Until Dawn - A Tale of Legend & Lycanthropy

• Posted by SpottedFawn October 8, 2015 - 1,430 views

  

  A tale of lycanthropy and a legendary bottle! Follow the misadventure of Tavareth Redvale, a Bosmer ranger living and hunting in the Fall Forest when he encounters a little more than he bargained for.

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  The gates of Riften swung out and the chilly autumn air tried seeping through the gaps in my armor, making me fasten my cloak a little tighter I drew level with the guards stationed near the stables. Hard though it was to see their faces behind such clunky helmets, it didn’t take a one-eyed skeever to pick up on the atmosphere or the slouching shoulders.

  “Bored?” My tone carried a naturally mischievous lilt, but the guards were so used to me and I so used to them that they didn’t take my tone to be baited.

  “I’d be a lot warmer and a lot happier with a belly full of mead.” Replied one. The second guard uttered a grunt that I interpreted as a heartfelt ‘here here!’

  “Give it time and maybe you’ll be promoted?”

  I couldn’t help myself.

  “For being a first-rate night watchman! As far as empty stares go, you’re really doing an excellent job.”

  “Go bother someone else, elf,” said the guard and I grinned as he squared his shoulders and made a threatening step my way. I wisely moved out of range, passing beneath a lantern post and onto the main path.  I never got tired of this little song and dance—it happened every time I came to Riften. Fortunately, they’d learned not to take my words so seriously—or themselves either, not when they stood guarding a city where the Thieves Guild had more monthly sign-ups than their law enforcement. Sure, I’d gotten into trouble once or twice, but for the most part they’d learned how to take a joke.

  “Be careful,” shouted the second guard at my back. “These vampires are becoming a real problem.”

  I offered my assurances that I would be fine with a confident wave and kept walking until the warm glow of the lantern-post faded into memory. I wasn’t worried; vampires preferred a much more civic setting than any forest I was likely to be found in, and should one actually find me or my treehouse, I’m no curly-haired lamb ripe for the slaughter.

  The twin moons were full above me and the way their light spilled through the leaves and curved over boughs brought up thoughts of home; the fresh rain had stirred the forest’s mingling scents into the air all around me. Wet earth always made me nostalgic. Over fallen logs and around sprightly clumps of wildflowers, I walked through the Fall Forest, drawn to this small arboreal oasis in an otherwise frigid, unwelcoming land. Not ready for the night to end, I lingered near the skinny base of a birch tree, the bark scratched and peeling, but glowing white in the moonlight. I pinned a leaf pirouetting for the earth between my first and second finger, feeling the soft serrated edge. Would it sound obvious if I said leaves reminded me the most of Valenwood? My father used to often remark that I should be careful…

  Because even leaves can have teeth.

  The hour was late. After selling a week’s worth of venison, bear and goat meat to the markets, I had stopped to share a drink with Madesi; by the time I’d helped my Argonian friend to his pile of straw in Beggars Row, the whole evening had gone by. The lightness in my backpack pushed me to a decision; as much as I preferred to sleep when the animals slept and wake when the sun crested the horizon, the fullness of the moons and the chance of repeating last week’s hunting success made me giddy. Invigorated, I curved north and away from the familiar landmarks that led to my treehouse, pulling a thin ebony arrow from my quiver, bow comfortable in my grasp.

  Not far from where I had chosen to hunt, a wolf bayed and I felt the cool night wind murmur in my ears until I readjusted my hood, crouching in the shadow of a rocky overhang, my eyes trained on a fox yards ahead. That was nothing unusual.

  Then a werewolf howled.

  The primal sound poured ice into my veins, flushing the giddiness from my body like sediment swept down river.

  In Valenwood, my people were not immune to Hircine’s summons, to the promises offered to a culture that valued hunting so highly. That werewolves were more common in the Greenshade than in Skyrim didn’t make me any less frightened of them. Their howling wasn’t something to ‘get used to’, it was something to get away from.

  So I did.

  Well, tried.

