Chapter 32: The Darkest Pits of Hell… Can Be Other People

After the stealth team departed from Fort Dawnguard, it wouldn't be long before they reached the shores near Castle Volkihar. They decided to land at the shore to try and stay out of sight from potential Vampire guards.

Using her ice magic, Emilia was creating a bridge to the island. Unfortunately, some people were having a hard time with the ice.

"C'mon, Erik, get a move on!" Aela barked.

Erik, meanwhile, was still crossing the ice, and shivering from the cold. "I'm trying, but this is freezing even for Nord standards!"

Others, meanwhile, were having fun.

Patches was… well, being Patches. He was trying to skate on the ice and having fun making circles around the others. "Wheeeee — OOF!"

BAM!

Such as goofing around, like Patches who slipped and fell flat on his ass..

"Ah, yes. The grace of a monkey." Serana rolled her eyes at Patches' clumsiness.

Certain people, meanwhile, had other thoughts in their minds.

Such as Emilia.

"Hey, Serana... I was wondering what it's like. Being a Vampire?"

Serana looked over to the half-elf. "Oh? Why are you interested?"

Emilia didn't really know why, so she went with the most logical answer to her. "Curiosity, I guess."

"Well, if I had a way to say it… I guess… cold?" Serana tried to explain it. "I can barely go out in the daytime without irritation, and I have a constant craving for blood. I guess I try to pretend I'm normal, when it's clear I'm not."

Out of all of them, it was Aela who resonated the most with how Serana felt. Although she was proud of her Wolf blood, she could understand it made life more difficult when it came to... personal lives. All it took was a single moment for your control to slip... and everyone you knew would hate you.

Snapping out of her thoughts, she felt someone tugging at her shoulder.

"Hey… are you all right?"

Aela nodded. "Ah... Yes, I'm fine."

"You know you can talk to me, right?" Erik asked.

"I know, but now is not the time. We have a mission to complete."

The dirty-blond nodded. "Alright, just… letting you know."

"Although, being a Vampire isn't so bad if you know what you're doing and you're careful." Serana commented, which gained the attention of the others.

Patches gave her an incredulous look. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. Cold is quite tolerable, so the frigid and cloudy atmosphere Gusteko provides is perfect for us. Not to mention we always get to keep our good looks." Serana moved her bangs a bit to emphasize it.

"Unless you were always ugly," the bald Undead snarked.

"Yeah, there's that. Also, Diseases and Poisons are a thing of the past."

"It's always the little things you never appreciate," Aela said.

Emilia then remembered something from the day she met Serana. "Oh yeah, what about that transformation Vampires can do? The one that turns you into a "sun-dried raisin" in Subaru's words?"

"The sun-dried raisin one?" Patches repeated. "That's funny, I should remember that."

Serana actually cringed at the mention of that power. "Oh, that… It's called the Vampire Lord. It's a state of power only Pure blooded Vampires can use, or one who was turned by a pure blooded Vampire. It allows us to use Blood Magic, a special type of Universal Magic that only our kind can use.'

Erik, meanwhile, wasn't following along. "And the… raisin part Patches is reveling in? I feel like I'm missing something, like some kind of inside joke."

"The resulting transformation... isn't pretty to look at. It's partly why I don't bother with the form." The Vampire Princess explained, and realizing they had arrived at the side of the castle, "Alright, this should be the place."

The others looked ahead to see a docking area on the side of the castle.

Fun time was over. Now, the mission truly began.


The party arrived at the Castle shipping area, which had some Draugr standing nearby, clearly guarding the place.

"Alright, what's the game plan?" Patches asked.

"Allow me," Serana said, as she stood up.

Serana casually walks up to Draugr, which takes notice of her. The Draugr grab their weapons and prepare for battle, but Serana holds up a hand and motions for them to step aside, to which they actually obey.

"How did you do that?" Erik asked, having never seen Draugr obey anyone before.

"The Draugr on this Island were cursed to obey the Daughters of Coldharbour, to which I am," Serana explained.

"Coldharbour?" Erik questioned, with the word sounding somewhat familiar.

Serana hesitated for a bit before deciding to tell them "... Do any of you know how Vampirism came to be?"

"I don't." Emilia answered, nor did the others know.

"Vampirism has been around since Dragons have ruled over Tamriel and Ali'rasi. The affliction comes from the Daedric Lord of Domination: Molag Bal." That brought a gasp to Emilia and Erik.

"Oh, that's a bad sign." Erik knew enough to know nothing about that was good.

Serana continued regardless. "Inspired by the Dark Sign and its ability to grant sentient beings Immortality, Molag Bal decided to try his own hand at it. He took a physical form and searched for whoever was unfortunate enough to cross his path. He quickly found a young maiden and... had his way with her."

