9. In Which Ra'Jirra becomes Apprentice in the Mages Guild
The next morning I got up and considered what to wear, like some girl on market day. I wondered about the armour I had collected and used on my travels, but dropped that idea. Clanking into the Arcane University like some adventurer might be taken poorly. The last thing I wanted was to be asked if I got lost on my way to the Fighter's Guild or something like that.
So I picked up the conjurer's robe from that chap who'd swum out to attack me so long ago. Nope, I thought to myself, I'm no conjurer and they might take offense. That went back on the pile. Eventually I settled on my usual mercantile-enhancing outfit I'd been wearing whenever I fronted up in a township. It was swanky, didn't clash with my fur and hopefully would state clearly that I was able to fend for myself.
If that sounds like a lot of farting around, what can I say? I was about to make a first impression on the faculty – last time I had done little more than look up Julienne Fanis and back out again. This time I had to look my best and give those recommendations full weight. I'd be there a lot more often.
With that in mind I trudged up the slope beyond the guard tower and around the city wall to the University, a smaller echo off to the south. Through the gate and down to the little garden that took up half the interior, then up again to the lobby. An Imperial man was in there, same as when I was visiting Fanis.
"Pardon me, sir," I began, "I seek Master–"
"No need for the pleasantries," says he, "I'm Raminus Polus, and you would be our new apprentice, Ra'Jirra." And he looks me up and down while I get to grips with the fact he's already calling me Apprentice. "Good man. You're not like some of the jackasses we've had commended to us. Would you believe we once had a fool swan in done up like a necromancer?" I'm about to reply but, "Damn idiot thought he'd impress us by showing off the loot he'd taken from some third-rate corpse-jockey during his quest for recommendations. The resident battlemagi cured him of that notion quick!"
I think about this for a bit and finally say, "Unsurprising."
Raminus just chuckles. "Well! You'll need your new robe. Let's see..." and off he goes to rummage through a dresser full of robes. "Here we are! – one Robe of the Apprentice, part of your new uniform to go with your new stature here. Now, you need your staff."
"All right," I say agreeably and wait for it.
"Oh, I can't just give it to you," he says, "every staff is personalised. What you need to do is get the wood for the staff, and you do this at Wellspring Cave – got your map there? Good, the cave's just... there... But before you go, let me give you the grand tour..."
And so out the front door he goes and around to one of the great gates, me in tow, and hands me a key.
"The key to the Arcane University is yours," he says dramatically, "You first."
I remember being unimpressed by that key. It was just an ordinary-looking iron key except for the seven teeth and the open eye symbol on it. When I stuck it in the lock and turned it, I halfpie expected a flash of light or some other effect. What I got was creaky hinges and the momentary attention of someone in conjurer's gear on the other side.
"Oh, you must be the newcomer," says she, and before I have a chance to speak, "Yes, yes, I'm sure you've got something exceedingly important to say. But the Apprentices do not teach themselves, now do they? Good day."
And off she wanders while I stand there like an idiot.
"Don't worry about it," says Raminus with a pat on my shoulder, "She's one of our scholars here, and I swear they're all like that. Listen to those two for instance!"
Those two were standing upright and wearing robes and using words, which pretty much helps separate the citizens of Tamriel from the more stupid creatures, but all they seemed to say was things like "Ooh! You were right after all!" or "I've done my sums and I was right after all!" or some other rot. But even to this day, in all my time wandering around the University, I have never learned what they're talking about!
But Raminus is leading me along the concourse and pointing right. "See by the garden there? That's the Lustratorium – Julienne Fanis's alchemy centre. Next one along, that's the Chironasium – when you have your staff go in and see old Delmar there about enchantments for it. And there's the Practise Rooms for testing your spell-slinging – now on the other side of the watchtower there is the Mage Quarters – you can sleep there, any bed you like – and now there's the Mystic Archives, our library – Tar-Meena's in charge. And finally the Praxographical Centre by the lectern here for spellmaking, just watch your back around Gaspar while you're there – and that's the grand tour. What'dya think?"
And there I am trying to think and all I can say is, "Impressive!"
