[Yeah, I'm serious about this cyberpunk take on Elder Scrolls. The end of this chapter introduces one of the most enjoyable characters of the whole story. I can't wait to write more of her!]
CHAPTER 2
His head pounded like the morning after Sanguine's Festival. Any sense of vision he had was a murky fog of blue and green. Optimism told him he was lying in his Glenpoint home with a bad hangover and one messed up dream. That hope lasted a good ten seconds before his eyes adjusted and he found himself strapped inside a metal capsule, stripped naked with tubes connected to every piece of his body he held dear.
The capsule had a large green viewing window, which made him empathize with being stuck in a beer bottle, but through it he could recognize the metal floor his face was thrown against about an hour ago. A worse reminder was the voices, still masked with that inhuman metallic grain. He recognized a discussion as two men walked in tandem along the other capsules, but couldn't make out a word until they arrived at his pod.
"So what's so special about this guy?" A shorter soldier pointed at his tube like he was a circus attraction. I think I'll call you Littlepecker, he said in his mind.
"That would be... Xak Theril. Breton, with some Nord heritage." Answered the larger soldier reading off a clipboard. You I'll name Scribsteak. By this point Xak was very bored. "Managed to hold his own for a while. Wounded three of our guys! Almost beat the record."
"You mean the record set by that freak with the voice?" Littlepecker snorted.
"We didn't take that one in, so he doesn't count." Scribsteak seemed to be attempting humor too soon for Littlepecker.
"Well the bean counters should take note on this one. Six men captured, six men dead. We broke even!" Littlepecker hailed in his own sarcasm. "I wanna be there when we really go after that n'wah!"
"Well, you might not have to wait much longer..." Scribsteak trailed off, his attention captured by the notes he held. "This can't be right. Says here our friend Xak is a non-combatant."
"What? After the way he fought?"
"No military history, no known guild history, no formal magic training, current occupation..." Scribsteak hesitated, looking Xak dead in the eyes. "... bartender."
Both men were silent, staring at Xak like he was a creature they'd never seen before. "Just great!" Littlepecker broke out. "I lose six friends to the Nirnwalker with the nuclear breath, now I find out we got beat up by a martini mixer! Brilliant performance today, people! Just brilliant!" He paced around the narrow interior of the airship like a crotchety old mage.
"Well he may not be ex-military now," Scribsteak said with a hint of optimism. "but he's got potential. I say put him through processing with the rest and see how he turns out."
"You know, that's not a bad idea!" Littlepecker regained some of his composure, marching right up to Xak's pod and jamming a finger in his face. "You hear that, you Nirnwalking highball swit? Tavern's closed! You're in my world now!"
Xak wrestled for control of his numb body once again. Putting every ounce of mental energy he had into it, he managed to gain back some rudimentary control of his mouth. "Fffffhhhh... yhhhhh..." was all he could put out.
"What was that?" Littlepecker undid the clasps of his helmet and threw it off. He turned out to be a dark elf with ashen skin, jet-black eyes and a thinning mohawk. Just as ugly as Xak expected. "Got something you want to say, you fetcher?"
This time he devoted every fiber of his being to saying it. "Ffffuuuuu... yuuuuu..."
Littlepecker seemed to get the picture. "That's what I like to hear! He'll fit in just fine!" and the dunmer marched off down to the next pod, out of Xak's sight at last.
Scribsteak remained. "Normally he's a really nice guy." He assured Xak as he flipped a few switches outside his capsule. The tubes began to fill with a thin black liquid. Within seconds of the stuff entering his body, Xak drifted off again.
From then on, time became an imaginary concept for Xak. Whenever he woke up from an induced sleep he found himself in a place further from Nirn than the last. From the airship, he awoke in a massive hangar filled with dozens of craft just like the one that abducted him. From the hangar, he awoke in a warehouse, dark and silent except for some workers taking inventory (of which he was an item). From the warehouse, he awoke in the strangest place of all.
