Fen wasn’t sure how to spend
the next two days. There wasn’t much to do in the city itself, seeing as nearly
everyone had deserted the outdoors while the ashstorm raged. She ended up
spending most of her time in her room at the Winged Guar, replacing potions she’d
used up recently in between reading The
Real Barenziah.
“Why didn’t she ever tell me
any of this?” Fen wondered aloud on the evening of the second day. Julan was
leaning back on a chair, his feet on her table, eating an apple as he read A Dance in the Fire. Fen lay flat on her
bed, holding the book above her, flipping idly through the pages. “She had this
amazing life, and I never knew about it.” Fen sat up on her elbows, looking
over at Julan. “Did you know she ran away with a stablehand to Whiterun when
she was my age? And she was in the Thieves Guild?”
“I wouldn’t’ve told you if you
were my granddaughter,” Julan said, turning the page of his book. “It’s awkward
to read that stuff about your family.”
“But it’s so fascinating,” Fen
murmured, flipping through the book again. They read in silence for a few more
moments. “What were you doing at the craftsman’s hall yesterday?” Fen asked.
Julan’s ears went red.
“I told you, I was just
looking around.”
“I’m not an idiot, Julan,” Fen
said, grinning at him. “What were you doing?”
“I….” Julan let the front feet
of his chair hit the floor with a thud.
“If you must know, I was getting some armour made.”
“Armour? What kind?”
“Glass. I needed a new set.”
Fen realized Julan had been using the same steel armour that he had had since
they first met all this time.
“Oh. Julan, you could have
just asked me.”
“It’s fine,” he said quickly.
“I wanted a custom set anyway.”
“Don’t you have to provide the glass for custom armour, though?”
“Remember when Shani got
trapped in that abandoned glass mine?” Fen blinked.
“I didn’t see you collecting
glass while we were in there…”
“Just because you don’t see it
doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!” Julan said hotly. Fen smiled.
“Julan, it’s fine. You’ve been
through enough nonsense with me, you deserve something new.”
“Well…I used your money.” Fen
let out an exasperated laugh.
“The last thing I care about right
now is money.” Julan smiled also, and they were silent for a time.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Julan
said finally. “We came here for the Dark Brotherhood, and now we’re forging
Nerevar’s long-lost blade.”
“It’s more than that,” Fen
said, staring at the canopy over her bed. “I need to…I need to be accepted
here. I can’t protect Morrowind if I’m shut out of my birthplace.” Julan raised
an eyebrow at her over his book.
“And how will doing this make
Helseth accept you, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Fen said, rubbing
her eyes. “I just have a feeling. Like, if I show Sotha Sil that Mournhold is
my city and how far I’ll go to protect it, my father will want me again.” She
paused. “He might even announce me as his daughter.” It sounded foolish, she
realized, saying the dream she had had since childhood out loud. Julan,
however, looked unsurprised.
“It’d be about time too, all
the shit he’s had you running about doing lately.”
“You think he’d do it?”
“Well, I don’t know him. So I
dunno. But he should.” Fen smiled weakly.
“I appreciate it. If only you
were my father.”
“I think that’d make sharing a
tent awkward.” Fen laughed, and it felt like the first time she had done so in
years. There was a knock at the door, and Fen sat up. “Come in.” A
grubby-looking Dunmer boy covered in soot stood there, looking dreadfully
out-of-place in the warm firelight of Fen’s room.
“I’m Yagak’s apprentice,” he
said in a thickly accented voice. “He sent me to tell you your sword’s done. He
finished it early.” Fen swung her feet off the bed, fully awake now.
“Thank you,” she said quickly,
and the apprentice disappeared. Fen stood up and took her cloak off the chair,
swinging it over her shoulders. “Coming?” she asked Julan, who had abandoned A Dance in the Fire on the table.
“Of course I’m coming,” he
said at once, picking up his own cloak. “You think I’m going to miss the
Nerevarine being reunited with the long-lost blade of Nerevar? Maybe you’ll
have an intervention or something.”
“I have a feeling that’s
unlikely,” Fen said wryly, blowing out the candle. They exited the inn quickly,
pulled up their hoods, and fought their way through the ashstorm to the
craftsman’s hall, where Yagak was melting steel in an iron skillet over his
forge.
