章 10: 10- The races of Skyrim
The room fell into a silence. Zin also waited silently, as the four pondered.
However, contrary to Zin, who thought the four were considering joining into his project, the four were considering allowing him to carry on with this – "this utter madness, you do realize that if you go forward with it;" Iris started, chewing each word, as if she were carefully weighing every syllable she utters, "apart from the barely one percent chance you have at success, can constitute what may turn out to be a full blown racial cleansing of not only elves, but even all magical races.
I do not ask how you could think of such a thing as this – I only ask, can you live with yourself after it happens?
Can you continue living as a person, not drowned by remorse or guilt?"
Zin just stared at her. He was…. He didn't have the word – perplexed (???) at her way of thinking. Nay, more than that. He couldn't get it. The Nords practically slaughtered, enslaved and purged the snow elves, ultimately driving them to become the abomination they are now, and now there are these four sweet ladies asking him if he would feel guilt if he erased the nuisance of some alien pests for humanity, and even that without any bloodshed or violence. A very clean and peaceful operation.
Zin laughed. A harsh mocking laugh. The type of laugh you don't expect a child of seven to laugh. But then, neither do you expect a child of seven to be saying and thinking about all the other things Zin had been explaining and detailing now.
He looked at the mixed expressions on their four's faces and said, "Why would I feel ashamed, or rather what is there to feel guilty for? I am fighting a fight for human survival. Do you even know what let Ysgramor and his companions to so desperately fight the elves, and literally drive them to extinction? That the same elves, who were driven to extinction by humans and appear as some sorry victims of Nordic brutality had previously razed to the ground a human city built in this here Skyrim, leaving neither woman, child nor elderly in the acclaimed 'night of tears'. That's how racial wars are. That's how they end. The humans fought a literal fight for survival, where the odds weren't some resource or two, or some contested riches. Nay, then it was survival. Now it is survival too. That's the way the world runs. It's simple - survival of the fittest. Either we fight hard, tooth and fang against the elves or the elves are coming to drive us into extinction, as they did in the culling of Cyrodiil, as they intended when they tore open oblivion and unleashed Mehrunes Dagon onto Tamriel."
Zin spread his arms, a very natural smile on his face calmly explaining his stance on the topic.
"Well, coming back to the topic, let's start by taking samples from various species, checking the magic affinity of said samples, making lists of them and then repeating it to gather precise readings of magical affinity of species. Later we can start by going more in depth….."
x.x.x
That week was spent by the team studying and making notes of creatures, constantly listing different biological samples and testing them for their magic content and magic affinity. Zin was actually quite liking this new lifestyle, though the ever present sense of urgency was always weighing on him.
These past days, despite how his father had been blocking news from him, he had been able to hear how the influence of the Thalmor had grown, as news of the Thalmor having established their foothold in the city and starting purge of Talos worshippers had been almost common talk.
Zin knew what it meant – a pissed off Nord populace, and an ever increasing risk of a rebellion against a corrupt and weak empire, that resembled a flickering candle. An empire too weak to honor its promises to its soldiers, too corrupt and morally bankrupt to uphold the beliefs of its people and too cowardly to honor its guardian deity.
And with this all came the effect on Zin's family, as the manor became more and more guarded, and his father started to try returning home earlier and earlier, trying to avoid being outside after dark.
Further investigations by Zin proved to paint a much more desperate situation, as he came to learn that his family was being practically blocked by many of solitude's nobility, foremost of whom was the local thane. Although the thane wasn't that powerful economically as Zin remembered his soon to be thane son Erikur would be in the future, having someone from the nobility against you still had a pretty bad influence on the family's economy.
"How I hate these local tumors…" Zin sighed as he handled vampire dust.
"What? Some big bad vampires annoyed our dear young master Zin?" Selene joked. Since Zin had one day while bored told them a cultivation story with a typical Chinese young master in it, the women had rather loved the title, and had started calling Zin 'young master' as a joke. Zin had protested vehemently in the beginning, but had noticed that the name had become a somewhat of a tease matter, and there after tried ignoring it, thus slowly started being named young master by the four.
"Nope. Was thinking about different tumors. Although I think we have collected enough data and can start drawing some conclusions from it."
The five gathered around, as Cynthia started talking the results, while Iris corrected her. The last two newly named battle mages (getting self-promoted after "we're qualified mages now that we are doing magical research and getting hold of real magical theory"; anyway Zin complied to calling them so to satisfy their ego), listened attentively as they had started to understand many things after spending this week working with Zin.
"Wait", Zin stopped them; "let me guess the races with the highest magic affinities.
First will be the Altmer, the ones who claim to be the closest to the original Aldmer. Their golden color points to their high affinity to magic, as the sun is known as the greatest source of magic in Nirn. Additionally, their base lifespans are the largest among the mortal races on Tamriel, these all being the reason of their high racial pride.
Second are the Bosmer, or the Wood Elves. They also have a high affinity to magic. Where the Altmer are highly prideful, the Bosmer are much more reasonable compared to the Altmer, though they are also fanatical believers in the supremacy of the Aldmer races over humans.
