Chapter 5: Through the Veil
Ralof took futile shelter behind my back with his axe trembling in hand. It seems that the man is afraid of much more than spiders. Warriors, you can never count on them when Oblivion is involved because they'll do one of two things: cower like the fool I see when a looked over my shoulder, or rush in like a raging ox only to get cut down in two. Most of the time it's one of these two and it had to be the first. At least he'll make a better meat shield alive than dead.
"H-Hey elf," the man gulped as he peeked out from my side. "You know more about this magic stuff than us elf. What do we do?"
Now that was a really good question. So good of a question that I didn't even have a logical answer for it. If not for my annulment I would've simply broke the tether of the conjuration spell and dispelled the magicka holding it in this plane. If I had the mana I would use one of many spells I can recall using, but can't for I can't remember the words. The name of the spell to suspend the dremora alluded me leaving me with only physical means to resolve this.
If I had my enchanted armor from Morrowind I would've disappeared into the night and left these two to their fate, unfortunately, any rational method I could have used are in the past along with my previous abilities, skills, and equipment. Currently, I'm low on magicka, basically in rags and faulty armor in comparison of my earlier attire, and my weapons are not up to par to face up against the dremora of Oblivion. Looking at the markings on it's pauldrens and sigil upon it's sword it reins from Molag Bal's realm of oblivion. Yet another mood point for us.
For once in my life after a hundred years of having all the answers I have no idea what I can do without suffering a blow from that claymore or getting a bone or two broken during the scrap. All scenarios I can think of involve me dying or worse. I could tackle this thing alone or with help of my current companions but comes the issue of the witch. I could die because the probability of surviving is lower than 18% without luck factoring. This means for once in a long time I have to - I shiver at the phrase that surfaced in my mind but I must face this like proper altmer of a noble house - wing it. Of the 8 Divines and the false god that caused the loss of our divinity please forgive me for my blasphemous words.
I clenched my battle axe as I felt my blessing slowly leaving me now that I'm lowering myself to the level of a barbarian. No plan with all odds against me. I don't deserve the blessings I have just from the thought let alone the coming actions. "Father, forgive me for what I'm about to do."
"What are you talking about elf?" Anya yelled at me as she took my shoulder in hand. "What are we gonna do to survive, damn it! I didn't go through all that magicka and plow you just to die here!"
"Wait... What!" Ralof exclaimed.
"O-Okay," I gently pried the woman's hands from my collar and took a breath. This wasn't easy to forsake my gods and their methods like this. She wouldn't understand… well maybe she would because she's seen some of my thoughts and memories, but it's not easy regardless. I was annulled and lost everything and now I must give up what remains for a possibility to survive where there is little. I clenched the haft of my axe in hand and took a breath.
"As I see it, we attack the dremora lord together and more than likely all die with one left alive but too weak to fight the witch." I took a breath as the dremora took another step towards us which made the ground shake a bit. "Two of us hold this powerful being back while the last gets the witch is the second to the last."
"The last option?" Anya pushed me to finish.
"We run but that won't work right nord," I looked towards the man who nodded with a dark look in his eyes.
"But how…"
"He means me Anya," Ralof said quickly. "And he's right. That witch has some sort of invisible wall around the area held by something, but I couldn't get though."
Anya sighed and looked at the witch. "Okay, I got the witch," she decided on her own. I grabbed Anya's shoulder before she could rush out. She turned back to me with a glare, but I returned one of greater intensity. This wasn't a game like the little civil war waged in these lands. This isn't a mortal man or woman with human made armor and arms. These are forces beyond anything they've ever witnessed, even I can see that. She calmed down and stood down.
"Bring the witch close to me so we can finish this," I told her once her ears opened enough to listen. Damn savage race of heathens think more with their weapons than minds. Case and point is the fact the leader killed a boy with a power I've only read about in tomes from the Second Age and one created after the First Dragon Break. The power of the Voice or The Thu'um fascinated me to no end and be cursed to Coldharbor before I die without meeting the children that use it. "Now the witch had to fade away from this plane to hold this spell. Her body was used as a sacrifice for higher power, but even if she's powerful, her soul has to stay put in this realm as a wraith or worse to sustain all this. We can't take the chance of this wraith become one with the dremora. That would be the end of us."
"Then what think we should do then?" Anya shrugged off my hand and stepped back away from me.
"Like I said, bring her to me and take Reston." I pointed to the wolf. The woman didn't question me about the wolf I just named.
"A wolf? Where did you get that?"
"Are you mortal trash finished?" The dremora lord growled at the four of us as it readied it's claymore. A claymore that looked to have been forged in the coldest fires of Coldharbor itself. It was glowing with a ghastly red aura swirling around it. I grit my teeth when I recognized the absorb life enchantment that surrounded that blade. This thing is of a middle tier when it comes to dremora lords over a higher. Dremora lords only gain an accursed blade once they reach that tier or a position of demented honor, they all kill for the honor of their lord.
