Agent, Ebonheart's finest Options

[jack cloudy]

Yesterday was my birthday so here's my belated gift to all of you. The start of a new fanfic! (Wings of Light will be continued as well.) You may notice a shift of focus compared to my earlier fanfics.




Agent.
Chapter 1: In training.

My knees were shivering. For a good reason, I might say as the Duke towering over me looked very intimidating in his heavy suit of Ebony armour. Just to compare the two of us, the helmet would have been enough to crush me. Also, being dressed in cheap rags has never been a good source of courage. As it was, I had more than enough reasons to be afraid of him.

Who am I? I no longer use the name I was born with. I changed it upon my arrival here on Vvardenfell. Now I finally I have a name I can spell. Anyway, my name is Ro-El Frost. Sounds Khajiit? Maybe, but I am really closer related to the Nords, though without the muscles, the alcohol tolerance, the noise and without the size. Go figure.

The Duke turned to a man wearing some sort of golden armour. Probably the boss of the guard who was blocking the only way out of the room.
,,Is this the kid you were talking about?” The Duke asked with a stern voice. This did not sound well.
,,Yes, that’s the one.” Was the equally stern reply. This was one of those moments that your life would start to fly past your eyes.

How did I get here? Well, I don’t really know to be honest. People claim I must have been on the Skooma to have forgotten how I ever found myself in that mine. I didn’t like it there. The slavers forced me to do hard labour every day. I could feel my life slowly seep away with every single egg I harvested. I had to get out.

My plan took time but it worked in the end, except for one small detail. I harvested some poison one of the Kwama warriors had been spitting at the wall and mixed it with my food for the day. The day after that, I dumped it into the lake that was somehow inside the mine. The food had been swallowed by the Slaughterfish before I’d stepped away. The next part of my plan was the hardest. I’d been warned that the smell of their queen’s blood puts the Kwama into a killing frenzie. This information was meant so that the slaves were careful not to kill themselves, but it could also be used to my advantage.

So as you might guess, tapping blood from the queen is a potentially lethal act. Fortunately, I knew that by tapping just a little through a tiny wound made with my fingernail, the Kwama would not even notice. I carefully kept the blood sealed away inside a bottle till after four days, I’d finally collected enough. That night came the last part of my masterplan.

I managed to convince the slaves to go swimming in the lake, after showing them that the Slaughterfish had died through my act of poisoning. Next, I sprinkled the collected blood on the clothes of the slavers. I managed to get out to the lake before the killing started. I’d never been so glad that Kwama can’t swim. Those things were completely out of control. Which leads me to where I am now.

,,You have caused the death of three Dunmer and would have escaped if my Legionaires weren’t performing a raid at the same time.” The Duke spoke directly to me. Remember the little detail that went wrong? Well two dozen heavily armed soldiers who found a whole angry bunch of Kwama in their face, that’s what went wrong.
,,I thought they would run when the Kwama went mad. I didn’t expect them to die.” Was the weak defense I managed to whisper.

My arm was brusquely grabbed by the guard. The slave bracers I’d been forced to wear clattered on the floor.
,,Ro-El Frost, you have closed down an illegal egg mine and punished those who were responsible. You have further freed their prisoners who are being returned to their families as we speak. All that without harming the Kwama themselves, my men are responsible for that. As such, it is my pleasure as a servant of the great Emperor, Uriel Septim, to grant you your freedom and to take you into my service as an agent in the order of Ebonheart. Serius will escort you to your room.” The Duke now said with a smile and pointed at the guard who had released me from the symbol of slavery.

In a flash of inspiration, I snatched the bracers from the floor before I was dragged out of the room by Serius. We ascended many stairs before he finally threw open a wooden door and pushed me inside. ,,Consider everything in this room to be yours. You’ll be summoned tomorrow at 6 am. Wait inside your room till we come for you.” Serius ordered me before slamming the door shut. Not the nicest guy in the world.

I sat down on the bed and looked around, still unable to believe what had just happened. Instead of being branded as the bad guy and possibly executed, I had been turned into some sort of hero. Not exactly something that happened to me every day.

