Revised 08/20
Disclaimer: What's Bethesda's is theirs, likewise mod creators.
Chapter 4: You are new here, yes?
The note from Ienith, priestess of Azura, got him the attention of Tolfdir, Master "Here, you hold off the homicidal walking tomb-jerky while I figure out how to deactivate this incredibly powerful alien technology I've never seen before. Oh, and I seem to have lost my alembic." Nice fella in life as well as in the Game. The wizard was fascinated by Curtis's story. He even escorted Curtis to the Arcaneum to talk to Master Urag. The Orc then proceeded to gut him with questions about his life, his world, and the Skyrim game.
Well, general questions. The Orc wasn't presently interested in details. However, Curtis recognized the hungry gleam in the scholar's eyes; the librarian was probing every major topic he could think of to identify those of greater interest or importance for future in-depth study.
Curtis expressed his interest in Dwemer studies and they assured him they'd introduce him to Mage Lord Demnevanni when he returned from his trip to Bthalft. "Hard to believe you'd be able to pry him away from the Forge," Curtis remarked. That led to being asked how he knew of Demnevanni, which segued into a barebone walkthrough of the House Telvanni quest "Convince Baladas to join the Council" in the Morrowind game and then back to explaining what 'forge' he had referred to.
After that he'd explained the Skyrim "Lost to the Ages" quest, a quest mod only available if one bought the Dawnguard expansion, which his young brother did, and Curtis later watched his playthrough.
He was offered a job as a general consultant with a very handsome fee attached. For one day a week Curtis would come to the College and work with Urag. They'd originally offered him full-time employment as a researcher. Urag was putting a lot of effort in being an affable, friendly, and reasonable, but Curtis knew how intense some people could get when caught up in academic obsession. As it is, this job was agreeing to a thorough brain enema once a week. He knew he would need the intensely physical job with the shoreline project to even things out.
"I didn't come with reading skills pre-installed like my language skills were so I'll have to decline," said Curtis. "So far I've found I can speak what we're talking now. I call it Imperial Common, and I can speak whatever dialect of Slitter — that's who Priestess Ienith told me used to own this body — whatever Slitter spoke. Don't know if Slitter could read, but I know I can't."
"Hm. Indulge me a moment," said Urag. He wrote on some parchment and handed it to Curtis.
"Yeah. Nope. Still can't read," said Curtis. "One looks like Tolkien elvish, something in Sanskrit, something Cyrillic, something Arabic, something Rosetta Stone cuneiform, which must be Dragon."
"Altmer, Dunmer, Imperial common, Redguard, and Dova," said Tolfdir. "The phrase was 'You are now in Tamriel. Welcome.'"
"Can you say that in the corresponding languages?" Curtis asked. Tolfdir did so. "Vaguely Welsh, some fancy-dancy Dunmer, what we're talking now, Arabic or middle eastern, and the last, not as guttural and abrupt as Klingon but I know that's Dragon. Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin. Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!" he sang.
"Very nice. Can you speak Dragon?" asked Urag.
"Nah. But that's the theme song for the Game and I got a good memory if there's music attached. Don't have to understand the words because words just become a specific set of sounds in the music."
"Nevertheless, you seem to show a good awareness in identifying languages, even if they're ones I've never heard of," said Urag. "We can set up instructors."
"I'm already working on that," said Curtis. "The literacy classes for adults run in the evenings at the new schoolhouse. But once I get my skills high enough, I'd like the opportunity to study some of the books here."
"Still, I want to begin recording some of your knowledge before you get too confused," said Urag somewhat ominously. "Can you still read and write your English?"
Curtis's mouth dropped open as he thought about it. "You know, it never occurred to me to… um…" He looked around and Urag obligingly shoved paper and an inked quill at him.
Right. Muscle memory. He didn't have the right ones. Normally, he could scrawl off his signature without a conscious thought. But now his fingers wouldn't work properly. Couldn't hold the pen properly. And as he concentrated on moving fingers, he found he was suddenly confused about the letter forms that corresponded with his own name.
Shit. He wasn't even sure he could print his name. Now his hand was shaking and the quill tip was crushed against the paper. His mind was tilting off-center and warping as it strooped to implement what should have been automatic, mundane response.
"Steady there," Urag rumbled, his hands clamping down over Curtis's to still them while Tolfdir was now behind Curtis, hands on his shoulders and muttering a spell. Curtis felt himself calming.
"Sorry about that," he said sheepishly. "Don't know what came over me."
"I'm surprised you didn't have hysterics before now," said Urag. "The research done by Falion proposes that the body, spirit, and soul are three distinct elements and the mind as a conglomerate of the three, the conglomerate becoming almost a fourth distinct element."
"Holy Trinity versus Holy Quaternity. Two points establishes a plane, the third a depth, the fourth stabilizes by setting time…" Curtis babbled, eyes glazing. Urag glanced at Tolfdir who recast the Calm spell. "Sorry. I've always found theology and psychology funny business," said Curtis. "The more we try to define it, the less words mean. Same with physics. I call string theory the rope we hang ourselves by."
