Cyrodiil Options

[Alexander]

Ok, so for the unavoidable introduction babble, as most of you know I was rather pleased with Morrowind. I thought it was far better then the dribble I wrote prior to that, and most people seemed to agree with me. After I finished Morrowind I already had an idea for a sequel, I actually wrote the very first chapter of said sequel while I was posting up parts of Morrowind. Unfortunately though, after that first chapter I kind of lost interest. I didn’t think the ideas I had back then were enough to weave an entire story together, and I was probably right.

But as these things have a habit of developing themselves, over the past months I kept thinking back to the sequel, and kept adding ideas to the pile I already had. Now it’s done. I once again enjoyed writing this, and I hope you’ll have similar fun reading it.

As I’ve explained in the past, I’m not very good at making up things like titles, Akatosh knows it took me about as long to come up with the various titles of the chapters as it did to write the entire thing, so I’ve named the story “Cyrodiil” (catchy wot? )

Before I end my babbling and get on with posting the story, I once again would like to thank Treydog for agreeing to help with my story as editor, and for fixing the many, many, many grammatical and spelling errors, and placing every comma, semicolon and whatchamacallit in the correct place. And thanks to everyone who ever read Morrowind, and commented. I really enjoy the comments.


Now, while you don’t have to have read Morrowind, I believe in order to get the most out of Cyrodiil, it would be recommended.


So, enough babbling and on to Cyrodiil.

[Alexander]

The only stop Filben made on her journey to Kvatch was at Skingrad, where she sought out Count Hassildor and told him all that had transpired. She knew it would be important for as many people to know about this as possible, so that everyone could be vigilant. At last though she came to the foot of the mountain upon which Kvatch was built. The first thing she noticed was the refugee camp; it had been erected during the Oblivion crisis, but it was now still there.

Walking up to the first man she saw, an Imperial, she asked, “Excuse me sir, why are you still here? Has your home not been restored by now?”

“We are all doomed. Kvatch is lost and so is the Empire. Mehrunes Dagon will feed us to his Dremora. We are all now in Oblivion.”

The man kept going on, until a Redguard came up to him and gently escorted the Imperial into one of the tents. He motioned to Filben to wait and came back after the man had likely been put to bed. “You must excuse him, milady. His name is Ilav Dralgoner; he was a priest at the chapel before the Oblivion crisis, but even after the city was saved he’s never really been the same again. My name is Boldon; how may I serve you?”

“Boldon, my name is Filben, and I was wondering why you are all still out here. Haven’t the roads and houses been cleared in the city yet?”

“Filben, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And no, very few houses have been restored so far. The new steward of the city, Mercator, came to us right after he arrived, and assured us that all we need to do is sit tight, and the city will soon be restored. He say that he’s bringing in all sorts of workers, and that he’s doing everything in his power to rebuild the city.”

“I take it you don’t believe him, Boldon?”

“My apologies, but no. Some of the others have gone into the city a few times to see if they could find some belongings, but each time they went in they saw no one working. In fact, they saw no one at all during the day. But then each night we hear strange and eerie sounds coming from the city, seemingly concentrated around the palace and the old arena. It sounds like chanting and strange grunts and moans. None of us know what they do, but we are certain they don’t rebuild the city.”

“We’ve brought our concerns before Steward Mercator, but he waves them away and assures us they’re doing their utmost. Some of us wanted to go east to complain to Count Hassildor about it, but those that went never returned. Nor has any word from Count Hassildor reached us.”

“I don’t believe the Count knows about it. I saw him just the other day and I’m sure he would have mentioned something like this if he had heard about it. When next I see him, I’ll personally convey your message.”

“Thank you Filben, thank you so much.”

Getting into the city proved easier than Filben had expected; there were no guards posted at the gates, nor any patrolling guards that she noticed inside. She was unsure where to go to, but from what Boldon had told her, her best chance at getting information was to go to one of the two reported sites of the chanting- the arena or the castle. She thought it more likely that the higher ranking Necromancers would be at the castle, so she made her way there.

Before she came into view of the castle, though she suddenly ducked behind some rubble. She had a heard a familiar voice. Slowly peering over the rubble she saw a group of three people walk across the square outside the palace and head towards it. Caranya was one of the people. Filben only caught a scrap of the conversation, but it sounded like “ritual and summon him.”

Who were they going to summon? Probably Mannimarco, and that surely would be something the Arch-mage would want to know about. Casting a powerful invisibility spell, Filben followed the three as close as she dared, doing her best to remain quiet.

