Scarlet Scale Ch. 002

Unknown to Mikael, though Uthgerd had figured it out easily enough, my double-ended toy was enchanted with a very special type of effect. When it was surrounded by a person's flesh, no matter what kind it was, that person would feel a sort of touch sensation from whatever type of "contact" it's phallic nature was involved in. Uthgerd likely had the feeling of her own temporary "cock" as realistic and sensitive, as if she were born with one herself. It also was not only like this for any orifice, but also could be just as applicable to a man as much as a woman.

While in the mouth, such as my slave's, it not only imparted the sensation of touch, but also the taste of whatever it was touching. So that Mikael probably had the impression of his tongue somewhat "extended" in length, to about a foot from his mouth, and 2 inches thick, even as he deepthroated Uthgerd's "spear." As we continued like this, the two women that we were, kissing each other, straddling over my slave, our rhythms began to synchronize. My slave's thrusts began to slow with mine, as I knew they would inevitably. Uthgerd's hands were tracing over my curves in all the right places, mostly because she also knew where she also liked to be touched, I was sure.

After some time of losing track of who was cumming, let alone of how many times, the special feature of my customized Detect All spell let me know that a few skeevers were starting to wander into the boundary range of the lingering effect. Mikael was starting to tire more easily, so I decided that perhaps this was the time to slow down and get back to the main reason we came here. "Came." Haha.

We all drank a bit more water, and ate a bit more of that horker meat jerky the wood elf had sold us. Then, finished with dressing again, we pressed onwards. The bandits that had arrived before us had already taken out most of the draugr apparently, so it wasn't long before we were arriving at another small room. I had kept my Detect All spell going intermittently, balancing it with the reserves of my magical energy, which started showing as depleted when the edges of my vision started becoming blue. By using the spell, I could easily see that there was another bandit in the room ahead, but he wasn't in a fighting stance and I knew we were out of earshot for him to hear us.

So we crept up quietly, for the sneak attack, but unexpectedly, the bandit started moving towards a lever in the room. I was certain that he hadn't noticed us, so I waited to see what would happen when he pulled the lever.

He did, and then immediately hundreds of poisoned darts were shooting from concealed launchers in the walls. The bandit collapsed in mere seconds. Fortunately, being an argonian, I had a strong resistance to poisons and diseases, so I'd have probably had five or ten minutes, at least enough time get an antidote out that countered most poisons. In certain rare cases, my resistance would be so strong that I wouldn't even need the antidote. Though, just as rarely, the antidote itself wouldn't be effective at all, and fortunately... well, I had not had that happen to me yet. The poison was actually of less concern than the actual striking of all those darts. Even with my armor, and weaker than arrows, they could still shred a little way into my scales, being especially dangerous if they struck an artery.

I looked around carefully to see what the foolish bandit missed. The heavy metal portcullis was still down, the lever was to raise it, but there was also something else. Along the wall on my left was a row of three stone plinths, each with an image of a different animal on them. It seemed vaguely similar to argonians' use of stone balls that would roll into the corresponding pressure plates, since those also, were decorated with images of certain animals. There was also three large stone heads, with the same animals in their mouths, as on the plinths. But these were in a different order than the others, and since they were very large, I assumed that they were important.

It was the arrangement, I was sure, but how...

I stared at the plinths, and spontaneously had the notion to rotate them on their bases. I applied my hands, and... success!

After the plinths matched the order of the mouths, including the one that lay where it had clearly fallen down from the upper ceiling segment that held it, I tried the lever by tugging on it with my Telekinesis spell. This way, I was safely out of shot from the darts, but I expected that the plinths were the key now. Indeed, we were rewarded with the sight, and groaning sound, of the portcullis going up into the top of its opening. The bandit may have been foolish about his surroundings, but he had a surprisingly large pouch of coin on him, and a few healing potions.

Shortly after the portcullis, we were seeing the signs of large spiders that must have moved in sometime during the crypts' millennia-long abandonment. Silk was strewn in many places over the walls, and floor. As we got closer to the end of the tunnel, somehow our presence must have attracted attention, because we all heard someone screaming for our help, even though he obviously couldn't see us.

