Chapter 60: The Break of Dawn
The Dawnguard Knight opened his eyes to see the sun's rays staring down at him. He also noticed he was in a field. Getting up and making some observations, notably the flat land encompassed by mountains to the north and south, and a familiar looking city nearby, Oscar discovered that he was in the valley near Whiterun.
"Teleportation?" he wondered. "Or Illusion magic…?"
"Well, well, well. What do we got here fellas?"
Oscar turned around to find a couple bandits surrounding him. Seriously, what else could they be? But despite being bandits, Oscar was just annoyed. "I suggest you leave me be."
"Ah, and why would we do that?" one of the bandits, a woman (surprisingly enough), asked. "You look like someone with a lot of gold, why don't you share some?"
"I mean it, back off," Oscar growled. He didn't have time for this.
"Oh, you don't call the shots," another one snapped. "Pay up and we'll let you walk."
"Not gonna happen."
The bandits were sufficiently enraged at the knight's stubbornness, and tried to attack him, but Oscar's use of Primal Wind Magic made blowing them away a breeze.
"That is your last warning! Leave or die!" Oscar gave them their last warning to leave with their lives.
"Rrrr…" the female bandit growled, before shouting, "GET HIM!"
Oscar sighed at their stupidity, before releasing a much more lethal wind blast.
"Ul Fura!" The Dawnguard knight fires multiple wind blades that shred the bandits into pieces. "Hm, how about we flip the script? Give me everything you ha-…"
It was then that Oscar noticed he had killed them all in a single attack. "Oh…"
Walking towards Whiterun to hopefully find out why he was here, Oscar noticed a smoke stack in the sky to his left. Smoke… fire. A village?
As Oscar got closer, he realized it wasn't a village, but a bandit camp. There were at least a dozen bandits visible, maybe more. Time to play it cool…
He didn't want to needlessly shed blood, so the knight would try to play this diplomatically. As Oscar approached, it wasn't long before the bandits noticed him and took up arms.
"Hi." Oscar decided to give them one
"That's far enough!" the leader said. "I suggest you pay up before you get hurt!"
"Some of your underlings tried that already. They're dead now."
"What?! That's it! Kill him!"
A couple more bandits lunged at Oscar, who chopped them up with his winds again. "Alright, let's try this again. Give me all of your valuables, or you die."
"Like hell we'd listen to you!" one of the bandits shouted.
"Death, it is."
In a few minutes, Oscar brought swift and brutal death to the entire camp. It was nearly impossible to dodge something you couldn't really see. After everyone was dead, Oscar started going through the chests to see if there was anything valuable in them.
"Ehh, silver, gold, diamonds…" Oscar listed off, bored.
At the bottom of one of the chests, there was a white magna-geode shaped stone. It looked very out of place compared to everything else, and the knight had a strange feeling about it...
"Maybe it's cursed? Subaru would know… he seems to know about this stuff…"
As soon as Oscar touched the orb, though, a voice... a very loud voice spoke to him. "A new hand touches the Beacon. Listen. Hear me and obey. A foul darkness has seeped into my temple. A darkness that you will destroy. Return my Beacon to Mount Kilkreath. And I will make you the instrument of my cleansing light!"
"…What the…?"
Oscar tried letting go of the Beacon, but he suddenly found it was stuck to his hand. No matter how hard he pulled, the Beacon would not remove itself. "COME ON! BEGONE, DAMN IT!"
After a few minutes, Oscar had to catch his breath.
The beacon still remained attached.
Wonderful.
"Hey, is there anyone in there?" he asked the Beacon.
There was no response, which made Oscar sigh in reluctance.
"Fine. I suppose I must follow this Orb's request…"
After heading to Whiterun and taking a carriage to Solitude, which was located on/near Mount Kilkreath, Oscar finally arrived at his destination. It was a Shrine, with a statue depicting a robed woman with wings and her hands held up, as if raising something to the heavens.
Oscar hummed at the sight of the statue. "Isn't that Solaire's signature move…?"
Suddenly, the voice made itself known again. "Look at my temple, lying in ruins. So much for the constancy of mortals, their crafts and their hearts. If they love me not, how can my love reach them? Restore to me my beacon, that I might guide you toward your destiny."
"You again!" Oscar shouted, looking around. "Who are you?!"
