Post by Possessedcheddar on Feb 6, 2014 21:02:03 GMT -5
(OOC Comment: This is the story of my character Crobuck after the events of the Skyrim Civil War and before the events unfolding in Relive the Past; Steal the Future. I am posting the first chapter for the characters Crobuck Grognash and Zuriel Blood-Bane. I would love some feedback comments after the chapters to see what people thought and to find out if people would be interested in reading more. There is a lot of text, but what good story doesn't have that? Anyway, when you read make sure you have a while to devote to it. Thank you for taking the time to check this out!)
Chapter 1: Honeyed Words
Crobuck
Crobuck walked into the Bee and Barb, a solidly built local tavern near the center of the bustling town of Riften, and looked around. He noticed a young woman in worn leather armor offering him a scornful look from the north corner of the main dining room. Crobuck walked over to meet her.
“What do you want?”
Crobuck shook his head, “You’re a pleasant enough sort.” He snorted derisively and paused to consider her for a moment. “My name is Crobuck Grognash, I’m new to this city; I thought you looked like someone who knew their way around the place pretty well.” She glared at him, “you obviously don’t know how this place works. Many a man has lost his life for asking questions here. Everyone minds their own business; you should learn something about that.”
Crobuck was slightly taken aback by her aggressiveness. He normally associated aggression on this level with women of his own Orcish race. He looked down at her
“I apologize fo-“
The woman interrupted him, “don’t be sorry. Just go away. I want to be miserable in peace without some idiot Orc bothering me.”
Crobuck sat down at a nearby table. His first interaction with a citizen of the city, aside from the guards at the gate trying to drain his coin pouch dry, was not very pleasant. He waved at a passing waiter. The man walked over and offered him a menu.
Crobuck looked up at the man and asked “Is that woman over there always so unapproachable?” the man looked across the lamp-lit room and nodded. Without taking his eyes off the woman, who pretended not to notice the man staring, he said “Her family was killed by bandits led by an Orc. She managed to escape a similar fate but she is like a feral animal now. Stay away from that one.”
Crobuck shook his head. “Has anyone tried to help her?” The waiter nodded once more, and responded with “She yelled at them too. Now she resides here, soaks up booze and starts fights with random strangers.” The massive Orc said “sounds like the ideal Nord woman.” The waiter was not amused and turned his head to look at Crobuck, “she’s not a Nord. And she’s not ideal for anything other than being a problem.” He placed a folded cloth and a tankard on top of it. The metal vessel sweated cool beads of moisture and the faint aroma of honeyed mead was a rare pleasure for the Orc. With this, the waiter walked away to help another patron.
The woman began her approach as the waiter left. Crobuck saw her coming and raised an eyebrow at her. The lower half of his face was obscured by the mug in his hand; he pushed the chair on the opposite side of the table out with his foot and beckoned her to take a seat in it as he lowered the tankard back onto its linen cloth.
“I’m not your enemy.”
Her eyes burned with barely contained anger, it was directed at nothing in particular, just anything she saw; “you’re not my friend either; stop trying to get information about me. Last warning.” The woman punctuated every word with a minute pause between words.
Crobuck was a massive man, towering over all but the tallest Nords and High Elves; even so, this fiery tempered woman had given him pause. “You’re one of the first people I’ve met in this city and you really are making a bad name for it.” She took a step forward, her eyes narrowing to tiny slits as she did so. “You think this is some sort of game? You idiot. This city is a place of secrets, back alley deals and corruption. Under a veneer of pretty wood and vibrant color this place is cancerous. People with nothing left come here and when they get here, they continue to have nothing.”
Crobuck looked up at the woman; he had enraged her. Crobuck asked nonchalantly,
“People like you?”
It was a low blow and the Orc knew it. He, however, no longer cared. He was tired of being talked to as if he were a simpleton. The woman stiffened as if struck but recovered quickly and drew her daggers, one in each hand. She moved with the grace of an acrobat and with a speed he could barely follow.
