Game Epic of Stories

[Maharg67]

Story Zero Continues!

Story One Ends Here!

Story Two Starts Here!

[Maharg67]

Two 1.1[1][60]

The man screamed out in agony, rage and terror as he became engulfed in strange glimmering energies. Then the worker fell upon the floor of the inn's taproom and writhed around. The body began to transform as the Bladers moved in, super secretive Blades, being disguised as Cyrodilins of varied backgrounds. They expertly cleared the area around the victim and Blandt shot the man with a tiny dart from a metallic tube in his leather gloved hand.

The man was not longer so, was no longer the living human-orc hybrid that he had been, as he struggled to get to his feet, his face contorted with bizarre desires. His changing mouth was gaping open to expose strange translucent fangs already appearing and translucent claws were starting to protrude from his hands.

The dart's serum began to be effective and the necrozom shuddered terribly, to collapse back onto the floor. The large, quite isolated, Commons Town of Yorkly, had suffered from yet another such awful incident. Some dark faction was targeting the settlement with some warped kind of experiment or so the Bladers figured.

 

The local Sheriff cooperated for his people did not want to deal directly with the threat; instead they dealt with any panic, amongst the citizenry, that might arise. They were also hunting down some con artists who were selling people fake magical serums to supposedly protect them from the 'living-death disease'. This was despite that the Town Leadership Council had been trying to educate people that there was no such disease at work.

 

The necrozom died and lay there as it partly burned away in small areas all over.

 

Local people were not happy; the town had a large timber industry with foresters, wood workers and others working directly, or indirectly, with the forest. Imperial Rangers made sure that the forests were dealt with carefully, sometimes annoying local workers in doing so. Now there were the unholy happenings and strangers who had suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, to deal with them. The strangers kept their true identities hidden and were amazingly good fighters, as a few fearful aggressive locals had learned the hard way.

 

In a very short time both the Bladers, and the body, were gone from the Falling Tree Inn.

 

The dark brown hood-robed man had quietly, indirectly, observed the whole event from a corner of the chamber. He took out a small leather bound journal, opened it and stared at a blank page. At once writing began to form on it as if it was being written into. He was scowling softly as he reported that the test had failed, thanks to the interferance of the strangers, and that it was being moved to another, fairly isolated, town or small city.

[Maharg67]

Two 2.1[2][61]

The real Jadekia, Eternal Champion, lay back exhausted against a shiny metallic wall. Around her stretched the Oblivion Realm known as the Mazelands. From where she stood she could see over the top of a vast area of mazes. Sections were made of transparent glass, mirrors, marble, hedge, concrete, brickwork, steel and other appearances but that was illusion. The truth was that it was all powerful daedric-divine created material. Yes, as impossible as that should be, it had been made by a combination of the two opposing magics but with some form of 'catalyst' that made it all possible.

The catalyst was an entity that should not have existed either and that was a DaedraDivine, that is a hybrid that was more daedric than divine in nature. Except that it was, in theory, an unnatural combination.

Shanggrazil stood in the distance, an armored monstrosity of a hulking humanoid with six arms, each pair of a different kind, and two great thick legs. The two upper arms were thinner, double jointed, and had hands for doing finer manipulations of things. The middle arms could hurl magical energy projectiles, summon monsters, or wield weapons or other devices. The thickest, lowest, arms could project very powerful magical energy fields, wield great magical shields or just strike out as deadly weapons in their own right.

Shanggrazil laughed. He could not quite see Jadekia, thanks to her powers and knowledge, but he could 'sense' that she was close. "Having fun, Eternal Champion? What a joke that you are, getting so lost and sorry in the Great Mazes! One would have thought you could do better than that. I will get you soon and will destroy you. You will return but only to be trapped here once more. I will enjoy hunting you for ever and killing you endlessly."

That was not true but she could not be bothered educating him on the truth; it was likely that the great arrogant fool would not believe her anyway. For all of his impressive size, and power, he was not much by the standards of either the Divinities or the Grand Daedra. Anyway her daughter, Shaekia, was out there carrying out important tasks as a 'secondary aspect' of the Eternal Champion. Jadekia, herself, had been setting up a nice trap for the big hulking fool but Shaekia was busy gaining them an exit from there and an entrance into another Realm of Oblivion known as the Deadlands.

Something slithered close by but the local monsters had all learned to avoid fighting both Jadekia and Shaekia. The slithering hybrid human-snake appeared eagerly with a woven basket full of freshly picked mogsberries, mazebulbs and empty mazebulbs used as containers to carry clean water. Others came, being crazy mixtures of other mazefolk such as spider-gnomes, true elf-dogs and many others. Many had baskets but about half were empty 'just in case Jadekia gave out small gifts as she always did'. There were also 'beastfolk' and dull mirror skinned humanoids. Jadekia smiled at the appearance of some of her new friends.

[Maharg67]

Zero [13][62]

Venturers began to emerge from the tritranscube that was known also as the TTC131313. They came first as the first Venturers13 named as they used to be but all of them ending with the number 131301. So it was led by Jorzi131301. The Jorzi, who had been sleeping in the lap of the CloneEmperor, gained a special status. She was JorziA13A. They looked identical, were semiautonomus to the same great network of network-clones.

The CloneEmperor had been overseeing the creation of a new, general, map of the Grand Imperial City, including both the Overcity and Midcity but not the Undercity. The new Jorzi13 took over the magiputer with the magimap cube and the magiputer linked to the summoning-disk. They summoned some elemental seeker entities, sending the energy spheres out to explore in groups of three.

Much was left to explore, to chart, especially the secondary and hidden areas. Yet the whole magimap seemed to be completed in a general fashion.

Martin was researching books, scrolls, tablets and other sources of information. The 'Grand Ayleid' quickly turned out to have been not very great quality scholars. Their sources of knowledge seemed to be more about self aggrandizement, foolish assumptions and a lack of real effort-focus. Then he found some exceptions and they more than made up for the other texts that had been brought to him. None seemed to know the answers when he asked who had brought them to him, where they had been discovered, or when they had been delivered.

The Bladers were hunting down outbreaks of people turning into living-dead monsters. They did so with the help of other Blades, the ImperialEye and many other factions. Ironically most of them knew little, or nothing, of the Bladers. Most did not even know the name.

Jadekia, and Shaekia, kept active in the Mirrorlands as they thwarted the monstrous Shanggrazil, the DaedraDivine hybrid and gathered more follower-friends from local mazefolk.

 

The first liftergas airboat prototype flew in the Imperial City of Skyrisena. The city was a high altitude one being on a high plateau. It was a good place for testing the first airboat but also dangerous at times.

[Maharg67]

Two 3.1[3][63]

There were three Blader13s functioning out in Tamriel, trying to deal with the outbreaks of necrozoms, as created by a range of peoples including humans, orcs, beastfolk and hybrids. As yet no Mer had been effected in that way. As for reasons for the changes, the Bladers were soon discovering clues such as small, empty, bottles of some kind of skooma like drug; skooma was a deadly drug in its own right but this was skooma mixed with some very strange ingredients along with some more common, known, ones.

Skooma, opium, marijuana, mindflowerin, cocaine and other drugs were troublesome to the Empire except when used as medicines but alcohol was actually more abused, across the Empire, than all of them put together. Skooma was the worst culprit of the 'antisocial' drugs.

The dark, cramped, castle-town of Vandolvashe was famous for the only underground Dwemer ruins found in Cyrodiil. They were in the mountains that divided Cyrodiil from Skyrim. Vandolvashe prospered partly because of the large party of archeologists, mages and others living there to explore, chart and research the ruins. Fighters Guild warriors, of the age old guild that was a mixture of fighting related trades, dealt with the dangers of the ruins as best they could with the help of Mages Guild battlemages and mages.

Cerin01 led twelve Bladers quickly, quietly, along a damp laneway between two high stone block walls. Above was a wooden platform with holes that were beneath toilets that were not used except during sieges, and that had not happened in a very long time. Whispers, paid for information, and reports from ImperialEye agents, had all directed one of the Blader13s to the town and then to that place.

They slowed as ahead appeared, as promised, three Dark Brotherhood Assassins in dark, tight fitting, gear and masked hoods. With out any real explanation, the Dark Brotherhood had offered its services free to help destroy both the threats of the living-dead and undead conspiracies. Now they were sending three, of their best, to help track down those making something called kroama being skooma with additives. Kroama turned people into monsters, or at least many of them. Strangely enough it did not always seem to turn 'victims' into necrozoms.

A woman spoke, her voice disguised with the use of magic. "Follow us!"

 

They moved quickly again and the Bladers had to slow down for the slower moving, noisier, Dark Brothers and one Dark Sister. They soon came to a halt as ahead lay a large wooden roofed over courtyard long abandoned or so it looked at first glance. Then the Bladers saw the three figures hanging upside down from hooks on a stone block castle wall. They were not surprised to see the real Dark Brotherhood Assassins for they had smelt the 'wrongness' of the fake ones.

[Maharg67]

Two 3.2[4][64]

The Bladers attacked the living-dead creatures, 'the stinking rot killers' that magic had been used to try to hide the smell of. As they fought, the hood fell off the female one and then a mask. The Bladers were shocked for the living-dead thing was a netclone, was one of their own kind turned living-dead. The creature's face contorted with bizarre emotions even as the two male things were cut down, were killed, and they burned away.

Then she spoke. "We were betrayed by those that sent us here from Earthriel. We were netclones experimented upon and turned into necroclones, our distorted link-networks being used to control us. But we have been fighting back in our own way. Kill me, give me merciful death, and search the courtyard quickly before other necroclones come; they will have to fight you but we have managed to delay their arrival. You will find useful information, items, to help lead you to the shocking truth of what is really going on. Quick, kill me!"

 

One of the living netclones killed the living-dead netclone (necroclone) and they a 'spiritual lifting' when it burned away, as had happened when the others burned away.

 

They found the dented, unimpressive looking, case hidden under a loose heap of old wooden planks. The contents were protected by leather bags. After a quick, but careful, inspection they departed in a hurry. Even as they got through a partly concealed door, left open deliberately it seemed, more necroclones arrived. There were many of them and though individually slower, less agile, than the Bladers they outnumbered them at least three to one.

 

Where had all of the creatures come from?

 

They found themselves in a long abandoned castle area, at first, but then they came into a recently used area. They could not pause for long but it quickly became apparent that it was where a large batch of kroama. Much had been taken but empty skooma bottles, some glass tubes and big metal sinks still held clues to what had been done there. Then the Bladers were fleeing.

 

As the Bladers knew would happen, by the time they returned as part of a larger military force, the necroclones were gone as were the last remaining clues of the making of the kroama.

[Maharg67]

Two 4.1[5][65]

Venturers were sweeping through parts of the Grand Imperial City, Overcity and Midcity, and dealing with pockets of Ayleid living-dead. Three more Venturer13s had arisen from the tritranscube and had new armor, arms and other gear. They fired zipdarters, pistols and carbines, that generated quasienergy projectiles as generated inside the weapons. They used shortswords, longswords and bows. There were other devices of technomagical make. The bows could generate energy arrows or use special kinds of solid arrows with a variety of arrowheads.

Blades, Imperial City Guards, Imperial Palace Guards, Imperial Legionaries, elite mercenaries, Mages Guild people, all and others were busy doing the work. But it was soon revealed that somebody was trying to induce people to steal items for them using large, generous, bribes.

In the barely organized chaos, of the 'Grand Imperial Sweep', a young man appeared to walk alone along an area of the Midcity that was an Aldmer tunnel. Its metallic stone shone softly in the light thrown by glowcrystal lamps. Yet there was a 'feel' about him that he was not vulnerable, that he was quietly aware of everything around him and was always ready to deal with what ever happened. In this he was like the netclones of the clonenets, that is the clone13s. He wore typical Midcity gear that was clean, neat, but practical. Leather armor and some weapons looked normal enough, at a glance.

With a soft shimmering effect, 13 Venturers appeared behind him and quietly began to follow. They summoned 13 big, pacing, catdogs each with its own fitted armor and specialised weapons for catdogs had enhanced intelligence. Catdogs were hybrids of cat, dog and other elements but really did look to be part cat and part dog. Now, and then, a catdog got a scratch behind an ear or her-or-his head rubbed.

He spoke quietly quietly but somehow all of the Venturers, and catdogs, heard what he had to say. "I am the Eternal Seeker, following a trail of bread crumbs from world to world to world... Now I am diverted to try to assist the Eternal Champion, both Jadekia and Shaekia, to go from the Mirrorlands to the Deadlands, both being Oblivion Realms. We will need to enter an area infested by powerful living-dead entities and then one guarded by necrogroms."

 

They came abruptly upon a large dome-disk shaped chamber, that is generally disk shaped but with a domed ceiling. Light came down from the apex of the translucent crystaline ceiling. The skirmish had been a savage one with living-dead burned remains scattered across it. A necromage lay dead to one side. The Eternal Seeker walked carefully to the center of the chamber, the others fanning out as they followed him. Then he stopped and looked around with an odd half smile on his face. "MehrunesDagon has begun to gain his revenge! MythicDawners were here and they summoned not only armor-arms but exotic daedric entities special to their use. They are humanoids inside MythicDawn armor but they are not followers. They are called mythicgoms. The MythicDawners appear now to all be battlemages or mages in lightly armored red robe-tunics."

 

The Eternal Seeker had been picking up 'impressions' of what had happened there only a couple of hours ago. He crouched at the very center of the floor and found there a small disk, almost merged smooth into the floor. Then he carefully checked the tiny symbols around its edge before he gripped the disk to start turning it clockwise. He kept moving it clockwise, the anticlockwise, then clockwise and so on but always for different distances. Then he stepped back, as did the few Venturers and catdogs who had stood close to him. A circular line appeared in the floor. They all moved to stand inside the circular line and Eternal Seeker crouched, pressed the small disk, and they all vanished with a soft sparkling shimmer.

[Maharg67]

Two 5.1[6][66]

"How many forces do we have in the Undercity and of what kind are they?" The CloneEmperor sat forward for it was one of those moments when no Venturer sat, or slept, in his lap. A large ginger tabby cat was curled up at the feet of the Dragonthrone. The Venturers had been saving abandoned cats, dogs and other animals before fixing them up and letting them wander an area of the Grand Imperial Palace. The palace servants were not all pleased by the sudden surge in animal population and neither were all of the animals that had lived there. The CloneEmperor was studying the big, slanted, map that had been changed so it could show different areas; it now showed a multiple map of the Undercity. "Focusing on the Shades, that is!"

Midcity Sheriff Sandroso Trent frowned hard. He was a tall, skinny muscular, Cyrodilin Imperial with a river ginger hair mop on his head. "One small garrison of Grand Imperial City Guards and five militia garrisons along with militia patrols, we overstretched Sheriffs and mercenaries, volunteers plus others that would assist in an emergency. That is in Undertown, Shaftusta and the GlowWays. There is nothing official in the Shades but there is an unofficial Sheriff unofficially supported by the High Sheriff of Imperiarna."

The CloneEmperor nodded. "Time to make the Shades Sheriff official and to pay that law enforcement body directly from the Imperial Treasury."

A political consultant frowned softly. She was from the ImperialSages Academy in Imperiarna; the CloneEmperor considered the ImperialSages to be generally more useless than useful. Martin was easily smarter, wiser and more learned than most of them, who came from wealthy families who were dealing with what they saw as fairly useless relations. There were exceptions and this woman, Redanta Coolloxa, was one of them.

She spoke with care. "Sire, there has been a series of political actions that appear to be directed at having the Undercity sealed off, quarantined. What ever faction is behind the attempted manipulations, it has hidden its identity quite well. Last night Imperial Senator Troy Betheska died of a heart attack while with an expensive prostitute in an exclusive brothel in Undertown known as the Flushed Arousal. Seems the prostitutes there are willing to do things that others are not but they are very expensive."

 

The CloneEmperor scowled softly. "It used to be up in the Overcity but was forced to move deeper because of its controversial services and various horror stories. Was there anything of interest with this death, any links with what has been happening or any clues that it might have been an assassination?"

