Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum - just moved from Bethesda.net which is closing. I have been writing Lena's story for the past half a year or so, she travels in Cyrodiil and Skyrim, does stuff and lives her life. This is not a novel - it has a beginning but no end, until she dies, which is hopefully not for a long while yet. It is a saga, a feuilleton - as they used to say in the old days - the story develops as it is being written, bit by bit. I hope you like it.

I have more than a hundred entries written already, so I am not going to repost them all here, unless you really want me to. They are all published in my blog: MasserAndSecunda.wordpress.com which I started as a way to keep track of things for myself and keep everything in one place.

I shall now repost a few of those entries here, so as to introduce you to the characters and some key points that get referred to later on.

The running story takes place in the 4th Era, taking off in year 4E201. I had to twist the arm of the lore a bit to correct false accounts on a few things that allegedly took place in the 200 years since the Oblivion Crisis. But we all know how easily false accounts become "historical thruths", so I have no qualms about that. 😀 And yes, a lot of people that Lena met back in the day, were still around 200 years later. Considering how much mixing has been going on in Cyrodiil between men and mer for thousands of years, most people have some Elven blood in them, so the question of life span becomes rather academic.

Thank you for reading and I hope to engage with you all! You'll see me around - and I'll be reading so many good stories that people have posted here!

Yours -
Lena Wolf


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Contents

Chronology

Chapter 1 - Finding her feet (scroll down)

Exerpts posted here, see stories at Masser and Secunda for more.

13 Frost Fall, 4E201 - 16 Sun's Dawn, 4E202
Cyrodiil.
Introducing Lena Wolf, Hauk Serck-Hanssen, Lucien Lachance, Geralt of Rivia, Jowan Angwin, Fenris Bero, Garrus Darelliun.

Chapter 2 - Matters of the heart

19 Sun's Dawn - 4 Mid-Year, 4E202
Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Lena's first trip to the Fade, Shivering Isles.
Introducing Dylan, Sanguine, Rayenna.

Chapter 3 - Choice and Judgement

4-5 Mid-Year - 20 Last Seed, 4E202
Cyrodiil.

Chapter 4 - Travels and Revelations

21-23 Last Seed, 4E202 - 25 Morning Star, 4E203
Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Elsweyr, Valenwood, Lena's second trip to the Fade, memories of Temeria, Antaloor as a pocket of the Void.
Hauk departing for Morrowind (TES3 Morrowind as Morroblivion); introducing Azarath Salvel.
Geralt finding his way in Skyrim.

Chapter 5 - Bonds

30 Morning Star - 7 Midyear, 4E203
Shivering Isles, Skyrim, Gransys, Albion (Fable II); introducing Scorpio.
Hauk Serck-Hanssen, Lucien Lachance - Morrowind (TES3 Morrowind - Tribunal, as Morroblivion).
4th Era, Year Unknown - Gransys (Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen); introducing Rook.

Chapter 6 - The White Wolf

7 Sun's Dawn, 4E195 - 11 Last Seed, 4E203
Geralt of Rivia - the Northern Realms (The Witcher 2 and 3), Skyrim.
Introducing Yennefer of Vengerberg.

Chapter 7 - Shards

Last Seed, 4E203 - Second Seed, 4E204
Vermund, Battahl, Gransys (Dragon's Dogma 2).

Chapter 8 - Heartbeat

First Seed, 3E434 - 4E203
Cyrodiil, Vermund, Battahl.

Chapter 9 - The Call of the Black City

Morning Star, 3E387 - (ongoing)
Ferelden, Orlais, Kirkwall, Tevinter, Antiva, Anderfels (Dragon Age: Origins, Awakening, Witch Hunt, Dragon Age 2, Inquisition, Trespasser, The Veilguard).
The story of Wolf Asgarsen, Zevran, Anders and others.

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I am Lena Wolf

I am Lena Wolf. I was born on the 17th of Sun's Height, 3E417, in Cyrodiil to a Breton mother, and therefore was declared Breton. I have never been to High Rock, so when Hadvar promised to inform High Rock of my execution in Helgen later on, it made no sense at all. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. When I was 4 years old, my mother died of swamp fever, and our Argonian neighbour took me in. She was old already then, so we called her Gran. Gran always hinted that my unknown father was not unknown at all, just that it was best to keep it quiet until time comes. Time for what? Who knows. Wait and see.

As I turned 16, Gran got older still, and one day said there was something very important that she had to impart to me before her passing. She still couldn't name my father, but, she said, when the time was right, I should go to Skyrim to find out. How was I to know when that would be? Oh, not for a while yet, not for a long while. And she died.

Freedom at 16 proved exhilarating at first and cold and hungry soon after. Having tried this and that without much success and having had enough of goblins stealing my sweetrolls, I walked into Bravil's Mages Guild hoping to steal one of theirs. Instead, I found myself being thrust at a dinner table and loaded with all sorts of food, sweetrolls included. The mages took me in, taught me magic towards which I appeared to be inclined, taught me alchemy for the body, soul and enemies, and gave me a reason to venture into the caves in search of wisp stalks. The guards kept joking seeing me returning from my expeditions with yet another rusty sword or piece of armour, but the local smith fixed them up for me and taught me a few moves. Finally the goblins were getting their come-uppence!

Fighters Guild was not for me. Yes, I dealt with the headmistress's son in Chorrol and with the cowardly elf in Skingrad, and yes, the lich took some effort and lots of Freds to defeat, but I got bored with the routine and sort of quit. Well, got busy elsewhere. Free-lancing with Dark Brotherhood proved infinitely more fun, they didn't mind my vampirism, and Oblivion gates needed taking care of, too.

That disaster sorted, life got back to normal. Of course by then I found a cure for vampirism and joined the Arcane University, right on cue to face the King of Worms. Fortunately, Uncle Sheo decided to look in on us right about then, and the Shivering Isles provided a spot of sanity in a world gone mad. I still spend every autumn there.

So what do I do these days? I live. I potter about. I keep my home free from goblins and rats. I roast dreugh for dinner. I occasionally take a contract for another Ayleid sculpture or another bag of Welkynd stones. There's always a lich in someone's basement or a bunch of scamps needing a good home. And one day I'll go to Skyrim to find that important thing, but the time hasn't come yet.

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28 Last Seed, 3E433 – Lena’s Story begins

Lena Wolf's story begins at 16. Being quite young and still inexperienced, that last sweetroll she stole finally landed her in the Imperial Prison, and the story of the Oblivion Crisis was set in motion.

Everyone knows how that went, so we'll skip the details. Lena delivered the Amulet of Kings and was sent to Kvatch to fetch Martin, but went to Bravil first, stopped by the Mages Guild there hoping for a sweetroll that wouldn't land her back in Imperial Prison, got caught by the mages, but not handed over to the guard but fed and accepted into the guild instead... And what with one thing and another, she got completely side tracked by everything happening at once, including closing many Oblivion gates and fighting necromancers and vampires. She didn't realise what the Porphyric Hemophilia thing was until one morning she woke up a vampire herself! The mages still treated her well like before and she could progress in the guild, but the Fighters Guild wouldn't even talk to her - "We don't want your sort here!" The same with most merchants, but not all - for example the chap at the Main Ingredient in the Imperial City wasn't afraid at all and traded as normal, so we always shop there whenever we're in town.

Lena must have killed some non-bandit by mistake because Lucien turned up at night, and there of course at the Sanctuary she met another vampire and no one was bothered by her occasional feeding (although she usually didn't feed on guild members but rather on beggars and often went hungry as it came with benefits, not just curses). So eventually she progressed far enough in the Mages Guild that the Count of Skingrad hinted that perhaps they could help each other...

By the time she cured her vampirism and got to finally ousting Mehrunes Degon out of Cyrodiil, nearly 3.5 years have passed, bringing it to Sun's Dawn 3E437. The 3rd Era was coming to an end. Then Uncle Sheo decided to look in, and a mad prophet turned up in Anvil.

The Oblivion Crisis affair had her run around a lot and win a prestigious title, and I guess she should carry that title with pride, but in truth she'd rather forget about the whole thing, as well as Martin's panicked reaction there. Some Emperor he turned out to be! Perhaps it's true that you need to grow up as one.

With the Dark Brotherhood she advanced rather far, although not quite to the top. She only joined because Lucien said that being a vampire was fine and also he knew her mother. He probably lied about that, but who knows. She didn't mind the work, I guess she is not a do-gooder. So she wasn't even considering questing for the Knights of The Nine and simply killed the prophet. Oops! He, err, ate something rotten, it appears.

But the one title she enjoyed was that of Lord Sheogorath. What fun we had! Sanguine practically moved in to the New Sheoth palace, and Hircine had the time of his life running around the countryside chasing Gnarls. Why, even Vermina melted seeing the whole population of Dementia having nightmares all on their own. Meridia of course had to lecture everyone on their lack of virtue, so we sent her packing. But then Sheo himself returned, and in his usual charming manner first joined in and then kicked everyone out, Lena included. Jygg messed up his head, I'm telling you.

As for the Thieves Guild, Lena declined their every invitation. She's no thief. Gosh, I think I found a virtue!

The 4th Era saw Lena venturing out again, from now on always avoiding to deliver any suspicious amulets, and being watchful of the Hemophilia thingy. She had plenty of dealings with daedra - no, the closure of the Oblivion Crisis did not in fact prevent the daedra from entering the Mundus in the future, but it did cool things off a bit.

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12 First Seed, 4E195 - Flotsam

Lena Wolf returned from her stay in the Shivering Isles only to find that nearly 200 years had passed in Mundus in the meantime. She was no longer a "current" citizen, having missed the census for so long, and all her property had been repossessed by the Empire. Even her Mages Guild membership had been revoked. This was more than upsetting, and Lena boarded the first ship out of Anvil. It was bound for the Northern Realms.

The Northern Realms were kingdoms on the other side of the Great Maelstrom of the Middle Ocean. The journey was long and perilous, and even time itself was said to dilate along the way. People rarely made the journey more than once in their lifetimes, except for the ship's crew of course. Those sailors were tough, and inspired confidence. Lena was leaving.

The Northern Realms were at war. A constant war with each other and with the Southern kingdoms where Nilfgaard was building an empire. This had been going on for so long - for centuries - that people mostly ignored it, except when the menfolk got drafted to fight for the current king. The people still kept to the old country names, paying no heed to the king in charge.

Lena found herself in a small border town named Flotsam. It was a port on a major river and proved as refined as its name suggested. But the town had no resident healer, and Lena saw an opportunity. Her skills in magic and alchemy could be put to a good use, and with the help of a local herbalist she updated her herb knowledge and opened a practice.

Despite all odds, life in Flotsam proved quiet and largely uneventful. Trade flourished and there was no shortage of work for a healer. One day an old witcher walked in, badly wounded, looking to buy some herbs.

"I can't let you go anywhere" - was Lena's response. "I've got a bed free, you need to rest."

But despite Lena's best efforts augmented with the witcher's special potions, the witcher was not recovering. His wolf medallion kept buzzing - magic or danger, it was both, and he was dying.

The old man knew something though, or had seen something. He gave Lena his medallion and said that she should search for a white wolf with the same sort of trinket, and that it would make her complete once she found him. And then the old witcher died.

Wait, didn't we hear such a story before? First her Argonian grandmother telling her on her deathbed to search for something extremely important in Skyrim, and now this story about a medallion-wearing wolf?

But one day at the market Lena bumped into a fellow with white hair, and a shiver went down her spine. Yep, he wasn't looking where he was going and got her with the tip of his enchanted sword. A few choice recommendations were ready to roll off Lena's tongue when she spotted a wolf medallion around the fellow's neck. So, instead of giving him a piece of her mind, she politely enquired whether Master Witcher would be good enough to stop by her practice after hours because she needed his expert advice on a small, ah, matter. Flattery will get you everywhere, and come evening, the White Wolf turned up at her house.

"I am Geralt of Rivia - at your service."

Recalling the words of the old witcher, Lena was expecting a certain turn of events that would make her complete, at least for the night. But boy was she mistaken. The shiver that went down her spine back at the market, wasn't from any sword enchantment - it was her wolf medallion buzzing like mad near Geralt (Lena took to wearing the medallion because it went with her last name so nicely). The old witcher had re-enchanted the amulet with her essence, so it responded quite violently to another being with a similar essence. Lena and Geralt were related.

