Niamh's Adventures in Nirn..., This is a thread featuring a digest of stories about... Options

[PhonAntiPhon]

NIAMH.
But first, who is she?
Well she's a character who I have been acquainted with for a very long time, and with whom I have travelled across many worlds.

She's a Wood-Elf, in Nirn terms - of about 30. She's very much her own boss, and not a terribly pleasant individual. She is, to employ a cliche, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". She's a hard drinking, promiscuous, authority-hating rebel with baggage enough and troubles enough to fill a volume of psychoanalysts' shelves.

She's maybe 5 feet 8 inches in height, very slender, with pale skin and long black hair and dark, chestnut eyes in deep sockets. She had a predilection for body-piercing and a bad-attitude to personal hygiene. She's a thief and an assassin and pretty much anything else that will garner her gold and a thrill.
In the Nirn universe - (Cyrodiil) - she lives principally in Bravil, but has a shack on the waterfront outside of the walls of the Imperial City, although she spends much of her time in a rather dysfunctional relationship with Jo, one of the local "courtesans", who you will not be reading about on here(!).
In Morrowind she was a loner who pretty much stumbled upon a destiny of sorts more by simply being in a certain place at a certain time than by design; whilst she arrived in Skyrim confused and somehow "altered", more feral and wild, as part of a story arc that started in Cyrodiil and ended back there amidst death and heartache.
Since then she has had a second chance, but is squandering it, reverting once again to type...

Throughout her adventures in Nirn - Morrowind, Cyrodiil, and Skyrim, her character has evolved and changed. She's taken on aspects of each of these variants to become something "other" than what she started as; more rounded, but far more complicated. The ultimate expression of that is in the world that she now inhabits - Varrius, a world created for her specifically, with it's own story arc and characters.
Anyway, that's by-the-by, for the nonce, this thread will have various stories and vignettes that I have written involving her, and the characters that she has interacted with, during the time that she has inhabited the Elder Scrolls universe.
(Only some of the stories are on here, as this is a 13-rated forum, and not everything I write is... suitable. For stories not on here, do feel free to visit Niamh's blog, in the signature.)

I hope you enjoy her stories, it's gives me a lot of pleasure to write them.

This post has been edited by PhonAntiPhon: Jan 19 2013, 04:22 PM

[PhonAntiPhon]

I have always been a little dissatisfied with the rather "normal" fashion in which the Vampire Patriarchs - (and Matriarchs) - are realised within the game, so I reinvented them.
This, then, is a story based upon Niamh's recent activities as a nascent Wampyre Hunter...

PATRIARCH

Well, Jenseric had tasked her with clearing out this particular nest of Wampyres and by Azura she had done just that, or almost.
There was one left, just one.

It had remained hidden, secreted away in the cold dark depths of the fort.
It had been quite a trial, and had taken her some considerable time; but Niamh had found the entrance to the inner sanctum eventually.

She'd finally located the way in at the end of a flooded, downward-sloping passageway barely taller than herself and only just wider.
The water at the end of the passage was cold and slimy, about thigh-high on her. The passage itself was pitch black, so dark that even the enhancing properties of her hood only provided vague red-tinged shadows and a generalised sense of her surroundings.
Far back uphill was flickering yellow firelight, from greasy torches burning in sconces in the room beyond the opening.

The passageway to the sanctum had been hidden behind a wall in the corner of the room, an old common room for the troops by the looks of it. The trigger mechanism for the secret door was located a fair distance up the wall in the opposite corner.
Niamh, having cleaned up the Wampyric guards and vassals whom she had found in the common room had found it necessary to pile up the, in some cases still twitching, bodies against the wall in order that she could climb onto them to reach the switch and thus trigger the door.
She'd winced at the screech from the ancient mechanism and dived into the shadows, unsheathing her wakizashi, as the sound echoed around the room and away down the corridor from which she had entered.

After a few moments, when it had become evident that she was to all intents and purposes alone, she had snuck up to the newly exposed opening.
The air in the passageway beyond was stagnant and still, smelling of mildew and wet decay. From somewhere far below came the thick sloshing of oily water in the darkness of what she could only presume was the end of the passageway, as some benighted cave-dwelling thing went about it's business.

Nevertheless, she grinned darkly.
"Gotch'e." She whispered under her breath, and taking only a moment to check the room again she drew a deep breath and gripped the hilt of her blade more tightly.
"Brace yersel'..." She said to herself, and plunged on down the passageway and into the thick, dank shadows.

----

And so here she stood outside of what she presumed must be the final door. It was evidently made of several thicknesses of solid, heavy dark wood, tinted darker still from hundreds of years of exposure to the filthy water that had pooled before it, and not least also from the permanently damp atmosphere of the passageway.
As far as she could tell the wood of the door was reinforced by rusty iron straps, rivetted in place and in the false light of her night vision, glistening sullenly.

