Last Time: Xander claimed the ring of Hircine, Hjar became Molag Bal's champion, L'laarzen was sent to Solitude, and Dulurza was sent back out after ghosts.
Rage
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The worst part, Xander decided, was the fact that he'd had to sneak back into Falkreath to get back all his stuff. The swim across the lake had been bearable the first time, when he'd made it as a giant muscly furry monster. It had been less bearable trying to pull the same trick in reverse, as a naked, unfit, spindly human. Why did wolf-me decide he was going to stop on the island in the middle of the lake? Was it because of that stupid standing stone? I tried praying to it, nothing happened.
Other runners up in the Really-Terrible-Time contest were, drumroll please:
a) he had managed to completely tear his mage robes in the transformation (and had sold all the necromancer ones already),
2) he had had to literally rob a guardhouse to get the rest of his gear back (fortunately, said guards were a bit preoccupied with the werewolf breakout),
c) he had had to trek all his gear around the lake to get a vantage position on the half sunken fortress that was apparently his objective,
4) the damn ring (as Sindig had said) absolutely would not come off, and
e) he was currently sat, (naked except for some spare breeches he had in his bag) next to a fire he'd made in the woods, desperately trying to warm up and ignore his rumbling stomach.
So yeah.
"Beginning to get the feeling." He said aloud, "That this 'champion of the Daedra' thing isn't all it's cracked up to be."
He was answered by a branch snapping in the woods to his left.
He jumped, swore, and grabbed the nearest staff to him, pointing it towards the foliage.
There was a low growl.
And then a dark form emerged from the leaves.
Xander screamed "I DIDN'T MEAN IT I SWEAR!", and with battle hardened reactions honed over decades if not weeks, fired his staff.
A ball of magelight harmlessly stuck to the werewolf as it walked up to his fire.
It looked down, pawed at it in annoyance, then dragged the carcass of a wild horse out from behind it, letting it thump onto the moss. It took in his shaking form, snorted derisively (how a wolf head managed to do that Xander had no idea) and then hunched as it began to sort of...shrink. The fur fell away, leaving a light coating on the floor beneath of it, and its body seemed to either condense inwards or break off into smoke, leaving behind...
Xander's jaw dropped.
"What, not got anything to say?" Said the fully naked woman stood stretching in front of him.
"Uh..." Xander responded, eloquently.
"Oh come on, never seen a woman without her clothes on before?" She raised an eyebrow.
He blushed. "Uh."
She snorted, and that sounded about the same as it had when she was a wolf. "Ha! Right. Well advice for the ladies; sitting there gawking at us isn't usually a great technique for wooing. Not that anything else you'll try will get you anywhere with me, I'm not interested. And another piece of advice since you're clearly new to this, try and fell a big beastie while you're transformed and stop yourself eating it. That can be your meal and clothes once you've transformed back. I'll see if I can make two sets from this..."
She crouched behind the horse, which concealed enough that Xander's brain got back up and running enough to comprehend her words and respond. "New to this? What do you mean?"
"New to being a werewolf, I mean." The woman remarked, not looking up.
Xander gulped. "What? No, I'm not a werewolf."
"Really." She gave him a flat look, hands deep in horse guts. "I've been in the 'just transformed back' phase more times than I can remember. I know what it looks like."
"No, I mean, yes I just was a werewolf but that doesn't mean that I am one, or at least-"
"Wow, really new. This your first or your second time?"
"I-Look, I'm not an actually a werewolf, it's just-" he held up his hand, where Hircine's ring glinted.
"Oh." She tilted her head at him. "So that came first."
"Uh...what?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry; I'm doing that thing I do where I use my observations without explaining them. Call me Hjar."
"Xander. Do you mean Hyaa like-"
"Yes, like yelling." She grimaced. "Starting think I should shorten Hjarnagredda to something else...well, you're obviously just coming off a werewolf transformation. And you're wearing the ring of hircine, which I've been tracking since I was ten miles out of lake Ilinalta."
"You can track it?"
"Werewolves can sense our patron's ring when we're transformed, yeah. But you're not responding like you're a new wolf who doesn't want to believe it, or like someone who just won the ring from Hircine and got powers from it. You're acting like this happened the moment you picked the ring up and you weren't expecting it. And if Hircine gets upset with the people holding his ring, he can curse it. So someone passed you a cursed Daedric artefact last night."
