Family Matters
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Lights flashed and thunder boomed from the peak of the Throat of the World. Wind whipped around the mountain, sending flurries of snow into the air.
On a plateau in the side of the peak, marked by a discarded soul gem that still shot a beam of purple light into the sky, stood two mages. They were separated by about ten metres of relatively flat snow, half a foot deep. Behind one of them was a stone outcropping, on top of which was a large wooden box.
Alexander Meteuse kept his breathing even, and tried to think of everything he knew about Julius' combat abilities.
If one of his paralysis spells hits me, I basically lose. They're fast but they can be avoided. He'll be manipulating the terrain around me at any given moment to try and keep me off-balance, restrain me, defend himself, or use as weapons. He's probably still better than me at swordfighting, but my sword will cleave through his no matter what he buffs it with.
Can't beat Daedra.
Can't beat Daedra, thank you Meridia. His stamina and magicka reserves are strong enough that I can't expect to win by exhausting him, but delaying him long enough is a win condition. I believe in my friends.
Do you expect them to defeat him if you cannot?
Any of them in a straight fight? No, Azura, I don't. But all of them, with Paarthurnax, with the Greybeards?
You could try just shooting him with the Wabbajack. I can see you have it.
Sheo, I am not going to risk turning Julius into a mudcrab with a top hat.
You're no fun.
But you're right I can't expect anything ordinary to get through to him. His wards and flesh spells will block them, so most of my arsenal is only a distraction. It's Dawnbreaker or nothing. And if I can make good enough contact with the Staff of Magnus, I can drain his magicka dry and do whatever I want with him.
And of course, he knows all of this. He knows to be on the lookout for my tricks. So can I do something he isn't expecting?
Such was the million-septim question.
Xander reached up to the clasp of his cloak, undid it with one hand. Across from him, Julius mirrored the motion. They shrugged the cloaks off their shoulders, both of which went flying off into the wind. Revealed was Julius' simple underlayer; he had a suspiciously Daedric-looking sword at his hip and nothing else. Xander had bracers full of potions, weapons, scrolls, soul gems, and a brace on his back that held his staves.
Julius' lip twitched. "You know, my cloak was actually enchanted."
"Mine too."
"We shouldn't have let them fly off."
"It looked very cool though."
"It did."
Okay, so he believes my enchantments are better than his, or he wouldn't have made that trade. Or at least, he wants me to believe he believes that.
"Anything else you'd like before we start?" Julius asked, tilting his head. "I expect I can make this quick, so if you'd rather…"
Not a vanity play, even if that's what he wants me to think. He's fishing for information.
"Uh, yeah, actually." Xander said, glancing over his shoulder. "Would you mind stepping, like…three paces back?"
"Is there something three paces back I would then be standing on?" Julius asked.
Xander smiled. "There's actually something underneath you right now, I was offering you a chance to get off it."
Julius looked at Xander.
Xander looked at Julius.
"…No, I think I'm good here." Said Julius.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Suit yourself."
Xander's hands drifted towards his sides. Julius' did the same.
He knows I'm telling the truth; he's just not moving. That means he knows he can deal with whatever trap I put under him. Or that he just wants me to think he doesn't so I won't trigger it immediately—
Divines, this is exhausting.
There would be no time for such mind games when the combat started. But here in the standoff, it was not only sensible but necessary to plot to at least the third level of recursion of 'I knew you knew I knew all along all along all along'.
Xander had never understood two-way standoffs as a child. Three-way 'Yokudan standoffs', sure, because if you attack first and hit one guy the other guy can kill you. But surely, he had reasoned, if its just you and your opponent, the moment you know you're going to fight, you should just blast them as soon as possible and force them onto the defensive. That was what dad had said about politics, after all: 'If conflict is coming, Always Make The First Move'.
With a whole lot of combat experience under his belt, though, he now knew better. Gaining the initiative of a first strike required utterly committing to the attack, and if your opponent waited you out and watched what you were doing, they could pull off a much cheaper countermeasure and leave you at a disadvantage. Or if you wait until you think they're about to attack, and then outspeed them with something quick but easily blockable, it might take them too long to readjust their mind and prepare the counter before getting obliterated.
