He walked back across the bridge from Madi’s house, deep in thought. He was about to jump back down from the plateau to the Sovrena’s Tower when the energetic waterfall dropping down just in front of him caught his attention. It seemed unusual that so much water should be allowed to simply flow in from far above, for fear of eroding the stones in which Coldhaven was built. But if they had sufficient magic here, perhaps that would explain it. He stared at the water for a moment and caught what he thought was an un-natural glint behind it.
If a vampire with an obsession for Dwemer artifacts had been wearing a helmet or carrying a shield and somehow met his end here, could his remains still be behind the waterfall? Maybe?
He stepped through the spray. In the pool just behind the main wall of water, he found what might have been creating the glint. It was most definitely the end of a Dwemer pipe, solidly capped off. He wondered idly whether the other end of it was below, in the mine, but there was no way to tell for certain without opening it and he didn’t want to risk drowning the mine by mistake.
There was an odd timbre to the sound, just off to his left. He stepped around what he suddenly realized was a carefully-hewn wall, not simply an outcropping of stone, and gasped. There was another capped-off pipe there, also resting in a shallow pool of runoff from the waterfall. There was also a full metal Dwemer door. It was at a bit of an odd angle, but was set into an ornately-carved stone frame. It was also solidly locked, or perhaps barred from the inside – he couldn’t tell for certain which. There was no sign of a skeleton, or a corpse, or anything that might be Dalaran’s remains, though; so he stepped back out through the spray.
Just beyond the waterfall, another span of curved stone steps ran up the mountainside. He trotted up them, and was startled to find a Dwemer lift. There was nothing else in the world that it could be. The center of it, though, wasn’t occupied by a lever, as was the case for many lifts. Instead there was an odd circular structure with sockets that apparently had held soul gems at some point, judging by the one filled socket. The others held only fragments, or nothing at all. The lever he’d been expecting to see was off to the side, between carved stone columns. He reached for the lever and then thought better of it.
It looks broken, and I don’t want to risk falling to some depth I can’t even imagine. I can survive most falls but some are just too far.
He wandered slowly back down the steep staircases. Just above Coldhaven’s road level a door to his right opened into the barracks. None of the guards seemed especially concerned that he was there, which was good for him in the moment but which was troubling in terms of the city’s defenses. Even more perplexing was a wall on which several maps were posted. One was a beautifully-drawn map of Coldhaven itself. The other was an unembellished but intact map, marked “Coldhaven Sewers.” It showed the structure as a branching series of straight lines roughly conforming to the shape of the great cavern above, without any other useful information like elevation, or entrances.
I don’t know how to get into the sewers yet, but clearly, they do. They know how to get in, what paths the sewers take, where each branch ends – so why hasn’t anyone gone down there to check for Dalaran?
To say nothing of the suspicious noises and grasping arms?
I suppose it’s left up to me, isn’t it. Ah well. Ingratiate myself with the Sovrena, he said. Explore the workers’ areas and the sewers, she said. I guess that’s what happens now.
He left the barracks and scanned the area. To his right and below the level of the roads a fire burned outside some rude shacks, its light mostly obscured from the roads by huge specimens of fungi – a clever idea for keeping human workers warm while not distressing the vampires who kept them, he thought.
He made his way to the lip of the drop down to the encampment, nodding at the Coldhaven guard watching the place. He took a moment to peer at the man’s cape and was relieved to see that it was legitimately a Coldhaven guard’s outfit.
It certainly wasn’t luxurious accommodations down here in the human enclave. There were huts, to be sure, but that’s all they were, without doors or window coverings. Some of the humans had only open hide tents with plain bedrolls to rest on. Right at the moment the workers were clustered around the cooking fires. Dale looked at them and felt the stirrings of hunger, and frowned at himself. It wouldn’t do to feed on the Sovrena’s workers – at least not before he’d had a chance to tease out the whys and wherefores of this place. He downed a slightly stale blood potion before continuing through the encampment.
He tried talking to a couple of the workers, but got only vague and slightly slurred replies. These people were clearly not in their right minds. They didn’t know where they were, or why they were here, or who he was.
He wandered around the periphery of the campsite for a bit in growing frustration, peeking into the huts and tents, and then turned back toward the dirt ramp up to the city. He was about to leave when his keen hearing picked up something akin to the trickle of water coming from behind the largest of the tents. Moving around the end of it he found a nearly-hidden smaller tent that nearly filled the narrow corner it occupied. Still Dale heard the now-unmistakable sounds of water. He squeezed past the small tent, careful not to uproot its anchoring pegs, and turned right.
