A Re-class in Skyrim
1 - Arrival
Retribution looked around herself. She remembered going to sleep in her Mother's base at Heligoland. Now she was somewhere in the wilderness. Firs and pines as far as the eye could see. Mountains rising over the treetops in the distance.
Firing up her radio equipment, she was greeted by utter silence on the airwaves. Nothing broadcasted. Which was really strange. Even at the heights of the abyssal assault on the meatbags, radios had still broadcasted. For them all to be silent would mean that something had to have fried all electronics. And none of her instruments picked up unusual levels of radiation. The magic however was off the charts. So much ambient magic, it was invigorating.
Checking her hangar and guns, she felt relief. Her planes were undamaged and ready to take off, her guns were in working order and her fuel and ammo stores were full.
Deciding against sending up planes while in the woods, she picked a direction. North seemed to be friendly.
Hearing sounds, she decided that she might as well investigate them.
Moving through the trees with all the subtlety of a charging battleship, the sight before her brought her up short. A caravan of carts, guarded by meatbags looking like Roman soldiers, holding other meatbags, presumably captives. Uniformed captives, so probably hostile soldiers.
The caravan stopped and the Romans started pointing at her with swords? And bows? Retribution started laughing. Her armor was meant to shrug off 16" armor-piercing at basically any range. Bows were incapable of piercing her skin.
Still, she had one big problem. Whatever language these people were using, she didn't understand a word. Some reminded her of various Nordic languages, but that was it. Which was a real bother. If she couldn't talk to them, they would be incapable of telling her where she was.
Scanning the captives, she found one in considerably more fancy clothes. Some kind of leader, probably, so there was decent odds that he was knowledgeable about this world and various languages.
Ignoring the calls from the meatbags, she grabbed the prisoner, idly wondering why he was gagged. "You have been conscripted into service aboard the Re-class Princess Retribution," she said. "From now to the end of my existence, you will serve. That which you were matters no more," she added and watched as the chains that would enslave the soul of the captive tightened around the struggling man. "Now, give me that which you know," she demanded, as knowledge began to filter into her being and the man shrunk as he was dragged aboard.
Looking around, she saw that the Romans, no Imperials her new-found knowledge corrected, were giving her a wide berth, while the captured soldiers, the Stormcloaks, looked terrified.
"What is she?" one of the Stormcloaks shouted.
"Wasn't bringing us to Cyrodiil for execution enough, did you have to summon a daedra like that to kill Jarl Ulfric?" another one shouted.
Retribution scoffed. "I am no daedra," she proclaimed.
The people around her fell silent.
"If you speak our language, why didn't you react at first?" A woman in an officer's uniform asked crossly.
Retribution grinned. "I didn't speak this language until I pressganged Jarl Ulfric to make use of his knowledge," she admitted.
"Pressganged?" the officer shot back.
"Oh, right, you have never before seen a ship of the Deep Sea Fleet. I am a ship and as such I can pressgang meatbags into service in my crew," Retribution explained. "And no, those who are pressganged can never be freed," she added, in an attempt to reassure the Imperials.
The stares she got looked like that hadn't worked out. Oh well, she had a lot of knowledge about this place now. She didn't need those people any more, did she?
She was about to turn around, when a rider in a really fancy uniform turned up. "Captain, what in oblivion's name has kept you?" the rider shouted at the officer.
"She!" the captain shouted while pointing at Retribution. "She came out of the woods, didn't react to anything we said and then she grabbed Stormcloak, did something with him she calls pressganging and now she speaks!" the officer elaborated.
General Tullius looked at the daedra before him and shuddered. He had seen the disdainful stares of Altmer before, but even those stares paled before the eyes mustering him. The chalk-white face, the massive tail with a second head, those flickering fires emanating from the eyes. Whatever this daedra was, she was powerful and dangerous. And before her he was nothing, his very existence more of a curiosity to her than anything else.