Crobuck leapt back from the table, knocking over his chair as he did so. He brandished his own weapons with a raise of his hands. He wore a pair of metal gloves, ribs of metal bands laid one over the other, overlapping like scales, covered his hands. These were perfectly suited for hand to hand engagements, he wouldn’t use his Legion axe, not here. The small woman bore down on him and a plan started to formulate in his mind Crobuck knew he couldn’t kill her on his first day in the city but he knew he could win. He just had to knock her down hard enough to gain the upper hand. She was fast and agile but Crobuck was strong and had a reach far longer than hers.
Everyone in the tavern turned to see the fight and they watched in wonder as the two bobbed and wove around each other, seemingly oblivious to the now encircling crowd. The woman lunged at Crobuck and stabbed downward. Her cut never connected, he hit her hand and elbowed her in the face with one smooth motion. However he didn’t see her other hand as it came up across his face as she fell.
Her dagger sliced through the delicate tissue and nerves surrounding his eye. The woman tumbled into the crowd and they dissipated, like water flowing around a stone. Crobuck cried out, he tried to see out of his left eye. He found that he couldn’t. She had blinded it. The massive man looked down at the woman picking herself up off the floor; she smiled evilly,
“told you to get away from me.”
She had flecks of his maroon blood across her face and in her hair.
Crobuck stormed over to her, kicking her as hard as he could in the stomach. Ribs cracked and the woman screamed, a dreadful sound emitting from her small beaten frame. She slid across the timber floor, worm smooth by years of use. The young woman knocked over a bartender who spilled his mead flagons all over the planking. His drinks gave the air a stuffy sweet smell as they mixed with the grime on the wood floor. Crobuck wasn’t done yet.
He stalked over to her where she was forcing her battered body to uncurl itself. Crobuck picked her up by the throat with one hand and he clamped a vice-like grip on her hands with his other. Mead dripped off of her brow and leather attire. He brought her face to face with him and made her stare at his now blinded eye. The sweet stench of honey mead mixed with the coppery smell of fresh blood was sickening. “Do you know what it’s like to want to kill someone so badly you can taste it? Have you ever felt that way? Ever held the life of another in your hands?”
Her eyes had lost a bit of their fury she looked almost scared. Almost. She spat at him, she screamed in his face and tried to bite him. Crobuck smiled, his sightless eye sending tendrils of blood down his face and into his mouth. The blood made a grisly contrast with Crobuck’s abnormally white teeth. “I thought so.” Crobuck put his face less than an inch from hers, his voice low and dangerous, like distant thunder. “I will put you down woman, but if you attack me, I will kill you where you stand.” He dropped her and took a step back.
The woman rubbed her wrists and glared back up at him.
“Won’t you leave now, or do you not need that other eye?”
Crobuck may have been an Orc, but he knew he would not allow her jest at his excruciating wound to force his hand. Crobuck shook his head; he turned his back to her.
“I only needed that eye as much as you needed your ribs.”
The crowd had now retreated to the fringes of the room, peering at the spectacle but utterly silent.
She yelled after him, “don’t you walk away from me!” Crobuck gave her another grisly smile “I thought we had nothing to discuss.” He continued walking towards the door, talking to her over his shoulder. She huffed and Crobuck heard the scrape of a dagger being pulled through a leather sheath, his elongated ears twitched at the noise. “Only draw it if you plan to use it woman” Crobuck approached the door, just as he was about to open it, he turned and slammed his fist into the rushing woman’s face. She may have been quick and quiet, but shadows are hard to hide in lantern-lit taverns.
She cried out again and staggered back. Crobuck raised his foot and kicked her square in the chest. She flew across the room into a table. The wood splintered and broke under her impact. The Orc walked over to her once more. She whimpered but still she stared defiantly up at him. He felt a strange sort of pity for her. It disappeared in an instant.
She stabbed one of her daggers that she had hidden under her body into his calf with a demonic scream. Crobuck roared, the patrons winced as the massive man let out his anguish. He brought his foot down on her hand, crushing it to the ground. He picked her up and cuffed her on the side of the head with his meaty fist. Her limp body fell to the ground; she lay there, panting and crying. Her heaving chest and tears running down her face made her look much less harmless than she had a second ago. She was mumbling something. Crobuck stood impassively and listened. “Just get it over with, like you killed Pa.” Crobuck gave a grimace. She was seriously messed up, physically and psychologically. She had been waiting for an excuse to get herself killed. Now she had taken one and he had just hurt her. She had gambled and failed. If the barkeep was to be believed, this was the story of her life so far. She became still and was out for a while, she would have one hell of a headache when she came to.