He grinned. Set low into the wall, partially blocked with soil, was a metallic grate.
And here we have it. Well, no time like the present. Let’s see if this goes where I think it does.
He squeezed through the grate and dropped down to land in nearly waist-high water, his nose wrinkling in distaste. Not only was it cold enough to be uncomfortable even to a vampire, but it and the air above it held the overpowering stench he’d expected after visiting the mines. It was going to ruin his armor, no doubt about it. But the damage was done; and having agreed to search the place there was no point in turning back. He readied one of his blades in his right hand and his draining spell in the left, and began moving cautiously around the corner into a very long, waterlogged tunnel. He listened carefully for any changes in the way the quiet lapping of water caressed the stone, and thought he heard a different sort of echo off to his left.
Must be one of those branches I saw on the map.
Stepping forward, Dale had just enough time to confirm that there was a corridor left of him before he was distracted by three forms rising from the murky intersection beside him. They were skeletons, waterlogged and putrid, with malevolent red light where their eyes once had been.
This is at least as bad as anything Potema cooked up!
They weren’t armed, and skeletons weren’t much of a challenge for Dale, but there were three of them and they’d caught him completely off-guard. He flailed wildly with his shortblade and cast at them in a continuous stream of magic that drained him as well as his opponents. He’d taken the three of them out when a sound behind him had him whirling to find a fourth skeleton rising from the murk. This time he was slightly more prepared to deal with his opponent; it took only moments for the bones to disassemble and fall back into the water once more.
Dale stood for a moment, gathering his composure and staring into the impenetrable water. To add to his disgust at having been completely surprised, there was nothing in the branch tunnel aside from a drainage grate and two smelly, dead skeevers. He returned to the main tunnel and pushed forward, increasingly uncomfortable in the water and increasingly annoyed by the number of bones he stumbled over because he couldn’t see them through the murk. He found another grate that could be swung open and must lead back up to Coldhaven, but there was no reason to go up except to find where in the city it led.
At the very end of this long tunnel was a set of stairs. This was the sort of information that flat map on the barracks wall hadn’t given him – this, and what might lie at the top of them. He heard water rushing and could just about see spray moving past the opening ahead of him. When he reached the top of the stairwell he had just enough time to get the impression of a vigorous waterfall and a rope-and-plank bridge crossing the stream below it, before another skeleton rose up from the edges of the water to attack him. It didn’t take long for him to dispatch the ancient bones, but he was growing more and more annoyed by their interruptions.
He had the impression that there was more to this place than he knew – specifically upward of him, in the area from which the water emerged. But if Dalaran had died here, the body would long since have been washed downhill; Dale neither saw nor smelled anything like a corpse at the end of this rushing stream. He therefore crossed the rickety bridge and was surprised to find another stone staircase descending into another mostly-flooded tunnel.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The stairs are on either side of that channel. Someone built it purposefully to keep the running water in that trough. It must wash out the sewers depending on how the drains are closed.
It was more of the same before him: a dark tunnel with dark branches leading to more grates, and the occasional skeleton rising up to attack. He finally reached what would have seemed like a dead end except that he could feel a slight pull on his legs from the water. There was no help for it; he needed to submerge in order to move forward and he would be filthy and smelly as a result.
At least I can’t drown. I should be grateful for that.
There wasn’t much in the tunnel other than several nearly-complete but inert skeletons and an angry slaughterfish. He tried to ignore the fish nipping at him and swam as quickly as he could for the stairs at the far end of the tunnel.
There was no difference in what he met from what he’d left behind on the other end of the submerged stairs. Floating dead skeevers, slimy walls, and the occasional skeleton rising from the depths to attack had him faced with an increasing sense of unease. There had to be something else. The skeletal arm Katseels had seen grabbing at her from the Chalice and Lancet’s basement made sense now, at least, but he knew there was more down here than this and a few more sluice gates. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been so many references to the sewers from those up above.
In one of the side branches he found something odd. A shelf mounted to the wall not far above the current water level held various methods for producing light: an unlit torch, a lantern, and a spell tome for candlelight. Dale wondered what good any of these things would do if the water level rose. Of more importance, he wondered what ahead was so dark that even a vampire might need help to see – they certainly wouldn’t be sending their barely-aware human cattle down here to do anything.
