Great War of Tamriel

[dragonpen61]

One

 

With a rumble the big wheeled steamtruck roared up over the peak of the hill, its magics humming to assist burning efficiency of fuel and the cutting down of heat loss. The lumbering six wheeled machine, two powered wheels at front and four unpowered wheels at back, was hauling carefully harvested jungle tree trunks and thicker bigger branches to Waysfarris. The railway village was little more than a service point for the railway lines that linked it to far bigger, far less isolated settlements and for the local forestry industry. There was both careful harvesting of wild trees and plantations going strong in the area. The village did have a large number of taverns, hotels and even brothels for its size along with a small legal fighting arena that did not allow fights to the death. Those took place illegally in a Theives Guild arena hidden just outside of the village.

 

Newer magic-electric machines were taking over but not out there in the Outways so far from the impressive size and power of the Imperial City.

 

The steamtruck driver was a big man who sat on a barely comfortable chair with lightly cracked leather upholstery. The semi-open cabin was fairly big and he shared it with the co-driver, who also rode shotgun with a double barelled twelve guage shotgun, a mage-steamster who kept the magical part of the machinery running and who had some othe useful magic and a steam shovelling golem. The clayflesh golem thrust another shovel of snow-coal, magical treated coal that was far more efficient burning than even good normal coal and which gave off less smoke and far less dangerous sparks.

 

All three wore officially sanctioned overalls, boots, buttonshirts, caps and thick work gloves. Each wore a cap coloured to show their status. Driver was black, mage-steamster was light blue and co-driver was dark blue.

 

The man was watching the woods with an odd feeling of threat. He had not been able to get past the feeling all day. Problem was that the metal roofed cabin had big open areas at the sides and a big pane of thick glass at the front. He remembered the gun-locker with a single barrelled shotgun, also twelve guage, a flare-pistol, a big powerful six-shooter revolver pistol and a variety of ammunition for them. He pushed back his cap and turned to the co-driver, a fool who he did not normally like to drive with, and he spoke in New Cyrodilic. "Unlock the gun-locker. I think we are going to have trouble."

 

But the fool just scowled. "Can't do that with out good reason and I haven't seen none. You old timers think you can get away with ignoring..."

 

The mage-steamster walked over, took the key and went to the gun-locker. He pulled out the six-shooter, quickly loaded it with bullets and raised the gun then shot the co-driver in the solar plexus and then the head. The booms of the gun echoed through out the cabin. The co-driver screamed but then he burned away, his flesh vanishing in flame as if driven to amazingly fast spontaneous combustion.

 

"Not another bloody demon-sessed fool!" The driver did not bother to look around. "You know how to write it down in the logbook."

 

The mage-steamster scowled. "Been far too many demon-sessed folk in these parts lately. We live too close to Scaredra."

 

Scaredra! Nobody had been to there for over a century and one would have to be insane to do so. Scaredra was a thriving town once that had lived off the exotic hot spring and mineral pools close to it. People had come for cures to all sorts of ailments or just to relax in the large pools of warm, very warm or even hot clear water. Some pools were restricted or even forbidden because of old wild magic and dark shaman magic having been practised there in the past.

 

Then one day great clouds of strange fog had come broiling up out of somewhere to rapidly engulf the town and its surroundings or so said observers from outside. Nobody came out except a few stumbling younger adults and older children, some holding babies or infants or even pets. Dogs, cats, horses and other animals raced out but even most of them did not make it out. There came the noise of muskets and magic-airguns being fired, the screams of agony and terror, the crashing of buildings being smashed down, the varied sounds of mages using their magic and other noises troubling and saddening. Then silence had fallen with amazing quickness.

 

Locals had come and had dared not to go into the fog. Animals would not go into there. Local magic folk, fairies and such, warned of danger. The local Sheriff and his deputies arrived from the nearest town and with him came mage-hunter people. At once the mages had caused the foggy area to be barriered off. Later Legionaries came and then workers. A high thick wall with magical enhancements and wardings had been built around the forbidden zone.

