Walk with the Shadows
Chapter Twelve: The Hunt is on
Lucina awakens and feels someone next to her. She looks over and sees Lucian still sleeping. Not surprising as the sun had yet to rise and the bottle of Cyrodilic Brandy lies empty on the floor. She slides her way out of his bed and begins picking up her clothes. She is almost dressed when a voice says, “Sneakin’ out, are you?” She turns and sees Lucian sitting up in the bed. She grins, “I didn’t want to wake you, is all.” He places his hand over his chest and offers a little sad face, “Oh, my wounded heart.” Lucina just rolls her eyes then thinks a moment before asking, “Exactly how long were you watching me?” Lucian just shrugs, “I might have taken a peek or two.” “Uh huh…” she says, “Lecherous bastard.” Lucian responds with, “You blame me, Cher? You are...quite a sight to behold.” She finishes putting on the last of her clothes and walks over to him. She runs her fingers through his shoulder length black hair, “You’re pretty easy on the eye, too.” He pulls her down into a kiss and briefly she considers staying, but pulls away and says, “Mmmph... No… No! I really have to go.” Lucian pouts, “You sure d’ere ain’t somet’in’ I can do to convince you to stay?” She just looks at him and slowly shakes her head. “What is it d’at has you so determined, Cher? You is some kind of trouble?” Lucian asks. She ponders a moment, “I know where my father’s killer is.” Her tone becomes stern, “I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him.”
After Lucina leaves, Lucian reaches over to the night stand and picks up his amulet. He lays in bed and fumbles with it between his fingers a moment then holds it up over his head. Suddenly grips it tight. “Fine! Roderic, you owe me for d’is.” He takes a deep breath then gets up to put on a robe, and hangs his amulet around his neck before going down into his enchanting laboratory. He places a few lit candles on the floor before walking over to a false stone in the wall. Removing it reveals a dark red crystal orb. He lays the sphere among the candles and kneels in front of it. He bows his head, “I call to d’e Mistress of Darkfall and Goddess of Blood. Hear me, Shepard. Your servant calls to you.” With these words, the amulet and the Orb begin to glow.
In her room at the Bee and Bard, Lucina dawns her Nightingale armor and leaves a heavy purse containing gold and three flawless Amethysts under the bar with a note for Keerava:
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Incase I don’t come back. This is for you and Talen. A thank you. Give the gems to Talen. He knows what to do with them.
~L
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Lucina creeps out of the Bee and Barb and takes an alley into the Black-Briar meadery. Just as she took this path the first snuck into the city, she would now use it to sneak out and make her way to the stables. Once there, she looks at her maps and finds a path to the Dwarven City of Irkngthand. It is far to the north, on the edge of the border between East March and the Pale. Lucina checks a pouch on her back, under the black cape, to ensure she has enough potions and poisons for whatever she may find at the Dwemer ruin. Two Imperial Guards stand at the Gate near the stables. She does not have the time to wait for the stable master to awaken. So, she picks up a rock and throws it as far as she can. The stone strikes a tree and the sound draws the attention of the gate guards for a moment. They are away from their post just long enough for her to steal a horse… It would seem that Lady Luck is on her side today.
She races past several small skirmishes of Imperial forces and Stormcloak Rebels. The Dragonborn got the sides to call a halt to hostilities for a brief time, but the Civil war rages on with no sign of ending. The ancient Nords of Skyrim did not have a word for war in their native tongue. The Nordic word they would use translates to, “Season Unending”. The Stormcloaks will never stop. They will fight to the last warrior, in this rebellion, if they have to. The Empire is no less determined. As far as the Emperor, Titus Mede the second, is concerned, Skyrim belongs to the Empire and he will not let it go. For without the Nords bolstering the Imperial army, the Empire’s forces will not have the foot soldiers to have any hope of repelling another invasion. All this is of no interest to Lucina, at this moment. Her focus is getting to Irkngthand as fast as the horse can carry her.
