Oasis 2, Free from Destiny. Options

[jack cloudy]

Here is the link to: Jack Cloudy's Other Stories


Ok, I've got to be crazy. Starting a third one before finishing the last two? Yeah, definitely crazy. More crazy than Tarhiel, Curio and M'Aiq combined. Ah well, I guess I can't be stopped. (Note to self: Make an Agent update tonight.)





Oasis 2: Free from Destiny.

The task I’d been sent to do had been finished. No, I hadn’t just been sent to do this, I’d been made for it in a quite literal way. Yes, that task was the only reason for my existence. Now that I’d completed it, what was left?

Anyone in my position would probably try to retire and live the remainder of his or her life at peace, preferably with the comfort of nearby friends. I had friends and I could retire easily enough. During the course of my life, I’d amassed a large amount of wealth, including a house big enough to accommodate a whole village. In fact, my house was a village. Then why did I leave? Why was I walking here at this moment, so far away from civilization?

The truth was, I couldn’t. I hadn’t realized at the time, but the reason why I fought was because my friends needed me as much as I needed them. I’d fought to protect them, to keep them near. Yet what should have been my moment of everlasting glory was my moment of defeat. I could no longer see those I considered friends. It would undo everything I’d done.

The sun began to sunk beneath the horizon and I sat down next to the nearest shrub. A small wisp of fire, and I had created a small circle of light to keep me company. The fire was bad company if it was the soul that required comfort instead of the body. Nothing opposed my train of thought. I relived the last moment, the moment it all became clear.

I stood on the slopes of a mountain. Beneath me, several tents had been placed in the ashcovered ground. People milled about like ants. Banners flapped in the gentle breeze. A smile crept across my face. These were the people of Vvardenfell, my people. Most were unknown faces to me but that didn’t matter. In the end, they were all a part of the island. And I would be their hero. Society had been at the brink of collapse but now, everything would be fine. The Houses had united, the Ashlanders received the respect they deserved. The time of politics and struggles for power had ended. There was nothing left to fight over. And I would be right in the middle of it all, basking in glory, everyone would call me their greatest hero. Like a child’s dream come true.

The smile vanished. It would not be fine. There was still something for them to fight over. Ironic as it might seem, that something was me. To win the favour of the land’s champion, the Houses would return to their internal strife, bloodier than before. Those around me would be the victim of it all, as they would be pulled into this conflict. Politics was a plague, hard to control. There was only one thing I could do to prevent this from happening. I would have to leave, vanish into myth.

And leave I did. I never even took the chance to properly say goodbye. I couldn’t say goodbye. If I tried, I would end up staying and make my nightmare into reality. It was a bit of an anti-climax. Whenever I thought about what would come after defeating my enemy, the only things I saw were scenes of fame, glory and perhaps even a bit of worship. I couldn’t let any of that happen though. It would be as destructive as having let him have his way.

Perhaps this is how the guy who killed Jagar Tharn felt after he’d claimed victory in the Imperial palace. He too left right after his greatest moment. To this very day, no one knows his name, or his race, or even his gender. I say guy, but it could have been a woman for all I know. I’ve heard a few stories, but they’re quite conflicting. Some talk about a Redguard pirate, some about an Imperial Battlemage much like Tharn himself, yet others about a scarred Orc or your stereotypical knight in shining armour. Then there are those who take it into the extremes, saying that this nameless champion was none other than Tiber Septim himself or Akatosh or a spirit of death or even a Goblin, though I seriously consider that last one a joke. Well I knew one thing for certain, Akatosh was not involved there. Because Akatosh, that’s me.

Whatever is the case, the champion vanished and I was about to follow his or her example. Where would I go? If I had taken the time to think, I would have concluded that leaving Tamriel entirely would have been best. The legendary continent of Akavir would be a great place for a fallen hero to hide. But I decided otherwise. Instead of going east to Akavir, I would go west, to the place where I was born, all the way on the other side of Tamriel. Despite my achievements, which happened to include the killing of a supposedly immortal being, my fame was still only local.

Hammerfell would be the perfect place to make a living. There, no one would care about Luper Alkad, Nerevarine, the godslayer. There I would be just another Redguard, albeit one who was in possession of several unique artefacts. Yes, Hammerfell would be perfect. But how to get there? Vvardenfell had been saved of the Blight, a horrible disease that turned everything it touched into a raving monster. There was the Corprus which was even worse but likewise, its threat had ended. Despite that, the island was still strictly quarantined. No one could enter or leave, at least not through legal channels.