  I heard the heavy footfalls and the wicked snap of branches and shrubbery as something solid bowled over everything in its path, not caring for the flora when the fauna was close enough to bite. The fox I’d been pursuing had fled the instant that first howl had twisted the air, and likely wasn’t around to catch the low, guttural snarl that sounded horrifyingly close.

  Though night vision was not one of Y’ffre’s gifts to the Bosmer, I put on a great display of acting like it was, running pell-mell by spruce and aspen without accident—though how long that would last, I couldn’t say. Damned werewolves! My heart shuddered in my chest; I didn’t like going from hunter to the hunted. I gritted my teeth as I cleared another fallen log; my own shadow was spilled out in front of me, making it harder to see the roots that would like to introduce me to a face-full of leafy, sodden detritus. In my haste to get away, I mistook a nervous flash of heat under my collar for werewolf breath on the nape of my neck, and as I jumped over a rotten stump in my path, my foot struck against it. Instinct kicked in and I rolled into my fall, scurrying onto my feet knowing I’d lost what precious time I had to get away. I prayed to Y’ffre to slow the beast down or drop my scent—just until I could get to the main path.

  But Hircine’s favor was strong in Skyrim that night, and my prayers went ignored as grey fur and snapping jaws burst through the shrubbery behind me.

  What good are the Vigilants of Stendarr, if they’re never there when you need them?

  The werewolf swiped left, so I dived right, flinching as something wet flung from the ends of the beast’s claws to splash against my cheek. Blegh. Orc blood. Don’t get me wrong, cannibalism was alive and well in the Greenshade, but this wasn’t the Greenshade, and I wasn’t the hungry one.

  Another roar, and strings of saliva stretched across its open mouth were caught in the moonlight like a thick, wet, spider’s web, the beast close enough to me that I could smell foul, soured breath. Indecision gnawed at me. I couldn’t outrun it, and I loathed turning my back on it so that I might scale a tree. This left only one option; to kill it before it killed me.

  Easier said than done though, isn’t it?

  I kept leaping and side-stepping the big lumbering swings of the werewolf’s shaggy arms, grateful that, while it was fast, I was just a little bit faster. I was running out of uncluttered ground to maneuver in, and with my back to the trees and the rocks and the streams, there was no telling what I might accidentally collide with. The werewolf was giving me no time to draw my bow. that’s the trouble with being a former Jaqspur; I could handle long distance like a champion, but close range shots were tricky for me, even on a clear day without a werewolf trying to pummel me into Bosmer bits.

  Again, my luck ran out, and I misjudged the closeness of a crumbled ruin, my heel striking the blunt corner of a shattered Nordic pillar, all momentum lost. I was swiftly and mercilessly knocked arse-over-quiver into the rest of the carved rock, the breath taken clean out of me, and my teeth had rattled together so hard, I felt like I’d bitten clean through my tongue.

  The impact was worse. If my ribs had been bruised when I’d been struck, landing hard on the temple remains made sure they were nice and broken. A horrible wheezed breath (and the colossal heaps of pain) were effective reminders that I was still alive.

  For two heartbeats of pain-induced delirium, I didn’t care where the werewolf was or what it was doing. I didn’t care that I could see the lord and lady constellations glittering down at me in my spread-eagled heap. Maybe I would’ve kept on not-caring, if I hadn’t thought of someone, and that someone was reason enough to force my body to rise into a sitting position, bow drawn, aiming straight for the small space between two yellow eyes coming closer.

  I finally had the distance I needed, but did I have enough time?

  ! The fall had snapped a number of my arrows, I heard the awkward rattle of ebony wood and arrowheads in my quiver as I blindly grabbed for one that was still intact.

  The werewolf was closing in fast. Come on come on. I let loose my first arrow, holding my breath until I heard the sharp twang of my bowstring—and the sound of the arrow burying deep into the werewolf’s shoulder mere seconds after. (Not where I was aiming, but I’ll take it) The high, snarling keen of agony was satisfying, but that was about all it amounted to; he wasn’t slowing down.

  I shot again. And again. And again. Admittedly, some of them missed—but two or three stuck out of the werewolf’s chest by the time he’d closed the gap. He leaped high, intending to crush me beneath him like a shaggy boulder, and my sides screamed at me as I leaned back just far enough to line up my last shot.

