Ephemeral No Longer [TES SI]

Carrow's eyes shot open to nothing but darkness. Wakefulness came to him easily and without any drowsiness that would normally follow any slumber or regaining of consciousness.

His eyes met nothing but black and his ears heard muffled creaks and echoes of water splashing in a large room. Brows furrowing Carrow tried to move, but found himself locked within a box of some sort.

As he tried to find his way around the box, Carrow stopped as he realized something was wrong.

Not the fact that he was in a box, but that things were different in some way.

His hand touched the smooth surface of what he assumed was stone and felt cold, but as he registered that the stone was cold; he didn't feel that cold.

Carrow relaxed into his box and started asking questions, 'Where am I?' 'Why don't I feel cold' 'Why am I so cold' 'When did I stop breathing?', 'Why am I so calm?', and as he asked these questions he remembered: 'When did I die?'.

Time paused for a moment, and Carrow pressed his hand against the his cold chest, and was surprised when he felt chiseled muscle instead of a flat plane or a bloody crater. 'Why am I not dead?' 'Why do I have muscle.' Carrow's questions only grew.

Shaking his head Carrow started feeling around his box, if he was dead then this was likely a coffin right? Finding the roof he pushed the roof of his box and was satisfied with the jostling of what had to have been a lid.

Pushing harder, the lid of what was defiantly not a coffin, but instead a sarcophagus moved and fell onto the stone floor with a heavy crash.

'I lifted that? Holy shit I'm fucking jacked'. Removing himself from the sarcophagus, Carrow took in his new surroundings.

'Holy shit.' "Holy shit". Carrow muttered, before slapping his hand over his mouth. 'That, is not my voice.'

"Greetings, mortals." Carrow spoke, and as expected a crisp and certainly mature voice echoed in the dark sanctum of what was undoubtedly an Ancient Nordic Tomb. 'I mean, that's a word wall, just sitting there, menacingly'.

"The actual fuck is going on." Carrow spoke in his newly discovered dry whiskey voice of menace. It was a voice that would drop panties and strike fear into the heart of anyone that heard it.

Not really expecting a response Carrow instead directed his attention to his new body. "Damn, I'm packing." Carrow muttered. With an eight pack of abs, arms that looked like he could strangle a bear and hands that could crush skulls, Carrow projected an intimidating image even if he was butt naked.

Standing at six-foot three, Carrow estimated that he weighed in at around 80-90 KG. Carrow looked like the perfect soldier or warrior, and while not a seven foot monster of muscle, or a keg barrel of potential energy, he was certainly not something anyone would want to get into a fight with.

Finished with inspecting his new body, he walked over to a pool of water that hallowed out a divot in the ancient stone that made up the sanctum he found himself in. Leaning over to inspect his reflection, the cavern he was in lit with torches cast shoddy fire light to assist in his efforts.

His features were similar, yet gone over with an airbrush, chisel, and sandpaper; removing any and all blemishes and asymmetry. Black hair instead of brown, western features, Caucasian skin and a face that was like an aged up and war-veteran version of himself.

"Daaaamn." Carrow whispered as he tried to continue inspecting his features, yet the torch light was finicky and the water refracted his image into a distortion.

One aspect of his appearance that unsettled him was his eyes. Gone were his deep blue sapphires, and now he had pale glowing baby blue eyes. "Creepy, yet cool."

Removing himself from his narcissism, Carrow inspected the rest of his 'tomb'.

'Wasn't that a sentence.'

His eyes eventually locked onto the utterly massive treasure chest.

"Loot."

Bolting over, but making sure to watch his step, Carrow knelt in front of the chest.

He'd already check for a possible pressure plate trap and then investigated the sides, back, and seams to check for any possible trap.

Satisfied with his caution, Carrow opened the chest. Inside was the edgiest armor set that existed, a massive greatsword that just oozed edge lord, an urn, a pair of wireless earphones, and lastly, a small scroll.

While his impulsiveness urged him to grab the earphones or greatsword first, his caution warned him the blade and armor might be cursed or some Daedric artifact.

Thus, he grabbed the scroll. Fumbling with the scroll a bit, because it was a scroll and he wasn't from the 4th century, he opened the scroll and immediately dropped it due to a flash of green light.

Clutching his eyes, Carrow let out a harsh "Fuck." Before, curling into a fetal position on the stone floor. His hands then went to his head and he let out an even more harsh and long "Fuuuuuuuuuck."

This went on for a rough hour.

Carrow laid splayed out on cold and damp stone. His glowing eyes unfocused on the cavern roof, before a jolt of shock went down his spine and he gave a full bodied shudder. "Holy Mother of God and The Devil!" Carrow went on to then rant out many, many other curses and swears, including "Mara's Tits, Nocturne's Milkers, Sheogorath's Cheese, and Bal's Urethra Rod."

