IV

 

"By Sithis!". This was all Nephethys had to say when the two of us stared into the faceless visage. However, the skin appeared to be queerly rippled. Just as if small patches had been artificially put together to form a coherent layer. 

I reached out to touch the featureless being to discover that, to our horror, I was correct. When my fingertips brushed coarsely over the dry and almost leathery rough surface, big flakes of skin came off, revealing the man's actual likeness.

Completely discombobulated I couldn't contain a whispered "What?!".

Meanwhile, Nephethys' expression froze. With what emotion I was unable to tell, though speechless she was like a Night Mother without Listener.

 

Even more grueling, beneath that false dermal layer was a mutilated face, nightmare made material. His eyelids and lips were absent resulting in a terrifying grimace, a rictus of beastly proportions. His ears had been cut off as well and his head lacked any kind of hair.

I exhaled to brace myself before I ripped open the crimson robe to reveal the deceased's entire body. I covered my mouth as I beheld his chest, legs and abdomen being covered in torn pieces of skin foreign to his own. Here and there the tan was a tad off, some of the flakes were already dried and crumbled on touch.

Beneath this gruesome and insanely sickening coating lay a thin layer of dried blood. Probably used as the adhesive.

 

The very premise was upsetting. Nauseating. Moreover, neither my Dunmer companion nor I could hazard a guess as to why on Nirn anyone would even think of wearing another one's skin. Let alone it being in nasty shreds. For what purpose had this been done?

However, amidst all the corruption we noticed that his left arm was weirdly intact. A normal hand, albeit covered in unhallowed remains, with corresponding arm poked out of the sleeve. No fleshy claw or talon to be seen. Was this just clever visual deceit? Or something more unholy? I had seen this red, pointed thing lunge at me with force. How is it that his arm isn't modified accordingly? What was going on?

 

The blasphemous vista of the dead man was too much for both of us. So we hesitated not in dragging the body towards one of the empty linen sacks. A trail of peeled skin formed in the corpse's wake as we pulled him, making me feel dizzy from its prospect alone. At once, we stuffed him in a sack and rolled him over onto the pile, never to look at him again.

Nephethys and I shook our heads. I had expected much. Perhaps a deformed quadruped or a demented necromancer. Daedra, even. But not this. Not a skinman, as we would later refer to him.

While we rested from the ordeal, I ate and drank something and tried to recover. I understood, now, that something was wrong here. It just wasn't right. Even to this day I can hardly believe it.

 

After our much longer than planned rest, we gazed at the archway into nothingness again. "Come on", Nephethys said, walking towards the darkness with uneasy steps. I moaned somewhat before I've set myself in motion. And so we resolved to press on. After all, there was nowhere else to go. But we didn't venture forth unto the unknown without a sense of dread that caused cold sweat to moisten our shaky palms. For we were afraid to encounter more of these skinmen. Worse even, we were anxious towards the implications; the answer to the question in regards as to where he had taken the skin from.

Slowly, carefully, we braced that pungent abyss whence that figure came from.

 

As much as I viewed the sewer systems with disdain, I had been inside of them a couple of times before. Usually in pursuit of elusive thieves and criminals that tired to seek shelter amidst the foul waters and mouldy stone. Though never have I traversed malodorous tunnels as dank as these. In my experience, the liquid waste disposal facilities beneath the Imperial City were at least dimly illuminated. This passage however turned out to be shrouded in an almost impenetrable darkness. As it was, we could barely see what was ahead of us. 

Sparking the question as to how that robed man could navigate these decay-infested corridors. Then again, his face was completely coated, making him blind. How he knew where to go at all puzzled me. 

Through the all-encompassing blackness we thusly crept, feeling our way forward by sticking to the walks that framed each path until our vision adjusted. Those aimless wanderings were long and tiresome. But in time, we began to make out shapes among the shadows and wet mist of this seemingly forgotten place.

 

At length, it became clear that we had haphazardly stepped into a discontinued part of the city's drainage system. The lack of light down there was one indicator. Another piece of evidence was how we did not observe or hear any actively flowing waters. Although we picked up on drops frequently hitting the ground, we were sure this particular compartment was disconnected from the rest. 

Even the oozing architecture itself appeared to be slightly off. Cross sections with drains in the middle were highly unusual and unused in the actual sewers. Additionally, the presence of these hinted at an even deeper underground layer. Upset with uneasiness at the prospect of being trapped in an inaccessible maze we pressed on for what felt like an eternity.

 

Finally, in the distance through the dim fumes and vapours, Nephethys and I spotted some pale light of reddish hue at the end of a corridor.

The convoluted layout of the underground had cost us a prodigious amount if time and strength as well as some provisions so we were glad to have come by a possible exit.

As we approached the faint glow, our nostrils picked up on a smell of iron and foetor emanating from the slightly luminous aperture.

Both of us already guessed at what such odors may represent. And as we had a cogitation of picturesque vividness in our minds pertaining to what we presumed may lie behind the entryway we sighed yet again. For we feared to encounter more death and famished cadavers. We weren't prepared for what should then grace us with its presence.

