Sundas, 10:22 AM, 45th of Second Seed, 4E 202

Whiterun

The trip here had been along the western bank of Riverwood's flowing namesake, known in general as the White River. Vidrald and Sorine had departed south to find their own answers, while Teldryn and Gelebor had proceeded north for some direly needed communication.

An agent of the Mythic Dawn had fallen out of the sky. The implications, in brief, were that the limits of time and space were beginning to unravel before their very eyes. It would have been worth reporting even without the stolen Aetherium to bring up.

They first saw the city of Whiterun on the brightly starlit morning of the 45th. Far out in the open plains, the river curved around the eastern side of a lone, massive hill—though the hill itself was not immediately apparent. It was covered completely in a multitude of dark gray-green rooftops, and surrounded by a low stone wall. At its peak stood a great city keep, a lone spire against the distant horizon.

The city of Whiterun. The quintessential Nordic city. It was a beautiful sight.

Gelebor had never before been to this part of Skyrim. Supposedly, the hill upon which Whiterun stood had once been feared and avoided by his people, and the ancient Nords—or Atmorans, as they had been called—had settled here simply to be contrary. He imagined how the hill might have looked, once, at a time when it would have been bare of all these buildings. The image struck him as seeming terribly empty.

"Now, remember," Teldryn said to him as they came down the road, "keep your hood up and your head down, and we'll get to the keep in short order. All we need to do is deliver our message."

"Yes, I am well aware of our precautions," the snow elf sighed. Neither of them had brought any Aetherium with them—for security's sake, they were avoiding bringing it into the major cities—but the fact remained that it was far too easy for him to end up drawing attention to himself.

His companion said thoughtfully, "Perhaps when we get there, I should buy some stationery and write them a letter. I'm sure it's possible to send letters through a teleportation network. Via couriers, at the least."

"It would be quicker than the previous round of letters, I imagine." Gelebor wasn't sure of the exact dates, but after sending the letters from Rorikstead, they'd had time to detour all the way to Arkngthamz before meeting Sorine Jurard in Riverwood. If all letters continued to take that long to send back and forth, chances were that the world itself would end sooner than their intended conversations.

For his part, Teldryn simply sounded amused. "That is a good point, isn't it? The wonderful utility of world-bending magic. Send your letters more quickly." He paused briefly, then added, "That would be quite the opportunity for Blackreach to make some extra gold. It might put quite a few couriers out of work, though."

"Well, I won't assert a deep understanding of such things," Gelebor shrugged. "But I would note that teleportation is not something to use lightly. Before I joined you and Vidrald, I had been guarding the wayshrine in Darkfall Cave. The wayshrines were, in essence, a series of magical chambers through our Vale, all interlinked, all containing doors to one another. They were used as part of our spiritual journey as much as our physical one. I find it difficult to imagine using magic of such grace and might for something as trivial as courier delivery."

"I suppose you didn't get many couriers to your Chantry," the Dunmer said dryly.

"No, indeed not. For that matter, we didn't talk to one another nearly as much to begin with. My travels with you and Vidrald have been host to some of the most protracted and engaged conversation of my life." And that was a strange thing to admit, but it was true. A great many things had changed in Gelebor's life as of late. By the time this business of the Shadow Unending was done with, he suspected, many things would have changed even further.

"You must have had someone you were close to there. Besides Auri-El, I mean."

Gelebor had to hold back a smile. He had been entirely planning on citing Auri-El as his closest one. But even now, it took him no time to come up with an answer. It was rather obvious. "Yes, indeed. Strictly speaking, I suppose, there was my brother, the Arch-Curate Vyrthur, but… well, I call myself the last surviving snow elf for a reason."

Teldryn made a dismayed sound. "Ahhh. The Betrayed killed him, then?"

"Not quite. He was the last survivor of the Chantry, besides myself, but he never managed to escape the Betrayed. I believed him to have been corrupted to their ranks. But then it was rendered moot when the Chantry was attacked by a pair of dragons. My brother… did not survive."

"That's a pity," the Dunmer said quietly. "I might have liked to meet him someday. You're certainly wonderful company yourself, you know."

