HP: Sacred Gear Chat Group (2) - Chapter 47 (Patreon)

Chapter 47 - Psijic Order

“No, no, no. This isn’t right! It’s completely outside the known parameters. That isn’t how things should be! Who are you? How did you appear here?” The Member of the Psijic Order asked, becoming increasingly frantic and spiraling into a slight panic. “No, more importantly! What did you do?”

“How are you doing this?” I asked, referring to the time stop while pretending not to know who he was or what was going on. “Who are you?”

“Don’t interrupt me, interloper! Answer my questions! Where did you come from? You shouldn’t exist! How did you change the flow of fate in this world? This is completely outside the scope of possible futures!” Yeah, he wasn’t buying it. “What are you? A Daedric Prince? No... that shouldn’t be possible. Even they are recorded within the scope of the Elder Scrolls. Beyond that? That can’t be... they are gone... Most pantheons speak of their death or disappearance...”

Damn, I really made him spiral. What was up with that guy? Was he even really here?

“Anu or Padomay... No, no, that isn’t possible. They should be truly gone, and even they are recorded in the Elder Scrolls!” He kept rambling. Wait, was he debating with someone else?

“I am just a random passer-by,” I added helpfully.

The Psijic Monk scoffed. “A random passer-by? Don’t be ridiculous! What random passer-by can bypass the recordings of the Elder Scrolls themselves? Fragments of creation? The only being who could possibly do that is definitely not you.”

“Well, what am I supposed to tell you? I’m here, am I not?” I shrugged, choosing not to share with him that I had no intention of telling him anything other than complete bullshit.

I simply didn’t trust the Psijic Order. Sure, they had been opposing the Thalmor for a very long time, but they were such an unknown quantity that it simply wasn’t worth the risk. For others like Savos Aren, I could at least get a good assessment of them through the games and their lore.

Rias had been quite helpful in that regard, always taking the time to do some research for me whenever I had questions.

But the Psijic Order was such an unknown quantity that it was hard to say anything about them with certainty. One of their former members had become the biggest and most dangerous necromancer in the entire history of this world: Mannimarco, the God of Worms.

Another, by the name of Vanus Galerion, a friend and rival of Mannimarco during their time in the Psijic Order, was the mage who had restructured magic into the different schools in the first place, limiting their scope and fundamental principles, while the Psijic Order continued practicing magic in its old ways.

While the restructuring of magic had made it more accessible to the public in general, it had also controlled what the majority of mages were learning. Time manipulation or space manipulation, like the magic practiced by the Psijics, was definitely not part of the established schools of magic.

A mage who had learned the simple Oakflesh spell wouldn’t start wondering whether he could apply those principles to manipulate flesh itself or perhaps even life, eventually discovering flesh magic. No, instead, he would move on to the next more powerful version: Stoneflesh.

The schools of magic and the Mage Guilds had been very effective at preventing magic users from straying into truly dangerous areas. After all, those areas represented power, and the people in power didn’t like sharing it.

I couldn’t say whether Vanus Galerion had been a plant by the Psijic Order or had done so of his own free will. But the possibility that the Psijic Order had intentionally limited others’ understanding of magic, narrowing their perspectives from the very beginning of their journey into the mystical arts, was significant enough to make me suspicious of them.

Add to that the fact that we basically knew nothing about them, along with their actions during the Mages Guild questline in Skyrim, where they were the ones who ended up taking the Eye of Magnus, and I had plenty of reasons to be highly suspicious of them.

“It doesn’t matter...” The High Elven Mage belonging to the Psijic Order muttered, seemingly unable to reach any conclusion about me. “Listen well... Know that you have set in motion a chain of events that cannot be stopped. Judgment has not been passed, as you had no way of knowing. Judgment will be passed on your future actions and how you deal with the dangers ahead of you. If you are not careful, a great disaster will occur! Take great care, and know that the Psijic Order is watching.”

Good, they had bought the act that I had no idea what they were talking about. At least, I hoped so. I was betting on the typical arrogance of organizations like these, which believed they were in control.