The room was pure white. Light came not from any torch or chandelier, but from the ceiling itself, basking the entire globe-shaped room in a celestial glow. He was relieved to find he was no longer held in a capsule or wired with tubes, but still secured to a bed with hefty leather straps. Better news was that he finally regained control of most of his body, but his throat still struggled to form words, as though it had been weeks since he had spoken.
Glancing around the orbital room, he found at least ten other bodies in the same situation as him. Each bed had a device wired to it that beeped incessantly, and Xak soon traced the rhythm of the beeping to his own heart. Everybody was arranged in a circle, giving him no clear view of the face of each prisoner, but he had to assume at least one of his five traveling companions was among the beds here.
"Ono... Onorith." He tried to shout, but could only form a rasped whisper. "Galynn. Jaulius. Anybody."
"Xak?" A lighter voice rose from the bed to his three o'clock. "Xak, is that you?"
"Galynn! You're alive!" Xak's heart rate monitor jumped.
"Don't rule anythin' out just yet. We could all be dead and awaitin' judgment." Even with a croaking throat, Galynn couldn't resist dark humor, or so Xak hoped.
"We're alive. We have to be. Have you seen the others?"
Before Xak got an answer, the heavy clang of a door sliding open ended their conversation. Xak turned his head to spot one armored soldier and an Imperial woman wearing a long white coat enter the room. The woman surveyed each patient with routine, finding nothing wrong with eleven people being held against their will.
The soldier carried his rifle ready as he eyed each bed, which was enough to tell Xak he could still pose some kind of threat to these people. Perhaps that meant hope for an escape. "Batch 2 has some promising candidates, doctor. Nine out of eleven were chosen for processing." The soldier bragged as he followed the doctor.
"Nine?" The doctor seemed offended. "I thought they agreed on a cap of five."
"We lost some good men taking these ones in. The Magister wants to cover our losses as soon as possible."
The doctor grunted her disapproval. "With all the excuses your Magister keeps making I'm surprised he doesn't have me card the ones you don't want." She had come up to Xak's bed, holding a tiny metal wand that somehow shined a light brighter than he had ever seen. At first he tried pretending to be asleep, but the doctor forced open his eyelids, shining her blinding light directly at his pupils. He winced and gave away his cover. "Some of these subjects have already regained consciousness." The doctor warned sternly. "This is why you don't keep me waiting on clearance."
"Extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary measures, doctor." The soldier approached, towering over him. At this angle, Xak could finally see clearly the kind of men who attacked him. The armor could not possibly have come from any blacksmith in Tamriel; the pauldrons were too perfectly round and the black fibers between the joints too tightly woven to have been made by human hands. Blue lights twinkled from the eyes and neck like dying stars. The only remote connection to the world Xak knew was the helm. Though made from the same otherworldly materials as the rest of the armor, the design seemed familiar. The head was curved back, raised far like the body of a squid, and tentacle-like hoses covered the mouthpiece. It reminded Xak of the old cephalopod helmets they used to make in Morrowind. The kind once favored by Telvanni.
"Who... Who are you people?"
Neither captor answered. The doctor strutted over to a table where she could prepare a syringe kit. "We'll need to move the subjects ahead of schedule to minimize psychological trauma. Notify Dr. Adrus to expect an immediate transfer." She instructed while filling three needles with more of the black toxin.
"Who... Who... Why..." Xak begged. The beeps of his monitor raced a frantic pulse.
The soldier patted him on the shoulder. "Try to relax. And welcome to Great House Telvanni." That was all Xak heard before the prick of a needle sent him to another deep slumber.
As had become habit, Xak woke up in a completely different room. This time a small square chamber filled with numerous workstations of human-sized slabs and sharp tools. It reminded him of a tanner's workshop, a comparison all the more disturbing when he realized he was the only restrained person in the room this time.
Another doctor entered the stage. This one an older dunmer with flowing silver hair and a blood-tipped needle in his hand. "Ah, wonderful! Your response to the antiserum is almost instantaneous!" the doctor rejoiced. "I am Dr. Adrus. You have been most fortunate to have been elected for processing, and my responsibility is to ensure your health and readiness for the program, and to eliminate any of those nasty diseases you might bring in from Tamriel."
