I used telekinesis one more time to lift the tree and move it out of the road before the caravan started moving past the other bandits. They all had strained expressions but didn't do anything stupid. This was because Durrak outranked them in the bandit clan, yes clan. The crows were a honest to gods bandit clan/mercenary group. I knew Durrak himself was one of three lieutenants under the boss Jergan Blackfeather. Back when the thieves guild was still booming the Crows and a few other bandit clans regularly showed up there to fence goods or get healing.-
That was how I met Durrak actually. He came in one day with a poisoned arrow in his left arm, right in the bicep. It was in his bone and he'd have lost that arm if I hadn't been there to draw out the poison and fix the marrow damage. He wasn't the only one I'd treated from the Crows but he was the highest ranking of the lot I had so me calling him out was a gamble. Obviously I wasn't going to take chances on a bandits sense of honor but if I could convince him to let us pass the others would by the rules have to follow suit.-
As for the little arcane show of force that was mostly just backing up my claims that I could kill them all if I needed to. Durrak might have seen me fighting off several guards with ease during a spar but the others hadn't. When we were well away from the bandits Dar-La spoke up.
"This one appreciates the favor you have done and will compensate you once we sell off our wares." she said seriously.
I waved her off though "Forget it, coin is cheap. Time and effort are what truly hold value." I said honestly.
"As you wish, this one will remember this favor however." she said letting it go.
I just shrugged at that as it didn't bother me either way. I meant it when I said coin was cheap. I had so many different skills at least at an adept level that I could functionally go anywhere in the world and thrive. Not to mention I was a master swordsman which meant a LOT in this world with how it was. Hell I was offered honest to gods Thanehood by Layla Lawgiver just to stay in Riften.-
That was nobility being handed to me based entirely on my skill with a blade alone, I rejected it. Thanehood might be an exciting thing for most other people but for me it was a chain. Thanes were attached to the court they served and that meant whatever political faction the Jarl was part of so were you. Additionally Thanes didn't really leave the hold they were part of unless it was for something deeply personal or political. The last dragonborn's situation in Skyrim was a bit special in this regard as nobody in their right mind would try and stop them from doing their own thing.-
It was purely a show title to earn honor for whatever hold gave the title out. The rest of the trip over the next few days to Kynesgrove were calm and uneventful minus the occasional bit of rowdy wildlife that tried it's luck. Finally we passed through the hotspring area and into the forest that the village was named after. The air was colder the further north we went and by the time we reached the village proper the ground was hard and stiff though the real snowy sights lied ahead another half days ride. -
Kynesgrove was unlike Shor's stone as it had wooden walls only to keep wildlife and the occasional bandit out. This might seem like a flaw at first but the walls were packed with mud and water that froze to the wood making it just as hard as stone. Though still slightly flammable if you were persistent with the heat application. The caravan came to a stop outside the gate as per usual and set up camp. It wasn't quite night time and we had a couple hours more to relax and unwind from the long journey.-
Most of the trip I had honestly been quietly meditating on words of power to ready them for shouts. I had only added Slen or Flesh when we had reached` the village and was I guessed about halfway done with Diin or Freeze with the way it faded in and out of my soul. Each word by itself made the next easier and quicker but I was quite far from being able to almost instantly learn a new word to use in a shout. As for actually turning them into a shout it wasn't as simple as just saying them one after the other.-
You had to also conceptually bind them together to create a singular specific effect rather than three separate ones. It was why it was increasingly hard to learn a full three word shout or gods forbid a longer one. Yes shouts could in fact be longer than three words. The problem is that while they were indeed more powerful they were also incredibly straining. The reason for this was because it was one of the walking ways, the paths to godhood. The path itself was one of using words or sound to substitute natural laws.-
The more complex a shout the closer to this paths end you got and that put serious strain on you. Godhood was never easy after all and it took a lot of effort to reach it. Three words was the cut off point before the world started to get serious about pressing you down. For obvious reasons the world didn't like it when people fucked with it's rules and four word or beyond shouts absolutely did exactly that. Once I fully mastered most of the dragon language I myself planned to walk this path.-
It wasn't an easy or simple path like mantling or Chim but it was one that appealed to me. I liked the thought of being the one who wrote the rules we all danced to. Anyways I was far from even close to that and could only shake the thought out of my head as I set out to hunt dinner. I tried quite hard not to use my own food stores minus the vegetables with a shorter lifespan so foraging and hunting was a good way to handle it. Like most of skyrim the area around Kynesgrove was abundant in wildlife that made for good eating.-
This time for example I shot a few ground squirrels and a wood grouse that I happened to have spotted on a branch as I was searching for prey. I returned to camp with my prey and got to work plucking the grouse while Do-Ra skinned and gutted the squirrels to roast. The grouse I turned into a nice vegetable and grouse soup while the squirrels were barbequed.