~ Chapter Fourteen ~

Among the Ruins

Entry 6 ~

9th Hearthfire

So much has happened. Good and bad.

It's only been a few days since Eda and Martin headed for High Hrothgar, and I came here, to the College.

I've made some friends - Willow and Augustus. We call him Gus, and he says he hates it, but I catch him smiling instead of frowning, so he's Gus for now.

I am awake at four today. The air is so cold, but crisp, I decided to come up to the ring-wall and write. It's been a while.

I'd forgotten that the back (front?) of this journal was an old notebook for Eda. I didn't recognize the sigils for what they were until I was thumbing through just now. It's amazing how much I've come to understand, and yet it still feels like I barely know it.

Guess that's the secret of magic.

I ran into Amity last night.

Tolfdir had suggested I check out a few books on Atmoran Runes and Dunmeri scroll making, as well as the books 'The Firmament' and 'Magical Birthsigns,' see if they would help me. When I got there, the librarian (I feel so bad that I cannot spell his name; he's a gruff orc, and I'm scared to ask him to repeat it again) was busy but Amity was helping out.

I don't know how to feel about her.

She hated me - I thought she did - when we met in Whiterun, and she was so arrogant in Shrouded Grove where I killed a man helped them.

But when I asked for help, she just nodded, and found them for me, but when I tried to thank her, she just sighed and said 'Tenacious one, aren't you?'

What does that mean?

Shoulder's better.

Really strange how I've just now noticed that magical healing doesn't work on me, because of the Atronach. Similarly, I'll probably have to work around spells that affect me personally - like invisibility - or that anchor to me, like conjurations. Both are interfered with by my birthsign.

I guess I didn't get into this many dangerous situations in my prior eighteen years of life, but still.

Glad I didn't. Potions are expensive, and hard to make. I've got a few Eda had made just before we parted ways, but I'm going to have to find something to make if flaming demons keep attacking me.

Going to try and get back to writing every day. See if it helps organize my thoughts. I have so many.

(Look up tenacious, but it didn't sound nice)

*Several doodles of a young boy and an older Altmeri woman in the margins.

Several Dunmeri style sigil clusters, labeled

Magelight

Shield (30seconds, longer?)

Fire Globe (ONLY FOR BURNING)

DONT! (reanimation?)

Everything is slightly smudged*

"Good morning, child."

Luz jumped, her book slipping closed and falling out of her lap.

As she scrambled to get it back and open it, trying not to smudge her pages, Lilianthe approached. "My apologies, apprentice. I did not mean to startle you. I am very quiet when I want to be."

"No worries," Luz said, opening her journal and sighing. Most of the ink had dried at least.

"Ah, an artist as well as a mage?" Lilianthe asked, peering over Luz's shoulder.

Luz thought back to what Faralda and Willow had told her, about the trouble of yesterday. Don't trust her…

"Yeah, a little." Luz slowly closed her book. "Just… enjoy it."

"A hobby? How nice."

Luz made to get up. "Well, I've probably wasted enough time up here. Tolfdir is taking us to some ruins today and I've heard it's a long hike. I should get ready."

"Ah, yes. Good luck, child. Dangerous things, Nordic ruins. Fascinating places though."

"Yeah." Luz started to walk away, but a gentle hand full of slim fingers with long, black-painted nails stopped her. She looked up at Lilianthe, but the Altmer was still looking out over Winterhold.

"You said… you had a teacher."

Luz nodded.

"What was her name, again?"

Luz caught the proposition. "I… never told you."

"You mentioned it, yesterday." Lilianthe's eyes drifted down to Luz. "I thought I recognized my sister's staff. She's had it for decades. We trained together. Each received our own staves from our father. A powerful and studious man, well known for his staffwork."

She leaned in, her face betraying a hint of anger. "Then she almost killed him. Blinded him. She was lucky her curse did not pass to him. Not that she would know.

