Cearbhail:

Finally, Ruby!

Oh...and enjoy. ^^


Dear diary of shadows,

Today is the 15th of Sun's Dusk. It's been five days since we ended the assassination plot against Councilor Morvayn. I woke up with a wicked headache today. I didn't recognize the room I was in until I saw Seth sleeping in chair beside me. When I called to him, he opened his eyes and filled me in on what was going on. I guess I've been out cold for five days, and we've been using the Severin Manor as our healing chamber. Huh… it's weird, sleeping for five days in a house I technically died in. My entire body is wrapped up in bandages, and I sure hope the stinging I feel is not indication that I was burned alive or something. If I look like a wrinkly zombie… I will probably go to the Ulen Tomb and piss in Vendil's ashes. And maybe take a crap too. He will have deserved being covered in that for the rest of his afterlife if he ruined my skin.

So, anyway, Seth pretty much filled me in on all the stuff I had missed the past five days. We were both horribly burned by the alchemist fire that fell down on top of us. Sanguine jumped in the way and protected us from being melted alive. The heat of the explosion did scald our skin a little. We had blisters and horrible heat rashes. Mother spent the last couple days healing us. Seth was just released from intensive care yesterday. Apparently, I've been drifting in and out of sleep the past five days. And while we slept and recovered, Zera was learning how to create Conjuration magicka and practicing combat combos with her new spirit: Tatianna. I can't wait to meet her. I hear she's quite the little fireball. Pun intended.

Mirri is alive. Kyuu got to her in time to heal her stab wound before she completely bled out. She was in bed for a couple days while she recovered the rest of her injuries. Most of them were mental though. Her mother's alive but locked away in prison. She's going to be taken to Blacklight to face her trial of conspiracy to kill the Councilor of Raven Rock. Mirri is in the clear. She was offered to stay here and train to become a guard for Raven Rock. She turned them down, stating that she'd rather serve House Telvanni as a battlemage. So… we have a new addition to our little town. Mirri Ulen… the first Ulen Telvanni battlemage. She's planning on giving her house over to Raven Rock to do with whatever they want. She doesn't even want any of the stuff inside the house with the exclusion of the usual stuff we have in our rooms back home in Tel Mithryn: alchemy table, enchanting circles… a bed. You know, the usual.

Anyway, I need to see the damage for myself. I can't just lie in this bed anymore. I need to do something.

Veselle Tenvanni.

Seth was busy doing his physical therapy to pay any attention to me. Mom had come in and escorted him out of the room to do practice his walking. That gave me plenty of time to sit up. My body was tense, my breath short, and my muscles too stiff to move or bend anything. It took me a few seconds to push myself up, and then it took me a few more to push myself to the edge of the bed. I had ended up in Mirri's old room. The room was painted pink with yellow butterflies. Giant stuffed bears and stuff were sitting across the whole room. I remember playing with a few of these bears once or twice when I came over here to talk to Mirri in the past.

As soon as I swung my legs out past the bed, I felt them touch the floor. Ok… I still have feeling. That's a good thing. I groaned as I pushed myself up, supporting my own weight on creaky knees. I almost stumbled and fell, but I reached out and planted my hand on the wall in front of me. I saw my staff sitting in front of me, my personal staff. I reached out for it, taking it in my hand and pulling it over to me. I pushed hard against it as I started using it as a walking staff. I dragged myself clumsily over to the mirror. It took me a second, but I was finally there. My hair looked completely normal but the rest of me looked pretty weird. Of course, it was because every inch of me below my neck was covered in bandages. I took a deep breath as I reached for the bow tie towards my waist. I undid the bow and the wrapping started loosening. I took a few seconds to undo my bandages.

It took a few minutes, but I got them off. And then I got some underwear on. Mom left me some clothes if I ever needed them. As soon as I got something on, I looked in the mirror again. It was much easier to move without those bandages covering every inch of me. Other than the scrunched look of my skin from being covered in tight bandages, I looked just fine. Not an inch of me looked scarred or marred in any way. I bet Kyuu had done something to me to keep me safe. He would. My muscles felt pretty weak though, but not walking for five days will do that to you.

I finally decided to get myself dressed and started for the door. Before I left, I made sure that I stepped in front of the mirror again as I did my twintails. As soon as I walked out of the room, I could see Teldryn waiting for me. He nodded to me as I looked over at him. I saluted him mockingly. "Good job, Battlemage Teldryn. Mission: Protect Cute Girl is accomplished. You may return to your other duties."