 

The Order of Guardians Forbador set up a small fort next to the wall and there made a garrison with Forbador Guardians and Legionaries.

 

Guardians Forbader had become powerful since the Magic Prohibition had been declared by imperial edict. Certain types of magic were allowed such as machine-magic, some healing magic and some magic by the Legionaries was allowed, along with some other cases, but most magic was banned. Magefolk with intrinsic magic were to be nulled on a regular basis though this had painful side-effects and sometimes resulted in madness or laming or even death.

 

But even with out the Forbadors being there, the people would not have gone thanks to the stories of the strange noises that drifted out of the fog, the flashes of strange light, the disturbing smells and much else along with a growing sense of threat as one got closer to it.

 

Lately there had been more noted activity amongst the Forebadors and Legionaries guarding the lost town. Reinforcements of both had arrived in lighter faster steamtrucks. A small steam-airship had flown in and it was said it hung in position above the fort to overlook the foggy area. Legionaries had brought in their latest weapons being stripper-clip fed bolt-action rifles, handle operated cranker-guns that pumped out many bullets and breech loading cannons and howitzers pulled by steamtrucks or horses.

 

The road that the steamtruck was following got awfully close to the the old town site and the fort. Indeed it was the very road that both the Legionaries and the Forbaders used. The driver looked over to the big clunky radio set but doubted that they would pick up any local radio broadcasting from there. It was only in some spots that they got poor quality pick up of Imperial Broadcasting Order shows. The IBO was fair good with such as news shows, music, radio plays and such like but the weather broadcasts were not very accurate.

 

He turned to and stared at the mage-steamster. "Can you drop a line to somebody magic and ask if anything bad is happening?"

 

The mage-steamster frowned. "I am no true mage, am not magefolk."

 

The driver sighed. "Look, we folk out here don't care a damn for the Prohibition. We have plenty of magefolk hiding out here and as far as I can see, they do us much more good than they do harm. Also those damned Forebaders are brutal scum. They bashed a cousin of mine almost to death over in Anvil just because he said in public that maybe the prohibition was going too far and needed reconsideration."

 

The mage-steamer, a man by the name of Johny Johnson, nodded reluctantly and closed his eyes. He focused and briefly his head shimmered. Then he opened his eyes and he spoke with a worried tone. "Word from the town of Scaredra. The fog is pressing against the boundary walls and they are starting to crack. Magic and holy wards have been burning out against the power they are supposed to be containing. Magefolk rebels have been scouting the area. They report some gunfire and the use of exotic Forebader power." wallbash:

 

Suddenly a pair of Legionaries in light magical body-armour, proofed against bullets and shrapnel, of helmet and chest-plates, came riding one. One was a woman with a breast-plate. Each had a lever-action repeater rifle and a six-shooter revolver pistol holstered at his or her side. The woman, a sergeant by her ranking symbols, ordered the truck to halt. With a growl of annoyance Ken the driver went through the process of halting the machine while keeping the steam up. He leaned out of the side and glared mildly at the pair of tired and sweaty looking soldiers on their horses.

 

"You come about Scaredra?"

 

The sergeant scowled. "Damned Countrysiders! How do you know things so fast?"

 

"Eyes, ears and mouths to see, listen and ask questions." The driver shrugged. "Natives exchange information for tradegoods. Locals like to keep an eye on Scaredra. It should have been destroyed long ago by the empire."

 

The sergeant humphed. "The empire tried. A whole lot of gunpowder kegs just failed to explode properly. That is just enough to destroy the bombs but something sucked away all the flames and explosive force. The Forebaders say something fed on it. As for magic, well despite magic being phrohibited some powerful old mages were dragged out of Magefanela and over to the town site. Those old mages were no fools. They were terrified by what they sensed in their and they were right to be. They were forced to link together and hurl some powerful spells at the town site. They died so damned quick it was incredible. They just went whoosh, didn't even make a sound, and they were gone. The Forebaders said they had gone to heaven because they had tried to do good for once but I think those Forebaders are full of it."

