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“Father?”

Her voice was small and soft, and she found herself looking up at his silhouette on the other side of the dark room. Niernen recognized it as the dining hall of the estate of her family in Blacklight, designed and furnished in the typical Dunmer fashion, but it was deprived of all the symbols of wealth and prosperity that usually adorned the walls and decorated the long table. It was cold and the silence was so oppressive she could almost hear it.

“Yes, child?”

His voice was hoarse and frail, barely a whisper, and Niernen felt fear. He was so old. She looked down at her hands and saw those of a child, unblemished and tiny. How could that be? If she was young, her father wasn’t old yet. He wasn’t young, of course, and had not been young for more than a century, but he was firm and daunting. Not like the husk that stood there in the gloom, face shrouded in shadow, motionless except for slowly swaying from side to side. Niernen opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out.

“Where are you?” her father asked then, and she heard he was afraid too. “I cannot see you, or feel you.”

“I’m right here, papa,” Niernen said with some difficulty. She felt tears on her cheeks and heard herself sob, a wretched sound that echoed sharply in the unnatural hush. It was like her body wasn’t hers to control.

The silhouette shook his head. “No, no,” he murmured. “You are not here. You are far away. Why are you so far away? Where are you going?”

“Papa!” Niernen squeaked, her throat constricted as she continued to cry. Or was that sound coming from behind her? The room seemed to elongate around her and her father stretched away, out of sight. Something malevolent rapped its talons close to her ear.

“They’re coming, Niernen.”

“Wake up, Niernen!”

Her brother’s face slowly drifted into sight. Confused, Niernen blinked. She wasn’t home anymore, that much was certain, but she couldn’t tell where her dreams had whisked her off to now.

“We’re under attack! Get up!”

Mumbling unintelligibly, Niernen tried to sit up straight but almost fell out of bed instead. Was she on a ship? She looked up, squinting, and saw that Narzul was fully decked out in his armor, his helmet under his arm. Reality snapped into focus and she was struck by immediate clarity -- the Kyne’s Tear, the company, their voyage to High Rock, she remembered now -- and fear. “Under attack?” Niernen replied and clambered to her feet. She hadn’t bothered to undress, so fastening her cloak around her shoulders and wrapping her utility belt around her waist was all it took to be battle-ready.

“Just follow me,” Narzul said, and Niernen shivered at the tone of his voice. This was serious. No time to talk. She nodded and did as he asked.

Emerging onto the deck, Niernen was stunned by the scene of carnage and natural violence that greeted them. A fierce storm rocked the ship and blacked out the sky, but much more alarming were the enormous chains that descended down from gods-knew-where and had the ship in their grasp. Lowering her gaze, Niernen saw horrible chitinous creatures battling sailor and mercenary alike. “Dreughs,” Nazul hissed and unsheathed his blade. He had fought these things before.

That’s when the werewolf leaped overhead and barreled into another crew-member in front of them. Niernen yelped and recoiled as a jolt of primal terror shot through her limbs. “What the fuck is that?!” she screamed, eyes wide, her hands over her ears to drown out the sound of the werewolf’s bone-curdling roar and the equally horrifying screech of the dying sailor. He was ripped to pieces mercilessly.

Narzul grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her up the stairs to the quarterdeck in search of a better vantage point. “It’s an undead werewolf,” he said matter-of-factly after they scaled the steps and looked out over the rest of the ship below them. “You have fire, Niernen. Burn it. I’ll hold off the dreughs.” Niernen nodded. It seemed like a good plan. She saw some of the other mercenaries converging on the werewolf, like Daixanos and Adaeze, while a big woman in armor she’d only seen once or twice before grabbed its attention.

The air shimmered with purple, ephemeral energy, and a Fire Atronach coalesced into shape next to Niernen. She took a deep, shuddering breath and drew upon her magicka again, steeling her mind and focusing on the task at hand. Fear clawed at the fringes of her consciousness and she could feel herself standing on a knife’s edge. There was a terrible pit in her stomach and tightness in her throat, and it was hard to breathe. “You can do this,” she whispered to herself, and fire flickered to life in her hands. The Atronach, its featureless face watching her, followed suit.

Behind her, Narzul turned around and scanned the aft of the ship for dreughs. As if on cue, several of the creatures descended from the chains that were hooked into the ship there and dropped onto the deck, chittering and screeching. It looked for all the world to see like their claws and legs had been replaced with golden prosthetics. There were three of them. Confident that Narzul could take them on, he brandished his blade and pressed the attack. The dreughs accepted his challenge with animalistic glee and charged.

His shield blocked the golden claw of the first dreugh to reach him and Narzul wasted no time in executing a devastating counter-attack. Just like the blow that had split the wooden support beam at the end of his prayer, Narzul’s ebony blade ran right through the dreugh’s midriff. He pulled his sword free and left the dreugh to collapse and screech out its last breath. Like a scene from a nightmare, however, the deck was suddenly crawling with more and more dreughs -- he hadn’t even seen where they came from, but he could tell that their almost humanoid skulls were looking past him, right at Niernen. Were they able to sense her fire magic, and the danger it posed to the werewolf? Narzul glanced up at the bizarre airship that hovered above them and cursed. These obviously weren’t ordinary dreugh. They were being controlled. Something much smarter than the base intelligence of these animals was telling them what to do. He inhaled and exhaled sharply through his nose and brandished his blade with a flourish. The odds were massively against him, being outnumbered ten-to-one, but he had no choice.

“Over here!” he bellowed. As one, the dreughs turned their heads to look at him. “Let’s dance, n’wahs!”

His enemy obeyed him without hesitation. The dreughs sprang into action and surrounded him within seconds, a jittering mass of claws and legs that moved in unison, so much unlike the beasts he had fought before that it made his stomach turn and the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. He was in deep trouble now. A big wave rocked the ship right at the moment that Narzul prepared to defend himself and he was thrown off-balance -- naval combat was new to him and his sea-legs betrayed him at the worst possible moment. Four of the dreughs attacked him at once from four different directions as he stumbled and then fell onto his back. Even so, he was able to deflect two of them with his sword and his shield, but he still had to grit his teeth against the pain as he smacked onto the deck and felt the two golden claws pierce his armor and cut into his skin. “Hyah!” he yelled and kicked with his legs, feeling a satisfying crack as his iron boots slammed into the carapace of one of the dreughs and forced it backwards. But that was only one, and he had to raise his shield over his head as the massed dreugh stabbed their claws down at him, each seeking to separate his head from his body. Narzul’s eyes widened in fear as the tips of the claws thrust through his shield, stopping a few inches short of his face.

If he did not call for help now, he would die right there and then, he realized. “Niernen!” Narzul yelled, abandoning his pride in favor of his will to live. “Help!”

Niernen, for her part, had done her best to ignore the sounds of combat behind her and focused on striking the werewolf with a salvo of fireballs, while simultaneously taking care not to set the ship ablaze -- or her allies. That was harder than it seemed, however, as the werewolf was absurdly fast and the vicious melee it was embroiled in with the other mercenaries made it hard for Niernen to get a clear shot. She fired off a few fireballs but they missed, each harmlessly detonating against the deck before fizzling out in the torrential downpour and the waves that crashed against the ship. When she heard Narzul call her name, however, her head whipped around immediately and she gasped for breath. She couldn’t even see Narzul beneath the writing mass of dreugh carapaces.

“NARZUL!” she screamed, raised her hands and immediately began spraying liquid fire over the insectoid monsters. Sensing Niernen’s will -- save Narzul at all costs -- the Atronach soared towards the dreughs and threw itself at them, who cut it down without a thought. Like all Flame Atronachs do when killed, it detonated violently when it was impaled by three different golden claws and most of the dreughs were thrown clear by the force of the explosion, the sound of which rolled down the length of the ship like a peal of thunder.

Narzul, whose armor saved him from being cooked alive, hastily clambered to his feet, vision swimming, boots slick with water and blood running down his legs, just in time to see Niernen being thrown onto her back as one of the dreughs leaped on top of her, scything claws rearing upwards, ready to strike. “NO!” he roared and charged, sword raised and ready to disembowel the creature, but it saw him coming and dodged in the nick of time, Narzul’s ebony blade harmlessly whistling through thin air. He turned and shielded Niernen with his body as the dreughs momentarily retreated and regrouped. “Get up,” he hissed and prodded Niernen with his boot without taking his eyes off the enemy. She moaned and groaned, but she did manage to pull herself up by the quarterdeck’s railing. The dreugh’s sharp legs had stabbed into her thighs when it landed on her and the back of her head had been smashed hard against the deck. Narzul, for his part, had also received several puncture wounds in his limbs and shoulders, but he had managed to protect his vital areas with his shield. The Venim siblings were battered, bruised and bleeding, but they were still standing. Three dead dreughs lay slack on the deck, one slain by Narzul and two killed by Niernen or the exploding Atronach. Seven dreugh remained.

“This is so fucked up,” Niernen whispered.

Narzul nodded. “Let’s kill them all.”

It took Tsleeixth a moment to notice the fact that the ship had been under attack, having attributed the shouts that he had heard to the inclement weather that had begun the past night. What first tipped him off that something was wrong was the sound of a loud explosion that reverberated through the air, “What the fuck.” He muttered instinctively. Surprise soon gave way to finely-honed instincts and Tsleeixth began to armor up, which was when the second clue that something was out of the ordinary appeared before him was the claw-tipped chains that penetrated the lower deck as he was halfway through putting on his armor. Quickening his pace, Tsleeixth quickly put on the rest of his armor and grabbed the scabbard that held his falmer sword before he hurried towards the upper deck.

Once he arrived there what he saw robbed him of breath, a flying ship was the source of the chains that had penetrated the lower deck of the Kyne’s Tears. Along with this there several crustacean- like creatures with gold prosthetics, which his mind took a few seconds to recognize as land dreughs, were quickly dropping from the airship down into the deck of the Tear. However, all of this couldn’t have prepared him for what was to come next as an undead werewolf, fitted with the same gold prosthetics as the dreughs, jumped into the deck as well. There was something familiar about the undead beast but the advanced stage of decomposition in which the werewolf was, couple with the golden prosthetics, meant that it took Tsleeixth a few seconds to recognize the undead monstrosity as Relmyna Vibrato, one time member of the company. He remembered the discussion that had surrounded what to do with the Dunmer woman, whether to exile or kill her outright, and how, in the end, they had decided to imprison her like some beast.

He felt a pang of guilt, wondering if this wasn’t some sort of retribution for their callous treatment of someone who had been part of the group but he quickly moved past those thoughts. Relmyna’s present state wasn’t some sort of divine retribution against the group, merely the work of the Kamal that had butchered her during the Windhelm uprising. Hot rage surged in his mind as more memories from the siege of Windhelm returned to his mind; their retreat from the besieged city and their flight towards Nightgate Inn. The rage quickly subsided as he remembered the panic that had taken hold of his heart when the Kamal forces sent from the city caught up to them but any further thoughts were interrupted when Hargjorn urged everyone to take the fight towards whoever, or whatever, was hiding in the airship currently hovering aboard the Tear by climbing the chains that held the ship in place.

Rage surged through him once again, both towards the enemy and towards himself for his past cowardice and as Tsleeixth gripped the handle of his sheathed sword he vowed to himself never to fall prey to that blind fear again; to fight until his dying breath against the Akaviri invaders and this mysterious new foe. “Victory or Sovngarde!” The Argonian shouted as he unsheathed his sword and began making his way towards one of the chains that connected the Tear to the mysterious airship. He had to deflect a couple of attacks from the dreughs but, in no time, Tsleeixth was in front of one of the chains.

Quickly grabbing ahold of the chain, the Argonian spellsword began climbing his way towards the airship. The metal links of the chain were slippery from the crashing waves, slowing the progress of the Argonian but he, nonetheless, made his way upwards slowly but surely. Problems began to rise when the chains started rattling, one of the metal links hitting Tsleeixth on his bum knee; pain quickly began to spread and, instinctively, Tsleeixth let go of the chain with one hand to try and reach for his knee. That mistake nearly caused him to fail in his endeavor, as the slippery nature of the chains, coupled with their rattling, meant that he almost fell due to holding on with only one hand.

Fortunately he managed to hold on and continued with his ascent, but the pain spreading through his knee was the least of his problems as a growing stiffness began to spread through his leg which caused him to misstep and almost lose his equilibrium. The stiffness, coupled with the pain, meant that such accidents repeated once or twice more before Tsleeixth finally reached the airship proper, his left leg feeling as if it was on fire due to the strain that he had put it through. Panting tiredly, Tsleeixth took a second to catch his breath and massage his bum knee in an effort to lessen the pain; he knew that it was impossible to make the pain go away entirely, but he needed to lessen is as much as possible if he wanted to be an effective combatant when fighting inevitably broke out within the airship.

Once he was done recuperating, Tsleeixth unsheathed his sword and took a moment to scan his surrounding. It quickly became apparent that, through some miracle, he had been the first to get onto the airship proper, probably because he had followed Hargjorn’s call without a second of hesitation. Knowing that heading into the airship alone was suicide, Tsleeixth remained in place, ready for combat, and waited for other members of the company to join him for, while he couldn’t do much alone, he could at least secure a safe zone for the others to climb into the airship.

It was rather hard to describe what exactly Sadri Beleth was doing during the time of the ship’s attack. Having spent the time granted to him by his privilege of not having to do chores on board, he had drunk himself to a high on the bottle of vermouth he'd bought, and afterwards, the ship’s stocks of grog; of which he had conveniently laced his own share with a tasty amount of moon sugar. The inebriation helped him sleep, and the mind boggling properties of the sugar helped him not dream of Solveig, or so he claimed. From the way his face looked when sleeping, one could easily say that he wasn’t looking all too happy with whatever it was that he kept dreaming of. Either way, it did not keep him from drinking the ‘sweet grog’, as he called it.

He’d managed to stay asleep through the first moments of the attack, likely thanks to being far too drunk to wake up. It wasn’t until he got knocked off his hammock and whacked his face on the floorboards of the deck with the ship getting pulled by the chains that he was brought (somewhat) back into the land of the living. People were rushing by him from all sides; for a moment, he thought that he was a small rodent, thrown into the midst of a stampede. Then he somewhat remembered who he was and where he was. While it didn’t make any sense to him, it did remind him how to move. He spasmed a little to get some feel for how his limbs worked, then, like a baby, he began crawling on the ground to do something.

A pair of hands grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him up to bash him against the bulkheads interrupted that course of action fairly quickly. He murmured something incomprehensible before raising his eyes to see who had roused him from his movement. It was no Mer, certainly, and it wasn’t Dumhuvud. If anything it was a strangely forgettable face. Who was this guy? Why were bandages bursting out of the armor piece that covered his neck? Why was he moving his mouth open and closed constantly? What was he doing? Sadri only realized that he could hear things and that the man in front of him was talking after a few moments of just... existing.

“Dunmer, you should certainly wake up! Something’s attacking the ship and it’s your duty to fight!”

“Euuwhad, wwhoareyyuou?”

“Oh, for Meridia’s sake,” Marcel muttered to himself before pulling a vial from one of the pouches strapped to his belt. He popped it open and forced an amount of its contents down Sadri’s nostrils, which immediately sent him scrambling to vomit. Sadri felt as if this man had filled his skull with vinegar; his brain was burning. He let out the contents of his stomach quickly; for a moment, the man thought that Sadri was puking blood, for nothing but a reddish liquid came out of his stomach. But he was doing far too good for someone who’d just vomited out his entire blood supply; he assumed it was wine and other drinks. Sadri immediately began rubbing his nose to get out whatever it was that the man had poured in.

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU FUCKING CUNT YOU FUCKCUNT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR”

Marcel, surprised with the effects of the Cure Poison Potion he’d given the Dunmer, quickly pulled out his steel sword and climbed the ladder to the upper deck, deciding that whatever he’d have to deal with up there would be far better than whatever was happening to Sadri. Of course, finding himself in the midst of a carnage with overgrown seafood attacking the ship, and bits and pieces of people getting flung around by a werewolf, he quickly found that notion incorrect. Nonetheless, he threw himself into the fray with the discipline of a well-trained soldier, quickly forgetting Sadri and that weird situation he’d found himself below deck.

It would seem that the situation wasn’t keen on forgetting him, though; Sadri Beleth suddenly appeared on deck, a bottle of rum in his hand, yelling out a cry at the top of his lungs:

“FUCKING LOBSTER CUUUUUUUUUNTS”

Marcel blinked in disbelief.

“I’LL HAVE YER FUCKIN’ LIMBS FOR DINNER YOU OCTOPUS SHITS,” Sadri roared out, before jumping on top of a Dreugh like an oversized chimpanzee, trying to bite a piece out of its carapace. The undoubtedly surprised creature began flailing its arms, although whether out of pain or fear was not apparent, and began skittering around on deck with the Dunmer on its back like a child trying to fight away an angered nest of bees, trying to get the crazed mer off. Screeching in pain while trying to buzz Sadri off, the Dreugh eventually managed to clasp one of its limbs around his thigh, and pulled him off its back, and suddenly found one of its mandibles crunched between Sadri’s teeth.

The Dreugh had no way of understanding what the Dunmer was shouting; the others on deck could probably understand what “TASTES LIKE YOUR MOM’S FISHCUNT” meant, though no doubt it was still hard to contextualize.

Sadri eventually managed to bite off the creature’s mandible upon pushing his foot against the belly of the Dreugh and pulling his head back, although realized that he’d thrown himself off his feet with the strength of the action. Scrambling midair as to grab a hold of something, his iron palm immediately clasped itself around the first thing that it felt nearby; Sadri felt his entire body weight pull him down for a moment, and found that he was hanging above not the ship, but the sea. He looked up and saw that his hand was wrapped around a chain. While normally he’d ask to himself ”What the fuck” or feel disbelief in just how lucky he had been, right now the concoction that ran through his veins made him angry. Really angry.

Reaching up with his other hand and pulling himself up on the chain, he chewed the Dreugh mandible in his mouth a bit, finding the taste fairly close to crab, and then spat it out into the sea with a look of sheer spite on his face as his eyes made contact with the Dreugh whose jaw he’d just spat into the sea.

Sadri began yelling out shanties as he began climbing the chain instinctively, the way an ape would climb a tree by easily pulling itself up the branches. He’d spent a few years on board, and the experience was nothing new to him; his long limbs and relatively low weight had given him an edge in climbing since his very childhood. Lobbing his gangly limbs upwards with uncanny confidence, he reached the contraption that had shot out the chain like an oversized harpoon with surprising efficiency, and managed to pull himself on top of it, finding that it was attached to what seemed to be an airship. Hopping down on the top deck of the ‘ship’, he immediately pulled out the bottle of sweet grog stuffed in his sash and took a long swig before taking a look around. One of the Argonians in the party was there; while he couldn’t tell one from another by looking them in the face, its clothing implied that it was Tsleeixth, the more sociable one of the two.

“...The fuck are you doing here, lizardman?” He spat out, with more surprise and questioning in his voice than racial hatred.

^{In collaboration with @MacabreFox}

Heavy rains and crashing waves battered the ship, and no inkling of moon or starlight could penetrate the heavy cloud cover in the sky. Pitch black darkness shrouded the world around the Tear that not even the ship's lanterns could breach, until a flash of lightning whipped itself against the sky and ocean. The brief bit of light streaking through the door was enough to catch the glint of a pair of eyes, and the slitted pupils which stared through a thin glass vessel, before the heavy crack of thunder caused the ship to tremble. A wooden cup was vibrating shaking itself off of the nightstand, until a hand placed on top the rim settled it's movements until the only movement of the Tear was the drawn out rocking as it crested each wave. Ocean water was spraying all over the deck outside, and some made it even into the still air of this cabin, but Dar'Jzo could not smell it over the intense smell of the blood that dried inside his nose. The taste of it was still rich in his mouth, and although the ship's movements still did not do his stomach any favors, the blood gave his mind something to focus on...

