Chapter LXIV: Meat Issue
(General POV)
A quintet of terrified Nords stumbled through the thick woodland that surrounded their once home, the explosions of fire and lightning coming from the fortified settlement of their great clan telling them in no uncertain terms that things would never be the same.
They weaved through the ancient trails which led to their hidden shrines, hoping against hope that their ancestors' sanctums would be able to protect them against the onslaught of their hated foes.
"We must persevere." A middle aged man muttered, even as uncontrolled shivers ensured his words lacked the strength necessary to truly matter "We will have our vengeance yet."
A younger woman let out a mirthless chuckle "Against that thing?" She shook her head and pulled at a specific branch, the woods in front of them seemingly morphing into a path at the action.
The group began muttering in relief as they felt themselves finally safe in the presence of the murky pull surrounded by the altar and small library of ancient tomes.
"Silence." A much older man hissed, his back already arching from the exertion of their brief run "We cannot do shit if we end up getting found out."
"Hey!" Another woman whispered harshly "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what woma-" Before the old man could finish his snarl he felt something pierce his chest and looked down to see the slightly curved blade of a glaive sticking out of his stomach just below his ribcage.
He did not even get to scream as he was engulfed in crimson lightning.
---
The meatbags barely had the time to react before the colossal form of Akulakhan blurred back into motion, the shattered body of his first victim not slowing down his movement even slightly as he fluidly continued his thrust into a swing to his left, decapitating a female meatbag and sending the rest of her body flying into a wall, carefully making sure to avoid the bookcases.
The others screamed in fright and began invoking their tree god demon creature for aid.
Akulakhan merely chuckled at this, the demon would be of no help to them, even if it cared to attempt it in the first place.
His free hand flicked up and dispelled a wave of lightning that one summoned forth from a scroll the movement once more fluidly followed into a blurred kick, resulting in the poor idiot's chest getting caved in and slamming into its friend, breaking its neck.
His Master's most glorious creation rounded onto the last creature and had he been cursed with primitive meat eyes he would have rolled them then for the grating noise of meat begging for its continued existence assaulted his sound receptors.
He made sure to wait for the pitiful little thing to look up before he pulped its feeble cranium with his fist.
His Glorious Master may have ensured he would always remain but a machine, but no machine upon Nirn shall ever compare to the glory of Akulakhan The Younger, and thus he was permitted to carry a facsimile of emotion in his roaring aetherial core, a thing he was thankful for even if most of his self felt naught but disdain for such feeble things.
The black pool filled to the brim with ink suddenly bubbled and a sight familiar to what Akulakhan considered to be his birthplace greeted him. A tall monstrosity covered head to toe in claws and tentacles, staring at him with a hunger he could feel did not belong to its filthy form alone.
He promptly proceeded to butcher the thing as its flailing limbs failed to latch onto his sublime form and its claws proved themselves too short to reach him. His Master's mighty glaive cared not for its thick hide as it cleaved it to shreds with each swing.
As the vile meat creature fell so too did the pool began bubbling once more and Akulakhan swiftly realized that the meatbags served as perfect sacrifice and the Dremora would keep coming back if nothing changed.
And so he got to work, tossing the cases of books outside he accepted the risk of damage and before the next Lurker (as his Glorious Master called them) could emerge he pulled out a folded scroll glowing with the majestic gold of the sun.
His aetherial core thrummed into action as he channeled his power within it, the entire area in front of him engulfing in solar fire like so much kindling.
The shrieks the meat produced were far more satisfying this time.
Detecting no further tree demon infested meat in his proximity he turned around, leaving his previous targets to rot as he did, he made sure that no captured tomes would be damaged before his master could retrieve them and then began a light jog back to the wood-hewn hovel his Master's foes were bold enough to declare a fortified village.
His movements destroyed only a few trees as he judged them too light to slow him down sufficiently and waving through the tiny little paths would prove almost as irritating as listening to meatbags speak.
The pitiful little hovel was indeed already conquered by his Master, weak bodies laying strewn all about the place as half were either charred to death or merely had their minds turned to mush by a light glare, only a few were either frozen to death and turned into chunks of ice or pierced with an errant arrow.
The excuse for a longhouse bore gates no longer and so Akulakhan merely walked in without first announcing himself, coming upon the sight of his Master looking at a particularly disgusting piece of literature and the allied meatbags either staring at him or ensuring the infantile creatures he recognized as Nord human offspring were not able to see the absolute carnage they were surrounded by.
"My task has been completed, my Master." Akulakhan spoke as his creator finished examining the tome.
Unfortunately his presence proved to be a mite surprising to the others.
The allied meatbag shrieked in surprise as it rounded on him and attempted to blast his head off with an ice spike only to have it deflected into a nearby wall.
Dagoth damned meatbags...
(Reyvin's POV)
"Kindly stop attempting to murder my bodyguard, Morrigan." I say with a chuckle "You are just wasting Magicka."
She stills completely as her head ever so slowly creaks in my direction "Of course." She mutters flatly and points at Junior "Explain?"
Instead of going into a full blown explanation about what Junior was I merely grin and point to the construct "Akulakhan The Younger, meet Morrigan." I turn to my friend and wink "Morrigan, meet Akulakhan The Younger."
She takes a deep breath and palms her face "Please don't tell me you actually succeeded in creating a god-machine." I can see a vein bulging on her forehead and I swear if she had a slipper she would probably be tempted to chuck it at me right about now.
"God what now?" Hilder blinks in surprise.
"The first Akulakhan was my ancestors attempt at re-creating the Numidium" I explain with a light smirk "And while my own creation is far lesser in power he is still stronger than probably any mortal out there."
"You know what, I will just take the kids elsewhere and leave you to it." The hunter mutters and starts carrying the unconscious kids outside to where the rest of the non-cultists were piled, safely knocked out by my psionics so that I didn't have to kill any actual innocents.
"Fair enough." I snort.
A few moments later, as if something clicks in her mind, Morrigan's entire posture shifts as her surprise and annoyance is replaced by curiosity and she beings examining the mildly irritated Junior, slowly walking around him as her eyes widened with each and every mastery-worthy enchantment she could spy carved into his surface.
"How did you even mange it?" She looks up to me with something approaching what one might call scarousal.
My pride spikes at her reaction and I smirk "Meticulously crafted every single part of him from ebony, including a personality matrix that is able to mimic a person almost perfectly, and then I stuck a core of aetherium in his chest." My smirk is quickly replaced with a scowl though "The reason why Mora is pissed at me is because I refused to give him access to the forging method when I found it."
Her brow furrows "I can't say I am terribly surprised... Still, are you sure that was wise?"
I shrug and wave my hand as if to say 'so-so' "Only time will tell at this point."
She gives me a pitying look at that but then scowls as she accidentally steps into a puddle of blood and dirties her boots even further "Well, since you've been so kind as to put me into a Daedra's sight you can at least help me clean this place up and explain to Idgrod why a whole clan of hers was suddenly disappeared overnight."
I want to tell her to fuck off, I really do but that glare scares even me so all I can do is groan and accept my fate.
Hah.
She did try and actually get into the whole animonculus conversation as we were cleaning up, even if I could feel her heart was not in it. A shame that.
---
As much as I may have wanted to just rush off and continue on my self-appointed quest, I did understand why Morrigan demanded I stay and explain everything. A Jarl's Court Wizard may have the authority to investigate Daedric bullshit but slaughtering an entire ancient and supposedly loyal clan on a whim was not something she could just get away with willy nilly, even if we were talking about Idgrod Raven-Crone here of all people.
The Royal Court Mage though had no such issues, especially since the realm was still very much on a war footing. My authority was basically judge jury and executioner when it came to Daedra and even if by some miracle of bad luck I wasn't legally permitted to do it, my general reputation and friendship with Torygg essentially ensured I spoke with the High King's voice.
The Nords valued the latter far more than the former in any case.
Naturally, it was exactly at this moment Idgrod decided to grow an actual brain for once and made sure she got something out of the sudden loss in taxes, citing that 'While some of the poor dears may have been cultists it couldn't have been all of them' And apparently the argument that the children would inherit the territory and use their yet untouched wealth to rebuild their forestry business was not enough for her.
I wasn't even mad, just genuinely surprised.
And so I tossed some wealth her way, a pittance really, and just to make sure she had no room to complain I wrote up a plan to make her hold a bit less of a shithole (even if I did have to give it to her Steward in secret so the people didn't grumble about 'some' elf telling them how to live their lives)
I pretended to grumble, wouldn't do to make fleecing me seem too easy after all, but was more than satisfied to trade some pocket change in return for no one looking any deeper into it and finding that I had raided the shit out of the clan's hidden library.
For all the disdain I held toward any kind of cultist who did not work for me, I had to admit that the Hermetics kept a very mighty collection. Nothing that would make me immensely more powerful but the ideas for spell modifications were already bursting through my mind even as I read the titles of the hundred or so books secured by Junior.
"You seemed distracted by something." Morrigan spoke up as we left the longhouse.
I turn to her with a raised eyebrow "Trying to decipher the depravity that is my mind, are we?"
She huffs "Your face barely twitched the entire time we were in the hall, 'tis merely a bit of curiosity."
"Uh huh." I drawl "Totally not the soul-rending boredom of listening to Idgrod fail to croak for another five hours as she tries and actually behave in a vaguely competent manner."
"You are avoiding the question~" She yawns and stretches lightly.
"Just considering my next steps." I shrug noncommittedly "Going to need to find a way to communicate with my new book-friend as well, the knowledge he may have held could be instrumental in countering the tentacular fuck."
She hums neutrally at my answer as we finally reach her home, she turns around and hesitates, seemingly wanting to say something before sighing and shaking her head "It is... good that you have visited."
"That has to be the most bland goodbye I've heard in a while." I snort.
She crossed her arms with a huff "So much for being polite, off you go then you fool" She shoos me away with her hands, but not before adding "And make sure you don't die."
Chuckling lightly at her behavior I turn to the eastern exit and start walking, waving my hand as she stares at my back "Worry not Morrigan, the world hasn't had enough of me quite yet!"
Ah, Morrigan. If only you had an ambitious bone in your body...
The moment I feel a lack of stares on my back I unfurl my wings and blast into the skies, becoming almost invisible as I began flying east.
As if banished by the sudden freedom I felt, the gaze of Hermaeus Mora finally retreated, the hate-filled sea of eyes still paying attention but no longer attempting to set me alight simply for existing.
The little flesh-tome hanging off my belt seemed to feel it as well as it stopped throbbing in fright.
'Still fucking disgusting.' Scorch shivers violently.
Now if only the other Daedra doesn't make me declare war on his ass...
A Mer can hope.
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Less talking, more mining!
Those stones won't dig themselves!
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