It was an uncomfortable night of rest and my calves and shins were sore from resting on the wooden foot board of the bed. I sent a quick pulse of [minor heal] through my legs the chase away the soreness once I got up. Perhaps a bit wasteful of my magicka but I did have a reserve much larger than most. When I walked out of the room with a yawn the inn keeper looked up from the mug he was polishing.
"Rest well?" he asked and I shook my head.
"Bed was too small." I said with a helpless shrug.
"Don't tend to get folk your size staying here." he said and I nodded.
"It's fine, got anymore of that snowberry Blackbriar?" I asked and he nodded and pulled out a bottle.
I stopped him from pouring it in a mug and passed him some gold to cover my tab as I took the bottle and headed out. The snowfall was gone at the moment as the sky stood without clouds. It was still windy and cold though so I didn't hesitate to pop the cap on the mead and drain the bottle. I put away the empty bottle as the drink started to warm my body from the snowberry essence in it.-
I took my time walking towards the northwestern side of Winterhold where the stone bridge leading to the college stood. There was no missing it. It was a large imposing dark magically reinforced stone structure that had a narrow footpath. I eyed the parts of the bridge that in all honesty should have collapsed when the supports under them were gone but still stood. The warning line in the game that the way was treacherous was definitely on point. -
The whole bridge had chunks of the sides missing and with the ice frozen to it's walkways and the harsh winds it would only take one poorly placed foot to fall a not so fun distance and land on not so soft stone. A bad time all around. I was also almost a hundred percent sure the mages of the college kept it like this on purpose to lets say "dissuade" anyone too ballsy for their own good from making the trip. At the archway resting on the cliff's edge I saw the person guarding the way and couldn't help but grin.-
Faralda looked almost no different from years ago when I last saw her but that was hardly surprising. She was an Altmer after all and with a base lifespan in the four to five hundred year range a mere few years was nothing to her. She looked positively bored out of her mind to boot. Also something she couldn't be blamed for since the role WAS basically standing in one spot for hours on end and nothing else. She was so zoned out that she almost failed to react when I walked up quieter than the wind blowing by and stood right in front of her.-
She stepped back slightly in surprise when she turned her head and was face to chest with me. She didn't panic though and craned her neck to look up at me since she was on the short side for an Altmer at six two.
"Alexan!?" she exclaimed once she recognized me.
"In the flesh." I said with a grin as she flinched.
"What in oblivion happened!? You are huge and that voice, by the gods that voice!" She demanded sternly as she carefully looked me over.
I hummed at that question as I considered what to say.
"Maximization in a word. I forced my body to grow into it's utmost potential. My voice was a more direct modification however, a choice made with a path in mind." I said casually.
I was hardly surprised when she straight up punched me in the chest with an angry expression. It quickly turned into a pained one when not only did her punch fail to do any damage to me but she cracked her knuckles open from the impact.
"Are you mad!? Permanent magical modification is nearly taboo for a reason!" she hissed both in anger and pain.
I casually held out my right hand and cast [healing hands] on her to fix the damage to her hand.
"I succeeded didn't I?" I said with a chuckle.
"I taught you better than that. Only fools take unnecessary risks." she said still rather unhappy with me.
"I was extremely careful I'll have you know. Also do you have any idea how hard it is to mix three different schools of magic together at once? Took me almost a whole year to perfect enough to pull this off." I said a little defensively.
"Yes, you're a genius. I know. But what madness possessed you to even consider this?" she asked with a sigh.
"Not madness, inspiration. A fine line I know but hear me out first." I said seriously.
"I'm listening." she said with a deeply unhappy glower.
"So I managed to get my hands on a tome for the expert level alteration spell [gigantize]. I didn't plan to learn it of course since I am not an expert of alteration but I happened to be going through a growth spurt at the time and was inspired from it. I used mysticism to divine what would happen if I forced my body to grow to it's limit using these natural growing periods. This is what I saw, a body hard as armor, strong as a giant and flexible as a fox. After that I just needed to perfect it before my natural growing periods ran out." I explained with a proud smile.
"Please tell me you had a plan if you failed?" she asked with an doubtful look.
"Of course. It was a right pain to do but I managed to create a temporal snapshot of my body before I started the process. If I failed then I could forcibly overlap the imprint to resonate my form back into the right shape." I said seriously.
"You learned chronomancy?" she asked surprised.
I scoffed "If you count that as such. Personally I don't, I didn't manipulate time after all merely sort of … side stepped it." I said having a little trouble putting it into words.
"Interacting with time at all is still a deeply impressive piece of magic. There are no more than three here at the college who can claim to have done so." she said with a finally somewhat impressed look.
"Oh trust me I am DEEPLY aware of how troublesome messing with time is. Just getting a temporal snapshot took me close to a month of focused effort with barely any time to eat or sleep. It was expensive too! Nothing less than a plain level soul gem worked." I said with a tinge of annoyance as I remembered that problem.
"I don't doubt that, time is a high level concept regardless of how little you tap into. Regardless of your... potential folly." she paused to decide on her words slightly before continuing "You are here to finally take your place among the prestigious ranks of the college I assume?" she asked and I nodded.