Author's Note: The only characters I own here are the girl with an attitude and the kill-happy imbecile. The other, more enjoyable ones are from Bethesda. B'awwww.
Thanks so much to all reviewers – there's so many of you now! :D It's really a motivating factor to sit down and write; even if I have stuff to do, which I always do, I really can't wait to hear your feedback on my piece. It's been a while since I did a fanfic, and the following was a lot smaller back then too. Seeing five reviews between two sessions online is electrifying :P
DualKatanas – Well, first off, usually my notes aren't that massive. I had a phenomenal amount of reviews (yay), and the chapter was missing a fairly lengthy section that I'd originally planned to write, because I wanted feedback. Then again, the recurring opinion was that my idea was fine. With Avielle's magic, you're right, and it wouldn't. But it's like you said; rage above reason. The way things are going, she's going to get herself killed if she thinks she can wipe out the Brotherhood with a couple of souped-up custom spells. But mages are very smart in some ways, and very stupid in others. Even so... I dislike confining magic to the spell effects available in Oblivion. It seems like it could do so much else... and by that, I mean more than just tossing in removed possibilities from older Elder Scrolls games.
Dreamer – I was just redoing that quest, and I was like, I have got to do this. And yeah, I refuse to carry out the Purification. I never complete the DB questline, it breaks my heart too much. I'm glad you agree on the quest I should do, and as for vampire hunters... I don't know, Avielle's experiences with them so far were more civilized than predatory; she probably lumps them closer to sentient than animals. Not a bad idea, though.
Reva – I do that too :P Especially Glarthir. There's another script effect spell that, when used, makes a note appear saying 'Bang, you're dead!' and adds some permanent damage health effect until the target dies, then says another note saying 'Hurts, don't it?' Dunno why, but it always makes me lol. The programmers cannot spell, though. :( With Avielle... I'm glad you thought so, although I didn't include any paralysis. :B And those -are- good ideas; maybe I can incorporate them later on.
Arty – Lucky! :O We got our first snow of the season today – it was gorgeous, classical snowglobe flakes – but school persevered. :( Anyway. Well... uhm... it's sort of... like... this thing... that... well, yeah. I know. :B But there was a lot more reminiscing and a lot less action in that one; I tried to ration the dot-dot-dots, but ended up saying 'to hell with it' and let it flow naturally. Sometimes that's what I have to do. :s I didn't really have much to say on Telaendril and Antoinetta – I can't really see them interacting with Ray that much either way. And I'm not nearly as good a writer as you... also, stupid, but I'm sort of new here, and while I have a general idea, what's a beta? Lastly, everscamps + Avielle = LOL. I already started working on Through a Nightmare, but I really gotta use this stuff later on...
Carlotta – I had been waiting to throw in that line since I first introduced the necromancers/necrophiliacs joke, heh. Glad you liked it :D As for the quests you mentioned... Avielle's immediate family is already dead and canonically, Phillida is probably dead at this point, along with something else you'll just have to wait and find out. With Avielle and vampirism... I've been toying with that idea, but it seems a theme that's so often used these days in so many stories, and while I'm not completely ruling it out as a possibility, it seems like Avielle has enough character as it is without having to add that to her list of personal struggles. Having said that, oblivion vampires over oblivion mortals any day. But too many is too many. Regardless, still very good suggestions. :D
"Wait. Just... say that again. I have to do what?"
Avielle had come to Bravil – so very much the picture of homely charm and a place she wanted to be in – after hearing that another mage had been crossing the law-imposed limitations of magical practice. She detested Bravil's rotting slums and crime, but in the past few months, her experimentation with stretching the possibilities of Destruction had not been yielding much. Her mother had risked more, certainly, and her death was a testament to that, but she'd created immensely powerful spells that could be casted with nearly no drain on one's reserves of magicka. Avielle had constructed some titanic castings too, but she couldn't feel them the way her mother's spells resonated within her. The amount of willpower and energy she needed to bend the massive storms of fire and frost to her will was more than she had at the best of times. Since she wasn't sure how she could go about increasing her capacity for magic – it seemed as ludicrous a prospect as growing a larger head or changing color at will – she decided she needed to find a way to decrease the sheer tax it took to cast them, and while she refused to crawl back to Raminus, the fact remained that Avielle needed help.
