CHAPTER ONE:
PART ONE:
'Where am I going…'
The Dragonborn walked casually through the subterranean tunnels of the ancient Dwemer ruin, in search of an Elder Scroll.
'Of all the places for it to be in… It couldn't be in someone's library! No, it had to be part of yet another deadly descent into the unknown!'
Even though trouble waited for him down there, the Dovahkiin was armed to the teeth. A thick protective shell of dragon bones encased his entire body. A brown furry timber cloak covered his back. There was an even furrier part to his cloak surrounding the neck, but white in color.
Were the man to be blistered by freezing wind, he had that warm and trusty animal pelt to cover himself with. But he first and foremost had his true Nord blood as a primary line of defense against the cold.
'Much of these ruins look the same... Am I even headed in the right direction?' The Dragonborn thought to himself as he continued down the hallways and corridors.
His eyes took in the fact that ice covered the walls almost entirely. It was proof that the Dwemer, though powerful beyond thought and intelligent as if blessed by the gods, could still not surpass the threshold of nature.
Maybe they were not meant to... The Nord stopped in place as he rounded a corner. Thankfully, he had been silent enough to not alert the one up ahead.
A good fifteen meters in front of him stood a woman, facing away from the Dovahkiin. She looked down at three corpses, two of which were Falmer. The third was a Dwemer automaton, the type which could curl into a ball, or rise up and fire deadly bolts at intruders.
The Dragonborn had quickly hid behind the corner whence he came from. His eyes crossed the threshold to inspect her.
She looked human, even Nordic, as revealed by the nature of her skin.
She was relatively average sized. Long black hair covered the entirety of her back, down until the waists. Her body was encased in armor of the same color.
There was something rather disturbing and unnatural about the shape of her protective means: her spiked pauldrons. They reminded the Dragonborn too much of the Daedra and how they shaped their war gear.
Shoulder pads aside, another disturbing factor showed itself: the chest plate of the woman willingly thinned itself around the waist area, leaving much of the lower body's unthinkable exposed.
The Dovahkiin didn't like it.
It was not that he, as a man, wasn't attracted to that woman. Everything would have been fine if it weren't for one very important thing about her: chances were that she was Daedra kind.
And that was exactly the problem.
The Dragonborn did not want to befriend and love a She-Dremora, for such acts always ended up in the death of mortal kind. Not to mention that they themselves were sadistic whores that enjoyed the pain of his kin.
She moved her right hand, which due to the ice only now came into view, to reveal a severely large scythe. Like the rest of her equipment, the weapon was black in color. Its handle was two meters long with a blade half in length.
This jolted the Dovahkiin's instincts back in place as he recognized danger.
The chances of her being a She-Daedra had reached ninety nine percent. Such exotic weaponry was always the craft of Dremora.
The last one percent was attributed to the possibility of her actually finding all of that equipment somewhere and claiming it as her own. Fat chance though.
She holstered the weapon on a wrap around her shoulders and exhaled heavily and audibly.
It appeared she thought her fight was over...
PART TWO:
The Dragonborn jumped out of his corned into plain sight. The collision of his feet with the ground alerted the woman, who responded by turning around and unsheathing her weapon rapidly.
He too grasped onto his blade, a two handed great sword made of dragon bones and held it pointed at her.
Her full visage came into view: the beauty of a priceless jewel was what rested upon her shoulders. Young, vigorous, full of life... But saddened, as if burdened by something.
'Such a pretty face. Might make me regret having to break it.' She looked too young to be a called a woman. She seemed more like a girl that had yet to reach maturity.
Were she human, she would have made for an amazing wife… That was just the thing: She-Daedra's were made specifically to be sympathized with. Their supernaturally good looks was mere sheep's clothing for the hungry wolf.
Her armor was made out of ebony. The chest plating covered the abdomen fully, however, it allowed stark view of the upper half of her massive breasts. Now the Dovahkiin knew for certain he would regret killing her.