While I was wary of them, I wasn't scared. They weren't Gods, and they had their limits. After all, while they opposed the Thalmor, they weren't powerful enough to outright stop them.

And the Thalmor, while a powerful and influential faction, were still a mortal faction.

I wasn't dealing with a threat on the level of the Daedric Princes here.

Whether they could actually track me and my movements was also debatable.

Having already known about their involvement, I had obviously made my own preparations. Mom and I had placed every anti-tracking charm and enchantment we could think of on ourselves and our clothes. Given enough time, they could probably track us, but it wouldn't be easy.

And I didn't believe for a single moment that they could keep accurate track of us. At most, they should be able to pinpoint our general location with enough effort and time, assuming they could do so at all.

Well, we would find out sooner or later.

As soon as the High Elf had finished speaking, he disappeared as if he had never been there, and time resumed its normal flow.

At the same moment, both Ghislaine and Agnar began moving again, their eyes fixed on the spot where the Psijic Monk had been standing just a moment ago. Literally a moment, since time had been frozen.

It seemed they had been able to sense his presence, or whatever remained of it.

“What just happened?” My Nordic Dragonborn buddy asked in confusion.

“We just got a visitor from the Psijic Order.”

“The what Order?” Agnar wondered so eloquently.

“The Psijic Order. Some mysterious magic monks who were once part of the Summerset Isles but split off to their own island, Artaeum, which they took away from there thousands of years ago,” I explained half-heartedly. How was I supposed to remember every detail about every faction?

“They took an island away? How?” Agnar wondered in confusion.

“Magic, I guess? Some pocket dimension shenanigans or something.”

“Oh, makes sense. Did they want anything important? Or can we finally go have some fun and bash some Draugr heads in?”

“Just a warning about some events we'll be judged on. Nothing important.”

“Sounds stuffy. Let's get to the Draugr bashing.”

“How do you know it's Draugr waiting for us?” I pointed out.

Agnar waved his hand at everything around us. “Nord ruin. Didn't that Tolfdir guy say it was the oldest Nord ruin?”

“Fair point.”

A Nord ruin it was.

But a pretty unique one, standing out even more than Saarthal did in the games.

The very next large chamber made that point abundantly clear.

After disposing of the two reasonably powerful Draugr that emerged from their coffins, one of whom was quite the powerful magic user, and gathering some additional alchemy ingredients hidden inside, we headed deeper into the ruins.

It was a vast, cylindrical chamber unlike any I had seen in the other Nord ruins. If I hadn't been prepared for what was coming, I would have looked at the chamber with the same somber expression as my two companions.

And it wasn't as if the heavy atmosphere wasn't affecting me, either.

Knowing about something and seeing it with your own eyes were two entirely different things.

Piles of coffins filled the entire space, and unlike the limited constraints of a video game, we weren't talking about dozens of coffins, but hundreds, if not thousands.

The entire cylindrical chamber was riddled with coffins all the way to the very top, as far as we could see.

“Those are probably the victims of the Night of Tears. Ysgramor and his Companions must have placed them here after their return to Saarthal,” I said somberly, not in the mood to crack a joke or anything right now.

With this not being a video game, it just hit differently. In the games, you could simply ignore the genocide that had happened here in the past, probably without even realizing what it represented while playing the game as a teenager. After all, there didn't seem to be that many coffins in there.

But now? With thousands of them piled up on all sides?

My two companions gave me a somber nod.

Ghislaine's gaze lingered particularly on the many smaller coffins, some barely large enough for toddlers, others for children. That definitely hadn't been depicted in the games.

We quietly and quickly disposed of the Draugr that burst out of some of the coffins, not even bothering to loot their weapons, before I cremated them with a fire spell to grant them their final rest.

They were guarding the dead. Even if they had been members of the ancient Nord Dragon Cult, they still deserved some respect.

From there, the true ruins of Saarthal began, with the architecture having completely shifted to the older style.