 

"Sire, the male prostitute has vanished, that was the last person to be with the Imperial Senator Betheska." Redanta nodded. "He had only recently been hired by the brothel but they state he passed all checks of his character, safety and background. I would not trust to such promises. Deeper checking into Betheska has exposed secret, unsavory, links with the Grand Imperial Guild. The investigations of the Grand Imperial Guild continue and investigators confirmed that they have been checking out two Imperial Senators, one being Betheska."

[Maharg67]

Two 5.2[7][67]

The CloneEmperor frowned hard. "How goes the unofficial investigation of the Grand Imperial Guild?"

The ImperialSage sighed. "Sire, the MadEmperor would have to speak of such matters for his ImperialEye Agents refuse to communicate directly with any but him. I am afraid that Jensine has been discovered as a double agent and has been ejected from the ImperialEye; they may have done more to her if she had not been linked to the Eternal Guardian and the Blades."

Trent spoke out. "Sire, I think that there is something I need to add."

The CloneEmperor gave him a nod.

Trent spoke again. "Sire, there has been spotted curious activities by Grand Imperial Guild convoys in the Shades. Dozens of tightly sealed up magic-mechanical wagons have been spotted moving through the ancient, great, hallway tunnels. They appear to be going to, and from, the dreaded mystery known as the Caverns of Ever Burning Lifelights. None normally go there, not even the toughest of the mysterious fringefolk of the Deep Shades. The curious thing is that nobody seems to be with the magical-mechanical wagons, at least not visibly so."

 

The CloneEmperor nodded. "We must start to deal with what is happening in the Shades! I will contact the MadEmperor as soon as I can."

 

But the CloneEmperor soon discovered that he was cut off from communicating with the MadEmperor and other efforts to contact his 'clone-father' were soon proven to be futile.

[Maharg67]

Two 6.1[8][67]

The CloneEmperor was able to leave his Dragonthrone for the first time in years but not for long durations. He went to Martin, who was in a large antechamber to the throneroom, at a table dotted with stacks of books, small portable scrollracks filled with scrolls, feather-pens, bottles of ink, blotting paper, notebooks, journals and much else. The CloneEmperor sat on a chair and studied the son of the MadEmperor.

Martin sighed. "Sire, the whole madness with the 'Grand Ayleid' was a cruel, deceptive, manipulative experiment with living-death necromagic and necrotechnologies. Sandro AshinTrize, Grand Ayleid Sage, was one of the few excellent scholars amongst the Grand Ayleid. She got past the foolishness of most of her people and realized that the mysterious 'benefactors' were not assisting the Kingdom of Kingdoms but were using the Grand Ayleid as helpless 'test animals'. Sandro came to believe that the same 'benefactors' were linked to the Dark Event that had caused the vanishing of the Grand Aldmer from Tamriel. The Grand Ayleid were given toys to amuse them, were given supposed serums to enhance them in many ways and even a form of lesser immortality serum. It was all a dreaded lie. Sandro, and a large number of other Ayleid, fled before disaster struck the 'Tower of the Ancestors' that was the WhiteGoldTower and surrounding Ayleid structures."

 

Martin: "It was not just stupidity, lack of wisdom, that caused the Grand Ayleid to do what they did; some powerful, subtle, dark force was able to influence their minds, to manipulate them through their arrogance and hubris. Perhaps the same force was able to do the same with the Grand Aldmer many centuries before. We have a pattern forming before us that could lead to a greater understanding of a few mysterious events in the history of Tamriel or even of Nirn or Mundus. Sandro AshinTrize mentioned briefly a large library of Ayleid tomes that he had studied, that was to be found in the Inner WhiteGoldTower, to help him come to the conclusions that he did. I have come to my own conclusion that what was delivered to us was far from all of the Grand Ayleid Sage's work and that we need to find more of it."

 

The CloneEmperor sighed. "Did she identify the 'benefactors'?"

 

Martin frowned. "She called them the 'GrandSages13' which could have been the Genius13."

 

The CloneEmperor was quiet for a moment before responding. "Keep going with your researches. If you need any extra, special, resources just send word to me. The Inner WhiteGoldTower has been sealed off and now we have another reason to try to find a way into there."