The others had a range of expressions on their faces in response to that, from disgust and shock, to simply having blank faces.

"The process was so horrible that it literally killed her. However, she came back to life, restored, stronger, hungry... She became the first Vampire." It was a horrible fate for the young woman, but that was what most of the Daedra did. Ruin lives.

Emilia could feel her tears coming in. "That's… that's awful!"

Erik felt like he was gonna puke. "I think I'm gonna be sick…"

Aela meanwhile, merely clicked her tongue. "Tch. That bastard..."

"She became a Daughter of Coldharbour. Coldharbour is Molag Bal's plane of Oblivion. All the Daedric Princes have one. Sheogorath has the Shivering Isles, Hermeaous Mora has Apocrypha, so on and so forth."

While everyone reeled in from that, Erik's eyes shrank as he began to put two and two together. "Wait, you're a Daughter of Coldharbour, right?"

Serana slowly nodded. "I am, as is my Mother."

"Does that mean that… you…?"

Serana was silent for a few seconds before answering. "It was part of a ritual my clan performed. It was... required of me."

The others remained silent, as Emilia rushed Serana, embracing her in a hug.

"Serana…" Emilia's words were mixed with her sounds of crying, as tears fell from her cheeks and onto Serena's shoulders. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that…"

Serana didn't know what to say. "I… Thank you, Emilia."

After a few moments, Emilia separated from the hug, but Serana could see what Emilia was thinking and quickly had to address it. "Please... don't get any ideas about revenge. Molag Bal is far too powerful for you to beat, and he will make you beg for a death that will never come."

"But… it still isn't right!" the half-elf cried.

"I know, but there's nothing we can do about it. Right now, we need to find my Mother and retrieve the Elder Scroll."

"Fine… but I won't forget about this."

Serana nodded as she spoke her thoughts. "I know. You're a good friend, Emilia."

The half-elf nodded, as she and the rest of the party decided to keep moving.


"Alright, just follow my lead. I know these tunnels like the back of my hand, and feel free to take any trinkets left down here."

That made Patches smile. "Sweet."

After dealing with rats and spiders, and the occasional feral Vampire, the party finally made it to the Courtyard.

"Where do we go from here?" Aela asked.

"That's what we've got to figure out…" Serana said, as she walked towards the center of the Courtyard, which now had some sort of weird triangular structure the others have never seen before.

Erik looked at the weird structure and asked Serana, "What is that?"

"It's a Moondial. It's like a Sundial, except for the moon."

"Oh, I get it," Patches said. Subaru had explained the concept to him before.

Serana examines the dial and notices something. "Strange... some of the pieces are missing from the dial. They indicate the phases of the Moon."

"Any idea where they could be?" The Werewolf asked.

Serana thought about it for a few seconds. "They would be somewhere around the Courtyard. I doubt father would bother destroying them."

Emilia nodded in understanding. "Alright, let's go look around."

Serana counted the empty spots. "There's three of them missing, so just look around for any shiny objects."

The rest of the team nodded, as they spread out the courtyard and searched.

"Found one!" Erik called out.

Patches smiled. "That makes two!"

"Here's the last one!" Emilia exclaimed.

Serana: Place them on the moon dial.

*With Serana's instructions, the three placed the pieces on the dial, which caused the dial itself to turn and parts of the floor to sink, revealing a hidden passageway.

CREAK…

"Hm," the bald Undead hummed at the sight. "Spooky."

"A secret entrance in our garden this whole time... and I never knew," Serana said.

Emilia looked over to the others. "Shall we go in?"

Aela nodded. "Let's."


Walking down the stairs, the group explored the dark corridors of this hidden passage.

"I knew the castle was bigger than what I've seen... but I never knew about this."

"Think anyone's down here?" Aela asked the team's vampire.

"If anyone could survive here... it would be Mother."

"Yeah, but where?" Erik asked.

Serana shrugged a bit before walking down the stairs. "One way to find out."

Patches knew how. "By going deeper in?"

"We don't have a choice." Emilia said as she followed Serana and went down.

"Yaaay," Erik cheered in a dead manner.


After progressing deeper into the tunnels, it wasn't long before they started going up, possibly through one of the Castle's towers.

"How many stairs has it been?" Patches asked.

"Don't think about stairs, and it will feel better," the werewolf said.

"Why do I feel like that's a lie?" Erik asked.

Serana merely smirks a bit. "Really boys? You're gonna let some girls outclass you?"

"I'm an advocate of gender equality," the bald Undead simply said.

Emilia sighed at Patches' antics. "Let's just keep moving…"

The thief simply smiled. "And that's how you win a gender debate."

Aela groaned a bit. "Can I hit him?"

"Later," the vampiress said. "We still have a job to do."


It took a while and a bit of navigating, but the party finally made it to the top of the tower, and it was some kind of... laboratory? There were many different kinds of ingredients used for alchemy, which clearly took a long time to collect.

