Cearbhail:

Wow, just wow... I knew I wanted to do something different, but seriously... wow. Ok, sorry it took me so long, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with this chapter. it gets pretty dark, not going to lie. I hope you have fun reading it though.

[Maleek]

Dear Father,

I believe it would interest you to know that Project Shadow is running fantastically. While it is true that Project Inquisitor was a failure, I must remind you of our success with Project Shadow. These Argonians have given us a lot of information regarding Shadow and most of its more uncommon properties. We've also had a good run at dissecting Argonians, finding out what makes them tick. And we've reported a success with a certain plant grown in Elsweyr called sugria. It's the common pink petal that grows on the sugar cane during its blooming season. Now, this petal has some interesting chemical inside it that makes Argonian minds… complacent. Combining it with our Illusion spell Suggestion, we've invented a very potent series of potions. The minds of the Argonians are now under our control if we want it. Of course, our first test was on Subject C-013, the youngest of our newest initiates. She has a very suggestible mind. And she did as she was ordered… she brought us the Prince of Black Marsh. Because this new serum has proven its worth, we've decided to use the serum on the Prince of Black Marsh, the rogue agent Maleek Frazviani. If you recall the name, you would know that it's the descendant of the Queen of Shadows Nexauvia Frazviani. With your permission, we will begin his first dose.

With the successful capture of Maleek Frazviani, we have also drawn out the resistance. Between capturing what is left of the Dark Brotherhood, we have also tracked down the last of the rogue Shadow Agents. I'd say our little Shadowwraith will become a very useful tool in our war against Skyrim. We shall begin adapting all current Project Shadow participants with this new serum. I predict by the end of the month we will have taken Blacklight and wiped the Dunmer off the face of Nirn. Victory is within our grasp, Father.

As a side note, I have sent my results of Project Inquisitor to Overseer Fiirnar up in High Rock. Test results on the Khajiit were disastrous. While a complete failure, we did find a way to create a powerful hallucinogenic that will kill Khajiits, and it has a special potency to Khajiits with the blood-rager gene. That Dragonborn blood you collected from the Nord General Hjor Stonearm seems to do something to the minds of the Khajiits. It makes them rampage and go on a killing spree while also crumbling their mind to a shell of their former selves before going into a suicidal plunge. And while Project Inquisitor was a failure among the Argonians, we have already concluded that the Orcs are the next step. If that fails, we plan on making our move to Akavir. The ancient Tsaesci are the closest relatives to dragons… and the Ka'Po'Tun will have the blood of Argonians and Khajiits. Their blood makeup might allow for successful bonding with our blood-raging Dragon serum. I will write to you when we have conclusive results of Project Inquisitor.

Overseer of Black Marsh, Director of Project Shadow Inquisitor,

Fiirnar the seventh.

…

The prisons in Lilmoth. I've read about them in Queen Nexauvia's journal. Damp shin deep murky water filled with blood, urine, and whatever else is in here. To make matters worse, I'm chained up to a wall with extendable chains. If I relax too much, my arms might end up pulling the chains down. If the chains pull down too far… electricity pulses through me. And since I'm shin deep in water, I get really shocked. I already found out just how painful these electric pulses can be when I tried to punch my way through the chains. It was so bad that I lost my vision for a couple minutes. That was a few hours ago. I haven't tried to move my arms since. I've just sat here and watched the door for any movement. If that wasn't enough, there was something in this room that was disabling my Shadow. Must have been in these cells for a long time. I'm guessing Argonians with Shadow were locked up a lot.

The last few hours have been pretty miserable. My entire team was taken away, locked away in separate cells. I heard a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, and I heard a lot of squeaking cell doors opening and closing. Shadow users cried as they were dragged down the damp hallway by Thalmor soldiers. They never came back. I didn't know what was going on with them, but I hope they were ok. I don't even know what happened to my Brotherhood. They were locked down here with the rest of us, but I didn't hear them screaming in pain. I didn't see where any of them were locked up. Gods…I did this. I lead them into this place. I shouldn't have let them join my crusade. The Brotherhood was not my personal army. And neither were the children of the Shadow Academy. I brought them into this… just like two years ago with the bards when I tried to find Ruby.

As I sat there, looking at my cell door, I heard small splashes as another Thalmor soldier began his patrol down the hallway. I listened as closely as I could as the footsteps lightly waded in the damp hallway. The footsteps came to a stop several times, at each cell, I think. He must be checking to see if anyone is still alive. The footsteps continued until they finally reached my cell. I could see the reflection of a shadow through the food slot near the bottom of the door, but I couldn't see a face near the window. Must be a short elf. When a head finally poked up over the window, I couldn't see the feet down by the foot slot anymore.

