A New Sun Rises - Maxical's Adventures, The Truth Behind The Oblivion Crisis Options

[mALX]

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A New Sun Rises

This story covers the daily events in the two years leading up to the Oblivion Crisis. It begins following the life of a semi-typical Khajiit girl who inadvertently finds herself the pawn of a powerful necromancer just as factions and forces begin moving into position.

When motivations are revealed it drives out the secrets of forgotten pasts, and another Khajiit girl whose life was an intertwined mirror of her own till both were altered irrevocably by the same necromancer in whose power they both found themselves.

The diverse paths their lives took merge once again in an explosive revelation that leaves one wondering how much of her skills and personality were ever her own; the other in a desperate struggle to keep control of her life, keep from being used against the Emperor as the crisis that will change Cyrodiil and the rule of Tamriel forever begins.

Maxical

Prologue

Sun's Dusk ( 3rd Era, year 432 )
Ma�Thjizzrini Qa
15 years after her parent's deaths

Fate is an invincible enemy in a battle you�ll never leave unscathed. It stalks you as prey and strikes regardless of shields or armor. The gods and other realms can find entertainment in manipulating your path on a whim; or ancient vampires dabble with your life, alter your mind without you even knowing it. Sometimes you don�t find out till it is too late.

I�d like to blame the gods for where I found myself, but the truth is that somewhere between the void and the Dreamsleeve lies fate; a place where time and space meet; where even the blackness of the void doesn�t reach, and the gods make wagers on the outcome of lives caught in the �tween.

Wedged into that fold are damned souls, souls that have been marked for paths they can�t change, to destinies they can�t escape. Ancient vampire's eyes see them as beacons, follow them as scents, control their minds without their ever knowing.

They are targets for revenge of an enemy they don't even know exists, pawns in a game they didn't even know was being played; whose contestants their worst nightmares couldn�t envision.


That�s where I found myself fifteen years after the game started. That was the day I found out that everything I�d ever known about myself had always been�her. Amiela.

Amiela was a 137 years old demon of a vampire that thrived on destruction and usurped whatever she could from others. She died a century before I was born, but the wars being fought over her didn�t end with her death. Her soul was marked�and inside me.

For me, fate was my parents bringing me through the heavy forested area of the Gold Road just outside Skingrad at the same time the second worst necromancer of our time was in a battle for the soul of Amiela. And there I was, a convenient hiding spot.

That was the day my parents died. All I ever knew of them was where they died and what killed them. I was twenty years old before I even learned my mother's name. I was twenty years old before I remembered Nisaba. Nissy.

*******



Nisaba

Nissy�s beginning didn�t just match mine, it was mine; though neither of us knew it before we�d both turned twenty years old. That was the year our paths crossed again and we learned the only scraps of our histories anyone was ever able to recover. That's when we learned our destinies were intertwined long before our lives began.

Nissy and I were born within a month of each other in the year 412, both born in the 'no-man's' land of wild mountain passes between Vvardenfell and Cyrodiil. Our parents were traveling together and we were born en route, but our histories began long before that.

From early childhood our parents were owned by Hlormaren, a Dunmer Stronghold on the Bitter Coast of Vvardenfell. Before that they were housed in the same children's slave pen on the mainland. Maybe our histories began long before that, but that was the furthest back any information went that we were able to find.

Nissy�s mother died giving birth to her. Her father dropped her off at the Imperial Legion Orphanage for the un-adoptable when she was two. Three years later a Legionnaire dropped me off there when my parents were killed in a minotaur attack.

Fate once again found Nissy and me four years later in the middle of the night, right there in our room at that orphanage. We were both nine years old when our destinies were wrenched into the hands of the worst necromancer Tamriel has known since the King of Worms. Both of us have been in his power in one way or another since. Dagoth-Malan.

That was eleven years ago, eleven years that Nissy waited for me to keep a promise to save her...eleven years that all my memories of her were stolen by Dagoth-Malan so I couldn�t keep that vow. Until fate brought us together again when we both turned twenty.

