And another chapter. I finally fell like we're making some progress here, and you'll all see why. I've also noticed that the cast is getting quite large :P. Oh well, that's the price of writing something as a Living World. People gathering to travel in groups don't care that someone beyond the fourth Wall has to keep up with all of them.
Enjoy, everyone!
After a few days of travel, Ruby and Lydia arrived in Whiterun only to find Yang not there. The only evidence of their presence was a note they found on the kitchen table telling them where she and Weiss went. Ruby crashed down onto the bed and released a heavy sigh before looking at the note again. With a groan, she set it aside again while Lydia walked into the room, still wearing her ever present armor. Now that Ruby thought about it, the armor was starting to look a little dinged up. They might have to get Eorlund or Adrianne to look at it soon, but right now they had bigger concerns.
"Yang and Weiss went on an adventure without me," she whined, sprawled on the bed. Lydia raised an eyebrow and sat on the chair nearby, a bottle of Honningbrew Mead in her hand.
"Does it say where?"
"Someplace called Ilinalta's Deep." Ruby shrugged, not knowing where that was.
"It is on the top of Lake Ilinalta, west of the middle." Startled at the sudden voice, both Ruby and Lydia quickly looked over to see a young Ohmes Khajiit girl looking at the map pinned to the wall of the room. She smiled brightly at them both, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth. "Hello."
"How did you get in here?!" Lydia demanded as she grasped the hilt of her sword and got to her feet, Ruby following in her footsteps.
"She came in the front door. Blake let her in."
"Blake?" Ruby heard some footsteps coming closer and saw her teammate come in.
"Hey, M'rissi, we don't have any fish, but Inigo went to Anoriath to see if he has any… Oh, hey Ruby, Lydia. When did you guys get here?"
"Like five minutes ago! When did you get here?" Ruby shot back curiously.
"Maybe an hour ago. I went to talk to Ulfberth and Adrianne while M'rissi stayed at the house. Inigo's shopping, but he should be back soon."
"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Ruby asked the Khajiit, who smirked.
"She wanted to make sure you were not home invaders, but you became so at home she knew you lived here, so she knew you were Blake's friends. You are the little Ruby, yes?"
"Uh, yeah? Hey, I'm not that little!"
M'rissi then reached over and placed a hand on Ruby's head. For a moment the two stayed still, then Ruby looked up, forced to meet the eyes of the girl, who she realized was a few inches taller than her. She reached up to remove the hand, only for M'rissi to dodge her grasp and then place it back. Ruby tried a few more times rapidly, before yelling and full tackling M'rissi, who laughed as she spun them around and nearly pinned Ruby, who then slipped away and tried to grapple her from behind.
"M'rissi, no wrestling in the house," Blake commanded before giving an exasperated sigh. "I swear, it's like she's a child sometimes."
"Ah, yes. That feeling," Lydia reflected, her and Blake giving each other sympathetic looks. "So another friend of yours is getting some fish?"
"The friend has the fish!" a masculine voice called from downstairs. M'rissi suddenly shot away from her tussle with Ruby and then downstairs. Ruby blazed after her, and Lydia realized just how fast the girl had gone when Ruby was only a bit faster than what she'd pulled. The older two followed after them at a more moderate pace to see M'rissi staring with joy at a basket in a blue-furred Khajiit's hands while holding Ruby in a headlock.
"It would appear that we are not the only ones here. Greetings, friends. I am Inigo," the Khajiit introduced himself with a slight bow. Lydia looked over his armor and then grimaced hard. The blue Khajiit's ears went up, but Blake was already stepping between them, taking the basket from Inigo and heading into the kitchen with it.
"Ack, Lydia! Help! I can't get loose!"
M'rissi dug into her salmon steak with gusto that outdid Blake's. Everyone else ate normally, but Lydia kept throwing glances at Inigo, who seemed more than perplexed about her aggressive staring. Ruby noticed it as well, and it was becoming a concern for her rather quickly.
"So, how're things, Blake?"
"Good, all things considered." Blake chewed her fish, savoring the flavor. She would have to thank Lydia, that woman knew how to cook. Likely a housecarl thing. "Got a list of names, already sent it to Maro. Just might start seeing the results pretty soon."
"What do you mean?" Ruby already suspected the answer had something to do with the destruction of the Dark Brotherhood. Even if they hadn't told her, she would have figured it out by now. Several people they had ran into on the road and in town had been jumping for joy at that piece of particular news, and with word that their destroyer was an ebony-haired Khajiit, it wasn't hard to put two and two together.
"There were a handful of guardsmen in every Hold affiliated with the Dark Brotherhood," Blake confirmed, causing Ruby to slightly sigh in understanding. "Some were little more than contacts, but a couple could have been assassins as well at some point."
"Guardsmen?" Lydia asked, suddenly interested in the conversation. "Where'd you get such information?"
"From the Thieves' Guild," M'rissi admitted happily before raking in the last bite of her meal and then looking towards everyone else's plates.
"So, you are a part of the Thieves' Guild," she said towards Inigo, glaring. "I knew I recognized that armor from somewhere."
"Last I checked it is not illegal to wear a certain armor." Inigo glared right back, unflinching. "Besides, this armor is comfy, and has plenty of pockets."
"Oh geez," Ruby mumbled, seeing the upcoming argument. 'I knew I was forgetting something...'
"Oh boy, this isn't going to help the image problem at all, is it?" Blake wondered aloud before taking a deep breath. M'rissi tried to sneak her fork towards her plate, but Blake stabbed hers down hard next to the girl's hand, making her squeal slightly and pull away. "Okay, so… You know how I killed off most of the Dark Brotherhood."
"Half the Empire knows it by now," Lydia acquiesced. "How's that connected to the Thieves' Guild of all things?"
"I knew there had to be something after getting a 'warning' from some henchman belonging to Maven Black-Briar. There's nothing solid between them, but they are offering me information in exchange for work."
"You're working for the Thieves' Guild?!" Lydia shouted in rage, slamming her fist onto the table with her face warped in a snarl.
"Lydia, calm down," Ruby commanded. The housecarl looked like she wanted to press further, but obeyed her Thane's wishes. "Blake's not there because she wants to be a thief. She's basically like an undercover agent trying to find a bunch of murderers. It's not like she has to do anything really bad."
"Worst thing I did was pry some information from a rich bee farmer. Tried to be nice, but he wanted to be stubborn about it."
"M'rissi stole a belt!" the girl yelled out while holding up her fork as if in victory.
"Not now, M'rissi!" Blake hissed, making the Khajiit girl shrink into herself.
Lydia looked between the Faunus and her charge a few times. She sighed and then pointed her fork towards Blake.
