Attack!...And Then Prizes!

          (4E-199 16th of Sun's Dusk)

     One of the small yet important advances he had made, during his Conjuration training, was his ability to summon specific Dremora Classes like an Archer or Mage. As he gathered his summoned forces to cross the last hundred meters til their destination, Galeron took an accounting of his current assets.

     One Voltaic Atronach, One Sub Zero Atronach, and Three Smelting Atronachs. One Support Mage Dremora, One Offensive Mage Dremora, Two Heavy Armor Sword and Shield Dremora, and One Heavy Armor Claymore Dremora.

     'All of my summons, along with the assistance from my Orbical, should hopefully be enough to take down Jyrik. If not...well, let's just hope that it is.'

     As soon as he approached the beginning of the last corridor, at the end of which he could already catch a glimpse of the artifact, he ordered all of his summons to take up their previously discussed positions. Rushing forward alongside his summons, as soon as he was inside the chamber and he could see everything within, his eyes instantly caught sight of Jyrik, sitting at the table below, and the staff lying in front of him.

    Without hesitating, he sent his magicka out as quickly as possible and grasped the staff with Telekinesis. As the staff was being pulled towards him, Jyrik began rising from his seat and Galeron's Melee Dremora were rushing forward to confront Jyrik. His Atronachs, except the Sub Zero Atronach, were all lined up on the balcony-like platform that ringed half of the room and were already assaulting Jyrik, with their ranged attacks, before he could even get up.

     The Sub Zero Atronach, being the only Atronach that could withstand the temperatures of the Smelting Atronach's attack, positioned himself behind Jyrik, while the two Sword and Shield Dremora assaulted him from the sides and the Claymore Dremora assaulted him from the front.

     Once the staff was in Galeron's hands and his summons were holding Jyrik's full attention, Galeron sat down at the chamber's entrance and entered his Mage's Eye, with the staff laid across his lap.

     Less than ten seconds later, he had affirmed most of his suspicions about the nature of the staff. Certainly, it could be used to cast lightning at a target but at some point Jyrik had made use of the artifact, whose power is currently keeping him locked within Saarthal and also making him immune to all forms of damage.

    But how had Jyric been able to use the artifact and why was his staff lying on the table next to him instead of being on his person? The answer was simply because Jyrik, being a powerful and clever Wizard, had somehow managed to create a staff that could, at the very least, act as a poor substitute for the artifact's counterpart, which allowed one to control the artifact.

     Whatever limitations the staff might have that the artifact's counterpart didn't, Galeron couldn't rightly say. However, time was of the essence, his Claymore Dremora had just been defeated, and his two other Melee Dremora weren't looking too hot.

     As soon as he was back on his feet, Galeron banished the two remaining Melee Dremora and resummoned three replacements thereby completely surrounding Jyrik once again. He then immediately pointed the staff at the giant floating sphere, with a wall of whirling blue mana surrounding it, and channeled his magicka through the staff and towards the floating artifact.

     The staff's power met with the whirling wall of mana and almost immediately he witnessed the power of the artifact lessening. It was clear, however, that it was going to take a while longer before it was completely subdued.

     His summons continued their battle with Jyric, who no longer possessed the same mysterious invincibility that once hindered his summon's attacks, while Galeron focused on quelling the power of the artifact.

     The magically glowing shimmer that had surrounded Jyrik, from the beginning of their battle, now seemed to flicker and fade in various spots. A full power slash, from his Claymore Dremora landed directly on the Draugr's arm and created a massive gash. That area was immediately covered over by the glowing shimmer but the fact that it hadn't cut the arm clean off was a testament to how tough this guy had been and apparently still was.

     One of Galeron's Smelting Atronachs managed to land a crimson fireball on Jyrik's left leg which was also covered over again by the magical shimmer after his undead flesh had been thoroughly charred.

     As the subduing of the artifact neared its completion, Galeron moved his Orbical over towards Jyrik and attached it to the back of his neck. Once in place, he summoned a pillar of crimson flame to surround the Draugr.

     After Jyrik had been cloaked in flames, Galeron gave the order to his summons to neglect defense and go all out. Only thirty seconds later, the artifact had been subdued and Jyrik wasn't having a good time at all.

     It was clear how powerful Jyrik was, by the fact of his Dremora's condition after only ten seconds of battle with him. His power was clearly nothing to laugh at, and yet, whenever he's placed at such a disadvantage where he's constantly assaulted from all sides, it seems that power was clearly insufficient.

