Even though the caravan had its own guards their numbers were relatively few and we still need to look out during the night for ourselves. Since the driver will need to be fresh so he can spend driving the cart tomorrow all day long it came to us passengers to decide to organize and schedule the lookout duty.
- I wanna be first.
-First.- the Dunmer woman spoke for the first time, and at the same moment with me, and I have to admit that there is admit there is something in her voice that gets to the bone, deep and sharp.
-Then you two are first for lookout duty, I and Ivar will take over in the middle of the night, while wood elves can take over closer to dawn - the Nord that was traveling with us decided not to stand on the ceremony and put the two of us in a pair since we volunteered at the same time. And since no one argued with that it can be concluded that everyone agrees with his suggestion.
I only received a long look from the dunmer mercenary, after which she turned away from me and went away, apparently to choose a place where to arrange her lodging for the night.
And only thing remaining for me is to repeat her actions with only one difference, first I took from the cart my sleeping bag and decided to leave the tent alone, the sky was clear and there will be neither snow nor rain at night, but one sleeping bag made of black a bear's fur will be enough to protect from the wind, trees around and fire helping in keeping me warm.
After a couple of hours, only me and the woman exactly opposite me through the fire remained awake, now I regretted that I had not bought a single normal book to read, it would be a good help to pass the time, both on the road and here on such halts. Oh yes, I regretted wasting money for them and, in principle, correctly so
- Do you have any books with you? - asked a question to his partner by chance.
-Hmm? - she was surprised that I still mustered up the courage to speak to her or something of this kind, but there is only one fact - she did not expect a question from me.
- It's boring to just sit here.
-Losing vigilance can cost you dearly,- she scolded with a grin. No, I don't have any books.
-Tch, bad luck, - I was a little upset, but she was right in some ways, in her opinion, I may not look like someone with the ability to keep guard for a penny, besides, why should I work myself, if my magic does it for me.
- Power over Oblivion, I call on a small beast, - calmly said the activation formula spells, making the same necessary hand gesture.
An almost native spirit of a wolf appeared near me. Fun fact if concentrate on the spell and if the summon takes no damage, that reduces his time at the power of the summoner, then such a summon may last not a miserable minute, but almost an hour. It was a funny observation discovered by me when I toiled from idleness on a cart on the way to Riften and dabbled with the few available spells at the time.
Since I can't read anything, I'll play with magic, some time passes since the summoning of a wolf, just enough for me to replenish the reserve of magic that was spent on it, and this is without taking into account that at a time I can make two sure summons and after a couple of minutes of waiting for the third. It is a pity that for the summoning of the atronach, this is not a place, not in a forest full of dry grass, foliage, and branches, I don't want to put out small fires. But the hands are itching to finally use the new powerful magic, it would be very unfair if I tried to use it in combat and
There were several hours of waiting before a Nords took our place.
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After a week of traveling, we reached a mountainous region near Helgen where already some snow was lying on the ground then our wagon suddenly stopped with the rest of the caravan doing the same.
-Why did you stop? - one of the wood elves said discontentedly and sleepily. As The last night they again were the last ones on the lookout.
-There is a group of trolls ahead, the hired guard is taking care of them- the driver said quietly.
And indeed, if you look at the road, leaning out through the wooden
board or standing on your feet, then in the distance you could see stocky white figures against the background of a dark stone of rocks and merecenerayse in steel armor fighting them.
However, in the next moment, a roar came out from trees to our side, and one more troll that was hiding there run directly towards us as our wagon was the closest. Unfortulently for it our dunmer mercenary was on alert and has shoot an arrow that pierced its shoulder while the rest of us were preparing for a fight[.
Hmm, it is a chance to test my magick in the battle. and with that thought, I launched a firebolt at the troll while preparing the summoning in my other hand. There is no need for a defensive spell yet as the rest of my group carry weapons and wear some sort of armor so I can safely conclude that they are all warriors. And I can safely hide behind their back at least for the time being.
-By power over Oblivion I call and bind
-with the power of the Daedric Spirit of Fire
And right after I finished chanting in an instant, more than half of all the magic filling my body was gone, as if it was succked into the abyss, my legs for a moment
bent over, as if someone had taken the rod out of me, but I expected.
I immediately tightened the leash of my will and the remnants of magic around the mind of the atronach, by concentrating on the spell that bound me and the floating flame humanoid.
-Hit on the head, - the order was heard by the atronach, although again this was not necessary, he just as well carried out my mental commands.
In the hand of the summoned lesser Daedra, a thick, bright, hot, and very dangerous ball of flame, almost lazily he pulled his hand back, and in the same lazily sent a ball of flame flying. That's just the one, surprisingly, flew not slowly, but very quickly, much faster than arrows flew
Anneke on spiders. One hundred meters in less than two blinks. But also on this, the surprises didn't end there.
Upon reaching its target the ball of flame exploded, hiding the figure troll in a huge cloud of flame twice as large as the troll itself, from which some snow on the road next to the beast instantly turned into puddles of water, and the victim herself fire attack roared in overwhelming agony.
Behind the first fireball a second later came the second. Another explosion shook the mountain road and a screaming of pain abruptly ended, turning into a full-fledged roar of hatred.
Consumed by rampant fire, the troll darted from side to side, trying to knock the greedy flame from his skin, falling to the ground to extinguish it, he made a bad decision by becoming a less moving target.
Literally, five heartbeats later two new fiery comets crashed into his body and the roar of a beast was silent. Four fireballs fried the big beast to a crisp. The burning figure just lay on the ground and did not take any action. while his flesh melted under the tongues of greedy hot flames.
I could only stare at that, with a stunned look. With only all thoughts in my head being on the atronach, and dead troll.
The troll did not even take a step in our direction but was more busy eliminating fire on your body.
-Fuck me, I croaked under my breath in a hoarse voice and shifted my gaze to the four archers beside me.
The Bosmer, just like me, stood there trying to understand what just happened around them still being at ready for shooting. Nords even though tried to not look smug too could not hide their shock and only dunmer though was not surprised with her arms crossed over her chest and even without taking off her bow from her shoulder, she looked at me patronizingly, as if asking with his scarlet eyes: "What else did you expect?".
I urgently need to re-evaluate in my head the progression of increasing power
magic when moving from level to level.
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---Cold, apchi!! The dunmer woman complained while shivering from the cold. Even though there was a flame atronach hovering near her. Yeah, I am letting her use my summon as and heater, but even so, she somehow fell ill.
Though it is not surprising considering that Morrowind the homeland of the dark elves is a very hot place, so much so that dunmers have heat resistance just like nords have resistance to cold.
It was a couple of days since our first meeting with the troll's attack and the climate became even colder. Thank god, I transmigrated into the nord's body or else I too would have been struggling. Though if you think that the pity to my dunmer companion is the only reason why I summoned the atronach you would be wrong. As it turns out it has a lot of practical applications in travel. such as polling water and preparing food.
Wow, what wide eyes did my fellow travelers have when they realized that I had fallen ill in the middle of the transition through the snowy mountains and called on the atronach to warm myself, words can not convey it. But memories of those saucer eyes will warm my soul for a long time.
And I also cooked myself a tea of dried herbs with the help of the call, handed him
a liter metal kettle, which in fact was simply enlarged a metal beer mug with a lid on top and a handle near the lid, and forced the atronach to fill it with snow on his own, which then melted into kettle from the temperature of the hands holding it. When the snow turned into clean water and boiled, poured a handful of snowberries into it and five minutes later boiling enjoyed a hot and tart drink on the tongue.
That I had to constantly share with a woman eager for a hot drink and three bosmers. While the Nords looked enviously but kept their tongues behind their teeth, the pride of the village fools did not allow them to ask mage for a favor, so they wrapped themselves in their capes.
Ever since they learned that I am a mage they were acting as if I sm some sort of shady person that could not be trusted..
-How far are we from Helgen? - the question was addressed
to our driver.
- There are six hours left, we will have time before sunset, if there is no road ahead
there were landslides and snowstorms days earlier, - the nord replied while looking sympathetically at our sick companion.
- Great news, - and indeed the news was great as I already have grown tired from the monotonous journey.
Helgen is a major Imperial fortress built by the Septims to increase the defenses of Skyrim as a whole and for closer control of the trade route from Riften to Whiterun and Falkreath. It has about a thousand or two residents so I should have no problem on buying more supplies and resting there before continuing my journey with the caran. And hopefully, our dunmer companion could find an alchemist to sell her cure disease potion.