"Because, I'm done waiting." The dremora lord banished its blade in one hand. It doesn't see us as threats at all showing this display of challenge. It seems to the point it believes it doesn't need two hands to wield that massive blade against us. In the past I could make a pest like this heel at my feet, but now I'm incapable of such. Regardless, my pride will not allow me to be disrespected in such a manner.
I took a breath and looked out to the dremora lord and clenched my axe. I took the sword from Ralof's side and left my battle axe and charged. "Elf," Anya yelled and reached out.
"Take the witch and bring it to me. Use the dagger!"
"What dagger…" I tossed the dagger behind me as I charged begging the Orc blood in my veins to will the ancestral berserker within me to manifest. Father forgive me for the barbarism I need to hold this thing off as long as it could.
"Heheheh," the dremora lord laughed and rose his sword up slowly showing several openings, but I wasn't a fool. This slave to the Prince of Domination is faster with that larger and cumbersome weapon than I am with a regular steel mace. The metal of mortal weapons will not hold for long against that daedric plated armor or his great sword, but it has to until Anya takes down the witch. I stopped shy of kill distance and leapt back just a hair from being cut in half by the great sword it slammed into the ground so fast I could just barely see it move. I reached for my own dagger and pressed my boots into the trench where the blade was in and jumped at the dremora lord to stab it.
The dremora lord chuckled, "Fool," and grabbed me with his free hand by the neck. Sharp daedric gauntlet metal cut into the back of my neck. It could have snapped my neck in the bat of an eyelash but it opted to choke me instead. I grabbed its out stretched arm then stabbed my dagger into one of the weaknesses of the armor it wore straight into the elbow. With the leverage from the dagger I pulled my feet up and kicked it square in the eyes with my scaled boots. Minor damage but damage regardless. The dremora lord growled and rose me up. The lord growled again but this time changed direction. I was slammed into something solid and sent out a couple feet into the ground. Ralof landed next to me gritting his teeth. The dremora looked down to his side and between the segments of his armor at his hip I saw black blood oozing out of it. The same blood that was on the axe that the nord held. He got a surprise strike in and quite possibly just saved my life.
The blood stopped a second later and the wound closed same with the one at its elbow when it started moving its arm around freely to test it. Fast healing and regeneration but at the cost of mana from the summoned creature. I climbed back up to my feet and looked up to the stars again. Blessed be the great ancestors watching from above and lighting my way: May they guide my hand.
"You are fun mortal. Come," it made its challenge with an insulting wave of his finger beckoning me to charge it.
"Damn slave to a fool master that lost it's home to Destructive child," I snarled at the dremora in its language. It's reddish eyes bolstered with fire. The anger it felt from recalling how the Prince of Destruction completely shamed his lord must've hurt his pride. Something I know of well.
"RAAAHHH!" The dremora lord gripped his blade with both hands and charged.
"For the love of Talos Elf what did you…" Ralof couldn't finished that sentence for I pushed him awayy just as the dremora lord slammed its sword in the space I made between us. The trench that its blade made brought forth thoughts of what would've happened had I not moved us. We would've been cut down the center like a farm tool during a Morrowind flogging. I rolled up to my feet searching for Ralof. He quickly climbed to his feet with his shield up hiding behind it.
"Nord, follow me!" I turned and ran towards the house.
"W-What? Wait!" He was right behind me as I ran into the house and grabbed a small urn of oil I noticed before.
"Take this," I tossed him the urn. He caught it barely by the rim nearly dropping his shield during.
"Hehehe, I'm going to enjoy skinning you mortals!" The dremora lord promised with many underlying threats within that. Dremora exceed the standard each and every time. By skin he means breaking every bone in our body slowly so we can feel every waking second. Burn our hairs from our body's over a slow flame. Then he'll pluck out our eyes, cut off our privates, and poke holes in our shoulders suspending us upside down so we bleed out slowly. Then it gets ugly. Only when we're begging for death will it heal us completely to fulfil it's initial threat. Minions of Dominion seek the pleasure to torturing you, perverting your spirit before breaking it, and showing you the abyss deeper than the waters of Apocrypha. I don't know this personally but feel it in my bones what it intends to do.
"Elf, what did you say to that thing?" he asked frantically.
"Cover everything with oil," I instructed quickly. I grabbed a few of the random pieces of clothing and blanket around me same with another urn of oil the reeks like animal fat. In the end oil is oil and Skyrim animals have it in surplus. Ralof quickly threw the oil around us. Thankfully I recognized where this thing came from. If it was from the Deadlands this wouldn't work.
"Come out little lambs… No, I'll come in!"