"Fine. I won't say or do anything about it for now," Lydia acquiesced. Blake moved to talk, but was interrupted as Lydia raised her fork at her again. "But if I see you -any of you- doing something illegal, I will arrest you."
"That's fair, I suppose." Blake shrugged and took a sip of her drink. "I'll do my best not to do anything illegal around you."
"Blake…" Ruby groaned. "Phrasing…"
"Anyways," Inigo started up, hoping to change the subject, "how long will your other friends be? The Weiss one will be going back to the College, yes? We are planning to go up that way before returning to Riften."
"Oh, we're going after them," Ruby announced, pulling herself out of the slight funk she'd nearly fallen in.
"Ruby, they'll be there and done by the time we reach them."
"We're taking a shortcut!" Ruby pulled out her map and pointed at two little pictures of stairs on either side of the mountain directly next to Bleak Falls. "Just southwest of the Western Watchtower there's a cave that goes almost straight through the mountain, and it exits a little east of Ilinalta's Deep, which used to be Keep Ilinalta before it slid down into the lake or something. Must've been some bad architecture."
"Where did you learn about that?" Blake asked, her eyes tracing the path Ruby laid out.
"Elrindir told me about it. But it was more like he was warning me about it than telling me to head there. Should be fine though. He said something about a necromancer, but Lydia and I have taken care of…a lot…of those." Ruby seemed to go glassy-eyed for a moment, before putting a smile on her face again. "Besides, I've got Dawnbreaker, so any undead will be cut down like that," she explained with a snap of her fingers.
"Dawnbreaker?"
Ruby answered by reaching back, grabbing one of her swords and then pulling it partly from its sheath, showing the bright guard and glowing blade to them.
"Ooh, shiny," both Khajiits remarked at the same time.
"Where did you get that?" Blake asked as she looked the sword over.
"Remember Meridia's beacon? Well, I returned it, went into her temple, and stopped a necromancer. Huh, now that I think about it, he never said anything. Didn't even shout in pain. I think he was mute. Eh, whatever. He's dead now. Twice."
"What?"
"Oh, well Lydia stabbed him when he went to attack me, but then some kind of shade popped out of his corpse and started throwing magic around, so I killed that thing. Then Meridia gave me a sword, floated me into the sky, and told me to carry it until I ran into its rightful owner. She wouldn't tell me who it was though, just kept saying that I 'would know'. How am I supposed to know who to give a magical sword to if I've never met them before?" Ruby rambled while Blake stared worryingly at the glowing sword, her mind fighting back invasive whispers almost by instinct at this point.
"Ruby, that thing doesn't…try to make you do things, does it?" Blake asked with trepidation in her voice, something Lydia picked up on but said nothing about.
"No. Not really." Ruby shook her head. "It gets warmer and does a little shake whenever we get close to undead stuff, but it's more like it's getting excited. Or maybe it's getting angry? Angry that they're there, but excited to destroy them. Oh, it makes undead explode when I kill them with it, by the way. Don't be scared though, the explosion's totally harmless to living things." The lone exception to their group went unsaid, but still understood.
"Okay, so no voices in your head telling you to go out of your way to kill things?" Blake pointedly asked, her eyes never leaving the sword.
"No, Blake. That's silly. Meridia's about as subtle as a flashlight in your face. Think of how bossy Weiss was in the beginning. Meridia's worse than that. If she wants me to do something, she'll just yell at me." Ruby scrunched up her face in thought. "Now that I think about it, I don't think Weiss and Meridia would ever get along. Their personalities are too similar."
"That's…good, I guess." Blake seemed relieved at that.
"Anyways, it shouldn't be too long. A couple hours walk at most to get there, an hour to go through, and we'll practically be there. Meanwhile, Yang and Weiss are taking the long way."
"Well, that spell is really useful," Yang commented as the green, magical aura fell away from her. "I might not have as big a magicka pool as you guys, but it sure beats running the whole way, or slowly walking. Surprised more travelers don't use it."
"It loses effectiveness when you are traveling in a larger group, I'd imagine," Weiss guessed as she overlooked the keep ruins half submerged. "Threatened by water, yet untouched by it…" Cupping her chin, she walked out along a bridge made to connect the ground to one of the old towers. Seeing a trapdoor, she bent down and opened it before going in and climbing down. J'zargo was immediately behind her, but opted to leap down, landing on his feet on the water filled floor. As he looked around, he reached back to help her down. The others began to file in while the two observed their surroundings.
"I don't think they wanted us here," J'zargo remarked when they all got an eyeful of the long-rotted skeleton hanging from a pillar.
"Well, too bad for them. We're here." Weiss glared as she pulled out Myrtenaster. The others, once they saw the skeleton, readied themselves as well, the mages making themselves cast ready and Yang unfolding Ember Celica. As the group slowly passed by the column, Yang paused and smirked.
"Kinda amazing, right?" She placed her hands on her hips.
"Um, what?" Onmund asked, clearly confused. The other mages were as well, while Weiss let out a preemptive sigh.
"Despite being surrounded by water, this guy's bone dry." Yang quipped with a smirk. Onmund let out a small laugh, but everyone else just groaned internally. Shaking her head, Yang led the way forward. They walked through another flooding room and then headed down a set of stairs, where things were surprisingly dry, though puddles still dotted the floors.
"We must be deep under the lake at this point," Brelyna pointed out. "How is it this place hasn't been completely filled with water?"
"I have no idea," Weiss answered, "but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few enchantments in place keeping most of the water out, or perhaps a system pushing it out as it comes in."
Weiss's contemplations halted as they emerged into the next room. Inside they found a woman preparing to eat a meal, with a skeleton standing guard. The set of reanimated bones went to draw an axe, but Yang burst forward and smashed through it while Brelyna sent a lightning bolt at the necromancer, who was hastily readying a green spell. Two more necromancers entered from the next room, one firing ice spikes from either hand while the other seemed focused on some other magic. Onmund quickly raised a ward that the ice spells shattered against while J'zargo tossed a fireball between them, sending both flying from the explosion. As they came down, Yang socked one across the face, sending her in a mid-air spin before she landed in a puddle, and Weiss grasped the other one and sent lightning coursing through her before tossing her away. A skeleton came running at them, but Yang casually tossed a Firebolt at it.
"Well, that was easy. Not that I was expecting it to be hard, but I'm used to punching more than twice before bringing everybody down." She looked into the next room to see the table set with a few plates of food and drinks. "Guess we interrupted their dinner."
