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[Darkness Eternal]

The return of a gladiator champion! Welcome back, Colonel Necromancer Mustard.

This update was absolutely juicy with battle scenes and blood that reminds us the gritty, intricate details of the life of a gladiator. From a full arena of gladiators and Dreugh slaughtering to a handful of rubbies and Owyn berating pit-dogs and the inevitable revelation of the mysterious door in the island. I enjoyed the read and I absolutely loved the fact that you stayed true to some of the characters. Owyn's humor, her Ladyshipps' personality as well.

In the following chapter, you also present the emotional weight that holds down against Carnius in his title of Grand Champion and his deed to attain it. I love how you reminded us that even though gladiators kill, they also feel sympathy and sadness. I very much loved this and I am glad you used it.

A good trip away from the IC to the Bravilian territory and at long last, close to the mad gates of Hell The Madhouse! We are presented with a great detail of the gaping maws of the doors to Oblivion and how it has been devouring the people who willingly walk into its inviting jaws. So, Carnius goes to the Shivering Isles for a second chance at "redemption". This was a great touch, giving him more feeling than your average adventurer wanting to go in for coin only. His steps into Oblivion is definetly the first steps into a new battle that will undoubtedly rival the ones he had in the arena. . .one that will change his life drastically. Excellent read!

Oh and a minor negative below.


Nits: "Ta’Xarna shrugged and went back to his practise."
Should be practice.

[McBadgere]

"there was a High Elf who had come all the way from Chorrol here just a few days ago,"

Not Areldur?! *Falls to knees*...Ow...Noooooo!!...

An excellent chapter which travels many miles exceedingly quickly...Add that to Ta'Xarna (who deserves his own spin-off series!!... ) and the fellow passengers, it's very impressively done!!...Some people have a lot of trouble with moving things along that fast... ...

Aaaamywho, brilliantly done...Loved it muchly...

Nice one!!...

*Applauds heartily*..

[Colonel Mustard]

Zalphon: Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call it depression, but it's human nature to be driven by and targets to aim for, in order to get a sense of purpose. Once we actually reach that goal, it's only natural for us to seek a new one in order to simply avoid becoming bored of life.

Darkness Eternal: Thank you! It's good to be back!

I'll admit that the hardest part of wirting this so far has been working out Carnius' motivations for going through the Doorway; the drive to get away as far as he can is a good one, but I liked the somewhat sinister idea of the gate 'calling' to the lost too and it helped to actually coax him through. Actually getting that drive to go through down onto the page in a convincing way was tricky, but I'm pleased I managed it.

Also, old bean, I might just say that it is actually how we spell practise over here in Blightly, wot. So from where I'm standing, my good chum, 'practice' is the wrong way to spell it!

*Puffs pipe and adjusts monocle*

McBadgere: It wasn't any specific Elf, so don't worry about it being Areldur. At the stage in history that the story is set in, he'd be off Knight-of-the-Nineing at the moment.

And the idea of a Ta'Xarna spinoff is a very, very tempting one now that you suggest it. Please don't put such enticing ideas in front of me, McBadgere; I'd rather just focus on one story at the moment.


Thank you all very much, more should be coming soon!

[McBadgere]

*Coughs* We spell it both ways...Practice means the same but is a noun and Practise is a verb...And bizzarely, they both have the same definition...Repetition of something to gain skill...

What?...I can read a dictionary too you know?... ...

Soooo...Who would be Grand Champion now that Carnius is gone?...*Walks away whistling*...

...

[Colonel Mustard]

And in this case, as it is Ta'Xarna's practice, the spelling with a 'c' is the correct use.

You see that! You got grammarred, suckah! Grammarred in tha face! IN THA FACE!!

And fine, you can be Grand Champion while Carnius is gone, seeing as you really want to.

[McBadgere]

*Puts back out by swinging his mighty weapon...*...Damned magic swords!!...Nah, I think I'll leave it to Ta'Xarna...

And please...Keep yer grammar out of my face!!...It's unseemly... ...

Though I will admit...I did not know that about the two versions...My thanks... ...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Aug 20 2012, 07:25 PM

[Colonel Mustard]

Accidentally misspelled the word ‘contorted’ as ‘contortured’ in this chapter. Part of me now wants to start a campaign to get that word in the dictionary…

Chapter 7-Fringe

The first sensation was one of pain. Pain as every atom of his being was ripped apart. Pain as they made the transition between one plain of reality and another. Pain as they assembled themselves with a boom of displaced air back into the form they made up.

Carnius cursed, stumbling forwards and falling on his hands onto a floor of cold stone, lit by the harsh blue-white light of that portal behind him. He rested there for a moment, gasping for breath in lungs that were raw from the shock of being unmade and reformed with such violent suddenness.

“How very dignified,” a voice that dripped with good breeding and contemptuous class remarked. Carnius raised his head, breath still ragged, to see a balding man with grey hair and a hooked nose sitting behind a desk of thick oak, a jacket of black velvet covering an embroidered red silk shirt. The gladiator pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself down a little. “The floor is quite clean, you know.”

“Fine then,” Carnius said, looking around the room he was. It was small, at most a dozen square feet in size, made of grey stone. Its only furnishing was the desk, topped with dark green leather, and two chairs on either side.

“Please, take a seat,” the man behind the desk said. Carnius sat, placing his pack by his side and noticing the metronome on its leather surface, the thin metal arm swinging back and forth between two faces, one which snarled and one which smiled. “I imagine you’re here about the door.”

“I suppose I am,” Carnius said, still looking around the room. “Who exactly are you?”

“I am Haskill, the Chamberlain to the Lord Sheogorath,” the man replied. “And currently laboured with the most arduous duty of serving as the greeter to those who decide to come through his doorway.”

