Prologue of an unnamed fan fiction (updating daily) Options

[Deutschland]

Prologue Part 1

It was not long after the first vernal breeze touched the sailors’ faces, when the massive profile of Vvardenfell lying along the horizon caught the eyes of the lookout. As the news spread across the ship, every sailor, weary but triumphant, was immersed in a sea of joy. Hats and headpieces were tossed into the air; the best barrels of wine saved only for the day were unsealed, and shared among the company.

Amid the celebrating crowd also stood a band of armor-clad, weapon wielding soldiers – the passengers of the ship. Though not unacquainted with traveling on water, they too were excited about the ending of such tedious trip. These Imperials were being transferred to the Imperial Legion of Vvardenfell, whose headquarters, the grand fort of Ebonhart, was the final destination of the journey. The Imperials were in much control of the towns and strongholds in Vvardenfell, especially on the west side of the land. They were fair and loyal, and gifted with the ability to charm another person into admiration. Many were masters of blades, armors and shields, which were to be carried and cherished all the time. However, among the soldiers on the ship, Herald was rather an exception. He wore no armor, and bore no shield or sword; instead he had a bow on his shoulder. Imperial archers were not unusual in Vvardenfell, but being the only archer on the ship was not without a reason: he was a scout. Soldiers like him, gifted with sight sharp as that of a hawk and limbs nimble as those of a deer, were sought by the Legion to be the eyes and ears of the commanders. But no matter how talented, he was no more than a newly recruited young lad, just like everyone else beside him. He was glad to be a scout. Running his fingers through his dark and abundant hair, which he kept clean thanks to not having to wear a helmet, he even felt sorry for the other lads covered by the shinny Imperial armors, sweat, and a foul-smelling odor. Like the slaves freed by the Nerevarine, he thought.

The soldiers knew little, if at all, about their new world, except their captain who used to serve in Ebonhart for a few years. He had been telling the soldiers about his experience during the idle hours of the trip. Even though a captain is not necessarily an excellent storyteller, his listeners often found themselves lost in the vision of the wonderland.

“Vvardenfell is now a much better place than five years ago,” once said the captain, sipping on his cup of Cyrodiilic Brandy, which often left a drop or two on his sloppy beard.

“Well there was a hero; we called him the ‘Nerevarine’. He had the strength of more than ten guars together, and his power dwarfed every mage in the whole Morrowind. He had a sword that would kill any wielder instantly except for him, and a bow that shoots out great lightening bolts from the heaven. He can walk in the mid-air or on the top of water, or stay under it for days without having to breathe… He helped many folks through the darkest of their days, and was the savior of many slaves in the barbaric far-east.”

The captain’s face was shining with a reddish hue as he became excited about the legend (or perhaps due to the Brandy?). Much satisfied by the wonders in the wide opened eyes around him, he continued: “And there was this devil, Dagoth Ur, who committed all the evil deeds in Morrowind. He dwelt in the deep heart of the Red Mountain; his spies and assassins were all over Vvardenfell.

“Then it was the Nerevarine who fought his way through the herds of monsters and ghosts in the Red Mountain, and was finally facing Dagoth Ur himself…” The captain stopped and took another sip at his favorite drink; the hunger for the story’s ending that filled every soldier’s face brought him much delight.

He would then spend another hour to describe how horrifying the monster looked and how Nerevarine fought furiously with it and eventually won the battle, killing the dreadful lord. We don’t have to assume the captain’s tales to be accurate, since he had only heard from gossips passed along from town to town; but the image of such heroic figure was engraved deeply into the hearts of the young soldiers.

And that was what Herald fantasized about at the moment. He turned to his friend, an Imperial swordsman who joined the Legion together with Herald. “Beren,” he said, “do you think we’ll meet the Nerevarine one day?”

“I can’t say,” Beren answered, “I hope he is still in Vvardenfell and is willing to reveal himself; but did you not hear the captain saying, that no one had seen him ever since the downfall of Dagoth Ur?”

Herald fell silent. Then he said with an amused smile: “I don’t really believe in everything he said; there are a lot of contradictions in his tales. I think the whereabouts of the Nerevarine shall ONLY be known by the folks of higher ranks – you know, perhaps those who concocted the entire story.” Both burst out hearty laughter. Herald liked his friend – a short-framed and good-natured lad with whom he grew up in the hometown. They always seemed to share the same opinion and judgments, although sometimes Herald wouldn’t even believe himself.

[Deutschland]

Frightened by the deadly trap that almost killed him, Herald gasped and began to feel his heart pounding as brutally as the fallen rock itself. Again, they are indeed no match to an Imperial scout. Thought Herald, and examined the trap. It was indeed a part of the ceiling, round and flat, like the grinders in a windmill. Four thin but sturdy chains linked it to the ceiling, which must have been used to lift the rock back to position. An idea entered Herald’s mind, as he gazed upon the dark breach in the ceiling, left by the rock: this could be how the slave traders exited the corridor! They stood on this escalator, triggered some device, and poof! Out of here they were! He placed himself on the escalator. But where’s the device that triggers the lifting? Oh yes, the lamp! Herald grasped the lamp again, and felt that the only way it could move was back into the wall. He pushed, but nothing happened. He stepped off the rock quickly, fearing another trap, though it did not take place. The lamp seemed to be of no use. The hell with the escalator! Herald took a few steps back, with a short sprint he leaped on top of the rock; his left hand caught the edge of a cavity on the wall and pulled himself up, while his right foot aided with a downward thrust against the wall. The trainings paid off handsomely, his right hand clenched upon the edge of the breach just as he began to fall.

