A/N: Hello again, everyone, and welcome to chapter 11! Thank you to everyone who read this, and to Andr, Devourer of Gods, and oreshichigo for reviewing last time; you guys are amazing beyond all words, and your support means the world to me. Anyway, I apologize for the delay on this, and am extremely thankful for your patience. Anyway, the biggest changes I made to this chapter were adding more Owyn, and making Oblivion skeletons more like their Skyrim counterparts. The "Blood of the Divines" quest is probably a bit less epic for it, but I just can't see anything that lacks connective tissue as having much in the way of structural integrity. I hope that this chapter is to your liking and, as always, I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback that you may have for me!
Disclaimer: Remy is still mine, everything else still isn't.
"I don't know who you are, friend, but you've got about ten seconds to tell me what you're doing in my Bloodworks before I lop your arms off," Owyn, the grumpy-looking Redguard I'd been sent to when I asked to join the Arena, asked.
"I'd like to be a combatant," I said. The less-than friendly welcome didn't bother me. After facing three Oblivion gates' worth of Daedra, people just weren't as scary anymore.
"You what? You want to be a combatant?" Owyn laughed. "Look at you! My granny could beat you, and she's dead!"
"It's the hair, isn't it? I could dye it, if you'd like."
Owyn stopped laughing. "Wait, you're serious, aren't you? What is it with you people? You walk in, want to be combatants, and your entrails end up decorating my Red Room."
"Come on, at least I'll give the other team a good laugh before I die… And who knows? I might surprise you."
"All right. It's your funeral. Welcome to the Arena, you filthy Pit Dog. You're free to fight, so long as you know the rules of competition. Now, let me give you your battle raiment. It's the uniform of all Arena combatants. Do you want a light raiment or a heavy raiment?"
"Light. Don't think I'd be able to move in anything heavy."
"A light raiment, huh? You sure? I figured you for the heavy raiment type. You know, hide behind a skin of steel? Hmph. Okay then, here. Put that on, see if it fits all right," Owyn said, tossing a set of armor from the cabinet behind him at me. "Just let me know when you're ready for a match, and we can get this over with."
I reacted quickly enough to catch the armor before it hit me in the face. I would've said it was impossible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but Owyn's frown got worse when I managed that, like I'd disappointed him. A dark, empty corner gave me enough privacy to get changed into my Arena armor, and if my first impressions of it were anything to go by, it was more than good enough for me. It didn't fit me quite as well as my Dark Brotherhood armor, but I could move in it just fine, and I'd have chosen it over my battered, oversized Kvatch cuirass any day. Going back to Cloud Ruler Temple wouldn't mean having to wear uncomfortable armor, anymore. Though I supposed it was a bit on the revealing side. I'd worn smallclothes that covered more than the… smaller smallclothes, I suppose, that I'd been given to cover my bits. The Arena's popularity finally made sense to me; it gave people a place to look at half-naked warriors and bloody carnage at the same time. It was a wonder I'd never gone there to watch a match or two myself, really.
Not having pants had never bothered me, anyway. Modesty wasn't high on my list of priorities, and it was nice to have a set of armor I wouldn't overheat in while the weather was still warm.
Once I'd made sure I had everything tucked away as securely as I could, I made my way back to Owyn, hoping that I hadn't just signed my own death warrant. I didn't see any reason I wouldn't be a match for anyone the Arena threw at me, especially considering my low rank, but I knew better than to think a few successful Dark Brotherhood contracts made me invincible. Still, I needed to stab something, and I liked my odds of surviving an Arena match better than my odds of getting to live after murdering Ocato.
"You haven't run home to momma yet, huh? That's a good sign. So, you ready for a match, or do you just need some information?" Owyn asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"I'm ready for a match."
"Sure you are, and I'm the damned emperor. Still, looks like you're suited up in your battle raiment and all set to go, if you want your innards decorating this place that badly."
That settled it. I wasn't backing down. "Enjoying the view, are we?" I asked, wiggling my hips a little. I'd hoped to at least make Owyn feel a bit uncomfortable before heading into whatever the Arena had in store for me, but he just rolled his eyes at me. I'd have to try harder next time, if there was one.