Nissy and me, we were both in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fate.

** The Beginning **



Where Memories Begin And End

Legion Office, Imperial City
3rd Era, year 417 (memories of events that occurred when Maxical was five years old)

The earliest memory of my lifetime begins and ends in the Legion headquarters in the Imperial City. I�ve never been able to remember a single moment of my life before finding myself in that office.

It was a coming awake. A dark void of nothingness, and then in a blink my eyes were open and there I stood in that office with no idea where I was or how I got there.

An odd putrid odor I couldn't name seemed to be clinging inside my nostrils and roiling my stomach, even the pungent stench of sweat emanating from the large man behind the desk was a welcome relief in comparison.

There was an odd feeling of having forgotten something important that niggled irritatingly, a barb that probed against my mind to remember, but there was nothing to answer its incessant prodding. Nothing. It was like a journey through a maze with only dead ends at every turn. I didn't know where I had come from, where I belonged, or who I belonged to.

At first I barely understood what they were saying; strange sounding words spoken so harshly and rapidly that it was impossible to grasp even one to decipher. They couldn�t understand me at all when I spoke.

Somewhere deep inside me in a place as unconnected to me as the lost memories of my life before that office there was the oddest sensation; a stirring, as if that part of me was just now waking. Suddenly their words were striking a chord of recognition It almost felt as if I could speak their tongue, but when my mouth opened the words still came out in the only language I knew.

*******

The large sweaty man behind the desk pointed at me. "What is that?"

"Don't know, only that it's the get of some beasts killed by a minotaur up on the big curve of the Gold Road in County Skingrad. Couldn't tell what they were either. The mother was a bloody mess; but the male...fur black as coal soot, and the same flattened face as that one's." He indicated my face, then added, "Too big for a cat, never seen anything like him. Both bore slave tattoos so they can't be from Cyrodiil. No travel papers or identification on either body."

The large sweating man's chair groaned loudly as he leaned over and gave me an intrusive and extended eyeing. "That ain't no Khajiit, not with that white coloring. That face gives me the creeps, you said the male looked the same? This one must be an albino then. No telling what you'll find in those other Provinces, all barbarians." He spat a large wad of brown cud into the urn beside him.

"The male had been looted; they even took his clothes, naked as a jaybird he was. Found this in the brush near the female's body." He held out a blood spattered travel pack. "When I moved her body this silver dagger was underneath her, and this gold locket fell off her neck. Chain was broken, likely in the attack."

The rotund man tossed him a cloth to wrap the items in, then pointed at me. "How old do you think it is?"

"Too small to be very old. Can't be much more than a couple years. It walks well enough, though. And mark it as female, it squatted to relieve itself on the way here."

"Two year old female." The large man wrote something down.

"And a bad tempered one at that. She scratched me up good trying to get her on the horse." That was met with raucous laughter from the men gathered.

"It's that red hair!" Someone called.

The mocking laughter and insulting treatment I understood without the help of that strange place within me that seemed to know this language. I didn't know anything about myself or how I got here, I was confused and up till that moment terrified. But at that moment I learned that I had a temper. I could feel it building inside me like a fire about to go out of control.

In my rage I nearly missed that their odd contortions and rudimentary gestures to communicate were attempts to get my name. My name. That would be important to find out who I was.

�Ma'Thjizzrini Qa.� A girls voice squealed from behind me. I turned to see a Khajiit girl in the doorway staring at me wide eyed.

"Ma'Thjizzrini Qa!" She started running toward me, but one of the armored men grabbed her and pushed her back out the door.

As soon as she said it I knew that was my name, it struck a familiar chord immediately. I repeated it, imitating their miming gestures by pointing to my chest. �Ma'Thjizzrini Qa.�

"Name, Maxical." The rotund man wrote something down, then stamped his seal on the document.