"Edalyndae fled, like a coward. I don't know what plans she has now, but you were wise to come here, and train with… proper mages."

"Eda trained me just fine." Luz felt her spine tightening. "I… I got to go."

Lilianthe watched the young woman hurry back along the wall, but only when she had vanished into the tower did she allow her emotions to break through.

An angry, hot tear was quickly swiped away before a steady breath refocused her, and she returned to her vigil and her thoughts.

"Lilianthe has a sister?" Augustus asked.

Luz nodded.

"And that sister is your old teacher?" Willow asked.

Luz hummed.

"And that teacher is the Lady of flipping Owls?" Augustus hissed, trying to keep his voice down.

The three of them were holding up the rear of the small hiking party as they made their way up the mountain crag behind Winterhold. The day was warm and Tolfdir had said that while they should pack for cold weather, they would likely be camping inside the ruin itself, and to dress accordingly.

Tolfdir - showing his Nordic roots - was happily clambering up the steep sides, with only a hood and some stiff gloves against the wind. Amity followed close behind him, wrapped up in some very nice furlined robes and hood, with strikingly purple mittens.

Augustus likewise had a nice hood, gloves, and boots, and Willow had the ones she had made herself - comfy-looking fur hat and gloves - but Luz had made do with wearing her extra robes over her new ones.

She'd tried a 'warming magelight' rune, but it had ended up setting fire to the table, so she'd put it down for now.

"So," Luz said, making sure the two ahead of them weren't paying attention. "You've heard of her?"

"My dad works for the Black Horse Courier as a…" Gus waved his hands about, trying to find the words. "Conflict specialist? He's been all over the Empire. When stuff got heated up here, he was assigned, and with the College up here and away from the Synod, he wanted me to come too.

"He's had to read up on all sorts of dangerous outlaws and rebels. The Lady of Owls has one of the highest bounties in the Empire, but she's so slippery that it's become one of those 'blue bounties.' Only seasoned professionals will go after her - for prestige or because they've nothing left to lose."

"I knew she had a price," Luz said, making a face. "But you make her sound like a straight-on villain."

"Well, that's just what he's told me," Gus said. "And, like he's always telling me, 'there's always two sides to a story'."

"I wonder what their story is," Luz said, looking back towards the College, balanced precariously on its pinnacle of rock. "Either of you get nervous living there? I mean… look at it."

"Would you three hurry up?" Amity called down to them. "We're supposed to be there by early afternoon. No dawdling."

"Better do what she says," Willow replied, careful to make her voice carry. "Wouldn't want to upset the 'Flames of Oblivion'."

Amity's face turned red and she returned to storming up the path.

"That wasn't really nice," Luz said, nudging Willow.

Willow shrugged. "She tried to hurt me. She did hurt you. Let's just say that I might resent her a bit."

"It wasn't her fault though."

"Maybe." Willow started to pull ahead. "But like Gus said - charms can only affect so much. Maybe it just let her act on her desires."

"When did you two decide to call me anything but my name?" Gus asked, perturbed, moving by Luz as she slowed down.

The pair carried on their conversation while Luz thought.

She hated conflict. It wasn't something she dealt with well. How could she get close enough to Amity to figure it out? It wasn't that she needed everyone to like her.

She just didn't want everyone to hate her.

"Perfectly reasonable," she mumbled to herself, hefting her pack and picking up the pace to catch the group.

Luz had never been to an excavation site before. She wondered idly who had dug out the entrance to Saarthal. She couldn't imagine Tolfdir or any of the others with a pickaxe or shovel.

The inside was just as creepy as Bleak Falls Barrow, but strangely homey as well. The way things were set up, she couldn't imagine Saarthal being a tomb. There were so many stairs, and ramps, it was more like a fortress, like the Oblivion Citadels described in her books.

"Alright everyone," Tolfdir said, placing his pack off to the side of the camp, where three others - a Nord, a Dumer, and a Khajit - were all tending to their own projects. "Master Gane's group has already checked the area for wards and traps. That leaves us with the exciting prospect of artifact discovery and cataloging the reliefs."

