Thoughts and Actions

{Slight info dump, not the full chapter}

So many thoughts weighed Yuri down as he flew home from Cyrodiil that he believed it would fling him into the earth and make him sink for an eternity and a half. He took off all his stuffy clothes and took in as much air as he could get, but it didn't help.

Why was he flying home instead of portaling? After reading 'The Monomyth' repeatedly for a good hour and change, he decided to look at a few books that he was supposed to be looking at and pretending to memorize them before heading off. He had forgotten to portal entirely. There was too much on his mind.

But he still kept reading, kept thinking.

'Anu, the Everlasting Ineffable Light, The Everything, The "Is". The Statis, Order. Padomay, the Corrupting Inexpressible Action, Chaos, Change, The "Is Not", The Darkness. These two came from the Void, or the Sub-Firmament, and created the Aurbis. Now that I think about it, I came from the Void too since I was whooshed from outside this universe.

And now that I'm thinking about it more, when I was flying here I wasn't just looking at a perfect view of this universe but even more than I could comprehend at the moment. Aetherius, or the Integument, the place that the Sun, Stars, and Magic came from were right there in the outer layer. The Eight Divines, the Earth Bones gathered around like a wheel with Nirn being its hub. The Oblivion realms wrapped in darkness between all that, it was all so clear. If I could have taken a view of it from the side, the Tower would have been made known. That Tower, the universe in a flat and horizontal position, is my ticket to observing the Sub-Firmament. That, or a Dragon Break.'

But Dragon Breaks were a mixed bag. You would either plunge the world into an era that would kill all notion of linear time and perceivable narrative, trap yourself into a loop of time from which you cannot escape, or erase the Dwemer. Yuri hesitated on taking that route.

'Maybe the Dragonborn would have a pretty high chance of success at one, since Dragon Breaks were named after Akatosh the Dragon God of Time. Christ, the Lore of this world is too heady.'

Yuri descended into silence for good this time. He didn't read everything in mid-air, but he knew what he was holding on to. The Voice, the Ayleid and Aedric Language which could help him decipher and recreate his own Eye of Magnus, Shadow Magic applications throughout history, Time Magic, and more!

Yuri finally knocked himself out of it and opened a portal into his room. It was late, but Tonilia was up and restless.

"Baby!" She flung her sheets off and trekked to him. "I thought you would be gone for longer. Did something go wrong?" She surreptitiously slid her hands up his bare arms and landed her palms on his face while scanning his body. She lacked subtlety when checking for wounds, but even when he never had them he loved her concern.

"No, no, much too right. I used my System to clear out their library and got an interesting artifact. My research phase is about to return in full swing." He slid his hands into hers and planted a kiss on her. "You should rest"

"You should join me, you look like you need it with that far-off stare."

"Ha, fair enough."

Yuri woke up with Toni eight hours later, sent her off to class, and got to work.

Starting small: The Voice. Ridiculous how The Voice would be the smallest project he has at the moment.

He only has two more months before the Dragonborn comes, being a senior in that department will help him anyway.

Three books with enigmatic titles and boring bindings were planted on his work desk and he opened one without delay. Dragon words, a major portion of its language. The Archives held exactly three books of the matter and couldn't fully cover it even when humanity was enslaved to them for so long. But it was enough.

As Yuri delved further and further into the pages, he realized that while the language didn't have many written similarities, the patterns and spoken language were extremely similar to Draconic. It was a language most likely older and born of the same roots that he had already taken to learning.

'If Draconic works for the Voice just as well as Dragon words here, then I may master the Voice much sooner than I thought'

But first, he would have to test it, so he went to the books he had concerning the Voice itself and started digging in. Why study two languages when one may suffice? If it didn't work, he would go back.

'Historically, the Voice was stolen from the Dragons and used against them to win freedom for Mankind. This much I already knew from the game. What I didn't know was the full history of Jurgen Windcaller. I thought the Greybeards were just touting their founder but this guy was someone who discovered the Voice and then adapted to its shortcomings in the same lifetime. He calls the Voice a path to enlightenment instead of war, and while I do believe that may be the case I don't prescribe to the theory that it is supposed to be pacifistic either. War is only a single facet of its abilities.'

The Voice's main proponent, its precept, was Manifestation of Will. Mana was hardly involved, which almost put Yuri in an awkward position before he remembered he's the Akashic Assimilator not the Magic Assimilator.

'One's Inner Spirit in harmony with one's actions. No wonder Nord's find it easier to do this than Mer, only such straight-laced and sincere people can be so in tune with themselves. Well, them.

And me'

Yuri didn't go to the practice area, but stood on the surface of the ocean behind it and looked out into the blue-lined horizon shimmering with the afternoon sun. Placid gales wafted his hair left and right gently, his cloak was transformed to be thinner like a veil while his chest was bare. He looked below to the disturbed water lapping in foot tall waves with the untamed winds and knew which word he would speak first.

Yuri didn't shout or yell, he didn't demand or command, no... he beckoned. In more than a whisper and less than a normal speech, he spoke a single word in Draconic.

