Cearbhail:

Welcome, welcome. This is it. It's finally here, finally the first chapter. I won't lie... I'm messing with you right from the start of the story. I've been waiting so long for this, I need to have some fun with it. I'll get serious, I promise. Maybe. I think... it will depend on which character, and that will determine the tone of the chapters. So... here we go.

=^^= Enjoy...

[Nisha]

Dear diary,

It's been two weeks since it happened. I think today is the 4th of Sun's Dusk… I'm not sure anymore. Ever since the Dwemer invaded… I can't really keep track of the days. It's just been…well… difficult for us. I mean, running and hiding. Trying to stay hidden while the big Dwemer robots run around the streets, all looking for more survivors. It takes a toll on you. I've never seen the Imperial streets so barren before. It kind of reminds me of when I was a little girl… hiding in that crawlspace with Vatu hugging me tightly as he reassured me that Mom and Dad were all right. And then when we crawled out a couple days later… finding out that they weren't.

It's just like that now, except we don't have the option to pretend it never happened. With the Dwemer always looking for anyone… it becomes a chore just to find a place to sleep, something to eat. I wish I knew what happened to my brother. I wish I knew what happened to the whole 'defeat the Dwemer' plan. Where are all the Aedra? Where's the army we were promised? I'm scared… and I can't continue living like this. I want my brother… I want to know he's all right too.

Nisha Ernard,

Firedrake Revolutionary.

…

The Imperial City. It used to be my home, not too long ago. Not even a year ago, actually. I was born in the city, spent my toddler years playing in the gardens in the Elven Gardens District. And even after the Daedra Lord rampaged through our streets, I spent a couple years with Vatu as we tried to live in the city. Our house was destroyed but we still clung there. People helped fix our house, but as more and more people started to move into the town, two Khajiit cubs living in a house seemed less important than a family of Altmer living in a proper house. So, we were forcibly kicked out. Vatu and I pretty much grew up on the streets after that. He took care of me, making sure I was properly taken care of. Even at the expense of him ruin delving; collecting objects he could sell just so we could eat for the next few days.

Of course, we eventually ended up getting shocked with that Great Black Welkynd stone, and were turned into mages. After we were exposed to that crystal, Vatu knew what we'd be doing with our lives. Using our new magicka to help others, as well as earn a living. That was Vatu's dream. I just wanted a family. A place I could call home. A place where my brother and I would be safe. I never wanted him to do any of this… to get involved with the battlemages, to go to war, to put himself through so much stress that he would eventually… die. But that's the truth of the matter. Everyone I know is gone. Killed by the Dwemer. They were in the Imperial City when it happened. I was in Elsweyr studying with the Firedrakes.

I don't really know what happened but one day, the sky just exploded into a bright purple. When I looked up, I could see a few other worlds floating in the sky above, as well as this even larger bright purple world. I rushed from my dorm room over to Immia's room. She was studying with me at some local academy In Torval for gifted Khajiit magelings. She was talking to her brother at the Lion's Palace, Zhar. She was asking him about the sky. He didn't know what was going on either. No one did. For a whole day… the world basically stood still. And then… it happened.

A giant metallic spider fell from the sky, landing right in the Imperial City, leveling it in one landing; crushing every building underneath it. I watched from a crystal ball as the spider burned the whole town down with its one glowing red eye shooting beams of fire down into the town square. Flying ships drifted down from the purple world over to the Imperial City… each one carrying more and more Dwemer. My brother and his friends all launched themselves into the fight. Taking to the skies like eagles on the hunt. I could see my brother helping Primrose land on an airship. An airship that went down… crashing right into the giant spider. Every battlemage the Empire had went into the Imperial City to fight that spider… and not a single one came back. No one. The Dwemer moved on… and… well… I went to the Imperial City to look for my brother.

I have a psychic link to my brother. I don't talk much about it to people, because it's not normal. But… I can tell when he's in trouble. I can tell when he's in pain. I can sometimes dream about the things he's done… things that are bothering him. And ever since that day… I've been dreaming of him in chains… screaming in pain, spitting at guards… and I know it's not just a dream. He's been captured. He's somewhere in the city. He has to be. And I didn't come alone. Prashin followed me. As well as Zhar and Immia. The four of us came to the Imperial City to look for survivors. We found a couple. The only problem was… they're all kids, like me. They all came here to look for parents and other family members that have gone missing. We all decided to stick together. It turns out… we're not the only ones in the city after all. The Dwemer are still here, and still looking for more survivors. To do what with… I really don't know.

