A Conclave of Princes Options

[Colonel Mustard]

A Conclave of Princes

Part 1-The Call

Azura

Tick

Of all of the many secret places of Moonshadow, the meeting chamber that Azura stood in was the best hidden and least-known, so obscure and unknown it was not even myth.

Tock

Hidden from all prying eyes by spell and ward and ancient ritual, the room was built like an amphitheatre, a great tiered circle of white stone surrounding a single raised dais. Behind the dais was the clock, a ring of brass, silver and pearl, gleaming in the silvery light that illuminated the room. An engraved pendulum swung left and right with the passing of every second, delicate hands clicking as they moved, the cunning of its long-dead artificer and the spells he had laid upon it ensuring that it would keep time with perfect precision until Akatosh himself finally passed.

Tick

The chamber was empty but for one person, a woman clad in shining silver-white hooded robes, the garment woven from moonlight by blind seamstresses. Her face was three faces in one; that of a youthful maiden, of a kindly, smiling mother and of a wrinkled, wizened crone, all three of those at once and yet at the same time none. Her name was Azura, the Lady of Dawn and Dusk, and right now she was waiting and listening to the clock.

Tock

The timepiece itself had been a gift to her, made for her long ago by a Dwemer admirer, a clockmaker and timekeeper with skill beyond repair. She had honoured the generous donation by hanging it within this hall and, when he died, by taking his soul to her realm of Moonshadow that he might continue his craft forever more.

Ti-

The pendulum froze mid-swing, caught in the precise halfway point between one second and another. Azura took a moment to glance at it, and nodded. Her sacred time had come, the precise moment when day turned to a night of a crescent moon, a span of time so short that it could stretch to eternity. With a nod, the doors lined around the hall groaned open, and now that they had been invited to Moonshadow and into Azura’s secret eternity, the cats entered.

Untold numbers of them came, an uncountable army of the animals prowling through the doors. Fat, pampered lazy housecats trotted alongside scarred and battered strays who had lived every day of their lives on the vicious gauntlet of the streets, old cats wheezed their way in whilst kittens rolled and played around their paws. Short-haired breeds from Hammerfell came alongside the thick-haired cats of Skyrim and shared space with the elegant stock bred by the Altmer of the Summerset Isles, while the large desert wildcats of Elsweyr loomed over the animals around them. All of them had come by the secret routes known only to cats and the mistress they served, arriving in the time that was there only for them

Somehow, despite the millions of animals that entered the room, there was no struggle for space. The amphitheatre seemed to grow with its audience, expanding with its crowd as the cats went to their seats and waited. One or two greeted each other by tentative sniffing, and a few old friends that could meet only on this day; on one of the rings, a Hammerfell tom met the Valenwood tabby that he had bumped into in the last meeting, and was introduced to the litter of kitten he had fathered for the first time. There was no yowling, hissing or snarling between them, and even little in the way of normal, conversational mewling, the gathered assembly silent out of respect for their lady and mistress.

One by one, the cats began to form a line, and Azura took a knee as the first one approached. He was an Summerset breed, tall, lithe and proud, his white fur groomed with meticulous care, the tufts of hair on his ears twitching as he sauntered forward, as if speaking to a goddess were something he did every day. Azura bowed her head as he stopped next to her, and as she bowed it, the feline told of her of all the secret things he had seen. Once she had listened to his account, she nodded, and the cat trotted away, back home, and the next one took his place. She had the nervous enthusiasm of a newcomer, and her report was stammered out. As with the first, the Mother of the Rose listened to all she had to say, and when she was done, she dismissed it, briefly stroking her spy behind her ears before she went.

So it went on. Each cat gave their report, and each one was given equal time by Azura, and the lowliest of street cats was listened to with the same care and attention given to the sacred cats of the island nation of Laalket, bedecked as they were in their finery and jewels. Everything the Daedric Prince heard, she remembered and digested, and was added to her great libraries of knowledge, the books and shelves filling up as she listened.

