Northbound Pilgrimage II

After their breakfast, Bishop and Aeyrin were finally set to leave the College behind.

They were still planning on saying goodbye to some of the Mages, but if they were all still sleeping and hungover, it might be best to just leave, rather than wait for Gods-knew-how-long. Who knew that a bunch of scholars could cut loose like that?

But when they reached the courtyard, an unexpected sight greeted them.

Some of the mages were already awake, and apparently, not too happy about that fact. There was a group of them right by the giant statue, but they weren't alone. A company of six Altmer in familiar black robes was standing there alongside the mage Masters and, clearly none of them were in a very amicable mood. They were obviously arguing about something.

Aeyrin and Bishop peered at the scene curiously for a while, but they couldn't hear the argument from the distance. There was an undeniable temptation to get closer and see what was going on, but before they could, a nearby voice interrupted them.

"Come on, I'll open the gates for you. Don't get mixed up in that shit."

They turned to see Enthir behind them as he gestured towards the gate leading towards the long bridge. He didn't look like he meant that as a suggestion – it was more of a command.

Well... to be fair, they have just gotten out of one mess with the College and the involvement of Thalmor meant nothing good. It was probably best to leave this place.

They followed Enthir towards the bridge and Aeyrin waited until they were past the gate and definitely out of earshot, before she finally asked: "What's going on?"

"What do you think?" Enthir rolled his eyes. "Ancano had been reporting about the Eye for a while of course, but nobody told him anything substantial. And now, since that whole clusterfuck was visible probably all the way from Windhelm, the rumors have spread about shit happening. And of course, the Thalmor asked Ancano for an explanation, but he was quite indisposed. So they decided to check things out. They're only a little late," he chuckled meanly.

"Oh. So... they just want to know what happened?" Aeyrin continued to ask. It was never that simple with Thalmor, surely, but... since the Eye was gone, what could they do now?

"Yeah. Not that they're getting anything," Enthir smirked.

"Why? Why not just tell them and get rid of them?" Bishop scowled at him. Who in their right mind wanted to voluntarily prolong Thalmor questionings?

"Oh sure. Let's tell everyone! The Nords particularly will love that story. And the Thalmor won't try to take over the College for 'safety reasons' at all. Besides, the Psijics are kind of their rivals in the Isles or something, and they helped us out. Seems kinda shitty to send the Thalmor right after them and the Eye," Enthir shrugged.

"So... what's the story? You said it yourself, everyone saw," Bishop raised his brows at him. They must have come up with some explanation, or the Nords might just try to close the College anyway after an unexplained explosion.

"Yeah. That's the fun part," Enthir chuckled again. "There was no Eye. No Staff, nothing like that. Ancano has always been a little... eccentric. He had a vivid imagination and when a person's mind starts to go... qualities like that become a problem," he snorted in amusement. "And then he had some sort of an episode where he started yelling suddenly and then he pulled out some strange artifact and caused the explosion. We just held down the barrier and then the artifact got depleted. It wasn't on his corpse and nobody has any idea what it was."

"What? The Thalmor would believe that you know absolutely nothing about any of this?" Aeyrin raised her brows at him in disbelief.

"Hopefully. You know, they didn't believe Ancano about the Eye in the first place. That's why he kept prying and asking for our research. They didn't believe his word alone, because how could mages from Skyrim find something so legendary, and they barely got permission to have one agent here in a Stormcloak region so no one could verify it. I have no idea how much they had to bribe someone to let them in today. Maybe they just promised to take away the magic that caused the field though. Nords just want all magic gone from their land, they don't care if the Thalmor blow themselves up with it later. Anyway, Ancano never got any proof or solid research about the Eye to send back to the Thalmor and he had no proper access to it. And the Dominion thinks that all mages in Skyrim are just some fucking backwater imbeciles, so convincing them that we know nothing about what happened is pretty easy. And this is the official story now, by the way. Unhinged Thalmor agent. So bear that in mind."