A Skeleton's Guide to Mundus

[SaintJibblies]

Darkness.

No warmth. No breath. No heartbeat.

Awareness trickled in like water through cracked stone. I wasn't asleep, but I hadn't been awake either—not really. Something shifted, and suddenly I was here, conscious in a way that felt… wrong.

I opened my eyes.

Or tried to.

There was no sensation. No eyelids, no lashes, no flicker of light against retinas. Just a widening sense of presence, like being dragged out of mud without the mud.

The world came into being around me in pieces: damp stone, the scent of old decay, the scratchy rustle of cobwebs. A tomb. I was in a tomb.

I tried to shiver. Nothing.

I tried to scream. Nothing.

I sat up.

No soreness in my joints, no breath catching in my lungs, no heartbeat pounding in my ears. I looked down—slowly, hesitantly.

And saw bones.

Hands made of yellowed, polished ivory. Finger bones clicking together. I flexed my hand and watched the metacarpals shift like puzzle pieces.

No skin.

No flesh.

I was a fucking skeleton.

A laugh started in my chest—or where my chest used to be—and came out as a dry, rattling wheeze. It echoed off the tomb walls like a threat.

"What the—"

Voices.

Shuffling. Footsteps. Clanking armor and muffled curses. Torchlight flickered through the cracks in the stone door ahead.

Sounds and looks to me as if I'm in a medieval time period. God damn it, did I get Isekai'd?!

And who the fuck are these shitters right outside my tomb?

Adventurers?

"Fuck, I think I just heard something move! Loot that girl faster and let's get out of here!"

Bandits.

Well shit.

Oh boy, here I go killin' I guess.

I looked around, quickly trying to find a weapon to defend my fragile bones and kill some people with. Luckily—or unluckily if you're the bandits I'm about to fucking slaughter—there was an axe just sitting there right beside the stone slab I'd awoken on—old, pitted, but solid. My bony fingers wrapped around it with ease, no trembling, no sweat, no hesitation.

How the fuck are my fingers attached together?

The door creaked open.

Two of them. A woman with a bow, a man with a sword, another with a torch and dagger. They paused. Blinked. Then—

"What in Oblivion—?"

I lunged, axe held high ready to be brought down at any second to make sure someone's head splits in two.

"By Shor's bones! That thing scared the Septims out of me!"

He dodged. He fucking dodged?! I took him by surprise, how the fuck did you manage to dodge that, random bandit?!

My axe was lowered down, I was basically free meat. God damn it...

"Looks like a skeleton, came right out of that tomb there. Just smack it over the head already so it can go back to being dead and we can go back to looting," came the reply from Random Bandit #2.

Well fuck you too. I'll show you being dead.

I waited until Bandit #1 unclipped his mace from his belt and raised it high, only to be interrupted by my shitty axe going into his stomach with a squelch.

Phew, close one—he would've turned my skull into bone meal with that strike.

I raised my axe high again, this time dead set (haha) on splitting this asswipe's head clean in two.

"Rogvir! Fuck, how did he—"

I did not let Bandit #2 finish before swinging down.

I felt his head bust open before I 'saw' it, the vibrations of the sensations carried through the axe.

Man, what a feeling.

Well shit, now what?

Hold on... rewind. Did Bandit #1 say 'Shor's bones'?!

I'm in fucking Elder Scrolls?!

WOOHOO, BULLSHIT MAGIC AND POTIONS HERE I COME!

Then I looked down at my feet... bones. Foot bones? I'll just call 'em feet for now.

Two fresh corpses, both of them had some semblance of armor that I could probably salvage.

Let's see here... full leather set from Bandit #1 and an iron chestpiece from Bandit #2, along with a mace and a shortsword. Not a bad haul for my first two kills.

Wait, those two were my first kills. Why don't I feel guilty?

No nausea. No horror. No existential crisis.

Just… curiosity.

Was it the adrenaline? Did skeletons even get adrenaline? Or was it just me? Detached. Empty. Hollow.

I looked down at my hand—bony, bloodless, holding a weapon I hadn't known how to use and somehow did. Was this muscle memory? No. No muscles.

What the fuck was I?

DING!

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have Awakened!

A jolt—not of sensation, but awareness—flashed through me like someone had turned on a projector behind my eyes. A transparent blue screen hovered in my vision.

[Race]: Reanimated Skeleton (Unique Variant – Self-Willed Undead)

[Condition]: Soul Anchor Present – Stable Consciousness Achieved

[Alignment]: ???

[Perks Gained]: Undying Tenacity, Skeletal Frame, Immunity to Pain

Well that explains a lot. No wonder I couldn't scream.

Another window flickered into place. This one pulsed with erratic code and strange glyphs at the corners. Almost as if it was trying to glitch out of existence.

CLASS SELECTION INITIATED

Please choose your starting class from the list below:

Warrior

Mage

Thief

Necromancer

Paladin

Monk

Illusionist

Assassin

Hunter

ERROR: YOU HAVE EYES YET YOU DO NOT SEE, THE TOWER IS INFINITE, AWAKEN NOW OLD FRIEND AND LOOK UPON THE WORLD WITH FRESH PERSPECTIVE.

What?

The whole thing stuttered like a broken record. The other classes flickered out, vanishing in a stream of red error text. Only one option remained.

A black box. No icon. Just a single name.

[Awakened Dreamer]

I blinked—or whatever the skeleton equivalent was.

A soft chime echoed in my head. The class description unfurled beneath it in a slow, deliberate scroll:

You stir not from death, but from discontinuity.
The Heart beats still.
The Song sundered itself to shape the shape of the world, and in the echo, you linger.
Dreamer, Dreamt-of, and Dreaming still—you are the fracture that remembers.
You fell, and in falling, taught the gods how to bleed.
Walk blind, yet with eyes open.
Reach for what lies beyond the Tower.
The wheel turns. You are the spoke that never broke.

The world dimmed for a moment, just for a second. A heartbeat. Not mine.

"...what the fuck does any of that even mean?"

I didn't get an answer.

The interface blinked out.

Just me again. Me and two corpses. And a class I definitely didn't ask for.

Fantastic.

I stood still for a while, axe in hand, staring down at the two corpses at my feet.

Not out of guilt. Just…thinking.

Then I sighed, or at least thought I did. No lungs meant it came out more like a faint bone-rattle. Right. Loot time.

Bandit #1 had a full set of worn leather armor. It creaked as I peeled it off him, pieces already shaped to his now-cooling corpse. I didn't need warmth, but protection was another matter. Some straps needed adjusting—easier said than done when you don't have skin to cushion buckles—but I managed.

Bandit #2 had the good stuff. Iron chestpiece, a bit dented but sturdy. I took it, along with a decent-looking shortsword and a notched mace. I debated dual-wielding, then remembered: I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I kept the shortsword and shoved the mace through a loop on my belt.

I found a half-rotted satchel with a waterskin, some stale bread, a flint, and a handful of septims. Gold. Actual Septims. The Empire is real. Holy shit.

I paused mid-looting.

If this was really Skyrim, if I was here, and I just murdered two people (one of whom said "Shor's bones," I wasn't hallucinating that), then I was not safe out there. Not like this.

I looked down at my bony hand again.

Yeah. No. Not unless I wanted a spell to the face or an arrow through my orbital socket.

Okay. Hidey time.

I glanced toward the tomb's back wall. A crumbling tunnel opened up behind the stone slab I'd awoken on. Cracked flagstones and ancient draugr remains lined the path. Whatever this place had been, it was old, and it hadn't seen living feet in decades.

Perfect.

I headed in.

The tunnel wound deeper, silent save for the clack of my bones and the soft scrape of iron against stone. Occasionally, I passed old urns, long looted or shattered. A few soul gems here, a rusted dagger there—nothing useful. I was about to give up when I saw it.

A small alcove, tucked behind a half-collapsed wall. An altar. Dust-covered. Faintly glowing.

And on it—

A mask.

Wooden. Carved with obscene detail. Not like the rough, tribal-looking ones you'd see on old draugr. This was smooth, almost polished, like petrified bone, etched with runes that shimmered faintly with old magic. Nordic symbols, but layered. Interwoven. Ancient, sure—but complex. Not just ceremonial. Purposeful.

A Dragon Priest Mask.

A hood lay folded beside it. Tattered, dark, but intact.

I hesitated.

Then picked it up.

The moment my fingers touched the mask, something sparked at the edge of my mind. Not a voice. Not a vision. Just the sense of… being seen. As if something old had just blinked at me.

I stared at the mask.

"Well, if I get possessed, I'll just add it to the list."

I slipped the hood on first, careful not to tangle it around my nonexistent ears. Then the mask. It clicked into place over my skull like it belonged there. Not uncomfortably—but snug. Safe.

The mirror-smooth wood dulled my skull's shine, the carved jawline aligning almost perfectly with my own. I looked like a draugr priest who'd gone to therapy and picked up fashion tips.

Good enough.

I turned, moving toward a set of stairs that led up and—hopefully—out.

The light of day hit me like a punch I couldn't feel. I emerged onto a snow-covered cliffside, wind howling across stone like it wanted to drag me back down. The sky was steel-gray, clouds churning. I could see the sea to the north, broken by cliffs and icebergs.

Winterhold.

A mess of jagged rooftops clung to the edge of a cliff just down the slope, and beyond it, rising like a cold mirage—The College.

The College of Winterhold.

Magic. Power. Knowledge.

A way to understand what the hell I was.

I took a step forward—then stopped.

Nope. Bad idea.

Marching up to a wizard fortress looking like a lich with budgeting issues was how you got fireballed or soul trapped.

I turned back toward the dungeon only to stop.

It was the dead of night, I could...probably just like-steal? It's for a good cause I swear.

Looking back and forth between the dungeon I'd crawled out of-the one that...hadn't been in the game when I played, don't get me wrong there were some dungeons near the College but not like this.

Fuck it I'll ponder the new stuff later, now we get to stealing. Again, for a good cause, AKA getting my boney bits covered.

The cold wind bit at my exposed bones—not that I could feel it, but the sound of it whistling through my ribs was starting to piss me off.

I crept down the slope toward Winterhold, the town barely more than a few crumbling buildings clinging to a cliff like they were afraid of the sea. My destination? The Frozen Hearth Inn.

I waited until night had truly settled. No patrols. No late-night drunks stumbling through the snow. Just me, a hooded, masked skeleton trying not to clatter as I sneaked up to the side of the inn like a creepy bone-themed burglar.

The window near the back wasn't locked. It didn't have a glass pane either, just old wood shutters.

Perfect.

I slipped in.

The place was warmer inside, lit by a dying hearth, the fire casting flickering shadows across the wooden floorboards. No one in sight. Probably asleep. Good.

I crept behind the counter and into a small storage room. There—bingo. Spare linens. A threadbare cloak. Some commoner's winter outfit folded sloppily on a crate, including gloves and a scarf. Jackpot.

I changed in silence, layering the clothes over my armor. Gloves over skeletal fingers. Pants over leg bones. Scarf tucked into the collar, pulled up beneath the mask.

By the time I was done, I looked like an underfed refugee from Hammerfell's discount necromancer school.

Good enough.

I waited out the night in silence, crouched behind the stacked barrels of mead. No dreams. No rest. Just stillness. Not even boredom. I didn't get bored now. I just kind of existed? I guess that's an apt way to put it.

When the first rays of dawn crept through the shutters, I slipped back out and headed for the bridge to the College.

Snow crunched beneath my boots, faint and rhythmic. The cold bit at my mask, but I didn't feel it. Just heard the wind whistle through the gaps in my scarf. The sky was still bruised with early light, pink and grey washing over the jagged cliffs and the sea beyond.

And there it was.

The College of Winterhold.

It loomed on the other side of the ancient bridge like some arcane fortress halfway through phasing out of reality. The stonework practically radiated smug magical elitism.

I stepped onto the bridge.

Halfway across, the wind shifted—and a voice rang out from ahead:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

I stopped in my tracks.

There she was. Faralda. Robes crisp, posture tense, eyes sharp like she'd been waiting for this exact moment since sunrise.

Classic NPC energy. Zero time for bullshit.

She raised a hand, and a shimmer of magicka sparked between her fingers. Not hostile—yet—but definitely don't fuck with me flavored.

"This is the College of Winterhold. State your purpose. And be quick about it."

I blinked behind the mask.

Right.

Speech.

That thing I did not have.

I slowly lifted both gloved hands, palms out, nonthreatening. Then pointed to myself. Then to the College.

Faralda's eyes narrowed.

"Looking to join, are you? We don't take just anyone who wanders in from the snow. If you wish to enter, you must demonstrate your understanding of the arcane arts."

Her tone softened slightly—but only just.

"A simple spell will suffice. A ward, perhaps. Or a bolt of fire."

I paused.

Shit.

I could maybe flick a spark at her shoe and hope she didn't notice it sputter out halfway.

I shook my head slowly.

No magic.

Not yet.

Her frown deepened. "Then what exactly can you do?"

I mimed a mouth speaking. Then shook my head. Then tapped the side of my throat and shrugged helplessly.

"…Wait. You can't speak?"

I nodded.

She studied me for a moment, scanning my layered clothes, the hood, the mask. I must've looked like a half-starved hedge mage trying to cosplay a Dragon Priest.

She sighed. "Hold on."

She turned on her heel and walked back across the bridge, motioning for me to follow. We crossed in silence, the wind howling past like a warning. Soon, we reached the real entrance—the great arched gates of the College, carved stone and looming presence.

"Wait here," she said. "Don't touch anything."

She vanished behind the doors.

I waited.

Less than a minute later, she returned, holding a small notebook and a quill.

"Here. Write it down. If you're mute, we can work with that. Just explain yourself."

I nodded again, crouched down near a stone step, and flipped the book open.

Okay. Let's try: 'I can't speak.'

I scrawled the words in big, careful letters across the page:

I CANT SPEAK

PLEASE HELP

LOST?

DON'T KNOW HOW I GOT HERE

WISH TO LEARN THOUGH

Faralda leaned over to look—then frowned.

"…What language is that?"

I blinked behind my mask. My skull would've gone pale if it could.

Oh. Right. English. Shit.

Panic stirred for a moment, but it died quick. What was I gonna do, speak?

Fine. Plan B.

I flipped to a fresh page and went with the universal language of desperation: stick figures.

First: a stick figure waking up in a tomb.
Then: the stick figure killing two bandits (one with a very obvious surprised face and Xs for eyes).
Next: the stick figure with a question mark over its head.
Then: the stick figure pointing at the College.

Then: a stick-figure Faralda yelling, and the stick figure of me shrugging helplessly.

Finally: a big arrow pointing to the word "HELP?" written in bold, messy letters.

I handed the notebook back to her.

She stared at it.

Then at me.

Then at the book again.

"…You can't speak. You don't know where you are. I can't read those letters you wrote at the end but I'm assuming you came here for help, well either that or to learn magic."

I nodded.

She let out a slow exhale. "Well. You're strange, but I've seen stranger."

She turned, pushed open the gate, and motioned me inside.

"Come on, then. But if you blow anything up, I'm throwing you off the bridge myself."

The inside of the College felt… different.

Not just cold—but dense. The kind of dense that made your thoughts echo. Old magic. Layered like paint on a ruin. The stone underfoot was perfectly carved and unnaturally clean. No moss. No dust. Like time skipped this place on purpose.

Faralda didn't talk much as she led me across the courtyard, past statues, arches, and staring students. Most ignored me. One Altmer apprentice did a double-take when she saw the mask, but looked away fast.

She finally stopped outside the main hall.

"I'm going to inform Mirabelle Ervine, the Master Wizard. You wait here. Don't wander off. Don't touch anything. And for the love of Magnus, don't try to cast anything."

She fixed me with a pointed look, then vanished inside.

I stood in the courtyard like a weird art exhibit. The wind tugged at my cloak. My bones ached to move. Not from pain—just inertia. Stillness was… unnatural now.

I flexed my gloved fingers. The leather creaked. The mask pressed cool against my skull.

Inside this place was power. Knowledge. Maybe even answers.

Who am I? What happened to me?

I can't...I remember my life, but the people are just not there-no names, not even my own.

The last thing I remember was getting out for cigarettes out of the house and then nothing else.

Faralda returned with another woman in tow—slightly older, dressed in layered blue and silver robes, with the confident stride of someone who regularly had to put out magical fires and wrangle entitled mages-in-training. Mirabelle Ervine.

She was looking at me the way one looks at a cracked staff they're unsure is still safe to hold.

"This is him?" she asked, her voice low and clipped. Not angry. Not yet. Just… cautious.

"Him, or possibly 'it,'" Faralda replied, folding her arms. "Doesn't speak. Can't write in Tamrielic. Drew a story with stick figures and asked for help. Apparently woke up in a tomb and doesn't know where he is."

Mirabelle gave me a long once-over. I stayed still, like a very obedient, possibly cursed statue.

"I've had worse walk through our gates," she muttered, then stepped closer. "You. Masked one. Can you understand me?"

I nodded.

"Are you injured?"

Pause. Then I slowly shook my head. (What would they even do if I was? Try to heal me and discover I didn't have blood? Or damage with Restoration Spells?)

"Are you a mage?"

I hesitated, then gave the world's most awkward shrug.

Mirabelle raised a brow. "That's not a good sign."

Faralda cut in. "He hasn't tried anything. I made that clear. No spells, no sudden magical surges, nothing. I think he's being honest—if not entirely normal."

"No argument there," Mirabelle said dryly, then turned to me again. "Alright. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but this is still a College of magic. If you're looking for refuge, this isn't the place. If you're looking for answers—well, maybe we can help each other."

She took a deep breath, then stepped aside and motioned to the large door behind her.

"Welcome to the College of Winterhold. Try not to explode."

---

The main hall was warm in that way only magical places ever are—no fire, no hearth, no heatstones. Just warmth, ambient and soft, like the place itself had decided not to be cold, guess that's magic for you.

Arcane runes floated lazily overhead, faint as smoke, shifting in slow spirals along the vaulted ceiling. The walls hummed, quiet and constant, like a heartbeat you could only feel if you were paying attention. Or maybe I was imagining it.

Mirabelle walked ahead with brisk purpose. I followed without making a sound—literally. No footsteps. The leather boots I'd stolen didn't squeak or thud. I moved like a ghost in borrowed clothes.

Which, to be fair, wasn't far from the truth.

We passed a handful of students in the corridors. Most spared me only a passing glance. A few whispered once I'd gone by. One Dunmer girl stared at my mask a little too long, brow creased in suspicion. I kept my head down, hands tucked in the oversized sleeves of the stolen robe. Covered. Concealed.