Dar'Jzo peered through the thin glass vial, appraising the murky, milky fluid within.

...and although it did not show on the calm stillness on his face, so did his simmering rage.

It was not long before they left for this voyage did the Nord, Dumhuvud, decided to welcome him to the company by slugging him in the face, slamming him into the ship itself, and bury his face in his commanding officer's bile. Surely he didn't expect to get away with such things? Dar'Jzo's only purpose here was to find his grandson – he wasn't indebted to these mercenaries. If someone was a threat to him or got in his way, they were his enemy. He doubted that even the infamous “Cat-Kicker” knew what kind of enemy he made. He wasn't too keen on wasting a poison on the slow-pawed shaveskin, but he had to remain inconspicuous during his time here. He couldn't afford to betray his identity.

He placed the vial back into one of the pouches of his bandoleer and collected his bow and his arrows.

'Just in case.'

Leif had climbed the crow’s nest earlier that evening, while the wind and rain whipped around him, and the air chilled him, it wasn’t his first time enduring harsh weather in the crow’s nest. In fact, part of him joining the Courtesan, Captain Atgeir had given Leif the task of keeping an eye out for ice blocks his first year onboard. For two months, he practically lived in the nest, his eyes always searching, scanning for dangers. But not this night. Through the storm, Leif could not see farther than the prow of the ship, he had no idea the dangers that lurked overhead. With his arms wrapped tight around his chest, he thought of Sevine, of Do’Karth, and of the pretty barmaid, Brunhilda, that kept him company the remainder of the night after Maj left him. His heart still felt the raw pain, and he was certain that he would for months to come, but he knew he had made the right decision by letting Sevine go in peace. It caused him more pain than it did her, that he was certain. Even the last night in Solitude, Leif could not bring himself to lay with Brunhilda. No. He had invited her up to his room under those pretenses, but he found himself being held in her arms until morning come. He furrowed his brows against the biting wind, his lips pressed thin into a hard line. ‘Women…’, they would be the death of him.

It was only just then, however, did thunder wrack the ship, jostling everything and everyone on board – only it wasn't thunder. There was no flash of light to be seen. The momentary sense of confusion and trepidation only subsided when he heard the sound of a sailor yelling up on the main deck: ”All hands on deck!”

Leif peered over the rim of the crow’s nest, scanning for trouble below at the cry. From so high up, he couldn’t distinguish much through the blinding rain.

As if the sailor's words had penetrated each and every sleeping sailor and laborer’s dreams, who were once peacefully resting below deck, they had sprung to life and jumped out of their beds and hammocks, donned their hats, and sprinted up the stairs before he knew it. Their response time was honed by years and years of experience of being out on the open sea, and Dar'Jzo found himself taking up the tail end and only stepped foot on the main deck as soon as the spotlight hit the ship from above. Followed by the deep droning sounds of machines and four golden chains penetrating the main deck as airship above anchored itself to the Tear. Dar'Jzo hissed.

'It would seem that this one's revenge will have to wait for now.'

The old cat was expecting pirates of some sort. Brigands, privateers – something that was at least human or humanoid. He didn't expect a handful of crustacean monsters to come falling from the sky, lead by an undead werewolf. They didn't have these in Elsweyr. How was he to know how to fight them? He instinctively fell behind cover, back behind the side of the doorway he had only just come through moments before. He reached into one of his pouches, grabbed a different vial, and shot all of its contents down his throat. Hopefully that should help him steady the nerves of his stomach as well as his hands.

“Fuck.” Leif swore as the ship descended into a maddening whirlwind of chaos. He checked the buckle on his longsword, making certain it was secure twice over before he began his descent. The ropes and wooden pegs were slick with sea spray and rain water, but his calloused hands made short work as he descended to the beam below.

‘Talos guide me.’

Soon, everyone was brandishing weapons or trying to get to safety. Dar'Jzo himself carried his bow and a few arrows in his other hand. One sailor was screaming out in agony as the werewolf tore into them until they were silenced by death, but it did not seem to faze the old cat one bit. The company's own soldiers swarmed around the monster, keeping it preoccupied - they seemed to have a handle on it for now.
Leif hit the deck feet first. Swords clashed, screams arose, the chaos was all around him. Blood washed into the sea as the ship lifted and rolled in the waves. There were too many boots on deck, that he couldn’t find a way to pick himself into the fighting. He scrambled for a better vantage point from the upper deck.

Breathe in... breathe out.

Dar'Jzo spun around the corner of the door, fired a shot out into one of the giant crab-like creatures and disappeared behind the other side of the doorway just as quickly. As he did so, he heard the clink! of the arrow bouncing off a hard part of the creature's exoskeleton. Breathe in... breathe out.

He spun out once again and fired a shot that was aimed towards the belly – clink! – and disappeared. Dar'Jzo sighed. This was going to be difficult. He had to find a soft spot before he started wasting any of his poisons.

'Let this one try its mouth.'

He spun out of cover once more, in front of the opening and held his bowstring, waiting to get a good view of one of their hideous faces. When one finally turned its head in his direction, apparently spotting him, he let loose his arrow. Almost immediately, he heard its disgusting scream of agony as it pierced the soft, fleshy inside of its cheek. As he fell back behind cover once again, he felt a pang of satisfaction. This was good, so they can feel pain. He withdrew the vial of poison he was inspecting earlier, undid the cork, and dipped a few arrows into its contents. It wouldn't kill these monsters right away, but maybe it will slow them down a bit. Now then...

He spun back out--

He was immediately met with the face of a screaming dreugh, shrill and shrieking was its cry, and the the front of its body was crackling with electricity. The khajiit's eyes instantly widened in surprise and he let go of the poisoned arrow which found a mark in the dreugh's throat before his momentum carried him away to the other side of the doorway - a blast of electricity scorched the wooden floorboards he was standing on just a second ago. The dreugh's painful screech cut through the air again as Dar'Jzo planted his back against the wall trying to stay out of the dreugh's sight and reach, but only a second passed before the creature’s upper appendages fished through the doorway and hooked around his torso. The sharp curved claw at the end dug into the wood, but the jagged barbs on the inside of the claw dug into his skin and gripped his body.

Before he even had time to think, the dreugh ripped him out from his cover inside the ship. Shards of splinted wood came out with him, and he was thrown through the air across the main deck of the 'Tear' before he hit the slick deck hard on his shoulder, causing him to roll and slide the rest of the way until his back hit a wall of the forecastle on the other side of the ship. His fist was still tightly clenched around his bow, but the arrows that were once in his hand were gone the moment his shoulder hit the deck and the arrows in his quiver had all fallen out during his flight and scattered across the ship. The old cat groaned as he pushed himself back onto his feet. His shoulder was in agony, but he barely had time to assess his surroundings before another, different dreugh came charging after him after apparently seeing a tasty, airborne meal.

Dar'Jzo immediately raised up his bow to block the attack from the two upper appendages, and the curvature and construction of the khajiiti-made bow was enough to catch them and withstand the force. The dreugh took advantage of the openings and aimed both of its clawed hands towards his sides. Dar'Jzo spun the bow around using the dreugh's weight to his own advantage, which knocked one of the dreugh's claws aside, and stuck his booted foot out between himself and the dreugh's other open palm. He was just about to stick the bow down the damn thing's throat until his maneuver backfired on him and the monster grabbed his foot, raised him into the air, and threw him back down onto the deck flat on his back.

The khajiit hissed in pain, and although slightly dazed, he anticipated what was coming next and threw his bow up to block the creature's next attack. The dreugh's claw went to hammer down onto Dar'Jzo's head, and though with the bow he managed to throw it safely to the side, the bow cracked and he felt it snap in half in his hand as the woodwork violently curled back into its original shape.

'This isn't good. Dar'Jzo has to escape.'

From his position, Leif spotted one of the new recruits struggling to fend off a dreugh, he had remembered a tale from a Dunmeri sailor that he met in Solitude years ago. He had laughed off the weathered sailor’s tale of the monsters from his homeland. That sounded outlandish.

The khajiit braced his knee behind one of the dreugh's gold tipped legs, and with his other foot, he kicked one of the joints as hard as he could – he heard a snap! as the dreugh's weight suddenly shifted and fell to one side, giving the khajiit enough time to roll out from underneath the creature. With his broken bow in hand – two pieces of wood connected by a string – he swung it around the dreugh's neck, wrapping the string around it, and caught the other piece of wood as he dove backwards, over the creature's shoulder using all of his weight and gravity to bring it down with him.

The dreugh toppled over backwards from the sudden assault, and before it had a chance to scramble to its feet, Dar'Jzo had drawn his dagger in a flash, and made a deep score across its neck. The creature gurgled for a moment, and then went limp. The old khajiit panted deep and heavy breaths, finally finding a moment to breathe and let his adrenaline settle for a second – he winced as the pain in his shoulder flared up hotter than before. He had to do something. He had to get out of--

The pain in his shoulder was suddenly numbed as blood sprayed from the right side of his chest. All sensation was immediately gone

“Wrraaaa!” Dar'Jzo roared as the surrounding area was flooded with unbearable pain. He squinted down, drool dripping through his teeth, to see a bloodied and golden bladed tip burst through his shoulder. Hissing, he took his dagger into his good hand and looked around, cutting into the joint of the appendage of the dreugh behind him. The creature roared in pain and reared up on its hind legs as part of its body was severed while Dar'Jzo weakly stood up and turned around – two arrows were sticking out from its face; it was the one from before – then pushed it away from him by kicking it square in belly before staggering away in the other direction. His pace was unsteady; he felt dizzy and faint. The claw was still embedded in his shoulder.

'Mother Moons, I'm getting too old for this.'

Leif had found his opportunity, and he seized it with not a moment to lose. He rushed past Dar’Jzo as the dreugh struggled to right itself for a counterattack, and swung his sword at its head. He watched as the dreugh collapsed in on itself, head rolling along the deck before disappearing into the rolling waves. He turned about to find Dar’Jzo. The cat, well, Khajiit, had suffered a grievous wound to his shoulder, and if he didn’t help him soon, he would die from blood loss.

“Hey! Khajiit!” He thundered, closing the distance between them in rushed strides, “Let me help or else you’re going to bleed to death.” He crouched down next to him, forcefully pulling the Khajiit into a better position. If he had the time, the right tools, he could heal Dar’Jzo better, but he had none of that, except his skill in restoration. He eyed the claw embedded in his shoulder, it would have to come out, but it would hurt. And there would be more blood.

Dar’Jzo did not resist being sat down, even welcoming the chance to sit down, but took great care in not letting the right side of his body touch anything - the pain was overwhelming. The chest was heaving with deep breaths, and his eyelids were growing heavy and weary. He raised his head to take a look at Leif’s face, albeit with some difficulty; it felt like he could barely keep it up and balanced on his shoulders. He grumbled to him with a voice that was coarse like sandpaper, “Get to it then. This one... does not have all night. Dar’Jzo has monsters to kill.”

“Right.” Leif said, more to himself than to the Khajiit. He would have offered the Khajiit something to bite down on, but this was not a routine amputation during the war. This was now. Now or never. Life or death. Leif didn’t give him a warning before ripping out the claw in his shoulder, prompted a painful snarl from his patient as he did his best to prevent any further injury. Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about the complications of embedded armor or clothing as Dar’Jzo wore no upper garments to begin with. He took the Khajiit’s shoulder, pressing hard with both hands to help stop the blood loss, and concentrated all of his energy on healing. He pictured the muscles, veins, and skin knitting back.

“Hold on. Don’t let go.” Leif said, part of him hoping that he wouldn’t have Dar’Jzo die in his hands.

Within seconds, a pale green light sprang to life under his hands, he continued to apply pressure. Were it not raining, the Khajiit would have seen perspiration building up on his brow. Leif’s arms began to go numb from the amount of restoration he poured into him, but still he did not relent. He knew that there was more in him, he just had to… focus. His fingertips tingled with what felt like electricity, and his feet felt cold, but not from the weather. He pulled away, gasping. He had done everything that he could for the Khajiit. Leif was no master healer like Wylendriel, but he had repaired as much as he could. The bleeding had stopped, and there was no more gaping hole in his shoulder.

Dar’Jzo’s breathing was no longer strained, but steady now, even if he was panting and trying to suck in as much air as he could. The bleeding stopped. The hole was closed; but he still wasn’t in good shape. He looked at Leif once again, his eyes looking into the Nord’s. “Smoothskin,” he said, “on my chest - top pouch.”

Fumbling with weak hands, he reached for the aforementioned pouch, his fingers brushing against a glass vial. He retrieved it to see the familiar red liquid of a healing potion. With the cork removed, he sat up on his knees, and pressed the vial to Dar’Jzo’s mouth.

“Drink.” He wheezed.

The khajiit must have not been too keen on being treated like a kitten, because instead of allowing himself to be nursed by Leif, he used his teeth to grab the lip of the vial and threw his head back, shooting potion down his throat and spitting the vial off to the side. He squeezed his eyes shut as he fought back against the potion’s bitter taste, but slowly but surely, the pain in his shoulder was beginning to numb a bit more. Dar’Jzo panted a bit more and nodded to Leif, apparently acknowledging the favor he has done him.

“Not bad for a child.”

The seas were hellish, a squall of miserable weather that might as well have been its own plane of Oblivion. While the ship rocked in the choppy waters, relatively protected by the cove that even the experienced sailors deemed necessary to save the ship from taking on water, or hitting a rock or reef, or a dozen other things that could possibly go wrong, the rain was torrential and the visibility was virtually non-existent thanks to the perpetual mist that the cove offered. In short, Do’Karth was miserable, and any progress he’d made since the ill-fated mission to rescue the mages at the College of Winterhold which saw their last ship sink and several of the rescued mages drowned by their own stupidity had been washed away after the third or forth large wave had lurched the boat the night before. The Khajiit felt certain that this ship was doomed, as well. As a rule, the catfolk of Elsweyr did not appreciate the sea and the ocean like other races did, and Do’Karth was one of the unlucky ones to get a full appreciation for why that was. And so, eating only a meager portion of the rations to sustain himself, but not enough to vomit up if the motion became too much for him to handle, Do’Karth had found a quiet spot near the stairwell to kneel in prayer to S’rendarr, the amulet clutched within his hands. Perhaps, if he was exceedingly lucky, the next time he’d be off to boat would be in dry port. He did not hold his breath for such fortune.

“Can’t sleep?” Sevine whispered, leaning against a wooden support beam just a foot away.

While she found the rain comforting to listen too, she still had yet to find her sea legs. And as was expected, the vicious swinging of her hammock did not let her sleep, despite how much she may have needed it.

“If one were to sleep in this, they do not have much to live for.” Do’Karth offered a weak, unsteady smile. “Do’Karth, however, has found many reasons to stick around.” He gestured towards where some of the crew were snoring loudly amongst the hammocks. “We should prod them, make sure they aren’t Dremora. That is not natural.”

She smiled at his words, gladdened to know that she did not suffer alone. “I find helping to think ahead, of the future, to be calming, than to dwell on dire circumstances.” She knelt beside him, rubbing his back with tenderness.

“I wish I knew a cure for this seasickness. I would suggest fresh air… but the storm may just as well prove to be counter effective.”

A quiet chuckle escaped from Do’Karth’s lips. “At least here it is dry. This one has discovered eating as little as possible proves to be an excellent deterrent against sickness, and it gives one something to look forward to… the future you have spoken of. Do’Karth would like a steak, and a nice tropical beach…” he trailed off, suddenly alert to something. “What is-”

A loud boom rang through the hull of the ship, causing it to lurch forward and rock the contents, and the passengers, like the ship had run aground. Do’Karth had to catch himself from losing his balance, and not for the first time, he hated feeling validated for worrying. “This one despises sailing. Has he ever mentioned that?” he joked, trying to keep his cool. He quickly grounded himself, bringing his anxiety to the moment and standing upright, preparing to head topside to see what had happened, and to get away from any impending floodwater. As he stood, several loud bangs sounded over head, and there were a series of spikes through the ceiling above. “That was not what Do’Karth expected.” he murmured to Sevine, wondering what exactly he was looking at.

She could feel the blood drain away from her fingertips, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” She had slept in her armor again, a long habit she couldn’t break,but she returned to the hammock where she had deposited her Chitin shield and newly acquired axe, thanks to Do’Karth, and slid them into place.

Returning to his side, she pointed, “Let’s go have a look.”

Joining others who were scrambling to their feet and out to the deck, the duo made their way topside, and thanks to it being early morning, it was still quite dark outside. However, what was unmistakable was that they were under attack. What didn’t make much sense was how there was a ship up in the sky that had anchored itself to the Kyne’s Tear deck with a series of thick chains. The deck was awash with a manner of creatures, Chaurus-like Dreughs with clicking mandibles and arms that set themselves upon any they could reach, and most alarmingly, a very decomposed and horrific werewolf that had been augmented with golden claws and teeth. It didn’t seem to slow down its ferocity as it tore into the crew. Considering all Do’Karth had seen the past several weeks, he found himself alarmingly desensitized to the visceral carnage unfolding before him.

Do’Karth held his staff at the ready, and he began to eye the chains. “So, we can rule Snow Demons out, Do’Karth thinks. Perhaps this one should go speak with their captain about the behaviour of their passengers.”

Sevine was mortified at the idea, but she knew that she couldn’t stop him, “Right. Just… be safe. And come back to me.” She pulled him into a tight embrace, crushing him against her as if it were the last time she’d ever see him again, and kissed him once.

Returning the kiss, grabbed the back of Sevine’s head and pulled their foreheads together. “Do’Karth will return, he promises. He will avoid the temptation to jump to save a few moments on the return trip.” he teased, releasing her and making a quick judgement of how he could make his way to the chain.

“Go.” She said, pulling away from him, one hand already drawing out her axe.

“Fight well, Sevine. Do’Karth would wish you luck, but he knows better than to worry about you with an axe in your hand. This one pities these creatures… just don’t get too close to the rotting one.” The Khajiit said, taking off in a sprint, his wrapped feet treading almost silently across the deck save for the faintest of splashes from the accumulated water. He closed in on the closest chain, ignoring the battle around him. One of the Dreughs tried to head him off, but Do’Karth’s momentum could not be stopped; he leapt into a slide, slipping between the four legs of the creature and as he passed, he caught it in one of the legs with his staff, using the sudden jerk against his movement as he grabbed on with both hands and he found his footing quickly in one swift motion as the crab-like beast tripped hard against the deck. He had no time to fight it, so he continued on his way, parrying an attempted grab from another as he neared the chain, the creature shrieked at him- what a wretched sound- and Do’Karth pulled back, bringing the end of his staff vertically between his torso and the abdomen of the Dreugh, striking it where its chin would be with a heavy blow, causing it to shriek louder and stagger back. As it looked down at him again, it quickly found itself smashed on the side of the head with the steel cap of Do’Karth’s quarterstaff, knocking it hard to the deck. He did not bother to see if he’d knocked it out, and instead found purchase on the metal rings that ascended into the sky above.

With one hand before the other, and using his staff to help anchor himself as he climbed as the elements battered him through his relatively thin budi that was already soaked through, the Khajiit began to ascend the chain, feeling thankful it was much sturdier than the rotted out railings in the ice at the College of Winterhold. Within a few steady pulls, Do’Karth was well above where any of the beasts could have reached him, and with sure purchase on the textured surfaces of the links despite the rain, Do’Karth scaled the chain with purpose. He would soon be at the top and facing whatever waited for him there. Those below depending on his actions, and he would not fail them.

At least he wasn’t on the ship anymore.

Awful singing came from above, and squinting through the rain and mist Do’Karth was certain that the voice was Sadri. Not sparing more than a few moments to ponder if the distraught Dunmer from earlier was leading the charge against the enemy vessel, Do’Karth continued climbing, the steel in his hands and on his feet feeling a might bit too uncomfortable for his liking. At least it wasn’t ice.

