Chapter 11 - Finally Making Progress
"Feel free to keep the Wabbajack. As a symbol of my... Oh, just take the damn thing." Sheogorath boomed in a tone he clearly considered magnanimous at the pair, even as Jaune desperately tried returning the staff to its (former) master. Waving away any protests the pair could have made, he gestured at them, and cheerfully added: "You take care of yourself, now. And if you ever find yourself up in New Sheoth, do look me up. We can share a strawberry torte. Ta ta!"
An unpleasantly familiar darkness engulfed the pair, and they didn't bother reaching for their weapons this time. Not that they could have harmed him, anyway. As the darkness faded, they found themselves back in the dusty palace, just at it'd been when they'd entered.
They didn't bother deluding themselves into thinking it was a dream, though. The sinister black staff, crowned by a ring of three screaming faces, was still in Jaune's hand.
"So... that was a Daedric Prince..." Jaune murmured, trying to come to terms with the events of the day. In less than 24 hours, he'd stared down the true form of a vampire lord, learned that there was an ancient vampiric conspiracy that now had access to unlimited knowledge (thanks to him), faced down the ghost of the frontrunner for Skyrim's Worst High King/Queen, and had just met Sheogorath in all his unholy (and mad) glory. "Well... he seemed... eccentric."
"Oh, for one of the Daedric Princes, he's positively charming and friendly." Yang shrugged, even as she yanked the staff out of his hand, and tossed it under the moth-eaten bed. She knew Daedric artifacts could be clingy, but she hoped Sheogorath wouldn't take offense to it. Then again... "That's like saying that he's well-mannered and soft-spoken for a dragon, though..."
"You sure it's safe to just leave it there, where anyone can find it?" Jaune asked, concerned. The creepy staff had been whispering to him, and he didn't want anything more to do with it, but at the same time, he didn't want to just leave it lying where someone might accidentally pick it up.
"I'll tell Falk it's not safe, and he'll lock the wing back up. Hopefully for the next few hundred years." Yang shrugged. "Trust me, you do not want to hold on to it for too long. They say it's what made Pelagius the Mad... well... mad."
"Pelagius the Mad... that's the guy whose mind we "treated", right?" Jaune recalled the sudden feeling of being jerked in a nameless direction, as darkness had engulfed them, before Sheogorath had them running around what he'd told them was the mind of the dead Pelagius, using the Wabbajack to help him deal with his problems. Yang had initially been enraged, but Jaune had luckily been able to calm her down before she'd tried punching the Mad God. Oh, she'd given him the look for that one; he'd deserved it, too, having unwittingly accepted the quest in the first place, but he was just desperately trying to do something, anything to help people, anything to feel like he was making a difference... anything to feel like less of a screw up.
The staff had really complimented him for that; for the sheer insanity that was letting vampires get their hands on an Elder Scroll, and then trying to make up for it by helping random villages. Like making up for a landslide by digging up a beach with a spoon, it had laughed gleefully. Given his track record, he couldn't really disagree, though he'd still chosen to ignore it's calls to be used as a tool of madness by one as devoted to its patron's craft as he apparently was.
"... you know, I still find it hard to believe that really was his mind." Yang replied non-committally, still trying to come to terms with what she'd seen. Ancient vampire lords with Elder Scrolls and ghosts of rulers past were one thing, but the mind of a madman who'd been dead for five hundred years was still a bit much to her. "Would explain why he did some crazy stuff, like outlawing death on his deathbed, if that was the state of his mind..."
Jaune remained silent, thinking about everything he'd seen Pelagius go through, in his mind. He had to take most of what he saw with a grain of salt, he knew, but the bits of thoughts, emotions, and memories he'd witnessed from the former Emperor had left him reflective. He'd known that Skyrim was harsh, harsher than even Remnant was, but even hearing Yang's stories couldn't compare to watching it play it in someone's head. Not for the first time, he wondered if he could save anyone. Sure, he'd treated a dead man with the artifact of a Daedric Prince, but he doubted that was a common occurrence. Moreover...
Yang noticed his silence, and looked back to see him deep in thought. Guessing what was going through his head, she stepped back, and lightly thumped his shoulder, breaking him out of his funk. As he looked up at her, confused, she asked: "You're still hearing the echoes of it's whispers, aren't you?"
"..."
"The Daedra lie, Vomit Boy. You're better off ignoring everything it said." Yang advised him.
"But what if it wasn't?" Jaune couldn't help but ask. "Can we really make a difference? And would it even matter, in a land this crazy?"
Yang just stared at him, before sighing. "This, coming from you? The Wabbajack must really have gotten to you."
