ning

            (4E-200 25th of Mid Year)

     Galeron's magicka core was glittering with the light of several dozens of runes. Nearly each one, he had discovered, was from a distinct language belonging to the various races of Nirn.

     The one exception was a series of runes that could not express their power through any means other than enchantment. When he discovered that a rune for fire held meanings that were unrelated to fire but instead were only pertaining to an enhancement of it, he quickly began studying the other runes in that set. What he eventually uncovered was that these specific runes could only express their power when used in an enchantment. These were, in fact, the very same enchantment runes he'd seen in the form of runestones when playing ESO!

     Galeron noted that, unlike the common tongue, these languages were entirely magical and, like Daedric runes, were used almost exclusively in the creation of magical formations. The differences were mostly minor but each rune for each element or concept held only a portion of a complete concept. 

     After completing the second rune for fire within his magic core, he realized that it possessed a small portion of extra information and the first that he had formed was missing a small portion of information from the second. Only after learning all of the runes for fire did Galeron possess a complete picture of everything that was an aspect of fire within this magical Universe.

     Naturally, the assimilation of all of the lesser runes from the eye led to yet another increase in his already potent Destruction Magic and a sizable increase to his overall magicka capacity. At this point, despite him not yet being satisfied with its size, his magicka reserves were several times larger than an average adult Altmer. Of course, Galeron had no way of knowing this, thus leading to his perpetual dissatisfaction with his progress.

     Due to the great many things he needed to accomplish in a short time and the fact that the runes had helped him greatly, this dissatisfaction was set aside and he moved on to practicing his smithing and enchanting.

     He had been at it for several weeks now and had made some small progress. At some point, he would need to seek out a teacher, Jorlund Greymane perhaps, in order to gain a greater understanding of smithing.

     Since Daedric Metal was what he would eventually make his three new Orbicals out of, it was with what he had been practicing. Acquiring the recipe for said metal had surprisingly been as easy as commanding one of his bound Dremora to cough up the details. Like most recipes and processes in this world it didn't directly follow any processes he'd seen in game. This was, of course, to be expected given the number of discrepancies between the various games.

     The process, as it turned out, could use Daedra Hearts but only because Daedric Blood needed to be burned in the fire to temporarily give it the properties capable of transforming Ebony into Daedric Metal. 

     When pressed for more details, his Dremora had also revealed that quenching the piece in Daedric Blood would create the superior form of Daedric Metal that were only used by them and not the imitations often seen being used amongst mortals.

     As for his enchanting, he used the Staff of Magnus and its multiple integrated formations to improve his mastery in that field. This was also successful to some degree yet he seemed to have come to a dead end in his study of enchantments. Even when utilizing the newly discovered Enchantment Runes, he still couldn't make sense of its composition.

     The Staff of Magnus was indeed an impressive artifact with an impressive array of enchantments, yet when Galeron considered their purpose and the meanings behind the included runes, there seemed to be quite a bit of missing information. It was like the enchantments only included a fraction of the required information to achieve the actual effects that the staff displayed.

     It made him feel like he was back in Darklight Tower fussing over the Fire Rune Trap enchantment all over again. It was because of his ignorance that he could make no more progress in his enchanting. 

     When he considered the time constraints he was working with, he decided to simply move on to other areas of study. He could always come back to it at a later date.

     Having determined that it was time to move on, Galeron switched his focus onto the mysterious purplish black energy that was released whenever utilizing the Ritual Stone's blessing.

     'What exactly could this stuff be? If it's death energy, then why doesn't it appear around the dead? If it's some unique magic, then how can I replicate its effects without relying on the Ritual Stone?'

     Galeron had scrounged up a few dead animals to assist in his experiments and so he focused on the power bestowed upon him by the Ritual Stone and offered it his magicka. From seemingly every single one of his pores, a purplish black misty energy began falling down from his body and began spreading out across the floor and into the surroundings. The misty energy moved quickly and filled out an entire circular section about twenty meters across.

     Whenever it reached the only corpse within its radius, a small white fox, it gathered around it and seemingly began entering its pores the same way it had left Galeron's body.

