Memoires of Rales Sarethi, A Morrowind fanfic Options

[Remko]

Dear readers, I posted this in the unnamed forum but since you were so kind to invite me here, I thought I'd "grace" you with my drivel. Without further adue, I present you the adventures of Rales Sarethi.

Part I Homecoming

Chapter 1: Seyda Neen.

Day 1

Over thirty-five years ago, I think I was about nineteen, maybe twenty, I got pulled from my bunk in the cell in Imperial City and was told I was to be deported to Vvardenfell immediately. First by carriage and then by boat.
Gods, even up to this day I resent carriage rides, they’re bumpy, dusty and tiresome, I prefer a horseback ride anyday.

The seajourney is pretty much a blur in my recollection, the gentle relaxing motion of the boat made me drift into a careless and refreshing slumber.
I briefly opened my eyes at times the sea was exceptionally rough and I remember a gentle yet compelling voice speaking to me. Can’t remember the words though, just the sound of the voice that stuck with me.

I woke up when a fellow Dunmer, one donning a huge scar across his face, told me we had arrived and that I needed to get off the boat. He called himself Jiub and asked what my name was. I politely answered my name was Rales. I didn’t bother telling him my last name, after all, he hadn’t told his either.
I never saw the guy again after I disembarked. A shame really, he was kind of like-able.

A grumpy Redguard legionnaire ordered me to report in at the Census and Excise office outside. Like I had a choice. On the boardwalk towards the offices, an Imperial officer asked me several random questions, like my race. Like he couldn’t see for himself. Sjeezzz…. I had to refrain myself from rolling my eyes and possibly insulting or upsetting the guy. Instead, I acted like the good Dunmer they wanted me to be, I played along and answered his questions.

After I had satisfied his curiosity he ordered me to report in at the office for my release form. ‘Release form? I was going to be released?’
I could hardly believe my pointy ears at that time. Let me tell you; looking back on what they had me go through, sometimes I wished they had left me to rot in prison. With a straight face I walked towards the rickety wooden structure that was the consensus and excise office. I couldn’t be showing surprise about my release, what if they had made a mistake and changed their mind?

Quickly I proceeded into the building. An elderly Imperial was sitting behind a desk, going through piles and piles of documents. Pre-occupied as he seemed to be, he hadn’t noticed me yet or maybe he was just ignoring me. Perhaps it had been my body-odour? Figuring that was hardly my fault, they were the ones that had plucked me from my cell, dropped me on a boat and had me report into an office without the chance to clean myself up. I shrugged and softly cleared my throat to get his attention, I didn’t want to startle the old man lest he would die from a heart-attack. Knowing my luck, they’d probably blame me and I’d be back where I started, in jail.

The following conversation with the old git almost felt like a job-interview. Socusius Ergalla, the census and excise officer, asked me all sorts of questions; like my starsign, my skills and whatnot. I didn’t have a clue what they wanted with the info but since it was hardly a secret, I just answered them while the Imperial wrote it all down on some sort of form. After the interview, Socusius told me to take my release form (that’s what the form turned out to be) to Selles Gravius where I’d receive orders. I was almost speechless - almost. ‘Orders? Whatfor?’ I remember exclaiming. He just shrugged. Apparantly he hadn’t a clue either. Well, that made two of us so I went to Gravius, hoping he would tell me more.

Halfway to Selles Gravius I got distracted by a hallway behind a sturdy looking wooden door that led to some sort of a basement where I found a variety of items. Some silverware, some bottles containing local booze, an iron dagger and a bag to put in the items I had “found”.
Ofcourse, only then I realised I still had to see that Gravius guy. He would notice me carrying a bag, suspiciously tingling with all sorts of gear a newly released prisoner shouldn’t have yet. I put the bag next to the table where I had found the dagger, checked my release form was still in my pocket and went to see Selles Gravius.

Gravius wasn’t much of a talker and looked like a formidable warrior. In fact; it made me wonder what in Sheogorath’s name he was doing here in this lousy office. When I asked him while handing him the form he almost bit off my head saying it was none of my busines and unpatiently snatched the release form from my hands. He glimpsed me over for a while with one eyebrow raised and ordered me to wait for a moment while he looked up some documents I was going to need. A few moments later he handed me a letter, some gold I quickly pocketed and a mysterious package for a certain Caius Cosades in Balmora, who-ever that may be. I figured I’d find out soon enough and didn’t ask any more questions.

