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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“Whoooo,” the figure said uncertainly, “tremble mortal for I am the spirit of Variner, foully murdered and condemned to haunt these… these…”

“Cursed chambers?” I suggested, “and probably until you have ‘had your vengeance’.”

“I’m sorry,” the shade of Variner said, “I’m kind of new at this.”

“That’s okay,” I replied, “you were doing very well ~ although the ‘Whoooo’ was a little over the top.”

“You think?” the ghost asked, cocking his head to one side, “it seemed sort of traditional in all the stories I heard. And how come you aren’t trembling?”

“I met Narisa some time ago,” I said, “she told me that you were trying to get a message to her.”

“To anybody really,” Variner’s ghost replied. “I’m stuck here until I get vengeance on the Black Dart Gang. I tried to get Narisa down here ~ I can sort of talk to her in the watches of the night ~ but I think I just succeeded in scaring her.”

“So why the urgency?” I asked. “Sooner or later somebody will come along and avenge you.”

“Why the urgency?” the spirit snapped, eldritch fire swirling around its hands as the face flickered skull-like for a moment. “D’you have any idea how boring being dead is?” I shook my head, grinning. “Well, no, you wouldn’t,” the spirit continued, slightly abashed. “Let me tell you, it’s boring ~ I have no one to talk to except those skeletal fellows down there…” Here the spectre pointed off down one of the tunnels. “And, the last time I went down there, they tried to rip my ectoplasm out.

“And, to be honest,” Variner’s ghost confided, “I’m terrified that I’ll still be here when Narisa dies ~ waiting for someone to avenge me.”

“Well,” I said brightly, “perhaps I can be of some assistance there? Tell me about this Black Dart Gang.”

“Bandits,” the ghost replied promptly. “They dress like beggars but they have these throwing knives: very nasty poison on them, can kill you with one hit. I’m living… well, dead, proof of that. They hang out in the West Sewers,” he continued, “but I know a little secret. There’s an old cleaning system down there, designed to clean detritus out of the sewers. It’s a lever near the main door to that part of the sewers. Pull it, and you’ll flood the whole area.”

“Neat solution,” I commented, “sounds simple enough.”

“Ummm, not that I’m not grateful or anything,” the shade said, “but they have patrols out and, if they see you… Well, let’s just say that your fancy armour won’t save you.”

“Blethu arwisg chan chysgodau,” I chanted, focussing the local flux to construct the spell. As the Shadow-Weave spell enveloped me, the world developed a wavering green tint.

“That is so cool,” Variner’s ghost said, peering at me. “I can’t see anything other than a slight ripple in the air when you move. But you’re still going to have to get out of there when you flood the sewers, otherwise you’ll drown. But hey, on the bright side, you can keep me company if you fail.”

“Let me worry about that,” I suggested as I moved away. As silent as a ghost ~ well, certainly more silent than Variner’s ghost ~ I made my way up the slope the spirit had indicated, coming to a large wooden barrier: one of the gates that control the flow of water in the system. Set into the barrier was a smaller, Mer-sized door and it was this that I swung open.

“THUNK!” I jerked backwards as a finely sprung steel dart hammered into the hardened wood rough level with my face. I froze on the spot as a Mer in tattered clothing moved towards the door, his face a scowl of suspicion.

“Whoooo,” I moaned, pitching my voice as deep as I could. The bandit smirked; obviously Variner’s ghost was no stranger to these murderous cutthroats. Relaxing, he stepped closer to the door and reached up to pull his dart from the wood. I snapped out a hand and grabbed him around the throat, at the same time intoning, “Vomica Cruor.”

The Mer gave a gurgling scream, the insidious power of the spell already shrivelling and consuming his vocal chords before spreading to the rest of his body. As he threshed and writhed in the shallow water of the sewer, I turned my attention to the dart sticking out of the door. It was made of high-grade steel, which had been hammered until it was extremely thin and flexible. The handle, a simple cylinder of steel wrapped around with leather, was integral to the weapon. The flexible dart, which, in truth, did look more like a knife than a dart, had a wickedly sharp point and the edges of the blade were sharpened to the same sort of keenness you get in a razor.

I rolled the now dead bandit over and quickly checked the body. Under the loose rags the bandit wore a shirt of quite high quality and a leather harness over the top of this. There were more of the springy dart weapons tucked into the loops of this harness ~ each loop designed to hold a couple of the throwing-blades. The two pouches that hung at waist level yielded up two small phials ~ one of Black Spider poison and one with a clear liquid that I didn’t recognise. The harness wouldn’t be much use to me, but the darts and the poison certainly would. Gathering everything together and stuffing it into my pack, I ventured deeper into the sewers.

The curving tunnel lead around to a second barrier, this time there was no dart-thrower behind the door. This short, downward sloping, section of sewer was closed off at the other end by another wooden barrier. More interestingly, there was a large rusty lever protruding from the wall. Allowing the Shadow-Weave to collapse, I sprinted down the passageway and hauled down on the lever. With a grinding squeal, the iron bar started to move down the short slot. As the motion cleared the rust, the lever suddenly sank into the lower rebate with a solid clunking sound.

There was a roar, and water came thundering down the slope in a crashing wave, quickly rising up to my knees. Huge grates had opened near the top of the slope and water was thundering through the apertures at an alarming rate. I struggled to walk against the weight of the water as it rose quickly to waist-level. After several more attempts to ascend the slope, I was chest-deep in water and only yards away from the lower door where I’d started.

As the water rose to chin-height, I tipped my head back and shouted the words of the spell that Jaron had taught me, “Na Awyra? Ad 'u anadl ddyfrha.” In seconds, held down by my water-filled armour, I was submerged. With an annoyed shake of the head, I struggled up the sloping tunnel and came to the wooden access door. Huge steel bars now stretched across all three doors ~ presumably some mechanism to prevent careless workers flooding the rest of the sewer-system.

The doors at the bottom of the slope were not barred, and I could go through into another downward sloping section of the Temple sewers. As I shuffled along the now flooded sewer, I spotted a glint of metal on the wall ahead – metal in the form of a wheel. Making my way over to it was easy; actually turning the rusted wheel was a nightmare. Finally, after a good five minutes or so (during which time I had to restore the water-breathing spell), I managed to turn the wheel.

At first I thought it was wasted effort but, as I looked about, I noticed that the murky water was getting lighter. In moments, I could see the surface of the water descending towards me and, shortly after that, my head broke water and I coughed and spluttered as I made the adjustment from breathing water to breathing air. Once the waters had receded, I made my way down the various tunnels ~ encountering the corpses of the Black Dart gang as I did so.

After a couple of hours I was laden down with throwing darts and esoteric poisons ~ many of which were a complete mystery to me. With a smile I returned to the junction where I’d encountered Variner’s ghost, fully intending to tell him that his vengeance had been served. There was no sign of the spectre when I arrived so, wishing him well wherever he now was, I placed a Mark in the tunnels, and made it back up to the surface and squelched my way to Velas Manor.