This wasn't helping with Gelebor's efforts not to smile. "Not all snow elves are equal company. Or… were, I suppose." Well, that thought dampened his mirth well enough. He sighed and shook his head. "One unfortunate by-product of being the only remaining member of my race is that I'm the only one to care about it."

Teldryn looked at him silently.

After a moment, he added, "I'm happy to distance myself from that now. It would be easier if we weren't visiting the home of the Companions today."

The Dunmer winced. He offered half-heartedly, "They're… not what they were?"

"I do imagine that Ysgramor's band of snow elf killers would have to find a new purpose, having run out of snow elves."

"In fairness, they also ran out of Ysgramor."

"You never know. I might reignite their ancestral urges if they see me." Gelebor made a chopping gesture with an imaginary battle-axe. "Nngh! Off with the pointy-ear's head."

"Well, bear in mind, Gelebor, that the Nords yearn for an honorable death in battle. If they try to take your head, I'll give them their wish." Teldryn smiled good-naturedly. "But I don't anticipate any such trouble. Head down, hood up, right to the keep, we'll be quite fine."

Gelebor sighed once more. "If you say so. Perhaps someday I should disguise myself as another type of elf, so I can enjoy the cities of Skyrim in peace."

But to his surprise, Teldryn shook his head. "Do try not to lose touch of who you are, Gelebor. Even if no one else knows or cares. You're not truly forgotten until you've forgotten yourself."

With those words, the two of them proceeded the rest of the way to the city. It was a quiet, peaceful walk. They passed by a few guards on patrol without incident, and eventually came up around the city's stables. And those were new to Gelebor's eyes, if not his nose. Seeing all the horses in rows of pens, in a common dedicated stable, was quite a novel sight. Normally, the horses were all over the place. In this case, he could at least get away from it by being outdoors.

The city gates were located beyond a brief switchback ending with a short drawbridge. They were currently open, so Teldryn and Gelebor entered without a word. None of the guards stopped them. Apparently, a Dunmer in Dawnguard armor and a pale elf in robes weren't uncommon enough a sight to justify scrutiny.

Whiterun was even more striking from inside. Visually, it was rather less of a spectacle—he could see only a few streets around him, with a small handful of buildings—but up close, he could appreciate all the more the immense work that had gone into this place. People were walking all over the streets, going about their daily business, contributing to what the city of Whiterun was. The bustle was plainly audible in the air. It made Gelebor feel alive just to be nearby.

Even from here, though, he could see the high roof of Dragonsreach. That was their destination. Somehow, it felt just as distant now as when it had been a little narrow shape against the horizon. It was simply above them all.

Teldryn seemed to know the way around Whiterun, so he moved in front of Gelebor and began wordlessly leading him ahead. They walked over flagstone streets and up long staircases, past all manner of buildings, past channels of running water, through an endless stream of passersby. No one paid them any mind, even now. It was interesting how little attention the two of them were garnering. But it made sense, perhaps. Everyone was busy living their own lives. To them, Teldryn and Gelebor were nameless shapes in the crowd.

In the end, the walk turned out to not be nearly as long as Gelebor had expected. They reached a spacious circular open area, centered on a massive pink-leaved tree, and the keep of Dragonsreach was right above them. All that remained was one last winding staircase over some last canals and moats. Now, finally, Dragonsreach felt like it was nearby.

On the way up, Gelebor noticed a large boulder violently embedded in the stone nearby the staircase's base. He decided it best not to ask.

"Well, there's Jorrvaskr," Teldryn said, as they ascended the first flight. He was pointing to a building off to their right, up another, straighter staircase. It was a sizable structure, with a particularly odd construction—the roof looked rather similar to an overturned ship's hull.

Which made perfect sense, since that was what it had been likely made from. Gelebor felt an unpleasant shiver run through him. He was seeing something he had lived in fear of for longer than he knew.

Then he looked beside it, and saw what was unmistakably the legendary Skyforge. It was on its own platform overlooking Jorrvaskr, at the top of a curving staircase. There was indeed a forge there, and a very large one at that—being worked on by some white-haired Nord at that very moment—but the main feature of note was the statue directly above the glowing coals. It was an absolutely massive figure of an ancient bird, its wings spread just enough to embrace the forge beneath in their arching span. That one statue had been there for longer than anything else in the entire city.

