Awakening Chapter 2
Tarrion walked on through the dark corridors, dimly lit by torches and braziers. He always wondered who left those torches burning. The Draugr? The Skeletons?
Not before long Tarrion ran into some of them. A few Skeletons walked in one of the corridors and Tarrion could hardly see them, if not for their bright blue eyes. He took care of them with a single Fireball and continued. Like in all ancient tombs the air was heavy with the stench of death and decay.
After a little while the path opened up into a large cavern, with a small stream. As soon as Tarrion walked in the stream, he ducked. At the end of the cavern, he saw a figure moving, but it was not a Skeleton, nor was it a Draugr. The figure had its back turned to Tarrion and clearly did not see him, nor sense him. Yet.
With his heart in his throat and breathing as little as possible Tarrion quietly moved out of the stream and prepared to fire a Fireball. But as soon as he felt the fire charge up in his hand, the figure moved and turned around.
Even from this distance, Tarrion could still see the glowing red eyes staring straight at him, and he knew that he was spotted. Vampires can see everything in the dark, so hiding in the shadows was no option.
"Well, well. What do we have here?" sneered the Vampire. "You picked a bad time to get lost in here."
Tarrion said nothing, but instead he readied another Fireball in his other hand. The fact that the Vampire had not attacked him yet surprised him.
"Who are you and what do you seek here?" the Vampire asked. Her confident and creepy smile were unsettling.
Tarrion again did not answer but instead looked to see if he could find something to use to his advantage.
"Mute are we?" the Vampire asked with a grin. "No matter, Lokil will teach you how to speak. And also how to scream."
With speed that Tarrion had not seen before the Vampire drew a black sword and cast a spell at him.
At first Tarrion thought that the spell did not work, but then he felt himself weakened. As if his life was being sucked out of him. He threw both of the Fireballs at her and jumped behind a stone pillar.
"Don't play hide and seek now!" he heard the Vampire say, and by the sound of her voice, she was enjoying the fight.
Tarrion could hear as she moved towards him, and he got an idea.
Slowly the Vampire moved closer and Tarrion was charging a spell.
"Come out, come out wherever you are." the Vampire sung, and she was now only a few feet from the pillar where Tarrion was hiding.
With a blast Tarrion cast 'Bane of the Undead' and he could hear the Vampire scream in agony. He jumped from behind the pillar and grabbed the now screaming Vampire by her throat. With his other hand he gave a harsh hit in her stomach and then shot lightning through her head.
With one last contraction she fell limp in his hands as he held her up.
Tarrion was a large man and stronger than most, but through his Werewolf Blood he had gained the strength of ten men. Holding up this Vampire was trivial for him and he threw her against a wall and walked deeper into the dungeon.
He had never killed anyone like that before, and he did not want to do it again. Seeing how someone was electrocuted like that, right in front of his eyes, was haunting.
As Tarrion moved onward he encountered more Draugr, Skeletons and also more Vampires. He knew that fire and any undead spells would be very effective in fighting all of them and so he cast Fireball after Fireball and Incinerate after Incinerate. The Draugr and Skeletons were no match for him, but the Vampires proved more difficult and although he was able to kill them without serious injury, he did feel the pain after he was hit by their spells. The red glow that came from their hands and the feeling that his life was drained out of him were unsettling.
After a while he felt the need to rest. He grabbed two small vials, one red and the other green, and drank both of them in one gulp. He coughed and almost felt the urge to vomit. He hated those potions, but he still used them when he needed to.
And that was a good thing, because not two corridors further he saw a large broken gate. Beyond it he saw another Vampire, standing in front of the corpse of an unusually large Frostbite Spider. As soon as Tarrion moved through the gate the Vampire drew his swords and lunged at him. Tarrion dodged the attack only by a hairs width. But the Vampire was quicker and kicked him against the gate. Tarrion could see the deadly glowing eyes and a black tongue licking white fangs.
"TIID"
Time slowed and Tarrion ducked under an arm and broke it with a single hit. He turned around again and, with all his strength, punched the Vampire in his back. The Vampire flew against the broken gate and fell dead on the ground with a shattered spine.
After another dark corridor Tarrion heard voices, and one of them was human.
"I'll never tell you anything Vampire! My oath to Stendarr is stronger than any pain you can inflict on me!"
A voice answered with such bitterness, Tarrion felt a cold chill crawling down his spine.
"I believe you vigilant, and I don't think you even know what you have found here. So go and meet your beloved Stendarr."
The unmistakable sound of flesh being rented apart followed and Tarrion knew that the vigilant had his throat cut through.
"Are you sure that was wise Lokil? He still might have told us something."
Another Vampire asked.
Lokil answered with the same cold voice:
"He knew nothing. He served his purpose by leading us to this place, and now it is up to us to bring Harkon the prize. And we will not leave without it!"
Tarrion stood high on a small platform, looking down on the Vampires below. There were only three of them, but he knew that one of them was more than a threat. He knew that sneaking up upon them was stupid, given the fact that Vampires can sense blood, visible or not. But he also knew that fire was his best weapon, and the he was not sensed just yet.
He watched as the Vampires walked up a small bridge leading to a large open area, looking like some sort of ritual site, but the bridge gave Tarrion an idea.
He sneaked down as fast and silently as possible, and got closer than he expected. In front of the bridge he showed himself, and with frightening speed the Vampires attacked. But Tarrion was ready for them and yelled out:
YOL-TOOR-SHUL
An inferno escaped from his mouth as soon as he uttered the last Word of Power. The Vampires did not know what happened and turned to ash before they could react.
As Tarrion reached the centre of the main chamber, at least he thought this was the main chamber, he kept his eyes open. He did not know what other things might be here and, as Mirabelle taught him, 'it never hurts to be prepared'.
