Chương 9: Daedra? More like Deadra... get it? :')

A/N; you get more of Alina's thoughts here, it pulls from past POVs as she has determined why Poly's actions make her so happy. It may seem repetitive to some but I think it's important to emphasize that everyone's thoughts originally are like a foundation, and as the story progresses, slight shifts in their thoughts are going to create drastic, world changing events. Also, if you haven't noticed 90% of this book is slow build. I'm sorry if you don't like that, but I do so… don't read it if you don't like it I guess. Or do and tell me why. I can explain my thoughts to ya, if you don't like the explanation I dunno what to tell you. Enjoy… hopefully. Lol

*Alina Pov Cont.*

My face darkened at the thought. It's all my fault, had I just waited we could have gone together. We wouldn't have had to fight a group of enemies already outside the cave. Poly's magic would have been fine, his sword wouldn't have been destroyed, he wouldn't have been so hurt.

Dammit Alina! Your curiosity caused both of your friends to get hurt. All because you wanted to solve a problem, even though you had no idea what the problem actually was, all by yourself.

You should have known-

My thoughts are interrupted as a warm, scaled hand lands on my head. It slowly pats me and messes up my hair as I look at the arm it's attached too.

"Don't beat yourself up, okay? I wanted to fight too. Next time, how about we fight together?" the soft low voice came from Poly's smiling lips as he placated me like I was some fresh hatchling. His claws lightly scratched the base of my horns as I just stared at him.

My eyes hardened. This bastard isn't getting off easily.

"Why did you use Dragmer's light so recklessly? Dragonicka has plenty of repercussions already, my head is hazy as shit and I have only activated it 4 times today, so I can only imagine how you're doing. You probably used it non-stop all day, on top of you activating it and Dragmer's light to release all those attack during the fight. Are you trying to die?" This idiot, it's like he doesn't… he doesn't know.

"You don't know the side effects, do you? The past couple of days is the first time you've had to use them. That's why everything you do seems like you have no fear, you just don't know." He's not from the island so I assumed his parents taught him but that doesn't seem to be the case. Who is he?

"You caught me haha I'm just trying my best. I felt the energy in my body respond to my will to fight and just instinctively activated everything I felt I needed to win." Rubbing the back of his head Poly looks sheepish at my admonishing.

"Besides, I think that if my magical understanding was higher, I'd be able to use all of my abilities without the consequences. I just need to study them more" his voice got quieter the longer he spoke as his face slowly morphed into contemplation.

This bastard really knows how to play with my feelings.

He wants to break the chains that his race has put on him. As soon as he realized his limits, his brain didn't accept it like all the other dragmer, like me, he immediately tried to come up with countermeasures.

Before I knew it, my laughter broke the broke the serene atmosphere, and stunned the rest of my group into silence. It's so stupid. I've been so dumb my whole life. Why should I accept the limits of my people? Why should I blindly believe the "rules" of the world. Why should I limit myself based on other people? Why did I go along with it this whole time?

Fuck it.

I'll do what I want, how I want, when I want.

You know what that means all you Aedra, Daedra and everything else? I'll do it. I'll break free of the confines you all placed on us mortals. I'll beat Dagon to death with my own two hands one day if that's what will get him off our back. Why would I ever let people who I've never met determine my fate? I'll just make my own.

Hahaha is this why I've felt so chained all my life? Why I've always felt my people despite their infinite potential could only ever live out our days in anonymity on our island? Cause of the gods? Well, you know what I have to say to that?

"FUCK THE GODS" the roar leaves my lips as my laughter chases it into the sky.

Turning to my companions "Well, you mangy bitches, we have a Daedric invasion to stop. Poly was the only one who got a good stretch, and my blood is demanding blood. I hope I can count on the rest of you, after all, it's time to show those Daedra true pain." Pulling my blade from the ground I pushed my Dragonicka to activate once more, the feeling of raw power coursing through my body, along with the adrenaline pumping in my veins; it all drew a bloodthirsty grin on my face.

*Poly pov*

The girls looked heated. Determination on Eve and Ysona's faces, Ri just looked exasperated, while Anna and Alina looked ready to charge into oblivion itself.

I'm not going to lie, it's doing something for me.

