Chapter 3: What Has Happened in My Absence

Now Ticedoni was hardly a heavy sleeper. How could he be if often he's alone adventuring through some gods forsaken Dwemer ruin and realizes he should probably rest for it was a new day? After all, who knows what kind of traps reside in there.

Either way, the Imperial hardly expected to wake up and not see his fellow adventurer in the bed he oh-so-graciously allowed him to rest on. In fact, only after running about for an hour or so, inquiring the Colleges many residents, did he discover the man in the library: arguing with the local book keeper.

Now Urag gro-Shub was a patient man. He had patience when needed, even when his Orsimer impatience would rather shine, and tried to be accommodating- at least to some degree- for the College residents. This Breton however, he had neither met nor seen before in his life.

"You know, you remind me of a certain chamberlain I once met! He was locked up in a tree though. Had a whole library in his brain. You wouldn't like him. He worked for the Prince of biscuits!" Sigmund paused, seemingly contemplating something, "...or was it order? Either way you'd like him."

A vein in the Orcimer's head seemed only to increase in size, "I told you, if you continue to disrupt my Arcaeneum I will have you torn apart with angry Atranochs!"

Alas this only seemed to excite the madman.

"Atranochs! Such lovely creatures! Especially the flesh ones~"

Urag had had just about enough of this... this... madness, when he spotted his dear Archmage watching from the door. "Archmage! Care to explain," he gestured towards the intruder, "this?"

Sigmund blushed acting bashful. His feet shuffled slightly out of habit, making him wish he had his 'bloody eyeball cane', as he has come to name it, at the moment.

Ticedoni nearly face palmed, striding closer to the duo. "I must apologize, Urag. This is my guest I recently found while on my travels. He had hit his head pretty hard so I figured to rather bring him here for a quicker healing than to bring him to an inn and replete my resources."

Urag shifted his gaze between the two for a minute, judging the two. "Fine. But I'll have no havoc here. If he is not here for a book, then let him be removed from this area."

And then Sigmund remembered. "You don't happen to have books on the history of the past two-hundred years, do you?"

The Orc looked dumbfounded for a short minute. "Do I happen to have a boo-? Of course I do. What part of it did you need to know?"

"Any and all of it! You see, this man," the madman patted a heavy hand on the Archmage's shoulder, "claims that I have been transported into the future! Ridiculous! Redonculous! And any other kind of -onculous! Redofudolictonculous!"

The Imperial simply shrugged his companion's hand off. This traveler he found never ceased to amuse him with his witty words and phrases. "Urag, could you possibly find the book on the Oblivion crisis for him? I think it best he start from what he last remembers."

The old Orc grumbled something, going to look for said book. A few minutes later he had found the prized item, which was furtherly lended to the clearly insane man. "Damage it and not even Oblivion can save you."

If that was a threat it certainly wasn't a good one; especially considering the grand princeliness that stood before the other mages. "Fretting over Oblivion? I hear it's quite nice this time of year! No matter though~ I love books! Had a whole library back at home. Wonder what ever happened to it..."

It had been nearly two weeks and the Breton had yet to come out of the wondrous realm known as the Arcaeneum. If this was a perfect world, which it wasn't, Urag would have grown more fond of the visitor; alas it seemed the more he visited, the less he liked him. Then again, he could never actually kick him out. He couldn't bring himself to do that to such a dedicated book lover. Especially after the man decided to donate the books he still had with him- many of which Urag had never even seen nor heard of!

"Urag, I've finished!"

The Orsimer looked up from his book oddly at the Breton. "You've... Finished?"

Said redhead nodded, "Yup! All the books I could have access to here~" He walked towards the orc, practically beaming, and set his book upon the stack where many others resided.

"I must thank you for sharing with me your vast collection! Alas, the first book you shared with me... 'The Oblivion Crisis' was it? Was indeed... Lacking. So I added annotations that are the true sequence of events!"

