{ === + === }
.
.
[3rd Person Camera, Some Days After]
[Solitude]
.
The Skyrim Thalmor office was in an uproar. Or, as much of an uproar as the Thalmor did at the cusp of dawn.
A pair of Thalmor Captains sit in their office, reading through a small stack of notes and documents delivered throughout the night. One of the Captains (henceforth Cap A) picks up one particularly thick-looking note and reads it while sipping on his tea.
He then reads it again with a look of slight incomprehension on his face.
He then reads it a third time with the bewildered look of a man who had just learned to read.
He stops reading it the fourth time and just frowns at The Other Captain (Cap B), facing him.
Cap B, as it were, was in charge of the night shift, and the two were expected to touch base on information and remove ambiguities before the day starts. Cap B, who had read the report, shrugs.
"I don't know what more you were hoping for." Cap B shrugs. "A Dragon hit Falkreath and was repelled by the Windcallers." She rubs her face tiredly. "I despise dragons. So much work for us."
"I…can see that." Cap A says. "But why Falkreath?" He figured they would hit Whiterun, with its citadel's history as a 'dragon prison' and all.
Cap B's reply is a flat stare. "My friend."
"I know, I know." Cap A laughs lightly and finishes his tea. "'Dragons are cats, inscrutable, loud, and love high places'. What else do we know?" He sifts through a smaller pile of notes on the Falkreath attack.
Cap B flips through her own stack. "Very little." She plucks out a few pages. "But what we know is consistent. The Dragon appeared early in the morning, tore through the town, before being engaged by the Windcallers from above."
"Above the dragon…" Cap A makes a note about them flying. "How'd they manage that?" He had the notes from the Emperor's visit and had no illusions that the flight shown there was all he could do.
Cap B's tone is nothing if not direct. "The Windcaller estate is apparently in the possession of a machine that allows them to fly."
Cap A chuckles. "Given how you said that I assume multiple sources have attested to it."
Cap B nods. "Our homeland is only beginning to experiment with useful flying machines. How did this nobody in a backwater like Skyrim figure it out first?" Morrowind's methods of transportation did not count for her due to the simple fact that they're from Morrowind and are thus beneath her notice.
Cap A's response is to tap the third stack of notes, all dedicated to Windcaller communications and growing by the week.
Cap B deflates. "Fair…Do you think they know we're intercepting their messages?"
Cap A taps the Windcaller stack again. "Do you think they have faith in their encryption? More than we do in ours?" Standard Thalmor tactic is to have multiple layers of defenses with messages, so as to know whether the delivery route is being tampered with. To the best of their knowledge, there were no such defenses for the Windcallers yet: apart from the messages being encrypted they were treated like the average monthly mail.
Cap B stares at her own Windcaller stack. "I'd have faith in my encryption as well if it hadn't been cracked at all."
Both Captains take a moment to sigh theatrically. One of their subordinates had sent a letter to their friend back in the Aldmeri homeland complaining about the sheer difficulty of what they had to do, and by chance that letter had been picked up by a particularly fussy superior, forcing the department to scramble and explain why, apparently, there exists a faction in Skyrim whose method of communication is utterly opaque to the Thalmor.
"I don't see why he's so adamant about this, it's not like we know nothing about the Windcallers." Cap A says after a minute of silence. "And it's not like they're the only up-and-coming family in Skyrim with clout."
"He probably just has his ego bruised." Cap B says dismissively. "Besides, you know what we do to those up-and-coming families."
"I do." Cap A says. "I'm just surprised it hasn't happened to our beloved dragon fanatics yet." He flips to a page detailing Atra and Alma's movements within Winterhold down to the minute. "Think it's about time?"
Cap B sips her tea. "Ash Windcaller has been bedridden ever since their bout with the Dragon. I'll be surprised if the Winterhold team hasn't taken action already."
Cap A flips through some more papers, grimacing at their work for the day. "Do you think they'll cooperate?"
Cap B laughs, long and hard. "It will be a good lesson for those who believe that threats run the world." She begins drafting a note. "The sooner we Thalmor are rid of that particular element, the better it is for everyone."
Cap A smirks. "No complaints here."
For all of their interest in seeing the end of the Thalmorian traditions of abduction and blackmail, the two Captains do preciously little to actually stop it, and continue about their business of keeping up with the flood of information today.
…
[3rd Person Camera, Roughly the same time]
[Winterhold]
…
Atra was suffering. A good kind of suffering.
Ever since she and her sister became students in the College of Winterhold, they had their understanding of magic broken down and rebuilt several times over. With their base as given by Ash, and regular correspondence, she was at least confident that, before they were to leave, they would be able to craft a spell that would wow Ash and shock him to no end.
