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]

Sadrith Mora was my destination this morning; I needed to tell Hrundi that I’d delivered the Sujamma safely. My first attempt at the Void-Walk spell failed but I managed to cast it correctly the second time and appeared down by the Gateway Inn. Quite cheerfully, I headed up to Wolverine Hall, climbed the stairs and made my way to the Fighters Guildhall.

“Here ye go lassie,” Hrundi said, dropping the last of the fifty ten-Septim pieces into the pile in front of me, “five hundred Septims, the standard courier’s fee ‘round these parts. An’ I’m thinking that ye be due a promotion.

“Aye,” he said, noticing my surprised expression. “Dinnae look so surprised Protector Vahl. You’re getting yourself quite the reputation lassie. There’s some in the Guild as wouldn’t be handing out promotions if ye’d just saved their own selves from certain death. I’m no one o’ them. I give ye a job, I know the job’s gonna get done, nae fashin’ about it at all. Yer a bonnie lass Sudhendra, and I’ve got another one o’ them sweet jobs for ye.”

“Tell me more,” I said, not unflattered by his comments.

“There’s this scholarly type, name o’ Sondaale out of Shimmerene,” he said.

“An Altmer,” I commented, raising an eyebrow.

“Aye,” was his comment, along with a wry smile. “The usual sort o’ thing, you know. Anyways, she’s doin’ some thesis on the auld Resdayni forts, full o’ the usual hot air I’ll be bound. So, this Sondaale is lookin’ for someone to give her a wee helpin’ hand over at Telasero ~ minding her back so to speak. I thought of you straight away, seein’ as how Larienna Macrina gave ye such a glowin’ report.

“She’s agreed to meet you at the fort,” Hrundi said, spreading my map on the table between us. I’d agreed to do the job almost immediately ~ I was intrigued by the forts having seen a couple of them and this was the perfect excuse to go inside and have a look around. “Now, here’s Suran, an’ here be Molag Mar. Telasero is pretty much exactly half-way between the two.

“Now, most o’ these forts are home to an unsavoury bunch ~ bandits and cutthroats mostly. However, the Legion cleared this place out less than a month ago an’, as far as we know, the bandits have nae returned there yet. Still, I’ll be expectin’ ye back in very much one piece so you be mindin’ your back in there ~ ye hear?”

Assuring Hrundi that I’d take great care of myself, and of Sondaale, I went downstairs and had the Guild-guide transport me over to Balmora. From there I caught the silt-strider over to Suran. Checking my map, I saw that I’d have to head south out of the town, and then cut east along the coast towards Molag Mar. It looked to be a fair step, and I wasn’t likely to arrive much before the Twelfth Hour ~ and possibly even a bit later. As I walked out of Suran, I was surprised to see a small ‘mining claim’ nestled in a natural alcove in the rocks lining the steeply downward path. There was a Nord working the claim but I knew that it was available to anyone who had the right tools.

Just a little further down the path was a chalked arrow, pointing up a fairly steep bit of hillside. I’d had some luck following the last set of arrows so I decided to follow this one too. There were several more arrows ~ fortunately leading in the general direction I wanted to go ~ directing me over some fairly strenuous terrain. At the end of them was a massive hunk of rock. Puzzled, I made my way around it until, lying in a hollow betwixt the rock and the cliff-face, I espied a cloth sack. Opening it revealed a pair of perfectly matched Emeralds, an ensorcelled ring, a small bottle of crimson fluid, and a hundred Septims. Tucking these into my pack, I whistled my way down the hillside to the shoreline and made my way more or less eastwards.

I was a little out in my estimation, it was closer to the Fourteenth Hour when I arrived at the imposing bulk of the Dunmeri fortress: I’d been detained by several attacks from a species of flying creature indigenous to these parts ~ a Cliff-Racer. There may be more annoying creatures than these flapping brown vermin with their sharp beaks and spiked, horny tails ~ if so I’ve yet to encounter them. It took a little while before I realised it was my whistling that was attracting them ~ their natural belligerence and stupidity prompted the constant diving and swooping attacks.

So, this was a, what had Hrundi called it? Oh yes, a Resdayni Fortress. The massive bulk of the building rose up from the ash-strewn plain in a series of stepped ledges, with massive reinforcing buttresses protruding from the building’s sides. As far as I could tell, the steep stairs were the only way onto the flat area on top of the fort. A tall ‘keep’ rode up from the middle of this stone ‘plateau’; dark, deeply recessed windows glared balefully from all sides of the tower. Attacking a place like this would be insane ~ this flat killing field would be strewn with bodies if archers who were even semi-competent defended the fort. What a well-trained Mage could do here didn’t bear thinking about.

There did, however, seem to be a complete lack of anyone waiting here for me. Over in one corner were a pack and a small fire, but there was no sign of Sondaale. As I scanned the artificial plateau, I caught a glint of light from the corner of my eye: over by the door. With a prescient sinking feeling in my stomach, I tugged out the dagger pinning the note to the weathered door.

CODE
Esteemed Fighter,
I have waited here for you but decided to enter this fort without you. It seems safe enough and I expect no surprises or problems. You may leave or stay and join me for luncheon, as you will.
Sondaale.


Bugger. That meant that this note had been written before the Noon Hour (probably well before since the scholar would have expected to spend a couple of hours exploring the fort) and it was now ~ according to the Dwemer timepiece ~ almost halfway to the Fifteenth Hour. With a sigh, and a not so polite comment about the foolishness of scholastic types, I dropped my pack and rummaged through it for things I needed and could easily carry. A couple of curative potions and a couple of restorative potions went into the makeshift sling I slung from my shoulder; I took my bow and checked my quiver was full of arrows, and checked that my trusty axe was sharp. I hoped that Sondaale had simply lost track of time while exploring the ruined fortress but, somehow, I doubted that.