Raldbthar, the Pale Hold
Skyrim, Nirn
The 1st of Second Seed, 4E202
The hallway after the first area was fine. The doors had kept the poison out. The next room a malfunctioning Dwarven spider and two spheres. After that, they had to inch along a wall going up a flight of stairs to avoid being chopped up into pieces by spinning blades. The next chamber had three level, a fire trap, and three Dwarven spheres. The automatons morphed out of them. Thankfully, they found the lift that would take them to where they needed to go, and that was the Deep Market. Of course, once they stepped on the lift, a dried out, web-covered body fell on Belinda, making her scream in alarm and getting the attention of two Dwarven spiders. Dione and Katria shot them with arrows, though the latter's were useless against the automatons. Lucien pulled the lever and they barely escaped the second spider.
"I hate spiders. Fuck spiders. Spiders are pieces of shit!" Belinda snapped. Lucien used telepathy to lift the body off her. Dione picked up a red vial from off the floor. She sniffed the contents, then tasted it. Her headache faded.
"At least we got the poor sod's healing potion, and there's a lot of it," she pointed out.
The Deep Market was dark and gloomy with cobwebs and a dusty mist in the air. They were greeted to a spinning blade trap that was easily avoided and passed through the doors at the bottom of the ramp. The foul stench of Falmer assaulted their noses, and Lucien rubbed his nose on the back of his paw at the offensive odor. Falmer scurried like rodents across the room while a few huddled by their fires. The area was cold and damp, which made the smell even worse. There were a pair of Skeevers penned up near the door. Dione and Katria found vantage points and simply sniped a few of the Falmer scurrying around. Belinda took care of the Skeevers. Lucien brushed the minds of various Falmer and showed Dione where to shoot.
After the Skeevers were dead, Belinda set about looting corpses and tents, going up a little higher in the massive chamber. She didn't move until Lucien confirmed she was in the safe. Once the Falmer were dead, the others caught up as Belinda pushed a button to lower a bridge so they could proceed. Of course, Lucien missed the two Dwarven spiders. Belinda and Dione dispatched them quickly. Next they avoided two pressure plates that would have resulted in their deaths and stuck to the shadows just in case some automatons came out of nowhere. Next they arrived to a series of buttons. One opened the way, three resulted in death. Naturally, Dione had it on the first try.
"You know what I'm wondering?" Belinda asked.
"The Dwarves aren't as clever as scholars give them credit for?" Lucien tried.
"These ruins suck?" Dione added.
"We can't get to the key shard fast enough?" Katria sighed.
"All good answers, but I was wondering, with all the bloody traps that plague Dwemer ruin: How the hopping Hell did anyone get three feet without staring death in the eye?" Belinda asked. "And did these traps come after the Dwarves vanished? If so, who placed them and why? Why not just loot the damn places and call it a day?"
Katria opened her mouth to say something, realized Belinda was right, and close her mouth. The next chamber had Chaurus Hunters, making Belinda pale drastically. Lucien quickly placed a powerful calming spell on her so she would make it through the chamber. Dione drew her saber and went to kill the hovering Chaurus. Belinda and Lucien snuck around to kill the Falmer. It was fast, quiet work, muffled by the sounds of jammed up machinery. The bridge leading over the Dwarf-made pond was raised, and they knew to lower it, they had to somehow fix the machines.
Dione went into the pond and removed a chunk of scrap from the gears. Lucien found a skull and plucked out from where it had been wedged between the gears. Belinda removed a spine from another set. Dione got out of the water and yanked out a rotted legs. The sound of smooth machinery replaced the ungodly jammed sound. They pushed the button, the bridge lowered, and a Centurion activated. It saw them instantly and charged. Belinda and Dione jumped into the pond, Lucien turned invisible to hide, Katria stood still, her essence getting trampled to a puddle of ectoplasm. Belinda and Dione poked their heads out from under the water.
"Dione?"
"Yeah?"
"Why didn't we just run?"