Her leggings, while not connected to the chest piece, encased her lower half in thick black armor, giving the impression a blade would simply bounce off when hit.
Her arm gloves weren't connected with the rest of her vestments either, but the five or so spikes that emerged from them gave the gauntlets a fierce look.
The two took a moment to analyze the situation: he showed up after her and she was blocking his advance. The quest to find the Elder Scroll and learn Dragonrend had one more unexpected assailant halting its completion.
Not that the Dragonborn actually knew how many stood in his way in the first place...
At that point, it was clear that both of them were combat veterans. A novice would have long since charged blindly into combat, without even bothering to analyze his or her foe.
That was no mere man who stood before her and that was no mere woman that blocked his advance.
Bones… Troll bones? Mammoth? Bear? Can't be... Must be something bigger...
Daedric armor and a scythe, a weapon he was never before faced with. Getting past it could have proven tricky and difficult if her skill in using it was any good.
'Standing around to think won't get me through her.' He was the one to charge.
The girl was taken by surprise when she saw her adversary's speed, covering fifteen meters in merely three seconds. Her mind gave her time only to raise the scythe so as to catch his falling blade.
His strength was incredible.
The girl was trembling under pressure, and was sure she'd end up on the ground in a second or two if she did not act swiftly.
Countering brute force with technique, the She-Dremora used surprisingly little dexterity to make his weapon slide downwards by tilting her own. She then directed her scythe so as to use its rear end and thrusted it directly towards the Dragonborn's head.
Thankfully, she missed his eye, as that was clearly her intended target. Instead, she hit the Nord's forehead in his attempt to dodge her attack. The result was that his helmet ended up tossed backwards and left his face revealed.
He was a man in his early twenties, similar to her. They shared the same hair color, though his hair was noticeably shorter than her's. His only reached until the shoulders whilst her's touched the lower body half.
The man's face bore remnants of a beard on it. There were claw marks up and down the left side of his face, some painted with ink, others gained in battle.
This 'admiration' lasted for but a second as the Dovahkiin swiftly bent low and slid his right leg across the ice covered ground to collide with both hers. As result, the girl got knocked flat on her back.
The warrior quickly got up and thrusted his blade directly at her neck, but stopped before actually harming it. She was once more surprised by his speed. The Nord's left foot stood firmly pressed on the scythe and it left her defenseless.
She gulped at the prospect of having been defeated. In that moment, he could have ended her blasphemous existence.
Her death...
... Not meant to be that day.
The Dovahkiin stepped off of her weapon and backed away. He had went to pick up his helmet, which laid on the ice covered ground three meters away.
The girl got up as the man placed his head wear back on. She had not attacked, but instead stood speechless.
Her stunned expression disappeared as soon as her eyes took in the fact that her adversary had not yet finished the fight. The Dragonborn once more adopted a fighting stance that included pointing his sword at her.
'Round two.'
This time, it was her who charged the three meter gap between the two, almost as if wanting to learn from him. But her speed was vastly inferior, like her strength.
The overhead swing she pulled was unfocused.
With a powerful step in, the Nord blocked and guided the scythe to his left, leaving his opponent momentarily vulnerable. The large weapon shattered and scattered some of the ice covered ground.
The Dovahkiin's weapon pressed down the scythe. He effortlessly slid it across the black handle on a trajectory towards the girl's neck...
The girl slid several meters across the ice and fell on her back due to the impact of that hit.
The attack did not pierce her skin... It surprised the Dragonborn and solidified the foundation of 'she is Daedra kind' tremendously.
Any mortal would have had his or her head lobbed off by that attack. To this girl, it only caused light injury below her chin.
A tiny bit of skin in the shape of a line was blown off her neck at the point of impact, but blood had not started to flow out yet.
Her skin was tough. Big deal. The attack the Dovahkiin launched was merely a friendly tap.
As he long ago discovered, he had enough force to splinter small boulders in half with one single swing, but he always ended up with a broken blade after wards.
