Chapter 2 – Death
At first light of the next day, the company of five gathered their things and started off to the tomb. Walking briskly through the Western Gate, Ernand lead them across the Morrowind countryside. Slender trees of bright green foliage swayed gently in the breeze, wet grass and mud beneath their feet. The journey was quiet mostly, Ernand keeping an eye on his map as he walked, Watch keeping to herself and Waylas and 'Smile talking amongst themselves. Lugbul brought up the rear, keeping a watch for anything untoward. The troupe continued on in this way for most of the day, trudging through the wilderness, only a brief shower interrupting the bright sunshine. It was evening by the time the five finally reached their destination. They had travelled mostly through verdant woodland and plains, before finally coming upon a small cave entrance hidden from the beaten path. The rocks around the entrance were strangely jagged and shone bizarrely in the twilight sun. Ernand turned to his mercenaries, "Here we are, my friends," his green eyes shone excitedly, "this is the entrance to the tomb. We will enter in single formation, Lugbul at the front, me at the back. I think it best if Watch stays close to the rear, Waylas and 'Smile behind Lugbul." There was a pause.
"As you wish, Ernand," Waylas conceded, "I see no problem with this plan." Lugbul gave no response, merely readied his warhammer and handed his bag to Watch. "Watch this." He grunted, shoving the heavy burden into her arms. The rest fell in behind him as he strode to the small crack of an entrance. Crouching and squirming, the giant orc managed to gain access to the cave, the others having no problem entering. The entrance brought them to a passageway much larger than the entrance hole, dark rock and shadows on every side. Waylas lit a torch with some flint and handed it to Lugbul. The orc took it, and sheathed his hammer, instead drawing a longsword, wielding it in a single hand. The five then began to explore the caves. "From here, we go straight, then make a left." Ernand whispered. Lugbul grunted, agitated that the mage's whisperings might alert undead. They followed Ernand's directions for at least an hour, before 'Smile spoke. "This one is sure this is a path already trodden," she hissed.
"Aye," Waylas agreed, "we're going in circles." Lugbul stopped and turned around to see the others. In the flickering light of the torch, their faces were half wreathed in shadow. "Nonsense," Ernand insisted, "this is the precise route I took last time. I have it here on the map, written in my master's hand. Now keep going. We go straight at the next junction, then a left." The company returned to their travel, but a feeling had descended on them. The air grew thin, and the walking began to take it's toll on their stamina. Finally, Waylas talked again. "Ernand," he began doggedly, "I want to see that map. Where are we?" The mage drew back and held the map close to him.
"This is not your map to see," he said forcefully, "now if you please, we're almost there." 'Smile did not move. "Almost where?" She said, "You never said you made it all the way to the tomb, and we've seen no undead."
"I don't know where they are, but we should continue," the mage said, "we're almost at the end of the caves and at the tomb. We'll get in, investigate and leave. If there are no more undead, then all the better." The mage's tone was shifting and uncertain. He seemed insistent one moment and sincere the next. There was something strange afoot certainly. Lugbul continued, the rest falling in behind. Finally, after a right turn, the company came to the tomb.
