Chapter Seventeen: Achen - Part Two

It was midnight, when Achen and his three companions arrived to the Firemoth's island. The imperial soldier, who had brought them by boat, quietly left back to the mainland. There were hardly any moonlight, so the adventurers could sneak into the fort undetected.

The four companions kneeled behind a large rock to read the map of the small, ring-like island.

"So what's the plan? I'm Achen by the way.", asked Achen.

The big man snorted and looked at the map again.

"No need for us to introduce ourselves, as most of us probably wont live to the end of this quest. And when it comes to the plan, I suggest we use the front door and smash some skulls!"

Achen sighed.

"My name is Tilya.", said the young woman with a crossbow in her hands.

"Ah, my name is Altachen Monn, but everyone call me just Achen", Achen said and smiled to the girl. "...and you might want to put away that crossbow, it might be a bit difficult to hit skeletons with it and we don't want to waste our enchanted arrows. Let's save them for the Dremora Lord, shall we?"

The girl nodded and put the crossbow to his back and took an enchanted silver shortsword from her belt instead.

"Okay, and you?", said Achen and nodded at the quiet young man. The man hesitated for a second until he spoke.

"Ranee."

"Just Ranee? Oh... well never mind then.", said Achen and gave up on getting known with these people. "Here's my plan; we sneak along the shoreline undetected to the eastern guard tower. Now, as far as I know, the forts in Vvardenfell are somewhat similar, so there should be a corridor from the tower's basement to the main building in the middle of the courtyard. We eliminate the few skeletons in the tower, move to the keep, find a staircase to the lower levels and kill the dremora. Any questions?"

The big man snorted again but didn't say anything

"All right then, let's go!"

The four companions quietly walked along the coastline for almost an hour, until they finally reached a small hill near the fort.

"Well look at that", said Achen as the group kneeled behind some bushes and looked at the open field in front of the fort's walls. Though it was very quiet, with the exception of sea around them, one could hear very few sounds from the field though it was full of movement.

"Looks like there are many of them... at least two hundred.", said Achen, as he stared at the large formation of skeleton soldiers in the field.

"More, I'd say over three hundred.", said the big man.

"It's good we didn't use the front door", grinned Achen.

"There's the watch tower", said Tilya and pointed at the high structure near the waterline.

The group sneaked closer to the tower and kneeled again behind another rock.

"Two skeletons around the tower's door.", said Achen.

"No, there is a third one about five meters to the left, behind that bush.", said the young man quietly.

"Let's charge!", the big man said and was about to rise up and run to the tower, but Achen pulled him back.

"No! Let's try something else."

Achen took a rock size of his fist from the ground, aimed and threw it at the nearest skeleton. The rock smashed against it's evil-looking skull and crushed it. The skeleton, however, didn't die, but took a iron saber from a sheath hanging around its hilt. The skeleton waved from side to another, trying to find something to hit, but it didn't see anything as its skull was in pieces on the ground. The two other skeletons wielded their sabers as well and ran towards Achen.

"Ok, now it's your turn!"

The big man jumped from behind the rock and charged against the skeletons. As his magically enchanted sword struck the first skeleton in the stomach, the whole creature started sparkling blue and the shock fried the rotten bones. Two seconds later the battle was over and the others rose up and looked at the three inanimate skeleton remainings in the ground.

"All right then, let's go inside.", grinned Achen.

The companions "cleaned" the guard tower rather quickly and like Achen had presumed, there indeed was a corridor connecting the tower and the main building of the fort. For the next two hours, the group moved deeper to the keep's underground levels while evading most of the skeleton patrols and killing the rest. Eventually they arrived to a strange section of the cellars that didn't look like the rest of the fort.

"This is not architecture of imperial forts", said Tilya, as they walked along a dark corridor decorated with blood-red torches and black carpets.

"I agree, we must be close to the dremora lord's throne room, be careful everyone,", said Achen.

Soon they arrived to the end of the corridor and found a large, black door, decorated with two large burning torches.

"This must be it, all right, what now?"

"I say we just rush in.", the big man whispered.

"I have to admit I don't have a better idea", Achen agreed.

The young woman and the quiet man nodded as well.

"Okay then, let's knock the door, stand aside."

Achen and the big man counted to three together and kicked the door open. Tilya took his crossbow and they all rushed in.

The room where they had entered was quite impressing. It was very large, decorated with thick stone pillars, flaming torches and in the middle of the room stood an enormous rock statue, who's knees were higher than where Achen could reach. Between the statue's legs, stood a large wooden throne and in front of it the Dremora Lord Ogon himself.

Achen and the others stopped in the middle of the room and listened to the deep, cold, rasping sound of breathing of this daedra. First Achen thought it had a helmet, but then he realised it was this creature's own face. The smooth, dark colours of red and black in the daedra's face joined seamlessly to the forms of his full daedric armour set. Unlike the pieces of daedric armour found on daedric shrines, this one was scratches and shiny.

"Whoa, that is some beautiful cuirass!", marvelled Achen.

Ogon slowly opened his eyes and looked at the four intruders.

"Ok, time to act!", yelled Achen and rose his sword. Tilya aimed with her crossbow and shot a magically enchanted bow at the daedra. Ogon didn't even blink his eyes, as the wooden arrow smashed to pieces against the cuirass just where human heart was normally situated. Some weak magical flames sparkled from the wooden pieces, but the armour was left scratchless

The young man took a small, poisoned throwing star and threw it. The star rebounded from Ogon's right gauntlet and sunk to a stone pillar next to him. Ogon pointed at the adventurers with his palm and made a scream of shooting pain.

