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Chapter 5: Worthy of study

J'zargo took him to the kitchen in the instructors and senior student's hall because it was generally quieter and better stocked and because the younger crowd in the Hall of Attainment burned through food stores a lot faster so there wasn't much variety left in that kitchen for late risers.

A slender lady with mahogany hair and blue-gray eyes was toasting bread when they came in. She scowled at them but didn't say a word, just finished buttering up her toast and went to one side to eat. Curtis quickly assembled a sub from the bread and cold cuts laid out on a side table and slice some apples and cabbage for greens at the small prep table. No sauce and he didn't see any eggs or oil to make even a simple mayo. Oh, well.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked her and giving her what he hoped was a winning smile. He vaguely heard J'zargo making odd coughing noises. The lady looked him up and down with a sour, disdainful expression.

"And who are you? You surely cannot be a new student," she said in a thoroughly bitchy tone.

"The name's Curtis Johnson and I've just been hired as a consultant," he answered cheerfully as he shifted his plate to his left hand and held out his right. At the way she drew back he figured Slitter's face grinning down at her wasn't one she wanted to see first thing in the morning. Neither did he, truth told, but then he was on the other side of it.

"And what is your field of study?" she demanded.

"Oh, commercial construction. I just got hired here to do some consulting about dwemer tech," he said. "And may I know who you are?"

"Colette Marence. Restorations instructor. Have a seat. I'm just leaving." With that she got up and left the room.

The cat sniffed then stared intensely at him for a moment before declaring, "So, not only is Crazy Dunmer delusional, he is also bizarre in his choice of women."

"Nose out of my business, buddy."

"Then don't make a stink of it."

He was back to hauling rocks onto a barge later that day. Filler rocks. The large boulders were being handled by a team of mages being led by Adept Onmund and they used telekinesis in place of cranes to hoist the tonnage of foundation boulders onto the barges and then into place underwater. Onmund was one of two Alteration mages who knew the underwater breathing spell and so could accompany the argonians underwater to oversee the placement of the boulders. He had to wear a rope harness for two argonians to pull him by because the currents were too strong for non-argonians to swim. The mages were only available a three days a week because of their other studies and projects and the number available varied for the same reasons. And, they weren't being paid for their work; the College had present it to their students as extracurricular practical skill-building exercises

The storms on the Sea of Ghosts had gotten increasingly ferocious the past 200 years since the eruption of Red Mountain according to local word of mouth. Curtis sympathized with Drains-the-Swamp's frustration of not enough data that would affect the project. Too much history of seasonal currents, tidal patterns — all lost. Such mundane records had never been part of the College's collection. The folk surviving the city's collapse (aside from the College folk, the majority which had been dunmer at the time) had been mostly the hunters and miners living the forest and mountains; the jarl of the time and some nobles had been at visiting Windhelm; sea folk, who had been gone on their trade ships, just never came back once they'd realized there was nothing left.

Bringing in argonians to oversee this project had been a risk but the nords had shockingly few people prepared to take on this project. Dawnstar maintained their port, but their location on the coast was just enough that deep sea currents didn't hit landmass the way it did at Winterhold. They had the knowledge to maintain their port, but not enough to create a new one under conditions different than theirs. Windhelm was set far back enough from the coast and at a river deep enough for ships to sail that they never had to worry about shoreline storms. On the surface, the argonians seemed like a good solution.

The argonians had been adapted by their Hist trees to their environment. If he thought about it, he supposed deep-water construction in, say, the swamps and underwater caves of Florida would be insanely different than the shores of the North Sea. Nevertheless, the ability to breathe underwater and strong tails to propel them through riptides was an advantage. Drains-the-Swamp's company, upon accepting the challenge, had created a 3-D contour map of the coastline in their conference tent. Making clever use of special magelight wands and some math they had land formations and depth, tides, underwater currents and speed. Of the season that is. They knew winter was approaching and they had been warned that the currents shifted and got stronger.

The argonians also had a side project of salvaging any treasure they could find in the ruins of Winterhold proper that had fallen into the sea. The long-ago earthquake had created a new continental ledge. Bad luck was that the ruins were on the wrong side of that drop off. Down there the cold, the darkness, and the drop in oxygen levels made it difficult for them to explore the ruins, much less shift the rubble to find valuables. But they needed the treasure to make up part of the construction and payroll funds. Nords may sneer that this was grave robbing, but the other argument was that this was just reclaiming their inheritance to build a future for themselves and their children. Of course the argonians kept some for their trouble, but the rest would hopefully mean taxes would not need to be raised nor Winterhold incur insane debt to burden their children's children with.

Curtis dared to offer his help. It took some fast talking to convince them he knew something of underwater conditions and construction. The argonians didn't outright laugh in his face but were clearly skeptical of his usefulness. So onto a beach test. He'd been working the past month with a leatherworker and bonemold crafter to create goggles and fins. The goggles were easy enough, just a modification of the goggles dunmer ashlanders used to protect their eyes in the dust storms. The fins were a bit trickier. No rubber. The bonecrafter created some nice thin, snappy support struts. The leatherwork was a bit harder, for one, to find the right type of skin, treating it for salt water conditions, then figuring out shape and sewing.

