Game Epic of Stories

[Maharg67]

Zero [1][1]

 

The thirteen teen-adults appeared in the super virtual reality gameworld of Tamriel, in the Imperial Province of Cyrodiil, in the Imperial Capital City of Imperiarna. They appeared just in the right time, and place, to interfere with the flow of gameworld history and major quests.

 

With out meaning to do so they fought for their own survival and thus stopped Emperor Uriel Septum VII from being assassinated by the dreaded MythicDawn traitors. The MythicDawn were cultists, in red robes, who served the insane Manker Cameron who led the cult that worshipped the Daedric Prince MehrunesDagon.

 

Each of the GamerThirteen teen had two gamerings, two gamebracelets and a gameband on his or her head. They could summon special companions. They had special abilities of mind-body-spirit.

 

I AM CHANGING THE STORY BY GOING BACK AND ALTERING IT FROM POST#3 ONWARDS. I AM SORRY IF THIS ANNOYS ANYBODY.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 1.1[1][2]

 

Jonnie04 slashed his glowing bladed longsword through the air and decapitated a cultist attacker, the wound being cauterized by the energies. The red robed assassin collapsed backwards, a headless woman's body, and hit the floor. The Emperor was looking most confused as he stared around in wonder at the thirteen newcomers who had appeared out of seemingly nowhere with a soft shimmering. The handful of Bladeguards looked, on the other hand, relieved as their new allies helped to save their beloved sire.

 

Jannie02 fired off an arrow from her shortbow and killed another cultist in the strange underground zone beneath the Imperial Palace. She moved with amazing speed and agility, as the others of the thirteen did, and shot another of the cultist with another arrow.

 

Then the last of the enemy had fallen and Jorzi01 approached the Emperor and young Baurus of the Bladeguards, the special personal guards of the Emperor. The Bladeguards used magically made katanas and other such swords using traditional protected secrets and ingredients. Such weapons had intrinsic magic of hardness and also did extra damage to such as the daedric and undead.

 

Uriel shook his head. "The Nine Divines will not be pleased that their prophecies have been diverted but it will not be the first time it has happened by what I have studied. At least I can speak more normally now for the prophetic visions no longer fill my mind. Warning messages must be sent to all of the Imperial Cities, to all areas across the Empire be that Cyrodiil or beyond. Legions must be drawn back to Cyrodiil from the wildlands of Skyrim."

Edited July 5, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 1.2[2][3]

 

He turned to the armoured, armed, Venturers13 and frowned softly. "I am grateful for your intervention, on a personal level, but I fear you have interfered with the proper flow of destiny. Or perhaps it was not you but somebody who sent you here. Still, my mind is no longer filled with the words of prophetic visioning and now my speech is more of the common kind. Forgive me but as Emperor I must have you confined, so that you can be investigated, but it will be in comfort. I hope that you will come willingly with me."

 

There was a flicker of motion and all but five, of the thirteen, were gone. The one 1of13 remained as did one of the 3of13 and three of the 9of13.

 

Jorzi01 bowed, briefly, from her waist. "We have to carry out a series of quests and missions linked with those quests. We come from beyond Nirn and had no intention of interfering with what you call the 'proper flow of destiny'. I do not know what you mean by those words. We believe in karma that is like fate in which one can choose a way of influencing that fate, at least to some extent."

 

Uriel Septim VII smiled. "Then your belief in 'karma' is much like the 'proper flow of destiny'. I fear that the Nine Divines will not be pleased with these events but they have admitted, more than once, that even they are not above sudden changes in the 'ways of destiny'. I am glad that very few heard my prophetic words for now we can all pretend that I never spoke them in the first place and I will stop getting such sharp headaches. If you could all escape so easily, why did you five remain? I 'sense' that you are the leader."

 

Jorzi01 bowed again. "Sire, perhaps I should call you sire, you may hold the five of us as hostages but see us as allies against what is coming, against the three conspiracies that you face of which only one is that of the MythicDawn and MehrunesDagon.

 

Uriel sighed. "You really do not need to bow every time you speak to me and it would be best to call me 'sire' for reasons of public relations and politics. I doubt we could keep you hostage if you decided otherwise. I am starting to 'sense' a great deal of power in you and in artifacts that you carry. Please come with me as guests. There will be no attempt at confinement. Let us hope to form a most productive alliance between each other."

Edited July 5, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 2.1[3][4]

Jannie02 dived one side of the goblin's hurled stabspear, only moving just enough to avoid danger and thus conserving energy. She then threw her own captured stabspear and killed the wild tribal goblin at once. The goblins were intruders into the cave systems that ran even deeper than the basement levels of the Imperial Palace, the sewer tunnels or other formal parts of the great city. A hoblin slashed at a goblin with her steel shortsword, getting past the goblin's crude iron mace to cut into the goblin's chest. The wild goblins screamed in rage and hatred.