Crobuck looked at the bartender and his bruised eye where he had landed face first on a flagon; “at least you still have yours” he said jokingly. The bartender marveled at the Orc’s ability to ignore pain and helped him get the limp body off the floor so the cleanup could begin. Crobuck tossed her over his shoulder and winced as muscles connected to his face from his neck were strained.
“Even when she isn’t awake she still manages to hurt me.”
Crobuck offered the bartender a sour smile and a large pouch of Septims, gold coins that passed as currency in Skyrim. Crobuck opened the well-oiled door of the Bee and Barb and disappeared into the murky streets of late-night Riften.
The Orc walked over to the nearest guard he saw, and the man’s helmeted head turned towards him. “Good evening, the disturbance over at the tavern was caused by this little lady”, he patted the head of his unwilling companion. Wincing as he accidentally shifted her weight against his neck, pulling on some agonizing muscles.
“Can you direct me to the nearest apothecary or healer or whatever passes for one around here?”
The guard bobbed his helmeted head up and down. Having all the guards wear the same full face helmets gave them a certain type of unsettling anonymity, something Crobuck understood they frequently used to their advantage.
The guard said “around the city circle there is the Temple of Mara, they will fix you up as well as they can. But to fix that”, the guard pointed at the wounded Orc’s eye,” You need to visit the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun.” Crobuck thanked the guard and continued on to his destination, Mara’s temple.
Crobuck knocked on the door to the Temple of Mara, a priestess opened it and if she was surprised to see a half-blinded Orc carrying an unconscious woman, she didn’t show it.
“Welcome traveler, to the temple of Mara. You appear to be in need of some medical assistance,”
Crobuck fought the urge to nod his head and responded with
“Just something to stop the bleeding, I need to get this little lady somewhere before she wakes up, so I need something fast.”
The priestess had seen men like this Orc before, during the Great War she had been a triage nurse for battlefield wounded, and she had seen enough soldiers to know who and what Crobuck was. “You’re Legion aren’t you, Orc?” Crobuck fought the urge to nod once again, “retired, got tired of fighting Elves and Stormcloaks and came back home. Home, such as it was, was lonely. My family, wife and son, were killed while I was away during the first war. Looks like the lady and I have more in common than she knows.” Crobuck turned to look at the woman who had hurt him and felt a pang of sympathy, even with all the pain she had caused him, he could still relate.
The priestess was curious about the connection between the Orc and this woman but she had lived in Riften for long enough to know that asking the wrong questions could prove dangerous, even for a devout speaker of the goddess of love and compassion. She told Crobuck to wait while she fetched some clean cloths and bandaging material.
Crobuck laid the woman down on a rough-hewn wooden bench and sat nearby. Crobuck was careful to frequently glance over at her for signs of movement. The last thing he needed was a knife in the back during a moment of careless distraction. The priestess returned, “I looked through what limited supplies we have. I was able to find some herbs and a potion, drink this. While you do that I’ll soak this cloth and put it over your eye and bandage it.”
Crobuck took a look at the woman on the bench beside him and saw no sign of movement; he took the proffered potion and drank it. It had a sweet and bitter taste with a hint of metallic flavor.
“What is this, priestess?”
The priestess turned around, “It’s a wheat and blisterwort concoction, I’ve found that it’s a good coagulant.” Crobuck raised an eyebrow, he’d used potions before but he’d never created them himself, preferring healing remedies he purchased from local healers. Alchemy was not for him.
Crobuck leaned down and allowed the priestess to wrap the liquid soaked bandage around his head. He smelled more of the strange musty odor and told her a little of Orcish medicine. “Medicine is something of a joke in the Stronghold ma’am. Wounds are seen as a badge of honor rather than a debilitating hindrance.” When she had finished Crobuck stood and collected his charge from her bench. He thanked the priestess and walked out once more into the busy market of Riften.
