If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead and more, be sure to check out my P-Tang12!!!
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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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Aerion walked back toward the barred entrance, holding up the old yellow amulet. "We are entirely unharmed, Master Tolfdir," Aerion reported calmly. "I removed this amulet from the wall pedestal, and the gateway instantaneously sealed behind us. It is possible a sophisticated weight sensitive containment mechanism."
Arniel pushed past Onmund, staring at the glowing jewelry in Aerion's hand.
"The necklace is the trigger?" Arniel deduced, his scholarly mind rapidly processing the mechanics. "Fascinating. The ancient Nords rarely used a magical triggers for simple iron gates. If removing it caused the spears to rise... perhaps placing it back on the pedestal will lower them? Or perhaps there is a release lever hidden in the stonework! Look around the room, quickly!"
Jenassa and Lydia immediately began running their hands over the stone walls, searching for hidden buttons, loose bricks, or mechanical levers, but the ancient masonry was completely seamless.
"There are no levers, Master Arniel," Aerion stated.
He didn't bother trying to place the amulet back on the pedestal. Instead, he lifted the heavy gold chain and slipped the necklace smoothly over his head, allowing the glowing blue amulet to rest against his steel chest plate.
The moment the artifact made contact with his aura, the magical resonance in the room violently shifted.
A faint orange glow come out from the amulet, flaring brightly in the dim light. And then, invisible to the naked eye but overwhelmingly obvious to anyone attuned to the arcane, a pulse of pure, resonant magic shot from the amulet, connecting directly to the blank stone wall directly behind the empty pedestal.
Tolfdir gasped, taking a step back from the iron bars. "Incredible... the resonance! Aerion, the magic from that amulet is tethering directly to the wall behind you! It's... it's acting as a key!"
"It is a clue," Arniel added, his eyes wide. "The wall itself is an illusion, or perhaps a magically weakened barrier!"
Aerion turned his back to the mages, facing the blank stone wall. He didn't need to study the frequency or solve a complex riddle. The barrier required blunt, overwhelming thermal trauma to shatter the magical seal.
He raised both of his hands, his steel gauntlets pointing directly at the center of the masonry. He use the standard, low level destruction spells the apprentices used. He tapped into his Destruction (Fire) matrix.
Dual Cast Fireball.
The magical energy that gathered in his palms was terrifying. It wasn't a flicker of flame, it was a roaring condensed sphere of deep red hot plasma that hummed with volatile, explosive power. The temperature in the small chamber instantly skyrocketed, the heat radiating through the iron bars and forcing Tolfdir and the apprentices to shield their faces.
Aerion thrust his hands forward.
The twin fireballs merged into a massive, blinding comet of thermal destruction that slammed directly into the center of the stone wall.
BOOM!
The explosion was catastrophic. The concussive shockwave rocked the entire chamber, kicking up a massive, blinding cloud of pulverized dust and smoke. The ancient stone wall completely shattered, blowing outward into a hidden passage beyond.
The moment the magical seal on the wall was broken, the mechanical locks holding the iron spears instantly disengaged. With a heavy, grinding groan, the thick iron bars retracted violently back into the floor, leaving the entrance to the chamber completely open once more.
As the smoke slowly cleared, Aerion stood perfectly still, his heavy armor completely untouched by the blast. Behind the shattered wall, a dark, sprawling, previously undiscovered corridor stretched deep into the bowels of Saarthal.
The group of scholars on the other side of the room were absolutely stunned.
Onmund and Brelyna were staring at the High Elf with their mouths hanging open in shocked awe at the raw, devastating output of Aerion's spell. Even Tolfdir looked shocked, his assessment of Aerion's power having vastly underestimated the reality.
Aerion turned his masked face back toward the group.
"Looks like there's something we don't know about Saarthal yet," Aerion announced, pointing his heavy steel gauntlet toward the dark corridor he had just unearthed. "That wall was concealing a deeper section of the crypt. The magical wards suggest there are likely significant dangers hidden within, but also potentially groundbreaking historical and arcane discoveries."
He stepped toward the shattered threshold. "I will advance and investigate the interior."