Obviously the door was locked.
Closing her eyes she held out a hand, gloved palm facing the lock but not touching it, her long, bare fingers spread out in a fan-shape.
A moment of concentration...
...Nothing happened.
"Did'nae think so..." She muttered to herself. Belatedly she thought of how she should perhaps have practiced the whole "Opening Locks" thing a little more.

Pausing for a moment, she chewed at the ring in her lower lip and scratched absently at herself. Finally she rummaged in a pouch at her waist and dragged out an elaborately detailed key made from many tines and prongs.
As quietly as was possible she inserted it into the lock and slowly rotated it until she heard the thunk of the stubborn tumblers falling reluctantly into place.
Removing the skeleton key she stowed it carefully away once again - it had become possibly one of her most valued possessions.

Crouching behind the door, so it would provide some kind of shield, she oh-so-very slowly turned the handle and pushed it open. She was at once relieved at the apparent smoothness of it's hinges; but equally a little frustrated at the unavoidable sound of water running into whatever space was beyond it, from her side.
As the door opened, she detected a glow, flaring in her enhanced vision and when the gap was large enough she cautiously peered around the door, conscious that at any moment her reliance on subterfuge and stealth to keep her brains inside her skull could turn out to be terminally misplaced.

She had to squint. The light in the chamber that opened out beyond the door, amplified by the effect of the hood, was intense.
She grabbed at the hood and pulled it off of her head, stuffing it inside her armour for the time being. Immediately the light dimmed to a lambent red glow that wavered and pulsed slightly, almost in waves, like ripples in a bay or a lake.
Once she had become more used to the light, she took in the chamber.
"Well, there's interestin'" She murmured, raising an eyebrow.

The room itself was unremarkable, the door through which she was looking was upon a ledge at one end of it, this ledge dropped into a dip or gully, relatively shallow, before climbing steeply again up the other side to an area as equally rough and rocky as the one upon which she found herself.
Shadows were harsh in the glow within the chamber and the contours of the rocks that were strewn about the space were outlined in sharp relief.
But for one thing the chamber would have been utterly deserted; however this one thing - it's sole occupant - came to demand her full attention.

----

Suspended above the barren floor of the gully, maybe twenty feet in the air, was a man-like figure. It was facing towards her and was naked. She could that it was very obviously, and had she been of a different persuasion, eye-wateringly masculine.
This, then, was the Wampyre Patriarch. Tall and slim, yet well-muscled, his body toned and tight as a drum, his skin smooth and clear.
His face was directed straight ahead of him, the features angular in strangely animal sort of a way, the lips thin and hard; the nose long and narrow, matching his chin.
His eyes were closed, and were set deep in their sockets beneath dark brows. Long and thick, his hair fell around his face and shoulders in luxuriant black tresses.

Even to Niamh, a woman for whom men were a largely undiscovered and unnecessary addition to an already complicated world, he appeared outwardly perfect, and yet...
...underlying that perfection; his arms were rather too long, they hung down by his sides depending, almost at his knees, in large long-fingered hands the palms of which were turned forwards, facing her.
He had only two fingers and a thumb on each hand, each digit terminating in a black-coloured sharp-looking nail or claw.
Likewise his legs, slender and smoothly-muscled as they were, seemed too long and ended in large feet each with three, clawed, toes.

She realised also that his body was the source of the lucent red light by which she studied him, and which in turn illuminated the chamber about them both.
She noticed also that there was a curious scent in the room; vaguely floral in nature but with an underlying sickly carrion sweetness to it.

With her eyes fixed on the figure before her, suspended within a light of it's own making, she crept stealthily into the chamber, ensuring that the door by which she entered was not fully shut.
Cautiously she sheathed her wakizashi and with exagerrated slowness unshouldered her bow and silently plucked an arrow from her quiver.
The arrows that she favoured had a virtue of Shock placed upon them and she felt a pulse of energy run through her hand and up her slender arm as she set the arrow to the catgut string of the bow.

Taking in a deep, quiet breath and holding it, she drew back the bow.
"Nice an' slow, keep it neat..."

The Wampyre opened his eyes.
They looked At Her, Into Her.
"Gah...!" She gasped.

The arrow dropped from her nerveless fingers and clattered onto the floor of the ledge. Her bow likewise slipped from her grasp. Unable to help herself, she sat bonelessly down cross-legged on the rocky floor with a thump, her arms lying limply in her lap.
She tried to move her body but seemed to be unable to control her limbs.
All she could do was stare at the creature, suspended in the air before her. Her mouth was hanging slackly open and she felt a thin trickle of saliva run out of it and dribble down over her lower lips and chin.
"Unh..." She said.

