D.K.R. Year 4 Beta Part 2 Dancing With Death

• Posted by Hasir October 9, 2021 - Filed in TSC: CB Story - #TSC: Long Story  #Hasir  #C.O.T.W  - 1,196 views

  

  

  Hasir opened the east gate and stepped inside. He saw a row of white stone buildings with wood paneling running down the

  buildings' sides at regular intervals and two stone walls with a gap in the middle on the right which led to a wide area with a small

  grassy area.

   

  The Argonian sniffed again and headed past the buildings and turned left at the chapel with its grey stone walls with two sets of

  wooden doors leading off in different directions; he saw a building fashioned in the same style as the other white stone buildings he

  had passed - only with one glaring difference: its door and windows were shut tight with wooden boards as if the structure had been

  marked as condemned. 

   

  The Argonian felt a sense of foreboding as he stood in the Cheydinhal streets staring at the abandoned house. He knew that he had

  to see if what he had been told of this building was true. The Argonian's clawed hand shook terribly as he reached for the knob

  and turned it; the door creaked on its hinges, making him nearly jump out of his scales. Hasir did not see any sign of the hooded

  figure anywhere; all he saw were cobwebs that clung to every inch of the first floor of the house as if the previous owner hadn't

  cleaned before he left. There were also boxes stacked in a corner near the door.

   

  Hasir shook his head slowly as he saw numerous wooden crate lids scattered across the floor and barrels lay scattered across the

  room as well, some without their lids. Hasir ripped his gaze away from this wonton destruction, shameful that the previous owner

  would leave it in such a state of desrepair. He ascended a wooden staircase that lay to his left and found the second floor landing

  had not faired any better than the first floor; it had cobwebs strung across the furnishings of the upper room as if they were put

  there by a bunch of drunken spiders.

   

  The Argonian screwed his face up as he tried to imagine what the house may have looked like under the previous owner. The image

  in his head, he knew, was only a temporary respite from what was staring him in the face. he dismissed the image with a shake of

  his head and pressed on; searching for something that could shed some light on who the previous owner was. He pulled out drawers

  from the cobweb-ridden bedstand, but only found dust; nothing of particular importance. He was about to give up when a bookcase

  in a similar state as the nightstand next to the dust and cobweb covered bed caught his eye.

   

  He walked over to the bookcase, tail cutting the dust in half that littered the floor like a knife cutting butter. Once at the delapedated

  bookshelf, his nose full of the smell of dust, he started tearing ruined book after ruined book from each shelf. As he shook each

  book out and discarded them on the floor-albeit neatly as he didn't want to add to the old house's woes. Upon shaking the last book

  out, Hasir huffed in defeat not seeing anything of interest, he discarded it onto the pile and sat down hard on the floor. The forlorn

  Argonian sat there, his tail coiled around him on the lloor like a snake; he was about to forget every and go back to the basement

  door he saw earlier when he saw a loose page poking out of a book in the middle of the pile. 

   

  He got up, went over to it and extracted the loose page from the book, pulled a dust-covered chair over, dusted the chair off with his

  tail and sat in it, reading the page.

  "...Cheydinal manor was once a shining beacon of the city's youth. Founded in 2E 199, the house functioned as a home for the

  wealthy patrons of the time; one particular notable person, an Imperial named Vincente Valtieri worked at the local blacksmith shop

  in the city. The Imperial kept ingredients used in his armor making in barrels and crates that were situated on the first floor of the

  house. Valteiri stored the weapons he had made from the materials stored in some of the crates in the besement."

   

  Hasir smirked to himself; he had always liked learning the history of the provinces on Tamriel.

  "So, this house has a basement... interessting, and I never thought this house to be home to a blacksmith."

   

  Hasir lowered his head and resumed reading the page.

  "...Valtieri dug too deep, wanting somewhere to hide his armor and weapons so that no one could use them for his or her own

  purposes and inadvertantly dug up a previously hidden black door that was warded by a phrase lock. Valtieri found this intriguing

  and, despite the door's silence, tried any phrase he could think of to try to open it; nothing worked."

   

  Hasir triied to read further, but found the page illegible, he however did find a passage near the end of the page he could read.

  "...years passed and Valtieri became obsessed with the black door in the basement, trying everything to open it. He even went so far

  as to try to break down the black door. He looked to his left and saw, written in blood 'sanguine, my brother', tried the phrase at the

  door without the door first asking its question and got punished for him not being one of the dark brotherhood. 

   

  Hasir tried to wrentch his eyes away from the page as he dry heaved from sheer revulsion but failed and just sat there just holding

  the book up and dry heaving behind it like a cat trying to puke up a hairball. With his throat uncomfortably dry and hurting a bit from

  the force of the dry heave, Hasir returned to the book and went on reading.

  "...suffice it to say, the Imperial got what he deserved; the man disappeared upstairs to find a bed as the disease severely sapped

  his fatigue because of how his body had to fight the invasion. The Imperial slept for three days straight. As the third day came, the

  man stumbled over to the mirror and looked at himself, panicked and ran downstairs, disappearing into the area witth the black

  door."

   

  Hasir looked perplexed as he turned the page over, expecting to find more of the narrative but to his disappointment, did not. The

  Argonian picked up the book the page fell out of, making the neat pile of books topple over like a tree in the woods. Hasir cursed

  silently as he rounded up the fallen books and stacked them; making sure not to mix the book the note fell out of with the neatly

  made pile.

   

  Hasir picked up the book and quickly scanned it. Within minutes of scanning the book, he was about to give up when his eyes fell

  upon a tear of the book-that was obviously where the page he held within his clawed hand had come from. The Argonian looked

  next to the tear mark, finally found what he was looking for and continued to read.

  "Vicente banged on the door incessantly; shouting that he had been decieved. He knew this was useless but it was the only thing he

  could think on at the moment. The imperial got a hold of himself, backed up and glanced wonderingly at the door-which had an

  etching of a skeletal woman holding a kukri type knife in the left side of the impressively engraved black and red door guarding her

  'children' which were four skeletal servants underneath a giant red skull branded with the neon light-like symbolic black hand. The

  Imperial was sure he was seconds away from finding out."

   

  Hasir shook his head, not wanting to find out what the outcome of the Imperial was or what was on the other side of the door;

  but read on anyway.

  "The door voiced its question and Valtieri answered in kind and entered." Hasir frowned and closed the book; he had wanted to read

  more about the well-to-do Imperial.

   

  He soon conceded the he would have to find out the rest of the information for himself. He huffed in anger as he got up and went

  downstairs to the wooden door and down through the broken brick wall to the black door.

  "What is the color of night?" It asked. This caught Hasir offguard

   

  Hasir looked worriedly at the door.

  Ssssanguine my brother." He managed to stammer. He walked up to the black door cautiously and, to his surprise, when he applied

  pressure to the black metal handle of the door, it turned effortlessly in his clawed hand. He sighed and crossed the threshold.