"Proce...ssing?" Though he felt healthy this time, speaking was still a challenge. His head felt miles away from his body.
"All will be explained in time." The doctor's tone was distant as he reached for some tools outside of Xak's vision. Without warning, a mechanical buzz erupted underneath him and the bed he was strapped to slowly lifted to a standing position, keeping Xak's body helplessly suspended. At least now he faced the doctor eye-to-eye. "For now, we will need to run some procedures to prepare you for the environment. That lightheadedness you no doubt feel is caused by differences in the air pressure and gravity than your physiology was meant for. Rest assured, that will be resolved shortly."
This was all a different language to Xak, but whether he understood was irrelevant. The doctor was already tightening the straps, readying tools and placing a bucket underneath his feet. "Telvanni... Are you... Telvanni?" He managed to force out.
"I'm sure you have many questions, all of which will be answered in good time. For now, it's much more important we get your respiratory system up to speed. Open your mouth." Xak obeyed, and the doctor inserted a thin wooden bar between his teeth, and attached another strap to his chin, forcing him to bite down. He was effectively gagged.
Another person crossed Xak's perception. A womanly figure dressed in long cyan robes, her hair and face almost completely obscured behind a flat rubber mask. She handed the doctor a thin metal tool with a sharp blade, like a kitchen knife but far more precise. "Thank you, nurse." The doctor held the strange knife between two fingers as the nurse withdrew a black pen and painted a dotted line running down Xak's chest. He looked to the line, then the knife, and his breathing intensified.
"I want to assure you, Mr. Theril, that our medical capabilities are far and above what you may be familiar with." The doctor approached. Xak writhed and twisted, but the straps wouldn't allow it. "There are few maladies we cannot reverse. Any injuries you sustain here can vanish in a matter of hours." The knife raised. Xak did all he could to yell for help but only grunts escaped his clenched jaw. "This means you need to keep in mind that any pain you feel over these next few days is superficial. There is no harm we would inflict on you without reason..." The knife pressed against his flesh. The muscles in his neck tensed. "and any we must inflict, can be repaired."
The knife slid. This time it wasn't a serum that made Xak pass out.
First good news he had in a while was finding he wasn't under any straps when he came to. It was a bed, an actual mattress with pillows and thin white sheets, though still spartan in design. Somebody had dressed him in blue cloth pants and a plain white shirt, which he immediately threw off to inspect his chest. To his shock, the hole over his sternum had vanished. He ran his finger along the tender pink line that marked the knife's path, but it was no illusion that the wound never occurred. The fog in his head seemed to have finally cleared and he at last felt able to speak normally. If only he had someone to talk to.
Xak was completely alone. The small cubed room was empty save himself and a bed. The first glance was mesmerizing, as every wall was covered in pristine mirrors, even the floor and ceiling. It gave the sense of a room stretching beyond forever, and endless plane of identical bretons delicately lifting themselves off a bed and glancing around every corner with a mix of awe and fear. In any direction Xak could see every aspect of himself, reflected thousands of times into a distant warping horizon. Knowing his captors, he guessed that this display was not so that he could see himself, but so that whoever watched him could catch every slightest movement he made.
"This must be my cell." he lamented out loud, testing his restored voice. Nervously taking a few steps, he tried to measure where the original room ended and the reflections began. Trying to break the mirrors with his hands was a bad idea, he learned the hard way that they were placed over solid wall. There was no door, window, or any way in the pristine glass that he find. How am I not suffocating right now, he thought.
He had just about given up probing his chamber when a voice surrounded him. "Welcome, Mr. Theril. Today we will test the success of your respiratory implants." The voice was womanly and fair, yet disturbingly hollow, like spoken through someone without a soul. "Please step onto the treadmill to begin." Xak jumped back as a section of the center floor of the room slid open. From the square hole rose a platform holding one of the strangest contraptions he had seen yet; A long, flat band of black rubber laid in front of a set of hand rails and a heart monitor like the ones he had seen before.
