XV
After having almost tumbled to our respective deaths on the slippery floor, if one could call it a floor, dodging countless malign droplets and puddles and slicing open far too many, fleshy, teeth ridden doors, we had finally reached the deepest part of the crypt.
The past hour, Shthelith, Nephethys and I were occupied with navigating through a maze of soft, wet and meaty tunnels, always accompanied by an unheard of stench.
None of us had expected that the entire lower floor would be a giant victim to Shredmound infestation. As such, we fought many a battle. At times, we found ourselves faced with the digested and smashed back together horrors the alive structure periodically spawned.
Other times we were busy with not getting digested ourselves. If we had inadvertently stayed in the same room overlong, a fluid akin to stomach acid, but much more potent, would slowly flood the place, resulting in all three of us having received some painful burns with patches of partly disintegrated skin in places.
In yet other moments, we were pitted against chaotically flailing, foul protrusions from the walls and ceiling that we had to avoid, lest we got captured and either strangled to death (as was indicated by some carcasses that were hanging about) or dissolved.
The entire time, we could breathe only with considerable trouble for the air was thick with a hundred kinds of liquefied mould.
Through our collective perseverance and accumulative combat prowess and magical acumen, however, we were able to, at length, arrive at what I would describe as the Inner Sanctum.
In opposition to the remainder of the lowest floor, this final, grand space was untouched by the ravaging sickness that spread its talons all over the entombments. As such, all that was required to head inside was to free the corresponding door from the salivating, vein-riddled overgrowth that had made itself comfortable thereon.
We entered quickly and without second thought. To us, it mattered not what kind of place we would barge right into as long as we could get away from that beastly structure.
We shut the door behind us just as quickly as we had opened it and took a deep, long breath of somewhat stale but dry and clean air.
We paused there for a moment of temporary respite in order to consume some provisions. As alien as it may sound to you, I had at that point adopted a certain tolerance to human meat, both physically and mentally.
Nephethys watched me in profound disgust as I nourished my starved body. But she did not glare at me as hatefully as she had an hour prior. Her nerves seemed to be in order again, notwithstanding our past journey through blood and bile.
While we were attending to our sustenance, we used the blissful peace, rare in these parts, to scrutinize our new safe haven.
We were situated in a large, circular room, about thirty meters in diameter, composed of the same, afore seen masonry. The walls were quite curiously decorated with tall, stained glass windows depicting geometrical shapes. All this in spite of the presence of a wall directly behind each of them. Gazing up above, I could see that the ceiling was rather high up. From it, a radiant, slim cone of light shone brightly, enabling us to see without the aid of Shthelith's magic, prompting him to dispel his guiding fire.
In the middle of our present location stood a cube of rock, approximately one meter in width, height and depth. On it rested a glass pyramid of slightly smaller outline.
After our, admittedly ghastly, meal, we approached the intriguing apparatus.
I fastidiously inspected it, touching the contraption carefully. Or should I rather say, I tried? For you see, when my fingers did connect, I suddenly formed a precise conjecture in respect of the true extent of the discrepancy in resonance betwixt my blood and the magical oscillations this world seemed to be attuned to.
My hands were involuntarily shaking with rigorous vigor. My entire body quaked, begging to be released from this curse Shthelith denoted as the 'magical frequency'. It was not painful, yet irredeemably unpleasant and highly impractical, to say the least.
Amidst the heat of battle and flight from the indigenous monstrosities, I did not notice how great that dissonance really was.
As I strained my hands, in vain, to remain calm, the uncontrollable trembling aided me not. I tried my utmost to handle the pyramid with care, sensing its impossibly smooth surface, before my shaking fingertips gave one of the outer corners a nudge.
It was with great enough force to reveal that the vitreous construct could be rotated.
I moved it further until it snapped in place with a click after turning it forty-five degrees, causing the crystal tips to hang over the cube's edges.
As a result, the heretofore conical beam of light focused and infused the statue with luminescence. In its current angle, a few lustrous rays highlighted six of the twenty-nine colorful images that were mounted on the walls.
The now very gaily colored room was beautiful to behold indeed.
Shortly after, I turned the statue again and saw that now, thirteen windows were targeted by the awesome beams, as the incandescent rays grew more numerous. I realized, after turning it a third time and the number of highlighted spots changed again, that this machine appeared to be a puzzle - a key to a lock of very singular craft.