"I don't know." Dione cast an invisibility spell on herself and moved to get a vantage point. She started shooting her arrows at it. Belinda came in with her sword and managed to open on leg. Lucien forced a joint to break and the thing toppled over. Katria managed to pull herself together, groaning in annoyance. They moved on to a chamber with some ingots, ruined books, easily dispatched automatons, and a passage into Blackreach. Belinda took out the attunement sphere that she had been holding onto the entire time and activated the stairway. They slipped to the right side passage and found the key shard at the end. Excitedly, they fused it with the rest of the key, forming the complete one.
Katria smiled. "We're almost there."
"And soon you will be at peace," Belinda pointed out.
"You're right," Katria sighed. "Meet you at the forge." She faded away, leaving the trio to leave and make for Windhelm…
Windhelm, Eastmarch Hold
Skyrim, Nirn
The 2nd of Second Seed, 4E202
Windhelm was a day away, and Belinda, Dione, and Lucien emerged during the foredawn. They raced their horses down to the road and made it to Windhelm in good time. Sieghard met them at the gates. He had been too late to stop Nathiel. Nilsine and her mother Tova were both dead. The latter had killed herself after losing both daughters. It was a shame. Sieghard sighed and followed them to the Palace of Kings for food and rest. Tomorrow, they would head to the ruins of Bthalft. First they needed to restock on supplies. There wasn't much to replenish, just some food and arrows really. Dione went to work turning the ebony ore and ingots she found into more arrows, buying wood, feathers, and twine as needed. Belinda purchased some jerky and a few pears. Belinda was the one who went to Ulfric about Katria.
"Thank you for finding her," he sighed. They stood on the roof of the Palace of Kings. It was bright, sunny day and people were cleaning up the streets and getting their farms ready for more planting. Belinda sat on the low wall, feet dangling over the side.
"Well, it's better to know than live life wondering," Belinda pointed out. "That's why I occasionally go home to check up on my family despite hating it there."
"What's your family like?" Ulfric asked.
"They try to be normal enough I suppose," Belinda answered. "I don't have time for it. My life is so painfully abnormal that I never stay for long. I've always got better things to do with my life. Save the world, fight a war, look for that special something…" She looked down into the courtyard. It was all ancient stone and massive braziers. Nothing aesthetically pleasing about it unless you were a historian or a scholar. "Life always seems to have me on the move."
"And yet you've settled here," Ulfric pointed out.
"I like it here," Belinda told him. "I have a home, steady work, a life, and summers here are warm enough to farm, but cool enough to be comfortable." A breeze whipped through, lifting their hair and ruffling the fur on their clothes. It brought a dusting of snow with it. It got tangled in her hair and the fur lining her collar.
"Will you be leaving tomorrow?" Ulfric asked.
"Yes; we're going to meet Katria's spirit at the ruins of Bthalft," Belinda answered. "It down in the Rift southeast of Ivarrstead. I take it you'll have us meet with Galmar in Hjaalmarch afterward?"
"Yes," Ulfric responded. "We're just a little closer to liberating Skyrim." The sun was beginning to set, painting the snow-capped mountains an orange-pink hue. "Hjaalmarch is small and insignificant, but I suspect the Imperials will up their numbers there to keep us from taking Hjaalmarch."
"Like that'll stop us." She groaned. "I really don't want to go to Hjaalmarch. I hate swamps. They're muddy, wet, and then last time I went there, Nathiel poisoned me. I barely crawled out of Ustengrav alive." She growled in annoyance. "That damn bastard. He's toying with me."
"Show him no mercy," Ulfric told her. "Don't give him a chance."
"I don't plan on it," Belinda assured.
Ulfric nodded. "Before you leave, I want to give you something as thanks for finding Katria."
Belinda followed him back inside and he led her to his chambers. He gave her a scaled, egg-shaped stone where some of the scales looked like amethyst and some were silver. The rest were just glittery, lilac-colored rock. It was beautiful and a truly fancy gift. Belinda wasn't sure she could accept such a beautiful present.
"It's a fossilized dragon egg," Ulfric pointed out. "It was dug out of an ebony mine a hundred years ago and has been in my family since."
