Cearbhail:

And so... It ends. Not the story, just this gods' forsaken battle.

=^^= Enjoy...

[Davilia]

Have you ever faced the end of the world? I doubt you have, but I doubt you've never experienced something of the sort. The end of the world… how do describe it? Let's start with the basics, shall we. Ever visit a haunted house? A burnt down section of woods? How about a ghost town created by a disaster of some sort? Ever just take a moment and… I don't know… feel the surrounding area? The way the air feels charged with the energy of destruction? The despair of knowing that somewhere around this area something major had happened? Especially with the burned section of woods. Ever just… listen? The silence that surrounds the area? Everything avoids it; birds, squirrels, but trolls love it though.

So, picturing the section of burned down woods, that silence, that desolation, the trolls… put that on a global scale. The very air charged with despair… as if Kynareth herself were crying out in pain as the world around her died. Next, feel the magicka wane as the world slowly drained itself of all life. That energy we take in and form into essentially our life force was suddenly disappearing for the second time, but this time it was not because of a massive Silence, but the end of the world. So, you have the air crying in misery, the life draining out of all living beings, and you have the planet itself… breaking apart, sundering and surrendering itself to the powers at work. To the evil bitch trying to destroy everything in order to kill everyone that she believed was an enemy.

And even now, as the world died around me, as the skies darkened to the massive clouds of necromancy magicka, as the air became still and depressed at the coming of the end, and as the ground underneath me turned flaky and unstable… there was but millions of synchronized laughter. All coming from one million one persons: Nrillia.

In an effort to keep us from finding her and killing her, she turned all her attention to one end… destroying the world. She was plugged into one of the world's flowing veins… simply named: the River of Magicka of Alinor. One of fifty or so veins that flow openly around the world, and perhaps the only one still uncovered. The reason for all the rivers being covered up in some fashion is because every so often, one stupid mage thinks he or she can tap into the planet's energy and use it towards their end. Like a person trying to control an Aedric Lord or Daedric Prince's energy, it never quite works out. Sometimes, someone gets lucky and manages some epic spell… most times people are consumed by the planet, their bodies quickly burned up and souls cast adrift the planet's magicka. And yet, Nrillia has been able to connect herself to the planet's own magicka supply and use it to her own end for years now.

Whatever type of mage she was before… the fact remains that she is one in a million. No normal mage could survive living in the River of Magicka the way she has. And that would explain why she's as strong as she is, not to mention the fact that she's able to use the planet itself as her conduit for magicka reserves. In other words, this whole time… we've been fighting a planet incarnate… a god, if you will. And this godling has decided it's time for the end game… she is going to kill herself and us with her. She's pulling out all the magicka from the planet, dying it out completely, and since the magicka would only flow back into the world, she's probably making a spell of some sort. Or she's actually using the magicka to help hasten the end of the world. Either way… it's not good.

And now… as the laughter of a maniacal woman was intensified by a thousand just like her laughing all in unison; while the air around me stopped flowing, almost to a point where breathing felt more like breathing through a tiny straw; while the ground quaked and turned to dust under each step I took… it all paled in comparison to what I saw in front of me. The darkened skies notwithstanding the force of the light protruding from the College of Alinor. And it was hard to describe. It was like a vortex of pure magicka. A giant light blue vortex made up of pure magicka energy, all swirling around one exact point… the College building of Conjuration.

Even with all this going on… my feet pounded on the loose gravel that once held grass. My friends all ran beside me… not away from the swirling vortex, but towards it. With the lack of air to breathe, we were gasping for each breath as we raced forward. My head spun, the ground shook violently with each passing step, yet I did not stop. The Thalmor raced beside us, all hoping to achieve the same end… to kill Nrillia. Erandur, my boyfriend, led the charge to the college with the leader of the Aldmeri Dominion next to him, and Hans the Hardy on the other side. The three of them led the assault through the Nrillia Horde as we raced for the college.