“And where exactly is this place?” Carnius asked.

“We are on the borders of the Shivering Isles,” Haskill said. “Beyond this room is the Realm of Sheogorath, the Prince of Madness and the Lord of the Never-There.”

“Right,” Carnius said. “Sheogorath…he’s one of the Daedra Princes, isn’t he?”

“What an astute act, to remember a piece of lore widely known to just about all the people of Nirn,” Haskill replied. “I’m sure you must be so proud of that. And before you ask, this doorway is an invitation, and that is all; it poses no threat to Mundus and no compact has been violated. All it seeks to do is allow people entry and egress to and from the Isles.”

“What about the other people who came through here?” Carnius asked. “The ones who came out mad.”

“They entered this realm and were ill-prepared for it,” Haskill replied. “Their minds are now my lord’s property.”

“Can they be cured?” Carnius asked.

“Cured?” Haskill raised an eyebrow. “You talk of them as if they are diseased. Their minds simply exist in another state of being, now. That is all. They may one day be reverted to their original state, they may not. But there is no simple ‘cure’.”

“So why this invitation?” Carnius asked.

“My master seeks a mortal to act as his champion,” Haskill replied. He looked Carnius up and down, surveying the grizzled and scarred gladiator. “As to why, I do not know, and seeking to divine such reasoning is a fool’s errand.”

“Right,” Carnius said. “So what happens if I choose to go on through the Isles?”

“Who can say?” Haskill asked. “There is always choice, wherever you go, and the Realms of Madness are no different in such regard. But if you choose to pass through the Gates of Madness, perhaps Lord Sheogorath will find you of use.”

He steepled his fingers and leant back in his chair.

“So,” he said. “Will you enter, or will you leave? And do make up your mind quickly; I have not got all day.”

“I’m going in,” Carnius said, resisting the urge to glower at the man.

“Excellent,” Haskill said. “Should you find your way through the Gates of Madness and into the rest of the Isles, then by all means, pay his lordship a visit in New Sheoth.”

He slid a folded parchment across the table, and added; “This map should also be of use to you if you succeed in passing through the Gates. Good luck.”

He stood from the chair and walked away, fading from view as he walked towards the far wall and leaving Carnius alone in the room.

“Hold on!” Carnius protested. “There’s no door to get out of here.”

He looked around the room, frowning.

“Damn posh types,” he muttered. “This some kind of joke?”

The walls stirred. Carnius blinked as a wave of tiny movements rustled across the stone, and hundreds of bright blue wings bloomed out from them. A great flock of butterflies burst out of the ceilings and walls, flapping around him as they formed a trail of colourful insects that flew towards the sky. They went sunwards, and Carnius frowned as he watched them go with the realisation that the walls had simply disappeared.

The landscape around him was alien in every way that he could possibly imagine. He was one the top of a hill, and the ground around him was jagged and rolling, as if the bones of the soil had snapped upwards but failed to break the skin, or the soil had suffered some great tectonic seizure that sent fissures and hills rumbling upwards in violent spasms. Where trees would have grown, instead colossal fungi of impossible vastness covered in thick rubbery skins snaked and wound towards the sky, thick trunks cavorting over expanses of ground. Cloying and thick undergrowth spread beneath the cyclopean mushrooms, some of it blooming with bright flowers while other had heads that trailed vines of a pestilential brown; some seemed to be normal trees and firms that he recognised from Cyrodiil, but others were overgrown and bloated fungi or strange plants that had a peculiarly fleshy quality to them. There was the sound of birds calling and insects chirruping from the plants around him, chittering and hooting and shrieking of all volumes and pitches.

In the distance he could see what looked to be a massive wall of black basalt rising from the ground over the other side of a valley, great ramparts shining slick in the sun that shone bright upon it. There was a cobbled pathway down from the top of the hill Carnius was on, lined on either side by broken and toppled pillars, and as he set off down it, he found the air here had that same damp, breathless quality that it had on that island in the Niben Bay.

With nowhere else to go, Carnius set off downhill along the path. He kept a wary eye on the greenery around him as it rustled and shifted, and part of him couldn’t help shake the feeling that there was something in the plants, or perhaps the plants themselves, that was preparing to leap out at him.

The first being that he met in the Shivering Isles that was not Haskill then tried to kill him.

He met it as the path reached a dip in the landscape, path roofed by roots one of the immense, twisted mushroom trees that had its head crowned by twisted and contorted branches that reached towards the sky like broken fingers. It was an ugly, froglike creature that was squatting in a puddle beneath the massive plant’s underside, and a flat, jowly head set between hunched shoulders turned to face him. It gave a guttural growl, limp lips wobbling with the noise to expose browning teeth, and raised an axe and shield of crude pig-iron and splintered wood.

With a baying noise, it charged, axe raised, ready to swing down and split Carnius’ skull. The gladiator relaxed his stance, raised his hands and waited for it to reach him. This was what he had been doing for fifteen years, and compared to some enemies he had fought, this creature was child’s play. The axe was in its right hand, he noticed, the shield in its left, and it wore no armour. He knew what to do.

The weapon swept down and Carnius sidestepped to its right. His left hand shot out and closed around its wrist, stumbling it as he turned and used his grip with his left hand as a cantilever with his shoulders and stepping forwards to slam his clenched fist into the side of its skull. With a crunch of bone, it collapsed, side of its skull caved in and leaking blood.

Carnius breathed the damp air heavily for a few moments as his body called for air in anticipation of yet more combat, adrenaline pounding in his head. He scanned the area, but could find no more of its companions, and took a few deep breaths to try and still the hammering of his heart as it pumped oxygen throughout his body.

