Cearbhail:

I'm back! Yeah, my niece visited and I spent a few days teaching her to ride a bike. Next year I plan on teaching her to rollerblade. Can't wait for that; bet she can though. She had enough trouble trying not to fall. Wait until she puts on rollerblades for the first time. That won't be much fun for her. Anyway, we have a good chapter. It starts off in Talvas's point of view. I know, right? A chance to see what's going on his head. Don't get too used to it. I only use other people's points-of-views for chronicles stories if the main character is incapable of having their own during a certain event... like this one. There was something important I wanted to add, but...I can't remember it.

Oh...and enjoy. ^^


[Talvas] (I know, right?)

Book of Shadows, entry date 4e206 19th Second Seed

Where to begin? We started this mission on the 18th, late in the afternoon around 3:30 or something. The mission was given to us by Master Neloth; the assignment is relatively simple. We are to help Crescius clear the mine of spiders and draugrs so that the town may begin to recover from their depression. The mission was meant as a test for Veselle, but I talked Master into letting me accompany her. I know she's strong in magicka; I've never debated the fact. And I know she's confident and a great martial artist. The only thing I know for certain is that I don't know what she would be facing and I wanted to be near enough to see that she returns alive. But, this mission is in a mine…and ever since I was a boy and my parents locked me in a dark cellar while Argonians bull-rushed our farm….I can't be in enclosed spaces. The room was so tiny, so dark, and I heard everyone in our little farm dying around me as Argonians ripped them apart. Even now, I can still hear my mom screaming as I hid in pitch black, my shoulders touching both sides of the secret wall. I couldn't handle it then…I can't handle it now.

Because of my fear of spaces, I had begun drinking before we arrived to our destination. I heavily wanted to make my brain feel that it was ok for my fears to disappear. And it works. I don't have a high tolerance for sujamma so I use it to make my fears disappear. Too bad it also makes me think it's ok to … well for a better lack of terms, make-out with Veselle. She's cute, and I've thought about it a few times but she's… well… I can't put words to it, but evil is the best I can think of right now. With how much crap she puts me through, why on Mundus I think she's cute is beyond me.

Anyway, all of that is beside the point. When we got to the mine, I was already in my happy place. And then Crescius had to go and freak Veselle out and then throw a key at her while she was glancing down at the mines below us. She tumbled and I thought she died. I chased after her, finding out that a whole nest of frostbite spiders took up residence in the mines. Do you know how fast they repopulate? 100 eggs from a queen a week hatch. One week to mature. I fought over a thousand frostbite spiders. I killed them all. I found Veselle at the bottom of the mine, unlocking a door. She led me into the crypt. We decided to kill all the draugr in search of Crescius's ancestor's journal. We found a few traps along the way and I got to see Veselle show off her martial arts. We bathed together, sort of, and as we left to find the journal, she was hit by a poisoned arrow. I'm tending to her now.

Talvas Fathryon.

I had barely been able to pick myself off the floor after a few darts flew into my back. Luckily for me, I had so much alcohol in my system that it cleared away the poison like it was nothing. I was able to stand up and kill the poisoned draugrs before they could pose much of a threat. I walked back up the stairs and collected Veselle and the unconscious Kyuu. She was so light that I couldn't believe she was so strong. She felt like a doll in my hands; and she looked even cuter when she slept. She had this light snore thing that sounded more like Kyuu when he squeaked. I carried her back to the room with the waterfall pool. Even in my drunken state, I had enough cognition to tell what poison I tasted on my lips. It was a nasty one. If I didn't treat it as soon as I could, there was no hope in treating her. So I did the only thing I could. I set her down on the ground near the waterfall and pulled out my thermos of sujamma. It was full, just like it always is when I open it. I didn't tell her this, but my thermos is special. When I drink from it, it refills instantly with more sujamma. I love Alteration magic. I never have to worry about running out.