Gus stifled a groan as Amity shot him a preemptive look.

"Get yourselves set up," Tolfdir continued, missing the exchange. "We are working with torch- and magelight, so stay up as long as you want, but make sure you get plenty of rest as well. The apprentices ahead of you have done some fine work here, and know the site very well. Feel free to ask them any questions you might have, as well as myself or Master Gane."

As Willow helped Luz and Gus with setting up their tents, Amity rolled out her bedroll and then hurried off, vanishing into the upper floors of the northern section.

After a bit, Luz collected her satchel - weighed down with her book, some spare parchment, ink and quill, and some chalk, as well as her last three potions Eda had given her, all tucked in next to a sandwich - and taking up her staff, she trotted off into the tomb-city.

She eventually heard voices, and held back when she recognized Amity's.

"Here you are, Master Gane. It wasn't easy, but I got that warped soul gem from Enthir."

"Oh, yes. Thank you."

Luz peered around the corner, seeing Amity hand a lanky, older Breton man one of the crystals she'd seen Eda use before - a soul gem.

Not wanting to seem like she was snooping, Luz leaned back around the corner, coughed purposefully and turned the corner completely, ramming straight into Amity.

The two fell into a disorganized heap of tangled limbs and curses.

"You again?" Amity pulled herself free of Luz's slight frame. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, ah," Luz stammered. "Just… following through on what Tolfdir said. Was going to ask if Master Gane here… needed anything."

"As a matter of fact," Arneil said, barely interested enough to look at them as Amity struggled to get her legs back and Luz tried not to make it worse. "I could use a few pairs of younger eyes, willing to look for a 'key stone'."

"I can help you with that," Amity grunted, finally extricating herself from Luz and standing.

"Me too," Luz said, jumping to her feet.

Amity rolled her eyes, but Arneil was already waving them away. "It's a magical item. The passages here make reference to it 'guarding the way'. Look for anything strange and let me know what you find.

"Just be careful. This is a very old ruin; some of it has collapsed, so no bombastic spellwork, if you please."

"I don't need your help," Amity said as Luz followed her toward the other end of the hallway, both of them summoning a magelight. "And don't waste the charge on your staff. I doubt you even know how to restore it."

"Well," Luz said, sheepishly looking at her flickering globe next to Amity's perfect sphere of consistent light. "I've got it now. And… I don't actually. Know how that is. Eda showed me, once, but I didn't really understand it."

"Huh," Amity said, watching the walls, guiding her magelight by hand. "Seems to me that you don't understand much of your own magic."

"Yeah, well… that's why I'm here," Luz laughed sheepishly. "To learn."

Amity paused, glancing over her shoulder at Luz. "What's your game?"

"I really like Glass Jacks," Luz said. "I am amazing at guessing games too. There was this one time-"

"No," Amity growled, patience clearly thin. "What do you want from me?"

"Oh," Luz said, realization dawning. "Oh, no. Nothing. Just… I feel like, maybe, we got off on the wrong foot. And I just wanted to start fresh? You seem not to have many friends here. I thought…"

Amity huffed and turned back to her wall.

"So," Luz said, taking Amity's apathy as a way in. "I'm Luz. From Cropsford."

"Oh, I remember." Amity didn't even turn around. "Though, I've never been. One provincial mud bucket is pretty much the same as all the others."

"Yeah." Luz paused then frowned. "Hey, wait a minute-"

"There." Amity let her magelight drift away, and she approached the wall. She made a complex gesture with her hand and a gleam of purple touched her gold-brown eyes.

Luz looked over her shoulder and gasped. "Wow."

"You can see it?"

"Yeah, like a… a fountain of water?" Luz closed her eyes, thinking. "Or when a brook bubbles up in a forest spring. I… I've never seen anything like that. Is it just magic?"