When Delphine pointed out that Ash would be impressed no matter what they did, Atra insisted that they wanted to really surprise him, rather than just being perfunctorialy impressed. Delphine thought about pointing out how that's not a word, but decided to drop matters.
That aside, they were rather enjoying their life in Winterhold. By virtue of being well-mannered, fair, and generally approachable, most students in the College had a positive opinion of them. Outside the college, they were fast friends with Simon and Valeria, who had taken the test to join the College and were very recently admitted into the college themselves. The four were basically a clique at this point, and Delphine more or less let the two older children play chaperone while she focused on picking up the slack with regards to Draconic research.
Not that the research was going well, anyways. According to Delphine, Winterhold just did not have enough relevant information that wasn't based around sheer speculation, and the library, as impressive as it was, was too geared towards magical education to be of further use for their incredibly niche and, frankly, slightly dangerously political topic.
The thought that she would have to leave Winterhold sooner or later made her a bit sad, and Atra felt just a twinge of annoyance that Ash might make them leave on his terms instead of their own.
Still, she had her next class to worry about, and she joins Alma, pays out her share of the lamb skewers that Alma purchased for both of them, and enters the College. They find their classroom and stop abruptly at the sight of the man next to the door. Other students passing by give the man very brief and polite greetings before moving on. Alma saw no reason to do different.
"Hello, Professor Ancano." Alma says politely and professionally. "Good morning."
Ancano bows. "Ah, good morning, Alma, Atra." He has an unusually downcast expression on his face. "Do you have a moment?"
Alma weighs her options. "Sure." She doesn't yet see a downside.
Ancano leads them to the room opposite their classroom, currently unused beyond a few people reviewing their notes. Privacy is an illusion in the college.
"As you are aware, I am a ranking member of the Thalmor presence here in Winterhold." Ancano says in a low tone, but still can be heard by everyone in the room. It wasn't exactly a secret.
Atra nods. Alma narrows her eyes.
Ancano sighs. "A message has come from Falkreath." He says. "From our branch at work in the city. You're aware that your father was responsible for repelling the dragon attack, correct?"
Atra nods again, much more slowly this time. News traveled fast, and rumors even faster. The College, as aloof and anti-Thalmor as the rest of the Empire, nevertheless enjoyed the speed at which rumors tend to permeate its walls.
Ancano takes the deep breath of a man delivering some difficult news. "We have received word that he was gravely injured in the attack." He delivers a folded note.
…
The girls go to class in a state of utter confusion. The letter was genuine, it had Jake's handwriting, and, as Jake often did, told them of what had happened between the times that he wrote. And, as Jake often did, provided them no directions on what they should be doing next. That Ash did not write was normal, as it meant he would likely be at the house waiting for them.
Buried as they were in their thoughts, they didn't take in much of the lesson. The professor, no stranger to seeing students in some form of emotional duress, advised that they retire early.
So they do. The girls excuse themselves and find Ancano still outside the classroom, talking to someone they didn't know.
"Falkreath is not doing well." Ancano says, answering their unasked question. "And Lord Windcaller has yet to arrive at your home." Seeing their rising panic, he produces a wooden plaque the size of his hand. "As people say, 'things happen'. If you need a fast boat to Dawnstar, this will arrange it at the Thalmor part of the docks."
Without question, Atra takes the plaque. In her hands, it's large enough to need both of hers. She squeezes it close to her heart and rushes off, Alma in tow.
The two men watch the girls disappear around the corner.
"I'm surprised that worked so well, Ancano." The other man says.
"I'm surprised myself." Ancano replies dismissively. "Do not bother me again with such trivialities. If you need to lie to a child in the future, do so on your own time." He is, after all, quite busy with the Eye of Magus.
…
[1st Person Camera, About Three Days Later]
…
Uuuuuuuuuugh.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
This sucks.
So, let's review.
Following the fight against the Dragon, the Windcallers are now celebrated across the realm as being True Heirs of Skyrim, nevermind the actual results of the fight.
Falkreath is a political write-off. Most of the city is fine, but the major structures such as the Jarl's Longhouse cannot be rebuilt quickly. Some granaries and warehouses have also been lost in the action.
Again, I'm calling it a political write-off because the actual damage on the ground isn't so high that it can't be recouped, it would just be a matter of time. However, things like refilling the granaries require input from the neighboring villages, and that's political capital that Sid's not necessarily interested in expending at the moment.
He has a lot on his plate, up to and including where to stay for the foreseeable future–if he stays at the house of a noble it would be seen as favoring that noble, so on so forth. Stupid political stuff.
As news and rumors of the dragon attack goes out, Lakeview gets more and more visitors. Aria is super annoyed at how many people are here to marry her™ and is itching to do something away from town, and I believe I have that something in mind.
Jake is basically the most popular dude there is and has to go to all sorts of events, because it would be weird not to. Something something morale something something. I wasn't really paying attention when Sid laid it out.