I've been all over the city, looking for any sign of Vatu or anyone else for that matter. I haven't seen any signs of him, or anyone else, but I have seen plenty of Dwemer monsters roaming the streets. I can't tell you how many times I walked out of an alley to see a round orb sitting on a corner open up, revealing one of the Dwemer Sphere thingies. It would chase me through the alleyways, shooting bolts at me. I could barely evade them, and had to use my skills in Alchemy to escape. I learned about this sticky bubblegum alchemy bombs. I use them on Dwemer constructions all the time now, and they really work. They get in all the small rotating joints and pretty much make the Dwemer stuff stiffen up completely. Luckily, they're easy to make too. I just need to chew some bubblegum, stick it in a bottle with some water and a rune drawn on the bottle's top for Expand. It's an Alteration thing.

Well, anyway, while my new friends and I have been searching the city for all the missing residents, we decided to use my old house as a hideaway. The little hidey hole back there was undiscovered. No one even goes into the house. And now… we have a little escape tunnel that leads into the sewers. You can thank Cenranii for that. He's wonderful at Alteration. He's also the oldest of all of us. 14 years old, and he's an Altmer, so you know he's pretty smart too. Good with magicka, good with figuring out what to do next… he's racist… but other than that, he's… I'm not going to call him cool. Tolerable. I will go with tolerable. Maybe. Just perhaps. Ok, I hate him. I hate him a lot. Vatu always told me Altmer treated us like garbage, and between Cenranii and Meiran Dres, a Dunmer boy that grew up in a Dres family plantation, … figure that one out if you don't understand it already, I was pretty much at my wits end.

So, as for what I'm doing right now… as in right this very second, I'm digging around a giant dumpster. It was Meiran's idea for me to go fetch some food out of the dumpster for everyone. He thinks a Cathay like me belongs in the trash. And I'm not out here because I agree with him, but because I'm the stealthiest. Prashin is in the sewers looking for rats for us to eat; and I'm in this dumpster looking for anything else we can use. I wasn't having a lot of luck finding anything though. And to be honest, if I'm really honest… I'm looking for anything I can shove in Meiran's face and explain it off as feeding him. I think he deserves it.

So, I was digging around the dumpster when I heard approaching footsteps. I could hear the chatter of some Dwemer soldiers as they walked over to me. I immediately stopped digging around and shoved myself underneath some of the trash. I was sitting down there for a few seconds before I heard and felt the lid slide up. I tried my best to hold my breath as I felt more trash fall down on top of me. "It was pretty crazy." One of the Dwemer said as he dumped a bag of trash down on top of where I was laying.

"Those flying beasts are pretty strong. To think they'd take down three airships like that." The other Dwemer said. "I don't think we capture them like we did those mages earlier." Capture, mages? Those were two words I was pretty interested in. It was just like my dream; Vatu chained up, spitting at the Dwemer. If that was true, then Vatu was probably a prisoner or something. "Think they'll try to attack the slave camp?" I heard right before the dumpster lid fell down, slamming hard enough to make my head spin from the loud sound.

Slave camp. I had to know more about that. I slowly listened for the Dwemer as they walked away. As they trudged away, I slowly lifted myself up, pushing the lid up far enough that I could see outside. The two Dwemer soldiers were walking back towards the main road leading towards the Elven Gardens District. I didn't see any nearby patrols, so I decided to pull myself out of the dumpster and follow the two soldiers.

As soon as I climbed out of the dumpster, I immediately slipped on my invisibility ring, which gave me a slight Chameleon cover. It turned me invisible as long as I didn't move… quickly. If I did, it would shimmer a bit like air was being distorted or something. And I was trying my best to slow down as the two Dwemer walked off towards the gardens. I raced over to a building, practically sticking as close to the wall as possible. "Attack the slave camp? I don't know. It's up on that mountain so… probably not."

Up on a mountain? Where? Which mountain?

As they rounded a corner, I rushed to follow behind them, trying my best not to trip over any rubble from the smashed buildings. Most of the rubble was cleaned up, but… I think the Dwemer just didn't care enough about all the dead bodies and bigger slabs of building to actually get rid of it. I could see burned remains of bodies everywhere… and I didn't like it. I hated the smell… and to be honest. There's kind of another problem this town faces… zombies.

"Have you been up there? Oh wait… another one." I heard a pulsing sound and a flash of red light. I looked over the building's corner to see him pull the end of his rifle away from a reanimated corpse's head… or what was left of it.

