Author's Note - I don't own Oblivion, and a note concerning this chapter!
I am aware that the singular of Daedra is Daedroth. However, I refuse to use this grammatically correct form due to the confusion it causes, being the name of a particular type of Daedra. Consider daedra both singular and plural for the purpose of my sanity. I am also aware that Oblivion is not the Tamrielic equivalent of hell, and that daedra are not demons, but... I don't really care enough not to use them synonymously.
But just to clear this up, I have a freakish knowledge of TES lore. Only it doesn't stop me from butchering the language, screwing with vampirism, or thinking the concept of a werevulture is far too lame to consider. (Fear me, I'm going to circle above you menacingly.) ...Dude, at least a wereboar could gore you, even if it squeals like a girl. I'm cool with nontraditional lycanthropes, but they have to be larger than a turkey and strong enough to kill you.
DualKatanas - As always, you completely honor me. :) Yeah, while I like the occasional good line, the interactions eventually get old, which was why I was never really satisfied with ch19. This one is much more fun, though.
Arty - Funny you mention mudcrabs... I altered the game using the console so that all mudcrabs have a scale of 2.5 rather than 0.5, and they're renamed 'Giant Enemy Crab'. Props if you get the reference. I'm so sorry I haven't been keeping up with your fic recently - I'm very fjgshfgbdshjfbedc right now. DX
Cola - Yes and no. Yes, it will be referenced to some degree, but Avielle and Vicente are not undertaking it. As I've said earlier, I may touch upon some questlines, but I'm sticking to no predestined plot.
DeLyse - I really have no right to be thinking this far ahead, but I sortof have a very base structure upon which to form a sequel. It would happen in Skyrim, though, because after TES5 comes out, nobody will look for Cyrodiil stories. I make no promises; God knows if I'll even manage to complete this one. But it's a thought. And also, I'm nowhere near done. And thanks! Surely my lexicon isn't that good. :P
Your reviews mean a ton to me. :D Thanks so much.
"What..." Avielle stared at the glow on the horizon, not comprehending. The skies looked almost as if they were boiling, the clouds churning red.
"Kvatch," was all Vicente said, gazing north at the mountain. The vampire was not familiar with common life, but there was little doubt in his mind that something had gone immeasurably amiss for the great city to be engulfed in a smothering inferno. The cries were faint, muffled by distance and ambience, but they rang in his ears. He ran his tongue over his lips. Fire had the potential to destroy him, his skin as flammable as parchment. He had no obligations, such a venture would only be in his way. And yet...
"Yes, but - what the - hey! Put me down!"
...he cared, enough to unceremoniously sling Avielle over his back, fix her arms securely around his neck, and take off running.
"You do not have the capability to match my pace," he answered, wincing as she kicked him in the ribs indignantly. "Just hang on."
"If there's something wrong, why the hell are we running towards it?" she yelled, morbidly close to his ear.
The vampire was still trying to figure that out. There was a reason, he could feel it lingering before him; a butterfly that danced just outside of his reach. There was a Sanctuary in Kvatch, but those were Brothers and Sisters he had only met once, if ever, and they were likely obligated to kill him on sight. His loyalties to the Brotherhood were tangled now at best. But he still felt as if there was someone...
It came to him quickly, and the realization brought him no relief. Na'viri.
And then, mingled exasperation and disbelief. Sithis. I am falling apart. What in the name of the Void is wrong with me?
Vicente had a healthy dose of self-preservation. He had not survived for the past two hundred years as an assassin by gallantly throwing himself into danger on the behalf of men and mer that he barely knew. He'd only met the Khajiit once. Once. She might not have been in Kvatch at all. So why was he going to intervene in a situation that was highly dangerous on many levels, especially when he had other things to do?
I am a - I - I slaughter innocents on a regular basis! Sithis, I joined the Brotherhood willingly! I'm not a fetching knight, a zealot, a misguided crusader... what has happened to me?
What had changed? The Purification? Perhaps, but even so, that had not been the beginning. Ever since that night in Skingrad...
But this was really not the time to ponder semantics. Or was it? He gritted his teeth. People outside of the Brotherhood were not supposed to mean anything to him; having met a target once or twice could never serve to make them less disposable to him.
And yet... she knew him. Barely. A glance, a chance encounter. She knew nothing about his past, his predicament, his station... but she could put a face to the name of Vicente, and didn't seem to have a burning hatred of him. Sithis, it shouldn't matter. He knew that it had no right to. But he had very few connections in this forbidding, hostile world, and even the dead needed a Family.
"Let - me - down - you - fetch - ing - ass - hole," spat out his passenger, each syllable in tune with his footsteps. She'd started up again with the rib-kicking, too. Well, he was almost at the mountain... The vampire briefly toyed with the idea of jerking to an instant halt and watching her fly forward, but managing to instill in Avielle a sense of respect seemed as likely as teaching a troll how to play hopscotch. Instead, he slowed down, twisting around to rather unceremoniously dislodge the mage. She landed in a sprawl that he would have found amusing in less trying times.
