"Everyone, time to go!" Isaiah shouted to the Cards as he entered the throne room. "Sumika, you may remain here if you still wish to."
She nodded.
Isaiah did not wait for anyone else to respond before he was out the door into the courtyard. As the others got there he was already outside the main gate and heading down the stairs.
"In a hurry are we?" Ryan questioned Isaiah running to catch up.
"One of us is not welcome here," Isaiah told him, "I do not care to go any further with this conversation and I do not care to irritate a Daedric Prince with their extended presence. Now move!" Isaiah broke into a sprint.
Isaiah led them along the coast of the lake for a few minutes then entered the forest again. About two more hours later they emerged into a clearing. This clearing was filled with rocks. These rocks began to stir. There must have been at least half a dozen golems.
Isaiah quickly opened a portal to Tamriel. "Through now!" he shouted.
The five Cards dove through the portal just as the golems were beginning to bear down on them. They emerged from the gateway seven feet above the crest of a very steep hill. They fell to the grass and rolled down to the bottom.
They stood and got oriented next to a ruined fort. "This is it," Jaime told them.
"This is a ruin," Makenna said to the Breton, "a deserted one at that. Would there not be guards at the stronghold you spoke of?"
"There are guards," Weaver assured him, "they are all inside the fort. This is a very secret Imperial prison, they do not intend to give it away with their visible presence."
"How do we get in?" Eyana asked holding up a heavy chain around the front door of the fort. The lock appeared to be on the inside.
Jaime walked through the gate and a few moments later the chain fell to the ground. "Easier than my usual entrance," he commented as the gate swung open.
"What is your usual entrance?" Makenna asked curiously.
"You do not want to know…" he responded.
"Jaime, you have the lead," Isaiah told the Breton.
Weaver disappeared into the fort followed by Isaiah, Eyana, Makenna, and finally Ryan covering the rear.
"So…" Eyana whispered. "What kind of creatures do they keep here?"
"See for yourself," Weaver replied nodding his head off to the right.
Eyana turned her head to look at the beast in the cage next to him. What she saw did not seem like an animal at all but a large plant. Looking carefully however revealed very obvious features: a face, limbs, and such. Although the gnarl would be unable to attack through its steel bars, Eyana recoiled in surprise.
The group passed dozens more creatures behind heavy, rusted steel bars. The monsters came in all shapes and sizes, but none of them resembled a werepyre. Strangely, they encountered no guards thus far.
There was a roar of agony in the distance. The Cards sprinted quickly and quietly down the remainder of the hallway. They finally emerged into a large room in the center of which was a werepyre chained to a table surrounded by half a dozen elite Imperial guards.
There was another problem however, one that needed to be quickly dealt with. The problem was a simple noise, the sound of a set of tumblers moving to the unlocked position. Then another set, and another, dozens of tumblers mysteriously moving to unlocked. If any of the Cards knew to squint down the dark hallway they had just traveled, they could see a hooded figure and a hidden smile.
"Who's there!?" one of the Imperials shouted towards the hallway. He turned back to the other guards, "Be ready men, we have intruders."
The Cards heard all six Imperials draw their swords as the monsters behind them began to stir.
"Makenna! Ryan! Fuse these doors together and keep them that way as long as you can!" he told them as he opened two steel gates on opposite sides of the hall and slammed them together.
Ryan and Makenna both cast powerful fire spells after Isaiah got clear and welded the steel doors together, preventing the various beasts beyond passage.
"That is not going to be enough!" Ryan yelled to Makenna.
Makenna immediately used a telekinesis spell and attempted to hold the gates together as they warped and bent under the might of the creatures behind it.
"Help them!" Makenna yelled to Ryan indicating Isaiah, Eyana, and Jaime as he held the distorted steel bars in place.
Ryan ran past Isaiah and Eyana and up beside Jaime as they braced themselves to fight the incoming Imperials. Isaiah and Eyana both nocked and fired arrows at one of the guards, but they both deflected off his heavy steel armor harmlessly.
Ryan and Jaime rushed the guards with weapons drawn. Jaime passed through the first guard that tried to attack him, but found no passage for his dagger once behind him. Ryan parried an attack with the sword in his left hand, but when he countered with his mace, he did not put even a scratch in the Imperial's heavy armor.