Raminus just grins at me. "I was like that too when I came here," he says, "but I swear things have gone downhill these days. Most of these scholars are so preoccupied they simply don't pay attention to anything but their research, whatever it is. Anyway, I have other things to do, will you be all right?"
"Certainly," says I, "and thank you so much Mast– er, Raminus."
"No problem, Apprentice," says he, and so we part ways, he back to the tower and me to the Praxographical Centre.
-o-o-o-o-
The Praxographical Centre wasn't particularly interesting inside except for two unusual things which at first glance appeared to be lecterns.
"Can I help you, Apprentice?" At my left shoulder was a hood. There was a face in it claiming to belong to Gaspar Stegine. "Master Spellmaker Gaspar Stegine, at your service. New spells. Old spells. Good spells. Bad spells. They're all fun for me!"
Slimy prick.
"So, how do these work?" asks I, pointing to the lectern things.
"Ah, those are spellmaking altars!" cries Gaspar, "They look simple, but! My goodness, the effort required to wrest a concept into an actual, workable spell..." And he leans in and goes on, "These altars allow adepts to perceive the threads of magicka themselves – and wrest them into submisson! Of course," he goes well on, "that work requires reparations..."
"I see," says I neutrally, "So let's start with... oh... how about a spell of soul trap that you cast from a distance? You know, like you want to soul trap a wolf but don't want to drop your guard when it's biting you?"
Gaspar just looks at me. "For enchantments. I see." So did I – Gaspar was a snob as well as slimy – but to be fair he did a good job of showing me how to use all the bits on the altar. Let's just leave it at that. Trade secrets.
With my ranged soul trap spell, I then had a brainwave, and ignoring the all too close presence of Gaspar I mixed together fire and frost damage spells along with a short-lived soul trap. It nearly went to custard when Gaspar twigged, jumped for joy and hugged me out of the blue!
"Oh, gorgeous!" cries he, as I try to extract myself from his slighty too low grasp, "Such genius! Frost and fire to capture soul energy – a double-whammy! What will you call this marvellous spell?"
I just stand there and stammer, "Uh... uh... Soul... Freeze... Burn... I suppose."
And I look at him and he looks at me and then he, honest to gods, squeals and hugs me again!
"Oh perfect! Soul Freeze Burn – does exactly what it says on the bottle! Magnificent Apprentice, and such modesty as well. I get tired of fools coming in and creating So-And-So's Spell or High-And-Mighty's Wonder Witchery, but you –" oh thank the Nine, he let go of me – "Oh, no, you have style!"
I thanked him very kindly for his patience and help and fled. No wonder Raminus had told me to watch my back. Other parts might have needed guarding too.
-o-o-o-o-
As I recovered my composure outside and began heading to the Chironasium, I saw the apprentices getting up from a lecture and drifting off, muttering amongst each other.
"Bloody rune stones again," a Breton girl says.
"It's always those things," grumbles a Dunmer boy, "I swear, Elena, these damn..." and he stops as the lecturer walks on by, "...these damn scholars don't care about anything but one-upping each other. You know when I left for Chorrol with Bosco three weeks ago?"
"Chorrol? I'd have thought Cheydinhal. And whatever happened to Bosco anyway?"
"No idea, bandits I guess. Anyway, I learned more from that guild in a week than I have here in a month! And no Grasper either!"
Whatever happened to that associate you sent for it last time?
I kiboshed that line of thought and popped into the Chironasium. Nice place, and Delmar is a wise Redguard who showed me how to enchant things in a dummy run.
"Now, put the item you wish to enchant on one pan." I pulled out a small green cloak acquired from a slightly dead marauder and put it in place.
"Now, a filled soul gem in the other pan." I didn't have one so Delmar helpfully picked a petty one out of a bowl and put it on the altar.
"Now, Apprentice," says Delmar, "choose wisely your effect. Remember this will be a constant effect enchantment, so it will affect you."
I thought of shielding, then decided against it. My new robe fortified willpower, and I had learned how to fortify strength, so I tossed a mental coin and chose the fortification of intelligence.
"Good thinking!" Delmar says impressed, "Now, see the scale here?" In the middle of the altar was a sort of tube and needle arrangement. When I had chosen my effect, the needle had risen to the number 8 mark.