  Thwack!

  My aim was true, and the werewolf’s head flinched back with the force of the arrow lodging into its skull—and I saw the body start to go slack just before it fell on top of me. Again, all the breath was knocked out of my body and the pain was so great, my eyesight darkened. All my other injuries seemed like minor irritations next to my ribs—I didn’t give a giant’s arse that the beast’s teeth cut into my fingers when I’d raised my hands to shield my face.

  The last thing I remember looking at was the stars, and hoping this wasn’t the last time I saw them.

  

  I’m alive. … Right?

  My face felt warm, and unless Aetherius was nothing but spinning blackness (a possibility), my eyelids were still closed.

  I opened my eyes, confused by the dark swath of treetops overhead and the patches of night sky through the foliage. In a stupor, I opened my mouth to call out—and immediately got a whiff of dead, musky werewolf. The smell was enough to make me dizzy all over again. I didn’t dare move. When the stars finally stopped spinning, and I could take shallow, wheezing breaths again, I tried to slide my body out from under the dead lycanthrope, bits and pieces of the fight coming back to me. I cursed their bones in all the ways I could think of as I painstakingly wormed my way onto the grass.

  Where was my pack? I always kept health potions within easy reach, no matter where my wanderlust took me; the bottles were enchanted, so it wasn’t likely they were smashed and going to waste on some lucky earthworm.

  I knew I was lucky to have survived that. If ‘survived’ was the right word. My back felt like an orc had stomped on it, and my chest ached fiercely on both sides—two, maybe three broken ribs? My armor felt tight. Either my broken ribs had started to swell, or my armor was more damaged than I thought. I probably would’ve felt a little jealous of the mages who could heal themselves, if I could think about anything other than finding my backpack. From where I sat, one hand braced on the grass to keep me sitting upright, I scanned the surrounding ruins, a cracked archway lying broken all around me and the dead shapeshifter.

  A good minute of looking, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t lost my backpack in the first place. Y’ffre’s Beard, I had to be out of it if I didn’t even notice it still being strapped to my back. Three health tonics taken, I could finally stand up without the urge to collapse or curse worse than Windhelm’s sailors. The cuts to my hand had healed. My ribs had healed (mostly). Yet I didn’t feel healed. Not completely.

  I looked to the horizon, then frowned. Was that an orange glow? Y’ffre’s Bones, how long had I blacked out for?

  Trying to come to terms with the severe loss of time, I tried to get my bearings, wandering away from the ruins in search of the closest road. I knew I’d been through more than the average mer just now (er, back then) and that was cause enough for celebration, but I didn’t feel like my normal self. A congratulatory pat on the back was the last thing I wanted.

  It was like catching a cold; my head throbbed, and my limbs ached as though their one true wish in this life was to be introduced to a feather bed. I felt an isolated throb in my right hand, and held it up for inspection.

  Somehow, the truth hit me harder than that werewolf falling on top of me.

  Gods. I’m infected.

  There was a tight feeling in my chest as I took a deep breath, and shrugged my pack back off my shoulders. Any wood elf from a proper hunting party knows how to act under duress, but my heart pounded like a war drum, and it took me a few heartbeats longer than it should’ve to get the pack open again. Hard to unfasten something with trembling fingers. Rummaging, I shoved aside whatever I didn’t need—where is it—I gotta have one in here somewhere—cure disease bottles aren’t that small—I turned the pack over on a weather-worn stump, knocking off some lichen in the process. The contents spilled in all directions; a few bottles for stamina, a few vials of poison, a few potions to restore me to good health… But nothing for Sanies Lupinus.

  Again, I took another deep, steadying breath and tried to think calming thoughts of Valenwood, the tremble in my hands migrating to my arms. All I could picture were the macabre looking shrines to Hircine in the wilds, and the feral howls and snarls of Hircine’s packs in the Greenshade while they ravaged through the forests.

  Stuffing everything back in, I ran again in search of a road, my stomach jolting sideways when the moonlight finally spilled onto some flattened cobblestones and a sign post. Finally!