This was why a lot of high level duels would end in a matter of seconds, where lesser combatants could go on for much longer.
Xander was many things, but he was rarely called patient, nor in fact good at remaining focused on something for long periods without distraction. Case in point, this extended mental tangent.
But he did have the advantage that Julius was the one on a time limit, not him. He could wait in this standoff until dawn. His brother could not.
"It's actually kinda cold up here." Xander admitted.
"It is." Julius agreed. "I should not have taken my cloak off."
"Yeah, probably dumb, that."
They stared at each other some more. Xander's left hand shifted slightly towards the staff of Magnus. Julius' shifted slightly outwards.
Xander wiggled both his eyebrows.
Julius raised one of his own.
Between them, the soul gem that had been broadcasting Xander's location winked out.
"You know there's actually a goat over there?" Xander said, flicking his eyes to over Julius' shoulder.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm not even kidding."
"Think it'll interfere? Have you been mind controlling the local fauna?"
"Nah, I just thought it was funny."
Julius snorted. "How far has your sense of humour degraded that goats are funny?"
Xander shrugged. "Well, it's the context, isn't it? Because we're—"
Julius moved.
The following events would all occur in the next three minutes.
Julius barely flicked his wrist and a great swathe of the ice in front of him swept up into the air, obscuring him completely. All the building panic hit Xander at once, along with the realisation that his brother's usual fluid movements weren't just an indication of his talent, he was hiding his real speed—
Xander whistled at a specific pitch, and the mines detonated. The best way to win the mind games was not to play, so he'd set his explosive runes both underneath Julius, and three feet behind him, and also basically everywhere else his older brother could have stood.
The resulting ripple of explosions was audible, but only a flash of light was visible as all the snow remaining on the plateau jumped up a foot.
He compacted a layer of snow into ice while he was waiting—
And then a hail of green bolts came streaking out from behind the snow veil.
It was the expected opener, but Julius was safe doing it because there was no quick and clever way to stop it. The Staff of Magnus could absorb them, but Xander would have to catch each bolt individually with the beam, and the fight with Octavia had proven how impractical that was (bet she told Julius all about it).
Fortunately, Xander wasn't one to leave his weaknesses alone.
He flexed his right hand, and a blue circle of magic appeared on the floor immediately ahead of him, which he activated with another twitch.
A great spike of ice burst from the ground, catching all the paralysis spells that were on track to hit him. He didn't use the time to relax, however, rolling out from behind it the moment the barrage went by, drawing the staff of Magnus with one hand while rolling his right wrist.
The scroll-bracer Mk III rotated around, and he cast its spell while blasting into the ice storm with the staff. The magicka in the storm was easy to spot and steal, meaning it would fall if Julius lost concentration on—
Giant ice spears came hurtling out of the storm, Xander shifted the staff's aim to them, but they weren't destruction spells because of course they weren't they were actual chunks of ice—
A black armoured figure jumped in front of him, catching the projectiles on a spiked shield.
"Took you long enough to actually summon us properly." Groused the Dremora, one of the two Xander had first met in Azura's star.
"No time, attack enemy!" Was all Xander said, firing off the second Summon Dremora spell to bring in the first's lover before tossing away the spent bracer magazine and slapping the next onto it.
This entire time, Julius had been out of sight, which was the worst place he could be, because that let him get creative. The stone at Xander's feet cracked, which was his only warning to jump upwards and shove a ward down with the leftover magicka from the ice storm.
Julius burst out of the ground (I thought the using alteration to dig was just a joke—) and lunged up with one hand, slamming into Xander's ward and shoving him higher into the air with inhuman strength.
