Another month later, and Torin sat in his section of the workshop next to Bar-Dar.
The Argonian's blue scales gleamed in the candlelight, his crocodilian snout twitching as he studied the object in Torin's hand.
The horned crown atop his head, a natural growth, cast strange shadows on the wall behind him. Both of them looked at the golden sphere in Torin's palm, then at its identical—albeit much larger—counterpart on the floor.
What Torin held was the miniaturized kinetic absorber, reverse-engineered from the larger device beside him—ripped straight from the chest of a Dwarven Colossus all the way back in the Second Era.
Enthir had managed to procure it from an Imperial collector, a Colovian nobleman who was going broke and selling off his treasures one by one.
The wood elf had gotten it delivered to the College two weeks ago, and thankfully, because it was mostly busted—cracked casing, broken components, inert enchantments—it hadn't cost much.
The next two weeks had been spent studying its inner workings and creating a miniaturized, actually functional version. Torin and Bar-Dar had faced their fair share of failures.
The finished product had either exploded into a thousand pieces—showering them with shrapnel and forcing Torin to use Restoration magic to heal the cuts—or simply not reacted at all, sitting there inert and useless no matter how much magicka they fed into it.
But this one... this one felt different. To Bar-Dar.
Bar-Dar looked at the kinetic absorber and nodded, his tail curling around the leg of his stool.
"I have a good feeling about this one." His eyes narrowed. "I don't know why, but I feel like we've finally done it."
Torin gave him a side glance.
"You said that every single time." He let out a sigh. "Every. Single. Time."
Bar-Dar's snout twitched. "This time I mean it."
"You meant it last time too."
"I was wrong last time. This time I'm right."
Torin shook his head, but a small smile tugged at his lips.
"Whatever." He picked up the small sphere. "Let's just try it."
He inserted a small soul gem—petty, nothing valuable—into the kinetic absorber's core. The device hummed softly, the golden casing warming beneath his fingers.
Then he carefully placed it inside a sphere of metallic plates, each one attached to another with an assortment of screws and bolts, forming a shell that would contain the absorber and connect it to the rest of the shield mechanism.
"Ready?" Torin asked.
Bar-Dar leaned back, his stool creaking.
"Do it."
Without ceremony, Torin clenched his fist and punched the metallic plate sphere.
The impact was solid—a sharp crack that echoed through the workshop. The plates dented slightly at his punch, the metal groaning under the force, but then they snapped back into shape, pushing Torin's fist away as if nothing had happened.
Bar-Dar nodded in satisfaction, his tail uncurling from the leg of his stool.
"I told you," he said, his voice smug. "I had a good feeling about this one."
Torin gave him a blank look.
"We've already crossed this stage." He flexed his fingers, rolling his wrist. "The important thing is how much energy the absorber can hold, and how well it dissipates it. We already know it can handle one punch. The question is whether it can handle a sustained assault."
Bar-Dar's smugness faded slightly.
"Oh."
Torin clenched his fist again and struck the sphere. Then again. And again. He varied his angles, his force, his rhythm—left hook, right cross, an elbow strike for good measure. The plates dented and snapped back, dented and snapped back, absorbing each blow without breaking.
Soon enough, he'd struck ten times. He stepped back, breathing evenly, and watched intently.
Bar-Dar had also retreated, hiding behind his own chair. His stool was overturned, his tail tucked between his legs, and his eyes were wide. He'd been present for every failure—had the scars to prove it—and he knew that this was the moment when metallic shards might start flying everywhere, embedding themselves in the walls, the ceiling, and whatever soft flesh happened to be in the way.
But that didn't happen.
The sphere sat there, humming softly, its plates smooth and unblemished. No cracks. No shrapnel. No explosions.
Torin let out a long, slow sigh.
"Finally."
He walked over to the sphere and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. The casing was warm—not hot, not burning, just warm—and the soul gem inside was still glowing, still functional.
They'd still have to imbue it with enchantments to shrink it even further. They'd have to create several more absorbers—at least six, maybe eight—to distribute across every section of the shield. They'd have to connect them all, link them together, ensure that kinetic energy absorbed by one section could be distributed across the whole.
And then they'd have to decide whether it was more efficient to simply dissipate the accumulated kinetic energy, or find a way to release it offensively—a stored blow, unleashed at the right moment, that could stagger an enemy or shatter a shield.
But that was the easy part. Compared to miniaturizing a device that had been designed to absorb the blows of giants and dragons, the rest was just... work.
Still, Torin couldn't help but find it unfortunate that he hadn't been able to make the trip to Blackreach himself to procure something like this. With so many projects and the impending trip to High Rock, he simply didn't have the time.
And he had to admit—even if he had ventured there personally, the chances of finding a Dwarven Colossus's kinetic absorber were very slim. Those ancient constructs were rare to begin with, and most had been destroyed or scavenged centuries ago.
Enthir's contact had been a stroke of luck—the kind of luck that didn't strike twice.
Torin set the sphere down on the work table and turned to Bar-Dar.
"Good work," he said. "Now let's make seven more."
Bar-Dar groaned.
...
Another two weeks later. Torin stood over the workbench, hunched forward, one eye pressed to a magnifying glass mounted on a swiveling arm.
The lens revealed a world of tiny details—gears no larger than pinheads, springs coiled tighter than a serpent, and the third kinetic absorber, shrunk with alteration magic and enchantments until it was barely the size of a rice grain.
He levitated the absorber with telekinesis, his magic holding it steady in the air while he aligned it with its intended socket. The golden speck drifted slowly, rotating, searching for the correct orientation. Then, with a barely audible click, it settled into place.
Torin let out a long, slow sigh.
