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]

I almost gagged as the door opened under my tentative push and a rush of fetid air came out. Hot, sickly, and carrying a faint scent that was familiar ~ although odour might be a better word than scent. Keeping as close to the wall as I could, I sidled into the building. Red, fitful candlelight flickered at the end of a gently sloping passageway. That wasn’t good ~ anyone entering would be illuminated clearly as they passed in front of the candles and down the ramps I could just make out descending to the floor level below.

THUNK

I back-peddled quickly as a short steel throwing knife clattered onto the floor ~ having bounced off the wall far too close to my head for comfort. Peering forward and risking another thrown knife (which whipped past my ear with a whirring noise in due course) I took a quick glance into the huge central chamber. Almost directly opposite me, I could see a pair of figures standing on a platform protruding from the wall. One of the figures threw another knife, missing me by a country mile. Hmmm, the candles over there made them excellent targets ~ backlighting them as they did.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not brilliant with a bow. If not, I’d like to emphasis the point here by saying that I am not a good archer. So it was a question of who was the more surprised by my first shot. Knocking an arrow, I drew back the bowstring and stepped forward ~ swinging the arrow-point onto target, releasing, and stepping back all in one smooth, fluid motion. There was a meaty thump, closely followed by a gasp, a metallic clatter and another, much louder, meaty thud.

Risking another quick glance, I saw that the duo of knife-throwers on the platform had become a single knife-thrower. Needless to say, I was unable to repeat my initial shot but did pepper the figure with arrows until one finally hit something vital. There was a splash of red and a gurgling scream as he clutched himself and collapsed onto the platform. Emboldened, I slung my bow over my shoulder and hefted my axe before descending into the gloom below.

The red-tiled ramp led downwards to the main floor of the fort, which was also covered in the same small red tiles. Off to one side I could see a door, at the back of the chamber was a hole smashed into the fort: from the debris, it looked very much like it had been made from outside the building. Despite the shadows, I could see something moving down there. Pausing only to recover my arrow from the eye-socket of the fallen knife-thrower, I walked towards the gaping hole. The grey rock behind the thick walls had a strange, melted look to it but that wasn’t my primary concern right at this moment.

The shambling, half-humanoid figure directly in front of me was. The skin, where it wasn’t a flaky grey colour, was livid red and looked rubbed raw. One arm and leg were swollen and disfigured, covered in weeping yellow growths. The same pus-filled growths dotted the more normal looking arm and leg too. The face was something I’ll never forget: brilliant blue eyes stared out of a bloated ruin of a face. The nose was partially rotted and a huge growth bulged over the right eye. The mouth was a lipless maw in which a few rotting teeth stood like decaying tombstones. This, then, was a Corprus Beast ~ the final stages of the disease that had driven that pour soul in Berwen’s shop to madness.

This wreck of a Mer (or Man, it was impossible to tell) lurched towards me, strands of something best left unidentifiable hanging from it talon-like nails and insane fury in it’s eyes. With a silent prayer to whatever Gods might be listening, I braced myself as it made it’s slow, tortured way towards me ~ swinging hard with the axe as it came close. There was a squishing noise as the curved blade buried itself in the side of the creature’s head. Wrenching it free, I swung again and again in a fury of disgust and fear. Finally, long after any normal creature would have fallen under such a fusillade of blows, it gave a soft sigh and collapsed, twitched, then lay still. Fighting down an urge to scream, I stepped away carefully circling the thing until I could peer further down the tunnel.

Other than the soft “gloop-gloop” of the molten rock that filled the small defile at the end of the short tunnel, nothing moved down there. Once more circling the rotting mound on the rock floor, I returned to Telasero and moved towards the door. Pushing it open carefully, axe at the ready, I stepped into a vaulted corridor. Ahead of me lay another door while, off to my right, a ramp led upwards. The floor was covered with the same small red tiles that were in the main chamber while the walls were made of some dark material, the blocks fused together in some unknown manner. And over it all hung an invisible miasma, a sense of something being very much off-kilter.