After a time he reached an area where the sewers gave up some more disturbing hints. He’d fought through more skeletons and passed by more floating skeevers, but here, ahead of him, were the recently-deceased, floating or nearly floating. These still wore rags, but their skin was pale and sloughing off, and their bodies were bloated. Even as an undead being, Dale found his stomach wanting to turn.
I must be under the inn, though. Wasn’t Gwyndris, the barmaid, complaining about things creeping about when she dumped the bodies? These must be some of the more recent menu items. Even as he thought that, he grimaced, his stomach dancing unpleasantly. He seemed to be becoming more and more squeamish about the dead and their souls.
He thought about that as he turned right and descended another flooded staircase, only to come face-to-face with a dead Nord not-quite-floating and nearly blocking the passageway. It didn’t make any sense. He himself was undead. He paid for his worldly necessities by parting souls from their fleshly vessels. He sustained his body by feeding on living beings, and he enhanced his armor with captured souls – even the putrid skeletons he’d defeated earlier had some spark of animation left in them, and he’d captured those sparks in soul gems.
So why am I so bothered by this now, at this point? Why was I so eager to end that necromancer – to say nothing of Potema? If it was going to be a problem for me, why wasn’t I aware of it before I asked Agryn to turn me? What kind of useless creature am I becoming?
He didn’t pass the body. Instead, he turned back to the main sewer tunnel and explored further. Another side passage revealed a chest at its far end, but as he sloshed through the water toward it, three more skeletons rose to block his way. He hissed at them and attacked like some kind of angry animal.
Get out of my way! I have things to do!
And after all of that, all he gained for his efforts was a handful of coins. He left behind the potions, for they would do him no good and weren’t worth enough to justify carrying their weight.
Beyond that alcove the sewer came to a dead end at another grate. There was nothing else for it – he either had to go back and pass the submerged corpse to see what was beyond, or give up and hope he could find Dalaran elsewhere. The lingering feeling that there was more to find here in the sewers won out, though, and he returned – reluctantly – to dive into the corridor beyond the body.
He was disappointed by what he found on the other end of the flooded corridor. There was yet another skeleton; easily enough dealt with, though it and the lack of anything else in the alcove made him truly angry. Once the skeleton dropped below the surface once more he turned to stare at the other end of the space and his anger turned to curiosity. It had once been a longer tunnel, he could tell – there was an opening between fallen stone beams, and he could see the broken end of a sizeable Dwemer pipe in the space beyond. There also was another section of Dwemer conduit directly beside him. He heard a low hissing sound, and the air around him shimmered in the same way the vents on the Eastmarch tundra shimmered. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t want to keep breathing it. He’d heard of such gases exploding.
That’s probably what collapsed the tunnel to begin with. So Dalaran may yet be down here. He’s bound to have come searching for the source of the Dwemer construction. But what passage did I miss?
Disgusted, Dale swam back through the flooded section of tunnel and turned left at the other end, back through the floating dead. He headed back the way he’d come, checking each section of sewer carefully for anything he’d not already seen. It didn’t take long for him to find it – another flooded staircase down, beyond the one he’d come through to get to this half of the sewers in the first place.
It branched both ways and I turned right. I’d forgotten about the other direction on this side. What a moron.
Although I suppose the Sovrena and her guards, who know the area so much better than I do, could have come down here at any time before this. Maybe I’m not so much of a moron as all that.
This staircase seemed endless. It was several times longer than any of the others he’d swum through so far, and was littered with bones that got in his way all the way down. The stair even turned a corner at one point, and kept descending. He wasn’t going to drown, but he was beginning to feel more than a bit anxious at how long he’d been descending.
Finally, he reached what seemed like a dead end, the floor of it completely covered in pieces and parts of skeletons. He floated there in utter confusion for a moment, and then glanced up. Around him, the very dim light showed the surfaces of stone. Looking up, though, there was a void, a circle with no texture.
Something’s up there.
He kicked off from the floor and propelled himself upward. There was a ledge above his head – flooded, and covered with more bones, but still a ledge. Around its edges was a stone funnel of sorts. This pool he was in must be the main drainage for whatever else was here far below the streets of Coldhaven. The closer he got to breaking into air, the more detail registered until finally he could make out wooden ramps hanging down into the water. He scrambled up one of these, grateful to breathe again but trying not to make too much noise. Whatever was dropping all those bones down into the drain might well still be here.
