A Skeleton's Guide to Mundus

[SaintJibblies]

Okay, I do get that, I understand CHIM, The God Head, mantling Gods, Pelinal Whitestrake being a time traveling War Fractal cyborg from the future and avatar of Shor, the fact that the Eye of Magnus is actually a robot, and Michael Kirkbride's use of LSD when designing lore.

My big question is, how would using English cause these things to happen? I understand the idea, I just don't see how the English Language would cause so much chaos. Sure its a fucked up mess of a language, that beats up other languages, and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary. But why would it start altering reality, as opposed to being just a new way of reading words or potentially speaking (If they aren't already speaking it)?

Is it because our Protagonist is some kind of Godlike being, and they would start mantling him?

Click to shrink...

It's mostly the whole "Belief = Power" thing that's sometimes shown in TES, people see the MC writing in English about magic, he mentions it's probably beyond their understanding, he tries explaining it, it goes over their heads, they believe it to be a higher form of literatural architecture and then things snowball until English is basically used by really top tier mages to wreak havoc which further solidifies the fact that English is the language of higher beings.

I have this whole arc planned out about it.

 

[Fire_Fox]

It's mostly the whole "Belief = Power" thing that's sometimes shown in TES, people see the MC writing in English about magic, he mentions it's probably beyond their understanding, he tries explaining it, it goes over their heads, they believe it to be a higher form of literatural architecture and then things snowball until English is basically used by really top tier mages to wreak havoc which further solidifies the fact that English is the language of higher beings.

I have this whole arc planned out about it.

Click to shrink...

Wow that sounds amazing and I totally believe it. Sheogorath is going to be having a BALL. And Hermaeus Mora is going to have a fucking aneurism.

 

[SaintJibblies]

AUTHOR'S NOTE!!!!: I wanted feel good stuff, I got some feel good stuff, yay! As always, comments are greatly appreciated, let me know if you spot any mistakes and all that jazz.

I'd barely gotten used to not being stared at like a cursed relic when the day took a turn.


"Today," Mirabelle had said, loud enough for the hallway to hear, "you'll be attending a guest lecture on basic alchemical principles. You're overdue, this is Ervok Shadebrew visiting us from Evermore for the remainder of the year to hopefully get you all up to speed on Alchemy."


I almost said I don't have a stomach, but decided against it.


The classroom didn't smell like death. It smelled worse—like someone had tried to bottle the concept of fermentation and accidentally summoned a Daedra instead. Every surface was cluttered. Pots, vials, dried fungi, a mortar made from what looked suspiciously like a human skull.


And in the center of it all stood the guest lecturer: Ervok Shadebrew, a Breton alchemist who looked like someone had tried to pickle a wizard and left the jar open. Wild grey beard, crooked spectacles, a mass of fabrics that could be called something between a scarf and a robe along with a red-stained apron that hadn't seen a wash since the Oblivion Crisis.


"Welcome, students!" he chirped, voice far too enthusiastic for someone elbow-deep in troll fat. "Today, we shall explore the sacred union of matter and madness!"


He paused when he saw me. Eyes narrowed.


"Ah. You must be the... unusual one."


I gave him a dry thumbs-up with a clattering of phalanges.


"Excellent. You'll make a perfect test subject—I mean, assistant."

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

You are now attending: Alchemy: Introduction to Organic Transmutation


Instructor: [Ervok Shadebrew, Certified Alchemical Lunatic]
Difficulty: Moderate
Risk of Accidental Explosion: 71%


[Skill Check Available: Alchemy – Untrained]
✴ Opportunity to learn a new discipline detected.
✴ Caution: Skeletal physiology may cause unpredictable reactions.

Click to shrink...

"Your humble assistant, here to...assist you." I said, executing a dramatic, rattly bow, arms wide like a stage actor who had just finished a monologue about rotting leeks.


A few students snickered. Someone groaned. Tolfdir—bless his patient soul—just rubbed the bridge of his nose and muttered something about "Winterhold attracting only the most dramatic undead this year."


The man I was actually addressing, however, did not look annoyed.


Ervok tilted his head like a curious bird, lips twitching into what might've been a grin or a scowl or something in between. Hard to tell beneath the elaborate layers of scarf and embroidered patchwork robes that he wore like a walking tent of conflicting color theory.


"Undead and cheeky," he said, voice rich with amusement. "How wonderfully inconvenient. Right. Take your seats, all of you. You're here to learn how not to poison yourselves."


He limped to the center of the room and thumped a gnarled walking stick against the floor. It didn't need thumping. It was more of a statement.


"Alchemy," he began, "is not cooking. It is not gardening. It is not mixing troll fat with random flowers and hoping your dick doesn't fall off. If you want to play with fire, join Faralda. If you want to play with death, see Phinis. If you want to play with your own bodily functions—by all means, visit the tavern. I'm sure someone there has a jug of skeever rot and no sense of personal hygiene."


I liked him already.


He paced in a slow circle, letting the silence stretch just long enough to create discomfort. A few of the newer students looked like they were reconsidering their academic paths. One actually raised a hand, then lowered it.


Ervok ignored them. Instead, he pulled something from his belt pouch.


A vial.


Clear. Unmarked. Filled with a thick, swirling orange liquid that shimmered with flecks of green.


"This," he said, holding it up to the sunlight pouring through the frost-rimmed window, "is not magic. Not in the way your Destruction spells are. Not like Alteration. It is not cast. It is brewed. Concocted. Distilled."


He passed the vial around. When it reached me, I tilted it gently.


The contents clung to the glass like sap. It smelled faintly of citrus, vinegar, and copper. The alchemical equivalent of 'caution.'


"Guess the effect," Ervok said casually. "You. Boneboy."


I perked up.


"Uh… hangover cure?"


He squinted. "Close. It does cause vomiting."


"Lovely."


"Pain suppression with regenerative stimulation. Useful for battlefield triage. Useless if you're already dead. But—" he tapped his staff again, "—what matters is how it was made. What was extracted and what was preserved."


He waved his hand toward a large slate at the front of the classroom. Chalk floated up, drawing diagrams in a jagged but oddly elegant script.


"Alchemy is a balance between three things: Essence, Resonance, and Binding. You need to know what a thing is, how it interacts, and how to trap that interaction before it fades. Most of you only know the basics: wheat for healing, frost salts for cold, daedra hearts for… well, poor life choices."


The room chuckled.


He went on, faster now, clearly enjoying himself. "Let's say you're working with a Nirnroot. Anyone here stupid enough to try chewing one raw?"


I very slowly raised my hand.


He stared.


"…Good gods. And you're still here. Do you remember what happened?"


"I… screamed a lot." Not to mention that shit hurt my soul to even think about.


"Correct response. Nirnroot's resonance is volatile. Sonic, even. The plant screams when harvested because its energy disperses rapidly—too rapidly to bind without a proper stabilizer. That's why it's usually paired with ectoplasm or deathbell. One tempers decay, the other encourages it. Alchemy is less about the ingredient and more about what part of it you're using—and why."


A message pinged behind my eyes.

---

Skill Increased: Alchemy (Untrained → Novice)

You are beginning to understand that alchemy is more than random mixing. The language of reagents, the rhythm of extraction—it's becoming clear, like how water would be after you sifted all the dirt out.

• New Concept Learned: Resonance
• New Subskill Unlocked: Stabilizer Identification

Click to shrink...

---

I blinked and grinned like an idiot. No one else noticed. Probably for the best.


Ervok clapped his hands once. "Pairs, now. Each of you. We'll be running a test batch. You'll find one uncommon reagent and one stabilizer in your tray. Your goal is to extract one usable property without turning it into colored soup."


I looked down.


Bone meal.


Fire salts.


A flask. A mortar and pestle. One chance to make it not explode.


Let's get cooking.
Bone meal and fire salts. The high school chemistry class equivalent of, "You will absolutely blow something up, and we absolutely will not help."


Fine.


Bone meal: powder-fine, brittle-smelling, faint magical resonance. Probably from the lingering essence of what it used to be. Death made edible.


Fire salts: bright, granular, crackled with heat even though they didn't burn to the touch. Like crushed embers soaked in sunfire. Dwemer liked using it in engines. Mages used it in tea.


I tapped the pestle against the side of the mortar and muttered, "Right then. Let's ruin the lab."


But the moment I began to grind them together, something clicked.


It didn't feel like mixing ingredients in a menu. It wasn't some idle click-click-click and wait-for-the-animation-to-play nonsense. No—this was real. I could smell it. Feel the texture change. Hear the way the powder hissed faintly as the fire salts dissolved into bone ash.


I wasn't crafting an item. I was teasing a secret out of two ancient things and hoping they liked each other.


Ervok drifted past me, sharp eyes scanning. "What are you attempting?"


"Uh… thermal application of necrotic resonance to create a vitality enhancer?"


He snorted. "You mean you're hoping to make something that won't kill you."


"Well yeah. But I figured if bone meal has Fortify Conjuration and fire salts enhance Destruction…"


"...Then you're gambling on a hybrid that could do either. Or neither. Or both. Or—gods help us—blow your jaw off."


"So. Science?"


He grinned. "That's the spirit."


I added a drop of water. It hissed like I'd offended a snake.


I reached for the stabilizer: powdered tundra cotton. Mild. Clingy. Known for muffling magical volatility.


The moment it hit the mixture, the whole thing bloomed. Not violently—just… suddenly. Color shifted from ash-gray to smoky gold. The vial in my hand grew hot—not burning, just alive.


I stared at it. My reflection danced across the surface like a flame on a glass eye.


This feels right.


Not just the potion, but the act of it. This wasn't crafting. It was discovery.


A soft chime whispered at the edge of thought.

Potion Created: Vial of Ember-Soul (Experimental)

Effect Unknown – Requires Testing (SET MY SOUL ON FIRE)

You have begun forging a deeper connection to the principles of Resonance and Binding.

• Alchemy Skill Progressed
• Subskill: Volatile Synergy Unlocked
• Trait Gained: Experimental Brewer
  - Slightly increased chance to create unique effects when combining rare or unstable ingredients.
  - Slightly increased chance of… unintended consequences.

Click to shrink...

I held the vial up to the light, watching it pulse faintly.


My thoughts drifted.


Potions… potions are broken as hell, aren't they?


I remembered the Morrowind trick. Fortify Intelligence. Make potions. Drink. Repeat. Until you could brew something that let you punch Vivec into next week with a wooden spoon.


Could I still do that?


Probably.


Should I?


...


Maybe later.


If things get really desperate.


For now, there was something satisfying about the mystery. Not knowing exactly what the brew would do. Not exploiting the system just yet. I wanted to learn the rules before I broke them.


Besides, what would be the fun of skipping ahead when the process was this fun?


The potion burbled gently in its glass prison. I swirled it. It flickered violet for a moment—just a glint—and I swore I saw my own skull grin back at me.


"…You're either going to kill something important," I whispered to it, "or save someone I shouldn't."


Behind me, Ervok cleared his throat.


"Results?"


I held it up.


"Professor, I have created a potion of maybe."


He chuckled, then moved to the next student—one whose mixture had curdled into a stinking puddle of shame.


I set my potion down with care.


I wasn't good at this.


But I was getting good.


And for the first time since waking up as a skeleton in a draugr crypt, I didn't feel like a walking accident.


I felt like a scholar.

---

"Alright," Ervok said, clapping once. "We've successfully avoided death by combustion. Mostly."


A few students laughed. One didn't. His cauldron was emitting a low-pitched whine and smelled faintly of burned fur and moral failure.


Ervok drifted toward him. "And what do we call this, Elthim?"


The Altmer straightened up, visibly sweating. "A… Fortify Magicka draught."


"It looks like a melted sabre cat and smells like one of my ex-husbands. Tell me—where did you get your recipe?"


"…I improvised."


"You tried to poison the concept of taste. Congratulations. Brew it again. This time, with fewer crimes."


He turned toward a Bosmer who looked far too smug for someone brewing a bright green liquid.


"Lina."


"Fortify Sneak, Professor!"


"Ah. So that's what betrayal smells like."


"I added beehive husk and vampire dust."


"Noted. Next time, try not to inspire existential dread in your peers. But points for the glow."


Then, without warning, he was behind me again.


"Skeleton. You've got a second tray."


"Yeah," I muttered. "Trying something milder. Something with… uh, calming properties."


"A sleeping draught?"


"No, more like…" I paused, searching for the right phrase. "...Less 'put you to bed' and more 'take the edge off the world for a moment before it comes crashing back in.'"


