Cearbhail:
It's been so long, I know. Working night shifts is hitting me pretty hard right now. Waking up and not having enough thought energy to give to this is something I really have to work around. But anyway, I'm back and hopefully for good. I'm already late to going to bed. Sigh... oh well.
=^^= Enjoy...
Battlemage's log: 4e207 14th Eveningstar
It's been about two weeks since Master Neloth left to go recruit the Dragonborn High King for our mission of finding Miraak and ending his monstrous presence on our island. The two of them only returned a few hours ago. For two weeks Master Neloth was gone, I'd spent my days patrolling the town, trying my best to keep everything going. Mistress Ildari locked herself into her personal chambers where she maintained her own sanity from the growing malicious presence in the air by taking a long… long bath. She claimed it would keep her too mentally relaxed to have to give into the madness resting in her head. I just hope she's right. I'd hate having to fight her.
Well, just as I was going mentally crazy and dreaming that Veselle's fake father was killing my only friends at the moment, Master Neloth returned back to the town with the High King behind him. When I refused to open the door, Master Neloth opened it for me, and pretty much told me that they were going to find Miraak and end this. I begged to go along. How could I not? I was so bored! I'm sick of just sitting here, tending to the gardens, and waiting for a better tomorrow today.
So, the three of us left to go find Miraak and put an end to his plans, whatever they were. As soon as we left the safety of our town's barrier, we were met by the rest of the village. They planned to stop us before we even left. Master Neloth took them out in a single spell: Sleep. No one even opposed us past that. And we followed behind the Dragonborn as he started to lead us to the center of the island, where he could feel the most dramatic tension built up as possible. I don't understand his methods, but I'm sure whatever magicka he's using to find Miraak is justified… he is the Dragonborn after all. Anyway, we're just starting to arrive at the temple now. How can I tell? All the bodies.
Mirri Severin, Telvanni Battlemage.
…
"Think we're getting close?" Master Neloth asked the Dragonborn as we glanced down at the hundreds of dragon skeletons gathering around the base of the mountain's pathway. Up at the top of the mountain's pathway was what looked like an ancient temple. One I've seen before from a distance, but was always told to stay away from at all costs. My dad seemed to know about the place, and offered the advice that I should never venture too closely. Now that I know who's been living here this whole time, I get the feeling that dad knew about Miraak this whole time. If only he were still alive and willing to assist us in finding him, not to mention killing him. It was one of those weird times where I actually missed my old father. He may have used me to assassinate the Councilor of this island… and may have tried to kill me when I rejected the offer to kill Veselle, but… he was still my father. I do miss him.
"Yeah… I can taste it in the air. Dragonborn magick." Asger, the Dragonborn High King of Skyrim, said as he sniffed the air. "Just at the top of the mountain… that's where we'll find something worth taking note of." He didn't wait for us as he started heading up the pathway leading to the temple.
I glanced over at Master Neloth. He didn't look quite as sure but he followed behind the Dragonborn, glancing back at me for a moment, nodding. "Keep up, Apprentice Mirri. And keep your eyes open. I suspect this… Miraak will not be appreciative of us walking up to his front door. And Hermeaus Mora will have already reported our walk over here to him."
I tried my best to keep all of that in my head as we walked up the mountain. More and more skeletons of long passed dragons littered the ground, giving the illusion of a great battle once before, in a time that was never properly recorded or maintained. The Dragon War, as some have remembered it. Dad forced me to read about it in whatever tomes the Morag Tong managed to preserve. He thought it might come in handy with the dragons freely roaming the skies. He had a plan to deal with them once Hlaalu regained their power and influence among the Houses of Morrowind.
