The Runes of Time: ReWriting (part 1)

The cave gave nothing short of a single drop of sunshine. The air was thick, musty, and smelled of long decayed creatures. Treykarth was hoping he wasn't risking everything, without thinking, while Fortex lead the way. "You wouldn't believe what you'd come across while searching for abandoned magical runes", Fortex joyfully sounded, " I've been through undead, mummified animals, incredible metals, and even the occassional buried treasure!". Trekarth dwelled on that for a moment, and concluded, "so thats where all that money came from?". Fortex seemed to smile slightly, and say, "yeah, more or less....". Treyarth wanted to clarify that none of the money was stolen, but noticed the linings of the cave walls had began changing. Streaks of changing colors had begun to arise. Shapes of animals and figures unknown to him were, as it appeared, drawing themselves on the walls! All of them, somehow, were connected together through the changing lines. As Trekarth marveled at the intense beauty of the area around him, Fortex began explaining, "I see you are as fascinated as I was the first time these incredible forms of art. The first day that iuncovered these, I remember sitting back, and staring with wonder until thrist and my needs would no longer have it. They were made Eras ago, but the crafting of the magic used has kept them here for this long, and undoubtebly hundreds longer." Trekarth had to rip himself from the moving lights, and continue down the endless-looking corridor in front of him. Fortex was moving quickly, even for being.....well aged. They walked for a good 20 minutes in silence,with only the magnificant lights of the sides and the torch Fortex had brought with them.  Quite suddenly, all the lights from the walls vansihed. For a moment, nothing happened, then a light showed at the end of the tunnel, stunning Trekarth for a minute or two. Fortex went ahead, excited, and ready to complete his mission. Trekarth took a bit longer, then cautiously, he crept forward into the light. When his eyes had finally adjusted, he almost fell back of what he saw in the cavern! The room was cut out of the finest misture of ebony and moon-stone, that glowed and shimmered in the torch light. There were large pillars and columns, that soared upward, into the darkness, and statues of long-forgotten heros across the halls. "This was once a temple, one of the largest infact. It contains histories and information from many generations ago. But once people left the runes alone, and people stopped coming, they were left behind completely. Of course, their was the disaterous avalanche back in the middle of the 2nd era, which is why this was buried so far down." They continued until the came across the largest doors Trekarth had ever seen before, with shapes and figurines decked across them. As he scanned its surface, he soon realized that they were the schools of magic, from destruction and restoration, to illusion and even enchanting, but the central and largest shape he wasn't familiar with. It looked like a diamond within a diamond, the inner one being side-ways, and it being surrounded in a strange frame. Each maigc had a color, set to represent it,, destruction was red, restoration yellow, and so on, but the diamond one continuously changed colors and shades, colors that didn't even seem to exist found a way into this rune. Fortex had also been watching the rune, but the differance was he knew what it was. " Curious to know what that is?" he gestured the strange shape. Trekarth nodded abruptly. "It is the symbol that was assigned for time magic. These temples were the oly places to have ever used it before, they are only 2 books in my lifetime I found that had this symbol in them, and neither could explain what they were. Not even where to look for them!" The elderly khajiit hung the torch on the wall, and walked directly to the doors. He pulled the enormous handles, but they were sealed tight. He chuckled a bit, and proposed. "You probably want to stand behind me, I may have a lot of years on me, but i can still show off a bit."Trekarth stepped back, and Fortex looked at the door and breathed in deeply. He closed his eyes, aimed his hands straight forward. Then with a single great motion of his palms, the doors flew open, and almost broke off their hinges. The room was darkened, and seemed strange and unnerving, but Trekarth, relunctantly followed Fortex into the area. The room was cold, and continued to frighten the poor high-elf, but the wizard, a the front of the room, pulled a silver lever on the ground , which brought the light-pictures back to life across the walls, only much brighter, able to show the entirety of the room. Fortex wasn't paying attention to it though, he was staring at what he devouted his life to finding. In front of him, on the ground, was a hexagon, which covered at least half the room. At each corner was a pillar, and a 7th one was in the dead-center of it all. Each pillar had some sort of alter on the tops of them, able to hold specific items. He ushered Trekarth over, and heroically cried "This is what I have searched for years, decades for! This is moments before history re-rewritten, and i can do what I saw upon the elder scroll, so many fateful days ago." He began shuffling through his large bag and continued, "The scroll showed me, not only what is was or how to activate it, but how to control it." Fortex walked over to a pillar, which had a long hole on the top of it. "For each pillar is a way of magic. Each way of magic needs a specific item to activate the entire rune perfectly, one thing slightly wrong, and you could end up incinerated, or worse." He pulled a blade, that shimmered brightly, and looked sharp enough to kill a mammoth in one swing. "Firstly, a blade that captures the souls of others." He stuck the blade into the hole, and the entire pillar began to glow blue! "Secondly," he added, walking to the next one, "The heart of a daedric lord, fresh from oblivion." he placed the heart, still seeming to beat, on the pedestal, and it began to glow purple. He kept going to each and every pillar, explaining the items he used, and how they relate to protecting travelers from the possible occurances in activating the time rune. Things like rings, necklaces, books, robes, and other objeccts put into their specific spaces. After the first 6 were done, he slowly walked up toward the central area. " This is the last piece of the puzzle. The item i got is beyond difficult to obtain, yet i luckily had it all along...", Fortex placed an old, tattered scroll onto the pedestal, and it showed all the colors, and quickly all the pillars were connected together with streams of light, Fortex ran as fast as he could out of the center. The ground where the hexagon was began adding line, and soon the hexagon was within a incredible large circle. Lines and letters formed inside of it, and soon, everything calmed. Trekarth had closed his eyes out of fear, but when he opened them, his jaw almost fell to the floor. The rune was gigantic, mystically laying on the floor, and felt like it was radiating magic. Fortex casually walked toward it, and stood infront of the young adventurer."This is where you come in." Fortex brought him into the center of the circle. Feeling a bit skittish, Trekarth asked, "So, this won't kill me will it?", "honestly, if you don't do exaclty as I say, It probably will." Trekarth's attention was re-ensured. "Now, observe and duplicate my hand motions." Fortex demanded. He began swirling his arms and hand in an odd fashion, unlike any spell Trekarth had known, but he copied, and watched, and soon found that he could do it easily. Fortex smiled at him, "excellent, that is exactly what you need for the spell. This is what the alyids would do to activate the rune. But, the one thing they did wrong, that the elder scroll showed me, was that the......".(to be continued)