Having been through that, - what I still consider a bureaucratical ordeal - as I went to retrieve my bag, I suddenly remembered there was a rainbarrel outside I hadn’t looked into. I had little gold and a dagger but no water, no food, no nothing so anything I could find would be useful and most of all; for free.
Turned out it only contained a ring with some engraving. Unfortunately I couldn’t make out what it was saying so I put it in my pocket, again wandered through the offices with an air like nothing was out of the ordinary, fetched the bag and made my way into Seyda Neen.
I was my own man again. I was free to go where I wanted.

***

My first steps outside were, well, quite frankly, disappointing. You’d expect a town with the main docks into Vvardenfell would be a big, prospering town. Suffice to say it wasn’t.
As a matter of fact, it was just the opposite. Most of the houses were run-down, shabby shacks, trading was limited to one tradinghouse and a swamp surrounded it so flies swarmed the town.
I won’t even mention the smell.

Still, I was in Morrowind, I could finally look up relatives I knew to still live here. My mother had told me plenty of stories of her and her cousin Athyn playing together. I couldn’t remember which town though, but from what I’ve been taught, the Sarethi family is well-known and shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

My sense of pride prevented me running off to find them right away, I could hardly arrive wearing nothing but the raggedy clothes, looking like a bum. I wanted to make a name for myself first. I wanted them to be proud to hail back a long-lost relative
For now, my pride would have to wait, I had more pressing matters, like finding somewhere to stay the night.

While looking around and - metaphorically speaking - sniffing up the atmosphere a Woodelf came upto me grinning child-like. The chap introduced himself as Fargoth and extended his hand which I grabbed. From moment one I knew I was going to like this friendly little fellow. Turned out he had been bullied and his family heirloom, a ring, had been taken from him. He told me it was magical and allowed the wearer to heal himself.

‘Would it have engraving, like this?’ I remember asking him while pulling the ring I had found in the barrel outside the office from my pocket and held it in front of his nose. Fargoth frantically shook his head and told me that was the one.
I was happy to give it back to him. Trinkets are easier to find than good friends and the gods know I could use some friends being a stranger in a strange land.
Singing happily he wandered off but not before he told me he was going to tell his friend Arrille a kind Darkelf had returned his ring to him and how happy he was to have it back.
I simply smiled.

My rumbling stomach made me aware that I needed to find something to eat as well. After some asking around I soon found out Arrille’s establishment was the only tradehouse around. If I wanted to survive any trip outside of town, I needed some sort of protection, I needed armour and a weapon and some supplies so I headed off to Arrille’s.

Politely the High Elf, Arille, greeted me and was quick to realize I must have been the stranger that had given Fargoth his ring back. He confirmed what I suspected, Fargoth was slightly retarded, he had the mind of a child and was almost chronically happy.

I removed the items from the bag I wanted to sell and displayed them on the counter in front of Arrille. We came to an agreement, he would gladly take all the items from my hands and I would buy the chitin cuirass, pauldrons and gauntlets, some food, a couple of useful spells and some scrolls. Even with those purchases I had more gold in my pocket than when I had entered the tradehouse. I had kept the dagger.
Then it hit me, I still didn’t have a real weapon, the iron dagger I had kept was hardly any more use than as a butterknife.
In the excitement I had forgotten to buy a real weapon. I double backed into Arrille’s and bought a chitin bow and some arrows.
Now I was set to face whatever was coming to me in the wild, or at least, that’s what I thought at that time.

I nibbled on a Kwama egg on a loaf of bread and adressed some inhabitants. Some locals mentioned Ergalla Socucius was looking for a missing tax collector, Processus Vitellius.
I wasn’t really feeling like heading back into the Census and Excise office, I had just left the damn thing, I decided to do some looking around myself. How hard would it be to find an Imperial tax collector?

Since it is always a good idea getting at least an idea where someone missing could hang out, I asked around for him. Ofcourse, blabbermouth Fargoth had heard rumours the Dunmer in the watchtower, Thavere Vedrano, was the only being able to stomach him. Apparantly, the guy was somewhat obnoxious. It was a start so I headed off to the lighthouse when in the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something shiny – a weapon perhaps? – in a hollow stump. It cost me a pair of wet feet and trousers getting the item from the stump but it was well worth it. The enchanted axe would get me quite some gold, I never cared for axes, they are too heavy and too encumbring, so I intended on selling it but it would have to wait until I solved this mystery.

