From The Immigrants' Guide to Skyrim:
I have mentioned before that magic works differently here. Most people have at least a little magical ability, enough to start a fire or put a sealing spell on a food barrel to keep the contents from spoiling. Even if you have no aptitude for magic now, you may develop the potential for it here in Skyrim. If you cannot stomach the idea, don't come. Don't come with the idea that you're going to recreate the Tevinter Imperium here with yourself as First Magister, either. You are certain to be disappointed; the most you'll probably manage is to become just another pathetic necromancer living in a hole in the ground which smells like death.
The difference between the worlds, as I've stated before, is the abundance of lyrium in Thedas and the absence of it in this one.
"The skull is just for show," Eryka said, following my gaze with her eyes. "My enchanting station doesn't have one, but it functions just the same. It's the focusing orb that does the work. That is, when I have candles for it. They're the fire aspect. I'll show you when we get home. I've got a whole bunch of odd bashed up enchanted weapons and mostly worn out gear you can disenchant to get started. It's practically impossible to sharpen a sword or mend armor once it has an enchantment on it."
"I'd be very interested to learn how to place enchantments," I said, glancing over at the court wizard, who was still busy analyzing my decayed lyrium potion. "Is enchanting something else you picked up in the last few months?"
"No. Mother Hamal, the High Priestess of the Temple of Dibella, is one of the best enchanters in all of Skyrim. She taught me years ago. It's something that served me well even as a potter. Dishes that keep food hot and wine coolers that don't need ice sell very well."
I don't know that I'll ever get used to such casual use of magic. I know I'd like to.
I tasted the fire salts, and recognized them as a form of lyrium, not so much watered down as tamed. Eryka had explained more about Atronachs, how they wore a physical form in this world as we might wear a coat. Their bodies were not them; their sparks of life merely returned to the plane from whence they came when they 'died' or were killed. Having been given life and form, the stuff of Oblivion—lyrium—changed into something you could safely give a baby for his teething pains. When used as directed, of course.
In the end, Arcadia's best guess was that the potion had been unstable, the work of a raw beginner at alchemy, and after Eryka was done bartering with her, we had left to consult with the other professional magical practitioner in Whiterun, the Jarl's court mage.
Farengar Secret-Fire took the remaining potion I had on me, shook it up just as Arcadia had, and then began running tests on it, dipping little bits of paper into it, dripping it into solutions in jars, and generally ignoring Eryka and me. Therefore we were making small talk.
I also took the opportunity to look around. Dragonsreach was by far the most impressive castle I'd ever seen, either inside or out. I could only see the Jarl himself from a distance, as he was holding court and hearing out two smallholders in loud dispute over whether or not one owned the other stud fees for the colt born to the other's mare because of a broken fence.
Almost as impressive in their way were the court wizard's quarters. They were clean, well-lit, had no excessive occult trappings or suspicious blood stains and generally said that wizard was quite a respectable profession here. Something to aspire to.
"Dibella—I don't think you've mentioned that Divine yet," I continued.
"She's the goddess of beauty, patroness of inspiration, and the protector of girls and women," Eryka replied. "There are quite a few men who have committed…offenses against believers only to find that they are never again able to so offend."
It was quite clear what she was hinting at. "It seems to me it would be more to the point if the goddess could do something about it at the time rather than afterward."
"There was a time when she could do that," Eryka nodded, "before the Oblivion Crisis. Since then, neither the Divines nor the Daedric Princes are allowed to touch the world directly. Now they can only accept petitions at shrines. Although the Princes do tend to cheat…"
"You. Anders, was it? You say you are of Solstheim?" Farengar straightened up and leveled a piercing look at me.
"Yes," I asserted.
"And it was there that you came by this potion?"
"Yes," I repeated.
"When you bought it, it was not in this state. It was a good potion, and of a kind you have taken before. Is this so?" Farengar persisted.
"Yes." My part of this conversation was getting rather tedious, not to mention putting me on the spot.
"Solstheim is known to be a very strange place, but I had not known it was as strange as that. I may have to take a leave of absence to travel there, but not before I procure lead-lined gear. That is the only known protection against the ills that follow upon contact with such a concentrated substance as this was. You have been very, very lucky, young man." Farengar was as condescending as Eryka had warned, and he compounded that flaw with a droning, flat voice.
