Scarlet Snow

Chapter One: Setting Out

By: Nekhs

Scarlet spared the room one last glance, shifting the weight of her pack across her shoulders.

Thirteen long years, this dimly lit stone cell had been her prison.

Oh, she had tried to make it a home. The stone slab that had served her for a bed was covered in pillows and warm blankets. The walls were plastered with increasingly complex drawings, some in ink, some in charcoal, some in blood. The gleaming metal shelves held all one hundred and twelve dolls Uncle had gifted her, save the one tucked neatly into her backpack.

Those dolls stared at her, their tiny button eyes filled with accusation. She could never adequately explain to them why she had to leave most of them behind. How could she pick and choose between her only friends, paring their numbers down until one doll - and one doll only - would escape with her? It had not been an easy choice.

She left the room in perfect order, as though some day, she might return. Of course, she had no plans to do so. Much as the outside world terrified her, she could abide her captivity no longer.

Uncle had often warned her of the dangers lurking outside. He said that she must prepare for the worst, and so she had prepared herself.

As she finally - finally! - pressed her palms against the cold metal door that stood between herself and freedom, Scarlet could not help but wonder if that preparation would be enough.

It would have to be.

She shoved the door open with both hands - Uncle had deliberately left it unlocked, this time - and immediately ducked to the side, avoiding a strike that would have taken her head. She ran, but she knew she was not faster than the rolling metal monstrosity that had waited so patiently for this very moment. The construct folded itself into a ball, giving her just enough time to cast the short-lived summoning spell.

As her death rolled inexorably towards her, she drew on all the power she had painstakingly stored away. The storm atronach was not a creature she could bind, nor control - it had taken weeks just to accumulate enough power to summon the damned thing.

It was just as likely to turn on her as it was to attack her enemy. However, its strategic placement - directly in the path of the golden orb - guaranteed that the machine would attack it, just to get to Scarlet.

That was the construct's first, and last, mistake.

The atronach exploded into a storm of electrical fury. Lightning blasted the orb, sending it off-balance as the massive creature she had lured into the world struck out with its relatively solid 'arms.'

The orb wasn't quite finished, but by that point, Scarlet could really care less. She had downed the invisibility potion.

Now, she just had to make good on her escape.

Blackreach was a truly beautiful place, but she didn't have a lot of time to appreciate that fact: an arrow whizzed just past her right ear, while the clatter of something many-legged and large made its way up the paved stone path towards her.

The falmer were blind, after all. Invisibility meant less than nothing to them.

Scarlet ran.

It was a mad dash through the darkness, but before long, the foreign shouts became more distant. She found herself hiding behind a large formation of rock. Being fairly confident that she had lost the elves somewhere in the cavern, she risked a glance around the rocks.

There, against the darkness, she saw a glimpse of it. A black-shelled bug, as long as she was tall, chittered far too closely for her liking.

Already winded, she offered her thanks to Lady Nocturnal for small blessings. If it weren't for the roar of the waterfall nearby, the sound of her aching lungs gasping for air would have definitely caught the monster's attention already.

She took a moment to look out at the cavern, resting her delicate, snow-white hands against her thighs. The view might have taken her breath away, if the long chase hadn't done so already.

Impossibly tall mushrooms glowed faintly. Blue, green, and even violet light shone against the high ceiling, sparkles dancing on the shiny rocks above her and reflecting on the massive lake below.

All throughout, stone formations rose, shadows against the darkness. Some were natural, jutting up from below in sharp spikes. Just as many were obviously made by man or mer, and it was plain to her that those ruins would be her path to the surface: most of them, after all, did breach the ceiling, piercing the glittering darkness with cold, hard, stone.

The clatter of the bug's tip-toes against the cave floor was not going away.

Of course, things wouldn't be so easy.

She gripped her dwemer knife in her left hand, gathering magic to her right. Daring another glance around the rocks revealed the chaurus (that was what the bug-creature was called) poking around the stones nearby. It couldn't seem to piece together where she had gone, stupid thing.

Creeping around behind it, she leapt suddenly onto its back and drove the knife between the shiny, chitinous plates that formed the creature's tough armor. The bug squealed under her, trying to shake her off as she pried it open. She held firm, though, and when she could see the goop that made up its insides, she poured fire into its 'belly.'

It screeched again, the smell of cooking meat filling the air. It thrashed, its death throes finally knocking her loose, but before it could retaliate properly, it went deathly still. Its many legs carried it sideways, and then down, onto the ground.

Looking around, she didn't see any trace of the thing's elven masters. Hoping that meant she had lost them for good, she set out.