| This archival work is dedicated to Loranna Pyrel, who passed away in early 2023. Rest in peace, friend. — Rock |
| Book Information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Source: | Elder Scrolls Forum | ||
| Archived Link: | lorannarp.pbworks.com | ||
| Book Date: | 3E 433 | ||
| Writer(s): | Ted Peterson | ||
| Publication Date: | March 2006-April 2006 | ||
| Up | Loranna's RP | ||
| Prev. | Playing Houses | Next | From the Ashes |
War of the Wormgod
War of the Wormgod was the thirteenth campaign of the Loranna's RP series.
This page exists only to record the posts of Tedders, who was the only developer to participate in the roleplay. Not all concepts presented are original to Tedders' posts, as replies are built off of replies, and the original concepts of other roleplayers are frequently referenced in his content. For proper citation context, consult the archived forum threads.
S'reddit
Sentinel
The capitol of the mightiest kingdom in Hammerfell stood between the harsh deserts of the Alik'r and the great Iliac Bay. Domes and spires graced the skyline above, while the scents of spice caught the wind below. Within even the most modest of buildings were beautiful mosaics, and the citizenry, particularly now in the hottest month, were beautiful creatures swathed in silk which showed considerably more flesh than those in the more modest provinces to the east would have considered appropriate.
Prominent buildings in Sentinel included the Temple of Arkay, a circular edifice of great magnificence, and the Royal Palace, high above the sea. King Lhotun, eldest surviving son of the late Queen Akorithi and King Camaron and brother of Queen Aubk-I of Daggerfall, commanded a popular reign.
Sentinel since the Warp of the West ruled over almost the entirety of northern Hammerfell. Unlike Daggerfall, Wayrest, and Orsinium, there was little border conflict. Yet, recently, horror had come to the land.
It was in Ephesus, a remote territory in the Dragontail Mountains which cut through the kingdom, that it began. A group of mages from the local Guild had gone to investigate the ruins of Scourg Barrow, the former haunt of Mannimarco, the so-called King of Worms. They never returned, and shortly thereafter contact was lost with all of Ephesus.
An aura of death spread over the mountains, slaying all who came within its boundaries, man, mer, animal, or plant.
Then in Totambu to the east of the mountains, a dragon was spotted arching through the skies. No sooner was it reported, then whole villages were annihiliated.
No such attacks have occurred to the west yet, in the capitol of Sentinel, but fear can be seen on every face.
From all across Tamriel, different factions have joined to combat the rising menace of the King of Worms. The army of Sentinel is mighty, and one can see in the harbor, the ships of the Empire. In the square around the Sentinel Mages Guild, sorcerors, enchanters, battlemages, and other spellcasters of the Empire have gathered.
The former Queen of Firsthold, Morgiah has recently arrived as well. Her son, Goranthir, now a pawn of Mannimarco's called Geht, is responsible for the dragon and other beasts coming to the land.
The Tribunal Temple, the Temples of the Nine, the royal army of King Helseth of Morrowind, and its rivals in the Civil War, the Indoril Redoran Alliance have also pledged troops, though they have yet to arrive.
And the heroes of Ald Raathim have also heeded the call.
S'reddit
The Nymph and Noggin, Ald Raathim, Morrowind
Both halves of the tavern, the genteel Nymph and the rowdy Noggin, were filled with activity. A notice outside was the Duchess's clarion call to action, and the warriors and adventurers who made their home in Ald Raathim were paying heed.
The local merchants, particularly the armorers, had come to the tavern to sell their wares to those heading east.
"You can't kill undead with that iron sword, serjo, here let me show you something ..."
Of course, the wise recognized that armor and weaponry could be bought just as well in Sentinel as in Ald Raathim.
In the village, there was a line of heroes and hero-wannabes queuing up for the Guild Guide transport to Sentinel. In support of the battle to come, there was no charge for this, but it didn't keep the Guide herself from grumbling, which was one refreshing part of business as usual.
Sheogorath
The Nymph and Noggin, Ald Raathim
Isidor finds Kethiah soon enough, helping direct people who want to know about signing up for the army. She smiles at him when she sees him, and doesn't give him a chance to talk.
"You don't have to tell me," Kethiah says, kissing him. "I think I knew you were going before you did."
Sheogorath
"I looked for you at the bookstore and the Nymph and Noggin," said Glacia stepping over to Reeds before he got onto the Guild Guide transport. "So you are going to Sentinel after all?"
Her face showed little emotion, but Reeds could tell what the expression was. She was trying to be brave.
Sheogorath
"You should do what you think is right," Glacia said, looking into Reeds's eyes. "You're too good to do anything but that."
Sheogorath
"No," Glacia shook her head. "I want to, but Loranna is going, so someone needs to stay behind to be her diplomat here. That said, if I could use a sword, I would leave that duty to Kallen, and go."
Sheogorath
"No, that would be selfish of me," Glacia frowned. "I only want you to make one promise to me. Return."
Sheogorath
"I promise," Glacia smiled, returning the kiss. "Now, go save the world."
Sheogorath
Mages Guild, Sentinel
It was chaos at the Guild, but it was at least organized chaos. The Emperor's guard was there to organize groups after taking tally of names, nation or guild of allegiance, and skills. A sizeable group was being put together to be sent by the Emperor's boats to the east side of the Dragontail Mountains, so that when the army made its move, it could crush Mannimarco from both sides.
There were also royal guards of the King of Sentinel, looking for the heroes of Ald Raathim, who they understood would lead the vanguard assault into the death aura. When they identified one of them, they would polite escort him or her to the palace of the king.
Sheogorath
The Royal Palace of Sentinel
The palace of Sentinel was filled with candles that released a scent of spices as well as a warm golden glow. It was difficult to tell a guard from a noble, for both wore silk and inscrutable expressions. There was hardly a body, male or female, that wasn't slim, well-muscled, and showing considerably more flesh than their Breton neighbors. Still, the atmosphere of sex was subtle, more sensual than wanton.
The central courtyard was open to the sky, and shielded from the sun by canopies. Urns spilled over with orange and yellow flowers.
Wine, water, and fruit was brought out by beautiful servers of both sexes.
"The King will be with you shortly," the servants said as each hero arrived. "He knows that time is short, and we are to provide you with any equipment you may need for the battle ahead."
Sheogorath
The Palace of Sentinel
The servants bowed at the approach of five persons.
The first was well-known to most of the group. Hlaalu Morgiah, dressed befitting a queen, though she was no longer one.
The second and third were also well-known. Archmagister Hannibal Traven, leader of the Mages Guild. With him was Magister Zadion, the current head of the Ald Raathim Mages Guild. Both were dressed in simple cloaks and capes.
The fourth was known to a few who had visited Sentinel after the ill-fated Biennie wedding a few months ago. A Redguard, not an exceptionally handsome man. His face was perhaps too friendly, still possessing the wide eyes and expressive mouth of his youth, though he was in his 30s. His hair was long, worn in coils ringed by gold. This was King Lhotun.
The fifth was known to none – at least this close up. An old man with thinning hair and weary eyes, wearing a richly embroidered robe, ornamented with a necklace with the largest jewels any had ever seen.
This was the Emperor Uriel Septim VII.
The nobles introduced themselves to the group.
"You came quicker than we thought you would," Morgiah said. "Thank the Nine."
Sheogorath
"Please, good sir, rise," the Emperor said quietly. "Your manners are impeccable, but we have too little time to waste on formalities."
Sheogorath
"Two days?" Hannibal Traven asked, an eyebrow raising. "Please explain, your Grace."
Sheogorath
The Emperor, the King, the former Queen, and the two high-ranking mages listened to Loranna carefully.
"Taolle," Morgiah breathed, amazed. "I can't believe it."
"She was approaching Mount Nombaje from which direction, the west I presume if she was journeying from Summerset?" King Lhotun asked, gesturing for his servants to bring him a map.
The terrain of the the Dragontail mountains were formidable to see, as the King traced the distance from Sentinel to Mount Nombaje, an 11,000 foot peak to the south and center.
"You will be hard pressed to make it there in two days' time," Lhotun said. "Unless you take the Ganada Pass."
He showed a whisper thin line through the mountains, so narrow that it hardly showed.
"It is a famous spot for banditry. I am sure none of them have survived, but it is still ideal for an ambush."
Sheogorath
"You don't have to go in completely blind," the King said. "I have a more detailed map of the Ganada Pass, which shows the cave system surrounding it and any known ruins of the Dwemer of Rourken."
At his signal another map was produced. From it, they could see where other ambushes had occurred, and Lhotun marked where they should turn to begin the ascent up Mount Nombaje.
"A treacherous journey indeed, I don't envy you," the Emperor sighed. "But I will pray for your success."
Sheogorath
A tall, slender figure in a dark leather cloak with an ornate raised hood, stamped and jeweled with mystical symbols, stepped into the room hurriedly and knelt.
"Forgive my tardiness, master, your Imperial Majesty, I had not been informed that the contingency from Ald Raathim had arrived until now," came a female voice.
Slashes immediately recognized it.
"We thought they were early, but time is even tighter than we hoped," Archmagister Traven replied. "Did you set the mark, Red-Rock-Shadow?"
When the figure rose, the group could see that she was an Argonian, and that the cloak and hood were folds of scales across her back – like a cobra crossed with a bat. Her face itself was long and pincer-like, with black shining scales.
"Hesek," she said, involuntarily with a start, looking at Slashes, and then her dark eyes went back to Slyvos. "My apologies, sir. I did not mean to interrupt."
Sheogorath
"You know each other?" Archmagister Traven smiled, pleased. "That's excellent. I didn't want to burden you with a stranger, but Red-Rock-Shadow is one of the finest battlemages I've ever known. I had her place a Mark on the site where the eastern army is gathering on Bazidir Valley, so after you have taken down the defenses, she can quickly alert the army ..."
Sheogorath
"If there are more than one of these blightstones, more than one of us may have to detect them somehow," the Argonian battlemage added thoughtfully. "How many are in the vanguard assault?"
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow nodded. "I would be honored."
"I am an old man," Emperor Uriel Septim VII said, looking to the group assembled. "I have been lucky enough to live many years, and do not expect to live many more. I have been even more fortunate to know many heroes in my lifetime, the names of some of whom live in legend, and the names of other who have been tragically forgotten except in my heart. I can tell you that some of them may have been your equals, but in bravery, none were your better."
"Loranna," Hlaalu Morgiah said quietly. "We cannot tarry. You have the swords?"
Sheogorath
"I had heard that the Duchess of Ald Raathim was a powerful alchemist," Red-Rock-Shadow said, taking the elixir. "But you were not given due credit."
Sheogorath
The Ganada Pass
The Dragontail Mountains began as simple hillocks in the wheat and corn farms a few miles east of the capitol city, but the horizon showed their destination far before then. The peaks of the mountains disappeared into the clouds, an apparently insurmountable barrier. Even from a distance, they could see that something horrible had happened to them: they were dark and shadowy even in the bright light of day.
Gradually the ground became rougher as they neared the Pass outlined on their map. Climbing up onto a ridge, they saw the narrow crevasse they would be passing through. They also saw the dead grass, the dead trees, and the bones of farm animals.
"We enter into the death aura ahead," Red-Rock-Shadow said.
Sheogorath
The heroes saw the last of living things as they pressed on and the rugged hills arched up, forming mountainous walls around them. Rotten moss and death-blasted trees studded the sheer surfaces. The wind carried with it dust and the smell of putrefaction.
The ground itself was uneven, littered with boulders and an occasional treacherous crevasse which required a strong jump or a spell of levitation to cross. It was clear this was not a popular way of travel. Possibly Mannimarco didn't even know of its existence.
The map showed a cavern, and as they passed it, they could hear shambling footsteps within.
"We should save our strength for battles we cannot avoid," Red-Rock-Shadow whispered as they skirted the edge of the cavern's entrance.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow nodded, and then shuddered at a piercing cry that echoed through the deep canyon. It was from far away, it seemed, but her dark eyes narrowed.
"That is no living bird," she hissed.
S'reddit
'The Ganara Pass
"Quiet and watch your step, Hesek," Red-Rock-Shadow clicked in Hist. "You used to be better on your feet than that."
S'reddit
The next bend took the group past the ruins of an ancient Dwemer village, the buildings weathered the same color as the rock walls to which they clung. Having seen other Dwemer ruins in Morrowind, the architectural similarities were obvious, but the differences between the style of the Rourken who left the east long before the War of The First Council were also striking. Adapting to a new climate and evolving from there, the Rourken ruin's familiarity made it seem even more exotic in this foreign land.
Sheogorath
The Ganada Pass
Around the next bend in the chasm, the heroes found a dead-end. A landslide, two hundred feet high, had sealed off the pass.
Red-Rock-Shadow opened her cloak which billowed out into a pair of leathery wings attached to her arms and flew upward. After surveying the area from the air for a moment, she descended.
"The landslide continues for at least a mile before dropping off," the Argonian battlemage reported. "If everyone can levitate, we can proceed along this path -- if not ..."
She opened up the map.
"Actually, the ruins cut through the mountain, and come out on the other side ... That might be the faster way to go regardless."
Sheogorath
The rhetorical question "Why don't we take it?" seemed to be answered as the group made their way up the narrow, well-worn steps to the Dwemeri village perched high over the canyon. Peering into the dark recesses of the ruins, it was hard not to think that they were moving from recent death to ancient death.
The first structure seemed to a government office of some kind, a king's palace or a hall of justice, perhaps. The ornaments had long since been stripped from the walls by looters, but there was still an air of gravitas and civility to the place. Tunnels lead deeper into the mountain from there.
Sheogorath
Meanwhile
Organizing an army is not an easy thing to do, particularly if the army is composed of many different armies, and had little time to prepare. If the Emperor himself had not personally been overseeing the arrangements, most likely, it would be chaos.
It was decided that the army would be divided into two, one half to the west of the mountains in Tigonus under the command of Laretha Warhaft, and the other to the east in Kozanet under the command of Digitus Ero. Marks had been set by mages on both sides, so communication could be facilitated across the miles that separated them.
Under each commander was the leader of the faction assigned to him or her. The soldiers reported to the superior they had gotten used to following, but the superiors reported to Warhaft and Ero.
Kalaan, Tigonus, Hammerfell
The army marched from the capitol of Sentinel to Kalaan in the formerly independent kingdom of Tigonus. It was a coastal march to save the soldiers' energy, but they knew that soon enough, they would be taxed to extreme. The dusty fortress in Kalaan would serve as the staging point when they reached it.
Ramakawan, Kozanet, Hammerfell
Those assigned to the eastern front sailed in the Imperial warships, and then marched south to the jungles east of the Dragontail mountains, where King Lhotun's hidden fortress stood. It faced the Bazidir Valley, a once lush but now putrid wide pass into the Dragontail. Red-Rock-Shadow's Mark was set to that region, so the plan was upon her appearing there and giving the signal that the defenses were down, Ero would send word to Warhaft, and together the armies would push together.
Sheogorath
With the chamber now illuminated, the group could see better that it was clearly a security station of some kind, where visitors to the forgotten Dwemeri city would first enter. It was designed to awe, and even now, a thousand years later, it still had that effect.
The dust was unsettled on the floor. Clearly others had moved through it, and recently, though it was impossible to tell how many. More than one certainly.
Smooth tunnels, obviously carved by machinery of great sophistication, even now only barely cracked by time, led off in all directions. The largest one went due south, and Slyvos was able to understand the writing on the plaque above it. It simply said "TO THE CENTER."
"The map doesn't give any details to the ruins," Red-Rock-Shadow said. "But south is the direction we want to go."
Sheogorath
"They're Khulari! Don't them touch you!" Red-Rock-Shadow cries out, unleashing a stream of fire at the vampires.
Sheogorath
Wromgod? Oh Noes ...
Summary
The group is in ancient Rourken Dwemer village that clings high above the Ganada Pass, trying to take it to Mount Nombaje before the Bosmer Taolle reaches the pinnacle and is killed.
Red-Rock-Shadow an Argonian battlemage is there, representing the Mages Guild, prepared to Recall east and alert the army when the defenses keeping the death aura are down. It seems that she and Slashes have a history together ...
Sheogorath
"The Southern Passage then," Red-Rock-Shadows nodded, and the group stepped into the Center of the village, an enormous cavern dug into the mountain. A whirlwind of energy at the ceiling, a hundred feet up, illuminated the square.
It was once a thriving small city. Shops and homes were easily to spot, carved into the rock like everything else.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow nodded in agreement. They had entered from the north, and continuing south, they saw north and south parts of the town were divided by a deep chasm. A series of wide, seemingly sturdy bridges traversed it every fifty feet.
The pit below looked endless.
Sheogorath
Behind them, there was the shuffling of footsteps. Ahead of them as well. They were not the fast footed vampires they had faced before, there could be no doubt about that.
Red-Rock-Shadow spread her wings and flew up.
"They're everywhere," she hissed, dropping down onto the other side of the chasm. "Hurry."
Sheogorath
The low, hungry moan of the zombie echoed forth behind him. There were dozens of them. Redguards who had made their homes in the mountains, and now were minions of the King of Worms. There were terrible wounds on many of them as well, doubtless from the Khulari vampires who had attempted to feed on them before finding their flesh inedible.
The zombies began their slow walk across the bridge, pursuing the heroes.
There were more shambling footsteps on the other side of the chasm as well.
Red-Rock-Shadow had run to a tower, and suddenly stopped, looking at a large gear. She tried pulling it.
Sheogorath
As she pulled it, a system of rails shimmered to life in the dusty ground of the town, criss-crossing it in all directions. The Argonian kept pulling on the gear, grunting at the exertion of pulling the rusty old device.
Sheogorath
With Reichi's help, the gear was pulled all the way, and the whine of machinery filled the air, mixed with the moan of zombies.
They began shambling towards the heroes, and there were a lot of them. It was hard to say how many ... fifty? A hundred?
Sheogorath
"I'm not exactly sure --" Red-Rock-Shadow called back before throwing a bolt of lightning at a zombie that was approaching her. "I'm not exactly sure what 'this thing' is, but some kind of transport --"
The whine of machinery drowned out her words as a tarnished metal platform with a railing around it crashed through a group of zombies to the west. It moved quickly, gliding slightly above the ground, until it came to rest at the tower.
It was a horseless carriage of some kind.
"It seems to be pointed south at least," the Argonian said, cautiously stepping on board.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow stared at the short podium in front of the platform. Two wheels. She gingerly tried the first one, and the platform rotated on its axis, now pointing north, towards the zombies.
"Okay, not that one ..."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow nodded, and spun the wheel around so it was facing south again. Then she pulled the other wheel, a bit too far. It rocketed off with a sudden speed that knocked everyone on the platform off their feet.
It also crashed into several zombies but didn't slow down as it rocketed forward.
The Argonian scrambled to her feet, back to the controls.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow cried out in Hist, trying to get control of the speeding platform. She slowed it down with the one wheel, and then tried to turn it with the other to avoid a building they were speeding towards. Her turn overcompensated, and the platform rushed towards a second building.
Fortunately it seemed that the platform only followed the tracks on the ground and automatically swiveled to avoid the structure.
"Sorry about that," she breathed. "I think I'm getting the hang of it."
She made subtler movements with the first wheel to right the carriage's direction so it was still moving southward.
Sheogorath
"No, that'd just be your driver getting used to the controls," Red-Rock-Shadow said, turning to him slightly.
As the platform passed another structure filled with moaning zombies, they saw another chasm ahead.
"Stop! Stop!" the Argonian cried, turning the acceleration wheel.
And stop it did, hanging on nearly invisible tracks hovering over the chasm.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow after catching her breath, nods, and turns the acceleration wheel slowly. The cart moves through the air and darkness.
Up ahead they saw what looked like a factory on a plateau.
And then heard more bird cries, echoing through the hollow space.
Sheogorath
At that, a creature flew at Gram, talons out. An enormous bird with a skeletal woman's upper body.
There were more cries all around them, and a second undead harpy dove at Osa.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow nodded to Nalion, and pushed the wheel hard. Suddenly, the once distant factory loomed large straight ahead.
The scream of the harpies in the darkness intensified. Many more were coming, spurring on by the death cries of those slain by frost, shock, and magicka.
Suddenly, Gram was gone, pulled off the cart as it rocketed towards the factory.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow brought the cart to a screeching halt as it came into the covered walkway of the factory. She jumped off it and ran to the edge of the abyss before spreading her wings.
"It's too soon to be losing any warriors!" she cried and took to the air. Immediately she was set on by two harpies, but they were incinerated by an area of effect fire spell.
Sheogorath
"I got him!" Red-Rock-Shadow cried, grabbing Gram. "Are you all right? Do you need me to come back for you, Nalion?"
Sheogorath
From the sound of the cries in the air, there would be more. Many more. Sivartus noticed that there was a chain on the side of the port to lower the door and seal off the factor. As the cries and the sound of a thousand wingbeats came closer, he would have to decide whether to wait for his friends or not ...
Sheogorath
Even with a quickly cast Free Fall spell cast on him, Gram was more than Red-Rock-Shadow was used to carrying. She beat her wings furiously, rising up towards the factory which seemed far away. Behind her, she could hear the harpies coming ...
"Don't look back," she gasped to Gram.
The adventurers at the factory could see the dark cloud of harpies speedily descending on them.
Sheogorath
With a last burst of speed, the Argonian and her "baggage" burst up, and together with Nalion flew into the factory.
A few harpies who had avoided Nalion's spell followed them, but the majority were but seconds away – so close, the heroes could spot the different levels of decomposition in their faces and bodies, though there were a thousand in the dark cloud ...
Sheogorath
The metal door clanged down with a bang. Immediately there was the deafening sound of multiple bodies battering against it, from the harpies that hadn't veered away in time. The sound then continued softer as the creatures threw themselves against it with less force. Finally, the sound was replaced with relentless scratching and the whirring of wings.
The harpies in the factory with them immediately fell on the heroes, talons outstretched.
Sheogorath
Their death cries echo in the chamber, coupled with that of their sisters, still trying to get in.
Red-Rock-Shadow grimaced, rubbing her wings like they were aching shoulders.
The tracks for the platform continued through the factory in all directions, passing through other gates which, like the one they had closed, were thankfully closed.
"I don't think we want to go out into the open air again," the Argonian shook her head.
The factory consisted of a single enormous machine, like a giant furnace though it was cool to the touch. Its chimneys went high into the factory ceiling and beyond.
Sheogorath
"It hasn't been used for a long time ... I wouldn't want to turn it on to find out," Red-Rock-Shadow replied, touching its metal surface. "Hists' Blood, we're so close ..."
She pulled out the map, tracing their route through the mountain. "That's Mount Nombaje, if we can just get through ..."
Sheogorath
It was a tight, claustrophobic space, and the screams of the harpies outside was almost unbearable. Whether the heroes climbed or floated, the ascent seemed endless.
But at last there was light above them.
And above that, a mountain peak. It was not Mount Nombaje, but its neighbor to the north.
Sheogorath
At that, he heard a faint groan of pain, an old woman's voice, coming from down the northern slope of the mountain.
"Taolle," the Argonian whispered to the others. "We got in front of her path."
Sheogorath
The source of the voice was a narrow ridge, going alongside the mountain, and before Nalion saw her, he saw the effect of her presence bloom up around her. A boulder suddenly lighting up with flowering moss before dying back to black. A trees exploding into full grandeur before being blasted back.
The ancient, blind Bosmer woman was on her hands and knees. The clothing that she was wearing was torn and stained with blood.
At Nalion's call, she raised her head. "Who speaks?"
Sheogorath
"Better late than never," the old Bosmer said, smiling. Nalion had never seen anyone so thin, so feeble. She held out her bony hand for him. "I knew Goran had some nice friends, I just didn't know when they would turn up. Have we met before, dear?"
Sheogorath
"Anya, Gram, Nalion," Taolle nodded. "I will have to remember your voices. Usually, I have animals who I speak with, and they can describe to me what they see, but I can't do that here ..."
Nalion could barely hear her in the rush of energy when her hand touched his. She was Nirn, touching him. Life. Contradictions. Possibilities. Humor and Horror. Love and Despair. Light and Darkness. And above all, Magic.
Sheogorath
"Oh dear, no," Taolle shook her head. "Never could do that, but I heard about people who could ..."
When Anya hands her the bottle, she asks. "What is this?"
Sheogorath
"Oh, is that how you do it?" the old Bosmer laughed. "That is clever. No thank you, dear, I don't need it. But we best be off. The boy's some ways away still."
Sheogorath
"Bless you, Nalion, I know he remembers. I can feel him," Taolle replied. "He's too strong for this nonsense. Just needs a good talking to, like when he was little."
Sheogorath
The group and Taolle followed the ridge along the mountain. It was a treacherous path, and everytime Taolle nearly fell and someone helped upright her, she would smile and shake her head. "This is much faster with you here, thank you."
Night was beginning to fall, and temperatures were dropping in the high peaks as they neared Mount Nombaje.
Sheogorath
The Royal Palace of Sentinel
"There you are," came a familiar voice behind Loranna, as the Queen Mother of Morrowind stepped onto the balcony. She was swathed in a cloak of black and white, her hair flowing freely in the summer breeze. "I was told you were somewhere about, but you brought no servants? Sacrilege, my dear."
Sheogorath
"I wish I could see the stars again," Taolle mused thoughtfully. "When I was younger, there was such beauty in them, and I taught myself how to read the signs in the constellations ..."
The Bosmer stumbled over loose pebbles, and started to fall.
Sheogorath
The Royal Palace of Sentinel
"Considering half the Empire is here because of my family and my idiot daughter, pretty well," Barenziah nodded. "I understand my former son-in-law will be coming shortly as well. And the Indoril Redoran Alliance, or a faction thereof, is assisting the army. Strange times."
Sheogorath
"Thank you, dear," Taolle smiled, carrying on her monologue about astrology.
The effect on Anya was as profound as it was fleeting. The darkness left her in the one moment that they had touched, both the gift and the curse. The terror of the death aura was upon her, but Taolle's touch had kept her alive and safe ... and mortal.
The moment it went away, her darkness returned.
Sheogorath
The Royal Palace of Sentinel
"Yes, he could've done a bit more about those blasted Azurites, couldn't he?" Barenziah smiled. "Well, he's an old man ... If one can say that about a fellow a quarter of your age. How are you, dear girl? What month are we on now?"
Sheogorath
The old Bosmer's soliloquy on the stars had, uninterrupted, turned into an interesting ramble about Aetherius.
"The Reman Dynasty and the Sun Birds of Alinor tried to reach Aetherius, you know, but therein lies the great irony. It is impossible to reach magic, by magic. Still, somehow the ancients could do it. The Great Orrery at Firsthold, did you see it? The spheres there are made up of genuine celestial mineral gathered by travelers during the Merethic Era ..."
