-Wrong! Use your balance to properly regulate your swings, don't exhaust your strength in a single strike and stop using it like a sword!-
Honestly, she must be fucking with me! How did a fighter with these martial skills cause such a massacre in Kvatch?! Her strong point must be magic, but I'm not going to mess with her magic skills just yet, an assassin needs to above all else be able to stand against multiple enemies in a battle of steel, there are many fighters out there who are experienced enough to not give her a chance to weave magika.
-Honest to god, your strikes must make Molag Bal proud. They are inefficient against someone with proper armor and aren't good enough to kill, only wounding your opponent, leaving them groveling for a slow death!- I barked at her.
-Well "master", if they die in the end what is the fucking difference?!- she shouted back.
-"The fucking difference" is that we are assassins, not torturers. And besides, this is well and good to massacre peasants and unarmed men, if someone is using even half decent armor they can stop your attacks easily!-
-Well then "master" Shade, demonstrate please!- she said as she shoved the weapon in my direction.
Idiot. I took the mace and focused on the target dummy, using my balance to my favor, I dragged the mace with a limp arm until I was almost close enough to strike, then I used my momentum to spin the weapon around me and upwards, and crashed down with its full weight on the dummy. Its head, half the torso and the plank shield were gone. Throwing the mace back at her I told her to continue until her arms were too tired to move.
This went on for quite some time, thanks to her vampiric blood her body persisted, and admittedly she showed more resistance than I thought she would. I realized that my actions towards her were being rather impatient, and soon after she calmed down from her previous tantrum her strikes improved, and neared perfect. She looked much different now. After we had our conversation, she was given time to bathe, rest and was given a new outfit, a uniform of the brotherhood, suited for an agile fighter. Now with the dirt and filth gone I could see how beautiful she truly was. Her hair was braided, her eyes no longer had that looming fatigue over them, but now they were alert and fearsome. Her lips were dark, and every time she had that sarcastic smile on her face she was sure to show her vampiric fangs. She was not extremely tall like Sophia was, but she was taller than me and my imperial allies by a few inches, and possessed a lean figure, that made her seem like a hardened soldier.
-Enough. I like what I see, you seem to show remarkable progression when you listen. But now I would like to see how you weave magicka, and what schools of magic you can use best- I said.
-Well Shade, now I have a chance to truly shine- she said, opening a crooked smile.
The air in the room became colder as she started weaving magika around herself, the flames on the torches started to flicker and fade. From the ground an aura of dread started to emerge and form around her, as skeletons made of pure darkness rose to her side. They were four in total, two of them were complete, wielding bows and the other two were made of smoke from waist down, with an icy aura around their hands as they prepared their own spells. The arrows and spells were pointed directly at me, along with Ruby's own hand, glowing with lighting and prepared to fire. The torches began to regain a bit of their strength, reforming her shadow behind her. Excellent.
-Well Shade, it seems I have you in a sweet spot right now, how about you begin by saying what you know about little old me?- she said while starting to pucker up.
-Hm, lets see what you are made of...- I said.
Still sitting down on the bench near the training ground I rose my own hand, making it into a fist and concentrating on her shadow. Without making a sound, a figure rose from her shadow and grabbed her in a choke hold, I squeezed my fist, and the figure mimicked me, strangling her further until her summons and lighting disappeared. She fell to the floor and my shadow fell into hers, vanishing. She looked back, and saw only the rest of the room, and her own dark reflection on the floor. Looking back at me her face revealed surprise and anger, she stood up and was about to question me.
-You still have much to learn child, go to sleep, you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow-
She left the room angered and without saying a word, stormed into her quarters. I stood up and walked into my room, I was tired and Julia was already sleeping. I layed beside her and embraced her, warming myself against her skin. Closing my eyes I was fast to sleep.
The next morning when I woke up Julia had already left. I got dressed and walked out into the main hall of the sanctuary to see the rest of my group chatting over breakfast. Deestan had arrived some time before, Brennan received the notes and put them on the table, attracting the attention of the ones present. Julia started to argue with Sophia about strategies on how to kill the winged beasts and I asked Zoe if she saw Ruby.
-She is hungry, should I give her a blood potion?- asked Zoe, with the most innocent voice she could manage.
-Why didn't you do that already?- I inquired, with some curiosity about what she was doing.
-Well, I did not know if we were going to starve her or something...- she said while making an innocent face.
-Tell you what, vampires get more feral when they go hungry, someone could get hurt if she goes feral here, do you understand me?-
-Fine, anyways, come with me, its time for her to get acquainted with the equipment.-
I followed Zoe to the training grounds where Ruby was shooting launched disks with her lighting spells to work on her accuracy, she seemed good with those, as there were no disks on the floor that did not have burnt marks on them. As we sat down to watch I saw as she launched three disks into the air, blasting two with her lighting and then closing the beams on the third.
-Hello my friend, you’re quite good with that lighting, how about the frost spikes? Can you pull of the same hawk eye skill with that?- asked Zoe.
In response Ruby didn't say a word, she just loaded the launcher with four disks and as they flew past her sights blasted them with a volley of spikes, impaling each disk multiple times.
-Very good! Exceptional skill, I can see right now that you will make excellent use of my inventions!- said Zoe.
-What was that Shade? Was that how you got your nickname? I thought users of shadow magic were extinct!- said Ruby in a sharp tone.