"Please step onto the treadmill to begin." The voice repeated exactly as it was the first time. Assuming there was no alternative, Xak lightly stepped onto the rubber platform and clutched the handrail. Without warning, the rubber mat shifted beneath his feet. Breaking into a walk saved himself from falling over. This must have been exactly what was expected, as the rubber picked up the pace, forcing him from steady steps to a brisk walk to an all-out run within minutes. "Thank you," the voice congratulated him. "please continue running for thirty minutes. If you experience nausea, loss of vision or shortness of breath, you may exit the treadmill."
"Thirty minutes of running on a loop. Just what in Oblivion do you people want from me?" Xak pleaded to the voice, but as he expected there would be no answer. There was no human being behind this voice. It was a thing. An unfeeling entity that was born solely to torment him with its false sense of company. On second thought, maybe it was a woman after all.
Is this how the Vanisher works, Xak wondered? Does everybody who gets taken wind up sleeping in metal tubes, cut open, sown back up and then told to run for half an hour? In a way, it's brilliant. If the Vanisher had been some carnivorous monstrosity or spawn of Mehrunes Dagon, then he'd know what came next and it would come quick. In reality, every new punishment took him further from the death he expected and piled more confusion and questions without the slightest answer. This festering mystery, Xak realized, was a more diabolical torment than any Daedric god could muster. Sheogorath must be jealous, he managed to make himself chuckle as a sweat built up.
Thus was the pattern of each day Xak spent in this bizarre dungeon. After his exercise in the mirrored cell, a sweet-scented gas would fill the room, knocking him out in seconds. This placed him back in the orbital room strapped to a hospital bed as nurses inspected him. From here he was placed back into Dr. Adrus' care, who would either find a new excuse to cut him open or check to make sure whatever was put in before was still working. Then he would wake up in the mirrored cell, given a random task to perform by a disembodied voice, then knocked out all over again. Rinse, repeat. Not once was he offered food or water during this cycle, yet somehow he never felt thirst or starvation, as though they were feeding him through his very skin.
The mirrored cell turned out to be the most spontaneous event in Xak's rotation. The voice would assign him a new mundane activity each visit. One day he had to jump fifty times in sixty seconds. Another he had to repeat tongue twisters. All challenges that could be tackled by an argonian hatchling, now being thrown at a bosmer in his later twenties. Yet in a way Xak grew to enjoy it. Partly because nobody was sticking a knife in him in the mirrored room, but more so because it was the only time he was given any control over his body whatsoever.
Then one day, the mirrored room offered a challenge he never saw coming.
"Welcome Mr. Theril. Today we will test your social acuity and interpersonal behavior." as the Voice greeted Xak. "You will be allowed to interact with the occupant to your left. If you attempt to harm this occupant, the test will terminate immediately."
Quick as lightning, the entire western wall slid to the floor, revealing an identical room beyond. There stood, just as shocked as himself, the first familiar face he had seen in eons.
"Onorith?" Xak rushed over to the weary altmer. Clearly his companion had been having the same bad week. He traded his wizard robes for cloth pants, and what was once a glorious mane of shimmering blonde hair had been reduced to a frazzled mess. Nevertheless, he was just as happy to see Xak.
"Xak Theril! Is that really you?" Onorith clasped Xak into a hug. Even a four-day acquaintance felt like an old friend in this place. "I thought I was the only one who survived the attack!"
"I don't think they meant to kill any of us that night. Galynn was with me in one of the holding rooms, and I keep hearing references to other prisoners." Xak went straight to business, as usual.
"Yes, this makes sense. If our captors are the face of the Vanisher, then they must have some purpose to take as many live prisoners as possible." Onorith rubbed his shovel-tipped chin. "What about the others? Have you seen the Dragonborn?"
"I don't believe he was captured. Last I saw, he was still on the ground when that... thing took off."