The team of five went through the keep, fighting off the necromancers who never numbered more than two in any one place. The strongest one among them was a Dunmer male who had been in a room with a drawbridge, standing over some sort of altar he was using for experimentation. Yang leapt across the watery gap separating them while the mages did away with the skeletons and raised bodies. She landed gracefully despite her heavy armor then thumbed her nose as she squared up with the necromancer.
"What's up?" she asked with a smirk.
The mage's response was to throw twin blasts of frozen air directly onto her, far stronger than any Frostbite spell she had ever encountered.
"AH! Cold! Why is it always cold!?"
Yang blocked the streams from hitting her face with one arm while aiming blindly with the other. She let loose her own stream of flames at the Dunmer, who cried out in surprise, but didn't seem all that affected other than his clothes being heavily scorched. An ice spike shot out from across the way and pierced one of his arms, earning another cry before Yang slammed a fist into his chin. The mer groaned and fell, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, while Yang stood for a moment with her teeth chattering.
"Yang, could you pull that chain and let the bridge down?"
"S-sure thing, Bree. One of-f-f-f-f you mind heating me up a bit when you get ov-v-v-ver here?"
As the bridge lowered and the mages crossed, Brelyna summoned a flame in one hand and a healing spell in the other, and began hovering the flame close to Yang while letting the healing spell flow into her.
"Never saw a Nord get cold so quickly," she commented, letting the magic work its way onto Yang's body.
"Not a Nord, unfortunately. I just happen to look like one." Yang rubbed her hands together, her teeth still chattering.
"Oh? Well, that sounds like it'd be interesting to know more about. All I've been able to get from Weiss is that she came from a rich family. I was thinking a Breton merchant family."
"Close, but not quite. We'll tell you more when there's less chance of us being exploded or turned into meat puppets."
After looting a few spellbooks and a glass dagger, they went on up a flight of stairs and then unbarred the door before them. They then found themselves in the same room where they started, just up on the balcony they had seen water pouring from upon entering.
"Did we miss a door?" Weiss wondered aloud. "There were a few bedrooms back there. Maybe one connects to another hall?" While the mages began looking around, Yang hummed to herself while standing in place. She stuck a finger into her mouth and let it out, feeling a slight pull in the air. She followed it, and came upon another door.
"This way guys," she called out, getting the attention of the college students. Weiss blushed a little at missing something that had been so close, but J'zargo's hand patted her shoulder.
"We all did not see it. Do not be down. Your idea was sound and logical, very well thought out, more than the rest of us."
"Thank you, J'zargo. But you were the one who began looking for any secret switches or pressure stones. I've no doubt you would have likely been the first of us to find the right way."
Yang covered her mouth to keep her chuckling from being heard, while Onmund and Brelyna just quietly groaned.
"How long?" she whispered to the other two.
"Two weeks now," Brelyna complained. "I was starting to have hope when I didn't hear them at it on the way from Whiterun."
"They were just quieter about it," Onmund bemoaned. "Now they've gotten comfortable with Yang around."
"You guys complaining? Hah, this is hilarious! I'm gonna have to give Weiss some pointers though."
"No," Brelyna gasped.
"How could you?" Onmumd's eyes widened. Their reactions only caused Yang to laugh, looking forward to the endless amount of material she was getting. As the group continued forward, they soon slowed as they heard voices up ahead.
"More souls are needed for the Star," they heard someone say. "The last one died before he could be harvested."
"We can't take another villager from the surface so soon," a woman answered him quickly. "I thought I told you to prepare everything properly!"
"We can just sacrifice another disciple," the other mage coldly suggested, causing Yang to growl. "Apprentice Arryn will be no great waste."
"Yes… He'll do." Onmund snarled at this and moved past the others, who were already moving towards the entrance.
"Too bad, you two are about to be some waste," Onmund said as he came out with spells ready, trying to emulate the Hero of Kvatch, only for his eyes to widen as she realized his mistake. "Wait! That came out wrong!"
"How in Oblivion?" the man shouted as he went to stand, only to be blindsided by a spectral bear. The woman jumped up ready to bathe Onmund in flames, but then found herself caught in a chokehold where her fire did nothing to save her. As she started to grow weakened, two hands caught her chin and spun her head, creating a resounding wet snap of bone.
"Gods, Yang!" Weiss decried as Onmund wretched at the gruesome scene, beginning to feel sick.
"Hey, your guy was mauled bear-style. At least this chick didn't feel anything. I-" Yang's rebuttal stopped as she noticed something off about the woman, mainly that her eyes were frantically moving. "Oh… Oh god, she's still looking around!"
"That's because you paralyzed her. Breaking people's necks doesn't necessarily kill them," Brelyna ruefully explained as she prepared an ice spike. It didn't matter if she was her enemy, no one deserved their last moments to be like this. "They do die after you've done it, but it takes a while, depending on whether their lungs keep working or not." She fired it through the woman's head, ending her life.
"That's not how it went in Xan Wick at all," Yang sighed, letting her arms droop.
"Real life isn't like a movie, Yang," Weiss admonished. "Like the smell. They never have the smell in the movies. Let's get out of here before it gets real bad."
"Oh yeah, that smell's the worst. You could throw a skunk on top of that and it'd be an improvement. Not as bad outside, but an enclosed place like this? Bleh!" Yang shuddered and gagged, already feeling the stench enter her nostrils.
"Tell me about it," Weiss sighed. Yang quickly patted her teammate's shoulder in sympathy. Their enhanced senses certainly had some drawbacks of their own, it seemed.
"This one is confused. What were these movies you both mentioned?" J'zargo raised his eyebrow, the other mages echoing his expression.
"Imagine a picture, but it moves and makes sound. Usually to tell a story," Weiss described. "I'll try reinventing it if I ever find myself stuck in my main research. After I solve our communication problem."
"Wait, communication problem?" Yang looked at Weiss, confused.
"I'm trying to find out a way for us to use magic to communicate quickly over long distances. It's early, but I think I can modify the accounting enchantment banks use to allow for instantaneous communication over long distances. I've yet to figure out exactly what goes into that enchantment, but with luck I'll-"
"So you're trying to make a magic phone?" Yang's quick summarization caused Weiss to stop and glare.
"...Yes, I'm trying to make a magic phone," Weiss continued to glare at Yang, who only smiled and continued onward.
"What's a phone?" Onmund whispered to Brelyna, who only shrugged. She hadn't the foggiest clue, and a quick look at J'zargo confirmed the same for him. Deciding to shelve the question for later, the three mages quickly followed Weiss and Yang.
