‘It turns out I suck at this magic thing.
I can’t feel a thing.
Aletios explained it to me three times, but it just sounds like bolocs.
What’s this about feeling the universe and letting it touch your inner self?
It makes no sense!’
Septimus felt resigned when it came to learning magic; it had been about a week since he started trying to feel magicka, and it all felt like wasted time.
‘Well, Aletios did say that sometimes it’s easier if you feel the magicka when someone else is casting a spell and go from there; the problem is, there isn’t anyone able to do that in this group, so I was just winging it’
After several days of monotonous traveling where almost nothing happened, the caravan was finally about to reach the pass to Skyrim
‘The journey wasn’t bad at all.
I took advantage of the free time to learn some basic survival skills and the like from the mercenaries; I’m pretty sure the only reason they taught me anything is that they were as bored as I was’
Septimus looked the same way he did on the day he departed from Chorrol; he wore brown clothes from top to bottom, now a bit more ragged and smelling significantly worse.
‘Alotius is actually a good guy, surprisingly enough.
I was expecting to get worked like a horse, but the workload was more than manageable; we even talk every now and then, he told me all about his adventurous trade deals and his family back in the imperial city’
The caravan was getting closer to the Pale Pass; it reached a road with a sharp incline surrounded on both sides by cliffs.
“We’re almost there, men, keep watch over the top of the cliffs, if you see any movement up there call it out, we don’t want any surprises!” The orcish bodyguard shouted from the front.
Septimus winced.
‘Great advice, but maybe don’t shout it at the top of your lungs while deep in the mountains; I heard it echo a bit!’
Hearing their superior’s words, the men all went on guard, eyes locked onto the cliffs; even the usually lazy carriage drivers sharpened up.
“Why is everyone so nervous all of a sudden?” Septimus asked the man walking next to him; it was the group runner, a lanky, dark-haired imperial.
“Oh, this area has a bit of a reputation.
Now and then boulders crash down on the road, and the garrison has to come down from the pass to clear them; we just need to make sure we aren’t under them if they fall.”
Septimus nodded and thanked him.
‘Ok, so watch out for falling boulders, noted.
Let’s hope nothing happens, and I get to make it to Skyrim safe and sound’
====================
He had jinxed it.
After following the road up the mountain for a while, the men relaxed and started chatting again, ignoring the orcs’ orders to keep a close eye on the cliffs.
Septimus was the same, happily chatting with the imperial next to him about khajit cuisine when he heard it.
A bestial roar sounded in the valley, so loud that Septimus thought the dragons might have already returned and he was about to become dragon chow.
“Up there!” One of the men pointed; he was another imperial wielding a bow. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Septimus looked over and saw it, some sort of humanoid creature with white fur mixed with red and black, dry blood.
It was large, very large, easily two heads taller than the orc and twice as wide.
It had three beady eyes greedily glaring at their group; its mouth was hanging open, a grotesque set of gigantic yellowed teeth dripping with saliva pointed right at him.
“What in Oblivion is that!” One of the carriage drivers shouted.
“A troll!
To arms!
Keep it away from the horses!” That was the orc, his two-handed warhammer already in his hands; he took a guarded stance next to Aletios.
‘That is the most grotesque thing I’ve ever seen.
Why is it moving like that?!’ Septimus winced.
The troll had jumped down from the cliff and started charging the middle carriage; it was running extremely fast, using its oversized arms to balance, in a similar fashion to a gorilla.
Septimus fumbled with his bow; by the time he had knocked an arrow and was preparing to shoot, the troll already had three arrows sticking out of its torso.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled the string back, aimed, and took the shot; the arrow hit below the central mass, piercing the troll below its ribcage.
Even after taking a volley of arrows to the body, its charge barely slowed; the arrows were more of an annoyance than anything.
Four men stood side by side, forming a shield wall in front of the carriage; the troll charged straight into them, throwing them around like pinballs.
