Chapter Two:
Passwll
The landscape around Baiai was alien in every way that he could poosibly imagine. He was at the top of a hill, the ground around him was jagged and rolling, as if the bones of the soil snapped upwards but failed to break the skin, covered by many strange plants and different shaded and colored grass. Where the trees should've grown, instead colossal fungis of some sort of impossible vastness covered in thick rubbery skin snaked and wound towards the sky, thick trun ks cavorting over expansives of ground. Cloying and thick undergrounth spred beneath the cyclpoen mushrooms, some of it blooming with bright flowers while others had heads that trailed vines of a pestilential brown: some seemed to be normal trees and ferns that he recognized from Cyrodill, but others were overgrown and bloated fungi or strange plants that had a pecul,iary fleshy quality to them.
In the distance, he could make out what looked to be a massive wall of black basalt rising from thr ground over the other side of the valley, great ramparts shining slick in the sun that shone bright upon it. There was a cobbled path leading from the hilltop Baiai was on, lined on either side by broken and toppled pillars, and hes et off down it, he found the air here had that same damp, breathless quality that Oblivion had. Just more colorful.
He kept a wary eye on his surroundings as it rustled and shifted, and part of him couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. Ether by something in the greenery or by the plants themselves that was preparing to attack him. And the feeling wasn't far off. Because the first being that he met that wasn't Haskill, tried to kill him.
He met it, whatever it was, as the path reached a dip in the landscape, path roofed by roots one of immense, twisted mushroom trees that had its head crowned by twisted and contorted branches that reached towards the sky like broken fingers. It, the creature, was an ugly frog like goblin looking creature that was squatting in a puddle beneath the massive plant's underside, and a flat, jowly head set between hunched shoulders turned to face him. It gave a guttural growl; limp lips wobbling with the noise to expose brown moss covered teeth, and raised an axe like weapon and a shield of crude pig-iron and splinted wood.
With a baying noise, it charged, a make shift axe made from sharpen stone, raised, ready to swing down and split Baiai's skull in half. The Champion relaxed, drew his Ebony longsword and waited for the creature to reach him. He'd been doing this since he joinedthe Arena twenty-five years ago. And compared to some enemies he had fought, this was childs play. The axe was in the creatures' right hand, shield in its left, and it wore no amour. He knew what to do.
The weapon swept down and Baiai sidestepped to its right. His left hand shot out and closed around its wrist, stumbling it as he turned his blade side ways and used his full force to shoved his blade though its skull. With a crunch of bones, it collapsed, its face caved around his blade covered in fresh blood.
Baiai brethed the damp air heavily for a few moments as his body called for more action. More combat, adrenaline pounding in his head. Battle as his natural calling after all. He scanned the area, but found no more enimes.
Once he had calmed somewhat, he set off again, skirting around the puddle that had formed benethe the tree's roots. Contining along the path as it began to wind its way uphill, the greeny beginning to thin out. He tempted turning back, leaving all this bizarre behind him, forgetting the creepy goblin like creature, telling Maria to fuck off and the strange man. But his thoughts were drawn to the rocks as they began to rise around him, the road forked. There was a signpost, and Baiai stopped to read it. At best, it was cryptic and at worst, it was downright useless: the one pointing to the left read 'The Gardens of Bone and Flesh' and the one to the right read 'Passwall'. The othe four marker pointed to no path in general, and simply read 'Rage', 'Lust', 'Pride' and 'Despire'. After a few moments, Baiai decided Passwall sounded like the most like a civilization of some kind.
His guess was right: less than fifty yards along the path the rocky walls that had started to rise receded, and buildings thatched roof and plastered walls came into view, part of it straddling the road as and archway. He headed though it, emerging in what appeared to be a central square of some village. It was a decrepit, swampy place, the houses all rasied on stilts and the whitewash on their walls peeling from the damp, thatch on their roof half-rotten. The placed seemed deserted, and Baiai frowned.
