Authors Note: Just a little jaunt inspired by watching the character creation process over my best friend's shoulder. Everyone seems to assume that the 'vestige' had some sort of interesting life that should be worth reclaiming. What if that wasn't the case? While I'm musing on the nature of (online) reality, it's worth mentioning that while various factions prefer to interpret daedra as "good" or "bad" they are more the personifications of natural forces, than actual personalities and as such are beyond morality. Molag Mal is a force associated with action toward desire and obstacles to be overcome. This can be interpreted in "good" or "evil" ways and either can be valid.
Also, according to Morrowind lore, the slave bracers used by most of the Dunmer have keys that are location-tuned; so a key made for any particular location will unlock any slave bracer worn in that location.
Standard disclaimer: I do not own any of the wondrous creations of Bethesda Softworks or Zenimax Online, however I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own invention.
A Warning: The horror tag was included in this story for a reason. The second section of this chapter is not for the squeamish.
~~It could be worse. Or maybe not~~
Tabinah Faryon's eyes opened slowly. The pale light visible from the slave barracks told her that it was dawn. It was time to get up. Slowly she uncurled herself from where she'd huddled in semi-sleep for most of the night. She discarded the threadbare blanket that was all any of the slaves were permitted as a bed. She rubbed absently at the gleaming silver bracer on her right forearm.
She was sore from the work she'd been doing recently. Normally she was a house slave, a servant to Muthsera Grulis to do copying and preparation of alchemical ingredients. With the harvest imminent and so many warnings about inclement weather, most of the house slaves had been put to work with the field slaves, tending and weeding saltrice paddies.
Her hands were raw. The skin would be cracked and bleeding before noon. She was limping from a mudcrab claw that had felled two of her fellow slaves before the overseer took it down. There were apparently no bones broken, so it was no considered worth the expenditure of healing energies.
She shivered in the chill dawn. Rations were few until harvest. She'd eaten better as a house slave, and done less physical work. For the last few weeks she'd felt cold all the time. And the unhealed lash marks across her back spoke of how her shivering and bleeding fingers had not been as nimble as the overseers required. She staggered out into the morning light with the other field slaves. Harvest was always like this. After a few more weeks, she would be put back into house service.
"Hurry you S'wit's." The nearest overseer punctuated his growl with a flick of the lash that drew a spatter of blood from an argonian standing next to her. "Those that don't work fast enough will not be fed."
Tabinah wanted to eat. She would work as fast as she could. She followed the ragged lines of fellow slaves out into the fields. She was limping slightly and fell behind. The overseer only chastised her with a few touches of the whip. She felt the rent in the back of her tunic open further, letting in the chill morning breeze.
Despite the hot sun beating down on her, Tabinah felt cold. Her fingers didn't seem to want to work correctly and she frowned as the sharp blades of swamp-merrow cut into her fingers as she yanked them out of the saltrice beds.
All around her, slaves seemed to be moving along their rows of saltrice faster than she was. In a vague sort of way she realized that the overseers would not be pleased.
Noon came, and she had done so poorly that she was ordered to continue while other slaves nearby ate. She kept moving, pulling weeds, patting down the roots of the saltrice. She was hungry, but she would eat later.
Sweat dripped down into her eyes. She ignored it and continued her work. It seemed very bright out.
Things started to blur. She felt unsteady, but tried to keep moving. Keep weeding. She found herself on her knees. She was holding a fistful of swamp-merrow in her right hand. There was some blood oozing from her cracked palm onto the leaves of the plant.
Throw it aside, she told herself. But she just stared at it. Everything felt hot and when she tried to stand the field seemed to spin around her. She wasn't working properly. She needed to work properly. She wanted to be able to eat in the evening with the other slaves.
She staggered up finally, and made her way to the edge of the paddy. She looked up to see a tall angry dunmer yelling something at her. She wasn't sure what he was yelling. His words seemed to make no sense.
He struck her across the side of her head and she fell.
~~Where am I?~~
She woke to the sound of metal scraping on metal. She looked around dully. She was in some sort of cave lying on a large stone. Her arms and legs were spread out and restrained. She blinked a few times.