     Perhaps, if Jyrik were still alive and in his prime, he could've resisted more effectively and perhaps even prevailed. The Draugr of Jyrik Gauldurson, however, clearly wasn't up to the task and now laid motionless upon the floor of his internment chamber, as the dead should. 'Or at least the dead who oppose my power anyway.' Galeron thought evilly to himself, as he finally had time to approach the artifact and take in all of its magical glory.

     An impressively large sphere glowing and radiating a powerful magical aura. Seemingly, consisting of interlocking and even overlapping partial circles of some unknown material. Inscribed with runes from some unknown but surely ancient beings. Floating serenely and rotating above a slight indentation in the crypt's floor, which was also inscribed with the same strange runes.

     "The Eye of Magnus." Galeron muttered under his breath.

     Now that Jyrik had been dealt with, he took his time walking around and examining the Eye, after sending his Dremora off to check the entrance to these ruins. He knew that the college wouldn't leave Saarthal alone forever and so he would have to leave eventually. Not to mention, he simply didn't care for these crypts. The Draugr weren't undead that could serve him at the moment, he still knew far too little about them. 'Yes, it would certainly be best to leave sooner rather than later but first…'

     Galeron looked closely at one of the runes inscribed upon the sphere and wondered for a second. He then sat down in a lotus position and began to meditate on that rune's form.

     Whenever he had done this with the Daedric Runes, the meaning of the rune would gradually begin to flow into his mind. With this particular rune, however, Galeron's mind exploded with pain. He felt as if an ice pick had been shoved into his brain.

     "AAAARRRHHHGGGGG!!!"

…

     "AAAARRRHHHGGGGG!!!"

…

     "AAAARRRHHHGGGGG!!!"

…

     Nearly two hours later, the excruciating pain in Galeron's head began to subside. An hour later, he was still suffering but his Dremora had also come back at that time and he composed himself as much as possible. 

     As soon as they arrived and reported that the entrance was still clear, he immediately banished all of them and fell down on the floor to rest.

     Half a day had passed, before Galeron finally felt well enough to resume his study of the Eye. 'Right, so meditating on those runes seems to be out of the question, at least for now. So how can I discover their meaning?'

     Galeron pondered this conundrum for several minutes, before walking over to the Eye and placing his hand upon it. He didn't feel anything peculiar, other than the tremendous amount of magicka contained within. 

     When he had looked at the Eye with his Mage's Eye it simply appeared as a massive conglomeration of magicka surrounded by a massively powerful magic device. 

     That wasn't at all surprising, given that even a novice could tell that this thing possessed overwhelming amounts of magicka and the nature of the sphere itself was obviously magical, enough so that it could hold all of that power together.

     He focused his eyes on the runes, once more, and began pouring his magicka into the Eye. As soon as he did so, the runes began to shift and blur, until the runes that were once there were no more. They were instead replaced by a variety of other runes, including Daedric Runes and many others he was familiar with. Many of those runes, however, were completely foreign to him.

     He continued to gaze upon the variety of new runes, in an attempt to figure out why they had appeared in place of the old ones. After several hours of not being able to come to a satisfactory conclusion, he settled on the only conclusion that actually held a path forward.

     He knew that many of the runes present on the Eye he could safely meditate on and so it stood to reason that, if he were to meditate on these unknown runes, he theoretically shouldn't suffer from the same backlash as before.

     He, of course, couldn't be certain and so he was quite nervous, as he removed his hands from the Eye and sat down. After removing his hands and magicka from the Eye, the original runes reappeared once more and the replacements vanished.

     This wasn't at all a problem, since he had already picked a specific replacement rune and memorized its form. Trying as best he could to calm his anxious mind, he focused on the form of the rune he had memorized and all of its tiniest details.

     After several seconds of focusing on the runes form without incident, he resumed his meditation in earnest. With the distraction of potential mind breaking pain finally banished, it only took a few minutes, before the rune's meaning began flowing into his mind.

     'This... this is the rune for 'Air.' This is strange. The rune for 'Air' should be the Daedric Rune 'Ayem.' Does this mean that there are multiple runes with the same meaning? If so, then why exactly would such a thing be necessary? Since these aren't Daedric Runes, or any that I've ever seen, what kind of Runes are they?... Shit! There're just entirely too many questions and nowhere near enough time. I'll have to put this off, until I'm back at my base.'