After I finally admitted to myself that things had turned out alright, I took a look around the room they’d given me. Apart from the bed, there was a closet, a mirror, a desk with several books on it and a sturdy wooden chest. It wasn’t big, but not small either. I opened the closet with the intention of swapping my dirty old rags with something more comfortable. It was cold this time of the year. The closet did not disappoint me. It was filled with all kinds of clothes ranging from simple but sturdy to downright extravagant and fit for a noble. There were shirts, pants, robes, shoes and even a few skirts, though I did not know what I was supposed to do with those. Men don’t wear skirts where I come from. Finally there were a few gloves on a separate rack.

I choose for a simple blue shirt with matching pants and a pair of shoes fit for indoor use. As the last action of the day, I picked up the book lying on top of the pile. ‘History of the Empire, part 1’ it said on the cover. If my idea of an agent was somewhat correct, these books had been placed here for a reason. I had some reading to do.

[jack cloudy]

Correct, first person. Let's just say that Ro-El has accepted his heritage now. Anyway, update time.





As we ran through the winding passages, I shed tears for the fallen we passed. Too many had died for this. My muscles ached from my duel with Nerevar. I knew that I could not fight with all my strength at this moment. We turned around a corner and skidded to a halt. In front of us, a Centurion of unknown design guarded the entrance to Numidium’s chamber. It was big, with heavy plates of armour covering every potential weakness. It had no weapons but it did not need any. The heavy weight of its hands was enough to crush flesh and bones.
,,Step aside and let us pass!” I ordered it. In response, the Centurion slammed its hands together, making the corridor tremble. I pointed Forgeheart at it.
,,Looks like it only listens to Kagrenac. Fine then, we’ll just have to go through it. Charge!”

We dashed forward as one. Vivec unleashed a barrage of spells to weaken its armour before we met. Voryn used his spear to leap high into the air and landed on the Centurion’s head. Standing on its shoulders, he began to stab at its skull, aiming from the brain inside. I ducked underneath a swinging hand and hammered away at the legs. At my first strike, a minor dent appeared. At my second, the dent tore open and exposed the internal mechanism. At the third and final hit, I severed the knee and sent the hulking beast to the floor. Even in this position, it continued to flail with its hands and I pinned one of them to the ground with Forgeheart.

The Centurion was an incredibly tough opponent, but too slow to truly pose a threat. Nerevar and I assisted each other, fighting as a pair as we struck at whatever weakness presented itself. Trueflame and Forgeheart bathed the thing in an elemental storm. Vivec and Sotha Sil stood behind us and flung spell after spell into the Centurion, adding to the damage while keeping it from regaining its balance. Finally, Voryn managed to penetrate the skull and shatter its brain. The silence after the battle felt strange.

The door was still closed yet this was no problem for us. As the king of the Dwemer, I had a key for every door in the complex, including this one. We stormed through and found ourselves standing on a ledge high above a pit of boiling magma. A winding path descended downwards to a platform where the Dwemer who had not fought in the battle were hiding. The room was dominated by Numidium, a great Centurion formed into the likeness of Kagrenac himself. Its chest area was open, revealing a strange stone with an aura that promised endless power. Kagrenac was standing in front of the heart.

,,Kagrenac, come down here!” I shouted at the old smith. The Dwemer laughed at me.
,,Do you truly believe that I would listen to you? You’ve come here to stop me, haven’t you? I won’t let you do that, Dumac.” He answered and struck the stone with the hammer he wielded in one hand. A loud chorus like the singing of birds echoed from the stone.
,,If you want to stop me, you must defeat a god!” With a loud hiss of escaping steam, the hatch covering the chest closed, sealing Kagrenac and the heart inside.

Suddenly, Numidium’s hand began to move, descending onto the ledge where we were standing.
,,Jump!” Nerevar shouted and flung himself over the edge, dragging his wife with him. The rest of us followed suit. Above us, the platform was shattered by Numidium’s hand. We aimed for the wall and tried to get a grip. A heavy rock the size of my head impacted with my shoulder, crushing part of my ribcage. I was about to fall but Vivec reached down and grabbed me. Together, we managed to reach the bottom of the chamber where the Dwemer were trying to keep as much distance to the Centurion as possible.

Vivec carefully lowered me to the ground. The pain of my wounds was nearly enough to kill me on its own. The pain numbed at the touch of the Chimer’s finger though he couldn’t repair the damage that had been done. From my current position, I saw how Numidium smashed a hole in the ceiling and dragged himself out of the mountain.
,,Curses! He’ll destroy everyone with that thing!” Voryn roared. Before the great Centurion vanished from our eyes, it turned around and looked down upon us.
,,I know you, Dumac. You’d rather die fighting than let me do as I please. Go ahead, try to awaken Pelinal. You’ll find that I’ve destroyed its powersource. Now it is nothing more than a statue!” Kagrenac’s voice was multiplied a thousand times in strength. Then, the machine left us.

