Our time in Anvil came to an end although our stay had been lengthened by almost a full week to receive our gifted suits of armour. Both Viconia and I stood perceptibly taller now, our declared statuses as Champions of the city filling us with pride even as we attempted to hide from the fame. The word of us closing not only one, but two oblivion portals would have travelled throughout the Empire and the other tales such as the minotaur hunt and contracts within the guild was very quickly making us legends.
Successful in our mission to Anvil, we once more returned to the road after hiring new steeds after our previous ones had been counted among the dead of the siege. Our journey gaining support of the guild was now taking us to the far south of Cyrodiil, and with winter now upon us it was not something I could complain about. Anvil was pleasant enough with its yearlong temperate climate but snows were still possible on the odd occasions. Bravil and Leyawiin still awaited us so we saddled up our new rides, and began the fortnight long trek to the Niben valley.
We stayed in coaching inns and taverns along the way, bypassing Kvatch during the middle of the day due to the faster pace we travelled at. Within a week we once again returned to Skingrad, staying for a couple of nights to ease the aches and pains of the journey from our bodies and acquire further provisions. The month since my brief fight with the cultist at the tannery had allowed the fellmongers to turn the minotaur titan's hide into the goods that I had requested, and the brief stopover in the city allowed me to retrieve the order. Now our unique and immaculate armours were joined with further clothes and items of enduring quality, the thick hide of the minotaur now worn by us in the forms of gloves, hoods, cloaks and sturdy boots. The dark grey leather blended in with the green-brown deadroth scales, and blackened plates of our armour and the lightweight nature and colouring still allowed us to move with little hindrance. Where before we appeared little more than down-on-our-luck sellswords or highwaymen, we now looked every inch of the heroes we were known as.
Walking through the streets our unusual appearances turned heads long enough for our identities to be discerned and while for the most part this was limited to gasps and whispers between people there were still many who approached us in something resembling religious reverence. No matter how thickly the crowds gathered we seemed to be able to make our way through with no impediment, a gap appearing before us through a combination of fear and admiration.
During our brief stay in the city we mostly relaxed and killed time, gathering further supplies of arrows and rations for the journey to the rainforests and marshes of the Niben. Every precaution was taken and somewhat as a result we decided to lighten our pouches of valuables.
Four of our pouches had still been filled with a considerable number of gemstones and other valuables taken from the minotaur's lair. I knew that while Viconia loved being in proximity to such wealth it made me increasingly uncomfortable. With our growing fame it would not be long before individuals would begin to try their luck with us in various challenges, and once the word or rumour of our wealth begins to spread we would have further complications. As a result we soon found ourselves the owners of one of the richest and expansive manors within the city, complete with furnishings and even hiring one of the local maids on a permanent basis as caretaker. Our lives on the road meant that it was highly unlikely for us to stay there in any permanent capacity and while it was almost bought on a whim, both of us felt more secure in the fact that we were down to a single pouch of valuables.
Rosethorn hall was a grand manor built in an old central Colovian style, stately and cosy despite the immense cost. There was enough room for a family of six to live comfortably with a section set aside specifically as the servants quarters. Eyja; our hired maid would have the manor to herself for the most part and before we continued on our journey I ensured that she had been paid almost two years in wages. After living semi-rough for the past years and coming highly recommended from all that we spoke to, neither Viconia and I were concerned for her trustworthiness. For the most part she seemed eager to please not only for fear of losing such a lucrative job but our reputations worked in our favour as a pair of individuals not to be crossed in any way.
Checking into the local guild during our stay allowed us to pick up a further contract along the road to Bravil. Glenvar County to the east between Skingrad and Bravil had been experiencing mysterious disappearances within its population. Sparsely populated, and only containing a handful of villages and towns, Glenvar was little more than wilderness where the forests of the West Weald met the rainforests and marshes of County Bravil. Tiny hamlets such as Pell's Gate and Glenvar Village were the only real locations of civilisation outside of a handful of Legion Forts and Castle Glenvar itself.
Separated by a two lengthy days travel, Glenvar was a tidy little village nestled at the base of the hill where the Castle squatted and held the region in its stony grip. One of the few castles or forts in Cyrodiil that was not a Legion post; the Castle was well known to be incredibly defensible and rumoured to be unconquerable. Poor compared to the larger counties it was still welcoming despite the building distrust of strangers after the disappearances and the growing threat of Oblivion. Riding into town in the early hours of the night we managed to secure lodgings in the Faregyl Inn, choosing it over the closer but more ominously named "Inn of Ill Omen". Despite the disappearances and the slowly decreasing amount of traffic on the roads since the Emperor's assassination there were little rooms to be had, leaving Viconia and I once again sharing a single room.
