I saw an imperial soldier in light armour right next to me, closed my eyes and blasted him.  No more than 4 seconds passed before I ran out of magicka.  I could feel it as dizziness that went away fairly quickly, as if i'd hyperventilated.

When my eyes opened, he was still alive for a moment before the Dragonborn cracked his skull open in front of me with a mace.  I flinched and closed my eyes, holding my hands roughly in front of where the body would be before moving forward and watching for the archers.

An arrow whizzed past me and I decided it was best to follow behind the Dragonborn quickly, stopping behind a pillar for protection.  There were only two imperial archers remaining at this point and as the remaining stormcloaks moved around me I peaked, noticing the bowmen had switched to blades.

I ran out and approached as quickly as possible, using sparks on one of the archers just as the other was knocked down.

Good.  I could improve my magic skills too.

After the last imperial is struck down, the Dragonborn grabs a bow and the arrows off one of the stormcloaks.  I sheepishly look around again and do the same, looting 12 arrows from the Imperial.  The blood is disturbing me as I work, steam rising from it, I try not to touch the body as it's still warm, just grabbing the bow and pulling the 12 arrows out of their quiver rather than unstrapping it from him.

One of the Stormcloaks raises his eyebrows to me and with a grunt, leans forward to unstrap it for me.

"Not used to dead bodies yet huh?"  I shake my head immediately in response and let out a stifled "No" in Lokir's cowardly voice.

I thank the stormcloak, re-insert the arrows into the quiver and shoulder it as best I can with the small bag from the torture room.  The Dragonborn has started to walk ahead with Ralof and if I wasn't with them for this next part, a cave-in was going to seperate me from the escape I knew.

Following them across a drawbridge, sure enough I heard the cave behind us collapse, breaking the brigdge and sealing the other side.  Ralof responded matter of factly to the cave-in.

We pushed forward towards the next terrifying room, one full of giant spiders.  I was somewhat confident that like with the lockpicking being pretty easy before that these spiders should be fairly soft enemies, but I couldn't be sure.  At the very least, I reasoned that Ralof and the dragonborn canonically were'nt going to die, so the best I could do was either let them do the fighting or help safely from a distance.  I decided against using the bow, instead casting sparks on the biggest spider once it was engaged with the others.

I decided against looting the area for alchemy ingredients.  I just didn't know what I was doing and didn't feel comfortable sticking my hands inside giant sacks made of spider web.  The others didn't seem interested either, again leaving me to assume the Dragonborn was going to be melee focused.  It also made me think that maybe canonically, he was unlikely to be a completionist like players often are.

As we arrived in the next area, I made up my mind and moved about to the different locations where there was more hidden loot, grabbing a healing potion to the left and turning back, and racing to move a little ahead of the others.  I decided to try to look like a helpful scout in the process, so they wouldn't suspect me of running ahead and looting, knowing there was a bear ahead, I could just make it out from this distance and stole Ralof's line.

"Hey, guys!  There's a bear ahead of us"  I whispered behind...  "Oh, I think it's sleeping."  With that I move a little further forward to a cart carrying wine and a coin bag, then moving about to the other side where there's an iron horned helmet and a different looking bottle of wine narrower than the others, made with dark glass, Black Briar mead.  I slip this bottle into my pocket and turn around with the helmet.

"Hey, you, uh, Alkar.  This helmet seems to be in good shape.  Also you guys, there's some septims in the cart."  Alkar takes the helmet and nods in contempletion.  "Mmm, how many septims?"

I vaguely remember it holds around 30 or so from memory.  I lift the bag and jangle it before me.  "Uh, maybe 30 or so?  Maybe a little more."

He grunts in response.  "Keep it, you gave me the helmet."

I pause, feeling kind of akward by now, but knowing that as far as I'm aware, the Dragonborn can't fail and will eventually end up rich anyway, I nod and throw the money in my knapsack along with the other bottles of wine the others seem to be disinterested in.  It seems that I received speech exp for using my prior knowledge to manipulate myself into a better deal.

I knew how common iron helmets were, but Black Briar mead was hard to get and useful for getting a Yarl to like you early to get fast access to cheap land.  However, to be honest, I had no idea how difficult it would be for me to construct a house.  In game it was easy and instantaneous if you had the right materials.  In addition, unless I could powerlevel my way safely to godlike levels, I was probably going to prefer a house inside the safety of a town's walls.

Anyway, I knew that having that little bit more gold early on could also mean getting ahead of the Dragonborn.  THAT was important.  Because there were items and artifacts that were easy to get your hands on if you knew where to go.

So, ok, maybe I didn't feel THAT guilty, because I was going to rush ahead again, only this would likely be without the Dragonborn with me.  In order to survive and thrive in Skyrim, getting early access to lots of money and claiming the best equipment from the safest and easiest sources was going to be my best bet.

I also needed the money to pay for any bounties Lokir may have accrued as well as maybe...  Modify my face and voice if possible and either create a new identity, or at least fix Lokir's current one... I knew where I could achieve this, but not yet, I was going to need a lot more money first...

As we approached the bear, the Dragonborn opted to sneak past it and we continued through to the end of the cave.

Finally, we emerged outside below, hiding and waiting for Alduin to disappear before Ralof encouraged us to follow him to the nearby town of Riverwood.