Yet one cat, a feline who said she lived in a temple of the Nine as a mouser, told her something that gave her pause. After a moment, Azura instructed her to stay until her council with the other cats was finished, but all of the other information she heard was received with an uneasy frown. Even though the place she inhabited was timeless, the Lady of Dusk began to feel it drag, and she was glad when the final stragglers gave their news.

As the final cat made her way out, herding her kittens with her, Azura returned her attention to the feline that had given the news to her earlier. She asked the mouser to expand on what it was she had said, to give as much detail as she could remember. Azura quizzed her on where she had heard it, how the overheard conversation had gone, asked her to repeat it word for word to the best of her memory.

Finally, once she was satisfied that she had heard everything from it that she possibly could. She permitted it to leave. She watched it scurry out of one of the doors, back to the warmth of its basket by the hearth. For a few moments, Azura lingered in the chamber, debating her options. There only really one to take, she knew, but though it was necessary it did not make it one she wished to do so.

A gesture of a hand and a doorway appeared before her, gnarled oak in a white frame. She turned the knob, stepped through it, and disappeared. There was work to do on this night.

-ck

Behind her, the pendulum of the clock swung into motion once more.




So what's this? A 3-part story, each part divided into 18 chapters, each chapter following a Daedric Prince and one other mystery entity. Each part is a short one, between 900 and 1500 words (so I can hopefully update at a reasonable pace) and if you think of it as something like a shorter version of the Canterbury tales set in the planes of Oblivion you've got something akin to the right idea.

Do enjoy, do leave any comments or critique that you think are useful and do have a lovely day, my dear readers.

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Mar 10 2013, 10:28 PM

[Colonel Mustard]

Liz: I'm a Sheogorath fan too; easily my favourite of the Princes, and he was great fun to write!

McBadgere: Thanks! That chapter was probably the most fun to write so far, and Count Frostinius was one of those ideas where I thought of it and then just went 'yes. I'm making that a thing. Hells yes'.

Ghastley: Y'see, that's what you get when a stick-in-the-mud like Azura to organise a party; you miss the important things!


Thanks for reading, everyone, and hope you enjoy the next part!

Mehrunes Dagon

The air of this place burned.

Had she allowed herself the mortal frailty to do it, Azura would have choked and gasped upon the roasting air. Instead, she merely grimaced at the brimstone taste of it as she surveyed the lava-choked wastes of the Deadlands. The molten rock was peppered with islands of obsidian, and on them ruined castles and riven towers of barbed architecture stood or leaned at crazed angles like stumbling drunks. Fires blazed, belching black ash into the storm-wracked sky which was crisscrossed by lightning, and winds of hurricane force howled and rent at the land.

From her place on top of one of the ruined towers, Azura leant against the parapet and waited, drumming her fingers on the stone. From beneath her, there was a rumbling, a deep thundering noise, and she glanced over the edifice’s lip to see the pool of lava bubbling, spitting and churning as something began to rise beneath it.

A colossus in the shape of a four-armed man rose from the molten stone, a giant of liquid heat standing before the tower. The gradual cooling of the lava formed a skin, one that was cracked as if it had been burned by the sun, and small rivulets of molten stone dribbled down its outside from fresh cracks or bursting sores of magma. Two eyes of pure heat glared at Azura and with a voice that was accompanied by roiling waves of tectonic heat, Mehrunes Dagon spoke.

“Why have you come to my realm?” he asked in a voice that was the crashing of meteorites and the toppling of empires. “Explain yourself at once!”

“I’d be more impressed by all that heat if I hadn’t come from Meridia’s realm, you know,” Azura said. “Stop showing off, I want to talk to you.”

“Worm,” Mehrunes Dagon snarled. “Insolent little wretch. I am lord and master of this realm and as my guest you shall pay me the respect that I am due.”