The large platform that Tarrion was standing on was perfectly round, with six braziers standing around one small pillar. The braziers were filled with strange ashes, and were nothing like Tarrion had ever seen. He examined them all first, and saw that they were made of silver.
"Strange." he said to himself. "Why would these be made of silver, if a Vampire artefact would be buried here?"
The central pillar was a meter high, and was made out of simple stone. Tarrion looked closely, hoping that he wouldn't overlook anything, and saw that the top of the pillar looked like it was loose. Like a button he could press. Not entirely sure about what would be the wised thing to do, he pressed the button.
As soon as his hand touched the top of the pillar, a spike impaled his hand. Tarrion fell to his knees and cried out in pain. As quick as the spike appeared, it also disappeared, leaving Tarrion with a bleeding hole in his hand. Warm blood gushed out of the wound. Tarrion cast a healing spell, and a little bit later a large scar was what remained, though his hand still hurt.
It was then that he first saw what happened around him. From the central circle, purple flames had appeared and now burned in a line through one of the braziers. Tarrion stood next to the writhing flames, but he did not feel the heat. He stretched out his hand and he felt the flames lick it, but the pain and the heat did not follow. He saw that the brazier burned a little brighter now, and not entirely sure of what would happened, Tarrion tried to push the brazier away from the fire. Even with all his strength, he could not make the brazier move left or right. Tarrion's next guess would be to push the brazier to the end of the flames, and that went without any difficulty. The brazier glided toward the end of the flaming wall and then lit up as well. With a deep rumble the flames spread, following a path Tarrion could not see. They stopped close by another brazier.
Following the pattern, Tarrion pushed each of the braziers to the purple flames, effectively creating a circle around the central, stone pillar. When he pushed the last silver brazier in its place, and the fire made the circle whole, a deep rumble echoed through the cavern. The floor slowly descended down, making Tarrion almost loose his balance, and in the middle a large monolith appeared.
"Interesting." Tarrion said to himself as he reached the monolith, for it was covered with runes in an ancient language that Tarrion did not know.
After studying the runes for a while Tarrion started to think out loud.
"What do these runes mean? Do they say where I can find this artefact? Or is this the artefact? Knowledge?"
He rubbed away some dust from one of the runes, and as soon as his hand touched the monolith it opened, revealing what it had hidden inside.
Tarrion was accustomed to strange things, whether it was undead dragons or monks appearing out of the thin air, he did not expect to see this. He expected an ancient artefact like a weapon, or tomes of knowledge, but what he saw was a woman.
A young woman, and judging by her appearance she was just as old as him. She had her eyes closed and her hands on her chest. Before Tarrion could so much as scratch his head over what this was, she fell toward him. Tarrion grabbed her just in time and laid her gently on the ground. She still did not move, nor did she breath, but she did not seem dead. He looked at her.
She was smaller than him, but so was almost everyone, and looked like she was 5 and a half foot tall. Her skin was pale and her hair was as black as the night itself, barely reaching her shoulders.
Tarrion did not know what to do. This was something he did not expect, but before he could think about anything, the woman took a deep long breath and opened her eyes.
Tarrion immediately saw the slight red glow in her eyes, and even before she opened her mouth, showing her fangs, Tarrion knew what she was.
She was a Vampire
==End of chapter==
==Authors notes==
Fire and Blood will be about Tarrion and Serana and their adventures in Skyrim. Other characters will also make appearances in this story or any of the others. It will start at the beginning of the Dawnguard-DLC storyline and expand from there. There might be a few moments in the story that are not entirely in line with the lore of Skyrim, but I'll make these as small as possible.
Why the name 'Fire and Blood?': Tarrion is the Dragonborn (dragons breath fire (or... most of them do)) and Serana is a Vampire (Vampires feed on Blood)
What the stories are about is something that not even I know, yet. I'll make stuff up as I go along, so it'll be a surprise.
What is the background of the character and was quests has he completed already? :
-Alduin is killed.
-Civil War has ended in the Empire's favour (Ulfric is dead)
-Companions Questline is completed
-College of Winterhold Questline is completed.
-DragonBorn DLC? Not sure what I am going to do with it.
-Dark Brotherhood? Not sure ….
-Thieves Guild? Not started and I'll see what my character will do with it.
-Paarthurnax still lives.
- (I forgot to mention this last time) Tarrion is Thane in all the holds. (Whiterun, Winterhold, Solitude, Windhelm, Markarth, Riften, Morthal, Falkreath and Dawnstar)
Dragon Language used:
TIID: Time (from the Slow-Time shout)
YOL-TOOR-SHUL: Fire-Inferno-Sun (from the Fire-Breath shout)
Characters:
Tarrion: Main character and Dragonborn. 6'7 Tall, muscular (not ridiculously), Pitch black hair (short). Tons of scars all over his body. Good guy, with a heart of gold, but also has a darker side that he uses if needed. (although reluctantly)
Woman: Serana, a Vampire. You'll get to know more about her in the coming chapters
Lokil: A Vampire in Dimhollow Crypt.
Mirabelle: The assistant of the Archmage of Winterhold who runs the day-to-day operations. She died while the Dragonborn was getting the Staff of Magnus.
PS: I gave Tarrion superhuman strength through his Lycanthropy (werewolf-blood). This is not superman-like strength where he can bench-press cars, but he is just really, really strong. know this is not fully correct with the game, but it is something that bugged me about werewolves. They get no bonuses at all? So I thought that buffing their strength, even in normal human-form, is nothing crazy
Also I made it so that the Vampires can sense blood. The more powerful the Vampire, the better he can sense it. I'll see what else happens to the Vampires and Werewolves.
BIG PPS!: I am Dutch (from the Netherlands), so if there are any mistakes in spelling/grammar, please tell me about it.