"What are those things?" The other Dwemer asked as they continued down the road.

"Not sure. Think we should bring the body back for testing? Whatever it is… these bodies don't stay dead for long unless you put a hole in their head."

"That's not true. I saw a headless one bumping into a wall for three hours yesterday."

"Three hours? Why didn't you kill it?"

"Placed a bet with the guys. You know… see what else it would crash into. We turned it into a game; setting up colored squeaky toys around it, as well as a rake, some whoopee cushions. We had a great laugh while the thing ambled around."

"How did you end up killing it?"

"We didn't. It fell through a manhole and ended up in the sewers. And we're not paid enough to go down there and kill it." Sewers? The headless zombie ended up in the sewers? Prashin! He's down there! Oh man… I couldn't stand here and listen to this anymore. I had to go help him!

I rushed away from the wall, looking for the first sewer entrance I could find. I found a manhole in the next alley, but I already knew it was there. Ever since we've been in the city, I've made it a habit to know where every emergency exit was… and where it came out to. So, as soon as I found an entrance, I pretty much plugged up my nose and jumped in.

I freefell for a few seconds, falling gently to the ground. I had a robe enchanted with Feather… like Vatu used to carry around. As I drifted to the ground, I wondered where he was. A slave camp on a mountain. Which mountain? It didn't make much sense to me. The only thing I could think of was Kvatch… a town we visited once. It was at the top of a giant hill. I wouldn't call it a mountain at all, but you had to march up a winding path to get up there. The only town in Cyrodiil you have to do that with, really. And it was a pretty nice sized town. I'd have to talk to Meiran about it. He's pretty good at Clairvoyance. He might be able to find out where the slave camp is if I point him in the right direction. I hated that talking to him was an option. He'd probably tell me off, dismissing me because I'm from slave folk and probably wanted to return back home or something stupid like that.

As soon as I touched the ground, I pulled out an alchemist bomb; they were the best thing I had that would kill a headless zombie, I'm sure of it. I made so many of them when we fought the Aedra, I still had plenty in my portal bag. I kept making more and more new stuff, trying to find something I can use to beat the Dwemer, in case I have to. The bubblegum bomb was pretty useful, but I don't know how well it would work against those two up there. I'd rather not find out firsthand. If they figure out anyone is still in the town… I imagine it will lead to the rest of the town being scorched down to nothing. I was lucky some of the buildings still stood, including my old one. At least a few rooms of it anyway.

I kept my ears perked as I walked through the lower sewers, sniffing everything I could. I could smell rats and other things in the tunnel, as well as a few goblins skulking about. But what I could hear was shuffling feet further down. I couldn't tell where it was coming from though, because it was echoing off of every wall, creating a distortion for my spatial awareness.

I opted for just screaming. "Prashin! Watch out! There's a headless zombie down here! Just stay still and I'll find you!" There, that should work. If nothing else, the headless zombie will hear me… wait… how can it hear without ears? Shab. I didn't think of that. Oh well. This should be easy then. It can't see me; it can't hear me; it can't even smell me; it can't even taste me. It can only… feel me. Oh no…

I heard shuffling behind me, and I quickly snapped my head back. And there it was… a teenage Argonian decomposing headless corpse with a severely broken arm snaking out to me. I was almost scared for a second, but then I realized… it really can't do anything to me. It can't bite me… it's one and only arm was shattered in several places, making it so that it can't even grab me. Honestly… what else could this thing even do to me? Nothing!

I pushed the headless zombie from me. "Dude! Give me some space! I'm trying to find my friend!" I wish I had thought of that when I jumped down here. Headless zombies are pretty…pathetic, if you ask me. I've seen them for a long time now; back when Vatu and I went ruin exploring. Necromancers get bored… and so do corpses, I guess.

As the headless corpse shuffled away, I suddenly realized something… this corpse… was animated without the ability to think, to do anything. It felt my walking through the ground's vibrations and then shambled its way over to me. Why? The answer was pretty obvious… it was lonely. It can't harm me, and it knows that. But… let's say you're blind, deaf, can't eat, and you can't think. But you're somehow still very much alive, somehow. I don't get it either. No brain to think… but you have a heart to feel. And this corpse only wanted to be loved. So, as it struggled to walk over to me, I wrapped my arms around it, giving it a hug.

"I'm sorry, headless zombie Argonian boy…" I said as I hugged him close to me. "I'm sorry."

