Tamriel Troubles

[Maharg67]

Tameriel is much bigger because I have expanded it out and added new settlements, forts, other features for writing as compared to being part of a game.

 

From seemingly nowhere have arisen the TriImperials of Air, Water and Land.

Unleashing the Master Spell upon all of Tamriel (excluding Summerset Isles) they have:

suppressed all powerful magic except their own.

have set up a series of special magical service-support networks of communication, teleporation, flying, rail-wheeling, wheeling and aquatic

unleashed their magical creatures of air, water and land to serve them and their needs and to oppress the rebel Tamriellans

blocked all summoning spells of the undead and the daedra

have taken over the minds of most non-magical peoples, turning them into unquestioning puppets. Exceptions are those of intrinsic magical, nullmagical or antimagical ability

 

to be added to:

 

TriImperials appear openly as tall beautiful humans of golden, silver or copper skin and folded or open exotic metallic wings. Are normally hairless.

Creatures of air, land and water are mimickrions who take on the physical outward form of certain creatures but with noticable colouration of gold, silver or copper

 

TriEnforcers elite TriImperial military

TriOrderators elite TriImperial paramilitary

TriBeholders elite TriImperial security-intelligence

 

Imperial City and Imperial Island are now closed to all but the TriImperials.

 

The Forbidden Faiths of the Nine and the Daedra are suppressed and have been driven underground.

 

A young Cyrodilin Empress leads a rebel imperial group with the Blades, the Holy Free Orders and other groups.

 

The Imperial Island where stands the Imperial City is now open on to the TriImperials (the new ruling people)

 

 

Copyrighted as follows @ 2009 (basically want people to ask before they use any of these concepts and to acknowledge where they came from).

 

 

TriImperial

TriImperium

TriEmpire

TriGoldate

TriSilverate

TriCopperate

 

Kurikondi = druidic, healer, battlemage oriented people

Kuriyanwi = very psychic Kurikondi cousin minority

Kurivezzi = very magical Kurikondi cousin minority

Kurikonddis = Enclave on western coast of Cyrodiil

Kurikondor = Mysterious continent far west of Tamriel the continet on the world of Mundus.

druidgon = druidical dragon like creature, magical

 

Kurikanzi = zruidic people, once Kurikondi but broke away to take a dark path

zruids = a dark form of druid believing in twisted nature, forms of demonism and even unique forms of undeath

 

Omnicronos

Opisoriti-Opisori

 

gobbit = goblin like creature

gobgoblin = hybrid goblin-gobbit

 

muckopus

 

Kirndu

Kirnduite

 

Cartorari

Cartorariata

 

skeletar = undead animated skeleton

 

skel = animated skeleton of special kind

 

zombar = more alert, faster, armour and weapon using zombie

 

Waymer

Aymer

Oomir

 

elementathrope

Great Cluster = Oztralia, Taziland and the Triple Zealands.

Amazoniss the Goddess of Protection of Nature and Life, (Great Slayer of Undeath and Twisted Nature)

Panyre the Goddess of Natural Magic (Wild Magic)

Gaigia the Goddess of the Cycles (of Birth and Rebirth), Healing and Compassion.

 

K'Martina

K'Mortina (extension of K'Martina)

 

Ratty

 

Mahargrah

Mahargrassa

 

Conanar the Paladin (Eternal Champion)

Jasmine the Battlemage (Eternal Champion)

 

She'Ralla

Tre'Ralla

Bono

 

Broothada (K'Makra the Kurikanzi)

[/color]

Edited August 13, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One

 

It was dimly lit of dawn when the white golden globe appeared out of nowhere, sparkling shimmering into solidity out of mid air.

 

The young woman could feel the oppressive presence of the Master Spell of the TriImperials as soon as she stepped out of the white golden orb and the orb-door slid closed behind herself. The three metre wide and high transorbican floated just above the water for just a moment. Then it vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

She stood on the beach with small harmless mudcrabs, sand-crawlers and seagulls around her. More dangerous clawcrabs were in the distance but they did not bother to come to attack her. Before her up on the beach was a smashed and burned stone-block fortress where the Cyrodlin Empire had put up a fight against the invading TriImperials with magic, magical weapons and desperate courage. That is until they found themselves attacked not just by the TriImperial Wizards and Wizardesses but by their own people, those now under the control of the Master Spell.

 

It was on a lonely point of Cyrodilin land, fairly rocky and sandy, where wind blew in from the sea. She stood there in typical mid priced Cyrodilic travel gear including boots, trousers, jacket, buttonshirt, large frame-backpack and cap. Her only weapon was a steel shortsword that was used also for other reasons, a couple of big knives in scabbards and a hunting bow in a scabbard-quiver over her back along with a whole lot of arrows. It was a powerful composite bow.

 

Lightly tanned white skin, long silken black hair, she set out up the beach and found herself enjoying the natural scene. In the distance was the rotting shape of a galley ship lying high on the rocks where a crazy wild storm had thrown it. The Master Spell caused odd effects on both climate and weather at times. Shipping had been cut back both by TriImperial Ediction and the weather madness. Outlanders no longer came to Tamriel though in truth they had done so uncommonly before.

 

There was a loneliness and isolation about the place made more haunting by the presence of the fort that reminded one that humans and other folk in service to the old empire had once thrived here.

 

Getting into the old fort was easy enough. She slipped through a hole in one wall, blasted there by a Wizard's disintegrator spell. Walked past a loose pile of bones, old armour and weapons and into a great courtyard proper. Stuff was piled in corners such as old archery targets, broken wagon wheels, pieces of pottery, odd bits of steel or bronze and much else of the kind. There were white bones.

 

She felt the odd fading residue of TriImperial lizen-magic and felt repulsed by what she experienced. Lizen-magic was lethally powerful but it was dark magic and it was not only antinatural in many ways but darkly costly in the way it was created, charged and in the side-effects that it caused.

 

Still the fortress had not taken much of a blasting to fall thanks to the ill preparedness of its defenders. It took only a month for the whole Cyrodilin Empire, the whole of Tamriel, to fall to the TriImperials and outer areas not conquered had become so quickly isolated and cut off from resources they often knew little or nothing of what was going on. For the major cities had fallen first with the Imperial City being the very first target.

 

Yet the Master Spell was not consistently strong through out Tamriel and here in this isolated part of Cyrodiil was a weaker patch due to a series of factors such as there having been many magical battles of traditional magic fought there, the composition of the ground and even the kind of stone used to make the fortress. Yet there was another reason and it was part of the reason she was there at that spot to being her infiltration of the TriEmpire.

 

The fortress had basement levels, that was normal enough, but hidden beneath those basement levels was an Ayleid underground city. Ayleid ruins had a powerful resistance against lizen-magic. The TriLord high servants of the TriEmpire could not find such places with their magic instrumentalities. Puppet-minds of the Master Spell were free inside Ayleid ruins. This was why the TriEmpire had isolated and covered most Ayleid ruins with great mounds of stone and dirt that were guarded heavily by various kinds of mimickrions plus TriImperial Legionaries. She would start the makings of an infiltration base here for her people the Kurikondi.

 

Then she felt it, saw it, walking towards her all semitransparent and human appearing but very much a ghost. The ghost was a Blade Legionary, a human with Akaviri blood meaning immunity to lizen-magic. He wore traditional blade armour and carried an Akaviri sword. He was tall and broad shouldered with brown skin, brown eyes and dark brown, almost black hair. He wore no helmet. Both his sword and his armour were of traditional magic. Then it came to her that this was no ghost as such but a lizen-phantom, a man of body, mind and spirit trapped in the so called Lizen-Zone. He had the sleepy look of one trapped long in such a horrible half-awake half-asleep half-dreaming place but as yet he was not curled up somewhere fallen away from all outside awareness.