Upon arriving in the crusted-over jewel of the Niben, the Breton had discovered that Henantier was nowhere to be found. Everyone she pestered agreed that while it wasn't unlike him to vanish for days at a time, his friend seemed beside herself. Avielle knew this 'friend'; she'd been one of the chapter heads, an Argonian who'd sent her to track down a runaway Altmer's staff. While not very dangerous, it had involved a lot of trekking back and forth over Cyrodiil, and Avielle was rarely very benevolent towards those who put her up to jobs.
Kud-Ei had been desperate for help, though, and welcomed the Breton's aid as warmly as she would have the Arch Mage's. Perhaps even moreso, because apparently Henantier had been in some trouble with the Council, and he only had one chance left before he'd be expelled. Avielle sympathised.
However, her sympathy was breaking under the unwelcome strain that meeting Henantier was going to involve work, and the very strange kind, at that. The High Elf in question was in one of two beds next to her, twitching and rolling in a slumber that seemed to be completely unbreakable. She'd tried all kinds of stimuli, from pinching to bringing a book down over his head – Kud-Ei had not been happy – but nothing prompted any response. He truly was locked in rest; he could have been dead, if not for his occasional mumble or convulsion.
"You have to put on this amulet and go to sleep," the Argonian repeated, somewhat impatiently.
"...I don't know about you, but sleeping rarely ever fixed my problems in the past." Avielle rolled her eyes, but laced the locket around her neck anyways. It was an alluring shade of blue, with misty sparks roiling inside not unlike a Soul Gem. Breton sensitivy could feel the magicka humming within like electricity. "It can't be that easy. It never is. What's the real job here?"
"This locket is the portal to Henantier's Dreamworld. He intended to use his own mind as a training ground, so I can't guarantee what you'll see there, but prepare for the worst. You have to be careful in there. He explained to me once that he had turned his dreams into a reality, and that injury there meant injury in the real world. I can only assume that the means death in his Dreamworld is real too, by extension. You have to find him and ask him what went wrong. Also, I don't know how you'll get out of there, but don't leave without Henantier. He only had two amulets, and from what I can tell, the one he used to enter his Dreamworld doesn't work now. They seem to be one-use, and only he knew how to make them. If you leave without him, I don't know any other way to contact him."
The Breton had stopped listening past the out. "Are you saying I'm just going to get trapped in there forever? Forget about it." No amount of disappointment was worth getting sealed in a fake reality for all eternity.
"Avielle, wait!" Kud-Ei cried, alarmed.
"Do it yourself, Kud-Ei. I'm sorry, but I really just can't take that risk. Find out how to get out of that place safely and come find me again." She started to turn towards the door.
Avielle had about halfway pivoted before something green flashed behind her, accompanied by a rasped incantation. Before she could look to see what the chapter head was playing at, however, she stumbled, stretching out a hand to prop herself against the wall. Fatigue weighed down her limbs like lead pipes, and a thick fog rolled in from the corners of her mind. So tired... what had she been doing? Something about an Argonian and a pretty necklace and a bed...
A bed...
"I'm sleepy," Avielle drawled aloud, struggling to keep her eyelids open. The lashes kept falling down like black silk, blankets, so heavy. She swayed on her feet, her balance dissolving into the mist in her mind. Had to sleep. Just had to close her eyes for a moment, and then she could get up and remember what she'd been doing. It couldn't have been important, could it? It could wait...
Something scaly was on her shoulder then, pushing her gently towards something soft and flat. The bed. Wow. Those hands were nice, guiding her all the way to the mattress after her vision became too blurry to find it. She'd have to thank them. Avielle tried to, but all that came out was a mumbling, indecipherable noise.
Her head fell back, and the Breton slipped into an Altmer's dreams.
0o0o0
The road from Cheydinhal to Anvil was one of the longest treks an assassin in Vicente's province would usually have to take. Of course, the Leyawiin Sanctuary was a bit farther from Anvil than Cheydinhal, and there were always contracts to visit settlements even farther out, but it was a lengthy walk nonetheless. So it was perhaps four days after he set out from his city when he reached Anvil's gates. The last time he had been to the harbor city had been roughly sixty years ago; even from where he stood, on the snowbound path, he could smell the salt in the cool air. The sea moderated Anvil's temperature, and it was somewhat warmer than the Gold Road had been, but a thick white blanket still coated the city walls and surroundings, smothering the dried-up aloe and morning glory that alchemists often harvested. Having no heat of his own, the season's chill did not bother the vampire, even though he preferred warmth over cold.