"Nisha?" I heard Prashin say as he walked into the room, dragging a blanket filled with dead rats. "I heard you screaming. Are you…" He glanced at me as I hugged the headless zombie. He smirked as he crossed his arms. "You would."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "He only wants to be loved." The zombie responded to my hug by attempting to wrap his mangled arm around me. "See?"

"Nisha… I think he's trying to strangle you." Prashin replied, shaking his head. "If you really care for it… you'll kill it. I can't imagine the kind of world its living in right now… but it's better off returning to the afterlife."

I shook my head. "No… I'm keeping him. I'm naming him Bubbles."

Prashin rolled his eyes. "Ok fine. But… you know Cenranii is going to have a fit when you come back with it."

…

The walk through the sewer back to the hidden room that used to be our house's little safe house was pretty light on conversation. I told Prashin about what I had heard from the Dwemer soldiers: the slave camp on the mountain. He agreed that Meiran could probably find it easily enough. Bubbles walked behind us, trying his best to follow me, keeping his mangled arm on my shoulder the whole walk back. As soon as we made it back to my house's newly added sewer entrance, we were met by Xokago, our… mix-breed friend. She's… I forget what she is. She looked like a Khajiit… but she has scales…and feathers… and the beak of an Argonian… but has ears like me… and weird fur color like dark orange with a natural blue feathery mane with yellow flowers. She's interesting. She doesn't speak common though. Not a word. We don't know much else about her, except that she's younger than me. Meiran was able to tell us her birthday. 3e 427, 14th of Sun's Height. Younger than me by four months. She pretty much keeps to herself.

Well, she did until I came walking up with a zombie grabbing my shoulder. She jumped right out of her chair. "Kugi'ho 'zombie' fixa ko?"

I glanced over at Prashin. "I didn't understand anything but 'zombie'. Did you?"

He shrugged. "It sounds like Ta'agra but… different somehow. Like the grammar is the same, but the words are all jumbled." He finally shook his head. "We'll figure that out later." He patted the zombie on his chest. "He's a friend… like you." He pointed over at her.

She looked either offended or scared for a second because she shook her head and stepped back a bit. "Eei."

Prashin shrugged. "Well, I tried. Good luck explaining this to anyone else. I think they'll likely react the same way."

Just thinking of trying to explain this to Cenranii or Meiran… oh boy… I can hardly wait to hear how I messed this one up.

I sighed as I walked up the ladder, the zombie trying to follow me up. When I cleared its arm, I felt some bit of alarm from the zombie, like it was scared that I was leaving it. I reached over, placing the mangled arm on Prashin's shoulder. Prashin responded by wrapping his arm around the zombie's waist, giving him a light pat on the back. The zombie seemed to calm down a bit as I started walking up the ladder again, coming up to the magic doorway leading to my old house. I pounded three, and then two, and then four times on the door. The door opened up, and I was welcomed to a grin from Immia.

"Welcome back, Nisha!" She said as she reached down to help pull me up. When she looked down, she hissed in surprise, jumping far enough back that she almost hit the caved in ceiling. "What is that?!"

I'm assuming she's talking about the zombie right below me. "A friend. Can I talk to Cenranii or Meiran?"

She looked puzzled but she finally nodded. "If you have to." She mumbled. "Oh, mighty leader! Nisha needs to speak with you."

Cenranii rounded the corner, groaning. "I will attempt a conversation with her." He glanced down at me from the other side of the room. "What did you find on your hunt? Thrown away pizza? Meat? Anything?"

I looked down at the headless Argonian zombie. "I found a headless zombie."

"A what?" Cenranii squinted his eyes in confusion. "Really?" He walked over to me, looking down past me to the headless zombie holding onto Prashin's shoulder. "Oh, I'll be mystified… you actually found a headless zombie." He looked over at me. "Why is it still alive?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. The heart wants what the heart wants."

He rolled his eyes. "I don't mean … that kind of alive. I mean… why didn't you kill it? You lot are a bunch of savages after all. Claw first, ask questions later, right?"

I resisted the urge to claw him… that would only prove him right. So, I also resisted a growl as I looked down at the zombie. "No… I don't." I don't even have real claws yet. I'm not telling him that either. "I thought he was going to kill me… and then I realized, he can't. He can't do anything to hurt me. So… why bother coming at me? He's lonely. I thought… we could keep him. I already named him Bubbles. And it's my house, my rules. We're keeping him."