"So, what will you do, general?" Retribution asked. She was getting tired of standing on this snowy road in Falkreath. The geographical knowledge annoyed her quite a bit, the nearest sea was quite a bit away. Even if she were to head down to Ilinalta, follow the White River to its mouth near Windhelm, it would be a long journey.
The general considered. With Ulfric Stormcloak out of the question, there was no real need to divert to Helgen, but he'd really like to question this daedra and doing so in an office where writing materials were at hand would be for the best. Which meant Helgen. It would also allow them to execute the captured Stormcloaks with little fuss. Parading them through Cyrodiil was not needed, after all.
After some more moments, he gave in to himself. "I was wondering if you were willing to accompany me to Helgen and answer some of my questions," he finally said.
Retribution shrugged. It made sense to her. It would allow her to learn more about this world and how to get away from it, as she really would rather be home with Mother. "Sure," she agreed. "I'll have questions for you as well," she added.
Going to the cart she had dragged Ulfric from, she sat down in the place the Jarl had occupied before.
Tullius rode up to the cart and fell in line next to it. "Why did you choose to take Ulfric?" he wanted to know.
Retribution shrugged. "I needed a meatbag who speaks the local language so I could grab it from there," she began. "And, well, a guy in fancy clothes has better odds of speaking more than one language and probably knows other useful stuff. Politics, polities and such," she explained.
"That would explain the Eastmarch accent," Tullius observed and stroked his chin. "And why didn't you take one of my soldiers?" he asked curiously.
"I figured that taking one of your captives had the least odds of ending in a more violent way," she admitted.
Tullius was apalled. His initial assumption that he was dealing with a rather monstrous daedra reaffirmed. "How would a violent way have ended?" he asked curiously.
Retribution leaned back, watching the pine trees passing by. "Depends. If they had annoyed me too much, in a bloodbath. Otherwise, simply humiliation," she mused.
Tullius perked up. "Humiliation?" he wanted to know.
Retribution grinned. "Are you attached to your sword?" she wanted to know.
Tullius scoffed. "It's a tool. nothing more. Why?" he wanted to know.
Retribution smirked. "Give it to me and you'll see why I said humiliation," she explained, rousing the interest of the soldiers around the cart as well as the captives.
Tullius felt put on the spot. He very much didn't want to hand over a weapon to a daedra, on the other hand, he couldn't see how a being that was able to simply consume a man and all he was and knew would be made more dangerous with a sword. So, he drew it and handed it to the daedra.
Retribution took the sword. Standard Imperial Legion issue, according to the memories. Holding out her other arm, she swung down, hard. The sword shattered like glass. "My armor is thicker than this sword. Even the thinnest armored parts of my body are basically impervious to your primitive weapons," she explained.
All around her, the people stared wordlessly. They had heard of swords shattering, but that generally involved them being used on rocks and wielded by men strong enough to punch bears to death bare-handed. Or being of exceptionally shoddy make. Seeing a sword shatter on the skin of a daedra without leaving so much as a mark was all kinds of terrifying.
A roar in the distance made everyone look up. "By the nine, what was that?" one of the Stormcloaks asked.
"I have no idea," General Tullius admitted.
"UP THERE!" a driver shouted and pointed into the sky.
Everyone looked up and stared.
"A dragon!" went through the air. The dragon in the sky was a massive beast.
Retribution's rangefinders assessed the beast. And unlike the meatbags around her, she could get a good idea of its size. It was gigantic. A wing span of at least 70 meters, a length of over 50 meters. And it was closing in.
The dragon roared, a challenge to anything below it.
Retribution bristled. Her nature as a Re-class would not be denied. She jumped from the cart, as she would need the stable ground under herself.
Taking a deep breath, she readied her foghorns, words bubbling to the surface, a challenge. "FUS RO DAH!" she roared at the dragon, unleashing a devastating wave of force at the dragon.
The dragon tumbled backwards, caught off guard by the challenge and the power behind it. As it stabilized, it mustered the Re-class Princess below itself.
