I spread my arms dramatically and run to my part "Welco ladies and gentlen to Fal'Zhardum Din, or as it is more widely known to us re mortals: Blackreach." I explain most generously.
Marco claps enthusiastically and stops after realizing no one is following his lead, he shyly scratches his cheek and retreats to the back of the group eliciting chuckles from most of us.
As everyone takes a breath of the... surprisingly fresh air, I turn serious and start giving orders "Edrassa start raising walls, Marco, Minthara you two will follow to the right" I turn to the rest of my vassals "Davos you and the brothers will secure the left."
(General POV)
As Reyvin's orders are heard everyone quickly gets to work.
The lift they exited was positioned on high ground compared to their imdiate surroundings so Edrassa got to work rising walls at the more obvious edges of the small hill. The high ground was as many know a most potent weapon, even more so when fortified, and considering how many Falr Reyvin detected at a glance they would need every single advantage they could get.
Davos' group, which was heading south (not that they had any idea about that while underground) found themselves exploring a small cluster of Dwer houses, the walls were in pristine condition and there wasn't a hint of rust anywhere in sight.
"Bloody mad that" Varen mutters and turns to Davos "How old would ya recon this place is bossman?"
Davos shrugs as his eyes remain focused on their surroundings "Thousands of years obviously, don't know much beyond the fact that the Dwer were active in the rethic era and disappeared after the battle against Saint Nerevar." He scratches his chin in thought "Sothing about attempting to turn themselves into a god or sothing resulting in them deleting themselves from existence." He shrugs once more "Ask the Lord if you are curious, I ain't the scholar here."
Varen looks at him worriedly "Wouldn't that be improper?"
Davos thinks the question over for a mont "At the mont? Not really." He explains simply "In the future? Most likely yes."
"Oi, you two!" Oren calls them over "Sothing you might want to see over here!"
Davos approaches the oldest brother and his eyebrows lift with both surprise and annoyance as he looks upon a sowhat fresh skeleton wearing necromancer robes sitting slumped against one of the houses, a dead red herb resting in one of its bony hands.
"Keep quiet" Davos begins sternly "The Falr have very sharp ears and your yelling will alert them" Oren winces and nods. Davos grabs the red plant and the satchel resting beneath the skeleton "Lord Dagoth will know what to do with this, let us continue with our work."
(Reyvin's POV)
"Go out and explore they said" Marco grumbles as he and Minthara are forced to trudge through the shallow waters leading up to a murky tower "It will be a right fun ti they said" He throws his arms up "Well does it look like I am having fun right now you twats?!"
"Marco!" I turn to him abruptly, my movents eased by the fact that I am levitating above the water, he flinches as my glare lands on him "Language."
The Altr looks ready to strangle and is only distracted by Minthara lightly laughing at the constantly changing colors of his face.
Soon we finally stand before the tower's entrance, the webs encasing so of it giving a very good impression of what might await inside. I open the doors confidently and march in like I own the place, the local spiders stiffening and standing at attention as I approach very much justifying said confidence.
I look at the collection of twenty massive frostbite spiders that had probably gorged themselves on the Falr for years, natural selection making sure that they were among the most powerful of their species.
My voice is filled with phala's aura as I command them "Hunt none but the Falr, ambush them and feast on their bodies, make sure you are not discovered."
Not even a mont passes and the spiders get to work.
"Well... that was" Marco trails off.
"Utterly disgusting." Minthara finishes for him.
I shrug and head for the massive cluster of eggs "Waste not, want not." I run my hand across the eggs and feel the literal thousands of lives inside, eagerly waiting for their chance at survival.
A sha that they will not get said chance "Hatch" I command and as one all the eggs burst and the newborn spiders gather in front of , almost in perfect order I note absent mindedly.
I turn to my students and tell them to guard the door, and as they rapidly exit the room, likely trying to get as far as physically possible from the mass of spiders, I get to work.
First I draw a circle around the roughly two and a half thousand spiders and they quickly stack upon each other to make sure they all fit. I start adding runes and as I do so I can almost feel a hand guiding my work.
I guess phala approves of the idea.
Finally, nearly half the chamber stands covered in mostly Dunri script and so weaker soul gems, I clap my hands and a burst of Magicka ignites the ritual. I feel the infant spiders' panic for but a mont before their lives are extinguished and the sea of small mories and impressions starts to batter against my mind.
Soon the ritual is complete and I feel yet another connection attach itself to the outer shell of my soul.
[Conjuration Adept => Expert]
[Summoning bonds:]
[Scorch]
[Shackled Reach]
[ Chittering swarm: An army of poisonous, flesh-devouring tiny spider-shades, blessed by the divine mistress of said spiders. What is there not to love?]
I scoff at the description, of course she couldn't hold back whenever sothing has even the tiniest connection to her...
The quiet giggle in the back of my head is all the confirmation I need.
The advancent in conjuration was a pleasant surprise, but then again I have been abusing shadow-walking like a complete madman so it wasn't an utterly unexpected developnt.
I was becoming very good at many different schools far sooner than I originally expected. A sha that I couldn't dedicate more ti to expanding my spell repertoire to a ridiculous degree but I guess that hyperfocusing each school for a specific application had its
advantages.
Still, this expedition was very likely to take months if not longer so I had all the ti and excuses to start delving deeper into the art of spellcrafting. Whenever we established ourselves down here anyways...
