It wasn’t a deep hole that Brynjolf dropped into, but the partially-blocked entrance to an obviously-active mine; and as soon as he hit the floor he dropped into a crouch and drew his daggers. Lamps hung at intervals down the initial incline. At the first corner, where the original ore vein had given out, there were a table and chair. The clear sounds of a pickaxe striking ore drifted up from beyond. He frowned; it made no sense, but all the hints had drawn him here and he wasn’t going to leave without finding out why. He slipped around the support posts and peered down the next corridor.
A man in Legion armor picked away at a spot of ore, and clearly hadn’t heard him enter the mine. Brynjolf moved directly behind him, marveling once more at how very silently a vampire could do such a thing. He’d long since learned how to walk with the shadows; it was part of his profession as a thief. But this power made him practically undetectable. He took hold of the man and drained him of his blood.
A noise behind him caught his attention. He turned just as a second Imperial soldier came up from the next-deeper level of the mine, his torch raised. Brynjolf held his breath and slipped next to the wall, hugging the shadows that remained and hoping he could get behind the man while his head was turned.
Much to his relief, the soldier was peering up the ramp, squinting into the dark while simultaneously blinding himself with his own carried light. He didn’t see the hanging bone chime rigged up to serve as an intruder alert, and walked into it himself. The noisy bones covered Brynjolf’s movement as he circled around behind the soldier and rose to sink his fangs into the man’s neck and drain him, dropping his corpse to the floor.
He looked up and froze. He’d just dropped a groaning body onto the ground. The light the man had been carrying had gone out. Between the two of them, they’d made enough noise to alert just about anyone. And yet, at the bottom of the slope was a wooden door with an Imperial soldier – one of them an officer – standing sentry on either side. It made no sense.
Either these men are drunk, or deaf, or just completely incompetent. They should at least have noticed that the light went out all of a sudden. Whatever they’re being paid to guard this mine, it’s too much.
He spent only a moment wondering how he should approach the problem. He knew that with each body he drained, the tug of his vampirism was a little stronger and he was a bit more wedded to his condition. It was harder, each time, to think about giving up his power. And yet, those thoughts occupied only a moment. In the next moment, he drained the officer and backed into the deepest shadow he could find.
The regular soldier did notice the officer falling to the floor at his feet. So he is alive after all, Brynjolf thought as the man moved to stand over the officer’s body. It’s good to know. I prefer my meals fresh.
“Damn it!” the soldier cried out, drawing his sword. “This will not stand!”
“Perhaps not,” Brynjolf murmured. “But I will.” He rose from his crouch and seized the soldier’s head, once again piercing a soft neck and pulling all its sweet, metallic nourishment into his own body.
He lowered the corpse to the floor alongside the other and looked at them in satisfaction, but also in dismay. He needed to stop. He couldn’t keep doing this.
I’ll never be able to give it up if I don’t stop. Even if there is a cure, I won’t be able to let go.
The door before him was locked, and of a make that he could not pick. Frowning, he searched the corpses and, in one of the officer’s interior pockets, found the heavy key to fit that lock. The door swung open silently; and Brynjolf’s eyes opened in surprise. He had expected to see a continuation of the mine, the door perhaps guarding caged rooms full of the most valuable items, or untapped deposits of the richest ore. He’d seen mines like that before. That wasn’t what he found.
Instead, the door opened onto a round, rough chamber. There was, in fact, a great deal of untouched ore plainly visible around the walls of the room. But there were also barrels, and shelves, and a small round table with a number of bulging coin purses sitting there, out in plain sight. A chandelier hung above a lectern holding a fat book.
Brynjolf approached the table first and wasted no time in tucking the various coin purses into his pockets. There was a note on the table as well, which he picked up to read.
Dear Grave Robber,
You cannot comprehend the evil you will unleash if you remove these cursed items. If hard of coin please help yourself to this gold, please allow these accursed items rest.
