Gaenor: Reloaded Options

[ShraX]

I posted this on the official TES forums, and although it's not finished, I'll continue updating both here and there.

If you haven't read the other two stories I've written, one of them is in the Fan Fiction section of this site, and you can PM me for the other. There really is not much needed to know when reading this one, except who the already well-known characters such as Gaenor and Almalexia are.

Enjoy--

The Nerevarine lay a lifeless corpse upon the Mournhold Temple steps. His blood trickled out of the slashed openings in his neck, limbs and torso, and down each stair, leaving its stains as it went before collecting into a shapeless pool on the tiled courtyard floor. The High Ordinators were still, their armored masks hiding the looks of terror on their faces as they stared at their defeated savior. The Temple doors were now wide open, and Almalexia hovered at the entrance. Her Hands were nowhere in sight.

"My champion," she said softly in disbelief, her golden face emotionless. "Who is responsible for this?" She spoke quietly but the entire city heard her. A Hand emerged from the darkness of the Temple and removed his helmet., engraved with the Daedric runes for S and V. "Our guards watched the battle," he explained in his low, rumbling voice. "They dared not aid your Nerevar for fear of death by his murderer - the Bosmer, Gaenor." The Demigoddess floated down the stairs, over the the corpse of the Nerevarine and turned back to the Temple. "Salas, this wood elf has gotten his revenge, but Terenius' life is nowhere close to Nerevar's in worth. Remain here and clean this mess. I will find young Gaenor and speak with him." Her Hand bowed and ordered the two Ordinators, still in a stupor, to dispose of the Nerevarine's body, as well as those of the four slain Hands within the Temple. Almalexia's wrath was unbridalled, and vengeance consumed her. Her fury at the news of Nerevar's death manifested physically, killing all but her favored Hand, Salas Volar, in an explosion of goldy flames.

She flew from her place in the Temple courtyard high above the city and into the clouds which concealed the late afternoon sun's light. The moons were now more than halfway over the mountainous horizon and brought their stars with them. With a gesture of her wrist the dense clouds parted in two and the light of the lowering sun lit the city aglow. She closed her eyes and began searching for her prey. However, this was unnecessary. Almalexia expected this mortal to flee into hiding from her might, but he welcomed it. He was sitting on a bench in the Bazaar, doodling shapes in the dirt with his sword.

His armor was sundered, dented and sliced through. One pauldron was missing as well as both gauntlets and parts of his greaves. It wasn't clear to tell from his ebony armor, but he was covered in blood from head to toe. He leaned his blade on the bench and removed his helmet, then placed it over the hilt. It was hot and sweat was dripping from his forehead to his beard. He put both hands to his face and wiped it, and ran his fingers through his stiff hair. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes, waiting with open arms for death's embrace.

Almalexia dove towards him like a starving hawk upon a field mouse, disintegrating the clouds with the aura of flame around her. This mortal wood elf defeated her martyr in combat and had the audacity to sit on a park bench in plain sight! Masser and Secunda were rising in unnatural quickness and the sun was already out of sight. The furious demigoddess did not realize in her blind rage, but Gaenor tore away from his hands and looked up past her to see it: both moons took position directly above him, Secunda in front. As they slowed to a stop everything around him turned pitch black, aside from the raging Almalexia, now halted in mid-air, as well as both moons.

The elf slowly stood and faced his enemy in partial confusion. After his ordeal he truly cared not what his fate was. 'An eye for an eye,' was his logic. 'She took Terenius and I take the Nerevarine.. but this is very strange. perhaps this witch's debt is still not repaid.' He walked past her toward the moons, which were glowing and pulsating with light, as if to communicate.

"Much has happened this day. We must speak."

[ShraX]

The Origin of Iranon
as told by an anonymous lorekeeper

It is well known throughout Tamriel and has been since before the First Era of the Empire that the Argonians of Black Marsh (or Argonia as it is called by the natives) have always upheld the idea of death in the highest regard. The fact that things that once were nothing, then have lived only to die, infatuated them, and had taken a high place in their shamanistic religious beliefs. The wise ones of their villages claimed to speak to the spirits of their loved ones past, and these spirits gave them counsel in times of great strife.