"Damn it," she hissed as she got to her feet. "I really don't like when you just pick me up like that and run around."
"There are only two other alternatives to this, you know," he retorted as he set off, motioning impatiently for her to follow.
"Try me," came the typical challenge.
"Sithis, this isn't the time..." he muttered. Could he not have even a minute to think? "Fine, then. Option one. I leave you behind. Permanently."
"The other one."
He looked at her over his shoulder, giving her a wide, mirthless grin that aptly displayed his very prominent teeth. "I could always turn you into a vampire. You'd be able to keep up with me on your own that way. It would solve plenty of problems, actually." Despite the teasing threat, his tone was laconic and his expression empty.
She shuddered anyways at the thought. "Gods, no."
"I never intended to do that. Now, please. I am trying to be serious. Stay close," Vicente implored, turning back to the trail ahead as he tugged his hood over his face. "I do not have a good feeling about this."
"Then why in the name of Akatosh are you getting involved?" Avielle asked pointedly as she struggled to match his brisk pace up the path. To that, he gave no reply.
Ash turns the sky black, he mused quietly, surveying the obscured heavens. Not red.
At the base of the winding road that led up to the city, a congregation of people had gathered. They all reeked of smoke and sweat - and blood, although Vicente was doing well enough to be unfazed by it. As he neared it, he was better able to make out the haggard crowd. Some clutched prized possessions to their chests, others prayed, and others still stared blankly around them with hollow eyes, seeing nothing. A lone healer crossed from one refugee to another, soothing scrapes and burns despite her own obvious fatigue. Makeshift bedrolls, mats, and torches had been constructed hastily around the encampment; indeed, Kvatch was suffering a great ordeal for the city to be evacuated. The sounds seemed to fall softly into place, one after another; a young boy's pleas for 'mama', quiet sobbing, the oaths sent skyward towards the Divines.
"My children!" shrieked a Dunmer women, grey skin dark with soot. "Where are my children?"
As the healer wandered over to comfort her, Vicente realized he had made up his mind. He had nothing in common with these civilians - he'd harbored no second thoughts on killing their kind on contract. He was not the type to rationalize a kill by regarding his victims as unimportant as sheep. They all walked and worried and felt, and he murdered, but not indiscriminately. Hadn't he lost his children? The patriarch, unable to do a thing as the ones he'd raised and taught were destroyed.
For once, Avielle was silent, tongue stilled by the disheartening sight presented. Her eyes were wide, and very blue in the lanternlight.
"Stay here," he ordered in a low voice. "I will go ahead."
He went forward without a glance back to see if the mage was listening. There was no point; she either would, or she wouldn't. Vicente strode briskly through the mass of refugees. He was paid little heed by the shell-shocked gathering as he passed through their improvised camp. A preist near the far end was giving a sermon on doom and destruction to nobody in particular, doing nothing to help morale.
Vicente's lip curled. He believed in the Nine Divines. Rather, he believed that they existed in some ethereal plane, but were entirely apathetic to the events of the mortal world. He was not bitter about his state, but he had followed their code to the utmost in his living days, and his reward had been a fall from grace and an utter inability to return to their favor. Sithis rewarded those who served Him. Gods that sat back without enforcing their ideals or sending for emissaries were not worth worshipping.
Perhaps this priest's gods were watching Kvatch and perhaps they were not, but either way, the city was on its own.
He sped up a bit as the road curved and began to amble upwards. The entire situation wasn't right. Fire caused smoke, and he could smell that, but it did not paint the skies bloodred, and the heavy reek of sulfur was just as oppressively unnatural.
His hood was obscuring his vision; brusquely, he yanked it back so that he could see better. The vampire growled under his breath when the path turned lazily again, winding up the rock face in a whimsical scrawl. Every moment wasted was another moment for the Khajiit to perish.
People died all the time. It had never really bothered him before; it was a fact of life, as tragic but acceptable as how he would always be hunted for what he was, and that he too would eventually perish. And yet… he knew how it felt to lose everyone you knew in one fell swoop. And to be so powerless…
Frustrated with the path's gently meandering slope, Vicente hauled himself up the rocks, climbing the stone shelf that separated the road's many tiers. He almost slipped on the scree that he dislodged, but he had the balance of a wildcat, and did not join the pebbles that skittered downwards.
The climb was disconcertingly like ascending a giant's stairwell; a vertical stretch followed by a flat plane of the same length where he crossed the next level of the road. His almost surreal path was quickly over, though. In a flurry of leaps and tumbling stones, he crested the final rise and finally saw the city of peril.
Vicente had been to Kvatch before. His memories were of a pleasant city, if a little too bright and well-patrolled for his liking, with fresh mountain air and a constant cool breeze. The favored architecture was primarily of silvery bricks, and everything was cheery and welcoming to the average citizen.
What he saw now could not have possibly borne a more striking juxtaposition to that.
