A Dreamer in a Dream (chapter 10)

The watchtower was already beginning to fall apart into the snow when our happy band of tomb raiders reached it. I caught Skadi almost cleaving some poor fucker in half with her new axe as she and the Companions threw themselves into the melee.

I was bleeding some magicka for another spell when a certain someone got in the way. "You don't have to stand right in front of me, Lydia."

"Better an arrow hits me," she argued stubbornly.

"I'm not worried about an arrow." My flesh had already been replaced with stone.

"It could be enchanted."

Arguing with a brick wall would probably be more productive. Maybe it was for the best. While my aim had improved, it wasn't perfect.

I decided I would think ahead instead.

Focusing my thoughts on someone who knew what was going on, someone pliant, someone who wouldn't stab us in the back as soon as it was convenient, my eyes were soon drawn to two of their number.

…

Scratch that, one of them. The other had just fallen back with an arrow sticking out of his head courtesy of Aela.

I pointed my soon-to-be minion out to Lydia. "Something tells me he would make a fine guide."

My housecarl knew me well enough to understand what I meant, and off we went, Bright-Like-Dawn following behind us as she hid in the snow like some kind of tiny ambush predator.

He tried to make a run for it when he saw that we saw him, only for me to freeze the snow solid around his legs. The fight went out of him as soon as Lydia's sword kissed his neck.

That already told me he had some brains. He also had so many freckles that it was impressive.

"You have a name?" I asked.

"Orryn," he muttered. The messy sounds of the slaughter had him peeking behind me nervously.

"Don't mind them. We both know you hid as soon as the fighting began."

He looked away with some shame. "We never should have come here." His watery eyes met mine again. "That Dunmer bastard told us he knew how to get inside the barrow, that we'd find treasures thousands of years old for the taking. Then around the end of Last Seed… the draugr… they all woke up."

Good, good. Already showing signs that he knew what was going on.

"That sounds about right. There's something we're here to retrieve."

He looked at me like I had two heads. Maybe three. "G-Go back inside? Weren't you listening? We… We collapsed the entrance. Whoever's left is dead or likely to starve."

"Some fair-weather friends you are," Lydia spat. It just sounded like bandits banditing to me.

"As Thane of Whiterun, I can take you into my service." First you dangle the carrot. Then the stick… "Or you can take your chances with that lovely bunch behind me. I'm sure you'll come up with some compelling argument as to why Orryn the Bandit should keep his head."

He looked like he was between a rock and a hard place. Probably because he was.

"The draugr… there were hundreds of them that we saw. It's not just a tomb, it's a city, one built right into the mountain."

That actually sounded kinda cool. Also fucking terrifying, but…

"We'll just have to pretend we're mice." The sounds of fighting were quieting now. "Time to make a choice."

He let out a nervous breath and gave a slow nod. "By your will… Thane."

Lydia removed the edge of her sword from his neck hesitantly. "I will be watching."

I helped him to his feet just as the rest of our party arrived.

"That's three for me, Farkas."

"I took the last one's legs off for you," his brother argued. "We're tied."

They continued bickering as Skadi stomped through the snow to me, a happy-go-lucky smile on her lips. It seemed out of place with the gore covering her axe, but who was I to judge?

"It's seven for me," she confided as she wiped it off on the snow.

It wasn't like her not to brag to anyone and everyone. "How many does the watchtower count as?" The snows had since smothered the fire, leaving just a smoking ruin.

The others overheard and it actually turned into something of a debate. The answer was three as I soon found out.

Skadi meanwhile was making curious eyes at Orryn trying to make himself look small. "Our guide. Why don't you tell them the story you told me."

The poor guy almost choked on his own tongue as a bunch of murderhobos were suddenly all staring at him. He stuttered through it quickly.

"The final days of Last Seed was when the World Eater laid waste to Helgen," Skadi commented softly, prompting a spell of unease.

Still, these were all seasoned murderhobos with enough pride between them to put a prima donna to shame. Not a one of them made a fuss about going inside.