____________________________________________________
Zuriel
In the city of Solitude, the capital of Skyrim, Zuriel Blood-Bane sat in his manor, his lithe and slender body resting comfortably in his favorite topaz high backed chair. He steepled his fingers and closed his dark eyes.
One would have ever guessed he was sizing up the many different ways he could potentially kill the men entering his home uninvited.
Zuriel listened as the tumblers in his front door lock sprang open one by one. Whoever it was, was a professional. It had taken them only 30 seconds to spring the first four tumblers, however; they were in for a nasty surprise with the fifth.
If the fifth and sixth tumblers weren’t opened at the same time, such as by Zuriel’s key, the door’s enchantment would electrocute those outside with a lethal voltage of electricity. This was made possible courtesy of the resident Court Mage in the Blue Palace of Solitude in return for services the Elf had rendered in the past.
Zuriel stood; he turned and walked silently to his kitchen. The Dark Elf’s footsteps were already silent due to his years of practice at honing his skills for his occupation. His thick, lush carpeting served not only to muffle his noise, if there was any; but to also hide some of his ingenious traps for home defense. Finally he’d get to test them.
“What an interesting little game we have”
Zuriel spoke to the empty room and then smiled at himself. As the elf rounded the corner to his kitchen he stopped and listened, his long ears able to detect even the slightest of noises.
He heard a muffled gasp and then the sound of a multitude of flailing limbs from the other side of his door. Brief flashes of light poured through the tiny keyhole into his living room, illuminating it in sporadic and irregular flashes of blue light. The flailing finally stopped and all was silent again. Zuriel had to give whoever was out there credit, they didn’t scream. They must either be very angry with him or getting paid very well to end his life. Probably both he figured, either way, it was going to be a fun night.
The Dark Elf ducked out of his kitchen just as the door opened, he glimpsed black and red skintight one piece suits on the men and women entering his house. Dark Brotherhood? What are they doing here? Thought Zuriel.
He drew his favorite blade from its scabbard and reversed the pommel in his hand so that the blade pointed downward. He crouched and ran down the hall, careful to keep his back to the plaster wall as he did so. An explosion sounded behind him and his semi-transparent inner eyelids closed to preserve his night vision. Orange filled the hall and various sized chunks of plaster rained down over Zuriel’s fine carpeting. Dust filled the air and it became hard to breathe.
Zuriel continued his run down the hall, his calf muscles burning, and another explosion and another rain of plaster sounded behind him. The Elf took a turn down another hallway, grabbing the corner of the wall, swinging around it to propel himself around the bend without slowing his pace. Zuriel ran into the library. Two assassins ran into the library after the elf, one staying by the wooden door with a bow, and the other running across the bookshelves scanning back and forth for his target.
The assassin stopped for a split second to collect his bearings. This was just the break Zuriel needed. The Elf burst from cover, propelling himself from the top of a ceiling high bookshelf where he had hidden. Books scattered and pages fluttered in the wake of Zuriel as he jumped. The elf took the assassin at the top of shelf down with a savage kick to the head. Zuriel put his hand on the man’s throat and held his blade beside his face.
“Who filed the contract on my life?”
The assassin looked past him and bit down hard and clenched his jaw. Zuriel heard an almost inaudible crack, a small wisp of blue smoke left the man’s mouth and he started to convulse. Zuriel knew the smell as well as the deadly poisons that now coursed through the man’s veins. Zuriel left the dying man and vaulted over a bookshelf. As he jumped an arrow thunked into the shelf behind him, splintering the wood and throwing chips into the air around him.
Zuriel picked up a thick tome, noting that it was titled “Archer’s Way” and for a split second he thought of the irony of choosing that writing. He turned in midair and intercepted the next arrow with the book. Zuriel felt something sharp tear at his clothing, he looked down and saw the head of the arrow sticking through his tome. He discarded it and ducked down behind a stack of books, just as another arrow stuttered past. The elf turned his dagger so that he held the blade in his hand. He jumped over the stack of books, knocking down the dusty old tomes. Zuriel threw the knife, it spun end over end and lodged itself deep in the other assassin’s throat.
