Chapter XXV: Dawnstar Finale
A/n: A mighty cheer for Seba for their impressive tribute on the forbidden site!
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[Fury of Dagoth - Awakened: Your power over the concept of blasphemy grows, its direction drawn toward the denial of greater being you consider evil, false, or wrong. You may now invoke your powers at will and now hold the potential to permanently harm such beings.]
I do not know how long I stood there, staring at where the staff once stood, but by the time I came back to my senses, the bonfire that was my soul slowly retreated into the mere flicker of a candle and my fellow temple raiders were slowly awakening.
The old priest barely stopped himself from falling over as he helped the twins up, he slowly turned to me and croaked "What happened?"
"The staff is gone, permanently." I add quickly.
He gives me a long, searching look "How?"
I shrug "You aren't the only one with secrets, priest. Simply accept that Dawnstar will be cursed with nightmares no longer and leave it at that."
Both him and Bor gave me suspicious looks at this but after some thought they realized they had nothing else to say and we started to slowly ascend the stairwell, leaving the temple behind us.
I stop the old priest from falling over with some light telekinesis and feel a momentary metaphysical glare aimed straight at the two of us. It disappears almost immediately as I feel Mephala's glee as she uses the distraction to do as much damage to our foe as possible, no doubt ruining a whole bunch of Vaermina's influences as she did so.
It was rather difficult to describe the metaphysical sight of two Daedra going at, my vocabulary lacked the exact words to give justice to the glaringly unnatural storm of chaos happening in a realm already known for its lack of common sense.
Still, I did not have the opportunity to observe for too long as the conflict ended as swiftly as it could, Mephala wasn't one to draw attention from the others after all.
Once she understood that I had a rather eager backer, Vaermina accepted her loss and fucked off back into the Quagmire, an oath of not bothering either of us for at least a century the price for the end of Mephala's attack.
Satisfied with the outcome, I grabbed the haggard priest and started gently dragging him back up the way we came, he did not seem to mind as he was barely conscious after all that happened, and whatever Vaermina had shown him when she knocked him out seemed to wear him out far more than it did the twins.
The twins snapped out of their own stupor as I passed them by and swiftly fell in behind me "You two doing alright?" I ask lightly as we ascend the stairs "That last push was pretty dangerous no matter how little managed to get through."
Both fail to hold back a sudden shudder at the mention, with Brienne being the one to answer "No college lesson would have ever prepared me for that, for a moment I felt as if the world itself would bow to me if only I woke up and stopped anyone from destroying the staff."
"Disgusting is what it was!" Bor half shouts and half growls "It felt as if I would forget who I even was for a moment, and all that with a mere touch of the mind!."
"Not all that dissimilar from my own first time." I inform them with a lazy shrug "Except the thing trying to mindfuck me back then just wanted me to become a filthy cannibal instead of whatever it is that Vaerminan cultists do."
"Ugh." Brienne winces with disgust.
"They either wish to escape reality or use terror to take control over others." Erandur decides to answer my unasked question after he manages to gather himself somewhat "Most of them just want to forget their woes and accept the... Daedra's influence as the price, but there are always some who join the cults for the power it provides."
Bor shakes his head and curses "Honorless fools."
"Oh don't get your robes in a twist." I roll my eyes "People join non-Daedric organizations for power all the damned time, at least the Daedra are somewhat honest with what they offer... even if they usually twist it against you by the end of it."
"But it doesn't cost them their damned souls!" He retorts, evidently irritated by the fact people can be so stupid.
'Fucker would have failed after five seconds if we didn't shield his weak ass.' Scorch grouses internally. Neither of us actually liked Bor, but his sister was nice enough so we tolerated his occasional pigheadedness.
"Which is why only the thoroughly paranoid should ever deal with Daedra." I smile at him with false cheer "Only through downright unhealthy levels of caution can you avoid the amount of fuckery they keep throwing about." I tilt my head as if suddenly remembering something "Or you just become so powerful you can shatter a good chunk of their worldly influence, that also works!"
