pike184
A very long time ago, in the year 1E2230, I was hatched under the sign of the shadow. Some of you might know what that means if you wear scales or have spent time in the marsh among my kind. From birth until my twentieth year I was trained to revere and serve the Night Mother and the Dread Father. Upon the completion of that training I was sent on a mission to kill an old man on the verge of death. His neighbor, a fool, had come to resent him and the considerable wisdom that came with his age. The fool's discomfort becomes anger and so he prayed to the Night Mother and so I was summoned. As I stalked this prey I found myself awaiting dusk behind his hut but as soon as it came and i stood to crawl into his window i was struck by... something of which i do not know to this day. Some sort of club I am sure, maybe even a hammer.
Chains fell upon my wrists and ankles, a yolk upon my neck. For forty years I strained, my scales drying under the ashen sun of Stonefalls watched by Telvanni masters. The Kotaeix, blackscales, I was born with were washed by the sun's heat. I watched my Masters grow soul gems in the other slaves and remove them with their curved Dunmer daggers, mutilating their flesh, spilling their blood and sending their blessed souls back to the Hist. This went on for forty years. New Scale-Kin from the marsh brought every year but the same number of slaves on the plantation, the rest buried in shallow graves to feed the worms of the field or tethered to the wretched Soul-Fences of the Dunmer. The Hist bled with each of my Kin who died and I with It.
In the Year 1E2290 The armies of Morrowind marched to meet the Imperials and I was forced to serve in them, under chain. The army of Reman camped south-west of Mournhold and those of Lord vivec across the river near the City of Almalexia. The greatest of the Dunmer generals urged Lord Vivec to fortify the location as the combined force of the empire was formidable. The Warrior Poet instead instructed his entire army to fell trees and sharpen them to spear-points and so we did for the entirety of the day before the battle. Upstream we were ordered to dam the river and downstream to plant the spear-pointed spikes facing upstream. The armies of Reman charged the next day against the unfortified Dunmer force. The battle-mages of Mournhold broke the dam as the Imperials waded across the river towards the inferior, undefended, Dunmer force and were swept away to their deaths. Hundreds of my kind and even the Emporer's own son left the river running red for a week. Lord Vivec stood tall over a defeated enemy and an unscathed army. I saw the stature of the Great Invisible Warrior Poet and the beauty of his Godhood on that day and i vowed to match it.
The very next month I was returned to my Telvanni masters who beat, whipped and mocked me for my new found pride though this was not far from the ordinary, I was, in fact, lucky to have avoided soul gem farming. I remained resilient in this light and for that i was beaten, whipped and mocked. Each day i was beaten, whipped, spat on and mocked until my master failed himself. A small metal pin was left among the hay of the slave house.
The next morning the sun rose and when my master was not seen among the fields, the Gaurd entered his house. Every man, woman and child bearing his name was slaughtered, mutilated and gutted with a curved Dunmer blade. The walls had been painted with their blood these words "Shauntavoy balaoya mathmeldi, Ni glathe culli." A scholar of ancient language translated this to: "Come the predatory to luckless, these are easy meat." I have been told, since, that the gaurds interrogated many of the chainless slaves who did not run far enough from Dunmer lands that night but found nothing. They were then killed for escaping.
With no master and no ties I wandered Nirn, an old man of sixty years. In the sands of Elsweyr I was approached by an old bearded man of a race I do not know. He spoke unto me "Lad you walk long and accomplish nothing. You are too old to do anymore yet you wander as if you will. For what do you search?" I replied to him "My life was taken from me by yolk and chain. I seek to reclaim what was lost." The old man stopped for a moment and scratched his beard. His face turned to a smile and he said "I will give you what you seek so long as when I have need of you, you will come." I fell at his feet and offered myself to his service for my life. As I did this he disappeared. A ring of purple and orange stones wrapped itself around my right fourth finger that could not be removed and not for lack of trying.
So i went forth studying the lands of Nirn: every book which my hands found and under every master who would take me to be taught. When My time came to die, I simply did not. I have lived ten of the lives of men. I have learned one thousand. I have become ten-thousand.