Having talked through most of the night, they got through a lot of Cyrodillic Brandy and Argonian Bloodwine, and having eliminated the impossible, the only remaining conclusion, no matter how far-fetched, was that they must be siblings. Having given up her first child with the unknown but obviously important Nord, Lena's mother kept the second child, and swore to raise her daughter in ignorance of the great heritage that made her son into the White Wolf and hoping that the little girl would be spared world-shattering responsibilities. Ha!

Since that chance meeting in Flotsam, Lena and Geralt never really lost sight of each other, although never paraded their connection either. As both of them were in the habit of regularly freaking out local world leaders, church heads and powerful sorcerers, it seemed prudent not to aggravate matters too much.

Geralt got embroiled in local politics despite his best judgement, then the war broke out for real with the Nilfgardian Empire invading the North. Death and destitution was everywhere. Lena made her way to Novigrad and boarded a ship back to Cyrodiil.

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Hauk Serc-Hanssen

Iver and Hauk Serc-Hanssen were twins born under The Lord on 21 First Seed 4E151. They were Nords, and as such were expected to become warriors. Nords value their traditions, and Nords living in Cyrodiil do so even more, although admittedly many of them have taken in too much of the mildness of Nibenay to be called sons and daughters of Skyrim. So when the boys started showing above average abilities in magic, their parents blamed the very soil of Cyrodiil for "mellowing" their children. The Serc-Hanssens were definitively the Nord sons of Cyrodiil.

"Well, if they are going to be mages, let them be battlemages at least" - was their father's verdict. And the boys were enrolled into education with the Mages Guild as well as training with the Legion.

At twenty, Iver and Hauk had joined both the Arcane University and the Imperial Legion, and have completed their Battlemage training. Then the Great War broke out. Iver was drafted into regular forces, but Hauk was sent to Skyrim to a special unit - scouts, messengers, liaisons, logistics, that sort of thing. At least, this was the official designation.

Nobody knows what that unit actually did in Skyrim, and those who know will never tell, so it's safe to assume they were maintaining a covert front behind the enemy lines. The unit wasn't large, so it was easy to disperse it without a trace after the war. Some even claim that the unit never existed - after all, Hauk had been seen on the front lines of many official campaigns... or was that Iver? Who could tell! They were twins, after all...

After the war, Iver and Hauk left active service with the Legion and returned to the Mages Guild, doing smaller assignments, training new apprentices, and generally settling back into a civilian life style. Iver got busy with the Guild and the University, while Hauk... well... Hauk kept disappearing from time to time, for several weeks or even months on end, then suddenly coming back looking like he had spent all this time outdoors and in cold water. Hauk looked out of place among mages that never left the comforts and security of the walls of the Imperial City, so he left his Mage's Staff and a few other important things with Iver at the University and joined the Legion again. Or had he ever left?

Years later, when Travis became the Arch Mage and banned necromancy, Hauk got into an argument regarding limiting the types of spells available to battlemages - the "code of conduct" was Travis' idea and Hauk disagreed. But arguments with the Arch Mage are doomed to failure, so not wanting to be banished from the Guild altogether, Hauk boarded a ship to Antaloor and was gone for several years - enough time to cool things off. Upon his return he was made to understand that although formally he would still remain a Mages Guild Evoker, he did not need to expect any assignments or promotions from the Guild.

At 50, Hauk found himself bored with nothing to do, and no family to take care of. Neither he nor Iver ever married, but Iver was still busy with the University and with the Guild, while Hauk... he wasn't exactly too old for the Legion, but there were no wars going on, apart from the usual regional conflicts that were as repetitive as they were pointless. Would he be interested in training up some recruits? No, thank you. Well, then... exactly. They had nothing of interest for him either.

One day Hauk stopped by the Arcane University to see Iver when he spotted a new member - a new apprentice, he was told. She didn't look new, she looked like she had done it all before and was simply going through the motions. She was also making some custom spells that were much too complex for a new apprentice. Who was she? Things didn't add up.

A few enquiries with the older members of the Guild made it very clear that whoever she was, Lena Wolf was not a novice and not a youngster, despite her youthful appearance. There was mystery there, some darkness perhaps, but Hauk was not a shiny new penny either. Lena was muttering to herself about doing some adventuring to raise funds for a house... raiding some Ayleid ruins in search of ancient statues and Welkynd stones... doing some contracts for the Fighters Guild - the sorts of things that "regular" warriors would rather avoid, like fighting liches and wraiths... What fun! Hauk would introduce himself and offer to join her. Let the new life begin.

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5 Sun's Dusk, 4E201 - Lena and Hauk meet

Skyrim can wait. Back in Cyrodiil Lena still has a lot to do. She needs to get back her house in Bravil which got repossessed by the county under the feeble excuse that Lena had been absent for a couple of centuries. So what! She had business in the Shivering Isles - time passes differently there, and longevity is not an issue for a vampire anyway... ex-vampire... What does it matter?!

The house got taken, and there's nothing left to do but to buy it again. Which requires funds, which in turn requires some serious adventuring.

Thinking these serious thoughts, and possibly muttering to herself, Lena spent some time at the Arcane University making custom spells and picking ingredients in that lovely garden of theirs, as well as shopping in the Market District. There, quite absent-mindedly, she bumped into something shiny. Looking up and shielding her eyes, she realised that she was looking at a highly polished suit of steel armour, probably the best looking steel armour in the whole of Tamriel. Inside it was a tall Nord on the better side of 40.

Hauk Serck-Hanssen was a Mages Guild battlemage, currently doing what all soldiers do in peace times - nothing. Hauk was a Mages Guid Evoker, just like his twin brother Iver (who insisted on dropping his last name out of false sense of modesty), but unlike Iver, Hauk was not a "proper" battlemage. "It doesn't become a battlemage to meddle with schools of Illusion or Conjuration - such mind-altering magic is for vampires and necromancers!" - you'd think Arch Mage Travis would have outlawed those schools along with Necromancy, given half a chance. Hauk took no notice of this new order of decent behaviour, and as a result his assignments became far and few between.

Picking up Lena's muttering about "needing to raid a few Ayleid ruins for Welkynd stones" and "going goblin hunting in Skingrad County", he put on his most gallant expression and introduced himself - "On behalf of the battlemages, may I welcome you to the Arcane University--" and then cleverly did not say "Recruit" or "Apprentice". Because this is not how you get into the good books of a young and pretty Breton who somehow does not seem to be in her early 20s as her looks might suggest.

But instead: "Can I be of some assistance on the goblin hunt, not that you would need any, of course?"

Why, what do you know! Adventuring with a friend is so much more fun! Lena's University life just got more interesting.

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24 Sun's Dusk, 4E201 - Dragons - The White Wolf

Later at Olav's the conversation was light, both Lena and Hauk avoiding the topic of dragons. Then Hauk could avoid it no longer.

"Tell me about the dragons in Skyrim."

"Well, there isn't that much to tell. I went over the border about a month ago - just before we met, in fact. You've heard about the Skyrim bandits that used to terrorise the border regions, well, I read they were finally defeated - again, so probably not for the last time. But it was safe to cross just then. My adoptive grandmother told me on her death bed that there was something important I had to do in Skyrim, but I never knew what. To do or to see or to find out - that was all unclear. I've been to Skyrim before a few times and nothing particularly important happened, so I didn't think this time would be any different.

"But this time it started strange and it continued even stranger, which is why I returned to Cyrodiil within a week.

"Firstly, as I was crossing the border, I got arrested by the Imperial Legion and sentenced to beheading - although they admitted that I was not on the list."

"That sounds a bit harsh!" Hauk interjected, although he could believe it perfectly. "Did they at least know what you've supposedly done?"

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was captured together with Ulfrick Stormcloack - the rebellion leader. He was the one they were after, and everyone else - me and another fellow - was coming along for the ride."

"Sounds about right. So how is it that you're still alive? Although I can see now why you are not in Skyrim."

"Oh, that has nothing to do with it. Just as they were getting started with the executions, a dragon attacked and sent everyone running for cover. It was breathing fire and chaos was complete. One of those rebels was trying to pull me to come with them, but I followed an Imperial soldier instead."

"That seems like a strange decision considering that the Legion was going to execute you!"

"Not really. The Legion is methodical and prefers to err on the side of caution - better execute one too many than one too few - but they are also level-headed, and I figured they'd reconsider my sentence, especially since I wasn't on their list to begin with. The rebels on the other hand, looked hot-headed, and anyhow I did not want to get embroiled in Skyrim politics."

"So who sent the dragon?"

"No one knows. But I think no one sent the dragon. I think this was a coincidence and the dragon business is unrelated to the rebellion. They also have Thalmor patrols everywhere searching for the cult of Talos - and that too is unrelated."

"Yes, we got ourselves in a right mess with the Thalmor."

"Well, that Imperial soldier took me to a nearby village - his uncle was a blacksmith there, and they made me welcome, I don't see why. But apparently helping the guy fight the rebels back in Helgen counted as 'saving his life', although I was mostly trying to save mine."

"I bet you fought bravely and impressed him, plus you didn't put an arrow between his shoulder blades. That counts for a lot in Skyrim."

"I suppose so. They asked me just to do one thing for them - to go to their local town and inform the jarl about the dragon, ask him to send some guards to this village in case a dragon turns up there. Ok, that's the least I could do. Plus, I ran into my brother there, and figured I'd be staying for a while."

"You have a brother?"

"I do. It's a long story for another time. He stayed in Skyrim, so if we go there together, you can't avoid meeting him."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world! When are we leaving?"

"Not tonight."

"I see" - Hauk felt that there was more. More about the dragons, more about the brother, much more of everything. Perhaps the best thing was just to let it develop at its own pace. Too bad that Nords are not blessed with patience... "Well, let's get back to the dragon then. Did you go to see the jarl?"

"I did. He thanked me and mentioned some errands that I might do for him, in case I was in need of coin. Fine, life was getting back to normal. Until a couple of days later a dragon attacked a watchtower causing chaos in the jarl's palace. Of course they will never admit it was chaos, but why else would they ask me of all people to help fight the dragon? 'You survived Helgen, you know more about dragons than anyone here!' I knew how to run away from one... but sure, I joined them."

"So how do you fight a dragon?"

"How do you fight any flying creature? With arrows or spells, what else can you do? We got it down and got it killed. An I absorbed its soul."

"Whoa!!" That was something else. It wasn't just about slaying a fearsome ancient monster, it was about taking over its power too. "You are Dragonborn?" Hauk knew exactly what it meant, what it implied and why Lena needed time to get her head around it. Each Dragonborn throughout history had a mission to accomplish, and choices to make, and none of it was easy.

"Yeah, that's what I discovered." Lena was relieved that she did not have to explain what it meant. She wasn't sure herself yet. "The Greybeards called me, but I haven't gone to see them, not yet anyway. Instead, I returned to Cyrodiil to get my head in order."

"And your brother?"

"He is not Dragonborn, if that's what you're asking. But he'll be there for when I am ready to go to Skyrim to find out more."

That wasn't what Hauk was asking, and they both knew it. But should Lena drop another bomb by saying that her brother was the White Wolf? Did Hauk even know who that was? Yeah, he probably did. He seemed to know a lot of things...

"My brother needed some time for himself. He's been through a lot in the last few years, so he came to Skyrim to get away from it all for a time, to get his own head in order. Our father was a Nord - that much we know - so Geralt figured Skyrim would be a perfect destination, a perfect change of pace."

"Geralt?" Yep, Hauk knew that name.

"My brother is the White Wolf."

Things were making sense now. The famous witcher was not Dragonborn, but it took more than an average person to become a witcher at all, and Geralt was quite a character. The news of the Northern Realms did not reach Tamriel very promptly, but eventually things became known, and some of them were even true. Hauk heard of the Wild Hunt that was tormenting the Northern Realms, and of the frost and ice that the Wild Hunt left in its wake. They were said to be wraiths - but what would wraiths want with the living? Why would they abduct whole villages at a time? Hauk thought it more likely that they were beings of flesh and blood coming from another realm looking for slaves, and the frost was simply their magic. The witchers would fight them, and it was said that an apocalyptic battle recently took place. The Wild Hunt was gone. For now or forever? The White Wolf was involved somehow, some said it was he who defeated the Wild Hunt king, other said no, the White Wolf was captured and was a prisoner himself, and someone else had to free them all... Whatever of it was true, it wasn't a walk in the park, and if the White Wolf was now here in Tamriel, then the Wild Hunt must have been dealt with. It wasn't in his character to run away. "His Nord blood wouldn't let him" - Hauk thought. "He finished his mission and came to seek out his roots."

