Chapter XXVIII: Letters and Rituals

As the months passed and while his inn and home were nearing completion, Reyvin wasn't sitting idle. He wrote letters to different distributors for drinks, including a Hlaalu remnant business for some Morrowind products, and bought all the necessary furniture and amenities one might need to run a prestigious inn.

One day he got the idea to hire a bard or some singers, so after some thought he decided he might as well employ some more of his own people. He sent a letter to Ambaris Rendar, the owner of the corner club in the grey quarter and presumably the most connected one among the residents of that part of Windhelm, inquiring about potential Dunmer musicians, and was pleasantly surprised when the mer answered rather quickly.

Most of the letter was made up of thanks for his previous deeds in the grey quarter, informing him that the kids they saved were safe and happy, and some news about the happenings in Windhelm. Unfortunately, the pressure on the Dunmer living in the city was getting more and more unbearable with the Nords getting more and more disgruntled by what they viewed as elves invading their ancient hold, and the younger Dunmer seeking ways to leave the suffocating place.

The latter part of the letter contained the answer to his actual question, naming a duo of rather renowned Dunmeri singers that were getting constantly harassed and were looking for another place to apply their trade. Ambaris also pleaded in his letter for Reyvin to hire a couple more people wanting desperately to leave Windhelm which the young Dagoth had no issues with.

After sending back his response, Reyvin hired a group of four local adventures known for being dependable and trustworthy and sent them to escort his new employees.

They arrived about a month before the grand opening and were quickly organized, most were given jobs in the inn or bathhouse, but three of the new arrivals caught Reyvin's eye.

They were a group of three young mer who seemed genuinely grateful to him for getting them out of the 'hellhole' as they called it, so after a bit of deliberation he decided he would train them as household guards which they quickly and gratefully accepted. He would wait until he secured their full loyalty to invite them to join his house as retainers.

They wouldn't be all that useful immediately, but teach them some basic spells and give them some lightly enchanted armor and weapons and boom, actually useful soldiers.

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While his properties were being built, Reyvin continued progressing in his other endeavors, rarely if ever taking a break.

Realizing that he needed a way to protect his new 'territory' he started pestering Tolfdir about static wards, which the old Nord happily taught him about.

Thankfully they were not too difficult to understand now that he finally got the entire arcane alphabet down. Static wards were basically permanently running rituals, powered by either soul gems or repeated recharging done by the owner, they could be powered by ambient Magicka but making those was extremely complex so Reyvin had to be satisfied with the more basic and expensive version.

He spent months building the best reasonably possible runic matrix to install into his property once the construction was done, it would be made of a magic dampening field that would weaken the spells of any non-registered people inside the radius and a detection field whose function was rather self-explanatory. This unfortunately meant he had to change some of the building plans but the changes weren't major enough to make him delay his plans all that much.

His study of static wards also helped with his understanding of rituals, they were basically the same thing except rituals were finished rather quickly when compared to the wards.

Naturally the components for rituals were far more expensive and harder to find, while the theory behind them was more esoteric and mystical than anything else Reyvin ever studied, using a bunch of symbolism, metaphors and plain old mantras.

His attempt to git gud at ritualism wasn't at all helped by the constant attempts by Shalazar to convert him to the mystic's way, much to his chagrin he did actually have to accept them at least partially if he was ever going to be anything more than an amateur.

After the whole assassination debacle, the guards kept pestering him to rejoin their morning training, which he did whenever he could. He kept surprising everyone with his newfound strength and speed, and started telling taller and weirder tales on how he became so strong all of a sudden, only to have his fun ruined by Hjolmir, who explained how rituals worked to everyone.

Reyvin was then constantly annoyed by requests to make someone bigger or stronger, or of course to help someone be more 'enduring' because why wouldn't your first thought be 'how can I last longer in bed'.

After getting tired from all the requests he simply named his price for the ritual and his help in guiding it, as unlike him the guards wouldn't be able to do it themselves.

The price he asked made most of the requests stop, as it was easily in the four digits mark. There were still some persistent ones that insisted on it and still had money left over from the expedition, so that earned him a very pretty penny, and made some guards' wives very happy.

Over the months he finally managed to use the thu'um without ripping his own throat to pieces, the YOL shout became something he integrated into his usual fighting style, even if it was still exhausting as all hell.

He thought about trying to add the second word, but immediately got the feeling that that was a very bad idea, so instead of committing suicide by yelling, he refocused on other shouts, namely the more iconic combo of unrelenting force and whirlwind sprint.

Understanding FUS was very simple, almost as simple as fire was with all of his affinities. He managed to shout the word after a couple of weeks of meditation and discovered that while the shout itself was weaker than the fire breath it was also far less tiring to use.

When it came to whirlwind sprint, that one was far more problematic. The first two shouts were comprised of very simple to understand words, namely fire and force. Whirlwind sprint on the other hand was far less obvious, a whirlwind could be associated with many more things than say force, so even after months of trying Reyvin was unable to use the shout.

His more traditional magic training was going along well, becoming better at casting spells and more skilled in actually applying them. Those thoughts would have to wait however, as one day in the late summer he was finally informed by Julia that all of the buildings were finally finished and fully furnished, it was time for the grand opening.

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