"Sure, so Ulfric may be right! But that's the kind of thing you gotta think about. If you fight the Empire, you're letting bandits also murder the people of Skyrim, and then your forces get weakened by that fight in a way that causes them to not be as good at dealing with the Dominion... which might be worth it but I don't know if he thought about it.

"Maybe I'm just biased because I've seen many bandits and bands of refugees from the Civil War over the past few months and no Thalmor executing people so I don't get it in my gut. But that's what I'm feeling."

"Mm."

"And the thing is, if the peace agreement between the Empire and the Dominion was that disadvantageous to the Empire it must be because that was the best the Empire could get. Maybe if the Empire had kept fighting the Dominion would've just massacred them, maybe with heavy casualties but won anyway, and then that would've been worse for everyone in the Empire."

"That's easy for the Empire to say, it's not like worship of Talos is as common elsewhere as it is in Skyrim."

"Wasn't he the founder of the Empire?"

"Yeah, but he was from Skyrim. Well, raised here, anyway. The people of Skyrim see him as our god, he founded the Empire but he's ours and when he ascended he was still ours. Nowhere else in Tamriel is he as revered as here, especially amongst the common people. We grow up with his stories."

"I guess that makes sense."

"And besides, you... you weren't raised here, you don't know what it means, to be a Nord. Sometimes you fight even if you're going to lose, even if you know you're going to die, because the alternative is worse. So maybe the battle against the Empire is one we'll lose, but it may be better to fight and lose than to not fight at all."

"You're right, I don't really understand that."

Onmund shrugs. "Yeah. So... that's something to keep in mind. And if you're our Dovahkiin* then... everything you do is important. If the Dovahkiin backs Ulfric Stormcloak then more people will want to join him."

(* Dragon tongue word for "Dragonborn", one of the handful of expressions in that language that has seen widespread usage, mostly in Skyrim.)

"And if the Dragonborn condemns Ulfric, then..."

"Yeah."

"No pressure or anything."

"I know you're joking but, uh, Nords consider the Dragonborn to be the ideal for what to strive to be. Maybe not any given Dragonborn, but."

"No pressure or anything, huh."

"Just something to keep in mind, I guess."

"But I—well, I don't really disagree with anything I'm doing here. If I did, I wouldn't be doing it. But I think I'll need to understand what you meant there, with the whole 'sometimes it's better to die than to not fight' thing, before I take any very meaningful and impactful actions. It seems like I'm missing quite a lot of cultural context."

"You'll probably get it eventually. I—Ulfric will probably be able to relate a lot of it to you, honestly, he cares a lot about the Nord way."

"So let's make for Windhelm posthaste, yeah?"

The Valtheim Towers are kind of anticlimactic, after all the buildup. None of the bandits, there, are mages—there aren't even that many of them, it's just a very very defensible position, and anyone trying to outrun their arrows on a horse would have a porcupine'd horse while anyone not riding a horse wouldn't be able to run past fast enough to avoid paying the toll; Ruby succeeded at it by having a ghostly horse, high pain tolerance, and healing magic. But a smallish force of well-trained soldiers would be able to retake the fort pretty easily.

An even smaller group of mages can also do it.

After the mages down a couple of them, however, the bandits become a lot more careful, and after a couple more they just sound a generalised retreat and give up. It's just not worth it, they're clearly outmatched, the mages can just heal themselves in between blows especially when they have a dedicated healer, they won't go down. There's no point in staying.

"...so I guess we didn't need Whiterun's and Windhelm's help after all."

"Not to take the fort, no, but someone will still need to hold it. We just leave it empty, they'll come back pretty soon."

"I suppose."

"We really do need to talk to Ulfric Stormcloak."

"I guess that is the next step in our plan, yeah."