     Seeing the familiar scene before him, he watched intently taking in every detail of the process. Once the process concluded, he began physically inspecting the newly created undead fox and didn't discover anything noteworthy.

     "It looks like this is gonna take a while. Hopefully an inspection with my Mage Eye will be more useful." Galeron sighed, as he sat down in a meditative position.

-----

         (4E-200 12th of Sun's Height)

     Morila had finally landed on the shores of Morrowind over two weeks ago and had just found a suitable location, not too far from the city of Blacklight, where she could set up a base camp. With a base camp fully established, she now had to get down to her Master's business. 

     The Dunmer were well known for the reverence they held for their ancestors. It was known that they established everything from small alcoves all the way up to entire cities specifically for the purpose of communicating with their dearly departed. This practice greatly interested Galeron and so he dispatched Morila to Morrowind to learn more about this practice.

     Although he couldn't remember where exactly he had heard that, in order to keep the spirits of the deceased from wandering off to some unknown plane, they constructed Spirit Barriers that would lock in any souls it contained. Only if the barrier was broken would the souls within be once more free to roam. This was primarily used in the case of spirits that were permanently bound to nirn, whether it be to guard something or punishment.

     Normally, the standard practice was the establishing of ghost fences, Waiting Doors, or binding a particular soul with bones from the deceased. However, there was only a certain amount of time that a soul would remain attached to a body after its death. 

     The way Galeron understood it, was that there existed a phenomenon called the spiritual umbilicus. This umbilicus was essentially a tether that bound a person's soul to their body. Upon a person's death, this tether would begin to deteriorate and eventually vanish completely. It was then that the deceased's soul would be free to move on to whichever afterlife they were destined.

     Thus, the Dunmer had a short period of time, between a person's death and the dissipation of their umbilicus, in which they could bind, capture, or otherwise interact with the soul of the deceased.

     According to the lore he could recall, this wasn't a major concern for them due to their construction of Waiting Doors. These doors were essentially soul pathways to Oblivion. These constructs essentially allowed their ancestor's souls to move to and from Oblivion at will.

     The Ghost Fences, on the other hand, were barriers placed around sacred or valuable places and were powered by a fragment of an ancestor's soul that had been bound to one of their bones. The more soul fragments offered by various ancestors the more powerful the protection.

     This left the Soul Barriers, which Galeron could easily see being useful to the Dunmer, even if he couldn't recall whether or not it was actually canon. When dealing with spirits, having a barrier that contains them locally could help prevent unwanted summonings, limit the effects of treachery by ancestors driven to madness, and could even prevent attacks by foriegn spirits.

     While his visit to Morrowind would be considered a win if he could learn more about Waiting Doors and Ghost Fences, confirming the existence of Spirit Barriers and investigating them would be the real steal.

      Morila had activated the only teleportation artifact she had been given and watched as her Master appeared before her in a flash of light.

     Galeron only took a second to get his bearings and began inspecting his new environment.

     The first thing he noticed was the ever present ash polluting the air. Then the barren dry ground with only smatterings of scrawny isolated plant life here and there. He could plainly see Red Mountain sprouting from the Eastern horizon, still spewing its cinders into the waiting winds. He had never really cared much for Morrowind's hot, desolate, and almost wasteland-like terrain, even when playing the games. Now, having to come face to face with this unsightly place, he liked it even less. He wouldn't have said that nothing about Morrowind appealed to him but overall he found this land to be very unattractive.

     Of course, he wasn't here to take in the scenery, even if he felt compelled to do so. He had come here to not only establish another permanent portal door to Fort Doomguard but also to identify precisely where Morila should focus her investigation into the Dunmer's practice of spirit magic.

     Galeron spent three days wandering around Blacklight and its surrounding environs. He would frequently use his mage eye to get a better understanding of what magics were at play and where. 

     After this exploratory stint, Galeron had not only confirmed the presence of Spirit Barriers but had also identified several locations and persons upon whom Morila should keep watch. He updated her mission with orders to study first hand any of the relevant magics to which she could gain safe and easy access. Otherwise, she was to stealthily monitor the individuals he had pointed out to her and eavesdrop on them when possible. He wanted as much information as she could possibly gather on them, as they were all potential Crying Corpse Candidates.