"Arrogant fool," I snarled. "If only that blasted human hadn't annulled me. If only I hadn't let down my guard." Cursing myself helped clear my mind and focus on my task as Ralof spread the oil. The witch has everything I needed to complete the spell I had in mind or rather the wards I need. The dremora lord is underestimating up giving us plenty of time to commit to a plan believing it futile on our part. That's why this plan is going to work. "Nord," I called just as he finished spreading the oil around us. "Find the witch with the other one and bring it here to this shack. Understood?"
"What about you elf? What you planning?" He questioned frantically.
"Just do, Nord. I'll do the thinking," I snapped at the child just as the dremora got to the doorway. I shot to the end of the shack and stood before him earning his full attention. Ralof rose his shield and single handed axe only for my to shake my head at him. I looked towards the window out of the shack instead. He hesitated for a moment but trusted I knew what I was doing. Enough to jump out the window leaving me and this thing alone in the shack.
The dremora lord chuckled showing sharpened nearly fanged teeth that could easily rend flesh from bone. I rose my weapons up and it grinned but that grin faded once I discarded my weapons to the side. My axe and sword clanged against the floor and walls leaving me completely unarmed, not that it even mattered in the first place. Human weapons would serve to annoy it. But I can use it's nature against it showing when it stabbed it's claymore into the floor next to the door. Dominion correlates to completely defeating an opponent through the most arrogant means possible. Against a mage they'd used magicka and overwhelm you. If a warrior they'll wield a weapon against you until yours are too sundered to harm a butterfly. If unarmed more than likely they'll shed any weapon they must make this more personal. By Julianos' mercy thank him for the knowledge I can recall. Without it I couldn't do this.
I raised my hands willing the small bits of magicka I've accumulated in the minutes of planning to heed my call. Lightning Spark'ed within my palms licking at the bare flesh begging for something to burn.
The dremora hesitated at the sight of the sparks. I knew it. Those of Coldharbor just like the undead Molag Bal creates and sanctions are weak to elements of lightning and minor weaknesses to fire. The dremora though just grinned savagely at me. "What are you to do with something so weak mortal." It began to approach me.
"This." I turned my hands to the side and fired the Sparks at the side of the wall saturated by oils. It lite up in moments and just as quickly fire surrounded the entire home. The dremora roared turning around and looking about at the flames now surrounding us both. I used that to jump at it and wrapped my arm its neck and covered it's eyes with my other hand. Lightning crackled as it blasted into the eyes of the dremora and even more when I channeled fire through my other one. The damage down was minuscule a best and not the purpose of this. It was distracted enough to allowed my mind to got blank with the single phrase of "Burn it all down" in my mind as the blood of my mother reddened my gaze. I'm not too proud of the fact that I've an orc as a mother. I understand my father sacrificed much to bond with one of the cursed children of Malacath for his own research to spawn me. I'm still uncertain if I'd even do the same in the name of discovery. But with his experiments I gained the mind and body of my father but the savage, hideous strength of the orsimer. Only difference is that I can use it in bursts as long as my madness is focused on a singular task.
My body moved on its own all sounds muffled. Neither couldn't I hear the crackling of lightning, see licking of the fires to the sides of the shack, nor feel the fatigue that plagued my body previously. All I felt was the desire to see it all burn and burn it shall. It all will burn to ashes and felt such when I shoved the dremora into the literal bed of flames waiting for a fresh and armored body to fall on top of it. It struggled until my body slammed into it back into the bed. One more urn of oil rested in the middle of the hut safe from the flames. I grabbed it and slammed it into it's body watching the grease ignited with ease. My mind returned just within 5 seconds of losing it to Berserk. Something the savage race could only dream of mastering like my father has through me. A mage with the strength of an Orc but of a highborn such as I is rare but also disregarded. Nevertheless, I shown that my sudden burst of strength was unexpected seeing that the dremora was taking a few seconds to recover. I rushed to its blade tossing it out the door.
"AHHH!" I pulled my hands up to them burnt where the blade touched my skin. One doesn't simply pick up a daedric weapon without consequence.
"Blasted mortal!" I turned only for it to grab me by the neck once more and pushed me back against the wall into the awaiting flames. Fury filled me with its sickening warm embrace shifting my vision from a pain filled white to a frantic red. I believed a war cry unbecoming of the people left my lips. It was shown when I kicked the flaming dremora back a few steps from me despite the heavy armor clad upon its powerful body. My sanity returned along with my sight in moments reminding me of my task. I turned and shot out the window of the shack in a dive and into the awaiting mud outside. It was cool and soothing. Shame battered my mind from this admission. I'm calling my mud-covered body something to be thankful for. If only my father could see me now. My mother would pat me on the back for finally getting dirty, being a minor consolation.