After a few more minutes of scaling the chain, Do’Karth’s hands found purchase on wood, and it became a relatively simple matter to use the new holds to pull himself up over the gunwale of the airship and onto the deck, where he landed in a crouch, staff before him at the ready.

Sadri and Tsleeixth were already abroad, looking for the imminent danger. “Friends, Do’Karth is pleased he did not make this journey alone.” He announced good-naturedly, surveying the ship and finding… nothing. “Shall we place bets the dead werewolf took out a loan or extorted this vessel for its needs, or shall we continue to look for its master?” he asked, noticing something even more peculiar about the already extremely peculiar airship. “...Why is there so much gold?” he asked, offering his companions a quizzical glance.

---

Maj had found herself below decks when the Kyne’s Tear pulled into the safety of the cove. Unperturbed by the storm, trusting the sailors to their jobs she swung in her hammock trying to grab a few winks of sleep. Claps of thunder followed by the explosive force from the giant jellyfish would knock the strongest of sea legs out from under a sailor, for Maj her hammock swung her clear out of it and to the floor. She landed with a grunt and thud. More calls for an attack from above spread throughout the ship, the dunmer siblings rushed past her she grabbed her cloak climbing the stairs arriving in time to see the ship pierced with chains from the dwemer airship above.

The Golden Slug! She heard rumours, sailors and the Corsair Republic believed the tall tales. More thunder on the back of a roaring undead werewolf landing on one of the sailors. She winced at the sight, terrible luck. Members of the company were upon it ready to fight. The werewolf was accompanied by land dreughs, tall full of piss and vinegar ready to tear into anyone who got close.

Maj decided the airship was the real priority and others agreed taking to climbing the chains, Maj ran from the fight looking for more of what caused the initial explosion. She looked to the water for mines but instead saw giant jellyfish. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Ariane, waving her over.

“Miss Fontaine! The jellyfish, did they cause the explosion?!” She shouted over the rabble of the storm and fight.

Soaking wet with rainwater and seawater, Ariane did not dare wasting her magicka repelling any form of water, not when monsters started dropping down the airship. She was scurrying about the upper deck when Maj Noor finally made her appearance. Ariane waved her assistant to the port side railings, carefully leaning over and pointing to where the jellyfish explosion impact the ship.

“Yes, right there.” Ariane gestured at a dent on the Tear frontal armor. Thankfully, it was just a large dent, without leak. She shifted her hand to point at a reddish blob almost touching the ship’s hull. “You see the color taint? It is an explosion enchantment under a thin film of insulation. It is just like the Golden Slug to magically alter sea life.”

Maj considered the strange properties of the mythical ship, peering down at the jellyfish swiping wet hair from her face.

“Given your past...qualifications, Miss Noor, I believe we can retrieve a few of explosive jellyfishes intact.” Ariane proposed. She turned to face the Redguard, seeing uncertainty on Maj’s features not too different from her own.

A sudden gust of wind scooped up water towards the two of them. Ariane was fully splashed, her hood thrown off and herself nearing falling overboard if not for her assistant catching her in time. The Breton muttered thanks under her breath, then wiped water away from her eyes with the back of her arm. She stood up again, wishing for a warm, toasty fire. Not even five seconds later, she got her wish, in the form of Niernen’s missing fireball.

“Watch out!” Ariane warned. She quickly placed her hand over Maj’s shoulder and ducked them both down. The spell flew over them harmlessly, but it also flew over the dreughs harmlessly.

Having both saved each other’s life, Ariane decided that they had a good bonding experience. She stayed down in a kneeling position to avoid the drawing attention from the monsters, and urged Maj to do the same. She was not a stealthy person, and neither did her assistant look like one. But it never hurt to stay out of harm's way, and keep the gunwale between themselves and the waves.

Crouching down listening to her fellow mage immediately grateful for missing Niernen’s shot, rubbing singed hair between her thumb and forefinger. Maj frowned. Fire magic in the hands of an expert wouldn’t let a storm slow them down.

“As I was saying earlier, these jellyfishes allow our climbers to destroy the Golden Slug’s airship by detonating volatile gases onboard.” Ariane explained, trying to maintain calm in her voice, but a bit of nervousness was unmistakable.

“We need those for catching,” Ariane indicated to several poles with hooks near the mast; they were probably used to manipulate sails, “and nets for transporting, which our lead scout should have, if we can find her.”

After seeing Do’Karth off, Sevine scanned the deck where she spotted the huddled figures of Ariane and Maj. Were they hurt? She crossed the deck unscathed as most of the dreughs were locked in combat with the other mercenaries and sailors. She slid into a crouch beside them.

“Are any of you injured?” Her gaze sweeping over them, but didn’t see any blood.

“No.” Maj said, peering up at Sevine the lead scout. Drenched through as Ariane and Maj were.

“No.” Ariane said as well. She didn’t feel injured, that was until she wiped off her eyes again. Her eyeliner was all smeared up by the water; she should have applied some water-resistant enchantment. She looked at the mix of colors now on her palm, and decided to wipe it off on the back of Sevine’s shirt when she turned her attention to Maj. “Well, kind of. I’m fine now.”

“Do you have the nets? Those that Edith gave you before we left.” Ariane questioned. “We need them now.”

“I do.” She said with a nod, “Why do you need them?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Ariane replied. She didn’t think this Nord would understand anyways.

Sevine frowned, “Well I am worrying about it.” She huffed, but did as asked. She scurried across the deck and down the stairs. She had stashed the nets Edith gave her in a barrel underneath the staircase. She pulled them out, and returned to Maj and Ariane before she was apprehended.

“Here.” She said, her hands moving quickly to unfurl and separate the nets.

“You’re gonna need my help with whatever plan you’re not telling me, especially if you plan on trapping or catching. I did that my whole life growing up. So what are we catching?” She rocked back onto her heels, looking Ariane square in the face.

Ariane stared up puzzly at Sevine, partly because of her insistence and partly because of her complete disregard for her own safety in the middle of a chaotic battle. She sighed, and supposed the Huntress could be of some, if not much, help.

“These.” She stood up and pointed over the railing. Instead of the jellyfish she spotted minutes ago, they were now in a different patch of the lagoon. However, another one was close by. “No, that, the jellyfish, you see it?”

“Aye.”

“We are going to grab some with the hooked poles and load them into nets.” Ariane explained. It would take a long time to convince the simple mind underneath this mess of red hair, which meant, the short and simple answer. “Just make sure you handle the white parts, not the red parts. Bad things happen with the red. Understood?” She explained like she would to a child.

Sevine gave her a long side glance before nodding, “I’m not an idiot.” She stood up, “Let’s do this.”

“Simple enough! Gently bag up some jellyfish and hurl them to the airship. The faster we can incapacitate the Golden Slug the faster we can end this.” Maj said grabbing a pole. “I’ll go first, it’ll be just like catching fish in a barrel.”

“Alright, be careful.” Ariane cautioned Maj. Turning to Sevine, she continued to utter caution. “Observe carefully.”

Easing close to the railing Maj planted her feet, relying on her sure sealegs. Dipping the pole over the edge and into the water, it became increasingly clear how little control she really had over it. She stuck her tongue out, talked herself through it. “I ain’t a fisher or hunter, but how hard could it be to catch something giant, slow and squishy?” She edged closer to the jellyfish, translucent with the red magicka. “What sort of properties does the Golden Slug even possess? My gold is on some ancient dwemer technology mixing with scary big-”

“I’ve read Nord tales stating the Golden Slug is a millennium old sorcerer, and that it supposedly lived on lost islands with infernal machines before taking to the skies of Tamriel.” Conjectured Ariane. Truth be told, the sources themselves were inconsistent. “Some say the Golden Slugs plays with the organs of naughty children...” Ariane let herself trail off, not wanting to distract Maj’s fishing adventure with the gruesome details. In the meantime, she cast a stoneflesh spell on herself, just in case a dreugh gets too close for comfort.

The jellyfish inched a little out of her reach and the pole swung, tugging on a tentacle. “Fuck these slippery bastards.” Maj snarled, continuing her thought as she stared down the jellyfish, “Big soul gems have to be powering that flying contraption. I really want to see for myself-!” Wrapping the pointed hook around a tentacle she tugged excitedly. Too excitedly, the jellyfish came floating far faster than she was prepared for.

“I believe the soul gem theory is just an invention to scare children; misbehave and lose your soul to the flying bogeyman.” Ariane continued her conjecture. At this point, the Kyne’s Tear was being dragged in further, and faster, into the cove. Their floating catch drifted away faster than they liked. “Try hooking the underside, it-”

“No no no no-”

Desperately trying to untangle the jellyfish, it dangerously approached the hull, “No, stop!” Unable to wriggle free Maj threw the pole away into the water in a panic redirecting it in the opposite direction. The weight of the pole slowed it down, coming to a gentle stop. She winced.

“Well, we can now safely assume jellyfish hunting is not in my skill set.”

Not deterred by Maj’s failure, Ariane grabbed a pole and tried it out herself. Eyes narrowed and hands tightening around the pole, Ariane focused on blocking out the uncomfortable downpour. She started the same way Maj did; catching a white tentacle with the metal hook. As expected, the tentacle refused to stay on the hook and quickly slipped off. The Breton shifted her pole to one of her hand, while the other lit up a feather spell. It would make the jellyfish lighter, and requiring less effort drag in. Speaking of dragging in, Ariane somehow knew the bottom was the best place to drag with. It had just enough membrane for the metal to bite and hold onto. So that was what Ariane did.

“See.” She told Maj and Sevine. No doubt Maj would catch on, but it would be better showing the lead scout directly than explaining this intricate maneuver to her.

So far so good; now it was just a matter of reeling in. As Ariane began pulling the pole back, she forgot to account for her own feather spell. What was intended as a short tug became a long yank. The now feathered jellyfish came up and out, and at the same time, its soft underbelly slid further into the hook. Ariane’s face lit up with joy, but a split second later, it turned to shock.

The hook pierced into the red jelly core; the jellyfish exploded.

The resulting explosion cracked the pole in two. Before Ariane could react, explosive force was returning the severed metal hook back to sender. With a gasp and a sharp clink, the hook flew straight into her forehead. Her head rang, wind followed behind her and Ariane fell onto her back, ringing her head a second time from the rear. The other women couldn’t catch her on time, or in Sevine’s case, maybe she didn’t want to. The only thing saving Ariane from a nasty concussion was the stoneskin spell from earlier.

“Uuuhhhh.” Slurred Ariane. She laid there on the cold hard deck, watching the world above dance in a numbing figure eight. “Not in my skill set either...”

Maj turned to Sevine, trying to not laugh. She humbly nodded, “I believe in you. Don’t underestimate them.”

She bent down offering a hand to help Ariane up, “We can be ready to help with the net instead. There’s no messing up throwing that.”

“Ri, right, neck, next, net...” Ariane slowly accepted the hand, rubbing the nasty welt on her forehead the same time.

Sevine stared wide eyed at the two women, mostly Ariane, before shaking her head in disbelief, “You know, I did say that I’ve trapped my whole life.” She stooped to pick up the net, and quickly secured it to the hook on the pole. It would allow her to scoop up the jellyfish. Just a few strips of cloth from her tunic, double knotted, and… presto.

“Watch my back.” Sevine said, glancing over her shoulder at Maj and Ariane one last time, and the lowered the pole into the water.

She had found her mark, a particularly decent sized jellyfish floating in the water. She wasn’t sure if they had eyes, or brains for that matter, but she needed all of the stealth to snag the creature. If others were watching her, they might think her crazy for trying to snag a jellyfish in the midst of a battle. Her focus was elsewhere, not on the noise and chaos behind her. It was the reddish blob in the water. And like a cat hunting fish in a stream, she inched the pole closer, the net billowing and twisting in water. She waited… and waited… and pushed the pole deeper in the water, causing the net to balloon out, and she pushed it deeper ever still.

And then she paused.

Maj watched with anticipation at Sevine’s work, trying her best not to talk or say a word. Not wishing to jinx or break the Nord’s concentration. While Ariane sat back down against gunwale, trying to make her head stop pounding.

Her eyes studied the jellyfish, wondering if it knew that it would be snatched up in a net? Regardless, Sevine inched back from the railing, and angled the pole against the railing so that it acted as a sort of lever. There, ever so carefully, and with a certain degree of grace, she raised the pole up. The net expanded as the water filled out, and as she neared the bottom of the jellyfish, she slowed her pace. She bit her lip hard as she used utmost caution, and brought the net up around the jellyfish. She had it snared! Now just to bring it out of the water without detonating the damned thing. Sevine continued to use the pole against the railing as a lever, to help counteract the sudden weight from the jellyfish, and to steady herself from losing her foot.

Up and up the gelatinous creature rose, until Sevine had it leveled flat with the railing of the ship. Gripping the metal pole, Sevine began the trivial process of bringing the jellyfish onboard. Within seconds, she had the jellyfish hanging in the net, aboard the ship.

“If you want to launch this at the airship, then we ought to find Sagax.” Sevine quipped, she would feel proud later if they didn’t all die first.

“The demolition expert.” Ariane slowly and unsteadily rose to her feet. Her vision flickered wildly with the painful pulsations. “Isn’t that him climbing, the two of him?”

“Fantastic! Using the pole and the net was a great idea.” Maj clapped Sevine on the shoulder, genuinely impressed. “Sagax? The Imperial lad?”

She stiffened at the clap on the shoulder, “Careful! But… yes… scrawny lad. Black hair. Has a knack for getting himself into dangerous situations.”

“I believe Ashav called him ‘suicidal’, ‘having absolutely no regard for self-preservation’ and a ‘genius’.” Ariane added to Sevine’s appraisal. Helping them carry the jellyfish was obviously out of the question, as she might accidentally stumble, fall into it and blow everyone up in the process. Instead, Ariane staggered forward with the support of Sevine’s fishing pole and Maj’s arm. “Didn’t we promote him to a specialist on our last meeting?”

‘And if we don’t die, I’m forcing him to retire from these escapades.’ Sevine thought bitterly.

“...We did.” She sighed. “There’s only one way to do this.” Sevine shifted her gaze to the pole gripped tightly in her hands, and then again to the chains attached to the ship. She could see the scrawny fucker making his climb, and she swore.

“God’s damn us all.” And then she ran. She ran for her life across that rolling deck, past dreugh, past the werewolf, past the sailors and mercenaries to the chain that Sagax was on.

“Sagax!!!” She bellowed up at him. She could see him look down, or at least she imagined he did.

“Blow these bastards up!” And then, she planted her boots firm into the deck, turned at the waist, and threw the entire pole with the jellyfish in the net up at him. It soared high up into the air….

‘We’re fucked.’ She thought, only now remembering that Do’Karth was up there too.

Kyne's Tear

6th of Last Seed, 4E 205, Afternoon

"...then I had to fight them. That's right, all of them! Ten bandits in all..."

"Uh-huh."

"I took the first one out by throwing my spare dagger at them, hit them straight in the heart..."

"Wow."

"...but then one got a hold of my arm! But I kicked him away, and cut his stomach open!"

"Amazing."

"Oh, and then..."

This had been going on for about an hour and a half. Piper, simply looking for a quiet place to relax in the afternoon, had sat down at a small table. She had just about dozed off when she was beset upon by another Imperial. To Piper's immense chagrin, it was not her brother, but a man named Cilo. Some wannabe soldier that joined the company to prove his worth to some girl, apparently. No matter what she did the man never seemed to take the hint that she wasn't all that up for conversating, he simply kept talking. And talking. And talking. And fucking talking.

"...and that's how I saved Tibedetha!"

Doing her best to keep her eyes from rolling into the back of her head in irritation, Piper let out a sigh, whistling with false impress. "Wow, that's...really something, Cato." She said, staring off at nothing, impatiently rapping her fingers on the tabletop.

"Uhm...Cilo, miss..."

"Cilo, right."

"So, what do you think? That was all pretty impressive, right?"

"Oh yeah, definitely. In fact, I think you should go awa-...go off and tell everyone else your story! I really think they'd love it. Think about it, if you tell enough people, you'll be a legend..."

Suddenly much less confident, Cilo looked around the room suspiciously. "Um...well, I dunno, I mean not everyone needs to know, right? Besides I don't want all that glory. I-it'd be really annoying to deal with, you know? So much pressure..."

"Riiiight."

"Oh, but I'll tell you though! I have a lot of stories-"

"Don't you have some floors to sweep? Decks to swab?"

"Well not re-"

"GO."

"Yes ma'am!" Flinching at Piper's demand, Cilo jumped up and scurried away, trying to find something to do to look busy.

With the infernal chatterbox finally gone, Piper was able to close her eyes, lean back, and enjoy the relative silence, the rocking of the Tear nearly putting her to sleep. Hell, she was almost relaxed, and that hadn't happened in a while.

"Hey Piper." Came a voice to tear the peaceful silence asunder, like a kitten to cheap cloth.

"Who the hell..?" The woman whined, not bothering to lift her head up to look at the new visitor. Though when she felt her nose get flicked as if she were a misbehaving animal, she shot up with a glare.

"Your brother, you big baby. You talked to someone for an hour and you're already crying about it. I mean come on, being social isn't that painful, Piper..." Sagax stood before his sister, looking surprisingly rested and bright. He wore his casual clothes, leaving his leather armor under his cot. Good. Piper thought he looked strange wearing armor.

"That guy is a whole 'nother story, Sagax. Trust me. He just...ugh! I mean, the nonstop talking wasn't the worst part, it was his bullshit story. I mean come on, him? Winning against a whole gang of bandits single-handedly? Give me a fucking break!"

"I dunno, he looks like he could hold himself in a fight..." Sagax pulled a nearby chair over to him and sat down across from Piper. "Besides, can't you appreciate a good story?"

His sister just rolled her eyes. "What's there to appreciate? It was about as good as that fool Leif's tales of dabauchery."

"Oh come on you have to admit, they're at least funny. Most of them end with him getting slapped or chased out of the house by an angry father...or husband."

"If you say so. Personally I'd only find it funny if I actually saw it happen." The thought of Ravenstone getting flipped over a third story balcony did admittedly bring a smile to Piper's face. Maybe she'd be lucky enough to see something like that for herself. Eurgh, what a disgusting man.

"So..." Sagax began, ending a streak of silence.

"So?"

"How are you doing?"

"Uh...fine? What kind of question is that?"

"You know what I'm asking, Piper." This was the same game his sister always played. Non-answers, playing dumb, generally being stubborn as a mule. Sagax never understood her utter repulsion to sharing her problems and feelings, even to him. What's a brother to do about a sibling that simply won't open up?

"Gods, not this again..." she responded, hanging her head back, exasperated. "I told you I'm fine. I always tell you I'm fine...because I'm FINE. I don't have anything to talk about."

"Really? Nothing at all?"

"Not a fucking thing."

"Not even about mother-"

"What the fuck are we supposed to do!?" Sagax had only barely finished his question, yet Piper was already yelling her answer. She clenched her fists and locked her jaw shut. "This is such...bullshit!" the young Imperial said through her teeth. "There's nothing we can do, and it pisses me off! We're all the way out here on this fucking boat, in the middle of the FUCKING ocean, with all these MOTHERFUCKING weirdos and...and..." She stopped suddenly, taking deep breaths and staring Sagax dead in the eye.

"And...motherfucker...!" Huffing in frustration and crossing her arms, Piper sunk into her chair. "You did it again..." she mumbled, defeated.

And speaking of games, that was one Sagax would always play. Once Piper got riled up, she simply couldn't stop herself. She'd vent everything out to you in one long burst. Of course he never set out with the intention of making his sister angry or causing her any other kind of distress, it was just unfortunately the only way to get her to spill what she was bottling up inside. "If you're wondering how I knew...you were pouting. And sulking lower than normal."

"Pouting? Wait, you mean like..."

"Your lips, yeah."