,,Nerevar.” I whispered, straining my battered lungs. My old friend knelt down beside me.
,,Dumac is right. Without a suitable powersource, Pelinal is powerless.” I continued, coughing up a large amount of blood.
,,Don’t talk, my friend. We’ll stop him for you, no matter what it takes.” The Chimer warleader urged.
,,No, we’ve been blinded for too long. Numidium is not a normal Centurion, not powered by a mechanism of our own. It is powered by the heart of a god, by life, not by death steel. Pelinal will move even without a powersource, if we make the right sacrifice. I’ll be that sacrifice. Take me to it, you know where to go.” Darkness encroached upon the edges of my vision.

My wounds had numbed my senses and I lost consciousness multiple times as Nerevar carried me further through halls filled with magma. When we arrived at Pelinal’s location, Vivec’s powers were needed again to keep me alive. They took me to Pelinal’s head and lowered me into a throne located inside its head. Safe for the throne, the only features of the chamber where three slots arrayed around the throne.
,,Put Trueflame in the right slot, Hopesfire in the left” I instructed them. I did not know where my plan came from. It was as if someone else was hiding in the shadows, playing me like a puppet. Nerevar and his wife did as I’d told. Sotha Sil helped me lift my arm and place Forgeheart in the third and final slot.
,,Take my soul. I beg you, Shield of Resdayn. Take my soul and come to life!” I no longer had the strength to say a word so my request was only spoken as a thought.

I could feel my soul leaving my body. I willed my soul to move into Pelinal, to become its lifeblood. The god refused me somehow and I was cast back into my dying body. I could hear voices, vague as if they were speaking from the other side of a very large room.
,,We won’t stand by and watch how everyone is slaughtered by Numidium. This is our curse, we shall lift it by our own strength. Better for one race to die than for two. No more shall we be known as the Dwemer, a mortal race. We shall be known as the Centurion’s blood!” Once again, my soul left my body. I was swept along by a tidal wave of souls all trying to merge with the Centurion. Again, the barrier refused us but this time it collapsed under the combined strength of our souls.

Now we were in Pelinal. No, we were Pelinal. All our memories, our emotions, our very identity, it was all stripped away from us. Our souls became one featureless mass as silent as a frozen sea. From this mass, a single new soul rose up. The soul of Pelinal.

I opened my eyes slowly. The scene had changed since I’d closed them. The sun was about to make place for the night and a large Dwemer construct hovered above the lake. The airship had arrived. Zarador pulled me on to my feet and brushed the sand from my pants.
,,And after that? What happened after Pelinal’s awakening?” He asked. I shrugged.
,,Don’t ask me. Technically, I was death by then. The first memory after that is located in a babycrib somewhere on Soltstheim. All I know is from the information we’ve managed to gather. Pelinal trashed Numidium but suffered heavy damage in the process.”

We boarded the Cloudcleaver in silence. The army of Centurion’s I’d sent out to retrieve and repair the vehicle had all gathered on deck. I thanked them for their service and made the preparations for our trip to the northern island. Back to the place where Ro-El was born. Solstheim.

,,We now know more about the powersource though. Pelinal doesn’t have one. It is fuelled by the souls of the Dwemer who were at Red Mountain during the event. Just how my soul was separated and brought into a Nord’s body, I don’t know. I also did some research on the swords. Trueflame has been lost, broken according to some accounts. Hopesfire is still in Almalexia’s possession and Forgeheart is hidden somewhere. If we can find Forgeheart, retrieve Hopesfire and somehow find the current location of Pelinal, we can revive it with two of its three aspects.” I reasoned as we made ourselves comfortable on deck. Zarador looked towards the rear of the ship and pointed at Red Mountain.
,,We need to make haste, I’m afraid. It appears that the Sixth House no longer wishes to play with us.” I looked out towards Red Mountain as well. We could no longer see the actual mountain. It was hidden under a cloud of ash. And the cloud was moving parallel along our course. We were being followed.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Jan 28 2007, 09:54 PM