"Not thrilled about winning against three elite soldiers eh?" I said with a chuckle.
Lokjun squawked at me indignantly and shook itself reopening the thin but many cuts on it.
"Right right, first time and all that. Now you know to be more cautious when fighting people. Still we should probably take care of those wounds before they start itching." I said placatingly and using some healing magic on it to close the wounds and remove the scars.
Once that was done I moved on to the less fun part of this matter, looting the dead.-
First up I took the weapons and immediately fed them to my own blade that ate seven longswords and a whole shield before the material changes solidified in it giving it a dark golden hue with green lines through it. Thanks to the shield having a fire resistance enchantment on it my blade also now had a solid five percent resistance to fire on it. As the wielder that meant I had that extra bit of flame resistance. I gave the sword a few solid swings and had to admit the thing lived up to it's potential.-
The blade was now lighter than before but more sturdy at the same time. In addition to that my magicka flowed through the blade with ease, a trait that all elvish alloys shared. Contrary to the game the recipe for those alloys wasn't common knowledge and if anything was actively kept secret. This was to keep the other races from using the knowledge for themselves. Thanks to the game though I knew the alloy was a mix of quicksilver and moonstone. The exact ratio was beyond me for the moment since the game required an ingot of both to make the alloy and I highly doubted that it was a straight fifty fifty mix.-
Obviously there were slight differences in reality as supplementary materials were no doubt folded into individual alloy mixtures but the basic alloy was something I could probably grasp with a bit of experimentation. Beyond the weapons on these soldiers they were suspiciously free of any valuables. No gold, gems, ingredients or potions, nothing. There was no note telling me how they knew I'd be here either but that was to be expected. As for the armors that were flat out ruined with the exceptions of boots and gloves I cleansed them and tossed them into my Oblivion plane to be melted down into ingots.-
There was nothing for it unfortunately. Unlike in the game you couldn't just show up and sell thalmor equipment without someone asking questions. Anyone stupid enough to do so very rarely lived long afterwards. The thalmor might be technically playing at peace but they would make you disappear one way or another if you fucked with them and they found out. I long since resolved myself to dealing with their annoying attempts at murdering me and was no normal man so I could handle it, most couldn't.-
I put away my blade and left the corpses where they lay not even bothering to burn them. I resummoned my toad and grimaced at the burns on it. The fire rune's initial burst had been taken by this ugly but reliable fellow and it showed.
"croak."
The toad sounded out weakly as it flipped over onto it's side leaving it's belly exposed.
"Yeah, that's the idea. You took a rune meant for me, least I can do is heal you afterwards. Hold still, this might feel a bit weird." I say as I take out one of my carefully made anesthetic potions and holding my finger over the top sprinkle liberally on the scorched open flesh of the toads belly.-
A shudder runs through the toad at first but it's body releases tension quickly as the pain from the burns numbed away. Ignoring my own numb finger tip I got to work carefully removing the burnt dead flesh and quickly healing it over one piece at a time. It was careful taxing work that required patience and smooth magicka control but eventually the toad was good as new. Perhaps even better since I made the new skin on it's belly and inner legs harder, like callus.-
The big fella flopped back over and after stretching a bit to make sure it was all good croaked again.
"Yeah, lets off road it a bit this time to avoid any other traps on the road." I said as I mounted up again and we set off.
We moved a bit slower off road but I didn't complain as we were still making good time. There were no more ambushes for the next two days of travel but the experience of the one I did experience gave me a small breakthrough in the destruction school of magic letting my skill rise to sixty four. This was mostly because of directly experiencing the force of multiple runes going off all at once. I suspected that if they had used ice runes as well my gains would have been higher but profit was profit so I certainly wasn't going to complain. Besides that they clearly already knew that I likely inherited the innate resistance to cold all Nords had and discarded ice magic entirely as a result.-
'That reminds me but that mage mentioned the blood of a woman. Do the Thalmor know who my parents are?' I thought deeply confused about this matter.
I almost regretted not keep the mage alive to learn more but at the same time knew better than that. Capture was always a risky idea. If it worked out great but if the prisoner escapes somehow? That was dangerous, not worth risking in my opinion. Still the thought that the thalmor might know my parentage when I myself didn't caused a part of my mind to itch dangerously. A temptation to go pay the thalmor embassy a visit and pry out those secrets, one way or another.
'No, I shouldn't stir up the thalmor overtly like that while the alliance is not yet solidified. The time will come.' I thought stilling the turbulent currents of my mind.
On the third day we weren't ambushed but stopped anyways because of a very different matter.
"Fancy meeting you out this way." a woman furred down to keep the cold at bay but immediately familiar said as I dropped the [chameleon] spell on us.
"Aela right? What are you doing here at the frozen ass crack of Skyrim?" I asked curiously.
"Frost troll's been causing Windhelm trouble and the companions took the contract. All this snow makes it troublesome to track but a skilled hunter can always find the signs." she said casually.-
I nodded "Winters been especially long this year, must have ran out of stored food. Could also have been run off by a rival and is wandering in search of good territory. Trolls are predictable beasts like that." I said with a shrug.
"Aye, brutes the lot of them. Still they are hardy things, hard to put down without fire. You didn't kill this one by chance did you?" she asked and I shook my head.
"No such luck this time." I said honestly.