Chương 369: Saving Xikil
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A/n: For some reason, the last chapter is not complete for some people on the app. Plz, use the browser this time, guys. I really fixed it but the app gets stupid and doesn't update the text!
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The ever dim sky of Coldharbour covered its ever dark wasteland of dead trees, floating stones and towering sharp rocks. The realm itself conveyed the pain and suffering billions of souls that passed over this place since its damnable creation. Through these Shrouded Plains, Jon and Serana traveled on a pair of Cold-Flame Atronach Horses.
Not sure if it was some old ruins or a proper stop, the two stopped at every ruin checking for inhabitants. They rode past many odd lifeforms and exotic creatures that belonged to Coldharbour but the ticking clock was suppressing all sorts of curiosities that may pop up in their minds. Jon could determine that staying in a realm like Coldharbour for too long may actually prove fatal on one's mental health.
After some time, Jon and Serana could spot a few odd looking pyramid-like buildings north of them. As they approached, Jon could feel that these building carried a resemblance to the Ancient Aztec style or rather its counterpart in this world.
"An Argonian Village!"
"Really?" Serana looked with curiosity.
"Looks rather empty though."
The two rode slowly to the village and found it lying in ruins. Jon tried to remember if anything was mentioned about this village in any Elder Scroll Game he played and he remembered something.
"Haj Uxith, that's the village name."
"How do you know?"
"A thousand years ago during the Planemeld, the village was discovered in Coldharbour when explorers started to come and go. Apparently, it was dragged to this realm since ancient times and was the Hist tree of the village made a deal with Molag Bal to harvest its sap for the safety of the village inhabitants. You know how the Hist trees and the Argonians are connected, right?"
"Yeah."
"And so, after the explorers arrived, the Argonians sought them out for help. The Hist was sick and suffering from the machines the Daedra used to extract its sap with. Whether the Hist tree was put to rest or got maintained is unknown but by the looks of things, asking the tree to endure a thousand years is still impossible. The village is in ruins as you see."
[A/n: The Hist are a sentient race of giant spore trees that the Argonians are deeply connected to and in both society and religion.]
As Jon and Serana rode, arrived at a large tree with a very thick trunk with small branches on its top and the roots stuck in a pool of the azure plasm. There was a large crack at the trunk that made Jon curious as he approached it by casting [Waterwalk] to see how the tree died but as he tried to look inside, a pair of sharps sickles was aimed at this neck.
Jon retreated in one jump to see those sickles coming from the large crack on the dead Hist and a creature crawling out of the tree.
Serana ran beside Jon and evoked magic on her hands. "Be careful, that's a Spider Deadra."
Jon looked with disappointment at the Spider Daedra that crawled out of the tree and shook his head.
"It completely ruined my fantasy about Arachne Girls."
Just as Jon mumbled, the Spider Deadra is exactly an Arachne, a half woman half spider. Still, its appearance was nothing like the fantasy fictions he knew, it was a hideous monstrosity with a body made of scales chitin scales until the bosom then a face of that can barely be called a woman's all that on nine spider legs and two human arms.
[Bloodskal] appeared on Jon's hand.
"Hyaa!"
He waved the sword at the Spider Deadra from afar unleashing multiple crescents of [Tyrant Aura] targeting the spider's limbs.
The Spider Daedra was nimble and fast. Recognizing Jon as someone strong, it started avoiding all the energy attacks as its life depending on it but Jon was already trapping it to move as he wanted and cut three legs.
*Shriiiiiiek*
The Spider Deadra shrieked and a few auras started to appear around. Jon checked to see smaller versions of the Spider Daedra called the Spiderlings are crawling all over the place towards him.
"Dirty! Using your children to fight for you."
Jon didn't care anyway and waved his sword to rip them to pieces. As the Spider Deadra finally was free from Jon's volley of attacks, it evoked magic on its hands and shout lightning towards Jon.
Jon was about to put that rude creature in place but Serana stepped in and joined the fight.
"Take care of the small ones. Leave that to me."
"Aye, Sir… Lady."
