Mangled rats scurried across the mouldy straw floor of the dank prison cell. They were gaining confidence around the inanimate mountain of rags, nibbling on the body’s linen rags and scampering over its chest. Tarthas stirred when a rat ran over his face, all the rats ran back into the cracks in the cobble wall that led to their dens.
Groggily standing he looked around the small cell that he was in. Was that flight a dream? Where was he? It was small, two yards wide and four yards long. The front was a wall of rusting bars; the walls dank, mouldy and made from cobblestones had rusted chains dangling with piles of bones lying under them. Beside the left wall stood a rickety stool beset with woodlice and a dirty wooden bowl with nibbled mouldy bread on the stool. High behind him was a barred window.
He looked across to the cell opposite him; a lean and short dark elf was watching him with a snide look on his face.
“Pale skin, snotty expression… you’re a Breton! The masters of magicka, right?” He questioned rhetorically “Hmph. Nothing but a bunch of stuck-up snobs with cheap parlour tricks. Go ahead; try your magicka in here. Make those bars disappear.” The dunmer cackled. Tarthas knew that magic couldn’t make bars disappear, but he had heard of spells that unlocked things. These were illegal in Skyrim and thus were never taught to him.
“No? What’s the matter? Not so powerful now, are you Breton? You’re not leaving this prison ‘till they throw your body in the lake! Oh, that’s right. You’re going to die in here Breton! You’re going to die!” He cackled again maliciously enjoying the torment of his new cellmate. Metal boots were heard clanking down the path in between the cells. “Hear that? The guards are coming! For you!” He turned around and sat down on his own stool. The footsteps were getting closer and the party was talking, he could hear an old man talking, probably of noble birth and an authorative woman. There were other footsteps, thus people, present.
When the voices became audible the older man was talking “My sons… they’re dead, aren’t they?”
“We don’t know that, Sire. The messenger only said they were attacked.”
His tone was remorseful and distant “No, they’re dead… I know it.”
The woman came into view; she wore a strange set of Blades armour. It was wider and more metallic in colour. “My job right now is to get you to safety- what’s that prisoner doing here?” she yelled, “This cell is supposed to be off limits!”
A younger man muttered ashamed “Usual mix up with the watch I suppose.”
Aimed at Tarthas: “Stand back, prisoner, we won’t hesitate to kill you if we have to.” She threatened and from her cold tone and hard eyes it was clear it was no bluff so he backed against the wall with the barred window a sickly crunch was felt under his bare feet, rotten, hollow, bones.
The older man came into the cell next, closely followed by two other Blades. He wore thick rich blue and red velvet robes. An amulet adorned his neck, it was in the rhombus shape of the symbol of the Nine Divines, a large ruby that seemed to have its own glow, it was enchanted in some way. The man looked old beyond his years, he was distant and worried, maybe confused. Their eyes met and surprise crossed his face.
“You… I’ve seen you… let me see your face…” He walked up to Tarthas as sense of dread crossed the older man “You are the one from my dreams… then the stars were right, and this is the day. Gods give me strength.”
“What’s going on? What day?” He asked in return.
“Assassin’s attacked my sons and I’m next. My blades are leading me out a secret escape route. By chance, the entrance tot hat escape route leads through your cell.” It seemed ridiculous to Tarthas that a man would trust a small prisoner in a jail cell this much to tell of such a severe event. He should have been executed on the spot! That was probably what the woman wanted.
“Who are you?”
“I am your Emperor, Uriel Septim. By the grace of the Gods, I serve Tamriel as her ruler and you, too, shall serve her in your own way.” Uriel Septim was the last Emperor in the Septim Dynasty. Tarthas was at the close of the third era. That dragon ride was real; the dragon must have been Akatosh, the God that governed time.
“If you know me, do you know why I am in jail, sire?” The Blades were shifting nervously. They needed to get going. It made sense now why the Blades were escorting him, they were the personal bodyguards of the current emperor.