"I can't accept such a beautiful gift," Belinda told him.
"Well, you'll have to suffer," Ulfric teased.
Belinda smiled, holding the egg. It would soon be a treasure she would love for many years to come…
Bthalft, the Rift Hold
Skyrim, Nirn
The 4th of Second Seed, 4E202
The road to Bthalft was sunny and rain-free, and the ground was thankfully dry, not that they camped out. They rode all the way and through half the night to reach Ivarrstead so they could sleep at the inn. They arrived to hear that the local beggar Narfi had been murdered. Some of the locals had whispered that the Dark Brotherhood was involved. That gave everyone reason to be tense. Lucien kept watch any signs of Shadowmere. They were off just after dawn the next morning and reached Bthalft at noon. They fought off the bandits camped there, Katria appearing to help with the skirmish. After, they went to the center of the exteriors ruins and placed the key into an indentation. Nothing happened until they fiddled around and removed the key. A tower rose revealing a lift. It was ready to take them down to the forge.
"This is it," Katria gasped.
They stepped onto the lift and Sieghard pulled the lever. The journey down was long. Lucien timed it to be almost forty-five minutes. Once the lift landed, the air felt stale and warm. Everyone shed their heavy clothes and left then in the lift. Belinda looked up, seeing barely the light. It looked more like a large star. She huffed, not liking the air. Too hot and too motionless. They proceeded anyway, unlocking a door by striking tonal locks. They descended deeper, the air becoming more unbearable, until they reached the forge itself, sitting at the far side of a platform built over molten lava.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Belinda exclaimed. "LAVA! FUCKING LAVA!"
"Oh, this will be unpleasant," Lucien huffed. He pulled two custom leather boots out of his pack and slipped each paw into them. "Oh, I hate wearing boots. They feel weird." They went over to the forge, marveling at it, but stopped dead in their tracks as the steam was burned to the touch. Katria saw the solution: Valves that controlled the steam. Lucien reached out with telekinesis and shut them both off. That made the chamber tremble. Before they could go any further, the forge's automatic guardians emerged, some moving to turn the steam back on.
It started with spiders that exploded lightning upon destruction, then spheres armed with blades and crossbows. They were the real problem. As none of these were living, Katria had to stand back and let the others fight. Lucien latched onto thinner parts of the automatons and practically ripped the metal limbs off. He got some painful doses of electricity. He ended up a giant puffball. Sieghard smacked the things with the flat sides of Wuuthrad and Belinda impaled others with Dragonbane. Dione stayed by Katria to shoot her ebony arrows at the automatons.
"Lucien! The steam valves!" Belinda shouted, feeling the heat searing her skin. She was gasping for breath, sweat pouring down her skin.
Lucien moved quickly to turn the valves back. Soon enough, the spiders and spheres were defeated and Lucien locked the valves in place. Everyone was tired, overheated, and soaked with sweat and blood. Belinda and Sieghard had a few burns from the hot steam and Belinda was certain her shoes were about to catch fire. She could feel the intense heat through the soles. They moved to the forge as the chamber shook violently.
They saw a Centurion, larger than any the group had seen in their various quests, emerge from the lava. Lava and magic and advanced Dwarven technology fueled the monstrosity, and their faces surprisingly paled at the sight of the behemoth Centurion. It came stomping out, steaming and growling.
"Oh, come the fuck on! Are you fucking serious?! First lava now this! I HATE TAMRIELIC DWARVES!" she screamed, and inhaled deeply, muttering a word of power, and exhaling ice. "FO-KRAH-DIIN!"