Up on the second level of the tavern, the hall was lined with doors but each room was barely three metres wide and four long. There was enough space for a single bed and straw mattress, a table and chairs arrangement and a travellers' chest for short and long term storage. For the first evening we simply dumped our excess equipment and saddlebags, waiting for the following day for beginning the investigation into the missing villagers.
So far from the larger cities, the sway of superstition was stronger than science and fact and as such we found it increasingly difficult to get solid answers. Yes, people had been disappearing for the past few weeks. No, there hadn't been any signs of ogres, goblins, trolls or other creatures of the wilds in the region for months. For the most part the disappearances had been those who had wandered or had been travelling alone on the roads during the night. On the surface it would've appeared as though the increasing number of bandits and highway throughout Cyrodiil were to blame but there had been at least two cases where individuals in the outer buildings and farms had vanished from within their homes. There were no signs of struggles, nothing to show for the fact that two dozen individuals of varied ages and professions had simply ceased to exist.
My own ability for tracking turned up nothing, a situation not helped by the fact that the last disappearance had been over a fortnight before. One of the young children of a farmer had gone to draw water for the evening bath from the stream leading from the base of the cliff where the castle was built and had instead vanished in the night. The bucket she had taken was found sitting a few metres away from the water's edge, and that was the only sign that she had been present.
The locals were understandably fearful, barring their doors of a night and hanging various herbs, ribbons and blessed items from doorframes and windows in various attempts to keep evil at bay. The amount of times that I had bumped my head on the cloves of garlic and hourglass hanging from the ceiling just inside the tavern's door was leaving a mild bruise in the middle of my forehead. The garlic was supposedly protection from creatures of the night such as vampires which my mere presence made a mockery of, and the hourglass was supposedly a talisman for seeking Akatosh's protection. Neither of which I had much faith in their supposed benefits, and there were an increasing number of the locals with similar ideas to my own who carried various weapons at all times. Too poor for swords or smith-forged equipment, most carried something as simple as a hatchet or woodsman's axe, others keeping various knives tucked into their belts or a spear or agricultural equipment on their backs.
Viconia's and my presences were met with mixed reactions. While our reputations had reached even this backwater of the Empire, the fact that we were with the Fighter's guild only seemed to confirm to the locals that there was indeed something rotten in the county. By the end of the first day it was almost like we were being called out to see and investigate every noise and movement in the entire region. Between my growing annoyance of the locals and the lack of any suitable leads I was in a foul mood when I returned to the tavern, once again bumping my forehead on the bottom of the hourglass as I made my way up the stairs to our shared room.
Viconia had returned the hour previously to wash off today's accumulated dust and grime, and she looked up at me as I entered after knocking gently. She had changed into her travelling clothes, leaving her armour unfastened and placed neatly along the table that we had jammed into the corner to provide space for my bedroll along the floor.
"Discovered that hourglass again did you?" She asked, seeing how I was absently rubbing at my forehead.
"Yeah. Maybe at next smithy we come across I should invest in a helmet."
Sitting on the edge of the bed she smiled slightly, leaned forward and watched as I began stripping my armour. My new minotaur cloak was unfastened and draped from the hook on the back of the door along with my hood and mask before shedding my bandolier and pouches. Next came the breastplate, pauldrons, and faulds that made a neat pile of mithril, ebony, steel and leather in the chair before I came to the struggle that was the Daedroth scale chainmail. Thankfully its light weight compared to regular chainmail made it easy to slide off but for the most part it still left me grunting and cursing as I lifted it over my head and arms.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Left in nothing but my tunic, chainmail chausses, greaves and boots I suddenly felt lighter and uncomfortably exposed. After shedding the armour that I had worn every day and nearly every night for the past fortnight I almost felt naked.
Sunchild and its scabbard was placed up against the table where Viconia's effects had been arrayed in perfect order, and as I turned I saw the strange expression on her face. She sat, one knee raised with her foot on the bed, hands folded over her knee and chin resting on top of them. Staring into space she had begun curling herself into a ball even while trying not to appear to be doing so.
"Viconia?" carefully I stepped forward, bending down slightly to look into her eyes. "What's wrong?"
