"And that," I finished, "was when the dragon decided to scream into the sky and fly off like a bad omen in physical form."
Jarl Balgruuf stared at us in silence for a few moments, chin resting on his hand, brows knitted tight in contemplation. The tension in the throne room was thick enough to chew.
"Is this true?" he finally asked.
Kaela leaned forward, grin feral, eyes gleaming like she was still riding the high of the giant fight.
"Big, black, nasty bastard of a dragon," she said. "Came down screaming like someone stepped on its tail. Tore the place apart. Screamed again. Flew off. Whole thing was very dramatic."
There was a pause.
Balgruuf turned to me, clearly hoping for... clarity.
I nodded once. "What she means to say is: yes. It's true. A black dragon, unknown classification, attacked Helgen. Widespread destruction. Minimal survivors. It didn't seem to be hunting—just razing."
Balgruuf's face darkened. "By the gods…"
Proventus Avenicci, the steward, stepped forward from the side of the throne. His nose was already wrinkling like he'd smelled something sour. Probably my robe.
"And what, exactly, were you doing in Helgen in the first place?" he asked.
His tone held the polite venom of a man who'd practiced saying "liar" in twenty different ways without actually using the word.
I didn't blink.
"We're mercenaries," I said smoothly. "Passing through. We stopped in Helgen to resupply and rest. Poor timing, evidently."
Kaela glanced at me, visibly confused. "Wait, weren't we—"
I placed a hand on her shoulder without looking.
She paused.
Proventus narrowed his eyes, but my expression didn't budge.
Eventually, he stepped back with a dismissive sniff.
Score one for the passive-aggressive lie.
Irileth—Balgruuf's housecarl—crossed her arms. "If what they say is true, then we must act quickly. What are your orders, my Jarl?"
Balgruuf stood, his voice cutting through the tension like a sword through fog. "We'll send guards to Riverwood immediately."
Proventus stepped forward again, his hands fluttering like a nervous bird. "My Jarl, if I may; sending troops to Riverwood might be seen as a provocation. It lies so close to Falkreath's border, and relations with Jarl Siddgeir are... delicate."
"The safety of my people comes before politics," Balgruuf snapped. "If Falkreath takes issue, they can put it in writing."
Irileth smirked faintly and nodded. "I'll have a detachment ready within the hour."
Balgruuf turned to us then, his expression softening. "You've done Whiterun a great service. Both of you. We owe you thanks."
Kaela gave a little bow. I didn't.
I was already mentally halfway out the door when the Jarl spoke again.
"There is… one more thing," he said. "Before you leave."
I stopped.
Of course there was.
Balgruuf motioned toward the side of the room. "My court wizard, Farengar, has been researching dragons and strange occurrences connected to their return. He needs assistance. I'd send someone else, but…" He looked at Kaela. "You seem uniquely qualified."
"And you," he added, glancing at me, "seem… too smart to waste."
"I get that a lot," I muttered.
Kaela gave me a side glance. "You in?"
I hesitated.
The logical part of my mind immediately began listing the reasons to say no. Waste of time. Dangerous. Not my problem. I had spells to test. Experiments to run. Maybe a necromancer or two to interrogate.
Then again…
I could use the combat experience. More data. And maybe… just maybe… it sounds kind of fun. Not that I'd ever admit that.
"Fine," I said. "I'll babysit the wizard."
Kaela beamed.
Balgruuf waved us toward the side corridor. "Farengar's in his lab. He'll fill you in."
Farengar's study was exactly the kind of mess that made sense only to the man who made it.
Scrolls were stacked in lopsided towers. Books overflowed from shelves in layered strata of neglect. Half the alchemical ingredients had either spoiled or grown fangs. The room smelled like parchment, chalk, and whatever had once been alive in that unmarked jar on the counter.
I should've been overwhelmed.
Instead, I felt... at home.
The air thrummed with leftover spell residue; traces of failed experiments and long-abandoned theories clinging to the walls like academic ghosts. I stepped past a pile of soul gems, half-glowing with stored intent, and ran my eyes over the mess like I was reading a map.
So much knowledge. So little organization.
Farengar looked up as we entered, his expression flickering between polite interest and thinly veiled exhaustion.
"You're the Helgen survivors," he said. "Good. I could use some capable hands."