Jon effortlessly killed the little spiderlings that tried to attack him in melee while Serana took care of the big one. The Spider Deadra used the Lightning Magic as well as Spitting Webs and Poison but Serana negated it all with Frost Magic.
Out of the blue, another Spider Daedra appeared and another one followed it.
"I see, so it was buying time using its kids for its sisters to come. Tsk, I still never understood why Jull would like those creatures."
Jon and Serana were trying to avoid the flashy magic but in the end, they had to end it fast. Nefertiti joined up in her larger form and Jon used [Bloodskal] to send crescent blades of his Aura and used a portion of [Greed] as a blaster gun shooting out his Aura too.
The fight was easily over afterward.
"Let's leave before anything shows up." Jon was in a hurry and conjured two Atronach Horses to ride away.
As they were getting out of the village, Serana noticed something.
"Did you use arrows?"
"No, just my Aura. Why?"
"I can swear that some of the monsters were dead to arrows."
"It needs a lot of power to kill those things with just a bow and I felt nothing, are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Strange, I didn't feel any Aura. Let's just leave and keep a careful watch around."
Jon and Serana rode as fast as they could to lose any trackers if there was any.
"Very convenient, this Aura thing." Serana said.
"Yes, you didn't learn it?"
"No, I don't know if I will even need it."
"I see… practicing it requires a strong personality and a fixed martial style. It is called Battle-Spirit after all."
"How do you use it?"
"Did you notice the sounds I made when I fight?"
"Those embarrassing sounds?"
"Well, embarrassing at first but you need to understand them. For example, if I punch and shout with my willpower, a Magical Effect will appear. With practice, you don't need to shout loudly or anything, just some humming is enough."
"I see… so it is Tonal Magic."
"Right answer. It is known locally as the Aura in Tamriel and as Battle-Spirit to the Scholars. Its origin was the continent of Akavir and it was known as the 'Kiai'. It is said that when the Empire sent an expedition to Akavir, the people there were used Magic in ways never seen before and it is said that the Akaviri Kiai Masters can conjure Storms and Bend the Weather causing the Imperial Army to fall to hunger with no rain grow crops in their colonies."
"That's insane."
"Come on, what is insane is your father. He managed to 'Manifest' his Aura into a Blood Sun. Bending the nature that much by the Aura is a true mystery even for my father's level." Jon said.
"I know." Serana confirmed. "If you saw my father's weapon then you should have a hint or two about my father's power."
Jon didn't need to wrack his brain about it, he knew exactly what Harkon's weapon from the game was. A Katana.
"Anyway, let's focus. Do you still remember where the 'Tower of Lies' is?" Jon asked.
"Between the Shrouded Plain and Fist of Stone."
"Fine."
Even though Jon played the 'Elder Scrolls Online' once and it introduced Coldharbour, the realm was much different even more than the difference between Skyrim versions in game and reality. A thousand years is a lot of time after all.
Jon and Serana arrived at a towering ruin that resembled a different Civilization than the Aztec-like Argonian village they passed, it was Ayleid Ruin.
"The Library of Dusk. The only library I will never enter." Jon said.
"A Library? You can't be serious?"
"What? Even the Lord of Lies needs a library to record his lies. Those who enter however are kinda trapped."
"I see… that kind of library. Sounds befitting of Lord Molag Bal."
The two didn't stop and kept riding past the ruins of the library. From this point onward, Daedric wild monsters started to appear. The Speed advantage of the Atronach Horses combined with the magic Jon and Serana made the road very clear and no monsters approached them in the next few hours.
It was about time that they started to notice signs of life or rather signs of Daedra moving. The two diverted from the road and moved on foot to hide away from the road. It was a medium-sized Dremora patrol that seemed a bit laid back.
Jon and Serana realized they are near the place they are after. As they started sneaking to the North, they saw a large floating rock with a tree on top of it linked by a stone bridge to a stone dome a bit higher from the ground.
"The funny thing about the Tower of Lies is the lie about it being a tower when it is a deep pit." Serana remarked.
