Chapter 21: Miscarcand's Stone

"What the hell was that about?!" Elyon simply blew up in Nightshade's face.

They were back in the mortal world near Skingrad with their new stone in Nightshade's hands. Crow had gained consciousness and was getting up, while Ice looked plain confused.

"Why did you just give in like that?! You never do what the enemy wants. You should've attacked him and killed him!"

Nightshade looked down in shame. "I didn't want Crow to die…"

"If you had devoted your skills to getting him out of the situation he wouldn't have died!" Elyon's face was starting to grow crimson through the bloody cuts and bruises. In fact, it was amazing she was still standing up. Several wounds were apparent on her body that dripped blood onto the grassy floor. Her left arm looked limp and broken, and a small bit of her femur bone could be seen in her right leg.

Crow decided it was best to get her cured as soon as possible. "Elyon, maybe you should heal yourself first—"

"I'm fine," she snapped. "I thought you would've learned by now, Nightshade. He probably would've killed Crow anyway! But what did you do? You gave in like a weakling!"

Nightshade looked hurt and seemed to be shrinking with each word. Ice was wondering what he should do while Crow was starting to grow a little impatient. "I'm sure if I knew what was going on I'd agree with you, but you're really hurt."

"No I'm not—"

"Look at yourself! I can see your bone in your leg!"

She looked down to see the white of her femur. "Oh," she said, and fainted.

Marie Paleille continued to heal the unconscious Elyon by making her hands glow blue and putting them on her wounds. Elyon lied on a bed in the Chapel of Julianos where, normally, the priests would sleep, but these were special circumstances.

Dusk had settled on Skingrad by the time they had brought her there, bleeding all over the place. None of the three knew any "heal other" spells, so they had to take her to the city chapel to get healed. Crow stood next to Paleille, receiving information, while Ice and Nightshade waited in the main chapel, where people worshipped. Ice leaned on the main altar of Julianos, and Nightshade sat on a pew in the first row near him. Her face was in her hands and her vibrant, red hair covered her head.

Ice felt awkward. He didn't know how to comfort people, and he didn't do a good job last time when the Amulet of Kings was stolen. And Martin wasn't here to do it this time.

"Well, I'm glad that's over with. At least there's one gate gone and a city saved!" Ice's optimism didn't work as Nightshade simply curled up, bringing her knees to her face and her feet onto the pew.

"C'mon, Nightshade," Ice didn't like her depressed, "so Elyon yelled at you. So you made a mistake. That's only human…" he paused, staring at nothing for a few seconds, before going on. "She'll forgive you. It was just the blood loss getting to her brain."

"If I had just taken the stone, it would all be okay. I'm just a weakling, nothing… the only thing I'm good at is taking stones from Oblivion and that's it."

"You can kill Daedra too. And defend yourself."

"But I'm weak. I don't think, just act. What good are skills if I don't have the brains to use them?"

Ice's tone of voice suddenly changed. "I've noticed something about you that really ticks me off, Nightshade. You are afraid of failure, so when you do fail, you get all depressed and start pitying yourself over the littlest things. You've got to move on! Learn from the mistakes and go on with life. I mean, if I gave up every time I failed, I'd still be in Morrowind. Elyon will be fine; she's a big girl. She can take care of herself, plus she knew what she was doing."

Nightshade looked up at him. "You're—you're right. I've got to toughen up."

"Now that's the spirit," he grinned.

Behind them, Crow came out of the chapel hall with a bit of a grim face. Nightshade turned to look over the pew. "Will she be okay?"

He nodded. "Paleille said she'll wake up tomorrow, but she'll be in a lot of pain. She was amazed that she survived at all, and she thought it was weird how she couldn't feel the pain."

"Anger makes the pain go away," she muttered. Ice frowned. "So, what do we do in the meantime?"

"Sleep," he yawned. "We're all exhausted."