"It wasn't just the Wabbajack!" Jaune protested. "Just... what's the point of saving a village if the world's doomed anyway? Especially if I'm the one who doomed it..."
"Jaune." Yang snapped. "Look me in the eye. Look me in the eye, and tell me that you think that. Tell me that you think the people you helped didn't matter, that you regret the decisions you've made."
Jaune tried to comply, but as he stared into her lilac eyes, he found the words dying in his throat.
"You regret your mistakes." Yang continued, in a much softer tone. "That the vampires have an Elder Scroll. That your time isn't going to fixing that issue right now. That you can't be in two places at once. But you don't regret actually helping the people who've asked for it."
"... I don't." Jaune confirmed, looking away. "Maybe I wish I did, because then I'd be able to focus on what matters more, but Oum help me, I don't regret helping them."
"I know, Vomit Boy." Yang said with a smile. "And I'm here to remind you about the big picture and make sure you don't get taken advantage of... until you learn to say "no" to people, at least."
"..." Jaune wanted to say he wasn't that bad, but the past day was irrefutable proof, and judging by Yang's massive shit-eating grin, she knew it too. Finally, he sighed, and agreed: "I'll rely on you for that."
"Well, it wasn't all bad." Yang admitted, feeling like she'd kicked a puppy when she saw the look on his face. "I mean, you weren't wrong about us needing information on the vampires, and a resurrected Potema would have been as bad as the vampires. Also, meeting Falk did give us a lead on vampire hunters..."
"So we're really going to this "Dawnguard" next?"
"Well, it's our best bet in getting the Elder Scroll away from the vampires and stopping whatever plans they have."
-FORT DAWNGUARD, ONE WEEK LATER-
"Hold it right there!" The dark-skinned warrior with a massive warhammer on his back shouted from the floor above them, and Yang and Jaune eyed the heavily-armored men around them, crossbows pointed in the pair's direction.
"What's this all about?!" Yang demanded angrily, even as Jaune backed up and raised his hands in the air slightly, trying to show they were no threat. Not that they had much of a choice; they were in a small entrance hall with limited cover, they were outnumbered by archers with the high ground, and the gates to the rest of the castle had been raised. A perfect killbox, in other words. Not for the first time, Jaune wondered if this wasn't some elaborate vampire plot; he'd heard all about false flag operations and false resistance movements (in comics and movies). In a pinch, if needed, he could cover Yang, trusting in his Aura to stop the bolts, and while they were reloading Yang could Shout one of the doors down.
Then the dark-skinned warrior pulled a rope, and Jaune had to squint, as the sunlight coming in through roof suddenly intensified. The man nodded to himself, releasing the rope, and as the light fell back to normal levels (and the guards lowered their weapons), he explained: "Making sure you're not vampires. Can't be too careful."
Jaune and Yang nodded, understanding the test now. Presumably, vampires had tried infiltrating the Dawnguard as well. They might have called the man paranoid, but they'd seen Castle Volkihar. At most, they could only call him eccentric.
"So, welcome to Fort Dawnguard. The name's Isran." The dark-skinned warrior continued, introducing himself. "I'm sure you've heard a bit of what we're up against. Powerful vampires, unlike anything we've seen before. And they had an Elder Scroll. If anyone is going to stand in their way, it's going to be us."
"How do they know about the Elder Scroll?" Jaune asked Yang, confused. They'd come to warn the Dawnguard about the vampire menace, after all. Yang shrugged, caution growing within her, and she called out: "How do you know they... had an Elder Scroll?"
Isran peered down, unamused with the interruption, but as he glared at the pair, he recalled a person's description of a pair of blondes. A wielder of a frost blade an a unique white metallic heater shield, and a brawler with a large axe. "... are you two Jaune Arc and Yang?"
"We are." Yang confirmed, drawing herself tall.
"A few days ago, a vampire showed up here looking for you." Isran followed up sternly, as the crossbows were pointed at them once more. "Follow me. Let's go have a little chat with it, shall we?"
Isran brought the pair to what Jaune could only describe as a torture chamber, where a familiar-looking raventte was sitting on a medieval rack and glaring at the pair of armed guards watching her cautiously. As he gawked at her, Yang reached for her axe, and snarled: "You."
Serana looked towards the newcomers disinterestedly, before visibly perking up as she recognized the two. Jumping to her feet, she ignored the crossbows and Yang's axe, and instead grinned as she approached Jaune, excitedly saying: "I knew I'd find you two here!"
"How?" Jaune asked, concerned, as Yang growled at her as she drew closer. Were their movements being monitored? Were the vampires really running the Dawnguard? If not, what was Serana doing here in Riften, on the other end of the province from her family home, in the company of vampire hunters.
