The Contest
The darkness into which the two women stepped was all consuming, sending Shadowmere's organs into her throat and her resolve into the soles of her shoes. Saeana's hand was still shut in hers, her fingers wrapped as tightly as they could be, and the sound of screaming seemed close enough to be inside her. Her chest burned and it was as though all the air was being sucked out of her. As she stood frozen to the spot her mind raced, just as she couldn't force her body to do, running toward a light glimmering in the distance, caressing something beautiful. She heard a gruff voice calling her by a sound she couldn't find a word for, then a gentler voice calling her by the same sound. It was a lyrical, almost childlike air that seemed to reach out to her with incorporeal fingers. The light was that which she followed so urgently each time she saw it in her dreams; nameless, ethereal, on the verge of sensing. She pushed herself further, the sound like a siren's song working on behalf of the brilliance so far away. As she got close, the light was so bright that she tried to close her eyes, but try as she might, she couldn't.
It wasn't until the muscles in her face started cramping up that she realized her eyes were already squeezed shut. As she let her eyes unclench, she realized she had her mouth open and was screaming so hard that she was in danger of asphyxiating herself. For the first time, she saw the world that surrounded her and had given birth to the gate that crowned into Kvatch. It was like standing in the middle of a festering boil, with red, cracked flesh land, and rotten pools of molten pus. The heat of disease burned her face and hands, but her insides shook with delirious chills. Broken pieces of architecture, bridges, columns, cruel towers, infected the wound and made it as unpleasant to see as to experience. Despite the feeling that she was merely a maggot in this wound, she stopped screaming; even if she was a maggot, she was alive. But though she quieted her own voice, she was aware that the sound didn't stop. Her ears and eyes were drawn toward her friend, who still stood with her eyes cringed, and her mouth agape, forcibly vomiting sound.
"Saeana!" Shadowmere had to yell to make herself heard over the shrieking. "Stop yelling, it's alright!"
"Shad?" she yelped, her grip on her hand tightening. "You're still here?"
"Yeah, open your eyes." Tentatively, Saeana blinked and looked around carefully before her glance rested back on Shadowmere. Realizing she was still clinging to her like a small, scared child, Saeana released her hand quickly and she blushed a brilliant aubergine, which brought a smirk to Shadowmere's face.
"Well, at least that wasn't embarrassing," she muttered, wiping her hands fruitlessly on her armor, as though she could wipe humiliation off along with the sweat of her palm.
"No, anything but embarrassing," Shadowmere confirmed facetiously. "Everyone stands still screaming at the top of their lungs with their eyes closed when they enter a new place." Already exasperated, Saeana rolled her eyes.
"I meant because no one's here to see it other than you," she elucidated. "That's what would make it embarr-"
"Thank the Nine!" The male voice made both Dunmer jump and snap into defensive positions as its owner ran toward them. The Imperial man wore the uniform of a Kvatch guardsman, and carried a battered shield with the same crest of a fox etched upon it. "I never thought I'd see another friendly face." The man was out of breath and flustered as he bent over before them, putting his hands on his knees, letting his head of shaggy, sand-brown hair hang around his ears. "The others…taken…they were taken to the tower!"
"So much the better for them," Shadowmere was tempted to say as she recoiled, wrinkling her nose and reeling at the stink the man gave off, close to the same smell of the gate itself, but mixed with gallons of perspiration.
"It's alright, what's going on?" Saeana said, not reacting to the man's odor. As much as Saeana claimed to not care about the fate of others, she was infinitely better at dealing with people than Shadowmere, who was ultimately doomed to give a damn.
"Captain Matius sent us in, to try and close the gate," he said, lifting his head, revealing his eyes which, though bloodshot, had irises the same brilliant lapis lazuli blue as Shadowmere's skin. "We were ambushed, trapped and picked off. I managed to escape but the others are strewn across that bridge. They took Menien off to the big tower, you've got to save him!" His ash brown hair streaked with soot, sweat and sanguine blood made his shaggy, lobe-length mane stand up and give him the appearance of a feral beast.
"Can you take us to him?" Shadowmere asked, feeling her mind focusing already on the task with which he had presented them. Like a bear shedding off a layer of water, the man shook his head, his eyes flashing with fierce aversion.
"I'm getting out of here!" he snarled, his dry, cracked lips splitting further with the ferocity of his words. Despite the feverish cold, a crack of white hot anger jolted through Shadowmere's brain.
"Look, you putz," she started acidly. Before Shadowmere could get out all her thoughts on the man, Saeana covered her mouth with her hand and spoke up.
"Fine, Captain Matius needs your help," she offered, not trying to stop him. The man's eyes lit up as though she had just told him that the New Life Festival was going to come twice a year.