"You think you will make it? The entire world will bow to my whims!" The Nrillias all screamed at us as one. Yet, even as they watched us running for the college, not one tried to stop us. They all stood there as more and more mages and students started cutting them down. It would seem that since Nrillia was doing everything she could to blow up the planet, she couldn't control her clones anymore. That would just be one of my theories anyway. The resurrected bodies that Nrillia had a part of herself assigned to just lumbered around in a confused haze, like they didn't know how or why they were even walking. Perhaps she had to take her soul back in order to focus on destroying the world. Or perhaps she had stretched herself too thin and could no longer function as a hive mind. Whatever the case, it left us with one clear shot straight for the college.

As the wave of Thalmor quickly cut through the Nrillias that stood there motionlessly, except for the laughing and talking as one thing, I wondered if everyone else was having it this easy. Did all the fighting just come to a stop once Nrillia went psycho? Were they experiencing the end of the world just as we were? Or was it more like a spreading virus that would continuously grow until the planet couldn't take it anymore? I did not know, but the vortex in front of me… the whirling cloud of pure magicka… it could not belong to the whole world. It had to only belong to this area, I'm sure of it.

"We're almost there now!" Erandur called from the front. "I can see the building."

That's when… that's when it started.

The Nrillias… they all… just… crumbled to the ground. Like dolls that someone was controlling with strings. One moment they were just standing there laughing, the next second, they were all falling flat on their faces. And that caused a bit of a surprise to everyone.

"Do you think she's run out of magicka?" Primrose asked from beside me. She looked exhausted and ready to keel over. I couldn't blame her. I was ready to fall flat on my face too.

"No." Hans said sullenly as he looked back at us. "Nrillia's making her final play. This is it… the end game." He reached for his greatsword, pulling it off his back. I've only ever seen him use his greatsword maybe five times since I've met him. Once when he freed Vatu, Erandur, and me from a cave, and in almost every battle he's ever been with us. And right now… he's been avoiding using it. He wanted to preserve its enchantments in case we were somehow Silenced again. And now… I guess it's about to come in handy. He looked back at us, nodding. "Use Soul Separation Warding Shields. No need to get yourselves caught up in this."

I quickly brought up my ring finger, as did every battlemage surrounding me. We were quick to activate our Soul Separation and as soon as I did, I felt worlds' better. I felt like my life wasn't being drained from me, but I could feel the ring taking the hits for me. The long charge I had on my ring was quickly draining away. I had my magicka back, but… it would only last until this ring was done for. I looked over at Erandur. "We need to hurry."

"There is no need." Nrillia's voice seemed to come out of nowhere. But… that's normal when you're facing someone who's in control of the whole world. "You won't be alive in a minute. But… if it makes you feel better, I will kill you a different way. Instead of dying on a desolate rock, you will face a god. You will face me, and only me."

The ground shook, the skies grew even darker. And… as we've always experienced, Nrillia saved the best for last. The ground in front of our army shattered as if a volcano had erupted with violent energy. And out of the new crater walked a single Altmer, tall and graceful with long golden hair unbound. She looked young, perhaps mid-twenties but for elves like me… that could easily mean she was sixty or even one hundred. And as she walked up to us, the ground itself pulled off the ground, leaving holes wherever she strode.

"So… um…" A nearby Thalmor said as he looked over at me. "Do you have any of those rings left?"

I pulled out one of my spares and handed it to him. "Yeah… sure." I was almost in a haze. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Standing in front of me was not just an Altmer… what I saw was a goddess. It wasn't because she was tall or graceful, but because the entire planet seemed to bend itself around her. That large vortex of magicka directed itself around her, flowing around her like her personal hurricane. The ground crumbled with every step she took. And her eyes seemed to be like portals to Aetherius. She had become what every Altmer wished to become… Aedra. Our magicka incarnate ancestors.

"Gaze upon me and bow before your mistress, your Goddess of Rebirth… Nrillia." She demanded, and even as she spoke it, I felt the entire world try to crash down onto me. My ring was burning on my finger but it didn't give in, not yet. But for those Thalmor around me that didn't have our rings of Soul Separation, it was a different story. I watched in horror as even the mighty leader Justiciar Riilong fell to his knees, his body slowly crumbling to the ground.

Hans the Hardy stood strong. "Kids…" He looked back at us. I noticed he wasn't wearing a ring like us though. He must have passed it off to someone, or he never had one to begin with. "There may come a time when you must face a god, when your magicka runs dry and you face the literal end of the world." He brought his giant claymore up onto his shoulder. "And… there may come a time when you will be forced to do what you know is right… and fight that monster. There may also be a time when you will have to put your faith in your students to know to do what they know to be right. This is a teacher's mission: to be able to face a god with no chance of winning… and know that their students will survive. To know that they will become stronger for the lesson. You know your mission: find the real Nrillia, and kill her. I know you won't fail me. This is where we have to say goodbye. I know you'll succeed. And one day… when you're facing a god like I am, you will probably say the same things, just like my teacher said to me and my partner Sosia when he trapped his soul into a special black soul gem." With that, he turned around and screamed as he charged over to Nrillia. "You will have to kill me first!"

"Wish granted." Nrillia spoke and just like that… Hans was tossed aside like he was nothing. That wasn't the end of him though. He managed to use his claymore to stop his slide by stabbing it in the loose gravely ground. Before the ground could consume him, Hans was up on his feet, sprinting back to Nrillia. His claymore was glowing with magicka that I'd never seen before. With one swing, a giant glowing white blade of what I think was Aedric magicka extended in a mad rush to crash into Nrillia. She stopped it with one hand, crushing the blade as it crashed into her.

"We need to hurry." Erandur repeated back to us and he took off in a sprint. The rest of us all followed him except for the kneeling Thalmor that couldn't fight anymore. Even Justiciar Riilong looked at us with pain-filled, mentally wishing us good luck on our mission. It was too bad that Nrillia had no intention of letting us escape.

"You think you can get past me?" The voice of a goddess rang through my body. The ground surrounding me started exploding into dust, my feet no longer finding the soil to grip itself on. The air so still that I was nearly floating in nothing. Thanks to my Soul Separation, I was able to keep breathing and control my own descent back to the ground. Thank you Telekinesis. I was able to summon my magicka and use it to help everyone float towards the college. Much easier than falling through the quick gravel that threatened to eat us whole.

Erandur looked back at me, smiling. "Quick thinking, Dav. Keep it up! Take us right to the doorway."

It wasn't so hard to focus, actually. I've been practicing a lot on using my knives with Telekinesis. When I started my training, I could only control up to six knives. By now, I could control up to twice as much. I didn't have a lot of time to train anymore, but I find that being in battle is nothing more than a deadly training session. After a while, I learned how to use Telekinesis pretty readily and under pressure. Doing this… this was easy. We were suspended in a zero-gravity zone, all of us have a soul that I can kinda detect (no help thanks to the Soul Separation), and people who are willing to let me use my magicka on them to help glide them to the college where Nrillia waited.

Of course, there was one tiny… problem. You see, Nrillia isn't blind. She knows we're coming, and her clone is doing everything she can to kill us. Blasts of lightning and whatnot flew all around us, bouncing off our Shields. She has all the god-like magicka in the world, but we put months' worth of cramming magicka into our Shields. They'll hold for a minute or two. My ring finger is burning something fierce, but it's worth it to me. I'm still alive.

"Leave them alone!" Hans screamed at Nrillia. "Lein, Sil, Uznahgaar!" I heard something I never heard Hans do. He… he Shouted.

And that one little Shout, it did something. "What?" Nrillia directed all her attention off us. "You think you can defeat a goddess."