[Remko]

SubRosaI never realised the word cleavage is never associatiated with weapons. Strange that some weapons are called cleaver.. Thanks!
@mALX1 Yeah, I guess I can do that. Yay, finally a reason to start working on that again as well.

Chapter 5: Feathers

Day 28

I wandered for days and days in a row. I didn’t record much of what happened, I had sunk far into dark thoughts and self-pity.
One event brought me back to reality. I stumbled into some cave, tired, hungry and wet. Nearby the entrance I sat myself down, went through my inventory, sharpened my weapons, repaired dings where necessary, mended my armour and slept for a while. My dream was haunted by visions of dead people, screaming Mer and a huge Orc trying to bash in my skull.
I woke up in a sweat because of a rumbling sound from deeper within the cave. I snuck farther into the dark hole to find out what it was that had awoken me.

I reached a ledge with a ladder into a pit. In the pit several bodies were strewn around some sort of green blob with arms and legs. The blob didn’t try scaling the ladders so I assumed it was too heavy, too big or both. Shocked, I realized how unnerving that assumption was. If this thing understood it was too heavy for the ladders, it also meant it was sentient, intelligent. I would have to take care not underestimating it.
Not really fancying taking this monster on up close I started with shooting lots and lots of arrows at it from a safe distance. It didn’t even notice the pinpricks.

When I unleashed all the spells I had on my repertoire on it, I only managed to anger the hideous thing and draw its attention to its assailant, yours truly. If this would take any longer I feared it might find a way out of the pit somehow. In a desperate attempt to get rid of the creature, I scaled down the ladder, slowly approached it and with all the strength I could muster hit it with my sword. Its thick, scaly skin deflected my sword easily. Spinning around it swung its hammer-sized fists in my direction. I managed to dodge the first one but was too slow to dodge a swing with its other fist. It hit me straight on the head, sending a spur of pain through my entire body. I could swear from that day I was about an inch shorter than before. It certainly felt that way.
There was no way I was going to be able to defeat this creature, I turned and ran.

The creature tried to follow me but somehow it managed to get itself stuck between the walls of the pit, the ladder and some crates - it wasn’t that intelligent after all - I got away from it safely and even had time to grab some of the goods the former occupants, the ones lying dead all around, had left behind. I also found some sort of meat I had never encountered before. It smelled strangely familiar, even though I had never seen meat with that specific colour before. I shrugged, took a satchel from my bag to preserve it and put the satchel with the meat into my bag. Maybe an experienced alchemist would recognise it.

After the encounter with that monster I had seen enough caves for a while. I headed north-east and explored the coastal area. I was made painfully aware my skills weren’t up to scratch. I lived on what I could find or hunt, slept in caves when it was raining and in the open field when it was dry. The following weeks, more times than I’d like to recall, I barely escaped a grisly death by the hands of creatures, bandits and by something conjured up in Oblivion and dropped into Vvardenfell.
Venturing deep into the ash-regions of Vvardenfell I heard a wailing sound but couldn’t pinpoint its origin. ‘Not another Bosmer,’ I amused myself by imagining the strangest of scenarios just to keep my mind from wandering into melancholy again.

Something resembling a bat, only bigger, smellier, equipped with a tail ending in a sharp end and a ferocious beak, had its mind set on having Dunmer for dinner. Its dinner was cold steel rather than warm Dunmer, the creature looked a lot tougher than it actually was. A stab and a slash had it falling to the ground. I plucked its tailfeathers and stuck it in my hair as a trophy. There was no-one as witness to how silly that must have looked. It was just one of those things to keep me occupied in the lonely wastelands called the Ash-region.

Deafeating a single one wasn’t the problem. I soon found out where there was one, there usually were more. A lot more. Finally, I had some target practice.
Swordplay had always been one of my strong points. Having been brought-up as a Redoran, I was trained with a longsword ever since I had been strong enough to carry one. Before that, I had been playing with a wooden sword.
That day, as I was cooking the flying rat’s meat above a fire, I just wished I had a better sword. The enchanted blade I had found was starting to loose its effectiveness, fighting that green blob made me painfully - literally - aware of that fact.