There were torches nearby, but instead of the usual warm glow, they flickered with bluish energies. To her right was a huge carving of some kind that towered over the stone slab she was laying on. It was cold. It seemed like she had been cold for a very long time. She didn't know where she was, but she was so tired that it felt good to just lay here.
Then there was another scrape and a click, and someone in dark robes removed the bracer that had been around her right forearm for so very long. There was a moment of quiet.
Then everything seemed to happen at once. The light was too bright. The stone was hard and uncomfortable underneath her. She felt tired, and grimy, and she was abruptly aware that she stank of sweat and mud. Her hands ached. She clenched her fists and felt sharp stinging from the cuts the swamp-merrow had made.
None of this was familiar. She looked around wildly, only to see that she was surrounded by three of the dark-robed figures. The one closest to her, the one that still held the slave bracer in his hand let out a low chuckle.
He was pale in an attractive way, with dark hair and dark eyes that seemed to take in every detail of her reaction. "Do you understand where you are?" He asked in an Imperial sounding accent that was not at all reassuring.
Her heart started pounding faster. She yanked on the restraints, only to hear the clink of metal. She was shackled to the stone, but withiout the bracer's enchantment, there was nothing to drain away her fear.
She glanced to each side. Dark rusty stains covered much of the stone. Dried blood, she thought at first. Except the cold seeping into her back felt damp. Not all dried then.
"Yes," The pale Imperial seemed to breathe in her fear as if it were perfume. "You begin to understand."
Standing opposite him was another robed figure. this one's hood was far enough down so that Tabinah couldn't tell race or gender. What she did fixate on was the ice-blue slightly curved blade held in gloved hands.
Without thought, she moved herself away from the blade-wielder, back toward the other side of the stone. Glancing up, she looked again at the carvings on the wall.
"Molag Bal." She whispered. One of the great deadra princes, he or sometimes she was the patron of striving and struggling. Rape, conquest, domination, slavery, direct action and opposition; these were all his domain as opposed to the unseen intrigue that was the realm of Boethiah, prince of plots.
"You have," There was a clink, as the Imperial set something down on the stone beside her head. It was a sand-timer no larger than her fist. Crystalline grains were pouring from the top section to the bottom. In only a few minutes the sand would be drained to the bottom. "You have this long left to live." The Imperial speaker's voice was almost affectionate.
"No." She shivered at the seductive tone. And the cold. "No." She said louder, pulling at the chains that held her to the stone. To the altar, she realized.
She pulled against the restrains and her bruised wrists strained against the rusty metal shackles. She was slender, and underweight, and these chains had been made to restrain warriors. The cuff on her right wrist slipped up slightly.
"Oh, by all means do try to escape." The Imperial was no leaning over her, smiling beatifically.
The robed figure across from him did not react, still holding the ice-colored dagger high.
She yanked on the shackles again, and pulled. Pain lanced through her hand as a jagged protrusion of metal cut into the side of her hand. But the blood was making her skin slippery. She yanked again.
"So close." The Imperial's voice was a purr in her ear. "So very close."
She pulled harder. The metal cut deeper into her hand, and blood flowed over her wrist and arm, adding to the layers of rusty stains on the altar. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming. Her hand was shaking from the pain, but one more pull would have her free.
"Too late." The smooth voice was filled with mocking sympathy.
She turned her head just enough to see the last of the sand fall.
Her wrist was almost free. She could feel the cuff slowly sliding loose, blood-slicked and sharply painful.
The ice knife flashed downward and she screamed. But her arm couldn't seem to come free fast enough. She couldn't move fast enough.
Her scream was abruptly cut off by the crystalline blade; the robed figure buried it not in her heart, as she had been half-expecting, but in her throat. Pain and blood and she was coughing and she couldn't breathe and she couldn't scream and so much pain.
~~Life after~~
She woke abruptly, curled into a ball in a cold small room. The first thing she did was gag and then her stomach clenched. She would probably have thrown up, but there was nothing to come up.
"So," A guttural but not unfriendly voice addressed her. "New here?"
Tabinah wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Sleeve. She stared at it. Yes, the fiber was coarse, but she was wearing a long sleeved shirt. She slowly staggered to her feet. Pants too. And some kind of open-shoe sandals adorned her feet. It was better clothing than she'd had in many years.