Xander stared at her for a few more seconds, and this time not just because of the nudity. "Wow. I'm not used to being out-experted on the Daedra. That was impressive."
"Thank you." Hjar smiled and inclined her head. "So can I have it?"
"The ring?" Xander blanched. "You, a werewolf, want the cursed werewolf ring?"
"I plan on un-cursing it." She replied, eyes darkening. "I...have a promise to keep, and that involves keeping control over myself."
"You seemed pretty in control of yourself earlier." Xander pointed out.
"Thank you! But you dodged the question. I don't want to do the whole 'gradually increasing threat level' thing."
"No, it's fine." Xander reached down to the ring. Paused. "Although...Tell you what, I'll give it to you if you do me a favour."
Hjar's gaze sharpened. "This better not be what I think it is-"
"Oh, no! No no no, nothing weird." Xander raised his arms placatingly. "Actually it's a little weird. Can you help me kill some people?"
"Bad people?" Hjar checked.
Xander pointed vaguely towards Ilinalta's deep.
"Oh. I smelled recent death and heard heartbeats; necromancers, right?"
"How do you-" Xander spluttered. "Yes! What are you, an inquisitor?"
"I observe." Hjar considered the request. "I'm only so good in a fight outside of beast mode. I'll be at my strongest for the next few hours, and I'm competent, but I'm mostly just a brittle mace swinger."
"You not got any flesh spells?" Xander asked. He squinted at her. "You're a Breton...right? I'm terrible at faces, I have no idea how people tell Nords apart from Imperials, but you have the yellow eyes and the white hair-"
"Yes, I am." She looked a bit embarrased. "I know we're meant to be gifted with magic and all that, but I never got into it."
"Why not?"
"That is..." She paused. "A really good question."
"I could teach you a little?" Xander offered. "Throw that into the deal. I have some books in my bag that I-" he coughed, "appropriated from the college. I bet you I can have you forming a functional oakflesh within two hours."
"Then I help you kill some necromancers, and you give me the ring." Hjar paused, then stood up and yanked. Xander recoiled in horror as pretty much the horse's whole skin came off. "Alright. Deal. I'll make us some clothes first, you just get used to looking like a Forsworn for a bit."
"Great!" Xander clapped his hands together and started rummaging through his bag. "I'm just lucky you didn't want a whole damn armour set enchanted like my last violence-partner..."
Hjar gave him a look. "Hm...Was your last violence partner an Orc by any chance?"
"Yeah. How do you figure that?"
She grinned. "Great work with the muffle on the boots. Dulurza's getting great mileage out of them."
"Oh NO WAY-"
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"On your left!"
Ahtar spun and held up his axe to block a skeleton's swinging blade.
Dulurza pulled a knife (a replacement, she hadn't had time to smith a proper orcish one) and flung it backwards, burying it in the skull of the offending skeleton even as she heaved with her other hand. Her own opponent was shoved into the wall hard enough to shatter, bone clattering down and splashing into the calf-high water on the floor.
"Skeletons." Ahtar spat. "Gods, I hate them."
"They're bearable enough when they're still on the inside." Dulurza pointed out, grinning. "We're reaching the bottom of the crypts now. You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
The two progressed deeper. When she'd learned about the hole in the wall in the temple with scary noises (and occasional undead) emanating from it that led to the tomb of queen Potema, her immediate thought had been to rush it with every guard in the city. Her second thought had been to do it herself and keep every guard in the city in the Blue Palace protecting Elisif. Falk had offered her one of the housecarls to take with her, but then Ahtar had offered, claiming that it wasn't safe to pull away any of the Jarl's personal guard.
Dulurza had been surprised at the executioner, but accepted, and then cursed that she'd missed an opportunity to weaken the jarl's defences. She had reasoned that if someone outside her clan killed Elisif it wouldn't count, and, well, here she was.
"So why did you decide to come with me?" She asked Ahtar, as they walked.
"You'll not like it." He warned.
"Tell me."
"Stentor ordered me to."
Dulurza grunted in annoyance and Ahtar waved her off. "Oh, relax. It's not about you. Stentor...has her own reasons she wants Potema's spirit under control."
"Because she's embarrassed she didn't notice it the first time." Dulurza chuckled.
"Sure. Let's go with that."
The two stopped in front of big, mostly rotted wooden doors. Potema's voice, which had been pestering them both since they first entered, was strangely silent.