Zuriel ran over to the prone figure lying on the floor. He bent to collect his weapon and the assassin grabbed his arm as he reached down. “Help me…” the man gurgled. Zuriel frowned down at him, “Oh. I’ll help you.” Zuriel twisted the dagger and ripped the wound open even wider. The elf stood up as the geyser of crimson subsided and he closed the assassin’s eyes, he then stalked out of the library to hunt down the others.
Chapter 1: Honeyed Words
Crobuck
Crobuck walked into the Bee and Barb, a solidly built local tavern near the center of the bustling town of Riften, and looked around. He noticed a young woman in worn leather armor offering him a scornful look from the north corner of the main dining room. Crobuck walked over to meet her.
“What do you want?”
Crobuck shook his head, “You’re a pleasant enough sort.” He snorted derisively and paused to consider her for a moment. “My name is Crobuck Grognash, I’m new to this city; I thought you looked like someone who knew their way around the place pretty well.” She glared at him, “you obviously don’t know how this place works. Many a man has lost his life for asking questions here. Everyone minds their own business; you should learn something about that.”
Crobuck was slightly taken aback by her aggressiveness. He normally associated aggression on this level with women of his own Orcish race. He looked down at her
“I apologize fo-“
The woman interrupted him, “don’t be sorry. Just go away. I want to be miserable in peace without some idiot Orc bothering me.”
Crobuck sat down at a nearby table. His first interaction with a citizen of the city, aside from the guards at the gate trying to drain his coin pouch dry, was not very pleasant. He waved at a passing waiter. The man walked over and offered him a menu.
Crobuck looked up at the man and asked “Is that woman over there always so unapproachable?” the man looked across the lamp-lit room and nodded. Without taking his eyes off the woman, who pretended not to notice the man staring, he said “Her family was killed by bandits led by an Orc. She managed to escape a similar fate but she is like a feral animal now. Stay away from that one.”
Crobuck shook his head. “Has anyone tried to help her?” The waiter nodded once more, and responded with “She yelled at them too. Now she resides here, soaks up booze and starts fights with random strangers.” The massive Orc said “sounds like the ideal Nord woman.” The waiter was not amused and turned his head to look at Crobuck, “she’s not a Nord. And she’s not ideal for anything other than being a problem.” He placed a folded cloth and a tankard on top of it. The metal vessel sweated cool beads of moisture and the faint aroma of honeyed mead was a rare pleasure for the Orc. With this, the waiter walked away to help another patron.
The woman began her approach as the waiter left. Crobuck saw her coming and raised an eyebrow at her. The lower half of his face was obscured by the mug in his hand; he pushed the chair on the opposite side of the table out with his foot and beckoned her to take a seat in it as he lowered the tankard back onto its linen cloth.
“I’m not your enemy.”
Her eyes burned with barely contained anger, it was directed at nothing in particular, just anything she saw; “you’re not my friend either; stop trying to get information about me. Last warning.” The woman punctuated every word with a minute pause between words.
Crobuck was a massive man, towering over all but the tallest Nords and High Elves; even so, this fiery tempered woman had given him pause. “You’re one of the first people I’ve met in this city and you really are making a bad name for it.” She took a step forward, her eyes narrowing to tiny slits as she did so. “You think this is some sort of game? You idiot. This city is a place of secrets, back alley deals and corruption. Under a veneer of pretty wood and vibrant color this place is cancerous. People with nothing left come here and when they get here, they continue to have nothing.”
Crobuck looked up at the woman; he had enraged her. Crobuck asked nonchalantly,
“People like you?”
It was a low blow and the Orc knew it. He, however, no longer cared. He was tired of being talked to as if he were a simpleton. The woman stiffened as if struck but recovered quickly and drew her daggers, one in each hand. She moved with the grace of an acrobat and with a speed he could barely follow.
Crobuck leapt back from the table, knocking over his chair as he did so. He brandished his own weapons with a raise of his hands. He wore a pair of metal gloves, ribs of metal bands laid one over the other, overlapping like scales, covered his hands. These were perfectly suited for hand to hand engagements, he wouldn’t use his Legion axe, not here. The small woman bore down on him and a plan started to formulate in his mind Crobuck knew he couldn’t kill her on his first day in the city but he knew he could win. He just had to knock her down hard enough to gain the upper hand. She was fast and agile but Crobuck was strong and had a reach far longer than hers.