He reached up and clawed a bit at his scalp and ears. He vaguely noted that this was Slitter's gesture; his own habit was to cross his arms and bite his thumb when wrestling with confused thoughts and emotions. "OK. So some god 'ported me, the opsys, into Skyrim and into the body of some low-rent thug who, if Priestess Ienith is correct, came from Raven Rock. I mostly operate OK, but the longer I go, the more adjustments I'll discover and need to make with legacy software and interfaces. Yeah. I can work with that. Just need to process this a bit more." He noticed the two wizards exchanging more glances. "Oh, sorry. Don't need to hit me again with the spell. Sorry for interrupting. You were saying…?"
Master Urag was scowling. "Interesting. If I heard correctly, yes, you will be dealing with 'legacy' traits inherent in your new body. You say the priestess knew the former soul?"
"Yes. She said he used to be a bodyguard for someone. Warrior type, which I'd already figured out. I seem to have this attraction to weapons I didn't before. And I get these weird dreams of practice fighting with a claymore or a dagger, or nightmares of actually killing people in combat with these weapons. I've been thinking of finding sparring partners. Y'know, a little mind-body bonding. Learn some of what's been trained into this body and also teach it martial arts stuff I used to do. Find some people who wouldn't mind helping me set up a gym, one a bit better than the sad-ass training yard the guards are currently using 'cuz — Sorry. I'm babbling again. I don't mean to keep interrupting you."
Plus, he was getting nervous with the way Urag was note-taking. When an Orc was dead-eyed analyzing you over those meat-tearing tusks, it seemed wiser to shut up.
The wizards backed Priestess Ienith's story that Hermaeus "Tentacle Hentai Master" Mora was currently dethroned from his realm of Apocrypha, and a new god had taken over. If it was this new god and not Sheogorath flexing his new power and snatching people from other worlds, then this was a matter worth assigning some masters to research.
The wizards ended the meeting by solemnly warning Curtis not to reveal too much about his past or to expose too quickly his level of knowledge of current events and people and even less the technological advances of his world. They trusted he would understand their seeming paranoid concerns.
"Sure," he said with a sigh of resignation. "Thalmor for one with their whips-and-tell dungeon parties; people wanting an edge up over killing enemies like in any other war across the universe; and any other fool who wants a shortcut to wealth, fame, and power and who don't care who they have to steal it from or destroy. Yeah, I got it."
"We hope you do," said Tolfdir in a frighteningly gentle voice of doom. "From what we hear, your game profiles of us are superficially very good. But we are not game pieces. You have admitted to us you are aware of many situations and people that differ from this Skyrim game you are so familiar with. That is good.
"Master Curtis, you appear to be adapting well to the shock of this transference from your world to ours and you've impressed us with your intelligence, your ability to stay sane, and your willingness and initiative to make a place for yourself on Mundus. We look forward to learning much more. For now, you may consider yourself a member of the College and may call upon us for assistance."
It was very late and Tolfdir escorted him to an unassigned room in the student's hall to rest in. The silk sheets were nice and unexpected. Really nice silk. Then he spotted a pair of distinctive black and gold gloves on the bedside table. Oh. Stick him in the dead Thalmor's room. Yeah, that one was beyond caring who enjoyed his fancy summerset silks. He wondered if anyone would care if he nicked the sheets.
When he woke the next morning it was to see J'zargo parked in the room's chair. The Khajiit tossed a scroll into Curtis's lap.
"The spell has been improved. Crazy Dunmer who thinks life is a game should try again."
"Uh, I'm gonna pass. Besides, I can't read at the moment." He kicked aside the silks and swung his feet over the edge of the bed and sat up.
"And the only undead around is me until I can find me some coffee or strong tea. Did you boost the user protection to compensate for the holy hand-grenade blast power you added to the flame cloak spell? Even being a Dunmer that singed a layer of skin off."
J'zargo's ears flattened. "Clever Antonia suggested the same," he conceded. "That has been done.
"But who are you, Crazy Dunmer? You have never been a student here," J'zargo stated in a low, deceptively lazy tone.
"Sorry. You're right. I'm not. My name is Curtis Johnson. I know, I know, that's not a Dunmer name and I'm no Nord and my father's name isn't John, it's Sam."
Curtis eyed the Khajiit, now recognizing the cat's robes reflected his rise from novice to adept in Destruction. He was probably not a student anymore, but was still with the college doing graduate work and probably instructing novices. The thought of this Khajiit giving safety lectures brought a grin to Curtis's face. "If novice is interested in extra credit, J'zargo has scrolls to test." He laughed, and J'zargo's ears dipped even lower.
"It's funny how I'm finally here at the College," said Curtis, waving a hand around at the walls and, he hoped, distracting the cat from the dead-on assessment that he was being laughed at. "My brother's the college type, but he'd go nuts without his 'puters and the kids he's tutoring in robotics. They're in the finals for the National Junior Battlebots tournament and they've got a design that could win the championship." No, he reflected, his brother right now had everything going for him and losing all of it for Skyrim was unacceptable; whereas his own life, until his death, had been on a death spiral. Hah. Death spiral. The job he'd died on would have only held off the bank just barely until the first of several scheduled bankruptcy hearings.
