Dragonborn Saga

Chapter 602 - The Psijic ResearChapter

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"So, let’s initiate our talks, Arch Wizard Jon Dare." Quaranir said as he laid down a few scrolls on the table.

"We’re eating breakfast first." Jon said as he waved for the waiter of the tavern.

"Thane Jon! Such a happy occasion to see you." Dagur, owner of the Frozen Hearth tavern came to Jon showing respect.

"Thanks, Dagur. Me and my guest here will take two of the usual breakfast." Jon said.

"The... usual?" Quaranir asked suspiciously.

"Oh! Thane Jon’s breakfast, that’s something on the menu. Two boiled chicken eggs, two loaves of fresh rye bread, a small plate of herbal cheese, two slices of smoked salmon for him and Miss Nefertiti, a warmed bottle of milk, and the seasonings separated." Dagur recited the most famous breakfast on the menu.

"That’s rich." Quaranir commented.

"The secret for long youth and good skin is always a rich breakfast." Jon replied.

"I’ll take it then."

From what it seemed, everything in Winterhold revolves around one man and there is an astonishing amount of loyalty coming from all the people around him. This is not something made by ruling people as a tyrant or even by ruling at all. Everyone in this establishment and along the way from the college to the tavern were looking at Jon with eyes of comradeship and trust.

He is not their ruler, he is their leader, their friend, and their hero.

Until the breakfast was laid out on a table and a black cat appeared out of nowhere to share Jon his meal, Quaranir kept observing everything slowly.

"So... you weren’t supposed to walk into the College?" Jon asked.

"Hm?" Quaranir paid attention to Jon.

"Your superiors, they didn’t tell you to walk in there." Jon clarified.

"No. As a Senior Monk, I have some freedom at handling business." Quaranir replied.

"Truly?" Jon put on a Light Tablet beside him and tabbed on it a few times which caused Quaranir to narrow his eyes and take out another scroll from his bag.

"Your wife, she is very intelligent. Terrifyingly so." Quaranir said.

"She is twice as smart as I am. She is also a very good Diviner." Jon said.

"You realize that you are speaking to a Psijic Monk." Quaranir smiled.

"Indeed. She is better than you guys. Her future vision may be short but even being around the Eye of Magnus didn’t affect her ability that much." Jon said.

"What affects our Divination ability is the fact that we take in mind countless variables." Quaranir said.

"So you people run future simulations rather than plain old Divination." Jon said.

"I will neither confirm nor deny..."

"Save it. Sotha Sil was once a member of your Order. He used your method to create a mechanical city, I already know that you rely on natural Knowledge in your Divination to eliminate the falsehood from the truth." Jon said.

Quaranir opened a part of the scroll he had first and added a few runes on it with his magic.

"This will be fun." Jon smiled.

Two opponents taking notes on one another. Whoever knows more wins.

"I can tell that the Psijic Order has good intentions." Jon said.

"Great."

"But right now they are as clueless as we are. You guys rely on Divination more than you should and stay out of the worldly affairs. Once there is something that catches your attention, you walk up and interfere as little as you possibly can." Jon said.

"What we do is to calculate the best Fate possible. Our interference is usually unneeded unless to tilt the chances a little bit." Quaranir replied in a vague tone.

"Such a small role for such a big organization." Jon smiled, "I’ll ask a question, what do you define Fate as?"

Quaranir smiled.

"The most probable future outcome." He replied.

"So the more you know, the better results you can divine." Jon said.

"Indeed. Some subjects, however, are impossible to divine." Quaranir, "The Eye of Magnus is one thing and... I just discovered a few more things."

Jon smiled.

"It seems that you are aware of it as well." Quaranir understood more about Jon.

"My wife always says it is impossible to Divine my actions." Jon said.

"Many anomalous entities, whether they are people or objects, tend to have that awful trait from time to time." Quaranir said.

"That’s why I prefer Detection Magic over Divination. Its feedback is always accurate." Jon said as he fed a piece of salmon to Nefertiti.

