[Incoming Transmission]

So, I return, after about two months, I know, to my stories. Don't worry, only a couple of the unfinished ones are actually abandoned; the rest will be getting updated... eventually. Anyway, it's Camp NaNoWriMo month right now, so I'm NoWri-ing for the month with a focus on this story and related side stories and lore stuff for this specific version of the Elder Scrolls universe that I'm working in.

And playing Space Station 13 and visiting colleges before I need to make my final decision in two weeks, but that's aside from the point.

The point is, I'm writing a lot more than normal this month, so I expect to have some more stuff out soon. That is to say, within the month. So now, without further ado, I give you...

Chapter 2

(Posted 17 April 2017)

So, long story short, I jumped through the hole and booked it for the keep. The dragon went and torched some people, but I was already gone by the time any fire hit the ground. I lost King Hunky somewhere, but he's probably fine.

As I made it to the courtyard outside the keep, Probably Gay Guard called me over from a doorway.

"Argonian! Into the keep! There's no time to delay!"

I dove for the open door, which he slammed shut behind us. I tucked and rolled to my feet with the momentum of my dive, standing up in front of Probably Gay Guard.

"Alright," he said, "time to find you some armour. We don't have time to stop and heal injuries."

"You're helping me? But aren't I your, poor, helpless prisoner?" I asked him seductively. I smirk. "Anything could happen."

He frowned at me. "This is not the time, prisoner. We need to get out of here to send word to the Jarls at once. We cannot let them be unprepared for the threat that a dragon poses to us."

"Sweet Hist," I sighed, looking at him forlornly. "You really are gay, aren't you?"

He said nothing and we stood there, facing each other in silence for a minute.

I sighed again. "Come on, let's find some armor for me. Or maybe just a shield. Anything to keep me from getting hit, since my scales are a bit thin to stop a sword. I'm not a male, after all."

He walked over to a chest and pulled out a set of armor that looked about the right size for my height, but it… lacked something in the chest region.

"This is a man's armor."

"Yes."

"I'm not a man."

"Clearly not."

I gestured at my rather bountiful breasts. "These won't fit. Do you have anything with a little more… chest room?"

"Not that I know where it is. This was a male barrack."

"Well, I'd say fuck you, but you clearly don't want to." I sighed. "Is there at least a shield I can use?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked over my shoulder, prompting me to turn around and see a wall full of hanging shields. "Ah." I grabbed a pair of round shields emblazoned with the emblem of the Imperial Legion on the boss and put them on my forearms like oversized bucklers. "Alright, let's get moving."

He walked over to a pull-chain on the wall and used to to open a gate next to it. "Be careful. We don't know if any Stormcloaks made it into the keep."

"Why would that be bad? That was a dragon! We need all the help we can get."

"Because they are relentless rebel insurgents and will stop at nothing to see the downfall of the Empire."

"Are you listening to yourself? They don't want the end of the world anymore than you do! There's no point in throwing the Empire out of Skyrim just so they can rule over a pile of ashes!"

A pause.

"No mercy."

I screamed in frustration. "Do you not understand? If we don't get the help of everyone to fight these dragons, we'll all die!" I took a few deep breaths. "Fine. I'll find my own way out of this keep, and figure out some way to unify Skyrim long enough to fix this problem."

He snorted. "Fine. Get moving. Be some nice cannon fodder, won't you?"

I huffed and stormed off through the gateway, flipping off Gay Dickwad on the way out. Navigating through the maze of the keep's dungeons, I ran into quite a few other soldiers from both sides. They were equally content to ignore the one not-even-dressed argonian prisoner skulking along the walls and not interfering with their battle for control of a soon-to-be-ruined keep and ignoring the larger threat.

Namely, the giant, gods-forsaken dragon outside the keep trying desperately to claw his way into the depths of it, for some reason.

I eventually found my way to the torture room at the very bottom of the dungeons, where, for once, the inhabitants were not content to let me sneak past unaccosted.

"Well, well, well… What have we here? A loose prisoner, sneaking around in my torture chamber? Well we can't just let you run free, can we, Horace?"

"Sir, the keep is under attack. We need to escape, not torture some other person who's also trying to escape from the attack."

"Grab her, Horace."

"Yes, sir."