"Hah." He leaned closer. "That's how I used to describe my third marriage."


This one was mountain flower, lavender, and jazbay grapes. Not exactly revolutionary, but something about the mixture soothed the senses. The mortar's contents turned into a deep violet sludge with gentle luminescence.


I added a single snowberry. The glow dimmed. Calmed.


And just like that, I knew it was ready.


I decanted it carefully and set the vial down.

Potion Created: Veilbrew Draught

Effects: Minor Fortify Calm, Slight Restoration of Magicka, Faint Glow in Darkness

You have gained insight into the interplay of Emotionally Aligned Essences.

• Alchemy Skill Progressed
• Subskill: Emotive Distillation Discovered
• You feel a slight warmth in your chest. It's not real, but it's not fake either.

Click to shrink...

Ervok picked the vial up and turned it gently between his fingers. "Hm."


I waited.


"Well?"


"This," he said, eyes narrowing, "is drinkable."


I blinked. "That's it?"


"I've been teaching alchemy for forty-two years. I've seen more students blow themselves up with pickled horker glands than I care to remember. You just brewed something that won't cause vomiting, screaming, or hallucinations. That's a win."


He handed it back with a wink.


"And frankly, that's the nicest thing I've said to anyone in three months."


Another student shrieked. Ervok turned just in time to duck as a cork shot past his head.


"Ysolda, why is your potion trying to escape?"


The Nord girl looked horrified. "I don't know! It started moving!"


"It's a potion, not a pet. Contain it!"


I leaned in closer to mine, whispering to the soft-glowing draught. "Thanks for not doing that."


Somewhere across the room, a flask shattered.


"WILL YOU STOP ADDING TROLL FAT TO EVERYTHING—"


"I just wanted to see what would happen!"


"WHAT HAPPENS IS I LOSE MY SANITY, CAELUS!"


Ervok stomped over to deal with it. The potion lecture veered momentarily into a monologue on magical grease fires and why we respect ratios, leaving the rest of us to either work or watch.


I worked.


A third attempt: Nordic barnacle, wheat, blisterwort. I had no idea what I was doing—but something about the combination felt like healing. I trusted it.


The smell reminded me of salt and loam and something older.


The potion came out pearlescent and faintly shimmery. Almost pretty.

Potion Created: Tonic of Patchwoven Flesh

Effects: Restore Health (minor), Minor Resistance to Disease, Unidentified Secondary Trait

You feel a ripple of familiarity—like an old song hummed under the breath.

• Alchemy Skill Progressed
• Mastery Threshold: Novice → Adept
• Passive Perk: Hollow Apothecary
  - Healing potions restore slightly more health to the undead.
  - Brewing restorative draughts improves your clarity and emotional awareness.
  (Yes, even without nerves.)

Click to shrink...

I blinked.


Okay.


So I wasn't just brewing for fun anymore. Something about this was starting to stick. Something was clicking.


Ervok returned, slightly singed, hair smoking just a bit.


He looked at my third vial.


He tilted his head. "You have the look of someone who has either just understood what they've been doing wrong their whole life or made a potion that will cause irreparable changes to your soul."


"Both?" I offered.


He nodded solemnly.


"Excellent. That means you're learning."

I had a few ingredients left.


Crimson nirnroot. Netch jelly. A slice of pale taproot crusted in dried sap.


Nothing conventional. Nothing safe. All of it twitching faintly on the tray like it remembered being alive.


I hesitated.


The last potion I brewed had a nice, reliable green glow and made the guy next to me sprout eyebrows again. This?


This was something else.


I ground the taproot, slow and unsure. It oozed like burnt sugar and tar. The jelly I folded in next, and it hissed against the bowl, frothing as if it resented being touched. The crimson nirnroot—singing gently in a pitch I couldn't hear but felt in my molars—went in last.


The mixture flared red, then pink, then settled on an uncomfortable fleshy tone that made my nonexistent stomach turn.


Then the system screeched.

[ALERT: SYSTEM INTEGRITY ERROR]
You have created: [Unstable Draught of Recollection]
→ Primary Effect: Restores Health (Moderate)
→ Secondary Effect: [Illicit Form Recall] — ???
→ Warning: This compound should not exist. Report to Overseer immediately.
→ Note: Phantom Self is an illegal state. Anchoring protocols breached. Consciousness desync imminent.

Click to shrink...

"Oh," I said, blankly. "That's... not good."


The potion pulsed faintly in its vial, the color shifting like muscle under skin. My grip tightened. I looked around—Ervok was harassing someone's cauldron like it owed him money. No one saw.


I should've thrown it away.


Instead, I flicked the cork off and drank it down, with a small gulp.


Because of course I did.


It tasted like ash and metal and something heartbreakingly familiar.


For a second—less than a second—I felt something.


Warmth. Pressure. Breath.


My bones weren't bones anymore. My hand—flesh. My ribs—moving. My chest—full. And it hurt. It hurt. Everything felt loud and alive and too close. Like being born face-first into a thunderstorm.


I looked down.


A hand. My hand. Five fingers, scarred and calloused.


A heartbeat, pounding like it had never stopped.


I brought my hand to my throat—


—and it was flesh. Skin. Warm. Real.


And then—


Gone.


The flesh sloughed away like melting wax. The heartbeat stuttered and vanished. The hand was bone again. Cold and dry.


I gasped—or tried to.


And then the system whispered:

[PHANTOM SELF: UNSUPPORTED STATE TERMINATED]
You are not alive. You are not supposed to remember.
Form Reversion: Complete.

Skill Increased: Alchemy Novice → Adept
Discovery Logged: "Echo Reaction" — Personal Soul Feedback with Illusory Form

You've learned a little too much about yourself.
That might be dangerous.

Click to shrink...

I sat there, hand flexing and unflexing, jaw slack.


Ervok wandered past. "Did your potion just scream at you, or was that my imagination?"


I shook my head. "Nope. Totally normal healing potion. Definitely not a crime against metaphysics."


"Hm. Six out of ten. Try again with more purpose next time."


He moved on, apparently satisfied that I hadn't exploded.


I stared at the still nearly full vial.


The afterimage of my own flesh still lingered in my thoughts. I could remember what skin felt like. What it felt like to breathe. It had hurt, but not in a bad way. Just… too much.


But I didn't miss it.


That was the scary part.


It felt like a life I'd read about, not one I'd lived. And honestly? In a world full of talking lizards, dragon words, magic and mushroom trees—being a regular guy again just sounded kind of boring.


So I corked the memory away.


Filed it under: Do Not Think About Too Hard Unless Everything Is On Fire.


And I started prepping the next potion.


Because fuck it.


I was still learning.


And apparently, I was good at this.

---

The next conversation happened an hour later, behind one of the faculty tower's locked doors, muffled by wards and incense.


"Let me see it," Mirabelle said, stepping into the quiet chamber, robes still damp with mountain mist.


Ervok handed the phial over without a word.


Only a third of the viscous potion had been consumed, and even that single swallow had left the glass tinged with pale shimmer. Not gold. Not silver. Something between.


Mirabelle held it up to the candlelight. The liquid shifted like oil in water, colors never quite resolving. "That's not a healing draught."


"No," Ervok said. "But it should have been."


"List the reagents again."


"Standard base, two stabilizers, and—" He hesitated. "Netch Jelly. I saw him use it. Shouldn't do anything that volatile. At worst, a failed mix. At best, a minor Fortify Health blend."
"And what happened instead?"


Ervok's mouth twitched. "He changed."


The others were already seated: Tolfdir, Urag, Drevis, Colette, and Savos Aren himself. The College's true minds, gathered not for ceremony, but necessity.


Colette tilted her head. "Changed how?"


"Skin," Ervok said. "Flesh. Color. Not glamour, not projection—briefly, he had a body. And then it vanished."


"Gone?"


"Like mist in the sun. No scorch marks. No residue. Not even magical displacement. Just... reverted."


Tolfdir exhaled through his nose. "Illusion wouldn't explain it. And it wasn't Restoration. No known spell in that school builds flesh from nothing."


"It didn't," Drevis said softly. "It didn't build anything. It called it back."


That earned a look from Mirabelle.


"Something inside him answered," Drevis went on. "For just a moment. Not conjured. Not fabricated. Recalled. Like the memory of a body, trying to wear itself again."


Urag's voice was dry. "So we're assuming he had a body once."


Savos's gaze lingered on the potion, his thoughts unreadable. "We know he's undead. But not reanimated. Not puppeted. He learns. He reacts. He improvises. And now, this. A potion that makes no sense by known alchemical laws."


"It's not alchemy," Ervok said, voice low. "Not entirely. I've seen journeymen mess up worse and get nothing but broken glass and bad breath. But this? This didn't fail. It bent."


Mirabelle set the phial down on the center table. It pulsed faintly, not with light, but potential.


Colette stared at it. "So what does it mean?"


"I think it means," Tolfdir said, folding his hands, "that he doesn't need to remember how to be alive."


Savos turned his eyes toward the windows, toward the glacier-lit horizon. "He only needs to decide if he wants to."

---

I closed my journal, or notebook or whatever you want to call it with a soft thunk, trying not to think too hard about the nearly full phial that the teacher took from me to examine. Just one gulp had been enough to bring me back, even if only for a few seconds — skin, warmth, the dull throb of a heartbeat like some dusty bell tolling in my chest. And then, gone. The potion hadn't worn off so much as reality had just snapped back like a stretched band.


It had left me feeling... hollow.


Not in a sad way, just — weird. I hadn't realized how quiet the world was until it wasn't. How heavy my bones didn't feel until they did. There had been color. Smell. My voice had sounded like mine.


Still. Being flesh again? Just a guy? Eh. A little overrated, maybe.


I wasn't exactly in a hurry to go back to being some sweaty pink lump scraping for scraps in a world full of dragons, gods, and flame-throwing wizards. Being a spooky skeleton with a magic HUD had its perks.


Like right now.


"—and then he trips over the rat and lands ass-first into the pile of spider eggs!"

Laughter erupted around the stone bench we'd commandeered near the courtyard. Snow fell gently through the archways of the College, and someone had stolen a bottle of spiced mead from the kitchens. I was reasonably sure it was Elvaldir, the Dunmer with zero impulse control and a love for practical jokes. I liked him already.


"Okay, but you're leaving out the part where you screamed louder than the rat," a blond Nord named Brynja grinned, elbowing him.


"I was startled!" Elvaldir huffed. "It was an aggressive rat!"


"You cast Lightning Storm at a rat," another student wheezed.


"And missed," I added dryly, pushing my head down, eyes still looking at him and raising my imaginary eyebrows.


More laughter.


It felt... good. Normal. No one was asking why I clanked when I walked or why I wore gloves despite having no flesh. No whispered rumors or pitying glances. Just a bunch of half-trained mages freezing their asses off and making each other laugh to keep warm.


One of the younger students — a Redguard boy named Faadil — leaned over and nudged me. "So what did you actually make in class? Ervok looked like he swallowed a lemon when he saw your cauldron."


I shrugged. "Healing potion, I think. Minor bug in the code."


"Bug in the what?"


"Nevermind," I said quickly. "Alchemy's weird. Might've used the wrong pearl."


Brynja squinted at me. "Didn't you turn pink for like thirty seconds?"


"Nope," I said with the confidence of a man who absolutely turned pink for thirty seconds.


Elvaldir raised his bottle in salute. "Well, whatever you made, I want three. I've been trying to grow a beard for two years."


"Drink this and you might grow an existential crisis instead."


He considered that. "I'll take two."


We collapsed into another round of laughter, and for a while — just a little while — I forgot about skeletons and dream fragments and daedric alphabets carved into my throat.


I was just... here. One of them.


Not the walking mystery.


Just a sarcastic asshole with a brewing proficiency and good aim with an axe.


I could live with that.


The laughter died down just long enough for the cold to settle back in.


Elvaldir stared up at the sky, snowflakes catching in his eyelashes. "Shor's balls, it's freezing."


"You're the one who insisted we hang out outside," Brynja said, rubbing her arms. "We could be in the study hall where it's warm."


"And crowded," Faadil pointed out. "Besides—"


A snowball hit him in the side of the face with a wet splat.


"…I'm going to kill you," he said calmly, turning to face Elvaldir, who was already cackling and shaping another orb of packed snow between his hands.


"You'll have to catch me first!"