 

Once, when her people had unwillingly served the TriEmpire, many of them had suffered such punishments when they dared to rebel or even question TriImperial Ways. Oddly enough sometimes victims were accidentally sent into the Lizen-Zone with lizen-magical side-effects.

 

The victim stopped and looking hard at her, as if seeing her only with some difficulty because it was true, he spoke in an oddly muffled voice in the language called New Cyrodilic. "You are not as you seem. You are an elemental shapechanger of great power. You are a stranger to Tamriel and to Cyrodiil. Perhaps you are a stranger to this world. Where do you come from? I can not see your true shapeform."

 

"Be thankful you can not see my true shapeform." She smiled. "On the very opposite side of the globe that is this world of Mundus there is another continent almost the exact same shape and size of Tamriel that is known as Leirmat. It is from Leirmat that I come. I come seeking information about the TriEmpire. Once the TriEmpire ruled Leirmat before it was both thrown off and left voluntarily. You are awake then though trapped in the Lizen-Zone."

 

The Blade Knight shook his head as if at something in his own mind. "Voices, voices that echo in my mind. Only when I sleep do they go away and then I dream strange sometimes peaceful but sometimes disturbing dreams. Still everything is numbed here. Nothing is of extreme pain or pleasure. When I go down into the Ayleid ruins things change. There I am no longer numb. There my mind is clearer. But there I also feel loneliness and pain unless I keep at least fairly close to other phantoms down there. We tend to dwell in large chambers where the lesser undead do not go for they seem to be repelled by us. We are even more revolted by the undead now than we were when we were normal for we can see truly what undeath is, even so called lesser undeath. To think I once thought that necromancy was fairly harmless. The Mages Guild was more than correct in trying to get rid of it."

 

The woman spoke. "Call me Martina! I need to go down into those Ayleid levels."

 

He sighed. "I can only get down there by sinking down through layers of rubble and then finding myself in the old fortress basement levels that have survived. I am Blade Knight Henric Arano. I fought in the War of Five Emperors that weakened the empire and made it easier for the TriEmpire to conquer Tamriel. Bad luck for us and good luck for them."

 

Martina looked around and noted a large slightly mishaped metre long rat digging at the ground furiously. The creature's head bulged oddly and hinted at greater brain capacity than that of normal rats. She smiled for she sensed no real threat or aggression in the black, grey and brown splotched creature but a surprising level of intelligence plus a great deal of curiosity. Lizen-toxins sometimes produced some favourable effects but the poor rat was also sick of cancer and was due to die horribly. Except that she had other plans that would assist both the rat and herself.

 

The phantom nodded. "That's Ratty! Friendly, talkative and likes to hang around us phantoms. We protect him from the lesser undead. We can read his mind in a basic fashion and we learn what he knowledge he has gained on one of his crazy trips searching for curiosities for his collection. He has pain sometimes that we can suppress to some extent and he is sexually frustrated because the big female rats in the area reject him."

 

Ratty stopped digging, sat up on his haunches and looked around to see Martina and the phantomic Blade Knight. He chirped excitedly and K'Martina found that she knew that the rat was digging at what the rodent thought was something of much tingling interest. That is he could sense something of strong magic. Then he shot downwards to begin wildly digging away again. She sighed and walked over. Ratty stopped digging, turned his head to look up at her with some wariness.

 

She sighed and spoke. "No, not steal prize."

 

The rat creature chittered happily and then dug some more. Then, very carefully, it uncovered what looked to be a thick metallic leather bag. Then he clamped his teeth carefully around a fold and pulled it up out of the ground. He plopped it onto the dirt. There was an odd hollow metallic noise. The bag was bound tightly closed with a magical leather cord that was beyond Ratty's ability to open.

 

Henric wandered over with a sleepy amused and curious look on his face. He crouched as did K'Martino. Ratty pawed at the strange leather bag.

 

Henric shook his head. "Very exotic material! What is it?"

 

"Trouble!" She slipped a ration-biscuit out of a pouch, carefully took off its metallic paper wrapping and then gave the ration-biscuit to the hungry rodent. He sniffed at it carefully, seemed satisfied and then ate it sitting up on his hind legs while holding it cleverly with his front paws. She put the silver metallic wrapping, neatly folded up, on the ground in front of Ratty and added to this a shiny copper-1 coin, small ruby, an emerald, a diamond, a shiny pearl and shiny rubbery sphere dotted with small metallic shiny buttons of different colours.

 

Ratty kept on eating but he turned and examined the newly revealed items with much evident excitement.

 

Martina reached out and scratched him behind his nearest ear. As she did she spoke. "What of the rest of Tamriel, of the remains of the Old Empire?"

 

He shrugged. "Sometimes rebels used to come this way. They found another way down into the old fort basement levels and into the Ayleid city. They stored items in the Ayleid city and asked us to keep an eye on them. The last such visit was about five years ago. From what they said life is surprisingly normal for most people in the TriEmpire. There is no magic around and all the magefolk have vanished. The nobility, all the guilds but the Mages Guild, the town councils, the Sheriffs and other aspects of life are still there. The Order of the Nine is gone and the old cathedrals, temples and other buildings are either closed off or are used for other reasons now. Magical creatures have vanished from areas closer to settlements and roads, be they good, bad or neutral. Some areas have been closed off. People can use the TriImperial Communications, Rail-Wheel, Highway and Teleport Networks, can travel by rail-wheeler, wheel-flyer, highway-wheeler or teleport-carriage if one has the permits, payment and smarts to deal with TriImperials they might meet. TriImperials never forgive any of us Tamriellans if we break the Coda of Society's various rules. Only few non TriImperials get to use those networks. We travel mostly the old ways of horse, stagecoach, by foot, by boat or by any means we can. What with the passbooks that need to be gained and signed, the permits that need to be gained and signed and all the payments that need to be made, small but they add up, few can afford to travel openly. Still trade is brisk. Secret travel takes place fairly commonly. Guild and co-op profits are fairly high. Taxation is modest."

 

K'Martina nodded. "It was the same way in Leirmat when the TriEmpire ruled there. The TriEmpire is a seminomadic empire. It conquers a region, rules it for a while and leaves when it can no longer get what it wants from there. Please do not look so hopeful. When it does leave it leaves behind a horrible mess of dreadful lizen-toxins, wastelands and other problems. Tamriel must get rid of the TriEmpire before it reaches this stage."

 

Ratty finished eating the ration-biscuit, both very filling and very nutritional, and ogled the prizes that the Kurikondi had put on the ground. K'Martina scooped them all up and carefully placed them before the rodent. She spoke. "Ratty has prizes."

 

Ratty made a few noises of joy.

 

 

 

 

 

[dezdimona]

Interesting.Waiting to see where this goes.

[Maharg67]

One

(Continued)

K'Martina pointed to the bag. "Look inside?"

 

Ratty had learned to listen to and understand a fair few basic words thanks to the phantoms he spent much of his time with. He seemed to sum things up. He sniffed at the metallic leather bag and stepped back in obvious distaste, not liking what he smelt there. Then his large black eyes, somehow both rat like but not sinister at all, met hers and she understand. He wanted to know what was in the strange bag but he knew better than to meddle with what was inside. She could have it and he would have all of his new stuff.

 

Then she dropped three more wrapped ration-biscuits on top of the other prizes causing Ratty to wriggle with delight.

 

"You are going to spoil him." The Blade Knight said but with a smile in his voice. "The most non rat like rat I have ever met. Perhaps I have not told you everything."

 

She shrugged. "Perhaps I knew that. What else is down there? Any rebels?"

 

The Blade Knight shook his head. "Not as such! A whole lot of rebels got destroyed, captured or scattered when the Hunterers found a large underground base, actually part of a long broken down castle. Soon after that the last rebel fighters came here and brought with them refugees, young and old magefolk, nullfolk and antimagefolk who could not hope to survive the tough conditions of guerilla warfare. The rebels fight on and it is whispered that out of fear for their own future that Summerset Isles elves are secretly sending them equipment and supplies."

 

She snorted. "Indeed they are doing so and they are doing more than that. Kurikondi agents landed on that great island over there a fair few years ago. We learned a few things that surprised us as they would surprise anybody who assumed they knew about those so called High Elves. My people made an agreement with them. We would help them to prepare their realm against future TriImperial invasion, which will happen sooner or later, and they will carry out a series of actions. I am not at liberty to speak of such. Indeed I do not know much at all about it. I can't give over secrets I don't have. The TriImperial Emperor and Empress are far from fools. In many ways she is more deadly than he is though he is more directly powerful. They will have sent their own agents and other means of espionage over there by now."

 

K'Martina carefully picked up the metallic leather bag and sniffed at it. Then she frowned. "You phantoms come up here on a regular basis?"

 

He nodded. "Three of us are up here on sentry duty at any one time. Or at least that is how it used to be. Now most of us sleep most of the time and it is hard enough to get one of us up here. Why do you ask?"

 

She held the sack with her left hand and pressed her fingers of her right hand against the bag. Her hand shimmered and the cord simply slipped open. As it did there was the discharge of red sparkles, the breaking of a security trap spell. Then she uptilted the bag and out of it fell a small blood red metal star-ring emblem, a small red fleshy clay figure and two smaller metallic leather bags.

 

The rat sniffed eagerly but not too closely.

 

With a frown she scooped all the items off the ground and back into the metallic leather bag. "You missed at least one powerful intruder but do not be surprised for such are amazing at stealth as are my people. You would not have found me if I did not want you to. Now, truthfully now, how do we go downwards."

 

He shrugged. "I only have some clues. Ratty goes up and down through ways you could never fit through. There is one way but a fairly large, thick and heavy slab of stone covers it. I doubt that you could move it."

 

K'Martina smiled some more. "Show me this slab!"

 

Ratty was happy to let her carry a bag full of his goodies while he darted along with them through the broken fortress. A black crow came flying down and landed on Ratty's back but the rat only made noises of pleasure. Ratty, it seemed, had a few unusual friends. They came to the slab which had crashed down over a rampway pit that led down to the basement levels. It was the defenders and not the attackers who did this to give time for those underground more chance to escape. It had worked and a fair few soldiers had gone out through a complex cave system, one of the amazing ancient systems that Tamriel boasted of. Those still above in the fortress had paid a heavy price for this brave decision.

 

How did she know about the fate of the fortress and those in them? Because somebody or something had been secretly sending information to her people ever since the TriEmpire had invaded Tamriel but her people did not know who or what was doing it.

 

She slipped a very small white-gold sphere out of a pouch and simply dropped it onto the slab. The whole slab sparkle shimmered for a short moment and then it looked quite normal. But she spoke. "Now it is a magical door. I will teach your folk how to use it."

 

The phantom yawned. "I may have forgotten to tell you that down there are lesser undead and a few other dangers. We phantoms don't go down to those particular chambers, hallways and other spaces. Ratty and his friends avoid them also. The TriImperials sent something down there but I suppose it has left by now or been taken away. Please don't look at me that way, Martina, I am so damned sleepy all the time."

 

She nodded. "Let the Three Guardian Goddesses assist you then to become a Light-Guardian. Goddess of Flamelight, Goddess of Silverlight and Goddess of Lifelight. Through light is life supported and through light are the undead dealt destruction. All abilities strengthened but one area may be more enhanced than others be it of flamelight, silverlight or lifelight. Or perhaps you will truly phsical again as a Life-Guardian but with enhanced body, mind and spirit but with one of these gaining more enhancement than the others for you; physical is endurance, speed, strength, agility and other related. Mind is memory, calculations, clarity, psychic and related. Spirit is spritual, magical and related. There is a price! This is the only way I can offer you escape from being a lizen-phantom except killing you."

 

The rat looked worried.

 

Henric reached down and scratched him behind a ear. The crow took a half hearted peck at the phantom and earned a scratch on the head as punishment. Then Henric stood up. "What would Ratty do with out me here to look after him? I choose this assistance."

 

K'Martina closed her eyes, bowed her head and chanted in some ancient language sweet and song like. Then she switched to New Cyrodilic. "I beg the Blessing of the One, the Three, the Nine and the Eighty-One. Bring this moment into fruitation. Know that I only ask this of you because of the dire need of it. Yet I also ask of you to show this one the full price that he must pay in turn for this powerful blessing."

 

At that moment Henric shimmered with energies of various lights and then so did the rat and the crow. The blessing had been accepted by Henric after an agreement of sorts had been made. To Henric it would have seemed like a good deal of time would have passed in those seconds.

 

Henric suddenly became translucent looking but no longer tired. He was healthier and a very soft shimmer of silverlight surrounded him but then faded away.

 

Ratty was suddenly gifted with warm brown eyes and thicker, softer fur while his tail was sweeter looking, longer and far more flexible. His front paws were more flexible. He looked more rounded off properly, more streamlined.

The crow was larger, had a bigger skull area and gave off the impression of being faster, stronger and more agile a flier.

 

Ratty grinned with wonderful polished white teeth and then spoke in New Cyrodilic. "I wish I could talk, I really do." Then he wriggled with delight. "I can talk, I can. It's true!"

 

Henric nodded. "I believe you. Crowdee can talk and maybe now he will give you back those trinkets he stole from you?"

 

Crowdee cawed rudely but then shook his wings and relented. He spoke. "Very well then, trinkets are back times double with extras that me, crow, found. Saw dark thing one dawn come and bury that bad bag in ground. Did not like it. It was fast. It was powerful. It was dangerous. It smelt of death and of undeath. I hid away. All animals hid or ran away from it. Did not have thoughts or words proper before to report such things. Thoughts bigger and clearer now. Words come painful but not like before."

 

K'Martina nodded to the crow. "Things are all different now. Now we have to go below. You can go with Ratty the safe way. I think you should now. Henric can go with you and make sure you are safe. I have to do this alone. I sense now that something is down there that I must deal with, that I have been meaning to deal with for a very long time. A blessing to all three of you."

 

The parted ways with Henric now easily taking Ratty's bag of goodies.

 

K'Martina turned and faced the slab with a frown. She focused, cleared her mind and prepared for a fight to the death.

To be continued with TWO!

[Maharg67]

Two

 

The old man walked out of the isolated and long forgotten cathedral. He stood in the darkness beneath a cloudy sky in the area known as Black Marsh. Once the Cyrodilin Empire had controlled that part of Argonia but that was a long time ago. Yet the Argonians, the amphibious people, had not at any time tried to do any harm to the human built structure. As the old man stood there in his long hooded robe with his hood pulled up over his head, he noted a fair few Argonians, or marshfolk, gathered around the ruins of the old imperial settlement that was on a large firm island in the marshes. They were quiet but intense. They were all adults and they were all armed and armoured but there were no magical weapons or armour amongst them. They were all in pain.

 

He looked up at the sky, at the strange broiling clouds and could sense the Master Spell pressing relentlessly against the island, the cathedral and its holy aura. The aura weakened and kept back the full power of the Master Spell.

 

Above, way above, there was a lightening like flash but it was not lightening. It was holy power spent against the Master Spell as the Nine Divines launched yet another attack against it. They were trying something new, had called upon all their wisdom, brilliance and powers to try to find a weakness in the Master Spell but this attempt was also failing.

 

The Eternal Champion felt the cold rain begin to fall in a season when no rain should be falling let alone cold rain that caused the marshfolk to shiver horribly.

 

There was much to do before he even tried to leave the island with its ruins, its shanty town of magical Argonians seeking shelter from the Master Spell. He nodded to the reptilian people, turned and walked back into the cathedral. They began to follow him into that big old structure. With out one word spoken they had already decided that they would work with this tall old man who radiated such a powerful presence.

 

Once inside the cathedral they began to make plans.

 

Out in the marshes three copper metallic troll creatures moved powerfully, smoothly and quietly through the muddy, reedy waters. They glimpsed the cathedral, or at least its broken spire, but they ignored it for the Master Spell had them seeking something else. Something big moved in the brown waters but only to flee from these mockeries of real life. It sank deeper into the mud and sought warmth, sought shelter, sought hiding from this strange new Tamriel that disturbed it so much.

 

To be continued in THREE

[Maharg67]

Three

 

At first the basement level came across like any abandoned underground fort area. It was a complex of stone block hallway tunnels, stairways and bigger rooms with more complicated details to them. As soon as K'Martina slipped ghost like down through the slab, which was now a magical door of sorts, she found herself on on stairs in a sunken stairwell. She brushed away cobwebs and stepped downwards over pieces of metal armour and skeletal remains. The place echoed eerily and smelt of unpleasant things but mostly it was dank and stale. Some air ventilation was taking place because the air was quite breathable.

 

She walked past a wooden handcart upon which lay a stretcher and more skeletal remains. As she stepped around the handcart, the first of the skeletars came rushing at her. Sensing and desiring her life-energies to drain, the armoured animated skeleton was surrounded by a ghostly like aura of a human body. The Master Spell sometimes caused the rise of the undead as a kind of mirror effect ot its own powerful nature.

 

It was faster and more skilled than a normal undeathly animated skeleton. It sprang forth and sliced a steel sword through the air at her. A silver axe lay on the floor but the undead could not use silver which did them harm. She ducked beneath the swing and struck her flamlight lit hand into the solar plexus area of the lesser undead. It burned away in front of her and the empty armour, along with the sword, fell to the hard stone floor with a clang. Then she picked up the silver-alloy axe.

 

Past a row of hastily stacked barrels, a couple of sacks of stuff and the skeletal remains of a mage complete with rotting robes. It was hard to say why some remains remained dead and some became undead when it came to such as the Master Spell. More skeletars came at her, the lesser undead of animated skeletons. She again moved so fast that these undead warriors, bits of captured life force and not captive souls as such, were too slow for her. K'Martina kicked hard into a shield and as she did she released a pulse of silverlight energies that exploded a skeletar backwards. It fragmented, burning away, even as it flung a second skeletar backwards. She swung the well made silver axe and smashed through the skull of the off balanced skeletar and it also burned away.

 

These wer lesser undead. What really divided lesser undead from mediate undead was that the mediate undead had captive souls such a deluded lichs or vampires while the lesser undead had only captive bits of life energies.

 

For the moment no more undead came at her so she went back and started looting items. When she found something of use or possible use she made it vanish with a sparkling shimmer. Then once more the young woman was plunging deeper into the maze of spaces made that way to make it more difficult for attackers. For a while she walked through abandoned training areas, dormitories, common spaces and other features of an old active fortress. She looted more items of many kinds including scrolls, books, tools, weapons, arrows and many other items.

 

More lesser undead came at her in this next level. Shambling zombies with out weapons but sometimes in armour, faster moving zombars with weapons and often with armour and of course skeletars. They came at her and this time she struck them down with arrows that exploded on impact with one with such savage flamelight blasts that they destroyed two to four enemies at a time while damaging and weakening others. Problem was that these exploding arrows were also destroyed and could, of course, not be reused or even recycled as arrows. Now and then she also hurled a flamelight or a silverlight ball or a spreading out horizontal pattern of pulses.

 

Then there were no more lesser undead in that great big chamber with its great big supporting pillars, its great statues that also helped support the ceiling and open archways through walls leading into other large chambers. Statues were of heroes but also of famous other figures like philosphers, poets, politicians and priestesses or priests. Who had ever decided what to put into the decorating of that great chamber wanted the fortress to represent more than conflict.

 

There were also nine statues of the Nine Divines being Akatosh the Dragon God of Time, Arkay the God of the Cycle of Birth and Death, Dibella the Goddess of Beauty, Julianos the God of Wisdom and Logic, Kynareth the Goddess of Nature, Mara the Mother-Goddess and Goddess of Love, Stendarr the God of Mercy, Zenithar - God of Work and Commerce and also Talos the God of War, once known as Tiber Septim.

 

Yet there were also some other deity statues there that had been lost in time, that were mysterious, that were simply alien to Tamriel as most knew it.

 

Three Goddesses were Amazoniss the Goddess of Protection of Nature and Life, (Great Slayer of Undeath and Twisted Nature), Panyre the Goddess of Natural Magic (Wild Magic) and Gaigia the Goddess of the Cycles of Birth and Rebirth, Healing and Compassion. Arkay and Gaiga were not of the same responsibilities for one was of the Cycle of Birth and Death and the other of the Cycle of Birth and Rebirth. These were related but not the same. Amonziss, Panrye and Gaigia had flourished on Liermat so why were statues of them there on the other side of the world in Tamriel and if them why not the others of the Nine Holies of Liermat.

 

She walked amongst the pillars and statue-pillars, amongst more left overs of what had been a bustling fortress, and cursed softly the Master Spell.

 

There were secrets in that place but she had yet to deal with the real threat in that place before she sought them out.

 

The young woman was Kurikondi, the ancient druidic people who were reflections of the very essesence of life but she faced something Kurikanzi that was warped unnatural Kurikondi, perhaps antinatural undeath. Kurikanzi once served the TriEmpire when it oppressed Leirmat but had become sundered from the TriEmpire before the Great Leirmattin Rebellion had driven off the TriEmpire. Some said it was the Kurikanzi who had tried to betray the TriEmpire and some said it was the oppsoite but both were right. TriEmpire and Kurikanzi had tried to betray each other and yet in this case the TriImperials had better reason to do so for the Kurikanzi were causing trouble for them long before the sundering had taken place.

 

Kurikanzi in general were monstrous but sometimes Kurikanzi individuals reformed and deserted from the Kurikanzi. Some went to the Kurikondi and if they proved not to be false, to be infiltrators, they were accepted back into the fold. Others became wandering Kurikuri moving alone or in small groups. Kurikuri were also known as Kuri Gypsies. These and other such peoples, even the cursed Kurikanzi except those those who actually became undead, were known as belonging to the greater classification of the Kuri.

 

There was, in one large stone alcove, a place of mages, battlemages and battlehealers and there she found alchemic devices, crystal-balls used for scrying and communications, a slightly cracked magic-mirror, a flying-platform of ornate bronze reinforced hard wood complete with a semi-open cabin and safety-rails, racks of precharge magic-staves of the kind that could be used by non-magefolk and even spell scrolls. But the lizen-energies in the chamber, as weak as they were, and the Master Spell, had leached the magic out of all there so that the scrolls were cracked and shredding uselessly while the devices were all with only weak charges.

 

Battlehealers were warriors with also healing training and magical skills focused towards Restoration.

 

K'Martina knew she could salvage all of the stuff in that alcove but at cost. Doing so would also attract the real threat in that place, a threat that lay in self imposed semiconsciousness in continous sentry status.

