Applying Exotic Metaphysics (War, 17.5)

Voryn’s strong voice carried over the screams and noise of our invasion of Lilmoth. His voice was melodical, almost hopeful, as he sung the war-songs of House Dagoth. To punctuate each sentence, a blast of virulent, red-yellow magicka ripped from his hands. For each gesture, an argonian died. A gate disintegrated. It wasn’t just fire. It wasn’t just disintegration. It was a combination of both, a potency boosted only by his words. The cadence of his song, of his poems… There was something Tonal about it. Something powerful. Ancient, older than Voryn Dagoth himself.

On the other hand, unlike Voryn’s careful pace and steady control, Emylee was nearly the opposite. Her spells were ricocheting past her, around her, blowing her back from the recoil. The sages and shamans trying to stop us saw her as the weak point, focusing their spells at her- and that was a mistake. With each new spell she saw, she was growing more powerful. Trying new things. Despite the sparking, half-broken magic, or the bucking surges from her hands, the enemy spells were falling apart. Magickal energies rippled through the air, their perfect confluences somehow resonating with their spells. I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or an accident, but I wasn’t going to ask.

Sessalan stomped before us, all four arms moving in sequence. Calculated strikes sent the most heavily armored aside. For anything that was too resilient for Voryn or Emylee’s magic, his oar-blades could keep

In the center, I strode forward, focusing. Absorbing as much magicka in the air.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, despite myself.

One of the spears from her earlier volley was shuddering, shaking in place. Splintering apart, and something was climbing out of it. A vermai, already reaching out to attack an argonian.

“Oh, well, they’re bound weapons.” Emylee said, before yelling “Firebite!” and throwing something that was decidedly not a firebite at one of the shamans. Their amber shield shattered around him, and he threw himself backward, into one of Lilmoth’s many waterways to put out the fire. It didn’t go out.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, bound weapons have Daedroth spirits in them.” She said. “So I just put a little bit more magic in them, and let them reform themselves.”

“That’s… they don’t…” I stammered, trying to figure out how to explain the difference between Creatia and Daedroth spirits. “... Nevermind.”

Fuck it. I was done asking questions again.

Finally, we were approaching the Fort. A small, squat structure, long-ago serving as the center of Lilmoth, during the Imperial occupation. It had been taller, in the past. A long time ago… But it had sunken into the swamp. The entrance, now, had originally been access to one of the walls, crenellations worn away and adhoc stairs strapped into place.

Beneath it, I could feel my destination.

A figure stepped in front of us, her shield battering away my plasma blade, thrusting it to the side. With that same shield, she parried Voryn’s initial spell and blocked Emylee’s firebite.

Sessalan leapt forward, and she spit out string of quick words in Jel, an incantation that had her anima shifting just as well as weaving by hand would have. Sessalan froze in place, amber light coiling around him, locking him in place.

She was tall, her form roughly human, but I could see the reptilian slits in her eyes and the golden scales running along her arms and legs, her flicking, striped tail flicking from side to side.

She was wearing Bretonnian light plate. Old stuff, roughly second age. Armored skirt, over-worked bust, too much enamel and etching. In one hand she held a flail, and in the other, a heavy tower shield, one that was shuddering with a beggaring amount of power. Probably why she was still alive, to be honest.

Her tail flicked from side to side behind her.

She was like me. Whatever had changed her, it had been from a breton, long ago. And that meant…

“Queen Artomeda.” I said.

“You trespass upon this land, exile.” She hissed. “For this, I will have you-”

I stepped forward and thrust a palm at her. My plasma- crackling lightning and disintegration- belted forward, ripping away at her flesh, her arm falling apart, shoulder and face crumbling into ash.

After a long second of screaming, I let out the breath I’d been holding, releasing the magic. I didn’t have enough Magicka to waste, not with what was coming up.

Then, as soon as my eyes readjusted from the brightness of my spell, I saw her on one knee. Slowly getting back to her feet, picking her flail up off the ground with a new hand.

