Sudhendra Vahl, the first chapter Options

[minque]

This is the first chapter of the amazing story by OverrideB1, which has been posted in the ES-forums

So you want to know a little more about me, where I come from, how I got to be where I am? That seems a reasonable request and we should have plenty of time for me to tell my tale.
I go by the name of Sudhendra Vahl. That’s not my real name of course, but you’ll soon understand why. I’ll start at the beginning ~ I was raised in a small village about fifty miles west of Rihad, and I was born in the year 401 of the Third Era. What’s that?
Well, that is uncommonly kind of you to say so, although your flattery will gain you nothing. I come from a long-lived species and certain events (which I will relate) have conspired to provide me with a much longer life than is normal ~ even for one of my kind. Now, let me tell you my tale…

The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl :Prologue
I never knew my parents: my mother died giving birth to me and my father, from what I can discover, was an itinerant adventurer passing through on his way to somewhere adventurous from somewhere less adventurous. My mother, Gods rest her soul, caught his eye and there was a brief dalliance. Nine months later, along I came ~ a very short time after that, my mother departed this vale of tears. I have little, or no, recollection of what happened after that ~ although I have expended considerable resources over the years finding out.

Shortly after my mother’s death, I was taken in by the Stendarr temple and, from there, sent to foster parents to be raised. My foster-parents were Stendarrites, although the milk of his mercy ran thinly in their veins. I was just a source of income from the Temple for them and, when that ran out shortly after my tenth birthday, I became cheap labour for them around the farm. Well, I say cheap ~ unpaid would be a much better description. True, I had food and a bed: the food left over after they’d finished eating and a pile of straw atop the storage shed. It was a brief and unhappy childhood; not helped by the fact I was the only Dark Elf in the village.

I grew up being handy with my fists and feet and wasn’t above using my teeth if push came to shove. And when half-a-dozen jeering children, all of whom are better fed and stronger than you, surround you; shove comes surprisingly quickly. I quickly garnered a reputation as a surly and aggressive child among the villagers. Not that I had much of a problem with that: my foster-parents did, however and I was regularly beaten for “starting another fight”. Any attempt to explain that I’d been set upon by six or seven older, stronger children was conveniently ignored.

However, just so you don’t think that it was completely bad, I did have a wonderful forest near the house and, when my foster-parents were away at temple, I could wander through them to my hearts content. It was about this time that I developed quite the interest in the properties of various flora. I soon found a root, common in the woods, the juice of which alleviated the sting of my frequent bruises. I never made much of the interest other than secretly trading useful bits of root and flower to passing traders in exchange for coin or, more frequently, a tattered old book. I took great care not to be seen with the books as I struggled to learn my letters ~ I knew that they’d end up on the fire and I’d end up being punished again if I was caught.

It was probably around my twelfth year that my Talent appeared. I began to notice strange auras around certain things and the feeling that I almost knew what they were for. As the days passed, I began to notice more of these quicksilver flashes and occasionally, when a Noble or Knight rode through the village, a strange tugging sensation if they passed close to me. Obviously not something I could discuss with my foster-parents, I chose to discuss it with a wandering peddler I’d dealt with before. In exchange for some plants and one of my miserly horded golden Drakes, he explained that I was born under the sign of the Apprentice and that what I was seeing was a manifestation of that astrological sign’s influence on my life.

Over the next three years, my friend the peddler would come visit. In return for my identifying magical items, he taught me a couple of useful cantrips. A fire-touch spell, a spell that allowed me to walk on water, and (my personal favourite) a spirit I could summon that would act as a guardian. In secret, I began marking the fifteenth of Sun’s Height as my birthday.

I said that it was a short and bitter childhood, and the truth of that became apparent shortly after my fifteenth “birthday”. My foster-mother was away visiting her mother ~ a woman I’d never met, but who was reputed to be insanely rich and insanely eccentric. One night, deep in his cups, my foster-father came up into the loft of the storage shed and attempted to… well, I probably don’t need to draw you a diagram, do I? Needless to say, he got a fist in the face that broke his nose and a shovel across that back of the head that turned out his lights for a while. Gathering my few tattered clothes and the meagre stash of Drakes I’d accumulated, I took a sack-full of provender from the larder, the best horse from the yard and, bidding a farewell to my hidden books, I set off in the general direction of away.

I figured that everyone would think I’d headed towards Rihad so that was the last direction I wanted. North lay Taneth and, beyond that, the wilds of Hammerfell. East lay the border with Cyrodiil, as it would if I headed south. Cyrodiil it was then and, angling roughly southeast, I rode off into the night. A few days later, hungry and dusty, I crossed into Sutch. There it became obvious that the supply of coin I had wouldn’t last too long and so, with some reluctance, I sold my steed and blended into the crowds.
Over the course of the next ten years I drifted from town to town, never staying in one spot for long, making a passable living identifying useful plants or identifying ensorcelled items. Naturally, I picked up a few useful skills along the way: my years of chopping wood proved to be handy as I found I could wield a pretty mean axe and I taught myself the rudiments of fighting with a long-blade. I won’t say I led a blameless existence, but I was no more of a thief, cutpurse, or mugger than anyone else of my station. Truth be told, I tried to avoid stealing things except when needs must: often I was the only Dark Elf in the town and knew that suspicion would fall on me pretty quickly.

