"I understand. Still joyous news all the same. Your grandmother will be highly pleased. Your mother did not inherit her talent with the magical arts you see. So knowing that they have manifested in full force in you will please her greatly." he said with a small smile.
"It feels strange talking about having family. For the longest time I assumed I had simply been abandoned. I didn't feel any anger over this mind you. I know what I am and the sort of stigma that would stick to my parents for it. Half breeds of elves and men are frowned upon by all with the whole Breton issue that sprang up in the Merethic era." I said honestly.
To explain Bretons were the original half breeds. It was far in the past shortly after the dawn era when the descendants of the Ehlnofey still weren't fully set on the difference between men and mer. At that time the two groups interbred a lot creating the many half breeds of that time. Then the two sides erupted into war and the half breeds became unwanted by both. -
There was enough of them however that they could marry each other and basically form a middle ground race between men and mer. That is what the Breton race is. Originally half breeds that just kept populating the area of High rock and became a race all their own in time. That is the difference between what I am and what a Breton is.
"I understand. Your mother still carries that stigma as her pregnancy couldn't be hidden given her position." he said with a nod.
"Enough about that. I didn't just come to get answers on the past. I have a large amount of ingredients that I would like to brew into potions but my portable set up won't allow." I said change the subject.
"You did mention that you were also an alchemist didn't you? What sort of ingredients if I might ask?" he asked intrigued.
I grinned "Ingredients from the Shivering isles. And a few native to Hammerfell." I said honestly.
He stiffened "You've been to the isles." he stated more than asked.
"That is where I was before I landed in Hammerfell." I said with a nod.
"Why, exactly, where you in the isles?" he asked seriously.
"I was invited. You don't reject the invitation of a god. Especially not THAT god." I said not hiding it.
"Why though? The mad god does not usually... no wait. He already decided you'd be on the same level as Shalidor didn't he? The tales of how much he enjoyed bothering that great mage are well recorded." he said gravely.
"I'm not worried about it. He kinda adopted me." I said scratching the back of my heed awkwardly.
"What?" he asked dumbfounded.
"Well I called him uncle and just sorta became his nephew? I really don't think it was anything but a spur of the moment choice on his part. He does that." I said with a helpless shrug.
"So to summarize you are now technically part of the daedric court of madness because the mad god decided on a whim that you were in fact his nephew?" he asked rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"That is what I said yes." I said with a nod.
"The next letter I send your mother is going to be like a stormy sea, full of ups and downs." he said with a shake of his head.
"To be fair you did ask why I was in the Isles. So about those potions...?" I asked calmly.
"I suppose I can rent my equipment's use to you for cheap. I don't receive any money from any other source than my alchemy you understand." he said while rubbing his forehead as if chasing away a headache.
"Of course. I wouldn't dare to interfere with a man's livelihood without compensating them. Well except maybe necromancers but nobody likes them." I joked and he chuckled.
"Indeed. I don't think even necromancers like necromancers." he said and it was my turn to chuckle.
I finished my tea and set to work processing the ingredients.
I wasn't fully aware of what the properties of each one were used for and when in doubt you sample. I was a professional so even when the flavor or textures of the ingredients were terrible I didn't spit them out immediately. Unlike in the game however when an alchemist sampled an ingredient we didn't just eat an entire fucking portion. That's a fast way to go from alchemist to dead. What we actually did was take barely more than a shaving of the ingredient that we ground between our teeth before noting the effects and spitting out.
NEVER SWALLOW SAMPLES!
"You received formal training. I can't tell you how many cases of poisoning i've had to make antidotes for that came from people misunderstanding how sampling worked." he said as he watched me work.
"It's a pretty common issue in Skyrim too. I blame the books publicly available honestly. Most of them describe sampling as simply consuming ingredients without the actual details. Oversimplification to put it bluntly." I said after spitting out a bit of flame stalk, orange glowing reed plant.
"I believe there are a few tomes that go into detail but those are usually not found easily." he said thoughtfully.
I scoffed "Of course they aren't. There's no profit in them being easily found. It's the reason self taught alchemist are in the minority. Making alchemy something you could just pick up from mere tomes would cause the rarity of the professionals to drop and thus lower the payrate for it. " I said calmly.
"Hmm, I hadn't considered it from that angle but I believe you may be right. If the vast majority of alchemists are taught person to person then the art is always in demand and the price doesn't drop all that much, it might even increase in times of strife. Ingredients for healing potions and enhancement potions became quite in demand during the great war so their price commanded a heavy place in the market." He said drawing inference from something he had personally experienced.
"Aye, in the same vein that cure disease potions and ingredients become more valuable than anything during a plague. Or the way food becomes incredibly valuable in times of famine. There's a level of artificial inflation to alchemy that no one really challenges since it cuts into everyone's profits." I say seriously.