"The Captain is still holding the barricade?" he asked incredulously, and to which Saeana nodded. "I figured I was the last one left alive," he said shaking his head in awe. "Alright, I'll try to get out of here and let the captain know what's going on."
"Yeah you do that," Shadowmere snorted, jabbing her sword into the ground and leaning lightly against it. "We'll be the ones in here, saving your friends." The man didn't hear her, or ignored her if he did, as he hurried back through the still glowing portal. "Dickhead," she spat out of sheer spite. She was surprised by the slap to the back of her head and turned to see Saeana scowling at her.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked roughly. "Aren't you the one who advocated helping people so recently?"
"I advocate helping those who can't, or those who are willing to help themselves," Shadowmere shot back. "He's still able to help, and if he cares about his friend enough to stay this long, he should be able to finish the job. But he's choosing to not finish the job, ergo he's a dickhead."
"Shad, he's been here for twenty-four hours at least!" Saeana exclaimed. "He can't possibly be in any shape to go rescuing anyone! How can you possibly say this is still his job?" Jerking her sword out of the ground, Shadowmere retorted with strained civility.
"If it's not possible for someone to do something, like if a mouse was being asked to pull a hog-cart, then yeah, I'd step in. But if a weak hog was being asked to pull the same hog-cart, then how is my intervention going to help? How is that hog ever going to be strong enough to pull the cart if someone always pulls it for him? So because he doesn't feel like pulling his cart, that makes him a dickhead." Saeana shook her head, clearly getting sick of her farm animal analogy.
"Alright," she sighed in surrender. "But the weak hog's back in Kvatch now, so let's do what we were sent to do." Though she had been upset by her reluctance to help before, Shadowmere wasn't sure she liked Bossy-Boots Saeana any more than Apathetic Saeana. "What do you suppose he meant when that man said 'they took so-and-so to the tower'?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say that it means that a group took one of his friends there," she said, pointing to the tallest structure she could see.
"Who are 'they'?" Saeana's voice tried to disguise its snide inflection, but was justifiably sick of Shadowmere's sarcasm.
"Intelligent daedra, I suppose," she said, knowing enough to stop before she had Saeana pissed at her in another plane. "Dremora, twilights, saints, seducers, maybe xivilai, anything able to function above the level of an animal," she said, looking out ahead of them, watching as two scamps walked with their strange, jerking, chicken steps. "I doubt that Daedra Lords have mortal servants within the realms of Oblivion."
"I doubt it too," Saeana said, also catching sight of the scamps. "But then why would they kidnap the guard instead of killing him?" Shadowmere gave her mildly amused, smileless chortle.
"Breakfast," she responded bluntly. "They don't have access to the best motherfucking pancakes in Tamriel." Shadowmere shuddered at her own words, the idea of the poor imprisoned man being roasted over a spit making her sick. Further sickened, she caught sight of a dead horse, laying in a pool of blood not far from where she stood. Her time in equine form gave her an overwhelming empathy for the brutally slain creature, and a sensitivity toward their pain and deaths, a complete turnaround from where she had been thirty years ago. It was unnerving, but she still considered this animal to be her brother, and to see him lying there, his white and brown patterned coat stained with blood drove a flaming stake through her heart and made her want to cry.
"So we go to the tower," Saeana started listing the steps they were about to undertake, unaware of Shadowmere's impending breakdown. "We find this Menien guy, we get him out and maybe he can tell us something about how to get this thing closed."
"Sounds good," Shadowmere said, turning her attention toward the scamps with predator-like intensity, knowing they were likely the killers of her former brethren. "Let's get to work." With little regard for stealth or the element of surprise, she darted down the path to her right and raised her sword over her head. As it came down, the blade slashed one of the scamps from the top of the skull and down diagonally, half of the creature's head sliding down like a visceral sled descending a grotesque hill as the body fell to the ground. Using the motion and weight of the blow to carry her around, she turned and swung again, slicing open the neck of the scamp, who fell with a surprised smirk on its face while the blood churned out.
She looked back to Saeana and grinned holding up two fingers, signaling that she was keeping track of how many beasties she had killed. In response, Saeana held up a single finger signaling her thoughts on Shadowmere's success. She hurried back to Shadowmere's side and pulled an arrow out of her quiver, making sure she was ready for any subsequent opportunities to overtake her.