My feet brought me to the land of Rivenspire where the badlands seemed to flow across the horizon broken by mountain peaks under seemingly perpetual stormy skies. The great Doomcraig mountain intrigued me and, as a result, I went to it in search of whatever i may find. The ancient city of Erokii lay in my path at the base of the mountain. In the deepest halls underneath the mountain where the dead rose and fell to my blades i found the greatest atagea, eldest knowledge, I had found to that date. A book written in the Ayleid tongue and bound in white leather akin to the beautiful stone the Ayleid are known for. The tongue of the Ayleids is long forgotten as the Ayleids themselves are long dead leaving a cruel, unforgiving legacy behind. I studied it for years matching some words to inscriptions and others to small drawings throughout the ancient book and their white halls as I traveled. Ten years passed before I learned the purpose of the book; It was the last of Ayleid magick. Those who know of the ways of the Ayleids know that they rather enjoyed torturing the likes of men and other mer alike as well as building in white stone such as the great White Gold tower. Few know that the Ayleids did not recognize the Et'ada or "ancestors" in Ehnlofey, instead they revered the Daedra, the "not-ancestors". What words I have disciphered have shown me of their ways of bargaining with the daedra. With great reverence, study, discipline and will, one may use their words in their true purpose to will the power of oblivion to Nirn. The words of Ayleidon hold magicka within their meanings. Ever since this book revealed itself to me I have earned power from its pages and found Malatumori within. The truth of darkness resided in this book and, as its gift, now resides within me.
When my study of the book seemed to plateau, nothing more being revealed to me, I traveled south into the deserts of Alik'r where i again walked warm sands of which by then I had become fond of, unlike many of my scaly kind who frown upon and come to despise the dryness of the desert sun. I came upon a mundus stone bearing the sign of the shadow, my very birth sign, where i found a crouched man, of some unknown race, writing on a small parchment supported by a piece of wood behind it. I said to him "Do you walk to the constallation of your birth or do you study the workings of the stars of Aetherius, Man?" He then rose from his crouched posture and spoke unto me with a hollow sharp voice unlike any I had heard "I study the intermingling of the two and by this I am not." this intrigued me and so i approached his side and sat upon the base of the great stone. I requested he tell me of his ways for I was, and am, a scholar of all I survey. I did not expect him to do so. The great sorcerer named himself as Azra Nightwielder of the Third era which perplexed me for... obvious reasons. He taught me of what he knew of what he called "Shadow Magick." I still remember the words he spoke to me in the beginning: "A light strikes a rock, and the shadow is a record of their clash, past, present and future. Other conflicting forces produced less obvious shadows, fire and water, wind and rock, or nations at war. With skill and patience the shadows of all could be read, and patterns teased out, emphasized or eradicated. Manipulating a shadow could, through contagion, manipulate the object or force which cast it." He took me as his pupil and over the course of a year he taught me all he could of the magick of the Shadow on the outskirts of the the city of Satakalaam. I learned that through reading the Shadow of an object the past, present and future can be manipulated as such he was in the early second era being born only in the third and dying then as well. He warned me strictly as follows: "The present can be molded into the will of the caster as the present is formed as it exists. The past and future are both results of the forming present and with their manipulation so too will the present and the self be manipulated."
Upon the completion of my study, knowing all that Azra could teach with the rest left to experience, I set off from Alik'r and wandered back to the warm and welcoming sands of Elsweyr. By this time all that I had met in my first journey to the Great Sands had been dead for quite some time and their children had grown to middle age under the Teok'i Khajay, the full moon. I walked, with leisure, into the great Khajiiti city of Corinthe which is well known for its bounding skooma trade. In a dark corner of a small cornerclub and on a dark night with the moon full I met a few rather colorful and exceptionally friendly khajiit who spent a considerable time sitting with me and asking rather engaged questions which i returned in similar pursuits. I rather enjoyed their company and offered that I may pay for their drinks on the night to follow to which they kindly bowed and took their leave to their various homes and I to the small upstairs room I had paid to reside in. The next night came and the four kind Khajiit arrived when the sun had just disappeared from the sky and so a similar night to the last followed with a single difference: The age and pain of my bones caused me to be unable to stay among my company for long. As i began to withdraw, one of the Khajiit offered a small bottle of silver liquid to me and with it these words: "The lining of the moon which falls from the sky in the night so too brings the pain from the body and the displeasure from the mind." I took this bottle, knowing of the fabled skooma, and drank only a sip of the sugar of stars. In only a few seconds the room began to look darker and my old bones felt the spring of youth while my troubled and old mind took on the bliss of euphoria. The night drew into the day and eventually sleep befell me so the kind Khajiit carried me into my room. The next day had planned to leave the town but I made one stop before I did; The home of the Golden Cat. His lackeys sold me ten small bottles for five hundred coin and I set off to experiment in my own lonely way with the strange drug.