Azura rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said. “Fine. Oh mighty Lord Dagon, master of destruction, overlord of anarchy, I come to extend invitation to you to come as guest to my realm of Moonshadow, for a meeting of great import, one at which your presence is greatly desired.”

“Your invitation is refused,” Mehrunes Dagon said.

Azura blinked in surprise.

“Why is that?” Azura asked.

In response, the Supreme Obliteration swept out his fist, smashing it into the side of the tower. Chunks of pulverised stone flew from the blow, and the building toppled, falling to the ground with a cloud of dust and a cracking rumble. Azura hovered in the air where she had stood, and Mehrunes Dagon rounded on her with a snarl.

“Your hypocrisy sickens me,” he growled, a dry wave of heat accompanying the words. “You trespass in my realm, deliberately fail to observe the necessary conduct and reverence I am due and then you have the gall to believe that I shall go to you when you call for me, as if I were some kind of dog. I refuse your summons.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Azura said, voice a growl. “You are attending. Every one of the Princes is coming, yourself included.”

“And I have informed you, I will not come to your summons as if I were a slave,” Mehrunes Dagon said.

“I don’t care,” Azura snapped. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve had to put up with today? It has been a damn nightmare, from start to finish; I’ve had both Mephala and Molag Bal trying to make me their captive, I’ve had to deal with going into Jygallag’s realm, Sanguine would not stop trying to get into my underwear the whole time I was in his realm and Sheogorath wanted me to talk to a damn snowman. So I am not in any mood for you start throwing a tantrum, do you understand? When I tell you to come to Moonshadow, you come to Moonshadow.”

“You will not address me in such a manner,” Mehrunes Dagon snapped. “I am Mehrunes Dagon, Lord of Destruction, Prince of Annihilation, Master of-”

“You’re a joke,” Azura said “You’re nothing but an idiot with delusions of grandeur whose schemes are continually thwarted by mortals. That is what you are. It makes me wonder why you bother any more.”

Mehrunes Dagon gave a roar and gestured with one of his four arms. Tracking his fingertip, a great wave of boiling lava rose, drowning the land in a cataclysmic tide of heat and fury, spitting gobbets of molten stone skywards as it topple towers and consumed castles. There were figures fleeing before the wall of heat, too slow to outrun it, Dremora, Scamps and other creatures that served Mehrunes Dagon consumed by the surge of pyroclastic fury. Azura quailed inwardly as she realised she had, in her frustration, pushed her host too far.

“Do you see that?” Mehrunes Dagon asked, turning his burning gaze back to her. “If I wished, I could tear this realm apart, annihilate it and all within it utterly. And yet, in but a matter of hours, it would all reform, as is the nature of Oblivion. This realm frustrates me endlessly, and I have longed for something I can destroy permanently. Unmaking Nirn would be the only thing that would let me fulfil my purpose and have satisfaction. I have the power here in my realm to smite you, rip you asunder and smash you to smithereens, but all that would happen is that you would reform again. You would be weakened, perhaps, but not for long. But if I were to destroy Nirn, then there could be no remaking and my existence would have true meaning. That is why I bother.”

Azura was silent for a few moments, unsure of what to say. Mehrunes Dagon was the one to break it.

“This meeting you are calling, this conclave,” he said. “What does it concern?”

“I will explain it to all of you in Moonshadow,” Azura said. “But I can tell you now that we may well need you to destroy something unique, something that can never again be recreated. And I need you to annihilate it so utterly that there will be nothing left to rebuild from.”

Mehrunes Dagon grinned with teeth that were glowing iron swords.

“I would gladly do such a thing,” he said. “If you had mentioned this earlier, I would have been much more eager to accept your invitation.”

“Perhaps,” Azura said. “So can I expect you in Moonshadow?”

“If there is something to permanently destroy involved in this little meeting of yours? Of course. Deliver me the glory of annihilation and I shall be sated.”