"YOL TOOR SHUL!" the dragon shouted, unleashing a massive stream of fire.
Retribution jumped out of the way. She had no intentions of seeing how good her firefighting crews were right now.
"Get going!" she shouted at the caravan while bringing her small and medium caliber guns to bear. The 356s and 510s would have to stay silent until the meatbags were far enough away to not get killed by the pressure of the big guns.
Alduin was about to unleash a meteor storm on the dragonblooded monster below him when pain bloomed all over his body. Massive holes started appearing on his body. He knew they were the doing of the tailed monster below him. Still, he was not about to stop just because of some injuries.
"FO KRAH DIIN!" he shouted, unleashing a massive torrent of freezing air at the monster.
As he expected, it evaded and, crucially, the wounds stopped appearing, giving him the time needed to regenerate.
The humans watching the fight between dragon and daedra were terrified. The daedra's strange weapons caused terrifying wounds to the dragon and the dragon healed those very same wounds as if they were nothing.
Once again the dragon shouted. The sky turned red, a swirling maelstrom of clouds and darkness centered on the black dragon blotted out the sun. That alone would have been bad enough, but the hail of flaming stones proved to be devastating and deadly. Horses, carts and people were smashed like toys.
Retribution roared in rage. This overgrown lizard dared fight her, the pinnacle of the Re-class? Her 51cm guns swung around, taking aim at the dragon. At these ranges, it was impossible to miss. With a deafening roar, twelve 51cm guns fired. The dragon was hammered. Massive wounds caused the beast to crash.
Consumed by her rage and her need to dominate, Retribution surged forwards. Today's menu included dragon, as far as she was concerned.
Coming to a stop in the artificial clearing, she gaped. The dragon was fully healed again. All the wounds, gone. It looked at her, measuring her, sizing her up. "We will meet again!" it promised. "WULD NAH KEST!" it shouted and shot into the air at speeds comparable to Retribution's jet fighters.
Retribution roared in frustration. Her foe had fled. Instead of a battle until one forced the other to yield, her foe had run. The field was hers, but the victory was very much hollow. She had no idea how much punishment she would have to dish out to truly break the dragon. But one thing was certain, she took his cowardice before the enemy personally. She would find this dragon again and then she'd eat grilled dragon.
The Imperials and Stormcloaks watched the daedra, while waiting for the ringing in their ears to subside. It was very clear that she was in a murderously foul mood. They had seen some of the damage the black dragon had taken. Massive damage that should have killed it. Instead, it had healed up completely. One thing was clear, no one fancied getting close to her. Also, riling her into a rage like that was evidently suicidal, unless you were a massive black dragon.
After a while, General Tullius was able to organize his remaining people. One of the small blessings was the fact that the bound Stormcloaks had taken far heavier losses than his troops. Still, he had lost a lot of good people here and he was not sure if it had been a curse or a blessing that the daedra was with them.
"Gather the wounded and the dead," General Tullius ordered his soldiers. A few of his men would remain here. tasked with burying everyone. The rest would bring the remaining Stormcloaks to Helgen.
Ralof had long stopped cursing. First the Empire caught them and they surrendered without a fight. Then a daedra appeared and consumed their leader, then a dragon appeared and battled with the daedra. He had seen the wounds the daedra's magic ballistae had caused to the dragon, he really didn't fancy being on the receiving end of these things. The run-in with the dwarven ballista when he and Hadvar had delved into the ruin of Raldbthar for some Dwemer scrap had been terrifying enough.
A gleam caught his eye, his Dwemer sword. Slowly crawling forward, he pulled it free. He had been lucky enough to catch one of the shards of Tullius' sword during the demonstration. And a bit of work had made short work of his bindings while everyone was distracted by the dragon. Now he felt a lot better about things. Hopefully he would be able to crawl away far enough quick enough to be able to run away.
A Dwemer sword in front of his face killed all his enthusiasm. He recognized the blade. Hadvar's blade. Looking up, he saw his old friend. "So, this is how it ends?" he asked bitterly.
