10 10- The races of Skyrim

The room fell into a silence. Zin also waited silently, as the four pondered.

However, contrary to Zin, who thought the four were considering joining into his project, the four were considering allowing him to carry on with this – "this utter madness, you do realize that if you go forward with it;" Iris started, chewing each word, as if she were carefully weighing every syllable she utters, "apart from the barely one percent chance you have at success, can constitute what may turn out to be a full blown racial cleansing of not only elves, but even all magical races.

I do not ask how you could think of such a thing as this – I only ask, can you live with yourself after it happens?

Can you continue living as a person, not drowned by remorse or guilt?"

Zin just stared at her. He was…. He didn't have the word – perplexed (???) at her way of thinking. Nay, more than that. He couldn't get it. The Nords practically slaughtered, enslaved and purged the snow elves, ultimately driving them to become the abomination they are now, and now there are these four sweet ladies asking him if he would feel guilt if he erased the nuisance of some alien pests for humanity, and even that without any bloodshed or violence. A very clean and peaceful operation.

Zin laughed. A harsh mocking laugh. The type of laugh you don't expect a child of seven to laugh. But then, neither do you expect a child of seven to be saying and thinking about all the other things Zin had been explaining and detailing now.

He looked at the mixed expressions on their four's faces and said, "Why would I feel ashamed, or rather what is there to feel guilty for? I am fighting a fight for human survival. Do you even know what let Ysgramor and his companions to so desperately fight the elves, and literally drive them to extinction? That the same elves, who were driven to extinction by humans and appear as some sorry victims of Nordic brutality had previously razed to the ground a human city built in this here Skyrim, leaving neither woman, child nor elderly in the acclaimed 'night of tears'. That's how racial wars are. That's how they end. The humans fought a literal fight for survival, where the odds weren't some resource or two, or some contested riches. Nay, then it was survival. Now it is survival too. That's the way the world runs. It's simple - survival of the fittest. Either we fight hard, tooth and fang against the elves or the elves are coming to drive us into extinction, as they did in the culling of Cyrodiil, as they intended when they tore open oblivion and unleashed Mehrunes Dagon onto Tamriel."

Zin spread his arms, a very natural smile on his face calmly explaining his stance on the topic.

"Well, coming back to the topic, let's start by taking samples from various species, checking the magic affinity of said samples, making lists of them and then repeating it to gather precise readings of magical affinity of species. Later we can start by going more in depth….."

x.x.x

That week was spent by the team studying and making notes of creatures, constantly listing different biological samples and testing them for their magic content and magic affinity. Zin was actually quite liking this new lifestyle, though the ever present sense of urgency was always weighing on him.

These past days, despite how his father had been blocking news from him, he had been able to hear how the influence of the Thalmor had grown, as news of the Thalmor having established their foothold in the city and starting purge of Talos worshippers had been almost common talk.

Zin knew what it meant – a pissed off Nord populace, and an ever increasing risk of a rebellion against a corrupt and weak empire, that resembled a flickering candle. An empire too weak to honor its promises to its soldiers, too corrupt and morally bankrupt to uphold the beliefs of its people and too cowardly to honor its guardian deity.

And with this all came the effect on Zin's family, as the manor became more and more guarded, and his father started to try returning home earlier and earlier, trying to avoid being outside after dark.

Further investigations by Zin proved to paint a much more desperate situation, as he came to learn that his family was being practically blocked by many of solitude's nobility, foremost of whom was the local thane. Although the thane wasn't that powerful economically as Zin remembered his soon to be thane son Erikur would be in the future, having someone from the nobility against you still had a pretty bad influence on the family's economy.

"How I hate these local tumors…" Zin sighed as he handled vampire dust.

"What? Some big bad vampires annoyed our dear young master Zin?" Selene joked. Since Zin had one day while bored told them a cultivation story with a typical Chinese young master in it, the women had rather loved the title, and had started calling Zin 'young master' as a joke. Zin had protested vehemently in the beginning, but had noticed that the name had become a somewhat of a tease matter, and there after tried ignoring it, thus slowly started being named young master by the four.

"Nope. Was thinking about different tumors. Although I think we have collected enough data and can start drawing some conclusions from it."

The five gathered around, as Cynthia started talking the results, while Iris corrected her. The last two newly named battle mages (getting self-promoted after "we're qualified mages now that we are doing magical research and getting hold of real magical theory"; anyway Zin complied to calling them so to satisfy their ego), listened attentively as they had started to understand many things after spending this week working with Zin.

"Wait", Zin stopped them; "let me guess the races with the highest magic affinities.

First will be the Altmer, the ones who claim to be the closest to the original Aldmer. Their golden color points to their high affinity to magic, as the sun is known as the greatest source of magic in Nirn. Additionally, their base lifespans are the largest among the mortal races on Tamriel, these all being the reason of their high racial pride.

Second are the Bosmer, or the Wood Elves. They also have a high affinity to magic. Where the Altmer are highly prideful, the Bosmer are much more reasonable compared to the Altmer, though they are also fanatical believers in the supremacy of the Aldmer races over humans.

The third of the high magic races are the Dunmer. Yet these are different from the other Mer, because they actually accept being mortals, instead of filing false claims of this mortal plane, Nirn blocking their magika and making them mortal. If the samples from them are carefully studied, two types of magika can be detected: the first one is the ambient magika absorbed by them and the second is a curse that can be attributed to Azura, the Daedra they believe in. They are also much more tolerant of humans, and serve in many human magic circles and are almost never seen to cooperate with the dominion.

The fourth are the Orsimer, commonly known as the Orcs. While the magika detected from them is of only one kind, a curse dooming them to be unable to absorb magika and distorting their bodies and features. Their lifespans also have taken the toll, being equal to that of normal humans.

Then are the Khajit, the cat people. These are also capable of absorbing magika, though this seems to enhance their intelligence, as well as blessing them with potential to be mages .Their racial characteristics as felines are still present though, making them highly capable thieves and sneaks.

The same can be said about the Argonians, however the absorbed magika does not provide them with mana. However, their very being intelligent creatures can be attributed to the mana absorbed by them.

It is my hypotheses that these two races require a lot of ambient mana to be intelligent creatures, or else they will become mindless beasts, a point well known to them, making them staunch supporters of the Dominion."

Zin looked at the four women looking at him stunned, and asked, "How? Was I correct?"

"Umm, yes." Elaine replied, coming out of her shock with a jerk, putting on an indifferent air, "though the conjectures you made about each race need to be verified for being correct."

Yeah, it's strange we researched this and made notes of it for a week, and you memorized it," Iris looked in wonder, and then smirked at Elaine, "wow someone is trying to speak in Jargon to show that they're learned."

Elaine stared daggers at her and was about to start fighting, when Zin interrupted, "well, we've laid the basis for research. Next we'll be starting by trying to study cell structure, DNA, how blessings and curses from Aedra and Daedra work, and how human body changes from said interventions."

"But we can't easily find cursed or blessed humans as those are very rare and usually always closely watched by those intervening entities," Cynthia pointed out the main limitation in the plan.

"Oh we do know," Zin smiled, playing with the vampire dust. "don't we..."