Wow! So much to praise about this chapter! From the opening description of Weynon Priory that transforms it from the slightly antiseptic game location to a bustling, believable place of prayer. On to Teresa’s wait in the anteroom, where I fidgeted alongside her waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn. Then the surprising appearance of Julian and your even-handed description of her. Finally, Jauffre’s change of demeanor when Teresa gives him the amulet brought a smile to my face.

Saying that Martin was hidden to avoid scandal and to protect him from the Empress was an especially nice touch.


Quoted for truth!

D.Foxy: Well, if you meant fight a fish, that is coming up...


haute ecole rider: I was wondering how many people would spot that phrase. It was actually in the original, from long before I had ever heard of my most favorite Redguard from Anvil. But when retooling this chapter could not restrain a faint smile. Talk about serendipity.


Destri Melarg: Thank you Dest. I tried to portray Weynon as not only a chapel and chapter house, but also an entire infrastructure of peasants who kept the place going, growing all the food, tending the livestock, working in the smithy, etc... I also wanted to present it not only as a holy site, but also show that it was well-fortified due to its being the regular headquarters of the Blades.

"Could'a, would'a, should'a" is a quote I know best from Farscape. In fact, I think there was even an episode by that name. Since then it has always stuck with me.

I have not seen much at all about Uriel VII's wife. I am not sure if she is even alive at the time of the crisis. What I did see was not at all flattering. They way they portray her, she was a cold, viscous creature who would drive the most virtuous man to infidelity. Given that, I am sure that she would have any bastards she found out about assassinated. In fact, I have often toyed with the idea that Nerussa was one of Uriel's mistresses, and the Empress is the one who ran her out of the courtesan business.


* * *
Chapter 5a - Gone Fishing

24th - 31st Second Seed, 3E433

Teresa's journey back to the city was uneventful. Once again she stayed off the road and walked east through the forest, traveling mostly at night. She found the going was easier this time, as it was literally all downhill. Once more she gathered plants with alchemical properties as she went. A bear followed her for a short distance, but a use of her Command Creature ability convinced it that she was a friend, allowing her to easily slip away from it.

A week later she once more found herself on the western shore of Lake Rumare. She could not pass up the opportunity to strip off her gear and dive into the water. She had always liked to swim, but ever since her escape from prison it had become her special treat. It felt almost as if the water could wash the muck of her past away, and allow her to emerge from its depths a completely new person. Afterward she dried herself in the morning sun and laid down to sleep.

* * *

She was standing in a large cavern whose rough stone walls were carved out by the forces of nature. Shadows clung to the walls of the cave, the darkest of which were smaller tunnels leading further into the bowels of Nirn. Before her the cavern was open to the sky. Sunlight beamed through the gaping hole, illuminating the center of the chamber in golden light. Beneath this Teresa saw a large pool of water, whose crystal clear waves held a small forest of marine plants.

She had been here before, the wood elf knew. It was the same dream again. As before, she stepped into the light of the sun, feeling its warmth fill her. Then she sat, sliding her bare legs into the clear water. It too was warm against her skin, and she watched how the light bent the image of her legs as she gently kicked them back and forth under the waves.

Now it was time for her to look up. Doing so, she saw the dark figure across the pool from her. Standing at the edge of the shadows, she wore not a cloak, but rather was covered in black feathers from head to toe.

Still, Teresa's breath caught in her throat, and she quickly pulled her legs from the water. Leaping to her feet, the wood elf stared at the other woman. Yet the dark figure did not move. Teresa was still not sure if she even breathed.

The wood elf took a step forward. Who was this woman? she wondered. How was she in her dreams? The figure turned as Teresa approached and began to raise her head. The wood elf reached out her hand, and her fingers touched the soft down of the stranger's hood, pulling it up and away.

Within, she saw her own face staring back at her.

* * *

Teresa woke with a start. How many times had she had that same dream? she wondered. Half a dozen times? More? Every time she seemed to get further, to learn more, yet always it slipped away from her memory. This time she willed herself to remember, and wished she had something to write down what had happened.

It was her own face in the cloak of feathers, she thought. It was herself, standing on the edge of the shadows, looking back her. What did that mean? Was she going mad? Or was there some deeper meaning behind it all?

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied a raven flying past. Lifting her head, she saw it winging south, along the shore of Lake Rumare. She was not sure why, but somehow the bird reminded her of the woman in her dream. Of me, she mentally corrected herself, for she was the woman in her dream.

Yet the other figure she saw had seemed like someone else, the wood elf mused as she followed the raven's path. It had definitely felt like there was another presence in the grotto with her. Not frightening, she realized, only different. Somehow she had the feeling that it had something to do with the ravens and crows she had been seeing lately, as if they were somehow guiding her.

Watching the bird as it winged its way ahead of her, Teresa found herself wondering what it must be like to soar through air as it did, free of all constraints. She closed her eyes, and for a moment she could almost feel the wind on her face, and hear the rustling of feathered wings beneath her.

With a faint smile she opened her eyes and followed the raven. The wood elf eventually came upon a small village of daub and wattle homes near the great western bridge to the City Isle. The sign on the road leading into it said it was named Weye. The sun had set some time earlier, so rather than pushing on to the Imperial City she decided to stop for the night.

In the center of the hamlet stood a building larger than the others. The lower half of its walls was of small stones, and the top of daub and wattle like the other buildings in the village. A roof of thatch covered its two stories, and the large sign in front proclaimed it to be the Wawnet Inn.

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The common room was small, but the patrons were few. Teresa had no troubles finding herself an empty table and sat back over a glass of wine and a handful of fresh bread and Argonian olive oil. She had never drunk wine before Weynon, but ever since then she had been thinking about how lovely it had tasted. The Wawnet Inn's fare was not as exquisite as that of Jauffre's table, but it still tasted delicious after days of nothing but water.

The innkeeper was an Altmer woman named Nerussa, dressed in soft blue velvet. Her hair was a halo of golden sunlight, and her eyes a darker shade of amber. She had all the curves that Teresa lacked, and used them to deadly effect with every step she took. Teresa could barely take her eyes off the high elf, and every time she walked by the wood elf reveled in the gentle scent of lavender and pomegranates that followed in the statuesque woman's wake.

Teresa wondered what such a woman was doing in a simple hamlet such as Weye? Surely, Nerussa was from noble blood? the wood elf imagined, or at least a wealthy common family? What would bring such a person here, serving drinks to farmers and fishermen?

Just another mystery that she would probably never understand, the wood elf reasoned, like the dead thief and goblins in the sewer.

Teresa soon lost track of how much wine she had drunk. In any case, it was enough for her to work up the courage to ask the innkeeper about her wines. That prompted Nerussa to begin talking about how she liked to collect them.

Teresa liked how she kept her hair bound up behind her head with polished little sticks that dangled tiny jewels from their upper ends. It looked very elegant, and showed off the delicate curve of the nape of the Altmer's neck. Teresa wondered how Nerussa did it, and offhandedly fiddled with the unruly locks of her own crimson mane.

"So if you ever come across Shadowbanish Wine, you will be sure to remember me, right?"

Teresa blinked. She had been paying more attention to how Nerussa looked than to what she was saying.

"Yes, Shadowbanish Wine, in the old castles," Teresa replied, trying to remember what the high elf had been talking about. "If I ever find any, I will be glad to bring it to you."

A middle-aged Breton came in a moment later. He wore plain clothing of worn flax, and walked with a noticeable limp. Sitting down at a table next to Teresa, he gave her the same mildly interested glance that the other patrons had when she had entered herself. She got the feeling that they did not get too many Bosmer foresters in Weye.

"Bring me some of that pale ale Nerussa," Teresa heard him say to the innkeeper in that light, almost singing voice that all Breton's seemed to possess. "That'll ease the pain."

"Is that leg still bothering you Aelwin?" Nerussa asked a moment later as she brought him a tall glass of foaming liquid, which did not look at all pale to Teresa.

"Ahh, it still acts up," the Breton man fussed, rubbing his hip. "Never healed right in the first place the priest says, now they can't fix it 'cause it's too late."

"So what are you going to do about those fish?" the high elf asked as she returned to the bar.

"I dunno," Aelwin replied, staring morosely into his glass before downing a mouthful. "I was so close too, only a dozen more to go and I would've been set."

At that point the two of them looked over at Teresa, noticing that she was staring. That is when Teresa noticed that she was staring herself. Feeling like she had just walked naked through the Market District, she instantly lowered her gaze to her wine while her ghostly white cheeks blossomed a shade of crimson to match her hair.

She emptied her glass in one quick gulp. Feeling a desperate need to escape the common room, she rose and walked not a little unsteadily to the bar. Had she drank that much? she thought. This was only the second time she had wine. She wondered how much really was too much?

"You mentioned you had rooms?" she asked Nerussa, feeling proud of herself for not slurring her words. See, she told herself, she could hold her liquor.

"Yes, there are several rooms upstairs if you would like one," the Altmer replied with a smile that was like the sun breaking from the clouds on a rainy day. Teresa wasn't sure if she was smiling at her embarrassment, or if perhaps she saw something that she liked?

Probably the embarrassment, Teresa decided, taking Nerussa up on the room and passing several coins to her. Walking up the stairs was no challenge to a seasoned forester such as herself; nor was entering the room. Getting out of her cuirass was however, with all of its straps and buckles and laces. In the end she wound up spending the night in it and nothing else. In spite of how Teresa would have liked Nerussa to have come to visit, she was thankful that the Altmer did not.

D.Foxy: Well, if you meant fight a fish, that is coming up...


Hmmm...

You mean you have to FiGHT your fish? I always thought you did the other thing with it..


fish

Teresa dressed in a cloak of feathers, standing on the edge of the shadows, and being led around Tamriel by raven’s flight? That’s pretty symbolic for someone who continues to believe with an almost religious fervor how much of a hero she isn’t. Even her dreams betray her.

Your description of Nerussa was great. I am eager to see how Teresa handles Aelwin’s quest. Those slaughterfish can be murder.

D.Foxy: Look and see, as Teresa joins the cast of BassMasters...

Destri Melarg: You almost made me fall out of my chair laughing!

I am glad you noticed that I tweaked the first meeting with Nerussa a bit, in order to help better set up future events. When I originally wrote Nerussa, I did not have her previous profession in mind. Now I made an effort to show its effects.


* * *
Chapter 5b - Gone Fishing

Teresa woke early next morning with a slight ache in her head. Her alchemical gatherings had borne fruit however, and she felt very pleased with herself when she produced an echinacea root. Having no mortar and pestle with her to grind it down, she simply cut off a small piece and ate it. That would take care of her head pains, she thought proudly as she dressed and headed down to the common room.

Nerussa was already awake and there to greet her, taking Teresa somewhat aback. She had hoped to slip out of the inn without any further embarrassment. Now she would have to talk with the high elf and try not to act like an idiot, something she seemed to be having a problem with since meeting the innkeeper.

"You know, someone really should help Aelwin," Nerussa said, apparently to no one in particular, as she produced a small bread roll for Teresa's breakfast. Since there was no one else in the room but the two of them, Teresa had the distinct impression that she was that no one in particular.

"With his leg?" Teresa asked. "I am not a healer. I would not know what to do."

"No, with his fish," Nerussa explained.

"With his fish?" Teresa replied, feeling completely lost. "What about his fish?"

"He only needs to kill a dozen more Rumare Slaughterfish to fulfill a contract he has with an alchemist in Skingrad," Nerussa explained. "He is doing some kind of experiments with their scales. Aelwin was hoping to use the money to retire and live in the city. But now he can't even do his regular fishing with his leg the way it is, let alone catch the slaughterfish.

Teresa could see where this was going. Her instincts told her to bolt. There was no way she was going to go out and tangle with slaughterfish. A lifetime on the Waterfront had taught her that. There was a reason they were called slaughterfish after all.

So a half hour later she was standing on the shore of the lake, wondering why on Nirn she had agreed to catch the fish for Aelwin.

It was Nerussa's eyes, Teresa thought, those damned soft amber eyes that sparkled just so when the morning light shone through the window. Teresa sighed. She had always heard of women using their wiles on men, but never on other women. It was not at all fair! she thought indignantly.

Well, there was nothing for it now but to get it over with, she decided. Stripping off her leather armor and leaving it in a pile on the beach alongside her bow and her arrow bag, she waded into the lake wearing nothing but her tunic. Normally she liked the water. But normally she did not go looking for slaughterfish either...

In one hand she held a small cage filled with cut up fish. As soon as it hit the water it began to ooze blood and fish guts all around her. Aelwin explained that he used this to attract the slaughterfish. He had offered to give her the spear he used to kill them, but she had declined. She did not know the first thing about spears. It was just a big heavy stick to her. Instead she clutched her dagger in her free hand, and willed her fingers not to tremble as she stared out at the lake.

So, feeling completely disgusted, she waded out into the reddening water and went hunting for slaughterfish. It did not take long before Aelwin's bait proved its worth, and Teresa found one of the serpentine creatures winding its way toward her through the murky water.

She had seen them often enough in her frequent trips into the lake. However, on those occasions she had never tried to actually get their attention by ringing their dinner bell. Now as the slaughterfish closed in, she wondered how it could even shut its mouth with so many big sharp teeth.

That is when Teresa remembered why she liked bows. You could stand far away from your enemy. As the slaughterfish closed in, she wished she had taken Aelwin up on his offer of the spear after all…

The slaughterfish's first strike was at the cage of fish chunks, propelling itself forward with a flick of its rope-like tail and sinking its teeth into the iron bars. The metal bent slightly with the impact, and Teresa was barely able to hold onto the cage with her left hand as the slaughterfish jerked to and fro.

Gritting her teeth, Teresa thrust her dagger into the body of the slaughterfish with all of the strength she could muster. It let go of the cage and turned to look at her with its glassy black eyes. Teresa did not like that look at all, nor that of its long fangs as they came at her. That was all the incentive she needed to drop the cage and hastily kick her legs for shore. Years of swimming had taught her to move swiftly through the water, and she called up every last measure of that speed as the slaughterfish pursued her into the shallows, nipping at her very heels.

Teresa said a silent prayer of thanks to the Nine when she reached the shore alive and with all of her toes. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she felt herself want to shrivel up and hide under the sand. She had been beaten by a fish! she thought in disgust, a fish! She had even lost the bait cage in the bargain.

Looking back out into the lake, she saw that her antagonist had followed her right up to the edge of the water, still snapping its teeth and trying to bite her. Teresa skipped back out of reflex, and noticed her bow out of the corner of her eye. A faint smile came to her lips as she ran to grab it and her arrow bag.

The slaughterfish was still where she had left it when she came back. It seemed to have trouble swimming in the shallows, and could not get back out into the deeper water. That gave Teresa plenty of time to nock an arrow, take careful aim, and shoot it through the head.

This gave Teresa a plan. She made the short trip to Aelwin's home to obtain a length of rope. While he could not conceal his surprise at seeing the soaking wood elf on his doorstep, he quickly produced the cord she desired.

It was only when she was on her way back to the beach that Teresa wondered if it was only surprise he had been looking at her with. Looking down at herself, she saw that her linen tunic clung tightly to her wet body, leaving nothing to the imagination. She may not have possessed the soft curves of Nerussa, but what she did have was clearly on display.

That made her turn red again. Especially when she started to notice how the rest of the people in the village were watching her as she walked by. By the time she had returned to the beach she was thankful to be back with the slaughterfish.

Teresa took out her arrows and stuck them point down into the sand next to her bow. That would make them easier to grab than if they were in the bag, she knew. Then tying one end of the cord around her ankle, she swam back out into the lake to find the fish cage. Thankfully she had not gone too far out when she had encountered the first slaughterfish, so it was not difficult for her to recover. Tying the other end of the cord to the cage, she then began swimming along the shore looking for more fish.

Once again, it did not take long until one showed up to feast upon the fish parts in the cage. Teresa did not try to use her dagger against it, but rather swam for shore immediately, and repeated her previous tactic of shooting the pursuing slaughterfish when it became trapped in the shallows.

She spent the rest of the day fishing in this manner, moving along the coast with her bow and arrows when she had exhausted an area of fish. Aelwin came out at midday to treat her to a lunch of honeyed bread and goat's milk, and remained to watch in amazement as she continued to draw the fish into the shallows and shoot them from shore. By the time the sun was setting Teresa had caught the last of the slaughterfish that he needed.

"I cannot believe it!" Aelwin said in amazement. "You got them all, and without a scratch on yourself. You are unbelievable little lady, and so kind to help an old man like me. I don't know how I can ever thank you."

"Well..." Teresa mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed. After all, she thought, it was really Nerussa who had talked her into it...

