The argonian and the khajiit descended the spiral staircase. While they went deeper into the earth, Inigo shivered as the
temperature dropped drastically, like an ivisible forces blowing out five hundred warmth-giving candles at once. Inigo and Hasir felt
like they got dunked into a neverending bucket of ice as they emerged into a large stone room.
Inigo looked at Hasir and then back at the stone opening they had just come through.
"We must be deeper than many of the dwemer dug their ruins. Do you have a spare pickaxe handy? I want to see if my theory is
correct; either that or I will severely miscalculate how the weight dirt and stone holding this structure up and we will be crushed as I
inadvertantly cause our deaths."
Hasir faceplamed and shook his head; not wanting to believe how stupid his feline friend actually was.
"Inigo, No I don't have a pickaxe and why would you want to dig if you know there are several tons of rock bearing down on the
chamber? You make no sense sometimes."
The khajiit glared at his friend out of the corner of his eye. He didn't appreciate having his intelligence called into quite, well that and
his logicals 'flaws'. Hasir opened his mouth to berate the khajiit more for his stupid idea but immediately shut it when he caught the
whiff of wet fur.
Hasir looked at Inigo, his eyes wide with concern and pinched his snout in disgust.
"Inigo, Hircine's claws. Have you ever heard of a bath? You need one."
Inigo glared at the Argonian. He resented being falsely accused of 'needing' a bath when he always cleaned his fur daily; not to
mention inadvertantly drowning his fleas in the process.
"My friend, that is not me. It seems like we have an uninvited guest here with us.
Hasir screwed his face up in confusion. Inigo and Hasir stood in awkward silence for a while. The silence was finally cut like a knife
when a voice drifted out of the silence like a ghost.
"Very astute observation, kitty cat. Someone owes you a nice big bag of skooma for your awareness."
Hasir lit up his candlelight spell. White light fell upon the walls on the chamber. He snarled as he saw a black khajiit with red eyes
sitting on one of the stone steps opposite them. He eyed they like a cat preparring to pounce on a skeever; tail flicking maliciously
behind him.
"Hasir, Inigo, long time no see." Hasir growled at the doomstrider. Inigo's fur stood on end. The Doomstrider strode closer to them,
laughing, "You expected to find the An-Xileel here, am I correct?" Both Hasir and Inigo nodded. The black khajiit grinned maliciously,
"Well, sorry to burst your furball but they are not. The An-Xileel may be a bunch of rotten lizards but they are innocent in this. Your
true target is Haj-Ta. He has been a thorn in my tail for far too long."
The argonian furrowed his spikey brow; uncertain to the Doomstrider's meaning.
"Haj-Ta? He is an argonian. Our race has spikes not thorns."
The khajiit elbowed the Argonian hard in the stomach. Hasir felt like a sail that had it's wind sucked out of it. He dropped to the floor
like a cinder block. Inigo ran to him and glared angrily at the Doomstrider who just laughed.
"You poor niave Argonian." He said, shaking his head, "You have much to learn. You think that Haj-Ta sent you to stop me? Ha! Time
to turn the coin on its head, methaporrically speaking. Molag Bal told me that Haj-Ta is a sleeper agent; waiting for the sleeping
serpent to fall of the rock so that the crocodile can eat it whole."
Inigo's eyes bore into the Doomstrider's Oblivion-like ones.
"Is that your way of saying that you think Haj-Ta is a spy?" He said, confused
The black khajiit laughed maliciously; the chamber reverberated with it like light bouncing inside a vaccuum.
"You're as deluded as that stupid Argonian." He stopped and thought for a bit. "Oh wait, I WAS you, at least for a bit. Your brain is as
empty as an old house riddled with cobwebs."
The doomstrider walked towards Hasir while plucking something black with long pincers out of his fur. Inigo narrowed his eyes as he
scrutinized the tiny black spec. His eyes went wide as he lunged for the Argonian. Hasir saw this and shrugged off the blue khajiit.
