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[Lucidarius]

This was planned as a prologue to my adventures in Oblivion but then it turned rather long so instead of a complete story about a major plot line, I’ve only finished the prologue up until the prison in the Imperial City. The goal was to understand my character’s motive and background for better immersion in the game.

This is my first try at writing fiction so any comments or thoughts are more than welcome. Thank you for your time.

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12 Last Seed 3E419
As all children living on the Bitter Coast Nienna had learned to swim almost simultaneously with learning to walk. One day they had been on the shore, Lila killing the big mud crabs and her daughter Nienna swimming and diving for pearls. The kollops around the coastline of Vvardenfell in the Imperial province of Morrowind seldom held any pearls. They had already been taken by the abundance of poor inhabitants.

Suddenly Lila realized she had not seen her daughter’s head above the surface of the water for quite a while. She resolutely jumped in with all her clothes on. When she didn’t see her immediately, she began to panic and even forgot to cast a water breathing spell so she had to surface to get air. Then she saw Nienna a good distance away and gestured to her to come back. Nienna complied immediately, swimming all the way back under water before joining Lila on the bank. Lila did not know what to do first, berate Nienna for swimming out so far or quenching her curiosity about how she could hold her breath for so long. First she hugged Nienna tightly, grateful that she had not come to harm. Before she could say anything, Nienna excitedly burst out:

“Oh, mama, I found out how to cast the water breathing spell, it’s wonderful, wonderful to do magic.” Nienna jumped up and down to expend some of her pent up energy upon discovering her new ability.

“I was out swimming as usual and then I saw an open kollop with a pearl glinting rather far away. Instead of just swimming as normal, I pictured my fingers closing around the pearl, daydreaming about buying you a new wool skirt for winter like the one we saw at the shop yesterday and a real doll for me with a dress and silk slippers. Then it happened. My lungs didn’t feel like they were under water anymore, but more like inhaling a very cold, clingy kind of fog. And I could swim, and swim, and swim. It wasn’t until my fingers actually touched the pearl that I felt the pressure of the water on my chest so I had to go up for air.” Nienna smiled happily, dancing about throwing sand and twigs up in the air, reveling in the discovery.

Lila was shocked to hear that Nienna had discovered the water breathing spell by herself – and at such a young age too. She was not even four years old. Normally, children in High Rock were tested for their magical capabilities at the age of six. Lila had been an unusual five years old herself when admitted to the Guild of Mages, but had intensely disliked the stuffy and old-fashioned teaching methods. She ran away when she was seven, doing the odd job for different employers while trying to learn as much about magic and different spells as possible. She was afraid that Nienna was too young to understand the powers involved in magic thus resulting in fatal consequences.

“Congratulations, Enna. This is a big day and cause for both celebration and contemplation,” Lila said in a quiet, serious tone. “Magic always consists of both sides: lightness and darkness, the power to heal and to destroy.”

“Yes, mama, but I didn’t do anything bad, I just swam underwater,” Nienna said, confused about her mother’s serious tone.

“I know, darling, it’s hard to explain what it is I mean. When you cast that water breathing spell, your only intent was to get the pearl and buy something nice for the money. This spell belongs to the school of alteration. Alteration means “change” and that is exactly the purpose of the spell, to change the way you perceive the water, the world and everything in it so that you can breathe longer and don’t have to surface to catch air. Until the spell runs out,” Lila gently pulled her daughter down beside her on the bank; this was going to take a while.

“When we change the physical world around us, we might get to a point where we forget that we’ve changed it but reality will always win in the end. No person can hold a spell indefinitely because the person would run out of either magicka or stamina. Just think about how fatal it would be if you were deep down in the ocean when suddenly reality came back and you had no more magicka or stamina left to prolong the spell. You’d die.” Lila had looked intently at Nienna’s face during her lecture to see whether her words had any effect.

“No, but I would not forget the real world, mama. I wouldn’t go down so far that I couldn’t easily come back up again.” Very little effect, it seemed.

