Guest: Thanks for the review! Glad to see that everything I wanted to came through okay. Either that or you're really good at figuring things out.

Brelyna:

"Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!" Colette lectured as Minerva and Brelyna practiced their wards. On the other side of the room, J'zargo and Onmund were being tutored by Phines Gestor, the resident Conjurer.

"You know," said Minerva, breathing heavily with the mental effort of keeping her ward up. "That sounds less and less convincing every time you repeat it."

"But you do think it's valid, don't you?"

"My mom makes Restoration scrolls, what do you think?"

Brelyna laughed and tested Minerva's ward with another shot of Flames. "She's got a point. And anyways, I've literally never heard anyone dismiss Restoration out of hand."

"Then why aren't you concentrating in Restoration instead of Conjuration?" asked Colette snippily.

Minerva put her ward down and glared at Colette. "Because she doesn't want to! Isn't that enough of a reason?"

There was a loud explosion from the other end of the room. Both apprentices turned to see Onmund, hopping around and on fire. "Ow ow ow freaking atronachs!"

Phinis Gestor and J'zargo both winced. "J'zargo apologizes. Perhaps don't stand so close next time."

"Divines above, and she wonders why nobody wants to go into Restoration," Minerva grumbled after class.

"I don't really blame her," said Onmund, still wet from having the fire on him put out. "I mean, it's not as flashy as Destruction or Conjuration or something. I can get why she's defensive."

Minerva shook her head as Brelyna pulled out the map. "Are you guys almost ready to go?" she asked. It had been a week since they were directed to Fellglow Keep, and despite all the tests the mages could run, they still hadn't found out anything new about the orb. Seemed like they might really need those books.

Minerva smirked. "Well, I'm not green anymore, and I've packed a bunch of food so I feel ready."

Brelyna winced. "Right...sorry about that."

"Well, at least it wasn't permanent. Still can't believe you somehow turned me into a cow."

"Didn't we agree not to discuss this again?" Brelyna sighed, blushing. She heard J'zargo snicker behind her. Minerva shrugged and pulled out a sweetroll to munch on.

As the group headed out across the bridge from the college, they saw a mage coming their way. "Ugh, ancestors save me," groaned Brelyna.

"What's wrong?" asked Onmund in a concerned tone.

"Gane," sighed Brelyna. "He's been pestering me off and on since I got here."

J'zargo and Minerva both moved to block Gane from her view. "Pestering? You mean harassing?" asked J'zargo.

"Hold on," said Onmund. He made a few hand gestures, then cast a spell at Brelyna's feet. Brelyna saw her robes and legs fade to semi-transparency. "Okay, uh, now everyone stand in front of her."

The others obliged, standing awkwardly on the bridge as Gane passed by. "Oh, hello," he greeted. "I thought I saw Ms. Maryon with you. I wanted to ask her about something."

Onmund blinked. "Uh, well she was here.,,"

"Brelyna had to run and get something from her room," J'zargo lied smoothly. "We're waiting for her."

"Ah, well, in that case, I'll just wait here as well."

"What? No!" snapped Minerva. Gane stared at her.

"What she means to say is that you should probably catch up with her," J'zargo hurriedly corrected. "Especially if you wanted to ask something important."

Gane nodded, apparently satisfied. "Ah, of course. I won't keep her long." With that, he walked off.

As soon as he was out of sight, the entire group let out a sigh of relief. "Quick thinking there, Onmund," Brelyna complimented the Nord as she faded back to opacity. "Was that an invisibility spell?"

Onmund nodded, looking a bit bashful. "Unfortunately, it didn't work as well as I hoped. That's why I had everyone stand in front of you."

"Smooth talking, too, J'zargo," Minerva noted.

J'zargo smirked. "Thank you. Unfortunately your little flare-up nearly made him suspect the truth."

Minerva had the decency to look embarrassed. "What did he want to talk to you about, anyways?" she asked Brelyna.

The Dunmer groaned and rubbed her temples. She could feel a headache coming on. "He keeps asking me about these Dwemer artifacts he finds. He seems to think I should know something about them?"

"Do you?"

Brelyna sighed. "No, but he seems to think all Dunmer live in dwarven ruins or something."

J'zargo shook his head. "Ah, one of those types then. J'zargo knew it sounded like harassment."

