Spellweaver: Chapter Six

  • "Damn it all!" I cried, angrily bashing my fist against the table. Cendrine let out a light chuckle, as she saved her bottle of mead from my anger. "All I want to do is sleep! Why must that be taken from me?"
    "You aren't the only one unable to get any sleep around here Armel. The whole town is affected. Maybe instead of grouching about it, you could find a way to stop it?" Cendrine verbally nudged, before standing and heading for the door. "Besides, if you're not, I am. I can't stand sitting around doing nothing anyway."

    "So you want to help deal with this nightmare problem? Figures you wouldn't be a Nord..." muttered Skald the Elder, Jarl of Dawnstar and general, all round bigot. Cendrine had mysteriously disappeared when I entered the hall, leaving me to deal with Jarl Skald by myself. Great.
    "Yes, Jarl," I replied evenly, not letting his bigotry get under my skin.
    "Well, go talk to the Priest of Mara at the inn, he is supposed to be dealing with this. If you do manage to solve this problem, I will reward you. Dismissed," Skald said offhandedly, waving me away. His housecarl didn't react well to that, and started to whisper angrily into Skald's ear. After a hushed conversation between the two. Skald relented with a huff, and gestured me back towards him. "If you do cure Dawnstar of the nightmares, you will be granted ownership of Heljarchen Hall, a manor house near the border with Whiterun Hold," Skald grumbled out. A whole manor house...
    "I will not fail you, Jarl," I replied quickly, before leaving the White Hall. I want that manor. Sleep would be nice too though.

    "You want to help me deal with these nightmares? Mara be praised! I was hoping I would not have to deal with this by myself," beamed the Priest of Mara, Erandur, when we told him of our intentions.
    "On a side note, how are we going to stop the nightmares?" I asked. I would like to know what I just signed myself up for, thank you.
    "Ah, yes. We will have to go to Nightcaller Temple, in the ruins of a fort above Dawnstar itself. I will explain the rest when we are there," Erandur replied as he shifted through his sparse belongings. Cendrine and I shrugged to each other. How bad could it be?

    "So what do we exactly need to do?" I asked Erandur again. We had just entered the ruins of the fort, and the ever present smell of musty, decaying wood assaulted my nose.
    "Years ago, this ruin was a temple to Vaermina, the Daedric Prince of Dreams and Nightmares. The temple was attacked by a Orc clan who were suffering the same issues Dawnstar is now, unending nightmares. I must warn you, the priests of the temple released a mist called the Miasma when they knew they would fall. The Miasma preserves the affected in a state of sleep, so once we enter, the priests and the Orcs will awaken as the Miasma disperses, be alert."
    "Wait, so this Miasma keeps them alive forever?" I asked incredulously.
    "Not forever. The longer someone is under the influence of Miasma, the more it can decay their minds. Some don't even wake up all."
    "How will we get anywhere past this room? There are no doors!" questioned Cendrine. Looking around, I was surprised to find that she was stating the truth; our little antechamber was a dead end.
    "Don't worry, there is a hidden entrance right here... Ah ha!" Erandur had, with a quick spell, caused a portion of the back wall to disappear. "And now we can proceed."

    "Look, the source of Dawnstar's woes; The Skull of Corruption. May Lady Mara preserve us!" Through a decaying iron grating, we could see that deeper in the ruin an untouched altar sat, surrounded by an orange-black magical field. On this altar sat a diabolic looking staff, the reason we were here.

    "Are you sure they are going to wake up?" I asked, poking a fallen Priest of Vaermina with the blunt end of my staff. We had stumbled upon one of the many confrontations between the Orcs and Priests, but neither side seemed willing to awaken. Oh well.
    "They should be..." Erandur muttered, not willing to get too close to the collapsed figures.
    "DIE VERMIN!" came a sudden shriek, followed by a wild plume of fire raging from below me. The priest I was poking had awoken, and immediately resumed where she left off. With a frightened yelp, I pressed down hard with my staff, and with a crunch the flames died away, the priest's rib cage crushed. With a rustling and yelling, the other figures awoke, and resumed their paused encounter. With us as front row participants.
    "'Are they going to wake up?' You had to open your big mouth, didn't you Armel!?!" complained Cendrine, as she ran an Orc through with her shortsword. Of course I had to. Someone had to.