Lila sighed, recognizing her own stubbornness and misguided pride in her daughter. She had been just as confident about her magical skills, and it was not until she had met Turamo and he had expanded her knowledge about magic that she had realized the prudence of humility. Altmers are known for their arrogance, and with reason; the only exception from it is magic. They view humility as the most important factor in successful application of magic as a whole. This means in alchemy as well as in the research and understanding of the six schools of magic: alteration, conjuration, destruction, restoration, illusion, and mysticism.

[Lucidarius]

Thanks for your reading and welcome, Metal Mallet. About two years ago, I read and commented for a short while on this forum, but then I got sidetracked. Now I'm busy reading some of the many engrossing stories published here, including yours.

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The Story of Turamo and Lila
Lila’s husband, Turamo, died in Sun’s Dusk 3E415, two months after Nienna was born. He had accepted the well-paid task to deliver provisions to some pilgrims behind the Ghostfence, but then he had contracted the corprus disease. He knew there was no cure. Therefore, he stayed inside the Ghostfence, so he did not infect others. A letter found on his body had identified him.

The wealthy protected themselves from Dagoth Ur and his Blight storms, servants and infected creatures by erecting the Ghostfence, a gigantic magical fence made by the ancestor spirits from dead heroes or strong individuals. Nevertheless, the fence got weaker and weaker. The Blight and the infected started to spread outside of it. It was not until the Nerevarine, the reincarnation of the Dunmer hero Lord Nerevar Indoril, defeated Dagoth Ur in 3E427 that the Blight disappeared, but by then it was too late for Nienna’s father.

Turamo had been an earnest scholar from a wealthy family in the Summerset Isles, the most south-western part of Tamriel. As part of his search for ancient scrolls, he had travelled to all the provinces of the Empire.

One evening he had been in Daggerfall, the capital city of the Bretonian province High Rock. In a back alley he had witnessed a young boy in a fight with a burly man. The skinny lad put up an energetic fight with spells, kicks and even hand-to-hand fighting, but the man still got many punches in.

Turamo got the same distinct feeling of humming stillness inside similar to when he had discovered the age-old original scroll of the ancient Bosmeric poem, Dansir Gol. The boy and the man were both of human descent, so why should he care one way or another? Turamo thought. Everyone knew that Altmers are the epitome of perfection, other elven races are inferior and humans and beastfolks too far beneath notice. He tried to ignore the feeling, but when it persisted, he turned back to the alley only to find the lad and the man gone. The humming stillness had disappeared anyway. Mentally shrugging, he turned back to the main street, found the coach destined for Cyrodiil, paid his ticket and climbed aboard.

The next day, when the coach stopped for a change of horses by a tavern, he had suddenly seen the tip of a nose under the many parcels and trunks atop the roof. Instantly, the humming stillness from the day before appeared again. Silently casting an invisibility spell on himself, he waited until all the other passengers went inside the tavern, and then he had seen the lad from the night before crawl out from under the luggage.

“Who are you, and why were you hiding?” He broke the invisibility spell, when he took a firm grip on the boy’s wrist.

“None of your business and let go of my arm instantly, you brutal mer,” the Bretonian lad demanded and stared angrily up at him.

Turamo should not have been surprised to discover the lad was not humble, but in fact had a strong attitude and did not even try to control his temper. His dealings with the Bretons had so far proved that they all seemed to share those traits. In this case, the traits had resulted in the amusing hothead who did not know when to use diplomacy, even when the opponent was much stronger.

“Give me the answers, and then I will decide what to do with you,” he smiled slightly at the young one’s irritated snort, but since Turamo still held the wrist, there really was not much choice involved.

“Look, Altmer, I am trying to get out of High Rock and see the rest of the Empire, but my former employer, a smith, wouldn’t pay me the gold I was due and even tried to restrain me, so I had to hide on the coach,” the lad stared impatiently at Turamo, tugging the arm that he held, obviously wanting to be on his merry way.

Something about the lad’s voice seemed a little off, Turamo thought. He snapped the cap away from the youngster’s head revealing long, strawcoloured hair and feminine features.

“Now, look what you did, you interfering fool,” the girl snatched the cap back and tried to push the hair back under it, but since Turamo still held onto her left wrist, she failed miserably.

“Why the make-believe?”

“A young boy travelling alone has Mundus at his feet, whereas a young girl is little more than prey for unsavoury types.”

