Spirit of the Palace
As if from a deep slumber...
With whose eyes am I dreaming with?
Who does this condemned expression belong to?
Mortal voice I swear I can hear in me
And it resounds in a scream far away
Navigating the city in the dark was no problem for Chrys, navigating the city without a proper working vehicle and with just his bicycle would have been no issue had it not been for the piles of sands from the shattered glass of towering buildings littering their way. The live map itself had become unreliable due to the disconnect from Aethurius, and he had to rely on whatever left of the caching installed.
It did occur to Chrys that Sheogorath wanted something, something that using force nor power couldn't accomplish. He needn't dare ask.
The House of Gods did not reside in the upper levels of the city beyond the reach of those with mortal legs alone, nor did it exist in the bowels of the growing depth of Rumare. It belonged in the old town with the White-Gold Tower, on the ground like an ancient gravestone of bygone times. Pristine, well-kept but not forgotten. It had another name.
The Temple of One.
Beneath starless nights where even the moons hide themselves from Mundus uncertain fate, like giants the towering buildings huddled together but stood oppressively tall around them. In daylight, the city had an engineered shroud of magic that delivered sunlight even beneath the depth of Nirn, so the skyscraper of modern buildings never felt like they suffocated its residents. In the night, they become beacons of delight for the city's unending nightlife where even past midnight people are just laughing and working as brightly as they were during the day.
But the city was now a husk of a standing corpse now without the connection to Aethurius. The air itself felt stiff and cold, alien to those who were familiar to Cyrodiil's warm humidity. In winters the air had a sharp chill to it that brought at least a scent of distant shores.
Chrys was familiar to such scene. He grew up in a colony on the dark side of Masser.
When he arrived before old town, Chrys noticed people had crowded the roads leading to the bridge of the only entrance into the ancient district of the city, even making themselves at home by setting up tents, cooking fire and sleeping bags in their waiting. He glanced up and around. There was a divide between the old town and the new city. The old town is the area between the modern skyscrapers and ancient city that now exists as the city's botanical garden and central park, hence the towering buildings that surrounded the ancient city did not intrude its skies.
He could still climb over its wall for a shortcut, but he would need to go through this crowd. Chrys clicked his tongue with displeasure.
"Don't bother." He heard his cat speak from the cooking pot that he had placed in the bicycle's basket.
"Where should I go then?" He asked.
The people around him glanced when they noted a man with a spider automaton as his backpack speaking to a cooking pot. Chrys ignored their stare.
"The Waterfront Gate."
"That tourist spot?"
Your Grace didn't answer and remained silent beneath the closed cooking pot. Chrys turned his bike around and rode the long way around the old town, heading south where the divide between ancient and modern blurred, where it was just traditional shops that sold hand-crafted product, luxury artisans that focused on historical and cultural items, and of course food stalls that lined and crowded the streets. It was a place to be to eat street food, usually.
It was to no surprise he found the famous street corridor deserted with abandoned stalls. They said this place used to be a port, during the time when there was a lake that surrounded the ancient city. Hard to believe that now when in place of a lake, it's now a growing abyss filled with towering skyscrapers that pierce the skies and dug foundations deep below into the chasm.
Cyrodiil didn't just spread, it grew upward and downward.
Chrys finally stood in front the ancient iron gate standing tall with its iconic mural of the Diamond Dragon. Tourist loved taking a picture of this gate, a piece of history to take back to their home. Technically it was a replica. The real thing was in a museum inside the White-Gold Tower. The gate apparently was supposed to lead to a tunnel that led into the city.
He remembered reading that there were tunnels everywhere beneath the city, and they used this tunnel to bypass the traffic on the surface road as a form of transportation of delivering goods between the shops and port, as well to maintain the cistern, underground canals, and sewers. A network of underground roads.
Now that tunnel that led to such place had long ago collapsed, even its entrance sealed with cement.
Gracie peeked from the cooking pot he was curled up inside. The lid lifted briefly.
"OPEN."
The gate groaned loudly when it slowly swung inward, revealing the long-forgotten tunnel made of the iconic smooth white cement that many historians still puzzled how it was made to this day. Chrys felt a breeze of stale air when he stepped forward, bringing his bicycle that lit the path ahead. Its light was not powerful enough to pierce the darkness in front of them, but it was of no issue for Chrys.
"I thought they cemented the entrance close?" His voice echoed as he noted the slight upward incline.
"They have." A muffled voice came from the pot.
"But we just walked through the entrance…" Chrys pointed back and stared at the solid porous cement wall where the entrance was. It was so out of place as well, the cement mixture looked ugly compared to the ancient's smooth white walls.
