Chapter XLV: The Littlest, The Boldest!

(Eldor's POV, a tad earlier)

My eyes snap open and immediately close as sweat pours into them straight from my forehead, wincing at the slightly acidic feeling I quickly wipe it off and get up. My sight clears in mere moments and I blink as I realize we were outside of the forge though some eight members of our group were missing.

I frown and look to a very disturbed Edrassa "What happened?"

She goes to answer but an explosion of force and magic makes the entirety of the cave system shudder, a wave of pure unfiltered terror assaulting our minds as something I can only describe as otherworldly and alien shrieks in pain.

"Edrassa!" I hiss loudly as I hold my forehead "What the fuck happened?!"

She shudders and looks to me with terror filled eyes "A D-D-Dae-" She stutters uncontrollably, unable to finish the sentence.

I growl in annoyance, flicking another deluge of sweat away from my eyes, and look to the others, the question clear to all.

One of the Sworn Mer veterans takes a short breath to calm himself and speaks "The Nord woman was a Hermetic cultist." He practically spits out "Last we saw of her was her turning to mush before a sea of fucking tentacles attacked us from everywhere!" His breath starts to turn erratic "They grabbed six of us and we all ran for it!"

"Where the fuck is the lord then?!" I growl.

The soldier hesitates briefly before muttering out "He stayed back."

"Fuck." I spit and palm my forehead, my fingers twitching all the while "FUCK!"

Before I could even realize what I was doing I was already walking onto the bridge and toward the forge, a potion of fire resistance going down my throat as I checked on my daggers. What the fuck am I doing!?

"What the fuck are you doing?!" I feel someone grab my shoulder and stop me in my tracks.

Turning around I realize it was Edrassa and a small group of others, mostly made up of the more experienced guards. I scoff "My fucking duty." I shrug her hand off and keep walking "We may be weaklings when compared to our master but that doesn't mean we get to hide like Auri-El damned chickens whenever things get tough." 

"Are you insane?!" She shrieks "We can't even touch that thing!"

Probably "Maybe." I mutter "But I sure as shit am not leaving the savior of my people to die if I can do something about it."

The few Dunmer guards who had followed us all stop moving briefly before their leader sighs "He is right, out of all the people here the fucking loot goblin is braver than the lot of us. Some warriors we are..." He scoffs "Fine then, we are going in. FOR LORD DAGOTH!" He raises his halberd and the rest follow suit.

Fan-fucking-tastic now I won't die alone at least.

We all start running toward the forge only to be joined by another pair of steps as Edrassa catches up "You all are completely insane."

"And yet here you are, following the insane." I offer her a crooked grin and start running again.

The shrieking and explosions continue as we get closer and closer to the forge, multiple times we were forced to reconsider going in as the aura of terror grew with each and every step we took... but so did our determination.

With one last decisive rush we stepped out into the great aetherium forge... and stopped dead in our tracks.

Near the forge itself lay the body of Lord Dagoth, strewn on the ground and bleeding all over, seemingly knitting itself back together even as something was trying to turn it into paste.

But we were all too distracted to pay much attention to that as something far greater in both terror and awe drew our eyes. Before a sea of oily tentacles and sickly green eyes floated a figure some five meters tall blazing with an unfamiliar power, shouting in rage and indignation as it grasped the tentacles only to sever them and cause the alien thing to shriek in pain.

It was then that I realized that it wasn't trying to terrify us with its presence... it was projecting its own terror.

We were all far too stunned to react before it was all over, which to be fair was only mere moments of time but they felt like an hour as we stared at the mesmerizing sight of someone or something causing a fucking Daedra to fear.

The faces of the soldiers were hidden behind their masks but Edrassa's expression was clear for me to see and instead of fear or awe all I could see in her eyes was grim realization and defeated acceptance.

Before I could ponder on her reasoning something in the air snapped and the sea of disgusting green was almost fully banished, leaving only the floating figure which stood there for a brief moment before turning to shadow and slamming itself into the body of Lord Dagoth.

Once more I was given no time to ponder as to what the fuck was happening as I saw a few of the remnants of the Daedra's power flicker and expand for a split second, sitting out a trio of massive oily black beasts.

Ah fuck, it was trying to get one last hit in "Move, move, MOVE!" I kick everyone into gear and jump off the platform, repeatedly conjuring the levitation spell to break my fall as the beasts started rushing at the downed lord.

My rapid descent gave let me fall pretty close to the lord's body so I did what I did best. I tossed him over my shoulder and summoned a dozen illusions, sending them in every possible direction while casting invisibility on both of us.

The beasts stopped for a moment and two of them went after the illusions while the third started sniffing around like a dog, it took it only a moment before it discovered where I was hiding and it started sprinting after me.

Luckily, the rest of the group caught up just then and immediately started bombarding the things with bolts of fire and spikes of steel. Less luckily the bests were surprisingly resilient and managed to shrug off most of our attacks, the duo who had been following the illusions turned to my reinforcements by some unseen command, giving the final one the chance to catch up to me.

