Fire On The Mountain (A Skyrim Quest)

By Her Honor Is Sworn

The Fortress itself looms, it threatens. It does not need to be an impressive fortress to understand how holding it means power and influence. Khajiit are much the same for outposts and garrisons, though their castles tend not to be quite as large as they are in other lands. The resources are better spent elsewhere, and even wooden forts are more than good enough if protected by magic against fire itself.

This is not a cheap process, but nine out of ten lords found it better than having it be burned down by an angry Mage.

A Shaman has far cleverer recourses than arson, but there have also been cases. A Shaman who discards a possibility either as too subtle or too crude is not thinking cleverly.

She hopes that this is clever. "Ingne, do you have one of those..." she trails off, information she has vaguely accumulated coming up, "Grapnels? Hooks?" She imagines tossing it up to hook on the edge of the fortress, and then climbing that way. Of course, as uneven as things are she could perhaps also just climb up going from stone to stone, and the thought is quite tempting. She is not scared of heights, for all that she never has had a tree-climbing phase as so many of the bipedal kittens did, and some of those on all fours.

"Yes, I do," she says, looking away for a moment and considering it. "It seems pretty risky, for a place to sleep."

Do'azda considers this perspective respectfully. "Probably," Do'azda agrees, tilting her head and looking at it as if from another angle, tail lashing. "But she does not want to sleep outside, and we are strong." She looks at Ingne, and then at Bathes-In-Steel. "Aren't we?"

"Yes," Bathes-In-Steel says. "I would offer you a sticky bun to help relax you, but... I am afraid I am out." She looks sorrowed at this lack, and Ingne stares.

"This close to bed?"

This close to bed?! Truly, she has found herself in the company of an upstanding Nord, if this counts as so close to bed! Why, it is not even midnight! The sun has not even fallen.

"Ah, that is what we forgot. Dinner," Bathes-In-Steel points out, and indeed it is... probably close to dinner time, or time for a snack.

"Before a fight?" Ingne asks, and this time Do'azda agrees. She knows that she'll barely be able to eat at a time like this. She's not stressed, but her body feels things that her mind has already moved past, as if it is an anchor and her enthusiasm is the balloon, such as they sometimes use for observation. What can she see, though?

That is less certain.

"Perhaps," Do'azda offers. "A small snack?"

"Yes," Bathes-In-Steel says.

---

They prepare as they eat, and then begin to creep around in the woods, trying to get to the other side of the fortress. They want to be as far away from the 'action' as possible, because the goal is that once they're inside they'll try to move towards the prison before anything else. The grass they walk through is damp, and overgrown... in fact, that itself seems odd. It is grown up as if it had been kept back... hmm. Oh!

Do'azda understands. In better times it would have been cut back, along with at least some of the trees, so that there was a clear line of sight in all directions. This is not the case now, and perhaps it has not been the case for a while. As it is, it is not all that hard to slip around towards the 'back' of the fort. Then it is a matter of waiting.

Trusting too. In theory this could be some elaborate con, but these are Nords. If this is a trick to get them to attack, surely there are other ways. Shelter could have been offered, even, or an outright attack is probably possible. Do'azda has hardly displayed quite what she can do, so why would they see her as a target requiring such an overwrought trick as faking an entire rescue operation?

No, the risks of failure are the risks of failure and nothing else.

---

The walls of the fortress are crumbling and softened, with much of the mortar having washed out between the great stone slabs that form them. Do'azda almost imagines she could climb these walls with no ropes at all.

Ingne has gone a little pale, looking up at the walls, and so Do'azda decides not to suggest climbing without ropes and equipment.

They spend almost twenty minutes crouched in the bushes, waiting for the moment of distraction. It is not going to be a battle, but a fight would raise their guard. Negotiation lowers it.

She cannot hear words spoken far off, but she notices how fewer and fewer guards show up, and they seem to be hurrying over towards the front… the rest she has to trust.

