The Dovahkiin
Chapter 3
"Awaken, Dragonborn."
"Deinroh? Deinroh? You alright buddy? Can you hear me? Hell, wake up man!"
My eyes snap open and everything i see has a strange green hue. Draalfus takes a step back.
"You're eyes, they're still emerald green." He whispered.
I blinked once again, and the phenomenon ended.
Draalfus was in shock; his face was covered in blood. Everything around us was on fire. Trees were toppled and burned. The ground was black. In the distance, Draalfus's oxen laid, burned and decayed. Half of the forest was ruined. He was right about the symbols, though, they were everywhere. Covering the ground around us, always the same symbol. It looked like a little man with a crown across his forehead. The Philosopher's Stone.
"When you passed out, the sky turned black. There was a killer monsoon, and another dragon flew out of the sky. It turned its head and glared directly at us. You stood up, and your eyes were glowing. You spoke a strange language, it wasn't even Draconic. Then there were... symbols. Covering the sky. And a flash... a red flash. It disappeared."
"And the...voices," Draalfus continued, "I heard them chanting, taunting! They wouldn't stop, they just kept singing and... they cut me. My Soul! Like ice..."
It had the power to drive people mad, the Philosopher's Stone. Taking any form, and creating, or destroying, whatever it decided to.
"The Stone with a soul of its own"
Voices. Draalfus shrieked in agony and fell to the ground. His back had the bloody mark of the Philosopher's Stone on it, with red gas leaking out. I felt my palms pulse loudly. I had the same marks on them. In the distance, i saw a gigantic carving in the face of the Throat of the World, the alchemic mark of the successful creation of a Philosopher's Stone. Blood seeped into my eyes and blinded me. I dragged the near-dead Draalfus across the destroyed ground as the night progressed. A small cottage was only a few hundred meters from the epicenter of the battle. Even if Marauders lived in there, Draalfus needed help.
Passing in and out of consciousness and intense pain, we made it to the cottage four hours later. An elderly man and his wife welcomed us and tended to our wounds. I was careful not to show them my palms, but at some point the stream of blood coming from my hands was apparent. After bandaging my hands, the man called me into his room.
"Deinroh Mafaeraak." He said, "The man who shouldn't exist."
"What?" I asked, he wasn't making any sense. How did he know my name?
"Do you know anything about alchemy, son? Have you heard of Thoth or his writings?" The man said patiently, i had no response. "There is something called the Pattern, basically the blueprint of the world. Thoth wrote instructions on how to create a Philosopher's Stone, in correspondence to the Pattern. But with every pattern is an exception."
"I'm the exception?" I implied.
"Yes, you're a mistake, a glitch in the system." He implored. "You aren't supposed to exist. Alduin tried to make a Philosopher's Stone. He wanted to create his own realm. Some gods do this; it is only natural that they would want a land of their own. But, he was careless. Taking the easy way out, he accidentally created you, the only thing in Mundus that can destroy him."
"I'm listening." I remarked regretfully.
"Call me the Alchemist." he said.