Fire On The Mountain (A Skyrim Quest)

White River Watch

Once Vigrod points out the concealed path up the side of the mountain, it is suddenly tremendously visible; it's wide enough to push a cart up, just artfully discussed with some dry brush and a fallen tree which nearly - but does not quite - cuts across the path.

Bathes-in-Steel doesn't spare the bandit deserter another glance, brushing past him to head up the path. "Shall we teach these bandits a lesson, Do'azda? Shall they learn the price of their sins?"

Do'azda unsheathes her axe. She has to admit, the bandits have a choice spot indeed, and no doubt they have stolen much. But the best spots, in her experience, are often not taken for a reason: because anyone else can find them. This is the way with the bandits in Elsweyr, at least.

"Listen to this, Thelen - Hajvarr had Ulle hand me a note, like I'm the troublesome child in the orphanage." The voice is rough and mocking, sounding young and with a slight lilt to its heavy nordic accent that Do'azda cannot identify.

Do'azda scrambles up the slope as the bandits talk, Bathes-In-Steel creeping forwards behind her, surprisingly quiet even in heavy steel.

"Perhaps you ought to listen to him, Rodulf." Someone else replies, worn and tired. "He's getting violent, paranoid…"

The track turns to the left behind a large rocky outcrop, and Do'azda scans as it widens into a clearing. Rough hewn wooden tables run along against a cliff on their right, laden with an eclectic variety of goods - bolts of cloth, piles of treated furs, wheels of cheese larger than Do'azda's head, bottles of mead and wine, rolls of paper, all chaotically laid out. In the middle of the clearing are two carts - one angled towards the path they have just taken, the other to follow its mirror at the far end. They would block a carriage onto the stretch of road, Do'azda realises, terribly easily.

"No, no, listen - 'I know my uncle has issues, but he is our watchman and you will respect him.'" Rodulf grumbles this last. "'One more joke and you'll see how funny a day in the cage is'. Gods be good but Hajvarr talks like we're all scared of him, the old fool. If you make a blind man a watchman, I'll give him a bit of a ribbing, what's the harm?"

The two men - both nords - are sat at one of the tables as they talk. Of the two, one looks younger, by perhaps a decade or more, though Do'azda can only see the back of his head. They're both picking at plates, which she supposes likely contain whatever's left of their breakfast.

"The harm is when Hajvarr locks you in a cage over the shaft and has people throw rocks at it, Rodulf." Thelen says, "Just leave Ulfr be for a while, alright? Hajvarr'll settle down once he gets over the mutiny earlier, stops seeing conspirators behind every shadow, and then you can go back to putting caltrops on Ulfr's chair."

Bathes-In-Steel doesn't wait any longer, and Do'azda only takes a heartbeat to follow her lead, exploding into violence. The older man, Thelen, doesn't even have time to rise before Bathes-In-Steel is turning away from him, his neck spraying arterial blood across the table, red and hot, but the younger, Rodulf, leaps sideways, Do'azda's axe whispering past his head.

Do'azda hurries to finish the job, her axe upraised, but Rodulf rises with a dagger in each hand, a whirling dervish of iron. Do'azda staggers, thrown for a moment, before the pattern of his knifework becomes clear. She pauses for a second, and then strikes, her axe ripping down with frightful speed. Rodulf attempts to dodge the blow, but judges wrong; the blade catches him in the face, not the neck as she had planned, and he drops like a felled tree.

He doesn't get up, groaning and writhing on the ground. She doesn't know if he's dying or not. Probably? She's seen too few--or perhaps too many--people die.

She doesn't have… she doesn't have time to minister him, not if they want to keep the element of stealth and surprise.

Bathes-In-Steel, it seems, trusted Do'azda's capabilities enough that she didn't stay to watch her fight with Rodulf, instead heading further along the rear of the curious rocky basin which makes the clearing.

"The cave is here," Bathes says, "You did well against that bandit - you need to build up muscle mass if you want to use an axe like that, though."