The ride is long and hard on her steed. The day is gone and night has set in by the time Lucina reaches her destination. She stops just within sight of the Dwemer Ruin, whose entrance seems to be built into the side of the mountains. She ties off her horse to a sapling of a tree. She strokes the ears of the horse and says, “If I don’t come back, try to find your way home.” The horse just shakes it’s head as snow begins to fall. She looks around at all the snow at her feet. The frigid temperatures of these northern lands should be freezing Lucina, but she is not cold in the slightest. She looks at her armor’s black gauntlets, “You are just loaded with tricks aren’t you?” She looks to the Ruin's entrance. There are tall walls and a pair of crumbling towers line the path to the doors leading into Irkngthand.
There are several men patrolling the outside, but she has no way of knowing how many are inside. She hears the sound of snow being stepped on behind her and she quickly turns with her daggers drawn, but she sees nothing. Feeling she is being watched, she waits. A brief moment later a small rabbit jumps out from behind a tree. Lucina breathes a sigh of relief then puts on her mask and raises the cowl before creeping up to the ruin. Such places are widely known to be a magnet for Marauder Gangs and the Dwemer Ruins are rumored to have metal guardians roaming their halls. So she approaches with caution.
The site is indeed overrun with bandits. Well armed ones, too. This gang has clearly been successful in their raiding. She crouches down and moves up to an outer wall. The way is blocked by steel bars and there is no obvious way to lower them. Not without getting caught and having the gang descend on her, but she sees a patrolman take a side path. He does not come back for awhile, so that path must lead somewhere. She moves up to the interior of the wall and works her way around to the side path. Once the guard passes her, she quietly slips behind him and down the path. She steps in on a patch of snow deeper than it looked. Lucina turns around and looks back to see if he heard her foot crush down into the snow, but he seems oblivious. She realizes the even she did not hear the snow crush under her feet. She puts her foot in and out of the snow patch a few times, but not a sound is heard. “The armor?” she thinks to herself, “It must be something about the armor… what else can this thing do?” Her fascination would have to wait as the guard is beginning to return. She hurries up the winding path, dodging one bandit after another, until she reaches the top of structure with a wooden bridge leading into the Ruin. These ancient cities are said to extend many miles within the earth. Lucina can’t help but wonder just how far she is going to have to go chasing Mercer through these twisting tunnels.
The interior is dimly lit. For most this would be disturbing, but for a thief, this means safety. There is no greater boon to a thief than a well placed shadow. The first thing Lucina sees inside is a campfire ahead of her. The air is stale and reeks of burnt oil and a foulness she can’t describe. She swiftly hugs the back of a pillar and peeks around the side. The fire is burning brightly, but no sign of movement. There is blood on the floor… a lot of it. The bandits are all dead. Most of them are still in their bed rolls, around the fire, with their throats slit. A dead Orc man and a Nord woman are the only ones out of place. She inspects the wounds on each bandit she finds. Those still in their bed rolls only had one cut, but on the Orc and the Nord, she finds several wounds that did not go towards disabling or killing them. Either the attacker, or attackers, were unskilled or they were very skilled and simply made their death as painful as possible. There is nothing to be done here. Lucina draws her crossbow and carefully proceeds through the tunnels.
She finds a number of broken machine guardians scattered around, some of which she had never seen before. The metal spiders she remembered from her time in Markarth, but these were larger machines that looked almost humanoid in design. They had a sphere at the bottom in place of feet, a body with arms, and a head with a face. The arms were weapons. One a blade and the other a crossbow. While Lucina did find the faces to be rather unsettling, the crossbow caught her eye. She tugged and pulled at the machine, but it’s plates and gears were too strong. Not a bit of give in them. She instead focused on the joints. She picked up a small piece of metal on the floor and dug into the pins, screws, and bolts holding the machine together. She gradually found the spots that could be loosened and was able to pry the arm open. As she had hoped, she found a set of bolts inside. She held up one of her Steel bolts to one of the Dwemer bolts and their design was not dissimilar. There were rumors that dwemer metal was immune to the damages of time. While there are few smiths that can manage to actually work with the metal, arrows made of Dwemer metal were said to pierce steel with ease. She placed a Dwemer bolt into her crossbow and fired it. The bolt buried itself into the stone wall. She did the same with a steel bolt and it ricocheted off down the passage. She said, “Oh, I’m definitely keeping you…” and dug all the bolts out of the machine; stuffing them in her quiver.