"I see it," says I, "I guess that's the strength of the effect?"
"Yes, and the cost in thousands of gold."
Eight thousand drakes! I took the cloak off the altar. "So," says I, "when I want to enchant something I need a thousand drakes per mark, right?"
Delmar just grins. "'Fraid so mate. Just remember though, you get your staff enchanted for free. When you get the staff," he adds. "Our sacred grove is that islet over east, which you can reach through Wellspring. It goes down and right under the lake."
I got the hint and made my apologies and headed for home, where I changed into my work gear and set off for Wellspring.
The ride over there was uneventful except for a pack of wolves outside the entrance.
-o-o-o-o-
Inside the cave I saw the tunnel went down to a chamber with some cots and a fellow in robes walking around. So thinking that he was a fellow Guild member, I strolled down and called, "Hail fellow Mage!"
"Fresh flesh is here!" he cried in response and summoned a ghost. Bastard was a necromancer!
The bugger took refuge in a hollow while I launched spells at his pet ghost in between shooting arrows at any part of him I could target. It was pretty unevenly matched – as soon as his ghostie summons ended, he'd whistle up another. Eventually I had enough. Pulling out my mace, I rushed him with several blows and followed up with a kill spell. He and I sank to the floor. Kill spells take it out of you.
It took me several minutes to collect all the arrows I hadn't broken in the cave walls, and I found the corpse of one of the resident mages, her throat sliced open in a way that suggested either extreme sadism or the use of a wooden spoon. I didn't like either option. The path turned right and down, the air becoming colder and damper as the cave went underneath Lake Rumare.
There was another chamber now, and I could hear lapping water. I could also see figures moving around – more necros most likely. Carefully I crept towards the chamber entrance, hugging the side. Now I could see a body of water, off to the left – I pulled off my gauntlet. The Jewel of the Rumare was there. On with the gauntlet again – a prayer – I drew my mace and ran.
The plan was to lurk underwater and wait for the necros to join me – where their spells wouldn't work and my mace and I would be waiting to either smash or drown them. The gods were with me – the channel was plenty deep enough for that. I then steeled myself for the pain that comes from sucking in water instead of air and greeted my fellow bathers.
The first necromancer was a Nord who jumped in right on top of me with a wooden mauler in hand. My response was to swing my mace into his manhood, which while not doing as much damage as I would have liked, did cause him to lose most of his breath. Forsaking my shield I grabbed a foot and pulled him down with me, attempting swings at his hips and frantically kicking leg. He managed a couple of panicky blows to my helm before he finally drowned.
A blow to my back nearly sent me into the wall and I saw two more: a woman with a dagger and another man with a two-handed club. I swung at Mr Club – more accurately, at his hand. I missed however and hit his elbow instead. Out came a howl of bubbles and his next swing went wild – unlike Miss Dagger, who found a weakpoint where my elven cuirass met my chainmail greaves.
Of course, I'd dropped my shield when grabbing that damn Nord. Miss Dagger was coming at me again, so I grabbed the first thing I could find – that damn Nord. I don't think he minded getting it in the bum from her.
Anyway, Mr Hammer was still in possession of same and after me. I decided the best thing to do was give a good kick upwards, then over and down again with a king-hit on the bonce. There's worse things than blood in your eye and bits of bone are some of them.
By now the water was a mass of flailing bodies and weapons and gore and confusion. Some of it was mine. Most of it was theirs. After that bath I would need another one.
I found a tunnel leading out of the drink and staggered up it, then doubled over as I coughed up all the water I'd been breathing and wiped my face and eyes clean. Water breathing spells are a literal pain like that.
And so I picked up all the light stuff I could find and continued on. A tunnel led upwards to a door, which I assumed led to the grotto. As it was locked, I didn't expect to be greeted by necromancers. How in hell had they got in?
Not that it mattered. By this time I was tired and angry and not really in the mood for gloating conversation from some jumped-up ashskin bitch of a scofflaw. It was on this time, and I chased the corpse-shaggers up and down the grotto, virtually ignoring their summoned horrors. I just wanted to stick my mace in their faces and shut them the hells up. Which, eventually, I did.