Hoblins, who were lightly hairy cousins to hairless goblins, were allowed there as so called Semicitizens. Hoblins hunted for such as caverats, clawcrabs and huntispiders; they helped keep such troublesome creatures in less dangerous numbers. They were rewarded with tradegoods, copper imperial coinage and some services. Goblins were troublesome to all except for a minority of 'tame goblins'.

The four newcomers stopped fighting as the surviving goblins fled, taking their dead and wounded with them. 22 hoblins were there, some wounded, including shamans, wartors and healers. Wartors were mages specializing in battle magics. All shamans, wartors and healers, were female; all were magetors. All warriors were male. There were about three males to every female and the females were treated as equals.

The male hoblin chieftain came to stand before Jannie02, as did the female head shaman. The shamans had higher caste status, and ranking, than did either wartors or healers.

The female spoke. "I am HasinTa of TaClanTo. You may claim some of the loot, of course."

Jannie02 responded. "We would have information instead, which is far more valuable to us. In turn we will do some strong healing of your wounded people and give over some small, useful, tradegoods."

HasinTa paused before responding. "Yes, as you wish, for I suspect you to be strangers here and we have much valuable local knowledge. I hope you have some nice chewing-weed."

Jannie02 sighed. "No but we have tinderboxes, general purpose steel knives in scabbards and other items of the kind. All are of high quality to be used directly or to be traded."

The chieftain smiled. "Very good!"

Edited July 19, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 3.1[4][5]

 

Jonnie04 led Jakor11, Jennz12 and Joplin13 up into the Imperial Palace proper, that is into the lowest of the officially used basement levels. They had to get through thick, heavily locked and magically warded doors but did so with out any real trouble. They closed, locked and made sure the doors were warded behind them.

 

It proved easy enough to avoid the small groups of Imperial Palace Guards or other groups which always had three guards with them. There were workers of varied kinds from cleaners to clerks, movers, artisans and other kinds.

 

Big golems came lumbering along with the group at times, most being of the more common iron reinforced clay kind (iron-clay golems). Smaller, more agile, iron-clay golemites were less common than their golem cousins but fairly numerous.

 

Of the Imperials humans were most common and of the humans Cyrodilins were the majority. Other humans were Redguards, Skyrimfolk and yet others.

 

There were also catfolk, lizardfolk, apefolk and orcs. Orcs were said to be Orcmer, of the Mer, but this was not true for orcs were the hybrid descendents of the true Orcmer who had vanished a long time ago from Tamriel. In this they were like other Mer peoples such as the Ayleid and Dwemer.

 

The four infiltrated a chamber full of expensive old books, carefully stored and magically preserved. They began to do research but soon found that the books were not easy to read, were not always clever, were often contradictory to one another and were hard work for seemingly little reward. Still they persisted and 'hard scanned' copies of tomes into the Gamemind with its assistance. The knowledge they gained then, and there, would be but part of what they picked up.

 

It was there that they found a strange small human skin leather book, old and partly damaged, hidden behind a big old wooden bookcase. It was by Mankar Cameron, was an early publication of his that was little more than a largely ineligible rant. In it Mankar Cameron attacked the Nine Divines of the Great Divinity, Three Lesser Divinities and Nine Divines along with Demidivines (independent demigods), Semidivines (semi-independent demigods) and Subdivines (dependent demigods). From that small book they were to gain some very valuable information.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Zero [2][6]

 

The failure to assinate the Emperor, by the MythicDawn, was reflected in their failure to kill any of the three Imperial Princes born to both Emperor Uriel Septim VII and Empress Caula Voria. Edman was lightly wounded but the other two escaped seemingly unscathed.

 

News of these events, and the brief appearance of Oblivion Gates through out Tamriel, was quickly spread across the Empire by magical and more conventional means. Mages communicated through various means and special couriers were sent through the ancient teleport-gates though there was always the threat that they would vanish or end up in the wrong place in the Empire; it was theorized that at least some of those that vanished ended up in unknown locations. Special couriers got very high pay and only did one trip before retiring.

 

The Imperium (core of the Empire being the Emperor, Imperial Court, Imperial High Councils, Imperial High Government, Imperial Military Elite Forces and Imperial Senate) held many meetings, most of which did nothing to assist to resolve the situation. Senators debated while Ministers put forward reports and High Councils managed only to duplicate the same kind of decisions. The ImperialEye sent spies all over the Empire and took in special reports from all of its informers. The infamous ImperialHand assassins had no target to strike against. The Bladeguards also floundered as they worked with others to find the MythicDawn who seemingly had all vanished. Military forces were on full alert but there was nothing to defend the Empire from.