The ramp proved to only lead to the platform where the two knife-throwers had lain in wait. The short hallway and the ramp were covered in slivers of wood ~ evidence of my poor archery. I returned to the lower level and ventured deeper into the eerie stillness. Several empty chambers and corridors confronted me as I worked my way towards the heart of the fort and the door that now stood in front of me. From behind it I could hear a faint humming noise. Tentatively, I pushed it open and took in the scene that confronted me.

Two huge stone troughs stood in the room, one at each side. There were two doors on each side of the room and, between the massive support columns; I could see a chamber at the extreme end of the room. Chairs and tables had been dragged and piled along the walls. What caught my attention however, were the strange buzzing noise that seemed to emanate from one of the troughs and the bizarre ‘altar’ I could just make out in the end chamber.

Well, that’s the buzzing noise explained ~ although I rather wish it hadn’t been. One of the two stone troughs was filled with odds and ends, stuff that had been discarded: clothing, a small sum of money, a couple of books, and that sort of thing. It was the other trough the buzzing sounds came from ~ and that was because it was filled with huge chunks of semi-rancid meat. Some of the pieces had a certain shape that, if looked at in the right way, reminded me of… no, I’d really rather not think about what they reminded me of.

Having wiped my mouth and spat out the foul taste, I moved shakily to the altar. There was a large disk at the base of it, at the cardinal points of this circle were more of those red candles. From the centre of the disk rose a three-sided obelisk, each face of which was filled with small niches. In some of these niches were small and grotesque statuettes; there were five in total. A large, round ‘font’ dominated one of the cardinal points. Like the trough, it too was filled with the same disturbingly shaped hunks of rancid meat. Having seen more than enough, I returned to the main chamber and started examining the chambers off to each side.

“You en-war,” the completely naked Dunmer screamed at me as I opened the door. “Time to die defiler.” With that, he rushed at me brandishing a heavy looking club. It was obvious he was completely insane. What else would you call it when an unarmoured man armed with the single simplest weapon there is goes up against an armoured opponent whose carrying an axe? I tried to talk him out of attacking me ~ I didn’t really fancy hacking away at a naked and damn’ near unarmed man but he was having none of it. Frothing at the mouth (literally), he got close to me and started swinging the club wildly. All the while he was swinging, he was spitting out strange phrases – “The dreamer shall awaken” and “That which was destroyed, rises anew” are the only two that I specifically recall. After that it got a little brutal and messy.

Two of the other chambers contained similarly deranged Dunmer, all naked and armed with clubs or their bare hands. I was trying, very hard, not to draw any parallel between five of these crazy Dunmer and the five statues on the altar. The synchronicity between the two was a little hard to ignore though.
The biggest danger in the fourth chamber was a couple of large and hungry looking rats ~ although the little black and red statuette tucked up one corner gave me a nasty turn.

“Are you Sondaale?” I asked the frightened Altmer that was crouching on the table. She nodded and asked me to get her out of the fort. I was only too happy to oblige. “Stay close Sondaale, we’re going to be going at speed.”

True to my word, I sprinted through the darkened corridors while Sondaale, carrying a lantern, scurried along behind me. It was a blessed relief when we raced up the ramp and out into the fresh air without let or hindrance. Clasping my knees, I gasped for breath as Sondaale collapsed to her knees and panted heavily. When we’d recovered sufficiently to speak, Sondaale told me she was heading to Molag Mar. From there she intended to go to Ebonheart, thence to Wayrest where, according to her, she intended to stay for a very, very long time. Without another word, she collected her belongings and headed off westwards towards Molag Mar.

Musing that Wayrest was just about as far away from Morrowind Province as it was possible to get, I examined my shoulder. One of the clubs had caught me awkwardly, and I had quite a nasty cut. The darkening skin around the cut suggested that there was going to be one Oblivion of a bruise there too. Wearily, I spoke the incantation “Ex hic absum, ut Balmora.” When things had stopped spinning, I found myself in the market square of Balmora. I made my way back to the house in Labour Town and, after drinking a couple of restorative potions, fell gratefully into bed.