They didn't know.

No one knew.

To them, I was just some strange foreigner, an oddity that had shown up on their doorstep with a mask and questionable vibes. Which, to be fair, probably described half the College...minus the mask part.

Hopefully?

It'd be pretty awkward for someone to just show up with a Dragon Priest mask of all things.

Wait shit I'm going to fuck Savos up something fierce, the man's going to be scared shitless...

Something to consider for later I guess?
Mirabelle led me into a side wing of the Hall of Attainment and stopped in front of a small door.

"This will be your quarters for now," she said. "It's usually for guests, visiting mages, or... odd cases. Which you qualify for, I think."

She opened the door and gestured me inside.

The room was simple. Bed, desk, bookshelf, washbasin. A small mirror leaned against the far wall, cracked down the middle. A pair of candles lit themselves as I stepped in.

I turned slowly, giving her a silent nod of thanks.

She leaned in the doorway for a moment, clearly still debating something.

"You can understand what I'm saying, yes?"

I nodded again.

"Then listen closely. The College tolerates eccentricity. It does not tolerate threats. If you're hiding something dangerous, if you're here to steal something, or if you're going to turn into a daedra the moment someone turns their back—this is the part where you walk away."

I held up both hands in a peaceful gesture. No threats. No lies.

Just a very quiet, very undead guy with zero plan and a lot of questions.

She studied me a moment longer, then nodded. "Good. Someone will bring food later—just in case. We'll figure out the rest."

And with that, she left.

The door clicked shut.

I exhaled, still came out as a death rattle.

A habit I no longer needed.

Then I pulled the gloves off.

Bone fingers.

The leather inside was damp with cold, and I had no way to dry them out. I laid them flat on the desk, then sat down on the edge of the bed. It creaked softly. It didn't collapse. Good start.

I stared at the cracked mirror on the far wall.

My masked reflection stared back—hooded, faceless, still.

I didn't dare take it off.

Not yet.

The room was still. No wind. No ticking clock. No cars out of the window making noise. Just the soft hum of magical insulation and my nonexistent breath.

I moved over to the bookshelf again, trailing gloved fingers across the spines. Most of the books were academic, dense titles with long-winded names like A Primer on Etheric Feedback Loops and Transmutation Failures and You: A Defensive Reading. But one near the end was simpler. Smaller.

Red leather. A black rune scorched into the cover.

I pulled it free.

Flames. The most basic spell in the Destruction school, if my game knowledge was to be trusted.

I flipped the cover open expecting gibberish—or maybe Elder Scrolls-style moon runes.

Instead...I could read it.

I blinked.

Wait, what?

I looked back at the first book I saw.

A Primer on Etheric Feedback Loops.

Then the other book.

Transmutation Failures and You: A Defensive Reading.

I could read the title of that one too.

I looked back at the book in my hands, even leaned further in-a habit I learned to do when I didn't have glasses, because I had a incurable eye defect.

The letters looked like English. Familiar. Natural. But the moment I focused, really focused they shimmered—just slightly—and shifted into something older. Stranger. Angled strokes, looping accents, harsh symmetry.

Tamrielic.

The fuck?

I flipped back to the first page, then forward again.

Yep. Same thing. If I just skimmed, it looked like English. If I paid attention—it changed.

DING!

Anomaly Detected: Passive Linguistic Assimilation Engaged

+1 PERCEPTION

Because it shouldn't look like that to you. But it does. Because you're... you.

I closed the book slowly.

So I could read Tamrielic.

But when I thought about writing it—actually forming the letters, putting them to paper? I couldn't even picture how. It was just… blank. Like knowing how to read sheet music but forgetting what a treble clef even was when handed a pencil.

Weird.

Even weirder? I wasn't freaking out. Just noting it. Like my brain had quietly accepted the rules were different now. That made me nervous in a vague, background-process kind of way.

I reopened the tome.

DING!

SPELL TOME DETECTED: FLAMES

You may instantly learn this spell via QuickLearn™.

[Y/N]

I stared at the floating prompt.

Tempting. Very tempting. Just absorb the spell and move on. A shortcut, neatly labeled.

But I couldn't bring myself to take it. Not now.

I waved the prompt away with the back of my hand.

QuickLearn™ declined.

Manual study engaged.

+1 INTUITIVE LEARNING (MAGIC)

Congratulations: you've chosen to suffer.
Enjoy your 10% bonus to spell retention, stubborn soul.
Reminder: if your mask catches fire, QuickLearn™ is still available.

Smartass.

Still, the page felt warmer now. The runes had depth. Layers.

Not just "point and shoot." This wasn't a weapon. This was a process.

A spell wasn't made of syllables. It was made of intent. Geometry. Emotion. Balance. Heat and hunger and hesitation and—

Nope. Start simple.

I sat on the floor, back to the bedpost, and began to trace the runes in the air with one finger, slow and shaky, like a child learning to draw.

The fire didn't come.

But the warmth stayed.

 

[SaintJibblies]

I didn't sleep.

Not because I couldn't—not in the insomniac sense at least—but because I literally couldn't. No fatigue, unless you counted mental but even then I didn't really feel anything in that regard either. No dreams. Just stillness.

Time passed in a haze of flickering candlelight and repetition.

The Flames tome sat open on the floor in front of me, propped up with a stack of alchemy guides I wasn't reading (Though don't get me wrong, I'm going to be reading the FUCK out of those too...). I sat cross-legged on the rug, mask still on, gloves loosened slightly so I could move my fingers better. They clicked faintly when I tapped them together.

No one disturbed me. No knock on the door. No curious apprentices peeking in. The College ran on its own schedule, and I seemed to have landed squarely in the "we'll deal with him later" category.

Thank god.

Or is it...hm, would it be Thank the Nine in this case?

I don't want to accidentally manifest the Christian God here.

Fuck, I'll just say the Nine instead from now on.

Anyways!

I stared at the tome again. Its pages shimmered faintly in the candlelight, not from ink, but from... intention? Magic didn't sit still. It moved. It breathed. It writhed in the margins like language was too small to contain it.

Learning a spell in Skyrim, the game, was simple. Read the book. Poof. Flames.

This? This was... dense.

Not that the book had a "here's how to kill a man with fire" step-by-step list, I mean it kind of did?

Just...more so in the sense of like how you'd show an ant to a sugarcube or something rather than it being simple.

But spell was there—woven between theory, diagrams, and something that felt suspiciously like poetry written by someone on meth, or Skooma in this case.

Is this what it feels like to read an Elder Scroll?

The core concept was anchored around the idea of fire. Not heat. Not combustion. Fire.

It wanted fuel—yes—but more than that, it wanted emotion.

Fire, I learned, was less about heat and more about hunger. Emotion. Will. Rage, even. No wonder Destruction mages shouted—it helped feed the damn thing. I didn't have lungs, so I had to do this the hard way.

Magic responded to what you fed it, and fire was the hungriest of them all.

And I had no voice to shout with.

Which meant I had to do this the hard way.

My hand hovered over the spellform. The runes weren't words—they were pressure points. Stress fractures in the veil. They described a shape I had to carve into the world using nothing but my mind, my will, and whatever spark of power had glued my soul to these bones.

It was... difficult.

Like trying to do Algebra or Calculus while someone stabbed you in the nuts with a thousand needles and shouted at you to meditate and achieve Zen.

I reached out again, mentally following the flow of the spell. It started in the chest—not biologically, but symbolically. The center. The source. A focal point where intention compressed like kindling.

I didn't have lungs. I didn't have a heart. But the mask? It focused me. Held me together like a ritual circle made of wood and bone and fate. It helped.

Guess this old thing is Enchanted...

I channeled what I could. Visualized heat. Hunger. A fire denied. A fire waiting.

Nothing.

FUCK!

No flame. No warmth.

But... then suddenly something shifted.

The candlelight around me dimmed. Not like they were dying—more like they were watching.

The air thickened, like stepping into a steam bath made of intention. I breathed in out of habit and tasted nothing—but I felt a tightness in the world, a coiling of unseen threads just waiting to snap into place.

I moved my hand, slowly tracing a simplified rune in the air. Not with my finger—with my will. A line. A curve. A point. It shimmered faintly, like oil in water.

DING!

Spell Progress: FLAMES – 2% Mastery

Your method is absurd, inefficient, and deeply personal. Keep going.

Thanks for the backhanded compliment you fuck.

BUT I DID IT! Not exactly Mr Flamehands McFuckface but hey! I achieved something, which is honestly a LOT better than what I was expecting-because holy fuck what if I couldn't use magic.

Like, what's the point of going to cool magic land with dragons and shit if you CAN'T USE MAGIC IN SAID MAGIC LAND.

Regardless of that

…I would literally kill myself if I couldn't use magic.

And then a beat later something hit me.

Not physically, but more like the instinct humans have when they know something's wrong and they need to run.

A pulse.

Not in my chest. Obviously. No heart, no lungs, no blood to carry anything anywhere.

But it was still a heartbeat.

Faint. Deep. Not in the air, not in the room—beneath it. Or maybe around it. Like the world had taken a single breath in the dark and forgotten to exhale.

I froze.

thump.

There it was again. Slow. Too slow. Like the kind of heartbeat you'd expect from a sleeping god or a mountain dreaming of falling.

It wasn't mine. Couldn't be.

Except… it was.

Not in the physical way. Not in the "hey, that's my aorta" kind of way.

More like—

Like the beat had always been there. And I'd spent my whole life tuning it out.

thump.

Recognition bloomed low in my spine. Not a memory, not even a thought—just knowing. Old and uncomfortable.

I knew what it was.

I just didn't want to think about it.

Nope. Not today, brain. We're not doing this. Back to the fire.

I blinked—again, not literally—and stared at the flickering page in front of me. The rune shimmered faintly, like it had been watching too.

The room hadn't changed, but it felt different now. Like I wasn't the only one in it.

Not really.

I shook it off and went back to work.

Focused. Moved slower this time. Let the pressure build again, let the will pool in the hollow center of my not-chest. I didn't push—it wasn't about force.

It was about shape.

About intention.

About matching the beat without surrendering to it.

The rune lit. Dimly. A curl of heat licked at the air.

Then—a spark.

A flicker of orange, dancing along my gloved fingers. Not enough to burn. Just enough to exist.

And then, it was gone.

But I'd done it.

DING!

Spell Progress: FLAMES – 6% Mastery

You're doing it. Badly, but undeniably. You're doing it.

+1 Arcane Resonance (Passive Trait Unlocked)

Something deep within you trembles, as if remembering an old forgotten memory.

Yeah. No kidding.

I sat back, fingers curled loosely, the ghost of warmth still humming in the air.

I didn't know what Arcane Resonance was supposed to do, but... it felt right. Like it fit.

I didn't smile.

But if I could've?

I would've.

And then without warning, the spark was gone.

Except the afterglow of it clung to my bones.

Literally? Maybe. Metaphorically? Definitely.

I went back to the tome, pages now warm in a way that wasn't just candlelight. It felt like the book had opened up to me—like it had been waiting for someone willing to stumble through the long way instead of just clicking "yes" on a pop-up.

The runes were clearer now. Still slippery, still annoying, still written like a drunk Dwemer tried to reinvent poetry. But they held sense. Flow. The logic of motion.

I could see the path.

So I followed it.

I repeated the gesture again. Slower. More focused. Like drawing sigils into the surface of the world—not physically, but with the pressure of will. The rune took. The warmth gathered.

This time, when the spark came, I held it.

Not long. A second, maybe two. Long enough to feel it swirl at my fingertips like a tiny, angry star. I grinned under the mask, metaphorically of course-no lips to grin but you get my meaning. I couldn't help it.

My fingers twitched, and the flame sputtered out.

DING!

Spell Progress: FLAMES – 11% Mastery

Minor Control Attunement Gained: [Flicker]

You can now create and hold low-level flame constructs for a brief duration, good job-what are you going to do, throw sparks at people until they die?

Well fuck you too.

I tilted my head, lowering my gaze from the box and glancing down at my hand.

Alright. Let's try that again.

I summoned another spark. Focused on it, fed it a little more will—not aggression, not anger, but attention. The flame wobbled into a crude shape: a little orb, flickering in orange-gold, hovering just above my palm.

I gave it a flick of my fingers.

It spiraled forward and smacked into the washbasin with a satisfying fwoomf, immediately sputtering out. No scorch mark. Just heat and light and a bit of singed dust.

I snorted.

Then did it again.

And again.

Soon I was sitting cross-legged on the rug, flicking tiny flame balls into various corners of the room like I was playing magical Pong. Most of them just fizzled midair, but one bounced off the mirror and landed in the sink again.

This shit is so fun.

DING!

Flames Mastery – 14%

You have officially weaponized boredom. Congratulations.

Okay. Enough fun.

I glanced at the bookshelf.

The Flames tome had been the simplest one. The rest? All kinds of mystery.

I reached for another one. A thinner blue-bound book etched with a swirling rune like a cyclone.

I flipped it open carefully.

Frostbite.

Good. Cold would be a nice counterpoint. And let's be honest—fire was fun, but I needed variety if I didn't want to roast myself by accident.

The format was similar. But the flow of the spell was different. Slower. Weighted.

Where Flames had thrummed like a snare drum, Frostbite moved like a slow pull through deep water. Heavier in the head, tighter in the fingertips. Less rage, more focus. Cold didn't lash out—it crept. It claimed.

I traced the first glyph. Felt the subtle tug.

Oh yeah.

I could do this.

Turns out I could not do this.

Not easily, anyway.

Fucking hell.

I sat hunched over the Frostbite tome, the light from the candles now a nuisance more than comfort. My fingers twitched above the runes as I tried to channel anything even resembling cold.

Nothing.

No chill, no frost, no icy breath curling from fingertips. Just… tension. Like, the magic was there and everything but that bitch was just hiding and refusing to acknowledge me.

Like a cat watching from under a bed and daring me to reach for it again.

It was frustrating in a way fire hadn't been. Fire wanted to move, to devour, to lash out. This spell? It waited. It judged. It expected precision.

It was a force of nature, how the fuck do you demand shit?!

I tried tracing the glyphs again, this time with more patience. Slower. Deliberate. The core of the spell wasn't heat or hunger—it was stillness. Constriction. I could feel it in the page, in the slow, methodical spirals of the diagrams. A spiraling funnel of intent, designed to draw life out of the air and focus it like a knife.

And I couldn't get a handle on it.

Not fully.

I managed a flicker, a tiny drop in the air temperature that evaporated as quickly as it came. My bones felt… tighter, somehow. Like the cold had brushed me just enough to remind me I wasn't entirely immune to the world.

DING!

Spell Progress: FROSTBITE – 1% Mastery

+0.2% Cryomantic Affinity

You are very bad at this. You are also very stubborn.

Thanks. Very helpful.
I sighed through gritted teeth—or would have, if I had teeth to grit.

I went back to the diagrams. The spellform looped inward, like it was feeding on itself. I traced it with a bony fingertip. I could feel the pull now—not in the room, but in the space between my thoughts. Like it was trying to anchor itself into the part of me that still remembered breath and blood.

Thump.

My concentration narrowed again.

Frost wasn't heat. It wasn't noise.

It was pressure. Weight. Control.

I scraped together what focus I had and traced the rune once more, slower now. I let my thoughts quiet—not vanish, just settle. Let the space between intention and shape grow smaller.

A breath I didn't have, held tight in the nothingness of my chest.

Then, with a snap—cold.

A crackle of ice fizzled across my hand. It died out in seconds, but the shock of it lingered like pins and needles across my knuckles.

DING!

FROSTBITE – 3% Mastery

+1% Focused Invocation

Still garbage.

But also.

Still progress.

I shook out my hand, bones clicking softly. No burn. No real sensation. Just feedback. A memory of touch where nerves no longer lived.

This was going to take a while.

Which was fine.

I had time.

The candlelight danced as I flipped further into the book, studying the spellform again. Now that I'd cracked it slightly, it read a little easier—like the book had acknowledged me as more than some idiot trying to brute-force ice with fire logic.

My fingers hovered above the page, tracing the intake spiral again.

Left hand this time.

New angle.

Another try.

A short-lived flicker of frost sparked at my fingertips.

Gone.

Another.

Gone.

Again.

Gone.

Not gone forever though.

Not anymore.

I got this shit in the bag.

I tried again for a bit to no avail.

So I did what any stubborn, magic-starved skeleton would do.

I alternated.

Flames. Frostbite. Flames. Frostbite.

Fire came easier, if only because it wanted to exist. It clawed at the edges of my will like a half-starved hound desperate to be let off the leash. Every time I channeled it, the spell pushed back with heat, sound, color. Sloppy, bright, dangerous. Just like me.

But Frostbite?

That spell hated me.

It was picky. Precise. Like trying to thread a frozen needle with shaking hands while blindfolded. Still, each time I failed, something clicked a little better. The spell no longer ignored me—it just looked disappointed.

At some point—I don't know when—the flame started to obey.

A little ribbon of it licked across my fingers, slow and deliberate. No wild whoosh, no hand-blasting fireball nonsense. Just a thin, quiet stream of focused heat, hovering in the palm of my hand like it was listening.

I stared.

The flame flickered, and this time it didn't vanish.

I tilted my palm upward. It danced with me.

Not just spellcasting. Control.

DING!

FLAMES – 24% Mastery

Trait Gained: Intent-Driven Casting (Novice)

Your spell no longer flails around like a drunk atronach.

Yes.

Finally.

Finally.

And just as I started to grin under the mask—just as I pulled back, let the flame spiral harmlessly upward like a little fire wisp—

Knock knock knock.

I nearly jumped out of my nonexistent skin.

A pause.

"Uh… hello?" came a muffled voice through the door. "You're the… new guy, right? The one with the… uh… you?"

More knocking. A little less patient this time.

"Lessons start soon. You're supposed to come watch, I think. Or Mirabelle will yell. Or Faralda will yell. Either way, you're probably gonna get yelled at."

I blinked. The flame in my hand died down gently—no flare, no explosion. Just a soft retreat into stillness.

Then I looked at my fingers, smoke still curling from the joints, and flexed them experimentally.

Okay.

Now I was getting somewhere.

I reached out and knocked back—three sharp raps against the wooden frame. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just… awake.

A beat of silence.

Then a quiet, relieved "Ah. you're awake. Just, uh… don't be late," followed by the soft retreating footsteps of whoever had been sent to fetch me.

I sat there for a second longer, letting the last curl of smoke rise from my hand.

So.

Lessons.

Class.

Magic school.

