Chapter 20: Memento Mori
AN: Welcome back to The Old Kingdom.
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Stesha was inside a black void, floating through space. The void was Sithis. He swam through an ocean of blackness, nothingness, it crawling into each of his senses. Swimming through the body of Sithis. He floated right up to the edge of the galaxy where it seemed like it ended, a wall of ebony, and put his hand through. It fazed right past.
"What is this?" Stesha knew outside of Nirn, through the stars in the sky was Oblivion, and behind that was Aetherius, and behind that was the Void all wrapped around in a circle.
Goosebumps split across his arms as he went through the Void, it all disillusioning behind him as he stepped into a vague white room. There was a being, an indescribable entity of some sort. Was this Anu? What was He doing though? Why was Anu…?
Then Stesha realized, and then Stesha knew.
Once you know, you can't unknow it.
No, no. It's not possible. Tears streamed through Stesha's eyes and filled his face in no time. He held his head in his hands. No! WHY ANU WHY?! Stesha cried an ocean of tears. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY?! Sluggishness robbed him of further movement. He swayed his encephalon in misery, floating back through the void.
This life is an inescapable materialistic hell, and all people are incapable of empathy, Stesha thought as he slumped into his depression.
And my life. He breathed deeply. My life was nothing but a waste. I should've been erased.
At least the gods are real, Stesha now knew that to be true along with the nightmare that was the truth Eleph had forewarned him of. My whole life is a meaningless waste of time.
"Can't say I've seen such a response," Sithis said as Stesha re-entered the Void. "Most perish or become more when they learn what you've learned. But you stay the same. What a unique reaction. Aah the folly of the fool."
Stesha awoke. He was lying on a cot in one of the backrooms of Dragonsreach. Shelves and cupboards with sacks of flowers and jars of olive oil near him. He got off his cornered bed and walked into the next room, which was a little more open. Serana, Hadvar, Aela, and Gwendal were there.
Serana turned and her blue sapphires landed on him. "Stesha! You're awake! How are you feeling?"
Stesha stared at her for a second, transfixed by the shape of her face and jaw. Then he blinked and looked away. "I only have a few months to live, so, I dunno."
The urge for skooma throttled through him.
Gwendal's emeralds fell onto Stesha next. "Nope. We'll find a cure for you, my friend. You're not dying yet."
Hadvar's rubies were next. "Stesha, are you alright?"
"I know the truth. The truth Eleph warned me about." Tears threatened to break through Stesha's eyes.
"What is it?" Aela's crystals flickered.
"I'm not telling anyone. One, none of you would even understand since you haven't seen it with your own eyes. Two, I'm not cursing you to the same fate as me. I'm already doomed to die, so it best this secret dies with me. I'm not arguing this." He moved onto the stairway, brackets of torches hanging on the side as they followed him.
It was the dragon heart. They're psychedelic. Eating the heart prolonged my life but also taught me the truth. So, all I saw was a hallucination. I wasn't actually in the Void.
"Can you at least tell us what type of secret it is?" Sniffled Gwendal, rubbing his sleeve over his nose.
"Nah," Stesha denied him. He sighed depressingly, his insides dying now that he knew the truth. The scenery melded together in a blur as he stepped out onto the porch of Dragonsreach and threw up in the pool beneath the bridge. His throat burned as the vomit shuttled out. "Enough of this, we need to find Peryite, I'm sure he's in league with the Davouts." He wiped his mouth.
"Stesha." Serana put an arm on his shoulder which caused butterflies to explode in his stomach. "Are you alright?"
Stesha's eyes locked onto the eyes of the slightly taller woman. His dark brown mixing with her ice blue. Who are you? He wondered to himself.
She removed her hand from his shoulder as he spoke, "I'm alright. Thanks."
"I have a contact in Markarth-Side. She may be able to help you find the Shrine of Peryite. Her name is Vex Onyx," Aela mentioned off-handedly.
Serana explained the situation with the Davouts and Seracles to Aela and Hadvar. The latter two Nords held hands and looked at each other with worry in their eyes as it was discussed.
"Seracles' followers planted the scroll in Mzulft. They wanted us to find it, but why?" Gwendal's green eyes hardened.
"To distract us, of course." Hadvar took a deep breath. "We're blundering around in the dark here. We need to find Peryite, he's our main lead."
"You and Aela stay here, see if you can find out who this Seracles is." Stesha ran a hand through his lochs. "Gwendal, Serana, and I will go to The Eastern Reach and figure out this thing with Peryite. Maybe he can tell me how to survive this virus as well."
He could feel his senses claw inward at the skooma withdrawal. Seracles is making moves right now.
Stesha, Serana, and Gwendal stood outside the gate to Markarth-Side a day later. It was a massive, dwarven doorway lodged into the mountainside. The entire landscape was composed of dwarven technological undercurrent beneath snow and ice. Purple gem ores sticking off the rocks and winding chasms of ice. Cliffs and canyons interspersed throughout the region. They took the virus test again and entered the city. – Markarth-Side was in lockdown as well, nobody out. Vex had been alerted beforehand that they would be awaiting her by pigeon. Luckily enough, she was waiting outside the double doors of an inn.
