Yesterday's Shadow Options

[Olen]

Its been a while since I wrote anything of length but, after a few false starts, I have churned out the first few thousand words of something which could get fairly large. I'm not totally happy with it (though I doubt I ever would be) but it should improve as I get back into writing, any comments et al would be appriciated.

1. Gold

I shivered as an icy breeze touched me. Was it real? Yes. I brushed aside my doubts. The Wolverine Hall was built by dunmer: of course it was dark, damp and cold. So cold. I pulled my cloak closer about me and looked around the gloomy room of the Mages Guild. A few guttering candles cast a sickly light on heaps of shadowy grimoires. Crazy reflections scattered from the grease-smeared tangles on an alchemy table. The creation of a deranged glassblower with hiccoughs. In spite of it being Evening Star there were still a couple of mages braving the winter on Azura’s Coast. They kept their rheumy eyes fixed on whatever devilry they were working on and ignored me. I waited idly and rubbed at my arms.

A door opened and I got a brief glance of a small room behind before it was shut again by the old Argonian who entered. A frown flickered over his features as he regarded me with sharp red eyes, “You must be the man from the Fighter’s Guild. Not what I expected, but no doubt Hrundi knows what he’s at,” Skink-in-Trees’-Shade smiled, his teeth were green from chewing hackle-lo, his sour breath twisted my stomach, “I have work for you.”

“I know. What I don’t know is why you couldn’t have left it with Hrundi like any normal contract, your demands are already weird enough.” My breath left a plume of steam in the air.

“I think eight thousand drakes is enough to allow me to make demands,” the lizard paused, I shivered but said nothing. I couldn’t afford not to get the contract. “I know well enough what is required and agreed it with Hrundi but the job itself requires discretion. Hrundi lacks discretion when he drinks…

“Three months ago I sent a group to investigate a ruin on the coast north of Firewatch, just south of Ilethi Point. The last report I received was dated late Frostfall, over six weeks ago. I want you to find out what happened.”

“What sort of ruin is this?” I said warily.

“Its… unusual. That’s why we want to investigate it and why this situation requires subtlety. I would send my own mages but it is deep in Telvanni lands.”

“Has it occurred to you that four men might be hard pressed to clear a ruin full of Telvanni?” I never understood why mages just didn’t get fighting. Another icy draught brushed me. I shivered and scratched an itchy patch on my arm.

“If it is then you will know what happened, investigate as far as you can and return. But I suspect that it is not. Most likely messages have just gone missing, as they do.” Argonians are hard to read but it didn’t take any guile to know Skink didn’t believe it. Neither did I, why spend eight thousand septims to get the best and go to such lengths of secrecy for missing reports.

I said nothing. Nothing I was likely to say would be helpful. I needed the job.

For a moment Skink was hesitant then he said, “If that is all you had best prepare. I will have a boatman waiting for you at dusk,” I nodded and turned to go but he continued, “A word of warning: do not use any teleportation near the ruin. We do not understand why but the only attempt to date prove quite… messy. If you do get into a tight spot read this,” he proffered a scroll and a money pouch, “I will know and do what I can. Otherwise do not rely on magic.”

He stopped abruptly and turned back towards his room. I was about to leave again when he called back, “And by the nine get yourself a fix with that gold. You scratch like a nix with mange.” He shut the door behind him.

For a moment I was too shocked to move. Was it that obvious? It was four days since my money had run out. I’d gone longer, but only once. Descending the dank spiral stair made my stomach shrivel and, backed up by the bag of gold, firmly killed any thoughts of going another hour without. I paused outside the fighter’s guild to fight down nausea before I went in.

Hrundi was waiting for me, “What did the old lizard want?” he asked.

“They’ve lost a bunch of folk investigating some ruin.” I wasn’t sure if Skink wanted Hrundi to know and I didn’t care.

“Same old,” Hrundi ran his fingers though his greying beard, “If I had a hundred drake for every mages’ guild expedition I’ve bailed out the mages would have paid me,” he rumbled a laugh, “So where’s the catch? You don’t give four folk a year’s wage for nowt.”

