Hasir, Nanaki, Inigo and Sereyne found themselves in a land connected to the Summersetset Isles yet somehow... different. The land had an aire of magical surrounding it as well as having an enormous tower at the center with a sign denoting it as the center of Thalmor goings on with a detailing itinerary or floors and what is to be found on each one.
Hasir stared at the tower; transfixed as if in a deep trance.
"Guys, I'm not sure about this." He said, tail between his legs. "A place like this is bound to be heavily guarded."
Inigo looked over his shoulder at the aprehensive Argonian.
"Come on, where is your sense of adventure? If you wanted to chicken, or in your case, lizard out, you should've stayed at home, suckling histsap from the hist tree's tits. Now, put on your big boy tail and help us scout this out, for howling out loud."
Hasir gulped hard and surmized the indigo khajiit was right. He gathered up his courage... what little there seemed, and slowly approached the adamantine structure. He scanned the board listing the floors and decided to check out the cave beneath the structure.
As he started to descend, Inigo and Nanaki turned to him and asked if he was sure and were worried this might be a trap. Deciding they were right, that it would be foolhardy to rush in, turned to Sereyne, who cast a spell that revealed nine lifesigns in the cave; eight patrolling and one immobile yellow aura. Hasir thanked sereyne as they and the two khajiit entered the cavern.
Once their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they were bedazzled at the beauty of the cavern, with immaculate stactites and stalagmites. There footsteps echoed in time with the melodious splashing as the water connected with the mirror-like floor of the cavern. They had to slither like snakes between rocks because of the persistent guard presence.
Nanaki, growing weary of this stealthy approach, leapt out and press his sword against one of the guards necks. Hasir saw this and looked taken aback.
"Nanaki. What on Nirn are you doing? You are going to blow our cover." Nanaki ignored this and dragged his sword across the doomed guard's thought like a seared swordfish across a hot grill. The long, drawn-out scream of the guard attracted the attenion of the other guards. Hasir eyed the foolish khajiit and groaned, "Now you've done it, dumbasss. We'll be gutted like three stuck fleshflies for sure, hsss!"
Hasir spotted three gaurds relatively close to his position, unsheathed his waraxes and flung them as hard as he could. The blade penetrated the two guards' sternums and a quick arrow took care of the third. Hasir looked left and right and saw lightnning boltts and fireballs be flung for the magical afiq and the air thick with ebony arrows as they stuck the guards like stuck pigs. In the confusion, Hasir used his aura whisper shout to locate the prisoner. Once located, he snuck over to the cavern's far wall and undid the bounds binding him to the chair.
The golden-skinned male looked his Argonian savior in the eyes and thanked him.
"Thanks friend. I don't know how long I was held captive down here. Time seems to slow down to a trickle here but praise Akatosh you arrived. Before you ask, no, I am not in league with those puffed up narcissists."
Hasir screwed his face up as he tried to remember the once proud Altmer now clothed in the dirty linens.
"Excuse me sir but have we met?" He asked honestly
The Altmer sighed and tried to shake his head in disbelief but, ultimately, it came down to him looking like a fish flopping devoid of oxygen-rich water.
"I believe we have." Hasir waded through the swamp of his mind until he found solace on the island of clarity. "Yes, I knew we'd get there in the end. It's been a while, hasn't it?" He said smiling at the Argonian.
Hasir snaked around the chair to inspect the Almter's bindings.
"Faelion? By the gods... How did this happen? If you're here then where's Ceralyne?"
Faelion hung his head in shame; perhaps because the iron snakes were draining him of life.
"I heard the guards talking before you got here. They've handed here over to Stonefire personally. I do believe he's planning to turn her into one of his 'creatures of the bloody night' the same as her brother Adrian before here. May he rot in Oblivion." He said as he spat on the ground. "He is not only getting revenge for that, but I expect he is also doing the same because of the 'unholy union.' I also overheard him and the guards talking about him 'losing his shadow.'
The Argonian's eyes filled with liquid fire that threatened to overtake the peaceful skies.
"Duskfang is still alive!?" He asked, shocked. "I thought I killed him in the halls of torment. How in Hircine's name is he still alive? How can that which has been cast into permanent shadow once again taste sunlight?"
Faelion thanked the Argonian as he rubbing his bruised neck and wrists where the chains had cut into them.
"If you killed him, I do not know. I don't even know who he is but he is of whom I do not speak. The one I speak of is one they call the Doomstrider." This puzzled Hasir as he thought the black khajiit was part of the quad of fate, the spider killer. The one who unravels the fabric fated to die. "No, Y..., er,you may be right, I don't know but millenia ago before Nirn was but a twinkle in Lorkhan's eye, he willed the aedra and the daedra into being. He also created a being called 'the shadow of Molag Bal.' It was his job to follow Stonefire and burn down any straw huts the daedric prince had missed."
Hasir burst out laughing. He didn't know if the high elf was truly telling the truth or was more deluded he'd been on their initial meeting.
"Faelion, did the guard choke you alittle too hard with the iron cobras? They must've done because that story is full of snake oil. the Doomstrider is a Harbinger of Fate not a 'shadow of Stonefire.' I think your egg spent too much time in the shade. The doomstrider... kill people after Molag Bal? His shadow? I'll believe it when I see it!" He said wiping away a tear.
Faelion got up from his chair and conjured a blue and black portal showing an image of an age long past.
"Now's your chance." He said, nodding to the portal. "Don't believe me? Look inside. See for yourself."
Hasir stepped forward and what he saw horrified him. A small village from which flame a smoke erupted. Among them walked a demon, presumably Molag Bal, and behind flowed a mass of impenetrable darkness, flowing over the houses like waves crashing on a beach. Hasir screamed as the shadow reduced the houses and those within them to dust. Hasir watched, horrified and the same fire spread and engulfed one village after another."
