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 tomb was as dark as… well, the grave to be honest. There was no lighting except that which came through the open door. It was enough, however, to illuminate the figure of a woman who was bent over a stone plinth, reading a bundle of parchments. She turned her head and smiled at me. Not the ‘hello, you’re a welcome visitor’ type of smile ~ more the sort of ‘I want to suck the marrow from your bones while you’re still alive’ kind of smile. I suddenly felt woozy, unable to take my eyes from hers, which, I could have sworn, were glowing in the dark. With sinuous grace, the woman pivoted on the spot and started to walk towards me while a part of my mind, the bit not transfixed by her eyes, clamoured for attention.

Her smile widened, at first to humorous bard proportions and then wider still. The light from behind me glistened on a set of wickedly sharp teeth as her nose started to deform. My unoccupied mind was screaming for attention now. What was it trying to tell me?

[size=18]…VAMPIRE

With a curse, I tore my gaze from hers and staggered backwards, sliding my sword from its sheath as I did so. The woman hissed and waved her hands whilst muttering some arcane cantrip. There was a flare of purple sparks and she suddenly rushed at me with unbelievable speed. Panic-stricken, I stuck my sword out and let her run onto the end of it. Spitting and hissing like a maddened cat, she threw herself backwards ~ ripping my sword from my hand. Wrapping her hand around the blade, she calmly slid it from her breast and threw it on the floor. My almost instinctive reaction had brought me just enough time to grab my axe.

I’d like to say that the battle went well for me, and that I defeated my opponent easily. That is what the storytellers would have you believe. Ha, let me tell you that this vampiress was the most difficult opponent I’d ever faced. Let’s be honest, it’s pretty damn’ difficult to kill something that’s already dead. Ghosts, mummies, even zombies and Bone-Walkers all attack by instinct and, if you can keep your wits about you, they’re not too difficult to deal with. Your average fampir? An unpleasant mixture of ferocity, instinct, and guile: the whole package wrapped in bestial fury and the remnants of the original human intelligence. In short, not the sort of opponent you treat lightly.

A healthy blow caused my ears to sing and I responded with a wild slice that neatly lopped off one of the vampire’s hands. She danced backwards, her preternaturally fast reactions allowing her to catch the severed body part before it even hit the ground. Giggling, the vampiress gave me a coy and chilling smile as she pressed the ragged end of her amputated hand against the equally ragged stump of her arm. I groaned as I watched the undead flesh knit itself back together. Most of the spells I knew were useless ~ the ability to walk on water was pretty unhelpful at this point and I sure as Oblivion wasn’t getting close enough to her to use my Firebite spell. That left me with pretty much one option. Taking several large backward steps as she gazed in fascination at her repaired hand, I took a deep breath and chanted “Adeo mihi, mortuus animus”.

There was a soft sigh of wind and a tiny, writhing yellow spark appeared. In less than a second it had grown immeasurably and the twisting, writhing knot of light sat at the heart of a whirlwind of glimmering dust particles as the ancestral spirit I’d called forth created a form for itself on the material plane. Then, there stood a kindly faced old Man with a long beard and heavy laughter-lines at the corner of his eyes. The hooded robe he wore was decorated with strange symbols. Despite the fact he was semi-transparent, he radiated a feeling of comfort and warmth: his lips moving soundlessly as his eyes twinkled and shone. Ignoring the phantasmal figure completely, the vampiress hissed and launched herself at me.

The change was sudden and terrible. One second there was this charming and friendly old Man. Then the head whipped around and that gaze fell on the vampiress. Pseudo-flesh sloughed away to reveal a distorted and malformed skull as hands that just as suddenly became skeletal claws reached out. There was a sizzling sound as empyreal flesh came into contact with reanimated flesh and fire flared around the arm of the female vampire. That made her pay attention to the ancestral ghost.

As these two transmundane creatures fought, I took every opportunity afforded me: setting my feet and getting a good grip on the haft of the axe. When I was certain that everything was perfect, I swung. There was a sudden tearing noise, and the vampiress was suddenly shorter by a head. Something seemed to flutter in the darkness, and then the female suddenly dissolved into dust. Panting heavily, I dropped the axe and ferreted about in my pack with some urgency. I could barely hold the slim-necked bottles as I drew them out. First a potion to repair the bruises and cuts the woman had inflicted on me. Then, even as the restorative fire coursed through me, I took a second potion to prevent any infection from setting in. A glimmer of yellow light made me look up, and I was just in time to observe the once more kindly face of one of the ancestors dissolving into yellowish coloured smoke.

I also caught a glimpse of light amidst the dust of my former foe. Reaching down to examine it, I found a powerfully enchanted ring. Made of silver, in the form of a Bretonian Knot, it bore the inscription “MARARA” on it. Pocketing the object, I decided that enough was enough ~ at least for today. Closing the crypt door and wedging the blade of my axe under it, I settled down to rest.