The Tale Of Sudhendra Vahl: Mad Gods, Being the ninth chapter... Options

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The first things I wanted to do this morning were to put some of my recently acquired funds into the Bank of Vvardenfell; I also wanted to deliver the Amulet of Infectious Charm to Louis Beauchamp. To that end, I opened a portal after breaking my fast and stepped though into the dusty streets of Ald’ruhn.

“The amulet,” Louis gasped when I handed the twinkling charm over to him. He listened with a distracted air as I relayed the fate of the missing airship: somehow I think the loss of the craft and its crew was of secondary importance to him. He did, however, pay me two thousand Septims for recovering the amulet and finding out what had happened to his aircraft.

From there I returned to Tel Vahl where, reluctantly, I donned the uniform of the Legion before opening a portal to Ebonheart. Captain Carius had informed me that Varus Vatinius has issued an instruction that I am to report to him. The Imperial Dragon was easy enough to find, he was the ill-favoured Imperial that I’d seen at the side of the Duke Dren when I applied for my construction contract ~ the one with a low opinion of Telvanni honour.

“So, the Telvanni returns,” he sneered when I crashed to attention in front of him and snapped off a salute. “Finally decided to get on the winning side, eh?”

When I made no response to his barb, he snorted and said, “you’ve turned out to be a decent soldier Telvanni, and several commanders speak quite highly of you. Do right by me and I’ll make sure that you get what you’re due.

“Now then,” he continued, “I have a job for you. Until a day or two ago, the Lord’s Mail was displayed in the Cult Shrine here. Somehow somebody got in and stole it ~ none of the guards saw anything. Take the key to the Shrine and see what you can learn. Bring me the Lord’s Mail and I’ll give you a promotion.”

My first step was to visit the barracks, housed in the lower levels of Fort Hawkmoth. Most of the guards were unwilling to talk to me but one; a Redguard by the name of Sader was disposed to talk. He told me that Furius Acilius had recently been passed over for promotion and had gone AWOL. I hardly thought it coincidental that Furius Acilius had gone missing two days before the Lord’s Mail vanished. I took a look around Acilius’ quarters but, apart from a scribbled comment about Vatinius that make me smirk, there was nothing of any interest.

Both of the Troopers assigned to the Shrine snapped to attention, clenched fists crashing against their cuirasses as they saluted me. Despite my time with the Legion, that was one thing I still hadn’t gotten used to. The door to the Shrine clicked open and I stepped into a fairly typical Imperial Cult Shrine. Multi-denomination tapestries hung from the walls ~ except for behind the altar, where a rich green and gold tapestry depicted Julianos. There were the usual sacred objects on the altar, a small silver platter for collecting donations and a large silver chalice. The green and gold cloth that covered the cold stone block confirmed that this was a Shrine devoted to Julianos.

I understood why the Imperial Cult adopted this multi-denominational style in Morrowind but I missed the majesty of the individual Shrines that I remembered from my travels around the Illiac Bay. Not that I was particularly moved by the idea of the Divines any more ~ the things I had experienced in my time here had seriously undermined my faith in the religion of my childhood. Shaking off the melancholia that my childhood memories always seemed to induce, I returned to the task at hand.

There were no windows in the Shrine, nowhere that somebody could have clambered in and stolen the artefact. The heavily reinforced door couldn’t have been broken down without attracting the attention of people nearby. Nor had I missed the flare of magic when I’d inserted the key into the lock ~ such locks (requiring both mundane and magical means to open them) were extremely rare and notoriously difficult to pick. And, given that Furius Acilius was, by all accounts, a career soldier it was unlikely that he’d have the skill to pick such a lock.

Something had been tugging at my subconscious while I examined the door. Turning I surveyed the small, austere chamber. A close-fitting door and no windows… So, where was the breeze that was fluttering the edge of the tapestry nearest the door coming from? The wall behind the wall hanging looked solid enough but a quick chant of “Ostendo sum” soon revealed the truth.

The flare of reddish-purple light settled along the outlines of the hidden door, a loud click denoting the fact that the unlocking spell I’d just read from the scroll had done its work. The heavy stone door creaked open to reveal a small stone cell barely big enough for me to get into. The floor of the cell was covered with dried mud; the rough reed mat that covered it caked with the stuff. Since there was no obvious other exit, I placed my hand against the back wall of the cell and pushed. There was a click and a large section of stonework moved backwards to reveal a dark opening.

The muddy floor of the cave left me in no doubt that the thief had used this secret way into the Shrine and that it would take someone who knew Ebonheart extremely well to have known of this hidden access ~ someone like, let’s say, a career soldier who’s been stationed at Ebonheart for years and has, for the sake of argument, recently been passed over for promotion.