Minerva puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. "Hmph. I knew there was a reason I didn't like him."

The trip south was mostly uneventful, until they ran into a bad snowstorm. The snowstorm made it so that they had to stop in a cave for a while and rest. Lucky for the group, Brelyna was proficient in fire magic.

"Man, you always look so graceful when you cast spells," said Minerva as Brelyna flicked her wrist and sent out a bolt of fire to light the wood. 'How in Oblivion did you learn that when all the rest of us just go 'fwoom, fwoom, fwoom!'" Minerva mimed the hand motions to go with the sound effects.

Brelyna shook her head. "It was required by my family."

"House Telvanni?"

Brelyna nodded. "They have this whole thing about 'focused stance, focused mind, focused magic'. I had to carry a book on my head until I could cast without it falling off." She rubbed the top of her head as she said this. "I'm pretty sure it flattened my skull."

"Perhaps you could teach J'zargo, such that he may look the part of a professional magic user?"

Brelyna gave J'zargo a crooked smile. "I dunno. Your posture kind of...sucks."

J'zargo pouted as Onmund munched on some salted meat. "You're so lucky," he said between bites. "I wish I was from a magic family.."

Brelyna shook her head. "It's not as fun as it sounds. There was a ton of pressure to get ahead by any means necessary. I came to Winterhold to get away from those expectations."

Onmund looked down. "But they were supportive of you coming here, at least. My family didn't approve of it at all. It took years of insisting that this is what I'm meant to do. And even then..." he trailed off, looking away.

Brelyna blushed. "Oh..." She remembered what her Great-Uncle had said about Nords not liking magic. Which meant they didn't like mages. Which probably meant that Onmund's family...

Onmund looked back at the fire and smiled, but it was obviously forced. "Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to kill the mood."

Okay, time for a change of topic. Brelyna looked towards Minerva. "You're from Anvil, right?"

Minerva's eyes widened, then she glared at Onmund. "Yeah..." she said slowly. "How did you know?"

Onmund flinched away. "I didn't say anything, I swear!"

Brelyna shook her head. Touchy, touchy. "I just recognized your accent. I'm from Solthsheim, and there's a guy who lives there that moved from Anvil."

"Oh." Minerva blushed. "Sorry, Onmund," she muttered. She looked back up at Minerva. "Where's Soltheheim, anyways. Is that in Morrowind or...?"

Brelyna shrugged. "It's technically still part of Skyrim, I think, but it got given to the Dunmer after the Red Year."

Minerva kicked a pebble by her foot. "Right, that big eruption. But, yeah, I'm from Anvil. Why?"

Brelyna shrugged. "Well, I was just wondering why you came so far north. I mean, it can't be for the weather, right?"

Minerva snorted. "How'd you guess?" She stabbed an apple and some cheese on a stick and put it over the fire. "Well...like I told Onmund before, I was trying to get away from those Thalmor." She looked at the others. "I know some think it's bad up here, and I'm sure it is, but you haven't been to the cities of Cyrodiil. My grandpa's a Legion general, and Mama figures it's only a matter of time before there's another Great War." She pulled the stick off the fire and blew on the food. "Once that happens, she figures the Thalmor will target anyone related to the Legion."

"A bit paranoid, your mother seems," said J'zargo.

Minerva glared at him. "You've never met a Thalmor. And watch it, that's my mama you're talking about!" Apparently unsatisfied with the food's cooking time, she put the stick back over the fire. "So, yeah. My brother got sent to learn the merchant trade from our cousins in High Rock, and I came up here."

Brelyna shook her head, thinking about Arcano. "And still you run into them."

"Yeah." Minerva shrugged. "Do you think anyone would miss him if he happened to fall off the bridge? By accident? Just curious."

J'zargo snickered. "J'zargo wonders...would it really be an accident?"

Minerva shrugged. "Sure, let's go with that."

After the snowstorm subsided, it still took them awhile to make it to Fellglow keep. Even though they'd left around ten, the sun was already starting to go down when they saw the towers. Brelyna studied the map. "This should be it." She looked around and saw a walled city in the distance. "I guess that's the hold capital?"

Onmund nodded. "Yeah, that's probably Whiterun. Nice place, I've heard. Olaf One-Eye used to rule it."

"Who is that?" asked J'zargo. "He sounds fierce."

