Acado was trying to think how he could get both him and Modryn out of their dilemma, which was difficult given how both he and

02/07/2008 22:38:00

"Go get the Bosmer and tie him up with his Dunmer friend here. They can keep each other company while we wait."

Acado looked up when he heard those words, "Oh this cannot be good." He murmured to himself. Before he could really do anything about it, he found himself being roughly hauled down from his lofty cell and thrown against the stone floor.

"Now I know I'm getting too old for this." He mumbled against the cold stone.

He felt chains being fastened to his wrists, which were re-tied together behind his back, and the other ends attached to two boulders behind him.

As he was being secured, he took his time to re-evaluate the situation. The two women were looking even more tired and ragged after having to use a lot of magicka to subdue Modryn. Unless they rested for a few hours or had some potions, they didn't look as if they were going to be casting spells anytime soon. Or accurately, if the Breton woman's swollen eye was any indication. Careful to keep his face neutral, Acado glanced over to the younger mer.

He quickly dismissed any ideas of getting free as soon as he saw Modryn. The Dunmer was barely conscious after being subjected to powerful jolts of magic to "calm him down". His earlier wounds had re-opened after his enraged struggles and were sluggishly bleeding, the blood mingling with that of his new injuries. Looking at him, Acado suddenly realized that, with Modryn so badly injured and with his own injuries, coupled with the fact that they were unarmed, their only hope of getting out of this lay with Mivryna.

XxXxXx

Never had Mivryna gotten to Kvatch so fast before in her life. Not even a day had passed when she and her fighters found themselves at the base of the long twisting path uphill to the city. However, their goal was not the city itself, but a small village called Hillswatch, west of the city.

"Let's go, it's not that far from here, if I remember correctly." Mivryna called to her fighters who, despite the long hard run, didn't seem the least bit tired.

It took them only another hour to reach the village in the middle of the woods. Immediately, they all noticed how the tense the villagers seemed…how they seemed to be expecting them, dreading this moment.

"Who asked for Fighters Guild two weeks ago?" Mivryna asked, her voice ringing out clearly.

For a long moment everything was still and silent but then, as Mivryna's red eyes began to glow in slow-burning anger, a nervous looking man stepped forward, holding up his hand as if to placate the angry Dunmer. Mivryna wasn't interested in hearing it, however. She only wanted to know what had happened and where her fighters were. Seeing her growing rage and the general restlessness of the others behind her the man broke down immediately.

"Please, ma'am!" He said, "We truly did not want to do it, but we had no choice! He would have killed us all!"

"Who?" Mivryna demanded, "Who would have killed and what do you mean, you didn't want to?"

"The Nord necromancer. He told us to get the Fighters Guild out here, to lure them out with a story of a goblin hoard. If we didn't do as he said, he would kill us all and use us as undead hosts!"

"But how…?"

"We wanted to warn your fighters, we really did, but he had one of his men…well, a woman, actually, and she was the one to direct them out into the supposed goblin hoard, which were actually the group of Spriggans we have out in the grove."

"Did they come back this way?"

"No. They were either taken or killed by the Spriggans."

"A bunch of Spriggans would be very hard pressed to overwhelm the two that I sent." Mivryna murmured, "This Nord necromancer you mentioned…did he happen to say his name?"

"Yes, yes in fact he did." The man said, looking a little bewildered as he told her.

When Mivryna heard the name, her eyes widened in shock and little bit of fear. Things had just gone from bad to worse very quickly.

"Where's this grove?" she whispered.

"No more than an hour that way. We can provide a guide to take…"

Mivryna and her fighters were gone long before he got a chance to finish his sentence, charging off in search of their missing comrades.

XxXxXx

Acado was trying to think how he could buy Mivryna some time to get here before the necromancer and his cronies got bored and decided to just simply kill them right there and now. Especially since the two women were staring at them like they were helpless deer waiting for the dogs to rip them apart. But, as hard as he might try, Acado couldn't really think up of anything that wouldn't land them in big trouble.

"Who is he?" a cracking voice asked, jerking the Bosmer out of his thoughts.

He looked over to the bloody Dunmer, who was watching him intently. For a long moment he didn't say anything, confused as to whom Modryn was talking about. Finally, after Modryn gave him a slightly exasperated look, he understood.

"It was a job we had, me and Mivryna, about 50 years back…"

"You're kidding right?" Acado asked looking up from the arrow he was fletching.

"No, unfortunately." Mivryna said, "It's just as it says."

"Of all the…that bloody…Ah!" the Bosmer sputtered.