The dimly illuminated tunnel meandered through the rock coming, at last, to a meeting place where three other passageways met. With a shrug, I turned to my left and pressed on down the rocky passage. I had gone barely a hundred paces down the tunnel when I was confronted by a snarling legionnaire. He wasted no time on words, the Imperial broadsword already sliding from the scabbard at his waist as he rushed towards me.

The crash of steel on steel echoed through the cave as I blocked the scything blow Acilius aimed at my head, the impact making my arm quiver. I retaliated, pushing his sword up and away with the Blodskal and slashing the heavy blade inwards. He danced back a step, bringing in his broadsword to deflect the blow. Now it was my turn to back-pedal in order to avoid his upward cut.

We eyed each other warily for a moment, each taking measure of our opponent. Acilius was strong but lacked finesse ~ like so many in the Legion he relied on his training and had no… style. With a grunt, he proved my point, slashing in a powerhouse blow that would have done serious damage if I hadn’t blocked it. My return blow scored a mark across his cuirass. Gripping the sword tightly, he aimed a series of vicious overhead blows at me, forcing me backwards.

Sensing, rather than seeing, that he’d changed his grip on the hilt, I swung the Blodskal downward, the greater mass of the Nordic blade knocking the broadsword from Acilius’ hand. I had barely registered that I’d disarmed him when a thunderous punch to the face drove me backwards. I blinked, my vision blurred from the blow, and saw him stoop and pick up his sword again. I gave him no time to prepare.

“Never,” my sword crashed into his upraised blade with a force that made my arm shudder.

“Hit,” I blocked his blow, the blades singing as they crashed into each other.

“A,” his steel blade shattered as I smashed the Blodskal down on it as he raised it to block the blow.

“Lady!” I finished, driving the point of the Nordic blade into the Imperial’s throat and slamming him back against the wall.

Rolling Furius Acilius over, I undid the silver clasps that held the glittering cuirass in place. The armour came off after a few minutes struggle and I held the heavy, padded cuirass up to examine it. It was made of some dark metal and appeared to be overlapping scales. The edges of the armour were decorated with fine gold scrollwork. That was not, however, what kept me there holding the heavy armour. Visions of combat danced in my head, snatches of scenery that I almost recognised, the crash of steel on steel and the screams of the dying mingled with the triumphant cries of the victors.

Shaking myself all over, I looked at the armour and licked my lips. The overwhelming urge to put it on and just… well, take charge had faded. With a shaky sigh, I placed the cuirass on a rock and opened my pack. Handling the scaled Lord’s Mail as little as possible, I dropped it into my pack. A careful exploration of the caves revealed the rest of Furius Acilius’ belongings ~ a sack containing a couple of hundred Septims, a pair of pauldrons made of the same dark, scaled metal, and a glass-bladed sword. My exploration also revealed a water-filled passageway that led to a door. This egress opened out onto a small sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs: above me loomed the bulk of the castle and keep. It must have pleased Acilius to have stolen the Lord’s Mail and, quite literally, hidden it under the noses of those he felt had cheated him.

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Allowing the construct to collapse, I pushed open the door after instructing Alvan to remain outside. There was a very familiar coppery smell in the room, and it didn’t take me long to discover the butchered corpse of the Ordinator that had followed Golena into the manse. I grimaced, I could visualise the scene clearly: the Ordinator badgering the demented woman about ‘it’ and Golena getting more and more convinced the guard was there to confiscate whatever she was protecting. The Ordinator, suspecting nothing of what he was dealing with, would have been easy prey.

The trapdoor in the lower level of Sadri manor led, with a certain inevitability, to a section of the sewers beneath Godsreach. Crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the ladder was the Dunmeri woman who’d led Golena Sadri away. A quick check showed that she was extremely dead ~ whoever had cut her throat had sawn right through to the bone. I checked the local area, the sewer behind me ended in a catchment area, a deep pit with a grate at the bottom through which the sewer-water ran into the lower levels of the sewer.

With a sigh, I made my careful way down the steeply sloping sewer until I reached a flattish area at the bottom. The grated door opened into a dilapidated section of the sewers, an area that I suspected had been long forgotten. Several rock-falls had choked off the lower passageways and I stood there baffled: there was no sign of Golena Sadri. As is my habit, I quickly checked through the contents of the heavy crates that lay scattered around the outlet grate. It was as I was doing this that I realised that there were four crates resting on top of a trapdoor. The crates had been firmly nailed shut and whatever they contained made them far too heavy for me to move successfully. There must be someway of getting through the trapdoor ~ it was the only way that Golena could’ve gone.

It was the damp wood of the crates that told me what the solution was: a sluice nearby could be opened or closed by operating a crank. Casting a water-breathing spell, I turned the crank as hard as I could, hanging on to it as the frothing and foaming water quickly filled up the enclosed sewer. The crates, riding heavily in the water, rose up and freed the hatch. Plunging beneath the surface, I raised the hatch and slipped through into the submerged tunnel underneath.

