Zalphon's Drabbles, A Collection of Short Stories Options

[Zalphon]

The Bonelord of Samarys
By Odral Uvirith, Underpriest Diviner

The life of an Underpriest is one of service to those who have left this life for the next in all its forms. We are those who prepare their remains for eternal rest within the Tombs and those who stand vigilant in those tombs against those who would dare defile them or seek to take from them the treasures left behind, but there is more to the Underpriest than being curators of the fallen. We are also caretakers of those who guard these tombs and we are the ones who enact justice against those who defile them and put to rest those whose slumber has been hindered. It is a calling that few understand and even fewer embark upon, but that calling is one of our most sacred traditions and important duties.

You may wonder why I elaborate so thoroughly on what it is to be an Underpriest before I begin my story about my encounter with the only bonelord I ever underestimated—my best friend; I do this to remind you that the topic we are about to embark on is not one to be taken lightly. The Bonelords are not like other undead you will see within the Ancestral Tombs and should not be considered as such. There is a saying that one rogue bonewalker is one Underpriest’s problem, but one rogue bonelord is every Underpriest’s problem. That is because there is a qualitative difference between these two types of undead. The Rogue Bonewalker is akin to the rabid beast; it is in pain and lashes out at whatever crosses its path without forethought, but the Rogue Bonelord is not a creature tormented by pain of that regard; it is a creature whose ambition has grown beyond that of the tomb he presides over. You can contain a rogue bonewalker by sealing the tomb until it can be put to rest, but a rogue bonelord knows no bounds. It is gifted with magical aptitude and it will project itself beyond the tomb in an astral form or it will simply turn the walls of the tomb to dust and leave that way. Do not underestimate the Bonelord or you will serve it in death as I nearly did.

I recall a time when I was a Curate that I was pulled from my tomb with news that my mother had fallen deathly ill with blight and that it had progressed too far to be cured; it was the last chance I would get to see my mother and I took it to say my goodbyes to her. I cherished these moments until I returned to my tomb, Samarys Ancestral Tomb, to find the signs of break-in by a few adepts seeking to prove themselves as ‘true underpriests’. To intrude upon a tomb, especially while the curating underpriest is absent is a grave violation of our order, and I intended to bring them before the Diviner myself for their disrespect, not only to me, but to the residents of this tomb and the Guardians who stood watch in my absence.

What I found was that I could not bring them before the Diviner because Dralen, the Bonelord who presided over Samarys alongside me, had already killed them and raised them as lesser bonewalkers. I could tell by the fact that their Adept pins were still on their bloodied robes. I was greatly troubled by this and Dralen did allow me to put them to rest, but he could sense I was troubled by this a great deal. Dralen and I had developed quite a friendship over the years that I had been a guest in his home and I considered him to be a trusted friend and even a mentor at times, despite this incident.

But the Temple was not pleased at the death of these Adepts and ordered Dralen be put to rest. I pleaded before them to show mercy—that Dralen was not responsible and he had only done as I had asked him to do, but they would hear none of it. When I refused to enact their execution, the Diviner sent a new curate to take over my watch at Samarys and decided that it would be better if I handled the cremations for the time being, because as he put it, “I had lost sight of what is important.”

Little happened at first, but the weeks did go by and I overheard talk that the new curate sent to replace me was dead. He had been stripped of his flesh except for a patch on his chest on which Dralen etched: “Odral.” I had thought Dralen dead, but by ALMSIVI, he did yet live. I rejoiced inside at this at first until I remembered that he had taken the life of yet another of my brothers. I went before the Diviner and requested the right to put Dralen to rest myself. He granted my request.

I do remember the trek back to my tomb. It was long. Rainy. Wet. Cold. And contemplative. I came to think more and more as I journeyed back to the place that had been my home for so long. There was no pleasure at the thought of seeing my old friend or the bonewalkers who I had come to see as a macabre sort of family, but only a sadness that hung over me until ultimately, I concluded that I would not kill Dralen. I would spare him and deliver message to the Diviner that I had killed him when really I had not.

This was my plan and my journey suddenly seemed much less dreary and miserable as I looked forward to seeing him oncemore; I looked forward to another game of chess, something which I sorely missed given no one posed much challenge to me except for him. He was my closest friend and I looked forward to his company greatly and it only grew greater as I neared the Tomb until finally I was there.

He extended salutations in the way only Bonelords do. They are a taciturn sort and use as few words as possible, but that is not to say that they are completely without feeling. They have the ‘cold’ feelings—dispassionate ones such as respect or an icy hatred. They never feel things which are in and of themselves passionate such as rage or love. But I believed that Dralen had taken a liking to me, again in the way only Bonelords do, and I was wrong.

The days returned to normal and we were unbothered. There came a morning when I bid him good morning as I went to rest and he gave the standard response of “Sleep.” Again, a taciturn sort of creatures, but I did not sleep well that day. I awoke to a Greater Bonewalker atop of me and attempting to pulverize my skull. Had I not been so versed in my studies of turning undead, I would have died on that bed.

I found Dralen and he did not speak; he only turned from me and I approached him with a fury in my heart that he would send one of the bonewalkers to harm me. This is where I was mistaken. I believed that this was a momentary lapse in judgment for Dralen or perhaps the bonewalker had simply gone rogue, but he waved one of his arms and I felt every muscle in my body constrict to the point that I fell over and tried to scream from the pain. “It is time to rest,” he said. But he did not mean it as in sleep, but as in put to rest.

He stood over me with the calculating gaze of his empty eye sockets and it was only because the Diviner had caught wind of my deception and come himself that I did not die there. The Diviner was a studied mage who many thought had been a Telvanni before he joined the Temple in no small part due to the efficacy of his spellcasting, but not even the Diviner could hold off Dralen’s magics. I watched as Dralen approached the Diviner who lay paralyzed on the ground and it was by the grace of ALMSIVI that my muscles relaxed enough for me to move. I leapt to my feet and tackled Dralen into the ground, but he did not give up. He put his hands upon my face and I felt the heat get sucked out of my body by his skeletal grip. It was then that I made peace with the fact that I was going to die, but I was spared by the Diviner who capitalized on Dralen being distracted with finishing me off. He put Dralen to rest in that moment using every bit of what he had left in order to stop him from finishing me off.

Before that day, I had always considered Dralen to be my closest friend and the Diviner to be my worst enemy.

That day provided clarity. It gave me a new respect for the Diviner and it gave me a greater understanding of the Bonelords. At the core of their being, they are not like us. They are not our friends. They are not our family. They are dangerous guardians who know only chilling apathy towards most everything that lives with an exception to rare sparks of absolute hatred for those they deem to be intruders. If you listen to nothing else I have said, I beg of you to listen to this: Do not trust the Bonelords.

[Zalphon]

The Telvanni Guide to Alteration
By Sakiran Maesa, Spellwright of House Telvanni

I feel as though I left my readership with possible confusion regarding my last text when I made the assertion that the Restoration, Alteration, and Mysticism are related schools of magic and I would like to elaborate on that more fully before continuing and explaining what Alteration is. The Arcane Arts are divided into two primary categories by academics: Direct and Indirect Arts.

This distinction is not based on the effects of the spell, but how the effects are produced. As I explained in the texts about Destruction, Illusion, and Conjuration, they all involve utilizing magicka to create an intended effect, but do not interface at all with the Aurbic Archives. This means that these are the Indirect Arts. Meanwhile, Restoration, Alteration, and Mysticism do require direct interface with the Aurbic Archives and consequently are the Direct Arts.

This should not be misconstrued as devaluing the Indirect Arts, but they are as a whole a much simpler and more direct field than what you will see with the Direct Arts. One can easily witness ‘feel’ the stability of their gateway in their conjurations or ‘see’ the chemical structure of their magicka in the use of a destruction spell, but that is not the case when using Direct Arts. They require one of two things. You must either be willing to lower yourself to the use of pre-studied incantations and spells rather than your own research and talents or you must be willing to study the Aurbic Archives. Do not misinterpret my statement of studying the Aurbic Archives as being so mundane as reading a book and suddenly having an understanding, because all that can be derived from a text is a theoretical understanding. The only way to truly understand them is to experience them on a phenomenological level.

Entertain the following thought experiment. Assume that you have a child that was born in darkness. Its entire life has been spent in darkness, but you have regaled it with your accounts of what it is like to experience the sun’s warmth, as well have given him academic studies in regards to the sun. Can this child possibly know what it is like to feel the sun on its skin?

If you have even a modicum of understanding regarding epistemology, you will know that the only understanding it will have regarding the sun’s warmth is secondhand and that a great deal of the sensory experience will be lost in translation. This is what it is to study the Aurbic Archives from a text for anything beyond the foundational structure and role they play. I could describe to you in great detail what it is like to make love to a dreugh and to live within one of their aquatic cities, but to hear about it and to experience are two radically different understandings of the experience. It is for that reason that I encourage those of you with even a mild interest in the Direct Arts to take a sabbatical from your studies in order to experience the world in a more whole manner before attempting to tackle the Arcane Arts that deal with the world on its most fundamental level.

The reasoning for this is that before you can alter the metaphysical relationships of objects, you need to have an intimate understanding of their physical relationships. Mundus is a very delicate ecosystem and wanton use of the Direct Arts, especially Alteration, can result in a great many meteorological catastrophes as well as other disturbances which will likely create havoc across Nirn, and more important, disrupt my research. Do not begin your studies of this school except for the incantations provided for you by learned scholars until you have taken that sabbatical or you will be a danger both to yourself and others.

Now that I have resolved that misunderstanding and elaborated further, I feel it is time to discuss what Alteration itself is now. As I discussed, Restoration does not actually cure the ailment; it replaces it. Alteration has some similarities in how it is accessed (they are both accessed by interfacing with the Aurbic Archives), but differs in that it does not actually replace the object in question. Alteration unsurprisingly gets its name that it alters things, but there is a gross misunderstanding of just to what degree it can alter things. The typical adventure studies it to learn how to unlock doors or perhaps create magical shields to protect themselves, but they do not understand just how this works.

The usage of Alteration to unlock (or lock) objects requires interfacing with the Aurbic Archives and finding the unique ID affixed the object in question. Then one modifies one of the variables (these are typically things such as size, shape, color, touch, material, etc.) tied to the object. The variable in question is the existence of a lock.

Spells that unlock the object pull the lock back into the door and transmogrify it into wood. Spells that lock the object do the opposite. This is a result of interfacing with the Aurbic Archives and modifying the Lock Value of the object in question. Once the Lock Value is changed in the Aurbic Archives, reality alters itself to match.

How let us examine things such as Shield spells which I have always found interesting. These spells do not create any real magical armor, but create an invisible threshold that slows the impact of anything coming past it. There has been a good deal of discussion in regards to what causes this effect and the general conclusion agreed upon by both the House and the Imperial Mages’ Guild is that these spells have a chronomantic effect, although their effects are created by modifying the Armor Value of the subject in question. This is an interesting thing and I find these spells to be exceptionally useful (having been saved by them more than once).

Now let us look at effects of Alteration that we do not frequently see anymore in no small part due to the banning by the Imperial Mages’ Guild (which I typically disagree with, but this is one instance in which I do). If one is willing to go spelunking into caves already picked clean by the adventurers of the early days of Uriel Septim VII’s reign and prior, you can see where entire walls were simply removed from existence. These spells were known as Passwall in their day and were created by accessing the Aurbic Archives and removing the wall tile in question, which reality altered itself to match. The reason for this banning was due to the increase in geologic unrest throughout large parts of unsettled territory, because the typical practitioner of these spells was the thoughtless adventurer who did not do his research before simply reconstructing reality. Several villages have been swallowed sinkholes created by these spells which prompted their ban by the Imperial Mages’ Guild. It is one of the few times in which I find myself in agreement with the Westerners.

Now, I could elaborate further on all the different effects of Alteration, but what is important is that you have been given the rudimentary understanding necessary to understand how Alteration works on the back-end. For those of you interested in developing a further understanding of the field, I am looking for a new apprentice after the untimely demise of the last one (who believed himself to have a better understanding of the School than he did). If you feel you are worthy, then bring me a bouquet of Coda Flowers and a sack of Racer Plumes and I will consider your request for my mentorship.