Walking behind the giant Tiefling's corpse I start digging. My gauntlets, and frankly all my clothes except my pants, now shorts, were in tatters and useless. So, I was digging with my bare hands. The blood-soaked mud mixture was surprisingly easy to maneuver.

"Lin, you'll need to churn the earth so we don't join the slip and slide down the tunnels." Reaching my target I latched onto the bone-like material. Pulling with all the strength my body could muster, I ripped the twin great swords from the ground.

"Poly you are the rear guard this time, everyone else, do your best to keep up." Alina looks back over her shoulder, a fire burning in her eyes that was just downright gorgeous as she tells us what to do.

"Fine, fine you all have fun I'll watch your lovely backs." The words leave my mouth before I can catch what they mean. I mean it's true.

Besides a blushing kitty, no one addressed my comment. So that's a win I suppose.

A deep brown light flashes from Lin's palms as the ground tills itself, the lubed up surface layer being buried under a fair amount of dirt. The girl's magic talent is sick and it's just making me more and more curious to get my hands on a spell tome. I want to know what the people here have understood magicka to be.

Maybe I can be like the Sage's grandson and inspire a magical revolution. That'd be neat.

Back to the important things I straightened up, as I tucked one of the swords into my inventory waiting for the march into the dark to begin.

Ah there she goes.

Anna leans her meat masher up on her shoulder as she all but leaps into the cave. Surprisingly it's not Alina that's right behind her, but Evangeline. She activated her own racial ability, as a cloak of flames danced over her whole body. For an assassin that ability is a little to flashy don't you think Eve?

Everyone else was right on their ass, but those two were several meters ahead when they made first contact with the small army waiting at the cavern base.

Entering what was basically, the generic underground cavern of Skyrim. With a sky light for some reason. The cavern we found ourselves in was a wide circular area with a stream flowing through the middle. Small trees and plants spread across the uneven terrain and showed life could thrive anywhere. Ya know, if we ignored the 60-some odd daedric creatures hooting and hollering on their battle charge towards us lowly mortals.

Past the waves of Daedric enemies is a ruin that was clearly meant for giants or something even larger as from the ground to ceiling was easily two of the big bastards stacked on top of eachother and just as wide. The stones making up the structure were a deep blue color the same as an angry ocean. Lining the halls leading out of the ruins themselves, were… fucking air Atronachs. The stone boys are decorated in magical runes, each equipped with two long swords as the surrounding air spun around their figure, keeping the barely human looking form in place.

It was silly of me to not think all enemies that exist throughout all of the games wouldn't be "cannon" here.

Proving my point, the enemies leading the charge where Clannfears. The amalgamation of several different dinosaurs, looked primarily like a raptor with the shield like head of a triceratops. They stood nearly as tall as Anna. Each with razor sharp talons and teeth befitting their raptor like appearance.

There was good news, I didn't see a single damn Tiefling. Good for us, but bad at the same time. All our enemies are charging without organization, with the bestial instincts demanding death and destruction.

Air elementals are meant to be guardians, so they won't attack until we get close. So we just have to deal with the mindless hoard of Scamps, Clannfears, and fuck me, Daedroth and Dremnaken.

Luckily there was less than 10 Daedroth and only 4 Dremnaken. Daedroth are the pimped-out version of trolls. Where trolls have hair, Daedroth have nigh impenetrable scales, claws ready to rip and tear, horns made to disembowel their enemies, their jaw resembles a crocodile (probably why Amy employs them) oh and they are bigger than a troll by a decent margin.

Dremnaken… they are the equivalent of a canine-like, battle horse from hell, sorry oblivion. The difference is that they don't need a rider to be lethal. Every part of the beast was made to efficiently hunt and kill the residents of oblivion. Deep red scales covered almost all of their body. Pointed bat ears twitched at the slightest noise. Like most dogs, drool poured from their maws at the thought of food. A whiplike tail snapped through the air behind them as four legs rippling with muscles flexed in anticipation of their hunt. Sixteen eyes locked onto use with predator like concentration. Exploding forward they pass the Clannfears with ease.

A/N (anyone think they look like one of stitches fellow experiments? Don't get me wrong I think they are bad ass, they just kinda do lol)

Each stride of theirs is 4 or five of their raptor friends after all.