Xander drew Dawnbreaker as Julius grabbed and yanked, tearing the ward away, and reached up with his other hand to grab the haft of the Staff. Xander swung down with Dawnbreaker, Julius skidded unnaturally on the stone to dodge it, blasted a paralysis spell at point blank—
"FEIM!" There went the first Shout. The green bolt went right through Xander's chest, and he yanked the now ethereal Staff of Magnus out of Julius' hand. Julius immediately moved to start widening the hole under Xander's feet, aiming to trap him the same way he had before, only to check himself when Dremora 1 bashed him with the shield and Dremora 2 swung in with a greatsword.
Etherealness is much less debilitating when you have summons, but Xander barely waited until he had his feet under him before forcibly cancelling the ability. He didn't expect his meat shields to last long, and sure enough, Julius was quick to swerve backwards, draw his sword, flick a paralysis into Dremora 2 (HOW IS HE SO QUICK WITH THOSE), parry Dremora 1 and launch a spinning kick that knocked his shield away.
Xander blasted the Staff of Magnus at Julius the moment he reformed—Julius used his offhand to snatch up Dremora 2 with telekinesis and put him in the way of the beam, so Xander just used the beam to absorb the paralysis spell and free his summon, then tossed Dawnbreaker over his shoulder and took aim with his bracer.
Julius, at this point, had finished his manoeuvre and beheaded Dremora 2. He spun with the momentum and caught the Daedric greatsword hurtling towards his head from 1 with one hand, flesh spell flickering, before running the Dremora through with his own sword.
This meant the sword was sticking out of its back, though, so Xander touched the beam of his staff to that, linked its enchantment to the Daedra it was impaling, and desummoned both in an instant, ridding Julius of his weapon.
(For those keeping track at home, this meant Julius had been reduced from 100% combat effectiveness to about 97%)
The Magnus beam flew straight through to hit Julius.
It took him in the shoulder, magicka began to transfer, but Julius was even quicker to solve the problem than Octavia. He twitched a finger and a pillar of rock emerged from the ground beneath him, catching the beam. Xander scowled, and pushed alteration magic through the Staff to force the stone back down, but Julius had already rolled away and was conjuring up the snow veil again—
NO!
"YOL!" Xander Shouted, as well as launching a fireball from his bracer and maintaining pressure with the beam, he Needed To Break Through.
The breath of fire liquified all the ice, revealing Julius, who had to stop bringing up another swarm of ice spikes to catch the fireball in his hand, the explosion forcing him back a step but not breaking his wards. The beam was next to come on target, but Julius brought up a big sodding boulder from beneath him to block it. This time, before Xander could try to use the limited magicka he had left to alteration it away, Julius let out a shout, and the rock split into dozens of bits of shrapnel, all flying across the plateau.
Xander didn't want to waste his stamina on another Shout, and didn't have an ice-spike trap loaded. Bracing, he cut the beam from the Staff, put his back to the storm, unhooked Azura's Star from his belt and flung it up into the air, and put the last of the magicka he'd filled up on so far into a flesh spell—
The rocks crashed into his back with enough force to rupture organs in undefended Men, and he was hurled to his knees, gasping out in pain. He dropped the staff of Magnus, reached for one of the potions on his belt with one hand and necked it, even he flung his bracer-arm behind him and cast the Ward scroll that he hadn't used on the rocks because he'd known he'd need it for the—
Followup barrage of paralysis spells, yep, there they were, and as the regeneration potion kicked in he turned to see Julius blitzing right into his personal space, one hand tearing the ward away, the other reaching in to—
(Azura's star flashed in the air, releasing a burst of white energy)
—Get impaled through the palm. The backup dagger Dulurza had gifted to Xander (because of course he'd enchanted it) had enough oomph to break through the unprepared Julius' backup wards and should have paralysed him. Xander wasn't surprised it didn't, with his passive magic resist, but it was still enough to make the elder Meteuse (who looked as coldly furious as Xander had ever seen him) grunt in pain. He yanked that hand away, but now there was no ward so the other was about to blast Xander with another paralysis spell.
Not that that mattered, because Xander's hand was reaching out to Dawnbreaker, and Dawnbreaker was flying through the air to impale Julius in the back.
