You'll forgive me if I don't believe that something a literal god couldn't destroy was done in by a few mortal tools. No, those tools were made to manipulate the hearts energies so more likely than not the Nerevarinne just caused the heart to be sent elsewhere rather than actually destroying it. Either way the end was the same so I suppose it didn't matter. What was especially interesting though was that that person cast off the tools once the job was done despite their potential. This was a fact as there were records of at least one of them being passed around, Keening.-
In the game there was even a questline involving it where one of the masters at the college tried to replicate the legend of how the Dwemer vanished using that very blade. An experiment that was doomed from the start since the fool didn't have the other two parts of the set. Anyways Red mountain was saturated with the power of the heart and without said heart was unstable. That was my theory anyways. We headed north along the road from Shor's stone as I thought on this matter.-
There were no real issues for the first day as the roads were clear of bandits but that didn't surprise me. In the game that area had the illegal hub of the Skooma trade right off the road by a very short distance. I couldn't say exactly what the name of the place was since my memories from the game were fuzzy at that level of detail after so long but I knew it was there. I also knew that the bandits that ran it weren't stupid enough to jeopardize the whole operation by raiding along the road right next to their main base.-
Also Skooma peddlers rarely attacked Khajiit caravans since they were the main distributors of the stuff sadly. There was no helping it, the stuff was wildly popular and highly illegal which means VERY profitable. It was only on the second day that things got mildly interesting as a bear was blocking the road and needed to be dispatched. I was going to do it myself but Do-Ra wanted to stretch out since I'd been taking all the action so far. It was a fair request since it wasn't like I couldn't step in if it looked like she needed help anyways.-
She wasn't a master swordsman like myself and had a few flaws in her form and movements but she was certainly better than the guards. The way she used her sword was also very different from how I used mine. I was all about efficiency, getting the best outcome with the least effort. Hers was brute force with no real finesse or care for energy expenditure. I thought it rather fitting given her moon breed was the most innately powerful of the humanoid moon breeds. She took a lot of unnecessary damage though and needed a bit of healing once the bear was dead.-
We ate heartily that night though as I butchered the dead creature and kept the bits good for eating, claws and pelt. The claws for potion making and the pelt because those were always in demand with how cold the province was all the time. I ground up the meat and made bear tacos with it which was a very popular dish even for Dro-Qa who was not the biggest fan of vegetables. This even gave me a chance to bust out my own homemade cheese that took me a whole damned year to perfect.-
I didn't want a cheddar or any sort of ridiculously strong flavored cheese that was common in this world and instead wanted a mild creamy cheese that I could then melt and add other things to in order to get whatever flavor profile I wanted. I called it base cheese for simplicities sake. In this case I added some chopped peppers and a bit of taco seasoning to create my nacho cheese. We all went to bed with full bellies and happy taste buds. After that it was a bandit raid about halfway to Kynesgrove that came the next day.-
The bastards had felled a tree to block the road which was the first indicator that it was not a naturally occurring thing. If it had been a storm or something similar that finally got the better of the tree the cut off point wouldn't have been so clean. Also the fact the tree perfectly blocked the road did not help. I readied myself the moment I spotted the tree and the others were no different. Even Dar-La who was a very fragile target had her magicka at the ready to unleash whatever spells she knew.-
When ten bandits stepped out of the treeline and behind the boulders in good gear that had a symbol of a crow on it I sighed.
"Durrak you here?" I called out as I put my sword away.
"Who wants to know?" an Orcish voice answered from further away in the woods.
"The guy who let you keep your arm, get the hell out here already!" I called rolling my eyes.
A few moments later a burly heavily scarred green skinned orc missing a tusk in thick steel mail armor walked out of the treeline. He eyed the caravan and once he spotted me broke out into a grin.
"Far from home ain't cha kid?" he asked teasingly.
"Age of majority and all that. Setting out to make my own way in the world, the usual story. Think you can ask your clanmates here to let us by? Not for free of course but I'd rather not have to kill so many of you if I can avoid it. You know i'm good for it." I said casually.
The majority of the other bandits bristled at that but Durrak turned deadly serious because he knew I wasn't bluffing. He'd seen my skills for himself while I was still in Riften enough for that.
"Won't be cheap, knocking off a caravan is always a good haul." the Orc said seriously.
I opened my portal to Oblivion and took out a fat sack of gold that I casually tossed in front of him spilling it's contents across the rough dirt and stone road.
"Two thousand gold, don't get greedy. I might prefer to keep the Crows from being pissed at me but I'm not afraid of you either." I said calmly and waited for his response.
"You can't be serious! That caravans got to have at least twice that in goods and he's just one person!" one of the other bandits yelled out in outrage.
Before Durrak could reply I pointed at the one that spoke and used the [telekinesis] spell to rip off his head. The other bandits looked on in horror at this and I merely calmly looked at Durrak for his answer. He kept a straight face despite the show of force but if you paid attention you'd spot the sweat on his face.
"Yeah, seems fair. Move aside and let them pass!" he called trying to hide his nervousness.