Everyone in the tavern turned to see the fight and they watched in wonder as the two bobbed and wove around each other, seemingly oblivious to the now encircling crowd. The woman lunged at Crobuck and stabbed downward. Her cut never connected, he hit her hand and elbowed her in the face with one smooth motion. However he didn’t see her other hand as it came up across his face as she fell.
Her dagger sliced through the delicate tissue and nerves surrounding his eye. The woman tumbled into the crowd and they dissipated, like water flowing around a stone. Crobuck cried out, he tried to see out of his left eye. He found that he couldn’t. She had blinded it. The massive man looked down at the woman picking herself up off the floor; she smiled evilly,
“told you to get away from me.”
She had flecks of his maroon blood across her face and in her hair.
Crobuck stormed over to her, kicking her as hard as he could in the stomach. Ribs cracked and the woman screamed, a dreadful sound emitting from her small beaten frame. She slid across the timber floor, worm smooth by years of use. The young woman knocked over a bartender who spilled his mead flagons all over the planking. His drinks gave the air a stuffy sweet smell as they mixed with the grime on the wood floor. Crobuck wasn’t done yet.
He stalked over to her where she was forcing her battered body to uncurl itself. Crobuck picked her up by the throat with one hand and he clamped a vice-like grip on her hands with his other. Mead dripped off of her brow and leather attire. He brought her face to face with him and made her stare at his now blinded eye. The sweet stench of honey mead mixed with the coppery smell of fresh blood was sickening. “Do you know what it’s like to want to kill someone so badly you can taste it? Have you ever felt that way? Ever held the life of another in your hands?”
Her eyes had lost a bit of their fury she looked almost scared. Almost. She spat at him, she screamed in his face and tried to bite him. Crobuck smiled, his sightless eye sending tendrils of blood down his face and into his mouth. The blood made a grisly contrast with Crobuck’s abnormally white teeth. “I thought so.” Crobuck put his face less than an inch from hers, his voice low and dangerous, like distant thunder. “I will put you down woman, but if you attack me, I will kill you where you stand.” He dropped her and took a step back.
The woman rubbed her wrists and glared back up at him.
“Won’t you leave now, or do you not need that other eye?”
Crobuck may have been an Orc, but he knew he would not allow her jest at his excruciating wound to force his hand. Crobuck shook his head; he turned his back to her.
“I only needed that eye as much as you needed your ribs.”
The crowd had now retreated to the fringes of the room, peering at the spectacle but utterly silent.
She yelled after him, “don’t you walk away from me!” Crobuck gave her another grisly smile “I thought we had nothing to discuss.” He continued walking towards the door, talking to her over his shoulder. She huffed and Crobuck heard the scrape of a dagger being pulled through a leather sheath, his elongated ears twitched at the noise. “Only draw it if you plan to use it woman” Crobuck approached the door, just as he was about to open it, he turned and slammed his fist into the rushing woman’s face. She may have been quick and quiet, but shadows are hard to hide in lantern-lit taverns.
She cried out again and staggered back. Crobuck raised his foot and kicked her square in the chest. She flew across the room into a table. The wood splintered and broke under her impact. The Orc walked over to her once more. She whimpered but still she stared defiantly up at him. He felt a strange sort of pity for her. It disappeared in an instant.
She stabbed one of her daggers that she had hidden under her body into his calf with a demonic scream. Crobuck roared, the patrons winced as the massive man let out his anguish. He brought his foot down on her hand, crushing it to the ground. He picked her up and cuffed her on the side of the head with his meaty fist. Her limp body fell to the ground; she lay there, panting and crying. Her heaving chest and tears running down her face made her look much less harmless than she had a second ago. She was mumbling something. Crobuck stood impassively and listened. “Just get it over with, like you killed Pa.” Crobuck gave a grimace. She was seriously messed up, physically and psychologically. She had been waiting for an excuse to get herself killed. Now she had taken one and he had just hurt her. She had gambled and failed. If the barkeep was to be believed, this was the story of her life so far. She became still and was out for a while, she would have one hell of a headache when she came to.
