A/N: Hey guys, Wildfurion here with another short bit- this time in Jordis' POV. Next chapter, we'll have a surprise for our Mage…
Anyways, on to the reviews.
Sdarkness05: We'll have an even better surprise next chapter, involving a Necromancer and a certain Daedric Prince. Time for our Mage to get a nice blade, don't ya think? Either way, yes, Mithras studied at the College of Sapiarchs when he was still a boy at the Summerset Isle. That explains his talent and knowledge in magic. Winterhold will be coming soon, very soon…
Oc: It will be a very fun encounter to write. Serana is prone to witty banter and remarks, making her the ideal adversary to our Mage in the battle of wits.
Chapter 5
Wizards were a strange bunch, that she could tell.
Sitting by the bonfire with a bowl of hot venison stew in her hands, Jordis watches with keen interest as her companion works with mortar and pestle to powder ingredients for an alchemical concoction.
Mithras was a man of few words, at least from what she could see from the couple days they'd been traveling together. His calm and aloof attitude added to the mythos around Mages being secretive and quiet, Sybille often acted the same- whenever she was working on something new. That seemed to be a common trait shared amongst mystics.
Not like she'd met more than two of them, though.
"Ask." the High Elf says, not bothering to look up from his work to meet her gaze.
"Nothing really, just curious." Jordis replies with a shrug. "Are you making a potion?"
"Hm." He nods back. "Petals of a blue mountain flower, blisterwort and wheat. Makes for a good healing potion, simple and effective."
"Hmm." She smirks, playfully copying his grumpy groans. "That sounds boring. We should be out there, storming that Vampire lair and burning them out!"
"Fighting vampires at night is like trying to arm wrestle a werewolf. Painful, bloody and very likely to result in your death." Mithras responds, while continuing to grind the ingredients with the pestle, until the mixture seems to satisfy him. Then, he moves it to a round-bottomed flask and mixes it with fresh water from the nearby lake. "It's not like they're going anywhere, anyway. Why hurry?"
The girl huffs, it's not like he was wrong though. The Elf seemed to have means to spy on their enemies without being noticed, using some sort of scrying spell on that crystal orb of his to peer into their hideout.
"Besides, do you know what day tomorrow is?" the mage inquires, finally looking up to meet her gaze. Under the faint light of the bonfire, his eyes were like emeralds- though they glinted mischief.
"Oh, does the All-Knowing Wizard know something I don't?" Jordis taunts back with a grin.
"20th of Evening Star." At her inquisitive stare, he explains. "It's the day of summoning for Molag Bal, when the barrier between his realm and Nirn is the thinnest."
"Molag Bal…I think I've heard that name before." Blessed Divines and the old Nordic gods aside, Jordis wasn't one to remember the names of deities. Besides Talos, none of them got the Nord girl's interest anyway. "Is he a Daedra of some sort?"
"Hm." The mage nods, while continuing to boil the mixture using a small flame he'd conjured on his fingertips. "He's the Daedric Prince of Domination and Enslavement, while also being the patron god of vampires- or so do the books say."
"Sounds like the type of god I'd rather avoid. So you think they'll try to summon him tomorrow?"
"Probably." He shrugs. "If I am to take a guess, I would say that they are planning some sort of sacrifice in Bal's honor. Summoning a Daedra from Oblivion is not as difficult as it sounds, in fact, most apprentices could probably call upon an Atronach or two." The mixture seems to be ready, as the flames that danced on his fingertips suddenly die out. "A Daedric Prince, though, is something else entirely. They're too powerful to be bound, so you need to make an offering in order to appease them."
"So you're saying that those people who worship Daedra…" Jordis had heard stories- mostly told by her aging mother- but she never thought them to be true. But if they really did kill people, shouldn't she…
"Not all of the Princes demand human sacrifices, though." With that, he whistles, and a spectral wolf materializes by his side. "Hircine, for instance, usually asks that you bring him the pelt of a bear or wolf. Some, however, demand…bloodier offerings."
"That makes sense, I guess." Not all Daedra worshippers were evil then. That made sense, she supposed. Then she adds with a teasing grin. "That's the longest I've heard you talk though. Did you take joy in explaining arcane secrets to this innocent Nord lass?"
A quirked eyebrow is all the reaction she gets, much to her frustration. Was it really that hard earn any sort of reaction from him?!
"Hm…" His gaze turns to the flask, where the mixture now begins to cool down into a dark crimson liquid. "Good enough."