"I am Meridia. Daedric Lord of Life and Energy. I have called you to be my champion, immortal."
"Okay… Why?"
Suddenly, Oscar felt like his skeleton was falling to the bottom of his body. He could feel himself being brought up over a thousand feet above the ground. "What is this?! Earth magic?!"
As it turned out, the answer was a resounding "no." He was standing on thin air, as if it had been made solid. Almost as if an invisible hand of a deity had picked him up.
"Huh," the knight deadpanned. "That's even more impressive."
Suddenly, an orb of light appeared in front of Oscar and Meridia's voice spoke from it. "It is time for my splendor to return to Skyrim. But the token of my truth lies buried in the ruins of my once great temple, now tainted by a profane darkness skittering within. The Necromancer Malkoran defiles my shrine with vile corruptions, trapping lost souls left in the wake of this war to do his bidding. Worse still, he uses the power stored within my own token to fuel his foul deeds. I have brought you here, immortal, to be my champion. You will enter my temple, retrieve my artifact, and destroy the defiler. Guide my light through the temple to open the inner sanctum and destroy the defiler."
Necromancy? That was essentially on the same level as most vampires with thralls. "In that case, I guess I'm in, then."
"That is why I chose you, immortal. You seek to destroy the undead, Vampires and Draugr are beings that should not exist! They are an abomination to nature itself, and must be eradicated!"
"Serana might take offense to that," Oscar said.
"The Daughter of Coldharbour will pay, rest assured, but Malkoran is the more immediate concern. Destroy Malkoran, and I shall allow you to possess my artifact: Dawnbreaker."
"Alright…"
Oscar was lowered back down to the temple safely. Shortly after his little air adventure, a beam of light shot from Meridia's Beacon to a pillar, and opened the door to the temple.
"Malkoran has forced the doors shut. But this is my temple, and it responds to my decree. I will send down a ray of light. Guide this light through my temple and its doors will open."
"Sounds convenient, but alright."
Oscar began making his way through the temple, his sword ready to slash and Auriel's Shield ready to block any attacks that came his way. It was long before he encountered Shades, some kind of nightmarish floating skeletons that still wielded weapons.
"Wonderful. Flying Draugr…" Of course it just couldn't be regular Draugr or Hollows…
Luckily, they still went down as easily with a few well placed slashes before disintegrating.
"Alright, who's next?
More shades began to approach as Oscar fired a horizontal blast at them. "El Fura!"
The undead creatures were blasted away, as Oscar proceeded forward. It was only a matter of time before he came across a small pedestal that was in the path of the beam of light. Upon walking up to it, Oscar pressed down on it which caused an orb similar to Meridia's beacon to raise and redirect the beam to another room.
This allowed a door to open with ease.
"Ah, I see now," Oscar realized. Some sort of puzzle. Hit the light in the right direction, and the doors would open. "Simple enough. Now, where to next…?*
The pattern continued as Oscar continued to make his way through the temple. Kill Shades that appeared, redirect the light, open the door. The continued on and on until finally, Oscar came upon a room containing a mage surrounded by a few Shades.
"Hello!" Oscar called out to them. "Are you Malkoran?"
"Hmm? What have we here? A lost soul come to die? Someone under the thumb of Meridia?" The Mage, Malkoran, spoke in a monotone, almost dead voice.
"Under the thumb of Meridia?"
"The Temple is supposed to be locked. How else could you have gotten in here?"
Oscar gripped his sword, feeling a fight was about to happen. "Well, then in that case, you're a squatter. Could you please leave?"
"No," Malkoran simply said. "Now die."
That was all Malkoran said before launching a massive Ice Storm towards him, which Oscar countered with his winds. Suddenly, the Shade began to attack. They managed to overwhelm Oscar for a second with their numbers, and one of them managed to stab Oscar in his shoulder.
"OW!" the knight yelled. "THAT ACTUALLY HURT!"
"Good. Yes, that is very good. Feel the pain. Feel the despair. Feel your end."
"Who said anything about an end?" Oscar asked.
Malkoran then sensed something peculiar about Oscar. "You... Undead. Yes. Immortal. Unkillable."
"Oh, wow. You can actually learn."
"I am also Undead. Would you still fight me?"
"Not much of a choice, really," Oscar said.