The next room was a prison with a single guard, easily taken care of when Onmund turned the skeleton behind him against him, causing the undead to stab a rusty dagger into his back before it fell apart. Beyond there was a room far more flooded, with a man scraping meat off of human bones and into the fetid looking pool. Careful to remain out of the water, Weiss sent a lightning bolt through him, which caused his entire body to pulsate for a moment before he fell over and sank, smoldering as he did. The group then went up the stairs, half expecting another encounter, but instead finding a room devoid of life, bones scattered everywhere, and a corpse set in front of a dry skeleton upon which rested a star-shaped object. Weiss walked forward and picked up the item, the main piece of which was as large as her whole hand.
"So this is Azura's Star," she breathed as she looked it over. "It…looks damaged."
"Likely thanks to these corpse humpers profaning such a holy object while trying to twist it to their own desires," J'zargo said as he came up to observe the skeleton. "So this was Malyn. He left long before any of us entered, but it seems he died long before then as well. Good riddance." He spat upon the bones before turning towards a book set nearby. He picked it up and opened it before flipping around a few pages, then snarled. "What a fool! He's only damned himself, not discovered immortality!"
"Immortality is not all it's cracked up to be, and I've only been immortal for a couple months," Weiss sighed before looking around. "Well, let's get out of this place…as soon as I've scoured this for anything of value." The heiress went over to a large chest and opened it before scraping out a few handfuls of coins into a bag and then picking through some items of interest.
"Has she always been like that?" Onmund asked, quietly observing Weiss rummage through some boxes.
"From the first time we delved into a crypt together, yes."
"See guys, it's not so bad," Ruby pointed out after she plucked the gem from a Soul Gem trap. Two skeletons rushed at her, but she easily drew out Dawnbreaker and sliced through them, causing both to explode in blue, holy fire. M'rissi and Blake jumped, but Inigo seemed to be interested in it.
"That blade is a thing of beauty! And pretty colors!" he gushed, his eyes wide and starry.
"Yeah, it's pretty cool. But I still prefer my sweetheart." Ruby quickly sheathed the sword and took out Crescent Rose, the unfolding weapon surprising the two Khajiits even further.
"How in the world…?"
"Blake, your friend has a scythe bigger than she is," M'rissi whimpered from behind Blake's back. "Why is the cute one so scary?"
"She's not scary. …Outside of combat." Blake quickly added that last part when Ruby's attention was elsewhere.
"Or playing children's games," Lydia added as they started heading forward. Blake eyed the housecarl, knowing that there was a story behind that, but decided to shelve the question for later. Upon reaching the top of the stares, Ruby began to move forward, only to stop then put her hand out and a finger to her lip.
"Hear that?" she whispered. The group all remained quiet and stretched their hearing to the limit. Somewhere, mixed with the wind, they could hear someone singing.
"~ Singing "oh willow waly" by the tree that weeps with me. Singing "oh willow waly" 'til my lover return to me. ~"
"Someone's singing?" Blake whispered.
"Yeah. Be quiet going forward. Might not be the necromancer in charge of the place."
"~ We lay my love and I beneath the weeping willow. A broken heart have I. Oh willow I die, oh willow I die. ~"
"Are you done?" a masculine voice piped up at the end of the verse, just as the group topped the stairway and could look into a room where two cages sat, a man in black robes walking over towards the cells with two skeletons to either side of him. "I could do without your constant noise disturbing my work!"
"Aw! And here I thought you were enjoying my singing. Was the song too slow, perhaps?"
"I've got him," Inigo whispered as he took out his ebony bow and aimed.
"Wait, you might hit-"
The black arrow went flying through the air and pierced the necromancer's throat, throwing him a few feet to the side and pinning him to the wall of the cavern.
"Oh. Wow. Okay." Ruby came out from hiding as the skeletons crumbled into piles of bones, the source of their animation now dead and gone. The woman in the cage seemed to just shrug her captor's sudden demise off and leaned against the back of her cage while crossing her arms.
"Do you mind keeping that closed," the woman said as Ruby looked at the padlock.
"Closed? You mean the cage?" Ruby squinted at the woman in confusion.
"Why yes, it's quite comfortable in here, but when it's open there's a bit of a draft."
Ruby blinked and looked at the cage from side to side, then up and down while the others all came in.
"But it's full of holes and stuff."
As the woman laughed, Blake came to Ruby's side.
"She was being jokingly flippant, Ruby."
"Like acrobatics?"
"No. Just… Anyways, are you all right?"
"Oh, just peachy."
"All right. Give me a minute and we'll get you out." Blake took out her lockpick and pressure wrench and got to work on the padlock.
"So, I'm Ruby," the young girl introduced herself. "And this is my friend Blake. What's your name?"
"Zora Fair-Child, but it was never meant to be ironic. I was once very much a child, and very much fair. So fair, in fact, the Divines saw fit to punish me with this marred and unenviable face."
Ruby took a closer look at her and realized that what she had thought was odd, red facepaint was actually an extensive, hand-shaped scar. While Ruby involuntarily flinched at the sight, the woman just smiled.
"It is always easier to blame the gods for such things, isn't it?" Zora laughed.
"Oh, um…"
"It looks like you kissed a troll and it slapped you." Ruby looked over at M'rissi with abhorred shock. A distinct lack of lockpicking noises told Ruby that Blake was doing the same thing. "What?"
"Kiss a troll?" Zora asked in interest. "Did I think he would turn into a lord? Or do you think my interests are just that queer?"
"You were the one preferring your cage to stay closed."
"Hm, I suppose I do seem a bit odd, but certainly not that sort of odd."
"Did- did that necromancer do that to you?" Ruby tepidly asked the woman, shaking herself from her stupor.
"Oh no, necromancers tend to disapprove having their specimens damaged." She giggled at that. "I should know. This is the eleventh necromancer to have enslaved me, and all eleven have been as delicate as a lord is with his finest furs. It makes me sad to disappoint them so. I think this last one was quite excited until he brushed back my hair." She let out a long, heavy sigh. "I've seen that look on more than enough men to recognize it." Blake's ears flicked and she looked up at the prisoner before shaking her head.
"Eleven? You can't be serious. Once or twice I get, but eleven?" Blake wondered aloud as she continued to work the lock.
"Oh, I am very serious. I quite enjoy it. There's never a shortage of wizards who like to use this pass as their lair. Nor a shortage of heroes who travel through it."
"So you've been captured and rescued here eleven times?" Inigo asked as he started rifling through the pockets of the necromancer. "You should probably break such a bad habit. It does not sound healthy, for all manner of reasons. The next necromancer may not be so picky about his findings."
"I'll think about it," Zora drew out. Blake suddenly finished with the lock and took it off before slowly opening the cage door. As the woman stepped out, she reached over and picked up a large greatsword propped against the wall and sitting in its sheath before strapping it to her back.
"So where were you headed?" Ruby asked.
"I was headed north to the icy tundra. It is quite vast, quite icy, and extremely dull, which is precisely why I visit it." She closed her eyes and a genuine smile stretched across her face. "Some people see a blank portrait and see only emptiness. I see an opportunity to paint."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Imagine a vast field of pure white, soft as a pillow wrapped in a cloud. From a distance, you might think it snow. Yet when you come to the lip of its feathery shore, and run your fingers through crowns of ivory, you'll know you have arrived in Whiterun. Home of Tamriel's most beautiful, and profitable, tundra cotton field. Zora's field, as it is known to the locals."
Ruby's eyes had actually brightened up at the description of what she saw as someone's dream, but Blake could only raise an eyebrow in skepticism.
"You sure you can sustain something like that out in the tundra?"
"I certainly hope so. It's called 'tundra cotton'. Otherwise they should change the name."
"Yeah, Blake. Even I knew that," the younger girl added.
"I meant-"
"She doesn't know much about planting, but even she knew that tundra cotton grows in the tundra," M'rissi interrupted.
"That's-"
"Perhaps you should get some lessons in alchemy," Inigo threw in, "if only so that you know the basics of herbology."
"Forget it. I give up."
"I've only known your friends for a little over a day, and even I knew you shouldn't have tried," Lydia said to her.
"Well, we're actually headed south, but we are going to circle back up to Whiterun afterwards. It'll be safer if you stick with us for now," Ruby offered.
The woman hummed and tapped her chin. "Well, you are an interesting lot. Very human-like Khajiits, a blue one, and a young girl hefting a scythe around. And the most boring one is very quiet, so there are no worries there."
"I think she meant you," M'rissi whispered in Lydia's direction. A quick glare from the housecarl shut the Khajiit up quickly, who moved to place Blake in-between herself and Lydia.
"All right. Who knows what interesting things I might see on the way?"
"Right! Then let's head out of here!" Ruby exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air. The expanded group soon began traveling through the remainder of Brittleshin Pass, safely deactivating the few magical rune traps in their way before exiting within sight of the lake.
"So Ilinalta's Deep should be a little to the west," Ruby stated before folding Crescent Rose and heading off.
"That's east," a feminine voice exasperatedly called out.
"I knew that, Wei- Weiss!" Ruby jumped over to where her partner had just come up from and wrapped her in a hug. The heiress nervously stiffened up a moment before hugging her back.
"Good to see you too, Ruby."
"Weiss, things have been so crazy!" The younger girl began excitedly. "It seems like everywhere I go there's some necromancer or group of necromancers up to no good and worse. We had to stop a bunch of them from bringing back someone called Pokemar."
"Potema," Lydia absentmindedly corrected.
"Yeah, that. And way before that was the guy torturing people and pulling out their souls to make ghosts. Then there was Malkoran..." Ruby's eyes widened with realization. "Oh, by the way, Meridia doesn't care enough about you to do anything, but don't touch this sword," Ruby whispered, showing her the scabbard holding Dawnbreaker. "It's specifically anti-undead, but can also set normal people on fire too. Might be worse for necromancers than non-necromancers, but I haven't really used it on enough people to tell the difference. But I don't know what'd happen if you touched it."
"Thanks for the warning." Weiss nervously eyed the Daedric artifact, taking a few steps back. "But don't tell me you've been doing nothing but fighting dark mages all this time."
"Oh no! I also saved a festival after helping out a ghost. And the Bard's College gave me a few lessons and an honorary membership."
"Wait, lessons in what?"
"I only had enough time for the lute, but luckily it's similar enough to guitar I figured it out pretty quick. I actually surprised them when I showed them hammer-ons and pull-offs." She pulled the lute from her back, which Weiss hadn't yet noticed, and began playing a short melody. As Ruby continued to play, Weiss was pleasantly surprised to hear it was actually quite decent.
"Whoa, you getting back into music, sis?" a bundle of yellow hair asked as she came out of the woods.
"Hey Yang! Yeah, I've been playing a bit in my downtime. No homework to distract me now! Or is this my homework?" Ruby shrugged and set the lute back behind her before going over to hug her sister, who suddenly snatched her up and buried her face into the side of her head. "Yang! No nuzzling! Why the nuzzling?!"
"Hehe, sorry," the elder sister apologized as she set her down. Three more people came out from where they appeared.
"It's about time it's happening to someone who's not me," Weiss stated with a grin, which made Ruby look over at her.
"Hey, did you replace me while I was gone?" Ruby accused, crossing her arms and cocking her hips to the side.
"Nah, Weiss could never replace you. She is my other little sister now though, so she's officially your competition."
Ruby gasped and then wrapped Weiss into another hug. "That means you're my sister too! Yay for adoption!"
"That's not how adoption works, Ruby!" Weiss gasped out.
"And how're you, Blake?" Yang asked her partner. "Stole anything cool yet?"
"Myself, not really. But I do need to do something up at the Honningbrew Meadery. Shouldn't take long. Mostly just sabotaging the other guy's sabotaging efforts."
"Weren't we supposed to help the saboteur?" Inigo asked.
"We were, but I hate Maven, her face, and everything about her, so we're making sure he screws up, and then he gets all of the blame."
"Oh, right. I think I like this route as well."
"Yeah, me too," Yang agreed. "Honningbrew is my favorite, and I wouldn't appreciate anything bad happening to that company."
"M'rissi can still steal things, yes?"
"Yeah, just don't overdo it." Blake sniffed and then shook her head. "Yang, you smell like a wet dog. You seriously need a bath."
The blonde laughed and rubbed her neck. "Yeah, about that… Eh, I'll explain at a better time. Right now we've got guests." The group turned to see a female Dunmer, male Nord, and male Khajiit mage walk up to them.
"Oh, who are they?" Ruby asked. "Friends of yours, Weiss?"
"Ruby, Blake, meet Brelyna, Onmund, and J'zargo. They're classmates of mine from the College." Weiss gestured towards the three mages, who nodded their heads.
"Hello there."
"Greetings."
"So, you must be the famous Ruby Rose. Weiss has spoken much about you."
"Really?!" Ruby squealed in excitement at J'zargo, while Weiss' eyes widened.
"Mostly about how much of a pain you were to deal with, sometimes."
"Wha- Weiss!" Ruby glared at her partner with a look of betrayal on her face. Weiss merely glared back before smiling. The two then began to chuckle, only to stop as Brelyna coughed.
"So, where are we going next?" the Dunmer mage asked.
"Gotta go by Riverwood," Ruby answered, regaining her composure. Her eyes suddenly burned intensely as though she was trying to stare holes into a nearby tree. "Somebody stole something of mine." Something in her seemed to click and then she took a deep breath before smiling again. "But I'm sure whoever it was has a reasonable explanation for everything."
"So, Yang," Blake asked her partner as they traveled down the road to Riverwood. The two hung back from the others, who continued to chat among themselves. This meant the two had privacy, something Yang apparently wanted. "What were you going to tell me before?"
"Oh yeah, that..." Yang grew quiet before taking a deep breath. She made a signal towards Onmund, who then grabbed Zora's attention, pointing to something across the river from them, stalling the two Nords. When she was certain the odd one out was out of earshot, she began. "Blake, do you remember that werelion that attacked you and the kid?"
"Vividly. It's kind of hard to..." Blake trailed off before her eyes widened in realization. "No... But, you..."
"It didn't take a second time," Yang sighed. "The lycanthropy cure, it... it works by poisoning the body to remove the lycanthropy strain. It worked on the werebear, but my Aura... My Aura made me resistant to it. So when I got infected a second time, the cure didn't work."
"You're a werelion?" a quiet voice caused the two to look ahead to see Ruby sadly staring at Yang, tears welling in her eyes. The others had all stopped as well, having heard the entire conversation, judging by their faces.
"No, I'm a werewolf, actually," Yang confessed. Seeing Blake's confused look, the Companion faintly smiled. "When I found out I was infected, Blake, I didn't have many options. My choices were to either become a werelion and risk losing my mind, or replace it with another, stronger, more controllable strain."
"Where in the world did you find that?" Blake asked, causing Yang to close her eyes and smile.
"Blake, I'm only telling you this because I trust you with every fiber of my being. The others already know or are likely to find out from you anyway. Regardless, none of this leaves this group, understand?" The others quickly nodded in agreement, causing Yang to smile and nod her head. "Blake, the Companions are werewolves. Or rather, their leadership are."
"Wait, they are?" Blake's eye's widened. "Even...?"
"Even Kodlak, yes. He's the alpha of the group, really. I was already debating whether or not to willingly become one before it happened, but when it did they immediately gave me the Gift. I've been a werewolf ever since, but more importantly, I've still been me ever since."
"I... I see." Blake stared at her partner before enveloping her in a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."
"It's okay." Yang hugged her partner back before pulling away. "I don't regret it. Not really, anyway. Sure, I can live without the whole 'eat other people sometimes' thing, but that's not really me that's doing it. It's the beast. The others were all very quick to highlight that." A silence descended over the group as they contemplated Yang's words.
"While we are on the subject, this one must know," J'zargo asked. "What is it like? Having a separate beast inside you?"
"To be honest, it's kinda weird. I mean, it's like having a separate personality within you, only this one is more like a large dog that views your friends and family as its pack to love and protect. And devour your enemies apparently."
"So THAT's why you've been so affectionate since we met back up!" Weiss shouted out with an accusing point, causing Yang and the others to laugh. Blake laughed as well before she stopped, her attention directed towards her own other personality. With a gulp, she sat down on a fallen log, causing the others to stop as well.
"Blake, what's wrong?" Ruby asked in concern. With the others all looking at her, Blake took a deep breath and pulled out the Ebony Blade. She had to get this off of her chest, to let them know, and now was as good a time as any.
"Guys, there's been something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now. Yang's...not the only one who's had to deal with another voice in their head."
Orgnar stared at the large gathering that had just entered his inn, led by the group of girls he'd once assumed were just normal, if strangely dressed, young women traveling around. Now one wore the armor of a Companion, another matched the description of the famous Shadowkiller, the white-haired one was in Winterhold student robes, and the last had her own bodyguard. He'd seen a couple of them a few more times, and didn't realize just who they were, but now he knew that the girls that had just dragged in a half dozen of their friends into this place were the Four Dragonslayers.
Normally he didn't drink on the job, but this time, he figured he was going to need that help from one bottle of good ol' Nord mead.
"Why you didn't get rid of that thing is beyond me, but if you threaten Ruby or anyone else with it..." Lydia let the threat hang in the air.
"Trust me, if it comes to that I'll use it on myself." At Blake's answer, Lydia nodded and sat down at the table, keeping a careful eye on her Thane. Despite her initial misgivings, Blake had to admire the housecarl. She was utterly devoted to protecting her charge, no matter who or what they were. She kept this in mind as Ruby walked up to Delphine.
"Hey, Delphine," Ruby said as she approached the owner. "Sorry about the big crowd, but…" She looked back at the note in her hand. "I need to rent the…'attic room'?"
"Attic room, eh? Well, we don't have an attic room, but you can have the one on the left. Make yourself at home."
Confused, Ruby just nodded before handing a diem over to the woman. She looked back at Lydia, who just shrugged and gestured to the room Delphine had indicated. Ruby made her way over and opened the room up, but saw nothing different or spectacular about it. With Lydia at the door, Ruby went in and looked around before frowning and placing her hands on her hips.
'There was something about the way she said it,' the girl wondered to herself. 'She couldn't have… But could she have been the one to take it?'
Ruby heard someone walk in and turned to see Delphine standing at the door, her arms crossed and eyes transfixed on her.
"So you're the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about," the older woman started as she reached behind her back. Ruby tensed, and Lydia was already starting to draw her sword, but both were immediately relieved when she took a horn from the satchel she wore. "I think you're looking for this." With a sigh of relief, Ruby took the Horn of Jurgen and put it into her pack, Lydia carefully sheathing her sword.
"We need to talk. Follow me." Without even giving Ruby a chance to respond, Delphine began to walk away, leaving Ruby behind.
"Uh, right." Ruby followed after the woman, Lydia standing guard over her the whole time. Yang, Weiss, and Blake took notice of her following the inn proprietor and began making moves themselves, Weiss and Blake asking or telling their friends something. Ruby saw Onmund beginning to cast a spell, while Blake formed one of her own in her hands. Delphine led her across the inn and into a more spacious and decorated room, likely hers, closed the door, and then walked over to the wardrobe, which she opened. After pushing her clothes aside, the woman reached into the back and wiggled something that made the entire back panel slide aside. As she walked down a set of stairs behind the secret entrance, she looked back to Ruby for a moment.
"Now, we can talk." Delphine walked into a room with a table with a map atop it in the center, a training dummy and hay bales in one corner, a shelf stocked with all sorts of potions, an alchemy table next to it, a wall of weapons, and an enchanting table. As she stood on one side of the table, her eyes met with Ruby's.
"The Greybeards seem to think you're the Dragonborn. I hope they're right." Delphine stated as she leaned against the wall, her arms still crossed.
"So you took the horn?" Ruby crossed her arms as well, trying to match the apparent innkeeper's tone. She attempted to lean against the wall, only to flail as she almost fell before Lydia stretched out a hand to stop her. With an embarrassed laugh, Ruby resumed her serious posture, sans leaning. All of this Delphine watched with disapproving eyes.
"Surprised? I guess I'm getting pretty good at my harmless innkeeper act."
"Why the act though? What's with all the secrecy?"
"You can't be too careful. Thalmor spies are everywhere. At the very least I know your Khajiit friends aren't with them, since they're after one and have butted heads with another. I'm assuming the other follows the trend."
"You know about that too?" Ruby whispered, more to herself than Delphine. "Why do you know so much about us? And why'd you take the horn? What did you want from me?"
"I didn't go through all this trouble on just a whim. I needed to make sure there was no Thalmor trap. We're not enemies here, alright. I'm actually trying to help you. Just hear me out."
Ruby sighed. "Okay. Go on."
"Like I said in my note, I heard that you might be Dragonborn. I'm part of a group that's been looking for you… Well, looking for someone like you, for a very long time. If you really are Dragonborn, that is. Before I tell you any more, I need to make sure I can trust you."
"Well, how should I trust you?"
"If you don't trust me, then you were a fool to walk in here in the first place. A single bodyguard might work for most, but an experienced assassin could easily bypass them or just kill you both."
"Yeah, but that wouldn't happen," a voice said before there was a bump on the table and Yang appeared as though from thin air, to the left of Delphine. The woman looked like she'd nearly jumped out of her skin, but Yang just smiled and held up her hands. "Hey, not here to pick a fight. Just watching out for my little sister."
"You… But you…"
There was a small bump on the wall to her right, and then Weiss appeared. "A friend of ours is really skilled with Illusions. She figured out how to cast a near perfect Chameleon spell onto others mostly on her own after one lesson."
"I also made a bunch of dumb bandits kill each other on the way from Riften," Blake said before appearing, leaning against the potion shelf. "It was a little sad to see, but funny in hindsight. In a morbid kind of way."
"Yeah, so trust wasn't really the issue there," Ruby continued along, catching Delphine's attention back to her. "A little after the assassin incident I told Blake and Yang about plan "Primarily Invisible". Yang probably filled Weiss in on it recently. Just us, guys?"
"Just us," Yang assured her.
"So, I might be a little sketchy about you, but I'm at least willing to hear you out. And don't worry about my team. I'd have ended up telling them everything anyways."
The woman sighed and shook her head. "Damn! If this had been an actual slipup… All right. I at least trust you're not going to kill me or sell me to the Thalmor."
"Glad about that. So, why exactly are you looking for a Dragonborn?"
"We remember what most don't – that the Dragonborn is the ultimate dragonslayer. You're the only one that can kill a dragon permanently by devouring its soul."
The four girls flinched, but Ruby especially did as she clutched her shirt's collar.
"You can do it, right? Can you devour a dragon's soul?"
"I don't like to," Ruby muttered, "but yeah. That's how we figured it out. We thought I had just been…enchanted or something, but then I killed Mirmulnir –the dragon that attacked Whiterun– and I…absorbed his soul."
"You don't like it?" the woman asked in suspicion.
"It's… I'm taking the entirety of another being into me, everything that they ever were is being stuffed into my own soul. I was having nightmares from the point-of-view of the dragon until the Greybeards helped straighten me out. And that's not to mention all of the…urges I get."
"I see. Well then…"
"Um, if I may," Weiss butted in. "You said you're worried about Thalmor after you."
"Yes, we're very old enemies. And if my suspicions are correct, they might have something to do with the dragons returning." Ruby suspected the woman had some preconceived notions, but said nothing. "But that isn't important right now. What is important is that Ruby here might be Dragonborn."
"I am Dragonborn," Ruby declared, staring straight at Delphine. To her credit, the woman stared back without a flinch.
"I feel like there's something you haven't told us," Blake remarked, catching everyone's attention.
"Dragons aren't just coming back; they're coming back to life." This surprised the girls due to its many implications. "They weren't gone somewhere for all these years. They were dead, killed off centuries ago by my predecessors. Now something's happening to bring them back to life, and I need you to help me stop it."
"Wait, what makes you think they're coming back to life?" Ruby asked, certain memories or lack thereof within the different dragons' souls suddenly making a lot more sense.
"I know they are. I visited their ancient burial mounds and found them empty, and I figured out where the next one will come back to life. We're going to go there, and you're going to kill that dragon. If we succeed, I'll tell you anything you want to know."
Ruby shared a look with her teammates. Yang seemed unsure, but Blake and Weiss both looked curious, Weiss more towards disbelieving.
"You realize how crazy that all sounds, right?" Yang asked her.
"Heh, a few years ago I said the same thing to a colleague of mine. Well, it turns out that he was right and I was wrong."
"Okay, so…where do we need to go?"
"Kynesgrove," she explained, pointing it out on the map. "There's an ancient dragon burial near there. If we can get there before it happens, maybe we'll learn how to stop it."
Ruby took in a deep breath and then released it. "Okay, but if we're going there you need to promise that you won't suddenly go gung-ho or kill indiscriminately. And if a dragon talks, let me do the talking."
"Talking. Right." Delphine rolled her eyes. "And yet, your sister was thinking I was crazy."
"Weiss and Blake needed to go up in that direction anyways, so I guess we'll all go together. Strength and safety in numbers. Zora's breaking off at Whiterun and Yang…?"
"I'll go with you guys. I've got nothing too critical at the moment to worry about."
"All right, so we'll all head to Kynesgrove and see if this thing happens. Deal?"
"Fine enough. Just hope the numbers don't slow us down."
"Eh, we'll be fine," the blonde waved off. "Between the horses and magic speed ups we'll make good time."
"Oh gods, not the Longstride spell. I can't use it. Turns my stomach too much."
"Horse for you it is, then."
Ruby watched the sunrise's light glancing off the fields of Whiterun Hold. Everyone else was gearing up for the trip, but she was already pretty much set. She heard footsteps approach and turned to see the scarred woman she'd run into just the other day.
"Oh, hey Zora."
"Hello, little Ruby," the woman greeted her back as she sidled up next to her, lazily holding her hands behind her head.
"Everything going okay with your plans to get your cotton field started?"
"Mm, could be worse. Could be better. Apparently some Giants have started making iron armor towards the east, and a lot of people are thinking that the price of tundra land is going to fall. That is good, but armored Giants could be a problem."
Ruby twiddled her thumbs as she thought over what she might have caused, but ended up shrugging it off.
"You could always just talk to them. I'm sure the Giants won't mind. Maybe even trade your cotton with them."
