Author's Note: Surprise! An update in the middle of the week! Who would have thought such a thing was freaking possible? I've been working on this chapter off and on since Sunday and its finally complete! We're finally up to Chapter 10! I don't think I've ever written as much in my entire life and I'm hoping we can keep it moving! I know some people will only read First Task, but I want you all to know that plans are in the work for Second and Third Task as well as the continuation into Harry's future years. This story has no choice but to go into God!like-Harry territory by the end. But enough of me rambling, I'll just let you guys read the chapter!
Hermione Granger sat alone in the library she normally did these days. With Harry off competing in another world and Ronald still acting like a complete twit over the whole thing, she had found her life almost thrown back to what it was before that first Halloween. She was flipping through pages on anything she could find on monitoring charms or other worlds so she could try and understand just what was happening with her best friend. The task was beginning to crumble under the judges control and spiral into chaos.
Her wild brown hair kept falling in her face as she flipped through page after page on conjecture and hearsay about the magical travel between worlds. None of them seemed to be helping with the problem at hand. Victor had finally emerged from his game world after what many thought must have been a pimp had driven by and shot the older wizard as he walked down the sidewalk. Despite his time in the game, Victor was deducted nearly thirty points for acting like a muggle and for failing to use magic in his new world. Victor and Fleur were far behind in points with Cedric currently in the lead, but Harry was still fighting and growing in his world.
That lead to the problem that the staff and judges were trying to overcome and Hermione was researching into a possible answer for. The monitoring charm on Harry seemed to be malfunctioning and no one could figure out why. The boy seemed to be experiencing jumps in time or simply the spell wasn't recording some of what was happening in the world. They had all seen Harry standing on the porch watching the beheading of the rebel Stormcloaks and the dragon attack, but Hermione felt as though they must have missed something, like something happened to Harry before he was in that town and they didn't get to see it.
Earlier they had seen him walk up to the home of the Jarl only to walk down the steps followed by a black haired lady mere moments later. Something was affecting the spell set to monitor him and even Albus Dumbledore was admitting his stumped worry in just what was happening. Somehow she felt that Sirius and Remus must be involved some how since they had mysteriously vanished after that second day but that was impossible, the two were still at Hogwarts when the first 'glitch' seemed to occur.
Now there was another problem. Poor Hagrid was inconsolable after the dragon attack upon the group Harry traveled with. The death of the fire breathing monster and the fact that Harry consumed its soul seemed to mortally wound the giant of a man as he was certain it was just trying to 'play' with the fourth year and his female friends. Not even pointing out the fact the dragon had been attacking them when they began to fight back would get him to see the winged beast as anything less then the victim.
Slamming her book closed and glaring at the librarian who dared send her an evil look for it, she huffed and stood to her feet. November was almost over and Harry was still facing unknown enemies in an unknown world and there was nothing she could do. She had heard Professor McGonagall admit that while there was no official deadline for the task, they had hoped Harry would be out before December 24th for something called the Yule Ball, but at the latest he needed to be done by February 24th, when the second task was scheduled.
She knew Harry had to compete or lose his magic, but what happened if he was still competing in one task when the next began?
It didn't take long to get the carriage back up and the horse reattached to the front so it was by dusk that the shivering wizard and his friends made their way to Hamvir's Rest. The town was named for the nearby cemetery that legend held the Headless Horseman who would ride through Skyrim to find his lost head. The black clad wizard had to wonder just how removed this world was from Earth if legends and stories passed between them. He knew first hand the road between worlds was a rough one but it was possible that if he had made it and the Daedra came and went that others had made the journey as well.
"Well here we are," the carriage driver said as he halted in front of a stable set near the gates into the city. Harry was amazed at the stone standing walls that eerily loomed into the dusk. However what surprised him were the statues that stood from the ground, partially built into the massive stone walls. Mephala, Boethiah, Meridia and Vaermina stared down at him from their places along the gate, seemingly watching him and judging him. He didn't know why mere statues could make him feel so tiny.
"Ah, don't bother with them lad. I'm the one you have to worry about," a peculiarly Scottish voice said from behind the British wizard making him nearly jump out of his skin. Whipping around he prepared to summon his sword but found no one behind him. Turning his head left and right he saw that everything was frozen in time. Tamaria was scratching the corner of her nose, her amber eyes watching the heart shaped bum of Camilla as she struggled to climb out of the carriage. Lydia stood near by her forest green eyes locked on the statues staring down at them.
