Author's note: the surgery was a success. The hospital was shit. We got fleeced every step of the way, and I had the urge to puch someone at least ten times.
To make things worse, some fatass next door to mom's room litterally broke the toilet seat by sitting on it, and we (including my mom, just out of surgery) had to listen to hammering and drilling for two hours as the maintenance team replaced it.
But yeah, the surgery was a success and mom is healing alright, and that's something to be greatful for.
Anyway, here's the chapter.
...
Torin looked at the twins with narrowed eyes as they stopped in front of him, blocking his path to the exit.
Their matching blue robes were slightly stained with ink, their dark hair was disheveled, and their eyes had the slightly manic gleam of people who had been staring at ancient runes for far too long.
"What is it?" he asked suspiciously, cautiously. The twins rarely approached him together unless they had something important to say—or something tedious to complain about.
"We heard that you ran out of werewolves," said Malin and Melina together, syncing every letter and vowel with their usual unsettling precision.
Torin rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginning of a headache.
"That's... a horrible way to frame it." He sighed. "But yes. Our last test subjects unfortunately passed away recently. The soul extraction process is still... imperfect."
Malin shrugged, his expression unconcerned.
"Sugarcoating it doesn't make a difference. Dead is dead, regardless of how you describe it."
Melina nodded in agreement, her ponytail bobbing.
"What matters is that they died, and now you're out of test subjects. The lab is empty. Svanhild has nothing to do but clean her equipment and reorganize her notes."
Malin offered a nod of his own. "She's been reorganizing them for three days now. I think she's starting to go a little mad."
Torin's hand unconsciously reached for his forehead, massaging his temple.
"Remind me to remind Savos Aren to never send you two on any business outside the College. Your... social skills leave something to be desired."
Malin and Melina exchanged a glance—that synchronized, twin thing they did—and shrugged in unison.
"We get results," Malin said.
"Results are what matter," Melina added.
Torin alternated his gaze between them, his expression flat.
"Yes, you do, but can you get to the point?"
Melina retrieved a scroll from her satchel—a long, rolled tube of parchment, sealed with wax that bore the twins' combined sigil—and presented it to Torin with both hands, like an offering to a temple priest.
"This is the result of our research on Shalidor's enchantments," she said.
Malin watched Torin take the scroll and added, "We believe it might help you in securing more test subjects."
Torin frowned, but said nothing as he unrolled the scroll and began to inspect the runes inscribed within. The parchment was covered in arcane symbols—some familiar, some utterly alien—arranged in concentric circles around a central glyph that pulsed faintly with residual magicka.
It was very complicated. Intricately tied to the school of Conjuration, much to Torin's chagrin. Neither inscribing scrolls nor the school of Conjuration in general fell within his expertise—he'd always preferred Alteration, the magic of changing what was, rather than summoning what wasn't.
Still, he was able to surmise that it was some kind of summoning spell. The structure was clear: a mark, a binding, an anchor. The scroll would move something to somewhere and...
After a few seconds of studying the runes, Torin had to accept that he couldn't decipher any more. The intricacies of Conjuration were beyond him, and the twins' notation system was... almost alien.
"Alright." He rolled the scroll back up and met their eyes. "And what manner of creature will this scroll summon?"
Melina shook her head, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.
"None. This isn't a summoning scroll."
Malin nodded alongside her words, his expression equally smug.
"Not in the traditional sense, anyway. It doesn't call a creature to you. It marks a living creature and... summons it, yes, but not to you."
Melina's grin widened.
"It summons it from you."
Torin's eyes widened as the implications settled into place. The twins were terrible at explaining things—they always had been, their conversations a tangled web of half-finished sentences and overlapping thoughts that would drive anyone unfamiliar with them to frustration and no small amount of rage.
However, Torin was already used to their particular brand of obnoxious genius. What they were saying basically meant that this scroll would teleport whatever living creature it hit to a specific location.
Considering they had mentioned his lack of test subjects, he was inclined to believe said specific location was the dungeons in the Midden. The cells that had been built specifically for werewolves. The ones that were currently empty.
He turned the scroll over in his hands, studying the wax seal, the intricate runes, the faint hum of magicka that pulsed from the parchment.
"What are the prerequisites for successfully casting the spell?"
Malin tilted his head, thinking.
"Casting the spell itself doesn't have any prerequisites—any countryside hick with half a functioning brain can activate it. But to ensure the success of the teleportation process..." He trailed off, glancing at his sister.
Melina picked up where he left off.
"It's best that the target be subdued. Preferably unconscious. If the target is awake and aware, it might resist the spell's pull—and resisting a teleportation spell mid-cast can have some... disastrous consequences."
Torin nodded slowly.