~Champion of Cyrodiil
“The Champion of Cyrodiil? He was busy in these parts, then,” Brynjolf snorted, remembering the stories Sayma had told him about her trek to find the Champion’s burial place. “Somehow I doubt a note two hundred years old would be in this kind of condition. But I’ll humor you and take the gold anyway.”
The shelves lining the back wall of this cavern were loaded with armor, shields, and weapons, all enchanted. He didn’t need to get terribly close to any of them to feel the energies radiating out into the vault or to recognize those energies, similar to those of the bow and daggers he carried. They were Daedric items, no doubt, and exceptionally powerful to boot.
“Tempting,” he murmured. “Very tempting. But this isn’t what I came for.”
He didn’t need more weapons, or armor, or more enchantments. No, what he was here for was bloodgrass.
He looked in everything that resembled a container. Barrels near the entrance held salt; and the scent from inside them spoke of their having once held meat as well. A satchel on one of the shelves contained some dried frost mirriam, which he took because that was always useful. But there were no red stems or leaves anywhere. His shoulders drooped in disappointment and he blew out a frustrated breath.
Damn it. All this way. I’ve obviously found the vault of Daedric items that the archaeologist was speaking of. Melka set me on the right path. But it gets me no closer to a cure.
He kicked a loose pebble near his feet and watched it ricochet noisily off the walls of the vault and come to a rest near the wooden doors. He scanned the room once more; and his gaze finally rested on the thick book resting on the lectern. There was a large Oht – the Daedric letter O – imprinted on the tome’s cover.
Suddenly he remembered standing in Al Shedim with Sayma, looking up at three circular discs imprinted with Daedric lettering and an inscription written vertically below them. “Any idea what it means?” she had asked him. And he had answered: “Well that middle letter is ‘O’ and I’d assume it stands for Oblivion, seeing how it’s Daedric.”
“This can’t be a coincidence,” he murmured to the room. “We didn’t go to Oblivion from Al Shedim, but it did turn out to be our way back to each other.” He shook his head again, not really trusting his own thought processes. “But Oht still means O, so there’s a chance… Maybe my little bit of knowledge is enough to get me into real trouble this time, eh Da?”
Brynjolf picked the heavy tome up off its pedestal. Flipping its cover open, he found two pages of writing in Daedric lettering; one looked like a foreword or dedication of some kind and the other the actual text. He frowned at it, and at his less-than-perfect understanding of the language.
I’ll take time to translate it once I’m back home, but for now…
The world went black.
He only had time to be disoriented for a moment. Then he was half-blinded by brilliant, red light. He got the impression of a structure on a rise in front of him; but any rational thought about it was drowned by the sound of his own shrieking.
He was standing in the middle of flames.
He felt intense heat rising from below him and looked down; swiveling to each side as far as he could without losing his footing, and saw one very solid stone beside him and roiling, bubbling lava everywhere else. His heart pounded; he fought against the panic that gripped him by the throat just as firmly as he ever took the throat of one of his victims. And he couldn’t stop howling with panic, with rage.
Flames! I’m in fire! I’m…
Just as he had that thought, just as quickly as they had risen around him, the flames disappeared. He caught the scream that was in his throat before it could erupt once more, and reached out to touch the very warm but very solid boulder beside him. He looked down at his own body, felt his armor, felt his face, and then took the deepest breath he could manage of what was, unfortunately, scorching hot air.
I’m not burned. I stood in fire but I did not burn. How can this be?
Where in Oblivion am I?
He took a few shuddering steps away from the boulder and looked back up at it. It wasn’t simply a rock; he’d been standing at the base of one side of an archway. It was, to be certain, placed precariously next to the edge of a cliff, but it was on solid ground. He recognized its shape from research he’d done long ago, back when he was learning about the Daedric alphabet. He recognized the sharp points extending out from the arch.
I just answered my own question. That’s a portal. Like an Oblivion gate, only smaller.
So where, in Oblivion, am I exactly?