So I drifted along, wandering from town to town with nary a care in the world. However, it was in one town that I happened to overhear a couple of Legion types asking about a Dark Elf named “Mishkin” who was wanted for assault and theft in Hammerfell. Heart pounding, I ran back to my hideout, collected my sparse belongings and got out of town pretty damn’ sharply, I can tell you. In a panic, I made the cardinal mistake – isolating myself with no options. I hit Anvil running, and booked myself passage on the first ship to very far away from here. It virtually emptied my purse, but I got passage on a vessel sailing to a port near Rimmen. I knew nothing about the place except that it was in Elsweyr and it was very far away from Hammerfell. Sounded perfect.

The journey took a couple of months, and I was more than happy to step off the boat in the bustling port and blend once more into the crowds. Of course, I’d forgotten how quickly bad news could spread, how persistent the Empire is in punishing wrongdoers, and the spitefulness of my foster-parents. I’d travelled under the name of “Vahl” and used the first name “Sudhendra” if I had to ~ it was a name I’d read in a book at sometime and it struck me as being a pretty name, certainly better than Mishkin. There I was, in a foreign place, with no money and a false identity. That’s when I made cardinal mistake number two.

My only excuse is that I was exhausted. I’d been running around trying to gather up some much needed coin and had pushed myself over the limit. I purchased a little bread and meat and sat in a pretty little park to eat my meal. Next thing I know, I’m being shaken awake by a burly guard who was being watched with some amusement by his three equally burly compatriots.

“You can’t sleep here,” he said. “What’s your name?”

I told you I was tired, I automatically answered “Mishkin Dark-Skin”.

“Says here you’re Sudhendra Vahl and, wait, did you say Mishkin Dark-Skin?”

The four of them fell on me like a landslide, hitting me with their short wooden clubs before dragging me, battered and bruised, to the local lockup. Where I spend a very uncomfortable night before being hauled before the local Imperial magistrate. The charges were ridiculous, to say the least: “Assault on a village Elder”, “Theft of three hundred Drakes”, “Theft of a prize stallion”, “Assuming a false Identity”, “Vagrancy”. Oh, and my personal favourite, “Resisting arrest”.

I might just have talked my way out of the first five charges but that resisting arrest one? That one was the clinching offence: the whole trial took under thirty minutes, I wasn’t given a single chance to refute the charges or make a defence and found myself sentenced to ten years in the Imperial prison at Alabaster.

I’d been in prison for a year when things took a turn for the very strange. During my sentence, I’d been a good girl; following orders, staying out of trouble, that sort of thing. Unlikely though it was, there was a very remote chance I might get a reprieve if I showed that I was a model citizen. So, I bowed and scraped, cleaned out the latrines, washed, cooked, and did all the usual stuff they make you do in jail. In addition, I kept in shape as best as I could. Then, one night, the door to my cell slammed open and I was grabbed and dragged out into the courtyard. A cloaked and hooded figure looked at me from the dark recess of his hood and muttered something to the commandant. Next thing I knew I was being hustled into a coach and driven out of the prison. We stopped but once, and I was made to stand there while my original abductors drove off in the coach and another, plainer coach was brought in. The hooded figure turned to me and said something that sounded like “Somnus” and a sudden blackness descended.

[minque]

The club proved to be very hard indeed, studded metal in a sphere that was extended in the same way as the blade on the Type II animalcule. I can attest to the force it hits with, even through my armour, I felt a rib (or two) crack. Hauling the iron dagger from the top of my boot, I leapt on to the back of the thing as it ponderously turned to attack Macrina. “Die, honoured user thing,” I hissed, repeatedly driving the dagger into a thin joint between the nape if it’s “neck” and the “head”. “Dammit, why won’t you die?”

“Sudhendra, be…” I guess that Larienna’s next word was going to be “careful” but it was a fraction too late to warn me. The battered seam suddenly gave, and the dagger-blade slid into something that had all the resistance of warm butter. Several things happened so quickly that they seemed to all happen at once. There was a loud crackling noise, I was thrown off the back of the animalcule with considerable force, the dagger I’d been wielding flew off in another direction, and the mock-Man staggered a few steps before toppling like a cut tree.

“Ouch!” I exclaimed, pulling myself into a sitting position. “No, like, seriously, ouch.” Larienna rushed over to me, frantically asking after my well-being. I assured her I was mostly undamaged and that what damage I had sustained could be repaired with a draught of a healing potion. This proved, thankfully, to be true and I was up and about in a few seconds. My poor dagger, the one that had been with me since I took it from the Census building eight days ago, hadn’t fared quite so well. The blade was distorted, almost bent backwards on itself, and looked suspiciously melted.

I squatted beside the thing I’d “killed”. The back of the head, rather than being punctured inward by my dagger, seemed to have been blown outward by some powerful force. Very carefully, I peeled back a piece of plate as best as I could, only to have it snap off in my hand. Inside the skull (for want of a better word) was a spongy honeycomb of blue material. Even as I reached to touch it, it liquefied and ran out onto the floor where it quickly evaporated: making a ghastly stench as it did so. Any further examination of the artificial Man would have to wait ~ Larienna was urging me on, saying that we had to find Hrelvesuu.

Tucking the shard of metal into my pack as a memento, I followed Larienna Macrina through the ruins. It was a strange experience: the ruins looked as though they’d been abandoned only recently yet, here and there, were hints of the great antiquity of the items. Stranger still were the odd devices that huffed and puffed in some of the rooms, performing some long-forgotten function even after untold years. Oddest of all were the lights that lined the walls. Made of a crystalline substance, they contained two metal filaments shaped like pyramids. These almost, but not quite, met in the middle of the tube: between them burned a brilliant light that existed without a flame. Or, as I found when I tentatively touched one, generating any form of heat.

At last, we came to a circular locked door, from behind which a strange clicking sound could be heard. I checked the door carefully for traps and was relieved to discover none. The lock, although complex, proved to be little problem for me, obediently clicking open on the second try. As the door swung into the room, I saw a great scaled shape.

“Hrelvesuu,” Larienna breathed softly, her words accompanied by the soft scrape of her blade being withdrawn from its scabbard. Barging past me, she threw herself at the creature. Licking my lips, I hefted my axe and waded in to join her. With two of us to contend with, the beast ~ a sort of upright lizard with a massive bony collar ~ seemed confused as to which of us to deal with first. Since Larienna was the best trained of the two of us, I let her do most of the hard work: keeping the creature distracted and landing the occasional lick of the axe. With a strange, echoing roar, the creature Hrelvesuu collapsed, an unpleasant black ichor seeping from its wounds.

“Well done Sudhendra,” Larienna said, extending a hand in the Imperial fashion. I shook it, grinning at her happily. “I couldn’t have done this without you, and I’ll be making a good report back to the Guild. There are things here that I don’t understand, so I’m going to stay here a while and investigate. As a reward, help yourself to anything that takes your fancy ~ although I do urge you to remember that it’s illegal to own or trade in Dwarven artefacts.”

There were a couple of things I wanted to investigate that I’d spotted on the way in but hadn’t had a chance to do so. As I turned to leave, Larienna said, “listen, I don’t know if this is any help, but there’s a settlement not far from here called Molag Mar. there’s a ‘strider service and you can probably get a boat from there too.”

Thanking her even though I knew this, I took my leave. Now, to see what I could find. A glowing rock formation that I’d spotted turned out to be a deposit of a strange glassy substance: extremely hard and a brilliant green, it was all I could do to hammer a few shards of it off with my axe. Another room we’d passed turned out to have a massive pit in the centre, in which glowing molten rock bubbled and spat. In here were a number of metal drums, the tops sealed by an ingenious arrangement of wire. I giggled happily, for inside those drums were a number of rubies, a couple of diamonds, and a single glistening sapphire: enough, in other words, to earn me a pleasant sum of money from any alchemist.

As I walked past an overturned shelf, I felt a familiar tugging sensation; the sort of thing associated with a magical object. Protruding from under the shelving was a spear-haft: it took me several minutes to move the heavy metal shelves but I finally freed the spear. It was made of the same golden metal as the animalcules Larienna and I had fought upon entering the ruins, but pitted and marked with signs of great age. There were Dwemer runes cut into the surface (Illkurok) that I couldn’t understand. As I examined the spear, the patina of age seemed to fall away from it and, in moments, I was carrying a perfectly new-looking and razor-sharp spear. Considering what I’d just seen and the strange feeling of power coming off the weapon, I decided that I would keep it ~ even though I have no skill with this type of weapon.

Picking up a couple of the immensely heavy items of Dwemeri tableware, I considered the weight of the pack I was already carrying. Shrugging, I took two of the smaller goblets (one fairly plain and the other ornately decorated) and left behind the bowl, mug, and other items on one of the rusted table. So it was, quite heavily laden, that I made my way back to Molag Mar and conversed with the shipmaster there. It turned out that his deep drafted vessel couldn’t get into Sadrith Mora because of all the shallows and shoals there. He did, however, know that there was a vessel sailing regularly from a place called Tel Branora to Sadrith Mora and he offered to get me there ~ for a price.

Tel Branora seemed to be a tiny fishing village perched on the leading shore of a rocky island. The huts were poor and dilapidated and I really didn’t feel that it was worth exploring. So, I got passage on the small craft that would take me to Sadrith Mora, even though we wouldn’t dock until dawn the following morning.