Hadvar shook his head. "I can't." he admitted. He dropped a bag in front of Ralof. "Should be enough to last you to Riverwood," he said. "Keep your head down for now. We're looking towards chaotic times," he advised.
"And you?" Ralof asked.
Hadvar shrugged. "I'll return to my post. Good luck, old friend," he said, before turning around and moving through the bushes.
Ralof crawled away with the bag and sword. He needed time to think. Without Ulfric, the Stormcloak rebellion would lack its big, unifying leader. Skald the Elder was eager, but dumb. Korir was mostly angry and Winterhold was the least hold of Skyrim. Few would be willing to follow either of those Jarls. Laila Law-Giver might be able to rally people behind her, but would it be enough? Then there was the question of who would take over in Windhelm. Galmar Stone-Fist might be able to secure the throne for himself, but he lacked Ulfric's ability to persuade people. He preferred the direct methods. Something that stood decent odds of alienating people from their cause.
Getting to his feet, Ralof trusted his memories, following paths he had taken for years. However he thought about it, the Stormcloak rebellion seemed to be doomed. Soon, the elves would crawl all over Skyrim, dragging away people in the night for whatever reason.
But who said that they would have to take this laying down?
New ideas started forming in his head. Stormcloaks were active all over Skyrim. Even if the rebellion died down, a lot of them would still want to fight for Talos. And they would also wish to protect Nords from being snatched away by the elves. Maybe the rebellion was doomed, but no one said that this would mean letting the elves do as they pleased. Skyrim did have a problem with bandits, after all. Now he just needed a decent fortress from which he could organize his anti-Thalmor vigilants.
The sounds of a fight nearby drew his attention.
Cautiously moving closer he saw the Altmer girl that had shared the cart with him, Ulfric, the horse thief and the Dunmer girl. She was busy choking a man to death, a man who evidently had started thinking with his dick when he ran into a bound Altmer girl.
Ralof had to chuckle to himself, this was why Stormcloak prisoners had their hands behind their backs. Less chances of them making themselves more of a nuisance.
"Come out!" the girl suddenly yelled in his direction.
"So you saw me?" he wanted to know curiously.
"Heard you," the girl gave back. "You were in the cart. Did you see my friend?" she wanted to know while stripping the dead man of his armour. Evidently, the bandit had been very lucky recently, a glass armour like that cost a fortune at any smithy that was actually good enough to make glass armour.
"No, I was too busy crawling away," Ralof admitted.
"Damn it," the girl cursed. "I will need to find her. Will they bring her to Helgen?" she wanted to know, while rummaging through the bandit's belongings.
Ralof shrugged, before turning around as the girl started stripping out of her ratty clothes. "I would assume so," he said.
The girl cursed. "I really hope she can talk long enough to keep her head," she muttered worriedly.
Ralof shrugged helplessly. "The Empire usually doesn't take long with its executions," he countered.
The girl growled. "I know!" she almost shouted, before visibly calming herself. "Anyway, I need to follow the caravan. If you don't want to help me, this is farewell," she stated matter-of-factly.
"Wish I could help you, lass, but the numbers are now probably even worse than before," Ralof countered.
"I know," the girl said dejectedly. "We've been together since we were small, I don't want to abandon her," she admitted.
"Your friend before Mara?" Ralof wanted to know.
The Altmer girl looked up with a puzzled expression, before connecting the dots. "Yes," she simply confirmed.
"Are you going to continue talking or are you going to start moving?" Hadvar asked from behind Ralof, startling the redheaded Nord.
"Hadvar!" Ralof shouted.
Hadvar laughed. "Yes. I think your little friend here will be happy to meet my little friend," he added, while a waifish Dunmer girl stepped around him, wearing a relatively poorly fitting Legion armor.
"She's the most silvertongued little minx I've ever seen. I don't think I've seen the general swallow that big a lie ever before," Hadvar told Ralof.