Five hours walk from the gates of Corinthe I was met with a three faced door which protruded from the desert sands. The voice of the bearded man I had met many years earlier poured from the mouth of the door "Little meat-bag, your time is mine yet you walk and drink so freely. I rather like your spirit, pray that does not posses me to eat you like a chop of pork. Step through this door and into both your and my realm." I stepped through the door and was confronted by a land of duality the likes of which I had only seen in books. The Shivering Isles, my 'home' as i would soon find out. I was instructed by my Master to make my way to the city of New Sheoth and pay no mind to the gatekeeper of the gates of Madness, so, as instructed, I went forth into the lands of Madness finding odd beauty and equal revulsion with every step. I came upon the great Gates of Madness and the magnificent atronach of sewn flesh known as the Gatekeeper who ignored me as i passed his idle body. For the few of you that are familiar with the Isles I will tell you that I entered through the Gate of Dementia and followed the path of that broken, turned land to the walls of Crucible. The black and riveting city paths were jagged as i walked through their putrid streets seeing its twisted people as they stared in amazement at my clean scales. I entered the Palace of who i now knew to be Sheogorath and fell at his throne saying "Master, My debt to you is my life. I will do as you bid me." He laughed disturbingly hard at this and replied "While your'e at it why don't you lay down and take a nap. Be warned that if you do Ill have Haskill cut off your gonads and feed them to a Hunger." I rose upon hearing this and looked at him rather intensely waiting for some sort of order. He made me wait for a while as he bit his nails and picked the meat out from between his teeth. He finally spoke saying "I would like you to deliver this to the hands of good ol' Malacath. Haskill will show you how to get there." Thus was the beginning of my service to the Madgod. I served him as an adviser, messenger, and killer as well as, under his express guidance, an army.
The one interesting story I always like to tell when I talk about being an emissary to the Daedra is of my time with Lord Hircine. I entered his court and began with a short bit of buisiness that quickly subsided to an offer to hunt. Along side the Lord and his Court I hunted the great wamasu in the Hunting grounds which Hircine had created. On that very hunt I broke off from the group to follow a track I saw in the mud. It led me to a small ravine with a small stream flowing through its base. I dipped in the water to wet my dry scales and spent some time doing so until I heard nondescript rustling in the woods nearby. I turned quickly to fetch my bow but before I could do so an arrow soared through my left thigh causing me to screech in pain. A man cried "My Lord, This way!" and I heard the heavy foot of the God of the Hunt coming towards me. I will spare you the rest of the details and say that an Idiot hunter mistook me for a small wamasu. We hunted him the following day.
I must say the realm of Mephala and her presence unnerved me even more so than any of the other dastardly and disgusting realms that I have seen. When I ventured into her realm, I entered upon the first strand of eight between the pits of fury and lies. I walked for what seemed like a hundred miles along the string towards the utterly awful Palace which held together the wheel of misery that is her realm. When I finally met the gates of the palace I was not met by dremora guards, as is the norm in the realms of the timeless ones, but a bleak and utterly inexplicable nothingness. I fell to my knees from exhaustion and fear only to realize that I had succumbed to her evil draw. I stood and thrust open the doors of the black and vile palace with great effort only to see empty halls, devoid of all. I am unsure how to place such a thing into words because the emptiness of the place was all encompassing, greater than the greatest void yet filled with the stench and cold of sin most evil. I stumbled along the halls becoming enraged by the emptiness, as it was so dark and... so utterly empty that my mind was brought to sheer madness and thought was driven violently from it. I started up the stairs hoping that the Prince resided at the top of this tower and my mission could be complete. Whispers became my ears as I rose and spoke sweetly to me offering me love and riches. They would open doors to show me what I may have but the moment my battered and incompetent mind rushed to them the walls closed in and I was forced to continue my long rise. The sweet voices continued in my ears asking me questions that cut me to the core of my existence if I did not answer. They asked me if I had been a slave, If I had been tortured, if I had experienced love and hate. I cried out to the voices "I have experienced all and seen all but the tortures of this vile and evil place, your answer is had!" they abruptly stopped their incessant questioning and left me alone in the dark. I rose alone for some hours until the voice of my Lord and King spoke to me "Isn't this a true delight, child? Sunshine and flowers abound while love fills the mind." his body materialized before me, standing and facing away. His words brought such anger to me; this place, this evil was