Alexander in Morrowind (2) Options

[jonajosa]

[quote=treydog]You make Baladas such an interesting character- I have only seen him in reference to the propylon index and (with a different character) the Orc tax-collector. Like Minque, makes me think that I need to develop a Telvanni character.[/quote]
That would be nice. Maybe your character could bribe a guildman in another house to get you to change houses.
Lovely Telvanni details Alexander. I hope you go into good detail like this when your doing the quest to build your stronghold(if you do it). Cant wait to read what YOUR stronghold will look like. More houses maybe?

[Dantrag]

Haven't read all of part 2, but so far, its great. Still love the idea of throwing a modern-day person into the fantasy world of Tamriel.


(If it turns out that all of the story was a dream, and Alexander wakes up to his family, etc.....then i will kill you. )

[Alexander]

[quote=Dantrag]Haven't read all of part 2, but so far, its great. Still love the idea of throwing a modern-day person into the fantasy world of Tamriel.


(If it turns out that all of the story was a dream, and Alexander wakes up to his family, etc.....then i will kill you. )[/quote]



no that will not be it. at least, not that I know so far

[Alexander]

He graciously offered me the room he had downstairs where he used to house servants before he decided he didn’t need them anymore. He was also good enough to inform me not to go into the room with the locked door as he had had a little experiment in there and there were still two skeleton warriors inside. Of course he would have dealt with it but he hadn’t had the time; that seemed to happen to him often, not having the time there, though I expected he was just a bit lazy in his old years.

Either way, I found the room and had a pleasant night even though across the hall were two skeletons. Waking up the next morning, I wondered what Baladas had in store for me next. So after I had eaten what I still had in my pack, I went upstairs and asked him about the next chore. “Have you ever heard of Dahrk Mezalf?” he asked me. Of course I hadn’t. “Well,” he went on to say, “Dahrk was one of the smiths that worked under the guidance of the great inventor Kagrenac. He created many inventions in his time and I believe his ghost is still roaming the earth here. I want you to go to the Dwemer village of Bthungthumz, where rumor has it he was buried and find me his enchanted ring. I would do it myself of course, but I seem to be very busy lately so if you do this for me Alexander, then there is a big chance that I will join the Council and even side with Aryon for this vote.”

As empty as that promise was , I knew I had little choice but to go there and do this for Baladas. Little choice indeed. So after he had told me where I could find the ruins, and after he had told me many many times not to enter the ruins to the west of these ruins as that contained the headquarters of a Vampire clan, I was on my way. I knew there were ways to speed up the travel but I decided to walk most of the way and get a nice view of the area there. This also gave me some time to think. There were still a few loose ends in my life now.

For one thing there was Arthur; I remembered the day we left for Sadrith Mora I gave that ring to Divayth as I had said I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. Had he shown himself a true friend, this Arthur, then he would have given me a bit more than just a ring, but no I guess he had more pressing matters to attend to. Well fine. Just so long as he didn’t come back to me should he ever need help. Even I knew the absurdity of that thought; the Nerevar needing my help, come on. Like that was ever going to happen.

And of course speaking of loose ends, there was Master Neloth. I was still haunted by his conversation with Divayth. “One may only sponsor a member once.” How odd. To this day I had no idea what he meant, but I feared I would not like it when I found out. I was awaked from thoughts by a sweet Dunmer voice calling out to me; I looked up and saw a very beautiful girl standing in front of a pond. She introduced herself as Synette Jeline and told me she had just been walking here, when all of a sudden her ring had come loose and had fallen into the water and if I would be so nice enough to get it out for her. Well how can one refuse such a beautiful girl? So without hesitation I waded into the water and went looking for her ring, but as I was in there and feeling the bottom with my hands, it dawned on me what an odd story it was really, a ring slipping from a finger and landing several feet beyond in the water. So after thinking that over, I realized something here wasn’t quite right and looking up at Synette I saw her looking at something in the distance, not just looking but really looking like there was something or someone there.

Realizing this was one situation where it would be better safe then sorry, I pretended to search on while gathering my will, and when I had enough I unleashed a paralyzing strike to that spot Synette was looking at, and sure enough, I found myself right. Something that was there had now appeared because of the paralyze spell and it seemed to be a woman with a bow all dressed in Chitin armor. I was glad I had chosen this approach for I knew had I instead levitated I would have found myself pierced with arrows, but I didn’t have a lot of time to gloat over my luck, as Synette then jumped into the water carrying a vicious looking dagger. It seemed she had overcome her fear of the water all of a sudden and I had barely enough time to draw my own sword before she was on me. It was a close call that time, mostly because she was so close and a long sword, as useful as it is, is not really suited for close combat like that. But after I pushed her away I was able to pierce her with my blade and that was the end of it. As a strange coincidence, I looked down right then and saw a ring lying there, and not being able to smother a small smile, I spoke out loud, “Ah, here is your ring Synette, but I guess you won’t be needing it now, will you?” And with that I put the ring in my pocket determined to hang onto it as a lesson to myself never to trust people on appearance.