"So what now? Are you going back to Skyrim at all?"

"Yes, I'll have to, I need to find out more, at least. But there is no rush, and my home is still here."

"Yeah, in Bravil" - Hauk remembered the effort that Lena put into getting back that house.

"Yeah."

The publican had been topping up their ale and mead for a long while already. Whatever those two were discussing, was keeping them drinking, and there's nothing wrong with that. Besides, they mentioned Skyrim - what better topic could a Nord wish for under his roof?

The regulars were finally going home, but Lena and Hauk didn't feel like sleeping. The conversation still hung in the air, and they just sat there, drinking silently for a while. They were getting more and more at ease with each other, no longer needing to talk.

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31 Evening Star, 4E201 - Lucien Lachance

"What did Lucien want?" - Asked Hauk at breakfast at Count's Arms.

"He... I thought you were asleep!"

"I was, until he banged the door on his way out. Who else comes to visit you in your sleep?"

That was solid logic, and there was no point arguing.

"He wanted me to rejoin the Brotherhood" - Lena conceded.

"Rejoin?"

"Yes. I was suspended after I refused to kill everyone in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary."

"And you lived?" - that was most unusual. The Dark Brotherhood wasn't just another Guild, transgressions came with a death sentence.

"Oh, they were sending assassins after me for a time until it transpired that the traitor was much higher up than anyone in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary - he was a Black Hand, and he was out for revenge after Lucien personally. That's a completely mad story" - Lena shook her head. "Then I was no longer the target and they let me be. Now they decided it was time I returned to the family."

"And will you?"

"Already have."

Hauk wasn't surprised. After Lucien's visit the night before, Lena disappeared for 24 hours. She returned during the night. Lucien's ways were rubbing off on her.

"So, if you were given a contract on my life, would you kill me?"

"First of all" - Lena was getting cross - "they would not give me a contract on a friend unless this was a test or a Purification Ritual. And second of all, this would be against my principles, so I'd kill the contract giver instead, and they know it. So you're quite safe from me" - Lena smiled.

"You put friends above your oath?"

"I do not serve Sithis. I have rejoined because Lucien did know my mother - he hadn't lied. When I refused to purify Cheydinhal, he exclaimed 'Just like her mother', and I learned later that indeed their paths had crossed."

That was as much as Lena was willing to tell, that was obvious. So Hauk dropped the topic.

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5 Morning Star, 4E202 - Lucien's offer

I've been promised the abandoned house in Cheydinhal for keeping a cool head and sparing them all back then. I was to perform the Purification Ritual with which I would break the tenet to never harm a brother. But were I to refuse, I would break the tenet to never refuse a contract. I did not believe the "evidence" and chose to refuse the contract. Another assassin was sent to perform the Purification, and failed. I had to face the Wrath of Sithis, but it wasn't my first wraith... Living assassins were sent after me, all in vain. Then the "evidence" that I discarded, was proven to have been fabricated. The traitor was much higher up and he was after Lucien Lachance personally, which of course broke a tenet of the Brotherhood. I was cleared, but it was considered best for me to stay away. Until now.

Lucien came to see me a week ago - they wanted me back. But they owed me, not just their lives, but their continued existence as members of the Brotherhood. Would I accept a promotion? Surely, I would make a superb Black Hand. No, thank you. I do not serve Sithis, and I dare to say it - I'll kill his wraith again if I have to.

"You are just like your mother. And your great-uncle, he too went rogue." Lucien hadn't lied, I received my great-uncle's will - he left me his sanctuary near Leyawiin. But he served Sithis, and I don't. I just want a normal house.

"A house? I think we can arrange that" - Lucien brightened up. "The Count here is not keen to have an ugly abandoned house in the city, but we are very persuasive. Plus, he still remembers - less than fondly - Morag Tong from his native Morrowind. I think he would be pleased if the house was no longer abandoned. But would you be willing to allow access to the Sanctuary through it?"

As I am the only member who likes to use that door, it isn't much of a problem. New members have to earn the right to use direct access, so new members need that route through the house, but I was the last new member to join, and that was 200 years ago. I would not worry. After the traitor used a new member - me - to try to get to Lucien, Lucien has been reluctant to accept anyone else.

"Go see the Count in a couple of days. What do you want to call the house?"

"The Wolf Sanctuary."

"How befitting" - Lucien smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5 Sun's Dawn, 4E202 - A visit to Lucien

Lena knew where Lucien lived and how to get there bypassing the guards. Of course she did, she spent a lot of time there herself. It was time to let Lucien know about her little enterprise. Lucien knew what's been done already and guessed rightly that she had plans for more.

On a piece of parchment Lena wrote a list of names.

She sealed the letter and left it on the table.

She returned a few days later. There was a brand new silver dagger where the letter had been. The barrel with poisoned apples had been unlocked. A bouquet of flowers lay on the bed: goldenrod, morning glory, lily of the valley, blue hyacinth. Good fortune, my dear - yours, always.

"The choice of a lily is... unusual" - Lena thought. "I would have expected something more neutral..."

She took the flowers. She knew that Lucien would see them in the Wolf Sanctuary kept fresh and understand her acceptance. But she wasn't laying ambrosia fruit on her bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

14 Sun's Dawn, 4E202 - Death and Resuscitation - Wolf House - Prince Sheogorath

"This isn't as crazy as I thought it might be" - Hauk was saying at breakfast.



Having breakfast at noon is not crazy at all if you only went to bed at 4 a.m. as they did. They brought the tongs and calipers to Tove, and he paid Lena 5 septims for each one, resulting in a very tidy sum.

"Oh I insist - for your trouble."

"That wasn't crazy after all to drag them all the way to here" - Hauk started to see sense.

After that they had a job to do at Xedilian.

"Now that I had to kill the Gatekeeper again, I need to fix Xedilian" - Lena was trying to explain it to Hauk. "It will attract people that don't belong here and make them belong."

Xedilian was overrun with grummites. They had removed the resonator crystals and attached them to their magic staves which made them so much more dangerous. At one point four Deathbringers and a Magus swarmed on Lena and Hauk from all directions and got them surrounded. Lena was using a lot of poisons but they weren't as effective on these grummites as they were on the ones in the hatchery. The battle was ferocious and Lena got knocked out - and couldn't get up. When Hauk finally dispatched the last of the grummites, Lena was still on the ground. Not unconscious but dead. One of the Deathbringers apparently kept hitting her after she lost consciousness - he was determined to live up to his title.

Hauk tried healing spells on Lena, cure poison and cure paralysis, smelling salts and aloe sap, to no avail.

"Ok then, it's the old-fashioned way again" - he thought removing her armour for CPR.

Resuscitation was successful. Lena sat up, still dizzy but alive.

"That was some battle... Thanks for bringing me back" - she said watching Hauk sorting through a pile of potions, clothes and pieces of armour that he dropped in the rush to get her heart beating again. He was still casting healing spells at her and at himself, and the sweat on his torso was shimmering in the mist of restoration magic.

"We'll need to take a break now" - he said wrapping Lena in some robes from their pack. "You need to warm up - don't bother wearing these, you'll be warmer in a wrap."

Being a Battlemage was clearly different from being an Adventurer, and having gone through the Great War behind the enemy lines taught Hauk survival skills like no training ever could. He actually knew what he was doing.

...

After a rest with some food and drink, they put their armours back on and decided to continue going through Xedilian. After all, they seemed to be nearly done.

"So this is the frog that got me?" - Lena stood over a grummite that lay where she had gone down.

"That's the one" - Hauk confirmed. "He just wouldn't quit which probably saved my own life - I would have been overwhelmed by an extra one joining in."

"I'm glad you weren't" - Lena looked at Hauk realising that were the roles reversed, she would have done everything in her power to bring him back.



Xedilian was restored and the first group of adventurers was taken care of. Knights of Order appeared too, and were dispatched. Lena and Hauk stood outside again, it was mid-morning. They hadn't slept, but neither of them wanted to just now.

"What's next?" - asked Hauk.

"We could walk back to Passwall and rest at the inn there for a while" - Lena pointed West - "or we could start towards New Sheoth and get distracted along the way" - she pointed North East grinning.

"East" - said Hauk and started walking.

...

It didn't take long and they ran into another ruin and decided to investigate. Xalara housed some zealots, and obviously had to be thoroughly searched for the Fork of Horripilation.

The Fork wasn't there, but they found some substantial loot in an urn held by a statue.

"Good thing real Hungers aren't nearly as big as this one" - remarked Hauk admiring the statue. "Very decorative though."

He was definitely getting into the spirit of the place.

Xalara was a bit of a labyrinth with traps, sliding wall panels, collapsed sections and newly dug out bypasses. They kept coming out near the entrance which would normally be welcome, but in this case it wasn't because Lena was determined to search every nook and cranny for the Fork. Of course it was all for naught, but you wouldn't know it until you'd done it.

Exhausted, they decided to eat the zealots' food and sleep in their beds. It was getting quite late anyway.



In the morning they set off for New Sheoth, this time intent on getting there without distractions. The landscape was swampy, but the water wasn't deep, and they didn't expect any creatures apart from baliwogs. Then suddenly Lena got knocked out.

"Whaaa-?" - Hauk heard her yelp but couldn't see what attacked her. Summoning a dremora just in case, he felt a little like that Orc adventurer that fell victim to Xedilian's magic - how do you fight the unseen?

The next moment Hauk was hit from above by a Skulking Scalon - a creature with a power to turn invisible and jump high and far. So this was what knocked out Lena - a scalon's touch also carried an electrical charge.

Hauk staggered, but his dremora swung into action, and soon the scalon lay defeated.

"Ugh, those scalons can really surprise you" - Lena was saying wringing out her skirt. The swamp wasn't deep to walk in, but it did get you thoroughly wet if you fell in.

New Sheoth wasn't far, and they didn't tarry and longer.

...

"We need to go see the Prince about Xedilian but not in these wet clothes" - Lena said as they entered Crucible. "There's a house here that we can use - it was left to me by a chap I did a favour for." There was no need to explain what the favour for Hirrus Clutumnus was.

When Hirrus left Lena the house, she went to have a look and didn't like it. Too much blood, torture tools and self-flailing in there. But now her wet clothes under her iron armour were chilling her to the bone, and she was ready to make use of the house even with Hirrus' spirit still hanging about.

They entered. Someone had redecorated. Gone were the torture tools, blood stains and cobwebs. Gone was the gloomy atmosphere - it's amazing what a few tapestries can do. It was still a Dementia house, but it was now clean and welcoming.

Dylan. It had to be.

But Dylan himself wasn't there, so Lena and Hauk spent some time in the Wolf House - as it was now known - to freshen up and rest. There was food, good wine and mead, and even fresh sweetrolls... nothing that Hirrus would have kept there.

In the afternoon they went to see the Prince. Lena put on a Red Finery dress that she had found in the cupboard. Hauk couldn't take his eyes off her.

The Prince was galant, as always, making jokes and never letting you forget who was in charge. Lena let him get on with it, not argueing or reminding him of things past. They both knew it was just a façade. He sent her to get acquainted with the new Duke and Duchess - Thadon and Syl, again? Well, yes, the same ones, or may be their twins... But they won't remember you, so don't you worry. But didn't I cut Syl's heart out last time? Yes, you did, but we don't let such minor details get in the way. Off you go now and enjoy your felldew.

Coming out of the Palace, Lena noticed that the Flame of Agnon wasn't burning - the Saints and Seducers must have been quarreling again. She had work to do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

15 Sun's Dawn 4E202 - Another letter from Lucien

"Before I get embroiled in Shivering Isles politics, I need to return to Cyrodiil for a bit" - Lena was saying to Hauk at breakfast. "There are a few things I need to take care of, on my own." She looked at him somewhat uneasy.

"Of course" - Hauk nodded. "Give Lucien my regards. I'll stay here - can I use this house?"