"Maleek?" I heard Babette whisper through the doorway. When her head poked up, she looked over at me. Gods, it was so good to see her again, and safe.

"Babette?" How did she get in here? "How'd you find me?"

"Duh… I know how to turn invisible…" She shook her head at me. "So… just give me a second, I'll get you out of here." There was a series of pounds on the doorway. I saw waves of water flow through the food slot and Babette cried out in exasperation. "What is this door made of?" She almost screamed as I heard several more slams against the doorway. "Wait… malachite? Oh… clever bastards. Hold on, I'm going to try to unlock it!"

"Babette, no!" I tried to scream to her before I heard her screaming in pain. I saw electricity pulsing through the doorway. The electricity flew through the water, hitting me too. My vision blurred and my body spasmed. I had heard from Queen Nexauvia's journal that the doors were protected from magicka and lock-picking. And Babette had just learned about it the hard way. I heard a heavy splash as Babette probably passed out. I waited for a second, hoping to hear her cough and stand up or groan… or something. "Babette?"

I heard a splash and I thought Babette had gotten up. Then I heard another one and another. Someone was walking towards my doorway. It wasn't Babette either. There was a pause by my door and I heard a key slam into the keyhole. With a loud clank, the door snapped open. When it opened with a loud screech, I didn't see Babette walking into the room. I saw that Overseer Fiirnar guy. He stood on the other side of the doorway. He nodded to me with a twisted smirk on his face as he strode into my room. I thought about pulling on my chains just to shock him with magicka, but knowing him… he probably had some sort of enchanted boots or robes that resisted stuff like that.

The Altmer wearing the long black overcoat and sickening robes underneath nodded his head to me as curtly as possible as he looked down at me. "You have quite the record, Prince Maleek." Two Dominion soldiers dressed in golden armor strode into the room, both resting their hands on their sword pummels. "I do believe it's time we had a… discussion."

"You think you can make me talk?" I tried my best to sound amused by the idea. And I was. I'm a Brotherhood Listener. I Listen… I don't talk.

Overseer Fiirnar smirked at the comment, actually nodding in amusement. "We shall see, won't we?" He nodded to the other Dominion soldiers. "Bring him." The guards marched up to me through the thick water, kicking a few waves of the nasty water in my face before they finally made their way up to me. They were quick as they snapped an inhibitor choker on my neck before unlocking me from my chains. They didn't just let my arms drop to my sides though. The guards dragged me up to my feet and then started dragging me out of the cell as Overseer Fiirnar took the lead.

I looked around for any sign of Babette, but I didn't see anything. The only thing I saw was a small shadowmark on the ceiling above us. I had trained the Brotherhood to look for them, and to put them down to communicate with other Brotherhood agents. We got the idea from the Thieves Guild. Pantu and I were pretty tight these days. Might even say that we work together on a lot of assignments. The Thieves Guild was turning into quite the intelligence network and sabotage experts. We did the rest of the work… you know… the killing part.

The shadowmark had a triangle with a small circle near the tip. Danger, huh? I wonder if Babette drew that. She's the only one that could have drawn that. Was she still alive then? I looked around for another clue, and actually saw one. There were new shadowmarks that the Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild had come up with to actually help with assignments and not just targets for larceny and theft. There was a square with an X inside it near the doorway leading out of the cellblock. That was our symbol for reinforcements. And right underneath it… there was a small ruby stone stuck in the wall. Ruby, huh? Babette was going to go find Ruby. I sure hope I was translating that correctly. I'd hate for all this to be a coincidence.

I looked around at the other cells as we walked past them. I could see a few of the shadowwraiths as we walked past. They looked tired and defeated, but that was to be expected by now. Every time I looked into a cell, I felt a whack at the back of my head from one of the Dominion soldiers. "Keep your eyes front." One would say every time I looked around.

Overseer Fiirnar paused by the doorway leading out of the cellblock and waited for the door to open. When it did, he led me out of the shin deep waste water and up a flight of stairs. We headed up to a floor above this one and into a brightly lit hallway covered in white paint. It was so bright that I had to close my eyes for a few seconds while my eyes adjusted to it. I snaked my eyes around as we came across a few gray doors. There were tiny windows showing the other side, and I saw a few shadowwraiths waiting inside the rooms. Jacklyn was one of them. She was rubbing her arms frantically as she paced around, crying as she did so. I received another thwack to the back of my head.