"There's a bridge up there," she said, motioning toward the feeble bridge which looked to be easily the quickest way to the tall tower, where the last guard was allegedly being held. "Let's go." Charging toward the structure, Shadowmere reached the crest quickly; so quickly that she didn't have time to stop when she saw the opposite side of the bridge was on the other side of a twenty-five foot breach in the path. Throwing her body backwards in desperation to stop herself from going over the edge, the change in equilibrium caused her feet to slip over the lip. Without even time to scream, Shadowmere fell, dropping her blade with a clatter that rang like a death knoll, desperately twisting like a falling cat. To her disbelief, she managed to catch the stone with one hand, digging her nails into the impenetrable surface.
"Sae-!" was all she could cough out with her stomach and chest strained like an old rope hauling too much weight, fibers snapping left and right.
"Hold on, I'm coming!" Shadowmere, despite her unbelievable catch, didn't hold out much hope for a rescue and wished for just a moment that the smelly city guard hadn't run away.
"The small hog can't pull a load that takes an oxen to move," she thought, glumly. As much as she might want to, Saeana simply wasn't strong enough to be able to lift her back onto the ledge. Though her situation was dire, Shadowmere still ran over possible escape plans in her mind as she dangled precariously. "Maybe if she grabs onto my belt I can pull myself back up…" The concept seemed unlikely even as it coursed through her brain. "There's no way she has that kind of strength, and she'd probably just end up hanging down here with me." As the gentle calluses of her friend's hands wrapped around her wrist, a wisp of smoke shot past their arms and bounced off the nearby rubble, revealing its true form as an arrow.
"Saeana, archers!" she shouted, unable to feel any more exposed than she did at that moment; unless perhaps she had been naked. Saeana's hand quickly left her arm, while the wisps of smoke continued to zip past her. "Thank Azura they're as good at archery as they are handsome," she thought, assuming the attacking daedra were dremoras; she hadn't known other daedra to use something that required as much finesse as a bow.
The sound of the arrows slinging past her now doubled its tempo, and it was surprising to Shadowmere how quickly Saeana had started returning fire. Taking the chance at looking up, she watched her friend nocking an arrow, drawing back the line and releasing it in one fell swoop. She did it so quickly, it looked as though she was conducting an orchestra with one arm, with the arrow in her hand as her baton. "Damn, she's good." Shadowmere had never taken the time to watch Saeana use her bow, since she was usually occupied with her own battles at the same time, but now that she had the opportunity to observe, she couldn't help but notice her skill.
As the dremoras' arrows continued to fly past her, she managed to get her other hand up on the ledge, spreading the strain to both arms, rather than just one. She was torn as to whether she was better off staying still or trying to swing to avoid the projectiles, unable to see where the archers were stationed. She opted to dangle as still as she could, assuming that if they hadn't hit her yet, they probably weren't going to. As if on cue, a bolt of lightning seared her right forearm, making her cry out in surprise and pain.
"Are you hit?" Saeana yelled, her voice giving the lyrics to the rhapsody of bow strings and the arrows descant. Glancing at the new wound on her arm, she dismissed it flippantly.
"Just a scratch," she strained to call back, her lungs feeling as though they were being crushed in her chest. "Kill them already!" Each fiber of her muscles was fraying and splitting and her hands were going numb, the stone ledge becoming increasingly harder to feel. She caught a glimpse of the lava over which she was suspended, the delirious heat wrapping like tentacles around her and made her stomach plunge suddenly. The thought of falling into that boiling viscous pool, unable to scream as her skin burned away and her lungs dissolved from the inside out from the inhaled lava, made her take a breath on instinct, just to calm herself. "After all I've done, I'm not going to die like this." Her resolution lent some amount of strength to her weakening arms, as she grunted and managed to wrap her fingers more securely around the ledge, the blood from her gash trickling down her arm beneath her armor.
Suddenly, the concerto ended with the percussion of Saeana's bow clattering to the ground and her knees falling on the stone beside her clenched fingers. "Hold on, I've got you." Saeana's face came over the ledge like the sun coming over the horizon and her firm grip shackled Shadowmere's arms, not allowing them to escape. At that moment, nothing had ever felt more wonderful in Shadowmere's life than Saeana's hands wrapped around her wrists; it was akin to having a full stomach after having been starving, or a soothing bath after having been filthy for far too long. "Can you pull yourself up?" she asked, her brow furrowed.
"No, I can't get a good enough hold," Shadowmere grunted. "I don't think you can pull me up either." Saeana shook her head slightly, little more than a twitch.
"Is there any solid ground down there?" she asked, her face tense trying, Shadowmere suspected, not to show how distressed she felt. Straining her neck, Shadowmere looked over her shoulder, trying not to see the eager lava that practically salivated with the prospect of a tasty morsel. Behind her, there was no solid land within her reach but, to her surprise, she was treated to the sight of parched, cracked, but solid, land under the overhang in front of her.