There came the shiver again. Gelebor averted his eyes and continued up the staircase without a word. He didn't know what to think of all that, at the moment. He only knew that it was perturbing him. And they did still have a job to do.

The doors to Dragonsreach were across one last wooden bridge over a deep moat of water. Teldryn led the way across and opened the doors with as much solemnity as a mercenary could muster. Gelebor closed his eyes and lowered his head as he followed his companion inside.

Warm, faintly wood-scented air surrounded him. He opened his eyes again to find what seemed like a Nordic inn's grandest extreme. It was a huge, open hall, with pillars along the sides and a vaulted roof above, shining with sunlight through the rafters. Gelebor was reminded of some parts of the Chantry. But in this case, instead of immaculately shaped stone, nearly all of the hall's interior was made of wood. The floor was split into two levels, one front and one back, the latter of which contained the room's main contents. Gelebor saw two long tables, side by side around a central hearth, running up to a throne at the far wall. A dragon's skull was mounted above it.

The tables were occupied by a few assorted residents, and seated at the throne was a bearded man in ornate robes. Teldryn pointed up to the man, and murmured to Gelebor, "That's the Jarl. We had best seek his audience. Lower your hood."

As they walked up the stairs to the higher level, Gelebor did just that. And the moment he did, seemingly everyone in the room stopped and stared at him. That hadn't taken long at all. They traversed the rest of the way in a strange sort of silence. The loudest thing in the room right then was the crackle of the hearth.

It was seldom a good sign when the main sound in a room was that of fire. Gelebor sighed and proceeded as normal.

The man at the throne, the Jarl of Whiterun, was an older man, strong in build, with long light hair and a pronounced beard. His robes of office had a white fur collar, but were sleeveless beyond some padding on the shoulders, which bared his muscular arms for view. That was rather incredible. These robes were possibly the single most Nordic thing that Gelebor had seen in his life.

Beside him stood a Dunmer, female, wearing heavy armor from the neck down. She very visibly laid a hand on the hilt of her sword as Teldryn and Gelebor approached. The Jarl's bodyguard, then. That made sense enough.

At the same time, the Jarl sat up in his seat. "Greetings," he said, warily, to the two travelers. His age was audible in his voice, though not for the worse. "What brings you to Dragonsreach?"

Teldryn bowed his head and said, "Jarl Balgruuf, it's an honor to meet you." He flicked his hair back rather gracefully as he looked up again. "I am Teldryn Sero. This," he gestured to Gelebor, "is Knight-Paladin Gelebor, servant of Akatosh and the last surviving snow elf. We're here to contact Blackreach."

Gelebor resisted the urge to frown. That was not how he referred to his deity.

Still, it seemed to capture Jarl Balgruuf's attention thoroughly enough. "A snow elf? This is… very unexpected." He was looking directly at Gelebor with an expression somewhere between awe and concern. A reasonable reaction, considering. "If I may ask…"

Gelebor knew where this was leading. He didn't bother to wait for the Jarl to finish his thought. "Well, I spent the last few millennia standing in a cave and guarding a wayshrine for Auri-El—we called him Auri-El in my Chantry, not Akatosh—until the Oblivion Purge took place and I was called out into the world. Since then, I've been on a mission to save it." At this point, he glanced at Teldryn. "I'm… not sure I am at liberty to share the details, but it is my understanding you have some means of teleportation to Blackreach?"

"Yes! Yes, we do. It's a rather recent addition. You should speak to Farengar, my court wizard. I believe he is in his laboratory now." The Jarl pointed off to the right, where a great open arch in the wall connected to an adjacent room.

As Gelebor looked around, he noticed there was another arch directly opposite it, to another open space. He pointed to it with a thumb over his shoulder. "Where does that lead, if I may ask?"

"The kitchen," Jarl Balgruuf said blankly.

Teldryn laughed suddenly. "Aaah! I'm—I'm sorry. I apologize. Your court wizard placed his laboratory very interestingly, didn't he?" Before the Jarl could react, Teldryn proceeded to put an arm around Gelebor's shoulders and start guiding him away to the right. "Thank you, Jarl Balgruuf! … All right, Gelebor, let's see what we can do here."