"Let him look." Overseer Fiirnar called casually from the front as he continued his pace. And so, I looked. I watched every door we came across. More and more Argonians. Some were tied up, some were not. Every room looked the same. White walls, bright glowing crystal thingy in the center of the room. Everyone was wearing simple white plastic sheets as clothing. Wow… a lot of white. How… something corny, I'm sure.

Overseer Fiirnar finally came to a stop and turned to face a door. He slid a key into the lock and pulled the door open. He headed in first, and the guards practically grabbed me and dragged me into the room as forcefully as possible. The room was pure white just like all the others, only it wasn't a room with a bed and a desk. There was just a desk and two chairs. There was also a White Robe healer waiting for us as we walked into the room.

Overseer Fiirnar nodded to the White Robe as he took his seat behind the desk. The two soldiers manhandled me, shoving me into the other seat opposite of Overseer Fiirnar. Once I was in my seat, I looked around for a few seconds trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this. I could turn around and kill one of the Dominion soldiers, take his sword, and then go from there.

"I wouldn't bother." Overseer Fiirnar stated casually as he started flipping through some files on his desk. He wasn't even looking at me. "I have full mastery of blah, blah, blah… and blah, blah, blah. If you try to escape… yadda, yadda, yadda… and by the end you'll be begging for blah, blah, blah." He mumbled his words as he read the files, shrugging like he'd said it so often that it had become a routine or something. It probably was. He sighed as he placed the file down, looking up at me. "So… Prince of Black Marsh, last surviving heir to the Shadow Queen Nexauvia's throne. I was beginning to wonder if you would screw up eventually. You got pretty far." He said as he stood up, picking up the various files.

He started pacing around the room, looking at pictures and reports. "It says here that you started your little rebellion about 13 months ago, in a nearby Morrowind Argonian settlement. You attacked the settlement with a small band of professionally trained assassins. Your… Dark Brotherhood, if I understand this correctly." He started flipping through more pages. "You managed to infiltrate Gideon and recruit a few Shadow Agents by promising protection for their families. Not bad, I might add. And things get a little sketchy past that. You hit four towns at once…freeing political prisoners and building your little army. Your little army was led to a trap and the majority of them were executed for treason, but your more trusted soldiers escaped. And now… we find you here." He looked up at me, shrugging. "You spent months setting up for this moment… and you risk it for murderers?"

"My family." I corrected him. "And who says I'm done? This might be exactly what I want… to be captured by you. What if being close to you means I get to kill you when the moment presents itself?"

Overseer Fiirnar smiled thickly as he looked over to the White Robe. "Ok, I'm ready now. Do it." The White Robe bowed to him and then walked over to me. She was carrying a syringe. I tried to stand up but the two armored soldiers were behind me, clasping their hands on my shoulder, pushing me back down into my chair. The White Robe stabbed the syringe into my arm and squeezed what looked like pink tea into my arm. "You have just been injected with a very potent drug that just made it past its initial testing stage. We call it Sugria Lotus Palm, or just SLP for short. And yes… you can consider that an acronym for sleep. After all, you'll feel like you're in a dream for now on. You see… the SLP has some unique properties. It makes your mind very suggestible, and with a little Vampire spell of mine… you'll become my thrall, just like Subject C-014, Jacklyn."

My breathing was starting to slow as the room started to spin around me. My mind started feeling funny. "Yeah? And how is Jacklyn your tool?"

He chuckled at the question. "Let's find out. Call in C-014." As I waited, my mind started to feel more and funnier. It was like there was this spreading numbness or fogginess in my brain. Jacklyn slowly walked into the room, dressed in nothing but a flat white plastic sheet.

She walked robotically into the room, pausing in front of Overseer Fiirnar. "Yes, Overseer?"

"C-014, I want you to kill yourself." Overseer said as he handed her a knife.

Jacklyn looked down at the knife for a second. She finally snatched the knife from his hand and brought the knife to her neck. "Jack, don't!" I screamed to her. "Think of your brother!" There was no hesitation. She thrust the blade into her neck. She stumbled and blood sprayed onto the walls and ceiling. She crashed into the floor, her red blood flowing down her neck and onto the white floor.