“Perhaps the Gods have you here so that we may meet. As for what you have done… it does not matter. That is not what you will be remembered for.” His thoughts protested! He hadn’t done anything wrong! He was put here by the decision of the Gods. In a way that was opposite to how the Divines behaved, they acted in symbols and made fate happen, subtlety is their way, not direct intervention like last night. That was the way of the Princes. Maybe it wasn’t Akatosh that was the flaming dragon. Could it have been Peryite, the weakest of the Princes? No, Nocturnal said that Akatosh needed him; He put him here.
“What should I do?”
The ever-wise emperor said, “You will find your own path. Take care... there will be blood and death by the end.” The blades interrupted and edged the party to keep on moving. One of them pressed a stone, four stones from the back wall and seven from the floor. A grinding mechanism churned and the right wall moved back and opened like a door, unsettling dust that lay there for generations. Opening up to stunning marble archways, the legendary architecture of the Aylied elves, the first settlers of the Heartlands, or Cyrodiil. Opressors of most human and beast races, through blessings from the Gods, Saint Alessia started a revolution and exterminated the heartland high elves that worshipped the daedra, creating an independent nation that grew to the grandeur of the Tamrielic Empire. Much of the Elven marble like granite architecture could be seen all around the Imperial City, it was the basis that it was built from. Ruins of the elves dotted across the landscape with similar stone and sharp arches.
The party left through the hallway, at a walking pace. They seemed to be certain that this was unknown to anyone. Or maybe the old emperor couldn’t walk much faster.
“Hey!” the dunmer piped up again. “Don’t you leave me! Help me out! Let us escape together! C’mon, we are buds. Help poor Valen Dreth out!” Tarthas smirked.
“No Dreth, I go my own way. Oh and you are going to die in here, you’re going to die with an escape route gaping at you… just out of reach. Go on… try and make those bars disappear.” He laughed himself this time. The dunmer screamed inaudible threats and curses.
He left through the escape tunnel a winding passage that opened up into a room with walled up side passages. The party was already walking down the small set of steps when one walled up passage seemed to disappear and three strangely armoured men came out.
Their armour was black and gleaming, wrought with artistry. Their face was covered with a similar mask with a spike rising up from their nose bridge, going up along the face and forehead. A red hood covered most of their head and red cloth decorated the rest of the armour too. They carried daedric maces, black metal cursed by rituals making it writhe with hellish red glows.
“They found us! To Arms!” The blades yelled, three of them ran to meet the warriors, one of them stayed by the emperor’s side. Out of instinct and training his adrenaline started pumping and he chose fight instead of flight. But with what? Once again he had to resort to only his magic. He summoned his familiar, the ghostly jackal. Immediately it jumped from where it was conjured and formed into a long-sword in his hand. Everything slowed down. A reflex that came naturally
The first of the Blades fell and the two of the warriors fought the blades the other charged for the Emperor. The blade guarding wasn’t aware. He was watching his companion fall, no notice of the mace crashing towards his head. Only to be blown away by the impact of Tarthas’ fireball. The armour dissipated and a dead woman in crimson robes lay awkwardly slumped against the wall.
Tarthas ran to the next black armoured warrior and his ghostly blade stabbed straight through his armour and his gut, he glowed blue as his magicka was drained. The armour dissipated as the blade turned into the jackal and jumped through the dying body seeming to tear out the person’s very soul.
The final warrior fell to the two Blades’ combined. The young Blade guarding the emperor looked in awe at Tarthas. Tarthas smirked, these enemies were trivial against giants and trolls of Skyrim, the silver hand were more challenging. He wondered if these were the assassin’s that had killed the emperor’s sons. He wondered how they could have done that. Not a scratch was on him and all had were linen rags to protect him. That reminded him! A flesh spell, he quickly cast one.
“Are you alright, sire? We’re clear for now” His breathing was haggard.
“Captain Renault?” Uriel looked at the dead Blade.
“She’s dead, I’m sorry sire, but we have to keep moving.” And that’s what they did. They did not seem to object to the fact that Tarthas, the prisoner, was escaping with them. They silently agreed he was a good asset and feared what the emperor saw in him. “Then this is the day”. The guards feared that the prisoner would murder the emperor and not the assassins. The emperor trusts him, or was he resigned to his fate? Tarthas wondered himself what that line meant. And what he was doing here in the first place. Nobody, nothing, gave him an idea of why Akatosh had sent him in a prison cell of all places to follow an escort of the emperor. Whatever the reason, the only path was forward his jackal by his side.