I…am badly injured.
So the Dragon chewed my body up real bad. I have amazing healing powers and have repaired most of the damage, but there's a lot of soft tissue and little things that I haven't been able to fully fix yet, and therefore I am in almost near constant pain. I have to walk with a crutch, when I can walk at all.
T'nerem and T'yanna are taking care of me, and, again, big tiddie catgirls, but the near constant pain kind of spoils the fun, not gonna lie.
…Also the dragon kind of destroyed everything in my pelvic region and I frankly do not know enough about the male reproductive system's inner workings to rebuild it properly. There's gonna be some seriously disturbed bandits or whatever by the time I can get it to work again.
Anyways, onto more important things.
As of three days ago, Alma and Atra departed from Winterhold on a Thalmorian boat to Dawnstar and have not been heard of since. Dawnstar, incidentally, seems to be having issues sleeping, so that's that particular side quest popping up as well.
We were alerted of her going missing via coded mail from Delphine, which also bore traces of being opened, so…yeah. We're not exactly surprised at this happening with this kind of timing.
For context: Warwolf still operates as a mercenary group, albeit one that's rather overtly connected to a noble house. They have a base in Whiterun. I send letters to Whiterun. I also fly faster than the mail can get there.
This is how I know our mail is being read, because I'm both the sender and receiver of those mails. This is also why we went with unencrypted mail when it comes to correspondence between us and the girls.
Me and Jake had plenty of time to game this out, actually, and we came to the consensus that it was just safer to use no encryption despite the girls probably being heavily watched, because we both reasoned that, if push came to shove and the Thalmor really, really wanted to know how our encryption worked, there was nothing stopping them from putting a ring of invisibility on a dude and just sneaking him into the house along with the next letter we sent.
Granted, there's nothing stopping them from doing it right now, but still.
Thus, Aria is going on an adventure. I've given her a formal quest as 'Ash Windcaller' to rendezvous with Atra and Alma and find out what's wrong with Dawnstar. Hopefully this will trigger her Dragonborn questline shenanigans and give her quest markers pointing out where the two are.
In the meantime, I will continue to recuperate.
By fluffing T'nerem's ears?
She offered.
…
[3rd Person Camera]
…
Aria races through Whiterun on her giant wolf, moving at a full sprint. Per the norm for a Dragonborn, she runs for a day and a little extra and arrives at Dawnstar a little past sundown. She unsummons her wolf on the outskirts of the town and walks the rest of the way into the unwalled city.
Everybody looks tired. She notes immediately of what few people were on the streets. A city-wide nightmare, was it? Unfortunately, she did not receive quest markers for Atra and Alma and had to search for them the normal way.
Aria recalls the map of the city, the parts that she's familiar with, and makes her way down to the docks.
Dawnstar, despite being a port city, is not one that gets a heavy amount of year-round traffic–the currents and temperature prevents it. Any ships that arrive outside of schedule are therefore incredibly noticeable, and its cargo even more so.
It doesn't take Aria long, nor much of her coin, to figure out that the Thalmorian ship carrying four children was quartered in the commercial district of the city. Upon learning that it was four, not two, she frowns.
The additional two definitively non-adults were odd, but Aria kept up with the girls' mail enough to have a good guess as to who they might be. It also made finding them easier: packs of children always drew attention, more so when it smelled like Thalmor kidnapping.
Thus, it's only an additional hour before Aria pinpointed the inn.
As she traveled, she was keenly aware of how awake the town remained. Not in the same fashion as Lakeview–for whatever reason Ash made it a point to support a vibrant night market–but more…apprehensive.
I guess the nightmares are really keeping everyone up. Aria notes. They hinted that something powerful and hidden may be the cause of it. She smirks slightly. Maybe something malicious? She smelled loot.
The inn was…well, it was very standard. Not too sizable, not too small, enough room for a dozen people to stay, maybe three dozen for food and carousing. The children, as it so happens, were sitting in a corner having dinner with the two Thalmor minders nearby.
Atra sees her first and waves. Aria approaches, noting how the Thalmor made no hostile action at all towards her. The children however–Alma especially–were more of a 'maybe we should run' mindset.
"Good evening, ladies." Aria says, not taking a seat. "Mind telling me why you're here, and not in Winterhold?"
"Is it true that f-er, Ash got hurt?" Atra asks instead.
Aria debated on how to break the news for a fraction of a second. "More or less." She shrugs. "He got chewed up by the dragon but he's fine." She glances at the Thalmor.
The Thalmor minders barely stir. So they knew that much. She notes.
"Chewed up?!" The third child, the girl…whatever her name was, exclaims. "And he's fine?! What do you mean, fine?"