"Err... hit the deck!", yelled Achen and jumped behind a pillar, as a large fireball flew past him. The magic hit the already broken door and exploded it to burning pieces.

Achen looked around. Himself and the young man were behind the same pillar, and Tilya and the big man were behind another one on the other side of the room. He cursed as another fireball struck the pillar and hot pieces of rock rained to his neck.

On the other side of the room Tilya was setting up a steel arrow into her crossbow, while the big man took a heavy war axe from his back. Tilya peeped from behind the pillar, aimed again and shot the steel arrow right into the non-armoured spot in the dremora's armpit. Ogon roared in rage, but the big man yelled almost as loud as he jumped up and ran towards the dremora with his war axe above his head.

A yellow light flashed in the dremora's hand and Achen watched in horror as a black, daedric longsword was summoned from thin air, right into Ogon's open hand. Ogon swinged the blade swiftly and cut the big man's leg into two right above the knee. Man's axe missed the dremora just by few inches and smashed the wooden throne.

Achen saw Tilya watching with her face pale, as the big man moaned in pain while his leg squirted blood over him. Ogon's sword didn't even stop moving as the dremora waved it upwards and then struck it through the man's chest. The big man stopped yelling and became motionless.

"Ah well, this day didn't start well anyway", Achen cursed to himself and stepped out behind the pillar.

He waited until Tilya had shot another arrow to Ogon's chest armour and attacked. Achen's sword was much shorter than Ogon's longsword and the daedric metal bit a deep scratch to Achen's blade each time they struck together.

"His armour is too strong, my arrows won't go through!", yelled Tilya to Achen through the sounds of duel.

"Yeah, I noticed, and he is cutting my sword to inch-long pieces!", Achen yelled back and evaded another raging hit.

"Not good!", Achen yelled as Ogon struck the remainings of his sword away from his hand and pointed at the weaponless adventurer with his sparkling palm. Once again a flaming fireball flashed out of Ogon's armoured hand and Achen hit the dirt to evade it. The fireball struck the already damaged stone pillar behind them.

"Look out!", Tilya screamed and Achen rolled out of the way as the huge pillar started collapsing and crushed right where he had stood a second ago. When the dust settled, Achen saw the remainings of smashed daedric cuirass under the broken pillar.

"Huh, that was a bit too close, wasn't it?", Achen said and gave a laugh.

"Mhff!!"

"What did you say? I didn't quite get that one", Achen asked and turned towards Tilya. There was a bloody dagger sticking through her stomach and a dirty hand covered her mouth. The young man behind him released her and the motionless body fell to the floor.

Achen stared at the girl's bloody body and then the young man who was grinning like a madman.

"What the hell... why... you... you bastard!"

"Now I just kill you and the price is all mine!", the young man laughed and grabbed Tilya's armed crossbow.

"You... you idiot!", Achen was able to say while walking backwards and staring at the crossbow which was aimed at his head.

Achen's back stopped at the broken stone pillar and the young man's finger started squeezing the crossbow's trigger. Achen was about to start panicing as his right hand touched something cold, something metal, and he knew what it was. It was the daedric longsword that Ogon had summoned. This was his last chance. Achen's fingers slowly and carefully grabbed the hilt of the sword.

"Time to die, old fart!", the young man said and pulled the trigger. At the same moment as the steel arrow left the crossbow, Achen threw himself to left and swung the daedric blade towards the traitor.

The arrow sunk to the stone pillar at the same time as the longsword smashed the crossbow into pieces. The cursing young man took few steps backwards and pulled out his steel sword.

Achen quickly rose up again and took a duelling position, ready to kill this traitor. The young man was just about to attack, as about two dozen skeleton champions ran into the room and charged towards the adventurers. The young man tried to hit the nearest skeleton but the undead creatures swarmed all over him and stabbed a dozen sabers into his flesh.

When the young man stopped screaming, the skeletons turned their attention towards Achen.

"All right, I think it's time to get the hell out of here now!", said Achen and pulled a small amulet from his pocket. A bright light filled the room and several sabers cut the air as Achen touched the Almsivi-amulet and disappeared from the room. Almost instantly he reappeared in front of an imperial temple, a hundred miles away from the fort, safely in the mainland.

---

Two days later, Achen was back in Caledra and this time he had enough money to pay his rent and refresh his business. Even more he joyed of the shiny daedric longsword which now was hanging in his belt. These items were extremely rare and usually in lousy condition.

Finally Achen reached the door of his house and inserted his key to the lock. It did not fit.

"What the...", Achen began, but then noticed a large note in the door. "FOR SALE?!", repeated Achen in astonishment.

"So... Tuff finally got bored and re-sold the house.", said Achen to himself. But he didn't need the house anymore, he was bored with Caledra anyway. Maybe now would be a good time to fill an old dream of his and pay a little visit at the capital of Vvardenfell, the city of Vivec...

---

Achen was still memorizing around the campfire, as the dream started to go fuzzy. Achen shook his head, trying to fight the sleep, but then he realised that he was actually waking up. When everything around him became clearer, he remembered where he was... he remembered that he had just been memorizing old times before he had met Merlac... and Merlac was still guarding the camp for predators in a nearby hill... but where was the campfire?

Achen turned his head and realised the fire was now in the other side of him and that he wasn't able to see the sky. Achen focused his tired eyes even more and saw that he was in a tent, filled with animal skins.

He was just about to call Merlac's name, as he turned his head and saw an old woman who was holding a very sharp knife at Achen's throat...