The mention of 'groundbreaking discoveries' instantly shattered the apprentices' shock, replacing it with reckless, academic ambition.
"We must go too!" J'zargo declared eagerly, pushing past Arniel. "If there are powerful artifacts hidden in the dark, J'zargo wishes to be the one to find them! The College will highly reward such a discovery!"
"Yes, we can't just sit here while he clears the entire ruin!" Brelyna added, taking a brave step forward.
Before the apprentices could rush past the retracted iron bars, Tolfdir stepped directly into their path, spreading his arms wide. The usually amiable, absent minded old man was gone, replaced by the absolute, protective authority of a Master Wizard.
"Absolutely not!" Tolfdir commanded, his voice sharp and unyielding, leaving no room for argument. "Did you not just witness the scale of the magical traps employed here? That blast could have brought the ceiling down! You are novices, and you are entirely unequipped to deal with the deeper, sealed sections of an ancient capital."
He turned to the Breton scholar. "Arniel! You are to keep a strict eye on these three. Keep them in the upper, cleared chambers. They are not to take a single step past this corridor."
The apprentices groaned in loud, unified protest, but Tolfdir completely ignored them. The old master turned his gaze to Aerion.
"I, however, cannot pass up the opportunity to witness a freshly unsealed Nordic ruin," Tolfdir declared, pulling his fur cloak tight and stepping over the retracted iron spears to join the High Elf. "I shall accompany you and your retainers, Aerion. We will face whatever lies in the dark together."
Aerion offered a respectful nod. "Your knowledge of ancient wards will be invaluable, Master Tolfdir. Let us proceed."
Leaving the frustrated, pouting apprentices behind under Arniel's watchful eye, Aerion led his armed retainers and the elderly mage through the shattered wall and into the hidden corridor.
The air in this new section of Saarthal was vastly different. It was incredibly cold, perfectly still, and carried a heavy, oppressive sense of dormant antiquity. There were no magical torches burning here, the darkness was absolute, forcing Tolfdir to conjure a floating sphere of Magelight that cast long, dancing shadows across the pristine, dust covered stone floors.
They walked in silence for several minutes, descending a long, gently sloping stone ramp that seemed to lead endlessly deeper into the earth.
Finally, the corridor widened, opening into a small, remarkably simple burial chamber.
Aerion stepped into the room, his eyes scanning the perimeter. There were no traps on the floor, no elaborate carvings on the walls. The room was entirely unadorned, save for three upright, heavy steel sarcophagi. One was embedded in the left wall, one in the right wall, and one directly ahead of them.
And there was no exit. The room was a complete dead end.
Tolfdir walked to the center of the chamber, his Magelight illuminating the blank stone walls. He frowned, his scholarly mind deeply confused.
"A dead end?" Tolfdir murmured, running a hand over his beard. "This makes absolutely no sense. Why would the ancient Nords go through the immense trouble of constructing a highly sophisticated, magically sealed containment trap, just to protect a small burial chamber with three standard coffins? There must be another hidden door. Let me check the masonry..."
Tolfdir raised his hand to cast a detection spell.
And then, the world simply stopped.
Aerion felt the shift instantly. It wasn't a physical sensation, but a profound, terrifying severing of the temporal flow. The ambient, echoing sound of their footsteps and breathing completely vanished, replaced by an absolute, suffocating silence. The dust motes floating in the light of the magical orb froze completely in mid air, hanging suspended like tiny stars.
Aerion turned his head.
Tolfdir was frozen midvsentence, his mouth slightly open, his hand raised toward the wall like a rigid statue. Jenassa and Lydia were similarly paralyzed, their eyes unblinking, their chests no longer rising or falling with breath.
Time had halted.
A brilliant, shifting aura of white ethereal light began to pool in the absolute center of the room. The light coalesced, rapidly taking on a physical, humanoid shape.
The apparition was a tall, imposing male mer draped in intricately woven, golden yellow robes that seemed to shimmer with internal starlight. His face was stern, deeply lined with unimaginable age, and his eyes glowed with a terrifying, omniscient intelligence.