Ruins. Blazing ruins. Soot fluttered down like a smothering fog, obscuring his view of Kvatch. The great gates to the city seemed to be open, but something was in the way, something he couldn't yet make out. A redoubled blast of the hot, foul air slammed into him like a tangible body as he hauled himself onto the highest tier of the road. He reeled momentarily, senses struggling to overcome the sudden onslaught. He shimmied over a few hastily constructed barricades, wondering why anyone would build a wooden gate to protect themselves from fire.
The Kvatch he remembered had been silver. Now it stood orange and black.
Vicente hated fire. Anything greater than the tame flicker of a candle got his hackles up, primal instincts screaming danger as they recoiled from the light. He knew all too well that as strong as his body was, it was as combustible as dry timber. Magic-based fireballs were offset by his Breton heritage, but the voracious blaze that leapt from building to building like a feral beast was fire at its simplest - and deadliest. Had he ever seen so much flame before?
And to think that I'm doing this voluntarily, he thought, resigned. Perhaps I have finally come unhinged.
Between Kvatch's gaping gates and himself was something straight out of an artist's rendition of hell. The cobblestone was blackened and cracked, and a series of arches jutted up from the ruined ground like great jaws. Three seemed inert, but the largest of them blazed vermillion with wild energy. A group of battered guardsmen stood in a ragged line, their movements jerking and wary. The usual ivory-colored uniforms of the mountain city were grey with soot and char, and the darker blotches needed no explanation. The fear among them was almost palpable.
As he watched, the magic field convulsed, and a group of creatures poured from nowhere.
The guards charged with a rallying cry. As the screeches and shrieks of battle split the air, Vicente realized with a jolt that the invaders were Daedra; scamps, atronachs, even a Hunger. His eyes strayed back to the arch. But that means…
It's... Oblivion. By Sithis, that's a gate to Oblivion...
Vicente had never heard of such a thing, but there was hardly any doubt. Daedric symbols were scrawled on the volcanic rock of the arches, starkly red and angry in their harsh lines. And the sulfuric smell, the tainted sky... there really was no other explanation.
He ducked instinctively at the twang of bowstrings, even though the volley of arrows fell nowhere near him. The creatures staggered back, hissing, as the stream of well-aimed projectiles continued. But none of the guards seemed to have bows…
"Take that, you bastards!" screamed a hoarse but very familiar voice.
Running from the city's open gates was a black figure, clad in golden-green armor. Anything besides its bright armaments and Elvish protection was impossible to discern among the scorched ground and darkness, but Vicente recognized the form immediately.
It was either extreme providence that he'd found Na'viri so quickly, or extreme bad luck. If Vicente was one to believe in karma, he'd have immediately known that it would be the latter. As it was, he was a cautious realist, so he opted for that belief anyways.
He had never actually seen Na'viri in action, but he had to admit that she was impressive, or at least very powerfully driven at the moment. He did not move from his position as he watched her hail arrows upon her enemies, carving a swath through them towards the gate.
A fleck of ash landed in his eye, and he winced, rubbing the sensitive spot. It took him a couple of seconds to remove the offending dust and return attention to the scene unfolding.
She seemed to be in a heated argument with one of the guards, but over the din of battle and flame, it was difficult to make out anything. He strained his ears.
"...let me go!" came the Khajiit's voice, shrill enough to sound nearly like a wail.
"None of the men I sent into that thing ever came out!" the man barked - as he peered closer, Vicente recognised him as Savlian Matius from the profiles that the Brotherhood had kept on all important figures. Kvatch guard captain. Not somebody Vicente wanted to run into, but... he was already up to his neck in trouble.
"I don't care!" Na'viri's voice broke on the last word. "This is my goddamn home! I have to... I've got to..."
With a cry, she shoved the guard aside, ignoring his shocked warning of "Civilian!". She ran straight at the portal, clutching her bow. The orange haze shivered between the prodigious stone pillars and swallowed her up.
Matius stared into the wavering barrier for a few moments after, then sighed and turned away, shaking his head.
And Vicente realized that while he'd thought Avielle had a bit of a death wish, he should have been considering himself lucky, because Na'viri seemed hell-bent on getting herself slaughtered.
So, no. He wasn't going to stroll into a burning city. He was going to stroll into a burning hell. Had the years finally unhinged him?
He found himself striding towards the arches before he'd accepted that he was going to go through with all of this madness. The assassin halfheartedly hoped that the guards wouldn't notice him, but he was not surprised when the captain spotted him, approaching him with his sword drawn.
"Halt!"
He could have yanked his hood back up, but he knew that he would be doing himself no favors with such an action while he was being watched. He would be openly advertising that he had something to hide.
"Get back, civilian. This is no place for-"
And of course, without the hood, he may as well have had a choir of drunken taverngoers following him, singing for all authority nearby to apprehend him with all haste.
"You... you're that vampire." The captain's face contorted. "The one that Anvil's been going on about. The assassin."
Vicente rolled his eyes. "I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I had an evil doppelganger?"