"You wish. The Red Room is just over there. When you're ready to get eviscerated, just head up the ramp to the Arena. Anything goes, as long as you keep the armor on and don't try to scavenge anything off your opponent's corpse if you're lucky enough to win. Good luck, and may Azura have mercy on your soul."
"I'll be seeing you soon, then," I called over my shoulder as I started walking in the general direction he'd pointed me in. It didn't take me long to figure out how the Red Room had gotten its name; a thick layer of blood almost completely covered its walls, filling it with an eerie, red glow and overpowering, coppery smell. A giant, surprisingly clean basin, probably for cleaning up after winning a fight, sat at the room's center.
My footsteps echoed off the walls as I made my way up the dark ramp leading to a bloodstained door, unsheathing my dagger as I pushed it open and stepped out into the Arena itself. When I reached the gate separating the Arena proper from the long, empty corridor I'd found myself in, a loud voice from somewhere above me shouted out something, though the way it echoed off the walls made it impossible for me to make any sense of it. The gate dropped almost as soon as the voice had finally shut up, and before I'd finished blinking the sun out of my eyes, a Bosmer woman armed with a sword and shield charged across the Arena at me.
I stepped out of the way of her first strike easily enough, and she ended up stabbing her sword into the soft, sandy ground instead of my gut. While she was busy trying to yank it free, I ran past her, hoping to move our fight into the much larger ring outside my corridor; getting trapped in a tight space like that when her weapon had a longer reach than mine seemed like a bad idea. I hadn't so much as caught my breath before she'd freed her sword and charged me again. She came closer to hitting me than I would've liked, but I managed to dodge her a second time, and tried to put an end to her with a quick stab to the neck, but she got her shield up just in time to send my dagger ripping through her shoulder and back, instead.
She shrieked in pain, whipping her shield into my face hard enough to knock me off my feet. I managed to keep my grip on my dagger somehow, and came to my senses in time to roll out of the way of her attempt to drive her sword through my chest. As she tried to pull her blade out of the ground again, I got to my feet, yanked her head back, and slit her throat. She kept herself upright at first, using her sword as a crutch as she gurgled what was probably supposed to be a curse at me, but it wasn't long before her arms gave out and she fell to the ground, dead. I didn't know if I'd given them quite the spectacle they'd wanted – throat-slitting was fast and effective, but didn't make for much of a show or bloody mess – but the crowd's cheers sounded happy enough to me as I stepped away from the Bosmer woman's corpse. Apparently I'd done quite well for myself. I just hoped she hadn't done any serious damage with that shield of hers; my face was still throbbing with pain, and when I touched it, my hand came away bloody.
The Bosmer woman's sword and shield looked like they'd sell for a fair bit of coin, and she didn't have much use for them anymore, but knowing I'd have to face a penalty of some kind for taking them kept my fingers from getting too itchy. I kept my hands busy waving to the crowd, instead, as I made my way back to the Bloodworks. The washbasin in the Red Room must have had some sort of healing, or at least numbing, effect, since the pain I felt gave way to a faint stinging sensation as I washed the blood off my face and arms. And from what I could see of my reflection in it when I'd finished, nothing was out-of-place enough to notice.
As I dried my face with a blood-stained rag draped over the basin's side, a hard slap on the back sent me toppling right back into the water. I pulled myself up, sputtering and dripping wet, and turned around to find Owyn having a good laugh at my expense.
"You'd better work on that balance of yours if you want to last much longer around here, Pit Dog. But I gotta hand it to you, a win's a win. Maybe you ain't so bad, after all. If that luck of yours holds out, you might even surivive enough matches to advance in rank," he said, tossing a bag of septims at me. "Here, kid. This is your payout for the victory. There's more where that came from if you keep on winning."
I set the bag of septims on the floor and started drying myself off again. "Thank you?"
"Don't give me that kicked-puppy look. You just took a shield to the face; what's a friendly pat on the back after something like that? It's a bit late to try the 'helpless pretty boy' act now, ain't it?"