"Which one was it? Undercover agent for House Redoran? Or the story about being a Telvanni on a pilgrimage through Tamriel to uncover secrets for House Telvanni?" the Altmer girl wanted to know.
"Nah, her claim was that she's been sent by Queen Barenziah to find and apprehend her wayward offspring, who apparently ran with the Thieves Guild," Hadvar said.
The Altmer girl grinned. "Heh, that's a new one. Funniest thing, one of Barenziah's grandkids apparently did run with the Thieves' Guild in Skyrim for a while. There's old bounties from Rifton for a thief named Karliah, a name that's quite rare among Dunmer. And her age lines up with Barenziah's granddaughter," the Altmer girl explained.
Getting up, she adjusted the straps of the armour for more comfort. "So, why are you two here then?" she wanted to know.
Hadvar grinned. "I offered to bring her to Riverwood and to see if I can find her companion," he explained. "Also, I don't want to be nearby when the general realizes he has been had. He's already in a foul mood. Stormcloak is gone, but the rebels remain. And, well, now it looks like dragons are appearing again. And having seen the punishment that black dragon took, I don't fancy having to fight such a monster. Nor do I want to stay around a monster being able to dish out the kind of damage inflicted on the black dragon," he added considerably more serious.
The Dunmer girl shuddered. "That daedra used the Thu'um," she recalled.
Ralof nodded. "Made my ears ring something fierce. And then the ballistae," he shuddered.
Hadvar grimaced. "That daedra can probably take out a Dwemer centurion without any trouble, its main problem would be the collateral damage from its ballistae," he observed. "It would probably also alert every Falmer from here to Morrowind," he added with a chuckle.
"Anyway, we should get going," Ralof said, urgently. "I don't want to be found so soon," he added.
"You're right," the Altmer girl agreed. "I've got everything, so, next stop Riverwood?" she asked.
"Yes," Ralof agreed. "Gerdur will let me stay with her for a while. Also, we probably should alert Jarl Balgruuf about the dragon sighting," he mused.
Hadvar nodded. "My orders were to escort the Dunmer to Riverwood and then to return to the Legion in Solitude, so I can at least alert Morthal and Solitude. Couriers can be sent to the other holds," he suggested, while falling in line next to Ralof.
Behind the two friends, the Altmer and the Dunmer followed, taking in the woods.
"How long will it take to get to Riverwood?" the Altmer girl finally asked.
Ralof shrugged. "About a day by my reckoning," he estimated. "We want to avoid South Skybound Watch, heard stories about a strong bandit presence in the area, also, a few people claim to have seen wisps there," he continued.
Hadvar shuddered. "Right. We really aren't equipped to deal with a wispmother," he agreed.
General Tullius looked at the being in the cart. She had mostly calmed down, but it was still very much obvious that the escape of the black dragon had agitated her something fierce.
"You have said that you're not a daedra, instead you claim to be a ship. How is that possible?" the general finally asked.
Retribution grinned. "Magic and belief. Mostly magic," she said. "As far as we understood it back home, abyssals are creatures born of naval war, hate and fear. We are basically oceanic deities," she laid out. "Now, a lot of our nature is basically guesswork. Multiple ideas have been proposed, especially in light of some abyssals and shipgirls having been able to learn taking on their ship form," she explained.
"Shipgirls?" Tullius asked curiously.
"Our counterpart. Shipgirls are the personifications of warships of ages past, having manifested as living gods to fight us abyssals," Retribution explained. "Abyssals aren't necessarily based on a single ship, take me for example. I am a chimera of a ship. Battleship armament combined with carrier capabilities and the ability to dive and execute submarine attacks," she explained.
Tullius looked lost. "Now, I can imagine what a battleship is. But a carrier?" he wanted to know.
Retribution grinned. "A battleships is a heavily armored, heavily armed warship meant for close-range engagements. A carrier carries flying machines as her primary weapon of attacking over long distances. A submarine is a vessel that dives and attacks from below the waves," she explained.