Sheogorath
The Royal Palace of Sentinel
"I think one thing I have learned from Helseth and Morgiah, and Morgiah has learned too, is that whatever you expect from your children, whatever worry you have or dreams, it'll be something else," Barenziah smiled a little sadly. "B'vek, I hope Goranthir is saveable. And if he's not, I'm glad he had his time with the heroes of Ald Raathim."
Sheogorath
"Oh, I think you're right, I didn't mean to sound pessimistic. That's not my style, though I can get exasperated at all of them at times ... I am peculiarly fond of my family ..." Barenziah took Loranna's hand and smiled. "Extended family as well."
Sheogorath
Taolle, pleased to have a vocal audience, continued on. She was, after all, a nurse, which in the society of Firsthold, the equivalent of being a teacher, and she was mantling Nirn, which gave her particular insight. She went on with her lecture into the night as the group began up the southern slope of Mount Nombaje. They had seen some of the peak of it from the neighboring hill, but it disappeared into the clouds above.
Sheogorath
From time to time, he would notice Red-Rock-Shadow stealing a glance in his direction, but her expression was difficult to read, even for a fellow Argonian. She wrapped her wings/cloak around her tighter as the wind picked up, whistling down the mountain.
"Hard to hear footsteps or even smell an enemy approaching with this wind," she hissed to herself.
Sheogorath
Taolle's chatting had gone from the skies to the earth, specifically the area around the Death Aura. "Mannimarco is trying to fashion the world in his vision, but it is a mad vision of undeath. Even the unliving rock is altered and cannot survive in this zone."
As if to underline her point, in the distance there was the sound of rolling rock, and the adventurers saw a small landslide falling into the valley below them from a different mountain.
"There is life that holds the mountains together, trees and shrub and moss," Taolle sighed. "And Mannimarco hates it all. He would bring the whole world down."
Sheogorath
"You're right," Red-Rock-Shadow replied, impressed by the Nord's senses. She sniffed the air. "Whatever it is, it's something new ..."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow began to spread her wings, but the howling wind around them was too ferocious to take flight. She would have to do this on foot. Her arms glow red as she steps between Taolle and the strange creatures coming up the mountain.
Sheogorath
"The Worm King's children," Red-Rock-Shadow whispered, looking quickly for cover. "Worm Princes. Abominations. The question is have they already seen us?"
Sheogorath
"I know as much as you do about them, Hesek," Red-Rock-Shadow whispered, pushing back a bit towards a boulder. "I've never seen them before either."
Sheogorath
While Red-Rock-Shadow has a moment with no party members in her path, she unleashes the lightning spell she had been preparing, the fingers of electricity arching out in a fan, to strike as many of the abominations as possible.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow had backed up to defend Taolle, and as Reichi was the closest to her, she cast a Dispel to remove the abomination's curse that had been launched at him.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadows looked with horror at the creature about to crush Isidor and Slashes. She would only have time for one spell -- but what could aid her friends and hurt her foes both?
Then she launched a powerful Heal spell in an area effect around them all: corpsapede and hero alike. If Isidor and Slashes were hurt, hopefully it would give them a fighting chance ... But the effect on the corpsapede was unknown. If the death aura and the pain of the lightning and arrows gave them pleasure, perhaps healing would cause them pain ... or, hopefully, worse ...
Sheogorath
Summary
Red-Rock-Shadow, Argonian battlemage and liaison to the Mages Guild is with the party on the slopes of Mount Nombaje, fighting corpsapedes. She has just launched an experiment of sorts: a powerful heal spell in the vicinity of the necromantic constructs and Isidor and Slashes. At worse, she figures, it will heal the heroes and undo some of the damage done to the creature. At best, a Heal spell cast at a creature that thrives on pain and death will hurt it quite a bit ...
She has not moved, however, from her position in front of ...
Taolle called Mother Nirn, Goranthir's blind, elderly nurse who has mantled Nirn itself to stumble her way into the Death Aura. It is said if she dies before seeing him, all hope will be lost.
Sheogorath
Meanwhile
The battle preparations continue on three fronts.
The Royal Palace, Sentinel
More soldiers and troops were arriving hourly, and being sent off to one of the two different camps to join the troops already in position to the west and east of the Dragontail Mountains.
Kalaan, Tigonus, Hammerfell
The soldiers marching along the coast had finally reached the dusty fortress in Kalaan, just west of the mountains, on a lonely stretch of beach. The officers of the various factions examined maps and made plans under the command of Laretha Warhaft. The soldiers readied their weapons, preparing to launch into action the moment the order was given. They had only to wait for the death aura to be dissipated.
Ramakawan, Kozanet, Hammerfell
King Lhotun's hidden jungle fortress faced the Bazidir Valley, a wide pass through the mountains. Red-Rock-Shadow's Mark was set to that region, so the plan was upon her appearing there and giving the signal that the defenses were down, the commanding officer Digitus Ero would send word to Warhaft, and together the armies would push together.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow grabs Taolle around the waist and, unfurling her wings, takes flight. She can only rise a few feet up with the buffeting wind, but she hopes that if she keeps aloft a little longer, the others can defeat the corpsapedes.
"Concentrate your fire on one of them!" she cries.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow drifted back down to the ground, letting Taolle go, and noticeably shaking from the effect of holding the Mother Nirn for so long. It wasn't the winds that had effected her, it was the touch.
Taolle shook her head. "I don't know what you all were fighting, but it sounded just awful."
Sheogorath
"I am, thank you, dear," Taolle nodded. "None of them so much as touched me, but they were close enough to smell."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow was looking at the map they had been provided, trying to answer Slyvos's question. She looked puzzled at it a moment, and then took another look at the next mountain to the south which they could just see over the peak of Mount Nombaje.
"Either this map is really old, or I've lost my ability to read a map," she said, pointing. "Or that huge cavern is brand new."
There was in fact a yawning cavern, traversable from this peak over a narrow natural bridge.
"What do you do when you have something you don't want someone to find? Dig a hole and drop it in."
Sheogorath
"I don't know where exactly, but Goranthir is somewhere in that direction," Taolle said, pointing in the direction of the mountain with the cavern. "I'm not staying behind."
Sheogorath
The early morning wind's chill left the group as they stepped into the mouth of the enormous cavern. It was, in fact, pleasantly warm.
The mouth was fifty feet high, and twice as wide, and the tunnel continued those dimensions, on a slight slope downward. It was an awkward walk, however, as the ground was littered with rocks which went from small pebbles at the entrance to large boulders as they went deeper.
The rocks jumbled up as the cave expanded into a huge chamber. A ledge high up led to two tunnels, which could be reached with a climb up the boulders.
Though the temperature was warm and pleasant, those attuned to magicka could sense they were close to something dark and unholy, necromancy of the highest order.
Sheogorath
Taolle pointed towards the tunnel to the right. "We're close. I can feel him."
Sheogorath
Taolle could barely be restrained as she scrambled up the pile of rocks to the higher ledge. It was an easier climb that they had anticipated from a distance. The rocks were smooth, long like fallen stactites, and curved like sabers.
As she and those close to her went towards the right tunnel, those with a strong mystical connection felt the throb of necromantic energy was close, emanating from the left tunnel.
Sheogorath
Taolle nodded her head frantically, moving into the right tunnel. "This is the way where he lies ... He is so close ..."
Sivartus had no doubt, however, now that he was on the ledge. The energy source was in the left tunnel, not the right. Perhaps, Goranthir was down that tunnel, but the Blightstone, if it were here, was not.
Sheogorath
The right tunnel continued for about a hundred further before abruptly ending. Taolle, of course, being blind, would have kept on walking into the wall if not held back.
"He's there," she said, pointing at the solid wall. Her breathing was irregular and there was little color in her face.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow touched the wall and nodded. "It's solid."
She touched Taolle's thin, shaking shoulder. "Let's try the other tunnel and see if it loops around."
Sheogorath
The walk back through the tunnel was uneventful, and back on the ledge, they turned to look to the tunnel they hadn't taken. The odd thing was that there were rocks lying about the ledge, running into that tunnel, which hadn't been there before. Strange little rocks they were in fact. Almost semicircular in shape.
Nevertheless, the path was clear to the left tunnel and the necromantic emanations continued to throb just as strong.
Sheogorath
It doesn't move. In fact, it seems to be fused into the stone floor as if it was an outcropping that had suddenly sprung up while they were in the right tunnel.
Taolle puts her hand against the wall for support. Some moss sprung to life at her touch, but not very much, as if her power were fading.
"I ... can't breathe very well," she gasped.
Sheogorath
"Thank you," Taolle replied, still faintly but with a smile. "I've kept this body going for months now without rest, and it wasn't in its peak when I began ... "
She took another breath. "We're so close ... I have to keep going for a little while ..."
Sheogorath
The surge of life was still there, but it was not as strong as it had been.
"I don't know what it is ... something down that tunnel ..." she gasped, and then took the flask. "What is this? The sap? You are certain you have enough, with an extra one for Goranthir?"
Sheogorath
The tunnel ended in a room which flickered with black light coming from a large gem on a strange pedestal, which was roughly like an upside-down triangle, with two large holes and two smaller ones below. There was indeed a side tunnel behind it.
Sheogorath
Taolle nodded and drank deeply of the potion. She coughed slightly, and some color seemed to return to her face.
"I think we must be close to one of the stones you were talking about," she said, in a frail but stronger voice.
Sheogorath
"Of course it is," said a young man's voice coming from the corridor. "If that's too much, you don't even have to walk. Baelthon, why don't you move a little closer?"
The triangular pedestal tilted slightly, so the gem rolled into one of the holes beneath it. It continued to tilt up, and Sivartus saw there were rows of teeth beneath it.
The "rocks" that led to it began to rise, becoming what they were: the two hundred foot long spine and rib cage of a dead dragon.
Sheogorath
Shaka wasn't the only one whose form has changed. Geht stepped out of the corridor, much changed. He was entirely white now, from his robes to his skin to his hair. Only his eyes were the same golden color they had changed to when he first became a minion of The King Of Worms.
"Oh, yes, I know some of you," he said with an unpleasant smile. "This is regrettable, but you can't be allowed to destroy that gemstone. Baelthon, annihiliate them."
With great pleasure, Baelthon replied, the deep timber of the dead dragon's voice rolling impossibly through its fleshless throat, as it reared up, striking the ceiling. A shower of boulders fell down all around. Then a curl of smoke wisped through the smaller holes, which were its nostrils as it prepared its real attack.
Sheogorath
Gram's attack glances off the rock-stone skeleton of the dragon.
P'Rassha's ax also failed to make a dent. As it reared around ...
First, it crushed the Frost Atronach under its massive claw, then --
The flames were unlike anything the heroes had ever seen. Far more intense than a fireball or a God's Fire spell, they vomited out of Baelthon's open maw like water spraying out of an overburden dam. Sivartus's shield was instantly evaporated, and all lived, but few escaped a burn.
The chamber was filled with smoke and fallen rocks, and for a moment after Anya's words, all was silent.
Baelthon did, in fact, stop.
There's hardly enough meat on any of you, except the cat ... I should cook you slowly, Baelthon growled, twitching, but not moving much.
Sheogorath
"Your death is its own reward!" Baelthon roared, and the very foundations of the mountain seemed to shake as more stones fell from the ceiling.
Holding himself against Taolle, he could tell she was unconscious.
The blows continued to glance off the dragon, and it paid Ora no more attention than it would a fly.
Geht stepped forward through the smoke. "Baelthon, I told you to annihiliate them, not stand in place and talk them to death."
The creature's response was barely audible, low and miserable. "I cannot."
Sheogorath
"No," said Geht. "Annihiliate them."
"I cannot do both," the dragon grumbled. "So I can do neither."
Sheogorath
"Hello Shaka," Geht smiled. "I like the new look."
"Nalion," Geht continued. "Why don't you shut up Shaka for me? Shut them all up."
Sheogorath
"And why don't you help Nalion shut them all up, P'Rassha?" Geht turned to the Cathay-Raht. "Don't be afraid to get rough."
Sheogorath
"Let me see what I can do," said Red-Rock-Shadow, her hands glowing as she turned to Nalion.
Geht called out something to her in Hist, and she froze.
Sheogorath
"Dear Anya, I haven't seen you in a while, did you ever find a cure? Let's see," Geht smiled.
At that, Red-Rock-Shadow launched a powerful Turn Undead spell at her.
Sheogorath
"That's close enough, friend," Geht shook his head. "Be a good lizard, and get on the floor and wriggle."
Sheogorath
Geht chuckled pleasantly. "That's fine, little lizard, but you should be licking the floor as you do it."
He pulled a sword out of his robe.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow took to the air, flying to the top of the chamber, to look for another target.
Sheogorath
Taolle awoke with a start.
"He's here?"
Something stirred in the dust, and suddenly an entire colony of bats leapt into the air, squeaking as they flew around the chamber. They were not undead bats, but living animals. They were chasing after insects, also living, that had also sprung to life.
The walls of the chamber were suddenly slick with moss and mildew, fresh and green.
Sheogorath
The rush, the disobeying of his orders, it caught Geht off guard. That combined with the sudden cloud of bats everywhere.
He managed to avoid more than a hefty slice to his hand, but it was enough to disarm him, and the blow to his gut doubled him over.
He fell to the chamber floor which was suddenly green and mossy.
Taolle got to her feet. While life was springing up around her, she herself looked wan and ghostly. She staggered forward blindly. "Goran, my dear boy. It is Mother Nirn."
Sheogorath
"Mother Nirn?" Geht laughed, rising to his knees and looking at her. "My, how ghastly Nirn is looking these days. Don't be daft, old crone, I know you. You're just that pathetic ... nurse ..."
Geht's smile faded. His eyes turned red in a flash.
"Taolle?"
The name spoken, Taolle groaned in agony and pitched forward. Geht jumped to his feet and ran at her, as the death aura flooded the chamber once again, and the heroes who were command by him are released from their charms.
Sheogorath
By the time he reached her, her body was limp and lifeless. Goranthir collapsed against her, tears rolling, his life fading quickly as well.
Sheogorath
There was an extra heart beat or two where none would have existed. Goranthir closed his eyes, and lay across the dead body of his nurse Taolle.
Sheogorath
The cloud of bats drop to the ground, lifeless as the insects they were pursuing. The moss and mildew on the walls blackened, and dripped down in sheets.
Sheogorath
"This does simplify things rather," Baelthon chuckled deeply, and then stopped, looking at them. "Oh, well, it seems he'll make it."
Goranthir curled into a ball, choking and sobbing, clutching at Taolle's corpse.
Sheogorath
"Fearfully sorry, I'm on my way," Baelthon nodded, slithering off surprisingly gracefully out of the chamber.
Goranthir continued to sob, and in between his weeping, there were chirps, whinnies, snatches of Hist, a thousand different languages, and at least one time the words were in a language they all understood – "Please, come back."
Sheogorath
Goranthir did so. She had seen in his eyes over the time they'd known one another the braggadocio of a young hero, the silliness of a boy discovering love, the dignity of a king, but here now was helplessness. His lips mouthed the word "Anya" but no sound came out.
Sheogorath
The look of despair in Goranthir's eyes were replaced by calmness, strength, anger, gratitude, a thousand other different emotions, but sadness still remained. There were some things the Masque apparently could not do.
He stood up. "She was not the only one who risked her life to save me. On my soul which is mine again, I will not let her down, or any of you down."
Sheogorath
Meanwhile
The battle preparations continue on three fronts.
The Royal Palace, Sentinel
More soldiers and troops were arriving hourly, and being sent off to one of the two different camps to join the troops already in position to the west and east of the Dragontail Mountains.
Kalaan, Tigonus, Hammerfell
The soldiers marching along the coast had finally reached the dusty fortress in Kalaan, just west of the mountains, on a lonely stretch of beach. The officers of the various factions examined maps and made plans under the command of Laretha Warhaft. The soldiers readied their weapons, preparing to launch into action the moment the order was given. They had only to wait for the death aura to be dissipated.
Ramakawan, Kozanet, Hammerfell
King Lhotun's hidden jungle fortress faced the Bazidir Valley, a wide pass through the mountains. Red-Rock-Shadow's Mark was set to that region, so the plan was upon her appearing there and giving the signal that the defenses were down, the commanding officer Digitus Ero would send word to Warhaft, and together the armies would push together.
Sheogorath
"I know," Goranthir nodded, shivering a little. Two words, but they were not said flippantly. There could be no doubt from his eyes he understood what Taolle had done and why. "You might ... have to explain some things to me about what's happening. My mind is not exactly right right now."
Sheogorath
"I remember going to visit the woman who called herself Almalexia, and she attacked me, I think she was some kind of a vampire," Goranthir frowned, trying to concentrate. "And then, there's a period of darkness. I was calling myself Geht, and controlling vast hordes of animals in an attempt to escape Vvardenfell and get to Mannimarco, who I considered my master ... I remember escaping with you and the others on the dragon, and then I came here ..."
Goranthir shivered again. "Mannimarco told me we had to eliminate the line of succession in Firsthold, so I went there next, and murdered my cousin, and tried to ... kill my little sister ... my ten-year-old little sister, Rinalla ..."
He rubbed his temples, holding back his emotions.
"Mannimarco brought me back here, where he was beginning his necromantic spell, the death aura ... the gems, the Blightstones, they're all over the mountains, but this one he had me guard with the dragon, but he didn't expect an invasion right now. When the first one is destroyed, though, he'll know ..."
Sheogorath
"Morgiah renounced the throne," Goranthir's eyes went wide. He distinctly did not call her mother. "That must be why ... no matter ... Mannimarco has powerful undead servitors guarding all the Blightstones from here to Scourg Barrow. He wanted to use Baelthon to guard this one, but as powerful as he is, he is still curiously willful. He is capable of shrugging of his orders like no other undead creation of the King's. So I had to stay here for the time being to make sure he did his job, at least until Mannimarco could create a new, more obedient minion."
Sheogorath
"She was my family, my oldest and dearest friend and teacher, the best soul I knew for the first sixteen years of my life," Goranthir nodded, looking at her with a sad smile. "And she is at peace now. I think, if we have a little bit of time, she'd want to be buried here. It is cursed ground now, but when we have defeated the King, it will be whole again, and she will be resting in the very land she rescued ... "
Sheogorath
"I was thinking we use Baelthon to bury her, nice and deep, where they can't get to her," Goranthir said, looking out towards the dragon. "As for Mannimarco, he's ... he's not yet the God he wants to be, but with the fall of the Tribunal, I don't think there's a more powerful 'person' with his feet on Tamriel. I don't think we can beat him with anything shy of an army."
Sheogorath
Goranthir smiled at the news, the first genuine, pleased smile Anya had seen on his face in many months. "Let's tell him together. I don't know how strong my powers of persuasion are now that I'm no longer 'Geht.'"
The skeletal dragon was, as he said he would be, at the cavern entrance. The sun was beginning to rise on the horizon.
Sheogorath
As they both told him what they needed him to do, dig a huge hole, deep enough that no undead creature could get into it and disturb Taolle's resting spot, it was very obvious that it was Anya that Baelthon was listening to and not Goranthir.
"As you wish, my lady," the dragon replied, and before long several tons of solid rock had been torn away in the cavern.
"I will return here later with flowers, when there are flowers," Goranthir said quietly as the grave was filled in and packed tight.
S'reddit
"Thank you, Isidor," Goranthir smiled, putting on the ring and testing his grip on the sword. It had been a long time since he had use the Kynarine Blade, but it felt right. "And thank you for being here. How is it in Ald Raathim now? There were those fabricants in Ald Sotha a while back ... Did the Redoran ever use them?"
While Goranthir talked with the others he knew, Red-Rock-Shadow stood apart, and examined the now guardless Blightstone.
Sheogorath
"It wasn't a very pleasant experience having that fellow," Red-Rock-Shadow nodded in the direction of Goranthir, continuing the conversation in Hist, but keeping her voice down. "In my head, ordering what to do, and speaking in Hist, no less. Fluent in the language and others, it seems. And I didn't realize until he told me to cast a Turn Undead spell on Anya that she was ... well ..."
The Argonian battlemage shrugged. She did not know what Anya was.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow nodded. "There is no doubt that she's a hero ... I just didn't know before," she turned to Slashes. "You're a commander in Ald Raathim? How far you've come in the world, Hesek ..."
Sheogorath
"Well, best not to dwell on the past," Red-Rock-Shadow matched his tone exactly. "We need to do our duty now, as professionals."
Sheogorath
"The question may not be how, it may be when," Goranthir said, after a moment's hesitation. "Mannimarco will know when the first one's destroyed. Maybe we should collect them, and then destroy them at once to catch him off guard ..."
Sheogorath
"No, I don't think I ever will," Red-Rock-Shadow hissed, and then turned away. "But we should not fight now. There's been too much fighting within the group already."
Sheogorath
"I don't know," Goranthir shook his head. "I've never seen one be destroyed before ... But I know there's a lot of energy inside them, so if I had to guess ..."
Sheogorath
"Thank you, Shaka, that will be good to know when I see her again, whenever that is," Goranthir smiled.
"Maybe," the Prince said. "Slyvos would know better ..."
Sheogorath
"Thanks, Shaka, and ... Well, I hope it goes without saying that I wasn't myself when I was ordering you to squirm on the floor ..." Goranthir grimaced.
Sheogorath
"And, like I said, he'll know when we destroy it too," Goranthir frowned. "We better do this quickly. I can show you where the other blightstones are, but they're some distance apart ..."
Sheogorath
A moment later, Kallen's face shimmered into Shaka's sight, like he was looking into a slightly faded mirror. As always, calm and reserved.
"Yes, sera, I'm here. What news from the moutains?"
Sheogorath
"Four, including this one," Goranthir replied. "One near the crater at Mount Dakobo, one in the salt pools in the Lemdazi Valley ... and one in Scourg Barrow ..."
Goranthir held aloft the Kynarine Blade. "Good. I want to give it to you."
"Tell Kallen I need to issue a warning," Goranthir said quickly. "There will be dragon attacks to the east and west very shortly."
Sheogorath
"I will get the message to her immediately," Kallen's image replied. "That is indeed very good news, sera."
Sheogorath
"I will do so," Kallen nodded. "Good luck to you, and to your companions."
Kallen immediately found Lady Glacia Rysleire, the Duchess's adjunct and gave her the message.
"It appears you will need to go to Sentinel after all," he said. "At least for the time it takes to give her grace the messages."
Glacia nodded, and a few minutes later had taken the Mages Guild Guide to Sentinel, and was en route to the palace.
Sheogorath
Sentinel - the Palace
A large group of soldiers unproportionately made of Altmer caught her attention, and then Loranna saw that King Reman himself was addressing them. He was not in his robes of state, but in a suit of armor, as if he intended to go into battle himself.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Reman turned to her, and Loranna was struck how old and tired he looked. This was a king with demons.
"Your Grace," the King said. "I had heard you were here."
He dismissed his soldiers, and returned to the conversation.
"My apologies," he said. "I have been somewhat distracted of l -- By Auriel, what is she doing here of all places?"
Reman was staring over Loranna's shoulder at an approaching figure. It was Glacia, who paused for a moment, nervously, when she saw the King, but then determindly continued forward. She bowed to them.
Sheogorath
"Lady Glacia?" the King looked at her with glowering eyes. "You look exactly like a Lady Glacia Rysleire whose parents and fiance are even now tearing my kingdom apart searching for --"
"Your Majesty, I am one and the same," Glacia said, looking him in the eye. Her tone was polite but urgent. "I am also the Duchess's adjunct and diplomat, and the news I bring is far more important than my previous life. With all respect, your Majesty, let me to my duty before discussing my personal life."
Glacia turned to Loranna and told her what Shaka had told Kallen.
Sheogorath
Reman nodded, and together they went to tell Lhotun and the Emperor, Glacia's status as runaway or diplomat being put into the shadows.
Immediately emissaries were sent to the fortresses around the Dragontail mountains to tell them to watch the skies for an imminent attack.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Glacia smiled and nodded. "As soon as I heard, I -- Your Majesty?"
The King of Firsthold had sat down, rather heavily on a chair in the now vast empty parkland where his troops had been gathered. He was looking up to the morning sky, and seemed to be whispering to it.
Sheogorath
Kallan, Hammerfell
This was the second bit of bad news of the day. The morning tide had brought in a beach full of dead fish, and after some expeditions had been made to sea, it was discovered that the Death Aura had apparently expanded beyond the mountains, about a half mile into the Iliac Bay itself.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
The words are strange, similar to the song sang at the funeral of Prince Aedrin. Old Aldmeris, probably meaning no more in literal meaning to the King than to her. But it was clearly a prayer of thanks, and Loranna heard the word "Auriel" mentioned in it.
"My son ... is alive," Reman turned to Loranna, smiling widely.
Sheogorath
"I can't tarry," the King said, getting to his feet with new found energy. "I must get my troops to Kallan to help the effort, but I will back soon if you will be here."
"Your Majesty," Glacia said, nervously. "I rejoice with you, but if you would like to talk about --"
"You're obviously well-suited for this profession of yours, telling an old king to shut up in a polite way," Reman laughed. "Will you be returning to Firsthold?"
"I have no plans to, Your Majesty."
"Then send your parents a note, letting them know, so they will stop bothering me," he said, walking off to talk to his general.
Glacia watched him go, dumbstruck.
"I confess," Glacia said. "I did not expect that."
Sheogorath
"I can only see the positive sides ... Goranthir's saved, the first stone is found, I'm allowed to continue my life ..." Glacia put her hand to her mouth. "Of course, the imminent dragon attacks ... That's not so positive, is it?"
Sheogorath
Goranthir also had pointed his Kynarine blade at the Blightstone.
"Let me help destroy these infernal devices," he said, as he unleashed the Kynarine blast – a nearly invisible wave of pure force – at the black gem. Hesek's and Valerius's spells struck it at the same moment with tremendous impact.
It appeared at first that they had had no effect on the Blightstone, which stood still, aloft by Slyvos's telekinesis, and then the party noted that there were tiny fractures all over it.
There were more cracking noises and a low groan, almost like a death rattle. The Blightstone began to implode on itself, and the force the heroes felt was not an outward push but a perceptible pull. The force strengthened as the gem began to shrink further, its facets collapsing on itself. Dust and small rocks in the cavern were sucked up and pulled into the gem.
A final low boom, and the heroes felt themselves yanked off their feet, being pulled together with larger boulders towards the remnants of the Blightstone, but only a few feet before the force dissipated and the stone was no more.