"Don't toy with me!" the Imperial barked, his arm snapping forward to catch the vampire's wrist in a strong grip. "In the name of the late Emperor, you are now officially under arrest. I can assure you that you'll be sent to the gallows."
These threats failed to impress the assassin. "As much as I dislike being the bearer of bad news, I fear that your gallows have probably burnt to the ground. And I really cannot be bothered to wait around for you to construct a new one."
"Are you taunting me?"
"I am merely pointing out what should be obvious. Did you notice Kvatch is on fire? Perhaps somebody should have told you."
"Continue this, monster, and I shall cut your tongue out," Matius snapped.
"Don't you have more important things to do?" The Breton was already tiring of the exchange. "For example, helping your men out against a Daedric horde? Perhaps evacuating trapped citizens? My business here is quite benign, I assure you."
"We have enough people dying here without you trying to feast upon them." The fingers around his arm tightened.
"Kindly stop crushing my wrist. I happen to be rather fond of it."
Savlian's response involved attempting to remove said wrist from the arm it was attached to. Vicente sighed dispassionately. "You and your vampire stereotypes. I saw the smoke from the road and foolishly wanted to check and see if a certain somebody was all right. Said somebody just ran into that gateway as I arrived."
"How exactly do you know that citizen?" The guard's eyes were critical and very suspicious.
"I assure you, she suffers none of my tainted reputation. I happened to meet her by chance. Does it make a difference?"
The captain tried to sneer, but it ended up as more of a grimace. "You're right, it doesn't. Since you're going to die anyways. Here and now."
"If you know of my crimes, you also know that I decimated a force much larger and well-prepared than yours. You hardly have any men left. Do not throw them all onto my sword and leave your city defenseless to this actual threat."
"Don't instruct me on how to command my men, criminal!"
"Are you honestly going to arrest me now?" Vicente hissed. "Does black-and-white justice mean anything while your city is burning? I mean to go into that gate, and you would be a fool to stop me. The law may paint us as enemies, Captain, but are you so blind to cling to such notions while we stand before the jaws of hell?"
Savlian made a strangled noise. "We don't want bastards like you on our side!"
"Suit yourself." Vicente wrenched his arm free of the guard's grip to backhand a clannfear that had taken an interest in the pair. The reptilian demon flew backwards and collided with one of the inert gates' arches. In a shower of brimstone and obsidian, the daedra's crest shattered, along with half of its skull.
Kvatch's guard captain sucked in a hard breath. He hadn't even seen the creature approach.
"However, I refuse to play your game." The vampire hadn't spared the attacking clannfear a single glance all the while. "You are in no position to pick sides. In another time, we could be guard versus assassin, living versus undead - but this is Nirn against Oblivion, and any of our disagreements pale before that. Now please, get out of my way. My acquaintance is dying in there."
Very few men would have the courage to stand up to an aggravated vampire, but Savlian Matius met his crimson gaze stonily. "I am bound by law to kill you."
Sithis, he hated guards... "And if I can close that gate, I save innumerable lives. If I fail, I die, and your laws are satisfied."
"If you did close that gate," the captain said in a tone that bitingly suggested he doubted the outcome, "I'd still have to take you down."
The assassin smiled wolfishly. "Not necessarily. You are a captain of the Legion, and can take charge in times of crisis. If I can destroy the Oblivion gate, pardon me from that little fiasco in Anvil. I would still be a vampire, and therefore always legal to slaughter - but you don't have to apprehend me. And if I perish during this task, consider your problem solved much more easily."
Savlian snarled under his breath. Cursing, he looked from Vicente to Kvatch, lit by hellfire behind Oblivion's parted jaws. When he turned back to the vampire, his eyes were hard. "Deal," he spat. "Go in there, kill as many of the bastards as you can, close the damn gate, and then get yourself killed the moment you succeed. Do you even know how to bring that thing down?"
"I know the theory," he said as he brushed past the guard, shrugging off his cloak. "The portal should be sustained by some magical nucleus-"
"Vicente!" Avielle called breathlessly, finally cresting the twisting path. "For Mara's sake, wait up, will-"
She froze midsentence, probably because the person she was talking to was silhouetted against an enormous arch of onyx, backed with shimmering flames and the darting shadows of demons within.
"Oh, Avielle." For his tone, the assassin might have been discussing the time of day. He deftly tossed his robe to her, which she caught in a dumbfounded stupor. "Look after this, please. And whatever you do, don't follow me."
Just like that, he turned vanished into the magical haze.
Avielle stood blinking for a few moments, semi-aware of the soft cloak in her arms as she tried to take in the enormity of the situation. There was fire, daedric creatures darting around, great stone arches...
A guard was standing near her. "Miss, what are you doing here?"
Some semblance of comprehension dawned upon the mage. That bastard ran off without me again!
"You're in my way," she said back laconically to him, brushing past a shocked Savlian Matius as she shrugged the robe over her shoulders.
Don't follow me? Seriously?