He didn't wait for a reply. A quick Frost Rune under his feet sent him zipping across the courtyard like a giggling maniac on an ice rink. Faadil bellowed and gave chase, hurling snowballs enhanced with Weak Fury enchantments that caused minor, momentary emotional meltdowns.


Brynja scooped up her own ammunition and turned to me. "You in?"


"Always," I said, rising with the crunch of joints that weren't joints.


She tossed me a snowball. I caught it easily. It didn't melt in my hand — obvious perks of being the world's most efficient personal cooler.


Moments later, the entire courtyard was a war zone.


Snowballs soared overhead, exploding into clouds of harmless but dramatic Frost Cloak bursts. Someone — I think Faadil — conjured a magical wall as cover, only for Elvaldir to vault over it with a mid-air Featherfall and pelt him square in the back.


A Khajiit student named S'rashi dual-cast snowballs like some kind of wintertime machine gun, cackling with every direct hit. A few more daring idiots (read: all of us) tried weaving Alteration into their throws, adding effects like Slow Fall, Sparkle Trail, or Delayed Launch for maximum chaos.


Brynja took a hit to the leg, dropped, and immediately started crafting a Summon Snow Atronach spell — which was just a badly shaped lump of enchanted ice that flailed its arms like a confused toddler.


I got blasted in the face by something that definitely wasn't just snow. A Magelight-infused projectile detonated with a radiant flash that scorched the inside of my skull.


"BRYNJA!" I shouted, staggering blindly. "YOU FLASHBANGED ME!"


"I DON'T KNOW WHAT A 'FLASHBANG' IS BUT I CALL THIS THE LUXBALL!" she yelled triumphantly.


Snow exploded next to me. I yelped — or tried to — and flung a retaliatory snowball with the rage of a thousand frostbitten skeletons.


[Alchemy: +1]

[Alteration: +1]

[New Recipe: Chilled Alchemical Binding – 'Luxball']


Oh great. Even the System was getting in on the joke.


Eventually, someone called a truce, and we collapsed in a heap of steaming breath, bruised pride, and frozen gloves. The sun had set entirely by now, stars flickering above Winterhold like shy eyes peeking through the void.


"Right," Faadil said, pulling out a bottle of cheap Honningbrew Reserve. "Time to defrost from the inside."


They passed it around, others contributing their own smuggled bottles — meads, wines, something that smelled suspiciously like moonshine but I'm pretty sure it's Sujamma...


"Hey," Elvaldir said, holding out a cup to me. "You drinking?"


I held up both hands. "I literally do not have a liver."


"Suit yourself," he said, and immediately chugged half the bottle. "More for me."


The bench became a tavern. Drunken spellcasting followed — nothing harmful, just minor illusions and glowing lights shaped like chickens. S'rashi kept trying to make his tail levitate. Faadil told a story about nearly blowing up a goat with a poorly-made potion. Brynja started a limerick war that got increasingly obscene. At one point, someone mistook my skull for a cup holder.


"You're... you're a good skeleton," Elvaldir slurred later, leaning heavily on my shoulder. "Like, spooky... but solid. Not like those jerks in Labyrinthian."


"I appreciate that," I said. "And I'll try to haunt more respectfully."


He gave a heartfelt nod and then passed out.


I looked around the circle — some still laughing, some too drunk to move, others leaning on one another under the clear, cold stars. Magic crackled faintly in the air. Someone had set a small Flame Rune under the bench to keep the snow at bay. The wind had died. The sky was infinite.


For a night, it was enough.


No system notifications. No dreams of gods or broken towers or bleeding stars.


Just warm lights in the cold and laughter on the wind.


And me, bones and all, grinning like a bastard.
The night was calm again.


Too calm.


I should've known something was up when Brynja started whispering.


We were all still lounging on the steps outside the Hall of Attainment, most of the students either asleep or snoring through a mead-induced haze. I was enjoying the rare moment of peace — no spell mishaps, no potion disasters, no system windows blinking ominously at me — when she leaned in close with that particular sparkle in her eye.


"You ever heard the story about the Arcanaeum ghost?"


I groaned. "Please no."


"I'm serious," she said. "They say there's a spirit that walks the upper stacks at night. Always just out of sight. Sometimes you hear books falling, or quills scribbling on their own."


Elvaldir perked up. "Wait, is this the one where it's actually the ghost of a student who vanished during a forbidden ritual? And they say if you find his notes, you go mad?"


"No, no," Faadil said, already on his feet. "You're thinking of the Old Magister's Curse. This is different. It's a helpful ghost. Supposedly."


"That's a contradiction," I said. "Helpful ghosts don't exist. That's like saying 'ethical necromancer.'"


"Hey," S'rashi said, mildly offended. "My uncle practices soul-binding and fair trade."


"Regardless," Brynja pressed, "we should check it out. Midnight's almost here."


I shook my head immediately. "Absolutely not. You want to sneak into the library after hours, fine. But I'm not risking getting vaporized by Urag's wards for a Scooby-Doo moment."


"Too late," Elvaldir said, grabbing my wristbone. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"


"I get disassembled?"


"You're already dead, what more could they take?"


"You'd be surprised."

---

We snuck into the Arcanaeum just past the midnight bell.


It was darker than I expected. The usual sconces were extinguished, only the faint blue glow of magelights casting long shadows across the tall shelves.


"Okay," Faadil whispered. "Everyone split up. Keep an eye out for ghostly activity. S'rashi, no fake howling this time."


S'rashi raised both paws. "This one makes no promises."


I lurked near the Divines section, muttering under my breath. "This is so dumb. I could be meditating. Or reorganizing my potion kit. Or—"


CLACK.


Something hit the floor two aisles over.


Everyone froze.


Brynja mouthed, Did you hear that?


I nodded. So did my spine, with a faint creak.


We crept toward the sound like idiots in a horror story. There, on the floor, was an open book. Still gently fluttering, as if something unseen had just dropped it.


"I don't like this," I whispered.


A quill scribbled on its own in the air next to it.


We all screamed.


Okay, correction — they screamed. I rattled.


The quill froze mid-air, paused… and then slowly scrawled across the page in neat, shaky letters:


"Please keep it down. Some of us are studying."


"…Urag?" Brynja whispered.


The quill underlined the sentence.


A moment later, an illusory image appeared — a faintly transparent outline of a very annoyed orc librarian, arms crossed, glaring at all of us from midair.


"GET. OUT."


We fled.

---

Fifteen minutes later, we were back outside, breathless and laughing. Faadil looked like he'd aged five years. Elvaldir had a piece of parchment stuck to his boot. I still wasn't sure if the image was an illusion or an actual ghost Urag summoned just to scare people off.


Brynja wiped tears from her eyes. "Totally worth it."


"I almost shed a tibia," I muttered.


"You don't have skin."


"I don't need skin to feel terror, Brynja."

---

[Illusion Resistance: +1]

[New Trait Gained: Cursed Curiosity – You attract trouble when you really shouldn't.]


"Oh come on."

---

We lingered on the bridge long after the laughter died down.


Winterhold's nights had a kind of stillness to them — not just quiet, but vast. Like the sky above wasn't just empty space but a velvet shroud pressing down, filled with unspoken thoughts.


The College glowed softly behind us. The ruined town below was swallowed in darkness.


Faadil and S'rashi had gone to sleep. Elvaldir was still insisting he hadn't screamed. Brynja stayed behind with me, sitting on the railing with her legs swinging over the void like it was a summer dock and not a wind-blasted crevice leading straight to the Sea of Ghosts.


"You know," she said, "for someone who keeps trying to say no, you're very good at getting roped into things."


"Yeah," I said. "It's a curse. Cursed Curiosity or something."


She laughed — a low, warm chuckle that echoed just enough to sound magical.


"Seriously though," she said. "Thanks for not ditching us."


I shrugged, bones clicking faintly. "I figured if someone had to be bait for a vengeful book ghost, it might as well be the guy who doesn't bleed."


"Practical. I like that."


She paused, pulling her cloak tighter against the wind.


"…Hey. Can I ask you something weird?"


I hesitated. "That depends. On a scale from 'do ghosts exist' to 'are you actually just a glamoured Daedric Prince in hiding,' where are we landing?"


She smirked, but her voice softened. "You ever wonder why you're here? Like — not here-here, I mean... why you came to the College? What you're chasing?"


I went quiet.


The wind tugged at my hood. I stared out over the sea.


"…Every day," I said finally. "Only I don't think I'm chasing anything. I think I'm remembering something I forgot."


"Something important?"


"Yeah. I think it might've been my name."


She blinked. "You don't remember your name?"


"Not my real one. Not the one that came with… whatever this is." I gestured vaguely at my skeletal form.


She turned back to the void, thoughtful. "You know, I think a lot of us came here because we were running. Or maybe hoping to become someone new. You might've just skipped the middleman."


I chuckled. "That's one way to look at it."


Silence settled in for a while. Comfortable this time.


Stars above. Ice below. A girl with fire in her eyes and a skeleton wondering if maybe, just maybe, this time he'd get it right.


She stood, brushing off her robes. "C'mon, mystery man. Let's get inside before we both freeze. Even if you can't feel the cold, I can."


"Fine, fine."


I followed her back across the bridge, the College's lights flickering like old memories.

And as I stepped through the archway, I couldn't help but think that maybe, for now, this strange little life — with its ghosts and chaos and inexplicable second chances — was worth lingering in a little longer.

---

The Arcanaeum. Morning.


A grim silence settled over the ancient stone chamber, broken only by the occasional groan or muffled cough from the group of very tired, very guilty students lined up in front of Urag gro-Shub's desk.


The orc stood with arms crossed like a disappointed father and a particularly pissed-off librarian rolled into one. His eyes swept over the ragged assembly: S'rashi, fur fluffed from sleep deprivation; Faadil, looking very much like he wished he'd stayed invisible; Brynja, trying not to smirk; Elvaldir, still swearing they hadn't screamed; and me — a skeleton in borrowed robes who'd been dragged into a midnight ghost hunt against his better judgment.


On the desk sat the evidence: a cracked lantern, a spilled inkpot, a scorched copy of Sload Biologies: A Comparative Anatomy, and an empty sujamma bottle (which no one would admit to sneaking in).


Urag didn't speak for a long time.


Then, slowly, he turned to me.


"You," he said.


I straightened slightly. "Me?"


"You were the lookout."


"That's an extremely generous interpretation of what I was doing."


"You failed. Miserably."


I shrugged. "Skeleton. No eyelids. Can't really blink. Kind of just... stared into the abyss."


Urag did not laugh.


"The Arcanaeum," he said, voice low and gravelly, "is not your playroom. It is not a proving ground for dares. It is not where you go when you want to chase ghosts, get drunk, and knock over priceless tomes while shrieking about poltergeists that turned out to be the wind."


Elvaldir opened their mouth to object. Urag held up one finger. They wisely closed it.


"You want to play adventurer?" he continued, glowering. "Go join the Companions. You want to chase ghosts? Find a priest. You want to learn something? Then maybe, just maybe, try respecting the one place in this frozen north that still holds the written memory of our world!"


S'rashi raised a trembling paw. "Technically, the memory of the world spilled out of the shelves onto us—"


Urag slammed a book shut. "Detention. All of you. Until further notice."


A collective groan echoed through the Arcanaeum.


"Colette needs help sterilizing cauldron spatulas," he added. "And Tolfdir's got a fresh shipment of soul gems that need cataloguing. You'll each take turns. One week minimum. No exceptions. No complaints."


I raised my bony hand.


He narrowed his eyes at me, voice dry. "Yes, Dreamer?"


I blinked.


"…What?"


Urag's expression didn't change. He raised a thick brow. "I said, 'Yes, you overly-engineered bag of bones?'"


My mouth opened. Closed.


"…Right. Thought you said something else."


"Not unless you've gone deaf and daft. Which wouldn't surprise me at this point."


The moment hung strangely in the air, like a word caught halfway between languages. I couldn't quite grab onto what had felt off, only that something had skipped. Just a step out of rhythm. A blink too long. A beat too late.


Gone now.


I cleared my throat—well, metaphorically—and shrugged. "Question. If I don't have a stomach, can I be excused from mop duty? Because last time I slipped in something that looked like healing potion and turned out to be—"


"Finish that sentence and I will have you sorting moldy scrolls until the next era."


"Copy that. No more details."


Urag pinched the bridge of his nose. "You'll be helping me with soul gem inventory. No complaints. Just don't absorb anything you shouldn't."