A defeated look crossed the spellcaster. "So Galynn was right. We were nothing more than bait."
This was a point Xak was done arguing. The thought of the Dragonborn sparked a bitter taste in his mind, but they had bigger problems than betrayal."Onorith, how much do you know about the Telvanni."
"Ah, so you suspect the same as I." Onorith picked himself up, assuming the stance of a teacher about to give lecture. "Centuries ago, the Telvanni were one of the Great Houses that controlled Morrowind. Brilliant wizards, they were. The minds of House Telvanni were responsible for some of the greatest magical and technological advances since the Dwarves."
"But that time has passed." Xak injected.
"Indeed. The Telvanni were as ambitious and amoral as they were intelligent. Their staunch use of slavery earned them the ire of Argonians worldwide. When the forces of Black Marsh invaded Morrowind, they crushed every last Telvanni hold as an act of vengeance. Cruelty begets cruelty, it would seem." Onorith took a squatting seat in front of his cell's bed, with Xak following suit. "Only a handful of Telvanni wizards escaped the invasion, and the House has been powerless ever since the start of the Fourth Era, if not outright extinct."
"So how do they suddenly re-emerge two hundred years later with flying constructs and an army of metallic warriors?"
"That I can't answer, but there are possibilities. House Telvanni had a knack for illusion. Perhaps they were never truly destroyed at the start of the era. Perhaps they abandoned their holds and let the Argonians believe they had won. They could have fled Morrowind entirely to rebuild elsewhere."
"Elsewhere. That's the better question." Xak felt a headache coming on just thinking about it. "Where did they – no, where are we now?"
"I haven't the slightest clue. I take it they haven't let you outside either." He took Xak's silence as a yes. "Well, if I had to guess, I'd say this place must exist in a realm of Oblivion."
"Arkay's blood, that's all I need to hear." The Breton shot up exasperated, running his hands through a tired mess of black hair. "Well I don't care if we're in Oblivion or Orsinium. We're getting out of here. Have you tried using magic to break out?"
"Yes, the instant they let me use my arms again. I can't so much as light a candle. Somehow our captors have found a way to negate magic, either within these walls or as part of those..." He hugged his arms weakly. "...experiments."
Xak marched over to the cell's bed, immediately testing the strength of the bolts holding it in place."Alright, so we'll just have to escape the old fashioned way."
"Old fashioned? You mean with brute force."
"There's some sort of grate behind these beds. That's where the sleeping fog comes from. If we can pry the bed off the wall, we might be able to fit through the vent. Give me a hand."
Onorith just stood there, watching his cellmate tug against the bed-frame with all his might."So your plan is to crawl through a grate filled with sleeping gas. Brilliant. Assuming you could even fit through the pipe and it somehow leads to safety. Alright, I'll humor you. After the pipe, what do we do next?"
"You can do whatever you want after that." grunted Xak as he managed to snap off one of the bolts. He held the twisted metal in his hand, surprised at his own strength but no less determined. "Me, there's somebody I need to find. Then we can make our way out of here."
"Xak, I don't mean to condescend your background as a purveyor of fine beverages, but have you factored in the math here? Our captors have taken hundreds, even thousands of people over the course of at least twenty years. Out of twenty years of thousands of those people being put in the same situation you are in now, not one has managed to make their way home. Do you really think a bartender from Glenpoint is going to be the first?"
"Oh fine, Professor Useless! What do you recommend?"
"We lack the information to remotely theorize where this dungeon is, what its layout could be like or whether it is any safer outside this building than within. But our captors have promised us answers at the end of this 'processing' business, and they have been forthright thus far. I say we cooperate until we're given an explanation."
"Cooperate?" Xak was dumbstruck. "Onorith, how many times have they cut you open so far? What makes you think there is an end to this 'processing'. Are you really going to sit back and let them stuff you full of metal and lights like some sort of Dwarven plaything?"