"Ugh...I thought I taught myself to stop that. Guess I have a little more work ahead of me."

"You know Piper, I know you're a fan of the 'tough girl' stuff, but really, I'm your brother and-"

"You're here for me. I know..." Stopping for but a moment, Piper leaned over and wrapped her arms around Sagax. "Thank you."

Sagax gave a firm embrace back, with a small but warm smile. "You're welcome."

Just then, Sagax thought of a way to lighten the mood with Piper. "Hey, do you remember those songs we'd hear the crews down by the docks singing early in the morning?"

"Yeah, I do. I remember our favorite, actually..." Piper felt a smile grow on her face, but right then, she didn't quite care. It was just Sagax, after all. "Go ahead, you start."

Clearing his throat, the Imperial prepared his best singing voice.

"Oh, the worst ship that ever did sail, set sail out of Anvil on a windy day..." Then Piper chimed in alongside her brother for the chorus.

"And we're waiting for the day, waiting for the day, waiting for the day that we get our pay!

"She was built in Reman's time, held together with bits of twine..."

"And we're waiting for the day, waiting for the day, waiting for the day that we get our pay!

"Nothing in the galley, nothing in the hold, but the skipper's turned in with a bag of gold..."

"And we're waiting for the day, waiting for the day, waiting for the day that we get our pay!

Sagax and Piper paid no mind to anyone else. They were too busy just enjoying the fact that they were actually spending time together again, something that hadn't happened in a long time. Absorbed in their merriment, the two carried on until supper, where even then they still sat together and talked. Though as oblivious as she was to them, Piper was getting odd looks by people shocked to see her so exuberant. They just didn't know the secret to making her smile, and they probably never would. Because it wasn't a word or deed, but a person it took to lift her spirits, a very special person.

---

Kyne's Tear

7th of Last Seed, 4E 205

Sagax was sleeping like a baby throughout the night of the 6th. No dreams, no interruptions, nothing. It was an increasingly rare thing, a good night's sleep, and Sagax appreciated every single one he was afforded. His morning, however, was starting very abruptly. After finding Piper and helping her get her armor on, Sagax raced to the top deck and sprang into action. Choosing the chain closest to him, Sagax grabbed on as tight as he could and began to climb towards the massive ship in the sky. What was on board he didn't know, but if the new visitors were any hint, it was nothing good.

Shortly after starting his ascent, Sagax heard his name. It was Sevine, and she had just thrown something at him. A pole with what looked like a large jelly fish stuck in a net on the end. He grabbed the pole successfully, but panic gripped him as he felt himself start to slip and turn sideways. "Ah...!" was all the man uttered as he turned upside down, legs locked across the chain to keep himself from falling into the briny deep.

"Okay, okay, one...two...!" Sagax swung the pole over himself, using the weight of the strange creature in the net as leverage to set himself upright. Turning back briefly, Sagax gave the Huntress a thumbs-up, signalling that he had regained his grip. He then continued climbing, determined to stop the madness that the flying juggernaut had summoned. He didn't want to leave Piper behind to fight the creatures on the Tear, but he had a job to do. Besides that, Piper was not a child, but a grown woman that made her own decisions. If that decision happened to be playing chicken with a rotting werewolf, then so be it.

Inching his way closer and closer, Sagax finally reached solid land once more. Carrying himself and the improvised bomb up to the deck, Sagax took a moment to quickly get his breath back. Several others had already found their way, including Sadri, Do'karth and Tsleeixth.

"Okay, I'm here now...with a bomb, too! Let's get to work sending this pile of junk into the sea."

^{@Chicken@Father Hank@Frizan@Poohead189@Spoopy Scary}

---

“Well good morning, Piper! You’re up early...the sun’s barely here.”

“Um...I didn’t actually get any sleep…”

“Hm? Why not, dear?”

Little Piper paused. She’d told this story before, but mother and father never believed her. What would be the point in continuing? All she let out was a mumble.

“Oh...did that monster keep you up again, sweetheart?”

Her eyes widened as she perked her head up. Did they finally believe her!? “Uh-huh! I could see it, the closet door was cracked open. It stared at me all night...I didn’t wanna go to sleep. It would have gotten me!”

Father looked over to Mother and smiled. “Well, let me see what I can do about that…”

A few hours later, Caius returned from the markets with a bag. He called Piper over and opened it. Inside was a flashy sword(wooden, unbeknownst to his daughter) and a doll, about the size of her head. It looked like an elf wearing armor and holding a metal hammer, of child-safe size of course. It wore a silly smile to boot. “It’s dangerous to sleep alone...take these. I think they’ll keep you safe.”

“What are they, daddy?” Piper asked curiously. She didn’t recognize the visage of the doll nor had she ever seen a sword quite like that one. It was glimmery and kind of short, with a bell hanging off of the pommel.

“That is a specially crafted sword I requested from the Arcane University...it’s enchanted. Whenever a monster gets near it, it makes them cry and run away like babies! This, though…” he said, holding up the doll. “Is a...well, I suppose it would be called a charm. It was made to look like a prominent knight, from during the Oblivion Crisis. Orintur Graywatch...they say he was a holy warrior that followed Stendarr. If you keep it with you, I’m sure Orintur will help you scare off any monsters that try to bother you!”

Later that night, as Piper went to bed, she kept the enchanted sword on her bedside table and had the doll snuggled with her beneath her blankets. Just like her father said, the doll and the sword seemed to have scared away the demon in her closet, as the telltale shadow within the doorframe was nowhere to be found. She slept soundly from then on afterwards…

BANG!

Jolting upright, Piper swerved wildly in her cot, holding her doll close to her chest. No, wait...it was just her pillow. She stared at the cotton-stuffed case with disappointment, and a little bit of sadness. What the hell was that sound, though? It was like an alchemical experiment gone bad. She heard some yelling, but couldn’t make out what the ruckus was-

CRASH!

“FUCKING FUCK!!!” Piper hit the floor with a hard thud as she was suddenly and violently thrown off her cot by something that she could only imagine had just impacted the ship. The Tear rocked back and forth, making it difficult for Piper to get to her feet, but she managed it eventually. Spying her brother running about the hall next to her, she acted quickly. “Sagax! Get in here and help me with my gear!”

---

Another balled-up piece of parchment smacked against the corner of Adaeze’s cabin.

The Bosmer woman snatched another piece of parchment, frowning a little deeper as the ship rocked back and forth, side to side. She hated sailing. It wasn’t that it made her seasick, nor that it did anything to shake her nerves; no. No, sailing just complicated everything she did.

She took a deep breath, trying to remember the words she had started the last letter with. Dear Father it was, yes. She took her time writing those words out, carefully waiting whenever the ship would sway. It was going to be perfect, this time, as all things she did. A half-effort is no effort, she thought to herself, gently making calligraphic script on the page. And as she wrote the next few lines, as she scribed the details of her journey for her father, the words started to finally, this time, be without imperfecti-

The ship rocked a little harder than she expected. Her quill pen raced across the parchment. Her work was ruined.

Cursing, Adaeze slammed her hand down on the parchment and flung it behind her. Small drops of ink fell. She took a deep breath. “I hate boats,” she muttered, not that anyone heard.

“Calm,” said the warrior to herself. She set her quill pen down and stood on up. “Find your center. Balance. You are above this, Adaeze. You are Ra Gada.” She strode across the room slowly, moving with the drunken dance of Kyne’s Tear. She grabbed her sword, drew it from its scabbard, and stared at the blade - and at her reflection. She paused.

With a shake of her head, she hefted the weapon up and fell into a fighting stance. “You are Ra Gada,” she repeated. The duelist recited in her head the principal maneuvers of the Ephemeral Feint. Her feet and sword moved together as she parried invisible foes, cut down phantom enemies. She -

BANG!

The whole vessel rocked. Adaeze stumbled forward, her knee hitting the floor hard. She growled, then shouted, “Whose fault was that?!” at her door. She didn’t expect an answer, really, but she stopped speaking and listened. Someone else was shouting something…

Something was very wrong.

Adaeze rushed over to her trunk beside her hammock. She threw it open, grabbing the coat of chainmail inside, and the bracers and the greaves. The helmet, too - she’d need that, she was sure of it. Excitement washed over her. A real fight! It’s about damned -

And then the whole ship shook again with a CRACK! Adaeze’s head jerked back, then forward, smacking against her trunk. She clenched her fist and slammed it against the floor. Splinters bit her knuckles.

“I better get to kill someone,” growled the Bosmer with venom. There was no time to nurse the bump on her head. She got her armor on as quick as she could.

---

“All hands on deck!”

The upper deck was consumed by a maelstrom of complete and utter mayhem. Only minutes ago, the crew was fighting to navigate the Tear through the relentless storm. Violent ocean waters was threatening to capsize the ship and the torrential downpour didn’t help matters by reducing visibility and soaking the crew to their bones, but that didn’t stop them from trying their damndest to fulfill their captain’s orders as they tried to keep her afloat while they looked for their safe refuge. Most of the crew and company were on deck, doing what they could to lend a hand, while some were below deck resting after being relieved (or without having worked at all in some cases). Though it would be fair to assume that only laborers and soldiers would be on deck trying to keep the ship afloat, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

”Heave!” The men shouted as the wrestled with the rigging. Every time the wind blew, it threatened to throw them off course if the sails weren’t adjusted. ”Ho!”

“Put yer back into it, Wylendriel!”

Indeed, even the priestess was doing her part. She was gritting her teeth as she put what little of her weight she could behind this game of tug-o-war. The goading of the sailor agitated her slightly, but she just used it as fuel to pull with all of her might. As for the conditions? She saw divine signs in the wind. Kynareth was either warning them of danger or she was angry. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was her that she was angry with… but the actual weather itself seemed to never bother her anyway.

“Daxainos! Tie the rope off at the mast! We’re gonna hold her here for now!”

The Argonian hunter leaped out from below decks, the wind and water pummeling his muscled limbs. Using his claws to keep purchase on the soaked deck, he took another desperate jump and grabbed the rope hanging by the mast. Once he found his footing, he tied the rope, ending the knot with a near audible snap.

His keen senses felt something was off for many minutes, but he was no sailor. He had only been on ships for a handful of times in his life. He preferred swimming to sailing. But he knew the outdoors, and even across the water, he felt a presence he couldn’t grasp with a surety. “By the Hist, be alert!” he roared, holding on for dear life to the mast and gripping the haft of his axe.

“What in Oblivion is that!?” came a shout from Piper, voice reverberating inside in her helmet. She pointed up into the sky at what looked to be a massive, airborne ship. It had shot chains into the hull of the Tear, and what came down from them nearly made her turn heel and run: crab-like creatures with disgustingly human faces, the tips of their appendages covered in what could only be gold, their claws augmented by sharp metal edges. Then came the howling.

It sounded like a massive wolf, but there was a bone-chilling, otherworldly sensation behind it. In a blur, a nearby deckhand was crushed by a massive black-haired creature. As it raised itself up, it bore the unmistakable features of a werewolf, just like in the old wives tales. This one, however, looked to be… decomposing. Its eyes were a misty white and bloody drool dibbled down its face. It was also looking directly at them.

“Oh fuck…!” Was all Piper said as she began clambering to wrench her sword from its scabbard.

Wylendriel pulled apart the curtain of her water soaked hair from her eyes and stared wide-eyed at the monsters as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing. As all the men and women on board starting drawing their weapons, and as the dreughs and the undead fell upon their victims, the priestess stood her ground. Blueish-purple colored magic in the form of mist began to coalesce around her right hand and eventually took shape in her palm as a mace. She tightened her grip around the shaft as she slowly took a step or two back, putting some precautionary distance between herself and the werewolf without taking her eyes off of it. She met its hungry, soulless eyes with a disgusted glare.

Adaeze, too, found herself eager for the fight - until light hit the werebeast and she saw its rotting flesh. She swallowed hard. She did not fear defeat at the hands of the undead monstrosity, but a part of her was still worried of the consequences of striking the honored dead…

...but, no. This one is Hircine’s, she told herself, and needs no honor. It was justification enough. The warrior tensed as the beast roared. She focused. With two hands she took her blade; out of habit she fell into her dueling stance. My blade is silver, she reminded herself. Silver banishes evil.

There was no more time for thought. Adaeze darted forward. With two hands she slashed downward with her blade; it flashed, and ghoulish blood flew. The dead beast roared, but Adaeze was fast, and her sword was lowered for a thrust. Thrust she did.

Her blade stuck in the undead creature’s arm. She yanked. The blade did not come free. The gold-clad beast snarled, and Adaeze knew at that moment she’d made a dire mistake.

“Dipshit Bosmer…!” Piper growled under her breath.

“Go!” Wylendriel said. “I have your back!”

Her response was automatic. Piper took a quick step forward, grabbing the elf by the arm and throwing her backwards. Now between the beast and Adaeze, Piper was the target of its aggression. It made several swings at her, the Imperial barely managing to ward them off with her shield. When it would bite, she would smash its face with a shield-punch, though it didn’t seem to do as much as Piper would have hoped. With Niernen’s periodic fireball and her own ability to move swiftly in armor, Piper was able to dance with her foe for a little while. But suddenly the spells stopped, as did the greatly-needed respite they afforded her when the werewolf would briefly turn to their ranged foe. Blow after blow smacked into her shield with the force of several men, and Piper’s strength was faltering. Niernen had gone to assist her brother, leaving the others to deal with this monstrous abomination to all life.

Barely able to speak through her own frantic breaths and clenched teeth, all Piper could muster was a rough “Need help!” as the undead laid into her. In one second, one measly moment of weakness, Piper’s shield was wrenched from her grasp and was summarily launched off of her feet by a ferocious swipe to her chest. Her armor may have saved her from serious injury, but the force of the blow and her landing left the woman with little strength to get to her feet again. Piper could hardly move, and her shield seemed so far away as the creature closed in…

Then the creature reeled back with a snarl. Wylendriel stepped forward from behind Piper, her hand raised in the air and aglow with a brilliant white light, as though she had reached out and grasped a star from the night sky. It’s radiance glistened off of the water on her skin and on the deck, off of Piper’s armor, and perhaps blinded some the dreughs and seaman who were, up to this point, engulfed in darkness too thick for the lanterns to illuminate. As she stepped closer, the werewolf stepped away, growling and laying its ears flat as her repelling spell worked its magic on the undead. As the priestess reached Piper’s side, the strain in her breath could be heard. She used her foot to kick the warrior’s shield back to her side as she grunted, “By Y’ffre, this thing is strong… my spell isn’t going to last forever - hurry!”

Taking advantage of the elf’s sudden...whatever the hell she was doing, Piper scrambled for her shield and picked herself back up. Whatever spell Wylendriel was using, it looked like it was working effectively, the werewolf backing up and taking a more defensive stance. While not all of her strength had returned to her, Piper figured she would be able to soak up a few more strikes...as long as the others kept up their efforts.

She advanced slowly, bracing for incoming attacks and keeping her blade ready to retaliate. The beast snarled and bared its teeth, but its fear, if one could believe an undead could feel fear, was still evident. The Imperial took a few quick jabs at it, but it was quick to jump out of the way. While she wanted to go on the offensive, Piper knew she didn’t have the strength left to really defend herself if she made herself a target again, let alone go toe-to-toe with the beast with her weapon.

“If someone would stick this ugly motherfucker with some steel, that’d be real great!”

Someone heard that call to action. Adaeze burst out from the small crowd of warriors once again, slashing at the werewolf with her blade, taking advantage of the undead creature’s fear of the light-wielding chaplain. This time she kept her distance. Her cuts were quick: one, two, three in quick succession. Silver tore through the back of the monster’s legs.

The werebeast snarled and swung about to swipe at Adaeze, but she ducked low and danced on away. It was wounded, and distracted at that. The Hammerfell warrior bolted for the cover her companions provided. She didn’t intend on dying that easily.

Daixanos blocked a blow from the Dreugh he battled, and struck it in the center with the flat of his axe. The monster was stunned, and the powerful Argonian used the time to charge, shoving the dazed opponent off the boat and into the rushing current. He wasted no time in whipping about, his combat reflexes honed into a heightened sense of awareness.

As Adaeze fell back, the line of the companions blocked the beast’s field of vision as the Hunter leaped into the fray, maw bared and axe firmly in a two handed grip. Dax waded in, blocking a clawed swipe from the beast before twirling beneath a wild slash, and burying his axe into the creature’s chest with a savage riposte that caused the werewolf’s spine to buckle. Daixanos pressed forward, his biceps enlarging as he pressed the blade in deeper. The rain washing over the deadly ranger only added to the savage appearance of the two bestial figures locked in combat.

And so they danced, a beast against several armed men and women, still holding its own through its sheer brutal strength and swiftness. Piper, shamefully, hung back and took only a scarce few more blows. The warrior-elf and Redguard fared much better than she did, and the lizard looked to be overcome by a savage desire to rip and tear the werewolf’s guts. Wylendriel’s spell was fading quickly, but its effect on the monster was still noticeable; it did not dare charge them all head-on. Hopefully the boarding party would find a way to stop the rampaging beast, because it seemed impossible for the defenders to kill it themselves.

She hadn’t meant to have been that member of the crew who had such a bad start on the ship, in the company. She had thought that already she might have started to form connections with at least one or two others.

So far, there had been nothing. She lay pensively in her assigned hammock. One arm behind her head, one leg bent, and the other sticking out with a foot planted on the ground. She used this position to sway herself ever so. Not that she needed much swaying, the water seemed to do much of it on it’s own. She had exchanged but a few words in the two days. In two days she hadn’t had chance to utter much more than a sentence. Only earlier that day, someone had waved over at her with a beaming smile and she had waved back - only to find that there had been someone far more interesting behind her. It was a strange place to find herself in.

Nobody on the Kyne’s Tear even knew her name yet. Not that she knew many of there’s either. She sighed as she continued to stare up at the cladding, loneliness sitting on her insides. She didn’t like to be too alone with her thoughts. When she was forced to live like an introvert, she was left only with the voice inside her mind - her own. She thought of Bjogar, and his lamenting that his time on the seas was the greatest of his life. So far, it had not lived up to her expectations.

She began wrapping her locks of hair around her fingers, letting her eyes close when with an almighty crash she was thrown from the hammock with a thud to the floor. It was the same feeling she had felt before - when you’re drifting off to sleep and something makes you think you’re falling. Except this time she did, and it had hurt. Chaos had broken out on deck, people were already rushing to it. It was her time, too. She was infantry, it was her job to make sure that this got resolved - whatever it was. She pulled herself up, finding her bearings as the ship swayed more so than it had been. Whatever it was it must have been big. There was no time to think on it, only time to do.

The Redguard snatched up her shield and axe, sliding her throwing axes into her belt too, before taking off with a sprint to the deck. The rain beat her first, before any enemy could. It lashed down at her, cold droplets each stinging on the skin like needles, the cold wind adding insult to the injury, she began to tremble under the forsaken weather and slid across the flooded deck to the centre of the action.

There were dreughs to the right and left of her - but dead centre was the star of the show. A beast. A rotten looking beast at that, it’s flesh was torn and it’s insides were cavernous and dark. It was a thing of beauty, and for a second took Ashna’s breath away. She was going to carve it up into pieces and take something of it for a souvenir. Perhaps a necklace of it’s teeth. The beast was currently occupied with other warriors, a Bosmer tearing through it and an Argonian breaking into it with his axe.

For her turn, Ashna rushed forward with her shield in front of her midriff, a slight crouch in her posture as she rushed to the Werewolf, it wasn’t looking at her. It was too busy buckling under the Argonian’s axe, fighting against the force of it.

With a thud she made contact, her shield smacking the werewolf in it’s shoulder, sending it back startled. There was just one mistake - she’d put herself out in front of it. Unlike the Argonian, she had nothing to keep it at bay, she didn’t have steel inside of it, threatening it. Right now, she was a snack that had just tapped it and alerted it to her presence. Only now did she notice that the thing had some rather long limbs. She took some quick backsteps to increase the distance between herself and the beast, her shield back in place while she pulled out an axe from her belt, not wasting a second to throw it.