"If that was a friendly pat on the back, I'd hate to see you hit someone."
Owyn started laughing again, and clapped me on the shoulder. If I hadn't been leaning on the washbasin, I might have fallen over again. "Careful there, kid. Keep this up and I might actually start to like you. Then I'll really hate having to scrub the bits of your corpse off the floor, later."
"I guess I'll just have to keep winning, then."
"That's the spirit! You ready for another match, or are you gonna disappoint me?"
"I'm ready, if you are." As much as it hurt, Owyn's praise felt good. And hearing the crowd cheering for me after my first Arena victory had felt even better. It was nice to not have to hide the fact that I'd killed someone, for a change, and I couldn't think of a better way to get myself trained at fighting properly, instead of sneaking around like I usually did. If anything, it was probably safer than learning on the job if things went badly and I got myself noticed on a contract or, even worse, inside an Oblivion gate. At least I knew what was coming in the Arena, and could have myself ready for it instead of trying to fight my way out of a hiding place. And if all else failed, I had my new bow with me; as long as I wasn't up against an archer, I could just climb one of the stone columns in the Arena's center and shoot at my opponent until I hit them or they gave up. Judging by the weight of the coin purse Owyn had given me, the pay wasn't half bad, either.
Owyn sent me back up the ramp with another pat on the back, and before I knew it, the day was over, pretty much every part of my body hurt, and I'd gotten myself up to Bloodletter rank, whatever that meant. I just cared about finding myself a nice meal somewhere, and getting myself ready for the trip to Sancre Tor I'd have to make the next morning. I'd run out of reasons to put it off any longer, and I'd probably kept Martin waiting too long already.
I was lucky enough to find a blacksmith in the Market District who hadn't closed up shop yet, and while I waited for her to repair my weapons and armor, I got myself a nice bowl of stew at The Feed Bag. It wasn't anything special, but it was still miles above anything I could've cooked for myself. After paying the blacksmith, I still had a fair amount of gold left over, so I went ahead and bought myself a few silver arrows, just in case the rumors about regular weapons not working on ghosts were true. Not that I wanted to fight any ghosts, but if Sancre Tor really was haunted, I figured I had a good chance of running into a few there, and knowing I had something I could fight them with made me feel better. I didn't see how shooting a ghost could be much different than shooting a rabbit, after all. The rest of my gold went under my loose floorboard with the rest of my savings when I finally went home for the night, and once I'd seen to that, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
When I rolled out of bed the next morning, my whole body hurt, like I'd stretched everything out more than I should have. Which… I probably had, actually, but that didn't make getting my armor on or hauling myself onto my horse any easier. I didn't run into any trouble on my way there, but I didn't trust myself to stay on my horse at anything faster than a slow trot, feeling as stiff as I did, so I didn't make it to Sancre Tor until sunset. I had to find my way through a maze of crumbling walls on my way into the catacombs themselves, and if the skeletons shambling around them were anything to go by, the place was as haunted as Jauffre had promised. I didn't have much trouble getting rid of them – they fell apart after a good whack or two with a good-sized stick I'd picked up off the ground – but seeing them move around without any fleshy bits holding them together still gave me the shivers.
Things got a bit harder for me inside the catacombs. I ended up fighting ghosts, mostly, which meant I had to convince my arms to use a real weapon, and actually aim for something, instead of just swinging a stick in a general, enemy-ward direction. The glow they gave off usually meant I saw them before they saw me, at least, and they moved slow enough for me to pick them off with my bow, without getting in range of their claws and grabby hands. Though the fight the bowstring gave me made me wish I'd put a bit more effort into shooting rabbits when I was younger, or that I'd given it another try at some point in the last four years. I lost more than a few silver arrows to the darkness trying to get the hang of it again.