I fumbled around with the instrument for a few minutes, continuously altering the room's lighting and color palette, until, at length, I made it turn in such a way as to set agleam all of the wall-mounted, glass vistas. This provoked a kaleidoscopic display of great splendor impossible to describe properly. It was as if by this process, entirely new and hitherto unknown colors had been created. A marvellous pulchritude of an otherworldly quality. A sight to behold, majestic and foreign as it was.
A corroborating thunk let the prismatic form snap into place one last time, immovable.
Ad hoc, an up to that moment hidden compartment inside the stone cube was unlocked and slid towards me in a gentle pace, like one would pull out a drawer from within a cupboard.
In said compartment sat a scroll, rolled together, emitting an aura of antediluvian antiquity. It was held together with an unbreakable, golden seal. I reached out and grabbed the ancient scripture to find that a message had been etched into the inner stone plating of the cube. It read:
"The Golden Seal shall breaketh by Thee,
If Thou hast the Seals of Three,
By Blood, Flesh and the Bone,
Thy new path is thusly shewn,
Tread the ancient roads of old,
And the Key Thou shalt behold."
From the inscriptions on the gates to Bendicia, I instinctively knew what this message sought to tell me in this enigmatic manner.
However, my mind was soon thrown into unrest as the drawer abruptly slammed shut and the pyramid spun maniacally with mad speed, causing the surrounding lights to delve into luminous insanity.
Versicolor wisps materialized in front of the panes and gathered around the central pillar of light, swirling, rotating, dancing a beauteous dance before traveling up, out of our sight and into the forebodingly dark heights of the ceiling.
We were baffled, really. Nonetheless, we resolved to make our way back onto the surface. It was time we went to acquire the seals.
XVI
Our trip back into the chapel proper was minorly less cumbersome, forwhy we knew the way back and subsequently, did not get caught up in dead ends in the maze of death and decay underneath the church. While we traversed the afflicted bowels of the religious building, it was no easy feat to accomplish due to the perpetual peril that lurked down there in the form of untold menace. In spite of this, we only required half the time it took us to discover that sealed scroll.
With newly established courage in our minds and a heightened morale in response to finally have made some progress at all, we at last crawled out of the tightly carved out quarry beneath the altar, resurfacing in the hall of Sárka, whose carcass already began to wither contemptibly.
Just as we turned around to face the exit doors, we noticed the twenty-nine, colorful wisps from earlier in the dankest depths of the sepulchre, melodically hovering in place before the gate. As if they would guard it to prevent egress.
Alas, my suspicions were confirmed for we were not allowed to tread within five meters of that gate. We attempted, but were stopped by the wisps that launched a volley of glittering projectiles at us. We were trapped, it appeared.
"Queer", Shthelith mumbled to himself as he observed the floating orbs sway up and down repeatedly.
He scratched the back of his head and already inhaled to voice a self-addressed question when those wisps began to levitate towards us. At least, we thought that they did.
The three of us already assumed defensive stances, weapons drawn in anticipation for combat, but the guarding sentries flew by, ignoring our presences, to head straight for the rose window that gave me the chills a few hours earlier. The one that unnerved me so as to prompt me to stay as far away from it as was feasible.
The lights positioned themselves in a circular pattern before it and hovered in mid-air. A few seconds later, all of them vanished into the rose window, out of sight. What happened next still bends my mind to this very day.
The window, in its entirety, first began to sport cracks in the glass hither and thither. Then, the glass shattered violently, sending a thousand shards our way. They got deflected just in time by Shthelith who constituted a warding spell at the last possible moment. How he could have known that these projectiles were of magical, and not of physical, nature was beyond me at the time.
But I had no time to contemplate that coincidence. There were far more troubling things to be concerned about.
After the panes had exploded, we all stared into a seething, bubbling, pitch black void that seemingly took a hold on present reality by sending tendrils of solid, animate shadow creeping over the outer edges of the freshly brought about hole in the wall of the tower. Its mere like caused a sense of unrelenting terror in each and every one of us. None could withstand the maddening implications of a pocket of outer space being this easily accessible.
Shortly thereafter, there rose up a thing from the beyond. A crystalline dæmon surfaced from that gaping maw of emptiness and tore asunder the remainder of that window to clumsily climb on all fours inside the great hall.
As debris fell and rubble conglomerated beneath its crushingly heavy, spiked feet, it started to stand upright and we saw that this thing was as tall as the high ceiling itself.