It…. Missed.

She watched as the blade of the axe landed inside a wooden beam, splintering it quite substantially. It had been a powerful throw… But it had been a terrible aim. It felt like the deck grew silent, and her fellow fights were locked on to her with their eyes. Truthfully, it was more likely that the rest of them were too busy also shitting themselves to have noticed the blunder, but she still felt the need to explain it away; “these winds are too powerful! They’re even carrying my steel away from target…” The werewolf snarled in her direction with it’s eyes narrowing. Not only had she freed it from the Argonian’s axe lock, but she had pissed it off by trying to clap it with a concussion.

She had rattled it’s cage, the cage which had already been shaken quite tremendously by the Argonian, she had to make a choice all of a sudden as she watched the werewolf plan it’s next move. It was watching the Imperial. Now or never, Ashna could either retreat from the battle and let it go another round with the Imperial who already seemed too knackered to kick back, or she could put herself in the middle and take the hit for her.

She took the hit. Claws pierced her flesh and scratched across her abdomen like a knife through butter. She had half expected to be disemboweled by it, but as she reached to touch the wound she felt it to be shallow. It didn’t feel so bad, right? It had really had to stretch to reach her. But it stung, it really stung, and the pain and shock of it caused her to drop, but she stayed in front of the Imperial with determination, fighting back from the pain to hold her shield up against herself once more.

It was time to see if she had any potential friends on this ship. It was time to see if someone would step back in to finish off the beast.

---

Hargjorn was the last one up the chains. He stayed below until mercenaries have secured their way up before making the climb himself. Two more adventurous sailors followed Hargjorn's lead, making the dangerous scramble up the golden chains. When they reached the airship, Hargjorn noticed the mercs have already established themselves on the misty deck. They were cautious (with the exception of Sadri), which was justified by the near blanketing mist in the air. Tsleeixth was acting funny on his knee, and Sagax somehow brought up one of those exploding jellyfishes, on a harpoon, no less. Several sources of light emanated from lanterns, with several being dwarven and some resembling the shells of sea creatures (all had some sort of gold plating). Hargjorn sniffed the air, finding the scent of oil, sea salt and the stench of rotten flesh.

"Full ahead, but stick to the shadows." Hargjorn whispered his order. He drew his falchion and inched along what could be containers and smoke exhausts. Their destination was uncertain, but from what Hargjorn could guess, it was a cabin-like structure with a blue glow around it.

"There's nothing up here on this chockablock floater." A sailor remarked, poking at a discarded dreugh appendage.

"Is this truly the golden slug of legend?" The other sailor wondered. "That's all gold, but where are the infernal war machines? The coral fortress? Aren't we facing an all consuming Slo-"

The sailor was interrupted when he tripped on a chain on the deck. It was golden like those that pierced the Kyne's Tear, but it was also smaller, similar in size to something that would be tethered to livestock. The sailor fell, the chain rattled loudly, and something stirred and shook on the other end. It was as if a large creature had risen from its slumber. The chain began to move towards the boarding party as the sailor scrambled back up to his feet, tightly holding his axe in cold sweat. A heavy thud bounded off the airship deck, then another, and another closer than before.

"Uh, Hargjorn!" The sailor panicked. His shrill scream brought on several lights around the cabin structure, but his attention was locked to the chain. "Help, there's something-"

Bursting through the mist was a gigantic human like being over two meters tall, with mismatching patches of skins and flesh sewn onto a rotting, muscular body like used pieces of clothing. The chain ended with a golden collar on the being's neck. Tattered cloth covered its body, and one notable element was a heavily damaged tabard bearing the emblem of the Paladins, the premier gladiatorial team of Windhelm's fight pit. Another sight was a large club of pure gold in place of the being's right forearm. And if one looked upon the being's head with memories of the Reach and Windhelm, they would be seeing the broken facial features of Tennant Ibnazh.

"Stuhn's might, what the fuck?!" The otherwise strong sailor was suddenly puny in caparison to zombie Tennant Ibnazh. He no longer had any illusions of fighting and decided to run.

Unfortunately, the large zombie could run as well. It more than matched the sailor's stride with long paces. It swung it's heavy golden club arm into the sailor's back, sending him flying with such force that he went over the side of the airship.

If the group thought the zombie was their only threat aboard the airship, they were sorely mistaken. Fog parted from the cabin when a pair of coral adorned doors opened, revealing none other than...

"The golden slug!" Hargjorn gasped.

The golden slug is a familiar creature from sailing myths; a Sload. It was fat, round and of similar height to the zombie. But unlike the stereotypical depiction of the Sload's frog skin, it wore dense golden plate armor. Dozen of necklaces made from different gold alloys and jewels wrapped around its thick neck, and each of its stubby fingers bore an exquisite ring. These jewelries gave off blue glows when the Sload lifted its arms, a thin line of magic traced to the zombie. As a response, the zombie stopped just as it was about to charge against a second target, and placed itself between the boarding party and its Sload master.

A split second before the zombie could take up defensive position, the remaining sailor hurled a knife against the Sload. It flew right on target, but instead of striking true, the knife bounced off a shimmering ward projected by two conch-shaped sconces and nearly caught the sender on return.

Hargjorn wasn't aware of his sailor's attack, instead, he saw opportunity in the Sload commanding the zombie. "Throw the jellyfish at that big lad," he pointed Sagax to the zombie, "blow him back to Lyg before he touches my ship."

"Oi, you daft, mate?" The sailor had another idea. "Run by him and cap them Sload; zombie ain't a thing without the magic."

"Or just blow up the balloon." Sadri pointed up.

---

Keegan snapped back (from dream) to reality, and almost thought there goes gravity. Stepping out onto the deck, Keegan choked on rainwater. He's so mad, but he won't give up that easily...

---

What was Keegan thinking? Why did he even think signing back on with this mercenary company was a good idea? It seemed bad fortune gravitated to these mercenaries wherever they went. How was it possible for someone to have an airship, let alone an army of messed up dreughs and an undead werewolf. It wasn't just any werewolf, it was the resurrected corpses of Relmyna Vibato, the poor Dunmer girl they locked up in Windhelm, for single-handedly pushing back a Kamal assault in beast form. It was horrifying to know that not even the dead have seen the end of this terrible conflict. What was this conflict anyway? Surely this couldn't be the Kamals; they have not been observed practicing necromany, and it would serve them better to unleash this monstrosity in mainland Skyrim. So now it's even more horrifying to think that there existed forces beyond the eastern invaders.

If dozens of Kamals stood no chance against werewolf Relmyna, then what chance do the mercs have? Sagax's bulky sister had no luck, the new Redguard had no luck, and the new Bosmer/Redguard pretender had no luck either. Keegan could run, but to where? He turned only to trip and fall face first into an utterly decimated corpse. It was the same man cut up by the werewolf's golden claws. The wounds were so gruesome that Keegan threw up in response, right on his own sweater. The vomit wasn't spaghetti, but his knees went weak and arms felt heavy beyond measure.

Then a dreugh jumped right in front him. Savage hiss emanated from its mouth parts like the disparaging lyrics from Papa Dock. Following up was a golden claw like the dropping of a voice amplifier. Keegan rolled left, avoiding the downward claw. The dreugh maneuvered to face him, and Keegan had time to get up on his knees. However, he dived back down again when arcs of lightning flew from the dreugh's claw. Now Keegan found himself on the flank of the dreugh again. The creature wasn't the fastest to turn, so Keegan took this opportunity to form a bound dagger and lunged at the dreugh.

Well, Keegan choked. His bound dagger fizzled upon contact with the dreugh and dissipated without doing damage. The dreugh turned to face him, with what was most likely anger on its face. Keegan fell again, backward onto his ass and scrambling out of the way of another claw strike.

"What's your beef!?" Keegan asked. To whom? He wasn't sure. It wasn't like the dreugh understood him. He barely had the time to pull his staff from the straps on his bag to swipe aside the next claw. Fine, if it wanted a fight, he'll give it one. Keegan's not afraid to take a stand. Even in this soaking rain; whatever weather, cold or warm. So he's back on his feet again. This time, Keegan discharged electricity from his staff, and the sparks did not miss.

Except that Keegan missed the part about dreughs being resistant to shock. His opponent reared back, seemingly in pain. But then it suddenly shot back with lightning of its own. Keegan threw up a lesser ward in defense, absorbing most of the energy but still felt his muscles numbing with excess electricity.

"Quit playing scissors and shit, and cut the crap." Keegan straightened himself from the shock, avoided dreugh pincers and counterattacked with his staff. He jabbed with his staff like a spear, but his attacks either skidded off the hardy shell or missed completely. The slippery deck sabotaged what little grace Keegan had in the way of footwork. Not matter how hard he tried, he could not beat this one stubborn dreugh.

"Why don't you just die!?" Keegan let out a frustrated yell behind another futile thrust. "Auriel! Stendarr! For fuck's sake! Talos! Please!"

Something answered in the air. A bird, no. An airship, well, of course it's still there. No, it was a flying man. No, wait, it was a falling man. Dying screams became louder as its source descended.



Keegan had gone prone again and covered his head with his arms. He even closed his eyes (in case it was some eye-destroying substance). When the impact landed and nothing else happened a few seconds later, he opened his eyes to find the dreugh he was fighting squished flat by a dead sailor.

"It's raining men!" Keegan exclaimed. It took him a second to comprehend the current situation, but Keegan eventually realized the sailor had been sent from above; he laughed. "Thank you, Auriel! Thank you, Stendarr!"

Divine intervention did exist! Keegan shook his head. He had one more to thank. "Thanks, Talos."

---

Elsewhere, the dreughs were converging on Narzul and Niernen. Having been rescued by Leif, Dar'Jzo was no longer a target. Instead, the dreughs that were formerly eyeing him as their next meal changed their diet to Dunmer. A dozen dreughs besieged the Venim siblings, and this was definitely more than they could handle in their wounded state.

Fortunately, Gustav had seen their peril from afar. He was wondering on how to put the ballista to use, and there it was, a tightly packed mass of targets, perfect for their incendiary bolt. He commanded the ballista crew to aim toward the dreughs, right over the heads of mercenaries caught in between. In was not ideal, and if Hargjorn was here, he would go berserk at the potential damage to his beloved ship. Hargjorn was taking the high road instead, and that meant Gustav was getting the one shot that he did want to miss the chance to blow.

Between the ballista and the Venims was the werewolf and the mercenaries that fought it. Having multiple targets meant the werewolf was distracted and could not focus on overwhelming any one of them. Most of its attack were directed at Ashna, but she managed to fend them off. Offensive efforts by Adaeze and Daixanos did not inflict further damage, though they steadily pushed the werewolf into defense. The fight was far from over, but the mercenaries could now dictate the pace and direction.

Having observed the entire battle from a crack underneath a hatch, Dough-Boy now saw an opening for the ballista to take out both the dreughs and the werewolf in one shot. It would need the mercenaries to direct the werewolf toward the dreughs (and the Venim siblings), and the flame bolt would be enough to engulf both types of foes. Dough-Boy jumped up to communicate his unexpected tactical genius, and when he finished, he was knocked down by a debris shaken loose by an explosion on the airship.

Gustav sighed. He ordered those fighting the werewolf to the opposite direction, which would minimize collateral damage. Of course, they could continue fighting the werewolf where they were, as the mercenaries have obtained a favorable position. Gustav also ordered someone to get the knocked out boy to safety; losing Dough-Boy means no one would be handling annoying errands. Finally, he warned the Venims; they could take cover in their current position, make a run through the mass of dreughs or jump overboard to avoid the incoming bolt.

Whatever the mercenaries do, a deadly shot of fire was coming.

Sload Airship
@Dervish @Mortarion @Frizan @POOHEAD189

The creature that emerged was a thing of legends, the hulking slug-like Sload of Thras. Even if one had never seen one in person, and to be blunt, they were so elusive many in Tamriel weren’t even sure if they were actually real or just some bogeymen meant to scare children away from the shores while unattended. This one, however, was just as real and repulsive as its reputation would have predicted. Its companion, equally unsettling, was a patchwork of different body parts in a grotesque two meter tower of mix-and-matched components that altogether made it an unsettling adversary, to say the least. Do’Karth didn’t recall the lifeless face, but he recognized the heraldry the ghoul wore as belonging to Windhelm. Had this Sload taken bodies from the battle with the Kamal for this insidious purpose? The Khajiit did not fancy what he was seeing, but it was going to happen.

And happen it did.

One of the sailors had tried to flee down the chains, fear overtaking his senses, and with alarming speed, the ghoul was upon him, quickly running him down and sending him off of the ship with a sickening crunch as the club flung the man’s body overboard. Do’Karth did not expect to see the sailor again. He adjusted his stance, grounding himself for the fight to come.

It is simply another creature, repulsive as it is. Do’Karth has faced mindless Dwemer contraptions and sly Dunmer alike. This is simply another fight; end this threat. Protect the others. he thought, spinning his staff behind him so it rested alongside the back length of his left arm.

The others had a plan, he would have to buy them time to see it through.

“If Do’Karth may, he will deal with the tall and ugly one if the rest of you wish to rid the fat and ugly one from our presence.” the Khajiit said, grinning mischievously. “He will keep you safe.” he promised, and then set to work.

Squaring off against the hulking zombie, Do’Karth felt like he was staring down the Centurion again; he was lucky that his staff could even reach the deformed face above him. And the smell was absolutely revolting. Not for the first time this week, Do’Karth cursed himself for having a remarkable sense of smell. It was as if the other Khajiit who had joined the company had vomited in his face.

“You poor, wretched creature. Allow Do’Karth to rid you of your agony and return you to whichever Divine lays claim to you.” He called up to the face, which didn’t react and instead the golden club smashed down into the deck where Do’Karth had been standing moments before, and he had to keep his movement swift as it seemed relentless in trying to break him.

He was faster, but undead abominations had one thing going for them; they never tired.

First Do’Karth tried to sweep the legs, but the staff simply cracked into skin and bone, causing tears in the flesh and a somehow even more repugnant scent to fill the air, but otherwise the ghoul was unharmed. He grit his teeth, going for the arms, and it was more of the same. Disabling attacks weren’t taking to this stupid, stupid thing. Anger filled Do’Karth’s mind as the scent grew more offensive.

With a ferocious yell, the Khajiit rammed his staff up at the monster’s face, and its jaw came completely off. Reveling in a temporary victory, it was short lived as Do’Karth felt the end of his staff wasn’t moving anywhere; the ghoul had grabbed it. With horror, Do’Karth tried to pry the weapon free, but failed to account for the club-arm, which blindsided him with such force that he was lifted through the air and across the deck. His side exploded in pain and the Khajiit roared in agony as his vision narrowed and bright stars filled his eyes; his rib felt broken.

Forcing himself to his feet, relying on battle meditation to fight through the pain, he realized his arm wasn’t lifting all of the way, either. He stared defiantly at the creature, which bore down on him. A long hiss escaped from between Do’Karth’s fangs, and when the zombie threw his staff at him again, likely less of trying to make the fight more honourable and more likely just mindlessly trying to hurt him, he caught the weapon in his good arm and adapted a stance to try and adapt to his injured body.

“That will not happen again,” he promised, although he wasn’t so sure if it was trying to reassure himself or challenge the creature. The conviction in his voice simply wasn’t there.

As the gap closed, Do’Karth ducked low under the club again and with one arm, he threw his weight to the side and guided the staff into the side of the creature’s head, trying to break the neck or at least tear out some of the throat, and for his efforts, he was rewarded with a satisfying crunch, but he was at a disadvantageous position; his body was low to the deck and when he tried to put weight on the injured arm, it simply gave out on him and he fell face first into the damp deck.

He drove his knuckles into the wooden planks, willing himself to stand when a brutal force came down into his back, forcing him hard into the wood below. The agony spread through his entire body, and the sensation of a thousand spears piercing him filled his thoughts as his vision began to fade to black.

Seeing Do’Karth falter against the deformed creature once known as Tennant, Sagax forwent his initial plan of destroying the strange magic shield surrounding the Slug. He had to help Karth, so the job fell to another. The first person the Imperial saw was Alim, and he at least looked the capable sort. “Alim!” he shouted to the Redguard, “Take this….thing, and toss it into the barrier! Who knows, it might just leave the Slug vulnerable!” Handing over the explosive creature, Sagax drew his blade and ran to assist his feline friend.

The creature in front of him may have once been a man, but the spark of humanity in it had long since been washed away. A pacifist he may have been, even Sagax knew there was no redemption for an undead. They were an aberration, something to be destroyed and burned. Putting as much weight behind it as possible, the Imperial thrust his sword as deep into the back of the undead as he could. He managed to send it in fairly deep. Too deep, in fact, as he was unable to draw it back out before the creature responded with its club.

Sagax threw himself backwards as far as he could, narrowly missing being tenderized by the massive hunk of metal being thrown at him. “Come on! Try again! Bet you couldn’t hit a paralyzed Troll!” He knew that an undead couldn’t take offense, but it was his hope that maintaining an aggressive posture help him remain the target instead of Do’Karth. The creature’s glassy eyes stared blankly as it readied another swing. It brought down the club fast, but the Imperial’s superior reflexes allowed him to see where it was coming from and evade. Without his sword, it was all he could do, and it seemed to be working well at least. Tennant...no, the zombie, moved further and further away from Do’Karth as it gave chase to Sagax, who was leading it on a goosechase around the cabin, and the Imperial was nowhere near out of breath.

The sight of the zombified corpse of Tennant Ibnazh would have normally given Tsleeixth some pause, but he had already beheld such a sight earlier when the zombified Relmyna had been let loose on the Kyne’s Tear by the Sload in command of the airship. Not to mention that his friends were in danger, Do’Karth was already knocked unconscious and while Sagax was effectively distracting the monstrosity that their one-time comrade had become for the time being. Tsleeixth doubted that could last for very long before something bad happened. No, the Saxhleel couldn’t afford any hesitation at present.

And yet, his mind was torn at the moment. Which was the target that presented the greatest risk: the Sload necromancer or it’s undead abomination. The seconds seemed to stretch as Tsleeixth’s mind worked, until an idea suddenly dawned upon him; he doubted it’d be very well received by his allies, and he himself in truth wished that he needn’t resort to it, but the situation in which they were was grave enough, any edge that they could obtain would be needed.

“Alim! Go and blow the Sload’s barrier like Sagax said, I’ll make sure that you aren’t targeted.” Tsleeixth said to Alim before turning towards the rest of those who had climbed the chains and had boarded the airship, “The rest of you lot, wait for Alim to blow up the barrier and then focus on the Sload. I’m sure that if we kill the Slug, it’s undead monstrosity will follow shortly afterwards.” The spellsword spoke with confidence, hoping that his words would help steel the resolve of the rest of the boarders.

Knowledge of the Sloads of Thras was already plenty scarce, aside from a few mentions here and there in historical texts, and for all that Tsleeixth knew, they employed a different branch of necromancy than the one present throughout Tamriel. In truth, killing the Golden Slug was more of a gamble in Tsleeixth’s part, the logical side of his mind told him that there was no way that the necromancy employed by the Sload diverged massively from its Tamrielic counterpart and yet there was a part of him that was worried that the death of the Sload might cause something even worse.

After he was done speaking, and the rest of the boarders has engaged in combat, Tsleeixth turned his attention towards his surroundings. As he had expected, more than a few corpses were scattered around the area; Tsleeixth saw corpses belonging to Nords, Argonians, and Dunmer mainly, aside from a few corpses belonging to other races, and the Spellsword had the sick sensation that these corpses were of those who had died during the Siege of Windhelm. How the Sload had come by their possession, Tsleeixth didn’t know but their mere presence only served to infuriate him. Casting away his glance from Windhelm’s fallen defenders, he continued to search his surroundings until he came across a most peculiar sight: the corpse of one of the Dreughs.

