XXIX
After the world stopped spinning, the sky dissolved into nothing, the light leaked out of tiny, but ever growing, cracks within reality itself until it collapsed entirely. Like an old, run-down house it crumbled around me. Every fibre of what I thought I knew rearranged into something else, the mountain was ground to dust in seconds, the two figures fell apart, the dæmon melted away. A giant whirlpool of lightless things devoid of colour swallowed me whole and dragged me down to an even deeper abyss hidden inside the painting. A place not easily accessed by traditional means of travel. But my untimely demise caused the vortex to devour my physical and metaphysical self. When the absolute darkness began to lift its veil I was permitted a glimpse into a world that was strange, frightening and at the same time painfully familiar. It was immediately clear to me where the dead of the Painted World were sent - and whence the most grievous of horrors emerged from. It was not my first encounter with this plane of existence either - the broken rose window in the chapel of Sárka. The great bridge leading up to the castle of the Undead King. The throne room. They were gateways into a realm otherwise only ever traversed by the dead. Or what creatures the mangled souls would eventually become.
There was a black wind of coal-like debris that clouded my view. A pitch black dust storm that made me cover my eyes. I appeared to have died and yet, my body as I knew it persisted - or a perfect copy thereof reserved for the spirit realm. If one can call it such. And through this ethereal surrogate pulsed all the pain of prior and present experiences all the same. Death itself was not the harshest punishment. The raging storm gradually calmed itself after having me wrapped in black dust and stones. I was still skinless, too. The particles stuck to my exposed flesh until a malleable dust layer laid itself on top of my aching body. I can barely remember the extent of this agony but after some time of cowering on the ground the pain gradually subsided to a point at which it was almost manageable. So I got up and as I did, the storm ceased and I was shown what world I had been thrown into.
On the horizon towered a tornado of unfathomable diameter and height, a white vortex in its centre that would occasionally emit gleaming pulses of an energy I did not understand. In front of it, however, was something else. Something I would never have anticipated to find in this realm of void and terrors. A great city. Several monumentally tall basalt spires pierced the obsidian sky. Great towers and large houses were in between and filled the space on the horizon in front of the storm. A single road led to and from it. I deducted that it must be the heart piece of whatever actually managed to live in the emptiness that was this dimension. I turned around to see if I could catch a few glimpses of any ruinous structures or other towns along the road. I found a few free standing walls further back and strange cracks in the ground from where a black mist streamed continuously. The next, big landmark was another tall monolith that rose high up into the sky far off the single road. However, I was keenly aware that this dimension harboured yet more places - I just didn't know where they were.
I turned my attention again to the city and the storm and resolved to travel to it. My legs moved only slowly and stiffly and the black dust and debris cracked as I came forward, showering the richly covered ground in fine sand and what I assumed to be ash. Moving was agonising at first but the longer I walked the more numb my body became. But the numbness of my exposed flesh and muscles was woefully incomplete. I wasn't permitted to die altogether there. My body, a spiritual surrogate made flesh, was indestructible - designed for maximum torment in the face of a world that was, by all accounts, even less forgiving than the blood soaked painting I had left behind. My greatest concern was whether or not I was doomed to wander the black void and its sable city forever until I became a nameless terror akin to what things had always lurked just out of view whenever we had the misfortune of finding ourselves within this void's ethereal grasp. As I pondered I began to wonder how long it would take me to transform and how painful the overall process was. What it entailed and if I would gradually dismorph into some creature or if it was abrupt and sudden. How much I would remember of my old self, if anything?
Who would I be without my memories? On the way to the city I had some time to think about this question. I previously realised how integrated a certain darkness was inside my being. And as the epiphany struck, so did a good number of inner dæmons disappear. There was, of course, still a great dissonance between my conscious mind and will to accept my very own, personal truth and the real consequences of said truth and how it related to my struggles. My emotional infighting aside, I concluded that all the things that were a part of me would be lost in time, for better or for worse. And with it all resemblance to me as a person who lived. At least, that's what I believed at the time. Perhaps because the thought of having to endure an existence as a hideous monster with my conscious mind intact was more terrifying than otherwise.
The city was not far when these thoughts raced by and vanished. The walls and gate were much taller than I first thought. And the entirety of the architecture beyond them, even larger. I was dwarfed by its sheer size and in a way, it was genuinely frightening to have buildings of any kind that loomed this large everywhere I looked. So imposing was the experience that, for a moment, I had forgotten about the perpetual torment of my worldly senses in this otherworldly unspace. The gate, not less towering than the rest of the massive brick wall, stood wide open. A welcoming gesture for all the lost souls that might find themselves there. I stepped through, full of anticipation.