"Don't think about it."
"I'm trying not to, sir."
Despite some sections of the tunnel had collapsed from the mound of earth and debris blocking their way occasionally, the condition of the tunnel was surprisingly still in good condition. All of it attributed to the race of elves that enslaved the ancestors of Cyrodiil's natives. The ancient city itself was built on the blood, sweat and tears of the slaves. To this day, when the council had to dig up area around the outer walls of the ancient city, one can still find the path of bones that have been buried beneath and in the foundation of the walls.
It was a macabre idea to imagine the emancipated descendants of those slaves, living their day to day lives while the bones of their ancestor lived in walls of their city. But perhaps they don't find the idea odd, since they did build the famous Green Path catacombs that lay beneath the botanical garden of the White-Gold Tower, where every surface of the catacombs was made out of bones of the city's former residents, stacked tightly in an organised manner like some books on a bookshelf.
They were not alone in this tunnel. Chrys could hear and feel the rats scurrying in the dark. From the warm blow of mist escaping his mouth, he could also feel the otherworldly freezing chill of the dead nearby, watching from where he could not see. He paid no mind towards them, if he was intruding their home, they would have made it clear from the beginning. But he had a feeling they wouldn't approach him anytime soon due to the true nature of the being inside his cooking pot.
The exit he assumed was straight ahead beyond the darkness, the climb was a subtle incline upward that was no doubt designed purposely so that wagons could easily travel back and forth back in the day. The air grew less sharp and back to the stillness of the unknown sky before. He knew he was close, but he stopped in his track when he suddenly noticed the ghost standing in the light before him.
It was recognisably human at least and not a ghostly corpse that had forgotten to walk or sleep like a person. The dead though cannot speak easily to the living, it was something to do with the fact they don't technically exist in the mortal plane, but there were cases of exception being made. Looking closely, it appeared to be wearing an ancient burial garb that young daughters were usually buried with and hooded her features well. It would be made of ancestor-moth silk as even to this day it was still treated as a sacred fabric.
She, at least he assumed was a she took a glance at him, her unseeing eyes filled with soft light before they landed at the cooking pot. A look of conflict crossed her face before she turned around as a straight line of light cracked behind her. The sound of familiar groaning was heard as the gate swung inward and revealed the temple he had been seeking.
It was busy and filled with city's ground military. A group of soldiers noted him immediately and made way to intercept him, at least they would have if not for a quick message to stay in their position was made. He carefully walked out into the ancient city and saw all the soldiers were watching him carefully and not aiming their weapons toward him.
Did someone send a word ahead and knew he was coming?
He glanced around before his eyes laid onto the temple. The House of Gods stood out like a sore thumb despite its ancient surrounding, a contemporary architecture that was bold, round and pretty. It served one purpose. It was a place for the gods, the spirits, and the dead to settle their grievance through a mortal representative, a procedure that was followed through for the sake of living mortals lest the matter gets escalated where a whole lineage gets cursed, the economy crashing, and the city infrastructure collapsing from the tantrum of the immortals.
It was a judicial forum to be more accurate.
He walked towards the glass door guarded by two soldiers who took one suspicious look at the cooking pot then at him.
"Do you know what you're bringing in?" A Dunmer asked him.
"Yes," he informed.
His red eyes gave one inscrutable look at him before he motioned him to enter. A security check was meaningless in this place, any beings that wished to harm this place is likely to regret it immensely the moment they enter the arena they were heading. Even he could not help but feel his stomach sinking the moment he stepped closer towards the auditorium that he had only glimpse from the images in dreamsleeve.
When he entered the grand hall, all eyes of both mortal and immortal stared at him. The silence deafening when he stepped forward and brought the cooking pot in front and put it down by his feet.
There was one rule that must be abide in this place. The gods must not speak simply because when they emote, they could cause conflicts to escalate. But Sheogorath told him nothing of why they had come here, nor had he commanded him on what to say.
Chrysanthos only option was to open the cooking pot before the eyes of the adas and the dead.
He stepped out not as his cat, but as a simple looking man. His hair star-made white. His blind eyes devoid of colour. His clothes simple but sharp, not at all an extreme fashion statement that one would expect from the Madgod. He did not speak at all, and instead waited.
An old woman in wheelchair was brought out. Her caretaker tight-lipped and filled with apprehension when she pushed the wheel-bound elderly and placed her before the Madgod. Chrys held his flinch when he finally realised her face and all her skins have been swarmed with elder moths, but when she spoke it was with a voice that he knew all his life.
"YOU ALWAYS HAVE NO SENSE OF SHAME."