He grunted a laugh, which was odd for me to hear. I've never heard him talk. And he still refused to do so. He just handed me a note that looked prewritten and given to him. I took the note and opened it up.

Dear Veselle,

I'm well-aware that you are recovering and may be out for a few days, but I cannot wait for you to recover before finding out what this Miraak is. So, I've taken my students up to northern part of the island to find this Skaal village. We will learn what we can about this island and report what we learn. Stay in Raven Rock and heal up. And if you really wish to do something productive, I've called in a shaman to look at the structure surrounding the Earth Stone. She's supposed to meet up with Ildari to have her take on what's going on around town. Since you and the Vedes children have had more exposure to the stone's influence, I suspect that she'll want to talk to you too.

Do take care and don't strain yourself.

Lord Neloth Maryon.

I folded the note up and nodded to Teldryn. "Thanks, Tel."

He grunted at the nickname I made for him, nodding to me as he stepped away. He mock saluted me as he walked away.

"Hey, wait." I said to him. He paused and turned to look at me. "Why don't you ever talk?"

He grunted something and pulled out a quill. He passed me a note and I looked at it. Words have power… and some people's words have more. He left it at that and turned around. He walked off, silently humming a song to himself. Huh… I never thought of it like that. Did he have some sort of magicka voice thing going on? I wonder if I'd ever see him use it.

I smiled as I crumped the note up and tossed it in the trashcan outside Mirri's old room. I started walking towards the meditation room where I could hear Seth groaning in pain. As I came up to the room, I saw Seth stretching his arms in the air while trying to do a split with his legs. Mom was walking around him, running her hands across his body's aura. "Hmm, your muscles seem to be regaining their elasticity. This is good, that means your body is returning to normal." She looked from him over to me. "Well, Veselle. Shall we start your physical therapy? A couple days, I wager, before you'll be able to do any real stretching."

Seth tried to nod, but it was hard for him. "Yeah… if your body's anything like mine… your muscles are one giant cluster of tightness."

I shrugged and looked to Mom. "I heard from Dad that there's a shaman coming to visit."

She nodded. "She's already here. Wanted to wait for you to wake up before she began her investigation."

"What? Why?" Why would the shaman want to speak to me?

Mom placed her hands on her hip and tilted her head to the side. "You were the one that told us about the Stone being corrupted. You met Hermaeus Mora. She's interested in what you can possibly tell her before she begins her investigation of the Earth Stone. She's talking to Zera and Mirri in the master bedroom right now."

I nodded. "Ok, I'll go talk to her then." Mirri was here too? Well, where else did she have to go? Was she mad that I was put in her room? Where did she sleep the past five days? I tried to move quickly down the hallway but my legs were still pretty weak. My steps were awkward and heavy, not to mention my knees didn't feel like bending. They creaked with the effort of walking and I wondered if I had somehow destroyed any cartilage in my knees during my last fight.

"So, if I got this all correct… the only thing you remember is feeling like you were dreaming. You were watching yourself walk around, but you weren't in control of your actions. You were in a blurry dream and felt disconnected from yourself." A heard a deep scratchy Khajiit call from inside the master bedroom. "That's very interesting." She said. "I wish I could have brought my friend Samantha with me. She knows about this stuff more than I do." I knocked on the door. "It's open." The Khajiit called from the other side.

I pushed the door open and walked inside. Sitting in a chair was a Khajiit I swear I'd seen before. It took me a second, but I remembered her! I saw her in Riften the day I was almost killed. I could never forget her. When I first saw her in Riften, she had light purple hair with bright blue highlights and tips. Now it was a light blue with light purple tips. She was a lot taller though. She was just as tall as my mom was. I was just a little shorter than Mom. So… the Khajiit that was once shorter than me was now taller. Huh… I hope I haven't stopped growing yet.

And that wasn't all I knew about her. She was the crystal shaman that helped the High King on his quest to kill Alduin. Ruby Stonearm. That was her name. And that's all I really knew about her. Someone famous visiting us? That was something that didn't happen often. I sure hope she's as nice as she was depicted in the Chronicles Series.

As Ruby looked over at me, her face broke into a wide smile. "Hey, it's you!" She said as she waved to me. She ran up to me, grabbing on my hands and giving them a good shake. "I remember you! You're that girl that dressed like I did back when I was a slave!"

"What?" What was she talking about?

Her smile faded, replaced by ruffled fur. Did I upset her? "Oh… sorry." She said with a hint of an embarrassed chuckle. "You were sleeping when I saw you." She rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. "Your Master said something about you burning through your clothes or something and you had to wrap yourself up in your blanket because you had no clothes." I had to really control my emotions before I exploded with fire magicka. I think Ruby could feel my emotions coming to an explosive conclusion because she stepped away from me. "Sorry… did I upset you?"

