Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. What's up guys&gals my name is Kerobani and I'm a little drunk. This week's chapter has all the stuff I've come to love in fantasy: A damsel in distress, a hero to rescue her, a dragon, and Ieago the Dragonborn losing his shit. And bonus nerd points if you got the D&D reference in the chapter's title.
Placing the sphere in its socket triggered a flight of steep stairs to descend into the floor around the altar. At the bottom we discovered a large lift. The five of us piled on and I pulled the lever in the middle of the floor. We had been descending for half an hour and still there was no sign of the bottom.
"Lydia, I can't get over how badass you look," I said after she changed into her new gear.
"We have the luck of gods, my Thane," she said dismissively, but was plainly as pleased by her new outlay as I was impressed.
Ebony armor and weapons are among the rarest and most sought-after in all of Tamriel. Wearing it, Lydia appeared as a slice of the star-strewn night given human form. Not all of it was plain ebony either. Her gauntlets and sword had a jagged appearance and the red stains that suggested Daedric make. She was wearing an emperor's ransom.
"The Redguard was well equipped to be killed by a man in more mundane gear," Blue remarked of the two dead people we had found behind the altar.
"By that logic, people in chain and armed with bows shouldn't be able to kill a dragon," I replied as the lift came to a halt at last. I began to walk forward to the ornate double door leading out, "Now let's find this tower of Mzark, finish Setimus' errand, grab the Scroll, and get the fuc... Holy shit!"
I had thrown open the doors to a different world.
The kingdoms and empires of humans, elves, and beasts have risen and fallen as regularly as the sun and moons above them. The Dwemer instead built places like Blackreach and so endured until the day they vanished. The whole of the cavern was lit by the dim light of distant constructs and a forest of glowing fungus. Luminous spores drifted in the air and tiny blue specks illuminated the ceiling. A distant waterfall caught the light and glowed teal as it splashed over a ledge. The cavern was at least as large as any one of the holds on the surface. No light allowed me to see to the far wall of the cavern and when I eventually thought to cast it, my spell of dark vision only just let me view the ceiling high above. For the moment however, we just looked out from our balcony in stunned silence on the Dwemer buildings and the forests of bioluminescent mushrooms.
Aela was the first to recover, "Okay smart boy," she said to Blue, "Where do we go now?"
He looked about thoughtfully for a moment. "Let's start with that citadel over there," Blue said. "The last Dwemer scrying device Morgan and I found was huge."
We found a paved road leading more or less toward the great castle. The paving stones were perfectly joined, with only shallow ruts to mark the long gone passage of carts. Blackreach's ethereal beauty concealed tremendous danger just beyond the edge of the old boulevard. The Dwarven robots still functioned somehow and Falmer had set up camps in every habitable building. There was genuine wildlife as well in the form of chauri, trolls, and worryingly to the Nords, will-o-the-wisps.
"The ones back home would be attacking by now," I remarked, mesmerized by the tails of radiant white light that drifted in and out of the roofless stone huts of a ruined mushroom farm.
"Just ignore them, Ieago," Blue said, "Leave them be. Don't even think of them. The Wispmother doesn't need to be found."
"Wisp-mother?"
"A nature-spirit that takes the form of an elf in a burial shroud," Lydia put in. "The wisps are said to be the souls of people she killed."
I shook my head slowly and we pressed on toward the towering keep. Protected so completely from the elements above, the great castle stood as a monument to the inspiration of its creators. Behind high walls the towers and keeps reared up to the ceiling, occasionally entering the living rock of the cavern walls. Over all hung a huge orange lamp, suspended from the ceiling by metal crafted to look like vines. Over the gate we stood before were carved runes in the Dwemer alphabet. Even if I could read the letters, it was probably something unpronounceable.
In this surreal environment, the last thing I expected to encounter was another Imperial. Yet there he was in the middle of a courtyard, wearing rags over ash-grey skin.
Without warning, Red strode forward palms outward. "Hey! Who are you?" She called.
My own urge to leap out and drag her away from the lone man was checked by Aela and Lydia's grips clamping down hard on my arms. "Morgan you idiot," I heard Blue mumble under his breath. Unlike Red, the rest of us had thought through the trap.
"No! Stay back! Please stay back!" The slave begged her.
"You're okay. I just want to help you," Red tried to tell him.
The man drew a dagger and lunged at Red as Falmer arrows lanced in at her from the platforms above. Lydia and Aela's bows sang in the dark of our archway, probably saving Red's life as they killed the desperate slave. The Falmer arrows struck home in Red's body and she went down hard.
"Morgan!" Blue screamed at the top of his lungs. Self-control forgotten, he bolted out to his friend's aid; ignoring more slaves slowly approaching and the arrows falling thick from above. He cast a warding spell. The arrows began bouncing off the magical shield.
"He chooses now to show that he cares?" I asked, "Get to work on the archers above. I have to get out there before his manna runs dry."
