The day the four members of the High Tower Covenant set out for Saarthal, it was already the sixth of Last Seed (August). In the hold of Winterhold, temperatures had begun to plummet. Snow was already falling in the mountains, and frost was spreading across the plains.
As noble spellcasters, Skyl and his companions naturally needed a travel method that was out of the ordinary. To be honest, when Skyl had walked from Riverwood all the way to Winterhold, constantly running into the "enthusiastic hospitality" of Skyrim's residents, it had worn him out.
In the Harry Potter world, wizards travelled by Floo powder, broomsticks, Portkeys, Apparition—effortless and spectacular.
So in a high-magic world like The Elder Scrolls, was there any special, stylish way to get around?
The answer was Flight.
And where could one learn a flight spell?
Nowhere. The spell had inexplicably been lost to history.
Of course, there might still be a few ancient mages who had lived far too long and still remembered how to fly, but there was no flight spell pattern preserved in the College. So Skyl could only rely on a few fragments left by his predecessors and try to reconstruct the spell himself in the Tower of Tomes.
The flight spell Skyl "reinvented" was a little like a rocket. The spell created a teardrop-shaped barrier, with jets at the tail and the midsection. By firing those jets in reverse, the caster could take off and fly; if you got good at controlling it, you could basically cosplay Superman.
The spell was good in many ways: the magical barrier shielded you from strong winds and offered decent protection, and you didn't have to worry about colliding head-on with birds. The downside was that landing was hard to control.
Launching a rocket was the easy part; recovering it in one piece was the hard part. When Skyl had first invented the spell, he'd happily dragged the three apprentices down to the coast to put on a show… and crashed straight into the sea. Brelyna and the others had laughed themselves silly.
"All right, now that everyone's learned 'Skyl's Flight Spell,' let's head out!"
At his words, the three apprentice mages all pulled long faces.
Skyl blinked. "What's wrong, did you forget to bring something?"
Onmund reacted quickly, worthy of the rare "proper mage" among the Nords. "We could stay in the Tower of Tomes and wait for Master Skyl to arrive at Saarthal first."
J'zargo: cat-nodding.jpg
Skyl put on a very serious expression. "The Tower of Tomes is a place of study for seekers of knowledge. It is not a means of transportation."
"But using it for other purposes once in a while surely won't hurt," Brelyna murmured.
What could Skyl say to that? "Fine. Just this once."
"I'm sure Master Skyl will invent an even safer flight spell someday. When that happens, we'll be able to fly at your side," Brelyna said with a smile.
And so Skyl had no choice but to travel alone.
He stood in the College courtyard, fired up his jets, and blasted off. On the side of the path, Mirabelle, who had been picking nightshade, was knocked off her feet by the gust and shouted furiously at Skyl's receding figure, "From now on, flying spells are forbidden on College grounds!!"
Looking down at the land of Skyrim from the open sky—once you'd seen it enough times, it wasn't all that novel. Skyl cast the Levitation Charm on himself to reduce his weight so he could fly faster.
Which was why, before he had time to slow down, he plowed headfirst into a snow-covered mountain right next to the Saarthal ruins.
With a shield and the Ironflesh spell protecting him, Skyl came out without a scratch. Once he'd hauled himself out of the snowdrift, he decided this "shoddy flight spell" definitely needed upgrading. And it was a good thing he hadn't brought the other three along, or it would've been another round of public humiliation.
The College's official exploration of Saarthal hadn't actually begun yet—Skyl had arrived early.
The four of them made camp outside the ruins first. If they couldn't dig out the entrance by the end of the day, they would sleep in the wild. The whole job was estimated to take three to five days.
The excavation work itself held nothing of interest, and in the meantime they still inevitably ran into the "enthusiastic hospitality" unique to Skyrim—such as passing wolf packs, bandits, and even, one night, a group of vampires. Fortunately, they had set up magic circles around the camp; a few lightning storms turned the uninvited guests into charcoal. Otherwise, they might not have noticed even if someone slipped in to drain their blood in their sleep.