"Hey, Inigo, get off. I said off, you crazy khajiit. "What are you on about?" Inigo looked like he was about to set fire to his oceanic
eyes. "Inigo, enough!" He snarled, "Why are you so adamant to protect me from... what it is?"
The khajiit told him that the Doomstrider was about to put something on him. Hasir stared, frustrated at him and pushed him into
the wall opposite him. The khajiit collided with the stone like a ten ton sledgehammer. Inigo looked frustratedly at the Argonian at
had to fight off the thought of strangling him to death.
Inigo groaned as he saw the Doomstrider move behind the Argonian. Inigo flung himself toward the black khajiit and attempted to
swat the annoying bug out of the khajjit's obsidian hand. The doomstride sensed this, planted the flea and delivered a backwards
roundhouse kick to Inigo's stomach. The blue khajiit fell to the stone floor like a pile of poorly laid bricks.
The black khajiit punched Inigo hard in the face as he struggled to get to his feet.
"Don't even try. You've already lost." He said, smirking. "Thed deed is done."
Inigo got up, panting and rubbed his sore cheek.
"What deed? What have you done?"
The doomstrider walked around Hasir who was on his hands and knees; eyes popping and writhing in pain like a decapitated snake.
"Me? I didn't do anything." said the Doomstride smugly, "Molag Bal gave me the fleas. They are his own design. They are supposed
to be saved for the great war against the vampire and Hircine's 'children' but I decided to take matters into my own claws and open
the can of worms early." He gestured to the Argonian, gasping and spluttered on the ground. "The vampiric fleas primary function is
to wipe out Hircine's mutts by injecting them with a compound that is similar in makeup to silver wolfsbane." Inigo gulped, he knew
that that was not cured easily. The dommstrider laughed. "Yes, once the flea bites a hound of Hircine, he will start convulsing - much
like poor Hasir here - and with permanent transform into their werewolf form.
Inigo looked at the black khajiit as if he was joking. The doomstrider's serious expression said it all.
"I assure you, I am not joking. Not only will they gain permanency of their wolf form, they will also be filled with an insatiable
bloodlust. Much like the flea feasts on their blood. They too with seek the blood of anyone - be they friend or foe, man, woman or
child. Race matters not to the flea. Once a being is tasted by the flea, that pitiful creature will forsake all connections and serve a
new master." He laughed. "You fools have been playing chess with the wrong daedric prince and he will have checkmate before long,
count on it."
Inigo nervously looked from his friend who had fallen into unconsciousness and giggled uncertainly at the Doomstrider. He walked
over and sat on a stone bench.
"Er, yeah..." He said, scratching his neck sheepishly. "Where did you get this flea... and what exactly did you fill it with? Silver
nitrate?"
The doomstrider strode over to the bench and sat down on it, looking at the pyramid-like stone ceiling of the stone structure.
"A long time ago, a sect of Molag Bal's children, specifically the Quarra, invaded the island of Vvardenfell, found a silt strider nest
near the Redoran village of Ald-ruhn and robbed it of their scuttling bounties. They were brought before Bal. He infused the newly
hatched flealings with his blood. He also gave them the ability to inject a mix of silver and wolfsbane and... something more sinister,
a kind of mind control of sorts into their new bodies - no longer earth brown but blue a grey like the sky and ground of where they
were reborn.".
Inigo looked at the black khajiit's smug expression, gulped loudly, and asked what the 'secret ingredient' was in this creature
cocktail.
"This 'something else' you mentioned? What exactly is it?"
The Doomstrider strode over to the unconsciouss Argonian, conjured a vial seemingly out of thin air, lifted one of the flea's pinchers
off of its scaly 'dinner' and extracted a liquid the color of a violet rose under a silver moon into the long oblong container. Inigo's eyes
went wide as he watched the strange event unfold.
Inigo watched the black khajiit stride over to him. Inigo glanced from the vial to the Oblivion-like eyes.