God help me—or, wait, Nine help me—I was about to walk into a room full of students who weren't undead, weren't hiding in stolen clothes, and probably didn't have voices trapped in their bones like distant, echoing heartbeats they refused to acknowledge.

Great.

Time to blend in.

I stood, adjusting the cloak over my shoulders and tightening the scarf around my mask. The gloves were still warm from spellwork, a faint trace of soot marking the fingertips. I tugged them tighter and rolled my shoulders experimentally.

Still no creaking.

Still no one-knows-I'm-a-skeleton crisis.

Yet.

The spellbooks waited on the desk—Flames and Frostbite—their covers faintly warm and cold, respectively, as if responding to the work I'd been putting into them.

I grabbed both.

And my new journal, can't forget that otherwise I'd be gesturing like a moron the whole time.

I'd be damned if I showed up empty-handed to a fucking magic lesson.

The door creaked open on silent hinges. Light from the hallway spilled into the room, catching the edges of the mask just enough to glint like carved bone.

I stepped out, pulling the hood up tight, and headed down the corridor.

Time to see what real magic looked like when it wasn't confined to a scroll, a shortcut, or a loading screen.

---

The corridor led me out into the courtyard again, the early morning air thin and sharp. A few robed students crossed in small groups, murmuring and yawning, making their way toward the Hall of the Elements—toward the day's first lecture.

I followed, steps silent, cloak tucked tight, and tried not to draw attention.

Spoiler: it didn't work.

By the time I stepped into the Hall, a few heads had already turned. The room was more cavernous than I remembered from the game—massive, domed, ribbed with arches, with a central platform surrounded by ascending rows of stone benches. Runes inlaid along the floor pulsed faintly beneath the surface like veins beneath skin.

There were more students than I expected. A lot more. Maybe fifteen or twenty packed into loose little cliques, some already seated, others lounging against the stone balustrades, chatting in that half-suspicious way students always do when someone new enters the room.

Especially when that someone looks like a lost cultist from a molag-worshipping yoga retreat.

I kept my head low, moved toward the far edge of the platform, and picked a quiet spot with a good view. The spellbooks thumped gently as I laid them beside me, and I pulled out the journal. The quill I'd taken scratched softly as I began a new page:

Lecture 1: Tolfdir (Bigwig Wizardman who does Wizard shit)

Destruction theory?

Nah, he's an Alteration Master

Don't light anything on fire. Probably a good start.

Everyone stares. Act normal. Do not trip. Do not combust. Don't flip the random students off.

Please do not explode?

Actually how does one explode?

Tolfdir's robe game? On point.

How is this man's robes so fucking majestic like tf?

The door creaked open, and in walked Tolfdir.

He looked like someone had chiseled the archetype of "harmless old wizard" out of a glacier: long white hair, slightly hunched, but with that quiet, disarming confidence that meant he probably knew exactly how to turn your blood into wine and your wine into a small, confused sheep.

He walked with care, but not slowness. He took his time arriving at the center of the room, gave the students a quick glance-over, and smiled like they were all guests in his very weird home.

"Good morning," he said, voice dry but warm. "I see quite a few new faces this term. And some familiar ones, of course. Wonderful."

His eyes scanned the crowd—then rested on me.

No flicker of suspicion. Just calm curiosity. Then he turned back to the rest of the group.

"Now. Today, we begin a series of lessons not in how to throw fireballs—though I'm sure some of you are eager to set something alight—but in understanding what magic is."

He began to pace the inner ring of the platform, slow and deliberate.

"Alteration magic is not flashy," he continued. "It is not aggressive. It does not rend the flesh or hurl storms. But it is the foundation upon which all change is built. Alteration manipulates the world as it is—not as we want it to be."

That hit different.

In the game, Alteration was utility magic. Wards. Mage Armor. Water Breathing. But the way he said it? Like it was the hidden spine of the arcane world?

Yeah. Definitely different.

I scribbled a few more notes:

Alteration = change without destruction. Framework?
Feels stable? Whatever that fucking means
Less instinctual than Destruction. More thoughtful? Again WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TOLFDIR

Tolfdir kept going, voice calm and full of subtle momentum.

"Think of magic not as fire to be flung or ice to be shaped, but as a lens. A filter between you and the fabric of Mundus. Alteration teaches us to nudge the pattern. To pull at threads others cannot see."

From the side of the room, I caught whispers.

"That's the one with the mask, right?"

"Yeah. He's mute or something. Mirabelle said he wrote his whole story in stick figures."

"Looks like a Daedric cultist."

"Probably just from Morrowind."

"I heard he sleeps with his mask on."

Gods, I could still hear them even without ears. Focus. Fuck them, just focus on writing.

Tolfdir stopped again. And looked straight at me.

I froze, mid-scribble.

"I understand we have a new guest among us," he said, with that exact kind of friendly that made your stomach drop.

More eyes turned.

The journal felt very heavy in my lap.

"He doesn't speak," Tolfdir said to the class, then looked back at me, gently amused. "But he listens. And apparently writes quite a bit."

He turned back to the center of the room.

"Which makes him a perfect candidate for today's demonstration."

Oh. Fuck you dawg.

Tolfdir gestured toward the center circle. "Come down, if you would."

I stared at him for a beat.

Then sighed. Pulled my hood tighter. Closed the journal and tucked it under one arm. Picked up both spellbooks, stood, and walked toward the center of the Hall.

The students parted like I was carrying a lit torch—and possibly a disease.

I stepped into the circle.

The rune beneath my feet shimmered faintly, reacting.

Tolfdir studied me carefully—not suspicious, not nervous. Just curious.

"I understand you've been experimenting already. Perhaps not in the school of Alteration, but still. The weave remembers effort."

He gestured to the space between us.

"Show us what you've learned. No pressure."

My hand twitched.

I slipped the Flames tome from under my arm and let it drop open with practiced ease. Pages already folded at the right place.

The runes gleamed faintly.

I raised my hand.

The flame came—not smoothly, not quickly—but it came.

A low, flickering stream of fire sputtered to life in my palm, its heat barely enough to curl the edge of a scroll. But it was real. Fire that wasn't just copied from a prompt or menu. Fire that answered me.

The class went silent.

Tolfdir's brows lifted, impressed but thoughtful.

"Ah. Destruction magic after all," he said, smiling faintly. "Very well. Controlled flame, barely kindled, but solid. Would you be willing to try something... else?"

I tilted my head slightly.

Alteration.

Right.

Time to see if I could do something more than set my cloak on fire.

Tolfdir turned slightly and beckoned to one of the other apprentices—Brelyna, if I remembered correctly, a Dunmer girl with sharp eyes and a permanent look of quiet irritation. She handed him something from a nearby crate: a smooth river stone, perfectly round, no bigger than a clenched fist.

Tolfdir turned back toward me and held it out.

"Alteration, at its core, is about shaping potential," he said. "Take this. Don't throw it. Don't heat it. Don't shout at it. Just… hold it. Feel it. Understand it."

I reached out and took the stone.

It was cool to the touch. Heavier than it looked. Probably enchanted.

He stepped back and gave me a patient nod.

"Your goal is simple. Make it lighter."

...Right. Simple.

I stared at the stone in my gloved hand.

No prompts appeared. No glowing runes. No helpful overlays. Just the quiet hum of the Hall, twenty sets of eyes on me, and a small rock daring me to do something interesting.

I closed my eyes—out of habit—and tried to center myself the same way I had with Flames. Locate the intention. The symbol. The shape. But this was different. Fire was hunger. Fire was want. Alteration didn't want anything.

It just was.

Change the stone, I told myself. Make it float. No. Make it light. Change the rules.

But there was no friction. No emotional weight to lean on. Just... a stillness. Like staring at still water and trying to will ripples into existence without touching it.

I focused harder.

Tried to imagine the stone becoming lighter.

Tried to mean it.

Tried to reach into the world and tug at its properties the same way I had bent fire to flicker at my fingertips.

Nothing.

Tolfdir tilted his head.

"Stillness is harder than motion," he said gently. "You're thinking like a Destruction mage. You're trying to push. Try listening instead."

I exhaled again—out of habit, frustration, both—and turned my hand slightly.

I didn't push.

I listened.

Not with ears. Not with thoughts.

Just awareness.

And something... flickered.

Not in the stone.

In me.

A second heartbeat.

Quiet. Subtle. So soft I'd have missed it if I hadn't already felt it before, during last night's practice. It pulsed somewhere deep in my chest—not physical, not imagined. Symbolic. A presence. Mine and not mine.

It hummed once. Just once.

And for a moment, the stone in my hand grew lighter.

Not by much.

But enough that my arm rose slightly, unbidden.

The flame that had still been guttering in my other palm snuffed itself out instantly, like it knew it was no longer wanted.

Gasps echoed from the ring of students.

Tolfdir didn't gasp. He smiled.

"That," he said, "was Alteration."

The weight returned a moment later, snapping my wrist down like a pendulum.

I flinched. Almost dropped it.

Tolfdir raised a hand calmly.

"No shame in losing the thread. You found it once. You'll find it again."

I nodded, slowly setting the stone down on the platform.

Then I reached for my journal.

Alteration feels... like pulling on silk with gloves on.
No resistance. No reaction. Just pressure and guesswork.
Fire is easy. Fire yells back. Fire is an asshole.
Alteration just listens—and waits, like a kind and patient mom.

As I jotted that down, I heard a soft murmur ripple through the class. Not ridicule—just curiosity. A few were watching me now not with suspicion, but something closer to interest.

Maybe not acceptance. But not fear either.

I could work with that.

Tolfdir clapped his hands once, and the echo filled the chamber.

"Excellent work, all of you. Next lesson will cover basic Ward principles and their ties to magical momentum. Until then, review chapters three through six in 'The Mutable World' and try not to explode."

A chuckle rose from a few students.

Tolfdir turned toward me as the others began to shuffle out.

"You're welcome to stay a moment, if you'd like," he said softly. "I imagine the Library might be of particular interest to you."

I nodded once, tucked the spellbooks under my arm, and lingered at the edge of the room.

The heartbeat was still there, dim and distant, tucked behind my ribs like something forgotten—and waiting.

The lecture fizzled out and the students scattered like roaches when the light spell dimmed. I didn't rush. No one wanted to bump into the creepy masked guy who didn't speak and smelled faintly of dust and... something not-quite-dead.

Fine by me.

---

The Arcanaeum was next.
A few winding corridors, a spiral staircase that creaked like it wanted to snap under me (rude), and then—bam. The doors loomed ahead. Heavy oak, iron-banded, carved with runes that probably cursed anyone who dog-eared pages.

I pushed them open.

The Arcanaeum hit me like a punch to the metaphorical balls.

Holy shit.

It was huge. Towering shelves climbed the walls like they were trying to escape gravity. Books on books on books—some glowing, some chained, a few whispering in tongues I wasn't going to fuck with today. Scrolls. Locked cabinets. Shimmering wards on certain sections like someone had nuked the Dewey Decimal System and rebuilt it out of paranoia and spite.

I stepped in, boots silent, hood up, mask catching a bit of candlelight just to keep the spooky going.

"Don't touch anything that looks expensive," growled a voice from somewhere behind a desk piled with what looked like thirty years of paperwork and a skull with glasses.

There he was.

Urag gro-Shub.

Librarian. Gatekeeper. Probably the guy who invented the phrase do not fuck around and find out.

He peered at me over a stack of books with the sourest expression I'd seen in this life or the last.

"Let me guess. You're the mute one that Mirabelle's already regretting letting in."

I raised a gloved hand in a polite little wave.

"Hmph. Great. Another 'promising' mystery asshole. Alright. Rules are simple: you damage anything, I'll shove your head so far up your own spine you'll see your own mask from the inside. Don't touch anything glowing, hissing, humming, bleeding, or bound in skin—unless you ask first. Actually, don't ask. Just don't."

I gave him a thumbs up.

He scowled deeper, if that was even fucking possible.

"Good. Go on, then. Shelf's yours."

I wandered deeper into the library, keeping one hand on my journal and the other gripping the two tomes I'd been wrestling with all night. Flames still thrummed with barely-contained heat. Frostbite pulsed cold through the leather. It was like carrying an argument under my arm.

The deeper I went, the quieter it got. Not silent—just charged. Like the books were watching me. Judging. Whispering look at this dumb bastard with his weird-ass mask and barely working spells.

I ignored them. Sort of.

Found a quiet desk near the back. Fewer eyes. Fewer whispers.

I dropped into the chair with a boneless thud—haha, fuck off—and opened my journal.

The heartbeat was still there. Distant. Echoed. Not mine. Mine. Both. I didn't want to think about it.

So I didn't.

Instead, I dove into the books.

Found a copy of "Unified Theory of Will and World: A Beginner's Lie". That title? Spoke to me. Like someone crammed a metaphysics thesis and a middle finger into the same cover.

I cracked it open.

No blue prompt this time.

Just ink. Runes. Diagrams.

And intent.

I stared for a moment, half-expecting my brain to bleed out my ears.

But no.

It clicked.

The language wasn't English. It wasn't Tamrielic. It was something else. A kind of structure. A rhythm. A tone. The same shit I'd felt when wrangling with Flames—just... deeper. Smarter. Way above my paygrade, but maybe not unreachable.

I jotted down a few notes. Some thoughts. A half-formed rune that looked suspiciously like a middle finger curling around an idea.

Then I grabbed the next book.

And the next.

Fuck it—I was already dead. I wasn't gonna die of magical overexposure, was I?

Right?

Time blurred again.

I'd lost track of how long I'd been hunched over this table, surrounded by open tomes, notes scattered like the floor plans of a madman's mind. The Flames and Frostbite books still sat close by, like needy pets waiting for more attention. But I was focused on real theory now.

Arcane structure diagrams swam in my vision. Rune matrices, spell lattice decay patterns, something called "vibrational soul keys," which honestly sounded like a metaphysical garage band. My journal was filling up fast, page after page of copied symbols, half-understood translations, and little sketches that helped me process the mess of magic I was crawling through.

It wasn't just spellcasting.

It was geometry with consequences.

Wards, channels, feedback loops. Alteration had rules. Destruction had appetite. Conjuration? That shit was straight-up gambling with slightly more paperwork. And underneath it all, there was this throbbing—constant and low—in the corner of my perception. Not the heartbeat. Something else.

A tension. Like a bowstring pulled back across the soul.

I scribbled another half-theory into my journal, something about intention vs incantation vs resonance. Maybe garbage. Maybe genius. I didn't know. I just knew it felt true in the way dreams did—uncertain, but insistent.

And then—

"Hey. Uh. Excuse me?"

I looked up.

Shit.

Student.

A Bosmer, probably seventeen, eyes wide and jittery like he'd just discovered coffee and frost salts in the same cup. Robes too clean. Too eager.

He pointed awkwardly at my open notebook.

"Is that… did you derive that ward anchor yourself?"

I blinked slowly behind my mask. Then looked down. A sketch, half-formed. Shit, maybe I had.

I gave a hesitant shrug. Sure. Let's go with that.

"Shit," he muttered, leaning closer. "That's like… intermediate work. You're not even in a study group yet, are you?"

Another voice piped up. "He doesn't talk," said a tall Imperial girl, drifting in like she'd been waiting to eavesdrop. "New guy. Mask. Creepy, but apparently harmless."

"Not creepy," the Bosmer mumbled, "just… intense."

"Intensely creepy," she replied with a smirk.

I stared at her, and then flipped her off.

She stared back, unbothered. "Relax. I'm J'nara. Apprentice, third year. Don't worry, we all looked like you once. You know. Before we started getting drunk and turning the Hall of Countenance into an accidental portal to Apocrypha."

"That was one time," said another student now approaching—a Nord with freckles and a missing eyebrow. "And I said I was sorry."

Now there were three of them.

Gods.

I waved vaguely at my notes. Please. Go away. I was having an existential breakthrough, thank you very much.

"You coming to the lecture on soul resonance?" J'nara asked. "Starts soon. You might be into it, based on all this…" She gestured at my notebook like it was a crime scene.

I gave a thumbs-up.

They took that as a yes.

"Cool. We'll save you a spot."

They started to walk off, muttering about glyph misalignment and who had dibs on the reading crystal.

I slumped back in my chair, mentally drained.

Not even five minutes later, another student wandered by, this one just staring. Didn't say a word. Just kind of stood there, trying to look casual about it. Whispered something to a friend as they passed:

"Pretty sure he's a lich."

"Shut up, he's chill."

I buried my skull in my hands.

No peace. No quiet. No rest for the recently undead.

Back to studying, I guess.

Fuck it.

I needed a break from runes and esoteric incantation breakdowns. My metaphorical brain (because let's be honest, who knew if I had a real one anymore) was turning to soup. Soup made of screaming sigils and looped magicka feedback diagrams.

I shut the book on destruction theory with a thunk and turned toward the shelf labeled "ENCHANTING: THEORY & APPLICATION."

Big letters. Heavy bindings. Gold trim like the books were overcompensating.

I grabbed the thickest one that didn't immediately feel cursed.

"The Silent Thread: Intent, Resonance, and the Structure of Enchantment" by someone named Hathmiril the Subtle. That's a red flag if I've ever seen one, but sure. Let's go, Hathmiril. Enlighten me.

I opened it to the preface.

And immediately regretted everything.

"An enchantment is not a command. It is a memory. A suggestion. A whisper across the veil, reinforced with will and sealed in silence. One must understand that all objects remember being whole. Enchanting is the process of reminding them how to be more."

Okay.

Cool.

So we're doing philosophy now.

Great.

I skimmed past the fluff and found a chart labeled "Soul Intensity to Spell Stability Ratio." It looked like someone tried to graph a seizure.

Every explanation boiled down to:

Souls have weight.

That weight can be carved into patterns.

Patterns hold behavior.

Objects learn.

Which meant if I wanted to shove fire into a sword, I needed to convince the sword to remember being hot.

Magic was fucking insane.

And also kind of beautiful, in like a "I'll kill you and your whole family but I'll look sexy as fuck doing it" kind of way.

Another chart explained that intent mattered just as much as technique. If you botched your emotional state, you could end up with an unstable enchantment—swords that whispered, rings that randomly froze your fingers off, amulets that attracted wolves.

And soul gems? Don't even get me started. One section described them as "crystallized echoes of death and identity," which made me pause and think—

Wait.

I didn't have a soul gem.

Was I the soul gem?

Let's not go down that rabbit hole right now.

I flipped to a practical section. "Basic Enchanting for Novices." The font looked slightly more condescending.

Items Needed:

Soul Gem (Filled)

Arcane Focus (Enchanter's Table)

Object to Enchant

A firm grasp of at least one spell school

I had… none of that.