As we walked the pathway leading up, I started picking out sounds of hammers on stone. As we got closer to the temple, I could see more and more bewitched people walking around. They were busy trying to set up the same stuff that was being built right outside our town. It was some kind of webbing. What the webbing did, I did not really know. It looked like a portal device of some sort. I'm not really good when it comes to portal magicka, or ancient magicka at that. It was probably either really old dragon magick, or really old Daedric magick. Either way… it wasn't good news for anyone. Not to mention… the webbing seemed to be focused around the ancient god-worshiped stones that surrounded the island. There was one such stone outside Tel Mithryn, where my new family was keeping themselves located around. It looked like it was much the same here.
"Just like in Raven Rock." Asger said as he glanced at the people as they continued to hammer away at their massive webbing. Every once in a while, you could hear them mutter something about Miraak and his plan to free the world from the evils they've unleashed.
"Please, you have to listen to me!" We heard a newer, much more Nordic voice, scream ahead. "Ysra! Miraak is using you! You have to break his hold! Oslaf! Please!" She screamed.
Asger smiled. "What's that I hear? A quest giver?" He chuckled as he raced on ahead of us.
Master Neloth sighed, face-palming as he did so. "I do wish he would take this more seriously." He glanced down at me. "Please tell me you've regained your sanity."
Regained my sanity? I've had four hours of social contact; four hours to have real live people chat to me. And I'm introverted. One minute was all I needed to fill my social quota for a year or so. I found myself nodding. "Yes, sir. I'm good now."
He nodded, glancing away. "Good to have the studious Mirri back." He turned back to the running Dragonborn. "We should catch up. He might be running into a trap."
I nodded as the two of us chased after the Dragonborn. As we got closer and closer to the temple, the thicker the webbing that was covering the whole structure became. Whatever this massive webbing was designed to do, I couldn't really tell, but I knew it was dark and evil. You could feel it in the air. The Dragonborn said he could sniff out the dragon magick… and that would mean that this was ancient dragon stuff going on here. This evil thing feeling was somehow tied to dragons, and at the same time we knew it was tied back to Hermeaus Mora somehow. What was this webbing supposed to do? As I looked towards the center, I could see a massive stone, much bigger than the other holy stones that surrounded the island. But why?
"You!" The strange woman voice cried out. "What are you doing here?"
"Frea?" The Dragonborn shouted. By now Master Neloth and I were finally getting into eye sight of the Dragonborn, and what looked like a Skaal warrior. I remember seeing her a few times in Raven Rock. She visited a few times to deliver ash yams to her village, as well as honey from our local vender.
Frea, the strange Skaal warrior with long curly blond hair, waved her arms around at the villagers busily hammering the strange webbing… and I don't even know why they were doing that. It looked fairly finished. "What does it look like, Asger? I'm here for my family! If you haven't noticed, everyone on the island has lost their minds… and the people of my village have forgotten their memories, of our village. Most of my village are busy building something outside of the town… but a few of them have ventured here."
Asger nodded, glancing around the webbing. "Any idea why?"
Frea shook her head. "I am unsure, but my father Storn, our shaman of our village, says that Miraak has returned to Solstheim… but that is impossible."
"Impossible?" Master Neloth asked. "My dear, there is no such thing as impossible. Just undiscovered territory."
"And Miraak has already tried to have me killed." Asger said in his defense.
Frea nodded. "Then it would seem that we both have a reason to be here. Fate has decreed that the two of us would meet again, and once again in undiscovered territory. I wish it we would have met under better circumstances, but we seldom meet like in that fashion."
The Dragonborn nodded. "Yeah… remember last time?"
She nodded. "Yes, I do. I prefer to keep it in the past."
The Dragonborn shrugged. "Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad, was it?"
"Perhaps not for you, but you finished before I had the chance."
He shrugged. "It was not the most ideal ending we could have hoped for but… you have to admit… for what we had going on at the time… it was the best I could have given to the effort."
"What?" I couldn't help but ask. And as soon as I did, everyone looked down at me.
The two adults glancing at me quickly averted their eyes. Frea glanced back at the Dragonborn, pointing her armored finger at him. "We will continue this conversation later. For now, we must deal with Miraak."