Tullius pondered the concepts and could see lots of applications for them. A ship that could attack other ships while being safe from retaliation? Either from below the surface or from far away? It would make taking out pirates so much easier. Something to ponder and hand over to the admirals.
"So, if you are a personification of a ship, what are you doing up here in the mountains?" he wanted to know.
"I'll be damned if I know. Last thing I know was going to sleep in Mother's base. Then I come to in some woods somewhere I've never seen before," Retribution explained. "I'll have to see if I can find a way home," she mused.
General Tullius sank into musing. "The Nords have an academy of magic, up in Winterhold. They might know some things. Or have an idea where to start searching for answers," he said after a bit of pondering.
Retribution nodded, Ulfric's memories confirming the story about the academy.
General Tullius was quite relieved. He was quite sure that the Moth Priests or the Synod would potentially be better places for the abyssal to look for answers, but they were also in Cyrodiil and he really did not wish to unleash this monster on his home country.
Retribution leaned back in the cart. "What is going to happen to the rebellion?" she wanted to know.
Tullius shrugged. "We'll offer the Jarls a chance to proclaim their allegiance to the Empire again," he mused. "It might spare us a dragged out fight, but if the Jarls are too stubborn, we'll probably have to fight it out," he continued.
Retribution stroked her chin in thought. "Ulfric considered Skald and Korir to be unquestioningly loyal to his cause. He had doubts about Rifton, however, seeing that Laila apparently thought his rebellion was motivated by his desire to become High King," she laid out.
Tullius raised his brow. "How much of Ulfric's life can you recall?" he wanted to know.
Retribution grinned. "A lot," she said.
Tullius shuddered at the thought. To have your life laid bare before the monster that consumed you, he pitied the Jarl of Windhelm for that. Still, he should make the most of what he could get out of this, as this was an unique opportunity to get as much intel as possible on the Stormcloaks, intel that even torturers would never get out of their clients.
Hours later, Tullius stopped taking notes. They had long entered Helgen and the things Retribution had told him had awed him. Names of Stormcloak sympathizers that had been earmarked for Jarldom, should the Empire-aligned Jarls refuse to swear fealty. Some dirty laundry on the Silver-Bloods, which should be more than enough to begin taking a deeper look into them. Intel on the Thalmor, intel on Maven Black-Briar and the list continued. There was so much to do.
Tullius almost regretted that not every piece of Intel would be actionable by his contacts. Maven Black-Briar especially, that woman had way too many friends. But an unconnected actor? Tullius looked at the monster before him. If she were to take out the Black-Briars, that might work, but it would require preparation.
It made him regret letting the dunmer girl run. He had seen through her lie, but there was more to her. She could probably have become a very good, deniable asset. But her accent. Few people knew this particular accent, but he knew it quite well. Telvanni. This girl was definitely part of that house, and not some lowly member. It was way better for his health to let her run off.
Looking outside, the general realized how late it had become. "Do you need to sleep? Or food?" he asked the monster in front of him.
Retribution looked up from where she was studying a map of Skyrim. "I can sleep some, yes," she mused. "I'll also need a lot of food, as my magic will need to work overtime to convert food into shells," she said.
Tullius felt dread creep up his spine. "How much is a lot?" he wanted to know.
Retribution grinned, while holding up a meat pie snack. "Well, for what I expended today, give me a good five thousand of these," she said, while taking a bite.
"How much can you actually eat?" Tullius asked genuinely curious.
Retribution swallowed the rest of the meat pie and grinned. "You know how an army walks on its stomach, don't you?" she countered.
At Tullius' nod she continued. "If I were in ship form, I'd have a crew of over five thousand. I would burn hundreds of tons of fuel each day. Magic makes the food I eat more efficient, and with how magic-saturated your world is, the effect is even increased here. Otherwise?" Retribution picked up a second meat pie. "Over one million of these tasty little things. Every day. Just to keep running while being underway," she said, while taking a bite. "If I am fully empty, however," the grin turned threatening. "Fuel, ammo, everything. Little to no magic making conversion more effective. Over one hundred million of these little delicacies," she laid out.