The laboratory, as it was called, was a large, open, sunlit room, containing a sizable L-shaped counter in the middle surrounded by a few chairs (Gelebor was reminded somewhat of the Riverwood Trader), a huge freestanding map of Skyrim on the right, and a few pieces of arcane equipment along the back wall. A robed figure was standing over one of these pieces of equipment, facing away from Gelebor. The court wizard, then.

As the snow elf stepped inside, he noticed something else in the room, over on the left. It was a waist-high column of iridescent stone, attached on the top and bottom to fitted pieces of Dwemer metal. It looked as though its base had been nailed directly into the floor. It couldn't have appeared much more out of place in a Nordic keep such as this. But there it was.

What was even more striking, however, was the person sitting next to the column. It was a Redguard woman, rather young-looking, with her hair tied back besides a couple of loose hanging locks over the sides of her forehead. It looked rather charming, Gelebor thought. Or it would have, but that the rest of her body was covered in some of the most fearsome heavy armor Gelebor had ever seen. It was an intricate but rugged suit of ebony plate, merged somehow over a layer of partially-visible Dwemer metal. And it was otherwise almost entirely undecorated, besides a stylized icon of a gear upon the center of her breastplate, and some block text numerals in relief on her pauldrons, both reading 4 · 1. A full-face helmet was sitting on the floor beside her.

The Redguard had a book on her lap, and was holding it in place with the armored fingers of one gauntlet. Apparently, this was all quite normal in Dragonsreach. But it felt no more Nordic than Gelebor himself, and a fair deal more intimidating.

A man's voice, over to his right, asked, "Can I help you?"

The court wizard was standing there and looking at him, arms folded. He looked to be a Nord, middle-aged and bearded, rather average-looking besides the robe. His expression was one of suspicion and puzzlement.

Maybe Gelebor had been staring a little much just now.

Before he could reply, however, Teldryn said, "We're just here to deliver a message to Blackreach. Nothing you need to concern yourself with, if you have work you're doing."

"Oh, please." The court wizard—the Jarl had called him Farengar—snorted dismissively. "I'd rather look at this. I overheard you earlier, you know. The last surviving snow elf, that's far more interesting than whatever stupid project I was doing a minute ago." He glanced to Gelebor and offered a polite nod of acknowledgment, adding, "Not to treat you only for your race. You're an excellent person on your own merits, I'm sure."

"Thank you," Gelebor said.

The Redguard marked her page with an extra piece of paper, and closed her book with a bit of a frown. She stood and walked up to the two newcomers slowly, relaxed yet obviously alert. "A message? What is it?"

Unfortunately, they hadn't written it down anywhere. Gelebor glanced around the room at its various occupants, then sighed in resignation. Perhaps secrecy was a little much to ask right now. "It's… about the Aetherium," he said. "We have a problem. The last shard was taken by the red draugr."

"Damn," the Redguard breathed. "We've heard plenty about the shards. They'll want to hear about this in Blackreach right away. Thank you for coming to us. Anything else?"

"Only that we'd like to know how to find it again," Teldryn said.

"Right. I'll be back in a few minutes. Wait here, please." With that, the Redguard walked over to the column, and pulled an engraved cylinder of Dwemer metal from her belt pouch. Gelebor realized that the metal pyramid atop the column had the word 'BLACKREACH' printed on it. The cylinder looked to be engraved with other words in Cyrodiilic as well. Presumably, they were the names of more locations.

If this was the teleportation system, it couldn't have looked more different from the Chantry's wayshrines. Gelebor looked on with unconcealed fascination. Here was the work of the Fourth Era's mages and craftsmen. It was so exciting to have the chance to see it in use.

As he watched, the Redguard laid a hand on the pyramid, and was promptly engulfed in a great lashing flood of pure white energy, each wave coming with a scything, humming rush of resonant noise. Then, after just a second, it was over, and the energy dissipated into thin air. The Redguard was nowhere to be seen.

Gelebor's mouth hung open. Fourth Era indeed.

"Feel free to sit while you wait," Farengar said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of the counter.