Mivryna nodded in agreement. Though calm on the outside, she was simmering on the inside. This contract, given by the count of Cheydinhal himself, was extremely dangerous at best and suicidal at worst. Necromancers, even the amateurs, were dangerous on a good day but one was that insane as well as homicidal, not to mention a very accomplished necromancer, was more than just a little dangerous. Though she was a Dunmer, Mivryna didn't have to, nor did she, like the count. In fact, she had gone as far as cursing him in every language she could think of as soon as she turned away in the audience hall...within earshot of all present in the hall.

"Seeing as we aren't about to get out of this one, when are we leaving and where has this maniac set up camp?" Acado asked, slamming his knife down into the table in disgust.

"Don't get too eager just yet." Mivryna said, "I'm getting a large group together for this, as well as any mages that are willing to go from the Mages Guild. We need all the help we can get. I'm expecting a huge host of undead as well as a few apprentices, maybe, and let's not forget Rakoslod himself."

Acado nodded moodily. This whole thing had a bad feel to it. No matter how many warriors and mages they managed to get, someone was going to get hurt before it was over. He just had to hope that no one got killed.

A few days later they finally were on their way to "take care" of the necromancer that had set up shop in an old fort some ways northwest of Cheydinhal. Acado was nervous; they had not gotten as many fighters or mages as they had hoped and their numbers barely topped 18, with 10 fighters and 8 mages. He was even more nervous when they reached the fort. The whole area around it was open- not a single tree or respectable rock lay between them and the tall, slightly dilapidated spires.

"Miv, something tells me that, no matter how sneaky or how quietly we go in there, Rakoslod already knows we're here." Acado whispered to the Dunmer woman.

"Well then, here are options." She said, turning to the Bosmer, "We can wait out here until he dies of old age, which could take centuries as necromancers can keep themselves alive longer than both of our life spans put together, or we can be good little fighters and go in there and bury him quick so we can get paid and go home!"

Acado shrugged, knowing she was right.

Secrecy was all but blown when they trooped across the field so they simply walked up to the front door and, to their not-so-complete surprise, found it unlocked.

"I can either say 'I told you so' or hope that maybe the fetcher did us all a favor and keeled over and died." Acado said, knocking an arrow to his bow, "Though I'm probably going to have to be satisfied with 'I told you so'."

Around him, swords, axes and hammers were being drawn; spells were being readied and bows being drawn back. It was now or never. The door crashed in and all hell broke loose.

Acado and the rest of the archers loosed a volley of arrows into the wave of zombies that immediately accosted them just inside the doorway, effectively decimating them, but arrows were useless against the skeletons that followed close on their heels. Up front, Mivryna swung her sword, taking off the skeleton's head, but had to quickly dodge as, instead of collapsing, the undead thing continued to swing its axe blindly.

"Oh, die already!" she screamed, her sword catching it in the middle, severing the spine and shattering it. "Well…I suppose it's 'die again' instead of 'already'."

Glancing around, she could see that the battle was well under control, her fighters more than a match for the undead and the mages adding a big help with their relentless spells. She looked across the room to where a door stood ajar, she could see that there was someone standing just behind I, their feet barely visible.

"Acado! Back up the crack!" she shouted, using the code for shooting to the back of a room where there always seemed to be an open door with someone standing behind it.

The archer lined up the seemingly impossible shot and fired. While he couldn't really see if his aim was true or not, Mivryna could; she watched in silent pride as Acado's arrow zipped through the small opening and a split second later a pair of feet kicked out into view, hit the ground and after a few twitches, was still.

"Fighters! To me!" Mivryna shouted as the last of the undead were taken care of. They had sustained only minor wounds, nothing that would stop them from fighting. "Ok, let's go! There are four levels to this place by our estimation, with Rakoslod at the top, so we got only two more floors to clear!"

The each level proved even more challenging than the last, with more undead and more accomplished necromancers summoning all sorts of unpleasant creatures along with nasty spells. They fought like machines; not feeling any weariness, not feeling pain, feeling almost nothing at all, just slashing and chopping their way through to the next door.

The third level was the worst. The fighters (and mages) were beginning to falter due to weariness. Soon, people were going to start dying. Mivryna knew that, to kill a snake, she had to cut off its head, so she called Acado to her and they ran through the final door, bounded up the stairs and burst into the room without preamble.

Like any good coward (though both mer considered all necromancers cowards) Rakoslod immediately summoned others to fight for him in the form of a dozen undead. Mivryna leaped in front of Acado, protecting him so he could keep shooting his deadly bow, and began to systematically pick off undead. No fancy maneuvers, just slashing.