It was because I wasn't worried about running out that I unscrewed the top and opened her mouth. I know she hates thinking about stuff like this but…if I didn't do this and do this now… her heart would stop in ten minutes after head-splitting headaches, boiling blood, and spasms. The only cure for this was on my sujamma, not just the alcohol but … canis root and ash yams. Go figure, right? The things she hated most would be the only things to save her life. I tipped her head back to open her throat and started gently pouring my sujamma into her mouth. She coughed for a second before she reached up and grabbed the thermos like it was a bottle. She moaned as she found out what it was and her eyes flickered open for a second before they shut again. She moaned something to me but I kept dripping more into her mouth. I didn't like it any more than she did, but she needed it.

After a few servings of sujamma, enough to make me plastered…I think I gave her enough. I set her down to rest, turning to Kyuu. He looked comfortable, but twisting in his own pain. His eyes finally snapped open. "Poison breech in system. Activate Heal Beam." His voice called out robotically. His tiny form rose off the ground like it was floating in water. A white beam radiated from his body, bright enough to blind me. The bright light faded quickly and Kyuu collapsed on the ground where he started. He groaned in his own way and shifted over to look at me. "I…I can't properly heal myself. I don't have any magicka left." He looked at Veselle. "She's not feeding me in her state. If…if she doesn't do something soon I'll be forced back." He looked at me. "I…I can't dismiss myself either. Talvas…kill me." He said to me. "I'm draining too much magicka from her. She won't recover like this. Just kill me so I can go back."

I didn't hesitate as I blasted him with an ice spike. It seemed to take him by surprise too. His eyes went wide as he suddenly exploded in ethereal goo. I couldn't waste time arguing with him. I had to look out for Veselle first. He couldn't really die; she could. I looked down at her as she started tossing and turning. She opened her eyes to look at me, sweat glistening her head. "Tal…" She closed her eyes and drifted off.

I fought the urge to drink more sujamma. I had to be as lucid as possible as she rested. The room spun around me already; I didn't need to add to it. I couldn't tell how far apart the walls were, I couldn't tell how high the ceiling was. My mind couldn't tell so it didn't tell me I was in a confined space. I didn't really hear my mother's cry for help either. My thoughts were pretty shallow; mostly on my own grumbling stomach, my burning fingers and toes, the pulse in my neck, and the very welcoming lips on Veselle. I had to be on edge for a while. She was just as drunk as I was. And I bet…there's a side of her that wants to be with me as much as I do her. My mind was clearing up enough to where I could fight that if I needed to. But…did I want to fight it? I could just let whatever happens happen. Ugh…that was the sujamma speaking.

I sat there quietly for a few minutes while Veselle tossed and turned; reaching for her head and covering her eyes as the sujamma and the poisoned fought for her. I would add more sujamma every ten minutes to keep her system updated. The battle was won when she woke up for real. I knew enough Restoration magic to know when the poison was gone. It was gone when she vomited it out.

The world around me started to clear up; the walls becoming real forms, and the ceiling starting to return to an original position. I felt my heart speeding up, my consciousness taking in the fact that there was no wind, no air flow. It was cold, it was musty, and it was stale. I started to scrunch up into a ball so I reached for my thermos and took a few hits of sujamma. I felt that bitter sting of the alcohol burning its way down my throat into my stomach. It took a few seconds before I felt it hit my head. The room started to spin around me and I well, I stopped really thinking.

I sat like that for a few minutes, making sure I kept taking more sips to keep me in my current blissfully unaware state. I kept looking down at Veselle to see her sweating and trying to pull her own clothes off to keep cool. So I reached over and started undoing her robes. I'm drunk; I don't think about stuff. Once I had her robes loose enough to slide her out of them, I pulled them off and carried her over to the waterfall pool. She seemed even lighter without all her clothes to weigh her down. She looked really cute without them too. I laid her down in the water, making sure her head was comfortably resting on a towel and went back to my little spot. I lied my head down and before I knew it, I let my drunken exhaustion get the most of me.

[Veselle]

I felt cold and wet. My head was throbbing; my stomach felt like it was burning while tying in knots. My eyes hurt…why did my eyes hurt? When I tried to sit up, my stomach had other plans. With my lungs burning and a sickening smell in my throat that I could only believe to be stomach acid, I had only a few seconds to spin myself around before I threw up. Whatever was in me flew out my mouth. It took a few hurls to get it all out of me, but boy did I feel better.