Standing up she didn't feel dizzy. Or nearly as hungry as her memories said she should be. She held out her hands. She'd had a wound on the right one, she was pretty sure of it, but the skin was unmarked. And healthy looking. She stood up straight, realizing that she couldn't feel any pain from the lash marks she'd gotten yesterday. If it was yesterday.
"Hel-lo? You okay?" The voice was gruff, but not unfriendly.
The dunmer turned to see a heavyset woman with skin the color of marshmerrow at dusk. The overlarge lower canines that were visible implied that this was an Orisimer, but Tabinah had never actually met one. Whoever she was, she wore the same sort of rough clothing that the dunmer found herself wearing.
"Greetings, Muthsera." Tabinah was suddenly very aware that she didn't know where she was, or what protocol would be appropriate here.
The Orisimer tilted her head thoughtfully. "That's some kind of title, right?"
Tabinah felt heat rise in her cheeks. She hadn't meant to be rude by using a term that might not be understood. "It's a greeting to someone presumed to be of some rank. It's meant to be a polite hello."
The Orisimer gave a little chuckle, and then obviously failed to hold it in, and burst out in a hearty spirited belly laugh.
Without really knowing why, but caught by the infectious sense of humor, Tabinah joined in.
Finally the Orisimer calmed herself. "By Malakath," she was shaking her head, "I had to come to Cold Harbor to meet a friendly dunmer." She held out a hand. "Durakh gra-Sharn. Pleased to meet'cha."
"My name is Tabinah Faryon," She smiled. She felt good, she was dressed well, and from the distant smells she could pickup, someone was cooking some sort of stew that would probably taste pretty good. Things were looking up.
Then Durakh's words replayed in her mind. Cold Harbor. That was one of the planes of Oblivion, wasn't it? She would have remembered going through a gate. No, she definitely didn't have any memory like that. All she could remember was ... was a flash of crystalline blade. An Imperial voice at her ear.
Strong hands gripped her shoulders. "Breathe, dunmer, just breathe."
She held onto Durakh's arms. They felt strong and solid. "I was ... " She couldn't finish it.
"You were sacrificed." The orisimer said calmly. "You were killed. We all were."
Tabinah looked around. They were in a small room with a grate for a door. Visible beyond the grate was an irregular stone corridor with many other grate doorways. She could hear voices, and see people in some of the nearby cells. It was a prison, but not like anywhere she'd ever been. Now that she looked for it, she could see that the very air had a faint luminescence to it, and there was a weave of magicka through everything that was nothing like anything she'd sensed before.
She was not on Nirn.
She had been murdered.
"We're all dead." Tabinah spoke haltingly, "everyone is. Everyone here is dead." She raised her right arm and looked carefully at her sleeve again. "Finally I have a nice shirt," She mused aloud. "And I had to die to get it."
Durakh looked startled for a moment, and seeing that Tabinah was serious, the orisimer started laughing again.
After a moment, Tabinah joined in.
~~Deus Ex Machina~~
They were interrupted by a glowing flicker that appeared at the grated entrance to their cell.
Beyond the cell doorway, Tabinah noted similar flickers at the entrance to many of the nearby cells. Beside her she noted that Durakh's posture changed; the orisimer was suddenly up on the balls of her feet, arms held tense. Was this a trick? A trap?
A low voice spoke from the flickering light. "Careful, vestige. You have been through a terrible ordeal." There was an odd echoing quality to the voice, as if the dunmer was hearing it from multiple locations at once.
The voice was Imperial, and Tabinah felt tension sing through her muscles. She wasn't going to be caught so easily this time. She was no easy prey trapped in slaver's shackles now.
"Who are you, Sera?" She asked warily.
Beside her at the same moment, the orisimer said, "Are you some kind of ghost?"
"I'm a projection," The flicker seemed to resolve slightly into a bluefish humanoid form wearing tattered robes.
Despite his reassuring tone, Tabinah still felt wary. Those robes reminded her a great deal of the Imperials who'd killed her. And the voice – this was another Imperial. She had no desire to be caught up in some outlander's political scheming.
The voice continued. "I am also a prisoner."
Durakh relaxed then. "Then there's not much you can do to help us, is there?"
"I am the past and the future. I am despair and hope."
The orisimer shook her head. "You, my cloudy friend, have been at the skooma pipe too long."
Ignoring the Imperial, who continued to wax eloquent about tapestries and fate and himself as the prophet of all these various things, the orisimer turned to Tabinah. "We need to get out of this cell."
"Take up arms," The Imperial ghost – or whatever he was – advised. "You must protect yourself."
Irritated, Durakh turned back to face him. "Do you see any weapons in this place? Or a key to the door for that matter?"
"Someone will open your door." The self-proclaimed prophet advised them. "Then you and Lyris Titanborn will rescue me. And I will rescue you."
"Damn arrogant Imperial," Durakh muttered. "He's not even actually here and he's ordering us around."
Tabinah found that despite her distrust of the ghostly prophet she rather liked the idea of being able to rescue someone. Still, she wondered. "Is this the afterlife? It's not what I expected of Azura or Boethia's realms."
They heard the sound of running footsteps, and both of them turned to the doorway as the sounds came closer. An argonian followed by several altmer was hastily moving along the cells, unlocking them. "Hasste musst be made!"
"Get to the armory," Advised the raggedy ghost. "Arm yourselves and find Lyris Titanborn. We shall lead you to freedom from the Coldharbor and its Lord of Lies."
The argonian came to their door and made short work of the lock. "Seek what freedom you may, softskins." He sounded more anxious than hopeful.
Before he could step away from their doorway, Tabinah put her hand to his forearm. "I thank you for your kind service, Sera."
"Durga-sin, this one iss called." He gripped her arm with his own. "Your sspirit is sstrong yet. Beware the fate of the soul-shriven."
"The what?" Tabinah asked, but he had already moved farther down the line of cells.
"Soul shriven." Durakh repeated from next to her. "Doesn't sound good, does it?"
They stepped out of the cell. A steady stream of former prisoners were headed along the corridor. Not two cells down, there was a body on the ground. It looked to be some kind of mer, but off somehow. Tabinah frowned, trying to place the difference.
"Old before his time? The skin doesn't look right." Durakh growled. "If this is Coldharbor, it's a place of daedra, not men or mer."
"Coldharbor," Tabinah slowly repeated the word. Long forgotten lessons tugged at her memories. "Molag Bal's realm."
"Do you know any lore that might help us?" The orisimer asked, "Aren't there some dunmer legends about that particular daedra?"
"Yes," Tabinah knelt at the side of the fallen guard. "One of those who tests our strength and resolve. Malog Bal is the Prince of desire, of striving, of pride and effort." As she absently answered the orisimer's question, Tabinah turned the fallen guard onto his side. His skin looked pale and old, like a long-dead corpse. But he was only cool, and there were no obvious wounds. So what had killed him?
She looked closer at the armor, which had appeared to be some sort of scale mail. It wasn't actually armor, but a part of the being. Who wasn't like anything she'd ever seen or heard described.
"Can you tell what killed it?"
Tabinah shook her head. "I'm not even sure it was ever really alive." She examined it closer. Despite the lack of real armor, the thing wore a belt that could be removed, and in it were sheathed two longknives. So here she was freeing herself to take action in the realm of one of the Princes of testing, and the very first weapons she found were those in which she had some skill. She wasn't fool or ignorant enough to think it coincidence.
"I shall take these." She unbuckled the belt.
"Hmph." Durakh grunted. "I'd do better with an axe, myself."
"Maybe we'll find one."
"You seem pretty hopeful."
Tabinah stood up. She was out of the cell, dressed and armed and feeling stronger than she had in a very long time. She smiled at the orismer. "Coldharbor is a place of testing, not a realm of punishment. If he who sent us here thought it would be the end of us, he has a most unpleasant surprise in his future."
"Well spoken, blade-sister." Durakh said approvingly. "Never trust an Imperial to truly understand the lessons of the daedra." She swept her gaze ahead to where the corridor widened. "Now, if I can find that axe, we'll see about passing this test."