 

The private sighed. "Forebaders gonna take your tongue one day, sergeant, if you don't be more careful about what you say."

 

The sergeant nodded. "Anyway we are here to grab the steamtruck and your services. We will need to take the wood to the Scaredra site because the wood is needed to help fortify the area. We need more stockades or what ever. Me, I think the officers don't know what to do and are getting troopers to be busy so we don't panic. Were hoping that Argonia might send some of their warriors across to here now that the new Imperial Treaty has been signed making Argonia a semiautonomous province."

 

The driver scowled. "And the payment for the wood and time out of service will be?"

 

The Legionary NCO shrugged. "Luck could go either way, as you know. Depends on how much gold is in the fort safe. I suspect you will get half in gold and half in Imperial Credit Notes which means that half your payment will be reasonable and the other half will be maybe useful in a month or so if you are lucky. Imperial Treasury getting emptier and emptier since the Campaign against the Summerset Isles was begun. Those damned stuck up elves sank another magical-steam battleship. Was the ISS Glorious Martin gone down with at least one hundred sailors. Was an old battleship but the empire hasn't got enough to lose even an old tub like that one."

 

They started off towards the town site. The turn off was not too far away.

Edited July 13, 2009 by dragonpen61

[dragonpen61]

TWO

The steamtruck was chuffing up along the road off the highway which was little more than a wide packed dirt track. In the distance ahead, above the greenery, they could just see the squat horizontal cylinder of the small steam-airship. It had a small 2-pounder cannon on the nose of the gondilla and some crankerguns to shoot down at the ground with or at flying menaces. The air was fairly still so the airship had no real trouble hovering or so it seemed from that distance.

 

They were passing the tumbled ruins of an old farming community long abandoned when they heard the distant gun fire from the old town. They also heard the strangest noises, also muffled, from the same direction beyond the jungle spread out before them. Then there was the sound of an explosion and another one. Smoke began to broil up from the distant sight of the camp.

 

The two Legionaries took their horses and rode off for the fighting. They seemed eager to join their comrades in the fighting but also fearful.

 

Johny Johnson frowned at the driver. "Do you really think that we should keep going there?"

 

Pakson, the driver, scowled. "Until we can find a nice solid clear area to turn around on what can we do? This great beauty has to have room to manouvre and its heavy, remember, so its easy to bog it down in this sort of terrain. We could just stop here but that would mean we are too close to the action and would be blocking anybody trying to escape or any reinforcements. No, for now we keep on going."

 

They would have heard more if the steamtruck had been quietier. As it was they soon found an old turn off into what looked bo be a largish well used clearing. There were enough tree stumps there to indicate that the Legionaries, Forbaders and others in the camp got wood from there because there were some fine construction type trees there, stuff that builders loved to work with. The old steamtruck fitted into the clearing easily enough and its big wheels drove it easily over the hard ground.

 

They found ruins and hid the steamtruck there as much as they could, covering it with garbage and fallen leaves. The steam-airship in the distance was firing down at something with its small cannon and crankerguns. That was when something large and bloated came floating up into the air like an inflated rubbery jellyfish with great long tentacles that struck out at the bigger steam-airship. The 2-pounder cannon now fired at the flying beasty and it screamed out in agony and outrage as it was killed. Yet even as it died its tentacles, burning with magical flaming energies, ripped through the airship so that it began to burn. The steam-airship used helium so it was the fabric and structure that went up into flames. Then it was dropping too slow but too quick down to the ground even as the dying monster did the same.

 

The two men dumped everything useful into a basic leather backpack that the driver slipped on and carrying a shotgun each. The mage-steamster had the single barelled shotgun but also the revolver pistol holstered at his side. The driver had the double-shotter but also the flarepistol in large pocket of his trousers. They headed towards the nearest settlement that was a farmer collective called Shamrool. In Shamrool were five local farms and some community buildings. They grew crops, tended orchards and had a small dairy to feed the Legionaries and Forbaders. Johny Johnston did the navigating for he knew the area very well. Indeed he knew it so well that it was generally suspected he was magefolk and born in that very place.