The wolf-yellow irises and widened pupils darted up into mine and I could almost feel the turmoil of emotions running through her. There was the slightest tremble of emotion running through her limbs and enough fear in her eyes that I suddenly felt myself tensing as though expecting a fight.
"Wait." Her voice was tiny and lacking the usual confidence and strength that usually filled every word as she choked them out. "If... If you would please sit with me for a moment I would be thankful. I am not eager to be alone right now."
I moved carefully over to her, sitting down onto the edge of the bed but still leaving a sizable gap between us. It creaked under my weight and shifted her slightly higher as my bulk crushed the hay a fraction more. The fear now was a bitter taste on the edge of my tongue and unbidden the vampire had risen to lend me its enhanced senses. I could hear the crowd in the dining room below us, hear crickets as the sun fully set outside and the faint snorting of stock animals in the various pens and pastures scattered around the community. The fire blazed away softly in the inn's fireplace, warding off the creeping cold of winter despite how far south we were. Owls called out to their own kind within the trees of the surrounding forests and dozens of kilometres away I could hear the lonely howl of a male wolf calling to its mate.
There was nothing untoward in the entire region but Viconia was still sitting beside me, trembling slightly and lost in the depths of her own mind and emotions. Unthinking, and with no other idea of what to do I reached over, putting a hand on her shoulder with what little pressure I dared and preparing myself to snatch it away if needed.
Instead she suddenly moved, shifting her weight on the bed and closing the distance between us. My hand found itself on her opposite shoulder to me, wrapping around her petite frame while she gripped my other hand so tightly that I felt my knuckles crunch together.
Her natural perfume was overwhelming, the scent of her skin and hair coiling around me like the shadows of the flickering lantern hanging from the wall. My every instinct was smothered with the feeling of her proximity and the touch of her shoulder and hand under my own. No longer appearing strong and unyielding as the mountains she instead felt diminutive as her wide opened eyes darted around the room at even the slightest hint of movement.
"Are you all right?" I asked, looking down on her while my concern was building immeasurably with every second. The shaking of her body was welling up from deep within the core of her being and after facing down cultists, minotaurs and the worst oblivion could throw at us, her fear was the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced.
Wordlessly, she looked up into my eyes, and I found myself lost in their yellow depths. There was moisture there, the tiniest hint of tears building in the corners and I tore at the interior at my mind at how I didn't understand what was happening, nor what I could do to help her.
The weight of her head rested into my shoulder for a moment and I couldn't help but feel the guilty pleasure at such proximity. Her shivers were building despite how I tried to wrap my entire left arm around her in a poor attempt at comforting her fears. She simply looked up at me wordlessly, gripping my right hand in her own across the top of her thighs and a sorrowful expression consuming her from within.
Without warning her free hand reached up, caressing the side of my face before drawing me down in such a way I was completely caught off guard. Even before I could react she had drawn us together, locking her lips on mine and losing the both of us to the intimacy of the kiss. I could feel every fluttery breath in her chest, the steady beat of her heart coursing blood through her veins and for that moment in time there were nothing else in the universe but the feeling of her lips on mine, tongues moving together, her fingers on my skin and the coiling smell of her perfume floating around me.
As quickly as the kiss had begun it had ended, having lasted only for a heartbeat and for eras as the same time. Sitting in silence and still holding each other we stared into each other's eyes with only a few centimetres space between us. Every perfect angle of her face was visible to me, the shoulder length hair free and tickling my arm as it cascaded down with only a few burrs and tangles despite our travels. There was a moment where I thought she would draw me back down for an even more passionate kiss but the sudden pounding on the door soon put that idea to rest.
Closing my eyes with a grimace of complete and utter annoyance that was perfectly mirrored by her own, I slowly withdrew my arm from around her shoulders. For a moment I stared at the door, wishing and willing for whoever it was who had interrupted the moment to go away, fall off the edge of the earth or be consumed by a daedra. Anything that would send them away from the moment that they had inadvertently ruined.
"Master Desin? Miss DeVir?"
Cursing every god and daedra in existence in the back of my mind I carefully stood up, seeing my own anger reflected in Viconia's expression. The way that I pulled Sunchild from its resting place against the table was not lost on her as I stomped over to the door, tearing it open with enough force that the young farmhand standing on the other side jumped back in shock.
"What is it?" I growled. The young teen on the other side of the door darted his wide eyes from my thunderous expression, to the visible scars on my bare flesh and the way that I held Sunchild by the middle of its scabbard as though I would strike him with it.
