A.D.W.D. Chapter 16: Road to Markarth

• Posted by Exuro December 18, 2015 - Filed in TSC: CB Story - 1,509 views

  

   

   “Did she just die?” The young Sybil asked as if wondering what the weather would be, then poked Amari’s limp form in the face.

   

  Trebonde set Amari down at the side of the bridge and pressed his ear against her chest, listening carefully. Every few moments he scanned the way they came for pursuers.

   

   “No? I still hear a faint heartbeat and once again, I have no idea what’s going on.” He paused, thinking. “The temple; if anyone knows what happened it'll be the priestesses. We need to reach Markarth more than ever now.”

   

  ***

   

  Amari exhaled and with that last breath she sent her spirit charging down the link to her familiar armed with her remaining energy. Her world ignited in skeleton’s otherworldly senses and the horrors besetting her squirrel came to light.

   

  Scuttles lay prone in the center of a clearing high in the mountains, feebly fending off a cyclone of descending specters. Attracted by the Forsworn ritual, the gathered wraiths still roamed the countryside seeking anything to replace their disrupted feast. Gouts of soulfire leaked from the many damaged runes across the squirrel’s bones while the specters fought each other for position to leech off the escaping energy. Many were humanoid, others beasts, and some had lingered so long they had lost all semblance to their past lives, only an embodiment of hunger and torment remained.

   

  Scuttles, you saved us at the tower, now I will save you, Amari stated as her power rushed into the squirrel.

   

  Violet fires erupted from the damaged runes and incinerated the feasting spirits. This squirrel hissed in renewed rage and together they whipped the fires in a whirlwind about them, turning their weakness into a weapon. A clearing opened around them and they charged the outer wall of spirits. Their claws blazed and spirit flesh exploded wherever they passed. They leapt high and buried their fangs into the neck of humanoid ghost, savoring the flow of power as its essence was drained.

   

  They broke free of the cyclone and started leaping from rock to rock down the mountainside leaving a trail soulfire in their wake. Their movements were stilted and each second the fires escaped the runes weakened them further. She desperately needed to rebind the Daedric glyphs before all their energy was expunged, but she lacked the engraving tools and more pressingly, she needed reprieve from their hunters.

   

  The hungering spirits let loose a chilling wail on cue and broke into pursuit like a swarm of locust. A few wraiths descended upon them faster than the rest, but one-on-one they were easily torn asunder and consumed. At the base of the mountain they dove into the river barely ahead of the swarm’s grasping claws. The wraiths’ pursuit was scattered across the river’s surface as their passage was blocked by the running water. Amari turned Scuttles skull upwards and watched as the refracted shadows circled above and snapped at the surfacing bubbles of their escaping essence.

   

  She sighed in relief now that she had time to think. Amari couldn’t repair the runes now, but she could patch them; by Oblivion she’d originally bound Scuttles without any runes at all! She focused inward and traced the lines of power coursing through the bones with her mind; a diagnosis procedure her mother had ingrained in her early on. She apologized profusely to her mother’s memory for every time that she had complained or said that so many redundant runes were pointless. Those redundancies were the only barrier keeping Scuttles alive... and her she realized with a heavy swallow.

   

  All the spell absorption runes had overloaded and ruptured on one side of the skeleton, then left unprotected to the fireball’s flames, a handful of shielding runes and three binding vertebrae runes had broken as well. It was from the last that her essence bled from. She quickly finished her check and found that the entropy runes on the claws and leeching ones one the teeth were undamaged, but the one on the skull was stirring.

   

  She knew nothing about that spiraling shape, other than it was the reason Hermeaus Mora had found them, the reason she feared her mother now served that Prince. Amari had asked her mother many times about it, but the response was always the same. Her mother would go quiet and say, ‘When you are older. You are not ready yet; I hope you never are.’ Now that rune, engraved in the living ink of a Black Book, was stirring for the first time and she still had no idea what it did.  

   

  Not that knowing would matter if she died now. She used her will to pull the ejecting energies inward as if she were channeling a spell, then rerouted its flow around the damaged runes and linked it to ones still glowing healthily. Satisfied the patch would slow the worst of the bleeding, Amari and Scuttles set to crawling along the riverbed against the current. She only knew Markarth was somewhere to the Southwest, but she could feel the link tied to her body act as a guiding beacon.

