Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-3293219-20140205203111/@comment-5735114-20140206225520

(Feast your eyes on mah 1,045 word long Pie!)

Talsakr had been lying in his bed for what felt like ages. Eventually, after an approximately half-hour long rant, the voice in his head had finally left him alone. To cope, he’d tried to remember his ‘education’ in Markarth, and what he had done to survive that, but the voice was somehow even more annoying with its ever-bothersome presence. Despite his imprisonment, Talsakr managed to feel happiness at the blissful silence in his head.

Looking outside the window, Talsakr was able to tell that it was about midday. As he didn’t have any breakfast, he was starving by then. Fortunately for him, he saw a plate of food nearby the door. Walking closer, he saw a piece of bread, some water, and a bunch of red berries on a small plate. Ignoring the berries, Talsakr ate the bread as quickly as he could, hoping it would satisfy his hunger. As he was eating, Talsakr took note that the bread was still somewhat fresh. According to the tales of Cidhna Mine, the inmates were fed only stale bread three times a week, so he considered the fresh food a blessing. Taking a sip of the water to wash it down, he quickly spit it out, as it was far too cold to drink regularly. He now tried one of the berries, hoping that they would contain enough juice to wash down the bread, but found the taste foul and it only made him thirstier. Now deciding that the water was worth it, Talsakr took another careful sip, only to find that the water didn’t seem as cold anymore. Drinking the whole cup of water, Talsakr felt no hunger despite the small meal. He took the berries and placed them on the empty nightstand nearby his bed, for further use.

After another hour or two of doing nearly nothing, Talsakr thought he’d actually feel better if the voice in his head was still ranting. He hated the thought, but he knew it to be true.

Hey, anyone there?

Silence. Talsakr sighed again as he lay back down on his bed. As he lay for another 20 or so minutes, he wondered how long he’d been imprisoned. Although the assault on the College felt like yesterday, Talsakr was not familiar with paralysis and how it affected time perception. For all he knew, he could have been trapped there for months.

As Talsakr was about to get up again, the door to his room creaked open. There was enough light to reveal that the one who did it was humanoid and wearing mage robes, but not enough reached the figure to be able to discern any details.

“Follow me”, the figure said, revealing himself to be male by his voice.

Talsakr stood, both excitement and fear on the forefront of his mind. He slowly began to follow the mage as he left the room.

The mage who had come for Talsakr had originally been against the plan of taking a paralyzed prisoner. However, he slowly began to see the benefits and eventually came around. He was a high-ranking mage at the College, gaining a decent amount of power and authority after Skyrim was ‘liberated’ from the ‘evils of magic’, and the College switched from being a perfectly peaceful establishment to one that would fight when it needed to. Thus, a rank-based system was created.

The mage had originally been one of the best conjurers at the College during his time, but since most others left to aid the fight against the Empire and their policies against magic, he became the best. His newfound aid in deciding the affairs of the College had found itself being used in favor of the paralysis idea, and so Talsakr was captured.

While the mage appeared cool and unconcerned with anything from his walk, he felt a boiling rage at the Empire and their ignorance, and those who aided them. He was going to take great pleasure in killing the prisoner once the others were done with him.

After a walk down a long hallway, the duo arrived in what appeared to be a large hall, with a large desk on the other side of the room, that curved with the walls, spanning the whole length of one side of the room and half of two others. At the desk sat the high-ranking officials of the College, but most of the seats at the desk were empty. Many mages had left for Morrowind or High Rock, and to fight for their beliefs.

The mage who had went to fetch Talsakr slowly went to his seat at the table, the fourth one off the left of the center. The light in the hall, provided by large, rectangular windows plentiful in the room, made Talsakr squint. After he adjusted to the light, he saw that the mage who had come to fetch him was an Altmer.

Talsakr turned his attention back to the Arch-Mage, who, of course, sat in the center. He was a Nord, which was certainly unexpected. He had a wispy white beard, which was once his attempted imitation at one of the Graybeards. Talsakr asked, “What do you want of me?” The Arch-Mage merely chucked. His voice was deep and warm, almost making Talsakr feel at home. “I was about to ask the same of you.”

Talsakr thought for a moment. He saw there was no way out of this without looking bad. “I had thought, that if I helped the Windhelm guards, perhaps I would earn my place in their city.” The Arch-Mage was somewhat disappointed at this statement; he hadn’t known that the College had sunk so low in its reputation. Granted, it had little respect even before the incidents a few years ago.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Now, please answer my question.” Talsakr requested. The Arch-Mage did not reply to his request, and instead let one of his underlings do it. One Dunmer female spoke. “You seem to be emitting a magic aura… we’d like to study it.” It took all the Arch-Mage’s self control not to do something to express his true emotion. The very information he would have never given out was handed to the Nord on a silver platter. And yet the mages below him were supposed to be his ‘advisors’…