"Anybody here?" He called. For a moment, all he heard was the same cries and chatters of the birds and insects in the undergrowth, and he wondered if the village was abandoned. And it was then that he heard a roar. The bellows of some immense, enraged beast. The sound hit him like a wall, and his gaze shot towards its source, up a stepped path climbing a hillside on the village's edge. Silence fell, the creatures of the isles cowered into quiet by the noise, and Baiai turned to face it. After a moment, drawn by some kind of curiosity that he couldn't explain, he followed it up, deciding to see what the source of the noise was.
He found what he could only call an Arena; there was a flat expanse of stone, shaped in a circle and ringed by small cliffs, and, the one vital ingredient that made a battle into a show, a crowd, all of them watching the two combatants. Just without the towering seats.
One side was nothing Baiai could call unusual, a group of adventurers of some kind, wearing and wielding a variety of armour and weapons. But their opponent, on the other hand, was something else; some kind of giant standing a good twenty feet in height, its head covered with a heavy helmet. One arm ended in a massive, rusted cleaver that was flecked with blood, the other in a vambrace and a great hand. Its skin seemed to be made up of patches sewn together over flesh, glowing tattoos spiralling and whirling across it before they were covered by its irons.
Baiai stepped into the small crowd of people who were watching, and they cheered as the monster picked up an adventurer and used the unfortunate man as a club to smash one of his comrades away, the broken corpse sent flying before it slammed into the massive onyx gate that the combat took place before. It roared again, the deafening noise made tiny by the helmet it wore, before swinging down with its cleaver on an Orsimer who tried to slip around its flank and stab a claymore into its stomach, separating his midriff from the rest of his body in a spray of gore.
Taking advantage of the opening, a Khajiit wielding twin daggers slipped around its behind and stabbed the weapons into the back of its thigh in a bid to lame it. He was rewarded with a bellow of pain before the gaint kicked back at him, the beastman barely able to scramble out of the blow's way and scamper out of reach.
As it turned, Baiai saw the wound in its leg was simply fading from view, sealing up with only a trail of blackish blood to mark its presence. That would certainly prove troblusome for the group of fighters. An arrow from a distant Bosmer situated at the edge of the arena sunk into its neck, where the veins should be, but the giant being merely tore it from its neck and the injury sutured itself shut.
These adventurers were good, Baiai would give them that much, working together to try and bring the thing down. The remaining ones had split into teams, following directions bellowed at them by an Orc, ones armed with spears trying to bait and distract the creature at arm's length while a few more tried to slip round its flank and take it down there.
A spear stabbed into its gut, the haft of the weapon digging deep into the organs of its stomach and the monster bellowed in pain. It stumbled back, clumsy footsteps almost flattening the Khajiit that had managed to land the blow with its daggers just a few moments ago. Finding respite, it reached to the weapon embedded into it and tore it free with a wet squelch, its haft and head dripping with viscera. The hole in its stomach beginning to close, it hefted the spear in its hand, gaze turning towards the Bosmer archer who was nocking another arrow to his bow. A moment later, accompanied to a yell of delight from the crowd, an overarm throw sent the weapon screaming into the Wood Elf and skewered him through the chest.
One of the others, an Imperial armed with a pair of swords, cried out a name and sprinted towards the fallen Mer, uncaring for the presence of his foe. A moment later, a great hand grabbed him, lifted him into the air and slammed him down on the floor with a crack. He did not rise.
If Baiai was in their position he would have already cut his losses and ran; great Arena Grand Champion or not, he knew when he was beat. Whatever healing abilities this creature possessed, it was too much for their own weapons to overcome, and even thought they were good fighters with solid tactics this creature had them outmatched. The only problem was that the giant they fought had them outmanoeuvred; they battled it with their backs to the gate, and no way out besides getting through it.
There were only four left now; the Khajiit, who had backed away, their commander and the two spear-bearers, one of them now grabbing a mace from its sling in place of his lost weapon. With a deep, rumbling growl, the massive creature advanced, footsteps thudding against the ground.
"I told you the Gatekeeper was going kill them all," Baiai heard someone in the crowd next to him remark to another spectator. "Look, he's going to finish them off right now."