   

  The threat of wraiths faded to that of time. With every passing minute the beacon grew more distant as the current hindered them two fold. Every foot forward was a battle against the flow and every passing touch of the river wicked bits of their essence away. At places the river was so shallow that even as a squirrel they risked surfacing a few times. The wraiths would converge like vultures at those times; a few even diving into the water to their own demise.

   

  Their scuttling came to an end at a rapid towering a few feet above them. The water could have been cascading from the Throat of the World for all it mattered to Amari, she saw no way they could pass it without surfacing. Scuttles however, was not deterred. He approached the boulders and charged their claws. The stone melted away as their claws punctured deep into the rock and step by step they ascended through the water rolling down the rapid.

   

  As they approached the summit, a specter landed atop a boulder at the peak and started swatting at them between breaks in the white water like a bear catching salmon. Maybe it used to be a bear; it was large enough. They dodged the first, but the second was a direct hit across the broken runes. Amari gasped in pain and Scuttles struggled to cling to the rocks as even more of their precious little essence was torn away. The specter’s eyes lit in ecstasy as it tasted what it meant to be alive once more.

   

  It opened its maw impossibly wide with a howl and stretched its form towards them as it prepared for a third strike.  Scuttles hissed back and they met its strike with their own. The spirit bear’s paw exploded on contact and it recoiled in shock. The entropy continued to spread up the bear’s arm, unraveling the ethereal flesh wherever it touched. Then an amorphous wraith descended on the disintegrating spirit and devoured it whole, craving even a secondhand taste of life.     

   

  Just what was Mother preparing me against? Amari thought in awe as she began to realize just how powerful the runes she’s been given were.

   

  They resumed the race across the bottom of the riverbed; desperately trying to catch up to the rest of the party before the river’s flow completely sapped them of the last of their strength. All went smoothly and they were even catching up until their next obstacle, a true waterfall this time. The plummeting water struck the bottom with such force that every attempt to climb it sent them rolling through the water and losing more ground.

   

  Amari stopped them after their third attempt and glared at the waterfall, furiously trying to brainstorm a way to bypass the obstacle. They could wait the wraiths outs, dawn should disperse them, but the burning sensation as the river sapped their essence reminded her they would never last that long. No; they had to surface and hope they could reach a sanctuary before they were overwhelmed. At the edge of the river bank, she hesitated at the sight of hundreds  of the shadows flickering across the water’s surface, but then steeled herself, the decision’s been made, don’t think. Go.

   

  ***

   

  “Markarth! Almost there!” Trebonde panted.

   

  “I can’t!” Fjorta cried out and collapsed onto the foot bridge at the Hold boundary of Markarth in heaving gasps. Below the stream serenely trickled on at a stark contrast to the party’s desperate breaths.   

   

  “Come on! Just a little further.” He tried to lift her back up, but she fell back down as if her legs were made of cooked noodles. He groaned and lifted her across his other shoulder and started trudging past a windmill towards the gates of the reclaimed Dwemer ruin carrying both girls.

   

  “Good catch tonight, eh?” One of the entrance guard joked at the sight of Trebonde’s trophies.

   

  “Forsworn…temple…need…now,” Trebonde panted.

   

  “Forsworn!? There’s no Forsworn here!”

   

  “Good… Where’s the temple?”

   

  The other guard cut the first off before he could give them more hassle. “Damn it Xander, open the bloody gate already. The temple is at the top of the center tower, you can’t miss it.”

   

  Trebonde nodded gratefully as the two great Dwarven brass doors creaked open. The second guard stopped him with a hand as he passed by and stared seriously at the rogue through his visor.

   

  “Hey! Xander is right you know. This is a Forsworn free zone. The Imperials keep the streets clean here, so don’t be causin’ no trouble now.”

   

  “Alright…” Trebonde replied, perplexed by their insistence, then he flashed a sly grin. “No trouble won’t be caused.” Then left them to muddle that over.

   

  The streets were clean though, and ancient. The paving stones had been worn smooth by centuries of foot traffic, towers stretched towards the sky far beyond the limits of modern architects, and every pillar and door had been carved with ornate detail. Never had Trebonde seen anyone make a straight line look elaborate like the ancient Dwemer could. The shops and retrofits made since that race’s unexplained disappearance looked cobbled and shabby by comparison; like they were squatting in someone else’s home.

