Chapter XCIV: Assailing Skuldafn

(General POV)

The remnants of the living Dragon Cult who were granted passage to Skuldafn felt the shift in the air as acutely as their long-undead brethren, the surge of power coming from the south and roars in the skies being their only warning before arrows began showering every open inch of their defenses and the shouts of the dragons above began destroying everything around them without care for their surroundings.

Nahkriin watched helplessly as a full three of his master's loyal brothers were slaughtered in moments by the ambush, the traitors assailing the great temple flying away without even bothering to gloat about their victory, as was usually a dragon's want.

Gnashing his rotten teeth, the Dragon Priest pointed his staff at the shimmering portal to the afterlife and pulled, summoning forth power from as close to Aetherius as he possibly could to protect the temple from simply getting annihilated from afar by the defiant living.

Even as he cast the spell and powered the ward he could feel his most powerful enemies ascend into the skies and begin launching their own magic, momentarily ignoring the Dovah for the sake of destroying his position before he could do something.

Unfortunately for the rebels Nahkriin was an ancient and skilled hand at his work and the ward went up within moments, shielding him from a massive storm of the elements which would have descended upon him but a second later.

The Dragon Priest worried not about stealing power that was rightfully his master's to survive, should he live he will have slain his lord's enemies and thus earned absolution.

Death was the only alternative.

Setting such thoughts aside he rose his staff and began striking at the flying magi, content to keep him away from the loyal Dovah, who were more than numerous to win out against the traitors he reasoned.

His spells ignored the ward as if it were not even there and he admitted a good bit of cruel amusement as he beheld an enemy mage flying upon a bird of fire scowl in annoyance... before promptly teleporting away and focusing on enemies he could actually harm.

Irritating.

Controlling his expression was rather simple for the undead, and accepting that his foes held their own foolish form of wisdom he began preparing for the eventuality of defeat, retreating his elite servants within the temple and crafting a battle which would whittle down the enemy numbers.

(Tullius' POV)

Settling into my... suspiciously well pre-prepared perch atop the magic made battlements Reyvin had me directed to, I began observing the battlefield with as much focus as I could muster.

The shower of arrows seemingly coming from nowhere greatly blunted the initial enemy counterattack, allowing our forces to push up the incline between our point of entry and the temple complex itself only to be halted at the edge itself by a well prepared wall of shields waiting to meet them.

The smaller buildings surrounding the enemy formations also served to give them some cover from the arrow rain, but nowhere near enough to stop any damage from going through, especially with the ballistae animonculi taking their positions and shooting massive bolts into the mass of the undead whenever they were not used to harry the dragons trying to avoid our magi and the dragons allied to us.

Three natural choke points seemed to emerge after a brief clash, slowly beginning to bog down our comparatively small force and even beginning to inflict casualties amongst the less skilled and powerful.

It was a good thing I had been assigned a helper for situations such as these.

"Get me Gestor." I order clearly and one of my lesser officers rushes off to follow it.

"No need General." The lich appears in front of me without so much as a sound, my eyes immediately twitching as I could feel his evermocking skeletal grin, even if I could not actually see it "What is it that you require?" 

"See that position?" I point at a place where the fighting was particularly difficult and a force of Dagoth and Redoran troops accompanied by Zarok's best century were trying to break through a shield wall of undead "I need you to help our forces push through it, our marksmen can barely target it and it would let us flank the other choke points with ease."

The forces accompanying King Torygg and the Companions would break through the moment the enemy was attacked from behind. I could only hope the enemy did not prepare another massive ritual like they did in Windhelm... bloody cowards.

My eyes found a floating Argonian and he seemed calm enough, which did a lot to ease my worries, even if all I had to go on was reputation and hearsay.

The lich considers my words briefly and nods "Very well." He disappears just as swiftly as he appeared, not even a minute later the enemy undead begin attacking each other, allowing our people to push through and fall upon the enemy's back.

A flash of light makes me blink and a draconic roar of pain almost distracts me from my duties but I do not permit myself to falter, let the magi and heiress deal with the dragons, I had a battle to win.

(Durrak's POV)

My muscles bulge and the chunk of rock leaves my grip, slamming into the enemy mage who had by some miracle managed to dodge my spear throw.