"It is indeed much easier but there is a luxurious feeling for predicting the future and altering it for the best outcome. A successful businessman such as yourself must think so as well, right?" Quaranir asked.

"On the contrary, I am a firm believer of no risk, no lesson, no pain, no gain." Jon said.

"I see. Very curious indeed." Quaranir said and added a few runes to his scroll.

Jon also tabbed on his tablet a few times.

"So, why is the Psijic Order interested in profiling me?" Jon asked.

"No, we have already profiled you once, this time we are just fixing some fatal mistakes in the first profile." Quaranir said.

"Oh!" Jon felt flattered, "When was I first profiled?"

"Eh... I am liberty to divulge information about the Order’s methodology so..." Quaranir wanted to back out but Jon didn’t let him do so.

"Hey, it’s my profile... but it’s okay anyway. I understand. I was just going to provide you with accurate information if you asked." Jon said.

"Provide me?" Quaranir narrowed his eyes, "For free?"

"I’m not a man of many secrets." Jon said.

Quaranir thought this is too good to be true and Jon made it look like a challenge that he isn’t actually hiding anything if he was asked directly.

"Alright." Quaranir said and partially opened the scroll and read the first few lines.

"Subject’s official name: Jon Dare... birth name: Jonhild Firemane... Former profile title: The Prophecy Child of Iliac Bay."

"Wow!" Jon raised his brows, "I was profiled before I was born?"

"To be honest, it was demoted to a rumor afterward since you disappeared for 16 years. The next time you surfaced was in the Profile of the High Priestess of Sithis but we failed to make the connection." Quaranir said.

"You guys are excellent profilers nonetheless." Jon smiled, "What else?"

"Subject Type: Anomalous Human... Race: Nord... Gender: Male..."

"Did you just assume my gender?" Jon asked with a sharp gaze.

Quaranir fell silent for a while.

"Is there anything you want to clarify?" He then asked, readying himself to edit the section.

"Nah. I just feel offended because I should have filled that one myself. I can imagine other people getting really upset about it. It is impossible to be able to assume other people’s genders with almost 72 genders out there." Jon said.

"We’ve encountered that case once." Quaranir said, "I remember reading a profile about that. It was very in-depth. So we keep it to male?"

"Male cat-person."

Quaranir looked at Jon and added a few runes on the scroll but away from the gender line.

"Alright. What’s next? Ah, yes. Subject Classification: Unforeseen."

"That bad, huh?"

"It is. I just raised it personally to Unforeseen this morning."

"Wow! What else?"

"Subject Notes: updated today, Subject is one of the most curious anomalies both in person and in detail. The subject is also in possession of many anomalous entities and objects that are mostly rated between Minor and Safe."

"Minor and Safe?" Jon frowned, "I guess accuracy isn’t your strong suit then."

Quaranir didn’t want to bother explaining more about the inner workings of the Psijic Order to Jon but it seems that the latter was putting more value on himself.

Jon’s aim was simple, he just wants to better understand the Psijic Order which is something he researched a lot in both his past and current lives. On the other hand, Quaranir had one goal and it is to discern who Jon Dare is and how to prevent any unforeseen disasters.

"Minor and Safe are just risk qualifications. When the Order tries to rate the risks of causing a future disaster, we either call it Safe for subjects of no particular threat, Minor for subjects that can cause national-scale disturbances such as most of the Daedric Artifacts, Major goes for subjects with the potential to start massive changes and need to be contained at all costs."

"Safe, Minor, and Major. But I was rated as... what was the word again?" Jon asked.

"Unforeseen." Quaranir said, "This rating was carried by many subjects of great power which are also obscure when someone tries to divine them. The Eye of Magnus is one, you too are considered Unforeseen as from this day."

"Does that have any relationship with the Unforeseen Queen?" Jon asked.

His question was related to Mirren and Miranda as they are descendants of the Unforeseen Queen Ayrenn, founder of the First Aldmeri Dominion.

