It had been three months since Torin returned from Falkreath. His workshop was already established within an empty storage room on the roof of the College—a dusty, forgotten space that had once held old furniture and broken magical apparatus.
It was the only area that was unclaimed and big enough to house the entirety of Torin's belongings, and he definitely didn't mind the beautiful view that came with it and the fresh air.
From up here, you could see the Sea of Ghosts stretching to the horizon, ice floes glinting in the pale sunlight, and on clear days, the distant shape of Solitude's arch. He was more than happy to take it.
Though it had only been two months since the workshop was fully operational, it was already a busy place, divided into three distinct areas.
The first area was dedicated to the lycanthropy cure.
Tables were covered with stacks of books—hundreds of them, hauled up from the Arcanaeum and arranged by subject and relevance. Charts covered the walls, diagrams of souls and transformations, timelines of reported cures, maps showing the locations of werewolf sightings across Tamriel.
And at the center of it all was Svanhild.
She was a young Nord woman from Solstheim, with pale blonde hair pulled back in a practical braid and blue eyes that missed nothing. When Torin had first begun looking for assistants, most students had only taken one look at the project's name—Lycanthropy: Origins and Potential Cures—and lost interest immediately.
Either they thought it was dangerous, or impossible, or simply not worth their time. Torin had also chased away anyone who seemed only interested in a salary with no intention of doing any actual work.
That had left him with Svanhild.
He had no idea why she was so enthusiastic about the subject. She'd never offered an explanation, and he wasn't in a position to care. She was clever, hardworking, and sharp enough to keep up with his rambling thoughts. So he had put her to work.
She had already gone through every book that so much as mentioned werewolves or lycanthropy within the College—the Arcanaeum's shelves, the restricted section, even the personal libraries of some of the masters.
She had summarized her findings in a thick ledger that sat on her desk, its pages filled with neat, precise handwriting.
The conclusions were sobering. Almost every account agreed that the sickness was soul-related—a corruption that attached itself to the spirit, not just the body. In almost all tales, legends, and stories, a werewolf would have to manifest the wolf aspect within their soul and slay it to cure themselves.
As for how they actually did that... well, that was where things got unclear. The legends spoke of rituals, of potions, of bargains struck with witches and daedra. But the details were maddeningly vague, as if the people who had actually succeeded in curing themselves had taken the secret to their graves.
That was what they needed to study.
Torin had already written letters to Torygg and Balgruuf, asking for access to the libraries of both Jarls. The College had an impressive collection, yes, but it was focused on magic.
What he needed now was history—old sagas, forgotten legends, accounts written by warriors and priests rather than mages. The kind of material that gathered dust in the private collections of nobles, untouched for generations.
He was still waiting for their replies.
The second area was dedicated to studying Skaldrfong.
Suffice to say, almost everyone was interested in that project. A spear made of dragonbone, carved by the First Tongues, enchanted by Shalidor himself—it was the kind of artifact that scholars dreamed of studying.
Even Sergius, that old coot, had applied to be an assistant, hoping to get a chance to examine the spear's enchantments up close.
Savos Aren had stopped him. The Arch-Mage had made it very clear that Sergius was needed in his own workshop, filling the endless enchanting orders that had been pouring in from across Skyrim.
The old man had grumbled, complained, and eventually retreated to his corner, muttering about ungrateful students and wasted opportunities.
In the end, Torin had hired two students to help him research the spear's second enchantment. Coincidentally, they were Breton twins—a young man and woman called Malin and Melina Bontain, respectively.
They had dark hair, sharp features, and the easy confidence of two youngsters raised in a noble family. They dressed well, spoke well, and had an irritating habit of finishing each other's sentences.
They were also very much insufferable. They bickered constantly, competed over everything, and seemed to think that being hired by Torin was merely the first step toward greater fame and fortune.
However, they were good at their jobs—sharp-minded, meticulous, and genuinely passionate about magical theory.
They'd only been working on the spear for two weeks with minimal supervision and guidance from Torin, but even then, they'd already figured out that the second enchantment had something to do with blood.
They didn't know what exactly, or how it worked, or what it did—but they'd identified the fundamental nature of the magic.
If Torin hadn't put off choosing people to work on the enchantment due to the staggering number of applicants, if he hadn't taken out the spear to practice with it and keep Echo company during her hunts, they might have figured out everything already.
The third and final section of the workshop was Torin's personal space.