“He wouldn’t say but he wants us at the dock this evening.”

“Then Lysander won’t be joining you, news is his silt strider crashed, driver was probably pissed. I can’t see him arriving before tomorrow night.”

“Damn, that’s a problem,” it was too. Lysander was the only person I had directly asked for. The fighter’s guild in Morrowind was a shadow of what it had been before the oblivion crisis. “Are any of your local boys a quarter competent?”

Hrundi laughed mirthlessly, “You ain’t got a whole lot of choice. I’m too old, Sondryn’s already on a contract. That only leaves young Varnan.”

“There’s only three of you in the guildhall?”

“Yes. Who would want to be here? It shouldn’t matter though, the other two are good.”

“So you keep saying. Where are they?”

“Stocking up in town, I sent them to get the supply list you left.”

“Good,” I turned away from Hrundi. Now Skink had given me means to get it skooma was all I could think of. I hurried though the damp corridors and out into the squalid courtyards of the Wolverine Hall.

I kept close to the wall out of the wind-driven sheets of rain. The guard on the bridge looked as grey as the iron sky. The instant I stepped onto it I was soaked to the skin, to my left, and mercifully downwind, the giant fungus houses groaned in the storm. I turned away from them toward Muriel’s, golden light shone though the windows. I pushed the polished doorknob and stepped into the warm air of conversation and rich smell of roasting meat and beer.

However inviting I had no intention to take a seat in the common room. I hadn’t been in Muriel’s in years and didn’t remember the place. It didn’t matter. All corner clubs are essentially the same. I started upstairs and sure enough found a much smaller room full of distinctly shady characters. A grey-haired altmer looked at me as she would a gaur’s leavings on the street. I barely noticed, I could smell a sickly sweetness in the air. A dunmer opposite caught my eye and nodded. Apparently it was that obvious.

I wandered over to him. “You got skooma?”

“Yes, the finest in all Vvardenfell. You got money?” I hate pushers. There’s something about them which makes my fists itch. And they all claim to have the best.

“Let me see the goods,” I growled.

The dunmer paused to brush an imaginary piece of lint from his opulent, yet slightly too gaudy, clothes before reaching into a bag and withdrawing two vials. “This,” the dunmer gestured to the larger one with a bejewelled hand, “Is good stuff, Hlaalu import. Came in though Lake Hairan along with the standard stuff. This, on the other hand, is Tenmar white – costly but well worth it to the discerning palate.”

“How much?”

“Forty gold a quarter for the standard, sixty for the Tenmar.”

The bag had two hundred and fifty in it, even allowing for the high prices on Vvardenfell I expected more. “Half a bottle of the cheap for two hundred.”

“Not a chance. That should be five hundred.”

“I’m buying bulk. Two hundred.”

“Three hundred.”

“Ok two fifty and you’ll throw in a dash of that Tenmar white or I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

The dunmer scowled then got out his scales. I got out my pipe. His eyes widened momentarily as I measured out my dose.

[Olen]

Cheers for the comments, there's still pleanty more of this so it will continue for a while yet. Slightly longer one this time but ther wasn't anywhere obvious to break it off sooner.

5. Dead Land

There was no doubt the ruin was the one Skink had spoken of. We stood at the bottom of a deep valley gouged into the side of a mountain. The ruin squatted at the back of the corrie above us glaring out toward the Sea of Ghosts and Ilethi point. A cradle of dark cliffs hid it from any other angle. Even so, were it not for the glittering of the noon sun on its metal arches I could have missed it entirely.

High cliffs shaded the valley. We were barely into it when the air thickened with the sulphurous taint of brimstone. Evan compared to the wastelands around it seemed barren. Little lived, and what plants clung to the flaky ground were deformed and dying. Tumescent white stems writhed over the dead ground like worms on a corpse, their shrived root’s futile quest for moisture exposed by the wind. We had not gone far before all plants life was gone.

We trudged up the sterile valley, the haze of mephitis growing thicker. I was glad I lead, the soil was powdery and Varnan at the back hacked dust-stained phlegm. I couldn’t but wander what sort of person could want to study something so much to come here. The ground held no trace of the excavations above, but I suspected that the wind would conceal our passing and restore the ground to its desolation.