Once it had calmed somewhat, he set off again, skirting around the puddle that had formed beneath the tree’s roots. For a moment, he paused as he saw the pale yellow of the mushroom tree’s undersides, where trunk began the metamorphosis into roots; thousands of semi-regular bumps, in the rough shape of a square rose from its underside, each one of them dimpled and slick with damp from the air. Carnius peered at it for a moment, and the started as he realised what they were. Teeth. Thousands and thousands of teeth, all of them somehow growing from the underside of this tree.

He shook his head, continuing along down the pathway as it began to wind its way uphill, the greenery beginning to thin out. Part of him was considering turning from this bizarre and exotic place, where the only people he had met so far were some kind of fat Argonian that wanted to kill him and a snooty toff. The thoughts trailed off as the path began to dip once more and he saw a building in the distance, a construction of sturdy white stone without any window or doorway he could see. As he approached, more details became clear; carvings in a language that he couldn’t read adorned it in a manner that seemed more like the randomly splashed slogans of graffiti than the work of any stonemason. As he rounded the other side, he saw its doorway, a portal of thick brass with its centre shaped like the mouth of a woman, face contorted in a scream or a snarl. There was a strange humming in the air around it, and Carnius extended a cautious hand to see if it would swing open. For a moment, his vision flashed black and there was a screaming in his ears before he stumbled back. He let it be and continued down the road. As rocks began to rise up on either side of him, the road forked. There was a signpost, and Carnius stopped to read it. At best, it was cryptic and at worst, downright useless; the one pointing to the left pathway read ‘The Gardens of Flesh and Bone’ and the one to the right ‘Passwall’. The other four markers on it, however, seemed to point to no path in particular, and simply read ‘Rage’, ‘Lust’, ‘Pride’ and ‘Despair’. After a few moments of deliberation, Carnius took the right pathway, deciding that this Passwall place sounded the most like civilisation of some kind.

His guess was right; less than fifty yards along the path the rocky walls that had started to rise receded, and building with a thatched roof and plastered walls came into view, part of it straddling the road as an archway. He headed through it, emerging into what looked like the central square of some kind of village. It was a decrepit, swampy place, the houses all raised on stilts and the whitewash on their walls peeling from the damp, thatch on their roofs half-rotten. The place seemed deserted, and Carnius frowned.

“Anybody home?” he called.

For a moment, all he heard was the same cries and chatters of the birds and insects in the undergrowth, and he wondered if the village was abandoned. And it was then that he heard the roar.

The bellows of some immense, enraged beast, the sound hit him like a wall, and his gaze shot towards its source, up a stepped path climbing a hillside on the village’s edge. Silence fell, the creatures of these Shivering Isles cowed into silence by the noise, and Carnius turned to face it. After a moment, drawn by some kind of curiosity that he couldn’t explain, he followed it up, deciding to see what the source of the noise was.

He found what he could only call an arena; there was a flat expanse of stone, shaped in a circle and ringed by small cliffs, and, the one vital ingredient that made a battle into a show, a crowd, all of them watching the two combatants. One side was nothing Carnius could call unusual, a group of adventurers of some kind, wearing and wielding a variety of armour and weapons. But their opponent, on the other hand, was something else; some kind of giant standing a good twenty feet in height, collared with iron, its head covered with a heavy helmet. One arm ended in a massive, rusted cleaver that was flecked with blood, the other in a vambrace and a great hand. Its skin seemed to be made up of patches sewn together over flesh, glowing tattoos spiralling and whirling across it before they were covered by its irons.

Carnius stepped into the small crowd of people who were watching, and they cheered as the monster picked up an adventurer and used the unfortunate man as a club to smash one of his comrades away, the broken corpse sent flying before it slammed into the massive onyx gate that the combat took place before. It roared again, the deafening noise made tinny by the helm it wore, before swinging down with its cleaver on an Orsimer who tried to slip around its flank and stab a claymore into its stomach, separating his midriff from the rest of his body in a spray of gore.

Taking advantage of the opening, a Khajiit wielding twin daggers slipped around its behind and stabbed the weapons into the back of its thigh in a bid to lame it. He was rewarded with a bellow of pain before the Gatekeeper kicked back at him, the beastman barely able to scramble out of the blow’s way and scamper out of reach.

As it turned, Carnius saw the wound in its leg was simply fading from view, sealing up with only a trail of brackish blood to mark its presence. An arrow from a distant Bosmer situated at the edge of the arena sunk into its neck, where the veins should be, but the giant being merely tore it from its neck and the injury sutured itself shut.

These adventurers were good, Carnius would give them that much, working as a team to try and bring the thing down; the remaining ones had split into teams, following directions bellowed at them by an Orc, ones armed with spears trying to bait and distract the creature at arm’s length while a few more tried to slip round its flank and take it down there.

A spear stabbed into its gut, the haft of the weapon digging deep into the organs of its stomach and the monster bellowed in pain. It stumbled back, clumsy footsteps almost flattening the Khajiit that had managed to land the blow with its axe just a few moments ago. Finding respite, it reached to the weapon embedded into it and tore it free with a wet squelch, its haft and head dripping with viscera. The hole in its stomach beginning to close, it hefted the spear in its hand, gaze turning towards the Bosmer archer who was nocking another arrow to his bow. A moment later, accompanied to a yell of delight from the crowd, an overarm throw sent the weapon screaming into the Wood Elf and skewered him through the chest.

One of the others, an Imperial armed with a pair of swords, cried out a name and sprinted towards the fallen Mer, uncaring for the presence of his foe. A moment later, a great hand grabbed him, lifted him into the air and slammed him down on the floor with a crack. He did not rise.

