Winterhold

[A/N]: Well I am quite thankful for everyone who has read this story or offered ideas. Here is another chapter in honor of Thanksgiving.

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The road to Winterhold was mostly uneventful. Rictus decided to use his telekinesis to "fly" most of the way there to speed along the trip. He did have to take breaks ever so often since he still hadn't gotten quite good enough with the control to really fly with it. He basically was just throwing his body really hard in the air and relying on Slow Fall to keep him from falling to fast. Rictus had to take breaks every so often since it felt kind of like riding a roller coaster, and he needed a break.

He thought about visiting Fort Dunstad, the fort guarding the road between Dawnstar and Winterhold/Windhelm, but it was looking kind of shabby. It seemed to be filled with shabby guardsmen and some dirty looking mercenaries. No place for a self-respecting mage, even if he was really curious when he heard rumors of a Skeever fighting ring inside the fort. Maybe one day he would build his own arena, the one in the Imperial City was supposed to be quite profitable.

Rictus did stop for lunch at a place called the Nightgate Inn. It was quite a nice little place. There was even a nice little lake where a finely dressed Orc was fishing. He was not a social person and totally ignored Rictus when he waved. Rictus didn't mind though; some people prefer to fly under the radar. After having a scrumptious meal inspired by some gourmet cookbook, Rictus continued his journey.

The great food made Rictus feel as light as a cloud and ready to continue his journey. Rictus stopped in his tracks though. He had a spell which could increase weight. He could even control how much weight was increased by the mana used. It would stand to reason a spell decreasing weight would not be too far off or difficult to manage.

Rictus was able to quickly alter his burden spell into a feather spell. He could now decrease the weight of objects, including himself. Now if he could make it into an area of effect spell, Rictus could call himself a gravity mage. It was good to have dreams.

The feather spell made traveling with his telekinesis much more efficient. He could throw himself farther and faster while using less mana. This also got him even closer to being able to really fly. He just had to work out some more control with the spell. Flying was not time to lose concentration. It was easy to control a character flying in the game but flying first person is always more difficult.

The only other stop he made was near a fort called Fort Kastav. It was in a good defensible location and was beside the main road which led to Winterhold. It was filled with Winterhold guards and even some mages, based off their robes. The combo made sense to Rictus since this was the easiest way to get to Winterhold and the College, at least if you didn't want to travel over the frosty wilderness of northern Skyrim.

A couple miles before this fort was where Rictus decided to make another teleportation glyph. Following the road south instead of north would lead to Windhelm. Placing the glyph here would greatly decrease the distance needed to travel if Rictus ever wanted to visit Windhelm, which he didn't.

Overall, "flying" was a significantly faster method of travel than by land. There was the problem of going past the road and having to back track, but it was still much more efficient. Rictus could see the College a little way past the modest town of Winterhold. Rictus could also see the shrine of Azure which was as impressive as people said. He was sorely tempted to go visit it but decided against it. Daedric Princes were not to be trifled with. Rictus didn't want to end up as some errand boy to one of them…even if he kinda already did it once. He had learned from his mistakes.

Rictus was still a little ways out of town when he placed his hidden teleport glyph room. He preferred to keep the glyphs out of town if he could help it. Don't want someone stumbling across those and messing them up.

Winterhold was not an impressive settlement. It was significantly larger than what was portrayed in the games, but still not very large. Most of the buildings were squat and close to each other. Rictus supposed it was to lessen the amount of time spent outside. The hold was probably the largest structure in the town, followed by the tavern. There were some places which looked like shops and some more houses which kind of trailed off haphazardly over the hill a bit. Rictus would be surprised if more than 1000 people lived in this town. It was hard to believe this was the "capital" for an entire hold. Dawnstar made this place look tiny, and it was supposed to be one of the smallest holds.

The College really was the towns only saving grace. Rictus could almost feel the magic in the air flowing from the place. It had some kind of majestic beauty to it which was hard to put into words. He was not sure if someone not sensitive to magic would be able to appreciate all its glory. Rictus was a bit surprised at simply how much magic the place seemed to be radiating. He had clearly underestimated the magical nature of a home for mages.

As Rictus was entering the town, there was a loud booming noise which shook the ground. He could also feel a huge discharge of magical energy. There seemed to be a building storm of magical energies radiating from somewhere inside the College. Rictus couldn't help but groan.

'I really hope that was not the Eye of Magnus…I was hoping to meet Savos. He seemed like such a knowledgeable fellow about magic. Hopefully Tolfdir is still alive. I also wonder if this is when that Thalmor first activates it or if we are waiting for someone to return with the staff of magnus. What was his name? Something like Arcano, but that seems wrong.'

Rictus was brought out of his musing when he felt a strange type of magical energy condense in the surrounding area. When he looked to the areas, Rictus saw what had to be the magical anomalies seen in the game. They simply felt so strange to his magical senses. One of the creatures was close and started to approach him.

Once the creature was almost upon him, Rictus caused the earth before him to shoot up into a wall blocking the creature's path. He was getting faster with his earth bending each day it seemed. Once the creature was blocked, Rictus quickly caused more stone to surround it. He then made the stone slowly suffocate the creature. Interestingly enough, his control of the stone seemed to become more difficult the closer it got to the anomaly. Rictus stopped before completely crushing the creature. He decided to sink the thing down into the ground for now. It really was too interesting to destroy. Maybe he could learn something from it.

The rest of the town did not seem to be having such an easy time with the creatures. Thankfully, there were only a couple more in the town. There were a few guards stabbing at them with swords but the creatures were extremely nimble and no larger than a volleyball. Rictus felt another one of the creatures start to form near the Jarl's hall. He was wondering whether he should capture it or destroy it.

His decision was made when he noticed 2 small forms cowering near the creature. The little boy pushed the girl behind him as the anomaly charged at them. Before Rictus could act, the magical anomaly attacked the boy. The boy had tried swinging his fist at the monster, but it simply tore his hand off which quickly dissolved into nothing. The little boy started screaming as he fell down, looking at where his hand was at just a moment before. This was definitely not like the stories he had grown up hearing. The hero was supposed to save the girl and defeat the monster. He couldn't help but close his eyes and let out another terrified scream as the monster moved towards his face.

Instead of the attack he was expecting, some force yanked him away. Looking up from where he landed, the boy saw a large figure covered in black standing over him. Before he could react, the man seemed to pull a large ax out of nowhere. He then flung his ax, bisecting the creature. Before the ax could go much further, it stopped and magically flew back into the man's hand. There was a discharge of magic as the anomaly seemed to explode.

The slight concussive force was the last straw for the boy. He began to lose consciousness. His last sight was the man standing over him while carrying an ax worthy of Ysgramor himself with only one hand.

Rictus looked down at the poor boy. He had taken the time to put on his mask before the battle, but his time doing that had given the magical anomaly enough time to take the poor boy hands off. As bad as it was, Rictus did not think he would change his actions. It was better to be on the safe side, and the mask gave him quite a boost to his abilities.

Rictus also glanced over at the girl he had pulled away at the same time as the boy. She was staring at the boy and appeared to be in shock. As she saw the stump which used to be the boy's hand, tears started streaming down her face. She ran over to the unconscious boy and started shaking him.

"Assur! Assur! Wake up! You have to wake up!"

They boy seemed to hear her as he slowly opened his eyes. His eyes had a spark of recognition when looking at the girl. He weakly held out his stump towards her as a pained smile graced his lips.

"Eirid…. "

As his stump neared her, Eirid flinched back at the sight of it. Assur seemed to notice his disfigurement. His eyes grew wide and fainted from the sight of it.

Rictus felt a little bad for the kids. This was a rude awakening for the two of them and the boy would have a rough go with only 1 hand. Rictus didn't stop paying attention to his surroundings though. There had been only one more anomaly appear near him which he promptly destroyed with his ax. Apparently, giant fast-moving weapons were super effective against the creatures which was good because they seemed to have magic resistance.

When there were no more enemies in his immediate surroundings, Rictus went over to the remains of the magical anomaly. It seemed to be made of fine blue dust which Rictus was quick to capture in a stone bowl. There also appeared to be a soul gem inside of the remains as well. Very interesting that these creatures had a formed and filled soul gem inside of them already. Maybe this could be a way to generate soul gems out of air. Rictus made a mental note to investigate this later with his newest test subject.

The fighting around the town seemed to have died down. Rictus noticed a few groups of mages were around the town now. They came from the college to help the town defeat the creatures. They seemed to keep their distance from the regular guardsmen except for a couple who were going around healing the injured. There was one high elf woman who seemed to be particularly good at destroying the creatures with her strong destructive magic. Rictus decided she had to be a master in the field based on her proficiency and magical aura.

There were no more magical anomalies for the moment, but Rictus could feel the slow build up of more magic in the air. There would be another wave eventually unless something was done to the eye of magus in the college. A group of guardsmen quickly made their way over to Rictus and the 2 children. When they got closer, they saw the poor state of the boy and their panic seemed to heighten even further.