As the impossibly large, mostly cylindrical but sometimes conical or cubical, buildings took up my field of view I made the curious observation that, in spite of their enormous size, door- and window frames (for most of the simpler buildings had no actual doors or windows in any meaningful way) were about as big as one would expect them to be for a regular house. This resulted in freakish looking facades of one large, black slate being perforated with an abundance of holes. Sometimes bent in the case of most towers and spires. Most striking of all, however, was the utter featurelessness of the city. Every house appeared to have been chiselled out of one, great block of obsidian or basalt. The surfaces were as seamless as they were smooth with no clearly discernible connection points betwixt walls or ceilings. As if cast from a single mold, the great structures dominated not only the landscape but also my mind. The total lack of embellishments was surprisingly irritating to think about. The longer I looked at the city the more I got the impression that it was less of a place to live and settle down. It was more akin to a prison with subpar living conditions, built by someone who doesn't really understand how humanoid races construct their dwellings. The barebones nature of the architectural feats suggested that someone tried to emulate a real city and failed in subtle but simultaneously appallingly obvious ways.
With nothing better to do I decided to brace the unknown and enter one of the cubical looking buildings rather close to the entrance of the city. As I stepped inside I was made acutely aware of the reason for the building's dimensions. I found myself within a darkly lit series of corridors that were arranged in what I assumed had to be a maze like pattern. I got lost quite frequently and because of the blandness of the interior I soon could not tell where I was anymore. There were countless doors embedded into the walls I dared not enter for fear of what I might find. Meanwhile, the pain slowed me down to a crawl. I didn't want to move but what else was there to keep me occupied and my mind focused? I feared that I might lose my wits entirely should I give in and succumb to the pain. It beckoned me to fall to my knees notwithstanding my iron resolve. All the more fear had I as I finally pushed open one of the doors to a different room. I was defenseless and slow and if anything was there that might be posing any threat at all I… I'm honest, I don't know what would have become of me.
My fears were swept away by the swathes of humanoid figures in the room. It was quite spacious but that was barely noticeable by all the dead that populated it. They looked at me, a hundred pairs of eyes following my crooked gait. Some covered their mouths at my frightful appearance. Others looked inquisitive. And it dawned on me that there must be a reason as to why all these people stayed inside rather than wandering about outside, trying to make the place a home perhaps. At first I inferred that it had something to do with how the interior corridors were arranged and assumed that many had just given up as they always got lost when trying to escape. But the figures began whispering and started to back away in horror. And then I understood. A rumbling sound came closer. Something must have been following my tracks inside. This was why nobody walked outside. Nervously I backed away from the door but it was already too late. All I saw was a black, formless something that burst through the door and wall. It opened its huge maw and swallowed me in a single bite.
XXX
Had everything played out the way it was intended I might have been sucked into a pitch black belly of some unidentifiable thing to for all eternity be showered in poison and washed with acid. But someone, somewhere else, had some other plans. As the aggressive liquids ran their torturous course to inflict burning pain upon my body, I saw again cracks of light form within the creature's insides. The light shewed the sorry amount of those who have been already swallowed drowning in their voiceless agony but even they dissolved into light until at the end of one of the cracks, two familiar faces were visible.
"Shthelith, quick! He's waking up!", I heard Nephethys' voice yell.
"Told thee, Shthelith hath a few tricks up his sleeve! Now, Thorus, tell: What dost thou remember?"
The voices were the best thing I had heard in a very long time. It didn't take too long before the scene took up my entire field of view and the dark abyss of the shadow's belly faded. The painful sensations subsided and I fell fast asleep after having breached dimensions twice in a short time span.
After I woke up again, my two companions sat already beside me and did their best to restore my body. Moving my limbs was still far from easy but it was doable. Looking at my arms I saw an incomplete skin wrapped around it. Here and there some bits of flesh were visible but most of it was intact once more. A reflex prompted me to feel for my throat. To my surprise I found that there was no scar tissue, no cut, no open wound. It had been perfectly mended and reconstructed.
"We even went through the trouble to retrieve your belongings after the battle" Nephethys said with a soft smile as she gently caressed my cheek. I looked to the side and on a small boulder there lay a roughly stitched together coat and some tunic and trousers as well as my sword.
I looked at my left hand and found that it was still fragmented as it was before but hemerite was no part of the equation anymore.
"I remov'd the crimson rock from thy hand as it sap'd thy life force. It appear'd thy powers are still intact, however. Thy flesh adapted to the conditions of this world and, like it or not, thou'rt a blood mage now."