brought about by him as he had sent me to this land. I thrust myself upon him, stabbing, biting and tearing his flesh while he simply slumped and offered no defense until he turned to me to say "A fool you are son, for you have forsaken your master and in this yourself." With this he died and the emptiness filled me once again. I rose for what seemed like months growing hungry with each step and finally, when i was so consumed that I could not take another step, A rich banquet appeared before me. It was sickening and bloody with the blood and bodies of my mutilated kin who had shared the fields of the plantations with me, cooked and served on silver platters. The emptiness of my heart became the hunger of my stomach and I ate richly for days of the flesh of my Scale-Kin until I could eat no more. I rose again and continued along the black steps of the Palace. Within that day I reached the throne room of the Great Prince and fell upon the floor of her great palace. I looked behind me only to see the door with which I had entered, then it spoke unto me in the very sickeningly sweet voice who had tempted me months before. "Child, you have fallen into your sins. Lies, envy, temptation, fear, betrayal, murder, avarice and rage. You are as vile as my realm and now fit for my presence. Now dine and bask in my presence and honor" I was swept away by the most beautiful seductress' who took me to dark rooms and indulged me in sickening and twisted sex. They pleasured my mind with days of murderous sex until the Prince again called me into her presence. "Why has the Madgod sent you unto me, little one?" I reached into my robes and withdrew the gift I had been ordered to personally give to her. She opened the small package to find a black ribbon tied into a small spider who crawled onto the Prince's hand. I added in explanation: "He found it on a rock and thought you would like it. I will take my leave if that is to your pleasure." She laughed aloud and with a flick of her wrist I was thrust miles back to the door from which I had entered her realm so long before. I have never returned and I pray that I will never need to. I should make note that most of my work on behalf of the Madgod has entailed such insignificant gestured of either love or hate depending on the second when I am dispatched for reasons of which i am sure you are aware.
If I jump around a few hundred years, a few thousand books and a few lifetimes of experiences, I come to the present and the end of an old man's patience to tell six hundred years of stories. I will leave you with this: Some have asked If I am too close to the Madgod and my story too outlandish and grandiose to have transpired. Others have asked whether I failed in some futile pursuit of changing my painful past through the use of the Shadow. What I will say in return is that, regardless of these things, I feel old and I may well be but by these experiences I have learned no matter their validity. Through these I am not what i am but I are all we.
Perhaps I will write more when my strength returns
Chains fell upon my wrists and ankles, a yolk upon my neck. For forty years I strained, my scales drying under the ashen sun of Stonefalls watched by Telvanni masters. The Kotaeix, blackscales, I was born with were washed by the sun's heat. I watched my Masters grow soul gems in the other slaves and remove them with their curved Dunmer daggers, mutilating their flesh, spilling their blood and sending their blessed souls back to the Hist. This went on for forty years. New Scale-Kin from the marsh brought every year but the same number of slaves on the plantation, the rest buried in shallow graves to feed the worms of the field or tethered to the wretched Soul-Fences of the Dunmer. The Hist bled with each of my Kin who died and I with It.
In the Year 1E2290 The armies of Morrowind marched to meet the Imperials and I was forced to serve in them, under chain. The army of Reman camped south-west of Mournhold and those of Lord vivec across the river near the City of Almalexia. The greatest of the Dunmer generals urged Lord Vivec to fortify the location as the combined force of the empire was formidable. The Warrior Poet instead instructed his entire army to fell trees and sharpen them to spear-points and so we did for the entirety of the day before the battle. Upstream we were ordered to dam the river and downstream to plant the spear-pointed spikes facing upstream. The armies of Reman charged the next day against the unfortified Dunmer force. The battle-mages of Mournhold broke the dam as the Imperials waded across the river towards the inferior, undefended, Dunmer force and were swept away to their deaths. Hundreds of my kind and even the Emporer's own son left the river running red for a week. Lord Vivec stood tall over a defeated enemy and an unscathed army. I saw the stature of the Great Invisible Warrior Poet and the beauty of his Godhood on that day and i vowed to match it.
The very next month I was returned to my Telvanni masters who beat, whipped and mocked me for my new found pride though this was not far from the ordinary, I was, in fact, lucky to have avoided soul gem farming. I remained resilient in this light and for that i was beaten, whipped and mocked. Each day i was beaten, whipped, spat on and mocked until my master failed himself. A small metal pin was left among the hay of the slave house.