"Let's hurry now," Goranthir said. "We have to get to the next gems before Mannimarco has a chance to react."
"Where is the next closest one?" Red-Rock-Shadow asked, pulling herself up off the ground.
"The Lemdazi Valley," Goranthir said, heading back towards the left tunnel. "I'll show you the shortcut."
Sheogorath
"Do we need to do anything with the dragon?" Goranthir said, as the group began moving through the tunnel out of the gem's chamber.
Sheogorath
The tunnels were comfortably wide, as no doubt Baelthon had contructed it and used it to navigate. Without Goranthir as a guide, the group would have gotten lost as they took several turns through the labyrinth, going progressively lower and lower.
Some hours passed before Goranthir said. "We're almost there."
Sheogorath
Ramakawan:
A courier from Sentinel appeared in the hidden jungle fortress, recalling to the Mark he had set there, conveying the news.
"We don't necessarily know where the dragon is going to strike, only that at least one is heading east," Digitus Ero told the factional officers. "The lookouts on the tower has been told, and will report anything he sees in the skies. But make sure your troops are ready for battle."
Kalaan:
Another courier appeared on the sea-side fortress, informing Laretha Warhaft. She too quickly dispatched word to her scout on her lookout tower, and while she was talking to her factional officers about the situation, she received word from the lookout.
It was a cloudy morning on the shore, but two dark shapes were coming from the mountains. And they were big.
Sheogorath
Goranthir pointed across the riverbank.
"There is a cave over there where Teroleth guards the next Blightstone," he said. "The river feeds salt water into it, forming a pool where he lies ... Only, do not touch the water."
Sheogorath
"The fortress is fully modernized and equipped," Eros nodded. "The question is whether the dragons intend to attack here, or elsewhere. There are innumerable targets ... We might need to bring it to us, as terrifying as that is to imagine."
As Dana watched, one of the shapes veered away from the other, heading slightly southward toward Sentinel. The other continued on its trajectory towards Kalaan.
Sheogorath
The Lemdazi Valley
"Good, because it would clean the flesh right off your bones," Goranthir grimaced. "Teroleth is a what. Another one of Mannimarco's 'experiments' -- a chelonian, he calls him. He's hard to describe. Powerful and stupid with very strong defenses."
Sheogorath
"I'll make sure there are no surprises," Red-Rock-Shadow says, spreading her wings and flying above the river to follow the rocks from above.
Sheogorath
The Lembazi Valley
Red-Rock-Shadow flew back, reporting to the others the quality of the stepping stones and the almost animal-response of the water.
"I can carry people across too, but it'll be slow going," the Argonian said.
Sheogorath
Kalaan
It didn't take after Harg's outburst for a courier to be dispatched to Sentinel with the news that a dragon had been spotted and was heading directly towards them.
It was good timing that at that point an army of Firsthold appeared in Kalaan, ready to do battle with the dragon whose shadow was approaching ever closer ...
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
The lookout came running towards Digitus Eros and the factional officers, his eyes wide with fear.
"I was lookin' in the skies, sir, and I wasn't seeing nothing, but then I looked down," he said, shivering. "There's something big and long squirming through the jungle to the south, knocking down tree after tree as it goes. It's headin' for Turodon!"
They knew Turodon, a little farming village which supplied the fortress. Utterly defenseless.
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
"That's what I was thinking too," Digitus Eros nodded, and readied the troops to intercept the dragon in the swamps before it reached Turodon.
Sheogorath
Kalaan
The shadow suddenly disappeared as the clouds parted.
"It's descended," the lookout gasped. "And turned invisible!"
Sheogorath
Kalaan
She was not the only mage to respond that way. All around the perimeter of the fortress, spellcasters lined up on orders from their factional commanders to cast dispel and detection charms into the air to spot the invisible approaching menace ...
S'reddit
Red-Rock-Shadow pulled a restore magicka potion from her robe and drank it, having drained most of her reserves casting healing spells at the chelonian, and shield spells to protect the group from falling rock. She offered the potions to the other mages. "Anyone else near the end of their reserves?"
Goranthir nodded to Shaka. "On to Mount Dakobo. We just follow the valley east ... And keep an eye out of zombies. They seem to like this area."
The group began to make its march eastward through the blackened canyon.
S'reddit
The jungle outside Turodon:
A group of thirty mages, including Gistral, flew through the jungle on spells of levitation. It was the fastest way to make progress through the dense foliage, where the ground could be such a twisted maze of roots to be unpassable except for a few feet above. The magical vanguard were an odd-looking mix of sorcerors and nightblades, armor-clad battlemages and eccentrically costumed hedge wizards, Redguards, Imperials, Dunmer, Altmer, and Argonians.
It was not difficult to find their quarry: the closer they got towards the dragon that was pushing its way east towards Turodon, the louder the sounds of trees being felled became.
The spellcasters knew their duty. They must infuriate the creature enough that it would chase them back to the fortress at Ramakawan ...
No matter how brave the mages were, the thought of purposefully infuriating a dragon was enough to give each and every one second thoughts. Yet, still they readied their spells and prepared themselves ...
S'reddit
Kalaan
The mages surrounding the periphery of the fortress continued to cast their dispel and detection spells in all directions, and suddenly the cry went up.
"North! Attack to the north!"
The three hundred foot long skeletal dragon with eyes like burning coals rushed across the sea towards the fortress, smoke pouring from its maw as it prepared to attack ...
It knew it had been seen, but it also knew it would destroy this fortress like its sister would destroy the kingdom of Sentinel ...
S'reddit
Summary:
In the Dragontail Mountains, our adventurers move through the valley towards Mount Dakobo, where the third Blightstone is said to be. With them are Red-Rock-Shadow, an Argonian battlemage and representative of the Mages Guild, who has had some past relationship with Slashes, and Goranthir, Prince of Firsthold, recently freed from being a minion of Mannimarco.
In Sentinel, word of an impending dragon attack is driving the forces who did not go to Kalaan or Ramakawan into defensive positions. Among those there are the Emperor Uriel Septim VII, the former Queen of Firsthold Hlaalu Morgiah, the King of Firsthold Reman, King Lhotun of Sentinel, and the archmagister of the Mages Guild, Hannibal Traven.
In Kalaan, the dragon attack has already begun, with a skeletal dragon even now flying southward across the sea, preparing to burn the fortress on the beach to the ground.
In the jungle outside Ramakawan, a group of thirty mages is almost on top of a dragon that is pushing its way through the trees, towards the defenseless village of Turodon. They must engage the creature, enraging it enough that it follows them back to their fortress, where the rest of the army awaits ...
S'reddit
Summary:
In the Dragontail Mountains, our adventurers move through the valley towards Mount Dakobo, where the third Blightstone is said to be. With them are Red-Rock-Shadow, an Argonian battlemage and representative of the Mages Guild, who has had some past relationship with Slashes, and Goranthir, Prince of Firsthold, recently freed from being a minion of Mannimarco.
In Sentinel, word of an impending dragon attack is driving the forces who did not go to Kalaan or Ramakawan into defensive positions. Among those there are the Emperor Uriel Septim VII, the former Queen of Firsthold Hlaalu Morgiah, the King of Firsthold Reman, King Lhotun of Sentinel, and the archmagister of the Mages Guild, Hannibal Traven.
In Kalaan, the dragon attack has already begun, with a skeletal dragon even now flying southward across the sea, preparing to burn the fortress on the beach to the ground.
In the jungle outside Ramakawan, a group of thirty mages is almost on top of a dragon that is pushing its way through the trees, towards the defenseless village of Turodon. They must engage the creature, enraging it enough that it follows them back to their fortress, where the rest of the army awaits ...
S'reddit
"Yes," Leretha Warhaft replied quickly, directing the mages to cast protection from fire and shield spells to the north, and directing the warriors to launch their trebuchets at the creature. "We try to survive."
S'reddit
Kalaan
"I think it's worth -- Stendarr!" she shouted as the dragon's fire boiled over the northern wall of the fortress, destroying the trebuchets, and vaporizing any soldier not saved by the mages' shields and fire resistance spells.
As the dragon circled back up, preparing for another sweep, she said. "We can dedicate some mages to that task, but the others need to keep up the defenses. We cannot survive too many more attacks like that ..."
S'reddit
Kalaan
The dragon curled up in the sky, looking like a question mark, before hurdling itself back towards Kalaan, more smoke pouring out of its mouth.
Suddenly, it veered off, and the people in the fortress could see it was covered with atronachs, ogrims, dremora, fire daedra, and scamps. It shrieked, a sound that echoed along the beach, and then dove into the sea.
S'reddit
Kalaan
From the vantage point of the look-out tower, they could see the dark shape of the dragon beneath the waves, rushing back towards the fortress, some miles away, but building speed.
Then, its head and neck emerged over the water's surface, and a stream of fire washed over the sea, bringing it to a boil.
A vast plume of mist washed over the fortress, obscuring visibility to a few feet.
S'reddit
Outside Turadon
The mages discovered that they were in front of the dragon, as the last trees collapsed, and they were face to face with the beast.
It was a juvenile turned undead, scarcely a hundred feet long, and one of its wings was deformed so it couldn't fly. Rotten flesh and scales hung from its skeletal body like a shroud. Nevertheless, it was far from defenseless, as smoke wafted up in its nostrils, and it prepared to breathe fire.
The mages instantly cast the spells they had been preparing. Several of them turned invisible. Several cast shield and resistance spells. Others still levitated to surround the creature, to launch offensive spells in all directions.
S'reddit
Kalaan
Warhaft ordered the mages to do just that, and had another idea.
"Frost spells, all around," she cried.
Which is why when the dragon was spotted in the now-clear sky, it was snowing in Kalaan, and a squad of winged twilights were present to engage it in flight.
"Burden spells!" the commander issued the next orders.
S'reddit
The Dragontail Mountains
The ascent through the valley was a perceptible incline, a narrow path uphill past a clear-water stream, under a canopy of dead trees, their blackened branches looking like claws clutching at the sky. This would have been one of the most beautiful if inaccessible areas in Hammerfell before Mannimarco's death aura brought it to ruin.
The stream's source was a natural spring, and passing it, the heroes came to the end of the forested slope. Now they could see across the mountain range, and the dormant volcano of Mount Dakobo was but a few hours away across the snow-dusted ridges.
Their view was clear enough that they could see the shambling figures stumbling seemingly at random along the mountains' peaks and slopes.
Zombies.
"Remember, no fights if we can avoid them," Red-Rock-Shadows said, her breath visible in the cool air. "We should use invisibility and try to go from cover to cover. There are enough boulders on the terrain to shield us from them if we use them."
S'reddit
Kalaan
Other mages heeded the order together with Samson, Vaan, and Dana, and the sky was filled with streaming magicka as the dragon swatted at the twilights as if they were bothersome gnats.
It seemed to lose its balance at the sudden, crushing effect of the burden spells, and it plummeted down, crashing onto the beach with a force that sent shockwaves through the fortress, kncoking down the lookout tower and other fortifications.
S'reddit
The Dragontail Mountains
"That's Mount Dakobo there," Goranthir nodded. It was an enormous volcano with, from the heroes' vantage, a vast flat top where the crater no doubt was. A couple hours' walk still.
S'reddit
Kalaan
The trebuchets and spells launched out of the fortress at the dragon, which had gotten to its feet, and was preparing to breathe fire at one and all. A lucky shot by one of the trebuchets smashed a massive stone into the creature's head, causing its flame to blast down the beach away from the fortress, melting the sand into glass.
S'reddit
Kalaan
The dragon thrashed against the assaults, issuing forth a roar that could be heard from miles around. Wherever it turned, something struck it.
Suddenly, it squatted down, its wings prone at its sides, and it launched itself into the air, disppearing into the sunlight.
S'reddit
The Dragontail Mountains
By invisibility or stealth, the heroes moved across the treeless land, the soft snow tinged with ash and dust softening their footfalls. They sometimes came close enough to the zombies to see their faces and forms. Most of them were Redguards, mountain dwellers who died in the death aura and were resurrected into unlife by the King of Worms. Some seem to have been subjected to his "experiments." A pathetic two-headed zombie stumbled along, the heads endlessly biting and gnawing at one another. Another walked upside down, his arms and legs reversed.
It was a view of the future they were witnessing, a future should Mannimarco reign supreme.
S'reddit
Kalaan
Laretha Warhaft cheered with the rest of the fortress, but also cautioned one and all to keep the defenses up, to repair any damage that had been done. The dragon might return, or another assault by the King of Worms.
Sheogorath
The Dragontail Mountains
Goranthir launches a Kynarine blast at the creature. Even if it was too fast for his reflexes, the cone of the blast might be able to strike it.
Red-Rock-Shadow takes it upon herself to help the group with that very issue, casting an area-wide spell to increase the speed and agility of the heroes.
Sheogorath
The Jungle
The young dragon sent a blast of flame gouting around it in a semi-circle. The eruption shattered defensive spells of any unlucky enough to be hit by it, and three mages, invisible but struck by the flame, flashed into sight, dropping to the ground, dead and smoldering.
Sheogorath
Mount Dakobo
Goranthir dodges the rocks and the showering obsidian shards as Red-Rock-Shadow's spell enhances his speed and agility.
The Argonian mage herself flies into the crater, to provide a distraction for the creature.
Sheogorath
The Jungle
The dragon swats at the seducer with its working wing, sending her rocketing, head over heels, to be crushed against a tree. The tree cracks in half by the impact, and the seducer vanishes.
The creature turns towards Ota, more smoke billowing in its nostrils.
"Turn back!" one of the mages cries. "We can't defeat it here --!"
He is instantly vaporized, along with others in the next gout of black fire.
Sheogorath
The Jungle
The silver arrow and frostball, together with the lightning and frost spells the other mages were hurdling at the dragon, did not even slow it down as it rampaged after the fleeing mages, as they flew or ran back towards the hidden fortress.
Sheogorath
Goranthir is caught off guard and tumbles with the landslide down the slope of Mount Dakoba.
Red-Rock-Shadow, feeling the creature coming closer, beats her wings faster, trying to go deeper into the crater.
Sheogorath
The Jungle
The fleeing mages fan out, to give the dragon more targets, and to keep it pursuing them. Trying to keep an eye on their backs, to make sure the dragon is still there and to avoid its fire breath, while trying to keep an eye forward to avoid obstacles in the densely packed jungle is a tricky maneuver.
Subtlety does not seem to be the style of this juvenile undead dragon as it roars and crashes forward. Avoiding falling trees is yet another in the mages' series of hazards.
Sheogorath
Goranthir tumbled over a cliff edge, and reached out with his left hand to keep from falling a thousand feet to the base of Mount Dakoba. His other hand held his Kynarine blade, and he wasn't willing to drop it yet ... He struggled to pull himself up over the cliff.
Sheogorath
Mount Dakoba
Goranthir scrambled up over the cliff's edge with Nalion's help, grinning. "Thanks for the hand," the Prince replied as they charged back up the slope towards the crater. "Just got to remember to keep my eye on my feet."
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
Upon appearing in the fortress, Gistral discovered to his relief that he was not the first person from the expedition to Recall back. In fact, he immediately recognized one of the mages as someone he thought had been vaporized -- apparently, she had Recalled the instant before the fire had hit her. Professionals, these mage warriors.
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
Digitus Eros and the rest of the fortress warriors ready themselves.
"Hopefully everyone doesn't Recall back, so the dragon knows which way to go," the Imperial says under his breath.
Sheogorath
Mount Dakoba
Goranthir, meanwhile, with Nalion, charges up the slope. Red-Rock-Shadow's spell to increase their speed and agility helping considerably in what would ordinarily be a slow and treacherous climb.
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
From the battlements, all can see the path of the dragon, as trees crumble in its wake like a wave.
"It's coming ..." Eros said, holding his hand up, waiting for the precise moment to launch the offensive. "Wait ..."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow cries out in pain, holding onto Slashes.
"Put me down," she whispers. "And find the Blightstone."
Sheogorath
Mount Dakoba
Goranthir, having reached the volcano's lip again, drops into it. The Blightstone must be found.
Sheogorath
"No," she shook her head, but Slashes could see that she had been burned by the spells that had been launched at the creature, though thankfully spared the worst of it, ironically, because of the fall. "Don't worry about me. Help the others."
Sheogorath
Goranthir ran for the blightstone, firing his Kynarine blast in a sharp focus at where the stone was visible.
Red-Rock-Shadow, seeing the bird heading right for them, casts a strong feather-fall spell at it, and all within, to try to arrest its descent.
Sheogorath
Goranthir was too close to the blightstone to be able to get out of its radius before it imploded, so he dodged the obsidian shards, and grabbed an outcropping of ebony. Hopefully it would hold as he was pulled towards the gem ...
Red-Rock-Shadow, among the boulders where Slashes had placed her, scrambled to get as far away as she could. The boulders were big, but if they began rolling, she'd be flattened. An obsidian shard struck her in the leg, and the pain of it, together with the withering rot on her broken wing, caused her to cry out.
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow presses her mouth to his, wrapping her arms around his neck as the Blightstone implodes ...
Sheogorath
Goranthir's grip on the ebony had been tight, strong enough to resist the pull of the implosion, though it took all of his strength to do that. He dropped to the snowy ground, exhausted, and whispered a prayer of thanks to Nirn before getting to his feet and seeing to the others.
Sheogorath
"I'm fine," Red-Rock-Shadow said, pushing Slashes away. "I can heal myself."
Her hands glowing blue, she begins to heal her wings, looking at Slashes out of the corner of her eye.
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
"Wait ..." Eros kept his hand up.
The jungle was hot and humid, but it wasn't just the climate that was bringing a sheen of sweat to the soldiers watching the jungle, waiting. The crash of trees was coming quickly closer.
"Wait ..."
Four of the original mages from the vanguard burst out of the woods, followed by a long blast of fire that incinerated one of them. The remaining three cast Jump spells and hurdled the wall, just as the dragon burst through the jungle into the clearing.
"Fire!"
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
The heroes' spells and attacks, coupled with those of the other soldiers and mages, expertly timed, showered the dragon with a deafening salvo. It hissed and bellowed in pain at the countless assaults, not only from the direction of the fortress but from the summonings of atronachs and monarchs, striking it on all sides.
It shrugged off some of the attacks, and crushed some of the creatures that rushed it, but there always seemed to be more.
"Keep pressing it!" Eros called out.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
While the guards were mobilizing, a small group of figures in gray cloaks, walk through the crowd. No one knows when they appeared -- they certainly didn't arrive through the Mages Guild -- and few pay them much attention.
"What a lot of fuss," Loremaster Celarus remarked to the other Psijics as they made their way to the palace. "I thought the battle was centered around the Dragontail Mountains, not here."
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Venevria Estacirce was with them, also wearing a gray cloak, but she did not talk. She had been told often enough by her teachers in Artaeum that she was to watch and listen, and she did that, as the group made their way to the palace of Sentinel.
Sheogorath
Ramakawan
The dragon howled, its cry shaking the foundations of the fortress, and it seemed to try to launch itself into the air. It was a clumsy, inelegant flight for a dragon, crashing into trees as it tried to make its escape.
As horrible and powerful a creature as it was, it was hard not to pity it.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Celarus and the other Psijics joined their conversation.
"A dragon?" Celarus smiled. "How marvelous. It's been quite a while since I've seen one of those ... But I suppose the problem is that most of your defenses are near the mountains now, yes?"
Sheogorath
Sentinel
"It's not really a proper dragon, though, is it?" Celarus's smile turns to a thoughtful frown. "A proper dragon wouldn't be working for Mannimarco, unless Prince Gorridge --"
"Goranthir, Loremaster," one of the other Psijics corrects him.
"Yes, quite right, unless Prince Goranthir is directing them ... No, even then, I'd say," Celarus ponders it. "What say you, Master B? Is it Sentinel's time to be destroyed now, or is there something that should be done?"
Sheogorath
Sentinel
"I concur," Celarus replied, and the other graycloaks also nodded. "But what we need is a better vantage point to see what we're facing."
He pointed to the top of the dome of the palace, and the graycloaks as one floated up to it, through the blue afternoon sky.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Landing on the Dome, Celarus touched the air, and the city all around them vanished. There was only the Psijics, Loranna, and the dragon in the air.
It was a ghastly beast, black and pestilential green, three hundred feet long, with wings twice its length. A skeleton clotted with gore, with eyes intent on mayhem.
"Some miles away yet," Celarus said. "We have time to do something."
Sheogorath
Sentinel
The palace and city of Sentinel reappeared beneath their feet and the image of the dragon vanished, though now that they had seen it, it was easy to imagine its face and form almost upon them. In truth, it was so far away to be invisible in the sky, but at the speed it was moving, it would be upon them very soon.
Celarus reached out and drew a circle in the air, which stayed there, hovering, a glowing smoking rune.
The Psijics, except for Venevria, gathered in a circle and each did the same, their smoking circles becoming floating links in a chain.
Venevria whispered to herself, "Like the War of the Isle ..." but a quick glance from one of the Psijics, and she shut up, and stared.
Sheogorath
Sentinel, the Dome of the Palace
Celarus turned to Loranna. "My dear Duchess, do you think you can arrange for some kind of a distraction for that rather gruesome creature? It would be a shame if it arrived before we had quite completed the ritual."
Sheogorath
Before Loranna even saw the dragon in the sky, she could feel it. There was added pressure, added heat in the air. Below, she could see the stalks in the grain fields of Hammerfell bend and quiver as the beast approached, the beat of its wings creating a wind from miles away.
When she saw the tiny dot in the distance, she knew it was minutes away from her. As the old saying goes, if you see the dragon, it's already too late.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
The explosion of frost fills the sky around the dragon, and through the mist, she can see it twist in mid-air and plummet ...
And then she is back on the Dome, where suddenly she is bathed in rain. A dark cloud, billowing with wind, crashing with lightning and rolling thunder, already twice as big as the palace itself, is rising up, being fed by the energy of the Psjiics' circle of smoke.
"Watch your step," Venevria whispers. "The dome's pretty slippery now."
Sheogorath
The storm continued to expand, rapidly covering the city.
"I think you did it," Venevria whispered. "It would have already been here by now ..."
The townsfolk ran for shelter as the wind and rain swept over Sentinel, and in the palace, the nobles looked out in wonderment at the tempest that had come on such a clear day.
Celarus pointed out into the distance. "It comes yet, but you have given us the minutes we need to drive it away ..."
The dot on the horizon grew larger.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Within minutes, the storm had increased manifold, and the tiny dot became the recognizable shape of a giant, skeletal dragon hurtling itself directly for the city of Sentinel. The Psijics in the circle held their arms aloft, and the storm shook and quivered. Before now, it had been a sudden but seemingly natural tempest.
Now it was the sword of Artaeum.
The great dragon sailed into it as it exploded, white lightning filling the sky, cyclonic winds of unimaginable pressure circling the beast. The creature's wings folded against its body as it was whipped across the sky.
With a deafening crack, the heavens seemed to expel the dragon, flinging like a limp rag, spiraling northward, out to sea.
"Nicely distracted. Now then," said Celarus, smiling with a rain-wet face as the rumbling storm turned into a simple gentle rain. "Any other problems, your Grace?"
Sheogorath
Summary:
Three great undead dragons have been defeated. In the jungles to the east, a group of mages saved the village of Turodon by luring a rampaging dragon to the fortress of Ramakawan where he was driven off by Gistral, Sir Gancolm, Ota, and the factional warriors stationed there under the command of Digitus Eros. In the seaside fortress of Kalaan, an even larger dragon was driven off to sea by Dana, Vaan, the Fist of Harg, Samson, and the factional warriors stationed there under the command of Laretha Warhaft. In Sentinel, Loranna's brave attack against the largest of the three dragons gave the Psijics of Artaeum just enough time to conjure up a storm to drive it away.
In the Dragontail Mountains, the heroes have managed to destroy three of the four Blightstones of Mannimarco, and defeat the minions of the King of Worms that defend them. Goranthir, newly freed of Mannimarco's influence, and Red-Rock-Shadow, Argonian battlemage, are among the group, beginning the march towards Scourg Barrow, where the last of the Blightstones is guarded by none other than Mannimarco himself ...
Sheogorath
The Dragontail Mountains
At that moment, Allerleirauh and Tris were also on the mind of Goranthir as he guided the group over the mountains towards Scourg Barrow. At the time when Almalexia had tried to claim him and Mannimarco fought back, he had seen them, briefly in the madness that followed, in the Void. The King's powerful dark energy had destroyed them, or so it seemed ...
Goranthir put the memory back, and tried to forget it for now. It was too painful to think that he had lost Allerleirauh, Tris, and Taolle ... And now that they were facing Mannimarco again, he couldn't tell his fellow adventurers that he had destroyed the powerful Void Rangers so handily.
Meanwhile, Red-Rock-Shadow was also quiet in thought. She had kissed Slashes at that moment when he was carrying away from the imploding Blightstone. At the time, it seemed right and good, but now she was angry with herself, thinking about it. How could she forgive him for what he had done to her? ...
Sheogorath
Sentinel
The light rain continued to fall down, but it didn't deter people in the streets from gathering and talking about what they thought they saw from their windows. Imperial and Royal soldiers too were gathering about, searching the area around the palace.
"They never think to look up, do they?" said Hannibal Traven, alighting on the roof. "I thought I recognized your handiwork."
"Good day to you, Archmagister," said Celarus.
"Are you planning on staying up here and getting soaked, or can I offer you some food and drink, courtesy of the good King Lhotun within warm walls?"
Sheogorath
Sentinel - The Palace
Indoors
The Psijics were also cleaned and dried, thanks to Venevria Estacirce whose job it was to keep them presentable. It was not too arduous a task as far as menial labor goes -- a simple spell. Still, quite different than what she would have been doing as a noblewoman of Firsthold, and she seemed happy with the responsibilities.
The mood in general seemed bright in the dining room with various factions with differing sometimes hostile philosophies talking and laughing.
The Emperor and Loremaster Celarus were talking quietly at one end of the room.
King Reman and former Queen Morgiah of Firsthold were also chatting, and though it seemed awkward, both were smiling.
King Lhotun was holding court for most of the rest of those assembled. He looked exuberant over his kingdom being saved, and perhaps a little pleasantly drunk.
Sheogorath
The Dragontail Mountains
The heroes pressed on, drinking the restore fatigue potions in lieu of sleep to march on through the night towards Scourg Barrow. Both Masser and Secunda were new moons, what the Khajiit would call the time of the Suthay, so only the stars provided illumination as they continued the treacherous climbs. There were sheer cliffs to be navigated and steep slopes, until at last the sunrise showed them their goal: Scourg Barrow.
The heroes were on a precipice overlooking the plateau where the King of Worms made his home. Below the plateau there seemed to be a river system flowing in all directions, as if the Barrow were in the center of an enormous spiders web.
The structure itself, if the heroes were expecting a grand castle or palace, was rather unassuming: a peculiar, ancient edifice that resembled nothing so much as an enormous sepulcher. Although, the name "Barrow" suggested, there was much more to be seen underground.
(OOC – We're taking some license here, but for a view of Scourg Barrow, as it appeared in Daggerfall on a French website, see http://daggerfall.free.fr/soluce/scourg.html)
Sheogorath
Something about the view seemed to bother Goranthir, and he cautiously moved down to a lower part of the precipice, well hidden still, to look.
"That's not a river system," Goranthir said, his voice low. "That's an army."
And do it was, a massive skeletal army marching through the valleys below Scourg Barrow, streaming out of their capitol of death, heading out in all directions.
Sheogorath
"I only know of the entrances below, which the army is using," Goranthir said. "And the entrance above, on the plateau, which is the 'front door.'"
And then he added. "And, Slyvos, we're here to destroy the last Blightstone, not kill Mannimarco ... Leave that to the army."
Sheogorath
"I don't think the army's looking up," said Red-Rock-Shadow, spreading her newly healed wings. "We can either levitate or I can fly some of you over."
Sheogorath
"You're going to need it within," said Goranthir to Nalion, and then walked over to Red-Rock-Shadow. "I'll take a ride if you think your wings can take it after the obsidian phoenix tore them up ..."
"Well, if they can't, it's just a short drop down, eh?" Red-Rock-Shadow replied with a wink of her second eyelid. It was at least a thousand feet to the valley below, which was filled with the army of the undead.
She spread her wings, grabbed Goranthir around the waist, and took to the air.
Sheogorath
After dropping Goranthir off on the plateau without incident, the Argonian battlemage flies back to pick up Gram. Thus, each hero, by levitation or by Red-Rock-Shadow's wings, found themselves facing the weird sepulcher that was Scourg Barrow.
Goranthir quietly walked over to the heavy stone door. He started to open it and then turned around to the group, "This is it. We're going in, and there's a good chance some of us may not be coming out."
Sheogorath
Scourg Barrow
The howling wind outside vanished into the eerie stillness of the sepulcher. Within the heroes found a funeral hall of sarcophagi, twenty-one of them in total. The walls were obsidian, devoid of any ornamentation.
Goranthir went to one particular particular sarcophagus, and with a grunt, pushed its lid back. It was a hole down into darkness.
"That's why I said hold onto your levitation scrolls," Goranthir said in a whisper that still seemed loud in the silence of the room.
Sheogorath
"I can lower you down," Red-Rock-Shadow replies, and then seems to reconsider. "Actually ... It's really narrow. Too narrow to flap."
"Lots of tight spaces here," Goranthir nodded, frowning. "Scourg Barrow is like being buried alive."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow may not be able to fly everyone down, but between her and Slyvos, they can cast levitation on each hero, who one by one begins their descent.
Without Shaka's and Nalion's light spell, the descent would be in utter darkness. Parts of the narrow well are so tight that the larger of the heroes feel their bodies scraping along the smooth walls, and parts are wide open, as if they are in an endless, formless abyss. Finally, a long while, so long that a few might have worried about the duration of the levitation spells, they reach solid ground.
There is even light, though its source is most unusual. The earthen walls are the home of tiny maggots which glow with a slight phosphorescence, giving everyone a slight greenish cast, which seems to move, forming shadows while bringing other areas into illumination.
There were whispers in the air and strange footsteps that seemed to get louder and then vanish as the group made their way down the hall.
"This is a very haunted place," Goranthir said. "You won't know what's real until it's in front of your eyes, and perhaps not even then."
Sheogorath
The group proceeded through the murky corridors, feeling soft earth under their feet, and hearing the soft, haunted whispers all around.
"The Blightstone is not much further," Goranthir says in a low voice, as he turns a corner. "Mannimarco keeps it in Lasthold ..."
Before he can say another word, he pulls up his kynarine blade to deflect an ax blow.
Zombie warriors, ten of them, armored and armed with axes fall on the group, moaning.
Sheogorath
"Dammit!" Red-Rock-Shadow shouted, halting her own offensive spell as Osa and Tsei and Slyvos's fire and frostballs exploded in the corridor. It reminded her too much of the attacks on the obsidian phoenix that she was too close to in the last battle. "No area effect spells in tight corridors where your team-mates are present!"
Goranthir used the zombie who was attacking him as a shield against the fire attacks, and it vaporized.
Nalion's more specifically directed fire also annihiliated its target.
Isidor is not in the line of fire of the blasts, and disarms and then disembowels his opponent, though it continues to squirm on the floor.
Gram too was a step back from the worst of it, handily crushing the zombie's skull.
Reichi, charging into the area where the fireballs were exploding, took down one zombie with his claws and ripped into another. Athaso also is in the area where the frost and fireballs hit, his holy sword cleaving through the zombie's armor like it wasn't there.
The fireballs and frostballs, though perhaps hurting team-mates, do take out the rest of the creatures handily. When the smoke and mist clear, they are in a corridor filled with corpses.
Sheogorath
"In the training for the Spheres," Goranthir said. "If we had space, the spellcasters would shield the fighters, boost us, and send salvos at the enemy if there was a distance between us and them ... In the case of an ambush like that one, I guess the only rule is, pay attention to where your team-mates are before blowing the place up."
Before them was a huge ebony door, carved with arcane symbols.
Sheogorath
Scourg Barrow, Lasthold
Red-Rock-Shadow had beaten Nalion to it, casting a healing spell on Athaso's arm.
"We're going to need you in fighting condition," she said with a nod.
"There'll be plenty of room to fight in here, Slyvos," Goranthir said, opening the door.
They appeared to be stepping out into the open world, but they knew that to be impossible. For one, they were too far underground to have emerged out, and for two, when they had gone into the Barrow, it was sunrise. In here, it was sunset.
Nevertheless, there was a sun there, setting in the west, the moons beginning to show in the clouds, and the barest hint of stars coming out in the darker east.
The place they were stepping out of appeared to be a mundane building of some kind until they realized it was built of bones. Some ancient, some very fresh. Most of them still recognizably attached to a full skeleton, and a few with so much meat on them, the body could have been simply sleeping, but for its color and stillness.
The whole city they were overlooking was built of bodies, and it went on for miles. The streets of leg bones, perfectly set side by side. Temples with spires made of corpses. An arena made of skulls.
"This is Lasthold," Goranthir said in a whisper.
Sheogorath
Scourg Barrow, Lasthold
"I don't know," Goranthir said, beginning the walk down the bone road. "I just know he said he put it here somewhere ..."
As he passed an archway lined with corpses, one of the heads opened its eyes, and a half-rotten arm dangled down, reaching for him.
"Avoid the fresh ones," Goranthir told the group.
Sheogorath
"What are you looking for?" a woman's voice asked.
Ten of them walked up the street, dressed in gossamer robes. They were pure white, like Goranthir, and heartbreakingly beautiful. One was a lithe Ohmes khajiit, another a statuesque Bosmer; next to her was a voluptuous Nord with her arm around an Argonian whose pale scales sparkled like gems. Another duo stepped down from a row of stairs, a delicately-featured Altmer and a Dunmer with full lush lips and a long, kissable neck. An elegant, graceful Imperial woman, a Breton with wild, cascading locks, and a Redguard who looked like she had been carved of ivory joined them. Even the Orc maiden, thin-waisted and smooth-skinned was desirable.
"And what have you done with Geht, naughty boy?" the Redguard laughed, winking at Goranthir. "You know you're going to be punished for this."
Sheogorath
"Cast a silence spell now!" Goranthir yelled, firing his kynarine blast at them, sending the ten beauties into the air with its force. "They're like I was!"
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow did not trust the look of these women when she first stepped in, and was plainly not captivated by them. When Goranthir yelled out, she was quick with a spell, but she also criticized the Prince. "Then don't knock them out of any reason area of effect, kid!"
Her silence spell fell on the Redguard, Breton, Argonian, and Khajiit.
Nalion's silenced the Altmer and Dunmer, who had been knocked against a pillar of bone next to him.
The Imperial woman, blown by the kynarine effect, was among those out of the area of effect. She landed lightly on an arbor that stretched between two buildings, and then called out, meeting Gram's eyes. "You! The handsome Nord! Why don't you meet me inside?"
She slipped in through the window, and Gram could see that the door to the house was open.
Sheogorath
The Bosmer who had leapt to her feet was the recipient of this spell.
Sheogorath
The Dunmer woman was the closest, and Reichi swung at her, but she dodged the blade, her beautiful face curled up in an angry cry that had no sound. The Altmer who was next to her clutched at the werewolf, with an unnaturally strong grip.
As Gram steps through the threshold, the others watch as the door slams shut from above, as the house grinds down on him, as if he stepped into a giant's mouth.
The other women, yelling soundlessly, rushed to attack the heroes. The one closest to Nalion was the Breton, her wild beautiful hair flowing behind her as she grabbed for his throat, only to repelled by the magical shield.
The Orc maiden, the only other unsilenced sister, had disappeared into a tower at the end of the street.
Sheogorath
The Dunmer maiden jumps nimbly back, avoiding Valerius's sword swipes, just as she had Reichi's claws ...
And she walked right into Reichi's sword, gaping wordlessly as she looked at the holy sword imbedded in her.
The Altmer, however, equally nimble as the Dunmer, leapt over Reichi, getting into position to attack.
The lightning arched around the Breton beauty, lifting her off the ground as she spasmed, screaming silently, and then collapsing, smoke drifting up from her gossamer robes.
Sheogorath
Goranthir meanwhile had swung his sword at the Redguard, who was dodging it, while Red-Rock-Shadow stood over the smoking remains of the beauty who had once been the Bosmer.
Sheogorath
The Argonian was struck with Nalion's spell at the same moment she was struck by a drain health spell from Red-Rock-Shadow, and she cried out -- audibly.
The Khajiit realizing that the silence spell had run its duration, cleared her throat and said to Nalion: "I want you to go --"
Then her head tumbled off her neck with a swipe of Goranthir's blade.
"Go to Oblivion," he said.
Sheogorath
Goranthir's Kynarine blasts and Red-Rock-Shadow's telekinesis confirmed it. Tearing the place apart, there was no sign of Gram or the pale Imperial beauty.
Goranthir looked at Nalion helplessly and then turned to see who he was talking to. His eyes grew wide.
"You!"
Sheogorath
"Another 'friendly' vampire," Red-Rock-Shadow said, her tone neutral. "Well, I too appreciate the boost to my power -- Dayla, is it?"
Goranthir muttered under his breath. "All right, but after this is over, I'll chase you over Vvardenfell and see how you like it, snake lady ..."
Still frowning, he scanned the area. "We need to go somewhere high to take a look at the city. Gram's now a part of it, whatever is currently being built ..."
Sheogorath
He didn't, as Red-Rock-Shadow spread her wings and grabbed him by the waist. She looked over the Dayla as she took to the air. "Do you need a lift too, Dayla?"
Sheogorath
From the sky, the four have a good view of all, and without seeing the details of what the buildings and streets are made out of, it has a remarkable kind of beauty. All at once it is ornate as an Altmer city, and austere as an Imperial city, with eccentric touches from other cultures to give it character. There can be no doubt that Mannimarco is a genius, albeit a diabolical one.
Scanning an entire city for one man would have been too much even more an old, powerful vampire like Dayla. When the city has no one living in it, however, the task becomes much easier ...
Dayla finds him at about the same time Goranthir, Red-Rock-Shadow, and Nalion note the most obvious new construction. In the midst of a grand plaza in front of the palace, the loggia that surrounds it is only half-completed. The statue of a robed man also appears to be under construction ...
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"Let's take the ground then, to avoid attracting any extra attention," Red-Rock-Shadow replied. She could tell there was history here, but now was not the time to air grievances. If it were, she would have had it out with Slashes long ago ...
The heroes began their walk, down the road of bones, avoiding the restless dead impacted into walls that reached out to them, and stared with undead eyes.
S'reddit
Around King Lhotun, the joyous mood continued all night, as the rain continued to fall, but Loranna noted that at some point Hlaalu Morgiah, the Emperor, and Loremaster Celarus had all left the room. Reman stayed, but seemed distant.
Eventually, when she made her way to the comfortable silk bed that had been provided for her, she slept to the soporific sounds of the rain outside her window.
Loranna's Dream in Firsthold
Loranna was walking along a familiar path in a city she recognized, where rain was also falling. She recognized at once it was Vivec. She was alone, but she could hear some disturbance ahead in the Temple District. As she walked along the bath, she noticed that as the rain fell into puddles at her bare feet and the dirt was washed off, the paths were all made of gold ...
Sheogorath
Firsthold, Scourg Barrow
As the group walks along, they pass the Arena, a massive colisseum entirely made of skulls. Inside it, they can hear a horrible battle under way, squeals, grunts, and screams that sound almost human ...
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Just then, there was a roar of a crowd within the arena. Not only were there combatants within, there were spectators. A lot of them.
Goranthir nodded, and pointed towards an archway across the street which was at a higher elevation than the entrance to the Arena, and bring them closer to the palace and the unfinished loggia and statue, where they suspected Gram would be found ... dead or alive.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"The surprises have been and will be bad," Red-Rock-Shadow nodded. "Keep alert."
The arch passed over to a grand boulevard leading to the plaza and the palace ahead. Even from some distance away, the group could recognize the figure represented on the still incomplete statue from his image in various Mage Guilds throughout Tamriel. It was Vanus Galerion, the founder of the Guild.
"His ancient enemy immortalized in bones," the Argonian battlemage mused under her breath.
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
A huge crowd joined her, appearing in every direction, chattering to themselves. The excitement was not in the Temple District itself, but just outside of Vivec. The young and old, men and mer, ladies and gentlemen alike all moved to see what they thought would be either a Holy Visitation or a Trial.
Loranna was nearly trampled by the enthusiasm of the crowd, but a hand pulled her out of the way of a particularly enthusiastic group.
A dapper man with a waistcoat and cane, slightly askew hair, and even more askew eyes took her arm. He was immediately familiar, but not at all threatening.
"Shall we, my dear?" Sheogorath asked, smiling. "This promises to be quite the spectacle."
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
As they stepped into the plaza, they could see just how amazing the statue was, with bodies and bones twisted to show even the folds of Galerion's cloak and the fibers of his beard, in a hundred foot high statue. An arm and part of the chest were missing, but it was a masterpiece then and there.
The loggia that ran around the periphery of the plaza was also unfinished. Elevated above the ground by columns above and below, it, like much of the architecture of Lasthold was simultaneously ornate and classic. The walkway was open to the air facing the plaza by design, but the holes in the floor and the lack of steps to get to it pointed to its unfinished state.
The plaza itself was wide open except for the statue and the wide steps to the grand palace, a glowering manor to rival any above ground, in the Imperial City or Firsthold.
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream: Vivec
"Not at all, my dear, you have never been less mixed up, we are friendly aquaintances from some time ago," Sheogorath smiled gently, leading her to a railing overlooking the affair below.
There were several figures below. Allerleirauh, Jazbet, Arynel, many, many others, together with the vast crowd, spilling around the open hall. In the center was a very familiar person, a young Nord girl with ashen skin, and silver tearstreaks, who was clearly pregnant, just like her ...
Though now when Loranna felt her belly, there was no baby in it. Not that this bothered her.
The familiar girl in the middle of the hall was speaking, her voice both strong and faltering. "In Morrowind, I saw just how much my presence was harming people. Lives had been lost and livlihoods sacrificed in my name, in Azura's name, never to be adequately recompensed - lives which had been doing fair enough without me or the goddess up to that point. I did not know how to truly help the Dunmer people and never had ..."
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"You shouldn't go alone," Goranthir said, and Red-Rock-Shadow nodded, lifting him up as she spread her wings, carrying him across the plaza to the loggia. The corpses were indeed fresher there in the newly built section, and several of them open their eyes and mouths and stretched out their hands at the heroes' approach ...
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream, Vivec
"And the goddess, who had told me she wished to return to her people to lead them into a new age, said nothing to guide me in helping her people," the Nord continued, her tone more strident, more ringing.
The faithful around Loranna and Sheogorath buzzed amongst themselves, trying to understand what she was saying. Loranna noticed a little girl in the crowd with her family on the ledge, and recognized her as Tamne, though much younger, with red Dunmeri eyes. Tamne turned to her and giggled, not understanding the consternation and confusion, but enjoying the sight.
She also saw the Bathogorgen vampires watching, in human form, Ashana and Dayla whispering to one another.
Down in the hall, she recognized more people. There was Solin and Arynel next to Allerleirauh. And B, who she had just spoken to, next to Aricyn.
"She simply sat and accepted the devotion offered her, letting my empty promises be the reward for that faith!" the Nord girl continued, addressing the crowd. Their response was bewilderment mixed with anger. Who was she, this outlander, to be speaking so about their Goddess?
"Keep watching," Sheogorath said, holding her hand. "The best is yet to come."
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream, Vivec
The Nord's voice rang out even louder, silencing those around them.
"That is what she intended to offer all alon –"
The Nord suddenly stopped in mid sentence as if changing her mind. She stiffened, and raised her head up, looking directly at Loranna with blazing blue eyes.
Before the Nord's voice had been loud, determined, but this was no mortal's tongue that spoke next. It echoed through Vivec, and people instinctively screamed in surprise and shock.
"ENOUGH! THERE WILL BE NO TRIAL! THIS IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT NOW!"
As the city erupted around them, Sheogorath took Loranna's hand, and together they sailed up over the city into the storm overhead.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
As the heroes levitated or flew up to the loggia, looking around it, they heard a slight giggle behind one of the columns. Coming closer, they heard a low woman's voice say:
"Just relax and let yourself die like you're supposed to, like a good little brick."
The column was too wide to see anything. They would have to land on the walkway to approach the source of the voice. The faces of the dead along the walkway had already opened their eyes and stretched out their hands, seeing them.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Goranthir and Red-Rock-Shadow were right behind him, but the stealthy approach was marred by the clawing hands and thrashing bodies of the fresh undead corpses that lined the walls.
They saw the three remaining white sisters, the Orc, the Imperial, and the Nord, standing behind the column, looking at the wall. As soon as the corpses began their moan, the Imperial looked in their direction, her eyes widening.
Goranthir pulled out his sword, and Red-Rock-Shadow launched a Silence spell at them.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Between Nalion and Red-Rock-Shadow's spells, the three pale beauties were silenced, as they prove when they snarled at the approaching heroes, and no sound issued forth.
The three maidens seeing Goranthir, Valerius, Reichi, Ora, Shaka, and Slashes approaching, Slyvos readying a spell, dodged the immediate attacks and leapt agilely to the square, running up the steps to the palace.
The wall they had been peering at was a nightmarish mosaic of rotten flesh, hanging skeletons, and one particular familiar face who stared at them with the same expression as the others. It was Gram, embraced by the bones around him, stuck fast.
Sheogorath
With Nalion, Tsei, Reeds, and Slyvos struggling to pull Gram from the wall, they succeed, all the while being pulled at by the hands of the other "bricks" in the wall. He falls heavily to the floor, shaking.
Isidor, Ingmar, Ora, Shaka, and Dayla race after them in hot pursuit. Immediately inside the palace was an enormous gallery, featuring a huge statue, a hundred feet tall, of a tiger with bat-like wings. In front of the statue is a pile of equipment, weapons, and other artifacts, including Gram's.
From the shadowy side passageways of the gallery, hidden behind columns and colonnades, comes the sounds of slithering.
Sheogorath
The statue was some sort of crystalline material, slightly opaque. Not like the bone-formed art in the rest of Lasthold at all.
Among the items that the heroes gathered up was Spellbreaker, tossed into the pile with the other items, many of which did seem to be high-quality.
"Tiuj cirkonstancauw rahkspeguligxos en so aspekto so Kvakoa ..."
The sload did not move quickly, their massive forms filling the spaces between the columns, but they move relentlessly. Their fat arms raised up, dark energy flowing out towards the heroes ...
Sheogorath
"Tiuj cirkonstancauw rahkspeguligxos en so aspekto so Kvakoa ..."
"Sload," Goranthir said, leaping off the walkway down to the plaza and running for the palace. "They're casting a spell to nullify the spellcasters ...!"
Red-Rock-Shadow didn't like the sound of that at all, being a battlemage, but she flew after him.
Shaka's fireball, Dayla's reflection, Valerius's elemental spells, Nalion's silence, and Hesek's reflection spells all fizzle, and they and the others in the gallery find themselves without their spellcasting abilities.
The sload, surprised, had no time to react, and was torn to pieces. Twelve others remained, and at the sign of what happened to their brother, they cast shields on themselves and continued to press forward ...
Sheogorath
Goranthir and Red-Rock-Shadow arrive at the palace gallery, and Goranthir stops, stunned at the sight of the statue.
"I lalo lilo loa I Ka Po' Tun Par Dé ma Haung," the Prince whispers.
The statue opens its mouth, its voice low and musical "Dé Ka Po' Tun Me'Thitsar!"
"Everyone," Goranthir yelled. "Get out! Quickly!"
Shaka's spear snaps through the shield of one of the sload, causing the creature to back away in fear. Another hit would do it in. Nalion's situation was similar. The shield had been strong enough to withstand the initial attack, but vaporized upon contact with the staff. The sload tried to back away, its arms raised to defend itself or cast a spell ...
Dayla rips through her sload's shield with her first attack, killing the loathsome giant slug with her second. Reichi too tore apart his second sload before the booming voice of the Ka Po'Tun echoed in the gallery.
The remaining sload stretch out their arms, weaving another spell at the heroes.
Sheogorath
The heroes make it to the exit and down the stairs, while the arms of the corpses in the steps reach out for them, trying to trip them.
Behind them, they see the "statue" step down from its pedestal.
"Mannimarco's paths have taken him outside Tamriel," Goranthir said softly, shaking his head, and backing away, blade out.
S'reddit
Summary
Things are peaceful for now in Sentinel, Ramakawan, and Kalaan, but the adventurers in the Dragontail Mountains have seen rivers of zombie soldiers pouring out of Scourg Barrow in all directions. A mother of a battle is about to happen.
Meanwhile, in Scourg Barrow itself, in an enormous city made out of skeletons and corpses, the heroes are facing threat after threat in their quest to destroy the final Blightstone and bring down the defenses of the King of Worms.
First there were ten beautiful pale women, representing all the sentient races of Tamriel. Only three of them, an Orc, an Imperial, and a Nord, escaped our heroes. Then there were the sload within the palace of Mannimarco. Now a Ka'Po Tun, a tiger dragon of Akavir, has entered into the fray.
For the time being the heroes have retreated out to the central square, between the unfinished loggia and unfinished statue of Vanus Galerion, and the palace where the sload and Ka'Po Tun are. But it is only a matter of time before the two forces clash again ...
Meanwhile ...
Loranna and her escort Sheogorath are on a dream voyage through all the past RPs. It's kind of a Greatest Hits clips show, but with plenty of twists ...
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
They whirled every upward into the clouds, just as the Ministry of Truth came crashing down past them, losing the sight of Vivec as dark clouds surrounded them. Yet, though the clouds were black on the outside, they were illuminated within as lightning encircled Sheogorath and Loranna like dancing children. She could reach out and touch the lightning, and it wrapped around her wrist like a beautiful bracelet before darting off.
The Mad God smiled at Loranna, his face bright. "Let's see some more."
Still holding her hand, Sheogorath struck out with his cane with his free hand and the clouds parted. They were no longer over Vivec, but flying through the storm over a little village of only a few dozen houses, on the coast. A small Nordic keep stood on a cliff a few miles up the road.
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
They dropped out of the storm, whirling hand-in-hand like leaves over the Inner Sea, drawn to the village.
Skirting the mangrove swamps, Loranna sees Stalker fishing, unseen by any of the boats traveling in and out of the bay.
They fly over the Drunken Guar tavern, still standing, serving the rowdy adventurers and locals who stumble in and out of it. A pretty young girl is among them, making friends, and Loranna recognizes her as she who she would eventually crown the Harvest Princess. It is quite clear from here that she is a common prostitute.
Dropping down at last at the front of the unfortified keep, Sheogorath raps on the door with his cane.
Kallen opens the door. He looks impossibly young, a mere child, but still with serious eyes and a professional manner.
"We're with the party that just arrived," Sheogorath said, leading Loranna in past the seneschal. Together they walked past the library where a red-headed Dunmer, Dagoth Lich in his illusionary disguise, was reading.
Then they passed into the herb garden.
Allerleirauh, Jazbet, and the Nord girl were pressed close together among the blossoms and smells of the garden, and Allie was kissing him, deeply.
"Blind old grouch," the white-haired woman said. "Don't go feeling sorry for yourself, or making mocking comments. I've been wanting to do that for a while now. I did it, and I'm glad."
The ashen-skin Nord, her arm around Allerleirauh as she kisses Jazbet under the ear, whispers: "She's got a point. Trust me; people keep telling me much the same thing."
Jazbet, a cloth around his eyes, looks as if he's about ready to faint, and then says with an unsteady voice: 'I can say, in all honesty, that I'm not feeling sorry for myself anymore ... I wouldn't be anyone else at this moment.'
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
"How many moments have you had where you didn't want to be someone else?" Sheogorath asked, seemingly at Loranna, but his eyes undirected as if he were addressing the ghosts of the past, present, and future.
Aricyn, shirtless, laughing, stepped past them with a polite "Excuse me," his eyes on the three in the herb garden. Laughing, he approached them, saying: ""Well! I seem to be missing the party!"
Sheogorath pulled her hand, bringing her into the dining room. Suddenly, the light faded from the windows, and she could tell it was night time. There was Kallen, lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, dazed. The Nordic girl, Loranna, was kneeling over him, gently parting his shirt to apply a healing spell.
The word on his chest, freshly torn, was "SLAVE."
Loranna felt a dark malevolent shadow pass Sheogorath and her as if they weren't there, coming towards the Nordic girl.
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
"'Why?'" the Mad God looked to her and scoffed. "I'm showing you 'why.'"
As the Nord girl and the incorporeal shade fell against one another, she screamed, thrashing.
"My, what a ruckus you made," the Mad God chuckled. "And what an embarassing social situation, being mauled by ghosts while trying to entertain your new House."
The letters were torn across the Nord girl's chest: H A R L O T.
The son of my son
Or the son of my daughter
Or both
Must take the title Lord of Ald Raathim
In one month's time
Or the land of the thief will be swallowed whole by the sea
You cannot take what you were not given.
Sheogorath and Loranna stepped out of the dining room and into the kitchen. There was hammering on the door to the cellar, and Sheogorath opened it.