"What? Are you just going to leave my friend lying there?" He asked outraged. He turned toward the Doomstrider and unlatched the
small vial from his belt, looking at it wonderingly. "Hmmm... is this the mixture you extracted from the flea?" The black khajiit
nodded and plucked a tannish interlayed with a bundle of tiny honeycomb configurations from the vial.
Inigo gestured to the tiny piece of leathery substance.
"Is...is that the...? How did you...? So that flea is a mixture of silver, wolfsbane and..." He thought for a while, casting his mind back
to a time he was on Red Mountain with his parents. He saw an image of a small, leathery, honeycombed substance, quite like the one
the Doomstrider held. "are those corprus weepings?" He asked, eyes wide with terror.
The black khajiit nodded and replaced it back into the mixture.
"Yes, it is. My lord deduced, with my help of course, that the mixture of silver and wolfsbane with create an allergic reaction so
powerful that it will subdue and lycanthrope's consciousness once it comes into contact with the bloodstream. The corprus weepings,"
He said, yawning as if bored with the conversation, "are used to gain control over the creature."
The doomstrider grabbed the blue khajiit, turned him and pointed to his friend, no longer fighting for his life, but already undergoing
the transformation. Inigo thought his friend would regain his normal wolf form. Instead of his black and white ringed fur, black fur
tinged midnight blue at the tipps of his follicles.
The blue khajiit sat as he tried to connect the dots with his shriveled raisin of a mind and, somewhere in the cobwebs of supressed
neurons, a light bulb went off. He ran for the door and shoved as hard as he could but the stone door did not budge. He could feel
the wall colliding in on him. He stared in horror at the creature mere feet from him and screamed bloody murder as, instead of his
usual blue eyes, he found Hasir now had midnight blue eyes mixed with flexs of magenta.
The doomstrider directed the possessed wolf to attack as if Inigo was a giant tree trunk waiting to be uprooted. The wolf snarled and
advanced on the khajiit.
The blue khajiit cowered in the corner of the Xanmeer near the door, half praying to the gods, half hoping Hasir was still in there.
"Hasir... my friend... it's me Inigo... oh gods why won't he recognize me?"
The doomstrider laughed as the wolf opened his maw, wet saliva dripping from rows of pointy teeth.
"I'm sorry, your 'friend' as you call him, is under my control now." He said, leering at Inigo, "He will only listen to me. His brain, at
least the thinking part of it, is permanently switched off by the little beauty I placed on his back."
Inigo glanced at the doomstrider blankly while the shriveled raisin tried desperately to soak up the mountain of information that the
black khajiit was bombarding him with.
"Don't you mean 'in his fur'?" The doomstrider stared at him stupidly and waved this irrelavent thought away. Inigo smiled as he
dove deep into an ocean of knowledge that was quite disparate from his shriveled brain, "Technically, the flea is in his fur. Fleas, just
like all blood-sucking fiends prefer a moist, dry place to hide while they chow down on their dinner. Another way of putting it is that if
you place the blood-suck fiend - say, for instance, a vampire - in a brightly lit room or even outside. Odds are pretty good that the
vampire will shrivel up like a hist tree being denied fresh Argonian hatchlings to look after."
The doomstrider gestured from the werewolf to the isolent khajiit.
"I've no time for you ridiculously convoluted reasoning. Do me a favor and finish him off!" He said laughing as he evaporated into
black mist and disappeared through the cieling.
Inigo could feel the werewolf's hot breath upon his face as the lumbering beast loomed ever closer. The khajiit's eyes darting wildly
around to try and find a rock or another equally hard object to knock the beast unconscious with. He knew the window for action was
rapidly closing so, as the beast's gigantic claw came toward the khajiit, he quickly lunged to the side, gripped his friend's bluish-grey
fur and hoisted himself on Hasir's furry back. The werewolf howled in rage and, turned to see the blue khajiit digging through the
beast's fur as though he were looking for a needle in a haystack, which was, more or less, the case.