   

  The echo of Trebonde’s footsteps through the empty streets only added to the feeling of trespass. This earlier in the morning the only guards and the rougher types walked the streets; the type who wouldn’t find a blood and sweat soaked man hauling two girls over his shoulders an odd sight. 

   

  Trebonde let out a long sigh at how many steps it was up to the temple.

   

  “Fjorta, think you can walk now?” he pleaded.

   

  “Nope!”

   

  “You don’t sound that tired,” he growled.

   

  “I’m exhausted!” she let out with an exaggerated yawn.

   

  “Girls… How about you Amari?” He gave her a shake and got nothing. He groaned and started heaving them all up the steps one at a time.

   

  Halfway up the first flight Amari suddenly bucked and nearly sent them all tumbling back down. Trebonde barely regained his balance and checked his charges.

   

  “Finally awake now that we’re here are yah?! Try not to kill us next time!” the beast of burden protested.

   

  “Umm, she’s not back yet. I still can’t see her light.” The Sybil noted as she stared into Amari.

   

  “Damn it - pardon my Altmeri – but what in Oblivion are you talking about?!”

   

  “I don’t know… it’s, umm… How do I say this? The light, it glows kind of purple-y. I can see it in everyone and each is different.”

   

  “Soul?”

   

  “Yes! That’s it! It left when she fell.”

   

  Trebonde looked to the heavens. “How do I keep attracting these people! Are you telling me I’ve been hauling a soulless sack of potatoes this whole time?”

   

   “I don’t know!” the Sybil sobbed.

   

  Amari also chose that time to convulse again and elbow Trebonde in the jaw.

   

  “Ow! Well, I guess that answers that,” he said, trying to rub his jaw on his chest.

   

  More spasms and convulsions soon followed, each growing in strength. Trebonde struggled to keep his grip and double-timed his pace to the temple.

   

  “Aaaaaurg! I don’t know what’s happening!” Trebonde yelled incoherently as he fought the burning in his legs and lungs.

   

  “Cheers ta thsat mate!” A random drunk passed out around a brazier called back.

   

  They made it to the last two flights of stairs when Fjorta suddenly screamed.

   

  “Let me go! Let me go! She’s on fire!”

   

  “Again?!” Trebonde flailed and dropped them both on the stairs. Fjorta broke her fall relatively well, but Amari hit the stairs like a sack of potatoes and started rolling. Trebonde lunged and caught Amari’s foot, but his legs gave out and he was soon following her descent, skidding along his belly. Fjorta caught his foot and all three came to rest stretching down the flight of stairs.

   

  “Fjorta, she’s not even on fire!”

   

  “I swear I saw purple flames!”

   

  Trebonde looked back at her queerly. “Purple?”

   

  Fjorta nodded back confidently. Then as if to prove her point, Amari’s back arched and her whole body burst into unmistakably purple flames then just as quickly they appeared, they disappeared as if an unseen force sucked all the flames back into her and then she collapsed, cold, limp.

   

  They stared in fascinated horror for a second, then Trebonde grabbed her feet and motioned for Fjorta to lift Amari’s head.  Only as Fjorta approached, Amari convulsed again, the most violent yet, and the flames started sporadically flaring and fading across her. Fjorta shrieked and jumped away.

   

  “I really hope you don’t remember this,” Trebonde said then started dragging Amari by the feet up the last stairs as her flailing body bumping on each step.

   

  The flames bursting forth out spawned the forces leeching them and reached a critical mass as they entered the temple. Trebonde burst through the heavy brass doors dragging a body engulfed in soulfire and was quickly followed by the Sybil. The doors slammed against the walls with an echoing clang that startled a circle of drowsing priestesses praying around an octagonal holy well to their feet. 

   

   “HELP!” 

   

  The violet flames froze and fell about Amari like a luminescent armor of crystalline scales.

   

  “The *Dragonskin,” a Breton priestess whispered, “but why?”

   

  Fjorta rushed forward. “Her soul’s gone! Help her!”

   

  “The Sybil! You brought her!” The priestesses proclaimed excitedly, but the celebration was cut short by a reflexive gasp from Amari.

   

  Her Dragonskin flared too bright to gaze upon as it absorbed an immense amount of power from elsewhere. Trebonde was forced to retreat and cover his eyes, but the power continued to grow, more than the scales could contain. Fires erupted in gouts and waves; incinerating nearby tapestries and furniture.