He scrambled up onto the stone lip of the very-full cistern – for it was clear that was the purpose of this space with the central pool surrounded by alcoves just above the water line. It was very dark, and the mist rising from the foul water made it even more difficult to see; what was clear, though, was the abundance of corpses in various states of decomposition. Some were hanging from hooks, being drained of blood. Others were fully drained and had been tossed unceremoniously to the floor alongside bloody rags, bits of rotting human flesh, and far too many bones to number. The stench here was indescribable.
Dale worked his way slowly and very carefully around the edges of the chamber, noting the bits of Dwemer metal in amongst the skeletons. He was on high alert, though, for he felt the presence of something else here in the darkness and couldn’t pinpoint its location.
It’s got to be another vampire. No heartbeat, drained corpses. It has to be. But is it Dalaran? And is he still sane, if so?
He slid his blade from its sheath as slowly and quietly as he could, and readied a spell in the other hand. In the second alcove he found an intact Dwemer dagger amongst the bloody skeletons. The third alcove held a bleak and grisly spectacle: a Dwemer sword pinned a burned corpse to the wall, and on the ledge nearby were two containers of oil as well as a scroll of fire bolt.
Whoever is down here is a real bastard, torturing the victims. And torturing them while dangling them over a pit full of putrid skeletons, to boot.
As he approached the next alcove he froze. There was a drained body on the floor, very fresh by the smell of it. And lying on a bed of straw piled in what looked like it might be the remnants of a wooden coffin was an Argonian. A living being – or rather, an undead one: Dale could see his chest moving slightly and could feel the slight warmth of the creature. He also could see the flecks of blood around the Argonian’s mouth and noted the odd way it held its lips – a common enough thing for vampires to do, in order to accommodate their large fangs. Dale stared at him for a few moments that stretched out to infinity, before deciding to end the man. He could feed on other vampires. In theory he could drain this Argonian and put a stop to him and the gruesome things he’d been doing. Dale knelt over the other vampire and leaned forward.
And the Argonian woke and sprang to his feet.
Dale leapt backward and summoned a gargoyle, usually a guarantee of success in most situations. To his dismay, the sound of magic powers exploded and a red and yellow, swirling sphere of magic Dale didn’t recognize encompassed the other vampire. The gargoyle roared and dissipated. The Argonian ran forward, slashing at him – and that was when Dale realized that while the vampire wasn’t anything special in terms of his combat strength, his swirling magic shield was utterly deadly. It pulled the life from him faster than anything else he’d ever encountered, in life or undeath. Dale cried out, leapt backward, and cast another gargoyle.
By all the gods I am in trouble now.
The second gargoyle gave him just enough time to flee and gulp down a small blood potion to heal himself. Not a moment more than that.
“Time for you to die,” the Argonian hissed.
Dale turned tail and fled around the edge of the pool. Vacantly, as if from a distance, he observed his own thoughts: At least that gods-awful magic makes it easy to spot him.
Then he turned just in time to see the magic disappear. A splash revealed that the vampire had entered the water. Dale’s mouth dropped open in dismay, for now there was an additional problem: Argonians were exceptionally fast swimmers to begin with, and this one was a powerful vampire, besides.
I can’t see where he is, so I can’t aim my spells. I can’t outrun him and I have nothing to counter that magic because I don’t even know what it is. I am in an absolute world of hurt right now and nobody is ever going to know where I came to my end. The Sovrena won’t search for me – she hasn’t searched for Dalaran and he’s been gone for months.
Would anyone even miss me? Agryn and Vyctyna would undoubtedly wonder where I’d gone, but would they risk looking?
He had a moment of utter, bleak, almost overwhelming sadness, accompanied by the memory of Qaralana’s scent and the sensation of his lips on the soft, warm skin of her neck. Then, incongruously, he had an inspiration brought about by necessity. He could summon a wraith. They weren’t the most powerful allies but he’d never known one that didn’t home in on an enemy with complete accuracy.
I don’t know if her spells can break through the surface but I’ll know where to fire an arrow. It has to work! I can’t come to an end down here amongst the refuse!
It was a terrible strategy, he knew, and as the moments stretched out before him he felt its inadequacy more and more – but it was all he had to work with. He could sense his arrows reaching their target every so often, but it was impossible to judge how deep the Argonian had gone. All he knew for certain was that the beast hadn’t swum away. The wraith was eagerly casting at her target over and over. Besides, this Argonian was a vampire. It wasn’t going to abandon a potential meal.