  My skin felt hot beneath my armor, my mouth dry. I’d already allowed a whole day for the disease to settle into my blood.

  I ran parallel with the road, ready to take a shortcut as soon as I saw one, and tried not to think about the ‘what if’s’.

  I’d get to Windhelm. I’d get help. I wouldn’t become a werewolf. I wouldn’t change.

  I ran faster.

  

  Ambling through treacherous terrain of Eastmarch in the dark was a nightmare. I couldn’t fully trust my senses, and it was difficult to hear beyond the howled breath of winter ripping over rock and cliff-face. I was forced to stay on the path, and to take stamina potions to ensure I wouldn’t end up crawling to Windhelm.

   

  A bridge is just a bridge, and I would usually agree with you, but laying eyes on the stalwart glow of the stables and the palace looming over the city behind it like a Graht-Oak, I have never been so happy to set foot on that one bridge and stumble across.

  There were no guards to greet me when I reached the gates. Good, they didn’t get to watch as I nearly collided against them, as much trying to push them open as I was trying to keep myself standing. My back was sweat-laden, but my hands felt like ice.

  The massive doors yielded a little, and I squeezed through the narrow gap, flinching as the harsh crimson gleam of blood-magic flared up from the darkened city. Shadows were locked in a violent struggle in front of the Candlehearth Inn, and a taste of death rode the cold wind creeping in.

  Vampires.

  The guards who should’ve been outside must’ve been killed and raised to fight, or that was them now, stumbling on the steps under the menace of a master vampire.

  Shock stayed my hand, but the sight of a red-eyed, ashen-faced elf and a beggar woman forced to fend for their lives against a death hound thawed my outer shell of ice.

  I fumbled for my quiver, snatching the first arrow I felt—the arrowhead missing from the tip. I heard the death hound worrying the Dunmer’s arm like a piece of meat, and the frantic but ineffectual kicking to get loose.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  The Dunmer fell, his arm a mangled bloody mess as the death hound overcame him; the beggar woman was long gone, and as the fiend sought to rejoin its master or find a new target, I shot it through the neck.

  As abruptly as I’d been thrown into the fight, the ending was even more jarring—the uncomfortable stillness, the death-quiet in the streets as we all realized the skirmish was over. The quiet was broken by the clanking of chainmail, Windhelm’s guards (the few survivors) checking the fallen.

  I couldn’t afford to be stopped for questions, so I ducked into a narrow alley, blood and saltwater hanging in the air as I sought out the White Phial. As much as my mind was occupied with getting the cure, I remembered the Dunmer’s face, wreathed in terror…

  I shook my head, as if I could physically get the image out.

  These walls were high and imposing, trapping me inside this icy city as I navigated the short stone steps to the upper level, seeing the orange glow of a forge just ahead. I wanted to stop and warm myself, but the hanging sign of the White Phial was too bright a beacon of relief. Frostbite be damned; Y’ffre would forgive me a few lost fingers and toes for focusing on curing my lycanthropy.

  With hands shriveled from the cold, I pounded the door with both fists and yelled against it, hoarse.

  “Open up! Please, I don’t have much time! Open up!”

  I waited.

  … Nothing.

  Pick the lock. I always carried lockpicks, to crack open chests of valuables I found whenever I ended up in a bandit hovel, but I never used them on residences and shops. The guards were still near the front gates. If I was going to break the law, now was the time.

  I pulled a pick from my belt pouch and let myself in.

  The temperature wasn’t much better indoors, and the latticed windows were so frost-encrusted, any moonlight coming in was very, very poor. Still, I could make out a long counter spanning almost the full width of the room, a short staircase to the right of it, and a tiny out-of-the-way table and chairs set up catty corner to the stairs. Two dim lights flickered from cone-shaped candles on the counter, lending nightmarish shadows to the potions and ingredients on display in the shelves lining the back wall.

  I glossed over dried deathbells, withered mushrooms in bowls, and tonics of varying sizes but not what I needed. My heart hammered in my throat, frustration welling. There was a creak from the second floor above me, and I froze; looks like my knocking hadn’t gone unheard after all.