The first thing I noticed was that I was wet. Why? I looked around and found myself resting inside the waterfall pool from earlier. How did I get here? What happened? Last thing I remembered Talvas fell onto a pressure plate and poisoned arrows flew across the room. One hit my neck… oh no. I had been poisoned. I reached for my neck to feel for the hole. I could still feel the bump where the dart had hit me. I should be dead. That poison felt like hell. And then something else entered me and just made me feel worse. I vaguely remembered Talvas opening my mouth and pouring this fiery stuff down my throat. It tasted awful, burned my throat and my stomach going down, and it made every inch of my body feel like it was warm and bubbly. He must have given me sujamma to help fight off the poison. How clever; fight poison with poison.

I started climbing out of the pool. As soon as I did I fell straight back in. My head spun in all directions; thumping deep behind my eyes while my skull felt like it was pulling apart in several directions at once. What the heck was going on with me? Splotches of green grew over my eyesight and I thought I was going to pass out for a second, my own breath short. I just sat in the cold water as I waited for the world to recollect itself again. I slowly crawled out of the pool and reached for the towel waiting for me. I found my robes not too far away, just tossed aside like they were nothing. Wait…if my robes were there…what was I wearing? I looked down to see myself in my undershirt and underwear. Well, I guess it was a good thing I wore these underneath my robes. I guess Talvas must have undressed me to keep me from overheating and then threw me in the pool to keep cool. He should have just let me sweat it out. I would have recovered eventually.

Speaking of Talvas, I could see that he was resting on the staircase, stretched out and snoring. I dried myself off and started slipping my robes back on. I had to change my underwear for drier pairs before I did that. I was amazed just how badly I was shivering. That water had been so cold. Without that Alteration spell to warm it up, that water was nearly freezing. It must have not taken long for my core temperature to drop inside it because everything was shaking. And the more this alcohol was wearing off, the more aware I was of how cold I really was. My body wasn't stiff because I was drunk; it was stiff because it was nearly frozen. Even though I was in fresh clothes, I was still cold. And I don't know if it was the alcohol or my freezing body that made me feel like it was ok to grab a blanket and curl up to Talvas, wrapping us both up as I lied down on top of him. He was warm…he was always warm. I curled around him with my arms and let myself fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

I don't know how long I let myself lie like that but eventually he reached and tapped me on the shoulder. By then I was warming up and my head wasn't spinning nearly as bad. Talvas looked down at me with slightly confused eyes but he smiled. "I see you're awake. We should continue on. Just stick behind me the rest of the way."

I nodded and started getting off him. But as I started to stand up, I found myself curious about something. He tried to kiss me before, and I stopped him, even though I was pretty sure that I wanted it. So…I went for it. I pushed myself up against him and kissed him on the lips. He almost tried to push me off but he stopped before he actually could. Instead he wrapped me up and pulled me closer. His lips and tongue felt so welcoming me to me and I just got lost in all of it. My head was still spinning and I had this pulsing headache, but I didn't care for a few seconds. Just when I was starting to get lost in the kiss, Talvas pushed me off. I don't know why but I really wanted more so I started pushing in for more. He kept pushing me back. "Veselle, you're still drunk." His words were pretty lost on me. But he kept pushing me off, flicking me in the head with frost magicka as he did so.

We went on like that for a few minutes before my head really started to clear up. And when it did, I was happy Talvas had enough sense to keep pushing me off. I didn't realize I had started undoing his pants. Talvas had actually tied me up for a few minutes while he waited for my buzz to wear off. I don't remember when he did that either. There were some pockets of my memory missing. My head was throbbing now and my eyes hated the idea of staying open for too long. My throat was dry as all hell, and my stomach wanted something inside it; heck I don't even think it cared at this point. Just something really greasy.

Talvas was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. "Are you finally mentally ready?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I'm really thirsty though."