Aerion stood perfectly still, his heavy greatsword remaining on his back. He knew exactly who was standing in the center of the burial chamber. It was Nerien. A master of the Old Ways. One of the Psijic Monks.
The silence in the burial chamber was absolute, possessing a heavy, suffocating quality that defied the natural laws of Nirn. The dust motes hanging in the magical light of Tolfdir's orb were perfectly frozen in mid air.
Aerion stood in the center of the temporal anomaly, the heavy steel of his Nordic Carved armor feeling strangely weightless in the absence of moving time. He kept his golden eyes locked on the shimmering, ethereal figure standing before him.
The apparition of Nerien, draped in the intricate, golden yellow robes of the Psijic Order, slowly turned his head. The monk's glowing, ancient eyes swept over the frozen forms of the two retainers and the elderly College master, assessing the frozen tableau before finally bringing his piercing gaze back to the towering, masked High Elf.
Nerien's expression was calm, but his voice, when he finally spoke, resonated with a measured, undeniable urgency that echoed directly inside Aerion's mind.
"Listen carefully, mage," Nerien began, his eyes lingering on the brutal, heavy steel plates and the thick bear fur that adorned Aerion's frame. "Yes... even if you now choose to wear the heavy armor of a northern warrior rather than the robes of a scholar, I see the arcane fire that burns within you. You must heed my words."
Nerien took a slow, floating step forward, the golden light of his projection rippling like water.
"You, and those you travel with, have already set into motion a chain of events that cannot be undone," the Psijic Monk warned, his tone heavy with cosmic consequence. "The threads of fate in this frozen ruin have been pulled. Judgment has not yet been passed upon you, because I have not yet seen what you will choose to do next. But make no mistake, judgment will come, and it will be based entirely upon how you handle the great dangers that lie ahead in the dark."
The monk raised a glowing hand, gesturing toward the sealed stone walls of the crypt.
"I deliver this warning because the Psijic Order believes in you," Nerien stated. "You, and you alone, possess the potential to prevent a disaster that could unravel the very fabric of this world."
Aerion listened, his posture rigid. The words felt simultaneously familiar and profoundly, dangerously strange. This was not the exact, generic warning delivered to the player character in the game. It was tailored, sharp, and laced with an unsettling level of specific scrutiny.
Nerien tilted his head, his glowing eyes narrowing as he studied Aerion's imposing, armored silhouette.
"You are an anomaly," Nerien breathed, a hint of genuine, ancient perplexity entering his voice. "A soul that casts a shadow entirely out of proportion with its origin. We look upon the tapestry of Nirn, and where you walk, the threads blur. We know that you were brought to these frozen shores after being banished from the high towers of Alinor, yet your presence here feels... heavier than it should. As if the world itself bends slightly to accommodate your steps."
The monk lowered his hand, the ethereal light around him beginning to flicker and destabilize as the temporal spell reached its limit.
"Take great care, Aerion," Nerien warned, his voice beginning to fade into a whispering echo. "The path ahead is narrow, and the abyss is deep. Remember... the Order is watching you."
With a final, shimmering pulse of golden light, the apparition of the Psijic Monk dissolved into the freezing air.
Aerion remained perfectly still, his mind racing at a terrifying speed. The vision had faded, but the implications of Nerien's words struck him like a physical blow.
An anomaly. Brought to Skyrim after being banished from Alinor. The threads blur.
The Psijic Order wasn't just reacting to the unearthing of the Eye of Magnus, they had been watching him. They had likely been observing him from the beginning, ever since his transmigrator soul had violently overwritten the existence of the original, banished Altmer scholar Aerion.
Aerion's analytical mind turned the realization over, examining it from every angle. If the Psijics believed he was the only one capable of solving the apocalyptic problem resting in Saarthal, it meant their perception of him was flawed, or at least incomplete.
They could clearly sense his cosmic 'weight', the undeniable gravity of a transmigrator, but they couldn't see the specific mechanics of his existence. They could only observe him through these fragmented, dreamlike visions and scrying spells.