The flying sword made no noise, but something in Xander's eyes must have tipped Julius off, because he aborted the spell and jumped. The magicka assisted leap took him a good ten feet into the air, well over Dawnbreaker as it flew end over end and landed in Xander's hand.
Midair, Julius charged another spell—
And then the giant hit him.
Yeah, remember when Xander threw Azura's Star into the air? Remember how that will only store white souls? It's funny what the universe defines as sentient; apparently the big mammoth herders don't count.
A glowing, twelve-foot-tall, summoned giant spirit swung its club and punted Julius right out of the air, before roaring and charging after him.
Xander stumbled to his feet, snagging Azura's Star and the Staff of Magnus before turning and firing the lightning bolt from his bracer. Tossed the spent magazine, reloaded.
This was obviously not over.
Most people would have died from that impact, and most people who'd survived it would have proceeded to lose. Julius was not most people.
He hit the floor with what looked like a broken arm but not much more. Twisted the arm back into place, and it was fixed in time for him to catch Xander's lightning bolt with it and take no visible damage. Then the giant was upon him, but the glare Julius shot at it was more annoyed than anything else. He swept one hand, and the ground underneath the giant's left foot swerved violently to one side. The giant fell, and Julius summoned a thrust of stone underneath it that impaled its head as it landed.
And that was that.
But the beam from the Staff of Magnus was scything towards him again and—
Julius reached out to Xander and clenched his fist.
Xander gargled, as a sourceless force constricted about his windpipe and left wrist. Julius' telekinesis was like a vice, choking him, lifting him up into the air and dragging his aim with the staff away.
"F—" He tried, but he couldn't breathe so he couldn't Shout, which was somehow not a weakness he foresaw in himself because he hadn't thought even Julius could or would use telekinesis to literally choke him to death.
Mages had magic resist, the friction between their magicka and the attacking magicka let them break out of direct-affecting spells more easily than most. Telekinesis on people was extremely hard, telekinesis on mages was supposed to be impossible, and even Julius could only use it to briefly manipulate his opponents, not like this—
But I'm not a normal mage. I don't have any internal magicka. I may as well be any other rock for him to throw around. And now he knows that.
Bollocks.
With the focus on his staff and neck, Xander was able to launch a fireball from his bracer, but the explosion just washed right over Julius, and then that hand was promptly wrested out to one side as well. A villain in an opera would have taken this time to monologue and give Xander time to come up with something. Julius did not. He launched another paralysis spell.
SON OF A—
Xander squeezed his eyes shut. He had one (1) idea, and it was truly awful, but it was probably the only thing he could do.
He directed his focus to the Staff of Magnus, the ultimate mage's magicka-interpretation-slash-optometry tool with a frustratingly simple application method. He'd tried to change its workings before (of course he had; being able to fire a cone rather than a beam would help him extraordinarily against swarms of paralysis spells), but the damn thing was so complex and tightly wound that messing with one tiny part of it would probably wreck the whole thing.
So he did that.
Xander used the Staff to destroy the Staff.
With a high pitched whine, a blue flash, and then a boom, the Staff of Magnus imploded. Imploded, not exploded; the haft crumpled in on itself like tissue paper, the crystal at the end shattering and—most importantly—sucking up every drop of magicka within ten metres.
Julius barely jumped backwards fast enough to get out of the way of the blue sphere of absorption that blasted outwards, contracted back in, then burst out again. The magic left in Xander's body, in his potions, in his remaining scrolls, in his enchanted equipment (if not the Daedric artefacts because Daedric artefacts), in the paralysis spell hurtling towards him and in the telekinesis gripping his body. All was whisked away, then released in an explosion that just might have vapourised Xander if he hadn't sucked in a breath and yelled "FEIM!" at the last possible second. As it was, he just dropped like a stone, hitting the plateau and rolling.
It would have been nice if that tremendous sacrifice had actually affected his opponent for more than, say, two seconds.
