Spin-Off (1/12/19)

You enter the inn and approach the front desk, passing a few patrons on your way. No one seems to be paying you any mind. Good.


It’s exactly what it sounds like. You’ve killed people. People who certainly didn’t deserve it. If you weren’t currently working with Clavicus Vile you’d have turned yourself over already. You still might once you get this sorted out.



You push all of those kinds of thoughts out of your mind as you lean against the counter, giving the innkeeper what you hope to be an innocuous smile.



“Greetings, innkeeper.” You say. “Would you happen to have any work or know someone who does?”



He points to the wall on his right with his thumb. Your eyes follow and you see a corkboard with a few notices posted on it.



“There are a few odd jobs posted over there.” He says. “I do know that there’s been something prowling around town at night that’s attacked a few people and the City Watch have put a hefty bounty on it. Judging by the sword on your back you might have some luck hunting it. There’s more info on the board if you’re interested.”



You give him a quick nod. “Thanks, I’ll consider it.” You walk over to the notice board and look over some of the jobs. Hunting some creature certainly is within your skill set. Plus you’d be doing a service to a somewhat large number of people.



The first notices that catch your eye are pretty mundane. You could fix a well for ten gold, put some whitewash on somebody's house for twenty, or kill a pack of wolves that have been praying on livestock for thirty-five. There’s also a notice from the Imperial Legion and some sword lessons. Finally you see the notice of the ‘Night Prowler’. You take it down for a better look.



It talks about how several people have gone missing only to be found killed with claw and bite marks and sometimes burned. It recommends that the normal civilians of the town should ‘buddy up’ if they’re going out at night. It also mentions the bounty the Innkeeper told you about. It’s three hundred gold for its head. This is looking tempting. Based on what this tells you you come to the conclusion that it could simply be an Imp with fire magic. Likely a big one. You look up at the sky out of a nearby window. It’s going to get dark within the next hour.

As much as you’d love to take a nap first, you can’t. You don’t have any gold to pay for the room and you doubt he’d just give it to you if you promised to pay him back. You’ll have to do a job first.




It’s true that you’d have to make contact with someone from the watch to collect your reward. But...
Honestly, you don’t want to paint someones house or fix a glorified hole in the ground for a few pennies. You could hunt the wolves, but that could take a few days given its nature. Granted so could hunting this imp but the reward is ten times more so it’d be more worth your time.




You look over at the poster. While it is a Khajiit, it’s not you. This is someone named Ra’Jhin who’s wanted for petty thievery and illegal drug possession. Go figure.


You sigh and decide that you’ll risk getting arrested and hunt the imp. If things go well you’ll be set on money for quite some time. If not you’ll at least be answering for your crimes.



You smile bitterly at the thought, though your mind also travels back to the deal you had made and all of those lives you have taken. The smile is gone a moment later and you rip the notice for the Night Prowler off the board before heading outside. You can’t let the vampire’s deaths be in vain, and that means you have to survive and get back to Clavicus Vile’s shrine.



The cold air rustles your fur as you move down the cobble street. You look up at the now setting sun.





Something about it seems odd. It’s… too red. A knot forms in the back of your throat and you suddenly notice the sense of dread suspended in the air. Had this always been here? You look around to see if anyone else can feel it, or at least is showing they can.



There are a few people who seem to be finishing up their day’s worth of work, even a small group of children playing near a fountain. While you’re distracted you almost walk directly into a lone child who’s standing in the middle of the road, her eyes are locked on the sunset.



You look down at the child for a moment before your gaze follows hers back up to the sky. You’re glad you’re not the only one who seems to think it’s odd. You reach forward and gently place your hand on the child’s head, ruffling their hair for a moment before continuing to walk by.



“I’d head inside if I were you.” You say, glancing back at the child.



“Then why are you heading out of town?” The girl says, taking a few steps to follow behind you. “Do you know what that is?” She adds, gesturing towards the sky. You glance over at the child again and see them eyeing your sword.



“No.” You say, not in the mood to entertain children. You curse yourself for ever having said anything at all, especially when you see the girl following at your side. After a few more steps you stop and face her directly.



