Guide:
Dwemeris
Thoughts
"Speech"
"Dovahzul"
Warnings/Disclaimer: see chapter 4
Chapter Warning(s): Monologues, racism, and the Blame Game.
A/N: Updating this a day early! Might not be able to update next week due to personal problems, but I'll try my hardest to make it on time! Enjoy the chapter!
Last time…
"We're going back to Hjerim, have a drink or three, or four, and then leave for Winterhold as soon as possible?" I decide, though it sounds far more like a question as I stare at Marcurio, wondering if he'll agree to that plan. I agree to it. I need a drink to help me get over meeting an assassin and finding out I caught feelings, of all diseases.
Chapter 20 – Overdue revelations
Back in Windhelm, more 'good' news awaits, concerning my 'favourite' family in town, the Shatter-Shields.
Well, favourite in the sense that I made a lot of Argonian friends over their sudden misfortunes. I fear I cannot quite appreciate the patriarch of the family – the ass – but the matriarch is not that bad a person.
That makes the news coming out of practically nowhere somehow even more shocking. I'll admit, for a few moments there, I'm blindsided. It came out of left field. Sitting at the corner of the bar in New Gnisis cornerclub, I'm glad most of my no doubt embarrassing expression is covered by the shadows cast by flickering candlelight. There's only barred windows, not letting in traitorous sunlight, and for once I'm happier for it.
"What do you mean, 'Nilsine and Tova dead'?" I ask dully, something in my head crashing and burning even as uncomfortable sensations settle heavy in my stomach.
Alain Dufont.
The same Alain that ran off to be with a Shatter-Shield.
Who is now dead.
And Marcurio and I literally just had a… pleasant conversation and brief… alliance..? With the same guy whom, well, I'd guess 90 to 95% for certain killed either one or both of these women.
"That's exactly what I mean! Poor Torbjorn… First Friga is murdered by that awful Butcher you saved us from, and now? Now Nilsine was found dead. In her own house! They say…" here, Ambarys leans in, as if wanting to share with us some forbidden secret. Marcurio, grim face suddenly ten years older, stared down blankly into his cup.
Judging by the pale faces of the Dunmer around us, it is not so much a secret he wishes to share. Everyone in the room already knows.
"She was killed by the Dark Brotherhood. It happened just last night, while you were gone doing whatever it is sellswords do. The guards actually stood up for you, you know, since you were initially one of the prime suspects in the case. Those Nords said you were with them, at the gates trying to negotiate something none of those N'wits will speak of, when it happened. Now that I mention it, they will likely seek you out to take you to the palace to confirm your story and continue whatever it was. Must be something, as there's a giant dragon skeleton outside the gates. What did you do, claim the kill?"
I nod absently, partially ignoring everything he said after hearing Nilsine was murdered by a Dark Brotherhood assassin, my face ashen.
What the f- "And Tova? She didn't deserve it. Not death, at least." I manage to croak out somewhat coherently. Sure, she's had illegal dealings, but her husband was responsible for most of that. And losing Friga wasn't her fault, either… I even got her that Amulet of Arkay, barely two weeks ago.
Some would claim that the proud Nord woman was a friend of mine, and I couldn't disagree with them even if I wanted to, spitting on her memory like that would be too much. The Dunmer bites his lip in unwanted sympathy, not having any positive feelings for Nords but recognising my feelings. A large, warm hand lightly squeezes my shoulder in reassurance, its owner silently contemplating. Marcurio. But even his warm touch can't drown out the icy cold in my gut.
"She killed herself. She-" I completely missed the rest of the sentence.
The assassin killed Nilsine. Tova killed herself because of this. Family is the highest good a Dwemer can have. The highest good ANYONE can have. To kill a last loving family member, for her husband sure as Oblivion held little true love for her… I can barely think of a more heinous crime. My entire body shudders with repressed rage, and the bottle I'm holding shatters in my grip.
I don't even feel the shards as startled exclamations are uttered around me and someone hands me a rag to clean off the blood now dripping from my fingertips. My mind is almost fully consumed with but one thought for a few more tense seconds before I deflate a bit, shoulders sagging.
I want to kill that Argonian.
I know it won't matter now, and a large part of me in the recesses of my head chimes in with: 'They deserved it, with their list of crimes'. But still. I squeeze my hands until the knuckles turn white. "I see. Please excuse me, I think I need to speak to Torbjorn." That man is not my friend, but Tova would have wanted me to at least give him some semblance of support.
