I do not own Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls, or any of the films/games that we make reference to. All original Magic and Characters are owned by moi.

Chapter 1

Mikael banged on his brother's door. "Aramen!"

Said brother opened the door, putting on his glasses over his bleary eyes. "What, Mikael? You crash your computer again?"

"No, no, I found this cool mod for Skyrim," he hastily explained. "It looks damn good and I wanted to show it to you."

Aramen stretched and motioned for his twin to lead the way. Mikael rushed into his room and sat in front of his laptop. "It's called 'The Skyrim Total Immersion Mod'. It doesn't have any comments or pictures, and only a few downloads. But it seems solid enough," he informed as Aramen stood by the desk and looked at the description.

"Let's see, 'This Mod is a total immersion mod that brings the world of Skyrim to life for you'," he read aloud. "'Incompatible with all other mods. This is only for true fans of the Elder Scroll Series. If you are not prepared for the reality this offers, *DO NOT DOWNLOAD*.' Sounds serious."

Mikael nodded. "Yeah. But still, I think it looks pretty good. I already uninstalled all my other mods and installed this one," Mikael brought up the Skyrim launch screen, "I just haven't started it yet. Thought you might want to see it, too."

Aramen shrugged his shoulders. "Sure, go ahead."

Mikael clicked "Play", whereupon his entire laptop screen went white. "Well, shit," he vocalized eloquently.

"See, this is why you shouldn't mod by yourself, Mikael," Aramen chastised. "You don't know what you're doing. Now I'll have to fix your computer-"

Aramen was cut off as the screen turned blindingly bright, causing both of them to cover their eyes. When they opened them, they were standing in a vast, white landscape. The floor was indistinguishable from the sky. It was a blank slate. After a moment of gawking, Aramen turned to Mikael and punched him in the shoulder.

"Ah! What the heck was that for?" Mikael rubbed his arm.

"Just checking to make sure I'm not dreaming," Aramen said.

"Aramen, when you want to check if you're dreaming, you don't punch someone else. You get somebody else to pinch you."

"Whatever. Where are we?"

Mikael turned around and was shocked by what he saw. Aramen noticed his face and turned as well. In front of the twins were two large men; men who looked like the generic nords from the Skyrim Character Creation screen. In fact, in front of them was the Skyrim Character Creation Scene. There were sliders and the top categories for creating your person.

"Why the hell is this here? What's going on?" Mikael asked.

"Maybe this has to do with your mod," Aramen reasoned. " Shit, I think that's what it is."

Mikael's eyes went wide. "Total immersion… Aramen, you don't think-"

"Yes... " Aramen grumbled. "Your incompetency with modding is so great that it has caused me to have an aneurism and now I'm having a coma dream while lying in the hospital."

"No," Mikael retorted with an eye roll. "The mod somehow transported us to an alternate universe where Skyrim takes place-"

"That sounds retarded" Aramen deadpanned.

"-or maybe we were sucked into the laptop-"

"Or maybe stupidity has become infectious"

"-and either way, we're trapped, on our way into The Elder Scrolls," Mikael finished.

"Or your legendarily sucky skills with technology finally pissed off some god so much that he slapped us into another universe where there is no technology for you to fuck up."

"Or maybe the I'll get to be the amazingly awesome Dragonborn and you get to be my minion and carry all my shit," Mikael shot back.

Regardless of Aramen's quips they both conceded that Mikael was probably right, or that the given situation rendered the point moot anyhow. The two stood there in silence for a few minutes, trying to grasp what had just happened to them. Somehow they both knew they weren't getting back to their world. After all, you don't "win" in Skyrim. It was an RPG. You kept going forever. Even if they slayed Alduin, the game was never over. You just keep going.

But the more they thought about it, the more they realized that there wasn't much for them to return to. Their parents has passed away when they were young. They never had a lot of friends, at least none that would miss them nor would be missed in turn. They mostly just played on their computers all day, including playing Skyrim. And they loved Skyrim. They loved The Elder Scrolls in general, really.

"Maybe… this could be a good thing." Mikael mused.

Aramen nodded. "Not like we had much to hang on to, anyway."

"Plus," Mikael added, "Think about all the cool stuff we could do here."

"The magic alone is a world of possibilities. All the cool gear, the special items-" Aramen froze.

"What?" Mikael asked. "What's wrong?"

"Remember how you had to uninstall all your mods to run this?"

"Yeah… oh shit."

"Vanilla Skyrim."