Subdued. Unconscious. Teleported directly into a cell.
This made things easier. A lot easier. The spell would let them capture werewolves without the long, dangerous process of transporting them into the Midden, all while avoiding the major roads.
They could simply find a feral beast, render it unconscious, and activate the scroll.
Still, this felt a bit too convenient.
"And since you're giving this to me to use on a very important project..." He alternated his gaze between the twins, his expression flat. "I'll assume you've already tested it."
Malin and Melina exchanged a glance, and then nodded in sync—almost too eagerly, almost too quickly.
"Of course we tested it," Malin said.
"Extensively," Melina added.
"And it worked," Malin concluded.
Torin frowned, still suspicious. The twins were brilliant—there was no denying that—but their enthusiasm for their work often outpaced their caution.
"And what did you test it on?" He asked, crossing his arms.
"Rats," Malin said.
"Skeevers," Melina added.
"That kind of thing," Malin finished.
There it is, Torin mused with an internal sigh. Rats and skeevers. Small creatures. Light creatures. Creatures that weighed a fraction of what a grown werewolf weighed.
"Did you test it on anything that's remotely as big as a werewolf?"
The twins were finally starting to look guilty. They exchanged a longer glance this time, something passing between them that Torin couldn't quite read.
"No," Melina admitted. "Not yet. But it shouldn't matter. The theory remains the same—the spell doesn't care about mass, only about the target's magical resistance."
Malin nodded firmly. "You should know we don't make mistakes. Not like this. Never like this."
Torin's expression hardened. He reached into his satchel, pulled out the scroll, and threw it toward Melina. She caught it reflexively, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Come back once you've tested it on something bigger." His voice was flat, brooking no argument. "You should know better."
The twins looked confused.
Malin tilted his head, his brow furrowing.
"But you are experimenting on the werewolves yourself, no?" He gestured vaguely toward the floor, toward the Midden below. "You extract their souls. You study their spirits. You poke and prod at the very essence of their being."
Melina tilted her head the other way, a mirror of her brother.
"I don't see how this is any different."
Torin firmly shook his head.
"It's as different as could be. The experiments we perform on the werewolves are legal, in accordance with the laws of both Skyrim and the College. We have permits. We have oversight. We have the High King's seal on every piece of paperwork."
He pointed at the scroll in Melina's hands.
"The experiments are perfectly legal. This—" He tapped the parchment. "—is not. It's also not right."
Melina was still confused, clutching the scroll to her chest.
"But it wasn't legal. You made it so." She glanced at her brother. "Through your connections."
Malin nodded. "You negotiated with the High King. You made the research legal. Does legality and rightness matter that much when you can change it at your convenience?"
Torin pinched the bridge of his nose, a familiar ache settling behind his eyes. The twins meant well—they always meant well—but their enthusiasm for magic often blinded them to the broader implications of their work.
"First of all, I can't just legalize whatever I want. High King Torygg and the Arch-Mage allowed us to perform these experiments because they believed they could benefit Skyrim and the College."
He raised one finger, counting off his points. "There were negotiations. Compromises. Concessions. I can't snap my fingers and make a new spell legal just because it's convenient."
He raised a second finger.
"Secondly, these experiments—the ones we perform on feral werewolves—are for their benefit. They might be mindless beasts now, but they were once people. They had families. They had lives. Our work could restore their minds and help them return to those families. Or, at the very least, give them peace."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"Yes, they are more likely to die than be cured at the earliest stages of the research. That's the nature of pushing boundaries. But their deaths should never be a result of our negligence. They should never be in vain."
His gaze turned icy. "And above everything else... their deaths should be for the benefit of those like them. Every failure teaches us something. Every loss brings us closer to a cure."
He leaned forward, his eyes boring into the twins.
"Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"
Malin and Melina exchanged another glance—longer this time, more thoughtful. Something passed between them, something that looked like understanding.
"We have much to consider," Malin said, his voice quieter than usual.
Melina nodded, clutching the scroll to her chest.
"Thank you for your guidance." She offered a small bow. "We'll test the scroll on something bigger. Properly. With oversight."
Malin echoed the bow. "We won't let you down."
Then they turned and walked back to their desks, their steps slower than before, their heads bowed in thought.
Torin watched them leave and ran a hand through his hair, a tired sigh escaping his lips.
"Can't believe it," he muttered to himself. "I'm an actual bad influence on these kids."
He shook his head and began to leave as well, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor.
"Should talk to Savos Aren about adding ethics to the curriculum," he continued muttering. "Maybe a required course. Introduction to Not Experimenting on Living Creatures Without Proper Oversight. Could be popular."
The door closed behind him, and the workshop fell silent.
...
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