I had to change my plans in accordance with the new realities and opened up opportunities. The old Altmer kept his word and began teaching me magic, and the only thing that I had to do in exchange was to help him with chores.
So just before I get my first lesson I had to weed the garden near his house, but this is a mere trifle compared to the opportunity to gain knowledge from a seasoned mage and the veteran of the Great war, though he does not like to talk about his past.
Subsequent lessons required similar investments, go chop some wood, spread a few parcels around the city, then go to the market and buy food and cook dinner, then help at the cemetery. In general, the work was not difficult, just inconvenient and time-consuming. I didn't complain, the Altmer was old, and it I would have helped him in petty matters anyway just because he pulled my little soul from the passing to the next world.
The second thing that caught my eye was the change in attitude towards me from some shop owners and the guards. They stopped looking at me as if I was a suspect in some crime, and the owner of one of the largest taverns allowed me to live with her almost for next to nothing.
The family of the girls that I saved thanked me and some offered money, but to take gold for the deed, which was dictated by the usual decency and honor did not sit well with me.
It is one thing to take gold for some kind of assignment, but quite another for the saving of the child, which I did without expecting anything in return.
I will not say, that I don't need money, just the opposite, but it was low to take them in all criteria for me personally.
It wasn't the two weeks that I planned to spend in Falkreath that had passed, but exactly a month, and the reason for my delay is quite understandable, how can you resist the opportunity to learn magic?
So I couldn't, sending my original plans to a stump and remaining in a city surrounded by forest. For almost three weeks the leadership of an old Altmer who fought in the ranks of the Third Dominion and is now trying to redeem himself by serving Arkay.
I learned new more efficient ways to control Magnus' light. and know I can even summon an Ice atronach though it will drain me considerably.
And the most important lesson that I understood is the fact that magic does not belong to Nirn and its creatures, and if, in some unimaginable way, the hole in the etherius that serves as the sun in this world will be closed, then mers and humans
will be deprived of access to the infinite stream of light emanating from the Aetherius and accordingly they will lose the magic.
Of course, my involuntary teacher did not directly tell me this, but I myself came to this on the basis of the information he gave me and the knowledge that was in my mind.
Mages draw their power from the outside world, and magic accumulates in the world through the continuous flow from Magnus's plane of being. Shut off Nirn's access to Magnus's plan and see how long the mages can arrange a fire show.
It bitterly bitter the sweet pill in the form of "I can into magic", to know that my the strength of only a loan taken for a while was very bitter. Of course, I could be wrong, and I even hope that this is so, that in fact, everything is much more complicated.
But in general ... in general, this added only one more global item to my plans - become an independent source of magic. Another unrealistic goal but the goal to which I will strive nonetheless.
The funny thing is that the revelation about nature and the source of the magic did not change my intermediate goals and outlined ways to achieve them, only strengthened my determination to follow them.
I have to enter College, I have to get access to the Eye of Magnus, the strongest magic generator in the Mundus, I must stop the vampires from fulfilling the fake prophecy, and...
-Hey, are you listening to me?! - a grumpy, but good-natured voice pulled me out of not my deepest thoughts.
-Yes, yes, I'm listening to you, old wrinkled ass, - otherwise calling it a mischievous old man was impossible, I probably didn't complain and generally treated his instructions with a fair amount of indifference, but this did not prevent him from being an exploiter.
-Lazy bastard, what did you say?!- he exclaimed emotionally.
-Yes, yes, - lazily I answered, not the first time we barked among ourselves, not even the second.
-Did you read that book that I gave you two days ago? - Altmer was able to discard foolishness aside when I saw that I was doing the same.
- Finished last night, - an interesting reading about the school of conjuration, its main principles, and little tricks that make it easier to summon the most basic level.
As it turned out, magic is a very complicated thing, and the mage who came up with how to transfer knowledge of spellcasting in the form of enchanted books is no less than a genius. About two days ago, the priest decided to raise the stakes and gave me one of his diaries from my youth.
Yes, as it turned out this sentimental old mer kept most of his scribbles of the past years and now I have been honored to read them in order to gain wisdom. And I must admit there was something to learn.
His reflections during the beginning of his studies at the military academy of mages on The Summerset Isles were very helpful in understanding the nature of magic and the methods of its control. Even though he gave me access to the most basic things, but I was thankful.
So, in the last diary given to me, the process of creating spells such as "summon Daedric dagger", with clarifications from the author's diary about pitfalls when summoning and tricks that can be used to make it easier for you to do it.
- You again think with your empty head the wrong thing! - raised the tone of the priest and I immediately returned to reality.
- I'm sorry, it's my fault, - there was really no way to shrug it off, I thought.
-Tch,- he grimaced, but calmed down. - Since you appear to have rudiment of a propensity for magic then comparable to the most mediocre of Altmer - well, he could not help but point out that in terms of aptitude, I am far cry from the Altmer, they are good in everything, not like other races. Yes, you can take the Altmer from the Dominion, but the Dominion from Altmer never. - Then maybe you quite wasting our limited time...
-Um, I interrupted, -limited time?
-Did you think that I would teach you for free until my death? Pff! -he snorted smiling. Hmm, but he's right, why did I even decide that he would teach me everything he knows, why would he?
- Didn't think about it.
-He didn't think,- he waved his hand at me in a senile grumbling. My agreement to educate you in general almost for free is nothing more than a kind of reward for bravery in saving one girl. You helped her even though you could run away, and I help you even though I could refuse.
- Thank you, - I already thanked him before, but once again it won't hurt, he loves, when he is praised and stuff like that.
-So, I taught you some tricks. If you want more, then please pay what is due price, I also need to live on something, eat, drink ...
