Dungeon diving was apparently a pastime in Skyrim.
The traps, undead, winding tombs and mazes that stood between an adventurer and the loot at the end. What no one wanted to talk about, was how fucking annoying it was going through everything.
I was probably pissed off by the third room. After killing all the draugr, and finding the 'secret' passage through that little area, it led me into more of a 'crypt'. There were coffins lining the walls with a weird pedestal at the end of a narrow chamber with a magical looking necklace on it and some metal bars stopping me from going forward.
I had tried to do the obvious thing, pull the metal bars up like I had done previously, but it looked like they weren't budging. I mean, I could probably blast me way out of here, but this whole place could come down on me.
What a situation I found myself.
The only thing of significance in this little area was an obviously magical necklace on the pedestal right near the metal bars.
Can you say 'trap'?
I picked it up, waiting for something to happen…..and nothing.
So…am I missing something here or –
An ethereal figure appeared infront of me, almost like someone was projecting their consciousness across a far distance "Hold, Mage, and listen well – " He paused, taking another look at me, seemingly surprised by what he saw. "No, who are you? How…..you aren't the one who was supposed to come…."
"Pardon?" I question the odd person.
"This is all wrong, you shouldn't be here, the predictions foretold the dragonborn" He muttered. "Why have you come here?"
"I was asked to clear this place of the undead for the College expedition." I tilted my head. "And who are you to question my coming here? Who exactly are you?" I narrowed my eyes.
"I am of the Psijic Order." He said, once again staring at me. "You shouldn't be here…..Leave, Mage, there are powers at work that you tamper with. Things that no mortal should put their hands on."
Never heard of the Psijic Order, but the way he said it, he made it sound like just giving that name would answer all my questions. I suppose they might be famous or something around here? Regardless..... "I don't answer to you."
"You've been warned." He said ominously before dispersing.
Well, fuck you too.
So, this place isn't as mundane as Tolfdir thought. Well mundane I guess is relative with magical zombies walking around.
I just looked around this little room I was still in, metal bars barred my way but there had to be someway through.
I put my hand on the wall and pulsed some mana, looking for maybe a trick somewhere, until my eyes landing on a coffin sitting upright against the wall. It looked a little too 'straight' to be just haphazardly left there...
I inspected it, placing my hand on the metal covering. It was empty and the wall behind it was missing.
Aha!
I kept my reinforcement up and pulled the lid off, it fought me the entire way, I was apparently going about this incorrectly, but whatever. I didn't care about the traps in this place and just ripped the thing off.
Neat.
The rest of the dungeon had been a bit more of the same. A level that had arrow traps if you put in a wrong combination with these weird, spinning obelisks with certain figures on them. I just froze the little holes where the arrows came out with a spell and got through it with trial and error.
Swinging blades that swung out from the edges of rooms, magical traps that exploded if you stepped on them, and even spikes that shot up from the ground.
Someone really didn't want this place to be discovered.
But the further I went, the more a strange feeling crept up in my heart, a foreboding sensation that something was awaiting me. Something that tickled my danger sense.
There was one more room ahead, the magical energy I felt was palpable, getting through the 'traps barely even inconvenienced me. I don't think they account for magic when creating them, or maybe whatever was waiting for me was much more dangerous and these were supposed to just keep out the idiots?
As I walked through, I saw it, massive blue orb, slowing spinning in place. I could feel it, the pure, unadultered power it emitted.
[That thing is dangerous.] Ddraig spoke up immediately. [I would be cautious of that thing even if I was here in my prime.]
That's not good.
So much magical energy in the air here, it was practically stifling. I was a bit cautious to even cast a spell, I had no idea what reaction would occur.
I took a step down the stairs, and as soon as my foot touched the wood I heard a cracking sound, as something ancient had just moved for the first time in many years.
It stood up from a chair, the familiar figure of a Draugr, but immediately I could tell this one was different, like the one I fought at Meridia's temple.
I hurriedly threw up a ward as flames spouted from its hands.
It can cast magic, okay.
With another thought, Oak flesh covered my body and I made sure to double check my Reinforcement. My ward met its torrent of flames as I closed the distance, Dawnbreaker in my other hand. As we got close enough it tried to swing its own axe at me, but I ducked, overloading the Ward and dispersing his flames spell.
Its over, I swung my magical sword underneath him..... only to be intercepted by a magical barrier.
A magical barrier strong enough to fight against the weapon a literal goddess gave to me. It pushed back the cleansing flames of my sword and a small explosion erupted at the focal point, blowing the sword out of my hand and causing me to stutter back.
I saw it clearly, the torrent of power that was being streamed into this undead from the floating orb nearby. It was siphoning power from the thing, pure magical energy enveloping its body making it practically invulnerable to damage.