Asger nodded. "Of course, but first… you're obviously here on a mission. And just like last time, you know all the details of how to get the job done quickly and effectively."
She smirked. "Sorry, I forgot my lotion this time."
That brought a laugh from Asger. "You know what I meant. And… that lotion didn't help nearly as much as you think it did. I still had a lot of burning and pealing skin to deal with."
That brought a laugh from her. "As I would expect after having to face down a dragon lord. A problem a lot of men have when facing the dragon. They enter her lair thinking they'll just knock things around, slay the dragon, and walk out unscathed, but… as soon as they're in… they find out they can't just walk out in one piece."
I started covering my ears, hoping that whatever they were talking about was not what I thought they were talking about. As I did so, Master Neloth glanced back at me, rolling his eyes. "Apprentice Mirri, steady yourself. You might learn a thing or two from this conversation. Vital quest objectives, in fact." What vital quest objectives could I possible learn from two people talking about their sexual encounter years ago?
As I glanced at the talking Dragonborn and his once 'acquainted' friend, Asger asked, "All joking aside, Frea. I know you do your homework before you set off on an adventure. So, Miraak. I know some things about him… like he's a Dragonborn or something like that. Any intel you wish to share with the group?"
Frea nodded. "Miraak is an ancient name from a forgotten time, old as any history from Solstheim can be. He used to serve the dragons back when they were the rules of man. He was one of their respected priests, like the skeletal ones I'm sure you've faced by now."
Asger shrugged. "Only two, I think." He started counting on his fingers. "There was the one in the Labyrinthian… and the one guarding the entrance to Sovngarde. Other than those two, I don't think I've faced any other ones."
Frea shrugged. "Whatever the case might be, Miraak was different. When it came time for the dragon rebellion, Miraak turned his back on the dragons. He sought his own path, and sought to claim Solstheim as his own. The dragons didn't like that however. And you can see how that ended for them." She pointed back towards the pathway, which I knew was filled with hundreds of skeletal remains of the dragons that were here before.
Asger nodded. "Ok, so I think I know more of what's going on. What else can you tell me?"
"Well…" She started to say before lightning crashed down all around us. I looked for the cause of the lightning, and found it in the form of those brainwashed worshipers that wore those ugly tentacle masks.
"Great… more of them." Asger said as he started raising a small protective Shield spell, absorbing the incoming barrage of lightning. "Thank you, Master Tolfdir!"
More and more of the cultists started running over towards us through a small pathway leading into the temple. They were all using some kind of magicka to fight us. Fire, Frost, and Lightning… the only Destruction spells anyone ever seems to know for some odd reason, flew all around us. Master Neloth and the Dragonborn quickly went to work, evading the cultists' attacks while sending back their own magicka attacks. Frea, the Skaal warrior, was getting ready to fight as well.
I watched as the Skaal pulled out two wicked battle axes, screaming a Nordic war cry before charging in to fight the nearest cultists near her. She moved like a hurricane, slashing her axes with a grace I had practiced many times, and have only ever seen in the way my mom and dad moved when they sparred with each other, a grace I had never obtained. As she charged the field, all I could see behind her were severed limbs and bleeding corpses.
I shook my head as I watched the Dragonborn Shout people apart with FUS. I watched as Master Neloth teleported people's heads off their bodies, making them pop up inside someone else's chest or somewhere else. And here I was… the trained assassin… just standing here and watching. It felt glorious to watch masters do their thing, but I couldn't just stand back. I had to do something.
I scanned the battlefield for something I could do… someone I could fight. And I finally found a cultist just standing around like an idiot, watching the same fight I was watching unfold. He would be my battle. I unsheathed Veselle's Daedric naginata and flashed up to the poor unsuspecting cultist. He didn't really have much time to react to me either. As soon as I flashed up to him, he jumped back, a bit surprised. He squealed out a muffled scream as I thrust the naginata into his chest.