The third of the high magic races are the Dunmer. Yet these are different from the other Mer, because they actually accept being mortals, instead of filing false claims of this mortal plane, Nirn blocking their magika and making them mortal. If the samples from them are carefully studied, two types of magika can be detected: the first one is the ambient magika absorbed by them and the second is a curse that can be attributed to Azura, the Daedra they believe in. They are also much more tolerant of humans, and serve in many human magic circles and are almost never seen to cooperate with the dominion.
The fourth are the Orsimer, commonly known as the Orcs. While the magika detected from them is of only one kind, a curse dooming them to be unable to absorb magika and distorting their bodies and features. Their lifespans also have taken the toll, being equal to that of normal humans.
Then are the Khajit, the cat people. These are also capable of absorbing magika, though this seems to enhance their intelligence, as well as blessing them with potential to be mages .Their racial characteristics as felines are still present though, making them highly capable thieves and sneaks.
The same can be said about the Argonians, however the absorbed magika does not provide them with mana. However, their very being intelligent creatures can be attributed to the mana absorbed by them.
It is my hypotheses that these two races require a lot of ambient mana to be intelligent creatures, or else they will become mindless beasts, a point well known to them, making them staunch supporters of the Dominion."
Zin looked at the four women looking at him stunned, and asked, "How? Was I correct?"
"Umm, yes." Elaine replied, coming out of her shock with a jerk, putting on an indifferent air, "though the conjectures you made about each race need to be verified for being correct."
Yeah, it's strange we researched this and made notes of it for a week, and you memorized it," Iris looked in wonder, and then smirked at Elaine, "wow someone is trying to speak in Jargon to show that they're learned."
Elaine stared daggers at her and was about to start fighting, when Zin interrupted, "well, we've laid the basis for research. Next we'll be starting by trying to study cell structure, DNA, how blessings and curses from Aedra and Daedra work, and how human body changes from said interventions."
"But we can't easily find cursed or blessed humans as those are very rare and usually always closely watched by those intervening entities," Cynthia pointed out the main limitation in the plan.
"Oh we do know," Zin smiled, playing with the vampire dust. "don't we..."
クリエイターの想い 
Zak_the_noble
Zak_the_noble so in this cahpter i'm still trying to establish the basics of the novel and how my fan fic will flow
章 11: 11- Lessons from vampirism
"It's for science, for science!" She repeated to herself, her palms pressed firmly against her ears; crimson with the high pressure they were under, in her vain attempts to block out the sound. "Yeah, for science and betterment of humankind. Moreover, they just talked in detail, telling with joy and wearing that dreamy look on their smug faces how they enjoy culling humans. How they enjoy sucking blood, the younger the victim, the more delicious the taste. They are rapists, murderers and cannibals, enemies of all sanity and reason. I have no pity for them. NO PITY WHATSOEVER."
Cynthia raised her muttering by a tone, as she tried to convince herself. Convince herself that the vile humanoid creature they had captured from the outskirts of Morthal didn't deserve pity – that using it as a test subject wasn't cruel. That this didn't contradict the high values and morals that she had made for herself, the values and morals that she had decided were what made those red and green lines for her as Zin had called them, as he had encouraged all those connected to himself to adopt such moral principle; calling it a rare sunlight in the cold and depressing world…
And yet she couldn't bring herself to see what was happening. Since they had found the creature inside the bog outside Morthal, as it lay in ambush, waiting as its partner lured the poor child into the bog, under the promise of a belly full of food – an easy enough lure for a war orphan whose father had died fighting the Thalmor, and mother persecuted and carried away for interrogation by the very same Thalmor. They had caught the duo as they had just revealed their – as they called it: magnificent – fangs to the child of five, and the child had started panicking, sensing – late as it always goes – that there was something wrong with the kind uncles. And yet, when the sobbing child was told by her after much consoling to go home, the only reply Alva gave –for this was the poor child's name - was to take her with them, as she had nowhere to go.
She had brought the child back to her home, where she was taken in by Zin, who said that the child had great potential; even the vampires had confirmed this, claiming that they intended to keep her as a pet and groom her to be their agent as well as bolster their numbers.
The level of disgust she felt with the vampires was extreme, and it only grew as they related to them the whole of their thoughts, their beliefs, and their actions. For she had come to learn this – Zin's education involved – that an evil doer can be punished for their evil, but a believer in evil is always a plague on earth.
And yet she never could have imagined that she would one day pity any human harming blood sucker, let alone one of the duo they had caught the week before. Yet she had started pitying them only five days after their capture. All her hatred, all her disgust had turned to pity the day when the first of the two vampires died.
Cynthia started a walk down her memory's lane, as the hoarse screeching toned down to heavy breathing. That day, when Zin had explained after their extensive study what a curse on a human entailed, as the monster before them was bound and fettered, missing chunks from its body, all contributions to experiments, as they had tried to see if cut off meat from a vampire could survive. Multiple experiments yielded the same result: exposure of the said part to almost anything before being cut off from the vampire resulted in it becoming ash.