Julius stopped shielding his eyes, took in the situation, and immediately swept his arms to either side. The stone under Xander vanished, and he promptly found himself falling into a pit that was being rapidly excavated just for him.
But (and this was a big but) he could speak again. And he wasn't in immediate danger of dying this second.
Xander opened his mouth and screamed at the highest pitch he possibly could, just before the darkness of the pit took him.
His response was a staccato of booms, and what felt like the entire mountain shaking.
Julius, confident he'd bought himself at least a few seconds (or until he heard the word 'Bo') looked up from the pit he'd just dropped Alex in.
Then looked higher.
And higher.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me—"
Xander's traps, it seemed, had not been restricted to the plateau where their fight had started. He'd laid a few all the way up the cliffside, too. A cliffside of a mountain that had already been shaken by more loud noise and combat than it had seen in a long time.
The ground began to shake beneath Julius' feet, as the mountainside above him (or more accurately, the masses of packed snow resting atop it) began to shift.
The Greybeards' regular practice of their art meant that, usually, disasters occurred regularly and on small scales. But Alex's meddling had finally been enough to tip the mountain's ecosystem over the edge.
He'd started an avalanche.
Julius ran, leaving Alex to his hole and instead charging for the box, which had already fallen from its pedestal in the chaos. If he buries the Eye here I may just lose. Not happening.
A burst of telekinesis yanked the box up into his arms, as he turned to see the snow rumbling down the mountain towards him, roaring like a bank of thunder.
He'd heard avalanches were supposed to be deceptively slow—or was that deceptively fast? Either way, the cloud of loose snow being propelled ahead of it was on him in moments.
He held his breath, strengthened his cold shields, and jumped.
He was able to get above the worst of the initial cloud for a brief moment, squinting against the snow, wondering how in Oblivion Alex planned to get out of this—
Prioritise, he'll be fine, save yourself—
Julius hit the apex of his jump, fell, and started levitating.
Levitation, as he had explained two days ago (Oh wow that was only two days ago—) was essentially like standing on magically constructed stilts. This was a difficult spell for experienced mages even on solid ground, because it was hard for even experienced mages to walk on stilts.
Imagine trying to walk on stilts, but at the ends of each stilt is a boat and you're trying to walk across a pool on them. Harder, right? Now imagine that instead of a pool, it's a SODDING AVALANCHE.
Julius landed, stumbled, overcompensated, swerved backwards, lost his grip on the box containing the Eye, snagged it with telekinesis and flung it up into the air, went almost upside down and got a face full of snow, then used both his arms as contact points to stabilise himself, push himself higher. He couldn't actually see the snow dense enough to balance on beneath the storm of ice and grit flying all around him, had to react constantly on a moment-to-moment basis just to hold the spell.
In any other circumstances, this would be the kind of ill-advised fun he'd love; right now he was a little too occupied to enjoy himself.
He got his feet underneath him, rose to his full height, grabbed the box with telekinesis as it fell and pulled it back into his arms.
Squinted downwards, trying to see how far he'd fallen and what was ahead of him, but couldn't see anything besides the occasional rock outcropping that whipped by at a worrying pace, and—
"YOL!"
Julius cut the levitation and threw himself to one side, avoiding the burst of flame that tore through the storm and singed his cloak. He looked up the cliffside.
Ah. There's he is.
Alexander Meteuse was tearing down after Julius, sat astride a pitch-black steed with red eyes that was somehow just galloping atop an avalanche. He had a glowing sword in his hand and hunger in his eyes.
Julius reactivated the levitation, sliding along a layer of snow, reached out with one hand to grasp Alex with—
Slipped and lost his focus, rolled, and almost dropped the box while trying to get his balance back.
Too much to keep track of. I can't grab a moving target with telekinesis and RIDE AN AVALANCE at the same time, which is somehow not a weakness I foresaw in myself. I'll need to work on that.
But he had easier alternatives. Julius pointed one hand and blasted off a barrage of paralysis spells.