"Like hell I won't," she muttered, and charged in after him.
0o0o0
Vicente stepped out of the Oblivion Gate into a wall of blazing heat and gaggle of slavering Daedra.
They had him flanked in a semi-circle, blocking the way forward with bared teeth and charging spells. It was not exactly the front lines of Oblivion's army - a few scamps, two clannfear, and an atronach of glittering ice - but they could easily spell anyone's quick demise.
A lesser man would have turned tail and fled back into the relative safety of the portal behind him. Vicente was not a lesser man. In fact, to call him just a man with no glorified prefixes before it would be fairly demeaning.
He'd forgotten just how powerfully Daedra reeked - a mix of sulfur and tar, burning his nostrils. He hadn't encountered more than a few conjurers' familiars in the past, and to have this many fall upon him at once was unpleasantly staggering.
But then again, was anything necessary ever pleasant?
He lashed out with a knee kick as he pulled his claymore free from his back strap, feeling a scamp's ribcage crumble under the force. The vampire was momentarily surprised to see the Daedra begin to dissipate as it fell backwards instead of simply lying inert in death, but he could form a rudimentary understanding as to why. He stood now in the waters of Oblivion, the stream from whence these demons came; what was to say that they did not immediately return to their essence upon defeat? The realities he'd known did not necessarily mean anything here.
This theory was worked out in the span of time it took for him to impale another scamp and one of the clannfears with a single stab. The greater Daedra were quite intelligent, but the creatures he faced now had the subtlety of a charging boar. The scamp was killed immediately, but the clannfear that had so inopportunely positioned itself behind it suffered only a gash on its side. The reptilian monster screeched, a sound like tearing metal. Dark blood trickled down its scaly, peridot-green hide as it lunged forward with its crest fully flared, beak snapping for Vicente's neck. He decapitated it with an almost lazy flick of the claymore.
The other clannfear, a duller yellow-brown, darted towards him, but intercepted the third scamp's fireball. With an angry cry, it leapt after the lesser Daedra instead, which promptly fled.
This left Vicente facing the final and most imposing one of the ragtag group, the only one he considered worthy enough to lend thought to. The frost atronach looked ridiculously out of place in the blazing surroundings. A part of the vampire's mind wondered idly if it was as uncomfortable in the heat as he was. He sized it up, looking for a chink or fault line in the icy armor through which he could slip his sword.
Unfortunately, the atronach wasn't going to wait. It thrust both of its blocklike hands forward, and a massive chunk of ice appeared between them. As it started to throw the missile, he lunged forward and hacked at its midsection, breaking off several pieces of its body.
He felt a biting chill prickle him as his blade connected, somehow offering no comfort against the heat. As he recoiled, the clawing sensation vanished.
Hmph. I had forgotten about damage reflection properties. Well, no matter.
The atronach had recoiled from his strike, and he took advantage of its stumble, pressing forward. He slashed and chiseled at its body, ignoring the lashes of pain that branded him with every blow, and within seconds, his deadly work had reduced the titan into a subliminating pile of ice shards.
Before taking a single step forward, Vicente took the time to thoroughly survey his surroundings.
It was not his ideal vacation spot. The ground was volcanic rock, its jagged edges here and there as sharp as knives. Behind the portal from whence he'd entered was a flat wall of stone, the cliffs above so high he could barely make out the plants that hung from the top edge. Unnaturally bright lava pulsed and lapped sluggishly against the rocky shores, forming rivers that carved out paths through the wasteland. To his side, the molten rock flared out in a seemingly endless ocean's mouth. An ocean of lava! Yes, he was most definitely not in Tamriel anymore.
It was as he'd expected - fire and ashes everywhere, exactly the last place he would want to be if he were sensible. Whichever Prince presided over this plane had a grim taste in decorations - crude poles jutted from the sides of the way ahead, humanoid skulls skewered messily upon them. A blackened figure lay sprawled ahead, so morbidly burnt that he immediately knew there was no point in checking for signs of life.
There was no sign of Na'viri anywhere. He might have arrived fairly soon after she had, but the Daedra had held him up for a significant amount of time.
He had scarcely taken five paces forward before he heard clumsy footsteps behind him. He whirled, prepared for another attack.
What was actually tailing him was much less pleasant.
"By the gods, if you try to leave me behind one more time, I swear I'm going to castrate you."
There was Avielle, in all of her irritated glory. She held her staff in one hand and clutched her dagger in the other, reminding Vicente very much of a child pretending to be a soldier.
"I told you to stay out of here." He tried to keep his voice neutral.
"Since when do I ever listen?" she shot back. "I'm here, so deal with it."
"You-" For once, the vampire was left speechless. "Gah," he uttered inarticulately, waving his hand in a wild gesture. Avielle got a rather sadistic kick out of the show, having proved that her companion was not beyond flustering.
"I what?"
"You incorrigible, arrogant, acerbic, thick-headed buffoon with an insatiable penchant for death," Vicente finished, seething. "Do you realise where we are?"
