he ended up really really really sad

This is the writing blog of stonegolem and the new home of the writing once found on Do You Seek Solace. Writing here is a combination of original creations, LARP characters, roleplay characters, and video game fanfic. TAG LIST Wildstar SWTOR The Elder Scrolls Online Original Works

[yaranyarai]

varo and cassandra’s post-game canon is going to be reforming the templar order into one that’s spread out through each country and province and town, old west gunslinger lone sheriff style. just a knight instead. no more huge garrisons of templars cause yall ain’t buildin no fuckin army you don’t...

[heendedupsad]

(( yaranyarai Challenge accepted. ))

The two of them had been paired up in this backwater dump on the eastern end of Ferelden for two years, now. Ever since the Inquisition. With a new Divine came new rules, of course, and rules were something the Old Man clung stubbornly to, like so much ghoul's beard on the ass end of a rock. But the young one, the girl - she was all about Change and about Spreading the New Word, and so she had settled into the face position; she the young, fresh face of the New Templar Order, with all of its paladinic idealism about protecting the weak and defending the peace and Better Living Through The Chantry. And he... well, the Old Man was the muscle, wasn't he. They all knew that when the chips really came down, he'd be the one to do a proper templar's job of it. That was why her reaction to the neatly folded letter from the local Mother Superior was one of dismay and trepidation. That's why when she saw the red seal - blood red - she knew that the local militia just wouldn't be enough, even with their new knife-eared wizard keeping an eye on the arcane for them. That's why, when the whispers that the second murder in three days was confirmed to be the hand of a blood mage, she brought the letter in trembling fingers to the Old Man. He was laconic as ever when he read it, but her dismay only deepened when the hint of a smile ghosted across his craggy, fire-burnt face. "Finally," he murmured, and went to belt his sword on.

[heendedupsad]

There is a street in Authenrai whose pavement stones stretch from the steps of the royal palace to the edge of the wall. You can't tell unless you walk with your head down, counting, counting, watching for a curb or for concrete and stone to become gravel or dirt. If you look up, with your head held high, you can see only a mass of people and storefronts, wagons and caravans, gently sloping down an almost invisible hill - a colorful riot of mortality mixing the stink of their sweat with the guttering cling of a thousand torches.

When you reach the wall, you can finally look up, and you'll see where you are and what you've become. You're in the hiding places where rats and fleas and sewage all go, where the forgotten ones huddle hoping not for succor from their betters but instead to simply remain invisible and forgotten. You can turn around and gaze up, up, up the hill, and see it like a tunnel's exit - dirty black, faded grey, cobblestone brown, and finally the gleaming white towers and parapets of the most precious building at the heart of the center of the world. Where paladins and knights and adventurers go. Where you may not.

That's when you hear them - when I heard them - when I heard us, together. Coughing and sighing, whimpering in terror. Yes, terror, pure and primeval - they/we feared my fine raiment, cringed away from the scepter in our hands. We smiled at their mortal predicament. We acknowledged without pity or remorse our unflinching resolve, to above all other things live, here at the bottom of the world, in the shadow of glory. We spread our hands, and whispered a word, and together we all huddled close, against a shining blue and silver doublet, beneath a resplendent blue cloak.

If those at the very top will shun me, I will become like those at the very bottom. We will grow mighty - we - us. Me. I will take us all Home. Let them try to stop us.

[heendedupsad]

WELCOME FRIENDS

This is the new home of my writing, which once could be found on Do You Seek Solace. The change is so that I can follow blogs directly and be followed directly in turn, and also so that I can write porny, porny goodness. (maybe)

My regular tumblr is stonegolem.

Carry on.

[heendedupsad]

Still - he ended up sad i

Five hours, thirty-seven minutes, and sixteen seconds, or otherwise 20,236 seconds, elapsed between the moment Still had completed his assessment of the room and the door opened once more. Beyond that, he had to estimate in terms of minutes - nineteen minutes, a nonzero quantity of seconds and deciseconds. The room was empty of weapons, turrets, bombs, cameras, recording devices, thaumatic glyphs, ghosts, and chemical agents. The holoscreen was flickering with countless password attempts, but Still knew the alarm had been sounded after the second failure. He would be caught if he remained. He expected to be caught. He was invisible.

Once, in another life, he would fill the endless stretching seconds with daydreams and idle thoughts. Maybe he’d buy a solar sail and try plying the trade lanes. Maybe he’d join the military, and take command of a regiment of alchemancers, like Father. Maybe he’d take a wife, start a career. Maybe he’d discover a new planet. Maybe.

Now, of course, was different. There was so, so little time left. It had been… what, eighty years? since Father killed Mother and he’d escaped the family manor house, buying his way through the crowds with the trinkets he’d stuffed into a satchel. A scion on the run, like in the ancient Earth histories the humans traded back and forth in their insufferable hayseed accents. His Vitalis supply had cost him everything he had once been. It still did. Still. Ha ha ha.

When the door opened, he remained unseen. He knew that he was invisible by the way the heavily armed human addressed his barked commands to the four corners of the room, the air, and nowhere in particular. All the same, Still found himself facing down an armory’s worth of guns. He eased his way over to the holoscreen, and slowly tugged his dataspike from the information port. This would have to be enough for now.

Dominion genetic research was highly prized by his people, of course. Anything those rancid little hamsters could dig up related to Eldan artifice and gene splicing was of interest; after all, any cell, any scrap of double-helix could contain the key to unlocking a cure. This job wasn’t just about money, although it paid handsomely - it was about survival. He could not fail. He would not.