“There’s your blade,” he said,
jerking his head toward the table behind them. Fen turned and her breath caught
in her throat. There, held carefully aloft in a wooden weapon stand, was the
sword, an elegant, polished scimitar identical to Almalexia’s. It was
completely unrecognizable from the three rusted and scratched pieces Fen had
presented to Yagak two days previously. Now it was truly a weapon, a creation
of cruel steel and sharp edges that Fen could tell would kill with one blow.
“Pretty good work, if I say so,” Yagak grumbled from his forge. “You could throw
a piece of silk over that edge and it would slice it.”
“There’s one thing, though,”
Fen said, running a finger along the flat side of the blade.
“Before you ask, I don’t know
why it doesn’t burn,” Yagak told her gruffly. “I’m a smith, not an enchanter.
You want Dwemer enchantments on this thing, talk to a Dwemer.”
“Here’s the thing about that,”
Fen said, turning to face him. “The Dwemer are gone.”
“I know, I know,” the smith
replied sharply. “They’re all dead. But look...I’ve heard rumours of a powerful
Dwemer mystic, Radac Stungnthumz, that lived in Bamz-Amschend. He’s long gone,
but maybe some of his writings still exist. If you can find any of them, I’ll
see what I can do for you.” He raised one eyebrow, though it hardly made his
eyes more visible. “I’ve also heard rumours that you’ve been down in those
ruins a fair few times, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for you.” Fen didn’t
reply, but turned and lifted the scimitar carefully from its stand. It felt
right in her hand, but something was still out-of-place. There was clearly
something missing. It wasn’t Trueflame – not yet.
Early the next morning, Fen
sheathed the half-finished blade and she and Julan made their way back down to
Bamz-Amschend. The ruins were silent and empty, as they had cleared most of the
centurions on their last visit. Now, though, they paid close attention,
searching every room for any sign of Radac Stungnthmz’s writings.
Soon they reached one of the
lower parts of the ruin, where Fen remembered finding the strange half-built
construct and the jars of congealed substance. The door had been left open, and
as Fen peered in, what she saw made her heart skip a beat.
There was a Dwarven Spectre
inside the forge, a ghost-like creature that resembled the mer it had been
thousands of years ago. He looked far different from Yagrum Bagarn, who had
been disfigured and bloated by corprus. This spectre was thin and
muscular-looking, with a full beard of tight black ringlets and delicately
pointed ears that sat below a sharp-tipped cap. He turned at once as the door
creaked open, though he did not attack.
“What’re you doing down here?”
the spectre said in a strange, strident voice. “Leave an old spirit to his
haunts.”
“You’re Radac Stungnthumz,”
Fen said slowly, coming into the room, Julan behind her. The spectre gave her a
skeptical look and nodded. “I need to speak to a Dwemer mystic. I was directed
to you.”
“You want to talk to a Dwemer
mystic?” Radac repeated. “Ha! Look, I’m no mystic. Wasn’t when I was alive,
either. I’m a soldier, friend, plain and simple. Sure, I made weapons for my
troops. No secret there. I’m no mystic, though.” Fen frowned. She produced
Nerevar’s blade from where it hung at her hip.
“I need a Dwemer mystic to
enchant this. It’s supposed to have fire.” Radac looked thoughtfully at her.
“You say you want to add fire
to that blade?” he repeated, and Fen nodded. “Well, if that’s all you want to
do, you don’t need a mystic, whelp. I can take care of that for you. We’ll need
some Pyroil Tar, though. Used to have some around here,” he muttered, glancing
around at the bottles of congealed substance scattered about. “…but that was a
long time ago. You can find it in the lower caves of Norenen-dur, in the
Citadel of Myn Dhrur. It’s an old ruin far beneath Bamz-Amschend. I swear,” he
added in a mutter, “no one is happy with a simple blade that cleaves
bone...always need the special effects.”
“But Myn Dhrur…” Fen said
slowly. “That’s a Daedric name.”
“Aye, it is. Deep, deep caves.