"You would still fight against an impossible task?" Malkoran asked.
"I've got the time, so… yeah."
Malkoran was silent for a few seconds before speaking again. "That is good. Yes. Very good. Determined. Unstoppable."
"What's with the constant adjectives?"
"Unimportant," Malkoran said. "Only my mission matters."
"Your mission?" Oscar asked.
"To make them suffer."
"Them?"
"The Daedric Princes. My mission is to make them suffer." Well, that was… unexpected.
Oscar sighed. This again. "Now, what did they do to you?"
"During the Oblivion Crisis, my wife and child were slain by the Daedra when the Oblivion Gates opened all over the world. My mission is to make the Daedra suffer for as long as I live."
"And you're sure it wasn't an accident? You're certain it was on purpose?"
"I watched it happen," Malkoran said, a look of distant rage and hate appearing in his eyes. "I saw it happen. They were slaughtered like prisoners on the block. All because they existed. The Daedra must all suffer."
"Alright… I can understand your pain. But this is not how to deal with it."
"I don't care," Malkoran hissed. "All I care about is making them suffer."
"Then you are clearly lost," Oscar said, narrowing his eyes.
"Yes, I am. Kill me, and complete your quest."
"As you wish."
Blasting away the Shades, Oscar quickly severed Malkoran's head from his body, causing him to turn to ash. Oscar honestly couldn't believe it. "Huh. That was easy…"
"It is done. The defiler is defeated. Take Dawnbreaker from its pedestal." Meridia's voice made itself known again.
Oscar did as instructed, pulling the sword out from the pedestal. It was a beautiful gold blade with a glowing gemstone between the blade and the hilt.
"Hm. Quite fancy."
"Malkoran is vanquished. Skyrim's dead shall remain at rest. This is as it should be. This is because of you. A new day is dawning. And you shall be its herald. Take the mighty Dawnbreaker and with it purge corruption from the dark corners of the world. Wield it in my name, that my influence may grow."
Oscar sighed. "That's a lot to live up to…"
"Go forth, and burn the darkness of this world for good!"
In a bright flash of light, Oscar was…
…back at the mansion.
The knight was disoriented from the flash, but he was able to make out Serana and a few others inside the living room he had appeared in.
"Oscar? Hey, guys!" Serana shouted. "Oscar's back!"
Solaire slapped his fellow knight's back. "Glad to have you back, Oscar."
"Was… was any of that real?" Oscar then looked down to see Dawnbreaker right beside him. He picked up the blade for everyone to see. "I guess it was…"
Otto whistled as he saw the beautiful sword. "Wow… what do you think a weapon like that would cost?"
"Oh, yeah," Sieglinde said. "We each had to go through trials and stuff like that…"
"Like, in actual, physical places?" Oscar asked.
"Apparently so. J'zargo was teleported near Winterhold and they recognized me."
"Oh, shit." Patches, meanwhile, gulped. "It was all real."
"Why? What happened for you?"
"Spiders," Otto grimly said.
"WHAT?!" Sieglinde shrieked.
"Long story, might wanna sit down," Patches said.
Oscar then looked around and saw two more people missing. "Wait... where is Subaru and Emilia?"
Author's Note: And now, only our two Heroes are left…
(Well, looks like Oscar, the resident vampire hunter, got a sword specifically made for slashing and burning undead, which includes vampires. Can't get more fitting than that. Also, we decided to expand on Malkoran's backstory, which is non-existent in Skyrim. Here, he's an Undead seeking to torment the Daedric Princes for the deaths of his wife and child during the Oblivion Crisis. So, he's basically an immortal cockroach they can't get rid of.) Well, that's all the lore we have for you this week! Now for the comments!
5queso: I'm glad you enjoy commenting on these stories. If you liked how short J'zargo's chapter was, then I'm sure you're also gonna love this one. See you next time!
Flugel: What sort of backstory are you interested in? Because we already published the origins of Suabru and Satella, and everybody does lore-drop every now and then, so I'm not sure what you're looking for. (Same. We need specifics.) Nice username, by the way.
Gwynx: I'm not a big fan of the cat with the voice of Antonio Banderas, but I'm sure Infinite would agree with you. (He is. Easily the best follower in the game behind Serana.)
Kifhjoofff: El amor de J'zargo parece ser un consenso común.
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