Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
7B
One Ring to Rule Them All
by Thomas West, Daily Opinion Columnist
I
play this video game called “The Elder Scrolls V:
Skyrim.” I like to think I’m one of the more pow-
erful wizards in the Skyrim. I have all the master
destruction spells: Fire Storm, Blizzard, Lightning
Storm. Not to brag, but I’m level 81 and I can raise dead
bodies to fight for me indefinitely. I can cast Mayhem,
where my enemies begin fighting one another. I am the
Arch-Mage of the wizard’s College of Winterhold. I
wear a flaming Dragon Mask that reduces the cost of
all destruction magic by 20 percent. I am awesome.
But something holds me back. A
necessary item I have yet to acquire.
My white whale. I do not have the
Ring of Peerless Destruction. I scour
the mountains of Skyrim for it. I
slaughter whole villages of bandits
in my search. But still it eludes me,
whispering from the dark.
“But Tom,” you ask. “You already
have all this sick gear, why do you
need that one ring?”
Shut up. You could not possibly
hope to understand, you filthy, casual
muggle. But I will explain. I have the
Dragon Mask, Nahkriin, that reduc-
es Magicka cost of destruction by 20
percent. I have dragon bone gloves
and boots that fortify my destruction
even further, reducing my Magicka
costs to 25 percent of the standard
rate. Try to follow along.
With these items alone I am fear-
some: I can use lightning to roast a
wooly mammoth to powder in ten
seconds. But it is not enough: The
cost of my power is too high. But if I
had that ring, that simple, innocuous
ring, the cost of destruction spells
would be reduced to nothing. Zero
percent. Don’t you see? How could
you. Unlimited magic, you fool, lim-
itless power.
It has been my dream since I was
just a young, hopeful wizard walking
through the doors of the mage’s Col-
lege of Winterhold for the first time.
Back when all I could muster was a
flurry of sparks and the Arch-Mage
sent me to weed out skeletons in the basement. God, I
miss those days. The smell of a new Grimoire. Acciden-
tally eating Deathbell in potions class. And of course,
that young love of mine, Illia.
Oh, Illia. Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day? Your
ice spells are as magnificent. How I miss your snow-
white skin, your black lips, those cruel, sunken eyes.
We were perfect for each other, a wizard and his witch.
I loved you ever since you impaled your own mother
on an ice spike after she was corrupted by Hagravens.
Perhaps this is why I’m so sorry for what happened to
you, my companion, mon amour magique.
We traveled together often. She helped me defeat the
evil dragon Alduin. It was she who helped me kill the
dragon priest in possession of the Dragon Mask Nah-
kriin. In many ways, she helped me become the wizard
tyrant I always knew I could be. Sometimes you just
needed someone to believe in you. Together we beat all
of the main questlines. I should have set the controller
down then.
But then my quest for the ring tore everything apart.
I am mad for it. Since all the main questlines were
completed I had nothing to live for — only the ring.
After discovering the ring was not in the village of
Rorikstead, I unleash my full repertoire of destruction
spells on the townspeople. I roasted the butcher with
Incinerate. I turned the priest into dust. I unleashed a
demon lord in the daycare.
What had I become? Where was that young and
hopeful mage who wanted to save Skyrim from the
tyranny of the Empire? I only had Illia to ground me,
and now a bounty on my head for the massacre at Ror-
ikstead. The very people of Skyrim whom I had saved
from Alduin, whom I had fought wars for against the
Empire, wanted my head on a spike. I would show
them. Illia and I together, we would find the ring and
burn Skyrim’s cities to the ground, salting the earth
behind us.
With his dying breath, the barkeep of the inn at Ror-
ikstead gave me what I wanted: “I’ve caught word of
a powerful artifact hidden in Ironbind Barrow. You
should head over there and check it out.”
The fool! He could not have known that his ran-
domly generated quest would cause the extinction of
his whole kind. Illia and I set off toward Ironbind, an
ancient Nord tomb in the western reaches.
The tomb is crawling with undead. Skeletons,
ghosts, those dead thralls known as draugr. Filth. We
make quick work of them, cutting through, deeper and
deeper into the tomb. I can hear the ring whispering,
down, down, somewhere in the shadows.
A dragon priest guards the final chamber. Just past
him will be a chest, and in that chest a ring. I can feel
it so strongly. He erupts from his sarcophagus, Vol-
sung, master of destruction, spouting fire, resurrecting
corpses. I very nearly lose that battle — my Magicka
had already drained so low. But it is I who reign vic-
torious. I do not even deign to loot his corpse before I
enter the final chamber.
It is quiet. Ice covers the walls
and ruined stone beneath that. A
faint chanting comes from nowhere,
or perhaps pounding from the chest
that sits in the center of the room,
and as I approach it grows louder, a
hundred voices of the damned say-
ing my name, dovahkiin, dovahkiin,
dragonborn, dragonborn.
I lay my hands on the chest and
open it and the chanting comes to a
halt and I reach in and pull out what
lies within, and it is the Iron Boots
of Weak Improved Health.
I am fuming. Quite literally, my
body begins to smoke. I am going to
slaughter Rorikstead all over again.
I will reanimate every corpse so that
I may turn them all into dust.
But then I see it. Another chest,
just off to the side of the chamber,
made of simple wood and bound
with iron.
I open it slowly, not wanting to be
disappointed. Inside are nine gold,
the Leather Gloves of Improved
Alchemy, and the Ring of Peerless
Destruction.
I slip it on and can feel the power
course up through my hands,
through the cord and the control-
ler, and into my own fingertips. The
ring. The ring. The ring.
My most powerful spell is Fire
Storm. When I cast it, a hundred
points of fire damage erupts from
the sky and destroys everything in
a 20-foot radius. Usually it would drain my Magicka
completely. But not now. The ring completes me.
I cast one Fire Storm, drawing death from the sky,
and watch as the ice on the walls shatters and bursts
into steam. It costs me nothing.
I cast another. And another. Hundreds upon hun-
dreds of points of damage. I am laughing maniacally in
the game. I am laughing maniacally in real life. Skyrim
is doomed. We did it, Illia and I. When I am done we
will be the only ones left.
I turn around to tell her, my queen.
But Illia is not there.
Illia is dead.
My Fire Storm has killed her. She is nothing more
than a charred corpse, the first victim of my wrath.
Oh Illia! What have I become? The most powerful
wizard in Skyrim is nothing without you, my sweet
digital companion.
But it was not too late to save her.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY WATERS