"Yeah," she choked out, knowing the plan they were both concocting was desperate and stupid above all else. "If you can swing me, I think I can make it to the ground and then climb back up." She looked back up at her friend and judging by her expression, she was a little sickened by the prospect of swinging her companion over a pool of volcano barf on the off chance she might not plunge into it.
"Alright," she conceded. "Give me one second." Without releasing her hold, Saeana shimmied backwards on the bridge until she rested on her belly. "Alright, let go of the ledge and grab on to my arms." At that moment, there wasn't anything Shadowmere wanted to do less than let go of her lifeline and take the chance that her own weight might pull her rescuer into the same predicament as her.
"I need to turn my hands, so I can hold on your wrists," she said, wanting the greatest possible advantage for this suicide attempt.
"Okay, which hand first?"
"Let's go with the right." Shadowmere didn't particularly care which hand she started with, but the right seemed to be as good a choice as any. Saeana furrowed her eyebrows, a look of confusion darkening her features.
"Mine or yours?" She asked. Though the idea that they were dickering over right or left as Shadowmere hovered over a pool of lava was more than a little mindboggling, in the end, it was an important decision to make.
"My right, your left," she clarified. Saeana nodded her agreement.
"Whenever you're ready," she said.
"What balls we have," Shadowmere thought, letting out a breath and unclenching the fingers of her right hand. For a terrifying moment, she dangled once again by one hand before she managed to turn her hand and clasp it once again around Saeana's wrist. "Gotcha!" Saeana reassured her, securing her hold on Shadowmere's wrist. "One more." Shadowmere shuddered a nod.
"Yeah, one more," she tried to convince herself it would be that simple. Taking another breath, she once again let go of the ledge. "Holy shit!" she yelped, a short drop from the ledge and sudden stop as Saeana's grip caught her jarring her brain. Her friend had a hold of her before she could even have time to hang by one hand for long enough to blink. "I underestimated her reflexes," she thought, holding on tighter.
"Will three swings do it?" Saeana asked, her own voice sounding strained. Shadowmere nodded, her stiffening muscles barely allowing the miniscule movement.
"Let's go for it," she gasped, feeling her body continue to stretch beyond what she thought was natural. Knowing Saeana wouldn't be able to swing her body unassisted, Shadowmere managed to kick her legs out in front of her and started the motion. Keeping her feet together, she flung her legs backwards and forwards again, the swing carrying her farther.
"One," Saeana grunted, her jaw clenched with her efforts. Her shoulders screaming for mercy, Shadowmere forced herself to repeat the desperate wave with her body, feeling her hands slipping in Saeana's palms.
"Two," Shadowmere counted as she swung even further, certain that another swing would rip off her arms. Her stomach muscles may as well have already hit the lava with how they burned under her ribs.
"Three." Their voices were in unison as Shadowmere swung again, throwing her legs as far as she could. Surrendering the security of Saeana's slick fingers, with air like silken hair on her sweaty hands, Shadowmere fell through the air like an embroidery needle through a sampler. As her feet hit the rocks below, she flung her arms forward and clung to the rocky embankment as a child would a favorite toy, panting in relief when she realized she was still alive.
"You alright?" Saeana's voice carried down to the bowels of the bridge, the echoes against the underside of the structure like the cries of a new widow.
"Yeah," Shadowmere croaked, tentatively opening her eyes and looking around her, already feeling the broiling heat of the lava and the bitter chill of the air. "Yeah, I made it." Looking behind her, she saw the churning pool was no more than a foot from her heels and had to fight the bile in her throat. "I'm coming up," she said, only too eager to get away from the menace that had threatened to be her tomb and her pyre simultaneously. Her arms still throbbing, she began the process of scaling the ruins and rubble, her sore legs only too eager to help move her after having dangled uselessly for far too long. "That should not have worked," she realized, not entirely sure from where her sudden burst of good fortune had come. With a hand suddenly in her line of vision, Shadowmere looked up to see Saeana, relief in her fear-widened eyes. Now able to use her legs and on a more even level, Shadowmere gladly grabbed her fingers and together, they pulled her up the embankment.
Once on solid ground, she collapsed on her back and took a few deep, relieved breaths while Saeana patted her on the head with hands clumsy from the strain on her arms.
"So that's probably not the best route to take then," Saeana said, motioning to the bridge that had almost given their adventure a tragic turn. Still lying on her back, her eyes closed, Shadowmere started laughing breathlessly, almost madly, at her companion's comment. "For the love of Azura, you can't be getting punchy already," Saeana muttered, shaking her head. "We've still got a long way to go, pull yourself together." Shadowmere paid her little mind as she continued to laugh at the inane sarcasm her friend had expressed. "I guess I'm the type to laugh in the face of certain death," she thought, giving herself a few moments to laugh herself out.
