Old Habits Die Hard Part Three, The old dog practices new habits Options

[haute ecole rider]

Here is the first of a third thread for Old Habits Die Hard. I appreciate all of you staying with Julian and I this far, and hope you stick with us to the end!

For those who want to go back to the beginning, here you go:
Old Habits Die Hard Chapters 1 - 7
Old Habits Die Hard Chapters 8 - 13

[haute ecole rider]

@treydog: For a long time I wondered how Julian would find Sheo’s shrine - after all, there is no one in the game that tells you where to find it. I hate the game compass that shows landmarks as you pass them by, even though they’re not visible. Julian isn’t psychic! Then during one of my playthroughs, Gwinas’s comment just turned on the light bulb, and I knew that’s how! I went back and added a sentence about why Julian went to check out those scruffy folks on the bridge to Fort Redman.

@hazmick: Yes, you must have dealt with OSHA in the past! I agree that the worshippers are nuttier than most folks in the SI. Go figure.

@mALX: I’m glad you love this quest! Personally, as someone whose job is to take care of animals, this is one of my least favorites. The senseless killing of rats, sheep and dogs just don’t sit well with me. Julian doesn’t like it either, as you’ll see.

@Acadian: I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again - Paint carries the spirit of my beloved old mare, who passed away last year in March. She had a ton of personality, and often would do little things such as I have described Paint doing, one of which is the tendency to shake herself at appropriate (or inappropriate?) points in a conversation!

@SageRose: It’s funny you should make that comment about romances. Most of what I write are romances - just in the guise of espionage, science fiction, fantasy and historical genres! I love the romance in Robert Ludlum’s novels, and in some of the Korean sageuk I’ve been watching lately. As for Julian, right now she’s too focused on her job to think about romance! Don't worry, it'll come and smack her on the back of the head one of these days.

@Olen: Sheo a fluffy bunny of a Daedric Lord? I don’t think so! TBH I much prefer Azura.

@Winter Wolf: I am delighted that you enjoyed Julian’s stay in Bravil and getting to know Marz.

I know many of you are hoping Julian will tell Sheogorath off. However, both she and I know all too well the futility of reasoning with insanity, especially that of Daedric Lords. So, sorry.

*******************
Chapter 14.4 Sheogorath’s Reward

S’thasa set the rarebit platter in front of me. I sniffed at the aromatic cheese and glanced askance at her. “The house specialty,” she bragged. “My yellow sheep’s cheese is the best in all of Cyrodiil, and Elsweyr, too!”

Cautiously, I tasted the rich dish. The bread was fresh and nutty, complementing the hint of ale and the mustard I could taste in the savory cheese sauce. My empty belly ceased its complaining at the first bite. “Hmm!” I couldn’t help myself. The Khajiit innkeeper smiled, her fangs gleaming in the soft lamplight of the common room.

“We have a fine collection of cheeses herre,” she purred. “It’s been a hobby of mine for yearrs. I've collected cheeses from all over Tamrriel, including the rrare Olrroy cheese!”

“Olroy?” I repeated. “Is it special?”

S’thasa drew herself up, indignant at my uncivilized ignorance. “A morre pungent cheese you'll neverr find. It looks smooth, but it stinks to the heavens and beyond! I keep it locked away tight.” She gestured toward the display cases near the entrance. I had noticed them when I first entered the Border Watch inn. “If I were to trry cooking with it, the smell alone would drraw rrats for miles! It's a lovely converrsation piece, though."

Something clicked in my mind. Rats. They carry bloodlung, bone break fever, and quite a few others. Plague of Vermin, maybe? I recalled Ri’bassa’s words. “It has been told from our fathers, and our fathers’ fathers, that our time in this place will come to an end. My great-great-great-grandfather, K’sharra, foretold of a time when the gods would send us three signs to signal the end of the world.” Ri’bassa had mentioned the Plague of Vermin, in which the town would be overrun by disease carrying beasts. “Rats, I imagine. Filthy creatures. I always keep a few packets of powerful poison around just in case.”

I had to figure out how to attract rats, and how to kill the sheep. I hated the thought of killing the innocent beasts just to please a Daedric Lord. Better than blood sacrifice of man, mer or tailed beast-kin. Though I knew many folks considered Argonians and Khajiit to be less than humans or merkind, I had fought too many of them, and alongside them, to think them less intelligent than myself.

The rats might be too easy. The Olroy cheese would attract them, as S’thasa had said, once I put it in the communal pot just outside the inn. “The second sign,” Ri’bassa’s voice echoed in my mind again, “is the Plague of Famine. All our livestock will fall dead in their fields. But we only have the six sheep, and we take very good care of them.” But how to kill the sheep? Would Ri’bassa leave poison out for the rats? Would any remaining poison be sufficient to kill all six sheep at once? Would such poison leave any tell tale signs? How to get the poison into each of these creatures at the same time? Do I even have to kill the sheep?