When the sense returned to me I counted the dead – three necromancers and two members of the guild whose forms I didn't look at too closely. Apparently they were guarding some sort of stone chest, which appeared to be both a container and an altar of very great age. There was writing on it, but eroded to the point that I could only make out "Galer". "Galerion", I guessed. Perhaps this altar had been consecrated or something by him.
Inside was a fresh turd which had somehow missed an old and gnarled length of oak; I looked more closely and realised that it had been carefully shaped and prepared. This then was to be my staff. Tired, I slung the staff to be on my back and slogged back to the guild. All I wanted to do was sleep but I needed to tell Raminus that the grotto had been violated.
To my surprise, even in the small hours he was awake and fussing about in the university lobby. Didn't the man ever sleep?
"Hail, Ra'Jirra," says he, "Aren't you supposed to – what's happened?"
"Necromancers," snarls I, "at Wellspring Cave." And he steps back a bit and goes to sit down on a bench that's about three inches too far away and doesn't notice!
"Eletta and Zahrasha?" asks he.
"Anybody who wasn't a necromancer they killed," says I.
"What's this?" asks a Bosmer mage coming in.
"Wellspring Cave had necromancers," says I.
And she goes all white and says, "Oh my", and looks at Raminus and says "Oh my," and looks at me and says "Oh my," then looks at the door and totters out. She may have said "Oh my" but Raminus was muttering while rising to his feet again.
"They've never been so bold before now. Always hiding in the shadows, staying away from the guild. What could have prompted this?"
"Whatever it was they're so mad about it one of them shat in the altar," says I and sends him sitting down hard again in a near faint.
"Those swine." He says it very softly and clearly. Then he says it again, repeatedly, with more and more ornate elaborations, which seems to help him get back up again. "I'll need to speak to the council about this," says he with grim and anger, "Thank you for relaying the information. Now, tend to your staff, and your wounds, if necessary." And off he goes to the teleport pad thing while saying something I didn't catch. But it was clearer than ever to me that someone or something – maybe several – had it in for the Mage's Guild.
Clearer still that I'd ended up right in the flaming middle, just like the hero who overthrew Jagar Tharn, or the Nerevarine.
I went straight home, feeling like I was full of lightning and at any moment I would burst into a great scream of pure force that would level everything.
But that night all I ended up doing was sitting in front of the fire, drinking. It helped calm the storm atronachs inside me.
-o-o-o-o-
As I said previously, most of the scholars in the Arcane University spend their time apparently one-upping each other or talking down to the apprentices. If they're doing anything useful, they're hiding it from everyone – including me, the Arch-Mage.
So I've been taking steps.
Let me give you an example involving a scholar called Mucianus Polentus. This is a copy of a letter I wrote after his interview:
Guild Master Dagail
Leyawiin Mage's Guild
Dagail,
I'm sending down a scholarly twit called Mucianus Polentus. I've just been grilling him over what exactly he's been doing for the last five years here.
Apparently he's found a relationship between the appearance of a capital-C Champion of the sort that overthrew Jagar Tharn, was central to events in Daggerfall and was the Nerevarine, Dragon Break events, and counter-temporal daedron flows (ie. where daedrons go back in time.) Apparently these events and people are heralded by these daedron flows flooding or something.
However, the silly bugger doesn't appear to know what the counter-temporal daedron flows are like in normal conditions. Nor has he managed to answer the question of which comes first, the daedrons or the Champion or something else.
See if you can give the poor guy a hand with these. He's on to something big here that could revolutionise the school of Mysticism but he can't see it because he's all dazzled by Dragon Breaks.
Also getting him away from the other airy-fairies at the University should shake the cobwebs out of his head. Give him little jobs to do and stop his head getting in a rut like it is now.
He'll be getting his marching orders in about two days, so he should arrive down your way by Sundas.
Hope the sheep are doing fine.
Regards,
Ra'Jirra
PS. His research is relevant to recent events. See the sealed YOUR EYES ONLY section for more details but don't show it to Mucus – I'm not sure of his loyalties.