It was a rough swim. Visibility was poor with storm stirred silt; the current, rough. Curtis kept his head and was even more appreciative of his new body. Stronger than he'd ever been and, as Curtis had come to know, took very well to learning new physical skills. No misfiring adrenaline-charged panic just focused surges of power to kick along with down-currents and out of streams. The blood rush of good spirits was a good feeling. Whoever Slitter had been, he'd enjoyed combat. It made up somewhat for the bouts of anger and paranoia Curtis often had to deal with, reflexes triggered by things Curtis had not yet completely identified.

The argonians followed behind him. When they got back to the beach, Scouts-the-Deep, who handled most of the mapping, said, "Very good for a land-strider. You are now in charge of training."

Curtis's main concerns now were depth pressure, how well breathing enchantments worked once he started hitting the oxygen minimum zone below the drop off, and hypothermia and dehydration. The high wind and water churn at the surface should keep oxygen levels at the lower depths fairly good, but theory was all pretty and nice until you banged it against reality to see which cracked first.

Nope. Thin air down there. He brought the problem to the College and got a couple Alteration students to work the problem with. Curtis demonstrated his concepts, like taking them underwater and having them watch as leather balloons deflated under pressure. There were also lectures to Restoration students about barotrauma, dehydration, gas expansion in the guts from increasing pressure, exposure to water-borne pathogens with symptoms they may have never seen before, bone loss… and a lot of other details he could dredge. It helped that the argonians, even they who were designed to live underwater if they wanted, could attest to those same symptoms, though at far a lesser degree for them of course.

It took a good two months to complete the lectures, the practical demonstrations, and to help coordinate alteration, restoration, and enchantment students to create and refine the necessary dive gear for any daring land-strider mad enough to want to work underwater. During that time the promised dunmer engineers who had experience with building and maintaining Vivec City, a city built on pontoons, had arrived. They brought with them tools and spells that help stabilize heavy structures atop water. They were able to add some math formulas that Curtis had been struggling to translate. It became easier on seeing the symbols the dunmer team used to express their mathematics. He was able to add more concepts they'd never considered before; ones they'd never needed to consider because they'd worked for a living god who could manipulate environmental conditions to make construction easier. Their enthusiasm for the new concepts helped solidify Curtis's position at the College as a dwemer-type engineer, a user of brute-force machinery over the manipulation of majicka.

One good result was that there were more students volunteering to work the project in return for more bizarre science lessons from Curtis, also a lot more nords who refused to be shown up as cowards by sneering dark elves and hissy lizards.

Another bonus for Curtis was that he had an excuse to work closer with Restorations instructor Colette Marence because the work demanded more research into modifying or creating new spells and potions to work underwater. The new areas of study and the heartfelt appreciation of the project workers all helped to soothe her ego and to reassure her that her work was important and that she wasn't a waste of College resources like so many small-minded, anonymous note-writers within the College implied. Unfortunately, for Colette, that still meant having to put up with—

"Aaand here we are! Winterhold blue lobster special with garlic butter dipping sauce and basil and potato mash."

—with a talkative dunmer suffering delusions of—

"Starting off with a savory seaweed and shrimp salad, all freshly harvested this morning. It has pepper flakes from Elsewhere, a touch of Goldenglow honey, a savory note of saltrice vinegar..."

At least he could out-cook The Gourmet. Most mages were willing to drop whatever they were doing to work on something for him in exchange for the tasty bribes he came up with. She stared at the giant underwater bug. Its carapace was a pretty, mottled blue with cream spots. Trust a dunmer to see a giant armored maggot and think it delicious.

But it did smell so good.

"The new stuff for breathing is the best yet," he said as he cracked the tail shell open for her and handed her a fork. "Even if it tastes and feels like rotted vegetable slime."

"I'm trying to eat," she snapped. "And we're working on it. We're trying to find a plant with the same qualities that doesn't cause several allergic skin and lung reactions." She swirled the lobster meat in the butter and took a bite. Curtis grinned in satisfaction as her eyes closed and she began making those small noises of pleasure. The Winterhold blues tasted even better than Maine lobster, likely from eating some exotic Tamriel stuff not available on Earth.

Overtly, he'd invited her to dinner to discuss her newest formulations. It was possible to drink potions while underwater, so every land dweller going under carried at least two emergency bottles of that potion, but those potions didn't fully counteract the fact that the deep divers worked in a region where there was very little air to breathe. Colette's solution had been something that made changes to body chemistry; that slowed the demand for oxygen. Downside was that those on the drug and working long and hard for more than four hours under deep pressure were guaranteed victims of barotrauma (the "bends") if they didn't spend another four to six hours in staged ascension. Drug effectiveness had wildly different results between the three volunteer test teams of dunmer, nords, and argonians.

Covertly, well, that had been difficult since she refused to dine with him in any other than a public place. So he'd arranged with Dagur to use his kitchen and for a "private" table for two in the public room.

