A/N: Another favorite haunted house quest for today except this time it's with my least favorite Daedric Prince...and mostly fluff for a good chunk of it because I spent 5 hours at the botanical garden outside in the snow and my brain is not working. This quest will eventually have a full fic for it (so not ending right when its time to find the priest) but this is much longer than usual flashfic anyways so that will not br today.
Prompt: House of Horror in Old City
Ah, Markarth, the City of Stone. An architectural marvel built by the Dwemer that has stood the test of time. Regrettably, the current citizens are rather odd, though. Still they are not quite strange enough to warrant turning away from the idea of running errands to the city if the pay is good enough, and this time the errand is at least simple. “Remind me why we’re here again?” Farkas asks as we pass through the gates into the city having spent the past few hours trudging our way through the mountains and occasionally fighting off the Forsworn. You would think they would at least ease up just a little on someone from their own ethnic group, even if it’s a few steps removed given they’ve inhabited the area of The Reach after moving east from High Rock for centuries at least. But no, Breton, Nord, or anybody else, they don't care and will attack at a moment's notice, precisely why this area is so dangerous. “An errand, and an easy one for once- I just have to talk to the head of the Silver Blood Inn about something…though I forgot exactly what.” Farkas sighs and puts his face in his hands. “I know I wrote it down though, it’ll be fine.” I pat him lightly on the shoulder as we enter the main market area of the city “And look, no murders this time!” I gesture to the market stalls as he looks up “And nobody’s been arrested and thrown in jail for no reason either.” I add, which only gets another sigh. Yeah, that was an experience. You would think they would at least have the courtesy to separate Cidna Mine into at least two sections and not just throw everybody in regardless of who they are into a mine to serve out their sentence via hard labor, prison reform is a task for a different day, and probably one best started in Cyrodiil. According to both Issy and Valan, the system there is in need of major changes due to their pattern, at least when Uriel Septim was emperor, of throwing people in jail for seemingly no reason and in the case of Valan deporting them.
The Silver-Blood Inn sits just over the small stream that runs through the city across from the market and is run by a usually somewhat grumpy man and his wife along with at least one of their children. Entering the dimly lit inn from the sunshine of outside is a bit of an adjustment but once things settle it’s no different than any other inn for the most part, except for the fact nearly everything except a few tables and chairs is made of stone. The errand itself takes all of five minutes as I talk to the man and sort things out while Farkas hangs back quietly and attempts to refuse the offers of food or drink from the innkeeper's wife. Poor Farkas, it’s been a day, I think he just wants to rest for a while. One positive part of The Reach I suppose is similar to Windhelm and its sizable Dunmer population, it has a more significant number of Bretons in the area, and that means good pastries. Perhaps I’ll find a time to sneak off and get him something if I can manage it, maybe if I give him a good book and have him sit in front of the fire for long enough he’ll get occupied and not notice. As I wait for response from the innkeeper ideas swirl about in my head as I look back at Farkas who had finally managed to get the lady to stop talking and walk away and give him a quick smile, which is returned, despite the fact that most likely all he wants is to get out of his heavy armor that is still covered in traces of blood from earlier and simply crash.
With a response received that concludes the errand, the only thing left is to at some point return the good news to the person who needed it to collect the payment, but not today. Taking Farkas’ hand as we leave I playfully tug him out the door as he hadn’t been paying attention and start on the path to the little house I somehow managed to be rewarded with by the Jarl here, or, well, it’s not so little, actually. The best part of it is the beds aren’t made of stone and actually are soft, a rare commodity in this city. One of the downsides however is that it is rather close to an abandoned house, which usually wouldn’t be a huge issue, but this one makes me unsettled. Argis the Housecarl assigned to the property by the Jarl greets us as we open the door, he is technically more of a bodyguard than anything, but also keeps up the place when no one else is around. He’s a bodyguard-steward hybrid of sorts, I suppose, and is generally pleasant when we happen to see him. It’s not yet early enough for dinner but the three of us decide to sit around the small table in the kitchen and chat over tea and a snack. There hasn’t been much major activity in the city since the whole Forsworn conspiracy with the short lived but very eventful and quite annoying period of imprisonment for me. However, Argis notes that a Vigilant of Stendarr has been hanging around outside the abandoned house recently. Hmmm, that’s interesting, I wonder if my unsettled feeling near that building has some validity to it. The Vigilants primarily hunt Daedra as they were formed after the Oblivon Crisis, but also hunt Vampires and other similar beings. Their presence I have only ever seen in Skyrim but I’d assume they operate elsewhere, except perhaps Morrowind due to the Daedric Princes both “good” and “bad” being an essential part of the Dunmer pantheon. As soon as snacks are finished and teacups are empty they are cleared away and Argis wanders off elsewhere, most likely back to his own little room in the house leaving just Farkas and I sitting at the table. “You look tired.” I say after a few moments of silence and he looks at me, almost slightly confused. “Not sleepy kind of tired. More ‘all I want is to take a hot shower and do nothing for the rest of the day’ kind of tired.” I clarify which abates any confusion and I get a silent nod of agreement as a reply. That’s what I thought, werewolves may not get sleepy, but everyone can get fatigued. I tap the table lightly as I stand up. “So, I think you should go do that. There’s nothing on the schedule for the rest of the day, anyways.” Without another word Farkas gets up and leaves the room. “That’s that then.” I say quietly to myself standing in the now empty kitchen before hearing footsteps coming back in my direction and before I can blink Farkas had taken my hand and in a similar manner of what I’d done to him earlier tugs me along with him up the stairs. “Forgot I still had armor on and you have better fine motor skills than I do.” that makes me laugh a little, at least he can admit it. Internally I think to myself that he might just want a bit of quiet company, and a little help with some of the more difficult buttons and straps.