The girl quickly returned to her feet. Her right hand brought the scythe in combat position whilst the left grasped at the neck. She could still feel the impact of his attack upon her.
She did not want to die. She was certain this man could end her right there and then, but she did not want to die.
That was what she felt in that very moment: a combination of fear and anxiety. Her survival instincts screamed at her to run.
But she had not the time to do so as her opponent fiercely took one step, one single fucking step, and closed in the distance between the two.
Her only reaction proved to be mindless as the scythe was swung horizontally. This was a thoughtless action because the Dragonborn had already entered the 'safe zone' of her weapon.
The Nord's left hand grasped the scythe mid section of the hilt, effectively neutralizing the possibility of being hit. He then lifted the hand in which he held his blade...
... But the hit never landed.
The Dovahkiin had only now noticed something: fear.
Upon having seen the attack coming, the girl closed her eyes, tensed her face and prepared for the hit to land. In other words, she shivered.
Shivered? Daedra kind did not feel fear! Especially not from mortals!
So that meant... It seemed as that one percent hit true.
She was no She-Dremora, nor one such invention.
A Daedra was powerful, agile, ruthless to the point even the Dragonborn felt fear facing them.
She was none of that. Her eyes did not have that 'glint' in them that the rest of the Dremora or any of their servants did. Not to mention her skin. This was all a big misunderstanding.
Having felt like a fool, the Dovahkiin rammed himself into her with force. The girl had been knocked off her feet and down onto the ground once more. Her scythe fell out of her grasp.
A slight purple injury was visible on the upper left half of her visage.
The Dragonborn had spared her the fate of death.
One question was raised however: 'How come I did not cleave her head right off her shoulders earlier?'
The only answer to come to mind was that her armor was enchanted with powerful magic so as to bolster her protection drastically. Could have been. It could have also been that her vestments were warded to wear off the freezing cold of the Dwemer ruin.
The Nord sheathed his blade. The fight was over. She had better have been thankful she had not died there.
With surprising kindness, the Nord removed his brown timber cloak and placed it on the ground, facing up. He then took hold of the girl and placed her on the cloak.
The Dovahkiin then covered her fully with like it were a sleeping bag.
PART THREE:
The Dragonborn had made his way through icy tunnels and found the actual Dwemer ruins. Its guardians still roamed the halls, as he had discovered on other such expeditions, thus, he knew what to expect.
Mechanical inventions which crawled like spiders, shot lightning through soul gems, folded into spherical shapes and came out to fire crossbow bolts at him.
He knew exactly how to deal with all of them. As the Dovahkiin charged at the Dwemer sphere, its metallic figure rose up just in time for the bone great sword to slice through its lifeless pieces with brutal force.
The warrior moved fast in the small room in which he was. He impaled Dwemer spiders right after dispatching the sphere drones.
His battle prowess was truly that of a master. No less than seven guardians fell in such a short time span. The adrenaline rush filled him with heat, so much so that he began sweating. Perhaps the Dwemer inventions that pumped endlessly also contributed to the temperature of the room and the state of affairs.
At least it wasn't as cold as in the tunnels. The Dovahkiin moved forward, opened doors, plundered chests, found more corridors on his way.
Jewelry, enchanted equipment, they all fetched a high price on the market.
And with the Nord's expertize, he could have squeezed out quite a bit of extra coin from every merchant. Especially from the female vendors, with his charms and all.
That was how the Dragonborn earned reputation and power.
He raided bandit encampments, fortresses long abandoned, ancient ruins of lost civilizations and claimed their treasures for himself. Both his combat prowess and his wealth were more than visible at that point. And yet he still looted most of what he set his eyes upon…
Old habits died hard. But so too did the stubborn machinery of the Dwemer.
The Dovahkiin woke up to the bolt that hit his back side. Though, his armor was too thick and resilient for the projectile to have actually dealt any worthwhile damage.
He returned with a fury and swung his blade, but managed only to cleave air without actually hitting anything. That was quite an achievement in its own.
