My only saving grace is the swordsmanship classes with the men at the Dour. Only there, sword in hand, beating on a straw dummy or sparring with one of his men, that I feel good in my skin again.
If I'm not in class or at the Dour, I hide in the library and read. I found a few old tomes there that peek my interest.
One is called The Legend of Red Eagle and details how a man gave his heart, will, and humanity to a witch in return for absolute power. Peace reigned for two years before a great army invaded, trying to take siege of the man's stronghold. The man came forward and used his power to kill off the invaders but in the process took his life too.
I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that story was real and how much was legend. Was this like the last old book I read, where what was written were lies?
The other book is called The Aetherium Wars and tells about the magical material known as Aetherium, a rare, luminescent blue crystal found in some Dwemer ruins. Though now it is thought to be inert, centuries ago the Dwarves thought otherwise. An alliance of four Dwarven cities was formed to oversee its extraction, processing, and study, and a new 'Aetherium Forge' constructed to smelt it under precisely controlled conditions.
The legend goes that the Forge was able to make artifacts of immense power, imbued from the moment of their creation with powerful enchantments. The dwarven alliance shattered almost immediately, as the four city-states and their rivals attempted to claim the Forge. The fight went on for decades and when it finally ended, it seems that no one restarted the research.
I wonder if the old forge is still around. And if it was, did it still work? Oh, what a great discovery that would be!
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