Onmund chokes on his food and starts coughing.

Wow. Subtle.

"So what genre would you guess for that story?"

"Well, depends on the next chapter, right? If it's the assassins then it could be political intrigue or a murder mystery, if interesting things happen to you when you go out to do things then maybe it's an epic adventure or an ascension quest... And of course maybe we're halfway into the story already and it's something else and the amnesia is just a subplot."

"Imagine in the next chapter the Daedric Prince of Hedonism, Sanguine, takes an interest in me and sends me on a wild goose chase all around Skyrim just for his own amusement and then gives me a powerful magical reward and promises to watch me in the future, and in the course of all of that I find a beacon of Meridia, Daedric Prince of Life, and she commands me to go to her temple in Mount Kilkreath to cleanse it of a darkness that has seeped within. What's the genre?"

She grimaces. "The genre is bad writing. You can't add that many things to your story, you'll lose the main plot thread and confuse your audience. Don't do that, you need to pace the story not just throw a bunch of things in."

"Real life often has a bunch of things thrown in," he observes.

"Oh, sure, but in real life your amnesia probably has a more mundane explanation, like, you got into a fight with some mage that didn't like you or something."

"Mm." He reaches into one of the pouches attached to his waist and draws the staff Sanguine gave him. It's nearly as tall as he is, green along its length and ending in a rose at the tip, carved from wood. "So, Onmund, this is the staff Sanguine gave me that I mentioned, do you want to see the Dremora?"

"The fuck?"

Onmund shakes his head. "You're so dramatic. ...but yes."

So he sends a pulse of magicka into the staff, forms an intent, casts—

The Dremora is a tall horned pointy-eared humanoid with dark skin and red markings on his (its?) face. His legs are encased up to the thighs in long metal greaves, his arms are covered up to the biceps by spiky metal gauntlets, his shoulder and upper chest are covered by an elaborate metal set of pauldrons, but his torso is mostly exposed, covered only by a thin strip of metal that goes from the center of his crotch up to his chest, opening into a cleavage window. There are two bands of thin metal wire encircling his waist and connecting the different pieces of the "armour" to each other and to a... cock ring? Cock sleeve? A metal cyllinder surrounding the man's shaft, leaving the head of his penis exposed. Attached to his back is a two-handed broadsword.

Dremora

He doesn't talk, though, and doesn't attack or... do much of anything else. He just stands there, not doing anything. "Getting information out of it is like pulling teeth. I've determined it prefers being called 'it' and that at this power level they do not prefer to be thought of as being individuals. I meant to see if I could find a book on Dremora culture and psychology but I forgot to do so earlier." And then he dismisses it, making it vanish.

"...okay, I will grant you that that's very hard to fake."

"J'zargo does not understand. Your story was true?"

"Yeah."

    "...huh," says Myrvana. "Okay, cool, definitely write an autobiography later, people will eat this up. ...but pace it better, two Daedric Princes at once is still a bit much."

"Okay but now I'm curious, what exactly happened? Weren't you just out to deliver something for Sergius?"

"Funny you should mention that, I still haven't managed to make the delivery. I stopped at The Frozen Hearth before setting off and there was this girl called Sam Guevenne there..."

When they step outside Acumen again the snow's gotten worse, and despite the temperature barriers the wind and snow are still physically present and they all hurry to Elements for the afternoon's lecture on potentialising conjured construct bodies. Which is a class taught by Phinis Gestor but Ruby's long since gotten over his instinctive flinch reaction to the man.

By the evening, the snow is blowing hard enough to be called a proper snow storm, and even the passive weather wards of the College aren't enough to fully shelter them from the cold. The Apprencites decide to just grab some food from Acumen and eat back in their own rooms in Attainment.

Ruby follows Onmund into his room, as he used to do a few times before his trip, and sits cross-legged on Onmund's bed.

"So, tell me about the Civil War."

"...you don't pick easy topics, huh? What sparked the curiosity?"

"Well... do you know the Valtheim Towers?"

"No?"

"They're this fort that's right between Whiterun Hold and Eastmarch, like at the very border, on the main road, and Whiterun and Windhelm have both withdrawn most of their troops enough that the fort was taken by bandits who are now charging extortionate amounts from people wanting to cross. And I'm livid at all involved but at least the people who are having a civil war might have a good enough reason for it.

"So I want to know what it could be."

"Ah."

"I should open with the caveat that I am not that well-informed about it."