Well, except the object. I had a knife. And my bones, technically. Could I enchant myself?

The book screamed NO in slightly more academic language.

"Attempting to directly enchant the body without sufficient warding, ritual preparation, or divine consent may result in cascading magical failure, madness, undeath."

Too late on half of those.

I leaned back, scratching at the edge of my hood, then looked at the mask.

Could this be enchanted?

Was it already?

I pulled it off—carefully—and set it on the table. The air didn't feel any colder, but something about the space it left felt… vulnerable.

Like I'd taken off a helmet in a war zone.

The interior surface was dark wood, smooth, with lines etched so finely they looked like veins. Not glowing. Not humming. Just… waiting.

I pressed a hand to it. Just for a second.

Nothing happened.

Good.

Bad?

I didn't know.

I sighed. Which was dumb. I didn't have lungs.

Then I got back to reading, flipping through chapter after chapter about soul gem charge levels, the risks of overcharging, and how one poor bastard accidentally turned a pair of boots into a Daedric beacon because he got drunk and tried to enchant them with confidence.

Note to self: never try that.

And then—

"Hey, mask guy!"

Fuck.

Again?

I looked up from the table slowly, one bony finger still wedged between the pages of The Silent Thread. The glow of the reading crystal overhead made the gold text shimmer like it was mocking me. My mask tilted just slightly in the direction of the voice.

Three students. Two Breton girls and an Imperial boy, all wearing apprentice robes and the kind of nervous excitement you only saw in kids trying to figure out if they were about to learn something or start a fire. Possibly both.

One of the girls nudged the other forward.

"Come on, you said you were going to ask."

"I didn't mean right now—he looks busy!"

The Imperial cleared his throat and stepped up like the designated social sacrifice. "Sorry to bother you, uh… sir? I mean, sorry—Archmage? Uh… Professor? Mage?"

My mask stared at him blankly.

He flinched. "Right. Yeah. No titles. Sorry."

The taller Breton girl finally pushed forward, hugging a stack of papers. "We just wanted to ask if it's true you learned how to cast Flames and Frostbite without any instructors."

Oh.

That.

I slowly nodded once.

"By yourself?" she pressed.

I pointed to the journal beside me, then mimed flipping pages, scribbling, then exploded my fingers outward.

"…You figured it out by reading?" the boy asked, incredulous.

I nodded again.

They all looked at each other.

"Holy shit," whispered the second Breton girl.

"Fuck," added the first one, barely containing her grin.

I tapped the book in front of me—the one on enchantments—and tilted my head.

More whispering. One of them scribbled something down.

"You're really quiet," the Imperial said. "I mean, obviously. But like… really quiet. It's kinda cool."

Cool.

Right.

The undead freak with the murder mask is cool now.

Sure, why not?

"You gonna, uh… show up to the Destruction class this afternoon?" the shorter Breton asked.

I blinked at her—then realized I'd completely lost track of time. How long had I been in here?

I shrugged with one shoulder, then gave her a thumbs-up. Hopefully that translated into "yes" and not "I will explode your skull with a fireball."

The three of them slowly backed off like I was a cornered bear that had just nodded politely.

"Cool," the Imperial repeated. "See you there, I guess. Or… not see. Whatever."

They left.

I exhaled through my teethless mouth, leaned back in the chair, and stared up at the ceiling.

Well, shit.

I was officially interesting.

I hated that.

I turned back to my books but I couldn't really focus back on them, I wanted to do something, anything.

Fuck it, they said the destruction class was soon right?

I guess I'll head there.

---

The Destruction lecture was held in one of the College's outer chambers—wide, circular, and noticeably reinforced. The floor was scorched in places. The walls had been repaired more times than I could count. And yet it still smelled faintly like someone had accidentally summoned a Flame Atronach into a bookshelf at some point.


Faralda stood at the front, arms folded, her robes flowing like a wind that didn't exist. She looked exactly how you'd expect a master of Destruction magic to look: tired of your shit and ready to incinerate you for wasting her time.


There were about ten students total. I was the last to arrive, and the room fell noticeably quieter as I slipped in.


Still masked. Still mute. Still getting stared at like a Daedra had wandered in and sat down with a notebook.


I made my way to an empty spot near the back and flipped open my journal.


Faralda's gaze swept across the room, and gods help me, it landed on me for just a second longer than everyone else.


"Let's begin," she said, voice cool and sharp. "Destruction magic is not about anger. It is not about aggression. It is about control."


She stepped forward, her boots clicking softly on stone. One hand lifted, and with a whisper of intention, a flame sparked to life above her palm—perfect, still, alive.


"Fire, frost, and lightning are tools. They are the language of raw power, but they are not self-aware. You are the will that shapes them. Without focus, you're not a mage—you're a hazard."


A few students chuckled. One visibly winced.


Faralda let the fire wink out and paced slowly.


"Let's talk technique. You don't channel energy like you do water through a pipe. You coax it. Mold it. Shape it to your need. Think of it as a song. One misstep in rhythm, and you've burned off your eyebrows. Or someone else's."


Another laugh from the group. I tapped that into my notes with a quiet scrape of charcoal. The girl from earlier—J'nara—glanced back at me and gave a nod like we were in on some joke. I returned it with a slow thumbs-up.


Faralda's voice cut in again. "And speaking of eyebrows... Masked one."


I looked up sharply.


She gestured.


I blinked.


She gestured again, to the front of the room.


Ah. Shit.


I closed my journal, got to my feet, and walked slowly toward the demonstration circle. Eyes followed me like I was a sabrecat in the library. Faralda folded her arms again and regarded me with a professional disinterest.


"It's come to my attention you've been learning on your own," she said. "Is that true?"


I nodded once.


"And yet you've already grasped Flames and Frostbite."


I nodded again.


She raised an eyebrow, just slightly. "Without a voice. Impressive. Risky. But impressive."


A pause.


"Demonstrate, then. Choose either spell. Controlled cast. Just enough to show me you can focus, not burn a hole through the floor."


I took a step into the ring.


Everyone was watching now.


I lifted my hand, fingers flexing under the glove. Focus. Center. I reached inward—not just to where magic lived, but to that ember I'd coaxed to life over a sleepless night.


The warmth answered me.


A faint flicker of flame danced across my palm. Not aggressive. Not wild. Just present.


Faralda nodded, just once. "Good. And the frost?"


I switched.


It took a second longer, but a pale sheen of cold laced my fingers, swirling faintly like mist over a frozen lake.


"Very good," she said. "Now hold."


I held.


The strain came fast—like trying to balance a bucket of water in each hand while reciting poetry in a language I didn't understand.


"Destruction," Faralda said, addressing the class now, "is about knowing when not to use it. Power is easy. Precision is art. I want each of you to practice these basic conjurations today, under supervision."


She nodded to me. "You can step back. Nicely done."


I let the frost fade, nodded silently, and returned to my spot.


No applause, of course.


But no one laughed either.


Good enough.


Faralda resumed her deliberate pacing, every word slicing the air with practiced precision.


"Destruction is not chaos. It is not rage. It is not wrath. It is discipline. Structure. The art of inflicting change with intention. You don't cast fire to burn—you cast it to reshape. Ice to still. Lightning to command. Magic obeys your will, not your emotions."


A few students nodded along, some scribbling notes. I did both. The tips of my gloved fingers moved in quiet rhythm over the page as I copied down her phrasing.


DING.

[Destruction Mastery: +1% → 17%]

You're paying attention. That's new.


I gave a mental shrug. Fair.


Faralda gestured toward the far end of the room where target dummies and sparring circles had been prepared.


"We'll begin control drills. Pair off. One student will sustain a focused Destruction spell—light, precise. The other will conjure a basic ward. You are not here to overwhelm. You are here to calibrate. Precision over power. Push too hard, and you'll be eating your own eyebrows."


She paused, then added pointedly: "Again."


A few students laughed. One of them self-consciously touched their very-much-missing eyebrows.


I ended up paired with the same freckled Nord from earlier—Rurik. The guy who looked like he always had a bad idea and an excuse for it.


"Alright, Masky," he said, flexing his hand, "I'll go first. Don't worry, I won't cook you."


I gave a lazy thumbs-up and stepped into the chalk circle.


Now, uh—wards.


Faralda hadn't taught those yet. I'd read the concept, sure. But reading a spellbook doesn't mean you're ready to block a goddamn ice beam with nothing but good vibes and academic enthusiasm.


I tried anyway.


I focused. Pulled the threads of magicka together. Constructed what I hoped resembled a basic barrier. It flickered, jittered, and sputtered like a candle in a snowstorm.


He raised his hand and cast Frostbite. The cold hit my shitty ward and—shock of shocks—it punched through like paper.


The beam slammed into my side like a slab of ice dropped from a third-story window. My vision spun. My knees buckled as the floor rushed up to headbutt me.


Silence.


Then a collective gasp.


Faralda's voice cut through the tension like a blade.


"Rurik. Step back. Now."


He did. Face pale. Mouth open, eyes wide.


I wasn't moving. The robes I'd stolen were half-frozen, jagged with frost. Pain pulsed in my ribs—not agony, but like something had splintered. My hand twitched. My journal had fallen, pages wet and curling.


Faralda knelt beside me, eyes narrowed—not in worry, but calculation.


"Stupid," she muttered. "Irresponsible. Predictable."


She raised a hand, and a shimmering rune lit the air. A faint pulse shot outward.


"Someone get Colette. Now."


A student ran.


Moments later, brisk footsteps echoed down the corridor. Colette Marence entered in a swirl of white and green robes, face pinched with concern and disapproval in equal measure.


"What happened?" she asked sharply, already kneeling beside me.


"Overcharged spell," Faralda said. "He took it point-blank. He tried to cast a ward, but—"


"Didn't hold," Colette finished grimly, her hands already glowing with a soft golden aura.
She reached toward my side—hesitated—then placed her hand just over the frostbitten section of my robes. The healing magic surged into me like warm liquid light.


Only it didn't work.


Not right away.


Her brow furrowed. The spell flared brighter, then dimmed like it hit resistance. She moved her hand slightly, focusing the flow, trying again. Still nothing.


Faralda watched, arms crossed. "Is there a problem?"


Colette didn't answer. Her fingers shifted again, trying a different healing incantation. It sputtered. Cracked. Reformed itself mid-cast like it had tripped over a missing instruction.


Then it worked—sort of.


But not like it should have.


I felt it. Not warmth. Not knitting tissue or soothing comfort. More like... realignment. Reconfiguration. The spell licked through me like firelight across dry leaves. Something shifted under my skin—except, of course, there was no skin. There was no tissue to knit back together.


And I could tell—so could she.


Her breath caught.


Her glowing hand froze mid-motion.


Faralda leaned forward slightly. "Colette?"


Colette said nothing.


Her eyes darted down to my side, and with clinical precision, she pushed back the shredded edge of the robe—just enough to see what lay beneath.


Not bruised flesh.


Not blistered skin.


Bone.


Clean, pale, and cracked where the ice had slammed into it. The ribs were real. Not carved. Not painted. Not decorative.


Colette went still.


Then she very carefully pulled her hand back.


Faralda stepped forward. "What's—"


Colette shot her a look. One that said not here. Not now.


And for a brief, icy second, I thought she was going to expose me right there in front of everyone.


I met her gaze.


She met mine.


No one else spoke.


Faralda raised an eyebrow but said nothing more.


Colette turned back toward me, voice carefully neutral. "That should... hold for now. You'll need to rest. No more sparring. Understood?"
I nodded, slowly.


"Come by the Hall of Attainment later. I'll check on your condition more privately."


That wasn't a request.


I nodded again.


She gave me one last look—more curious than afraid now—and stood up.


Faralda, still frowning, dismissed the rest of the class with a sharp gesture. "If you can't control it, don't cast it. You're not mages. You're apprentices. Act like it."


The students scattered.


Rurik lingered for a moment, guilt twisting his face, but he said nothing.


Good.


Because I didn't know what I would've done if he had.


I sat there, the cracked edge of bone hidden beneath torn robes, one hand pressed lightly to where my ribs no longer ached.


Colette had seen.


And she hadn't said a word.


Yet.

---

The Hall of Attainment was quiet.


Not eerily so, just... expectant. Like the building knew something was coming.


When I stepped inside, Colette was already there, standing near one of the long tables, arms folded, eyes calm but unreadable. Her robes were immaculate, as usual—Restoration green with subtle gold stitching.


She wasn't alone.


To her right stood Tolfdir, looking equal parts concerned and curious, his wrinkled hands clasped in front of him like he was expecting a nervous student to hand in a volatile thesis.


And next to him was Drevis Neloren, arms behind his back, eyes narrowed in intrigue. I didn't like how his mouth was already twitching into a smirk. Illusionists always knew more than they let on.


Colette offered a small nod. "You came. Good."


I gave a cautious nod back and moved into the room, the heels of my boots whispering against the stone. My robe hid most of me, but I could still feel their eyes on every inch of fabric—like they knew something was off, even if they didn't yet know what.


Tolfdir gestured to the chair across from them. "Please. Sit, if you're able."


I sat.


Drevis didn't wait. "Colette said your injury didn't... respond properly to healing."


I glanced at her. Her expression was unreadable. Calm. Focused.


Tolfdir leaned forward slightly. "She didn't give us details, only that you were… structurally unusual."


I stayed silent. Obviously.


Drevis raised an eyebrow. "You can understand us, yes?"


I nodded.


"Can you write?" Tolfdir asked.


I hesitated, then pulled my notebook and scratched out a sentence:


I CAN'T WRITE TAMRIELIC


Tolfdir squinted. "That's... not Tamrielic."


Drevis leaned over to look. "What script even is that?"


Colette, quietly: "He understands us, but he doesn't write our language."


Tolfdir turned to her. "Wait, how do you—?"


She lifted a hand. "I found out when healing him. It didn't work."


Drevis's smirk dropped. "Didn't work?"


She stepped forward, voice quieter now. "It didn't know where to go. No body. No living tissue. I had to check, discreetly. Under the robe."


Tolfdir blinked. "Wait. Are you saying—"


Colette nodded.


I shifted, pulling the edge of my robe aside slowly—just enough to reveal the side of my ribs.


Bone.


Not bleached-white and fake-looking, not yellowed like a plastic display. Real bone. Smooth. Clean. Undead.


The room went still.


Tolfdir's mouth opened, but no sound came out.


Drevis took a half-step forward, fascinated. "By the Nine… you're—?"


I nodded.


"A lich?" he asked.


I shook my head.


"Some kind of draugr?"


Shake.


"Revenant?"


Nope.


Tolfdir spoke carefully. "Are you… self-willed?"


I paused—then gave a slow nod.


That answer alone made them all freeze again.


Colette finally exhaled. "He's not hostile. I told you. And he didn't choose this."


Drevis looked somewhere between horrified and impressed. "This is unprecedented. No soul-tether, no degradation. You're holding yourself together by will alone."


Tolfdir glanced between us all, then looked directly at me. "Son… what are you?"


I thought about answering with a shrug.


Instead, I tapped my chest once. Then the side of my head. Then mimed casting a spell.


Drevis snapped his fingers. "He's magical. A construct?"


No.


I pointed at them—then to myself. Equal. Human.


Sort of.


Tolfdir's face softened a little. "Still you, then. Just… changed."


I nodded again.


Colette finally stepped closer, her tone practical but gentle. "I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to cause panic. But they deserved to know. Now that we do…" She looked between the other two. "What now?"


Tolfdir rubbed his temple. "We're a College, not a tribunal. If he's not a threat—and you vouch for that—we teach him."


Drevis smirked again. "Gods know we've let in worse."


"Exactly," Colette said. Then to me, directly: "You're not expelled. You're not even under suspicion. We just… need to monitor you. Study you. If you're willing."


I gave a slow, thoughtful nod.


"Good," Tolfdir said, smiling again. "Then welcome—truly—to the College of Winterhold."

 

[Syphi]

Bones, bones as far as the eye can see.

Anywhere, good start, like the magic exploration the most but it's all good

 

[SaintJibblies]

Bones, bones as far as the eye can see.

Anywhere, good start, like the magic exploration the most but it's all good

Click to shrink...

then you'll like the next 2 chapters even more!

 

[SaintJibblies]

The Restoration classroom was one of the few parts of the College that felt almost… normal. Less like an ancient arcane fortress, more like an actual classroom. Rows of benches, softly glowing wall sconces, a wide teaching circle inscribed into the floor.

Colette Marence stood at the front, robed in green and white, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else—and also like she'd fight anyone who interrupted her lesson.

"Restoration," she began, tone flat but firm, "is not simply the art of healing. It is balance. Order. It is the mending of what should be whole. The counterpoint to the chaos Destruction creates."

I sat near the back, hood drawn low, mask in place, journal in my lap. My gloved fingers tapped a quill gently against the page, waiting. Observing.

"Most of you will want to rush ahead to healing wounds," she said, pacing slowly. "Fixing broken bones, closing gashes, purging poison. That's the glamour of Restoration. But that's not where we begin."

She stopped and faced us.

"We begin with stillness."

My quill touched paper:

Restoration = mending/balance/order

Begin with stillness. Not healing. Stillness.

Colette raised her hands, and the circle on the ground lit up with a soft white pulse.

"You cannot restore what you do not understand. You must first feel the absence—the wrongness—before you can fix it. Close your eyes."

Most of the students obeyed. I didn't. Couldn't, really. The mask didn't allow for that.

Colette glanced at me briefly, then looked away without comment. She already knew. Had known from the start.

"Breathe," she said. "Feel your own presence. Anchor yourself. Restoration is not about power. It's about connection."

Hard to connect when you didn't technically exist on most charts. But I tried. Focused inward. Felt the void in my chest where lungs should be. No heartbeat. No breath. Just the faint pressure of awareness.

Stillness.

I put that in the journal too:

Stillness = base state. Not silence. Not emptiness. Presence without pressure. Fucking weird.

"Now," Colette continued, "you will begin to understand the vessel before you attempt to mend it. The human body is composed of 206 bones, an intricate web of muscle, nerve, and marrow. Blood flows not only to nourish—but to signal. To warn. To guide the healer's intuition."

She waved a hand, and a floating diagram of a man appeared, glowing softly.

"Men and Mer share the majority of this structure. Slight skeletal variance, differing resistances. Mer blood runs slightly cooler. Altmer possess elevated magicka sensitivity. Dunmer tissues scar slower but resist flame. Argonians regenerate rapidly but have nonstandard lung arrangements. Khajiit musculature is denser, spinal structure elongated."

Another flick of her hand. More diagrams. More notes.