Do'azda rolls her shoulder, trying to smooth it. She's not quite quick enough with the axe; Bathes is right, she's not strong enough.

The cave mouth is strangely geometric, as though a pentagon of rock were carved out with a knife to a handful of strides deep, before the cave begins to resemble a true cave. The tunnel immediately begins to drop, steep and unpleasantly loose soil - what passes for ground here is a thick layer of dust and detritus blown in from outside, and Do'azda makes her way down the slope gingerly.

At the bottom of the slope, the cave broadens out into a passageway, and Do'azda freezes for a moment at the sight of a watchman sat at a table in middle of the passageway, a crossbow laid across the table, the bolt unerringly pointed at her chest.

"Who goes there?" The watchman asks. He's an older nord, thin grey hair clinging to the sides of his head and scruffy stubble around his mouth and jaw, marred by dozens of tiny, thin white scars. His eyes are milky white.

Do'azda holds her breath. The man is blind. Why is their watchman blind?

"I can't see no more," The watchman growls, "But I can still hear you, Rodulf. You playing some kind of game again?"

Bathes-In-Steel ghosts past Do'azda, her boots quiet in the loose earth, and Ulfr doesn't react, doesn't turn his gaze from where it is fixed - a foot or so above Do'azda's head, about where Rodulf's eyes would be, she supposes.

He barely has a second to yelp in surprise as Bathes' clawed hand grips the back of his head and violently slams it forwards. His forehead cracks noisily into the crossbow, and his nose explodes with blood as it smashes against the table.

Bathes-In-Steel lets go, and watches him slip bonelessly to the floor.

"This one may live," Bathes-In-Steel says conversationally, "Or perhaps not. It doesn't matter - he won't be getting up again before we are gone, regardless."

Do'azda nods, glancing at him one more time before crouching down slightly. They need to get the jump on someone, especially if she wants to Shout at them. And, she finds, she really does. Even though she knows that even 'Fus' will hurt them badly, even if it's not the terror it could be. But she can imagine it, imagine what it will feel like to be so powerful. She wants that, just a little bit, because right now she is well aware that this situation is increasingly spiralling towards violence.

Bathes-In-Steel is not the sort, it seems, to grant mercy once it has been decided against. She doesn't spare the man another glance as she shifts past him.

"The ground becomes rocky now," Bathes-In-Steel says, "So be careful, footsteps will carry."

Do'azda is no brilliant assassin, but she allows herself to be quiet, carefully taking in what she can see from there. There are old pieces of furniture, with a few books here and there, a few pieces of gold. She is sure they can loot it later. Or they'll be dead later, and either way she passes it by.

Up ahead, she hears three voices.

"The three of us could take him, I'm sure of it," a man's voice declares with an odd lilt. "Whoever was here before, they left behind a few bits of magic, and I've been learning. My magic, your sword, your bow." She guesses he's gesturing. "it's enough to take him down, I'm sure of it. We go at midnight. He's getting paranoid, but he's got to sleep some time."

Do'azda creeps forward, digging into her own magic. Her idea is simple enough. The conjured wolf attacks them all at once, and then they both charge in while they're in disarray and desperation.

She sees that the cave has a ramp up of sorts, and she glances over at Bathes-In-Steel. 'Ready' she mouths, raising a hand.

'Yes.'

Do'azda's hand twists, curling into the increasingly familiar form needed to touch the hunting grounds of Hircine. She flairs them, feeling her magicka reserves drain a little through her fingers, and then with a pop of her ears like a change of pressure, a wolf pulls itself into Tamriel, and Do'azda hears the mage gasp, a second before the wolf is on him, her hackles raised.

There are things you can prepare for in life. Very few of them are a spectral wolf suddenly attacking you in the middle of a conversation. It leaps right at the mage, biting for his leg, clearly understanding that he's the biggest threat. Do'azda surges forward, not with a shout but with a quiet, careful grunt as she runs for the archer, a redguard woman who's eyes widen as she drops an arrow, startled.