Round the corner of a small passage way and back in a similar open room to the last assassins attacked again. The jackal had heard them coming and jumped straight through the first one to come out of the passage, the man glowed blue again, staggered and fell, armour disappearing and robes remaining. Tarthas felt stronger as the man died.
The other assassin killed another of the Blades efficiently to die at the second’s Akavirii katana. That one came close to Tarthas and had his mace raised overhead ready to come crashing down. Only novices used that technique, it left you open on all angles.
Time slowed down, not an illusion from reflex in training. Something primal, something deep down in his racial bloodlines burst out. Tarthas’ eyes glowed ghostly blue and a magical barrier burst from his flesh spell pushing the assassin back a step. Within the blink of an eye he closed in and rested an open palm on the assassin’s chest in front of his heart and flames erupted from that point spreading across his body and the electricity in his nerve system went in overdrive electrocuting him. The magical shield rushed back onto his skin as a flesh spell and his eyes stopped glowing. The flesh spell now instead of being a glimmer on his skin had the form of glimmering scales.
Time continued again.
The two remaining guards murmured and looked around in fear. They muttered the words Dragon Skin, an innate ability that Bretons had. They knew it as a shield spell that absorbed magic and stopped incoming blows. They never knew that was only the after effect of a small trans that Bretons would go into instinctively, increasing their willpower and focus. Legends had told of the greatest Breton magi to go into that trans wilfully and for longer than those mere seconds that the prisoner had portrayed. Bretons were a much more formidable race than you would expect from their stature and humble culture. The Blades didn’t want him around any more. He definitely had the power to kill the emperor.
Tarthas looked at his arms in awe. They shimmered with scales like fluid crystals. He was not sure what had happened at that moment but his mind felt clear. The jackal looked at him, one ear perked the other flat. It whined.
“Don’t try and follow us prisoner. Find your own way. We won’t hesitate to kill you if we see you again.” The older Blade warned. They left through the door at the other end of the room, a click was heard as a key locked it.
Tarthas was alone now. In an Aylied ruin, his only escape blocked. Nowhere to go other than back to his cell. Back to Valen Dreth the taunting dunmer. He would laugh and ridicule him till he died in his cell. He eyed the jackal who was sniffing at a degraded wall of the marble-like granite bricks. It crumbled completely at the pawing of the jackal.
From the dust two giant rats scampered out. Larger and feral versions of the rats found on ships or in cells, they were the size of a small dog and usually carried many different types of diseases, including a mages worst nightmare: Brainrot. The first one was bitten in the neck by the ghostly jackal. The second bounced at Tarthas breaking its teeth on his Dragon Skin; at the second bounce the jackal grabbed the rat in mid air shaking it like a rag.
The fight was short lived, but what more was there to expect from a few pathetic rats. Behind the crumbled bricks lay a natural cavern, with some resemblance of the aylied constructs. There lay a skeleton wearing a leather cuirass and a pair of leather boots, it looked rough and torn but it would have to do for when the dragon skin had worn out. How long would it last? He winced as he strapped the cuirass over his chest, imagining the skin that had rotted inside of it.
Beside the skeleton lay a wooden bow and some iron tipped arrows as well as a rusty short sword. Tarthas would have preferred a long sword, but he did not have much of a choice in the matter, escaping from a prison and the like. At least the emperor said his non-existent crimes were forgiven.
Beside the skeleton also lay a leather satchel with a sepperate compartment for gold with a few septims in it as well as some lock picks.
He strapped the quiver to his back and slung the bow over his shoulder and diagonally across his chest, strapping the sword to the cuirass. The satchel went on the other side of his belt. He felt pretty well geared.
As he continued through the winding caverns he killed more and more rats. It made him curious why such a pathetic being had never considered that maybe men and elves were not a foe to fight, they should scamper into a corner like any other vermin. As he thought that sentence two rats ran round the corner ignoring Tarthas. A guttural groaning echoed from round the corner. He finally ready for a real fight ran round to see a site that would make brave men soil their linens while gagging on bile piling up in their throats.