 

V

 

The two of us walked up to what we hoped was an exit doorway to lead us out of the damp aqueducts. We believed, though, that it would only lead us deeper into the pit.

We weren't at all surprised upon entering the cracked stone archway to find a flight of stairs leading down. We were stunned however at the fact that these stairs disembogued  into a surprisingly large chamber. To our astonishment we now also knew what happened to most of the abductees.

When we descended the stained stone steps down into the approximately fifty meters long hall, the sharp stench of blood, death and decomposition burned through our mucous membranes in an ardently malicious fashion.

 

We held our breath. Our movement ceased. 

The two of us caught sight of an unnameable perversion of both nature and architecture. This big room that, judging from how it had been constructed, appeared to be originally intended for gathering large amounts of sewage in one place. The sides of the big open space were adorned with ducts, grates and pipes to let the water conglomerate in one spot from which it could be sent to a different location.

However, to our terror, what we laid our eyes on looked much more like an ossuary than anything else.

Countless skinned bodies hung from the ceiling with their flesh completely exposed. Some of them were brutally mutilated, their arms and legs carven to the shape of spears, poles and blades.

The meat of their extremities has been sliced away to reveal their bones, shaped into what looked to us like weapons. The corpses also sported a central laceration to their chest, out of which oozed nastily pungent fluids.

 

The ground was overrun with pools of blood, piles of discarded carnal matter, bone, marrow and sinew. In this evil concoction of corrupted substances lay even more bodies, dead, unclothed. Maybe they were unfit for skinning? Or yet to be scalped and processed. 

Nephethys and I were shaken at the prophetic import of the sanguine 'décor' of the chamber. If this is where the skinman retrieved his insane coat from, by the sheer number of hung cadavers there must be many more of his kind.

Reluctantly and not without gagging, only with difficulty holding in my lunch, we pressed on. Into this mad domain of broken spirits and desecrated humanity.

Soon, we noticed a lectern in the center, mounted on which a big, black book of unknown origin. Perhaps, I thought to myself, this tome might yield some answers if we can get our hands on it.

Wading through the repulsive red sludge, almost tripping over the lifeless victims lying face-down on the defiled floor. We drew closer to the volume perched on the stand ahead.

 

My heart dropped when out from the scarlet slime emerged a faceless, naked figure of female silhouette dressed in the very same patchwork of skin we saw earlier. She gently meandered over to the strange book before we could reach it. Nephethys clumsily hurled a dagger in her direction to stop the nightmarish woman but missed amongst the vomit-inducing vapours. It was too late.

The human shaped blank slate opened the book, stretched out her hand towards the ceiling and quietly mumbled a phrase underneath her breath.

Shortly after, she let herself tumble backwards into the viscous, carnal mass only to quickly rise up again dressed in a crimson robe.

She took the time and with it sort of 'dissolved' into the ether.

 

By that time, I wondered if we had inadvertently stumbled upon some kind of twisted cult. A blood cult perhaps. The thoughts soon dispersed when the entire room started trembling.

 

Up from the ground rose spiraling streams of detestable purport, connecting to the corpse's up above in a stomach churning display of unconsecrated blood magic. Just now I could spy alien runes their bones have been embellished with as they started to radiate with an ancient energy. Suddenly the bodies started squirming and writhing, giving off an unnatural noise.

The misshapen entities sucked up the life force like sponges and began dripping, the hitherto dry muscles now glistening, reflecting the faint light the source of which we could not detect.

Now alive and conscious, they cut themselves loose by perusal of their cleaved limbs whereunto they splashingly hit the floor. Seven of them now stared at us with eyeless sockets and exposed skulls.

 

Filled with misintent, the monsters engaged us, their leg bones slicing through the beastly remains to our feet. Out of desperation, I pulled out my prototype weapon which has been nicknamed the 'Cloudbreaker' and aimed at one of the terrifying miscreants. I pulled the trigger, causing a raucous thunderclap to reverberate throughout the vaults. As my ears rung from the explosion the iron ball shot forward to obliterate the creature's head, sending human debris spraying everywhere.

The pipe of my handheld device of destruction smoked. I stashed it away into my coat again for reloading was cumbersome and took longer than I had time at my disposal.

 

Concealing her confusion at my armaments, Nephethys slid out a second dagger from her hip scabbard and got ready for imminent slaughter. 

I, on the other hand, stuck to my trusted short sword. A sharp, double edged steel blade with a pointy tip not unlike the classic gladius.

 

The remaining six monsters closed in. One jumped at me with mindless fury. I deflected its vile bone shiv with my sword. It quickly attempted a second strike with its other arm which I managed to duck under before backstabbing the thing in the spine. My weapon's tip protruded out from its stomach. I cut it in half with an upwards motion, causing the beast to collapse.