The two Dwemer spheres a few meters away simply looked at him. They most probably noticed the ineffectiveness of their bolts.
The warrior charged. In one single motion he ended their pathetic lack of life.
That zone was now cleared.
The Dragonborn moved onto the next: a dangerous looking round staircase that lead further down into the expected unknown. He could not see an end to how deep the staircase went, only that a part of it fell and blocked continuation further down.
'I'll just have to hope the Elder Scroll is on that level over there.' Falmer could also be spotted along the way.
It was an easy task to kill a Falmer. It was a near impossible feat to sneak past them, as, due to their loss of sight, the dungeon dwellers had developed really keen and acute senses.
The Dragonborn could have tried sneaking, but a person wearing that much heavy armor was just bound to produce a lot of noise. The underground vermin would have recognize him as an intruder.
The fastest solution at the time was to just run straight alongside the staircase, kill any enemies along the way, jump down to the last accessible floor since the rest were far beyond reach, and open the door way that hopefully lead him to where he needed to go.
PART FOUR:
After the long descent, the Dragonborn arrived at yet another mind boggling room. On the floor laid broken Falmer corpses, accompanied by their bug pets, Chauruses. The overgrown maggots that made a stupid habit of spitting at any one intruder finally got what they deserved: a painful death.
They were crushed as if stomped by something big, like a giant. But there were giants in Falmer infested Dwemer ruins. Maybe someone came before him and took the time to out straight flatten the Chaurus's with a hammer...
Behind all of the broken corpses and gore, there was an archway made of stone. Clearly that was through where the Dovahkiin had to proceed.
There was a loud noise that went like 'psshhtt'.
'What the heck was that?' The sound seemed to have come from up front. Before he proceeded onwards however, the Dovahkiin turned around just to look behind.
Above the door he just passed through was a staircase that lead up to what seemed to be... Giant Dwemer crossbows? And a lever.
The Nord climbed the stone stairs and pulled the lever. He discovered spikes had emerged from the ground up front, where the archway lied, so as to close the portcullis.
'Oh, so that's what it does.' He pulled the lever back to open the path.
The Dragonborn took a minute longer to search through the two chests behind the contraption. One of them was sealed tight and required the usage of a lock pick.
'Easy enough.' Some skills he... Gathered... Along his way.
After having finished looting, the Dovahkiin proceeded through the archway and up some more stairs, but stopped, mostly because he was stunned.
Giants did live down there…
If it could be have been called that… The thing was made of Dwemer metal for sure. It was… It was even taller than a giant! The steam that pushed out of its shoulders was clearly the source of the noise from earlier.
A few feet away from the Dwemer giant laid another metallic machine, the same size and probably form, as the first one.
'Thankfully I won't have to face the both of them.' The Dovahkiin drew his weapon with utmost silence.
'Ching.' The weapon rang a small noise from its sheathe.
The giant's responded to the noise by turning its upper half one hundred and eighty degrees towards the source of the sound. Its unanimate face now took in the fact there was an intruder in its perimeter.
"Shit..." The Nord fully unsheathed his blade and stood ready to fight.
Funny how it did not notice him walking earlier...
The Centurion's lower half turned its legs so as to align with the rest of its body. The giant's right hand was a hammer, it's left, an axe. It towered over the man in front of it by at least three meters.
But that didn't scare the Nord. He faced dragons and giants before, what was so special about this one? That it was made of metal?
The golden construct took a step forward, then another and another until it arrived within striking range of its target, looking down upon the Nord. It was quite clear by that point that that thing was what had squashed the Chauruses down below.
The giant raised its right hand faster than humanly possible and slammed it down on the Dragonborn's position. Its actions were more than predicted, as the Nord already had a plan of action.
The Dovahkiin jumped out of the way of the blow and rushed behind it. He hit its left knee cap. The blow caused the behemoth of steel to fall forward in a kneeling stance. Its weight shook the ground.
The machine returned its left axe hand with vengeance, scored a hit on the Dovahkiin's helmet and sent him flying around seven meters away.
