Chapter 3: Rebirth
Due to the absence of the carriage driver, Valen had to walk all the way back to Riften. But needless to say; he didn't mind. He did tell the driver to go home after all. And he wasn't afraid of whatever dangers lurked in the wilderness.
He stopped in Nightgate Inn on the way home for the night. It was a quiet little place, where no one but the occasional traveller stayed. And a man named Fultheim the Fearless.
Fultheim was a pretty unremarkable looking fellow; who dressed like a common peasant and never seemed to do much else besides drink. There were only two things about him that were of any interest at all – his name and his sword. Valen could tell by looking at it that the blade was none other than an Akaviri katana.
The Dunmer possessed quite an extensive knowledge of the Blades, and clearly, Fultheim must have also known them pretty well to have one of their swords in his possession. Whether he was an ex-Blade himself, or perhaps he killed a Blade once and took his or her sword was uncertain, but either way, he was no stranger to the ancient Order either.
While Valen was sitting at a table and eating some food and drinking his ale, he started thinking about his past yet again.
Adrenor did as he was told and drank from the fountain of Pain. He then saw a vision of a group of Nedic nomads burning Lamae Bal's body on a pyre. They found her after the Daedra Lord Molag Bal brutally ravaged her and left her for dead, and they thought she was dead, so they burned her. But the nomads seemed concerned that the fire didn't appear to be having any effect on Lamae at all.
Then suddenly, she rose up from the pyre like it was a grave and she attacked the nomads; raping them violently and draining them until they died. They never stood a chance against her – especially with her new and unholy powers. She must have had the strength of a hundred men, at least. And she moved with inhuman speed. Some of the nomads tried to kill her, and some tried to flee. Either way; they died horrible, horrible deaths.
And then the vision ended, and Adrenor walked over to the Fountain of Rejection. He drank from it and received another vision of Lamae. But instead of killing and raping nomads, she was crying Arkay's name out to the sky and demanding he answer her, but she received no response, and then decided to reject the Divine of Death as she believed he had turned his back on her; his own Priestess.
The vision ended there, and Adrenor walked over to the Shrine of Molag Bal. He defiled and destroyed the statue, and then he did the same to Arkay's Shrine. Then he walked over to the pool of blood and kneeled in it. Lamae Bal appeared to him and he pledged himself to her. Then her children drained him until he died.
He rose up from the pool shortly afterwards. The pathetic weakling Adrenor used to be was dead. Now he was reborn as a Scion of the Blood Matron. Even among vampires, the Scions were extremely powerful – having been sired directly by Lamae Bal herself, and now, for the first time in his life – Adrenor was powerful, too.
His body had changed as a result. He was taller now, and his physique was much more impressive than it used to be. Not that he had suddenly become huge, but he was no longer the scrawny little Dunmer he once was. This was normal for the Scions of the Blood Matron, for their bodies to change and mutate, making them bigger and more physically imposing than they were as mortals. It only affects their size to some degree, but it still makes quite a difference nonetheless.
…
The vision of Valen's past ended there, and he rented a room from the innkeeper, then slept in his bed until the next morning.
The next morning, Valen ate breakfast, drank a pint of mead or two, and then hit the road once again. But the roads of Skyrim are thick with bandits, and on one night, as he was about to cross the road that would soon lead him to The Rift, he was stopped by a female bandit standing outside a large tower. She was a Redguard woman in fur armour, and she was watching the road for any travellers she could extort from, as well as any potential threats to her and her criminal friends.
"Hey, this here's a toll road" she said. "You're gonna have to pay us, say, 200 gold if you want to cross"
Valen furrowed his brow. "Why should I bother? This road doesn't belong to you"
"If you won't pay in gold, then pay with your blood!" she replied threateningly, but Valen didn't even flinch. She is nothing more than a lowly brigand. The Dunmer reckoned he'd fought mudcrabs more fearsome than her.
He unsheathed Grimsever and his dagger at the same time. "Go on then; take my blood if you can!" he dared her.
The woman drew her bow and was about to nock an arrow, but Valen ran her through with Grimsever before she could. Sensing there were more bandits inside, Valen searched the tower and found that there were indeed more of them in the tower.
Fortunately, he had the element of surprise, and he used it to cut them down one by one. But it didn't last long. When they saw him killing bandits, dozens more came pouring out of the towers and brandished their weapons.
To the bandits credit, they were organised and came in all shapes and sizes. Some were huge, heavily armoured brutes in Steel Plate armour armed with large battleaxes. They were called Juggernauts. Others wore Scaled armour and armed with bows and arrows – Marksmen. And there were also a few dressed in roguish armour as black as the midnight sky armed with swords or daggers in one hand and a spell in the other; which they used to drain the life from their foes.
They were vampires, which made them more formidable than most of their fellow bandits. Fortunately, they were just fledglings. The feral thin-blooded types. Not true vampires. Even so, Valen knew not to underestimate them.
A Juggernaut swung his axe at the Dunmer, trying to cleave his head off with it, but Valen saw it coming, ducked and slashed his belly horizontally with Grimsever. The Juggernaut's armour was thick, but not thick enough to prevent the Glass blade from spilling his blood and guts out onto the floor. Before, the sword was dull, but Valen stopped in Whiterun recently to have it sharpened by Adrianne Avenicci at her forge outside Warmaiden's. Adrianne may not have been as good with a hammer and anvil as Eorlund Gray-Mane, but she was good enough to sharpen Mjoll's sword for her. Before it was dusty and somewhat blunt, but now it was as sharp and shiny as it was before Mjoll lost in the bottom of a Dwemer ruin.