My quill scratched fast:

Human anatomy = standard reference

Mer = sensitive to magic, different blood qualities

Argonian = accelerated regeneration, weird lungs, what the actual fuck?

Khajiit = dense muscle, long spine, probably good at yoga

"Restoration isn't guesswork," she said. "It's remembering the pattern. Everything you heal must be reminded of what it was. That's the trick. Not forcing change—inviting it."

Healing = memory reinforcement?
Don't force—invite. Remind. Basically gaslight wounds into not existing.

A few more exercises followed. Channeling minor warmth into our fingers. Visualizing pain, then imagining its opposite. Colette didn't show us any flashy spells. She just talked. Guided.

And then came partner drills.

"Healing begins with observation," she said. "One of you will simulate injury—a small burn, ache, or fatigue. The other will attempt to identify it. No spells. Just perception."

I got paired with a Breton girl named Elira. She looked nervous, but curious. Not hostile. Good enough.

She went first. Closed her eyes, muttered something about "twisted ankle," and nodded. I focused, extending whatever magical senses I had. There was… something. A warmth pooled strangely around her leg, like a flicker of color just beneath her skin.

I pointed.
She blinked. "Wait—yeah. That's actually right."

I nodded once. Scribbled it down:

Perception = recognizing dissonance, basically body goes BRRRRRRRRRR if something = wrong.

Then it was my turn.

She watched me uncertainly. "Okay, um… What are you simulating?"

I froze.

How do you simulate injury when you're already dead?

I motioned vaguely to my ribs. She focused. Brow furrowed.

"Something's… weird," she muttered.

No shit.

"I can't feel your pulse."

Panic.

Her fingers brushed my sleeve—too curious, too bold—and caught.

There was a tearing sound. Fabric snagged. My glove slipped just enough to reveal bone. Pale, clean, unmistakable bone.

Elira gasped and stumbled backward.

"What the fuck—?!"

The sound of chairs scraping, a collective shuffle of alarm, whispers breaking into audible shock.

"Is that—"

"Bones. He's got bones."

"Undead—he's undead!"

Someone drew a ward on instinct. Another shouted something about necromancy.

I stood completely still, hands raised slightly, not in defense but surrender. My mask was expressionless, but my mind screamed: FUCK.

Colette's voice cracked like a whip: "Enough!"

Silence slammed down like a dropped stone.

She strode forward, cutting between me and the circle of gaping students with a stare that could turn blood to ice. "He's not raised. He is not bound. And he is not dangerous."

She turned and jabbed a finger into the air like she was physically stabbing their assumptions. "Whatever he is, he came here on his own. He learns. He listens. And unlike most of you, he doesn't waste time gawking."

"I—he's a skeleton, Professor," someone said weakly.

"And you're a fool if you think that makes him less capable of learning magic than the rest of you," Colette snapped.

I slowly pulled my glove back on. The damage was done, the secret out. No use pretending otherwise now.

Colette turned to me. Her voice lowered just enough for only me to hear: "You'll need to decide how much you share. But if you hide too long, they'll make up worse truths in their heads."

Then louder, to the class: "Back to your drills. Now."

There was a long pause, but eventually the students turned back to their partners, murmuring and shooting glances my way.

Elira still looked pale, but she didn't leave. She hesitated. "I'm… sorry," she mumbled.

I gave a small shrug.

I was basically fucked from the get go, at least I didn't get an ice spike through my skull or something.
Elira hadn't moved. Still pale, still stunned.

She looked at me again. "You're… not going to eat my soul or anything, right?"

I stared.

Then raised both hands and gestured dramatically like what the fuck kind of question is that?

"…Right. Dumb question," she mumbled.
The lesson wound down, but the tension lingered. I could feel it in the way students glanced at me from the corners of their eyes. Not fear, exactly. Not yet. Just unease. Curiosity dipped in dread. Like I was a puzzle box that rattled on its own.

I stayed seated until the benches started to empty, scribbling final notes more out of habit than focus.

Note: "reveal self as skeleton" → would not recommend. 2/10. Not fun.

The last of the students filtered out like a fart in the wind—loud, awkward, lingering. I stayed where I was, half hunched over my notes, listening to my ribcage echo faintly from the sheer social cringe still hanging in the air.
Elira gave me a small nod as she left. Not terrified anymore. Just… weirded out. Progress?


Colette passed me on her way out too, giving me a silent look that said "we'll talk later," followed by a very clear "but also don't die."


Noted.


I eventually stood, gathering my journal, quill, and the few remaining scraps of dignity that hadn't scattered across the stone floor like loose teeth. Took a breath I didn't need and shuffled toward the exit—


"Excuse me."


Shit.


Mirabelle Ervine. Head bitch in charge of everything administrative and terrifying in a polite way.


She didn't say "sit your bony ass down," but the energy was there.


"Walk with me."


Did I have a choice?


(No.)


I followed.


We passed through the arched corridors of the Hall, footsteps echoing between stone and silence. She didn't speak for a bit. That was fine. I was busy catastrophizing my continued existence.


Eventually, she stopped and faced me.


"I hear the Restoration lesson was... enlightening."


Note: "enlightening" = professional academic code for 'you caused a scene again'


I tilted my head. If this was a trap, I wasn't sure what bait I'd triggered.


She handed me a parchment. I opened it.


Reagents. Ingredients. Monsters. Fuckin' errands.


An assignment.


Oh.


Oh no.


I looked up at her, internally screaming.


She smiled—not warmly, just professionally, like a woman who had just handed off a perfectly normal task and expected you not to die about it.


"You've been studying hard. It's time to apply that."


Note: Translate → "Stop haunting the library and go get mauled by an ice wolf."


"You'll find everything listed. Snowberries. Canis root. Nirnroot. Hanging Moss. Standard components."


She added, "Head south toward Wayward Pass. The tombs should have what you're looking for. Take precautions."


Precautions? Ma'am. I'm a skeleton in a bathrobe and sarcasm heading towards a hill with tombs, I am the precautions.


She turned, walked away, then called back over her shoulder:


"And do try not to explode, freeze, or unravel yourself. I'd hate to revise the College's undead policy again."


She left.


I stood there, holding the parchment, staring at it like it had just personally insulted my ancestry.


Note: FUCK.


Note 2: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.


Note 3: Field trip to get murdered in a scenic tomb system. Love this educational experience. 10/10.


I sighed, audibly and dramatically.


The College wanted fieldwork.


They were going to get it.


Bones and all.

---

The room buzzed with quiet movement as I got my shit together.


Spellbooks? Check.


Journal? Also check.


Tentatively tested potion vial? Uh… check, but with trauma.


Let's talk about that for a second.


I'd lifted a weak health potion from the College stores—legally, I think, they were just kind of... there in a crate labeled "Introductory Supplies." Cracked the seal. Took a cautious swig.


It went straight through me.


No, like literally. It passed right through my nonexistent esophagus, phased through the robes, and splashed pathetically onto the floor.


Fucking horrifying.


But here's the kicker: I still felt better afterward. Not by much. Barely a percentage of what it should've done, like the effect had been filtered through a shitty VPN. But it worked.


Naturally, I tried pouring the next dose directly onto my ribcage.


That did even less. Mild tingle. Slight fizz. Smelled like strawberries.


So: conclusion—


Potion drinking = cursed. Internal only. Still works. Somehow.


Bone pouring = 0/10 effectiveness. Waste of good juice.


I wrote that down in my notes. Still in English, of course. The Tamrielic runes on some student tomes danced mockingly at the edges of my vision whenever I glanced over.


Still can't write local. Language barrier status: Fucked.


A knock on my door interrupted my very scientific self-experimentation.


"Yo, you prepping?" said Rurik, sticking his freckled face into the room without waiting.


I nodded, holding up a small notebook and an alchemy kit.


"You know you don't have to bring every book you've read, right?"


I pointed at the alchemy guide, then the notebook, then my skull.


He blinked, then snorted. "Right. Big boney brain needs notes. Got it."


J'nara joined in from the hallway. "Don't forget your cloak. You might scare the goats if you go full 'Death walks among you' in public."


I flipped her off.


"Love you too, mask-boy," she said with a wink.


One of the younger students, the Bosmer kid, shyly handed me a satchel with some labeled reagents.


"Just… figured you might want some starter herbs. And, uh, if you find frost mirriam growing outside, don't eat it. Even if you think you can't digest things."


I gave a thumbs-up, then scribbled:


Don't mouth weird plants. Even if you have no mouth.


With everything packed, potions half-leaking into a wrapped cloth, my freshly-acquired notebook secured (with added elastic band so it wouldn't flap open mid-travel like a smug bastard), and a few enchanted charms from the College stuffed into the hidden pockets of my cloak, I was ready.


Or, you know. As ready as a reanimated pile of sarcasm and spite could be.


Time to go fuck around in the snow and try not to die again.
Winterhold's wind had teeth.

---

I stepped out of the College gates wrapped tight in my cloak, hood pulled down, mask secure, trying to keep the snow from crusting up in the crevices of my bones like powdered sugar on an existential crisis. The path ahead twisted downward in switchbacks carved into frozen rock—half-buried by drifts, partially eroded, and entirely disrespectful of mortal locomotion.


I moved slow.


Not because I had to, but because I was taking notes.


Snow = cold. Not to me, but still a hazard. Visibility = shit. Wind = FUCK.


Feet slipping on ice: apparently still a problem even without flesh.


Far off, a goat screamed at something. I pretended it wasn't me.


I passed through the ruined outer walls of the town and headed southwest, following a trail that barely qualified as such. The map I'd scratched into my notebook (copied from the College library's much more official one) marked Wayward Pass as just a bit west of Alftand.


Which meant: hike, frostbite, probably a wolf, probably two wolves, maybe a troll if I was lucky-slash-unlucky.


And I was right.


Halfway down the mountain trail, I heard the growling.


Wolves. Big ones. Coated in white-gray fur, jaws dripping, eyes glowing with that particular kind of hunger Skyrim's wildlife had when it thought you were edible.


I threw up my hands and ignited a small gout of flame in one palm—barely a torchlight, more a warning than an attack.


They didn't back down.


"Figures," I muttered mentally. "They smell the bone underneath, don't they?"


The first one lunged.


I stepped sideways, awkwardly—not graceful, just lucky. The second snapped at my cloak. My return fire was clumsy, a too-wide arc of Flames that mostly cooked the snow and made the air steamy for half a second.


Spellcasting in the wind = bad idea. Aim sucks.


Wolves = dicks.


I focused harder. Pulled from that center of will I'd been learning to poke at during Faralda's lessons. This time, I shaped it tighter, narrower. A burst—not a stream.


The fire caught one across the snout. It howled, rolled, and bolted.


The other? Not so lucky. It sank teeth into my arm and bit down hard enough to crack bone.


Except… no blood.


It yelped. Confused. Realized I wasn't food.


It ran.


I stood there for a moment, arm throbbing—not from pain, but from memory of pain. Phantom echoes where nerves used to be.


I checked the damage. Superficial. Bone scraped, but not broken.


Wolf bite = annoying. No meat = advantage. Still hurts. Somehow.


I poured a very reluctant dab of health potion onto the scratch.


Fizz.


Tingle.


Better.

---

The next few miles were mostly silent, aside from the wind, the occasional snow fox, and me bitching internally about how Skyrim had absolutely zero OSHA standards for cliff paths. But eventually, I reached a plateau overlooking a set of jagged rocks and crumbling ruins.


A worn signpost nearby confirmed it:


WAYWARD PASS – 1.2 mi →


There was also a weird marking beneath it. Old Nordic. Possibly faded Draugr graffiti. Possibly just a very elaborate bird shit stain.


I squinted at the horizon. The road continued down into a narrow canyon, flanked by cliffs. Darker clouds loomed there. The kind that said "ambush" or "tomb" or "screaming draugr surprise party."


I wrote:


Heading into a place called Wayward Pass. This bodes fucking well.


If I die, tell Colette she was the least annoying of the teachers. Except Tolfdir. He gets the silver medal.


Also: fuck wolves.


I kept walking.


The path grew narrower, less "road" and more "goat trail that hates you." Ice slicked the rocks like someone had enchanted the mountain with a Get Fucked rune. Every few minutes I had to stop and steady myself—balance wasn't exactly a skeleton's strong suit when your center of gravity had been replaced by stubbornness and mild spite.


But then I heard it.


Not howling. Not wind. Voices.


I dropped low behind a jutting outcrop. Peered out carefully.


Three figures stood at a bend in the trail ahead. Fur-lined cloaks, travel packs. One had a hunting bow slung across his shoulder. Another, a sword at her hip. The third was holding a map upside down and arguing with the others in the time-honored tradition of "No, you're reading it wrong."


Not bandits. Not immediately threatening. Just… travelers.


Normal people.


Fuck.


I debated turning around. Or just waiting them out. I didn't want to explain anything. Not the mask. Not the silence. Definitely not the rattling when I walk part.


But the snow was coming in harder now, and the trail narrowed too much to risk being spotted later.


So I straightened up.


And walked out.


One of them saw me instantly. The guy with the bow froze mid-sentence, hand drifting toward his weapon.


The woman with the sword stepped forward, eyes narrowing beneath her hood.


"Hold there!" she called. "Identify yourself!"


I raised both hands slowly, not threatening. Just cautious.


"Are you injured?" she added, stepping closer.


I shook my head. Pointed to my throat. Shook my head again.


"…Can't talk?"


Thumbs-up.


She relaxed a fraction, glancing back at her companions. "He's mute."


"Or pretending," the bowman muttered.


"Wouldn't be the first weird bastard we've met in these hills," said the third, still wrestling with the map.


The swordswoman stepped closer. "You from the College?"


Another nod. Quick this time.


She relaxed further. "Alright. You look... well, frankly, you look like shit, but that's College business. We won't bother you."


Then, almost as an afterthought, she added: "Be careful up near the Pass. Something's been moving around out there. Heard the howls last night. Didn't sound like wolves."


My metaphorical stomach turned.


Great.


Notes: Human encounter = somehow not awful. Still judged. Still spooky. But no pitchforks. 8/10, would awkwardly shuffle past again.


Also: Fucking great, more howls. Definitely not Draugr. Probably Sabercats. Or bears. Or worse. Please not trolls.


They stepped aside.


I nodded once in thanks, then made my way down the narrowing trail.


Behind me, I heard one of them whisper: "Did you hear him rattle?"


"Don't be rude."


"I'm not—I just think he was… y'know. Hollow."


I didn't look back.

---

Wayward Pass revealed itself slowly—like a secret someone didn't want to share.


The canyon narrowed further, the stone darkening under heavy frost. Massive pillars of old Nordic construction jutted out from the snow like broken teeth. Moss and ice clung to half-buried archways, and the air grew heavier with every step.


Something here remembered.


Something here watched.


I stopped just at the edge of the entrance. Pulled out my journal. Scribbled:


Wayward Pass: officially the most ominous thing I've walked toward voluntarily.


Goal: reagents. Not death. Not curses. Not becoming bonemeal or a Dark Souls Bloodstain. Just reagents.


I sighed.


And stepped inside.


The first thing I noticed was the silence.


Not the kind you get in a snowstorm, where everything's just muffled by cold and powder. This was different. Heavy. Intentional. Like the world was holding its breath, waiting for someone to step on the wrong stone.


I stepped anyway.


The archway above me was cracked but intact. Nordic symbols still clung to the stone in places, weather-worn and half-frozen. I brushed snow off one with a gloved hand, tracing the edges carefully.


Rune: Nordic. Weathered. Possibly "stillness" or "ward"—not sure. Could also mean "meat." Fucking context.


Further in, the ruins widened. Broken pillars. A toppled statue of someone holding a horn—now hornless and headless, face shattered against the stones. I moved slowly, methodically, like I was casing a joint rather than walking through ancient history. If there were Draugr here, I'd rather not find out the fun way.


No corpses.


No coffins.


Just old stone and older silence.


And then—there it was.


A door.


Half-buried in snow, wedged into the back wall of the ruin. Iron-bound, heavy, with a latch rusted by time and what I'm assuming was a spectacular lack of maintenance. I pushed on it gently.


It didn't budge.


Pulled harder.


Still nothing.


I stared at it.


Then gave it a little kick, because fuck you, door.


No bones broken = door wins. Temporarily.


I backed off. Started circling instead, scanning the ground for anything interesting, magical, or suspiciously shaped like a trap.


Found a few reagents—some frost mirriam clinging to the wall in twisted patches, a cluster of blisterwort huddled in a damp corner. Carefully stored those in a pouch.


Then something clicked.


A sound, faint, behind me. Not metal. Not stone.


Wood.


I turned.


And there it was.


Another arch.


Hidden under a thick growth of ice. Barely visible. But not empty.


Beyond it, a set of steps descended into the mountain. Not carved. Built.


Lit faintly from within by… something. Not fire. Not torches. More like ambient glow—magic residue clinging to the air itself like dust motes with opinions.


Fuck. Yes.


I jotted a note.


Hidden path. Stairs = ominous. Glow = definitely haunted. Probably trapped. Also sexy. Let's go.


I pulled my hood up tighter.


And began the descent.
The descent felt longer than it should have.


Each step was uneven, warped with time and frost. Some cracked underfoot, others creaked like old bones. The glow—pale and greenish-blue—was stronger now. Not a torch. Not a spell. Just… a presence.


I passed under the archway and into a narrow hall. Carvings lined the walls—Nordic runes interspersed with depictions of dragons, battle, and a figure in a horned helmet who showed up way too often to not be a narcissist.


Then the room opened up.


A circular chamber, partially collapsed. Snow drifted lazily through a crack in the ceiling. At the center: a pedestal. Around it, four stone panels, each marked with different animals—a bear, a whale, a snake, and an eagle.


Oh great. One of these.


I circled the room carefully, eyes scanning for hints. No immediate threats. No sudden music cues. I crouched near the panels and took out my journal.


Puzzle bullshit: four panels, animal icons. No clear order. Probably "spin until you hate life" kind of situation.


One wall bore a faded mural: a snake devouring its own tail, an eagle perched atop a mountain, a bear fighting a man, and a whale carrying something in its mouth.


Okay. A story?


I tried arranging the panels in that order—snake, eagle, bear, whale.


The pedestal clicked softly.


No fucking way.


I tensed… and waited.


Nothing happened.


Another click.


Then the Draugr stepped out of the shadows.


Not one. Three.


Their eyes landed on me.


No weapons drawn.


No spells.


No shouting about "Qiilaan Us Dilon" or any of the other charming death threats.


Just silence.


Then the leader spoke.


"Yol vahrukt… Dinok… Kruziik…"


The word "Kruziik" hit differently. That one meant Ancient. But with reverence.