"It's projecting some kind of warding magic," Amity said, and Luz wasn't sure if she was talking to her or not. "But… I can't see what it defines."

"Is it projecting magic," Luz asked. "Or leaking?"

"What?"

"Well, like I said, it's like a spring of magic, bubbling out of the wall. But springs are caused by movements underground that come to the surface. What if it's not supposed to be doing that?"

Amity shook her head. "Nonsense. Magic isn't like water." She peered at the wall - an intricate engraved series of symbols, containing dragons and Men, about as tall and wide as a door. Around the head of what seemed to be a dragon with a man's face, Luz could see some leather cord, leading down to an intricate stone plaque.

"There. An amulet. That must be the expression of magic." As Amity's fingers curled around the necklace of the amulet, Luz felt the floor shake.

"Ah, Amity?"

The amulet - a small slab of stonework, with runes carved all over it - came away from the stonework easier than Amity clearly expected, and she almost dropped it as something deep in the complex shuddered to life.

Both of them held still for a moment, while the rumbling died away, before sighing and sharing a nervous laugh.

Amity found her composure and unlooped the amulet from the dragon's neck. "Come on. Master Ga-"

The floor crumbled away, and the two vanished with a scream into the dark below.

"Luz? Hey, are you alright?"

Luz groaned as she batted at the bright light in her face. "Eh, Eda… five minutes…"

There was a groan and a slap and Luz sprang up with a yell.

"Sorry," Amity said, looking sincerely apologetic. "You just… you wouldn't wake up."

"I mean," Luz said, holding her cheek. "You didn't have to do it that hard. Ow."

She looked around at the darkness, hints of tomb walls, and a flight of stairs illuminated only just by Amity's magelight.

"Where are we?"

"Saarthal," Amity said standing and helping Luz to her feet. "Well, deeper Saarthal. The floor gave way. These look like the settlement's catacombs."

"So I'm in a dark tomb again," Luz muttered, looking up at the dim hole above them. "Great."

"Hello?" A voice - Tolfdir's - floated down through the collapsed hole, and a few rocks followed it, dislodged from the side. "Are you alright?"

"We're okay, Master Tolfdir," Amity called up. "Just a few bruises."

"Good! Glad to hear you two are okay." There was a brief moment of muttering and then, "Luz? Your friends want to know that you're alright."

"Yeah," Luz called up. "I'm fine. Got my potions."

"Good. Now, we are going to try and get to you, but whatever happened seemed to spring a gate-trap and then damage the mechanism. We cannot get to you right now. Do you see anything?"

Luz looked around for Amity, who had started to wander around the hallway they were in. "Anything?"

"There is a tunnel," Amity called up. "Seems to be a collapsed stairwell. There's a way forward though."

"Excellent." A few more stones seemed to come loose, clattering down and echoing through the stillness of the lower level. "It seems that this area is highly unstable. We are going to try and get to you, but I would advise you two to move onward and try to reach the main internment chamber. These ancient Nordic builders often designed secret exits for their priest caste to come and go as they needed from the inner chambers."

"Might be our best way out," Amity said to Luz, before calling up through the hole. "Alright. We'll try that."

"Is that wise?" Luz asked, following Amity and her magelight down the stairway. "I mean, this is a tomb. And all the tombs I've been in have draugr."

"You have a better idea?" Amity said, unslinging her staff from her back and casting a scatter of magelight across the path ahead of them, letting them dance against walls and the flooded hall.

Luz shrugged and followed Amity, letting her silence provide the answer.

Water sloshed around her ankles as they progressed through the passage, and more than once the shadows of the magelights made one of the interred bodies seem to move.

Unable to take the silence, Luz closed pace with Amity until they were side by side. "So… the other day…"

"What other day?" Amity asked, not looking at Luz.

"With the whole… you know. Flame atronach thing…"

"I got carried away."

"Yeah, yeah, so… I was thinking that-"

"Seems like a dangerous passtime of yours."