"Yes, it is a title that was given to Queen Ayrenn by the scribes of Artaeum." Quaranir confirmed.

"Strange!" Jon scratched his chin, "One thing I don’t understand is how my actions can’t be read through Divination and my birth was foretold. If I remember correctly, the same case also happened with Queen Ayrenn."

"Indeed." Quaranir replied, "Birth is the easiest thing to predict since before the emergence of a great fate, many signs start to show themselves."

"I see your point." Jon didn’t agree or disagree since he was not knowledgeable in these regards.

"To sum up the rest of the report, you have come to our attention during your time in the Alik’r desert at the Citadel of Ebonarm. After investigating you, we discovered that you were on Azura’s Daedric Labours. You were classified as Safe until the fight with the Worm God when you displayed power beyond our first estimation which made you into a Minor ranked entity."

"I still don’t like getting belittled."

"Please. These are not derogatory ranks. Every entity we take interest into is beyond that of should exist and affects the daily life of the common folk."

"Whatever."

"Either way, we noticed that during that time, you have taken a step out of the veil of reality and traversed the realms beyond the skin on Sithis. I applaud your return which wasn’t witnessed for hundreds of years."

"You even know about that?"

"We also know that you and Lord Sheogorath call each other nephew and uncle."

"Oh! Now that you mention it, I think he’s getting lonely these days."

"Last but not least, are the appearance of the Dragonborn and the Crisis-ranked Dragons."

"Crisis rank now?" Jon added a fifth rank as he was counting on his fingers.

"It is a rank where we have no power over. It is not Unforeseen but no the Psijic Order has no power to handle it except by offering what little guidance we have. We prefer to let the World handle these matters through its own plans which are mostly unforeseeable."

"That’s lazy of you."

"We are nothing but an order of scholars sir Jon, we have limits." Quaranir said, "The scale of a Crisis ranked anomaly can threaten the entire existence of Mundus. The Oblivion Crisis, the Warp in the West, the Soul Burst, the Revival of Dagoth Ur, and now the Return of the World Eater."

"But you don’t show yourselves in these situations."

"That’s because we have no power over it. We only record and keep profiles on all these subjects as we always did before the recording of history."

Jon sighed as Quaranir kept selling the story of how the Psijic Order is a neutral party that only interferes whenever it feels it is able to and keeps recording and profiling.

For the powerful order of mysticism masters which housed names like Vanus Galerion, Mannimarco, Sotha Sil, and Divayth Fyr, this passive attitude made it feel a little bit...

"Underwhelming..." Jon said the word which came across his mind.

"I apologize if we don’t live up to the fantasies of the outsiders but that’s the thing about deciphering the mysteries, it feels underwhelming." Quaranir explained.

"Meh!" Jon rested his head on his palm as he leaned with his arm on the table.

"When you are the Dragonborn, I am sure your life is way beyond exciting compared to us common folk." Quaranir said.

"Nah, it’s been just dull as of late..." Jon replied but he then narrowed his eyes and looked at Quaranir who just called him "Dragonborn".

"What a marvelous existence you are!" Quaranir started to fervently add more lines of runes on his scrolls, "To be honest, we never knew who the Dragonborn would be but to think he is the Child of the Prophecy from 20 years ago. It is all coming together rather nicely. Many in the order are avid fans of the Dragonborn and the Dragons in general thus we had an extensive research a few months ago. We knew the Dragonborn would be an Unforeseen ranked entity but to be honest, running into you wasn’t how I imagined it would be."

The whole situation turned from Jon being Mage fanboying over the Psijic Order to the Psijic Monks being fanboys of the Dragonborn.

As Jon said, it is underwhelming indeed.

"Whatever!" Jon sighed, "Let’s go, I’ll show you some of those so-called Minor Anomalies or whatever."

"Oh! How considerate!" Quaranir gathered his scrolls hastily and got ready to leave.

"Just a word of warning." Jon said, "You might want to have more scrolls than the ones you have."

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