The place consisted of more Draugr guarding the various chambers and corridors, along with different traps, such as fire runes placed here and there as nasty surprises for careless intruders. There were also two riddles, which were easy for me to solve, courtesy of having obtained the solutions from Rias before even coming here.

The deeper we ventured into Saarthal, the more the atmosphere changed. The layered seals along the walls were no longer able to stop all the Magicka from seeping out.

With my Magic Power Eye, this had become obvious quite some time ago. But down here?

It was something even people who weren't attuned to magic could feel.

There was a shit ton of Magicka down here, which made me confident that even if it wasn't necessarily the Eye of Magnus's original purpose, many of my ideas for it should still work.

“Is that why you came here?” Agnar asked while staring at the heavy iron door in front of us, clearly feeling the dense Magicka filling the space.

Ghislaine's grip on her weapon was tense, her cat ears standing upright as she remained alert for any potential danger. She could feel the magic, too.

“Yes, it is,” I nodded, already thinking a bit further ahead. Honestly, I might have miscalculated a little. The shit ton of power that the Eye was releasing would be a real problem to conceal.

No wonder the ancient Nords had gone so overboard with all those sealing spells throughout the entire place. I honestly doubted that the spells I had placed on my bag would keep the Eye of Magnus hidden for long.

That alone would make us rather easy to track, invalidating all the charms and enchantments we had placed on ourselves.

At the same time, while they could sense the Eye of Magnus and locate it, nobody should be able to see through all the Magicka pouring out of it and determine who actually possessed it. They could track it, but that was it.

My thoughts briefly drifted to my bag. I wonder...

“All right, let's do this!” Agnar decided impatiently, pushing the door open without even waiting for my signal.

The first thing that flooded our vision was the blue-green light encompassing the entire space.

Next, we made out a large chamber, with a massive orb floating and spinning in the air at its far end.

It was a good thing I had deactivated my Magic Power Eye before looking into the chamber, because all that Magicka pouring out of the Eye of Magnus would have blinded it. Hell, I didn't even need a special eye to see Magicka right now. It was practically visible all around us.

But we had no time to admire the Eye of Magnus.

Right in front of it, sitting on a throne at the far end of the chamber, was the final boss of the ruin.

Jyrik Gauldurson, not a Dragon Priest, but a Draugr.

Some dude who had laid waste to parts of Skyrim alongside his brothers in the past. He had been sealed away in Saarthal by a High King and an Archmage back then. Though I didn't think they had known about the Eye of Magnus being here.

Before I could say anything, Ghislaine had already moved at lightning speed. My eyes couldn't even follow her. The next thing I saw was her standing behind Jyrik, her sword having just struck the undead Draugr.

Yet despite all its speed and power, her Sword of Light had failed to cut him.

Not only was the blue-green Magicka emanating from the Eye of Magnus filling the entire chamber, but it was also concentrating around Jyrik, forming a shield of pure Magicka.

After being sealed away down here, he must have discovered the Eye of Magnus and figured out how to harness its enormous power.

A fact I had completely forgotten...

“Ghislaine, dodge!” I shouted quickly, making the cat woman leap out of the way of the heavy ancient Nord battle axe wielded by the Draugr.

“That guy is completely immune to all attacks, thanks to the Eye of Magnus!” I quickly explained to my two companions.

“Then how are we supposed to cut him?” Ghislaine shouted back at me while dodging another attack from the Draugr.

Fortunately, he was wielding a heavy battle axe, and being a Draugr made him a rather slow opponent.

Still, he was an invincible one.

How did I beat him in the game again?

All that research, even getting the solutions to the puzzles, but forgetting to ask about the boss. Smart me.

Well, admittedly, Skyrim didn't have much boss variety. At some point, you had seen them all.

There were very few unique ones like this guy.

So, how was it again?

Oh, right. Tolfdir had figured out how to sever the connection between the Eye of Magnus and Jyrik Gauldurson. But I wasn't a mage with decades of experience, so I didn't think I would be able to figure it out that quickly...

[-- End of Chapter --]