After the group, with her in tow, had made it across the drawbridge, to Filben’s shock the drawbridge was raised. Now she had no way of getting out should she need to in a hurry. But if she was shocked at that, what she saw next in the courtyard of the castle shocked her more than anything. She had to put her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. Staked out on the ground was the body of Irlav Jarol. She only recognized him because his face was intact; the rest of him though was an awful sight to behold. It appeared as if someone had scraped off all of the skin from his body, and by the look on his dead face, part of it had happened while he was still alive.

The three people Filben had followed had surrounded the corpse, and now Caranya reached down and picked something up; she couldn’t see what it was but Filben was sure she was better off not seeing. Words started to reach her, “in the name of Mannimarco, the King of Worms, we dedicate this body to his service.”

“Mannimarco, King of Kings, ruler of the dead, please come to us, we are ready for you.”

Filben felt more than saw at first the change that seemed to come over the place. The sky slowly darkened as if a thunderstorm was coming, and the air felt heavy with ill omen.

A ways above the three cultists, an apparition suddenly appeared in the sky, with the face of an Altmer, a long, narrow face with the high forehead and cheekbones on that race, but most striking were the eyes; they bespoke a timelessness one but rarely sees. Worse still was the sound when the phantasm spoke:

“How go things? Are we nearing the completion of our plans?”

“Yes Dread lord; within a week we should be ready to summon an army of dead to conquer, first the province, and then the Empire.”

“Good. You have done well. The fool Ocato and his puppets are still concerned for their precious heir, and when they worry not about that, Countess Valga, that fool, has them running in circles. My agents tell me Valga the fool is getting more deranged by the day. The Divines wouldn’t even cure her of an illness now, but so long as she thinks she is their vessel, she does our work without even knowing it.”

Now the apparition turned its gaze directly upon one of the figures below:

“Falcar.”

“Yes Dread lord.”

“Have you completed your mission?”

“Yes lord; I’ve found the artifact you mentioned, and keep it with me at all times.”

“Good. Make sure no one besides you three will ever know what you have, nor that you have it. It is the only thing those fools can use against me. It must never fall into their hands!”

“I will protect it with my life, Dread lord.”

“Yes, you will Falcar,” came the chilling answer. It obviously made even Falcar shudder in fear.

“I remain at Echo Cave for now. Send word there when all preparations have been made.”

Filben didn’t know what it was that Falcar held, but she knew it would be vital to get it to the Arch-Mage.

She waited until she was sure both the apparition and the three Necromancers had left the courtyard and gone into the castle, before she looked around the wall. Seeing the courtyard was indeed empty, she made her way across it and into the castle. Sneaking around in there, she soon found the sleeping areas. At least the Necromancers seemed to have put some effort into cleaning up the inside of the palace, even if they had done nothing to the rest of the city.

Slowly she crept up to the bed in which she saw Falcar was sleeping, and was happy to see he had hung his robe over a chair. Going through the pockets, the only thing Filben found that seemed out of place was an unusually large black soulgem. She held it close to see if she could see something out of the ordinary inside it but a noise spun her around. Caranya was standing at the exit with an evil smile on her face.

“You didn’t really think a simply invisibility spell could hide you from the master, did you?”

Behind Caranya, Filben saw another man approach, likely Mercator, and Falcar himself was rising up from the bed, obviously wide awake though Filben didn’t think he had been asleep in the first place.

“Caranya, why side with Mannimarco? You know he’s evil, don’t you?”

“Of course I do Filben. Don’t you get it; I’m evil too.” If possible, the evil smile just got wider. “Now then Falcar, fire.”

Two spells came at Filben at once, two nasty combinations of shock damage and weakness to shock. Filben’s body shook from the shock, suspended for a moment in the air, and then she crashed down. She could barely feel her limbs, let alone move them, but found the Black soulgem was still clutched in her hand. Barely able to move her lips, out of desperation she spoke the words of a recall spell. One other reason she had had for visiting Skingrad before she came here was so she could cast a mark spell there.

As her body was teleported away from Kvatch, she could hear the shouts of Falcar and the others for someone to stop her, but it was too late. The next thing she knew she was lying on the cold stones of the Castle Skingrad great hall, and Janus was leaning over her, speaking words of comfort.

Filben knew she did not have much time left; no one could take two spells of such magnitude and live long to tell the tale, and by the time a priest or mages guild healer could be summoned, she would be long gone. With her last remaining strength she told Janus to be silent and told him all that she had learned in Kvatch, making sure he promised he would travel to the Imperial City with all haste and deliver the information unto the Arch-Mage.

Then the pain became too great, and darkness closed in on Filben.