The confined nature of the torture room and the impending doom of the dragon trying to tear its way into the keep triggered some sort of fight-or-flight response in me, and I lashed out with my claws at the first unprotected piece of skin I saw on the big, muscular torturer's assistant. Apparently, his name was Horace, but he was going to be known as Horace the Blind if he managed to survive this ordeal. He fell back with a cry, red marks oozing blood all across his face as he clutched his head in pain.

"Gods dammit, Horace! I have to do everything myself around here."

With a wave of his hand, electric shocks arced across the air between us at me. Twisting deftly, I evaded the lightning bolt, feeling my scales tingle as it narrowly missed my leg - a debilitating but non-lethal blow, to be sure. In a blind panic now, since I'd never really seen combat before and really only knew my way around seduction and persuasion, I threw my shield at the torturer. Clearly surprised by this, he was unable to dodge it before it hit him in the head. The impact stunned him long enough for me to run up to him and, dimly remembering a lesson on hunting and fishing from my early years before my enslavement, rip through the soft flesh of his neck to kill him.

With a wet gurgle, his hands flew up to his neck, as if trying to hold in the blood and slow his death. I looked in horror at the two bodies on the floor, one writhing in pain and with little hope of ever seeing again, and the other slowly bleeding out, the light leaving his eyes. I collapsed to my knees next to the cooling corpse and dry heaved a bit, not having eaten recently enough to get more than a little bile in my mouth. Sure, I'd injured my bedroom partners before - an unfortunate side effect of the stronger physiology of the 'beast races' - but I'd never… I hadn't… I wasn't a murderer.

Well. I am now.

I don't know how long I stayed there, but eventually I got back up. I could still hear the dragon destroying the keep above me, and there was no way I was going to stick around for him to reach my hiding place. I had to keep going deeper. I soon found the deepest part of the torturer's holding cells, and there the path ended. I almost started to panic, but then I felt a faint whisper of wind from the direction of one of the walls.

Impossible.

There was no way…

I walked up to the wall and waited, breathless, for another touch of air. Maybe I imagin- No! There! I pressed on the wall where the air came from, and the stones slowly gave against each other with a low grinding noise. With a loud crash, the wall gave way, revealing a musty cave system behind it, no doubt filled with all manner of dangerous creatures, as all caves are - or so people say. However, considering the alternative… a cave lit by mushrooms was better than nothing, I suppose.

It was dark in the cave. Like, really dark. I grabbed one of the torches from the dungeon and brought it with me, but it was still really dark. I found my way, eventually, to a room with what I think were giant spiders in it. I heard the chittering and just ran. There was no way I was staying around for that. Then there was the bear. Now, as a general rule, I'm not very sneaky. I waltz into rooms (not literally, though, except for that one time) and command the attention of the room. I'm drop-fucking-dead gorgeous and I know it, and I make other people recognise that. I'm charismatic, not sneaky. I've never had to pickpocket something in my life, much less kill someone, but I have talked people into giving me things. Nothing big, of course. A trinket here, some priceless artifact there, the occasional set of breeches and/or virginity-and let me tell you, there's more than one reason they called me Silver-tongue back home-and there was that one time someone signed me the deed to their house, which I promptly sold off. You know, nothing big.

Okay, fine, I'm a bit of a thief. But the point is, I'm not a sneak-thief, which is why it was frankly astonishing to not get noticed by the bear in the cave as I snuck towards the exit.

I stepped out into the sunlight for the first time in what felt like days, although the still-audible sounds of carnage from the mountain behind me said otherwise. A particularly loud roar, sounding somewhat angry, preceded the leathery sound of the dragon's wingbeats. I quickly ducked back into the mouth of the cave, hiding myself from an aerial view as the dark shape raced across the sky to the… east, I think. Maybe northeast? I lost most of my sense of direction in the twisting cave system.

So now I need a plan. As it stands currently, I have absolutely no idea where to go now, no protection from the elements - although that shouldn't be too bad if I can find a nice river or lake or something - and essentially no hope of getting the Stormcloaks and Imperials to put aside their differences for long enough to defend against the dragon.

Lovely. Nothing could possibly make this any worse now.

Ah, the great words of Murphy's Law Invocation. Of course, now everything must go wrong. It'll be fun. As always, please R&R, like, follow, favortie, subscribe, whatever it is you do, and keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter (or something related to this story) within the month. I'm on a Camp NaNoWriMo roll right now!

[Transmission Terminated]