It then grabbed the leg of one of the fallen shieldbearers and swung it sideways, using his body as a bat.
It was plenty effective; the terrified screams of the captured man affected the morale and kept others away; it also made it almost impossible for Septimus and the other archers to get a clear shot against the troll.
It did not take long for the first casualty to occur; it was surprisingly not the man captured by the troll but another one that had successfully managed to sneak behind the troll and stab a dagger right into its neck.
“I got him!” He roared victoriously.
“Bastard didn’t even see it coming!” Those were his last words as the troll turned around and bit his head off.
There was no preamble; it wasn’t even an attack; it only turned and bit down at the smaller creature.
Seeing the scene of their friend’s death, a few men charged recklessly, roaring vengeance.
“It killed Hudson!
Gut it like the beast it is!” The troll then got stabbed in the stomach with a spear, struck on the arm with a sword, and had its leg smashed with a warhammer.
Yet it still stood batting away at the warriors, managing to kill another one with a backhand to the head.
‘Right, these things regenerate!
In the games they were weak to fire, it even stopped their regeneration!’
Septimus just had an idea on how to deal with the troll, a Skyrim classic in a way.
The runner stopped trying and failing to aim his bow and looked over at Septimus.
“Don’t stand there looking at me, go, quickly!” He hesitated but complied in the end.
Jumping onto a carriage, the runner quickly rummaged out a pot of oil used for making torches; rather than oil, it was more like very thin, liquid pitch.
The pot was made of clay and sealed with beeswax for travel.
“Here, take it.
What do you plan to do with it?” He asked Septimus.
“You’ll see!
Go quickly and light a torch.
I will throw the oil pot at the troll, then light him on fire!” The runner’s eyes lit up; he too seemed to realize what would happen to the troll then.
Septimus ran over and shouted at the shieldbearers surrounding the troll to make space, pushed through the shield wall, and chucked the pot at the troll; it broke and coated the chest area of the troll with a black, foul-smelling liquid.
Just then, the runner came carrying a lit torch.
Septimus didn’t hesitate; he grabbed the torch and threw it at the roaring troll.
The oil lit on fire instantly, covering the chest of the troll; its screams were horrific, even scarier than when he charged at the caravan earlier.
Its body seemed to be extremely flammable as it quickly caught fully on fire; the troll, feeling death looming, turned around and tried to flee, breaking through the encirclement and reaching the cliff’s edge.
The men, seeing it turn and run, regained their courage and charged after it, arrows and throwing weapons hitting the back of the climbing troll; it barely made it halfway before losing its grip on the wall.
The troll’s flaming body had barely touched the ground before a warhammer found a place in its skull.
Seeing the troll finally die, the surviving warriors cheered loudly at the victory, only for the somber realisation that they had lost 3 of their friends to kick in.
Quickly reorganizing, the corpses of the three fallen men were carried onto one of the carriages; the troll’s body was discarded.
They did not have the time nor the knowledge on how to extract anything worthwhile from it, and they quickly restarted their journey.
‘I can’t believe a troll, surrounded by a dozen warriors and getting shot at by a dozen more, was strong enough to kill three of them.
It was losing, but if I hadn’t interfered, it probably could have killed a few more shieldbearers.’
Septimus let out a sigh at his first encounter with the death of another human in this world; even if he barely knew the deceased, it still left a sour taste in his mouth.
While contemplating what it meant to live in such a dangerous world, Alotius called out to him.
“Hey Septimus, I saw what you did.
Great thinking there.
It’s common knowledge that trolls are weak to fire, but they are rare, and we didn’t prepare anything to deal with them.
Just so you know.
You saved someone’s life today; good work!”
Thanking Alotius for his words of encouragement, they got lost in conversation until finally, after close to ten days of travel, the Pale Pass came into view.
A giant carved wooden gate stretched from one end of the cliff to the other; it felt as if it served as the divide between two worlds, the dreary gray peaks of Cyrodiil on one side and the snowy peaks of Skyrim on the other.