'But why are they not vastly more suspicious?' Aerion calculated, his eyes narrowing beneath the bronze mask. 'I possess a digital inventory system. I wield dimensional storage magic, an ability that theoretically only the highest echelon of the Psijic Order, or beings of godlike power, should be able to manifest. I have utilized it openly across the province.'
The realization settled into his mind as something deeply unsettling, yet incredibly useful. If the Psijic Order was monitoring him but hadn't intervened regarding his blatant use of spatial magic, it meant their scrying was blind to the System itself.
They simply perceived his actions as the work of an exceptionally powerful, anomalous mortal. It was a hidden thread, a massive blind spot in the sight of the most powerful mages in the world, and a tactical advantage that could matter far more when he finally secured the Eye of Magnus.
Suddenly, the ambient sound rushed back into the room.
The temporal freeze shattered. The dust motes resumed their lazy drift through the air. The faint, distant howling of the wind echoing down the entrance tunnels returned. Time flowed once more.
Lydia blinked, her grip tightening on her sword as she looked around the small burial chamber. Jenassa's crimson eyes darted toward the corners of the room. Neither of the two retainers seemed to comprehend that time had stopped, they simply shifted their weight, their combat instincts registering a subtle, unexplainable change in the atmosphere.
Tolfdir, however, reacted immediately.
The elderly master mage gasped, taking a stumbling step backward. He looked wildly around the empty room, his watery eyes wide with shock.
"By the Eight..." Tolfdir breathed, raising his hands as if trying to physically feel the air. He turned sharply to the High Elf. "Aerion, did you... did you feel that? The sudden, massive resonance in the magical essence of this room? It was as if the very fabric of reality just snapped and reset itself!"
Aerion turned to the old mage, keeping his posture perfectly composed. He decided to deliver the sanitized, safe version of the encounter.
"I did feel it, Master Tolfdir," Aerion nodded, his metallic voice echoing softly. "And I saw its source. A projection appeared before me just a moment ago. An Altmer monk. He warned me that we have set a dangerous chain of events into motion, and that we must proceed with the utmost caution."
Tolfdir's brow furrowed in deep confusion. "An Altmer monk? Down here? That is impossible. The wards on this ruin..." The old man's eyes suddenly widened in realization. "Wait. Did he identify himself? What manner of robes was he wearing?"
"Golden yellow," Aerion answered smoothly. "He claimed to speak on behalf of the Psijic Order."
"The Psijic Order?!" Tolfdir exclaimed, entirely abandoning his academic composure. He stepped closer to Aerion, staring at the masked warrior in sheer disbelief. "Are you absolutely certain, Aerion? The Psijics have not been seen or heard from in Skyrim, or anywhere else in Tamriel, for that matter, in well over a century! They isolated the Isle of Artaeum and vanished!"
Tolfdir shook his head, looking nervously at the blank stone walls. "And why would they appear here, of all places? Saarthal is historically significant, yes, and it is undoubtedly filled with powerful draugr and lethal ancient traps, but it is just a crypt! I simply do not see why the Psijic Order would take notice of an excavation, let alone issue a dire warning about it."
"Perhaps they see a danger that we have not yet uncovered," Aerion suggested pragmatically, resting a steel clad hand on the hilt of his greatsword.
Before Tolfdir could formulate a scholarly hypothesis regarding the Psijic intervention, the ancient ruin decided to provide its own interruption.
The deafening, grinding screech of ancient stone against steel echoed through the small room.
All three of the upright steel sarcophagi embedded in the walls simultaneously violently burst open. The heavy metal lids hit the stone floor with a resounding crash, kicking up a massive cloud of gray dust.
From the dark, vertical depths of the coffins, three horrors emerged.
They were not the shambling, fragile draugr of the upper levels. These were Wight Draugr, ancient, hardened veterans of the Nordic armies. Their mummified flesh was pulled tight over dense muscle and bone, their eyes glowing with a malevolent, piercing blue light. They wore heavy, rusted iron armor that had fused to their bodies over the millennia, and they wielded massive, jagged ancient Nord battleaxes.
The wights let out a synchronized, bone chilling shriek of rage, lunging out of their tombs to slaughter the intruders.
"Defensive positions!" Aerion roared.
