Chapter 696: Eldritch Tidings

Chapter 696: Eldritch Tidings

VOLUME 9 LET’S GOOOOO!

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It wasn’t long since the situation had gone that bad and the lives of the villagers were threatened. Moreover, it has been 200 years since the appearance of the last set of disasters, the world may have gone calm but this island was never peaceful.

Many of the villagers went missing, even those who made this journey were not safe and most of them fell to the influence of evil. Eventually, it was two who made it to the ship and fled to Winterhold.

They had to meet him, the man who can save their people, the Bloodskal.

***

It was a bright night, the sea was calm and the stars were reflected on the clear water. The birds were lazy at night and the weather was getting warmer after the winter season.

As miraculous as the rise of Winterhold was, the snow was melting after the winter season from the buzz of life alone. The arcane engines, the magic reactors, the busy docks, the stacked buildings, and the dense artificial groves all contributed to this new phase of climate control.

Winterhold was experiencing a warm season after the past long winter. While spring would usually be no different from Winter, this year’s wind came warmer than ever and the dense twin cities of Winterhold and Saarthal warmed one another.

Between the two cities and exactly to the north at a certain beach sat a man who just said his farewells to a friend and watched her take a boat to Solitude. Jon was home with a busy mind and a busier heart.

As soon as he arrived earlier this morning, he met his close family members starting from Nurina, Hilda, and Alina all the way to Tyr, Skadi and his cousins. There was much to do, to talk about, and to let off their chests.

At first, Jon learned that Archmage Savos Aren had recovered but it seemed that his injuries were so severe from his fight against Ancano, who used the Eye of Magnus. This severe injury led to the fact that he was no longer able to walk straight. Still, he sent his appreciation to Jon for the artifact that saved his life and announced his retirement as the Archmage. He tried to set someone as the next in line for the Archmage seat but neither Jon nor Nurina were willing candidates and so the position was given to Alina and postponed for an election.

As for Alina, she had a thorough conversation with Jon about the situation of the College and how she thought it was reckless to manage the future he knew about with such carelessness. While Jon was positive about her opinion, he stated that the outcomes he knows about are more beneficial than solving the problems before they arise.

In the case of the College, letting things play as they did not only resulted in a Nord like Alina being the Archmage of the College but it also gave the College of Winterhold politics and financial power now that it is officially under the sponsorship of the House of Dare. Not only that, but other Tamrielic institutions, such as the Synod and the College of Whispers, got a lot of bad reputation after slandering the College of Winterhold for a long time, especially now that the College of Winterhold was rumored to have had connections with the world’s most powerful cabal of mages, the Psijic Order.

Alina’s most dire concerns (regarding the college) were about the Augur of Dunlain, the entity of a mage whose mortal shell was destroyed and whose anuic form is still tethered to this world by arcane means.

The problem here is that the Augur is a very knowledgeable entity but has no independent will of his own and acts in a horological manner rather than being bound to the state mortals are bound to. It means that as a being that can see past, present, and future doesn’t bother with temporal boundaries and can reveal dangerous information on a whim. For example, the information he revealed to Ancano about the Eye of Magnus that led to the late disaster in Winterhold.

While it has become dangerous to leave the Augur be, Alina knows that Jon needs the Augur’s help every now and then so before she took action, she had to consult with Jon. After an hour of arguing, their final decision was to collapse the tunnel leading to the Augur’s Chamber and put wards around it to keep anyone from finding its location without losing themselves in the maze of the maiden. Jon still had a backdoor to reach the Augur’s abode anyway.

With that out of the way, Jon had his schedule freed to the end of the day and finally arrived at where Laaneth was preparing for departure.

He carried her belongings and walked with her to the pier. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her to stay unlike how the others tried since he witnessed her mental breakdown back at the Chamber of Lorkhan. If Laaneth needed anything right now, it is to change her surroundings to unfamiliar ones and try to forget while doing what she does best, wandering.

Glymet’s last two belongings were split between Laaneth and Jon, she took the coin and he received the sword. He asked her what Glymet was thinking when he signed up for a journey out of Tamriel, she answered him that if he, who is as human as Glymet, didn’t know this answer, then he must contemplate more.

In truth, Jon had a few guesses in the back of his head but he refused to follow them. Unlike Glymet whose journey was long and took him years upon years, Jon’s journey is way faster, much more eventful, and is bringing him tidings on the winds.

Other people came to see Laaneth off and that included Tyr Firemane who was a friend to her as well as Swims-at-Night and Glymet, there was also Hilda and Jonrad Firemane who knew Glymet and swore to hold a grand funeral for him if not for Jon request not to. Glymet didn’t die, after all, he merely transcended his normal existence… but so it is with death.

On the night of that day, Jon was sitting alone at the pier after Laaneth’s departure with his feet dipped in the cold seawater, gazing at the stars and praying. That’s when Jonrad approached him.

The two spoke calmly and without going after each other’s words like usual. At the end of their conversation, Jon handed Jonrad the sword Glymet used to carry, Goldbrand. For a Dragonknight like Jonrad, this was an unimaginable treasure.

And so the days went on…

***

Three days have passed, and not much has happened. Jon busied himself with some of the work he missed out on now that Alina is busy running the College of Winterhold.

Aside from work, Jon was keeping tabs with Jullanar on the situation in Riften regarding the Thieves’ Guild. The last piece of news that reached him was that the Guild almost managed to catch Mercer Frey at Darkwater Crossing but he slipped away from them and wasn’t found till now. On the other hand, Jon seemed to have been waiting for the time when Karliah gets ready to invite them to the Sanctuary of the Nightingales.