He glanced over at me. He finally smirked, stretching his arms out and cracking his knuckles. "Why not go… a little further? Sure, we could keep him… but how about we resurrect him? Bring him back to life."

Bring my new zombie friend back to life? Was that even possible? "Um… how?"

He pointed to himself. "You might not know this… but my father is pretty good at Mysticism. One of the best, actually. And resurrection is a Master Level spell done only by a person who's mastered three very specific disciplines: Mysticism, Conjuration, and Restoration. My dad… he was part of a team that were all masters of each discipline. They made a spell tome of Resurrection." He reached into his own bag, pulling out a scroll. "I have a scroll that has the spell prepared on it. A present from my dad… in case something was to ever happen to him."

I glanced down at the headless zombie and then back up at Cenranii. "You'd do that? Use your father's gift to bring a zombie back to life?"

He nodded. "Nisha… just because I'm smart doesn't mean I don't understand compassion. You brought home a new comrade. We need more fighters."

"What we don't need is another mouth to feed." Meiran said as he walked over to join us. He glanced down the hole, shaking his head. "And it's a fucking lizard too. Great… more of them.." He threw his arms up. "I knew it. Order a beast to go get one simple job done… and she brings home another pet to play with."

Cenranii glanced back at him. "Just because they're lower than us does not make them our pets. Just stupid." He looked over at me. "If we're going to resurrect him, we're going to need some lavender."

"lavender, why?" I studied Alchemy for a long time… and I never knew lavender was good for resurrection, or anything remotely close to that.

Cenranii shrugged. "I don't expect you to understand this… but… when all this is over, our friend is going to want to take a bath… and I'll be damned if we're making him bathe in sewage without some amount of fresh smelling shampoo to rub himself down with. Speaking of which… you smell pretty rancid. Go diving too far into the trash?"

I held my growl as I shook my head. "Dwemer almost found me. I hid."

He smirked. He reached down to my mane. He touched the side of my head, and I fought the urge to knock his hand away. When he pulled his hand back, he was holding a banana peel in his hand. "Well… I'd say you hid yourself pretty well. You need a bath." I didn't even notice I was covered in trash. Great… as if bathing in the sewer wasn't bad enough. Maybe I'll just sneak out to the lake and go bathing in there. Has to be worth the risk.

…

[Antlanthia]

I sighed as I placed the magazine down. I see the craziest things when I'm on the toilet. Here I was, reading an article on how to get oil stains out of my dress, and all the sudden, I'm thinking about some little cat girl running around the sewers. Do I know her? No. Do I know anything about her? Now I do. Do I care? Eh… not really. Her name sounded familiar though. Nisha… huh… is it the same Nisha we just ran into a couple days ago? I didn't think so. She was much younger, perhaps 11 or something. And she didn't have blue hair. And she had amber eyes, not light blue. Couldn't be the same Nisha I kept saying would invade us.

I sighed as I began reaching for the toilet paper. Feeling the soul crushing regret of eating a burrito was coming back up on me though. Oh well… might as well just sit this out. Who knows what I'll see next? I flipped open my magazine as I felt a rush coming down on me. Oh great… here we go again. My Psionic power is the ability to see the future… and the past sometimes. The only problem was… I had to be doing something very menial to get any reading at all. I could be driving… taking a crap… watching television, or talking to my boss… and the mindless tasks involved in all of those would allow me to see the current of time. It happens a lot when I'm doing simple math equations. Like solving Pi… which is the answer to life. Never forget it.

As I felt the vision fall down upon me… I had to force myself to remember that… in just a few minutes… it would all change. The future would be completely different. Nothing is really set in stone. Whatever I just saw might not even come to pass… or maybe it will. It just depends on if someone really annoying was going to interfere with our plans of conquest. So… in that future… we sacked the Imperial City… and some little girl looking for her brother traveled there. I should remember that. Might come in handy to have the guards trick her into speaking Common, and leak some information for her to follow. Might lead her to her brother… or to me. Depends. I don't know why the Dwemer were speaking Common in the first place. Probably because I already set that mandate out. Which means… that little girl is about to have one heck of a rude awakening.

Oh crap… it's starting again. Ugh…

Cearbhail:

The first chapter beginning with Nisha roaming a run down city? And then it slowly evolved into Antlanthia taking a crap and having a vision of her instead? Oh me... how I do things. That very well might be a future very soon. Pretty sure of it. I like it so far. Might continue with that one. OH well, time for the story to start.