"Absorb is a strong word. More like… ambient siphoning."


"Out. Now."


As I turned, something itched behind my eyes. Not pain. Not thought. Just… the ghost of a word I couldn't remember hearing.


Dreamer.


I shook it off.


Just a weird moment. Probably nothing.


Probably.

---

As we shuffled out of the Arcanaeum, Faadil whispered, "Worth it."


Brynja nodded. "Absolutely."


S'rashi groaned, "My fur still smells like ink…"


I didn't say anything.


But as we stepped into the snowlit hall and the door shut behind us, I allowed myself a dry, rattling chuckle.


Repercussions or not — this place was starting to feel like home.

 

[CreepyUncleLuke]

It felt like a life I'd read about, not one I'd lived. And honestly? In a world full of talking lizards, dragon words, magic and mushroom trees—being a regular guy again just sounded kind of boring.

Click to shrink...

Damn, this is so refreshing. Dude gets a warning from the system, feels like he's good as is and doesn't poke that problem anymore. This skeleton has more wisdom than almost every Gamer protag ever.

 

[Fire_Fox]

Okay, so he is either the embodiment of the God Head, stole Dagoth Ur's idea and became the NEW God Head, or he is doing some kind of CHIM related nonsense. Although the last part is basically a catch all term, since whatever he is doing is absolutely CHIM nonsense no matter how you look at it.

 

[Pietersielie]

I greatly enjoyed the chapter, thanks for sharing!

 

[lopsigon]

I'm Commander Shepard, and This Is My Favorite ScrollsFic on the Citadel.

 

[Deneir]

I think i love you man. This is gold.

 

[SaintJibblies]

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Are you motherfuckers ready for a doozie of a chapter?! I basically poured my soul into this baby and now I'm exhausted as shit, soul completely sucked out and placed in a Soul Gem type shit, I hope you all enjoy this chapter especially with it's twists and turns, it's the culmination of the things I've slowly been building in the background, as always remember to point out any mistakes in grammar or continuity you see, this shit took it all out of me and so I might have accidentally left stuff in here that I was supposed to fix before posting, but we all make mistakes sometimes, just wanted you guys to not wait that long to see what I cooked up.

I implore you to go check out the fic that inspired this one, and is also the one referenced in this chapter "I, Draugr" made by the amazing, wonderful and talented SamuraiCheem also known as Musashi-Chan! she's literally the only reason this fic exists in the first place and if you guys like this fic then you guys will love that one.

Also remember to comment! Please, I love it when people comment on my work


I'd barely caught my non-existent breath after detention with Urag when Tolfdir's next lecture was interrupted.


We were all gathered in the Hall of the Elements, a typical Alteration lesson in progress. Tolfdir was demonstrating how to use magicka to temporarily alter the weight of objects, making a stone float gently in the air before letting it drift back down. It was peaceful. Mundane, even.


And, naturally, that's when the universe decided to screw us.


The door to the Hall slammed open. A courier—out of breath, half-frozen, and covered in enough snow to qualify as an honorary frost atronach—stumbled inside. Everyone turned at once, spells dissipating mid-cast.


"Dragons!" the courier gasped. "Helgen—destroyed!"


For one agonizing moment, absolute silence swallowed the hall. Then, chaos erupted.


Students burst into panicked whispers, a few openly questioning the courier's sanity. But Tolfdir's face drained of color, his normally warm, grandfatherly eyes darkening with an expression I recognized immediately.


Fear.


I didn't even hear the rest of the courier's frantic report. My mind was a whirlwind of screaming internal alarms. Helgen. Dragons. The Dragonborn. It was starting—no, it had already begun.


Oh shit.


The faculty exchanged tense glances. Mirabelle entered swiftly, closely followed by Savos Aren himself, both their expressions grim and unreadable. No pleasantries. No questions. Just grim acceptance. I saw Mirabelle's eyes flicker briefly to me, just a moment of suspicion—or was it confirmation?


Savos Aren stepped forward, raising a hand. Silence descended immediately.


"Classes are suspended for today," he said, voice steady, controlled. "Return to your rooms and await further instructions. The faculty will discuss this immediately."


No one argued. The students filtered out quickly, their murmurs anxious, some even terrified. Dragons hadn't been seen in centuries, after all. Their existence had been reduced to children's stories and archaeological curiosities. Until now.


I stood frozen to the spot until Tolfdir gently tapped my shoulder.


"You should go as well," he said softly, not meeting my gaze. "We'll… speak again soon."


The weight in his voice told me everything. He knew. They all knew—or at least suspected, I don't know what but it was something. My presence here wasn't coincidence; it never had been. Not now, not ever.


And, frankly, that scared the shit out of me.

---

I didn't waste time panicking in my room. Instead, I threw open my trunk and started frantically packing. My enchanted rings, my makeshift potions, my scribbled notes on Telvanni levitation enchantments—everything went into the satchel. I even stuffed in a few shards of petty soul gems, some septims, and that weird experimental potion that made my flesh flicker back into existence. Who knew when I'd need another existential crisis in a bottle?


My mask—the Dragon Priest mask I'd woken up with—sat heavily in my hands. Its empty eyes stared back at me, judgmental and inscrutable. I placed it carefully back onto my face, comforted by its weight and the anonymity it provided. It felt like armor, both literal and figurative.


I paused, standing in the center of my small room, realizing I'd packed everything I owned in less than five minutes. Nothing like imminent doom to inspire efficiency.


Finally, I made my way to the Arcanaeum.


Urag barely glanced up as I hurried in, snatching several tomes from the shelves—Advanced Alteration Theory, Defensive Warding Techniques, and Nordic Legends: Dragons and the Voice. I half-expected him to shout at me for grabbing books without permission, but he only nodded grimly.


"You know, don't you?" I asked quietly, holding the books close.


"Enough to know when the pattern repeats, go assist this Era's hero, boy." he replied, voice low. "Just don't lose those."


"I won't," I promised, already moving for the door,

My mind was too hyperfocused on the looming dragon threat to actually parse what he told me beyond 'I know something, take the books but don't lose them'.


"Good luck," he called after me, startling me enough that I stumbled slightly. I turned, eyes wide.


Urag shrugged, expression unreadable. "You'll need it."

---

Outside, the wind screamed around the College. I stood on the edge of the bridge, my cloak snapping violently in the frigid gusts. Time was short—too short for traditional travel.


"Alright," I muttered, gripping the hastily enchanted Telvanni flight ring. "Hope this works again."


With a sharp inhale, I activated it, launching myself violently skyward and then hurtling forward at speeds no sane person—skeletal or otherwise—should ever experience. The ground blurred beneath me, a patchwork of snow, rock, and eventually the rolling plains of Whiterun Hold.

---

I landed just outside Whiterun the following morning, bones rattling from the rough descent. I stumbled to the gates, half-expecting to see the Western Watchtower burning, smoke choking the sky, and Mirmulnir roaring above.


Instead, I saw… peace. Guards patrolled lazily, citizens bartered at market stalls, and Nazeem was smugly asking someone if they'd been to the Cloud District lately.


What?


The Watchtower stood firm, untouched by fire or dragon. It dawned on me—I was early. The Dragonborn hadn't arrived yet.


I cursed under my breath, anxiety twisting in my chest. So, what now? I couldn't exactly shout "hey everyone, watch out for dragons!" without sounding insane.


Still, I walked through the city gates, nodding at the bored guard who waved me in without question—thanks, masked face and mage robes.


Inside, Whiterun bustled cheerfully, blissfully ignorant of impending fiery doom. I moved swiftly through the crowds, making my way up toward Dragonsreach.

---

"Dragons?" Irileth's voice dripped with skepticism, hand casually resting on the hilt of her sword.


"I know how it sounds," I said urgently, standing before the Jarl's throne with my heart metaphorically pounding. "But Helgen is gone. Destroyed. And Whiterun is next. You need to prepare now."


Balgruuf leaned forward, brows deeply furrowed, fingers steepled beneath his chin. "And how exactly did you come upon this knowledge, mage?"


"I..." How did I even begin to explain that? "I received word at the College of Winterhold. A courier delivered the news—Helgen's destruction, survivors fleeing the dragon."


Balgruuf's expression hardened, but curiosity sparked in his eyes. "You speak as though you witnessed it yourself."


"No. But trust me," I pleaded, desperation creeping into my voice. "The danger is real. Prepare your guards, reinforce the watchtowers. Whiterun is about to become the epicenter of something far bigger than you can imagine."


Silence hung heavy in the hall. Irileth and Balgruuf exchanged a long, weighted glance before the Jarl finally spoke.


"Irileth," Balgruuf commanded softly, "dispatch a detachment to scout the roads. Confirm this mage's tale. If a dragon truly threatens Whiterun, we must know."


Irileth nodded sharply, already moving. Balgruuf's gaze returned to me, thoughtful and wary. "If you speak truthfully, you have our gratitude. But if this is deceit—"


"It isn't," I interrupted firmly. "I swear it on my soul."


He raised an eyebrow. "A heavy oath, mage."


"Trust me," I said grimly. "You have no idea."

---

Outside Dragonsreach, I stood overlooking Whiterun. Guards hurried through the streets, preparations beginning to stir. Citizens murmured anxiously, sensing something was wrong even without knowing precisely what.


Behind me, I heard footsteps approach—soft, deliberate. Farengar Secret-Fire, the court mage, stepped up beside me, his expression equal parts curiosity and suspicion.


"You wear the mask of a priest," he murmured, eyes narrowing. "Ancient magic. Dark magic, perhaps."


"Maybe," I admitted quietly. "Or maybe just magic that's been forgotten."


He tilted his head. "You speak in riddles. I find riddles… unsatisfying."


I chuckled bitterly. "Get used to them, Farengar. Dragons are just the beginning."


And, deep within my bones, I knew it was true. The world was waking up again, and I was caught squarely in the middle.


But at least, for now, Whiterun had a chance.


And maybe—just maybe—so did I.

---

The wind bit through the gaps in my robes, rattling bones and nerves alike as we approached the Western Watchtower. It still stood proud against the skyline, untouched by flame or ruin, and I breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief. It meant we still had time.


Farengar, puffing slightly from our rapid pace, cast a nervous glance toward the sky. "Still no sign of it," he murmured. "Are you certain it will strike here?"


"Certain enough to drag us halfway across Whiterun Hold," I replied dryly. "Just trust me on this."


As we closed the distance, a figure stepped out from behind a cluster of rocks near the road, raising a cautious hand. She was tall, clad in well-worn leather armor and a heavy fur cloak that looked like it had survived at least one major disaster—Helgen, if I had to guess. Her hair was tied loosely behind her head, fiery red curls escaping haphazardly, framing a weathered but striking face.


"Hold up," she called. "You folks from Whiterun?"


"Yes," Farengar responded, slowing. "Who are you?"


"Solveig," she replied, eyes glancing briefly at me with curiosity. "I came from Helgen, barely made it out alive. I've been tracking that dragon's path northward. Figured it would hit somewhere around here soon enough."


Solveig. Something about her—calm determination, the quiet intensity behind her gaze—made my nonexistent heartbeat quicken. She had protagonist vibes, the unmistakable air of someone the world liked to shove destiny onto.


My suspicions were promptly confirmed by the ever-helpful System:

[New Important NPC Encountered: Solveig]
Nord warrior, survivor of Helgen.
Traits: Unyielding Spirit, Heroic Potential, Unaware of Destiny (Yet).
Analysis: Probability high that this individual is directly tied to major narrative events.
Recommendation: Keep a close eye on her. She might be crucial.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Figures.


"Well, Solveig," I said, nodding in greeting, "you're right on the mark. We're expecting that dragon to target the watchtower any minute now."


She frowned slightly. "You seem awfully sure."


"I've got a sense for these things," I said vaguely, hoping she'd accept it without further questions. "We're here to warn the guards."


"I'll come with," she offered immediately, falling into step beside us. "After Helgen, I've had enough of dragons for a lifetime."


We continued up the gentle slope toward the tower. Farengar glanced at Solveig, curiosity overcoming his nerves. "Did you get a good look at it?"


She nodded grimly. "Close enough. It was huge—scales blacker than night, eyes like burning embers. Didn't think I'd ever see a creature like that outside stories."


"Stories have a nasty habit of becoming reality lately," I muttered.


Solveig chuckled bitterly. "No kidding."


Farengar was about to speak again when something caught my eye—a flicker of movement high above the distant mountain peaks. I froze mid-step, staring intently into the cloud-streaked sky.