The cultist reacted pretty well, I was surprised. As soon as I thrust out at him, his left hand snatched out, knocking it away from him at the last minute by use of a Telekinesis spell… or Repulse spell. I think it was the latter one; I would know because I've been working on a Telekinesis spell of my own, and his seemed just a bit different, more pulse-like.
So, as my thrust harmlessly grazed past him, he threw his arms up into the air. "No! Please, I'm not like them!" He sounded so young. When I got a closer look at him, I noticed he wasn't as tall or as well-built as the other cultists. He looked like a young teen, perhaps even my age.
Too bad I was the only one that heard him. "IISS!" The Dragonborn Shouted. I had just enough time to look behind me to see a giant cloud of white stuff flying into my face. I turned around quickly and wrapped my arms around the cultist, both trying to protect him… and kind of out of fear of what was flying at us. Next thing I knew, I was incased in a full sheet of immobilizing ice. Just me and… the boy… wrapped up in my arms.
"What is this?" He managed to squeak out through his frozen mouth.
"Apprentice Mirri…" Master Neloth's muffled voice quietly worked its way through my elven ears. "I don't know what your father taught you during your training drills, but… we do not hug our enemies before we kill them. Now… you're going to sit in there and think about what you've done. Let the embarrassment of being sealed with your worst enemy sink into you. Let his warm body rubbing against yours be a constant reminder of this embarrassing act of mercy."
Yeah… I didn't really need him reminding me of the cultist's warm body pressed up against mine. If I could talk, I would be yelling at Master Neloth that he wasn't our enemy… I think. I'm not sure. As I looked around, trying to look anywhere but at the cultist's mask… I had time to register the fact that I… a very socially awkward battle-trained assassin was… trapped in a giant sheet of ice with my arms wrapped around a teenage cultist. In a way… I was a cultist too. My father was the cult leader, and I was his daughter, and number one trained executioner of his will. Yeah… I was raised in a cult. And this boy… was he in the same position I was? Raised in a cult? In the wrong place at the wrong time, but making the right choice when it mattered?
"Hey…" I managed to open my mouth enough to voice my thoughts at him. "Your father's a cultist, isn't he?"
"No." He replied. "There were reavers, hired by some witch a year ago to collect farmers for experimentation. My father's farm was hit… and the reavers took us all prisoner, expect my parents. They were the only ones to be killed for some reason. Then… one day all the reavers just went crazy. Started doing things, saying weird things about Miraak. And they took all of us prisoners… taking us up to this temple. People in robes marched out to greet us. Those of us with magicka… they tried to turn us into more of them. Made us drink this black stuff. Drove everyone crazy… me? I was smart. I was able to use my magicka to keep the liquid from traveling into my stomach to be processed. I repeated the same line everyone else did, and pretended to be just like them. Waiting for a chance to get away."
Wow… that must have been scary for him. A farmer that managed to survive a reaver raid and an abduction by these cultists. "Sorry to hear that." I turned my eyes over to Master Neloth. "Sir… I think he's on our side."
"I know you're trying to say things, Mirri, but I cannot hear you. Don't worry, we'll kill this evil cultist as soon as the ice thaws out. You have my word. Oh, and don't worry, I'll be sure to erase my memory of this embarrassing event from my head so that you are not constantly worried over your failure to kill even the smallest of enemies."
The boy scoffed. "Jerk."
"I heard that, cultist!" Master Neloth screamed at us.
"Oh, you heard that, but not me not being a cultist!" The boy screamed.
"Dragonborn, did you catch that last part?" Master Neloth's voice sounded less and less muffled. I think I felt my back starting to warm up. I didn't like that the more and more I was pressed up against this boy… the more uncomfortable I felt. I've been tortured before, but this was… different. I couldn't explain this shit, but I wanted it to stop. It was distracting, so very distracting. "It sounded like he's confessing to being a cultist."