A scolding voice, a rebuking voice, a jaded voice. She is the dirt that he walks on, the tickles of the grass. The air that he breathes and kisses him. The snow that lands on his lashes and the sun that lay on his back. She was a kingdom. She was an empire. She was Cyrodiil, a fragment of Nirn. She was Alessia. She was the Dragon God. She was their child born from the union of the Slave-Queen and her star-made knight. The mother of Reman Cyrodiil who's renown act had resulted to most, if not, all of Tamriel to carry his and the Red Legion blood in their veins. Her dream-womb gave birth to doomed prisoners of events.
She was the city, and she didn't want to speak with him.
"I do not ask for forgiveness." Sheogorath smiled. "I simply ask to be your child once again."
Chrysanthos eyes widened and from the quick murmurs flitting around the hall, he was not alone in his surprise. Daedric Princes are no stranger to adoption despite looking down on acts of creation. Lesser daedra in fact became children of the Daedric Prince by taking the name of their parents into their own, but it's not a decision that's taken lightly. To carry the name of the Daedric Prince is to become irrevocably an extension, a part of them in essence. Sheogorath was known to be an immensely unpopular choice when it comes to inheriting a god's name.
Because not even the immortals wanted to be crazy.
But this? This was unprecedented. A Prince asking to be adopted?
"SO THAT YOU WILL TURN YOUR BACK ON ME WHEN I NEED YOU THE MOST."
The old woman's folded arms were no longer there. The moths flew away bit by bit, her legs too will soon be gone.
"When the world truly ends, I'll take you with me to the stars." He was smooth with his promise. "You simply have to ask."
"YOU CANNOT KEEP THAT PROMISE."
"Then give me your name."
There was a moment of silence, everyone waited and leaned forward. Someone coughed loudly.
"PELINAL THE FIRST."
Then the observers roared in protest as the woman vanished into moths. The Madgod merely stood there with a calm smile on his face and watched the moths flew off into the dreamsleeve.
"I refuse! I REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS!" A Breton woman roared from somewhere in the back. "HOW CAN HE BE-" She could not finish, and she started coughing out moths.
The insects crawling out of her very mouth as she choked violently in front of everyone to see. It was chaos in the auditorium. Mortals were panicking, the dead were still arguing with each other, and the adas were busy trying to make sense on what just happened.
Sheogorath simply walked out of the hall amidst of this.
Chrys quickly followed after him, making sure to pick up the cooking pot behind. The heavy door slammed shut behind them, cutting the chaos of the voices and leaving them both to the eerie silence of the city.
"Mister… Cyrodiil, sir." Chrys called out to the Madgod carefully.
"Of course, she would give me the name I disliked most." He heard him mutter.
"Mr. Cyrodiil." His voice cracked out of apprehension.
"I heard you the first time, Chrysanthos." Sheogorath's voice was flat and unfriendly.
Chrys gulped deeply and decided to just rip off the bandaid. "How is this going to solve the city's lack of power and water?"
Sheogorath stopped and turned around to stare at him dead in the eyes. He tilted his head and gave him a blink.
"Done." The Madgod smiled.
Chrys scrunched his eyebrows together. "Done wh-"
There was a blinding flash of light, the sky for just a moment turned daylight blue as a star opened its eye and shot out a pillar of light. He felt a violent vibration of a building collapsing somewhere in the distance as something pierce right through it.
A towering arrow of pure Aethurius, its sunlight flooded the city with its light.
"Go and print water or whatever you mortals do," Sheogorath just said so dismissively.
It was only far later that Chrys would learn the building that was collapsed belonged to a mega-corporation owned by a family that had conspired with Hermaeus Mora to rid Mundus of recipes capable of curing diseases. The incident became one of those great coincidences ultimately.
It sits beside the last dragonborn emperor, it mirrors the star-made knight in exact position, an inauspicious empty pedestal. He now stands there grinning with his sword as his cane, triumphant and vicious, and most of all, where he had always been.
In another world, a young teenage boy almost stepped into a mirror-like portal had it not been for a stranger calling out to him.
"What are you stupid? Do you just touch anything that piques your interest?"
In his defiance to this treachery, he broke the staff of Sheogorath with his own hand, smashed the Throne into pieces, and cut the Tree of Madness to its stump. He fled through time, laughing and grinning, renewing into a new man and making many names for himself. Unaware and yet accepting, his eternity of flight was the madness of the Prince and a mere blink in the eye.
Molag Bal: invades Nirn to rape it
Mehrunes Dagon: invades Nirn to destroy it
Sheogorath: just ask nicely
Cyrodiil: GUESS I GO CRAZY NOW
Also Sheogorath: immediately shot her with his arrow right after adoption