At the Two Sister's Lodge, Nightshade and Ice both shared a room, with, luckily, two beds, and Crow took a room next to them. It felt good to sleep on a mattress, so Nightshade fell asleep in less than a minute. The moon had started to climb the sky, but when she opened her eyes again it seemed to only have moved a few millimeters. Confused at why she was awake in her tiredness, she heard a loud knocking on her door. In the bed across from her, Ice angrily groaned and pulled the covers further over his head. Squinty-eyed, she got up, her mind half-asleep, and hardly reacted to the huffing and puffing Blade in front of her. "Miss… Nightshade…?"

"Yeah."

"Martin said he found… another component that's near you…" he gave one last heave before fully regaining his breath. "A Great Welkynd Stone in Miscarcand needs taking."

"Did you run all the way over here?" Nightshade sounded tired and raspy.

"No, just from my horse to here."

She rolled her eyes. "Where's that?"

"On the road to Kvatch. Do you have a map?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, well, I can't really give you directions seeing as it's in the wilderness—"

"Can't you tell us in the morning?" she almost snapped, "We—I've had a busy day in an Oblivion gate while you were running on your horse here and would like to get some sleep."

"Oh, sorry," he sneered. "I was just doing my job trying to help out the emperor and I get turned out angrily by some tired adolescent. Don't you think I'd rather be sleeping than dealing with you?"

"Shut up!" Ice snarled from his bed near the door. "Some of us are trying to sleep here."

"Can't you write it down or rent a room until tomorrow?" Nightshade rubbed her forehead in an irritated manner.

"Fine," the Blade turned into the hallway, "but wake up early."

She merely shut the door and went back to bed.

Nightshade was crouched down, hiding in the bushes near a house like the houses of Skingrad. She felt ominous and dark, as though she was ready to kill something with incredible stealth. She could feel the bow on her back and the quiver of arrows, which she was ready to pull out if she saw her target. A lust she had never felt before, an excitement, filled her soul, but she felt disconnected from her body, like it wasn't her own, and felt like—like killing something.

Slowly and steadily she snuck towards a door she recognized as the front of the Two Sisters Lodge and began to pick the lock, a skill Nightshade knew little of, and yet she opened it with ease. She practically glided across the floor, not waking the proprietor that slept behind the bar. Climbing the stairs, she felt a little uneasy and thoughts she didn't like were filling her head. If she killed her target, the world would die and become nothing but cinders and ashes. But what did she care? These people deserved to die as well as herself. She was just doing her job.

The bloodlust growled in anger inside her head. How dare she think such nice and pitying thoughts. It wanted blood.

She picked the lock on one of the doors in the hall and noticed her hands were pale, not black like hers. Curious, she wanted to stop and examine them, but found they didn't obey her command. Instead, they opened the door where two beds were, each with a sleeping occupant, and could see herself in the bed ahead. Panicking, she didn't know what to do as the assassin raised her blade over her sleeping body…

In a flash Nightshade woke into reality, the memory of the dream vivid and real, and immediately lashed out with her hand to her side. She was supposed to hit the assassin that loomed over her bed, but instead hit thin air and fell to the floor in a heap of blankets. Startled, she looked around and saw the sunlit room was empty save for her and Ice. Confused, and now wide awake, she began to, shakily, get ready for the day ahead.

"Okay, that's Miscarcand up ahead," the Blade, named Achilles, pointed to the Ayleid ruin that stood eerily in front of them through the trees. Ice and Nightshade were trying to get a better look. Elyon, like Achilles, was on a horse borrowed from the stables and wished she could be on Silver. In lots of pain, like Marie Paleille said, she was in no condition to go with them, but she insisted to at least see them off. On the way there, she apologized sincerely to Nightshade for what she said, and Nightshade forgave her. She was about to tell her about the dreams she had been having lately, but Achilles interrupted.

"What's in there, just dead things?" Crow looked up at the Blade who shrugged. "Dunno. Never been in there. But there is a good chance you'll run into some nasty undead creatures. I'll be safe back at Skingrad when you return, so, good luck!" the young Breton saluted quickly and raced away before anyone could've complained.

The ruin was just as Nightshade had expected except it was bigger. It was made of the same glowing white marble like the passageway she had taken when the emperor died. There were many beautiful arcs and designs, but they were old and dirty with eras of weather. She could see the dirt from a recent rain crusted onto one.