He hit a stone wall harshly as proven by the fact that the impact caused his knees to buckle and the warrior to gush out crimson bodily fluids through his mouth.
'Bloody Oblivion...' His left hand wiped away what red substance coursed freely from the Nord's pie hole.
The next second, the Dragonborn noticed his helmet had started crumbling. It fell to the stone cold floor in pieces.
After having confirmed that the intruder still drew breath, the Centurion approached, this in turn caused the Dovahkiin to rise up. When the distance between the two was of three meters, the steel giant stopped in place, leaned in closer to the man, and started blasting compressed steam through its shoulder pads.
The wave of vim was hot and very invasive to the warrior of bone. Clearly, the Dwemer automaton intended to cook him alive.
But the Nord had other plans.
"Zok! Na Kaal!" Once the Dragonborn shouted... It all turned to stone...
The steam fell heavy as it became small particles of dust like material. The golden surface of the Centurion was not covered, but completely replaced with stone, much like its internal workings.
The behemoth of steel stopped...
PART FIVE:
"Should have done that from the start." The Centurion lay unmoved.
The Dovahkiin dusted his fur cape. He then bent low, picked up the pieces of his broken helmet and pocketed them in a pouch, where most of his other findings such as gold and jewelry were located.
After having returned his attention to the Dwemer automaton that now lay motionless, the warrior of flesh and bone approached it. He stood staring at its unanimate face for about a minute, until he had had enough of seeing it.
The Nord once more moved behind the thing. He raised his left foot and kicked at the knee of the construction with all his might, causing it to break apart.
The rest of it followed suite. Its main body crumbled to the ground and splintered into twenty or more tiny pieces. Golden metal was still visible in small proportions amongst the scattered mess, indicating that the shout had not encompassed the construct's interior designs very well.
But what did he care? The way forward was now clear, devoid of any obstacles.
Due to having heard a noise, the Dragonborn rapidly turned his attention towards the entrance; the staircase which led up to the floor on which he had a fight.
And there she stood... Fearful of any outcome.
The Nord turned to meet the one whose presence there was only barely anticipated.
The girl stiffened up when she saw the man who'd defeated her moments ago and gulped. She no doubt noticed the rubble of the Centurion and understood that it was his doing.
The girl silently gasped when the Dovahkiin took a step towards her.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was calm. It indicated no danger nor ill will.
The Nord's attention drew towards his fur cape, wrapped around the girl's shoulders and body, providing her warmth.
She must have figured out that that was what he was looking at and began to take it off with the intent of returning it to him.
But the Dovahkiin raised a hand and stopped her. "Keep it." She surely was cold as well.
The girl stopped upon hearing his words, almost confused. He wished... Well of her?
Without even having said a word, the Dragonborn turned towards the exit and started walking away.
"AB!" She yelped more audibly now and extended a hand towards him.
The sound of it stopped the man, who sighed before turning his head around.
A moment of looking at her innocent and fearful expression spawned curiosity out of the Dragonborn: "Do you wish to come with me?"
After a second of taking the question in, her face visibly lit up with joy and she energetically shook her head up and down. He smiled at that hilarious form of innocence and resumed his walk.
She quickly got in line with him.
One unknown factor filled the Dovahkiin's mind however: what was she doing down there in the first place?
She couldn't have been after the Elder Scroll, could she? No, that would have been impossible. Septimus couldn't have just told another soul about the location of the Kel.
Was she a pillager? A bandit? A thief? ... Or just an adventurer?
The warrior of flesh and bone disliked having to kill. He could put up with attacking the lifeless Dwemer automatons; the Dragons which threatened villages and ran rampant throughout Skyrim; the Giants and Vampires who intentionally caused harm; the natural predators of the wilds; the bandits and thieves whom made a living taking others property.
The Nord even felt righteous when he killed the wretched and vile Daedra.
However, he attempted to avoid having to kill innocents at every possible turn, be they sons or daughters of Men, of Elves, of Orcs...