 

She kept looking. Next to a row of now uncharged magical swords, axes, hammers and crossbows was an ornate wooden chest with both magical wards, now useless, and very well made mechanical locks. She got past the locks in seconds. Inside were some books on magic (not magic books), books of spells (not spellbooks) and a leather bound journal. The leather bound journal was the writings and daily reports of a mage-sage in the fortress. Juliarna Safess, a mage of much experience, skill and learning, had written in ornate but easily read lettering even when in a rush. For at the end she was in a rush as she wrote about the last terrifying hours as the TriImperial forces, the now treacherous puppets of former allies and the Master Spell itself had attacked the fortress. But in those words of desperation and wonder, for the mage-sage had truly wanted to know more about this Master Spell, she had hidden a coded message. The coded message was brilliantly well done but it hinted at some kind of hope.

 

After laying some warning-emblems around the opening of the alcove, K'Martina sat cross legged on a mat with her back to the back wall of the alcove and meditated. Then she slept in the very same position.

 

A zombie-rat scuttled across the floor in a distant part of the chamber.

 

A big black hand-spider crawled across the roof, a deformed hand like thing that was an extension of a very much more powerful creature, but it failed to detect K'Martina. It did find the remains of the battle, the residue of spent magic and the destroyed undead. At once it alerted its master.

 

The twisted undead Kurikanzi became fully conscious and he grinned, he stood up, he stretched his distorted body all muscular and massive in layers of armour plating, and he stood then in a meditative stance as he prepared for battle. It was failing, it was slowly collapsing away and was wishing for death as many of the mediate or greater undead often did as they realised the horrific trap that they had found themselves in. But it wished to die fighting its oldest and greatest enemy the Kurikondi and now it sensed that it, once a Kurikanzi man, had its chance to do just that. K'Manvor stood there in a graven metal skull like helmet in a very powerful undead body that no longer could shapechange fundimentally or even do lesser shapeshifting. In both metallic spiked fists it held a magical grandsword, a two handed monstrous sword, with its tip pressed down against the floor.

 

He had nothing to lose and if he won he won, if he lost he died and he still won.

 

Ironically he couldn't even remember what he was supposed to be guarding. All he rememberd was that his Kurikanzi Overlord had left him there long ago to guard something and had promised to return in no more than a year. That was now over a century ago or maybe two or maybe three? His decaying mentallity and the ever present background pressure of the Master Spell made it impossible for him to tell any longer.

 

But then he sensed new danger and it was not Kurikondi for that was familiar and this was strange, was new to him. He prepared for battle though he felt frustrated that he might die at the hands of something other than a traditional enemy.

 

Sensing trouble, K'Martina woke and came quietly, quickly, smoothly up into a crouch. She focused and prepared to deal not only with one traditional threat but now more than one powerful threat.

 

It was time for a great battle to take place, it was time for death and destruction to be unleashed!

 

To be continued in FOUR!

Edited July 12, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

FOUR

 

Martinpolis was a large walled city east across the waters from Imperial Island and Imperial City where now only the TriImperials were allowed to go. The bustling city had arisen for the need of the TriImperials to link with the rest of the TriEmpire. So the city supported a large public service sector, was a big transportation hub for goods going to and from the island (mostly stuff going to), had many artisans making fine goods for the Imperial City and did other important services for them.

 

It also held the various Central Headqaurters for the dreaded TriEnforcers, TriOrderators and TriBeholders. These were in turn elite military, paramilitary and security-intelligence forces created to deal with any festering or actual rebel activity on the Tamriel mainland.

 

The city also had other, darker purposes in serving the TriEmpire and the Master Spell.

 

While K'Martina sat meditating in the basement level of the old fortress preparing for a big fight and the Eternal Champion worked with the marshfolk in Argonia, a young man awoke in a small mansion structure of fine ornate stone built close to the western, shoreline wall of the city. Except that in some important sense it was not really part of the city at all and had only been there since the midnight before. Yet nobody seemed to notice this or at least not many.

 

As he sat up in the very large bed in silken pyjama shorts he looked around at the two dogs, the pig, the mother cat and her kittens, two older tomcats, three minidragons, a long thick fur-python, the three beuatiful young women in silken nightshirts and five oddly muscular chubby like ever-babies. Of the last there were two males and three females and all were in lightly fluffy white nappy-pants.

 

He yawned and stretched. Then he ran a dusky white hand through his dark blonde hair even as the very handsom young man spoke in an ancient language. "Mahargastle, we are inside your structure but outside of Sanctuary Zone!"

 

The voice was warm, female and sleepy. It came from all over the chamber. "You have sensed correctly but we are well secured and isolated behind multiple layers and network-systems. You are on the great continent of Tameriel on the world of Mundus. You are in the city of Martinpolis."

 

He frowned softly and picking up a couple of ever-babies, he lay them against his slimly muscular chest. "I remember no city called Martinpolis and we were only here about five hundred years ago. The city is named after Martin the last Emperor, I take it."

 

The ever-babies settled against him, one boy and one girl, and smiled blissfully in their sleep.

 

Mahargastle responded. "I am still waking but from what my external senses have picked up, that is not only correct but the city began as a town where rose the Order of Martin who believed that Martin had become the Hero-God Martinus who can take the shapeform of a great dragon. He is the God of the Dragon Blade and of the Order of the Sage-Warriors. The Order of Sage-Warriors believes in seeking out lost knowledge and history in armed expeditions to various parts of Tamriel. Or at least all of this was true. When the Master Spell fell upon this continental mainland and the TriEmpire came, the lot became suppressed."

 

He cursed very softly lest he wake or upset the babes in his arms. "So it has come at last to Tamriel, the ancient curse of the Master Spell. Then those of Leirmat finally threw it off."

 

Mahargastle responded. "As yet I do not know. We are very close to Imperial City here and to the TriImperials including the TriEmpress and TriEmperor. We need to act with great caution. All the information I have gained, am still gaining, comes from and through our immediate surroundings in this city."

 

He burped the small male figure. "The people suffer from the Master Spell?"

 

She responded. "Less so than before for the TriEmpire is providing for free powerful serums that seem to assist folk against the extremes of the Master Spell."

 

He nodded thoughtfully. "A shift in TriImperial tactics. Perhaps our awful prediction is starting to become true. Let us hope not."

 

"Martinpolis is not the place for us to learn the truth of this." She responded. "It is central to the new empire and gains stability from being so close to the TriImperials' actual home. I wonder what they have done to the fine old city."

 

He sighed. "Good chance most of it is well cared for but empty of people. Yet I also have a strong but subtle sense that things are changing in the TriEmpire. Time for breakfast."

 

Mahargastle laughed softly. "Yes, time to get up that mob and get them organized. Food, drink, water and other necessaries are already arriving at the big dining room close to here from the central dispensaries of this structure."

 

To be finished in FIVE!

Edited August 13, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

FIVE

 

K'Martina was surprised by the enemy that came racing out of a large open doorway through which came also the reflection of strange flickering lights of some kind. At once she crouched, focused and sent out a globe shaped wave of energy that deflected enemy long range attacks.

 

Aurorans came racing across the big chamber in magical golden battle armour and each held a battle-axe in the right gloved hand that glowed with exotic magical energies. From the top of the axe, the stunted rod tip, came pulses of disintegration magic. Each also held a large circular shield in the left hand that glowed with magic but in the centre of each shield was a stubby spike that fired off small sizzling hissing darts of energy.

 

But with the Aurorans came Ayleid warriors in silvery armour but the elves were armed with a variety of curious weapons.

About a third held bolt-action dart-guns powered, it seemed, by some kind of magic. Each had twin barrels and bolt-darts were fed into the open breech of one side while the other seemed to be left loaded if needed in a hurry. Each weapon ended in a long spike to thrust into an enemy. These spikeguns fired off magical darts with lightly exploding tips.