"I'd better go," Elyon's arm was in a sling ripped off of someone's old shirt and her leg was out from her horse, stuck to a stick to keep it straight. Several bruises and cuts, including a large purple stain on her left cheek, could be seen because she only wore her common clothes and not her armor. "I'll see you guys later. Good luck." She trotted off.

Ice shook his head. "She's so weird."

"It must be all those healing spells," Crow began to approach the ruin.

"So, there are ghosts and undead things in there…" Ice looked up at all the arcs and noticed a rather beautiful statue of an armored person with a bird. "Who's that?"

"Maybe that's the ruler of the Ayleids," Nightshade suggested. Crow shrugged. "Who knows?"

They began to walk deeper into the ruins to find the way in. There were many arcs and walls scattered all over like a maze, but it didn't take long before Nightshade realized they weren't the only ones there.

A goblin spotted them a few yards away from a large protruding cylinder. It screamed some sort of war-cry, alerting three other goblins, one close to the cylinder and the other two skulking around behind them. Surrounded, they faced them in a triangular stance.

"What in Oblivion are goblins doing here?!" Ice brandished his daggers like an expert. He didn't have time for an answer as they charged towards each other, Nightshade and Ice taking on the two near the cylinder and Crow the two behind. After a few minutes and healing spells, the goblins were no more.

Crow, after making sure they were dead, took out a book to the surprise of Nightshade and Ice. "Where did you get that?" she asked.

"A few days ago back in the Imperial City. It was the day we went to get the fourth book from Camoran."

On the blue cover was gold letters saying, "Ayleid ruins of Cyrodiil: Commentaries on the remains of ancient elven cities". "I thought it was interesting. I was always interested in ruins back in Morrowind."

"Well," Ice looked impatient, "what does it say? Hopefully it'll be, 'All the goblins have killed the undead and it'll be easy to retrieve its Great Weylkid Stone.'"

"A Great Welkynd Stone," Nightshade corrected him. Crow interrupted before Ice could retort, "'The large and dangerous ruin of Miscarcand is famous for its numerous undead and deadly traps, or it used to be. When I sent a scout there recently, he said he saw goblins known as Bitterfish goblins killing the sentinel skeletons and taking it over. However, it is understood that goblins are no match for the city and won't probably survive all the undead.'"

"Is that it?" he frowned. "No information on the stone?"

"Nope. Just that one paragraph."

"So, then, what's that?" Nightshade looked at the cylinder curiously. Cautiously, they approached it and found stairs leading down to a large door with the knob in the middle as a jutting circle. Ice looked a little shaky as she turned the knob, making an odd scraping noise of marble scraping marble, and they all looked in.

It was dark and damp and not much like the secret passageway Nightshade had gone through with the emperor. It was more sinister and bleak with shadows of cobwebs and piles of dirt with marble bricks. The hallway was narrow and claustrophobic. Both Nightshade and Ice stepped back, changing their minds about going in. Crow, however, looked intrigued and went in.

He walked a few paces before realizing his companions were not behind them. Turning, he saw the two still at the doorway. Nightshade looked torn between going in and merely walking away while Ice looked petrified. "What's wrong?"

"Bad vibes," Nightshade responded. "It's not exactly what I imagined."

"And Ice?"

"He's afraid of ghosts."

"Oh please," he waved a hand, "as long as we have enchanted, silver, or Daedric weapons we can send them to their peace. And the sooner we start the sooner it's over."

Reluctantly, Nightshade took a step in and led Ice by his sleeve, who kept muttering things to calm himself. "Really," she shook her head at him, "you can handle Oblivion but you can't handle this?"

"This is completely different," he hissed. "Oblivion is fire and light and monsters and heat. This place is the exact opposite. It's cold, dark, depressing, and dead."

"Nice alliteration." Crow pointed out.

"Thanks."

They walked in silence for a while, Crow seemingly enjoying this excursion while the others were tense and flinched at every noise. Nightshade found it unusual that he was so relaxed.