"With the added advantage of having a shape-shifting hand that you can do pretty much anything with.", Nephethys interjected. My hand looked very strange indeed. The flesh had been broken up into many pieces and they floated together in a rough formation that imitated my hand's original shape. I concentrated on it and watched the flesh pieces snap tight together to form a normal hand once more.
"That was easy", I half-consciously stated. I had just willed something to happen - and it happened.
Shthelith was delighted at the sight. "Very good, Thorus!" he complimented me. "I didn't expect thee to learn so quickly after having been dead for half a day".
"Yeah, about that…"
In as much truthfulness as I could muster I told them everything I had experienced. From the moment of our separation up until I was killed and emerged within the dark place.
"Althin'sa Taïl" Shthelith pondered. "It is my people's name for the dimension thous't entered. I never thought it was bleeding into this world but from what ye and I saw it maketh a lot of sense".
We discussed the idea that tears in interdimensional space as a result of something that was yet unknown were responsible for the anomalies we've hitherto encountered. Someone or something must have been meddling with magic in quite the profound way if that was the case. However, in the case of the rose window in the chapel I believed it was a gateway created on purpose. If that was true it meant that whoever was in charge of keeping the seals locked also had sufficient capabilities to open a portal to the realm of the dead. The implications were less than ideal and bade ill for the remainder of our journey.
"However," Nephethys inhaled excitedly, "I was able to salvage the seals of bone and flesh from the site of your… um, you-know-what. Since you were an immediate emergency I didn't check the peak for the last seal but it has to be up there still".
This was genuinely great news. If the seals had been lost as a result of my death I would have probably fallen to despair. Living in the Painting was bad enough but dying in it was even worse.
"Thank you for retrieving the seal from the cove. You really risked your life there only to die anyway a few days later". Nephethys chuckled but her quivering voice told of sadness instead of cheer.
"I am sorry, Nephethys", I said.
"Sorry for what?"
"Sorry for coming this close to killing you. Sorry for almost strangling you to death. Sorry for hurting you. I didn't mean to, I just… lost control. My armour. The hemerite. It beckoned me to…"
"I know. Had I known that was you I…"
We were both at a loss for the proper words to convey our complicated emotions. And we were both very, very close to one another. And if Shthelith had not been there, we might have exchanged more than a few longing breaths. But the elf was quick to remind us of our task at hand as he waved awkwardly in the background.
"We are close to the conclusion of our adventure!", he proclaimed as he waved the seals about. "And after we set foot in the city I shall guide ye to the portal to get ye homeward."
He was very excited about our apparent closeness to this ordeal's conclusion. When he put it like that I began to feel hope, too. A feeling I had lost long ago. Nephethys only looked at me, partly with delight as I was sure she already envisioned how we might live together once we get back. But there was also worry in her eyes. Something didn't feel right for her but I refrained from prying as to not inconvenience her in front of Shthelith who was, when it came to our relationship, a third party.
I, too, had my fair share of confused feelings. It was the fact that we've endured so much trauma and, in my case, even death, that I wasn't sure how I would go on with my life once this was all over. How was I supposed to ever feel normal again? And I suspected Nephethys to feel much the same way.
"You're right", I groaned as I was still recovering from my death experience. "Let me just, uh, get my things". I pushed what feeble blanket had been covering my body away and slowly sat at the bed's edge. Nephethys' eyes inadvertently rested upon me as I stood up. She blushed a bit behind her ashen skin when she herself discovered her open mouth as she stared. I didn't make the impression but I saw the look on her face out of the corner of my eye. I walked over the stone stool thing and retrieved my garb and coat. Nephethys made efforts to look away as I got dressed.
I appreciated the effort the two had made to stitch my torn garments back together and for a moment, I felt like my old self again. Cloth trousers and chest piece underneath a leather coat, complemented by steel studded boots. My Gladius, the heart piece of my equipment, thankfully made it through thus far and felt good dangling from my hip. I missed the Cloudbreaker, but I had to make do without it. In its stead, my left hand made quite the addition to my arsenal. Shthelith proclaimed to be very eager to further my insight into my new powers as soon as we got the time.
My legs were still a little weak and the skin wasn't quite regrown to the full extent.
"'Twill take some time still in order for thy skin to rebuild itself entirely", Shthelith said. "I took care to rebuild thy most crucial spots first, however".
I nodded with thanks. "I'll do my best to get used to it".
"Alright", I exhaled. "I think we should trek up the mountain once more and look for the last seal. The ancient word opens the gates to Bendicia, yes? I don't know what will await us once we're inside but maybe it is going to be slightly easier for once. Shthelith, you said that the city should be, in theory, practically empty, right?"
"Verily. It should be."