I knew that there were plenty of smugglers and pirates. I could try to make contact with them, see if they were willing to transport me. While the idea appealed to me at first, I soon changed my mind. So far, the smugglers I met here were a lot more aggressive than the bunch that had raised me. I was unlikely to get a single word out of my mouth before I was parrying daggers, clubs and whatever they were using to kill people. No smugglers wouldn’t help.

I went through a few more ideas. I was too well-known among the mages and the independent ones were usually Necromancers who would rather have me as their next test subject than give me a quick teleport to the mainland. Buying, building or stealing a ship wouldn’t work. For one thing, ships weren’t for sale here and I would be hunted by the coast guard. Waterwalking might work, but I had no real idea of just how far it was to the mainland. It would be rather embarrassing to run out of Magicka and get devoured by Slaughterfish and Dreugh. In the end, I knew of only one organization that could give me a quick and secret way to the mainland. The Blades, the spy service of the Emperor himself.

I waited till dawn before continuing my trip across the island. I took my time because this would likely be the last time I would see Vvardenfell, the island that had become my home. There was a silent beauty in the Ashlands, now that the dreaded storms which plagued this region had fled. The transition from dry ash to a swamp teeming with life was quite sudden, only a single mountainous ridge between them. Like everything I saw, it brought back memories. Memories of fighting against slavery, getting my leg cracked by a Mudcrab. It had been less than two years, yet it felt like eternity separated Luper Alkad, the badmouthed prisoner who was all bark and no bite, from Luper Alkad, the badmouthed hero who is even more bite than he is bark.

I walked up to the nearest Mudcrab and placed a single hand underneath its shell. With a simple flip of the wrist, I threw it upside down and sent it sliding down a hill. It was a feat of incredible strength I wouldn’t even dare dream about in those early days. I’d definitely changed, beyond recognition. The everburning flame of the Lighthouse told me I was nearing my destination. Seyda Neen, where my journey began and where now a new journey would begin.

[jack cloudy]

I've got a great help for outlining Luper's adventures in 'TIME AND SPACE!' (Dang, I need a trademark sign here.) It's the book 2920. Good stuff even just to read. What feels weird though is that the gods are portrayed as rather weak instead of the omnipotent vision I actually got from them. (omnipotent in the propaganda, that is)




The view from room three was anything but breathtaking. The lack of a window was the biggest culprit. It did make sense though. If this was a regular rendezvous point for spies, it was best not to have anyone peek and lip-read. I raked my knuckles across the wall. Sturdy, dampens sound, hard to eavesdrop. Yup, this place was built for spies alright. I was a few hours early, so I spent the time pacing back and forth within the cramped confines. It was finally, long after my patience had worn thin, that an unsigned envelope was pushed through under my door. I slammed the door open and dove into the cramped corridor.
,,Was about damn time you….” I cut off mid-sentence and frowned. Where was the messenger? Invisibility? Maybe, though unlikely. I would have sensed its presence, even if I couldn’t deduce its exact location. Then what?

I shrugged. I wasn’t much of a spy, I’d already told myself that. Who was to say that a real spy didn’t know how to hide better than I did? What was to say he wouldn’t………cling to the ceiling, as he obviously did right now? I grinned and waved at the masked Chimer. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad spy after all. At least I managed to detect a real pro.
,,Oy, sorry I left you hanging. Anyway, could you tell the Duke to do something about what goes for hospitality here? It’s rather missing.” I told him and slammed the door closed behind me. That should teach him not to try to hide from me.

I opened the sealed envelope. If I had been expecting a long letter full of diplomatic terms for painful stuff, I would be disappointed. There was only one sentence, not even a hint towards who had written it, not even a single-letter mystery name.

Find out where the Imperial army will attack.

That was all it said. I burned the scrap of paper and sat down on the crude bed. Find out where the Imperial army will attack. Now that was helpful. I didn’t even know where to begin. I closed my eyes and began to think. How would the real Caius Cosades approach this problem?

,,So you are not the Nerevarine yet but you might become the Nerevarine? Strange, it would have been a lot easier if you got a simple yes or no. Whatever is the case, I need to find the Dissident priests. They’re not on my map, that’s for sure.” Caius commented and diverted all his attention back to the huge map he had stretched out over the floor.

A map! That was what he would do. He would take notes first of where he would attack and then apply it to an army and see where the army could actually approach before going out and checking out things in person. I had the bad luck of not owning a map that was current and no one would be willing to sell me one here. After all, I was the Outlander. But what I did have, was a map of the third era that showed quite a sizeable chunk of mainland Morrowind.

