Fragments of the Journals of the last Dragonborn

by The Eternal Guest

Fragments from the journals of the last Dragonborn, written around the year 202 of the fourth era, and now translated, insofar as it is legible. Much of it seems to be tales of the history of Tamriel, or of certain races dwelling upon it. Other parts pertain to the opinions people had at the time, and the rest is made up of opinions the writer, the Dragonborn, had.

2. Magic

On Magic.

Magic. To some, a mystical force wielded by far away wizards, to others, a tool, and to yet others, an out of reach power that could solve all their problems.

The origin of Magic is Aetherius, the realm of the Divines. That is the realm of magic, and it is from there that magic on Nirn comes.

Magic travels from Aetherius to Nirn through what we see as the sun and stars Those are, in reality, holes in Nirn, the sun created by Magnus himself, God of Magic and architect of Nirn, and the stars by the Magna-ke, Magnus' helpers.

This is the origin of Magic in general, and it exists within every living thing in Nirn; plants, Men, Elves and Beastfolk. Mages and warlocks are those more adept at the channeling and controlling of magicka in their bodies. Any can become a Mage, though Elves, specifically High- and Dark Elves have an easier time of it. Should you choose to believe them, this is because they are direct descendants of the Aedra, and therefore more attuned to the realms of magic, but I shall leave theological debates aside.

It takes many forms, as many as there are Mages, in fact. While many Mages cast the same spells, each channels their magic in a way unique to them. We have, in our time, divided magic into six schools; Alteration, Illusion, Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration and Enchanting.

Alteration concerns the manipulation of objects; making them what they could have been. Alteration magic can make one have skin as hard as ebony, weigh as little as a feather, or even walk on or breath under water. Telekinesis too, falls under this school, allowing Mages to move and manipulate objects outside their reach with their magic.
The difficulty in these spells depends upon two things: the first being the magnitude that one desires to change an object; it is far easier to harden something already tough than something weak and malleable. The second is the knowledge a caster has of an object, how well it knows it. Changing one's own body is relatively simple, as you know it well, you are, at the very least subconsciously, aware of its workings and size. Changing something else in any way more serious than changing its colour would require an in-depth knowledge extremely difficult to acquire within a single lifespan.

Illusion concerns the manipulation of a human's mind, in ways both benign and malignant. Popular examples of this are Calm, Fear and Frenzy spells; used on an opponent to stop him from fighting, make him flee, or make him turn on his comrades. These are relatively simple, as they are targeted spells on a single person.
In stark contrast, Invisibility requires the caster to channel his magic into manipulating any minds that perceive him into believing there is nothing to be seen. This is difficult because, due to the lack of any specific targets, the magic must constantly search for any that must be manipulated, and doubly so because it needs to manipulate any number of minds.
Paralyse, too, is a most challenging spell, since, while it is a targeted spell on one person, it must manipulate a large part of the mind; all that is connected to touch and motion. To cast this spell on multiple people is almost impossible, and I have only ever met but one person capable of paralysing over one opponent at a time; and he was at the time under the influence of an extremely powerful magical object.

Conjuration. Often seen as the darkest of the schools of magic due to its connection to Necromancy, which is either feared or downright hated by most, and its connections to Oblivion, which is also both feared and downright hated by most, often with good reason.
It concerns the summoning of creatures of Oblivion to do the caster's bidding, Atronachs being the most popular amongst them.
It takes more power to summon and command more powerful creatures, and a lot more power to command multiple creatures. There are a great many that believe Necromancy to be a part of this school of magic, though it is my personal belief that Necromancy belongs in the Restoration school, even if that goes against popular opinion.

Destruction, often seen as the most powerful and useful of the schools. It is almost certainly the most flashy and impressive looking; the image of a robed figure throwing fireballs, ice storms and more is an intimidating sight to be sure! It concerns the creation of forces of destruction, Fire, Frost and Storm.
Fire is used by Mages aiming to put down targets quickly, being the most damaging of the three elements.
Frost is used to slow down an opponent. Giving the Mage the opportunity to run or simply freeze their opponent to death.
Shock is most useful for Mages fighting other Mages, as, for reasons as of yet unknown, it drains the body of Magicka. The difficulty of a spell depends on both it's power and it's area of effect, though shock spells tend to cost more power than frost spells, which cost more than fire spells.

Restoration, seen as the most benign of the schools, thought to produce healers and little else. It is said that its sphere is life and death, though it seems that the current categorisation is simply whether it is 'good' or not. Warding spells are counted as restoration, even though they would seem more suited to either the Alteration or Conjuration schools, and Necromancy is clearly in the sphere of death, though it is counted under Conjuration.
Restoration is, in my opinion, the most useful of all the Magic schools. It has saved my life far more times than I can count, and a great many other people have been helped by it.
The deciding factors in difficulty are, once more, magnitude and area of effect. Taking as my example healing spells, as those are the most recognised, a spell to heal yourself slowly can be cast by almost any adventurer after reading but a single book on its theory, but a spell that will instantly almost fully heal any within a certain radius of the caster is only within the reach of the most experienced of Mages. This is because an area of effect based healing spell must seek out injured people, where one cast on oneself can devote itself fully to healing.

And finally, Enchanting, often neglected when speaking of magic since it does not involve the casting of spells, it has saved my life almost as often as Restoration. An enchanted weapon can make the difference between life and death, an enchanted cuirass might save you from a fireball, an enchanted shield could stop a dragon's claw! The possibilities are almost endless. This magic is questionable though, due to the need for souls to enchant objects, which brings with it the need for death.
An interesting fact is that while enchanting can be learned from reading, the enchantments themselves can not be passed from person to person easily. In order to learn an enchantment the would-be enchanter has to unravel that same enchantment, either a weaker or stronger variant, depending on his or her own skill, on another object, which destroys the object in question. This makes enchantment one of the more difficult schools to become a master in; while a master of Destruction need only seek out books, someone seeking to truly master Enchanting must familiarise himself with hundreds of different enchantments, often at great cost, as most enchanted items are several times more expensive than their more mundane counterparts.

Next, the reason that a Mage can find himself utterly unable to cast another spell one moment, but given some time to rest can cast as many spells as before. It is my belief that the Magicka reserves inherently within every living being are constantly refilled by the magic present within our surroundings, and that the reason an experienced Mage is able to cast for far longer periods of time than a novice is because their reserves grow. I have not been able to test this theory, as it would require a space without magic, which simply does not exist within Nirn.

And finally, the reason that an inexperienced Conjurer, no matter what his Magicka reserves are, will be unable to conjure and bind more than one creature at a time. I believe that the Magicka within each of us is at least semi-sentient, and will not allow us to conjure a creature we can not control. An experienced Conjurer will be used to subjugating a summoned Daedroth to his or her will, and it will require little effort, whereas a novice must still focus on controlling the one conjuration. My theory of Magicka being unwilling to harm it's caster is lent further credit by the fact the an area of effect Destruction spell cast at a caster's feet will only harm those surrounding him or her, leaving even the caster's robes untouched.

- From the Journals of the Dragonborn, Volume sixteen.

Author's note: the previous chapter was made up of the backed up musings I'd written over the course of a few weeks, as I have only recently been coerced into uploading what I write by a friend of mine. If you'd prefer I waited until I had a few more ready (three or four perhaps) before uploading them, drop a review saying that. Speaking of which, if anyone has a topic they'd like me to write about, just tell me and I'll try, unless I have either absolutely no idea what it is or nothing of value to say about it.