She strides forward, making sure that the ropes and the grapnels are at the ready. Well, the metal hooks, which should be enough. They toss them up and begin to climb. It is a little harrowing, and she grips her boots so hard on the stones that she almost wishes she was barefoot. It would not be comfortable, but she trusts her feet to get themselves dug into the stone more than these boots. Still, she makes her way up, grunting slightly at the last pull as she tries to move around to get behind cover. She is no stealth expert, but she knows enough to know that every second standing upright on the wall is a second too long. Breaking the line of the horizon makes you noticeable.

She smells gravel, and then beneath it cooked food, alcohol, and from what she can see this is near to where a latrine is. She turns, and Ingne has made it up even easier, while Bathes-In-Steel is amazingly graceful on the way up but flops down on the ground for a moment and considers it intently before pulling herself up and behind the wall. "Where?" she asks, intently.

"The prison first," Do'azda says. She has no trust that they'll make it the whole way before the fighting begins, but she notices that there's nobody nearby. Indeed, there are more men than usual on the far wall, watching… yes.

It's happening the way it's supposed to. She smiles to herself, and imagines fear wrapped around her. She is going to drive panic with fear and fire if she's caught, and she's going to do what she has to do.

There's only one guard left on the prison door, the others having, Do'azda assumes, wandered off to listen to Stalleo's pitiful pleading at the front gate - she can hear a number of guards jeering from the ramparts, and she rolls her eyes.

The guard left behind seems resentful, mumbling to himself - "Don't see why I can't see the old man's begging… He messed my da around as bad as everyone else…"
Do'azda weighs up, briefly, waiting to see if he will say any more than this, explain the specifics of his grievance with Stalleo, discover more of this story, but it isn't really much of a debate; she simply doesn't care that much. She gestures to her companions, in lieu of words.

Ingne takes her first shot carefully, almost professionally, drawing the bow in one smooth motion, then holding it at full draw as she waits, breathes in and out, low and slow.

The arrow catches him in the neck, between his filthy hide armour and his iron helmet, and he drops to his knees, wordlessly choking on the blood.

She misses with her second shot, clearly thrown by her consequences, but Bathes-In-Steel moves with characteristic smooth lethality to cut his neck so deep Do'azda swears it must go all the way to the bone, and to continue walking as though it was nothing to her. Ingne's arrow snaps as the man falls onto it, and Do'azda hears her swallow hard.

However, even swift and careful kills like that are not without their consequences. There's a shout, someone who turned in time to see a man dying. All the secrecy in the world cannot hide the dead right now, and so she turns. It would be nice to try to rush to save them and escape with them, but even that has always been unlikely.

After all, even if she manages to be sneaky, will the prisoners be? Do'azda decides to turn. "Loose on him," she says, as she gathers her magic. But before she can do that much she hears a shout. Two men are racing in their directions, one armed with an axe and the other with a spear.

Do'azda roars, and the magic of Fear courses through one of them, slowing the man with the spear slightly as he tries to find a way to attack her from afar. The momentary pause is all Ingne needs to hit him in the chest with an arrow, and the red-bearded man stumbles back for a moment.

In the chaos that is a fight, two or three moments' pause is all it takes to make it so that the dark-bearded young axeman is fighting both of them at once. Do'azda swings her axe around to force the axeman to take a step around, which puts him in a good position for Bathes to finish him off as Do'azda begins chanting, drawing upon the fire and the fury as she pulls and summons a Flame Atronach and says, "Attack the guards!" Already there are a few more people at the edge of her vision trying to come in.

This is going to be a long fight, she knows it. Waves and waves of enemies, but with everyone having to rush to stop them from getting into the prison… she has a good feeling about this.

---

Do'azda's first kill of the day, her first direct kill, is an axe to the back of the neck of a laughing loon of a woman who rushes for Ingne, who has been doing well but is starting to panic under the waves of enemies. The blow catches her just right and she collapses, twitching and screaming, the laughter at once broken. Do'azda swings again, just to shut her up, fury and frustration growing as she chanted out words to cast some more fear the way of some of the others.