Leaning on one of my weapons with my arms crossed on the pommel I decide I can relax for this first wave. Why, you ask voice in my head? Because my flaming elf has disappeared from sight.

Oh, there she is.

Eve falls from high above the pack of dogs like a meteorite, crashing into the first predator feet first. A howl of pain echoes in the cave as the beast flails briefly in pain before collapsing. Eve had somehow, noticed the softer scales surrounding the beasts lower neck and stabbed both daggers into it's neck with practiced ease.

I just want to know where she practiced this. I would have had to split in two or fried it with magic. No magicka means no magic. So, I'll have to brute force my way through the tunnel. Ew, the blood is going to take so long to clean.

*SMAAASH*

Anna I know you're swole dude, but did you have to hit the poor pup so hard you misted it's head?

That leaves two.

*YELPP*

I looked at where Anna was for two seconds just to turn back and see Lin with her sword buried in one of the demon dogs shoulders. As if that wasn't enough, she abused her magicka recover to spam frostbite as she channeled the spell through her frost enchanted sword. The ice marched along the pup's skin as it was in its death throes before it froze completely.

The sound of a dying pupper makes me sad. Yes, even these monster boys. They are adorable and I will one day make friends with them. Lin shatters her freshly made Dremnaken ice sculpture, which was a waste, but she had to get her sword back somehow.

At the same time Eve launched herself into the coming horde, the sound and smell of sizzling flesh was all I needed to decide to enter the fray myself.

"Do your best everyone." Leaping into action I grabbed the other Tiefling sword from my inventory turning into a veritable hurricane of destruction.

Lesser Daedra blood covered me as Scamps and Clannfears threw themselves at me with reckless abandon. Wanting nothing more than to tear into my flesh. Some of the wiser scamps stood back casting fire spells at me… poor things, don't you know? I'm as fire resistant as a dragon.

Tearing through the little guys with Eve was less of a physical difficulty, and more of a mental one. None of them had the strength to resist us individually but their numbers were the biggest issue.

Defending blows from seemingly every direction was tough. Eve and I unconsciously drifted closer and closer to one another. Protecting the other's blind spots as we dispatched our foes with ruthless efficiency.

Step forward, block the Clannfears trying to bite Eve, slice the Scamp casting a weak variation of firestorm. Dodge the twilight's magical attacks, good look Eve I didn't see that sneaky boy leaping at me.

As our waltz of carnage came to a close, I checked on the others.

Ysona sat on the backs of three Daedroth corpses. She… is not well equipped to fight the scaly bois her swords are more slashy slash and less stabby stab? I wish I had seen how she did it, swords shouldn't have been effective unless she pierced them through those super tough scales(unlikely but clearly what happened). I am sure she did something special though, after all, all she had are the imperial blades she's carried since Helgen.

A fat bruise on her shoulder and a faint white line on her chest plate showed how difficult of a fight it was. Unlike earlier, she was sweating yes, but her breath was steady as her swords stood straight from the back of the Daedroth at the top of the pile. She at least killed one how I figured. Her face was cold as she ran her hands over the scratch.

That's okay Ona. Easy fix, don't mind.

Ri was patting the head of the last Dremnaken. Several patches of scales seemed to be burned off and the hole through it's shoulder that was cauterized told me all I need to know.

I'm awesome. My knife clearly messed the big boi up enough for Rihasa to use her magic on him. Smiling at the scene, my smile was instantly wiped away. Ri stabbed the poor pup on the bottom of his neck in one vicious stroke.

Well, she probably just put him out of his misery, that shoulder was pretty much fucked.

A swinging hammer caught my attention as Anna brought the hammer down from above her head into what appeared to be the last Daedroth alive. Poor guy's chest cavity caved under the blow, as a bluish blood stream shot from his mouth. Making Chinese cultivators around the world nod their heads in appreciation.

The corpses surrounding her, had several indications they suffered the same fate. Skulls were turned to mush, arms seemingly ripped from their torsos, and huge pools of blood made it hard to discern how many she actually killed.

Anna is a heavy hitter for sure, but I'm not sure how she'd do against assassin type enemies… I'll have to help her plan for more technique and speed-based people.

Now where is Lin?