Confused he turned back toward the gate only to lock emerald eyes on intense golden irises and slit black pupils. Leaping back and choking back the scream in his throat he managed to see just what or rather who was staring back at him. A man with white hair carefully combed back and a well trimmed beard stood just inches from where Harry had recently been standing, a jacket, half purple and half red, was fitted over a fluffy white shirt and purple pants fit into his boots. The man had a crazed manic grin on his face that put the young wizard rather on edge.
"Well well well, if it isn't Harry Potter or are you the Dragonborn now or are you both," the madman asked as he flicked a wooded staff with his foot and had it rotate around his hand. "Do you even know what ya are anymore? Because I sure as hell don't," the man said with a laugh. "An orphan, a wizard, a dragon and a wolf, but you aren't quite done yet, no no no, not by a long shot," the strange figure continued to ramble. "But where are my manners! I am Sheogorath... no Jyggalag... wait no I am Sheogorath still," he said most unhelpfully.
Harry stared at the Mad-God for a long moment before sighing deeply. "While it is an honor to meet another Daedric Prince, I just came from a meeting with my godfather and uncle and their friends..."
"HA! I love those two when you put them together," the Daedric Prince of Madness said with a sweep of his arm to point up at the city and castle that lay before them. "The Marauders, ah, the name fills my heart with glee! Imagine the kind of devastation and mayhem they must have caused when they put their heads together! Not to mention that they were followers! Oh HAHA! Followers of YOUR DADDY! Now there is a man I would have liked to meet! The Leader! The General of Insanity in a school that teaches prepubescent kids how to break reality! Now that's a man I could respect!"
Harry groaned as he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He should have known better than to get up... to wake up this morning. "Lord Sheogorath, while I thank you for the praise for my father, I am afraid I don't share many of his more personable traits. He and his friends were pranksters and I don't particularly have fun at others expense," the wizard tried to explain.
"OH HO! Ha! A palindrome! I love, LOVE, palindromes... and cheese," the Daedric Prince said after some thought before swinging his arm back around toward the youth with a platter of cheese. "Would you like some cheese boy? No? Well more for me! Now, where was I? Oh right! You're more like your father than you think, oh purveyor of chaos," he said with a cackle. "You break your schools rules all the time! You just claim it for the good of the world, but you and your friends break just as many rules as your dad and his did! True you never tried to feed Severus Snape to a werewolf but we can't all be perfect laddy!"
The wizard blinked at the god for a long moment as his mind tried to follow the mad god's half of the conversation but was having a bit of difficulty connecting his dad to cheese and then to himself. Maybe that was the point, if he couldn't understand what Sheogorath was saying then he was obviously still sane! He breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of still gripping tightly to his mind.
"Now for why I'm here," Sheogorath continued as he began to look over the city. "The wolf and old dog boy have done pretty good in setting you up with a base of your own and including Azura and Molag Bal was a stroke of pure mad genius! But no one does mad genius like THE mad genius, remember that Harry," he said with a wink toward the youth. "They set you up with your own unholy town of Mundus filled Daedric spawn and all set to follow yer commands! But I can top it all!"
"That isn't really necessary," Harry started to say but was cut off as the Mad God clapped his hands. The boy from Earth closed his eyes afraid of what he would see. There was literally no telling what Sheogorath would do to the city and castle his godfather had constructed for him and he dreaded opening his eyes to a city made out of cheese. But open them he did and stared in shock at what was in front of him. This couldn't be real, not at all. If anyone at home could see him now they would think he was a class A pervert.
An army of women stood before him split down the middle by a wide gap. To his left were women of golden skin and hair, dressed in golden armor with shimmering swords on their waists. At the end of each row of golden women was a woman whose helmet differed from the rest by a pink jewel encrusted into her helm. The other half of the army consisted of women with dark purple skin dressed in nothing but chains with plates to cover their more private parts. At the end of each line was a woman with wings and wearing a black shell like helmet with green highlights.
"Look at them Harry, an entire army made up of Golden Saints and Dark Seducers, just for your own use," the mad god said with a laugh. Abruptly he sobered and frowned at the wizard beside him. "The Greymarch is coming soon and I want to protect those in my realm that I can. Molag Bal and Hircine have already placed their own guards throughout the city and now mine will join them while Order takes the Shivering Isles. While they can be protect themselves I don't know how long this time of Order will last, and as you can tell it draws near. In honor of the Marauders and the chaos you yourself have brought to Mundus, I leave them with you."
