Teresa of the Faint Smile, Adventures of a Stringy Bosmer Options

[SubRosa]

Hi all, welcome to Teresa 2.0. Some of you may recognize the stringy wood elf this fan fic is about from another forum. I am going to start reposting her adventures here. However, I have taken this opportunity
for a fresh start to go back over the story and do some work on it. Starting with an entirely new scene, which you see below.

I have decided to give up the idea of breaking things up into separate Acts like I did with Not A Hero and Moving Through Darkness. It was probably a little confusing. Instead I am just going to go with a single title and let it go on as long as it needs to, hence the new name.

You will also find that the first half of what used to be called Not A Hero has been heavily edited. Hopefully an improvement! The rest of the story will also receive a facelift, although generally not as great. There will probably be a few more entirely new chapters turning up between some of the old ones as well. So this is not the same story you might have seen on the other forum.


For people new to the TF, you might find it easier to catch up with the cliff notes version in the spoiler tags below:




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Chapter 1 –Warning

12th Second Seed, 3E433

The harsh croaking of a raven prompted Teresa to raise her green eyes from the only slightly bruised apple that she was eating. The alley behind the Tiber Septim Hotel was narrow, a thin gouge cut between massive stone buildings that loomed high to either side and cast its depths into dim shadow. Sacks filled with trash dotted the length of the lane, clustered in small islands near the back doors of every business and home.

The pale wood elf stood at one such mound of garbage, filled with slops and other castoffs. Rich people threw away the best food, she knew, making the back streets here in the Talos Plaza district a practical gold mine for street urchins like herself.

Screenshot

Her scavenged lunch fell from suddenly nerveless fingers however, as she gazed down the alley and saw the figure of a man running in the shadows. He was clad in plain linens, the clothing of an ordinary plebeian. But there was nothing ordinary about the way he held a drawn sword in his hand, nor the blood that stained it.

Before the elf could bolt and run herself, the interloper was upon her. Now she could see he was an Imperial by his olive skin and dark hair. He reached out to her with his free hand, and as Teresa backed away she realized that it was not only his sword that was washed in blood, but the front of his tunic as well.

"You must warn them!" the Imperial croaked through the blood that flowed from his mouth. As she stared with wide eyes, Teresa was certain she could see tiny bubbles of air bursting up from the red flow. She had seen that before, from deep knife wounds to the chest. He was a dead man, she thought, he just did not know it yet.

His hand clutched at the shabby tunic of worn sack cloth that Teresa wore, grabbing a handful of the rough material. Teresa nearly jumped as his fingers pressed against one of her breasts. The sword fell from his other hand with a clatter of steel on stone, and the Imperial dropped to his knees, collapsing into her.

Teresa stared with wide eyes at the dying man, whose head was now buried in the valley between her small breasts. Her heart raced like a wild horse, and she felt her skin grow cold as Skyrim. Try as she might to flee, her feet seemed rooted to the spot however. All she could do was gape in growing horror as the man clutched at her willowy frame and spat blood over her already bedraggled clothing.

The sound of footsteps caused her to lift her eyes and gaze back down the way the Imperial had come. There stood a handful of figures wearing dark red robes, nearly black in the dim light. Hoods of the same material covered their heads, shrouding their faces in darkness. She saw blades in their hands as well. Not mortal steel, but rather monstrous, wavy knives, like the jagged teeth of some fearsome Daedra.

"They're going to kill the-" with that the Imperial's voice gave out, and she heard a rattling noise issue from his throat. It was like a dry breeze through an abandoned tenement. Then he fell limp at her feet, open eyes staring blankly back up at her from the pavement.

"Hey, what's going on back there!" came an iron growl from the other end of the alley. The clash of armored boots rang out between the high buildings, reverberating in the Bosmer's ears. Wrenching her gaze from the dead man, Teresa turned to see an Imperial Watchman charging down the alley toward her, dark eyes glittering like polished ebony within the 'T'-shaped slit in his full-faced helmet.

"You there! Put down your weapons and surrender." The legionary had his arming sword out now, and before the wood elf knew it, he was standing before her. He took a moment to first glance down at the dead man at Teresa's feet, and then the blood that washed her tunic.

"I didn't-" Teresa gasped, feeling her blood turn to ice with the understanding of how things must look to the watchman. Then the steel gauntlet of his left hand was reaching out for her, and the words slipped from her throat.

"You'll hang for this street meat!" the legionary growled.

With that Teresa finally felt her body come back under her control. Twisting away from watchman's grasp, she sprang for the other end of the alley. Her eyes saw that the red-robed figures were gone now. Then her view swam as her foot caught upon the corpse of the Imperial. She felt herself falling, and her head slammed against something hard as she came to a stop.