Kaela was already poking a glowing skull. I casually steered her away before she triggered something that exploded or spoke Latin.
Farengar continued. "The Jarl said you were clever. Mercenaries with some magic between the ears. Tell me, do either of you actually understand what's happening with the dragons?"
Kaela shrugged. "Big. Loud. Burny. Flew off after ruining the town."
Farengar nodded thoughtfully. "Surprisingly accurate."
I cleared my throat. "You've been researching the dragons?"
Farengar gestured vaguely toward the desk. "Trying. There are scraps of legend, half-translated texts... but it's like chasing shadows in a snowstorm. Still, I'm narrowing it down. I think there's something important at Bleak Falls Barrow. A relic called the Dragonstone. Legends said it could contain the answers to why the dragons are suddenly back on the food chain."
"May I?" I asked, nodding to the desk.
Farengar blinked, then stepped aside. "Be my guest. Most people don't ask."
I leaned over the diagrams Farengar had splayed across his workbench; fragmented glyphs, burial site names, half-translated dragon language, and enough ash stains to warrant a fire safety inspection. It was a mess.
But it had shape.
Not random. Not chaotic.
Patterned.
Not a list. A waveform.It's not where they died, it's where they resonate.
Something clicked in my head like a snapped finger. A memory. No, a principle.
"I need a map," I said suddenly.
Farengar blinked. "A map?"
"Of Skyrim. Full terrain. Topographical if possible."
Balgruuf, still hovering nearby, gave me a look like I'd asked for a mammoth steak and a telescope.
"We keep one for military planning," he said slowly. "Why?"
"To prove I might be right," I said, already clearing space on the desk.
A few minutes later, the map was rolled out over several ancient tomes and what I was pretty sure was a preserved daedra spleen.
I copied Farengar's confirmed burial sites onto the parchment, one by one, each dot surrounded by notes, glyph clusters, and coordinates scrawled in ink that was drying too slowly for my liking.
"Alright," I muttered. "Let's assume these sites aren't just grave markers. They're... focal points. Magical anchors. The equivalent of binding a soul to a tuning fork. What happens if they all hum at once?"
Farengar leaned over the map, brows furrowed. "You think they're... linked?"
"Resonance," I said, tapping the table. "You ever play with tuning forks?"
He gave me a blank stare.
"Right. Imagine a pitch fork. No, not the farming kind. A metal rod that vibrates at a certain frequency. Hit it right, and it sings. Hit another one near it—same frequency—and it starts to sing too. Even if you don't touch it."
Balgruuf frowned. "Are you saying dragons sing?"
"I'm saying," I said, circling the burial sites, "that if someone hit the right note—woke the right dragon—then others could follow. Automatically. Not because of prophecy. Not because of ritual. Because the energy's primed to respond."
Kaela, halfway into a bag of dried fruit she definitely stole from Farengar's shelf, snorted. "You're telling me dragons work like bad music covers?"
"Essentially," I said. "One starts humming, the rest catch the rhythm."
I picked up the quill, paused, then began sketching curved paths between the sites. Arcs. Flow lines. Natural energy veins. Leylines, if I was right.
And I was starting to hate how often I was right lately.
"Now," I said, placing the quill down, "if this is correct—if these are interference nodes in a greater magical field—then I should be able to extrapolate likely burial sites."
Farengar blinked. "Wait, you can do that?"
"I can guess very aggressively."
I started marking new spots on the map; logical midpoints, terrain with high natural elevation, geological convergence zones. One after another, dots formed a crude waveform across the holds.
Balgruuf leaned in. "These aren't on any of our records."
"Of course not. You've been looking for tombs. I'm looking for echoes."
I stepped back, brushing a smudge off my robe and gesturing to the map with a dramatic sweep of the hand I immediately regretted.
"Hypothesis: dragon burial sites were placed on high-energy intersections. Not for ceremony. For practicality. To amplify soul energy. The locations hum like tuning forks. Reanimation becomes a matter of magical acoustics."
There was a bit of silence that followed.
Then Farengar let out a noise that may have been a suppressed sob of joy.
"You magnificent, mad bastard," he said.
Kaela leaned into my ear. "That was the most beautiful nonsense I've ever heard."
"Thank you," I said. "It's also entirely useless until I verify it."
Balgruuf raised an eyebrow. "How?"