When the girl spoke, he felt a cold razor slide up his belly and spill his resolve onto the floor. She was too cheerful for her words, too pretty in porcelain and girlish distraction for the whirling blade that hovered by her hand, anchored by a mind so powerful it made his senses reel and totter. He could never remember what she said afterward - all that remained was the imperious thrust of her finger, marking him as clearly as if he had been covered in reflective tape. His cloak failed, and he appeared. The humans raised their weapons as one.

Ah. Ah, well.

He brought to his mouth and swallowed the dataspike with one blur of motion, and with the same hand, tore the orange-pulsing tubes from the side of his neck, along with a gobbet of purple flesh that dripped toxic contagion.  The room filled with choking gas, and then confusion, and then gunfire and screaming, and the wet sounds of teeth and fingers tearing flesh.

All that remained in the room of Still was the stench of death, a trail of orange droplets leading to a broken window, and the inexorable drip of sand falling into the bottom of an hourglass. Thirty minutes. Twenty-nine minutes, fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven.

[heendedupsad]

"The job is not yet finished. Therefore, I am not yet finished."

Name: Still. Also Known As: Still. Other names are unimportant. Occupation: Assassin, murderer, spy. Age: Unimportant. Height: 7’1” Weight: 275 lbs. Appearance: A muscular humanoid with ashen, violet-tinted skin. His eyes glow a dull molten-metal orange, with no visible iris or pupil. His ‘hair,’ a series of tungsten-exorite connector tubes, falls in the shape of what humans would call “dreadlocks.” Each tube, along with an exposed tube extending from the base of his chin into his throat, courses with a liquid glowing in the same orange color of his eyes. He wears a body-covering ceramic-armored duster with matching boots and gloves, so that the only visible skin is that of his face and arms.

History: Classified. Presumable to be standard Mordesh/Black Hood covert and intelligence operations. When asked, he will readily confirm or deny participation in any number of acts, allowing interrogators to simply assume whatever they wish, behaving as if the outcome of their interrogation does not concern him.

Faction: Solidly, almost rabidly Exile, but willing and capable of working with Dominion agents and double-agents to ensure that his agendas are satisfied.

Associates: Varied. Usually solitary, but can be found in the company of the reliquarian and curator who calls himself “Ghosts.”

Alignment: As South-Southwest lies between South and Southwest, Still is Neutral-Neutral-Evil. Motivations: Taking the bastards with him, and being useful until that happens. Disposition: Stoic and laconic. Tends to conserve words, as if saving them for later. Outlook: Some things matter. Everything else doesn’t. Religion/Philosophy: Unimportant. Sexuality: Straight, but mostly aromantic. Sex is a useful tool, and otherwise a momentarily pleasant but ultimately meaningless distraction. Interestingly, he feels the same way about drugs and liquor, and consumes them all in much the same matter.

Negative Personality Traits: Nihilistic. Angry about the hand he’s been dealt. Bloodthirsty. Intolerant. Arrogant. Quick to presume, slow to correct presumption. Requires Vitalis to live. Positive Personality Traits: Polite. Intelligent. Eloquent when necessary. Capable of standing completely still and silent for a very, very long time. Good at killing. Handsome, if you’re into zombie elves. Likes: Strong drink. Meaningless sex. Pretending nothing hurts. Reading quietly. The beauty of nature. Whittling. Standing still and not talking. A job well done. Money. Dislikes: Being dependant on Vitalis and on the [REDACTED] that keeps [REDACTED] from [REDACTED] [REDACTED] to [REDACTED]. Sloppy, half-assed work. The Dominion. That stupid folksy accent that every human in Thayd talks with. Cigarettes. Being cheated and not taking revenge.

[heendedupsad]

"If we’re lucky, that thing might even kill us! Come on!" Name: Adellia Also Known As: ‘Princess,’ or sometimes ‘Um Is She Okay.’ Occupation: Assassin, healer, creeper. Age: early 20s Height: 5’3” Weight: 117 lbs. Appearance: A lithe human with lustrous blue-black hair that parts on either side of her face and frames her pert, ever-smiling lips and glass-pale eyes. Her olive skin is notable for being completely clear of any scars or blemishes whatsoever, as if editing filters had been applied to her physical person. 

History: She freely tells a story about how she was kidnapped from a farm and tortured until her latent psychic talent was honed, and then applied to suicidally dangerous assassination missions. She also freely tells a story about how she was rescued from her torment by a giant stuffed snoglug. It is left to the listener to decide how much truth lies in either story.

Faction: Despite the trail of Imperial bodies she has left in her peculiarly chipper wake, she continues to receive and fulfill contracts from the Dominion.

Associates: She travels with a Draken whom she calls “Bite” but respects more than anyone, the handsome murderer Atticus Javan, a horrible Chua named Aloysius P. Dhonk, and a beautiful savage Draken warrior named Goll. 

Alignment: Chaotic cheerful. Motivations: Being dead, or barring that, making others happy. Disposition: ^_________^ Outlook: "That’s wonderful! It looks like it really hurts!" Religion/Philosophy: Not something she gives much thought to. Ever. Balloons are nice. Sexuality: Ostensibly pansexual. She is flirtatious in a wide-eyed sort of way and that flirtatiousness extends to almost everyone (not Chua), but she does not give details regarding specific encounters, if any exist.