"Wait," I hissed. "Look."


Solveig followed my gaze, squinting. "What do you see?"


"There," I pointed, dread pooling deep in my chest as the distant shape grew more distinct. "That's not a bird."


Solveig's eyes widened. "Shor's bones… it's coming."


Farengar's face paled as the enormous winged silhouette swooped lower, banking in a wide arc toward the watchtower.


The System, ever helpful, blinked urgently:

[Urgent Alert: High-Level Hostile Entity Approaching (Dragon – "Mirmulnir")]
Entity classification: World-class existential threat.

• Immediate withdrawal strongly recommended.
• Engage only if sufficiently prepared (you're not).

Click to shrink...

I spun around, cloak billowing dramatically. "We need to go. Now."


Solveig hesitated, gripping the hilt of her sword. "We can't just leave the guards unaware."


"They won't stand a chance if we're all roasted to a crisp!" I snapped. "We get back to Whiterun, warn the Jarl, get reinforcements, and then we fight."


She glanced back, conflicted, before nodding sharply. "Fine. Let's move!"


Farengar, already ahead of us, wasted no time in taking the lead, panic lending wings to his heels. Solveig and I sprinted after him, gravel crunching beneath boots and bones alike. Behind us, the watchtower remained deceptively serene—unaware of the winged doom rapidly descending upon it.


As we ran, Solveig shot me a sideways look, somehow still able to talk despite our frantic pace. "You knew exactly when it would come. How?"


"Complicated," I grunted. "Let's just say I've read ahead."


She huffed a laugh. "Well, Mage, I hope you've read far enough to see us survive this."


"Me too."


Whiterun's gates loomed ahead, guards yelling in confusion as we bolted through. Solveig shouted, "Dragon! Sound the alarm!" The guards immediately scrambled, horns blaring, townsfolk scattering with cries of alarm.


Dragonsreach towered above, a beacon of safety and authority. Farengar burst through the massive doors first, panting heavily. "My Jarl! A dragon!"


Jarl Balgruuf, seated upon his throne, looked startled but quickly regained composure, standing sharply. "Slow down! What happened?"


"The Western Watchtower," I said urgently, stepping forward, my bones clacking with nervous energy. "A dragon from Helgen—it's headed straight for us."


Balgruuf stared at me, then Solveig, recognizing the gravity of our words immediately. He turned to Irileth, expression steely. "Gather every available guard. We must defend the city."


Solveig stepped forward resolutely. "I'll fight too, Jarl Balgruuf. Helgen was my home—I owe that beast some payback."


Balgruuf nodded sharply. "Then we'll stand together."


The System chimed softly once more, almost gently this time:

[Quest Updated: "World-Eater's Return"]
Mirmulnir approaches Whiterun—this is your first great trial.
Objectives:

• Defend Whiterun alongside Solveig and the city guards.
• Observe Solveig closely during combat; confirm potential status as Dragonborn.
• Survive at all costs (obviously).

Click to shrink...

"Right," I muttered, drawing a deep, metaphorical breath. "Guess we're doing this."


Solveig met my gaze evenly, fierce and calm. "Together?"


"Together," I agreed.


And in that moment, running headlong into a fight I knew could change everything, I finally understood something fundamental:


This wasn't just a story I'd fallen into—it was a story I had a part in shaping.
Solveig had her blade out in a heartbeat, eyes fixed unflinchingly on the horizon. Irileth shouted commands, the guards quickly scattering into position around the Western Watchtower, bows raised, arrows trembling slightly in anticipation.


I tightened my grip around my axe, the familiar buzz of anxiety (or was it excitement?) rattling through my bones. The System blinked rapidly, trying to shove as much information as possible into my consciousness.

[Encounter Initiated: Mirmulnir, the Flame of the Western Sky]
Classification: Mature Dragon (Fire Affinity)
Threat Level: Critical
Advisory:

• Utilize defensive wards against fire-based Thu'um.
• Maintain distance and rely on indirect engagement.
• Probability of severe injury upon direct impact: 82.4%. Probability of
• Recommended: Extreme caution, or alternatively, extreme luck.

Click to shrink...

Real reassuring, System. Thanks for the pep talk.


A shadow surged across the landscape, massive wings blotting out the sun momentarily before a roar tore through the air, vibrating through the very marrow of my bones.


Mirmulnir dropped from the clouds, sleek, black scales reflecting firelight, eyes blazing with malice. He swept low, unleashing a torrent of flames at the tower's base.


"YOL… TOOR SHUL!"


"WARD!" Solveig shouted, diving for cover as the flames roared towards us.


My hands shot up instinctively, conjuring a ward that shimmered with desperate brightness, splitting the inferno around us. Heat scorched the air, guards stumbling backward with cries of alarm.


Then, abruptly, Mirmulnir rose, wheeled gracefully, and swooped back around, talons outstretched toward me directly. Time slowed in the terrible clarity of imminent disaster.


Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Shout. Now!


Words surged up, unknown yet utterly familiar, carrying power older than memory itself.


"ZOL… RIN… DREV!"


Reality stuttered.


It wasn't teleportation, nor invisibility. It was as if existence folded neatly around me, pulling me through a gap between moments. Sound muffled, colors blurred, and suddenly everything was distant, vague, removed from my presence.


Mirmulnir passed straight through where I'd just stood, jaws snapping at empty air, claws gouging only earth. His furious confusion was palpable, roaring in Dovahzul.


"WHAT TRICKERY IS THIS? ABOMINATION! YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST!"


He spun, seeking a target that no longer existed—at least, not in his perception. Solveig stumbled to her feet, searching the space where I'd just vanished, confusion evident in her eyes.


Then the folds snapped back, reality reasserting itself around me. The world caught up abruptly—I was several feet from where I'd begun, gasping, if I had lungs to gasp with, and feeling deeply unsettled.


Solveig's gaze locked onto me. "What—how did you—?!"


"No idea," I admitted, raising my ward again as Mirmulnir recovered his bearings. "Ask me later!"


Another war cry cut the confusion—a stranger surged onto the battlefield, armor gleaming in the firelight, greatsword held high. "Face me, beast!" shouted the warrior, his voice confident, defiant.

[New Key NPC Identified: Kaelen Stormblade]
Race: Nord
Traits: Fearless, Determined, Thu'um Potential Detected (Dormant Dragonborn)
Probability of Significant Historical Impact: Extremely High.

Click to shrink...

Fantastic, more complications.


Kaelen rushed forward, blade flashing, cleaving toward Mirmulnir with practiced precision. The dragon hissed, lunging back and snarling. Solveig joined the newcomer instantly, blades whirling in perfect rhythm.


The battle surged around us, chaos and fire painting a tapestry of destruction. I summoned shards of ice, launching volleys to pin Mirmulnir in place, aiding the guards who kept firing volley after volley.


The dragon roared, releasing another gout of flame directly toward Kaelen and Solveig. Wards leapt instinctively to my hands, interposing a barrier just in time to blunt the fury of the blast. Kaelen shot me a surprised glance, quickly nodding his thanks before diving back into the fight.


Solveig moved like lightning, her blade finding gaps between scales as she ducked and weaved through talons and fangs. Kaelen fought like a hero from legend, fearless strikes driving Mirmulnir back inch by grudging inch.


Frustrated, the dragon launched skyward again, preparing another sweeping inferno. But I was ready.


"ZOL… RIN… DREV!"


Again, I slipped between folds. The roar of flames silenced. I drifted, intangible, between perceptions. I saw the dragon's flames harmlessly lick through the space I occupied, confused frustration etched into Mirmulnir's ancient eyes as he failed once again to perceive me.


The folds of the dream snapped me back into place moments later. The dragon circled overhead, fury boiling in his voice.


"CURSED BE YOUR BROKEN VOICE, ANOMALY!"


Solveig barked a laugh, breathless but fierce. "He really doesn't like you!"


"I can't imagine why," I muttered, sending another volley of ice toward the dragon. "Maybe it's my charming personality."


Kaelen's brow was knitted in brief confusion, but he had no time to question my strangeness. He raised his greatsword, shouting defiantly toward the beast, "Come on, you winged coward!"


Enraged, Mirmulnir dove again, the ground shuddering under his weight as Kaelen's blade connected, sparks flying from scales. Solveig flanked from the opposite side, striking quick and true. Arrows embedded themselves deeply, fired relentlessly by Whiterun's brave guards.


I kept up my magical assault, supporting where I could, wards shimmering, ice flashing.


At last, exhausted and bleeding, Mirmulnir crashed to the ground, wings tattered and unable to lift him again. Kaelen and Solveig delivered final, synchronized strikes, blades piercing deep beneath the dragon's jaw. Mirmulnir gave one last, shuddering roar and fell still.


Then, silence.


For a moment, nothing moved.


And then, like a storm breaking, the dragon's corpse flared with blinding, ethereal light. Tendrils of energy flowed outwards, seeking, spiraling around Kaelen—who staggered, eyes wide in confusion—and Solveig, who gasped as the power entered her too.


The light split a third time, and before I could move or protest, it plunged directly into my chest. My bones ignited in silver-white fire, pain and ecstasy intertwined as draconic power filled me, reshaped me, rewrote me.

[Dragon Soul Absorbed (Fragmented)]

• Soul Fragment from Mirmulnir has merged with your essence.
• Dragon Aspect partially unlocked.
• Thu'um Potency significantly increased.
• Warning: Dragon Soul Fragmentation detected. Multiple recipients confirmed.
• Error: Subject Classification (Dragonborn) inconclusive due to multiple-source anomaly. Further analysis required.

Click to shrink...

I stumbled backward, flames dissipating, leaving me rattled but unharmed. Kaelen dropped to one knee, breathing heavily, clearly confused by what had just occurred. Solveig stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide and hands trembling slightly.


Irileth, bewildered, broke the silence first, approaching us cautiously.


"What... what just happened here?"


Kaelen looked up, equally baffled. "I—I'm not sure."


Solveig turned slowly to face me, suspicion and awe battling behind her eyes. "And you?"


I adjusted my mask awkwardly. "Look, whatever you're thinking, I promise you I'm just as confused."


She didn't look convinced, nor did Kaelen. Behind their confusion was suspicion and something else—curiosity, perhaps even hope. The guards murmured amongst themselves, gazes flickering between us uncertainly.


Whatever we'd just done, whatever had just happened—it had broken something fundamental. Dragons were back, and somehow, we had become something more than mere fighters. We were entangled now, our fates woven tightly together, dragons and mortals, magic and shouts.


I glanced back at Mirmulnir's smoldering remains and let out a hollow chuckle.


This shit just got significantly more complicated.

---

The scent of scorched earth and blood still hung heavy in the air as we stood amidst the wreckage of the Western Watchtower. The wind tugged at cloaks and armor, and in the distance, the sun dipped low behind the jagged mountains, casting long shadows over the slain.


The dragon's corpse had begun to collapse in on itself, bones blackened and cracked, heat still radiating from within like a dying forge. Nearby, the surviving guards knelt beside the bodies of the fallen, helmets removed, heads bowed.


I could see the grief etched into every line of their faces. These weren't seasoned warriors who died far from home. These were brothers. Sons. Neighbors. One of the guards—Hrollan, I thought his name was—ran a shaking hand over the face of a fallen comrade and whispered something in Nordic I couldn't quite catch.


"Four dead," Solveig said quietly beside me, wiping soot from her cheeks with the back of her glove. "Three wounded. All stood their ground to the end."


Kaelen, the newcomer, said nothing. He looked down at the dragon's remains, face unreadable beneath the weight of whatever had just been poured into him.


Then someone said it.


"Three Dragonborn."


The words slipped out of a young archer, one of the few uninjured. His voice was hoarse, cracked from smoke and shouting, but full of something close to reverence.


Solveig turned sharply toward him. "What did you say?"


"I—I saw it." He pointed, finger trembling slightly. "The light. It hit him—" he gestured at Kaelen "—and her—" at Solveig "—and then him." His hand shifted, landing squarely on me.


I instinctively took a step back. "That's not—no. I'm not—"


"You shouted," Kaelen interrupted, voice rough. "You disappeared mid-air. That was no illusion. You spoke the tongue. You burned with the same fire as we did."


"I'm not Dragonborn," I said, louder now. "Whatever that soul fragment was, it was meant for someone else. I'm—" I paused, groping for an explanation I didn't have. "I'm just a mage. A very confused, extremely cursed mage."


