WG- Another Shadow Over Hackdirt Options

[Elisabeth Hollow]

I apologize for clogging the free-roaming Wobbly Goblet thread with our mission, as neither of us thought about making another thread(Until I did this morning.)

Once we get a hold of an Admin, we'll see abut putting the rest of the mission here. Until then our Hackdirt posts will be kept here.

[Darkness Eternal]

Arentus knelt down and picked up a bottle that he did not remember any of the Brethren carrying. She must have dropped this . . .

He opened it and sniffed the contents. It smelled like poison, and the label said paralysis.

Arentus unsheathes his rusty blade, pours the liquids upon his blade and opens the gate with the key stored in his boot. The man before him did not move. He didn’t even flinch.

He’s confident.

****

Draken laughed inside his head, mocking the man with his eyes. He read the label from afar. What good will that poison do? He sees the rusty blade in his hand and wonders, will that thing even cut me?

And with Kayla free from sight, with none of the savages near his cell, Draken only waits for the man to make his move. Anticipating the look on that depression-colored face when it registers confusion of poison not working or a rusty blade not doing what it’s meant to do.

So when the man attacked Draken and ran him through with a shortsword, he almost laughed and nearly sought to kill him then and there except when . . . his legs lost their touch. His hands, followed, too. His entire body went limp and though he could manage to move a bit . . . the paralysis worked against him. Never in his four hundred years.

Impossible! What sorcery is this?

He slumped backwards into the fetid chamber of his cell. Arentus standing over him.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“An enemy from the past.” Draken’s answer came slowly. The poison clouded his mind, dulling his focus and concentration.

The words were a bit slurred, and it was impossible to read anything into the flat, emotionless tone. Arentus couldn't tell if he actually recognized him, or if he was just making a generalization based on the fact that he had taken him prisoner.

“My name is Arentus. You came here years ago and burned this village. You entered my house and you killed my mother,” he told him. He wanted him to know. He wanted him to understand who had done this to him.

“Is this revenge for her,” he asked after a long moment, the poison making his mind lethargic, “or for what I did to this town?”

“Both,” he replied, sticking the blade further in Draken’s shoulder.

His eyes rolled back in his head and his teeth slammed shut, narrowly missing his tongue.

“Do you see the kind of punishment I can inflict on you, outsider?” he asked. “Now do you understand what it is like to be at the helpless mercy of another?”

He didn't answer right away. His breathing was ragged, his face and hands covered in sweat from the potion.

“You have nothing to teach me,” he gasped. “I understand suffering in ways you will never fathom.”

“Why did you return?” Arentus asked, pulling out the blade and holding it in front of Draken to see.

“I am here to make an investment.”

Arentus stabbed him once more, and repeated three times before stopping. He expected him to pass out from the pain, but somehow he managed to stay conscious.

“Don’t lie to me,” he warned him.

“I tell the truth,” he insisted, though his voice was so weak he could barely hear him.

“You haven’t aged. How is this possible?”

“You’re mother was weak,” the man muttered. “She cowered in submission before I turned your house to ash.”

Arentus raised the blood-dripping blade.

“This won't bring your mother back,” he said. “But it feels good, does it not? The power. The dominance.”

“You’re not enjoying this. I want you to see what it's like to be helpless and afraid,” Arentus hissed. “I want you to understand what it's like to be a victim.”

“Quite the hypocrite,” Draken said through whispers as he lay frozen. “You prey on the innocent and offer their blood to your deities. You of all people should understand the weak will always be victims.”

Arentus was quiet for a moment. The man before him was not like other soldiers fighting for justice or honor. This man was impassioned by something else and Arentus knew what it was.

“Always will be dominated,” he added, his voice growing stronger. “That is the way of life. The will of Lord Molag Bal. The strong take what they want and the weak suffer at their hands. That is their doom; it is inevitable. Only the strong survive, because only the strong deserve to.”

“You only believe that because you don't know what it's like to suffer.” Arentus barked.

“I understand what it means to suffer,” he replied, his words no longer thick and slurred. “I used to be a victim. But I refused to accept my lot in life. I made myself strong.”

There was a blast of fire somewhere in the cavern. The altmer woman was still fighting, but Arentus was focused on the man before him. Drops of blood from the gashes on his shoulder fell from his chin and splashed to the cavern floor.

Draken raised his cold eyes to Arentus. "Those who are weak have no one to blame but themselves. They do not deserve pity; they are failures because of their own faults.”

“But it doesn’t matter how strong you were!” Arentus said, suddenly giving in. “You’re still are a prisoner at my mercy.”

Only because I willed it so, Draken thought. To Arentus, he said: “This is the way of life,” he countered, a fierce crimson burning in his eyes. “If I am not strong enough to escape, I will continue to suffer until I die. But if I am strong enough to escape…"

Arentus slammed his shortsword into Draken’s wound and turned around.

“You will never leave this dungeon alive,” he promised as Draken’s eyes lolled over and his head remained staring up. “We’ll give the woman’s blood to the Deep Ones when we catch her, and then you’ll be next. You wanted to know about them? You'll get what you desire."

The man left and locked the cavern as Draken remained there. Paralyzed and wondering just how in Coldharbour’s name such a thing happened. He realized just how dangerous Kayla is, and just how important it was for her to be destroyed.

Feeling slowly returned to him, as his pureblood began to counter the effects of the poison by divine blessing, and he managed to move a finger, then a hand then an arm and soon enough his entire body felt normal. He yanked the blade from his shoulders and blood started to seep from the wound. But he didn’t fret. There was no tissue that could be repaired with a bit of feeding or a bit of energy-draining.

If she survives these creatures, I'll have to kill her myself. Meridia be damned.