Dres Obael was on the other side, a little drunk, more than a little alarmed by the sounds issuing from the living room.
"Can I help you?" Sheogorath asked.
"What in bloody Oblivion is going on?" the handsome young Dres nobleman cried, and the Mad God slammed the door back shut.
"Still, a good-looking lad," Sheogorath shrugged. "I wonder what's become of him."
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
"Being underestimated is hardly a distinguishing characteristic," Sheogorath chuckled, leaning back against a mirror, which Loranna thought didn't actually belong in Razbiah's kitchen. It reflected the window behind her, and the night storm.
It also showed light, now that she looked at it. A blazing fire in a humble tavern firepit, and a group of adventurers gathered around it. A tavern somewhere.
Looking around, she found that the window behind her was the outside window to a tavern in High Rock she hadn't been to in a long, long time ... In fact, it had been burned to the ground shortly after she left it ... [
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
Sheogorath laughed at that. "Makes perfect sense to me, my dear."
The Mad God opened the window, helping Loranna through, and then coming in behind them.
"Close the window!" the barmaid yelled, laughing as she watched the drunken patrons at the table. "Can't you see there's a man half naked in here?"
"My apologies, madam," the Mad God bowed, and closed the window.
It occured to Loranna at that moment that the jolly tavernmaid was a spy of Queen Elysana's, who would later report an innocent remark as treason, setting off a whole chain of events.
There was indeed a half-naked man in the tavern, whose name, Loranna remembered, was Hakan. He was laughing, looking at his fallen greaves and pants.
"Well, it seems i've been bested in a duel for the first time."
"And... we have our first naked Nord of the evening..." Allerleirauh, one of the people in the room, muttered, rolling her eyes. "If mammalian anatomy is how I remember it, he is cold as well."
Harg, whom Loranna had seen more recently in Sentinel, who she believed was now in Kalaan, also chuckled. "The Fist of Harg is not ashamed to admit that once even his mighty greaves fell victim to Elaine's nimble hands. However, only once."
Samson, his old companion was with him, grinning. "Yeah; I remember that time ..."
"The Fist of Harg thinks now is a good time to discuss book learning," Harg replied loudly, looking to the others in the tavern.
Arynel was there as well. He looked different, younger, but still mysterious. "Nords, must everything concern the fray?" There was a certain madness in his eyes, as he pulled at his hair. "I can't believe this. I've seen the dam dog dance with Azura, and lived, but I just can't believe this!"
Sheogorath laughed uproariously at that.
S'reddit
Loranna's Dream
"You're being so quiet right now," Sheogorath grinned, looking both at Loranna and the younger version of herself, seated nearby, who was simply watching the group. "Not quite in the center of attention, but you're craving it, aren't you? Why don't you sit down and have a talk with yourself, since no one else is? We don't have to leap from place to place ... I actually fancy a drink."
Sheogorath left Loranna and went to the spy/barmaid.
S'reddit
Meanwhile ...
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Red-Rock-Shadow quickly passes around Restore Magicka potions to the spellcasters retreating from the palace, all the while keeping her eyes on the steps.
"I only have a couple of these," she says. "You'll probably start regenerating your magicka right away, but I don't think we have much time ..."
The shadows within the palace were still for now, but the heroes had little illusion that the sloads and the tiger-dragon were watching them, waiting for their next move while strategizing their own ...
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Goranthir nodded, looking only towards the palace, waiting for any movement. He said. "I asked it if it was being quiet and still because it was tired. It replied back that I was just in time for it to feed ... And he looked at you with hunger ..."
Sheogorath
"I actually don't know Ko'Tun any better than you do," Goranthir replied, smiling a little. "I just speak their language like I do all proper languages ... But it definitely wasn't looking to the sload with hunger, only you ..."
He frowned a little. "Some of you more than others."
Sheogorath
Goranthir and Red-Rock-Shadow nodded and let loose their respective talents in the direction of the palace: for him, a kynarine blast; for her, a powerful Turn Undead spell.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
The massive energies directed at the palace punched holes in it, dissolving the bones and bodies that made up its walls, but they seemed at first mere pinpricks in its enormous edifice. It did not take long, however, before cracks ran up the sides, and one huge chunk dropped off and then another.
The weird clacking language of the Sload could be heard within, and one of them appeared on the steps, holding his hands up, a dark energy burning around him.
He was quickly flattened by the Ka'Po'Tun as the creature burst out of the gallery, bounding down the stairs, straight for the heroes.
Red-Rock-Shadow pulled back, but continued to blast at the palace which, while crumbling, was still standing.
Goranthir, however, directed the kynarine blast towards the Akaviri.
Sheogorath
The tiger-dragon, being attacked by Nalion's lightning bolt, Goranthir's kynarine blast, and P'Rassha's axe, suddenly pivoted in position, shrugging Gram off, heading for the Prince of Firsthold.
Nalion's and Dayla's lightning bolts glanced off of him, and Goranthir swung his blade at the creature, and it caught it in its jaws.
A silvery mist dripped from its mouth, and when Goranthir pulled back, his blade was gone.
The creature bit down hard, masticating the sword of the Psijics.
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
Both Arynel and Loranna were suddenly lost in the darkness of nothingness.
Then they heard a door open, and then footsteps.
As the footsteps came closer, she heard another noise. A slight sipping.
"I can't even have one drink, can I?" the Mad God's voice tutted, with both of them in the dark. "Ah, Loranna, how little you've changed."
Sheogorath
The Ka Po'Tun swatted Goranthir aside, and snapped at the nine foot Khajiit on its back, particularly, it seemed, aiming for the axe.
It also turned around, distracted by Reeds's blades, more of the silver mist dripping from its jaws.
When Ingmar swung his sword at it, however, it elegantly gripped it with its teeth, ripping it from Ingmar's hands, and down the creature's gullet.
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
"Well, people seem to have a habit of following you, even when there is no reason to it," Sheogorath's voice chuckles. "Hope you're enjoying it, young Breton. You will call this place your second home soon enough ..."
A gray light rose around them, and Arynel and Loranna found themselves floating in the Void with the Dam Dog.
Sheogorath
The tiger-dragon bounded after the thrown axe, like a dog after a bone.
Dé Ka Po' Tun Me'Thitsar-je!
"He says he still hungers!" Goranthir called out, realizing what P'Rassha and Reichi at least had understood. "Use your weapons to lead him! That's what he wants, not us!"
The creature swatted Reeds and Valerius, Isidor and Reichi aside as it ran for the axe. What effects, if any the spells had, were hard to say ...
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
"Now, there's a young lady who will take quite a fancy to you in the future," Sheogorath laughed, pointing off into the distance.
Loranna and Arynel turned, and noted a tiny figure seemingly miles away. In a blink, she was right in front of them, pale skin, blood-red eyes, and lank black hair which floated around her as if she were drowning in the Void. Her eyes spoke of innocence and hunger.
"Hello," Bosriel smiled, particularly taking note of Arynel.
"Hello," Sheogorath said. "Where are you going to?"
"Argonia?" the little girl replied as if it that too were a question. "They're on a quest to set me free."
"Then let us waste no time," said the Mad God, taking both Arynel and Loranna in his hands, racing after the Void Vampire as she glided through the Void.
Sheogorath
"There's no metal anywhere in Lasthold!" Goranthir yelled back. "Only bone! That's why he hungers!"
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"Metal!" Goranthir yelled back. He yelled to the beast chasing after the axe and other equipment Dayla held aloft in front of him. "Ka Pang fei fen Po' Tun! Myon mi an!"
To Dayla, he shouted. "Lead him towards the Arena! That's the way to the army!"
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Dayla, levitating behind the tiger-dragon as it bounded after the metal, was able to witness the creature crashing into the Arena in the midst of a battle between six horrific malformed zombies, and a crowd of hundreds that watched. The tunnel leading to the outside where the armies were marching was on the other side of the arena -- even now, soldiers were streaming into it.
The tiger-dragon first leapt at the combatants and their weapons, and the arena erupted into chaos.
S'reddit
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"How many more creatures like that does Mannimarco have in Lasthold?" Red-Rock-Shadow asked.
"Plenty more," Goranthir said. "I agree with Dayla. We shouldn't lose sight of our goal. Find the last Blightstone, destroy it, get out of here fast. The longer we stay, the more attention we attract, and the likelier that something will show up that can kill us."
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
Those with mystical sensitivies would note that the strongest impression was coming from the half-finished statue of Vanus Galerion, though it wasn't as strong as it had been when the Blightstones were close ...
Nalion also noted that the face he had seen in the statue was gone.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
As Dayla was surveying the statue, she noticed something, and thought at first her eyes were playing tricks on her. Among the faces of the corpses that made it up was a familiar one. A beautiful Chimer woman with her eyes closed, and at peace.
Ashana.
Sheogorath
Looking all around the statue, Nalion noticed that though the boy's doll-like face was gone, there was the dead body of someone else familiar in the statue, forming its structure.
Her name was Lirielle.
In fact, for each person who approached the statue, they saw the dead body of a lost love.
Sheogorath
Goranthir turned away. He had been shocked to see the corpses of his cousin Onialle and Taolle in the statue. The horror of seeing his cousin Aedrin, who he himself had killed while Geht taxed his reason ... But the bodies of Allerleirauh and Tris ... That he couldn't bear.
Sheogorath
The statue began falling apart with the blows it was suffering. When the brother's struck at their father's corpse, a bone case fell out of his chest. It was the sort of thing one uses to house scrolls, and it was sealed ...
Red-Rock-Shadow was staring, trying to muster up the courage to join the attack, while looking at the body of an Argonian man, who looked somewhat like her, in the statue.
Sheogorath
Gram's axe blow carved into the statue, striking Mista's body as well, sidelong. In her chest cavity, there was a second bone scroll canister.
Sheogorath
Within was a small scrap of vellum which looked like it might be leathered skin. On it were three words "WILL BE FOUND."
Sheogorath
The body burned and blackened, exposing a bone scroll case in Lirielle's chest.
Sheogorath
The vampire's corpse split open at the lightning strike, revealing a bone scroll case within ...
Sheogorath
Within the case was another piece of old leather with two words on it "YOURS TRULY."
Sheogorath
In Athaso's mother's corpse, there too is a bone scroll case.
Sheogorath
The first one, the one that came out of Mista, has a scroll within which looks like the top of a longer scroll by its clean edges above and ragged ones below.
It reads "IF YOU REALLY NEED."
The second one that came out of her mater contains three words "DOWN THE STAIRS."
Sheogorath
Athaso's leather scrap of paper read "OF THE ORMA."
Sheogorath
Goranthir, seeing the scroll cases people were finding, finally worked up the courage to approach the statue. He had no kynarine blade anymore, but he took a dagger from his robe and stabbed at the corpse of Aedrin, wincing.
He pulled the scroll case from his cousin's chest, and opened it.
"It says," he said, his voice hoarse. "'TO DESTROY IT.'"
Sheogorath
The sword slashing into the corpse exposed the scroll canister in the Khajiit's chest.
Sheogorath
Reichi's father's chest was rent, exposing the scroll canister within.
Sheogorath
Slashes's scroll, which looked like the bottom of a longer scroll, judging from its ragged line above but smooth cut below, simply says "A TRUE FRIEND."
Sheogorath
Reichi's leather scroll has three words on it. "WITH THE SKULL."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow had been observing, unable to face the Argonian she had seen. He looked somewhat familiar to Slashes, but he wasn't sure who he was until she said his name.
"I'm sorry, Xeljuk," she whispered, touching his chest with burning hands.
Xeljuk had been her cousin, and a childhood friend of Slashes.
With a shaking hand, Red-Rock-Shadows took the scroll case out of her cousin's chest.
Sheogorath
Within the case is a scroll of leathered skin and four words "LOOK FOR THE DOOR."
Sheogorath
"I didn't know he was dead either," Red-Rock-Shadow sighed. "He was never heard from, but I hoped ..."
She looked at the canister in her hands.
Goranthir went to the corpse of Allerleirauh next, swallowing hard, before stabbing it with his dagger, and pulling out another canister.
Sheogorath
Goranthir looked at Nalion and nodded. "I hope you're right."
He opened up the scroll case and took out the scrap of leather: "THE LAST BLIGHTSTONE"
Sheogorath
"I'll do it," Red-Rock-Shadow said, walking over to it, her still unopened canister in her hand. She opened Shaka's.
"It says," the Argonian battlemage said. "OPEN IT AND GO. These sounds like directions, kind of ..."
Sheogorath
Red-Rock-Shadow shook her head.
"I haven't opened mine yet," she said. She cracked the canister open and read aloud the three words on the scroll within. "INSIDE THE LOGGIA."
Goranthir shook his head, and with his dagger, cut open the chest of his friend Tris, and pulled out the canister within. He opened it.
"There's nothing in here," he said.
Sheogorath
The scraps of leather with their odd shapes did indeed seem to form together pretty well.
"Inside the loggia," Red-Rock-Shadow said thoughtfully, turning towards the edifice that surrounded the square, where Gram had been imprisoned. There were indeed doors lining the ground floor. "The skull of the Orma ..."
Sheogorath
Goranthir shook his head, composing himself. "Maybe if we hadn't opened up all the scraps of the scroll, there would have been something inside? ... Or Maybe I just ripped open Tris's chest for nothing ..."
Sheogorath
Walking from door way to door way, each seemed to be framed by a different skull on top, always something unusual. The monkey skull of an Imga. A humanoid serpentine skull which might've been either a rare Argonian or a Tsaesci. A sload skull, of course. Then there was a skull that looked like a perfectly formed human skull, except there were no eye sockets at all.
Sheogorath
The formation of the door of tightly compacted corpses and skeletons made for a much different surface that Slashes was used to checking for traps. He couldn't be completely confident that there were no unusual traps with such an unusual material, but he was pretty certain there were none of the usual traps ...
Sheogorath
Dayla and Reeds's spells did not show any particularly strong magicka, no more than that usually present in Lasthold, coming from the door ... And no traps either, at least nothing their spells could detect ...
Sheogorath
The door swung open, unlocked.
A set of steep stairs curved down a vaulted stairwell. The roof of it was ribcages, and the phosphorescent maggots they had seen before crawled among the bodies and skeletons, giving a weird greenish cast.
Sheogorath
As in everywhere else in Lasthold, Mannimarco had not forgotten the details. There was even a rail running along the stairs made of arm bones, necessary considering how steep the stairs were.
Sheogorath
As the group reached the bottom of the stairs, they came to a huge cavernous room. All along the walls were shelves with black gems, uncharged Blightstones, hundreds of them.
Also in the room were the three white maidens, the Orc, the Nord, and the Imperial. They seemed surprised by the heroes approach.
"Why don't you --" the Orc began.
"Just run!" the Imperial said to her sister, grabbing her hand. The three began running across the room away from the heroes.
Sheogorath
As the heroes stepped into the room, the walls formed behind them.
On Nalion's spell, the Imperial woman vanished, like the illusion she was.
Someone began chuckling from the shadows.
Sheogorath
"Ah, what good is wisdom when it does not govern your actions, Dayla?" said the figure, stepping out of the shadows to the center of the now-sealed room.
Mannimarco's face was the one Nalion had seen. Under a hood, a smooth, innocent boy's face, like a doll, with dead eyes. The rest of him was skeletally thin, with talon-like fingers in which he gripped the last Blightstone.
It occured to the heroes then that should the Blightstone break, in here, there was nothing to grab to keep from being pulled into it. They were all in the nexus of its implosion.
"Looking for something, o champions?" the God of Worms asked, holding up the Gem, its flickering black power lighting over one and all, its necromantic energy touching their souls.
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"As you can see, you've failed," Mannimarco told the assembled group. Cracks had begun appearing in the Blightstone in his taloned hands as he held them. "None of you will survive this, and I will replenish those Blightstones you destroyed a hundred fold. My Empire of Death will soon be the only Empire in Nirn."
Sheogorath
Lasthold, Scourg Barrow
"My soul is my own again," Goranthir said, glaring at Mannimarco. "Your pact is destroyed. We have not failed."
"You think Geht was anyone but you, fool?" Mannimarco chuckled, and then turned towards Ora at her words, and then towards Gram, regarding the blast of white power with his expressionless doll's face.
The surging energy of black necromancy and white magicka simultaneously exploded and imploded.
The wave of force threw one and all against the walls, shattering the Blightstones in the shelves, and then almost as soon as that happened, the implosion pulled one and all towards the center of the room where the King of Worms had just stood, but was now gone.
Red-Rock-Shadow was the first to be pulled into the implosion.
She vanished into nothingness.
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
As Loranna and Arynel spoke, they noticed cracks appearing all over the cavern walls, sending in murky sunlight and rain from the thunderstorm outside.
One of the sunlight beams dropped on the face and form of the Mad Dog, standing on the island with them.
"Wise words, bard, but what do I know of those?" Sheogorath mused, smiling. "At this moment, a hero is being resurrected by his love, and reality itself is shattering."
There were strange energies in the air, pulsing through the cavern, subtle but perceptible.
Sheogorath
Goranthir's Kynarine ring has kept him on sturdy ground, but he rushes about, trying desperately to hold onto his friends, and keep them from the implosion. The force is too strong in such a narrow area, and one by one, their hands slip through his, and they fall to the center of the room to their doom.
Goranthir is the last to go. By measured step, he walks to the vortex, and steps in.
The room falls to silence.
Sheogorath
Nothingness.
The heroes are dead.
They find themselves as spirits in the stars, like Gods.
And yet ...
Sheogorath
The Afterworld
Goranthir, a white-shaded translucent spirit, the last of the heroes of Scourg Barrow to enter the vortex, looks to his fellow floating spirits among the stars.
The moment of death had not been painful, it had been too quick and too total.
Everyone was there: Gram, Dayla, Slashes, Osa, Ora, Shaka, Nalion, Slyvos, Anya, Athaso, Reichi, Sivartus, Tsei, Isidor, Ingmar, Valerius ...
Everyone, it seemed, except Red-Rock-Shadow.
That was strange, but it didn't bother Goranthir too much. His body felt full of light, and yet ... he didn't feel bliss. There was regret and worry. Now that they were all dead, and he was sure they were, what would happen down in Nirn? Would Mannimarco prove triumphant?
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
With a wave of his hand, the walls around them faded. Several rooms away, there were the frozen forms of the heroes battling their dopplegangers. Teleran, as a man, staring into a glowing orb, unmoving. Nalion firing a lightning bolt, stuck in time, the forks shimmering unmoving in the air, about to strike. Dante in mid-charge. Reichi in mid air too, having just clawed at False Nalion. The past Loranna, no longer Loranna-Azura, but still a year younger than Loranna the witness, her hands glowing as she casts a healing spell.
And there is Tris, cradling the body of Ciel, his lips moving as he has just finishing whispering the string of power.
Sheogorath
"My dear bard, we're establishing right now how little you know about the things you know about," the Mad God chuckled.
Around them, the dungeon of the Vaults of Gemin faded even further, blurring into gray.
Sheogorath
There was no pain in Slashes's palm.
"We're dead," Goranthir said with some confidence. "We could not have gone into that and lived."
Sheogorath
Ramakawan, Hammerfell
Red-Rock-Shadow appeared in the jungle valley, and ran to the fort.
"The death aura is gone! To arms!" the Argonian cried, as she ran to commander Digitus Eros.
All her companions were dead. Hesek was dead. Red-Rock-Shadow knew it, but couldn't think of it. She would not let their sacrifice be in vain -- mourning could wait.
Sheogorath
The Afterlife
"I didn't think," Goranthir said quietly. "I just couldn't stay behind ..."
That was true. He regretted it, now that he thought about all the living he had left behind, his sister, the other heroes of Ald Raathim, even his parents ... But seeing all the corpses in the tower in Lasthold, and seeing his companions going into the implosion, he just went where his heart took him ...
There was something strange happening. All around them, light was coursing between the stars, like cracks opening up in the firmament.
And a cloud of gray was rising in the distance, sweeping towards them ...
Sheogorath
Sentinel
Slashes appeared in Sentinel, in the town square where he had set the Mark.
The city looked gray. People walked right through him, and he couldn't help but notice things were fading even more around him ...
Sheogorath
The Nymph and Noggin, Ald Raathim
For a moment, he thought he was back at the tavern in High Rock, but the details were all wrong. He found himself in a town he had never been to, in a tavern he had never seen before. Everyone around him was gray, and they walked through him as if he were a ghost ...
All except for someone who looked very familiar.
His older self, who looked at him.
Sheogorath
Stormhold
The closest temple was in the city of Stormhold, the city in the trees where a storm was always surging. It was a gray place, but even grayer than usual, as people at worship at the Temple of Arkay passed through her as if she were a ghost.
And the grayness continued to spread, all distinctions fading away ...
Sheogorath
The sisters appeared in a temple. It was hard to say where it was as everything around them was faded gray. The worshippers passed through them, not seeing or feeling their presence.
Soon, even that distinction ended, and the sisters were floating in a world of gray ...
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream / The Afterlife
As the two Arynels talked, the tavern and all the patrons in it faded away into nothingness, leaving them alone in nothingness ...
Actually ...
Not quite alone.
There were several figures out there, some close and some nearby.
There was Loranna, and there were the heroes of Scourg Barrow, all together in the dream.
Sheogorath
For just a moment in the gray expanse, Loranna saw herself in her bedroom, sleeping. A couple worried servants of King Lhotun were standing around her, while a healer with wild hair and a waistcoat examined her.
"She's breathing, but she won't wake up!" the servant said fearfully.
"Yes, this happens from time to time," the healer said, laying his blue-glowing hands on her. "She'll either wake up ... or she won't."
"What about her child?" they whispered.
"Oh perfectly fine," the healer chuckled inappropriately, and then turned serious at the servants staring at him. "If need be, I can deliver it even if she never wakes up again ..."
Sheogorath
Goranthir looked to Loranna, shaking his head.
And then, images, one by one, replaced the gray nothingness.
They were in Skyrim, at a snowball fight.
They were in Firsthold, at Princess Rinalla's Cotillion Ball.
They were at the Ghostgate, watching the Incarnate Faithful erecting a temple to her.
They were in Solunastra, in the music room, drinking and laughing.
They were in Red Mountain, battling the Azurites.
They were in Mournhold, at Helseth's meeting where he announced the abolition of slavery in Morrowind.
There were outside of Koal Cave, facing a monstrous beast.
They were in Wayrest for Tris's father's funeral.
They were in Senchal at Goldcat's white marble palace.
They were in Solitude, watching the city being torn apart by a storm.
They were in Daggerfall, at Landon and Lyssia's wedding.
They were in Ald Sotha, as the dragon swept in, rescuing the heroes there.
They were in Lyonswurst House, as Sir Laurent tried to drown a spy of Barenziah's in a well.
They were in Old Elyssa's farmhouse, being attacked by flying vegetables.
They were in Balmora, being attacked by animated meat.
They were in Ald Raathim, as the Emperor's men came with rewards for rescuing him, huge chests of treasure.
They were in the Cave of the Dog, answering riddles.
They were in Sentinel, at the scene just a few days ago, when the heroes were first setting forth on their journey to the Dragontail Mountains ...
And then they were inside a magnificent castle in Cyrodiil. Music was playing, and a ball was about to commence.
Sheogorath
Lord Darius's Ball
Goranthir, who Loranna noticed was now white-skinned and white-haired wearing a white robe, continued shaking his head and finally smiled a little.
"Well by Auriel, if we're dead, thank Nirn it's a party," he said, and bowed to Lord Darius. "Goranthir of Firsthold, sir."
Sheogorath
"I can tell you, I wouldn't have missed it for the world, my lord," Goranthir smiled widely. "It is indeed Masquerade Season in Firsthold but I would much sooner be here."
Where was he, really, at this point in time? Goranthir thought to himself. A scared 15-year-old, wandering through Tamriel, not yet to Mournhold, but not in Firsthold. In between destinies. Well, there is nothing to do but let the madness and wonder wash over you, and enjoy it the best you can.
Then he saw Allerleirauh, and his heart lept in his chest. Yes, he decided, he was capable of feeling here.
Sheogorath
Ramakawan, Hammerfell
The army from the east made their way through the blackened wastes of the jungle valley into the low foothills. With the death aura gone, they could survive, and the land would eventually live again ... But at this moment, all was death around them.
The scouts brought news of the approaching zombie army, and Digitus Eros, while continuing the march, brought the factional commanders to him.
"The news is bad," he said. "We had expected resistance, but Mannimarco's forces are larger than we expected. Much larger."
Kalaan, Hammerfell
The western army also began marching along the coast towards the mountains. The shore was littered with the bones of dead fish caught up in the death aura, but the soldiers kept their eyes on the path ahead. They were ready for action, charged up after the successful battle against the undead dragon.
As in Ramakawan, advance scouts brought back news of the zombie army.
"Well, gentlemen," Leretha Warhaft said to her factional officers. "It appears the battle will be greater ... and happen much sooner ..."
Sheogorath
The March from Kalaan
"Yes, we should try to lead them into position," Warhaft nodded, taking out a map. She point to the three valleys the undead legions were using, traveling westward. "We have to close them off by the water. They have the advantage there, being able to breathe under it, they could slip right past us. If we take the bluffs though, and push them back through spells or, better yet, an avalanche, we could trap them in the valley, and have the advantage of being able to rain down on them while they're stuck ..."
Sheogorath
Lord Darius's Ball
"I remember from the Book, though I wasn't here," said Goranthir, coming over to them, smiling. "Hello, Loranna. It seems strange to say I'm glad to see you here, since I'm not sure where here is, or whether it's good or extremely bad that we're all here, but ... I am glad to see you, period."
Sheogorath
Goranthir laughed, returning the embrace. "Thank you, Loranna. Well, first things first. Return from the dead, and then worry about hair coloring."
Sheogorath
The March from Kalaan
"I think I understand what you're suggesting," Warhaft nodded. "Flaming oil floating on the sea ... We have enough to coat our arrows, but not very much ..."
Sheogorath
Lord Darius's Ball
The orchestra began to strike up a few notes of a familiar-sounding tune. A small group of children entered the dance floor to lend their voices to the song, the lyrics of which it seemed were not appropriate for children at all ...
But fancy a dally or dilly
In a land that's quite hilly
Wearing underclothes frilly
You're just gilding the lily
And it's so rudely cyrodilly
Sheogorath
Some more rude verses later, the song came to a rousing end.
"Oh, weren't they wonderful?" The audience applauded fondly at the end of the song, none of them the least bit disturbed at its rudeness.
The children bowed, grinning, pleased to have won approval of the adults.