"Well, Old Molag is playing another untasteful joke." Jon said as he started crawling on the ground.
"What are you doing?"
"Doing some recon. Get down, princess."
Jon started to scan the place with magic and noticed the patrols around the place. There were not just Dremora Patrolers, there was a horde of slaves in rags. These were the Soul Shriven.
These were mortals whose souls got stolen by Molag Bal and replaced with a Daedric Soul (or a Vistage). By that, they became creatures belonging to the Realm of Coldharbour and their bodies reformed like the Daedra from the Azure Plasm. The different thing about their new bodies that it is rotting and decaying slowly from the inside. The Soul Shriven body is a complete waste built on an Ancestral Form filled with foul energy rather than its pure Anuic soul. It can grant immortality but still, it doesn't equal living in a healthy and beautiful body.
These Soul Shriven were ashen pale both in skin and hair color. Their eyes are devoid from any hope of salvation or rest and they are forced to mine all day long with chains around their necks until their bodies break and die. Once they die, the revive again from the Azure Plasm like the Daedra to go through the whole chain of suffering again.
Jon was watching all that from the edge of a cliff viewing the wide banks of a certain Azure Plasm river. He could see everything clearly from there.
Jon took off [Greed] and reshaped it into a chant with a clutch at its end and kept waiting.
"What are you doing?"
"Fishing."
As a certain Dremora started to stray from his group down at the mining area, Jon threw [Greed] and caught the Dremora from the head then.
In a split of a second, the Daedra Churl was at the feet of both Jon and Serana with its mouth gagged by [Greed].
"Easy way and a hard way. Speak or get tortured… I was doing that a lot lately so I guess I got better at torturing. Point is, A Kynval goes by the name Xikil. Where is he?"
*Groan*
"Fine, the hard way." Jon said as he took out a mammoth tusk from the [Cube].
***
In a place not far away from Jon, a certain figure was being hung by his arms and getting punched in his ribs by an angry Dremora.
"That's some nerve you have, little warm. You ran from your post not once, not twice but three times all in one day." The angry Dremora said.
"Mar… Markynaz… I am sorry… I was… I was Conjured to Nirn." The beat up Kynval was puking blood.
"Conjured? Three times? The same idiot Dremora get summoned three times in one day? By the Lord's name, that's a record. Hahaha!" Markynaz Marx was not buying it.
The slapping and beating were on for almost two days straight at this point. Xikil was already fed up with it but he can't do anything to his highest superior, especially when it comes to the Overseer of the Tower of Lies, Markynaz Marx.
"Kynreeve, make sure that this worm learns a good lesson."
"Yes, Markynaz."
Marx left the torture process to another and went to someplace else as he already got bored with Xikil.
"Kyn… reeve. You know I… I was conjured… you saw it." Xikil spoke to his direct superior.
"Kid, it's okay. Just endure it for a while."
"What? Then why didn't you… say anything for me?"
"What do you want me to say? That you really got conjured three times in the same day? Truth be told, your record when it comes to being conjured is scary. Can't you even resist some Mortal conjuration, you dimwit."
"If I could… I wouldn't be like this… And this is not some Mortal, it is a monster in mortal flesh. The damn thing is haunting me!"
"A Mortal haunting a Daedra? Kid, you have fallen too low."
*Slap*
"..."
"That Mortal you are speaking too highly about is imprisoned by one of the Lord's Lieutenants. It is impossible that he can Conjure you, you know that. Moreover, that Lieutenant is here in Coldharbour, didn't you get the news about the vampires arriving at Coldharbour?"
"Wait! That Mortal is here? In Coldharbour?" Xikil's sense of crisis heightened up all of sudden.
"Yes… the vampires came some time ago and borrowed the spare [Transliminal Scanner] to look for something in Oblivion. They said your mortal is… is…"
Xikil noticed the Kynreeve stuttering on words. Looking closely, a red blade was penetrating the Kynreeve's chest and suddenly was pulled back and waved to cut his head.
"Hey, boy. Tsk tsk tsk, those amateurs got you for real. Want a Princess Carry down from there?"
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