“What do you want?” You say in a scolding tone.



“I think you know something.” She replies.



“What could I possibly know? I got into town not even fifteen minutes ago.”



“Well then you’re at least up to something. Something important.”



You put a hand on your hip. “Well maybe I am. And if I am I don’t see how that would be any of your business.”



“Does it have to do with the Night Prowler?” She half whispers.



You briefly consider lying to her, but decide to save yourself a potential headache you decide against it.



“… Yes actually.” You say. She’d likely keep prying you until you said it anyway.



“That started around the time people started disappearing.” The child says, pointing up at the sunset. “I don’t think anyone has noticed it. Or if they have they just don’t care. Everyone I’ve asked about it told me it was just my imagination or that it was nothing.”



You raise an eyebrow at this. “Really? This started around the same time people started disappearing?” If this is true then figuring out what’s causing the red sky would likely lead you directly to the Night Prowler.



She nods.



“Well thanks for the tidbit. But I’ve got to be going now. You should be heading home.” You say, turning away from her and starting to walk away.



“No, I’m coming with.” She says. You hear her footsteps closely behind you.



You take a deep breath to calm down as you feel yourself becoming irate. You’d never forgive yourself if you lashed out at a child, even one as annoying as this child is proving to be.

All the more reason for her to not follow you.




“Look, this ‘Night Prowler’ is dangerous. It’s already caused many people to disappear. I don’t want a lead a child right to it. I don’t know exactly what it could be at this point and if I get into a fight with it I don’t want to have to worry about you getting caught in the crossfire.” You say. “I don’t want you, or anyone else, getting hurt by this thing.”



She opens her mouth to protest but you hold up your hand to stop her.



“This is nonnegotiable.”



She seems to finally understand that you’re not going to let her tag along. You turn away to leave.



You hear her say something under her breath.



“What was that?” You ask, looking over your shoulder.



“It got my mom.” She says, barely above a whisper.



You frown. “I’m… sorry to hear that. But that doesn’t mean you should run head-first into it for revenge.” You turn back towards her and put a hand on her shoulder, smiling weakly. “I’ll slay it for you. Promise.”



She wipes away the tears that were starting to form on the corner of her eyes. “What’s your name?” She asks.



You pause for a moment. “... Kida.” You say.



“Don’t break your promise, Kida.” She says before looking over at the well across the street. “Meet me there when you kill it.”



You sigh. You really don’t want to meet back up with her, but at least you’ve convinced her not to follow you. You give her a quick nod and, once again, turn to leave. You don’t hear her footsteps behind you this time.




As a bit of insurance, you speed up your pace drastically. There’s no way any normal child could keep up for long.



The air outside of the city walls is still filled with the same sense of dread. You unsheathe your sword and start walking towards the sunset. You occasionally sniff the air, searching for something, anything unusual.



As it gets darker, you curse yourself for your white fur. Even at night you are easily visible from afar. You notice that instead of getting colder, it’s getting unusually warm and your nostrils are filling with smell of something comparable to burning sulfur. You’re definitely getting close to something. You slow your pace and strain your ears, listening for anything out of place. You only hear psithurism, at least you think that’s the word for it. You’re talking about the sound of wind through leaves.



You jump as the sound of thunder echoes around you. You quickly glance up at the sky and see that it’s almost cloudless. That had to have been magic.



Steeling yourself, You round the corner of a ruined tower and see it.



A large stone gateway filled with what you’d call fire. Heat and dread emanate from it with such intensity that you feel like it could knock you over. What the hell is this thing? You take one cautious step towards it but stop when you hear what sounds like rocks rolling against themselves and the crackling of lightning behind you.



You whip around, ready for a fight. You’re met face to face with a humanoid collection of rocks held together with lightning. A Storm Atronach. You’ve never seen one in person.



You swiftly jump to the side as one of its hands crashes into the ground you stood just a moment before, leaving a sizable crater in the soil. You swing your sword towards its side. The blade connects with a stone in its arm and glances off with a clang, seemingly harmlessly.

It was definitely summoned. Extremely recently. It would be impossible for this atronach to sneak up on you for long enough to get as close as he did.