"There's a copy of Night of Tears in the Arcanaeum. It tells the story of Saarthal," Skyl said, explaining the history while using Transfiguration to dig through the ground.
The others weren't idle either. Brelyna had summoned creatures to haul away the soil, J'zargo was using Destruction spells, alternating fire and frost to break the rock, and Onmund was in charge of hunting and cooking.
"The Nords built Saarthal, and beneath this city they found something. The Snow Elves living in Skyrim at that time coveted Saarthal's secret and launched a massacre. The Nord hero Ysgramor led his five hundred Companions to rise up and drive the Snow Elves back."
"So what exactly is the secret buried under Saarthal?" Brelyna asked. Skyl had gone on for a while without getting to the point.
"We're about to find out." Skyl stopped casting. "The entrance is right here!"
How many secrets were buried beneath Skyrim's ancient earth? Nordic barrows, Dwemer cities, long-buried Dragon Cult strongholds, draugr, Dwarven automatons, liches—each one capable of scaring an adventurer half to death. Of course, if you were strong enough, you could stroll through them all sideways.
The Saarthal ruins were complex in structure, with many collapsed sections making exploration troublesome.
Onmund once again specced into "warrior," put on that safe, reliable heavy armor, and walked at the front. He also summoned a ghostly wolf to scout ahead for him.
The first part of the ruins was the former city district of ancient Saarthal. Among the collapsed walls and shattered stone you could still find charred corpses that, once the air started moving, crumbled into ash.
"I feel… really sad," Brelyna murmured when she spotted the blackened little skeleton of a child in the arms of a larger adult corpse.
Standing among the ruins, Onmund chanted a hymn to Ysgramor, feeling his ancestors' pain through his Nord blood.
J'zargo prowled around looking for clues, and found several enchanted items. These ancient magical tools might give them some insight. As he went deeper and deeper, he unknowingly stumbled upon some ancient seal. When he touched the sealed stone door, a portcullis slammed down behind him, turning the corridor into a cage and trapping him inside.
"Hey! Master Skyl! Onmund! Maryon! Come rescue J'zargo!"
Skyl hurried over and took one look. This Khajiit really did have a knack for treasure hunting—he'd managed to sniff out the correct path already.
"J'zargo, there's something on that door," Brelyna said, sharp-eyed.
"Yes, there is a pendant that looks like an amulet."
J'zargo reached up and took the amulet. As he closed his paw around the ancient pendant, the magic sleeping within it seemed to whisper, and the narrow, sealed doorway burst with a shockwave.
"Hold up."
Skyl used Transfiguration to turn the iron bars blocking the passage into rotten rope, and the four of them filed through.
Skyl took the amulet from J'zargo and examined it. "This is a family amulet from some ancient mage. Look at this door. The patterns on it are rare—I've only ever seen rubbings of similar designs in a few Second Era research notes. We'll leave this part to the archaeologists. For now, let's make rubbings of all the designs on the door."
Once they'd collected all the carved patterns on the sealed door, Skyl raised the amulet again. "These two things are resonating. The amulet's magic is canceling the seal—like a pass token."
"So the amulet is the key?" Onmund sounded doubtful. "Who puts the key on the door?"
"Who knows. Ancient people didn't think the way we do." Skyl ran his hand along the sealed door. "There should be a way to open it. If not, we'll just have to break it."
"This door is already very fragile," J'zargo said after a quick look. "It's the sealing magic that's holding it together."
Sure enough, when Skyl pressed his weight against the stone, he found the rock had already partially turned to sand. Onmund walked up and gave it a shove—and the whole door toppled over and shattered on the floor.
"Oh! Sorry."
"It's fine. It had to go sometime. All right, let's head in and take a look. Everyone stay sharp—I can already smell something bad ahead."
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