A/N: Well, this started as just another one-shot short story intro of a new character but Curtis insisted better documentation and bigger space was needed for a proper build. Seriously, guy? But he's a fan of "Mythbusters" and states that if you're gonna break stuff like canon lore, use more duct tape than you think is needed.

A/N: bit of casual swearing.

Disclaimer: What's Bethesda's is theirs, etc. Stories might not be in chronological order.

Chapter 1: Hey, you — you're finally awake.

What the fuck? Was that an owl that nearly hit him? He bent over, looking for the clipboard he'd dropped when the bird . . . He was certain it was an owl. Not a seagull, he'd easily recognize those noisy water rats on wings. And not one of the few nesting pairs of peregrine falcons that had come back to the city. An owl. Sure sounded like one from the way it hooted just before its wing nearly slapped his face. He straightened then nearly fell over from sudden vertigo.

"Curtis! Man, what's wrong?"

He couldn't answer. The migraine was back. The pain blinding, debilitating. He staggered, tripped over a pile of rebar and went over the side, dead even before hitting the ground ten stories below.

What in— Reflexes kicked in. He kicked, his arms flailed and his head broke surface, gasping for air. His feet hit wood. His arms wrapped around a wooden beam. Fuck! It was cold! Gotta get out of the water before he blacked out, drowned, and died (again?). It was pitch black but the sounds, the sounds were like a wooden ship. A capsized wooden ship and he was in the hold he guessed. But, the annual wooden boat show was on Lake Union and he'd been on a new construction of yet another condo/retail building a couple miles away in downtown Seattle on Third Avenue near Pioneer Square.

He climbed onto what felt like a pile of crates and immediately curled over coughing and vomiting water. He forced his gasps into deep, measured breathing, worked his fists and flexing arm muscles to try to pump blood and heat for better control and grip. When he was more certain of his control over his breathing he did rapid rhythmic, forceful exhalations. "Dragon breath" or "breath of fire" from the yoga classes he'd been taking as part of his effort to lower his killer blood pressure and ease depression. Soon his shallow puffs progressed onto deep, lungs full of air.

It worked. He felt warmer and his mind calmed down.

Then more deliberate dragon breathing as new sensory data flooded his awareness.

First of all, he'd lost weight. Like, a lot of weight. In the last couple of years he'd gained over a hundred pounds — job stress, losing important contracts, almost losing his business (thanks, Roj, ya backstabbing, embezzling piece of . . .), losing his kid sister — but the belly under his hand was flat and well-muscled. Shit. All of him was perfectly hard-bodied like some dedicated gym rat.

His face . . . His ears were pointed. I got elf ears, he realized. Unfamiliar stubble over his lip and along his jawline. Bone structure all wrong, the brow ridges were too steep and slanted. Forehead sloped back. Cheekbones sharp and high. Chin longer and a touch sharper. Hair was straight and shoulder length.

"What the holy fuck?" That voice. A three-pack-a-day smoker's voice. Wrong pitch. Wrong tone.

His clothes. He wasn't wearing his jeans, wrong type of boots, gone was his precious work vest and its multitudes of pockets with all his beloved gadgets and tools. No hardhat. Just leather boots, leather pants, leather belt with a sheathed knife, and some sort of rough linen shirt with sleeves to his elbows.

His fingers danced over a sizeable nasty wound on the hairline above his temple. He'd need a few stitches he knew from experience. He'd hit his head in the same spot when he was a teenager trying to do some advanced, fancy-assed shit on a skateboard down some stairs. Damn near killed himself then. Looks like the previous body owner did from this blow. Fell out of bed or something when the ship crashed, cracked his head on something, then drowned while unconscious. He used his belt knife — non-metallic; was that hard plastic? No, feels like bone with a simple leather cord wrapped hilt — to cut strips from the bottom of his shirt. Wadded one strip and use the other to tie the pad over the wound.

"OK. So I'm dead and some fucking joker stuffs me into another body. So what the fuck now? I get a second fucking chance, a second life, like some goddamn, fuck-off production of 'Heaven Can Wait?' Seriously, God?" he roared, frustrated.

"OK, Curtis, my man, you're now a dark elf. Better be. Brother's got no business being a fancy freaky fairy light."

OK, reality checking later. Right now the priority was to get topside before the tides lifted the wreck off of whatever it was stuck on and pulled it to the deep. He felt his way through the blackness until he saw a glimmer of light. He headed for it. A candle lantern on a peg just above the waterline. Now that he could see he looked himself over.

Dark gray flesh. Dark elf. Lessee. Warcraft, Forgotten Realms, Elder Scrolls. Fuck. Hair was black, that left out the silver-haired drow so not Forgotten Realms. Hair color in the light was the brown-black variety, not purple or blue and he wasn't unusually tall so not a night elf from Warcraft. That left Elder Scrolls, but which one? He was familiar only with Morrowind and Skyrim. Vanilla games; no expansion packs or mods. He usually played the straightforward tank type, casual novice level, cathartic hit 'em with a sword and make all your troubles go away.