Crobuck looked at the bartender and his bruised eye where he had landed face first on a flagon; “at least you still have yours” he said jokingly. The bartender marveled at the Orc’s ability to ignore pain and helped him get the limp body off the floor so the cleanup could begin. Crobuck tossed her over his shoulder and winced as muscles connected to his face from his neck were strained.
“Even when she isn’t awake she still manages to hurt me.”
Crobuck offered the bartender a sour smile and a large pouch of Septims, gold coins that passed as currency in Skyrim. Crobuck opened the well-oiled door of the Bee and Barb and disappeared into the murky streets of late-night Riften.
The Orc walked over to the nearest guard he saw, and the man’s helmeted head turned towards him. “Good evening, the disturbance over at the tavern was caused by this little lady”, he patted the head of his unwilling companion. Wincing as he accidentally shifted her weight against his neck, pulling on some agonizing muscles.
“Can you direct me to the nearest apothecary or healer or whatever passes for one around here?”
The guard bobbed his helmeted head up and down. Having all the guards wear the same full face helmets gave them a certain type of unsettling anonymity, something Crobuck understood they frequently used to their advantage.
The guard said “around the city circle there is the Temple of Mara, they will fix you up as well as they can. But to fix that”, the guard pointed at the wounded Orc’s eye,” You need to visit the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun.” Crobuck thanked the guard and continued on to his destination, Mara’s temple.
Crobuck knocked on the door to the Temple of Mara, a priestess opened it and if she was surprised to see a half-blinded Orc carrying an unconscious woman, she didn’t show it.
“Welcome traveler, to the temple of Mara. You appear to be in need of some medical assistance,”
Crobuck fought the urge to nod his head and responded with
“Just something to stop the bleeding, I need to get this little lady somewhere before she wakes up, so I need something fast.”
The priestess had seen men like this Orc before, during the Great War she had been a triage nurse for battlefield wounded, and she had seen enough soldiers to know who and what Crobuck was. “You’re Legion aren’t you, Orc?” Crobuck fought the urge to nod once again, “retired, got tired of fighting Elves and Stormcloaks and came back home. Home, such as it was, was lonely. My family, wife and son, were killed while I was away during the first war. Looks like the lady and I have more in common than she knows.” Crobuck turned to look at the woman who had hurt him and felt a pang of sympathy, even with all the pain she had caused him, he could still relate.
The priestess was curious about the connection between the Orc and this woman but she had lived in Riften for long enough to know that asking the wrong questions could prove dangerous, even for a devout speaker of the goddess of love and compassion. She told Crobuck to wait while she fetched some clean cloths and bandaging material.
Crobuck laid the woman down on a rough-hewn wooden bench and sat nearby. Crobuck was careful to frequently glance over at her for signs of movement. The last thing he needed was a knife in the back during a moment of careless distraction. The priestess returned, “I looked through what limited supplies we have. I was able to find some herbs and a potion, drink this. While you do that I’ll soak this cloth and put it over your eye and bandage it.”
Crobuck took a look at the woman on the bench beside him and saw no sign of movement; he took the proffered potion and drank it. It had a sweet and bitter taste with a hint of metallic flavor.
“What is this, priestess?”
The priestess turned around, “It’s a wheat and blisterwort concoction, I’ve found that it’s a good coagulant.” Crobuck raised an eyebrow, he’d used potions before but he’d never created them himself, preferring healing remedies he purchased from local healers. Alchemy was not for him.
Crobuck leaned down and allowed the priestess to wrap the liquid soaked bandage around his head. He smelled more of the strange musty odor and told her a little of Orcish medicine. “Medicine is something of a joke in the Stronghold ma’am. Wounds are seen as a badge of honor rather than a debilitating hindrance.” When she had finished Crobuck stood and collected his charge from her bench. He thanked the priestess and walked out once more into the busy market of Riften.
____________________________________________________
Zuriel
In the city of Solitude, the capital of Skyrim, Zuriel Blood-Bane sat in his manor, his lithe and slender body resting comfortably in his favorite topaz high backed chair. He steepled his fingers and closed his dark eyes.
One would have ever guessed he was sizing up the many different ways he could potentially kill the men entering his home uninvited.