"What sort of ills? And what is, or was, that substance? Why did it decay?" I knew fully well how dangerous lyrium was, of course, but I was playing a role.
"I think a demonstration will aid greatly in my explanation," he began pedantically, taking a loosely corked bottle from one shelf and another similarly corked bottle from a cupboard. Placing the bottles on his desk, he uncorked each "I do not know how it is explained in Solstheim, but it is well known in the civilized world that what we call magic entered the world when Magnus, the god of sorcery, withdrew from its creation, spilling his substance and casting it forth over Mundus, the world."
"Just like a man," I heard Eryka mutter, and I had to cough to cover my laugh. Farengar was not being deliberately funny. He really was that stuffy, not unlike Justice in certain regards. Outside in the Great Hall, the smallholders were having a similarly themed argument concerning the wayward mare and the straying stallion.
"It is that substance, his substance, which we call magic, and it exists in greater or lesser measure in all things both living and dead, but the loss of it cost him dearly," Farengar went on, taking a dish of white crystals from his enchanting table. "He also tore a massive hole through the fabric of Oblivion leading to Aetherius, the home of the Divines which encompasses Sovngarde and the other afterlife planes."
"Now, " he said, taking the dish and pouring about half the contents into one palm, "the liquid you see in these bottles is water. This is nothing more than common table salt." He funneled that handful of salt into one bottle and then repeated the process with the rest of the salt the other bottle, replaced the corks, and pushed them in my direction. "Agitate these, if you would be so good. Shake them up."
"I am aware of what 'agitate' means," I said, demonstrating by doing so.
"Very good. Through that hole in the planes leaked some of the substance of Oblivion, settling upon the earth. At that same time, the heart of the god Lorkhan was torn from him in the throes of the creation of Mundus and cast down upon the earth, causing an immense crater which collapsed upon itself, throwing up great clouds of matter and covering the raw Oblivion, compressing it into solid form and encapsulating it. For many centuries it remained so, with the natural action of the earth mounding up upon it and creating what was known as the Red Mountain. Keep agitating," he gestured.
Eryka reached out for one of the bottles and took over the task of agitation while Farengar continued to talk. "While Red Mountain erupted several times before the Third Era, it then that the eruption was so large that vast clouds of raw Oblivion were uncovered, burned, and blown into the air, falling back in the form of ash over Morrowind and Solstheim. This caused the Great Blight—don't drop that!"
The reason I fumbled the bottle was because it now all fit together. The Blight here—the Blights of Thedas. The Maker, the god who left the playground and ran home with his toys was also Magnus, the god who pulled out and tore a hole between worlds. Trailing the raw substance of Oblivion behind him. he used it, along with the other broken bits of worlds, to make the world of Thedas. Of course I didn't know the details; this was intuition, not proof.
"I think that is enough agitation. Place the bottles on my desk," Farengar instructed.
We did so. Salt still lay at the bottom of my bottle, its crystalline edges softened, but still solid. In Eryka's bottle, there was no trace of it. "It is a matter of oversaturation," he explained. "The water in your bottle already had as much salt as could be dissolved in it. I use it to clean my teeth, which is why I had it on hand. The other bottle had fresh well water in it. The area of Solstheim you are from must be impregnated so thoroughly with the stuff of raw Oblivion that it can remain whole. In areas not so afflicted, Oblivion decays rapidly, its substance dissipating in the air. Is your area much afflicted with the Blight?"
"You have no idea," I replied grimly. Lyrium. Lyrium the poison, lyrium which enhanced magic and put mages into the Fade at their Harrowing. Lyrium which caused paranoia, irrationality, emotional instability. Lyrium which killed. Lyrium which so saturated Thedas that it existed in solid form. Lyrium which impalpably radiated harm as a burning coal radiated heat.
Lyrium, which I had carried around with me in my belt pouch, infused in my staff, the head of which was always by my head. Lyrium, which Justice thought so beautiful, which sang to him…
What might have happened to me had I remained in Thedas, where lyrium was everywhere? Might I have lost my own mind? Happily, that I shall never know.
A/N: A very bad week. Much work, much craziness. No time for writing, but I stole some hours and wrote this anyway. Thank you to all my readers and especially my reviewers.