I reasoned quickly that as we were stepping through the silk, the giant spider that must have made it sensed us as we disturbed the strands, and the spider's actions started whoever it was to screaming. I drew my sword and readied a Fireball spell, but stopped sneaking. If we were noticed already, there was no point in creeping along. I turned to Mikael.

"Slave, stay there in the tunnel. Do not worry, none of these spiders will get past the doorway."

"Yes, Mistress." He agreed, not needing to be told twice.

Uthgerd and I charged in, and hacking up the smaller arachnids, but just as suddenly, the largest descended on us. I threw another fireball into its head, while slicing off through two of its legs. Uthgerd cleaved her greataxe into the chitin, and it staggered, then stopped twitching.

We took a moment to catch our breath but were interrupted by the man who was screaming.

"Is it over? I'm safe now?"

I looked at him, a dunmer, held fast in the trap of the silk.

"Slave!!" I yelled. "We've killed the spiders! You can get in here now!"

As Mikael ran in, I turned back to the dark elf.

"You're the leader of these bandits? Why are you here? What are you looking for?"

"Why does that matter?" He returned, annoyed "You can see that I'm stuck, so if you want any help with what I know, you're going to have to cut me down first."

"A couple of the other bandits were saying something about a claw? I could cut you down, and then you could show us, or..."

"Or what?" He demanded.

"Or I could just as easily leave you there. I'm sure that not all of these tunnels might be caved in, I can try looking for another. While you'd be stuck, until some other spider comes along and-"

He was frantic then.

"Yes, the claw. I know how it works. The claw, the markings, the door in the Hall of Stories. I know how they all fit together!"

"How do I know there wouldn't be some secret that you'd be keeping to yourself?"

"Help me down, and I'll show you. You won't believe the power that the Nords have hidden there."

"I want this claw first, for... 'safekeeping.' I'm sure you understand."

"Does it look like I can move?" He retorted at us "You have to cut me down, first."

"Fine then." I pulled my daedric dagger out, and the silken strands began falling away.

"Sweet breath of Arkay, thank you." I saw him starting to tense though. "It's coming loose. I can feel it."

As soon as I cut him out of the webbing, he did exactly what I was expecting.

"You fool! Why should I share the treasure with anyone?"

"You're the fool!" I yelled as he dashed off. Also exactly as I expected, I heard him screaming and then cut short, as though of a blade thrust into his chest or throat. After Uthgerd and I quickly dispatched the draugr, I searched the idiot's body. Among his coin, I found a journal, and a claw made of solid gold. The journal said that the dunmer had stolen the claw from a man named Lucan Valerius, and its text read about a test. That if I held the claw, the "solution was in the palm of my hands."

"Cryptic..." I commented. "Maybe its fortunate that this sack of hackwing droppings-" I kicked the elf's body "-had gotten here first. Without this claw, I probably would find myself stuck and unable to move forward at some point. Who is this Lucan he mentioned?"

"Um... Mistress?" Mikael suggested.

"Yes, Slave?" I was neutral in tone, mostly so he knew that I wasn't angry.

"Lucan is the name of shopkeeper in Riverwood. One of my classmates from my time at the Bard's College, he is interested in the man's sister, Camilla."

"Good, Slave!" I said approvingly "Unless you misbehave, I will reward you! Lucan may appreciate having his claw back so much that he might give me pouch of coins and a discount at his store."

"Thank you Mistress."

We continued, the experience of Uthgerd and I keeping my Slave from injury, though there were a couple draugr who "shouted." Somehow it didn't seem as much as a surprise to me as I'd have expected. In only an hour's time, we were in a room that I had to assume was the "Hall of Stories" the elf and his journal mentioned. I stared at the unusual door. It was made of three rings of metal, marked with animals, like the switch. Again, that odd familiarity. I pulled the claw out again, staring at it, and laughed as I flipped it over. Three of the animal symbols were on it, a bear, a moth, and an owl. Moving the rings just seemed obvious to me now, so I did that, and inserted the claw's talons in the middle.