But no one seemed convinced. Not Kaelen, not Solveig, not the guards.


One of them, an older man with a pitted axe and a scar over one eye, looked up from where he was laying pine branches over the dead.


"Doesn't matter what you call yourself," he said. "You burned with dragon-fire and stood in the path of a god. That's good enough for me."


I had no response to that. Only silence.


Another guard approached hesitantly, holding a torch in one hand and a bundle of oil-soaked rags in the other.


"Would you… would you help?" he asked. "Burning their bodies—it's an old rite. Helps them find the path to Shor's Hall faster. That's what they'd want. Magic makes it cleaner. Brighter. More certain."


I hesitated. The thought of being part of such an intimate farewell unsettled something in me. But they looked at me with such quiet hope, such expectation.


"Yeah," I said at last. "Alright. I can do that."


They laid the bodies out in a line, wrapped in cloaks, weapons placed atop their chests. Someone sang low under their breath—a funeral hymn in the old tongue, low and rhythmic and full of grief.


I stepped forward, lifted a hand, and channeled fire.


Not destruction. Not combat.

[/QUOTE]
[New Spell Variation Learned: Flame of Farewell]
Type: Ritual (Altered Destruction)
Effect: Converts Fire into Purifying Essence – Cleansing Flames for Ritual or Burial Use
Notes: Reclassified for Ceremonial Use. Will not burn living tissue.
[/QUOTE]

A gentle golden fire bloomed from my fingertips and flowed like silk over the fallen. It took hold slowly, crackling softly, the air perfumed with herbs tucked into their armor. Not the acrid stench of burning meat—something cleaner. Brighter. More certain.


The guards stood in silence, heads bowed, the fire reflecting in their eyes.


Kaelen knelt. Solveig crossed her arms tightly and looked away, jaw clenched.


And me?


I stood there, hands lowered, and thought about the absurdity of it all.


I couldn't even remember what I used to be. And now they were carving gods out of strangers.


When the fires finally burned low, and the last flickers danced into ash, we turned and began the long walk back to Whiterun.


I said nothing.


But in my bones, something had shifted.


And far above us, hidden among the stars, I could almost hear the thump of a heartbeat...
The road back to Whiterun wound long beneath the evening sky. The sun had dipped below the mountains entirely now, leaving only deep blue hues and the promise of stars. Our boots crunched frost-covered grass and cracked pebbles as the Watchtower shrank behind us, swallowed by shadow.


Kaelen and Solveig walked ahead, their pace steady and voices soft—yet still too loud for the quiet inside my head.


"—you dodged a tail swipe," Solveig said with something between disbelief and admiration. "Most would've been sent flying."


Kaelen chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Instinct, I guess. I used to wrangle mountain goats back in Karthwasten. They kick like demons."


"Oh, so you're a goat wrangler and a Dragonborn. Gods help the wildlife."


They laughed, light and real, the kind of laughter that only came when you'd stared death in the face and survived anyway.


I followed several paces behind, my mask hiding whatever expression I might've worn. Not that I could wear one. I was silent. Still. Bones beneath layers of enchanted cloth, holding in something both ancient and unknown.


I wasn't like them.


Wasn't even sure I could be.


Kaelen glanced back. "Hey! You alright back there, Mystery Mage?"


Solveig elbowed him lightly. "He did burn half the dragon's face off. Show a little respect."


I lifted my hand in a vague gesture of acknowledgement. "Still trying to figure out how I'm not charcoal," I said.


It was a lie, but a good enough one to get a chuckle.


"We never got your name," Kaelen said. "Unless 'Strange Masked Guy' is what you want on the bard songs."


"…Call me whatever you like," I replied. "I haven't settled on a name in a while."


Solveig blinked. "You forgot your name?"


I shrugged. "I've had a few. They never stuck."


Kaelen gave me a long look, then nodded slowly, as if trying to decipher whether I was joking or just incredibly sad.


"Well," he said, "I'll have to find something to call you, can't keep thinking of you as 'The Masked Mage' especially after how you rattled that dragon's cage."


But it did make Solveig snort.


We kept walking.


Eventually, the stone walls of Whiterun rose in the distance, crowned by the torchlit spires of Dragonsreach. The watchmen at the gates recognized us immediately—their cries rising into the crisp air.


"They've returned!"


"Dragon-slayers!"


A small crowd gathered, cheering as we passed. Flowers were thrown. A child ran up with a half-burnt doll and pressed it into Kaelen's hands, eyes wide with wonder.


I kept my hood up and my head low.


A guard whispered, "That mask—he's a priest, isn't he? One of the old ones?" Another shook his head. "Nah, he's just eccentric. You see what he did out there? That's no priest."


Inside the walls, vendors stopped mid-sale. People shouted thanks. Old Nords offered tankards of mead and blessings in Shor's name. I felt myself shrinking beneath the weight of it.


Praise never suited me.


But it suited the others.


Solveig waved, smiled, laughed with the people. Kaelen offered the doll back, but the girl refused, so he carried it like it was made of glass.


And me?


I walked in silence, the echo of the soul's scream still bouncing behind my mask.


Dragonsreach loomed ahead. At its steps, the guards opened the doors wide.


Duty called again.

---

The doors to Dragonsreach groaned open before us, and the warmth of torchlight spilled out like a beckoning hand. The long hall was quieter than I expected—too quiet. The usual din of courtiers and guards was gone, replaced by the rustle of cloaks and the low murmur of tense conversation.


At the far end, Jarl Balgruuf sat forward on his throne, hands clasped tightly beneath his chin. Proventus stood to his right, Farengar to his left, the latter with soot-streaked robes and a wild glint in his eyes that hadn't been there when we'd left.


"By the Divines," the Jarl said, standing as we approached. "You actually did it."


Kaelen stepped forward, his voice steady despite the exhaustion in his frame. "We killed the dragon, my Jarl. But not without cost."


He lowered the doll into a guard's hands—whether as tribute or a reminder, I wasn't sure.


The Jarl nodded gravely, then turned his eyes to me. "And you? You wear the face of the old kings. Are you the one who wielded the shout?"


"...One of us did," I said. "Maybe more than one."


A silence fell.


Farengar stepped forward quickly, papers in his hand, excitement making his words trip over themselves. "My Jarl, they didn't just kill the dragon. I saw it. Three souls, not one. The beast's power split like—like water over stone! This is unprecedented!"


"Three?" Proventus asked, incredulous. "Surely you mean three fighters, not three Dragonborn."


"I know what I saw," Farengar snapped. "And the one with the mask—he used a shout I've never heard. Even the dragon was caught off guard."


"It spoke to him," Solveig added, quieter now. "It called him an abomination. In Dovahzul."


The Jarl turned back to me. His gaze was piercing. Not cruel, not suspicious. Just... unnerved. "And what do you say, stranger? Are you... Dragonborn?"


I shook my head slowly. "I'm a mage. A survivor. A wanderer with a good grasp of ancient theory. But Dragonborn? No. I don't feel like one."


The hall was quiet again. The only sound was the crackle of the braziers.


"But you used the Voice," Balgruuf said.


I didn't answer immediately.


Instead, I opened my hand. A shimmer of invisible tension gathered in my palm—residual essence from the shout. Like holding a flickering candle between two mirrors. I closed my fist before anyone else could see it.


"I used something," I said. "Not sure what it means yet."


Behind me, Kaelen stepped forward again. "Regardless of what he is, he saved my life. Twice. The three of us wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for him."


"Two Dragonborn," Balgruuf murmured. "And one... unknown. All in the same battle. This is no coincidence."


The Jarl sat down slowly, the wood of his throne creaking beneath the weight of his decision.


"Then let the Greybeards decide."


Farengar blinked. "The—? You mean to summon them?"


"No," the Jarl said. "I mean to wait for their summons. If this is truly the work of the Dragonborn—and I have two of them standing in front of me—then High Hrothgar will speak. That much is certain."


A long pause followed.


Then:


"Until then," Balgruuf said, eyes sweeping over each of us, "you are all under my protection. Solveig. Kaelen. And you, Masked One. You've done this hold a great service. Dragonsreach is open to you, and we shall now throw a feast in your honor!."


Kaelen gave a slight bow. Solveig offered a more relaxed salute. I simply nodded.


And yet—even as the Jarl dismissed us to enjoy the festivities that would be upon us soon and the guards opened the hall's side doors, letting the people waiting outside in—I couldn't shake the lingering weight of the dragon's final words.


"Abomination."


"You do not belong."


Maybe I didn't.


But I was here anyway.

---

The feast was in full swing by the time I slipped in behind the others.


Kaelen was already halfway through a roast horker haunch, grinning through a retelling of the battle that grew more dramatic with each retelling. Solveig—much better with people—was surrounded by townsfolk, flagon in one hand, laughing with some drunk Shield-Brothers. The guards had scattered, mingling, easing the tension that still lingered in their shoulders.


I stayed by the stone arch near the mead hall's entrance. Watching. Listening. Feeling… detached.


"Not hungry?" came a low voice.


Balgruuf.


The Jarl stood beside me, arms folded, eyes still set in that tired but searching way rulers tend to develop.


"Stomach never really recovered after that last summoning," I said smoothly, tone dry. "College mishap."


He didn't laugh. Just nodded.


"Fair enough." A pause. "You're a quiet one."


"Someone has to be."


He studied me for a moment longer, then turned his attention back to the feast. "Three Dragonborn. All in one place. The Greybeards summoned two of them. But not you."


"I'm not one of them," I said flatly.


"No?" His gaze slid sideways. "You shouted, and the dragon trembled. Called you abomination. And I heard Farengar talk about the moment you disappeared and reappeared like a ghost. Tolfdir, too. Said he saw something ancient—like a gap in the world itself."


"I'm not Dragonborn," I repeated. "And what you saw wasn't Thu'um in the traditional sense."


"Then what was it?"


I hesitated. Then: "A step sideways."


"Into where?"


"Nowhere you'd want to follow."


Balgruuf stared at me again. Then, slowly, he nodded.


"Well," he said, reaching for his goblet, "you might not be one of them. But you're something. And I doubt Skyrim will forget that shout anytime soon."


Then, raising his voice for the room to hear:
"To Solveig of the North! To Kaelen of the Reach! And to—" he glanced at me again, unsure for a beat— "the Veilwalker."


There was a pause. Then the feast exploded with toasts.


The name rippled through the room—curious, reverent, strange on their tongues.


I almost flinched. But I let it sit. Let them say it.


Veilwalker.


It wasn't wrong.

---

Dragonsreach – Later That Night


The feast was slowing, but it hadn't ended.


Solveig was arm-wrestling a Whiterun guard over the remnants of venison stew, half the table cheering. Kaelen had somehow ended up playing a flute with a bard too drunk to hold it straight. The hall echoed with laughter, clinking cups, the hum of temporary peace after fire and blood.


Then the world… shifted.


A sound boomed across the sky—not through wood or stone, but through soul and breath.


It was not a voice.


It was the mountain calling.


"DOVAHKIIN!"


The word tore through the heavens like a thunderclap. The feasting hall fell into stunned silence. Cups stilled. Bread froze in hands. A distant wind rattled the stained glass high above Dragonsreach like it was trying to get in.


"What in Oblivion was—" Kaelen began, but Solveig was already on her feet.


I was already moving.


Not running. Just… leaving.


My boots echoed off the stone as I stepped outside into the cold wind, my mask turned toward the distant peak silhouetted in the moonlight.


High Hrothgar.


I'd known it was coming.


I didn't expect it to sound like that.


Footsteps caught up with me—Solveig and Kaelen, both standing at my sides now, staring at the Throat of the World like it had personally whispered their names.


"That was for us," Kaelen murmured.


"No," I said softly. "It was for you two."


They looked at me.


I looked at the stars.


"There's a difference."


A pause stretched between us, thick and strange.


Then the massive oak doors of Dragonsreach creaked open, and Balgruuf stepped out flanked by Farengar and a dozen guards.


"So," the Jarl said, voice solemn, eyes fixed on the mountain, "the Greybeards have summoned you."


Solveig swallowed.


Kaelen just nodded, eyes wide.


"They don't do this for just anyone," Balgruuf continued. "Not since Tiber Septim. You'll want to leave at first light."


He looked at me.


And for a moment—I swore there was pity in his eyes.


"You, Veilwalker… You're not summoned. But I think you'll go anyway, won't you?"


I didn't answer.