One of the Thalmor minders speaks up. "Ash Windcaller is one of the most powerful practitioners of magic in Skyrim, if not all of Tamriel. Small wonder that a Dragon could not put him down."
Aria could see that, despite their distrust of the Thalmor, Atra and Alma were nevertheless quite proud of that statement.
Aria looks to the minder. "So…why are you here, then? I thought you would've left for Falkreath by now."
"We were, but…" The minder gestures to the crowd within the inn. "The Windcaller children insisted to help." A half-truth. Had the children not overtly stopped to help they would've been on a boat to Solitude by now.
Aria stares at Alma.
Alma fidgets. "We learned magic, and father always tries to help people, so we put two and two together."
Atra nods furiously. The two had an inkling that they were in trouble and wanted to try and stop it. Aria may not be the one to deliver out punishment, but she did not try to keep secrets.
The third girl raises her hand. "I started it? I wasn't sleeping well and the two were worried."
Aria sighs. "Yeah, fine, alright, we'll look into it."
She then gets caught up to speed on the party in question. Atra and Alma, accompanied by their friends Valeria Vautrine (15-ish, breton girl, redhead) and Simon (14-ish, breton boy, brown hair). All of them, per their status as students in Winterhold, are some level of magic wielder. The friends, she notes, were not students of the College, but of Winterhold, which meant they were not yet skilled enough to enter the College. That they very recently became new students of the College was something that Aria may have read but summarily ignored.
The Thalmor minders also introduced themselves, but Aria didn't bother remembering their names.
Still, there was the looming monster of subjecting themselves to nightmares. After some debate of trying to stay up through the entire night, Aria goes to bed first just to experience the nightmares. The children, not wanting to experience the nightmares again but rather sleep deprived, goes to bed as well.
The Thalmor minders briefly consider the merits of getting some help and forcibly transporting the children to the docks, but decide very quickly that trying to do something that looked deeply illegal in a city full of sleep-deprived cranky anti-Thalmor folk would end poorly.
…
Next morning, Aria wakes up with a tremendous headache. Per the rumors, the city was suffering through nightmares. If her own experiences through the night were anything to go by, it wasn't something specific, like (say) seeing Ash and Jake actually eaten by the dragon and having it fly away. Rather, it was just a near constant buzzing, for a lack of a better term, and she feels terrible in the morning.
"I regret everything." One of the handlers mutters as they reconvene. "Hey, Silver."
Aria didn't remember their names, she wasn't about to care that they didn't remember hers. "What?"
The handler jerks his head to the innkeep. "They said somebody tried to tackle the issues already and failed." He had arrived some time earlier and snooped around for info.
Aria nods and, after a little asking around, gets a better view of the situation.
In short, a priest of some god or other had arrived earlier in the week, hired some mercenaries, and attempted to investigate the issue, which he had claimed originated from the ruins of an old castle some distance away from Dawnstar.
The fact that he did not succeed and none of the mercenaries returned told her all she needed to know about what happened next.
"So it's actually dangerous. Who would've thought." Handler A says flatly. "Well, kids? Still feel like being heroes?"
The four children share some apprehensive glances. Death is not necessarily a new topic, given the civil war, but the logical gap between death and heroism still takes a bit to resolve.
"At the very least, I'm curious." Atra says. "Something that can affect an entire city has to be a powerful magical artifact, right? Maybe we can use it somehow."
Alma comes around to the idea. "Oh yeah…" The two sisters have spent far too long listening to rumors of what an incredibly powerful magical artifact (such as a certain giant orb) can do to Dragons.
Aria stands. "First things first, we do a little scouting. No crazy stuff until then, alright?" The girls nod.
The party leaves after a brief breakfast and, after getting a little direction, makes for the abandoned fortress.
It's a crisp, bright morning with no clouds and little snow, making the hour-long trip easy, if cold. Still, it's a non-stop march for a group of children, and by the time the fortress is within reach all the kids are breathing hard.
"We've really been lax on our daily training." Atra says. "This is embarrassing."
"She's setting the pace rather hard." Handler A says. "Good job keeping up." He's only slightly out of breath.
"If this is all it takes to tire you out, then you're not exploring that fortress." Aria says lightly.
Handler B chuckles. "You talk like you know what's in there already."
Aria laughs. "It's fucked, what else could it be?" She draws her sword. "Look alive!"
In front of the fortress gates, feasting on the body of a slain, slightly rotting bear, are three ice specters. They see the incoming party and slither through the air.
Aria draws a finger over her sword and covers it in flames. "First in." With pinpoint precision, she stabs the closest specter straight in the jaw. With a burst of magic, the flames of the sword explodes and shatters the specter into the wind.
Specter number two, originally targeting Handler B, changes its mind and goes for Aria's flank. Specter three continues its charge.