The winter sun swung low behind us, always below the brecciated mountaintops which loomed above. I think had it not been for the money Skink was offering, and my desperate need for it, I would have given up on the contact. The valley narrowed until ravine would more accurately describe it, the shadow of the mountain lay heavy, the barren ground was as devoid of life as of cheer. We concentrated on placing each step and spoke little, the air burned enough just breathing.

It’s quite possible that the sight which greeted me at the head of the valley had a sort of melancholic beauty. None of us was in a fit mood to appreciate it. The ruin built into the cliff at the back was graceful yet somehow misshapen. The golden metal spoke of the dwemer yet tiers of fluted arches and slender spires reared towards the slate sky and lay rusting on the poisoned ground. It spoke of beauty, but in an alien tongue.

In front of it there was a small tarn, the water was greasy and where the shining towers had fallen into it they were pitted and smeared. A cluster of tents on the left side of it gave the first indication that all was not well. Most fluttered in the breeze but at least two were reduced to blackened poles. I could see barrels lying broken like huge ribcages. We were halfway round the tarn when Keersk saw the corpse. It lay face down halfway between us and the camp. In life it had probably been a male Breton. The robe it wore was burnt and holed, revealing bloated flesh beneath. I kicked him over and the rotten skin tore like wet parchment. A writhing torrent of black flesh and white maggots splashed onto my boot.

While I swore and tried to wipe the fetid mess away Keersk approached the body. “He’s a mess - I’d say some spell killed him but there’s wounds all over his face,” the Argonain bent before continuing, “Glass. Finer than a bottle I’d say. Maybe an alembic.”

“Why would anyone hit someone with an alembic?” said Thyra.

“That is what we’re here to find out,” I answered, “How long has it been dead?”

“It’s hard to say. I’d think ten days, give or take, normally but I don’t know the climate of northern morrowind that well.”

“I’d agree normally,” I said, it was clearly just on the turning point of black putrification, “But what of this valley? It seems dead, barring the maggots.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the camp will explain something.”

I nodded and we approached it quietly. Varnan looked rather disquieted and had his rapier ready. The broken tents flapped fitfully as if trying to waft away the reek of death. As I passed between two of the outermost ones I paused. The breeze shuffled loose canvas and paper and stirred the dust but I saw no life. Their supplies lay in heaps on the churned ground. Another corpse lay in a dark patch over by a tent. I ignored it.

Varnan looked shocked at the destruction, he stood by one of the burnt out tents, its previous occupant still amongst the ashes. Keersk was also looking around, but more in the manner one surveys a market stall. Like myself the argonian had been in the business long enough that each horror brought so many memories that it barely mattered.

“What in oblivion?” I heard Thyra say.

I went over to her and stopped as I rounded an almost intact tent. Keersk swore behind me. Blood spattered the ground, a length of mouldy intestine was smeared across the side of the nearest tent. It was impossible to know anything about the person who had more of a final resting area than place. Bits lay strewn around like an explosion in an anatomy study.

“Skink did mention this,” I said. The others looked at me pointedly. “He was a little vague but said the results of transport spells could be messy.”

“I’d say this classes as messy,” observed Thyra, “Still you should have said, I tend to keep an intervention handy.”

Our gazes were locked on the fleshy detritus, Keersk, on the other hand, seemed hardened to spontaneous detonation looked elsewhere. “That’s odd,” he said, the dust somehow made his voice even gravellier, “They seem to have put up a barricade.”

“Where?”

“Over by the ruin, and facing the ruin.”

I had a sinking feeling but said nothing. I’d seen horrors but at least they normally made some sense, this was yet to come clear: Telvanni are usually fairly tidy in what they leave behind. I walked towards it uneasily. It explained where most of their barrels and storage crates had gone. The door in the ruin was almost blocked by the drifting soil, it looked as though they had dug their way to it. A ring of makeshift fortifications surrounded the entrance, another corpse lay in the dust behind them along with a couple of broken weapons. The entrance itself was blocked a little further down with a heavy metal table.