"I do not have much, but I suppose I could give you this, seeing as I am not going to need it anymore." Aelwin held up his right hand to show Teresa the ring he wore. It was turquoise, and decorated with dolphins leaping over waves. She thought it was quite lovely.

"It's called the Jewel of the Rumare. My father gave it to me," Aelwin explained as he took it off his finger. "It has been my secret weapon every since I started as a fisherman. It allows you to breathe underwater you see, and prevents anything you carry from being damaged by the water."

Teresa was dumfounded when he set the ring in her palm, and could not suppress a faint smile as she set it on her finger. It was far too big, but instantly shrank to fit perfectly around her skin a moment later.

"It's beautiful," she breathed. Then she wrapped her arms around the old Breton and gave him a hug. She felt very warm and content. She told herself it was because of the ring. She was only beginning to imagine the things she might do with it. Like swim with her leather armor and bow. But there was a nagging feeling deep inside of her that was telling her that her joy came from somewhere else entirely, perhaps even from the look of gratitude she saw in an old man's eyes...

I have been reading since you started, and your new version of Teresa's story is wonderful. I love the improvements and am enjoying this even more than the original. This last one was very fun to read - and clever too. Well done SubRosa!

Ohhhh wonderful! Yes tonight is my reading-night, what joy to read about Teresa...she's gorgeous!

The description of the dream was really great....makes me wonder, dreams tend to come true somehow, don't they?

You broughgt in Hautee's Julian? Nice! Now I gotta read that again as well to see if Hautee has changed her story accordingly... Conspiring minxes... all of you

Acadian: Hey you old warhorse. Good to see you again. I am glad you are enjoying the new and improved Teresa.


minque: Thank you minque. The dream sequences are based on my own personal experiences (although not while dreaming in my case). More will be shown about their significance in later chapters, especially chapter 8.


Remko: Actually it was Jauffre who brought Julian in, from where she has been stationed in the provinces... Haute has not changed Old Habits any though. It would be difficult, as Julian's being there when the Emperor dies is even more critical to her story than it is to mine (that is the problem with all crossovers, at some point, usually that one, they do not mesh together perfectly). So this is just an alternate reality Julian. She fills a spot - The Hero of Kvatch/Bruma - that I intentionally left vague.

* * *

Chapter 6a - You Can't Go Home Again

1st Midyear, 3E433

After spending the evening enjoying Aelwin's tangy grilled slaughterfish, Teresa spent the night in his home, spreading her bedroll across the floor in front of his hearth. She knew it was not the smartest idea. Methredhel's roommate Adanrel had made that mistake and paid for it. It was not something that they talked about, but everyone knew what had happened to her. Still, somehow Teresa did think that Aelwin was something to worry about, and the night passed without incident.

The next morning Teresa bathed in the lake again, and washed herself with the extract of a vanilla plant she had gathered, giving her skin a soft, welcoming scent. Thinking of how lovely Nerussa's hair was, she spent nearly an hour fussing with her own back at Aelwin's. She could not make it as elegant as the tresses of the innkeeper, but after finally combing out all of the snags, parting it on the side, and brushing it across her forehead, it at least looked better than before.

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When she finally felt presentable she said her goodbyes to Aelwin, who was preparing for his journey to Skingrad to deliver the slaughterfish scales. Teresa debated saying goodbye to Nerussa. Part of her very much wanted to see the high elf again. Just thinking of the statuesque woman made her breath catch in her throat. But another part of the wood elf sensed that Nerussa was trouble, at least for her. After all, she was the entire reason Teresa had spent the previous day swimming with slaughterfish...

This time Teresa listened to the prudent half of her nature. Turning away from the Wawnet Inn, she set her feet to the Western Bridge and the Imperial City beyond. She was not used to being awake so early in the morning, and could not stifle several yawns as she made her way across the massive stone edifice. The span stretched on for miles, and by the time she reached the other side she was well awake.

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Teresa's heart beat faster when she set her eyes upon the familiar sight of legionaries standing guard at the city gate. Were they on the lookout for her? she wondered, could Jauffre have had time to clear her name already? Did the senior Blade even intend to do so, or was that just a lie he told her before sending her right back to her prison cell?

Teresa did not really think he would do the latter. He seemed to be a man of his word. But that did not mean the legion was not looking for her in any case. So just as at Chorrol, she forced herself to act calm and relaxed as she walked toward the city gate. I am just an ordinary Bosmer woods-runner, she thought, nothing to look at here.

"Good morning citizen," one of the legionaries said as she walked up to the gateway. Teresa felt the urge to bolt rise within her. With an effort of will she retained her casual pace, and turned to look at the Imperial.

"Good morning," she said, doing her best to pretend that she was not an escaped prisoner. She even forced a faint smile to her lips and paused to talk to the man. "How are things in the city? I have been away for a very long time."

"Everyone's talking about the Emperor's murder," the legionary said, and Teresa detected a quaver in his voice. "Emperors have been assassinated before, but never anything like this. No one even knows who was responsible. Now with no heir..., we are in for dark times friend."

Teresa was stunned. In all of her life the men of the Imperial Legion had seemed like towers of stone; incapable of fear or doubt, and unmoved by pity, compassion or any other form of kind emotion. Yet this man - who she suddenly noticed might be even as young as herself - sounded like any ordinary person.

"Do not worry," Teresa found herself saying in a conciliatory tone, thinking of Jauffre and the secret heir. "Things will work out, you'll see."

They had better, Teresa thought as she passed through the gate. Until this moment she had not thought of anything beyond delivering the amulet to Jauffre. What the guard said was right though. Who were those assassins who knew so much about the Emperor, down to his secret escape route? Who was behind them? Did this mean a civil war throughout the Empire?

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Normally such thoughts would never have entered her mind. Until she woke up in prison and met the Emperor, she had never thought further than how she was going to eat that day, or how to stay out of the way of the Imperial Legion and the ruffians that did not obey the Thieves Guild's rules about killing.

What would a civil war do to the city, and the people in it? she wondered. Starvation? Disease? An army breaking down the walls and storming in to murder everyone? Now she understood why that legionary was so shaken.

Still, she reminded herself that Jauffre and Julian were out there looking for the heir. They would set things right. Then there was Baurus. Teresa did not need to be told that the Redguard would stop at nothing to find those responsible and take revenge. As strange as it felt, Teresa was glad to know that there were people like that in the Empire, who would do the right thing.

She broke from her reverie in time to notice that her feet had taken her completely through the Talos Plaza district and into the Elven Gardens. Unlike the Talos Plaza, which was purely for the elite, the Elven Gardens was a neighborhood of artisans, merchants, nobles on hard times, and other folk who never had to really worry about where their next coin was coming from. It was not rich, Teresa thought, but it was nowhere near poor either.

After her time in the forest she felt a new appreciation for the quiet bedroom district with its numerous trees, flowerbeds, and bushes. Yet still, the hard stone walls of the city seemed to close in from all around. She had never really thought about it before, but everywhere she looked in the city there was a wall. Everything was shoved tightly between those walls, pressed together like the contents of a too-small backpack.

In Chorrol every shop or home had its own individual building, Teresa remembered. Yet here in the Imperial City each entire block was taken up by a single stone structure, or insula. The massive buildings brooded over the street below like dull grey mountains. Teresa knew that they were subdivided into sections for businesses and domiciles, but from the outside they just looked like cliffs that stretched for hundreds of feet, dotted with the occasional window or door.

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Teresa shook herself. What was she thinking? This was home after all. Nothing in Tamriel compared to the Imperial City. Nothing was bigger. Nothing was grander. Looking up at the exquisite shape of White Gold Tower, she was reminded of the graceful lines of the strange ruins she saw outside of the prison sewer. You could see that tower everywhere in the city. Even when she had journeyed from the city for days, she had still seen it rising in the distance.

Looking back down to the street, her eyes fell upon a dirty man in ragged sack cloth who was begging for coins. Now this was the city she knew best, she thought with a sinking feeling in her heart. It was place of people with no hope and no future. As she looked on, two legionaries marched over to the beggar and with barely a word grabbed him by both arms and dragged him away.

He should have known better, Teresa thought. The legion did not tolerate begging in neighborhoods like the Elven Gardens or Talos Plaza. They would let you pass through as long as you did not stay. But stopping and asking for money was right out. If the beggar was lucky they would toss him into the tunnel to the Waterfront, she thought. If not, he would probably spend the night in the prison.

Now that was the Imperial Legion that Teresa remembered. Yes, she was home indeed.

Teresa noticed people looking at her as she made her way down the main thoroughfare to the Market District. Only then did she realize that she walking directly down the middle of the main boulevard. She never did that. It was the surest way to be spotted by the legion and shaken down. No, she and all the other street urchins kept to the alleys and side streets in neighborhoods like this.

Out of reflex she looked for the nearest side street and headed for it. Then she stopped herself. She was not going to skulk in the shadows! she told herself. Not after what she had been through. Pulling herself up straight and tall, she went back to walking right down the middle of the street.

That is when she noticed not only that people were looking at her, but how they were looking at her. It was not with the usual scorn, disgust, or pity that the well-off reserved for gutter rats. They were looking at her altogether differently. As if she was a person, and apparently an interesting one. A few of the men even gave her the same kind of hungry glances that she had only seen cast at women such as Nerussa, while some of the women gave her looks of what might even be envy.

She looked down at her willowy, leather-clad frame. It did not really show anything at all, she thought. But the leather did move with her rather well, and the greaves did cling tightly to her legs and hips. That was one of the things she liked about them. The leather fit good and snug, but flexed easily with her movements. Still, she was certain that she did not detect even a trace of feminine wiles, not like she had seen in Nerussa's statuesque figure...

Putting the Altmer out of her mind, where she belonged, Teresa thought about her first stop as she made her way through the gate to the Market District. Not nearly so clean and neat as the Elven Gardens, the markets were a working class neighborhood. The stones of its buildings were worn and rough. Shoots of grass could be seen erupting from cracks in the cobblestones of the streets, while here and there toadstools blossomed in perpetual shadows cast by the high stone insula and higher city walls.

A noisy, chaotic, melting pot of all Cyrodiil, there were more shops here than the rest of the city's districts put together, Teresa thought. The streets were busy with carts loaded with goods from all over the continent. Working men loaded and unloaded crates, while shoppers of all races and social classes dodged between looking for everything from armor to wine. Here no one would spare her a second glance, she knew.

Yet Teresa froze an instant later, when she saw the face of the legionary standing watch on the market side of the gate. It was Volsinius. She knew him only too well, she thought. Her tongue reflexively sought out the gap between her back teeth where he had knocked one out with a backhand slap of his gauntleted hand. She had been eight years old, and Teresa could still remember it just as clearly as when it had happened. He had caught her trying to steal a sweet roll from a street vendor. The blow had been his way of going easy on her. It was that or prison, and he made her thank him for it afterward.

Every instinct in her said to break and run as he turned to look at her. She dug her fingers into her palms, and if it were not for the leather gauntlets that she wore, she might have drawn blood. His eyes locked onto hers and she gritted her teeth. He was about to recognize her, she knew.

"You have my ear citizen," he said in the same neutral tone that soldiers reserved for ordinary, law-abiding people.

Teresa stood there, not believing what she had heard. Was this a game? she wondered. Some sort of joke on his part? But the Volsinius she knew was not one for humor or subterfuge, Teresa thought. He was a blunt instrument.

"Nothing," Teresa stammered, forcing herself to speak in order to break his gaze. "It's nothing. I just thought I knew you."

"No," he said. "If we knew one another, I would remember. I never forget a face, especially one as striking as yours Bosmer."

Teresa blushed in surprise, and quickly moved on without another word. By Nocturnal he was complimenting her! Her head swam. This was madness, pure madness. What had the Emperor done to her? she wondered. What had she done to herself?

Then she set her eyes upon an aging Imperial woman in the street outside of Edgar's Discount Spells. Her face was more lined and careworn than the cobblestones upon which she stood, and her shoulder-length hair had long since gone to grey. She wore a simple dress of coarse and dirty green flax, laced up the front with rawhide. Teresa approached with a quickened pace, and the old woman looked up at her.

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"Spare a coin for an old woman?" she asked Teresa in a quivering voice.

Teresa smiled. Not the faint smile she typically cracked when she was amused or otherwise pleased, but a wide, joyful grin. "Can you spare a hug for a little girl Simplicia?" Teresa beamed, holding her arms out and stepping closer to the beggar.

"Teresa!" Simplicia exclaimed in shock, wrapping her arms around the slender Bosmer in a warm embrace. "Is that really you?"

Teresa buried her head in the old woman's shoulder and clung to her as tightly as she could. Closing her eyes, she felt Simplicia's arms holding her close in return, and for once everything felt right with the world. After what seemed like far too short a time, Simplicia let go and stepped back a pace to look at Teresa. The elderly Imperial could not hide the amazement on her face, nor the pleasure.

"Why look at you!" Simplicia beamed with pride. "Little Teresa! I did not even recognize you. You look so different. You changed your hair, and scented it too! Oh and look how you are dressed. You look like one of those forest folk, not a city villain at all."

"Do I really look so strange?" Teresa asked. It was something she had been wondering for some time now, since even before returning to the city. "I am still the same as ever."

"Oh my girl, you don't look the same at all," Simplicia replied. "Sure, you still have that flour-white skin, but the rest of you, it's so different. Look at all that armor, and a longbow now I see too. You walk so proud and tall, all respectable you are. You look like you are about to go out and slay some monster like Empress Alessia in the old stories..."

"I do?" Teresa said, eyes widening in surprise, "Really?"

"Really," Simplicia said quietly, stepping close again, and taking Teresa's arms in her own. "It's in your eyes. You used to always look down when people talked to you, even me, now you look right back in the eye. You look like you could take on the world Teresa."

"I... I really don't know what to say," Teresa stammered, feeling her head whirling again. "I am just glad to see you again. You're the closest thing to a mom I have ever had."

"Oh my little Teresa..." the old Imperial gently sighed as she hugged the young Bosmer again. "Ever since I found you crying in the alley that night, I knew you were special. You were always my special little one you know."

"So how have you been old lady?" Teresa asked, trying to slip her voice back to the casual banter they used to share before she had been taken to the prison. "How many coins have you gotten so far this morning?"

"Two drakes!" the elderly woman exclaimed with glee. "And it's barely past mid-morn!"

"But what about you little Teresa?" Simplicia's features lost their joy and took on a serious cast. "Something happened to you didn't it, when you disappeared? We have all been wondering where you went to. Even that fetcher Volsinius asked me what you had gotten up to."

"It's a long story, and some of it I cannot tell even you, not yet," Teresa said, losing her easy tone as she thought of the Emperor, Jauffre, and the heir. "How about we go to the Feed Bag and I'll treat you to breakfast while we catch up?"

quiet bedroom district

HUH?

Wha..

D'you mean quite bed-and-board district, or surburban district, or...I dunno...???


Or was that... a freudian slip? (Dang I had to control myself from making that last letter a 'p' and not a 't' ...!!!)

Chapter 5b:
Teresa’s resourceful method of fishing made the whole chapter a joy to read. I love the attention that you pay to the little details, like the fact that the Jewel of the Rumare shrinks to fit her finger.

Chapter 6:

Go Teresa!

Good as ever, you really have her character nailed, she's likeable and believeable, still clinging to old insecurity but slowly it's falling away. I like how you've departed frm the exact course of the main quest and an interested to see where you take it from here. It makes the story more yours and leaves you freer to surprise as now you've left what's known anything might happen.

Returning her to her origins is a good way to highlight the difference in her too and was most effective.

Only nit I'd possibly point out was that there were a lot of quite short paragraphs, some of which might have benifited from being merged. That's just my opinion of course and really it's just something to think about.

D.Foxy: It is a variation of "bedroom community", I used it because it sounds little less formal than residential district.


Destri Melarg: I guess that is another place I can imagine hearing The Bee Gees, doing Stayin' Alive as Teresa walks down the center of the street.

I did change up the fishing scene a bit from the first time, by removing her Absorb Health spell and having her just use a dagger to start with. That was the only time she ever used that spell, and I never envisioned her as knowing a great deal of magic. So I took the opportunity to take it out of her repertoire completely and leave her with just the Flare and Heal Minor Wounds spells.


Olen: It was a big relief for me to get out of the confines of the MQ. I had a difficult time writing the early chapters, because they were so dependent on game events. I often felt like I was stuck on a rail.

There is a lot more on her returning to her old home, and you are spot on, her homecoming is really bringing home just how much she has changed since meeting the Emperor. It is like my favorite quote from the Wallflowers:

Man I ain't changed,
but I know I ain't the same.