Negative Personality Traits: Sadistic. Unsettling gaze. Tends to say literally exactly what is on her mind. Rarely has good or nice things on her mind. Highly erratic and unpredictable. Positive Personality Traits: Pleasant and cheerful. Trained in courtly behavior. Follows direction exceedingly well. Works well with others. Always smells nice. Likes: Balloons and lanterns. Making people happy. Dancing. Fire. Dancing in fire. Ice cream. Plush toys. Kissing. Dislikes: Being alive. Cigarette and cigar smoke. Chua. Dominion scientists. Chua who are also Dominion scientists.

[heendedupsad]

balloons

Through the grated window, there was sunlight and a blue sky.

They’d used a staple gun, like the kind one might punch pieces of shingle to beams of wood, to hold her eyelids open. Blood had stopped dripping from the little wounds, and instead her red, swollen eyes twitched away from the occasional bit of putrid scab-crust that would occasionally flake free when someone would strike her. Even holding her eyes open couldn’t keep them from rolling up in the back of her skull when she would sometimes fall unconscious.

The film playing on the wall was a trite, even obvious one - Triumph of the Dominion. Gleaming rows of Dominion soldiers marching up and down the square, fleets of warships and carriers dotting a starry sky in a perfect spherical matrix. The stars of the galaxy and the stars of the Empire, and the Emperor stood tall in the center. She had the whole thing memorized, could recite it and even match the stentorian, declamatory tones of the speakers when they came onscreen.

There was a fair. Children played outside. Over the sound of marching feet, she could hear giggling and laughing. One of them held a balloon, given by a nice man with scales and a long tail.

She held most of her teeth in her hand. Blood poured from her ruined gums and bitten-off tongue and smashed in nose. Her chest was icy and cold and sticky, and her breasts hung in weird directions; her skin sagged over the smashed ruin of her ribcage. Every breath dragged pus and mucus and more and more blood up, to be coughed out in little spasms onto the concrete floor. Her vision disappeared when the hammer came down onto her skull, but she could feel the warm jelly of her eye creeping down her face.

The balloon burst with a flash of color, causing the little boys and girls to scream and titter in delight. The big man smiled beneath his black-tipped mane of quills. A chua next to him, with his bushy mustache, clapped his hands. “Much fun! Such colors! Children overjoyed - will report success.”

Although the soldiers around her were wearing respirators and exo-suits, she was clad only in a form-fitting grey jumpsuit. One dainty hand held a small steel egg; the other was held outward, and above it floated a jagged wheel of blades. A door opened before her. There were men and women in lab coats, and lots and lots of tubes and beakers. Some humanoid shapes floated in cryo-pods. Some people pointed guns at her, and then died gurgling. The blade returned to her outstretched hand, dripping blood.

The egg beeped, and then opened. Yellow gas spewed from inside.The scientists screamed, turned purple, died gibbering and begging the uncaring gods for mercy. So did the soldiers with her; confusion became panic when the gas began to ate through the filters of their respirators and penetrate the seals of their exo-suits. Their nerves stiffened; their eyes became bloodshot, and they ran for the door behind them. The one that was locked.

She began to cry, and then to scream. Her skin felt like it was melting. Her lungs were searing. Every breath she tried to take made her wish she would just die. Her skin was turning purple. Blood vessels were bursting beneath her skin. She imagined a balloon, bursting with color. Or a pretty lantern.

A human man, lean and smirky, came in the company of a female draken with powerful arms and a biiiiiig sword strapped to her back. They both carried paper lanterns, brightly lit. The sky was purple and the stars were smiling. The four of them were friends and they were so happy to see the children playing.

The door to the torture room opened. There was no one inside, but the film was still playing, projected on the wall, broken up by the grated window in the center that faced outward into the dingy grey of the adjacent building in the nondescript block where they trained people like her, where no sunshine could possibly reach. She automatically began to mouth the words being said. The Dominion would triumph, said the Emperor, and he clenched his fist and placed it in front of his chest.

Adellia clenched her own, dripping with someone else’s blood, and saluted her Emperor in return. Behind her, in the hallway, the screams of her former tormentors were growing quiet and faint. She imagined a lantern, and the light of that lantern closed the bullet holes in her chest and stomach.

She wondered if the Emperor liked balloons.

[heendedupsad]

nanoflood depleted (SWTOR interlude)

Critical shielding failure. Jenk, I don’t want to read these lines.

"Wish I could help you there, baby," the cyborg hissed to his wife, who was a hundred and fifty thousand light years away attending a conference on Bothawui. Intelligence Planning and Galactic Security Diplomacy, he remembered. The Bothans wanted to talk about spying. They always wanted to talk about spying. Alyrian had drawn the short straw, and off she went. Jenk was politely but more than a bit firmly asked to stay far, far away. He thought that was unfair. He also thought it was unfair that she was probably sipping champagne while he was tasting his own blood through his bitten-through lip.

Multiple fractures detected. Jenk, when are you ever going to break more than one bone at a time?

When the power armor’s internal dampeners are overloaded, and he’s taken an actual goddamned missile to the actual goddamned chest. Jenk groaned, and crawled toward the smoking wreckage of a nearby cargo speeder. His cyber-eye clicked and whirred, filing away information written on the broken plasteel containers. Nendo Cybernetix. Shit, this was one of my shipments.