There was a hooded figure standing before the gates. The single night-shift guard was staring at it, but from his distance, Vicente could hardly make out more. As he approached, he saw that the person sported a tufted tail, and that it – a male Khajiit, as it turned out – was holding an armful of calipers. He hadn't realized calipers were so popular. Perhaps times had changed.
"M'aiq knows much, tells some," rasped the Khajiit as Vicente made his way down the sloped road. "M'aiq knows many things others do not."
This M'aiq wasn't looking at the guard, and there was nobody else around, so Vicente assumed that he had to be talking to him. "A fine night to you, mister M'aiq."
The Khajiit plowed on as though the vampire had not spoken. "Werewolves? Where? Wolves? Men that are wolves? Many wolves. Everywhere. Many men. That is enough for M'aiq."
"Come again?" Vicente blinked.
"Was much debate over whether or not werewolves should be included in the game," the former explained in earnest. "M'aiq is glad they were not. M'aiq saw one in the last game. Was too busy sitting on chair to run away. Except M'aiq was not allowed to sit in the first place. Bad, very bad."
"...What game?" Okay, so calipers probably weren't a new fashion statement. Insanity was. First Glarthir, now this. Had Sheogorath claimed dominion over Cyrodiil recently? Vicente really needed to get out more often.
M'aiq made a sweeping gesture, waving one paw in a wide arc to encompass the surrounding. "This, that. Everything. The trees, the snow, you, M'aiq, calipers. Is all game. M'aiq has seen other games, likes this one much more. Has calipers in it. Does not have to stand next to chair all day. Can sit if Khajiit wants to. Is allowed to move of own accord, too. Oblivion is good game."
"I'm afraid I don't understand," Vicente managed, as politely as he could. "The entire world is a... game? And I believe you mean Nirn, or at least Tamriel. Oblivion is another plane, and one which you would not like to find yourself in, at that."
The Khajiit shook his head vigorously. "Is not Nirn. Is Oblivion. Makes for better title, has a four in the center. Like Morrowind, except is not Morrowind. Bah, why does Khajiit explain this to you? You are not the Hero."
This conversation was going absolutely nowhere.
Had Vicente been Ray – a terrifying thought for the Brotherhood indeed – he would have mowed down M'aiq simply for existing. But the vampire was thankfully not psychotic, and instead managed to free himself of the Khajiit through another, less illegal, and highly less violent means.
"Sir, I do believe I spotted a pair of calipers over there," he said, pointing in the general direction of Whitmond Farm.
The Khajiit's ears shot up to such a degree that his tattered hood actually slid off his head. "Calipers! M'aiq thanks you very much, kind sir."
With that, M'aiq the Liar fled at a speed that even a full vampire like Vicente would have been hard-pressed to match. The assassin watched in some amusement for a moment as the Khajiit started tearing apart the farm's storage barrels for his obsession, then returned to the task at hand.
The guard at the Anvil gateway gave the other hooded man – this one in black, and with none of his face visible – a large grin. "Thanks, sir. He's been standing there ever since my shift began. Whenver I asked him what his business was, he just said 'Khajiit has no time for you' and started playing with his calipers. Kind of creeped me out, I admit."
"I can see how you'd feel that way." Vicente laughed softly, wondering just how 'creeped out' the guard would be if he wasn't covering his face.
"Yeah, well. I take it you want to get in? It's a chilly night, that's for sure. You're out late."
"I would, thank you. And business calls," the vampire replied, not entirely lying. "You know how it is."
"Sure do." The guard pulled the gates open, kicking some snow off the ground to make way. "The Flowing Bowl is a good place to stay, if you want to get some sleep after your travels."
"Thank you for the tip, and good night to you, sir."