Because I didn't know yet.

---

Whiterun – Late Morning, Two Days After the Dragon Attack


"You're not really going, are you?" Belethor asked, leaning over his counter like a spider with bad credit. "Climbing the Throat of the World? You'll freeze your tits off halfway up."


I ignored the jab and handed him the folded list of reagents I'd scrawled on the back of a baked-goods flyer. He squinted at it like it owed him money.


"Frost salts, fire salts, powdered mammoth tusk, frost mirriam, and... what's this last one? 'Soul sap?' That's not even—"


"Chokeberry resin. Trade name in Valenwood."


"...Right. Of course. That'll cost you."


I handed him a small pouch. The coin inside was mostly looted off dragon cultists and very confused bandits. He didn't ask questions. That's why I liked him.

---

Outside the Blacksmith's


Adrianne handed me a set of half-finished gauntlets, eyebrows rising when I took them with a gloved hand and shoved them unceremoniously into my pack.


"Not even gonna try them on?"


"They're not for me."


"...You planning to give gifts to a dragon?"


"No," I muttered. "Just planning."

---

By the Gildergreen Tree


Solveig had managed to attract an audience of three kids, a passing bard, and a very confused guard while regaling them with a dramatically overblown retelling of the Western Watchtower attack.


"And then," she said, wide-eyed, "he just—blinked out of existence! One moment he's standing there with his weird-ass mask and spindly robes, and the next? Fwoosh—gone. Even the dragon looked confused!"


"That didn't happen," I muttered as I walked past.


"It did!" she called after me, grinning. "I saw it. Ask Kaelen!"


Kaelen, to his credit, looked like he was trying very hard not to get involved.

---

Evening – Just Outside the City Gates


We gathered near the stables. Three horses. One for each of us. I had to barter down the price on mine by promising to repair the stablemaster's weather-ward enchantments. I may or may not have cast a mild pacification spell on the nag to stop it from trying to kick me in the ribs.


Solveig tossed her pack up onto her saddle with practiced ease. Kaelen took his time securing his greatsword and a heavy winter cloak. I had packed light—just enough food, a handful of potion phials, a cool looking robe I found in the College that I carried in my pack , and two soul gems I hoped wouldn't explode mid-channel.


"You sure you're up for this?" Solveig asked, sidling over.


"What do you mean?"


"You've got the whole... spooky mystic aesthetic down," she said, gesturing vaguely to my robes and mask, "but I haven't actually seen you eat, or sleep, or... you know, be normal."


"Maybe I'm not," I said, and mounted up. "Normal, I mean."


She smirked. "Well, if you suddenly start glowing or chanting in Daedric, I'm pushing you off the cliff."


"I'll make sure to land on you."

---

On the Road to Ivarstead – Day One


Kaelen rode up beside me as the sun dipped below the hills. The road ahead bent eastward, toward the river. He adjusted his reins in silence for a moment before speaking.


"You've been quiet."


"I'm often quiet."


He nodded. "Still. This whole Dragonborn thing… I wasn't expecting it."


"Neither was the dragon," I said.


That got a laugh out of him. The kind you give when you're still trying to find footing, but you appreciate the hand out anyway. He looked over.


"Have you ever been to High Hrothgar?"


"Yes," I lied, like a lying liar who lies. "A few times. Long time ago. Quiet place. Smelled like incense and old wool."


If you count going up there right after I killed that fucking dragon the last time I played Skyrim…


"Huh," he said. "What's it like, meeting the Greybeards?"


I hesitated.


Did he want a story? A joke?


"Loud but also very quiet," I said.


He raised an eyebrow. "That's… not what I expected."


"Their voices and knowledge of the Thu'um grants them many things," I continued, "but it also has the side effect of them not being able to talk above a whisper unless they've mastered themselves. It's sort of their thing."


He looked thoughtful at that. Whether he believed me or not, I couldn't tell.

---

That night, we made camp by the river. Solveig was the one to keep the mood light—singing some half-remembered Nord drinking song with full-remembered confidence. Kaelen, ever the quiet firekeeper, stirred a pot of something passable and let her drown out the woods.


I sat at the edge of the firelight, back to a stone, turning a soul gem over in my hands. Cold. Smooth. Contained potential.


A lot like me.


I wasn't trying to be antisocial. I just didn't trust myself to say anything without sounding...off.


But eventually, I spoke. Just one line.


"You're both terrible at harmonizing."


Kaelen barked a laugh. Solveig clutched her chest like I'd stabbed her.


"I knew you could talk like a normal person!"


"I didn't say I would again."


"Still counts!"

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Your understanding of [Social Interactions] has increased.


New Trait Acquired: Slow to Warm, Quicker to Burn
You struggle to trust others, but once you do, your loyalty is a forge-fed fire.

Click to shrink...

Well fuck you too, I'm trying my best here, shitass.


They eventually fell asleep—Solveig curled in her cloak, Kaelen half-sitting against a stump like he'd just been unplugged.


I didn't sleep. Not because I wasn't tired—but because I didn't need to.


Instead, I stayed still beneath the stars, the only sound the whisper of wind through pine.


I thought about the climb ahead. The summit. The summons.


This whole fucking world is so cool...

---

We left Ivarstead just after sunrise.


The mist still hadn't cleared from the river, curling over rocks and treetops like some sluggish wraith unwilling to rise. Kaelen led the way across the bridge with the restless posture of a man who'd slept too lightly. Solveig followed, humming a Nord drinking song under her breath, her axe strapped across her back.


Me?


I walked in silence, boots scuffing frost-bitten stone.


At the edge of the village, an old man flagged us down, his back bent but his eyes sharp. "Greybeards need this," he grunted, pushing a bundle into Kaelen's arms. Goat cheese, dried meats, a bottle of Alto wine, and a clay jar that sloshed ominously.


"I'm assuming we're not meant to ask about the jar?" Solveig asked.


The man grinned. "Not if you value your nose."

---

The steps began soon after.


Seven thousand of them, they said. I didn't bother counting. But my knees did—and so did the faint ache in my spine. Strange how I could feel tired, yet not exhausted. Alive, yet… not entirely.


The wind picked up. A chill swept across the trail, and the world seemed to shrink to white skies and grey stone. Shrines marked our way, their ancient inscriptions faded with age.


Solveig stopped at the first one and squinted.


"Before the birth of men, the Dragons ruled all Mundus…" she read aloud.


Kaelen stood beside her, brow furrowed. "You ever think about what it means that dragons could speak reality into being?"


"Only when I want to feel small," she replied.


I trailed behind, silent, I had to, you don't understand...

I need to aurafarm to look cool to these guys otherwise I'm chumpchange...

---

The frost troll came just before noon.


It was hunched over the trail, scraping moss from a rock with one long claw. When it heard us, it turned, nostrils flaring.


Kaelen unsheathed his sword with a hiss.


"Hold—"


It charged.


Kaelen dove. Solveig stepped forward, swinging wide with her axe. Her strike caught its shoulder but barely slowed it.


I moved without thinking. Not drawing a weapon. Just a breath. A rhythm.


"ZOL—RIN—DREV!"


The world shimmered.


And then I wasn't there.


Not to them. Not to the troll.


When I stepped back into the world, the troll was slamming its fist into the stone where I'd stood. Confused. Snarling.


Kaelen's sword pierced its side. Solveig shouted—not a war cry, but something deeper.


"FUS!"


A burst of wind exploded from her, raw and uncontrolled. It sent the troll staggering back a few paces, wide-eyed and huffing.


She blinked. "Did I—?"


Kaelen didn't give it time to recover. His next blow cleaved through its neck.


The troll hit the ground with a meaty thump.


Silence returned.


Then: "...Okay," Solveig said, lowering her axe. "I didn't mean to do that."

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
You have witnessed a new Shout: FUS


Your bond to the Voice resonates.
Kaelen's Bond: Dormant
Solveig's Bond: Awakening


Combat Results:

[Destruction Mastery +1]
[Shout Proficiency +1]

Click to shrink...

We caught our breath beside the body.


"Are we just going to ignore that I shouted the wind at a troll?" Solveig asked, rubbing her jaw like it might help her make sense of things.


Kaelen gave her a half-laugh, half-sob of a breath. "We're walking up a mountain to talk to monks who can yell down walls. Maybe it's just rubbing off on us?"

---

We were halfway up the mountain when we met him.


The snow had thickened, turning the path into a jagged, half-buried suggestion of a road. Solveig muttered something about frostbite, Kaelen was busy pretending not to be cold, and I—I was busy pretending I didn't feel anything at all.


Because I didn't.


We rounded a wind-blasted bend near the seventh marker stone, and then… there he was.


A figure seated on a wide, flat rock, directly in the middle of the path, as though he'd been waiting. Not blocking. Not confrontational. Just—waiting.


He wore simple robes. Woven wool, frayed at the edges. A hood shadowed his face, but I caught the glint of pale eyes beneath the cowl. They didn't glow. They didn't shimmer. They watched.


"Pilgrim?" Kaelen called.


The figure tilted his head slowly, like a curious beast.


"Of a kind," he said, voice dry as old parchment. "You climb to seek the Voice."


"We do," Solveig said, hand hovering near her hilt.


"Then climb you shall," he said, "but know this—none ascend without leaving something behind."


He stood. The snow parted around his boots like it was avoiding him.


"I have waited," he continued. "For three who would shape the echo of what was nearly unmade. One with fire in her marrow. One with stone in his shadow. And one who walks without tether or time."


I froze. The other two looked at me.


He stepped forward—just a pace. Then reached into the folds of his robe and withdrew a small vial.


It shimmered.


Not like firelight. Not like magicka.


Like starlight caught in water, barely contained.


He held it out to me.


"To drink this is to recall the echo of a name you have not yet earned, and memories not meant for waking minds. It will not force itself upon you. But it will wait."


I didn't move.


Kaelen murmured, "Do you know him?"


"No," I said, not even convincing myself.


I stepped forward.


He pressed the vial into my hand. It was warm.


Too warm.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
???
Item Acquired: [Vial of the Waiting Star]
Description: Data Fragment Unstable. Identity Query Pending.
Warning: Subject not yet synchronized with self.

Click to shrink...

I looked up, ready to speak—but the man was already turning away.


"Wait," I said.


He paused. Not turning. Just a slight incline of his head.


Then, quietly:


"You were never meant to remain this long, L-no, you go by a new name, for now. What do they call you? The Veilwalker? Apt..."


"How do you-the news shouldn't have even reached Ivarstead yet, how do you know who I am?"


"And yet... the world holds its breath around you."


And then he walked—no, glided—across the snow, away from the trail, into the rocks.


I blinked once.


He was gone.


No footprints. No shadow. No wind.


Solveig broke the silence. "Okay, seriously, what the fuck was that?"


Kaelen looked at me. "Are you sure you've never been here before?"


I said nothing.


Just looked at the phial in my hand, and then pocketed it.


Solveig raised an eyebrow. "You're not gonna say anything cryptic and unsettling?"


"Not this time." I responded.


That night, we made camp without much talking.


Even the stars felt like they were holding something back.

---

High Hrothgar loomed like a crown of silence atop the world.


We reached the final stair in near silence, boots crunching frost as the morning sun hung pale behind the peaks. None of us spoke much after the night before. The encounter with the pilgrim had shaken something loose in all of us—but none more than me.


This was the end of the road.


And the beginning of something else.


Kaelen took it in with a long breath, eyes wide with wonder. "So this is it…"


"Smells like incense and old wool," Solveig said under her breath.


I didn't answer. I couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or her quoting me. Probably both.


The doors opened before we could knock.


A breath of warm air, thick with dust and age, rolled out over the threshold like a sigh.


We stepped inside.


The hall was cavernous and strangely comforting—like walking into a place that remembered you before you were born. No braziers, no fires, and yet it wasn't cold. Just still. The walls hummed faintly, as though they'd been listening to their own echoes for centuries.


Four Greybeards stood waiting in the stone shadows at the far end of the hall.


One stepped forward.

It was Arngeir.
He stopped just a few paces from us, his eyes drifting past Kaelen, past Solveig, and landing squarely on me.


I felt it then—the thrum beneath my ribs, the way the mountain itself seemed to lean closer.


"You return," he said simply.


My stomach dropped.


What the fuck


Kaelen blinked. "Wait, what?"


Arngeir offered a slow bow.


"We welcome the Masked One back to High Hrothgar."


Solveig glanced between us. "Back?"