Once upstairs things become a carefully practiced routine of removing the steel armor. First gauntlets, which are sometimes worn and sometimes not, that said they did come in handy today. Next is the shoulder armor, it does have a technical term though I’ve forgotten it, as who needs physical armor when you can conjure it at a moments notice? After that are the greeves which are perhaps the hardest part due to their location and the materials required to secure them. “I always find this part a little awkward.” I point out as I drop to my knees on the carpet and begin to fidget with one of the straps to which Farkas laughs and when I look up again find that his face is just the slightest bit red, understandably. Last but not least is the chestplate which joins the rest of the set on a cloth set out to not stain the surroundings. “I have no idea how you manage to do that by yourself every single time.” I tell him getting up from my place on the floor. “It is not easy and never fun but it’s better than being stabbed.” That’s fair, I prefer to have all my blood and internal organs inside where they should be. With that time consuming process done he goes off to clean up giving me just enough time to sneak off and enact my plan from earlier, returning just in time. After taking a bit of time to clean up myself I wander back into the room to find him sitting on the edge of the bed reading through one of the books that had been on the side table, and flop down face first into my pillow. “Hi.” I say, though muffled, another instance that makes him laugh slightly. Turning on my side I look at him again and ask what he’s reading, turns out it’s a book on Daedra, a good choice. “Do you want to try and find that Vigilant of Stendarr tomorrow?” I ask him as I sit up and smooth out the blanket I’d crumpled on my initial faceplant. “If it means that the abandoned house might not be so creepy anymore after that I guess so.” Yay, time to hunt some demons, or daedra, or ghosts, or whatever is in that house who knows it could just be some really big annoying skeevers! Eventually I fall asleep, plotting out tomorrow's plan in my head until I lose all consciousness.
The next day the hunt for the Vigilant, who we find is named Tyranus, starts and ends with shocking speed, we find him standing outside the house asking passerby for help and eventually find out he thinks that the house was used for a Daedric cult at some point. Farkas and I look at each other with a mutual look of “well, we’re armed, why not?” and agree to assist in the investigation. Upon entry the house looks normal, but as we go further it becomes clearer something isn’t typical here, and once we reach the basement Tyranus turns pale and bolts from the door yelling to us that “This is no ordinary Daedra!” and to flee, though he finds the door we came through locked. “Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea of things to do today…” I whisper to Farkas as he draws his sword and I summon a bound sword in one hand and have a flame spell ready in the other. Suddenly the lights grow dim, the room shakes and the random objects that had been strewn about the room begin to move by themselves flying through the air. A voice booms out to kill Tyranus, well that’s just lovely. “What? No!” I tell the bodiless voice while trying to dodge the flying objects. At the answer something worse happens and as if possessed the Vigilant now attempts to attack us. Between the flying objects and voice giving instructions it’s hard to fight off Tyranus and I’m nearly cornered by the Vigilant when startlingly a sword goes clean through him, killing him instantly and Farkas pokes his head out from behind him “Something something irony?” He asks as I attempt to catch my breath. Right, I’d forgotten werewolves were on the no go list for the Vigilants of Stendarr. “Well…nothing else to do but go deeper into the house?” I propose though admittedly not too fond of the idea, but there is just something about morbid curiosity that grips the mind. “Yes. Your reward is waiting for you, mortal. Further down. Yes. Further. Into the bowels.” the disembodied voice explains as we wander into the basement and find a very strange and rather gruesome looking altar. Farkas guards the path we’d come from as I inspect closer and find myself trapped in a spiked cage-like contraption. As the voice speaks again the entire thing makes sense, it’s an altar to Molag Bal, Daedric prince of domination. What a great way to spend a day! He asks what I see from the cage, and I reply that I simply see the spikes of the trap and he explains that it was used to sacrifice many in his name until a priest of Boethiah desecrated it. “I never wanted to help you. Let me go!” I tell the Daedra trying my best to avoid the spikes of the trap. “Fine. I offered you a reward. You’ll get the freedom your kind enjoys so much. But Boethiah’s priest is imprisoned as well. But not by me. He is hurt. Suffering. Save him. Let him perform his rites one more time. And when he does, I will be waiting for him.” As the Daedra finishes his proposal the cage returns back into the floor leaving me free to go. Grabbing Farkas on my way out I get out of there as fast as humanly possible. Not today Molag Bal, we don’t want any more haunted houses, Daedric priests, or weird ultimatums. No thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment