Chapter 143: General view

[3rd person POV]

All across Tamriel the news was spreading like mold on bread. The Thalmor naturally were the first to receive it and recoiled like a dog that bit into a lemon. A sharp retraction from the source of this discomfort. All outstanding death marks voided out and replaced with warnings not to provoke Alexan at any cost. If there was any group on the planet that recognized the signs of an upcoming new powerhouse it was the one that was around when Tiber Septim brought a walking god to kick Summerset in the teeth. -

Thanks to that experience they were swallowing their desire to see him dead and rolling over, at least publicly. In truth they were arguing about what they could do to get rid of him. It was during this that one of them chose to turn to immortal solutions since the mortal ones weren't acceptable anymore. He was just too thorny now. An archmage might be able to fight him and win but those weren't so easy to deploy. It was almost an unspoken rule that anyone at that level of power didn't make a move easily. And if ever they did it was always indirectly.-

None of the master mages that were part of the Thalmor wanted to chance it either. What a joke. They were masters of an entire school of magic and unlike Alexan they didn't need only a decade or so to reach that status. Asking them to try and kill someone who had reached the point of single handedly fighting a thousand man army of trained soldiers and mages and winning was no different than asking them to commit suicide for no good reason. Magic? sure they can handle that. Thu'um? A bit more exotic but still doable.

She` hai? Even more exotic but not impossible to counter. All of them at once? We choose life, thanks.

In the imperial council chambers it was FAR worse. Everyone there was arguing about conscription, assassination or exploitation. The few people who understood that none of that was going to work were in the minority and stayed silent. Amongst them was Emperor Titus Meade. Old, growing weaker with each year but not quite frail just yet. An emperor who fought in the great war alongside his legions once but spent his days now pandering to corrupt officials as he tried to keep the empire going.-

He knew none of these tactics would work for exactly two reasons that only he was privy to. The first was that Alexan was the source of the growing possibility of an new alliance forming in the north. The council thought Ulfric was the source but only Titus himself and the very few he trusted implicitly were privy to the knowledge that Ulfric only started moving in this out of character manner after the boy had visited him. The second piece of knowledge was the exact nature of the powers he used. The voice was one with many records on it in the imperial library thanks to generations of dragonborn royals during the time of the Septim dynasty.-

The she` hai however only had a scarce few records anywhere but the imperial collection had a few Titus had specifically looked over to understand this new player on the board better. Thanks to those records he knew without a single doubt neither conscription or exploitation would work. Every single record said the same thing about those that used that power, they'd break before they bend. Paired with everything else the boy had?

Gods grant mercy to whoever pushed him that far.

Next up was Skyrim. To be entirely honest the news did almost nothing here. Sure there was a sense of interest from the ones who ran the province but the overwhelming reaction was "he's in Hammerfell so it's not my business". Not dismissal exactly but distancing that came about hearing about some incident far away from you. It didn't make it smaller but there was a layer of detachment that comes with it. So for all but a small handful of people the news was labeled "important but irrelevant to me right now" and moved on from.-

The small handful who thought differently were the mages of the college, Ulfric, Leyla Lawgiver, High king Torygg, the dark brotherhood and the thieves guild. For the mages it was a bittersweet piece of news. Bitter because they all immediately figured out that the incident from before was almost definitely caused by Alexan and sweet because he was one of theirs. It was like physical proof being given that their expectations of him were being proven true. The masters of the college all thought he had the potential to be the next Galerion or Shalidor but now it was clear he could be something even more special.-

For Ulfric it was a sort of patting of ones self on the back for doing something based on a gut feeling and it showing amazing returns. He'd already thought Alexan someone worth paying attention to and had even been slowly negotiating with the noble houses of Morrowwind for alliance as part of Alexan's plan. Now that gut based decision was showing to lead to a treasure hoard great enough to blind. For Leyla Lawgiver it was a sort of open boasting about him having grown up in Riften. -

For Torygg it was an intense desire to meet Alexan. The young high king was constantly belittled for his age and here was someone even younger who was like a force of nature. How could he not be deeply interested in making a comparison? Or even further attempting to poach this talent to his court. Such a powerhouse backing his throne would absolutely cause the majority of naysayers to shrink away like vampires in the sun. Then there was the thieves guild. There was one person who was deeply unnerved by the news on an instinctual level while all but the newest members raised mugs and bottles in honor of a person who technically wasn't part of them but almost all considered as such.-

Mercer was unnerved though. He should be thrilled like the others but a deep spiritual instinctive part of him felt only dread for a reason he wasn't sure about. For the Brotherhood it was a professional interest in the body count alone. As professional assassins none of them were truly weak but not one would dare claim they could kill a thousand trained soldiers and mages alone.