The second kill is a team effort. Bathes-In-Steel finishes off a man writhing on the ground, seemingly burning to death after having tangled with the Flame Atronach, which is now starting to flicker, the fires of Infernus stifled by the rain and by the constant struggle. He's going to die though, she's sure of that, even before Bathes-In-Steel gets there.

The third and fourth are pretty normal. By now she has started to get tired, and they've retreated away from the prison to the lee of one of the parts of the fortress, a part that smells strongly of animals and probably was the stables, but there are only a few horses here. She is shivering wet, and now they are just fighting with their back to the wood and stone enclosures, every moment seeming to take far too long. But she is not going to stop, and Bathes-In-Steel is dauntless. Ingne has overcome her panic, and has herself wounded five or six enemies and killed three by the time Do'azda hacks down her third in bruising, exhausting close combat. She has to take a moment to breathe, and she feels Rahjin strain. He wants to come out. Perhaps he hungers for the eyes of his enemies. Do'azda herself feels...

She feels as if she could not do any more of this, but like she wants to. She is alive and three people are dead by her hand, and more are dead because of her, wounded to be finished off by Ingne or Bathes-In-Steel. In all over a dozen people lay dead or badly wounded in the face of three people's assaults.

She knows this is not normal. But Bathes-In-Steel seems only to lean more and more heavily on her magic as the fight goes on, and she still has magic to spare herself.

But they have begun to get tired, and Do'azda is no good at blocking. When a huge blond man with a club comes in, she can't block his blow, axe raising and then getting knocked aside as she's hit in the shoulder. She has on protection, but she still falls back, grunting in agony.

"I'm gonna make a you-skin rug and fuck whores on it," the eloquent flower of Nordhood yells.

"Do'azda knows," she gasps out, pulling out a knife and conjuring an axe, unable to keep from grinning even through the pain. She is going to enjoy killing him. The world will be better for his death. "That it's better to do it in a bed. She and your mother…"

He roars, and instead of a blow he goes in to try to grab her. She stabs him in his big, fat stomach, and then brings up the hatchet to hit him in the head. But he doesn't die, grunting and punching her once in the head, then a second time, as she desperately stabs him. She straightens and bites his hand when he gets in close, and finally he flops down, and she can stand again, soaked to the bone in blood and woozy, unable to help it…

Do'azda laughs, and laughs, and she does not need to cast Fear now. The other enemies, already starting to run out against the tide of combat that has failed to drown them, stay well away from her as she begins chanting, calling upon magic.

She conjures an animal, thinking of Hircine, and yet… what she gets is not a hunter of Hircine, but a lord among animals, and like any lord more liable to get injured in stupid ways and complain of things anyone else could survive.

A huge, towering stallion of a horse forms, pulled out from her, costing her more in magicka than she thought, but well worth it just for the look on the faces of the four or five bandits still fighting them and the few that are coming up to try to end this.

"Attack!" Do'azda says.

These are her fifth and sixth kills.

People trampled to death by the spirit of a dead horse. She, panting and dizzy, can do nothing else but order it and the Atronach around, that takes about all the attention she has left. The fight finally winds down, and she turns to see that Bathes-In-Steel is injured too, and Ingne looks sickly.

"That… that was a lot," the woman admits, "I didn't even have a chance to use the Voice… though maybe that's for the best."

Because of course, the Voice was not 'supposed' to be used in battle.

Do'azda nods, though. Ingne does not throw up, but even if she did it would be okay. Do'azda should not care more about the foul smell of the dead bodies than the fact that she's responsible for six deaths, and in part for rather more than that. Her mouth is dry, but that is not from any kind of horror, but because she could really use a drink or three. She takes a deep breath and asks, "So, where was the top cat?" She looks around, because she's seen a lot of dead bandits, but none of them dressed like they were in charge.

"If he's run, I'm not chasing him down," Ingne says. "I'm finding a bed and the Lord can deal with him later." She is scuffed up, even with being the archer, and while she hasn't been touched much, one person did get far enough that she had to dodge a stray blow. Do'azda almost smiles, because this is more fun. An Ingne who is at the end of her patience with things, who did an excellent job. If it had just been the two of them, either they'd be dead or Do'azda would have been forced to lean desperately on Shouting just to survive and hope they're too scared to just finish her off.