A zombie of a sickening kind was dragging itself forward. Its flesh was sickly grey and green, rotting in various places showing bone and green flesh. Its smell was pungent like a dead rat dunked in sewer water and left to fester with plagued wounds and maggots. Which looking at it if you replaced the word rat with man would have been very likely. It missed an arm as well as its head, which made Tarthas fear how it made those guttural groans, but made him laugh cause the rotten corpse couldn’t harm him.
He shot a fireball at the living corpse and it lit up like a beacon the dry flesh slowly being eaten away by the flames as it walked towards Tarthas, until nothing much more was left than a pile of charred bones.
As he carried on walking the cavern became less and less structured and more and more like a cave. When the walls were nothing much more than mud and fungi grew around he spotted a flame in the darkness. A goblin was roasting a giant rat on a spit above the fire. Goblins were humanoid creatures, shorter in stature and very lanky, huge round heads and large hands and feet, tribal and primitive in culture, if you accepted they had any in the first place. They lived in caves and sewers, sometimes raiding small villages. Tarthas stopped in his tracks and crouched. Took out his bow and notched an arrow. As he breathed in he pulled back the arrow and rested it on his cheekbone. He aimed carefully for its neck before letting go as he breathed out.
With only the hint of a twang and a hiss the arrow went straight through its neck. The creature squealed like a pig clutching it its throat with his dying breath.
Tarthas stood up and walked over to the spit and saw on a small table a mortar and pestle. He picked it up and put it in his satchel, would come in handy for alchemy.
He carried on through the passage way and saw a pile of lumber with goblins behind it. He pushed the lumber and let the pile roll down first breaking the goblin’s legs before flattening them like Dorthe’s sweetrolls.
At another cave chamber another goblin had his back to him, it was setting up a trap of spiked logs ready to swing down on chains from the ceiling at anyone unfortunate to trip over a wire at the entrance to the chamber.
“Boo!” Tarthas shouted. The goblin shrieked and charged at Tarthas. He grinned and kicked the wire loose. The goblin stopped in its tracks realising what the snapped cord meant. A sickening crunch sounded when the three logs lodged into its back breaking the frail thing. Stupid creatures, smart enough to set up traps but stupid enough to fall for them.
Round the next hairpin the largest natural cavern yet emerged. It was like a bowl. The pit in the centre had a caged off pen with rats and a goblin guarding it. On one end a goblin was picking his teeth with a lock pick on the other one was roasting a rat on a spit. At the far side there was another robed goblin chanting away around a cauldron filled with skulls, it held a staff with a goblin head stuck onto it.
The goblin picking its teeth spotted Tarthas and shrieked before charging at him slashing its iron short-sword before it was anywhere in range. Tarthas parried it making the goblin rebound but his rusted sword shattered from the force. Both looked in surprise, the goblin grinned at this new revelation but Tarthas was a step quicker, moving in and setting the goblin aflame on touch while grabbing an arrow from his quiver and stabbing it through its bulging eye into its brain.
He unslung his bow turning around and aiming at the goblin guarding the pen who was now running towards him and in quick succession shot the pen goblin and the chef goblin through their meagre chests. Now the shaman was alerted and fired a stream of lightning from the goblin headed staff. Tarthas ducked and rolled to the side and with a thock his arrow stuck in the shaman’s skull as well.
He looked at his three fingers of his right hand. They were bleeding from the cutting string of the bow and not being protected by a leather glove. He laid his other hand over it and closed the wounds with a healing spell. The tingling sensation was irritating and soothing at once. He had a lot of supplies to get if he ever got out of this cave system. He had barely any septims though.
The goblins had meagre amounts of coins a couple septims each and to his surprise the shaman had a stash of flawed gems and some silverware. He put the goblets in his satchel as well as the gems before heading off; this could make a small profit. He also picked up the iron short sword from one of the goblins, it looked in better shape than the shattered and rusted one he first had.
Finally light showed at the end of the passage and not the light from flames, but the pale light of aylied ruins. He jumped through the hole back into the aylied ruins of the escape route behind the emperor and his Blades. He had kept up with them.