As she continues through the maze of tunnels, there is not but the sound of grinding gears in the walls and sparsely placed braziers. There is not a soul to be seen. She relaxes and walks openly. A simple action that had consequences. She began to hear something rumble in the walls. Different from that of the gears. She quickly hid behind a large pillar and two large metal balls popped out of hatches in the walls. They moved around the floor on their own and transformed into the metal men she had seen earlier. Lucina is unable to resist, “Hmmm… lets put this steel vs dwemer metal to the test…” she thinks to herself as she loads one of the steel bolts into her crossbow. She looks around for a place to retreat to and sees a ledge she could scale after firing. She then aims and pulls the trigger. The bolt strikes hard, but the machine is only rocked back. The spheres rush towards the direction the shot came from, but found nothing. Lucina waits for a moment before loading a Dwemer bolt. As the two sphere’s roll back towards the holes they came from, she fires at the other machine. When the bolt hits, the head of the construct is knocked off the body. She quickly loads another of the Dwemer bolts as the other machine is rolling in her direction. She fires and strikes the chest plate causing the entire assemblage to break apart. She pulls another Dwemer bolt out and looks at it, “What in Azure’s ass are you made of??” After collecting more of the bolts from the two metal men, she returns to her search.
The next chamber Lucina comes to is lined with hatches, like the ones she saw earlier, and a staircase leading down. She also sees a few objects that look like chests of some kind. As she creeps past the hatches, to search the chests, she hears the rattle of one of the spheres below her. One of the machines is already out and rolling around at the bottom. She looks for a way around it, but there is none to be found. She does, however, notice that the movements of the machine would suggest it to be wandering aimlessly. “Is it… Damage?...” she asks herself. Lucina puts the thought out of her mind, and focuses on her target. She has a perfect line of sight from the walkway on the higher level. She is certain that once she fires, more of the metal creatures will come flooding out of the hatches; so she again looks for a place to retreat to. She eyes a small nook to the left of the bottom of the stairs. If she is fast enough, she might make it to the shadows before the cavalry rolls in. Her bolt hits center mass and shatters the mechanism. Again, she hears the sound of machines approaching in the walls. She jumps down from the ledge and races to the bottom of the stairs then dives to the left into a roll that slams her back into the stone wall just as the first of the metal guardians exits a hatch. Several more burst out of the various metal hatches on the walls. They comb the area with blade and crossbow at the ready, but all for naught. Shrouded in shadows, she goes unseen by the mechanical beasts. After searching for a time, the machines return to the hatches they came from. Lucina steps out and goes to the Sphere she shot to dig out it’s bolts.
Moving into the next room, Lucina finds several stone pillars had collapsed and were laid around the chamber. She can see a path around, but notices a number of short obelisks with a series of small holes on the floor. “Okay… And what are you?... Traps of course... Please tell me you shoot mead or something. Did the Dwemer have Mead?” She takes one step into the chamber and five foot stones rise from the holes. At the stone’s center was a spinning golden ring with four holes in it and a cone shape around the hole. “Mead… mead… mead… please mead.” Seeing an orange glow begin to come from the small holes Lucina’s eyes widen, “NOT MEAD!!” and she dives backwards into the staircase. Flames spew out from the rings for several feet in four directions. Lucina looks on these stones and knows that the gouts of flame are too wide to duck under or jump over. She studies them for a time and sees that they are all spinning at a steady rate. Timed properly, she can run between the flames of each stone blocking her path, but if she times it wrong…
Lucina waits for her chance. Her heart is pounding in heart chest, “Let’s hope this armor has some protection against fire… huh?” Lucina hears a sound a ways behind her, but when she looks… nothing. She goes back up the staircase and looks out, but the halls are empty. “This place is getting to me.” she shakes her head then returns to the room of death traps. When she believes she has the timing down, she makes her run. She moves from one stone to the next and only gets singed once. She looks back, “Not so tough aft WHOA!!!” She barely dodges a pair of Dwemer spiders lunging at her. She draws her daggers, but is certain the steel will do little damage. Her only hope is that the elemental enchantments are strong enough to finish them off before she can’t dodge their attacks anymore. In Markarth, she remembered a guard swinging his sword and busting a red jewel in the center of a spinning gyro on top of the spider. She aims for that same device on one of her attackers. The gem does not shatter, but the machine is rocked by the strike. She smiles, “Oh I got ya now…” She destroys the gem on the second blow, but when it falls, the jewel on the other spider begins to glow. A bolt of electricity comes out of the gem that clips Lucina’s shoulder knocking her back. With pain pulsing through her body, she crawls behind a large stone slab that had fallen from the ceiling in ages past.