We end up not drinking at Hjerim or in the cornerclub that day, but at the Candlehearth Inn with Torbjorn. Marcurio doesn't seem to mind, and we even, briefly, attend the funeral, taking place the very same day because of certain burial rites.
…
Exhausted beyong measure, when Marcurio and I finally stumble back into Hjerim after dusk, I resolve to completely ignore Ulfric Stormcloak sitting in my fucking kitchen whilst I faintly hear Marcurio growling and snapping at the man in the background, cotton clogging my ears and thoughts and making everything seem dull. I wave my hand with a momentous amount of effort, feeling as if I'm lifting a rock the size of a man instead. "Marcurio. Sleep first."
And so we do. Because fuck you, Ulfric Stormcloak.
…
"So what do you think you were possibly doing, breaking into my house and seating yourself at my kitchen table without permission yesterday?" I stand in front of the throne in the Palace of the Kings agitatedly, it's already late afternoon and I've eaten nothing but sweetroll treats all day. I've had better days. Why must I deal with this crap, again?
Marcurio is still sleeping off the hangover in bed – the same bed I sleep in, since there's not exactly a guest room available, and wow, that did not help my all around confusion last night. I drag a hand down my face somewhat self-consciously. "Sorry, that may not have been the best way to start off. I… had a rough few days."
If you can still call 'meeting an assassin, surviving the encounter with an invite to a cult, defeating a dragon, getting seen devouring its soul, then finding out a friend is dead and attending the funeral with her late husband whom you secretly can't stand' within the span of two days 'rough'. I believe I made what these people call 'an understatement'.
He nods stoically in understanding, but his eyes are warmer than I've ever seen them, aglow with empathy and curiosity. "I'm sorry for your loss. I'd heard you were quite close to Tova."
She reminded me of lady Khriani, the friend of my mothers who came to drink tea sometimes and who lost her son in an Animunculi rampage. I couldn't stand just letting her be that miserable alone. "She was a friend."
I glare darkly at him when he continues almost without further pause or consideration, having, for his idea, finished with the formalities. Arrogant ass. "My guards have brought me more news of things happening within and outside these walls than just the unfortunate passing of the ladies Shatter-Shield."
Unfortunate passing. Tsk. I bet those who get notified of their family members dying in this stupid civil war are recipients of more courtesy than this. Or is it because I am an elf, in which case…
I tilt my head stubbornly and cross my arms in the universal 'Bitch, try me' pose. "Is this about me being Dragonborn?" The Jarl of Windhelm folds his fingers under his chin, his heavy blue gaze, like a Skyrim glacier, fully on me.
Behind me, I can almost physically feel Marcurio bristle and taking a step forwards to jump to my defence – but alas, he's not here. I am alone in this. I grit my teeth a little harder and stand my ground.
"It is. Skyrim's people are in need, Dragonborn."
In need of stability and prosperity, aye.
"A need for freedom of the Empire's tyranny. A need to be free of a system that costs us lives each passing day. A need to be able to worship our god Talos, who was Dragonborn, as are you. These needs, I have been trying to fulfil."
There would not have been a problem without you, now would there be, Ulfric? Talos was worshipped in peaceful silence until you threw a hissy fit in Markarth. Oh, Ghorza told me ALL about that particular endeavour. My eyes only narrow at the self-proclaimed true King of Skyrim as the Nord just. Keeps. Talking.
"But the Empire is like a Hagraven with her prey in her claws, and so I have not been able to turn the tides of this war for the good of Skyrim. For the good of all of us. Thus, I wish to extend you a formal invitation to my court as Thane, and to join my ranks in this fight against oppression. With your Voice and my strategies, we can win this war and bring peace to these lands, to make Skyrim free as it has been, and should always be!"
The other present members of the court roar in approval at that last proclamation. I can see now why people would be convinced to join this fraud in attempting to get the Empire out of these lands.
Standing in complete silence for a few moments, a small smile tugs playfully at the corners of my lips. But it's not a happy smile. "It's a nice speech, I must concede."
My mind races, how do I get out of this with the least major fallout? Then, unbidden, an idea comes to mind. I hate it the second it forms concrete words within my thoughts, but alas, I cannot deny its usefulness.