He nodded and pulled out a thermos. "Here, have some." He walked over and started undoing the ropes keeping me from charging into him. When the ropes slid off, I let myself relax. I didn't want him to tie me back up and I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of kissing him or getting anything else from him either. I couldn't stop thinking about the kiss we did have though. It felt so good at the time, and it still did. I wondered if it would feel just as good right now. I didn't want to test the question though. I didn't need that type of relationship with him. I should just write it off as a onetime thing and let us get back to our lives. Once we were done with this quest, I was going to give him a concussion so that he'd forget any of this ever happened and I would just have to get Master to make me forget too. It was for the best of everything.

I looked up at him and then down to the thermos in his hands. "Is that your sujamma?"

He shook his head. "No it's juniper juice, but a good cure for a hangover is more alcohol if you're interested." He passed it to me. I took it from him and started chugging the thing. There was almost none left, but looking at the waterfall and fresh cold water…I think I knew what to fill my thermos with when I ran out. So, I cleaned the whole thermos and started filling it with water from the waterfall. "I'm sorry about earlier." Talvas said to me as I filled my thermos. "I was still pretty out of it, and you were so welcoming that…I didn't think."

Oh? We were going there? I guess we had to talk about it. "No problem. I was pretty out of it too. I had no idea how much you just don't care about that stuff when you're mentally impaired." I looked over at him. "Think of it as a…" How did I want to phrase this? "thank you for keeping me warm while I rested." I gestured to the pool. "You put me in freezing water. Once I woke up, I was freezing, and you're warm. I wanted to be warm too. The kiss was a thank you."

Talvas nodded slowly before turning around. "Well, let's continue." He stood up and started heading for the open door.

I ran up to join him, grabbing my staff as I did so. I followed behind Talvas as he led me into the room that almost killed me. He carefully stepped as far to the side of the hallway as possible so that even if he did fall, he wouldn't land on the pressure plate like he did before. I found myself standing behind him as closely as possible, holding onto his robes. I was half-tempted to hug him from behind but I forced myself to forget about it. I could let myself have some romance I guess; because I was going to make sure he'd forget it after all this was over. But…I'd still remember. It was better that I not push this any further. Things between us might get weird and I didn't really want that. I wanted us to be friends, not … something else.

We walked through the pathway to the left, walking along some small tunnel. Talvas, ahead of me was taking it quickly as he tried to get out. I could hear him gasping as he started speeding up. I think it was his claustrophobia. I raced to keep up with him and we found ourselves at a crossroads. To our left was a small room with a pedestal with what looked like a spell tome sitting on it. Talvas was leaning against a wall, taking deep breaths as he reached for his chest. His eyes were snapped shut and he slid down. "I need to sit for a second. That tunnel was…too enclosed for me." He pulled out his thermos and started chugging more sujamma. Jeez…how much of that stuff does he have?

I walked up to the altar. Indeed, there was a spell tome with an icicle embedded into the cover. I picked it up and waved it to Talvas. "Hey…there's a spell tome. Want it?"

He shook his head. "All yours." He replied. "Just let me sit for a sec."

I shrugged and rolled my eyes as I opened it up. Just like all the other tomes beforehand, the thing snapped open, flipping through pages upon pages of sigils and runes and circles. Everything recorded about this spell and how to make it was recorded. And instantly knowledge of Frost entered my mind, but it went beyond that. Muck like my firebolt spell, I got two for the price of one. I learned out how to form frost magicka as well as compact it into a spike to launch out. It was surprisingly similar to fire magicka, but… there was a huge difference. Fire magicka is fueled by determination, anger, by pure emotional fire…frost magicka is fueled by well… a lack of emotions. It's a cold indifference, a cold pain in your heart that can only be formed by pain and scars. In order to use Frost, I had to be put through pain. Well…if I wanted to learn it the old-fashioned way, the way it started. This tome taught me how to form it; I had to visualize it. It just grew stronger by control of my emotions, the cold hard emptiness of the tundra: frozen and controlled. I had to put myself in desolation. I could do that. I just had to think of my life in my house when my father was put in prison. My entire life was like that. And my time spent in Tel Mithryn.