I pointed to the map. "We retrieve the Dragonstone. If the inscriptions match my projections, we'll have a working map of where the rest of them might wake up. If not..." I shrugged. "Then I hallucinated a genius theory. Again."
Also, I don't actually remember where half the tombs are. So there's that.
Kaela tossed the last dried fig into her mouth. "Alright then, Sparkler. Let's go get your magic rock."
***
We didn't head for Bleak Falls Barrow.
Even Kaela, whose bloodlust had the shelf life of spoiled milk, agreed that a warm bed and a meal not cooked in our own panic were overdue luxuries. We used a portion of the bandit gold to secure a room in the Bannered Mare. Nothing extravagant, just two beds, one window, and floors clean enough to walk barefoot on without summoning a disease spirit.
I sat cross-legged on the bed closest to the wall, staring at the Lightning Bolt spell tome Farengar had pressed into my hands as we left.
A gift.He said it like I'd saved him ten years of theoretical guesswork. I said "thank you" like I didn't feel mildly manipulated. I did. It was effective.
Fantasy archaeology.Dragon soulwave synchronization.Tuning fork graveyards.
I was solving undead resurrection with a physics metaphor from high school. What in the name of Newtonian nightmares is my life right now?
I shook my head and focused.
The tome sat heavy in my lap, newer than the others I'd read. Fewer blood stains. Ink still fresh. I flipped it open and began to read.
The spell instructions were clear, if painfully vague in the way all spell tomes were. It described the casting method with poetic nonsense like "let the force coil behind your intent" and "direct the storm forward through sharpened will." Not helpful. But what caught my attention were the differences in discharge behavior.
I pulled the Sparks tome from my satchel, then the Healing tome, and opened all three on the bed.
Sparks—constant, low-intensity current.Lightning Bolt—compressed, directional burst.Healing—reverberated inward flow.
Three spells. Three applications. One system.
It's all the same breath. Just tuned to different frequencies.A change in direction. Compression versus flow. Pressure versus reinforcement.
I leaned over the Lightning Bolt tome, noting where it described "projected coalescence," meaning the Magicka is not just expelled, but focused before discharge.
I closed the book and raised my hand, inhaling slowly. Magicka pooled naturally, easier than before. I felt its shape forming in my palm like a clenched fist of static.
Then—
crack
A bolt of condensed electricity formed at my fingertips, humming softly, dancing in a tight arc of raw potential.
It hovered. Stable. Contained.
Efficient.More destructive than Sparks, and easier to control in bursts.I don't need to overcharge anymore.
I let the bolt dissipate with a flick of my fingers, the tingling sensation lingering like a handshake from a thunder god.
More importantly, I noticed something else.
I wasn't drained.The Magicka cost was noticeable... but less than expected.
No dizziness. No soulache.
I frowned slightly, then nodded to myself.
Magicka reserve's gone up. Side effect of overcasting, perhaps.The soul adapts like a muscle. Overuse breeds capacity.Another piece for the theory.
I glanced toward the Restoration tome still in my pack.
If the soul can adapt, maybe it can be trained.And if it can be trained... it can be sustained.
My thoughts spiraled inward again, toward the loop. That perfect, recursive structure. A breath that feeds itself.
I was halfway through imagining the spellform structure when the door slammed open.
"Lucennnn!" Kaela's voice slurred as she stumbled in.
She reeked of mead and cheap victory. Her eyes sparkled with unhinged pride.
"I just kicked some guy's ass in a brawl downstairs! Said I couldn't fight without a blade! So I broke his nose with a tankard!" She cackled and spun once before collapsing face-first onto the second bed, still armored, sword and all.
A beat of silence.
I sighed.
"Excellent. We'll mount your trophy next to the door when you wake up."
No response. Just snoring.
I turned back toward the center of the room and settled into a cross-legged position, my hands resting on my knees.
Quiet.
I closed my eyes, let the room fall away, and began mentally constructing the scaffold of the Restoration Loop. Not casting, just theory. A model.
Output. Inhalation. Inner flow. Reverse the Healing form—twist it into a spiral instead of a wave. Feed the motion inward rather than outward. Match the exhale of Magicka with the inhale of Restoration...
A rhythm. A circuit. A cycle.
I opened one eye, glanced at the drooling warrior on the other bed, and exhaled slowly.
We're not climbing a mountain today.
Well, not like the world will end tomorrow.