The stories so far, Edited and ready to roll. Options

[Troika]

OK, this thread will contain any and all stories that are posted on the geocities site and labelled as edited. These babies we don't have to worry about until it actually comes time to stick em in the game.

I will sort out this thread... in other words, please do NOT post up stories yourself... it could lead to multiple copies which could prove problematic later.

Also, please keep posts in this thread to a minimum. This is mainly just a place where people have quick and easy (although not necessarily organised) access to the stories already finished with.

[Troika]

Section: Stories

Written by Unknown (stargazey)

Berne’s Blood


Sadrith Mora

Raxle sat at the bar of Dirty Muriel’s drinking his flin and watching Muriel flit back and forth serving drinks to various patrons. It was very early in the day but the bar was bustling with business. As always, there were a few drunks looking to fight, but they usually wondered outside and passed out. Raxle was waiting for his friend Aurane; They were scheduled to set out for Ald Sotha that night. They were going to recover an artifact left there by Raxle’s ancestor, Terious. Terious had been a fearsome Imperial Vampire and had headed House Telvanni for many years. During his travels he had collected many rare artifacts, but one stood out among them. The item was called Berne’s Blood, a staff that had supposedly been used by Raxle Berne, the head of the Berne Clan of Vampires. Terious had stolen this staff from the Berne vampires and had fled as far as Ald Sotha when he was surrounded by fifteen vampires. As they all descended upon him, an aspect of Molag Bal, the Daedric Prince of Vampires, killed everyone in the room in one moment. Raxle believed that Molag Bal had left it for him to find and after thoroughly discussing the matter with Aurane, had decided they should go and see if they could recover the staff from the ruins of Ald-Sotha. Raxle waited in the bar for a few more minutes and then went to stand outside. It was a beautiful day in Vvardenfell and those were few and far between. He paced around outside the bar for a few more moments, but he saw a flash of light next to the Imperial Cult Shrine and knew that Aurane had finally arrived. Divine Intervention was the only way Aurane traveled. He always had an Amulet of Divine Intervention, a spell of Divine Intervention and fifteen scrolls of Divine Intervention. Some called him neurotic, but in the twenty years that Raxle had known Aurane, he had never once gotten in above his head. Aurane walked down the pathway to meet Raxle in his usual extravagantly enchanted shirt, pants, and shoes. Raxle had told him to tone down his flamboyant wardrobe, but Aurane said the enchantments helped him fight, so Raxle had backed down. “All hail Glowy, lord of the Bretons” Aurane laughed his deep laugh and said “Someday you’ll thank me, Raxle”. They then set out for the docks and the rest of their trip.

When they arrived in Vivec’s dock it was nine in the morning and the sun shone bright upon the water. They walked past the great city and stopped and gazed at the beauty of the Foreign Quarter in the freshly risen sun. They started their walk over to Ald Sotha, the wind at their back. Raxle was dressed in glass and ebony armor and was carrying an enchanted Daedric Dai-Katana he had nicknamed Godsbane. Aurane was armed with a dwarven crossbow, a Glass Jinxblade and a Daedric Dagger. During the short walk to Ald-Sotha, Raxle felt that someone was watching them, but every time he glanced over his shoulder there was nothing he could see. When they saw the startling beauty of Ald-Sotha in the distance, they knew that it would be fraught with Daedric beasts waiting to attack them. The first thing they encountered was a Nord named Rolf the Seal, he was apparently an adventurer who was grievously wounded after a fight inside Ald-Sotha. Aurane walked up to him and gave him a restore health potion and asked him what had attacked him.
When Rolf spoke it was in a barely audible whisper “Vampires, tons of them. They’re fighting with Ordinators, spells and swords. I just went in there to loot the place.”
Aurane then asked him “How do you feel?”
Rolf laughed and said “Beside the stinging pain in my arm? Well, now that you mention it, I feel kind of queasy.”
Aurane pulled his Daedric Dagger out and slit Rolf’s throat before anyone could react. Raxle, taken aback, yelled “What in the hell did you do that for?”
Aurane cleaned his blade, returned it to it’s sheath, and then said “He was infected with Porphyric Hemophilia, and by the look of it, he was in the final stages before becoming a Vampire.”
Raxle was stunned “How do you know?”
“My father was a very powerful healer and treated my adventurers and mages. Whenever he saw someone feeling like this he’d ask how they felt. They always felt queasy. He’d tell them this then give them the option of leaving and trying to treat it or letting him kill them. They always let him kill them; it put them out of their suffering.”
For a moment, Raxle was shocked by his friend’s brutality, but then realized that he had been right to kill Rolf. When they got to the door of the shrine Raxle turned to Aurane and asked if she was ready. Aurane gulped and nodded. They opened the door and were met by four vampires, all wielding glistening, enchanted ebony shortswords.
Aurane grinned, “Two and Two”.
Raxle sprinted at two of the vampires with Godsbane swinging wildly, while Aurane cast paralyze on his two and then went to work with his Daedric Dagger. Raxle struck the first Vampire twice in the stomach and hit the second one twice in the face, they both crumpled in a heap at his feet. Raxle put his sword back in his sheath and said to Aurane “Did you get hit?” Aurane shook his head no.
They proceeded down the stairs to the door to of the shrine, where they readied their weapons, drank their restore health potions, and readied themselves for what was sure to be some of the worst combat they had ever faced.
Raxle turned to Aurane and said “I’ll go in first, slashing with Godsbane, and you bring up the rear, shooting spells.” Aurane just nodded, apparently at a loss for words.
Aurane pushed open the door to the shrine and let his friend run through with his sword waving. Aurane began shooting spells of fireball, frostball, and paralysis over Raxle’s shoulder. Inside the shrine there were thirty people. Twelve Ordinators with enchanted Indoril Armor and Eighteen Vampires all wielding and wearing Ebony. Aurane’s paralysis spells hit two vampires and four ordinators, but the fireballs hit everyone inside except Raxle.
Raxle ran into the fray with his sword pointed straight out, ready to hit anything that got in his way. An Ordinator turned to Raxle and said “What are you doing here? This is a temple excursion for the elimination of these Vampire scum.”
Raxle laughed and just said “I’m here for the loot”. The Ordinator turned away from Raxle and hit a Vampire square across the face with his ebony mace. Raxle swung Godsbane and quickly took down one vampire and wounded another. He heard a blood curdling yell and quickly turned to his left, only to see two vampires being struck down by Aurane’s fireballs. Aurane then pulled out his crossbow and rained bolts down upon the crowd. Raxle was taking down Ordinators and Vampires alike, leaving no one alive. He pulled his sword out of the chest of a Vampire and looked over his shoulder to see a Vampire standing over Aurane’s body holding Berne’s Blood in one hand and Aurane’s crossbow in the other. He was wearing a full suit of Daedric Armor and a disgusting, blood stained smile upon his face. The Ordinators continued to battle with the few remaining Vampires, but Raxle saw what he had come for. He walked over to the Vampire and said “What you have is mine.”
“Come and get it, mortal.” the Vampire laughed. Raxle swung Godsbane with all his strength and hit the Vampire in his midsection. The Vampire feel to his knees and was gasping for breath, be he still managed to utter his last words “You will join me.” Raxle knelt down and picked up Berne’s Blood from the Vampire’s corpse. Raxle had gotten the artifact, but he had also gotten something else. He had become a Vampire.