I did go back and merge a some of the paragraphs together. Thanks for that appraising eye!


* * *

Chapter 6b - You Can't Go Home Again

From what Simplicia had to say, no one in the city knew how Teresa had disappeared, or where she went to. She had simply vanished. Most had assumed that she had been hauled off to prison by the Imperial Legion. But after Volsinius had asked about Teresa, Simplicia had gone to the prison herself to see if she was there, only to be told that they had never arrested her. That led to darker speculations, and even Simplicia herself had begun to fear that Teresa had met her end in some dark alley.

Teresa wondered about that. Surely the legionary who had arrested her would have recorded it somehow? she reasoned. Then she thought about Baurus. Could the Redguard have forged the records and sworn the legionaries to silence? He might have, in order to cover her tracks while she spirited the Amulet of Kings away to Weynon.

It was late afternoon by the time Teresa left the elderly woman and made her way through the city to the Waterfront. She wanted to stay, and spend the entire day with Simplicia. To everyone in the city, even the other street urchins, Simplicia - Simplicia the Slow as they called her - was nothing but one more pile of human wreckage. But to Teresa there was no one in the world more important.

Still, she had things to do, Teresa thought. She needed to get back to her squat and dig up her mortar and pestle. Then she could start working on the ingredients she had gathered since leaving Chorrol and turn them into potions.

In the past she always had to buy the alchemical ingredients she made her potions with, she thought. That, and only selling them to the Imperial City's underbelly, seriously limited the profit she made. Usually it was just enough to get her something to eat and pay off the local protection racketeers.

The Thieves Guild tried to stop the ruffians, she knew, but every time they squashed one gang of punks another sprang up in its place. In places like the Waterfront there was always someone desperate and ruthless enough to do anything to get what they wanted. That would never change.

Maybe now she would start selling her potions to that Breton woman in the Gilded Carafe instead, Teresa thought. She had always been nice when Teresa bought her supplies. So was the man at the Main Ingredient. Yes, Teresa thought, that would be just the thing.

Making her way through the city streets, Teresa was once again intensely aware of how the walls of the city loomed in around her. It felt so confined, she thought. All grey and hard, it reminded her of the prison cell. She wished she could be outside and in the forest again, where everything was so green and endless and full of life.

But wasn't this home? she thought, where she belonged?

As she entered the tunnel that led to the Waterfront, she started to wonder about that. Ever since she had come back, everything seemed so strange. The city had changed somehow. Become smaller, colder, harder. It was not the place she remembered, nor were its people.

By the time she exited the tunnel and was back out into the open air of the Waterfront, Teresa felt distinctly uncomfortable. She saw that the Marie Elena was back in port again as she walked along the docks. Returned from her latest expedition of piracy no doubt, Teresa thought. Everyone knew that her crew did not come by their 'trade goods' honestly, including the legion. If the latter could prove it the entire gang of cutthroats would be floating face down in the harbor. One thing the Empire did not go soft on was piracy.

She stopped then, drew the bow from her back and a string from one of her belt pouches. Looping one end of the flax cord around the bottom nock of the bow, she then placed that end of the bow stave against the instep of her right foot. Taking the top nock of the stave with her left hand, she pulled it toward her while using her right hand to pull the center of the bow in the opposite direction. Leaning into it, she used all of her body to flex the yew far enough for her to fit the other end of the string around the horn of the top nock.

Finished, she returned the now ready bow to her back and walked on as casually as before. In the Elven Gardens walking with a strung bow would get the attention of the legion immediately. But here on the Waterfront no one paid any mind.

Some of the pirates were lounging around the dock next to their ship as Teresa walked by, one of them singing a dirty song about a lady from Wayrest. He stopped as she came near, and gave her a hard, appraising look. So did the other pirates. She noticed hands drifting toward sword hilts, and let her own drift to the arrow bag at her hip. No one said a word. Teresa gave back their stares, and did not flinch or hesitate as she walked by and further down the dock.

She breathed a sigh of relief once she was clear of them. Had she just stared down the worst band of killers on the docks? she thought, was she mad? In the past she would have scampered off into the shadows as soon as they looked at her, not that they had ever paid her any heed before in the first place. She had never been worth their while. Not until today at least.

Things really have changed, Teresa thought. I have changed.

Turning down an alley off the docks, she made her way past a string of run down warehouses, taverns, and brothels. Then she was off the cobblestone streets and into the shantytown she knew all too well. Nothing more than a random sprawl of rickety wooden shacks, the air stank of urine, feces, and sweat that soaked into the dirt underfoot. Still, it was better than the sewer, Teresa thought as she plunged into the maze of rambling buildings.

Finding the hovel she called home, she pushed aside the back door, which was nothing more than a few wooden boards nailed together and propped up against an opening in the wall. The light of a small fire illuminated the single messy room within, revealing two men. One was a skinny Breton, and the other a stocky but hard-looking Nord. The Nord immediately laid his hand on the axe lying on the floor next to him, while the Breton slid down the wall away from where Teresa stood.

Damn! Teresa cursed silently at herself. She was so deep in her thoughts that she had not been paying attention. She had always peeked through the cracks in the walls to see if the shack was empty before she went in, she thought. You never knew who might decide to take the place over.

Without thinking, Teresa pulled the bow from her back. She did not reach for an arrow yet, but her other hand did drift in that direction. She stared directly into the eyes of the Nord, trying to gauge him. She could already see that the Breton was no threat. But the blond northerner looked to be a different story altogether.

"This is our shack," the Nord spat with a cold glare in his eyes. "Git out!"

"I used to live here," Teresa said evenly. "What happened to Geen-Rana?"

"I don' know no Green-Ran," the Nord stared back, hand drifting closer to his axe. "This place was empty when we found it. It's ours now, fair and square."

Teresa wondered how much of that was true, if any of it. Well, she thought, if Geen-Rana was dead, there was nothing she could do to help the Argonian now. Hopefully she had been more cautious than herself, and saw the interlopers first and simply decided to look elsewhere for a roof.

"Okay," she said, still staring at the Nord. "I'll just get my stuff and go."

"You do that," he said, patting the blade of his axe. "And don't get ideas, or I'll send you straight to Oblivion."

Teresa did not say a word, or even nod. Her heart was racing and her palms felt damp within the leather pads of her gauntlets. Still, she moved deeper into the shack, and without taking her eyes off the two men, she used her free hand to pull up a loose floor stone against the back wall. From underneath it she drew forth a small bag, really just a thin blanket folded over and tied off with string.

Teresa did not pause to look within it. She did not want to take her eyes off the Nord. She just hoped what meager belongings she possessed were still within. With what she came for in hand, she backed her way out the door and down the alley outside, until she was sure the two would not come after her. Then she collapsed in a trembling heap and wondered what on Nirn had gotten into her?

I enjoyed the homecoming, because it highlights the old saw "you can never go home again."

Her feeling of claustrophobia in the City, after days out in the woods, is very realistic and believable.

This sums up the entire chapter.

And thanks to you for making the slums come alive. They are never really as believable in the game as they should be. You have done well with your description of the waterfront itself (the business district) and making a distinction between the harbor and the slums behind that great wall of warehouses and trading offices. This has proven inspiring the first time I read it, and it still is very inspiring this time through, maybe more so.

I really liked this last part where she realises she has changed. The part with Simplicia is really sweet

An intriguing mystery in the first two paragraphs! I can just see Baurus removing the arrest record and covering Teresa’s tracks. I like the idea that he wasn’t idle after giving her the sewer key. There is nothing that I like better than the hint of forces working behind the scenes.

The description of the local protection racket adds to the sense of despair that must rule the Waterfront, just as it remains a palpable reality in any slum in our world. To me that is just one of the many opportunities that the game developers missed (of course, if they were to make a game incorporating everything that could lend their world verisimilitude our heads would probably explode, severely hampering our ability to play it). I also like the idea that the Thieves Guild does what it can to protect the people of the Waterfront from more that just the Imperial Watch.

What really shined for me in this chapter was the moment when, on first reading it, I thought that you might have made a glaring error of omission. You went into such detail describing the act of stringing a bow that I was totally prepared for Teresa to shoot something. But then she didn’t. I was ready to call foul, I was eye-balling my keyboard and forming in my mind the things that I would say to admonish you for setting me up like that. Then I reached the next paragraph and the stare-down with the pirates. By the time I finished it I was leaning back in my chair with a giant smile on my face. You completely paid off the stringing of the bow, but not in the way that one would expect . . .

Bravo!

Thank all mighty divines it's saturday and I have had a chance to catch up!

Just spent time with Teresa and I must say it's great, so great that I actually don't know what to say. All those details like doing her hair, noticing her tunic clung to her body, revealing....much! and so on...

Rosie you are a wonderful writer and I love your story so much!

haute ecole rider: Thank you h.e.r., those were the sorts of things I was going for. The realization of change, the sense that the IC was no longer home, and the little details that I hoped would bring the reality of living in the gutter to life.

I just finished writing Chapter 7 (which is all new material btw.) with Joseph Campbell's Hero's Quest very clearly in mind (along with Heart of Darkness, but I blame Olen for that... ). Then I looked back and realized that Chapters 1-6 mirrored the Hero's Journey to a tee, all without any conscious effort on my part to do so. It has the call to adventure, which was quite unwilling on Teresa's part (but not unusual in the cycle), the journey to strange, magical places (the prison, sewer, and wilderness), meeting both the goddess figure (in this case her spirit guide), and the god figure (the emperor), obstacles that were overcome, and a final return to where she came from, only now forever changed by the process with the gift of personal insight that she never possessed before.


Remko: Thank you Remko. This chapter is all about that realization of change, as well as an introduction to the people who have been a regular part of Teresa's life.


Destri Melarg: Thank you Dest. I was thinking exactly the same thing about Baurus. I can see him like James Earl Jones in Hunt For Red October (the movie, never read the book), telling the Naval gunnery officer that the torpedo never self-destructed, and that in fact he was never even there...

I am glad you liked the depth I tried to put into the Waterfront as well. In the TF the Imperial Legion does not go past the stone buildings along the docks. Once you get into the shantytown, it is a no-man's land. Basically, the Empire has divested itself of the people there, and tries to pretend they do not even exist. With such an environment of hopelessness I can see a particularly ugly strain of criminals constantly on the rise, with nothing to look forward to and nothing to lose. Kill one, and there is always another to take their place.

The Thieves Guild is portrayed in the game as being Robin Hoods who steal from the rich and protect the poor. I kind of see them as being a bit more pragmatic that that. I imagine them being like Pablo Escobar in that one regard. While he was one of the most viscous and ruthless druglords to ever live, he also gave tons of money to the poor people in the slums of Medellín. He was the one taking care of them, and looking out for them. So when Escobar was on the run he hid out among them, and no one turned him in. Even with a bounty on his head. I see the TG as having that same mindset. By doing their best to protect Waterfronters from the worst elements, they are making them a protective screen they can hide behind as well as an intelligence network.

I think it would be an excellent setting to really go deeply into. I wanted to put more into it, but it would have bogged down the story. Maybe I will be able to work a flashback chapter in of Teresa, Methredhel, and Adanrel from a few years earlier? That might not only put more into those relationships, but also better show the dark underbelly of the Waterfront at the same time.


minque: Thank you minque. I do make an effort to get those little things in. In fact, I have been trying to find a way I can get in Teresa having her period during a story, but I am not sure how I can do it without it being TMI.




* * *

Chapter 6c - You Can't Go Home Again

After she had calmed her nerves, Teresa got back on her feet and made her way through the winding alleys that made up the shantytown until she finally came to a familiar shack. She hoped Methredhel was still living there, and this time she knocked on the door rather than simply barging in.

She heard low voices through the dilapidated walls, then footsteps, and finally saw a familiar pair of green eyes staring at her through a crack in the boards.

"What do you want?" a cautious voice ventured through the door.

"Can't an old friend just stop by to say hello?" Teresa said with a faint smile. "It's me, Teresa."

"Teresa?" she heard the voice say with surprise. The sound of a bolt being pulled back came to her ears, and a moment later the door opened and Teresa was greeted by the sight of a brown-haired Bosmer woman, also dressed in leather and holding a bow in one hand. It was Methredhel, Teresa knew, and she felt a tremendous sigh of relief flow through her as the other wood elf caught her up into a warm hug.

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"It is so good to see you again girl!" Methredhel exclaimed. "We thought you were dead."

"For a while I thought I was too," Teresa said in agreement as Methredhel let go of her and led her though the doorway. The other Bosmer wasted no time bolting the door behind her, and this time it was her roommate Adanrel, yet another Bosmer woman, who gathered Teresa up in a welcome hug.

Their shack was a simple, one-room affair, as were most of the hovels in the Waterfront shantytown. A long table sat near the door, with the hearth next to it. A single rattan bed sat in a corner on the opposite wall. A bedroll lay on the floor beside it, and a third was rolled up nearby. There was a chest that Teresa knew contained all of Methredhel and Adanrel's belongings, and a small cupboard for plates and pots. It was not much, but it was clean and free of vermin, unlike most of the other shacks of the Waterfront.

"What happened to your hair?" Adanrel asked, looking at Teresa in amazement. The third Bosmer was the same age as the other two, and her attractive features were framed by a mane of long blond hair that Teresa knew was dyed, like her own. "You don't look a thing like yourself. Now you look more like Methredhel in all that leather."

"It's a long story," Teresa breathed. "Have either of you seen Geen-Rana?"

"Oh yes, she has been staying with Damian Magius," Adanrel said. "They have been quite the couple since you disappeared."

"You haven't been back to your old squat have you Teresa?" Methredhel asked. "A real hard-case named Regner moved in there while you were gone."

"So I found out," Teresa sighed as she unstrung her bow and laid its stave against the wall. She felt relieved that her Argonian roommate was safe and sound, and hoped that her new love affair would work out for her. She deserved some happiness, Teresa thought.

"You went there?" Adanrel said in shock.

"I had to get my stuff," Teresa said, untying the blanket containing her belongings and spreading them out on the table before sitting down. A few coins, some empty potion vials, her mortar and pestle, a battered plate, cup, bowl, and assortment of eating utensils, and finally a painted woodcarving of a unicorn. Her entire life in the Imperial City was spread out on the little wooden table. There was certainly not much to show for it, Teresa thought.

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"You went in there with Regner!" Methredhel exclaimed. "He's on the run from Skyrim. They say he killed two people there. Are you mad?"

"I had to get my things," Teresa said again. Looking at them now, they seemed like a pretty stupid thing to risk her life for. "I wasn't going to just leave it to him and that Breton."

"What happened to you?" Adanrel said, looking at Teresa as if she were a stranger. "You were never like this before."

Teresa shrugged. She could not explain it herself. Ever since she had met the Emperor the world had changed. No, she thought, I have changed. She was not sure how, or even what she had become. But it was certainly not who she used to be. That had been becoming increasingly clear ever since she had returned to the city.

"It's been a long day." Teresa said, feeling exhaustion creeping in. "Can I sleep here tonight?"

"Of course you can." Methredhel said emphatically now, laying a welcoming hand on Teresa's arm. "There is always room for an old friend."

"Thank you," Teresa said, the hint of a smile crossing her features. Then she looked the other Bosmer in the eyes and covered her hand with her own. "And thank you for what you taught me about using a bow. It saved my life."

Methredhel nodded, squeezing her hand in reply. Teresa could see the questions in the other wood elf's eyes. Questions that she had herself, yet still could not answer. She was glad that Methredhel did not push for more.

They spent the rest of the evening talking about the old times, when they were younger. The more they talked, the more surreal it felt to Teresa. It was like they were talking about someone else, she thought. Someone Teresa had never known. Even Methredhel and Adanrel themselves seemed like strangers. She knew them, remembered all the things they had done together. But none of it felt connected to her anymore.

She went to sleep early, feeling not only exhausted, but distinctly out of place. When dawn came she was already awake. Dressing as quietly as she could, she gathered up her meager belongings, strung her bow, and made her way to the door.

"You aren't coming back are you?" Teresa stopped at the quiet sound of Methredhel's voice.

"I don't belong here anymore." the forester breathed quietly, looking back at the small rattan bed where the other Bosmer lay.

"I know you can't talk about whatever it is that happened to you," Methredhel said. "But someday, if you can, I am a good listener."

"And a good friend too," Teresa said with the tiniest of smiles. "Shadow hide you both."

Then she was gone.