No. You’re not going to try and make it back to town to get the guards to help you. You wouldn’t want to risk injuring anyone. Plus you have too much pride to go begging some city guards to protect you.


You’ve taken down a few scamps and clanfairs but those are nothing compared to a storm atronach.


You’re not about to jump through a doorway of fire and you can’t cast any magic. You used to be friends with an argonian mage but… well you had a falling out with them to put it lightly. You -- No. You’re not going to think about her right now. You’ve got a daedra to fight. And you can probably still make progress with this sword. You’ll just need a change of tactics.



You grab the blade of your sword with both hands as you start to slowly circle around the storm atronach. He lifts off of the ground slightly as more lighting and static gather around him. He’s likely going to shoot a bolt of lighting at you.



He raises one hand, palm facing you directly. You deftly roll to the left as a lightning bolt explodes in your direction. You stop your roll on one knee and kick off towards him, aiming your sword towards his head. The guard of your sword connects with him and cracks off a sizable chunk of rock. You carry the swing through and lead it into another. This time it connects with his shoulder, making him stumble back slightly. Looks like half swording is the way to go here.



With renewed confidence, you stand before the storm atronach and wait for its next move.



You are now Katherin. Ke’tiem has completely passed out. You think it makes sense given how… energetic he was just a little while ago. You roll onto your right side and sigh. You… really don’t want to leave him. You’ll have to tell him sooner than later that the time you have left together is short. You can’t think of a good way to do it though.



A knock at the door ruins your train of thought. That’s odd. The inhabitants of Oblivion aren’t really the type to knock before entering. You quicky slip out of bed and scour the floor for a few seconds before you find your robes. You walk as quietly and as quickly as you can over to the staircase.



Once you’re on the first floor you slowly approach the door. You’re quickly looking around the room for a weapon or something to bar the door when a voice calls out from the other side.



“It’s Barbas. Are you two done in there?”



You clear your throat, open the door, and put a hand on your hip.



“What’s up?” You say.



“Oh, nothing. I’m just letting you know that we don’t really have the time for... extracurriculars.” He says. “In case you’ve forgotten we need to get you and Ke’tiem out of Clavicus’ plane of Oblivion. He cares about getting Umbra enough that he’ll eventually completely halt any and all travel to or from here. Including mine. And when that happens there isn’t much I could do for you.”



More than a little embarrassed, you ask him what his plan to get you out is.



“It's relatively simple. I'm going to try to help out Liz and Talia in getting a gate opened for you without Clavicus noticing that I'm helping. Your job is to get a sigil stone. I'd get it myself if I could do it without Clavicus catching on, but that's not the case. You can find-- actually wait. Where is Ke'tiem? He should be here for this because I don't want to have to repeat myself. I assume he's still in here?” Barbas walks past you and into the building.



“Y-yeah.” You say, following after him. Barbas heads up the stairs. You chose to wait at their base. You suddenly realize that Ke'tiem has no idea what Barbas looks like. Which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't look like a.... Ugly and moderately threatening creature.



You start ascending the stairs. After no more than three steps you hear an all too familiar voice coming from your right, near the front door.



“Ah, Katherin. It’s so good to see you again. I hope you didn’t actually think that you would evade me for long. In my own realm no less. You’re not hard to find at all without Umbra near you. In fact, I hardly even needed to get Ke’tiem to find you.” He sighs. “Although that sweet reunion almost made it worth it.”

With not many ideas for how to remedy this situation, you take a note from Liz and frantically hide behind a tree near her.



“Do you know her or something?” You ask Liz in a hushed tone. “Please fill me in on what’s happening here! Why did I summon that Atronach?” Liz continues to be silent and avoids making eye contact with you. “Liz! How bad is this situation!?”


“I’m going to unsummon my Storm Atronach if you don’t start giving me some answers,” you say.



“No!” She she says, voice wavering. You can’t tell if it’s from fear or if she’s holding back tears. Maybe both? “If she sees me she’ll kill me and then she’ll kill you because I was with you.”



“So you know each other? Why would she want to kill you? Is she… Who’d want to kill someone like you?”