He’d come on a routine job, just something simple to keep his mind occupied while Lyr was away - and far enough away that it would take him more time than the effort was worth to crack into whatever the Bothans had wanted to talk to her about in the first place. There was an outstanding surgery request on Ord Mantell - something one of his employees could have done at any time, but he liked to keep his hand in. Hair transgelatin implant. Should’ve been in and out. Didn’t even check up on the name.

Name not recognized. Jenk, this is a security breach! If you’re doing surgery on—

He could hear himself replying in the background of his own armor’s warning recording. He sounded snarky. She’d gotten about halfway through the list of warnings before she’d realized what he’d asked her to record in the first place, and that was when her worries and anxieties began to take over the recordings, instead of the lines. Jenk recalled being pretty annoyed by that; the porn star he’d hired in the first place had just taken the money and done the job, but the woman he loved had to be complicated about it. Now, covered in scorchmarks and with at least two ribs broken, he chuckled ruefully, and coughed blood onto his chestplate.

Footsteps were approaching. The assassin was well armed and well armored, and Jenk could appreciate the amount of effort that had been taken on his soon-to-be-slayer’s part. Nice to know he was still a tough nut to crack. He reached for his thigh blaster, and missed the grab twice, three times— holy fucking shit, he didn’t have a hand.

Kolto tanks depleted. I don— Nanoflood initiated. Jenk… baby, I hope you never have to hear this. I don’t want to think about you being hurt enough that you need your nanoflood.

His organic eye reeled. Everything hurt. The sky was full of greasy smoke, and even though almost all of the nerves on his face had been burned away a long time ago, he could tell that at some point in the last few minutes his face had been on fire. His breath was shallow, and the footsteps were getting closer.

Nanoflood depleted. Stay alive, Jenk Nen— oh, God. Jenk, no, please… baby, please don’t die. I know I don’t ever say it, but… I need you. I don’t want you to die. When Grim went, I couldn’t—

Jenk didn’t remember writing this. His vision began to crystalize. There was an unfamiliar face standing over him, saying something that was probably snarky. There was a gun barrel being leveled at his mouth.

—only one left. Even Jack’s gone. Jenk… I want you to be the father of our child. I want me and you to grow old together. You make me happy, and I hope I make you happy too. Did you know that the thing I love best about you is that you make me laugh? Even when you make stupid jokes, I love the way you laugh at them. You’re so funny. Did you know that?

Jenk’s cyber-eye focused on the face above him. His vision went bright red.

I love you, Jenk Nendo. Stay alive, Jenk Nendo.

——————————————————-

When she came home, he was sitting in a comfortable leather chair, wearing a soft pair of grey shorts, and covered nearly from head to toe in bandages. His cyber-eye was surrounded by inflamed, healing flesh; it was brand new.

"Did you accidentally set off your eye laser?" Lyr asked, tilting her head bird-like and smiling quizzically.

"Not really. Babe, can we re-record some of those lines from last weekend? They’re, uh, a lil’ distracting…"

[heendedupsad]

Otho the Heretic - the coven i

Otho had privately decided he liked the epithet “Black-Priest” the best. He was considering taking it for a name, like the ancient Battle-Born clan in Whiterun. Hyphenated and everything. “Priest” was one rune - “Black” was two, but he could just make a device of the one. A black mark on a white field, like smoldering coal in the snow. Black-Priest. Prince Speaker. Heretic.

Meridia. Azura. Boethia. The three “Good Daedra,” whom the ancient Chimer once devoted themselves, since supplanted by a Tribunal of living, walking god-mortals. There were others he gave his devotion to, as well. Hermaeus Mora could be beseeched for knowledge and wisdom. Nocturnal gave luck, and offered the protection of the shadows. Mephala could be counted on to grant her spider’s webs when intrigue and scheming was needed. Hircine was the patron of the werewolves, and the Lord of the Hunt, for when the bloody trails needed stalking. Sanguine’s name was whispered over every new barrel of ale. Namira, Peryite, and Vaermina were worthy of respect, and their dark, inevitable blessings could be lessened, delayed, revoked or even inflicted as needed. And Clavicus Vile, when all else failed, was always willing to make a deal.

In Otho’s eyes, the Chimer were wise to avoid the House of Troubles, held up by its Four Corners. Mehrunes Dagon was a ravening monster, unthinkingly and ceaselessly inflicting destruction for its own sake - useless for constructive purposes, and dangerous even when allowed to take his natural course. Malacath was received with both Otho’s fear and his disdain; a petulant, whining infant, who tantrumed his way into existence and fathered a race of muscle-bound brutes whose reverence for physical strength was matched only by their capacity for violence. Sheogorath was mad and was madness, and to treat with him was to invite only ruin… and furthermore, was obnoxious and loud and unpleasant to receive. Grin had once referred to Sheogorath as a “sausage,” and ever since then, the mental image had stuck.

Molag Bal was the Prince, the one Prince, whom Otho considered to be an actual foe; THE actual foe, if he really had to put a name to his fears and his hope and his dreams. Above all others, Molag Bal was the Prince who actively sought to wreak havoc among mortals, specifically mortals; he enslaved them, he dominated them, he raped them and ruined them and transformed them into undead monstrosities. Otho’s sole alignment was “against Molag Bal.” Against the undead. Against slavery. Against vampires.

Grin had found a nest of vampires in Windhelm.