* * *

Teresa walked through the Waterfront without incident. It felt nearly empty in fact. At this time of the morning most of its denizens were fast asleep. Usually she was too, she thought with amusement. She unstrung her bow before she left the tunnel to the Temple District and the rest of the city. This time she did not start when the legionaries at the gate greeted her courteously, and even managed a kind word of her own in response without too much difficulty.

She made her way to the Market District and found that it was already bustling with workmen, although the throngs of shoppers were still hours away. Simplicia should be up and about, Teresa thought. She always tried begging from the men delivering fresh bread to the many shops and street vendors in the early morning hours.

Teresa was taking a shortcut through the alley between two insulas when she came upon a curious sight. A Khajiit whose lithe body was covered in snow white fur sat at the mouth of the alley. The hair on her head was red and worn in braids held back by a headband. Teresa could not help but to notice the similarity with her own pale skin and crimson hair.

The Khajiit had her back to one of the alley walls and seemed to all the world to be nothing but one more street urchin with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Only her fur was too clean, and her muscles too well toned for her to be a street person. While her clothing was far from rich, it was not the patched and tattered garb that a street rat would wear either. As Teresa came up the alley behind her, she noticed that the Khajiit was looking across the main avenue that ran through the district, at a row of shops that lined a small plaza.

"I did not think Khajiit came with white fur?" Teresa found herself asking as she approached. "It looks lovely."

"I did not think Bosmer did either," the Khajiit replied with a smile, then turned her head to look at Teresa. "I like it. People might think we are twins."

Teresa smiled faintly at that. Obviously the Khajiit had been watching her from the corner of her eye. She at least had some skill as a thief, Teresa thought, assuming that was what she must be. Although she had never heard of a thief being awake at this time in the morning.

The wood elf passed by without a further word and turned down the main boulevard. She had other things on her mind than new members of the Thieves Guild. Dodging between workers dropping off baskets of bread, she was tempted to try to filch one. Yet there was hardly any point now that she had money, she prudently mused. Old habits die hard, she thought.

Teresa found Simplicia at an intersection ahead and wrapped the elderly woman in a warm embrace. She did not find it at all difficult to talk the beggar into spending the day with her at the Merchants Inn. Not that she had ever found it difficult to persuade Simplicia to do anything for her.

The room was expensive, even compared to her recent extravagances, but Teresa did not begrudge the money. Ever since returning from her odyssey every moment she spent with the beggar seemed more important than ever. They spent the rest of the day talking while Teresa used her mortar and pestle to grind down the alchemical materials she had gathered into potions.

"You really have changed Teresa," Simplicia said at one point, sitting back to look over the slender Bosmer from head to toe. "I cannot believe how different you are."

"For the better I hope," Teresa ventured, looking up from the vial she was filling with green liquid.

"Definitely for the better," Simplicia said with a smile, and then came up to hug Teresa, nearly causing her to spill the potion. "I am so proud of you girl. You have done so well for yourself."

Suddenly Teresa felt like she was ten years old again. Whenever Simplicia held her she felt that way. Carefully putting down the vial so it would not tip over, Teresa wrapped her arms around the older woman and laid her head against her breast. Closing her eyes, Teresa simply sat there listening to her heart beating as Simplicia gently rocked her back and forth. When Simplicia finally did let go and sat down beside her, Teresa looked back up at her and could not contain a wide smile.

"I have to sell my potions once I am done," Teresa said. "Then let's eat here tonight. Anything you want."

They did just that, but as much as Teresa basked in the glow she felt whenever she was around Simplicia, she could not stop the feeling of the walls closing in around her, or of being an outsider.

"You should be going now dear," Simplicia herself said quietly after their meal. "You cannot stop fidgeting."

"Simplicia I..." Teresa stammered, not wanting to leave, but not wanting to remain in the city any longer either.

"I know," The elderly Imperial said. "I know. But you cannot spend your entire life looking after an old git like me. You are young. You need to be out living life."

"I'll be back," Teresa said, giving the old woman a hug. "I promise."

She left Simplicia most of the money she had earned from selling her potions. The beggar tried to stop her, but Teresa would not have it. For Teresa's entire life Simplicia had been taking care of her. It was the least she could do in return, she thought. Leaving herself just enough to buy some traveling food and a few nights board, she packed her things and was off.

She made her way west through the city, until she was finally back to where she had entered two days ago, at the great western bridge. This time she did not set her feet to the mighty pavestones that made up its span however. Instead she walked down to the lakeshore and wandered along the beach to the north until the sun began to dip over the horizon.

Teresa sat at the edge of the water and watched the sun set along its surface. The colors faded from orange to red, then from red to purple, taking her breath away. The air was clear in her lungs, and the only sound that came to her ears was the soft buzzing of insects and chirping of birds. One of those birds, a raven with sleek black feathers that fairly gleamed in the dying light, settled down next to her. Staring up at the wood elf with its beady eyes, it croaked at her, as if in greeting.

Closing her eyes, she could see the Emperor's face in her mind. He was smiling.

Finally, Teresa knew that she was home.

Screenshot

You showed her return well, initially warm but rapidly distant as it became clear she didn't fit there. It was believeable and you captured the desire on both sides parts for them to be friends as they were but equally them realising it wouldn't work. And now she is that most wonderful thing; a character with no ties. She's left her past but isn't being directed into her future, I really want to know what she decides to do next seeing as she seems to have completely open options.

I agree with your portrayal of the thieves' guild too, you don't make them seem like quite such spotless do-gooders as they do in game and give them the moral ambiguity which makes them seem real and along with them the district.

Nits: there were three paragraphs in a row which started with 'Teresa' and a few more around that, again I'd be tempted to merge them but my tastes do tend for longer paragraphs. The flow might benifit from them being altered somewhat though.

When Simplicia finally did let go and sat down beside her, Teresa looked back up at her and could not contain a wide smile. -- I'm not sure about that comma.

Mmm what a chapter! So wonderfully described, and the screenies....awesome. I especially liked the last one, Teresa sitting there looking....ahhh so beautiful

I guess Thomas Wolfe was right when he wrote You Can’t Go Home Again. At some point everyone experiences the melancholy that attends the sensation of feeling alienated by long absence from familiar surroundings. The image of Teresa sitting on the bank of Lake Rumare looking pensively into the sunset is the perfect ending for such an emotionally charged chapter.

I think you might be on to something with the idea of exploring Teresa’s early life with Methredhel and Adanrel. I for one would be very interested to see how you flesh out those two characters.

I truly adore the emotion in the last chapter. From the sorrowful farewell with Simplicia to the talk with the Bosmers... wonderful.

Did you take away the arguement she had with the other Bosmer? I remember that on the other forum there was an intense arguement between Methredel's friend and Teresa.

Olen: Thank you Olen. Teresa is not quite totally free of her past however, which we will see in the future. Simplicia will always be a powerful force in her life, for better and worse. Her friendship with Methredhel, while appearing to be at least on hiatus now, still has life in it. There also be someone else from her past taking a much more important role in her life in the near future.

However, she is a completely clean slate as far as the future is concerned. This post will show how that begins.

Thank you for spotting those three paragraphs, I went back and changed the beginning of the second to avoid the three repeats in a row. The comma looks ok to me, as it adds a pause for breath in what would otherwise be a very long sentence without it.


minque: Thank you M. People often comment on that last picture. I worked hard to get it, and it remains one of my favorite screenshots.


Destri Melarg: Thank you Dest. I am going to start looking at what I might do with some flashbacks. I might be able to work something into the next 4-5 chapters or so, at the end of the Oblivion Crisis. I will probably want to tell a story of how Teresa met Methredhel and Adanrel, and make some form of adventure (for ten year old's) out of it. Maybe they will find an abandoned pirate ship in a secret cave under the Imperial City, I could call the chapter The Goonies...


Remko: Thank you Rem. The argument you are thinking of is set in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for it.


All: The following is an entirely new chapter, as will be chapter 8. This next post is a little long, but if I broke it up into two they would be a bit too short...


* * *

Chapter 7a - Vilverin

8th - 10th Midyear, 3E433

Teresa was standing in the grotto again. Shadows lurked around her, and the sunlit pool glimmered before her eyes. Stepping to the edge of the water, the wood elf allowed the sunlight to warm her pale skin for a moment. Glancing down at the pond, she was tempted to ease herself into its crystal clear waves.

But that was not what she was here for. Looking up, she saw the figure cloaked in raven's feathers waiting for her on the other side of the pool. Again, she had the same feeling of otherness as before, as if it were someone else in the room with her. Even though she knew it was herself.

Teresa walked purposely around the water and stood before the figure, who lifted her head to greet her. The wood elf's hand reached out to touch the soft feathers of her hood, drawing it back and revealing her own face staring back at her.

Then she was standing on the edge of the shadows, looking back the way she had come. She was alone in the grotto.

Or was she? She felt a presence with her, enfolding her in a warm embrace. Looking down, she watched as a wave of black feathers washed over her body, completely shrouding her in their soft down. Reaching out with her arms, she found that they had become wings. Tilting back her head, the guttural croaking of a raven issued from her long beak.

With a single, powerful motion of her wings she was in the air. The walls of grotto slid past as she flew around the edges of the room. The sunlight called to her, and she soared up through the hole in the ceiling and high into the blue sky above. The green canopy of the forest spread out beneath her wings, and Teresa croaked out a song of joy as the wind caressed the feathers on her face.

* * *

Teresa woke with a faint smile, gazing up at the ravens that lined the branches of the apple tree overhead. It was the ravens that were with her in her dream, she knew, or a raven. Not that it really mattered one way or the other. The birds cawed as she rose to her feet and stretched, seemingly unafraid of her. "Good evening," she said to them in reply, resisting the urge to reach out and touch them.

She found that the sun was hanging low in the western sky, framing the needle spire of White Gold Tower in the distance. The image took the forester's breath away. For long moments she just stood there and drank in the moment as the brilliant disc of the sun painted the sky red and orange behind the shining white stone of the tower.

The ravens took flight with a chorus of guttural cries. Turning her head, Teresa saw that a wagon loaded down bales of hay was wending its way down the nearby road. Lifting her pack, arrow-bag, and bow stave, she set off from the copse of trees in which she had slept. Crossing a field of low corn, she set her feet to the pavestones of the road, leaving the image of the tower behind her.

She made her way along the road in the dimming light, passing several more carts and wagons going in either direction. Around her were orchards and cultivated fields now. Every half mile or so she passed by a small village off the road, their denizens returning to their homes from the surrounding croplands as the light faded.

In time it was full dark, but Teresa did not pause in her walk. She could see well enough, she thought, and she always had her Night Eye goggles if she could not. The traffic on the road vanished as people found better places to be, leaving the wood elf alone on the wide thoroughfare. Just how she liked it, she thought, with only herself and the beauty of Nirn around her.

She found there was not much foraging for alchemical ingredients as she made her way past the fields of wheat and corn, and occasional pastures for cows and other livestock. All the land here was either under the till or the hungry mouths of animals. It had been like this from yesterday, she remembered, ever since she neared the road. So far as she could tell, the farmland stretched from the Market District gate of the Imperial City all the way to the shores of Lake Rumare.

It had been much nicer further north, past the Imperial Prison, the wood elf thought to herself as she ambled over the hard stones of the road. The land was all wild up there, with only occasional islands of habitation. She had found the entire north coast of the City Isle that way during her week-long trek from the western bridge along the rim of the island.

Now she found herself on the opposite end of the island from where she had left the city. Was it only a week ago? she wondered. She had already gathered plenty of ingredients during her journey. But she was in no mood to return to the city just yet. The thought of seeing Simplicia again was tempting. But so was the idea of crossing the lake and seeing what lay beyond.

As they had done ever since she had rounded the brooding grey bulk of the Imperial Prison, the wood elf's thoughts went to the graceful white spires that she had glimpsed across the water. An Ayleid ruin she knew, the same one she had seen when she had escaped from the sewers nearly a month before. A lifetime ago it now seemed. What might she find in its ancient walls? the forester wondered, riches? secrets long buried?

Or a horrible death, she thought with a snort. Those places were supposed to be haunted after all, by the long dead ghosts of their creators. Still, some part of her felt drawn to the ruin. She could still picture it in her mind's eye, just the way she had seen it that night she escaped the sewer. Rising in the moonlight across the lake, the flicking light of a lonely campfire had washed its stones with dancing red and orange light.

The road sloped down beneath her feet, and the faint sound of waves came to her ears. Spread out below her she could see the lights of a town, much larger than the small farming hamlets she had passed along the way. Beyond its daub and wattle homes lay the black waters of Lake Rumare, like a bed of satin under a canopy of stars.

Her feet took her into the settlement, named Sideways according to the sign on the road. In spite of the hour, people still made their way through the streets, which were illuminated by the flickering light of streetlamps. She came to a two-story building whose lower half was made of stone and upper of daub and wattle. A wagon wheel hung over the door, and the sign next to it displayed a foaming flask of ale and proclaimed it to be The Turning Wheel.

After drinking nothing but water for the last week, Teresa licked her lips at the thought of a glass of wine. Making her way inside, she found that the inn was filled with people laughing, singing, and throwing darts. All were commoners by their simple flax and linen attire. None of them paid her any mind as she entered, and the Bosmer squeezed into a space at the bar between an Argonian and an Imperial.

"Wine," Teresa said to the barkeep, passing a coin across the counter. "Tamika's or Surilie Brothers if you have it."

"We don't get those kind of fancy drops here," the Khajiit said in response. Her fur was dark orange, nearly red, and crossed with black stripes. "I've got some shein though, fresh in from Morrowind. I'm Harassa by the way, and this is my inn."

Teresa nodded in approval. She had no idea what shein was. But she thought she might as well try new things as she set down her pack and laid her bow stave against the bar. Everything she had done in the last month had been new to her. Almost as if her life had started over again from the beginning.

"What are you, one of those woodsrunners?" the middle-aged Imperial beside her asked, peering over a foaming mug of ale at Teresa.

"I guess I am," Teresa replied. It felt strange to her, speaking to someone else in a tavern. Usually no one ever noticed her. Not that she had ever frequented ale houses in the first place. "I spend most of my time in the forest."

"Have any fresh venison or wild boar?" the Khajiit innkeeper asked, sliding a glass filled with dark red liquid to her. "I'll make you a deal for it."

"Oh no, I would never hurt an animal," Teresa said instantly. A moment later both the Imperial and Khajiit were laughing uproariously.

"A hunter who doesn't hunt!" the Imperial chuckled. "What do you do out those woods then?"

"I gather - alchemical supplies - and make potions." Teresa said, feeling a familiar warmth spreading through her cheeks.

She took a sip from the glass and found the shein was a slightly sour-tasting wine, unlike the sweet fare she was used to. In spite of that, it was not that bad, she thought as she took another sip. It slid down her throat as smooth as silk, and each taste made her want for more.

"Ah I'm just hackin' on ya!" the Imperial said, clapping a hand on the wood elf's shoulder so hard that she nearly spat out her drink. "I'm Lucillus, Lucillus Cato. I'm a carter, same as damn near everyone else this place. Own my own wagon I do. Me and my boys do the run from Cheydinhal to the City twice a month. "

That must explain the name of the inn, Teresa thought, and the wagon wheel outside. Suddenly she remembered the Ayleid ruin she had seen days before. She imagined it might be near the road, if it was…

"Say, do you know anything about the Ayleid ruin up north of here, on the far shore of the lake?" she asked.

"You mean Vilverin?" the Imperial said after furrowing his brows for a moment. "Ah, you don't wanna go near that place little lady. It's haunted. They say if you die in one of those ruins, your soul is doomed to become one of its guardians. That's why they're always full of monsters. I hear a couple wagons got attacked by there last week. Everyone killed. Probably undead from the ruin, or maybe Daedra."

Teresa felt a shiver run along her spine. That was the second time that someone had warned her about Daedra on the roads. She had never seen one. Yet still the idea of one of those monsters made her blood run cold.

"What about the Imperial Legion?" Teresa wondered. "Aren't they supposed to do something about it?"

"What you haven't heard?" the Imperial looked at her with widened eyes. When she shook her head, he continued. "They're all headed out west for Kvatch."

Teresa stiffened involuntarily. That was where Jauffre had told the Blade to ride, to find the Emperor's heir!

"What about Kvatch?" Teresa asked, reaching out a hand to grab the Imperial's arm. "What happened?"

"They say it was destroyed," the Imperial said in a lowered voice. "The Daedra did it they say! Opened up a gate to Oblivion right outside the city and burned it to the ground."

Teresa turned away, the room spinning beneath her from more than just the shein. No, not when the heir was there! What had that white-haired Redguard said his name was, Martin? She must have found him and saved him, the wood elf thought, she must have!