“I don’t… it’s a long story. Look.. I just…” She looks at you for the first time since you started talking. You notice her eyes glistening in the moonlight, wet with tears. “I can’t be seen by her.”





“Would she just attack some random passerby?” You ask.



Liz shakes her head slightly. “I don't think so. Why?”



You stand up. “She doesn’t know me so she has no reason to attack me… I just have to…” You walk around the tree and see that the khajiit is really doing a number on your Atronach. You ready a regrettably small fireball in your left hand and get ready to unsummon the Atronach with your right.



You throw the fireball towards your Atronach. As soon as it connects with it you unsummon it, hoping to make it look like you got the final hit needed to finish it off. That looked a lot more convincing in your head. You note that if your fireball didn’t suck it would have been more convincing.



The khajiit looks confused for a second before she notices you. You take a deep breath and run up to her. Here goes nothing!



She returns to holding her sword normally and puts her left hand on her hip as you approach. You stop once you get within a comfortable talking distance. She looks at you with a raised eyebrow.



“That was some fireball,” she says with sarcasm extremely present in her voice.



You scratch the back of your head. “Yeah, heh, I just saw you were being attacked and rushed to cast it to try and help. I should have uh… put more magicka into it.” You nod. “It’s a good thing you had it weakened as much as you did.”



She looks you up and down. “Do you take me as some sort of fool?” Her tone makes you feel very uneasy. You almost glance back towards Liz but stop yourself.



“W-What do you mean?”



“You summoned it,” she says plainly. She takes a step towards you. “And now you’re lying to me. Did you really think I’d be dumb enough to believe that your puny, insignificant fireball did anything to that Storm Atronach? Or that I don’t know what unsummoning looks like?” You take a step backwards and try to swallow the knot forming at the back of your throat. “I don’t like being lied to. It’s disrespectful.” She takes another step forward.



“Look, O-okay. I admit it was a uh not a particularly convincing performance. Bu-but! It’s… I was just trying to scare you away from that Oblivion gate,” you say, frantically trying to stop this situation from escalating to bloodshed.



“Scare me away from that Oblivion gate,” She echoes. “And why is that?”



“B-because it’s… unsafe?”



“So now I think it’s time that I return the favor and attack you so that you get scared away from this Oblivion gate. That sound fair? I’ve already drawn my sword so how about it?”



“I don’t t-think that’s completely necessar--”



“Kida!” You hear Liz shout from behind her tree. “Don’t kill her. It was my idea that she summon the Atronach!”



The white khajiit who you guess is named Kida looks past you and into the trees with a confused look on her face.



“No,” she breaths. Her expression changes between sadness and anger before settling somewhere in between. “Lizanne that better not be you. I swear to all Nine Divines if that’s you.” Her voice is very unsteady, a stark contrast to how it was just a moment before.



Kida walks past you and towards where Liz is hiding, seeming to have completely forgotten about your existence. “Wait,” you weakly call out to her. She doesn’t seem to hear you. You remember what Liz said would happen if Kida saw her and your heart starts to pound in your ears. Why did Liz shout out!? You have to stop Kida! But you… can’t. She already demonstrated how she can easily hold her own against an Atronach. Which happens to be your most powerful summon.



With magic off the table you quickly start digging through your bag, looking for something sharp you could stab her from behind with. Your hand finds an empty potion bottle. You pull it out and smash it against the ground, shattering it into a hundred sharp pieces. You briefly look up and see that Kida is still uninterested in your actions. You take the longest one in your hand and start walking towards the khajiit’s exposed back. You can’t let her hurt Liz.

After Kida takes a few more steps forward, Liz comes out from behind her tree to face her directly. Kida stops. “Well… It really is you,” she says. Liz raises her arm slightly. “I’m sorry,” is all she says. Kida continues to stand stationary without responding.



After a painfully long silence she looks back at you and raises her sword. You’re about to yell at her that you’re not going to let her kill Liz when she swiftly stabs it into the grass at her feet. Kida turns back towards Liz and starts walking again. “What are you--”



Liz cuts off abruptly as Kida pulls her into a hug.