"What happed to Assur!? Someone quickly inform Jarl Korir! You there, what happened to the Jarl's son?"

The apparent leader of the little group stared down Rictus as another guard ran to the nearby longhouse.

Rictus took off his mask while looking at the nervous guardsmen. He couldn't tell if it was from him, or the face the injured boy was the Jarl's son.

"I was just entering the town when all these magical anomalies started appearing around. These 2 children were being attacked by one of them. I defeated it, but not before it injured the poor lad. What in Talos's name is going on here?"

The guards seemed to relax just a bit after listening to Rictus and confirming his story with Eirid. They went on to explain they do not know the specifics about it all, but it had something to do with those damnable mages. This was the second time these creatures had attacked them this month. They were thankfully more prepared to face them this time compared to that first attack so there were less injuries and casualties.

A large man burst out of the Jarl's longhouse with quite a few guards and a woman following behind him. The Jarl sprinted over to the group and focused his eyes on Assur. The woman fell to her knees and cradled the poor boy to his chest as tears fell cascaded down her cheeks. The man's eyes seemed to harden as he looked up for an explanation. Rictus quickly explained to him what had transpired leading to this situation. A cold rage seemed to come over the Jarl.

"Those cursed mages have gone to far this time. They sit in their college doing Talos knows what and disregarding all others. They have already destroyed Winterhold once before, and now they seem to being doing it all over again. The first attack could have been a mistake, but not this time. They almost killed my son this time. I will not let this stand! There will be a reckoning soon."

Rictus could see the anger in the rest of the guards' eyes as well. There was an intensity in the air which was not there before. Rictus did not remember this being part of the original script at all. Makes sense though. If someone already hated the mages, then there were 2 large magical attacks on the town, they probably wouldn't just calmly forgive the ones they thought responsible, especially if their child was almost killed.

Taking a risk, Rictus cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"The boy will be fine. A master healer could potentially restore his hand. If not, there may be a something I could do to fix it."

As Rictus was talking, the Jarl realized Rictus was most likely a mage based off what was just said. His eyes hardened even more after he finished talking.

"Did you not just hear me mage? Your college will feel my wrath. Had you not saved my son's life, I would gut you where you stand."

Rictus was a little taken aback by the man's intensity. This really seemed like the final straw for him. Deciding talking wouldn't make anything worse, Rictus tried to calm the Jarl.

"This is no college of mine. I just got into town as the attacks started. There are a couple things I would say regarding these mages though. First off, you should not attack the mages."

The Jarl and guards seemed to let out a little growl at being told what to do, but before they could respond, Rictus continued.

"Try and think about it this way. There are teams of mages throughout the city right now. I can tell you there will be more of the magical anomalies appearing sometime soon, and they will attack again. Why risk your men when there are mages here which could take the brunt of the attacks? I would go so far as to suggest your men lead the creatures to where the mages are located. The mages will attack them which will allow your men to retreat from the battle. If there are casualties, it will be with them and not your men. It is their mess. They should clean it up. If you get the civilians to a safe place, you can guard it while the mages take the brunt of the fighting. The mages cannot even retaliate since they will be busy fighting and after the battle you can say you believed mages were best suited to fighting these magical creatures. A lot of mages are arrogant, so they will not see your true intentions."

The people seemed worried after hearing there was going to be more of the creatures. After hearing what Rictus had to say, they began smirking at the thought of leading the creatures to the mages. Even the Jarl seemed to appreciate the plan. It would keep his strength up while only weakening the mages. The men all were looking expectantly at their Jarl. Finally, he let out a malicious chuckle.

"I like the way you think mage. Maybe you are different than those college mages. Men! If any more of these creatures appear, you should lead them to the mages. They should be more than powerful enough to handle a few extra enemies."

The surrounding guardsmen smiled at the thought of getting back at the mages. They saluted their Jarl and went back to their posts with a pep in their step. The Jarl watched his men go back to work with morale higher than ever. Everyone was excited to pull one over on the mages for once. The Jarl invited Rictus to accompany them as the rest of the group went back to the longhouse.

Rictus was a little curious as to how this would all play out. Maybe something interesting would result from this new scenario.

As he was following the group to the longhouse. Rictus made eye contact with the Altmer woman. She was watching the group suspiciously. She couldn't tell what had happened, but she knew there was something going on. She had never seen the newcomer anywhere before either. It was all very suspicious to her. Especially when Rictus gave her a lazy wave and a wink as he entered the Jarl's longhouse.