     With Morila's situation finally sorted and with his tolerance for this particularly distasteful bit of geography growing thin, Galeron finally stepped through the portal to Fort Doomguard and resumed his studies.

-----

          (4E-200 16th of Sun's Dusk)

     Galeron had spent weeks studying the death/undeath energy that was summoned by his Ritual Stone Blessing, mostly by utilizing his mage eye while the power was active. 

     As a result of these efforts, he came to discover that the College of Winterhold's neglect of Mysticism and other general failings had led him astray once again.This time, this half assed view of magic had not only misled him but it had done so in his most preferred field of magic, outside of Mysticism. Galeron couldn't help but feel like kicking himself about fifty times and so he made sure to count each and every one.

     His studies revealed that this energy was in fact the result of several magics woven together. Much like his third ever successful cast of magic, which contained magic to manifest flames, magic to prevent the flames from hurting himself, and magic to direct the flames.

     This was essentially the standard way that most necromancers would learn to raise undead, if it weren't for the efforts of the Mages Guild and others to systematically suppress useful information about necromancy. He should've guessed that, whether it was done as a result of ignorance or an attempt to misdirect those attempting to practice necromancy, that this whole nonsense about needing a Black Soul Gem to raise the dead was off point.

     Certainly, this method was far more powerful and eliminated the need for Necromancers to wrest control over the spirits they were attempting to dominate. Of course, due to the requirement of needing such a rare ingredient as filled Black Soul Gems, most mage's studies into necromancy would be stunted from the beginning.

     Then again, these things would only be true for standard mages of the modern age. For someone like Galeron, who had focused on and now excelled at Mysticism, being able to recreate this particular energy was an inevitability. He had dedicated himself to uncovering the dark energy's secrets and, in less than two weeks he had a working substitute for it.

     This substitute was still quite lacking, in comparison to the power of the ritual stone, but this development gave him a starting point. From that starting point, he continued working towards a more perfect version of this energy until he had not only matched the Ritual Stone's power but had also surpassed it. After months of failures, minor successes, and experiments, he had finally done it!

     The power of the Crying Corpse spell in the pure form of magicka! A ghastly black misty energy tinged with purple and the occasional flowing strands of crimson! 

     This discovery eventually led to even further enlightenment, namely that all applications of magicka were simply transforming raw magicka into things like fire magicka, healing magicka, and even mystic/psijic magicka! He simply hadn't noticed this before since the inert form of an energy wasn't visible to the naked eye, only when the energies effects were activated would it become visible. Along with this knowledge also came the ability to now more easily recreate things like a Templar's sun fire magic and a Sorcerer's dark magic, from ESO.

     Galeron's perfect hindsight seemed to mock him incessantly for not having noticed these details sooner. Shortly after this embarrassing moment, he resolved himself to utilize his mage eye at least three times a day until his training was complete.

     Of course, this pure energy version was still slightly lacking in comparison to the real deal. Without the presence of an actual Black Soul Gem, he would need to struggle against the soul he was attempting to bind and overcome it. It was something he'd remembered reading about in TES's lore but had yet to encounter here in this world.

     Instead of immediately severing the spiritual umbilicus with a soul trap spell, as the ritual version required, he needed to coax the spirit back into its own body, bind it to its own blood, and then bind it and the blood both to himself.

     Given his current level of power, he suspected that all but the most powerful of souls would likely fall quite easily under his control.

     One of the best parts of this spell was that because it was based on the Crying Corpse Spell it could be cast on still living subjects and would even hasten their demise and thus their timely rebirth into undeath. Actually, this pure energy version worked better on the living, since blood magic was involved and the longer a person was dead the less potent their own blood would be in their revival. If he waited too long he would end up requiring an offering of fresh blood and eventually another human soul thus negating much of this new version's utility and also weakening the effects.

     The castable version of the Crying Corpse Spell was created from four distinct types of magical energy: Soul Binding Energy, Blood Binding Energy, Reanimation Energy, and what he called Stitching Energy. The first three were fairly self explanatory, while the third was essentially a form of minor undead healing to stitch together some of the wounds inflicted upon them during their deaths.