"And now, in honor of our guests from Morrowind," the orchestra leader said, beginning the next song. It was the same Nordic/Dunmeri tune that was played when Loranna entertained Barenziah on the cliffs in Ald Raathim.
The children, no longer the center of attention, began to wander off.
"Where's the pretty lady going?" one of the older children, a girl who was clearly the leader of the group wondered, following Loranna.
"Wait for us!" the others cried, running after her.
Sheogorath
The children cheer, running after Loranna, playing tag with one another. As it happens, as they step outside the mansion, a carriage rolls by on the road. The smell in it is unmistakable: it's a baker going to market in the town, his wagon loaded with all sorts of delicacies, including sweetrolls.
The children, singing their signature song in delight, grab Loranna by the hands and run after it.
Sheogorath
The bakery wagon had begun to go faster and faster down the road, and the children, laughing, singing, and pulling on the younger Loranna, had also been running at an inhumanly fast speed. Both were far down the road when Shaka and Nalion came out to the cobblestone path.
Sheogorath
The children gasped at the sight, but nothing it seemed could distract them from their goal of the sweetrolls ...
Shaka could shorten the distance, but it was an impossible maneuver to cast the spell at first. He was behind Loranna and the children, who were behind the wagon, which was behind the horse, so there was a lot in the way of his target.
Until it turned a corner, and then for an instant, he had a clear shot ...
Sheogorath
The children kept her from stopping but for an instant, pushing her on. In truth, she felt very much compelled to stay with them ...
Sheogorath
The spell exploded over horse and driver, and they froze. The momentum of the wagon, however, rushing at its superhuman speed, threw it up and over them, crashing spectacularly.
The back of the wagon showered sweetrolls and other delicacies everywhere all over the road. The children fell on them, stuffing themselves.
A coffin also fell out of the back of wagon.
Sheogorath
The driver, a handsome, well-dressed man with slightly crazy hair, a waistcoat and a cane, was very dead, as was the horse.
Sheogorath
Inside the coffin was a man in a long black robe, talon-like hands, and a peaceful, boy-like face, his eyes closed in death.
Sheogorath
From the woods came footsteps. Many, many footsteps. Walking slow. Bringing with them a smell of death.
One of the children stopped and stared, his sweetroll falling out of his mouth. "Stendarr ... I almost forgot ... It's Tales and Tallows!"
"The night the dead walk!" shrieked the girl who was the leader.
Making quite as much noise as frightened children usually do, the children screamed and ran back towards the mansion. No longer enchanted, however, their pace was much slower than before, and they were still miles away ...
And the sound of the shambling dead was coming from all around.
Sheogorath
There were plenty of targets for Reichi and Shaka, as the shambling undead began spilling down from the woods on both sides of the road. Though they were happy to attack the heroes, their attention seemed more peculiarly drawn towards the shrieking children, continuing their run for Lord Darius's manor.
Sheogorath
Among the guests who was cured was Sir Nelacar Direnni, sorcerer of no small talent, proving his title by not having the small talent of Dispel.
"Thank you, milady!" he cried, theatrically as his volumninousness was cut in half and then a quarter. "I fear I would have popped! Your genius is only matched by your beauty!"
S'reddit
The stories were continuing, and Goranthir had just finished a rather silly tale of the Crystal Tower which he had beeen tld as child. It was met with appreciation, and he had taken the opportunity to speak with Allerleirauh. He knew she wouldn't know him here, in a dream of the past, but he couldn't miss the opportunity to talk to his great love.
"This party is going quite well," one of the servants said to another. "Usually Darius's parties go wrong."
"Well, we have had that cursed platter and those screaming kids and those zombies," the other servant said.
"Oh, those are nothing," the first chuckled, getting back to work. "I'd say overall it's been quite a successful night for his lordship."
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
The sound of zombies beating against the door had become such a regular part of the party that they almost seemed to accompany the music. It took some time for anyone to notice when the sound ceased.
When the front door began to bulge on its hinges like a bubble, however, all took notice. Something was coming through.
Sheogorath
The orchestra stopped playing, the heroes drew their weapons, and the company drew a collective breath.
And then with a resounding bang, the doors flew open and the King of Worms stepped into the ball.
Mannimarco's expressionless, doll-like face surveyed the group.
"You have robbed me of my prize," the King of Worms said dully. "I won your souls in Lasthold, but instead I find them here, in idle conversations and dances? Come with me quietly, or I will tear this illusion apart."
Sheogorath
Loranna's Dream
"Very well," Mannimarco nodded. "You've made your choice."
The windows to the grand manor house exploded inward, showering glass on those within.
Then, the fine, tasteful woodwork began to lighten and crack, forming odd nodules and joints ...
They were turning into bone.
Sheogorath
Mannimarco chuckled, as Slashes and Reichi flew threw him, bringing up a cloud of dust.
"Now, I am willing to put up with a certain amount of nonsense," said a voice from the orchestra. A young musician with wild hair, a waistcoast, and an abnormally long and slim violin he could use as a cane stepped forward. "But, Mannimarco, this is not your world."
Sheogorath
The walls of the manor house began to transform as Sheogorath and Mannimarco spoke, changing from bone back to dark wood ... Except in some place, where it turned into the good, solid Nordic stone of Castle Daruhn ...
"Not my world? Whose world is it, Mad God, yours?" the King laughed. "I see one madwoman around, but ..."
"No, hers," Sheogorath motioned to the older Loranna. He turned to her. "If you wish him to leave, simply tell him this is a very exclusive party, and no one with maggots in their dusty skull caps is permitted to attend. Or words to that effect, if you wish to be more polite."
Sheogorath
"How dare you talk to the immortal Mannimarco like that, barmaid?" the King of Worms said, floating towards her on a cloud of dust and ash. "I will boil your brain. I will turn your bones to powder. I will ..."
As Mannimarco approached her, wild hair began to sprout from his head.
"I will ..."
The doll-like expression on his face became more animated, from emotionless to fury to ... amused madness.
"I will ..."
Dropping down to the ground, he walked right past Loranna and approached the young Loranna-Azura, and bowed.
"I will be honored if you will dance with me, o Goddess," said Sheogorath Two.
"It was never anything but a dance, o Llanfairite," Sheogorath One smiled. "An Arena and a Dance."
Sheogorath
"A sensibly insensible request," Sheogorath One nodded, throwing his cane/violin to the orchestra, where a violinist caught it. The orchestra began to play.
It was a waltz.
"The eyes of the dreamer are wide open," Sheogorath One said to Shaka, and turned to Loranna. "What do you see out the windows of your soul?"
Sheogorath
"Dnah ym ekat. Uoy fo ti dnamed ot em rof si ti," Sheogorath Two chuckles.
The Second Mad God take Loranna/Azura's hand and leads her to the middle of the ballroom. Their footsteps echo in the large hollow place as the music swelled.
The broken windows of the manor filled with images. The eastern windows showed the battles of the Kaalan troops, while the western windows showed the battles of the Ramakawan troops, both moving closer towards the center, towards the manor itself.
There were roars from the dragons, screams and bellows of the soldiers, moans of the undead, but the waltz music was all that anyone heard.
Sheogorath
"The mortals must do as they wish. That is the whole of their charm."
Sheogorath Two and Loranna-Azura's dance was fast, gathering tempo, following the lively tune, but is still quite precise, measured, restrained, proper. It is a complicated dance, highly ritualized, which both dancers know as if by instinct.
Slashes noticed in the windows to the east Red-Rock-Shadow among the troops, fighting the dragons with great spells of frost. Though others would see no emotion in her Argonian face, he saw fury and sadness in equal parts. With magicka of destruction, she was taking out her revenge for the deaths of her companions in Lasthold.
Windows throughout the palace showed other places in the here and now of Tamriel. The heroes could see not only the battles in the Dragontail Mountains, but quieter interludes in Mournhold and Stormhold. They could see Queen Elysana plotting in Wayrest, and Indoril Faryon plotting in Kragenmoor. There was Kethiah at the Nymph and Noggin with her children, waiting for her husband to return; there was Glacia at the bookstore, worrying about Reeds.
Sheogorath
"What a marvelous idea, a gift," Sheogorath Two laughed, dancing faster.
South and east, the waltz doth drift
Melody lilting but tempo quite swift
Rising her hands to Oblivion lift
Milady, Vehk gave thee his loving gift.
"Ah, yes, the gift I gave to all that was never used," Sheogorath One shook his head, before turning to Loranna.
The First Mad God's eyes flashed briefly to Slyvos, and he smiled widely.
"Oh, you are wrong, milady, dreams can and do last forever frequently. Dres Minsero may never awaken," he held out his hand. "Do not answer this question lightly. Consider it. May I have this dance?"
Sheogorath
"You may be her husband," Sheogorath nodded, still smiling, his hand still out to Loranna. "But I asked first."
Sheogorath
Sheogorath Two looked to the people in the dance, and smiled to Loranna-Azura. "They're beautiful. Their own realization transcends their dead and decaying flesh; shining through like a star ..."
"The dreamer has rejected the dream, has she?" Sheogorath The First shook his head, looking a little petulant. "Love over madness. What is this world coming to? And who am I going to dance with now?"
Sheogorath One joined his twin, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Pardon me, may I borrow one of your partners?"
"Well, of course, dear Dog, I didn't mean to be selfish," Sheogorath Two laughed. "Which one would you like?"
"Oh, the barmaid," Sheogorath One said, looking to Loranna-Azura. "If she'll give me the honor."
Sheogorath
The waltz of the Mad Gods and their partners, Dawn and Dusk and the Barmaid, was a whirl, passion unbridled. Smoke swirled up from the orchestra as the musicians struck their instrument with inspiration that had passed into insanity.
Mad Dusk, Mad Dawn,
Conclusions are foregone
Mad Dawn, Mad Dusk,
Haunted hollow as a husk
Heroes, lovers, friends,
Thus dies the dream, the dance, the ball
Deathly spirits in this dream-tossed hall
Shall shatter as it ends
Both Sheogoraths were now whistling, lightning-lit storms, crashing together around the flickering image of Azura, and the young Loranna, whose eyes were closed, head tossed back in ecstacy.
At Nalion's words, the ceiling above the manor ripped off, flying into the heavens above.
Sheogorath
The gift Sheogorath gave to one and all at the ball at Lord Darius's so long ago, which none had used, was the spark of madness which would yield one second of genius, one moment of highest inspiration. As the Older Loranna claimed the gift at last, all who danced sideways could hear the laughter of the Mad God.
It was directed at no one save himself.
The lightning in the storm engulfing Younger Loranna and Azura had intensified so it was almost burning, too white to look at for long.
"Goodbye, guests. I will dance with each and every one of you all in good time ..."
Younger Loranna cried out in joy, as she and Azura rose up beyond the manor and into the storm. The clouds parted, showing Oblivion beyond.
There was a tremendous clap of thunder and darkness fell.
Sheogorath
Sentinel, Dawn
The first thing she felt was a sudden heaviness in her belly and on her hips, the now familiar feeling of the baby inside her. Her legs also ached, as if she had walked or danced too much on them. And then she heard the thunder in the distance and smelled rain.
Then she heard the voices, also familiar to her from the vision she saw in the dream, of the servant and the healer in the palace.
"It's very important you not leave out any details," the healer was saying, sounding concerned. "When you left, she was in bed ... alone."
"Yes, sir," the servant's voice, replied. "And now all these people showed up, all of 'em ... dancing! Without no clothes on!"
"So I see ... Quite a conundrum. I would cast a drain fatigue spell on them to get them to stop, but it seems they're asleep, so I don't see how that would help ..."
Loranna's eyes opened, and light filled them, forcing her to blink for a few seconds while she focused, and instantly silencing the healer and servant who stood there, staring.
Sheogorath
Sentinel
The servant ran off to fetch clothes, while the healer stayed behind. In Loranna's earlier vision, he had wild hair, a waistcoat, and the other accouterments of Sheogorath, and while now his hair was a bit of a mess, it was clear he was just a simple Redguard healer, no symbol of Sheogorath as she had seen.
"First things first, your Grace," he frowned. "Sit down. Let me examine you, all of you, and make certain nothing's wrong."
As he began his examination, he said. "We are awaiting word from the war in the mountains still, your Grace."
Sheogorath
"Can you tell me what you remember, and who these people are and where they came from?" the healer asked, as the servant gave everyone something to wrap themselves up in. "Everyone at court has been concerned for you."
S'reddit
Summary
Goranthir, Prince of Firsthold, is with the rest of the group in Loranna's room at the Palace of Sentinel, having survived the afterlife/dreamworld.
Red-Rock-Shadow is battling in the Dragontail Mountains.
Morgiah and King Reman are in Sentinel, soon to be reunited with their son.
Barenziah is there too, quite a family reunion!
Helseth is in Mournhold, no doubt plotting. His wife, Queen Dinara is there as well, helping him, and still no doubt worried about her brother Dres Obael, still captured in Bodrom Mora.
Elysana is in Wayrest, doing the same.
Kethiah, ex-assassin, co-proprietor of the Nymph and Noggin, and mother is in Ald Raathim, anxiously awaiting word from her husband and brother-in-law, Isidor and Ingmar.
Glacia Rysleire is also in Ald Raathim, running Loranna's diplomatic affairs, and also anxiously awaiting word from her and Reeds.
Alas and Alack, Loranna's Spymasters and "priests" of Zenithar, are also in Ald Raathim, no doubt compiling information, and probably aware of the result of the battles in the Dragontail Mountains before anyone else.
Kallen, Razbiah, Thianas, and Casts-The-Bones are up to their usual duties in Castle Daruhn.
Kingston Mune is stalking the night and day in Skyrim.
Sheogorath is in Oblivion, but you will no doubt see him soon in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
OOC:
How appropriate that the Daedra of the Dawn and Dusk appeared at the end of the RP before we take a hiatus.
I agree with Loranna. It has been a great long RPing experience with all of you, full of challenges and fun. A long time ago, Loranna approached me about playing Sheogorath again after the Trial Of Vivec for the Hogithum Ball. Since then, we have been all over the place, as anyone who followed the last RP would have seen.
Where the RP goes after this Epilogue and the hiatus that follows while we play Oblivion is anyone's guess, but I add my own clapping to the applause. This has been epic in every sense.
S'reddit
Sentinel
Goranthir stayed with the group during breakfast, smiling and talking over their experiences, but it was obvious something was weighing on his mind. At last, he excused himself.
"My parents and grandmother are here," he said. "I should go and talk to them on my own."
The white-haired, white-skinned Prince of Firsthold went to talk to Reman, Morgiah, and Barenziah. There was much for them to say to one another. The last time he had seen Morgiah and Reman, his mother had rejected him, dismissing the notion that she had damned his soul by her contract with Mannimarco. And the last time he had spoken with his grandmother, she and his uncle Helseth had encouraged him to go undercover in Vvardenfell, which had ultimately led to the rise of Geht.
If the family was to survive, there was much to discuss and to forgive.
S'reddit
Ald Raathim, Reeds' Bookstore, as soon as he can get over there
Glacia was found in the back, helping a customer whose copy of Book 3 of Waughin Jarth's "The Argonian Account" had been badly printed, so a few pages were completely blank. She had soothed his anger, and they were chuckling over a passage when Reeds stepped in.
The Altmer ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. "You're back! Thank Auriel!"
S'reddit
Meanwhile ...
Mount Ewado
The forces from the east, led by the army that had been stationed in the jungles of Ramakawan had made great progress, defeating the armies of the dead who had flung themselves at them. Even the liches and ancient vampires who had joined Mannimarco's crusade had fallen, though the three-hundred-foot undead dragon had taken a considerable toll on the troops before, once again, fleeing.
Now under the command of Digitus Eros and the factional commanders they found themselves far from the hot and sultry jungles and valleys where the war had begun, facing the enemy on the frozen mountain peaks of the eastern Dragontail Mountains. The vanguards had plodded through the still-dead but death-aura-lifted terrain to report back on the next threat that the army faced. Mannimarco had evidently experimented on a tribe of trolls, and their massive skeletal frames had now joined the army. Looking across the peak, there was much more battle to come.
Red-Rock-Shadow was among the troops, and she launched herself into the air to survey the army that was approaching. Her leathery wings aloft, she could see that not far beyond them was the plateau of Scourg Barrow, where her companions had fallen. It gave her the energy of anger and grief, and she returned to her company, to meet the foe.
Ngonta Valley
By contrast, the forces that come from Kalaan had suffered several set-backs. They had begun well by Leretha Warhaft's command, closing off Mannimarco's army's northbound seaward push, taking the bluffs and pushing them into the valleys of the mountains.
They had pushed the advantage of their height, raining spells and arrows down on the undead from above, until they had discovered, quite suddenly, that they too could be attacked from on high. The swarm of undead dragonlings had attacked with all the cunning and surprise of an intelligently commanded platoon. Warhaft had barely had a moment to respond before she was cut down, dying in Vaan's arms.
Without a central authority, the factional army had fled down into the valleys, leaving their own commanders to chase after them. Before they had reorganized themselves, they found themselves in a valley so narrow, it was not even marked as such on any map.
When the mysterious cloaked figure had arrived, she or he had not come too soon. Another hour trapped in the frissure between the mountains would have annihiliated the eastern forces altogether, leaving nothing in between the path of the army of Worms on their march to Sentinel and beyond. The powerful but unknown character had with a wave of its hand destroyed the lich lords and then cracked open the valley like a girl peeling back an orange, allowing the army to retreat and regroup.
Now commanded by an alliance of factional officers, the army circled around to meet the undead forces in the Ngonta Valley, where Rourken Dwemeri ruins dotted the cliffsides and the undead dragonlings still flew overhead, acting as scouts to the Worm army that was approaching fast ...
S'reddit
Reeds's Bookstore, Ald Raathim
"Here in the bookstore? Great. We just got a new shipment from the Imperial City, hundreds of new books, and business is booming. I've had to close down the shop a couple times to do diplomatic work since that battle in Telvannis Hall ..." Glacia shook her head, grinning. "But enough about all that, what's happening in Sentinel? And in the Dragontail Mountains? I'm so happy you made it through I can't believe it. I had this horrible nightmare that you had been killed ... but how's everyone else?"
S'reddit
Reeds's Bookstore, Ald Raathim
"You died?" Glacia's eyes went wide, and her smile went away. "By Auriel, you have to tell me everything."
The Altmer closed the shop and sat with Reeds, listening to the whole story.
"I can't tell you how horrible my dream was," she said at last. "I woke up crying. And now, it turns out it was true ..."
S'reddit
Reeds's Bookshop, Ald Raathim
Glacia was a strong person, and did not normally need to have the truth filtered for her to preserve her delicate sensibilities.
Still, the tears rolled as she listened, and when he was finished, she kissed him, and said. "Thank you for coming back, like you promised."
S'reddit
Reeds's Bookshop, Ald Raathim
"Thank Auriel," Glacia said, not letting him go for some to come.
S'reddit
Mount Ewado
Red-Rock-Shadow's frost spell knocked the zombies off the peak, but her eyes went back to the cloaked figure. The Argonian hadn't seen her with the army before, but clearly they were fighting on the same side.
From her vantage point in the air, she could see something the cloaked figure couldn't: there were cracks developing along the side of the mountains she was fighting on. Red-Rock-Shadow flew quickly towards her, calling, "Watch out! You're standing on a landslide!"
The winged Argonian would have a second to catch the cloaked figure before the slope collapsed. Red-Rock-Shadow hoped the figure's enchanted agility was up for it.
S'reddit
Mount Ewado
The Argonian snatched up the figure from the air as the mountain slope slid away, carrying with it several dozen moaning undead warriors thousands of feet to the valley floor. Red-Rock-Shadow dropped down on the peak behind some black, dead trees where the two of them could see Mannimarco's army moving up towards the forces of Ramakawan.
"Nice fighting back there," the Argonian battlemage whispered as they looked at the troops. "I'm Red-Rock-Shadow from the Mages Guild."
S'reddit
Mount Ewado
"I've been in there, just a couple days ago," Red-Rock-Shadow shuddered. "It's going to take the full force of the army to break Mannimarco in there."
S'reddit
Mount Ewado
Red-Rock-Shadow could not help but chuckle. "We pick off the liches. Not a lot of people consider battling liches to be the easy way, Blade, but I'm with you."
The two female warriors got their chance a moment later when a lich with a cloak and crown of fire flew at them, rising like a nightmare over the ridge.
S'reddit
OOC -- The battles in the Dragontail Mountains are fair game for any and all. If you want your character to have a last hurrah before the RP goes on hiatus, drop in and start a sword-swinging.
S'reddit
The strategy attacked the "head" of the operations in Scourg Barrow was adopted by both the eastern and the western armies when they met. It was a harrowing battle, with heavy losses, but the lair of the Worm King was taken.
Exactly what became of Mannimarco, however, is a question of some controversy. Some of the soldiers claim he was slain in the battle, while others who were there deny that, saying a powerful lich lord, a commander of Mannimarco's troops, was faced and defeated, but not the King of Worms himself. Regardless, he disappeared and was not heard from again for many years ...
Red-Rock-Shadow found the spot in Lasthold where her companions had fallen, and took the equipment there that was still in good condition back to Sentinel, intending to have it buried. When she discovered that her allies had miraculously survived, she was overjoyed, and returned their equipment to them as the celebrations continued.
One Year Summary:
The first twelve months after the War of the Wormking saw many changes in Ald Raathim, for the better and for the worse. There was a short period of relative peace immediately following, due to a couple of factors. The most radical members of the Indoril/Redoran Alliance had been dealt a blow in Verannis Hall, and they turned their attention towards rebuilding themselves, not in any military incursions. Helseth likewise had concentrated his money and time towards improving the situation in his holdings. This unofficial truce allowed the Duchy of Ald Raathim the time to finish its rebuilding, doing away at last with the tent housing where many of its citizens had lived ever since the devastating attempted invasion.
It was not to last.
Within a few months, hostilities erupted on both sides. Molag Mar had long been a thorn in the Alliance's hegemony of Vvardenfell, and the Indoril surrounded it and attempted to defeat the royalist forces within. So confident were they, that they were not suspicious of how easy victory was won. In truth, Helseth had suspected an attack for some time, and even brought some of the heroes of Ald Raathim to Molag Mar to plan a defense which could become an offensive maneuver. The royalists and heroes by trickery allowed the army to take the city, and then, once they were in occupation, Helseth's forces detonated a series of traps, annihilating the army at the moment of their triumph. Caught off guard, the Alliance had no other army in the region, and the royalist forces took most of south-eastern Vvardenfell from Sadrith Mora to Suran before they had a chance to regroup.
Helseth launched an attack from Solsteim, using part of his own and the Altmeri fleet against the Redoran stronghold in Blacklight. His spies had correctly informed him that the Alliance had moved most of their forces further south. What he hadn't known about, however, were the mercenary Nords Queen Elysana had hired who came in from the north. Not expecting such an attack, the royalist fleet barely escaped, and Helseth himself was captured.
The Nords with their valuable captive immediately began negotiating with their allies, the Redoran, about what they could be given in exchange for him. While this was occuring, the heroes of Ald Raathim, aided by Helseth's mother Barenziah and his wife Dinara, made a daring raid on Blacklight, rescuing the King.
Thus the situation twelve months later: the King was free and possessed a sizeable piece of Vvardenfell. The Indoril/Redoran Alliance had a new powerful partner in the Nords ... though trust was not shared, and, as the next year would reveal, for good reason ...
S'reddit
Sentinel, Last Year
She had been told that her allies had survived, and was overwhelmed with relief. Seeing Slashes now, Red-Rock-Shadow had to restrain herself from running to him.
"I'm glad that you and the others made it too," she said, holding back her emotion. "I was certain you had all died in Lasthold."
S'reddit
Sentinel, A Year Ago
Red-Rock-Shadow took a few steps towards Slashes, and then stopped on his last question. Her eyes flashed with anger, her cobra-hood rising involuntarily.
"Why did I go?" she asked incredulously in Hist. "I had little choice in the matter, Hesek. I had little choice in anything for three years. I kept expecting you to come for me, to save me, but it seems you decided to join forces with my Dres master's family. I thought I could count on you, Hesek. I was wrong."
S'reddit
Sentinel, One Year Ago
ed-Rock-Shadow shivered with emotion. "Ten Argonians, four Dunmer in the band ... The mage had a scar that ran down his neck? They took me too. I was in Bodrom Mora for three years, thinking that somehow you would find me. When I went back to Black Marsh, I was told you were alive and well ... I thought that you didn't care, that you had moved on and found another mate. I hated you so much, Hesek, I couldn't stand to be in Black Marsh anymore, so I left for Summerset to be as far away as possible. That's where I learned most of my spellcasting skills and raised in the Mages Guild ..."
She shook her head. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, Hesek. Truly."
S'reddit
Prince Goranthir from 3E 430 to 3E 431
Goranthir didn't talk much about the conversation he had in Sentinel with his mother Morgiah, father Reman, grandmother Barenziah, and, when she arrived, his sister Rinnala. The family was behind closed doors for a long time. When he emerged, the Prince looked tired but reasonably happy. A lot had been discussed.
Morgiah was returning to Firsthold, but as the King's consort, not as his Queen.
Rinnala too was returning, and though she was not to have another Cotillion Ball to make up for the one her brother, as Geht, had interrupted, she was to be considered an acknowledged Princess of the Realm. Goranthir too was acknowledged as his father's son, and the Prince of Firsthold, despite his parents' divorce.
"There is still no heir to my father's kingdom," Goranthir told anyone who asked. "My father is not ready yet to name one. He is inclined towards making me his heir, to be honest, but my notoriety is at present too great. It may be best to have my sister or one of my cousins take the throne."
Much of the rest of the time in Sentinel, Goranthir spent with Rinnala. The last time she had seen him, as Geht, he had tried to kill her. She understood it was not him who was responsible, but still the siblings had to work at it to renew their bond.
After the battles in the Dragontail Mountains were over, Goranthir and a handful of his friends had returned to Taolle's grave in the cavern, to place flowers on it.
After Sentinel, Goranthir returned with the heroes to Ald Raathim. He was delighted to find that the Akarvina had been restored after the Redoran invasion, and with his own gold, he rewarded the Nords and commissioned six more warships to help rebuild the navy of Daruhn. By year's end, they were done.
Continuing the life of the adventurer, Goranthir participated in the battle of south-eastern Vvardenfell, and aided the rescue of his uncle Helseth.
When not adventuring, he spent time with the witch-priestesses of Nirn in the forest, sailing around the Inner Sea on the Akarvina, or in quiet conversation with his friends in the castle or the Nymph and Noggin. All could attest that Goranthir had returned, but there was sometimes a melacholia behind his smile, for he believed his true loves had died.