*******

They said I was found beside my parents, was there when they were killed. I didn't remember any of it. It felt like they talked abstractly about strangers. The greatest shock for me that day and so many days since was that I didn't even know my mother's name; wasn't able to bring an image of her to my mind, or even a glimpse of a moment with her or the sound of her voice. It was like she disappeared into the void, taking every remembrance of her.

That day in the Legion office though, that I will never forget. The smell of pipe smoke and tobacco, male sweat and steel; those odors bring back the memory of that day as if it was still alive within me, still happening to me.

It has stayed fresh in my mind all these years; but not because I wanted to remember it. It was that haunting memory that was just out of grasp beyond it, the sheer number of times I�d come to that stopping point in my memory and tried to force beyond it to find something, anything of who I was; of my life before that Legion office. Of my mother.

That day, those men staring at me as if I were an insect as they tried to determine what I was, what I was saying...what to do with me. All through it my mind burned with trying to figure out who I was and how I got there. I'll never forget that day.

*******

This post has been edited by mALX: May 4 2019, 07:13 PM

[mALX]

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The Orphanage

Memories of the orphanage; 3rd Era, year 421

Chapter 3: Alix Lencolia



Alix Lencolia was the BladeMaster that trained and tested the Legion on their advanced Blade skills. I'd always watched him from our dorm window because we weren't allowed outside when he was on the grounds. I had to sneak out to spar with Leland that day.

Alix was teaching in the next quad. When his blade instruction ended he came over, hailing Leland before approaching me.

“I almost got stabbed watching you instead of what I should have been." He hesitated.

The fear hit me that he would turn me in to Phillida. "Please, I'm not supposed to be out here."

"Did I see you practicing with your eyes closed?“ Alix rested his hand on his sword hilt in an intriguing way. I nodded, trying to imitate his stance.

“I always do.”

“How do you do it?”

"I don't know, it comes from somewhere in here." I thumped my fist on my chest. "Do you want me to show you?"

He nodded, and I pointed at his shod feet. "You'll have to take your boots and socks off first so you can feel it." He pulled his boots off and set them a ways back.

"You have to feel everything like you are a part of it, first the grass on your feet. No, you have to close your eyes. Okay, now smell the air. Tell me when you're ready." I waited for his signal.

"Okay. Now keep your eyes closed and stand perfectly still. You have to be very quiet." I drew my sword from my sheath very slowly, savoring the sound of it.

His eyes popped open. “I’ve never heard it like this before!”

"Your eyes have to be shut to hear, just listen to it. Close your eyes again and listen for the sounds. First I'll do a sweep, then a thrust." I closed my eyes. Alix stopped me.

"Hold up."

I don't think Alix trusted he wouldn't be stabbed since my eyes were shut. He asked if I would spar with him instead and let him watch me.

"Would I! Er...I mean yes, I would like that very much!"

He started off with all the moves Leland used, then did some I didn't recognize. I stopped him and opened my eyes.

“Wait, what was that you just did? And that move before it? I’ve never done those in training, what are they?”

“Those are moves only the Masters know.”

“Will you teach them to me?”

“Not today, but I promise I will.”






***


In my excitement I'd almost done a little jig and sang out a "YIPEE!" song, but lurched to a stop after a couple convulsions. "Oops. I'm not allowed to sing and dance. Commander Phillida calls the healers. Once he thought prisoners were being tortured."

Alix barked out a choking laugh and then strangled it into a cough.

"It's okay to laugh, it doesn't bother me."

He sat down on the grass, indicating I should join him. That signaled my practice with him was over. I plunked down in front of him, watching his expressions closely. I caught his eyes encompassing my ragged clothes and tried to brush some dirt from them. It immediately smudged. His glance flickered at the prison side of the Compound before he spoke.

“Is your father stationed here with the Legion?” It was the first time he had spoken to me as if I were a child.

“I don’t have parents, I live in the orphanage over there.” I pointed.

“They have an orphanage in the prison compound? I didn’t know about it.”

“We aren’t allowed out when people are around. This is where they place the un-adoptable children.”