“Yes, this will do.” The Argonian said, letting out a sigh, grateful that he hadn’t needed to use the corpse of one of those who had fallen at Windhelm for his plan. A black orb of magic coalesced in one of his hands and, shortly afterwards, a blue mist began to gather around the corpse of the Dreugh. His mind soon made contact with the soul of the departed creature, and a flood of emotions suddenly rushed towards him: confusion, panic, anger. The last of these emotions was the strongest one and, for a brief few seconds, Tsleeixth struggled against the soul of the departed beast before he was able to assert control. The corpse rose shortly afterwards, twitching slightly as dead nerves came back to life thanks to the necromantic energies coursing through its body.

Pushing away the sickly sensation that seemed to spread throughout his body after resurrecting the corpse, Tsleeixth ordered the revived Dreugh to attack the Sload that had been its master on the creature’s now gone life. His thrall obeyed his orders and Tsleeixth allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction, in truth he never had mastered the art of raising corpses all too well and so Tsleeixth was glad that this plan of his had worked out. He could worry about what the others would think later on, for now he had to focus on the zombified Tennant.

Brandishing his sword, Tsleeixth charged towards the undead abomination that the former mercenary-turned-pitfighter had become. Distracted as it was with Sagax, the zombie didn’t notice Tsleeixth until the laters’ blade had sunk in it’s thigh.

“Don’t worry Sagax, I’m here to help!” The Argonian shouted to the Imperial as the hulking undead turned to face him. “I’ll try and distract him, see if you can retrieve your sword.” He said, having taken notice of the sword deeply embedded in the back of the abomination that they were now facing. Tsleeixth didn’t had time to say anything else as he was forced to dodge an attack from the undead Tennant, lightning emerging from his fingertips and making contact with the putrid flesh that made up his opponent in a quick counterattack. The creature stopped for a few seconds, its body spasming slightly, and Tsleeixth took advantage of the momentary reprieve to switch to a more defensive stance and to make sure that his control over the risen Dreugh still held firmly.

As the others were fighting for their lives, Alim had taken the harpoon with the grotesque jellyfish on it. He could have sworn he saw it wiggle a bit, though he knew for a fact that the thing was dead. “Professional tomb robber and jewel thief...carrying an exploding jellyfish.” He muttered to himself, ducking and weaving through the combat, still unsure of his own footing so high in the air above the true ground.

He clambered his way up to whatever higher ground he could find, leaping at a rafter and grabbing a hold of it with one hand, unable to pass the most furious fighting. As he had the harpoon in his offhand, tossing the harpoon up in the air to catch with a better grip. He wasn’t muscled like a few of the other companions, but many years scaling walls gave him a fine upper body strength.

“By the nine...don’t fuck up,” he told himself, weighing the moments until he felt just the right time to throw, and he threw the harpoon like a spear. It flew through the air, and the last thing Alim saw before his vision left him was a field of light.

---

An incredible rumble followed the flash of light, and the entire ship trembled with the ear-deafening explosion caused by the catastrophic effect of magic on magic. The golden plating of the ship caved inside from its weaker spots, and the floor cracked wherever it could, destabilizing further towards the epicenter of the explosion, almost caving in. Nearly everyone aboard had gotten blasted into the ground or otherwise dizzied by the reaction; even the Sload, which had looked nearly immovable with its massive size and incredible armor, had found itself smashed into the rear end of the ship with the explosion, its toes, palms and the frontal belly plate of its armor seemingly seared to a crisp by the blast.

Unfortunately, it did not seem as if it were out of commission with such wounds alone. It was not surprising, since Sload were things of myth, and practically nobody had any idea as to how durable they were; it promptly plopped itself out of the crater its body mass had created, and began walking towards the group, letting out a growl which sounded like a tiger’s roar and a whale’s deep moan at the same time. As its growls slowly increased in pitch and began sounding more like a monster’s impersonation of speech, the Golden Slug opened its palms, hands facing the party. Sparks began popping with loud sounds mere inches beyond its palms, indicators of some very potent Destruction magic; no doubt more than enough to turn the group into no more than ash.

As the sparks and loud pops converged into lightning proper, a chitinous mass threw itself out towards the source of the magic and smashed into its torso with a loud slam; Tsleeixth’s Dreugh had reached out at just the right time and saved the party from a rather unceremonious death. Chirping out an alien and disconcerting roar, the Dreugh stabbed one of its claws into the Sload’s palm, and swung the other into its pudgy face, tearing its mouth open, right before the Sload grasped it with its other arm, and poured magic into it until it burnt to a crisp. The air was pungent with the smell of fried crab.

The second one to test his luck was Hargjorn. Seeing the Sload injured and preoccupied with the dreugh, Hargjorn emerged next from the smokes and rushed forward with his falchion raised high. His own battle cry was not dissimilar with that of the dreugh's roar, and his fate was not dissimilar from the dreugh's demise. With amazing reflex and power, the Sload whipped out a giant ball of fire into Hargjorn's way. The resulting explosion completely pulverized Hargjorn, leaving nothing more than chunks of flesh, cloth and metal. The airship itself was also further damaged, causing raptures to appear on deck and on the balloon.

"Do vahknu donu al mi brakumon, sahk vi ahkstos frotita." The Sload growled through its torn jaw, ripping off ruined armor pieces to reveal a multitude of golden necklaces dangling over its drooping stomach. Stubby hands raised and moved like a bard delivering a verse to the beat, which accompanied taunts in heavily accented, barely comprehensible Cyrodilic.

"This is Tmeip'r, the Fiftieth-Sent." The Sload began rapping. "Many men, many, many, many, many men, wish death upon me."

Zombie Tennant had risen again, after being knocked down by the explosive shockwave. Its left arm was squished flat by its own weight, leaving only its club-attached right arm to swing at everyone in sight. The zombie appeared to be no longer coordinated, as the Sload's focus shifted to taunting what remained of the boarding party. Instead of a defensive stance, zombie Tennant swung wildly and clumsily, making outgoing attacks easy to avoid and incoming attacks easy to connect. Pained wails emanated from the zombie's throat, in sounds that almost resembled "end it".

However, the Sload seemed undeterred. Conjuring energy of pure death, something that was unseen by Tamrielic mages, it opened its assault with a flurry of verbal attacks. "I don't know what you heard about me, but a mortal can't get a gold out of me."

Magicka coalesced into spheres in the Sload's hands. "I'll take you to the candy shop; I'll let you lick the lollipop!"

The spell flew out in streaks of black, but as soon as the magicka materialized, it imploded in the very air ahead of the Sload. In its hubris (which included ignoring the damage done by the dreugh), the slugfolk had failed its deadly magic. As a result, the Sload was knocked back once again, and stunned briefly from defending itself.

"Kill it, now!" The sole surviving sailor urged. He didn't do anything himself, in fear of suffering the same fate as Hargjorn.

---

Rozalia Eathliel wasn't exactly a heavy sleeper.

In fact, she was a bit of an insomniac. It was frequently difficult for her to sleep through an entire night, but she had grown accustomed to it. A thief rarely had the luxury of a full night's sleep, so Roze compensated by grabbing naps whenever she could. But on that night, on the stormy northern seas, Roze slept more soundly than everyone else on the ship. Maybe it was the copious amount of alcohol consumed prior night, or maybe it was the waves rocking her to sleep. She dreamed long and deep. The dreams could have been that of her missing father, or that of Sebastian Vorell, her friend with benefits. Whatever it was, Roze did not awake from the nightmares that constantly haunted her since she joined the mercenary company.

Actually, Dumhuvud woke her, by kicking her in the head.

She muttered a string of curses and fumbled through her gears. She didn't want to fight right now, if she ever wanted to fight at all. Sure, she enjoyed scoring a clean kill from the shadows, or springing a deadly trap upon unaware foes, once in a while. But these were guilty pleasures from constantly restraining herself in a precise line of work. She was a thief, a burglar and a con artist, not a warrior. She came to this company to escape the law, to make money and steal a few valuables when opportunity presents itself. She did not sign up to suicide bomb, and she certainly did not sign up to suicide bomb twice.

Yet, there she was before, running dangerous missions with chances of survival slimmer than the starved orphans of Honorhall. There she was now, on the rain-soaked, wind-swept deck, staring down the rotten werewolf (that looked just like Relmyna) and the horde of dreughs that somehow emerged from a golden airship. Some of her comrades were already fighting, and some had even made the perilous climb up the golden chains. She couldn't comprehend what in Oblivion was happening at that moment. All she knew was that the sight of Relmyna, the undead werewolf, made her shiver; she wanted to vomit.

Roze's confoundment was broken by a chattering of mouth parts. She readied her dwarven bow and quickly shot an arrow at the incoming dreugh. It missed, but with practiced hands, Roze was already on her second shot. The next arrow hit a non-vital spot and did little to repel the dreugh. Then the creature was upon her.

On the crowded ship deck, with masses of clutter but little solid cover, Roze found it impossible to run and hide. The dreugh closed in with a back claw slapping into the side of her face, carving out flesh from skin, teeth from gum and knocking her totally off balance. She fell hard on her face; the metallic taste of blood and the salty taste of seawater filled her mouth. Roze's first instinct was to crawl away, but the dreugh did not let her.

"Gaaahhh!" Roze cried in pain as the dreugh snapped its pincer into her right leg, just below her knee. The claws were sharp and the force behind it was strong. Her leg was in so much pain that she almost passed out. The dreugh flipped her around, raised its other claw to drive down into her chest.

Roze did not give up. She suffered great pain before, like having her shoulder ripped out of its socket in Windhelm, so she knew she must fight through it. The second claw was going to skewer her in ways that would surely be extremely unhealthy, which meant she needed to stop it. She grabbed onto the crab-like appendage with her left hand. The dreugh, however, was stronger. Therefore Roze had to twist her left arm past what was natural to keep the claw away. As the creature inched closer, more tendons and muscles snapped. At the same time, her right hand worked to find the dagger that she hastily stuffed somewhere inside her armor.

They came face to face; Breton and dreugh.

Stab!

Roze managed to stick the short steel blade between golden chitin on the dreugh's neck, just when its claw was touching her leather jerkin. The dreugh immediately went limp, and dying with gurgling of its gills. Roze shoved the lifeless thing away with difficulties, as her left arm was torn to the point of breaking. As she eventually pried the creature from her upper body, her found her leg to be tightly wrenched between the dreugh's claws. As a matter of fact, that claw cut through most of her flesh and bone, to the point where the claw itself was what held her right calf together.

"Bloody hell..." Roze whimpered. She sucked in cold, wet air hungrily, feeling the fight seeping out of her. In the distance, the mercenaries were herding their enemies into a tight group. Two women and an ice atronach were helping the Dunmers fight their way to safety. Not far from her, Gustav was turning the ballista to the bad guys. They were going to blast the bastards to Oblivion!

"Urgh..." Roze mewled helplessly as the adrenaline winded down, making the pain much more acute. Rain had soaked her to the bone, along with dreugh blood, and her own blood. Her leather armor may as well be sheets of ice. She shivered uncontrollably as the misadventures of her younger days flashed before her eyes, of her father picking her up when she fell. He couldn't protect her forever, but her own survival was in no small part due to his teachings. She thought of her mother, her friends and mentors in the Thieves Guild. How they taught her to watch her back, watch her friends' backs, and stab the backs of those that betrayed her. She thought of her new friends, of Do'Karth, Sevine and Sagax. Damned Sagax, she thought, that wanker had to play hero. Who else would climb up an airship where crazed monsters originated?

The thought of Sagax led her to look up at the airship itself. Suddenly, an explosion occurred above. Roze smiled, no, she laughed hysterically. Crazy runner boy did it again! For the first time in days, she felt a sense of comfort. They've overcame another impossible hurdle. For some reason, Roze thought of her father once more, she had the feeling that she would see him soon.

Ashes, sparks, charcoal and dust of gold and black poured down alongside the rain. Roze laid down on the chilling deck, reveling in victory as Gustav launched the incendiary bolt, setting the werewolf ablaze in the distance. It was brilliant, like the New Life Festival fireworks in Riften. Roze was about to breath a sigh of relief when she noticed something else on the airship had come loose, some much bigger than the particle aftermath of the explosion.

"Bullocks!" Roze went back to full alarm again. She had to get out of the open, lest she be squished flat like what had just happened to Dough-Boy. She tried standing up, but the claw on her leg was dragging her back down. She tried to crawl away, but the weight of the dreugh kept her in place. Finally, with several large pieces of debris dangling dangerously above, Roze took a deep breath and brought down the dagger on her own leg.

Severing her right calf hurt, but it didn't hurt as bad as Roze expected. There was a lot of blood, but rain had washed it away before she noticed. Maybe she's already numb to the pain, and the blood had clot around her wound. Somehow, she swore she heard the voice of her father telling her that everything would be alright, and their family would find each other no matter what; the last words before he disappeared. Instead of dwelling on the why and how, Roze focused all that she had left into rolling away from a falling debris. Not even a second later, a heavy block of wood impaled itself into where Roze was. Then there was a troll-sized chunk of gold descending, and try as Roze might, she was not getting away from this one.

Rozalia Eathliel closed her eyes in anticipation; she would never open them again.

_{A Collab by: @Spoopy Scary & @MacabreFox}

Onboard the Kyne’s Tear

While Dough-Boy was knocked unconscious by falling debris and Gustav distributing his orders to the company, Leif helped Dar’Jzo to his feet after the old cat’s brush with death. Though he still felt weak after the battering he got from the dreughs, he stood defiantly against the mob that wrought havoc before them. His treasured bow was destroyed, and his arrows lay scattered across the deck, but he drew his dagger and held his ground. His ears were able to catch some of the orders Gustav barked -- whatever it was, it involved the ballista, and with that in mind and a quick assessment of the deck, he started to catch onto the snoot’s meaning. The Khajiit glanced towards Leif at his side.

“You and this one must cut their way through if they are to reach the ballista.” He asserted.

“Right! No lollygagging!”

His gaze swept across the deck, taking in the unfolding events. He spotted Sevine charging across the deck with Maj where an ice atronach slaughtered the remaining dreughs. He could see that Niernen and Narzul were becoming overwhelmed. His eyes shifted back to the ballista, for now the path lay clear ahead. Together, the two of them charged onwards, closing the distance between them and the ballista, Leif had his sword drawn at ready in case any of the dreughs decided to come their way. Anyone inexperienced with the rolling waves of the sea would have had a difficult time keeping their footing onboard the Kyne’s Tear, but this was not the case with Leif. When they reached the ballista, Leif helped retrieve Dough-Boy’s unconscious body from under the debris that had fallen from the airship above and stowed him away under the stairs, while Dar’Jzo headed for the ballista alongside Gustav. The ballista itself had been anchored to the deck of the Tear to prevent it from rolling across the ship, it was a Dwemer ballista that the company had retrieved. The weapon was almost entirely composed of dwemer metal and wood. Heavy, but dangerous when put to use.

Between the two, they were able to pull back the rope as Gustav hurried back to retrieve a bolt, he returned with a long metal shaft where the tip was encased in a cloth wrap tied around the end. The fabric oozed a sticky black substance in some areas, most likely tar, with glowing red specks shining through some of the thinner sections of the cloth. Fire salts. The etchings of orange runes shimmered along the outer layer of the cloth as well. This bolt was built to cause serious damage.

“What is this, then?” Dar’Jzo asked, eyeing the bolt warily as he took aim at the deck. One part of the company lured the undead werewolf in front of the dreugh surrounding the two dark elves -- there.

“OUR SALVATION!” Gustav dramatically declared as he pulled the lever. In that moment, an explosion from the airship above sent debris falling down towards the Tear. Chunks of gold hammered the ship, the ship lurched violently with the rolling waves -- Dar’Jzo’s steady grip on the ballista faltered as it was wrenched from his hands, causing the bolt to arc directly into the deck. The bolt found its target against the horde of enemies, a chaotic eruption of fire enveloped everyone and anything in its path, enemies and allies alike were consumed within the raging inferno from the explosion, to what degree he could not tell. The Khajiit opened his eyes wide, his calm and serious demeanor finally overtaken by a look of emotion.

“Baan Dar…”

The last thing Leif remembered, as he made his way back from the stairs, was the distinct sound of something falling from above. He stopped midway across the deck when he looked up, his eyes focusing in on a chunk of splintered wood sailing right at him. He had no time to react due to the trajectory and velocity, it struck him directly in the head. Leif’s world went black, and his body dropped with dead weight where he collapsed unconscious upon the deck.

_{Featuring @Spoopy Scary}

Night, 7th of Last Seed, 4E205
Smuggler's Cove
Aboard the Kyne's Tear

Gustav’s orders were difficult to relay over the chaos of battle that swept over the ship, but one way or another, the crew of mercenaries combatting the undead werewolf had managed to receive them. With the creature outnumbered and its attention split, it could be easily manipulated into different positions. Piper, Ashna, Adaeze, and Daxainos were able to bully the monster towards the center of the ship while Wylendriel covered the gaps in their defense. The group was so focused on keeping it contained, they were nigh oblivious to the fights around them; the ship overhead, slowly falling apart -- the dreughs on the ship, mostly preoccupied by the Venim siblings.

Everyone was barking one another to keep their formation around the werewolf tight. Perhaps so focused were they that they did not realize what Gustav was planning. Nor did they expect the sudden turbulence as the ship crested a stormy ocean wave, causing the flaming bolt of the Tear’s ballistae to go wide. Wylendriel only noticed this too late as she watched the crew preoccupied with their respective enemies, and watched the dervish Adaeze dance straight into the ballista’s line of fire. As the incendiary shot shrieked through the air, the priestess shrieked out toward her comrades and, without thinking, summoned all of her strength to pull the other Bosmer out of the way and threw her to the ground behind her.

Not a second after, an explosion sparked at the bolt’s point of impact and nearly swallowed the entire deck within its fiery embrace.

It was entirely possible that someone else wouldn’t have survived the situation, had they been where Marcel had been when the bolt struck; though Marcel himself was far too preoccupied with being on fire to remember exactly where. Then again, practically everything was on fire. While the ship’s rigging was saved by a wave crashing into the side of the ship and extinguishing the shrouds, the same could not be said for others. He could see a figure taller than himself flailing around on the ground with its flesh charred black, and another sailor who quickly threw himself overboard as a solution to the fiery problem. Only after smelling burnt hair did Marcel realize that his situation was worse than he’d thought.

At first, he reflexively began trying to pat out the flames with his palms, but then he realized that the solution was simpler than that – he clenched his fists and concentrated to absorb the heat, feeling his energy renewed despite the physical pain. After a moment, the flames eating at him simply disappeared into his body with sizzling sounds, leaving behind nothing but fresh, yet cold scorch marks.

Now, less preoccupied with dying, and clearer of mind, Marcel quickly rushed over to the closest figure that seemed aflame yet alive, the sound her pained screaming drawing him closer, and then put one palm on the figure’s lower back and the other right below the nape of her neck to create a proper conduit before clenching his teeth and soaking the flames off her flesh into himself as magicka. “I’m afraid I’ll need you off here, young lady,” he huffed to himself as Marcel grasped onto her shoulders and began gently pulling her away as to reach the other figure that was underneath her body.

Wylendriel barely noticed she was being pulled away as her lungs still desperately gasping for air to fuel her agonized grunting and yelling, and from beneath her was revealed a slightly burned Adaeze underneath but was no worse for wear since the priestess had taken the brunt of the explosion. The volume of the priestess’ voice was dimming, but she still felt her back sting with every raindrop that fell on it. Scarred flesh and blisters from steam burns and fire marred the tattooed wings with her back now bare, the fire having scorched away part of her clothes, even wet as they were. She weakly reached around with her hand, trying to pull away the hair she felt touching her body -- only to find that her hand was filled with thin strands of crushed charcoal as all the hair below her shoulders crumbled to dust at her touch.