Urag looked furious. He wanted to ream thus man out for defacing his precious book! He wanted to have his precious Atronach rip him to shreds! ...But if what the Archmage had said was true about this man, then he would know more about the events that transpired. He watched the other leave before curiously digging out said book. These annotations were incredible! The detail of the events! Incredible! Absolutely astounding. Until... Were those water stained pages? No, he must have been hallucinating. Especially because on the last page, where it said Martin died, it was crossed out furiously and instead had written in: 'lived.' Urag would have to be a fool to not see this as a defiance of a predestined fate for the poor soul of a man.

The Archmage was in no mood for dealing with the riffraff of the other mages today. His private stash of alchemy ingredients had been raided the other day and he'd not had time to find the crook or go to replenish it. Unfortunately, riffraff is an easy find in a guild based upon such a dangerous weapon. Especially when there is a rather large crowd of new associates gathered in a ring around a bloodied floor, shouting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" out in the courtyard. Today was just not going to be his day, was it?

"Enough!" Ticedoni bellowed, pushing his way through the ring only to find Sigmund with that confounded red orange gemmed blade of his that looked like a mouth- actually, it looked a LOT like a mouth- cut through what could have only been the remains of a scamp. The clearly not right minded man and three and a half week resident simply waited until said pile of mush disappeared to summon another of the blasted creatures. Obviously he had been paying no attention to the crowd that had gathered around him. Or the furious Archmage that was trying not to blast his ass back to wherever the hell he came from. If the lack of attention certainly didn't show this, then the blood drenched floor and outfit certainly did.

"What is this?" Ticedoni seethed, glaring at the man with a look any scorned Nord would have been proud of.

"10." The entranced warrior had sliced and diced yet another of the wretched beings.

"What?"

"11. There we go! All quenched now~" suddenly the bi-polar blade began to glow. Not like some kind of grand gaudy transformation sequence, but one of subtle light and ever so slightly did the blade seem to relax itself.

"WHAT in the name of the gods were you doing?" The Archmage had finally lost whatever stretched patience he had left for the day.

"I was feeding my blade."

"...what? You were FEEDING your blade? I knew you were eccentric, but to think a blade REQUIRES blood-"

"souls," the Breton corrected.

"Whatever it requires! That is impossible! Now all of you..." The Imperial finally snapped back to the undisbursed crowd, "Get back to your lessons!" The associates hustled back to their duties as to avoid the archmages wrath.

"It is obvious you are well beyond healing your head injury. You're quite well enough to just scram, so why haven't you?" It was not necessarily malice leading these words of the Archmage, but it was certainly laced in with curiosity.

"It's not that I cannot 'scram' as you've said, but more of, I find it most useful to have your assistance with the matter of my return to my own time- a quest per say. My magic is great and far... Or is it vast... Or wide... Or skinny... Or gigantanormous. I propose until that day where you can get up off your high-featherweight horsey, I will continue to do as I do, which so obviously is driving you deliciously mad. In the case you do decided to come along for alchemical harvesting, then I shall continue to be myself with you in tow~"

"...I don't see the difference between the two." The Archmage sighed. It was like he was making a deal with a daedric prince- if there ever was an option, neither choice worked in his favor.

"The difference is if you want me gone for it is quite fantastic for me to stay here~ You're world is quite bland. Even the shiny spirit thingy in your basement!"

"...you even talked to the oracle?"

"Of course! I'm an adventurer! Exploring is my specialty! ... Or was it slaughtering the undead..? Hmm... No, no, it was making sweetrolls! What say you?"

The Imperial certainly felt torn, which he certainly hoped he didn't look. He had always hated these one sided deals and planned to keep it that way. But he couldn't very well leave this clearly insane man to his own senses! What if he accidently killed someone? Then he'd have to send someone to go fetch the man for the dark brotherhood and then what? Have ANOTHER crazy inane talking killer besides Cicero about? Just thinking of that gave him a headache.

"Fine," Ticedoni grudgingly agreed, "I will continue to assist you on your quest, as you've declared it to be."

So I guess my updates will be slow and when I get around to them. I hope you guys are enjoying the madness that fuels this piece. May it be awakened within all of you!

Thank you to all the supporters (favs, reviews or otherwise)! I really appreciate it and I will finish this story for sure; I know where it's going, now just to put it to paper...