When she regains her wits, she notices that the spider hasn’t come for her. Instead it seems to be sitting there waiting for her to move. She looks at the scorch mark on her shoulder, “Damn… What tailor am I supposed to take…” a golden light begins to swirl around the damaged area. The pain stops and the armor seems to mend itself. Lucina touches her shoulder and there is no sign of it being damaged at all, “... I love this thing…” She gets up and peeks out at the spider, the gem glows and she ducks back down as it fires. She peeks out again, but the gem remains dark. “Huh… that’s weird…” She waves her hand at it, but it does nothing. She steps out slowly and picks up her blades. The gem begins to glow again and Lucina dives back behind the slab as it fires. Once more she peeks out, “So… you need to charge that thing up… Got it.” She races in and leaps on top of the spider driving both blades into the mechanism. ‘GOT YA!... huh?” The spider begins to tremble and blows up in multiple arcs of electricity; sending Lucina flying back into a wall. Certain that she broke something, she sits there a moment before struggling to say, “...Uhhhhh…. Ow… You can do your healing thing anytime suit… Now would be good... Come on suit. Do something... Please.” Not a second later the golden light returns. She feels her body mending itself. As the light fades; Lucina takes a deep breath, “I love you…” After a short rest, she presses on.
She comes to a collapsed hallway, that a Dwemer spider is trying to dig through, so she looks for someway around. There is an alcove with gears lining the wall, “A lift?... Well I’m not going back.” She steps on the platform and pulls a lever in the center. The gears turn and carry her down. The ride is much longer than just going down a single story or two. She has no idea how deep the lift has taken her, but she is certain that she must be below the ground level outside the ruin. “How deep does this place run?” She asks. The gears slow their descent. She readies her crossbow and steps forward slowly. She is relieved to what she finds waiting for her. Brynjolf and Karliah. Unscathed from whatever path they took to reach this point. Karliah says “Mercer’s been here, I hope we aren’t too late.” Lucina asks, “Those bandits at the entrance, did you…?” Karliah answer with, “Brynjolf and I found them like that. Mercer’s doing.” A few words of cautious are shared before pressing on.
The path brings them to a fenced in walkway above a vast cavern. Karliah runs to the fence, “It’s Mercer! Down there.” Brynjolf says, “I’m on it, lass.” and he starts pulling on parts of the fencing, but it’s made of Dwemer metal. “Damn it! There’s no way through.” he says. Lucina creeps around the platform carved out of the caverns rock by the Dwemer that once lived in these passages that Lucina sees is now crawling with Falmer. Pale, sightless, ghoulish elves that live in the dank and dark places of Skyrim. Mercer sneaks up on a few of them, killing them one by one. He may be unnoticed by the Falmer, but he makes no effort to hide from the trio above him. “Hes toying with us.” Karliah says, “He wants us to follow.” Lucina draws her crossbow and locks a bolt in place, “Then I suggest we not disappoint him…” Brynjolf agrees, “Aye, lass… and we’ll be ready for him.
