Dorcas, Into Fort Black

 Dorcas, Into Fort Black

      I returned to Rigmor, who was waiting outside the door leading into Fort Black. I told her that I had no idea how many were inside, where they were positioned if there were any innocents. She retorted that everyone inside was guilty. I said firmly, if anyone is not wearing Thalmor armor, does not draw a weapon and attack us, does not attempt to cast a spell toward us, let them live. I will not have innocent blood on our hands if we can avoid it. She looked hard at me but allowed that maybe I was right and agreed with what I said.

     Then I said that as we go through the door, kill anyone in front wearing armor or mage robes, then go to the left side if there are any Thalmor on that side, I would go to the right doing the same, that way we keep them wondering about the other's position. If one of us is clear, we help the other from behind. Keep moving and we stand the best chance of getting through this alive. I bowed my head to whisper a short prayer to the 'Nine', as she asked what I was doing.

     I said that I was praying for any aid the 'Nine' would give. She then asked why was I doing this now. I figured now or never, I said, "for whatever reason or purpose, I have been called to be an agent for the 'Nine'. Someone they would use to do here on Nirn what they cannot."

     "And why can they not?"

     As I drew back on my parents' teachings to me, and what little I could get out of the priests. I realized she must not have had the same kind of education I did. 

     "Okay, in a nutshell, long ago the Gods withdrew from Nirn in order that their presence does not destroy it with the displays of their power, their battles with the Daedra. For the 'Daedra' was also a part of this withdrawal agreement. To enforce it, Akatosh created the Luminal Barrier and later strengthened it with the Amulet of Kings, that so long as a Dragonborn sat on the 'Ruby Throne', neither the Aedra nor the Daedra would be allowed to physically step foot on Nirn. As long as the Dragonfires remain lit, it is a sign that this barrier is being enforced."

     "But what about the Oblivion Crises, when Mehrunes Dagon stepped forth?"

     "The last Dragonborn Emperor sitting on the throne then was Uriel Septim VII, when he was assassinated, the barrier was weakened as the Dragonfires went out. Thus the Oblivion Gates were able to breach the barrier. When Martin Septim faced Mehrunes Dagon, he had not been formally crowned Emperor, the Dragonfires were not relit, and so even though he defeated Mehrunes Dagon, and sent him back to Oblivion, the barrier is still not at full strength.

     The Gods still honor their word to the agreement not to directly step forth onto Nirn, they choose who they will to be their agents and champions to go and do what they cannot as if the barrier were at full strength, just as the Daedra do as well. Although some know that they serve the Daedra, some do not. But the Gods, do not play such games with us. My birth parents were both agents of the Gods, and when they were both called, I would have had no one to look after me as I was yet a small baby then. My father left me in the care of my adopted parents, who raised me as their own.

     My birth parents are not on Nirn, so I must pray to them in Aetherius and listen for their answer. And, yes, they have spoken to me. How else was I directed to that chest south of Riverwood, containing everything that was inside? They told me, that Akatosh has chosen me to follow in my parents' footsteps, and I will therefore do as they bid me do. Right now, that means aiding you, why that is I do not know, why these Thalmor are involved, again I do not know. But I do know this is the path I must follow, to where it leads I will go, what I must do, I will do. Even if it cost me my life. Now come on, we have Thalmor to kill."

     Drawing our blades, holding them ready, I open the door and rush into the room. There are two non-combatants and several Thalmor starting to react to our presence. Rigmor goes to the left as I go to the right, slicing, parrying, and doing our best to clear the room without getting ourselves killed. I get clear and spy an archer on the landing above, as the archer lets loose an arrow, a Thalmor soldier steps in the arrow's path, as I bound up the steps on my side and rushed the archer. It was a race to see if I could reach the archer before she could fire an arrow in my direction.

     In a moment of pure speculative inspiration, I drew back and launched my greatsword like a spear. It pierced the Thalmor archer just before she released her arrow, but she was already folding over my sword, and her arrow bounced off of the stone floor. I grabbed my sword as I went past the archer still running, I then found my next target, a Thalmor officer. He had driven Rigmor to her knees as she was parrying his strikes. I leaped from the landing, holding my greatsword point down as I dropped behind the officer. My greatsword entered behind his helmless head and kept going until it exited between his legs, spitting him like a boar ready for a cookfire. As he fell sideways to the stone floor, I reached down with a hand to pull Rigmor back up.

