Listen To The Sound Of The Ashlands, Chapter 2-> Lock Options

[Fiach]

~ Time to start Chapter 2, as always, feel free to comment and give your opinions on the story so far ~
Chapter 1-> The Return


Chapter Two-> Lock


The wind was merciless that night as it lashed against the thick walls of Vivec, Abigail looked down at the waters below.
She enjoyed the view from up here, it helped her forget everything. The hardships, the battles lost and the people that abandoned her.
There was knock on the door. Abigail smiled to herself. Not this again…

“Come in” she sighed, the door opening with a shallow creak. “Roderick, Fathis…what do you want?”
The dunmer and redguard behind her both turned a bright red, she didn’t even have to turn around. “Our men caught some travellers up north, we were wondering if…”

“Are they spies?” Abigail cut Roderick short, making his blushing redguard face darken even more.

“Eh…no, we don’t think so miss”

“Are they Fugitives?”

“We...we don’t think so…”

Abigail turned around, her eyes fiery. “Then why are you wasting my time?” she growled. Roderick paused, speechless. Less than a decade ago they were in Suran, drinking, dancing and having fun.
But the last ten years did a lot to Abigail, at nineteen she was still a girl with a pretty face and mischief in her eyes.
But she had grown since then; her face now was beautiful, ladylike. Her emerald eyes were hardened from seeing her friends die and her voice was like tempered steel.

Once she wore dresses and loose fitting leather armour, now she was dressed in the attire that once belonged to an Ordinator, with a purple sash tied around her forehead to keep her lush brown hair out of her eyes.

Fathis smiled softly, “We are pretty low on men Abigail” he said slowly, “They could come in pretty useful…One of them is a Tsaesci.”
“A Tsaesci?” Abigail whispered, interest showing in her eyes for the briefest moment. “Whatever” she murmured, giving a shrug before pointing at the door. Fathis and Roderick gave a bow and left the room slowly.

Roderick took a deep breath, “I hate it when she gets like that!” he wheezed. Fathis nodded in agreement. “Lock should have come with us… he knows how to talk to her.”
“I don’t think she’s waiting for Lock.” Fathis whispered
“What do you mean? oh”

When I finally woke up my body was sore, my feet and hands were numb and there was a warm, coppery taste in my mouth. Blood. “Just perfect” I muttered as I looked around. I was lying on a wooden stretcher with a sheet pulled tightly over the frame, the room around me was windowless but dozens of shelves lined the walls, each one filled with vials and potion bottles.

“You took quite a beating my friend” muttered a wheezy voice.
“Haeil?”
The Tsaesci stood up from a chair that was dipped in the shadows at the edge of the room.
“You were talking in your sleep… sounded like a nightmare.”
I shrugged.

“I can’t really remember”
Haeil smiled, “It was probably the medication…these guys have been pumping you with the stuff”
“These guys?” I asked
Haeil laughed, “The resistance Furan…. I’m a member of it now”
I looked at him strangely, “When did all this happen?”

“You've been unconcious Furan...for a week. When they tried to capture us I ended up beheading a couple of their men…it seems that the people here are just as blood thirsty as they are back home.” His laughter rang across the stone room. Before I could open my mouth to ask something else the door opened and someone walked in.

She was a Bosmer, dressed in the blue robes of a mage; her hands were filled with dozens of pale grey scrolls. With a sigh she placed them on the table in front of her and looked at Haeil.
“Is he doing ok?”
“Of course Madeline…don’t you trust me?” The mage--Madeline gave a grunt before turning to look at me.

Madeline looked very young for a mage, no more then thirty; her copper red hair was tied back into a ponytail revealing a pair of slender pointed ears. She had a light smile on her face but there was intelligence in her eyes as she scanned my arms and face, her gold pointed fingers checked my pulse and bruises.

“I’ve been in Morrowind for nearly 9 years and I never saw injuries like the ones you had ...” She said. Her sharp blue eyes were flicking from me to the book that was in her hands.
“9 years…” she sighed, “I swear to Akatosh if I ever see that swit Traven again, I’ll make him wish that he avoided magic as a child!”
“Whos’ Traven?” I asked
Madeline looked at me, “He’s the Arch-mage of Cyrodiil or at least he was when I left….”

She put on a high pitched voice, like what little girls did when they insulted someone. “Go to Morrowind Madeline the guild needs your leader ship there, it’ll be an adventure, think of all the spells you will learn…” She spat on the ground, “But noooo, one year I’m in Balmora and then I’m being harassed by argonians for being a witch. A WITCH! Can you believe it?”

“It happens a lot, just agree with her and we’ll be fine” Haeil whispered softly. I nodded with a smile.
Madeline gave a sigh and wrote some thing down in her book. “I think it’s time that you went down to Lock” she said, gesturing toward the door.

Haeil nodded and pulled me out of bed. “Where are we going?” I whimpered, the cold air nipping at my feet.

“To see Lock.”

“Who’s Lock?”

Haeil looked at me with a smile, “Oh, you are going to love this.”

This post has been edited by Fiach: Mar 30 2010, 03:08 PM

[Fiach]

~I may have to slow down with the next few updates...I'm starting to doubt that the posts are as good as they used to be, next post will probably be at Monday on the latest I hope that you enjoy it...~

I coughed, loudly.

Lock ignored me, his crimson hands dominating the map before him, dozens of small models were being moved along Vvardenfell’s landscape, Showing argonian troop levels, trade routes, recruits, areas where possible recruits could be found...
Finally his hands finally slowed down and he stood up, smiling a grim, but satisfying smile.

“We have a job for you” he muttered.
“Roderick has gotten information about a weapons cache that we think the argonians are holding onto in old Pelgiad. Constant patrols, sightings of well known blacksmiths and weapons dealers in the near area, we’re sending you, Roderick and Shemble to it, you get a recall amulet each...”
He opened up a small box beside him and took out a plain bronze amulet.

“Reach the cache, grab the stuff, activate the spell and then it will take you back here” he grunted, handing it to me.

Lock leant back onto the map, satisfied.
“Alright, you can count on me” I said, putting the amulet on.
“Are you still here?” he growled.

***
“Hey, it’s Jiub” Roderick exclaimed, giving me a hug. His pudgy arms wrapping around me tighter then a werewolf’s bite.
“Hey” I wheezed, feeling my bones cracking together.

“Whoops, sorry” he chuckled, releasing me with a grunt.
“Are you two done?” Madeline sniffed, leafing through one of her books carefully before placing it back onto the shelf.

Roderick nodded with a grin and it was then that I noticed the third member of our party. Shemblewas a dunmer, although it was hard to tell from the thick brown cloak that was wrapped around his body, he wore a thick leather belt around his shoulder,
daggers hanging slickly from it, making a light ringing sound as he moved toward us.

He pulled down his hood to reveal a bald head with 3 thick piercings in his left eyebrow, giving me a greasy smile as Madeline began to work her magic.

****
“I don’t trust him” I muttered softly to Roderick as we walked through the grasslands, Shemble moving in front.
Roderick nodded “He was a Hlaluu..They are the only dunmer house that actually agrees with the argonians...”
I looked at him with a slight glare; there just wasn’t something right about him...

Roderick took the lead now, leading us away from the castle in the background and west toward some hills. “A secret way in” he muttered softly, nodding toward a stone door that could only be the entrance to an ancestral tomb.

It made sense the tong would use them...after all since religion was pretty much outlawed not many people would go into them now...
Roderick nodded to me with a smile, place his hand on the thick stone handle and pushed it forward revealing a small darkly lit room.
Walking in I felt that there was something wrong, “Wait” I muttered, but it was too late, the door shut firmly behind Roderick’s hand.

“It is good that you have finally returned to us...Ser Nerevar” a voice muttered, the throaty husk that could only be wielded by an argonian. it deep croaky voice that I had heard before.
“Who is it?” I growled to the darkness before a torch was lit.

There was an argonian in front of me, holding his torch like a weapon and bringing it up close to his face, beneath his armour showed a muscular frame, with pitch black scales and deep golden eyes.

“You were the one who sank my ship” I muttered, turning around quickly to Roderick, his jolly face now malicious as he held Shemble beneath his grip, a blade stuck straight into his neck as the dunmer gurgled, coughing up blood and staring blankly at the dark ceiling.

“There isn’t a weapons cache?” I whispered
Roderick shook his head softly, “You tried to trick us” he growled, throwing what was once Shemble onto the ground, making him land in a soft thump.

“You will die here, savior of the Ashland people,” The Argonian smiled, a blade already in his hand.
“As will your friends, family and guild” he spat into the ground.

A flash of blue light came from behind me, showing that Roderick had left the tomb.
“I am crown prince Teinaava, shadow scale and one of the most power mages in Black Marsh’s history…” He chuckled at that, looking at me with his sharp golden eyes,

“I have not fought a worthy opponent in years… the last was an assassin by the name of...ah, Eno Hlaluu, an assassin who went against my brotherhood, I have heard that you are part of the Morag Tong..maybe you knew him…”

“You killed Eno?” I asked, my voice little more than a whimper.
Teinaava smiled at that.
“He squealed like a pig…”

I imagined him, Eno lying on the floor with his rich purple robes, a cloud of blood just above his chest from where the blade hit, ‘Where are you Furan?’ he must have whispered before meeting Mephala’s grace. Tears coming to his withered eyes

With a roar I drew my blades, my magicka wrapping around my body like a blue cloak, the entire tomb half lit by my blue magicka and the other half lit by the yellow of the argonians torch.

With a growl the argonian lunged, the battle had begun.

This post has been edited by Fiach: Apr 2 2010, 04:15 PM