"Well, Vicente, we're certainly not in Kvatch anymore."
"This is Oblivion!" he exploded. "Can you not see the fire and brimstone, the lava pools, the corpses strewn about for decoration? Everything in here seeks your death! Get back through that Oblivion Gate while you still have the limbs to carry you."
The girl gritted her teeth. "Not a chance."
The vampire fought down the very atypical urge to scream.
It wasn't necessarily for Avielle's sake that he wanted her gone. In such dangerous territory, he couldn't afford any liabilities. She was a deadweight, a hindrance to his mobility and another set of vital organs he had to protect. The oppressive heat here was stressful enough... if she remained here, he would not be able to sink too deeply into his fighting instincts for fear of hurting her. Yet it was something he would need to do once the hordes of Daedra grew thicker.
"Look," he began.
"No." The mage set her jaw. "You look. Every fetching time anything comes up, you shove me out of your way and end up saving me while I cower behind you. I'm seriously not okay with that. If you brought me along for help, it's about damn time I gave you some."
As much as I appreciate the gesture, Vicente wanted to yell back, you're only in my way!
Instead, he pressed two fingers to his temple and inhaled a deep breath, grimacing at the tang of smoke and molten rock. Avielle had held a tone of complete implacability when she'd spoken, and she did have a point, as likely as her logic was to lead her to the grave.
"Sithis take you," he muttered under his breath. Without looking at her, he yanked his Elven dagger from the sheath and thrust it towards her. Avielle, thinking the vampire was angry enough to stab her in the back, jerked back with a yelp.
"What are-"
"Take it." He shook the blade once, impatient. "Much better than that silver butter knife you carry around, and I cannot afford to watch out for you here."
Wordlessly, she pried the hilt from his fingers. They felt blissfully cool in the scorching heat. The assassin was offering her one of his own weapons? As she turned the decorated blade over in her hands, she couldn't help but wonder how many lives this beautiful little thorn had ended.
"Quit tarrying," he said brusquely. "We have no time. Every second we spend dawdling is another second Na'viri spends fighting for her life."
"Who's that?"
"A friend of mine who entered here shortly before I." With a beckoning gesture, he started down the slope. "Whom, thanks to this delay, I have no lead on how to find."
The girl found the notion of Vicente having friends rather difficult to believe, but didn't feel like arguing with the very terse vampire. "Can't you just follow the carnage?" she pointed out reasonably. "It's not like the Daedra are just going to ignore her."
"This isn't Nirn; there is no mortal coil. When you kill a Daedra in its home plane, it simply disintegrates, its essence returning to the waters of Oblivion. So no, even though that's normally quite a sound idea."
"Are you going to at least look at me when you talk?"
"Avielle, if I need to explain that to you, I fear I'm also going to have to remind you to breathe every passing quartet of seconds. This is not a playground. Since you are fundamentally incapable of paying attention, it falls to me to play sentry." Vicente's patience was growing thin. "So stop this idle chatter. I need my hearing unobstructed."
She dutifully shut up, even if the banter had calmed her nerves. This landscape was straight from a nightmare. They were traversing a rocky, cracked hill, with sickly-looking red plants pushing their way through the gaps in the stone. Jagged cliffs dominated one side of the path ahead, while an ocean of venomously bright lava oozed sluggishly on the other.
Even without Avielle talking, the assassin was finding it difficult to hear anything specific. There was the hiss of and crackle of fire, the slosh of molten rock, the screeches of distant daedra. It was hard to gauge distance in the hot, unfamiliar realm in which he was feeling less and less at ease by the second.
Thus, it was his eyes and not his ears that picked up the figure dashing towards them.
Avielle jerked as Vicente reached behind him, pulling his claymore free of its sheath with a menacing rasp.
A Kvatch guard - or at least a person wearing one of their uniforms - was rushing at them from further ahead. The vampire let his sword drop a few inches; he had overheard Savlian Matius say something about having sent men into the gate, and perhaps this was a survivor. As he came closer, Vicente made out a few of his features - black hair, glossy with sweat, and bright blue eyes that were wide with shock.
The guard was barely a few meters away when he burst into flames.
Vicente ducked, pulling a screaming Avielle down with him, as the blazing body of the guard sailed over them. The wave of heat from the fireball was incredible; every inch of the assassin's skin prickled with the desire to run. There was a clatter and the sickening thud of flesh giving way against ground, and he knew without question that the surviving guard lived no longer.
He leapt to his feet before whatever had attacked the guard could strike again. It did not take long for him to find the perpetrator. An atronach had been chasing the guard - unlike the one he had seen earlier, this one looked like a fiendish sprite made of pure fire. It was larger, too, and had to be of considerable power anyways to have created such a massive blast.
The assassin did not want to get anywhere near it.