That was a nice offer. Gelebor had been walking all morning, after all. He sat down with quite the palpable relief to his legs. As Teldryn seated himself beside him, he asked, "How do you know to have two chairs?"

"Strictly speaking, there are three." The court wizard pointed to the one over by the column. "Actually four, including mine." He proceeded to sit down in the chair behind the counter, then stretched his arms out luxuriously and smiled at them.

The counter had on it a variety of miscellanea suitable to laboratories, notably a sizable stack of papers with a soul gem on top, presumably to hold them all down. Gelebor found himself both amused and impressed that one person could accumulate so much work-in-progress material in such a neat space.

Teldryn said, "I see your laboratory is across from the kitchen. That must be interesting."

"Sure, I suppose," Farengar shrugged. "It smells nice in here sometimes. Back when Dragonsreach was first built, this room might've been used for something else, but when I began working here, it was the designated laboratory space."

Gelebor stroked his chin thoughtfully. He was still rather enjoying that he was able to sit down right then. "I wonder where they were originally meant to work. Did your courts have their own wizards at that time?"

That seemed to pique Farengar's interest. He leaned forwards a bit in his seat as he spoke. "You know, they may not have. Earlier in our history, mages were treated in much higher regard. I think they were more common, certainly. It may not have been necessary for courts to have one around just for when someone needs some magic dealt with."

"It's a pity," Teldryn murmured. "You're obviously quite useful. Mages are in general, I think."

Farengar nodded appreciatively and continued. "As far as this lab goes… It's not ideal. There's always noise from the main hall, since…" He gestured over their heads at the arch behind them. "There's no door. And I bet there's some forgotten illusion magic that would muffle all the sound outside this room, but I don't know it yet."

The Dunmer asked, "What about an actual door?"

"Well, I'd pay to have one installed, but I'd have to go through the Jarl, and… well, you know, that would be rather hostile of me. Skyrim thinks poorly enough of its mages already. A court wizard should be approachable." Another gesture, this time directly towards them both. "Hence the chairs."

This conversation was interesting to listen to. Gelebor was feeling now, as he very often did, that he simply had quite a lot to become up to date on. So he was content to sit and listen. Teldryn and Farengar were answering questions he might not have even thought to ask.

Beside him, Teldryn chuckled lightly. "I don't think I've ever heard of a court wizard caring to be approachable. They usually just want to do their own research, don't they?"

"Well, you'd be surprised," Farengar said, nodding sideways in a gesture of fair recognition. "The court wizard of Blackreach is a very nice fellow indeed. He's a Khajiit, name of J'zargo. He visited here the very same day the teleportation column was installed. Wanted me to dual-enchant some leather armor, for fire and frost resistance. I suppose he planned on just wearing it everywhere."

Now Teldryn was openly laughing aloud. "A court wizard? Wearing armor? What—" Then he abruptly stopped and frowned. "Wait. Did you just say dual-enchant?"

Farengar's expression didn't change. "Yes, I can do that. That's how I can afford to do things like install doors in buildings on a whim."

"I could go for some dual-enchanted gear," Teldryn muttered.

"I could go for some gear in general," Gelebor remarked.

His companion nodded sympathetically. "Your armor coverage might be a little lacking, yes."

Farengar said, "You know, if you're looking for armor, you could go talk to Adrianne Avenicci, at Warmaiden's. It's the blacksmith's shop down by the gates."

"There?" Teldryn raised his eyebrows. "Not the Skyforge?"

"Well, Eorlund Gray-Mane works that forge. He's the best blacksmith just about anywhere, but he makes most of his gear from scratch as people need it, so you might need to wait a while. Adrianne works more in bulk. … Also Eorlund's wares are as expensive as some of my enchants."

"I'm quite fine with not visiting the Skyforge," Gelebor muttered darkly.

"What? Why—" Realization dawned on Farengar's face suddenly. "Oooooh. Ouch. I am so sorry. Are you going to be all right?"

Gelebor shrugged. "As long as Ysgramor's latest descendants-in-arms don't see fit to finish what he started."

"Well, we're not exactly at war anymore. If that's, uh… any consolation." The court wizard was still giving him a very apologetic look.