"But what am I," Harry began but the Prince was gone and time was moving again. He heard the women behind him gasp at the sight of the army that to them would have seemed to appear out of nowhere. Coughing into his hands all eyes turned to him and he sighed. "Ladies, may I introduce the Golden Saints and the Dark Seducers of the Shivering Isles," he said as calmly as he could, though he felt his eye twitch at the absurdity Sheogorath had left in his wake. "They will be joining the guards of Hamvir's Rest and Sjel Blad Castle as a favor to the Mad God."
"Why do the Daedra seem to flock to you," Tamaria asked with a raised eyebrow at the teen.
The town was a startling revelation for the everyone going inside since it looked less like a hamlet and more a city the size of Solitude. Along the outlaying wall were single story buildings, small homes and family run businesses, but as you got deeper the buildings grew taller. Inns stood beside apothecaries and weapons and armor shops. General goods stores were on almost every corner and small kiosks lined the busy streets. The buildings were made of wood and stone at the edge of town but became constructions of stone and iron as they grew closer to the gate leading to the castle.
The Golden Saints and the Dark Seducers quickly broke away from the party and moved in opposite directions down the streets, probably to set up command bases from which to patrol. Not that Harry thought the people needed patrolling and in some cases he used the word 'people' lightly. The people that lined the streets were not 'normal' if he had to describe the energy coming off of them. Some felt like Aela and he assumed those were Hircine's werewolves mixing among the rabble, but while others felt similar they were darker with their eyes streaked red and glints of white fangs hanging behind their lips giving them away as vampires, Molag Bal's contribution obviously.
'I'm standing in a town filled with vampires, werewolves and demons and I was more nervous going to Hogwarts in first year,' the wizard thought with a forced smile to the people he was apparently supposed to be leading. The dark skinned and tattooed faces of Daedra seemed to follow him, judging him as he walked by with his small entourage toward the looming castle near the back of town. The teen could only wonder how his life had changed so much that this wasn't the biggest shock of his life. Sure he was in a video game's world, but you would think he would have been more shaken as he stepped from the dragon's maw into the demon's jaws.
At the base of the small bridge that connected the town to the castle just beyond it was a set of fair skinned women with black hair. Harry nearly threw his hands into the air as the two bowed to him, though one with obvious dislike. "Greetings, Lord Potter," the seemingly younger of the two said as her face was masked behind dark brown hair. She wore a red tunic with a steel chest-plate and arm guards, black leather pants and matching boots. "I am Serana, a Daughter of Coldharbor."
The other woman was a dirty blond with deep red eyes that never wavered from the wizard's face even though she bowed. She wore a simple white dress with a white corset and blood red lace on the outside of it. "I am Lamae Beolfag, the first of the Daughters of Coldharbor," the vampire spat the name out with disgust. "That bastard Molag Bal has commanded us to assist you in your mission here on Mundus."
Harry groaned in annoyance. A vampire who hated the person who sent her to watch over him. He would be sleeping with an iron choker for the next few weeks, he could just picture it.
The ancient dragon priest stood on the frozen shores off the mainland of Skyrim his face hidden behind his golden tentacle mask as his black robes billowed around his body. He hated this existence, torn between two masters he equally despised and forced to the bidding of each. He had been dragged from Apocrypha by the World-Eater and his will bound to that of the annoyingly obnoxious dragon, another pawn in the game of Aedra, and was sent on his first mission... vampires.
He didn't know much about the race, he reflected as he crossed the bridge to the ice bound castle, they hadn't existed when he was free to roam Tamriel and rebel against his dragon masters, but Hermaeus Mora kept tabs on the little leeches and he had a lot of time on his hands for the past several millennia. His metallic boots crunched in the snow as he neared the main gate and scoffed at the lowly human working the controls to the gate. This was child's play for a being of his caliber but his... master wanted it done.
"Gol Hah (Earth Mind)," he breathed out the dragon tongue as easily as the common and watched the burst of magical energy rip between the bars on the gate and smash the pitiful thrall against the wall behind him. He felt the brief struggle between his power and that of the undead abomination of Molag Bal and easily crushed it gaining control of the little servant's mind. "Open the gate," Miraak instructed and watched his new slave move to obey. A smirk played on his face as he stood and watched the gate rise. Soon he would have his freedom from the dragons and the Daedra, and when that day came, he would crush the upstart who spoke his tongue.
He was the first and the best of the dragonborn and he would long outlive the last.