At last, Zin had thought of a final experiment. To the astonishment of the six, the vampires included, Zin had told of a ritual that could be performed that could result in a person being cured completely from vampirism. However, Zin had explained that vampirism was actually a contract of sale in which the soul of the seller is sold to Molag Bal in exchange for great power and nigh immortal life; and to undo this sale, a similar soul must be paid to Molag Bal, in the form of a black soul stone, incurring different deities as witnesses of the trade. Zin had wanted to see what would happen, if vampirism was reversed without paying a soul, and thus they had went to the catacombs of the temple of the divines to try expelling Molag Bal's influence from the vampire.
The result was frightening. The vampire had twitched and shivered, as its body was destroyed, its veins, eyes, everything bursting into a blood mist as it screamed the most agonizing of screams imaginable. Such screams that even hearing them was a torture unimaginable.
Cynthia learned many things that day. How many kinds of voices a human can make. How loud a sound a small statured creature can make. How many parts can go missing before a humanoid stops making noise. How true is it that human hearts can stop beating listening to horrible sounds – because her heart did, and she would have died if not Zin giving her some hasty first aid.
Yet Zin did get his answer – the dead vampire did leave blood and flesh – although splattered all around, yet flesh and blood nevertheless. A gruesome warning from the lord of domination and enslavement of mortal's to any who tried to go back on their agreement.
A cough from Zin brought her back from the depressing memory. She opened her eyes to see the tired childish face of her detail, which was wearing a not so childish expression.
Since the day the vampire died, she had seen him become increasingly pale, though she had noticed that the firm resolve in his eyes had increased, as did his insistence on his strange experimentation. Cynthia felt a shiver go down her spine just imagining what could have caused him to have this steely a resolve, such that he increased his madness, as she had started calling his experimentation; to increase, even after witnessing the gruesome scene of the vampire's death.
"So, these are the results that we have got over this week," Zin began, shaking the list the four had been compiling of the results of different experiments they had been doing on the two vampires. "And sure they do comply with my original hypotheses.
A vampire is a being whose body has been modified magically. Its bones, blood, internal organs, brain, eyes – in short everything – carries traces of heavy magical manipulation.
For explanation," and here Zin made float a drop of blood from the tethered vampire; blood being the only body constituent of vampires not turning to blood upon disengagement from body, "this drop of blood is made from countless small units, as I mentioned before, called cells. These cells make up blood, and similar and dissimilar cells make up the whole body. These cells are constantly dying and there are new cells taking their place, their speed and quality defining the stage of life the human is at. Babies have greater cell regeneration rate, their bodies grow, their brains mature, and their cells ultimately help their organs grow, enlarging their sizes and growing their body density and toughness. Over time, all cells experience changes with aging. They become larger and are less able to divide and multiply. Many cells lose their ability to function, or they begin to function abnormally, dictated by the body of the individual they are the part of – through the DNA which holds the information and the detail of the individual. Imagine this DNA as a spell model. So, if the magic is invested in the body in such a manner that it modifies the body's DNA - the body's spell model, and makes the body to maintain the peak stage," here Zin paused dramatically, taking a deep breath, as his eyes almost took on their birth color and shine – two suns shining brightly – "indefinitely - we can explain the body of a vampire in such a way."
Now, keeping this modification of the DNA requires a high amount of magika, such that even the elves were unable to get it from the surroundings to maintain their immortality, resulting in their bodies being downgraded to adapt to this level of magika. So this results in a hunger from the body to sustain itself. A hunger for magika. Here is where Molag Bal comes into play – the body being unfit to maintain itself in its habitat, craves more magika and lord Molag Bal provides said magika, in exchange for blood. Prolonged life for life liquid. That's what the concept of vampirism is. An agent selling the life essence of its fellow beings to Molag Bal for a good living."
"Sounds pretty much like the relationship between a third world and first world leader" Zin muttered under his breath.
"Anyways, the things noteworthy here are that Molag Bal has imposed certain limitation on the vampires, such that only the magika provided by him can fulfill the magika need and certain sources of energy will have adverse effects on the vampires, such as the sun, purifying energies like those in his enemy Meridia's influence. However, the high ambient mana ensures that these have minimal effect on his servants, resulting in only weakness and slight burning, compared to how much effect these must have normally in case of lower or no magika presence."
"In view of this, we can say that a body that does not age indefinitely requires a high amount of Magika, an amount that cannot exist on Nirn, however, manipulation of the body's code to a degree allowing the extension of lifespan is possible, though there is a limit to it. A body unmodified for mana, exceeding its normal racial limits may burst from too much mana being introduced into it, resulting in mages living longer but not too indefinitely, and aging over time, although slower than their racial counterparts. An exception may be the legendary mage Lord Divayth Fyr who somehow managed to modify his code and somehow managed to get a fitting magika source, though details about him are rare…..
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