 

Emperor Uriel Septim VII issued a decree that the Imperium return to largely normal duties. Most of the Empire had never stopped going about its normal business so the decree had no effect upon it.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 4.1[5][7]

 

"This small human leather bound volume was found, by my people, in an Imperial Palace basement level chamber full of impressive looking but oddly useless scholary tomes." Jorzi01 passed the book to the Emperor, who stood before a big one-way magical window looking out over a large area of Imperiarna, the Imperial Capital City. The view was a very impressive one of many fine structures such as the Imperiarna Arena where magic made painful quasideaths happen, the Imperial University, the Imperial Hospital and various big other buildings including the Imperial Grand Cathedral of the Greater Divinity. "The tomes were by the Grand Learned Scholars of the Grand Royal Academy of Learned Scholarship."

 

Uriel sighed. "A pack of arrogant, foolish old men who believed strongly that they were far more intelligent, knowledgeable and wise than they actually were. When the last one died their whole library of published tomes was sent to the Imperial Palace as a tribute to the Emperor before last. I suspect strongly that somebody simply wanted to get rid of them because they took up valuable room. So this ugly thing was hidden in that chamber."

 

"It was behind a bookcase so it might have been deliberately, or accidentally, concealed there." The Venturer13 took out a neatly folded sheet of paper, from a pouch, and opened it up to look at it. "Relevant information in it, that we found, was buried deeply beneath much insane ravings by Mankar Cameron. He speaks of tomes that he intends to write in future that will have concealed in them a coded message that will in turn lead to a hidden map, in this city, that will lead to the hidden main Daedric Temple of MehrunesDagon. Yet he also speaks of a secret shrine chamber, also to MehrunesDagon, beneath the Imperial City of Kvatch where something very important is hidden. The shrine chamber's location was unknown to Mankar Cameron at that time, much to his chagrin. The chamber is of Ayleid construction and dates back to when the Ayleid Kingdoms ruled Cyrodiil and had their large, mostly underground cities. Under Kvatch is what remains of such a city."

 

She shrugged. "Sire, perhaps your own scholars could gain more from this book than we have already done."

 

Uriel nodded. "The Arcane University has sages who have studied the daedra all of their lives. At least a couple of them have focused on MehrunesDagon and his followers. Thank your people for finding the book even though they are tresspassing on the Emperor's own territory."

 

Jorzi01 smiled. "Sire, I will inform them you are happy with their success and will allow them to go where they will."

 

The Emperor sighed.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 5.1[6][8]

When Imperial Scholars went through the small, ugly, human leather tome they found an early reference to four books to be written by Mankar Camaron. They would be called the Mythic Dawn Commentaries. A search was began, at once, for any of the four books. Jorzi01 led her four comrades, going with Baurus the Bladeguard, through the bustling streets of Imperiarna. They left the Imperial Palace behind, all of them being dressed in plain clothes and have only such as knives openly worn but also concealed weapons.

It was an impressive city with cleanliness kept by wardens and street sweepers. The footpath traffic was quite thick and the vehicle traffic was fairly so. While some rode horses, most traffic was in the form of horse-cabs, horse-omnibuses, horse-carts and horse-wagons. There were very few magical vehicles and about half of those were medium sized lumbering magic-mechanical lorries full of heavy goods such as lumber or bricks.

Jorzi01 gave every beggar, that they ran into, a silver coin. Baurus wondered at her over generosity until she explained she was buttering up the beggars for future attempts to gain valuable information from them.

She nodded. "The possible gaining of such information is worth the gamble of a few basic silver coins."

The Bladeguard sighed. "You might gain the wrong kind of attention."

Jorzi01 smiled. "That would be most interesting a result. We would have some fun with this 'wrong kind of attention'."

Baurus shook his head, in wonder, as a horse-omnibus, top deck being semi-open, rumbled past on the flat cobble street. "I suggest we focus on talking with some of the people who seem to know what is really going on in the city. There is a man called Halfblind Pete who has a dubious reputation for having links with various daedric cults. Perhaps he has some information, for sale, on the MythicDawn."

But when they got to Halfblind Pete's house they met with Imperiarna Sheriff's detectives, and constables, investigating the brutally efficient murder of the man. There soon turned out to be no clues to who had killed the man or why.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 6.1[7][9]

Halfblind Pete's house was in a secondary temple district, being not one of the larger Grand Imperial City Districts. Lesser known, less popular, deities had temples there and there were cheaper commercial establishments, copper coin housing, for the poor along with some small warehouses. The SisterBrotherhood of Compassion had a centre in the district that served the poor in many ways.