About a third came with tridents and the three sharp prongs sparkled and crackled with electricity of exotic colouration be it blue, purple or red.

And the last third or so carried each a long thin sword in the right hand and on the left hand what looked like a horrific looking glove puppet, a thing of metallic leathery fibre, of glowing energies and a mouth of long, sharp fangs. Except that projected into the air before each of these was an energy form of the glove puppet head that crackled, glowed and hissed out of gaping mouths.

 

K'Martina had fought Aurorans a long time ago, in another phase of her existence, when she had been seeking an artifact in the realm of Oblivion. She had met but not fought Ayleid when she had come to Tamriel once way back in history during the same life. These Aurorans and Ayleid were outwardly much the same except some minor changes in the armour and some big changes in their weapons along with the Auroran shields. Yet she sensed there was another, more important difference, that was more subtle and hidden.

 

But then came steam-spiders, large and hulking, each with a figure hidden inside a kind of semitransparent bubble. Each monster had two double jointed arms that ended, on the right, in a great slashing stabbing blade of yellow-white energy and, on the left, in a big tube with a hollow end that hurled out hissing, sizzling, exploding fireballs.

 

Dwemer soldiers rode on their backs in exotic semi-covered metallic baskets firing off the same type of spikeguns as some of the Ayleid were using.

 

Dwemer elves in and on the machines, Ayleid elves on foot and Auroran daedra fighting as an alliance against who?

 

She stepped back into the alcove and unleashed a multiple mix of magic and other forces. Magical items through out the alcove glowed and shifted or just vanished. Mage-staffs and other devices lifted into the air. Then they formed out of mid air, elementalons like softly shimmering humanoids of flamelight, silverlight or lifelight. Each gathered to itself weapons, armour and other objects of usefulness and these items altered to suit them. Items literally altered as they flew through the air to the elemental humanoids.

 

But K'Martina could only summon five mid-power elementons in that place.

 

Reinforcing them were globular balls of many melded together materials that emanated magical energies of many kinds. They were formed out of various smaller and more basic magical items. They floated in the air.

 

The flying-platform and other larger and-or more complex devices were left alone.

 

The strange alliance of beings rushed past the entrance of the alcove and only bothered to glare at her threateningly. They did not attack her and so she did not attack them.

 

Instead she emerged in time to see the force confront another one of the undead. Skeletars, zombies, zombars and also liches in armour. The liches came floating through the air. Vampires came also in armour but also in robes. Weapons, armour, robes, staffs and other items were of a magic new to her and yet which seemed in some ways familiar. It was a dreadful new form of undeath magic, antinatural by its very 'nature' and intrinsically aggressive to and parasitic of life.

 

It was a gamble but she found it easy enough to choose a side to attack. Yes the daedra and elvin peoples could often be evil but the undeath she faced was worse than anything she had ever confronted before, even in the worst parts of the realm of Oblivion. It was not just the undead creatures but it was inside them and was around each of them, was around all of them. It sucked at life energies. It grasped at living things and was painful to 'feel'.

 

She hurled the magical balls at the undeath and watched as they exploded into expanding spheres of savage flaming, crackling, freezing and bright flashing magical energies. Undead screamed, collapsed, were hurled back and often burned away. Even powerful lichs suffered terribly even if they did not meet true death. Even as this went on the combined attacks of Ayleid, Dwemer and Aurorans also smashed into the front ranks of the undead, most of them being lesser undead of the zombies, zombars and skeletars. The lesser undead collapsed, burning away to unnatural grey ash that in turn vanished away with amazing speed.

 

Why the battle was taking place in that ruined fortress she did not know but was starting to suspect the truth. The Cyrodilin Empire had found powerful secrets in that place and had then used them while keeping them hidden. Perhaps those very secrets had been used against the TriImperials as they attacked the fortress.

 

The undead outnumbered her and her new allies by more than ten to one even if most of them were mere lesser undead. They kept pouring out of a circular opening in the stone floor, a secret way most likely opened by some kind of magic or at least she sensed as the disk of stone had simply vanished but in a fashion to suggest it was meant to do just that. Anyway there was a large rampway tunnel leading from that down deeper into the ground.

 

It was then that the Kurikanzi came racing at the undeath from another angle, a creature of pseudo-undeath attacking the undead because Kurikanzi hated traditional undead and visa verso.

 

The Kurikanzi hurled into the ranks of the undead like a great tumbling magical boulder that hurled, crushed, burned and killed many. The great warrior used the monstrous sword with incredible speed and agility, slicing through ranks of the undead like a peasant cutting down wheat with a sickle.

 

The two armies met in a tide of war cries as she found herself given room by her new allies, sensing they did so reluctantly even as she so joined them. Then she and her five elementons were fighting savagely, they using weapons and she using her hands and feet glowing with powerful magical energies. K'Martina moved endlessly, smoothly and with amazing power and agility. Her graceful form did one endless karta. Sometimes she struck more directly at the more powerful undead, giving them the benefit of more focused power, and used indirect attacks on the swarms of lesser undead.

 

Then, with a dreaded shock, she realized that the Aurorans, Ayleid and Dwemer that fell to the ranks of the undeath only sometimes died a natural death, their souls releasing into the Great Cycle of Birth and Death-Rebirth. For sometimes their souls became visible tormented shades, ghosts of a kind but not truly dead as ghosts were. Nor were they truly undead. But these shades somehow made the field of undeath stronger though they did not directly attack life.

 

Worst of all some were becoming undead, not lesser and not of the greatest power, but vampires in the case of the elves and something new and twisted in the case of the daedra that she knew, somehow, were called the ardead.

 

Knowledge came to her sometimes unbidden from a source unknown to her and it might often be only partial but it was never false.

 

The undeath was slowly winning and she considered using more powerful magic or other tricks. She reached into a metallic pouch with some reluctance but suddenly...

 

Suddenly the whole great chamber exploded with amazingly powerful light. K'Martina cried out as it seemed to go through her, to make her briefly transparent. The sunlight burned away the undead and the poor shades died normally and drifted away into nothingness.

 

She fell to her knees even as her elementons vanished, their armour and other devices cluttering heavily to the stone floor. The great Kurikondi collapsed into semiconscious onto the floor. The daedra and elves did the same, the great magical-steam spiders coming to an abrupt halt, except the Dwemer in the baskets who collapsed into the caged devices.

 

The brightness ended as quickly as it had begun.

 

With difficulty she looked up to see that all the stone statues were now looking translucent and they glowed from within. Walled areas were now openings and showed more chambers with statues that had not been seen before such as the rest of the Nine Holies of Leirmat.

 

She sat down into a cross legged position and meditated to gather herself for something big was about to happen, or so she sensed.

 

To be finished in SIX!

 

Edited July 19, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

SIX

 

The Eternal Champion was slowly becoming younger even as he helped remove stone blocks in the catacombs beneath the marshlands cathedral. They were not only surprisingly extensive and complicated, they were designed to hide secrets. Argonians were busy assisting him but so were human, orc and marshies, a cousin to the magical brownies of the woods and jungles, as they carefully moved the ancient stonework. They wished to damage nothing both out of respect and because they might need to put the wall back as it first had appeared.

 

They were revealing no crude dug out space, no caves, but a stone hallway tunnel lit by dull glowing crystal-lamps fused to walls. Not Ayleid but Aymers, the secretive elves of Argonia who had once been of the Ayleid. The Aymer ancestral kingdom had dared to turn against the increasing brutality of the Ayleid rule, had fought against slavery of any being be it human or any other. Their reward was to be treacherously attacked by three neighboring Ayleid kingdoms at once. But the kingdom had bordered relatively close to Argonia and the Aymers had all escaped except for both a rear guard who fought to the death to slow down the attackers and those who faked the deaths of all.

