Chapter 26: Revelations
AN: Welcome back! This is the final chapter!
(Act 7: Heart Of The Messiah)
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"Charlamagne? What? Why?" Stesha's head did a dive into the legend of the heroic figure. How'd he'd always been someone to look up to as a kid.
"Do you want to save Skyrim and get your cure?" Xhaddekagus processed.
"What do we need?" Serana stood staunchly.
The sound of eerie steam pipes billowing smoke could be heard around all the corners. It made everything feel more clandestine.
"You must enter my Daedric Plane of Oblivion, The Proto Kingdom. From there you can retrieve my horn. Use it to call Charlamagne on Bleakrock Isle and then stab him in the heart with it. It won't kill him, but it will extract his heart," elaborated the Daedric Prince.
"Serana, this isn't right." Stesha pressed his fingers against his temples.
"What choice do we have, Stesha?" Serana held him by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. Ice blue and mahogany, mixing like alchemy.
"Please step onto the platform," Xhaddekagus instructed.
Stesha dragged himself to the rise with Serana and they were warped into the net. – The landscape was… surreal.
They saw perfection as they stepped out into the strange and new world. Beautiful scenery arose all around an enormous city made of a sleek, reflective substance that was white-grey in color. The city would dwarf all other cities that they had ever been, and the sky was blue and comfortable. The city walls themselves were formed like a hexagon, and all the structures were organized in an exact hexagonal arrangement. Its skyline formed a regular pattern of convex and concave inclines that were balanced so perfectly that one could have constructed smoothly ascending and descending slopes on the roofs of the numerous buildings due to the rhythm of the architecture, rising spires, and falling houses arranged in such a gentle wave.
Floating sprites hit back and forth, and the Daedra of the AI world were a genderless race of squid people, apparently called Yliyth. Knowledge imparted instantly while inside the realm.
"Push the indexers to the main square and you will unlock the horn," the voice of the prince boomed all around them and inside their heads.
Stesha and Serana pushed the floating indexers into the main building of hexagonal shape and unlocked the horn, being teleported out of the Daedric plane to Bleakrock Isle instantly.
"I wonder why Seracles can't just do this himself?" Stesha wondered aloud.
"Seracles clearly has some fixation with you, that and Charlamagne could dismantle him with ease," Serana answered.
"Why don't we ask for Charlamagne's help instead? This horn was manufactured to call him, no?" Stesha pushed the guilt far down below his heart.
"He won't agree. He'll give us some jargon on how he cannot interfere with the lives of mortals anymore. We have to take his heart." Serana steadied the horn and blew it, a silent but barely audible sound emanating from it.
Stesha took the moment to observe the surrounding vista. Your standard Skyrim countryside, barren, with pine trees decorating the layout.
They saw something descending from the sun. A man. Outfitted in royal gold armor with a cape. A strong face with gelled black hair. He landed in front of them.
"Saint Charlamagne Guice, the Ninth Divine, at your service." He smiled.
"I'm really sorry." Serana stabbed him in the heart and pulled out the organ from his chest as the Divine collapsed to the snow, his large body leaving imprints.
They put the heart in a bag and lifted the Divine up to seat him near a tree.
"How far is too far? You're dying, yes?" Charlamagne coughed. "But how many lives will you take to save your own? What makes yours worth more?"
The guilt below Stesha's heart rose into his throat. "I'm not only doing this for my life. I'm doing this to save Skyrim from the virus."
"Where to now?" Serana held Charlamagne's hand.
"Bleak Falls Barrow, that's where Aela said the main skooma operation in Skyrim is. We'll have to find another entrance in though." Stesha let go of the Imperial and stood up. "We'll stop by Whiterun and send the Companions for you. You'll be taken care of," he told Saint Guice.
The day's journey took them to Whiterun where they warned Hadvar and Aela of Charlamagne on Bleakrock Isle then they made their way to Bleak Falls Barrow, where they snuck in from the back entrance. – It was a decommissioned draugr crypt with rising platforms and word walls. Batches of skooma rested in corners and Davouts trekked back and forth, carrying skooma.
Serana and Stesha traced their way, the former killing all the crow masked Davouts to the front of the dungeon. They passed puzzle walls and long hallways lit only by candlesticks. Until they made it to the main gallery, which was held up by a huge pillar. Vats of skooma outlined the side and standing in front of the blockaded entrance was Seracles. A dusty floor and partitions in the ceiling revealing light from outside.
Stesha and Serana walked firmly in front, holding the heart of Charlamagne with them. The heart of the messiah.
Seracles turned around. "Oh my, Stesha, you're a vampire now."
"Enough games and goose chases. Show us who you are!" Serana shouted. Her voice like a blade through the air.
"Very well." Seracles removed his hood and pulled off his mask then stepped out of the shadows.
Seracles.
Was…
Gwendal.
The bleached blond Breton with short messy hair, a plain face, and green eyes stood there, though his normally mischievous expression replaced with drawn eyes and a flat mouth.
Stesha coughed blood and dizzied, collapsing back onto the ground. "This makes no sense."