"Raas"

It didn't happen all at once, but it listened and complied nonetheless. The winds slowed until the gales became gentle strokes and faded into silence. The waves which danced and collided with a lack of pattern grew more distant from each other, the frequency lengthened and spanned further before they melded into a single mirror-like surface. Everything within his view grew 'Raas', or 'Still'.

Then Yuri knelt onto the surface of the water and smiled without a word, then a tear streaked itself down his face, and then they were joined by many more. Yuri wept. He clenched his fist, and then struck against the water, disturbing it once more before the tide called it back into orderly chaos.

Yuri's parents raised him as a Christian, a practice from which he quickly strayed away. He never regretted that, but he did regret the divide that followed it between him and his parents. They grew closer as adults when he pulled his head out of his teenage ass, but then they left this world far too soon.

Be still. Jesus said this one phrase to calm a raging storm in a biblical story. While he never came to love modern Christianity as they wanted, stories stuck and inspired awe in him to this day. The reason he wept, was due to the fear that his parents were in the same situation he was before Akasha revived him. When they died, he wanted to be wrong. He wanted to be the faithless man who would burn in Hell, he wanted his parents to be right instead of just gone...

Yuri stood up and wiped his tears. He had no confirmation that they were wrong, his situation was probably different. Best not think too much of it.

"Ven"

A word that was spoken the same in both Draconic and Thu'um, Wind.

A terrible gale force wind was created at his back, billowing his cloak and his hair in front of him. The water was no longer touching his feet, being forced forward to follow the sudden tide. Yuri halted the effect freely, noticing the effect didn't continue without his will.

But he had one more test.

Yuri turned around to the shore and looked toward the snowy and jagged peaks before lifting off and flying towards one. Within less than a minute, he was overhead what seemed to be a lone peak with the ruins of a Dwemer lift area below that he didn't bother memorizing.

'Alftand, maybe?'

He turned back toward the mountain peak and looked down upon it before sucking in a decent chunk of air.

Yuri knew about gravity, he had done this in practice more than enough to supply with imagery to the will, he knew about natural forces more than most in this world could claim. This should work, right?

"FUS..."

The air around him seemed to constrain to his figure as if tensing itself for release, warping in agreement with his demand. The snow stopped in place for a second and tried climbing back up to him, before he pressed it back down.

"RO DAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

The warping of the area around him left his form and pressed forward in another type of tide, the snow was either forced aside or caught in the circular current propelled from his mouth. The shout continued gaining power and momentum until it eclipsed the mountain he was aiming for, then it arrived.

Like the sound of thunder, the stone was sundered and split, its final throes echoed down all sides. The tip of the mountain broke apart and scattered while the shout continued cleaving it and pushing rock aside, causing them to slide down its own surface. The shout bore a hole for 15 more feet before dispersing in a draft and taking the rest of the snow that draped it away as well.

The rockslide nearly submerged the Great Lift below, wooden bridges connecting cliffs and stony paths were no more.

"As much power as I was aiming for, which is way more than I thought I could manage. Time to study up on Draconic a bit more"

Yuri headed back after a successful test with a new pep in his step, or his flight he supposed.

Arriving in Savy's office because Toni was still in classes, he debuted his haul.

"I've retrieved quite a few books from the White-Gold Archives, Savy. What's on your wishlist?"

"Ha, and how did you manage that?"

"Don't ask to many questions around me Savy, it's not good for your heart"

"Fine, I won't like the answer anyway. Anything on expanding Alteration? I hear the Ayleids invented the school"

"I can expand the Arcaneum on the subject, but you'd have to keep it under wraps"

"As usual. Well, if you can expand the base knowledge on any school we have here it's welcome to go there as well. As for personal tastes, I would rather you just make me a Grimoire of Light magic. I'm getting better but Mirabelle is widening the gap and rubbing it in my face. She's making clones now! Lowering her own workload while simultaneously increasing her work pace, it's enough to boil my blood"

"Isn't her workload also made of stuff you give her from your workload?"

"Semantics. All I'm saying is the magic you discover is just as valuable as the stuff the Empire has so don't forget to keep adding your own legacy"

"As you wish"

Yuri left and decided he had one more thing to do before he continues his practicing in peace.

He opened a portal above Solitude and visited Tullius in his sleep. He hovered his hand right above his head and let a red mist escape his grip before it sunk into Tullius' forehead.

Tullius then forgot every detail about the connection between Lightbringer and Erebus, and even ever meeting him, without his own awareness.

Riften received the same treatment. While denizens of the Ratway could swear a man came in and attacked Brynjolf, Karliah, Vex, and Delvin in the head, the quartet would swear they were spinning tales. Erebus was not an entity to them any longer, and Tonilia remained in their memories while disappearing from their urgency. Even if questionable blanks in their memory would appear whenever they tried to remember the person who led them against Mercer or where he came from, the fact remained that they would never look for them again.

"Where have you been?" Tonilia asked her partner when he came into the room through his key's doorway.

"Oh, just doing some spring cleaning"

They spent the rest of the day sparring, and Tonilia surprised him when she took her ankle weights off herself and nearly overwhelmed his dynamic vision. She confessed to using the ankle weights as makeshift dumbbells and Yuri awkwardly bought her the same pair of arm weights he was wearing while failing to claim ignorance.

Tomorrow he would try to recreate the Eye of Magnus from scratch.