Skyrim: Faal Thur

Brom woke up and stretched. Then he remembered what had happened to him yesterday. He had been granted abilities by an Elder Scroll; a weird occurrence that was unheard of before. He lit a candle and climbed onto his bed. Sitting in a meditative state, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply in. Focusing on what he knew of his past life, and scenes in his dreams. Brom began searching the depths of his mind for his lost memories.

It took him several hours to get through them all, he was reviewing them at the speed of thought. The best way to describe it would be that he lived this life again, but almost as fast as you could think about it. He reexperienced every sensation vividly, thanks to his enhanced mental capabilities due to the Elder Scrolls effect on him. Then using all of these new and old memories, Brom summed up his past in his mind.

I was a Breton boy raised by Nord parents, I do not know my biological mother or father. Then one day the Thalmor came and butchered my family for being Talos worshippers and took me away. They tortured me for 4 months before I was rescued by someone seeking revenge on the Thalmor. I later found out he was an old blade member. He taught me swordsmanship and some basic magic, then sent me to High Rock. There I became a scholar to learn all I could about the empire and various theories about magic and machine. Later I became a mercenary to practice my fighting and survival techniques. Feeling I was ready to face the Thalmor I traveled to Skyrim once again; this is where I possessed the mind and body of the old Brom.

Brom opened his eyes to find Erin sitting in a chair by his dorm room's desk. She had two plates of food and was eating while reading a book.

"How long have you been there?"

"Good-morning to you too, and since dawn. So for about 3 hours."

Brom was a little stunned, he didn't realize how long he had been inside his own head.

"Is that second plate for me then?" Brom inquired as his stomach growled, he had not eaten in over a day.

"If you want it. I made it, so it might not meet your standards." She said with a little mockery in her voice. Teasing him for when he first told her cooking was only passable.

"I think I'll manage to get it down,"

With that Brom grabbed the plate and sat down on his bed to eat. As he was eating, he was thinking over the changes that happened to his body. Judging from how low the candle was from when he lit it at the start of his mind dive. He had been up for most of the night, probably only sleeping 4 hours. Even with all that has happened to him, he felt fully recovered. Not only that, it took him an entire day to feel hungry. He was curious if these were the effects of the spell by the Augur or if the Elder Scroll had blessed him with more benefits besides just vitality and magicka.

Brom and Erin talked about what he discovered. They discussed how he would get revenge and came up with a simple plan. First, he would need to be more powerful personally, but he would also need an army. To get an army, he would need a kingdom. And to that end, he needed a capital city to start from. After some discussing Brom chose Markarth, it would be the most defensible place, and it would be good against the dragons in the future.

His plan was ambitious and unlikely to succeed. But Brom knew that he was the only one able to bring the fight to both the dragons and the Thalmor. By now he had fully accepted his life in this universe, he did not even think of his past life as his. The new memories replaced the past life's as his own. He finally felt like he was complete, he had a purpose and he knew who he was.

For the first part of their plan, Brom decided to test his mental capabilities. Grabbing the book Erin was reading before, he saw that it was a book on magic and its effects on oaths. Why Erin had this book did not even cross his min in his fervor to test his new abilities. He opened and started reading, he finished the entire book in an hour. Where it had taken Erin almost three hours to read it.

Smiling to himself, Brom then had Erin test what he could remember. Anything from what the first line of the 347th page was, to explaining the main theories of certain magical philosophers. He had perfect recall and guessed that he could probably comprehend information at least twice as fast as the average reader. This would help in learning new spells; he also was able to recall all of the pages of the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages website. This would allow him to breeze through any test of knowledge unless it was not mentioned in any game, book, or other reference material available.

Next, he went to the college training area in the Hall of Elements. There he would have Erin hand him a spell tome from each school, increasing in difficulty each time. He was able to comprehend all but master spells and cast everything but the expert ones. This was a huge jump from yesterday when he could barely cast apprentice ones. This let him learn many new spells while testing his new limits. Once he exhausted his magicka reserves he recorded how long it took it to fully replenish. Before it took him around an hour to regain all of his magicka, now it was half that.

Finally, Brom wanted to test his physical side. First, he ran… and ran and ran. He kept going long leaving Erin behind. He got many weird stares as he was doing l.a.p.s around the Hall of Elements. But he ignored them and kept going. After around 50 miles he had to stop, his lungs were on fire and his head swimming. He then timed how long it took him to regain his composer and when he felt ready to run again. Then he did sprints, trying to see how fast he could get. His last test was how many pushups and squats he could do since he did not have any weight to actually train with. After all of these tests, and Erin writing down all the results Brom looked over them and saw a steady pattern. He was about double what a peak human could do in physical terms and double the average high elf at his level in magicka. At least that kept things simple.

Erin was simply amazed at Brom's abilities. Even knowing that an Elder Scroll granted him these powers only heightened her sense of amazement. Here was a man, barely older than her, who had accomplished so much already. In the span of a few months, he had cleared and taken a bandit camp for himself, joined the companions and beat every master there at least once, and now he has seen and spoken to the Augur and has been blessed by an Elder Scroll. She knew he was fated for great things.

But she never said that out loud. She saw how he fought things like fate constantly, never letting Daedra influence him and barely tolerated the divines blessing him with this Elder Scroll. She knew he was a control freak, he hated not being in control of his own life. That said he was not arrogant enough to turn down blessings like these. He knew he would need help to accomplish his goals, even if he was reluctant to accept it. This is the analysis Erin came up with while watching Brom these past few days.

For his part Brom was thankful for the Elder Scrolls help, but he hated having to rely on something else for help. So, he dedicated the next part of his life to improving in every way possible. When Erin asked him why he didn't focus on one thing to master, he looked at her and answered with this.

"There was a saying I used to hear, it went like this. A jack of all trades, master of none. Is better than a master of one. I plan on taking that to another level, with my abilities I believe I can master most if not all of the skills I'll need. Then I won't have to rely on anyone for anything ever again."

This independence is what drove Brom. He spent the next few months reading every book in the college. Learning and practicing every spell he could get. He also would train Erin in combat and practice every move he had ever seen in this life or the last. He wanted to improve in every way possible.

He also made sure to study enchanting as much as he could. This was the most powerful skill in the game, as it allowed any character to become good at anything. Brom had full intentions on utilizing this to its maximum as soon he could. He already knew what enchantments he wanted on his sword and armor.

He took and passed the apprentice exam within a few days. The adept one after that in a week. Then he passed the Expert one by the end of the month.

This sudden surge in power and knowledge amazed all of his teachers. They were more experienced and could probably still beat him out of skill. But his raw power and knowledge were on equal terms with an expert level mage. He even got summoned to archmage's chambers, where he discussed many different things including Mysticism and Shadow magic.

After that summon Brom knew he had to leave the college soon, or else their amazement would turn to distrust and jealousy. So, after three months of him arriving at Winterhold, he finally left. He did not announce his departure and made sure to leave when no one was watching. The only thing he did was leave a note saying that he was okay and was going to study abroad. This was only to reduce the chances of them thinking he got kidnapped and looking for him.

He and Erin left Winterhold and headed on the long trip back to Brom's current home, The Mine.