She watches in silence as he pours the concoction into a pair of tiny glass flasks, before handing one over to her. "This should help, in case one of them gets you."
"Don't worry about me, any vampire who comes even close to me will have a taste of my blade." She boasts proudly, struggling with the red tint that threatens to take hold of her cheeks as she continues. "But thanks…for everything. I mean..."
Just as the High Elf opens his mouth to answer, the familiar next to him growls - a low, furious sound, the snarl of a beast that caught scent of an intruder. Mithras tenses up, getting to his feet just as sparks begin to run through his fingertips- filling in the air with a faint smell of burnt coal.
"Do you smell something?" the wolf nods, not taking its eyes off the tree line. Their makeshift camp was located in the middle of a small clearing, less than a mile away from a frozen lake. It was a convenient location, albeit not very discreet. "Hm…"
"What's going on?" Jordis asks, trying to dam her feelings of unease- though her hand instinctively went for the pommel of her sword.
It was a good blade, forged by the blacksmith at Castle Dour and given to her by her father- when she asked him to train her in the ways of the sword. Her blade never failed her, and in situations like this, it reminded her of who she was- the Sword-Maiden, daughter of a Thane and sister to another.
She would not cower before an enemy, even one hidden in the shadows.
"Seems like we have some company. Then, we should receive them properly." the wizard comments, just before an explosion makes itself heard at distance. He grins, before calling in a language Jordis had never heard before. "Come forth, Servant of Boethia, heed my call."
Before her eyes, a humanoid figure starts to materialize- tall and imposing, with bright red skin and black eyes that were like ponds of pure darkness. Its barbaric armor did little to protect its chest and legs, though the immense double-edged axe held casually over its shoulder irradiated cold, malignant energies.
Jordis the Sword-Maiden couldn't help but take a step back as the Dremora materialized before her eyes. Seeing her fear, the Daedra grins- showing a row of very white, and very sharp teeth- before turning to its summoner.
"Who shall I kill, master?" the pit fighter asks, its posture tense and eager, like a rampaging beast about to break free from its cage.
It is then, that the first Death Hound breaks through the tree line, charging at Mithras with its gaping maw ready to rip off his throat.
Blood and guts splatter all over the place, when the blade of the Dremora's axe cuts through the creature's dead flesh like a knife through butter- cleaving the Death Hound in half, as its soul is captured and consumed by the weapon.
"Kill them all." The Altmer calmly orders, before the entire clearing turns into a battlefield.
Holding her shield high, Jordis blocks she blocks an ice arrow with her heavy shield, while her sword goes right through the skull of a Death Hound- stabbing the beast right in the eye. A bolt of flame goes right over her shoulder, colliding into the chest of a zombie, making it crumble in ashes.
"Thanks!" she yells back, not daring to look at Mithras, raising her shield to block an incoming strike from an Orc's warhammer. Her entire left arm goes numb, and she almost bites her tongue at the pain. But Jordis' shield holds, it bends and creaks, but does not break.
"For the master!" the Orc cries out in fury, his eyes glazed and tusks bared. "Die!"
An ice shiv cuts through her calf, making her knees buckle under the pressure of both assaults. Looking from the corner of her eye to the side, she sees the silhouette of a woman with her hands pointed at her. Eyes glowing red as a clear sign of vampirism, another shiv ready to be fired at her…
"Your soul is mine, vermin!"
Before the vampire can react, the Dremora is upon her, swinging his great ax in a vicious motion- tearing her arm off with a single cut. The vampire screams in pain, leaving her open for the Dremora's next move, as he cuts off her head- her body crumbling into ashes.
Taking notice of the orc's distraction, Jordis stabs forward with her blade, stabbing him in the gut and forcing him back. With a cry of pain and anger, he swings the warhammer at her again- and this time, Jordis was sure her arm was broken by the sheer force of the strike.
Wincing in pain, only her sheer determination and fighting spirit allow her to keep stabbing him, her blade cutting through his airways as she stabs him in the neck. That seems to do it, and the thrall's arms fall limp by his side.
Drinking the vial of the healing potion, she feels her bones start to knit themselves together. She has no time to rest, however, as more zombies, skeletons and death hounds pour into the clearing from the woods, like an unending tide of undead.
It is then that the forest itself comes to life.
From all directions, vaguely feminine figures emerge from within the trees, flames and lightning in their hands as they battle against the undead. Jordis watched in awe as the Spriggans joined the fray with their mighty magics.