-Understood! - I grimaced, I had little money, and I could not afford to spend them, not now. Alas, there was no work in Falkreath for mercenaries like me.
-That's good, but if you suddenly have money, I'm ready to start teaching you, we'll start with a starting price of two hundred septims a week.
-It's a robbery! -My heart skipped a beat at the price.
- Well, no, it would be if I broke the price of three hundred coins, and it's a quite reasonable price. I even gave you a discount in honor of what a good boy you are. running errands. He grinned broadly at me.
- You greedy old bastard!
Why is magic so expensive? Where can I get money for it? Maybe really, go to the Dark Brotherhood, they seem to make good money from
Maven for food. Hmmm, of course, what you can't do for the sake of magic, but here I'm not ready to kill for it yet, but who knows how it will be in the future
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There is practically no money left, almost six weeks in Falkreath notably drained my pocket, and if not for the help of the Caerellia family providing me with very cheap lodging and equally cheap food as a token of thanks, I would have gone bankrupt two weeks ago.
There is still some gold in my purse, but of course, it cannot be compared with what it was.
Essentially, I am down to my last hundred gold, or rather the last one hundred and twenty-two septims. The remaining septims from the four hundred that were once upon arrival in Falkreath diverged into two things: honey and cheap alchemical ingredients.
And no, I didn't learn alchemy, I just learned a couple of uses for plants that sometimes grow literally under your feet or around the corner of the house. For example, if you boil snowberries for a long time, which you can buy from almost everyone merchant of fruits and vegetables, you get berry tea, which will help on cold days and nights.
Although if you squeeze fresh ripe frosty berries and stir the resulting juice, into the crushed stems of the lilac mountain flower having previously cleaned them, and then boil the resulting mixture, then you can get a concoction that will allow you to jump naked into a snowdrift and wallow in without fear of getting frostbite of the buttocks.
However, if you take more than ten grams of stalks per hundred milliliters of juice and even for a couple of minutes digest this mixture on fire, then along with protection from the cold as a gift you will receive a very weak poison, which will take away some of the magic of the consumer of such a brew.
And if you grind ordinary wheat in an extract from a blue mountain flower, then get a granular paste that will help relieve inflammation from open wounds, and when taken orally, it will relieve stomach pains and will be good prophylaxis for hemorrhoids. A minus of this mixture is the temporary weakness of magical powers and their slow regeneration.
In fact, it was a shame that learning alchemy is very demanding. time and resources, everything is important there: cooking time, day, night, time year, the state of the moons; who cooked a woman or a man, mer, ned or beast-man; cooking time; proportions of ingredients, their type (extraction, whole parts, a dried powder) and how they are grounded; in which sequence and what is mixed with what, at what temperatures, and in what environment; equipment used to create potions.
So many things to consider, the variety of little things and features that you need to know and observe, if a reasonable person wants to become at first just an alchemist, and then a good alchemist, and not kill yourself with fumes during the next attempt to cook some potion simply by throwing everything and more into the cauldron. And about the fact that some plants and animal body parts bearing positive qualities with one method of creating potions can turn into the basis of a strong poison when changing the approach to their processing and can be completely silent, this is almost a common truth among alchemists.
Hmm, when I found out these details, my idea to earn extra money quickly by learning some alchemy was mercilessly beaten and brutally finished off by the harsh reality.
The result of my stay in Falkreath? Well, if you exclude an absolutely stupid and incredibly brave incident with a werewolf, then I achieved my goals,
even if it's a month later. Played enough with magic, and even if I always will want more, calmed my nervous mind, and more importantly, I thought in detail about what I should do in the new wonderful world in which I was blessed to be.
With this cheerful thought, I closed the door behind him to the room in which he lived for the last month, grabbing a backpack full of staff.
- Are you leaving? - the owner of the tavern noticed me, a little dark-skinned imperial, which all this time she rented a room to me at a purely symbolic price,
-Yeah, I have lingered too long in Falkreath, confirmed her assumption.
-Brita will miss you,- the woman grunted, and I almost grimaced as if from a sharp toothache.
-It would be better if she unlearned to call mage crazy instead of missing one, - her daughter was a real pain in the ass and a test of my patience and philanthropy, a test that I passed with honor.
-Ha ha, she's still a child,- the imperial woman smiled warmly in a motherly way.
-Good habits should be developed from childhood. Good luck staying, Indara,- I nodded to her saying goodbye
Leaving the tavern, I immediately went to the main gate from Falkreath.
Outside the gate, a group of merchants was already preparing for their imminent departure, which united in one big caravan, the same one with which I came here. I needed to see them, yet they hired me... let's face it, they hired my atronach for a good amount of money to travel with them to Helgen. So this time, I'm not paying to travel with someone, but I'm getting paid,
Easy fifty septims, it's good to be a mage, I get paid more than ordinary warriors, they will receive only thirty-five coins for the same path. Caravan is large, which means the risk of attack is rapidly falling, and hence the price of services hired mercenaries are correlated accordingly.
As I got closer to the front of the long line of wagons, I threw my things into one of the covered with cloth and with furs inside the wagon, closer to the head of the caravan, while he himself went to the place where the leaders of our friendly team of servants gathered, warriors, mercenaries and merchants. Nevertheless, the caravan was very large, with more than a hundred carts for eleven merchants.
-And here is our mage,- one of the richly dressed Nords remarked.
I grinned, passing through the palms of bluish lightning bolts.
- So who will show me the targets that need to be fried until crispy crusts? I said jokingly.
And no, my eyes twinkled with an enthusiastic gleam not from the thought of burning someone then to death, but from the opportunity to use your magic not at the training site, but in a real-life situation. Feel, see, and experience clear examples of their own power, what could be more pleasant for a mage, huh?