The air around the College of Winterhold was familiar yet greatly changed as I leisurely walked across the great bridge which separated it from its eponymous city. It still felt like the ancient house of lore and study like it always had but its immense aura was now underlined with what almost felt like a sense of tension from the building itself.
The wards were powered to just barely under battle readiness, constant scans blasting over me even as I carried multiple viable 'keys' on myself, even if I grudgingly had to let them through my shroud's protection.
The gardens were also different, I could physically only see parts of two of them but my true sight revealed that all four now housed some new ornamentation. Every garden's edge was now adorned with statues of differing shapes, representing either a creature or a person, but all shared one single trait: They were all thicker and larger than one would usually make.
It would not be a grand leap of logic for someone to guess that they were in fact hiding something, and they would not be wrong either for within each alteration hewn piece of art was hidden a curled up ballista automaton, enchanted to hell and back with resistances to the usual elements used by the dragons, and their bolts were inscribed with mortality runes in dovahzul.
We were not sure the enchantment would actually work but you can't blame a Mer for trying!
The place was a deathtrap for any unusually girthy lizard who though to assault it... Not that it would stop some of the dumber ones.
'Let them cook.' Scorch shrugs.
I frown 'Let them cook as in let them be idiots or let them get cooked?'
'Yes.'
A light snort escaped me at that, just as a certain young Dunmeri woman was about to pass me by, the timing was so perfect she yelped in surprise and threw herself against the wall of the gatehouse while staring at me with wide, fearful eyes.
"Miss Maryon." I nod uncaringly.
"L-Lord Dagoth." She stammers slightly and bows awkwardly "A pleasure to see you here."
"Uh huh." I deadpan, ironically causing her to relax a bit "How go the studies of your group now that you are no longer limited in the number of schools?"
She smiles awkwardly, almost making it look like a wince "While the added freedom is good, not all of us are quite so capable as to immediately attempt studying every school."
"Fair enough." I shrug, I wasn't about to keep the rest of them to my standards considering how much I cheated to get all the way where I was today.
"To answer your actual question." She continues, a bit more professionally "All of us have managed to reach the adept or beyond in our main schools and are now working on perfecting them before branching out." She looks down and mutters "Not like that duo of quitters."
"Quitters?" I raise an eyebrow.
She startles, likely not having intended to say that aloud, but now that I had heard her she had no real choice beside explaining herself. She gulps and nods "Yes, Marco and Minthara, both of them left the College before they could complete their education, the rest of us were... distraught by their decision."
"Ah." I blink, understanding the situation perfectly "Well, you will be happy to know they did not leave because they wanted to quit but because the situation demanded it."
She hesitates briefly before asking "Would you please elaborate?"
I cup my chin and then shrug "Hmmm... Well I guess there is no issue telling you now but Minthara is Dragonborn and they had to go to Cyrodiil to do what I can only describe is a Akatosh-issued fetch quest."
"Fetch quest?" She mutters before stilling once more and gaping at me while blinking rapidly "Dragonborn?"
"Just go to the Respite and you will find them both here." I wave her off "Should get answers to all your questions there."
"Ah." She deflates in slight disappointment of not getting everything immediately "You have my thanks Lord Dagoth."
"It is no trouble." I hum "By the way, where can I find your friend Fishy? I have something of an offer for him."
She points toward the distant hall to the north "He should be in the arena, he spends most of his free time there with Master Faralda."
"Found a new pupil to torment, has she?" I snark before shaking my head "Well, I ought to go and greet the Archmage now, a good day to you miss Maryon."
She offers another bow and leaves for the bridge.
I was about to head to the central tower but decided otherwise and made a beeline toward the Hall of Refinement instead, the moment I stepped through I could hear the sounds of battle, the telltale sound of Faralda's elemental fury facing something far more primitive but no less potent in direct conflict.
Soon as I entered the arena I could see exactly what was going on. Fishy, the big ass pitch black Argonian, was attempting to beat the shit out of Faralda with a downright excessive amount of alteration spells fueling his body.... And was getting his ass handed to him.
'As if there was ever any doubt.' Scorch rolls his eyes.
I waited for them to finish patiently, and did not have to wait long as once Fishy got into close range and raised his hand triumphantly to deliver a finishing blow, Faralda twisted faster than he could see and flashed out with her leg, hitting him straight in the chin and launching him into the nearby wall.
"You have improved." She tells him in a chilly voice "But you still rely far too much on your physicality instead of allowing it to flow with your magic, and the issue with losing yourself is something we go over every time, when will you learn child?"
"I am no child." The Argonian growls as he gets up "I was closer this time, agai-"
I clear my throat and they both stop, Faralda immediately turning to me with a smile as her student shivered instinctually "Reyvin." The Altmer woman greeted me with a wide smile "What a surprise to see you here."
"Sadly my current lifestyle doesn't really allow me to visit as much as I may like." I shrug helplessly, earning an understanding nod from the Altmer "What with the whole world being under threat and whatnot."
"Of course." She nods "What did you need then?"
I was about to make the whole 'can't I visit you whenever?' joke but one look from her told me all I needed to know about the consequences of that so I simply looked at her now far smaller-looking student "I have some business with our scaly friend here, something which he will likely enjoy hearing about."
"I see." Faralda moves her eyes between the two of us "Very well, I will be nearby for when the two of you are done." She gives the massive lizard man a pointed look "We are not done for the day."
He grins and it was a terrifying thing, well to most people it would be anyway "I wouldn't have it any other way." He croaks.
The Altmer master of destruction leaves us alone then and I look to the Argonian "So, Fishy." His eye twitches "Am I to believe you come from the Windhelm docks?"
"Yes." He growls silently "What of it?"
"How do you feel about fucking the resident Nords over?" I ask with a grin.