Markarth-Side had towering, dwarven towers made of stone with bronze caps and roofs. The whole city fitted inside of a mountain and thus covered by a roof made of stone. There were market stalls out near them with no one attending them and brass doors leading to all the houses in the city of stone.
"The Reachmen own this city." Gwendal cracked his neck. "Madanach Detch is the Jarl here, the king of the Forsworn."
Vex was a brown-haired Imperial with tan skin and coffee-colored eyes. She wore a hood and black leathers, quietly approaching them. "Are you three Aela's contacts?"
"Yes," Serana responded.
"Follow me." Vex signaled for them to enter the inn with her.
It was desolate and nobody was in the Silver-Blood Inn save for a bard strumming his sitar. There was a bar that was shaped like a square without one side, tares boarded in place, along with a roaring fireplace in the back all over cool, smooth stone. Brass framework endowing the room.
The bard in the back was a curly haired Reachmen. Tall with blue eyes and a light beard. "And thus was the tale of the suspicious fool," he sung to himself.
"That's D'aieve the Storyteller. D'aieve Carnelian," Vex explained as they all took a seat around the fire. "D'aieve, be a sweetheart and fetch us some coffee and cake."
D'aieve winked and walked off.
"So, I'm Vex. Who are you three?" She asked curtly.
"My name is Serana," the vampire introduced herself. "With me are my friends, Stesha and Gwendal."
She considers me her friend. Stesha's heart lifted.
D'aieve brought out cups of coffee and a platter with a cake, a knife already inserted into the pastry.
Stesha nodded and smiled at the tall Reachmen who only bowed in response before going back to playing some music in the corner of the inn. He's a really good musician.
The cake had red icing and a cluster of cherries atop it along with other assorted fruit. The slices were different colors and likely differently flavored, ranging from lemon to cherry to banana. Serana spun the cake around, observing each piece of fruit. Stesha took a banana shard, gulping it down with his coffee. It tasted marvelous, like a cakey banana or a banana made of cake. Serana and Gwendal also marveled at the taste with their own respective fruit themed slices.
"Can vampires eat cake?" Gwendal swallowed a ligature of pastry.
"Well obviously." Serana lightly rolled her eyes.
"So, what do you need? How can I be of service. Keep in mind I don't help for free. Normally, I'd charge you but this time I have a favor to ask." Vex sipped her coffee.
"We need to find the Shrine of Peryite." Gwendal chewed on a large piece of cake. His slice was cherry.
"Alright," Vex agreed. "I'll show you where it is, take you even, but then I need a big favor in return."
"What's that?" Serana asked.
D'aieve's music increased in the background and the sound danced through the ambience and atmosphere of the inn, lighting up Stesha's depressed mood.
"I need you three to join The Crimson Dirks. We're in desperate need of recruits otherwise I'd just ask you to pay me." Vex held her hands together.
"Isn't that the new Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood merger?" Stesha inquired. "Your two organizations finally joined forces."
"Yes." Vex nodded.
"But why ask for our help?" Serana's eyebrow arched.
"I won't lie, we've been down on our luck. Some vigilante who calls himself 'The Nightingale' has been killing our recruits and stealing from us and giving to the poor. We really need the extra help, at least until we can find him and kill him." Vex's visage melted into frown.
The memory struck Stesha like a brick. "He's one of you."
"What?" Vex looked at him like he'd been blessed by Sheogorath.
"He killed Aquila Vestal, one of your contacts in Chorrol. We ran into him, and he told us that he's one of you, working to bring down your organization from the inside," Gwendal elaborated. "So, there's a traitor amongst the Crimson Dirks."
"Huh, what are the chances. Brynjolf, Mercer, and Gallus will wanna know of this," the Imperial woman noted. "So, what'd you say? Will you join us and help stop the Nightingale?"
The three looked at each other and shrugged.
"I've been seeking a thrill," said Serana. "I'm not too worried about this Nightingale though. I could immolate him from the inside out if we run across him."
"We need him alive. He's gonna answer for stealing from the Thieves Guild and murdering members of the Dark Brotherhood." Vex clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white. "Now, come on, let me take you to the shrine."
Stesha noted the guards of Markarth-Side were Dwarven automatons and not Nords as they exited the city. Dwarven Spheres rolling through the pristine, stone streets and humanoid robots clanking their way around. The quartet began the arduous hike up the winding chasms and valleys in between mountains. Everything was frozen and giant icicles hung off the enormous bent pine trees that littered the area. Magenta icicles at that too.
Serana leaned in and whispered to the group, "Seracles approached Jarl Balgruuf last year. He's been setting up this plague for a while. It's like he knows our every move."
Stesha's heart raced as Serana's shoulder brushed up against his. Did she do that on purpose? I should really apologize to her soon about that incident with the spells. Giant bubbles bounced around the Reach as they progressed past ruined crystal towers. Eroded from the fallout of the war between the Snow Elves and Nords long ago. Pink plants blooming along the edges of the road.
Gwendal broke him out of his trance. "Don't worry, we'll find him and stop him before this plague spreads to the other provinces."
