Trials of Hircine VII

I take another sword from my inventory and get into a defensive stance.

"Hey, if your God is so powerful? Why does he even let things like me exist? Is he too weak to smite such lowly abominations such as myself?" I ask, taunting the Silver hand as I prepare to enact my plan.

"Shut your poisonous mouth, heretic!" He shouts as he lunges at me and I dive to the side taunting him again as I get closer to my target.

"I'm the heretic? But, aren't you in the domain of Hircine too? Sounds pretty blasphemous to me..." I goad him once more, while picking up a wooden bowl to throw at him.

"I'm here to slay all who would seek the boon of Hircine!" He says charging at me once more swinging wildly as my taunts seem to be enraging him even more.

"Really? Everyone? Even the ones following you? Man, even bandits have more loyalty than you! To thank someone so devout could kill those they fight beside, tsk, tsk, tsk... Even the hounds you hunt are more loyal than you." I say tossing the plate at his head, while egging him on further.

"SHUT UP!" He roars at the top of his lungs, charging at me just as I had planned.

I lunge out of the way with a smirk on my face as he brings his great axe down with a mighty overhead swing on to the shrine of Stendar.

Causing the divine blessing that had shrouded his body to slowly fade away, and the once vibrant silver tattoo of a hand over his heart loses its luster.

I see the rage slowly slip from his eyes and be replaced with pure terror.

"W-what have you done, abomination?!" He shouts in a panic, trying and failing to attack me in his reduced ability as it is much easier to dodge and even parry his attacks now.

"Me?" I say pointing to myself in feigned surprise as I dodge another strike be side stepping.

"Is that my axe mark in Stendar's shrine? You should really take responsibility for your blasphemous actions brother silverhand, tsk, tsk, tsk..." I say chidingly as I know I've gotten into his head as a horribly sadistic idea pops into my head.

"Fuck you!" He shouts swinging wildly once more, which I easily duck under rolling behind him and striking his back to hide the pale shadow spell I cast on him.

Despite not having trained up illusion magic all that much I'm at least able to change what the copy of the silverhand my spell formed says as he begins to attack the real silverhand.

"Heretic! Defiler! Failure!" The copy shouts as it brings its axe down on the silverhand who turns around to strike me but is frozen by a reflection of himself bringing his axe down on himself.

"N-no, I didn't mean to!" The silverhand shouts as he reflexively pulls his axe up to block the overhead swing from his copy.

Leaving his body open for another attack, which I take by running my blade through the 1 HP copy and into the exposed chest of the silverhand, catching him completely off guard as I drive my blade into the tattoo over his heart.

It's in that moment I see clarity in his eyes as he glares at me with hatred as he realizes what I've done tries to choke out another curse, but only manges to spit blood in my face before the light drains from his and I get another notification from the system as I let his body fall to the floor.

[Wave 2/9 Completed... You have 1 hour to prepare for the next wave...]

"Damn, the boss for this fight was unexpected... Fuckin' silverhands... I wonder what the next wave holds?" I ask myself as I start looting these bandits, and on the chief I find a letter I presume is from the silverhand's boss.

[Brother Eli, I suspect something terrible has transpired in Skyrim. The brothers we have stationed there are no longer sending back reports and their last message spoke of a vampire raid that destroyed the Hall of the Vigilants in that area. I need you to go there and cultivate a new batch of hunters. Start with bandits as they already have little use in society and will not be missed if they were to go missing. Once you have a capable enough band, begin hunting down leads and purging the land of Hircine's mongrels. We've received troubling reports concerning Ysgrimor's Companions, I suggest starting there to find out what happened to our men. May Stendar's mercy carry your blade in trying times.]

[Ever-faithful, Brother Dominus]

The letter says, revealing the silverhand I fought with to be named Eli, and this Dominus to be high enough up the chain of the group of werewolf hunters to apparently dispatch more of their order.

"What the fuck... I'm certain the Silverhand weren't this big of a deal in base game... And the Hall of the Vigilants was already attacked? I should really go and pick up Serena sooner rather than later... Maybe I should also pay the Dawnguard a visit too? Wouldn't want them teaming up with the Silverhand... Shit, I'm running low on time! Better set more traps, I've got a feeling the waves are just going to get harder and harder..." I tell myself as I run to another area of Solitude and begin setting up more traps for the next wave of enemies.

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A new, much larger group of challengers enter Solitude...

Though, their dress is that of the wild people of the Reach... Slowly, they cautiously make their way into the town.

Fifteen Foresworn equipped with brutally shaped bows, swords, axes, and armor, act as a vanguard for three Briarhearts, with sickly pale skin.

The two front Briarhearts appear to be the melee build while the final one appears to be a caster. Their exposed briarhearts glowing faintly with the energy of the spriggans they were ripped out of.

(Author's Note: Hey, everyone. Sorry for the late upload. Life stuff happened, but I hope to keep to the schedule as close as possible! Hope you enjoy!)