Kaelen turned to me, bewildered. "You said you'd been here before, but I thought you meant—"


"I don't remember," I said quickly. "I—maybe I did, I don't know."


I hated how shaky my voice sounded. I hated that it was probably the truth.


Arngeir's gaze didn't waver. "Time forgets, but stone remembers. Your name has changed, but the soul remains the same."


He tilted his head slightly. "They call you Veilwalker now. Fitting."


Kaelen looked over. "That… wasn't your name before?"


Solveig muttered, "What is your name?"


I said nothing.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]


The mountain knows your step.
The Voice remembers your silence.
The world holds its breath.


Trait Progression Unlocked:
Echowalker – ???

Click to shrink...

I clenched my fists.


The Angeir's voice softened.


"You once walked among us. As one apart, yet never truly gone. The wind carries your silence still."


Solveig stared openly now. Kaelen tried to reconcile the lie with what he was seeing, jaw tight.


"I don't remember any of that," I managed. "I'm just—"


"Still walking," Arngeir finished. "That is enough."


Then he turned toward Kaelen and Solveig.


"You were called. You carry the Breath within. The mountain has summoned you for the path ahead."


They both nodded, still looking back at me.


But I couldn't move.


The echo of those words rang in my head like a tuning fork struck deep in the bones.


You return.


They call you Veilwalker now.


The world holds its breath.


I stayed behind as the others followed the Greybeards deeper into the monastery.


Even the air felt too thick now.


Too aware.

---

The wind grew colder the higher we climbed, but it wasn't the kind of cold that bit skin or numbed fingers. No, this was the kind that settled in the bones—or whatever I had instead of those now. The kind of chill that whispered old secrets to itself in the howl of the air, as if the mountain remembered far more than it ever let on.


Arngeir walked in silence ahead of me. No words. No encouragement. Just the soft crunch of snow beneath his boots, and my own steps trailing behind like an echo trying to catch up.


I didn't ask questions. I didn't want answers.


Because I knew what was waiting at the top.


Not who. But what.


"Paarthurnax wishes to see you."


That sentence had been rattling around in my skull like a trapped soul gem ever since he said it.


Why?


Why me?


Solveig and Kaelen had just begun their journey with the Voice—barely touched the surface of their potential—and here I was being whisked away like a secret kept too long.


They were still down there in the Hall of the Voice, learning how to shout things apart like good little protagonists.


I was here.


Being led to the peak of the world for a conversation I never agreed to.


We passed the final steps. The path narrowed, then widened again into a shelf of ancient stone. The sky opened above us—swirling cloud and starlight clinging to the jagged edges of the world. The wind was deafening. Sacred. Like it was trying to peel the lies off my mask.


Arngeir stopped.


"Welcome back, to the Throat of the World."


I nodded, not trusting my voice.


He stepped aside.


"Welcome back," he said quietly, the words nearly lost to the wind. "To the Throat of the World."


I nodded, not trusting my voice. I wasn't sure what I was afraid of more—being recognized for something I didn't remember, or not being recognized at all.


He stepped aside.


"Go."


I stared at the stone path ahead. There were no more words. Just the mountain. Just the cold. Just the silence of something waiting.


And me.


One step. Two.


Then—


A shimmer beneath the snow, like moonlight dancing on oil. It pulsed, once, in time with my footfall. A knot in the world's tapestry, woven wrong and twitching like it knew.


I didn't recognize it. Not really. But some part of me did.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
You have stepped upon the Time-Wound.
Temporal Discontinuity Detected.
Dream-State Instability: Localized.


You feel yourself flicker.
You feel yourself remain.


The Past Does Not Forget.
The World Does Not Forgive.


Initiating Fallback Layer: Veil Sync Protocol…

Click to shrink...

My vision split—not like a screen cracking, not like an eye closing—but like a page turning in a book I hadn't known I was inside. Cold wind turned to warm air. Snow dissolved to dust. Sky became ceiling.


I saw two wheels.


I blinked.


No mountain. No Greybeard. No Arngeir.


Just…


A room.


Wooden beams. Cold stone floor. Familiar architecture—College of Winterhold style, definitely—but unfamiliar layout. The window looked south, down the mountain, toward the Sea of Ghosts. Books were scattered across a desk. Soul gems. A loose journal, the binding rough, but carefully reinforced.


A journal that hummed.


The binding cracked as I opened it, a plume of old dust curling up into the moonlight like it resented being disturbed.


No title. No name. No flourish. Just that strange, deliberate handwriting I'd seen before—burned onto the soul of a spell, etched into the margins of stray spellwork.


A voice caught in the bones.

If you're reading this…


Hi.


You're probably not supposed to be here either.


I don't mean in this room. I mean here—this plane, this reality, this walking fever dream wrapped in dragon bones and political metaphors.


Did you wake up undead? Got a menu floating in your head? Occasionally hear static when you cast spells? Congrats, you're someone's unfinished draft too.


Welcome to Mundus.


Hope you like snow.


This place is insane. The world pretends it's holding itself together with ancient prophecies and clever riddles, but it's really duct tape, dragon blood, and the fragile egos of old men in robes.


Magic? Doesn't work right. It's like trying to knit a scarf with a live snake. The more you think you understand, the more it laughs at you. Loudly. In Daedric.


I've been tweaking my spells, though.


You ever take a kid's magic trick—like a sparkler—and shove a Dragon Soul into it?


I did.


Twice.


The result?


A spell that howls like a dying god and ignores magic shields like they owe it money.


I called it Draconian Howl.


Felt right.


You'll know when it shows up. The air gets heavier. The wind goes quiet. Then something under the bones starts to scream—not in pain, but like it remembers a time before flesh.


I don't know how I made it.


I don't know why it let me make it.


But it knows me now.


Maybe it'll know you too.


If you're anything like me, you're probably trying to make sense of all this. You won't. But maybe you'll make meaning despite that.


That's what I did.


Make a spell. Break a rule. Name something old. Keep walking.


And if it ever starts making sense, worry.


– Leonidas
(Maybe undead. Definitely tired.)


P.S. If this journal's in English, that's not your brain glitching. I wrote it this way on purpose. If you can read this, you're not from around here either.

Click to shrink...

The page ended without fanfare.


Just that sharp, messy signature—Leonidas—scrawled like a goodbye no one got to read in time.


Suddenly I got a notification

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

Echo Signature Detected: [LEONIDAS]
Cross-Pattern Match: 87.3% Alignment
Dragon Soul Residue Present


DRACONIAN HOWL – Soul-Borne Spell


A roaring spell that carries the weight of dragonbone and forgotten names.
Bypasses magical shields and wards.
Embedded with the Word of Power: FUS (Force)
Modification Path: [Penetration] x2 – "No barrier shall stand."


Acquired from Cross-World Spellcraft Imprint
Source: Soullinked Mage [LEONIDAS]
Status: Instinctively Available

Click to shrink...

And then the room shook.


No, recoiled.


Like it suddenly remembered I didn't belong here.


Like I remembered.


The book vibrated in my hands. Not like a soul gem—more like a dying heart. Then it vanished in a blink of static. Gone. So was the desk. The stone floor. The window looking south.


I blinked—


And the world inhaled.

thump

thump...

THUMP

THUMP THUMP

THUMP THUMP THUMP

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

[SYSTEM RESYNCING…]
[TIME-WOUND EXIT TRIGGERED]
[TEMPORAL THREAD STABILIZED – WELCOME BACK, DREAMER.]

My knees hit snow.


Real, cold, biting snow.


I was back.


The room was gone. The journal. The desk. The window to another world.


Gone.


Only the wind remained—howling low through the ancient stones of the mountain, like it was pretending nothing had happened.


But I'd been somewhere else.


And something had come back with me.



Arngeir hadn't moved. Still stood like a monument in the wind, but his eyes were locked on me—wide, wary.


Yeah.


He knew I hadn't just knelt down to rest.


Something happened.
Arngeir was still there.


He hadn't moved an inch, but the air around him had shifted. He was staring at me like I'd just stepped through a wall he didn't know existed.


I didn't say anything.


What the hell was I supposed to say?


'Sorry, I got yanked into another dimension mid-conversation, but I brought back a metaphysical migraine and maybe a shout in my spleen'?


Yeah. No.


Then the sky split open.


And my problems got bigger.


The clouds peeled back like curtains pulled by invisible claws, and something immense descended from the heavens—slow, deliberate, vast enough to block out constellations.


Wings outstretched like ancient parchments, skin the color of frost-kissed stone, eyes glowing with the patience of centuries.


He landed in a controlled avalanche of wind and reverberating weight.


The mountain bowed beneath him.


Paarthurnax.

The dragon looked at me.


And smiled.


"It is good to see you again, old friend," Paarthurnax said, his voice rolling like thunder wrapped in silk. "Though the sky is quieter than last we met."


My heart did that thing where it tried to retreat into my spine.


I didn't move. Didn't speak.


"Do not worry," he told me. "I do not expect another duel. There is no time now for such luxuries. The World-Eater stirs once more."


"Do not be troubled," he continued, stepping forward with the patience of glaciers. "Your silence was long, but not forgotten. Mountains are good at waiting."


Right.


Because clearly the fucking mountain was in on this.

"It is strange," Paarthurnax said softly, "how the snow remembers."


His gaze swept across the horizon, but I had the distinct sense he wasn't seeing any of it.


"Each flake falls as if for the first time… yet always in familiar places."


He lowered his head just slightly.


"Do you know what it is to return before you've arrived?"


I didn't answer. I wasn't sure I could. Every word felt like it might tip something.


The dragon continued, tone drifting like a half-formed chant.


"There are paths that do not begin. Only resume. Some are written in stone. Others…" A pause. "Others write themselves."


He didn't look at me then, but I felt the weight of being seen anyway.


"The Voice listens even when you do not speak. That is its nature. But there are deeper silences, old friend. The kind that ripple."


I fought the urge to ask what the hell that meant. Because I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer. Or worse—that I might already know and just hadn't caught up with myself yet.


He finally turned his head toward me again.


"Words shape more than wind. They remember. They wait."


I nodded slowly. Like I understood. Like I didn't want to scream.


Behind us, the wind shifted—carried something faint. A sound not quite a whisper. Not quite a word.


Almost like breath waiting to become language.


Paarthurnax rumbled softly, amusement—or something like it—in his tone.


"Still, it is not your first ascent. Merely the first from this direction."


That one landed like a stone in a still pond.


I didn't ask. I didn't argue.


Because what do you say to a dragon who speaks in weathered poetry and seems to remember things you've only dreamt of?


I just stood there. In the snow. Beneath the sky that looked too wide all of a sudden.


And for a long, strange moment—I felt like I'd almost remembered something important.


Almost.


But the moment passed.


And the mountain said nothing.

 

[Magnetar]

You've definitely captured the scrolls-lore vibe here. That feeling where you only comprehend the barest bit of a epiphany. Like tasting the smell of a meal in the air for a brief second before the wisps are gone again. Frustrating but undeniably pleasant.

 

[SaintJibblies]

You've definitely captured the scrolls-lore vibe here. That feeling where you only comprehend the barest bit of a epiphany. Like tasting the smell of a meal in the air for a brief second before the wisps are gone again. Frustrating but undeniably pleasant.

Click to shrink...

I'm gonna be deadass, I had to rewrite the dialogue several times

I had to rewrite paarthunax's dialogue 14 times

I'm thankful it's up to standard

I spent ov er 10 hours writing this

 

[lopsigon]

All hail SaintJibblies and the Holy Gospel of Leonidas!
leo on deez knuts

 

[SaintJibblies]

All hail SaintJibblies and the Holy Gospel of Leonidas!
leo on deez knuts

Click to shrink...

Thank you, both for the hail and for the Amy...

Amy best girl

 

[Blankmask]

Well. Cryptic dragon giving out history and an old bit of magic from a life you never lived?

Yeah that tracks.

 

[Twigtree]

You ' re giving my boy imposter syndrome!
Great chapter.
Even when not trying he is confusing people.
I was not expecting the whole 2 heroes thing

 

[SolusEclipse]

A world held together with dragon blood and ducktape

 

[CornCorn]

These traits are less game traits and more just personality traits which I don't think need to be given game recognition, the MC has a startling lack of confidence and an excess of denial, and the MC has a habit of giving overly and uselessly cryptic responses that I am unsure of how they haven't gotten him socked in the jaw yet out of others frustration. Doesn't completely ruin the story but dear god are they frustrating to read.