A great room, it was all covered in shining stone that gleamed in the torch light. There was no grave or crypt in sight, only the shining rock; along one side the room flattened, and something of a wall could be seen. Indentations in the flat rock gave it a bizarre look, an interlinking pattern of curves and straight lines that looked like ripples on water from afar. Lugbul approached the flat face and regarded it intently, mystified by its weird appearance. The others spread out and looked about the room. "There's nothing here," Waylas began, "Ernand, what is the me-" He stopped short of finishing his sentence. Ernand chanted and light burst from his open palm, wreathing the room in a dark, pulsating crimson. Lugbul rushed at the Breton mage, stopping in his tracks as he gazed upon Ernand's true form. Dark, horny skin made callous and burnt, tinged with crimson, eyes like malicious fire. The great orc cowered before the mighty visage of a dremora lord, its armor seething with fiery rage, the air screaming it as the heat grew. The khajiit flung herself away from the daedra, the dry heat blast enough to crack the walls. The rocks shimmered in the heat and light around Waylas as he scrambled from the hulking figure, and Watch wailed in fear and clutched her eyes. Lugbul's orcish instinct returned to him just as the dremora lord closed on him, a wickedly sharp blade now conjured in its gauntleted hand. With unsteady steps the orc met the daedra, and swung his hammer at the fiend's head. The blow was parried with ease and speed, the chink of metal mixed with an surreal and echoing ringing from the dremora's blade. The room bucked and swayed, Lugbul's stomach lurching with it, tinges of fear rearing in his gut. The daedra strode with sure feet, his blade flowing from his side. Lugbul raised him hammer with heavy hands, his head reeling from the motion of the room, and the daedric blade met the hammer's head. A scraping sound, like a screech, pierced the air, and a deep groove scarred the hammer's face. A second blow, almost immediately this time, swept across to meet Lugbul's throat. The orc held the hammer sideways, and let the head drop. The weight added speed to Lugbul's movement, despite his spinning head and quivering senses, and the shaft of the hammer met the blade of the sword. The wooden shaft cleaved in two, the hammer head fell to the ground, too heavy to hold with one hand, even for Lugbul. The other part remained in the orc's hand, pathetic and useless. The daedra sneered, dark fangs in deep purple flesh. With a stab of his sword, the daedra impaled the orc through the chest, blood pouring from the wound onto the floor of the chamber. The blade of its sword bloomed with purple light as Lugbul's soul was absorbed into the weapon, and the orc fell back dead onto the floor. The dremora lord scoured the room, seeing that the others had escaped the room. It retrieved its blade from the orc's body, and strode over to the flattend rock. It touched the tip off the sword against the wall, and a bloody red light began to glow from the indentations, the curves forming a daedric symbol. The pattern shifted, and the symbol rearranged itself. When the process was done, the light faded, and the dremora stepped back. It turned to the exit of the room and began its hunt for the others.
Waylas and Watch had both scrambled out of the passage and away from the dremora the moment Lugbul had met him in combat. Neither had planned on following the other, only blind terror and dumb luck had brought them together. Their other partner, Moonsmile, had disappeared elsewhere, to parts unknown. They stumbled through the dark, their hands reaching for the cold, dead feel of the cave walls, desperately trying to escape. They finally felt their way to a dead end, where they stopped to catch their breath. "Watch," Waylas gasped, "you have Illusion magick? Get us a light." The Argonian took a moment, before conjuring a small light that timidly revealed their surroundings. Waylas was sitting beside her as she leant against the wall, sweating and struggling for air. "Was that really a Daedra?" He asked.
"I don't know." she whispered. She was shaking, wavering the light and juddering the shadows around them. "I know no magick that could transform in such a way." She admitted finally, after several gulps of air. Waylas had sufficiently calmed to begin thinking. "We need to get out of here. Sorcery or not, I don't want to deal with it."
"Agreed," Watch said, "but how?"
"We need the map."
"But that thing has it."
"Then we should try to steal it. Maybe it left it behind." Watch fell to her knees, the light fading. Waylas stood up. "We also need to find 'Smile. She can get us out of here, without light as well." Through the rolling tunnels came a sound, of metal on stone, of surreal clinking, of echoing scraping. The pair went silent, and Watch's light dwindled into nothing.
The daedra stalked the tunnels, predatory, searching this way and that, smelling the flesh of his victims. Two to his left, resting, one ahead and slightly to the right, lying prone. The game was afoot.
Moonsmile had sprinted far on all fours, barely able to keep her bearings as she tore through the caves. She didn't see the drop until it was too late, and now she lay, body broken, at the bottom of some forsaken pit. She tried to move; clicks and cracks of broken bone mixed with her moans. She fell silent again as the sound of the dremora became audible. She had broken both her legs trying to avoid jagged rocks, and even then she had only managed to land on the least sharp. A sharp spike had pierced her abdomen, and her head had been cracked open. Her vision began to fade to black when she saw it; as the world grew dark, its form grew sharper, a terrifying form breaking through the shadows of a darkening world. When the sword pierced her chest, she felt the burning of a thousand fires erupt from her heart and spread through her body. Her life left her, and her soul was imprisoned within the daedra's blade.