A tug at her shoulder.
Mithras' grip on her shoulder is firm when she turns to meet his gaze, amidst the confusion, the High Elf raises a barrier with his magic, which nearly cracks once the Spriggans begin unleashing their spells upon the undead. His once elegant, albeit simple cotton robes are now tattered beyond recognition; his golden skin glistening with sweat and freshly spilled blood, yet his face was serene and harmonic.
At that moment, in her eyes, he looked like an elven god.
"We need to get out of here." He seriously states, shaking her off her trance with a rough pull. "Now!"
"Yes, sir." Jordis' response is almost instinctive, as the discipline she'd developed under her father took hold. "What's your plan?"
"Hold on tight! This might get messy…" Without warning, he wraps his arms around Jordis and pulls her into his chest. He doesn't even give her the time to get embarrassed, before he calls. "Ava-Carand!"
In the blink of an eye, the world around them shifted.
They stood atop a grassy hill, covered in a thin layer of ice and snow. Through the layer of clouds, the sister moons bathed them in a feeble, pale light; icy winds biting into their skins, making them shiver in the cold.
Before them, was the entrance to a small cave- unremarkable, if not for the red capped mushrooms that seemed to dominate the place. Jordis' nose wrinkled and her stomach twisted at the stench coming from within- it reeked of blood and rotten flesh, death and foul magics.
"What…happened?" the girl asks, struggling to hold back the contents of her stomach- her head still spinning from the trip. "What did you do?"
"I used Blink." Mithras replies rather tiredly, before uncorking a flask of a blueish, foul-smelling liquid and chugging it down in one go. He seemed to be struggling with the taste, though he still managed to continue. "It's an Alteration spell, allows for short-ranged instant travel."
"What?"
"It's a minor teleportation spell." The elf explains with a sigh. "Used to be common when the Mage's Guild still existed, now only a handful know it."
Mage's Guild? Wasn't it dissolved almost a century before? Ignorant about Magic as she was, Jordis was still the daughter of a Thane- so her father insisted she learned at least the basics about the different organizations across the Empire.
"Just…how old are you?"
"Older than you, that's for sure." The elf replies with a shrug. "Besides, we have more important stuff to do…"
As he says that, he calls forth his Dremora- the Daedra giving him an arrogant smirk as he starts giving out his instructions.
"We're about to enter a vampire lair. I need you two…" he points his index at them. "…to hold them out while I burn them from the back. We need to be careful, though. There's a powerful source of magicka within this place. I could feel its emanations from miles away…"
He then turns his gaze to her, and places a hand on her shoulder, before saying. "May her flesh have the resilience of iron, may arrows bounce off it in fear, and the sharpest blades turn dull as they cut it."
As he chanted, she could feel his magicka pouring into her being- it felt as cold as the northern snows, yet calm and soothing. She felt it spread over her skin, like a sheet, turning it into an armor to be worn.
"I don't know what you did." The Nord comments once it's over. "But it feels good. Really good."
He seemed to be about to make a jest for a moment- a brief flash of mischief in his eyes- though he seemed to hold back. "Now then, shall we kill some vampires?"
What followed was a fight worthy of a song.
The trio descended upon the remaining vampires like a punishment from the Divines, with the battlemage Mithras raining fire upon the bloodthirsty undead from the back, while Jordis and the Dremora cut them down with their blades.
After what seemed like hours of fighting, they finally confront the Master Vampire.
"Jordis, now!"
Mithras' call was all the warning she had, and Jordis the Sword-Maiden rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the Fireball heading towards the elder vampire- throwing him back in an explosion of flames. Burning, the creature shrieks in pain and confusion, its bestial instincts screaming for it to run, but Jordis would not give it any pause.
Taking the opportunity, the Sword-Maiden charges the creature with her shield- bashing it on the head before going for a brutal strike to its neck, decapitating it instantly.
As the vampire's body begins crumbling into ashes, Jordis turns to see Mithras holding a large, whiteish orb in his hands. It is then, that a booming voice makes itself heard in that large underground chapel.
""A new hand touches the beacon!"
A/N: Another chapter for you guys, with a lot of fighting and a nice twist at the end. Gotta say, I love Dawnbreaker- it's a freakin' awesome blade. Anyways, give me your thoughts on the reviews, I really want to hear your opinions on this story.
Wildfurion