He did not yet trust his companion's ability to cast spells unhindered, so it was up to him to get rid of it. And yet, there seemed no clear way. Vicente was fairly proficient at the school of Destruction magic, but what would be effective? There was obviously no point striking it with fire, and he doubted frost-based spells would be potent against a demon of such intense heat. As for shock, he wasn't sure what effect striking flame with more energy would have.
But whoever said that destroying something was the only way to rid yourself of it?
He concentrated on his magic as the atronach came forward, its gait lurching, bobbing like a disoriented dancer.
Hopelessness. Doubt. Fear. I need fear.
Vicente's eyes burned viridian as he channeled overwhelming demoralization through his gaze, willing the creature away. It froze almost immediately, unable to break eye contact. With every second, it seemed to shrink further in on itself, but held its ground. He forced out another burst of magicka, and the atronach's nerve finally broke; it turned and fled with its strangely capering movements into the lava, where he saw no more of it.
He let the power trickle away, quite grateful of his abilities. They had yet to let him down.
I suppose it only takes once.
"Avielle?"
The mage was still crouching on the ground where he'd pushed her, but she looked up at his inquiry. Her face was drawn with perplexed horror.
"That was... horrible..." Avielle's eyes were wide. "He just died... just like that..."
"Everyone dies eventually," he replied softly. "If it's any consolation, I doubt he suffered for very long."
She shuddered convulsively. "Don't say that! He was just approaching us and then... then..."
He looked at the girl, a distant sympathy flickering somewhere within him. Obviously, she was having trouble coming to terms that somebody who had needed help had so quickly and unexpectedly been extinguished. He recalled a similar feeling, back in his earliest days among the undead - that so many faceless entities could die simply because of his relentless hunger.
But he was well acquainted with death now, and could no longer allow himself to be overwhelmed by such a commonplace tragedy.
"Come on." He extended a hand to her. "There's nothing you can do."
After a few moments, she took it, and he gently lifted her to her feet. She clung to him a second longer than necessary; he could feel her fingers trembling, the rapid beat of her pulse churning in her wrist, the sweat that slicked her palms. She was laid bare to him, defenseless against everything.
Oh yes, it would be so much easier if she hadn't come in the first place. She was a helpless mage, completely naive to the ways of the world. But she was his helpless mage, and he made a silent vow then and there that she would come out of this place alive. He would protect her.
He did not sheathe his claymore as he might have after a fight; there were clearly many foes lurking in wait, and he did not want to lose precious seconds and the element of surprise by constantly reaching over for his weapon.
The trail they followed was by no means a sound one; the cracked, jagged ground was threaded with the occasional thin stream of lava, and the foul-smelling plants seemed to slither and move out of the corner of his eye. Behind him, Avielle was silent; he suspected she was trying to hide her obvious fear.
She would do well to remember that she was the one who insisted on coming, he mused. Of course, it would be painfully optimistic to assume she might learn something from all of this.
"Hey, is that harrada?" Avielle had noticed a thick, tall plant consisting of red, segmented tendrils, growing dangerously close to a gout of flame that belched from the ground. A sideways glance told Vicente that she was straying over to inspect it. "I've never seen more than a dried-up sample. People will pay a fortune for these."
"We don't have time for this," the vampire admonished tersely.
"It'll only take a second... ow!"
The harrada stirred and lashed at the impudent mage who dared invade its personal bubble, leaving a shocked and smarting Avielle with a large welt on her forearm.
She hastily stepped back. "What the hell? You asshole!"
"This is a plant. You cannot possibly engage it in a battle of wits," came Vicente's exasperated drawl. "Now quit fooling around."
Unwilling to concede victory to a disgruntled plant, Avielle took her new dagger and neatly sheared the stalks in half. The stumps wriggled torpidly for a few moments, then slumped over, oozing thin fluid.
"Serves you right, bastard," she muttered as she returned to the vampire's side.
"I don't have time for your antics, Av - watch out!"
She jerked instinctively at the warning, and enormous, scaly claws rent the air inches from her face. She whirled - a massive daedroth hulked over her, greenish venom dripping from its jaws. Chittering angrily at its side was a much smaller scamp, far less imposing but still dangerous.
Vicente moved too quickly for her to follow; her eyes merely failed to see him one moment, and registered him as there the next, unceremoniously pushing her to one side as he brandished his claymore at the impossibly enormous beast. The blow missed, too far for any accuracy, but the next one connected, grazing flesh even though most of the strike was deflected by armored scales. Avielle watched, entranced, as the vampire pressed forward, movements fluid as quicksilver as he danced around the lashing claws and snapping fangs.
She remembered the scamp just in time to see it conjuring up a hissing fireball. The mage dodged to the left as the demon released the spell, missing her by a wide margin. Babbling in some daedric tongue, it abandoned that venue of attack and ran directly at her.
Her first impulse was to run, and her second was to cast a spell, preferrably while running. But she deferred to neither of these urges, standing her ground. The runed Elven blade glittered in the fiery light, sculpted and deadly. Vicente's lessons flashed back to her in disjointed slow motion. Strike fast, cut upwards, aim for the neck...
