He was strong. No surprise here, she would not send anyone to do her dirty work, but extermination, I thought she was above sending others to do that for her.
He charged me again, but I managed to block his axes with my scimitars, following with a quick counter that scrapped his hood and took one out the wolf’s ear and his feather adornment. He moved below my next strike and used his axe to attempt a blow at my head.
I dodged that by mere centimeters, and followed with a smoke bomb at my feet. This was a special bomb, certain vampires would have a massive advantage in a smoke filled area, but this bomb had silver dust coated with powdered garlic. Sure enough that made the vampire choke, and I used this opportunity to back away and regain my footing.
My brotherhood companions had followed my commands and stayed out of the fight, but my opponent knew that the more fragile targets were behind me, and as a result he was aiming directly for them. His orders were obviously to kill as many as he could, so my immediate duty was to protect my family. Again he charged me, and I met him ready.
My blades stroke true, but found only empty air. The vampire turned to mist when my swords reached him, but immediately turned back when he was behind me and two steps short of my companions. Julia took point, she was a natural leader, and was ready to die to protect her subordinates. Fortunately she did not need to take action, as soon as my blades missed his flesh I tossed a poison rune scroll in his way, stopping him from attacking Shade’s lover.
As soon as he stopped I found myself meeting his axes again, he already turned to mist a few seconds ago, and recalling the details on my mind, I remembered that he would not be able to use that again for at least another fourteen seconds. He was a Keerilth, a vampire type of Valenwood that are capable of turning into mist, and even controlling the fog around them.
The clock started ticking, so I attacked him with all my speed, leaving almost no room for defense. I managed to get two hits in, one in his arm and the other on his face, leaving a big scar on his forehead.
The cut on his head started to bleed, clouding his left eye with a curtain of blood. I took this opportunity to concentrate my strikes at his flank, but as soon as his defense started to waver he managed to use his mist form to avoid decapitation. His axe was quick to follow in a counter, a foolish move, instead of regaining his balance he was quick to attack. I was ready, his blade met my gauntlet, but even if the soft black leather was not enough to stop his axe, I had a trick up my sleeve. A scroll of iron flesh, ready to trigger if it met with enough force.
When his axe met this new unexpected resistance he looked confused, but when he realized what was happening my right hand had already met his throat, and my left, injected him with a magika-blocking toxin. That would prevent him from phasing into mist for a few minutes. I felt a kick at my gut as he pushed me away. He tried phasing, but when that did not work he hastily blocked my scimitars with his axes.
He was losing ground, most of his style depended on that phasing move, and after I took that ability away his counters became more widespread, and his defenses started to waver. I picked up the pace of my strikes and soon wounded him in multiple places. He started to bleed heavily, his vampiric regeneration was still working, but with my poison in effect that would soon fail him as well.
Barely keeping up with my attacks he soon found himself in a tight spot. But it seemed that he also had a trick up his sleeve. He jumped backwards, and before I could do anything I heard him whistle a loud, sharp note. Immediately I heard screams behind me, turning to look I saw a female Bosmer vampire, his sister from the looks of it, with the exact same apparel and weapons as him. My attention was focused on my first attacker however, and as soon as the sister started to attack my companions the brother took advantage of my distraction.
His charge was easily predicted, and as soon as he got close enough I was able to use a paralyzing dart to keep him in his place. The brother fell to the ground, and when I advanced the sister I saw she had already used her magic to knock most of the assassins to the ground, but grabbed Zoe by her right arm and throat.
-Get away from my bother or else I will tear her apart! – Said the female vampire.
Zoe looked scared, but to my own despairs, strangely determined. Sophia looked right into her eyes, pleading her not to do anything stupid. Zoe looked back at her, as to apologize her following actions, and then cut loose.
With her left hand she started to weave magika, we all knew of her problem, every time she tried to use magic her spells came out overcharged, she was born with a natural massive pool of magika. But every time she tried to use even a small bit of that massive pool it overloaded. To make a better comparison, it was like having a gigantic dam, overflowing with water, but every time she tried to drain that water it seemed to burst, pouring out millions of gallons of energy into an uncontrolled explosion of force.
She used lighting, trying as hard as she could to focus a precision strike. Naturally that failed, causing an enormous burst of uncontrollable energy that went of too close to her right arm. The Bosmer vampire managed to see what was happening ahead of time, and right when Zoe’s magic destroyed part of her armor and face, she used her mist form to save her own life.
Regrouping with her brother she noticed he was no longer able to regenerate his wounds, or even stand up straight as a matter of fact.
-I can’t let you die like this, we will have to report a failure to her, but I will not let you die – she said, he was about to protest, but ended up coughing up blood and that ended the discussion.
They vanished in a purple light, an oblivion portal, a powerful conjuration spell; one that only one person I knew was able to pull of.
Screams. Screams of agony and pain. They came from behind, from Zoe’s mouth. She was desperate, holding the severed chunk that was once an arm in her hands. It was burnt beyond recognition, that thing was no longer usable. I quickly reached her side, she was in too much agony, and I still had some paralysis poison with me. I quickly injected her with it, and hopped that Lucius would arrive soon. I would do the best I could in my own abilities, but she needed a professional doctor. Preferably one with experience as a mechanic as well. We moved her inside the sanctuary, to her lab.
It was clear what I needed to do, now that she was sedated and paralyzed; Julia used her restoration magic to keep her stable, while I managed the knife, the needle and the wrench…
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