A short swim down the water-filled sewer brought me to another hatchway, this one leading upwards. As the protective bubble of the water-breathing spell started to collapse in on itself, I put my weight against the hatch and swung it open. Clambering up the ladder, I found myself in a section of the sewer that had almost completely collapsed. Massive chunks of rock blocked off each end of the tunnel but, at the western end of the tunnel section, there was a natural breach in the rock which led through to a narrow passageway.

Crouched almost double, I made my way along the tunnel until I came to another breach in the rock, this one leading into a section of sewer that had long ago been abandoned. A short section of sewer rose up in a sharp incline to my left while ~ directly ahead, the rocky passageway was completely blocked by a rock-fall. To my right, the rocky tunnel meandered away around a sharp bend. Never one to be less than thorough, I headed up the sloping sewer section towards the top.

And stopped suddenly. The upper section of the drain had collapsed and there were hundreds of tons of fallen rock blocking the way. And there, the lids open just enough to show the enticing gleam of gold coins, sat two chests. I crouched down, squatting on my heels as I looked at the strange metallic constructions that had been pushed into the loose rocks near the chests. There was no doubt that these were of Dwemeric make ~ even after these long millennia, there’s no metal on Nirn that looks quite like the alloy they used to construct things. Small, stubby cylinders topped with a crystal dome was how they appeared ~ had it not been for a healthy dose of Telvanni paranoia, I would have taken them for nothing more threatening than some Dwemeric torch or lantern.

The soft pulse of light that had warned me of the presence of these five… devices came again and I pondered what I knew of Golena Sadri. She had approached the Breton mage and asked about Dwemeri artefacts; she had asked increasingly complex questions about focussing and charging magical crystals… It was not too far a reach of the imagination to realise that these things were some sort of Dwemeri weapon.

There were more of these strange cylindrical devices arrayed along the only other passageway. Since I was honour-bond, by my word, to at least try and find Golena Sadri, I took a few tentative steps down the tunnel. As I approached the nearest of the devices, the slow pulsing of the light coming from the crystal increased in speed. Alarmed, I stopped: only to see that the slightly faster pulse of light continued with the same beat. Slowly and carefully I advanced another pace, stopping instantly when the pulsing red light again beat at a fast rate. Nothing, not even the finest shadow-weave spell, seemed to make any difference ~ the closer to the device I drew, the faster the light flashed.

Even though I was expecting it, the powerful energy bolt that exploded from the top of the closest device and sought me out with unerring accuracy, came as a shock. Striking me square in the chest, the powerful bolt threw me down the corridor and bounced me off a rocky outcropping. “Right,” I managed to mutter after taking a fair few minutes to gather my wits about me again. “If that’s the way you want to play it…”

I could, I suppose, tell you how I managed to overcome those infernal Dwemer devices. But, as you no doubt noticed on the approach to my residence, I have not exactly been idle these last few decades. No, a lady has to keep a few secrets. A fact you would do well to remember, Cyrodiil.

Galena seemed to sense my presence, even though I was hidden from mundane sight. With a snarl, she dragged her sword from its scabbard and lunged at me. With a tiny cry of “eep”, I leapt backwards, barely avoiding the sword point. Allowing the cloaking-spell to dissipate, I drew the twin blades I had christened “Grafanc” and “Hysgithr” from their scabbards and crossed them in front of me. “This is futile Golena!” I yelled above the sound of the swirling water that filled this ruined section of sewer. “I am here to help you.”

“Mine!” she screamed, her face hidden in the shadow of the glass helm she wore. With that, the mad-woman rushed at me, slashing and hacking with the blade. I took little satisfaction in cutting her down, but her wild swings and manic approach to combat made the outcome of the fight inevitable. She may have been able to overcome an Ordinator who had his back to her and his weapon sheathed, she may have been able to overcome one poor, unarmoured and unarmed woman; but she was certainly no match for a warrior such as I had become.

The small Dwemer-metal device that hung at her belt proved to be the key to avoiding the devices on the way out ~ apparently they would not discharge their magicka at anyone carrying the device. I took advantage of this fact, adding one to my bulging pack after emptying the contents of the two chests into it.

Golena’s brother was, quite naturally, distraught at the news that his sister was dead but I think he realised she was far too far-gone to be saved. I, meanwhile, returned to the Velas Manor and placed the heavy pack on the table. From it I drew one of the devices that had lined the cavern. Working carefully, I quickly found the small panel on the side, the small recess behind it containing a partially dissolved crystal. Also inside was a small lever, which opened the top of the thing. Gazing at the odd crystalline structures and wires that festooned the interior, I realised that recreating this device was far beyond me. Baladas, however, would have a field day.