The ice slowed the Centurion, but it was not enough. Dione stayed back to attack from afar. The arrows enchanted with fire would be worthless here, so she used the ones with the ice enchantment. Lucien and Katria were useless here, until the former use an unstable beam and brought it down. Sieghard chopped at its neck and head with Wuuthrad and Belinda breathed ice again. The Centurion made a last ditch effort and blasted Belinda with fire. She shrieked and turned and made herself smaller. Her backpack caught fire, and strangely, she was unharmed. Something hatched and burst from her bag, blocking the flames. She looked behind her to see a small dragon blocking the flames until they died. With a final swing, Sieghard finished off the Centurion. Everyone looked to the small dragon that had appeared as if from nowhere. It had purple scales with silver sheens, silver talons, horns, and arrow-shaped tail-blade. Its eyes were the prettiest purple, and around it were the remains of the canvas backpack Belinda had brought. And the amethyst and silver scales of the egg Ulfric had given her.
"Where did that come from?" Katria exclaimed.
Belinda picked up the shell that should have been fossilized. "The Stormcloak family's fossilized egg," she answered.
"He gave you the family egg?" Katria asked.
"Yes; and that egg just saved my life," Belinda replied. She knelt, looking at the dragonet. It looked up at her expectantly. She smiled and pet its head. It nuzzled her. She picked it up, cradled it close. "Does anyone have meat? Poor thing's hungry." Dione reached into her belt satchel and pulled out jerky. Belinda chewed it up before giving it to the dragonet. It climbed onto her shoulders and settled there. "Well, guess I'm Mom now. Just call me Mama Dragon." She giggled.
"So, what are you going to call it?" Katria asked.
"Hmm…There was this old…Story, from when I was a child," Belinda answered. "It's no proper dragon name, but it will have to do for now: Spyro." Spyro chirped in approval of the name. "Anyway…" Belinda turned to the forge. "Here we are at last."
Katria smiled, and felt as if her heart was fluttering and butterflies were flitting about her stomach. She knelt in front of the forge, crying in delight. "My life's work! Right here!" She got up. "We have to forge something!"
"With what?" Dione asked.
Katria's heart sank. "There's no Aetherium here, is there?" she responded.
Belinda's eyes widened and she pulled the key from her own belt satchel. It was large and thick, but was pure Aetherium. "Yes there is," she said. She ran up to the forge and placed it in slot. It was only large enough for one of three items: A shield, a tiara, or a staff. She looked at the molds, and they required a little more. Dione and Sieghard brought her items from around the forge.
And so, with the greatest care she could, Belinda forge a tiara with Aetherium gems. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The gems shone with a soft, turquoise light. It came enchanted, to bless the wearer with two Guardian Stone blessings. She placed it on her head, smiling.
"It's beautiful," Katria sighed. She carefully hugged Belinda. "Thank you. At last, my work is complete. Now you tell everyone this was my discovery." She pulled away, smiling brightly.
"You looked like you slept with a hanger in your mouth," Belinda giggled.
"Shut up!" Katria laughed.
"Be sure to say goodbye to Ulfric," Belinda chided.
"I will," Katria said, and then faded away.
"Goodbye, Katria," Dione sighed. She let out another breath. "Okay, let's get the Hell outta here before this heat-." She jumped as a pipe burst, releasing Aether and steam. An ashen hand felt around, and a smoky being with Aether-blue eyes climbed out. It fell to the floor of the chamber, looking around nervously.
Thought. Consciousness. Voice! "Who am I?" it asked. "What am I? Where? I-. I speak!"
Belinda hurried to the being's side and touched its arms. "It's okay! You're alive!" She smiled to it. No, they. They looked up into her eyes with glowing ones. "You're an Aetherborn, a byproduct of Aether refinement. You'll live about four weeks to four years. So live every day like it's your last, and don't be afraid of what you are."
"Astral," they gasped.
Belinda helped them to their feet. "Is that your name?"
"I don't know!" they answered, eyes wide in wonder.
"Well I do. And you're an Astral to me," Belinda assured them. "And yours is a truly unique gift. You can drain the life essence of your enemies if you so choose, but it seems life has given you a little twist: You can choose to share that life essence with friends and allies to heal them. You are truly one of a kind Astral."
"Are there others like me?" Astral asked.
"Not on this world anymore, but on a few beyond the skies," Belinda asked, "in the eternities bound by what makes up your being. You saw them once upon a time and you'll see them again when your body passes. For now, enjoy all this world has to offer!"
"I shall!"