If Carnius was in their position he would have already cut his losses and run; whatever healing abilities this creature possessed, it was too much for their own weapons to overcome, and even thought they were good fighters with solid tactics this creature had them outmatched. The only problem was that the giant they fought had them outmanoeuvred; they battled it with their backs to the gate, and no way out besides getting through it.

There were only four left now; the Khajiit, who had backed away, their commander and the two spear-bearers, one of them now grabbing a mace from its sling in place of his lost weapon. With a deep, rumbling growl, the massive creature advanced, footsteps thudding against the ground.

“I told you the Gatekeeper was going kill them all,” Carnius heard someone in the crowd next to him remark to another spectator. “Look, he’s going to finish them off right now.”

The Gatekeeper, as it was called, bellowed a challenge and charged, ground shaking beneath its steps. The adventurers tried to scatter, but a swing from its cleaver slew two of them as they tried to get away, before the Gatekeeper turned and grabbed the Orc who was making a swing at it with his claymore, Mer and monster alike bellowing in fury. It squeezed, bone cracking under the pressure, and it dropped the mangled body as it advanced on the Khajiit. The beastman yowled in terror as he found his back pressed against walls, trying to back away from the Gatekeeper, and bolted away in a desperate sprint in the hope of getting around it.

A massive hand closed around his tail, swung him up into the air and swung him back down to the ground once more.

The crowd cheered and applauded as the Gatekeeper stopped what it was doing, casting around for any more enemies before simply standing still. Their entertainment gone, the crowd began to disperse back down the hill, and after a few moments Carnius was alone at its top with only a Dark Elf woman in a dress of bloodstained blue silk for company.

“Wasn’t that simply marvellous?” she exclaimed to Carnius, joy written across her features. “I always feel so very proud of him when I see him do his work!”

She clapped her hands together, smiling in joy, before she looked at Carnius proper and frowned.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I suppose I am, yes,” Carnius said.

“I thought so,” she said. “I’m Relmyna Verenim, by the way. And who are you? Another pilgrim hoping for a blessing to take root? Or perhaps…are you an adventurer, like those degenerates that my darling Gatekeeper just had to deal with?” She frowned. “No, you might be dressed like one but you don’t really look like one, do you. Perhaps you won’t be quite so unspeakably vile as they were.”

“I’ve never been adventuring before ma’am, no,” Carnius said. “Carnius Hackelt, by the way.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Relmyna said. She looked him up and down, before she nodded. “Then I suppose I am pleased to meet you, serjo Hackelt.”

Carnius glanced at the Gatekeeper, and back at Relmyna.

“Do you mind telling me what that ‘Gatekeeper’ thing is?” he asked.

“Him?” Relmyna asked. “Why, he is my beloved child! He is the consummation of Sheogorath’s wisdom in the womb of my genius. His birth was painful and bloody, but well worth it. From it, I made the perfect guardian; he does not rest, he does not eat, he does not allow any other than those permitted to pass and he cannot be killed.”

“Who are those permitted to pass?” Carnius asked.

“Those with Lord Sheogorath’s blessing, of course,” Relmyna said. “You, however, do not yet possess that, I don’t think.”

“So how would I get past him, through those gates over on the other side?” Carnius asked. “Get to the rest of the Isles?”

“To get through those gates, you would need to get the keys,” Relmyna said. “And they are sewn up within the body of my child. You would need to kill him to get them first, and you cannot kill him. It is the perfect defence, and I am a genius for conceiving such an idea.”

“How would I get that blessing, then?” Carnius asked.

“It would be difficult for you,” Relmyna said, looking him up and down once more. “Difficult, but not impossible. Your problem is that your soul is dull, uninspired, lacklustre. If I were to cut you open then the world would be wholly unimpressed by your uninteresting blood. You are simply too…” she paused, as if the word she was to say next was somehow taboo. “…sane.” She shuddered.

“Right,” Carnius said, somewhat perturbed by the way she talked about cutting him open.

“Still,” Relmyna said. “You do have quite a remarkable musculature on you. A client of mine is looking for a someone to serve as a base for a flesh-sculpture and your muscles would be nicely suited for that. Of course, I’d need a better bone structure and that skin on you would have to go, but-”

“Ma’am,” Carnius interrupted. “I have no idea if you’re complimenting me or something there, but I have one to thing to say to that. I’m not normally inclined towards assaulting people at random, but if you keep on talking about me like that then I will hurt you.”

Relmyna shrugged.

“Fine then,” she said, setting off down the path back down to Passwall. “Good luck getting past the Gatekeeper, by the way. You’ll certainly need it if you want to get into the Isles the way you are right now.”

Carnius lingered a few moments longer, watching the Gatekeeper as it nudged one of the corpses with the horny, jagged toenails of its foot. Then he began the short walk to Passwall, wondering just what he had managed to get himself into.

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Aug 22 2012, 10:58 PM

[Zalphon]

I really liked this chapter. The description of the butterflies was masterfully done as well as the conversation with Haskill. He's annoyed, but he's quite subtle about it and I really like how you played that off.

The comment on being "too sane" was also quite...accurate for the location. In the world of the insane, is sanity not the equivalent to insanity?

Anyways, a great chapter which I really enjoyed. It was well-written and I am eager to see it continue. I think you could put an interesting spin on a questline I really enjoyed.

[McBadgere]

Oooh, that was soooo nice... ...

loved Haskill...He makes me laugh...

Absolutely beautiful description of the Isles...Amazing stuff...

Truly breathtaking fight against the Gatekeeper...Well done that man!...

Excellent chapter...

Nice one!!...

*Applauds heartily*...

[Colonel Mustard]

Zalphon: Thank you very much indeed; Haskill is one of the easier NPC personalities to pin down (mainly because he's quite a well developed one, and one of my favourites to appear in Oblivion/The Shivering Isles) but I'm pleased I managed to get him right.

On the sane thing, I'm actually planning on having the term be an insult on the Ises, and I mean really bad one too, though that's an interesting point on the relative state of sanity; seeing as sane behaviour is determined by the majority, if the majority is insane are they not then sane?

Glad you liked it, and more should be comign soon. There will be spin on this, too, don't worry; hopefully, spin you should like. Thanks!

McBadgere: Thank you very much!

I'll admit I probably owe a fair amount to H. P. Lovecraft for the actual description of the Isles (man's a master of giving incredibly evocative descriptions when he wants to be), and I've been aiming for the same level of the macabre and gothic in them.

And if you think that that fight against the Gatekeeper was good, wait until you see when Carnius has to deal with it...

[Darkness Eternal]

This is crazy! This is Madness! I got grammared, Fuq! I will spot an error, I swear to the bowels of Oblivion, I will be on the lookout, Colonel.

At last, we finally get to enter the Nut-House and meet some Nut Cases. Your discriptions of the Shivering Isles was spot on, the effects of transitioning from Mundus into an Oblivion realm was well-written and superb, you narrowed down Haskil's character to the letter.

A warm welcome, eh? Attacked by the first creature in the Isles, the Grummite. The gatekeeper fight was great and well-written and a bloody good show. Carnius was sure in for a surprise to see that brute tossing people around like pathetic ragdolls

Relmyna Verenim . . .our lovely demented women of the realm, one of the many psychos and sadists out there! I suspect there will he blood and lots of it when our gladiator kills that pesky Gatekeeper! I forsee a sick and twisted tale on the maniac and demented side! I will await with my popcorn ready.

Great read!

[Colonel Mustard]

I'll leave one in on purpose for you, how about that? It'll be a challenge for you; spot the grammatical error and win a prize! (but no cheating and copy-pasting it into a spellchecker).

Pleased that I managed to get Haskill right (he ranks in my top 10 favourite NPCs for Oblivion, so I'm kind of in no position to get him wrong!), and let me assure you that Carnius is going to run into a fair few more Grummites on his time on the Isles. None of them are going to be any more endearing than the first. And that Gatekeeper is going to be a challenge to bring down; let me tell you that I'm looking forward to writing that scene...

Glad you're enjoying, sir, and believe you me, a macabre and bizarre tale awaits! Do enjoy!

[Colonel Mustard]

Chapter 8-Flesh and Bone

Carnius sipped at his ale as he looked at the diagrams on the table before him. Situated as he was in the Wastrel’s Purse, Passwall’s local tavern, he had been hunched over the slate for the better part of an hour as he sketched out chalk diagrams and plans for dealing with this Gatekeeper; he had often done this before key matches in his gladiator career, working out how he would deal with an opponent, using what information he had on them to try figure out how to bring them down.

So far, he knew his strategy was going to involve getting in and out of the Gatekeeper’s reach; even with the magical enhancements to strength and endurance that his armour and gauntlets provided to him, he knew that if he was grabbed by the giant guardian or took one hit from that cleaver he would be dead. He had taken a leaf out of that dead Khajiit’s book, and many of the diagrams he had sketched out had circular arrows to work out how he could hit it in the back of the knees and legs; laming the thing would make it far easier to kill. The only problem was the thing’s regenerative abilities, and that rendered the entire exercise theoretical.

“Another ale?” Dredhwen asked from where she was leaning on the surface of the inn’s bar.

“Alright then,” Carnius nodded, looking up from his plans and draining what was left of his current ale. “Could use a few drinks.”

The Bosmer nodded and opened the tap on the casket on the bar’s surface, letting the cooled drink pour into the tankard she held. She held it steady as she approached his table, setting it down and glanced at the slate Carnius was drawing on.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Trying to work out how I can kill the Gatekeeper,” Carnius replied, tapping the slate. “Problem is that it’s all theory at the moment.”

“You want to kill it?” Dredhwen said. “I don’t think it-” she yawned, holding her hands over her mouth as she did so. “Sorry about that. I don’t think it can be done.”

“There’s got to be a way,” Carnius said. “Somehow. Spells or something, maybe. Are there any spellcasters here in Passwall?”

“Well, there’s Relmyna, but I don’t think that she would help you,” Dredhwen said. “But you should ask Jayred Ice-Veins. He keeps saying he has a plan to kill it, but nobody will help him; he needs to go into the Gardens of Flesh and Bone, and that place is just too strange for anyone else here.”

Carnius was quiet for a moment, watching her face. He could detect nothing that suggested she was making a joke.

“Where is he?” Carnius asked.

“His house is just to the southeast,” Dredhwen said. “He should be out tending to his Swattle around now.”

“I’ll go pay him a visit,” Carnius said, glancing back down at his slate. On the ‘G’ he had managed to form to mark out the Gatekeeper, he sketched out a rough star shape of arrows, his theoretical self darting in and out of the colossus’ reach. His drink and plans finished, he placed a handful of coins and his borrowed slate on the counter next to where Dredhwen had started to doze and headed out into Passwall. The damp feel of the air had receded somewhat as the sun had risen higher into the sky, burning some of the moisture away, but the clouds that muffled its glare prevented it from going in its entirety.

He found Jayred’s house just a few dozen yards away from the Wastrel’s Purse, the building raised up on stilts like all the others in Passwall, no doubt to protect it from flooding. He remembered what Dredhwen had said, about him being out and attending to his ‘Swattle’, whatever that was, and skirted around the back of the house to see what he could find there, not bothering to knock on the front door which, he noticed, had a human skull hanging on it.

