Apocrypha, Sigil

"Indeed, I am," Yuri's deep and clear voice echoed into the Lovecraftian cellar and Frea's heart went in her throat when she jumped in surprise.

"Who the hell are you?!"

""Yuri!""

One drew her axes and two jumped into the stranger's arms, Frea connected the dots when she registered what he said but that only left her with more questions. Was he waiting for them? When did he arrive?

"Why are you here so soon? Did you not trust us to avoid trouble?!" Toni hit his shoulder and leered at him after they separated.

"I finished up what I wanted to do, it's not my fault you're just slow!" Yuri rubbed his shoulder defensively.

"So what's in the book, Yuri?" Ally hung on his other shoulder with her arms and boobs and wouldn't let go, to Yuri's delight.

"Knowledge... and Apocrypha. People who read a Black Book tend to do so after having an insatiable thirst for knowledge that Hermy takes advantage of. Readers who stay in Apocrypha too long turn into Seekers, and they are never seen again. What I want to test, is if your mind or soul is pulled inside alone or your whole body follows as well."

"So we are going in anyway?"

"After I do, and with a different book, yes. Who is this, by the way?" Yuri directed his gaze to the woman who had been silently feeling the temperature of the room before speaking.

"Don't you know who she is?" Toni pointed.

"Well, yes, but I don't go around introducing people for them. Nice to meet you," He stretched his hand to her which she took in as strong a shake as she could. Her efforts sunk like a dinghy in the deep against his immovable arm. She widened her eyes, he raised a brow and continued, "Yuri Nightingale."

"Frea...of the Skaal. Is Miraak behind this? Is Herma Mora?"

"Miraak certainly is, though Hermy is more of a passive observer in this regard. I reckon their arrangement is splitting at the seams right about now..."

"Why is that?"

"Because I took his waypoints. Every single one of them. Miraak's plan to return to Mundus via the All-Maker stones has been thwarted, so he'll need to build new ones to continue and we have time to explore Apocrypha and pay him a visit later."

"Excuse me, you...took?... the All-Maker Stones?..."

"...Ah, you're a Skaal so they have religious importance to you. I can assure you that the Wind Stone was actually not helping the unbearably cold climate you were experiencing being so close to its proximity."

"...You're joking, you have to be joking. You can't TAKE the stones of the All-Maker, they are what sustains the Oneness the island has with nature, they are gifts from the All-Maker!"

"If you mean to imply that they are the Towers of Solsteim and the island will sink, Solsteim is still technically a part of Tamriel and those aren't real Towers. Your Oneness can be practiced in other ways."

But Frea was running out through the Temple's exit path in the middle of Yuri's explanation to see if he was lying.

"Shame, she was nice."

"If they're so dead set on following the Stones, I can just add my first locals of Avalon to the list."

"We're willing to put people in there?"

"It's a new world, we have to start somewhere. Anyway," Yuri opened the Black Book: The Hidden Twilight and started to analyze its connection to bridge a path to it one way or another.

───※ ·❆· ※───

In a Realm covered in libraries, that drifted on murky seas from which an entanglement of tentacles that are given the power to draft all knowledge selfishly from those it touches whipped about in relentless hunger, and that housed a great many fools who thought they were wise for wishing to know all things, an Eldritch deity of Fate and forbidden understandings pensively observed the happenings of his interests.

In a voice as slow and murky as the waters that entrenched his realm it pondered to itself.

"The Fateless One has come for me this time. The knowledge of the Unseen Witness named Carillius Melfus {The Black Book} and the totems of that aspect named All-Maker which that unfilial champion of mine pretends to claim in my name has been taken by them, by Null. Perhaps they hold more knowledge I have not yet grasped? Perhaps they can become a new Champion? Hmm?"

Hermaeus Mora felt a hole being torn in his dimension, a very relevant one. A Black Book is being accessed from the other end? But those books should have no trouble pulling the Thought Projections of a subject through, but no one has had the skill or the power necessary to take themselves through to Apocrypha body and soul. Mora knew who that was immediately.

"Null." He uttered the name he coined for Yuri before taking action. Mora warped his amorphous body composed of grotesque parts across the Realm and tentacles rose from the black seas to get a feel for the intruder. But before they could even reach him, Mora felt the tear close and any signs of Null vanish. True to form, Null was gone, running around the Realm unabashed and claiming whatever he wanted for himself.

"Your thirst for my knowledge will draw you to me eventually, Null..."

───※ ·❆· ※───

'This place is insane, it's like a hundred overlapping cities with random islands and bridges all made of living material. The ground feels like weaved sinew, the lamps are bobbing and the walls are throbbing, the color green is cardinal truth, the books...'

Yuri looked around at the books that were haphazardly piled into towers or staged into the infrastructure. If this place wasn't a Realm of Oblivion, these books would be suffering from the treatment and decaying. Granted, most were about as worthy of a read as a suicide instructional, but this was not a library. It was a fever dream that called itself one.

Yuri shrugged and moved on. Taking his entire library was more trouble than it was worth, and the truly valuable books were bound in Black here, or at least inexplicably rare. In the future, he vowed to make his libraries more organized no matter how eldritch they were stylistically.

Yuri had other purposes here.

He picked up a sample of the black waters and placed it into a vial, cut off tentacles and placed them into his inventory to flee the scene before Hermy showed up, tackled Seekers and mind-probed them, and stole a few books to either sell or research, netting him a few grins and 6,000 RP. All the while, a bronze-masked man in the flesh had been circling above and scanning the area below like a mad man, looking for the one who bit off a piece of him. Yuri grinned and chuckled to himself before moving on.

───※ ·❆· ※───

{Earlier}

Miraak clenched his fist tightly in complete and unadulterated rage. Being bound in Apocrypha means he relies on minions for most of his information and can only spare so much power to project here and check up on things. Being told of the Dragonborn's arrival stepped his plans up, but that came at the same time as he lost the connection to the Earth Stone.

Was Mora taking the privilege he gained as a Champion back? That shouldn't be possible! Their contract had no holes to escape through! Was it liberated? By the Dragonborn already?

Mora used the Water Stone as fast as he could to project his Soul Clone down to Mundus and went straight to the Earth Stone.

Gone! Reduced to atoms or completely disappeared! Mora should have felt this and sent a Lurker, perhaps a swarm of them, how did this happen so easily? Did Mora believe the threat was not worth wasting resources over? Or too risky?

Miraak felt a distress signal from the Temple, but it would have to wait. The connection to the Sun Stone to the East just vanished as well.

He went to the Sun Stone and found another hole where it should be. He needed to get ahead of this or he would lose them all! He used his connection to the Beast Stone and teleported his soul clone avatar right above it.

Miraak waited for a good ten minutes to no avail. Was the normal path circumvented? If the Wind or Water Stone was hit, he would move to the Tree Stone to intercept them.

"You've been staring for quite a long time?"

'!!!' Miraak swung his whole body around and blasted the air behind him with a wave of liquid green light. But it was still just air. He had meditated on the words of Hidden Twilight for centuries, how is someone hiding from him?!

"Show yourself, thief!"

"Hahaha! Brave of you to try to stand on a high horse when all you have is a donkey."

A deep, young, proud, and regal voice saturated the air and assaulted Miraak and he still couldn't tell where it was coming from!

"Is the First Dragonborn truly so naive to send a Soul Clone down here without any protection?"

"You don't have to worry about my-!!!" 'My wards just snapped?!'

"No, but you certainly should. Be a good boy and wait for us in Apocrypha, will you?"

Miraak felt an uncomfortable tug on his Soul Clone as it was ripped from his grasp and sunk into a deep and unfathomable mire. In Apocrypha, he gasped awake and felt an uncontrollable sting in the very center of his essence like a tear wound had opened up in its gut.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHH" Miraak swung a sword furling with horrific sludge and squirming with tentacles, cleaving a Seeker in twain with fury as it exploded into green gas and formed a puddle of seaweed on the floor in its death.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Yuri opened his eyes once more after exploring the basic layout of the Realm and the facets of its pull. He couldn't search long enough to find the knowledge to the other Black Books, that was much easier done on Solsteim then there anyway. What he could do now, is make something to protect Ally and Toni from the pull of the Realm's knowledge and the fact that one needs to have a piece of them die and be shed in the realm to leave it.

"Okay, so reading a Black Book will allow you to walk through an enormous field of libraries and monstrous challenges that will try to pull you in and make you stay there for eternity. If you reach the end, the book will reveal itself to be read normally. Since the body you use in there is a Thought Projection, it has all of your information and abilities while being a bit more vulnerable to things that Hermy can do. I can fix that."

"Why can't we just read the book normally here?"

"By opening a book you agree to read it, and by agreeing to read a Black Book there is nothing stopping it from contractually fulfilling what it perceives as being read, therefore taking your Thought Projection. If it tried to pull your soul there would be a chance to resist, but you know the rest. I want to make a sigil to guard against the threats there and to communicate with each other no matter where we are, so let's go to Avalon until I do."

───※ ·❆· ※───

Two days later, Yuri heard the impacts of limbs and the whooshing of wind as the two women in his life were sparring in the forest outside after hunting their lunch. In a mud hut he made in a hurry, beside Yuri on one of his tables, sat a diagram of an unfinished Magic Circle filled with complex Spirit and Elvish language populating the concentric rings in segments of the circle while sacred geometry overlapped inside of it.

Yuri was in front of the last of his tasks, scrying the contents of the vial he had collected earlier. The Chaotic Creatia of Apocrypha lent secrets he was extremely familiar with after making his own Realm of Oblivion, and unless Hermy decided to completely overhaul the Realm he has had for thousands of years, anyone who wore the Sigil he was making would have no issue wandering outside of the boundaries of Black Books or leaving and coming back while suffering no madness. Yuri was also adding a communication matrix between holders of the Sigil. Yuri wanted to make it last long term, meaning he would like to add a one-way ticket to Avalon and possibly a few storage options, but he had no idea how to get past his own Inventory's firewall from outside of himself yet.