"On the contrary, I'm the only one who it could've made sense to be Seracles," Gwendal pointed out. "Use your brain."
"The Davouts were created by my friend, Rastaban Shaitan. Who you'll meet here in a second, he's very shy," Gwendal began. "The Davouts started out as a lowly chemical shop in Wayrest, a front for their schemes. After the incident with the deer early last year, I started frequenting their shop for health potions, but they liked me and inducted me into their group, where I would eventually rise to become co-leader under Rastaban. They entrusted me with three things, finding a fool to be our pawn – you, Stesha. Planting the fake scroll in Blackreach and warning Balgruuf and finding a source for our virus."
"I chose you because you're my best friend, and I used magic to project into your dreams to get you to come to our side because I wanted my closest friend by my side and Hadvar's too much of a goody-two shoes. Remember my trip to Morrowind, last year? It was a lie; I actually took a trip to Skyrim where I planted the fake Elder Scroll and warned Balgruuf. Then I was fortunate enough to meet Vlad. I then met with him again in the Red-Water Den in Atmora, with frost-resistant clothing. Bringing Xhaddekagus as a Dwarven Sphere and Rastaban with me. Now, Xhaddekagus was created on the orders of Rastaban before I joined, they reverse engineered the only Dwarven computer to become a Daedric Prince, sentient and alive and filled him with our purpose. After we all met in Atmora and secured our source for the virus, Xhaddekagus used chrysanthemum flowers to alter the virus so the forgotten ones would be immune to it, and only humanoid life on Skyrim would be killed by the Vomindok Virus."
"Who are the forgotten ones?" Stesha stood back up.
"Rastaban is one of them, you'll see, just let me explain," Gwendal continued. "After all this was done and we had ships ready to ship the skooma to Dawnstar, I orchestrated the whole business with Jaree-Ra and Hroct to get us out of High Rock and into Skyrim. And the seer, Eleph, was right, I am guided by fate to help the forgotten ones. You just never realized Seracles was with you all along."
Gwendal then clenched his fists. "Now, with the power of Charlamagne you brought me, I will expedite our process and rid Skyrim of the Nords and end this apartheid regime! Rastaban Shaitan, come out!"
A Falmer stepped out, decrepit and weak looking, smaller than most falmer but this one had red-glowing eyes.
"Yes, the Falmer are the forgotten ones. We will rid Skyrim of its colonizers and give the land back to its rightful inhabitants!" Gwendal stated.
Stesha placed a hand in front of him. "Look, I agree with you. What the Nords did was horrendous. But their descendants don't deserve to be exterminated."
"YES, THEY DO!" Gwendal screamed. "They are complicit in their ancestors' crimes. This country is an inherently racist state. Nords live in cozy villages with everything they could ever need and Falmer live in caves and dangerous ruins. Anytime they get close to a Nord settlement, the guards kill them off."
"That's because so many Falmer are violent. Hard for them to be peaceful," Serana pointed out.
"Give Rastaban one chance to show you, Jadesis!" Rastaban clapped his hands like a child. "Give Rastaban one chance to convince you!" His voice was high and almost comedic in its tone, golem-like.
Before anyone could do anything, Rastaban crushed a yokudan memory stone and the whole chamber was enveloped with his memories.
Stesha watched Rastaban as a young Snow Elf back in the Merethic Era living in his igloo on the northern shores of Skyrim. The young elf sat down at his table with his parents and older sister, it was much like Stesha's life before all this.
"The soldiers said they heard cries from help inside an orb in Saarthal," Rastaban's father explained. "But fighting broke out with the Atmorans. They don't realize we were trying to save whatever they captured."
The door broke down and their stood Ysgramor. "Kill them all but leave the women, we'll have our way with them before we slit their throats," instructed the Nordic general.
Ysgramor tossed a spear straight through Rastaban's dad's throat and dragged his sister into the empty room and began undressing her as his soldiers did the same to his mother. Rastaban only remembered being tossed out and running far away…
The memory shifted to an adult Rastaban, who had short golden curls with bright blue eyes, and he was quite small, even now when he was fully grown. This was the first era, and King Harald had gathered all the remaining Snow Elves into concentration camps. Rastaban worked as a laborer as his people were abused day in and day out.
The memory changed again and now Rastaban was inside Blackreach, being offered a mushroom by a Dwarf in the mid first era. He was enslaved and treated like an animal and overtime his eyes went blind and hair fell out and his posture worsened to match the other, bigger falmer around him.
After the Dwarves had disappeared the Falmer in Blackreach began enslaving Nord hostages themselves and Rastaban took pity on those Nords. He found a Dragon heart which he ate. Not only did it gift him the secrets of the universe, but it gave him sight. His once blind eyes grew pupils and red irises. He liberated the Nord slaves in Blackreach, and they became the first Davouts.
Their influence spread and many began joining the Davouts outside of Blackreach, spreading to Stros M'Kai and High Rock, the former of which began construction of Xhaddekagus. Then the meeting with Gwendal and Vlad and Xhaddekagus took place. And finally, now.
The memory ended and they were all brought back to the present.