     Having raised the power of this new spell to the level of his Crying Corpse Ritual, he could still use any lesser versions of it. This one spell essentially allowed him to raise any level of undead, with but a small adjustment to its potency, and all of those undead would have the attributes of a Crying Corpse but without the markings on their chest and an only slightly less powerful magical binding.

     During his experiments with this newly dubbed, Induction Mist, he had actually had a few other breakthroughs. Galeron could still recall the explanation Morila had given him, as to where she learned how to Transmute Black Soul Gems, as if it were only a moment ago.

     "Hmmm, I suppose I may have forgotten to mention it during your training, Master, but this method was actually developed over a decade ago by our former coven. A witch who had only recently joined learned about the Necromancer's Moon and its requirement to cast the Soul Trap spell on the Soul Gem as the moon's rays landed upon it.

     "Having been quite the passionate cook she took her knowledge of baking, wherein she would routinely use various combined components to craft something entirely new, and applied it to the ritual. She thought that there must be certain components involved in the creation of Black Soul Gems and, if she could discover what they were, she may be able to discover a more useful way to convert them.

     "Thus, she spent several years studying this problem and eventually came to the conclusion that the ritual actually drew upon the power of Mannimarco to fuse a Human soul with the Grand Soul Gem. She never discovered where these souls came from but it was the only explanation that made sense, after attempting to fuse lesser souls with lesser gems. This fusion led to more potent soul gems, essentially providing a method by which one could upgrade a soul gem to a higher level.

     "It was then that attempting the same thing with a Human soul and a Grand Soul Gem became a fairly obvious inevitability and, on her first attempt, she successfully created a Black Soul Gem and then provided the knowledge of this process to the coven. Of course, the Transmutation Spell is not a simple one and so, even with this knowledge at hand, few within the coven could utilize it."

     'A genuinely interesting story, if for no other reason than it helped reinforce my modern mindset. It's true that, in this world of magic, things may seem illogical in the extreme but a rational and logical mind will still prevail in most cases. Having reminded me of the usefulness of viewing things as a matter of combined components, whether synchronous or fused, the process of deconstructing and reconstructing the Induction Mist was shortened by weeks, I'm certain, if not months.' Galeron thought, after clearly recalling that event.

     This revelation, however, wasn't only useful in the completion of his Induction Mist it also inspired an intriguing thought within Galeron, 'If white souls can be fused with white soul gems and Human souls when fused with white soul gems create Black Soul Gems, then is there a potential component to Human souls that is incompatible with white soul gems? There has to be, right? Which means that souls themselves have multiple aspects or at least Human souls do. The question then becomes what are these components and what roles do they play in forming a complete soul?'

     It was this line of thinking that led him to doing several experiments to confirm and expand upon the findings of the witch he was told about.

     The conclusion that resulted from these experiments was that Human souls were made of at least two aspects, the Focus Aspect and the Function Aspect. The Focus Aspect is what he labeled the logical thinking side of the soul that stored memories and otherwise controlled the Function Aspect. The Function Aspect was essentially the raw power connected to the Focus Aspect, allowing the Focus Aspect a conduit through which it could accomplish its means.

     These two aspects, when combined together, operated as complete Human souls that could successfully inhabit/manipulate/fuel a living body, dead body, enchantment, etc. Whereas animal souls only held the Function Aspect of their souls and operated almost entirely on instinct, which as far as Galeron could tell, was information similar to the Focus Aspect but embedded within the body like DNA. This made animals mostly bodily creatures whose souls were led around by their bodily instincts and Humans (Sapient Mortals of Nirn)  were mostly spiritual creatures who inhabited and operated bodily forms. While what he called the Bodily Aspect could in some cases grow sufficiently complex enough to rival a Focus Aspect there was ultimately no substitute for it.

     This deeper understanding of souls led to not only another increase in his Mysticism but also seemed to empower his own soul and led to a moderate increase in his magicka reserves. This was the first time that a mere revelation of knowledge led to an actual increase in his power and it excited him greatly. He could only assume that such an occurrence was a clear indication that his theories were correct, which made him much more confident in his ability to apply this knowledge in a practical setting.

     It was with these breakthroughs, insights, and confidence that Galeron had finally completed his Induction Mist and felt it was time to move on to his next project.