The two then broke out into a string of expletives and curses that would make even the drunkest Nord take offense. The two loved Skyrim, yes, but they loved modding it into Oblivion (sometimes literally). It had been so long since either had gone vanilla that they couldn't remember how it originally played.

Regardless, Vanilla or modded, Skyrim was a dangerous place. The two of them needed a plan. They took the next three hours or so talking about what they planned on doing with the main quests, the Guilds, the DLC, and the side quests. They shot ideas back and forth before compromising on the most reasonable plans that would work out best for everyone.

Satisfied with their plan of action, the two turned to the inanimate avatars that they presumed would become their bodies. After a moment's consideration, they looked back at each other.

"So we're definitely not going to be Khajiit," Mikael started.

"Not Argonian either," returned Aramen "They don't even have dicks."

"We shouldn't choose Imperials or Nords because of the civil war going on right now. Wouldn't want to be picked out as one or the other."

"Probably wanna cut out High elves too for the same reason." Aramen continued blithely "Yellow is not my color."

"The Elves in general are kind of pricks. The Dark elves are wrapped up in their ancestry and the Wood elves are practically slaves at this point in the timeline," Mikael considered.

"Also I don't like how they look. Just throwing that out there."

Mikael sighed. "Me neither, but that long lifespan is really attractive."

"Vamprism, man." Aramen countered "Skyrim removed most of their weaknesses"

"Yeah, thank goodness for that. But back to races."

"Our options by this point are; Orc, Breton, or Redguard"

"Aramen, we were transported to an alternate universe or sucked into my own laptop and doomed to live out the rest of our lives as adventuring badasses in a fantasy world of magic and dragons. I don't think I could handle the weirdness of us being black on top of that."

"I don't think I need to say anything regarding Orcs so let's just move on to Bretons then, shall we?"

"Racial boost to magicka, a mix breed of elves and humans giving them a normal appearance…" Mikael rattled off.

"Weren't they kind of short in Oblivion, though?"

"Not so much in Skyrim. Besides, we're creating them however we like."

So it was decided that the two would be bretons. As they approached their avatars to start sculpting them, they noticed how this character creation was far more extensive, giving them complete control on their appearance.

Mikael decided that he was going to make himself the man he always wanted to be. He knew his play style was going to be magic and stealth based. His character would be a towering 7'0 Breton with pale skin. His hair was pulled into a ponytail in the back with his bangs framing his face and colored white, but it looked more ethereal white rather than age. He had a full beard, but it was trimly cut very close to his face. His body was lean with muscle, built for swiftness and flexibility. He supposed he might want to be shorter, being the stealthy sort, but discarded the thought in favor of finally being tall. It would also impose the grand wizard look he was going for in public.

Aramen's avatar was sculpted after a soccer player. He was slender and muscular maintaining the physique of a large cat. His hair was the color of polished obsidian with some slight marbled white and kept in a long ponytail. The figure stood at 5'9 putting him shorter than his twin for the first time in their lives. His chin line was graced with a thin well trimmed beard beneath a thin and angled moustache.

Next to their characters was another screen, though it was different than what they expected. It listed the skills like Heavy Armor and Block, but they weren't skill trees. It looked like they had a choice to boost themselves up with knowledge and experience in skills before they started, giving them an edge. Aramen went for Smithing while Mikael took Enchanting. The crafting skills would complement each other and were damned useful in the game, just material expensive to level. Plus, if they weren't going to be limited by the game rules, these both had thousands of applications. Aramen also picked up some Archery for using a crossbow, Two Handed, Sneak, Light Armor, a little of Illusion, Restoration, and Destruction. Mikael took up Sneak, Pickpocket, Speech, Light Armor, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Conjuration, and One Handed.

Their playstyle was planned on being generally ranged, since it was better to take down targets from a distance, although they knew their enemies wouldn't be so kind as to just let the twins take potshots, so they were skilled in close combat as well. They weren't ridiculously overleveled or anything like that, but it was helpful to get them kickstarted. They both also absorbed some knowledge about cooking, housebuilding, and more menial human tasks that would be different in this world.

Finalizing that, another screen popped up. The only button simply said "Play". The twins looked at each other.

Mikael took a deep breath. "I guess this is it."

"Well, enough of the chick flick crap. Let's do this."

"Really? Chick flick?"

"Always wanted to use that line. Besides, you're now the only one who will get references and jokes like that."

"I suppose that's true," Mikael agreed when a sudden thought struck him. "How about this one?" Aramen looked over. "I've got something to say! It's better to burn out, than to fade away!" With that, he pressed "Play".

"Let's be big damn heroes." Aramen hit "Play".