I fetch my students and we head back toward the campsite, the next wave should be coming down soon, better make sure they weren't t with a wave of Falr.
We return to the campsite roughly at the sa ti as the other team I sent out, Edrassa has been hard at work and a earthen wall now surrounded our little beached into the unknown. Davos approaches and tosses a small satchel which I lazily levitate into my hand and look at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Found that under the remains of a necromancer" He informs "It looked to be about a year old, not sure how he even got down here." He mutters and straightens up "Anyway, we did notice a large group of Falr moving about, they seed to be patrolling but they didn't approach the little hamlet we scouted."
I nod slowly "I am not all that surprised that soone else floundered into this place" I say loud enough for everyone to hear "It is theorized that there are dozens of entrances leading into Blackreach from all over Skyrim, so even posit that there are tunnels leading straight to Markarth and beyond sowhere, though those are most likely completely buried at this
point."
"Why would they be buried if this place survived for so long?" Minthara asks, confused.
I shrug "They might not be, but I think that the Falr might have collapsed at least so of them to keep themselves safe... or it could have just been earthquakes" I hum.
My musing is interrupted as the lift opens up once again and Phineas walks out with about a dozen adventurers following behind him.
"Reyvin" He nods in greeting "I trust we are in no imdiate peril?" He asks with his usual
terseness.
"The danger is not imdiate but it is imminent" I offer my non-answer "The Falr have not noticed us yet but they will inevitably do so, so we should make sure our position is
defensible."
He blinks at and lazily lifts his left hand, summoning two dozen of the most intact Dwer spheres I left upstairs "Will this suffice for now?" He drawls.
I think his implication over for a minute before nodding "I should be able to get at least so functional before the day is out." I wince lightly "Though so will likely end up ruined."
He waves off "You speak as if anyone else could even dream of starting the cursed hunks up, I will fly to the other side of the cavern and cause another cascade to distract them" He states with certainty "Do not worry if I do not return, I will be back either way."
"But of course Master Gestor" I incline my head "Happy hunting."
He leaves without another word and I quickly get to work.
Soon our reinforcents start coming down in waves, Tolfdir likely remaining atop the lift to
make sure everything was in order.
A full day passed before I felt a massive wave of death magic erupt on the other end of the cavern, and just as promised Phineas did cause a great distraction. My rapidly evolving clairvoyance inford that close to a thousand Falr died and dozens were dying by the hour. Phineas was playing the slow ga it appeared.
My freshly conscripted ga spiders were also doing majestic work, they had apparently taken even my subconscious preferences into mind and started targeting the mages among the Falr ranks, decimating the apprentice level casters of the enemy force.
As I finished tinkering with yet another sphere, my eight if my tired mind could even count at
this point, my tent was suddenly covered in webs as phala decided to show herself once
more.
"Prince phala" I greet her without turning around, my hands still busy with the finishing touches of the targeting inscription upon the sphere's left arm.
"Reyvin" She greets as warmly as a Daedra can "I see you are keeping busy."
I flick one last rune into place with my diamond-tipped carving needle and turn around "I am indeed, there is so much to find down here I might get lost for years on end."
"The Dwer were creative, yes" She nods slowly "And yet they were also exceedingly arrogant, you would do well to learn from their mistakes."
I chuckle at her insinuation, causing her to raise an eyebrow "Oh I am not nearly foolish
enough to do sothing as stupid as they tried to do, I value both my freedom and my life far too much."
She nods happily, and to my great surprise it almost looks like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders "That is very good" She smiles in her usual seductive manner "In any case, I have
co here to give you a bit of a warning."
"Oh?" I raise a questioning eyebrow.
"The void's followers have set their sights on you." She states ominously.
I tilt my head "The murderhobos?"
She looks at for a long mont before bursting into rry laughter, she slaps her thigh
multiple tis before she calms down and gives a wide grin "Yes indeed... the murderhobos" She confirms before falling into another fit of giggling.
The atmosphere turns infectious as I too join in the honorable act of deriding Sithis' bunch of
murder happy madn.
"I admit I am a bit surprised" I begin after we finally calm down "I thought you preferred to
see how things played out instead of interfering directly."
She waves off daintily "That is for the lesser followers dear, you are my chosen and it
would reflect very poorly on if you were to get taken out due to the temper tantrum of a gold skinned whore."
I tilt my head "Elenwen actually decided to try and remove did she?" I cup my chin
"Probably the wisest decision she could have made, not that anything she did could have made a difference in any case." I quickly add.
phala nods in satisfaction "Indeed, the little fool thinks herself wiser rely because she has gold skin" She chuckles "Making her an even greater fool."
"I do wonder..." I begin tentatively "So theorise that you are the one posing as the night
mother, and you should know by now how I deal with threats..."
She blinks "Oh..." and once again begins laughing "I haven't done that in two centuries" She
explains happily "Good tis..."
"Right" I drawl "Well, I am most thankful for the warning" I tilt my head "If that was
everything?"
"Actually" phala interrupts and brings out two cups filled with a familiar steaming brew "How about you and I chat for a while?" She smirks invitingly.
Hmmm, on the one hand prince of lies and betrayal, on the other hand... supernatural coffee.
Fuck.
Bunch of tiny spiders
chewing on your bones
they will eat your liver
if you don't give stones
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