Thief! Always good to get a boost to those, since it takes a lot of failing to level them up properly. Also opens up a perfect opportunity to snark at Ralof.
....I forget whether alchemy is technically under thief or mage, but That One, since "speedier levelling" would work well with London already knowing methodology if not Skyrim's particular biological offerings
We can always double back around at some point once I've made a shitton of potions and been a general sneakysneak. Ordinator takes the perk trees from 180 unique perks to 468, and there's a lot of bizarre shit you can pick up along the way. I mean, look at these perks for Sneak: 80 - Partystarter - When you gain invisibility, places a barrel of flammable booze at your location. When you lose invisibility, it explodes, dealing fire damage equal to 150% of your Sneak skill level and staggering targets. This effect has a 15 second cooldown. 90 - Greased Lightning - Performing a silent roll in combat leaves a trail of grease for 10 seconds that staggers running enemies. Sprinting enemies slip and fall to the ground.
I’d only seen a Doomstone in Cyrodiil once, and only from a distance. There were certain issues involved in getting close to important magical artifacts during wartime. Skyrim apparently didn’t make the same sort of consideration, so I experimentally poked at the closest stone. It reacted with a small astronomy lesson and firing a beacon of light into the sky without warning. Yes. I’ll start by stealing everything in your sister’s house to finance my return to research. What condescension from a man with poor life choices and a shrub on his face. Yes, they will be so bored by your tour of the local midden that they’ll fail to notice you’re wearing a rebel uniform. Whereas I was presently wearing an awful mash of Imperial and Stormcloak armor, which was not precisely the right message to send to anyone. Including the local wolfpack, apparently. Thank the Ancestors Ralof made for a better target. Except for the one that I failed to connect a hit on and got a bite as a result. That earned it a stream of invective and also flames. I drank a measure from one of the healing potions I’d taken from the fort and considered my options. The armor was too conspicuous, too bloodied, and showed too much skin, especially for Skyrim. The foothills might have been green and more temperate, but you couldn’t fool me. The air was still damp and chilly and awful. I needed something else to wear. Fortunately there had been a mage cadaver just lying about in the sub-levels of the fort, and I had no qualms about putting on a dead person’s clothes, so long as they hadn’t been dead for too long. It was about as inconspicuous as I was ever going to manage. Beard, meanwhile, was still in his uniform, and now his arm was shredded. Or covered in wolf blood, it was hard to tell. Again, why the short sleeves. Beard made no revised statement regarding the person who had at least some idea what happened. Either his selective reality was kicking in again, or he didn’t think that she counted as a person. Good to know.
That’s not how you answer that question, but alright. Oh gods, no. Never a comrade, not a friend, I set your friends on fire, none of that was facts. She seemed relatively sensible about the whole “on the run from the law” thing, until the shouting started. Yes, shouting about Beard in front of other people was a poor plan when discretion was needed. That was why he only shouted once to get it out of his system, apparently. Girder (sp?) then led this daft parade over to a clearing a little further away from the town, but only about fifteen feet from a bosmer who was not introduced and apparently wasn’t supposed to be part of the conversation. Apparently this family hands down bad ideas and obliviousness to all their children equally, rather than giving it as inheritance to a single heir. I’m guessing the boy who ran up to Beard was an only child, then. The child actually seemed excited about the prospect of joining his uncle, a man who was currently wearing more blood than clothing. I had an uncle once, and look where it got me. That child had no survival instinct. Two days. Either they’d led the Imperials on a chase for a while, or I’d been unconscious for two days. In between his dramatic pauses I started wondering. The dragon came from the north side of the nearby mountain, set fire to the fort, and then left back the way it came. Why? It was bellowing some sort of unintelligible speech the whole time, so it might be intelligent. Did it specifically attack that fort? The execution itself? Why? The Imperial General had said something about Bear-Back having used “the Voice” to kill the local king. Were these things connected? Had to be. But who would explode their own execution when they’re still in the middle of it? Boulders were raining from the sky! As far as escape plans go, this was phenomenally stupid. It’s a consideration to take into account, though: Assume the Nord Parade and their furry leader have a dragon on their side, even though Beard didn’t appear to know about it. Beard probably didn’t know he was wearing pants today. That was a hilarious use of the word ‘but’. It’s such a useful word. “I know the lab’s ceiling just caught fire, but…” “I hate to ask you to donate your spleen to science, but…” He was more successful with using ‘but’s than I was. Oh fine I’ll be his friend for as long as it takes to rob her house. Really? She actually meant it, very, very literally. But why did she have a lockpick on her?
But of course, there was a catch. No, we’ll probably be even by the time I’m done. It will give me a good excuse to leave the village, though. Oh, that was going to get irritating, I was sure. With Ulfrick (sp? I should just stick to Bear-related names) as a suspect in causing the whole conflagration, if he survived it then his only virtue was living through his own daft plan. Be thorough. Not immediately on the agenda, no. How heavy and transportable is their mead, by the way? By marching in through the gates to your hometown in broad daylight, where everyone recognizes you and at least some know you’ve joined a rebel group, and those that don’t are informed by your uniform. Brilliant. More than you, Bristleface. Entering the center of the village, I found that the child had abandoned his post and was wandering far from the south road. Not only was he a deserter, he was an insufferable little twerp. Meanwhile, his uncle was muttering unhingedly somewhere behind me. If I have the time and opportunity, bugs in the stew will in fact be his only mark on the world. Provisionally putting the child on the List. As these things are highly frowned upon, this will have to be very careful. Poison stew with beetles in it, maybe? I’m plotting to steal all your sister’s possessions, including the life of her son. I hope to never see you again. I think their dog is judging me. Have to be careful around that one.
So I know we already have a specific insufferable child to deal with but oh my heck I'd never chosen to follow Ralof before, so I'd never really had to encounter this one. Someone in the Bethesda writing crew must hate children with a passion.
kill this child also. I don't dislike him as much as the other insufferable child, but.....he needs to go.
There's a perk that, when you reverse pickpocket a poison onto someone it applies the poison to them. Poisoning without having to stab!
I don't know what it is in the usual trees, but ordinator has it as pickpocket level 40. I'd better start working on that then!
At level 20 pickpocket, ordinator has a perk that makes a trained rabbit steal something for you. This mod is delightfully insane.