He found Jayred in a patch of swampland that had been fenced off, the Nord standing next to what looked at first glance to be a moss-covered boulder. He gave Carnius a cheerful wave as he approached, and called; “I’ll be with you in a moment, friend! Old Betjar here just needs sorting out.”

He slapped the boulder on the side, and Carnius blinked as what he thought was stone wobbled. Six flabby legs, each tipped with webbed feet, unfolded from where they were tucked against its flank, and a wide, jowled head rose up from where it rested against the ground. Watery amber eyes looked up at Jayred, and the Nord folded his arms.

“Don’t know why you’re looking at me like that, girl,” he said. “Go on, off you go, I’ve saved you a nice patch of moss to help that down and everything. C’mon, shoo!”

The creature made a noise that sounded like ‘mwap’, and waddled away, fat belly sliding against the swampy ground it went. Jayred watched it go and then stepped to where Carnius was leaning on the fence around his land.

“What can I do for you, friend?” he asked.

“Well,” Carnius began. “I was going to see if you could help me with something, but I’ve really got to ask; what on Nirn is that?”

“Those?” Jayred asked. “That’s me Swattle herd, that is. I farm ‘em; good eating on a Swattle, and their hides are well waterproofed once you’ve tanned ‘em. Plus they’ve got a nice skeleton, too.”

“You farm them?” Carnius asked. He was a city boy, through and through, and while he would be the first to admit that his knowledge on animal husbandry was severely limited, he was pretty certain that all farm animals either had fur or feathers and went ‘moo’, ‘baa’, ‘cluck’, ‘quack’ or ‘oink’.

“That I do,” Jayred said. “Damn fine herd, too.”

Carnius decided not to press that subject any further.

“So what can I do for you, friend?” Jayred asked. “You said you wanted some help?”

“The Gatekeeper,” Carnius said. “I’m trying to kill it so I can get into the rest of the Isles. Drenhwed over at the Wastrel’s said that you were planning to do the same. I figured we could help each other out, combine resources, that sort of thing.”

“How soon do you want to deal with it?” Jayred asked.

“Soon as possible,” Carnius replied. “I want to get through that gate.”

Jayred grinned and clapped his hands together.

“Excellent,” he exclaimed. He vaulted the fence, and clapped Carnius on the shoulder. “Just wait for me round the front of my house for a few minutes; we’ll head for the Gardens of Flesh and Bone and I’ll explain my plan along the way.”

He emerged from his front door a few minutes later, the flaxen farming clothes he had been wearing replaced by a suit of leather armour, with a strung bow slung over his shoulder.

“You ready?” Carnius asked.

“That’s right, friend,” Jayred said.

“Good,” the Imperial said as the pair set out up the path. “So what’s this special solution you have for killing the Gatekeeper, then? Some kind of magic?”

“Magic?” Jayred asked. “I’m not like Relmyna, no. I don’t believe in magic, but I do believe in bones.”

“Bones, you say,” Carnius said as they passed under that archway that marked the way in and out of Passwall.

“Aye, that’s right,” Jayred said. “Bones. Relmyna thinks that her Gatekeeper can’t be killed, that no power in Oblivion or Nirn can bring it down, but if I know one thing, it’s that anything can be killed by the bones of its own kind.” He tapped his skull, as if to emphasise his point. “There’s power in those things, even if nobody but me realises it. Enough power to kill the Gatekeeper, certainly.”

Carnius nodded as the path they took began to wind up a hill, deciding that he might as well humour the Nord; he didn’t have any better ideas for killing the thing, after all.

“So I’m guessing that there are Gatekeeper bones in these gardens, then,” Carnius said.

“Aye,” Jayred replied. “Only problem is, the Gardens are guarded; skeletons, shambles, that sort of thing. Anybody who goes in gets attacked by them in minutes.”

“Well, you’re the bones expert,” Carnius said. “If you get these Gatekeeper bones, I’ll hold them off for you.”

“Exactly what I had in mind,” Jayred said. “Don’t worry, I know where it is. Though if you want to hold them off, I’d recommend you get your weapons out of your pack now, friend. They aren’t going to wait around for you in there.”

“I’m already armed,” Carnius replied, raising a clenched fist to show the wicked spikes of red and black on the knuckles of his gauntlets. Jayred grinned.

They stopped before wall of thick white stone, ramparts weathered smooth by time out in the elements. A door was set into it, made from solid iron and carved with pictures of bones, skulls and organs. Carnius could hear a faint, regular thudding on the edge of his hearing, seeming to come from within the garden itself.

“Give me a hand with this, will you?” Jayred asked, rapping his knuckles on a thick bar that was swung down across the gateway. Carnius complied, taking a moment to dump his pack by the side of the door so that it wouldn’t impede him in a fight in the garden itself and to check the two waterskins filled with a healing and a stamina potion were in position at his belt. The two of them heaved the bar up and swung open the door.

Carnius had not been quite sure of what to expect from the Gardens of Flesh and Bone, but he had certainly not thought it would be quite so literal in its adherence to its title. There were no plants in here, or at least nothing that he would call a plant, but it was certainly full of life.

Human eyes in the centre of fleshy petals turned on muscled stalks to stare at the newcomers as they made their way along the pathway that ran through the garden. There was a bush that had thousands of tiny blood vessels for its branches, each one swollen and engorged with sanguine fluid. Another plant seemed to be made from nothing more than nerves spreading and flowering from its root which was, Carnius noted, a large mass off grey brain matter half-embedded in the ground. Despite the fact that he was well used to the gore and viscera of the arena, had seen men and women alike gutted on its sands and had done the deed himself more than once, Carnius began to feel nausea rising from his stomach.