*BOOOM*

A large burst of air rushed from the direction of the ruins, towards us, making me lift my arm to block the dust from getting into my beautiful orbs.

As the dust cloud settled Alina waved to us from the entrance of the giant sized ruins. The rock piles with swords laying amongst them just made me shake my damn head.

The Air Atronachs won't be a problem, I guess.

"Well? You all coming or what?" spinning on her heel a smile crept on my face.

I don't know if I was ever a warrior in my past, but this is just so much damn fun.

A fair amount of walking later.

We ran into the odd Daedra here and there, but nothing like the previous cavern. The ruins themselves seemed never-ending.

The oddest part of the whole thing is that there is not a single other room, just a giant hallway. Ominous darkness and the scrambling lesser daedra are all that we had seen for what must have been several kilometers. The walls were decorated with symbols that likely told a story or some shit.

I can't read them so I'm not going to stress too much. If Amy wanted me dead, she would have just sent a Valkynaz class Daedra, or even a Markynaz would probably be enough. I'm not cocky enough to think I could take a personal body guard of hers or one of her grand dukes.

They are beings who have been alive for ages. The mastery they have over combat is something I don't even want to think about.

But my brain is dumb so I will.

If you think about it, most Daedra come from a Daedra eat Daedra society. The strongest, craftiest, most cutthroat survive. Or most submissive. They aren't above piggybacking off of stronger beings after all.

Now imagine that's where you have lived for decades, centuries, millennia, who knows how long? You will for sure pick up a thing or two.

As if that's not enough to worry about. These beings have been BEAT back into their planes of existence every time. Brain, do you know what that shit means?

THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CAN MATCH THOSE OLD ASS MONSTERS ON MUNDUS!

That's right, there are mortals with such monstrous talent, they can contend with Daedra who have been doing this for their whole lives. I'm more likely to be killed by a "weak mortal" than beings who have to portal into my world.

"Ah! This is the end?" the mage light that Alina had cast for us flickered towards where Ri was pointing. Come to think of it, there has not been any interference for a couple of minutes.

Looking at the wall ahead I couldn't see a door or really anything at all. It was just a wall that looked like the hallway we had walked through.

Bad vibes. Something strange is happening here for sure.

Ah. Maybe it's that.

Walking forward I raised my greatsword and lightly swiped forward. The intricately carved stone wall should have made my blade bounce off. Should have.

Instead, the dark blue stone faded to mist as a great room appeared. At the center a Nordic sarcophagus sat undisturbed by the gash in space and time that sat behind it.

That portal more than likely leads to Cold Harbour. Well at least I know that I more than likely just have to go through this sketchy lil portal and destroy an anchor guarded by who knows what.

*Sighs*

"Alina, engulf that sarcophagus in flame please." My exhaustion is slowly catching up with me. I doubt I'll be able to keep fighting for much longer.

Without even questioning me, Alina, cast two large fireballs at the grave of some oldie. Instead of just covering the human sized box, it blasted it to pieces, sending a desiccated corpse flying across the room before a sickening crunch resounded throughout poor old beans burial chamber.

It is kind of surprising that this giant tomb was for homie over there. Wonder who he is, oh well.

"Who wants to go to Ammit's realm and throw hands with necromancers, flesh Atronachs, Tieflings of all kinds, and everything between?" despite how cheery the words sounded, my monotone voice informed the girls how I really felt about our shitty situation.

"Can't we just seal it from here?" Evangeline asked with a head tilt.

Matching the girl's actions "I don't know how to close it from this side. Do you?"

Turning towards the portal made from raw magicka Eve stepped forward. Glancing around the edges of the gash in space, she dropped into lotus position clapping her hands together during the fall.

"since it's made of magicka, shouldn't anti-mage techniques work on it?" the dark elf whispered to herself as her shadow seemingly came alive. Wrapping itself around her arms, it looked somewhat like a stupid shorty wanting to be the magic queen or some shit.

Sweat poured down her visage, as she channeled her chuuni looking power toward the tip of her clawed gauntlets.

Slowing rising to her feet, she slashed her arms forward tearing the tear apart before dropping to the ground. Completely knocked out.

The portal itself, just kinda, petered out of existence.

"Well, that was certainly anticlimactic." Ysona voiced what we were all thinking, well if the collective bobbleheads were anything to go by.