Just then I felt a stinging pain in my left arm and when I looked at it, I saw an arrow stuck in it and was just able to duck out of the way for the next arrow to come flying in. Having been too hasty with declaring victory I understood my other attacker had escaped from the paralyze spell. I couldn’t see her but I sure saw the arrows as they were flying towards me. So after having determined the location where the arrows were coming from, I released a wall of air towards her. It not only deflected all the arrows that she fired at me but also when it reached her, knocked her down. I quickly got up and rushed to her. I put the tip of my blade on her throat and told her to yield or die. She of course choose the first and threw down her arms. She told me her name was Tavynu Tedran, and she begged me for her life. I asked her to how many people they had done this already and she shrugged and said she had lost count. Of course the ploy was brilliant, a sweet young lady lost a ring and any gentleman would dive in there to find it. Only once he emerged with the ring, he would get a couple of arrows as reward.

I demanded she get up and follow me to Ald Velothi to be brought to justice, only after having searched her of course and it was helpful as I found the reason for her chameleon- a very strong amulet. I knew that would come in handy one day in the future. Meanwhile, the important thing now was to get to Ald Velothi and get her to some magistrate and myself to a healer. That arrow was still in my arm and wasn’t going anywhere either. Fortunately the rest of that trip was uneventful and coming into Ald Velothi, I handed Tavynu over to the local Redoran authorities and went to the outpost there to get cured. The local priest was kinder then most of his kind. He removed the arrow and healed the wound with magic, making the recovery very swift.

Deciding I had had just about enough travel for one day, I decided to stick around for the rest of the day and go on the next. Luckily the priest that had healed me was kind enough to offer me a place to stay for the night, even though he appeared to be Redoran. I guess he either wasn’t aware that I was Telvanni, or couldn’t care less about my allegiance to a house. I was glad for that and it made me realize that there are people in all houses that are kind even though the general appearance of the house didn’t appear to be.

[Alexander]

On the morrow I thanked the priest for his hospitality and set out to the Dwemer village again. The rest of my trip was uneventful, so I’ll spare you most of the details, just a couple hundred cliff racers that got in my path and died without having a chance, and of course the fishing village Khuul. There I heard from the villagers that there was some trouble at Fort Frost Moth to the north east but that was none of my concern. At least not right now. So walking on, I came to the mountains, levitated over them and found myself in a canyon between two mountain sides. If I by any chance haven’t already told you how much I liked such a basic spell like levitate, well I do. It always comes in handy, you can use it to easily kill cliff racers and to get people up into the air without them causing anymore trouble. A spell for every occasion really.

But I digress from the story here, there I was in that canyon and sure enough after walking a small way to the west I found myself near not one but two Dwemer ruins. Now normally the difference would not have been noticeable and given my luck, I’m sure I would have stumbled into the Quarra Vampire lair instead of Bthungthumz but this was another time I could be grateful for the training I had received from both Divayth and Yagrum, who had even taught me the basics of the Dwemer language. The name on the first ruins read Druscashti so I knew that wasn’t the one. Sure enough, levitating up to the door of the second, the name read Bthungthumz.

Downing a fortify health potion before I entered, I went inside and found myself right away in danger; a centurion spider came running up to me and left me barely enough time to draw my blade and pierce the top of his armor before it was upon me. Walking further into the ruins I found myself facing more enemies then were usual in a ruin. I guess they were determined not to let me get near this Dahrk as they threw everything but the Dwemer sink at me. Ghosts, steam centurions, spiders, and spheres, they all wandered into my path and left me feeling tired by the time I came to the last room, and looking inside I found another ghost, but this one looked all the more vicious and dangerous then the normal ones. He came at me with a scream and cast a lightning bolt at me. Stumbling back the hallway in order to avoid the bolts, I suddenly felt my leg hit something and before I could recover, I fell backwards over a dead spider. I saw Dahrk draw in his power to deliver the final spell that would finish me and knew then that I was done for; there was no way for me to put up defenses in time.

But at that time, I reached into my pocket and felt the ring I had there slip over my finger, almost as if it had a will of its own. And then the lightning was upon me, I felt it as it was so close I could touch it; it singed my skin and and then it was gone. I had closed my eyes but now found myself still breathing, still alive where the lightning should have killed me.. I slowly opened my eyes, and was just in time to see the ghost of this Dahrk Mezalf get hit by his own lightning spell and vanish in a puff of smoke. I looked down at myself to make sure I was not hurt, and then looked at my finger. To my astonishment, the ring on my finger was not the one I found in the pond there, but it was the ring Arthur gave me. How it had got there, I have no idea. I knew I had given it to Divayth and my only guess is that I should have a long talk with him about this trick he pulled.