My eyes cleared up and I found Talvas standing up from his spot. The tome turned to ash and fell through my fingers, turning to dust before it hit the ground. "What spell was it?" He asked me as he walked up to me.

"Ice Spike." I replied.

"Ouch." He called in return. "You know to use that spell you need to know emotional control right? It's not like your flames. You can't just get mad and scorch your opponents."

I nodded. "Yes, I get it. Zen-like emptiness with intent, right?"

He nodded. "Yes. It's hard during battle but once you get the hang of the battle meditation, you'll be set."

So…if flames were created by emotional overuse, and frost by emotional indifference. "What creates shock magicka?"

He looked at me and shrugged. "I don't know. Only Master knows about shock. He could tell you." He looked up at the altar on the floor above us. He patted me on the arm, gesturing me to look up. "See that? It's a soul gem on an altar. We should just take it out right now." His hands cooled and started forming into ice in his palm. I watched as the magicka in his hand formed into a spike and it launched off towards the gem. The gem shattered as the ice spike passed right through it. "There, one less trap to deal with." He grabbed my arm and pulled me to follow him. "Let's keep going. I'm guessing we need to be up there."

Well, since the whole room looked like it was a box trap with this one tome…I don't think we could do anything else down here. Might as well try it out. Right across from our little room was a spiral staircase leading up. Gee…I wonder where that went. Sarcasm.

We pretty much ran up the staircase up to the room above us. Talvas pulled me across the bridge leading us to the altar that housed the old soul gem. He continued pulling me as we raced through the room. "I'm so sick of being down here." He said to me as he continually pulled me along with him. I could barely keep up with him as he raced through the room. We barged right through another open door and Talvas suddenly stopped. I didn't get the message so I crashed right into him and he fell forward, and since he was still holding onto me, he pulled me too. I got a pretty good look from my fall. A 30 foot drop straight down. I felt my stomach cry out as my legs went numb. The world spun around me as the wind took me. And just as quickly as I fell, I jolted to a stop. Talvas was gripping hard onto my arm, actually holding me. I looked up to see him hanging onto the ledge we fell from. "I can't hold us, Veselle. Here." He gestured to the stream underneath us. "See that pool?" I could see a pool of water that looked pretty deep right underneath us.

"Haven't I gotten wet enough today?" I called up to him.

"Apparently not." He said and swung me out. He let go of my hand and I prepared myself for the fall. I fell pretty fast and I was heading right for the pool. It looked just deep enough to halt me with only a few broken bones.

"Use your fire to slow down!" He called to me.

And so I did. I let the fear of falling spread through me as I stuck my feet out. Fire roared out of my feet, throwing me up a little before I continued falling. By then I was only five feet up or something and so I gently landed in the water. I curled into a ball and held my breath as I crashed into the water. Just like last time, the water was ice cold and it forced every bit of air out of me. I gently bumped my butt at the bottom of the pool and pushed off with my feet. I broke the surface of the pool long enough to see Talvas falling right for me. I screamed as I dove back down and pushed myself as far to the bottom as I could. I heard and saw Talvas stir bubbles as he crashed into the pool. He collided with me and he pushed me right to the floor of the natural pool. He forced the air out of me, but he scooped me up and pushed us both up towards the surface. When we broke it, I took a deep breath and started beating on his arms. "You stupid! You could have killed me!"

He swam us out of the pool; meanwhile I was still punching and kicking him as he did so. When we got far enough away from the pool, he pulled off his backpack and opened it up. "Everything's soaked." He set the backpack down and looked at me. "Our spare pair of clothes are soaked too."

I felt a cold draft spread over me. "I can dry us." I said as I tore his bracelet off. "You threw me in 30 feet into a small pool…" Flames started forming around me, only growing stronger as I thought about the last few seconds. "and then you jumped in right before I could get away. You could have killed me!" The flames only grew larger and I felt the heat of the flames over my body. I willed them to keep us safe but to dry us off. The flames responded to me. "You know what…I take back my kiss! You don't deserve it."