I recognized it.
To my horror, this appeared to be the very thing I always fancied seeing whenever I passed by that eerie window that was now a gateway to recesses of outer spheres I would rather not explore.
That winged devil was composed completely of triangular stained glass panes, held together by what I assumed to be magical forces. Each of the panes was of a different shade than the one directly next to it. Its general, geometrical form was utterly startling and defied all I had known of beast physiology.
The head possessed two horns and a long snout, above it hints of eye sockets. Its arms had hands with very much sharp looking talons, its legs outfitted with clawed feet. All this got accentuated by a surprisingly movable tail protruding from its behind.
Moreover, the wings were pointy and jagged as well. Everything made of colorful glass.
As æsthetically pleasing as this Stained Glass Dæmon looked, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was also the guardian assigned to protect the ancient word. Furthermore, the fact that I was able to gaze right through it made me tragically underestimate our adversary.
Before we even had the chance to react with a first strike, the vitreous beast hurled forth a volley of shards in our general direction. We collectively jumped and rolled out of harm's way but got nigh overwhelmed when walls of glass suddenly appeared before us to halt our movement.
For lack of a better option, we charged right at it, weapons drawn. Behind us, the glass walls exploded with great strength as we struck our enemy with everything we had. But curiously, it appeared to be unfazed by our assault. With its ginormous talons, it swept us away to the side to let us crash into the nearest wall, inflicting several cuts on all the exposed skin that was not covered in armor.
Then, its right arm disassembled in a flurry of shards to reassemble into a giant lance under the deafening noise of chafed glass. It came down swiftly and rammed into the quaking ground. While it fortunately failed to impale us, the shockwave sent us flying yet another time.
It retracted its crystal limb whereupon it reverted back into its original form.
We made every effort not to lie on the floor for too long and soon, attempted another attack. Our armaments would only ricochet off its solid corpus as we did. It did not take kindly to our actions and responded by beating its wings to fly into the air, grinding at the ceiling with its nigh indestructible head.
From there, it shoved its arms forward, a wave of jagged spikes following its motion. It hit our group and the attack penetrated our armor. As the three of us were thrown back, we began to bleed profusely. Adding to our misery was the fact that this thing appeared to be invulnerable, impenetrable.
That was until I noticed a glimmer of light in the shape of a trapezohedron rotating in its see through chest.
Immediately, I drew conclusions and looked over to the altar to find the gem we had inserted into it to be fully ablaze with a fire of life it had not shewn earlier.
I tried to stand up but was brought to my knees for a second as the monster landed, provoking the earth to tremble under its weight. I turned my head to gaze behind me. I found my two friends feverishly battling the creature as it morphed both its arms into huge blades to try and cut them in half. My companions narrowly averted their doom in a display of impressive agility which gave me more time to focus my attention on the gem.
I approached it and, with my sword, struck the very small jewel with all my strength.
Impetuously, an ear-shattering scream could be heard, a screech so loud, I had to cover my ears to prevent them from bursting.
I had finally hurt the dæmon.
Triumph was short-lived, however, as I witnessed in breathtaking awe how it ripped off one of its wings and reshaped it into a gigantic javelin to cast upon me. Or, rather, upon the altar. In my attempt to get away from the ginormous projectile, I tripped and fell into the quarry that led to the crypt, only at the last moment did I get a hold of the iron rungs to forestall me from falling to my horrible and untimely death. As a result, it missed me only just, but the shrine got thoroughly obliterated.
When I climbed up again to regain my foothold against this adversity, I observed innumerable shards and bits of debris being flung through the air - along with the gem, the dæmon's weakness. And that I now knew displeased it immeasurably.
Another shrill screech followed, shattering a few of the tall windows, their pieces aimed right at us. Nephethys slyly danced around and betwixt them while I could get behind Shthelith's ward in time as to not get perforated.
I called out to my friends, then.
"The gem! The trapezohedron that opened the crypt! Destroy it!", I yelled.
As I finished my exclamation and earned an acquiescing "Understood!" from each of them, the glassen menace lashed out at me and the Blood Elf with its massive hand.
We rolled off to the side in different directions. From my new point of view, I could see the twinkling gem as it lay near the doors.