A few halls later they ran into a goblin. It screamed and attempted to kill Crow but miserably failed as he stabbed it in the side with his claymore. A few feet away was a chamber, dimly lit and glowing orange. "A fire," Ice murmured. "So much for the undead killing the goblins. Maybe the goblins killed the undead."

"You shouldn't get your hopes up," he began to cautiously side-step into the room. He looked around and discovered that the fire was, in fact, in another level of the room. The floor stopped at the edge of a pit, and as they all peered over, they could see three goblins below. One was near the fire, sitting on something blue, red, and squishy. The other two were around the pit, listening and guarding.

Crow signaled for them to come. "I think we can sneak past them—"

Suddenly, there was a scream-like war-cry from one of the goblins below. Their shadows danced and showed that they were running towards the entrance of their pit, but could just barely see that they were attacking something else. They looked over and saw they were battling a skeleton with a shiny war-hammer that was knocking their brains out. Each goblin fell down with just a few blows, dead.

"That's one skeleton," Ice whispered. "Maybe instead of ending up like those goblins down there we should just sneak past them."

"Good idea," Crow nodded, and as the trio began their search for the Great Welkynd Stone, Nightshade, out of the corner of her eye, for just a moment thought she saw a shadow other than that of the skeleton and the dead goblins.

It was several hours, traps, push-buttons, remote gates, doors, and secret passageways later before any of them found the time to rest. "This place is just a big maze. How could anyone live here?" Ice was shivering, either because he was scared or because it was very chilly compared to outside.

Crow sat on a chest and took out a torch. None of them wanted to emit any light in case a skeleton, or something worse, saw them. "It must've been very different back when the Ayleids were alive."

"I wonder what time it is," Nightshade looked up at the ceiling were a carving of a sun seemed to, at one time, been the home of numerous spiders. Ice, in response, shrugged. "It could be any time. I feel like we've been in here for a year."

"Don't over-exaggerate," Crow took out some bread and vegetables. "Anyone hungry?"

Silently, they all ate, tension increasing as no noise was made at all besides their eating. Once they were finished, they continued down the hall they were in, only to find a room they had already been in.

"Great, we're going around in circles!" Ice snarled. "We're lost with no way of knowing where we are! All that's in this room is a bunch of coffins and chests!"

Crow took out his book and began flipping the pages in search of some help. "Do you see any push buttons?"

"No."

"Umm, what about pressure blocks?"

"Pressure blocks?"

"They're buttons in the ground that you have to step on to activate."

Nightshade and Ice began hunting around on the ground, looking for pressure blocks, until Nightshade spotted, on top of a coffin, a bright blue stone. Intrigued, she pushed down on it, trying to dislodge it, and instead opened a doorway in front of Crow, who jumped with surprise. "Good job!"

With him ahead, they traveled down the hallway, Crow eagerly, Nightshade warily, and Ice very slowly.

They came into a room with a large, elevated center with something glowing on top. "That must be it," Crow breathed. "Do you see any way up?"

Nightshade shook her head. "But the sides of the center look…funny. They've got weird lines in them, see?"

Ice was looking around, jolting his head from left to right with fear. "Hmm, wait! See that push button over there? That must be the way up!"

Cautiously, they snuck around, not seeing any undead or goblins, which seemed to disappear more and more the further they had went down, and pushed it. The indentations on the sides of the elevated center suddenly jerked to life, going forward and revealing stairs up to the top and disturbing any cobwebs and dust near it. "We found it," Crow's eyes shined with discovery and awe, and as they walked up, Nightshade and Ice too felt the same. The stone was thin and long with two sharp tips and brittle sides. Neither of them could tell truly what color it was, for it gave off a strong, white and azure glow that temporarily blinded their eyes that were used to the dark. Crow wanted to see it from all angles, so he circled it to the other side, while Nightshade and Ice were too stunned to speak. "It's so… beautiful."

"And to think Martin's going to destroy it so we can get to Camoran's Paradise," Nightshade's words made Crow sigh. "What a price to pay."

He reached out to grab it gingerly and lifted it off of its pedestal. "We have to be careful with it. Who wants to carry it?"

