Conjuration is so often thought to be the preserve of the stereotypical Altmer mage. Depressingly few know that the most reliable and cutting edge research into Conjuration comes from Bretons mages, either working for the ubiquitous Mages Guild or one of the five kingdoms of High Rock.
As such, the Bretons were the best-armed in terms of Daedra-related knowledge and were thus the best-equipped to handle the Oblivion Crisis. It is telling that High Rock came out of that battle with the fewest casualties, least damage to infrastructure and least economic loss.
High Rock lost none of its major cities, in contrast to the loss of Kvatch by Cyrodiil, and the catastrophic damage sustained by Hammerfell, Skyrim and Orsinium, Elsweyr and Black Marsh. Even Morrowind and Summerset did not emerge unscathed, with severe damage done to some of the smaller ones.
Also, while most of the other provinces emptied their coffers to wage a martial war against the Dremora (a doomed strategy), High Rock's extensive use of mages and battlemages saw invader after invader burnt, electrocuted, frozen, banished, bound...
As a result, the end of the Third Era saw not the rise of High Rock per se, but the decline of everyone else. The Fourth Era had dawned, and for the first time in living memory, Tamriel's greatest power wasn't Cyrodiil.
After the war, as happens after every great conflict, huge and startling changes were seen to happen.
The provinces seized upon the best opportunity in history to gain independence from the Empire. Skyrim and House Hlaalu of Morrowind saw that with the fall of their powerful ally, the Empire, their own positions had been weakened.
Meanwhile, hawks in Summerset Isle expounded upon the failings of the Imperials to safeguard their provinces and pushed for the severing of ties.
Black Marsh and Elsweyr saw opportunity to challenge the monopoly of the East Empire Company, and each day sees new guerilla attacks.
Close to Leyawiin, the Renrija Krin takes heart in the fact that the Imperial Legions are greatly weakened.
And in Morrowind, all hell has broken loose.
With the waning of House Hlaluu, House rivalry has returned, and all are out for blood. The Morag Tong has not seen such business in a long while.
And in High Rock itself? A secret civil war is underway, with five royal families eyeing the prize; for whoever can control all of High Rock would effectively control Tamriel.
Perhaps Dagon is pleasantly surprised.
Tamriel looks set to destroy itself.
*****
Is necessity the mother of invention? Or does that title belong to ambition?
The monotonous sound of pickaxes hitting stone was starting to get to him. Karle was sitting at his desk, high above the excavation site, in a small but well-furnished log cabin, his temporary office.
Before him, a man in creamy beige robes was explaining how the Ayleids obtained the material for their Welkynd stones from meteorites for millennia before they discovered an artificial process for making them.
The mage was wasting his time, for Karle was not really listening, but nodding and making polite noises for the sake of diplomacy. Though the man before him was no doubt an utter bore, he was from the League...
'...and we expect to find enormous quantities of them here, in several stages of development. This will allow us to reverse engineer the process. Finally, we will be able to replicate the process step for step!' the mage intoned enthusiastically.
Karle gave the man a smile and a nod before slipping back into his trance.
'The League trusts excavation activity remains within the budget?' the mages voice thinned out here. Ever so slightly...
The veiled threat brought Karle back to Nirn very quickly. 'Oh yes, of course.' He responded.
The mage seemed pleased.
Suddenly, a great clamour rose up from the site. Karle got up immediately. The mage in the creamy beige robe was out the door in two strides.
****
The workers, dirt and sweaty, stepped out of the mage and director's way like peasants before royalty.
'Let me see.' The mage said in a deathly flat voice. With an involuntary shiver the worker stepped out of the way.
Just in front of them, the two Bretons saw the beginning of a winding stairway. Very Ayleid.
Karle asked if he should call over workers, but the mage dismissed him with a wave. He ordered everyone to stand back. They obliged, all of them backing away from him.
The mage was still for a few moments, and a bright orange light glowed in his hand. With a movement the fireball hit the packed earth covering the entrance and blasted it apart.
More than half of doorway was now visible. With a series of smaller fireballs the mage cleared the rest of the earth.
A couple of the workers moved to pry the door open, but the mage blew the door in with a flash of white light. He turned around to face Karle, who had walked back to him.
'Send notice to the League and get the battlemages, I'm going in,' he said in one breath.
Karle nodded.
****
The Dunmer collapsed under a tree, exhausted. He had been putting as much distance between himself and those terrifying children.
The way they had swept aside any resistance...the brutal efficiency...
He knew he had to warn his superiors. The League had claimed the Razor...
****
The kingdoms of High Rock used mages extensively in their bid for leadership. Mages to charm, beguile and dominate. Mages to spy on an enemy a thousand miles away. Mages to burn down towns and harbours. Mages to seek out and destroy...
The royal families took pride in their magical arsenals. They never thought about placing checks and balances. Uriel Septim's experience with Jagar Tharn was not remembered it seems.
For once the secret war was well underway, the families found themselves betrayed, fooled by their mage advisors and overthrown by spell and poison.
Theocracy. Monarchy. Democracy.
Tamriel now saw its first Magisterium. A province ruled by a coalition of mages who had played their individual leaders against each other. A mighty League of Mages, in a position to challenge the Guild, and the Elder Council itself.
High Rock was the greatest force in Tamriel. The League was the greatest force in High Rock.
For the Breton mages truly did rule, making laws and enforcing them, unlike the Telvanni who were indifferent to politics, the Psijic Order, who only intervened in grand moments, and the Council of Summerset Isle, who were politicians first, and mages second.
With money and magicka, the League was a force unlike any other. A fraternity, political body, and corporation.
A government, Mages Guild and East Empire Company rolled into one.
Tamriel did not know what to make of them.
****
A bolt of magicka blast the skeleton apart. Ever cautious, the four battlemages proceeded carefully.
The contingent had been split up into groups of four, and sent off in five different pathways. The Mystics back home had been right; the ruin was labyrinthine.
The group leader peered at his copy of the map. It had been impossible for the Mystics to pick out a precise pathway to the chambers they sought, necessitating an old fashioned search.
The League researcher had gone with another group.
And as expected, the built up magicka in the ruin made communication nearly impossible this deep in the ruin. The groups had been instructed by the researcher to mark their way to the chambers, if they found them, so the League could carry out a retrieval mission.
They would reconvene at the surface in six hours.
Deadly force authorized.