A Marksman standing on the bridge from quite a distance was about to fire an arrow at Valen, but he grabbed a bandit and used him as a shield to protect him from the projectile. The bandit was lightly armoured, and the arrow had no trouble finding his heart at all. Valen then let him fall to the floor, then, as quick as a flash; Valen flipped his dagger, caught it by the blade end between his fingers and flung it at the Marksman.
The dagger landed right in his right eye and he didn't hesitate to scream in pain before he hit the floor. Not only was a dagger lodged in his eye, but the enchantment set him on fire as well, making the pain he felt even more excruciating. Valen was an expert swordsman, and he was skilled in the business of death. He took no pleasure in his skill. Simply, he was good at it.
The Mer made short work of the bandits, retrieved the dagger from the dead bandit and cleaned Grimsever of the blood after every single one of them had been slain. As he wiped it down, he looked at the sword. It was as beautiful as it was deadly, and Valen wielded the blade against the bandits as if it was his own. And it could have been but "No" he thought. "You are not mine. You belong to Mjoll the Lioness. I am simply retrieving you for her"
He then sheathed the blade and carried on walking back to Riften. By the time he came home, it was the middle of the day, and he saw Mjoll walking in the middle of the street from Aerin's house to the town centre, with Aerin following her like a lost little puppy, as he always seems to be doing.
"I had another run in with the Thieves' Guild" she was saying to Aerin. "Careful, Mjoll" the young man who rescued her replied. "Maven Black-Briar has the Thieves Guild watching her back. One snap of her fingers and you could end up in Riften Jail, or worse"
"They represent the reason I'm here, Aerin. I can't just simply ignore them"
"I know. I just don't want you to leave, that's all. You're the best thing that's ever happened to this city in a long time…except Valen, of course"
Being a Dunmer meant that Valen's elven ears were much more sensitive than any human's – which meant he heard Aerin's comment loud and clear. He smiled and thought to himself "Good to know my efforts to keep this city safe have not gone unnoticed"
"Mjoll!" he called out. "I have your sword"
Mjoll heard Valen shouting her name and turned around. Valen walked over to her with Grimsever in his hands. The blade was currently sheathed in its scabbard. "By the gods!" Mjoll gasped. "You're alive?! I wasn't expecting you to survive the journey. Clearly, you have more skills than I thought. I see I have much to learn from you. If you would allow me to accompany you on your adventures, I would be honoured."
Valen smiled again and presented Mjoll her sword and said "It's been a while since your fingers last grasped your blade. Perhaps if they grasped it again, they would feel stronger"
Mjoll then wrapped her fingers around the hilt of Grimsever and with her right hand, she pulled the weapon out of its sheath. Valen was right. Her fingers did feel stronger now that they were holding her sword again.
"Sadly, I'm usually too busy protecting Riften to go on adventures" Valen added. "But perhaps if you could assist me in doing so, that would be much appreciated"
While she was giving her sword a few swings, she commented in agreement "I would be glad to help"
...
Later on that night, down in the Ratway Cistern beneath the city, Mercer Frey; the leader of the Thieves Guild, was sitting on a chair at his desk and discussing Valen with Brynjolf and J'kar – the Khajiit thief who Valen caught robbing a woman a few days ago. "That Dark Elf has been a thorn in our side for years!" Brynjolf was saying. "Every heist we've planned lately, and every shopkeeper we've robbed – he has managed to stop. We need to do something about him"
"And what would you have me do? Kill him?" Mercer asked.
"We're not the Dark Brotherhood, Mercer. You and I both know that's not how we do things"
"Speaking of the Dark Brotherhood…"
"You want them to do it for us?"
Mercer nodded. "We're too busy to contact them ourselves, but perhaps our important client can handle it. She's well-connected"
"Aye, she is" Brynjolf agreed. "But I have a better idea. One that doesn't involve unnecessary bloodshed"
"Go on. I'm listening"
"Valen is very popular among the people of Riften, but if we could turn them against him, they will chase that fetcher out of town and we'll never have to worry about him again"
Mercer gave it some thought, then asked "And how do you plan to do that?"
"You'll have to do it without me. I'm too well-known. But since you spend most of your time down here, they don't know you. All you need to do is change your outfit and tell the gullible townsfolk made-up stories about how you were victimised by Valen. Tell them he robbed you, attacked you, killed someone you love and so forth, and spread enough coin around to make it more convincing"
"J'kar could help you with that, boss" the Khajiit suggested. "No" Mercer declined matter-of-factly. "You robbed a woman in broad daylight. People would have seen you, which means they'll know you're one of us and they'll begin to suspect us."
Brynjolf then caressed his chin and looked at J'kar for a moment. "We could still use him, Mercer" he finally said after a moment of silence. "How?" the Guild Master asked.
Brynjolf then explained to them both what was going through his mind. Mercer reflected on it inwardly for a short period of time, then broke his silence by saying "All right. We'll do things your way for now. But if something goes wrong, we'll use Plan B"
"Understood" Brynjolf agreed.