The Gatekeeper, as it was called, bellowed a challenge and charged, ground shaking beneath its steps. The adventurers tried to scatter, but a swing from its cleaver slew two of them as they tried to get away, before the Gatekeeper turned and grabbed the Orc who was making a swing at it with his claymore, Mer and monster alike bellowing in fury. It squeezed, bone cracking under the pressure, and it dropped the mangled body as it advanced on the Khajiit. The beastman yowled in terror as he found his back pressed against walls, trying to back away from the Gatekeeper, and bolted away in a desperate sprint in the hope of getting around it. A massive hand closed around his tail, swung him up into the air and swung him back down to the ground once more.
The crowd cheered and applauded as the Gatekeeper stopped what it was doing, casting around for any more enemies before simply standing still. Their entertainment gone, the crowd began to disperse back down the hill, and after a few moments Carnius was alone at its top with only a Dark Elf woman in a dress of bloodstained blue silk for company.
"Wasn't that simply marvellous?" she exclaimed to Carnius, joy written across her features. "I always feel so very proud of him when I see him do his work!" She clapped her hands together, smiling in joy, before she looked at Baiai proper and frowned. "You're new here, aren't you?" She asked.
"I suppose I am, yes."
"I thought so," She said. "I'm Relmyna Verenim, by the way. And who are you? Another pilgrim hoping for a blessing to take root? Or perhaps…are you an adventurer, like those degenerates that my darling Gatekeeper just had to deal with?" She frowned. "No, you might be dressed like one but you don't really look like one, do you. Perhaps you won't be quite so unspeakably vile as they were."
"I've haven't been been adventuring in years ma'am, and I really don't like to either. So no." Baiai said. "Ran Baiai, by the way."
"Well that's a relief," Relmyna said. She looked him up and down, before she nodded. "Then I suppose I am pleased to meet you, Ran Baiai." Baiai glanced at the Gatekeeper, and back at Relmyna.
"Do you mind telling me what that 'Gatekeeper' thing is?" he asked.
"Him?" Relmyna asked. "Why, he is my beloved child! He is the consummation of Sheogorath's wisdom in the womb of my genius. His birth was painful and bloody, but well worth it. From it, I made the perfect guardian; he does not rest, he does not eat, he does not allow any other than those permitted to pass and he cannot be killed."
"Who are those permitted to pass?"
"Those with Lord Sheogorath's blessing, of course," Relmyna said. "You, however, do not yet possess that, I don't think."
"So how would I get past him, through those gates over on the other side?" Baiai asked. "Get to the rest of the Isles?"
"To get through those gates, you would need to get the keys," Relmyna said. "And they are sewn up within the body of my child. You would need to kill him to get them first, and you cannot kill him. It is the perfect defence, and I am a genius for conceiving such an idea."
"How would I get that blessing, then?"
"It would be difficult for you," Relmyna said, looking him up and down once more. "Difficult, but not impossible. Your problem is that your soul is dull, uninspired, lacklustre. If I were to cut you open then the world would be wholly unimpressed by your uninteresting blood. You are simply too…" she paused, as if the word she was to say next was somehow taboo. "…sane." She shuddered.
"Right," Baiai nodded, somewhat perturbed by the way she talked about cutting him open. She was nuttier than Oblivion.
"Still," Relmyna said. "You do have quite a remarkable musculature on you. A client of mine is looking for a someone to serve as a base for a flesh-sculpture and your muscles would be nicely suited for that. Of course, I'd need a better bone structure and that skin on you would have to go, but-"
"Miss," Baiai interrupted. "I have no idea if you're complimenting me or something there, but I have one to thing to say to that. I'm not normally inclined towards assaulting people at random, but if you keep on talking about me like that then I will hurt you." Relmyna shrugged.
"Fine then," She said, setting off down the path back down to Passwall. "Good luck getting past the Gatekeeper, by the way. You'll certainly need it if you want to get into the Isles the way you are right now."
Baiai lingered a few moments longer, watching the Gatekeeper as it nudged one of the corpses with the horny, jagged toenails of its foot. Then he began the short walk to Passwall, wondering just what he had managed to get himself into. Willingly this time around.
Was whatever he was looking for worth this? He really hoped so.