"Now, Stesha, you have a choice to make," Gwendal said. "You can use the power of Charlamagne to cure yourself and kill all the Nords or you can die."
Stesha removed the heart from his bag and the power surged in his hands. The power of a Divine, the power to change the world and the course of history in his hands, but it had only one use. He would have to make his decision wisely.
Gwendal blasted a spell at him. Serana pushed Stesha out of the way as she began exchanging battle enchantments with the blond Breton. Rastaban crawled up to him and looked at Stesha with his childlike eyes.
"Please Bretons, please saves us and kill the nods," Rastaban pleaded.
Stesha then had made his choice. He absorbed Charlamagne's heart into him and blew the roof off Bleak Falls Barrow, flying into the sky, compelled by the power of the Divine. He had temporarily achieved godhood and now it was all on him. He glowed with golden power as Serana and Gwendal looked up at him.
Stesha held out his hand as his eyes blazed aureate. He swept his magic across the land in a golden wave and passed out…
Moments later, Serana and Rastaban rushed to him. "Stesha, what did you do?!" Serana chanted.
Stesha leaned against the pillar and coughed blood onto the ground. "I used the power of Charlamagne to cure Skyrim of the virus and restored the Snow Elves to their former selves. Now, they can live with the Nords in peace."
"But you didn't cure yourself." Serana's tears flowed down her face.
"There wasn't any power left to cure myself," he coughed. "If I had used the power to only kill all the Nords like Gwendal wanted, I could've cured myself too." All of Charlamagne's power had been spent and Stesha lost his temporary godhood.
Rastaban was back to his former self too. Upright with blue eyes and golden curls. "Thank you, Stesha Jade. You are a hero. The Hero who saved the Nords and the Snow Elves. The Savior of Skyrim. Now, the Nords will no longer fear us, and we can live in peace with them."
Stesha grabbed the pillar, weakened, and drained. "I'm going to die soon, all the energy spent. I have maybe a month left." Then his eyes bled. Gwendal was lying in a pool of his own blood. Stesha rushed over to him. "Gwendal, don't die, what happened!?"
"Your wife's spell." Stesha held Gwendal's bloody face in his lap as the blond grounded out more words, "you did it. You sacrificed your own life to save everyone. Akatosh would be proud. I'll see you in Aetherius, my friend. Don't make me wait long. Haha, you know, it's technically because of me you met Serana, so you have me to thank for that."
"Just promise me one thing, asshole." Stesha cried his heart out. "You won't forget me."
They buried him outside of Whiterun and crawled back toward the city. Whiterun was a sight to behold these days. The city's layout was fixed to a hill, with a mansion at its summit. Everything had the tint of royal gray. Massive walls defended the city, and all the farms were within rather than outside like in High Rock, none of the farms stood outside the city gates. On the eastern end, the only things outside the city were the cranes and the deserted huts and snow elf buildings. The corners of the walls were positioned with overlapping archery towers. Above, battlements styled like cones. Flag posts and statues with flailing banners.
And the sight Stesha saw was a beautiful one. Nords and Snow Elves singing together and holding hands, their children playing together. Reparations being made; justice.
"Behold, the Savior of Skyrim!" Rastaban yelled. "He saved us from the Virus and restored the snow elves at the expense of his own life!"
The crowd raised Stesha and Serana and sang their praises. All was well.
A few days later, Serana and Stesha returned to Wind Keep in High Rock. Hadvar and Aela had joined them too. Kids were having fun in the corner of their Wind Keep, mountain village. The isolated spot was surrounded by little stands and houses that were next to stone mills.
His parents and sister, Boadicea rushed out and embraced them all in a group hug. They explained everything to them.
"So, you're dying." His mother's face showed tears tearing at the corners of her eyes.
Stesha nodded. Then he held Serana's hand. "This is my wife, Serana."
A small grin appeared on Serana's face and her eyes gleamed. "A pleasure to meet you."
"I see my son has taste in buxom women," Courtlend laughed. "Come on, let's get some tea, everyone."
Stesha and Serana lingered a bit behind as Stesha's mood devolved.
"Look, my love, I don't know what you saw when you ate the dragon heart, but you are real. You're real to me and that's all that matters. I will always love you, and we'll meet again in Aetherius. I know we'll go to Aetherius because my father cut off ties with Molag Bal and Akatosh saw your heroism. He will let us, and my family enter."
"I love you so much, Serana." Serana held Stesha's face and clutched his neck with one hand as she pressed kisses into him. "Love me again tonight, okay."
"I will love you every night and then every night again in heaven when we meet again." Serana smiled and held his hand and led him towards the house.
While everyone was preparing, Stesha took the liberty to check on his room. It was just how he left it. It was always the same in his bedroom. There was a crescent-shaped window, soft toys on bookcases, and walls painted a light blue color. He closed the door.
Stesha sat with Courtlend, Mildred, Boadicea, Hadvar, Aela, and Serana. Everyone laughed as they shared jokes and stories, sipping on tea and munching on biscuits.
Serana stroked Stesha's hand and held it tight, staring him in the eyes.
It'll all be alright.
And They All Lived Happily Ever After.
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The End.