X
Ringing ears. Blurred vision. Encroaching darkness threatening to consume me. The strangely lengthening shadows tried to pull me into their domain. As I was about to break, I cast a glance over yonder to our gravely wounded Dunmer friend. We were victorious. The three of us had won the battle. But we paid a heavy price, measured in blood. A price no mortal could have been prepared for to pay. We didn't yet know our triumph was as fragile as brittle glass. The only thing we were sure about was that we needed to get out of here - and fast. If more of them came we'd surely perish down there.
In my delirium, I was somehow able to chug a healing potion. My senses returned to me when I swallowed the bitter liquid. In the ensuing clarity I realized I had been largely unscathed. A few minor cuts and bruises from falling or being thrown around. No major injuries though. In this timeless moment, I watched Horace rapidly approach Azarain after he shot me a look - most likely to find out as to whether or not I could stand up on my own - and did his best to submerge our friend in all the healing spells he was capable of. To no avail, it turned out.
Meanwhile I made some crude efforts to push myself up from the ground again. Thereby I took note of my entire body aching horribly. Even so much as moving proved to provide a serious challenge. I made it though, stumbling forward to aid my Nord brother in need.
I inspected Azarain's condition. The blighted creature had torn open his chest, inflicting a gaping wound seeping immeasurable amounts of blood. His right arm had been excised in the process. Breathing only faintly, weakened as he was. All our combined restoration proved null against his deep cuts and dismemberment. Desperate, we tore off the cloth of our robes to use as some form of preliminary bandage to at the very least get the Dunmer back to the surface where Lili no doubt had prepared tonics and remedies. To our dismay, in the ruling dark we were frustratingly unable to espy his arm and thus, had to leave the limb to rot in these squalid vaults. Worse still, we beheld as the makeshift bandages immediately soaked themselves, unable to staunch the flow. In a last effort to provide at least a momentary abatement, Horace cast a spell upon him that would knock Azarain unconscious.
I had, in the meantime, caught my breath. No time to rest or celebrate. With great difficulty did both Horace and I heave Azarain's limp body over our shoulders. We slowly but steadily transported him out of the murky depths. "Over there!" exclaimed Horace, pointing towards the narrow aperture off to the left thither my two saviours came from. Just as we were about to leave that abhorrent place, I fancied I heard a growing, reverberating droning sound, increasing in intensity every second.
Faintly audible whispers amplified my developing anxiety. I had heard this noise before. A familiar tone that slipped past me amongst the shadows before I entered the hall wherein contained were the blighted, as we would later call them. I sensed multiple strong gravitational pulls behind us. My fatigue vanished, however, as soon as I turned my head.
Out of the creeping void emerged several horrible figures the likes of which I've never seen. In the crypt, it was impossible to make out any definite shapes. Though, the little that I saw sufficed to disperse my exhaustion. Anomalies in darkness, living shades drew closer to us.
They stretched out their talons of emptiness to grab me. It was no fever dream, I was certain. With unprecedented resolve I attempted flight from those extraneous terrors. Horace watched in bafflement as he witnessed my apparent strength and endurance as we ran for the exit, Azarain on our shoulders. How did he not sense these presences? I wondered but only briefly. Time was short and our friend's life ebbed with each passing second. In reaching the tunnel, I felt how my knapsack lightened, albeit I didn't know what it was that I must have lost. No time to check the contents of my portable, leathery stash, I for a last time peered into the darkness before exiting. All I saw were these contemptible shapes retreating into their pit.
Relieved they've stopped their pursuit, Horace and I fled through the narrow passage. In our haste, he explained to me that at some point, the wall opened somewhere, revealing a hidden path. Intrigued, the two of them started investigating. As soon as they picked up on my battle noises they rushed to my aid, spells at the ready. I realized that I must've opened the stone when I operated that queer lever in that obscure chamber deep in the sepulchre's bowels. In retrospect I sure am glad that I did.
About halfway into the claustrophobic marble tube, Ravaia came into view and helped us. I was just about to collapse again when she burdened herself with my onus. Even in the escape tunnel it was eerily silent. Only our hastened footsteps and collective, heavy breathing were audible amidst the cold and wet masonry around us.
Finally, the end of this rather tight space was in sight. A current of fresh air intertwined with the musty and stale atmosphere of the ruins, gradually becoming clearer until, at last, we could breathe soundly again. We stepped out of the opening into the bed of the mound. To our immediate surprise, we observed something of utmost peculiarity that should herald calamities untold.
XI
While Ravaia and Horace were busy carrying Azarain's gravely wounded body to our field infirmary, I stopped after reaching the surface for a quick, although somewhat troubled, breather. In their noble swiftness, the two of them failed to notice what I noticed. To my bitter astonishment, the crystalline coating had stretched out into the soil for a few meters but curiously it seemed to have stopped spreading past a certain point. Moreover, not only did it provoke a weird change of hue to the surrounding flora that it touched, all other colours save a sinister, dark purple were gone from the gem. A shade I knew well. Furthermore still, the small, black dot in the crystal that I peeked a few days prior appeared to have grown in size considerably.