“Why are the children un-adoptable?” His voice softened in a way only a Breton's can.

“Beast races like me aren't desired. Some are just too old, people always want a baby. Once a child is old enough to get into trouble, no one wants them.”

Alix plucked a blade of grass and wet it with his tongue. He held it tightly on his mouth and blew on it, making a strange sort of whistle sound using the blade of grass. I was thoroughly intrigued, and plucked a blade myself. I tried to imitate him, but only heard the sound of my own breath blowing. Before I could ask how he did it, he distracted me with a question.

“Do you get into trouble a lot?”

I choked. “Oh…er...cough, cough. Only a very little.” The mock discreet voice didn't work any better than covering the lie with a fake cough. His eyes reflected he saw right through them, but to my relief they lit with amusement.

*******

I was practicing my letters and a shadow fell across the parchment. I looked up to see Commander Phillida standing in front of me with his mouth open as if he'd hesitated mid action to decide how to phrase what he was going to say.

"What did I do?" My mind flew to the bedwetting prank I'd pulled on Hieronymus Lex. A full two days had passed since then, and I hadn't been called down for punishment yet. I tried to school a 'mournful but innocent' look on my face, not really sure how to do either. I'd overheard the lawyers instructing the prisoners to make that face when I was eavesdropping in the Elder Council Chambers.

A scowl came across his face and his mouth clamped shut. After an internal struggle that was visibly seen fluctuating across his face in ripplings of tensed muscles, he shook his head. “We'll discuss that on your return."

Whatever he had been about to say, he'd changed his mind about confronting me right now. That wasn't like him, especially when it was obvious I had a punishment coming. Something was up. I gave up trying to make the face, but kept it in memory in case that was what had turned the tide in my favor.

He cleared his throat. "Pack your things. You are going for a home visit, and I expect you to make a good impression. Is that understood?”

A what? "Huh? What is a home visit?"

"Alix Lencolia has applied to adopt you. You may never have another chance like this, so I suggest you use your time with him wisely."

"Huh? I thought we were unadoptables." What was he talking about? Was I hearing right?

Commander Phillida let out his breath in a gust before answering. "You will spend one weekend with him. This is a trial, to give him an opportunity to consider more carefully after seeing how you behave. It is an opportunity for you, Maxical. A home and family instead of this orphanage. I expect you to make the best impression you can so he does not change his mind about wanting you as his daughter."

"His daughter? I don't understand." What did he mean, I'd be his daughter? I heard Phillida's teeth grinding in response.

"He's talking about placing you with that man you play swords with, Ma'Thjizzrini Qa." Nissy whispered in Ta'agra.

I gaped at Commander Phillida. "You mean I'd live with him? At his house?" I felt a warm spark of excitement. Living with Alix, practicing Blade all the time? I couldn't imagine anything better than that!

"The best advice I can give you would be to talk to your house mother and a few of the older residents in your dorm here. If you learn nothing else, remember this. I order you to be on your best behavior!" He pointed his finger at me for emphasis. We heard his feet stomping the whole way down the steps.










***


"I don't understand, isn't this a good thing? Why is he so mad about it?"

"Couldn't you tell? He's afraid you'll mess up and the adoption won't go through."

I sank down on the bed feeling a knot forming in my stomach. For the first time since coming here I had hope dangling within grasps reach. This place took your caring about anything away, now suddenly it was back. I wanted this adoption to go through so badly it scared me to even think about it not happening, but all the will in the world couldn't make me any smarter or less clumsy. Could I even hope to get through a whole weekend without some disaster happening? Would Alix forgive a few mess-ups?

"So am I." I barely whispered it, but Nissy heard.

"Ma'Thjizzrini Qa, if you'd just behave he'll have to want you. He likes playing swords with you."

Nissy's eyes were huger than normal. She understood without need of words everything going through my mind, I could read that in them; but behind it she looked sad and scared. I suddenly realized that mournful sounded like the expression she had right now.

"What is it, Nissy?"