Talvas only sighed as he stepped up to me and rubbed his hands over the fire spreading my body. "I would explain what really happened but we need your flames so…" He reached up and pulled one of my twintails. "This is the temperature control, right? I pull on this twintail and the fire goes up, right?" Then he booped my nose. "Or is it in your nose?"

I felt so embarrassed and frustrated that the flames roared off my body like a wave. "Don't do that!" I said as I reached up at my nose.

"Ok, so it was the nose." He replied as the fire spread over him. And for the next few minutes he tried to keep me pissed off so that we could dry. I must admit…it worked. We dried off. By I was pooped. When we finally finished drying, he made me stop by saying, "Ok, so it's time for the truth." He looked at me and shrugged. "My hand slipped. When I flung you, my fingers slipped and I fell right behind you. I was able to push myself up into the air long enough to land a few seconds after you."

And it let my flames dry up. When they did we looked up at the doorway we fell from. There was no way we'd get back up there. 30 straight up into the air. "We're stuck down here…aren't we?"

Talvas sighed. "Let's look around first." He started walking around. I followed behind him.

We followed the small river up. We were in a large cavern; almost large enough to help Talvas with his claustrophobia. As we walked, we could see a very large doorway with a weird door and several red lines scattering around it. Bodies that looked a lot like draugrs littered the floor with a skeleton holding onto a journal lying in the middle of them. In the skeleton's hands were a large blood red claymore with spines along the blade and a dark brown leather-clad journal.

Talvas bent down to check out the sword while I reached for the journal. The cover read 'Property of Gratian Caerellius.' I held it up to Talvas. "We did it! We found the old guy's journal." I stood up and jumped with joy, whooping at my successive quest. "Take that, dead guys we killed to get here!" I opened up the journal and cleared my throat. "Let's see… 'I've been contracted to search the mine for potential risks for the East Empire Company. Blah, blah, blah." I said as I flipped through the pages, closing the journal behind me. "Ok. We got the right journal." I looked at Talvas. "We can go now." I pointed up the giant hole we fell through. "Nothing's getting through that doorway. We cleared as much as I think we needed to."

Talvas sighed. "Veselle…" He looked up at the hole. "WE can't get up there. We're…stuck." He looked around. "Maybe this door." He walked up to it and started knocking on it. "It's locked." He pushed on it. "Veselle, what's the journal say about it?"

I flipped open the journal and found a picture of the door and… the sword. I read the passage which basically said that the sword emits this red energy that waves off it and the door was covered in red energy similar to the blade, but…according to the journal, the old man couldn't figure it out. Jeez…red energy that streams off a blade and red lines that match the color of the energy of the blade? Wow…that's easy. "Hey Talvas? Try swinging the blade at the angle of those…red lines on the edges of the doorway. I think it's a puzzle."

He looked at the door. He shrugged and swung the blade. Nothing happened. "Nothing happened." He reported back to me.

"Put some balls behind it!" I yelled to him.

"What?" His face reddened and then turned around swinging the blade like he had a pair. Red energy collected around the blade, rolling off it like a crimson wave. The energy rolled through the sky with a cry similar to a banshee's final wail. The energy crashed into the red lines across the doorway. And just like that, the parts of the walls crashed down and new red lines formed both vertically this time. There was no way he'd get them both in one swing this time. Talvas fell to his knees, grabbing his sides in pain. "Wow…that really took it out of me."

I clapped my hands as I walked up to him. "Ok…now…do it two more times."

He sighed as he stood up. "Ok, but…first I need to eat something."

"Fine." I said as my stomach started grumbling. I needed to eat something too.


Cearbhail:

And next chapter...big boss battle. If you've played this quest before, and I'm pretty sure the ones of you that actually review have played it because you remind me of things not to forget... then you know what's coming next. And do please keep reminding me of things not to forget; sometimes I get too caught up in my own head to remember what exactly comes next. That's why I'm focusing so hard on this quest right now and neglecting my other stories. If i even think about the Chronicles of Ruby or my Assassin's Den, I might forget what I wanted to do for this quest. So...I'm already starting on the next one while I'm on a roll. Enjoy.