  Before I could slip back out from behind the counter, an aged Altmer appeared at the bottom of the steps, his voice harsh and grating against the silence of the shop.

  “What do you think you’re doing? A sneakthief, eh? Have you no shame, robbing a sick elf of his gold! Have you no respect for your elders, boy?”

  I grimaced, hands raised. If he called the guards, I was going to be up a tree without a bow.

  “Please, I just need a potion to cure a disease—“

  “Ha! Don’t we all!” Snapped the old man, his slippered feet shuffling as he came closer. Even in his advanced age, he towered over me, staring down with an imperious, disgusted expression—as if he’d seen maggots with more integrity. I could see now what he meant by ‘sickly’; the tawny skin had grown pallid, and his lips matched, his eyes bloodshot. I detected a cough in his words when he continued his harangue.

  “Get out of my shop, you pilfering tree-rat!”

  Tree-rat.

  “I’m willing to pay three times the price!” I snapped.

  A third voice called out from a side room I hadn’t noticed in the dark.

   

  “Master Nurelion? What’s going on?”

  A man roughly my age sporting bushy brown sideburns walked in, his nightcap askew, staring goggle-eyed between us.

  “Nothing that concerns you! Go back to bed, Quintus.”

  Maybe I could reason with the other one.

  “Please,” I turned to face him, my frozen hands clenching and unclenching. “I was bitten by a werewolf last night, I need a potion to cure it. Your master is refusing to sell.”

  Nurelion snorted, his copper eyes rolling with contempt.

  “I never said I wouldn’t sell, boy. Fact is, we’re fresh out.”

  My stomach dropped.

  “What? Then there must be a recipe.” I’d make one myself, even if it took all damned morning.

  Nurelion bobbed his head once, arms folded tight to his chest.

  “Sure is.”

  Before I could ask about a price, he tapped the side of his head. Great.

  “Then I’ll pay you to make one.”

  “Not interested. I don’t sell to thieves!”

  I swayed on my feet, feeling the heat rush to my face. I’m not often driven to violence, but this Altmer—

  “Maybe he can help,” cut in Quintus. “You can’t make the trip yourself, Master. But maybe he can retrieve the White Phial for you.”

  Phial? What Phial?

  Master Nurelion narrowed his eyes, considering. “Yes, perhaps he could…”

  If I had more pride, I think I would’ve left—maybe stolen a key from one of the bodies and tried my luck inside a residence. But I was here, and I couldn’t waste any more time on ‘maybes’.

  “If I get you this Phial, will you make the potion?”

  Nurelion hesitated, but his arms lowered, his hands splaying on the counter, posture decisive.

  “Yes.”

  Finally. “First things first, what’s the White Phial and how do I get it?”

  “Just a man's life work, is all. I've finally derived the location of the White Phial, but this doting busybody won't let me get it. That’s where you come in."

  By Y’ffre, was I talking to a mule? How hard was it to name the place so I could be on my way? He must’ve seen my face go sour, because he added,

  "It's buried with its maker, Curalmil, in a long forsaken cave to the west of here. Curalmil was a crafty one, even in death. You would need the skills of a master alchemist to reach his resting place. Luckily for you, I've already made the mixture."

  “West of here…” I accepted the strange bottle handed to me, watching as a dark liquid sloshed around inside of it, the scent of jarrin root heavy in my nose.

  “Near Lake Yorgrim,” chimed in Quintus, who shook out a match beside a tall four-pronged candle holder.

  I groaned. Lake Yorgrim was hours away on foot.

  
  “That’s too far! I’ve already lost a day, I’m not losing another one.”

  Nurelion waved me away. “Then I guess you’d better get a move on!”

  Quintus’s sympathetic looks didn’t lessen my ire with his master, and I cursed that high elf’s bones under my breath as I left the alchemy shop.

  I’d stop once at the inn to warm up, put something in my stomach, and go find this gods’ forsaken cave. I was done panicking. The disease was really starting to wear me down, but I was still myself, and I like to think that I’m the kind of elf who doesn’t give up so easy.