There was a clanking noise, the rings spun to a new alignment, and then the sound stone sliding against stone. The door was receding into the floor. I thought more rooms and tunnels of draugr, but now they looked more like natural caves, rather than constructed in cut stone. There were also more draugr, of course, but some were weaker than others, most scattered about through the tunnels. None were too dangerous for Uthgerd and I.

Finally, we reached what looked like the last large chamber. There was a black sarcophagus near the entrance, but the seal on it still seemed solid. But I was more impressed with the stone structure towards the far side. A huge, curving half-circle with a darkly colored metal sculpture of a strange creature's head at the top. It didn't look like a dragon's, or well, anything. It still looked EXTREMELY familiar.

I was sure that somehow, I had already seen it many times before, but it was such a vague impression, it seemed like countless years ago. There was line after line of mysterious scratches, arranged as they were, obviously it was a text, characters of a language I had not seen before, and yet I HAD seen it before. It looked like daedric, but I recognized it wasn't, even though I had that same strange feeling of vague familiarity. The Hist, of my people, the trees that we coexist with, they are... they are our closest connection to the makers of our world, Nirn.

A simplified explanation is that the source of the argonian's soul is the Hist, a forest of hivemind-linked self-aware trees. Each tree has its own unique personality, but each are connected to each other. In that sense of connection, we argonians are also connected to them, through our dreams. We believe that when the world was young, the argonians were only a type of simple-minded lizards living wild in the forest and the swamps. At some point, our primal ancestors had began licking the Hist's sap as it dripped along the different trees, and it "changed" us. This was both physical and mental, but that there was also something else about the sap. I won't explain how, but it "distilled" the souls into those ancient lizards.

When an argonian is born, he or she is taken to a tree, and then consumes the sap. But since the world is a big place, and the trees do not cover it, the shamans use their secretive magic to insert two Hist seeds into the developing breasts of every young argonian woman. When an argonian mother nurses her infant away from the trees, the child develops more slowly, but it can still grow up intelligently. The few cases where a young argonian was denied either, they grow up without a "mind," and do not respond to anything.

But through this, we find that our people are "reincarnated" by the trees. The only reason why I understand it, is the dunmer have a concept of reincarnation, but theirs is "given" to mortal life in a different way.

This was why I was wondering whether I was truly having "past life" experience, but what did that mean if I did not have an "argonian" soul?

I thought about this, but found myself focusing on a specific word in the scratched text. It was beginning to GLOW. A strange sort of compulsion seemed to demand that I approach it, and all thought of anything else faded as I walked up, staring intently at the word. There was also a strange sort of chanting that I "knew," and as I continued getting closer, it kept glowing brighter, the chanting louder. As I started touching the scratched text, it's meaning suddenly flashed into my mind, and I truly KNEW it then.

FUS, force...

Just as the word's glowing light and chanting were fading, there was a sudden groaning, breaking noise.

"Scarlet!!" Uthgerd was shouting frantically "The draugr!"

I whipped around, pulling my sword out in time to see the undead with the long blade of a greatsword in its hands. He heaved it down onto my head, but the weapon was stopped by the black hardness of my daedric helmet, its horns defiantly trapping it from swinging to the side. The blow was enough to set my head ringing, but there was another effect, an intensely cold feeling. The greatsword was enchanted.

I staggered, my sword thrust glancing off the draugr's torso. Uthgerd hacked into the body from the side, her axe's momentum easily penetrating the opponent's armor by a few inches. The draugr was staggered, and I plunged my sword into its chest. But it laughed, and used a shout at us.

Uthgerd was knocked over by its force more so than the previous ones, thrown against the other wall and I nearly fell down myself. Enraged, I grabbed the haft of my sword and wrenched upwards, slicing as much of the dried flesh as the draugr's armor would let me. Then I yanked the sword free, and hacked at its collarbone, being stopped only an old iron lip of its torso armor. At the same I punched it with my hand in a fist, a magical fireball carrying flame into the undead's face. The walking corpse collapsed and didn't seem to be getting up again.

Knowing that he couldn't fight, Mikael had been hanging back from us as we explored, but now he and I ran to Uthgerd. She had the good fortune to have landed in a pile of old straw that a family of skeevers might have been using as a nest, so her impact was probably softened.