With a tsk of frustration I tossed the lord's body into a nearby corner and allowed myself to be seen, the beast rounded on me immediately and just as its dozens of eyes met mine I blasted its face with an orb of sunlight, sending it staggering back and causing it to shriek out in pain.

I did not waste the opportunity this presented, as the beast clutched its face I grabbed my daggers and charged it, slashing and stabbing at its knees and forcing it closer and closer to the ground. Its neck came in close then and just as I was about to rip it out with my daggers a trio of tentacles sprouted from its stomach and slammed into me.

I could only groan in pain as I was smashed against the metal wall, my left arm being left a broken mess while my right was twitching as if to respond to a command I did not give.

The beast growled in satisfaction and did not hesitate to charge me and the lord's now revealed body, my magic was weak and could only hide him for so long.

It ignored me and went to smash his head into pulp but just then an explosion of gold came from the yet unconscious Dunmer and his great bird of fire materialized, staggering the beast with its mere presence and using the window to start clawing at its face.

I pointedly ignored the fact that each and every swing of its claws seemed to gouge out an eye.

Before long the beast lie in a heap of chunked meat, the only proof it was even alive at some point being the single eye still glaring at me with hatred.

"Oi! Loot goblin!" I blinked in surprise and turned to see the great Scorch staring at me "Give him that potion and grab one for yourself, guard his ass while I finish up the rest!" I did not bother explaining further as it took flight and started bombarding the remaining duo of struggling beasts.

I quickly looked back to the lord's body and realized that there were two potion bottles suddenly tied to his belt. Shrugging it off as familiar fuckery I immediately fed him one and drank the other, my arm snapping into place near instantly as I felt a good two years younger.

Talk about ridiculous.

The noise draws my gaze back to the fight just in time to see the quintet of mildly wounded guards bring down one of the beasts while Edrassa turned the other into a pincushion, both were burning in golden flames.

Lord Scorch descended and started healing the warriors while Edrassa spied my position and ran to join me. "Is he well?" She asks as she reaches me.

"Just fed him one of his potions." I shrug "Should be as good as new soon enough."

"Good, good..." She sighs as she looks at the still unmoving body before her face twisted into a scowl as she started cursing "Of course he has grown even more powerful, why the fuck not?! Why even bother with us little mortals if he can fight off a fucking Daedra on his own?!" She kicks the ground in frustration.

"Ummm..." I raise a forestalling hand only to get glared at.

She notices what she is doing and sighs once more, this time to calm herself "Apologies, I am just a bit frustrated."

"Pent up more like." The familiar voice of Lord Dagoth makes the both of us twitch in surprise as we find him standing right next to us looking like he was not even touched.

(Reyvin's POV)

Pretending that I didn't have a quite literally murderous headache while my brain realigned itself was proving to be a bit of a challenge but I could persist for a while yet. Besides, frustrating the shit out of Edrassa was always fun.

"M-My L-Lord." She stutters, her previously angry face replaced by the sheer terror caused by witnessing my 'true form' "I d-didn't mean..." 

I raise a hand to stop her "Fucking relax woman, I am not going to do... whatever it is that you thought I was going to do..." She blanches "Because you were a bit frustrated."

"O-of course..." She stutters again, a bit more calmly this time.

"Eldor." I turn to the Falmer.

He bows "My lord?"

"Thanks." I smile at the little loot goblin.

"My lord?" His voice almost breaks in surprise.

"I saw everything." I wink at him and give him a thumbs up "Good work."

He scratches the back of his head and chuckles weakly "Just... doing my job."

I shake my head in amusement and call out for a pair of the guards "Gareth, Baryn!" They immediately snap at attention, the rest following suit a mere moment later "Go and bring the rest, the place should be safe now!"

They salute once more and march off, the others relaxing and approaching us as Scorch left them and landed on my shoulder "Got your meal?" I ask with a light laugh.

"Lurker eyes are quite disgusting." Bird boi almost throws up then and there.

"Well the next time you want to eat calamari at least have it be somewhat prepared." I chuckle and approach the forge, it was still active but it was just about done with what it was doing, the chamber slowly cooling down as the lava was somehow expended.

"It didn't get damaged?" Edrassa asks in genuine surprise.

I shake my head "It did, just not catastrophically."

She lets out a relieved breath.

Before we can continue with any kind of conversation all of us hear a loud piercing DING. The Great Aetherium Forge, one of the greatest artifacts of the vaunted Dwemer that still stood after millennia... dinged, it fucking DINGED!

Steam rose from the overdrawn machine as its central cradle opened with a hiss and a bunch of pipes started falling all around us, lacking the support that was previously there and being too overheated to hold their form on their own.

You know what? I am not even mad at this point.

-----------------

Your back aches, your hands throb, your fingers twitch. You have no idea how long you have been stuck in the mines and your mind is far too numb to even care at this point. You decide to take a short lunch break to let your limbs recover however slightly.

The moment you take a bite you feel all of your wounds and tiredness disappear.

You quickly realize your food was laced with potions and once again fall into despair.

Get back to work ;)

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