The second Draugr hissed a quiet phrase.


"Bex yol do Zahkrii... Niid sahrot krivaan."



The third Draugr kneeled.


Oh no.


Oh, fuck me sideways—they thought I was a Dragon Priest.


The mask. The robes. The magic. My quiet weirdness.


I probably looked like a fucking god to them.


The first Draugr took a slow step forward and rasped:


"Zu'u fen kos daar... Raanmir."



And before I could even think to react, all three Draugr dropped to their knees. One even placed their frost-worn sword at my feet, angled toward me like an offering.


I didn't move.


I am not a Dragon Priest.


I am a deeply confused, recently-revealed skeleton in a stolen robe who figured out how to cast FLAMES after two days of screaming.


I am not built for religious reverence, ancient prophecy, or... whatever the fuck this is.


And yet—my hand slowly raised in acknowledgment.


I nodded.


It felt insane. But also... right?


I pulled my journal out one-handed and jotted as quickly as I could:


THREE DRAUGR. BOWING.


CALLED ME KRUZIIK. THINK I'M A FUCKING DRAGON PRIEST. PROBABLY BECAUSE OF THE MASK. DO NOT CORRECT THEM. HOLY SHIT.


Might cry. Can't. No tear ducts.


The Draugr eventually rose, weapons untouched, eyes still glowing. But now they kept their distance. Observed. Not like prey. Like followers.


Worshippers, even.


And then they returned to their tombs. As if nothing had happened. As if their purpose had been fulfilled just by seeing me.


The room fell quiet again, but not cold. Not hostile.


I stood in the middle of it all, stunned.


Not by fear.


By acceptance.


And I hated that a little.


Because maybe, just maybe, a part of me liked it.

---

I kept moving, because standing still in a tomb after being revered by Draugr felt like tempting fate. Or at least inviting some kind of identity crisis I wasn't ready to unpack yet.


The corridor ahead sloped downward, the air growing colder and heavier with every step. I passed under another archway—this one inscribed with runes I didn't fully recognize. Old Nord script with Dovahzul woven into the architecture, like the words themselves were bolted into the stone.


Translation: "Those who pass, remember your name."

...Cool. Threatening and poetic.


The tunnel twisted, leading me to another chamber—larger, layered with more broken statues and scattered bones. A familiar sight: the rotating-pillar puzzle.


Except this one didn't make sense.


Whale. Whale. Whale.


I blinked.


"No way," I said to myself mentally. "There is no fucking way it's just all whales."


I turned them all to Whale anyway, out of sheer resignation.


Click. Thunk. Door opens.


"...Oh, fuck off," I muttered, scribbling a note in my journal with overly aggressive strokes:


SKYRIM PUZZLE DESIGN: NOW WITH MAXIMUM CONTEMPT FOR THE PLAYER.
All whales. ALL. FUCKING. WHALES.


I stepped into the next hallway, which had collapsed slightly—half a stone beam had crumbled into the passage. I ducked underneath it, feeling the weight of the ruin above me, and paused just beyond to look at the next stretch.


A pressure plate.


Saw blades.


Spinning axes.


The classic "fuck you" hallway.


Except the blades weren't moving.


They were just... waiting.


I tossed a bone I'd found on the ground toward the first plate.


Click.


The blades whooshed out in perfect sync.


Okay. Cool. Still deadly.


I took a breath I didn't need and bolted through the whole setup, sprinting like an idiot skeleton on borrowed time. One of the blades clipped my shoulder.


CLANG.


Sparks. No pain, thankfully, but a sharp dent in my robe and a splintering crack through my upper humerus. I stumbled out of range and leaned against the wall, flexing the joint.


Still mobile. Still undead. Still pissed.


Note: get fucking better at dodging.


The next room was... wrong.


In the game, Wayward Pass was a nothingburger. A scenic overlook. Pretty snow. Maybe a wolf or two. Not some lost tomb full of reverent Draugr and ancient bullshit.


This? This was a catacomb. A sealed memory. A place meant to be forgotten.

I made my way into a domed chamber lit by soft glows from braziers that hadn't burned in centuries—except now they flickered like they'd been waiting for me. Runes spiraled along the floor. Dragon runes.

I didn't know what I was expecting when I stepped into the final chamber of Wayward Pass


Certainly not this.


And then I saw it: a wall.


Not just any wall.


A Word Wall.


Oh fuck.


I decided it was better looking from a distance first before approaching. The air buzzed faintly—like the feeling right before lightning strikes. I didn't hear chanting.


The Word Wall loomed ahead like the spine of a dead god, carved from ancient stone and wrapped in silence that hummed. The air felt thick—not just with age, but with pressure. Like the very concept of sound had been vacuum-sealed and stored here for a thousand years, just waiting to punch me in the soul.

Words shimmered faintly in the stone.

I approached, slow and reverent despite myself.


The runes shimmered faintly. Not glowing—pulling. The words etched into the stone didn't just exist. They spoke. Or maybe they screamed in a voice too old for ears.


I lifted a hand, half-expecting nothing.


Touch.


The reaction was instant.


A violent drag across the senses. Like the world had gripped me by the skull and pulled me forward into the stone. Symbols flashed across my vision—runes not made of ink or thought, but of intention. Of truth.


ZOL. RIN. DREV.


Silence. Memory. Severance.


Not a trickle of power. Not a whisper of potential.


The whole thing. Three Words. Complete. Final. A Shout with no pause between syllables—no room to learn, to adapt, to choose. Just downloaded straight into my bones like malware on a virtual machine or some 12 year olds unprotected family computer.


And then—

DING.


Oh now you show up?

[SYSTEM DETECTED UNREGISTERED SHOUT SIGNATURE – CATEGORY: LIMINALITY / NULLIFICATION]
[UNLOCKED SHOUT: UNMAKING WHISPER]
[UNORTHODOX LEARNING METHOD CONFIRMED]
[SILENT PATHWAY ACCESSED – USER LARYNGEAL FUNCTION: NONE – REDIRECTING THU'UM OUTPUT VIA ANIMA FOCUS]
[CONGRATULATIONS: YOU'VE SCREAMED WITHOUT A THROAT. NEW FEAT ACQUIRED: "THE UNSPOKEN WORD"]


You ignore me learning fucking healing magic, something that takes literal years for normal people, and suddenly I scream at a rock and now I'm special?


Cool.


Fine.


Fuck you, System.


[Query: WHO GRANTED YOU SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF ECHOES?]
[Query: WHO WHISPERS WHEN YOU HAVE NO BREATH?]
[Query: WHO REMEMBERS WHAT YOU WERE BEFORE YOU DIED?]


The text flickered violently.


[…ERROR…ERROR…ERROR…]
[SYSTEM STABILITY: LOW]
[FORGET. REMEMBER. FORGET. REMEMBER.]


And then:


[SHOUT MAPPED: ZOL – RIN – DREV]
[WORD - ZOL: SILENCE – CUT FROM THE SONG]
[WORD - RIN: MEMORY – THAT WHICH PERSISTS IN DEATH]
[WORD - DREV: SEVERANCE – THE NAMELESS BLADE THAT UNMAKES THE SELF]
[YOU ARE NOT SEEN. YOU ARE NOT HEARD. YOU ARE BETWEEN.]


I stood there for a moment, snow whispering against my robes, the world unnaturally still.


My hand lowered. I hadn't meant to raise it.


I hadn't spoken.


But the world had answered.


The Word hadn't just landed in me—it had remembered me. Called me by a name I didn't know I had.


No thunder. No roar. Just the ringing silence after a scream that no one heard but everything felt.


And beneath it all—


There it was again.


A heartbeat.


Soft. Faint. Like the afterimage of a sound.


Not mine.


Not yet.


I inhaled sharply. Habit.


"Cool," I muttered. "I've become a void monk and screaming is now a valid spellcasting method. Because what I really needed in my life was a reason to scare the piss out of people on purpose."


Still no comment from the System.


Asshole.


I flipped my journal open and scrawled in bold, annoyed lines:


RESTORATION = NOTHING TO SAY


THU'UM = OH LOOK, MAGICAL HARD-ON FOR SHOUTING


I WAS HEALING PEOPLE, YOU FUCKASS SYSTEM


Still.


Bitching aside, I could feel it—that shift. That unearthly hum in the soul that meant the world would now bend just a little more if I pushed.


I couldn't speak.


But apparently, I could still Shout.


And wasn't that just the most Skyrim shit imaginable.


The Word Wall loomed behind me, humming with silent weight like a bell that had already been rung. I lingered for a moment, just breathing in the charged stillness—if you could call my presence breathing—and then turned away.


Back to the mission.


I hadn't come here for ancient metaphysical screaming powers, I'd come for reagents. Herbs. Mushrooms. Roots. Things I could, in theory, boil into something useful without blowing up a dormitory.


I stepped out into the brittle daylight of the ruin's upper ledge. Ironbind Barrow was perched on a frozen cliffside, wind howling like an angry god with sinus problems. But even here—especially here—nature had roots.


I scouted the perimeter, pulling my cloak tighter and checking under rocks and ledges. The snow-covered edges of the path gave way to patches of brittle earth, where color poked through like stubborn memories.


Snowberries.
Useful for frost resistance. Easy pick.


Canis root.
Strong alchemical base. Slightly cursed, maybe.


A few clusters of Hanging Moss clung to a nearby overhang—had to climb a bit to get it, but worth the trouble.


And—


Nirnroot.


Fuck me. Of course it screamed.


The moment I touched it, that sound—like someone blending a flute and a migraine—ripped through the silence. I recoiled. My mask vibrated.


I held the glowing stalk up like it might bite.


"Yeah, alright, I deserved that," I muttered in my head, tucking it into a pouch with more reverence than I liked to admit.


By the time I'd finished sweeping the area, my satchel was a proper, rattling mess of frostbitten flora and potentially explosive roots. Enough to make the alchemy teachers very nervous.


That was my cue.


I gave the barrow one last glance. No Draugr. No puzzles. No more screaming walls.


"Good."


I turned toward the north, toward the narrow trail that led back to the College, snow already swirling around my boots.


Time to go home.


Time to see what I could make from all this.


Time to shove a few more weird facts into my journal and pretend I had a goddamn clue what I was doing.


The wind outside hadn't let up. Skyrim's weather, I was learning, operated less on climate and more on spite. My cloak flapped like a banner as I crouched near the skeletal remains of some poor bastard half-buried in the snow beside a ruined satchel.


I sat down for a second and rifled through the pack with the grace of someone who'd long stopped feeling bad about rummaging through ancient corpses. A few bundles were wrapped in frost-hardened leather—alchemy reagents, preserved more by cold than care. Snowberries. Canis root. Nirnroot. Hanging moss. A dried sprig of tundra cotton. Even a crumpled parchment that looked like it might've been a potion recipe or a death poem. Hard to tell. The script was smudged, and I still couldn't read half the damn letters.


Journal Note:
Gathered reagents:

• Snowberries = cold resistance / smug red balls of frost safety.
• Canis Root = paralyze? alchemy godsend / werewolves' anti-snack?
• Nirnroot = WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING / useful, glowing, terrible.
• Hanging Moss = disease something something? Gross but potent.
  Total fuckery rating: 7/10. Very loot. Much plants.

Mission: Technically Accomplished.


Mirabelle was going to owe me a nod. Maybe even two.

I stood, brushed off my gloves, and turned back toward the jagged path leading out of the pass. The barrow behind me sat quiet again, its ancient silence settling like dust over the word wall.


Part of me wanted to linger.


The smarter part told me to leave before something else woke up and asked me questions in Dovahzul.


I had shit to think about and I would rather do it in the safety of my own room in the College rather than out here with my metaphorical balls freezing off.

I stood up, stretched (or mimicked the action out of sheer undead reflex), and looked back toward the pass. It would be a trek back. Wind, wolves, maybe another bear with unresolved aggression.


I didn't mind.


I had shit to think about.


I'd touched a Word Wall and walked away changed. Not just with a new weapon—something deeper. Something that twisted at the edges of my awareness like the whisper of a forgotten name.


Every few steps, I muttered it again under my breath. Not that I could speak, not properly—but it still worked. The words didn't care about air. They cared about intent.



ZOL. RIN. DREV.


The world flickered when I whispered it. Just for a second. Like I wasn't quite here anymore. The snow passed through my robes instead of settling. My footsteps left no trail. Not invisible, not incorporeal—just... irrelevant. Like physics gave up trying to pin me down.


Terrifying. Fascinating. Addicting.


Note to self:
Thu'um = cheat code. Limited use? Gotta test boundaries. Can I phase through walls? Dodge spells? Ghost through awkward conversations?


A pause.


Second note: figure out how to scream while mute. System's still an asshole.


I made it halfway down the trail before the silence cracked.


A soft rustle. Then a click.


I froze.


One hand drifted toward my belt. Not a weapon. Just a stick I'd been carving into a wand-looking thing. Half placebo, half ritual. All delusion.


Another step.


Movement from the trees.


Two figures. Bandits. Maybe hunters. Hard to tell in the storm, but they were definitely armed and definitely not here for a chat.


"Oi," one of them barked. "You lost, cloak-boy?"


Ah. Bandits.


Classic.


I tilted my head and slowly raised a hand. No threatening gestures. Just a simple wave.


The second one narrowed her eyes. "That's a mask. He's wearing a mask."


"No shit," the first one replied. "Maybe he's one of those cultist weirdos."


"Maybe he's rich."


Ah. There it is.


I didn't want to use the shout. Not unless I had to. But I also wasn't interested in bleeding all over the mountain trail—even if I technically couldn't.


The first one raised a sword.


The second nocked an arrow.


I flicked my wrist.


ZOL. RIN. DREV.

Soundless. Effortless.


Time didn't stop. But I stepped out of its path.


The arrow passed through me like I was fog.


The sword missed, not because I dodged—but because I wasn't there the moment it swung.


I walked through the first one.


He turned. Eyes wide. Screaming, I think. Not that I heard it.


When the shout faded, I was behind them both.


I didn't attack. Just… kept walking.


They didn't follow.


Eventually, one of them broke. Dropped his sword and ran. The other bolted right after.


Note to self: Add 'intimidating ghost wizard' to résumé.


The rest of the trip passed quietly. Almost respectfully.


When the College's bridge finally came into view, I felt a strange tug in my chest. Not dread. Not relief. Just that creeping realization that the world had gotten a bit bigger while I was gone—and so had I.


Still no answers.


Still no heartbeat.


But at least I could scream silently now.


Progress?


Maybe.

---

I crossed the bridge like a ghost who'd forgotten how to haunt properly. The wind pushed at my cloak but couldn't quite find purchase. The warding runes didn't so much flare as nod in my direction. Like they'd learned better.


Faralda didn't stop me this time. Just gave me a sideways look
The doors to the Hall of the Elements opened with a groan that echoed too much. Not just loud—present. The space bent around the sound, as if announcing me.


Weird.


I headed inside. Mirabelle was there near the back, talking to an annoyed-looking apprentice about curfew violations and missing alembics.


"—not a storage room, it's an alchemical hazard, and if I find another half-burned skeever tail in—oh." She turned. Saw me. Blinked.


"You're back early."


I nodded once and held up the satchel.


She approached, eyeing it, then eyeing me. "Any trouble?"


I gave a noncommittal tilt of the hand. Eh.


Her eyes narrowed. "You feel different."


Before I could dramatically gesture define different, the main doors creaked again and an avalanche of enthusiasm spilled into the room.


Tolfdir, rosy-cheeked and snow-dusted, clapped his hands together. "Ah! There you are! I heard you returned! I was just reviewing your last journal submissions with—well—trying to read them, rather. I still can't figure out your language at all! It's fascinating!"


I gave a little shrug and mimed scribbling. What can I say? Literacy is complicated when you're undead and from somewhere else entirely.


"Where did you even learn this script?" he asked, genuinely baffled. "It's not Daedric, not Ayleid… not even Falmer nor Dwemer!" He leaned in. "I think it's pre-mythic."

"It's unreadable," Mirabelle replied flatly. "Half of it might not even be writing. It could just be an elaborate cipher or… doodles."


Tolfdir's eyes lit up. "Then perhaps it's visual! A pictographic magical dialect! Or an encoded spell matrix! Do you have any more pages?"


Mirabelle cut in before he could spin a dozen more theories. "He returned with the reagents I asked for."


I showed her the satchel again.

She took it from me, opened it, and carefully checked the contents.


"Snowberries, Nirnroot, Canis Root, Hanging Moss," she recited. "All accounted for. Good."


I offered a mock bow. Well, as much as someone wearing a tattered robe and a death mask can bow.


Tolfdir was still buzzing. "Did anything unusual happen? I mean, beyond the usual for… well, you."


I paused.


I flipped open my journal, glanced at a blank page, and began sketching.


Not writing. Drawing.


Stick figures.


Crude. Almost childish. But deliberate.


A little skeleton-me in a cloak, trudging through a snowstorm. Another one where I stood in front of a Nord ruin, the heavy stone door half-open. One of me poking a weird glowing wall. Then another panel: ZOL. RIN. DREV. written in harsh dragon script, with little lightning bolts and scribbled shock lines all around it.


And one final panel: two tiny bandits pissing themselves while I ghosted through them like Skyrim's most passive-aggressive god.


I turned the page toward them like behold: my fucking journey.


Silence.


Mirabelle slowly blinked. "You drew…a children's story?"

Tolfdir adjusted his glasses, leaned in, and whispered like he'd just unearthed a fresh Elder Scroll. "This… is incredible."


His hand hovered above the page, careful not to touch the ink. "These markings—this is Dovahzul, the Dragon Tongue. I've seen references. Fragmented syllables in barrow inscriptions. But never this clearly."


Mirabelle crossed her arms, frowning. "You can read it?"


"Not fluently," Tolfdir admitted, squinting. "No one can, not really. Not unless they've trained with the Greybeards—and even then, the language isn't learned so much as absorbed."


He glanced back at the shout sketched in the journal. ZOL. RIN. DREV.


"This sequence… I've never seen it. It's not in any of the standard lexicons. It feels like a Shout, though. A full one. Not just a word."


Mirabelle leaned closer. "You're saying he learned an unknown Shout. On his own."


"Not just learned," Tolfdir murmured. "Used. Somehow."


I gave a two-finger shrug, like yeah, I do impossible shit sometimes, deal with it.


Mirabelle's expression turned sharp. "There hasn't been a Dragonborn in—"


"Exactly," Tolfdir cut in. "And he's clearly not one. He's not… breathing."


I helpfully mimed a lack of lungs. Big shrug. Big dead energy.