Then the ringing in her ears began to subside. The bells that once deafened her hearing gave way to the sounds of panic and screams. Surely she heard Marcel and Adaeze -- but they were fine -- how many were hurt? How many were dead? Her eyes passed over them and scanned the ship: fire. The crew was running. People throwing themselves overboard. Bodies. People trying to hold onto life, but unable to escape. She couldn’t see the wolf anywhere. But she saw a body rolling across the deck -- was it Ashna? She was cloaked in fire and it was hard to tell, but the woman’s desperate, agonized screams was her death knell. Her skin was bubbling and falling apart and the smell of charred flesh filled the priestess’ nose as she reached out helplessly, her tears hidden by the rain.

“No…” She rasped hoarsely.

The Witch Hunter was not exactly preoccupied with Wylendriel’s emotional state considering the matters of emergency all around him, and thus did not clutter his mind with her seeming despair. While Marcel had been in similarly dangerous situations, ones where he had to help people were in fact more of a rarity than anything else; he leaned down on the Bosmer that had been shielded by the other to check her breathing, while amateurishly patting her cheek to see if she’d give any response. He could sense her life energy, but that did not show him whether she was conscious, or still breathing. After hearing a relieving cough, he raised his head and subconsciously reached for the satchel of healing poultices he kept on his belt for some first aid. Although, as he did so, he could not help but notice the look on Wylendriel’s face, which made him feel some pity. “Don’t you worry now,” he told her, doing his best at an attempt of reassurance; “Look now, she’s fine, you’re fine, and we’ll all be right as rain. That’s all that matters right now, no?”

“No, no, no…” She choked, still struggling to speak and to pick herself up from her hands and knees. “The ship… the company! They’re… she’s...”

Marcel turned to see what Wy was staring at, and noticed that the body he’d passed by earlier was still far too alive for comfort. While he could sense faint life energies in whoever that had been, sharing that fact with anyone else would not be helping the situation, he assessed. “Oh, my,” Marcel muttered to himself as he raised a hand to place on Wylendriel’s shoulder before changing his mind and clasping on Adaeze’s arms. “Let’s carry her somewhere better, shall we?” Marcel asked the seemingly traumatized Bosmer, the burns on his cheek making it somewhat hard for him to put on a positive expression.

“I can’t leave them!” Wy argued, drawing as much strength as she could. The winds of Kynareth carried Ashna’s screams toward her, fueling her anger and desperation. People all around the ship, also on fire or bleeding out. Others trapped beneath, rendered unconscious, or impaled by debris. She wasn’t sure if she could save the Redguard woman, or if trying would only prolong her suffering -- but if she didn’t do anything, even more people might end up dying. She lifted one of her feet, getting off one of her knees. Then the other. Her legs were shaking beneath her weight and she stumbled to catch herself and struggled to regain her balance on the swaying ship, but she eventually found her footing. She continued to pant, “I can’t stop… Kynareth…”

She took a deep breath for a moment, then a scowl appeared on her face before spitting out under her breath, “To Oblivion with Kynareth… I have to do this…”

Wylendriel clapped her hands together and squeezed her eyes shut to steel her focus through the pain. It was a stance she had taken on a few times before and it looked as though she was praying, but now that wasn’t the case. Normally she would pray for Kynareth’s grace and Y’ffre’s mercy to grant her the strength she needed, but for now her thoughts were silent, focusing only on drawing upon her own strength and what was left of it. She put as much faith as she could in herself -- and her hands began to glow.

Though it began with an outline, the shine quickly began to spread from her hands and created a shimmer across her body and strands of light emanated from her person. She let out a few audible grunts as she tried her damnedest to hold herself together, but she gritted her teeth and opened her eyes to look at her comrades and several waves of light pulsed outward from her. Those who were injured would see a warm light fill their wounds and slowly sew them closed, and the wounds on her own back were beginning to numb; and Ashna, her screams became even more intense as her body was caught in a limbo of being constantly regenerated and burned away. Wy almost slipped, but she closed her eyes again. Though her screams chilled her heart, each second of it making her want to stop... thoughts of the rest of the crew pushed through, telling her to continue. So she pressed on, trying -- and failing -- to ignore the screams.

---

When Sevine single handedly swung the jellyfish above their heads, Maj had covered her eyes peeking out only when the jellyfish successfully made it aboard The Golden Slug. She let out an audible sigh of relief. Their luck somehow held. When her bright green eyes tracked back down to the ongoing chaos of the Kyne’s Tear fishing for jellyfish would prove to be the easiest part of the night. Rain continued to fall, the rough stormy sea splashed across the deck. She ran a hand down her face, pushing hair away. The water soaked into every fibre of her clothing, she felt the weight and the cold.

They had to break up the mass of them, there wasn’t a square inch of deck space not occupied by those richly accessorized monsters. The werewolf was at large still and their fellow company were trapped in the thick of it. It was clear to Maj where they needed to be next.

First, to take care of her stumbling, concussed superior. Gently tugging on the crook of her arm she leaned close enough for the breton to hear, “Miss Fontaine, go seek shelter. You’ll be no use out here with that head of yours! Go on now.” She guided her to the railing and shooed her away. “Watch yourself, hang on to the railing.”

Ariane nodded holding the tender head of hers, taking her advice by leaning on the railing. She watched her go, wondering if she’d be open to speaking more in depth of the Golden Slug after they survived the ambush. When she got talking Ariane had plenty to say. Having an academic about in the company was a treat, regardless of the extremely different castes they grew up in.

Maj turned to Sevine, the fiery haired Nord with impressive fishing skills. She saw the bow on her back, eyes lingering on it. They flicked up to Sevine, “You ready to join the fray properly, eh Sevine? Thin the bastard’s numbers!” She shouted over the roar of the storm.

“I’m going to do what I do best!” Opening her palm for her to see, magicka pooling in her hand. “Summoning demons from the depths of Oblivion!”

Sevine’s hands drifted to the axe at her side, and lifted the Chitlin shield from her back, “Right! I’ve got your back.” She let the axe move loosely in her hand, warming up as she swung a couple practice strikes.

She crouched then straightened back up, almost missing a crucial step. “We’re about to charge into battle without a sound? Before I cast a single spell we have to do this one thing Sevine. It has to be loud and it has to be [i]proud.[i]”

Maj spread her legs apart, bending at the knees to crouch low. She tucked her arms into her sides, looking expectantly back up at Sevine. “Come on, I’m not moving until we let out one soul crushing war cry.”

Sevine chuckled, if she were to die this night, she couldn’t deny her request, “On my mark then!” She rolled the axe in her hand, and shook the tension out of her shoulders, “For Sovngarde!” the cry tore out of her, the words fading into a terrifying bellow that she could feel in her core.

Maj sucked in air filling up her diaphragm, “Wahoooooooooo!” With the drawn out ‘ooh’ she straightened, head thrown back. Their war cries ripped out garnering the attention of some nearby remaining Dreughs - fighting amongst the fiery backdrop, they successfully distracted them. Fuelled with adrenaline, Maj’s eyes lit up as her hands were brought together in a hard clap. The purple orb of her conjuration spell formed in the palms of her hands, she slowly pulled apart her hands, fingers splayed open the orb growing size. She spoke the spell as familiar as a bard would sing their favourite song.

Throwing her hands above her head then throwing the orb to the deck, an inky pool of deep indigo swirled outwards in a circle, a line of magic shot up over six feet into the air - widening. First the angular icy head poked through the top of the portal, then the cylindrical hammer of an arm reached out next. Standing up from its slouch the frost atronach stood fully over six feet tall, its head turned to Maj waiting for its first order.

She pointed, “Clear a path, Snowflake! Swat the Dreughs out of the way!” She swept her arm out over the deck.

It slowly turned to the Dreughs acknowledging its temporary master. Long strides brought it thundering across the deck closing in on the dreughs, like a battering ram it swung its arm at the first Dreugh it encountered connecting with its middle. With a powerful throw the Dreugh sailed overboard a subsequent explosion told Maj it landed on a jellyfish. She pumped her fist, “Keep ‘em coming!”

Sevine hadn’t experienced much Conjuration in her life, even on the field of battle, conjurers and mages were far and few between. However, this wasn’t the time to ogle at the atronach Maj conjured, she had to clear the area. It was then she noticed Dreughs swarming Niernen and Narzul.

“We have to help them!” She said, turning her head to look once at Maj, before racing off towards her first opponent. The Dreughs were unlike anything she had encountered. The monsters reminded her of crabs, deformed and mutated crabs plated in gold.

“Hyyyaaaaaggghhh!!” She roared, her axe swinging up into the nearest Dreugh. The tenacity of her shout caused the crustacean to turn and face her. The blade of her war axe connected with the joint in its forearm, cleaving the limb off and maiming it effectively. The clawed forearm fell to the deck as a pained screech erupted from the Dreugh.

The large pincer that sprouted from its back drove into the wood between her feet seconds after she sprang to safety. Sevine whirled around, and drove the axe up into the joint of the foreleg, crippling the monster more so. She reclaimed the axe, a sickening shlup! resonated as she dislodged the weapon, causing the leg to buckle and falling limp.

“Aye!” Her thoughts linked with her atronach, hands still glowing faintly of the conjuration spells duration. The lumbering atronach threw its ice spear of an arm back, the Dreugh facing it was ready for its attack, blocking the tip of the spike with a claw scraping against the ice - failing against the unyielding strength of the atronach. It was pushed off its spiny legs to the deck. Snowflake impaled the creature, Maj shouted to Sevine, “There’s your chance Sevine!”

Sevine moved in for the kill, the familiar blood lust coursing through her veins as she charged into position. A primal scream reverberated throughout her body as she brought the axe down, the blade slicing through the clicking mandibles and splitting the head open. One more swing of her axe, and she had decapitated the crustacean monster, its body falling limp.

Turning to face Maj, she spoke, “Onto the next one!” Their teamwork had paid off for the better, but the Venim siblings weren’t holding on well, she could see that they were losing ground fast, and if they could just reach them, they would have a fighting chance!

Maj pointed Snowflake, they were splitting the monster’s attention but through the crush of bodies it wasn’t quite enough. Snowflake crushed its next target with the hammer of its arm and impaled another holding it in similar fashion for Sevine once again to make short work of its death. They pushed closer, within shouting distance of the dark elves.

“We’re here! Just hang on!” Maj huddled closer to the back of her atronach, directing where she could keeping an eye out for imminent attacks whether that would be at the hands of their enemies or allies.

The simplicity of the ice atronach attacks baffled Sevine, though she didn’t have time to ponder over it. Her focus centered on the Dreughs at hand. Together, Maj and her, plus the atronach were making short work of the remaining monsters, there were still far too many for the Venims to handle on their own. And that was when they heard Gustav’s orders to get the hell out of the way. Sevine’s footsteps faltered, she couldn’t leave them there… not like this.

Maj and Sevine looked on in horror as a Dwemer bolt from the ballista sailed over their head, the bolt imploded on impact, consuming the immediate area around the werewolf, dreughs and their comrades in a blazing inferno. Sevine skidded to a stop, a gasp tore from her lungs as she reached out for Maj, her knees buckling from the sight.

“Mara help us!” She bellowed, her eyes wide and mouth agape. Maj latched onto Sevine’s arm, their combined weight cutting Sevine’s forward momentum.

Snowflake came skidding down to one knee - arms thrown around their bodies, Sevine and Maj roughly herded to safety. Flames blasted across the frost atronach back - violent drafts of steam erupted as the ice melted. Maj covered her head making herself small, Snowflake disappeared at the damage, successfully protecting the pair of women.

Suddenly the chaos became muted, even the screams seemed to quiet.

Warmth washed over them in healing light, it came in waves from one singular spot. Maj stood up straight shielding her eyes to see who was responsible, time seemed to slow. The figure of Wylendriel became clear as the spell dissipated. Maj felt it down to the marrow of her bones, a tug at the soul.

“Not Mara.” Maj said, unable to tear her eyes away. “Kynareth.”

Night, 7th of Last Seed, 4E205
Smuggler's Cove
Aboard the Kyne's Tear

The sky thundered and roared with the fury of the tempest that rocked it, the ship swayed as the sea slammed into it time and time again and the heavy rains battered against Niernen’s face with unrelenting force. These weren’t exactly ideal fighting conditions. She struck down one of the dreugh with a volley of fireballs, their concussive impacts driving the creature off the ship and into the abyss below, while Narzul had evidently regained his composure and scored his second kill of the evening by splitting open a sea-monster’s head with the rim of his shield -- his incandescent rage was evident in the blistering speed and strength of his movements. The Redoran warlord was sick and tired of being wounded and humiliated in combat and all of his indignation and shame had joined forces to fuel a wrath the likes of which the rest of the crew could only imagine.

Good, brother, she thought. Narzul was excessively dangerous when he was angry and that was exactly what they needed right now.

Niernen spotted Maj and Sevine trying to cut their way through the dreugh to get to them and she actually managed to conjure up a smile in relief at the sight. They had not been left to fend for themselves after all. The fact that Sevine, of all people, was trying her damn hardest to save their lives was cause for her to be even more grateful, and touched. Do’Karth had picked his woman well. But as their allies approached, slowly, fighting for every inch of ground, the dreughs pressed in around them once more, and Niernen felt that she was nearing the end of her magicka reserves. Her eyes turned to Narzul’s armored form and the foreboding black blade in his right hand. Would his skills be enough?

All form of coherent thought had left Narzul’s mind and been replaced by a singular, ravenous purpose -- kill. His years of training and experience took over and his emotions overpowered the signals his wounded limbs were sending, giving him the power necessary to confront these crustacean demons and pay them back for his near-death experience. The ebony sword cut down another dreugh in a series of powerful strikes and thrusts that it was far too slow to defend itself against, and Narzul effortlessly caught the blow of another dreugh on his shield before slicing it up, moving so fast that his black sword became nearly invisible in the gloom of the stormy night. His teeth were bared and he was practically foaming at the mouth, crimson eyes spitting fire, and an animalistic roar escaped his throat as he kicked over the corpse of his latest victim. He, too, saw through the red murder-haze that had made itself master of him that Maj, her enormous Atronach and Sevine were trying to clear a path to them, but when they turned their heads to look at something behind them Narzul followed their gaze and saw the ballista turning their way.

“Oh, gods,” he stammered.

A painful, piercing howl suddenly made him whirl around just in time to see Niernen collapse to the deck, bleeding profusely from her back -- one of the dreugh had cut her down from behind while Narzul had been distracted and he had failed to hear her calls for help. Narzul opened his mouth to say, or scream, something, but then a lot of things began to happen all at once. Something fell down from the airship above them and slammed into the Kyne’s Tear, the impact of which almost knocked Narzul off his feet. Before he was even able to regain his footing, the ballista let loose with a loud snap and the explosive arrow whistled through the air briefly before burying itself in the main deck. Narzul dove forward as far as he could, trying to leap on top of Niernen to shield her, when an enormous explosion lit up the night like a supernova and its shockwave knocked him off trajectory, nearly throwing him off the ship.

In what can only be considered a stroke of cruel luck, Niernen’s prone position after being seriously wounded by the dreugh actually conveniently protected her from the worst of the explosion, though she could still feel the intense heat of the flames as they rolled over her. Her screams of agony caught in her throat -- wait a second. Fire?

I am fire.

She raised her arms and, like a prophet from another world, split the sea of flames in twain so that the inferno thundered past her and Narzul on either side, leaving the Dunmer siblings unharmed. Narzul raised his head just in time to see Niernen’s outstretched arms caught in sharp relief against the hellscape that merely sailed by instead of engulfing him entirely -- instead, the dreugh were the ones that were cooked alive in their shells, their death-screams fighting to overpower the immense, rushing noise of the explosion. It was, bar none, the most spectacular thing he had ever seen.

After the worst of the explosion had passed, Narzul scrambled to his feet and dashed towards his sister, bending over to gather her limp form in his arms. She had expended the last of her energy to save their lives from the flames and Narzul knew that it was now his turn to carry the burden of her survival. His head whipped around towards where he had seen Maj, Sevine and the Atronach, and he was immensely relieved to see that they had also survived the explosion in one piece. In fact, their combined efforts followed by the purifying flames meant that there was nothing standing in his way from rejoining their allies, and Narzul stumbled towards them as fast as his injured legs would allow. A terrible, sharp pain stabbed into his shoulders from carrying Niernen’s weight, but he ignored it with iron willpower. “Help! Medic!” he yelled, his throat hoarse.

As if on cue, a golden glow spread across the deck and the night was lit up again. Narzul could feel his injuries begin to slowly knit together and he realized what it was -- a grand healing spell. “Ayem’s mercy,” he whispered, awestruck despite himself, especially when he saw who was at the center of the incantation. He looked down at the bloody, scrappy mess in his arms and saw Niernen’s coppery eyes flutter beneath her eyelids. She was alive.

They were alive.

^{Featuring @POOHEAD189}

Night, 7th of Last Seed, 4E205
Smuggler's Cove
Aboard the Sload Airship

“Fuckin’ Sload, with their fuckin’ airships an’ their fuckin’ chains an’ fuckin’ gold, I swear to the fuckin’ Gods...”

Sadri himself had nearly fallen off the airship along with the sailor knocked overboard by Tmeip’r’s zombie thrall, the impact knocking the already unsteady Dunmer off his feet and sending him tumbling down the edge of the airship. It was only thanks to the abundance of the gold chains laying around was Sadri able to find something to grasp onto and halt his descent. However, in his drunkenness, this dizzying turn of events had caused him to belch most of the contents of his stomach down below to the Kyne’s Tear before letting him focus on climbing back up, and thus, by the time he began attempting that, an explosion rumbled the airship so hard that Sadri found himself holding onto the chain for dear life instead of actually spending any effort on climbing. Shit was fucking intense, as a friend of his once used to say.

He found nothing but chaos back on deck. The scene looked straight out of the works of the famous Moth Priest artist, Jac-Son Pollochius, with blood, guts, dreugh, gold and rotten meat strewn everywhere like random paint on canvas. The gigantic zombie was around still, although there seemed to be a much bigger problem – the Sload, however wounded, seemed to shake its head like it was coming out of a slumber, and propped itself forwards, albeit stunned.

“Kill it, now!” Sadri heard someone say, and with that, he pulled out his bottle of grog, broke it against his iron arm, and then threw it into the Sload’s face as he began rushing towards the thing right after the toss. The bottle thankfully landed broken end first, and embedded itself into what seemed to be the Sload’s right eye. “Eat shit!” He roared as he jumped and landed his iron fist right into the bottle poking out of the Sload’s face, breaking it and smashing the shards further.

Right then, the Sload whacked Sadri in the chest with such a left hook that he found himself flying through the air for what seemed to be the billionth time since he’d found himself in combat, although thankfully, this time he hit the gold bulkhead of the Sload’s quarters, caving it in, but keeping him from falling aboard. He suddenly found himself quite a distance away from the monstrous mage, although its attention was still fixed on Sadri, who had found the wind knocked out of him so badly that he could barely move. It began gathering magic in its palm, seemingly preparing to finish what its punch had started.

Meanwhile, the explosion had rocked the structures around them and torn Alim off his feet for a moment. If he wasn’t as nimble as he’d been trained to be, he might have hit his head. But he landed heavily on his hands and turned back to see the Sload alive but stunned. He grabbed his sword and went rigid, watching the Sload’s movements until it noticed Sadri. He didn’t exactly want to use Sadri as bait but there was very little choice at the moment.

Ducking and dodging over fallen timber, he kept low with his sword at the ready. “Kill it now!”

“Eat shit!”

He couldn’t keep more than one eye on the fight as he moved, but right when he turned the corner and flanked the sload, he saw Sadri get knocked off his feet. “Beautiful,” he deadpanned, and then steadying himself, he leaped atop one of the planks that leaned against the walls and used it as a springboard to leap, sailing through the air. The Sload turned when he saw sparks filling the side of its toad-like vision, but he could never guess that a storm enchanted sword would slice into the side of its head at breakneck speed.