The smell of salt and fish greeted him; yes, this was definitely a seaside city. He shook his head slightly, trying to clear the strong scent from his nostrils. The snow here had been shoveled off the streets, and a thin layer of frost was all that laced the cobblestone here. The Mages Guild cast long shadows over the stone, and a part of his mind floated towards a certain wayward guild associate. But fate had finally seemed to let them stay apart, and this was no time for reminiscing. He glanced towards the harbor, where the faint voices of sailors echoed. Perhaps the Flowing Bowl was a fine inn, but sleep was the last thing on his mind.
Instead, he turned east, where the faintest touch of dawn painted the night skies above the manor district.
Time to see what Lucien had in store for him.
0o0o0
Avielle woke up to a hellish mist.
Her first thought was that, somehow, she'd ended up in one of the scenes of Oblivion that books so often portrayed; the air seemed red, and a smell like char assailed her nostrils. But no skies were made of wood, and the conversation preceding her inexplicable languidness quickly returned to her mind. Damn that Kud-Ei. Put her to sleep, would she? The Mages Guild really knew how to play dirty when it wanted to. Thank the Nines she'd gotten out of the University while she could. She slid off the bed, her legs aching in protest. How long had she been asleep? It felt like an era, but it couldn't have been that long... but she was in the Dreamworld, wasn't she, thanks to that Argonian? Time didn't necessarily have to mean anything in somebody's mind.
She fingered the locket around her neck; the string wouldn't budge. It appeared to be stuck to her neck, almost like a collar. Even though this didn't hurt, it dampened the headstrong girl's mood considerably. It was so... demeaning.
The next thing she noticed was a bewildered-looking, completely naked Altmer standing about two meters away from her. Avielle's eyebrows shot up, and she hastily set her eyes on his face and vowed to keep them there. Sweet Mara, he hadn't even been wearing a loincloth... She shuddered. A similar amulet was clasped around his neck, but while hers was shining, his seemed to be dead, dulled out; however, the Breton realized she could no longer feel magic coming from hers anymore, despite its resplendence. Avielle had assumed Henantier was a bright one, considering his successes in pushing the borders of magic, but the mer before her was giving her a very vapid look.
"Who are you?" he finally asked, his tone sounding oddly distorted.
"Someone Kud-Ei sent to rescue your helpless goldenrod self." Avielle rolled her eyes; she'd met more intellectual-sounding mudcrabs. "Come on, let's move it. You know how to get out of this place, right?"
"Out...?" Henantier repeated blithely. "This... place? This place... what is this place? How did I get here? Are you real?"
Seriously? Avielle thought. "You made this place, idiot, and you came here, to boot. So I'm really hoping you know a damn way out of here, because it sort of sucks. And you'd better believe I'm real."
"I..." The mer trailed off. "I'm missing something."
"Like your mind?" the Breton snorted.
"Yes... I think. Parts of it... gone. Somewhere, here, not here. Can't get out. Who are you? Who am I?"
Avielle's patience broke. "Snap out of it!" she yelled, grabbing Henantier by the shoulders and shaking him none too gently. "I'm trying to rescue you, damn it, so you can buck up and cooperate, you moron!"
He just started at her blankly. "Cooperate...?"
It was no use. She clocked him in the face – he swayed with the punch, but otherwise didn't react. There was no anger, no surprise. He'd managed to get one thing right in his babbling, that he was missing something. The Altmer seemed broken, empty. Avielle had met some thick people in her life, but he was barely a step above comatose. It was almost as if something vital had been ripped out of his mind, leaving him still functioning by a thread.
She took her attention from the befuddled mer and surveyed her surroundings more closely. It was a twisted but accurate replica of Henantier's bedroom in the waking world. Tables were overturned, his four-poster bed had been ripped apart by what looked like giant claws, and the standard mages' alchemy equipment on his bedside table bubbled with an eerie, tar-colored liquid that dissipated into slinking mist whenever it boiled over. A hellish red glow replaced daylight, streaming through the windows.
Uncomfortable, she tried to call up a magelight to cast away the unearthly hues in a more welcoming tone.
Nothing happened.
Avielle frowned. She wasn't a dab hand at illusion, but a light spell was one of the easiest things a mage could access. She tried again, this time saying the incantation aloud to strengthen the spell.
The arcane words wouldn't even come to her lips, and still no light came.