  

  Nurelion didn’t mention the draugr.

  Blizzard conditions, I could endure. The snow bears inhabiting the cave, I could handle. The draugr infesting the ruins? They may call US savages, notice there are no walking corpses of the undead wandering Valenwood armed to their rotten teeth. If the Nords ate their fallen, they wouldn’t have a draugr problem.

  And I wouldn’t be hiding behind empty coffins, shooting at walking bags of armored, rotten meat.

  Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. I counted arrows, not draugr. With my ebony arrows broken, I was using Nord-made arrows with cheap steel tips—and they were slow to bring down the walking ancients, even when I aimed right between the eyes. I cleared the burial chamber with two left, and began my routine search of the room; opening every urn, checking every table, rifling through the tattered clothes of every corpse I came across. It was grisly work; I don’t know how the people of this land can stand to bury their dead underground, surrounded by stone. The air was so stale. No plant life could grow here.

  There was only cold.

  When thoroughness yielded no results, I sneaked to the next room. Being unable to mark the passage of time was the worst part of this crypt; how much longer would I have to rummage around for an old man’s useless Phial? It wasn’t like I was going to find a plaque lying over a corpse saying “here lies Curalmil. The Phial’s in his left pocket. Exit is just up the stairs to your right”.

  I would have earned my mother’s scolding on a hunting party if I let my thoughts wander then as much as they did right now. Lycanthropy… White Phials… The dark truth that I had until tomorrow’s night to find a cure… I thought about what it would mean if I did become a werewolf. I thought of her again, and there was comfort in knowing she wouldn’t leave my side even if I became a beast of nightmare. That knowledge might have stayed my hand, back in the White Phial; drastic measures had seemed a lot more reasonable then. I uttered a dry chuckle at no one.

  “Two days infected, and I’m already turning into a jerk.”

  Next I saw Nurelion, I’d keep better hold of myself.

  Two more chambers were cleared of draugr and searched. Nothing.

  Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.

  The wind never blows in a pattern. That sound was something else—something mechanical? I progressed to the next chamber in a crouch, two dozen ancient Nordic arrows ending up in my quiver by the time I reached the source of the noise. It was a set of two swinging axes, all pointed down, all meant to slice even the most determined thief into pieces. I was lucky to be a Bosmer; I’d bet my best bow those traps had been designed with a Nord or Orc in mind. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled low to the stone floor, feeling the chill seep in through my palms. I knew the blades couldn’t reach me—but I still held my breath until I could stand up without leaving parts of me behind.

  This new chamber was massive compared to the endless maze of catacombs I’d left behind; if Curalmil was as special as the Altmer had claimed… I think I’d finally in the right place.

  In the center of the room on a stone platform raised high enough to need steps, was another iron coffin. I approached slowly, bow poised, string taut. If old Curalmil followed the rest of the roving meat pack, his coffin was going to open in the next couple of heartbeats.

  I wasn’t disappointed.

  The lid flew off and struck the stone floor hard enough to create an echo, and a heavily-armored Nord warrior climbed into the candlelit chamber, his eyes glowing blue with a strange other-light. Two other coffins on the left and right side broke open; I just finished dispatching the new arrivals when a gust of spirit air tried to knock me off my feet. Old Curalmil could shout? Now that’s just cheating.

  Surprisingly, my fight in the forest with the lycanthrope had been tougher than Curalmil. ‘Course, I had enough columns to hide behind and coffins to duck against to keep me unscathed, an advantage I didn’t have against the werewolf. I kept Curalmil at a distance, and I like to think I redeemed myself for my muddy marksmanship earlier.

  After a short length of time, Curalmil fell, horned helm tumbling from his decaying hair and shrunken skull as dust welled up to settle on the alchemist’s corpse. As for myself, I sat on the edge of Curalmil’s coffin, and while I gave it a cursory glance, I took another stamina potion from my pack. I said the fight was easier than the werewolf—but that didn’t mean I was fine. On top of the flu symptoms, the details of the burial chamber were sharper, clearer to my eyes when I rose to walk carefully around its interior. Had I adjusted to the gloom, or was this the Sanies Lupinus starting to take hold?