...Unfortunately, due to its physiology, it did not break the Sload’s neck, or kill it. But it screeched with a pitiful, rage fueled ire and struck at Alim who had not even hit the ground yet, tossing him across the way and into a pile of kindling.

“Hate it or love it, baby, the underfrog’s on top, and I’m gonna shine, homie, til my two hearts all stop!” The Sload rapped out with obnoxious brag as it held a rhythm to an unknown beat with its good hand, its corpulent fingers snapping as it slowly hobbled over towards Alim. It was either unbelievably confident in itself, or just too damn fat to move any faster, which would’ve fit the stories Sadri had heard; but then, how the fuck was it able to slap them around like it was a rabid troll? “Fuckin’ books never get it all right,” the Dunmer huffed to himself, each of his breaths stabbing into his lungs, as he propped himself up from the ground.

Looking around, he could not find any discarded weapon to use; although the rookie was in danger, Sadri knew he had to find something to make his strike have more ‘oomph’ first, lest he get slapped around into Anu-knows-what once again, like an oversized ragdoll. “Fuck it,” Sadri thought as he snapped off one of the broken planks that kept the floor underneath them with his iron arm and pulled his arm back the way a javelineer would. He roared, and heaved the plank forward with all his might as an impromptu harpoon intent on murder.

Sadri had horrendous aim, and he likely would’ve missed, had he not been aiming at the fattest fuck seen this side of Mundus in the last two eras.

The wooden plank’s pointy end plucked itself deep into the Sload’s chest from the side just as it’d raised its arm to smash down onto Alim with a lightning-infused slam, and the giant beast hobbled to the side with the impact, swaying further and leaning itself against a cracked bulkhead, its neck huffing and oozing blood as it struggled to catch some breath. Sadri celebrated his own shot, raising his fist up in the air.

“Let’s kill this fat bastard, boy toy!” Sadri screamed out to Alim as he gathered the last of his strength and began rushing at the Sload, intent on taking it down, consequences be damned.

Alim heard Sadri cry out, collecting himself in an instant. The adrenaline in his body too prevalent at the moment. He’d feel the aches tomorrow, though. Wait, was boy toy at Alim!? He’d talk about that later, but all of his anger was currently fueled toward killing this toad-like abomination. Right when Sadri hit it, the monster swayed, threatening to topple over.

Alim curled his legs, and sprang, sword leading. The point of his blade cutting into the sload’s side, where a normal man’s kidney would be. He heard the thing croak in what he assumed pain, and called out a word in magicka. Flames began to lick along the blade as Alim drove his sword ever deeper into the things body until it was but a few inches from the hilt.

“Die, you son of a bitch!” Alim cried, twisting the blade to make as much internal damage as he could.

As the Sload attempted to painfully blather out something in response to the half-blood’s righteous stab, a rebel yell interrupted its attempt, and right afterwards, a dark-colored mass whizzed by Alim’s vision and slammed into the Sload with great velocity. The sudden impact caused the spellsword’s imbued sword to tear and snap through organ and bone and spill them out from the side, and almost disarmed him with the sudden buck; then there was a tremendous cracking sound, as the cracked side plates of the airship gave way under immense weight and seemingly swallowed the Sload whole. There was naught but a gaping hole where the creature had once been, leading to nothing but an uncanny view of the storm outside.

Sadri, it seemed, having run out of ammunition, had decided to use himself as his next harpoon, and thrown himself heel-first into the Sload’s wounded belly, causing the wooden ‘javelin’ he’d thrown to pierce the creature further and kick it down on his rear. Only, its rear had landed flat against the bulkhead that it’d smashed into two times already. Gold plated or not, the ship hadn’t been able to handle the pressure of fat Sload ass ramming into it for the third time.

It was hard to explain how the old Dunmer had gathered the strength to dropkick the Sload hard enough to budge it off its feet. They say that the Dunmer have strong connections with their ancestors, who lend their strength to their descendants in their times of need or glory – although considering how utterly suicidal and foolish Sadri’s action was, it is safe to say that either his ancestors hate his guts and want him out of the worldly equation, or are merely similarly foolish. Of course, it is entirely possible that the fuel for this had just been the sugar and the booze, not ancestral aid. Mundus may never know.

Considering the Sload’s immense weight, it had taken mere moments for it to reach terminal velocity, although Sadri was following right afterwards, his left foot caught in the wound Alim had thrust into the corpulent necromancer’s body. It had only taken a few seconds for them to smash into the Kyne’s Tear like some sort of insane meteor, punching down through top deck and nearly smashing through the second as well. The impact was so strong with the Sload’s weight that the Kyne’s Tear almost capsized, and sent at least two unlucky sailors overboard. One particular member of the company was crushed and killed instantly underneath the Sload. Sadri himself would have likely died, had Tmeip'r's bones not been crushed under its own weight with the fall, finally killing it and turning it into practically a macabre cushion for the Dunmer to land onto. Nonetheless, the impact was still strong enough to fracture Sadri’s heel, batter his hip badly, and knock him unconscious.

With the source of the seaborne scourge laying dead onboard the Kyne’s Tear, it was time for the survivors to get away from the dying airship as quickly as possible, tend to their wounded, and pay their dues to their dead.

by @Mortarion, @Dervish and myself

7th of Last Seed
Aboard the airship

---

White. In an instant that lasted an era, that’s all Sagax could see. He was blind, but he felt the raw force of the blast across his body, and could feel himself being sent up into the air and then coming back down. His whole front flared up in searing pain, as if he had jumped into a furnace. Even as he landed, Sagax’s ears rang and the Imperial found himself dizzy and disoriented. All he could hear was a distant roaring, unable to make out what it was saying. Eventually his vision and full hearing returned, thrusting him into a horrifying nightmare.

The airship was gone, the Sload and its zombified warrior little more than a distant memory now replaced by another, but was as vivid as the day it happened. All around him was the all too familiar sights and sounds of Windhelm’s docks, once again surrounded by the screams of the scared and the dying. He felt the cold wind against his chest, which was bared as the armor that once protected it had long since been charred away. In the middle of the fog, staff swinging in all directions and sending spells flying recklessly through the air, was the Kamal sorcerer. Its roar had turned into guttural laughter at the sight of the weak and frail Imperial before it.

When Sagax locked eyes with the beast, he did not fear it. All of his terror was being washed away by something new. Something just and primal and instinctual but far, far more destructive; he was consumed by an all-encompassing rage. When he saw his blade dangling off the bastard’s belt like some trophy, all Sagax knew was that he wanted the demon dead. He would drape himself in its blood, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

There was a sailor in his way. They sounded familiar and their formed seemed to...shift, but Sagax didn’t pay him enough mind to get a proper look. He simply shoved the man to the side as he sprinted toward the sorcerer.

The first sign that Tsleeixth had that he was alive was the slight jolt that he felt course through his body. He knew the feeling, his thrall had been destroyed by magic and potent one if he had felt some of it even when he hadn’t been focusing all of his attention in controlling the undead Dreugh. However, Tsleeixth didn’t have much time to think about the implications behind the destruction of his thrall, as pain flared up in his bum knee and quickly began spreading throughout his entire leg.

Willing himself to ignore the pain, Tsleeixth stood on shaky legs, still trying to get his bearings after the explosion that had seemingly knocked them all out. The thing that brought him fully to his sense was the sound of running, and the sound of a body hitting the deck of the airship followed by a stream of curses. The source of the latter became clear soon, one of the surviving sailors was lying on the ground, as for the origin of the former sound, its origin became all too clear soon as soon as Tsleeixth laid eyes on Sagax charging at full speed towards the zombified form of Tennant Ibnazh.

The zombified warrior also had taken notice of the Imperial charging at him and began swinging its club-appendage in Sagax’s direction; and yet the Imperial didn’t seem to register the danger at which he was running towards. Tsleeixth tried to move in the direction of the Imperial runner, but as he tried to advance pain flared from his knee once more and caused him to drop to a kneeling position. “C’mon Tsleeixth, now’s not the moment to let your weakness overcome you, if you do nothing Sagax is as good as dead.” The Argonian thought to himself, inwardly chastising his body for its weakness. Forcing himself to stand, the pain in his knee increasing with every movement he took, the Saxhleel spellsword began to sprint towards his Imperial comrade until at last, with a cry of pain, he was close enough to tackle Sagax out of the way of one of the zombie’s clumsy attacks, which instead hit him in the back.

“AaaAAAAAGH!” Sagax shouted as he hit the ground. When he looked up, he saw another sailor standing above him. Where the hell did he come from?

Raising his legs up, Sagax looked the man dead in the eyes, feeling the most powerful anger he had ever experienced in his life. “OFF!” he screamed before letting his boots loose into the chest of his savior, completely oblivious to the pain and effort Tsleeixth went through to keep him from harm. Undeterred, Sagax scrambled to his feet with the speed of a raging wolf and continued his beeline for the Kamal. “I HAVE TO KILL IT!”

Getting booted on the lungs certainly wasn’t what Tsleeixth was expecting when he had tackled Sagax, but in hindsight he probably should have expected something along those lines given the way that he was behaving. “To oblivion with that, all you are going to do is get yourself killed.” The Argonian thought, wheezing as Sagax scrambled to his feet.

It took him a few seconds, and even more pain from his bum knee, but Tsleeixth managed to get up on his feet as well and to tackle Sagax a second time. “Get a grip Sagax!” The spellsword shouted, raising his fist and hitting Sagax square on the side of his face. “If you are...if you are…” The Argonian tried to speak but began wheezing midway through what he was saying and it wasn’t long before he was coughing blood, either due to the blow that he had taken tackling Sagax the first time or due to the hit that Sagax himself had managed to get off.

The coughing fit subsided for a moment and Tsleeixth took the chance to punch Sagax one more time. “If you are still insisting on getting yourself killed, you’ll have to go through...through me…” The Argonian managed to say, standing up on shaky legs before the coughing fits began once again.

Just who the hell was this guy!? That was the second time he had brought Sagax to the ground. Did he have a death wish? If so, Sagax unfortunately did not have the time to grant their request. He was completely single minded, and nothing would stop him from reaching his goal. He noticed his pursuer favored one of his legs, and could also notice a slight limp in their step.

“So BE IT!” He roared, unleashing a vicious sweep straight into the knee of the sailor’s bad leg.

He was absolutely giddy with rage. He had finally reached his target, and all the haphazard flailing in the world wouldn’t keep him from plunging steel deep into their insides. One strike after another Sagax dodged and weaved through before finally getting close enough to dive for his blade. It gleamed and shined, his reflection clear as day. A perfect instrument of vengeance.

After that, Sagax lost all track of time and place. The only thing driving him was his mad desire to rip and tear. He would bore into the ice demon’s massive guts and parade them around the coasts, stringing them all across the deck and mast of the Kyne’s Tear. Each stab, slash and hack was wilder than the previous, but Sagax wasn’t worried about his accuracy. He could feel the blood coat him, even if it to be an oddly small amount for what he was doing to the beast, and in that moment he felt an overwhelming sense of both pride and accomplishment.

Tsleeixth definitely hadn’t expected Sagax to hit him in his bum leg, but it had the desired effect as the Argonian crumpled into the ground as a result of Sagax’s kick. He laid there on the ground, his leg on fire, coughing blood into the deck of the airship, until the coughing fits subsided for good and his pain had diminished to the point where he could will himself to ignore it and stand up.

Unfortunately, the time that had taken him to recuperate had given Sagax the perfect window to reach the zombified Tennant. To the Imperial’s credit, he wasn’t yet hit but Tsleeixth wasn’t about to take a chance and let Sagax get himself killed in his blind-fury. Taking a moment to compose himself, the spellsword gathered his magicka on his palm and conjured a half-formed atronach which he promptly unleashed on the crazed Imperial with a single order: keep him pinned down. With Sagax out of the way, Tsleeixth recovered his sword from the ground and approached the zombie warrior before sending a blast of lightning in the direction of the Sload’s thrall.

The zombie warrior changed its course towards the spellsword, swinging it’s club-appendage wildly as it attacked Tsleeixth. For the first few moments, the Saxhleel managed to evade the attacks of his foe and even managed to score a few hits of his own but as the fight dragged on the hits that Sagax had managed to score began slowing down Tsleeixth and allowed the zombie Tennant to score a couple of hits. Fortunately, the heavier armor that Tsleeixth now wore offered him a much better degree of protection but it was clear to him that he had to finish the fight soon or otherwise the balance would shift in the zombie’s favour.

“A thousand curses upon you!” Sagax shouted at Tsleeixth as the atronach held him down, keeping him from his prize. “I was SO CLOSE! DAMN YOU!” At least now, it seem the fool would fully suffer for their intervention. The sorcerer outmatched the sailor tenfold, the idiot bastard becoming more sluggish with each step.

As the quarrel continued Sagax felt the pressure on him begin to weaken, and the atronach appeared to be slowly fading away. Eventually the Imperial was able to wriggle himself out of its grasp and once again retrieve his blade. Ignoring the sailor at his feet, Sagax leapt at the Kamal and climbed up its back for a final strike. When he had a good hold, he raised his sword, now holding it blade-down. With one swift motion, Sagax plunged his sword straight through the head of the kamal sorcerer. It was softer than he expected, but that just made it all the better. He continued to hang on as the beast twirled and spasmed, determined to take it down.

Tsleeixth hadn’t noticed his Atronach weakening, nor Sagax’s escape from its grip, until the Imperial’s blade came out of the other side of the zombified Tennant’s head. He didn’t stop to question what Sagax was doing and instead drove his sword through the zombie’s stomach, twisting the blade before pulling it out. It didn’t take too long for the zombie to topple backwards, finally dead.

With the threat of the zombie warrior finally over, Tsleeixth felt the adrenaline leave his veins and the pain return gradually. It didn’t take too long for the pain to become unbearable due to how much he had overexerted himself and his bum leg, and so the Saxhleel spellsword collapsed on the deck of the airship with a cry of pain.

He didn’t even notice that he fell. All Sagax knew was that he saw the form of the ice demon collapsed before him, blood seeping out of every part of its body. He took a moment to savor this victory before yanking his blade out of the corpse of his nemesis, raising it high in a stance of triumph.

“YES! DIE! AHAHA!” Undoubtedly unnerving to all but himself, Sagax let out loud, victorious laughter. He was overcome by a sense of jubilation, yet he was so tired. He held his head in his hands in an attempt to contain himself, but when he opened his eyes he became disoriented and confused. Around him was not the river of Windhelm, nor the cold stone walls of the city. The air was still cold, but he felt heat all around him. Thrust back into reality, the Imperial was now surrounded by the flaming wreckage of the airship. In front of him was not the kamal sorcerer, but the zombie warrior of the slug creature.

“I...what? Where am I?” His head felt like it was about to burst open, and it was difficult to breathe. “Tsleeixth…!” Sagax took one step, and only one step, before falling to the ground. His vision was blurred and everything around him spun; no matter how hard he tried to stand the weary man simply couldn’t find his ever-present balance.

His blade clanked to the ground in front of him, covered in blood and bile. What little Sagax could see of himself made his eyes go wide with horror. His face was absolutely coated with blood, and when he looked down at himself he saw more and more covering his whole body. What had he done? Everything was so fuzzy, and trying to recall anything made his head hurt even worse.

“Ts...Tsleeixth. What...ngh...what happened? I don’t...I don’t know what I did and...oh sweet Mara I feel like I’m going to be sick…”
Tsleeixth tried to stand up as he heard Sagax address him, letting out a relieved sigh when he noticed that the Imperial was back to normal. “Oh, thank the Hist that you are back to normal, Sagax.” The Argonian spoke, trying to stand up to help Sagax only to wind up falling to his knees. He panted for breath, trying to push the pain out of his mind, and after a few moments, the Argonian managed to stand up once again though it was evident by the shake of his legs that Tsleeixth was in a bad shape.

“I….I couldn’t rightly tell, you….you seemed to go mad with bloodlust.” The Argonian began to explain as he made his way towards Sagax with slow, measured, steps. “You charged towards the Sload’s thrall without a care in the world, as if your sole objective in life was its demise. I tried to stop you, but you resisted….violently so.” He continued on, wincing at the mention of the violent way that Sagax had resisted his attempts to keep him away from the zombie Tennant. “You only managed to get to the zombie once you struck me on my bad leg….after the explosion and all that had happened I didn’t had the strength to stand up in time to stop you.” He explained as he finally reached the Imperial.

“That doesn’t matters now though, what’s important is that you are back to normal and that the zombie is dead.” Said Tsleeixth, trying to smile towards Sagax but it was easy to tell that it was a strained, and somewhat fake, gesture. “Come, take my hand, I’ll help you to get up. We should probably get out of here as quickly as we can, we also need to figure a way to get Do’Karth out as well. The zombie knocked him out cold, so he won’t be able to make it down the chain by his own.” He said to the Imperial, offering him both hands to help him stand up.

The words had come and gone from Do’Karth’s mind, registering the shouting and words of his friends but not comprehending the words. The world slowly came back into focus from the darkness that had consumed him… how long had it been? The last thing he recalled was being forced into the deck and his vision blurring to black faster than he could react. His entire body screamed in pain, and he was aware of the blood dripping out of his muzzle. Suddenly, he realized he wasn’t breathing properly and he began to cough bloody spittle, driving his knuckles into the deck and pushing himself up. His mind began to clear, and soon he was looking around, trying to find his staff, the danger, anything. Another coughing fit, and more red-tinged fluid splattered violently from his diaphragm.

He caught sight of Tsleexith and Sagax moments later, and from their posture the fight was over. Trying to stand, he struggled, his legs feeling like lead weights. “...S-sorry.” he managed, amazed his throat was able to form words.

“Thank you, Tsleeixth...and uh, it probably doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry for any...trouble I caused. I wish I could recall…” Slowly but surely, Sagax began to feel his strength return. The world steadied and his breaths slowed, though he still felt a bit strange. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Unfortunately there was still quite a lot to do. The highest priority at that moment was getting off the airship.

When he saw movement, Sagax hobbled his way towards it, lo and behold, it was none other than Do’Karth. “Karth! There you are!” he said reaching down to help the singed cat up. “I’m glad you’re still among the living. Come on, we should go, there’s no telling how long this tub is going to stay up.”

Accepting the help, Do’Karth struggled to his feet. His head immediately began to throb. “This one needs to find his staff. What happened?” he asked, looking around for the sload and finding the monstrous ghoul.

Tsleeixth looked around the ruined deck of the airship, spotting Do’Karth’s staff laying perilously close to one of the holes that had been created during the explosion. The Saxhleel spellsword made his way to the staff and bent to pick it up, hissing as pain flared in his bum knee again, before returning to the Khajiit and Imperial. “Here’s your staff Do’Karth.” He said, presenting the staff to the Khajiit, “It probably must have rolled through the deck during all the commotion.” The spellsword speculated. “As to what happened….well, Sagax and I fought against the Sload’s thrall and managed to vanquish him.” Tsleeixth explained to Do’Karth, “As to what happened to the Sload….I believe that Alim and Sadri were fighting it and seeing as it's no longer present on the ship, I believe they were triumphant.”

“But we won’t know for sure until we leave the ship, I think.” He spoke, shaking his head slightly. “Oh, and Sagax, there’s no need to apologize, you weren’t yourself.” The Argonian said, turning to look at the Imperial. “But come now, we can continue this discussion once we are safely back on the Kyne’s Tear.”

“This one apologies for being so reckless. You could have been injured.” Do’Karth protested, looking crestfallen.

“Don’t feel too bad, Karth. You aren’t the only reckless one, as I’m sure you know.” Sagax said as he secured his blade to his person. “Now let’s get moving before we end up in the sea.”