[heendedupsad]

J'henq - hates these twins ii

J’henq could see their silhouettes at the top of the stairs, watching him with their tails twitching in eerie unison. The sunlight of Stros M’Kai halted in an abrupt line, beyond which lay dust and cobwebs and almost certainly painful groaning grasping eating death. He did not want to go. He was no adventurer and certainly no tomb robber.

Ssyzahi disagreed with J’henq, and Qsyzhai agreed with Ssyzahi, and together they were just So Sure that J’henq was the man for this job. They’d bathed him, clothed him, given him a stout leather jerkin and a fine pair of daggers and a new roll of picks. They told him there were jewels at the bottom of the tomb. They watched with enigmatic smiles when he had insisted that someone else, someone luckier, someone braver should be their thief. They offered him forty percent of the profit. He refused. They told him they were going to wear his pelt if he refused again. In that case, gentlemen, this one thinks daylight is burning, and we should make for the tomb.

They were picking on poor fallen J’henq, he mused, as he wiggled and squirmed through a hole the size of a watermelon. They’d been showing up all over Stros M’Kai, following him around, making their creepy presence known. He saw them in the tanner’s shop, slowly carving apart skins. He saw them in the blacksmith’s, testing the points of wavy krisses with their paws, and licking the bright red drops away. He saw them in the tavern, sipping on blood red wine. He saw them in his dreams, entwined into a monster with two heads, beckoning him with a curved finger and a sensuous, sussurating voice.

It had always been easier to crawl and creep than to fight for the lithe khajiit. He pressed himself into corners, covered himself with grave dust, and crept bootless on soundless footpads to evade the creaking long-dead guardians, who shuffled endlessly, mindlessly unaware that their eons of servitude were about to end in failure. He flicked open vaults and keyholes with the barest hint of pressure, hardly even disturbing the dust that had settled onto the doors. He leapt over pits, oiled and unhinged claws set to claim the unwary. He bitched to himself unceasingly about his terrible, terrible luck as he opened the carved, runed mausoleum at the heart of this awful place.

Inside, all was a-glitter with wealth. J’henq’s head swam as he rubbed at his dusty eyes, unable to comprehend the mountain of ancient gold and silver and polished gleaming gems the size of robin’s eggs. Praises to the gods above and below. Praises to the Princes. Praises to the Dark Lady. Praises to Sithis the Father. J’henq thrust a paw into the center of the pile.

He came away with only a curious box made of carved marble, unadorned and unremarkable. Its lid jostled about as he examined it for traps - but, finding nothing, the curious cat slid the box lid off. He dropped it, and the box. They shattered. He scrambled backwards on his paws, scrabbling for purchase on the dusty tiles, slamming into the walls of the mausoleum in his haste to escape.

Above, J’henq burst into the sunlight, sobbing and gibbering, bleeding from a dozen claw slashes and near-miss arrow wounds, running as fast as he could over the dunes toward Stros M’Kai. Behind him trailed the ghost, tatters and ruins and bones and lovely pallid flesh, whispering in an ancient tongue meant only for the dead or the mad.

Behind them both, tails twitching in eerie unison, trailed the twins.

[heendedupsad]

J'henq - hates these twins i

J’henq was out of breath and his tail was a puffed mass of alarm. He crouched behind a convenient stack of sight-blocking crates, hands on his knees, birdlike chest fluttering as he gasped for air. His nostrils flared, and quickly became apparent why those crates had been stacked there in the first place. As his luck would dictate, he had chosen to elude his pursuers by standing ankle-deep in a public cesspool. A tanner’s boy was quietly scooping bucketfuls of waste, chuckling in his moonish way and shaking his head. J’henq made the sign of lewd disapproval, sucked a lungful of ammonia-tainted air, and kept running.

J’henq’s luck had run out two years ago. He’d been caught with a jar of skooma in the back of an unaware caravaneer’s wagon, hitching a wholly illicit ride out of Elsweyr into Cyrodiil, and had been promptly thrown into a dungeon - much to his shock and surprise, since he had never ever Ever been caught before, and had certainly never seen the inside of a cell. He didn’t know it at the time, but the fact that one morning his cell door had just mysteriously been left open was the last lucky break the khajiit who relied on luck would receive.

Since that day, every scheme had failed, every burglary had ended in disaster, every scam had been a double-cross, and every septim he’d laid paws on may as well have been poured into a sewer. He’d been reduced from a proud, wealthy and sought-after smuggler to a common thief of the streets, and it set his fur on edge to even think about. How could this have happened? What had become of J’henq the Golden, J’henq Clean-Paw?

He didn’t have time to bitch about his troubles at the moment, though, because the guard had caught up to him once again. Arrows plinked off the brick walls as he ran through the alleys, and not for the first time did he wish he’d ever bothered to learn swordplay. He wished it again and more fervently when the path before him suddenly became a three-walled deathtrap, with the only door in the dead end barred from the inside. Idly he wondered if the approaching guard would be taken in by the usual khajiit-pathetique act; khajiit has done nothing, khajiit is innocent of these crimes, do not harm lowly khajiit, masters. He doubted it.

They were yards away when the door he hammered on suddenly gave way, and two pairs of clawed hands pulled him inside. Darkness within. The heavy wooden bar fell, and for a while, the only sounds were J’henq’s panting and the banging of fists against the door from the outside. Slowly, the smuggler became aware of four hands on his shoulders and sides, guiding him forward into the gloom.

