Chapter 1

My head hurts, what did I even do yesterday? What? At the next I Jumped out In fright, understanding that the headache was the smallest of my problems. As I noticed that the place where I woke up is not my room. It was a room with a grayish floor and wall. However, my biggest concern was the fact there was a huge bloody pentagram where I just woke up and the skeleton Lying in the corner.

Calm down, breathe in, breathe out it might be some misunderstanding, look around. Look, there is a pretty normal bed, then there is a bookshelf, and then next to it is an alchemy lab and enchanting table. Wait!!! What were the last two? And then memories that I did not recall before flooded my mind.

About 30 minutes later I was sitting on the bed reading the journal of the previous owner of my body. And I am pretty sure that this is not a dream.

Firstly I found the mirror and the person looking at me was nothing like me. Instead of the 1.7 meters tall half Asian half Iranian overweight reflection that I was used to, there was about 1.8 or 1.9 meters tall black haired blue eyed Norse man with freshly sprouting facial hair.

And secondly, the journal or rather diary that I was reading was written in Tamrielic. A language that I was seeing for the first time. So Yeah, most likely I was transmigrated to Nirn or in other words into the world of the series of games known as Elder Scrolls in my previous reality. Or some powerful entity decided to have fun by playing me into some sort of simulation/illusion but let's not think about it.

If it is the first case then thankfully I already have a likely answer to how it happened. According to what I am reading and the memories that I got my current body formerly belonged to both genius and mad Nord necromancer and conjurer. And when I say mad, I mean it.

The guy was a follower of Sheogarath the Daedric prince of madness. On top of that despite his proficiency in schools of magic that he specialized in being about the level of apprentice maybe somewhat reaching adept level, he somehow was able to design a ritual that should have summoned an entity from outside of Aurubis i.e outside of elder scroll cosmology, but with exotic knowledge about the world of elder scrolls and how it works.

Apparently, as a big fan of the lore of the elder scrolls world, I ended up being the closest entity that he had enough power to summon. However, he made a mistake by assuming that the summoned being would be stronger than him. So the ritual was designed to let the weaker soul absorb the stronger one!

Ha-ha-ha. I am really lucky, if not for that small mistake it would have been me who would have perished into nothingness! Or maybe Sheogarath decided to pull a prank on his followers because. It is highly unlikely that an apprentice mage could design such a ritual without outside help.

But if it was my luck that let me avoid such a terrible fate then I surely have run out of it. After all, I am currently in the Sinderion's Field Laboratory in the depths of the Blackreach, and as if that was not enough current date is the 10th of Last Seed(basically August) of the 199th year of the 4th era. Hence I have somewhere about 2 years, maybe a couple of months more or less until the Starting date of Skyrim and the possible apocalypse that will come if Dovahkiin fails.

Heh great, return of the Dragons, Vampires trying to starve the world by getting rid of the sun, and 5000+ years old narcissistic mage/warlock that dreams of world domination!!! And that is not mentioning a bloody civil war!

Well, no point in thinking about it, for now, let's focus on getting out of Blackreach, and to do that I will need to familiarize myself with the inheritance that I got together with my new body.

And with that, though I pointed my hand forward and concentrated inwardly focusing on the Magicka flowing through my body and soul.

-With power over Oblivion, I summon a small beast!

Then a purple void appeared right before me to then be replaced by a translucent, smoky thick fog appeared with a wolf's silhouette in it.

Ha-ha-ha It worked! However right then lost in the feeling of euphoria I lost control over summoned Daedra it lunged at me, thankfully I was able to cut the spell before it reached me.

That was close! Magic is dangerous but now I want it even more! All of it! Now that I have a goal to pursue in this reality I need a fitting name to accompany it. Vitki Wotan will be my new name.

It took about ten minutes for the adrenaline rush bought by the experience of almost being mauled by wolf fangs to wear off and for me to calm down. I was still planning on pursuing magic as far as possible but now I was calmly planning my future actions while reviewing the memories of the previous owner of my new body.

His name was Helgird, he was born in Bruma in Cyrodil about 27 years old. Both parents and the majority of relatives died during the Great war with the Aldmeri Dominion when he was 1 year old. Was raised by his distant crazy uncle that died from old age.