"Through here?" Dulurza suggested.
"Most likely." Ahtar agreed. "Alright then. If it's just a few more skeletons or draugr, we can probably handle it without too much difficulty."
"It'd be easier if we swapped axes."
"You're not having Solitude's execution axe."
"Let's agree to disagree." Dulurza hefted her own. "Breaching in three, two, one-"
The duo slammed through the doors into the chamber within.
Dozens of coffins lined a layered drop down into a pit. floating above them all was a giant purple sphere of light, crackling with power and echoing with laughter.
"Come; fools!" Potema declared. "Come, and meet your end!"
"You've gotta be kidding me." Groaned Ahtar.
"Ghosts." Answered Dulurza, sighing and hefting her weapon.
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"You've gotta be kidding me with these ghosts!" Hjar growled, grabbing the spectral wolf about the snout and slamming her mace into its skull, cracking through its corporeal shell and causing it to dissipate.
Across the room, Xander ran a necromancer through while firing his flames staff over her shoulder, shouting "Technically that was a Daedra!"
"I know! I'm a Forsworn, Daedra are our thing!"
She ran up and punched a fist through the ward Xander's next target was setting up, staggering him and making the blue shield drop away. She considered letting Xander's flames finish him off, before deciding it would be kinder to just bludgeon him with the mace of Molag Bal.
She noticed that in none of those exertions had any of her fingers broken, and knew that was due to the green shield covering her body.
It hadn't taken much soul searching to figure out why she'd never wanted magic before. It had been presented as a consolation prize. 'You can't hunt or gather, so see if you can manage some witchcraft instead'. Her pride had never allowed it.
But this is reeeeeally useful. I'm practising this flesh spell business.
And while he was unwilling (or, as she suspected, unable) to provide her with much of a demonstration, Xander was a surprisingly good teacher. She got the feeling that everything she struggled with was something he'd struggled with before, and he'd shown her how to overcome them. Two hours, he'd promised, yet she'd had a basic enhancement working in one.
"Hjar help me help me help me-"
Of course, he wasn't an expert in everything.
"Where did you learn to dodge!" She shouted at him, as he sort of fell to avoid a fireball the last mage shot at him.
"Nowhere!" He shouted, laying on his back just sort of wriggling in panic. "This is my third fight ever! Fourth if you count that time Amaund beat me up in school!"
"Ugh." She stepped over him on her way to the mage, batting a few firebolts out of the way with her mace before going in for a nice-n-simple bludgeoning. "Well you need to learn. How about I teach you a few manoeuvres when we're done?"
"Those might help." He admitted. He looked around, and once he realised they weren't in any immediate danger, he stood up slowly and pointed to her mace. "I want to ask where you got that, but I'm a bit more curious about how you still have it. Weren't you a naked werewolf this morning? Where were you hiding it?"
"That is...a good question." She frowned at it. It's faces seemed to frown back. "I don't know. Probably some enchantment means I can't lose it."
"Convenient."
"It's a Daedric artefact, it wouldn't be a great end to the bardic ballads if the hero forgot where they left it one day."
The two continued up a last flight of stairs, opening a door into a final chamber.
Xander's face fell. "Oh, come on..."
Hjar looked over his shoulder, and blinked in surprise.
There, on a throne, sat a skeleton in mage robes. On it's lap...
"Azura's Star? After your great experience with Hircine you're after a different Daedric present?"
"It's broken..." he growled, walking up to it and squinting at it. "Varen what in Oblivion did you do to this thing..."
Broken it certainly was. A large crack went through the middle, and one of the crystal star's points was broken off, lying beside the rest of it like some anxious apprentice hadn't really known what to do with it.
"The design is genius..." Xander mused, doing some fiddly things with it. "Practically impossible to create unless you're a superpotent extraplanar entity of course, but the basic matrices will still be able to function up until almost total structural collapse; although total internal reflection of the soul's natural aetherius pull will be impossible..."
"Which means?" Hjar asked.
"That it's still working, but there's a constant power drain." Xander replied, rummaging in his bag. "That's why the cultists kept talking about sacrifices; they'll have to keep feeding it more power...exponentially more, as time passes. It'll break down by the end of the year; sooner if they let it run out beforehand. 'Course that's back-of-a-sweetroll-package-maths, I'll need to take it to an enchanting table to get proper answers."
"You were doing that with maths?"
"Yeah, this is my turn to show off."
He pulled out some cloth, gently scooping the Star's parts off (Varen?)s corpse and wrapping them up. "I gotta take this back where it belongs. There's a nice shrine lady who might be about to kill me for letting it get like this. Oh-"
He turned around and pulled the ring off his finger. "Here. I don't go back on my promises." He tried to flick it to her, but he got the angle wrong and dropped it. He swore, and just threw it to her.
She caught it with a chuckle. "Thanks." She held it between her fingers and squinted at it. Such an innocent looking thing. Any jewellery smith worth his salt could have made a perfect replica.
She inhaled, and put it on.
The wolf howled.
She grimaced and tensed as the beast inside her woke up immediately and started clawing at her insides. It was desperate to get out, it wanted to free itself and get out there and Kill Everything-
No. Control. Think of your that harlot you desire, if it helps you. My champion does not fall to some base hunt-rage.
Hjar's eyes snapped open. She breathed, deeply and slowly, and carefully wrestled the anger down. The wolf wasn't stopping it's howling, but she wasn't going to let it escape.
Good. Do not expect any more aid, daughter of the Reach. Mere beasts are unworthy of my patronage.
"...What in a dozen dragonbreaks was that." Xander asked her.
She touched the mace at her hip. It glowed coldly. "Two gods are squabbling using my body as the playground."
"Come again?"
She shook herself and waved him off. "Don't worry about it. I've got to go and let the wolf run around for a bit; thanks for your help. I'd advise staying inside here for the next few minutes so I have chance to get out of range, I might hunt you down if I sense you."
"Rrrright. Thank you too." Xander gulped, then under his breath muttered "why is everyone else so awesome..."
She chuckled and moved to leave.
"Oh, and one last thing?" He called from behind her.
She stopped. "What?"
"You have...fur. Growing out of your ears. I didn't want to bring it up."
She blushed. "Right. Oh, are you planning on leaving that body, desecrating it...?"
He squinted at the body, touched a corner of the robes, then nodded to himself. "The latter. He's my height."
8˂
Falk looked in the mirror and nodded, scratching at his beard. "Thank you. That's the best it's looked in months."
"Don't mess with it, you'll ruin the trim!" L'laarzen scolded him, light-heartedly. "But the pleasure is all mine. It was a joy to work with."
"Aye, well, when your second name is 'Firebeard' you can't exactly cut the thing off. Damn politicians couldn't possibly handle the uproar..."
"Is it stressful to work in the Palace?" L'laarzen asked, innocently packing her things.
"Like you wouldn't believe." He sighed, standing up. "What with the war, and the Forsworn, and the ghosts, and now Dulurza's off in a crypt somewhere-"
"Oh, Dulurza!" L'laarzen's ears perked up. "Khajit met her in Whiterun a short while ago. Orc lady, tall?"
"Oh, really?"
"Really! She told L'laarzen that she worked in this palace; might I be able to see her?"
"Perhaps once she gets back." Falk's face fell. "Gods, I hope she comes back. Absolute madwoman, but she's been good for Elisif. I haven't seen the Jarl smile this much since...well." He shook his head. "How much do you charge?"
"Five septims, is standard. Only perhaps..." L'laarzen shifted. "Khajit has heard of a very rare beverage known as 'firebrand wine', some of which is kept here at the palace."
He chuckled. "Officially, I'm not supposed to open any except in special occasions. But unofficially, well, I'm the only one around here who organises anything. Tell you what; the crate's kept by the kitchen, left corridor from the entrance. Bring it here and we'll share a drink, and if something happens to one of the bottles on the way, I won't say anything."
"You are too kind friend!" L'laarzen grinned at him, winked, and left the room, tail swishing behind her.
Falk smiled to himself, grabbing his heavy coat and putting it back on. It was always nice to be reminded, every once in a while, that there were nice people out there.
That was when the door was kicked open.
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Dulurza, walking back from the temple of the divines with a skull under her arm, met a sight she was very much not expecting to see.
"Stentor!" She gasped. "You can run?"
"No time!" Bit out the court mage, out of breath. "There's been an attack!"
"There's what?" Dulurza's eyes immediately narrowed. "Where? What-"
"Attackers in the palace, something to do with Potema, I don't know." Stentor pointed to the skull. "Is that her? Give it to me, I'll take care of it, you get back in there and help! The Jarl is in danger!"
Dulurza didn't even think about it, she pushed the skull into Stentor's hands and started running.
The road up to the palace had never felt so long and her armour had never felt so heavy, her feet pounded as rapidly as she could force them to on the cobbles as she rocketed towards the unguarded entrance.
The moment she entered she was able to hear the sounds of combat. She rushed right, burst through one door and then another, ignoring one guard cornering an unarmed Khajiit and pelting towards the end of the corridor, where she could see the bustle of a fight. Once she got in, however, she had to take a second to understand what she saw.
Falk Firebeard, one hand clutching his chest with blood dribbling between his fingers, was frantically attempting to fight off...four of the the city guard?
"Traitors!" He shouted once he saw her, and almost got beheaded for his trouble.
Now the guards might have contested that, but instead one of them shouted "Dammit! Kill the pig-woman too!" and that pretty much made up Dulurza's mind.
She roared, and charged.
The guards were short work, really; their wooden shields were flimsy and their bladework was shoddy. Her axe was admittedly difficult to wield in the enclosed space, but that just meant she had to make greater use of her elbows and fists, and then their own swords. All four soon lay dead at her feet, her shoulders heaving from the exertion. Then she heard a cough, and turned. "Falk?"
The advisor had slumped into a chair, and pulled his hand away from his stomach. There was a long red line drawn across it. "Damn them...they got me."
Dulurza let out an Orsimer swearword and moved over to him, yanking down a curtain and attempting to make it into an acceptable tourniquet. "What in Malacath's name happened, Falk?"
"I don't know." He coughed again. There was blood in his mouth. "They just...came out of nowhere. Started trying to gut me before I could ask what was happening. There's traitors in the guard, Dulurza. You can't trust them until we find out what-"
"Alright shut up now, you're just aggravating the wound." Dulurza grimaced, trying to remember what her mother had taught her about cleaning and dressing injuries.
"No!" Falk reached up and grabbed her shoulders. "Listen, Dulurza. The Jarl's in danger. You're the only one I can trust to protect her."
"Trust-" She shook her head. Deathbed desperation, it had to be. "Falk, you know nothing about me."
"I know enough." He chuckled, weakly. "I've seen how you look at her."
"What in Oblivion does that mean-"
"Just promise me you'll look after her!" He begged, and oh great, he was begging now. "Please."
Dulurza had heard her fair share of campfire stories; she knew how the next few beats were going to go. But she had no idea how to go about actually averting it.
"...Alright." She ground out. "I promise. But you'd better not-"
It was too late. Falk slumped back into the chair, eyes going glassy.
Dulurza breathed in, then out, and then roared again and slammed a fist into the chair, knocking it onto its back as she turned and picked her axe back up. Perfect. Got to get to Elisif, warn her about the guards, get them all to unmask and check that against the previous list, unless the actual guards are in on the betrayal, but I can still trust her housecarl and none of the politicians are any type of threat-
She turned back to the door, looking up, and came face to face with Elisif and Stentor flanked by a platoon of guards.
Admittedly, with the benefit of hindsight, her first response shouldn't have been to point her axe at the guards and growl threateningly.
"Dulurza." Elisif gulped. "What-"
"She killed him." Sybille gasped, shock written on her face. "By the Divines, she killed Falk!"
"What?" Dulurza gaped. Then, "Oh, Stentor, you manipulative wench-"
The guards closed in, and Dulurza readied her weapon, but her grip was slack, her eyes unfocused. The evidence was right there behind her, the bodies, Elisif had no reason to doubt her own protectors, there was no telling whether Sybille was involved or just convinced by what she saw, Dulurza trying to fight the guards wasn't going to help her case at all and what in Malacath's name could she possibly say?
For the first time in a long time, Dulurza had absolutely no idea what her short term goal was.
She didn't even attempt to dodge when a bolt leapt from Stentor's hands to freeze her in place, and was powerless to stop the next knocking her out cold.
Oh come on, you didn't see something like that coming? Dulurza's inarticulation gets her in trouble, and...well, just about everyone's in a pretty tight spot. This next chapter will be the climax of the arc so far. There will be an epilogue after that, and then a brief hiatus to give me time to write the next bit.
Or maybe this will die. I've been a tad unreliable about these things in the past.
Next time: Someone winds up in prison, someone winds up in prison, and someone else winds up in prison.