Applying Exotic Metaphysics (Return, 22.6) (Patreon)

The most popular seabird that Altmer tolerated were called the Canah. They were effectively fat seabirds that looked like parrots. All wing and gliding, very little flapping. It was easier to fly this way than it was with Shadowrend’s wings, for sure- the feathers and instincts that came with my transformation made things a lot easier. The wind tickled at my wings, pushing me upward as thermals rose from the land. I glided around, even as the other Canah avoided me. I think they could tell there was something wrong.

The coast below was covered in Summerset’s navy. Glints of light threatened to blind me as the sun danced across their golden hulls, sparks of light. A few kids on the beach were offering scatterings of grain to the other canah, paralyze spells waiting in their palms to hopefully catch themselves a pretty bird to take home as a status symbol, but most of the birds avoided them just as much as they avoided me. The few that were desperate enough for food were the ones with duller colors, the ones nobody seemed to want. They were notably fatter than most, probably because this was a regular thing.

The ‘estate’ of Estrial wasn’t just a mansion. It was a mansion combined with a military keep, like a castle had grown in the middle and pushed all the ‘mansion’ parts outside.  It wasn’t far from Glenview, but there really was a navy here. Soldiers were being trained, and the ships were being built. The shipwrights were chanting moonstone and quicksilver into wooden planks, both forging as they chant and chanting as they assemble the ships together. Workmen shaved unusable malachite into grit, and plastered paper with resin before rubbing the paper into the malachite and plastering them together like paper mache sails.I’d been looking for a while, but I couldn’t see Lady Arannelya. The members of the household were easy to see- her father was instructing and teaching the archers, and there were some cousins helping with the ship creation- responsible for most of the spells and enchantments that went into the ship’s ribs. But she was somewhere inside, most likely.

I drifted down to one of the balconies, landing on a railing next to where one of the guards were keeping watch. I’d noticed him eying the kids with a sort of wistful look.

“I don’t have any food for you.” He sighed. “Go bother the brats.”I looked at him like I’d seen seagulls act before. 

“I don’t have any millet for you,” He said, though he sounded a little apologetic.

I sat there, pouting for a long moment.

Then I squawked.He sighed, the expression in his eyes shifting. “Alright, I’ll get you something. Greedy little bag of feathers.”He turned away, to the pack sitting on the ground with his quiver.. As soon as he did, and his back was turned, I stepped in, changing shape into a maormer, a potion in my hand.

He turned back, a crumb of half-eaten bread in hand, and sighed when he saw nothing else on the balcony.I crept past him, as silently as possible, hoping he didn’t see through the invisibility potion, and crept through the halls behind him.

I’d just have to find somewhere secluded I could use to cast some spells before I had to open a door and break my invisibility.===

The inside of the building was much easier to navigate once I had proper spells working. Chameleon, for one. Then in each hand I held spells; Clairvoyance and Detect Life. Together, they’d be picking up more information than I could, even if I was leaning into it with my shadow magic. Wisps of light flickered on my eyes, and I could feel Lady Arannelya’s destiny in the next room. Her shadow was long, and I could see the potential she held. She leaned over a desk, her pale hair glowing through the door. There was nobody else in the room. Perfect. I readied a paralytic spell, then reared back-

I burst through the door, spell blasting out toward her. She ducked underneath her desk, hiding from view. She’d reacted the same time I had kicked the door open, and my spell splashed against the surface of her desk.

Before I could do anything else, she kicked the desk toward me- it screeched along the floor. I jumped up to step over it- only to throw myself out of the way of an arrow. Then another. Then a third.

Lady Arannelya’s bow was in her hand. She had a clump of arrows in her other hand, and she was somehow drawing it and nocking arrows in one smooth, clear moment. Arrows ripped like gunshots through the air, stabbing through portraits and tapestries as I circled toward her. She ran out of arrows, and I took the opportunity.I thrust another paralyze spell at her. Before it could hit her, she tore a scroll from her desk, opening it in one moment. A pulse of Silence rushed through the air, sapping the magicka from my spell. It immediately collapsed.She grinned, hands empty of bow and arrow.Fine. I’ll just have to knock her out.I charged toward her, footsteps perfectly silent against the ground under the spell’s effects. She clumped both hands together.“Crystalize,” She hissed, the chant coming to life in her palms. The silence spell fell- it had an extremely short duration, and she knew exactly when to start casting. The burst of magicka seemed to clump up, a tangled, tightly-wound bolt of lightning.

Shadowrend slipped into my hand and I used the base of the halberd to whip her arm upward, into the ceiling, just before the spell broke loose. The bolt of lightning exploded against the ceiling, ground shaking. I could hear yelling from the guards.

She was fast. She tried to backpedal even as I charged forward. She hooked a chair with her heel, whipping it toward my face. I slid underneath, flickering back into my normal body just long enough to snag her other foot with my tail.

Arannelya turned her trip into a backflip, grabbing a shortsword mounted to the wall behind her.