“They tried to keep something down there,” said Varnan.

“But that table must have come from inside,” I said, “And it wouldn’t be quick to move. I’d say that was to keep something out.” No one replied so I continued my reasoning, “They barricaded it from the outside. The only reason could be to keep something in. But it seems that its barricaded from inside too. To keep something out.”

“Could it have escaped and they went in to hide?” said Thyra.

“Or they were inside when the Telvanni showed up,” said Keersk.

“But if the Telvanni were here where did they go? Skink seemed to think that they would be interested in this place. Something killed them, all of them, as far as I can see.”

“The deep places hold many things best left be,” observed Keersk.

“Unfortunately,” said Varnan, “Mages seem unable to grasp that logic. But it seems stretched to think it got out and they went into the pit. There’s no link between the ways the people have been killed.”

I nodded. And looked back at the corpse behind the barricade. Arrow in the back. I felt my gaze drawn back to the entrance and noticed all the others were gazing at it. “We could go and see,” I ventured.

“We could,” agreed Thyra.

“No,” Varnan shook himself, “We should examine the camp more fully first. And rest.”

My mind took little changing. It was clear sense and I wandered why I had wanted to rush in. Finding everyone dead in strange circumstances almost fulfilled the contract anyway. I turned away from it. Thyra was the last the leave.

None of us wanted to stay in the doomed expedition’s camp but Keersk was more than happy to move two of their less damaged tents down the hill away from the ruin. While he did I went though the remaining supplies, they were strewn haphazard around the camp. Most of the perishables were too far gone, even a couple of imported cheeses had rotted within their wax seals. I did find a cache of spirit which was still good and a few pickled onions which I quietly emptied into the ashes of the fire. I knew only too well of the wind they give argonians.

As I did I saw a scrap of paper buried there. I dusted away some ash and found a scorched wooden bar from a scroll. I was digging out more pieces when Thyra appeared behind me.

“What are they?”

I couldn’t read the characters on the paper. They were the same as some of the more obscure temple texts and those of some of the less pleasant cults. “Not sure, maybe some mage’s notes. They seem to culture pointless affectations.”

Thyra took the largest scrap from me and squinted at it. “It’s a slightly obscure dialect,” she murmured her lips moving.

“You can read it?”

“Many of Azura’s texts are written in the daedric alphabet.”

I paused awkwardly, “So you do…”

“Yes,” she said dismissively, “I’ve worshiped her for over a decade. What of it?”

I shrugged.

She peered at the ash, “Onions?”

“Yes.”

“You put them there.”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Thank dawn and dusk, have you any idea what Keersk smells like when he eats them?”

I nodded.

She stirred though the remains again and lifted out a fragment of paper, “It reads ‘Woe upon’ then is burned. Its defiantly a scroll, the next word would be ‘you’ but a great many read that way.” She looked though other fragments, “There’s several here, they’ve burned a whole load.”

“Why?”

“Why had someone got a retort broken over their face, why two barricades at the ruin, why the woman with a knife in her back and marks from frost magic? I know you saw the man by the ruin, that arrow was in his back. Something happened here. And the answer is in the ruin.” With that she stood and stalked away.

I hadn’t seen the woman. It failed to fit in just as well as the rest. Just then Varnan appeared from a ripped tent and waved me over.

“What?” I asked.

“I think I’ve found a journal.”

“What does it say?”

“I can’t read it. The handwriting is odd.”

I went into the tent. Inside were a few things which looked almost but not quite dwemer, a blood stained camp bed and a low desk. A couple of books sat under a lantern on the desk: ‘Book of Rest and Endings’, ‘Monomyth’ and one called ‘N'Gasta! Kvata! Kvakis!’. I didn’t need to be able to decipher it to know it was unsavoury. The skin which bound it was a little too yellow and thin. I ignored the books, mages are indeed an odd bunch, and looked at the pile of loose pages on the table. They were blown around a bit and some were probably missing but each was headed with a date. The handwriting seemed ok to me and I read.