"That's because we lost," he replied flatly. "I do say that carefully. Your ancestors drove my people into hiding, but they did not destroy us. That honor went to the Dwemer. So while my people are gone now, it's not because you won—only that we lost."

Teldryn reached over and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He said nothing. Perhaps there wasn't very much to say.

For most of his journey, Gelebor had had the luxury of avoiding thinking about the history of his kind. There were so few reminders of what had happened during that time. He had yet to even cross paths with any of the Betrayed themselves. But for all his world-saving endeavors, and all his faith in Auri-El, the fact did remain that he was the only person to still represent the race of snow elves.

All of the history, the culture, the generations of hard work by intelligent people he had seen these past weeks from the Nords—it had been done millennia ago by the snow elves, also. But now, all of those people's lives, all the goodness they had brought into the world, existed only in Gelebor's distant memory.

It was such a waste. He hated what war did to the world.

But just as quickly as those thoughts came, another came as well—if the Shadow Unending proceeded on its present course, all of the Nords' accomplishments and legacy would fall into nothingness, just as the snow elves' had. And there was nothing more or less special about Skyrim's present people than those of the past. The only difference was that this time, Gelebor was in a position to change the future.

He shook his head slowly. "It doesn't matter now," he said quietly. "The legacy of my people is not what we must worry about saving."

"You could write some books about it, you know," Farengar offered.

That was… not what Gelebor had expected. He blinked a couple times. "Uh… What?"

"If you want to preserve the legacy of your people. Publish some books, have some copies made. They'll spread through the scholarly community like wildfire. You may not be aware of this, but a lot of us would really, really like to know more about what the Falmer used to be."

"He prefers calling them snow elves," Teldryn said, pointing to Gelebor with one finger.

"Yes," Gelebor nodded dully.

Farengar, for his part, was undeterred. "Well, make that distinction in your books, and other interested people will start making it too."

"In the event that I survive this all," he began to reply—but then the cascade of energy began to pour forth from the column once again, and the Redguard woman reappeared.

"Hello," she smiled, before glancing back to her chair. "I see no one took my helmet."

A moment later, another cascade of energy came through, and someone much, much larger appeared alongside her. This one was completely covered in pure ebony armor, clearly Nordic in make, adorned with silver scrollwork. And he was likely over eight feet tall. The teleportation column didn't even make it up to hip level on him. He looked down at everyone in the room through an imposing, expressionless visor.

In a way, it looked like a much more ornate version of the Redguard woman's armor. That was interesting. Gelebor wasn't sure if there was a connection there.

Either way, he didn't concern himself with trying not to stare.

"Hey, guys, I'm Kamian," the huge armored figure said in a perfectly nice and mild voice, waving politely with one hand. "Acting leader of the Black Machine. Sidona here says you're the ones who've been hunting for the Aetherium shards."

Teldryn stood up from his chair, and walked over to give Kamian a handshake. "Teldryn Sero," he said. "We don't have them with us. Our colleague Vidrald decided to keep them out of the city."

Gelebor supposed it would be good of him to stand up as well. He did so, introduced himself by name, and added, "I hope you have some idea of how we can deal with this."

"Nice to see you again," Farengar smiled to Kamian.

"You too," Kamian nodded, before turning his inscrutably expressionless visor towards Gelebor. "I'm going to start a search for the last shard immediately. We have a fair few mages who can help out with this. You can stay here if you like, for ease of contact, or if you want to move but keep in touch, you can just tell me where you're planning to go. I don't want to try to track you guys down in the wilderness."

"Well, we'd been planning on meeting Vidrald in Riverwood," Teldryn said. "Lucan Valerius seemed quite impressed by you, by the way. And your brother."

Kamian laughed pleasantly. "Everyone's impressed by my brother. But all right. Riverwood it is."

"We might want to buy some armor first," Gelebor murmured sidelong to Teldryn.

The Dunmer gave him an impatient look. "We don't have that much coin left, you know."

"Oh, do you fellows need coin? Uh… ghf…" Kamian reached down to his belt, unfastened a gigantic coin purse from it, and lobbed it to Teldryn. "Here, catch."