"Ma'Thjizzrini Qa, will you ask him to adopt me too?"

"Can I? Will it get me into trouble? I mean, could it make Alix change his mind about wanting me?"

Nissy looked even sadder if that was possible. She half nodded, half shrugged. "Knowing there are two of us might scare him off. Especially if...you know. If you mess up somehow. These people want perfect children. Listen, don't spring it on him right away. Talk about me, but wait till you're sure he still wants you before you ask about me."

"Do you think I should suggest he choose you instead? You'll behave, and then you can work on him to accept me."

"Only if he rejects you first. He wants you because of the swords."

"Let's swear on it. Whichever of us he picks will plead for the other." I spat on my hand and raised it facing her. She did the same and we clasped the slimy hands and kissed each other's cheeks to seal the vow.

" I want this badly, Nissy. I'll try to behave, but you know sometimes things happen that I don't mean to do."






***





Our room packed up quickly with older orphans that had been through these home visits themselves, then been rejected at the end of the weekend. They were full of truthful advice. This was no time to paint a rosy picture, that was clear by the number of them that had been rejected, some more than once. That hope that felt so close I could grasp it a little while ago may as well have slid back into the void it came from.

"You'll be back. He only wants you because you both like swords, but once he sees how you behave he'll be dumping you back off here like yesterdays garbage."

"How do you know about it already? I just found out!"

"Everybody knows. We've already been taking bets on it. Listen to me, Maxical. Getting doors slammed in your face is nothing compared to someone getting to know you and deciding they don't want you. These home visits are like a test, they'll be comparing you to a dream they have of some perfect child. If you don't make them love you in one weekend, you come back here a failure."

"A test? I hate tests! Can't we just skip this home visit?"

"No, it's the law. They have to let him see what he's getting himself into. Phillida wants rid of you badly, if there was a way to get around this home visit he'd already have done it. You think he hates you now, see how much worse it gets if you're rejected after this home visit."

"He isn't the only one you'll have to be worrying about, either. You can play swords with him, but what about his wife?"

"His wife?" I blanched, turning even whiter if that was possible.

"Maybe she likes swords too." Nissy's voice was hopeful. I shot her a grateful glance.






***


"Even the guards are taking bets you'll mess this adoption up. So far Leland and Pilus are the only two betting on you making it. Pilus said he just likes to bet longshots, hoping one will come in and make him wealthy."

"They're all betting on me failing?"

"Yup. Most of the boys dorm bet in the guard's pool. I'm taking all the girl's action. You can't bet against yourself because you could throw your chances, but if you want to bet to win I'll take it. By the way, did you know Lex is gone now?"

"Gone! What do you mean?"

"Lex has removed himself to the South Watch Tower and refuses to return as long as you're here. What'd you do to him?"

"You know, the bedwetting incident."

"Everyone got caught in that, what's so special about him?"

My face flushed. "He was in bed with that young guard from the South Watch and peed on him."

She spun around to a tall Altmer girl. "I called it, you need to pay up!"

"Lex gets more jobs than he gets paid for, it seems." The Altmer girl said, digging in her pocket for the coin.

Nissy and I stared dumbfounded while the rest of the room laughed.

"Huh?"

"Never mind, it's forbidden knowledge. Listen, Phillida was in a tirade over Lex leaving, and just got another bill for repairs you've cost him. You'd better hope that adoption goes through." She stood up to leave, but snatched the sweetroll from my nightstand first. She took a large bite of it and then held it up to me. I waved her to take the bitten roll.

"I can't help being clumsy."

"You'd better find a way, I'm betting on you to win."

The girl taking the bets shook her head no. "Liar."

When they were gone I turned to Nissy; too scared to cry, but could feel the tears burning like acid in my eyes. "I'm never going to make it, am I?"

"We'll run away together if you don't. We've always got each other, Maxical. Just remember your promise to me if they keep you."

"I'll never forget you, Nissy. Never."


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This post has been edited by mALX: Aug 3 2013, 10:44 AM