He extracted the tiny bug from the werewolf flesh and squshed it like a tomato is his hand. Inigo slid dismounted, somewhat
unsteadily, and prayed for that to break whatever hold the Doomstrider had had on him. To his disappoint, it didn't. His face fell and
walked over to Hasir's bag, laying in the middle of the stone floor and fished within it for a certain green stone that he thought might
work. He walked back to face the werewolf and held the stone in front of his face. The wolf tried to bat it out of the khajiit's claw but
something stopped him.
The stone began to break apart and cascade bright fingers of light across the stone architecture of the Xanmeer's interior. Inigo
shielded his eyes just a bright red and orange dragon uncoiled before the werewolf.
Inigo strained his ears as he heard the dragon speaking, not to the rampaging werewolf, but to Hasir himself.
"Hasir, this is not you. You are not a mindless killing machine. Your sanguine river has been poisoned by a foriegn entity. Regain
control and expel whatever has poisoned you from the lizard you know that you are."
The wolf snarled in anger and attempted to bite the fiery serpent. Tosh Raka evaded the creature with unmatched siftness. He
brought his clawed hands about his moustached head. The wolf took his murderous eyes off his 'meal' and fixed them open the
sphere.
Inigo looked from the bluish-grey werewolf to the orangish-red sphere of light held aloft in the dragon's claw and heard the Akaviri
dragon say something in a strange language he didn't recognise. Inigo shielded his eyes as light blossomed forth from the sphere
and expanded until it engulfed the werewolf.
Inigo saw the light encase the werewolf as if it was a caoon set for a humongous caterpillar and heard the wolf's high-pitched howled
as he clawed visciously at the supposedly impenetrable sphere of light. Inigo screamed as, much like a glass sustaining pressure,
tiny cracks began to form on the sphere's surface.
The dragon exploded as the werewolf lurched forward, tearing him apart like a leatherworker shearing leather and cast the bloody
halves against the walls of the Pyramid. Inigo ran to Tosh Raka, trying to save him from the inevitable darkness that would soon
envelope him, but to no avail.
The khajiit laid the dragon's head on the stone floor, closed Tosh's eyes, prayed for a swift journey to the endless gray - or wherever
dragons went upon their demise - and stared fiercely at the bluish-grey werewolf. He knew he would have to fight this brute sooner
or later, so he unsheathed his ebony sword, uttered a quick prayer to the mother cat and ran at the werewolf, who like him, had his
claws outstretched like many ebony daggers and vaulted towards the khajiit.
Sparks flew as claws and sword clashed. The werewolf and the khajiit locked eyes like a pumpkin staring into the soultrapping void.
The wolf batted against Inigo's sword until it shattered like a glass pane bisected by a sharp rock. Inigo was thrown against the stone
wall and slumped to the floor. The wolf howled out, thinking he had emerged victorious. This was not to be as the khajiit unsheathed
his ebony bow, nocked and arrow, aimed at the wolf's heart and fired.
The werewolf staggered and fell inches from the blue khajiit. Inigo walked over; tail tucked between his legs, extracted the arrow
and cleaned it with a cloth he removed from his bag. Inigo glanced from the arrow to the felled wolf wondering if he'd made the right
decision or not.
The otherworldly fur receded into green scales and Inigo feared the worst, especially when his scaly friend did not stir from his
death-like slomber. After an hour of anxious waiting, Inigo heard the Argonian stir.
Inigo ran over to Hasir, cradled the argonian's head in his lap and told him to conserve his energy. The argonian glanced up at him
and smiled wanly.
"Inigo... I apologize for trying to eat you, but... it wasn't my fault," He said as he slowly got to his feet, "The doomstrider... He put
some kind of curse on me."
Inigo smiled as he placed his hand on Hasir's healing wound as the Argonian smiled at him
"We don't have to worry about that now." He said gazing into Hasir's tear-streaked eyes. "After all, I broke the spell."
The argonian glanced at the khajiit, feeling at bit taken aback.
"Yeah... you shot me. What in Hircine's name possessed you to do a thing like that?"
Inigo beckoned strode over to the stone bench sitting in one corner of the Xanmeer. The Argonian strode over and sat besides the
khajiit. The Argonian listened as Inigo told him about how the Doomstrider placed a vampiric flea on his scales. He also told Inigo
about how the Doomstrider told him about the 'secret ingredient' that he added seemingly surrupticiously to the mixture to posioned
Hasir's blood.
Undulations dotted the landscape of the Blackmarsh resident's face.
"What wasss thisss 'sssecret ingredient?' He asked nervously
Inigo gulped; looking at the stone floor in the fear that Hasir will overwhelm him with a wave of questions. He sighed, glanced up
and told Hasir what he wanted to know.
"The secret ingredient is named corprus weepings. Have you heard about it, my friend?" He asked
The Argonian started to shake his head but nodded instead as an inkling of knowing wormed its way into his empty swamp of a
mind.
"Y-yes..." Hasir said uncertainly, "I heard of it when my aunt Drujeeta told me how she was infected with lycanthropy, brought to
Urshilaku camp and was given corprus weepings by the healrs." He paused and thought on this some more, "Does that mean that
corprus weepings have another purpose as well? Do that mean that the corprus weepings also serve as a mind control agent of some
kind?"
Inigo nodded and explained how the corprus weepings make zombies of whomever they infect. He also told Hasir of how, when he
went to Morrowind, he saw many 'walkers' as the infected were called; walkers with slim bodies and walkers with one mammothine
legs, arm and a deformed face. Inigo told the Argonian that his fur turned white when he saw what anteceded the corprus walkers.
He told them he saw the residents of the sixth house, house dagoth, scattered about the mountain like dwemer automatons
patrolling a dwemer ruin.
Hasir held up a hand to silence the khajiit as he began to explain further.
"The corprus weepings are a mind control device that originated as part of Dagoth Ur's Bbight storm? Is Molag Bal somehow related
to the corprus walkers and the Dagoths?" He asked bewildered.
Inigo shrugged; saying anything was possible. The khajiit wore an expression of deep concern on his face.
"My friend, why did you assume that Molag Bal, the corprus and the Dagoths were connected?" He asked as he gave Hasir a playful
jab in the shoulder. "Can you see into the future?"
Hasir snapped at Inigo for setting a fire to his arm.
"Xuth, Inigo, I am no psychic, but I can only glean what could be, not what will be."
Inigo nodded and turned to Hasir, smiling,
"I know, my friend, I know." He said. "We've got to get back to the outlaws refuge to tell Haj-ta that the An-xileel are not the
enemies we once thought." His face suddenly fell. "I fear the world will soon band together to face a singular threat which is Molag
Bal."
Hasir nodded. He and Inigo left the Xanmeer and headed for Lilmoth.
When Hasir and Inigo arrived outside of the gates of the village, they saw Veexith and Haj-Ta waited for them. The Argonian and the
khajiit looked at each other, confused. They asked why they were out here.
"we have dark tidings my friend, the shadows of darkest darkness." Haj-Ta said solemnly. "the Lilmoth Outlaws refuge is permanently
disbanded." Hasir gasped and began asking about the sanctuary. Haj-ta held up a hand, "Yes, everyone is fine. We went into hiding
the moment we sensed the Doomstrider's presence."
Hasir gaped at him. Had he been sent into a trap to deter him from knowing the black khajiit's true plans? Haj-Ta caught wind of his
trepidation and sadly nodded.
"Yes. The snake in the grass so to speak laid a trap of poisonous intent. A bluish black storm wrecked the refuge and left it as
desolate as the soul cairn."
Hasir and Inigo gaped at the Argonian.
"That bluish-black storm." He said, his face contorting into a mask of fear, "The way you described it is almsot exactly the same as
the 'storm' that rocked my hometown of Stormhold." Hasir paused and thought a bit. "That storm ins't a storm. I think it is the
atmosphere of the Coldharbor that Molag Bal entrusted the Doomstrider with when he was made a commander in his army."
