*rapidly* Skyrim belongs to Bethesda. Ok! So now that silly obligation is out of the way, here is my attempt at the College of Winterhold questline! Tell me what you think of both Talara and the style I used while writing.
EDIT: So, Today, I was playing Skyrim and realized that there is a book series called the Mystery of Talara (parts I-V)...So just ignore that.
Talara 'Yes I know who my Uncle is. Please don't say my last name too loudly' had had one of her brilliant plans. Hide out in Skyrim, until her uncle was assassinated, overthrown, died of natural causes, or -possibly – actually managed to take over Nirn. Then, slink back to Summerset like she hadn't been hiding out for the last fifty-plus years.
It would have worked too. If the blasted Dragonborn hadn't decided she wanted to visit the College of Winterhold. Although, with Alora, studying magic was not what she actually wanted to do. As Tolfdir put it "Alora has a great talent for magic, but unfortunately, she lacks any motivation to learn."
This observation was sadly true: all Alora -while not a Nord – carried a rather traditional view of magic: What's the point if I can't break someone's head open with it? Alora hopped was hoping that the College could help her with finding an Elder Scroll – a noble pursuit in itself, but she was looking for an Elder Scroll to deal with something as mundane as the end of the world.
Worse, due to a lack of space, the College staff had felt it necessary to bunk Alora in Talara's room. This would have been fine on its own – Alora was rarely around, didn't touch Talara's sensitive experiments, and had even volunteered to bring back any weird alchemy stuff she found in her adventures, but Alora had managed to attract Ancano's desperately unwanted attention.
Fortunately, Ancano was so focused on giving the Dragonborn death glares, that he never noticed the purposely mousy Altmer girl, who had somehow become said Dragonborn's friend. Life resumed itself. Well, until that trip to Saarthal.
She and Alora had gotten teamed up by Tolfdir – as always – in a desperate attempt to keep Alora from failing her classes on purpose out of sheer boredom, and annoyance with how long it was taking to locate that Elder Scroll.
"Alora! Can you please stop laughing and I don't know, Shout or something to get Master Tolfdir's attention?" she hadn't meant to squeak, but when the wall of spikes had risen, imprisoning them both in the alcove, Alora – who usually was the cause of such incidents – had found this very amusing, and almost fallen over with her laughter.
Clearly trying to be a good friend, the evil red head stood, and whipped tears from her eyes. "Don't worry. Just cover your ears Tala." And then after a moment for Talara to block her ears, Alora threw her head back and Shouted right at the ceiling:
FUS RO DAH
The force that ricocheted off the celling, knocked Talara to the ground; while, the echoes reverberating around the tomb, and brought Tolfdir running. "What in the world is that racket?" he asked rubbing his ears. Spotting the two women he added "Is everything alright?"
"We may be trapped." Talara muttered as she got back to her feet. "Alora and I were searching for magical artifacts, and I pulled an amulet of the wall."
Alora nodded adding "As soon as Tala touched the amulet, the spikes shot up. We had no time to do anything."
Tolfdir nodded, "Then perhaps the amulet is important somehow. Is there some way you can use is?"
Talara thought for a moment, before taking her mother's necklace off, and hung the ancient amulet around her neck. The air between her, and the amulets wall, began to glow, swaying. Talara involuntarily stepped back, and the glowing air seemed to stretch.
"There seems to be some kind of resonance between you and the wall. It must be connected to the amulet. Talara, I wonder what effect your magic would have on that seal?"
"Very well, stand back." Flames licked around Talara's fingers as she called forth fire. Her firebolt hit the wall and shattered it, the ancient stone crumbling into the hidden room beyond. Behind her the spikes retracted. Tolfdir walked over
"Huh, will you look at that! This appears to lead somewhere. Let's see where it goes." With their professor leading the way, they pressed deeper into the ruins. After about seventy steps, a Psijic Monk had somehow frozen time, and told Talara that she had set a catastrophe in motion, but that she could still fix the future. By the time, he had unfrozen time and stopped talking, Talara had realized that there was no way that he could actually be talking to her. What had happened was the monk was aiming to speak with Alora, and had somehow targeted one person over.
