Evolution, A TES Fan-Fiction Options

[Zalphon]

Prologue

3E 422

My eyes slowly opened to reveal bookcases lined with books, ingredients and trophies. I had fallen asleep in the Common House in the Wolverine Hall. This wasn’t that—it was something entirely different. The fungal walls were lined with book cases holding books, various alchemical substances and trophies.

I slowly forced myself into a standing position. The cold air hit me as soon as I managed to stand. The icy chill only bit into specific parts—it was as if invisible tendrils had a tightening grip on my body. The tendrils felt much more real when I tried to move my arms. They were completely immobilized by this abnormal cold.

A Dunmer garbed in flowing, ebon robes materialized out of thin air. Four others instantly appeared as well. The Dunmer stated with his raspy voice, “I am Lord Sarthon Kirth and you are in Tel Kirth.” My eyes widened slightly—Tel designated that I was in a Telvanni Tower.

“Bray-Hul demands to know why she is away from her master,” the Argonian questioned. My eyes took a quick glance to notice Bray-Hul was a relatively thin. Her tattered shirt hung off her as if she was only a skeleton and her pants were almost as loose.

“If I may explain,” Kirth responded. “You five are people no one will miss. You’re slaves, outlaws and paupers. This is why you have all been blessed with an opportunity to become Telvanni Wizards.”

The Nord to my right was a young man with shoulder-length blonde hair. He was breathing heavily and his face was flushed. “You damn dark elves are cowards,” the man blurted. “I’ll snap your spine like a skeever.” Sarthon shook his head and extended his open hand. He whispered something and out of his hand shot a bright chartreuse orb that slammed into the young man.

The Nord’s screams were sharp. I watched as the orb burrowed into his chest, dissolving his body as it went. As the screams continued, we all stood in silence as a puddle of viscera slowly formed at his feet. His entire body was eventually liquefied by the spell and then it just—disappeared.

“I do not appreciate threats,” the Wizard continued emotionlessly. “And you all need to learn the rules of what is going to occur over the next twenty-four hours. You’re going to be sent to the Canals beneath Vivec where you four will either kill each other or all die.”

“What—what are you talking about?” the Altmer Girl to my left said. “We…have to kill…each other?” Her voice was cracking as she struggled to say the words.

“You will all wear chokers. They are linked by your life force; if even two of you still live after twenty-four hours, then you’ll all be killed. If only one survives, you’ll be teleported back here and will gain the privilege of studying magic under me.”

What was the point of this game? What was he gaining out of this other than several corpses in the canals beneath Vivec? The Dunmer muttered under his breath and a black-metal collar appeared around my throat. One appeared around all of our throats. What was this thing?

There was a blinding flash of light and when I could see again, the world around me had changed. The bookshelves and walls had changed to a gargantuan metal pipe. In the center was a river slowly moving to its destination. Rats scurried around on the metal side-walks of the large pipe.

With a sigh, I knelt down and looked around for a tool to use in this fight. A skeleton with a steel stiletto between its ribs lay there peacefully. Next to it was a half-empty bottle with a label that was so old that it became too faded to read. And beside the bottle was a note that shared the same fate as the label. My hand firmly gripped the blade. The hunt had just began…

[Zalphon]

Chapter Three: The Telvanni Way

With each breath, I felt the burn of the icy air against my throat and in my lungs. I had been abandoned here by whatever entity brought me here. Either it had lost interest or it had what it wanted. Despite the discomfort of breathing, I eventually drifted to sleep.

It was right then that I stirred into the world of consciousness. It wasn’t the dark room, though. It was the bed that I had fallen asleep in, the one in Lord Kirth’s tower. Had it all been just a dream? Was it even possible for dreams to be so vivid—so real?

I sat up in the bed to see the Specter patiently staring at the Grimoire. “My pupil?” he asked as his faceless gaze moved to me. “Are you prepared to learn more?” He knew the answer and so did I. Ever since I had first touched the Grimoire, I didn’t want to stop learning.