They weave their way through the stone passages; past the Falmer, Dwemer traps and machines, and finally they stand atop a set of broken stairs with their target in sight. Mercer hangs from a massive statue. The statue sits cross legged with a tome in one hand and a scepter in the other. Mercer is oblivious to his onlookers as he continues trying to pull a large jewel from one of the statue’s eyes. “He’s here!” Karliah says, “And he hasn’t seen us yet. Brynjolf, watch the door.” Brynjolf draws twin ebony daggers, “Aye, lass. Nothing’s getting by me.” Lucina looks on thinking to herself, “The Eyes of the Falmer… Is this what a Falmer use to look like? How did they become... Focus!” Karliah whispers, “Climb down the ledge…” Lucina draws her crossbow as Mercer gets the last eye loose and falls to the shoulder of the statue and says, “Karliah! When are you gonna learn you can’t get the drop on me?” A burst of an invisible force is released from Mercer causing the chamber to shake. The platform the Nightingales stand on cracks and the stone Lucina is stand on falls to a lower level of the chamber at the statues feet. She loses grip of her crossbow in the fall and quickly pulls her daggers as she gets to her feet.
Mercer walks down the statue and places the eyes in a large sack, “When Brynjolf brought you to me, I could feel a sudden shift in the wind. And at that moment, I knew it would end with one of us at the end of a blade.” Though filled with a bloodlust, Lucina remains still and grips her blades tight, “Give… me… the key, Mercer.” With an expression of arrogant annoyance, Mercer says, “What’s Karliah been filling your head with? Tales of thieves with honor? Oaths riffe with falsehoods and broken promises? Nocturnal doesn’t care about you, the key, or anything to do with the Guild.” Lucina grits her teeth, “I’m not here for Nocturnal. This is personal. When this is over, I will stand over your corpse and smile.” Mercer looks down on her, “Revenge is it? Have you learned nothing of your time with us?” As Mercer rants, Lucina puts her blades behind her back, under her cape, and coats her daggers in her Silent Night poison. There is a moment of silence. Mercer has stopped his babble and Lucina says, “I’m going to carve your heart out and leave you here to rot...” Then she pulls her blades and rushes towards Mercer.
Surprised, he steps back and uses the Skeleton Key’s power to somehow make himself invisible and send Brynjolf into a rage, forcing him to attack Karliah. Lucina stops her charge in a pool of ice cold water that has been leaking from the ceiling. She remembers Lake Yorgrim being about a mile away from the Ruin’s entrance. They must be right under it. She can’t worry about that now. She hears footsteps in the water.
Lucina fights the urge to swing wildly as it would leave her open to a counter attack from any number of directions. She runs in the opposite direction up a staircase leading behind the statue. She stops at the right shoulder of shouts, “COWARD!! That magic won’t hide you from me forever, Mercer!” From the corner of her eye, Lucina spots two green lights swirling above the tome in the statue’s left hand. She’s distracted. Footsteps coming up the stairs. She turns to run, but a burst of emerald energy fills the chamber. Lucina can’t move. She falls to the stone floor. She hears something behind her fall as well. She can barely see the ledge Brynjolf and Karliah are on. They are frozen in place. Footsteps again, but slower. A pair of dirty, but pricey boots step in front of her. She hears a familiar voice say, “Mon Cher, you just can’t keep out of trouble.”
The story so far:
Walk with the Shadows Ch 1 Walk with the Shadows Ch 2 Walk with the Shadows Ch 3 Walk with the Shadows Ch 4 Walk with the Shadows Ch 5 Walk with the Shadows Ch 6 Walk with the Shadows Ch 7 Walk with the Shadows Ch 8 Walk with the Shadows Ch 9 Walk with the Shadows Ch 10 Walk with the Shadows Ch 11 Walk with the Shadows Ch 12 Walk with the Shadows Ch 13 Walk with the Shadows Ch 14 Walk with the Shadows Ch 15
Another story connected to this one:
Ancient Blood Ch 1 Ancient Blood Ch 2 Ancient Blood Ch 3 Ancient Blood Ch 4 Ancient Blood Ch 5 Ancient Blood Ch 6 Ancient Blood Ch 7 Ancient Blood Ch 8 Ancient Blood Ch 9 Ancient Blood Ch 10 Ancient Blood Ch 11 Ancient Blood Ch 12 Ancient Blood Ch 13 Ancient Blood Ch 14 Ancient Blood Ch 15 Ancient Blood Ch 16 Ancient Blood Ch 17 Ancient Blood Ch 18 Ancient Blood Ch 19 Ancient Blood Ch 20 Ancient Blood Ch 21
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