At the centre of the garden, a massive tree rose from the ground, one that seemed to be put together from thousands of bones; he could see skulls, femurs, vertebrae, the individual digits of fingers all meshed together to form its trunk, with yet more branching out over his head. From it, that same regular drumbeat sounded, and Carnius peered through the gaps in them to see a heart suspended by strands of muscle in the very centre of it, swelling and shrinking in time to that beat.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jayred asked. “The tree of bones; the very centrepiece of the Gardens. Now come on, friend. We need to get to the Gatekeeper’s body, and this place’s guardians are going to wake up soon.”

Carnius nodded in agreement, and he followed Jayred as the Nord headed towards one of the walls of white stone that surrounded the garden. The Gatekeeper skeleton was waiting for them, massive sun-bleached bones sat upon a throne set into the garden’s wall, a dead king holding sway over a macabre court.

“Right,” Jayred said, rubbing his hands together and approaching the throne. “Let’s get to work.”

Carnius glanced behind them, back along the pathway that ran through the grisly garden to see if anything was approaching as the Nord climbed up on the throne. For a moment, it seemed all clear, and then three figures came into view. Sun gleamed off bare skulls, and flesh-stripped digits clutched rusting weapons, and the three skeletons advanced.

One with a mace, one with a sword and shield and one with a claymore, Carnius noted, raising his hands to a position that would guard him from the three enemies. They were undead, so wouldn’t be particularly intelligent, and seeing as they were skeletons, they wouldn’t be as hardy as most other types of the walking dead either. Carnius could deal with one without too much trouble, he thought. Three, however, would complicate things.

Whatever rudimentary intelligence that they had was enough to direct them to fan out as they approached in an attempt to flank him. Carnius watched them move, noting how the one with the claymore was ahead of its fellows, and stepped into action. Three swift steps brought him within the undead creature’s reach, and as he expected its swung its claymore at him, the long blade swooping towards him at a horizontal. He moved to his right, left palm pressing down onto the flat of the blade and jarring its tip to the ground, stumbling the skeleton. His right fist crashed into its ribs, knocking it back and sending lightning-bolt cracks snaking across the bone. It stumbled away, and he saw the one with the mace pressing forwards. He stepped into its reach before it could swing, and an uppercut slammed into its jaw with enough force to send its skull, unfettered by sinew, tumbling away, bones clattering to the ground.

The one with the sword and the shield hung back as the skeleton armed with the claymore regained its footing behind him, clacking its jaw together in a challenge. They were going to charge him together, unless Carnius did something.

He threw himself towards the one with the claymore, deciding to get himself between the skeletons and Jayred. Surprised by the sudden manoeuvre, the skeleton tried to block him and parry any attacks, but Carnius' bare hands were a far cry from conventional weapons, and the reinforced vambrace that guarded the back of his left wrist pushed its blade away. The back of his right hand slammed across its jaw, the ebony spikes slashing across the bone and gouging four parallel lines across where its face should be. Its stumbled back, thrown from the impact, and Carnius slammed his boot into its spine, sending it tumbling into its fellow.

At the end of the path, between the greenery, something else appeared behind the two toppled undead. It was a large beast, easily a good head taller than he was, a crude construction of bones chosen at random that were held together with twine and wire. The head of what he guessed was a mer or human glared at him with empty eye sockets, and a lower jaw taken from an Argonian opened and clacked shut as a challenge. It raised its hands, each one tipped with wicked talons, and charged ignoring the skeletons it leapt over.

Carnius blocked its first swing, stepped out of the reach of the second. He tried to step round to its side, where the its shoulder and back was open, but it recovered its footing too quickly and the counter he launched was blocked by it throwing its own wrist up. It was enough to stumbled him, and he cursed as its other pair of claws slashed into his right shoulder, deep gashes already running red. He gritted his teeth, right hand snapping out to grab its own shoulder and forced it into a bow. The back of his left hand smashed into its skull and drove it to its knees, and a second blow snapped the bone in its entirety.

He screamed as a wave of chill burst from it, frost snap-freezing across his skin and armour. He stumbled away from the body as it became coated in ice crystals along with the ground around it, cursing as pain ravaged across him. He could feel hot blood seeping from where the skin froze to the metal and tore, and he fumbled at his belt for the waterskin filled with healing potion. He popped off the stopper and took a deep drink, feeling the wounds begin to heal and the flow of blood slow.

He was panting for breath as the two remaining skeletons rose, and he could see more skeletons and another construct approaching them. He was good, but he was realist; even with his skill, he wouldn’t be able to take down all of those. And it wouldn’t matter how many he would take down before he was overwhelmed, he would fall all the same.

“Jayred!” he called over his shoulder. “We need to get out of here, now!”

“Fine!” Jayred replied, his bones filmed with what looked like the legs and arm bones of the deceased Gatekeeper. “I’ve got what we need.”

Carnius barrelled forwards, throwing his shoulder into the breastbone of one of the undead that tried to stop him and knocking it to the ground, Jayred in his wake. The next few moment dissolved into an insane blur of blocks, parry and counters as Carnius battered a path to the gate through the undead, ignoring the nicks and cuts that assailed him. At one point a mace slammed into his stomach, the impact almost enough to double him over, but he drew upon some reserve of bloody-mindedness and strength and shoved the offending skeleton away, all too aware that the gates were in sight. He just had to hope that his Arena raiment would have absorbed the worst of the impact for him.

He reached them, slamming the knuckles of his gauntlets into the chest of one of those bone-constructs that tried to stop him and knocking it away, and gestured to Jayred to follow. The Nord barrelled through the threshold a few moments later and Carnius followed, slamming the door shut and pulling the bar into place. They stopped outside, panting as the adrenaline began to subside, both of them leaning against the wall.