   

  “Hurry! Contain her!” The matron of the priestesses order and they rushed forward armed with wards. They surrounded Amari and contained the flames within their circle of magical shields.

   

  “She’ll burn herself to death at this rate!” The matron yelled out against the roaring flames. She switched to a single handed ward and then pressed forward to grab Amari by the collar. The other priestesses kept the circle close with faces stricken by worry and strain as the matron dragged Amari to the holy well.   

   

  The scales were already starting to disintegrate as the matron threw Amari full bodily into the holy waters. On contact, the flames were instantly quenched and the waters took on a phosphorescent white glow. The priestesses splashed the water across Amari and poured handfuls down her throat until the convulsions and flames were completely soothed.

   

  The matron looked up at where Trebonde was hovering. “Get him out of here. We have her stabilized, but we need uninterrupted focus to guide her soul back.”

   

  A priestess lowered her hood and revealed herself as Jolene, then took Trebonde by the arm. “Mother Hamal, I’ll keep him out of the way.”

   

  “Going to show him your collection too?” A Nord priestess snorted.

   

  “You’re only jealous your toys aren’t enchanted, Orela,” Jolene retorted, then turned back to Trebonde, “Come now, this way Savior. The girls are in good hands now.”

   

  Hamal shook her head. “I will only need Orela’s help from this point. Senna, Awen, prepare the initiates for the Exalted Ceremony of Naming. Fjorta, as our new Sybil you may stay or go with whom you please.”

   

  “I’ll stay here.” Fjorta said immediately and knelt to hold Amari’s hand.

   

  Hamal’s face crinkled up as she smiled, this one would be a strong Sybil. Now about this other girl; where did her soul go and what forced her racial ability to be unleashed?  Most went their whole lives without ever needing their hereditary gifts.

   

   

   

  ***

   

  Rage! Desperation! Survival!

   

  Conscious thought had faded long ago; it was only run, fight, survive for the human-squirrel duo, but now there was nowhere left to run and their every movement was tracked by the surrounding wraiths. High in the mountains of the Reach with the light of Markarth’s towers casting shadows across the barren rock formations, Amari was sure she had met her fate, alone, surrounded by the spirits of the Reach’s tormented deceased; so close yet so far. 

   

  Then she felt something snap deep within her as the wraiths made their final pass. Distantly she felt the blood of her own body boil and roil, then a rush of pure violet flames surged through their link and surrounded Scuttle’s skeleton. The flames hardened into crystal shards and linked into an impenetrable suit or armor.

   

  The spirits descended in a column by the hundreds, releasing howls of unrestrained fervor as the hunt came to its finale. The twisted imaginings of every type man, mer, and beast filled the host’s ranks, and the sky was blotted out by their gaping maws. Amari and Scuttles dug their own claws deep into the stone and met the howls with their own incoherent scream, unleashing all their rage in one final act of defiance.

   

  The host met the crystalized flames and exploded against the scales. Their forms, composed purely from the residue of Aetherius and held together by will alone, broke against the Dragonskin and the frozen flames in turn drank in the spirits’ released essence. The scales burned blindingly bright and expunged an inferno as the spirits continued to descend, unable to turn away, so frenzied they were by the Hunt.

   

  For ages it seemed Amari and Scuttles endured the onslaught. Not once did they let up in their war cry, even as the stone cracked beneath the skeleton and Amari felt as if her very soul was being burned alive by the excessive influx of energy. The hooked spiral rune on the familiar’s skull began to churn and they could feel the bone melt and shift in time to the living rune’s movement. A sickly green light blazed forth and started spreading outward. Reality distorted and frayed wherever it passed, then suddenly nothing. An outside force poured in through the link from her body and washed back the green light. The rune siphoned the power back to whence it came and rested still once more.

   

  They looked around bewildered as the wraiths came to rest at the edge of an aura that now glowed white; their maws silently working as they drifted in a dome around the squirrel. The fire eating at Amari’s soul was soothed as the holy water coursed through her body’s veins and she felt almost detached from events.

   

  A pull tugged her back along the link and she almost followed it. Until her conscious thought slowly returned and she remembered why she was there in the first place.

   

  No! Not yet. She anchored back to the squirrel, which was still in a frenzy, trying to leap after the wraiths even as their aura was pushing them away. She let her calm wash over the creature and led them both towards the city. As they passed, the aura opened a tunnel through the drifting ghosts.