I feverishly ran towards it and my compatriots understood what I was intent on doing. They did their utmost to arrest the attention of the horror while I slid on my own blood - and the blood of others - across the floor to get to the glowing stone. Finally in reach, I furiously swung my Gladius at it, missed a few times due to its tiny size, but eventually my weapon connected and provoked more sorry noises from our enemy.
I heard a concerned "Watch out!" from somewhere behind me. Nephethys tried to warn me as I witnessed in profound worry how the thing ripped off another of its wings. But I was reassured, because I saw cracks forming on its body.
The dæmoniac spawn of empty voids bothered itself not with realigning the wing's pieces and tossed it right away, covering a large area in pain and suffering. Upon impact, the gem flew elsewhere and so did I. I crashed into one of the buttresses and lost a few things on my way there. My Cloudbreaker fell out of my coat as I landed while the pouch I kept the alchemical mixture in, the compound to ignite the fire to propel forth a projectile, I lost somewhere amidst the broken church benches.
I caught myself thinking:
'If I just had another iron ball for the leftover powder'. If I had been able to shoot the gem with that weapon, it would surely be destroyed, spelling immediate doom for the glass dæmon. Well, if I could at all hit it, for it was roughly the same size as the ammunition I used.
And then, I had an idea.
I hastily picked up my Cloudbreaker and crawled over to the benches to look for the bag of leftover powder. I had no idea if it was enough, but I deemed it worth a try.
In the meantime, I avoided getting ripped to a shred by thousands of fast flying shards the creature had in its rage evoked. My two friends were busy ducking under and jumping over the beast's ravaging tail as it swung wildly back and forth. Little did it know that Nephethys and Shthelith only acted as decoys for me to bring my recently constituted plan to fruition.
I finally reached the bag and stashed both it and the weapon away in my worn out coat.
I carefully stood up and lifted my head in search of the gem. After a while I espied it lying on the opposite side of the hall near one of the still intact windows.
Up to that point I was severely injured, coated in cuts, stabs, bruises and I am sure that one or two bones had been broken somewhere along the way. My fatigue beckoned me to stop, my ice cold sweat foretold my imminent demise. And yet, I found the strength necessary to press on. Even the faintest glimmer of hope in destroying that ghastly guardian was enough to provide an abatement that let me carry myself along my chosen path.
I stumbled across the open space and, out of the corner of my eye, noticed the creature swaying its large talons upwards whereunto I got nearly excoriated by a crystal spike that, among many more, suddenly rose up from the ground. At last, however, I came into possession of that bauble, clutching it tightly in betwixt my fingers, bent on never releasing it ever again.
Meanwhile, my friends were about to collapse from dodging and avoiding the terrible assault that was perpetuated by that iridescent defiance of all that was natural. But I had a plan in mind.
I took the Cloudbreaker into my hands as I watched several more windows shatter with unbelievable might, sending another volley of glistening death over to us like a tempest of knives.
I reloaded the chamber with the leftover, volatile, alchemical powder, unsure if it would even suffice as I observed both of the thing's arms transmogrify into perilous tornadoes, ready to erase all life it touched from existence.
I loaded the barrel with the gem as ammunition when the unstoppable whirlwinds laid waste to the surrounding architecture, causing my companions to run away affrighted.
I aimed at the being's chest as my heart begged for it to be released from the fear and latent death, hammering unrelentingly against my bones, threatening to break free.
I pulled the trigger.
Impetuously, time stopped for a moment at the click of the small piston.
The now armless dæmon stood at the end of the hall and prepared itself to hurl forth more arrows of crystal. At the same time, the two glass storms raged interminably, devouring everything around them while Shthelith and Nephethys ran for their lives, bleeding from every orifice and uncountable wounds.
In the midst of this chaos stood I, stalwart with the rest of my courage, intent on stopping all of that entropy.
As the raucous noise of my Cloudbreaker came, I was deaf. Only the intense ringing in my ears to accompany me in soundless solitude. The already faintly brittle monster to turned its head the noise's source. And then, the shot connected.
For a few seconds, the room was set ablaze in a festival of gay beams of magical energy and a million tiny crystals, gems and baubles that were hurled into the empty space that lay waiting in hunger beyond the broken rose window. The walls adjacent to it were shimmering with refractive splinters, a cataract of pure glimmer streaming down, flooding the floor with waves of twinkling particles.
The statue-like monster collapsed in on itself, like a sand castle being dissolved by heavy rain or the rising flood. A loud trickle announced its death as the tornadoes died down and the remains of them shrapnelled about rather violently in every direction to ricochet off the walls, buttresses and pillars.