“That was amazing!” Jayred exclaimed after a few moments, raising his hand and grinning. Carnius slapped his palm, grinning. “To think you went at those things with just yer fists, too! I’d like to have you at my side in a tavern brawl, friend; you and I would be unstoppable!”

“Hah, cheers,” Carnius said. He groaned suddenly and clutched his stomach, pain returning in place of the adrenaline. He doubled over, grabbing at the skin filled with healing draft and took a deep swig. After a few moments, the agony began to fade, and he stood up straight, grinning a grin with more than a few glinting gold teeth in it.

“Right,” he said. “How soon can you get those arrows ready?”

“Tomorrow morning, I’d reckon,” Jayred said.

“Good,” Carnius nodded. “Because after that, we’re going to kill the Gatekeeper.”

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Aug 27 2012, 11:06 AM

[McBadgere]

Cool!!... ...

Even though I've been to the Isles a couple of times, I've never done that quest...The boy discovered that hitting the Gatekeeper repeatedly with a high level sword whilst employing the Escutcheon of Chorrol would drop the nasty without the need for the arrows...So my version would be a damned sight less cool than this!...

Sooo nicely done...Loved the idea of the planning on the slate...And, as ever, the fight was superb...Wonderful stuff...

The Swattle was sooo cute!!...Loved that...

The description of the Gardens was wonderful...There's a shocker!... ...Can't remember ever going in there...Although I must have done to rebuild the Gatekeeper...*Shrug*...Yours was amazing...Espescially the nerve tree...*Shudders and "hurp"'s a little...*... ...

There was a sentence in there that made my eyes hurt...Somewhere in the first third...And if I picked it up, it must be odd...But, as I've just spent the last six hours trundling around Chester Zoo and fatigue is starting to kick in, it seems I can't find it again...Grrr...If I do, I'll pimm you...Heh...There's a threat... ...

All in all, an amazing job...Absolutely loved it...

Nice one!!...

*Applauds most heartily*...



EDIIIITTT!!...Nah, sorry, it was this one...

Surprised by the sudden manoeuvre, the skeleton tried to block, but bare hands were a far cry from conventional weapons, and the reinforced vambrace that guarded the back of his left wrist pushed its blade away.

Got it now...*Goes to scrub eyes with swarfega*...Urgh...Too oooold...Damned kids and their summer holidays...

...Oh, sorry Mustard!... ...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Aug 26 2012, 04:36 PM

[Darkness Eternal]

Don't set yourself up on purpose due to make mistakes. Why?

Anyways, you outdone yourself in the description of the garden, and the dialogue was superb. Now the battle? The battle itself was great, my friend! Carnius showed his skill with his own blade, and a bit of hand to hand at the very end. I also expect a tavern brawl now one of these days.

I wasn't a big fan of the SI questline, I'm not particularly a Sheogorath lover, though I do love other Daedra, but the manner in which you describe the land and the Daedric realm makes me want to read more. Of course, there is our great gladiator protagonist which captured my attention from the start. I foresee mad things in the future, and I am looking forward to the final battle with the gatekeeper! And then onto the gates of madness itself!


Nits:“You’re want to kill it?”
It should be "You want to kill it?" or "You're going to kill it?"

Am I right?

[Colonel Mustard]

McBadgere: Yeah, I'm killing the Gatekeeper the old fashioned way, with the bone arrows. I imagine that Carnius using exploits to beat would be somewhat of a less compelling read...

The Gardens in the game are a fair bit different to how I wrote them here, which probably explains why you don't really remember them even when you went for the Gatekeeper, seeing as in the game it's basically a courtyard of grass with a dead Gatekeepr in the middle. I decided to be a little more...literal in my own interpretation of it.

And cheers for finding that dodgy sentence; I'll go and fix it up now.

P.S. I used to Chester Zoo when I was kid with granddad! It was awesome! I loved it! Now I want to go there again! Exclamation marks!

P.P.S. I don't mind the complaint; I've got a job now, so the summer holidays are officially over for me forever...


Darkness Eternal: I purposefully make those mistakes so that I've got something to keep you on your toes, of course. I like challenging my readers. And yes, that was the mistake I had in mind. Here, have a cookie.
The fool. Little does he realise my cunning plan of using that as a blind for little mistakes I make here and there. The deception is flawless! Muhaha! Muhaha! Muhahahahahahahahaha...

What?

And now that you mention it, I've got a hankering to write a tavern brawl. Which is going to be interesting when, considering this is the Shivering Isles, your average tavern brawl would would probably be completely nuts...

[Zalphon]

I really liked the more literal interpretation that you gave. It had a more...macabre, grotesque feel and I really liked it personally. I couldn't remember the original gardens, but yours is much more creative.

[Colonel Mustard]

I really liked the more literal interpretation that you gave. It had a more...macabre, grotesque feel and I really liked it personally. I couldn't remember the original gardens, but yours is much more creative.

Macabre and grotesque were exactly what I was going for; I was a little disappointe by the original Gardens which were just walls around some grass. I was anticipating something like what I wrote, but when I was got here I was like 'well this isn't much... '

[Darkness Eternal]

One thing you must understand is that the game world is a condensed version of the "lore" world. Cyrodiil is much larger than what the game represents, the taverns are bigger, the arena is huge. Same for all the other games. Good thing about writing is that we are left with an imagination to expand the lore world than it already is.

Grand Theft Auto IV had Liberty City as the location, though of course, it is much smaller than the actual New York City

[mALX]

Boy do I ever remember the first time I went up against the Gatekeeper !!! URK !!! I loved this, and didn't think I was going to! You captured the mood of Passwall exactly as it felt entering it that first time! Awesome and surprising write !!