S'reddit
The Mages Guild, One Year Later
Despite praising Zadion for his work before and after the War of the Wormgod, Archmagister Traven did not change his mind about having him replaced as head of the Mages Guild of Ald Raathim. Zadion and his father, Dres Minsero, his mind still shattered from the events of Tel Dresori, left a few weeks later for Alinor. At the Guild there, he was to be the master of Destruction and Restoration, a clear reduction in rank from his position as Magister in Ald Raathim but as Alinor was an older and larger guild, the position was still an influential one.
Zadion kept in contact with Loranna over the next year, reporting Minsero's condition had improved somewhat. The old noble still suffered from amnesia and confusion, but he did not get as aggravated and panicky as before, and it seemed he had grown to know who Zadion was.
Traven's replacement for Zadion was someone he believed would be more neutral in the Civil War. Magister Oryonne Druitt was a short, bearded Breton with kind eyes and strong talents in all the schools of magicka. He was an excellent teacher, capable of explaining the most obscure concept of mysticism to a child, but seemingly less at ease with more mundane small talk. Greet him on the street with a comment about good weather, and he might trap you, babbling nonsense for hours.
He got along particularly well with Slyvos, but Glacia found his inability to answer a simple question a frustration.
Elsewhere in Morrowind, Mages Guilds reopened in Alliance lands, and a new one opened in Kragenmoor. The Magisters there were as resolute in their neutrality as Magister Druitt, and they were particularly careful not to allow any spies from either the Royalist or the Alliance sides to use their Guilds for transport ... though no one had any doubt that happened from time to time. Dram kept a particularly close watch on the Mages Guild of Ald Raathim, watching the comings and goings there, and no doubt, other captains of the guards did the same.
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Summary for Kethiah, and Alas and Alack
Kethiah happily gave advice to Loranna during the last months of her pregnancy, and was around during the delivery, and not just because she was a recent mother as well.
"I am used to blood," the former assassin said.
About that same time, she became Loranna's Spymaster again. Alas and Alack had done a reasonably good job, but they found it too much like work at times.
"The priestdom requires muchly time," Alack explained.
"And being gentlemen of leisure, we needs to spend more time at leisure," Alas added.
Kethiah continued to use the Khajiti ex-smugglers and now false priests of Zenithar for their information, but she found going back to her old job a relief.
Not, of course, that she was any less than devoted to raising her stepchildren Tyradil and Tilitalia and her new baby Eodir. She found that her humble guise of tavernkeeper was made even more innocuous when she carried a baby with her.
Eodir's first word was "Mum," followed shortly thereafter by "Da," and fumbled approximations of "Tyradil," "Tilitalia," and "Uncle Ingmar." By the end of the year, however, due to attending many meetings with his mother's agents, he had come to use the word "Bribe" to refer to any treats he wanted.
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Red-Rock-Shadow, One Year Later ...
After spending some time in Black Marsh with Slashes, and before performing the mating ceremony making him her husband, the Argonian mystic had a long conversation about their future. After all, it had been many years and they had gone quite different ways. For some time, she thought her future life lay in the Imperial City. She had become a trusted emissary of the Archmagister, and it seemed foolish to throw that away. Besides her only experience in the Dres territory of Morrowind had been as a slave, and it did not hold pleasant memories for her.
Nevertheless, Slashes's own love of Ald Raathim eventually won her over. She was quickly accepted as a teacher of the School of Destruction at the Guild, and developed a warm relationship with Magister Druitt. She also enjoyed spending time with her husband and the heroes who had been her companions in the Dragontail Mountains.
She was aware that Tsei and Slashes had some sort of a romance before she had returned, and though she tried to treat her fellow Argonian politely, the two of them could never be great friends.
Red-Rock-Shadow participated in the battle of Molag Mar, but held back on the fight to save Helseth, because she had learned she was pregnant.
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Glacia Rysleire, One Year Later ...
The Duchess's Diplomatic Adjunct and Reeds's Bookstore Employee found the year to be a busy one. As Loranna began to relax in preparation for Fjord's birth, Glacia took on more and more responsibility. She held a party to say goodbye to Magister Zadion, and another to welcome Magister Druitt to Ald Raathim; she continued to meet with Diano Asprenas, the Imperial ambassador daily; she travelled to Mournhold at least once a week to meet with the King or his courtiers; she held regular meetings with the various merchant guilds of Ald Raathim, keeping them happy during times of war and peace; the Imperial City on four occasions; and she even began traveling to Vivec, Kragenmoor, Blacklight, Tear, and other capitols of the Indoril Redoran Alliance. There was not particularly anything she accomplished during these meetings with the Alliance, except to make it clear that she was the representative of the Duchy ... and quite a capable diplomat, they had to grudgingly admit, despite being an Altmer.
She often travelled to these locations with Reeds Saloat when he was available. It was hard to imagine a more innocuous pair than the sheltered Altmeri noblewoman and her bookish Argonian friend. Together, they attended balls and social occasions all over, and she taught him more dances and more nuances of etiquette than he could ever imagine existed.
They took many more trips together, through Skyrim and Cyrodiil, High Rock, Hammerfell, Elsweyr, and Valenwood, and Glacia always made certain to combine business with fun. She made certain that Kings and Queens throughout the lands knew of Ald Raathim, and she helped increase trade.
Along the way, she finally wrote the letter King Reman asked her to write to her parents. It had taken her a few months to do it, and placing it in the hand of a courier was an act of bravery that required her friends by her side.
Lord and Lady Rysleire wrote to her shortly thereafter, and their reply was brief and cold. She was disinherited, and they never wanted to see her again.
If that surprised or bothered Glacia, she didn't show it, as she continued to do the diplomatic work of the Duchy, and prepared for more of the same at the news of Loranna's expecting again.
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Another year passes ...
Two Years After the War of the Wormgod
The year begins badly for the royalist forces. With the aid of the Nords, a massive invasion is planned of Mournhold. Fortunately, Kethiah's intelligence network and Helseth's own spies get word of it, and the royal family is divided and relocated: Helseth to Necrom, and Barenziah and Dinara to Ald Raathim.
Other attacks are met and foiled, but the one on Mournhold proves devastating to the capitol, particularly due to Faryon's push from the west. Other Alliance battles in northern Morrowind were also met with success.
The tide started to turn as Elysana's Nords attempted an invasion of Firewatch. The neutral Telvanni struck back, forcing the Alliance forces to flee, negating most of their conquest in northern Morrowind.
The Alliance split up, as the Indoril and Redoran, furious at the Nords' unsanctioned behavior which had forced a neutral party into joining Helseth's side. The Nords responded by securing Solsteim for themselves, and launching an attack on Blacklight, the Redoran seat which they had saved from the royalist attack the previous year. As the Redoran regrouped, sending more of their forces to defend Blacklight, Helseth found a weakness in northern Vvardenfell, and took advantage of it.
Thus, the situation in the civil war at the end of the year 3E 432 was this: in the north-west, the Redoran and Nord forces were battling one another, neither gaining the upper hand; in the north-east, the Telvanni and Helseth had control of the land again; in Mournhold, the city was being rebuilt after the Redoran/Indoril attack, but was occupied again by the royal family; in Vvardenfell, the island was facing the greatest battles of the war yet, gradually turning in the royalists' favor; in the County of Kragenmoor, Faryon was receiving an influx of soldiers fleeing the losing battles in Vvardenfell, strengthening his holdings.
Queen Dinara was particularly aggrieved by this. As Faryon's power base strengthened, it would harder and harder to retrieve her brother Dres Obael from his lands, either by force, subterfuge, or diplomacy.
Ald Raathim had survived the year unscathed and unthreatened. Her heroes had participated in many of the battles, but had thankfully not been forced to defend their home.
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Summary, Goranthir, 3E 431 – 3E 432
Goranthir had helped escort his grandmother and aunt from Mournhold to Ald Raathim as the word of the attack on Mournhold got out. Over the next several months, he spent a lot of time with both. His sister Rinnala came from Firsthold to join the family reunion. One day, he went to Loranna and told her that the time had come for him to return to Summerset.
Reman would have to declare an heir, and after much deliberation, Goranthir decided that it was his duty to become Crown Prince and Heir Apparent. Rinnala had never had her freedom, and it would not be fair to burden her with that, after he had several years to grow. Besides, he admitted, Ald Raathim, as much as he loved it, still reminded the Prince too much of Allerleirauh and Tris.
In Sun's Height, just before Helseth's counterattacks in Vvardenfell and after a great riot of a party, Goranthir set sail aboard the Akarvina for Firsthold. He left behind him the six new ships he had purchased to be Ald Raathim's fledgling navy.
For some time, nothing more was heard from him, as he completed the long voyage and arrived in the city. There was much to do to reassure the people of Firsthold that their Prince was not, as rumored, a servitor of the dread Mannimarco. He wrote to his friends with his progress, and to tell them that his Investiture Ceremony was to happen in Frostfall, and all were invited.
Any who attended the Ceremony saw Goranthir crowned with even more pomp and glamor than the typical Altmeri festival. Plays and poems, tournaments and races, dances and feasts were held night after night for a week. King Reman and Royal Consort Morgiah seemed genuinely proud and pleased with their son. Privately, to his friends, he confessed that he had even met a girl. As kingly as he had become, it was still obvious there were some parts of the typical shy 18-year-old that remained.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 432
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Ghazal A-kemi sat in the shadowy room off the Arena of Ald Raathim, staring at himself in a bent but still shiny silver shield in the corner. He was 18 years old, thin but sinewy. He glared at his own bald-pated, Redguard face, forming an expression he knew would intimidate his opponent.
He pulled out his swort sword. It wasn't a great one, he knew, just iron, but he polished it hard so it shone and looked much more expensive than it was.
He had to focus his mind, he told himself. He couldn't think about who was maybe in the stands watching. The Duchess of Ald Raathim. The Queen and Queen Mother of Morrowind ...
The opponent Ghazal would be facing, he understood, was new at the Arena battles at well. Whoever he was, he was a local, and undefeated in the half dozen fights he had already been in. He was apparently a pure warrior.
Ghazal smiled as he thought of the spells he knew: merely a fireball spell and a charm for personal healing, but that should give him the advantage over this fellow. It was smart, Ghazal thought, to have done this research before hand.
The sound of applause died away outside. Evidently, the last Arena fight was over. Ghazal went to the door to be announced.
As he stepped out into the cool, Springtide wide open court of the Arena, and saw his opponent for the first time, Ghazal A-kemi silently swore.
"Stendarr, it's a girl," he spat, annoyed.
Still, he gave the 14-year-old Nord girl, Tilitalia, the "look" of intimidation, and began spinning his short sword, bent slightly over, preparing to spring ...
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Kethiah too had been out of the way, having a meeting with one of her agents, in a shaded spot far from listening ears. When Tilitalia's match was called, she brought the meeting to an end, and moved to the edge of the Arena to watch. She smiled. Even from this distance, she could see the concentration in Tilitalia's eyes. She was tall for her age already, but still several inches shorter than the older teenaged Redguard, and even thinner than him, all legs and arms, like a coltish pony.
She looked to Ghazal too, and saw the childish stare of intimidation he offered Tilitalia. That almost made Kethiah laugh. He thought he could scare the little girl.
No chance of that. Kethiah had been training with Tilitalia. It was not quite the training she herself had received in her youth, the training of the Morag Tong, but Tilitalia was a dedicated student and a fierce fighter.
Kethiah took a seat, not noticing how close Anya was, as intent as she was in the match's beginning.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Glacia had always particularly enjoyed Arena fights – of a sort. She wasn't a bloodthirsty girl, but after a day of negotiating, politely, matters of great importance, it was refreshing for a diplomat to sit and watch people go at it more honestly. In truth, she thought of herself as Loranna's gladiatorial combatant, going against the Emperor, the Redoran/Indoril Alliance, Helseth, and whoever else came along, but in a sweet way.
The point being, she dragged Reeds to any fight she could, and they were both present at this occasion.
Glacia loved every second of every moment she was with Reeds. Could she imagine tearing off her clothes and leaping upon his cold, reptilian scales? No, though she had tried imaging it – it would be so much easier if she could. The truth was that try as she might, she had never found anyone as well-read and funny and wise as him. And though she thought, seeing Slashes and Red-Rock-Shadow, that it would have been better if Reeds had met another Argonian, she would be insanely jealous if anyone else had sparked his attention.
But still, here at the Arena, in a good seat, she held his clawed hand, and rooted for Tilitalia, the daughter of Reeds's friend Isidor, one of the men who had come to rescue her in Firsthold, two years before.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
The expression on Ghazal's face changed quickly as he noted Tilitalia's advanced maneuver and her skill with her blade. He pivoted to avoid being hit on the head, but was struck on his non-sword arm. Wincing, he moved out of her range, and cast a healing spell on the wound.
"Nicely done," the Redguard said. "I won't underestimate you again."
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Ghazal side-stepped the sword swing, and elegantly moved to a reverse roundhouse kick, aimed at the precise moment when she had landed from the jump and hadn't righted her balance yet.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Tilitalia narrowly missed being hit in the gut by Khazal's sword swing. Instead, it stabbed at her leg, but gave her time to retrieve her sword.
In the stands, Kethiah's eyes remained on the fight, but at the sight of Tilitalia's blood, her hand grasped Isidor's.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
"She's losing her temper," Kethiah sighed to Isidor, watching them. "She has to watch that. She's already wounded, she'll be exhausted soon ... This is the first time she's fought someone better than her, and she's frustrated."
Ghazal took advantage of this, using the minimum of energy to stay close to her, encouraging the attacks, while dodging them.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Ghazal moved into attack position, and then, unexpectedly, launched a fireball at Tilitalia with his free hand.
Kethiah jumped to her feet.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
With a deft flick of his blade, Ghazal knocked the sword out of Tilitalia's hand and grabbed it. Now with both blades at her throat, he said, respectfully, "Do you yield?"
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Ghazal A-kemi grinned and handed her back her sword, wiping the sweat from his brow with his newly freed hand. "Good fight."
Together they bowed to the Duchess, Queen, and Queen-Mother in the stands.
Kethiah pulled at Isidor's hand. "Come on. Let's go talk to her. She's bound to be disappointed, poor thing. We have to let her know that it was bound to happen sometime."
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
"Better," Kethiah smiled. "There are few little things I noticed in your stance and your swing we can work on later, but I'm proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself. We all face a stronger opponent than ourselves sometimes, and the trick is learning from it."
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OOC -- One more Overall Summary to go leading up to the events of Oblivion, so get your character summaries in.
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Summary – The Mages Guild and Imperial Embassy of Ald Raathim, 3E 431 – 3E 432
Under the leadership of Magister Druitt, the Mages Guild of Ald Raathim expanded its research facilities several fold. Its rather weak library was now the finest in the town. The Guild bought one of the larger nearby townhouses, connected it to the Guild, and filled it: even Slyvos found it to be exhaustive in its breadth, and filled with odd, delightful old tomes he didn't think existed anymore. This was accomplished through a combination of Druitt's own connections and patronage of Reeds's bookshop. The arrangement sometimes took some getting used to, divided up among many rooms, but it was delightful to spend an afternoon in an obscure, quiet former parlor or bedroom, surrounded by books on enchanting or mysticism, knowing that no one would find you or disturb you. If any one did, it was probably the Magister himself, and you would be wise to flee, or get caught in a rambling discussion of some obscure point, which hardly anyone except Slyvos would have found at all interesting.
Across the Village Green, meanwhile, the austere Imperial Embassy had been completed. The last touch was an enormous Cherim tapestry across the formerly rather cold foyer, depicting the Empress Alessia breaking her chains of slavery. It had come from ambassador Diano Asprenas's personal collection, and he thought it was an appropriate for Ald Raathim. As he finally had a permanent residence in Ald Raathim, he called for his family to join him – a wife, Boydra, a 6-year-old son, Clydetes. Both as fat and as pompous as him.
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
"You think any of us won all our fights?" Kethiah asked, and pointed to her one violet-colored eye. "I got this as a result of facing an opponent who was stronger than me, and I was much older than you are now. You have many more victories in your future, but there will be more defeats as well. I know you don't have any contempt for the people you've beaten, because you know they are training now as we speak to get better. Don't have contempt for yourself. Tomorrow, why don't we go hunting?"
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11 Rain's Hand 3E 321
The Arena of Ald Raathim
Kethiah nodded, smiling at her stepdaughter. "Yes, we'd better. Eodir will want to her all about his hero's adventures."
It was true that Eodir worshipped his big sister and big brother. And Kethiah didn't have to tell them to set a good example for him, both Tyradil and Tilitalia knew it.
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1 Evening Star, 3E 432
As Nalion lay in his cell, listening to the steady dripping of rain water down moldering but still sturdy walls, and the monotonous droning of the prisoners in the other cells, inmates who had been stuck in this dungeon for Gods know how long, his eyes began to grow heavy.
He finds himself in the tower at Castle Daruhn. There is fire in the distance, and he sees ships of Redoran design approaching rapidly. His arms are outstretched, and he hears the echo of his own voice:
Shining brightly
Twinkling in darkness
Alluring the wise and the lovers alike
Released you are,
Light
In a blaze of fire
Glorious and deadly I call to you
Help me
Turn the tide
Which is odd, because when he spoke those words, and called down the stars on the armada at the siege of Ald Raathim, it was soundless.
Nevertheless, the twin stars are glowing brightly in the horizon, and he catches, just for an instance, an outline of a dragon in the constellations.
"Where is this place?" asks a familiar voice. Lady Somnia Nyx stood in the tower behind him. She looked frightened. "Where are you?"
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1 Evening Star, 3E 432
"I know it's a dream, it's your dream," Lady Nyx said, shivering. "I'm not worried about any of this, it's not real, or it's not real anymore anyhow ... But I don't know where you are. You haven't been sleeping soundly, or I haven't been able to find you for some reason for ... a long time now ..."
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1 Evening Star, 3E 432
"You're in prison," Lady Nyx's frightened eyes turned to resolve. "Well, that's nonsense. I'll go to the Imperial City at once and talk to my solicitor ..." She frowned. "Who thinks I'm dead."
"Hmm," the Imperial noblewoman shook her head. "I could let your friends know ... I could visit them in dreams. Or, at least try."
S'reddit
"All right, I'll try," Lady Nyx replied, frowning a little as she tried to understand the joke. "I've never gotten into anyone else's dream before, so it might take a while, but, well, maybe it'll be easier since I came from her dream before ... I'll come back here tomorrow and every night to make sure everything's okay."
And she kept her word. For every night, Lady Nyx returned to Nalion's dreams in his cells, to tell him of her attempts to reach Loranna, and to listen to his stories. Each night, the setting they would meet in would be a little different, sometimes a scene out of his past, sometimes a nonsensical location perhaps from his imagination or even a prophetic image of things to come.
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Summary, Two and A Half Years After The War of the Wormgod -- 3E 433
The new year began with an attempt to rescue Dres Obael from occupied Bodrom Mora. Several of the heroes of Ald Raathim played a part in this, but it ultimately ended in failure. Indoril Faryon's troops were too entrenched in the mainland plains. The heroes elected to withdraw to avoid shedding of innocent blood to rescue Queen Dinara's brother.
Obael, however, was freed but a few months later. Though the Alliance was strong in the County of Kragenmoor, Vvardenfell was finally taken by the royalist factions. The Redoran had moved en masse to Blacklight to defend their realm there, and the Indoril continued their immigration south to the much safer lands of Kragenmoor.
Thus, both sides had firm possession of their respective areas, and neither was likely to move an inch without massive warfare. It was then that Helseth and Faryon and Muthsera Mortillara met and made a truce.
Morrowind is Helseth's kingdom now, including the County of Kragenmoor. Blacklight too, though no representative of the Redoran was present at the negotiations. Faryon was to keep Kragenmoor and was not required to dissolve his army, as others had been required to do. Dres Obael was freed as part of the truce, and returned to Mournhold and his joyous sister.
The Civil War therefore had come to an end, of sorts. In reality, a cold war continued to be waged, one of espionage and border fighting. Kragenmoor was nominally part of Morrowind, but there could be no doubt, that was only officially -- in reality, it was a separate entity, often hostile to its supposed "liege."
It meant more work for Glacia Rysleire, as Duchess's diplomat, and Kethiah, as the Duchess's Spymaster.
The Duchess also received an interesting invitation. Crown Prince Geldall had become engaged to be married, and a ball in celebration was to be held in the Imperial City at the palace on the 27th of Last Seed, 3E 433.
It is here we find our heroes, preparing to go to the ball, which promises to be, well, quite a party ...
Not one to be missed.
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The Nymph and Noggin, 3E 433
Kallen was at the castle, trying to calm the rumors that were flooding the place, with merchants and farmers arriving to ask what it meant for Ald Raathim that its ruler was imprisoned.
Glacia Rysleire immediately upon hearing word went to the Imperial Embassy to talk to Diano Asprenas about the situation, to demand that the charges against Loranna be known.
Kethiah emerged at last from upstairs, looking tired after countless meetings with her agents, trying to determine what had befallen Loranna and why ... She looked to the group assembled in the tavern, and shook her head ...
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The Nymph and Noggin, 3E 433
"I wish I had more details," Kethiah nodded, joining the group. "It seems to have happened very suddenly and very silently at the Arcane Library in the Imperial City ..."
Glacia Rysleire had come into the Nymph and listened before adding. "Our Imperial Ambassador was as surprised by this development as any of us. He can confirm that the Duchess is in custody in the Imperial City on a warrant issued some years ago after the events of the Hearthfire Ball of Lord Darius's. His excellency is trying to get in contact with the Emperor, but it appears he is not in the Imperial City at the moment. I am leaving at once to talk to Prince Ebel, who is in charge in his father's absence."
"This is not a simple bureaucratic slip-up," Kethiah continued. "The warrant was real, but it obviously should have been thrown away because of all the good work the Duchess and the heroes of Ald Raathim have done for the Empire. Someone brought it forward while Loranna was visiting ... Someone who wishes us ill, but I don't know yet who that could be. My agents are investigating."
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The Nymph and Noggin, 3E 433
"Hopefully, I'll be able to sort this all out quickly," said Glacia, getting up from the table. "But in the meantime, don't respond like the Duke, and get yourself arrested. That will not be helpful ... As I'm sure Loranna is pointing out to him as we speak."
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The Nymph and Noggin, 3E 433
"The invitation is always open, you know that, Reeds," Glacia smiled, though her eyes were serious. "I don't know exactly what we'll be facing. It might be boring, diplomatic talks ... It might be something else ..."
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Nalion's Dream, Mid Year 3E 433
"You're still having nightmares?" Lady Nyx asked, coming out of the smoke and ash. "I can't imagine how horrible it must be, in that dungeon. Have you had any luck getting an audience with the Emperor?"
Glacia's Diplomatic Mission, Mid Year through Sun's Height 3E 433
Lady Glacia Rysleire, accompanied by Reeds Saloat, negotiated their way through the bureaucratic and diplomatic morass of the government of the Imperial City for over two months, in a frustrating and ultimately futile attempt to free Loranna. They were unable to even visit the Duchess in her cell. Glacia pulled out every favor she knew, even getting letters of commendation from Helseth and Barenziah, Reman and Goranthir, but to no avail. The Law had come down against Loranna, Slyvos, and Nalion, and that was that, unless the Emperor interceded on their behalf.
The issue came down to the fact that the warrant for the Duchess's arrest was legitimate, and the bureaucrats would not overturn it without the Emperor granting an official pardon. He was due to return to the Imperial City the next month, Last Seed, for his son's Engagement Party.
Angry and frustrated, Glacia and Reeds returned to Ald Raathim. There was nothing more that could be done, but to attend the Ball on the 27th, and speak directly to Uriel Septim VII.
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Nalion's Dream, Mid Year 3E 433
Lady Nyx nodded, sadly. "Yes, I was finally able to contact her ... She's very close to you. And she's dreaming now."
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Nalion's Dream, Mid Year 3E 433
"I'll bring them to you, if I can," said Lady Nyx, concentrating.
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"Perhaps you might discuss your children, instead of yourselves," Lady Nyx said, perspiration gathered on her brow as she tried to keep the dreams united. "I can try to bring you three together when I can ... tomorrow, hopefully, if you slumber at the same time ..."
And with that, the dream ended, but Lady Somnia Nyx would bring them together a dozen more times before the Engagement Ball.
Sheogorath
Update:
The Imperial City in the last months of 3E 433 was seasonably cool and clement. The sky over the capitol is a curtain of blue with nary a cloud, peaceful yet expectant, while all below, the city seethes with activity, particularly around the palace.
In just a day's time, it will be the engagement party of Crown Prince Geldall and his bride-to-be. It had been decades since an Imperial Prince had taken a wife, the Emperor's wife having died long ago, and their sons quite middle-aged bachelors all. Every king and count in the Empire had tried unsuccessfully to link a daughter to Enman, Ebel, or Geldall, but none of the delicate flowers of romance and politics had taken root. It was scarcely any wonder. Had a Prince taken a bride from any of the provinces, he would have alienated the other nine. If he chose a mate from Cyrodiil, he would have been missing an opportunity for a good alliance.
The actual identity of this girl whom Geldall intended to make his wife, who would someday doubtless be Empress of Tamriel was a well-guarded secret. So much so that no one knew where Geldall, the Emperor, and this mystery woman was for several months before the Engagement Ball, where she would be revealed to all.
One thing that people noted as the palace began preparations for the Ball was the abundance of fountains, waterspouts, and other aquatic décor that was being installed for the occasion. Was this theme a hint? The palace observed wondered.
The better taverns in the Imperial City were quickly filling up, but rooms were available in all quarters, as the citizens found it profitable to rent their rooms for the occasion
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Summary
Glacia Rysleire made certain that she and Reeds were in the Imperial City long before the ball, and continued to make entreaties to the guard to let her speak with the Emperor when he arrived, or at least let her meet with the Duchess. To the former request, the guards told her that there were many people who wished to meet with the Emperor after his long absence, and she would have to wait her turn in the hierarchy of importance. To the latter request, she was denied again, until she hit on an unusual strategy.
Kallen still had the Duchess's invitation to the Engagement Ball. The diplomat produced it, and after some discussion, it was agreed that it was good currency. The Duchess would be permitted to attend the Ball, under guard.
That small goal accomplished, Glacia returned to the tavern room she had booked with Reeds Saloat. For the last week, in deference to the Imperials, she had worn light-colored, simple gowns of their style. Now, she wore a dress of Dunmeri design, which was a trifle more revealing that her usual modest attire.
"I have to get the Emperor's attention as soon as I see him," she explained with a slight frown to Reeds when he saw her. "And I have to use every trick in the book, even the oldest one a woman uses to attract a man's attention."