The weeks wandering around aimlessly, I had the chance and plenty of time to practise my marksman skill. Compared to my sword-fighting it was rather pitiful. I wasted arrow after arrow but after days of practicing, missing and retrieving arrows and running from enemies I couldn't even hope to defeat yet, slowly I was starting to hit my targets.
The flying horrors were soon dropping like flies – untill I ran out of arrows that was, and I was starting to look like a bird myself, with all the flying rats’ tailfeathers in my hair.
For their sake, I hope they reproduce fast, otherwise I wouldn't me surprise me if I had managed to wipe out the entire pests' population thoughout those weeks.

Day 40

There is always a huge down-side to wandering aimlessly through a land you have no or hardly any geographical knowledge about - you are bound to get lost. Well, so was I.
I had no idea where I was or where I was going. It was time to set myself a goal again, I needed better gear. Weeks ago, someone, I can’t remember her name, warned me about wandering into Daedric ruins. Unfriendly worshippers and even more unpleasantly tempered monsters usually occupied the ruins was the bottom-line of the warning. I threw the advice in the wind as soon as I came across a ruin of the sorts I had never seen. Towers with points, jagged edges of broken walls, apparantly aeons ago, and, as I was warned, crawling with creatures so terrible I almost ran.
The urge to find a better weapon got the better of me.
Curse my sense of adventure!

I got far more than I bargained for. Before I even got the chance to enter the shrine, I was assaulted by creatures I used to run away from as fast as I could. A waist high creature with what looked like a collar came running in at an alarming speed. I raised my shield and braced for impact.
I reaped the fruits of the exercise and the weeks of fighting enemy after enemy and managed to keep standing behind my shield. Frantically the creature tried to bludgeon my shield aside in an effort getting to me. Remembering what the master of arms had taught me, I used the creature’s mindless ferocity and strength against it. I prepared my sword and let the shield slip a little, just enough for the creature to break through and impale itself on my sword because of its own speed. Unfortunately, it was also more than the already battered old shield could take. After the fight it was beyond repair and I abandoned it.
The path into the shrine was clear.

Inside, I tried a different approach. Instead of barging in, banners raised, I snuck in, using the shadows to hide my presence. Before the residing worshippers were even aware of me, two Dunmer were lying mortally wounded on the ground, an arrow to the throat is just as effective against spellcasters as a silence spell.
The third was alarmed before I got a clean shot, I stepped on a loose rock revealing my location. These things usually happened when I tried to sneak up on someone, that’s why I usually never bothered.

Drawing my sword I ran at him howling a battle cry. Mid-air my attack ceased. A glow was emmitting from the Sorcerer’s hand, paralyzing me.
There was nothing I could do, I had no cure. I had to wait for the effect to wear off.
Several agonizing seconds passed as the sorceror cast spells at me.
Suddenly, my hands were free and I finished the attack ending with my sword lodged in the Dark Elf’s chest.
Still I hadn’t found a decent sword. Weren’t these ruins supposed to be swarming with Daedra wielding the best weapons?

Disappointed with my findings in the ruin so far, I grabbed the best next thing. On a bowl near a shrine of a really ugly guy’s statue I found some valuable gems.
Imagine my surprise when out of nowhere a warrior emerged wearing a black and red armour from hell and swinging the scariest looking sword I had ever seen. That’s what I was looking for. The only thing I had to do was kill its current owner.

What a battle that was. This guy knew what he was doing. Upon my standard attack - a overhead chop as a distraction, a quick sidestep and a slash to the midsection - he did the exact correct thing. He dodged the chop rather than blocking it so he was ready for the slash to his midsection. Most, lesser, swordfighters were caught off guard by this attack and were usually cut down with the slash. I remember grinning maniacally. This was what the master of arms had trained me for throughout my entire youth.

We blocked each others’ every attempt getting the upper hand in the battle. This was no fight, this was a dance, as deadly as a hidden viper and I never felt more alive than ever. The first miss-step would mean defeat and certain death for either of us.
I almost ended the fight with a quick lunge straight to his gut, just before my sword hit him, he ducked and rolled to the side, recoiled and brought up his sword diagonally across my chest. If I would have been impatient and immediately had stepped in not recognizing the trap, the thrust would’ve cut me in half. I could feel the air displacement from the blade on my face as it flashed by.

This was the opening I had waited on, I grabbed the iron dagger from between my belt with my free hand and rammed it between the creases of his armour, into his armpit. The Daedra dropped his sword and fell to his knees. I ended the dance cutting of his head with his own sword in a single swipe. I’d call that poetic justice.

This post has been edited by Remko: Mar 26 2010, 12:48 AM