     Even as I was pulling her to her feet, she said, "why did you do that? I had him just where I wanted him." I just looked at her and kept my mouth shut, he was dead along with the others in this room, and we were still alive. I call that a win. I walked over to where the bartender was still standing behind the bar and asked for an 'ale'. As he poured it and handed it to me, I asked if there were any more Thalmor here.

     He told me to go back up the landing on the right side, through the door, and into the room behind. Go through another door on the left side of that room, there might be a few more in there, being used as a planning and map room. Then we would have to go down the tower steps, through a small room, and beyond would be the dungeons. There would be a torturer, his assistant, a few more Thalmor, and any prisoners left alive. I then told him and the barmaid, that they might want to gather up all they could grab to sell and leave. It would not be healthy for them to stay and have to explain all of the bodies to their friends who would show up when they did not report in.

     I looked toward Rigmor, who said, "after you." I thought, 'I do hope she does not get me killed' but I did have to admit, she was really good with a greatsword on her own, she would probably be better after her stomach wound had more time to heal and she stretched the muscles to keep them from stiffening up. Oh well, time for more of these Thalmor to die.

     We went through as the bartender described, when we got to the door to the planning/map room, I said, "just like before." And we barged in, surprising four of them. I have to admit the shock on their faces of someone actually getting this far inside was gratifying, even as I added new smiles to their faces below the old ones. Once they were down on the floor, we looked at the map on the table. Luckily there were only a few blood stains and they were on the outer edges, nothing important was affected.

     What I saw on that map was disturbing, to say the least. It indicated troop movements for a pending invasion, as I thought, 'do they really want to restart the 'Great War' all over again?' I told Rigmor to start searching the room for anything else we could find to go with these maps. That we needed to get these to Bar'Ren-Darr as soon as we could. I found a letter on my side of the room, saying something about new weapons and armor the Thalmor had been working on duplicating. Then Rigmor draws my attention to something she found indicating plans to assassinate three top-level targets before going further with the invasion plans we had seen on the map.

     We thought about who might be those targets, She suggested High Queen Elisef and I agreed, which led to General Tullius of the Imperial Legion, and the unknown third target. Rigmor asked why to go to all of this trouble, why not just invade and be done with it. I speculated that this might be just the spearhead of a diversion, get Emperor Meade to commit his troops here in Skyrim, while the main invasion force attacks the Imperial City. Then Meade would have to turn around to defend the Imperial City, leaving Skyrim on its own.

     With Elisef and Tullius dead, Skyrim would fall and the Thalmor could consolidate their victory here, and wait out Meade. Eventually, they would be able to take Cyrodiil, with far fewer losses with Cyrodill having lost all of its allies. I finished reading what I had found and my gut took a strange turn, it wanted to leap up when I read Rose had escaped, but drop back down when she crossed the border into Cyrodiil. All I could do was pray to the 'Nine' to watch over her and keep her safe, while I mourned that what might have been with her was gone.

     Rigmor asked what was the matter with me, so I showed her the letter. She exclaimed with joy that Rose was alive and had escaped, then it dawned on her about the expression on my face. She asked if I and Rose has slept together. And I saw no reason to lie or hide my feelings for her. I said only one night and explained what had occurred and what we had talked about. Then she asked, "are you in love with her?"

     The only thing I could say was, "it does not matter now, the Gods have shown me their decision, and it is not to be." As I sat down in a chair, hung my head, and mourned something that I had hoped for desperately. Rigmor came over and put her arm around me, "it will be all right, if they said 'no' to Rose, it is for good reason. I am sure they have someone for you that will be better. Perhaps they have someone else for her as well, I hope they do."

     "You are probably right, anyway we still have to get out of here."

     We went on further into Fort Black and found the door that opened into the spiral downward into the dungeon area. "If Rose has escaped, do we really need to continue?"

     "Maybe there are still some prisoners left alive, do you really want to leave them to the Thalmor if they are?"