     Galeron set that particular matter aside and began meditating on the Daedric Rune 'Ayem.' His goal, at the moment, was simply to acquire a basic understanding of each rune. Not every rune had a common usage as a centerpiece for a spell and so it wasn't immediately obvious what each rune represented by itself. 

     All of the books he had read simply described them as magical counterparts to the common language, the magical language of the Daedra. Of course, Galeron knew better and especially after his first rune meditation there was no doubt in his mind that each individual rune held its own encyclopedia of meaning.

     After three days of meditation, he had worked through the entire Daedric Alphabet. Some of the runes represented concepts he was already familiar with and so came to him much more easily. Others, however, required many hours to finally see results. 

     Having finally sussed out the meaning of every Daedric Rune, his findings were as follows.

Ayem- Air

Bedt- Bind

Cess- Conjure

Doht- Distance

Ekem- Earth

Hefhed- Fire

Geth- Grow

Hekhem- Haste

Iya- Insight

Jeb- Jade

Koht- Kill

Lyr- Lightning

Meht- Might

Neht- Night

Oht- Oblivion

Payem- Plunder

Quam- Quiet

Roht- Resist

Seht- Stillness

Tayem- Transform

Yoodt- Ubiquitous

Vehk- Vocalize

Web- Water

Xayah- Xiv

Yahkem- Yearn

Zyr- Zone

     Some of the meanings conveyed by these runes caused him so much confusion he came down with a splitting headache and had to rest for a while.

     Many of them were, of course, exactly as he expected them to be. Others, however, like Jade and Xiv, not so much.

     Jade seemed to be related to the warping of the mind, poisoning of the body, and entropy in general. Xiv gave several different meanings that didn't seem to be directly related, like raw power, creativity, bravery, inspiration, and perseverance.

     After his much needed rest, he was in a much better mood, since he now had the information to proceed with a successful ex-fill. Over the next four days, he meditated on the Distance, Transform, Insight, and Zone runes respectively.

     The familiarity with the meanings of these four runes had, as he suspected, increased substantially his ability to utilize portals. In fact he suspected that he was only a few more days away from being able to create a full human sized portal that could take him three quarters of the way back to Crystaldrift Cave.

     For now though, he needed to gather his prizes and implement his escape plan back to Fort Doomguard, as he had decided to call it. During the past few days, he had already ordered his Dremora to gather all of the corpses, Draugrs, and loot and toss them into the portals he created. Using the Eye of Magnus, he was able to surpass his current limits and open sufficiently large portals for the transferring of loot.

     With the Staff of Jyrik Gauldurson in hand, he called upon his memories of his time at the College of Winterhold. Specifically, the night he had snuck into The Midden, for the sole purpose of acquainting himself with two popular hotspots there.

     With the image of his first prize firmly in mind, Galeron activated the Eye of Magnus and connected himself with its power. A second later, he was standing inside The Midden directly in front of the Atronach Forge. Behind him was a small portal through which his connection to the Eye remained strong.

     Using his understanding of Zones and the overwhelming power of the Eye to compensate where his understanding was lacking, he proceeded to isolate the space surrounding the Atronach Forge and then teleported that space into Dayspring Canyon.

     The next second, he was standing directly in front of the Auger of Dunlain. Acting a bit quicker this time, so as to prevent the Auger from retaliating just in case he could do something like that, he once again isolated the entire room the Auger occupied and teleported it into Dayspring Canyon.

     In the next second, he appeared once again next to the Eye of Magnus deep within Saarthal and in the very next second after that an abnormally warm breeze for that time of year gently brushed against his skin.

     Dayspring Canyon, being so tightly wrapped by the surrounding mountains, made it a place with very mild winds. This made the cold more bearable in the winter but also provided little relief from the sun during winter.

     Galeron looked around and found all three of his major prizes and all the dozens of his minor prizes lying no more than fifty meters away. 

     Galeron couldn't contain himself any longer. "Hahahahahahahaha! Ahh, I've finally done it! And, once I've secured my home and my base away from home, it'll be time to get down and dirty with some sweet power ups! Power ups that I'll desperately need, if I mean to contend with the Dragons." His face grew a bit more serious, as he said this. "I doubt they'll be as easy to deal with as a Draugr. Simple numbers will most likely not be sufficient."

     "What nonsense do you speak of, you wretched kidnapper! Do you have any idea of the powers that you are playing with?" A voice behind him raged.

     Galeron turned around and addressed his hostage. "Ahhh, my old friend the Auger...of the Dunlain variety. I was beginning to think that you were a mute. Haha!"