Gathering up my wits again, I walked over to the ashes of Dahrk and, sure enough, there was a ring there. Pocketing it I made my way to the exit determined not to stay another minute here in this place that had almost cost me my life. But as I opened the door to the outside, I found the sun had set, night was upon me, and what was worse I saw in the distance, from the direction of Druscashti several people approaching me. I could feel they were vampires and knew there was little sense in fleeing from them; with their gifts they would be faster than me by far. So I did the only thing I could think of; I closed the door again and sealed it up with my most powerful lock spell hoping that it would be enough to keep them out.

They must have known what I was doing as they sped up and the next minute they were at the door,. calling out to me to open up.. They told me they weren’t going to hurt me, they just wanted to talk. Yeah right, and I’m the Easter bunny. When I kept quiet and they found I wasn’t going to be fooled, they started pounding away on the door; surprisingly, though, they never tried to use magic to open the door, surprising at least until I thought about them and remembered that the Quarra were the Warrior caste of the Vampires, so they had little or no proficiency in Magic use.

Even without that, I can safely assure you I was terrified. Here I was in a ruins that had nearly killed me and outside there were Vampires that wanted to kill me. Luckily though, my spells seemed to be holding out. I even cast them a couple of times extra just to be safe. Then I slouched down onto the floor, put my back against the wall, and waited for sunrise. The night was disturbing of course; they never let down pounding on the door through the entire night. I hardly got any sleep that night, but I was sure no sleep was better then an eternal sleep. As the time went by, I noticed they increased their effort and by that I could even tell how soon the sun would rise again, until I heard one of them say they had to get back now lest they were killed when the sun came. They shouted some curses at me through the door but then they left.

Of course I had not been born yesterday so I suspected a ruse and kept low. In fact I must have dozed off then because when I woke up, I saw the sunlight creeping in through the holes of the door. I slowly dispelled my locks and opened the door. Luckily the sun was really there, looking down at me from above and it seemed to welcome me. When I turned and looked at the door, I realized I had never been happier with my gift then I was at that time; the door looked like an old road. With potholes in it and dents as far as the eye could see, in fact the effects of my spells were probably the only things that kept them from falling out of their battered hinges.

Feeling the after effects of a sleepless night, I wandered into the canyon and found it hard even to levitate over the mountains. I made my way back first to Khuul, then to Ald Velothi where I saw a gallows. Coming closer I found they had hanged Tavynu and had kept her there as a warning to other outlaws that law was swift. Tracing my steps back to Gnisis, I came by the pond, stopping there to reflect on what had happened a couple days back and that was on my mind as I made my way back into Gnisis. Not having had a good night’s sleep and traveling for almost two days straight, I entered Arvs Drelen and walked straight to the room I had used there, saw the bed, fell in it and slept for almost a day.

I knew when I woke up, I should have gone to Baladas first but I was just so tired from the entire ordeal. But now, I felt refreshed and ready again to face Baladas so I made my way upstairs and found him not surprised to see me again at all. He told me he had heard me come in and had planned on coming to see me, but he got caught up in his work again and he asked me if he had told me that before. I couldn’t help but smile. Funny how you grow fond of someone’s habits so soon sometimes. But then it was time for business and I gave him the ring. He seemed thrilled by it and even before I could ask him about it, he told me,

“You have my support Alexander. I’ll make a short note for you to give to Aryon and then you can be on your way if you wish.”

I thanked him and as he made the note to Aryon, I stood there glad to have succeeded when even I thought I would not. He gave me the note and told me to run along now as he had some more work to do. I thanked him again and was on my way back to Tel Vos.


I remembered I still had a mark spell in Vos so I used recall to get back there and made my way up the hill to Tel Vos. I clearly recalled Aryon’s promise to make me his Mouth when I succeeded in this. So when I entered his chambers and found him looking down as if something bad had just happened I knew there was trouble.

I handed him the note and told him I had succeeded, and asked him for advancement. He looked at me in an odd way and I knew something wasn’t going the way I had thought it would go. He was just about to speak when I heard laughter behind me. I turned around and saw Neloth standing there. He spoke,

“Oh no, Master Aryon, allow me to explain the situation. My dear Alexander,” he said with great sarcasm, “this is where it stops. You will not become Mouth and more than that, never will you get further into this house. I know Master Aryon told you he would promote you, but do you remember the reason why he sent you for Baladas? For his proposal to succeed, he needs all the votes he can get and I’ve taken the liberty to take this up with Therana and convinced her that someone that would allow you to advance would never be able to make a good proposal. Or in other words, were he to be your Patron, he will lose two votes and his proposal will not be carried.”