When we reached the summit, we all seemed to take a moment to admire the view as well as the oppressive architecture. It was striking in an ugly kind of way, all black stone and frightening visages carved into said stone.

The doors leading inside were also made of stone, though they seemed to have been hacked apart, whatever enchantment on them long since gone. There was only the faintest presence of magicka if I really put my mind to it.

We were all soon staring down the pitch blackness ahead of us, the quiet broken only by the wind.

I helped light the torches we had already prepared, and one by one we made our way inside the city-sized tomb. It was like something out of a D&D campaign.

The air became noticeably thinner and smelling of rot the deeper we went, and it wasn't helping that Orryn was moving as slow as molasses as he led us down a dead end. Whatever entrance might have been here had been completely buried under rubble.

"It will take us at least a day to clear a path," Skadi grumbled.

"Closer to two," Aela commented. "And it would be loud."

Our guide just made a miserable sound as we considered the problem, but the solution was just throwing some more magicka into the proverbial wind. My trusty spell quickly revealed that there were three other entrances, and I mentioned as much. Though only one of them actually seemed to be within reach.

It just required a detour through an uncomfortably narrow tunnel…

The sight of Skadi's dumptruck of an ass in front of me made up for it some, even if she complained the whole time that this wasn't made for Nords. And seeing as we soon stepped out into a world of cobwebs, yeah, she might have been onto something.

Seriously, the walls looked more white than black now. And then someone sneezed.

The tiny Argonian tried to disappear into the cobwebs as everyone turned to stare at her, and only the sounds of a thousand creepy crawlies saved her.

We were about to be swarmed, but me? I knew something like this would happen, and I prepared accordingly. There wasn't much else to do when all you had to look forward to was walking, walking, more walking, and occasionally a dragon turning your hips into dust.

I just had to make this sound cool… "Take cover. It's about to get hot." Eh. Good enough.

They hesitated, Skadi most of all, but the sudden inferno pouring off of me as I started bleeding an ungodly amount of magicka had even her reconsidering.

I could feel my hands cooking again as I collapsed all the flames into a single point, and when the first creepy crawly showed its ugly face, I fucking let it rip. Like a flamethrower with too much juice and twice as loud.

The thing crumbled like overburnt fruit, and so did the next one, and the one after that.

They tried to overwhelm me with sheer numbers, the sneaky fuckers, but I just downed one vial of blue crack after another, scouring them from the walls as I moved forward.

And when they ran, I laughed at them. Abomination, 2. Spiders, 0.

The others followed me into the wide open cavern, some sunlight even coming in from somewhere high above, and there were bats flying overhead as well. There was an entire ecosystem in here.

I heard a low whistle from Aela as she poked one of the crispified spiders with her foot. "Told you we should get a mage."

My housecarl ignored all of it to fuss over me. "Nothing a little magic can't fix." As my hands turned shiny, Skadi ahead of us seemed to pause.

I soon heard it as well. Pleas for help.

We cut and burned through the thick webbing until we reached an even denser patch. The sight that greeted us was something out of a horror movie. One or two stuck in it were still squirming and wriggling, but the rest of them? Dry and desiccated, like all the fluids had been sucked out of them.

And there he was, Arvel the Swift, his vividly red eyes looking at us like we were the sweetest sight he had ever seen. "Oh, thank you! Please, you have to get me out of here."

My new minion was giving him the stink eye.

"You wouldn't happen to have a certain something on you, hmm?" I asked, and suddenly he turned more unhappy. "Unless you've decided that you would rather… stick around?" I chuckled at my own bad joke.

"No! No… I do have it." He caught sight of Orryn as he went to free a spitfire of a woman with bright orange curls who didn't look too happy with him. Oh, and there was a cat in her hair. "Has that runt already filled you in?"

"You need to ask?"

"I'll take you there if you get me out of here! Those three don't know the way. They're dead weight."