"No, I'd have to say that's not an efficient direction to go," she said, taking another breath as her body finally calmed itself and pushing herself to sitting. "We're going to have to go around." She motioned with her azure hand the path that wended around the circumference of the huge tower where their quarry was presumably being held.
"Alright then," Saeana said, pushing the hilt Shadowmere's dropped sword back into her hands before getting herself to her feet and dusting off her knees and backside. "Let's make tracks." Brushing the dirt from her hands, Shadowmere reached up and let Saeana pull her to her feet before sliding the blade back into its sheath. "By the way," she commented, seemingly off the cuff. "There were three archers, so that gives me three and you…two? So one more than you?"
"Yeah, one more," she said simply, scratching her eyebrow with her middle finger as she quickened her pace. "Aren't you the one who said that we need to make tracks?" Smirking, Saeana followed her, her satisfaction obvious. "Besides, those archers couldn't have been anything more than churls. Killing them is like stomping ants. They should only count for about one and a half, not three." Shadowmere could practically hear Saeana's eyes roll with irritation and gave a proud little grin to herself.
"And what's the exchange rate for scamps?" Saeana asked, catching up and tucking her bow under her arm. "Killing them is like stomping crippled ants."
"Are you kidding?" Shadowmere cut herself off when she saw an angry clannfear charging toward her with its claws opened. "Killing scamps is like stomping army ants, or something else that fights back, like kwama or scribs or something." As she spoke, she pulled out her sword and started hacking at the little lizard-beast, who gave out an enraged screech. The scrap ended suddenly when the creature's head jerked back, an elven arrow jutting out of its crown. "That one's mine," she asserted, pointing to herself and holding her finger up, adding the beast to her running kill count. Saeana rolled her eyes and nodded, granting Shadowmere's claim despite the fact that it was her arrow that had actually delivered the killing blow. It had been Shadowmere's sword that had done most of the damage.
"So basically they're like killing animals with claws," she continued, nocking another arrow and taking aim at a scamp charging toward them and striking it dead with a single shot.
"Yes." Shadowmere's nod served both as an affirmation of her statement and acknowledgement of Saeana's kill, even as she took on a charging flame atronach with her blade outstretched.
"Not exactly equal to killing sentient beings that are capable of using weapons equivalent to our own, is it?" Saeana's argument interrupted Shadowmere's thrill of being so close to living flame and snuffing it like a candle.
"Even goblins are able to use weapons," she retorted, twisting her sword as she pulled it from the atronach's chest. "Would you consider them on our intellectual level?" She was careful to not touch the ember-like corpse as she pulled a small leather pouch from her pack, though she knew it wouldn't hurt if she did make contact with it; she could touch it all she wanted, it was only if the creature touched her that she could be burned.
"So you would consider goblins equally as intelligent as dremora?" Saeana asked, crouching beside the corpse and reached into the hole Shadowmere's weapon had left, pulling out the heart and squeezing the crystallized blood into the pouch held out by Shadowmere. The salts formed in the creature's heart could be sold for a tidy sum, but the act of collecting them made Shadowmere feel a little dizzy.
"Goblins have an organized hierarchy and are capable of controlling and being controlled, just like dremora; they can use magicka and weapons, just like dremora," she said firmly, handing the sack to Saeana, who blew the ash off of her hands before taking it. "So yes, I consider goblins cognate with dremora." Shoving their prize into her pack, Saeana shook her head, vehemently disagreeing with her.
"Goblins aren't even capable of speech," she scoffed. "You can't tell me that they're on the same level as dremora when they don't even have a viable form of communication." Shadowmere felt her brow furrow defensively while her stomach stiffened in the same manner.
"Just because you don't understand them," she said just loudly enough for Saeana to hear. "Doesn't mean they don't have anything intelligent to say." She illustrated the point for herself by blowing a tuft of hair out of her eyes, a communication she'd used in her previous form which no one else had been able to comprehend. There was no real way to justify her frustration when Saeana said things like she had; she had never lost the ability to express herself, but the aggravation was there nonetheless. There were times when Shadowmere hated being enlightened; she constantly saw things from the opposing point of view, and she hated having to constantly point out that an unappealing idea had merit. It was easy to see nasty, aggressive beasts as just that, but that didn't mean that was all that they were. They could very well be, but she could see something in their eyes that belied their true natures.