Teresa downed the rest of her glass without tasting it. Ignoring the stares from the Imperial and Khajiit innkeeper alike, she found herself hoisting her gear upon her back and heading out the door. It was not until her feet had taken her to the shores of the lake that she stopped and looked around herself.

She was standing upon a wooden pier that jutted far out into the inky water. Wide ferries were tied up around her, the great wheels of paddles that flanked either side of their hulls now silent and still. She had seen them before on the Waterfront. People said they were of Dwemer design, using horses to somehow turn wheels and gears that spun the paddles. The smell of those horses came from nearby, and her questing eye picked out a stable next to the dock. Maybe someday she would ride on one, she thought, to see how they really worked.

Smaller, normal fishing boats with their single sails dotted another pier she saw nearby. There was no sign of the big, ocean-going ships she was used to seeing at the Waterfront though. Perhaps the lake was not deep enough for them here, the wood elf thought. Not that she had any idea how deep it had to be for a ship like that.

There was not a soul in sight. It was just her, the water, and the stars overhead. A crow flew down and settled upon one of the massive wooden piles that nailed the pier to the lakebed. The black bird seemed to stare at her for long moments, before cawing out. The wood elf stepped toward the bird, and it took flight once more, winging across the black waves to the north.

Somehow, she knew that Martin was safe, and that he was with the white-haired soldier, Julian. Teresa had no idea how she knew, she just did. It was almost as if the bird had told her. She realized that it made no sense, but as she stood beneath the blanket of stars, she found that she could care less for sense. She would take the crows and ravens over it any day.

Feeling the hard band of the Jewel of the Rumare under the glove that wrapped her left hand, Teresa stared down at the water below. Then she raised her eyes to the north. Somewhere out there, far over the horizon, was Vilverin. She did not know why, but it was calling to her. It had ever since she had first seen it after escaping from the Imperial Prison.

Wasting no more time thinking, Teresa stepped from the dock and let the cool, dark waters of the lake enfold her.

Nice! Love your descriptions of the landscape and nature as well as the sunset over White Gold Tower! I could easily see all of it in my head, what I mean is even if you never played Oblivion you can actually see the nature...

No I haven't really played the game but I have seen my son play...

I'm very eager to see where this leads so I'm sitting here waiting....

Great description of city isle, you amke the place so much more than it was in game. I could really picture the rolling farmland and wooded north and road, it just all came together to be what the place should have been.

The writing was particularly good in the last section too, I can't put my finger on it but I just really enjoyed reading it. It could be how the new Teresa has emerged but I thik there's more. It might just reflect that it is new material too. Whatever the reason it was a great part.

Nits:
"Good morning," she said to them in reply -- you might want to consider changing 'morning' to 'evening' seeing as that is the time. I got that it was evening fairly quickly but it caused me a moment's confusion. Saying that if you think 'morning' added more than was lost in flow (at least for me) then there's no problem.

the massive wooden pylons that nailed the pier to the lakebed -- I think pylons should be piles.

This is new material, all right, and it shows. Well written, well crafted from the beginning to the end. I liked Teresa's moment of concern when she heard about Kvatch's fall, her thoughts for Martin and the white-haired Redguard (gee, I wonder who that could be? ). The description of City Isle as being much larger and more varied than in the game is also delightful.

I agree with Olen about the posts that anchor docks: pylon is kind of modern, and bring to mind cell-phone towers and electric fence posts. Pile, or pilings, though, is the traditional term for the massive timbers that support the planks of docks and piers.

Look forward to more!

I have at last caught up again- and it has been a real treat! The mystical dreams and their role in Teresa's growth has added a whole new dimension- one that really enhances this brilliant story.

I also loved the cameo of Julian- it really adds a sense of event happening in the wider world, while providing a nice easter egg for readers of a certain other story....

The new material is also exciting, and it again shows your eye for detail and your excellence at description. What a wonderful journey this has been so far- and I know it will be even more so in the future.

Also caught up now. Very, very nicely done! This is a pleasure to read. I have spent quite a bit of time in Methredel's house so that part was neat. I quite enjoy the Waterfront in the game.

minque: Thank you minque. If your son has Oblivion then kick him off the comp and start playing it!


Olen: Thanks O. One of the things I aim to do with the TF is to portray Cyrodiil is a much larger place than in the game. As well as try to apply a little more realism (i.e. big cities require even bigger farmlands to feed everyone).

Thank you for catching those nits. Both fixed.


haute ecole rider: Thank you h.e.r. That certain Redguard appears again in this post, in more than just rumor...

We are used to seeing the Oblivion Crisis from the center of it all. One thing I am going to try to do with this chapter and the next is to give a common person's view of the Crisis. Teresa will learn about events in the same way everyone else does, through rumors, Black Horse Courier reports, talking to soldiers on the road, magical divinations, etc...


treydog: Woof! I am glad the dreams are working. They do seem to add a whole new dimension to Teresa without really fundamentally changing who she is. I think (hope!) they might instead give a little more reason for her to do many of the things she does. Like do her first dungeon dive, go to this place or that, many of which did not have a real solid rationale to them in the original version.

I like cameos. If I could find some way to work in Rales or Athlain (or best of all Athynae!) into the TF I would. Julian's has been very fortunate for me, as she fills a space that was very vague in the past (who the Hero of Kvatch/Bruma was). So it is both a neato! moment to read, but also takes an important place in the plot.


Acadian: Hail sir Knight! Methredhel is one of my favorite npcs in the game. I am still looking forward to writing Methredhel's Eleven...


* * *

Chapter 7b - Vilverin

The twin moons Masser and Secunda were lowering on the horizon by the time Teresa rose from the waves on the opposite shore of the lake. Checking the bowstrings she kept in a pouch across her chest, she was pleased to see that they were still dry, as was her leather armor. Once more she felt the Jewel of the Rumare under her glove and smiled faintly. What would she do without that ring?

Wait until next morning for the ferry, she thought as she walked ashore and looked back across the lake. How many miles had that been? she wondered, ten? Enough for her limbs to feel leaden with effort, even with the rest breaks she had taken in the water. Sitting down under a tree near the shore, she shucked off her pack and lay her back against its trunk and sighed.

The grey stone walls of an Imperial Legion fortress loomed before her eyes. Its round keep brooded high in the night sky overhead, and only a lone torch moved slowly along the battlements to reveal the presence of its occupants. That must be Fort Urasek, Teresa imagined, and the sprawl of buildings along the shore between her and it must be the town of the same name. She had seen its lights when she was half-way across the lake, but now the settlement was dark.

Honest people are all tucked in their beds at this hour, Teresa thought as she dug through her belongings for dinner. Only rogues like her were up and about in the middle of the night. She realized that she should have bought more bread and cheese at the inn, as she produced several handfuls of each from her pack. Still, it ought to be enough for her to walk up to Vilverin and back.

After a leisurely dinner, Teresa rose feeling refreshed and set her feet inland. In moments she came to a wide road of stone. The Red Ring Road, she thought as she followed it to her left, bringing her closer to the town and fort. At the edge of the fortress she found it intersected with another pair of roads. One led into the fort and continued down to the lakeshore where the town was. The other went in the opposite direction, heading off deeper inland. A sign post rising up in the moonlight told her that it led to Cheydinhal.

Where the carter had come from, Teresa remembered as she pressed on into the night. Maybe she should try going out that way after Vilverin? She had never been there before. That seemed to be as good a reason as any these days. The entire world was out there waiting for her to see it.

She only wished that Simplicia could be here with her. What would the old woman think of the miles of forest and wide open skies? She would probably be terrified, Teresa realized with a shake of her head. After all, Simplicia had always been the first person to tell her to stay with what you know, and always play it safe.

As the sun dawned on the eastern horizon, Teresa found a place to sleep near the road. Hidden away behind a large stand of brush, no one passing by would see her. Unrolling her bedroll, she stripped off her armor and quickly fell asleep.

* * *

She found herself in the grotto. Her grotto, Teresa realized. The sunlit pool was before her and the shadows clung to the walls behind her. Once more she knew that she was not alone. She did not have to look around this time. Instead she smiled faintly and stretched out her arms to either side. She could feel the coat of black feathers roll down her skin, covering her in their soft embrace.

The ravens are with me, she thought as she gave her wings a mighty flap. Then she was in the air, and flying through the cavern. The sunlight beckoned, and once more she winged her way through the opening in the ceiling and out into the open sky above.

She saw more ravens around her, and flew with them across a wide lake. She laughed as the wind caressed her face, her voice now the guttural croaking of one of the black birds. Her heart beat strong in her chest, and the air was crisp and clear in her lungs. Somehow everything in the world felt right.

They passed over a great island, its hills crowned by a circular city of stone. Flying past it, they eventually came to the far shore of the lake and continued inland. For miles and miles they flew, and by the time that she and the other ravens dipped lower to the ground, it had risen into the foothills of a mountain range.

The winding snake of a stone road came to her eyes, poorly concealed under the carpet of trees below. She saw three riders there. The first was a Redguard woman with milky white hair. Behind her was a young Imperial wearing a priest's cassock. Last in the group was an older man with a shaven head, also wearing a monk's robe.

For some reason she felt drawn to the group of people. Breaking off from the rest of the ravens, she swooped low through the oaks and down to the road underneath. That is when she recognized the Redguard. It was Julian, whom Jauffre had dispatched to Kvatch when she was at Weynon. She could also now see that the monk in the rear was none other than Jauffre himself.

But the man in the center, his face was unknown to her. Yet his eyes, flashing with blue light, those she did recognize. She had seen them before, and when all had been darkest they had given her strength.

"The Emperor!" Teresa gasped, eyes flying open in the afternoon sun. Her heart raced, and she could almost still feel the wind under her body. Looking around herself, she found that she was back on Nirn, an ordinary wood elf once more. Yet laying scattered around her narrow bedroll were nearly half a dozen black feathers…


* * *

It was well after dark by the time Teresa came to Vilverin, her bow in hand and a brace of black feathers now adorning her hair. A ring of shattered white walls rose along the outer edge of the ruin. Within lay more broken stone, remnants of both walls and buildings, rising up a hill in the center of the complex. There a circular colonnade stretched high into the sky overhead, the roof which it had support long since vanished. A greenish-white light blazed within the columns, and from where she stood on the edge of the ruin, Teresa could see a circle of white steps leading up to it.

Screenshot

As she drew nearer, the wood elf realized it was not a fire at all. Rather it was a fountain of light. Yet what created it, she had no idea. Climbing up the hill to the circle of columns, she found herself staring at what seemed like a well of sorts. Rather than leading down into darkness however, its inside was filled with metal flanges that grew from the stone around them. Somehow the light sprang from the metal. Rising high into the air, it shifted and eddied as if it was a gas.

Teresa could feel it then. The power flowing from the well. It was the same energy that she felt deep within her whenever she cast a spell. Magicka. There was no mistaking it. Yet here it was in a veritable fountain, right before her eyes.

Screenshot

Teresa stretched her hand out into the flow of energy. Her skin tingled as the magicka flowed through it. Closing her eyes, Teresa tried to draw it up, just as she drew the power from within her when using a spell. The magicka flowed into her like a river, and Teresa could not keep her eyes from flying open as the power seemed to fill her to overflowing.

Drawing her hand back, she took a deep breath. She could feel the energy coursing through her, just waiting for her to use it. She wondered if this was the kind of power a real magician must feel all the time. It was almost as invigorating as her dream-flights with the ravens.

Energy or not, this place was supposed to be haunted, Teresa remembered. Stepping behind one of the columns to hide herself, she peered out into the ruins around her. Only broken stone greeted her eyes however, and she quietly moved around the colonnade and continued to scan for danger. Eventually she was rewarded with the sight of two small tents, each just barely large enough for one person to sleep under, a few stools, and an old campfire.

Creeping down from the magical well, the wood elf set her feet to good, solid nirn once more and laid an arrow upon the nock of her bow. The only sound that came to her ears was the lapping of waves and the low buzzing of cicadas. Nothing moved in the night before her, and she stepped forward into the campsite.

This might have been the fire she had seen when she exited the prison, the wood elf imagined. It was near the shore, and not hidden behind the stones of the ruin. Yet she could see that the fire had long since gone cold, as there was not even an ember remaining in its dark coals.

That is when she saw the lump of a body sprawled across the grass nearby, and small cloud of flies buzzing around it. Moving over to it, Teresa found that it was a dead Redguard woman, wearing armor made from animal hides. Her skin - which should have been dark - was pale instead, and Teresa could plainly see the dark lines of veins against it. A bow was still gripped tightly in her dead hand, and a great gash had been hacked into her chest, running down at an angle from where her shoulder and neck met.

Another Redguard lay nearby, this one a man with a short, neatly-trimmed beard. A bronze-colored mace lay near his stiff fingers, and his head was neatly split in two. She found that the pouches on both their belts were empty, although several empty potion bottles lay at their feet. A sweet smell came off of both of them, like from a pile rotting fruit. The stench clung to the back of the wood elf's throat like mold, and she had to fight the urge to gag as she stepped away to clearer air.

They were bandits, the wood elf thought, her cautious eyes casting to and fro. But what had killed them? Their weapons were still at hand and armor on their bodies. If other outlaws had done the deed, they would have stripped the corpses, likewise with the Imperial Legion. If it had been animals, would they not have eaten the bodies? A bear or mountain lion would leave claw and bite marks, she thought. The bandits looked more like they had been hacked with a cleaver, or maybe an axe.

"The Daedra did it they say!" she heard the voice of the carter in her memory. A chill ran along the wood elf's spine, and she resisted the urge to whimper in the darkness. Did Daedra loot bodies? she wondered, would they care about mortal coins or weapons? Probably not, she imagined.

She should go, the forester thought. Whatever had happened here, it was none of her business. If there were Daedra around, the last thing on Nirn she wanted to do was meet them.

Yet something about the white stone of the ruin called to her. It was not as strong as the way the forest beckoned her, nor nearly as comforting. Yet it was there the same. She could not explain why, but something about this place almost seemed familiar. Maybe it was just the magicka flowing through her veins from the Ayleid well. Or maybe it was something else. Teresa did not know what it was, but if she had learned anything since meeting the Emperor, it was to not ignore her intuition any more.

With that in mind, she moved from the shadows of the broken walls and continued through the ruins. Just a quarter turn around the circle of the complex, she found that the ground sloped down sharply. More broken arches and scattered flagstones led down that way, nearly to the edge of the lake itself. Looking back to the center of the ruin, Teresa found a square double-door of stone set within a small building that jutted from the base of the hill, underneath the Ayleid well.

Screenshot

She could see a semicircle cut into the surface of each door, set opposite one another so that together they formed a circle. It looked like handles of some sort had been set within the grooves. But they were long gone now. Laying her bow down, Teresa set her fingers in the deep indentations and pulled.

With a grating of stone against stone, the doors slid aside. It was much easier than the forester had expected. As if the doors were not made of stone at all, but something much lighter. Lowering the Night Eye goggles down over her features, Teresa crept onto the stair she found leading down into the bowels of Nirn.

This is wonderful. The mysterious raven dreams/flights fit right in. It was great to see Julian again! Just very, very nicely done.

With her night vision goggles on and hair full of black feathers, down into the bowels of Vilverin she goes. . . .

ohhh, very suggestive! I so like the dreams, mysterious, dark..sends shivers down my spine.


I'm afraid that's impossible for two reasons;

1 My son is very tall and very strong, he won't let himself be kicked anywhere...

2 Ahem..it's his comp!

This is very well done. And you've given me an idea . . . *scribbles madly to herself*

I liked how you moved from Fort Urasek, with its associated settlement to the ruins of Vilverin, with the added mystery of the dead bandits present. Oooooh!

I like the ruin, you give them a much more intense atmosphere than the 'just another dungeon' feel the in game ones had - like the ruins of an ancient magical culture should feel. I'm really excited to see what you do with the inside of it now. You introduce the daedra well as well, I can see that desire not to meet them not being fulfilled for too long...

The raven flight is quite original and is a nice touch. Using it to keep the reader up to date with external events while keeping the tight focus on Teresa is brilliant.

One nit (I think unless its an accent thing): and quickly fell to sleep -- I would always use asleep with fall (ie fell asleep) and to sleep with go (went to sleep). I can't find anything on it though so it's probably just non-standard (here anyway).

Just when I thought that the Sage could not take her writing any higher you have once again proven me wrong, ha, ha. That was a brilliant chapter with so many balls juggled at the same time. I loved the raven sequence and the black feathers on the ground afterwards was a very neat touch.

The finding of the bodies sets up the future of the storyline so very well, and this use of bodies is so ungame like that it immediately transports me into your amazingly crafted story realm. I have always loved that your writing takes off where the game leaves us.