It was separated from the rest by a thick wooden door and a heavy curtain, both of which remained locked and drawn whenever Torin wasn't inside. No one except his personal assistant was allowed in without his express permission—not Svanhild, not the twins, not even the Arch-Mage.
Inside, Torin worked on his own personal project: the foldable shield bracer.
He had already finalized the design. The schematics were pinned to the wall, covered in notes and calculations, each component labeled and cross-referenced.
He had identified the spells needed to make the shrinking mechanism work—a combination of Alteration and Illusion magic, carefully layered, precisely calibrated.
Now, he only needed to master said spells while waiting for Enthir to procure an advanced dwarven kinetic absorber—the kind you'd find in dwarven centurions and even more durable constructs.
The elf still owed Torin a favor after their little encounter on the bridge. It was time to collect.
Everything was proceeding slowly but smoothly. The research was progressing. The spells were coming together. The parts were being acquired.
Torin had even begun sketching preliminary designs for the bracer's outer casing—something sleek, something practical, something that wouldn't catch on his armor or interfere with his movements.
But there was one problem.
Torin's personal assistant—the one helping him with the shield, a young Argonian called Bar-Dar, born in Riften, possessed of a fascination with the Dwemer that bordered on obsession—was missing. For two days now.
It wasn't like him to just disappear. Bar-Dar was punctual to a fault. He left notes when he was sick, sent messages when he was delayed, and communicated clearly about his schedule and his whereabouts.
But two days ago, he'd simply... stopped showing up.
Torin had asked around. No one had seen him. No one had heard from him. His quarters in the Hall of Attainment were empty, his bed unslept in, his belongings undisturbed.
Torin was starting to worry.
Soon enough, as he was thinking of where Bar-Dar could have gone, there was a knock on the door. Three sharp raps—the kind of knock that demanded attention but wasn't urgent.
Torin's gaze snapped to the entrance.
"Come in," he said. "It's open."
The door to his section of the workshop opened, and through it walked Auri. Her amber eyes swept the room quickly—taking in the schematics on the wall, the scattered notes on the desk, the half-assembled components of the shield bracer—before settling on Torin.
His expression brightened instantly.
"Well?" he asked, pushing himself away from his desk. "Did you find anything?"
Torin's first instinct upon failing to find Bar-Dar had been to seek Auri and ask her to track him down. She was one of the best hunters he knew—better than him, maybe even as good as Aela.
If anyone could find a missing Argonian in a college full of mages, it was her.
That's exactly what she'd been doing for the past half a day.
Unfortunately, Auri simply shook her head.
"I'm sorry." Her voice was quiet, almost apologetic. "It's hard to find tracks in the College. Too many people coming and going all the time. Students, teachers, servants, visitors."
She sighed, crossing her arms. "All I know is that the last anyone saw of your Argonian friend was in the Arcanaeum. Two days ago. He was looking for something on the Dwemer shelves. Urag remembers seeing him there, but doesn't know when he left."
Torin winced.
"Damn." He rubbed his forehead. "If even you can't find him, then something definitely happened to him."
Auri shrugged, though her expression was troubled.
"I'm sorry I wasn't of much help." She paused. "But maybe he went home without saying anything. He's from Riften, isn't he?" She raised an eyebrow. "Maybe we could send a letter to his family. Ask if he's with them."
Torin shook his head bitterly.
"He doesn't have any family. He grew up in Honorhall Orphanage in Riften." He paused, his jaw tightening. "And according to Bar-Dar, that's the last place he'd ever go back to."
Auri let out a low hum, her brow furrowing. She opened her mouth to say something—a suggestion, maybe, or an offer of further help—but Torin cut her off.
"It's fine." He waved a hand. "I'll take care of it. I know you're busy with your own studies." He managed a small smile. "Thanks for trying, Auri. I mean it."
Auri studied him for a long moment, her amber eyes unreadable.
"Fine." She turned toward the exit, her boots soft on the stone floor. "But if you need my help, you know where to find me."
She walked out and closed the door behind her.
Torin watched her leave, waiting until her footsteps faded down the hallway. Then he stood up. He walked to the work table at the far end of his little section and retrieved a small box from beneath it—wooden, plain, unremarkable.
It had a keyhole, but Torin had no key. Instead, he reached into the keyhole with telekinesis, his magic probing the locking mechanism, rotating each tumbler until it clicked open.
He lifted the lid.