I spent the rest of the day sitting in S’thasa’s inn, drinking her strong tea, trying to think of ways to bring on the second sign without killing the sheep. As the night grew late, I rented a room from the innkeeper and retired for the night. I did not sleep, however, but sat on the bed, listening to S’thasa move around as she closed up for the night. Finally the inn fell silent as the female Khajiit went to bed.

Slipping my leather boots off, I crept out of my room into the foyer. First I set the boots down silently next to the door, then I moved to the display cases. One held three different cheeses, and the other, only one. The first case was unlocked, and when I opened it, the mingled aromas were pleasant, not stinky as S’thasa had described.

The second case was locked. I pulled out one of my lockpicks and stroked the lock, counting the tumblers. Five! This has to be the prize. It took me several minutes, and three broken lockpicks, to raise those tricky tumblers and release the lock. Any remaining doubt that this was the rare Olroy cheese disappeared as I swung the case open. The fetid aroma smacked me in the face with the force of a zombie slap. I cringed to touch it with my bare fingers, and dug into my cuirass for a field dressing, something I had begun carrying with me since my trial at Fort Grief. Tearing off a strip of linen, I folded it on itself, and covered the cheese with it before picking it up.

I carried it out the door, my leather boots in my other hand, and dropped it into the fire. The now foul-smelling linen strip was tossed into the fire and I replaced my boots. As the cheese bubbled and melted, the odor wafted on the cool night air, pervading everywhere. I stifled a cough and began breathing through my mouth. Gripping the pot handle, I took it off the fire and set it on the cobblestones of the terrace. Then I withdrew into the night. The terrace wall provided a good place to sit and watch.

Chirrups and squeaks alerted me to the arrival of the small brown rodents. A dark shadow swarmed up the central stairs that bisected the small community, broke apart into rats that headed for the fire. They gathered around the pot, squeaking as they devoured the cheese that had drawn them. Amazed at the sheer numbers, I remained frozen in place. The odor of the cheese dissipated in the soft night breeze that sighed down from the ridge above the village.

Light flickered in the window one of the small houses near the bottom of the stairs. It spilled across the cobblestones as the door opened and closed. Ri’bassa’s black-robed form dashed up the stairs, wading into the mass of rodents. He placed several packets he carried in his arms around the upper terrace, hissing angrily at the rats whenever they brushed against him. He stepped back and watched.

Remaining where I sat unseen, I also watched as the rats, their appetites stimulated by the melting cheese, turned onto the packets and tore them open, devouring the powder within. Within minutes, silence settled over the community as the rats succumbed swiftly to their fatal meal. When the entire swarm lay dead, Ri’bassa turned from the cooking fire and returned to his home.

When his house was dark again, I rose and returned to the cooking fire. By its light, I picked out the few remaining packets that had not been devoured by the rodents. The remaining poison gathered, I turned for the sheepfold to the south.

The pale forms rested around the enclosure, barely visible in the shadows beneath the night sky. Their eyes reflected the faint moonlight as they watched me approach the manger in the center. I pulled some fodder from the nearby hay bale, placing it into the wooden trough. Then I sprinkled the powder over the top of the fragrant stems.

As I left the sheepfold, I glanced back to see the six creatures float slowly toward the manger. I latched the gate, and leaned my arms on the top bar to watch them. They picked at the hay, each woolen beast nibbling at a few stems, before they meandered away. Did they ingest enough of the poison? They didn’t seem to care much for that meal. My hopeful doubts were brutally smacked when first one, then another of the sheep collapsed in mid-stride. Before long, all six lay sprawled in grotesque imitation of the rats around the communal cooking fire.

“You’ve done well, mortal.” Sheogorath’s voice wafted on the night breeze, and I flinched away from the gate. “I’m amused, I think. Go to the center of the town. And be certain to duck!” Shame sour in my mouth, I limped up the steps from the sheepfold to the upper terrace, then started down the central stairs. At the middle terrace, I stopped and looked around at the sleeping town. A sense of foreboding grew over the settlement as the night sky above transformed into the red and black storm clouds I knew so well from the Deadlands. As I looked up, dark forms, trailing fire and agonized howls, began to fall from an incredible height. I winced involuntarily as they landed around me with sickening sounds of shattering bone and splattering tissue. Horrified, I stared at the charred bodies of dogs scattered over the cobblestones.

Lights came on in the various houses, and Khajiiti bolted out. Screams and hisses pierced the night when they saw the smoking bodies. Panicked shouts of the end of the world stabbed at my heart as they ran past me toward the communal fire. The residents ignored me, and I took opportunity to slink away, my soul heavy.

***********

Depressed, I returned to the Shrine in the predawn light. “Good times, good times,” the Daedric Prince’s voice sounded gleefully. “I hope you had as much fun as I did. Here take this. It’s a fun little toy. Now go away. Before I kill you.”