"The Telvanni were known for questionable methods, no doubt, but they did yield fantastic advances for the rest of the world. A Telvanni wizard once used conditions much like ours to find a cure for Corprus. What if our captivity is for the greater good? I mean, just look at the magnificent contraptions they've built already!"
A fire was welling in Xak's chest. "You said it yourself. Twenty years, thousands of people, not one returned home. They're not about to take what they want and send us on our way."
"Neither do they intend to kill us. What would be the point of giving us implants otherwise? Haven't you noticed they've been improving us? We are stronger, healthier than we were before. We are being remade. Xak, if we endure this torment, we could become one of them!"
"I WILL NEVER BE ONE OF THEM!" Xak roared. His hands wrapped around Onorith's shoulders and pushed hard. This was no ordinary shove. Onorith was launched eight feet before hitting the mirrored ground so hard it cracked on impact. The spellcaster watched in shock and awe as his friend's rampage ensued.
The Voice jumped to action. "Injuring another occupant is in violation of this test. You will now be restrained."
To this Voice, Xak spoke directly. "DO YOU HEAR ME YOU BASTARDS! I'M NOT LIKE YOU!" He searched for an enemy, something he could utterly destroy. He ran to the nearest mirrored wall and threw everything he had at his own reflection. "I'M NOT LIKE YOU! I NEVER WILL BE! YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO KILL ME!" He cried as he bashed his knuckles against the glass, against himself, against that sorry little fool that let himself get captured by the very thing he swore to hunt down. Gas seeped into the room behind him, creeping closer like a thousand clawing hands, yet Xak fought on. His bloody fist still pounded the wall after the world went dark.
His mind was still burning by the time he opened his eyes to the orbital room. It was darker than he had ever seen it, with the ceiling deactivated and the only light coming from a lamp attached directly to his bed. Rough bruises colored much of his right arm down to his red knuckles. Even such small injuries would not go unnoticed in this place. A nurse stood next to his bed tending to his fractured wrist. Xak drowsily watched as she undid the leather straps on his right side, then gently ran her hands over his arm. The pain evaporated as a soft golden glow erupted from her palms, soaking his skin in healing magic until the arm was spotless.
Then she made a mistake. Turning her back on her patient for another medical tool, the nurse never realized she forgot to redo the straps that restrained his arm. Xad did.
Next to his bed, the nurse's cart was littered with scalpels, scissors, knives, anything he could use to hurt somebody.
He raised a finger. Then his entire limb. Not a sound was made. He weighed his options. The next move would determine everything. This would be his only chance.
The nurse screamed when she felt it, an innocent yelp of the unprepared. She steadily shifted her gaze down to her arm and the shaking fingers that gripped it. Xak pulled, forcing the nurse to face him.
"Make it stop." There were no tears in his eyes, just a burning desperation as he begged whatever human decency that might still exist in this person to come to the surface. "Please... just... no more."
For a long time the two of them remained connected. Never did the nurse call for help or try to break away. Instead she glanced around the room, as though to be sure nobody was watching. Then she cautiously lowered her green mask and leaned down next to her patient, letting Xak see her in the light.
The nurse was a Khajiit, but not like any Xak had met before. Where most had a mighty square snout, Xak saw a gentle curve towards a heart-shaped pink nose surrounded with light ash-gray fur. Vibrant sapphire eyes viewed him through almond slits. She offered a reassuring human-like smile as she placed a hand on his chest and leaned closer to whisper.
"I'm going to get you out of here," she said against his cheek. "I promise. Just hold on for a little while longer."
Shock flooded Xak's senses. Was this another trick? A cruel attempt at misdirecting his escape plans? Yet underneath the uncertainty, he felt welling a sensation he had not known for too long: Hope. The Khajiit girl softly took Xak's hand in hers, delicately placing his arm back under the straps. "Whatever happens, keep fighting them. Don't let them change you." Was all she offered before putting her mask on and leaving the room in a hurried walk.
She forgot to tranquilize him. Xak was awake for five hours before somebody finally came in to put him out. He spent the entire time repeating the girl's words in his mind. Don't let them change you.