Most of them went completely wide, and Alex responded with another "YOL!" that Julius had to jump away from. He fired again, adjusting for the speed of their fall, did better, swerved left to avoid a rock outcropping, fired some more, Alex dropped low on the back of his horse as one flew over his head, Julius was starting to get his aim in and Alex was getting closer as his horse somehow outsped the avalanche to catch up—
Julius looked behind himself and swore, the next rock was bigger than the rest, so he put more force into his levitation and braced as he hit it and pushed off, jumped high above the avalanche for a few seconds. The vantage point helped his aim, Alex was forced to hold up his sword and block one of the paralysis spells, before responding with a third "YOL!" (his voice now audibly strained).
Julius was in the air, couldn't evade, but that also meant he could divert all focus to his heat shields for long enough that the Shout barely even singed his clothing (magicka reserves actually starting to run low here—) before swapping back to the levitation spell and landing with a grunted "Oof!" atop the clouds of snow.
He turned back, Alex was within thirty feet now, ducked down beneath the head of his horse, so Julius figured he'd just shot at the sodding horse then.
Another barrage of paralysis spells, and one of them caught the steed in the neck. Incredibly, it didn't stop, but it did stumble and slow, allowing Julius to put another five green bolts into the thing.
That did the trick. Never once making a sound, the horse buckled and fell. Alex jumped upwards off its back, sword still in hand, and—
"BO!"
—The air caught him, and he blasted forwards, flying under his own power towards Julius.
Julius might have actually screamed in frustration, but he couldn't hear himself over the roaring of the avalanche and the echoes of the Shouts.
He looked behind himself, noted that he could actually see trees and things beneath him which was a bad sign, then turned and started firing again.
Alex swerved left, right, up and down, and he was flying such that only his head and shoulders were actually visible, there was no way Julius could get a shot off. They closed to ten feet, five feet, Julius fired a paralysis spell point blank—
Alex roared and swept his sword out, cutting the spell out of the air —
Julius jumped and twisted as best as he could—
Alex came up on his flank and swung—
Julius thrust out his palm—
And then Alex cut Julius' left leg off and Julius slammed a paralysis spell into Alex's chest and they both went careening out of control as the avalanche rumbled to a stop.
So ended the three minutes.
The world was white and cold and pain and sharp and Xander wanted to throw up but couldn't actually make his body do that through the paralysis. He just knew he was spinning and rolling and he couldn't see and he couldn't breathe and he hoped he wasn't going to actually drown here—
And then his back slammed into something, hard enough to break several of his ribs.
He would have screamed or spasmed, but again, paralysis. All he could do was strain desperately and futilely against his magical restraints as he bounced off whatever he'd hit and plummeted through the air.
Fortunately, the carpet of snow he landed in was soft enough to prevent much in the way of damage.
Unfortunately, he landed headfirst, and was able to suck in one good breath before his nose became clogged with snow.
It was only his head and shoulders submerged, but frozen as he was, that was more than enough to kill him. He began hyperventilating, trying desperately to clear empty his airways, knowing that he was probably wasting what little air he had but unable to control himself. His lungs began to burn, body already exhausted from the battle, crying out for air it couldn't find. As his head began to throb and darkness started eating away at the corners of his vision, he pulled as hard as he physically could against the restraints on his body, come on come on come on COME ON—
The paralysis snapped, and Xander jolted backwards, pulling himself out of the snow and sucking in as much air as his lungs could hold.
He collapsed on his back atop the snow, gasping, and trying not to cry from all the pain he was in.
He was lying in what might have once been a courtyard. There was a ruined tower taking up a good chunk of what he could see above him, and when he twisted his head, the remnants of a few houses, an overturned carriage, a large fort. If he'd been feeling inquisitive (which he wasn't), he might have noticed that this place had been destroyed long before an avalanche had come down and buried the whole thing in several feet of snow.
To his left, a sign was buried in the white, scorched and snapped, with the letters 'ELGEN' barely discernable.
To his right, several metres away, was a leg, and some distance from that, there was a box.
Xander frowned in confusion—
Then gasped, and forced himself to sit up.