This made me smile. Us rogues and assassins can relate to this !!

Acadian: Thank you A. Now we venture deeper into the breach...


minque: Thank you minque.

1: Age and treachery will always triumph over youth and skill.
2: Your her mom, he owes you for 9 months lodging in the womb.



haute ecole rider: Scribble, scribble, scribble...
Next we will begin to see more of the mystery behind those dead bandits.


Olen: Thank you O. We will indeed be seeing Daedra, eventually. Maybe not as soon as you might think though.

Good catch with asleep/to sleep. You were right. Fixed.


Winter Wolf: Thank you Wolf. That line you quoted does make me think of a certain Bravilian Bosmer as well...


* * *

Chapter 7c - Vilverin

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She could see as clear as day through the enchanted lenses as she made her way down. The stair opened up into a large chamber. A semi-circular arcade was set within the walls to her left, and stretched from the landing around a hollow in the center of the room. At least twenty feet deep, a wide pillar rose from the pit, and Teresa could see what appeared to have once been a bridge ran from it back to the wall to her right. Yet now only broken stones remained of the once graceful structure, littering the floor far below.

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Moving down into the arcade, the wood elf found more broken stone on the path that bordered the pit, outside of the columns. Someone had placed long boards across the rent sections of floor. Teresa avoided these however, moving through the columns to her left and into the shadows of the arcade. The wood might give way under feet, she thought as she crept along, or creak under her weight and betray her presence.

Making a complete circuit of the arcade, the Bosmer found herself facing the direction she had come from. A rusty metal chain hung motionless from the ceiling in front of her, with a massive block of wood bristling with metal spikes hanging from its end. It looked new, as if it were freshly cut, and the forester wondered if it might have been enchanted to withstand the effects of time. A scattering of bones lay on the floor around it. She nudged one with the toe of her boot. With no flesh at all upon its smooth surface, it had obviously been here for a long time. An axe lay nearby, its dark, pitted blade still looking quite serviceable in spite of its age.

A stair led down in front of her, and Teresa gingerly edged past the hanging spike trap, careful not to touch it. She knew that if a sentry saw its wicked teeth swaying it would give her away. Mindful of more traps, she took her time going down the stair. She did not go far before the stairwell brightened from a chandelier hanging over a landing below her. Lit by glowing stones, its rusted metal was as motionless as the trap she had passed by.

Teresa made her way down, and found a table and chairs in the landing. A pair of clay cups and a pitcher sat on the table, as did a plate and chunk of bread. Sniffing one of the cups, the wood elf imagined it might be ale within. A dark stain spread across the floor at the beginning of another stairway leading down, and a pair of small spiked balls hung from the ceiling.

The traps did not show any blood on their spines, Teresa noticed as she ducked under them and continued down. They did not kill whoever made that stain on the floor, she reasoned. So what had?

Continuing down until the stair ended in an antechamber, Teresa listened carefully. Not a sound came to her ears, and she moved under the graceful lattice of metal vines that rimmed the edge of the doorway. The room itself was empty of all but rubble, yet she found two other doorways leading deeper into the complex in its far wall. Creeping up to one, she licked her dry lips and peered beyond.

Within was a massive chamber, the stone blocks of its roof held in place by graceful, vaulted pillars. Another chandelier of glowing stones lit the room to enough brightness that Teresa pushed the goggles back from her eyes. Half a dozen square pedestals rose up throughout the room, crowned by graceful metal sconces that were now empty. More lattice-framed doorways led off from the chamber into other rooms or hallways. To the left a great pit opened up, and Teresa could see a stair leading down next to it.

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Several crates were scattered throughout the room, as were tables and chairs. The latter were turned over and smashed however, and plates, cups, and other utensils were strewn across the floor. Numerous dark stains blossomed upon the stone blocks underfoot, and as the wood elf entered the room she found both weapons and armor scattered about as well. Many of the latter pieces were fractured and stained as dark as the floor.

Finally, Teresa found her first body within the ruin proper. She smelled it long before she saw it, that same sickly sweet odor as before, only now much worse. This time she did gag when she came upon the rotting flesh that barely hung upon its torn frame. She was not sure what race it might have been when it was alive, other than it could not have been an Argonian or Khajiit from the lack of a tail. She found another like it nearby, and a third. More old bones were scattered around the room as well. At least the latter did not reek, she thought.

She found more food as well. Fresh bread, vegetables, and even a cask of ale. A dozen bedrolls were arranged along the far wall, along with several chests. Within she found clothing, a deck of cards, some wood carvings, and other random items.

Someone had been living here, Teresa thought as she peered through the clutter, and it was not the corpses she saw on the floor. Those were far too old. The food was fresh. The bloodstains were no longer wet, but how long did it take for blood to dry? she wondered. Probably not too long, she imagined. Whatever happened here, it must have been recent.

So where were the people who had been living here? she wondered. Could they have simply left? With fresh bread and cups still full of ale? Not likely, she thought to herself.

Gripping her bow tightly in hand, Teresa slid the goggles back down over her eyes and continued on. The other doors in the room led to smaller side chambers that were empty. That left the depression, whose floor she could see was littered with shattered crates, but otherwise looked empty. Taking the stair down, Teresa moved through the lower room and into a gallery beyond. This looked out upon another chamber further down, and within it she could see another table, a few chairs, and a bedroll.

Once more there was no sign of any inhabitants. Yet clearly someone had been living here, Teresa thought. She slinked through the room and found a stone door whose surface was etched with a leafless tree from top to bottom. Its spreading branches glowed a soft green in the dim light, and the beauty of the craftsmanship took the wood elf's breath away. Laying her hand against the portal, she found it sliding back with hardly any effort at all.

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More empty corridors and rooms lay beyond. These places sure were big! the wood elf marveled as she made her way from one chamber to the next. Were they palaces? she wondered, or fortresses? It was impossible to tell what most of the rooms had been used for, as all of their furnishings had rotted away to dust. Only stone and decayed metal remained behind. In a few places she came across curious-shaped chests of the latter material. There were small, hexagonally shaped ones whose lids twisted off. Others were larger and rectangular-shaped. All were empty however.

The bandits had cleaned them out, Teresa thought, or whoever had killed the bandits. If indeed they were dead.

The wood elf found herself in a narrow side corridor that dead ended with what was either an altar or a funeral bier sitting in the middle of it. Another dark stain spread across the floor on one side of the stone slab, appearing to lead directly into the wall. Taking a closer look at the stones of the wall, she found nothing out of place. Yet the blood had plainly run into them.

Walking to the end of the bier, she felt the stones shift under her feet. The Bosmer's heart leapt into her throat as she jumped back, eyes darting to and fro. The grinding of stone against stone was loud in her ears, and she found that the wall where the blood disappeared was slowly lowering down into the floor, revealing a low, square corridor beyond.

Teresa felt her heart double its pace when she saw a figure within it stumbling toward her. With her Night Eye goggles she could see it plain as day. He had been an Imperial, and still wore the tattered remnants of leather and animal hide armor. His left arm was gone, and the armor over his chest was ripped open, revealing a long, thick line of stitching going down the center of his chest. His dark, unblinking eyes were glazed open, and his remaining arm reached out for the wood elf.

Without thinking, Teresa drew an arrow from the bag at her hip, set it to the nock, and drew her bow to full tension. Taking the barest instant to aim at the dead man walking toward her, she let fly. The arrow struck the walking corpse in the center of its unarmored chest, and caused it to stagger a moment before resuming its forward march.

A zombie! Teresa silently cursed as her feet took her back the way she had come. The dead man followed, moving slowly but purposely. Stay calm, Teresa told herself as she stopped and set another arrow to her bow stave. It was slow, she thought, it could not catch her. Pulling the string back to her cheek, again she took only a moment to aim. This close it was easy, so long as she did not get killed.

It took two more arrows to put the zombie down, and Teresa had backtracked through another chamber in the process. Kneeling down beside the now-still corpse, she imagined that he was not long dead. He did not smell too bad for one, nor was his flesh rotted or moldy. He was just like the others she found outside. She found a dagger at his hip, and a few mundane items like a pair of dice and a comb in his belt pouches. Yet not a single coin.

Thinking of the smell gave the wood elf pause. She had gagged at the sickly-sweet odor when she had found the first corpses. Yet after the effluvium of the much older bodies, the smell of the fresher ones now hardly bothered her at all. The forester imagined that she must be getting used to it. Either that or her nose could not smell much of anything after the reek of the old corpses.

"They say if you die in one of those places, your soul is doomed to become one of its guardians."

The words of the carter in Sideways loomed from Teresa's memory, sending a shiver down the length of her spine. Was that what happened? she wondered. Were the bandits cursed?

There was still a clear way out, the wood elf thought as she licked her lips, all she had to do was turn around, and she could leave in one piece. Unlike the former residents.

But where were the other bandits? she wondered, and where was their gold? Where were all the things that she imagined might have been in those Ayleid chests she had come across? Or that should be sitting on those sconces she saw in the main chamber? What in Oblivion was really going on here?

Teresa was not sure what it was that finally caused her to set her feet back to the secret passage she had discovered: greed, pride, or just simple curiosity. In any case she stole down it as quietly as she could, finding herself staring at a wide chamber beyond. It was lit by another of the metal and crystal chandeliers. A wide, round font of stone rose up in the center of the chamber, and it was surrounded by stone benches.

Laying across the top of font was a dead Khajiit. Sprawled on her back, her glassy eyes stared up at the ceiling overhead. Her chest and belly had been ripped open, and her intestines were spread around her body. They trailed down to the floor and back up again in a revolting web that completely shrouded her corpse, like some madman's idea of artwork.

Teresa felt her stomach churn as she took in the grisly scene. The next thing she knew she was on her knees, vomiting up the contents of her breakfast. When she finally had nothing left to heave up, she rose unsteadily to her feet, trying to spit the taste of bile from her mouth and wiping her lips with the back of her leather-clad forearm.

What kind of monster would do something like that? the forester wondered as she stared back into the chamber. It was no zombie, that was for certain. Whoever did that took their time and thought about it, was deliberate in it.

Drawing an arrow from her bag, Teresa set it to the nock of her bow as she entered the room. She found another body near a corridor leading away from it. This was a zombie, quite old by the mold that clung to its rotting flesh. Thankfully it lay still on the floor, hacked into several pieces.

Teresa moved beyond the room, trying not to think about the Khajiit. The rest of the place was bad enough, she thought, the last thing she needed was to make it worse by dwelling upon the ugly end that awaited her if she should falter.

Yet the wood elf was surprised to find that the more she did think about it, the more her fear was replaced by something in her heart that was cold and dark. No one should die like that, she thought, not even a bandit. Whoever did it had a reckoning coming…

A rattling sound came to the forester's ears as she crept up a stairway. She could not place what it could be until her eyes peered over the lip of the stair. Before her stood a skeleton, gripping an axe in one hand. Its back was to her, and it was slowly trudging down the hallway that spread out from the stair.

Rising to her feet, Teresa took the time to draw her bow to half-tension. Taking a deep breath, she slowly let out half of it as she aimed at the center of the monster's back. Then with all of her strength she drew the string back to her cheek and loosed. A moment later the steel head of her arrow pierced the backbone of the undead guardian, emerging from its sternum on other side of its body.

The skeleton made a hissing sound, which Teresa thought was strange for a creature with no lungs. It turned with a loud rattling of bones and raised its axe, springing in her direction. It was fast, much faster than the zombie. With her heart pounding in her chest, the wood elf turned and fled down the stair, fishing out another arrow as she did so.

Reaching the bottom of the stair, she bounded across the landing and turned. Drawing her bow to half-tension once more, she sighted in on the skeleton as it reached the bottom of the steps. She knew that it would be on her in seconds, and pulled her string back to her cheek. A moment later her arrow was in flight, and found a home just above her first. With that the skeleton's backbone gave way and its chest broke apart. Falling to pieces before her eyes, the creature's bones scattered around the room and lay still.

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Teresa gulped for air. Damn! that thing was quick, she thought, nearly as quick as she was. Not as tough as the zombies though. It only took half the arrows to finish it. But that speed might catch her, she realized, especially if she was cornered. She would have to be more careful around them.

Moving on, Teresa found more skeletons and old, rotting zombies. Taking the time to be quiet and unseen paid off for her, as it gave her excellent shots at the undead creatures. She was even able to kill one skeleton with a single stealth shot.

Vilverin itself went on before her, and once more Teresa was amazed at the size of the place as she continued down level after level, through both small rooms and wide chambers. One even had a large pool filled with water, and when she was unable to pick the lock of the door leading out, she had to dive in and swim her way to the rest of the complex.

Excellent update, you caught the tension very well but also the intrigue which drew her onward. And a cliffhanger. In water. Underground. Is there anywhere worse?

You give the ruin a suitably grand scale too, like Cyrodiil it's feels like it has size to fit reality better.

like some madman's idea of artwork. - excellent line, evocative.

I did spot a few things :

The word 'wood' appears quite heavily in the second and third paragraphs (seven times if I recall) between the 'wooden board' and 'wood elf'.

across the rent sections of floor -- great use of the word here, it's a strong one and unusual.
Many of the latter pieces were rent and stained -- but because it's so unusual to use it as an adjective it surprised me a bit the second time. Not sure if its worth changing though becuase its a brilliant word but the degree of proximity jarring increases (IMO) for more unusual words. Still I like it. (I may have had a point there to begin with).

She slinked through - according to my dictionary the past simple is slunk (or slank apparently), however it might be an accent thing and it might be better as slinked seeing as 'slunk' sounds somewhat dark where slinked doesn't...

He did not smell too bad for one, nor was his flesh rotted or moldy. He was just like the others she found outside. -- she gagged which she saw the first corpse though...

Excellent chapter, I really enjoyed it.

Down down in the damp mouldy crypts! I can see her, I can smell what she smells, Her fears are mine...you really write very suggestive, and my imagination let me actually "see what she sees and feel what she feels"

Wonderful Rosie!

This was a very hard chapter to write because of all the run-on that was needed to describe what was happening. You did a great job with it and set up the scenes of Vilverin wonderfully well. We can all relate to the size and depth of that place !!

The screenpics added to the mystery of the ruin, and I love those nightgoggles.

She found another body near a corridor leading away from it. This was a zombie, quite old by the mold that clung to its rotting flesh. Thankfully it lay still on the floor, hacked into several pieces.
Technically a zombie is only a zombie when it has been raised to life by witchcraft / necromancy. If it is found dead then it is simply a corpse again. I understand that you wanted to contrast this body with the Khajiit one found, so perhaps just ignore my ramblings.

The skeleton made a hissing sound, which Teresa thought was strange for a creature with no lungs.
Fantastic. I like this.

Well done. I liked your descriptions of the corpses and rotting zombies. Very good! Brought back memories of necropsy in vet school on the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend (when the power went out on Friday and we had a heat wave of 90 plus degree weather all weekend). Ugh. Very effective.

Olen already noted my nits, so I'll say no more.

But,

Oh, very well done! All of what minque said is true. Very, very real! Great descriptions of places and critters. I love Vilverin!

Olen: Thank you O. I was making a concerted effort to build tension and mystery with this, so I am glad it worked. Plus since this is Teresa's first Ayleid ruin, I wanted to put a lot of effort into describing it, and making it seem really grand.

Good points, I have gone back and edited things. I am going to leave in slinked though, slunk has never really looked right to me.


minque: Thank you M. More damp mold on the way!


Winter Wolf: Thank you WW. That first pic with the goggles on really came out well. It is actually from another ruin (Bawn), but I could not resist using it here.

You make a good point about the zombie/corpse. But I do want to keep the distinction between regular dead bandits and dead monsters that were animated. So I am going to stick with zombie.


haute ecole rider: Thank you h.e.r. Ahh, such fond memories you have... However, I do feel obliged to tell everyone that those descriptions of the corpses were due in large part from your helpful advice.


(The now blond and distinctly wood elfy) Acadian: Thank you A. Who is that hottie in your avatar? I know a certain stringy Bosmer who might like to meet her...


All: This next post is going to be a big one. But I did not want to break it in the middle of the action for fear of losing the impact. I do not suggest eating anything while reading this one...

* * *

Chapter 7d - Vilverin

Finally she came upon a wide intersection of four passages. Another font rose up in the center of it, and shining quartz seemed to grow from the ceiling to light the area. Teresa was thankful when there were no bodies on the font. Instead its basin was dry, and within it sat a curious statuette.

