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Chapter 2: Winterhold

The ship had been the Skinny Horker. According to the sodden captain's log, it had been on its first run for the East Empire Trading Company and its planned route was to have been from Windhelm to Solstheim to Dawnstar to Solitude and then back to Windhelm. How the ship came to wreck was unknown. As luck would have it, he was the only survivor. Anybody who'd survived the initial crash but fell in the water or tried to swim would have quickly succumbed to exposure and drowned.

He waited two weeks, just settling in and orienting himself to this new reality; tweaking his game knowledge to what he was learning just from talking with people. The argonians were happy to give him a job. Local workers were hard to come by, most not willing to work with necros and slavers and taking orders from boots.

It was still early in the 4th era and Dragonborn Antonia Felix had taken over the college after the Saarthal incident and the resignation of Archimage Savos Aren. Rumor said it was a nord woman who was the dragonborn, although no one knew what she looked like because she wore an iron dragonpriest mask which she refused to take off in public. Ulfric Stormcloak still ruled Windhelm, the stalemate between the empire and stormcloaks was still there and the thalmor still being obstructive asses to both.

Curtis found it astonishing that Winterhold was actually rebuilding and that the driving force was Ulfric who had hired the argonian construction company to head the project. Korir's game replacement, Kraldar, if Korir got deposed later in the game, was now the hold's steward, the previous dunmer steward having done a midnight run.

Wait. Ulfric was a force of renewal? He was actually spending some of that gold he collected from his fanatics to support his people? He was willing to work with dunmer and argonians? Curtis asked questions. A lot of the credit was going to the dunmer that Ulfric had made steward of the Gray Quarter. A shopkeeper. And one who turned out to be quite clever when it came to making money when given incentive. A Sadri. House Hlaalu of course, House of Equal Opportunity (and Opportunists). At one point the shopkeeper had nearly been accused of treason, but had managed to dodge that charge. Ulfric decided to harness some of that cleverness to solve problems he had in his city with the Gray Quarter; choosing expediency over idealism.

It seemed to be working. Witness the shoreline project in Winterhold, an effort to revive the hold's past ship-building and fishing industry. Witness the growth in the Rift. Stormcloaks may grumble at the noticeable presence of the dunmer, but the gray folk loved the volcanic areas, were settling in, and producing taxable wealth. They also took out their aggressions against bandits and vampires. They were incidental stormcloak allies by their instinctual rejection of the Dominion and of the altmer.

Curtis also found it fascinating that the Archimage Dragonborn was also called "Lady Ice Dragon." Her reputation painted her as the arrogant, aloof bastard child of a Legion officer who dishonorably took advantage of a young, naive nord healer mage of Winterhold College. Yet despite her scorn of the stormcloak cause, she encouraged her college folk to start mingling with the townsfolk. Steward Kraldar had been particularly strong in welcoming them, avidly courting relations with the college professors, inviting them to dinners to talk about ways to rebuild both the college's and Winterhold's reputation in the world. The town soon realized Master of Wizards Tolfdir, who was the only nord master wizard there, was the de facto archimage and the Dragonborn a political figurehead. Curtis knew from the game, and confirmed by locals, that the man was easy to approach and talk to. But the times Curtis was off work didn't seem to mesh with the times the wizard visited town.

So now that he had a steady job for the forseeable future and that he was fairly caught up with events in the world, he decided it was time to try and consult with the college wizards about his situation. He walked into the newly built office building at the foot of the bridge to the College. Inside were two dunmer clerks handling mail and taking down requests from the public.

"Services or consultation?" asked the clerk.

"Consultation."

"Specific school of magic or specific person?"

"Um, Master Urag, Arcanium, or anyone who can help me with trans-dimensional travel and/or soul displacement."

"Urgency?"

"Well, it's important to me, but I am hoping someone will see me fairly soon."

"Name and how may we contact you?"

"Curtis Johnson." The clerk gave him that "you've got to be kidding," look that all dunmer gave him when he said his name. "Um, I'm working at the shoreline project but I'm going on a pilgrimage to Azura's shrine so I'll check back in three days to see if anyone's responded."

"Anything else you would like to add?"

"Yeah. Um, I've been having dreams of, of dying and every time I see an owl and I hear the name 'Savos,' the name of the previous archimage. I don't believe this is a dream caused by that nightmare god chick."

"Thank you. This will be forwarded to the appropriate party."

"Thank you, ma'am, uh, sera."

He wandered over to the town's newest attraction. Two days ago an ice dragon had attacked the town. There had been deaths. It had taken the wizards a while to kill it. A mix of guards and wizards stood ready to attack the corpse if it so much as twitched. Of course he'd visited the corpse like so many others had. The guards prevented people from naturally wanting to take souvenirs because the corpse was still deadly. Instant frostbite to touch it. No wonder the nords of the past just heaped rocks and dirt over the fallen bodies. He went to the head and stared into the glazed over eyes, the gaping maw.

"Crazy, crazy world," he told it. "Feeding on the souls in Sovngarde won't save Alduin. The Dragonborn is on his ass. And even hiding out in the lands of death won't stop her from fucking him over. And when Bormahu himself comes to pick his sorry ass up he'll shred up in Bormahu's light like the fucking vampire he is. That's how it's gonna go. Then what are the rest of you gonna do, huh? Alduin tricked you all. No god brought you back. A vampire did. A vampire bloated on the souls of joor. Are you the children of Bormahu or of Molag Bal? The dragon cult is dead. World's gotten too big and scary on its own to be scared of flying lizards anymore. We know you can die. You know it too. And where do you go when you die? Do you remember? If you manage to revive before the Dragonborn comes back to eat your soul, I recommend you get some therapy from Paarthurnax or find some moutaintop away from us joors. Not in the Reach though. There's a crazy chick there who thinks it's her destiny to revive the Akaviri dragon-killing hobby. Hell, she wants the Dragonborn to kill Paarthurnax. Doesn't care that our boy's been helping against his brother and teaching the graybeards. Ain't gonna happen."

"Perhaps Crazy Dunmer should go sleep off whatever he's been drinking because he's upsetting the nords," hissed a voice behind him.

Curtis looked back and said without thinking, "Oh, hey, J'Zargo. Sorry I sold your test scrolls but after the first one backfired on me, it wasn't worth the risk. Later." He brushed by the khajiit, thinking he really should get some sleep because tomorrow he'll be joining the pilgrim group heading to Azura's Shrine.

GalacticHalfling: I don't remember either. May have been some Reddit convo I'd stumbled across while tracking various threads (which I've never found again) and for some reason that number stuck. But I'm not a fanatic about that number. I consider 300 an average for a moderatly healthy life not extended by magic.