"Uthgerd?" I asked, shaking her gently.

"Owww..." she groaned, struggling to sit up "that was strongest I'd seen yet of ANY draugr... Scarlet, what happened to you? As we got closer to the stone sculpture, you seemed to lose all awareness around as you walked up to that wall."

"I don't understand it either," I said as Mikael and I started getting supplies out "you're right, I did lose all awareness as I walked up. The only thing I could focus on, was a word on the strange wall. There was some sort of chanting I could hear, and the word was glowing brightly."

Uthgerd was thoughtful as I talked, appreciative of the water, food, and healing potions we had brought along. I was surprised to see that Mikael seemed to know more treating injuries than I expected. We had taken Uthgerd's armor off carefully, and checked for bruising on her naked body. Her right shoulder was dislocated, and the lower back's muscles seemed strained badly. She also seemed to have broken her right foot.

Conveniently, there was a brook with ample amounts of fresh water running near the left side of the mysterious wall. So we unrolled the leather sheet I used for my camping gear, and helped Uthgerd onto it. Then we carried her, with the sheet to rest by the brook.

One of the essential spells that every traveler must know, is the Purity spell. No one, not even the best mages, none seemed to know what physical substance that caused different diseases, though whatever that substance was, it's believed to be from Peryite, Daedric Prince of tasks and pestilence. The Purity spell, in the school of Illusion, is used by the caster to determine if water or other things were safe to eat or drink, as far as if someone got a disease because of it. It didn't show things like poison, but it did, if it was "touched" by Peryite.

After casting Purity over the cold water in the brook, I saw it was clean, and it tasted that way too. We used it to clean Uthgerd's wounds, bandaging them, and made splints. She gritted through this as much as she could, and sipped the healing potions we gave her. I had a little experience with Restoration magic, using my Healing Hands spell, but Uthgerd would probably need a day or two before she could put walking pressure on her foot again, even if it had the splint.

We chatted about the experiences, and eventually she fell asleep. Mikael had already tried looking for a way out, and found a secret passage leading up behind where the brook formed a short waterfall. After the hidden stone door had reluctantly moved aside, Mikael had reported back, saying it did lead back outside, but to a low cliff with a sharp dropoff. He said that he could see the road leading into Riverwood, and with some of our rope, he let a line down.

After 3 hours later, Mikael returned with the burly blacksmith. Alvor and had a couple of poles that we tied to the leather sheet. Alvor and Mikael carried my fellow lady-at-arms out to lower her on the rope down the cliff. I was resolved that when I got back to Whiterun, I was intent to understand WHY I was suddenly SO focused on that mysterious wall that I didn't help fight off the draugr when I should have. I didn't know how many questions I had for Farengar, but I was going to get them from him, one way or another.

I told Mikael to stay with Uthgerd at the inn, and paid their cook for their room and extra for anything else I expected she might need. I was a bit confused about where the innkeeper had gone. The man I paid said his friend who was also the innkeeper, had gone out for some business that she had kept to herself, and didn't tell him more than that. But I didn't care about much more than getting to Farengar and dropping off his Hist-forsaken stone so I could next ask him what the xhuth happened, as well as how to fix it. I can NOT afford to let myself be caught unawares like that again, especially if people are depending on me.

So, even though it was still night, and despite my tiredness, I jogged back as much as I could with the heavy stone in my pack. I had tried using my loot-stashing spell on it, but for some reason it didn't work, so I had to carry it on me instead. My stamina potions were immensely helpful for this, and it was morning again by the time I arrived back at the city gates.

When I got to Farengar, there was a stranger in a sturdy brown leather armor there, but I ignored her, hefting the stone out. The mage was excited, but I spoke quickly before he could begin.

"Not so fast!" I said, irritated "Something happened in there, and it nearly cost me my life, as well as nearly that of my fighting companion! I'm sure that your stone here is related, but when I had started towards a strange wall near it, ALL of my attention was suddenly forced onto it, instead of the powerful draugr that attacked us. WHY was that? What has it to do with me?"

"Really?" The stranger asked instead of the wizard. "Impressive..."