Tolfdir became intrigued by the Nordic carvings, and sent the two women on into the tomb, promising to catch up. From there, Saarthal was like any other Nordic tomb, it had both a sizable amount of treasure – which vanished as soon as Alora was nearby – and an annoying amount of dragur. With swords and sorcery, they began carving through the tomb.
As they got to the end of the tomb, Tolfdir rejoined their group, and the three of them came out on an upper half floor, below them, there was another dragur sitting slumped in a chair, and a massive glowing orb that made Talara break out in a cold sweat.
Whatever that orb was, it had some serious power behind it. The thing shielded the dragur from damage, but Tolfdir managed to undo that, and without its magical protection, Alora and Talara easily dealt with the dragur. With the monster dead, Tolfdir became very interested in the orb, and sent them to go inform the Arch Mage.
Talara didn't know who would win a fight, Alora or Mr. Urag. They both could be fairly terrifying when they tried. Luckily, they made it out of the library without having angry an army of angry atronachs set on them.
Alora glanced at her map. "Right, alone, I can be there and back in a day or two. Do you have anything that you can do while I'm gone?"
"I did promise Brelyna I would help her practice some spells if I had time. Well, it turns out that I have the time now." Talara smiled. Alora nodded, then left the room so fast she was basically a blur.
After taking the path along the roof to avoid Ancano, Talara spent the rest of the day, literally seeing green after helping Brelyna, pulling bits of dragur out of her hair after testing a spell for J'zargo, and fluttering her eyelashes at Enthir to get Onmund's amulet back.
The next morning, Alora joined Talara and Tolfdir in the Hall of the Elements. The two scholars had been examining the big orb thing. "If you'd allow me to indulge myself for a moment, I thought I might make a few observations…" Tolfdir was saying as Alora strolled into the Hall.
"Urag, mentioned you'd both be here. He suggested that you should reread the book called the Night of Tears."
"Is that the one about something beneath Saarthal? Something that men and mer fought over? I'll have to reread it. Alora, before you arrived, Talara and I were examining this marvelous object." Tolfdir began to walk around the floating orb.
"Now, ladies, I'm sure you've already noticed the markings. They bare quite unlike anything we've seen before. These markings aren't Ayleid, Dwemer, Daedric, or even Falmer. Nothing matches. Quite curious indeed.
Now, I'm sure that either of you are attuned as I am, given my extensive years of experience, but can you feel how this marvelous object practically radiates magicka, and yet its unlike anything I've felt before. Now– "
"I'm afraid I must intrude." Ancano cut into Tolfdir's lecture. "But, it is urgent that I speak to your associates immediately." The three researchers reluctantly turned. Talara edged behind Alora.
Ancano dragged both her and Alora up to the Arch-Mage's quarters. The Psijic monk that had accidently contacted her in Saarthal was back. He froze time again, and again, somehow got her instead of Alora. The mistaken monk told her that the Psijic Order was worried that someone – Ancano – might misuse the power of the floating orb they had found. So, the monk advised her to go talk to someone named the Augur of Dunlain.
Then the monk unfroze time and left. Ancano was furious that he didn't get the answers he was looking for and cornered Alora and Talara afterwards, but he was mostly talking to Alora who didn't seem to have heard the monk. Ancano, did almost recognize Talara, but she bolted after Alora so, no harm there.
After escaping from the elf, the two women asked around until, Tolfdir told them were they could locate the Augur. After a quick trip through the Midden and Midden Dark, they met the Augur. He appeared a big ball of floating blue light.
The Augur took a little persuading, but Alora was persistent, and eventually they learned, that the key to solving this whole crisis was to locate Magnus's Staff.
After asking the Arch-Mage, they were directed to Mirabelle who mentioned that the Synod had headed to a Dwemer ruined called Mzulft. This time, Talara traveled with Alora.
"Well, get on behind me then." She had answered, when Talara pointed out that they had one horse between them. "Shadowmere can easily carry us both. Right girl?" Alora patted the horse's neck. The horse made a sound that was somewhere between an affirmation, and a laugh.
"Oh, I'm going to be sick." Talara groaned, trying not to lose her breakfast. Alora had just cut open the big black bug to reveal human or elf remains; along with a terrible smell.