"Please do" - Lena gave Hauk a long look. He was planning something. "But I don't think I'll be meeting Lucien" - she added.

"You'll see."

...

Returning to Cheydinhal, Lena found a letter waiting for her on the table at the Wolf Sanctuary. It was from Lucien:

Darling Wolf,

Come and see me at your convenience. We have business to attend to.

Yours -
Lucien

She went in the evening, planning to sleep at the fort if necessary, while waiting for Lucien to appear. She didn't have to wait long.

"I need you to go to Skyrim" - said Lucien pouring the wine. "There's a group there that calls themselves the Dark Brotherhood and is taking on contracts, but we don't have a branch in Skyrim and the Night Mother does not talk to anyone there. Go see what they are all about."

Lena heard of them when she went to Skyrim before, but because the Dark Brotherhood had a regional structure, she didn't expect to know any of them. Now it turned out they were imposters, which went some way to explain why they tried to kill her - and didn't know who she was. No one verified their contracts, obviously.

"How do you want me to approach them?" - she asked Lucien, helping herself to cheese and grapes.

"We'll bait them - we'll spread a rumour that you've gone after one of their contracts. They'll be in touch."

"If the Night Mother doesn't speak to them, then where do they get their contacts from?"

"From rumours, mostly. People know how to summon us - the real us - and so they perform the Dark Sacrament over and over, thinking that more is better, no doubt. Then, when no one comes, they start talking about it, and sure enough, soon afterwards someone appears."

"Your friendly neighbourhood assassin, here to help" - grimaced Lena.

"Quite. Ham or mutton?" - Lucien was taking roast off the spit.

"Mutton, please, and some of that orange chutney on top."

Two old friends sat down for dinner. Nothing unusual about that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Nov 22 2024, 07:00 PM

I like Lena's analysis of the merits of silk vs velvet for her robes. And the need for a matching hood of course.

Poor ole Shady Sam, should've sold the hood when the price was right.

A girl has to have style. Even when in 100% chameleon.



She tried to persuade him but he just got so angry... and you'd think he'd be able to tell who is who. I mean - in his line of work!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

14-16 First Seed, 4E202 - Arkved's Tower - Charcoal Cave

Lena and Garrus set off from Cheydinhal going roughly South West towards the White Rose River following up on a job for the Mages Guild. Going through the forest, they were passing close to the shrine of Vaermina.


"I happen to have a black soul gem" - said Lena. "What say you if we go talk to Vaermina and see if there's anything she wants doing?"

"Isn't that unwise?" - Garrus never dealt with a Daedric Prince before. "Aren't they all out to kill you?"

"Nah, not all of them" - Lena tried to sound reassuring. "Vaermina is all right."

Garrus was still not convinced but Lena marched to the shrine and placed a black soul gem on the altar. Vaermina had a task for her.

...

"See, it's not as bad as that! We just need to clear this fort" - Lena was saying as they entered Arkved's Tower. "The man really made a home for himself here!"

The first chamber was set up as a dining room with fine furnishings and silver tableware. They continued on. The second chamber appeared empty, only furnished in cobwebs.

"Ok, this is a little weird" - Lena conceded looking up. The room wasn't empty - there was a dining room set up... on the ceiling, suspended upside down. "He's a mage all right, but that's just silly."

The third chamber had two Xivilae waiting for them.

"Finally!" - Garrus exclaimed drawing his claymore. "Now you die!"

No, Xivilae weren't impressed. They summoned a clannfear each, and soon Lena and Garrus were both knocked out. Getting up and trying not to attract attention, Lena summoned a daedroth, stepped back and took up the Shadowhunt. Poisoned arrows with the heavy enchantment from the bow found their mark, and Garrus saw one xivilae going down and taking his clannfear with him. With the forces evened out, the other xivilae went down fairly quickly too.

"Who were they?" - asked Garrus standing over the corpses.

"Xivilae" - answered Lena with regret, cutting out the hearts. "Proud creatures, it's a pity to see them bound in Mundus like that. It seems we are in for more daedra."

...

Arkved had created his own piece of Oblivion in the tower, complete with a rocky oasis amid a sea of lava. Daedra were numerous and fierce, apparently rather annoyed to be stuck there. Garrus was having the time of his life.


"Was it like this during the Oblivion Crisis?" - he asked Lena, walking among the corpses.

"Yeah, except that the corpses were mostly of mortals, not daedra" - she answered, trying not to step into too much blood. "But inside the Oblivion gates it was all red with lava like in that oasis. And full of daedra."

"Have you closed a lot of gates?"

"I... yes." She didn't seem to want to go into the details. "Come on - we're not done yet."

The decor in the tower had changed - there were now decomposing corpses everywhere, ready to be raised as zombies. There were traps and more daedra. In the final chamber they found Arkved, sleeping. He used Vaermina's orb to enter eternal sleep with eternal dreams. He did not fear the nightmares.

"What will happen to him now?" - asked Garrus when Lena picked up the orb.

"He will die in his sleep, eventually. It will happen anyway, whether the orb is here or not. He won't wake up because he doesn't want to."

...

Vaermina was pleased to have her orb back and gave Lena the Skull of Corruption.

"It's yours again" - she said. "Do try not to lose it like last time, will you?"

"Last time?" - Garrus looked at Lena suspiciously. "When was that?"

"A while back" - she answered, sliding her hand over the staff. "In another life." It certainly felt that way. The Dunmer at the shrine smiled in understanding.


It was 5 a.m. when Lena and Garrus stood on the bridge by the Charcoal Cave looking at the Imperial City. They haven't slept the previous night, having cleared Fort Sejanus and the Charcoal Cave on their way towards the Faregyl Inn that should be close to Nenyond Twyll - their actual destination.


"Well, Faregyl Inn isn't far" - Lena said checking the map. "But the Imperial City is right there - and my house on the Waterfront. We could drop off the loot, get some sleep and still not lose much time."

"I could use having my armour repaired as well" - Garrus was looking at the dents and scratches. "Those Xivilae with their clannfears weren't joking."

"Clannfears make for very good dogs" - Lena laughed walking North to the City.

...

By the time they got to her house and had a bite to eat, it was past 6 a.m. Getting up from the table, Garrus looked rather stiff.

"You seem to have a broken rib" - Lena said watching his movements. "Let me help you out of your armour."

"I thought you'd never ask!" - smirked Garrus risking another broken rib.

It seemed ebony armour could not stand up to Xivilae's warhammers for very long - Garrus had serious injuries, and his Atronach birthsign kept absorbing much of Lena's healing magic. She used what potions and salves she had at hand rubbing into the bruises, much to Garrus' delight. But jokes aside, by the time she was done, they were completely exhausted, fell into bed and slept well into late afternoon.

...

It was nearing 8 p.m. when all the chores were done and Lena re-packed her bag again.

"Arrows, bows, daggers, Honorblade, silver blade, staff, poisons, potions, provisions, wine, robes, shadow gear, gems, repair hammers. It's all here, I guess" - she checked her pack. Necromancers were not to be taken lightly.

"Those robes" - Garrus pointed at a set of black robes - "you changed into them in the Charcoal cave when we got separated, right? I practically walked into you - couldn't see you at all."

"There were too many bandits for me to battle head-on" - she said. "I went quietly. Black robes don't stand out in a dark cave" - she smiled.

"There's more to it than that" - he gave her a long look. "You move differently in them and fight better, more powerful and precise. And that bow - I've never seen a steel bow take out a massive orc with two shots."

"Well, that arrow was poisoned" - Lena smiled. "And, well, this is professional gear."

Garrus laughed.

"Professional. Of course" - he laughed again. "The Count is right not to interfere."

...

The sun already set when they crossed Lake Rumare on their way to the Faregyl Inn. They would spend the night there and go looking for Nenyond Twyll in the morning.



This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:45 PM

17-18 First Seed, 4E202 - Nenyond Twyll - The Leyawiin Sanctuary

"What are you doing here?" - Fithragaer greeted Lena and Garrus as they entered Nenyond Twyll. "All the other battlemages are dead - the necromancers were waiting for us! I'm the only one left - follow me!"

And he charged into the ruin without looking.

"Wait!" - Lena tried to stop him. "Ruins have... traps... oh no!"

Fithragaer promptly ran into a rising floor trap.

"Battlemages are not used to Ayleid ruins" - she said turning to Garrus. "Hauk told me. They just charge in, and get caught out like this one. What a shame!"

"It's a good thing you're not on your own then" - Garrus said checking his blade. "It sounds like the necromancers mean business. Come on, let's be on our guard."

...

After much fighting, they found the mage that had infiltrated the necromancers. He had been found out, and turned into a zombie. Lena killed him again - there was nothing else she could do. It was sad news to bring to the Mages Guild.

...

"The Mages Guild can wait" - Lena told Garrus when he suggested to return to the Imperial City with the news. "Their battlemages are dead, their informant is dead, and the necromancers are dead, so there is no rush. I cannot believe they would send battlemages into an Ayleid ruin without preparing them for what might lie within."

"May be that's why they sent you to Vahtacen and not the battlemages" - Garrus reminded her of that adventure. "I wasn't prepared either, but at least you knew what to expect."

They were walking towards Bravil. Lena wanted to rest, re-supply and continue South.


They got up late, and by the time their errands were done, it was past midday.

"Let's just travel to Leyawiin today, and see about the Fighters Guild business tomorrow. It's just outside the city" - Lena was ticking things off on a list. "There's an old Sanctuary nearby that is supposed to be refurbished now, we can hopefully spend the night there."

"Hopefully?"

"Well, it is a bit odd. It was my great-uncle's, who went rogue from the Dark Brotherhood and became a vampire. He then changed his mind and found a cure, but the Dark Brotherhood had caught up with his group. That was over 200 years ago, but they had only just released it to me. It was empty last time I visited, but should be furnished now. I am not sure what to expect" - Lena explained. She looked up from the papers, and saw Garrus looking at her in amazement.

"Wow! Of course we should go see!"

...

"Shhh, it's all right" - Lena and Garrus entered the shrine of Sithis at the Leyawiin Sanctuary. There was someone there, kneeling. He jumped up, dagger in hand. Garrus took up his claymore. "Rest with Sithis" - said Lena.

"Mistress!" - the vampire kneeled before her.

"Where did you come from and what are you doing here?" - she asked. Last time when she came here with Jowan, the place was empty.

"Rowley Eardwulf brought me" - he kneeled again. "Said the Sanctuary was being brought to life. I'm yours to command, Mistress!"

"Then get up and answer my questions properly" - Lena was getting annoyed, yet she could also sense that the vampire was terrified. Garrus still held his claymore at the ready. A silver claymore.

"Rowley Eardwulf was with your Uncle" - the vampire managed to control his shaking. "He escaped before the Dark Brotherhood came here, so he wasn't killed. He took a few young recruits with him, myself included - he wanted to build his own group... he knew the Dark Brotherhood would come for your Uncle..."

"But he is not a vampire" - Lena recalled Rowley's features. Old, but not a vampire. Perhaps an ex-vampire. She took a dislike to him from the start.

"No, he took the cure, Mistress!" - the vampire kneeled again, then got up, remembering that he was told not to kneel. "His group did not do very well... the others were all killed, I'm the last one. So he sent me here... I haven't killed anyone in a hundred years!" - he said with horror. "Sithis will have my soul."

"All right, come with me" - Lena said, putting her arm around his shoulders and looking pleadingly at Garrus to put away his claymore. She remembered all too well what it was like being a solitary vampire. "How old are you?"

"Probably three hundred. I lost track of time..." - he said, sensing the warmth of her mortal blood and... something else. "You... are not a vampire... but you were, once."

"Yes" - she answered. "I am about your age, but not entirely. It's complicated."

They came into the dining room. In the brighter light the vampire saw Lena's robes.

"You are a Black Hand!" - he kneeled again, covering his head with his arms in defence.

"Yes" - Lena said, lifting him up. "But I am not here to kill you."

The Sanctuary didn't have a proper bed - there was just an ornate coffin. Lena had no intention of sleeping in it.

"I shall be changing a few things around here" - she told the vampire. "You can have that coffin or would you prefer a normal bed?"

"I..." - he wasn't used to be asked his opinion. "I... whatever you decide, Mistress..."