I tried my trick from before, pushing a Turn Undead and a Telekinesis together but they fizzled out when the barrier touched them.
The steel axe in its hand swung with a furry as I stepped back, its free hand summoned ice that rained from the sky.
Runic letters spun around my arm as I pushed them into the ground "Bindings of Gaia."
But it wasn't working, even with the roots springing forth, they withered and drained of any magical energy inside of them as they tried to grab ahold of the undead.
Even physical damage was negated by the shield of magical energy, my attempt to restrain the undead had been repulsed.
Maybe an explosion that doesn't directly target him?
I swiped my ring, pulling out a couple jewels of varying quality. I overloaded them with magical energy and actualized my intent, throwing them towards the undead walking to me. Jumping back enough to not get caught, or so i thought.
The explosion was larger than I had anticipated, feeling the shockwave and almost getting blown back. But once again the undead shrugged it off like it was nothing. I had….hundreds of spells I could call upon yet my mind raced trying to think of a solution, It seemed like I only had one option left.
I withdrew my cane-sword from my ring. It was soaked in my blood, so it was perhaps the best thing I could use as a catalyst for my True Magic without using my body, which would be the height of foolishness.
I pulled on the Kaleidoscope, filling my sword with the dimensional magics. It shuddered under the strain, but I kept pulling from a multitude of parallel worlds all filling inside. Condensing, collecting and synthesizing the correct spell sequence.
Pointing the tip of my blade at the undead, several spell circles spun around the metal, amplifying the sequence.
"Ether Cannon." I let it all go.
The blade shattered in my hand as the beam of light fired off, exploding into tiny pieces as even the handle burst open in my palm.
It struck the barrier of magic, fighting against it, but it looked as if my hypothesis turned out correct, the barrier was pieced through and the undead's chest was blown open.
I caught myself from falling forward. My body arched before stabilizing myself, I had to do something stupid there at the last moment and partial shoulder some of the burden from the actualization of the spell, otherwise my sword would have blown up prematurely.
I don't know what happened, but the energy of this orb started going crazy. The magical energy in the room fluctuated, bursting in every which-way.
Was it because of my use of the Kaleidoscope, did it have some adverse reaction on this strange orb?
"What have you done!?" I turned around and saw that 'person' appear again. He looked more 'whole' than before.
Just as he said it, a beam of light shot up from the orb and pierced the ceiling. The whole underground ruins shook, rocks and debris began falling everywhere.
"You have potentially doomed the world, have you any idea what your meddling had caused?" He shouted in anger. Several more figured appeared around the orb, gesturing to it as if they were about to cast something. "We will take this away and deal with the aftermath of your incompetence."
What?
I took a step forward but was hit by a combined spell from several of the figures. I found myself unable to move and I just watched as their gathered in a circle around the orb and were about to transport it away.
You want to steal from me? This is mine, I won it by combat.
"No." I said firmly, summoning my boosted gear. "BOOST" Me and Ddraig roared at the same time, drawing their attention.
"You….this doesn't concern you anymore, Mage." The 'leader' I suppose, the one who had spoken before stood in my way. "You were not destined to be here and you have ruined everything."
"You aren't even truly here, trying to play with spatial distortions infront of me? Come back in another thousand years." I looked him dead in the eye and snapped my fingers.
The spell, the folding of space and time that allowed them to 'be here' while also not being here, shattered when I pulled over the correct world-flow with the help of the Kaleidoscope. Cowered didn't even have the courage to show up in person.
The ethereal figures had all disappeared in a blink of an eye, pulled back to where their real bodies were as time and space synced back up correctly. The only one left was the one who spoke to me.
"You want to steal my spoils after I had cleaned everything up?" Maybe if he had spoken to me with some manner of respect, explained to me his circumstances, this might have ended differently.
I looked at him, the way he projected himself was different, like how Meridia did, I looked at the 'tether' that was acting as a bridge.
Cute.
"Begone." I did the equivalent of yanking him back towards the source, sending him hurling through space back to his point of origin.
[You got a plan?] Ddraig asked.
"I do have a plan...it isn't a very good plan, but it is a plan."
[What do you need?]
He was being oddly cooperative. "I just need your help, you should know what my Magic does, the Dimensional Refraction Phenomenon?"
[Being able to pull an infinite amount of magical power from an infinite number of worlds.]
"Indeed, we're going to do the opposite here. This thing is also drawing in an unfathomable amount of magical energy, possibly even infinite in scope, but it's all from this singular world, it might drain this place dry if we let it...or it could blow up, I have no idea."
[You want to use the gauntlet.]
"Sorry, it's all I got."
[Okay, lets do this, I'll help where I can from inside.]
I just nodded at the dragon, playing my gauntlet-clad hand on the magical orb and pulled open the Kaleidoscope.