"I suppose that could be a profitable venture. Hm, Giants wearing cotton shirts and breeches… Sounds like a strange dream."
Ruby nodded and the two stood in companionable silence for a long moment. The younger girl looked over, but found her eyes drawn to the scar etched across Zora's face, a sort of morbid curiosity taking hold of her.
"Um, if you don't mind me asking…about your scars…?"
"Ah, the scars came mostly from adventuring. Most of them are barely visible, thanks to the one." Zora's fingers brushed the handprint scar as Ruby watched. "From a distance, it may appear to be a dash of paint. A girl's attempt to look menacing. Upon closer inspection, you'll see it is the mark of a burn.
"Y-yeah, that one. How did it happen?"
Zora looked up at the sky slowly turning from violet to blue. "When I was a flowering young maiden –about your age or a little younger, I would think– I once had many suitors. Men would travel great distances to see the Diamond of Riverwood." She frowned as she pulled up the old memories. "My sister, on the other hand, had no suitors to speak of. She became very taciturn, sitting in her corner as the men showered me with praise. She was far more talented than I, a mage worthy of studying at the College of Winterhold. What she was not, unfortunately, was pretty."
"Did it…get in-between you two?"
"Oh, quite. We'd fight often, about the smallest of things. Although the arguments were never about who was supposed to wash the clothes or sweep the floor. It was always about her envy," she set her hand fully against the scar and let it slide off, "and my lack of compassion." She stared at her hand a moment as her thumb rubbed across her fingers. "Eventually, one argument got rough. The hand she struck me with was cloaked in fire."
Ruby gasped at that before holding her arms to her chest, trying to picture how something like that could have happened and hating herself for envisioning it. "I know sisters can fight. Even me and Yang fight sometimes, but…"
"No, I- I deserved it. Not the flames, but the slap," she corrected with a sigh. "Make no mistake, I was a real bitch. Beauty tends to make monsters of us all. She didn't intend to burn me, of course," Zora defended. "All of that anger… That rage just manifested itself into fire."
Ruby nodded in consideration. "You're kinda…understanding about the whole thing."
"Now, but not then. Oh no, I was sufficiently devastated. My beauty was all that I had. It defined me. But it was the ugliness that hurt the most. The way people, not just men, looked at me." Ruby saw her gritting her teeth and her fists clenched. "Always with that cringe! They all do it." She let her hands go and turned away from Ruby. "Even the polite ones can't help themselves, no matter how much they try to disguise it." She walked a few steps away and then looked out across the plains that stretched alongside the White River, which seemed to flow from around the distant base of Hrothgar Mountain. She watched as the sunlight slowly bathed the stones, grasses, and waters in its warm embrace. "When you're beautiful, every word is met with a smile. When it's gone, the whole world is shrouded in darkness." She turned back to Ruby. "I could never loathe my sister for what she did. Not now that I know her pain."
The wind swept across them, as though trying to comfort the two women in this moment.
"What exactly are we doing?" Delphine asked as she, Ruby, and Lydia rode away from the others for a moment.
"I promised to do something for Jarl Elisif," Ruby explained as she pulled the horn from her pack, making sure it was the newer one and not the ancient antique she had to take to the Greybeards. "Because of the Talos ban she couldn't offer a tribute to him after King Torque died."
"Torygg."
"Yeah. So she asked me if I'd drop his horn off at this shrine. Let's see… Ah!" Just past a bend, Ruby found the hidden shrine in the alcove some ways above the White River Gorge. She approached the statue, and placed the horn just before it. Not sure if there were any religious customs to follow, she looked towards Lydia, who just seemed to observe the other items placed around the shrine, including a few coins, an old mace, a dented up steel battleaxe, and a bowl of ashes, likely burned incense.
"Well, here's to King Torn- Torygg. May you find peace in, um, Sovngarde."
Just when it looked like Delphine was about to say something, she suddenly ducked as a fireball exploded near the three. Ruby and Lydia quickly took out their weapons while the older woman drew a katana, and faced against their attackers, three Thalmor agents, two of them suited in elven armor, and another in the distinct purple robes.
"No… No!" Delphine shouted as she charged one of them. Lydia went towards another while Ruby dashed towards the wizard. He began conjuring another fireball, but the blunt side of Crescent Rose smacked up into his chin, causing the elf to fall back while clutching his jaw. Delphine went in surprisingly quick, blocking a strike from the justicar before ducking down and then coming up with a quick slash that found a chink in his armor and sliced his belly open. Lydia's battle was more brutal in appearance, with her shield bashing her enemy in the face and then her sword chopping down, breaking apart the armor and cutting through her collar and into her chest. Ruby smacked the Thalmor agent across the head, but he fired a stream of sparks at her, which she narrowly dodged. As they squared up, a flash of silver went by his neck before blood spurt out in nearly all directions around him. As he hacked, Delphine impaled him on her blade and then kicked him off of it. Ruby looked at the dying man and then collapsed Crescent Rose before placing the scythe to the small of her back.
"I was planning to question him, you know."
"He wouldn't have told you anything, and we don't have the time for advanced interrogation." Delphine patted him down and riffled through his pockets before coming up with an official looking letter. Her eyes scanned the words before she released a sigh. "Thank the Divines, they weren't after us." She passed the note over to Ruby, who read it as well.
Agent Lorcalin,
In recent weeks, two prisoners have confessed to worshipping at a Talos shrine in the hills above White River Gorge. This cult must not be allowed to grow any further. Find the shrine. Hunt down any heretics you find there. Take no prisoners.
Elenwen
"Elenwen?"
"Woman in charge of the Thalmor in Skyrim. Very high up, and very influential." Delphine flicked her blade to clear it of blood, and then wiped the rest off on the dead elf's robes. "Thought they were after me, but it was just a regular Talos worshipper trap. Damned elves."
Ruby looked at the corpses and wondered about giving them a proper burial, but then realized how long it would actually take to dig a hole for each of them. She sighed and took the note over to the shrine.
"Well, there's not much we can do." She set the note down and placed the ash-filled bowl on top of it as a paper weight. "Let's just hope when people come by this they'll be more careful, and less people get hurt."
"Hey!" she heard Yang call as she got closer to them. "Are you guys all right? We heard an explosion."
"We're fine, Yang! Just an ambush!" Ruby called back.
"What? By who?"
"Just the Thalmor!" Ruby's reply caused Delphine to gape.
"Just the- Never mind…" Delphine shook her head and walked away, heading back towards the group. Seeing this, Ruby narrowed her eyes at the woman and turned to Lydia, also eyeing her.
"Let's get back to the others," Ruby told her housecarl before heading back down the hill. "We've got a long way to go."