After finishing our business in Riverwood, we headed toward Whiterun. However, there were two things to take care of before entering the city.
First: receiving a blessing from the Standing Stones near Riverwood.
There are thirteen Standing Stones in Skyrim, providing effects ranging from incredibly useful to utterly worthless.
We had about ten days before our next dragon encounter, so we needed to get as strong as possible in the meantime.
Thus, we stopped to activate the Warrior Stone and the Mage Stone located between Riverwood and Helgen. The Thief Stone was unnecessary, as none of us fit that particular archetype.
Upon reaching the three pillars, we each made our choice.
I chose the Warrior Stone, and Eloise naturally went for the Mage Stone.
Lydia, however, was acting strange. I approached her as she stood there, motionless.
"Is there a problem?"
"To activate a Standing Stone, one must channel the Magicka within their body, but I..."
Now that she mentioned it, Lydia couldn't use magic. I hadn't realized she lacked even the most basic spark of Magicka.
I was also surprised to learn that activating these things required Magicka in the first place. I suppose if any random person could do it, every commoner in Skyrim would be huddling around these stones.
As I offered Lydia my silent sympathies, I saw Choi Ha-neul agonizing over her own choice.
"What's your problem now?"
"Hmm... I'm torn between the Warrior and the Mage."
Since Choi Ha-neul's style was effectively a Spellsword—swinging steel while slinging Destruction magic—it was a fair dilemma.
"Just pick whichever one you're slower at leveling up," I said pragmatically.
"Then definitely the Mage!"
With Choi Ha-neul's choice made, we moved on to our second task.
As everyone knows, Skyrim is crawling with bandits. They're on the roads, in the caves, basically anywhere there's a roof and something to steal.
I decided we were going to clear out a few bandit dens.
We could legally seize their ill-gotten loot, gain combat experience, and improve the local security. It was a classic three-birds-one-stone situation.
The first target on my list was White River Watch. Located just across the bridge near Honningbrew Meadery, it was a den with a manageable difficulty level and a Bandit Chief at the end—the perfect training ground.
As we neared the entrance to the overlook, I turned to Eloise.
"Eloise. Have you ever killed a person?"
This was a vital question. It wasn't our first fight together; we'd been hunting monsters as we traveled.
But those were wolves and wild beasts. She hadn't fought another human since joining us.
The girl even squeezed her eyes shut when we were just hunting monsters. Bandits might deserve to die, but a first kill always carries a certain weight of revulsion. She needed to get used to the lethality of this world.
If a healer panics in the middle of a fight, the whole team dies. In a way, the most important role in a party isn't the vanguard, but the healer in the back.
This was a necessary procedure.
Eloise flinched at my question, her voice trembling.
"No... not even an animal, really..."
"You'd better start getting used to it now."
Eloise nodded silently. The first step was watching people die from a distance.
Two bandits were standing guard at the entrance of White River Watch. Like the undisciplined thugs they were, they were yawning and slacking off. I lined up a shot and let an arrow fly.
Thwip—!
"Gah!"
Having fought alongside Choi Ha-neul so often, I had reached the point where I could one-tap a stationary target with ease.
The arrow buried itself deep in the bandit's throat. He clutched the wound for a second before collapsing in a heap.
"Who's there?! Come out and I'll gut you!"
The second guard drew his axe and shouted threats, but he wasn't exactly intimidating to a group of professional bandit hunters like us.
"Shall I?"
Lydia stepped up to handle the remaining thug.
"Die!!"
The bandit swung his axe, but Lydia opened his throat before the blade could even come close. Personally, I found the bandit's movements too wide and full of wasted energy. Then again, what kind of formal training does a common highwayman have?
Flick—
Lydia whipped her sword through the air, cleaning the blood from the blade. Bright red blood gushed from the bandit's neck, forming a steaming puddle on the ground.
"Ugh..."
With the sentries down, it was time to move inside. Everyone stepped forward, but Eloise hesitated before the corpses, gagging slightly.
"You'll adjust soon enough."
I gave her back a light pat before leading the way into the cave.
'Deep breaths. Calm down. They're just bandits. This is... self-defense.'
Eloise took a deep breath and followed slowly, whispering self-hypnosis under her breath. She knew the reality. Bandits were a plague—garbage that preyed on innocent citizens and harassed defenseless women. But knowing that didn't make seeing the bodies any easier for a girl her age.
"Who's that? Rodulf? That you?"
An old, balding man was sitting at a table near the entrance. He'd heard us coming but had clearly mistaken us for his comrades.
I remembered this from the game; he was Ulfr the Blind. Since he couldn't see, he didn't realize his doom had arrived. I deepened my voice to a gruff mumble.
"Yeah. Uh-huh."
"The boss is looking for you. Better get moving."
I kept it short to avoid him noticing the difference in my voice. Stepping silently behind the blind old man, I covered his mouth and slit his throat. It was a pity he was blind, but he was part of this den of thieves. I couldn't leave him alive.
With the old man dealt with, we crept deeper into the cavern.
Everything after that was smooth sailing. Lydia and Choi Ha-neul were so powerful that we didn't even need to rely on stealth. We simply bulldozed through the resistance.
"I... I yield!"
Choi Ha-neul buried her axe into the bandit who was begging for mercy without a hint of hesitation. Now, only the Chief remained.
True to its name, White River Watch provided a clear view of the surrounding plains from its summit. Before heading out to finish the leader, I called out to Choi Ha-neul.
"Ha-neul."
"Yes?"
I whispered a specific request into her ear. She looked like she wanted to refuse at first, but once she heard my reasoning, she nodded in agreement.
"Mister, you're right. I'll do it!"
However, when we reached the overlook, it was empty.