Goblins were vicious and territorial, but that was really no different from people. When confronted with intruders, anyone with a beating heart would likely fight to protect their homes and those they loved. It was true they had no centralized government, but was that so strange? The Ashlander tribes in Morrowind, and even the Great Houses and the guilds were a form of tribal law. And it may be true that Goblins had no discernable language outside of their honking shrieks and snarls, but that didn't mean they were unintelligent; maybe the rest of world had yet to learn how to interpret them.
But then again, perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps she was overthinking it, seeing things that weren't there and giving honor to dishonorable, despicable animals with no more sense of right and wrong than basic predator or prey drive.
In the end, it had no bearing on her current situation; she was in Oblivion, fighting daedra, not in a cave, fighting goblins. Putting her conundrum out of her mind, she hurried to catch up to Saeana, who had maintained her focus, untroubled by the affairs of creatures "beneath" her.
"So how many are we up to?" she called, trying to pretend she hadn't gotten lost in her own irrelevant, mental cul-de-sac.
"Four each," Saeana said, keeping an arrow nocked for preparation. "Wait, hold on." She loosed the projectile with expert precision and caught a magicka wielding dremora cleanly in the temple, the figure tumbling comically into a pool of lava. "You have four, I have five." Letting out a sigh, Shadowmere jabbed the blade of her sword into the dirt.
"Son of a bitch," she muttered, shaking her head and glaring at her longsword. With her bow, Saeana definitely had the advantage of stealth. A slight movement behind a broken pillar brought a smile to her face and gleam to her eye. "Alright, time to level the playing field," she thought gleefully, rushing toward and blindsiding a frost atronach and a daedroth. Slamming her shield into the maw of the daedroth, she drove her blade into the spine of the atronach, the blow landing with a hiss and flash of steam. The heat of her enchanted weapon slashed clear through the frostbitten creature and it collapsed in a pile of half melted slush. Turning her attention toward the more simple-minded of the two behemoths, Shadowmere found the daedroth was trying to chew through her shield and was immediately grateful that the bandit, from whom she'd stolen the shield, had taken the time to properly temper the glass.
Deciding to admire the craftsmanship of her purloined armor later, Shadowmere slid the blade between the open jaws of the busily gnawing daedroth and push it back, the maxilla and skull separating from the rest of the body and falling backwards, the remaining corpse following suit.
Before she could report her success back to Saeana, her friend yelped from not far away, the sound making Shadowmere instinctively on edge.
"Shadowmere, get it off of me!" Saeana shrieked in desperation, her voice a tow rope reeling Shadowmere over to crumbling column where she stood, her back arced in pain and her entire body tensed. To her immense surprise, and perhaps relief, Shadowmere found there was nothing even remotely near her friend, but several small tears in her leather armor running diagonally down her back told her she needed to look closer. "What is it?" she asked, audibly reining in her panic. Though Saeana couldn't see it, Shadowmere shook her head, scanning the area carefully. The assorted humanoid remains adorning high rocks and pillars, as well as being suspended by ropes, proved to be a nauseous distraction, and Shadowmere found herself looking more at the mutilated forms and less for Saeana's assailant. "Is one of these the guy we're supposed to be looking for?" she wondered. "Well?" Saeana insisted, dragging her out of her macabre daydream.
"I don't see anythi-" A fiery whip cracked across Shadowmere's back, making her gasp, suddenly interrupting her statement. "Yeow!" she cried, looking around with more intent. "Buggeration!" Searching for signs of anything trying to make a hasty escape, she was again surprised to find nothing.
"Did it get you too?" Saeana asked, her body finally relaxing a little and letting her turn to face Shadowmere, who nodded.
"Yeah, it hit my back," she said, pointing at her back from over her shoulder. "It didn't tear my armor, did it?" Before Saeana could respond, she let out another yelp, jumping to her left and clutching her right calf.
"It didn't get your armor, but it got my leg!" she yelled angrily, trying to rub the discomfort away. "That hurts!" Shadowmere turned around, again on what she thought to be a fruitless search for an invisible attacker.
"Alright," she said, not wanting to come up empty-handed again. "So we were both standing with our backs to the pillar, right?" she clarified, putting herself into the same position she had been in and garnering a nod from Saeana. "And we both got tagged in the back and when you turned you got hit by the leg closest to the pillar, right?" Saeana nodded again, a slight pause passing between them before they both turned toward the same pillar and discovered their assailant. "Are you kidding me?" Shadowmere asked, staring in annoyed shock at the sight of an amaranthine plant, moving of its own accord, and striking out at them. "Saeana, I think we've just suffered gardening injuries!" The plant struck out again, though Shadowmere was lucky enough to jump over the whip-like tendrils lashing at them.