The twins' looks turned to ones of fear for a brief moment before the both of them wisely decided not to ask any further questions. Even if they were in Solitude when it happened, they weren't completely aware of just how far my little scuffle with Meridia and now this one went, their world-view could only take so much punishment after all.
I let the mildly amused priest walk by himself as he gathers himself enough to do so. The older Dunmer looks around the mostly dilapidated temple with a mix of sadness and regret, but also as if a weight that was pressing on his shoulders for decades was finally lifted, he looks to me and asks "What do you wish to do with this place, my lord?"
"I have no real use for it." I wave him off "Rebuild it as a temple of Mara, remake it to house the homeless, hell you can even turn it into an emergency storage area!" I list off with some exasperation "But for the sake of all you find holy, do not just leave it to rot! It is part of the city's only lighthouse and having it crumble due to a lack of maintenance would be quite insulting after all that."
Erandur chuckles and nods his head "I will make sure the Jarl hears of your suggestions, the people could use a house of the gods after their recent nightmares" He attempts to hide the slightly judgmental look he suddenly directs at me but fails miserably "...From both within and without."
His words fail to move me even slightly, the man was a priest of Mara and violence was just not one of his faith's virtues, even if the lands he called home made it necessary, so he was free to keep his judgment and I was more than free to simply ignore it.
Our conversation turned progressively lighter as we ascended further up and by the time we left the once gloomy temple we were already joking and laughing, the men the jarl 'subtly' sent to report on our progress giving us some very odd looks as we passed them by.
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Jarl Brina was one step short of ecstatic when the news reached her, starting out her career as Jarl only to have the nightmares plaguing your people disappear but one day after her inauguration would buy her ridiculous amounts of good will from the populace, even those idiots who still supported Ulfric for whatever reason.
Such was her satisfaction that she was more than happy to allow Erendur to establish a temple under the lighthouse. She would come to regret it later after she realized just how useful that place could have been but giving it out to a temple was at least a good PR move so she shouldn't grumble too much.
Tullius was much more subdued in his reaction, simply nodding at the expected outcome and asking me what I planned on doing now that I was a bit more free to move around, I gave him a vague answer and then not so subtly redirected the conversation toward another matter.
Which is how I ended up with a frowning General giving me a half-hearted glare "I still feel that it is too risky. He can obtain political capital in other ways, ones involving much less risk to both his life and cause." He reiterates the same argument we have been having for days.
"And I am telling you that it needs to be done." I repeat myself with a slight eyeroll "He is a Nord and if he doesn't fight his own battles then our victory would be forever soured in the eyes of the people."
"I understand that much, I haven't wasted my time since coming to this frozen land." Tullius allows cautiously "But doing the deed himself? Would Ulfric not use the situation to deliver one final strike before he is sent to his ancestors?"
I look around the room briefly before gracing the good General with a sly smirk "He only needs to look like he is the one to do it, Tullius. All we need to do is ensure the rightful High King looks good to the masses, especially those in Windhelm. What we actually end up doing is of no consequence as long as word doesn't spread."
It takes him but a split second to catch on to what I was saying and he immediately relaxes after understanding my plan "Very well, I will send a summons to King Torygg to join the army as we march on Windhelm, once you have dealt with... whatever it is you need to do on that mountain, be sure to join us." He holds back a wince at his next words "Assaulting the city without your people's aid would be very costly."
"I wouldn't miss if for the end of the world, General." I smirk and spend the next few minutes writing down a letter of sufficient pomp for royalty, to be sent to the Blue Palace with the first prisoner ship.
I made sure to go over the remaining war plans after that and soon found myself with a bit of free time as my invitation to the Flame-Hearts wasn't due until evening. And so my wondering legs took me to one of the other places of interest in Dawnstar.