Luz stopped. "Okay, we need to have a serious talk about your attitude."

"My attitude?" Amity whipped around, her tightly braided hair missing Luz's face by a few inches. "I am trying to get us out of here in one piece, and you are just wasting time."

"At least I don't insult people who are trying to understand."

"Understand what?"

Luz didn't back down, something that seemed to surprise Amity. She jabbed her in the sternum, bunching her shoulders. "You, Blightward. You're out here, trying to please everyone, and in the process really just pushing away people who have tried to care about you."

"You wouldn't get it."

"Try me." Luz gave Amity a heartbeat to reply, but when the young woman stormed off, she drew up her courage and followed. "I come from a small town whose biggest claim to fame is a footnote in the Champion's story, years after the Oblivion Crisis. I have spent my life wishing and hoping that I would be more than an innkeeper's daughter.

"I get here and realize that everyone I talk to has some family lineage, that they have been doing magic since childhood, or have a special gift or knack. I learned how to make light a week ago."

"That's just it," Amity snapped, whirling back on Luz. "You walk in here, doing your weird magic, and just expect the answers to fall together for you.

"You have no idea what I've been through. What I have to measure up to, who I have to impress. You are blessed with skin that can absorb magicka, and you don't even use what you have."

"How am I blessed?" Luz asked. "I can't cast spells like everyone else here, and I am terrified of messing something up, hurting someone, because…" She stopped short, unable to say it out loud.

"Because you don't know what you're doing?" Amity pursed her lips, the pair of them standing in the water long enough for Amity's lights to start winking out.

As she hurriedly started to recast them, Luz spotted a dim blue light at the far end that hadn't gone out yet.

Wanting to be done with the conversation but unsure of where they now stood, she instead made for the light.

She'd only taken a few steps when he heard the groaning and a one-eyed draugr stumbled forward.

"Amity?"

"What?" Amity followed Luz's gaze and instantly her hurt tone shifted. "Watch my back. Draugr are surprisingly sneaky." She thrust out her hand, purple-black flames licking up from her palm. "Flames of Oblivion, rise!"

The water boiled away and the flaming, feminine form of the atronach roared into their plane. "Atronach, burn!"

Luz had to turn away from the living inferno, hearing the sloshing of water behind them. Two draugr lumbered from the darkness, too close for Luz to do anything clever.

She leveled Eda's staff at them and willed its enchantment into being.

Two bolts of flame took one of the draugr, sending it careening into a pillar where it smashed apart. Another three brought down the other one, just as another draugr rolled out of its alcove, its clawed, boney hands snapping with ice.

With no dry ground - and certainly no time - Luz raised her arms to protect her face and felt the biting steel of a frost-blast wash over her, her skin prickling.

Though it was certainly cold - numbingly cold - Luz shook the feeling off and realized that except for a few cuts and knicks from ice crystals, she was unscathed.

Way to go, Atronach, she thought, grinning smugly at the draugr.

It didn't seem phased, and when it hauled back, a long spear of ice forming in its hand, Luz's smile faded. "Oh, crud."

The spear flew by, but the second one took Luz in the leg, sending her into the water.

Coughing, spluttering, and fumbling for her staff, Luz managed to roll over in time to see Amity unleash a torrent of flames into the draugr, igniting its wet rags. "Atronach, impale!"

The atronach soared over Amity, diving down like a hawk to plunge into the chest of the thing, causing it to fall apart at the seams.

Luz held her breath for a moment, ears straining to pick up the slightest sound.

"Is that all of them?" She winced, trying to pull herself up on her staff. Her side was tingling and hot, and she could feel blood spilling down her leg.

"I think so."

"Are you alright?" Luz could hear the strain in Amity's voice as if she was biting down on an intense amount of pain.

"Yes! Gods, stop worrying about me."

But Luz could see the cracked, red skin, and could smell the burned flesh.

Amity's palms were burned.