Hasir turned to Faelion as the portal became naught but a spec in the crystalline night sky.
"I'm sorry I doubted you." He said, head bowed. "The doomstrider? Molag Bal's shadow? Makes sense. Why wouldn't he want to seek to steer the fate of all, his included, away from this. Is there anyway to summon the quad of fate? I have to know how to put an end to this nightmare, once and for all." He deliberated over this for a bit, "I mean I do know the 'gather all tribes' thing but one thing puzzles me still; is the Doomstrider truly free of that life? How do I get in and save Ceralyne before he turns her into just another blood sucking soul shriven?"
Faelion's face contorted as if he consumed a spicy bit of shellfish.
"The shadow has a name!? I had no idea. That... doesn't matter, anyway how do you know about soul shriven? From my understanding they are mortal ripped from Nirn and, at the very moment of their deaths, planted in the soil of Coldharbor as if they're a seed ripped away from their home soil far too soon. They are borne from the chaotic creatia, giveen an ill-fitting body and life an eternity of wretchedness under Molag Bal's malodious appendage.
Hasir found a rock, discarded from the crystalline wall and sat upon it, his tail dangling over it as if it were loose hanging moss overtaking a tree.
"Interesting, I never thought about soul shriven like that. I've only heard of them through the many books I've read about Molag Bal. Now, chaotic creatia, I've not heard of that. Mind enlightening me?" He said, hopefully.
The altmer male scratched his head; confused about the previous implications that the niave Argonian had about supposedly 'knowing' about the soul shriven yeet he never heard of the substancee that bores them and other daedra.
"By the gods!" He said, gobsmacked. "You've not only lied about the soul shriven but also don't know about chaotic creatia. For shame, Hasir. What a muddled hollow you must live in. I-oh, very well. Chaotic creatic is the amorphic substance found in many Oblivion Planes. They are... the lifeblood of the realms, if you will. Not only that, but many daedra are reborn form that should their bodies wither. Not only is it useful to retract their bodies from the waters of Oblivion, but, the substance can act as the machine from whence the oil is birthed."
Hasir nodded his head while his tail trashed about restlessly.
"I see. So the soul shriven are born from said substance devoid of a soul yet alive somehow. Are the daedric princes subject to this logic as well?"
Faelion thought on this, finally shaking his head as if he were a dog shaking off a troublesome flea.
"No... yes, well kind of. You see, my understanding, limited as mortal perception may be, is that the universe was rife with nothingness, chaos everywhere and, out of the chaos was born two gods. Those gods were part of the aedric pantheon, Padomae and Ayr. The universe spread from their mind like a thought from a cloud. That is where Nirn and oblivion, two sides of the same coin, a yinyang, so to speak, came from. Padomae created the essence of Nirn, the barren land, the seas, grasses and sky and Ayr assisted her by populating the barrn surface with creatures both great and small. Padomae then created the first being, which she called a Nirnite from the bones of Nirn herself and soon, she gave root to a new plant know as Tamriel and from the first Nirnite's corpse grew the many Tamriel races as we know them today."
Hasir stared at her like she had ten heads. He hadn't fathomed how anyone could explain the process of how something is created but not the method.
"That's all well and good but where did the chaotic creatia comes from? Did it just drip off of the prince's created bodies like hist sap?"
Faelion smiled knowingly at the niave Argonian's lack of supposed awareness of otherworldly matters.
"Sort of." He rasied his hand and a holographic image of Nirn formed inches above his raised fingertips. "Chaotic Creatia or to put in more susinctly, "Something out of nothing' which it roughly translates to, is kind of like the hardened crust that makes up the outer shell of Nirn. It is formed when Oblivion, which lies outside the sphere of this world save for a small part of it that is perceptible to us, the 'crust' smashes repeatedly against the perceptible surface of the world, thus making bits of the crust fall into parts of Oblivion-the, eer, imperceptible world. Those fallen bits that land outside the spherre of influence are call Chaotic creatia - that which makes up the waters of Oblivion and, in many ways Oblivion itself and the beings that reside over said realms."
Hasir screwed his face up in confusion. The altmer, it seemed, was skating around the pond intead of diving in.
"That explains a lot. All but the soul shriven. I know that they're soul that fell into Oblivion upon demise of their mortal bodies but, what I don't understand is, did the crust fall into the waters of Oblivion to create these soulless beings given soul-like imitations, or...?"
Faeelion scoffed at the impertenent questions that the Argonian put to him.
"You ask too many questions, you know that? Why don't you shut up and listen for a change." He snapped.
Hasir, struck dumb by the insolence of the Altmer, fell silent as the void and sat like a child being reprimanded for bad manners.
"Good." Faelion said, sighing. "Yes, the bits of hardened creatia left over from the formation of Nirn and the heavens above 'flipped' into Oblivion falling like meteors to form the 'waters of Oblivion' and those split off, like tributaries, to form each realm of Oblivion as well as the servants and creatures that would inhabit the realms; this includes the soul shriven."
Hasir thanked him, stood up, rejoined Sereyne and Nanaki and made his way to the cavern entrance. Outraged, Faelion called after him.
"You m,ud for brains! Don't leave me here. I expect another Thalmor patrol will be by here any minute and what will they think when they see the previous battalion of guards murdered and their prisoner gone off with, pardon the rudeness, 'riffraff' such as yourselves? How do you think that would look?"
Hasir thought a bit and shrugged.
"You worked for them, saw the light and turned tail. The way I see it, you've no dog in this fight so why worry?"
Faelion was about to respond but thought better of it and followed the odd group out of the cavern and through another portal Nanaki conjured; this one to Urshilaku camp.
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