"Please get me out of here." I tried to say.
The boy scoffed at me this time. "I'm not enjoying this either."
Of all the things that could have happened today, I was not expecting it to be this. I definitely did not expect it to end like this.
"Don't worry, Mirri. I almost have this ice melted. Just a second… longer… IISS!" He Shouted at us, which I felt hit me right in the back again, wrapping around us.
"Oh… come on!" Master Neloth muffled. "Why?"
"Sorry, I sneezed. I've grown a temporary allergy to romantic encounters." The Dragonborn muffled too.
Romantic encounters? Was he talking about his encounter with Frea earlier? That is when he started Shouting ice everywhere. "I just want this to be over." I squeaked out with what I hoped was a heavy sigh. How was I even breathing? Shouldn't I be dying from asphyxiation or something like that by now?
"I just wish I wasn't trying to push you away when we became trapped in ice." He mumbled back. I finally decided to look down and saw that both of his hands were placed perfectly on my breastplate. I really wanted nothing more than to kick him in the balls right now, if only I could move my leg out of that region to do so again.
"You think they'll figure out we're doing this on purpose?" Frea asked muffled from near the Dragonborn.
The Dragonborn chuckled to himself. "I've seen this many times before, with Ruby… Maleek… It's so classic that even I can't not see it happening. So… why not just make them face it now?" He tapped on the ice. "Kiss already!" He screamed to us.
Kiss? He wanted me to kiss this boy… that I just met? I'm an introvert. I need at least six years of solid crystal ball communication, with little personal contact, to even allow him to see me in person for longer than six seconds before saying that we're moving too fast. Besides, I didn't even know the boy's name, let alone what he looked like underneath all that tentacle mask.
The boy seemed to find this oddly amusing. "You have some weird friends."
"Not my friends… they're… well… one's my employer, one's a king… the other is… someone I've never met before." Why was he suddenly becoming chummy with me? I guess we weren't really enemies at the moment, otherwise I would have let him die incased in ice instead of protecting him the way I did. The fact that we were still even breathing was a miracle. We didn't have a large bubble to breathe through. "How are we still alive? I should have suffocated by now."
"I'm teleporting in new air for us." He replied. "Kind of like what I did with that liquid. Teleportation and Repulsion… the only two spells I can work with."
Teleportation. He could teleport things? "And… you haven't teleported us out of here because…?"
That seemed to hit him hard. "Huh…" I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "I really hadn't thought of it. I'm not sure I'm strong enough to teleport both of us though. And once I do it with one of us… I won't have enough magicka left to get the other one out. If I leave… you'll die alone in here without someone to keep you warm. If I teleport you out… I'll run out of air and suffocate. So, I'll take the nice teleportation of air and warmth over suffocation and freezing, thanks very much."
I can't fault him on that. And he was probably right. "Fair enough."
And we stayed kind of like that for a few minutes. I could actually tell when he was teleporting in new air for us to breathe. I wish my arms weren't firmly wrapped around his back the way they were… since most of my magicka is directed through my palms and legs, I can't do much if they aren't at least pointing at the thing I want to kill or obliterate. My palms were pressed right into his back, aimed right back at me. Sure, I would survive, but he wouldn't. I might have enough force to break myself out of here, but he'd die. And I promised I would not waste unnecessary lives. I was trained as an assassin, but I won't kill like one.
"Don't worry!" The Dragonborn screamed as loudly as he could. "We're doing everything we can't to not get you out!" Jeez, just try to be subtle for once. "IISS!" I felt even more ice slam down around us. This was officially my first impression of the Dragonborn. Nothing I've heard about him from Ruby, or what I've read in Veselle's Chronicles Series… this… This will be my first official impression of the Dragonborn.
"High King… while I do enjoy torturing my young protégés to some degree, and I do find it necessary to install confidence in one's abilities as a mage… I must express that I feel that we are wasting too much time on this fun. We should hurry." Master Neloth muffled out from our left side.
The Dragonborn scoffed at the idea. "Me? Waste time? No, I don't think you understand how I work. Until I go into that temple… I swear to you… nothing will progress further. I could take you and everyone and go down to Elsweyr, get drunk, and then wake up on a pirate ship… and when we come back, nothing will have changed at all." What kind of evidence did he build his thought patterns on? He just thought that he could just ignore our plight and go do something else while we all just lived through this crap? What a jerk!
"High King… I understand if this is above your station. This is not Skyrim, and you don't have official worries here. You've only been harassed by the same cultists we have… and they will continue to harass you and your children until they've been dealt with, but I get it. You're very busy. We will do what we can, but without you… I'm afraid it won't be sufficient. I was told to get the Dragonborn; he was the only one that could kill Miraak once and for all."
The Dragonborn laughed. "I'm not saying any of that. I know how severe the problem here is, and I'm not leaving until I've fixed this island. But… if we ignore the little things while on this grand quest… you might learn that you've missed a lot of important steps along the way." He tapped the ice shell we were trapped in. "Like young love. These two… if I left them unattended… the boy would have probably left us after the battle was over, and resumed his life at the farm by himself, since his parents are dead and all that. Or abducted by reavers later on… I don't know. But, now he's with us. Because… I'm forcing him." He tapped on the ice again. "You're with us now, kid. And Mirri… kiss him."
"I'm so not doing that!" I screamed back.
There was a laugh from outside the ice. "Ah-huh. Sure you aren't." And just like that, the ice began to melt… and all at once. Before I knew what was happening, I felt out legs give out. And I was already moving forward when we were frozen against each other. That momentum, I didn't know it at the time, had frozen us sideways. We were already falling into each other's faces by the time we were frozen, I just hadn't realized it yet. And the fact that the boy was wearing a mask didn't stop our lips from touching. I think the cold made the mask weaker or something. It shattered once I landed on his face.
It was a weird second. I was lying on top of him, and our lips were touching. And the weird thing was… I didn't hate it, and I did enjoy it a lot. I didn't know anything about the boy: his name, his hobbies, or anything other than we both didn't have parents anymore. Well, Teldryn is pretty much my father now, so I guess I can't really say that. What the weird part was… knowing nothing about this boy, and having been socially distant for as long as I have been, not to mention trained to be, I found that we weren't pushing each other away. I wasn't doing everything I could to avoid this. I think I could have formulated sixty different ways to catch myself when we unfroze… made it so that this whole thing could have been avoided. Did I secretly want this to happen? Did I know how to land to make it happen? So many things running around in my brain as I lied there on top of him.
"Ok, this is horrendous to watch, and we really need to get moving." Master Neloth said.
"But…" Frea said as she walked up with a bucket of popped corn. "I just put butter on this! Can it wait?"
"NO!" Master Neloth said. "My daughter's health is declining by the second! I want her out of her bed and safe!" That's right! Veselle was suffering while I was suffering… maybe. I'm not sure. This suffering was perhaps my favorite kind of suffering so far.
As our lips parted, and I started to push myself up and off the boy, I heard him gasp, "Rynamel Dres…"
"Mirri Severin." I replied. Well, at least I know his name now. That's a start, I guess.
"And… back to the task at hand." The Dragonborn said, nodding. "My job here with these two is over."
Cearbhail:
So... who saw that coming? I didn't. No, really. I didn't. That was an instance where I was like... I should make Mirri do something. Perhaps run through countless enemies, using her marital arts and assassination skills, not to mention her wands and naginata, to carve through everyone and showcase her new magicka... or... I'll write in a cute boy. Make them kiss. Yeah... much better idea. I like that. Might as well. Maybe have her kill him later on too, once everyone is attached to him. yeah! Perfect... oh... I shouldn't have said that out loud. Or written it... and not erased it... huh...
