"Aye, inexperience makes fools of us all." Aela said in agreement.
"Now then, the loot. Naturally there's that blade, there's also that unique helm on the skeleton there. It's what's in the chest that remains a mystery however." I said walking over to large ornate box.-
Up close it was really quite good looking. It was roughly four feet wide, two feet thick and three feet tall. It's main body was made of sturdy lacquered wood and had four iron bands across it's lid and iron plates covering it's body. Each of these iron pieces had ancient symbolic carving on them and in the center a thick corundum lock sat integrated into the chest itself.-
I gripped the sides of the lid and pulled up.
"CREAK!"
The hinges groaned but the chest opened without fuss as it was unlocked. Inside a kings ransom sat quietly. Jewels, gold bars, ancient Falmer weapons and armor pieces with gleaming enchantments and at the bottom a bone carving with a lock of blonde hair wrapped around it.
"Everything but the carving we can take. That stays here though, an offering from a father to a dead son." I said firmly.
"Agreed. It would be wrong to take that from here." Aela said solemnly.
We carefully took out everything but that carving and walked back the way we came because neither of us wanted to trust the nearby stairs that looked a light touch away from collapsing. Once back in the makeshift camp outside the barrow we got down to business.
"We need to discuss distribution." I said seriously.
"The helm is mine, for the companions." she said calmly and I nodded.
"That much goes without saying. The real matter is the rest. I want the weapons, including the ebony blade. The sole exception to that is the ancient elven bow since that is useless to me." I said plainly.
"That's not a fair split. The raw ebony alone is worth almost as much as half the remaining weapons. Besides I want that dagger." she said pointing at the gleaming white alloyed ancient Falmer dagger.
"I can give up the dagger and most of the gold and jewels but I want the ebony blade and other weapons besides the bow. Equal split of the gauntlets and cuirass." I offered.
"Hmmm, good enough. Going to sell them?" she asked and I shook my head.
"I'll pay for them out of my own funds. I want them reworked into weapons." I said honestly as I produced an extra stack of gold for her part of the loot..
"Whatever for? The other weapons should be more than enough right?" she asked surprised.
"It's not enough for what I need them for." I said with a tone that said I wasn't explaining beyond that.
"Keep your secrets then. That reminds me but what's going on with your boots and hat?" she asked eyeing the pinchy hat on my head.
"Both gifts and invitations from the Madgod. He seems rather interested in me for some reason. In truth I intended to accept his invitation once this particular part of my journey was over. Best not to keep a god waiting after all, especially not one as capricious as him." I explained with a shrug.
She sucked in a hiss of air at that as a look of barely concealed horror crossed her face.
"How in oblivion did you manage to get that sort of attention?" she asked warily.
"Believe me, if I actually knew that I would be working to fix the problem already." I said helplessly.
"I wish you luck in that venture. I myself will be heading back to Jorvaskr, I think i've earned a good rest." she said simply.
"Aye, depending on how things go in the isles I might head for Whiterun myself. Would be good to see if it's worth the tales i've heard of it." I said with a small smile.
"Look me up if you do come to the city, we'll share a drink and you can regale me with the tales you'll no doubt bring with you." she said as she gathered up her part of the loot and headed out.
I didn't follow her example immediately however and made camp outside the barrow again. A few hours later when I was sure I was alone I retrieved my sword from within my soul. The deep rent in it's edge had grown considerably smaller. I rested the blade across my lap and grabbed the snow white ancient Falmer sword from my own loot and pressed it's tip onto the side of my blade. The surface of my blade began to ripple magically as the sword slowly sank into it. Soon the entire three and a half foot sword was gone and my own now boasted a thin lightning like vein of white alloy snaking across it's dark golden and green flat.-
I ignored that and grabbed the war axe that was next and repeated the process. Soon I had gone through all of the ancient Falmer weapons but my blade was only three quarters of the way complete for that alloy. This showed because my blade was a mess of gold, green and white now in a strange mix. I was certain that once I got the gauntlets and cuirass reworked into weapons and fed to my blade the change would be complete. For now though that would have to wait. -
My blade earned another two enchantments from the weapons at least that would make it much more dangerous. The first was a a frost damage enchantment that was historically quite common from the ancient Falmer. The second enchantment was a soul trap and conversion enchantment. What it did was both simple and complex. First I needed to kill something with my blade. The moment I did so I could choose to convert the magicka in the thing into a soul gem perfectly suited to hold the soul of the creature in question. Finally their soul was stuffed into this newly created gem.-
This enchantment was a money making BEAST! It meant that I could just kill a few random things and sell the resulting soul gems if I ever needed money. For an enchanter like me this was even better because it meant I saved money on filled soul gems. When I finally got around to making those dragon hunting arrows and ballistae bolts this would come in handy. Even further I felt my bottleneck loosen for the restoration school as I was inspired by the fight with the shade.