"I think I've got a stomach settler in my bag." Alora managed in apology, slightly green herself "the Whirlwind sprint really can turn your stomach over if you're not careful." She explained as she handed Talara a potion, "on the plus side I found this funny shaped crystal. Probably what that guy at the entrance was talking about. It is covered in charus guts though, but it's not really my fault that the thing decided to eat it. Honestly, we're just lucky that it waited until we were in view to snarf the crystal. You're rabbit dissections were bad enough; I really could have lived without seeing either: Charus guts or you cutting up that poor little dead bunny, and" Alora continued her monologue as they made their way to Muzlft's observatory.
Paratus -the member of the Synod who had camped out in the observatory - had clearly gone somewhat stir crazy. After he got over the horror of the charus having eaten his focusing crystal, Paratus explained not only how this was his idea, but the rather obvious method about how to focus the crystal. Talara and Alora ignored him mostly.
"A little more heat. No too much heat." Alora directed. She was standing on the upper level, manipulating the machines to try and reflect the beams of light that sprung from the crystal. She was also directing Talara on how to focus the crystal.
Eventually -and with much yelling – they got the contraption working. A glowing map of the continent spread out on one wall. Paratus almost squealed with delight and raced down to study it, but he was rather angry when the magical aura of the Eye drowned out everything else on the map, and got on Alora's case about the College "sabotaging" his research.
The ancient Nordic ruin of Labyrinth was glowing too; which clearly meant that that Staff of Magnus was hidden in Labyrinth. Once she realized this information, Talara knew that they had to get back to the College. She interrupted Alora mid death-threat, and even didn't complain about Alora's insane riding.
They got back to find that Ancano had done something to the Eye, and locked everyone out of the Hall of the Elements. This was obvious to anyone who had an understand of magic. So, not Alora.
"What's going on?" the Dragonborn asked as they raced up to the Arch-Mage.
He turned to look at the two women "Ancano. He's in there doing…something. We aren't sure what. We're trying to get in now; throw everything you have at it."
Together, the four of them attacked the barrier. Under the force of three spells, and a shout, the magic collapsed. Alora was the first through the door, Talara the last.
"Ancano!" The Arch-Mage yelled over the roar of magic, as he approached the Thalmer "Stop this at once! I command you!"
"Don't go near him." Mirabelle warned. Suddenly, the Eye overloaded. Talara felt someone grab her and pull back as her vison turned white.
She came to sprawled against Alora. Everything hurt, and she could feel a magic induced headache coming on.
"Brynjolf, this is the last time I let you take me out drinking." Alora groaned stretching and opening her eyes. Then she looked around confirming her surroundings. "Ok, he's off the hook this time."
They got their bearings, and then spoke with Mirabelle. She was adamant that they locate the Arch-mage. Once they could stand, Alora and Talara staggered out of the College. In the snow just outside the Hall of the Elements, they found the body of the Arch-Mage, and the rest of the staff and students.
After they had made sure that the rest of Winterhold was safe, Mirabelle gave Alora something that looked like a door knocker, and sent them to Labyrinth.
The strange object turned out to be a door handle in Labyrinth. As they trailed through the ruins; fighting skeletons, dragurs, and -to Alora's delight -a giant skeletal dragon - something would occasionally whispered in Talara's ear. At first, its muttered freezing words were spoken in a language Talara didn't understand, but recognized as the old dragon tongue; however, once it realized Talara didn't speak dragon, it taunted her in her own language.
Almost worse than the words, was the terrible feeling of having her magicka drained that accompanied them. Talara shivered, but Alora seemed not to noticed either the voice or the horrible freezing drain.
It turned out whatever was talking to Talara was a dragon priest. Alora had recognized it as soon as they walked into that large room.
He stood in a big orb of glowing light; the Staff of Magnus clutched tightly in one hand. Two ghostly wizards Alora drew her sword, and after muttering "Can you disable the barrier?" put herself in front of the dragon-priest, a worrisome flame glinting in her eyes.
Despite their general insanity, Alora's plans also had a good track record. Talara clambered up the ruins and after a moment's hesitation, smashed a nearby pot over the head of one of the ghostly wizards with all her force.