It felt like a physical blow to me. I didn’t blame Aryon of course, but nonetheless, was this where it stopped? Then I thought about Divayth and told Neloth that I would seek him out and that he was sure to be my Patron. His answer left me more devastated then before,

“Oh you can seek him out Alexander, but that will not do you any good. You see there is an ancient rule in our house saying, as I told you before, a Master may only be Patron to another once. An Archmagister more times, but he isn’t Archmagister now is he. So when I came into the council house that day, had he not been there, you wouldn’t even have been allowed into the house, but he was your patron then and that was the only reason you’re standing here now. Unfortunately, as I just told you, he can now no longer sponsor you and that way is thus sealed.”

He followed that up with some more laughter. I felt my knees buckle. This was it then, the end of my carrier. I would never become anymore than Lawman for the house. I felt ready to cry with rage. How could this happen? I was already considering other ways to rise in stature here in the province but knew it was futile; no other house would even have me now that I had joined the Telvanni. And of course there were no councilors left, I mean Therana and Neloth were clearly against me; Divayth and Aryon had been disabled both by politics and, Dratha, well from what I’d heard of her, she would sooner fry me alive for being a man then sponsor me. No, this was the end of it.

[minque]

[quote] Dratha, well from what I’d heard of her, she would sooner fry me alive for being a man then sponsor me.[/quote]

My my.....Poor Alexander.....What will become of him now? Hmm maybe he should not have been so against the nice Redorans after all?? :madman:


Well now , great installment Alex......really....now you hurry up with the next one. mkay?

[Alexander]

Unceremoniously I dropped down on the chair standing in front of Aryon’s desk and despaired. Neloth came up to me and further humiliated me by telling me he might reconsider after about 500 years or so. Well that was the last thing I needed, so I rose said my goodbye to Master Aryon and headed for the doorway when all of a sudden a shimmering form appeared in the doorway. As it became clearer it took the shape of Baladas. He was carrying a staff and walked into the room. He stood in front of Neloth and looked at him with those piercing eyes of his. As was the custom in the house, the lower ranking member should greet the higher ranking one first so this was clearly a test between the two. Master Neloth was the first to relent as he asked Baladas, “ Are you well, Master Baladas?” With only the slightest of nods Baladas acknowledged this and asked him the same. It was clear Baladas was yet another person feared by Neloth. One of many I assumed.

Baladas then inclined his head to Aryon once he had done the same and came to stand before me. He spoke in his quiet voice,

“I had intended this staff for Enar Releth, who I think deserves it best. However, after he gets it, I doubt if he would ever be able to advance further or would even want to do so. So instead, Alexander, I give you this staff of peace and with it proclaim you my mouth. As custom has it, you may if you wish, go to the council house and take your place there and be my representative, or if you wish, you may go on about your business, and I have a feeling if you do, before long I will have to call you Master as well.”

I felt so glad I could have hugged him then and there, but I knew that would be a serious breach so instead I thanked him. And told him I was indeed not planning on taking the position in the council house but planned on going on and finishing what I had started. But looking over the shoulder of Baladas into the eyes of Neloth, they cried murder, and I knew that even though the day was mine, I had made him into an even bigger enemy then before.




Thus ends chapter 2

[Wolfie]

Cool. I can't help but wonder when the final showdown between Neloth and Alexander is coming. Keep up the good work. Bring chpater 3 out soon plz!

[minque]

[quote]But looking over the shoulder of Baladas into the eyes of Neloth, they cried murder, and I knew that even though the day was mine, I had made him into an even bigger enemy then before. [/quote]

Ewwww.......watch it Alex! You don´t need such powerful enemies!
Oh and I really like the way you describe Baladas..now there´s a man I didn´t know so well before but you made me very interested in him...so I have to come up with something in game now.....


Very good ending of chapter 2.....you also adapted the cliffies..huh
:goodjob:

[Soulseeker3.0]

great Alexander! i though that Baladas would challenge Aryon.

[Fuzzy Knight]

Great Alex, u really write well

[Darku]

me demands chapter 3! me thinks that these stories are awsome!

[Mazuk]

Wow that is an awesome story. Yeah it makes me want to go and create a televanni character. I have never used one before but it seems different. Great Job Alexander and good work.. Keep it up.

[jonajosa]

me demands chapter 3! me thinks that these stories are awsome!

I too demand that but... It seemd our friend has a touch of writers block at the moment. Just have to wait.

[Soulseeker3.0]

lol for the moment? don't worry Alex we will wait diligently(sp)