I spread it out on the floor and went to work. First, I began with the assumption that the largest settlements would already exist at this point. The smaller ones, I ignored them. Even if they did exist, their strategic value was minor. Every General I knew preferred the glory of sacking a city instead of burning a shed in the middle of nowhere.

I marked the possible cities, then moved on to my next point. Approach. Again I was forced to assume things, in this case that the landmarks hadn’t changed much since now, then. Bah, speaking with multiple time-frames is a nightmare. I went ahead and marked the possible angles of approach for a decently sized army. I ended up with nearly all of Morrowind’s eastern border.

I sighed and folded up the map. This wasn’t working. I had to find a better approach. But what? I chose to apply a Telvanni meditation to see if there was something in my memory that could give me the answer. I had used the technique before, during spell-practice and it had given me some good insights back then. Maybe it would work here as well, even though I wasn’t hunting for a particular pattern of Magicka here. My mind eased into a near slumber, with only a tiny voice remaining that probed. It probed for something, without knowing what or how. Then it quivered. It had found something.

19 First Seed, 2920
Bodrums, Morrowind
The quiet hamlet of Bodrum looked down on the meandering river, the Pryai. It was an idyllic site, lightly wooded where the water took the bend around a steep bluff to the east with a gorgeous wildflower meadow to the west. The strange flora of Morrowind met the strange flora of Cyrodiil on the border and commingled gloriously.
"There will be time to sleep when you've finished!"
The soldiers had been hearing that all morning. It was not enough that they had been marching all night, now they were chopping down trees on the bluff and damming the river so its waters spilled over. Most of them had reached the point where they were too tired to complain about being tired.
"Let me be certain I understand, my lord," said Vivec's lieutenant. "We take the bluff so we can fire arrows and spells down on them from above. That's why we need all the trees cleared out. Damming the river floods the plain below so they'll be trudging through mud, which should hamper their movement."
"That's exactly half of it," said Vivec approvingly. He grabbed a nearby soldier who was hauling off the trees. "Wait, I need you to break off the straightest, strongest branches of the trees and whittle them into spears. If you recruit a hundred or so others, it won't take you more than a few hours to make all we need."
The soldier wearily did as he was bade. The men and women got to work, fashioning spears from the trees.
"If you don't mind me asking," said the lieutenant. "The soldiers don't need any more weapons. They're too tired to hold the ones they've got."
"These spears aren't for holding," said Vivec and whispered, "If we tired them out today, they'll get a good night's sleep tonight" before he got to work supervising their work.
It was essential that they be sharp, of course, but equally important that they be well balanced and tapered proportionally. The perfect point for stability was a pyramid, not the conical point of some lances and spears. He had the men hurl the spears they had completed to test their strength, sharpness, and balance, forcing them to begin on a new one if they broke. Gradually, out of sheer exhaustion from doing it wrong, the men learned how to create the perfect wooden spears. Once they were through, he showed them how they were to be arranged and where.
That night, there was no drunken pre-battle carousing, and no nervous neophytes stayed up worrying about the battle to come. As soon as the sun sank beneath the wooded hills, the camp was at rest, but for the sentries.

I reopened my eyes. The book I’d thought about shortly earlier this same day. Now I remembered. Or at least, I remembered a single chapter. There was a large battle, fought near a place called Bodrum and a river called the Pryai. I didn’t know where to find either, nor did my map tell. I did also recall however, that the Imperials suffered a crushing defeat, thanks to the involvement of a Breton spy, one Cwynnen, or something. I wasn’t a Breton, but the book was still a load of fiction slapped onto a skeleton of facts. Besides, the Tribunal I know portrays Vivec as a wiseman who definitely doesn’t need any spies to figure out things. So the Vivec and by extension, the spy, in this book were manipulated for the sake of a better story. Who did what was not important, the outlines were what mattered. A battle as important as this one was likely to be recorded by the scribes.

I made up my mind. I couldn’t possibly go and search the entire border, but focussing on a single location was within my capabilities. I would start tomorrow by asking those lumberjack bouncers if they’d ever heard of a place called Bodrum. Or wait, I wouldn’t. Not directly anyway. If I could get someone to talk about the great outlines or perhaps find a map, I could cheat my way past and hide the fact that I got my information from a book that hadn’t even been written yet.

Once I had the information, I could go there and then trace my line further into the Empire till I came across an army at which point I could haul my behind back to Mournhold, at full speed. I grinned and laid down to rest. I might just pull this one off in the end.