"Right..." - she looked at him shaking her head. It would take some work to make him into a person of his own, but she wasn't giving up on him. "Stay here - I see you've got someone to feed on" - she pointed at a sleeping prisoner. "Don't feed on anyone else - some Orcs will be bringing new furnishings, I'll warn them about you. I'll be back later, then we'll see." She turned to leave, then stopped. "What is your name?"

"Fenris Bero."

"House Hlaalu?" - Lena raised an eyebrow. The family name was famous.

"Once" - Fenris looked embarrassed. "Not since I... turned." House Hlaalu disapproved of vampires.

"All right" - she said, now really turning to leave. "We'll talk more later. I am Lena Wolf."

...

"Well, that was interesting" - Garrus looked at Lena with mixed emotions once they were outside again. "Mistress!"

"Yeah, I didn't expect anyone there" - Lena admitted. "That Rowley character was only going to furnish the place. With the very things that he had removed from it after the Dark Brotherhood was done there."

"So what are you going to do about that vampire?"

"I'm not going to kill him, if that's what you are asking" - Lena shot Garrus a glance over the shoulder. "Rowley will have to explain the meaning of this, first. Then..."

"Rowley won't be missed" - Garrus said, touching Lena on the arm. "I can see where your loyalties lie."

They were about to enter Leyawiin.

"Garrus" - Lena started, turning to him. "I am not a model citizen, and your association with me might well cost you your career. Just tell me if you'd rather we never met."

He looked her in the eye, then smiled.

"The Count would rather have someone around who knows what's going on" - he touched her robes. "I am not spying on you, and you would never take me on a job, but those Ayleid ruins need exploring, and weren't there necromancers to be kept in check? You are not just an assassin."

He took her hand and they entered Leyawiin.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:45 PM

19 First Seed, 4E202 - Water's Edge

At the Three Sisters Inn the usual happened. It was nearing midnight, and all three sisters were sitting in the dining room, chatting. Lena and Garrus walked in, looking to rent a room and have something to eat.

"They have very nice rooms, but the hostess is a bit odd" - Lena told Garrus before entering. "You'll see."

As they entered the dining room, Shuravi got up to greet them.

"If you are looking for a room, I've got just the thing for you - all the comforts... oh, it's you" - she recognised Lena. "Sharing with yet another man, I see?" She looked Garrus over head to toe.

"And still no wedding ring" - smiled Lena. "Hello, Shuravi. We'll take the suite, and some dinner too, please."

"Well, you can have food, but no wine! There's enough going on as it is."

Garrus and the other two sisters were watching with amusement. In the suite, Garrus couldn't resist.

"Sharing with yet another man, eh?" - he laughed. "Some lifestyle you've got!"

She was about to punch him in the ribs, but alas, he was wearing armour.

"If you don't want to share with me, you can sleep out in the hall" - she said instead.

"Oh, I am not complaining" - he said unclipping his sword. "What's for dinner?"

...

In the morning they went to see Biene Amelion in the village of Water's Edge about the Fighters Guild job.

"I need my grandfather's ceremonial armour and sword from the family tomb" - she said - "to pay off my father's gambling debts... Some people came and dragged him off into the night, and now I fear I'll be next! That debt is over 1000 septims!"

A voice in Lena's head said: "Just give her the money and skip the tomb visit." But Lena brushed it aside - skip the tomb visit? What a strange idea!

The tomb was just on the other side of the water and seemed to have quite a lot of warriors buried there, or rather left unburied in their rickety coffins. No wonder that they were now walking around brandishing their weapons!

Garrus cursed under his breath and started punching them.

"Why are you punching them?" - Lena asked between the fights. "What's wrong with your sword?"

"Nothing" - Garrus smiled. "They are just not worth dulling the blade. Besides, punching wraiths doesn't even scrape your knuckles."

As they progressed through the caverns, Lena started spotting pieces of ceremonial armour lying in the dust. Gauntlets, shield, boots...

"This is odd" - she turned to Garrus, picking them up. "It looks like they belong to the same set, and they are definitely ceremonial - mighty heavy and not that protective, but surely pretty. This may well be what we're looking for. But why is it all disjointed like that?"

"I blame the skeletons" - Garrus replied, shifting a pile of bones to the side. "I bet the armour pieces were not entombed but just laid onto a slab. The skeletons must have dragged them all over the cave. We'll probably need to make sure we've got them all."

They went through the caverns, fighting more undead and picking up a few more pieces of armour. In the final chamber they found a cuirass and a sword on a slab. Garrus seemed to be right. Collecting everything, they returned to Biene.

"Oh thank you so much!" - she was plainly ecstatic. "You have no idea what this means to me!"

Yet she only wanted the cuirass and the sword.

"Biene, you will need the whole set if you want to make any money on this" - Lena tried telling her, thinking to herself that there was no way Biene was going to raise 1000 septims even with the whole set. It was long out of fashion.

A voice in Lena's head said again: "You could still pay her debt and keep the fancy armour..." Light armour that was heavier than heavy with the protection of a cloth? Light armour that she wasn't skilled in? "But pretty!" - the voice said.

"No" - Lena said loudly. Garrus and Biene stared at her - no one else had heard the Voice. "Umm... no, you have to have the whole set" - Lena corrected herself. "We gathered it all anyway, so here - take it."

She dropped the remaining pieces before Biene, nodded to Garrus, and they left.

...

"That was a bit... strange" - Garrus said once they were back on the road, walking towards Bravil. "She didn't seem to know what she was doing there."

"Yeah..." - Lena was thinking of the voice in her head. "Oh wait, I think I know why."

She pulled him into the forest.

"There" - Lena pointed up the hill.

A statue of a dainty gentleman with a cane was surrounded by several people in varying states of undress.

"A shrine to Sanguine?" - guessed Garrus.

"No, Sheogorath."


The people were distinctly odd, as one might expect. The Prince would accept a lesser soul gem as an offering, provided it came with some yarn and lettuce. Lena didn't have any yarn, so she let it be. Summoning Sheogorath at the shrine while she could just go to the Shivering Isles was... well... a bit crazy. Besides, the Khajiit village nearby was still recovering from the burning dogs plague she had helped to unleash onto them last time.

"And this also explains your odd behaviour" - Lena turned to Garrus. "Punching the wraiths, indeed!"

...

They reached Bravil just before midnight. They were tired after a long trek and all the fighting, but glad to be back in the world of reason and clear thought. The skooma den was open as usual, and the gate to the Shivering Isles shone brightly in the night. Home at last!

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:46 PM

20-23 First Seed, 4E202 - Vanishing touch - Rowley - Borba

"That's been another great week" - Garrus said in the morning looking wistful. "I've got to get back to my duties."

"We haven't found all that much loot this time, I'm afraid" - Lena was looking at a couple of bows they picked up on the way, but there was not much else, really.

"Oh, don't worry about that" - Garrus was ready to leave. "You paid for my armour repairs, weapons, food, lodging, everything - so that's my share. I'll take your promise to come and find me again." He smiled.

"Without a doubt" - Lena got up to kiss him goodbye. "There are always more wraiths in need of punching."

...

"Well, now that he's gone, I should go about my own business" - Lena thought, going through her journal. "Fort Sutch... where is Fort Sutch... Oh, all the way on the Golden Coast. Right, never mind, Fort Sutch it is. Then Chorrol, Imperial City, and back to Cheydinhal. I better call Roach, that's going to take a few days..."

Roach was such a wonderful horse. You could whistle for her, and she'd come from gods know where, ready to travel anywhere in Tamriel (almost). But even she had a weakness: rum. Rum as they served it at the Bloated Float - and mind you, it was not on the menu. Whenever Lena stayed for any period of time in the Imperial City, and especially if Lena had taken the subway to quickly travel between the districts, Roach would disappear to the Bloated Float and stop responding to calls. There was only one thing that could get her to respond in such situations: better rum. Not the usual Captain McGee variety, but the feared Abecean Medusa dark rum. Which is why Lena made a mental note to stop by Anvil for a refill.

...

Lena called, holding a bottle of Abecean Medusa rum at the ready. Roach appeared. The bottle disappeared. They were off. Bravil - Skingrad - Kvatch - Anvil. Would they make it in a day?

...

The road from Bravil to Skingrad wasn't a road - Lena decided to ride through the forest to save time. Roach wasn't keen on that - there were always more beasts in the forest, and the ground was often rocky and difficult to navigate. True; but not if you were invisible.

What?

Yes. One of the custom spells that Lena had prepared. Vanish and run, on touch. She was getting quite good at Illusion.

They arrived in Skingrad in the early afternoon. Roach needed a rest and Lena needed to refill her restoratives and poisons - she had used up most of the stock on the necromancers. So she stopped by her house for a few hours. No, they wouldn't reach Anvil in a day.

The road to Kvatch had quite a few bandits, trolls and minotaurs out and about, but the new Vanish and Run spell worked a treat, leaving them all rooted on the spot looking around in confusion. Lena didn't bother to fight them, just rode on. But Anvil was still far, and the climb to Kvatch was steep and long, and so they turned off South West already before Kvatch and reached the Gweden Farm in time for the evening drinks.


The next day saw Lena go to Anvil, Fort Sutch and Chorrol, taking care of business and staying at the Motierre House for the night. She was rather early paying for the next month's supplies for the Battlehorn Castle, but Emfrid didn't mind. In the morning Lena set off for the Imperial City.


Hannibal Traven was saddened by the death of his informant, although not so much by the deaths of the battlemages, Lena noted with disgust. She wondered just why they had been so poorly prepared - perhaps that warranted an investigation. Traven seemed to wage the war on necromancy at the cost of many, many lives. Lena's ever rising rank within the Mages Guild started to lose its luster.

Shaking her head and not in the best of moods, she went about the other business in the Imperial City - to see the trader who refurbished the Deepscorn Hollow. That just wouldn't do.


"Hello, Rowley Eardwulf" - Lena said approaching him at the Wawnet Inn. "I have gone to see what you delivered to the Deepscorn Hollow. I have a few, ah, questions."

She sat down at the table next to him.

"Whatever you mean!" - protested Rowley. "It is all first class gear!"

"Really?" - she smiled, setting her elbow on the table and smoothing her glove. "Like the dirty old rugs and tapestries fit for the best of skooma dens of the Imperial City sewers, perhaps? Or like a dining table for just two in such a huge place? Or perhaps like a complete lack of beds? I believe my great-uncle used to have a group of assassins there, he wasn't living alone!"

"But you understand... That was over 200 years ago... Things perish over time..." - Rowley stuttered slightly, but still kept firm.

"Perhaps. However, you charged me for the unperished variety. I want half of that money back."

"But I haven't got it!" - he was starting to become nervous, the purse being the weakest body part of any trader. "I supplied you with a servant and a prisoner, almost free of charge!"

"Ah yes, about the servant" - Lena looked at him twisting her ring. "You never mentioned any servant last time."

"But he's there to please you! In every which way! He's a vampire, like you-- oh, like your great-uncle!"

"Opened your eyes now, have you? My great-uncle never kept slaves."

"Well, slaves... Slaves are good - slaves are obedient. Vampires make great slaves, surely you must know. He will do whatever you say, or just deny him blood - and I mean whatever you say..." - Rowley finally noticed Lena's gloves and rings. "Oh!"

"Ah, you recognise the robes" - Lena smiled. "Then I suppose you know why I've come."

...

She was back in Cheydinhal just before nightfall. A report to the Fighters Guild and to the Sanctuary on finished assignments, an to Lucien personally on a few other matters. A visit to Borba's would have to wait until tomorrow.

...

"I have completed the Purification of Crimson Scars" - Lena told Lucien among other business.

"Completed?" - Lucien looked up from the papers. "Did we miss someone?"

"Rowley Eardwulf."

"Ah" - Lucien sounded disappointed. "I've heard rumours that someone had escaped, with a few new recruits, but then they were all thought to have been killed through their own ineptitude. Apparently not so."

"Rowley was no longer active as an assassin" - Lena explained. "He stripped the Sanctuary after you were done and was running a small trade business of sorts. The recruits that you mentioned were indeed all killed, except one, whom he was employing in another capacity."

"Go on" - Lucien was listening with interest.

"As a slave. Fenris Bero is a vampire."

"Bero?"