Most of it was made of some white metal which she could not identify. It had four needle-like spines that ran up from a wide base. These were linked by a series of horizontal spars to a fifth spine made of purple crystal that hung between them in the center of the statue. Within its depths Teresa could see some kind of swirling energy, much as she had glimpsed within the heart of the Amulet of Kings. Yet the statue did not give her the warm, comfortable feeling that the amulet had. Rather it felt cold and harsh.

Teresa had no idea what it might be, but it certainly looked valuable. Without a second thought she lifted it from the basin and tucked it into her pack. It ought to bring a good price from somebody, she thought. Probably more than her potions would.

The sweet smell of rotting meat came to Teresa's nose, and afraid of what she might find, she followed it down one of the side passages. It opened up into a wide room with a stone altar in its center. She had no idea what it had been originally built for, but now it was a abattoir. Fresh corpses of several races were spread around the room, torn open and covered with dried blood. Dark, squishy things that she imagined might be organs lay scattered here and there, as did a few other body parts such as fingers and eyes.

One body lay stretched across the altar, its chest cut open and ribs pulled out to expose its innards. A large pair of shears lay on the altar beside it, blades stained dark. A needle and heavy thread sat there as well, along with a small, single-bladed knife and a heavy pair of pliers.

The next thing Teresa knew she was doubled over retching. At least she had nothing left to heave up, she thought as she backed out of the room, trying not to breathe in the stench. Well, now she knew what had happened to the rest of the bandits, she mused. Once more she thought of the entrance. It was still there, and she still had an open road to it.

Yet just as before, that coldness twisted in her guts. There was no leaving this place, she knew, not after seeing what she had. Someone was going to pay…

Backtracking to the intersection, she found the next passage dead-ended in another charnel house. A body hung by its neck from the ceiling, hands bound behind his back. He had been a bandit if the remnants of hide armor on his still undecayed flesh was anything to go by. From the dark splotches that decorated his face and protruding tongue, Teresa imagined his death was not one of a quick broken neck, but rather of slow strangulation. Worse, his stomach had been cut open, leaving his bowels spilled out across the floor underneath him.

Another bandit was crucified upon one of the walls, her body suspended by iron spikes driven though her wrists and into cracks in the stones behind her. Her chest was cut upon from throat to waist and her ribs ripped apart. Her insides were gone, leaving her torso an empty shell of meat.

The final horror was spread-eagled face-down on the floor. His back was cut open and ribs torn out. This had made it possible to pull his lungs from his body and spread them out above his shoulders, like a ghastly pair of wings. Given the rictus of agony fixed upon the dead man's features, Teresa imagined that he must have been alive when it happened.

The wood elf reeled away from the horrors. She could understand killing people like bandits, who attacked you first. But this was beyond that. It was beyond even cold-blooded murder. It was something altogether different. What kind of monster could do such a thing?

There was only one corridor left, and even though she could see clear as day with her goggles, Teresa felt like she was smothered in darkness. Mindful of the pressure plate she had stepped on earlier, the wood elf took her time, and was rewarded when she discovered a slightly raised section of the floor in front of her.

Taking a closer look at the narrow corridor ahead, she noticed three long slits in the walls to either side, running from the arched ceiling down to waist level. Beyond them the corridor turned to the right, out of her sight.

So what comes out of those? Teresa wondered, and does it still work? Getting down on hands and knees, below the level of the openings in the walls, she gingerly reached out and pressed down the stone.

She heard a snap of some kind of clasp in the walls, and a moment later three pendulums came sweeping across the corridor, their wide blades shining bright and sharp. The outer two came from her left, and the inner one from the right. It only took them a moment to slash through the empty air of the corridor and vanish into the slits in the opposite walls.

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Teresa waited, and realized that she was holding her breath. She faintly heard gears turning in the walls, and a moment later the pendulums came back across the hallway. Gulping for air, she tried not to think of what would have happened to her if she had not seen the trap.

The pendulums continued for lengthy moments. Teresa was not sure how long. The time seemed to stretch on forever, and she drew forth another arrow and set it to her nock just in case someone, or something, came along as she waited. Finally the blades vanished into the walls and stopped, and she inched her way through the corridor, being careful not to step on any more triggers.

The corridor turned to her right, and after continuing for a few steps it ended at a flight of stairs going up. The wood elf could see a light coming from above, and only after peering for more traps, she eased her way up. Before she was halfway to the top the rattling of bones came to her ears, and the wood elf paused to lick her lips before continuing.

Peeking over the last few stairs, she found that they opened up into a great chamber. It was lit by more shining crystals that grew from the center of the ceiling. Square pillars held up the vault of the roof overhead, save for one whose upper half was missing. To her left Teresa saw a raised gallery running the length of the room, and directly across from her she saw a doorway, which she imagined might lead to the walkway above.

A metal brazier sat in the middle of the room, and motes of light danced lazily up from within its basin. A stones of the floor rose slightly around it, and surrounding that were numerous biers. A skeleton lay upon one, with a sword clasped in its bony fingers. A bedroll was stretched out across another, and one of the long Ayleid chests topped a third. A fourth seemed to hold some kind of alchemical apparatuses, and a fifth had several books and writing implements.

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A skeleton patrolled to one side of the room, axe clutched in one hand and a long, oval shield in the other. Sitting on the floor with his back to one of the biers was a Redguard. His tightly curled hair was cut short, and he wore a dark robe emblazoned with a skull crossed by a pair of bony hands.

So this was the monster responsible for all of this, Teresa thought, feeling that cold rage building deep within her. Reaching down to her waist, she popped the stopper from a jar that hung from her belt. Thrusting the barbed tip of her arrow within, she withdrew it a moment later dripping with a viscous black substance. Time for him to meet her friend nightshade, the forester thought with a faint smile, replacing the stopper and setting the arrow on the nock.

Without thinking, Teresa rose to her feet on the stair, bringing her bow to half tension and sighting in on the man. The creak of her flexing bow stave was loud as thunder in her ears. Apparently not only in hers, for at that moment the skeleton whirled, fixing its empty eyesockets upon her with an eerie hiss. The Redguard must have heard the skeleton, for he too looked up as Teresa let fly.

The wood elf was not sure if it was divine or infernal providence that drove the man to reflexively throw up the book he held to protect himself. In any case, the arrow that would have pierced his chest instead sunk deeply into its pages. She heard him curse, and wondered if she had still hit one of his hands as he rose and dropped the skewered tome.

But her attention was no longer on the Redguard. Rather her gaze was riveted upon the skeleton that was now charging across the room at her. Quickly she reached for another arrow and set it to her bow stave. She did not pull it to half-tension to properly sight in on the skeleton. There would be no time, she realized. Instead she drew it back to her cheek and spared only the barest instant to aim at the onrushing monster. Then she loosed and whirled away, bounding down the stairs.

She heard the arrow thunk into something hard behind her as she raced down the steps, taking them two and a time. The rattling of bones was loud behind her, telling her the skeleton was still alive, if such a thing could be called that. The wood elf hit the landing with both feet and scampered to the end of the short hallway. Turning, she drew another arrow from the bag at her hip and raised her bow.

The skeleton was halfway down the stair, her arrow firmly planted in its tall shield. Damn, she thought, another useless shot! Raising the bow to half-tension, she sighted in on the right side of the skeleton, hoping it would not be able to block with the shield in its left hand. Then she let fly and raced around the corner. She heard another heavy thud as the arrow hit home somewhere behind her. Probably in its shield, she mused sourly.

That is when she realized where she was. The pendulum trap! She felt a pressure plate give way beneath her bounding toes, and dove to the floor as the whooshing of metal cutting through air filled her ears. A cool breeze rushed by, and she knew that one of the swinging blades had passed by overhead. She saw another sweep across the corridor ahead of her, and rather than rise to her feet, she rolled down the hallway, trying to keep as low to the floor as possible.

She surged to her feet at the far end, turning to look back the way she came. The skeleton had already turned the corner, and was charging down the corridor at her with axe raised. A moment later a pendulum sailed from the wall beside it, ripping its bones to shreds in an instant.

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A faint smile came to the wood elf's lips as she drew another arrow and poisoned it. Saved by one of the very traps meant to kill her! she thought, how ironic was that?

"I don't know who you are, but you picked the wrong tomb to raid!" The voice of the Redguard came from around the corner at the end of the pendulum hall. Teresa raised her bow and drew it back to half-tension, sighting in on the lip of the wall. A moment later she saw curly hair and shot. But at the same moment one of the pendulums chose to arc through the hallway, and the forester's arrow snapped against its blade.

"Not your day is it tree-hugger!" the man snickered, extending his hand. A bolt of fire erupted from his fingers and sped toward her. Yet it too fizzled out when it struck a swinging pendulum.

Teresa drew another arrow as the Redguard ducked back around the corner. Taking the time to poison it as well, she once again set it to the nock. She waited, and after several long moments she heard a grinding sound within the walls, and the blades stopped in mid-flight.

He must have a switch to turn them off, Teresa thought. Not wasting a moment, she darted into the hallway, careful to step around the deadly blades that now hung motionless. Emerging past them, she stepped back around the corner and looked up the stair in time to see the Redguard silhouetted at the top.

She raised her bow and fired. At the same time the mage once more threw out his arm, but now a bolt of lightning shot out. Heat seared into Teresa's side as she felt herself pushed back against the far wall. The smell of roasting meat filled her nostrils. Yet in spite of that she smiled faintly. For she had seen her arrow strike home this time, in spite of the yellow flash of a Shield spell as it had hit.

Still, she did not want another of those. Pushing herself off the wall, she dove around the corner. Pain erupted in her side, and she stared down at the charred leather of her cuirass even as her free hand reached into one of her belt pouches. It would not survive many more of those, the wood elf thought, nor would she. Drawing forth a small bottle, she pulled the stopper out with her teeth and hastily poured the pink liquid down her throat.

Just like that the pain vanished. Willing her hands to stop trembling, Teresa drew another arrow and set it to her nock. Taking a deep breath, she raised her bow and stepped back around the corner.

She found herself staring at a headless zombie. She fired out of reflex, taking it square in the chest. It paused a moment as the barbed head struck home, then reached out for her with a clawed hand. Desperately scrabbling backward, Teresa lost her balance. The next thing she knew she was on the floor. Another bolt of lightning sizzled through the place she had been standing a moment before. Yet it was the zombie that filled her vision.

Rolling to one side as its arm swept at her, Teresa scuttled back down the pendulum hallway. She wished there were one of those switches to activate it on her side as she navigated her way through the blades. If wishes were horses we would all ride, she thought as she drew another arrow and set it to her stave.

She turned at the end of the hall to find the zombie still working its way around the first pendulum. At least the blades were slowing it down, she thought as she took careful aim and shot, piercing one of its hips. The zombie continued with a noticeable limp after that, and Teresa pulled another arrow and sent it into the other hip.

The zombie crashed to the floor after that, yet still it crawled forward. At the end of the hall behind it she saw the robes of the mage. This time she was able to step out of the way as another bolt of lightning flashed brightly in the corridor. Now she saw that the arrow was gone from the necromancer's body. He had pulled it out, she thought, but had he noticed the poison on the tip?

Teresa backed up to the font where she had found the curious statuette. Crouching behind its hard stone, she drew another arrow. She rose a moment later and drew her bow to half-tension, sighting in on the zombie. Letting fly, she buried the arrow between its shoulders, and it vanished into thin air.

Drawing forth another arrow, she lifted her eyes to the mage and took careful aim on his figure. As she did so, she wondered why he had not fired another bolt of fire or lightning at her. Maybe he was casting some kind of protective spell?

In any case, he dodged to the side, putting one of the pendulums between the two of them. Teresa held her fire and sidestepped, looking for a clear shot. She caught sight of him drinking a potion as she finally found an opening. Letting fly, she once more saw the bright flash of a Shield spell as her arrow struck home in his arm.

With a snarl on his lips, the Redguard pointed at her with his other hand. Lightning flashed, and the next thing Teresa knew she was on the floor with bright spots dancing in her eyes. Gritting her teeth, the forester scuttled behind the font as agony seared through her chest. Now she saw that her cuirass was a blackened and smoldering ruin as she reached for another healing potion and greedily downed its contents.

Which one of us is going to run out of potions first? she wondered as she reached for another arrow. The thought made her stop. What in Oblivion was she doing? she wondered. This fetcher was a necromancer, and a real sadistic one at that. Was she really fighting him? Why on Nirn was she not running away like any sane person would?

The Emperor's face filled her mind's eye then, his blue eyes flashing brighter than any lightning bolt. "It is our choices in life that define us." his words echoed in her brain. Could she really choose to run, after what she had seen?

"Come out here and die while you still have the option of doing it quickly!" the necromancer's voice ripped through the hallway. It had an edge to it that was not simply anger or hatred, Teresa noted. Rather it sounded like pain. She wanted to shout something witty back at him, or at least something defiant, like all the heroes did in the stories. Yet her tongue seemed frozen in her mouth, and all she could do was smile faintly as she rose and brought her bow to bear.

She let her arrow speak for her as it flew down the hallway. Once again it passed by a bolt of lightning as it found a home in the Redguard's shoulder. This time Teresa was ready however, and she had fallen behind the stone font just an instant before the deadly energy hissed past overhead.

Teresa took a deep breath. She could do this, she thought, she was quicker, and he would run out of magicka far sooner than she would run out of arrows.

With that inspiration blossomed within her head. Rather than taking the time to ready another arrow, she fixed the symbol of her Flare spell firmly in mind. Leaning out from around the side of the round pedestal, she gestured toward the necromancer and loosed a bolt of fire from her hand.

As she expected, he rolled to the side to avoid the oncoming flames. But rather than ducking back to cover, she was already hurling another blast of fire, and another, leading her shots in the direction she knew he would have to move to dodge her previous bolts. Thanks to the energy loaned to her by the Ayleid well outside the ruin, she was able to fill the corridor with a veritable wall of fire, and soon enough the Redguard screamed as he was caught in at least one of the blasts.

It was only when she was finally out of magicka that Teresa ducked back behind the font and reached for another arrow. As she did another thought came to her head. Normally she could only use magic a few times before completely running out of energy and having to wait for it to build back up again. He had been burning through spells like mad since she had seen him. How much energy could he really have? Then she remembered the potion she had seen him drinking. Had it been one to give him more magicka?

She would just have to shoot faster than he could drink, the wood elf resolved as she rose to her feet and aimed down the hall. The Redguard was gone however. But now another zombie was standing in his place. As soon as she came into view it lurched toward her, reaching out with its long fingers.

Another summoning, the forester thought as she took aim and put an arrow into the zombie's hip. It continued forward with a limp, and Teresa backed away as she pulled out another arrow. She had played this game before, she thought, and could do so again. The zombie was down with a few more arrows, and finished with a fourth through the head.

With still no sign of the necromancer, Teresa moved back down the pendulum hall with an arrow on the nock. Sidestepping around the far corner, only an empty stair greeted her eyes. Several empty potion bottles lay carelessly discarded on the floor of the landing, as did a curious blue-green crystal.

It was long, about the size of her fist, and tapered to a diamond-shaped point. Its wide base was sheathed in a delicate latticework of the same metal she had seen throughout the ruin. The memory of the empty sconces on the pedestals in the bandit's chamber came to Teresa's mind, and she wondered if it had once sat atop one of them.

Teresa forgot about the odd stone when she caught sight of a trail of blood leading up the steps. She smiled faintly as she scampered up the stair and into the great chamber beyond, bow at the ready. There was still no sign of the necromancer, and the wood elf carefully sidestepped around each bier in the chamber, ready to shoot in case he was hiding behind one.

The wood elf picked up the trail of blood in the doorway at the far end of the room. Following it, she found that it did indeed lead up a short, winding stair to the gallery that flanked the side of the chamber. She moved briskly, but not so fast that she might blunder into a trap or ambush.

Soon Teresa found herself climbing a tall stair that ended with another of the tree-engraved doors. Beyond she found herself standing in a thick copse of trees. Behind her the doorway was part of a tiny structure, just large enough to fit the door and the space for a person to walk down the stair beyond.

The sound of water lapping the shore was loud in her ears, and as the wood elf made her way through the thicket she saw the ruins spread out before her. It was a back door, she thought as her eyes scanned to and fro. Yet there was no sign of the necromancer, and no more droplets of blood for her to follow.

He had escaped.

Darnnit!

This was very well written, fast paced and extremely intense. I didn't even notice the length of the post - it was that good.

The use of magicka in this scene is well described, and more than I would have imagined. Julian has a lot to learn from Teresa, it seems.

I agree, the length made that build into something really tense, following the necromancer up the stair and expecting an ambush had me on the edge of my seat.

And now she's beaten him, another development in her. Great stuff. I wonder how much mroe we'll see of necromancers..

