Crossover Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Reason And Accountability ❯ Winterhold ( Chapter 16 )

I was in Skyrim. I was cold. Wind howled outside. There was a castle wall, cold stone and no doorway leading into a central round room with a glowing blue light that looked awfully like strong radioactivity. I sighed. I suppose I could use this chance to buy some more spells. Those worked in all realities, so were very useful. I wandered around, pondering the mind of my sleepwalking host and eventually recalled and then found a woman who mastered healing, I mean Restoration, magic. I bargained with her, getting ironskin, cure disease/curse, and repel undead. I apparently had a shield spell. This being the College in Winterhold that made sense. It also meant I’d been to that one and only class held at the college, which would lead to the Ships Mind core. I’d spent all the gold I had on spells. I read the books and instantly knew the spells in my soul. I wiped the spells from my prior Ocato’s recital and replaced Oakskin with Ironskin, which was a huge armor boost. After getting my defenses settled in, I practiced repel undead and shield spells, levelling up… and in Skyrim I have a gamer interface. Nowhere else, none of my other lives did that. Probably a good thing. Checking the main practice hall I noted the absence of the big sphere, so I left and found myself accosted by a hot English babe.

“Why are you here? You’re supposed to be meeting the other apprentices at the Saarthal ruins,” complained the vice principal with the huge rack and the English accent. I admired her looks and disapproving frown for a moment before heading across the bridge into Winterhold. The drunk was accosted by his sister the merchant and I visited her to sell some bits of armor and swords and rings, enough to pay for Firebolt. A useful offensive spell. I also bought a fur cloak and a knapsack and some water skins. The town well had no bucket and was totally useless. How did these people survive? And why didn’t they rebuild their ruined town over the last four centuries? C’mon! How lazy can you be?

Over the narrow pass through the ridge to the north I fought an ice wraith and found some corpses being gnawed on by wolves, which I killed with Fireball. My level went up. I put more into attack magic, because the Saarthal ruins are full of damned draugr mummies. Some gold went into my pouches, again, and I continued down towards the glacier and the exposed ruins. More ice wraiths to light on fire, which is considerably easier to do in person. The interface for combat in the game is a PITA, as the Americans say, and in full immersion it is super easy to lead and instinct shoot stuff with magic or a bow. Good to know. With Ocatos’ activating and levelling my up I gained another level towards my Restoration, reducing costs and improving efficiency.

The students were milling about at the doorway in the bottom of a carefully cleared pit. I’d found more gold in jars, as you do, and some silver ore. We chatted briefly and then entered the ruins. It was dark. I lit a lantern and attached it to my right thigh. It was warm, but did not burn me. Other students wasted mana on the Candlelight spell, which is really a bad idea in combat because it told monsters there was a mage there, and gave archers something to shoot at. I could lift and toss my lantern aside for combat.

The usual series of events happened, meeting the monomaniac wizard archaeologist, finding three rings of health, the Saarthal amulet which slightly reduced the cost of spells by improving their efficiency, and blowing up a door with Firebolt. A short descent with a blathering old man and a brief fight where that old man torched a couple draugr without breaking a sweat. Wizards are nuts here.

A short conversation with a ghost promising doom and prophecy, because why not? Beyond we found a locked gate and an obvious lever. Open that, draugr emerge from coffins and attack. Of course they attack. They never want to say hello or offer to sell things. No, they attack, and I light some on fire. They burn well. I use Repel Undead and my Restoration goes up. I use it several times, buying time for my experienced companion to burn them to ashes. I find some undamaged rings and some gold, because of course dead mummies have gold, right? And then the wizard wants me to go on without him. I sell him the rings and he sells me Trolls Blood, a spell for healing. I learn the spell, add it to Ocatos and I have a chance of surviving this place now.

The next hour consists of creeping through areas, setting off traps, killing or repelling draugr, practicing the shield spell, which drains me like crazy, running away, sneaking up stairs in the dark, lighting enemies on fire, hiding behind iron grates while angry mummies with swords catch fire, and eventually even more traps and such result in the senior wizard catching up to me like it was nothing. Of course it was nothing. I killed all those guys first, and disarmed all the traps. I made some potions and picked up a steel shield. It was heavy but it was better than the magic shield spell. That was so useless I wonder why they bother teaching it. A staircase and a mummy in a chair in front of the giant shielded orb of glowing letters. It was pretty, but the mummy was moving. We fought, and I jumped off the upper level rather than be splatted into gore by the immortal and indestructible mummy. More spell casting and then my teacher shouted: “There I’ve done it. His protections are gone. Smite him now!” So I lit the dried up mummy on fire until he stopped moving. The shield was beat to heck and cracked so I dropped it. That’s 24 kilograms I don’t have to carry now.

“You should return to the college and tell the archmage of our discovery!” he said, excited, giving me a key to the Archmage’s quarters. Handy. I checked the mummy we’d fought and found a really useful amulet of boosted mana and recovery, so swapped the minor Saarthal amulet for this one. It was a quest item so I can’t drop it even if I wanted to. I also grabbed his staff of Fireballs, which will be really good if I end up back here again. It’s powerful, but it uses a lot of magic and needs recharging with soul stones. It is probably a lot easier to use than via a game controller. I try pointing it around and see that yes, it’s like a rifle. Very instinctive. I exited the chamber with one last look admiring what was almost certainly a Culture ships mind, meaning Skyrim and its planet were probably a lost colony, which explained the various lost technologies and artifacts that didn’t make sense until you considered space travels as a source. Then it makes sense.

Out the back exit, a room with a word wall and a big treasure chest, because of course there’s an untouched treasure chest. New word, various junk, some of it portable or useful or both. An improved robe, which I changed into despite the chill. A bit of an improvement in mana recovery and reduced costs using Restoration magic. I found the exit and left Saarthal. Fast travel… does not work. That’s a game mechanic. I had to walk up that long hill, past more monsters to kill and loot, back to town where I could sell some things. They did not value my student robes, which annoyed me so I didn’t sell them, and offloaded various bits of iron and steel shaped like bad weapons, some armor I couldn’t wear, and returned across the completely unrepaired bridge, despite four centuries to do the work or hire someone to do the work. How lazy are you people? Really!

The archmage is a bitter old fool and gave me the staff equivalent of a flashlight, completely ignoring that I was carrying a staff of fireballs and a unique amulet, like I was some newbie. I am not sad he will be dying later. What a jerk. I used his enchanting table to learn the enchantment for one of the health rings, and then my student robes, and the student hood for mana. I’d be sure to find something useful later. I left the Archmage’s quarters and visited the library, getting a lecture from a grumpy orc… are there happy orcs? Ones that aren’t in the process of killing or raping, I mean. No? That’s what I thought. He pointed me at some keep in the mountains near Whiterun, a long walk of several days, to fight an entire army of mages and their summons, all to recover three books he could probably buy elsewhere. What a twisted joke. I got some food and Mage’s Ale in me and called it a night. I was exhausted.