Waylas had gone on without Watch; after some hissed arguing, he had parted ways with her. It was foolish to wait for the daedra to give up. Waylas was all but certain that it would hunt them until it had them. So he left, even daring to light a torch, and began his search for the exit. Blade drawn, he wandered for a while, before he heard it again. The surreal clicking that echoed weirdly in the ears. It got louder and louder. Everywhere he turned he heard it, louder and louder. He turned this way and that, frantically running from it. But ever louder it became. Then out of the shadow, a streak of light. Torchlight reflected from the daedra's blade as it speared out from the darkness, stabbing Waylas through the heart. Another bloom of purple light, and Waylas' soul was trapped within the sordid weapon. The daedra left the body, closing in on the last of his prey…
Watch sat shivering on the floor of the rocky passage, unable to move. The darkness enveloped her; she dared not light a spell, for the daedra would be there, his fangs waiting for her. She jumped at the dripping of water near her, her mind hearing the same bizarre clinking of the dremora's armour instead. When she finally heard the unnatural sound of its approach, her mind broke. Casting a spell, Watch illuminated the cavern tunnel, and looked around frantically. Her eyes darted from wall to wall. She was still at the dead end. She began to head back, when she saw it before her. Shrieking, she fell backward, as the daedra gracefully charged her, blade slicing from side to side, before it finally plunged into her chest. The final plume of purple light, and the Argonian's soul was ensnared within the cruel metal of the daedra's blade.
In the rocky chamber where Lugbul lay, the dremora returned, sword in hand. He tapped the tip to the wall again, and the lines glowed a deep red again. They shifted and slid across the smooth surface, until finally they formed a circle. Within its lines, a bright red beam of light poured forth. It grew brighter and brighter, the dremora grinning a hideous grin, and soon the whole chamber was alight with red. From beyond the endless planes and times of the daedra, there came a voice: "You have not surprised me…" Another voice, violent, angry, roared at the daedra, "You have failed!" The light began to burn. The daedra once known as Ernand panicked, feeling its form being dissolved, its body being rent apart. Its soul burned away from it, churning in the endless red. Its soul did not return to Oblivion however, and neither did its form. The light began to fade, and then focus. It shone on the body of Lugbul, where the daedra's soul flowed like a leaf on a mighty river. The light intensified once more, healing and restoring Lugbul's body as the soul merged with him. Finally, the light faded, and the room grew dark. The smoothed wall no longer held the indentations, no being totally plain. In the centre of the room lay Lugbul, now changed. Where before he had had smooth green skin, he now had coarse, dark grey flesh. His tusks and jaw were more pronounced, more sharp, and horns had grown on his forehead. His hair was completely gone. Lugbul lay in his new form, completely unconscious, for a few moments, before a voice called to him. "Awaken, Lugbul, Spurned Son…" Slowly, the orc awoke and sat up. He recoiled at his form, surprised at the sight he found. "Who goes there?" He said, "who goes there?!" The orc roared. A bolt of pain raced across his fore head, and he recoiled. He brought his hands to his face instinctively. Upon seeing his hands, Lugbul stared in confusion. His hands shook also, constantly, no matter how hard he tried to still them. "Lugbul, Spurned Son, My Chosen," came the voice again. Lugbul got his feet now, casting his gaze around fervently for the source of the voice. "Lugbul, you hear the words of Malacath, your Daedric lord, and have been chosen as my champion." Lugbul listened in awe as the daedra continued. "You were overwhelmed by the daedra that dwelt here, in the service of Mehrunes Dagon. And here is where I brought you, to foil its plot. You know at least how to die well, even if you hadn't courage when you were young. Your part may have ended here, but I saw more use for you, Spurned Son." Lugbul's hands continued to quake throughout, the orc trying furiously to calm his body. "You have been bequeathed no special talents as my champion, Spurned Son, only your new body; it thirsts for blood and vengeance, instilled with the soul of a vengeful daedra, and seeks to exact such vengeance on the persecutors and tormentors of our kind. Your body does not seek rest, nor hunger nor thirst; it yearns only for revenge. Yet I have one blessing more to confer." A red bloom of light erupted from behind Lugbul, and turning to it, the orc saw an ornate claymore, of dark and crimson metal. "This weapon is the one that killed you, merged with the body of your murderer. With it, you will kill all those that would spurn those that once spurned you. This is your hour of redemption; let every orc sing of your name when put to blade. Lugbul, Spurned Son, Champion of Malacath. Go, and do my will!"