"I am not either," Bathes-In-Steel says.

"We need to check the prison," Do'azda says, "She promised to help free his family." She is not going to assume there isn't some enemy lurking around, and if someone is she's got a decent well of magicka left, enough to make something happen. But between the spectral horse, the Atronach, and throwing around a few other spells whenever she got a spare moment, she has stretched herself. Even a few weeks ago she'd be gasping for Magicka, and also be entirely unable to walk out. But she does, annoyed at the rain that's really starting to come down.

Bathes-In-Steel and Ingne fall behind her, and she steps around all the dead bodies. By now even some of the ones who were just injured had either passed out or died with the extra time to suffer. The fight hadn't been that long? Had it? But there had been waves of a sort. Even what felt like a few minutes where they shouted insults and clearly tried to find a way to sneak behind them but couldn't find one.

So now the three of them, who have done what a dozen less skilled may have struggled with, make their way towards the prison. There's a big iron door and she pulls it open, and can hear talking.

"You said it was all about keeping him from coming back and ruining everything, you bastard!" a voice echoed from down the hall. It is a plain enough hall, stone walls and torches every so often, like just about any kind of prison or dungeon one could imagine, and Do'azda begins making her way down it. "We trusted you, Brurid!"

"Well, I'm a bandit. I lied," a higher-pitched voice - Brurid, Do'azda assumes - says with a laugh. "Of course I lied! And you believed it. I hate Stalleo as much as you, but…"

"You're an idiot," a woman's voice says dryly.

"Yeah, Korstbjorn, I have to say, you've been more naive about this than I thought you would be," another woman says. "You trusted a bandit? Why?"

"Sisters, let's not make things worse for ourselves," yet another man's voice says, "When he has us at crossbow… point. We only need to wait, at any rate."

"I gave you the opportunity, Korstbjorn" The high voiced man says, "Your brother agreed to join my posse. He realised that really, there's not so much difference between how we run the Watch and how you ran it whilst your father was away."

"Brend is only angry he is not the heir," the first voice - Korstbjorn - says, "But is too much of a milk-drinker to draw steel on Addald."

The second man - Addald makes an aggrieved noise in the back of his throat, and a child makes distressed sounds.

Do'azda steps forward, now worried, and by the time she rounds the corner she can see what there is to see. There are quite a few people there - two children, four women and two men in cells around the edges of a large circular room, and at its centre, an older man in what Do'azda is already beginning to think of as "bandit armour" - furs, chainmail and leather - with a wicked-looking crossbow in his meaty fists. The cells themselves are in a semi-circle, with a wall to the far end that Do'azda eyes.

The grand assembly of people are staring at Do'azda, Bathes, and Ingne with confusion as much as anything. After a second of silence, Ingne waves a little, then catches herself.

"You're the ones that father sent to save us?" the oldest looking of the men says, glaring over at Korstbjorn. "And you suggested waiting!"

"Do'azda is here to finish you, bandit," she says, drawing her axe in one hand and her dagger in the other, but his crossbow remains pointed in the direction of… one of the children. A young Nord girl, perhaps ten or eleven, glares defiantly while her red-haired mother looks terrified.

"Do not threaten my wife and children, or I will see that your death is painful," the oldest man growls. He must be Stalleo's eldest son, already into his middle years, though still stout and hearty.

"And what, Addald, can you do to stop me? Jump in front of the bolt? If you move a step closer, I'll shoot that little brat of yours." The bandit laughs and says, "Same for the lizard and the traitor."

"Traitor?" Ingne asks, confused.

"Hanging around with a cat and a lizard, its disgraceful," he says, "Fine young nordic lassie, and you're here killing Nords with beasts."

"You're a bandit," Ingne says. "You know nothing of honor. You said so yourself."

The man tensed, as if he could brag himself of all the evils he did, but did not want anyone else to call him out on it, or if so wants to be able to make it his own. Oh, Do'azda knows his type.