"Well, it was obvious, wasn't it? After what you'd seen in my father's castle, where else would you turn to but vampire hunters? I don't know why Isran kept denying ever seeing you two before, though..." Serana stated proudly, pleased with her logical deductions. Jaune, while happy that they weren't being spied on, didn't have the heart to tell Serana that they'd just gotten here. Then Serana's tone got serious, and she somberly said: "Now, you probably weren't expecting to see me again..."
"You mean, after you tricked him into taking you back to Harkon's court before he banished us?" Yang's tone was colder than a Skyrim winter, and both Jaune and Serana winced.
"I didn't know what was going to happen!" Serana tried defending herself. "If you guys had tried anything, they'd have killed you two! And if I'd spoken up any further for you two, he'd have his steward kill you two in your sleep!"
"What are you doing here?" Jaune asked, interrupting their argument before anything could come of it.
""I'd rather not be here either, but I needed to talk to you." Serana admitted, addressing Jaune. "It's important, so please just listen before your friends here lose their patience. It's... well, it's about me. And the Elder Scroll that was buried with me."
"What about you?"
"The reason I was down there... and why I had the Elder Scroll." Serana answered hesitantly. "It all comes back to my father. I'm guessing you figured this part out already, but my father's not exactly a good person. Even by vampire standards. He wasn't always like that, though. There was... a turn. He stumbled onto this obscure prophecy and just kind of lost himself in it."
"What sort of prophecy? And what do you mean... "lost himself"?" Jaune asked, getting closer in fascination. He knew that it was more than likely he wasn't being objective, that he wanted to believe that he hadn't been duped, that he had been right about Serana. He quickly looked back at Yang, searching her eyes, and she rolled her eyes and looked away, but still lowered her axe.
"It's pointless and vague, like all prophecies." Serana spat spitefully, before continuing her explanation: "But there was a part that he latched onto. He just became absorbed... obsessed. It was kind of sick, actually. The prophecy said that vampires would no longer need to fear the sun. For someone who fancied himself as vampire royalty, that's pretty seductive."
"No longer need to fear the sun?" Jaune echoed, mulling over her words. He'd seen enough movies about genies and mystical prophecies to know that the wording had to be exact, or else loopholes could (and probably would) ruin everything. Serana was right; the prophecy was vague. No longer needing to fear the sun could mean anything from vampires somehow extinguishing the sun (which would doom all life on the planet, if plants and the conservation of energy were the same in Tamriel as Remnant; a question he really didn't know the answer to), to vampires losing their vulnerability and weakness to the sun without doing anything to it, to even possibly vampirism being exterminated from all of Tamriel (wouldn't have to worry about the sun if something else wiped them out first).
Judging by the looks on Yang's and Isran's faces, Jaune could guess they were assuming the worst.
Serana nodded, and added: "Anyway, my mother and I didn't feel like inviting a war with all of Tamriel, so we tried to stop him. That's why I was sealed away with the Scroll."
"So that's why Harkon was looking for you..." Jaune murmured in understanding.
Yang, however, raised an eyebrow and asked: "Then why did you ask us to take you to Harkon when we found you?!"
"I... I'd been sealed away for hundreds of years, at least." Serana admitted. "I needed to get my bearings back, and it was the first place I could think of. I needed to know... to know if my father was still around. If he'd... if he'd changed in my absence."
Yang scoffed and looked away, while Isran muttered something under his breath about bloodsuckers. Jaune could understand, though. She was just a daughter who wanted to believe her father could change for the better. One thing puzzled him, though, and he pointed to the massive scroll on her back, and asked: "Harkon went through all that effort looking for you, right? So how did you just walk away with the scroll?"
"Well... when I realized he was still... himself... I escaped." Serana explained.
"You just escaped? Just like that?" Isran asked, skeptically.
"From a fortress on an island in the middle of the Sea of Ghosts?" Yang pointed out drily.
"It's a lot easier when you don't breathe or feel cold." Serana stated matter-of-factly, flashing a fang-filled grin at the pair.
"You took a big risk coming here." Jaune chided her, wondering just what kind of adventure she'd had, escaping from her father and finding herself with an order of vampire hunters.
"I did." Serana agreed, looking directly into Jaune's eyes pleadingly. "But something about you makes me think I can trust you. I hope I'm not wrong. Now come on, I'll need you to help convince them."
"Okay, that's enough." Yang interrupted, gripping Jaune by the arm. "Come here for a minute, Vomit Boy."
"All right, we've heard what it has to say." Isran began, as Yang dragged Jaune to the Dawnguard's leader. "Now tell me, is there any reason I shouldn't kill this bloodsucking fiend right now?"
Jaune gawked at Isran's brutal pragmatism, and looked to Yang. When she didn't speak up, he tried to defend the vampire: "Look, she knows more about what the vampires are up to than anyone else. We could use her help with this."
"Why, because of that story about the prophecy? About some vampire trying to put the sun out?" Isran scoffed disbelievingly. "Do you actually believe any of that?"
"She did risk her life to come here..." Yang reluctantly pointed out with a frown.
"Maybe it has a death wish. Maybe it's just insane. I don't really care." Isran shot back, though it was clear that Yang's words had gotten through to him. He looked like he was chewing a particularly sour lemon, before he explosively sighed. Turning to Jaune, he snapped; "It can stay for now, but if it so much as lays a finger on anyone here, I'll hold you responsible. Got it?"
"Yes, sir." Jaune nervously responded, before gulping as Isran growled at him about this not being the army.
"You hear me?" Isran suddenly barked at Serana, guessing that she'd been eavesdropping with her superhuman senses. The lack of surprise on Serana's face only confirmed his suspicions. "Don't feel like a guest, because you're not. You're a resource. You're an asset. In the meantime, don't make me regret my sudden outburst of tolerance and generosity, because if you do, your friend here is going to pay for it."
"Thank you for your kindness. I'll remember it the next time I'm feeling hungry." Serana rolled her eyes sarcastically, before turning back to Jaune and Yang, and adopting a far warmer tone: "Thanks for vouching for me."
"Pull any more stunts like the one in Castle Volkihar and I will chop your head off." Yang growled.
"So, Serana, I assume you have some ideas?" Jaune asked, deciding to assume that Serana, a centuries-old vampire who had spent most of that time hiding from her father, had developed at least some contingencies for stopping Harkon (or at least given more thought to it than they had).
"As you've noticed, I have the Elder Scroll with me." Serana replied, gesturing to her back. "Whatever it says, it will have something that can help us stop my father. But of course, neither of us can read it."
Jaune exchanged a look with Yang, before asking: "Who can?"
"Well, the Moth Priests are the only ones I've heard of who can do it. They spend years preparing before they start reading, though. Not that it helps us anyway, because they're half a continent away in Cyrodiil."
"Hey, if the only people who could read it aren't in Skyrim, doesn't that mean Harkon can't carry out his prophecy?" Jaune pointed out.
"He's got a point there..." Yang agreed with her companion. "Now that we know he can't read the scroll any time soon, we can use this time to come up with plans to take him down."
"Some Imperial scholar arrived in Skyrim a few days ago." Isran torpedoed their train of thought with his blunt statement, and as they turned to look at him, he explained mater-of-factly: "I was staking out the road when I saw him pass by. Maybe that's your Moth Priest."
"Of course! My father must have arranged for a Moth Priest to come to Skyrim as soon as he heard I'd been found!" Serana said, snapping her fingers as the realization hit her. "Do you know where he's staying now?"
"No, and I'm not going to waste men looking." Isran said, with all the subtlety of his warhammer. "We're fighting a war against your kind, and I intend to win it. You want to find him, try talking to anyone who'd meet a traveler. Innkeepers and carriage drivers in the big cities maybe. But you're on your own."
Serana rolled her eyes at him, before grabbing Jaune's arm, and declaring: "You heard the vampire hunter, Jaune. Let's go find a Moth Priest!"
Jaune just groaned and Yang growled.
Author's Note: And we're finally back; I'm getting used to the new workload, but still, don't expect chapters too often.
I'm going off the book Wabbajack, by the way, which states that a boy who would become King of Solitude tried to summon Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge, but instead summoned Sheogorath, and was thusly given the Wabbajack. The book descends into madness, and repetitions of the word "Wabbajack". Sure, in-game there's no effects, but where's the fun in power with no price, especially when it's given by a Daedric Prince?
Yang does have to give Jaune some credit... even if she wants him to focus on the bigger picture, she still has to acknowledge that, in his naivety, he did stumble into some massive plots that could also have ended the world. Sure, it's sheer dumb luck more than an actual plan on his part, as well as her initiative, but his suggestions do have a tendency to somehow work out.
Also, yeah... honestly, I've always wondered how Harkon just lets Serana (and his precious Elder Scroll) walk out of Castle Volkihar. I mean, he's supposed to be a centuries-old vampire; paranoia and intrigue should have been a pre-requisite. Then again, I've made my thoughts on the Dawnguard expansion perfectly clear in my dedicated Skyrim story.
As for why Isran would let Jaune and Yang go on such a quest despite saying he wouldn't have any men wasted looking for such a thing... in this story, Jaune and Yang aren't officially part of the Dawnguard yet. They just arrived at Fort Dawnguard to try and warn the Dawnguard about the Elder Scroll.