The Wampyre Patriarch regarded her, his eyes a deep and rich purple. They were not cruel as such, but they were piercing and hard and flint-sharp.
She felt the temperature of the chamber drop, a wave of frigid air seemed to wash out from him. Her breath steamed from her nose and mouth, the small hairs on her arms stiffened and came erect.
Desperately, in her mind, she fought to release herself.

The Patriarch raised his long arms until they were straight out from his shoulders, perpendicular to his tight body, the palms, now sideways, still directed at her.
The red glow flowing from him became deeper, its pulsing more insistent and pronounced. Niamh's head began to ache.

He moved silently through the air towards her, his body descending until he touched lightly down upon the rocks of the ledge some ten or fifteen feet away from her.
As he had moved closer to her, her sense of paralysis had seemed to increase, but to alter also, such that it now felt as if she were being crushed into the chamber's stony floor by some massive implacable weight that radiated outwards from him.

He stood before her for a moment; silent, still.
Then he smiled.
His mouth widened until it seemed as if it would split his face clean in two, the corners of it spread up almost to the long fleshy lobes of his ears, half-hidden as they were by his thick hair.
His lips pulled back revealing teeth, far too many teeth; marble-white, long and needle-sharp. A thin black tongue flickered out between them for a second, and was withdrawn.

"You Have Done Well, To Get To Me In This Place." He said.
His voice seemed to come to her ears from far away, down through some vast gulf of time; breathy and sibilant, empty of warmth and dismal as a winter wind soughing through lonely pines on some snow-dusted hillside.
"Urg, uhh." She struggled to speak, her mind screaming at her body to respond, tears starting from her eyes with the useless effort.

The Wampyre-thing regarded her intently for a long moment, seeming as he did so to lean impossibly forward towards her, until his hard, perfect face appeared over hers.
"You Are Strong, Little Elf." He said at length. She looked up at his face, into his purple eyes. She had no choice.
He bared his teeth at her again and the pressure holding her down increased to near unbearable levels, she slumped backwards onto the ground, the back of her head thudding painfully against it, her back bent awkwardly over her quiver.
She wheezed, struggling to draw air into her aching, compressed lungs; unable to take her watering eyes off of him, they felt dinnerplate-sized in her skull.

"Move! Curse Ye!" Screamed her brain, but her body was as a dead thing. There was no response from it.

Above her the Patriarch chuckled, his laugh the dry whisper of dead leaves on barren ground.
"I Applaud Your Efforts, Little Elf." He sighed. "But They Are In Vain. I have Lived Long Ages Past."
His face pulled back away from her, the pressure on her slim body lessened slightly and she drew a deep, hoarse breath down into her air-starved lungs.

The Wampyre cocked his head to one side, observed her as a cat might look at a bird or other small creature that it has caught for it's pleasure.
"You Will Not End My Time, No." He hissed quietly, snake-like. "It Is Not My Time."
His eyes burrowed into her for a long, long moment.
"I Have Foreseen The Manner Of My Death, Little Elf, And It Is Not By Your Hand." He continued at last. "But Neither Will You Die By Mine. No." His mouth spread in a wide, half-amused grin. "Your Time Will Come, Niamh Esher, But Not Yet."
Again a pause.
"Not In This Place."

He turned his face away from her then.
The scent of flowers grew stronger in her nostrils.
"Leave..." His voice was the faintest susurration, a suggestion of a word.

Still with his face turned away from her, the Wampyre Patriarch extended one large hand towards her, palm outwards, three fingers spread wide.
"Leave..."
The floral smell became hugely cloying; a sudden intense crushing pain closed around her body, finally forcing a shriek of agony from her dry throat.
The world went black around her and a feeling of being dropped as from a great height lurched in the pit of her belly.

----

She landed hard on cool, grassy earth, birdsong painfully loud in her ears.
She stumbled up onto her feet but dizziness and nausea immediately overwhelmed her and she fell forwards onto her hands and knees, jolting her shoulders painfully.
For a moment she breathed raggedly, and then was violently sick into the grass between her hands.
Head down and spitting out sour bile, she stayed staring at the ground, breathing harshly through her nose.

At length she sat up, kneeling on the grass, hands on her thighs.
She shook her aching head and looked across some three hundred yards of bare earth to the door of the fort whose dark foundation she had only moments ago been within.

Wiping her mouth with the back of a still-trembling hand she looked up squinting into the clear blue sky, and at the bright, shining orb of the sun.
"Gods, " she whispered to herself, "but was somethin' different, so 'twas..."

Then, thoughtfully, she directed her gaze back to the door of the fort, narrowing her eyes.

"I'll decide when 'tis my time to go, thank ye. " Then she grinned and looked around for her bow.

"And when 'tis yours, too."

--END--

This post has been edited by PhonAntiPhon: May 22 2013, 06:12 PM