Climbing up to the “second floor”, Herald found himself in a dead end of another dimly lit passage. At the other end of it, though, there seemed to be a large bright room. He moved carefully with his back against the wall, while sprinting quietly from shadow to shadow. When he reached the end of the passage, he could only curse the one who built the cave. The large room in front of him seemed to be the hub of five passages spiking out like the rims of a wheel, each connecting the entrance of a passage to the platform in the middle of the room with a hanging bridge about the length of a man. Around ten feet underneath the platform and the bridges was a puddle of water. Clearly, it was built so that one had to pass through the platform to reach another passage, and both the hanging bridges and the water below would reveal the trespassers with a lot of noises. The room was lit by four torches on the four corners of the platform, on which there were a bed, two hammocks, a table, a few crates and barrels, a soundly sleeping Tedril in the bed, and a busily working Quaynd at the table. Luckily, he was not facing the passage in which Herald was standing.

It’s time to show the true color of a scout! Thought Herald. He knew that if he was able to reach to the platform, then he could move around by holding on to the edge of the wooden floor. But how can one pass the bridge without making noises? Herald’s sight rested on the railing strings on the side of the bridge for travelers to hold on to. They were merely tied to the wooden posts at the end of the bridge, and would not make noise if one hung upon them. Herald did not hesitate. He first lowered himself down at the edge of the entrance, with his hand holding the post and his body in midair, then grabbed the railing string, and slowly shifted his weight upon it. The string supported his body steadily and quietly. When he had both hands on the string, he moved further on, and finally reached the edge of the platform. It was such a relief that he felt he was standing on the solid ground again.

Now he must pick an entrance. There were five entrances, with one belonging to the passage he came from, and four others. One of them must lead to the cave exit! Herald decided to try his luck, and picked the passage immediately to the right – the only other one ouside Quaynd’s sight.

As soon as he stepped into the engulfing darkness of the corridor, his keen intuition stirred up in him a deep sense of grief and agony. Maybe it was the air that turned eerie; or perhaps some unperceivable sorrowful groan was insidiously plucking his heart. He wanted to turn back, yet his curiosity kept him moving on, until he reached the end of the passage, and found a closed trap door on the ground. Herald could hear someone weeping.

He lay down on his stomach, and carefully lifted up the trap door a little. It was heavy and moldy, but the hinge was as smooth as new. Intolerably foul smelling air flooded out of the gap, almost making Herald vomit. He peeked into the gap, and there, he found the most horrible scene he had ever in his life beheld.

Herald closed the trap door, and sneaked back to the entrance. He rested in a smear of shadow, trying to think what to do next, but the vision haunted him like a nightmare. The very night he could be there himself, inside a living and wriggling plant, surrounded by giant tentacles like a cage, among many other such creatures each with a slave inside, dead or half-dead.

Still fighting with the nausea, he observed the slave traders’ “living room” carefully, hoping to find clues about the direction of the exit. The furniture, crates and barrels were all placed in the corners of the platform, leaving convenient space for traffic through the bridges. Herald asked himself: in a small house, where would you see the beds and the tables? The answer was: to be safe and warm during nights, one often placed the beds in the far end, away from the door; and to be convenient during the day, the tables were often placed near the door. So, if the platform was a house, where would the “door” be, according to the location of the bed and the table? Herald’s sight stopped at the bridge next to Quaynd, and far away from Tedril’s bed. One would never feel comfortable sleeping next to the door.

Suddenly the sound of hasty running caught Herald’s attention. Eshyo’s stumpy frame emerged from the passage leading to the storage room. Obviously, he had woken up and found his bird flown.

“The Imperial!” yelled Eshyo, waking Tedril up, “the Imperial has escaped!”
“What?! How did he do that?”
“I don’t know… My key is gone!”
Herald remembered that he still had the key.
“Your key? Which lock did you use?”
“The biggest one…”
“Oh you blighted fool!” Tedril paid Eshyo a loud and crispy slap on his face, “that’s the same lock as the one on the crate! Who cares about the worthless Imperial, the crate’s got all our lives in it! All three of us!”

“Well… you got another key to it right?” Eshyo caressed his swollen cheek, “We can check if it’s still in there, he shouldn’t know it’s the same lock…”

“Alright, we’ll go and see. If it’s gone, you are the first to be sold in place of the Imperial.”
Eshyo and Quaynd followed the outraged Tedril into the passage. Herald rushed onto the platform, and headed for the bridge he was looking at. He had no doubt that it must be the way to the exit, because when Tedril first heard about Herald’s fleet, he turned and glanced at it – he must be expecting the merchant to come from that direction!

But when he saw the tools and weapons leaning against the table, he stopped to ponder about a way to revenge those villainous slave traders. If he followed them, and waited until they were in the storage room checking out the crate, then he could seal the escalator, and trap them in the dungeon forever! And then, he would free the slaves, and become a hero celebrated in many towns and villages, like the Nerevarine. But he frowned and hesitated upon the thoughts of those slaves. The vision was back to him, the monstrous plants, dead bodies, the slaves weeping and mourning for them, the fetor of decayed flesh and excrements... It was not living hell, it was hell itself. Herald would never go back to such place again. I’ll just go to Balmora as quickly as I can, he thought, and tell the Blades master; he will send men to straighten it out.

Having his mind made, Herald dashed into the passage leading to the beautiful world outside, which to him meant even more than the heaven. His instinct never deceived him. The cave became brighter and brighter, as his spirit did; and when he finally saw the day light breaking through the wooden gate up ahead, he felt his right foot caught by a string.

A trap! Having no time to think, Herald concentrated all his strength on the legs, and leaped forward as far as he could. But it was still too late; something long and dull hit the back of his neck, and knocked him out.


End of Prologue