Damn it, she cursed. Silence. No wonder she couldn't feel the amulet's magicka. It was rendering her as sensitive as a sweetroll.
But it couldn't be an ordinary Silencing spell, could it? After all, she'd just been speaking. Silence rendered a person practically muzzled – they were both unable to access magic and unable to speak.
"Aaah," she uttered experimentally. Definitely audible. Henantier didn't even glance at the strange noise, continuing to stare in rapture at the wall. For all the intensity of his stare, he could have been watching a line of cabaret dancers. She didn't see how he could possibly appear any less intelligent.
She tried to call up another spell, but she couldn't feel it; that warm area where she normally reached for magicka was absent, leaving her as helpless as a child.
It was then that she noticed something that had no counterpart in the real world; a giant stone door with the word 'Courage' insribed on it in bloodred letters.
Well, she sure as Oblivion wasn't getting anything done by just waiting around. As it was, the Altmer was never going to stop being a moron long enough to remember how to escape this place. Could you find parts of somebody's mind just lying around? In a dream, Avielle supposed anything was possible.
She pushed the door open. It was time to see what Henantier's Dreamworld had in store for her.
0o0o0
The nobleman's house was large and lavish. It was easily the grandest mansion on the street, and possibly the finest place to live in Anvil, second to the castle. Unfortunately for the old Imperial noble, the larger a house was, the more loose ends were bound to exist in security.
Vicente was hardly the type of assassin who needed a godsend to sneak into a house, but he didn't turn down the golden opportunity that presented itself to him - the trapdoor into the wine cellar. It was definitely empty, and he kept his innate invisibility ability at his fingers just in case – he was definitely in control of the situation. So why was unease causing the hairs on the back of his neck to prickle?
Perhaps he was just being a paranoid old man, but if that was the case, there was nothing like a healthy dose of paranoia to keep one alive in his line of work. If Lucien had planned some kind of trap with this contract, he'd be in for a surprise. It took a lot to bring Vicente down, unless certain debilitating elements were at play. He had perhaps half an hour before the sun rose, and since he needed to poison a meal – nobody would be eating this early – he'd need to hide in the mansion for the entire day. Such a thing would be a frightening prospect for a less experienced assassin, but the vampire knew how to keep himself hidden; for the latter half of the century before he joined the Brotherhood, he'd wandered from place to place, using others' lodgings for shelter more often than not. Unless trickery was at work, the only thing he needed to worry about was the persistent burning in the back of his throat.
He delicately shut the trapdoor behind him, making almost no noise whatsoever. Dust motes whirled at his feet, stirred by the sudden breeze. He let his senses range out, trying to put his atypical worry to rest. It didn't smell like anyone had been down here for at least a few days, and the only things his ears could pick up were a rat scuttling somewhere and the slow drip of a leaking wine barrel.
Vicente made his way through the cellar, taking great care not to disturb the placement of the basement's clutter. After all, it was supposed to be as if he had never been here, and some people could be surprisingly perceptive about the slightest changes. Pausing at the stairs, he briefly closed his eyes – when they opened, they glowed a faint silver. He let his Hunter's Sight scan the floor above him, seeking out the oscillations of life that would give away the presence of any early risers. It was wise that he had – there were a purple silhouettes moving rhythmically back and forth, probably maids sent out to clean. One was to the south and the other to the east, neither overly close to his current location. He let his vision fade back to normal, satisfied.
He'd left both of his main weapons at home, leaving himself with only an ebony dagger to guard himself with if things turned sour. The vampire had every right to be confident, both in that he wouldn't be caught, and that he could take on Anvil's entire watch with only one weapon if need be. A longsword and claymore were detriments to stealth – they weighed a person down and made their steps heavier, and they tended to rasp in their sheathes if one so much as shifted from one foot to the other.
With a vial of poison in his travelling cloak's pocket, the vampire made his way up the stairs.
0o0o0
Avielle found herself in an entirely different setting than before; instead of the hellish, ruined room, she now stood in a tropical grotto. A warm breeze carressed her face, strange trees formed leafy walls around her, and fern fronds tickled her bare feet.
Bare feet...? Hadn't she been wearing shoes?