Aria dodges Specter 2's bite and punches it with a flame-covered fist, staggering it. With a flourish to her follow-up, she beheads the Specter and, for style points, twirls and back kicks the remains with flames.
Specter 3, meanwhile, endures through a gauntlet of poorly aimed and low powered jets of flames.
"Oh, why is it so fast?!" Valeria grits her teeth. She lands one grazing hit out of a shotgun blast of shots.
"If only it flew straight…!" Simon's not doing better. He's trying for meaningful if fewer shots, and has hit none of them.
"I'll go first." Atra and Alma high-fives, and Alma moves back to knead her magic. Atra pelts the specter with jolts of Sparks.
"Oh, yes, that works better." Valeria mumbles and switches to the faster spell for better results. Her shots scatter and plink against the Specter's natural resistance, but at least she feels better.
Simon did not learn long range Sparks and therefore has nothing meaningful to contribute.
At this point, Aria has done murdering her targets and is watching, relaxed but vigilant.
A half minute and some dozens of Sparks later, the Ice Specter has had enough and calls it a day. It disengages, hugs the terrain, and vanishes from sight in seconds. If its body language could be put into words, it would be of a cat that has received far too much affection and is in desperate need of personal space.
Aria grades their performance. "Passable." The target took superficial damage and has fled the scene. Good enough.
With the threat gone, the adrenaline leaves their bodies. Valeria and Simon, in particular, need a moment to catch their breath.
"Give me a moment, my sight's gone." Simon says. He sits and takes some deep breaths, waiting for the fatigue to pass.
Valeria does much the same, but is instead staring at the two girls. "How are you two fine?!"
"We're a little tired." Atra says. She's actually very tired, but is too embarrassed to admit it. Not that it helps her case against Aria much.
Aria claps to get their attention. "Alright, children, take a moment to compose yourselves and we'll make for the fort. It's much too dangerous and exposed out here anyway."
…
A moment is taken, and the group reaches the fortress's weathered and beaten doors in good time.
Alma wrinkles her nose. "What's that smell?"
Aria picked it up as well, though she wouldn't categorize it as a smell: it was alchemical magicka, of a similar nature as Mell's more unique concoctions. It leaks from the slightly ajar, extremely hefty looking door.
"Stand clear." Aria commands.
The girls scramble away. Everyone else, not sure what's going on, take the cue and do the same.
Aria takes a small vial from her pouch, shakes it vigorously, and throws it into the fortress. There's a dull thud of an explosion, and a smell of smoke and ash mixes into the odor of alchemy.
"Thank you Mell." Aria mutters. With her shoulder to the door, she pushes it open, then tosses some magelight across the threshold.
The chamber is empty, save for some pews and a lectern. No physical signs of an explosion.
"Less a fortress and more of a temple, huh." Aria pushes the door completely open. "Alright, coast is clear, everybody inside."
…
"This looks like a temple of some kind." Minder A says.
They were now all indoors. The door has been left ajar to help dissipate the smell, but the potion, one of Mell's 'Alchemical Cancellers', had already negated most of the stench.
"A temple to what, exactly?" Minder B looks around at the burned remains of finery and flags strewn around the chamber. "If it was any god of good repute, who would abandon a place like this?"
Aria agrees. "True, it is prime real estate." The fortress/temple sits on a hill that overlooks almost all of Dawnstar, making it a great position to fortify. "Better question, where's the priest, and how did he know to come up here?" She could feel a faint source of magicka under her feet, somewhere deep in the fortress.
"I assume they're somewhere in there." Minder A says, looking at a massive gap in the walls that looked almost natural. "I assume this miasmatic mist will be denser as we descend." He looks at the children, then at Aria. "Do we go as a group?"
Aria's reply is immediate. "Yes. We'll burn the miasma as we go."
"Would it not be safer to leave someone here as a guard?" Minder B asks despite having a good guess as to what the answer might be.
Aria laughs. "My only options for a guard are children with no combat experience, children whose parents would skin me alive if something happened to them, and Thalmor. I'll take my chances."
The Minders laugh, because they would have said the same thing in her shoes.
…
The group enters the hole and, by Aria's estimates, go deeper into the cliff.
Or, rather, they try to.
Some thirty seconds after wading into the miasma-like mist, Valeria and Simon drop unconscious without warning. After being frantically moved out of the mist, they come back to their senses with no idea what happened.
"We were walking and then suddenly woke up like this." Simon says, flat on the ground. "Is that the mist's doing?"
"Most likely." Aria thinks it over. "In that case, it's not safe to go in like this, for any of us." She sends a blast of flames into the mist. No effect. "Any ideas?"
"We can send in some summons." Handler A says and brings up an ethereal wolf with the snap of his fingers. "See what they can do." His wolf zips into the ruins.