"Exactly."

"Well, well! And now?"

"Now he calls me Mistress and I have no idea how to make him into a proper person again."


"It is so good to see you again!" - Borba was remarkably friendly when Lena entered her shop in the morning. "I've seen you wear your new robes last night. So very elegant."

Oh! Of course. The robes. Borba was supplying Lucien's place, after all.

"Thank you, Borba" - Lena beamed. "I wonder if you could supply some furniture to a place near Leyawiin?"

"Refurbishing your great-uncle's Sanctuary, are you? That Rowley Eardwulf would rip you off blind and leave you with rubbish" - Borba grimaced. "Just as well he's been taken care of."

How on Nirn..? Yes, how did she know? But it was better not to ask.

"Yes, I shall need new furnishings, and also to take away some of the... odd stuff that's there."

She gave Borba a list.

"That's no problem, give us a week or so - it's a bit out of the way."

"Oh, and I must warn you: there's someone there" - Lena wasn't sure how Borba would react to a vampire - many Orcs were quite averse to them. "A servant. I told him to stay out of your way, but still you should know - he's a vampire."

"I see" - Borba said slowly, looking thoughtfully at Lena. "A servant you didn't quite expect, right? Yes, that would be Rowley's style... to shift them off his hands once he tired of them..."

"You mean - there are more?" - Lena was picturing a dungeon filled with slaves.

"Oh no, not now, but there were more - in the past. Then the Empire got really tough on slave trade and Rowley just kept them for his own pleasure... err... service. You know, he wasn't very kind hearted" - she added quite unnecessarily. "There's a prisoner there as well, I take it?"

"There is" - Lena confirmed, thanking Whoever for Borba's professional touch.

"Well, not to worry. We are not all afraid of vampires" - she smiled. "You could always shop here back then, too."

That was true. Borba was one of the few traders who had had no issues with Lena's vampirism at the time. Lena paid Borba with the funds recovered from Rowley - only rightly so - and left the shop with a light heart.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:47 PM

23-24 First Seed, 4E202 - Arena

"Hauk! I missed you" - Lena waved to Hauk spotting him in the Elven Gardens. "How have you been?"

"Busy" - he replied, kissing her on a cheek. "After our trip to Skyrim, the Legion wanted my services again."


It was only now that Lena realised what was so odd about Hauk: his armour. It wasn't his usual steel set but Imperial Dragon.

"Yeah, they had me dress up" - he grimaced. "I haven't worn this since the War ended. But apparently it's inspirational for the recruits."

"Would you like to clear out some damp zombie-infested caves with me instead, Optio?" - Lena laughed.

"By Akatosh! When do we leave?"

"As soon as we find Jowan. He's getting himself into trouble again. Arena."

"Betting?"

"Combating!"

"Then we have no time to lose! Let me change out of this monkey suit, and I'll meet you there."

...

Jowan was in the ring, facing a heavily armed Orc.

"They are pitting a lightly armoured mage against a heavily armoured Orc!" - the bookie announced excitedly. "Place your bets, place your bets!!"

Lena didn't want to place a bet, but she had to in order to get to see the match. She bet a small amount of gold on Jowan.

"A strategic bet, is it?" - someone behind her noted. "She's betting on the mage - who will likely be killed - so she won't lose much money, but if by some miracle the mage does survive, she'll cash in a tidy sum against the odds!"

"I just hope the mage does survive" - Lena thought, feverishly trying to remember what they did with dead bodies - in case Jowan got killed and would need resuscitation. It's been a long time since she had competed herself...

The match had started. The Orc charged at Jowan, but Jowan evaded - he was quick - and fired some spells at the Orc. The audience applauded as the sparks and flames reflected off the shiny shield. The Orc charged again, Jowan evaded again, firing some more spells. They danced like that for a while. The Orc was getting burned, singed and frostbitten, but still he advanced. He had a mace, not a sword - he wouldn't draw blood. This Orc came prepared.

Jowan wasn't tired yet but he knew he could not win this way - the Orc was strong and kept drinking potions against elemental damage. One hit with that mace would crush Jowan's skull...

"And I would not be able to resuscitate him!" - Lena thought watching them.

Jowan drew his sword - the Orc raised his shield - Jowan slit his own wrist and cast a spell. The audience erupted in applause.

With a thump, the Orc fell to the ground, paralysed. A Spider Daedra fell on him, her fangs bared. A Nether Lich shot a spell from his staff. The Orc was now but a corpse.

Lena rushed down to the Bloodworks.

"Jowan!" - she brushed aside the Bloodworks master. "Not now, Owyn."

"Wolf!" - Owyn recognised her. "I didn't know the bloodmage was your protegee."

"Well, now you do. Jowan!" - she finally spotted him at the Basin of Renewal. "That's enough for today - come with me. Owyn will pay you later."

Jowan's wrists were still bleeding, so the Basin wasn't having much of an effect. Hauk came in, having changed out of his Imperial Dragon armour into blue robes. Owyn stepped back.

"Welcome, Optio."

"Hello, Owyn."

Did everyone know each other here? The other combatants stopped their practice and were watching the scene in disbelief. Wolf? The Wolf? Grand Champion that had disappeared? And Optio? He looked familiar... Wait... Heavy raiment... Gladiator. So this bloodmage... Oh!

...

Jowan was lying on the bed in Hauk's house while Lena and Hauk were trying to stop the bleeding from his veins. He was covered in cuts, at different stages of healing. Some had festered.

"Well, he is not going to die, but he's in no condition for any kind of adventuring" - Hauk concluded, turning to Lena. "And he needs looking after, or he'll run off to the Arena again."

"I'm not dead yet, you know" - Jowan piped up. "I can hear you."

"Good" - Lena came closer. "That was some spell you cast back there."

"Yeah, paralysis and a double summon" - Jowan smiled. "It only works when one is dead and the other alive."

"Illusion, Conjuration and Necromancy" - Lena noted. Then turning to Hauk she added: "He summoned a Spider Daedra and a Nether Lich. That Orc stood no chance."

"I see the need for blood" - Hauk nodded. "You would only be able to cast one of those spells normally. Is that how you've been surviving?" Hauk pointed at Jowan's cuts.

"Yes" - Jowan nodded. "I probably made it to Myrmidon now, Owyn thought that Bloodletter was ironic."

"You..." - Lena started telling him off, then remembered what Jowan told her about his best friend back in Ferelden. She did not want to become like her. "Jowan" - she started again. "It's your life of course, but please don't waste it - we still want you to come with us to fight wraiths and liches."

That was the right thing to say, and Jowan brightened up.

"All right, since you insist" - he got up and cast a healing spell onto himself. A rather special healing spell - his wounds promptly knitted together, infections banished. "Blood magic can be used for healing, too" - he smiled. "If there's a reason for it."


"I didn't close my cuts to get decapitated by a hangover" - Jowan moaned the next morning, waking up on the floor in Hauk's bedroom. "How much mead did we drink?"

"A couple of barrels" - replied Lena from the bed. "You didn't want to sleep in the bed for some reason."

"I am not used to sharing a bed Skyrim style" - he said, getting up rather shakily. "I leave it to you two."

"Mmmm?" - Hauk was waking up as well. "If you want privacy, there's water in the basement - you can wash there. Although we've seen you naked already."

Jowan disappeared to the basement.

"He'll get used to it" - said Hauk filling the bath. "In the field modesty can kill you."

Lena didn't argue. Instead, she took advantage of the commotion to get into the bath first.

...

Washed and dressed and with almost clear heads, Lena, Hauk and Jowan sat at The Tiber Septim Hotel next door at breakfast.

"So, where are we going? You mentioned wraiths and liches?" - Jowan asked slicing a watermelon.

"There are a few Ayleid ruins in the Niben that need investigating" - Lena was pouring over a map. "We would be gone for a while, it's completely out of the way of everything."

"Sounds fantastic" - grinned Jowan. "I've had enough of civilization."

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:48 PM

I didn't expect Jowan to use such drastic measures.

Do you mean against the Orc or to close his cuts? Both were possible in Dragon Age. There he would summon a daemon from the Fade, and that surely is equivalent to a Spider Daedra and a Lich. Paralysis came as a freebie with the daemon. But it would take almost all of his blood, nearly killing him - which is why Lena and Hauk were fussing over him that much. Jowan shouldn't be doing it too often, but you know, he's not very level-headed...

24-25 First Seed, 4E202 - The Niben Basin

It was well past midday when Lena, Hauk and Jowan finally set off from the Imperial City towards the Niben. It was foggy and cool, and they were able to make good time jogging and walking along the Ring Road, crossing the Upper Niben and turning off to the Yellow Road going South East. They passed by Cropsford where they were greeted as saviours by the Bretons who now managed to build their houses on that land. A very warm welcome indeed, but no, you're not getting any food here, and neither can you spend the night. Oh great.

So they continued along the road hoping to stay at the Crestbridge Camp, only to discover that no such camp any longer existed. Oh, there was an abandoned campsite, sure, but no tents, no fire, nothing. It was nearing 9 p.m.

"So, what do you want to do?" - asked Lena. "We can go and clear out the fort over there" - she pointed to the other side of the Corbolo River - "or walk around in the wilderness hoping to find another campsite, or else pick up the pace and aim for the Imperial Bridge Inn - we should probably get there by midnight."

"The inn" - said Hauk and Jowan in unison. "Don't want to wander around in the wilderness in the middle of the night looking for a campsite that might or might not be there. And that fort - we've been there already, it took forever to clear out and didn't Garrus nearly drown in that one? Or was it somewhere else?"

Lena couldn't remember in which fort it was exactly, and Jowan didn't want to find out, and so they marched on aiming for the Imperial Bridge Inn.

The inn was welcoming and accommodating as usual, with a wide selection of alcoholic drinks to accompany the meal. However, their heads were still slightly buzzing from the mead they had consumed the night before, so they thanked the publican and focused on the food. There were just the two single beds free, but plenty of floor space. Against his protests, Jowan was thrust onto one of the beds - "You still need to rest!" - and Hauk took the floor, for a little while at least.


"Explain this to me" - asked Jowan at breakfast. "Are you two lovers?"

Lena and Hauk looked at each other, then Hauk answered: "Officially - no, unofficially - may be."

"What?" - Jowan was confused. "How is that?"

"Well..." - Lena started, not so sure what to say.

"We are friends, first and foremost" - said Hauk firmly. "And we've been travelling together for, what? - half a year now?" Lena nodded. "And things happen in travels."

"Things that don't happen off travels or with other people" - Lena added, blushing slightly.

"Wolf is not ready to make any choices or decisions, it's not the time" - continued Hauk. "No, we're just friends" - he smirked and winked at Jowan. Lucky for him, he was already wearing armour.

...

Mackamentain was a bit odd.

"Tombs of the Undead?" - Lena read an inscription above the door. "I've never come across undead that would still be entombed..."

And sure enough, they were not. Wraiths and zombies raised by the necromancers perhaps, unless the necromancers were just visiting.

The next door was even more interesting: "Necromancer's Asylum".

"Well, let's hope Mr. Umbacano likes them bloody" - said Lena pointing at an Ayleid statue. "I certainly don't want to know where this one has been" - she added stashing it in her pack.


...

Going East from Mackamentain, they found Deserted Mine that wasn't actually deserted but occupied by bandits. It provided quite a bit of gold and had a Minotaur Lord locked in behind some rickety planks.

"What does a beast like this do in the deapths of some forgotten mine, barricaded like that?" - wondered Jowan.

"Who knows!" - said Hauk. "Minotaur are supposed to be intelligent, sentient even. Although I think this one might have been touched by Sheogorath. The bandits probably put up the barricade for their own safety."

"Yeah, except that I was able to break it down with a single punch" - interjected Lena. "Perhaps it's rather the bandits who had been touched by Sheogorath."

It didn't really matter, because they were all dead now. Lena, Hauk and Jowan stayed in the mine for the night.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:49 PM

It was against the Orc. I haven't played Dragon Age in a long time so Jowan's use of the blood magic was unexpected. Really didn't know it would take so much.
This is one reason why I like reading other's accounts on the use of magic. Seems like everyone takes a slightly different approach to how the spells work and how the casting affects the caster.