Her vision narrowed, as if she were within a tunnel. She was vaguely aware of the thin, blue slit of the sky above her, flanked by the grey stone of buildings to either side. She thought she saw a dark bird spread its wings in that sliver of light. But then the shape dissolved, and turned into the steel helmet of the legionary, looming closer and closer. Finally, darkness consumed her.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jul 30 2020, 01:31 AM

[SubRosa]

haute ecole rider: Thank you h.e.r. Vilverin is one of my favorite Ayleid ruins. They really put a lot into it, probably because it is the first dungeon you see when you exit the sewers.

You should try playing a pure mage sometime. It is a lot of fun, and really a potent character type. At higher levels much more powerful than your basic fighter. Try a conjurer to start with, as they are easy. You just conjure up a melee fighting critter, and the bad guys will always ignore you and go straight for it instead. Then go to a touch destruction spell, step behind the bad guy, and blast away.


Olen: Thank you Olen. I started with the letter from the game, making only a few alterations to it. But the more I worked on the chapter, the more of it I threw out, until finally it was completely new. Now it really shows quite a bit of insight into Jalbert's personality, and also has a hint of the necromancer conspiracy that we will be seeing more of in the future.

No worries about the fighter. I actually came up with nearly a dozen of my own in the last few days. Watching the Sharpes Rifles films again has certainly helped!


Remko: Thank you Rem. I wanted there to be no doubt that Jalbert was a villain, so I added the gruesome touches in the "play room" of his. We will be seeing him again...


All: We continue on with another all-new chapter, where Teresa learns more about her feathered friends. But first, she hears more news about the ongoing Oblivion Crisis.


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Chapter 8a - The Witch of Lake Trasimene

10th - 17th Midyear, 3E433

The sun was rising when Teresa came to the Red Ring Road, a burlap sack filled with loot hanging over one shoulder. She paused a moment, looking back the way she had come. The ground sloped down beneath her, giving her a clear view across the miles of woodland to the lake beyond. Near its blue waters she could still pick out the broken arches of Vilverin, rising like white fangs from green forest canopy.

The wood elf set down her load with a sigh, and treated herself to a squirt of water from the skin that hung diagonally across her chest. She looked back at the rising sun. She should be going to bed soon, the forester thought. Yet after what she had seen the previous night, Teresa was in no mood to close her eyes. That necromancer was still on the loose, she knew. For all she knew he might even be watching her, waiting for a chance to strike back…

No, Teresa thought with a faint smile, she had well and truly sent him packing. He probably would not stop running until he reached Skyrim…

With that thought, Teresa lifted her bag and set her feet to the road. Putting the lake to her right, she made her way back in the direction of Urasek. She could take the ferry to the City Isle and be back to the Imperial City itself in maybe half a week, she thought. Or perhaps she might head east, where Cheydinhal still waited at the end of the Blue Road.

In time the sound of horses came to her ears, their neighs and whinnies occasionally rising above the steady clomping of hooves on the hard stones of the road. Then came the tramping of marching feet, along with the clatter of metal against metal. Out of reflex, the wood elf moved to the side of the thoroughfare and found a place to hide. She knew that sound all too well from her years in the Imperial City. It was soldiers, and from the steadily increasing noise, there were a lot of them coming in her direction.

They came into view soon after. First was a double column of riders. Teresa imagined that there must be at least three dozen of them, if not more. They wore the heavy plate of the Imperial Legion, and the points of their lances glittered in the air above their heads. One of them hoisted a standard topped with the golden head of a dragon, jaws agape as if in mid-roar. A brightly-colored silk windsock flowed out behind the head, making it look like it was flying through the air.

Behind them came the foot soldiers, tromping down the road six abreast. Clad in the same steel plate as the riders, their helmets hung in front of their chests, dangling from straps around their necks. Their shields were covered in leather, and likewise hung from straps around their left shoulders. Each tilted a cross back over the same shoulder, made from two wooden stakes tied together, with a bedroll and other gear hanging off the crossbeam. Finally each wore an arming sword on one hip, and a wide-bladed dagger on the other.

No wonder they called themselves mules, the forester thought, at the moment they looked more like pack animals than fighters.

The infantrymen were led by standard bearers. Their armor was covered with the hides of wolves and bears, and their faces peeked out from the opened jaws of the beast's heads. One carried a long standard topped by a golden wreath surrounding an opened hand. A series of silver discs ran down the shaft beneath it, ending in an upturned crescent. Beside him stood another man hoisting aloft a simpler square of red velvet, edged in cloth-of-gold with the words Cohors III emblazoned upon it in the same material.