This portentous situation set off all the red flags my mind could muster. Something huge has happened. Something of primordial malignancy. Looking up into the sky as my two friends heaved the wounded's body up the creaking rope ladder, I discovered that the witching hour had already struck. The stars loomed menacingly about and I couldn't contain my anguish towards them. Did they really send us a deadly evil? Uneasy, I climbed up the ladder as well.
I wondered just how long I was trapped in that underground purgatory. Maybe it was an entire day I've spent among the dead. Watching how Azarain's sedated self was transported to the tent, I, too, thought to myself that getting some rest would be a good idea. But what of the shifting infestation? How would we deal with that? Even worse, I feared there was some even greater threat in those unhallowed tombs. A threat we could not yet see, but it was definitely there.
I suddenly remembered how my backpack has gotten lighter a couple moments ago. I checked and in wonder noticed that the black varla stone was amiss! Had those shades stolen it? If so, for what purpose? Too many thoughts rushed through my head. Too many things to worry about to keep track of them all.
I desperately needed to rejuvenate myself and my colleagues acknowledged this. In light of Azarain's dire condition and my completely spent strength, Lili proposed we'd postpone the meeting she had scheduled for when I was to resurface and allowed us all some rest. I crept into my bedroll and fell asleep almost immediately. I knew that the remaining three would do everything in their power to mend Azarain's lesions and bodily damage. But there was this persistent feeling that refused to subside. The sense that all we could do was to numb the pain, not, however, cure his demolished state. In falling asleep, I thought I imagined suffering from slight pneumonic pain. Probably from all the running, I told myself, before dozing off into the realms of blissful dream.
The next morning, I frightfully recall I've not been woken by the rising sun that spread its grossly incandescent rays across my face, tickling my nostrils. No. I awoke to the unbearably agonized cries of the afflicted Dunmer in the infirmary. Spine-chilling screeches of pain invoked in me an indescribable sickness. I could not imagine what this must've been like. It was horrible.
Repeatedly and without end he yelled "HELP ME!" at the utmost top of his lungs. We didn't know anyone possessed the capabilities to even scream this loudly. In between his pleas for help he remarked in similarly disturbing fashion that he's 'bursting from the inside'. I was, of course, not the only one to take note. Creeping out of my shelter I saw Ravaia, Horace and Lilisephona situated circumjacent to the medicinal tent with warped and anxious looks on their faces.
"There's nothing we can do" Lili faintly aspirated, her eyes filling with tears. Her face went reddish when the streaming tears dripped down her chin. She couldn't take it any longer. Her hands pressed tightly against her ears, she retreated into the big tent, sobbing uncontrollably. After Lili hurried off, I decided to join my fellows. None have hitherto braced the space's inside.
I approached the entrance, accompanied by worried expressions, and lifted the obfuscating sheet of cloth that divided present reality and the mad realm of eternal damnation. The sight that had thusly revealed itself to me made sure I'd never forget, engraved in my memory forever.
Apart from his ghoulish noises, his body had been completely malformed by the otherworldly corruption. The broad incision on his chest had turned into a sparkling crevasse of sharp, pointed spikes. It infested greatly his before vacant stump where the arm had once been and grew a glistening lance of glassy appearance in its place.
Azarain's wails soon broke into a dystopian cacophony of gurgles and gags as I beheld that this blight had made its way up the throat and face. Drawing a shiny, central line of vile blueish luminosity that stretched all the way to his forehead. I witnessed one particular vitreous protrusion pushing itself gently out of his larynx, silencing his plight. Thereunto an involuntary retching ensued, staining himself and his bed in a thick, steaming red-black liquid.
At last, his eyes rolled backwards and a nauseating crack echoed as I saw how the substance moved and shifted callously between them.
I could only listen as his vomiting howls squirted more fluid from betwixt his clenched teeth. I could only watch as his head suddenly split in two.
Ripped, dark grey skin and frayed bones shot through the linen walls with explosive brutality. My robes, now splattered with blood and brains. I reeled, dazed and unbelieving towards the miscreation I had submitted myself to so obliviously. I grew faint and unresponsive, pale as I was from the shock.
Staggering out the tent and tumbling onto the indifferent grass, I could clearly see that both Ravaia and Horace were equally shaken. All of us, even Lili who I espied tilting her head in horror out of her recluse, realized that our friend had just passed. Though not in dignity, but in madness.
XII
Ravaia and Horace inadvertently covered their mouths in grief. I was still on all fours when I observed Lili traipsing closer to us. None could have predicted this outcome when we first started this expedition. Lili's face was still blushed from her frantic sobbing earlier, but at the realization of this event, the oppressive emotion of depression held her heart in its tight grip. So much so that she had become too numb to shed more tears. Too broken to make even an attempt at any utterances.
With difficulty I stood up, preparing myself mentally to speak a few words in Azarain's honour notwithstanding the utter surreality of it all. Though, we had no time to mourn it turned out.