That day, a piece of news was spread from Whiterun about the advent of the new Harbinger of the Companions, Wulfur of Winterhold. This news along with Alina’s new position made a big fuss in every court of power around Skyrim that Jon Dare is now taking over the big guilds. If the Mages and the Warriors of Skyrim are his people, this makes him way stronger than he already is, and not just that, his popularity is now on a par with Talos and Akatosh in the hearts of young Nords.

Moreover, his actions almost crippled the Civil War like this. As he opposes the idea of Nords killing one another, those youth who would join the armies marching east and west would eventually go to the Companions and the College instead. It would even be very prestigious if one were to become a Dare Trooper.

Now, what would these people think if they found out that not only does Jon control the Companions and the College but also the Dark Brotherhood and also all the Thieves Guild? He was about to reinstate his family and friends as the heads of the major factions in all things.

And with that, once Mercer Frey is caught Jon can say that he finished all the Guild quests from the game via his proxies.

Meanwhile, the man behind the scenes was now absorbed in training with his best friend Wulfur. The two of them were trying the new Artifact Wulfur has gained, the eternally famous axe and Ysgramor’s first companion, Wuuthrad.

The legendary axe was restored once Wulfur eradicated the Silver Hand clan, a group of warriors and hunters who swore to kill the Werewolves of the Companions’ Inner Circle no matter how many men, women, or children they kill to achieve it. He also freed the soul of the previous Harbinger of the Companions from its eternal servitude to the Lord of Hunt, Hircine, who bestowed the gift of the Wolf Blood upon the Companions.

With that, Jon and Wulfur decided to head down to the Old Quarry in the shadow of Mount Anthor and train using both Volendrung and Wuuthrad.

But away from this and that and back to the city of Winterhold, a ship arrived from the direction of Morrowind bearing the flag of House Redoran. From it, two Nords, a young man and a young woman, came down wearing what seemed to be heavy fur winter wear.

They looked up with their mouths agape and their eyes rounded in shock at the sight of the College of Winterhold that heavily sat on a formidable stone spire that rose from the sea.

Its incredible sight took the breath away from the two kids and they held each other’s arms in fear.

“Sister… that thing isn’t falling on us, right?”

“I don’t know… my head keeps making it look like it is falling on us but it doesn’t fall.”

“All-Maker! Who’s mad enough to build something this way?”

As the two kept talking and trying to walk out of the pier without tripping, they attracted the attention of a man with a large scar.

“No one was mad enough to build anything like that, Skaal.” The man said and the two kids turned around, “It was simply built on normal land like any building but when a wave as big as a mountain swallowed half the city to the sea, only the College remained since it had deep roots reaching down far in the sea.”

The two kids looked at the scary man who was in a sailor’s robe and ordering the men on a large ship to off-load some crates before thanking him for the tip and hurrying away from him.

“Sigh! The Boss always tells me to greet visitors at the dock but with a face like mine…” Ongeim Scar-Mouth, the leader of the Dare Fleet, seemed disheartened as Jon always pestered him to be some sort of a tour guide on the docks.

Back to the two teenagers, they approached the large slope beneath Winterhold and noticed that aside from a large stone stairway going up the slope, there was a large box going up and down the slope, the dock workers were loading it with crates and letting it rise up on chains. It would eventually climb the slope faster than anything and would reach a platform that kept making noises like a nonstop growling beast.

What a curious thing! The teenagers thought. As they were not really from such a civilized place, like this city, but this sort of thing reminded them to keep their wits about them and not act like uncivilized morons. At least not to dishonor the name of the Skaal, they had to act with class and dignity.

That attitude, however, wasn’t kept up once they reached the surface of the main city, for there was much to be in awe about than their entire lives.

Summon a Skyrim player in a city like this and tell them it is Winterhold, they’d immediately scoff at you and walk the other way or they would use their heads and start naming out the mods that have been used to fix up the game’s most deserted settlement.

The current theme of this city was as if pro-gamer had played a city builder game and elaborately placed every building where it would get positively affected by every possible benefit in terms of architectural and planning design.

Starting from the bottom upwards, there were polished and evenly leveled tiles paving the streets, not a single animal or carriage was allowed in not to cause any traffic jam, and the crates that were being sent up from the dock were immediately taken away into a warehouse dug inside the mountain west to the city.

Above this, all were stone buildings with large windows and pointy roofs, all densely packed together in patches of compounded buildings with either a small public garden or a service stall making a much-needed space between these buildings at structural vital points. Still, the buildings were packed together this way to prevent the cold wind from blowing freely across the city and keep some warmth trapped within.

Of course the two teenagers were not informed about architecture to figure out such elaborate details only focused on appearances such as the magical College of Winterhold and the Grand Temple of Kyne as well as the roaring machine which lifts and lowers that contraption from the dock.

It was all wild and magical but they weren’t here to lose their focus like this. They were here to bring a message to a friend of their clan.

A few years ago when they were still kids, a merchant from Winterhold came to their village for trade. Furthermore, he was an adventurer warrior who conquered an evil tomb and saved some lives along the way. The Skaal regarded him as a friend and titled him the honorary title of “Bloodskal” for friendship. Moreover, he possessed a sword forged in their land and carried the same name as the title.

In times of great danger, the Skaal wouldn’t usually call anyone out but if a Bloodskaal exists, the Skaal only seek those trustworthy people if they can’t face their adversities alone. Lately, disasters have struck and an eldritch evil has invaded the very essence of Solstheim to its air, land, and waters.

For that, they had to deliver a call for help to Bloodskaal, to Jon Dare.

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