“Damnit! It’s that prisoner again!” the younger Blade yelled.
“Kill him, he must be working with the assassins!” The other one replied, they both unsheathed their Katana’s.
“No.” Uriel stopped them. “He is not one of them. He can help us. He must help us.” The old emperor walked up to Tarthas. “They cannot understand why I trust you. They’ve not seen what I’ve seen. How can I explain this? You know the Nine? How They guide our fates with an invisible hand?”
Tarthas thought for a second about saying what he would say to a faithful priest, what you are taught to believe but decided to be honest. “I don’t know. I don’t really think about it.”
The emperor sighed, “I have served the Nine all my days and I chart my course through the cycle of the heavens.” He looked up imagining a night sky above his head instead of the smooth ceiling that lay above, “The skies are marked with numberless sparks, each a fire, and every one a sign. I know these stars well and I wonder… which one marks your birth?”
“I was born under the Lady, milord.”
“The signs I read show the end of my path. My death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.
“What have you seen about me?” He asked enthusiastically, maybe this old and delusional man could tell him why he was here after all.
“Your stars are not mine. Today the Lady will fortify you in your quest for glory.”
“But can you see my fate?”
“My dreams grant me no opinion of success. Their compass ventures not beyond the doors of death. But in your face, I behold the sun’s companion. The dawn of Akatosh’s bright glory may banish the coming darkness. With such hope and with promise of your aid, my heart must be satisfied.
The Blades edged the emperor on and they went through three more chambers being attacked by more and more assassins, the last two blades did not fall this time. They came into a passage with two ways, one another hallway, the other a wooden door. The Blades went to the door and attempted to open it. Then slamming his whole body against the wooden barricade.
“They’ve barred it from the other side! We are trapped!”
“What about that side passage?” The young blade suggested.
“Worth a try! Let’s go!”
The emperor and Tarthas were the first through the hall. It was a dead end. Nowhere else to go.
“It was a trap! Prisoner, guard him with your life.” They turned around and stood outside the passage fighting off a horde of assassins.
The emperor held Tarthas’ hands, they were soft and leathery as well as frail. He passed on something cold and metallic. It was his amulet.
“I can go no further. You alone must stand against the Princes of devastation and their mortal servants. He must not have the Amulet of Kings. Take the Amulet and give it to Jauffre at Weynon priory. He alone knows where to find my last son. Find him and close shut the jaws of Oblivion.”
“Your Amulet? Then this is goodbye?”
“This is where my journey ends. For you though it is only the beginning and the road is long and dangerous.”
“With all my heart… farewell.” Tarthas wished sincerely.
“Remember me and remember my words. This burden is now yours alone. You hold our future in your hands.” After those last words he groaned as a daedric dagger protruded from his chest. An assassin formed out of the fading invisibility spell.
“Nice speech. But now a new dawn will rise and you are not worthy to see it!” He pulled out the dagger from the emperors back who fell to the floor. And was going to stab Tarthas as well but the jackal jumped through the assassin ripping his soul from him, he died instantly. Once again Tarthas felt a surge of energy.
The fighting had stopped outside the chamber. And the youngest blade walked into the room. He fell to his knees beside the fallen emperor. “I have failed. We have failed.” He looked up at Tarthas, “You? You have the Amulet of Kings?”
“He told me to bring it to Jauffre.”
He stood up and chuckled, “It’s funny; he saw something in you. He trusted you. Most people think the dragon crown is the most important artefact, but actually it is the amulet. Guard it with your life. Bring it to Jauffre as fast as possible. He is the leader of our order. Go through the passage the assassin came from, it should lead you through to the sewers. It was where we were headed, from there head to Chorrol outside of the gates is Weynon Priory. The sewers shouldn’t be a problem for you. I wish you luck. I have to bring the bodies of my fallen comrades back to Cloud Ruler Temple, they will not be forgotten. Here, take my steel short sword. It is better than that rusty iron one you have acquired, and a key to the sewers as well.”
“I won’t fail you.” He promised.
I hope you enjoyed, comments would be appreciated.
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