All at once, Do'azda knows his type. Some of them are even friends of the Khajiit, the kinds of bandits and criminals who could be a part of a resistance or their greatest foes.

"Do'azda challenges you," she says. "To a fight. Bathes-In-Steel and Ingne can leave, can step away, Do'azda will fight with nothing more than her words and a knife. Nothing else." She smiles, and she wants this more than anything. She should be dizzy and woozy, and she is, but beyond that she has an audience. They're all looking at her now.

The older of the sisters is leaning in, eyes seeming to take her in for the first time, and so too is it with everyone else. She wonders what they're thinking.

"Do'azda," Bathes says.

"Trust me."

"Okay," Bathes says, as if all of the worries she'd been about to have are gone now that she's been told not to have them.

"And why would I challenge a low-down cat? Who can vouchsafe for your honor?"

"Balgruuf, the Jarl of Whiterun, and Arngeir, of the Greybeards," Do'azda says, in what is in most senses a lie. She'd been driven from Whiterun, she'd been sent from the mountain after only a week, and yet why should this bandit know that?

Perhaps she is a little like the bandit. Certainly, she is doing something stupid. Ingne and Bathes are stepping away, and she's planning on "cheating." She never said she would refrain from using the Voice, and she's not going to bring it up. No, she's going to Shout him down and kill him.

"Very well then. We'll stay this far apart, and I'll have any weapons I have on me," he said, clearly planning on simply shooting her with a crossbow bolt, loading while she's dying, and finishing her off. And even if he misses, she'd have to close quite a gap and do so before he draws his sword and simply hacks her to death while she tries to fiddle with a knife. That's all she has. One hand free, one hand with a knife in it, staring at him.

"One a count of three?" Do'azda asks, sure he is going to cheat.

"Very well then, stupid cat. One… two…" and then he fires the bolt at the same time that Do'azda feels it.

Anger, wrath at the fact that someone is daring to challenge her.

FUS DAH

The wall of force and its secondary impact slam into the bandit, sending him hurtling back towards the wall as the crossbow bolt goes wide. It is not a defensive technique, and she feels the force she's shoving at best barely deflect the bolt, so she wastes no time, "WULD."

The world blurs, and she slips out of it in time, not bothering to try to twist or turn with how fast she is going, simply rushing forward and slipping out of it, knife raised as he desperately slams the crossbow into her side and her knife finds his throat.

"What are--" he gasps out, and headbutts her chest, clearly trying to get out of the way of the knife, which opens his throat but not deeply.

"Dovakiin!" a voice shouts, in shock and awe. She knows she has not won, and her side aches from the hit and so she steps back and takes a breath, waiting to see if he gets up.

"What… how…"

"Do'azda is a dragon." They are simple words, but she glances over to see that everyone is staring at her. The older blonde woman, especially, looks gormless and shocked even beyond all the others, her blue eyes wide, her mouth open and covered by a hand, leaning forward.

She says, almost to herself, "Finish him," as if she cannot help but want to see.

They are not watching a fight, now. It is an execution, if she can simply deal the final blow. The man is half-slumped, and now he drags himself up, bit by bit, gathering his strength.

"You… you're cheating."

"Do'azda is told that the Nord's greatest hero won a fight with his Voice." She flicks an ear, just to hear the sound of her earring.

He pulls himself up, just in time for her to be able to Shout again, though not enough time for FUS DAH to feel like it is there. It is this feeling as if she had to take a deeper breath for that. So…

FUS.

He slams back against the wall once more, slumping as she looks down at him.

"This one thinks you should surrender. It would be a much less painful death, she must tell you. But she would not surrender, even if there is no chance of victory," Do'azda admits. "So she cannot blame you for your stubbornness."

She palms her dagger in her right hand, stepping forwards to deal the final strike. Do'azda means to drive it up through the base of his skull - a painless, rapid death, as one would give a cow, or a sheep - but even so bested, his eyes flash with defiance and he sweeps the crossbow up, hefts it.