This clearly was neither the Soul Cairn nor anything like it. There were no faded lavenders or blacks, no wisps or ghosts floating about over endless ashy soil. It didn’t resemble what Sayma had described to him as the dark world of Coldharbour, with its deep purple oceans and nearly black foliage and stones. He seemed to be completely alone in a landscape that was grey and brown and, as far as he could tell, devoid of life. The air was full of steam, sulphurous gases that were chokingly hot to the lungs. The mass of land he stood on, as well as the smaller islands of rock he could see in the distance were, in fact, floating on lava.
In spite of having realized that he was safe Brynjolf shrank back from the lava. Fire. Flames. Those would harm him, could actually kill him. Lava would not only turn him to ash almost instantaneously but would destroy those ashes so that there was nothing whatsoever left of him, not even the smallest particle.
He was afraid. He longed for the days of his youth, rushing alongside Dynjyl, heedless of any danger and knowing that they could escape the tightest of spots. But those days were long past.
I can’t do this. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know how to get out.
He closed his eyes for a moment and saw the flame-red locks of his infant daughter, as she had reached up to grasp his own and pull them, hard enough to make him wince. He saw his son, his own flame-red hair dancing as he ran around the yard in their home in Riftvale.
And then he saw Sayma. Her hair was black, her skin was dark, but her eyes were a pale green that burned with a flame of their own – a flame that could kindle a matching fire within him at their slightest glance.
We made those children, those little flames, together. We saved the Guild, together. I promised that lass forever and I need to find some way to give it to her.
Panicking is not going to find our forever. I need to take stock of the situation. I need to think.
For a moment he imagined that he felt an increased warmth around his finger, from the sparkling ruby that he could see even without opening his eyes. Yes, lad, he thought. I need to calm down. I’ve been in worse situations. I’ll keep going. Thank you.
Brynjolf opened his eyes and took stock of the area. He circled the portal, keeping to a crouch in the event there was some other creature – living or not – in this place with him. All he could see through the steam were stones, ash, and dirt. Off to his left, though, shapes rose from the ground in what looked to be a pattern, so he headed toward them.
There were six stones, shaped like the Standing Stones on the surface of Skyrim but much smaller, arranged in a circle, and carved with the scrollwork one found in Dwemer ruins. Beyond them were a table and a single chair, also of Dwemer construction, situated as if their owner intended to watch the circle of stones for some reason.
Dwemer furniture in a pocket of Oblivion? How does that make any sense at all?
How does any of it make any sense?
He sat down in the chair for a moment, looked back out past the portal and shuddered at both the expanse of lava before him, and the fact that the portal seemed completely inert. He had no idea how to get home again. His heart started galloping with panic once more.
Shor’s bones, get a grip, lad! he told himself. This isn’t helping right now.
He glanced left. There were large structures there, the structures he’d seen momentarily when coming through the portal, but which he’d been far too rattled to consider before now. They were, like the chair he sat in, very clearly of ancient elven make. Most were Dwemer, but at least one archway reminded him more closely of the Ayleid ruins he’d seen in the outskirts of Bruma.
He rose from the chair, put his hood back on and readied his bow, then started toward the Dwemer columns. As he neared them it became clear that they were supports for a narrow bridge across the lava – a bridge that had no side walls to speak of. He fought down panic yet again and prepared to cross.
Then he saw something that had his heart pounding once more, but in a different way.
There was something on the shore of the lava lake, something with a shape that said “growing thing.” He heard Melka in his mind, saying “Only grows near fire, next to the lakes of fiery stone. Oblivion.”
Shor’s bones.
He couldn’t tell what he was looking at, not even as he edged closer to it. Everything here looked gray aside from the oranges and reds of the lava. This item looked black from where he stood. But the closer he got to the thing, the more excited he became. Once he was nearly on top of the plant – for it was clearly a plant – he could see that it was a deep, blood red.
Thin stems. Red plant, growing next to the lava lakes.
When Melka had told him about bloodgrass she’d made gestures that had given him the impression of slender, upright shoots of grass. This was lower to the ground than he’d expected, and was twisted and gnarled; but who knew what this pocket of Oblivion might have done to living things? It was, in fact, the only living thing he had seen since coming through the portal. And it was red, like blood.
His hands shaking, Brynjolf reached for the plant and carefully harvested as much of it as he could manage without destroying the plant altogether. Who knew whether it would grow back? He certainly didn’t. What he did know, however, was that it was the closest he’d ever come to something that might be called “bloodgrass.”
The formula Melka had given him had been for two bloodgrass. He didn’t know how much of a plant was involved in an alchemist’s unit of the plant. But at least he had something, now; and a day or two before this he’d had none at all. He slipped the plant carefully into a pouch and headed for the narrow stone bridge.
It was wider than, say, the fallen tree over a waterfall across which he’d scampered many times in his life. The fall from that tree would kill just about anything; and yet he’d never been especially afraid of the dash across it. This bridge was at least twice that width. Still, he shuddered non-stop as he edged across it, the lava on either side sending up an occasional bubble, a burst of liquid flame. The farther across he got, the more irritated he became with himself.
It’s not like me to be afraid of things! What is this?
Suddenly he remembered holding Vitus as he’d trembled next to the water beneath a bridge, having barely survived the onslaught of a Vigilant of Stendarr. “But fire, Bryn,” he’d said; and Brynjolf had needed no further explanation than that to understand Vitus’ fear.
It’s the same right now. I suppose I need to be a bit more gentle with myself if I’m going to get out of this mess.
I’d like to have someone hold me right about now.
I guess that’s exactly why I’m here, isn’t it?
He gritted his teeth and pushed forward, across the bridge to the archway at its far end. Beyond it was another large island, and a building of Dwemer construction.
Now to see what else is here.
He drew his bow and moved as silently as he could around the corner of the building. Once more his pulse rose: there was another of the red plants nestled into the grey, ashy sands beside the building. He eagerly harvested it, again being careful not to pull the entire plant out of the ground.
That’s two. I have two bloodgrass. By all the gods, I have two bloodgrass!
Now I have to get home.
He climbed onto a boulder next to the plant, just in time for a lava flare to erupt from the lake’s surface, nearly singeing him. He scrambled back down onto the dirt, nearly panicking once again, and shook his head.
“Easy, lad,” he told himself, in the same tones he would have used speaking to any of the younger thieves in the Guild. “It will be alright. You’re not burned.”
Circling around the end of the building, he discovered another narrow bridge leading to a third island of stone. He stood for a moment looking ruefully at it and at the lava underneath; but he couldn’t justify not crossing it. It was important to know what might be hidden in the steam across the way, in case it was the way back to Skyrim.
To his utter amazement, what he found on the third rocky land mass was a smithy. It was a complete smithy, too, including a forge, a smelter, a work bench, and a tanning rack. There was water in a trough next to the forge, although he suspected that it wasn’t exactly the type of water one used on the surface. No normal water could have escaped almost instantaneous evaporation in this heat. There was a Dwemer table in the middle of this area, laden with ingots of various metals.
This looks like it’s been used, and recently. Does someone … live here?
He returned to the central island. If someone did live there they would be inside the building, not out here in the lava. Just to make certain he hadn’t missed anything, though, Brynjolf clambered up a boulder beside the structure. From there, it was a simple hop to the roof, where he walked from one end to the other. He hadn’t missed anything obvious, or moving, or living. As he’d suspected, everything save the two bloodgrass plants was fire, or steam, or rock… or lava.
He jumped down from the roof, preparing himself in the event something hostile was waiting inside, and pushed open the Dwemer-metal doors.
The first thing that struck him was that it was considerably cooler inside the building than outside. He shuddered for a moment, his body shedding extra heat. Two stylized dwarven faces flanked the entry; and he spent a moment staring at them, wondering whether somehow he was being watched. Nothing came out of the shadows at him, though; so he continued through the foyer to the next set of Dwemer doors.