"Very well. Then the last, big hurdle is going to be the plains in the west as we'll have to circle around since the cove collapsed. Now that we're so close, I believe that we can actually make it through. And hey, I only died once so far."
I did jest in that moment. I believe there simply was no other way to cope with the indescribable feeling of losing your life. Nephethys and Shthelith chuckled at my remark and the tension around the small, enclosed space we were in loosened a little. We knew what we had to do. Being together again, the three of us who had held fast thus far, it was a good feeling. I knew that I had companions at my side that I could depend on if the worst came to pass. And since the worst already did come to pass I firmly believed that, together, we could do anything.
XXXI
Morale was as high as the general circumstances would permit. Our outlook was less bleak than before because we could, in our minds at least, see the end of this long wayfare into the crimson stained recesses of what looked like mere paint on the outside. I had already long forgotten what the actual painting even looked like back in Cyrodiil. I had even forgotten what twisted case even brought me into that situation in the first place by that point. Writing down my experiences in what I had previously intended to be a letter of resignment brought all the memories back to light. And I'm remembering so many more things I cannot bring myself to mention, even now. This has also long surpassed any traditionally accepted length for a letter so I've taken to file all the pages away in order to deliver them in crates as soon as I'm finished.
What I meant to say, however, was how much of an impact my experiences have had so that I had forgotten so many things along the way. I couldn't tell how many days or weeks had passed since we entered the painting. The fact that the sun never set didn't help. And I still don't know by what mystical methodologies Shthelith was able to tell the time of day and how many days pass at any given time. Maybe he lied to us about that all the time and only pretended to know. We couldn't really tell the difference but it didn't matter. His knowledge, if truly it was such, was an anchor for us when we were close to losing our hope. We always had the impression that this indigenous elf could help us, no matter how dire our fate. To me, he always appeared to know just what to do. And in this case, it was retrieving the last missing seal. The key to our freedom.
I was ready for what lay ahead. The ever caring Nephethys voiced a few concerns in regards to that notwithstanding.
"Are you sure you're feeling up for this? I suppose we could rest a day or two longer. Shthelith will help us keep track of the time."
"It doesn't get much better than this" I confidently replied as I pointed to the few remaining portions of exposed flesh left. "I don't want to delay us any further. Besides, has there ever been a situation we could not get out of? By the Divines, we cheated death itself. I believe there's nothing we can't work out. Not anymore."
I didn't fully intend for it to happen but my speech inspired Nephethys to a degree and she nodded with a stern look on her face.
"Okay. Then we must go." She looked at Shthelith.
"Let us make haste, then", he replied, "we shan't lose any more precious time. Let us find that seal."
He approached the rock wall nearby and gesticulated in front of it until some reddish light appeared. A rumbling announced movement of stone and the wall opened up to shew us the unrelenting light. The light only I seemed to know as the face of the Goddess. I briefly wondered if the unconsecrated prayer book was still on its lectern so that we might learn more about what dwelt above. Reluctantly I limped forward into the cold rays of light and the hot air.
As we made off, I wondered where Shthelith had been the entire time and whether or not Nephethys and Shthelith had been together since we lost each other in the cove. I unceremoniously asked Shthelith just where he had been and how he had survived thus far.
"Well, after the tunnels fill'd with water and we saw thee get swept away by the waves I was quick to build an air barrier around Nephethys and me both. It work'd until we got separated. I believe thous't been hit by a branch or root or rock outcropping, hast thou not, Nephethys?"
"Yea, I think so. It's kind of difficult to remember though". She scratched her head in thought.
"Thereafter I floated alone in liquid darkness. I had trouble to avoid a similar fate as Nephethys. The air sphere did not deflect physical objects. After a while I got ejected out of the tunnel and into a cave while narrowly avoiding death. The tunnel disembogued into a waterfall and the cave floor was a little less than a person's length from the mouth of the tunnel. So, I flew o'er a pit and landed in a dry cave."
"Aforemention'd cave, it hath reveal'd itself, was infested with wet, snake-like beasts the size of regular upper extremities. I fell into a nest of them and kill'd most of the creatures before I could proceed any further. A few moments later and I was requir'd to lay down and crawl thru the narrow tunnels of this unknown part of the subterranean tunnel network. It was dank, damp and filthy and smell'd even more rotted than the remainder of the cove I travers'd thus far. Soon, however, I stumbled upon the source of the foul odour."