"Whatever you say." He let out something like a shriek as I threw some flames his way, but they only burned away the webbing he was drowning in. I was starting to get the hang of this whole magic thing. "Watch this one closely," I told them all. "He's a bit full of himself."

"The name is Arvel," he grumped. "But what can I expect? Manners from a s'wit?"

I noticed Bright-Like-Dawn was giving him a funny look I hadn't seen on her yet.

There was a commotion elsewhere. "You can crawl back where you came from, Orryn." Oho. Drama. "You left me here."

"I didn't mean to, Tolfi. By the time I heard—"

Then the cat interrupted him. In a voice like a teenage girl. "Yanadz-jo would very much like to leave."

Mmm. Right. There were Khajiit that looked like actual cats. Alfuq? Alfiq? Something like that.

"Our friends are back," someone shouted, followed by a cacophony of skittering noises.

Man, those fuckers didn't learn did they. I watched the Companions fall into something like a shield wall, chanting 'thane' as they banged their weapons against said shields. I had my own hype men now.

The others had scooted behind them as well, leaving me free to go ham again.

At least until I saw a sight that would have haunted my dreams for weeks if I still dreamed. A spider the size and even color of a fucking fire truck falling from somewhere above, all red and black and furry. It even made Skadi look small.

The chants had stopped as well, just when I needed them most.

"Isn't she beautiful," I heard Mephala coo. "She must be eating well to have grown so large."

Yeah, I didn't doubt that. Not one bit.

She locked her many eyes on me, her movements grotesque as she skittered at me. Her children followed.

No. Fuck that. Fuck all of that. If I had an Exterminatus button, I would be smashing it like no tomorrow right now.

Not having one, I went with the second best thing. Fire. Fire everywhere.

Her children turned into ash on the wind, but not Big Momma. Nah, Big Momma didn't give no fucks. All I could do was erect a ward just as she smashed into me, her maw of teeth and too many eyes smushing unpleasantly against it as she tried to get through.

"BY YSGRAMMAR'S HAIRY ARSE! WHOEVER KILLS IT GETS THE LAST OF THE MEAD!"

"MEAD!"

Skadi had thankfully already come to my rescue while they were shouting about mead, almost taking off one of the monstrous spider's legs with her equally monstrous axe. Big Momma chittered like a lawnmower as she turned and skittered at someone that wasn't me.

My housecarl wasn't far behind Skadi, helping me stand. It looked like we were winning with how banged up her legs were now, but Vilkas underestimated her and was yeeted for his trouble.

I still had potions. I had options. "Watch the thief, Lydia. I'm fine."

Now that I wasn't in danger of being eaten anyway. What would an abomination like me even taste like? Maybe exactly like what magicka tasted like to me. Blue raspberry. Glue. Soap.

As Lydia reluctantly left my side, I drank one of my potions dry. I had a game plan. If I could only go so hot without burning myself or the others, why not the opposite?

Just so long as I didn't miss…

A thing of ice soon began to form on one side of me as I sucked in and froze the moisture in the air, feeding on my magicka like a glutton. I just needed to find the right…

That'll do.

Skadi, beautiful murder machine that she was, finally managed to take Big Momma down to seven legs. With most her other legs all fucked up as well, it left her woozy. Vulnerable.

My spear of pure ice was almost transparent as it traveled through the air, and with a slimy squelch it pierced through her swollen red belly and one of her legs to pin her to the wall. Already she was trying to get away, but the Companions immediately poured in to hack at her, and Skadi, having gone the long way around, went for her many, many eyes.

She was still at it when Big Momma finally went still, her axe more green than blue now.

"How heartless," Mephala complained into my ear. "All she was doing was defending her children."

"Oh, hush," I muttered under my breath. "You're the last one to talk about being heartless."

"Hmph. I am not Boethiah. Yet mortals are always quick to…"

I tuned out her complaining. Were Daedric Princes supposed to be so chatty?

"Now who has my mead," Skadi asked, wiping the gore off her axe, green this time, on some webbing.