As Crow examined the stone, both Nightshade and Ice turned frigid and pale at the sight behind him. A black swirl formed and sparkled to reveal a floating green ghost that had black pits for eyes and fangs for teeth. It wore a gold and red crown on its head along with matching armor, and carried a mace of huge proportions. It began to lift it up behind Crow, aiming for his head, right when Nightshade regained her voice. "Look out!"

Crow had just enough time to move his head from the blow but was wacked painfully onto his left shoulder. Bleeding and limp, he backtracked to Nightshade. "Quick, take my sword and give me yours. I can't fight with two hands." Swiftly, she obeyed, and they switch swords while Ice continued to be paralyzed with fear. Luckily for him, the ghost ignored him and continued to try and attack Crow, who blocked with the Goldbrand. Nightshade was having problems with his silver Claymore, which was too heavy, and noticed two other shapes coming after them. They were two zombies half-running, half-waddling towards them, one with a nasty-looking, mutilated blue body and the other even worse and headless. "Ice, snap out of it and give me one of your daggers!"

He wasn't listening. He was just standing there, wide-eyed and fearful, petrified and ashen.

Annoyed, she ran to him and began shaking him by the shoulders. "Ice! Stop staring and start fighting!" the zombies were making their way up the stairs now. "If you don't you'll die!"

"Die…" Ice echoed blankly. Frustrated, Nightshade simply took a dagger from his belt. It felt odd because she had never fought with a dagger before, but she figured it couldn't be much different from her Goldbrand. However, she decided to shoot fireballs the size of three Sigil Stones at them.

Slowly, steadily, Ice began to unfreeze. He couldn't just stand there while Crow and Nightshade got all the action. And he certainly wouldn't die without a fight. As she started to loose magicka and back away from the zombies, he leapt into action, taking his other dagger and plunging it into the side of the headless one. Without realizing what he was doing and going mad with fear, he didn't dare stop slashing it and stabbing it, even as it punched back.

Nightshade found that daggers weren't as easy as they looked and her arm was quickly growing tired. To her, they didn't seem to do much damage, but the zombie looked weaker than it did before. She had discovered that the enchantments on both of Ice's daggers did nothing, so she decided to shoot fire spells at it. Crow was making much headway against the angry ghost, who seemed to be weak against Goldbrand's burning blade.

After lots of blood, slashing, and fire, both zombies were dead along with the ghost. Crow was drinking a healing potion when Nightshade approached him. Ice was standing over the headless zombie, in awe at what he had done.

"You ok?" she took a potion from him and watched his shoulder slowly heal.

He nodded. "I might be a little sore, but it was worth it to kill that lich. I think it was the king of this place."

"Lich?"

"Worst kind of ghost. Thankfully they're weak to fire."

Ice snapped out of his awe and saw a wall behind them open up. "Hey, that looks like a shortcut out of here!"

"Thank goodness for that," Nightshade followed Crow, who was carrying the stone in his left hand, and Ice was admiring himself for his bravery. The stone glowed even brighter as they left, and Nightshade couldn't keep her eyes off of it.

"Wow, took you long enough," Achilles and Elyon greeted the trio at a vineyard outside of Skingrad. It was night time when they had exited the ruin, and both Achilles and Elyon were asleep when they arrived. "Is that it?"

"No, it's a worthless piece of quartz that we just wanted to bring back to show how pretty it was," Ice sarcastically sneered. "We had to go through a maze with goblins and skeletons and evil zombies with a lich king just to find it."

"That must've been hard. At least none of you died. Well, you all had better get heading to Kvatch and I'll take that back to Martin. I'll hopefully see you back at Cloud Ruler Temple. Good-bye!" Achilles mounted his chestnut horse and began running towards Skingrad and Bruma with the Great Welkynd Stone under his arm.

Elyon smiled. "I spoke to the Count and he said he'd send some guards over to Bruma. Should we start heading out now or get some sleep first?"

"Sleep first, out later," Nightshade spoke the thoughts of Crow and Ice as well, and they went back into Skingrad to sleep. And Nightshade dreamt about how wonderful the stone was.