The gate opened and a familiar and yet foriegn face greeted me. "Vek? Didn't expect you to come from the direction of the Keldefrost. How and why were you out there."
I gave Yriggim a smile, "We arrived from a portal. I learned a large sum of magic and figured it would be faster. Thankfully the portal opened near the Bastion."
Yriggim nodded, "You always wanted to learn magic." He looked at Viree, "And you lass? Who are you?"
Viree raised a hand, "I'm Viree, I'm Vek's companion."
He smiled, "Nice to meet you Viree!" He leaned closer, "If anyone acts up in the Bastion tell me, I'll break their legs."
She raised an eyebrow and I let out an unintentional laugh. Viree looked between the two of us. "Are you two related?"
Yriggim laughed a far more intentional laugh. "I'm his Uncle. Before you meet her, Jaclyn is my daughter. As for Vek... It seems he didn't say much about his family."
He looked at me curiously, but the smirk on his face showed he wasn't worried. He waved us into the bastion, "Come in. We have much to discuss."
Entering the walls I felt a shiver of familiarity. It was a disturbing and yet nostalgic feeling. I let out a sigh and followed Yriggim. As we entered Viree whistle, "Whoa, way warmer."
Yriggim nodded, "Had to come with ways to fend off the cold. The whole wall is heated, insulated, and reinforced in everyway possible."
Yriggim stopped, "Let's talk here before you go back in the city. Some... problems have started to bubble after you left. Though they were always there."
I nodded and closed the door behind us. "Why don't you start."
Yriggim took a deep breath. "Let's begin with the pure bloods. They have started moving strangely and despite all our efforts we haven't discovered anything. Publicly they are lobbying for more people to be sent to skyrim. Combine these two things and it is incredibly strange."
Viree raised a hand, "How is that strange?"
"The purebloods refused the idea of sending Vek to skyrim. Once he left though..."
I sighed, "They changed their stance."
Viree asked a new question, "Why send only Vek?"
Yriggim laughed, "He won the lottery. Everyone who wanted to go drew straws. Vek won and so only he left. Why only one person..."
He looked at me so I explained. "The bastion doesn't let people leave easily. The merchants that come here are a set amount. One of the merchants died on the way opening a spot for a single person to leave. If a single extra person left with that ship, we all would've been consumed by the Keldefrost. The Blizzard is alive and it plays with the lives of all who live here."
Viree frowned at me, "Are we trapped here?"
I laughed, "No, as I said I prepared for all this."
Yriggim spoke again, "Speaking of the Keldefrost, it has gotten worse. The southern mines have been completely sealed by ice. No matter how hard they try to dig through the ice it grows back by the day. Only the west mine still holds any use."
I sighed, "And that one is controlled by the purebloods."
He nodded, "Exactly, which brings to any news you may have. Can the main land help?"
I leaned back against a wall and started thinking. Viree answered a bit of the question for me though. "Help would be hard, Skyrim is a mess and that is only one region."
I let out another sigh, "Skyrim is in a civil war. It will likely end soon due to various factors. However there is a good chance another far bigger war will start soon. So military support is basically impossible. Though with the Keldefrost that was already known."
Yriggim shook his head, "But wars cost gold. Something Atmora has almost none of."
I gave a nod back, "The Atmora coin is worth about 2-3 gold coins. Thankfully I have made several opportunities to increase my own gold income. So Gold isn't actually the problem. The real problem is that nothing I came across would help, other than..." I held up the Amulet of Hearth, "This jewel. No artifacts, no magic, not even deities. I found nothing."
Viree looked at me, "You really don't have any ideas?" Her tone was obvious, I almost always had some idea. How did I not have an idea now?
I looked at Viree, "Theocratically if I could learn the right spells or magic I could do something. Such as unraveling magic or achieve deity level magic. However you can understand both of those things are hard to do."
Yriggim let out a chuckle, "You really thought about this hard didn't you."
I waved a hand, "It just worked out this way." Yriggim's lack of recognition on the jewel peaked my interest. Though it wasn't too much of concern right now.
I shrugged, "I do have some ideas, if all of them are combined..." I trailed off as my mind shifted. "Wait."
My thoughts went back and forth and the two of them waited for my conclusion. "If I were to create some death knights from the Ice Tribes, they could roam the tundra unhindered. Though that is only if they are still recognized by the Keldefrost."
Yriggim paused at my words, "Deathknights? Are you talking about conjuration magic?"
I nodded, "I could likely reinforce them with some alteration magic and some enchantments."
Yriggim nodded, "Conjuration magic was more or less lost in time. So we never had the chance to do something like that. However I think your idea could be expanded. If you talk to Jaclyn in the library you should be able to find some old Atmoran maps. They would likely be buried in snow, but the old cities should still be out there."
Viree smirked, "Sounds like things are already unfolding well. The question now is do you still have corpses of these Ice Tribes."
Yriggim smiled, "Atmora doesn't have much food. Our extra rations are a side of Ice Tribe Steak. It tastes like shit and ice, but it does mean we have a large store of corpses."
Viree shook her head, "I should've figured it would work out."
I gave my own smile to Viree. "Come on, this is the fun part. You get to smash the failed deathknights."