The Runes of Time: Redefining

          It was a late night for an adventurer during the 4'th of the evening star. The directions given to him on the contract were hard to read, filled with turns and loops, seemingly endless. The man at the inn said that the contractor was offering enough gold to satisfy even the noblest of heros. But there were dark signs on the message. Most were too suspicious of it to follow its trail, but he desperately required the money. Some tried to pursuade him out of it, saying as a responsible, and mighty high-elf, there were other ways. But his aged mother would die of a slow, painful  sicknesses without the care of a master restorator, and most regular ones cost too much as it is. This job, whatever it was, payed enough for all of them, with money to spare! He pulled out the instructions from his guilded elven armor, which gleamered in the sight of the moons. The man felt a nawing urge to return back, and find another way to gain the funds, but as he was thinking this, a voice broke the frozen air. "alone in the forest, I see." The adventurer nearly jumped out of his boots, drawing his daggers, "I'm here for the contract!" the high-elf proclaimed, as the contract said to. Trying to stand tall, and strong, he couldn't see where the voice had come from. Suddenly, through the dark misted shadows, a pair of eyes appeared, out of seemingly nothingness. The Khajiit strolled out into the faded moon-light. "Good thing too, otherwise you'd end up like him." He pointed at an older looking red-guard under a large tree, who, apparently, must have lost his way. "I'd like to get whatever this job is done as fast as possible", he said trying not to look at the charred and long-dead corpse, "They said the money yo-", He stopped me, and said, charmingly, "please, follow me, and I'll make everything clear, Mr.....?".
           "I am Trekarth, of Kartwasten, and you, sir?". They began a slow, but brisk walk through the thicket, "I am called 'Fortex', or once was, long ago." His eyes glowered for a second, as if remembering something long forgotten. Then continued," You see, young  high-elf, I was once a well-renowned magician in certin parts of the black Marsh,", gesturing to the unfortunate red-guard, "until i stumbled upon something that eventually sent me here, all the way out in the rift." They came across an old, almost abandoned-looking home. The former-magician ushered him inside, and brought him over to a silver chest. "go ahead, check", speaking as he opened the encasing for him. Inside was gold. Not just a lot of gold, though. Enough gold to kill the strongest of orcs, or fill the desires of any petty thief for life. Trekarch stood, gapping at the potential of all that currency. Fortex brought him back down to Earth, by saying, " Is this enough for my guide?" All Trekarch did was a slight nod, but that was enough. Fortex shut the chest, and started, "alright, shall we go then?". Fortex packed a couple of oddites, potions, and a little food into a satchel, and they were on their way. "Allow me to explain my dilemma", Fortex began, "About 27 years ago, i had stumbled upon an elder scroll in a nearby mine. Not knowing what it was, i read it. The effects of these scrolls, as you might know, tend to blind you. Luckily, being such a high-leveled wizard, the magical effects only lasted a couple of weeks. I was still probably very lucky. Anyways, the scroll showed me a vision of this place, and some ancient alyeid hieroglyphics, poeple who were quite amazing at manipulating magic and its properties. It showed me one of their most treasured spells, a certin rune to cast. But this was more than mere fire or lightning, no. This was a way to create a passage, through time and space itself!"
       The high-elf just stared at him, undetermined if he should continue on,or head for the hills while he could. "You see, they were never successful in real time travel. They could never get it to function as an actual spell, sending them to unknown times and places, even said to send some to daedric planes. So, they created runes, were you could use the spells, without destroying yourself and everyone around you. But they still didn't know when and where they'd show up. So, they were forgotten, and most of these runes are lost in caves and tunnels across tamriel. Strangely, it seems the elder scroll, being one thing linked to time and space manipulation, was able to locate one of the runes, which was distoriented it. Does that make sense to ya?". Trekarch had to think this through, but finally claimed, "yeah, i got it. But why do you want to find this 'rune thing', and where do I come in?". Fortex immediately responded, "think of the good this could bring! A whole new look on the ways we use the arcane arts. New spells, new theories, maybe even a entirely new school of magic! Theres so much that could become of this find.", his enthusiasm began to fade, "as for me...", he sighed deeply, and looked at Trekarch directly, "I'm becoming old, that's the problem. When I was young, I probably could do this alone in a heartbeat, but now.... I'm afraid the spells are too much for me alone. I needed someone to defy the laws of nature with. So, now we're here, and you can make your final choice." They stopped in front of a cavern, recently dug out, and looking terribly fearsome. "I am going to redefine magic as you, and as the world know it. Will you join me, in completing the tasks none bolder would take?". The young adventure thought for a moment, going through every possible motion he could take. Finally, he spoke, "For my family, I shall go anywhere." The wrinkled khajiit smiled brightly at him, and nodded. They both entered, side by side, neither realizing what the other was capabale of....