"Well, now I'm really pissed," Saeana said, tucking her bow over her shoulder and pulling a daedric dagger from her belt and slashing at the plant, sprigs of the homicidal piece of horticulture scattered across ground. With mild amusement, Shadowmere watched as Saeana tried to exact vengeance from the vine-like aggressor. After a few minutes, Saeana finally stepped back and sighed in satisfaction, putting the small blade back onto her belt.
"Feel better now?" Shadowmere asked, raising an eyebrow. Saeana nodded, taking a deep breath and pushing some sweat laden locks of hair from her face.
"Yeah, I do." Shadowmere turned to go, but paused when her friend spoke up again. "So I guess it's six to six now." Almost straining her back with how fast she turned around, Shadowmere faced Saeana, her face driven into a competitive leer.
"It's six to five, in my favor," she corrected firmly. Saeana shook her head.
"It was, but I just took on the plant," she said haughtily. "So now it's six-"
"Sae, the thing's still alive," Shadowmere quickly pointed out, gesturing toward the plant which now seemed determined to draw blood. Scowling, Saeana narrowed her eyes at the flailing vines.
"Not for long it's not!" she yelled, whipping out her blade again and hacking away. Not willing to be outdone, Shadowmere pulled out her longsword and joined Saeana in her sap-lust. For a solid ten minutes, the two Dunmer women ganged up on the shrub, never once touching each other with their weapons, but every so often, one of them would let out a surprised exclamation of pain as the vines struck another blow.
Finally, Saeana got to her feet and backed away quickly, apparently having had an epiphany. "I'm cutting my losses," she said firmly. "You can keep your lead for now. I'm not going to get beaten up by a plant to tie your score." That was all Shadowmere really wanted to hear and she took the opportunity to jump back, watching the plant which, though thinned down, was ultimately unharmed as it slowed its motions and resumed its still clinging to the battered stone pillar.
"Yeah I guess you're right," she said, glad that she too, didn't have sufficient injuries from their skirmish that she would have to own up to the source. She refused, however, to leave the battle without trophies. She gathered a few of the sprigs that had been scattered in the fight and bound them together with the thinnest of them and tossed it in her pack.
Leaving the victorious plant, they continued their trek toward to the domineering tower, more mindful of the vines that they now noticed were growing pretty much everywhere. Watching the distance, Shadowmere saw a mace-wielding dremora standing with his back toward them and couldn't resist sneaking up behind him, presumably a him, her sword already thirsting for his blood. As she continued to creep, wondering if "blood" was the right word for what daedra had running through their bodies, or if "ichor" was a more correct description, the dremora fell forward faceplanting into a rock before slumping to the ground. A thin line protruding from the back of the beast-man's head, Shadowmere looked back at Saeana who still held her bow in front of her and a smirk in her cheeks.
"Now it's six to six," she said, lowering her arm and lifting her chest as she walked.
"You bitch," Shadowmere hissed, scowling bitterly. "That one was mine!" Saeana shrugged, putting her foot on the back of the dremora's head and jerking the arrow from it.
"You snooze, you lose Shad," she said glibly, wiping off the arrowhead and tucking it back into the quiver before stumbling and squeaking from the kick Shadowmere delivered to her ass. "You're a lousy sport, you know that?" she said with exasperation and she covered the spot where Shadowmere had struck.
"I like to say I'm driven," Shadowmere corrected, knowing how irritating she could be. Saeana simply rolled her eyes.
"I like to say I'm two inches taller and ten pounds lighter than I am," she shot back. "That doesn't make it true." Shadowmere blew a puff of air past her lips, knowing this was just another pointless argument in which the two had somehow managed to entangle themselves.
"Let's just keep moving," she said with another sigh. "I'm sure we'll find a few more daedra to help us settle the matter." In silent agreement, Saeana kept walking as Shadowmere pulled ahead, intent on being more vigilant so as not to fall behind her friend.
Her vigilance was cut short as she and Saeana unexpectedly found themselves at the foot of the mammoth tower, the sheer size making Shadowmere's head hurt and her pulse shake her wrists. "What the hell is this about," she wondered, making a conscious effort to try and slow her heartbeat. "Since when am I scared of buildings?" The only other place that she remembered being afraid of, aside from her childhood home, was the stable by the Imperial City where the proprietress was rumored to eat the horses. That establishment still left her feeling unsettled, but not out and out afraid like she was now. "This is stupid," she thought, taking a deep breath and letting it all out at once, almost certain she could see the fear leaving her lungs like a frosty cloud.
"Race you to the top!" she said to Saeana, who stood staring up at the unending spire. Her smile uneasy, Saeana nodded.