  With or without predatory vision, I found the doorway cut out of stone, and it led me to a small alcove with a substantial basin in the center, as wide as a baby mammoth’s skull, and I guessed just as deep. I wiped the sweat from my brow, swaying on my feet. The mixture. Right. Without ceremony, I took the bottle, uncorked it, and dumped the unknown, bitter poultice into the basin; the effects were immediate.

  The liquid glowed a noxious green, and the smell matched. Ugh. Nurelion had brewed it correctly, because a thick slab of stone grinded into movement on the other side of the alcove, lowering into the floor to reveal a passage to the burial chamber’s treasure room. And the White Phial.

  Nauseous, I wasted no time entering. It wasn’t a treasure room at all, but an alchemist’s laboratory, with shelves of ancient ingredients untouched by sunlight or living thing for centuries. Directly to my left was a bedraggled tapestry, a pedestal underneath; on top of that was a cracked, dingy little glass bottle.

  My mind on the traps I had outmaneuvered on my way here, I didn’t take the Phial from the pedestal immediately. Instead, I bent to study it, a sinking feeling beginning to take effect. The crack in its surface couldn’t have been more apparent. What if Nurelion refused to cure me if I returned with this gods-damned broken Phial?

  I could try my luck in Dawnstar. I was halfway to that city already. The exhaustion weighed on me at the thought of more running, stamina potions only lasted so long. So much time underground coupled with the sickness in my veins, I planted my hands on top of a waist-high shelf near the Phial, my bones aching with the chill and the fatigue. The shelf creaked under my weight, and a bottle rolled onto the floor from the bottom-most slat, coming to rest against my boot. I retrieved it, my thumb brushing the caked on layer of dirt from the bulbous red side. Under the dirt was a label.

  Potion of Cure Disease.

  

  I wasn’t at the mercy of a terse, sickly Altmer when I returned to the White Phial. I wasn’t at the mercy of my body trying to keep up after two full nights of sickness, either; the snow was probably still tramped down where I’d pitched my tent and laid out my sleeping roll just outside of the Curalmil’s cave. The blood pumping through my heart felt clean, my stomach was full from two hares I caught on the walk back, and the icy water of River Yorgrim chilled but refreshed me.

  I smiled as I walked in, more than happy to put up with Nurelion’s attitude now that it wasn’t standing between me and a life of lycanthropy. The assistant with the bushy sideburns looked up from a mortar and pestle. He’d been mouthing along to a book open on the counter beside him; he looked like a person trying to squeeze knowledge out of an Imga’s skull, but his brows jumped up and the hard line of his mouth slackened in surprise when he saw me standing there.

  
  “By the Eight, you found it? Truth be told, Master Nurelion and I weren’t sure you were coming back at all!”

  “I found it,” I said, pulling the dingy little bottle from my belt pouch with a careful touch. “But it’s broken.”

  The cracks looked even worse in the alchemy shop’s dim lighting. If this little bottle was the stuff of legend, maybe it was time to find some better legends.

  Quintus’s face fell.

  “O-Oh,” he stammered. “Oh I see… Well, Master Nurelion will still want to see it for himself.” The assistant gestured up the stairs, and when I reached the first step, he stalled me for one final somber word.

  “He’s… not well. Please try not to exacerbate his condition.”

  My smile faded, and I swore to be on my best behavior. I reached the second floor, the somber mood enhanced by the unlit fireplace and the old high elf sitting in front of it, staring into nothingness. We had gotten off on the wrong foot before, but I wasn’t going to come in banging a drum and telling him all about my unexpected second chance at life. Instead, I tapped my knuckles against the wall; I didn’t want my voice to be what broke the silence.

  Nurelion looked at me, and I saw the years piled up behind his eyes, weighing down in bags under his lower lids and in the wrinkles and folds of his pale, pointed face.

  “You again. Come to taunt an old man in his final hours?” Rheumy eyes narrowed. “You don’t look sickly at all. Huh! Guess that makes you a thief and a liar.”

  I didn’t bother explaining my windfall in the crypt, and held up the Phial.