Stesha cleared his throat. "I also need a cure for this thing. If there's anyone who has an antidote, it's Seracles."
"We find Seracles, we cure Stesha and immunize everyone," Serana exclaimed. "And our best chance at finding Seracles is Peryite Taskmaster, the runt of Akatosh's litter. Also, I say after our business with the Thieves Guild, Crimson Dirks – whatever they call themselves – is concluded, we head to Atmora and try to find the traitor in my father's court who's aiding the Davouts. Someone had to have given them passage and shown them where the Redwater Spring was, after all."
"Good idea," Gwendal agreed. "Although I may not go to Atmora with you guys if that's alright. I don't fancy freezing over anytime soon."
Me and Serana alone in Atmora, Stesha realized as butterflies sprung from his heart.
"The shrine is in this village," Vex said as they came to a halt.
A little hamlet encircled upon a gelid glade atop the mountain rested here, with large houses big enough to house giants. Cylinder shaped with coned rooves. A pseudodragon stood at the edge of the cropping, watching them under a hood.
"Welcome, I am Fafnir Pahlok." He was a lanky black lizard almost the size of a giant. Hunched over despite being bipedal. "You seek the shrine of our great lord?"
"Peryite, yes," Serana answered for them. "Why aren't you guys in lockdown?"
"We are immune to all diseases and pestilences, seeing as we are blessed by Lord Peryite." Fafnir led them to the center of the town. "Once we were Argonian, but Peryite blessed us when we made the pilgrimage to his shrine and thus, we have become these dragon-like creatures you see before you today."
"Peryite can do that?" Gwendal squinted in disbelief.
"Why yes," Fafnir snickered. "Peryite is the forgotten son of Akatosh. The runt of the litter."
Vex waved goodbye. "I'll see you guys back in Markarth-Side when you're done. Double cross me and you'll regret it."
"We won't," Stesha affirmed as they approached the flagpole.
"As if she'd be a threat to me," scoffed Serana.
The totem pole had a carved head of a skinny dragon atop it. Fafnir poured some herbal tea from a decanter into cups and handed one to each of them.
"Ingest the broth and you'll be able to pass through the portal into the Place Downstairs, Peryite's realm of Oblivion."
The tea smelled of mint and tasted as such too. A gleaming portal appeared before them, and they stepped through into the Place Downstairs…
Flesh and blood. Waterfalls of blood. Skulls embedded in walls made of muscle tissue and gore of bodies still alive. The bodies of countless people all infused into the landscape, unable to move, unable to escape. A red orb hung in the sky of the hellish landscape.
"Ugh." Serana pushed dead bodies away from her. "What sick, twisted being would wanna live in this place?"
Stesha shivered in fear at the eerie soundscape that screeched lowly through the dimension. What is this place?
Gwendal noticeably gulped but seemingly kept his normal jibes to himself.
They walked around upside-down arches that twisted through the ground and air. The walls, the flooring… they were made of people. People still living. And they were chanting something quietly. Bodies stitched together and turned into architecture and landscape. No ego. No sense of self for those whose identity had been ripped from them and jammed into another's to become some formless monstrosity of a world. A fleshy hell. A body mass horror.
Stesha peered around a bloody wall and saw a flayed creature. Shaped like a man but demonically so.
"Who are you?" Stesha squinted as the demon shifted.
"Follow me," the Wayward Ego spoke.
It led them to a throne made of flesh, atop it a skinny green dragon. Like all dragons it had six limbs, wings stretching from its back. Although it was skinnier than the average drake. It coiled about the throne and licked its lips. Behind it was a true horror to behold, a sea of people.
A sea of people still alive all stitched together in the basin the size of a lake. Waterfalls of blood pouring over them as they moaned.
"Who dare cometh here?" Peryite's yellow eyes gleamed.
"Shit, we didn't bring any offerings." Gwendal's face split with panic.
"Just relax." Serana gave the blond a side-eye. "Lord Peryite, we seek your aid. We come to you in a time of need."
Stesha coughed into his arm and blood splattered his forearms, a reminder that he was slowly dying.
Peryite coiled tighter around his throne. "What does thou seek?"
"We seek an answer as to who caused the Vomindok Virus that's currently spreading through Skyrim," Serana explained to the Daedric Prince. "Was it you, did you help, or do you know who's causing it?"
Peryite grinned deeply, the edges of his mouth stretching to his eyes in a creepy way. "I applaud whosoever started this Virus, but alas it was not I, nor did I have any hand in helping them."
"One more question, Great Lord Peryite," Stesha said awkwardly as he bowed before the Dragon. "Can you cure me? I have caught the virus and while I inoculated myself with a dragon heart, I'm still dying."
"No, I can only immunize prior to catching a pestilence, I cannot heal thou if thou hast already caught it, considering I did not engineer this virus. Thou will likely have to find the one who did and ask him," said Peryite.
Stesha recovered, dizzying a bit. "His name is Seracles, the one who started this plague. You have no idea who he is? He wears a crow mask and a black robe, and his followers call themselves the Davouts."
Bretic for devout.
"No, I do not. If my knowledge of names serves me correctly," mused Peryite. "Seracles is an Imperial name, meaning liberator."
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AN: None.