The Breton looked down and realized that she was stark naked. A furious blush flamed in both cheeks. Oh, hell. How long had she not been wearing anything? The whole time? She'd have noticed her clothes falling off, unless it had been when she'd been dumped into the Dreamworld. No wonder Henantier hadn't been clothed. By the Divines, this place sucked.
And Henantier hadn't even mentioned it? The bloody pervert. Then again, he was so out of it that he probably didn't even know what clothes were.
But she was thankfully alone now. She tried to cast the issue of nudity from her mind and searched for a way onward. Just trees on her sides and a smooth, rocky cliff ahead. There was nothing promising, save for a sparkling pool in the center of the glade, perhaps a few meters away from her. The water – was it water? sparkled in uneartly hues, glistening pink, orange, and deep cerulean under the dream sun. Oher than that, there was nothing. She stepped closer, trying to peer into the waters. If she squinted hard enough, she could see that the far end of the waters seemed darker, deeper, and that the beginnings of a tunnel had been carved out from the cliff; a slice of it was visible aboveground, and then it sloped down into the water.
But she was not going to just dive into an underwater passage without being able to gauge where it led first. Which she couldn't. And with her magic dead, she couldn't breathe water or heal herself. If she couldn't do that, well... screw Henantier, she was going to find a way out of this place herself. She turned around for the door, only to find it had simply vanished. There was nothing behind her but thick foliage.
"Damn it," she swore. It looked like the only way out was forward.
She stepped cautiously into the pond, hoping that what she assumed to be water wasn't actually acid or blood or something equally nightmarish. Luckily, it wasn't – the liquid was pleasantly warm, almost like bathwater. It was also very shallow, barely up to her ankles. A minature island jutted out a bit further in, and she made her way towards it, feeling the wet sand squish under her feet. The 'island' was barely more than a large rock jutting above the surface, but what grabbed her attention about it was the Ayleid cask that was perched atop the pinnacle. She slid it open, and a bottle with a note wrapped around it rolled out; she made a quick double take and just barely caught it.
The bottle was labeled 'Water Breathing', which came as quite some relief to the Breton. At least this place wasn't totally up against her.
She unwrapped the note and read it. The words were in an elegant, heavily slanting script that contained so many loops and flourishes that it was almost difficult to read. She pored over it.
To restore Henantier's courage, you must prove your own.
What in Oblivion was that supposed to mean?
Unless... actually, it was pretty damn obvious. Courage meant diving into a flooded tunnel in a nightmare, with only one water breathing potion and no fetching idea how long the damn thing was.
She glanced back. The door hadn't magically reappeared.
She wasn't feeling particularly courageous, but what else was there to do? She took a few more steps forward; the ground underfoot sloped sharply, and soon the water lapped against her chest. It wasn't uncomfortable, but she did not like to think about what she was doing.
Avielle uncorked the bottle and tossed the top aside – it vanished into the water with a splash. She scrutinized it for a moment; nothing seemed off about it, but she was in somebody's dream, for Oblivion's sake. Anything could be a trap. But she could do nothing else besides walk straight into them, as unarmed and helpless as she was. She downed the potion and dived into the water.
It worked just fine, which was a weight off Avielle's shoulders. Novice alchemists trying to create a potion for breathing underwater often churned out concoctions that worked, but left you feeling like you were trying to inhale custard, or thickly humid air. This one was expertly crafted, and it felt just like breathing air. Avielle had never been much of a swimmer, but she remembered the basics from her mother, who'd told her how to keep from drowning in case she ever fell into a lake.
It was easier to see underwater than it had been from the surface. Here, everything was just a normal, murky blue, not a whirl of incandescent colors that made it look like the rainbow had just vomited.
The tunnel was a straight shot forward. No branching paths stretched out to confuse her. Her pace wasn't fast, and her paddling was inefficient, but it moved her forward nonetheless. Avielle tried to keep her breathing even, but it quickly grew ragged. She was a mage, and not the fieldwork kind; her physique wouldn't have been impressive compared with a cake's. The tunnel went straight ahead for some time, and then took an almost ninety-degree bend and downward, where the murky outlines of stalactites jutted from the sides. Definitely imposing. But her breathing time was limited, and she only hesitated for a moment before taking the vertical path.