There is a lot of blood magic in Dragon Age but almost none of it is available to the player because Jowan could not be recruited into the team. However, some rules are spelled out, the most important being that while a blood magic powered spell is active, the donor cannot be healed. The donor not necessarily being the caster... in fact, for more powerful spells like summoning a demon, so much blood is required that the donor usually dies. Some spells take the blood of several people...

But Jowan isn't evil, so he wouldn't use another person's blood unless it was unavoidable. He is prone to go for spectacular effects though... and being in the arena, he just couldn't resist.

Not all spells require so much blood of course. In fact, most spells only require a little - blood acts simply as a Fortify Magicka stimulant. So when an opponent draws Jowan's blood, Jowan can use it to his advantage to cast a stronger spell of the usual kind. Effective, if not spectacular.

There is blood magic in Skyrim (Equilibrium spell) to convert health into magicka, but in Oblivion you could only get a much weaker version to fortify magicka without replenishing it. And fortify magicka spell costs too much magicka to cast to be useful.

I realised that I had not introduced Jowan properly into this thread. Jowan is from Ferelden (Dragon Age Origins). He messed things up so badly, that there was nothing left for him to do but to board a ship - any ship - and leave Ferelden hoping to arrive Elsewhere.

What follows happened a few months back, soon after Lena met Jowan in Anvil. Jowan tells Lena about his past.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

28 Morning Star, 4E202 - Conversations - Jowan reminiscences

"Turn over and let me treat your back" - Lena was saying to Jowan at the inn after their expedition to the Bramblepoint Cave. "Not wearing armour has its disadvantages. Those minotaures got you pretty bad."

Jowan was covered in deep cuts from minotaures' horns, and although his general health could be restored with healing magic, the bruises had to be treated with aloe vera to avoid infection. Lithnilian noticed Jowan's bruises, as well as Jowan's scars.

"Scars over the veins - you are a Blood Mage, aren't you? Not from Tamriel? Fascinating!" - There was no judgement in Lithnilian's voice, just interest. An Altmer sorcerer not of the first youth, he knew of many things not from Tamriel. "I would be thrilled to hear from you about Blood Magic, we know so little about it here. Perhaps tomorrow, when you are feeling better?"

Jowan was a bit taken aback, but Lithnilian seemed genuinely interested, so why not - one mage to another, they could have a conversation. Lena didn't mind hearing that too.

"Oh, you are a mage as well, of course" - Lithnilian looked at Lena with understanding. "And more. The Sufferthorn blade, the Black Band, the Spelldrinker amulet... Yes, so much more..." He was as discreet as he was observant.

"The potions you gave me will be extremely useful, thanks" - Lena referred to very strong Resist Magic potions that Lithnilian gave her as thanks for retrieving his notes. "My birthsign is the Apprentice."

"Indeed!" - Lithnilian beamed. "I'm glad I guessed right."

...

The next morning after breakfast they sat outside the inn enjoying lovely mild weather and beautiful views over the South bank of the Silverfish River. Lithnilian wanted to know how blood magic worked in practice - if blood was a material representation of life force, then of course it could be converted into magicka to power spells, or may be it could be used as is for some special rituals, not unlike Necromancy spells creating animated undead out of corpses. How much magicka would blood actually yield? Would it not kill the mage in the process? Oh - a mage could use someone else's blood instead of his own, you say? That opens up so many new possibilities, of course! And yes, I see why the Tevinter Magisters got so involved with that... But does that not corrupt one's spirit? Oh yes, Sithis will have claimed them long ago... And so on, and so forth.

For Jowan speaking about Blood Magic freely was not just strange - it was unreal. It turned his life upside down and ended any possibility of freedom back in Ferelden, and even though it carried no such punishment in Cyrodiil, it was a non-topic, something that wasn't spoken of. If Necromancy got banned by the Mages Guild, then surely Blood Magic would have been banned even earlier, had it been better known here.

"Well, I don't think Necromancy should have been banned" - said Lithnilian. "I'm not a member of the Mages Guild, so I don't speak for them, but as a fellow mage, I think it was a short-sighted move by the Arch Mage - look how many mages quit and were forced to devote all their time to Necromancy instead of just dabbing in it now and again. Mannimarco does not tolerate part-time members. Surely, Hannibal Traven must have expected this to happen. He must be going for an all-out war, and it is the mages on both sides that are to fall in it." Which was exactly what happened in Ferelden with the war against Blood Magic. Lena made a mental note to try to stay alive.

...

It was mid-afternoon when the discussion came to a close, and the innkeep declared that she was out of crab sandwiches, grapes, pears and oranges - she wasn't missing a beat in keeping her guests well fed.

"I'd like to take a walk now" - Jowan turned to Lena. "I feel a bit heavy with all the memories. Shall we see what's on the other side of this bridge?"

Nothing like a nice walk to clear your head. Wandering through the woods and enjoying filtered sunshine, Jowan was visibly relaxing, and other memories were coming to the fore.

"I got myself into a right mess back in Ferelden" - he told Lena. "I was just in my early 20s, I should have been graduating, but the First Enchanter kept pushing back the date. I thought he didn't trust me to deal with the demons in the Fade, but now I see that he was trying to protect me from the fate awaiting a Blood Mage, which is death. If it wasn't for my so-called girlfriend at the time, I would have talked to someone, but I never said a word of my worries, not even to my best friend, let alone the First Enchanter."

"Your so-called girlfriend?"

"She was an Initiate with the Chantry - you know, she was going to be a Priestess, and so had taken a vow of celibacy. Except that she came to regret it and apparently thought to herself to find a mage willing to go rogue for her and help her escape from the Chantry while in the process completely ruining his own life. That mage was to be me. Well, she was pretty" - he added defensively. "Very... umm... not like a nun." He smiled. Lena knew what he meant. "I was completely smitten, I admit."

"But she wasn't actually in love with you, was she?"

"No, I found out about her plan later... When I was waiting to be executed, or made tranquil, or something... My best friend saved my skin in the end, I should have trusted her with everything, but how do you talk to a girl about another girl? It was awkward, you know. I made such a mess!"

It was hard to argue with that. Lena just walked silently next to Jowan, letting him tell her what he chose.

"My best friend, she... Well, we've been friends since we met at the Tower as children, aged five or six or so, our respective parents having abandoned us for being mages. That was normal in Ferelden, by the way, there was no other way. You either was taken to the Tower or you became an apostate - a rogue mage, and that wasn't a life either. As we were growing up, we remained best friends. We each had adventures with others - you know, short-lived little things, nothing serious... except may be Elisa's flick with that templar, Cullen... but I think it was far more serious on his side than on hers, and he was older too. May be I was jealous and so didn't tell her about Lily's plan to elope until the very end..."

Lena had a few thoughts on what Elisa would have said to that plan, but she remained silent. Jowan continued his story.

"So when the plan went wrong, Lily immediately backed out of everything calling me a 'Blood Mage' and looking stricken with horror - which didn't help to reduce her sentence for breaking her vows, by the way... At that point I did something stupid - I used blood to boost my magicka to help me escape, and in doing so I proved to everyone that I was in fact a Blood Mage."

Ouch. He must have regretted it the moment he'd done it.

"Of course the templars caught up with me after some time... I found I could not live on the run. I got myself into more mess... Then at some point Elisa walked in - she didn't know I was there, it was a coincidence. It was thanks to her that I wasn't executed then and there..."

"She was a good friend" - Lena ventured.

"Yes... Well... She..." - Jowan was struggling. It was obvious that he wanted to tell this story, and he trusted Lena enough for that, but it seemed that he was confused by his own feelings on this... on what he was about to put into words, for the first time even to himself.

"I had misunderstood her for years. When she came to see me in prison later, she offered a way out for me - I could join the Grey Wardens, the group she joined after Lily's and my escape plan failed. But there was more... She said she had loved me for years, that she'd just been waiting for the right time to say it, and, well, we were still so young then. I felt cornered. If I were to refuse her offer, I'd be executed, but if I were to accept it, how could I not accept her love as well? If she hadn't said anything about her feelings, if she'd only offered to join the Grey Wardens, I would have gone with her - she was my best friend, what a better place for me to be than by her side? But love changed everything..."

The sun was starting to set and the sky in the West was coloured pink. Soon the pink turned red, filling more and more of the sky. The red turned sanguine. And finally the night swallowed all.

"But did you love her too?" - Lena asked after a long pause.

"I don't know, is an honest answer. I was so confused, I still am. I thought I loved Lily, but after her betrayal, I definitely didn't, so did I just stop loving her or had I never loved her? Love is such a volatile thing... How do you manage it?"

"You don't. It manages you."

The stars were abundant, and Secunda showed its pale face in full. Lena and Jowan settled on a hill looking into the sky from high grass.

"So how did you escape execution?" - Lena asked, hoping to move away from love woes.

"Cullen - the templar that Elisa had a flick with - he got me out and helped me onto a ship. He said he did it for Elisa, because I was her friend, but I think he did it for himself, because he wanted Elisa and this good deed would put him closer to her. Whatever his motivation, I'm grateful - I'm alive."

Love was a weird thing, and there was no getting away from it. They sat there, looking at the stars, each thinking of the people in their lives, and what they meant to them. Was there true love among them? The stars weren't giving any answers.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:50 PM

26 First Seed, 4E202 - Hame

"Where to next?" - asked Jowan stretching in the fresh air outside of the Deserted Mine where they had spent the night. It was safe but stuffy.

"That way" - Lena pointed vaguely North. "Into the mountains."

It was a lovely morning, and they walked on the slopes enjoying the view and trying not to slip into the canyon below.

"Wait - are those Ayleid stones on the other side of the canyon?" - Hauk pointed East. "Shall we go see?"

If there was ever an invitation to adventure, this was it.

...

Hame housed necromancers.

"Mages Guild necromancers" - pointed out Hauk seeing a Mages Guild banner in one of the halls. "Well, ex-Mages Guild now, of course. I wish we didn't have to fight them."

But there was no way around it - the necromancers were bitter for having been cast out like that, made to live in ruins... They would not tolerate explorers.

After the first encounter, Lena changed into her black robes, crouched, dipped an arrow in poison...

"Let me go first, hang back a bit" - she told Hauk and Jowan. "It'll be easier that way."

The ruin was spacious and dark, with mist hanging low. Bluish light from the Welkynd stones lit up the mist hiding everything from view, torch light included. Lena cast a night eye spell with life detection.

"Ah-ha! There you are" - she muttered under her breath. Shadowhunt sent out an arrow.

"Aaww!" The arrow found its target. The fight didn't last long.

They went through several halls in this manner, the only thing to watch out for being the traps.

"Now I've seen the Assassin" - Jowan was looking at Lena in admiration. "That must be some poison."

"I am not taking any chances" - she replied. "Traps are already bad enough."

Traps were bad here. Two rising floor traps in sequence: one flat and one with spikes, so if you didn't get squashed to death, the impaling would do the trick. There was a necromancer on the other side whom Lena shot with a poisoned arrow. He ran towards her... and... well... you'd think he'd know better than that, but no.

Getting through the traps unharmed was nearly impossible. Both Hauk and Jowan got caught out, even though they did try to follow Lena and jump over the corners. Jowan passed out and had to be pulled off the platform to avoid getting crushed indefinitely. Hauk's armour took most of the damage, and now looked it.

"Here - lie down on this slab" - Lena told Jowan when he came to, moaning.

"I'm not lying down on a slab!" - he protested. "That's a sarcophagus!"

"Oh come on, she's not going to turn you into a zombie!" - Hauk joined in, and Jowan reluctantly agreed.

His ribs were crushed, his limbs were broken in several places, and he was only keeping himself alive with magic. They spent some time casting bone repair spells and rubbing salves into most of his body. One of the traps was still rising and falling rhythmically next to them, with the weight of the dead necromancer triggering the mechanism.

"You don't want to end up like him" - was all Lena could say. "Have you thought about wearing armour?"

"I have" - Jowan admitted. "But light armour wouldn't save me here, and I am no good with heavy - it slows me down. I have been practicing shield spells instead."

Well, it was something. They continued into the ruin.

...

"Oh - look at this great hall!" - exclaimed Lena stepping into a hall in Hame Silasel and turning to Hauk and Jowan just behind her... and watching a grid rise from the floor cutting her off. "Oh."

