I shook my head "You clearly aren't understanding me so let me be blunt. I'm not a thief or fence, I don't give a single fuck about your little under the table business. I'm here to study magic, that's it. Also just want to remind you that you did just try to steal from me, glassware at that! Honestly man have some standards." I said casually.
"I told you I was just admiring it." he said with a frown.
I quirked an eyebrow at him with a look that told him I wasn't buying that.
"Okay fine I may have had some ideas, but it's not like anything came of them right?" he said helplessly.
"So long as it doesn't happen again. Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way. I'm Alexan." I said as I got up from my bed and stretched.
His brows furrowed as if thinking hard "Alexan? Why does that name ring a bell?" he muttered.
"Gallus might have mentioned me. I was under the impression he was rather impressed with me after all." I said with a shrug.
"Wait, are you the kid who told Gallus to his face you were exploiting him?" he asked with a look of astonishment.
"The very same, I was quite confident in my offer." I said with a chuckle.
"No wonder you are so dismissive of me. Anyone with the stones to do that in the thieves guild wouldn't think much of someone like me." he said shaking his head in self depreciation.
"Oh don't feel too bad about it, I threatened the entire guild during that same little event. You should have seen the looks on their faces, priceless." I said with a laugh.
"Well you know what I'm about so I won't go over the whole spiel I normally give the new students of the college. You need something and can meet my price, i'll get it for you." he said before walking off.
'Should really see about setting up a door or at least a barrier.' I thought amused as I slipped my boots on.
I left my "room" and headed out to the courtyard of the college. From there I headed down to Winterhold. Not to go to the inn or anything but to examine the edge of the cliff where it had collapsed. -
I hadn't done so when I first passed through the hold capital but since I was going to be here for quite some time I figured it would be a good idea. The main reason why I wanted to do this because I had a few ideas about how to help the place. The first was using magic to create a slope down to the sea to open up a port here. This would let fishing possibly take some of the pressure off the place financially. On the same vein I considered setting up a large sort of magically controlled greenhouse to allow food to be grown even in this climate.-
It wasn't impossible and even quite easy really as we just had to create an artificial environment like the courtyard. The people of skyrim were hardy folk but there needed to be an opportunity for them to thrive first. So long as we got something set up Winterhold would be able to rebuild unlike now where it's just slowly dying. Honestly the biggest trouble is that rocky mountain area that the place is backed against. If that could be moved back or flat out removed the amount of land available would get much larger.-
Baring that we could totally just slowly rebuild the cliff by moving stone and soil from other places to the foot of the cliff until the cliff itself no longer existed. That would take a long time or a lot of money however. For now I'd focus on the green house idea since it would not only earn me goodwill from the folk living here but would possibly get the place on the road to recovery. Still by examining the lines of the cliff that had not totally faded yet under the spray of the sea and freezing wind I determined how the city fell.-
It was a series of large cracks going down from the surface to the middle and below of the stone. If I had to guess they formed from the movement in the earth that the eruption of Red mountain caused and over time the water from the snow got pushed in and froze pressuring the crack to expand. From there, well it was a matter of when the strain caused just enough stress to force a break away. As they say 'they all fall down' after that.-
You'd think that most of the city would still be visible looking down but when it all collapsed it got grinded up and swallowed by the storms high waves. You could only see some of the remaining stuff that was too heavy to wash away such as the stones of the walls and some houses foundations. Satisfied with my investigation I set out looking for a good spot for my greenhouse. Convincing Korir to sell me that kind of land would be tricky because the man lost his father in the collapse and blamed mages for it since the college still stands.-
Naturally as one of the mages now that hate is going to land squarely on my shoulders. He has to tolerate the college because it's one of the only things keeping the place a float but as for anything beyond that? I'm not counting on it. Money solves most problems thankfully so I was sure I could eventually throw enough around to get him to cave. This wouldn't work with any of the other Jarls but due to Winterholds position it would. I eventually found a good few acres of land pressed up against the mountain in a strip a few meters across.-
It was also out of the way so it wasn't likely to cause any trouble if I used it for this purpose. I didn't go purchase the land though as I just wanted to check it out first. With that done I headed back to the college and into the Arcanaeum. The atronachs still made me a bit nervous but I willed myself to ignore them as I moved to the back counter that had an old mean looking Orc sitting behind.-
"You must be new blood. This is MY Arcanaeum, my domain. You may as well consider it my own little slice of Oblivion. If I catch you mistreating any of these books I will have you torn apart by angry atronachs. Am I clear?" the Orc said in a deep firm tone.
"Crystal." I said with a nod.
"Very good. Now what do you need?" he asked bored.
"Fundamentals, theory work, formulae, treaties. That sort of stuff. My education on the arcane is rather slapdash at the moment and I want to shore up my foundation before moving on to more advanced topics." I said honestly.
"Smart man, can't tell you how many i've seen through the years ignore the basics and pay for it. What school do you need it on?" he asked with a gruff hint of approval.
"Okay so before that I need to make it clear I'm not pulling a prank or anything. Every school, I need it for every school. Not necessarily all at once mind you but yeah. I've dabbled in every school up to the adept level with my shoddy foundation." I said with a wince at the almost angry look he gave me.