I was almost relieved when I found another skeleton, and got to use my stick again. Until a ghost oozed its way out of the bones once I'd broken it apart, and scared me halfway out my skin. Luckily for me, it turned out to be the ghost of an ancient Blade who'd gotten himself cursed, along with the catacombs, back in Tiber Septim's day. He didn't seem to hold the hitting-with-a-stick thing against me, seeing as it had broken his curse, and he was nice enough to tell me that if I wanted Tiber Septim's armor, I had to un-curse the other three Blades who'd gotten cursed along with him, first.
I managed to find and rescue, if I could rightly call it that, the rest of the Blades without too much trouble, though my stick snapped in half on the last one. I thought about taking the fancy, enchanted weapons they'd all carried from their skeletons, but stealing from the honored dead like that, especially after freeing them the way I had, just didn't sit right with me. Once the Blades had purified the rest of Sancre Tor for me, I just had to pick up the armor and walk out the same way I'd come in.
After a quick, uncomfortable nap on the rocky hillside surrounding Sancre Tor, I set off for Cloud Ruler Temple. I found Martin sitting in his usual spot in the main hall, poring over the Mysterium Xarxes and scribbling something on a piece of parchment like his life depended on it. He had dark circles under his eyes, and I could've sworn he'd picked up a wrinkle or two since the last time I'd seen him.
"Any luck?" I asked, sitting down across from him and setting Tiber Septim's armor down on the table between us. "Because I managed to collect the Armor without getting myself killed, and it's probably for the best that I go looking for the rest of what we need before I grow a sense of self-preservation."
Martin's eyes lit up as he flipped the Mysterium Xarxes closed. "The Septim blood may flow through my veins, but you have the soul of a hero, my friend. Jauffre will be amazed to see this, though not until I've taken a scraping of Talos' divine blood from it, perhaps. The Blades are as touchy as priests about relics of Tiber Septim, it seems. Best not to worry him."
"I don't think my soul had anything to do with it; I just found a damn good stick."
"Well, whatever it was, I'm grateful," Martin replied, his expression of joy turning to a puzzled frown as he looked me over. "How in Oblivion are you not freezing to death in that armor? This is Bruma, not the Imperial City Arena."
"I grew up in Skyrim, remember? And I've been wearing revealing clothing fairly regularly for the past few years. You get used to it after a while."
Martin sighed. "So long as you don't get frostbite, I suppose it's none of my concern. While you were gone, I made some progress in deciphering the Mysterium Xarxes ritual. The third item we need is a Great Welkynd Stone. You may have run across lesser Welkynd Stones; they are fairly common in Ayleid ruins. But a Great Welkynd Stone will not be easy to come by. They have been plundered one by one over the years, due to their great value to mages and occultists. There is only one place that is rumored to still contain one: the ruins of the Ayleid city of Miscarcand. A place where many have perished seeking its Great Stone. But nothing else will do, so you must succeed where all others have failed."
"So, it's another suicide mission… Just what I wanted to do. Tell me, is this really necessary for us to get the Amulet back, or do you just want me dead?"
"I'm sorry to ask so much of you, but there truly is no other way to acquire the items we need. I've tried time and again to convince Jauffre to send someone else after it, but he insists on keeping every last member of the Blades here for my protection." Martin gave me a rueful smile. "Besides, if you succeeded in retrieving Tiber Septim's armor with a stick, I think you're underestimating your skills."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, I suppose. I take it Miscarcand is also going to be crawling with undead?"
"It is said that the ruins are still haunted by the vengeful spirit of its last king. And if he is still there, he probably isn't alone. True or not, it is not a place to enter lightly. Be careful."
"I'll do my best," I replied, getting back on my feet before my bench got too comfortable. "Throw a book at Jauffre's head for me next time you see him, will you?"
"I'll throw as many books as you want at whoever you like, so long as you make it out of this alive. I know you have braved many dangers already, but Miscarcand is not to be taken lightly."
"Now when have I ever taken something lightly? You haven't managed to kill me so far; what makes this time any different?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood a little. I wasn't happy about getting sent into another undead-infested hole in the ground, but that didn't mean I had to drag Martin down along with me. The man had enough to worry about, already.
The smile he managed in response, strained as it was, kept me as warm as I needed to be on my way back down the snowy mountainside.