"Waits for this one," came one hissing voice, in its cold, neutral tone.

"Waits for the failed thief," came the other, a curiously exact copy of the first.

"This one stinks and we do not like it," they chorused. Their tails lashed at his hindquarters and his calves, and they held him in an iron grasp as a chill ran up and down his spine, urging him to bolt. Onward they went, J’henq’s heart hammering in his chest.

Oh no. Not these two.

[heendedupsad]

Otho the Heretic - the road ii

The attack came in the night, and Otho died.

Death was a curious thing for a man whose soul belonged to at least ten different gods. After his flesh-pain faded and the sensation of cold steel severing his spine drifted into Oblivion, his senses were clear and sharp; he could hear whispers though no one was there, and he could feel hands on his body. Hard hands, clawed hands, sensual soft hands. Otho furrowed his nonexistent brow, and cast his thoughts and prayers outward. What was today? Not the 5th. It was raining. Boethiah?

Not my doing, priest. Your bloody hands please me still yet.

Ah. As his body reconstituted itself and his eyes awoke to the more familiar crush of meat and bone around his soul, he saw fur and heard claws scrabbling on metal. He could hear the shouts of the knight and the thief, clouded with the sound of his own bloodflow as his ears once again were. He rose.

Werewolf. Soulless. Hircine had sent Another, and expected them to fight for their new and powerful ally. Of course. Otho raised his staff, and called down the blessing of Aetherius upon the shocked, staring werewolf. “Be still, child of Hircine,” he murmured, breathing deeply the acrid sting of burnt flesh and fur. It turned with eyes full of rage, fear and confusion, and the dunmer knight gave purpose to the command with the rim of his shield. Together, Otho and his two companions watched the mighty lycan drop into unconsciousness, and blur into its - her - human form.

Some time later the Nord awoke, hands bound and re-dressed in her arming clothes. Otho smiled at her reaction; she didn’t struggle, but instead artfully allowed her hair to fall into her eyes, her bosom to heave, her bare thighs to splay, her lip to tremble. She was comely and sexual, and knew how to use those daggers as well or better than her greatsword or her claws. A fascinating ally, and unless they played the next moments carefully, a terrible or dead foe; either would be a wasted resource.

Questions were answered readily, without hesitation, an eager plea for freedom and life. She was an assassin. Hired by an unfamiliar name, come to kill the Heretic. Otho waved this information away, allowed Halkes and Grin to chew on it. His purpose was grander yet, grander than life. He looked into her eyes, into the hollow where her soul once lay.

"Can you control it?" he asked, silvered dagger at the ready.

Confusion crawled over her face, chased by Pride, the predator. “I am it.”

Otho smiled, nodded. He slashed her bonds. “Come. I expect you have questions for us as well.”

[heendedupsad]

Otho the Heretic - the road i

Otho’s heavy, notched armor, along with his axe and shield, had been carefully stowed in a trunk and left with the obliging innkeep at the stone tavern outside of Cheydinhal. With the turning of the calendar to Rain’s Hand and the warm days punctuated by cold rains, he now wore a padded gambeson with a leather doublet on top, and an oiled poncho and hood. He kept a shortbow and a quiver close at hand, and his ever-present staff had acquired a caking of grime at the bottom where it was used to prod and test mud-slicked roads.

He walked in the rear, behind the dunmer knight and the milk-drinker thief of mongrel human stock. He patiently endured the endless stream of chatter from the latter, although the one time the thief had attempted to make a snatch at his belt of charms and fetishes, he’d felt obligated to put his foot down. He put his foot down directly on the thief’s spine, and a quiet agreement was reached. He thought he’d seen the dunmer smile, but it could have been a trick of the light. Otho decided to believe instead that it was a smile. He had ever been good at believing in things.

Today had been a good day. They’d managed nearly twenty miles, which was a good five miles more than they’d made the day before. As he walked on, down the mountain path that bordered Skyrim and led to the war-torn city of Cheydinhal, he had reflected on the night before. His companions had made hushed conversation that led to abrupt, almost painful silence which lasted until dawn. Otho wondered if that silence was good or bad, briefly, before deciding that either would only become his business when made so; besides, the 5th was fast approaching, and he intended to confer with Hermaeus Mora, busy as that prince would be on his summoning day. There were preparations to make, and research to be done.

The Temple of the Ancestor Moths awaited them.

[heendedupsad]

Otho the Heretic - introduction iii

A crossbow is a frightening thing, even to a man wearing as much armor as Otho. Accurate and potent even in the hands of the untrained, and at close range the average crossbow could punch a bolt through a breastplate like a hot knife cuts through butter. A good, accurate bolt was hard to make, but unlike a longbow, a crossbow didn’t care what was loaded: it would fire a sharpened stake with deadly force at least ten yards. They were thankfully rare, typically being wielded only by the vampire hunters of the Dawnguard, but with the right connections and a fair bit of luck, a layman could get his hands on one.

Connections and luck such as what a minstrel graduate from the Bards’ College in Solitude might have. Galund had been waiting at the crossroads with a couple of surly-looking farmers; he had the crossbow in his trembling hands, and they had a pair of mean-looking woodcutting axes slung over their shoulders. Privately, Otho admired the level of courage their rage and grief had instilled in them. It took a lot of balls for a civilian to attack an armored man. Publicly, Otho set down his satchel, hand raised, palm open.