Spent almost all of his inheritance from his parents and uncle on learning magic and Skooma, however, somehow did not get addicted to that narcotic. Spent the last 5 years in Morrowind using the state of anarchy there to practice necromancy. Moved to Skyrim about a couple of months ago to study the difference between white and black souls.

On Nirn all intelligent races have black souls while animals have white souls with one possible exception falmers. Formerly known as snow elves after losing the war with Atmorans the ancestor of Nords, they fled to the underground cities of Dwemers. However, the deep elves did not feel sympathy for their distant kin and enslaved them using alchemy to turn them blind. And now several millennia since Dwemer's disappearance they have degraded into humanoid monsters with white souls. The Blackreach is the perfect place for that with it being infested by falmers.

So it is quite convenient to me with no one in Skyrim except pair of imperial adventures with whom I entered the province. Brother and sister Calixto and Lucilla Corrium. But even though they most likely will not find it strange if I change the name, they both knew that Helgrid was a necromancer and will think that I am trying to hide my body's past.

Wait! Calixto, wasn't he the serial murderer from the game's side quest, trying to use necromancy to resurrect his dead sister? No wonder he did that. The guy was friends with a mad necromancer! But that is not important to me now. The little building that I am currently occupying has simple wards that block sounds and smell from leaving it. As long as I don't open the door too often the falmer will not notice me and the Dwemer automatons don't leave their patrolling area so food and water are my only major concern.

Thankfully Helgrid had some provisions prepared beforehand it should last me for a week or so enough time to practice magic and prepare to leave

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Surprisingly it was not too hard to leave Blackreach. For a madman, the Helgrid was unusually meticulous. He had pair of boots with muffle enchantments on them and a huge stock of invisibility potions to help capture falmers and cultists that lived in Blackreach for his research. Yeah, somehow the falmer of Blackreach was able to create a cult consisting of humans, and elves with some khajit in the mix that worship them. The falmer themselves on other hand view those cultists as nothing more than a source of fresh meat. Yeah, I am not returning here until I am at least a master mage.

Even though five days have passed since my transmigration I still can't believe that I am a mage now!!! Though summoning one Flame Atronach and a couple of spells from other schools of magic such as oak flesh or night vision is all that I can do at the moment.

However, as a fan of the lore, I should know that the division to the schools of magic is entirely arbitrary and created in order to speed up the education process by training very specialized mages. In order to become powerful, I should not constrain myself with them.

Helgrid the previous owner of the body was more powerful than I am now. One of the ways the ritual made me into a transmigrator functioned was to weaken the stronger soul to make it easier for the weaker one to absorb it and because of that, I did not receive the full scope of his power.

I have theoretical knowledge of how to summon Ice Atronach and a couple of other stronger summons but I just don't have enough magicka to do it. Thankfully the amount of magicka that person has increased with specific training and just general practice of magic.

And when it comes to knowledge of Necromancy that I got from Helgrid I am not interested in using them in practice. After all being necromancer makes you an enemy of the majority of trustworthy fractions and people in this world.

And with such thoughts, I finally came out of one of many unmarked caves that connect Blackreach to the surface of Skyrim.

-Huh, that is beautiful. I don't know what it was, maybe the fact that I did not see sunlight in days, maybe it was improved eyesight that I got with my new body or maybe it was just the beautiful late-summer day that was surprisingly chill was the reason but I have been lost in thought for a moment standing still in the middle of the forest.

I should keep moving. There is always the possibility of falmers coming out from the cave and not to mention dangerous Skyrim wildlife. The nearest human settlement is Nightgate it has an inn with the same name and is located on the road that connects 4 major cities of Whiterun, Windhelm, Winterhold, and Dawnstar. It is about a half day walking distance from here, I should be able to find a caravan moving to Windhelm and then Riften there. And with thought, I started to move southeast.

Unfrotulantly when I came out to the surface it was already afternoon do in about 3 hours I had to camp due to the sunset. Thankfully I have everything necessary thanks to an enchanted bag that holds about 2-3 times more than you would think judging from the outside.