Inside lay the book—the one that had haunted him for years. Its blood-red cover was gone, replaced by black leather with a green depiction of Hermaeus Mora embossed on the front.
The creature's many-eyed tentacles seemed to writhe in the candlelight, though Torin knew it was just a trick of the shadows.
He took a deep breath and opened it.
Pages turned on their own, flipping past dozens of entries he'd never written. The ink shimmered, reformed, and small tentacles began to emerge from the binding—thin and black, with a single two-pupiled eye forming in their center. The eye stared intently at Torin, its gaze heavy and knowing.
"Where is Bar-Dar?" Torin asked.
Hermaeus Mora's voice echoed straight into his mind—bypassing his ears, his skull, the very fabric of reality. It was the same lethargic tone, each word dragged out like honey through sand.
"Not so... fast... mortal." A pause. "First... you must... pay the... price."
Torin's eyes twitched, but he only hesitated for a moment—a brief pause to choose the most useless information in his mind.
"Plungers come in more than one color," he said.
Silence. The tentacles went still. The two-pupiled eye blinked once, slowly.
"Plungers." Hermaeus Mora's voice sounded again, almost muttering to itself. "Plun-gers. How very... interesting."
The creature seemed to be committing the word to memory—testing it, tasting it, filing it away in whatever vast library of knowledge it called its own.
Then it spoke again.
"Your... Argonian friend... is currently... a guest... in my realm." The eye blinked. "Apocrypha."
Torin stared at the eye and blinked once, then twice.
Then he snapped.
"What?!" He slammed his hand on the table, making the box rattle. "And what in the fuck is he doing in your realm?!"
The eye stared back at Torin languidly, utterly unbothered by his outburst.
"This is... a result of... your tardiness... mortal." The eye blinked. "Because he... helped you... with your... work... he learned secrets... only meant for... me. Secrets of... another world."
Torin felt a headache forming behind his eyes. He hadn't gone out of his way to teach Bar-Dar about engineering from his original world—this was a school of magic, after all, and he'd focused on teaching the Argonian magical theory, enchanting principles, the fundamentals of dwemer technology as understood in Nirn.
But Bar-Dar was clever. Too clever. He'd probably grasped things from simple observation—the way Torin approached problems, the way he thought about mechanics, the way he described concepts that had no equivalent in this world.
Damn it.
"Release him at once," Torin said, his voice low and dangerous.
The eye stared at him for a moment. The tentacles writhed slowly, as if the creature was considering his words—or perhaps just enjoying his discomfort.
Then Hermaeus Mora spoke.
"Very... well."
Torin, who had already prepared half a dozen arguments and counter-arguments in his mind, choked on the words at the tip of his tongue.
"What?" He blinked. "Just like that?"
The eye blinked again, slow and deliberate.
"I have... nothing to gain... by keeping him... prisoner." The voice was calm, almost bored. "Less so by... incurring your ire... that would... only... sour our dealings."
The tentacles shifted, coiling around each other.
"This is only... a warning. A reminder of... the care... you must... take. The knowledge you possess... is precious. Guard it... more closely."
Torin stared at the manifestation of the Daedric Prince with suspicious, narrowed eyes.
"So you'll let him go? Just like that? No price? No bargain?"
"Indeed." Another slow blink. "He'll return... from my realm... with the secrets he gleamed from... my libraries... but with no memory... of how he acquired it. A fair... exchange. He keeps... the knowledge. I keep... the curiosity... of how he came by it."
Torin let out a long, shaky sigh.
"You better not go back on your word."
Hermaeus Mora's voice echoed one last time—still slow, still calm, but with something beneath it that might have been amusement.
"What need... do I have... to lie... to a mere... mortal?"
Then, without waiting for a response, the tentacles began to dissolve. The two-pupiled eye faded, shrinking, shrinking, until it was nothing but a pinprick of green light. The pages of the book turned—faster and faster, a blur of ancient parchment—and then slammed shut with a crack that echoed through the workshop.
Torin stared at the closed book for a long moment.
Then he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He picked up the book—its black cover cool beneath his fingers—and placed it back in the wooden chest. He locked it with telekinesis, the tumblers clicking into place, and shoved the chest back under the work table.
He sat there in the silence, his mind still racing.
He'll need to be more careful from now on. Bar-Dar had almost been lost because of him—because he'd been careless, because he'd let his guard down.
He couldn't afford to make that mistake again.
And he definitely couldn't expect to catch a Daedric Prince in such a reasonable mood very often.
...
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