 

The jungle grew thicker and the ground grew damper. They went downwards genlty and then they were in a small area of marshes, of areas of bubbling thick mud, of thick sharp bladed water grasses, big black waterbeetles scuttling across the water surface and the stirring of marsh pythons. Johny Johnson led them to where a narrow gently winding path led linked by simple sturdy footbridges at places. They came to a fair sized island in the marshes and there was a community of mudfolk. These were related to so called normal Argonians, the marshfolk, but were shorter, darker and broader of build. They lived in hardened mud shells of houses and community halls. They used magic and like many were bewildered by the Cyrodilin Empire's Prohibition against magic.

 

Johny Johnson faced the leader, a tall matriarch by mudfolk standards, and bowed breifly to her before he explained what was going on.

 

The leader responded. "We smell trouble in breezes from tomorrow. Mudfolk have fought daedra long ago and caused those demons much harm who dared to invade our wetlands. We have magic and we have some guns, some traditional weapons but mostly we have stealth and our knowledge of our territories. There are magical creatures here also who will deal hashly with such as the daedra."

 

The steamtruck driver snorted. "We met nothing on our way here."

 

At that the leader laughed and then she said. "To you Johny is but a mage-steamster but to those who knows he is a powerful wizard-born of the mageborn. He does not fight his true destiny but neither does he greatly welcome it and that, strangely, is for the best. Johny, the daedra come in great swarms now onto this world but this is but the start. There are many questions to ask, answers to seek. Why did the Cyrodilin Emperor declare the Antimagical Prohibition?"

 

The steamtruck driver shrugged. "I wouldn't start to know such a thing."

 

The mudfolk matriarch smiled. "Why did the Emperor rush all democratic reforms and go against the replacing of the empire with a federation of semiautonomous provinces?"

 

The steamtruck driver whistled. "Wouldn't know. Would once have thought it was to support the corrupting old autocracy and guild system with its favourtism, classism, monopolisation and other cheating. But the Emperor has done many strong reforms against such."

 

Johny Johnson snorted. "Steamtruck driver and once democratic reform leader, politician and learned sage forced long ago to flee into exile with his family. Now divorced but living with three children. Status and where abouts of ex-wife is unknown."

 

The steamtruck driver shrugged. "She has a new husband now, a rebel leader somewhere in High Rock. She is co-leader of the rebel striketeam. Shirlen was never a very good mother or a very good wife but was always a fine rebel leader. It would not surprise me to learn she does all the real leadership through him while he takes the credit."

 

In the distance appeared a cluster of the great floating rubbery jellyfish things. They drifted slowly through the air but wrapped in their tentacles were large elongated horizontally held pods. There were at least twenty of the things.

 

Johny cursed. "Those airo-octiquo carry most likely dremora warriors and other lesser daedra combat units towards Moosha Hill. Once there they could dominate both the highway and railway hub there or simply destroy them if they have enough explosions. Thanks to the Emperor putting so many of our military resources into the mindlessly stupid campaign against the Summerset Isles there are not enough Legionaries here to protect the area properly. There are only rebels, militia, native peoples and such as mercenaries and volunteers. Why has the Emperor done what he has done?"

 

Pakson frowned. "The Emperor and the new Imperial Dynasty, the new Imperial Court, are heavily linked with the new machine-magic of magical-steam and magical-electrics linked with the Mechamage Guild, the Merchants Guild, the Factors Guild, the Mechawarlords and the New Imperium Order. They saw the old ways of magic as a strong barrier, a traditional competitor for their newly rising power, wealth and influence. But many in the old Imperial Legions do not want or like these changes. So he sent many of the more traditional Imperial Legionaries to war in the Summerset Isles supported by older style steamships and steam-airships. Thus he weakens his opposition in the military and uses up older war-machines that he now has an excuse to spend Imperial Funds on replacing. He thinks more of his own power, wealth and influence than he does of the survival and prosperity of the empire."