As I watched, the tendrils of her shield’s magic pushed energy into her, healing her wounds. The shield was powerful, regenerating her limbs from nothing.

She charged, her face regrowing as she screamed, swinging the hammer down. I caught it on both arms, the impact shuddering against my shield. I twisted my wrist, grabbed the head of her hammer, and ripped it aside. Forcing an opening. I shoved myself forward, ripping my claws into her face. She reeled back, the wounds sealing.

“With the Ward of Eleidon, I cannot be killed, exile.” She purred. “No matter what you-”

She stumbled to the side.

It took Artomeda a moment to realize the shield had gone missing from her arm.

It took her another to look down to notice a spear thrust through her chest, from the back. She fell to her knees. Behind her, Kirat was examining the shield in her good arm, pulling the spear back with the other.

“This thing again.” Kirat said. “I’m not selling it back to Torasa, that’s for sure.”

Behind her, the front face of Fort Lilmoth exploded. Vines and trees and branches exploded outward, ripping up through the surface of the stone. Thorns and hooks grew on the spot, limbs reaching out toward the four of us.

The Hist of Lilmoth. I could feel it thrumming with power, I could feel the link it had to the other Hist,

Kirat leapt back, spears flashing as she parried the vines as they launched themselves at her. More limbs wove magickal cradles of energy, anchoring Emylee’s wild magic into coherent forms and shapes- reattuning the magicka in the air. Branches wove shields to parry Voryn’s blasts. The full gaze of the Hist was on me again. I could feel its hate. It’s virulent, paranoid hate. It despised me.

The vines reared back, sharpened edges growing hard, young bark suddenly glinting with a metallic sheen. Sessalan stepped in front of me, crossing his blades in all four arms in front of himself.

“... No,” I said. He looked back at me, and in the daedra’s eyes I could see confusion.

Then I released the spell binding him to my plane. He returned to Apocrypha, and the Hist’s spears of wood blurred into me. Through me. Pain ripped through my body…

But the ebony tanto in my hand scored deep into the bark, ripping through the outer layers. Even as the strength left my limbs, I forced them to move with just my magicka and my will.

The tanto slipped free, and a single drop of sap was on my blade.

The last piece. I had it.

“Little pigs, little pigs…” I drawled. “Let me in.”

My shadow opened.

The potion, half-brewed, frozen in time, hovered before me.

I shoved the blade into it.

The first ingredient: Dreamstride. One of the ingredients used in Varemina’s Torpor. Nirnroot, boiled down and filtered through charcoal, void salts and moon sugar, inverting its effects. Disconnecting the user from the world. Alone, it would be one of the most powerful sleeping potions in existence. A potion so powerful it bordered on conjuration.

The second, Hist Sap. The Hist Sap of every living hist on the continent was here. All of them were in the bottle before me. Combined. Mawaleel had been able to pull me into her dreamsleeve because I had taken her matter into my body. But that link went two ways.

My greatest potion yet, and it wasn’t even done.

I pulled the last ingredient out of my shadow. The ebony egg, the bound and sealed container hidden below Mawaleel’s roots, stolen by Cyrus the Restless and hidden away.I crushed it.

The ebony powder dissolved under my grip, revealing the treasure inside. The brilliant gem burned its orange light into my eyes. It stared back at me, virulent energies crackling from it.

It was always said to be a key, a doorway to a lost city, a gate to a land of treasure.

There’s a reason the plane of the Hist- the pocket of the Dreamsleeve their minds and souls existed in- couldn’t be reached without Hist Sap, without a direct invitation.

And that’s because they didn’t have a key.

The key had been lost.

I dropped it into the vial.

There was no need to heat it. No need to shake it, or mix it.

The Eye of Argonia was open, after all.

Even as the Lilmoth’s roots pulled back, spells weaving to attack me, to steal the potion, destroy it, anything… It was too slow.

I drank.

The vial and tanto fell through my hands and clattered to the ground as my body began to fade from existence.

Dagoth had done it before. An alternate self had asked him about it, what he remembered. I’d learned a lot. I was to be the second Inversion.

The second Sharmat.