 

The Aymer had vanished downwards never to bee in the marshes again. The Argonians had not fought them for the Aymer gave them gifts of five powerful magical artifacts that were long lost in the marshlands along with the ancient ruins they lay in. Later the Cyrodilins had controlled that area of Argonia they called the Black Marsh and had built the settlement and then the cathedral on that island. The Order of the Nine found the Aymer tunnel but for some reason had concealed it behind walls and a maze of catacombs.

 

A short marshie lifted up a block with surprising strength considering his one metre height and vanished with a sparkling shimmer to appear again up the hallway. Marshies in simple tunics of skirt and jerkins, both men and women, did not normally find comfort in enclosed spaces but did not seem to mind these catacombs. It helped that all the aged coffins and other remains in that area were fake.

 

The Eternal Champion gestured all to stop. Then he took up a torch and it flared into flames, almost smokeless but bright burning with far more brightness than heat. He picked up his staff and then stepped into the high wide tunnel.

 

The pressure of the Master Spell eased off at once.

 

He spoke then in New Cyrodilin, a language all the marshfolk in that area seemed to know well. "I sense no danger but we need to be cautious. Who will willingly go with me further into the hidden Aymer places?"

 

Three marshies and three lizardfolk went with him, the taller Argonians being armed and armoured more Cyrodilin style and the marshies holding magical staffs of marsh wood. They only went for about ten metres when they encountered a large Ayleid style door with a tree design inside translucent material.

 

The Eternal Champion quickly found a way to open it and it did so. The group of seven made their way along the same hallway tunnel, the doors swinging closed behind them, down a rampway tunnel and then into a great dome shaped chamber. It was flooded with enough light that he caused his torch to go out and the others did the same with torches or crystal-handlamps. The seven stood and looked around in shock.

 

It was Ayleid in some ways, with power-stones of valar and welkynd kinds but also some less common kinds, in various wall sconces, on top of pillars and such like. There were high block areas rising above and walkway bridges. But there were also statues of elf figures sitting regally and robed in thrones or in armour with weapons or others just doing every day tasks. One was of an Aymer woman in a bath, quite naked, the bath being real clear cool water pouring in through a chute and out through hidden means.

 

Metallic tablets of ancient elvin languages and other symbology were stacked neatly inside horizontal shelf-slots carved out of stone walls. Some others were fused to wall surfaces by hidden means.

 

Then there were the short, squat, vaguely elf like humanoids dressed only in loincloths and pouch dotted waist belts, both men and women. They had albino white like skin and large pale yellow eyes. Their hair on their heads was dark off-white. There were fifteen of them, ten being female. Each had a curious ornate pistol holstered at his or her side and a shortsword at the other plus some knives, a canteen and some random odd items.

 

They had been busy sweeping up floors and dusting other surfaces all over the big chamber but now they stood frozen watching the strangers.

 

The Eternal Champion bowed gracefully and then he spoke in an ancient common Ayleid language. "Greetings to the Oomir, wondrous servants of the Aymer. We come in peace seeking simply answers to the nature of this place."

 

One, a woman, ran forward gracefully and stopped to look up at him with big, lovely yellow eyes. "You know these things why? Oomir supposed to be secret. Aymer supposed to be secret?"

 

He smiled. "I read the various tablets on the walls. Also I am the Eternal Champion and sometimes knowledge comes unbidden to me. We come in peace. Where are your lords and ladies?"

 

The Oomir smiled richly and very warmly at him. "You are big and handsome. Lords and ladies mostly went away a long time ago. They took the Three Secret Ways. Now there be one thousand, two hundred and three Aymer here. They have some children also but not counted as full Aymer until coming of age ceremonies though they are well cared for. Aymer love their children more than most Ayleids do. You must be escaped slaves from Ayleid Kingdoms."

 

The Eternal Champion smiled at her attempts to seduce him. "The Ayleid Kingdoms vanished a very long time ago and the Ayleids can no longer be found in Cyrodiil. Humans ruled Cyrodiil, they are called Cyrodilins, for a very long time. Then came the

TriImperials who conquered Tamriel. They brought with them the Master Spell."

 

At this the Oomir woman shivered. "That would explain much. Our lords and ladies have been much agitated over the last few decades. They have us guarding this chamber and we also keep it clean. My name is Oo-Olly! Do you think I have lovely eyes? You could give me child and we could be very happy together."

 

He bowed briefly. "Thank you! I will consider your offer."

 

But then a tall, elegant elfin lady was entering the room in robes that came down to her ankles. She smiled luke warmly at the Eternal Champion. "We have been waiting for you. Please forgive the Oomir and particularly young Oo-Olly. She simply wishes to gain status through bearing one or more children of unusual status. Lady Alzi'Tafu dreamed of your arrival some months ago. The dream cost her the last of her sanity. I am Alzi'Siffen, her elder half-sister. Please follow me as we have already laid out food, drink and fresh drinking water for your satisfaction."

 

She stroked the much shorter Oomir's head, turned and moved off elegantly and gracefully.

 

The marshies and lizardfolk knew enough to be cautious and of course he was also. The food, drink and water was in a large alcove of the same great chamber, an alcove hidden from the area they had first walked into by a great block platform of stone. There were no Oomir in that area.

 

Aymer soldiers stood guard against walls in armour and with various exotic weapons. Both weapons and armour were magical.

 

The Aymer noble faced the newcomers and spoke. "Oomirs are easily agitated and though we have told them much, there are things we have not told them, especially of that we are unsure of. You awoke in the cathedral that now stands above us on the island?"

 

He nodded. "Yes, in the bedroom of a long dead priest. A cathedral of the Nine Divines. I see no evidence of daedric worship."

 

"We gave that up when we ceased to be Ayleids and became Aymers."

 

He nodded. "A wise move. Respect them but do not worship them. What is this place?"

 

Alzi'Siffen looked around. "Our first arrival point beneath the ground. No, we did not build this place though you might easily assume so though we came here long before the cathedral was constructed. Another Mer came this way, a mysterious elvin people who's very existence is a fact lost from commonly known history. They came here in the Mythic Age. They were called the Waymer for they followed what they called the Way of Wisdom Seeking. The Waymer came from the Aldmer but were soon estranged for they did not agree with the path that the majority, the Aldmer, were taking. The Waymer rightly saw a lack of wisdom and compassion in the rise of the Altmers, Ayleids, Dwemers and other new elf peoples."

 

"We added to the chamber but we also learned from the golden alloy tablets of wisdom left here for any to read. It strengthened out dislike of slavery and improved the reasons for wanting to see the end of such. For previously we had considered that slavery of humans and other non-Ayleids weakened the spirit of our people but then we saw also the compassionate side of doing so. We added our own tablets."

 

Then she indicated the table of food and drink, the crystal bowls of sliced fruit in sweet spiced fruit juice, the crystal jugs of exotic wines, the plates of sweet-rolls, the savoury and sweet pastries and other items. "Oomir cultivate shoomrik, mossgri and ashork in the caves close to here. Then we transform them into perfect but highly nutritional copies of various foods and drinks. Please take your fill."

 

But the Eternal Champion lifted up his staff high into the air and out from it shot an expanding globe of magical energies, silverlight and just burning white light. At once everything changed.

 

The great chamber was now in darkness, was dusty and filled with cobwebs in some places. The tablets were gone. The tables were there but they were wreckage, were smashed furniture. In the middle of the air floated garish blood-crystal bowls and jugs of blood red substances.

 

The Aymer were elvin lichs in armour or robes, were terrible in their decayed undeath, were leering at the seven newcomers.