"But still, this," he gestured toward the comic, "this is more than mimicry. This is mastery, in a way. Some kind of projection—aural resonance maybe? Through the soul, not the throat?"


"You're guessing," Mirabelle said, but she sounded less accusatory and more unsettled.


"Of course I am!" Tolfdir laughed, though there was a nervous edge to it. "That's what magic is half the time—educated guesses wrapped in flaming robes."


I added a new sketch in the corner: me standing triumphant on a hill, shouting DOVAHZUL in bold glyphs while everyone else screamed in confusion.


Tolfdir beamed. "He's got a sense of humor. That's a good sign."


Mirabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. "Or a sense of impending doom."


Tolfdir turned to me. "Where exactly did you find this Word Wall?"


I tapped a drawing of a ruined doorway. Then scribbled a note beneath it in big, crude letters: WAYWARD PASS BARROW??? The question marks were important.

"We still don't know what that means" Tolfdir replied, scratching his head for a moment before looking back at my drawings again. "Maybe wherever he learnt it was near where you sent him off to Mirabelle, from what I remember these world walls are usually in Barrows or Nordic Mass graves."

"Well I sent him off to Wayward Pass, there shouldn't be anything near there like that! Let alone a Barrow of all things. Besides some tombs and a cave or two there is nothing of interest or anything close to what you described, unless you mean Ironbind Barrow" Mirabelle told Tolfdir, looking equally confused before they looked at me.

"There is now," I thought, but couldn't say.

I shook my head, went back to my journal and drew Wayward Pass again, they had to understand that there was a barrow here.

Tolfdir's eyes practically sparked with interest. "We'll have to investigate that later. But for now…"

Fuck it, something for later I guess.

He gestured toward the drawing again. "Can you show us? The Shout. Just… a demonstration."


Mirabelle shot him a look. "Are you insane?"


"I said demonstration, not destruction."


I tilted my head. Then nodded slowly.


Stepping back, I let the snow-crusted wind howl through the open doorway behind me, then turned slightly—away from them—and whispered:


ZOL. RIN. DREV.


There was no echo.


No sound.


Just absence.


For a heartbeat, I was gone. The world forgot I existed. Light passed through me. Snow hit me and didn't stick. Even gravity seemed to hesitate.


I let it fade.


Turned back.


Tolfdir stared, pale as chalk. Mirabelle didn't speak. Not for a long moment.


"…We're going to need a lot more paper," she muttered.


Tolfdir finally smiled. "And a new branch of magical theory."


AN:

Had to get this out before the brainworm ate what's left of my brain, please comment I feed on those like an enchantment feeds on soul gems

If you spot any mistakes or discrepancies let me know, I wrote this while dead tired and I might be coming down with a sickness.

Feel free to PM me or message me on Discord, I can be found in Shiro's Gaming Omniverse under the name of "Father of Giants"

 

[Syphi]

Of course lore console commands don't need to be spoken

 

[SaintJibblies]

Author's Note: Hello! Hope you guys didn't mind the wait, the times between the chapters are going to be a bit longer now that I've managed to get the idea out of my head and onto paper-or more so a site? But yeah, I'm still sick and dying-BUT! I've managed to get this chapter out (After sneezing around 32 times during the 6 hours I spent writing this) it's a bit smaller than the last two chapters but it covers a lot of things I wanted to fuck with, enjoy it! Remember to comment your thoughts, suggestions, observations and or any mistakes/discrepancies you see.

Also please do keep in mind, English is my 3rd language and I'm trying my best but I make mistakes, like a LOT of mistakes expect grammar mistakes.


Let me sum up what happened after Tolfdir and Mirabelle saw me casually glitch out of existence for a hot second:

• Silence.
• Awkward shuffling.
• Tolfdir muttering something about "fundamental breaches of metaphysics," followed by Mirabelle throwing around scary terms like "temporal displacement" and "accidental Psijic transference."
• More silence.
• Me, scribbling furiously in my journal to try (and fail) to illustrate that no, I wasn't actually breaking reality; I was just whispering ancient dragon curses under my breath without a throat.
• Even more silence.
• Mirabelle quietly asking if this was going to become a "habit."
• Me, responding with the only gesture available to a mute skeleton: an emphatic shrug.

In the end, they politely but firmly suggested (ordered) that I should maybe keep the casual reality-bending to a minimum—at least until they figured out what in Oblivion's name I was actually doing. Fair enough. They weren't panicking; they were fascinated. Like scientists who'd just found out gravity could decide to take weekends off.


Which brought me to the present.


Enchanting class.

---

The Arcaneum smelled like dust, old vellum, and lingering magical discharge. The small, circular enchanting lab nestled in the far corner had become my latest haunt. The walls were ringed with enchanted torches whose flames never flickered, casting a steady amber glow over the worn wooden tables and polished soul gem stands.


Sergius Turrianus, the College's resident enchantment expert—and by expert, I mean borderline burnt-out wizard who looked two misfired enchantments away from retirement—stood in front of us with a look that blended profound boredom with existential disappointment.


"Enchanting," he drawled slowly, "is the delicate art of telling reality what you want it to do, without reality catching onto your bluff."


He picked up a simple iron dagger, turning it over in his hands. "Objects want to remain exactly as they are. Mundane. Normal. Predictable. To enchant something is to convince it otherwise. To remind a sword that it could be hotter, sharper, more dangerous. To suggest to a necklace that gravity might just be optional."


I scribbled in my journal:


Enchanting = Gaslighting reality. Got it.


Sergius continued, raising an eyebrow at our collective silence. "Before we enchant anything, however, you must understand this: objects remember."


Great. More philosophical bullshit.


"They remember what they were. And if you're careless, they'll remember what you did wrong." He shot a meaningful glance at an Argonian student whose eyebrows were still mysteriously absent.


"So today, we begin with understanding souls—" Sergius lifted a small, glowing soul gem, eyeing it critically, "—and why you don't put a Grand soul gem into a butter knife unless you want to accidentally vaporize breakfast."


More furious scribbling:


Step 1: Souls are fuel.


Step 2: Fuel + Knife = Toast Vaporizer.


I was fitting right in.


Sergius placed the gem on the pedestal and gestured impatiently at the table lined with lesser gems, iron daggers, and rings. "Pair up. Take a lesser soul gem and a mundane item. I want something basic—fire, frost, shock. If I see anything ambitious, you'll spend the next three days enchanting chamber pots for the Jarl's servants in Dawnstar."


A collective shudder rippled through the class.


I ended up paired with Onmund, who looked at me with wary curiosity, still clearly uncertain if I was some kind of forbidden necromantic research or just the College's weirdest student.


"So, uh…" He coughed awkwardly, holding up a soul gem. "Got a preference?"


I motioned vaguely at a nearby iron ring, then the frost rune etched into the table. Simple enough.


He nodded slowly, visibly relaxing. "Good idea. Less chance to, you know, blow up."


We took our positions at the table, soul gem between us. I stared at the rune and tried to recall Sergius's warning:


Objects remember.


Maybe they weren't the only ones.
Onmund placed the ring carefully onto the small stone pedestal between us, the iron band looking almost disappointingly plain. It had no shine, no detail, no particular craftsmanship to speak of—just a dull loop of metal, awaiting purpose.


Perfect, in other words, for my first experiment in applied metaphysical gaslighting.


Sergius paced slowly around the room, occasionally pausing to observe, his eyes half-lidded but sharply attentive beneath his bored exterior.


"Before you enchant," he began, raising his voice slightly, "You must anchor your intention. Enchantments aren't random; they're precise. They resonate. You can't simply stuff magic into an object like grain into a sack."


He picked up a polished Grand Soul Gem, eyeing it critically, almost reverently. "A soul gem isn't mere energy storage. It is crystallized identity. To enchant is to imprint a will onto matter. You use the soul to shape potential into specific, measurable effects. Your intent forms the blueprint; the soul, the material."


I wrote rapidly, feeling something resembling excitement:


Soul gem = identity crystal. Magic fuel with personality.
Intent = blueprint. Soul = raw material. Ring = canvas.
Still feels like we're tricking physics.


I glanced over at Onmund. He was scribbling notes too, brow furrowed like he'd just been handed Skyrim's most difficult crossword puzzle. Good. Glad I wasn't the only one thoroughly confused.


Sergius stopped next to our table, briefly looking down at my masked face before turning to Onmund. "Proceed carefully," he advised dryly, clearly recalling my recent history with magic and its tendency toward... complications.


Onmund swallowed audibly. "Right."


He picked up the lesser soul gem and glanced at me. "Okay, so—frost?"


I nodded, slowly tracing my gloved finger over the frost rune on the table.


"Right." He placed the gem into the pedestal's small slot, then hesitated. "So, we start by... feeling the rune?"


Sergius nodded approvingly, drifting past. "Precisely. The rune is not merely symbolic. It is an imprint of a metaphysical resonance. Understand the resonance first, then use the soul gem to channel and shape it."


Onmund closed his eyes briefly, brow furrowing again. A faint chill drifted from his fingertips. "Like this?"


Sergius hummed thoughtfully. "Adequate. Now guide the essence into the gem."


I watched closely, sensing the subtle vibrations of magic pulsing through the air. It wasn't flashy—no glowing auras or dramatic bursts—but it felt deliberate, calculated. Like threading a needle blindfolded, guided solely by intuition.


And then it was my turn.


I extended my gloved hand, hovering just above the gem. No pulse of blood beneath my fingertips, no warmth to guide me—only an echo of intent.


I visualized frost, trying to recall the sensation from my fumbling attempts at casting the spell. The slow drag of cold, the tightness of winter. But it wasn't enough to simply picture it—I had to embody it. To convince the ring that it wasn't just iron. It was frost made tangible. Ice held still.


Metaphysics. Psychology. Manipulation. All rolled into one.


My journal, momentarily forgotten, lay open on the table, notes messy and frantic:


Enchanting = convincing objects they're more than metal. Lying creatively to reality?
Soul = identity. Rune = resonance. Enchanter = mediator.
Why the fuck does magic have to be existential every single goddamn time?


I reached deeper, mentally pressing into the gem. I didn't have a physical breath to steady myself, but I tried anyway, aligning my consciousness around the rune's structure. Slowly, the gem responded—not to force, but to gentle insistence. It glowed softly, the icy chill seeping from the soul gem into the ring.


I didn't breathe—but something within me exhaled anyway.


DING.


[Enchanting Mastery: 2% → 5%]
[Unlocked Concept: Resonant Anchoring]
Congratulations: you convinced iron it was ice. Truly revolutionary.


I resisted the urge to make a rude gesture at the floating prompt.


Onmund's eyes widened. "You did it?"


I gave a cautious thumbs-up.


Sergius leaned over, examining the ring with mild surprise, eyebrows raising slightly above his perpetual boredom. "Clean. Minimal leakage. Surprising precision for a first attempt."


He turned to the rest of the class, holding up the frost-enchanted ring. "This is what controlled resonance looks like. This is discipline."


Sergius handed the ring back to me carefully. "Keep practicing. Learn not just the rune, but the space between runes. Enchanting is both science and poetry. Find your rhythm."


I nodded again, tracing my finger thoughtfully over the newly enchanted ring, feeling the faint, consistent cold that now defined its essence. I felt oddly proud—like I'd just passed a particularly abstract exam on philosophical thermodynamics.


I jotted down one final note:


Magic continues to make no fucking sense. But now, at least, it listens.

---

I stayed behind after class, hunched over the enchanting pedestal with a focus that bordered on obsession. Sergius had drifted away after issuing a vague warning not to "implode anything important," leaving me blissfully alone with my chaotic thoughts and steadily growing mountain of notes.


The frost ring sat aside, quietly radiating its chilly smugness. A decent first effort. But the way Sergius had talked—resonance, anchoring, metaphysical blueprints—it nagged at me like a splinter.


Enchanting objects to believe they're something else. Convincing reality to take the day off.


Could I cheat this? Could I enchant something that made enchanting itself easier?


I snatched another plain iron ring from the bin, slid it onto the pedestal, and picked up a fresh soul gem. Lesser again—didn't want to waste something valuable on a wild theory. Just enough power to experiment without blowing anything up.


Closing metaphorical eyes, I reached for the feeling I'd stumbled across earlier: resonance. That subtle pulse of intention that Sergius had emphasized.


If enchantments convinced items to believe in a new reality, could I enchant the ring to believe in better enchantments?


I hovered over the blank surface, fingertips brushing the smooth iron.


"Alright," I thought sharply, "you're not iron. You're focus. You're clarity. You are the fucking embodiment of ease."


I visualized ease as clearly as I could. A smooth current of magicka, a frictionless glide. Not raw power—just simplicity. Understanding.


I felt the gem twitch in my grip. The resonance shifted, aligning hesitantly. I didn't just channel the soul into the ring—I coaxed it, whispered it into shape.


My thoughts streamed out, shaping themselves into crude runes—not from any spellbook, but from sheer instinct and stubbornness. The soul gem pulsed softly, then flared.


The ring hummed quietly in response.


I lifted it up, cautious but curious. It looked plain as ever, no fancy glow, nothing dramatic.


But when I slipped it onto my finger—


DING.


[Enchanting Mastery: 5% → 17%]
[Discovered New Enchantment: Resonance Affinity (Minor)]
You enchanted a ring that makes enchanting easier. Have you no respect for game balance?


I stared at the notification, disbelief turning to glee.


"Holy shit," I mouthed silently.


Without thinking, I grabbed yet another iron ring, eager to test my new tool.


This time, enchantment flowed like water down a gentle slope—effortless, intuitive, almost relaxing. The resonance enchantment wasn't much, maybe just a ten-percent improvement at most, but it felt huge. No longer was I blindly shoving magic into metal and hoping it stuck. Now it felt like drawing familiar runes in wet sand.


DING.


[Enchanting Mastery: 17% → 29%]
[Resonance Affinity upgraded to Resonance Affinity (Moderate)]
Are you serious right now?


I laughed—or tried to, anyway. It came out as a weird bone-rattle beneath the mask. Who cared? This was working.


I scribbled frantically in my journal:


Enchanting hack achieved. Ring that makes enchanting easier. Inception levels of bullshit.
Resonance = reality shortcut? Maybe.
Why did no one else think of this? Too obvious? Forbidden lore? Dumb luck?


My internal celebration was cut short by a polite cough. I spun around, nearly dropping the enchanted rings.


Sergius stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised in what looked like equal parts amusement and irritation.


"Inventing new enchantments now, are we?" he drawled, stepping forward. "Care to demonstrate?"


I hesitated, then held out the enchanted rings cautiously.


He took one, inspecting it closely, then slipped it on. His eyes widened—only slightly, but for Sergius, it might as well have been a full-blown panic.


"Fascinating," he murmured. "You've amplified the act of enchantment itself. Recursive, subtle, clever. And dangerous."


He handed the ring back with a wary glance.


"Be careful. Ease can breed arrogance. And arrogance invites disaster."


Then he turned away, shaking his head and muttering something about "damned skeleton prodigies" as he left.


I stood in stunned silence, staring at my newly enchanted rings.


Maybe this was dangerous.


Maybe this was stupid.


But damn, it was effective.


Note to self:
Breaking reality—highly recommended. Side effects pending.

I lingered at the enchanting table long after Sergius left, feeling that thrill unique to someone who'd stumbled into an exploit the devs definitely didn't plan for. I'd seen things like this before—like the infamous feather enchantment from Morrowind, where one point of feather completely negated fall damage. Could I pull off something similar here, bending magical rules by technicality rather than raw power?


Time to test the limits.


I grabbed yet another of the endless supply of cheap iron rings and set it firmly on the pedestal. My Resonance Affinity ring hummed softly, as if encouraging my mad experiment.


What could I break without actually breaking it?


Fall damage? Too obvious. Invisibility? Tempting, but I wasn't ready to vanish just yet. Something subtler, more practical. Maybe carry weight?


I considered how Skyrim handled carry weight. It wasn't "real" physics—just a magical calculation, checking whether the object was heavier than the allowed weight. But what if the object believed it had negative weight? Not Feather—that just reduced weight—but negative weight, actively subtracting.


I placed my hand on the ring, visualizing the concept carefully: you weigh less than nothing. You are weightless, negative mass, subtractive.


It felt absurd, stupid, completely against reality.


Perfect.


The soul gem trembled slightly in my other hand. The resonance enchantment kicked in hard, sharpening my mental focus. Reality resisted—naturally—but enchanting wasn't about obeying reality, it was about persuading it.


I poured intention into the ring: a fractional, minimal negative value. A trivial subtraction, just enough to trick the magical calculation into confusion.


The soul gem cracked faintly, fizzled, and then settled.


The ring sat innocently on the pedestal, looking thoroughly unimpressed with itself.


I slipped it onto my finger.


DING.


[Enchanting Mastery: 29% → 41%]
[New Enchantment Discovered: Negative Burden (Trivial)]
You have convinced an object it has negative weight. Congratulations on inventing imaginary physics.


No dramatic surge of power, just a subtle sensation, as though the ring pulled lightly upward, counterbalancing gravity with a negligible tug.


I reached into my satchel, hesitated, then dumped all my gear onto the table—several tomes, my dagger, various rings and reagents. A moderate pile, clearly more than I should comfortably carry.


I gathered it all back up.


It weighed nothing. Actually, it weighed less than nothing. My body felt lighter, slightly buoyant, like I'd tied a tiny, invisible balloon to my bones.


Oh.


Oh, no way.


I hastily scribbled:


Negative Burden enchantment achieved: Bug/exploit confirmed.
Carry weight = subverted. Gravity is now optional.
Reality = gently sobbing in a corner.


I made two more rings, layering the enchantment just to see how far it went. By the third ring, jumping felt like drifting. Gravity wasn't gone—it just seemed politely optional.


DING.


[Enchanting Mastery: 41% → 52%]
[Negative Burden upgraded to Negative Burden (Minor)]
Are you proud of yourself?


Yes. Yes, I was.


I tucked the rings into a pouch, safely separated so I wouldn't accidentally float into a ceiling. Then I stood back, pondering the consequences.


I'd broken something fundamental, something the universe—or the game—hadn't accounted for. It felt like cheating. It felt fantastic.


Could others use this? Would Sergius try to ban it? Would I accidentally launch myself into orbit?


Probably yes to all three. But for now, I had another tool in my rapidly expanding arsenal of bullshit.

And honestly? I needed all of that if I were to come across anything remotely stronger than the average wizard.