    "Damn it. We cannot breach this barrier," grumbled Erandur. We had fought our way through the Orcs and Priests, only to arrive at this purplish barrier that barred our progress.
    "You sure we cannot?" asked Cendrine. "We got ourselves quite the mage right here," she joked, nudging me with her elbow.
    "No, this barrier is powered by a soul gem, not some residual magic. We cannot go through it... Maybe I can find a way around it in the library. Luckily, I still have my key," Erandur said, pulling out a rusted iron key from a disguised pocket of his robes.
    "How do you know so much about this temple Erandur?" I demanded. "The secret passage, the Skull of Corruption, this barrier, and now you have a key to the library? You are not telling us something!" I accused. Erandur crumpled under the weight of my verbal assault, shrinking into his robes.
    "I suppose there is no use hiding my past from the two of you any longer," he murmured. "I was once a devotee of Vaermina, at this very temple," he relinquished. "When the Orcs attacked I was afraid of the Miasma, I was not ready for its embrace. So I fled. I left my brothers and sisters here to die and be forgotten. I have lived my life since then trying to gain redemption through serving Lady Mara, and once I heard of the suffering of Dawnstar, I knew what I had to do. Now that we have that out of the way, can we continue?"
    "Fine, lead the way," I grumbled. Erandur's hidden past concerned me. If he was willing to hide such a deep secret, what else could he be hiding from Cendrine and I?

    "Thorek... Veren... You are still alive?!?" Erandur said incredulously. With the help of a potion, I had managed to be able to deactivate the barrier blocking our path. We had proceeded lower, only to encounter two priests guarding the Skull of Corruption itself.
    "Yes, no thanks to you, Brother Casimir," growled Veren. Priests that knew Erandur. Or was it Casimir?
    "I... I do not go by that name anymore?" muttered Erandur, as his voice shrunk and doubt entered his tone. "I am Erandur now, a priest of Mara."
    "You are a traitor, and I will not permit you to destroy the Skull, Priest of Mara!" exclaimed Veren.
    "Then you leave me no choice!" Erandur growled, his voice returning to him. Erandur must have always been wrestling within himself, Casimir and Erandur fighting for control. And Erandur has gained control.

    "That is that..." remarked Erandur, the tinges of sorrow in his voice. Erandur, Cendrine, and I had just finished off the last two Priests of Vaermina in the temple. Two of Erandur's past friends. "I wonder if it was the will of Lady Mara to torture me like this. To make me kill my friends... It is time to destroy the Skull." Erandur walked up to the Skull of Corruption, and began to pray, his voice loud and pleading. "Lady Mara! Grant me the strength to break this barrier..."
    "Aren't you an interesting little mortal... I would ask you to kill that meddlesome Priest of Mara, but I can tell you won't. Unlike your ancestor..." murmured  a mesmerizing voice within my head. Vaermina speaking directly to me? About my ancestor?!?
    "What about my ancestor?" I thought back angrily. Hopefully, Vaermina was still stalking my thoughts.
    "That is not my secret to tell, mortal. I hope you enjoy your sleep," chuckled Vaermina, her presence floating away.
    "What do you mean! Tell me damn you!" I yelled out, collapsing to my knees as Vaermina left my mind. Cendrine was instantly by my side, confusion written on her face.
    "Tell you what? Who are you talking to Armel?" worried Cendrine, shaking my shoulder. I couldn't let her know. I didn't even know if the damned Daedra was telling the truth!
    "Nothing! It is nothing!" I growled, waving her away, before I returned to my feet. Cendrine gave me a glare, before turning back to Erandur. This wasn't the last I would hear of this. With a great crash, Erandur cast a great bolt of magic, that pierced the barrier, shattering the Skull of Corruption. Collapsing, Erandur stood shakily, before turning to Cendrine and I, oblivious to what had just occurred.
    "Thank you both for assisting me. I do not know if I could have done this by myself."
    "What will you do now?" Cendrine queried.
    "I will construct a Shrine to Mara in the antechamber of this temple. My original intention was to live out the rest of my years here, but if either of you need assistance, I would be more than willing to help. May Lady Mara protect you."

    "What was that earlier?" Cendrine hissed. We had just left Erandur, and the wind was howling over the snow.
    "I told you, it was nothing," I snarled back, trying to intimidate her into dropping the subject.
    "Collapsing and yelling out in the middle of dealing with a dangerous Daedric artifact is not nothing!"
    "We all have our skeletons in our closets Cendrine. Leave mine be," I growled out. Cendrine froze, her hand shooting to her neck. I wasn't ready to tell her about my scars, just like she wasn't ready to tell me about hers. Such a lovely impasse.

Comments

2 Comments
  • Premier Eden
    Premier Eden   ·  January 5, 2015
    Yeah, I'm not going to keep that up. I'm merely setting up for events MUCH later down the road. vaermina may or may not be showing up again, but Daedra will definitely be popping up. I was going to have her do that, but I thought her teasing was much more...  more
  • Borommakot
    Borommakot   ·  January 5, 2015
    Nice! I'd only suggest not leaning too heavily on the "bigot" angle with all the Nords. I'm guessing Vaermina will be cropping up again? I half expected her to offer information in exchange for killing Erandur.