Somehow, as if his soft-spoken instructions for slaughter guided her arm, the blade struck true. It seemed to happen with perverse slowness. The scamp charged just into range as she began the blow. The curved dagger glided skyward, gleaming a muted vermillion in the hellish ambience. It connected with the slightest snick, a sound more felt than heard; the daedra jerked, but momentum still carried it forth into deeper impalement, and the visceral feeling of parting flesh reverberated up and down her arm.
Black blood sprayed from the mortal wound, evaporating even as it arced through the air. Avielle watched in stunned shock as the scamp seemed to fold in on itself, crumpling like an empty sack until there was nothing left at all, save a clean blade held forward in shaking hands.
"I… I…"
I did it, she thought numbly. I killed something. With my own hands.
It hadn't been her own hands that had performed the deed, but it felt as such. The dagger had become an extension of her arm in that fleeting, pivotal moment; even now, it felt strangely linked, as though some tie had been forged in blood that promised some phantom connection. It wasn't that the mage had never taken a life before, and she had no moral qualms about slaying animals, but the difference between casting a deadly spell and actually slicing, having her nervous system connect with the kill… it was new all over again, a detached horror that left her completely isolated from reality.
The hilt slipped through limp fingers and clattered to the rock.
And everything happened very quickly.
The daedroth's massive head swiveled towards the noise, somehow hearing it over the rest of Oblivion's din. Reminded of much weaker and more edible prey, it lurched away from Vicente and barreled towards Avielle. It was wounded – ichor threaded through its scales in rivulets, and part of its spiny tail had been sheared off – but it made no difference to the dazed girl as she looked up and stared death in the face.
And a sable shadow slipped between the two, brusquely shoving Avielle aside as it raised its sword.
The daedroth collided.
It was impaled immediately, its inertia carrying it straight through the long blade. But Vicente had not had time to adopt any battle stance or even dig his boots into the ground, and even as it began to disintegrate, the massive demon crashed into him, knocking him clean off his feet. He sailed backwards a good few meters, releasing the claymore as so not to mutilate himself. Avielle watched with shock as the vampire hit the rocks with a nasty crunch, rolled over several times as bonelessly as a ragdoll, and then landed in the great caul of fire.
She never thought she'd hear Vicente scream.
It was a high, keening sound, a cry not unlike that of a wounded animal. It rose higher and higher in pitch before breaking off into chokes-
Avielle was up and running before she'd made a conscious decision to do so. All of their differences, his crimes, were meaningless – all she knew was that she had to get him out. She was no expert on vampirism, but it was popular lore that one of the most failsafe ways to get rid of a vampire was with fire. They burned up like paper…
With a wild cry, she reached into the blaze and dragged him to safety by the legs, ignoring the biting heat that immediately blistered her fingers. He was lighter than she expected, enough so that she could move him without aid of magic.
She frantically beat down the flames that clung to his clothes and exposed body; when she lifted her hands, they were dusted with ash.
If the thought of having parts of him on her fingers didn't make her nauseous, she almost passed out at the sight of Vicente himself. His torso had recieved the brunt of the fire. Avielle was used to burns being an angry red; the vampire's skin more closely resembled the contents of a spent campfire. His suave shirt was ruined, its charred strips doing little to conceal the surprisingly emaciated physique. Every one of his ribs was prominent. She reached out to touch one and the skin crumbled away like powder.
She recoiled with a cry, just as Vicente jerked weakly, a strangled hiss rasping in his throat. "Kss... sha..."
The burns didn't appear to be the extent of his injuries, either. One arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and a claw's gouge lacerated his neck.
And yet this was Vicente, the invincible Vicente...
I cannot afford to watch over you here...
But he had.
Since you're not paying attention, it falls to me to play sentry...
He'd done so, thoroughly.
Do you realise where we are?
She hadn't.
Yes, Vicente was invincible... when he was prepared.
She hadn't been, and this was the result.
"Vicente!"
He barely responded; his burnt body twitched once as she shook him, a faint noise of protest gurgling from his blackened throat. Yanking back what was left of his shirt, she saw that the damage was even worse than she thought; it occurred to her dully that not only were vampires particularly vulnerable to fire, but while Breton blood would have protected him somewhat against a magical fireball, the blazes of Oblivion were born from heat and fuel, voracious flames that had utterly ravaged his white skin. Without even thinking of her problems with magicka, she called up every healing spell she knew, forcing them out through her panic. Dizziness threatened to overtake her as the air around her shimmered with distortion. The blue-white sparks she managed to summon danced over his burned body and fizzled out, having no effect. She cried out with frustration. Why wasn't it working?
And then she understood.
She didn't hesitate for a moment as she forced his mouth open, shoving her forearm against his fangs. He jerked with a strangled hiss, but through some titanic effort, made no move to take what she offered. Ignoring the sharp pain of tearing skin, she raked her arm across his teeth, allowing the blood to spill freely.
"Drink," she begged. "Take it."
And he did.