A heavy staff, about two meters long, shimmered into being and dropped to the ground in front of me. Picking it up, I could feel power thrumming in its shaft. Fighting my revulsion, I slung the thing on my back and turned away from the Shrine. Again, I nearly bumped into Ravel.

“You’ve pleased the Madgod!” he exclaimed. “You must be proud of yourself. I, for one, still would like to eat your eyes. But, good for you!” I stared at him, then stepped past him, anxious to leave the Grove of Madness behind for good. “Drunk with madness!” he called after me. “Madness for all!”

By the Nine, I thought to myself, fighting the nausea that surged in my throat. I never want to deal with another Daedric Lord again. If they’re all that crazy, or evil as Mehrunes Dagon - I shook myself back into the present and made my way carefully down the rocky slope, returning to where Paint still waited beside the Wayshrine as the sun rose over the trees on the opposite bank.

**************

We reached Bravil in the late afternoon, I decided to stop for the night, and let Paint rest up. Imperial City lay a day’s ride to the north, and Bruma yet another day. I didn’t want to push Paint too hard. Stabling him at the Bay Roan, I gave Bienne a septim for his care, gathered my gear, and headed into the city.

Again, I had dinner at the Mages Guild. Aren tried goading me again, but I ignored him, too preoccupied with bringing the Daedric artifact back to Martin, and recovering Ardaline’s Mage Staff. Carandial was not present to distract me with his crooked smile. In a way, I was relieved. His solicitous attention towards me was more than a little - unsettling.

As the other mages dispersed after dinner, Kud-Ei spoke my name. Turning to look at her, I caught her gesture to sit beside her at the head of the table.

“You’re very quiet, tonight, Julian,” she said quietly.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind, ma’am,” I answered.

“Aleron Loche?” Kud-Ei poured a cup of hot tea from the pot, pushed it towards me, then refilled her own. I didn’t answer. Can’t tell her about Martin, or this staff of Sheogorath’s I’m carrying. “From what I undersstand, you couldn’t sstop him from being killed, even if you tried.”

“That’s just it,” avoiding Kud-Ei’s gaze, I sipped at the warm tea. “I did try, and I failed. And a street thug nearly killed me.” Shaking my head, I set the cup down with a soft clink. “There was a time when I would have shrugged him off without trying.”

“What you mean, ‘shrugged him off?’” Kud-Ei asked, her voice curious.

“Put him down,” I answered. “Killed him easily.”

“And what wass different thiss time?” Kud-Ei dropped a cube of raw sugar into her tea, her spoon making soft clinking noises as she stirred it. Her eyes remained on her cup when I glanced at her.

I leaned back in the chair, keeping my left hand cupped around the warmth of my tea. “It was hard,” I spoke slowly. “Though I remember how to fight, my body couldn’t keep up.”

“Then how did you manage to closse two Oblivion Gatess?” Kud-Ei stopped her stirring and tasted her tea.

“I hid a lot,” my eyes closed against the memory, I recalled my journeys through the Deadlands. “I moved slowly, looked before I entered each new area, and used the shadows. I used my bow a lot to keep them at a distance. I couldn’t do that so easily in the Hunter’s Run.” I met the Chapter head’s gaze. “It’s different when the enemy is charging you in close quarters.”

“How long have you been addicted to drink and sskooma?” The Argonian’s voice turned soft.

I considered the question. My first impulse was to refuse to answer. But Kud-Ei honestly seemed like she was trying to help, not remind me of my shortcomings. “I started drinking too much right after my discharge,” I said finally. “The skooma started two years ago.”

“Sso the addiction iss a fairly new thing,” Kud-Ei mused, taking another sip of her tea. “When you were in the Legion, you were young, sstrong, and healthy, correct?”

“And now I’m old, broken down, and sick,” I responded dryly. Kud-Ei shrugged.

“You ssaid it, not I,” she commented. “Sso why are you sstill fighting?”

“It’s the only thing I know,” I answered. “That’s why I joined the Mages Guild. I’m hoping to learn something new, so I can leave the fighting behind.”

“But it’ss turning out harder than you expected, no?” The Argonian looked into her cup, then refilled it again. She waited while I sipped at my own tea.

“Hard to leave the fighting?” I echoed. “Yes, I suppose. It’s a tough world out there, and many people are struggling to survive. When they need a hero -” my voice trailed off when I realized what I was saying.

“You’re that hero for them,” Kud-Ei smiled faintly. I shook my head.

“I’m not a hero,” I responded, “but I can’t say no when they ask me for help, or when they need help of the sort I know how to give them.” I rose to my feet. “That’s why I keep fighting, I guess.”

“Thesse are uncertain timess, indeed,” Kud-Ei remained seated. I looked at her.

“Ma’am,” I said softly, “I need to rest. I’d like to leave early for the Imperial City in the morning. Unless you need something else -”

“No, Julian.” Kud-Ei drained her cup. ‘That will be all.” She rose to her full height and met my gaze. “Good night.”