Bathes-In-Steel is right behind her, and then right ahead of her, as their footsteps echo far more than she likes.

The archer's still fumbling for another arrow when Do'azda is upon her, axe swinging down, watching the terror in her eyes with something rising in her gut that Do'azda realises is satisfaction, which sends a thrill of discomfort up her back.

The redguard twists her bow in desperation, catching the axe on it, deflecting the killing blow, and follows it up with a savage kick to the gut that would drive the air from Do'azda, but for her leather cuirass.

Do'azda doesn't give the redguard time to adjust, to draw the dagger on her hip or run, taking a step forwards as she swings her axe into the woman's throat.

Bathes-In-Steel is dueling the swordswoman, parrying every stroke, shifting her weight only lightly, her eyes hard and piercing.

When the mistake comes, it's so subtle Do'azda almost doesn't see it. The swordswoman - an imperial - overextends only by a fraction, and Bathes-In-Steel moves. Her sword pins the woman's sword to the stone as she lashes out with her off-hand, clipping her across the jaw. The imperial drops her sword, spinning, disoriented and punch-drunk. Bathes's own sword slashes up the woman's back. Blood flickers across the cave, the woman gives a scream that stops Do'azda's heart for a moment, and then she collapses.

The mage is less panicked by his plight with the wolf than Do'azda expects, fire forming in his hands as he kicks at the wolf, clearly having decided that killing her mistress is the solution to his problems.

Fire crackles noisily in his hands and his features twist into a snarl as he releases it at her, almost flicking it like a glob of tar. The bolt sweeps over her left shoulder, so near that she can feel the fur of her shoulder curl away from it.

He doesn't get the chance to strike again, as the wolf grabs his arm, wrenching it down, and before he can kick the wolf away, or cast the spell straight into its face, Bathes-In-Steel beheads him in one smooth motion.

But while they have managed so far to avoid being caught, now they can hear people moving. She looks up and over, trying to see if there's a good chokepoint for her to use. But there isn't. The path goes up, ascending up towards… oh. She knows that smell.

"This way," Do'azda whispers, and both Bathes-In-Steel and the wolf follow her.

Up at the top of the pathway is an alchemy lab. Well, it is a table, but it is an excellent, well-appointed table and there are two potions on a side table near it. Parts of the table are dusty and seem ill-used, as if someone has come by with less skill and used only what they could manage. Maybe this is even exactly what it is.

It would make sense, she decides, if this were the abandoned home of some Mage. She cannot be sure, but the one Mage she has seen was no alchemist, and not particularly skilled anyways. She has plenty of magic left if she needs it, and the enemy has not pounced on them as fast as she fears they would.

So she strides forward, even leaving the potions behind--

"Shouldn't we grab it?" Bathes-In-Steel asks in a quiet whisper.

"No. Never drink strange potions," Do'azda points out, and up ahead she finally sees her targets… and her hand brushes a pull-chain.

She shouldn't pull it, but the curiosity is too powerful, and so she steps back and… pulls it.

There's a groaning, and she sees it. Oh.

In the room with the bandits is a gate, and behind that gate is a starving, mangy looking wolf that leaps out in fury.

Bathes-In-Steel curses. "Hurry!"

And then she's gone, rushing into the chamber ahead, as the wolf launches itself at the back of one of the bandits.

The cavern is tall and relatively thin, with two bandits at the bottom of the shaft, and others - Do'azda doesn't take the time to count as she trails in Bathes-In-Steel's wake - along a weathered spiraling ramp around the rim of the shaft.

Her spirit wolf leaps forwards, outpacing Do'azda into the room. Of the two bandits at the base of the shaft, one - an orc man, his face ravaged by pale scars and his hair silvered with age - is now pinned between two wolves, whilst the other - a nord woman, has already dropped her mace as Bathes-In-Steel moves past her, leaving her throat neatly opened, blood pouring down the front of her iron armour, plastering the fur trim to her skin.

The orc lets out a furious growl as he grabs the wolf - the real one, not Do'azda's spirit - and throws it against the wall, where it lets out a single sharp yelp and lies still. The bandits higher up the shaft have begun now, and arrows are whistling down around Do'azda, one deflecting from Bathes-In-Steel's shoulder, sending a huff of surprise from the argonian.

As arrows rain down around her, Do'azda feels as though the world is slowing. She hefts her axe two handed and swings. The orc, busily wrestling with her wolf, has only the time to look up in alarm before the axe hits him in the chest.

Do'azda can see his eyes glazing over as bloodlust fills them, watches him scramble blindly for his sword, trying to rise, but when the axe pulls free from his chest, the orc sags to the ground, unable to muster the strength to rise.

Bathes-In-Steel faces off against three bandits, halfway up the rise. Two of them continue to fire their bows, arrows clattering off the argonian's steel armour as she hunches behind an overturned table.

Do'azda knows what she can do to. She races forward, an arrow missing her by almost nothing, and then she draws deep in her.

There is power in the air, there is a force that will push them back.

She has to only speak it into reality, and it will be so. How could reality dare but to give her what she demands of it? What reality can deny her, she thinks, the thought like pride but without the assumption.

She speaks.

"Fus."

The world obeys.

The wall of force is no earth-shattering blast, but it knocks both of the archers off their feet. One falls harmlessly to the ground a foot or two away from where they had been, as if she's been shoved by someone really strong.

But the other one.

It is pure blind bad luck that leads the archer to fall the wrong way, a dozen feet down to slam head first into the ground with a sickening sound of crunching and breaking.

The whole room actually freezes for just a moment, Do'azda skidding to a halt.

Her voice doesn't even hurt, though she isn't sure if she has it in her to do it again so soon, as if she has pushed a cart out of a ditch and needs to catch her breath for a moment.

Just like that, there is no way that the bandits survive against her and Bathes. Bathes-in-Steel darts out after just a moment of shock to press in against the one bandit not armed with a bow.

Do'azda startles and moves towards the woman with a bow. The woman rises, still desperate as she groans and draws for a knife at her belt.

Do'azda wants to yell at them to stop being so stupid. Instead, she hit the woman with her axe.

The flat of her axe. It slams against the woman's shoulder, knife clattering to the ground as the woman screams in pain. Do'azda pictures the sight of the other archer hitting the ground, surely dead from the head wound. And so she slams it again, again not as if she is trying to cut the archer in front of her down, and the woman topples.

Do'azda is breathing heavily, every gasp of air coming forced in the face of what she's done. It is necessary, and yet it is going to be in her memories, in her dreams, in her mind's eye.

Bathes-In-Steel has pinned her bandit to the wall, her sword all the way through his armour and chest, and she turns curiously to Do'azda. "That was impressive! Took me a little by surprise though! Do you think the mountains are aflame this time, or not?"

Do'azda considers this for a moment. "Do'azda… hopes not." If every time she Shouts the world alights, it is going to be pretty hard not to be noticed.

"Aww, but it was really cute," Bathes-In-Steel said. "The fire was pretty."

She sounds genuinely disappointed, and not at all as if she's just fought for her life.

"It… was," Do'azda says. "We still haven't killed the leader of the bandits."

"This is very true," Bathes-In-Steel says, "I bet he's a rough one. Entertaining, hopefully."

"Excuse me?" The voice is tremulous, as though they're embarrassed to be interrupting. "If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to come down?"

Do'azda jumps, and Bathes-In-Steel swears violently, spinning on the spot.

There's a wooden bar bolted to a rock on the top level of the shaft, hanging out into the space. At its end, there's a cage, and in the cage is a dunmer, rake thin and sporting a number of cuts and grazes, in armour made of grimy hides, pegged together with little pieces of carved wood. When they see Do'azda and Bathes-In-Steel are looking at them, they wave nervously.

