I in quick succession cast [ironflesh] and [thunder edge]. The first layered my skin with a green glow making my already exaggerated physical sturdiness even greater. The second caused a layer of burning, buzzing, bright lightning to coat my held blade. If anyone could see this they'd be amazed because people have attempted to do similar for Millenia but failed. In truth the only reason I succeeded was because the weapon I was coating was part of me, of my soul. I wasn't trying to control a fine elemental construct no longer attached to me but merely on a different part of myself.-
My display of magic was seen by the Daedroth that shook itself as a magical reinforcement all it's own coated it's hulking form. I dashed into the chamber and immediately ducked as a thick meaty scaled claw swiped where my throat was a split second before as I crossed the threshold. The claws ripped out a chunk of the stone doorway but magic quickly patched it up making it obvious why the beast hadn't escaped yet. I slashed at the chest of the beast and a wretched metal on metal grinding screech filled the air as my blade dug into it's reinforced hide shallowly. -
The beast snarled a deep resonant rumble from it's chest and throat as it furiously swiped it's deceptively fast arms at me. I deflected but didn't dare block head on as I felt the force of each attack rattle my sword and arm. Enough raw power to crush a boulder like nothing was behind these swings and my body was strong but would suffer no small amount from directly eating a strike like that. And so I deflected and used that great strength of it's to grind cuts into it's limbs. -
I could feel my blood pumping furiously through my body as my physical skills were pushed to their limits. Eventually even my stamina failed me and in my exhaustion I made a mistake. My deflection was a split second too late and a powerful blood covered claw descended on my chest.
"RIIIIIP!"
The sound of tearing filled the air as a deep five lined gouge was torn out of my torso. In that instant of agony and instinct I felt something.... indescribable. I felt death closing in on me and the world slowed down.-
"HMMMMMM!"
A resonate ringing hum filled the air as I felt at one with my blade for the truly first time. My body moved on it's own and I became the blade, for just an instant, and cleaved.
"SOOOWAAAANG!"
A bright light erupted as the world was split apart before me. Air, the beast, even the very space itself was rended apart. A bloody gash upon the fabric of reality itself opened up where I passed. The shock of this scene snapped me out of whatever strange state I was in and I gaped breathlessly as I beheld what I had wrought.-
A perfectly smooth cut dozens of meters wide and even more tall going from the tip of my blade now resting on the floor and stretching ahead so far I could see the light of day at it's end. As for the beast? It lay in two perfect halves on the floor still moving as it's body realized it was dead only after the fact. The stabilizing circle and runes keeping the portal open in the chamber were cut through and the portal wobbled before winking out.-
'I need to leave!' I thought urgently as I realized I did NOT want to be here when the mages above came looking for answers.
I flexed my magicka as I left as fast as my legs could carry me. Flames consumed all my blood on the floor and my wounds began to heal. The grievous wounds on my chest wriggled like worms at the edges as the flesh pulled itself shut. I didn't dare to put my blade in my soul as it was still faintly glowing and buzzing from whatever that was. I put as much distance between myself and the aftermath as I could taking every twist and turn I could going down.-
I knew the Midden eventually opened up outside the college but the path was VERY different in reality compared to the game. It didn't help that the place was filled with all sorts of unfriendly things more than happy to try and kill you. I must have killed well over a dozen skeletons and Draugr each by the time I came to stop. Not because someone found me or anything like that but because I came across something that made me pause. There lit by magical lights was a cage of unusually large bones that had a very familiar feel to them surrounding a football sized egg in a dusty clearly long forgotten magical circle.-
It took me a few moments to process what I was looking at and was left with my jaw on the floor. Dragons bones formed ritually into a cage surrounding an egg of some sort of creature. The crazy part was what the magical circles use was, mutation. It was a complex piece of work that took me a good second of examination to figure out but whoever set it up did so in a way that made the mutations more complete the longer it was active.-
The egg would never hatch until removed from the circle and whatever was placed around the circle was what was used as the direction of the mutations. Judging from the dust on it all I guessed the circle must have been centuries old at least. Which made me wonder what the hell would come out of the egg after so long? Even while still somewhat frayed at the edges by what happened earlier my curiosity got the best of me. I passed my magicka into the "completion" rune and watched the bones turn to dust and the magic circle flash brightly for a moment before going quiet.-
I waited and waited and waited but there was nothing. No chirping, no shaking, no signs of life at all from the egg.
'I guess whatever it was died in the egg from staying in stasis for so long.' I thought genuinely disappointed but I still grabbed the egg since it would make a nifty collectible if nothing else.
With it in hand I finally found the exit of the Midden and stepped out into the frozen soil and ice below the college.-
I hopped across the ice to the shore and moved along the edge of the cliff that Winterhold was situated on until there was a path I could use to trudge back to the "city". That was my alibi if anyone asked where I was, outside the college testing some spells. Looking back at the pillar the college stood on I winced as I immediately spotted the "exit" I had carved out of it from the Midden. It was at least a hundred meters long from top to bottom and looked like someone had slashed a hole in cotton rather than magically reinforced and self repairing stone.
'Today has been a really damned weird one.' I thought with a sigh as I finally put away my blade back in my soul.