Suddenly, Acado aimed just a little bit higher and fired, immediately shooting off another arrow just after the first. At first Mivryna had no idea what he was doing, but then, when a break came in the thinning ranks of undead, she saw that Acado had brilliantly pinned the necromancer to the wall by his robes.

Feeling a surge of adrenalin, she burst through the last of the undead and charged in towards the Nord. Bringing her sword behind her, she began to swing, throwing every last bit of energy and strength into it.

With Acado's arrows pinning him to the wall and Mivryna's sword starting its flight to his head, Rakoslod did the only thing he could do; he began to enact the spell to transport him out of there. He disappeared just as Mivryna's sword made contact, making blood spray over the empty wall where he had been an instant before.

Mivryna screamed in ultimate frustration, which Acado felt like joining in. They had lost 5 good men…only to lose the necromancer. But Mivryna had injured him, how badly was anyone's guess. And while he had fled, none of them believed that he would show himself again for a very long time, if ever.

What they had not known was that they had injured him far more than they had thought; his throat had been badly injured and for months he was kept barely alive on his dark art alone. His voice, so prized by Nords, was destroyed, reduced to a grating whisper. During those months he began to nurse a deep hatred for the two mer which, over the years, turned into an obsession.

XxXxXx

Modryn looked over to the dark alcove where the necromancer had taken refuge as Acado ended the story, quite surprised to learn that he was actually a Nord. He wouldn't have every guessed that; Nords set more pride in fighting than in magic and there certainly weren't very many Nord necromancers. However, ancient Nord culture prided their voices being able to cast spells, a pride that lived on to this day, so Modryn could see why this necromancer would nurse a deep hatred over the loss of his voice. Still, not a single iota of sympathy entered his heart. Modryn wasn't overly fond of Nords to begin with, as most Dunmer were wont to feel, and he hated necromancers with a passion. He just could simply see why the bad blood existed between them was all.

"Damn." He said, "Mivryna better hurry up."

XxXxXx

Mivryna, meanwhile, had finally gotten to the grove of Spriggans. More correctly, where the Spriggans had been. She smiled in grim satisfaction as she took in the carnage before her; Spriggans lay in scorched splinters all over the grove with tell-tale chunks missing and arrows still sunk up to the fletching in the wooden flesh. It seemed her boasting earlier had not been just hot air. Then, a sudden gleam in the brush caught her eye. It also caught the eye of Two-Tails, who reached in and pulled out a short sword.

"Acado's. Modryn favors blunt weapons. But Acado would never leave a weapon behind voluntarily." Mivryna said. "Look around. Something more than just a bunch of Spriggans was here."

"Master, over here!"

Mivryna spun around and rushed over to where a bunch of her fighters were clustered around the imprint of a huge cloven hoof print. Only one creature in the world made that sort of print, but how it fit in to the missing mer none of them knew. Still, any clue was better than none so they followed the trail down another path that ran parallel to the one they had taken to the grove. They hadn't gone very far when they found more clues; blood, completely dried, and…

"This has to be Modryn's." Mivryna held up the mace, "Yeah, it is. See the splinters from the Spriggans on it?"

"Wait, let me get this straight." A male Imperial said, "Acado and Modryn come out here, thinking they are on a normal job, but know as soon as they get here that they were being duped but they go out and do it anyway. Then, after they kill all the Spriggans, they get attacked by a single Minotaur and, what, killed? By one minotaur?"

"I see your point." Mivryna said, "But I don't think they were killed. Minotaurs may be smart, but they aren't that smart. When they catch you they kill you where you stand. There's not enough blood here to suggest that either one of them was killed. Injured, yes, but not killed. I'm thinking that that Minotaur was someone's pet or it was summoned and someone has kidnapped Acado and Modryn."

XxXxXx

A/N; sorry this took so long, but it's amazing that a single storm (more correctly, a single lightning bolt) can wreak so much havoc on one computer. Totally zapped that bloody thing (yes I had a surge protector on but the bolt hit like right next to my house…it was REALLY loud .) so, with a fried computer, I couldn't really do much. Now, I got a new computer and I just had to get everything all straightened out with it before I could get some serious writing done. Whew!!

Anyway, I could have had this whole little adventure of Modryn and Acado's summed up in this chapter, but I decided to just make the next one a little bit longer…and start to let on to my "master plan" heeheehee!

-Vanillathunder215