The stew was still a bit heavy on the iron tang but that was the meats fault more than anything else. Still i did what I could to make up for it so while the flavor was definitely there it wasn't overwhelming or off putting. Once again I set up a earthen hut for me to sleep in and turned in for the night. A racoon raided the grisly bits of sinew and organs from the wolf while we slept but none of us cared. I made a light egg and cheese breakfast in the morning and we set off again.-
We got stopped by some more bandits again close to noon and this time I actually got to stretch my legs. There were eight of them surrounding us with only three archers thankfully. There was no attempt at getting us to hand over our coin peaceably, this group attacked immediately with the intent to kill. The archers got taken out immediately by my spell before they could loose a second volley of arrows. The first volley was aimed at me but it took me all of a split second to snap up a ward to stop them. -
I didn't take my time dismounting and rolled off my toad after my spell took out the archers. I quickly regained my footing as the first bandit, a Redguard, reached me with an iron greatsword raised high as he screamed a war cry. My right hand curled in front of my chest and a plain handle began to slide out of my chest with a bright silver light. Grasping my swords handle I drew it into a transition block that I braced with my left hand.-
"CLANG!" the sound of metal on metal sounded out and the bandit was pushed back from the rebounding force.
"Swip!" my blade flashed out in a stab under his guard and into his throat.
I retracted my blade the instant it's job was done and spun around with a diagonal slash that stopped the guy's buddy from stabbing me in the back with his own sword. The new bandit, a Breton, was overextended from putting his all into that stab leaving him wide open for my blade that slashed across his throat as I stepped past him. The three bandits not in direct combat stiffened in hesitation from seeing five of their number meet their ends in the span of a minute.-
They collectively seemed to decide to run the hell away but I raised my hand and quickly sent three spikes of ice into their hearts as they spun to set up their escape.
"This one is impressed. These brigands barely got a chance to fight back before you dispatched them, cleanly at that!" Do-Ra said with bright eyes as she walked up.
"I've learned a thing or two about using a sword, they weren't much threat to anyone even semi-competent." I said as I held my blades tip in front of my chest and pushed causing the blade to sink in with a silver glow as it returned to my soul.
She raised an eyebrow at that "Neat trick, magic?" she asked intrigued.
"Something like that." I answered vaguely.
I then got to work looting the bodies and burning them up. From the group I got two hundred thirty six gold. Three wooden bows, an iron greatsword, an iron war axe, two iron swords, a steel sword, a bottle of weak stamina poison, three bottles of minor healing potions and a bottle of cure disease potion. One of the archers had an iron chest plate I took as well but lacked the other pieces of the set.-
Ironically if he'd have had an iron helm instead he might had survived the lightning bolt to the face. I would like to point out that we had been incredibly lucky so far as most decent bandit crews, or gods forbid clans, had one or two fully armored people to serve as heavy front liners. For crews it was usually something the group all chips in on because it drastically improves the chances of success.-
Bandit crews typically hit soft targets, caravans with little heavily armed and armored guards and civilians on the road. Bandit clans on the otherhand are a scourge on the land as they have generationally reeved and raided to accumulate wealth and tactics that let them gear up way better than most crews can ever hope. Any attack on imperial transports or heavily armed shipments was almost always done by one of these clans. These clans were still killed in any attempts they made but were never hunted actively for one simple reason, they keep the number of REALLY dangerous bandits relatively stable.-
The Jarls hate rogue bandits more than anything because these groups more often than not resort to straight up murder for their wealth. When that happens too much it cuts off the economy of the hold slightly which is good for exactly no one. Due to this bandit clans regularly clean house with any bandit crews that get a bit too murderous assuming someone doesn't beat them to it. These last two crews were obviously newly formed though so they hadn't fully established themselves yet. Still once again I sold the bows to Dar-La and kept the rest since I did all the work killing the bandits. -
I cleansed the iron chest plate and sold that to Do-Ra personally since she just had a good set of leather armor despite being the caravans designated guard. Not to say she couldn't afford better but she simply never entered the cities herself. As the guard she wasn't allowed to leave the wagon at any time. We arrived at the village of Shor's stone as the sun was starting to set. Like always there was serious differences between the actual place and the one in the game. For starters there was a wall surrounding the place to keep out wild animals and of course bandits.-
Additionally the houses weren't just wooden walls with thatch roofing but had wooden roofing sealed with pitch to keep out water. There was also more than three houses, well over three dozen in fact. It was a small community granted but it was not nearly as empty as the game made it seem. The guards at the gate watched us carefully as we set up camp outside the village as was normal procedure for caravans. The trading wouldn't start until the next morning at earliest and we'd be here for at least a day before we moved on towards Kynesgrove.-
Dinner this time was a simple set of venison kabobs I made using venison I bartered with one of the guards to get. There were at least two or three hunters in Shor's stone who brought back meat regularly so they had plenty to trade for coin. If there was one thing you could absolutely say about Skyrim it was that most of the wildlife was well maintained. The populations weren't over hunted even with all year hunting though technically illegal without a license.