[Encanto] 17 – A necessary sacrifice

The Augur of Dunlain. Once a man, he is now a magical anomaly of tremendous power. It had no 'humanity'. It was a shadow of its former self, instead becoming something much greater in exchange. The Augur was completely neutral, its intentions and motives unknowable. Why did it want knowledge from Earth? I did not know. Perhaps it merely sought information for trade later on, as it has with all the information it had gained so far throughout its existence, having learned nearly every secret, ritual, and spell since the College's founding, even before the Augur itself came into existence.

The faculty of the College knew of the Augur's existence. They must have had some sort of agreement or deal with the Augur to get its assistance in certain matters, such as when the player needed to unlock master-level spells for the various schools of magic. Perhaps that was what the Augur was becoming, a spirit of knowledge if it wasn't already. 

Already a month has passed, as I traded everything I possibly could with the Augur, not including my own meta-knowledge, at least, not yet. The Augur absorbed knowledge like a sponge; with [Mind's Palace], I could remember everything down to the last detail of my life. I remembered every page of every thesaurus, every history book, and every slide from every slideshow I saw through elementary, middle school, high school, and even college.

I had so much data, theories, history, culture, and everything I learned from randomly surfing the web or watching videos on YouTube, all at my fingertips and for trade with the Augur, who happily accepted even meaningless or pointless information. The Augur accepted everything, such as Schrodinger's cat, old wives' tales, and poems.

And for that, I gained so much. Rituals, the information transference the Augur so loved to use, countless spells, and information.

I even went as far as to trade for its help, or to be more accurate, its help in making Winterhold into a thriving city and, hopefully, eventually, the most advanced city in Tamriel, rivaling that of even the Imperial City. Its job, mostly, would basically be logistics; it would keep track of trade within Winterhold and basically be a glorified accountant and observer, as its magical tendrils could see everything within and around the College and Winterhold itself as it grew in power.

However, enough about that. With its help and the Augur transferring information and the experience that went with it straight into my brain, my level of skill has rapidly grown.

According to Savos, I was now an expert in Destruction, Conjuration, Restoration, Illusion, and Alteration, and I was a novice at Mysticism.

Mysticism, a magic school that was removed in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim but a part of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, was essentially a school of magic based on the more...inner workings of spells, Magicka, and overall magic.

In oblivion, Mysticism was for spells that absorbed, reflected, and dispelled magic and even moved objects, sensed life, or bound souls, but that was not all. Mysticism was the study of magic and arguably the hardest school to master by far. The other schools of magic had their paths mapped out, everything shown the way. Mysticism was to teach the how and why. How did this spell work, and why? Why was this spell so similar to this one yet completely different in its effects?

Like in Oblivion, I was learning how to make my own spells component by component. What I did with that restoration spell in the Inn was sheer luck. If I had messed up even the slightest bit, that healing spell could have done the exact opposite, becoming one of pestilence and disease.

Luckily for me, the Augur of Dunlain showed me the way, first by opening my senses further to see the raw Magicka in the air, earth, and sky. Magicka leaked from the stars high above, saturating Tamriel in copious amounts of Magicka. Raw magicka came in a wide variety of colors, with the colors typically showing off an element of some kind. Red for fire, green for the earth and life, yellow for lighting, black for necromancy and dark magic, white for restoration, and so on.

With more research and trades from the Augur, I found that everyone in Tamriel had a sort of 'storage' tank for Magicka that naturally refilled over time, only that tank was a person's body. Everyone could learn magic, though most wouldn't be capable of using spells stronger than a novice could handle.

That's right if people were actually taught, nearly everyone would be capable of using the basic Flames or healing spell, meaning that the number of deaths every year across Tamrel would massively decrease, as people could use [Healing] to make life-threatening injuries more manageable or flames to start a fire of fend themselves from a wild beast.

It would save many lives and probably end even more, but that was a risk I was willing to take. How could I teach everyone basic novice spells while making them fast and affordable?

Then I had an idea. The information transference, or [Share Knowledge] spell, as I decided to call it, could possibly be transformed into a ritual. Of course, I'd have to design a ritual that could be reused and easily adaptable to any who steps in, regardless of age, health, race, or gender, and I would have to consider many other factors.

Perhaps I could add an illusion to the ritual, making it an augmented reality of sorts. Depending on the strength of the illusion, it would allow for the manipulation of someone's perception of time, allowing whoever succumbs to the illusion's effects to learn how to cast the novice spells gradually instead of having the information forced directly into their mind all at once.

Mindlessly, I began to formulate the ritual circle in the midden where I would not be disturbed. I had to use and put forth much of what I had learned on my own and from the Augur as I designed the runes, the ritual circle itself, and how Magicka could interact with it. At first, I wanted to make it fully self-sufficient, but I quickly realized that it would overcomplicate the ritual, so I ended up with the basic pentagram pattern with a runic script filling the star. At each point of the star would be a soul gem that would fuel the ritual, but it was expensive and inefficient due to my lack of experience.

From there, I added another circle around the pentagram that would act as the 'Illusion' component of the ritual. This one would have to be even more complex for what I desired; I worked for hours, mindlessly carving away at the stone, making a large chamber rivaling the room with the Atronarch forge. I had to expand the room a bit to accommodate the ritual circle, even going as far as to expand the ritual onto the walls and ceiling.

However, it was missing a vital component. A core, essentially. This core would be the 'core' of the ritual. This core would hold the information that would transfer to those who undergo the ritual. It should also allow someone to observe the person undergoing the ritual as they choose and learn what spell or spells they desire. However, this core, which I made using a grand soul gem, had a limited...memory, so to speak. It could hold at most five spells worth of information.