'What? Did he step out?'
Unlike the game, these people had schedules and lives; he might have just stepped away to relieve himself.
"Mister! On your side!"
At Choi Ha-neul's warning, I threw myself into a roll. Sure enough, the Bandit Chief had heard the commotion and was lying in wait by the exit.
Thanks to my quick reflexes, he only managed to nick my thigh, but the force of the dodge sent me tumbling toward the edge of the lookout. I found myself danging precariously off the railing.
"A shame. I was planning on separating your head from your shoulders. Heh heh."
The Chief sneered. He was wielding a Dwarven Greatsword and wore a full suit of plate armor, minus the helmet. His face was a map of scars—testament to a long career of slaughter.
"Well, well. Such beauties coming right to my door."
True to his role as a bandit leader, he spat out the kind of low-tier villain dialogue you'd expect.
"Gasp..."
Unfortunately, it was effective. Eloise shrank back in fear, hiding behind Lydia.
"I'm not into the muscular types. I think I'll carve up the black-haired one first."
Lydia, clearly annoyed by the remark, replied with a icy edge to her voice.
"Get ready to be killed by a 'muscular woman,' then."
I tried to brace my legs against the rock to climb back up, but the gash in my thigh was deep. I didn't have the strength. I was barely hanging on.
The three of them would have to handle the Chief.
As Choi Ha-neul began to gather Magicka, the Chief noticed and hurled a heavy wooden chair from the lookout at her.
"Oops! Not so fast!"
"Ack!"
The chair flew with terrifying force. It clipped Choi Ha-neul, sending her stumbling with a groan of pain, before shattering into splinters against the stone wall.
"Eloise! Buffs!"
Lydia shouted, realizing the opponent's skill was no joke. Eloise frantically cast Courage, a basic Alteration spell.
Empowered by the spell, Lydia charged the Chief with her shield raised. She planned to catch his first strike on her shield, knowing that two-handed weapons were slow and left the user wide open after a swing.
The Chief unleashed a massive blow, and Lydia caught it perfectly on her shield. She countered with her steel sword, aiming for his exposed flank, but his plate armor and high vitality meant the damage was negligible.
"Ho? You've got some spirit for a girl!"
Choi Ha-neul, having received healing and buffs from Eloise, rejoined the fray alongside Lydia. Sensing that a long fight would favor us, the boss simply tanked their next attacks and swung his greatsword in a wide horizontal arc.
"Gah!"
"Ugh!"
Lydia blocked with her shield, and Choi Ha-neul ducked. However, even with the shield, the sheer impact left Lydia's arm numb. The Chief didn't miss the opening and drove his blade deep into her side.
"Lydia!"
Choi Ha-neul screamed as Lydia collapsed, unable to get back up.
"Keke, don't worry, little elf. Follow me quietly and I won't have to break you like that!"
This was bad. Our primary tank was out.
I couldn't do much from my position, so I used one hand to summon a Skeleton.
"What's a pile of bones supposed to do?"
The Chief batted the skeleton aside with the flat of his blade, shattering it and sending it back to the Oblivion. But the distraction served its purpose. In that brief window, Choi Ha-neul unleashed a Firebolt directly into his chest.
Fueled by rage, her magic seemed even more intense than usual, blasting him with a roaring column of flame.
"Arrgh! Damn you! I'll kill you next!"
The heat was intense enough to discolor his plate armor. He cursed and raised his sword, but the tide had turned. Eloise had managed to get a heal off on Lydia.
"Fus Ro!"
Followed by Choi Ha-neul's Shout, the Bandit Chief staggered back, and Lydia slammed her shield into his face. The impact sent him crashing to the floor.
"Gaurgh!"
"Die, you bastard!"
Between Choi Ha-neul and Lydia's combined assault, the man was beaten into a bloody pulp. It was a testament to his toughness that he survived more than ten seconds of being a literal punching bag.
It might not sound like much, but in a life-or-death struggle, ten seconds of free hits is a lifetime. That's ten solid blows if you're swinging once a second.
"Mister!"
As soon as the fighting stopped, Choi Ha-neul pulled me up over the railing.
"Thanks. You guys fought well."
"It's thanks to your skeleton pulling the aggro, Mister. Hehe."
After Eloise healed my leg, I gave her a final task.
She was to kill the man herself.
That was what I'd told Choi Ha-neul earlier—to keep the Chief barely alive. While I was being healed, Lydia tied the bloodied boss to the railing. He glared at us with pure malice.
I handed a dagger to Eloise.
"Finish him. Yourself."
It's rare for a healer to be on the front lines. In fact, any team that forces their healer to fight is arguably a failure. But there are always 'what ifs.' If she's ever caught in an emergency, she needs to be able to resist. Or if she's ever cornered while we're separated.
Eloise took the dagger, her hands shaking violently.
"Heh... Kill me... and I'll come back as a wraith... haunting your dreams—"
Slap!
Lydia delivered a stinging blow to his face, silencing his nonsense and knocking him senseless.
"Whew..."
Schlick—
Eloise took a long, deep breath and drove the dagger into the Chief's neck. Since his health was already depleted, the blade slid in as easily as a knife through cake. The Bandit Chief slumped, finally dead.
"Hhh..."
Eloise kept trembling even after it was done, still clutching the bloodied dagger. Ha-neul, Lydia, and I offered her our support.
"Well done. Don't take it to heart."
"Don't worry about it! He was just garbage that deserved to die!"
"It is simply the karma he sowed."
Finally finding her composure, Eloise wiped the blood splash from her face and looked up with a determined expression.
"I'm okay... Let's continue the adventure!"
On that day, I felt that Eloise's heart had grown just a little bit stronger.