"Last one loses one from their count," she challenged, charging toward the tower. Shadowmere ran around her and put her hands against the tower, the material like goosepimpled skin under her fingers. "Did…did you find the door?" Saeana asked, pushing against the side of the building much as Shadowmere did.
"I thought this was the door," she said, wiping her hands on her armor as she took a step back, cursing her inability to locate something that should be as obvious as a building's entrance. "Sae, we suck at this!"
"Gods, how did we get this job?" she said glaring over at Shadowmere. "Oh, that's right, you signed us up for this!"
"Goddamnit!" she yelped, stomping her foot and turning toward Saeana. "Will you let nothing go?" Saeana crossed her arms and walked over to Shadowmere, staring up at her in fierce defiance.
"I let a lot of your shenanigans go, but when they result in us ending up in a demonic realm, I'm not going to let that one go!" Though she had to fight the compulsion to strangle her and throw her lifeless body into the lava, Shadowmere knew that was probably not the best way to solve this particular issue. "But it would feel so good…"
"Fine," Shadowmere sighed. "Let's assume this is my fault. That doesn't change the fact that we need to find the door." Saeana nodded, her shoulders visibly relaxing.
"I vote that we walk around the tower," she replied, uncrossing her arms as her temper cooled. "We're bound to find it sooner or later."
"That works," Shadowmere agreed, starting on a clockwise path around the structure. "At least we didn't come to blows this time." Keeping one eye on the path in front of her and one on the side of the building, a rocky ridge came quickly into her field of vision. "How far a drop is that?" she asked, pointing out the obstacle to Saeana, who had caught up quickly. Her friend scampered ahead and bounded to the top of the ridge, leaning over just far enough to see the ground on the opposite side.
"About eight feet," she said, turning to face Shadowmere, who now approached the ledge. She inched backwards on the rock until she was standing on the very edge, threw her arms backwards and leapt off backwards. Shadowmere watched as her friend curled her body into a ball and kicked one leg to carry her all the way around, landing on the ground with just a slight wobble.
"Just had to show off, didn't you," she said, rolling her eyes as she walked off the edge of the rock face and landed next to her friend with her knees bent.
"Why not?" Saeana smirked. "We've probably walked into an inglorious death, I might as well do a back flip while I still can." She didn't accuse Shadowmere of leading her into said death, but Saeana's words still stung Shadowmere. "This would probably still be what we would walk into even if she had been the driving force behind this." Her thoughts offered Shadowmere no solace as she kept her hand against the building, feeling as though she was stroking a cold, freshly-plucked chicken.
With the bitter thoughts fueling her steps, Shadowmere almost missed two scamps patrolling what could only be the entrance to the tower; from where she stood, a set of steps jutting from the front of the building were visible and presumably led up to a door. The scamps stalked back and forth in their stilted gaits, almost adorably, in Shadowmere's opinion. "Except for the flesh tearing, bone sucking depravity." Not giving Saeana a chance to steal her kills, she rushed ahead, thrusting her sword through the spine of scamp that didn't have time to shriek before his head rolled three feet ahead of him. Making sure she was between Saeana and the remaining scamp, so she wouldn't be able to get a clean shot, Shadowmere swung once more and slit the creature's throat. Its eyes widened and its mouth was open, but no sound came out and Shadowmere felt sick to her stomach. "I know how that feels," she remembered. Without allowing herself to dwell on the thought for any longer, and unable to abide the scamp's pain, she hacked once again and the beast suffered no longer. "What the hell was that?" she wondered in scorn, not sure why her conscience started chiming in. It had been quiet enough while she killed all the other creatures, even making a sport of it, why now was is so distasteful?
"You cheater!" Saeana yelped. "You lousy cheater!" Pretending nothing had happened, Shadowmere turned around and shrugged.
"Hey, maybe if you weren't so busy doing back flips you would have noticed them sooner," she stated, standing before the stairs and staring at the enormous doors to the tower. It was a bizarre bastardization of the chapel back in Kvatch; double doors, complete with pointed arch. Though she wasn't religious, it was anathema in Shadowmere's eyes. "This is sick," she said under her breath. Saeana nodded, the expression she bore revealing all the fears that throbbed away in Shadowmere's gut as well.
"If I open the door," Saeana started cautiously, looking in Shadowmere's direction. "Will you go in first?" Shadowmere nodded, her voice somehow lost for the moment. "If it means I don't have to touch that again." The memory of the chicken skin texture of the walls sent a quick shiver down her back. Letting out a bracing breath, Saeana grabbed one of the handles, which had the look of freshly gnawed bones, and held it open as Shadowmere walked in, feigning confidence. She then scurried in behind her as they crossed the threshold, the door shutting like a casket being closed.