So Eve has some kind of anti-magic magic stemmed from shadow control, Ri is a magical prodigy who invented charm magic, Ysona is the perfect definition of an Orc berserker with a tragedy riddled past, Anna has superhuman abilities from her werewolf powers, and Alina is one of the most broken creatures in existence. Next to instant mastery, can eat souls, and will one day fight a god to the death in the afterlife.

I'm broken too, but for every reason the 6 of us are strong, there's real counters. Dragon priests who were at least arch-mage level mages, dragons will undoubtedly be stronger and more diverse then bites and elemental breath. Homies can literally alter the world with their words.

Come to think of it, how insanely lucky were we to take one of Alduin's eyes? I don't believe for a second, that we will be that lucky again.

We need to train our synergy, unique skills, bodies, anything that could give us a chance in the future.

Once we get to Whiterun, we are going to go full training montage.

My thoughts came to a close as I walked up to eve, tossing the bad bitch up on my shoulder, I started walking towards the entrance. No one attempted to heal our party's cuts and bruises as they followed me outside.

All thoroughly exhausted from yet another bullshit filled day.

That's when I lost it, laughing into the night sky.

"Oh, Poly's broken." Ri, you called me by a nickname. That's so sweet. It won't stop how funny this situation is though.

"You going to tell us what's so funny ya big lizard" Anna's annoyed voice didn't deter me at all.

Still laughing, I spoke fairly winded "It's just so funny… we have known eachother for 2 days and have almost died who knows how many times? Hahaha" wiping my eyes with the arm not holding the knocked out dark elf.

"We should have more stories than a grizzled old man at this point. Lin and I met bound in the back of a cart and proceeded to take the eye of the World Eater. We then slaughtered two companies of soldiers at the same time. We were all imperial prisoners except Ysona who was literally one of the commanding officers of the Imperial army in Skyrim. We even fought a hit squad sent by one of my patrons, cleared out a bandit cave and then repelled a vanguard force of a Daedric lord. What the hell is next?!" my laughter slowly infected the girls surrounding me until everyone at the least had a smile on their face.

"I can't wait!" Alina giggled as she stared off in the distance.

She got hums in agreement from the rest of us.

The rest of the walk back was in a comfortable silence as we all thought about our own goals and future plans.

Personally there are some people I just can't imagine dealing with. Harkon, a vampire who had been alive for ages, Miraak the first Dragonborn, any high ranking Daedra, basically any named enemies from the game are undoubtedly going to be stronger. Like the Wolf Queen's ghost, I can't imagine her being weak enough to be stopped by a causal effort.

Speaking of ghosts, will I really be able to kill them without special equipment. Maybe I can steal the Butcher of Blaviken's move and carry silver weapons just in case?

The thought of the other Daedra and Aedra intervening also was something I pushed to the back of my mind lately. I need to come up with some kind of countermeasure to stay out of their realm of influence. Alina alone is sure to draw their attention not to mention how literally all of them are loosely related to at least one Daedric Prince or have done something worthy of their notice.

As we approached Riverwood, the light of the torches were outshone by the rays of the sun beginning to peek over the surrounding mountains. We were fighting for a lot longer than I thought.

"HOLD! IT'S THE HEROES OF HELGEN" the shout came from the top of the wall.

I feel the like I need to something unheroic to set these fuckers straight. I am not a good guy; I am just me.

Well, that's a tomorrow Poly problem for sure. I just want to go to bed right now.

A/N: Chapter is about half of normal. I want to keep writing alot, but I feel bad. I keep rereading the story and I think it's good, but the 40k+ views and 200+ collections make me want to try harder. So I've been a lil apprehensive about writing more. Especially cause I am winging this shit and writing what feels good at the time. Which means I don't always have a perfect memory of what was said in previous chapters which makes the previous a/n in this chapter hopefully make more sense. These chapters are normally a week apart and I usually feel the need to make the thought processes of the characters clear which turns seemingly repetitive, but again small changes in those thoughts are changing them in ways that won't be as apparent till later on,

Thank you to everyone sending power stones. My goal is to have 5 reviews by the end of this month though, so generous souls let me know what you think of this dumpster fire. Toodles.