Kethiah, her husband Isidor, her brother-in-law Ingmar, her stepchildren Tyradil and Tilitalia, and her three-year-old son Eodir left for Cyrodiil the day before the Ball, traveling by Guild Guide to the Imperial City. It would be nice and educational for the children to see the Imperial Province, but they could not be gone from the Nymph and Noggin for more than a couple days. Besides, Kethiah had other obligations to attend to, which she could temporarily re-entrust to Alas and Alack, but not for very long.
It had been difficult, worrying about Loranna, Slyvos, and Nalion, and trying to gather intelligence about their well-being, but Kethiah could not help but smile at how nice her little clan looked, dressed for the ball. She was particularly impressed with Tilitalia, though she suspected her stepdaughter did not like to be in such formal "girly" clothes, as she had become quite the Arena warrior. As for Eodir, she was not worried about him at all: though he was strong and active, he was an unusually quiet toddler, and very well-behaved.
The family found a house on the outskirts of the city where they could stay, and prepare for the party.
Sheogorath
The music that filtered through the palace, by musicians placed at strategic locations to pick up and carry the arrangement wherever the guests wandered, was soft and tinkling, also like a gentle stream.
No one entering the palace could be of any doubt that security was in force. Battlemages and knights wore the uniform of the Imperial Guard, and their eyes were everywhere.
"No magery," the battlemages would discreetly whisper to any obvious sorcerors as they entered. "By order of the Emperor. No exceptions."
Already, there was much gossip, not all of it centered on whether the Emperor was back yet, or who the mysterious woman was who had taken Prince Geldall's heart. The royal family of Mournhold were in attendance, as were the major powers of the former Indoril/Redoran Alliance. The royal family of Firsthold were expected soon. Sovereigns from all over the Empire were present, and discovered by a little exploration through the salons of the palace. There was Queen Barenziah, who had heard what the theme of the ball was through her spies, and was appropriately dressed in an azure-blue gown that shimmered with gems as if kissed by dew. There was Queen Elysana, who also had spies and also dressed in an aquatic manner, but with a different interpretation: her dark amethyst colored gown appeared like a sea in a storm, with silver filigree representing whirlpools and tidal waves.
The former stepmother and stepdaughter greeted one another politely before moving on.
The guests looked at one another. If those two could be polite, surely this would be a very peaceful evening.
Sheogorath
A slim, beautiful Redguard teenager in a shimmering silver slip of a dress and a matching diadem smiled when she saw P'Rassha and walked over to him.
"You wouldn't remember me, sir," she said. "But you once held me upside down at a wedding in Daggerfall. I'm Mynisera."
Sheogorath
Kethiah rushed forward out of the crowd to gently embrace Loranna and kiss her cheek.
"Glacia is trying to speak to the Emperor now before his entrance, but she told me to make sure you were all right," the former assassin said, looking at Loranna.
Sheogorath
Kethiah looked to Nalion, and she could see the shock in her eyes before she disguised it. The truth was, she hadn't recognized him at all. She embraced him as well. "It has been, Nalion. Too long."
Sheogorath
Kethiah smiled. "Just don't tell Tilitalia how pretty she looks. It makes her turn reddish-purple."
Sheogorath
Kethiah laughed. "Oh, she doesn't care the first thing about politeness and etiquette, just bashing people with swords in the arena. Her stepmother, however, thanks you very kindly for the compliment."
It was true. She had lost the weight from pregnancy long ago, everywhere except in her face, so her normally sharp features had been softened. She had also not cut her hair since leaving her career as an assassin, and now it was quite long and jet black, complimenting the emerald green dress she was wearing for the occasion.
Sheogorath
"He's here, somewhere," Kethiah nodded. "Glacia is trying to speak with him on your behalf even now. The best she could do without meeting with him was to get you freed from prison for the evening, since, after all, you did have proper invitations."
Sheogorath
Kethiah frowned. "Did you doubt before that we were trying our hardest to free you?"
Sheogorath
A momentary chill went into Anya's bones and disappeared almost instantly. There was another vampire at the Ball. It was, at least she knew, not a Cyrodilic, as they could not be "felt," but that left many, many other possibilities.
Sheogorath
The crowd parted for the King and Queen of Morrowind to pass through, approaching the group. Helseth wore an ancient crown of the Chimer, with five points curving inward like blades, supporting one in the middle: what it symbolized in elder days was debatable, but today, it meant Five Houses Under One King. Dinara wore a blue-gray gown with a cloak with a raised collar, like waves rising.
The Queen embraced Loranna, while Helseth spoke. "Fortunately, it will not come to that. It is good to see you embracing your sister, Count Faryon, with all your heart. And it is good to see you and your husband have survived this ordeal, Your Grace. I never had any doubt that you would, if it could be done. I have spoken to the Emperor about this, while your diplomatic adjunct was seeking his audience. I believe you will be freed soon."
"Quite good things, thank you, P'Rassha," Mynisera smiled. She was only thirteen now, but every bit the beauty Aubk-i had been when she took the throne of Daggerfall. "I just had to come over and say hello. I've told many friends the story about the great tiger who picked me up and held me upside down, and you know, I don't think any of them believed me. I was glad to see you weren't entirely a product of my childhood imagination."
Sheogorath
"Your diplomat can fill you in on the details when she returns from the Emperor," Helseth nodded, and then turned to Dinara. "Where is your brother? He demanded that we bring him here so he could see the Duchess, and then he disappears again ..."
Dinara laughed. "He was with me when we passed that beautiful Khajiiti princess, and then he just vanished --"
"Here I am!" Dres Obael said, running over. He was, as usual, not quite formally dressed enough, a little messy, and very handsome. "I'm sorry, I thought I knew her -- Loranna!"
He embraced her, correcting himself. "I am sorry, your Grace."
"We're working on his courtly manners," Helseth frowned. "But he's a hopeless case."
Sheogorath
"Oh, the Duchess of Ald Raathim? I know exactly where she is, someone pointed her out to me. I guess her imprisonment is something of a scandal?" Princess Mynisera said, taking P'Rassha's paw. "I'll show you."
Thus, the young teenaged Redguard Princess of a Breton kingdom, and the nine-foot-tall Khajiit made their way to the group.
Sheogorath
Kingston Mune's attention was on an Imperial man and woman, a rather nondescript pair, not particularly attractive or well-dressed, really part of the scenery. He turned to her as soon as she could sense the chill, and she knew he could feel it from her too.
He had, of course, not changed at all in the last three and a half years, nor for that matter in the hundred years that preceded that. But he was elegantly dressed, befitting the occasion, in a light-blue tunic that set off his deep tan. Anya could tell he had fed recently.
He clearly did not recognize her, and the look he gave her was polite, but there was warning in his eyes, as if to say I do not want trouble, but I am ready to fight, fellow vampire.
"I'm afraid I don't remember you, like you feared, friend, but please don't take that personally," the Dres noble smiled. "My brother-in-law will tell you my mind is addled."
Helseth frowned at this characterization.
"Well, I was under house arrest in my own castle, which is rather more pleasant than what you've been through," Obael shook his head, and then blushed slightly at the mention of the Harvest Princess. "At least, it used to be my castle. That swine Faryon has it now."
"A small price to pay for your freedom," Dinara smiled softly.
Sheogorath
"Yes, of course, you were the large Khajiit involved, if I remember correctly," said Helseth, not smiling.
"Don't look now, but the King of Morrowind just made a joke," Dinara giggled.
"And we were here at the first," Obael laughed.
Helseth nodded, still not smiling, and then bowed slightly to the group. "Pardon me, I should have a word with someone here."
As he withdrew, Dinara whispered, more seriously. "Elysana's here."
Sheogorath
"Oh," Kingston took a moment to understand. "Oh, hello, Anya. Fancy meeting you in a place like this. As for not wanting to be found ... they know what you are."
His eyes went back to the Imperial couple, whose eyes, in turn, had never left Kingston and Anya.
S'reddit
"Is it over?" Dinara asked quietly. "I wish I was sure."
"As far as His Majesty's humor goes, though," Obael rolled his eyes. "That's him on a good day, as you know."
Dinara punched her brother, but with affection.
S'reddit
"You know me, I don't like to make plans," Kingston winked. "I figured I just try to slip out during the day. Though even that isn't foolproof against the Cyrodilics ... But let's talk about you, briefly, before returning to the fascinating tale of my imminent demise. Clearly, you've been training, Anya. When I saw you last, claws were the best you could do. I hope this means you're embracing your unlife more?"
S'reddit
It was not to last long. Loranna noticed one of the captains of the guard approaching, whispering something to the guards in the vicinity. The guards walked up to her, Slyvos, and Nalion.
"It's time to go," the guard said.
"They've been out of their cells for just a few hours," Kethiah said, anger in her eyes. "They were invited to come to the Ball, not just to see it and be thrown back into the dungeon."
"I'm sorry, I have my orders, my lady," the guard replied, looking to her. "Please don't interfere."
"I'll tell the King, it'll be all right," said Dinara quickly, heading into the crowds. Obael after a confused moment, ran after her.
"Please, your grace," the guard said. "Don't make this difficult. Come along."
Kingston made a silent "shh" noise to Anya, in a frequency mortals could not hear, as the red-haired Breton approached.
"Lovely party," he smiled to her politely, clearly not recognizing Dayla either.
S'reddit
The guards escorted the three back towards the dungeon, but instead of turning down the steps, they opened a rather plain door, and went into a back room.
It was a simple, undecorated room, large enough for a couple tables and chairs. Seated behind the closest table was the Emperor of Tamriel, Uriel Septim VII. He was dressed grandly, but simply.
On one side of him was Barenziah, Queen Mother of Morrowind, and next to her, Glacia Rysleire. On the other was the Emperor's son and heir the Imperial Prince Geldall, and a woman who must surely be his mysterious fiancee. She was a vision with honey-colored hair, and skin of the palest pink, like the blush of a rose. Loranna guessed she was a Breton, because at one angle, she looked elvish and at another human.
For all the mysterious woman's beauty, one's attention was set on the old man who rose at the three heroes' approach.
"Ah, yes, of course, I remember them from Sentinel," the Emperor said, frowning a little. "It seems that something went wrong between there and here, doesn't it?"
Kingston Mune cocked his head, and then grinned. "By the Dog, Dayla! This party is getting lovelier and lovelier. Are you here together? Not at each's throats nowadays? That's marvelous, marvelous."
S'reddit
"Let me say from the first that I am not quite so senile to forget Sentinel and the heroes of Ald Raathim rescuing me during that terrible time with the Azurites," the Emperor said slowly, looking Loranna, Nalion, and Slyvos over with an old but sharp eye. "Your friends must truly love you, for they have been pestering me non-stop since my arrival earlier today, disrupting all my other business until I was fully briefed on your case. Or cases, I should say, as Master Nalion has been charged with different offenses ... But let us talk first about you, Loranna Pyrel ..."
Uriel Septim VII brought out the warrant and put it in front of Loranna.
"You should know what this pertains to. I would hear your thoughts on the matter."
"That's good," Kingston smiled. "It's a rare thing when 100% of any vampire tribe gets along that well, even if it is two out of two. As far Skyrim, it was -- I think you'll be surprised to hear this -- quite cold. I got far up north, and into a scrape when I was lured to a mountain peak which turned out to be an iceberg that floated away. As you know, water and my kind are not compatible, so I had to wait until the winter and the sea froze again to return ... That was a hungry autumntide, but ... I made up for it. Are you hunting now, Anya?"
S'reddit
"I told you how to contact me if there was an emergency when I left," Kingston chuckled, shaking his head. "If you had been thoughtful enough to have an emergency, I might not have ended up on that blessed iceberg for four months."
S'reddit
"The crimes are quite serious," the Emperor said thoughtfully. "It is a very lucky thing for us all that this warrant was never served until years later, for words of regret and deeds of penitence are two very different things -- and I doubt I would have given you the chance to give you the opportunity to earn your freedom had I judged you then ..."
He took the warrant from Loranna, and with a slightly palsied hand, held it over a candle, watching it burn.
"You may not consider your past crimes redeemed yet, your Grace, but I do."
"Since I've more or less stumbled into a Cyrodilic ambush right here at this very Ball, I know what you mean," Kingston laughed, looking slightly over his shoulder at the Imperial couple, who were talking to other guests, but whose eyes wandered across the ball towards Dayla, Anya, and Kingston from time to time. "And, why o why, did the theme of this wretched thing have to be water?"
S'reddit
"My dear Anya, I've enjoyed my hundred years of complacency immensely," Kingston grinned. "I'm very happy to find the easy way out of this, but I don't really know how many Cyrodilics there are here tonight. I only happened to know that tiresome couple because I've tussled with them before. They're flammable, but tough. Mylvor and Maerdra Tyricles. And they hunt in packs."
S'reddit
"I am sorry," the Emperor said, noticing Loranna looking to Geldall and his fiancee. "I should have introduced you -- or, would that spoil the grand reveal?"
"I'm sure it's fine, father," Geldall replied, holding his fiancee's hand. "All this skulking about for the purposes of high drama is getting enormously tedious. As you are no doubt aware, your Grace, it was difficult finding a bride who would not alienate someone by my choice. The only thing I could do was to find a way to marry Tamriel itself. But how -?"
"By Akatosh, you delivered this impromptu speech better the first through tenth time you told it," the Breton woman chuckled, kissing Geldall's hand fondly, before turning to Loranna. "Very honored to meet you, your Grace. My name is Tamrialle."
S'reddit
Tamrialle smiled at the compliment, blushing, and looking to her fiance, who was grinning. It was quite evident this was a love match, not a political match.
"Well, we should settle these other matters quickly so we can introduce her to everyone else, who are no doubt getting restless," Uriel Septim VII said, smiling himself. It was obvious how fond this father-in-law-to-be was about his son's choice. "On the matter of His Grace, Duke Slyvos, well, it's hard to be too strict on a fellow angry at his wife's imprisonment, particularly as we ourselves considered the matter resolved. Still, I cannot anyone to attack my men no matter how justified he may feel the cause is. There will be a fine, and a large one, but I consider the matter closed ..."
The Emperor turned to Nalion, and then to Loranna. "You're free to go, if you'd wish. The matter of Master Nalion does not concern you, unless it does as a friend."
Kingston laughed. "I should have left you two bitter enemies, and then you couldn't gang up on me and my evil plans. Very well, let's mingle."
S'reddit
"We've no objection," Uriel Septim VII said, taking out several papers, and handing them to Nalion. "Would you be kind enough to explain these to us?"
S'reddit
The Queen of Wayrest in her seastorm gown saw Faryon coming, and excused herself from the conversation she was having with the Count of Leyawiin. She met the Indoril halfway. Lady Beauty, the hideous orc who was her Minister of War, joined them.
"Well, well, well, Count Kragenmoor," she smiled sweetly. "I haven't seen you in some time. How have you been?"
Sheogorath
The Emperor listened carefully, and then said. "Master Nalion, how dangerous would you consider these documents to be in trained or untrained hands?"
Sheogorath
"I have had some very learned men take a look at these documents, and they tell me that they are very dangerous indeed, even to untrained," Uriel Septim VII said, frowning, as he took them from Nalion's hands. "Too dangerous to be lying around a tavern room. Too dangerous to be out in the open at all. We know you used them for the best of purposes, but not everyone would be so noble."
Sheogorath
"There are, of course, fines, mandatory imprisonment, and corporal punishment associated with the possession of such material," the Emperor said, looking grim, and then he smiled and rose. "Unfortunately, I've left my law books elsewhere. I think your long time waiting in prison for my justice far exceeds any sentence I would give you. I do not take lightly the dangers in these documents, but it is transparently obvious that your sin was, as you say, carelessness, not malevolence."
"Renault," Uriel said, turning to the female guard in the room. "Please release these prisoners. Their crimes have been amply punished."
Sheogorath
"Wayrest has hardly changed at all, particularly compared to Morrowind," the Queen replied. "I congratulate you on your personal success. It must be very pleasant not to have war in your Province anymore, united as it is under one King."
Sheogorath
"Do you know, I feel the stars are shining brightly on me tonight," Uriel turned to look fondly on his son and his daughter-in-law-to-be. "But I thank you for your kind blessing. Now, go, enjoy yourselves at the Ball. We need to get ready for our entrance."
Barenziah and Glacia also bowed, and stepped out of the room with Nalion, Slyvos, and Loranna.
Sheogorath
"I can't see why you would want Helseth gone as much as I do, as you think exactly like he does," Elysana replied, the smile still on her face, but her eyes flashing. "If you will excuse me."
As Elysana left, Lady Beauty turned to Faryon. "Strange as it may be, that was actually a compliment from the Queen."
Sheogorath
Barenziah smiled modestly, before breaking into a laugh at the sight of Loranna being thrown into the air. "Your adjunct did all the work."
"All respect, your highness," Glacia, also giggling said to her, watching Loranna and P'Rassha. "But that is nonsense."
Sheogorath
Glacia smiled. "Thank you, your Grace, it's good to see you free," she said, before Reeds took her to dance.
To Reeds's query, she giggled. "Wait 'til you see Prince Geldall's fiancee. You understand that no one was looking at me with anything other than the barest of interest."
"Oh, please, this is much better news than that old Prince Geldall finally found a wife," Barenziah laughed.
S'reddit
The tinkling, light, melodic music faded to silence, and the orchestra struck up the anthem of the Septim Empire. All eyes went to the great doors to the throne room as they opened, and the elderly but still majestic figure of His Imperial Highness, Uriel Septim VII emerged.
S'reddit
The guests bowed as the Emperor moved forward into the Ball. He was followed by his two younger sons, Prince Enman and Prince Ebel. After a pause, the couple in whose honor the evening was being held came to the door. The Emperor's heir, the Imperial Prince Geldall and his fiancee.
The crowd drew their breath collectively at her almost unearthly beauty. Her honey-colored hair was pulled back in a formal, but still youthful chignon. The pink of her pale, flawless skin was heightened by her simple red silk gown, which spoke of modesty.
The couple moved forward to the center of the room, while the Emperor took his seat and beamed at them, proudly.
"Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, I had a speech prepared, but fortunately for you, I am not going to give it," Geldall smiled, addressing the crowd in an authorative but conversational tone in the hushed room. "I am certain there has been plenty of gossip over the years about whether I would ever marry, and tonight, who the girl would be. Well, let me put all that to rest, and allow you to gossip about something else.
"I met my love, my bride-to-be, a year ago tonight, while hunting in a remote forest in the Colovian Highlands. It had begun to rain, and my men were miserable, so we decided to seek shelter in the nearest place we could, a ruined old shack we had passed on the way. Imagine my surprise when it was not only occupied, but the person within was the loveliest maiden I had ever seen."
To this, the young woman blushed, but she did not avert her eyes. All the time, they were focused on Geldall, twinkling.
"She lived there alone, she told me, after her parents had died. There were no neighbors, no friends, no one to help, so she did everything on her own. And, the delightful thing is, she had no idea who I was!"
To this the girl laughed, nodding her head, a little embarrassed.
"It was such an extraordinary experience, being with someone so beautiful but so unspoiled by civilization, whose humor and observations were keen but unsophisticated in the best sense of the word," Geldall took her hand. "When I asked her what her name was, she said that as her mother had given birth to her at the rising of Magnus, she had always been called Tamrialle, for 'Dawn's Beauty.' I knew at once I had to beg her to be my wife.
"I'm sure you can imagine, the poor girl was frightened as I took her out of the wilderness and into the cities, but I have always tried to shield her while I taught her. My dear old father knew right away this was no forest nymph I had brought back for a dalliance, and it was he, not I, who first asked me if I intended to marry her," Geldall's voice broke slightly with emotion. "I told him yes, but I was worried that I was disappointing him by not marrying the heiress of some great dynasty, forming some political pact ... He told me that Tamriel could survive an Emperor who married out of love."
There was, some close to him noticed, a tear in the Emperor's eye as he smiled, looking on Geldall and Tamrialle.
"I hope you, friends, will wish us no lesser blessing than that," the Imperial Prince said, turning to his fiancee and kissing her. "If when I am Emperor, I can bring the land even a small part of the happiness that is in my heart, it will be a golden age."
S'reddit
"I never thought Geldall had so much soulfulness," whispered a familiar voice at Loranna's ear. It was Goranthir. Over the three years since the War of the Wormgod, his white coloring had darkened to more familiar hues. His red-gold hair was braided, and he wore a robe of blue and gray, well-fitted and elegantly wrought as usual. "The word is you're a free woman again, congratulations."
S'reddit
The crowd around them had moved forward to congratulate Geldall and Tamrialle, and the rest of the Imperial Family. Goranthir chuckled at the sight of the masses.
"Ah, yes, the braid, well, latest style in Firsthold, of course," Goranthir laughed. "Life in Firsthold is fairly dull compared to yours. Mostly, it's been a matter of convincing the people that I am not actually a demonic spawn of Mannimarco, so I've been doing a few quests when I can to bolster their confidence in me ... But it's been a lot of dull learning of statecraft. As far as Rinnala goes, she's around here somewhere ..."
The young Dunmeri Princess of an Altmeri kingdom joined them on hearing her name. Rinnala had blossomed from a fairly awkward girl to a pretty teenager.
"Good evening, your Grace," she said with a bow. "Did my brother tell you I'm going to become an adventurer?"
S'reddit
"Oh, don't get her started," Goranthir laughed.
"Shut up," Rinnala glared, before turning back to Loranna. "Well, I'm only so-so at fighting, but I can hold my own if need be. I'm pretty sneaky, but being a thief didn't appeal much. And I was never good at spellcraft ... until I discovered the problem. I was born under the sign of the Atronach, so I can absorb magicka but not create it myself. Once I figured that out, I really got into studying. I wish I could show you some of the stuff I can do, but the guards say no spellcasting, no exceptions, so ..."
Goranthir took his sister's hand. "Come on, Princess. We should give our congratulations to the happy couple. You coming, Loranna?"
"Did Goran tell you he has a girlfriend?" Rinnala giggled.
"Perhaps the guards would make an exception for one Silence spell," Goranthir glared and then gave a wink.
S'reddit
Goranthir bowed and introduced himself and his sister to Geldall and Tamrialle.
"Pleased to meet you, Your Majesty," returned Tamrialle, and then blushed furiously, looking to Geldall. "Oh dear, that's not right, is it?"
"More proper would be Your Royal Highness," Geldall chuckled. "But I seriously doubt Prince Goranthir or Princess Rinnala took great offense."
Goranthir and Rinnala quickly assured her that they didn't.
"And you must have already met Her Grace, Dres Loranna Pyrel, Duchess of Ald Raathim," Goranthir added.
"Of course, good to see you again, Your Grace," Tamrialle smiled widely. "I've read all the reports on your adventures, and you are as lovely as you are good."
S'reddit
"I would love that, your Grace," Tamrialle smiled, and added with a wink. "As soon as possible. I am sure there will be many more adventures to come, and soon."
There were still a few people in the crowd behind them, and Goranthir excused the three of them, so others would have a chance to greet the couple. As they did, Tamrialle and Geldall met the fairly pompous but very rich Viscount of Alrorne.
"She didn't have any trouble remembering his correct title," Goranthir whispered to Loranna, frowning, as Tamrialle called the Nord "Right Honorable" as is tradition.
The Emperor meanwhile had been beaming at the couple, nodding in recognition of old friends, but letting the night belong to them. The smile had gradually left his face, and he leaned forward to say something to his son Geldall.
"Do you want me to come with you, father?"
"No, no, you should dance," the Emperor said, looking a little pale. "I'll be fine in just a few minutes."
With that, the Emperor pardoned himself and with a half dozen of his guards helping support him, he left the Ball.
In anticipation of the dance, the orchestra struck up a few chords.
Sheogorath
"Just don't make his new girlfriend jealous," Rinalla teased them. "She's terrible."
Goranthir laughed, and took Loranna's hand. Several other dancers were also taking the floor, led by Geldall and Tamrialle.
Sheogorath
The whole ball was dancing, and the music was soaring, so that when a woman's voice called out, it took a moment to tell who it was.
"Ladies and gentlemen!"
It was Tamrialle who was calling out, holding Geldall close to her.
"Ladies and gentlemen! My name is Tamrialle, which means Dawn's Beauty, and the time is now Mythic Dawn! Behold the rising of the new sun!"
With that, she pushed Geldall to the floor in front of her, revealing the wound to his heart caused by the bound dagger she held in her hand.
He was still smiling.
In a flash, Tamrialle was wearing bound armor, and all around the palace, guards and guests alike, dozens of them, suddenly summoned up bound armor and weaponry. They rushed to begin the attack, concentrating on the armed guards, but going after Enman and Ebel as well ...
The ball exploded in chaos, with assassins everywhere. The music stopped abruptly replaced by screams.
"I should have known she was too good to be true!" Goranthir cried, pulling out his blade. To Loranna's surprise, he had the Kynarine Blade back. "By Nirn, she was everything everyone wanted her to be!"
The Cyrodilics took the opportunity, once the attack had begun, to charge at Kingston and Anya. The couple he had pointed out to her earlier rushed across the floor towards her, while a group of two identical brothers, also Imperials on the surface, rushed at Kingston.
Before he had a chance to react, he was flying head over heels towards a fountain.
Sheogorath
A loud boom of the Kynarine Blast echoing forth, blasting the doorway to the outside open was an excellent clue where Goranthir was. He was fighting, but he was trying to get the guests to run the right direction, away from the assassins.
His sister Rinalla was with him too, engulfing and anyone she could find in a shield spell while she fought off assassins with short-range spells, to slow their speed and agility, and let as many innocents escape as possible.
At the center of the room, in the fountain where Kingston Mune had been thrown, there was a great rolling expanse of steam which obscured sight.
Sheogorath
Kethiah slid down the tapestry behind them, landing softly.
"I had to make sure Tyradil and Tilitalia were out of here, protecting Eodir," the ex-assassin said by way of explanation. She had a daikatana from someone, and blood -- someone else's blood, likely many someone elses' blood -- stained her gown, in splashes along her arms and face. "Isidor and Ingmar are also fighting a retreat. We need to go too. They have every advantage: this is the sort of attack one plans for months."
Sheogorath
"This is no time for heroes," Kethiah replied. "This is a time for survival. We save who we can, and we get out."
"But where is the Emperor?" Goranthir asked, looking around. "Did they already get him too? He left just before the dance."
Sheogorath
"Loranna, I don't want to die here, and I don't want you to, either," Kethiah said, turning to her. "The longer we stay here --"
Sheogorath
"Any direction, just go!" Kethiah cried, slashing at one of the assassins as the group ran for the arched doorway, amid the sea of chaos. Goranthir helped clear the path with a well aimed wave of the Kynarine.