If his previous expression was terrifying to most people, his current grin filled with rows of obviously ritually sharpened razor teeth almost managed to scare even me "I am listening." He licks his lips.
----
I am held up by no further interruptions as I ascend to the Archmage's personal quarters, the old place's aura allowing to reminisce for just a bit before I reached my destination. Feeling the two presences within I pushed the door open and was met with the sight of Savos and Shalazar tinkering over an orb, a vastly more complex version from what I could observe at a glance.
Savos looks up at me with a grin which quickly turns into an expression of concern as he remembers what I had been doing recently. A raised hand from me stops him from asking questions and he focuses back on the orb "It is good that you made the time to join us." He speaks "We seem to have gotten stuck on the final step of our newest feature."
Shalazar nods rapidly, his tongue flicking out before he spoke "A most glorious feeling to see the triumphant student return just in time to aid his old teachers!"
"Triumphant." Savos scoffs "Try used by his lessers."
I roll my eyes "We will talk about this later, focus on the orb now, please."
"Ah yes, of course!" He perks up, completely forgetting our previous conversation, and turns to the orb, fiddling with it and lighting it up "We were just about ready to perfect the map function but then we thought why not add a calculation function for precise teleportation over long distances?"
I immediately get what he was implying "You mean to create a coordinate system?"
Shalazar continues nodding rapidly.
"A what now?" Savos blinks.
"What you just described, I just named it." I deadpan.
"But that name is so lame!" He huffs.
"Should have been faster." I Shrug "Deal with it."
"You snooze, you lose!" Shalazar declares and it is thus.
"Gah, fine!" Savos pouts and goes back to showing off the orb "We wanted to set up a precise system but we cannot decide on a good point of reference and the arcane script is just too complex for marking the... coordinates as you call them."
"This is why you called me?" I ask with some disappointment.
"So you have an idea?!" Savos grabs me by the shoulders.
Grumbling something rather unkind I shove him to the side and grab the orb, giving it a quick look before finding the enchantment and quickly deciphering the whole thing. All in all it was pretty well done for a prototype with no point of reference, but I felt that wasting time on letting them discover this stuff on their own wouldn't really be all that productive so I got to work.
First I replaced the arcane script with numbers, allowing every point to be marked with up to five decimals, an then I found the marked spot which represented the White Gold Tower on the map of Tamriel and drew two lines, one going from east to west and the other going from south to north.
A bit more calibrating and fiddling later I finished marking the cardinal directions and added the four in-between directions with some extra lines and placed the orb back into the groove atop Savos' table and allowed it to light up with a projection of Tamriel, now accompanied with a mildly garish looking but fully functional coordinate system.
Shalazar floated up to the procession and just started giggling while clapping his hands "Marvelous, my glorious student, simply marvelous!"
"Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best I guess." Savos nods in approval and starts pointing at random spots, causing a series of letters and numbers to appear "It will definitely take a lot of getting used to teleporting around in relation to a series of numbers but once trained I think this will revolutionize personal teleportation and even make portal construction that much cheaper!"
"A grand discovery, no doubt." I nod, the usefulness of such maps was a very well known factor to me so while they would ponder and marvel at the ideas of what such a thing could do I was already planning on how to abuse the fuck out of it later.
The excitement died down as the three of us sat down to enjoy some supernaturally potent drinks and exchange stories, the two old men's lives were far less exciting than my own but the trolling of students was never not a fun thing to talk about and I still felt less than inclined to share my experiences, much to Savos' consternation.
Still, none may deny the Great Lizard Wizard (praised be) once he wants something, and he declared that he wanted me to tell them everything that happened.
And so I did, I told them about the entire battle and how it all went down. When I got to the finale Savos started looking progressively more and more furious.
To the point that he ended up slamming his hand on the table with a snarl "You should not have ever left to help them in the first place!" He slumps back in his seat "Let the fools fight their wars, why poison your soul for them like that?"
"Because I am one of the rare people who can." I shrug "And you know damn well I would never be satisfied with mediocrity, no matter how comfortable it may be."
"Your words ring true, student mine!" Shalazar squeaks "For if a soul like yours were to slumber, it would be as asking it to never awaken again."
Savos just slumped even deeper, almost sinking into his seat as he contemplated everything. After five full minutes of silence he sighed "I guess I can stop you from doing what you want just as much as I could stop your mother." He chuckles mirthlessly and summons a few bottles of mead he most certainly got from his Daedric friend.
He pushed the bottles to us and raised his own for a toast "Very well then, if I cannot stop you from risking yourself, I can at least celebrate your successes! To Reyvin Dagoth! One insane fucking elf!"
We all chuckled at that and drained our bottles, the contents of which surprisingly managed to give me a buzz, sadly failing to do much more than that.
"What of the dragonslayer project?" I ask after we had all relaxed sufficiently.
"It nears perfection, great apprentice!" Shalazar proclaims gloriously "We need only wait a day for Tolfdir to return, and we shall commence testing with the blessing of your presence!"
"While I wouldn't put it in quite so many words, yes." Savos chuckles "We are waiting for Tolfdir to return from his visit to another of his recently born descendants, he should be back by tomorrow."
"Alrighty then." I clap my hands and slide my seat back "I am going to go and visit Phineas now, I should be free for it tomorrow." I start to walk away but pause "Oi, Shalazar!"
"Yes, student mine?" He tilts his head cutely.
"Can I get an orb for my own draconic student?" I ask "Should be quite useful in keeping an eye on her."
"But of course!" He nods rapidly "I will have one ready by tomorrow!"
I thanked him and left the both of them to do their own thing and headed down to the Midden, Phineas bragged about making even more progress and maybe my own brand of random knowledge would help him out.
True, I may not need the results of his projects but what kind of mage would I be if I didn't try to play god by creating a living body?
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