"Another custom spell?" Do-Ra asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Fusion spell actually, Alteration and Destruction mixed. I fused the [mage light] and [chain lightning] spells together to create a spell that starts out as an orb and locks onto enemies before turning into bolts of lightning. Three is the limit at the moment though. Perfect for these idiots but any more and I'd have actually needed a bit of effort." I said casually as I hopped off my mount.
"This one might need to look into acquiring a mage for the caravan with how easy you made that look." Dar-La said from her seat on the wagon.
I waved that off and walked over to the first body to our left since it was closest to us. Couldn't tell the race easily without a head but it didn't really matter to me anyways. I patted around the chest and sides of the corpse and found the stashed stuff the fellow had one him. Five lockpicks, a potion of minor healing, a small pouch of twenty gold and an iron dagger beyond the bow and iron arrows. I took it all before hitting the body with [flames] and heading to the next body.-
I finished looting the last two bodies and burned them to ash before remounting my toad and counting my spoils. Two plain pine bows, thirty eight iron arrows, an iron sword, two iron daggers, a minor healing potion, eight lockpicks and fifty three gold. Not a lot of profit but considering I only burnt out seventy magicka to get it and was already almost topped off again it was not terrible. I sold the bows and arrows to Dar-La for an extra twenty gold since I couldn't be bothered to get a better price for them and kept the rest.-
The scenery was rather vibrant with most of it being reds and yellows with various wild plants growing all over for other colors and the trees being the white barked beech kind with some other varieties sprinkled in sporadically. Other than that it was just nature all around us with birdsong filling the air and the sounds of deer and other game going about their business. Eventually we reached halfway to Shor's stone which I knew because of the most famous landmark at roughly that point, Fort Greenwall.-
An ancient grey stoned relic of wars long since past that like most abandoned forts was now occupied by bandits. We very pointedly gave the crumbling stone structure a wide berth as we moved through the woods off road to avoid being spotted by the bandits. I admit that I was tempted to go rushing into the fort to clear it out and possibly score some better loot but I tamped that Idea down as realistically there was not much point. Sad as it was to admit unless these bandits had a heft bounty on them from the Jarl going through the effort to wipe them out was more often than not a waste of both time and money.-
First because obviously they'd not just roll over and die without a fight. Second because bandits by general rule of thumb weren't rich, shocking I know. Finally because another group would probably move in within a week after these ones had been cleared out so long as the fort remained abandoned in a official capacity. Honestly I might just send the Jarl of Riften, Leila Law-giver, a letter to convince her to take over the place herself since it IS on the main road between Riften and Windhelm and everything in between those two hold capitals.-
It also helped that I remembered from the game it was the imperial legions rift conquest fort. Don't get me wrong Ulfric and his so called "rebellion" could go suck toes when he finally built up the nerve to kick it off but I definitely wasn't the biggest fan of the empire either. Honestly from a strategic point of view the rebellion was idiotic in anything but the short term. Skyrim was always going to be a juicy target for the Thalmor because the vast majority of the losses they suffered came from her warriors.-
That was the thing about the people of Skyrim, we could be some downright scary bastards when you pissed us off. And oh did the Thalmor piss us off. Kinda hypocritical I know for Nords to be kinda racist on the undertone and have a problem with someone else for being racist but there were not so funnily enough levels to racism. The Thalmor were at the pinnacle of racism as they were of the thought process of everyone not Altmer were lesser creatures hardly better than animals. Being an elf of some sort just made you slightly more worthy of life than the other races in their eyes, still lesser though.-
For Nords the most common racism was the one where you looked funny so we mocked you, harmless mostly. Don't get me wrong there were a few that took it up a level or more but on the whole it basically started and ended at the you looking funny to us level. Hell most Nords cared more for WHO you were as a person rather than what. That said Nords were also one of the most straightforward to befriend races around, you treat us good and we'll return the favor, usually at least.-
That aspect of the game was actually pretty accurate. It was more or less genuinely that easy to become close friends with a Nord. Anyways my whole beef with the empire was mostly because it stopped treating the people of Skyrim as people but tools. In this regard General Tullius in the game depicted the empire's lack of care for Skyrim's people perfectly. The man multiple times not only failed to care about our culture but flat out dismissed it in the same amount of time. Add on how he seemed only to care about how the rebellion effected the empire and the picture was rather unpleasant to look at.-
Leila Law-giver sided with Ulfric in the game so the fort had Stormcloak soldiers at that point but if I could get it filled with Riftmen all the better. Anyways we avoided the place as best we could. It wasn't particularly hard as the bandits were so focused on the road itself for travelers that they totally missed us going through the woods. We didn't stop traveling for quite a well into the night so we could put as much distance between us and the bandits as possible before we set down for the night.-
I sent my mount back to whatever plane of Oblivion it came from and got to work preparing dinner. Dro-Qa helped tremendously in the selection by hunting a lone wolf that got to close and paid for it. It was a scrawny thing from malnutrition but otherwise healthy. If I had to guess the rest of the pack bad been wiped out and only it survived for some reason. I prepped what little meat it had by soaking it in vinegar and salted water to try and kill off the gaminess a bit as I set up a hearty hunters stew.