I sprinted forward, my first emerald slash hacking an orc in half. Lydia and Aela strode out of the arch and aimed at the Falmer above. A slave got lucky and blocked my first stab but my backhanded follow through took her down. I paused for a moment, "Fus-ro-dah!" I bellowed at a group of archers on a landing near the suspended orange lamp. I was satisfied to see three of our tormentors fly off the platform. A part of my Shout also clipped the great lamp. A sound like the purest ringing crystal filled the whole of Blackreach as I finished off the slaves and Blue was at last able to drag Red to an archway opposite from the one we came from.
I only had just enough time to tag Red with a healing spell when I heard a familiar roar and booming of wings above the raspy howling of the Flamer rallying throughout Blackreach.
"Are you fucking serious?" I raged at the world around me. I looked out over the road leading though the forest of luminescent plants, begging the Gods for inspiration. I pointed to a building in the distance, "Aela, Lydia, that tower in the distance. Cut a path to it. Blue, carry Red and stay close to them."
"What about you?" Aela asked.
"Rear guard. Now fucking run!"
I relit Revenant, hacking down an elf that rushed too early. My friends ran down the road, the Huntress and the Housecarl meeting no resistance just yet. The dragon landed in the courtyard before me. I ran as fast as I could as it inhaled. The sting of my blade in its face caught it off guard and stopped its first words. "Wuld!" I called and dashed through the archway after my companions.
The Falmer, their slaves, and their pets soon guessed the path of our flight and arrayed against my friend and my lover. Aela was a rolling dance of blades as she took on the creatures to the left of the road. She was a lithe woman and now needed all the finesse and flexibility she could muster. A dagger in a Falmer chest became leverage to send the sword driving into the back of a slave. That in turn became a handhold to vault at the face of yet another creature to gut both sides of its neck. Lydia's combat was less mobile, but somehow more brutal. The supernatural keenness of the daedric blade and the diamond hard ebony of her shield made her unbeatable. A trail of shattered bodies lined the right side of the road behind her.
Blue had somehow gotten hold of Lydia's elven sword and was (to my later surprise), an asset to the two professional killers guarding him. The strength hidden in the man was astounding. Diminutive though she was, Morgan was a burden to be borne and Ghent did so with grace aplomb. She was draped over his shoulders in a rescue carry and braced with his left arm. As Aela and Lydia pressed onward, any Falmer or slave they missed would find itself receiving a brutal stab or spinning chop as Ghent darted to and fro between my friends.
All this I took in at a glance, coming back to it in detail only as I write this. At that moment, I was running furiously to catch up to them using my telekinesis spell to shove foes aside when Revenant was not in position to slay them. Again the dragon landed to challenge me while we ran for our lives. "Not now!" I thundered and hacked at its face. I was rewarded with a piece of a horn shearing off and bowel-loosening dread as my blade failed in a shower of sparks.
Loose rocks thrown by an invisible hand and warding spells became my weapons after that. Aela and Lydia gained the door of the tower and thrust it open. Blue and Red were almost a purple blur when they flew between the two amazons. Friendly arrows arced inches from my body as Aela and Lydia sought to cover my flight. I was a dozen yards from the door now. The beating of wings became louder than the blood in my ears as the ancient beast landed behind me again. I was through the doors at last, Aela and Lydia slammed them behind me as the dragon's fire erupted. The Dwemer metal of the door began to glow and deform under the brutal heat of the creature's breath. I waved them aside and prepared one last Shout.
"Yol toor!" I forced out the last of the air in my lungs to bellow flame. The brass-colored metal of the double doors fused together under the assault of flames from within and without. Rings of brown and green edged out from the center of the white-hot blast as the heat changed the metal.
Quiet noise filled the room in the wake of the noise of the retreat. The Falmer could still be heard croaking and howling through the metal door and the impotent roars of the dragon. The taste and smell of smoke lingered in my ash-dry mouth. I turned to check on my friends.
"You broke your fancy saber," Aela pointed.
"My voice is busted too," I rasped out. Speaking would be done in a whisper for the next several days.
I began to cast Healing Hands on Aela and Lydia as I began to feel the sting of my own injuries.
We had sealed ourselves in a library. Blue had already moved further in and let Red down on one of the tables. He was bent over her in a state of panic, "Morgan," he whispered over and over again. I sent a long pulse of a healing spell through her body. The tenacious woman clung to life but would need more than combat healing spells and potions to properly set her to rights. At last in the second pulse of my spell she brought her hand up to Blue's cheek. He put his own hands over it and held it there.
"Ghent, I'll be fine," she whispered into his tears.
In other news, thank you Bigun03 for faving/following in a big way. It really does mean a lot to hear that people want to read more of Ieago's adventures. You'll be glad to know that a rewrite of the of the Civil War quest is 50% done together with an original storyline, though the Dwanguard and Dragonborn quests are still just ideas kicking around on a notepad and in the back of my head. As always, I'm glad you're reading and enjoying my work. Faves and follows are welcome and constructive reviews even more so.