This is the perfect moment to use everything they told me about the Way of the Voice in High Hrothgar to suit my own needs… Ma would despise the lies I smith, the truths I twist to suit me best… I have changed. For the worse.
I purse my lips, mentally apologise to her and push through regardless of my personal values. It's half-truths. And there is more than my own wants and needs on the line here.
"Much as I believe that no religion should be banned for the opinions of others…" I begin slowly, cautiously, "I have been taught that the Way of the Voice is not the way of violence. I have seen the Voice burn villages, maim and kill indiscriminately. I have heard of you, killing a child, barely a man, using the Thu'um. Even though you should have known better than to rely on what came of dragons, evil by nature."
The quiet admonishment, the implicit accusation of the murder of Torygg has those glacier cold eyes narrow in contempt, but also in thought, for he cannot fully refute my argument – he has, after all, had the same teachers as I now have.
"I apologise, but I do not wish to use this power against your enemies." His enemy, not mine. Having finished my own spiel, I wait for his all-too predictable reaction.
"Torygg refused to believe in a free Skyrim. He kneeled to the elves and the Empire like a coward. I fought him on fair grounds. I was forced to act in order to guarantee that Skyrim would not fall under elvish oppression."
"Nice motive, still murder." I reply in a monotone voice, icy anger creeping into my chest. "But you know what I find even odder?"
Jarl Ulfric leans back, teeth gritting and eyes turning wary and closed off, his stance tense as if ready for battle. I can't get a read on him, so I just keep going. Is he expecting a fight? Because by now I would be down for a fight. Ending this stupid civil dispute prematurely might help Skyrim, even.
"How every Stormcloak I speak to is blaming the Empire. An easier scapegoat than the true enemies of Skyrim, I'm sure." I make sure my drawling tone is tinged with faked humour, as if not really blaming the Stormcloaks for any fault of their own.
Then I spot the jackpot, lingering in the blonde Nord's expression: Interest, even as the Nord has to sternly tell his friend Galmar to back down and not attack me without being ordered to do so by him.
"Who are they then, in your eyes? Who have you identified as Skyrim's true enemies, if not the cowardly Empire?"
He's willing to hear me out? I'm impressed. Would have thought I'd be thrown out the second I jumped out of that box he'd already put me in.
"I've travelled across Skyrim for a few months now, as an outsider to your every custom, language, and conflict. I like to believe that the point of view of an observer is less clouded than one of someone personally involved… And I must admit that I don't like what I see."
Here, I'm tempted, oh so tempted, to go off on a tangent about the prevalent racism, about the Argonians being locked outside the walls, referred to as 'boots', of the Khajit being banned from every village and city, discriminated against and being driven to become that which they have always been accused of being.
Of the way mages are disapproved of, merely because their talents lie elsewhere, and how they are shunned by more traditional Nords. Of the countless bandits, thieves and beggars I've seen that show clear signals that the way everything here in Skyrim works is woefully inadequate when it comes to personal rights that were actually already present and enforced thousands of years ago. I bite my lip harshly.
No, stick to what you decided.
"Is it not the Aldmeri Dominion, who makes the Kings kneel? That banned the worship of Talos because they could not, in their overconfidence of their own superiority, deal with his origins? Are it not the Thalmor, patrolling the lands of Skyrim, that drag people off in the middle of the night? Who hold the Empire like a puppeteer holds the strings?" I end, sneering at him.
I didn't even mean to say that much. Perhaps we're all just in a mood for monologues on this disastrous Fridas. Perhaps I'm honestly curious and I'm rambling because I expect an actual answer.
"So tell me then, Ulfric Stormcloak." I demand, raising my voice, letting the Thu'um rattle the bones of the humans in the court.
I'd better run off and get to packing as soon as possible, drag Marcurio out of bed, and get out of this city before noon. "Why is it that you choose the easy way out? I thought Nords were supposed to be honourable." I give the man draped in expensive furs a saccharine smile.
Even if I went too far… No, I spy no regret within myself. A real Dwemer scholar questions everything. And a Dwemer with honour gives the right answers and fights for them. Da and Ma, and Uncle and Mellte too would be proud of this. In the end, knowing that is enough not to regret it.
(Even though I lied about how I view the Way of the Voice and many, many other things.)