The Khajiit stared hard at him then finally his ears came up and he seemed to relax. "Naaza? Pewters? Row-botics?" He repeated the alien words, testing them against what he knew. "Battle pots? Dunmer speaks of, of Dwemer machines for children?" He pushed his hood down and scratched at his ears.
Really, a handsome cat, Curtis thought. Sideburns like a lynx, fur pattern like a bobcat's, overall head, body, limb ratio was humanoid except for the tail. He knew Skyrim cat people could have different body types depending on the moon phases.
Theory only. Animation models were kept as generic as possible, which explains why lizards had mammary glands and cats had only two teats. However, the two lizard ladies in the Argonian team were flat and hard to distinguish from the males except for wider egg-hips, the only concession to some ancient connection to the Aldmeri common ancestor back in the hazy days of when the gods were concept-creating the world.
Curtis didn't waste too much brain energy trying to figure out evolution lines. He still found it funny the Argonians bothered at all with sex distinct clothing. Or maybe that was a concession made for living outside of Black Marsh? Whatever.
He also supposed the cats could get away with only two teats because they were also supposed to be mutations off the baseline elven stock. He'd read somewhere that some variations of Khajiit were so indistinguishable from Bosmer that the cat-born actually tattooed fur patterns into their flesh so as not to be mistaken as Bosmer.
J'zargo shifted position, leaning forward and drawing Curtis's attention back to the now. "Dunmer requested assistance with transdimensional travel and soul displacement. It went to Master Urag's desk as requested and then was forwarded to Master Tolfdir as important enough to bring to the Archimage's and Master Tolfdir's attention.
"And then J'zargo overhears a strange speech to a dead Dragon. Dunmer who speaks of things one should not know nor speak so freely of in the presence of Nords."
"Yeah? And how much does J'zargo know of the Dragonborn's business?"
The Khajiit grinned, part humor, part threat. "J'zargo knows enough. J'zargo has the wit to piece together many facts to a mystery."
"J'zargo also has big ears," said Curtis, smirking, remembering seeing the Khajiit entering at the far end of the Arcanium and pulling books. He didn't remember seeing the man-cat leave, but then his attention had been on Tolfdir and Urag. The Arcanium was probably not the best place to be talking if one needed privacy. They had been consciously keeping their voices down, but the problem with living in a multi-species environment is the tendency to forget little things like relative ear sensitivity. No doubt those kitty ears had been full-on pointed where they had no business being.
"J'zargo has many gifts that are a part of his greatness," agreed J'zargo, muzzle whiskers flexing upwards in a cat smirk.
Well, that was true. Curtis knew from his brother's wizard-build playthrough that J'zargo was a tank of a battlemage and one of the very few NPCs in the vanilla game that had no leveling cap, meaning he leveled up along with the Dragonborn.
Curtis usually played the nonmagical armored tank, didn't bother with the College, and engaged the Riften located mage, Marcurio, another non-cap NPC, when he needed magic firepower. He wondered how long and on which quests had J'zargo accompanied the Dragonborn, but it wasn't something he could just come out and ask.
He also wasn't sure if the Khajiit was in on the Dragonborn's civilian identity. He didn't recall explicitly discussing that with Tolfdir and Urag. No, he was certain he never discussed that with them. He wasn't supposed to know after all, and he was cool with that.
Come to think about it, that was why they'd clammed up when he'd casually asked about the Dragonborn's choice of prize in the "Lost to the Ages" quest because it hadn't officially been the Dragonborn who'd discovered Bthalft; her alter-ego, Spellsword Helsette, had done the quest. He wondered how many quests were completed by the spellsword persona. He needed to ask around for more stories about the spellsword and then talk with Urag when they next met so that he didn't accidentally give the game away.
J'zargo would certainly have heard him boasting about once being the Dragonborn though. Curtis knew he'd have to be careful. He was still learning how reality differed from the Game, and from the Game he knew the Khajiit was ambitious.
And now, all of a sudden, he was feeling twinges of paranoia.
He really needed to stop relying on Game knowledge. He realized he'd been damn lucky so far, especially with people. So maybe he'd start now and get to know the real J'zargo behind the one he'd known on his 72-inch flat screen TV.
"Mysteries, huh? Well, may the skillful Khajiit be gracious to reveal to me the mysteries of the nearest kitchen where one might find strong hot tea and breakfast?"
• Shadowpawzzz: Thanks. My current build is a nord shield maiden + master conjurer who's a master at Block so she tanks into battle in mage garments and shield while two dremora lords run interference. And she just got Auriel's Shield and is doing super smashies. Even more fun than the blooded targe.• GalacticHalfling: The priestess fortunately has experience with delusional crazies and makes allowances for rudeness.
• JDLENL: Yes, an odd and sudden attachment. The first time I came to Solstheim is when my Dunmer tank discovered he had a long-lost twin brother.