"Great throw, shield brother!" Farkas cheers, having just forced a potion down his twin's throat and saved him from being slain by the coward mage.

A pair of arrows slay another mage who had almost managed to use our distraction to punish us. Both Aela and our newest recruit Hilder give us unamused stares "Gush at each other later, butcher the enemy now." The experienced huntsman growls and nocks a new arrow.

Before we can offer any response, the earth shakes with the force of multiple shouts and I see Reyvin fly by a heavily bleeding orange dragon, withdrawing some kind of dagger from a massive gaping wound in the creature.

As if that was not enough, he is followed by his own wyrm but a moment later and the massive black beast wastes no time in completing Reyvin's work and clawing the smaller dragon's head off, the previously intimidating simply flopping onto the ground before its soul burst from its body and went to somewhere my eyes could not follow.

A pained grunt and a grumble draws my attention back down "Did we win?" I hear Vilkas asks with a disoriented grin.

"Not yet brother." Farkas snorts and pulls his twin up, picking up Wuuthrad with his free hand "Enough laying about now, the others are getting ahead of us."

I did have to suppress a wince at the memory of that particular adventure. Against Reyvin's advice, we still set out for Ysgramor's tomb and set Kodlak's soul free, the Dragonborn generously directing old Esbern to help us in the quest, even if her reasoning was rather callous.

'If he wishes to be destroyed, who am I to stop him?' She asked and that was that.

I am drawn from my memories as Vilkas immediately loses all of his drowsiness and unsheathes his sword "We can't have that now." He huffs and starts running after the closest sounds of fighting.

"Think we should unleash the beast?" Farkas whispers, his voice barely audible to even my hearing.

"Not yet." I grunt "Best save it for when it is truly needed."

"People are dying when we could be doing more." He almost pleads.

But I remain unconvinced, being an orc taught one when to keep things to himself, especially when that thing would draw even more prejudice. Instead I grinned a toothy grin at him "They are dying gloriously." I correct him, earning a grim nod "Come, let us join them!"

By the time I had retrieved my spear and reached the next battle, five more dragons were butchered. The scene of the 'definitely not a vampire' lady slashing one's leg off while the Dragonborn caved in his chest almost driving my inner beast out of control.

'Maybe it wouldn't be too bad to let loose just a little.' A traitorous part of me whispers and I feel my limbs tense and elongate slightly, just barely managing to stop the transformation as I slammed the blunt side of my spear atop a cultist's shield, smashing his head and turning it to pulp as his hand recoiled.

(Torygg's POV)

"SOVENGARDE!" Harald's battle cry sends the cultists reeling as we push up the ancient stone stairs, his dual axes cleaving through both the living and the dead.

What it also cleaved through was our damned formation, not that I could ask him to slow down lest I ruin his berserk state "Skirnir!" I call out the Stormcloak Thane "Don't let him get flanked!"

"On it, My King!" The man rushes after my Thane and slams his shield into a spear-wielding Draugr, sending it flying off the platform before moving in to cut down any other would be ambushers.

I feel a slight burn on my cheek and am suddenly jerked back by Helm, the gruff commoner turned noble getting his arm burned off as he took a flaming axe meant for my head. He did not produce a single noise as he was dragged away himself.

As I sink my skyforge blade into the offending undead's neck, a small unit of them manages to break through Harald's wall of steel, many of them pushing their shields against my force of noble warriors while a quintet wielding two handed weapons made a beeline straight towards me.

Thane Thorfinn of Winterhold appeared to my side then, and covered them in fire to middling effect, only managing to slow them down a bit but enough for me to react.

Cursing internally I fiddled with my belt and managed to pull out a scroll, blasting them with sunlight and pushing three back while ending two. One of them mimed breathing in and began to shout "FU-" But was interrupted by Thorfinn lunging at him and piercing him through his head.

Sadly that earned the young thane a wide greatsword slash to the chest, grievously injuring him and sending him tumbling down the stairs and under the stampede of feet trying to climb up.

Though he was thankfully picked up and pulled aside by Davos, who immediately injected him with a potion.

Getting my head back into the fight, I charged the remaining Draugr, cutting them down and moving in to help a bleeding Harald before the entirety of the enemy line just disappeared under a wave of fire, the form of Savos Aren passing us by atop his fiery mount.