"An oblong, ulcerated and altogether oozing mass of flesh crawl'd thru the filth and the mud. 'Twas thick and bursting pustules on its body steam'd with rancid mist. A great, hastate maw was on its blind head - if indeed it could be call'd a head for it blended seamlessly with the remainder of its bubbling body. A thin layer of something oily covered it in its entirety which, I believe, aided in its locomotion. 'Twas quite sizable indeed. The tunnel it bor'd with its maw was big enough for me to stand upright. But this sorry creature had some trickeries up its imaginary sleeves."
"It block'd the way and without confrontation there was no getting past it. In blissful ignorance I conjur'd a few needles in hopes of piercing its skin from behind. I was surprised to find that its answer to my attack was to let its head emerge from its back side - at which point it opted to come at me directly. My blood magick was deflected by its moist skin. No matter what I flung at it, nothing could pierce it even slightly. Worse, its body fill'd the tunnel from top to bottom. I could not circle around it nor could I run anywhere. For behind me lay a dead end. So I saw only unhinged jaws with foul teeth eager to crush me in betwixt. But therein lay my strategy for defeating it."
"As ye noticed, the creature's skin could be penetrated not by my traditional means of combat. However, its vulnerable insides could. It would take a few bites in my general direction that I could avoid. I only waited for a big bite that I was sure it would try doing at some point - possibly in hopes of swallowing me whole. Shthelith probably doesn't need to tell ye he was right. As it did what I had anticipated, I sent a great lance thru its body. And then another, and another. I wasted no time in trying to destroy its outermost layer of protective fluid. I pierced its organs with a few wild guesses until it stopp'd moving. Only then came the least enjoyable part."
Nephethys and I raised a few eyebrows but for some reason, she seemed to know what Shthelith was going to say. Even stranger, she seemed to know how it felt as well.
"I cut thru its body 'till I came out the other side. It may have look'd soft on the outside but my nascent blades had some trouble cutting it all. When the deed was done I emerged once more in the tunnel but wherever the waves had taken me must have been considerably far away. For I saw a way up. Stairs, to be precise. And these stairs led to a subterranean part of a city that doth not exist any longer."
"I follow'd the stairs up. There were many, many stairs to climb in a continuous incline. The tunnel appear'd to have been carv'd for the sole purpose of reaching the underground cave network. Perhaps 'twas intended for burial rites that never saw their advent. Or even a surreptitious passage to move unseen from place to place. With the way the merfolk had transform'd everything it was difficult to tell. As my legs began to give in I finally reach'd the top of the stairs that had me emerge in a small chamber just below the surface. I did know not where I was but I saw another set of stairs lead further up, out of the empty, ruinous chamber. To the surface, where only a few loosely placed stones indicated that a building once stood at its place. And not too far off was the mountain. Turning around, I saw that I was close to the sea and the shore and I wonder'd whence ye might've gone. I saw the sea and knew ye were right beneath it, struggling to survive."
"I could not go back so I did the only thing I could and moved forward. I figured that if I could get up the mountain at least partly I might be able to look for signs of life from ye. Or, at the very least, confirm your deaths. Even if that thought was quite grim. I climb'd the mountain and went past the curious tents we now know were inhabited by feral folk. I reach'd a good vantage point and could overlook the entire stretch of sea that ran from the recently reawaken'd woods to the mountain. Shortly after, the earth began to rumble and shake. Violently enough, dare I say, that I nigh fell to my doom as I lost my footing for a moment. I survived, only to bear witness to the sea as rocks collapsed in on themselves beneath the water's surface. 'Twas an impressive sight to behold."
"After the rumbling ended I saw two figures as they came up from beneath the sea. One was a scarlet dæmon that just made it to the shore. The other dæmon was clad in black and walked over the water to a different part of the shore. If ye did not already guess, the first was thee, Thorus. And the second was thee, Nephethys. Although I did not know it at the time. I had other worries. The scarlet dæmon I could leave well alone to fend for itself. But the one clad in black was a greater concern. Its garb signified it to be of the race of the cave-dwelling harvesters who made it their habit to kill and enslave everything in their path to the best of their ability. And to see one above ground was an immediate threat I was not willing to ignore. So I instead concentrated on that one and let the crimson one go."
"I realised soon, however, that within that thick, black robe was Nephethys. Her… legs gave her away as they cut thru the heavy, coarse fabric of the Harvester robes. This is when I met her. And after our disagreement on past matters, we join'd forces and ascended the mountain. We came at just the right moment, it seemeth. To witness thy scalping and decapitation. I made utmost efforts to preserve what remain'd of thy body. Meanwhile, Nephethys was furious and attacked the thing responsible for thy premature death in a frenzy. Thou'rt very lucky indeed, to have so dedicated a friend. Mine mending, too, is a fortunate coincidence as well. We need thee, Thorus, and I am very gladsome to have brought thee back from the fringe."
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