Only one way to do this: blunt force. My eyes are on the target. Ensure no enemy scouts make it past our outlined perimeter. Await further order.]
"Are you all right?!" Kasia asks in concern.
"I'm fine, but I should be the one asking you, I'm a warrior after all." I say confidently.
"I wanted to help… But… I didn't know how… I'm sorry." Kasia apologizes.
"It's okay, but Marcus will want to know what happened." I say turning to head inside after packing up the loot.
"Wait, does he have to? I mean… Yeah, you're right. They were standing infant of the entrance after all. I have a bad feeling about this. You might want to check their bodies, see if they were carrying anything important. Father is going to be so furious…" Kasia says after debating aloud.
"I bet he is, let's go find out." I say leading the party into the town that seems none the wiser to the danger lurking just outside their doors.
Making our way through the town we head into Marcus' house where he greets us, "Excellent, you have returned! Now th-. Is that blood?! Kasia, what happened?" Marcus exclaims in shock after seeing the state of the party.
"Father, please keep calm. There were two men right outside Jonestead. Clad in ebony armor. They attacked us!" Kasia exclaims.
"Can it be? Have they finally decided to reveal themselves? Gods give me strength! I was a fool to let you go out!" Marcus shouts.
"No you weren't! I'm fine! But please tell us what's going on! Now's not the time to keep secrets!" Kasia begs.
"I hoped it would never come to this… So be it. Kasia, go to your room and gather anything that would help you survive for a few days. Grab the goods you got from Ma'Dato and put on some warm clothing." Marcus tells Kasia.
"What? Where are we going?" Kasia asks in shock.
"I'm not going anywhere, you are. My place is here in Jonestead. Now hurry! There isn't much time!" Marcus begins shouting even louder.
"Father, please-" Kasia begs before he cuts her off.
"Go! I need to speak to our friend. He can explain everything to you later." Marcus says as Kasia runs off to her room, barely holding back the tears in her eyes.