Teldryn caught it against his chest, then promptly stumbled back and fell on his behind.

Kamian ignored that result and continued talking like normal. "Have a thousand septims. Anyway, I'm going to need to get back soon, so just talk to Sidona if you need anything else with Blackreach. And really, don't hesitate to ask if you need anything else. We're putting our faith in this Aetherium endeavor. It might be our only chance to set the Aurbis right."

Gelebor asked, "Can we go through there ourselves?"

"Not without one of those little cylinder things, oh wow, Zaryth would kill me if she heard me calling them that," Kamian laughed. "Also, the other end is completely covered in security measures, largely of the lethal sort. We wouldn't have a gateway into our inner sanctum without making sure people can't just come in at random."

"I need a wheelbarrow," Teldryn said weakly from where he was on the floor.

Gelebor ignored him for now. "Who's Zaryth?"

"One of our mages. She's the one who made these teleportation devices. We have her, we have J'zargo, I think we have some new elf kid, I… I dunno, that's not my profession." Kamian waved his hands dismissively.

"Aicantar," Sidona chimed in helpfully.

Kamian pointed at her without looking. "That's the one. But yeah, I need to get back there now, so, good luck to you both!"

And with that, he walked over, put his hand atop the column, and vanished as quickly as he'd arrived.

Teldryn stood up slowly. He didn't bother to try to pick up the coin purse from where it had landed. "Did… that just happen?"

"Welcome to life," Farengar said dryly. "Everything is crazy and Blackreach is fantastic. I suppose you'll be wanting to go get your armor, then?"

"Good plan, yes." Gelebor walked over to the coin purse on the floor, crouched down to put his hands around it, and lifted. "Oh—oh gods this is heavy. Help, helphelphelp—"

Teldryn cut in. "Put it down, would you?"

The snow elf was only too happy to comply. The coin purse thudded loudly on the floor when it landed. "This feels more like a coin sack. How did he even carry this?"

"I don't know," Farengar shrugged. "A carry weight enchant?"

"He's just strong," Sidona spoke up again.

"Right." Teldryn nodded, then knelt down over the coin purse and began unfastening it. "We'll split this half and half, Gelebor. Half in your pack, half in mine. We'll see if we can start lightening it from there."

On the way towards Whiterun, Gelebor had contemplated how quickly his perspective of the world had been changing. It didn't surprise him that it had changed even more upon entering the city. At this rate, it would change yet further by the time he and Teldryn finally left. But they had just spent a couple of minutes in the company of the Dragonborn's brother—the current leader of his personal army, and possibly one of the finest warriors in the world. Only a couple of minutes, and it had been enough for Gelebor to see everything differently.

He understood now what sort of person was watching over them. One who was so casually good-natured that he'd handed them practically too much gold to carry without even stopping his line of thought. And as Gelebor thought about it some more, he realized that Kamian had just gone that whole conversation without commenting on Gelebor's race. That made him the first person in the Fourth Era to speak to Gelebor at length without doing so. Perhaps he had made the correct guess that people had been commenting on it quite enough already.

Still, for now, they had business to take care of. That was best not ignored. Contemplation could wait.

For that matter, so could writing a book. Gelebor had not considered that possibility, but it sounded quite satisfying. He was almost rather looking forward to finishing his part in this conflict, simply so he could begin writing down his experiences.

"Vidrald is expecting us in Riverwood," he said to Teldryn. "We shouldn't linger here for any longer than we need to."

At this point, the Dunmer was already putting gold coins into his pack by the fistful. "Buy some gear, buy some other supplies, get some luncheon at the local inn." He grinned. "I can't wait to have a hot meal. It's been… uh… I was going to say it's been ages, I suppose it's been several days. Basically ages."

"I'm sure that will be very enjoyable for you," Gelebor smiled wryly. He'd had his fill of Skyrim's foodstuffs. At this point, he found himself content to just watch.

Soon enough, the gold had been divvied up, and the two of them were setting back out into the city. The snow elf had no idea what to expect from his world today, but he supposed that his foreknowledge wasn't necessary. He could take things as they came.

Then Farengar said, "By the way, has anyone told you yet that your mysterious enemy is actually Alduin?"