Fiirnar looked from Jacklyn over to me. "You see, Maleek… she couldn't say no to me. I could have made her do anything I wanted. And I did. You see… she was the first participant that survived a dose of this particular drug. She took to it very well. And it gave us what we needed… a way to draw out the infamous Maleek. We knew her brother was fighting on your team, so we used her. We ordered her to call out to her brother… to call him to her. We knew he'd bring you with him, and we knew you'd try to distract us. C-014 was but one of many shadowwraiths ready to kill you on sight. Unfortunately, my father wants you alive. You're no good to us dead… but you're still Argonian. And you've just been injected with the same drug we gave C-014. It needs an hour long incubation before your mind will be weak enough to dominate, but once a time comes…you can bet we'll be getting started."

I looked from him over to Jacklyn's corpse. She was dead. Not another one. "You didn't have to kill her."

Fiirnar looked down at C-014. "Her purpose was fulfilled. She brought me you…and I was going to use her to kill her brother, but I felt you needed a proper exhibition of her willingness to do what I said." He nodded to the White Robe. "Drag her away." The White Robe nodded and grabbed Jacklyn by her leg. She dragged Jacklyn out of the room by her right foot, leaving a streak of red blood smeared on the floor as she did so.

I felt my mind begin to slip away, but I had to find out something first. "What do you plan on doing with me?"

He smiled. "You're the rightful heir to the Queen's line. With you on the throne, taking orders from me… the great nation of Black Marsh will finally belong to the Dominion properly. Your citizens will bow to us. And you're friends with the High King. You can get close to him… assassinate him. Not to mention that girlfriend of yours. Can you imagine the look on her face when she finally sees you again? She will probably want to hug you. And when she has you wrapped up in her arms… telling you how much she loves you… you will stab her in the back with a knife. It will be so poetic. And the look on her face as you scorn her while she bleeds to death. I can only imagine just how broken she'll be."

That was so twisted that I tried to push myself out of my chair. My feet turned to jelly as I tried it and I ended up on the floor. The room spun around and around, my arms turning useless. "Oh, and we injected you with a mild paralysis poison. Didn't want you running away." Overseer Fiirnar said as he stepped over to me, bending down to look at me. "And… all those things I just mentioned… you will do. You're mine now, Maleek Frazviani… puppet of the Thalmor. How I love my job."

Even as he said it, I could already see myself hugging Ruby. Instead of feeling comforted by her, I could only feel the anger as I pulled out one of my daggers and ran it through her back. Ruby would cry out in alarm and then look at me with her wide blue eyes. Then she'd slowly go limp in my arms. I didn't feel anything over the thought, not a thing at all. Imagining that I would walk into the Crystal Palace and kill Asger never troubled me, not even before this new drug was forced into me. So, imaging that I would walk into the Crystal Palace and kill him was not so wrong of me.

I sat there as my mind started turning against me. I tried my best to fight it but I could feel more and more of my control of my mind slip away. It was like a spreading numbing fog that passed through my head. It was a slow crawling fog but I couldn't find ways of beating it. As this continued, the room would spin around me and I felt nauseous.

"Maleek." The Overseer's voice sounded like an echo, but one I couldn't ignore. I looked up at him, and I guess he liked the look in my eyes because he nodded. "I have a few questions for you, and I want you to answer them honestly. Do you have any more soldiers?" I found myself nodding. Yeah, I had some friends still out there. Babette was one of them after all. "Are they going to try freeing you?"

I nodded. "Babette already tried. She must have gotten away, but she'll be back with Ruby."

"Ruby, you say?" The Overseer smiled and nodded. "That's good… very good. She's just who we want to see."

"Me too." I could feel the pleasure on my fingertips as I imagined seeing the look in her eyes as I hugged her. I wanted to kiss her so bad.

"When she gets here, I want you to kill her." The voice echoed in my head again. I could feel the pleasure on my fingertips as I imagined seeing the look in her eyes as I stabbed her. I wanted to kill her so bad.

"And now… are there any other Shadow users we should know about?"

"You mean my father?" My dad could use Shadow. Not as good as me, but he could do it.

"Do you know where he is?"

I nodded. "Yeah, he lives with Urloquanshas. They've been really nice to us."

Overseer Fiirnar nodded, clearly pleased with my answer. He looked away from me to the two soldiers holding me down. "Get a squad together. The Urloquansha family have betrayed the Dominion. You know what must be done." What must be done? Don't families that betray the Dominion end up slaughtered? Yeah, they do. Oops… I shouldn't have said anything. "When you find Maleek's father, bring him to me. Maybe we can use him too."

Cearbhail:

Sigh... Maleek is going to kill Ruby. What a way for this story to end. And I killed Jacklyn. Too bad, i really liked her. She was totally going to end up in Ambra's story too. Still might ;)