A body hung by its neck from the ceiling, hands bound behind his back -- I wasn't sure about this line but have decided that I really like it. Using 'it' initially then moving to 'he' really brings home that the corpses were people.

Great stuff, it really enhances Cyrodiil

Nit:
"It is out choices in life that define us." -- just a typo, but it was all I saw.

Thank you haute and Olen. I will have proper replies tomorrow, when I post the conclusion of Chapter 7.

Right now however I would like to ask for a little help from people, and give you all a chance at getting your characters into the TF (I know, what a thrilling honor... ). I am going to start writing a chapter soon that involves a lot of Fighter's Guild members, and I would like to put some meat on the characters. I know who the primary characters are, but I could still use about a dozen more characters acting as extras.

Rather than create them all on my own, I thought I might turn to all of you out there. If you have a character from the game that you think would fit, please send me their name, race, description (including gear), and personality traits. I am not going to get into anything really deep with them in the story, but I would like to have a group of people that are vibrant and stand out. Think of the Marines in the movie Aliens. Keep in mind that like in the movie, these characters will not survive the chapter...

So if you have a fighter type (not necessarily in the FG in your game), please let me know. Rather than spam the thread, please PM me the info. In a few weeks you might see them die in a loud and glorious fashion in the TF.

haute ecole rider: Thank you h.e.r. In my outline I just have "Teresa has titanic fight with necromancer and he escapes". I think this was probably the best action scene I have ever done. I tried to portray the antagonist as being smart, and liberally using the same toys available to the player in the game. Not to mention fleeing when things looked bad for him. I also tried to show that luck is not always on Teresa's side either, with many of her arrows missing by chance.

Did you mean Teresa spamming the corridor with Flare spells? I learned that from the Imps in Doom. One of the fun things about that game was standing in a hallway with a dozen Imps at the other end and dodging all the fireballs.

Olen: We will see more necromancers, but not for a long while. When I left off at the Bethesda forum I was just about to start with a necromancer arc. Eventually we will get to that part. Teresa will of course get the chance to square off with Jalbert (the necromancer from this chapter) again as well.

I did not notice that it/he with the hanged man! Since it works I suppose I may as well leave it as it is.

I did fix the other typo. Good eye on that!

All: Now the blessedly short conclusion of Vilverin.


* * *

Chapter 7e - Vilverin

Returning the way she had come, Teresa explored the necromancer's lair. She found a fist-sized block of stone pressed half-way into the wall near the stairway down below. It was etched with a pattern of cyan vines similar to those she found on the Ayleid doors. That might be to turn the pendulums on and off, she imagined, and left it alone.

Within the brazier at the center of the room she found not a fire, but rather more cyan crystals like she had seen in the hallway. Unlike that one however, these glowed brightly, and sent tiny motes of light into the air around them, floating like wisps of pollen on a spring day.

Those had to be valuable, she thought, reaching out a hand to gather them up. As soon as she touched one she felt the magicka within it. It was some form of reservoir of power, she realized, and as she stared at the stone in her fingers, she realized that she could draw that energy into herself, much like she had with the well outside. The necromancer must have used the one in the hallway below to keep his magicka up during the fight, she realized.

One stone was different from the others. It was long and slender, tapering to points at both ends, and had an elegant metal latticework bound around its center rather than its base. She could feel magicka within it as well when she handled it. Yet it seemed different, more distant, as if something was blocking her ability to draw it into herself. It must be used for something else, Teresa thought. Yet it was still clearly magical, so she took it along with the others.

Moving to the nearest bier, a closer look at the apparatuses on it revealed them to be alchemical after all. Along with a mortar and pestle, she found what she imagined was a calcinator, alembic, and retort. She had seen them in the alchemical shops in the Market District, but had never used them. Well, there was a first time for everything, she thought as she put them aside with the energy crystals.

The Ayleid coffer held two bags. The first contained some bread, produce, and bottles of wine. After the things she had seen in the ruin, Teresa could not even imagine eating anything that had been in the same place. The other clinked as she unwrapped the leather strap tying it shut, and the wood elf's eyes lit up at the sight of the coins filling it. Here was the loot of the bandits, she thought as she quickly hoisted it from the chest and put it with the magical stones. She could only imagine what Simplicia would say when she saw it. In the very least, she could keep the old woman off the streets and in a warm, dry room for some time.

She only glanced at the bier with the skeleton on it. It was not moving, and that was all that really concerned her. Besides, its sword and armor were rusted and pitted with age. Not worth the effort of carrying to a merchant to sell them.

The writing bier revealed several books, including one titled Varieties of Daedra, which appeared to describe the minions of one of the Daedric Princes. That might come in useful, Teresa thought, given what people were saying about the Daedra being on the loose. So she put that aside with the rest of the loot. The other books she found seemed less interesting. One named The Misfortunes of Virtue, a guidebook on the Imperial City, and a bunch about Imperial history.

Then off to one side she came across a tome that looked unusual, bound in some kind of light tan leather. A skull and pair of crossed bony hands made of pieces of silver were set into the leather face, and The Mysteries of the Worm was likewise stamped across the top in silver. Opening its cover, she found it to be filled with gruesome pictures of mutilated corpses, mysterious symbols, and text that spoke of preparing the dead.

Necromancy, the wood elf thought as the pages fell from her hands. She wiped her fingers on her greaves, trying to get the feeling of the soft leather binding from her mind. What kind of hide had that come from? she wondered, feeling her stomach churning once more.

Before she could quit the writing area entirely, a letter caught Teresa's eye. Curiosity piqued the wood elf to take a closer look.

Alucard, my friend -

At first I thought my necessarily hasty exile to be a curse, leaving me bereft of the comforts of civilization. But my new haven provides not only safety, but a cornucopia of flesh. That it is far from the prying eyes and ears of the Imperial Legion only makes it all the more suitable. Now I need not worry about subterfuge in obtaining my materials, nor precautions when preparing them. You should hear the screams that ring through these halls! They would make your blood boil with delight.

Even more fortuitous, I have made an association with like-minded individuals here in Cyrodiil. They have invited me to join their fraternity, and I am seriously considering it. They not only promise of the deeper lore of lichdom, but whisper to me that their patron is none other than the King of Worms himself! They have given me a book written in his own hand, and the mysteries that it reveals only whet my appetite for more.

A group of bandits moved in here not long ago, thinking it not only a safe refuge, but also a convenient location to prey upon travelers on the road, which is not too far away. Truly, does the darkness smile upon me. They have provided me with great sport in the last few days, especially those I was able to take alive. You were right in convincing me to learn more of restoration, for thanks to those arts I was able to prolong the entertainment far longer than otherwise possible. If only you could have been here to enjoy it with me!

Jalbert

Wishing she had not read it, the forester crumpled the paper and threw it into the now empty brazier at the center of the room. The manual of necromancy followed, and soon both were consumed in the blaze of a Flare spell. With the crackling of flames behind her, Teresa made her way out of the darkness and into the light above.



Notes: De Vermis Mysteriis, or Mysteries of the Worm, is not mine. It is a part of the Cthulhu Mythos created by Robert Bloch. The title was perfect though, so I borrowed it. Likewise, The Misfortunes of Virtue is a real book, written by the Marquis de Sade.

An outstanding conclusion to a tense episode in what I still consider to be one of the spookiest dungeons ever!

In my previous comment, I had meant the entire confrontation with the necromancer, for exactly the reasons you state. It was a great magical battle and gave me ideas for battlemages! My typical playing style is mostly melee, with some marksmanship thrown in, and magic is often an afterthought for me. So to read combat that is purely spell-based, especially as well-written as yours, is pure delight for me.

I look forward to more!

A good bit of looting in conclusion to a dungeon raid, makes me wonder where next...

The letter is excellently done, rather better than the in game one and further bending the world to a slightly different perspective which is pleasant to see

I too look forward to more.

(I'm afraid I haven't got any fighters for you, the only one I have is Firen and he'd be a shade young in 4E1...)

Damn... I soooo badly wanted Jalbert's bloody corpse sprawled across those steps near the altar after your awesome (more eewsome but ok ) awful desciption of the horrors in that room..... Truly a GREAT combat scene!

Please, PLEASE, have her run in with that despiccable excuse for a human being again.....

Oh, and I loved the new part with the ravens

haute ecole rider: Thank you h.e.r. Vilverin is one of my favorite Ayleid ruins. They really put a lot into it, probably because it is the first dungeon you see when you exit the sewers.

You should try playing a pure mage sometime. It is a lot of fun, and really a potent character type. At higher levels much more powerful than your basic fighter. Try a conjurer to start with, as they are easy. You just conjure up a melee fighting critter, and the bad guys will always ignore you and go straight for it instead. Then go to a touch destruction spell, step behind the bad guy, and blast away.


Olen: Thank you Olen. I started with the letter from the game, making only a few alterations to it. But the more I worked on the chapter, the more of it I threw out, until finally it was completely new. Now it really shows quite a bit of insight into Jalbert's personality, and also has a hint of the necromancer conspiracy that we will be seeing more of in the future.

No worries about the fighter. I actually came up with nearly a dozen of my own in the last few days. Watching the Sharpes Rifles films again has certainly helped!


Remko: Thank you Rem. I wanted there to be no doubt that Jalbert was a villain, so I added the gruesome touches in the "play room" of his. We will be seeing him again...


All: We continue on with another all-new chapter, where Teresa learns more about her feathered friends. But first, she hears more news about the ongoing Oblivion Crisis.


* * *

Chapter 8a - The Witch of Lake Trasimene

10th - 17th Midyear, 3E433

The sun was rising when Teresa came to the Red Ring Road, a burlap sack filled with loot hanging over one shoulder. She paused a moment, looking back the way she had come. The ground sloped down beneath her, giving her a clear view across the miles of woodland to the lake beyond. Near its blue waters she could still pick out the broken arches of Vilverin, rising like white fangs from green forest canopy.

The wood elf set down her load with a sigh, and treated herself to a squirt of water from the skin that hung diagonally across her chest. She looked back at the rising sun. She should be going to bed soon, the forester thought. Yet after what she had seen the previous night, Teresa was in no mood to close her eyes. That necromancer was still on the loose, she knew. For all she knew he might even be watching her, waiting for a chance to strike back…

No, Teresa thought with a faint smile, she had well and truly sent him packing. He probably would not stop running until he reached Skyrim…

With that thought, Teresa lifted her bag and set her feet to the road. Putting the lake to her right, she made her way back in the direction of Urasek. She could take the ferry to the City Isle and be back to the Imperial City itself in maybe half a week, she thought. Or perhaps she might head east, where Cheydinhal still waited at the end of the Blue Road.

In time the sound of horses came to her ears, their neighs and whinnies occasionally rising above the steady clomping of hooves on the hard stones of the road. Then came the tramping of marching feet, along with the clatter of metal against metal. Out of reflex, the wood elf moved to the side of the thoroughfare and found a place to hide. She knew that sound all too well from her years in the Imperial City. It was soldiers, and from the steadily increasing noise, there were a lot of them coming in her direction.

They came into view soon after. First was a double column of riders. Teresa imagined that there must be at least three dozen of them, if not more. They wore the heavy plate of the Imperial Legion, and the points of their lances glittered in the air above their heads. One of them hoisted a standard topped with the golden head of a dragon, jaws agape as if in mid-roar. A brightly-colored silk windsock flowed out behind the head, making it look like it was flying through the air.

Behind them came the foot soldiers, tromping down the road six abreast. Clad in the same steel plate as the riders, their helmets hung in front of their chests, dangling from straps around their necks. Their shields were covered in leather, and likewise hung from straps around their left shoulders. Each tilted a cross back over the same shoulder, made from two wooden stakes tied together, with a bedroll and other gear hanging off the crossbeam. Finally each wore an arming sword on one hip, and a wide-bladed dagger on the other.

No wonder they called themselves mules, the forester thought, at the moment they looked more like pack animals than fighters.

The infantrymen were led by standard bearers. Their armor was covered with the hides of wolves and bears, and their faces peeked out from the opened jaws of the beast's heads. One carried a long standard topped by a golden wreath surrounding an opened hand. A series of silver discs ran down the shaft beneath it, ending in an upturned crescent. Beside him stood another man hoisting aloft a simpler square of red velvet, edged in cloth-of-gold with the words Cohors III emblazoned upon it in the same material.

Yet what really caught the wood elf's eye was the third standard, which was crowned by a golden sculpture of a man's head. It was the likeness of an Imperial in his prime. In spite of the difference in age, Teresa recognized him instantly, for his face was forever burned upon her memory. It was Emperor Uriel Septim VII.

Teresa rose from her hiding place, transfixed by the image of the Emperor waving in the air above the heads of the oncoming legionaries. She could still see his piercing blue eyes in her memory, and hear his voice in her ears. Her throat tightened, and she could feel her eyes moisten in spite of herself.

The next thing she knew she was standing beside the road as the standard-bearers passed her. A line of trumpeters came next, their great instruments curling around their torsos before ending in wide bells over their heads. A soldier with a transverse-crested helmet hanging from his neck strode beside them. In one hand he grasped a swagger stick carved with the likeness of vines curling up around its length. Otherwise he looked much the same as the other soldiers.

"Damn fine standard, isn't it?" said the man, his eyes following Teresa's gaze. The forester instantly recognized him as a centurion. "Damn fine man too. I'll miss him when we get our new one."

Teresa blinked. An officer in the Imperial Legion was talking to her? Not growling, or snarling, but simply talking? She had to resist the urge to look around to see if anyone else was standing behind her. Yet even more surprising was that she found herself responding. "New one?"

"You haven't heard the rumors yet?" the centurion stopped now and wiped the sweat from his brow as the rest of his men marched by. Teresa noted that his hair had long since gone to grey, and the feet of an entire murder of crows were etched into the corners of this dark eyes. When the wood elf shook her head, the middle-aged Imperial went on.

"They say we have a new Emperor, one the fetching assassins missed." The soldier paused to spit on the dirt beside the road. "I heard his name is Martin, Martin Septim, and the Hero of Kvatch is with him."

"The Hero of Kvatch?" Teresa wondered aloud. Somehow she knew who that must be. "You mean Julian, the Redguard?"

"That's her alright," the centurion seemed to grow even taller and straighter, if that was possible. "Julian of Anvil. She single-handedly closed the Oblivion Gate and then led the way back into the city. She was a centurion in the Sixth Legion up in Skyrim, the Ironclads."

Teresa remembered her dream from the day before. Julian, Jauffre, and the young Imperial with his father's eyes, all making their way into the mountains north of Lake Rumare. Her head turned in that direction. Somewhere out there, in the peaks that rose far in the distance, they were there. Martin Septim, Jauffre, and Julian of Anvil - The Hero of Kvatch.

"Bruma…" Teresa muttered, "it's Bruma up that way right?"

"Yeah, that's where we're headed, Bruma," the centurion said. "Almost all the Fifth is going there. The Elder Council called up all the battlemages in Cyrodiil, so we'll have the Mages Guild with us. The Fighters Guild too. The next time we'll be ready."

"The next time?" the wood elf asked, eyebrows furrowing together.

"It's not over yet kid," the centurion rumbled. "It won't be until we've hunted down every last one of those fetchers and nailed them to crosses."

Teresa shuddered in spite of herself. She had seen that before. Not the aftermath of the necromancer's rough work, but the real thing, as it happened, taking people days to die. It was always outside the Market Gate, where the Imperial Legion hanged murderers as well. But hanging was only for people who killed an ordinary citizen, she knew. Those who killed a patrician, or a legionary, had four nails and a cross waiting for them…

"Until then you better be careful, without us doing our regular patrols the bandits are going to start getting bold." The soldier gestured at the blackened and scorched mess of Teresa's cuirass. "Looks like you've already found that out."

Teresa looked down at herself. Now that she saw it in the light of day, she found that her armor was in a worse state than she had imagined. It was amazing what only a few lightning bolts could do, she thought. She was going to have to get it repaired, or buy a new suit. Looking back up, she found that the centurion was on his way again, cursing a blue streak as he jogged his way back to the head of the column.

Teresa stood there for a long time as the soldiers marched by. They just kept coming, with more standards, trumpeters, and even mules loaded down with equipment filing past her. There were even people who were clearly civilians scattered between the rank and file legionaries, carrying equipment. It was as if a vast snake - or a dragon - was winding its way down the road.

With no end of the dragon's tail in sight, Teresa turned her gaze behind her. The hills rose to a high ridge, and somewhere far behind them was Cheydinhal. Since there was no way she was going down the road with the Imperial Legion on it, she lifted her gear and headed east.