At once, a loud crunching noise reverberated in our heads. A moment later, all of the colour on Lili's face vanished instantly. With widened eyes did she point a shaking index finger at the thing behind me, mute with incomprehensible terror. I turned around.
Out of the now filthy, dilapidated tent shambled the blighted abomination that had been Azarain mere moments ago. With uncoordinated steps did he shuffle forward, eyes glowing, his split head spilling copious amounts of leftover blood. As he drew nearer, the two separated parts of the skull smacked together sickeningly from time to time. Jutting out of this monster's face was a singularly purple gem, situated just above where the nose had once been. Ghastly breathing noises emanated from the creature that used to be our friend as the central stone began to glow eerily.
In a fortunate reflex, I leapt aside as the phosphorescence increased. In a turn of cruel fate however, Lili, who had become apathetically taciturn, had no such ability. She was paralyzed with festering fright and to her immediate undoing, she did not move so much as an inch before it happened.
Out of the corpse's head shot a beam of pure energy, embracing the surrounding area in a dark, orange light. The same beam that had been present when the still living Azarain fired off his dubious spell during our sepulchral battle from last night. His upper body bent backwards from the apparent recoil, audibly crushing his backbones. Or what remained of them. The magic stream rapidly traversed the ground in Lilisephona's direction, burning the lush earthly covering to ashes. It then quickly went skyward. In disbelief we all turned our heads away from the now impossibly twisted body of the resurrected Dunmer and fixated our eyes on Lili.
From her groin area upwards stretched a line of blood that proceeded to continually soak her robe. Her bulging eyes told of her instantaneous demise as we curiously witnessed a wisp-like cloud leave her shell upon expiry, flying into one of the gems that protruded from the live cadaver behind us. Her body collapsed in on itself in response to such terrible assault. It was only then that the remaining three of us grasped the full extent of that which had just transpired.
We watched the two halves of her carcass slide away from each other. One fell forward, the other tumbled backwards. At once, the ground was defiled with her innards. A gruesome amalgamation of red life force and entrails mixed with an unspeakable conglomeration of half-digested intestinal contents, stomach acid and manure. This sanguinary concoction grew swiftly into a pool of prodigious fetidness and reek, engulfing her cadaver gorily in a display of unrelenting beastliness.
Breathlessly we looked at the unmentionable parody of what used to be our colleague and close friend. Then we readied our weapons and spells when the thing's torso somehow snapped back into place. The corpse rushed forward in a stabbing motion, intent on ending Horace's life. He managed to evade this attack and responded with a fierce hack of his pickaxe into Azarain's face. Something shattered. Was the gem a weak spot, perhaps?
The monster staggered backwards. Using a well-placed lightning strike, I guided it sideways to Ravaia's waiting sword. Crushing vengeance for deeds untold cascaded down on the monstrosity when Ravaia's sharp, curved blade split the head even further, slicing down the throat. It inexplicably answered with a howl as the central gem burst into bits. The shards shot across the open as Azarain's corpse attempted another assault at Ravaia. It swung its luminous arm widely at her, missing not but rather getting deflected by her shield. She reeled from this powerful blow as the thing readied its lance to strike her down with preternatural force.
I dashed, lighting my black, defiled flame. In a jumping motion, I placed my burning palm on the fleshy aperture that had once been a neck and throat. I punished the detestable horror with ardent fury. It burned up its body from the inside whereunto it quickly collapsed. All that remained was a smoking, empty shell of fumes and charred flesh.
I unwillingly sat down in exhaustion as well, weakened again by this ungodly magic. Horace and I both coughed vigorously after our ordeal. The remaining three of us looked at each other in crushing hopelessness. Truly, we prepared for one burial. However, now we had to conduct two. We didn't even know if a proper ceremony could be held. For Azarain at least, since from all we've seen so far, this alien substance may infest the earth.
Notwithstanding our worries, that evening we began digging regardless. With utmost caution did we remove as many crystals from our friend's mangled body as had been possible. We tried everything from using pliers to pluck the leftovers to rinsing the burnt husk with water just to ensure we wouldn't contaminate the soil. A grim purpose.
By nightfall we were done, awarding some last honors to Azarain and Lilisephona both. That night, we were barely able to stand. All day we've been preparing the ceremonies, heaving earth and stone, crafting small monuments to erect as headstones. A devastating circumstance it was, no doubt. But we couldn't allow to pay our heavy losses or our gloomy state of mind any heed for we also knew that we must continue.Whereas every other decently sensible folk would have fled in utter panic, we in unison agreed we had no choice but to carry on. Lest these grievous sacrifices be in vain.
And through all the calamity that shattered our minds, we were able to make deductions, construct solid hypotheses and theories as to the nature of the radiating menace. Our journey was far from over, our group emotionally crushed.
We did not know that the vitreous blight and its associated consequences were only half the horror that should unfold around Malada. I had a sense back then. That this wasn't the end of our perils. At least, there were still these shades. And the circumstance that they've stolen a particular item. But now, we had to rest and in the morning of the next day, proceed with gathering together all of our scientific discoveries.
This had to be stopped.
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