Erik couldn't help but be impressed by the lab. "Whoa… that's a lot of ingredients…"

"My Mother was a skilled alchemist. I knew she had a way of getting ingredients, but a lab... I had no idea this place existed…" Serana said, still taking it all in.

"Think any of this is recent?" Aela asked.

Serana shook her head, clearly disappointed. "Doubtful... this stuff is ancient. No one's been here in years."

"Well, we better keep looking," Emilia said.

"Uhh... what's this circle in the middle of the room?" Erik asked, as he pointed to a large circle that was clearly built into the floor.

"How did we miss that?" Patches couldn't help but ask.

"We'll come back to that later. Right now, we need to find any clues on where Mother may have gone." Serana said.

The silver-haired half-elf nodded. "Right."

"Look around for a journal or note. It won't be obvious, so try to be keen."

Nodding, the others quickly got to work.

A few minutes later, Serana was searching the upstairs of the room for any information regarding her Mother's whereabouts, she noticed Aela walk up to her.

"Any luck?" the werewolf in disguise asked.

"So far? Nothing," the Vampire Princess replied.

The red-headed woman was quiet for a moment, before asking, "What will you say? If we find her?"

Serana was silent for a bit, before answering.

"That… I tried. I really did try."

"Tried?"

"Tried to make sure my father never succeeded, tried to find the other Elder Souls, tried… to live a happy life." Serana elaborated.

"If you... had the chance, would you want to be human again?" Aela's question got the vampire's attention.

"Is that even possible?" she asked.

"From what I've seen in the last few months, anything is possible. Maybe it is possible that people like us can... regain our humanity," the Companion said.

Serana thought about it in silence. To which Aela was reminded that she never told Serana about her own "condition."

"Ah, I nearly forgot to tell you. I'm actually a —"

"Werewolf?" Aela was surprised when Serana finished her sentence.

"Enhanced Senses, remember? I can smell it." Serana explained, lightly tapping her nose.

Aela actually chuckled a bit before continuing. "I never thought about wanting to be human again. Being the Wolf, letting loose and not holding back... it feels liberating. Like I can finally be myself. But... when I joined this group... I can't help but have this nagging fear that I'll slip up and…"

"Hurt them?"

Aela nodded at what Serena said "The Undead will be fine, I'm sure of it. But the others... You, J'zargo, Sieglinde, Emilia, Erik... All it takes is one moment where my grip loosens to let the beast out."

Serana nods as can understand what Aela feels. She really can. "You know… I can understand what you're going through. Not exactly, but I live with similar fears of… lashing out."

"Because of your thirst for blood?" Aela asked.

"Yeah, that… It's like an alluring scent that just gets stronger over time. If I starve myself for too long… Well, I'm sure you get the picture." Aela nodded at that.

"And, it's not just that. It's also… my past. My Family and clan are worshippers of Molag Bal. I've grown up serving him, but… overtime, I realized how wrong it was. However, I feel like I've gone too deep to turn back. Becoming a Daughter of Coldharbour was supposed to liberate me from mortality… but all it did was take whatever innocence was left in me…"

Aela was silent for a few seconds before continuing. "My conversion was not as... degrading. I'm sorry if I can't understand what it was like, but... you will have an ally in me, and I'm sure everyone else feels the same."

Serana was quiet for a bit, before she smiled. "Thank you… Aela."

The two of them smiled for a bit, before they heard Erik's voice.

"Guys! I think I found something."

The two of them turned over to where Erik shouted, and headed out. Talking about their feelings could wait. They were still on a mission.

A mission that they couldn't fail.


Author's Note: There's a special place in Hell for Molag Bal, in my opinion.

(You'll be waiting quite a while as he's immortal, but I agree with the sentiment. Especially after what he did to Serana. Molag Bal is arguably the most evil of all the Daedric Princes, as he revels in the suffering of mortals and has no problem… forcing himself on anyone he likes. Unfortunately, Molag Bal is still a Daedric Prince and is way too powerful for the cast to fight, at least at this point in time. Currently, we don't have any plans to have the party fight him, but it may happen in the future. No promises, though.) Alright, let's try to find a little bit of solace in our weekly comments…

5queso: I don't even know a third of the modern slang you just uttered. Also, I would suggest checking out MatPat's theory on Skibidi Toilet (I can't believe I just typed that). When it comes to the actual last chapter, I'm somewhat surprised to have been told that its quality was a higher one than usual, especially when I didn't have the time to put in as much effort as I have with the rest of them. Hope this one is good for you, too.

Kifhjoofff: Creo que has escrito esto antes.

Anyways, back to the regular old shilling…

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Thanks for reading, and once again, see you next time!

- Ernalore & Infinite the Celestian