He didn't cast a spell. He moved with explosive, terrifying physical speed. Aerion drew the massive Ebony Greatsword from his back in a smooth, two handed grip. He stepped directly into the path of the center wight, intercepting its charge.
The wight swung its rusted battleaxe in a brutal overhead arc, aiming to cleave the High Elf in two.
Aerion met the strike head on. The heavy flat of his ebony blade clashed against the ancient iron with a shower of sparks. The wight possessed the unnatural, terrible strength of the undead, but Aerion's heavily augmented transmigrator muscles held the block without giving an inch.
With a sharp twist of his wrists, Aerion parried the axe aside, exposing the wight's armored ribs.
He stepped into the opening and drove the pommel of the greatsword directly into the center of the wight's face. The heavy ebony crushed the ancient skull, snapping the undead warrior's neck backward. As the wight staggered, Aerion brought the blade around in a devastating horizontal slash, cutting the creature completely in half through its rusted armor.
To his right, Lydia and Jenassa engaged the second wight with steady, brutal efficiency. Lydia bashed the creature backward with her iron shield, disrupting its footing, allowing Jenassa to dart in like a shadow and drive her dagger deep into the gaps of the wight's rusted neck plating, severing its spinal column.
The third wight charged directly at Tolfdir, raising its axe.
Tolfdir did not panic. He proved exactly why he was a Master of the College. The old man fluidly sidestepped the heavy axe swing, his hands glowing with blinding, brilliant golden light.
"Back to the dirt, abomination!" Tolfdir commanded, thrusting his hands forward.
He unleashed a highly concentrated wave of Turn Undead magic. The holy, purifying light slammed into the wight. The necrotic magic animating the corpse violently rejected the holy energy. The wight shrieked in absolute agony as its flesh began to sizzle and burn away in the golden light. It dropped its axe, frantically clawing at its own burning armor before collapsing into a pile of smoldering ash.
The encounter was over in less than ten seconds. It was a short, brutally efficient display of overwhelming force, proving exactly how dangerous even a small cluster of elite undead could be, and how perfectly synchronized Aerion's group had become.
Aerion flicked the black, viscous blood from his greatsword, resting the heavy blade upon his armored shoulder.
"Is everyone unharmed?" Aerion asked, his golden eyes scanning the room through the mask.
"Not a scratch, Patron," Jenassa confirmed, wiping her daggers.
Tolfdir let out a breath, lowering his glowing hands. He looked past the ashes of the wight he had destroyed, peering into the dark, empty space of the sarcophagus it had emerged from.
"Fascinating," Tolfdir murmured, walking closer to the empty coffin in the back wall. He raised his Magelight. "Look here, Aerion. The back panel of this sarcophagus is completely missing. It isn't just a tomb, it's a doorway."
Aerion stepped up beside the old mage, looking into the dark space. Behind the rusted steel frame of the coffin, a narrow, roughly hewn stone passageway stretched deeper into the earth.
"It seems to be a hallmark of the old Nordic design," Tolfdir noted, his academic curiosity entirely overriding his fear. "A concealed route, protected by a magical lock and guarded by their elite dead, meant to protect whatever lies deeper within the ruin. We must be on the right path."
"Stay close behind me, Master Tolfdir," Aerion instructed, gripping his greatsword. "I will take the front."
Aerion turned sideways, squeezing his broad, heavily armored shoulders through the narrow opening at the back of the sarcophagus. Lydia and Jenassa followed closely behind, with Tolfdir taking the rear to provide illumination and magical support.
They moved steadily through the old halls. The passageways here were vastly more treacherous than the upper levels. The stonework was crumbling, massive pillars had collapsed, and the floor was littered with debris and the opened, empty coffins of lesser draugr that had long since rotted away.
They navigated the labyrinthine corridors for several minutes, the air growing colder and staler with every step, until the narrow passage abruptly opened up into a massive, cavernous chamber.
It was a staggering feat of subterranean engineering. The room was vast, circular, and dominated by a heavy, wide stone bridge that crossed directly over the center of the chamber.