 

Alzi'Siffen grinned yellowing fangs in mockery at the newcomers. "Very good! It would have been too easy to trick you into drinking and eating Oomir blood and flesh spiced with some nice undeath magic. Now we fight."

 

But the Eternal Champion just sighed. "You are already undone!"

 

With screams of hate, agony and terror the lichs all perished, burning away brightly and savagely, their gear falling to the floor. Then they were gone.

 

The Oomir they had met first of all were gone, had been cleverly projected illusions but they found filthy, hungry, sickly Oomir in steel cages in an alcove close by. The elvin lichs who had been guarding them had vanished, fleeing away.

 

To be continued in SEVEN!

 

Edited July 19, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

SEVEN

 

When the Mother Compassionate of the Sisters Compassionate knocked on the big main doors of the mansion they opened up quietly inwards. There were three puzzled looking Sisters Compassionate standing behind her in the same kind of knee length robes clipped closed all the way down the front. The four women looked into a large empty entrance chamber, that is empty of life. For it had fine fur rugs, marble statues on pedestals, wall tapestries and bright crystal-lamps in ornate brass fixtures.

 

A great ornate white-golden mechanical clock stood against one wall and small clockwork figures marches, rode horses and danced while celestial orbs whirled and a hidden music-box played a fine tune.

 

Mother Compassionate Terrirara Ni'Clenn had seen much of oddness in her life, too much poverty and misery, a little too much violence, but this chamber was not only very exotic it promised even more behind the three big wooden doors. On each wall was a large, heavy wooden, lightly ornate door. To her right was one marked in various languages, including New Cyrodilin, the words East Wing, Mahargrah Guild. Before her was a door marked Mahargrah Private Domain. To the right was the door marked Mahargrah Community Centre.

 

Each door had a crystal disk embedded in it but two were glowing softly red while the one to the right was glowing softly green.

 

Sister Compassionate Marina Tarana stepped forward and spoke. "Forgive me, Mother Compassionate, despite your previous words I must observe outwardly that there is a very odd but pleasing feel about this place that began when we first came through the gate but which is stronger now we are inside the building."

 

Terrirara responded. "I observed the same for here the Master Spell itself is screened away meaning that here is a great but subtle power at play. I came here to plead for a case of obtaining this building as a new community centre for the sisterhood but now we face a very unexpected situation. Perhaps there is hope here?"

 

The door to the right swung quietly and smoothly open and Mahargrah himself stepped out in a silken house-robe. At his feet were two dogs being a bigger older female and a old pup male both of chunky handsome looks and black fur. They wagged their tails and panted in a friendly way at the newcomers.

 

Mahargrah sighed and spoke. "Well how goes it in merry old Martinpolis? I just arrived recently myself. I see the Sisterhood has come here with the appearance of this fine metropolis."

 

The Mother Compassionate bowed briefly. "You are Mahargrah of legends? I sense power in you and powerful shielding. The sisterhood had hoped to buy this old city mansion to use as a much needed community centre..."

 

He nodded. "You can much of the East Wing. Please follow me. I have plenty of questions to ask. I hope you have plenty of answers to give."

 

The outer doors closed all by themselves and were again firmly locked.

 

There was silence as they entered a large chamber that was a mixture of lobby with many comfortable looking chairs, stone statues, wide long couches that looked as if they could be used as beds, big thick floor furs that looked as if they also could be slept on, great metallic urns with big brass tap-sinks, large shelf-cases neatly filled with useful items, metallic machines that looked like dispensers of some kind, colorful rich wall tapestries and a great big horizontal serving slot, a counter like arrangement. There were also other items.

 

The chamber could take easily a hundred people with out anybody missing out on a couch or a chair.

 

Mahargrah bowed to the Mother Compassionate. "Apart from this chamber there is the area behind the counter, five large office chambers, five large storerooms full of hopefully useful items, a large meeting room, a set of five healers' rooms, twenty toilet-rooms, five large bath-rooms, five dormitory rooms, ten bedrooms, five bedsitter apartments, a large kitchen, two fair sized kitchens, five dining rooms, five large library-studies, one museum-gallery chamber, an alchemist laboratory, a large indoor garden area with sky-windows that can open to let in the rain, a large meeting hall combination theater, and a other facilities including a fair few empty spaces. This building is bigger inside than out and is divided into zones. You may only come into this zone."

 

Almost as one all three Sisters Compassionate fell to the floor but they slowed as a gentle but strong force slowed them down, then lifted them and carried them with a soft shimmer, to lay them on various couches.

 

Neither Terrirara or Mahargrah seemed at all surprised.

 

She spoke. "The Master Spell influenced those three strongly. Will they survive the freeing process? Despite being mastered by the Master Spell they have done much good for the Sisterhood Compassionate and are good people at heart. I would hate to see them come to harm."

 

He nodded. "We will need to do something special for them and others like them along with those who suffer worse than they do."

 

Three young robed women raced into the chamber, each in Sister Compassionate robes but not with the normal ranking hem and neckline bands of orange, red, yellow or white. Orange was Mother Compassionate, red was Guardian Compassionate, yellow was Sister Compassionate and white was Initiate Compassionate. These three had bands of grey and would soon be known as Assistants Compassionate.

 

With them came three metal mage-trolleys that moved all by themselves on rubber wheels. Each had a flat bed platform, was a trolley meant to carry patients.

 

Mahargrah nodded. "A healing immersion chamber awaits the three of them."

 

He turned and hugged her to himself. "How are you, daughter?"

 

At that she snorted. "I look a good deal older than you do but I feel young enough though much better away from the oppressive draining effects of the Master Spell. It feels like a fog has lifted from my mind. A few of us are old enough to remember when the TriEmpire and the Master Spell fell upon this poor war, famine and plague ridden continent. I was in Anvil and at first it seemed that the city would put up a big fight as it had done against one of the False Emperors during the War of the Five. But then the more powerful magic of the mages simply failed and many people, none of them mage, null or antimage, suddenly became loyal to the new empire."

 

She shook her head in wonder, in remembered shock and horror. "The Order of the Nine called upon the Nine Divines and for a while the skies filled with strange thunder and lightening. But then it was gone and since then the Nine Divines have remained silent to all as have all gods and all daedra in most of Tamriel. No magic, no priestesses or priests as we knew them, no Emperors and yet much is the same, at least on the surface. Except that nobody feels extremes of emotion, neither good or bad. We all live a fairly dull, a very consistent existence. There is no more real creativity, no genius, no real celebrating, nothing to make life vital."

 

"Then there are those who fade away, who go to sleep until they go into a coma and never awake. There are those who go insane in various ways. There are those who sicken with mysterious incurable illnesses to become bed ridden or crippled or dead. All these and other such odd troubles are still relatively minor but are slowly but steadily increasing."

 

She shrugged. "The serums that the TriEmpire give out for free, they seem to help but the serums are costly to make, there never seems to be enough of them and they are becoming slowly less effective."

 

He nodded. "Perhaps I could also assist there though it would be strange for me to assist the TriEmpire in doing something."

 

He stretched. "Beneath us but still inside this 'zone' are entrances into the sewer-utility tunnels of this city, a large and complicated maze that you may smuggle people through to come into this place but never leave, at least never back to Martinpolis or Tamriel. Bring others openly, of course, who will officially be here."

 

She smiled. "Do not fear, we will do this in such a way that the TriEmpire will not notice anything."

 

In this she was both right and wrong.

 

The Assistants Compassionate and the mage-carts took the three sleeping Sisters Compassionate away from that chamber.

 

He led her off to meet the animals, the ever-babies and others.

 

Continued in EIGHT!

 

Edited July 20, 2009 by Maharg67