Malachite opened his eyes and groaned. He looked around and sound that he was in a putrid-smelling cell underneath Dragonsreach. His cellmate, a Kajiit, was lying on the floor next the hole in the ground that was their toilet, looking very much dead.

Malachite looked at himself and groaned again. His armor and clothes were gone, replaced by leather moccasins that were too small and rags that started at his shoulder and barely passed his knee. And of course, his weapons were gone.

Malachite tentatively got to his feet and tip-toed over to his cell mate. Prodding the Kajiit with a finger, Malachite asked "Hello?"

The single word echoed throughout the entire prison. The other man in Malachite's cell shot up like a rocket to sitting position. Malachite raised his hands in surrender and backed up against the wall. "Oh!" The man smiled, lowering his hands and sitting back down on the filthy ground. "My name is Tiber."

Malachite pressed himself against the wall to make sure he wasn't dreaming. "Tiber Septim? Talos? Ysmir? The God of Divines? Really? Talos is a Khajiit?"

Tiber chuckled and laughed until he was rolling on the disgusting floor. He wiped his eyes and began to talk again.

"No, I am not a god. My parents were skooma addicts and named me after Talos in hopes that I could become a god, too. Doesn't really make sense, but it turned out that I did get my fair share of fame. And look where I ended up for saving the world, eh? Prison."

Malachite slid down onto his cot, shaking his head. "Saving the world? Maybe you are crazy."

Tiber looked up at Malachite sadly and said "I'm the one who stopped Alduin from taking over the world. I defeated the Silver Hand all on my own, but I always wore a hood to hide my identity."

It was Malachite's turn to laugh. "No, the Dragonborn did that. I met him myself earlier. He's the reason I'm in this rat hole. He's a poop.

He smiled, but it was less happy this time, more like remembering when he used to be free. "The man you met is named Gunjar Piketail. He is the original Dragonborn. He forced the priests' of High Hrothgar to teach him their shouts and then slaughtered them. He became the most powerful man in all of Tamriel. Except for me, nobody could stop him. And I failed.

"I challenged him to a duel at the Throat of the World, where only Dragonborns could reach. We had a fierce battle, but he managed to catch me off guard and drain away my shouts and launch me off the mountain with the Fus Ro Dah shout. That is the most basic shout, which might be why I remember it, but none of the others. I have only learned one other shout since then. Here it is."

At this point, Malachite was expecting him to say something in ancient dragon tongue, but something else happened. The dragon markings for 'Whirlwind' appeared on the floor. They burned red and Malachite felt a rushing of wind as he experienced how Tiber had learned the shout. Malachite felt the pain of tumbling down a mountain and only stopping a dragon burial site, where he quickly learned the first word of the Whirlwind Sprint shout and used it to escape the attacking dragon priest.

Malachite felt himself rolling down the rocky mountain and felt his leg snap to pieces as he landed on the roof of High Hrothgar after being launched airborne by a slanted boulder. He used the shout once to dodge a firebolt from the dragon priest high above, but he went too far and fell off of the roof and into the waiting custody of the guards of Whiterun. It faded to black and when Malachite woke up again, he was back in the cell with Tiber.

Malachite gasped and checked his legs for injuries. They were fine. "What in the name of Talos was that?"

"You experience my learning of the word of power, so now you too have learned it. I promise the next two will be less nerve wracking, as I wasn't falling down a mountain or being attacked by a horde of warriors and a dragon priest in either experience."

Malachite experienced similar trances for Ro and Dah, but Tiber was right- they were less nerve wracking. All he saw was fighting off a couple of drougrs and learning the sh0ut from the ancient wall.

Malachite grinned at the thought of knowing words of power within 24 hours of becoming the Dragonborn. Tiber spoke as Malachite returned from the Dah trance, "Now that you know these, you need to go out into the world and learn more shouts and more skills so you can face Gunjar."

Malachite responded "Why do I have to face Gunjar? Why can't I just go home with the ability to shout? Why does it make a difference?"

"Gunjar knows you now. He will not rest until you are dead. He knows that you have the potential to become infinitely more powerful than him and steal his fame and fortune."

Malachite crinkled his nose. "What if I don't actually want to do that, even though he knocked me out and put me in prison?"

Tiber sighed. "Gunjar does not care. He will kill you just in case you decide to change your mind later. You need to learn skills and powers to rival his and bring him down. If not for personal revenge, do it for me, please? I'm afraid I can't leave with you."

"Why not?"

Tiber gestured to his legs. "I am paralyzed from my fall down the mountain. I have been in this cell for fourteen years waiting for someone strong enough to avenge me. You have more than enough potential. I have friends who can pick you up at the Whiterun stables if you can run that far after I get you out of Dragonsreach."

Malachite nodded. "Sounds easy enough."

Tiber chuckled. "As long as you have no trouble with killing a few guards."

Malachite nodded and asked "How do we- I mean I get out?"

"Simple." Tiber scooted awkwardly to the cell door and pushed it open.

Malachite almost burst out laughing, but instead crouched low and started to leave when Tiber loudly whispered his last piece of advice. "Go all the way down the hallway on the left and you'll find a chest. It shouldn't be locked and it has my glass mace in it. Take and get to the stables. Go!"

Malachite nodded and waddled down the hallway and found the weapon. Then a guard appeared in front of him.

"Prisoner on the loose! Prisoner is loose!"

There was a thump and Malachite watched him fall to the ground. Then, he sprinted for the stairs. When he reached the top, he tackled a guard who was standing there waiting. He slammed the mace into the guard's stomach and picked up his shield. An archer came from the doorway across the gap in the floor leading to the dungeons. Malachite blocked one arrow and then threw the shield like a discus and it slammed into the archer's throat, knocking him unconscious.

Malachite reached the throne room and burst out the doors before any of the guards could even register what happened. Malachite climbed onto the roof of Dragonsreach again, but this time he jumped off towards the building far below. When he was even with the roof of that building, he yelled "Wuld!" and felt air rush around him as he shot forwards like an arrow from a bow.

Speaking of arrows and bows, archers around the city were firing at him as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop like this, and eventually over the guard wall of Whiterun.

Malachite dropped onto the wooden bridge over the drawbridge, but was going too fast and shot right through the planks and onto the ground. More guards burst through the city doors and charged him as Malachite hobbled towards the stables. The guards had halved the distance between them and the prisoner on the loose when Malachite saw a strange black horse that seemed out of place, thought that must be the help Tiber was talking about!, and jumping on the horse. He kicked it forwards, but it refused to move.

The guards were closing in. Just as Malachite noticed that the horses looked like they were red, a female voice said "Excuse me, but that's my horse."

Then, Malachite felt a prick in the back of his neck and he promptly fell asleep.