 

The situation seemed to be quite bleak.

 

The matriarch frowned. "This island will either need to be changed so the settlement is better hidden or abandoned as too exposed."

 

Johny bowed and the raised his hands high in the air. "I only promise a covering illusion that will last perhaps, at most, three and a half days. It will make the island seem like just another normal part of the marshes to any daedra who come this way."

 

The matriarch nodded. "If we combine our abilities we can make it nine days and make it illusionary to those who are actually hostile. My people have begun to find Legionary and even damned Forbader survivors fleeing from the smashed danger zone. We are bringing them here and then onward to Jackaranga. I know its a town of misfits, of rebels, of outlaws and other folk who dwell at the very fringe of the empire but there is a strong code of behavour there, a code of honour, and the Cyrodilin Imperials will be safe there. From there they can travel by secondary highway to the nearest railway hub."

 

Magic was tricky even for somebody like Johny. Now it was trickier because one had to hide it from the Forebaders. Johny didn't tell the rebel exile then that he knew that there was a fundimenal difference, a clash, between the new machine-magic and more traditional magics of Cyrodiil be it arcane or other. Using the old magics could cause imbalance in the new magics and visa versa. A compromise could have been made in the short term and in the longer term, with patience, a way of the magics working together could have been found. But the new Emperor had risen to a throne as a brilliant fool, clever and cunning but not wise. To make matters worse he had quickly alligned himself with an oligarchy of powerful leaders situated in a variety of guilds and other institutions.

 

What was needed was somebody with the compassionate wisdom of a Septim not the cunning brilliance of a Maxivali. Emperor Malda Maxivali III would be the last man to agree with that idea for he seemed to be the ultimate Maxivali type Emperor.

 

Johny Johnson's real name was Johny Jonmayne Septim but in his case he was both the real successor to the ancient throne of Cyrodiil and an amazingly powerful mageman.

 

It was said that many magefolk had fled to that part of Cyrodiil because it was quite isolated and lightly inhabited but the truth was they had gone there because it was an area of much natural wild magic, of hidden places of mythical magic and of ancient buried cities that had been there long before the Ayleid had even begun to exist on Tamriel.

 

Johny Johnson doubted that he would ever actually sit on the Cyrodilin Imperial Throne and in truth was pleased by the idea of remaining a rather isolated Countrysider. What he did not want to be was a slave or worse of the daedra. That meant organising the forces in the area and destroying the bridgehead that the daedra were coming through from the realm of Oblivion before they could bring through more armies. For surely the mist that had covered the town of Scaredra was some kind of gate from Oblivion though not of traditional form.

 

But then something changed and with it he had to question his assumptions.

 

For in the distance a traditional Oblivion Gate formed in mid air. It lasted enough for the flying octopus like creatures to vanish through along with their cargoes, and then the gate vanished leaving some dark mist behind.

 

The daedra, who supposedly had been invading Tamriel, had just departed from it in a great hurry.

 

Johny scowled but then he spoke to the matriarch who was also shocked by what they had seen as was the steamtruck driver. "We must go now to Scaredra, the three of us, to combine our experience, skills and knowledge to find out what is going on there. Do you have the means to get us there quickly?"

 

She smiled at him. "You can go instantly to any place you have gone to before and have marked in a special way, in a secure way, and you have crept up to the very edges of Scaredra a number of times as you grew older out of fearful curiosity."

 

He frowned at the warm blooded reptillian woman. "Really you know too much about me. Very well I will do so though I do not like doing so." He turned stroked symbols in the air, speaking softly in arcane languages he had never learned in that life, and then clapped his hands. A teleportation gate formed like a glowing shimmering vertical disk of energies. At first it was red indicating that the magic was seeking out if it was safe to go through so they wouldn't try to emerge into something solid or do something else stupid. But the red became yellow and then green.

 

The three stepped through the teleportation gateway but with them came three tough experienced mudfolk battlemages.

 

To be continued in THREE!

 

 

Edited July 13, 2009 by dragonpen61