"I'm. So. Board." I whined.
"Yes Sheo, we know." Aerana answered from her place laying on the ground.
"Why is this taking so long? It never took this long in the g-…visions."
"Perhaps your visions are only a guideline." She pointed out reasonably.
"But it's been hours!" I cried.
"I'm sure it will be over soon."
"But I'm so board."
"Yes, Sheo. We know."
"Please. For the love of the Divine, shut up. Please, Just shut up." Lydia begged from her position. She laid on her cot. Her voice was that of someone who knew their words were in vein. It's not like I didn't know I was annoying. But I was still adjusting to how hyper my armor made me feel. And there was. Nothing to do. The slow clinking of gears being the only sound as we descended.
After our fiasco with Clavicus Vile, we decided to 'progress' the main quest. Or, I pushed for it. I told Aerana that in order to learn dragonrend, the only spell that would be capable of defeating Alduin, we would need the help of an Elder Scroll.
I tired explaining the part about her needing to go back in time to use it, but I don't think she got it. In the meantime, we had been raiding burrows and gaining loot.
Between that, and the dragon's that popped up every other minute, Aerana had become quite the Thu'um practitioner. Her current favorite was the first two words of Ice Form. But she switch between them.
We were all sported out in a mix of armor. I used glass armor, with a set of expert destruction robes underneath it. The glass itself was enchanted with Health and stamina buffs. It was what I needed most. It felt like an IV drip of crack.
Lydia was decked out in a full plate set of dwarven armor. With enchantments to one handed, block, archery, and finally stamina. She had become a true tank.
Finally, Aerana was sporting a mix between Ebony and Nordic. It had enchantments on it for destruction, Magicka, alterations, and surprisingly, restoration.
Oh! And I had learned a few more spells. For one, I knew healing hands! Not healing, but I was getting close. Not like I really needed it though. I also had the basic concept of bound blade down. And man, it was useful. Did you know you could create any shape you wanted?
My personal preference was a replica of Ichigo's bankai. And, by pushing magic through the blade, I was able to replicate a much weaker version of the Getsuga Tenshou. This was caused by creating a wave of magic on the edge of the blade that grinded against itself along the edge. Then, by hurling it forward, I created a solid wave of magic that cut until it was destabilized.
Also, fun fact, Bound weapons were just enslaved Daedra forced into different form. Whoever came up with that must have been an interesting person to be around.
I had Herpy Derpy, but it was bullshit powerful, and kinda embarrassing to hold. So I kept it in storage.
Anyway, the easiest way down to black reach was the Aftland shaft. Just southwest of Winter hold. Fuck it was cold out there.
It was easy enough for me to burn through the bars covering the entrance, and a lever pull later we were on our way down.
The metal was interesting. As someone who previously worked in a foundry, I knew my metallurgy. And the near white glow of the melting, as well as the high melting point, made me think Dwemer metal had trace amounts, or was at least similar to titanium. Which made sense in a way. It's durability was similar. But if it had titanium, where did the weight come from? Titanium was lightweight compared to steel. But Dwarven metal was heavy. Did that extra bit of metal help with edge retention? After all, Titanium was awful at edge retention. That's why it wasn't used in swords. It was something to ponder.
And down we went. And down. And down. It was so SLOW. I get it. It was steam powered. But come on! This was ridiculous. After around maybe the forth hour, we pulled out our sleep sacks and laid on them.
"I'm so boar-"
" Sheo !" I stopped at Aerana's sharp tone. "Why don't you tell us a story. You like stories right? And you have many many stories. Tell us a few."
I thought about it. I did like stories. I nodded to myself. And so, I started telling stories. I went on as the hours passed.
I had gone through the plots of Naruto, Greek mythology, and Batman, just for something to do. Also, it was dark. As in, no light at all outside our spells. It was a bit creepy.
As for my stories, they thought Naruto was an idiot, and that Sasuke had had a point. Which, I'm not sure how they got that. Maybe warrior culture blended well with the Avenger complex? They didn't hate Naruto, just thought he was an idiot who survived because of dumb luck. Greek mythology was great though. I talked for hours about it. Something about the poly deistic tales resonated with them. No doubt due to their exposure to their own, very real gods. When that was exhausted, I tried explaining Batman. That one didn't go so well. They were under the impression that not finishing ones enemies was a point if weakness, not strength. Again, warrior culture. After what felt like an futile effort explaining the complexities of batman, eventually, I got tired of talking. I thought that impossible, but here we are.
So here we were. Waiting. I wonder if the vampires found Serana or if that's a thing held back by fate for the dragonborn? This world was kinda iffy about that. Some things happened regardless, but other things seemed to resolve themselves. We had passed through Morthal at one point. Apparently, the vampire quest had resolved itself without our intervention. Yet, other things seemed to wait for us. Like Vile's quest. Or Alduin waiting for us in Kynesgrove.
Then I saw light, and felt a thud. My eyes adjusted from the near absolute darkness, and I could see a blue glow coming from the upper dome of the room.
"Well, it certainly is beautiful." Lydia commented idly. I nodded. It was. The soft glow along the dull gold color of the decorations was quite beautiful. Especially when it reflected off the light gray of the concrete. I scanned the area. In the center of the room stood an apparatus.
Along the top was the lexicon control matrix. Now, I know what your asking. 'But Sheo, you don't have a Lexicon. How will you access it.' And the answer, is I won't be.
"So, what are we looking for again? An elder scroll? Why would one be here? And I still don't understand why we need it." Aerana asked as we wandered the room.
"I told you. We're, or more precisely, you're going to use it as an anker point and contained singularity to rip open a hole in the space time continuum, allowing an avatar of your visual consciousness to be present in the past. That way, you can observe the events that have been lost to time, thus becoming aware of a forbidden Thu'um that will be the destruction of Alduin. And as for the second question, I don't know. Dwemer were weird."
I saw Aerana look at Lydia in exasperation. "Yes. I heard you. But I don't understand what you said. Something about learning a shout. But how does all this help us in the long run?"
I sighed frustrated. It was hard knowing about what was supposed to happen, and know the context behind it, but not being able to provide proof beyond 'Because I said so'.
"Just, trust me. Please. Tell you what. After we have this, we can go do some classic adventurer shit. I know you like that. Want to visit Markarth? Some crazy shit going do a whole conspiracy. Just let me save us a bit of time by speed running this. Then we can go have fun."
As I spoke, I fiddled with the contraption that was encasing the elder scroll. It was an odd crystal being held by more dwarven metal. Easy enough. I clenched my eyes, and started melting the arms off of it.
After a moment it dropped with a loud clang as it landed on the floor.
The metal had melted to slag, but the crystal remained cool to the touch. Odd. A few more minutes under the burner, and I was down quickly getting frustrated. "What the hell?" I muttered. Lydia hover over my shoulder, and it scared the shit out of me when she spoke. How the Fuck is she so quiet in full plate mail?
"What's the hold up, Sheo? You break it?" She said ready to move on.
"Uh, no. Wait, maybe? I don't know. It won't open. I've put enough magic in it to cook a dragon into steak. But it won't budge. You wanna try?" I asked. Maybe if magic wouldn't work, physical items would.
She shrugged, and pulled out her Dwemer mace. Several loud slams later, it had barely chipped the shell, but Lydia needed a new mace. Her face was not happy. It seemed like physical attacks were the way to go looking at the chips, but we needed something more durable. Maybe ebony? We had Aerana's sword, but I had a feeling it would ruin it. And seeing as it was quite rare, and none of us were smiths, I didn't want to break it. What did I have that was-Oh! A Daedric artifact.
I pulled out Herpy Derpy from my Oblivion. The weight on it was so weird, but it's striking power was nothing to scoff at. I had used it as a joke on a few bandits just to test it out. It would break ribs through armor. It was basically an oddly shaped flaming flail. What was more impressive was that I wasn't that strong physically.
Lydia groaned in disappointment once my artifact came out. Hey, I wasn't very fond of the thing either, but an artifact is an artifact. A few admittedly wet slapping sounding walks later, it was clear that even with it's enhancements, I wasn't trying enough to even chip it. Well that sucks. Oh! I know!
"Lydia, I need you to take this and-"
"No. Absolutely not." She interrupted rudely.
"Lydia, please. This is important." I begged offering her my massive dick bat. She scowled in disgust.
"No. I'm not touching that. Absolutely not. I'd rather die." Her voice was flat and her tone was unmoving.
I turned to Aerana hopeful. She was making a face similar to Lydia.
"No way. Even I have limits to how much of your crazy I can put up with Sheo. This is it. This is that limit. Neither of us are touching that thing." Her tone had finality in it, and I knew she wouldn't budge.
I sighed and dismissed Herpy Derpy. "Fine. Well, we have to find a way to open this. It's vital. The world depends on it." I tried stressing.
"You seem to know so much about all this, why not open it the way it was intended. Unless you expect me to think these dwarves created all this" she gestured to the room and half melted apparatuses. "with the intention of opening it like a cave man." Lydia stated.
"You know, you almost have a point there Lydia. Except you tried to open it like said cave man with barely any prompting. So that point falls flat. And we could have opened it the normal way. But it would have required talking to a crazy person and getting a dwarven Lexicon. And I don't like talking to crazy people."
They both stared at me with a hard, flat look.
"What?" I asked confused. "Do I have something on my face?" I tried checking in the reflection on some of the nearby metal. I didn't see anything.
They continued to stare. It was making me uncomfortable.
Finally, Aerana sighed loudly. "Ok, so. What your saying is, your 'Speed run' is costing us time? And you can't get it open the normal way because you broke it. Are these statements accurate?"
I thought about it, then I nodded dumbly.
She face palmed. "Alright Sheo. Seeing as this is apparently too important to screw up, we are going to figure this out. But after that, were doing things the normal way. No more shortcuts. Got it?"
I nodded. Thoroughly chastised.
"Good. Now, you wanted to hit this…egg…thing, with your…-ugh- Herpy Derpy." She sounded like those words caused her physical pain. "Why?"
"Oh" I said. Happy to be back on topic. "I need something that's powerful, or durable really, enough to bust up the shell. The elder scroll is inside it."
She nodded, happy to get a clean explanation.
"Well, were going to have to find another one than yours. No offense, but while you may be comfortable playing with a huge penis, myself and Lydia are not. So, you're the one with all the knowledge. Where can we find something to break through this egg of yours?"
I sat on the oddly warm floor of the room. Where could I find one? I had a few options, but something heavy would be preferable. So ebony blade was out. I could have her use Vile's axe!
"Lydia, try using the axe that Clavicus Vile gave Aerana." I ordered. She grunted in affirmation. It appeared in her hands, and she took a massive over head swing at the shell. A loud crack was heard, followed by a clang.
For just a second, I thought she had done it. But, when I saw the shell undamaged and Lydia face, I knew she hadn't. She raised what remained of the axe handle and my eye twitched in annoyance.
The lower half of the handle was all that remained. Realization struck me. "That ass!" I Shouted in fury.
"Wait, what happened? How did it break? I thought daedric artifacts were indestructible." Aerana said stunned as she saw the stump in Lydia's hand. Lydia looked just as confused. Staring at the remains in shock.
"I'll tell you what happened! He tricked us!" I accused.
"Huh?"
"How?" they said at the same time.
I ran my hand through my hair in frustration. Then I looked at them. "Don't you get it? The deal for the axe was to kill Barbas. We didn't kill Barbas. We never got his axe. He gave us a fake! Gods, I feel so stupid!"
Annoyed, I kicked the broken axe head in anger. It flew several feet.
My companions eyes lit up with realization. "So we didn't get anything out of it after all?" Aerana asked annoyed.
I nodded sharply while I muttered in curses.
"I should have let you melt that dumb dog." She said darkly. Now I had to figure out where to find another Daedric artifact. Dawnbreaker was out for the same reason as the Ebony blade. So was the razor for reason stated above. Shit, what was left. Skull? No. Spell breaker? No. I ran through the list of artifacts. I had two options. Both were kinda terrible if I was being honest. I had Volendrung, and The Mace If Molag Bal.
Then I considered that in order to gain Volendrung, we would have to become Blood-kin. And probably only one of us.
Damnit, rushing ahead had really fucked me here hadn't it. That really left only one choice.
"Fuck. Ok. I guess we're heading to Markarth."
"Huh? Why? Are you just giving up?"Aerana asked confused.
"Not quite. But I'm out of options, and what I need is in Markarth. It's fine. We can stay a few days. Make a vacation of it." I really didn't want to deal with Bal. He was one of the few Daedric princes I swore NEVER to be associated with. But I would have to now. Additionally, I would need to do this alone. While Aerana was powerful, Bal only needed one person to preform his task.
And he wasn't kind to women. This wasn't the game. This was real. And Vile had proven the Daedra were capable of breaking the script. The last thing I wanted was for Aerana to become a daughter of Cold Harbor. That was a fate worse than death. At least as myself, the worst he could do was torture me until I reset. I hoped. Man, this was gonna suck.
But, I was reaping what I sowed now. Damn my impatience.
I grabbed the admittedly heavy containment crystal and absorbed it I to my Oblivion. It was heavy. When I took it, I felt a physical weight grow on me. At the same time, I felt as if I had over gorged on food. An uncomfortable fullness. I could tell I was just a few pounds away from being Over encumbered.
"Alright. Let's go." I said as I mentally prepared myself for several hours of waiting in the dark. Again.
As I pulled the lever, and the elevator ascended, I smiled to myself in amusement.
"Aerana. I'm boar-gah!" She hit me in the face with a boot! Fucking rude!
Solshiem: Morag Tong HQ
"Special orders from Cyridil. High priority."
The aged Dunmer read the scroll given to him. A high value target hmm? Capture and retrieval. Not his groups usual thing, but they were on occasion contracted to retrieve escaped slaves. His eyes scanned the scroll.
Half Bosmer heiress, specialized destruction and alteration magic. The details went on. Her height, hair and eye color, even a small scar on her left outer thigh.
Spies indicate she was in Skyrim. He grimaced. That was brotherhood territory. Those damn traitors had no concept of honor or order. Their current leader didn't even follow the few rules they were supposed to follow.
He would send feelers out, he decided. A job was a job, and this one came from the top. Someone wanted this girl. And they would have her. It was a matter of reputation.
Special thanks to those who reviewed. I'm starting a new job soon. But I'll try to keep my update schedule of at least one chapter a month.