"You killed my sister," the young man accused. His eyes were red. It was a sunny, if chilly, day - that redness came from tears. The minstrel thrust the crossbow out threateningly, shaking the gleaming barb at the tip. "We trusted you, and you murdered her."

"I ended her life and gave her peace, lad. No medicine or magic in the world could have saved her. It was either end it in peace and quiet, or let her shit herself to death." Otho took a bold step forward, armored fingers clenching his walking stick tightly. "Your mother’s tonics were only prolonging her agony. Would you have wanted to see her suffering for another month? Another year?"

"Shut up!" screamed the youth, and for a moment Otho squeezed his eyes closed. He wasn’t getting a read on anyone here - no certainty of anyone’s demise, including his own, and he knew he had to be very careful. When he knew, he Knew, but not knowing if someone was doomed was not the same as being certain they wouldn’t be killed.

"You didn’t have the right to choose! We could have found a cure! You took her away from us and we didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye!" Galund’s entire body trembled, and he began to sob. He looked young, so young, bent over a weapon almost the size of his torso.

"I’m sorry, lad. You’re right. I tried to warn your mother, but she wouldn’t listen. It’s my job to ease suffering, and sometimes only death can do that." The templar took another step forward, his open palm wide. "Killing me won’t bring her back, and even if it could, she would still be doomed to suffer and die. Is that what you want?"

One of the farmers clapped a hand on the minstrel’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, boy,” he said in a thick voice. “That’s Otho the Necromancer, he is. He’ll twist your mind up with his black words and his lies.” Galund nodded, and Otho gritted his teeth, seeing steel creep into the boy’s eyes. The heavy crossbow’s point came up, and —

— a burst of energy from the tip of the staff —

— shouts of dismay, the grating of an axe being pulled from its ring, the thud of a stiffened body hitting the slushy ground —

— metal on wood, metal on metal, metal on flesh and cleaving through bone —

— the shriek of a dying man, the sigh of a dead man —

Otho took the crossbow from the minstrel’s nerveless fingers, and set it aside. He rolled the boy over, checking his face carefully, making sure his eyes tracked. Even through the paralysis spell, Galund’s eyes were tiny steel balls of hatred. The templar shook his head sadly, and made sure that the bard was watching as he unstrung the crossbow and snapped the triggering mechanism into pieces.

"I’m sorry, lad," he said again, before turning his attention to the two dead farmers, tidying their bodies and murmuring a prayer to Oblivion for the restful sleep of their souls.

[heendedupsad]

Otho the Heretic - introduction i

The sun had set long before the working hours had ended, but the night was so miserable and cold that most of the villagers had returned to their homes to wait out the snowstorm around their own hearths, or that of the big tavern in the center of town. It was that building, with its glowing golden windows, that the templar was trudging toward.

His ironshod boots left deep prints in the snow that had accumulated on the ground, crunching and jingling with every step. He had a shield strapped to his back with a rope tied around his steel cuirass, and an axe slung in a holster at his hip. On his belt jingled a coin purse and two dozen or more tiny pewter icons, slapping against the leather with each heavy step. He had a waterproofed satchel in one hand, slung back against the shield, and in the other he carried a long, stout staff to lean on and make his way down the muddy, slushy thoroughfare.

He didn’t open the door to the tavern so much as shove it, sending it thudding against the wall with a gust of icy wind that guttered the candles on each table and the large hearthfire in the center of the room. Every weary eye looked up, and the din of the room quietened, as he closed the door behind him. He set his staff and sack down, and reached his gauntleted hands up to doff the closed helmet that already wept melting ice in the warmth of the room.

Frost rimed his short, dark beard, and deep circles hid beneath his eyes - one bright blue, the other a deadened and milky white. His long hair was matted with sweat, and he shook it loose, aware of the stink of the road and the grime of hard travel. Slowly, he made his way past the silent villagers, past the firepit, toward the bar.

He paused, shoulders slumping with weary resignation, near the young minstrel tentatively raising his lute to take up his song once more. The lad gazed up at the templar, openmouthed, watching a thick bead of blood drip from nose to beard and then down onto the rim of the beaten steel cuirass.

The templar cleared his throat, wiped his nose and beard, spat a gobbet of blood into the roaring fire. “Take me to your mother, lad,” he said in a rusty voice. “She can be saved.”

Tears welled in the bard’s eyes, and he hurriedly gathered his things. The templar watched mutely, knowing that the boy’s sister was already as good as dead.

[heendedupsad]

Otho the Heretic - introduction ii

Her name was Nyssa, she knew a little alchemy. She loved to cook, her chicken stew was legendary. Her husband was Aberjon, he was a miller, he’d gone off to war and never came back, Eight bless his soul and may he find happiness in Sovngarde. Her son was Galund, he had been to the college in Solitude, he was a minstrel, you should hear him play. Her daughter was Heida. She’d always been sickly. In the last year, she’d begun coughing up blood. Nyssa didn’t know what mixture to use, she’d always been able to keep the fevers down before. You’re a healer, you fixed me, you can fix her.

Otho was sure he could recite every single story this woman knew from memory. She had insisted on reading her books to him, delighted that he was appreciative of a woman who was literate. She had given him a clean pallet and a roof over his head while the blizzard blew itself out over the course of two weeks, and she had stuffed him to the gills with her chicken stew that he privately suspected was made with more skeever than chicken, since eggs were precious in the wintertime. She had been very grateful for his aid, and she had been very kind.