"Couldn't have done that earlier?" Davos mutters with some annoyance, absently replacing the odd barrel below his crossbow.

As if to answer his question the archmage's mount was suddenly cut apart with a beam of lightning, and had he not teleported immediately I held no doubts the elf would have been shorn apart for his momentary misstep.

"Of course." The crossbow-wielding Dunmer sighs and begins walking forward, each of his steps followed by a thunk of a bolt being fired followed by the noise of a string pulling itself back, the distant undead reinforcements falling by the dozens as fiery explosions consumed them.

(Reyvin's POV)

The constant barrage of spell, arrow, and shout barely slows me down as I weave through the storm without a singular pause, the portal-powered ward atop the temple the only thing stopping me from outright destroying all of the cult's defenses.

I was a patient Mer though, so instead of wasting my time trying to break through the obvious bait, I focused all of my counterattacks on those I could reach and each time I dodged just enough attacks to buy myself a moment, I'd drop a firestorm atop one of their archer platforms, sent Scorch and the shades where I could not reach swiftly enough and Akulakhan was somewhere in the battle, keeping an eye on those I did not quite trust not to fuck up or potentially even betray us in a crucial moment.

As I dodged yet another barrage of... suspiciously brand new crossbow bolts I turned away from my attackers on a whim and directed Magnus' staff towards an enemy dragon who was just about to grab onto Odahviing's throat with his jaws.

Said jaws practically disappeared as the purple wave of immensely destructive Magicka reached him, the grievous injury more than enough to distract him for Odah to shift around and claw his throat out with a victorious roar.

Having done my due diligence, I teleported upwards, removing myself from the sight of my assailant's and buying a split second to detect the crossbow wielding ambushers. Not a moment later I found them, in one of the corners of the complex atop a freshly repaired flat-topped tower, a group of what looked to be ex-stormcloaks with what looked to be legion crossbows.

I almost pitied them as they burned under my ensuing firestorm, almost.

The slight flash of light to my right drew my eyes and I noticed Shalazar dodging out of the way of a purple-black dragon with odd fin-like protrusions on his back in place of spikes. The tiny Lizard Wizard blasted the time spirit with an impressive wave of telekinesis, sending him sprawling away and hurtling through the air, just above where I was currently hovering.

Apparently not satisfied with just this, Shalazar teleported above him and sent forth another wave of telekinetic might, enough to rival a full unrelenting force if the cracked building below him was any indication, and launching him directly at my position just as I dodged another beam of lightning from the Dragon Priest.

Taking the obvious ploy at face value, I unsummoned Magnus' staff and called forth the Mortal's Razor in its place, maneuvering myself to the side and aiming the blade for the dragon's chest as it went to blur past me.

A perfectly timed "WULD NAH KEST!" saw me smashing into his side for the rather impressive duration of a millisecond before his chest burst like a balloon and had me appear on the other side of the battlefield in a blur of red, both of blood and of destruction.

Finding that I was now hovering just above the entrance to the temple proper I couldn't help but chuckle at just how perfectly Shalazar could orchestrate things even in the midst of battle.

I landed before the grand gates of the temple, a small army of some respectably powerful Draugr glaring at me as I summoned Blasphemy and flicked its new shaft into existence. The undead flinched back on sheer instinct as the blade made itself known but they just as quickly formed a shield wall to forestall me.

Tilting my head to the side with a satisfying pop, I began twirling my sword-spear around, giving a quick look at the forces of my allies I smirked and turned back to the Draugr. It has been a bit since I've had some proper exercise and I obviously had time to kill.

I wasn't stupid enough to rush ahead on my own, no matter how powerful.

The Draugr make the first move as one of the more ornately armored ones attempts to blast me apart with a wave of unrelenting force.

With a downright unnatural grace guided by both my base speed and a surge of magic I danced away from the impact, appearing to the side of the leftmost group and slashing out at them while casting dragonflesh on myself in the same movement.

Mehrunes' blessing made the spell ridiculously simple to cast.

The entire side of the shield wall was either disintegrated by Blashpemy's undead slaying enchantment or sent flying with the sheer force of my strike, disorienting them for but the briefest of moments and allowing me to sink even deeper into their mass.

With each step, my attacks became faster and less forceful as I weaved through their comparatively childish attempts at taking me down, my weapon shifting from swordspear to sword and back constantly.

Each slash turned a foe to ash and each stab combined with the sudden elongating of my weapon sent those trying to gang up on me reeling, and where even that failed to affect them a cloak of sunfire delayed them long enough for me to react if not outright killing them.

Soon, their numbers began to dwindle and I had to wait more and more between every kill, bringing my little killing spree to its inevitable conclusion. Sensing friendly reinforcements approaching I decided to end it with a blast of sunlight and rose my hand to ca-

My instincts flare and a blink later the shout of "ZUN HAL VIIK!" manages to glance me before I am able to dodge fully, the Draugr who used it already moving in with a heavy swing of his hammer as my swordspear dematerialized on its own.

Without waiting for even a moment I blasted the row of rushing undead before me with a wave of scorching sunlight and rounded on my attacker, taking a swift step into his attack and thus away from his striking zone, I grabbed him by the sides of his head. A torrent of magic flowed into my arms and with a loud crunch the Draugr champion's head burst into so much bone meal as I closed my hands in a mime of a mocking clap.

Blasphemy flickered back into my hand within a blink after that, perfectly timed to allow a lazy swing of my hand to suddenly decapitate yet another mummy looking twat who tried sneaking up on me while I was 'distracted'.

My short enthusiastic walk ended after that though, as the Companions, the Blades, some of the Redoran and all five of my Paladins finally caught up, flanking the heavily distracted Draugr and cutting them down with impressive speed.

Anondor goes to say something but is interrupted by the bronze form of a dragon suddenly skidding between us as Minthara rammed her hammer into the poor fucker's spine and utterly shattered it, somehow directing it exactly to the summit and managing a perfect landing.

She did not even look at the gurgling Dovah as she swung out once again and broke his cranium one handed, not even so much as twitching as the fresh soul slammed into her.

Letting out an appreciative whistle at the sight I grinned at Minthara "Remember when these used to be an actual threat?"

Her eyes lock onto mine and she smiles, a proud and arrogant thing but not undeserved "Good times." She nods and begins walking up to the closed gates barring our path.

Before she can try and blow the whole damn thing up I raise a hand to forestall her "Wards."

She slowly exhales and glares at the gates, as if that would make them move "Of course."

Instead of being bothered by the fact that the gate was freshly enchanted with some rather potent anti-magic and anti-thu'um wards obviously meant to exhaust and delay us, I came up with a solution one might even dare call elegant.

"Tolfdir" I call out to the youthful old man who had joined us in the meantime, as did more and more of our allies "Would you do our hosts the honor of knocking? Politely of course." I add with a smirk.

Hopefully this wouldn't end as it did in Volkihar, having to shout this one apart would be far, far more annoying.

A fierce grin spreads on his face, revealing a nasty row of tusks bloody with dragon bits "It would be my pleasure." He growls and approaches the gate.

I feel a surge of Magicka almost as vast as my own shake the air around us as his form becomes more than it was a moment ago. And then he grabs onto the small space between the two wings of the gate, claws his way through the enchanted metal with barely any resistance and with a grunt of exertion shoves the gates open, destroying the left wing in the process and sending the right sprawling down the nearby edge.

Rubbing his hands in satisfaction Tolfdir turns to us, looking just a bit smug "Dear me, I appear to have forgotten my manners."

I huff out in amusement and start walking "I am sure our venerable hosts will forgive us in time."

"Yes." He grins "Let us go and greet them, I wouldn't mind giving them my explanation in person."

The stupor of the gathering crowd breaks, and as if there was no pause at all the surge of armored bodies follows behind us like a flood.

Well, at least they did for a brief moment before a veritable torrent of Draugr burst from every crevice, all of them wearing enchanted armor and feeling quite a bit more potent than their brethren outside.

A massive unit of a Draugr clad in full ebony plate and a grand winged helmet steps in front of them and points his chill-encrusted greatsword at me, growling out a challenge in broken Dovahzul.

A part of me was a tad annoyed at the delay but the way the little shit was glaring at me was enough to make crushing him worth the while, even if it was an obvious ploy to ambush us, a part of me reasoned.

Not that I particularly cared, all of them would die, one way or another.

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Sike! The excavator simply let us cover a greater area, there is still more than enough mine to dig through so get back to work!

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