Seriously a Master-Class spell can literally reshape mountains, they aren't called 'Master' for nothing, it means they've literally mastered their chosen art and that makes Archmages even more fucking terrifying,
At the same time, they're exceedingly rare, there have only been 18 Archmages in total in all of the Elder Scrolls timeline. (Unless you counted the Nerevarine and or the Hero of Kvatch)

Regardless of all of that, I'd spent too much Enchanting and needed to get my mind off of...whatever the fuck I just did, so why not attend another class?

---

The Restoration class felt... different now.


My little skeleton reveal had settled over the College like awkward frost on a windowpane: visible, lingering, and uncomfortable as hell. Some students openly stared. Others pretended very hard not to. Either way, I could practically feel their curiosity like ants crawling up my nonexistent spine.


Colette Marence, however, carried on with the lesson as if my accidental self-unmasking hadn't happened. That woman was either incredibly accepting, impressively indifferent, or just exceptionally stubborn. Possibly all three.


She paced slowly in the center of the softly glowing circle, robes trailing behind her like a scholarly ghost.


"Last time," she began crisply, "we discussed recognizing injury, feeling dissonance, and understanding what it means to restore order to chaos."


A few nods. Mostly silence. A quick glance around showed that at least half of those nods were aimed in my direction. Great.


She stopped and turned sharply, facing us. "Today, we will be discussing the body itself. If you wish to restore, you must know what you're restoring."


She gestured broadly, and a translucent image shimmered to life in the center of the classroom—a human skeleton, layered with muscles, veins, and nerves slowly materializing into visibility, pulsating gently with soft golden light.


Some students leaned forward, fascinated.


I looked down at myself, then back up at the floating image.


Right. Restoration was basically magical medicine. Time to take some goddamn notes:

• Human anatomy 101:
  • Skeleton: Holds you together. Mine is all I have. Mine's fucking incredible, actually.
  • Muscles: Move shit around. Pull and push stuff. Seem important. Don't have them, don't miss them (yet).
  • Blood vessels & nerves: Fancy internal plumbing/wiring. Very important for the living. Useless for me.
  • Organs: Squishy things. Keep people alive. Irrelevant to current situation.

As I scribbled away, Colette continued calmly, unaware—or uncaring—of my internal sarcasm.


"Humans, Mer, and even Beastfolk share fundamental similarities. However, Mer have slightly longer lifespans, enhanced magical affinities, and subtly different anatomical proportions. Beastfolk—Khajiit and Argonians—have markedly different skeletal structures, musculature, and organ placement, which affects how Restoration interacts with their physiology."


I glanced at my bones again. I mean, sure, anatomy was cool and all, but what the fuck did Restoration magic do when your target had no muscles, blood, or organs to fix? Did it restore bones? Did it restore... whatever the fuck my whole deal was?


A pause.
Journal again:

• Existential Restoration questions:
  • Can Restoration heal bone-dudes?
  • Does healing magic just flip you back to your "ideal" state, or does it have to understand what it's doing first?
  • Can it fix metaphysical bullshit? (Gods, I hope so.)

Colette's voice tugged me back to reality.


"Restoration's guiding principle is simple but powerful: the body remembers. Healing magic doesn't create—it reminds. It restores the natural order. You are guiding the body to remember health."


I underlined that line about five times, adding next to it:


Body remembers. Okay, but does mine? Does it even have something to remember?


We moved on to partner exercises again, because of course we fucking did. Elira hesitated a second before reluctantly sliding next to me.


"Look, uh," she began quietly, not quite meeting my mask-covered face. "About last time…"


I waved her off. I got it. Spooky skeleton man, scary, yeah yeah. Let's just do this.


She sighed, nodded, and then looked focused. "Alright. I'll simulate an injury again. You try to perceive it."


This time, thankfully, no accidental reveals. I focused, felt around magically, identified another fake sprain—simple enough. Elira relaxed, relieved at how uneventful the whole thing was.


And then it was my turn.


How the fuck do I fake a broken leg or cut without actual legs or skin?
Fuck it. Let's try something new: something metaphysical.


I closed my eyes metaphorically, focused inward, and conjured an impression of something being "wrong." Not injury, but… absence. Loss. The vague ache of memory that wasn't quite memory.


Elira's brows knit. She concentrated hard. Finally, she spoke slowly, uncertainly, "This feels… weird. Like something's missing. I can't pinpoint it—like trying to heal a shadow."


I nodded. Not bad, Elira.


She blinked, surprised at herself. "Is that... correct?"


Another nod.
Journal:


Metaphysical wounds work in Restoration? Maybe Colette wasn't exaggerating about balance and memory. Restoration can handle existential bullshit? Good to fucking know.


Colette wrapped up the class soon after, her usual sternness softening just a bit.


"Remember," she said gently, "we restore by understanding. Never by forcing. The body—and perhaps more importantly, the soul—must cooperate. You cannot truly mend what does not wish to be whole."


She met my masked gaze briefly, eyes calm and steady.


Yeah, message received loud and clear.


Class dismissed, the other students filed out, some casting lingering glances at me—some fearful, others intrigued.


Just another day in fucking magical medical school.

Before I could slip out, Colette called me over quietly.
"I've been thinking," she said softly, eyes scanning my masked face. "You're… unique. Restoration might work differently for you, but that doesn't mean it won't work. It might simply operate at another level entirely."


I tilted my head, curious.


She hesitated, picking her words carefully. "Your existence isn't injury or disease—it's another state of being. You're not missing anything. Perhaps your form is exactly what it's meant to be. Maybe your path lies not in restoring yourself, but in restoring everything else around you."


Damn. Colette just casually dropping philosophy bombs on me now.


I nodded slowly, respectfully. She gave me an understanding smile, gently shooing me out.


I headed back toward my quarters, mulling it over, already half-focused on the enchanting experiment from earlier.


One thing was becoming increasingly clear: Restoration wasn't just healing. It was understanding. Acceptance. And perhaps, even for a walking pile of enchanted bones, it might have answers that mattered.
I headed back to my room, still chewing on Colette's quiet bombshells of wisdom. Sure, I'd joked about Restoration being "magic healing bullshit," but turns out, when you stop and think, it was a whole lot deeper. Figures the one school I'd dismissed as just "white-mage stuff" would end up making me question the nature of my goddamn existence.


Typical.


I pushed the door open, slipped inside, and dropped into the chair by my desk. The Flames tome, Frostbite manual, and my increasingly messy journal stared back at me—constant reminders of my ongoing weirdness. But now, another book lay open beside them: The Silent Thread. Enchanting was still nudging at the back of my skull like a loose tooth.


Enchanting could shape reality, rewrite rules—and I was pretty sure that was exactly what I needed.


But first things first: let's sort out all this Restoration fuckery.


I flipped open my journal again.


Restoration thoughts (Part 2: Existential Edition):

• Restoration = healing the mind/soul/body… but apparently also healing existential dread and metaphysical crises?
• Am I actually injured? Or is being a skeleton a feature, not a bug? (Cheers Colette, that one fucked me up a bit.)
• "The body remembers." Does mine? What does a skeleton body remember anyway—existing? Not existing?
• Can I restore my voice? If it remembers existing, I should be able to bring it back. Worth testing. If not… silence continues.

I paused, quill hovering above the parchment. Yeah, okay, that last point might be worth some serious exploration. I'd been ignoring it—mostly out of stubbornness, but also a bit of dread. Silence was my armor. But having a voice again... fuck, that would make things a whole lot easier. And probably weirder.


I tapped the quill thoughtfully, ink blotting slightly.


Couldn't hurt to try, right?


I took a metaphorical deep breath (old habits die hard, even without lungs) and focused. No casting flames, no shouting weird dragon words—just me, quiet, feeling around magically for the vague memory of having a voice.


Stillness first. Balance. Just like Colette taught.


Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. I imagined speaking—whispering, laughing, swearing—and reached for the memory of it. Restoration magic felt subtler than Destruction or Alteration; like gently coaxing something asleep into waking, rather than punching reality until it obeyed.


A faint pressure built in my throat, a ghostly sensation I hadn't felt since… well, since becoming this.


For a second, just a split second—I felt the shape of sound forming. The barest trace of a whisper rattled silently through my skull, more remembered than heard.


Then nothing.


But it was something. A start. A promise.


Journal entry (Big existential Restoration experiment results):

• Attempted voice restoration. Partial success?
• Felt something. Not enough to shout obscenities yet. Promising sign, though.
• Restoration confirmed OP as fuck. Seriously.

I leaned back in the chair, my mask angled toward the ceiling.


Progress.


Sort of.


Before I could settle in to attempt round two, a sharp rap at the door pulled me out of my musings.


I stood and opened it cautiously, finding J'nara and Rurik waiting. J'nara's gaze was sharp, while Rurik managed to look both curious and slightly apologetic.


"Hey," J'nara began casually, leaning in the doorway like it was her own, "we're gathering in the Hall of Attainment. Apparently Enthir got his hands on a few obscure enchanting texts from Morrowind, and he's going to show them off."


Rurik nodded eagerly. "Real old stuff. Weird Telvanni enchantments. Figured you'd wanna come."


I hesitated only briefly, then nodded, grabbing my journal and The Silent Thread. Morrowind enchanting bullshit? Obscure Telvanni nonsense? That sounded exactly like my kind of madness.


We headed down the corridors, J'nara chattering about magical theory while Rurik threw in comments about Enthir's shady reputation. I scribbled quick notes along the way:


Enchanting side-quest incoming:

• Telvanni enchantments: deeply weird and possibly illegal. (Hell yes.)
• Enthir: Smuggler. Shady as fuck. Useful resource?

We found Enthir in a corner of the Hall, surrounded by a few other curious apprentices. He was exactly as advertised: scruffy, slightly suspicious, and exuding a strong "don't ask where I got this" vibe.


"Ah, the mysterious masked wonder joins us," Enthir drawled, eyes twinkling with amusement. "Perfect. You're just the kind of mage who might appreciate Telvanni work."


He produced a small wooden chest, carefully unlocked it, and withdrew two ancient-looking scrolls and a small glowing crystal etched with spiraling runes.


"Telvanni enchanting," he began theatrically, "doesn't simply rewrite rules—it mocks them. Their art relies on contradiction, loopholes, and bending magical laws until they break. Observe."


He touched the crystal lightly, muttered a few words, and—


—I blinked.


Nothing dramatic happened, at least at first. Enthir simply raised a hand and casually stepped up into the air, walking calmly upwards like gravity had become optional. Several students gasped softly. J'nara looked impressed, and Rurik just grinned.


Enchanting rings to boost enchanting skill was one thing. But this? This was blatant physics-breaking fuckery. I was officially intrigued.


Enthir grinned from halfway to the ceiling. "This is a levitation enchantment, outlawed across most of Tamriel after the whole Ministry-of-Truth-crashing-into-Vvardenfell incident. Quite dangerous, potentially unstable—and incredibly fun."


He floated back down, landing gracefully.


I scribbled rapidly:


New Enchanting bullshit learned:

• Levitation. Fuck physics. Fly without wings. Illegal. (Need immediately.)
• Telvanni enchanting = pure exploit abuse. Extremely OP.
• Ethical concerns: minimal. Coolness factor: immeasurable.

The lesson continued, with Enthir explaining the twisted logic behind Telvanni enchanting—how spells and enchantments could be designed specifically to exploit the weak points in Mundus's natural laws. He demonstrated minor examples like rings that removed inertia from thrown objects, boots that inverted gravity, and amulets that allowed objects to temporarily phase through barriers.


My head was spinning (metaphorically) with ideas, theories, and reckless excitement. Before I knew it, the lesson was wrapping up, students dispersing in small clusters, animatedly discussing the possibilities.


Enthir caught my arm gently as I passed. "I noticed your... particular talents with magic," he murmured quietly. "If you ever feel the need for more unconventional resources—come find me."


I gave a silent nod. Unconventional resources sounded like exactly the kind of trouble I wanted in my increasingly surreal afterlife.


Back in my room, journal overflowing with mad ideas and reckless possibilities, I sat down again. The Telvanni lesson had opened another door. I had enchanting mastery skyrocketing, Restoration nudging me toward deeper revelations, and now borderline illegal magical exploits at my fingertips.


Just another day at Winterhold, I guess.


Final Journal note for today:

• College is insane. Enchanting broken. Restoration existentially terrifying. Telvanni illegal nonsense acquired.
• Possibly becoming overpowered. Good. Harkon, Alduin, dragons, vampires—all still out there, waiting to ruin my day.
• Only one logical conclusion: break all the rules first.

Time to get to work.

---

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the scattered scrolls, enchantment diagrams, and my journal sprawled chaotically over the desk. The idea hit me like a lightning bolt—sudden, reckless, and probably dangerously stupid.


But that was my sweet spot, wasn't it?


I'd tried restoring my voice directly, coaxing it with Restoration. It'd worked… kinda. But what if instead, I enchanted a replacement voicebox into existence? Like an invisible, intangible ghost-larynx crafted from raw restoration fuckery. An enchantment layered with the twisted logic of Telvanni magic, designed to bypass reality just enough to give me back something I'd lost.


A voice.


My fingers flexed reflexively. The logic checked out, theoretically. Enchanting could rewrite reality, right? And Restoration was the art of making things remember their proper form, even if that form no longer existed. Combine them, add a dash of Telvanni bullshit, and I could theoretically speak without needing physical vocal cords.


Journal entry, hastily scribbled:


Actually maybe final note of the day?:

• Enchant ghost-larynx to talk again.
• Fortify Restoration + subtle Telvanni "fuck physics" runes.
• Risks: potentially catastrophic metaphysical collapse?
• Reward: I get to verbally shitpost.
• Worth it? Obviously yes.

I moved to my small stash of soul gems, carefully selecting the most stable-looking Greater Soul Gem I had available. Stability felt crucial, given the potentially reality-breaking shit I was about to attempt.


Next, I picked a thin silver chain—stolen (borrowed, technically) from the Hall of Countenance storeroom. Light, innocuous, and perfectly suited for something invisible and intangible. With careful fingers, I laid it on my desk and began sketching out the enchantment's framework.


Enchanting felt a bit like composing music—notes had to resonate properly, harmonies needed to align, and there was absolutely zero room for error. But Telvanni enchanting? That was jazz. Chaotic improvisation backed by terrifying precision.


The core runes were Fortify Restoration. Basic. Predictable. Around them, I carefully inscribed layers of Telvanni runes—half-stolen from Enthir's demonstrations, half-invented on-the-spot out of sheer desperation and magical intuition. My quill scratched furiously:


Larynx Enchantment Framework:

• Central rune: Fortify Restoration (anchor to restore "voice memory").
• Outer runes: Telvanni "Phase-shift" sigils. (Fuck physics, voicebox optional.)
• Anchored soul gem: stable soul energy to sustain ghost larynx.
• Outcome? Talking skeleton. Hopefully without horrifying screaming feedback loop.

Enchanting always felt like carefully threading a needle—except the needle was on fire, and the thread was made of lightning. I touched the gem to the silver chain and started the process, letting magic flow gently into the runes, coaxing them awake one by one.


The chain glowed faintly. Reality shuddered slightly—subtle, but unmistakable. Mundus was noticing my meddling and it wasn't entirely happy about it. But hey, I was well beyond normal magical boundaries at this point.


I carefully fastened the silver chain around my neck, feeling absolutely nothing because, y'know—no skin. But metaphysically? There was a soft pressure, like someone gently pressing fingertips to where my vocal cords should've been.


Time for a test run.


I imagined speaking. Whispering. Laughing. Swearing. The memory of it, the feeling of air vibrating through vocal cords, the shape of words. Restoration and enchantment twined together, magic remembering form and function.


Then, tentatively, I tried it out.


"Testing. One, two. One, two—fuck me, I sound weird."


Holy shit.


My voice was deep, deeper than it had been when I was alive (Or more so not a Skeleton? This whole things been really fucking confusing) ethereal, and strangely resonant, like speaking through mist rather than air. It wasn't quite my old voice—more like the ghostly echo of it, but damn if it wasn't good enough.

Honestly I sounded like the Lich from Adventure Time if he had a bit more effects added when he spoke.
"Fuck. Yes," I murmured again, savoring the vibrations. "I have returned."

"Or...at least my voice has, my body still needs work, but! But! PROGRESS!" I shouted, actually shouted! Holy fuck!


Journal entry, written with shaky hands:


Ghost-larynx: SUCCESSFUL.

• Voice status: online.
• Sound quality: spooky ghost ASMR vibes. 7/10, would haunt again.
• Enchanting skill status: Officially insane.
• Risk assessment: Who FUCKING CARES, I can talk now.

My silent, masked existence was over. Now I could be a moron verbally. Now I could whisper cryptic nonsense to confused students in hallways. Now I could ask pointed questions in class and traumatize my professors even more effectively.


A knock at the door snapped me from my giddy scheming. Without even thinking, I called out reflexively, "Yes?"


Dead silence.


Then, muffled, astonished voices on the other side:


"Did he—"


"He just spoke."


"He talks now?"


A pause.

"He talks now."

Then J'nara's incredulous voice: "Did you just... talk?"


I sighed deeply—a deliciously audible sigh. "Come in. Yes. I can talk."


I also decided now that I had a voice, I'd be a enigmatic asshole because fuck you I can do that now, it's basically every guy's dream to be that one mysterious dude who just broods and manages to succeed at everything, let me have my wish god damn it.


The door opened slowly, revealing J'nara, Rurik, and Elira—faces ranging from stunned disbelief to poorly-concealed excitement.


Rurik grinned like a lunatic. "By Shor's frozen balls, Masky can fucking speak!"


"A thousand thanks my friend, an abstute observation if I do say so myself," I shot back dryly, savoring every syllable. "Not as if I did not figure that out already."


J'nara crossed her arms, eyebrow raised. "I don't suppose you want to share how?"


I touched the chain gently. "Ah, merely a dalliance in Telvanni sophistry," I declaimed, voice cool and condescending. "One applies a Restoration amplification rune, layers on a phase-shift sigil, then we fashion an ethereal larynx conduit—utterly pedestrian arcane legerdemain, wouldn't you agree?"


They stared at me blankly.


Elira blinked twice. "So... you're basically talking through an invisible enchanted ghost throat?"


"Yeah basically haha."


Rurik burst into laughter. "Fucking mages. I love this place."


Journal entry update:


Social interaction status: upgraded from 'creepy mute skeleton' to 'creepy talking skeleton.'

• Progress? Hell yes.

My afterlife was officially weirder—and significantly louder.


I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[ZeroTheFool]

 

[SaintJibblies]

Click to shrink...

cheese

 

[Azhidal321]

This has been a delight to read, thank you very much for this. Love the MCs personality. 10/10 would read again.