An old Daedric ruin. Fool Dunmer...worshipping those beasts. I say kill ‘em
all!” he added sharply. “No offense to you two. Used to be a good spot for all
sorts of resources, though. Of course, that was when there were any of us left
who needed them! You can find the place through a cave-in at the Passage of the
Walker
Fen and Julan left the spectre
to drift aimlessly about the forge and made their way down to one of the
blocked passages they had cleared earlier. It led to a rocky, half-flooded
corridor, and splashed through it until they came to a stairwell that was built
out of all the jagged angles and strange towers that were familiar to Daedric
Ruins. The cavern was massive, its ceiling in shadow, and there were five-story
towers with flames burning upon them everywhere. Far below, on the shores near
the water, all manner of Daedra stalked, still very much alive despite their
long exile underground. Julan made to pull his bow out, but Fen caught his arm
and pulled him out of sight of the Daedra, behind a broken pillar.
“There must be hundreds of
them,” she muttered, glancing down at the innumerable creatures hunched upon
the shore. “And I don’t fancy taking on them all at once. I’ll use my Amulet of
Shadows. You stay out of sight.” Julan agreed, and Fen slipped the Amulet over
her neck and silently levitated over the prowling Daedra to the other end of
the hall, where there was a tall waterfall casting a fine spray of mist into
the dark ruin. Fen began to move up and down the hall, searching carefully, and
she soon located a large silver jar sitting in a niche in one of the towers. There
was a large inscription in Daedric on its side
“Perfect,” Fen muttered,
carefully taking the heavy jar under her arm. She was about to levitate back
when she heard a snarl and a crash from the other end of the hall. “Shit,” she
hissed, and she flew as quickly as she could back to where she left Julan.
He was completely engulfed by
Daedra, struggling to fight them off as they came at him in hordes. Fen tried
to move down just long enough to pull him into the air with her, but the Amulet
slipped off her neck as she did so and she was suddenly fully visible. There
was only a split second pause before a Winged Twilight clawed her out of the
air, causing the tar to slip from her grasp and roll several feet away. Fen hit
the ground, hard, and the Daedra converged on her. There were blows coming from
all sides – scratches, bites, punches, magic – everything. Fen barely had a
chance to breathe. She found Julan’s wrist in the madness and seized it,
casting the most powerful shield spell she could muster over the both of them.
A webbed purple dome spread
over them, and Fen cast God’s Fire, sending the horde of Daedra stumbling back.
The second they were distracted, Fen and Julan made a run for it, sprinting
desperately for the flooded cavern, then through to the ruins. The second they
got through the hole, Fen levitated the heaviest boulder there back up and
lodged it into the opening to ensure that the Daedra would not follow. There
was a split second, then Fen realized something.
“Shit!” she shouted, slapping
a hand on her forehead. “The Pyroil tar!”
“This is it, right?” Julan
asked, and he held up the silver jar, though it was now scratched and dented.
Fen let out a sigh of relief.
“That’s it. Thank gods.” She
pulled out two healing potions, handing one to Julan. “I thought I told you to
stay out of sight,” she said, after they had drunk and were walking back up to
the forge.
“I just sneezed,” Julan said
defensively. “I guess they heard me.”
“I’d say so,” Fen replied dryly.
Radac appeared pleased when
they delivered the Pyroil tar.
“Ah...that’s the stuff,” he
said, breaking the seal around the lid and unscrewing it. A smell that reminded
Fen of the Dwemer satchels leaked out. “Here, hand me that blade of yours,” he
said, and Fen passed Trueflame to him. Radac made a fluid gesture and they both
were engulfed in a bright light. He slid his hands into the light up to his
elbows, moving things around, frowning slightly. Then he extracted them and
snapped his translucent fingers. The light died away and the blade was floating
there, only now it was alive with the fiercest flame Fen had ever seen,
lighting up the room with its pure energy. “There. There’s your sword,” Radac
said. “Not a bad looking blade, actually. Good luck to you, youngster. Now
leave this old dwarf alone. Go!” With that, Radac vanished, leaving the blade
floating in his wake. Fen was silent for a time, staring at it. Then she
reached out and closed her hand around the hilt.
Fen had never fought with a
sword before, but the moment she curled her fingers around Trueflame’s ornately
carved hilt, she knew the blade was meant to be hers. It felt so natural, so
incredibly easy…like she had been
born with this scimitar in her hands.
Fen turned to face Julan,
holding Trueflame aloft.
“Gods,” he muttered. “That’s an
incredible blade.”
“It is,” Fen agreed, sheathing
the blade. The room was instantly darker without the glow of Trueflame. “Which
is why I’m interested as to what Almalexia will have to say about it.”
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