"Alchemy can be so imprecise," she grumbled. Whoa, lady snapped right out of ecstasy to business. Curtis braked hard then gear shifted to catch up.

"But admit it — it can do things magic can't," said Curtis.

"But it can be so stupid. At least with magic one can work with the body's own inherent knowledge of its own unique structure of health."

"Genetics can be wrong."

"So you keep saying. If only you could provide more substantial proof."

"I wish I could, too."

"It is a fascinating principle you've introduced to us, though," she conceded. "Breeding for desirable traits in plants and animals, of course, is something we've done, oh, forever. But I don't know of any study that has actually tried to codify the, hm, the chemical structures as you seem to think are the basis of our existence. But, I do love that microscope device you designed for us," she added in a gentler voice. "The structures you point out in those miniscule slivers of flesh are fascinating."

"It's a crude build, but it'll do for now. I'm sure the smart kids at the College will refine it now that they've got the idea," Curtis said dismissively. "Anyway, if someone was born wrong, like, born blind or deaf or with a physical or mental mutation or defect, then you can't 'heal' it away. The kid was born with a rotten default setting, and even the strongest magic healing only resets to default at best. You know you can't heal anyone to better than what they were originally."

"That's an essential principle we teach every student of Restoration," she said impatiently.

"And do you teach the principle that the body, stripped of spirit, stripped of intelligence, is nothing more than a machine? A biological machine."

Her eyes narrowed. "That's a principle of Necromancy. The Thalmor also use that precept when breaking and corrupting prisoners to turn them into slaves for the Dominion. It is what the dwemer did to the falmer."

"Uh, yeah. I guess."

"You guess?" Sharply said. And the way she cracked open the lobster claw warned Curtis that he was on shaky ground here.

Whoops. Not the track he wanted to go. He frantically searched through his haphazard knowledge of Elder Scrolls game lore to find a workable reference. "Well... I was thinking more of, um, of Sotha Sil," he offered. "He replaced a lot of his body with dwemer-type machinery. Of course, being a god he could make it work."

"Hm," she hummed, calming down. "I see. But what has this all got to do with improving the ability to work underwater? Are you proposing iron lungs?" Her smirk invited another of his bewildering lectures into the realms of fantasy.

But Curtis wasn't going there tonight. He'd save his definition of iron lungs for later. "Naw. We can talk about vacuum tube experiments later. Ready for dessert?"

"Mm."

Curtis smiled and leaned closer. In a seductive voice he offered, "Tonight, milady, red Cascabel apples in a crumble of toasted oats and honey and nuts, and with a side of salted caramel ice cream."

"Sounds good. What's ice cream?"

"Something non-milk drinkers will snarl with envy over because they're not getting any." He disappeared back into the Frozen Hearth's kitchen with the lobster tray and empty salad bowl and just a swiftly came back with a domed platter. Uncovered, lovely fragrances emerged of baked apples, toasted oats and honey, and various expensive, sweet spices from Elsewyr and Valenwood. Beside the plate of apple crumble was a small bowl with a mound of semi-frozen milk through which ran thick, golden stuff that almost looked like honey. "The height of hubris," he purred as he set the tray before her. "Frozen heaven in the belly for when it's snowing outside paired with the lush fruits of summer."

"Oh. My. Gods."

Curtis smirked and sat back, enjoying the expressions flitting across her face as she ate. Well, as a favorite philosopher from his old world was fond of saying, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."

He knew in the game she came across as abrasive and really snooty. But from what he could get from her, her instructors in Kvatch had been altmer. The particular group she'd learned from were Summerset altmers, priests of Akatosh, and she'd absorbed some of their mannerisms which obviously didn't translate well here in nord country. She also had some self esteem issues. Why she persisted in staying in a place that disrespected her as a mage and considered Restoration the province only of priests was beyond him.

She'd been floundering in her efforts to reach Master stage. There were no challenges for her and no colleagues left in her field here. The College's last instructor of Restoration, another Adept in the art, had died shortly after her arrival. This was during the early stages of the Great War. Soon after, many of the College's Restoration students, including that late master's young relative, Helga Ansdotter, mother of the Dragonborn, went to serve in the armies being mustered in Eastmarch and Hjaalmarch. Colette refused the call although the battlefield has always been a place to exercise and strengthen one's skills and find inspiration to innovate. None of them returned. And so her position in the College was by default.

"So. How is it? Or has the splendor of the milky snowball frozen that sharp tongue of yours?" he teased.

"If there's ever a good use of snow, you found it. How fortunate your frequent dunking in the waters around Winterhold has managed to cool your perpetually overheating ego for you to occasionally exhibit some redeeming, useful talents."

"You flatter me, Master Colette, to recognize the tempering of a finely honed mind."

"Even so. But a little more judicious hammer work wouldn't be amiss to correct the warp in your character."

"Excuse me, beg pardon, seras," said Elden, a teen from the nord dive team. He was shaking, although it seemed more from excitement than from the cold.

Curtis automatically got to his feet, ready to react. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"N-no, sir. Well, yes, we — me and Jendla and Nem-Ja — were doing some night-diving around Skytemple ruins. We found something."