He saw stairs in the water. Dived. Followed the stairs "up" and came to another pocket of air and there he found another body. Man. Dark-skinned arab/negroid mix type. Vest, shirt, baggy pants, afghanistan-type headwrap. A redguard. The man had died gruesomely. Been smoking a long pipe, had gotten thrown in the crash, the pipe had gone through his throat.

Gamer habit or survival sense took over and he briskly looted the man's body for anything useful, finding a small purse of gold coins, a couple rings, flint and steel, and a nicely carved box full of soggy tobacco. The vest was nice and had a lot of little pockets but was too small. He took it anyway. It was glossy silk with gemstones and gold thread. Worth a few drakes or septims. He looked around. Poked in a few barrels. Any food was saltwater-logged except for the crate of small, wax-coated cheesewheels. In other crates he found an array of iron and steel weapons. He selected a nice pair of steel throwing knives and a steel hand axe. After a moment of hesitation he laid out some swords and axes, closed his eyes and told his body, "Choose!" then opened his eyes and let his hand reach for one. A steel claymore. It felt way too familiar when he hefted it; his body automatically making adjustments to wield the weapon.

Body reflexes and muscle memory. Yeah, he knew that. He wondered if he could still play the guitar or if he'd have to retrain this body to handle a musical instrument, work an anvil, carve wood, and blow glass. Oh, and black belt judo. He hoped the latter wouldn't be too hard. He was too old to train again to take falls. "Falls in armor," a part of him whispered and he swore as he imagined practicing ukemi techniques in armor.

Or, maybe not too old. He didn't know how old this body was and he vaguely remembered that Skyrim dark elves — the dunmer, yeah, 'dark elf' was an insult here — that they lived longer than humans but slightly less than those white Naz-, altmer. About 300 years or so. Longer if you're a wizard that knows the trick for life extension.

The other crate had iron and steel and leather armor parts. None of them had any particular attraction except for the appropriate weapon sheath and holding straps for the claymore. Thankfully, his new body knew how to position and tighten the straps without him having to think about it.

He eventually made it topside. He'd come across a few other bodies floating down there. Mostly male, mostly imperial or nord types. The crash must have happened at night while everybody was sleeping. Topside, he didn't see anybody nor any bodies in the surrounding waters.

It was late in the day. To the distant left, up high, the Skytemple ruins and beyond it was the familiar OSHA-nightmare bridge to the College of Winterhold. To his distant right was the ruined lighthouse tower above the town of Dawnstar. Even if the water wasn't deadly arctic cold, either destination was too far to swim without reliable flotation.

Huh, if he was lucky, there were boats docked in Dawnstar. He just needed some way to signal them.

Or, wait, was he seeing movement on the shores near Winterhold? One of the things he collected from below was a fancy silver serving tray. Another little collectible was a bottle of clear booze. He used that and a strip of cloth to polish the tray.

He chose to flash at Winterhold. In the game, Dawnstar had a problem with a devil — no, wrong, Curtis, they're 'daedra,' not devils or demons. Game modifiers, challengers, crashers and trashers. A mix of neutrals and chaotics. Ok. Some of them deserved the label of "devil." Like this daedra bitch that sucked out people's souls through their dreams unless the Dragonborn already blew through that temple and help the turncoat priest there and fixed that (hopefully, this Dragonborn wasn't doing the artifact collecting achievement). The jarl there was a paranoid prick. Curtis figured he probably could get help from that dunmer priest or maybe that retired Legion officer there. Oh, and there was that nutcase with his museum to avoid . . .

And Winterhold. That jarl was another prick, the kind that whines about the good-ol' days before he was even born and has this big I'm-the-victim and I-get-no-respect complex. But the college, man, he was sure he could get help and some answers there. He just hoped that the Saarthal mess was already taken care of. The college had never been big on his playthroughs. That was more his pyromaniac little brother's thing.

Of course, he had no way of knowing even if it was Game Time Skyrim; how far the Game had progressed, or if he had arrived before it started or this was after it ended. Still, he was pretty sure it didn't matter because there was no way he was the Dragonborn. After all, he didnt just fall into the back of a cart on the way to Helgen. He could choose. He'd start with Winterhold.

He started flashing Winterhold and hoping somebody there realized a steady, regular flash of light meant someone needed help or, at least, got curious as to why somebody was being visually annoying.

The sun sank a hand's width down.

"A little trouble, dunmer?" He looked down. An argonian with a green frill, twin rows of horn stubs and a red-feather crest stared up at him from the water.

"Yeah. I prefer hot water for my baths." He squatted and reached down to haul the argonian aboard. "Hist's blessing. Don't know if I could take another night out here. Name's Curtis."

"Hist's blessings, dunmer. I am Drains-the-Swamp. Project manager of the Winterhold Shoreline Reclamation Project."

"Whoa. No kidding? You hiring?"