“Of course, Seryn,” I said eagerly. In the corner, Thanryn was watching as he repeatedly struck his sword with his whetstone. His eyes told that something was bothering him, but I was afraid to ask. He distrusted the Specter.

When Seryn opened the book, it was to the same page that Mindfire had been on before. In place of the violet flame was something different. In the place of the violet flame hovered an ice sculpture of a hand. The palm was open and the fingers slightly curled as if it were reaching for something.

Knowing what he would say, I instinctively touched the hand. The icy touch against my chest stole my breath. My attempt to take a breath was denied by my lungs as they constricted tightly. I finally managed to take another breath after what felt like an eternity. “W-what was that?” I coughed.

“Frostbite. Your hands become colder than any winter you’ve experienced and you touch them to your adversary,” he explained. “Then you watch as their muscles tighten and they struggle to move.” He showed no remorse for the pain that it caused me. Why did I expect him to?

The words written around the illustration were: “Tangere ec Heims”. I closed my eyes and imagined what it was like before. The anger when I felt the punishing blow of a fist to my kidneys. Under my breath, I growled the words and touched the Specter’s gloved hand.

Before Seryn could react, the world around me changed. The beds, nightstands and chairs changed into bookcases lining the walls and Lord Kirth sitting at his exquisitely detailed, ebony desk. The strange, orange-skinned humanoid was holding up what appeared to be a rather heavy tome for Sarthon. Beads of sweat were forming on the humanoid’s brow as it struggled to hold the tome with its wiry arms.

“You’re to go to Ansurbas,” he ordered without his eyes moving from the tome. “It is there that you are to retrieve the Skull of Nelos Lethan.”

I reflexively took a step back. The thought of retrieving someone’s skull made me think I might have to take a life and I didn’t want to—not after what happened with the Altmer girl. “Who is this Nelos?”

“If I deemed it important to the success of your task, I would tell you. Alert your comrades, you have an hour’s time before I send you.” The tone of his voice was sharp. And as I turned around, I heard a loud thud.

“Apprentice, one final thing.”

“Yes, Master?” I asked as I turned around. The small humanoid had dropped the large tome and I could see the fear in his eyes. Those beady, black eyes showed that he knew something horrible was coming.

“Kill this scamp,” he ordered. “He has failed me.”

Just as I opened my mouth to protest, he interrupted, “Death will befall the Scamp or it will befall Thanryn.” The creature looked towards me and whimpered. My heart pounded against my chest with each step as I closed the gap between us. He knew his fate was coming.

When I got within range to freeze the life out of him, he pounced on me and began clawing at my chest. My robes ripped open from his sharp claws and I felt the rip of my flesh. “I’ll kill you,” I screamed in its face. “Tangere ec Heims!” My hand had a bright blue glow for a moment as I grabbed the Scamp’s throat.

The creature grabbed at its own throat and then just fell off of me. His eyes lost their vibrancy and instead took on a more glassy appearance. One that showed the life behind the eyes was gone. “I see you’re adapting to the Telvanni way of life well.”

“What do you mean?” I replied as I stood up. My eyes never moved from the corpse. I was ready to unleash a flurry of spells if it moved, but it didn’t. This time, I didn’t feel the same guilt. It just felt—normal. It felt like something I was supposed to do. In a twisted sort of way, it felt right.

“You chose to take the Scamp’s life as opposed to me taking Thanryn’s. You are beginning to understand that it is your right to choose who lives and who dies.” It took me a moment to understand what he was saying, but he was right. It had been less than a week since I earned the title of Telvanni, but I was already growing to be a fine member of the House. The thought should’ve been repulsing to be like Kirth, but it was comforting. It was good to know that I held such power.

I walked out without another word. My mind was in multiple places at once. Most importantly was Ansurbas, but also how quickly I had come to embrace this new life. Was this who I was becoming? And more importantly, was it a bad thing to embrace the Telvanni lifestyle so quickly?

Eventually, I found my way to my quarters again. Kneeling in the corner was Thanryn, holding the rosary in his fingers and whispering prayers to Vivec. Seryn looked up at me, “You extinguished a life?” In the corner of my eye, I noticed the Buoyant Armiger’s head dart up to me.

“It was the Scamp or Thanryn. I made the right choice.”

The Dunmer said nothing, but his eyes didn’t move from me. “I’m leaving for Ansurbas within an hour’s time,” I continued. “Lord Kirth seeks something and I am being sent to retrieve it.” Seryn and I turned around to watch Thanryn.

We watched as he placed the helmet onto his head. He looked around the room through the dark-glass goggles and nodded. Thanryn looked like an adventurer—no, a hero. The sword and dagger at his side and the chitin armor truly made him look like the archetypal hero that every Dunmeri child dreams of becoming.

Time seemed to pass slowly after that. I gently set the Grimoire into my knapsack and the three of us just sat there. We simply sat in silence for several minutes until I asked a question that randomly appeared in my mind. “Do you have any family, Thanryn?”

I didn’t need to see his face to tell there was a pained look. His head fell to the ground and he glumly replied, “A son.” His voice was wrought with remorse and that only amplified my curiosity. Had something happened to him?

“What’s his name? And is he okay?”

“Zalphon is his name and yes. He’s under the watchful eye of my best friend. They live out in Balmora.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

Seryn set a ghostly hand on my shoulder, but Thanryn just shook his head. “It is fine, Tamarion. She’s just curious.” The Specter lifted his hand and stared over towards Broodikus.

“I had to make sacrifices,” Thanryn muttered. “I was a Buoyant Armiger—I couldn’t betray my oaths, no matter how much I wanted to. When I was exiled, he had lived his whole life without knowing me—it wouldn’t have been right to just walk in.” His voice was pained, so I simply remained silent after that. We all remained silent.

Eventually the world seemed to change around us. Instead of fungal walls and beds, we were surrounded by a thin fog. About ten feet in front of us were stone steps covered with moss that descended to a large stone door. “Where are we?” the Buoyant Armiger asked.

I couldn’t respond; I was fascinated by this place. The door seemed to have no way to open, just a single handprint and beneath it: “Loyalty is truest when paid for in blood.” I took a deep breath and went to place my hand in, but it was pulled away.

“No,” Thanryn said as he placed his hand in the hand-print. I expected something to happen to his hand. A spell to be triggered or a knife to pop out, but nothing happened. The only thing that occurred was the door sliding open to reveal a hallway descending further into the ground.

No words were spoken as we walked in. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The windy hallway eventually led us into a large room, rectangular room. The walls were not stone as the others were; they were a beautiful reddish-black metal. Along the walls were alcoves.

“What is this place?” I asked in awe as I looked around. I looked through the alcoves and they all seemed to have the same thing. In the alcoves were inanimate skeletons dressed in robes. The robes fell into three colors: White, Red and Black. Most of them wore white robes stained with blood, two wore red robes and one wore a black robe. I could only assume the black-robed one was Nelos.

When I got no response, I turned around to see Thanryn. He was standing, completely statuesque. He looked like he had been afflicted with Scrib Poison, but there were no scribs here. We were the only ones here.

Suddenly his body jerked violently and he mumbled, “What—sorry?”

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You seemed to be—not entirely with us.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” I could tell he wasn’t fine, but I knew that pushing the issue would only irritate him. That wasn’t worth it. I inhaled deeply and looked around the room for anything else of note. The only thing of true note was a platform in the center of the room. It was table-shaped, but it was seamless.

On the platform was a single ruby, but it was the size of my fist and glistened even though this place was quite dim. “Do not touch it,” Thanryn warned. “It’s likely cursed.” I looked at it closer to see the lack of impurities made it look almost like a chunk of red glass.

“What do you mean?”

“Touch it and this may very well be our final resting place.” There was a pained sound in his voice again. I wanted to ask, but it didn’t feel right. I knew he’d snap, because he was already on edge.

Seryn pointed to opening in the alcove opposite of the one we came in through. It led to another hallway, but this one was made of the same metal as this room. Before I started my trek towards the next opening, I grabbed the skull of the black-robed one. “What are you doing?” Thanryn asked.

“Taking something for Lord Kirth—I think this is what he sent me for, but I want to find whatever else I can from here.”

“You can’t defile the dead like that—especially for him,” the Buoyant Armiger shouted at me. “Put the skull down.”

Disobediently, I tucked it into my knapsack. He said through gritted teeth, “Put. It. Down.” Anger was radiating off of him, but he would have to accept it. I was not going to betray Lord Kirth and risk losing the privilege to study from him.

“Don’t make me kill you,” he growled. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t let you defile the dead. I may have wished them ill in life, but everyone deserves to have peace in death.”

Seryn began to speak, but I interrupted. “Don’t threaten me, Thanryn—or I will kill you. And I am not you, my threats are not empty.” His sense of authority over me was going to be broken. He would either learn that I was his equal or this would be his resting place.

“I saved your life, Minx—put the skull down.”

“I’ll end yours—back off.”

He pulled off his helmet and let his hair fall down to his shoulders. I could see in his eyes that he was angry, but in a lesser way—worried. “I can’t let you,” Thanryn stated. “If you choose to walk down this path, then you will walk it alone.”

“Then leave,” I hissed. “I do not need someone who is too foolish to recognize that I am doing what’s best.”

“What’s best? You stand in a Shrine of Molag Bal, defiling bodies of his priests so that you can please Kirth. If you think this is what’s best, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“You don’t get it, do you? I am Telvanni. He is helping me grow more powerful than I ever would’ve been as a street-urchin.”

“I only met you a few days ago,” he sighed. “I saw you cry when you performed a mercy killing. Now you threaten to kill me where I stand, because I disagree with you. Is this the cost of power?” There were tears welling in his eyes. But why did he care? We had just met a few days ago. Why did it matter who I was?

“Why does it matter what choices I make?”

“Because,” he paused. “You matter because the world doesn’t need more Telvanni—it needs more people who care about one-another.” I watched a tear run down his cheek as he looked down. He moved his hands away from the hilts of the blades.

“Then the world will have to find someone else.” My voice was cold, but I didn’t want to give up my right to power. I wasn’t going to go back to being weak again. I was going to embrace what it meant to be Telvanni—it was my right.

Thanryn looked at me and let his head bob. “Okay, Minx,” he glumly mumbled as his hands moved back to the hilts of the weapons. As he unsheathed the blades, I cocked a brow and pulled out the Grimoire.

I opened it and saw Flare and Frostbite on two pages. “Mico de Ignis,” I shouted with an out-stretched palm. There was loud sound as the ball of flame slammed into his chest—pushing him to the ground.

“You don’t have to die,” I screamed. “Just quit.”

“I can’t,” he growled. “I can’t let you do this.”

I closed the distance and looked down at him. He was struggling to get back to his feet and I gently set my hand on his neck. “Tangere ec Heims,” I mumbled. The Mer fell down and I couldn’t fight the tears that fell down my face. I had frozen the blood in his jugular vein, his death was imminent.

I turned him over and held him in my hands. “I’m sorry,” I tried to say as my tears fell onto his face. The words just wouldn’t come out. And as I looked into his eyes one last time, they showed a sense of sadness. There was not a speck of anger or hatred, just sadness. Then they closed one last time in my arms as he rested on my lap.

“Goodbye, Thanryn Broodikus,” I whispered. “May you find the peace in death that you could not find in life.” For what felt like hours, I just sat there holding him. All I did was stare at his face and think about what I had done and if it was worth it.




This post has been edited by Zalphon: Aug 19 2012, 12:27 AM