"LOOK OUT ELF!" This came too late for it was already upon me. An apparition with a spell glowing within it's ghostly hands. One that was aiming at me. One that I welcomed as the spell lifted me up from my knees suspending my form up in place. A spell that's meant to shift the spirit of whomever you cast on it. The lesser beings call it Soul Trap but I know it by its true name: Alqualica. It means Soul Snatch and a well-known force of Molag Bal used during the Third Age to forcibly rend a soul within the mortal body. How a common necromancer in the Skyrim country side gained such power mystified me. But my soul can't be rend or torn asunder by this power. You can't manipulate a soul when it doesn't belong to the vessel it inhabits, neither a soul much more powerful than the force attempting to influence it.
The magicka of it's spell filled my body touching the darkest pits of my VantaBlack corrupted soul. The soul trap restored me showering me in the waters of that special place in oblivion. Enough for fire and ice to form in my waiting hands. Enough for the stars, my ancestors above, to bestow me the power I need to push back the undead. I rose these hands, permafrost encased in a small space of my left and flames spawned by the star light above within my right. Both flowed through my hands and out into the spirit of the necromancer before me.
The spirit shrieked. Spells work well on the undead especially those without physical form. It's spirit fired back away from me looking ready to retreat. "Don't let it escape!" I shouted at the nords standing like idiots. Ralof shockingly was the first to move with a torch in hand. They realized that fire is what this thing fears while I was wrestling like a savage with the Dremora lord. One that probably broke a rib when I was lost to the Berserker within.
"Here! Blasted spirit!" Ralof pushed it towards the house.
"Elf," Anya ran to my side. "Are you hurt?" She looked over my chest and the burns that layered my arms. My back felt cool from the cold air more than likely bare from the fires of the house where the dremora lord was trapped in. It will not cross the flames giving us time to take care of the necromancer.
"The knife?" Anya presented it to me. "Good. Let's end this." I took the knife and struggled some to my feet. The necromancer made a fatal mistake using such magic on me. I can recall the words it used and the sensation from the creation of the spell. I rose my hand and watched as a reddish hue enveloped it. At first I was going to simply charged this dagger with fire to burn it away from within but now I know the perfect way to thank it for the recharge. The majority of the mana given to me poured into my hands. "Bring it to me," I told them both. Anya nodded and grabbed a discarded torch that was on the ground and joined her fellow nord.
"Damn you mortals!!!" I caught sight of the dremora still in the burning shack glaring at us all. The fires though weren't red and orange like normal mortal fire but a deep, dark violet keeping it contained within the confines of its flames. While I can't cast a spell to banish it now I can still fashion wards with use of soul gems I saw in that shack, herbs and spices, and the few magicka imbued incantations. He watched from the other side of the wall of flames as the necromancer was lured towards me up to the point when I thrust my hand through it's body. The soul trap spell flowed through it's form until the knife of sacrifice penetrated through its cold, dead barrier. The necromancer didn't scream or wail but went quietly into the knife like a good little soul. The knife glowed a ghastly blue before it faded away. A little taste of its own medicine was a fitting end for a foolish follow of Molag Bal.
Almost immediately the weight of the Magicka from the which faded away. The feeling of being watched and trapped in a cage faded from my senses so I know it did for the nords as well.
"By the gods," Anya dropped to a knee.
"Holy shit we did it," Ralof breathed out.
"Indeed." I sheath the dagger on my side and took a breath. The fire of the shack and raged filled wails of a dremora being sent back to oblivion was all that's left until there was nothing but silence. The fire quickly died now that the promise of its inception has been fulfilled leaving the shack relatively unharmed. The fire wasn't hot for mortals or that of the Mundas like us.
BARK!
No, my wolf survived well. The only one left wagging its tail eagerly. I dropped to a knee next to it only to fall to my rear in the mud once more. This has be quite the eventful 24 hours. The shadows faded away and through it the beautiful rays of the sun shine through the land illuminating us with its bountiful light. Ralof dropped to the ground and fell to his back in relief.
"We fucking did it!" he cheered laughing hysterically. "We did it," he laughed then he stopped and shot up to his rear. He gave us both a strange look suddenly.
"Anya?" He drew his eyes towards the woman.
"Yes, Ralof?"
A massive smirk crossed his lips as he said, "Before you mentioned ye plowed the elf. Didn't see you the type hehe." Anya on her part suddenly flushed red, a look of horror was on her expression. One that made me smirk from the memories.
"Be silent you son of a bitch!" She rose her sword and tossed it at him. He fell got he ground as the blade sailed past him nearly hitting his head.
" Talos woman, you nearly hit me!"
" YOU deserve it!"
"It wasn't me that rolled the hay with a elf," he laughed.
"Ya dead Ralof. Dead!" The woman pulled a dagger from somewhere on her person and rushed the man. Ralof was already on his feet running away as Anya gave chase.
"Humans," I shook my head. I looked up towards the sunset but felt no joy for our survival. It was just another conflict to add to the journal.
A not so quiet 24 hours that's for sure.