Yuri nodded his head and took the vial off of a stand before approaching the Sigil and pouring its contents into one of its pockets. The Creatia sizzled into a pool before vanishing and making that section glow green. He muttered a few words before leaning over into the Sigil and casting the whole thing anew. Lines of text and shapes connected to a gap in the Formation and it became whole.

"Toni! Ally! Come in here for a moment!"

The ladies trotted in glistening in sweat and he grinned at the view of their clothes clinging to their bodies for a moment, to which they proudly smirked and waltzed over to him slowly.

Ally, who had gotten a bit braver the last few days, wrapped her arms around him and laid into a deep kiss as she stood on her tip-toes. Yuri led his hands around her waist and pulled her closer, but that was all he was willing to do for now. Oddly enough, Ally was the one who was sexually charged and ready to take it to the next step, but Yuri's modern mind wasn't accustomed to the medieval shacking speed. Even if it was on the first date, Yuri at least wanted a date first. This wasn't a Tinder hookup.

Toni scooted behind her and squeezed her ass to get her to flinch off before taking her place in Yuri's arms.

"What did you find, baby?"

"A way to provide a lot of protections against Apocrypha, among other things. It comes in the form of a magical tattoo, and it can serve as the foundation for a one-stop tool for everything you might usually need to have. I want you guys to be independent, but the only way I'm doing that is if you have some insurance measures." Yuri lifted the Sigil and showed it to them, while Ally grew a smirk.

"You want a date before sex, but you're willing to brand me before all that? Kyaaa! What a beast!" Ally faked cowering with a sly smile.

"How bold! But you already own this ass, Yuri," Toni purred into his ear.

"Is that where you want it? As you wish!" Yuri swung his open palm down and clapped Toni's cheek with a mighty slap! White light burst from the impact and a sexy groan burst from Toni who shut her mouth right after. She felt a lingering burn and registered what he said before he did it.

Toni pulled her pants down and tried to look at her own ass. Yuri laughed and made a mirror out of ice while Ally giggled to herself as she saw it, but a pinkish glow of desire also adopted her face.

"You really did mark my ass!"

"You said it was already mine! No biggie if it's labeled as such, right?" Yuri smirked to himself and Ally let out a real laugh.

"What are you laughing at missy! You're next!" Toni tugged up her pants while Ally recovered and tried to run to no avail. Toni tackled her and sat on her back while rubbing Ally's ass behind her.

"Come on, Yuri! Gotta play fair!"

Yuri dived like he was coming from the top ropes and power-slapped Ally's ass from above. The light came and went, Ally yelped, and Toni flipped around to pull her pants down and admire it with Yuri.

"This is bullying! I will not stand for it!" Yuri had to sit on her legs to stop her from kicking. He soon cleared his throat and got up.

"It looks like both of them are in working order..."

"Do they have to stay on the ass though? It's not a convenient location..." Ally rolled over and asked.

"Try moving it with a trickle of magicka."

They searched the area that still had a slight stinging sensation and found that they had rather poignant access to something. Toni and Ally both pulled it to one of their arms and noticed that it could be moved by them freely. They also accidentally noticed that they had formed a telepathic bridge between each other the moment they did.

'I guess I'm fine with keeping it on my ass till I need it...'

'Me too, for now'

They looked at each other oddly and then looked at Yuri for confirmation.

"Like I said, it also allows communication. Filtering out your other thoughts during the conversation will take some practice, is it working perfectly?"

"Like a charm," Toni admitted. "Now our resident amateur telepath has an easier channel with us instead of saying everything out loud," She cutely leered at Ally.

"Hmph, it's not my fault I don't like prying everybody open! Some things are best left out in the open or never known!" Ally cutely defended herself.

Yuri's opinion on mind-reading was a middle ground. Using it for every conversation was paranoia, using it against trusted associates unless in times of doubt was impolite, and using it against enemies was perfectly valid. The end often justified many means, so if he wanted to have a decent grasp on the future safety of Avalon's populace from the big picture to the small household, maybe mass mind-reading was a necessary evil and he wouldn't be so naive to avoid using it as a tool. Letting people who weren't affiliated with him do such a thing in his territory, however? Execution. Facebook's information scandal was bad enough from where he came from.

Yuri put the Sigil on himself and continued. "Anyway, it's time to get active. Let's not open the Black Books in here, Hermy may find Avalon since I'm opening a gap by being here. We can stay in Tel Mithryn while you read Hidden Twilight, and I will leave to find more Black Books."

{My plan for that Sigil is the foundation of what all the Waifus and Yuri will have on in the future. If you have an idea for the Sigil's functions besides connection to Avalon, communication, storage, and protection, do tell. Here's a poll for the name of the Sigil}

{Vote!}

{Sigil of the Lover's Bond}

{Sigil of the Nightingale}

{Sigil of Avalon}

{Other! (Place your own)}