The water grew colder and colder as she swam downwards, her underworked muscles protesting as she continued her wide strokes. How long did this damn thing go down? She couldn't see a turn or bend in sight, but there was no way she could turn back now.
An intense prickling ran over her skin, and she was struck with a sudden jolt of fatigue. It was a sensation she recognized even in her magically dead state, and it came to her with utter dread. It was the feeling of an Alteration spell wearing off. More specifically, water breathing.
Her latest breath came back up, laced with fluid – of course, it meant nothing to her surroundings, also water. The instant she began to choke, natural instinct overcame her, and she instantly tried to draw in another breath. Pure water. Pain cleaved through her chest like a sword, and her lungs burned as if filled with fire instead of water. She started to struggle wildly, knowing the surface was too far to even consider, and that she wouldn't stay conscious for another minute. I'm going to die, she thought. Death in here is real. I'm going to spend my last fetching moments in somebody's nightmare. Damn that Argonian! By the Gods, air, air, ineedair.
In her flailing, her arm knocked against something attached to the stone wall – another cask. Somehow, despite her agony-induced panicking, she realized what it was and managed to pry it open after some terrifyingly slow frantic fumbling. Without bothering to check whether it was potion or poison, she struggled to bring the bottle through the water to her lips, bit off the cork, and choked it down.
The pain slid away like water off stone, and the red dots that swarmed at the edges of her vision scattered like a school of fish. She gasped in another breath, the water filling her lungs turning to air again. She wasted a few seconds staring at the empty bottle in wonder. If she'd been any faster or slower in her swim, or if she'd not been jerking around so wildly, she'd have never found the cask, and that would have been it for her. Death was such a strange and faraway concept until it stared you in the face – it had been a long time since she'd come that close to it.
But there was nothing good that could come from wasting time – all she could do was go forward.
She ignored the ache in her muscles; her close brush with death had rekindled her alertness, and she was determined to make it out of this place alive. The path wound further down, without a sign of another potion, but she kept the shadows of doubt banished to the corner of her mind. There was no time to worry, no time to fear. A sharp stone cut into her bare thigh as she swam, but Avielle didn't even wince.
Something faintly brown came into view amongst the foggy blueness. Strangely enough, there was a trapdoor at the very pit of the tunnel. A trapdoor was hardly any use underwater, but it was something, which was better than the lack of change she'd swam through for the past minute. She paddled down towards it, only to feel the telltale tingling of the potion wearing off. Panic rekindled, and she reached for the handle desperately, hoping to find another potion underneath. But there was nothing there, nothing, only complete and utter blackness, which she hurled herself into without a second thought –
...and her head broke the surface, gasping for air. It rushed into her lungs, pure and warm, more refreshing than she'd ever felt before. But what surface? She coughed and spat, trying to clear the water from her lungs. After she'd blinked the darkness from her eyes, Avielle realized the trapdoor or tunnel were nowhere in sight. It was like she'd slipped into a different reality, just like how one door had led her straight from a nightmare room to a tropical paradise. She was chest-deep in a pool of the same sparkling water, with palm trees waving gently on the fringes. But what held her attention was a sparkling, yellow ball of something that whirled and flickered in the air before her.
She gingerly made her way towards it, wondering if this was what she'd taken her plunge for. It was the only thing here, but... was it Henantier's courage? She didn't really see what else it could be, especially as she had no idea what courage was supposed to look like. It hung in the air like a moon or a star, bright but subdued. It didn't seem tangible – as she neared it, she realized that she could see right through it.
Intense warmth radiated from the golden sphere of light, and she carefully stretched out a hand towards it. As soon as the tip of her longest finger was touched by the glow, an overpowering sensation engulfed her. Memories that weren't hers raced through her mind, so fast and fragmented that she could barely make out what they were. There was an Altmer arguing with an important-looking figure in what looked like the Arch-Mage's lobby, and then it was all gone; suddenly, he was diving into Lake Rumare after a floundering and crying young Dunmer girl, and then he was struggling to subdue a flare of bright red magic that raged and burned out of control. She gritted her teeth, and her hair stood on end. The feeling was electric. Throughout, she found herself seized by an emotion, a drive so powerful it took her several seconds to recognize what it was.
Courage.
Avielle blacked out.