   

  The first blue rays of dawn were scraping the ancient towers of stone and brass by time the skeleton reached the temple. They bore a small hole through the ceiling and silently landed among the top shelf of some pewter vases. The wraiths had followed them into the city, but couldn’t pass the seal around the temple. The spirits’ passing through the city went unnoticed, save for the flicker of a torch or a reflexive prayer as a sentry felt a shiver run down their spine.

   

  Amari looked down on her body through her familiar’s ghostly eyes and saw that her body had been submerged in a pool of white light with two priestesses laying healing hands on her; and Fjorta. The Sybil girl was holding her hand through all of this. Amari would have wept had her familiar had actual eyes.  Although, she didn’t see Trebonde with her; why wasn’t he there!? She frantically looked about until she recognized his aura on the level below near another group of auras.

   

  Probably more priestesses tending to him as well, she thought with relief.

   

  Voices echoed up from below, “She’s close! We almost have her back! Wait… something doesn’t feel right; are you sure this is the right soul?”

   

  “Positive!” the Sybil exclaimed excitedly and looked straight at where the familiar was perched.

   

  Amari and Scuttles both jolted in surprise then jumped into one of the vases. Fjorta giggled and the other priestesses turned to follow her gaze, but shrugged in confusion when they saw nothing.

   

  “One last pull should do it,” the older one continued. Amari quickly set Scuttles to hibernate then felt the final pull throw her back into her body.

   

  Amari gasped to life as all the sensations of the living hit her at once. The sounds were too loud, the lights too bright, smells of flowers and musky incense too strong, a collage of aches too painful, and her mouth tasted of nothing but ash and blood. Slowly the noise against her senses dulled and she began to understand the voices lifting her out of the water again.

   

  Then they threw her out of the pool and she landed hard on the temple tiles. The old one, the ‘mother’ went back to the well and started waving her hands over the holy waters.

   

  “Did she taint it Mother Hamal?” the younger one, a worried Nord asked.

   

  “No,” Hamal sighed in relief. “We got her out in time. Fjorta! Did you know she was a Daedra worshipper?! She has their mark all over her!”

   

  “I’m not a Daedra worshipper!” Amari tried to protest, but her voice only came out as raspy nonsense, which probably didn’t help her case. Hermaeus Mora must be laughing at her in all his tentacle filled glory right now.  

   

  The priestesses from below chose that time to burst through the great doors at the far end of the temple as an angry mob with Trebonde being dragged between them.  He was dressed loosely in only a robe of one of the priestesses carrying a solid gold statue of Dibella in his good hand; wearing an odd sparking, bulbous rod on his stump; and sporting a cheesy grin that split from ear to ear across his face.

   

  “We caught this… man sneaking within our Inner Sanctum! Jolene let him escape!” a Breton priestess proclaimed as she finished tying her robe closed. Amari didn’t know the speaker, but she recognized Jolene. Although she had been wearing clothes, and had not been gagged with a leather strap, or had her hands bound before her.

   

  Jolene angrily strode to Trebonde, not caring to cover her curves, and cuffed him across the head with said bound hands. “He tricked me! I’m taking this back, and this!”

   

  She pulled the rod off Trebonde’s stump and awkwardly took her robes back and draped them over her shoulder. Amari blushed and had to turn away from his now stark form, mostly.    

   

  Hamal looked at them both with the disapproving gaze that only a mother can shame with and then nodded to Senna, the Breton priestess.

   

  Senna ran out the front doors and yelled, “Guards!”

   

  Almost immediately two rushed in and shackled the guests. Amari cast a fretful glance at the urn in which Scuttles slept. Fjorta saw the look and rushed over to Amari and whispered in her ear, “I’ll keep him safe; our little secret.” 

   

  “Get away from her! She’ll sully you!” Hamal shouted at Fjorta.

   

  Fjorta stepped back, but was still smiling at Amari. Amari mouthed a thank you at her. As the guards dragged the naked thief and soaking wet girl from the temple, the Sybil cheerfully called out after them:

   

  “Bye! Come back soon; and thank you!”

   

  Trebonde leaned back against the guard dragging him and sighed blissfully.

   

  “So worth it.”

   

   ***

   

  *Note: I based the Dragonskin mechanics off of the Requiem version, which gives 100% spell absorption for 8 seconds.

   

  

   

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