She barely got it in her hand before I slammed a palm into her sternum, knocking the wind out of her. She grunted, and I finally had enough time to hit her with a paralyze spell.

She froze.

I pulled a potion from my shadow and pour it into her mouth, layering an extra paralyze onto her that isn’t just based on magicka.

I finally had a moment to breathe.

Her eyes glared at me, some of the few things she could still move. She worked her lips and jaw, trying to loosen them enough to talk.

“Why?” She mouthed.

“The Thalmor's time is ending,” I responded. Her eyes widened.

My shiftgate opened, and I threw the bitch through.

Next step.

I rolled my shoulders, pulled a limp mannequin from my Sea of Maybe, wrapped in a bag, and tucked it under my arm. I turned back into a maormer again, a face I’d never use after this.The guards finally broke through the shield spell over the door as I threw myself out of the window.

===

I hid below an outcropping of coral, where it had grown up and around the coast, even out of the water. The vines hang loose, and I could feel magicka rush through the air as divination spells glanced along my Shadow. The longer they thought I was here, hiding with the kidnapped Thalmor, the less time they’d spend on long-range divination. I’d be buying time for everyone back at Firsthold to seal her in the enchanted vault. The more time I bought, the better it would be.

Of course, that didn’t mean I would make it easy for them.I poked my head out just enough to catch the eye of a guard just as they’d started to lose me.

“Halt!” The guard bellows. “You can’t escape!”

I ducked back, around and over the coral. The Speed enchantment kept me just fast enough to dodge the spells and projectiles while carrying the mannequin. They couldn’t shoot anything too dangerous, of course, lest they hit ‘Lady Arannelya’, which meant I didn’t have to worry about protecting myself. And if they did, well, I could just Recall.

It was a few long minutes of this- me running along the coastline, forcing the guards to trudge through sand and muck chasing me. They saw a fisherman’s boat, and thought I’d be using it as an escape method based on the way they obliterated it with fire arrows. I dragged most of them down into the sandbar, a combination of feather and water walking spells keeping me barely at the edges.

It’s about when they finally started to slow down that the real guards showed up. On the left, along the road toward Glenview, a carriage thundered down, pulled by four horses under enchantment spells. Sitting on its back, cradled in lacquered elven metalwork, was a handful of archers in heavy armor and enchanted bows. 

On the other side, along the water, were figures in light armor. They wore faceless masks of smooth glass, so brightly glowing with magic they were opaque. They barely ran along the surface of the water, more gliding than running as they kept up.

One of them blurred into motion, shooting toward me with a blast of light.

I barely brought Arannelya’s sword up to bear when his own sword lanced down to spark against it. The impact slammed down on my waterwalking spell, the water and sand below my feet shuddering. The rest of the runners’ formation closed in on me, just as the first wave of enchanted arrows rained down toward me. I forced as powerful an acrobatics fortification I could- a good old Icarian Flight spell- and kicked off the water.

The runners stumbled as one as the water quaked beneath me, unable to keep their footing. I flipped over the arrows, enjoying the sun on my skin, the wind in my hair… and, as quietly as possible, I conjured.

I landed on the water again. A maormer oarblade sat tucked under one arm, the mannequin tucked under the other.

In front of me, between the archers and chariot, the runners stood.

I’d seen Sessalan use this a lot, and it wasn’t too dissimilar from a halberd, though thrusting attacks weren’t nearly as useful.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kill any of these people, though. They might have joined the Thalmor later, but today, they’re all just soldiers trying to retrieve a commanding officer.

As I hesitated, they readied their swords. The archers readied their bows. My waterwalking spell was good, but if I ran off into the ocean, the ships would catch up. I lifted the mannequin in front of me like a shield. They hesitated.Then, in that moment, I felt Oblivion uncoil. The fabric of reality twisted behind me. A shockwave of magick and energy blasted the oarblade out of existence. Half the Runners fell into the water as their waterwalking spells failed. My own almost fell apart as well- I was ankle deep before I focused and brought it back. 

A shadow fell over me.

I turned- and a tidal wave was rushing toward us, a wall of water where it had been calm seas a moment before.

I took a breath- and from my Sea of Maybe, I drew a speed potion. Time slowed.

I kicked it into high gear, running parallel to the wave as it moved toward me. My waterwalking spell trembled as I adjusted it mid-cast, but I ascended up the side of wave like a halfpipe, even as I rose higher and higher. I got up to the lip of it, hung on the edge- spell applied to my hand- and tugged myself up and over the wave to see what caused it.

An island sat in the Eltheric Ocean where there was nothing before.

Atop the island, an ancient tower stood tall, ringed by smaller buildings.

Artaeum had returned.

At the top of the tower, a figure stood. Something in their hand- a black orb- it felt familiar. Too familiar. They raised it to the sky like a scepter-

The sky split open.A dragon, black as death, descended onto the face of Mundus once again.