The clamor of a dropped shield made both turn to the mortified soldier. Tullius just shook his head. "It is alright, soldier. We all can be caught off guard," he said to reassure the soldier, who was picking up his shield and tried to become invisible.
Then he looked at Retribution. "You are serious with that number," he just stated.
Retribution nodded. "Warships of my world, we are hungry. Our bunkers hold thousands of tons of fuel. To give you an example. This little one here weighs about two hundred grams. Five of which is one kilogram. Five thousand would be a ton. My fuel bunkers hold fifteen thousand tons of fuel. So, just to fuel up, it'd be seventy-five million. Then there's the aviation fuel, the crew rations and the conversion of fuel into ammo via magics," she explained.
Tullius could only stare in shock. "How big are the armies of your world?" he wanted to know. Then he turned to the soldier who had dropped his shield. "Go to the kitchen and tell them they're to prepare a massive spread of food, as if they had to feed an army," he ordered.
Retribution waited until the soldier was relaxed before answering. "The biggest army in the world had thirty million men under arms. Even bigger armies would be possible," she told Tullius.
The general pretended to not hear the dropped shield, but he was thankful for it. An army of thirty million. A size he could not comprehend. This wasn't an army, this was a force of nature marching, nothing should be able to stop such an army.
"The war this army was involved in left millions dead, the numbers have been corrected upwards for decades. Seventy to eighty million dead is the current estimation," Retribution explained. "We abyssals outdid that war. Over a milliard dead," she explained.
Tullius turned white in horror. He knew fighting wars involving tens of thousands. The Great War had involved almost a million soldiers and had almost broken the Empire. And here this monster told him of a war involving multiple millions of soldiers, dead on a scale he could barely envision and of a war that cost more people their lives than men, mer and beastfolk lived on Tamriel by orders of magnitude. "Is that the future of war, ever greater devastation?" he muttered tonelessly.
"Yes," Retribution answered matter-of-factly. "In my world, the potential for devastation had reached the level that the major powers of the world could no longer afford war against each other, for fear of such a war ending all life on the planet," she added.
Tullius shuddered. Tamriel had faced world-ending crises before, but this sounded like the kind of crisis where no fated hero would step onto the world stage to pull the world from the brink of annihilation.
Retribution stretched languidly. "Once I have eaten, I'll be moving towards Winterhold and the academy," she announced slowly.
Tullius nodded. "Will you need anything?" he wanted to know.
Retribution shrugged. "From what Ulfric's memories tell me, there's probably a lot of bandits and marauders around. I should be able to live off them and whatever plunder they amassed," she mused.
Tullius was torn. On the one hand, this had decent odds of carving a bloody swathe through the various bandits and marauders that used the fact that Skyrim was facing a lot of lawlessness and that the Jarls were overstretched due to the civil war. On the other hand, this would mean that the monster before him would march through the holds and there was nothing that would be able to stop her, so the bandits may well hear of her coming and seek greener pastures elsewhere. Which would make them a problem elsewhere and this wasn't something he was too keen on. Then again, if he tried to stop her, that would be laughable. She would simply walk out of here and there was nothing he could do.
"If I may," he began cautiously. "While you might be able to live off of bandits, that shouldn't be taken for granted," he continued.
Retribution nodded. "That is true," she admitted. "But in this world?" she continued. "This world is swimming in magic," she explained. "The more magic there is available, the better the conversion of food goes. I'll need big meals if I expend a lot of ammo, but other than that? I can probably live off whatever I can hunt or otherwise scrounge up," she stated confidently.
Just as she had said it, the doors opened and two soldiers carrying a massive tray between them entered. On it were dozens of meatpies, causing Retribution's eyes to flicker with blue flames.
Suddenly, she went rigid, causing the soldiers and general to freeze.
The flicker in her eyes died down and she uttered a small, confused "Retaliation?"
