Chapter 3: The Retching Netch

I stood just inside the doorway of the oddly-shaped pub. I coughed once and grumbled about the ash as the smell I recognized hit my nose. "Sujama!" I raced down the stairs into the bar and stepped up to the bartender.

"Welcome to the Retching Netch young man! Come for a bed? Or maybe a bounty?" the dark elf man exclaimed half-heartedly.

I stopped being excited and showed politeness, "One bottle, or is it flask, of your best Sujama, please."

"Right. That'll be twelve septims." the barman sighed and pulled out a light-tan bottle.

I patted myself down until I came up with an idea.

"How about a trade? I've got a Jade-"

"No gold, no deal. Sorry kid. Thems' the rules." the dark elf sighes and put the bottle back inside the crate that was still full of unsold bottles.

'Damn. Whatever happened to this place? Shaman told me it was waay more stable economy-wise.' I thought to myself as I began to walk back up the stairs.

Then the bartender's hand wrapped around my shoulder, "Hey kid, I can give you a bottle if you do something for me. It will be hard, but you seen to be capable." He was eyeing my Akaviri blade and mouthed a code-phrase all us Blades knew.

'Stay true to your heart and purpose.'

"Right. Fill me in." I spun around and fillowed the elf as he walked toward a storeroom behind the counter.

He let me walk in, the slammes the heavy stone door shut and bolt-locked it. "It was the Thalmor, wasn't it?"

I nodded. "They sent me here, but I saw an explosion before I appeared right outside the door to your pub."

The Dark Elf, who revealed his name to be Yoreu, slammed his fist into the wall in anger. Which left a fist-shaped indention in the stone wall. "Damned Thalmor. First they strike at our most weak moments in the Great War, then they refuse to allow the Blades to die in peace and fellowship."

After a few minutes, he calmed down and brushed the dust and grime from his clothes. "Ahem. You're Gray, I presume? Shaman always said he'd have to take you here someday."

"Yes, sir. Pleased to meet you." I stuck out my hand for a shake.

After a glare, he took my hand in his calloused one and shook with a tight grip. "Right. Yoreu, I own the Retching Netch after the last owner died to a reaver attack." He let go and turned to a table scattered with letters and piles of books. "I'm researching a race you're most likely familiar with."

I walked up to his 'research station' as he fondly called it, and looked at the papers, writings, drawings, and inscriptions. "All of these are Akaviri. Yeah. This is their word for 'Dragon'. But why all this?" I opened a dusty old tome, "Gods what did you do to find this? It's a Akaviri Spelltome. This would have been revolutionary if the Empire got a hold of it."

"Or disasterous if the Thalmor got it." Yoreu sighed and pressed a hidden dwarven-made button mechanism behind a mead barrel, revealing a large bookcase full of tomes like it. "My task for you, is to learn all these spells and prove you have. I'm unfortunately too old to make use of them."

"Where did you even get all of these?! With three of these tomes you could topple an Empire. Wait," I closed the spelltome I had in my hands and looked at Yoreu's wrinkled face. "Why me? Just before this moment you didn't even know I knew the language."

The old Dark Elf laughed so hard he coughed a few times. When he regained his breath, he said with a chuckle, "Shaman told me all about you. You came to the Cloud Ruler temple years ago, simply wandering around he told me. But the moment they you read a tablet on the wall written in Ancient Akaviri that no one had ever been able to translate, they knew you were a special case. Or as the Thalmor believe, the greatest threat to their power."

I tilted my head slightly in confusion and looked into his dark, red, sharp eyes. "Threat? What can knowing a language do?"

"The fact you know the power of those tomes and spells is only a sidenote to what you can achieve. Many Akaviri ruins lie in pocket-realms that only a speaker or user of their magic can access. Which also means, you can find a ancient, dead race. But most importantly, is the very bones of the incantations, so to speak." Yoreu began to pull tomes off the case and hand them to me.

"Each spell is made up of layers of magickas. The most complex spell a man can use is made of only 9 layers of magicka of a specific element. Mer can use up to 12 layers depending on their race's natural affinities. Such as, a wood elf can use powerful nature magic, but lack skill in destruction magic. But the Akaviri were neither men nor mer. That's what sets them apart. And what makes even one singular spell more powerful than anything a Arch-Mage or an Empire can make. Not without daedric help, of course."

"So...what do these spells do exactly?" I asked as he stacked the twelfth tome in my hands.

"That's a good question. And those are your answer. Go on and put those in your- Oh by Azura. You're carrying a third pocket. Come with me and let's buy you an actual bag." Yoreu pressed the button and hid the bookcase of spells and ran out the room with a sudden excitement.

When I was about to follow him out he yelled, "Leave the books here!!!"