Zuriel listened as the tumblers in his front door lock sprang open one by one. Whoever it was, was a professional. It had taken them only 30 seconds to spring the first four tumblers, however; they were in for a nasty surprise with the fifth.
If the fifth and sixth tumblers weren’t opened at the same time, such as by Zuriel’s key, the door’s enchantment would electrocute those outside with a lethal voltage of electricity. This was made possible courtesy of the resident Court Mage in the Blue Palace of Solitude in return for services the Elf had rendered in the past.
Zuriel stood; he turned and walked silently to his kitchen. The Dark Elf’s footsteps were already silent due to his years of practice at honing his skills for his occupation. His thick, lush carpeting served not only to muffle his noise, if there was any; but to also hide some of his ingenious traps for home defense. Finally he’d get to test them.
“What an interesting little game we have”
Zuriel spoke to the empty room and then smiled at himself. As the elf rounded the corner to his kitchen he stopped and listened, his long ears able to detect even the slightest of noises.
He heard a muffled gasp and then the sound of a multitude of flailing limbs from the other side of his door. Brief flashes of light poured through the tiny keyhole into his living room, illuminating it in sporadic and irregular flashes of blue light. The flailing finally stopped and all was silent again. Zuriel had to give whoever was out there credit, they didn’t scream. They must either be very angry with him or getting paid very well to end his life. Probably both he figured, either way, it was going to be a fun night.
The Dark Elf ducked out of his kitchen just as the door opened, he glimpsed black and red skintight one piece suits on the men and women entering his house. Dark Brotherhood? What are they doing here? Thought Zuriel.
He drew his favorite blade from its scabbard and reversed the pommel in his hand so that the blade pointed downward. He crouched and ran down the hall, careful to keep his back to the plaster wall as he did so. An explosion sounded behind him and his semi-transparent inner eyelids closed to preserve his night vision. Orange filled the hall and various sized chunks of plaster rained down over Zuriel’s fine carpeting. Dust filled the air and it became hard to breathe.
Zuriel continued his run down the hall, his calf muscles burning, and another explosion and another rain of plaster sounded behind him. The Elf took a turn down another hallway, grabbing the corner of the wall, swinging around it to propel himself around the bend without slowing his pace. Zuriel ran into the library. Two assassins ran into the library after the elf, one staying by the wooden door with a bow, and the other running across the bookshelves scanning back and forth for his target.
The assassin stopped for a split second to collect his bearings. This was just the break Zuriel needed. The Elf burst from cover, propelling himself from the top of a ceiling high bookshelf where he had hidden. Books scattered and pages fluttered in the wake of Zuriel as he jumped. The elf took the assassin at the top of shelf down with a savage kick to the head. Zuriel put his hand on the man’s throat and held his blade beside his face.
“Who filed the contract on my life?”
The assassin looked past him and bit down hard and clenched his jaw. Zuriel heard an almost inaudible crack, a small wisp of blue smoke left the man’s mouth and he started to convulse. Zuriel knew the smell as well as the deadly poisons that now coursed through the man’s veins. Zuriel left the dying man and vaulted over a bookshelf. As he jumped an arrow thunked into the shelf behind him, splintering the wood and throwing chips into the air around him.
Zuriel picked up a thick tome, noting that it was titled “Archer’s Way” and for a split second he thought of the irony of choosing that writing. He turned in midair and intercepted the next arrow with the book. Zuriel felt something sharp tear at his clothing, he looked down and saw the head of the arrow sticking through his tome. He discarded it and ducked down behind a stack of books, just as another arrow stuttered past. The elf turned his dagger so that he held the blade in his hand. He jumped over the stack of books, knocking down the dusty old tomes. Zuriel threw the knife, it spun end over end and lodged itself deep in the other assassin’s throat.
Zuriel ran over to the prone figure lying on the floor. He bent to collect his weapon and the assassin grabbed his arm as he reached down. “Help me…” the man gurgled. Zuriel frowned down at him, “Oh. I’ll help you.” Zuriel twisted the dagger and ripped the wound open even wider. The elf stood up as the geyser of crimson subsided and he closed the assassin’s eyes, he then stalked out of the library to hunt down the others.