Kvaasik - His Master's Student

1 - The Rise of Thras
2 - The Cold Front
3 - Change in Wardrobe
4 - The Unsinkable City
5 - An Unlikely Patron
6 - The Purring Liar
7 - The Dismantling Dilemma
8 - The Shade in Sunlight
9 - Varen's Folly
10 - The Soul Siphon
11 - The Astral Escapade
12 - His Master's Student
13 - The Graveyard in the Closet

The Star was heavier than it looked. When I removed Malyn and myself from it, the gem had seemingly repaired itself, and had darkened into a shade of deep purple. Every arm was now reforged, cut with a curve that would be difficult for even the greatest jeweler to replicate. I carried it beneath my robes cautiously so that no bandit would see it and consider me a target.

I passed many other travelers on my journey northward, mostly hunters and soldiers. If any of these adventurers were foolish enough to be alone, I made sure to absorb their essence to maintain my bond to this body. It was quite a splendid body to have had the fortune of possessing; it made striding across Skyrim a breeze. The Nords must have a resistance to the cold, as the freezing winds barely bothered me. Fortunate indeed.

I soon stumbled upon a small town, though ‘small’ may be an understatement. I counted more plots of farmland than actual buildings. It was not worth my time; I simply moved on. From then on, I found more and more travelers, soldiers, and, unfortunately, bandits. I had to stray from the path many times to avoid large battles and entire encampments of bandits. Tamriel is in such a state of chaos, I am surprised that it has not yet toppled to another force. Invading the mainland could even be considered an act of mercy towards the landwalkers; of course, that is not why we are intent on conquering it.

As I neared another town, this one with an ornate stone bridge, I felt the pull of a reanimation ritual. Malkoran must be practicing necromancy once more. I focused on maintaining my bond to this vessel, but Malkoran was no longer dragging me towards him by accident. He was pouring more magicka into his spellwork and fine-tuning the ritual to imprison a specific entity—me. My spirit was being ripped from this body violently, like cloth being torn in two, and my strength began to dwindle. With the last inkling of control over this body, I took the Star from beneath my robes and threw it into the roadside green, so that no thief or greedy merchant will find it and claim my last chance as their own. Exhaustion suddenly washed over me; I no longer had the strength to cling to this form. Reluctantly, I let go, dragged away by Malkoran and into Meridia’s Temple.

“Wake up, spirit!” I heard Malkoran’s voice boom. I had flesh, and skin, but they were not my own. I opened my eyes—or the eyes of the corpse Malkoran stuffed me in—to see the necromancer in front of me, grinning ear-to-ear. I tried to vacate this disgusting form, like I had last time, but I could not. Malkoran had bound me with such a powerful spell that I could not escape. The necromancer spoke again, “That was a clever trick, entering my mind and making my own thralls restrain my arms. But you will find that it will not be so easy this time.”

I looked down at my arms, expecting skeletal or half-decayed limbs, and was shocked at what I saw. Arms and hands of pink flesh unfurled from my shoulders with strange stitch-like lacerations wrapping around them. I felt iron around my neck, like a metal chokehold, and a similar contraption around my waist. “Have you ever heard of a flesh atronach?”

Flesh atronachs. I had heard of them before, but they are rarely used by the Sload. The idea behind flesh atronachs is to create a vessel out of limbs and hunks of flesh and to fill the vessel with a Daedric entity. The iron collar, belt, and occasionally soul gems trap the spirit in the vessel, ensuring a sort of security that normal summoning spells cannot provide. It requires a massive amount of skill to create a well-formed flesh atronach, and it is for this reason that they have not been used by mortals since the second era. But Malkoran seems to have assembled this vessel with ease. “What is your name, spirit?” I heard curiosity in his voice, a self-destructive sort of curiosity. For necromancers, there is nothing more dangerous than curiosity. Summoned Daedra and Dremora have been known to use their summoners’ curiosity to free themselves, by use of clever trickery or through the death of the mage that summoned them.

I attempted to use the guttural, shoddily-constructed vocal cords of this atronach. “My name is Kvaasik, of Thras. And you are Malkoran of Winterhold.” Astonishment crossed his face as I said his name.

“How do you know my name?” Malkoran regained his composure. “Why are you in Skyrim, and what happened to your body?”

“So plej maturaj fruktauw estas por so rezignita, the ripest fruits are for the patient.” I replied, coolly, "You will have your answers, after you do something in return.”

Malkoran eyed me suspiciously, but I knew that he would do anything to satisfy his hunger for knowledge.