There was a bang, and an eruption of snow, and on the other side of the courtyard, Julius burst out from underneath. He looked bruised and half-frozen (Xander probably wasn't much better), and was bleeding profusely from the stump of his leg.
His eyes met Xander's, and narrowed.
Xander looked around for his sword, couldn't find it, dive-rolled away from the first streak of green light that blasted towards him. Stretched his hand out, and with a flash, Dawnbreaker burst through the side of a house and started flying towards him—
But the next paralysis spell hit him right in the chest. He stiffened, then toppled onto his side, as Dawnbreaker sailed over his head and clattered to the cobblestones some distance away.
Julius summoned a stick to his left hand and used it to help him stand and hop forwards, leaving a trail of red in the snow. He shot Xander with another paralysis spell. Then another. Then another. Then dropped the stick, put his hands together, made some more complicated motions, and hit Xander with a spell he didn't recognise. Green energy suffused his vision, and he had the distinct impression that he'd just been put in some kind of cage.
Only then did Julius look down and run a hand over his stump. Whatever he did, it stopped the bleeding, and he proceeded to summon his own leg to his hand, casting a similar spell on that before squinting at it, and tossing it to the side.
"Can probably get Cassia to fix it later." He said, breaking the silence. "That was a stasis spell. Essentially putting a 'deal with this some other time' sticker on the wound. Very handy stuff."
Xander, perhaps predictably, didn't reply. The bombardment of paralysis wouldn't even let him glare at Julius, never mind speak.
They say one time Julius paralysed a student so hard he didn't unfreeze for two hours. Even if he hasn't hit me with that much power, there's no way he'll give me the chance to free myself in time.
"Considering your empty magicka reserves, the spells you're under should keep you there for almost half a day." Julius answered the question without Xander needing to ask it. "I'd prefer to put you unconscious, but I actually can't. That last spell there's designed to stop any outside magic getting through to you for as long as possible, just in case any of your friends get down here in time. On the plus side, it's also stopping the exposure from killing you."
He pointed a hand towards a broken cart. wood melted away from it, twisting into a stick that was vaguely peg-leg shaped. Julius caught it, stared at it a bit, made some adjustments, and then stuck it to the end of his stump.
Need a way out. Xander was thinking. If I just had the Staff of Magnus on me I could eat the sodding paralysis, but that's not an option here.
"So, I have no idea how much this means to you," Julius continued, shaking out the peg-leg. "But I am immensely proud of you, Alex. Like, Divines above us, nobody's pushed me like that since I was fifteen. How did you do any of that? That was so good!"
Throw yourself off another mountain. Xander took the time to snarl at him, before focusing his attention back inwards.
"And did you deliberately check yourself on that final attack? You did, didn't you?" Julius started to hobble along the snow, wincing with every step. "You could have cut me in half but you didn't. I appreciate that, I really do. Kinda makes me glad my go-to attack is paralysis. I'm…I'm genuinely not sure if I could bring myself to kill you, to save everyone else. I should be willing to, logically, other people have families too and they must care just as much, but…well. I suppose you do understand me, don't you? Or I'd be dead."
Xander could feel the magicka of the spells affecting him. Feel them running along his skin, brushing against his soul.
The Staff of Magnus was a tool. It doesn't do anything special. It just moves magicka around. You're a mage. Moving magicka around is your whole thing.
"I wish, now, I'd gotten to you sooner." Julius admitted, as he approached the box. A tug of telekinesis was enough to get it out of the snow. "I mean, if we'd been working together this whole time…whew, you know? You are absolutely exceptional, Alex, and I mean that." He knelt down in front of the chest. "But exceptional just wasn't enough."
YOU ARE A CONDUIT. YOU CHANNEL POWERS THAT ARE NOT YOUR OWN. STOP LAYING HERE LIKE A PATHETIC LITTLE LOSER AND CHANNEL SOME FUCKING POWER.
Julius shot Xander an apologetic look. Reached forwards, and opened the box.
And a cat leapt out of it and jumped at his face.
"AN AVALANCHE!" the cat shrieked. "YOU PUT ME'DARO IN A BOX AND DROPPED HER INTO AN AVALANCHE! YOUR ASS IS DEAD, YOU HEAR THIS ONE? DEAD!"
Julius cried out and staggered backwards as the Khajiit's claws raked over his face. After a moment, his flesh spells flickered back to life, and after another he grabbed the creature and pulled it off with a growl of pain.
"TWO-FACED LYING GUTLESS SCHEMING WHORESON MOTHERF—" the Khajiit's tirade was interrupted when Julius punched her in the face, tossed her into the snow, then blasted her with a paralysis spell for good measure.
"What…in the actual…" Julius panted, looking back at the box. The empty box. "What—where—"
He turned back to Alex. "You said that was the Eye!"
Alex smiled back. "I lied."
And then he stood up.
Each step was hard, forcing his muscles to work against forces that were desperate to keep them still. Xander wasn't done with the process yet, of course; absorbing magicka straight through his skin was a hard skill to master. But it was working. The green glow around him was dimming, and his magicka coils were beginning to thrum with the energy he was stealing from it.
Julius took a step back. "That…that's not possible."
"You must be more tired than you look, if you're spitting out 'that's not possible!' like some two-bit opera villain." Speech was getting easier, Xander worked his jaw and continued. "First thing, asshat: I don't give a damn that you're proud of me. You lost that authority when you lied to me, poisoned my friends, and dropped me in a pit, you traitor."
Julius finally worked up some sense and blasted Xander with another paralysis spell. It worked, for a moment, making him stiffen. But now he was getting used to the process, and it took him much less time to drag the energy under his skin, freeing his limbs.
"Second thing: Of course I didn't kill you. You're family. Family matters! And unlike you, when I save this world, I'm not going to do it by killing innocents and then sticking them in the primordial soup!"
The next three paralysis bolts barely even slowed Xander down. He brought up and cast a few simple but powerful healing spells with the energy, numbing the pain and healing the worst of the immediate damage.
"Third thing: I am so glad you didn't get to me sooner, and you should be too. Skyrim made me what I am, Julius! I was a naïve moron when I came to this country! It was the people I met here, the challenges that I overcame, that turned me into someone who could finally put your vain ass on the ground!"
Julius finally swapped to a more directly offensive spell, charging up and firing a lightning bolt straight at Xander's midriff. Xander brought up a ward to absorb the worst of it, letting a little through just to make sure that—yep, there it is—that it was still magic, and so he could absorb that too.
"Fourth thing: 'Exceptional isn't good enough?' Shut your whore mouth! I am sick of people telling me whether or not I'm 'good enough'! I'm sick of caring whether I'm 'good enough'! The people I've met here, the people who care about me? They don't need me to be smart or charismatic or powerful in order for them to like me, and I was stupid to ever think that chasing those things would make them like me!"
The next two lightning bolts and the following fireball Xander caught with one hand, absorbing the magicka before they could even detonate. When Julius finally had the idea to shape a physical object into a weapon (which would almost certainly have still worked), Xander lunged forwards. He grabbed Julius about the chest with telekinesis, pulled him off-balance, and grabbed him about the throat.
"And final thing." Xander declared. "Stop calling me Alex. My name, you entitled piece of shit, is Xander."
His expression softened. "And of course I can lie to you now. I don't need you to believe in me anymore."
If Julius had a response to that, Xander didn't care to hear it, as he grasped his older brother about the forehead.
With one hand, he dragged the remainder of Julius' magicka straight out of his body. With the other, he blasted him with Octavia's knockout spell.
Julius collapsed backwards into the snow.
That was where Octavia and Cassia found them, thirty seconds later.
Of all the scenes in this book I have been waiting to write for a long time. A lot of the top ones were in this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed.
But yeah, remember how last chapter I said there was an avalanche? Here you go!
Next Time: Characters converge on the top of the Throat of the World.