At the same time, Nephethys battled two of them. She expertly dodged, even dancing around and in between their assaults. Crouching, rolling, even jumping over the monstrosities' tireless attacks. She stopped one of the graven bones in mid-air with her gloved hand and broke it off with some leverage by kicking the corresponding arm away from her.

Subsequently, the figure got turned around by a few degrees, prompting the Dunmer to stick the osseous appendage into its neck, piercing the throat after which it went limp.

 

By now I had managed to reload my Cloudbreaker as Nephethys bought me some time with holding off the undead threat. I was close to running out of the mixture required to fire it. I laid waste to one more horror, splattering the surrounding area with yet more blood. Now, two were left.

To our bafflement, the chest of one of the two tore asunder with utmost violence, revealing the insides in a ghastly display of daemoniac anatomy. The ribs stretched outward, morphing into what looked like crooked wings of muscle tissue.

With audible groaning it sped right at me, conveying some finesse in its locomotion heretofore unobserved on its kin. Before I could adequately react, it bent its 'wings' to embrace me with them. I was being held in a tight grip, unable to move, its beating heart hammering contemptibly against my own. The thing threatened to bite me when I managed to produce my dagger from its sheath, driving it deep into the femur.

It let go of me with a loud screech. I slashed at its internal organs with fervor during its temporary torpidity killing it in the process. In that instance I had only narrowly averted a terrible fate.

 

The last one of these dripping, moist deformed creatures rushed at my companion on all fours, the bones clicking while it moved in an arachnoidal manner. When it reached her, it tried to slash my partner to slices by somersaulting in her direction. Fortunately she had the presence of mind to slide underneath it during its cartwheeling attack. While she slid across the wet floor, Nephethys made an incision from the throat all the way down to the thing's groin. Thereunto the guts leaked out as it landed in the human waste we had been battling upon, unmoving. 

 

Exhausted, we caught our breaths. My Cloudbreaker had one last refill. In the hiatus we've now been blessed with, I reloaded the weapon. Nephethys made an effort to replace the one dagger she had lost prior to the combat when she missed that damnable skinwoman who brought this calamitous downpour of adversity upon us in the first place.

She surveyed the area in search of the tuned bone blade she had broken off earlier. Eventually, she found it still stuck in the corpse she had offed with it, pulled it out and sheathed it into one if her belts her armour was outfitted with.

 

Our respite was only short though, as Nephethys intended to inquire about the Cloudbreaker but her words were cut short when we beheld a red cloud materializing in front of us, warping into the corporeal shape of the robed woman who had previously disappeared. She still held that damnable black book, going for another invocation. Her plans were foiled however when my Dunmer companion hurled the bone blade, impaling the tenebrous tome to the woman's right hand.

She threw both book and bone onto the floor into the bloody puddles. What happened next, though, bent our minds.

 

Her left underarm inexplicably split in half from hand to elbow. Twisted blood magic then contorted and morphed both halves into a giant talon each, amounting to two claws of sizeable dimensions ripping apart the garb's sleeve. It dawned on me by what might the other skinman, or cultist, had assaulted us and how it came to be his hand was entirely unscathed while we inspected it postmortem.

Her blank visage seemed to impossibly stare at us with implacable disgust and condemnation even though the dermal coating revealed no eyes.

This Blood Maiden lunged forward in an effort to behead us both with her corrupted appendage, missing us only just. I could feel a thin strand of hair being removed from my head. The opponent turned around only to be greeted by our sharpened steel. Our strikes had been deflected though we hurt her nonetheless. She fought with an arm after all, not a forged kind of weapon. 

Our enemy raised her right hand, an ominous light gathering around it. Then a stream of magic connected to me, sapping my life force. As her injuries closed, I felt my own strength forsake me.

 

Nephethys managed to interrupt the deathly spell, avoided a potentially fatal blow from the split arm by swirling around it and forcefully drove her weapon's tip into the corresponding limb. The maiden responded with a muffled shriek under her coat of cracked skin and shoved the Brotherhood assassin away with the arm's backside, sending her flying into the abominable sludge. 

I recovered my stance and stood face to face with the enemy. While she was still occupied with the weight of her twisted appendage turning around in my direction, I stabbed her chest in order to kill this evil.

 

I had not expected however that this would lead to an even greater peril. I pulled out the sword from the robed woman's body and thought she'd collapse. Instead, she laid her injured right hand on the gaping wound and uttered a phrase in a foreign tongue. The skin suddenly soaked with blood before the entire body burst open, a wraith-like apparition emerging from the corporeal shell that was human once. A semi-ethereal entity composed of bodily fluids, a skull and a dripping coat of coagulations. Nightmare made material. An unheard of thing.

 

It pointed a finger at me and gazed into my soul with glowing eye sockets before it screamed and gripped my throat. A searing pain coursed through my blood vessels. However, I was puzzled when it suddenly let go of me, turned around and vanished into the distance.

 

I didn't know what catastrophe the red hand print would mean for the remainder of the journey. Nor did I know that it should stay with me for a while.

 

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