He set down the magnifying glass and picked up a small needle—also levitating, also guided by telekinesis. With surgical precision, he began to carve the channels through which the kinetic force would travel.
The needle traced lines across the inner surface of the shield section, cutting grooves no wider than a hair, paths that would guide the absorbed energy from the absorber to the gears and the shell.
He still hadn't decided whether he wanted to dissipate the kinetic energy or channel it into something offensive.
That was a problem for later—once he finished the prototype, once he could test the shield's capacity in earnest, once he had real data to base his decision on. For now, he just needed to build something functional. Something that wouldn't explode the first time he used it.
In the end, it took him three hours to finish his work. His back ached. His eyes burned. His fingers were stiff from holding the same position for so long.
He pushed back from the workbench and stretched, his spine popping in several places. Then he walked to the small window in the corner of his section, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes for five minutes.
It was too bad Bar-Dar wasn't here to help him with this. The Argonian's steady hands and sharp eyes would have been useful—cutting the channels was tedious work, and having someone to share the load would have made it go faster.
But Bar-Dar had started working on his own project after returning from Apocrypha. Just as Hermaeus Mora had promised, the Argonian didn't remember anything about his time in the Daedric Prince's realm—not where he'd been, or how he'd gotten there and back.
Still, whatever knowledge he'd brought back, whatever secret had been planted in his mind, it had lit a fire under his scales.
He'd been spending all his free time in his quarters, surrounded by books and scribbled notes, working on something he refused to discuss. Torin had tried to ask—casually, carefully, without prying—but the Argonian had been rather vague and evasive.
It's nothing, Bar-Dar had said, his tail twitching. Just a personal project. You'll see when it's done.
The Argonian's presence in Torin's workshop dwindled more and more until he started spending only an hour or two helping every day for a week now.
Even then, Torin was content to let him be. Everyone had their secrets. And after everything the Argonian had been through—the kidnapping, the imprisonment, the violation of his mind—he deserved his privacy.
Torin opened his eyes and pushed himself off the wall, ready to get back to work. His hands were still stiff, his back still aching, but the break had helped. Five more minutes and he'd be ready to—
A knock on the door.
Three sharp raps—the kind that demanded attention.
Torin frowned, his annoyance flaring. He had made it very clear—very clear—to everyone in the College that he was not to be disturbed during his workshop hours. Students, teachers, even the Arch-Mage. He'd posted a sign on the door and everything.
This had better be important, he grumbled to himself as he headed for the door.
He pulled it open, ready to snap at whoever was on the other side—and paused.
The Breton twins stood in the doorway. Malin and Melina Bontain, both wearing the exact same smug pose: hands on their hips, chests puffed out, chins raised. They looked like a pair of peacocks who had just discovered a particularly impressive peahen.
Torin raised an eyebrow, his annoyance easing slightly.
"Let me guess," he said. "You figured out the second enchantment on Skaldrfong."
Malin quickly shook his head. "Technically yes."
Melina shook her head as well. "But technically no."
Torin alternated his gaze between them, waiting for one of them to start making sense. Neither did.
He let out a tired sigh.
"Elaborate."
Malin stepped forward, his hands gesturing as he spoke.
"You know how we said the second enchantment had something to do with blood? Well, we were right." He paused. "But we were also somewhat wrong."
Melina picked up where her brother left off, as they always did.
"Blood, as it turns out, is only the trigger for the enchantment. The key, not the lock." She tilted her head. "You cut something, blood touches the spear, and something happens. But what that something is..."
Malin shook his head. "We still don't know. We can't even study it. Every time we try to probe the enchantment with magicka, it just... slides off. Like water off oiled leather."
"We think it's hidden," Melina added. "Deliberately. And only blood will reveal it."
Torin let out a low hum, crossing his arms.
"And?" He raised an eyebrow. "Need me to lend you a knife or something?"
Malin and Melina looked at each other and laughed—a synchronized, practiced sound that made Torin's eye twitch.
"No," Malin said. "Our blood—Bontain blood—is far too precious to waste on a mere experiment."
Melina looked at Torin with a smile that was equal parts charming and insufferable.
"We're here to ask for your blood."
Torin looked at the twins with twitching eyes.
If those brats weren't so competent, he'd have given them the boot long ago. Their smugness, their insufferable synchronicity, the way they finished each other's sentences—it grated on him in ways he hadn't expected.
But they had a way of growing on you, like mold or fungus. And at the end of the day, he was looking for smart mages, not socialites. The Bontain twins fit the description.
Those not in the know might scoff at their progress. Two weeks to decipher a single clue about the enchantment's nature? Hardly impressive. They'd be wrong.
The enchantments on the spear were ancient—thousands of years old, laid down by hands that had been dust for millennia.
The methods used by Shalidor had either been lost to time, buried beneath the ruins of fallen civilizations, or replaced by what modern mages perceived as more efficient techniques.
Either way, the enchantments were complicated. Deeply, obscurely complicated.
Even if Torin had worked on deciphering them himself—devoting all his time to the endeavor, setting aside his other projects, his research, his responsibilities—he wasn't confident he'd fare much better than the twins. That was how gifted they were at the subject.
Their minds worked differently, saw patterns he missed, made connections he might never notice.
In the end, he nodded.
"Let's take this to the Hall of Elements," he said. "Just in case."
The twins exchanged a glance—that synchronized look they shared—and nodded in unison.
"Of course," Malin said.
"We wouldn't want to damage your workshop," Melina added.
"Lead the way," they said together.
Torin grabbed Skáldrfong from its rack on the wall—the aged bone cool beneath his fingers, the runes pulsing faintly—and headed for the door.
The twins fell into step behind him.
...
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