"Yanadz-jo prays mad Nords listen and leave this place," the cat upon her throne of curls piped up again, her eyes like two shiny emeralds in the gloom. "Magrus will soon set."

It did get darker since we entered, some red and orange and yellow filtering in now.

"We can clear some room and rest here for the night," Aela suggested. "The draugr can wait a night."

That started something of an argument, our new friends not too keen on sticking around to look for a 'stupid stone' as Orryn's lady love called it. Which apparently the cat had now decided was cursed.

It just sucked for them that nobody really cared what they wanted.

An hour later we were back in the dark again around a small campfire. Orryn was still trying to get said lady love to speak to him as we nursed on the last of the mead that Skadi magnanimously agreed to share.

It seemed my hips would be spared for a night, seeing as there was no room to really sneak away. We just cuddled up instead, Lydia on the other side of me and Bright-Like-Dawn curled up on Skadi like she was a bed.

After everything that happened today, it was a sight that soothed the soul. A soul I apparently lacked, but what did a bunch of Daedric Princes know anyway.

I sighed when I found myself watching my tower again. Or pretending to sigh.

At this point I was beginning to miss sleeping. Though admittedly it wasn't that bad since time here was kind of—

Strange. It felt like someone just poked me, but I had nothing to poke?

Then it happened again.

It wasn't the false blackness of Oblivion that greeted me when I 'stepped' out to take a look. Instead I was traipsing through a meadow under blue skies, breathing in air again that smelled of sunflowers and honey.

And I was being watched. It was a deeply uncomfortable feeling, like eyes crawling across or even inside my skin, and it was why I was just fine keeping to myself. Or at least that was one of the reasons why.

"Abomination! You came!"

I turned at the smooth and buttery voice to find a man with skin both red and black, the two colors shifting around dizzyingly across the Daedric Prince's very naked body. And I was equally naked…

This, I decided, wasn't as fun as with Meridia. Even if he wasn't giving me the stink eye like she was.

I could take a guess. "Sanguine?"

He clapped his hands together happily. "It is I. The others have talked and talked, wielding any excuse they could find not to approach you."

And here I thought they just couldn't see me here…

"Except you?"

"Except me!" He looked out across the very mellow meadow. "If you would like something more riveting, you need only say the word. I aim to titillate and delight!"

Suddenly Sanguine was a she, sporting impossibly bouncy breasts as she skipped around the meadow, hair turning white as snow. Her horns had remained black as sin. If he… she… whatever was trying to get a response, it worked.

It was nice having a body again, but sometimes it betrayed you.

"Oh ho ho, it seems you have more of a taste for the fairer form, hmm? I shall keep that in mind."

"Mundus has grown on me," I commented, trying to muddy the waters. Part of what kept me safe was being a mystery.

Sanguine was at my side in an instant, two soft somethings pressing against my back as black nails pulled at my skin. "Would you tell Sanguine why you are here?"

Unlike Meridia or even Mephala, Sanguine didn't seem to think me something disgusting. Though maybe the Daedric Prince was a bit too much in the opposite direction…

"Can you keep a secret?"

"I do like secrets," that voice husked in my ear. That wasn't a yes. "Tell me, Abomination. I want it all."

I turned around, trying to regain a semblance of control by holding her hands. "I wanted to see the sights."

Her head cocked, a devilishly confused smile dancing on her pouty lips. "Is that all? You are something that we have never seen."

"I asked if you could keep a secret. Just the one." I was not ready to try and bamboozle a Daedric Prince, but what could I do but try? "But you are not Mephala who has never met a secret she didn't covet. You are Sanguine. Maybe I could show you my sights in time."

Her thighs rubbed together as she swooned. "Then come, Abomination. Let Sanguine show you sights beyond the concepts that make up Mundus, petty as they are arrogant. Will you come?"

I wanted to make a friend, right? Maybe learn some things about Oblivion.

Though I would also have to be careful. Sanguine was still Sanguine, to who boundaries were polite suggestions at best. At worst? Slaanesh.

"I will." And then the world turned round and round and round and round.