Onmund nodded, grinning. "Oh yeah. He was. The story goes that back in the First Age, there was this dragon named Numinex, and he was terrifying."

"As dragons tended to be," noted J'zargo. Brelyna shushed him.

"Anyway, one day, Olaf apparently decided that he'd had enough of Numinex attacking. He took a bunch of warriors and battled Numinex with an axe and shield. But even though the battle went on for days, Olaf wasn't able to hurt Numinex. He got so frustrated and angry that he threw his weapons aside and ended up Shouting at the dragon. And the dragon Shouted back. They battled like this for even longer, until eventually Numinex was defeated. Somehow, Olaf got Numinex all the way back to Whiterun, and everyone was so impressed that they made him Jarl of the city. They also built this big cell in the back of the palace, which they renamed Dragonsreach, and they kept Numinex there until he died. Eventually, Olaf became High King of Skyrim and reigned well for many years. The end."

J'zargo let out a low whistle. "Axes, dragons, and screaming at each other...the only thing that could make this more of a Nord tale is a drinking contest."

Onmund laughed a little bit and shook his head. "Not screaming. Shouting. With a capital 'S'."

"What is the difference?"

Onmund shrugged. "That's how dragons battled, according to the stories. They spoke words in their own language and it made stuff happen. I don't know the specifics."

Brelyna frowned. Something didn't add up to her. "Wait, if that's a dragon thing, then how did Olaf use it?"

Onmund shrugged. "Apparently a bunch of old Nord warriors knew how to use it." He pointed in the distance to a mountain so tall that its tip was hidden by the clouds. "The only people who can use it nowadays are the Greybeards. They live on the Throat of the World. And it takes a long time to learn, apparently. That's why they're called the Greybeards: they've studied it until their beards are grey."

"Just them, and no one else?" questioned Brelyna.

"Yeah, besides whatever dragons are left. If there are any left."

Minerva shifted. "Wait, wait, wait. Is this the same power that Tiber Septim was able to use?"

Onmund's eyebrows knit in confusion. "Tiber...oh, right. Talos. Yeah, same power. The Greybeards called him up there. Apparently they Shouted his name so loud that all of Skyrim heard it."

Brelyna laughed. "Well, that's one way to get someone's attention." She turned and started walking up the hill. "Come on, guys, enough storytime. Let's get inside before the sun goes down."

J'zargo:

Turns out that getting into the keep was easier said than done. There were two mages standing guard outside, as well as a fire atronach. One of the mages was on top of the tower, sniping the group with fireballs. Luckily, he wasn't immune to other people's fire, as everyone found out when Brelyna knocked him off the tower with a well-aimed fire blast.

Meanwhile, an ice mage started shooting frost at Minerva, who yelped and ran towards them. Brelyna summoned a familiar and sent it to finish off the fire mage. J'zargo and Onmund ran towards the atronach, which began throwing fire at them. Onmund yelped as one exploded near his foot. "Ow, hot, ow! Not again!"

J'zargo shook his head and pulled out his trusty ice and lightning spells. Luckily, it didn't take long for the ice to wear down the atronach, and it sank to the ground and exploded in a ring of fire.

Brelyna and Minerva jogged up to the two men. "Thanks for taking care of that," said Brelyna. "Are you guys ready to head down?" She pointed to where the atronach had been standing, where a set of spiral steps led under the ground.

The other three mages looked at each other and nodded. "J'zargo is interested to see what these books have to say. Let us go." The Khajit led the way down the stairs and pushed open the door to enter the keep.

"My boots are soaked," Minerva groaned as the group sloshed through the water. The room they had entered was flooded up to their knees, and there was no way around. "Why did they put water down here in the first place?"

"It's probably just snowmelt," Onmund pointed out. "Soaked through the soil."

Minerva sighed, then yelped as a skeever skittered past J'zargo and jumped on her. Its front teeth sank into her forearm. "What is it?" came a nasally voice. "A test subject? Go my pets, attack!"

The mage's pets turned out to be skeevers. The group disposed of them quickly, and found the mage controlling them at the top of some stone stairs in the next room. It only took a few hits for him to go down as well.

"Skeevers," groaned J'zargo, "horrid creatures."

Minerva looked down at her arm and winced, pulling out a healing spell to close the wound. "Hold on," said Onmund. "You'll want this." He handed her a potion. "Skeevers carry all sorts of nasty stuff. With how much you're swinging that axe around you don't want to get Rockjoint or anything. That was a big problem back at home, and you would not believe how hard it was to char the sheever hide properly, I mean it says 'charred' but it's really a lot more..." Onmund trailed off as he realized everyone was staring at him. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

Minerva smirked, still holding the potion. "You're kind of a dork, aren't you Onmund?" She popped the cork off and downed the potion, gagging as she did. "Ugh, it tastes like skeevers smell..."

J'zargo looked down at the mage, shaking his head. "J'zargo is not sure what you were trying to accomplish," he told the corpse. "Why were you experimenting on skeevers, of all things? They're so weak and scrawny..."

"Like him, you mean?" quipped Minerva as she used some healing magic on Brelyna.

J'zargo chuckled. "Well, yes."

After Brelyna was healed up, she went to open the door to the next room. As she did, she stepped back and let out a loud gasp.

The other room contained cages. Big ones, like jail cells. Each cell contained a being dressed in rags, except for one dressed in mage robes.

Laying on a table in the center of the room was another prisoner, surrounded by mages who were poking and prodding at the body. "Okay, it's been five minutes," one mage said to the other. "Let's open him up and see how the poison's affected the innards."

Minerva stepped forward, her jaw tense. "Better idea: how about we open you up instead?" She swung her axe at one mage before he had time to react, leaving a deep gash in the side of his neck that sprayed her with blood. As the mage staggered away, gasping, J'zargo exchanged ice blasts with the other mage until Brelyna's familiar got a good hit in on her. The mage collapsed to the floor alongside her companion, whose blood was still pooling around him.

J'zargo walked over to the mage in the cell. As soon as he got close, the mage jumped up and started shaking the bars. "Help! Don't leave me in here! I don't know what they'll do if I stay here!"

J'zargo put his hands on his hips. "You must be Orthorn."

The mage grinned. "Yes! Yes I am! I knew they'd send someone, I knew-!"

"Where are the books?"

The mage's face fell. "Oh...right. I thought...I thought perhaps you'd come for me." He shook his head. "Well, I don't have them anymore. The Caller does."

"Who?" Distantly, J'zargo heard the sound of more fighting.

"She's the one in charge here! She's the one who put me in here! This wasn't supposed to happen!"

A cold voice came from behind J'zargo. "Huh. I wonder how you could have seen that coming?" J'zargo turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin. Minerva was standing right behind him, covered head to toe in blood. "I mean it's not like they're doing horrible experiments and torturing and imprisoning people, and just have little to no sense of morality in general!" She laughed harshly. "Seriously, what kind of idiot are you, thinking this was gonna work out? Did you really think they were gonna welcome you with open arms and tell you all their secrets?"

Orthorn gulped. "Uh...well..."

J'zargo saw Brelyna walking around behind Minerva. She pulled a lever in the middle of the room, and the door of Orthron's cell swung open. Orthorn inched out, eying MInerva warily. "You should probably get going," J'zargo noted.

"Don't you...don't you need my help?" asked Orthorn.

Onmund came up and crossed his arms. "We don't want your help," he said, his tone icy.

"After all the trouble you've put us through?" Minerva held up a fist, crackling with electricity. "If you don't scram, I might just kill you myself."

Orthorn put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright! I'll see myself out." He ran off back towards the entrance.

Minerva shook her head, then looked at the others. "Well? Are we going to get those books?" Without waiting for a reply, she started walking away into the dungeon. J'zargo looked at the two other apprentices. "Was she hit with a Fury spell, J'zargo wonders?" he whispered.

Onmund shook his head. "They were doing even more experiments in the next room. It was..." he shivered. "It was gross and horrible. Don't look when we're walking through, okay?"

Brelyna sighed. "Of course we all freaked out, but Minerva...I don't know, she just snapped. Cut one mage's head clean off. Something about it must've gotten to her." Brelyna looked ill. "I know the feeling."

"We should catch up to her," said Onmund nervously. "She might rush in and get overwhelmed by someone."

The others nodded and followed her, but not before J'zargo stopped to take some soul gems off the mages. "What? These ones are not using them."

Minerva:

The mages were coming. Let them come.

"You're no match for me!"

With every swing she felt herself get stronger.

"This ends now!"

With every cast she felt the blood rushing through her veins.

"Die, damn you!"

Don't worry about holding back, said her mind. Why even bother at this point? You saw what they did to those people. They deserve to suffer and die.

"I cannot best you! Mercy! Mercy!"

Strengthen yourself. Don't let any of them escape.

"I submit! Please!'

Let them come. Let them all come.

Brelyna:

It was easy to find Minerva from the trail of corpses she left behind. She hadn't even looted them, as J'zargo noticed. "She's leaving all this gold behind," he sighed. "What a waste."

"Is that seriously your biggest problem with the situation?" hissed Brelyna. "We need to find her before she hurts herself!"

Onmund nodded. "I just hope she doesn't wander into a room full of fire runes or something like that. You can't kill those with an axe."

"You could kill others with them, though," J'zargo put in.

Brelyna shivered. "Ugh, one of my cousins used them to protect her diary back home. It sure is something when snooping leaves you with third-degree burns."

"...your family is weird."

They finally tracked Minerva down in front of a large wooden door that she was trying to shove open with her shoulder. "Come on, come on! Stupid door!"

"Um...do you need help with that?" asked Onmund, sounding concerned.

Minerva glared at him. "No. I don't need help. I just," she kept pushing. "Need. To open. This stupid-"

Onmund stepped up beside her and pushed. The door swung open with a grinding sound. Minerva, unprepared, fell to her knees. She sprang back up and huffed. "There. I loosened it for you."

Up some stairs they went, until they found a large room, with a hooded woman standing in the middle of it. She had her arms crossed and her mouth in a thin line. "So, you are the ones who barged into my home and laid waste to my projects. How nice to meet you," she said in an acidic tone.

Brelyna stepped up. "You must be the Caller. We're just here for the books from the college. Just give them to us and we'll be on our way."

The woman sniffed dismissively. "So, you're just some of Aren's lackeys. A shame. You showed promise."

"Lackeys?" snapped Minerva.

She rushed forward, but Onmund caught her by the arm. "Wait just a minute, hold up." he said. Minerva glared at him.

The Caller shook her head. "You come here, kill my assistants, disrupt my work...You've been quite annoying. I don't think I'll be giving you anything."

"Well, we're not going anywhere without those books," noted J'zargo. "So we seem to be at an impasse."

The Caller readied a spell. "Well, if you're going to threaten me like that, you won't be leaving here at all."

So the battle began. The Caller summoned two atronachs to keep J'zargo and Brelyna busy. As Brelyna summoned her familiar, she saw Onmund shooting lightning spells at the Caller while Minerva attempted to hit her with closer-ranged spells and her axe. "Attempted" being the operative word, because the Caller started teleporting around the room. This did not seem to please Minerva in the slightest. She began screaming incoherently as she tried to chase the Caller around the room. Brelyna turned her attention away to the fire atronach. She summoned her familiar again and tried casting more spells, but her specialty was fire, so it didn't do much. Finally, the atronach was caught in the side by an ice spike from J'zargo, who had finished off his own enemy. Brelyna nodded to him. "Thanks." J'zargo nodded back.

The Caller seemed to have drained herself teleporting, and Minerva had finally been able to catch up with her. She slammed into the Caller with all her might. The Caller staggered. "You fools cannot conceive of the power I-"

"Shut! Up! And stop! Breathing!" Minerva pushed the caller over, then chopped into her neck over and over and with her axe.

By the time she was done, the Caller's body was a mangled mess, her head separated from her body. Minerva stood up, panting as the other apprentices stared at her. Where in Oblivion had this come from?

Minerva turned around and stared at them. "What?" she questioned.

Brelyna put her hands up. Seeing Minerva covered in blood was, quite frankly, kind of terrifying. "Uh, n..nothing!" Despite her best efforts, her voice came out as a squeak.

Minerva's expression turned to one of confusion, then of horror as she studied them. She looked down at her blood-soaked robes and dropped her axe. "Oh...oh no..." she murmured. "I...I didn't mean..."

And then she was gone, sprinting out of the keep. "Minerva, wait!" yelled Onmund, running after her.

"Onmund, the books!" yelled J'zargo. "We came all the way here and you're going to forget the books!"

In the next chapter: Minerva talks about her issues, Onmund gets homesick (sort of, not really), and we put the Winterhold quest on hold to start the Main Quest.