Skyrim: Orebane

I set off at a moderate speed following the deep ruts carved into the sands by the caravan. Already the wind was starting to shift the sands over these tracks and after two days of travel they would definitely be gone. That was fine though as I already had the rough direction memorized by charting the sun's course across the sky. It always rises from the east and moves to the west. After that I just had to figure out north from south and that was as easy as creating a piece of magnetized metal from the sand and floating it on top of a drop of water.-

[Transmute] is only an adept level alteration spell and one I had long since learned after all. The reason the spell didn't absolutely ruin the economy is that it was an absolute magicka hog. More unreasonable in it's consumption of magicka than most expert level spells in fact. The reason for this is simple, reality doesn't like taking orders to change and will fight you tooth and nail if you try. The bigger the change the more extreme the fight becomes. Theres a reason nobody ever transmutes more than one or two pieces of anything at a time.-

It's just not worth it.

Just transmuting this grain of sand into a flat triangle of magnetized iron cost me thirty seven magicka to really drive that point home. I mean technically you could basically print money by spending all day draining yourself dry of magicka to transmute three or four iron ore chunks the size of a fist into silver or gold. But that would be a miserable and terribly inefficient way to earn money. Magicka exhaustion wasn't like in the game where you could just walk it off after hitting it.-

You would feel lethargic, weak and have a migraine for however long it takes for you to regenerate at least a quarter of your pool. In other words you'd basically be torturing yourself in the name of an amount of profit you could earn from just brewing a decent potion or handling some chores with magic. Anyways with true north determined I knew the direction I was walking to be north northwest. Which is just a fancy way of saying more north than west. I waited until I was good and sure that the caravan was far behind me before summoning my toad.-

"Ribbit!" The thing protested.

"Yes, I know it's the middle of a desert." I said with a chuckle.

"Ribbit?"

"It's a disguise." I explained.

"Ribbit."

"It's not supposed to look good but blend in." I said with a huff.

"Croak."

"Look here you little shit. I swear to whatever god might be listening that I'll bath you again if you keep up." I said annoyed.

"Ribbit!"

"That's more like it." I said smugly as I mounted up.

'How dare he try and sass me.' I thought satisfied at putting my mount back in it's place.

I almost regretted summoning the toad soon enough though as while it was moving faster than I could walk it was also kicking up a cloud of sand behind it as it did. Not from speed either. If it was I wouldn't care but it was because the thing was sinking in up to it's wrist joints with each step and then flinging the sand burying it to step forward. I basically accepted that entering this town in any way other than absolutely spectacularly was not happening. I sighed in relief when we hit the first bit of road in the desert in the middle of the night.-

We stopped there and I allowed the toad to go back to the fields of regret as I made camp and checked on my connection to Lokjun. I raised an eyebrow as I noticed it was considerably closer to me but sent a message through our connection telling the clearly determined bird to go back to Winterhold. For the first time ever however I got sent back a flat no impression. I sent back another message with a lot more insistence on it that the bird reluctantly agreed to once I made it clear I was fine.-

I stopped for the night to eat and rest but quickly learned that wasn't so easy any more. Turns out part of the spiritual hickie Nocturnal left on my soul made it so darkness reenergized me. Not cutting out the need for sleep entirely I could tell but basically dropped it from every night to every third night. I felt my eye twitch at this as while absolutely a great advantage, it also would have been nice to know before I sent my toad away.-

"Guess i'm walking through the night" I muttered with a sigh.

I pulled out a wedge of cheese and a roast Horker steak to snack on while I resumed my journey. The desert seemed to come alive at night as things that hid from the heat of the day came out during the nights cool to go about their business. Snakes, scorpions, beetles and I even saw a few small fluffy looking mouse creatures come out and scurry across the sands in hunt for insects. It was not anywhere close to being comfortable but the drop in temperature let me relax considerably.-

I honestly couldn't say how far I got before the first light of dawn swept across the sands like a billion golden sparks.

It was beautiful.

As the sun rose ever higher into the sky the temperature rose with it. Whatever awe at the sight of the sunrise left me with vanished as I felt like I was being cooked again. I summoned the toad once more and kept going following stone road that had likely been laid centuries ago. The dust cloud kicked up was thankfully mitigated because of the road buried und the sand but there was still a small cloud being tossed up.-

I knew we were getting close to the town as red stone and plants clinging to it started to become more and more common. I knew I had found my destination when we passed a bend in the road and I saw a great red stone dome with jagged points at the top and actual trees surrounding the natural structure turned town. There was a large carved wooden gateway with two Redguard in red red armor standing with spears on either side of it. Near the natural stone walls of the dome I saw desert adapted food producing plants being carefully tended as I approached.

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