I shook my head. "Nothing like that. I'm just…easily embarrassed."

She nodded. "Ok, I think I can understand that." She waved for me to join Zera on the bed. "Mind if I ask you some questions about what you experienced the night the town was possessed?" I nodded and limped over to the bed to join Zera. Ruby watched me as I walked. "What's wrong with you?"

"I was on the wrong end of an alchemist fire five days ago. I've been healing and resting for five days, and my body's a little stiff from not moving around too much." Not to mention being tightly wrapped up like a mummy too.

"I'm a healer, you know." Ruby said as she joined us on the bed. "I can get your muscles to loosen up."

I shrugged. "I'm ok with that, but can we get done with this debrief first?"

She nodded, jumping onto the bed with enough force to nearly throw me off. I struggled to stay sitting up, and I did thanks to Zera wrapping her arms around me to keep me up. "So… what do you want to know?" I asked her as she pulled out a pad and quill.

Ruby sat there for a few seconds before tapping the quill on her chin. "I heard from Zera that she felt like she was in a dream where she couldn't control anything she did… but was able to see herself doing it. She told me that you were not affected. Do you know why you weren't affected?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't."

"Did anything feel off before people started acting weird?"

I nodded. "I've experienced the feeling of true darkness before." I looked over at her. "The calling of sentient energy calling me, watching me… trying to compel me to find it, and seize it. Well, just a week before this town was hit by the possession spell, I had noticed that the energy I had felt before was back, stronger than ever. I felt it in a ruin once, but this time…it was everywhere. I couldn't place it though. I didn't know it was that malevolent energy. I thought it was just Gwen messing with me."

"Gwen's the psychotic bitch, right?" Ruby asked with a straight face.

"What? How do you know about her?" Didn't she just get here? Did she meet Father and the others before they went north to the Skaal village?

Ruby looked over at Zera. "Zeratah told me about her." Oh, of course. Zera was scared of Gwen, probably more than I was.

I nodded to Ruby's question. "Yeah, she's pretty messed up."

"So, you noticed this energy before. Where?"

"In a Black Book." I didn't expect her to know what that was, so I was prepared to tell her what I did know of it. Too bad that knowledge was very limited.

"Oh… one of those." She said. She reached over her shoulder and pulled out a backpack. She opened it up and reached inside. She pulled her hand out, and she was holding onto a Black Book.

I almost jumped back as she shoved the Black Book towards me. "Where did you get that?"

She shrugged. "My friend Samantha found it one day. She refuses to open it. Thinks it's dangerous." She ran her hands across the cover. She finally nodded. "Ok, I can feel it now. Yeah… it's pretty dark." She looked over at me. "And you've been feeling something like this the past two weeks?"

I had to remember that I was out cold for a week before I nodded. "Yeah."

"So… let's talk about what happened after the incident started. Give me your story about what happened that night."

I had to think about it. "I was with my family, facing charges of treason. But even then, I could tell something was off. There was this feeling of someone watching us, pulling the strings of everyone's actions and emotions… pushing everything to one specific event. Then, I was forced to find some assassins that were trying to kill Councilor Morvayn. And when we started our investigation, my friends started acting weird. They started saying this phrase… like a mantra. And they repeated it while they started walking over to the giant rock outside the town."

"A mantra?" Ruby rubbed her chin in thought. "A soulic verse, perhaps?" She growled out loud, her ears folding back. "Dammit, Samantha! Why can't you be here instead of me?!" She hissed out loud before looking over at me. She smiled and held up her hand apologetically. "Sorry. My friend was supposed to come here with me, but she was needed in Solitude, so I had to come here alone. She knows all about this older Soulic verse stuff. I'm better at crystals and vibrations and stuff."

"Then why not just look at the rock?" Zera asked.

Ruby's tail flicked as her expression went blank. "Huh…" She looked away from us. "That's crazy. So crazy… that it just might work!" She stood up and nodded to us. "Ok, we're going to look at this stone. You, silent girl!" Ruby shouted to the corner of the room where Mirri sat in a fetal position, her arms wrapped around her legs. She looked up at Ruby for a second before looking back down. "You coming with us?" Mirri only shook her head and placed it on her knees as she sat there in the corner of the room. "Suit yourself." She looked back over at us. "Let's go. Show me where this giant rock is."

Ruby helped me off the bed. I took the lead and started walking for the door. I looked over at Mirri as I came up to the exit. She didn't look at me. She was still trying to ignore all of us. I felt sorry for her. I know what it's like to lose your parent. Brand-Shei was dead and back when I thought he was my father, it had destroyed me inside to know that he wasn't coming back. As I looked at Mirri as she sat there in the corner of the room, I knew exactly what was running in her head. That was me for about a month before I snapped out of it. I nodded to her as we headed out the door.

Ruby was right behind me, looking at Mirri as we left. "What's wrong with her?" She asked as soon as we were out of earshot.

"Remember what I told you about fighting assassins?"

"Yeah."

"Her father was the leader."

"Oh." That was all Ruby said. I heard a low growl in the back of her throat, but she didn't say anything past that. We walked in silence the rest of the way. The town was pretty much back to normal. Although I didn't get to see much of it. Severin Manor was the closest building to the giant rock. It was a short walk before we actually arrived at the sight. The giant rock was surrounded by these wicked looking spines made out of ebony surrounding the rock. As soon as Ruby saw them, she screamed out in surprise. "Whoa!" She cried out as she broke out into a run over to the pillars. She stood there for a second, her tail dropping to the ground. "Now, that's something I don't see every day." She ran her hand over the spines. "Daedric in design."

She looked back at me and I shrugged. "Ok, so what's that mean?"

"A Daedra Lord is trying to do something." Ruby replied as she looked around at the spines sticking out around the stone. "But what exactly?" She seemed to move in a trance as she walked around the stone. She didn't talk for maybe fifteen minutes. She just walked around the structure, touching stuff, sniffing the air… anything you can think of. She even put her hand on the ground and stayed like that for a few minutes.

Zera looked over at me. "What's she doing?"

I shrugged. "Well… when I work on enchanted weapons and whatnot, if I want to know what it's enchanted with, I have to focus on every inch of the weapon to see if it's enchanted with something. However, I have no idea what Ruby is doing."

"I'm trying to determine if there is any sort of trap on the structure." She called over to us as she ran her hand across one of the spines. "There is some powerful Daedric energy built up around these spines. It was built for one very specific purpose." She pointed to the giant rock. "This giant rock is one giant amplification of Aedric magicka. It's a holy stone that is used to connect one to the gods. This structure is somehow using the rock's holy amplification powers to enhance the powers of a Daedric Lord. I don't know which Daedra Lord is trying to create more power for itself, but that's what it's doing."

A Daedra Lord was trying to gather more power? Could it be Sanguine? The way he popped up, I wouldn't be surprised if he was behind something.

"I've felt this particular energy before too." Ruby said, rubbing her chin. "It was a long time ago." She continued to think about it for a long time before shrugging. "I can't think of who it is." She looked over at me. "I know this is a long shot, but do you know any Daedra Lords that might be involved?"

I thought of Sanguine and Hermaeus Mora. So, I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. There is this Daedra Lord I just met like… five days. His name is Sanguine."

Ruby shook her head. "That drunkard? No, this is not his doing."

"Tentacle Rape Monster?" I shrugged.

She chuckled at that. "You call him that too? You talking about that giant eyeball with tentacles?" I nodded. She paused and turned back to giant rock. She closed her eyes, running her hands over everything. "Wait… that's exactly where I remember feeling this!" She looked back at me. "This one time, I was in his home… during a war between the Dreugh and the Lamia."

"The what and the what?" Who were they?

She waved it off like it didn't matter. "Long story. Anyway, I remember feeling this exact pressure inside his realm. He was a weird personality." She shrugged it off. "But… why would the Lord of Fate need more power?" She looked over at me. "Any thoughts at all?"

I shook my head. "No. He seemed powerful enough to make everyone in this town drop what they were doing to build this amplification stone."

Ruby stood there for a minute, thinking of something she was missing. She finally growled and started running her hands in her long blue hair. "This is so confusing!" She finally sighed and looked at me. "Ok… I guess I'm going to be staying here for a while, at least until I can tell your Master what we've learned."

I nodded back to her. "Ok. Do you need someplace to sleep?"

She nodded. "That would be a good place to start." Good, I missed having a roommate.


Cearbhail:

Ok, and... just one more thing. I looked over the calendar to see if there are any special holidays coming up. On the 20th of Sun's Dusk there is the Warrior's Festival. Now... normally this is celebrated by reduced prices for armor and weapons. But... House Redoran will be doing things... a little differently. Everyone, pay close attention. On the day of 20th Sun's Dusk, there will be a tournament. Veselle and Ruby will both be competing. As well as Seth and Mirri. Mhuahahaha!