The next morning the sun rose and when my master was not seen among the fields, the Gaurd entered his house. Every man, woman and child bearing his name was slaughtered, mutilated and gutted with a curved Dunmer blade. The walls had been painted with their blood these words "Shauntavoy balaoya mathmeldi, Ni glathe culli." A scholar of ancient language translated this to: "Come the predatory to luckless, these are easy meat." I have been told, since, that the gaurds interrogated many of the chainless slaves who did not run far enough from Dunmer lands that night but found nothing. They were then killed for escaping.
With no master and no ties I wandered Nirn, an old man of sixty years. In the sands of Elsweyr I was approached by an old bearded man of a race I do not know. He spoke unto me "Lad you walk long and accomplish nothing. You are too old to do anymore yet you wander as if you will. For what do you search?" I replied to him "My life was taken from me by yolk and chain. I seek to reclaim what was lost." The old man stopped for a moment and scratched his beard. His face turned to a smile and he said "I will give you what you seek so long as when I have need of you, you will come." I fell at his feet and offered myself to his service for my life. As I did this he disappeared. A ring of purple and orange stones wrapped itself around my right fourth finger that could not be removed and not for lack of trying.
So i went forth studying the lands of Nirn: every book which my hands found and under every master who would take me to be taught. When My time came to die, I simply did not. I have lived ten of the lives of men. I have learned one thousand. I have become ten-thousand.
My feet brought me to the land of Rivenspire where the badlands seemed to flow across the horizon broken by mountain peaks under seemingly perpetual stormy skies. The great Doomcraig mountain intrigued me and, as a result, I went to it in search of whatever i may find. The ancient city of Erokii lay in my path at the base of the mountain. In the deepest halls underneath the mountain where the dead rose and fell to my blades i found the greatest atagea, eldest knowledge, I had found to that date. A book written in the Ayleid tongue and bound in white leather akin to the beautiful stone the Ayleid are known for. The tongue of the Ayleids is long forgotten as the Ayleids themselves are long dead leaving a cruel, unforgiving legacy behind. I studied it for years matching some words to inscriptions and others to small drawings throughout the ancient book and their white halls as I traveled. Ten years passed before I learned the purpose of the book; It was the last of Ayleid magick. Those who know of the ways of the Ayleids know that they rather enjoyed torturing the likes of men and other mer alike as well as building in white stone such as the great White Gold tower. Few know that the Ayleids did not recognize the Et'ada or "ancestors" in Ehnlofey, instead they revered the Daedra, the "not-ancestors". What words I have disciphered have shown me of their ways of bargaining with the daedra. With great reverence, study, discipline and will, one may use their words in their true purpose to will the power of oblivion to Nirn. The words of Ayleidon hold magicka within their meanings. Ever since this book revealed itself to me I have earned power from its pages and found Malatumori within. The truth of darkness resided in this book and, as its gift, now resides within me.
When my study of the book seemed to plateau, nothing more being revealed to me, I traveled south into the deserts of Alik'r where i again walked warm sands of which by then I had become fond of, unlike many of my scaly kind who frown upon and come to despise the dryness of the desert sun. I came upon a mundus stone bearing the sign of the shadow, my very birth sign, where i found a crouched man, of some unknown race, writing on a small parchment supported by a piece of wood behind it. I said to him "Do you walk to the constallation of your birth or do you study the workings of the stars of Aetherius, Man?" He then rose from his crouched posture and spoke unto me with a hollow sharp voice unlike any I had heard "I study the intermingling of the two and by this I am not." this intrigued me and so i approached his side and sat upon the base of the great stone. I requested he tell me of his ways for I was, and am, a scholar of all I survey. I did not expect him to do so. The great sorcerer named himself as Azra Nightwielder of the Third era which perplexed me for... obvious reasons. He taught me of what he knew of what he called "Shadow Magick." I still remember the words he spoke to me in the beginning: "A light strikes a rock, and the shadow is a record of their clash, past, present and future. Other conflicting forces produced less obvious shadows, fire and water, wind and rock, or nations at war. With skill and patience the shadows of all could be read, and patterns teased out, emphasized or eradicated. Manipulating a shadow could, through contagion, manipulate the object or force which cast it." He took me as his pupil and over the course of a year he taught me all he could of the magick of the Shadow on the outskirts of the the city of Satakalaam. I learned that through reading the Shadow of an object the past, present and future can be manipulated as such he was in the early second era being born only in the third and dying then as well. He warned me strictly as follows: "The present can be molded into the will of the caster as the present is formed as it exists. The past and future are both results of the forming present and with their manipulation so too will the present and the self be manipulated."