They wait for a minute before the Handler frowns. "It was overpowered." He felt his connection to the summon break abruptly. "There's someone still active in a place like that?"
"Well, in that case," Aria sighs. "We might as well just ask for help."
…
[1st Person Camera]
…
She wants me to do what now?
It is the evening of the same day.
Aria rode with the girls back to Lakeview. The girls, upon seeing me and my crutch, ran sobbing to hug my legs.
"So to recap, you want me to find a way to clear the mist in the ruins." I summarize. Aria nods. "You know, I was kind of expecting you to come to me to, y'know, make a solution happen rather than find one out."
Aria shrugs. "I had some ideas I wanted to try out, but having Thalmor nearby tied my hands a bit. So, you want to give it a shot?" She grins. "Would be nice to save another city~"
"Are you ok to travel, though?" T'nerem asks seriously. "It's going to be rough no matter how we spin it."
That's true. The extreme high-speed riding we do to cover distance on the dire wolves is rough on the body. My lower body controls are still under maintenance, so I'd have to ride double with her if we're heading back.
Also the girls are coming along too, because they're super attached at the moment and they're worried about their friends.
Incidentally, Aria left the other two kids with the Thalmor because both parties knew that the two unrelated kids were not the primary targets. They were safe insofar as this is a prime opportunity for the Thalmor to get at me with no cost.
…In that sense, I kind of have to oblige because otherwise we'd be putting two unrelated kids in danger.
"Alright, let's go." The gang's getting back together for a side quest!
…
[Next Day]
…
I.
Regret.
Everything.
Oh my god.
…
So, for context…we're riding at a fairly decent pace towards Dawnstar and it's on the horizon, maybe one more hour. The party is me, Jake, Aria, Mell.
I have wrapped myself like a caterpillar inside layers upon layers of cotton and wool to help dampen the shock, and I'm riding double with Jake, tied up behind him like a bedroll.
Each step that gets taken sends shocks through my entire nervous system. It hurts so much. If I ever needed a more direct reminder that I don't know nearly enough about the human body.
"You ok back there?" Jake shouts, laughing.
I disconnected my vocal cords, so I can't reply. But, y'know, the fact that I had to go that far.
I am this close to rewiring my pain receptor so it does something else again, but that sounds like a setup for a shitty porno, so let's not.
Again?
…that does remind me though. I should probably be on the lookout for any weird addictions I'm going to develop as a result of my body going through all of this.
For now, I'm just going to bear it. I'm learning a lot about how to do on-the-spot fixing, so…y'know. Silver linings.
Jake's dire wolf mistimes its step and hits cobblestone instead of dirt.
EEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
…
…
OK
Ok
Ok
We're here now
Agggh
Never doing that again
…
We're now inside the fortress that…is it Nerima? I don't remember. The names of the Major Daedra aren't exactly commonplace, as religiously taboo as they are to literally everybody, and the spelling is also sometimes done wrong on purpose, and it's been years upon years since I've had a wiki to look up.
The correct Daedra in this case is Vaermina. Again, assume it's being spelled wrong by Ash in-Universe every time it shows up from now on.
Anyways, this is probably the temple for Vaermina's Skull. The…that guy, the guy that was supposed to go with the Dragonborn, has apparently already tried, or else it's a different priest of Mara, but that seems unlikely, but either way we now have no knowledge about what's going on inside the temple beyond the mist putting people to sleep.
If I'm remembering right, one of the justifications for it being safe to enter was that the mist dissipated upon exposure to the outside world. Looking at the absolute carpet of smoke that's swirling in there that doesn't seem to be the case.
Hrm.
Well, for now, I'll chalk that up as being convenient for the player and move on.
The party is in this temple but Aria and Jake have gone into Dawnstar to get the two other kids.
The star of this action is actually going to be Mell, as she scoops some of the miasma into a vial to examine in detail.
I'm examining it from the perspective of magic, as are my girls. If we're talking about an affinity with magical research, then technically the girls are better at it.
…but it looks like they've lost some of their edge, since they're a little more focused on established theory rather than being more thorough. A little less 'this object exhibits behavior X' and more 'according to Established Theory an object of property A will do B, therefore let's test for A'.
In any case, as they're jotting things down in their own notebook, let's assess what I've been able to determine so far.
The mist is a semi-magical object, it has physical properties of being mist-like, is very dense, and dissipates magicka that comes into contact in a frankly absurd way. When in contact with the body it drains magicka quickly and efficiently into itself and…casts a spell? What?
Note: in order to learn these things, we sit cross-legged in the miasma for a few minutes at a time. Jake ties a rope to our waist in the event that we pass out and need a good yank.
That's insane, a mist that can cast?
…no, that's not all that insane, is it. At the end of the day, everything is physics and material. Magic circles are magic drawn onto stuff with stuff, and this mist floating around is stuff.