"T-the Aedile has r-requested that y-you come at once." He stammered, taking a step backwards and looking ever more fearful as the bed creaked behind me as Viconia rose to her feet.
Her voice was cold and bitter as she walked over to the door. "This better be important."
"A b-body has been found."
Both Viconia and I stopped in mid breath, briefly glancing at each other as the very last of the moment was yet again lost to the whims of fate. In a heartbeat both of us had gone from annoyed, anxious and concerned to deathly focussed. Quickly and wordlessly we gathered our cloaks and hoods, strapping our swords to our sides but leaving most of our armour behind in our rush.
Exiting the tavern and into the village streets we found ourselves part of the growing gathering of people from throughout the village. Lit by torches now that night had properly fallen, the flickering orange glow set the expressions of fear and concern on everyone's faces in stark contrasts of golden hues and deepening shadows.
"Do you suppose that it will always be like this?" Viconia's voice had lost the tremble of uncertainty and anxiety but there was still the slightest hint of it hiding within her.
"What do you mean?" The crowds parted in our passage and my cloak billowed around me as I moved, blending me into the darkness with its deep grey-black colouring. She followed close behind as we were led by the teenager, looking about at the growing numbers of villagers.
There was a soft sigh from behind my shoulder and I glanced back to see her brush her hair back and hold it there with her silver headband.
"The two of us, out adventuring within the world. Fighting evil and not having a home to call our own."
"This is not really something that is forced on us forever." I replied honestly and somewhat surprising myself. "Do you yearn for something different?"
Near the edge of the village where the carved flagstones of the highway gave way for the smaller, locally produced cobblestones there was a cluster of individuals leading on a snorting bullock as it pulled a flatbed wagon behind it. The shouts and cries were building with every metre it was pulled further into the village, and we had to start shouldering our way through the press.
"I am not entirely sure. Ever since I was banished from the Underdark I have not known anywhere that I could call home. For now I shall be content in the travelling, and the exploring of the world. But there will always be part of me that yearns for home."
I smiled at her over my shoulder, managing to push through and lay a hand on the side of the wagon, gesturing to the bullock's driver to stop. "Yearning for 'a' home, or yearning for 'your' home?"
Her mouth curled up in the familiar smile that never failed to send shivers down my spine "A bit of both actually."
"I have never really had a home to call my own since I was a child. Perhaps the day will come where we remedy our mutual problem."
Scrambling up the side of the wagon, she walked over and leant against the raised sides, peering into where I stood over the blanket and the mass that it covered.
"Your friendship is worth so much to me, and it is not something that I am accustomed to." She rested a hand on my bare forearm as I hunched down to lift the blanket and I found myself lost once more in her golden eyes. "Thank you."
"You are welcome Viconia." The butterflies in my stomach I told myself were due to the apprehension of what lay under the blanket and not the emotions I could see in her expression. For a moment I enjoyed the touch of her hand on my flesh, before gripping the woollen layers and hauling it up and revealing what lay underneath.
The stench immediately assailed my nostrils and I felt somewhat queasy to see where the blanket had clung to the sticky gore that coated it. Over a day old, the corpse had lain in the Winter sun which thankfully was the only reason why decay and flies hadn't colonised it already. Terrible rents covered the torso and arms and the armour that it was clad in hadn't done much in protecting its wearer. Finger sized chunks of steel plates had been torn out of the leather brigandine, most having been snapped, cut or broken into pieces from incredible blows. The pink of flesh poked through the shreds of leather and cloth, blood having flowed freely and coating the outer layer of the man's armour in gore which had turned black and tacky in the sun.
"Stendarr have mercy." I murmured as the dozens around us pulled away from the horrific sight, the cries of shock and revulsion at the sight of such an end enough to leave several vomiting in the gutters. It wasn't the wounds that caused me to mutter the most basic of prayers; but the fact that Viconia and I knew the individual.
His fancy clothes were ruined with a combination of blood and other undefinable materials, the pouches of exotic ingredients shredded and their contents lost. Both sheathes were empty of their swords, but the broken handle of an exquisite rapier was still lodged where it had been jammed into his side. No quiver of bolts, crossbow or travellers pack were strapped to his back, and the thickened bevor of metal around the throat had long since been lost.
Hunched down over his corpse I stared into the wide-open eyes of Threnodir Melainis and perceiving the terror that had sustained him in the last seconds of his life. With building trepidation I stared blankly, feeling the churning apprehension growing at the sight of a single pair of punctures in the flesh of his throat where his killer had completely drained him of blood.