"Kyne gave us mortals the ability to fight gods, and ever since I met an immortal man who wished to destroy the Mages Guild, a man named Mannimarco, I have taken up to studying the Thu'um. An ancient soulic energy from within me, not part of any magicka system based on collecting energy from the area around, but from within. I knew there would be a day when I would have to face another monster, one who would use the very planet against us. So… I formed my own Shout. World, Soul, Unbridled. Lein, Sil, Uznahgaar. And I can see that you're scared, because your very planet is now slipping from your grasp. I can feel the world crying out for freedom as we speak." Hans replied as he brought up his claymore. "Give up now, and I'll end your suffering."

I thought Nrillia was crazy before, but now that was her final straw. "You think a Goddess like myself will bow before a man? I am an Aedric Queen now! I bow before no one!"

"Lein, Sil, Uznahgaar!" Hans spoke, and I could see the difference. That swirling vortex surrounding Nrillia wavered for a second, almost slipping from her. She fell forward, like she tripped on something. The ground underneath her started to loosen up to where she was falling into her own gravely trap. "Lein, Sil, Uznahgaar!" Nrillia's whirling mess loosened up even more, and that constant pressure surrounding was lessening.

I took that as our cue to get moving. Nrillia was losing her temper and that meant that she was calling up even more energy to her body, which was draining the planet that much more harshly. The college building was one of the only few still unaffected by everything going on around us. I could see the ground all around us cracking violently as giant springs of water jumped into the air. It was like the entire island was pulling itself apart and sinking into the ocean that surrounded it. We had to hurry. I started floating us towards the door but something happened… Nrillia turned to face us. "You will die." And with that… nature's fury attacked us. Lightning from the sky rained down on top of us and honestly… my ring would not be able to protect me. I watched as lightning hit everyone, shattering through their rings and disintegrating their bodies in a blink of their eyes.

Of course, that was lucky for us because I'd just pulled one of my old tricks… Illusion. Nrillia thought she killed us. Well… she killed my Illusions. We were already inside the building under the disguise of Invisibility and Soul Separation. Gotta love the classics.

"Well…" Pra'ja said as she looked back at our destroyed doubles. "that was a thing."

Erandur nodded. "But, it worked. Nrillia no longer is expecting us. Her attention is focused on Hans. Let's just hope he's up to beating her." He nudged to us to follow him as he took off down the hallway. "Let's go find the bitch and kill her."

So, we ran down the hallway, and the entire way down, I could do nothing but look at all the motivational posters about education bringing people happiness and all that. I could see classrooms set up with tables like normal college students would be sitting down right now to a class on Illusion Theory or something like that. I wondered if I would ever get the chance to come to a college like this and attend classes. I tried it once and it led to world extinction. I only got to attend maybe a few weeks before everything went to oblivion.

I looked over at Primrose. She looked like she was ready to collapse again, and I don't blame her. We had to sacrifice our Warding rings for my Illusions to work. The Wards were real… and we would have died if we had been waiting there. "Prim, you ok?"

She nodded. "I'm just worried about Vatu."

I knew she wasn't quite telling me the truth. She looked pale as a ghost, and I can feel the drain on my body. My Soul Separation ring was running down on its last charges. Primrose's might have already worn off. If that was what she looked like… in a minute or two, I'm going to be in a lot of pain.

As we came up to what looked like an auditorium, Erandur came to a stop. "Everyone, put your Wards up… whatever you have left. Got it?"

I braced myself as best as I could. I summoned as much magicka as I had left into raising a Warding Shield in front of me. Everyone did the same. And Erandur nodded. When he pulled on the doorway, pulling it open, we were welcomed to one marvelous trap. I don't know what kind of Sealing Circle she used on the doorway but it was a doozy. I was flat on my back, world spinning around me, my body feeling heavy like it was never going to let me get up. The entire world was pushing down on me, and I could barely breathe let alone fight. The pressure grew and grew, my eyesight dimming as the world's energy pushed down on me even harder. With a side note, my ring of Soul Separation was still hard at work, but that ring was burning so badly, that even I could feel it through my crushing pain. And… with one extra push… my ring shattered. And the world came crashing down on top of me.