How much of it can I take, I wonder?
We begin swirling up a wind. The mist does not budge.
Ok, yeah, magical wind just gets sucked up by the mist. Should've seen that one coming. Like, yes, the wind is physics, but the energy behind the physics is magic, so it gets undone real quick.
This is a pickle.
"I'm having trouble understanding what it is I'm seeing here." Mell mutters at her pot. She had boiled the mist and now there's…something, at the bottom of the alembic she's using. "This is literally crystallized magicka."
…Huh.
So, crystalline magicka is not, in of itself, special. It's the base component for soul stones, and I routinely crush it to use for my enchanting when I break down said soulstones.
To turn that shit into mist, though? That's something.
Like, imagine the energy required to turn iron into mist. Not mere powder, but full-on mist. The magical equivalent of that is…the concentration required is interesting.
Very interesting. Hrm.
So, one of two things happened here. Either the Vaermina Cultists have obtained the magical equivalent of a fusion reactor and are using it to turn magicka into mist via sheer brute force, or there's some kind of…shortcutting of the rules of nature, at work here.
Either way, it's worth diving into. Very.
Atra is a little concerned, because We currently have a look on our faces that's very familiar to a rather unpopular Thalmorian professor of hers.
…Well, that said, it's not as if we can just scoop the mist out spoon by spoon. Any large scale machinery I build with magic will have this stuff permeate into it and render it immobile immediately, so that's out. If I wade into it I will probably literally die, so that's also out.
For more context, the…temple? The temple is probably similar to how it is in game, where it goes deeper and deeper. The first entrance we're at has a gentle slope downwards, and the way downwards is entirely engulfed by mist. It's not thick enough to obscure vision, but it's enough to know that being entirely submerged in it is a really bad fucking idea.
…
Speaking of bad ideas.
Only Aria came back. Not because of a problem with the Thalmor.
Valeria and Simon both went to sleep and have not awakened. Aria had led everyone into the mist and, upon being fully submerged, the children passed out. She is understandably feeling both guilty and bewildered at the chain of events.
So I get to make a house call.
The Thalmor Minders are also a bit guilty and bewildered. Not because they did something wrong, but because they're not people who like seeing children in danger. I'm also sure they're here to kidnap my girls so the jury's out on how nice of people they are, but I'm willing to admit that they at least have morals.
Anyways, the kids.
They are cold to the touch, but are not dead. Their body systems are working properly.
If anything, it's almost like they've been cryogenically frozen.
I wonder if that's what happened to the followers of Vaermina when they released the mist?
Either way, fixing it is straightforward, just need to overpower the magicka and have it dissipate. Five minute fix.
"Oh, my head." Valeria groans upon recovering consciousness. "Wah!" She flinches because I'm here. "Mas-er, Lor, uh, Sir Windcaller!" She tries to bow while still in bed. "To what do I owe the pleasure?!"
She's the girls' friend, so we're acquainted. Same with Simon.
Weirdly enough I'm a lot less nice to Simon. Don't know why.
We take the time to explain to the kids, it's a short explanation.
"That…hm." Valeria has a thinking pose. "I don't remember anything after going to bed. It feels as if I went to sleep and then immediately saw your face, sir." She, now properly clothed, curtseys slightly. "I hope you'll forgive my shock."
"Forgiven." I nod. "How are you two feeling?"
"Tired." Simon says. "Like I've never actually slept for some reason." Valeria nods at that.
Interesting. Their physical state suggests they're rested, but their in-body magicka is a mess. Like, 'they haven't slept for weeks' kind of a mess.
From that standpoint, it seems like Vaermina is less magic reactor, more breaker of reality. Interesting.
"In that case, rest." I turn to leave. "No use stressing yourselves over this for now."
"Resting's not an option." Simon says, standing up straight. "Where Atra is, I'll follow."
…ah. That explains why I don't like him.
Simon's intent is more just 'she's someone I want to be better than' rather than a love interest. Intention on being a love interest is more Valeria's thing.
…
Anyways, the hour-long detour turns into a three-hour-long detour. As it so happens, more and more children, the ones gifted with a sense of magicka, have been going into a slumber without waking up, so once the news came out that I am able to counteract it, I get flooded by requests.
After an hour of that, I got sick and tired of being run around everywhere while still injured, so I got some mages together and taught them how to identify and counteract the magic.
Identification is hard, healing the condition is easy.
Furthermore, I've made recommendations that beds be moved to the second floor, or at least off the ground, to reduce the side effects of miasma permeating through the bedrock. I don't know how long it's been, but at least years, for that mist to have made its way through nature.
…Actually, the fact that it hasn't dissipated at all means that the origin point of the mist is still going on strong. Is it coming from the skull? I don't remember the skull having anything to do with it in game…
Hm.
We go back to the fortress, kids in tow, and reconvene.
Yeah, this isn't something we can solve in a day or two.
…Speaking of, the fact that the priest guy came here and vanished implies that he was dumb enough to wade into the miasma while knowing full well what it's capable of, and that seems…impossible.
Alternatively, he ditched when he saw what he's dealing with, but, again, where are the mercs he hired? If he's anything like how he is in game there's no way he'd just back out like that.
Super hmm.
Also, there's the issue that the Thalmor tried to do a thing with my girls. That…there's a penalty for that.
…
Speculation does me no good. There's a time for everything.
For the time being, I'm going to stay in Dawnstar and study this miasma some more.
In the most fruitless scenario, I learn how to better handle crystalized magicka, which results in better gear. Best case scenario I get my hands on the skull, but…the odds of me making good use of an artifact that is probably significantly stronger than me is slim.
Like, if the skull does any kind of magic effect I'm probably super boned, because I still have that massive debuff to damage taken.
…speaking of which.
We–me and Jake–have a lot of points, and a lot of perks, and we're not really spending it. The main point being that taking a new perk puts a lot of time pressure on us to adapt to it, and if we can't use it well with our pre-existing kit then why bother taking it. To that end, we're slowing down our rate of point expenditure.
For situations like this.
To that end, I take a full 100 of Arcane Deciphering and 100 of Arcane Enciphering, because I can see myself using this to piss off the Thalmor on top of the supposed benefits to understanding magic.
I also take Physical Unravel (Minor/Major), and Magical Unravel, which, despite their names, are just for being able to better manipulate the respective elements rather than, y'know, bonus damage. There are more clearly defined Unravel perks that makes it better for a specific element, but, eh, can't be bothered.
Jake takes 100 of: Magic Resistance, Magic Augmentation, Magic Bleed, Core Resistance/Augmentation/Bleed, Overload Res/Aug/Bleed. Resistance, Augmentation, and Bleed ups his natural resilience to damage, his ability to null said damage, and his ability to reduce the impact of the damage. The three Magic skills raise his durability against magical damage, core raises durability against a slightly different kind of magical damage, and overload also raises durability against a different kind of magic damage.
To put it in game terms, Resistance is a flat damage reduction. Augment is a percentage damage reduction, and Bleed gives temporary hit points upon being hit.
Core and Overload magic are…weird, because they're not describing new forms of magic, just how the magic applies to the body.
I guess we can say Core are like debuffs, and Overload is magic that kills you outright? The provided descriptors aren't great.
That's not a bad idea for me, honestly. I also take 100 of Overload Res/Aug/Bleed. The rest I'm not too worried about because if I get hit with magic it's pretty much guaranteed to go into one-shot-kill territory, and debuffs have like an 800% chance of working on me so halving that or whatever is pretty meaningless.
…
Anyways, time to do some science.
After my ribs stop hurting.
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[3rd Person Camera, Solitude]
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The Skyrim Thalmor Office, as calm as ever on a working day morning, greets its workers with a polite, if short, letter written about the Windcaller case progress.
"So the, ah, 'Child Persuasion Attempt', has failed." Cap A says disdainfully. "Pity."
"Given how deep they were in enemy territory I'd been more surprised if they had succeeded." Cap B says. She looks over some of the other letters. "Looks like the big fish himself is in Dawnstar at the moment, looking into some local magical anomaly." She frowns. "Uh oh."
"Time for Act Two?" Cap A smirks. "What's our presence in Dawnstar?"
Cap B shuffles some other papers around. "If memory serves, a very muted one. Docks are great ways to receive people, and everyone knows that." She plucks out a piece listing their assets in Dawnstar. "We have a section of the civilian docks handling foodstuffs, couriers for letters going towards the College of Winterhold, and some inns in a few surrounding villages."
Cap A frowns. "How long do you think it will be before someone tries to Charm him again?"
Cap B smiles. "I'm looking forward to someone hitting him with Fury. I'd like to see how powerful he'd be in the throes of magical rage."
"He'd trash the town, no doubt." Cap A mutters, shuffling away a report on how illusion magic dramatically affects Ash. "I think we should send to Dawnstar with an additional order of not overdoing their efforts."
"On getting support from Windcaller, or a better look at what he's looking into?"
Cap A stops. Certainly, if everything about Windcaller has been true, then him suddenly choosing to stay in Dawnstar would imply that there was something there worth pursuing despite his current physical state. If that something was able to influence an entire city, then it's worth pursuing in its own right.
Cap A smiles slightly. "Revise the order, then. We'll provide all available assistance to the Windcallers."
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{ === + === }
Author Notes:
Having Vaermina be even remotely plot significant was not on my list of planned actions.
You have no list of planned actions.