What in Oblivion is this?
There was a large, mostly open chamber, with a gargoyle-shaped fountain spilling hot water into a pool in its center. Once again nothing emerged to attack, so Brynjolf rose from his crouch to search the room. Tables lined the walls, most of them strewn with books. He found nothing particularly interesting in this room aside from the pool; and he grinned, picturing Sayma telling him to take a bath because after all the panicked sweating he’d done, he smelled.
Another set of metal doors opened into a fully equipped kitchen. There were cooking pots, a spit for roasting meats, and even a sweet roll of indeterminate age set on the central dining table. A baking oven was against the opposite wall from the cooking spit, and in the corner near it, a fully-stocked wine rack. There was absolutely anything a person could want here, assuming that a person dined on normal foods and not human blood. He spied alchemy ingredients laid out on a small table, among them a Daedra heart; he scooped that up eagerly, for both his bow and his dagger could be improved with them and they were hard to come by. He checked carefully for more bloodgrass, but found none inside.
Through another set of doors was a round foyer with rooms to either side. On his left was a large closet full of dwarven armor that he admired, but ignored. Across the way, though, the small room he entered had his mouth dropping open in astonishment. There were an enchanting table, an alchemy station, and a staff enchanter. Cabinets and shelves were loaded down with more alchemy ingredients, some of them quite rare; he scooped a few items up for his own use and continued his explorations.
At the end of the corridor was a bedroom. He grinned seeing the stone bed. It seemed like a very long time ago that he’d spent all of his nights on a horribly old, terrifically uncomfortable cot in the Cistern. Since then he’d been spoiled, if he really thought about it; the noble-styled beds in Honeyside and in their new home in Riftvale were much easier on his aging bones. He couldn’t quite picture sleeping on a slab of stone, not even as a vampire. The room itself was pleasant enough, and held a number of books including a spell tome that taught how to dispel Daedra. He didn’t expect to run across any such creatures, any time soon; but if he did he would at least have some defense against them.
At least until I’m cured.
He frowned again at that thought; because the fact still remained that he needed to both find his way out of this place and somehow brew a potion that none of the people he knew had ever made before. He wasn’t convinced that he had the skills to make such a thing, even after he had gathered all of the ingredients. More immediately, though, he was still in a Dwemer house in the middle of Oblivion, surrounded by lava and flames, and he was still a vampire.
“Well,” he said to the room, mostly to hear the sound of a voice, “let’s go see what I missed.”
He walked slowly back down the length of the home, admiring how neat and well-stocked it was, and wondering who it belonged to and whether or not that owner might be angry that he was in it. He checked out each of the side spaces again, and looked in all the corners. He stood and admired the bath for a long moment, but didn’t feel comfortable removing his armor in such an odd place.
There was simply nothing else here. The only thing he could think of to do at this point was to return to the portal by which he’d entered, and hope that there was something there, maybe a lever or a button, anything at all that would reactivate that portal so he could return home. He pushed out through the doors and peered down the narrow bridge once more.
And he threw himself into a crouch as quickly as he could, backing behind one of the pillars of the Ayleid-design archway.
At the far end of the bridge, barely visible through the steam, he’d detected movement. For the first time since arriving in this place, he was not alone. He drew his bow as silently as he could manage, and watched, and listened.
“I smell… weakness!” a hollow, gurgling voice called.
“A challenger is near!” said a similar, but separate voice.
Gods damn it. Not just one Daedra, but two!
He might have tried out his new spell if it had been just one of them – or if he’d felt truly comfortable with his own skill in spellcasting. For all his cockiness in demonstrating his conjuration skills in front of Edwyn, he’d been sure of those abilities. He could call things from Oblivion to Tamriel well enough. This was no time to experiment with reversing the process.
