The tale of Telina Delvanni, chapter 5., The Rise of Great House Telvanni Options

[Tellie]

The Tale of Telina Delvanni, Chapter 5.

The Rise of Great House Telvanni

-“My name is Llovyn Salvu, Wizard of the house, and I have been assigned to you as your advisor…so would you like to hear the councils current focus”? I answered him with a promptly yes, so he smiled and continued. “The council is complaining about the gap Gothrens death made, so I suggest that you instate a new Master, to take residence in his former tower. These are the candidates.

-“Mallam Ryon Gothrens old mouth, I’ve heard that he is drowning his sorrows in Fara’s Hole in the Wall”.

-“The second one is Lady Zubadayah, daughter of Lady Zafirbel…a rare beauty that one is, she is half Chimer, half Dunmer. You will find her on the docks of Tel Mora”. Hmm, strange half Dunmer half Chimer, that was one I would have to meet personally, so I walked down towards the docks, ready for a boat trip. The same as with my stronghold I was given an item to get back to my chambers here in Sadrith Mora, only this time it was an amulet with a powerful drain health as well, which I could unleash on my enemies.

The trip was a comfortable one, and I was soon over in Tel Mora. Finding Zubadayah was not difficult, I only needed to find the first person who had her right side golden skin, and her left side the ashly grey that was normal amongst us Dunmer. Her face was striking, and she had a kind of divine upheaval beauty around her, almost as she was from a different world than the rest of us.

-“Exuse me sera, but you must be Lady Zubadayah”?
“Who asks”? she said. “Telina Delvanni, Arch-Magister of Great House Telvanni…I’m offering you a job as Master, if you wish it, as soon as you accept you can find a Mouth, and take up residence in the tower of Tel Arhun”.

She looked at me for a bit, pondering on her decision. “Deal, I’ll find a Mouth and take up residence in Tel Arhun”. She turned and walked towards the tower of Dratha…”Wait a moment, I have a question for you”, I yelled.

She stopped, and turned again. “Why is it that your skin is half golden half ashly”? I said to her. “Because I’m the daughter of Lady Zafirbel one of the original founders of Great House Telvanni, and Lord Vehk, Azura granted every daughter of my line to be born with the split skin of Chimer and Dunmer, to show that there is still hope for our race”, then she walked away, leaving me standing there.

After a few moments, I gathered myself, and went for a piece of fried fish at the local inn, before I went back to Sadrith Mora. “I’ve convienced Lady Zabadayah to join the council as a Master”, I told Llovlyn.

-“Exellent”, he smiled, “the councils current focus is now to bring the Mages guild down, would you like to destroy the guild here on Vvardenfell”? he asked nervously.

This required some thinking. Ok, The Mages Guild had never been actually good to me, the had called me several things, taken unnecessary high payment for me being Telvanni, I had more than once been threatned on my life when I had been in a guildhall lately…and back when I lived in Cyrodiil, they had tried to get me arrested for being a necromancer (I had refused point blank to join their guild )…and not to mention they made many people who offered magical training have “unexpected accidents”, and the last thing was that they currently had a monopoly on magical training here on the island, and they would destroy the house, if they had the chance to it…”I’ll make sure the guild is destroyed personally”, I told Llovyn after a few minutes thinking.

[Tellie]

He smiled broadly at me. “Ok, first I think we should make the two most important guild stewards, and possibly make them join us. Bribe Edwinna Elbert, their leading member within the Dwemer, and Skink-In-Three-Shades, who is an expert on the sixth house. Tell him that we have mutual interest in his cause, and can pay him better.

Ok, so bribing Edwina in Ald Rhuun, and try to turn Skink in Wolverine Hall, by telling him of our mutual interest…that would be easy, I could see no bloody things here. Sometimes I wonder if the gods love to toy with our lives.

-“Oh sure I’ll join your House” Edwinna said…”IF you manage to get me a Dwemer coherer and 10.000grant”. Typical, now I needed to go out and find possibly one of the rarest Dwemer items one can think of, and give her ten grand…and my day had just started.

-“Skink House will join, after getting amulet of Dagoth house and 15.000 drakes, no sooner”. Ok that was even worse, getting an amulet of House Dagoth meant wading into a pestilent lair filled with corprus beasties and other foul things. Now I had actually heard of a sixth house base in a cavern called Hassour, in the Foyada Mamaea, which thank Azura was only half an hours walk from Balmora.

But when I stood outside the cave door two hours later, I wished the road had been longer, but I took a deep breath and went inside, ready to shot steel laden death upon anything that moved in there.