Turamo nodded his concurrence to the girl’s reasoning.

“Are you proficient in the work as an alchemist and a scribe?” Turamo was amazed at himself for involving himself with this human and her unfortunate situation. It was really none of his business, as the girl had already pointed out. Obviously, she was the sane one of them. She looked suspiciously at him.

“I don’t know how to write, but I’m good at alchemy, and I know a couple of spells.” That was true; he had even seen her use some small fireballs last night when she fought the smith. Normally, he could boast an unfailing memory, but something about the girl had shaken him soundly.

“I have to travel the provinces of Tamriel as part of my ongoing research, and I could use an errand… erm… girl to take care of all the mundane necessities and help out with my research. Do we have a deal?” Turamo posed it as a question, but let the inflection state clearly, that it was the only sensible solution.

“Very well, if that is what it will take to make you let go of my arm,” she said ungraciously, “but I have one stipulation, I want to learn to read and write before we reach Morrowind.”

“Deal,” they shook hands.

“I’m near starved; do you have anything I can eat?” She looked more at ease now, rubbing her wrist lightly, when he released it.

“Yes, I do, but first what is your name?”

“Lila Silven. Now would you please get me some food? I haven’t eaten in two days, and I tend to get in a really bad mood when my stomach is empty,” she smiled apologetically.

From then on, they had been together. At first, he had treated her as an amusing puppy, but the more time he spent with her, the more he came to admire her and even regard her as an equal. She was quick to learn her letters, and when he let her be his scribe during his alchemy and spell testing, she contributed valuable critique. Altmers, or High Elves as the other races most often call them, treasure the intellectual pursuits above all, and Lila impressed him with her capabilities for learning and affinity to magic and alchemy. In the end, her quirky wit, great energy, and passionate zest for life had won him over.

Less and less he would speak and behave like the condescending Altmer, he was brought up to be, and she had likewise warmed to him, appreciating his dry sense of humor, his almost encyclopaedic knowledge, and bouts of tenderness that surfaced more and more often.

Five years after their first encounter, Lila had told him outright that she loved him, never one to put a lid on her feelings. He had felt the same for her for many years, in fact from the beginning, but at first he had not recognized the feeling for what it was. She was the only female, he had ever felt both mentally and emotionally attracted to, and he did not know what to do with emotions, since they were deemed unworthy in his own society and hence had no place. At first she was too young, and later he was afraid that she did not feel the same. He would have been content to let things continue as they were, because she had shown him so many other sides to life, he had not figured out on his own in the first two hundred years, he had lived before meeting her. Better this close friendship than his mostly intellectual existence before. Then they got married, and he had felt fulfilled and alive like he never would have thought possible.

The only loss he had suffered was that his family had disowned him when they learned that he had married a Breton instead of a pure Altmer. Even though he lost his family, connections, and generous salary from the deeply satisfying work of tracking down scrolls, deciphering them and doing research, he never once regretted his decision. Not when work was hard and the money scarce. Not even now. Turamo sighed, feeling his mind and body already changing caused by the corprus disease. Shaking, he found a blank scroll, dipped his quill pen in the ink bottle and started writing his last letter.

My sweet Lila,

After I completed my delivery to the three pilgrims, I immediately began to retrace my steps, but then the Blight started roaring, and I got so much ash in my eyes that for a few minutes I could not see anything. When my eyes had finally cleared again, a corprus stalker viciously attacked me. I managed to slay him with an impromptu lightning bolt and then a series of fireballs. He only touched me two times and briefly at that, but I sense the dreaded disease in my veins and have already located a deformation of my right forearm and several swellings on both legs and chest.

I assumed that my Altmeric resistance to common disease would be protection enough, but alas, I have paid a severe penalty for this last arrogance.

Together with you, I have enjoyed the best years of my existence. You showed me that life consists of more than the pleasures of the mind: your laughter and love enriched my life in a way that even my precious study of ancient scrolls has never done.

Lila, my love, kiss our child from her father. I think of you as I last saw you, waving and smiling. I shall pray relentlessly to Kynareth that she will grant us the opportunity to embrace each other once again in the eternity,

Your husband Turamo