-I’m surprised that you found out after one demonstration- I said
-I want it, now- she said
-Make up your mind, you want many things, and besides, you would not be able to control shadow magic. You don't have what it takes- I answered.
-Then tell me what I am! Now!- she barked at me.
-I said that I would tell you when I was absolutely certain, but you seem to be in luck. First of all though, come with me, Zoe will have you geared up with our standard equipment-
We followed Zoe to her lab, the first thing I was a gauntlet. It was lying in her workbench with various other metallic pieces and crystals around it. It was made from dwemer metal, had some focusing crystals in the palm, the back of the hand and along the arm.
-I finally did it! Now I will be able to use magic again, safely of course...- said Zoe, saying the last words in a quiet voice.
-I trust that you remember the last time you tried to use magic right Zoe? The results were rather explosive...- I said in a mildly disapproving tone.
-But that is only when I use it without anything.... Casting only with scrolls can be a real pain in the ass, gets awfully boring. With this gauntlet though I don't even have to use my own magicka! You see, I figured out a way of using soul gems as storage, a simple procedure of magicka transfer does not trigger "that", I already tested, but it allows me to store my excess magika reserves inside the soul gems. Then I put the soul gem in this compartment, like so, and it powers the gauntlet! This baby can do so much! It weaves the magika stored in the soul gem with these focusing crystals, depending on the pattern I chose. To do that, I turn this Crystal in the back of the hand and chose between a frost cannon, a fire ball, a sustained lighting blast and a shockwave of pure kinetic energy, that can be reversed as well, creating a small gravity vortex that pulls shit towards me! And that is were the fun begins, I also installed a crossbow capable of alternating between bolts and poisonous darts, a retractable blade with one and a half feet length, and powerful claws at the tip of my fingers. All of these functions complemented with strength augmenting mechanisms that are too complicated to explain for simple minds like yours...- said Zoe, with a satisfied grin.
-One question... Is that why you’ve been sending Sophia and Brennan to scout dangerous dwemer ruins, crawling with falmer and automatons? To find these schematics?- I asked
-I regret nothing- she answered
I sighed and signaled her to continue, her lab stinked with the smell of corpses, I was the one that gave her permission to study anatomy of man and mer, even provided her with some bodies, but I really hated the smell. I put my hand in front of my nose and continued until we came across her extractor.
-So Ruby, this is what you will be feeding on. The brotherhood has worked with vampires before and we are well aware of the hunger that keeps your eyes fixed at our necks. The simple solution was the following, after sending Capran's lackeys to the dangerous ruins previously mentioned I managed to find some marvelous machinery at a dwemer medical lab. This particular piece is an extractor. It is absolutely useless for what we came here for, but if we continue to the left we find this spiny thing! Now, this here is used to separate the blood's plasma, from what you vampires need to survive. What I do is put the blood sample in this flask, like so, and then attach the flask to the spiny spin spin. Now that the plasma is separated from the useful crap, we divide in rations and dilute it a bit with water for easier ingestion. What we have here now is a concentrated mix of nutrients that is equivalent to one feeding. Here have a try, I've been told it tastes like iron dust mixed with water, but it will satisfy your hunger- said Zoe, finishing her speech.
Ruby drank it and made a slightly disgusted face, but after a couple of minutes she said it took care of the hunger so Zoe gave her a few more bottles for emergencies. We pressed on down to the armory, where we would give her some toys to play with. The armory was a large room, the only one that I spared no expenses to repair and refurnish. After a few quick questions about preferences and tastes, we built her complete arsenal. She preferred to keep the daedra's mace, much to my objection, but took a new dagger, a fine ebony stiletto. We also armed her with a few bombs, she preferred explosive ones, so we gave her a few incendiary bombs, crafted with fire salts, and frost shells, crafted with a mix of frost salts and netch jelly, used for immobilizing targets. She did not pick any ranged weapons, saying she was no good with those, and preferring to rely on her spells for range.
After we were done we went back to her room, where I instructed Brennan to bring the documents on Ricard's research. I quickly read the whole thing and was intrigued by the part concerning the prophecy, this confirmed my beliefs, and if I manage to keep her in my pocket long enough, this would be very beneficial.
-"Fus" (force)- I whispered towards Ruby.
She was sitting on a chair a bit distracted with her nails, but when the shockwave hit her she lost her balance and fell to the floor.
-What the fuck was that Shade?!- she asked angrily.
-Do what I just did- I said, hoping to confirm my theory.
-Oh with pleasure you bastard! "Fus"! - she shouted.
I was also sitting down, but I was expecting the force. I held on to the chair and managed to not fall down, her voice was strong, stronger than mine, and she almost did manage to make me fall.
-Do you have any idea of what you just did?- I asked
-No, it just, came naturally... What was that, and why do I know how to do it?- she asked me, slightly confused with her new skill.
-That was the voice, surely you have heard of it before. It is a great power, that few can master even with years upon years of experience. And in a split second you learned the word that I used to attack you, and managed to use it back against me-
-I know that Shade, I figured that part out, but what does it mean?-
-It means that my theory was correct, your essence was exactly the same as the essence of that black dragon. Tomorrow we will start honing your voice, and by the way,- I said as I got up to leave- welcome to the dark brotherhood, dragonborn...
Comments
I love it. What a perfect way to bring an unknowing dragonborn into the world.....