That was when it was hardest, of course. The doomed, their reactions always ranged - some terrified and clinging to life even as it bled from their bodies, and others still grateful that their pain was finally coming to an end and they could be off to meet whomever waited for them on the other side. But the loved ones, the friends, the employers and the servants who all relied on a doomed soul - they all followed him with their bleary, teary eyes, eager for word that they could continue to hang their lives on this spirit within a dying shell of meat like so many cloaks on a coat hook, and they fed him and housed him and kissed his feet and hands and begged him for a morsel of hope.

They would be the ones to curse him, to revile him, and in many cases to drive him out with swords and cudgels. Otho the Necromancer, they would scream. Otho the Cursed. Otho the Heretic, go back to your devils. So it would be with this Nyssa, whose life he had saved, whose fate he had ensured the continuation of. She would watch him mix herbs in her mortar, nod with approval as he ground wheat and the bright blue mountain poppies, and then startle as he drew deadly nightshade from his satchel and mix it in, grinding patiently.That’s poisonous, she would mouth silently, thinking twice before voicing her objection. After all, he was the healer, he knew what he was doing.

Up the stairs Otho went with his little vial of potion and his little bottle of sweet honeyed mead, to visit once more with the desperately brave little girl in the attic. Her room stank of decay and human leavings, and his nostrils flared in protest, but he pressed on to her bedside, brushed a cold hand against her sweat-soaked brow as she stared up at him through death-blind eyes. He opened the bottle of mead, drank deeply of it, and then filled the empty space in the bottle with his own concotion, mixing the sweet liquor with his special potion. Gently, he held the bottle to her lips, murmured to her to swallow it all and be brave, wiping away the spilled drops as her lips numbed and her tongue thickened in her throat. She clung to his free hand, and he brushed his fingers against the back of her clammy palm, until she released him and herself with a final quavering sigh. He kissed her pallid brow.

Twenty minutes later, he was on the slushy, snow-melting road once more, grateful for the cold wind against the crimson burns on his face caused by a pot of boiling chicken stew being hurled at him.

[heendedupsad]

cult of solace iii

It would have been better if she simply woke up in the middle of what she was doing. Some part of her could have simply pushed it aside, or maybe even embraced it and sought help and accepted judgment and faced the consequences. Maybe then they could have simply killed her - she could have died in absolution, and perhaps even found peace. Better for the galaxy, certainly.

For Adelia Nendo, there would be no more peace, and could be no more peace. Peace was, as they said, a lie; there was only passion, and a large amount of exhilarated terror, and above it all a towering sense of righteous anger. Her blue eyes wept streams of inky, ichor-stained blood, and her blood mixed with that of a score or more peacekeepers sent to investigate the disturbance at the Senator’s office. The call went out, and she could hear it tinny on the comm speakers of the dead.

There was a Sith on Coruscant. A Sith murdered Senator Colartus. A Sith attacked Tucio Ustus. Adelia didn’t understand. Her shattered gaze whipped violently about as she ran through the underbelly of the Senate Tower plaza. If there was a Sith, well… she’d kill him, too.

The underpath leading to the spaceport was lined with vagrants and thugs, cradling mewling infants and begging with one hand while shielding the eyes of the children with the other. Revulsion churned in her stomach; why, these people feared her! Loathed her! They turned away from her bloodstained hands, and yet still they had the audacity to beg for her alms? The more they clutched at her robes, the easier it was to simply summon the Force to sweep them out of her path and listen to their groans of pain as they hit the plascrete floors and walls.

Her thoughts bounced crazily inside her skull as she flew past the sea of grey faces. This isn’t only what Coruscant wants to protect, Adelia, someone who sounded like her said inside her brain. This is the future of forever. The powerful will always cast down the weak, unto eternity. As long as there are strong, there will be miserable. As long as there is wealth, there will be poor. As long as there is life, there will be death. That is the meaning of Balance. That is the definition of Power. Preserving the balance of strength and weakness.

You should have killed that Jedi when you had the chance, Adelia. This is the reward for your mercy.

She drank in those words like sweet wine from a golden goblet, and it gave her strength - both in resolve and in the Force. It was as if she’d opened the door to welcome guests into the palace of her soul. Purple lightning coursed from her fingertips, melting down the heavy barricade that led into the main concourse and toppling it with a ringing thud. A thousand or more well-dressed faces stared back in astonishment - the bustle of shuttle boarding ground to a halt. A lightsaber ignited. Two. Ten. Thirty.

Run.

The nearest open gate said “NAR SHADDAA - DEPARTURES” and then it crashed down behind her, torn from the ceiling to block her path. She placed bodies in her way - some living, some freshly dead - her heart fit to burst and every breath a tearing, searing sob. An airlock was closing in front of her give me your strength and jump Adelia behind her, and a startled pair of heads gazed in terrified wonder at her bloodied robes and glowing lightsaber. A blaster was produced. The world spun. She vomited blood. The pilots died. She came to her senses with perfect clarity and rememberance. Hyperspace. Nar Shaddaa. Damaged transport. Life support offline. ETA 27 minutes.  Adelia had been awake for twenty-six hours. She was wearing a respirator, and she was keeping herself warm through the power of someone’s hateful need to stay alive. There was a Task. There was… someone inside her brain.

"Who are you?" she said aloud, and gasped audibly when she answered herself, silent and satisfied and purring with life.

Do you seek Solace?