The doors of the chilly museum creaked as I entered the seemingly abandoned home, only to find that there was nothing seeming about it. The place was completely empty save for a few broken shelves with not a trace of the Mythic Dawn paraphernalia I expected to find.
As for the supposed proprietor, he was also nowhere to be found, some asking around with his neighbors soon told me all I needed to know about what happened.
"Oh, it was terrible Flame-Tongue!" The middle aged Nord woman exclaims "They all rushed poor Silus only three days after he set up his museum, torn him to pieces they did and the guards did nothing about it, the bastards!"
So yeah, Silus Vesuius, the imbecile who thought setting up a museum about the Mythic Dawn in a city that practically worshipped the Septim dynasty was a good idea, ended up being lynched and his body tossed into someone's pig pen.
Naming yourself as the descendant of the same people who killed the literal sacred bloodline of the Empire and then gathering their stuff and displaying it in silent praise... I genuinely don't know how the fool expected it to end in any other way.
'Still, quite a shame I wouldn't be able to examine that instant-kill enchantment...' As I turn to leave a slightly out of place board on the floor draws my attention, my eyes immediately turning from first person to all the persons at once, only to find a small booklet sitting snugly between the boards and foundations.
With a lazy wave of my hand, the booklet flew out from its hiding place and after flicking through it I realized that it was indeed the idiot's diary. It talked about his terminally retarded ambition of celebrating his ancestors and slowly turned to his budding worship of Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedra guilty of invading Tamriel two centuries ago.
'Yeah, absolutely no pity for this one.' Scorch shakes his head.
My excitement slowly died out as I went over his inane thoughts, only to return full force once I flipped the final page and found it to contain a small list instead. Three places housing three pieces of Mehrunes' Razor, the blade which could supposedly kill anything with a single strike.
'Odd that all of them are in the hands of different Orsimer camps.' I muse idly before shrugging and ripping out the final page and tossing the rest to the dusty floor 'Whatever, it should make a fun little quest for Davos while I go and irritate the Greybeards.'
And so, as if I didn't just callously toss the last memories of a man to rot in the open air, I left for the central part of the city, the terminal idiot already long since forgotten.
---
The supposed 'feast' at the Flame-Heart's place was the opposite of the usual joviality one might expect from the rowdy Nords, the vast majority of the clan were silent Stormcloak supporters and my presence was viewed like something akin to an unforgivable insult.
It was just too bad they could not back up their shitty opinions with anything even vaguely resembling sufficient force, and thus they were forced to deal with my sickly sweet politeness for the entire night.
The younger kids naturally didn't give a single shit about the mounting tensions and kept asking me blissfully ignorant questions, which I then shamelessly used to dig into the whole clan as deeply as I could.
By the time Belor announced his 'abdication' to his son, the whole three dozen clansmen looked like their souls had been sucked out of them, so much so that they merely nodded at the sudden change in leadership and accepted it for what it was, namely punishment for their silent betrayal and effective puppeting of their family for many years to come.
I did get to meet the twins' mother, a terribly sweet woman who was no doubt the source of Brienne's usual sunny disposition. She was bedridden for ages with no one from the clan being able to heal her even with their supposedly vaunted skills at the art.
The twins' looks as I healed her with a simple spell and potion combo were worthy of forever being burned into my mind, even if their father glared at me for pissing on his pride once again.
Honestly, if it wouldn't have cost the poor woman whatever little happiness she would have been managed to attain after being healed, I would have probably snapped his head off his shoulders for that alone.
Imagine being such a cuck you do not allow your wife to get healing, just so you can keep your clan's 'pride'... Who even does that?
'Someone cursed with small pp, obviously.' Scorch proposed without hesitation.
'Wouldn't surprise me.' I held back a snort as I looked at the reddening man and left their longhouse not long after.
That night I slept like a log, neither natural nor unnatural nightmares plaguing my respite.
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