The base had crude big red candles put up everywhere, and I got a chill in the bones just being there, and the smell…the smell of death and corrupted flesh filled up the entire cave system. I took the way to the left, and had only walked for thirty seconds before a corprus stalker came wagging towards me, arms extended like another zombie, but fortunately it seemed to have an allergic reaction for being sliced in two by my Ice Blade of the Monarch, which I had re-acquired for this situation…as it fell to the ground, as its flesh just seemed to grind into dust.

The next thing I ran afoul of was two ash slaves, who slung a spell each. One of the spells hit me in the chest, but I had learnt from my encounter with Gothren, and the Indoril armour made the spell bump neatly off, doing next to no damage. The ash slaves had it a bit worse, as I swung my sword in a deadly arc, which neatly severed the head from the torso on one of them, before I swung around and slammed the sword into the skull of the other who was cleaved from head to groin.

I stopped a bit to catch my breath, and I knew that although I could fight, it was mostly with small light not to mention fast blades. I had too little training to wield such big claymores as this one, but the only way to get experienced is actually to get out there and get the experience.

I walked a bit further, and pushed an unsuspecting ash ghoul into a lava pool, before walking up a kind of stone “bridge” to the shrine. Turning to face me was a rather pissed Dagoth, who acted like he wanted a good piece of Telina on the menu.

I had expected some foul sorcery, but the spell I got slammed towards me was not sane, I managed to dodge it fortunately, but when I looked behind me I could see the rock wall having been set alight. Only one other place had I seen something like that, although that time was much more powerful than this. Velas, the wizard who called himself a Theurgist or something had used a spell like the one that had just been used, only a bit more powerful…but I doubted that a Dagoth would go out and be trained as a Theurgist, which meant that (at least from my usual luck) there had to be a very powerful and dangerous cultist here, knowing his share of Theurgist spells.

The next spell woke me up from my dosed off statement, but painful it was, I got a spell straight on me, fortunately that was no way near as powerful as the first one, it was still immensely hot, and I could smell the foul stench of burned hair, so I felt at my head….DAMN, IT HAD BURNED MY HAIR!! I walked back up, walking carefully was out of the question, I ran in crossbows blazing, and my quickness had surprised the cursed being, as I managed to shot two bolts in the area of where his intestines should have been, but it stood there, yelling some other cantrip, but I’m afraid that it never managed to fulfil the sentence as a big ice claymore took the trip of getting buried inside its head.

Spitting of the being which was now twitching on the floor, I gulped down two potions, one to restore my health, the other one to boost my magicka. Before walking further I picked up the amulet it had around its neck, and set the shrine alight.

I walked with the outmost care through the corridors, not meeting anyone, not until a bog room, with a natural rock pillar standing in the middle. I could see two ash slaves, a lame corprus and a…a man, most likely the Theurgist. As silent as possible I loaded the crossbows, aiming them both at the man. Naturally you must not forget that we are talking about me here, and my luck. Not before had I fired the crossbows, before the lame corprus manages to stumble upon a rock, and take both bolts in the head and fall limp to the floor.

I screamed out in frustration, only to realize too late that I still had three more creatures or men to deal with. The man summoned up a fiery vortex of gargantuan size. I ducked behind the wall, only to leap even further behind, as the red had bypassed red, over to white, before it started to run like hot butter. So he was a magic user with extreme powers, and I was a person with a few nasty spells, and a rather big sharp sword…time for some clever thinking.

I sat down as the spells were flinged around me, consentrated, felt the mind of the simple ash slaves. I had never tried to take control of two before, and I’ll tell you it nearly drained me of my resolve, so it was a weakened version of me who ran like the lords Oblivion itself was behind me, towards the Theurgist, who was now fighting for his life as the two ash slaves. I screamed a brutal battlecry, before I swung around, and smashed the blade horizontally, cleaving the Theurgist and the two ash slaves in twain.

I sat down, panting heavily, dragging out the dagger the man had managed to shove into my shoulder. Drinking deeply from a restore health potion, I sat myself up, looking around. There were too many crates here for only be used as beholders for that vile meat these creatures ate, so I thought we were talking about smuggling. MY luck was even greater than I could have possibly imagined, one crate was filled up to the edge with scrolls, the other one was full of Dwemer artefacts, including a coherer. I grabbed the coherer, and then shipped the two crates to my Tel, for safe keeping.

I turned around, and looked down on the powerful spell caster, I smiled, this was my first victory, my first kill I was actually proud of, I had been totally alone, and cleansed out a sixth house base myself, including killing a Dagoth, and a spell caster, who had an arsenal of spells deadly enough to melt rock. This was something I would remember…forever. Probably as a symbol, I cut of his head, and had it sent to my Tel, along with a note that it would be set up on a pike, just outside my shroom.