In the aftermath, I saw that the carcasses of Sárka, Thladth and the Guardian had been completely disintegrated throughout the battle, only shreds of ground flesh telling of their once rotten presence that coated the besmeared flooring.
Nephethys, Shthelith and I looked at each other, shaking our heads.
"What by Oblivion…", I said, taken aback by everything that had just happened. I looked down at myself in this moment of solace and noticed countless, weeping wounds and a largely perforated coat. The growing weakness of body let me lose my grip on the Cloudbreaker whereunto it fell to the glistening ground.
My two companions looked no better than I, but made efforts to mend the numerous injuries.
We gathered in a circle and by the strong bond of blood magic, all cuts closed swiftly. The pain and exhaustion persevered, however. But at least none of us would be subject to expiry by blood loss.
Shthelith's and Nephethys' magicka reserves were spent and all of us needed time for rejuvenation.
"I should have known that the word was guarded", Shthelith remarked under heavy breathing, "However, I did not expect such a thing emergeth in response to our intrusion and theft. Much less wherever that emptiness leadeth to", he then finalized his speech, pointing at the rough, jetty black circle that dæmon had emerged from.
Indeed, being in the presence of this incomprehensible void frightened me, but I was too broken to gather the strength to get away from it.
"I wonder if more such things can be found here", Nephethys whispered, "or what would happen if we were to climb through it".
I did not dare contemplate more profoundly the nature of that window to empty nothingness in fear of losing my already fractured mind.
Our group rested for an elongated time period, for the feats we had hitherto overcome were much more than we had bargained for. On the other hand, I felt a deep sensation of pride encroaching within me, as I knew that most Nirn dwellers never could do all the things we had done.
As utterly terrified as I was, at the very precipice of mental destruction at times, I was, for the first time, strangely satisfied with myself. Only then did I understand just what order of magnitude the tasks assumed in this world, and how I had heretofore managed to not only survive, but fight my way through all that hideousness.
But not only I, we all got stronger along the way.
After we had sufficiently rested to consume the last of our provisions down to their respective detriments and my two friends had minorly replenished their magicka reserves, we discussed on where to go next and what to do from there.
We had finally acquired the ancient word. Now, we needed to go forth and bring together the three seals of Bone, Flesh and Blood.
"I shall aid and accompany ye further", Shthelith proposed, "Good me hath nowhere to go. I betray'd my race. Ye art my kin now. Aside from that, I do believe I will be of invaluable help to you. I know how to navigate these lands. And I can teach ye a few tricks, yes yes! Prithee, take me along!", he exclaimed and pleaded.
Without a second thought, Nephethys and I condescended in unison, permitting Shthelith a continued, permanent stay within our ranks.
Albeit I did not have a firm grasp concerning his motives, I understood that he was, in fact, the best support we could get out there. He thanked us most graciously, bowing, voicing a promise of shewing us the intricacies of blood magic and the inner workings of this realm.
Then, Nephethys began to tear up without warning.
"I'm sorry, Thorus", she muttered. "Sorry for attacking you down in the crypt. I… I felt as if I was not in control of myself".
I appeased her with a gentle embrace and a smile. "I know", I said.
I wiped her tears away from under her eyes and gave her a kiss on the forehead before pressing their face against my chest. A kiss of reunion after our argument. A consolation in the growing darkness that threatened to swallow us whole if we let our minds slip and led astray one too many times.
"I know", I whispered then, one last time before letting go.
"I apologize to you too, Shthelith", she then enunciated, looking over to him.
"'tis fine!", he proclaimed in his quirky manner, "Thou needst not worry. Shthelith understandeth that madness creepeth into one's mind when faced with such things and perpetual torment".
He laughed a hearty and forgiving laugh, making Nephethys snicker in response.
Thusly, our conflict had been resolved and we felt ready to conquer the last stretch of the journey.
And so, we wandered to the chapel's gate and swung open the heavy doors to claim egress.
We stepped out into the hamlet of the Aímamer, several pairs of prying eyes, too scared to engage in direct confrontation, watching our every step.
Little did I know that all horrors we had hitherto faced paled in comparison to all that should thenceforth transpire.
But to that, I was yet oblivious, only determination and fierce resolve ruling my mind.
We knew what we had to do. And like that, we made our way to procure the Three Seals of the Apocalypse.
Replies