     Rigmor shakes her head 'no', and we go on to the last door. Again we barge through, but this time they were ready for us. The torturers died first, they may be good when their victims are chained and shackled, but if they can fight back, they are sword fodder. We passed a few cells, one had a couple of bodies, a Thalmor mage had taken refuge as well, he died as I opened his guts to the cleaner air, and almost gagged at the stench as his guts polluted the close air of the cell. Across in the next cell was a fire elemental, I sent it back to wherever it was summoned from and hastily backed out to avoid the fire blast as it died.

     With the last of the Thalmor here dead, we proceeded to the end to make sure there were no prisoners left. Then Rigmor shouts, "there is a little girl in here! GET HER OUT!"

     I told her to stand back, that I had the keys from the jailor. As I opened the door, my heart sank to see this innocent little girl laying on a pile of straw. I looked at Rigmor and whispered, 'the two bodies back there, her parents?' She thought and nodded. I looked back to the little girl who pleads with us for mercy. All I could say was that we meant her no harm and asked her name. She asked after the 'bad' men, and Rigmor told her we had taken care of them, that they would not hurt her. 

     She told us her name was Sorella and asked if we had seen her parents. I remembered her name from the journal in the knapsack at the summit. The others had been told she and her parents were dead, swept off of the rigging on a different face of the mountain, by high winds. Now we knew the truth of what happened. I prayed to Arkay, that even though they might not have been the best of people, they did not deserve this fate. Take care of them and tell them we would care for their daughter.

     We asked Sorella to come with us, that we would take her to Angi's until we could find a home for her. She then showed us a passage she had seen some of the Thalmor use to leave without going all the way back to the front. We left going out that passage and exited just below a hilltop. Going over we saw some figures down at the bottom. Rigmor asked if they might be bandits, to which I replied, 'no, bounty hunters, likely orcs'.

     Rigmor asked Sorella to wait for us on the hilltop, and we would call for her when it was safe for her. Then we looked at each other, I nodded my head, cast my armor spell, and started sprinting for the bottom. I pulled my greatsword as I got just past halfway down. The orc archers were coming up to the front, so I yelled, 'FOR THE NINE!' and leaped, crossed my blade in front of my body, curled myself up, and began rolling the rest of the way down in the soft snow.

     The archers' arrows hit around me, but I was moving too fast to target accurately. As I got to the bottom, I rolled out of my curl, thrusting my blade into the first orc I saw, one of their leaders. As he went down, I screamed as guttural as I could, and started dodging left and right, slicing and thrusting at an orc I got close to. This caused the others to concentrate on me and gave Rigmor the chance to finish off anyone not already dead as I went by them. The last one went down, another leader, and this one had a bounty notice on him, fifteen thousand gold pieces for Rigmor. 

     I showed it to her and before Sorella caught up with us, we had a somewhat contested conversation about it. She seemed not to be worried, that I would take care of the matter, while I was trying to get her to take this seriously and help me deal with it accordingly. We have to be on top all of the time, watching for every possibility, on the other hand only need to get lucky once. In trying to get her to at least acknowledge the seriousness of this, I called her a petulant child. After I said that, I knew I had gone too far, but damn it, that is just how she is acting.

     I finally got somewhat through to her by pointing out it is not just us any longer, what would happen to Sorella if more came upon us with her beside us, what chance would she have. I know that was dirty of me, but I had to get through to her. I refuse to let her actions endanger an innocent child. I chose to act as her Guardian, I expect to place myself between her and danger, but Sorella did not, and Rigmor needs to see that. I turned and started off for Angi's, hoping she would think about what I said on the way back. There are dark and dire things swirling around her, what this means I do not know. But I will do whatever I must to stand in the breach and defend Rigmor from whatever hunts her, even if I must give my own life for her, and now I must figure out what all of this is doing to me.

     Why am I so confused around her, by her? It should be simple, protect her from the 'bad' guys as Sorella calls them, then let her go on to her future, but there is much more going on here. If I am going to be of use in protecting Rigmor, I have to sort this out, sort out what my role in this is. Ok, just hang on until you get back to Angi's, then take some time and ask the 'Gods', if they care to answer me, and if not then I will just have to go on as best I can and hope I get it right.