…

[Erandur]

I thought I had everything planned. I thought we could do this. …

And as usual… I messed up.

I walked my friends right into this building, right up to Nrillia… a proclaimed Aedric Queen, a woman with the world backing her up… and I thought that a few untrained battlemages could actually beat her. It was a hard realization to swallow. Sosia… Hans… Adam… they fought gods, and they won. They had powers and auras like I've never seen before. They were heroes in every sense of the word. What am I?

I'm the last one standing.

While my friends are lying on their backs, breathless and slowly succumbing to the World's Soul… I'm the only one still kneeling… still breathing. Albeit, I can barely stand, albeit I have nothing left… I will not fall. I will not let my friends die like this. We've come too far, grown too close to each other, to let ourselves fall tonight. And I won't let the gods… even the real ones, push us down and force us to quit. This is our world… not Nrillia's.

I had no energy left, who cares. I had the one thing my father left me… the one thing he said would save my life one day… my katana. Blessed with Silencing, made for dealing with necromancers. I struggled to push myself up to my feet, and it felt like I was pushing the whole world up with me. My lungs screamed out at me to give up, my legs would crack underneath me if I hadn't prepared my armor for something like this. All my attachments… all my enchantments… everything I've done… has given me the ability to stand up to this world and kill all who would dare use it against us.

So, I stood up. I walked into the room, welcomed with the gale forces of entire world's wind shoved in my face. I took a page out of Davilia's book and used Telekinesis to help divert the wind away from me. Using my katana's Silence ability, I was able to break through the wind as I looked around for her. And I saw her. She was lying in a pool made up of pure magicka. I could see the line of pipes leading to and from the pool. That must have been the runoff from the River of Magicka. Nrillia didn't seem to know that I was here, and that was a blessing this time.

I slowly pushed my way through the gale winds to her body. As I got closer, I could tell that she could see me coming up to her. Her body looked weak, frail… drained of all life. She looked up at me with pleading eyes, as if telling me to end this for her. I pushed even harder to get to her, but the winds only intensified. I almost lost ground; almost let my legs give out. I had no breath left, the world was still pushing down on me, the gale winds sneaking past my Silencing katana… I was pretty much done. But then… I thought of Davilia… Vatu… Crassi. Our next campaign tomorrow morning.

If I wanted to play Ruins and Dwarves tomorrow morning… I had to do this today.

With one last yell, I jumped forward. "Lein, Sil, Uznahgaar!", I heard off in the distance, like it was a final command, and just like that… the pressure lifted, the winds stopped. And I was flying into Nrillia's chest with my katana pointed straight out towards her. I couldn't have stopped myself even if I wanted to. And just like that… with one last slice… everything stopped.

I don't know how long I let myself lie on the ground. My katana was lodged in Nrillia's chest. She clawed at it, screaming in her little muffler. Some machine in the background was translating her screams into real screams of pain, well… mechanical screams. It was the sickest thing I could have ever heard. Finally, as if she knew it was the end, Nrillia turned to look at me. "THANK YOU…" Her eyes lost their light… you know the light I'm talking about. The moment you know someone has died, their eyes become lifeless. Her limbs clutching my katana loosened, falling into the pool of magicka, and… it was finally over. Nrillia was dead.

I would have pushed myself up onto my feet to check on my friends, but… I think I was about done too. Think I'll take a nap. I don't think I have much of a choice. I hope I wake up in time for Ruins and Dwarves. Lilly would be upset if I was late.

Cearbhail:

Can you believe it? It's finally over! I've killed the unkillable at least one out of two times. You know.. After Shoutmen..