Upon opening the scroll, Carrow had been 'briefed' on what happened to him via a very close and personal montage of the body he currently inhabits, and a few other perks he'd 'bought'.

One might ask, perks, how does one buy these perks and what are they?

Ah young grasshopper, Carrow here has just been reincarnated, shanghaied, isekaied, transmigrated, and otherwise been moved to another realm via a Choose Your Own Adventure!

Carrow's choices in said CYOA included the knowledge and ability to use said knowledge of what was likely several life times of hard work and practice. This included the power of a Dragon Priest, the combined martial prowess of a Draugr Scourge, Overlord, and Wight, along with the compounding multiplicative ability of being a Necromage and Necromancer.

What this meant might confuse most, but it really just boiled down to the fact that the newly inducted Draugr is a really, really overpowered son of a bitch.

Getting up off the ground, Carrow swayed briefly as he recovered from experiencing and learning several schools of magic, and the conceptual ability to rewrite reality with a few words.

This wasn't even to mention the fact that Carrow was also now a warrior of such class and ability it wasn't even funny.

A Draugr Scourge alone would be a mage killer, an Overlord an army wiper, and a Wight a formidable opponent for any challenger.

Let's not mention the Dragon Priest part. Combined you create a creature that could single handedly wipe out entire armies with simple martial prowess, add magic?

Lets try an army of seasoned warriors and mages, and even then that's a hard pressed fight considering Carrow also knows magicks that could summon powerful Daedric Lords and his knowledge regarding necromancy isn't novice by any extent of the word.

While no master necromancer or mage, Carrow was certainly an Expert in Conjuration at the very least.

Then you factor in that using magic against him was like spitting at a dragon and expecting it to do damage.

His Breton heritage, him being 'born' under the Lord stone, and his Scourge perk halving the damage all spells did against him, with weaker ones failing entirely. Get him some anti-magic armor and it'd take at least a Master Destruction mage to make him feel a tickle.

Now get this, Necromage made all of his perks and abilities regarding undeath half again as powerful: Magic did jack shit against him.

He was a masterful warrior of which only the greatest of greats would be his match, and was far from unwilling to use foul play, magic, and high quality equipment or consumables to gain an even greater edge against any foe that came his way.

As Carrow regained his bearings, a massive smile crawled its way onto his face. A chuckle overwhelmed his chest as it spilled out his mouth into raucous laughter.

He stumbled his way to the chest, giggles leaving his lips as he leaned over and started equipping the full-plate mail armor without assistance or need of help through sheer experience granted through mystical and supernatural means.

As he equipped the last piece of his armor, the black ebony skull-like helmet, Carrow couldn't help but let out a masterfully executed maniacal laugh as he drew out the equally dark greatsword from the chest and thrust it into the air.

Two magical ear buds phased through his helmet and planted themselves into his ears before blasting the 'Dragonborn' soundtrack into his skull. His laugh only got louder.

As Carrow came down from his power high, he soon came to a rather befuddling realization!

'The fuck I do now?'

Carrow was already rather powerful, and he'd already committed to gaining more power, but that was par for the course, a side effect of a goal rather than the goal itself.

Power for power's sake was never a good idea, as it was Carrow's philosophy that power was the key to opportunity and protecting opportunities already access and claimed.

'Opportunity' was vague for a reason as that could be just about anything. Regardless, Carrow was already something of a powerhouse and he had no other desire or need to be met natural due to undeath.

Sex was a thing, but he didn't know many women who would knowingly and or willingly have sex with a cold corpse, even if it was a talking and exceedingly handsome one. As for issues in 'getting it up', yeah, he checked, it still worked.

Once again, sex was less a goal and more a side effect. He needed an ideal, a mission or goal to work toward. Carrow sat down on the lip of his sarcophagus and thought.

Fighting Daedric Princes was dumb, and Carrow decided to step away from any Daedric activity as possible. Alduin was a problem if he was even near the time period he would appear, so if he was active Carrow might try and help the Dovakiin in trying to slay the divine dragon god.

Although if the Dragonborn used him to carry their shit like a fucking pleb he was gone. He ain't no Lydia.

Carrow's thoughts eventually started heading toward his previous life, and a question was asked. 'Do I even want to return?' There wasn't even a thought in his mind about returning to Earth until he started think about his old life.

It didn't take him long to think of the rather boring and unattractive life he'd have back home. School, work, wife, kids, job, work, another wife, child, fake death, run from government.

He'd have his family, but they'd die in like what, a decade? Two? Where as he'd live for what, centuries? Millennia?

Here he'd fight monsters, learn magic, wield swords and do cool shit. Sure it was going to be bloody, but the living were all destined to die, so what if he killed a few thousand before their time, there's millions more.

Not finding an answer, Carrow decided to explore the world a bit, get the lay of the land and maybe create a name for himself.

Getting up from his thinking spot, Carrow searched for the exit to the inner sanctum. While not finding the usual secret exit that the Dragonborn uses, he did find the entrance and decided to go up the hard way. He encountered various Draugr wandering, disturbed by his presence, but otherwise non-hostile.

He felt a bit of kinship with the fellow undead, but also considered them lesser creatures as they held no free will. He moved past them as he navigated the dungeon while also casually looting the place of coins from a bygone era and any other valuable that he found.

In his knowledge regarding magic, he found a relatively difficult spell that claimed a small pocket of space in oblivion where one could store items.

He said relative as to anyone not inducted in the aspects of magic and thus anyone below an apprentice would be unable to use the spell. It made him wonder what would happen to this world if an empire or country could establish a decently effective educational system.

Upon more thought he decided that it would likely end in usurpation or secession.

Continuing his trek he eventually happened upon traces of life, sounds of speech trickled down through echoes alerting the Draugr Death Scourge Overlord to the presence of intelligent life.

Although intelligent and life would have to be verified.

First his spoke his first thuum. "**Laas Yah Nir**." Carrow whispered, and in his vision several life aura's appeared.

Smirking at the success, Carrow unsheathed his blade from his back by using the Telekinesis spell.

Doing otherwise would be awkward and clumsy as his arm span wasn't long enough to take the massive sword out of its sheath when on his back, and the blade itself was too long to be at his hip.

With blade in hand, he casually ascended the ruinous stairs and paused at the door, his senses picked up the soft crackle of a fire and mumbling of several people.

With a tug, he opened the door and revealed a small encampment of bandits. Their rough appearance, attire, weapons, and that one of the men was being serviced by a very unwilling guest made that quite apparent.

The bandits all turned and looked dumbly at the intimidating knight garbed in softly glowing enchanted ebony armor, glowing blue eyes shinning inside of a creepy skull helm stared at them with indifference tinged with a mild sense of excitement: although to them it was just a really fucking scary stare.

One of the bandits snapped out of it and grabbed at the iron axe sheathed at his waist only to have his throat removed by an impossibly quick slash of a greatsword.

The onlooking bandits didn't even see the knight move, the strike having been dealt without moving any other body part than his arm, effectively removing any telegraphing that could be done with observation of the body.

With both 'experience' and intelligence Carrow measured the distance of the bandit, his arm, his blade, and the bandit's throat. It only took a mere half step and shuffle as he cleared enough distance for the very tip of his blade to cut out the artery.

Before the body even began falling Carrow was already moving through the deluge of arterial blood.

His blade hung over his shoulder, back hunched and posture low as he darted forward. Coming to an abrupt stop in the center of the camp between three other bandits who just started to react, he used the momentum he generated to pivot on his heel and gave a cleaving horizontal strike.

The blade moved with terrible momentum and speed, the first bandit on the right was cleaved in half. His right arm removed just below the shoulder, his chest, lungs, heart, and liver bifurcated, before passing through the other end of the ribcage and cutting off the left arm from the elbow.

The blade continue in its arc, disemboweling the man in front of Carrow and causing his intestine to start leaking out, before ending in a non-leathal, but all the more painful strike to the knee of another bandit; cutting the ligaments and tenons of the limb. The limb was still attached to a few threads of flesh.

As the movement was complete, red particles of magic vitality rushed to the now glowing red black blade. Vitality and life filled Carrow with a refreshing feeling of wakefulness and focus.

Carrow easily dispatched the remaining two bandits.

One was still getting his pants on and fell to a blade to the shoulder that stopped at his sternum, while the other was running toward the entrance of the Crypt, only to die to an icy needle as thick as a finger, as long as forearm, and as strong as iron.

The needle penetrated the cheap and well-worn iron breastplate, front and back.

The man fell to the ground clutching his chest, right where his heart was. He was the smartest as he ran the moment he saw enchanted ebony armor, and the luckiest as he was the farthest away from Carrow.

Carrow stared down at the soon to be corpse at his feet, feeling only pity for the creature whose destiny was to be forgotten in the dream.

The legless(?) man continued to scream in agony.

As he had that thought Carrow smirked as he found an interesting way to classify the lesser living ones; the title came from a book that he read called 'The Bobiverse' and the main character called most lifeforms 'Ephemerals'.

A fitting title that also reference the fact that they were the ephemeral aspects of the dream, easily forgotten by the next 'chapter' the God Head thought of.

With a smug smirk, Carrow gave a disrespectful kick to the already(?) dead man's head, putting a bit too much force caused the skull to explode like an overripe melon introduced to a very heavy hammer.

Now covered in gore, Carrow lost that smug smile.