Necromancy, however, was forbidden not through law, but through association. If it was discovered that a necromancer lived among the other citizens in a village, they would immediately banish the suspect without hesitation, for they knew the terrible consequences of such a practice. Much like the Dunmer of Morrowind, they look down on necromancy in any of its forms, and shun those who have proved themselves to raise the dead.

Before Imperial-recorded time, in an unmarked region of Argonia, there was an epic battle between seven opposing tribes who had been waging a violent war for some years. Their dispute is still unknown and is open to debate, but it seems to most historians that they fought for control of a cave which, apparently, held great importance to the Argonians.

One warrior in particular was named Iranon, and was scheduled to leave his smithy for the battlefield in which this cave laid with the rest of his organized group. They ran swiftly through the swamps, clad in tough leathers and wielding long, wooden pikes, bound for the site of the cave to help take the area and claim it for their tribe. When they arrived, the ground was almost entirely covered in blood and corpses of their fallen enemies and allies. Mysteriously though, the cave itself remained clean and dry. Iranon and his group killed many, they being their tribes' last resort, consisting of the finest fighters they had to offer. They proved to be too great of opponents for their foes, and managed to take the cave at last.

Iranon was the first to enter the cave in hundreds of years, his comrades returning to report their victory. It was dark as blackest night, and there were no torches, but the warrior was somehow able to sense where his steps would fall before they did. He navigated the ancient cave until the entrance was out of sight, and the sounds of the insects and creatures of the swamp were no longer audible. He did, however, hear a faint whisper. It was coming from deeper within the cave, and it spoke in a language unintelligible to Argonians, yet Iranon understood. It told him of wondrous power and the glory of his tribe, and that he would be heralded a hero for years beyond reckoning. He enjoyed listening to such things, and he delved further into the recesses of the cave.

The whisper turned louder and eventually shouted, praising Iranon's name and poisoning his mind with delusions of his greatness. The cave was still solid in darkness, but the voice gave his eyes clear sight. He fixed them upon a small, ebony statuette of a horned, winged demon on an altar, surrounded by unlit mounds of black wax. The voice forced his hands to the idol and instructed him to keep it safe, and that he would wield unmatched might if he followed the voice's commands. The warrior, now cursed by the statuette, hurried out of the cave and north towards Morrowind. No one is certain as to why he traveled there or what became of the idol, but Iranon's fate is well known.

He returned months later to Argonia draped in rags and shrouded in a hooded cloak, his healthy green scales now pale and discolored, and his hidden eyes fully engulfed in black. The voice drove him into insanity over his time spent in Morrowind, and taught him the new power it promised. The battlefield was still lousy with rotting corpses, as if something was causing the victorious tribe to stay away. Iranon raised each corpse individually with necromantic magic and ordered them to attack each warring tribe, one by one until they were all destroyed. Four hundred soldiers died outside the cave, and Iranon now commanded an army of undead. As his bidding was carried out, he began construction of a great forge within the largest cavern, deep beneath the surface. Combining his knowledge of weaponcrafting with necromancy, he created tools of demonic destruction, fervently and rapidly all day and night for a long while, until his cave walls were lavishly adorned with them.

There was one weapon that he favored above all the others he had made, one he admired so greatly as to enchant it with the damned souls of his raised minions. He called it the Blade of Cinders, and although wanted above all else to use it himself, was commanded by the voice to reserve it for someone else, something with which Iranon silently and furiously disagreed, and eventually caused him to hate the voice for prohibiting his use of the sword.

No knowledge of the voice has been obtained as far as whose it was, but several signs point to Dagoth Ur since the idol was brought to Morrowind. Others claim it to have been Garonar, fabled Lord of Darkness, and still others say it belonged to a powerful Daedra from Oblivion, supporting the fact that the statuette was in the shape of a demon. There are many interpretations, but none are clear.

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