Hasir paused when he saw the confused looks that Haj-Ta and Veexith gave. "Don't worry." Hasir said, shaking his head, "I'll not go
chasing after shadows that may or may not've seen the light of day. I feel an invisble bit of leather strip pulling me in the direction of
Stormhold. I think I have to go there and investigate before I continue my journey. I have a sneaking suspicion the bluish-black
storm damaged home holds a clue as to how Molag Bal is using the Doomstrider and to what ends?"
Hasir went to exit the city but was stopped as Veexith flung out an arm.
"Hold your horses there Argonian. Blackmarsh can be savage to one as unpreared as you. Let me at least get you a proper set of
armor, a sword and a horse.
Hasir told Inigo that he wouldn't be long and followed Veexith to an open air market with various stalls: Armorer, Clothier, Alchemist,
Stablemaster and Enchanter. They walked towards the stablemaster's stall. Hasir's mouth fell as he saw three reptilian mounts
grazing in a small wooden pen. He heard Veexith conversing with the stablemaster, a red Argonian with flaming hair. He thought with
a pang of Tosh Raka and sideswiped this saddening thought with intense scrutinization of the three reptilian mounts.
He looked over to see Veexith gesture toward him and asked about the available mounts. The stablemaster told him that he currently
had one for sale. Veexith smiled as he was led to the pen. The Argonian gestured toward a horse enveloped by reddish-gold scales
and eyes the color of the realm of Oblivion and hoisted Hasir up on it
Hasir looked down at the horse and hissed in disappointment. Both Veexith and the stablemaster looked at him with concern.
"What's wrong, don't you like the horse?"
He nodded with more confident than he felt.
"I do. It's just... I thought it was going to be a dragon, not a horse. Di I tell you about how I became a dragonknight. I thought that I
would get a mount befitting my powerful position."
The stablemaster and Veexith stared openmouthed at Hasir; their minds two rivers threatening to flood their banks of information
when Hasir clutched his head is pain and fell onto the ground and cried out in pain. Rishaud and Vexxith looked perplexedly at the
pain Argonian with anguished expressions.
Hasir did not hear the cries of anguish as a train of images raced along the tracks in his mind. He saw as he did before: a spider-like
tree along with the stag aspect of Hircine. The pain in Hasir's head abated. The Argonian got up and thought he saw the aspect of
Hircine through the trees a bit to the north of the market.
The Argonian strode over to the treeline and saw the ghostly cyan stag that he thought was part of his vision. The stag cantered over
to Hasir. He absentmindedly ran a hand through its translucent fur. The stag's eyes went wide with fright and backed up and hear the
creaking of the tree bark.
"My hound, do that again and you'll taste the hunter's spear." The stag said, expelling air expediently from his nostrils.
Hasir lead against the nearest tree and shook his head, not believing Hircine's reluctance. Hircine's hardside softened and he
cantered up to the Argonian.
"My hound, I request your assistance in the Hunting Grounds. The mounted draugr have mobilized agin. I have a... suprise for you,
one that might help banish the shadows."
He drummed the forest floor so much force that it sent an electric shockwave that rocked the forest floor. A portal of stone as grey as
a shellbug and a gateway the color of brightest cyan erupted from the earth as if vaulted upwards by a sleeping giant. Hasir loooked
at Hircine and gestured to the portal.
"Where does this portal lead?" He said, eyes narrowed. "I don't want to end up in the furthest reaches of Oblivion... or worse, in
Molag Bal's castle." He said uncertainly, "Wherever in Oblivion that is." He muttered.
The stag looked, shocked, at the Argonian's inquisitive face and pawed the ground knowingly.
"You don't need to worry, my hound. This portal leads directly to my realm of Oblivion."
Hasir nodded and strided forth, intrepidly, into the portal, into the shimmering image of a deep forest surrounded by upthrusts of
earth that might've once been giants. The Argonian dived into the shimmering portal; breaking the surface like a slaughterfish.
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