"A small addendum. I must judge the knowledge equal in value." Mora said after a moment.
"Nice try but no deal. I know how that trick works." I reply with a shake of my head.
"A taste then. A sample for me to judge the value of this knowledge." he countered.
I considered this for a moment before pressing my thumb and forefinger to my temple like pinching it and extracted a copy of a snippet of the knowledge I was offering to trade. I flicked my wrist and the glowing speck of magic sank into the mass of tentacles and eyes. The reaction was immediate. All of the tentacles froze in place for a moment as the twin pupils of the eyes all dilated simultaneously.
"Hrrrrah! You! Yield these secrets to me!" Mora said as his tentacles thrashed and his tone changed from the lazy drawl to something almost feral in intensity.
"Make. An. Offer." I said enunciating each word especially firmly.
"Play nice, squid." Sheogorath spoke with a deep and threatening tone before Mora could reply.
The lord of fate seemed to genuinely debate with himself about not doing that before choosing to concede his original intention.
"So be it." Mora spoke as his voice returned to it's normal lazy flow.
From one of the tentacles a glowing sickly green orb of magic formed the size of a baseball before being flung into my chest. New knowledge filled my mind and I closed my eyes to sort through it. Much like what I sent to him Mora had only sent enough information to make an educated decision whether I wanted to accept the deal or not. What he was offering was indeed tempting too. It covered exactly four things.-
Dwarven tonal architecture
Ayleid ancestral magic
Aetherium forging knowledge
A Dawn era Ehlnofey weapon
"How do you have something like that? I thought most of those perished with their owners?" I asked stunned by the revelation that Mora had a weapon belonging to one of the original spirits.
Ehlnofey were the immortal spirits that helped create this world at the beginning of time. Saying they were a step below gods was no exaggeration. When they were weakened and made mortal because of the worlds founding they split into three distinct groups. The Old ones who would devolve over time into the elves and chose to preserve their culture and power. The wandering ones who became the races of man after migrating all over this new world.-
The final group became "bones of the earth" literal personifications of the laws of nature such a Y'ffre, the forest god and Kyne, the sky goddess. During the Dawn era when the world was still new and the forms of these beings were starting to solidify a great war broke out between the two factions of Ehlnofey that didn't become earth bones. The old ones saw the wandering ones as degenerates for abandoning their power and culture. This philosophical difference in opinion is what caused the war and from that the general animosity between elves and men.-
The weapons used in that war were proto-energy weapons forged from the remaining essence of the immortal that they had. Each were tied to their owners so when one of the Ehlnofey died their weapon would dissipate as fuel for the world itself. Given this information you can imagine how shocking it is to learn that Mora had one of these weapons. It meant he either had a living Ehlnofey or the weapon itself was special in some way. Whatever the case I wanted it.-
Unlike Ebony or Madness ores the weapon of an Ehlnofey wouldn't come with that risky divine origin. Ehlnofey were the ancestors of both men and mer and I shared the blood of both. In truth my own state of being was closer to these ancestors than pure blooded men or mer. Not by a lot granted but the difference was important. The Ehlnofey were the proto-form of my own ancestors so unless I was horribly miscalculating I should be able to safely devour that weapon with my sword. As for the other things being thrown into this deal? All of them were high end knowledges.-
I wasn't even a little surprised that Mora had them either. The Dwemer were an arrogant race that made a point to unearth any and all knowledge with a particular fondness for the forbidden kind. This meant the race had definitely cut deals with Mora in the past, probably quite a lot of deals honestly. The Ayleids were just as bad as the Dwemer as far as arrogance went, they just took it to more intentionally cruel levels. Not surprising considering their race was probably actually in possession of the most complete Ehlnofey magical knowledge before they all got stomped out.-
Aetheric magic, or simply Dawn magic is what it's called. It's what they used to craft their magicka wells, varla and welkyn stones. You might wonder then if I was ripping Mora off with the knowledge I was offer in exchange for all this. The answer to that is a simple fat NO! I am offering him knowledge that is literally impossible to acquire any way but through someone from outside this reality like me. Is it practical? No. But practicality is not what gives it it's value, rather that is calculated by it's rarity.-
Everything he is offering can be replicated, with difficulty of course but it was something that could be done. I was offering something absolutely, truly unique and unrepeatable. It was why he reacted so strongly when I flicked him that speck of the knowledge I had. It was like someone who lived on an island and thought that was the entire world suddenly learning he was catastrophically wrong. A veritable mental bomb going off. Honestly I would have been more surprised if he HADN'T lost composure. Ironically I was also fairly certain uncle Sheo actually knew much of this knowledge by virtue of being the literal personified essence of madness itself.-
He was literally a part of my mind. Of everyone's minds.
"You will understand when you possess it." Mora answered me.
"When? You sound confident I'll accept." I pointed out.
"It is certain. So fate has decreed." he said calmly.
"Your right, I am going to accept this trade. Frankly you are getting a better deal than I am." I say as I focus on the mysticism spell for copying ones own memories.
It wasn't as simple on a large scale like it was with but a speck of knowledge. Not terribly hard either but more tedious. To explain it simply it was like I was making echoes of my knowledge and then pulling out those echoes.