Yet what really caught the wood elf's eye was the third standard, which was crowned by a golden sculpture of a man's head. It was the likeness of an Imperial in his prime. In spite of the difference in age, Teresa recognized him instantly, for his face was forever burned upon her memory. It was Emperor Uriel Septim VII.

Teresa rose from her hiding place, transfixed by the image of the Emperor waving in the air above the heads of the oncoming legionaries. She could still see his piercing blue eyes in her memory, and hear his voice in her ears. Her throat tightened, and she could feel her eyes moisten in spite of herself.

The next thing she knew she was standing beside the road as the standard-bearers passed her. A line of trumpeters came next, their great instruments curling around their torsos before ending in wide bells over their heads. A soldier with a transverse-crested helmet hanging from his neck strode beside them. In one hand he grasped a swagger stick carved with the likeness of vines curling up around its length. Otherwise he looked much the same as the other soldiers.

"Damn fine standard, isn't it?" said the man, his eyes following Teresa's gaze. The forester instantly recognized him as a centurion. "Damn fine man too. I'll miss him when we get our new one."

Teresa blinked. An officer in the Imperial Legion was talking to her? Not growling, or snarling, but simply talking? She had to resist the urge to look around to see if anyone else was standing behind her. Yet even more surprising was that she found herself responding. "New one?"

"You haven't heard the rumors yet?" the centurion stopped now and wiped the sweat from his brow as the rest of his men marched by. Teresa noted that his hair had long since gone to grey, and the feet of an entire murder of crows were etched into the corners of this dark eyes. When the wood elf shook her head, the middle-aged Imperial went on.

"They say we have a new Emperor, one the fetching assassins missed." The soldier paused to spit on the dirt beside the road. "I heard his name is Martin, Martin Septim, and the Hero of Kvatch is with him."

"The Hero of Kvatch?" Teresa wondered aloud. Somehow she knew who that must be. "You mean Julian, the Redguard?"

"That's her alright," the centurion seemed to grow even taller and straighter, if that was possible. "Julian of Anvil. She single-handedly closed the Oblivion Gate and then led the way back into the city. She was a centurion in the Sixth Legion up in Skyrim, the Ironclads."

Teresa remembered her dream from the day before. Julian, Jauffre, and the young Imperial with his father's eyes, all making their way into the mountains north of Lake Rumare. Her head turned in that direction. Somewhere out there, in the peaks that rose far in the distance, they were there. Martin Septim, Jauffre, and Julian of Anvil - The Hero of Kvatch.

"Bruma…" Teresa muttered, "it's Bruma up that way right?"

"Yeah, that's where we're headed, Bruma," the centurion said. "Almost all the Fifth is going there. The Elder Council called up all the battlemages in Cyrodiil, so we'll have the Mages Guild with us. The Fighters Guild too. The next time we'll be ready."

"The next time?" the wood elf asked, eyebrows furrowing together.

"It's not over yet kid," the centurion rumbled. "It won't be until we've hunted down every last one of those fetchers and nailed them to crosses."

Teresa shuddered in spite of herself. She had seen that before. Not the aftermath of the necromancer's rough work, but the real thing, as it happened, taking people days to die. It was always outside the Market Gate, where the Imperial Legion hanged murderers as well. But hanging was only for people who killed an ordinary citizen, she knew. Those who killed a patrician, or a legionary, had four nails and a cross waiting for them…

"Until then you better be careful, without us doing our regular patrols the bandits are going to start getting bold." The soldier gestured at the blackened and scorched mess of Teresa's cuirass. "Looks like you've already found that out."

Teresa looked down at herself. Now that she saw it in the light of day, she found that her armor was in a worse state than she had imagined. It was amazing what only a few lightning bolts could do, she thought. She was going to have to get it repaired, or buy a new suit. Looking back up, she found that the centurion was on his way again, cursing a blue streak as he jogged his way back to the head of the column.

Teresa stood there for a long time as the soldiers marched by. They just kept coming, with more standards, trumpeters, and even mules loaded down with equipment filing past her. There were even people who were clearly civilians scattered between the rank and file legionaries, carrying equipment. It was as if a vast snake - or a dragon - was winding its way down the road.

With no end of the dragon's tail in sight, Teresa turned her gaze behind her. The hills rose to a high ridge, and somewhere far behind them was Cheydinhal. Since there was no way she was going down the road with the Imperial Legion on it, she lifted her gear and headed east.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 12 2011, 10:32 PM