  “I found it, actually. But it’s cracked, sorry.”

  Nurelion lunged from the chair, seizing the Phial with long, shaking fingers—and I sucked in a shocked breath. I didn’t think he still had energy left in him to stand, much less snatch something from me. His voice was a hoarse croak, and I had to lean in to catch his desperate whispers.

  “This... it matches every description of the Phial that I've found in lore. But if it can't hold liquid, there's no way of knowing…” Before long, the fire in his eyes had been doused, and he lowered back into the chair as if every bone in his body was too heavy to lift. The Phial was cradled in his hands; all he had left was the attitude.

  “How did you manage to damage it, then? This is what I get for not retrieving it myself."

  “It was like that when I found it.”

  The old man sighed.

  "Figures — I doubt you have sufficient knowledge to harm the Phial even if you wanted to. Either way, this is the end of it.”

  Now that I wasn’t so focused on my own ailment, I could smell Nurelion’s sickness on the breath of his sigh, and whatever tonics he must have taken to ease his own suffering. My skin grew hot with shame. I had spent the last few days in terror over becoming a werewolf—but that was nothing. Nurelion had endured the last few days knowing he was too weak to get a Phial he’d spent almost an entire lifespan trying to find. There would have been life after lycanthropy, for me.

  Would there be peace for Nurelion, after death?

  The old alchemist’s rise to his feet was unsteady, his face haggard.

  “Now if you'll excuse me, I'm not quite in the mood to entertain guests. I trust you can show yourself out.”

  I troubled Nurelion no more, and found Quintus at the bottom of the steps with a potion in hand. In contrast to the Altmer’s worn features, Quintus only looked saddened; he must have had a long time to get used to his master’s dwindling mental health.

  “Here,” he offered it to me. “You’ve more than earned this.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t need it.” I explained how I’d found the potion in Curalmil’s alchemy laboratory, and Quintus listened with a mild raise of his eyebrows.

  “Really? Then you didn’t need to bring back the Phial at all. Why did you?”

  “I don’t know.” That was the most honest answer I could give. “Nurelion spent years searching for it. I only had to spend a single night in a draugr-infested crypt. Felt like the right thing to do.”

  Quintus seemed satisfied with that, enough to smile a little.

  
  “That was kind of you. The Phial was his entire world; I’m glad he at least got to see it. …You said it was draugr-infested? By the Eight, that must have taken some guts!”

  I allowed myself a small grin.

  
  “Ran out of arrows, but I improvised. Not bad for a Tree-rat.”

  Quintus chuckled.

  
  “Not bad at all. If you ever need another potion, though, you know where to find us.”

  I did.

   
  “And if you ever find a way to fix the Phial, let me know,” I said as I stood by the door, pulling my hood up.

  “Maybe I can help.”

  Quintus thanked me for the gesture and said he’d keep in touch.

  I put the shop and the city behind me, finally going home. But as I walked into the snowy hills of Eastmarch, my thoughts stayed with the old mer by the empty fireplace.

  I don’t think I’ll forget him any time soon.

  ----------

  Author Notes:

  This story was originally going to be a 'gameplay blog' style entry, in that it would recount nearly verbatim a really exciting night that happened in my game. Tavareth did leave Riften to go hunting, Tavareth DID run into a werewolf, get knocked back, get infected, and find out he didn't have any cure disease potions. With Frostfall installed, running all the way to Windhelm proved really challenging, and when he got there, vampires were attacking the city. After that, the gameplay and the story go their separate ways; I wanted reveal more of Tavareth's character as well as give him a little development at the same time. This went from being a werewolf story to a lesson about fixation, and gave Tav a new perspective on his condition.

   Thank you again for reading! I feel somewhat sorry about how long it is (6,400 words, roughly!), and that I chose a POV I generally avoid, but I had fun figuring things out. Though, I'll admit there were times when I wanted to delete it all and do something else.

  My next entry will be much more polished, written in the third person, and probably about a different character. xD Not the best writing debut ever, but I'll get better at this. Promise.

  Thank you again for taking the time to read this. Critiques are welcome, though I likely won't touch this story again.