 

Baurus, and the five Venturers13 with him, tried to find some answers to the brutal murder of Halfblind Pete and it was a beggar, named Sally Shoeless, who spoke quietly to Jorzi01 of dark, flittering figures moving through the darkness. The beggar might have assumed they were Dark Brotherhood Assassins but they smelt strange, like zombies, but not as badly. A masked, robed, necromancer had been with them just before the two figures left that one. Jorzi01 went to pay the woman but the beggar refused to take it, stating that Jorzi01 only needed to give her kind a silver coin each every few days. 'Real beggars' had their own kind of pride and code of honor.

 

Baurus spoke with a high ranking High Deputy Sheriff who served the High Sheriff. There were nine Sheriffs in the city but only one High Sheriff and only three High Deputy Sheriffs. The tough looking woman wore typical Sheriff's type armour and was armed with law enforcer weapons. She held a solid wooden quarterstaff, capped and banded with steel, that she rested against the ground. She was a white Cyrodilin but was considered an Imperial because of her Imperial Citizenship.

 

The woman was respectful of Baurus but eyed the Venturers with obvious suspicion. "There has been a series of murders, of the same kind that saw the ending of Halfblind Pete, across parts the city. Most have taken place in this minor temple district with its many abandoned, sealed up, small temples. We have gained information from a few sources but mostly the beggars who have been spooked by what they call the 'rot stinking killers'. One informer is a vampire who said she 'sensed' the two, she hid from, were undead but not like any kind of undead she had ever encountered. She 'sensed' that the two were dangerous enough even to take on her; she is a seasoned, but legally registered, vampire. Who are these five who look oddly like each other and young?"

 

Jorzi01 spoke. "I am Jorzi of the Venturers. We come from another realm seeking powerful, truly evil, criminals and what they have stolen from the peoples of our home realms. We are not from Tamriel or from Nirn."

 

The High Deputy Sheriff shook her head in wonder. "Once I would have not believed you but many strange things have been happening lately and so I choose to give you the benefit of the doubt. I would like the four of you to come with me."

Edited July 15, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One 7.1[8][10]

High Deputy Sheriff Harisha Tokemia took them to a Sheriff's Fort and through heavy stone spaces, down a rampway, and to a morgue where bodies were preserved by magical means plus ice. The body of Halfblind Pete was dessicated, as if flesh and fluids, including blood, had been drained from the poor fool.

She showed them eight others, apparently killed in the same fashion, six of them being killed in the same district as Halfblind Pete had been. Two had been murdered in a neighbouring district, a very small walled in place of dark exotic nature and reputation. It was one area the Empire wanted to get rid of totally but it had turned out to be a good dumping ground for 'extreme misfits' who had lost their citizenship, if they had ever had it. It was known as the Shaggs and even the Sheriff's people went there in larger groups equipped with more than their standard weapons. The Shaggs had no standard Sheriff but a unique paramilitary force that tried to keep law and order there; the Shagguards were very tough, skilled, experienced and could be very brutally efficient if they had to be.

Tokemia grimaced. "Its hard enough dealing with typical crime of the Crime Guilds be it the Thieves Guild or the Smugglers Guild or the Forgers Guild or some other criminal scum who have the delusion that they can form a respected body named a 'guild'. Freelancers add to the problems as do the Dark Brotherhood and the street gangs. We do not need this sort of added burden."

Jorzi01 took out a short, silvery metallic tube. She thrust it into one of the victim's chest before any of the others could say anything. While poor Baurus had been visibly queasy at the sight of the unnaturally killed bodies, the Venturers13 had been quite calm about the whole matter. Then she pulled the tube out and examined some small crystal orbs melded into one side, in a row running down part of the device. They all glowed amber.

Jorzi01 cursed softly, in a language unknown to the locals, and then spoke fluently in Common Cyrodilic. "The Necrowizard Frankenstane created his own kind of undead by putting together bits of bodies and using what he called electrical magic. He created a small army of reanimants, 'living-dead' monsters unlike the 'undead' of tradition such as zombies, skelties or vampires. He worked first in Castle Frankenstane, in the isolated Kingdom of Grayaland in the Tamriellan Underlands. For a time he remained well hidden from the nobility of the lands though the peasants feared him for good reason; they tried to warn the local Royal Sheriff of the danger but he ignored the warnings; perhaps he was corrupt but most likely he was just a fool. Only when some twenty reanimants went rogue, attacking peasants and a local town of guildfolk, did the Sheriff act. Even then he remained a fool and paid for it dearly."

Edited July 15, 2014 by Maharg67