IiS Chapter 05 (Patreon)

Yarl Balgruuf sat there waiting for me to talk to him. He must have noticed the person coming in to use his mage’s enchanting table over the past few days. Well, I wasn’t prepared yet, so he had to wait. Walking up, I wasn’t sure if I needed to kneel or bow, but I wasn’t doing that shit regardless if I had to anyways. I didn’t get a quest to come talk to him, so to him, a random man has been spending a good portion of his time inside his castle without talking to him.

“You must have heard of the dragons by now. I was in Helgen when they returned. I just wanted to let you know that the rumors are true, and they have returned.” He sat there thinking about what I said for a few seconds before he gave his response. “Your timing is impeccable. We’ve heard reports that our guard towers have spotted dragons. I wasn’t sure if it was a joke someone was playing on me, but the feverish creation of that equipment you’re wearing is a clear sign of someone preparing for a fight. Go speak with my court mage, he’ll  have something for you to do about these dragons.”

I walked over and handed Farengar the dragonstone. “W-what the? This is! This is what I was going to send you after! How did you know?” This conversation was all still in front of the Yarl. “I got lucky.” The Yarl smirked, but a guard came running in before more conversation could happen. “D-dragon. A dragon is attacking the western watchtower!” The man fell over, completely exhausted from running the entire distance to give his warning.

“By Ysmir! We must go stop the dragon before it makes its way to Whiterun! You, adventurer. Go with Irileth to kill dragon and you’ll be rewarded.” I was still slightly anxious. I had thoroughly prepared, but the difference between fighting a dragon in a game and fighting one in real life was just that. I didn’t know if they’d still be weak enough for a few guards to take down. If they didn’t land, killing them would be far harder than killing them in the game.

I went and got Faendal, who was spending a good portion of his time in Whiterun, keeping an eye on Camilla. “Faendal, we got to go kill a dragon!” I yelled out loud enough for the crowd to hear. The town had more people than the original game. Helgen and Riverwood were the same, but Whiterun had dozens if not hundreds, more people walking around. It made sense, it was the real world. Even still, Skyrim might not have more than a hundred thousand people altogether.

I still needed to let people know what we were going to do, I wasn’t going to think that the reputation system was still functioning; I would need to spread my own name. “That’s right. The great Rage and Faendal are heading with the king’s knight to go kill the dragon before it burns the city down.” I could see him start to shake in his boots at what I said.

We don’t rush out of the town, I let the crowd follow behind us as we make our way toward the tower. It was murmurs at first, but by the time we made it to the door, it was full-blown cheering. Even Faendal was acting braver, he held his head up high. This would be the first real test of his mettle for the future. I didn’t see it; my eyes scanned the horizon, looking for the beating of wings, but I couldn’t remember if there was a interaction to have him show up… Until the guard started running towards us.

“No, get back! It’s still here somewhere. Hroki and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it!” That was the quest trigger to have the dragon start flying at us as I finally picked it out from far away. “There it is! Get ready!” I summoned my bound bow as Faendal began unloading as many arrows as he could into the sky after me with the zephyr bow I picked up. It fired faster, which was great for leveling archery, but for now, it was better on him because he only had the default bow if I didn’t give him that one.

Most arrows miss, but with infinite ammo, I keep firing. He was closer than I realized; what made me missjudge was his size. Alduin was the size of a building; this little dragonling was slightly bigger than a person. It was easily four times smaller than Alduin. He breathed fire, charing a few of the guards that came with us, but not killing any, but they would be scarred for the rest of their lives from the flames. It was clear that the dragon couldn’t keep unleashing endless breaths. It would have to retreat to breathe again after it recovered, but it had so overwhelmingly beaten the last group, it was far more sure of itself than before.

Instead of flying away, an act deemed cowardly by most dragons, it landed. It wasn’t facing the Dragonborn, though, and Irileth was almost badass enough to take the dragon down by herself. Arrows continuously pelted the dragon, which drew its attention toward us. The dragon might not have been able to spew flames endlessly, but it could still launch a fireball the size of itself at us.

I was prepared to dodge; Faendal, unfortunately, wasn’t. He panicked, and instead of getting out of the way or even diving for cover, his body locked up. The ball of flames lobbed in our direction struck him completely. He screamed and waled as the flesh melted off his body. He wasn’t dead, but dying might have been a kindness compared to what had just happened to him.

I didn’t waste the opportunity the dragon gave us by looking in our direction. One of my arrows finally flew true and pierced one of the dragon's eyes. It reeled back in pain which let the rest of the guards have a big target, their arrows finally landing on the dragon. Irileth sprinted at the dragon, and so did I, not to be outdone. I tossed the bound bow onto the ground, and while it started to disappear into motes, I pulled out my two melee weapons.

The ebony blade was locked behind a level restriction in the game, it wasn’t in real life. The ebony axe I enchanted was forged with soul trap and dealt lightning damage. I had overprepared tremendously, and it showed in my equipment. I rushed passed Irileth as we both slammed into the dragon at about the same time. My ebony blade came up to cleave off one of the dragon's wings while the axe scraped across its body. Irileth slammed her sword into the dragon's already destroyed eye.

The dragon reeled back from the pain again. If it twisted its body around and slapped us with its tail, it might have lived a little longer, but it was already on borrowed time. I wrenched it backwards again, and Irileth rode its head while it did so. Both my weapons stabbed into its unguarded underbelly as I disemboweled the thing. The rapid movement of the dragon flung Irileth into the air, and as she came down, her sword dug itself into the dragon's other eye.

Its body spasmed as the blow was clean and struck its brain. The dragon went through its death throws, I caught my breath before I started to feel the empowerment of my soul from defeating the dragon. My soul absorbed the dragon's soul, strengthening itself. Not only was I able to use dragon shouts from the souls I gained but I also increased my other abilities bound to my soul.

Slightly more space for my storage, women I slept with would be that much stronger, and I would naturally get stronger even faster over time. A guard talked about me being the Dragonborn, but I ignored him as I made my way over to Faendal. He is still alive, if just barely. I was hoping he would only go into a downed state like followers did in the game. That wasn’t the case, though. He struggled to breathe as his one good eye looked up at me.

“Did… Did we get it?” I looked at him for a few seconds before answering. “We did.” Still struggling to breathe, he mumbled to himself. “That’s… That’s good… At least… Camilla will be safe now.” Before he could die naturally, I cut his head off with the ebony sword. He deserved a warrior's death for risking his life like this, and he got it… I also got the first kill to strengthen the health-draining effect of the weapon out of ending his suffering.