This was a great hall indeed, with a fire brightly burning in the centre, which made everything else appear even darker. Lena lit up a torch. The hall seemed to be deserted. There was a table with some food in the corner, a Mages Guild counter with alchemical equipment in the middle, and not much else. The door on the opposite end was locked, requiring a key.

"I hate these magical locks" - thought Lena fiddling with it with Nocturnal's skeleton key. "No, it won't give. I need to find the real key. What a bother."

The key could be anywhere... this was like searching for a needle in a stack of hay in the dark with a donkey munching on it. Sooner or later the donkey would swallow the needle.

"Ok, here's one of those Ayleid buttons" - thought Lena. "As good a start as any." She pushed it and heard a wall panel sliding down and a groan behind it, with the stench following - no, preceding it.

"Ugh, a dread zombie. Better not come close!"

She summoned a clannfear and shot a few fire balls at the zombie - job done. In the depth of the hidden corridor was another Ayleid button. She pressed it and heard another wall panel sliding down on the opposite side of the hall. No groans came from there, just chill.

"A wraith, perhaps?" - Lena thought summoning a clannfear. Clannfears are not brilliant against wraiths, but they are fast and can sense danger in the dark. The clannfear ran across the hall but did not enter the now open second hidden corridor. Was it afraid of the icy cold coming from within?

Perhaps. And anyway, it found something else to play with - a couple of skeletons. Correction: a skeleton champion and his summon.

It took several clannfears to lay to rest the champion. The final clannfear stood there looking at the shattered bones, then edged towards the hidden corridor - the icy cold was still emanating from within. The clannfear ran and hid behind Lena.

"Ok, ok, good dog" - Lena patted it. "I'll call Toothy to deal with the wraith." She summoned a daedroth.

The daedroth could barely fit under the low ceiling of the hidden corridor, but he caught attention of the wraith. A few frost spells and Toothy was banished back to Oblivion. This was a Gloom Wraith without a weapon - a wraith of a powerful mage. Very dangerous.

"Just one of those frost spells would kill me" - thought Lena. "Better not get hit. And Toothy will need help."

She summoned another daedroth, and started shooting fire spells at the wraith using the daedroth as a cover. The battle was long, with Lena jumping out of the way of spells and summoning daedroth after daedroth. Eventually the wraith was defeated. Behind it in the depth of the hidden corridor was another Ayleid button. Lena pressed it. Another wall was sliding down.

"Here we go again" - she thought. "What now? A lich?"

The hidden corridor behind this sliding wall opened onto a chamber. Someone was inside.

"So, they locked themselves in. They are not going to be happy to be disturbed!" She remembered the Benirus Manor and the way Lorgren Benirus had locked himself in the basement while transforming into a lich. She shuddered.

She dipped an arrow in poison and crouched, ready to shoot.

"Wait a minute" - a voice said in her head. "What if the key to the exit is in that room somewhere? Like on top of a chest or whatever they've got inside? You shoot this guy, he'll start shooting back and your clannfear will make a mess of it all - you will never find the key! Better go in quietly first and look around."

Lena put away the bow and cast an invisibility spell. Still crouched, she sneaked past the guy - a necromancer of course - and looked around the room. She spotted a key ready to slip from a book it was on. Now or never.

She grabbed the key, dispelling her cloack, then quickly cast the cloack back on and moved. A powerful shock spell hit where she had just stood. She ran out of the room - still cloacked - and summoned a clannfear. No need to hide any longer, the battle was on.

You cannot silence a mage with a staff but you can still stab them. Lena wondered why he had locked himself in like that, but figured there must have been a reason. She also wondered if he was planning to ever come out - and then how - since there was no obvious way to lower the sliding wall from within. Key or no key, he would not have been able to get to the door to begin with.

"Suicide or murder?" - she wondered. But it mattered not.

...

"Finally!" - Hauk rushed towards her hearing a door being unlocked not far from where they had entered Hame Silasel. "When we got cut off by that grid, we backtracked here and found this locked door. We figured that was the exit. What happened?"

"I'll tell you later" - Lena looked pale and tired. "There was some food and beds near the entrance - I need to lie down. There was a wraith" - she looked at Hauk, and he nodded. He too remembered Benirus Manor.

"Will you take blood this time?" - he asked, checking her eye colour.

"'You might need blood to recover from a bad fight'" - Vicente's voice echoed in Lena's mind. "I'll try not to" - she said turning to Hauk.

...

The way back to the entrance was complicated, they took a wrong turn and found more necromancers. The chamber looked like a zombie laboratory.


"A decomposing body on a slab, tied down and freshly decapitated" - Lena had never seen necromancers at work. "Oh, and here's the head. And a silver warhammer at the ready in case things went wrong, I guess."

"But they didn't expect any trouble from the living" - Hauk observed. "I still think it was wrong to ban Necromancy. These mages were meticulous in their work, and the bodies they used were no recent kills. We've just murdered some decent folk" - he added with regret looking at the dead necromancer.

"Yeah, it's too bad they tried to kill us" - Lena reminded him.

Jowan was looking at all this in silence. He was still struggling to understand why some of the Necromancy practices were classified as Conjuration and thus allowed, while others would get you banned and hunted.

"How is summoning undead or raising a revenant any better than making zombies?" - he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"It isn't" - Hauk replied. "Traven re-classified it, or he'd lose the entire Council of Mages rather than half of it."

They left the room shaking their heads.

Once again they navigated the two rising floor traps, getting caught out, cursing and casting healing spells. By the time they reached the hall near the entrance, the improvised bedroom looked exceedingly welcoming.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:51 PM

I enjoyed your reflections on necromancy. As a healer, Buffy will quietly admit that her craft is not complete without at least an academic knowledge of necromantic principles. A lifebringer must understand the process of death to fully grasp her craft. Not to mention necromantic insights on repairing dead or heavily damaged tissue.

Exactly. Which is why Arkay is the God of both Life and Death. There is not one without the other.

Of course Traven has a personal vendetta with Manimarco. Considering how easily Traven sacrifices the lives of Guild mages who happened to practice a bit of necromancy, I would call him evil.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Jun 9 2021, 09:08 PM

27 First Seed, 4E202 - Cold dream - Shopping in Cheydinhal

Lena was cold. She was lying on a bed in an Ayleid ruin. All was quiet, save the breathing of Jowan and Hauk sleeping on the bedrolls nearby. Lena was hungry, too.

She got up to get some food. Next to the bed was a crate serving as a table with parts of a skeleton on it. And blood stains. Blood.

Icy chill enveloped Lena - she was now shaking. She remembered the wraith she'd faced the day before - a Gloom Wraith with devastating frost spells. Lena didn't get hit by those spells, but the cold emanating from the wraith was enough to freeze the blood in her veins. Perhaps Lena had underestimated the effects.

She tried to put those visions out of her mind and to warm up by moving around. She sprinted into the next chamber and stretched. A dead necromancer was lying against the wall. Was he still warm?

"I'll just--" she was at his neck before she could finish the thought. No, the necromancer was already cold. That wouldn't do.

"But his flesh must be still rich..." - she caught herself thinking, unsheathing her dagger.

"You will always be mine, little one" - a voice said gently in her head. "Don't fight it now."

"Namira!" - Lena cried. "No!"

She forced herself to sheath the dagger and move away from the corpse.

"You'll see" - the voice replied. "With time."

Lena had to clear her head and to warm up, somehow. She ran down the stairs, past Jowan and Hauk, still sleeping. She was very quiet. It was the hall with the traps. Blood. The slabs were covered in blood from yesterday's attempts to cross them. The room started spinning... already dim lights went dimmer still... blood shone brightly on the first slab - it was warm, it was steaming...

...

Lena woke up on the bed in the first hall. She was warm. She remembered the strange dream she had... cold... hunger... corpse... Namira's voice... steaming blood... She shivered. An arm pulled her closer. Hauk.

"You fainted by the traps - it's a wonder you didn't get crushed. You were ice cold. We got you on the bed and I've been trying to warm you up" - he said in her ear. "Don't do that again."

So... it wasn't a dream.

...

It was a chilly morning with overcast skies as they stood outside Hame.

"Which way now?" - asked Jowan. "Can you even walk?"

"Of course I can walk, stop fussing over me" - Lena snapped without conviction. "We need to find an inn or a town - we are out of food." They ate the last bits of fruit for breakfast.

"We also have expensive loot to sell" - added Hauk pointing at their bulging pack. "And the prongs of that Ayleid statue are tearing holes in the bag."

"Cheydinhal then" - decided Lena pointing North West. "Through the mountains."

...

They reached Cheydinhal in the afternoon, their legs sore from climbing. The two inns by the gate had enough food, mead and wine between them to cover several meals. Lena bought it all. Borba was pleased to see her, and bought all the rings, scrolls and potions that Lena cared to sell. They took the Welkynd and Varla stones to the Mages Guild.

"Oh my goodness - nineteen Welkynd stones and five Varlas!" - Eilonwy was extatic. "Don't you want to keep them for yourself?" - she paused at the Varla stones. "It's much cheaper than recharging with gems or... mmm... here." She shot a glance at Uurwen.

"No, that's fine" - Lena replied. "We've got plenty of gems, too..."

Eilonwy's eyes widened as she saw a bag full of gems.

"In fact, I wanted to sell these smaller ones..."

...

They stopped at the smithy to drop off their armour for repairs.

"You want this fixed?" - Tertia Viducia was holding up Hauk's cuirass that looked like a sieve. "I can do it, but it'll cost you! You might be better off buying a new set."

"No, I don't want a new one - this one's already worn in. It actually fits" - Hauk insisted. "Fix it, please. And... polish it" - he smiled.

"All right, but it won't be ready until tomorrow" - Tertia took the armour into her workshop.

Lena decided not to add her armour to the work, Tertia had enough to do as it was. She stopped by the Fighters Guild. The porter wouldn't let her past the door.

"Hey, I'm a member, you know!" - she had to remind him.

"I have no contracts for you, meat!" - Burz gro-Khash was his charming self. "Go see Azzan in Anvil."

"Shut it, gro-Khash" - Keld of the Isles was equally courteous. "I've got a thick skin, but he's rough" - he turned to Lena. "If you choose to spend your time with me..."

"Ahem" - Hauk came in and now stood behind Lena.

"Ah, well, I'm a Guardian, you know" - Keld continued in a more neutral tone. "Didn't get to this rank by picking fights. I'm cautious."

The porter finally conceded to repair Lena's armour, and soon they could leave.

"Why do you even bother with them?" - asked Jowan, having watched this whole exchange with increasing scepticism. "Does it at least pay well?"

"No, it doesn't" - confessed Lena. "I... I am not even sure! Azzan in Anvil is nice, but the rest of them throw nothing but insults at you. Just like the Skyrim assassins" - she looked at Hauk. "I wonder why I bother."

With the shopping done, they finally made it to the Wolf Sanctuary. It was time to eat, bathe and relax - they've done enough adventuring for one day.

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Mar 26 2024, 01:52 PM

Hauk's story is really interesting, being a special forces sort of guy, going off on missions and maybe not coming back for days or weeks. Yes, I wonder if Hauk and Iver might have traded places on occasion...





I like how Hauk first notices Lena making some advanced magics in the AU, and then wonders who she is.



She has a brother? This is a wild story, Elena. Especially how Hauk knows who the White Wolf is even before she is able to tell him.

I just finished that part where they are drinking in the inn, Hauk and Lena. One of these days I'll finish Post 1. It's looking like that'll be some time around Christmas. Okay, Thanksgiving, if I really buckle down.

This post has been edited by Renee: Jun 10 2021, 05:05 PM

That's an interesting thought... Iver has more to him than meets the eye, I'm sure. After all, they are brothers. But they disagree on a few points, Necromancy being one. Or may be Iver is just more cautious - he wouldn't be seen crossing the Arch-Mage. I hope Lena can tell them apart, though!

The news from the Northern Realms don't reach Tamriel very quickly, but eventually they do, and some of it is even true. ;-) The White Wolf is famous in several different ways (not all good), so of course Hauk had heard of him.



As long as you don't specify the year, you're fine. That first post is just a few bits to introduce the story, you might have read them on Beth already (unless you missed them there as well, that is) - but no pressure. The story does get wilder still, if you think what you've read so far was wild... then buckle up!!!