The pot didn't do anything to the wizard, but it certainly disrupted the barrier. The ghost turned and attacked Talara. In the background, she could hear a clash of steel and bone. Alora's voice rang around the large cavern.
Quickly, Talara ended her fight with the two ghosts. She turned around to find Alora, and found the dragon-priest's mask right behind her.
"ALORA!" She shrieked as the dragonborn pulled off the mask, eyes glittered with humor. "So, not funny."
"Sure? Your face just now was priceless." Alora twirled Magnus's Staff in one hand. "Oh, it was just a prank. Stop giving me that look."
Talara kept her disappointed look as they searched the room for those convenient exits that Alora never seemed to be able to find before the enter ruin had finished. After a few minutes, Alora located the pull chain correct pull chain, and a wall opened up to reveal a passage out of Labyrinth.
As they walked out of another room, a second pair of doors opened, and a Thalmer mage walked in. Completely ignoring Talara, he vaguely threatened Alora
"So, you made it out of their alive. Arcano was right… you are dangerous." He focused in on the Staff in the Dragonborn's hands, "I'm afraid I'll have to take that staff from you now. Arcano wants it kept safe…oh, and he wants you dead. Nothing person-"
"I'm afraid I can't allow that." Talara said before her nerve got the better of her. There was no doubt that Alora would win any fight, but it really wasn't fair to let Alora kill someone when Talara might be able to keep things nonviolent.
Two almost disappointed pairs of eyes focused on her. Then the Thalmer's jaw dropped open.
"Your…Your…"
"Yes, I am. And I've taken custody of the Staff of Magus." Talara held out her hand somewhat imperiously. Alora raised an eyebrow, but handed over the staff without complaint. "Now, what's your name?" and here, Talara tried to sound haughty. She didn't really manage it, but thankfully, the Thalmer didn't notice.
"Estormo ma'am."
"Well, then Estormo, forget Ancano's mission against the Dragonborn, and err Go before I remember to be angry at you for threatening my friend."
Estormo nodded vigorously before scurrying off. Alora raised an eyebrow and sternly held out her hand. Sheepishly, Talara returned the Staff.
"Now, explain. I mean, you not sneaking around behind me is fine, but did you just pull rank?"
"Err, my Uncle may be the current head of the Dominion? And he may have given me an actual rank for some reason? You know, I think that we really shouldn't leave Ancano alone for too long! Let's get back to Winterhold!" Then, before Alora could say anything she bolted for the horse; Alora's yell of surprise echoing behind.
One long, and question filled ride back to Winterhold, the two women found that Ancano's magic field had expanded to surround the entire College, and that he had killed Mirabelle.
Thankfully, the rest of members and staff where relatively unharmed. Alora used the Staff to break the glowing barrier, before tossing it at Talara, and running in. Talara ran after her, and soon, they were back in the Hall of the Elements.
The Eye of Magnus was glowing and spinning in a way the made Talara very worried. Alora didn't even wait for Ancano to speak, but began wailing at him with her sword. Nothing seemed to happen. Talara, who had not immediately charged in to fight, was reminded of how they had discovered the Eye, and -more importantly – how it had shielded that dragur from damage.
With an expert twirl, Talara used the Staff's powers on the Eye. Her guess proved right, and it drained of magic, its spin slowing and the glow becoming less bright. A shriek of pain, indicated that Alora's attacks were working.
Fus Ro Dah
Ancano went flying past Talara, Alora jogging close behind. The Thalmer barely had time to stand before Alora stabbed him through the chest.
That was the point that Talara slipped upstairs to the Arcanium. She had been around for long enough to notice a power vacuum when she saw one. Talara was halfway through an excellent response to Bero that her book was taken away by a Very Annoyed Alora.
Alora had just gotten named Arch-Mage after they tried, and failed, to locate Talara. Apparently, she was the one the Psijic Order had been trying to contact the entire time. Also, they had wanted to make Talara Arch-Mage, but couldn't find her. So, naturally everyone had turned to the Dragonborn.
All Talara could do was apologetically shrug her shoulders, take her book back, and go back to reading while siliently thanking her lucky stars, that Tolfdir had gotten the Master Wizard post. Despite everything, her plan was actually working.