Stepping back onto the end of the bridge, he nocked an arrow and took aim at the two Daedra running toward him, the second of which had a ward spell in front of it. Just as he released his first arrow, motion to his right distracted him. There was a third Daedra, running around on the island behind the two who had spotted him. Because he’d flinched ever so slightly at the last moment, his shot went wide. He readied another arrow; by the time he released it the Dremora – a Kynreeve, he could now see – was halfway across the bridge. His arrow struck home, though, and with a great deal of force. The Kynreeve cried out, then turned back to run toward the far end of the bridge.
In front of him, the Dremora with a ward spell active drew closer. It was a Kynval, he could see; a Dremora, but one dressed only in robes. This one might be easier to kill, if he could only get a shot off quickly enough. When his arrow struck the creature it shrieked and dropped its ward, turning back toward the far island.
To his dismay, Brynjolf saw the Kynreeve coming back toward him; and behind it, on the island and milling around the end of the bridge, were at least three other Dremora, possibly four.
How many? Can I get them all? Am I going to die here?
He thought of that horrible night when he’d inadvertently alerted every one of the angry, vengeful spirits in the hidden town in Hammerfell. He’d been nearly downed, ice spikes piercing him through the shoulder, making every breath intensely painful. He’d looked up at Sayma, far down the street with her own attackers, and had sent her the message with every fiber of his being. “Run, lass.” He’d never seen a look quite so desolate and pained as the one she’d had, thinking that he was dying.
I can’t do that to her again.
He ducked back behind the pillar for a moment, readying his next shot. When he stepped into the open again his heart leapt; the Kynreeve had lost sight of him and turned back toward the far island. Brynjolf let the arrow fly. It struck the Kynreeve in its back, and the creature crumpled onto the bridge with a gurgling sigh. He could see the Kynval – perhaps the one he’d already injured – near the far end of the bridge. One more arrow flew the length of the bridge and struck the Dremora dead center; it too fell dead.
He hadn’t pulled the shadows in around him, or bent the light to his favor. Even so, it seemed that the Dremora were having difficulty finding him. A Caitiff was coming down the bridge toward him, clearly sensing his presence but unable to spot him. Perhaps it was the steam. Brynjolf didn’t care; he fired an arrow just as the creature turned back toward the far shore, striking it in the back and killing it instantly.
He would have taken a moment to be pleased with himself, but he could see at least two more Dremora. One – another Caitiff, wielding a huge warhammer – was hurtling down the bridge, leaping over the bodies of its dead comrades. It stopped for a moment to look around and Brynjolf dropped it with a single arrow.
The final Dremora was a Kynreeve that took two shots to defeat. It fell in a heap in the center of the bridge. Brynjolf rose slowly, taking a long shuddering breath and looking around himself at the collection of bodies he’d created.
Well then. There are hearts and blood to be harvested. I would be foolish not to do that.
He moved cautiously up and down the length of the bridge, doing what needed to be done to glean the most value from the Dremora. Every so often he’d glance to the side, see the lava surrounding him, and shiver; but he shook it off and continued his work. Still, he heaved a sigh of relief once he was back on the island standing near the portal. It wasn’t much solid ground; but at least, for this moment, it was solid.
Brynjolf made another circuit around the island, looking behind every stone and in every corner. He went back through the other two land masses as well, to see whether he had missed any bloodgrass or something obvious that would serve as an exit; but there was nothing. Eventually he stood before the portal, staring up at it in dismay.
“What did I miss?” he asked the sky. “Was there something obvious? Something I left behind in the Vault?”
He mentally scoured the Vault again. There had been nothing other than the armor and weapons he’d decided to leave, the coin he’d taken at the invitation of its former owner and… the book. Sighing, he pulled the book with Daedric text out of his pack and flipped it open.
Once again, the world went black.
Once again, he found himself standing in a bed of flames. This time, though, he knew where he was, immediately, by the lectern in front of him.
It’s a gods-damned portal. The book is the portal, not the stones.
Get me out of here.
He ran back out of the vault and through the old mine, climbing up out of the opening into the cool, fresh air of Falkreath. It was dark, and it was late; but he had every intention of visiting Roggi and Dardeh.