The thoughts brings a sad smile onto my face. "I only ask you think about it." I say almost gently, carefully, in a tone meant to ease Ulfric's ruffled feathers. Then, leaving the silent court behind without waiting for an answer, I walk out the doors at a swift pace. I'm not stopped by the guards as I make a beeline straight for Hjerim, as fast as common courtesy allows.
When I reach the bedroom to wake Marcurio, I hesitate. He's still sleeping. I… I kind of really want to go back to bed, too. I'm still exhausted from yesterday and it's not good to travel the roads when not in my best condition.
Making the feeble excuse for my current actions, I take my armour off from where I'd been too tired to do so yesterday. Crawling under the covers in a plain red tunic, I find myself soon drifting back off again, the bad lighting in the house certainly helping with that.
The world can wait until tomorrow.
…
"But how? How did you do it?" When I open my eyes again, I'm not in my 'usual' place, locked up tightly in chains. In fact, I'm free to walk around the Dwemer room, the looking glass that now shows the cloudy and fuzzy front of Hjerim the first to catch my eye.
Whoever this Dwemer scholar is, he can follow me around with this contraption, and I certainly don't like it. I look around the room more carefully, staying clear of the gaping ravine on the sides of the platform as I take a few careful steps towards the large table in the centre, where the scholar usually works.
"He could not have shared his knowledge? Could not have prevented what has yet to pass?" The table, made out of gold and Dwemer metals entirely, is filled to the brim with notes, quills, charcoal, paper, several heavy tomes and weird contraptions that, for the life of me, I cannot place.
They look vaguely like… spheres. Made out of separate, interlocking circles with tiny gems embedded into them. A little like gyros. A little like… Ugh, the memory, it's right there at the tip of my tongue! Why can't I place them? I've seen
something similar before…
"Perhaps he did not know? But then, why do it? An… unintentional shift? No, I'm missing something…"
Now, the scholar turns the corner, and I freeze in my tracks when he pulls a lever on the side of a door that I've never noticed before. A walkway, with the sounds of stuttering and metal sliding past metal, like the Great Lifts, extends towards the platform.
But the Dwemer does not see me with his eerie, luminescent eyes. He walks towards the table, and I step aside quickly. "Something powered it. Something vast. A source of magic, like the Eye the humans stole? No, No, the Eye only warps Space. Space and Time… Time… Time…"
His voice seems to warp and echo throughout the room as the world around me fades, distorts, the walls shifting and collapsing and folding – for a few moments, I'm too dizzy, confused and nauseous to react to the new scenery. "You miserable wyrm! You WILL tell me! You WILL!" The heavy robes flare around the small figure, a larger-than-life shadow looming over it even as green and blue lights flood my vision.
The deep red eyes in the shadows look up from the Dwemer scholar, up, and straight into my own. My heart skips several beats and I stop breathing in sheer terror – this vision is becoming far too real.
Far too much.
I cannot wrap my mind around this – it – the shadow and the place. Then, just as the panic truly sets in, a rumble echoes through what sounds like a cathedral or another enormous space, a rumble so deep and powerful my teeth clatter and my body vibrates with the force of it, settling deep in my very bones. "I AM VULTHURYOL."
I wake up shaking violently, in a cold sweat, staring at the blackish ceiling above my head with those red, red eyes seared onto my retinas. "Vulthuryol…" I breathe into the darkness. That's the same dragon who needed my help. The one living in the Deep…
Deep, somewhere underground. Like, a large cavern system. I let out a shocked exhale, sitting up and pushing aside the lingering aches and pains from the previous days as previously disconnected puzzle pieces fall seamlessly into place in my head.
I know where to find him.
Fal Zhardum Din.
As soon as the revelation fully computes I let myself drop back onto the straw mattress with a disappointed, frustrated groan, burying my face in my hands and ignoring the sleep-addled, inquiring mumbles from Marcurio.
Fuck.
I don't have a key.
Where in Oblivion am I supposed to find one of the three only entrance keys in existence? They will never have been left behind where anyone can get to them. Most likely in the sealed off parts of the ruins connected to Fal Zhardum Din.
…
…What do I do now?
A/N: Yeah, I'll admit I've got a LOT going on in this chapter! How do you feel about Ulfric's speech and reactions? It will play an important part later on, and I'd put Fjaldi's 'Speech skill' at about 50 for now. And yes. Remaining in Hjerim is stupid. We'll see how that turns out next time. And another dream sequence! Hope you find it interesting! I'd be more than happy to hear your opinions!