Expensive stuff but again Helgrid was planning his expedition to Blackreach for a long time. Setting up the camp with magic was not an issue. I conjured wood axe after all conjure weapon spells that were shown on the game work similarly by summoning the daedra so weak that it does not even have a stable form and forcing it to look the same way as any weapon that you need at the moment and then used it to collect firewood for the bonfire that was lit up by flames spell.

I can get used to this. And then when I was looking at the fire it waiting for sunrise and reviewing my plans since I was too scared to sleep in the middle of the fantasy forest that happened.

-Wolf howls

I was surrounded by a pack of 5 wolfs, with the giant grey wolf as their head.

Damnt. I need to preserve magicka since there may be other creatures lurking nearby and I don't have any weapons other than steel daggers because Helgrid thought that using weapons is beneath him!

And while my heart was raising on focused on the incoming battle, with the flick of my hand I summoned 2 spectral wolfs that immediately attacked the nearest opponents.

Then while the rest of the pack was moving I used telekinesis with my right hand to throw a dagger at one of the wolves landing it in its eye and simultaneously casting oakfleash with my right hand, however when I was preparing to cast a firebolt on the remaining wolfs the giant alpha pounced at me.

Even though I was able to block the fatal attack with my hand it was too strong and knocked me down while biting my hand.

-Agh!

Despite the defensive spell that I used early the wolf fangs have pierced my flesh. Thankfully at that time one of my summons finished its opponent and blocked the last wolf from helping its pack leader.

Using this opportunity to grab the wolf that was trying to maul me and electrocute it using the most basic destruction spell sparks. By the time it died remaining wolfs were already killed, though they were able to get rid of one of the summons.

Damn it!" With the light of life and Magnus! Healing".

-That will leave a scar!

And while taking care of my wound I was glad for all the time that I spent practicing magic. I need to move out I still have enough invisibility potions to last me through the night. And with that thought, I dismissed my summon since even though it did not drain my magicka it did put a mental strain on me big enough that I will not be able to use my trump card the Flame Atronach. To be more specific I am unable to control any additional summons when I use it, well at least for now.

Thankfully luck was on my side that night and I was able to reach the Nightgate an hour past sunrise, however, had to wait for a couple of hours before entering the settlement to not arise suspicion from guards.

The village itself was not that impressive with a couple of modest houses around the inn. The tavern itself was huge with the main hall big enough to have 50 people in it with about thirty rooms majority located underground to keep them warm with only luxurious ones being on the ground level or above.

A quick conversation with the barmen and tavern owner Harding the Nord in his late forties reveals that the inn was built by his grandfather to take advantage of the strategic location where roads from 4 different holds meet. The village was built later around the inn and not another way around as I thought previously. It has a big number of traders and adventurers passing by and thanks to that my appearance did not raise any suspicion.

-So What news are hearing lately Harding?

I asked an old man while signaling him to fill my now empty cup with a mead. Great stuff has almost no alcohol but has great taste. Well as long as you have it with some cold water mixed in as I did.

-Nothing much the jarl Ulfric expanding the stormclouds again so if you are looking for a job you can travel to Windhelm. I am sure that a strong Nord like you will not have a problem joining.

-Hah, thank you for the advice but I am no warrior but an aspiring mage.

-Hm, so are you traveling to the Winterhold to join College?

He asked me while passing the mug with mead back to me. It was still sometime before noon and I was the only one drinking at the bar so we were able to have a relaxing conversation without anyone disturbing us. The fact that I am grateful for it since it was my first conversation with another human in a week.

-No, not now least I have some business in Riften to take care of.

-If that is the case I have a friend named Hjalti. The trader whose caravan regularly travels from Whiterun to Windhelm and then Riften. He should pass by tomorrow or the day after that. You can join his caravan, he will not turn you down if are a mage since as he says there is never too safe when it comes to traveling merchants.

-Thanks, I think I will heed your advice, Then I will rent a room for two days. If I end up leaving earlier you can consider the change as payment for your wisdom.

-No problem, it is still early today and I have nothing to do so let me show you to your room.