Lydia stepped up to the edge of the bridge and looked down. Below the stone span, encompassing the entire lower floor of the room, was a massive, circular gap in the masonry, covered entirely by a spiraling, intricate pattern of thick steel bars. Beneath the grating was a pitch black abyss.
"Watch your footing," Jenassa warned quietly, analyzing the treacherous terrain. "The gaps between those steel spirals are wide enough to catch a boot. If you step carelessly during a fight, your foot will slip through, and your leg will snap under your own weight."
"An elegant, lethal battlefield," Aerion agreed softly.
He looked around the perimeter of the room.
Built directly into the circular stone walls, encircling the entire chamber on both the upper and lower levels, were dozens of heavy steel coffins. They were all perfectly sealed. Aerion narrowed his eyes. The tactical setup was glaringly obvious. The bridge offered a narrow, elevated choke point, but the slatted floor below was a death trap designed to hinder movement while being swarmed from all sides. "Let's move across the room. Quickly, but carefully," Aerion ordered.
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[Main Panel]
Name: Aerion
Race: High Elf (Altmer)
Health: 710/710 Stamina: 740/740 Magicka: 950/950
Level: 200
Skills: Animal Affinity (MAX LEVEL), Fast Skill Levelling (MAX LEVEL), Fast Magic Mastery (MAX LEVEL), Instant Shout (MAX LEVEL), Dragon Master (MAX LEVEL), Destruction (Fire(+4)/Lightning(+2)/Frost(+2)) (Level 73/91/70), Restoration (Healing(+2)/Purify(+2)) (Level 50/75), Alteration (Level 35), Illusion (Level 50), Conjuration (Necromancy/Summoning(+1)) (Level 37/90), Persuasion(+2) (Level 19), Smithing (Level 57), Sneak(+1) (Level 33), One Handed(+1) (Level 72), Two Handed (Level 81), Lockpicking (Level 35), Archery (Level 72), Enchanting(+1) (Level 2), Light Armor(+2) (Level 0), Block (Level 70), & Pickpocket (Level 8)
Shouts: Fus Roh Dah (Force Balance Push), Tiid (Time), Krii (Kill), Feim Zii Gron (Fade Spirit Bind), Su (Air), Laas (Life), Yol Toor (Fire Inferno), Kaan (Kyne), & Zul Mey Gut (Voice Fool Far)
[Inventory Panel]
1x Small Sack, Poacher's Axe, Mammoth Tusk, the Golden Claw, Calm Spellbook, Arvel's Journal, Inkwell & Quill, Thief Book, Scroll Of Summoning (Wolf), Scroll Of Healing, Weak Potion of Paralysis, Golden Staff of Flames, Parchment Rolls Of Mammoths Farm And Loan, Ebony Claw, Orcish Dagger, The Mirror, Ring of Pure Mixtures, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), Reanimate Corpse Tome, Staff of Lightning, Deed to Tundra Homestead, Sapphire, Ruby, Dawnbreaker, Traveling Backpack (Supplies), Potion of Minor Magicka, Vampire Armor, Vampire Boots, Movarth's Golden Ash (Unique), Dwarven Sword, Elven Dagger, Potion of Healing, Gold Emerald Circlet, Scroll of Fire Storm, Iron Garnet Circlet, Iron Sapphire Circlet, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), Glass Boots, Dwarven Sword, Dwarven Shield, Wuuthrad's Fragments, Staff of Fireball, Mage Boots Of Weight, & Master Robes Of Destruction
2x Common Soul Gem (Empty), Black Soul Gem (Empty), Elven Sword, Amethysts, Potions of Plentiful Magicka, Scroll of Conjure Familiar, & Scroll of Magelight
3x Glowing Mushrooms, Potions of Minor Stamina, Flawless Sapphires, Gold Necklace, Iron Necklace, Petty Soul Gem (Filled), & Potions of Minor Magicka
4x Spider Eggs, Garnets, & Common Soul Gem (Filled)
5x Lesser Soul Gem (Filled)
7x Vampires Dust
8x Iron Arrows & Ancient Nord Arrows
9x Potions Of Minor Healing
12x Black Soul Gem (Filled)
Weight: 92.41 KG / 670 KG
Septims: 81,082