When the wraith entered the water and disappeared, Dale followed it. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and the beast was dead. But no – there beneath the surface the magical sphere of horrible draining swirled in place around the Argonian. Dale couldn’t use his swords underwater, nor could he cast; he clambered back up onto the nearest trough in the cistern’s shelf and waited for the pursuit he was sure was coming. When the Argonian’s lethal spell emerged from the water, Dale started blasting it with the blue flames that had saved him so many times before. Nothing happened.
Both frustrated and panicked, Dale used what was left of his depleted magicka to summon another gargoyle. To his surprise the creature leapt enthusiastically into the pool and began slashing at the Argonian while Dale’s magicka recovered in the darkness. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he could sense the bodies moving beneath the water. He decided to take an educated guess based on where the gargoyle had entered the water, and cast Flames of Coldharbour toward what he assumed was the Argonian.
He was wrong. Somehow in the battle the combatants had switched places. Dale’s spell blasted the summoned gargoyle and ended its existence.
Oh no. What have I done?
To his horror, he watched the sphere of magic emerge from the cistern and move toward him. In a panic, he cast another wraith; but the Argonian ignored her and advanced on Dale, sneering.
“Yield, and I may still show mercy,” the vampire said.
“Your mother sucked eggs,” Dale snapped, backing up and casting blue flame at the vampire. He was running low on magicka again, as well as running out of space to maneuver, but he drew both blades, determined to go down swinging.
And then the miraculous happened.
The Argonian’s offhand blade struck the hard stone of the chamber as he attempted a dual-wielding attack on Dale. The force and awkward angle of the blow sent the blade flying from the vampire’s hand onto the floor behind it.
The sphere of magic disappeared.
Dale stared for the tiniest of moments, watching the lingering blue flames licking at the greenish-brown scales of the Argonian. Then, almost by reflex, he stepped forward and swung his own dual blades just as hard and as fast as he could.
The Argonian dropped like a stone.
Dale stood over the body for a moment, panting and shuddering from the sheer adrenaline of the battle. It had seemed to last nearly forever, but in reality it was only a few minutes in total. Then he began collecting his wits up again. The blade the vampire had dropped was just beyond its body; it was an elegant dagger, made of a blood-red material Dale didn’t recognize, with a dark fuller and a dark grip to match. On the corpse was an amulet of Molag Bal. Dale felt its magic and took it from the dead vampire even though he wasn’t certain he would use it. He also relieved the body of a ring. This one he recognized as having fire protection; it would be useful. Finally, he found the dead vampire’s fist solidly gripping a dagger, the twin to the one he had in his hand.
Hmm. The magic disappeared when he dropped the blade. I’ll bet there’s something particular to having both of them. That was far too long for any standard spell to last, and I didn’t see him re-casting anything.
He forced the blade free and stood, gripping both of them. For a moment he exulted at the roaring, swirling sphere of damage that encircled him. Then he slid the blades through his belt.
I’m glad I beat him, even if it was a lucky fluke – but I’ll never use that spell myself. It’s just wrong, somehow. I’ll keep the blades, though.
It took him another few moments of staring at the body and shaking his head at how close he’d come to his final death before he remembered. The reason he’d come here at all was to search for Dalaran, and he’d not found the man anywhere in this entire sewer system. He started making the circuit of the chamber once more, disoriented as to where he might have searched earlier. He’d poked among the stinking bones in several alcoves before at last reaching one with a very thoroughly drained but fairly fresh body arrayed among the putrid bones all around it. The man wore mage robes, and nearby was an empty death hound collar.
“So, you must be Dalaran,” Dale said quietly, just as though anyone was there to listen. “Smart idea bringing a guard dog with you but it doesn’t seem to have helped. Not that much could help against that lunatic and his ridiculous spell. I’m sorry you met such an ignominious end. The Sovrena will be saddened to learn that you are gone.”
He relieved the body of its magical items, including a ring that Dalaran’s friend would undoubtedly recognize and a couple of odd-colored soul gems. Then he looked back at the water.
“Ugh. The only way back out is… back out.”
I’ll stand in the waterfall for a bit before I visit the Sovrena, he thought as he worked his laborious way back through the foul waters of the sewers, but this armor is never going to be the same again. I’ll never get this stench out of my nostrils even if I clean it down to its constituent threads.
He’d never been so glad to emerge into muggy, stale air as he was once he pushed open the sewer grate and clambered back up into the workers’ encampment. Even the faint stench of the Falmer just down the road seemed a welcome fragrance after the trip through the sewers.