"Do not be foolish," She reprimands, "You fired and missed already - you have not had the time to reload your crossbow, and so-"

Pain explodes from her left temple, so sudden and harsh that her left eye goes white, and the blow puts her to stagger.

She lashes out, furiously and desperately, driving her dagger into him once, twice, three times, and Brurid gurgles something, drops his crossbow and sinks to the ground.

Her dignity has taken a hit, besides all the pain and desperation. But she stands up, once she is sure he is dead, and says, "Do'azda could have done it cleaner, if you were not so filthy." She knows there is no dignity in talking to a corpse, but the words come out even less dignified than usual, because her voice raises and lowers at random. She turns to see that they're staring.

"Do you want out? It is late, and Stalleo is… back at his camp," Do'azda says, seeing all of them gaping, one of them, the older blonde woman, with purest shock…

"She knows that some of you might have cause to want to delay, and she is tired. He did not know when to die," Do'azda complains, knowing she is painfully close to whining.

"We… we can wait, Dovakiin," Addaid says faintly.

"Alright! She is finished!" she calls out, and the door opens and both Ingne and Bathes-In-Steel rush in as Do'azda stumbles forward. "We are leaving them there for now, and going to bed. We can sort the loot tomorrow."

"Do'azda!" Ingne cries in concern, as she takes out a healing potion and drinks it. Among other things, while there are things it will not solve, any decently made such potion also, almost as an incidental effect, dulls the basic pains. She can barely see without her head threatening to split open.

"She is fine, and the bandit is dead. They are all dead," Do'azda says with a shrug, too tired to care.

"Yes. They are," Bathes-In-Steel says, with a nod, as if acknowledging it. "This is a fact."

"Yes," Do'azda says stupidly, "Like the thing with the… thousand steps."

"11077 steps."

"Yes, that," Do'azda says. "Let us go…"

---

She stumbles through the rain, and so by the time they make it up to where the bandit sleeping quarters are, she is soaked, tired, and only just barely no longer bleeding.

But she and the other two naturally find themselves heading towards the biggest room. It is stuffed with loot, with furs and clothing, with bottles of what look to be perfume, and all manner of stolen goods, but it also has a very, very big bed in the middle. "Do'azda thinks we should share this bed," she mumbles.

There is only the one bed, after all. She stumbles towards it, tossing aside her cloak, unwinding any armor, any weapons, and letting them fall where they will. She is out of strength, and so she crawls into the sheets that smell faintly of sweat and hair and everything else, and Bathes-In-Steel and Ingne, from the sounds she hears, are equally quick to shed anything else and come in crawling afterwards.

She closes her eyes, and despite the pain in her head sleep isn't that hard to grasp.

Do'azda has worked hard today, and exercised several of her skills. Pick one for a +1 boost.
[] [SKILL] Block
[] [SKILL] Conjuration
[] [SKILL] Stealth

There is a great deal of loot up for grabs here, but only so much can be taken before Stalleo perhaps suspects it was not merely lost to the bandits.

First, across the fortress there are around 50 septims which disappear into Do'azda's coinpurse, but there are also a number of spell tomes, several pieces of jewelry, a remarkably pristine, if dusty, alchemy kit - as though purchased by a wizard who never quite got around to using it, the arms of various brigands and the contents of the fort's kitchens.

• Spell Tome: Oakflesh [14 points]
• Spell Tome: Sparks [14 points]
• Spell Tome: Turn Undead [14 points]
• Alchemical Kit [10 points]
• Steel swords [3 available] [3 points each]
• Steel axes [2 available] [3 points each]
• Steel daggers [4 available] [2 points each]
• Iron spear [1 available] [1 point]
• Iron maces [2 available] [2 points each]
• Crossbow [1 available] [5 points]
• Fine Rations [15 available] [1 point each]

For a total of 100 points of loot available. Do'azda and her companions can take 50 points of this without raising suspicions.

Make a loot plan:
[] [LOOT]

VM AN: It has been a long time since we gave you a loot plan last, but it seemed appropriate. Very sorry about the delay on this update.

TL AN: Things happen sometime, been a very busy, exhausted time in my life. Hope you enjoyed!: