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