"Hajvarr threw me in here," They say, "I lost my job in Windhelm, I met a girl - a lovely altmer mage in the New Gnisis Cornerclub - who said she was going to join a group out in the wild, mostly hunting, occasionally a little gleaning from caravans. I was planning to leave, before she took off, but then she did, and Hajvarr threw me in here in case I was in on it."

Bathes-In-Steel cocks her head. "You tell a compelling tale of regretted mistakes, I suppose. We can't release you now, but if Do'azda agrees, perhaps once we have killed your chief?"

Release the caged bandit after facing the bandit chief?
[] [Cage] Yes.
[] [Cage] No.

"I know you're in there!" This voice is not tremulous, booming and angry. "I've heard you. Come to face me! Come to die!"

It echoes from the narrow tunnel sloping upwards from the shaft, and Bathes-In-Steel glances towards it. "He awaits, in fact. Do'azda, if you would be so kind as to accompany me?"

The tunnel is only broad enough for one, and as Do'azda follows Bathes-In-Steel up, she can hear the blood pulsing in her ears. If Hajvarr attacks them at the cave mouth…

But he does not. Bathes-In-Steel emerges, blinking, into the sunlight and Do'azda follows, taking it in. A platform of old weathered wood extends out from the rocky scree of the hillside, providing a breathtaking view of the Whiterun basin, a view that Do'azda does not see, for standing on this platform is a man, near enough to seven foot tall, and perhaps half as wide as tall.

His steel armour like a bug's carapace, his gauntlets pearlescent with enchantment as they wrap around the hilt of a steel greatsword - a colossal sword, made tiny in his grip, the point pointed to the ground, the hilt held at chest height as the man stands in a state of ready ease, legs slightly apart, both hands on his sword. His face, weathered and craggy, half hidden by a bushy brown beard, shot through with grey, his blue eyes fixed on them both, filled with hate.

"Beasts," He growls, "All my hard work, torn down by fucking beasts. Have you any idea how long it'll take me to rebuild? And the jarl's damnable thanes will be about, too! Talos's sweaty ballsack, give me one benighted reason to let you leave without me turning you into a fucking rug?"

"No," Bathes-In-Steel says easily, "We do not want to leave. We came here to kill you."

And that's that.

Choose an overall strategy:
[] [Overall] Inside his reach - Do'azda will rush forwards, trying to get within the arc of his sword, so he hasn't the space to fight, especially on the cramped balcony.
[] [Overall] Behind him - Do'azda will break away, let Bathes-In-Steel fight him as she works her way behind him, attack in his blindspot.
[] [Overall] Sweep the leg - Do'azda will move to attack his relatively unarmoured legs, distracting him and - hopefully - even knocking him down, so Bathes-In-Steel can strike the killing blow.

Choose a magical strategy:
[] [Magic] Use Conjure Animal to try to even the odds, give them more to focus on hopefully and other dangers besides herself.
[] [Magic] Summon a bound dagger in her off-hand - bound weapons are faster than normal weapons, as light as air in the hand.
[] [Magic] Cast Distraction - it is a cheap spell, costing only time, and may provide sufficient to distract him at a critical moment
[] [Magic] Do'azda will not cast any spells, keeping her concentration on the fight.

Choose a martial weapon:
[] [Martial] The axe - Do'azda's most comfortable weapon, but there's a little fatigue creeping into her muscles.
[] [Martial] The dagger - The faster of Do'azda's weapons, and the lighter, but she doesn't know how much it can do against a man in such armour.

Should Do'azda Shout?
[] [Shout] Shout.
[] [Shout] Do not Shout.

Bathes-In-Steel will likely be able to work with whatever Do'azda does, but there's no time to communicate, in any event.

VM AN: I do like White River Watch. Apologies that this took so long - I picked up a wretched bug.

TL An: Stuff comes up, it came up on my end as well. Hope you enjoy!