Upon the completion of my study, knowing all that Azra could teach with the rest left to experience, I set off from Alik'r and wandered back to the warm and welcoming sands of Elsweyr. By this time all that I had met in my first journey to the Great Sands had been dead for quite some time and their children had grown to middle age under the Teok'i Khajay, the full moon. I walked, with leisure, into the great Khajiiti city of Corinthe which is well known for its bounding skooma trade. In a dark corner of a small cornerclub and on a dark night with the moon full I met a few rather colorful and exceptionally friendly khajiit who spent a considerable time sitting with me and asking rather engaged questions which i returned in similar pursuits. I rather enjoyed their company and offered that I may pay for their drinks on the night to follow to which they kindly bowed and took their leave to their various homes and I to the small upstairs room I had paid to reside in. The next night came and the four kind Khajiit arrived when the sun had just disappeared from the sky and so a similar night to the last followed with a single difference: The age and pain of my bones caused me to be unable to stay among my company for long. As i began to withdraw, one of the Khajiit offered a small bottle of silver liquid to me and with it these words: "The lining of the moon which falls from the sky in the night so too brings the pain from the body and the displeasure from the mind." I took this bottle, knowing of the fabled skooma, and drank only a sip of the sugar of stars. In only a few seconds the room began to look darker and my old bones felt the spring of youth while my troubled and old mind took on the bliss of euphoria. The night drew into the day and eventually sleep befell me so the kind Khajiit carried me into my room. The next day had planned to leave the town but I made one stop before I did; The home of the Golden Cat. His lackeys sold me ten small bottles for five hundred coin and I set off to experiment in my own lonely way with the strange drug.
Five hours walk from the gates of Corinthe I was met with a three faced door which protruded from the desert sands. The voice of the bearded man I had met many years earlier poured from the mouth of the door "Little meat-bag, your time is mine yet you walk and drink so freely. I rather like your spirit, pray that does not posses me to eat you like a chop of pork. Step through this door and into both your and my realm." I stepped through the door and was confronted by a land of duality the likes of which I had only seen in books. The Shivering Isles, my 'home' as i would soon find out. I was instructed by my Master to make my way to the city of New Sheoth and pay no mind to the gatekeeper of the gates of Madness, so, as instructed, I went forth into the lands of Madness finding odd beauty and equal revulsion with every step. I came upon the great Gates of Madness and the magnificent atronach of sewn flesh known as the Gatekeeper who ignored me as i passed his idle body. For the few of you that are familiar with the Isles I will tell you that I entered through the Gate of Dementia and followed the path of that broken, turned land to the walls of Crucible. The black and riveting city paths were jagged as i walked through their putrid streets seeing its twisted people as they stared in amazement at my clean scales. I entered the Palace of who i now knew to be Sheogorath and fell at his throne saying "Master, My debt to you is my life. I will do as you bid me." He laughed disturbingly hard at this and replied "While your'e at it why don't you lay down and take a nap. Be warned that if you do Ill have Haskill cut off your gonads and feed them to a Hunger." I rose upon hearing this and looked at him rather intensely waiting for some sort of order. He made me wait for a while as he bit his nails and picked the meat out from between his teeth. He finally spoke saying "I would like you to deliver this to the hands of good ol' Malacath. Haskill will show you how to get there." Thus was the beginning of my service to the Madgod. I served him as an adviser, messenger, and killer as well as, under his express guidance, an army.
The one interesting story I always like to tell when I talk about being an emissary to the Daedra is of my time with Lord Hircine. I entered his court and began with a short bit of buisiness that quickly subsided to an offer to hunt. Along side the Lord and his Court I hunted the great wamasu in the Hunting grounds which Hircine had created. On that very hunt I broke off from the group to follow a track I saw in the mud. It led me to a small ravine with a small stream flowing through its base. I dipped in the water to wet my dry scales and spent some time doing so until I heard nondescript rustling in the woods nearby. I turned quickly to fetch my bow but before I could do so an arrow soared through my left thigh causing me to screech in pain. A man cried "My Lord, This way!" and I heard the heavy foot of the God of the Hunt coming towards me. I will spare you the rest of the details and say that an Idiot hunter mistook me for a small wamasu. We hunted him the following day.