As Jaime and Ryan occupied five of them, one broke free and advanced towards Isaiah and Eyana. While both of them fired arrows at him, not one found its mark. The giant Imperial stood directly in front of Eyana and proceeded to raise his sword above his head. Eyana pulled back the string of her bow screaming without even nocking an arrow.
When she released the string, the fort went silent except for the creatures beyond Makenna. The Imperial in front of Eyana now had a smoking hole through his chest. Everyone in the room just stood and watched as the guard fell to the ground followed by his sword.
Eyana again raised her bow while pulling back the string, this time holding it long enough for everyone to see what was nocked in it. Between her fingers was a black bolt of lightning sending tendrils of dark electricity along the surfaces of the bow. Eyana released the bolt past the guards at the chains holding one of Fons' arms. The restraint snapped instantly, allowing Fons freedom.
"What are you doing!?" one of the guards shouted. "That beast could kill us all!"
"He won't kill us," Isaiah assured him. He pointed at the creatures in front of Makenna, "But those will."
Fons immediately grasped at the chain on his other arm and pulled it out of the floor followed by those around his legs. He quickly ran over and picked up two of the guards by their throats.
"Release them Alfonso," Isaiah ordered the transformed Nord.
Fons turned to him with a confused look then released the men.
"There's no way we can beat all of those monsters," one of the Imperials said frantically to the rest of the group.
"But it will be that much more difficult if we are fighting each other as well," Isaiah replied. "Truce? For now?"
"Deal," the lead Imperial said.
"Our biggest problem is the shade," Ryan told the group. "The only way to kill it is to pierce its heart, any other kind of wound and it will go unaffected."
"We're ready," the leader of the guards told Isaiah.
As soon as the group confirmed their alliance, the shade used its power to break Makenna's spell sealing the hallway. The creatures burst into the room while Makenna flew backwards to the opposite end.
The shade rushed to the side of the room where Makenna landed while the other Cards and the Imperials fought the tide of nightmarish monsters overtaking them.
"You are mine," the shade told Makenna as it closed on him.
"Not if I can help it!" he shouted back. He cast another telekinesis spell on a nearby sword and shield. The weapons picked themselves up off the floor and floated protectively in front of Makenna.
"So be it," the shade said in response to the hovering weapons. It cast a spell of its own on a pair of nearby battleaxes. The axes slammed the bottoms of their handles together, effectively making one twin-axe.
The axe began to spin in a windmill attack at the still grounded Makenna. The sword and shield moved in front of the giant rotating weapon to block it, but the shield was instantly splintered and although the sword managed to halt it, it began to bend under its force.
"You are strong," the shade commented, "no wonder Sithis wants you instead of me."
"What do you mean…" before he finished the question, Makenna realized what Hanele meant.
All in the ruin but Makenna and the shade lost their footing as the fort began to shake. Sunlight spilled over the dusty floor as a crack appeared in the ceiling above the hallway they had all come through. Suddenly the roof of the hallway caved in and none could see due to the dust and debris in the air.
When it cleared a Nord stood on the pile of rubble that used to be the ceiling. He stood hunched over a giant claymore planted in the stone where he landed. His armor was black dwarven steel that matched his dwarven claymore. As he straightened himself the Cards could see he was about as tall and powerfully built as Fons. He pulled his sword out of the ground and swung it in a wide arc, cutting a charging monster in half.
The battle between men and monsters had however continued to run its course despite the new combatant.
"Mind if I join you?" the Nord asked Isaiah. "I have business with that dark creature," he indicated the shade.
"If you can kill it, we welcome you to," Isaiah told him.
The Nord immediately began fighting his way over to Makenna and the shade.
Makenna's sword finally broke under the force of the axe and Makenna was left defenseless. The axes began their final swing, but were stopped by a black claymore.
"I will destroy you for what you have done to me evil creature!" the Nord yelled at the shade.
He flew backwards with a wave of the shade's hand. "Not your turn yet Christopher," it told him.
Makenna's hand glowed with electricity as he saw his chance to attack. When he released the lightning bolt however, it was met with one from the shade. Both let their power flow to the point where their spells met, a growing ball of electric energy. As Makenna emptied all the power he had available to keep the shade at bay, the shade still had enough to cast a telekinesis spell on a nearby sword.
As the shade sunk the steel into Makenna's heart, Christopher Showers simultaneously dipped his black sword into the shade's heart.
The ruin was filled with a huge electric explosion as the combine lightning spell of the shade and Makenna ended, destroying all but the Cards.