Authors note: As I have mentioned elsewhere, ESO is the first online gaming I have ever experienced. I've run into people who are concentrating on "working up" one character, as if achieving a certain level or title was somehow "the goal". My "goal" is playing the game and enjoying the universe. That being said, you may well note that NPCs in one of my ESO based stories are PCs in another.
This story began as an exploration of what it must be like living (and fighting to survive) in a Dragonbreak. Despite the fact that later history will record that there was only one "Hero" we all know there were many who started that path. Not all of them succeeded. This is meant to be the start of a longer story, but when I noted I'd left it so long that it was one day away from auto-delete, I thought I'd better post the darn thing just to save it.
Standard disclaimer: I do not own Morrowind, ESO or any of the other wondrous creations of Bethesda Softworks or Zenimax. I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own invention.
~~Tales around the Campfire~~
"Aye, Coldharbor," Elvar's low voice rumbled across the camp. The moons were dark, and racing clouds meant that little starlight added to the dim red glow of fires that were mostly banked for the evening. "'The sky burns with chill flames. The treacherous ground is broken boulders of brittle shale, cracking underfoot to reveal thousand foot crevasses that will swallow the unwary."
In front of her, Kismet could see two younger members of the Order of the Dragon, eyes wide and expressions rapt, shivering with enthusiastic horror at the nord sergeant's evocative description. The dim light was barely enough for her to make out the edges of their dragon tattoos. Golden ink on pale skin told her that the willowy female on the right was an altmer. Her companion was heavier, though not as tall. She could make out a dark shock of wild hair, but nothing to confirm race. Judging from the width of the shoulders and the size of the maul that rested nearby, she suspected he was male.
She couldn't place them, but then a troop of twenty newer recruits had arrived two days ago. Elvar Bladedancer had wasted little time in initiating them into the not-as-heroic-as-the-bards-would-have-it tales of the more well known order members. Tonight, someone had asked about Cold Harbor. She knew this tale well, having heard it several times.
She moved slightly farther back into the darkness beyond the glowing embers of the nearest cook-fire. The first time she'd listened to Elvar's evocative descriptions of Cold Harbor, she too had shivered with delight and anticipation, imagining her undaunted bravery in the face of such peril. After her first actual battle with the distorted creatures from the realm that Elvar was describing, she was less interested in the imagery and more interested in the story.
The Nibenay Valley chapter-house had been one of the oldest of the Order's facilities. It had housed hundreds of people. Trained members of the order, Knights, Battlemages, Sorcerers and even a number of Nightblades. That didn't include the support staff and many of the family members. There had been homes nearby. A small mill.
All of it had been destroyed. Mostly what was left had been rubble.
Out of the estimated two hundred twelve persons that should have been there, only four bodies were found. At first. This was because the worm cult had taken all of the rest. Having resisted bravely, and been willing to die in the line of duty, they had not been killed, they had been sacrificed, claimed, and their souls sent to Cold Harbor.
Elvar's baritone seemed to echo in the darkness. "Oh, the worst of it is that you can die. And you will. Many times. The Wailing Prison is a place of torment. Hung on a hook, suspended over a steaming fumarole fueled by a volcanic magma flow. It takes hours, maybe days to cook you alive as you struggle ueslessly, watching your entrails drip, and then dry, and then darken and crisp in the terrible unrelenting heat."
The altmer seated at the storyteller's feet gave a little shiver.
The muscular companion gave a baritone growl that confirmed for Kismet that this was an orisimer.
"But perhaps it would be better to face torture, to struggle and know that you struggle." Elvar's eyes narrowed in irritation. "Because the alternative is endless labor. Some task, some duty, some boring or frustrating task that you cannot succeed at." He fixed his gaze on the orisimer in front of him. "How are your embroidery skills?"
"Pah," The orismer made a sound of disgust, "it would take more than a needle and thread to defeat me."
"Sewing," Elvar continued. "Hemming kerchiefs. Trimming gloves fit for bosmer sized fingers. Picking the thread out of what you'd made and then doing it over."
"I'd go mad."
"Not just once, but over and over. Not just days, but weeks of this. Make that same glove, then pull it apart, then make it again. Days stretching into weeks stretching into months ... years."
The orismer shook his head. "I'd escape, I'd ..."
"There is no escape." Elvar's voice was flat. Certain. "You would be rescued. Or you would stay there."
After a pause, the seargent continued. "You would try not to think about what you were doing. You would retreat into yourself, pulling away, sleeping, slowly drawn into despair. Time does not flow there like it does here. A day here ... it could be a very very long time."
"No.." But the orc's voice sounded uncertain.
"The rescue of Nibenay took place twenty-seven days after the initial attack. However apparently it had been a very very long time, because we found ... very little of our folk left when we got there."
"Got there?!" The altmer's voice was almost as high as a bosmer's, "you were one of the ones who went to Cold Harbor?"
"They were just standing," Elvar said softly. "Tens upon tens. Few even working unless lashed by one of the Dremora masters. They were faded, pale. They just stood there. I couldn't even tell if they were men or women. Just pale, lost souls, lost to despair."
Kismet shuddered at the thought. She would rather die.
Elvar shook his head. "I'm told by those who warded us, and held the portal for our return that we were only gone a day and a half. I would have sworn I had been down there longer." He paused. "We spent that time wandering through grey mists and shifting treacherous bogs. Hiding behind strange devices which pounded stone into rubble, manned by souls so lost they no longer had faces."
Someone behind her said. "But I heard ... I mean we all heard that ... That there was one."
The ruddly glow of the coals made Elvar's grimace look like a mask.
"Yes," he said eventually, "There was one who survived."
Kismet could hear the whispers, but she mostly ignored them, focusing on Elvar.
He nodded. "The Caemaire general."
"Ender." The orisimer in front of Kismet murmured. The name was echoed by several.
The altmer said, "But how did he do it? How did he ... survive?"
Elvar sighed. "I asked him that, myself."
In the quiet, Kismet could hear the sounds of night insects, and of something slithering through the nearby grasses. Probably some snake attracted to the heat of the campfires. How did you survive despair?
"What did he say?"
"He said," Elvar half-closed his eyes, as if caught in a memory, "He said 'I do not despair'." The storyteller's voice changed then. His next words were a low rumble of meanace. In the firepit a coal hissed and the brief flames were reflected in his eyes.
"I take vengeance."
Despite the heat of the coals, Kismet felt the cold of the night, of that voice settle into her bones.
She shifted position, just to better feel the weight of the staff she wore across her back. She knew that the worm cult's forces targeted members of the Order of the Dragon when they could. She knew that many of the Order had been lost. Would be lost.
If she was taken, could she remember this story?
Would vengance be enough?