I must say the realm of Mephala and her presence unnerved me even more so than any of the other dastardly and disgusting realms that I have seen. When I ventured into her realm, I entered upon the first strand of eight between the pits of fury and lies. I walked for what seemed like a hundred miles along the string towards the utterly awful Palace which held together the wheel of misery that is her realm. When I finally met the gates of the palace I was not met by dremora guards, as is the norm in the realms of the timeless ones, but a bleak and utterly inexplicable nothingness. I fell to my knees from exhaustion and fear only to realize that I had succumbed to her evil draw. I stood and thrust open the doors of the black and vile palace with great effort only to see empty halls, devoid of all. I am unsure how to place such a thing into words because the emptiness of the place was all encompassing, greater than the greatest void yet filled with the stench and cold of sin most evil. I stumbled along the halls becoming enraged by the emptiness, as it was so dark and... so utterly empty that my mind was brought to sheer madness and thought was driven violently from it. I started up the stairs hoping that the Prince resided at the top of this tower and my mission could be complete. Whispers became my ears as I rose and spoke sweetly to me offering me love and riches. They would open doors to show me what I may have but the moment my battered and incompetent mind rushed to them the walls closed in and I was forced to continue my long rise. The sweet voices continued in my ears asking me questions that cut me to the core of my existence if I did not answer. They asked me if I had been a slave, If I had been tortured, if I had experienced love and hate. I cried out to the voices "I have experienced all and seen all but the tortures of this vile and evil place, your answer is had!" they abruptly stopped their incessant questioning and left me alone in the dark. I rose alone for some hours until the voice of my Lord and King spoke to me "Isn't this a true delight, child? Sunshine and flowers abound while love fills the mind." his body materialized before me, standing and facing away. His words brought such anger to me; this place, this evil was brought about by him as he had sent me to this land. I thrust myself upon him, stabbing, biting and tearing his flesh while he simply slumped and offered no defense until he turned to me to say "A fool you are son, for you have forsaken your master and in this yourself." With this he died and the emptiness filled me once again. I rose for what seemed like months growing hungry with each step and finally, when i was so consumed that I could not take another step, A rich banquet appeared before me. It was sickening and bloody with the blood and bodies of my mutilated kin who had shared the fields of the plantations with me, cooked and served on silver platters. The emptiness of my heart became the hunger of my stomach and I ate richly for days of the flesh of my Scale-Kin until I could eat no more. I rose again and continued along the black steps of the Palace. Within that day I reached the throne room of the Great Prince and fell upon the floor of her great palace. I looked behind me only to see the door with which I had entered, then it spoke unto me in the very sickeningly sweet voice who had tempted me months before. "Child, you have fallen into your sins. Lies, envy, temptation, fear, betrayal, murder, avarice and rage. You are as vile as my realm and now fit for my presence. Now dine and bask in my presence and honor" I was swept away by the most beautiful seductress' who took me to dark rooms and indulged me in sickening and twisted sex. They pleasured my mind with days of murderous sex until the Prince again called me into her presence. "Why has the Madgod sent you unto me, little one?" I reached into my robes and withdrew the gift I had been ordered to personally give to her. She opened the small package to find a black ribbon tied into a small spider who crawled onto the Prince's hand. I added in explanation: "He found it on a rock and thought you would like it. I will take my leave if that is to your pleasure." She laughed aloud and with a flick of her wrist I was thrust miles back to the door from which I had entered her realm so long before. I have never returned and I pray that I will never need to. I should make note that most of my work on behalf of the Madgod has entailed such insignificant gestured of either love or hate depending on the second when I am dispatched for reasons of which i am sure you are aware.
If I jump around a few hundred years, a few thousand books and a few lifetimes of experiences, I come to the present and the end of an old man's patience to tell six hundred years of stories. I will leave you with this: Some have asked If I am too close to the Madgod and my story too outlandish and grandiose to have transpired. Others have asked whether I failed in some futile pursuit of changing my painful past through the use of the Shadow. What I will say in return is that, regardless of these things, I feel old and I may well be but by these experiences I have learned no matter their validity. Through these I am not what i am but I are all we.
Perhaps I will write more when my strength returns
Inquiring minds want to know why we too should befriend pike184!
Did you remember to explain why your friend is awesome?
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