Applying Exotic Metaphysics (Descent, 24.2) (Patreon)

I stared up at the spot where the rift once sat, in the courtyard of Tel Vythrin.My entire body ached. It thrummed with pain and stressed joints. The open anchor in my anima, where Sessalan’s Nymic once sat, felt empty. It… ached.

“Sessalan,” I said. 

Nothing happened.

I kept lying there. I waited.Even when his vestige had been destroyed, I’d known he’d come back. There had still been the connection. I’d once had the opportunity to seek him out. 

But right now, like this…

He was dead. 

He was as dead as a daedra could be, dissected by Hermaeus Mora. 

I breathed out.

It felt like there was a weight on my chest. Like there was something crushing me. I struggled to grab another breath.

Then I let it go.

One of the scratches on my cheek stung. I wiped at my eyes.

I took another breath.

I sat up.

The anger helped me with the fifth through the tenth.

Then the tenth to the twentieth.

By the time I stopped counting my breaths, I was getting back to my feet.

Order of operations first.

I needed to recover. Then I needed more power.  Miraak wasn’t just personally strong. He had allies. I needed some of my own.

Miraak first. Then Alduin. Then Mora.

Tel Vythrin’s gates yawned open as I walked into the tower, toward my alchemy lab. 

I needed to get to work.

The old, fetid dungeon crowded in on me. Shadowrend, in the form of a maormer oarblade, flitted across my arms as I flexed them. Two of the zombies were hewn in half. The necromancer stumbled back, blasting at me with a pulse of frost. I batted his hand upwards, making him send it into the ceiling, and then kicked him in the throat. As he choked, I scooped him up and tossed him into the next room.

He tumbled to the ground in a mass of black, motheaten cloth, as the rest of the necromancers froze and turned. They all glanced at me, and then back toward the figure in the back, standing ominously.

“Ah! Welcome to Scourg Barrow, old friend.” Mannimarco called. “I hope the reception wasn’t too unwelcoming?”

“The kid you had guarding the door could do better,” I nodded toward the mass of black cloth. “But that’s not important. I need your help.”

The anchorites turned from him to me, and back again.

“The dragon,” I said. “Did you see it?”

“I did,” Mannimarco responded. “Quite larger than Skakmat or Nahfahlargus. It seems to have gone to Skyrim, however. So I expect some fool hero will deal with it, if it becomes an issue.”

“Right. Well. I’m that fool hero,” I added. “... I need a soul gem.”

“A soul gem? To contain a dragon’s soul?” Mannimarco chuckled. “That would be a clever trick.”

“Can you do it?” I asked, and he froze. He looked at me, and carefully pulled down his hood. He wasn’t wearing the handsome altmer face I knew from when he visited me, taught me some of his mysticism. I saw cold, bare stone and red glittering eyes. As well as a cheery, leering grin of a skull’s teeth.

“Can I? Hm,” He hesitated. “It is an intriguing question. I likely could, but what’s in it for me?” 

I knew immediately I’d made a mistake. If I’d met him alone, he wouldn’t have to posture in front of the Worm Cult. He wouldn’t have to act aloof. I’d just have been able to negotiate with him normally.

I swallowed. “The Ideal Masters have their own dragon, you know,” I said conversationally, and clicked my tongue against my teeth. “Shame that they have one and you don’t, you know?”

Mannimarco tensed.

“... The rest of you. Begone,” he snapped, and the anchorites quickly got up and fled. One of them even cast a Recall spell to disappear. 

As soon as they left, he pressed some of his bony phalanges against his temple. Then he reached out to tug one of the chairs out from the table, sat, and casually kicked one out for me. I sat.

“How in oblivion did they get their own dragon?” He asked.

“Oh, he’s there physically,” I said. “They conned him. Promised him an undead army once they do one little task for him, turns out the task isn’t actually possible.”

“Of course,” He sighs. “It would be difficult to do what you’re asking. Even if it were a weaker dragon, they are not of a nature to have their souls separated from their body. It is an echo and analogy to the at’Ada’s existence as Mundus.”

“But other dragons can conquer eachother and consume their souls, right?” I asked.

“Yes, but the authority of domination through violence is part of their spiritual construction,” he responds. “It is engraved upon what passes for their anima. There is a ritual to combat between dragons, and the souls Skakmat had within him when I examined him showed signs that they, too, were bonded to his flesh.”

“So we make it out of dragon materials,” I shrugged. “Bone, or scale, or blood.”

He blinked- that is to say, the light in his eyesockets flickered for a moment. “That would allow it to hold a soul for a time, yes. But a soul trap spell would not function. You would need to recreate the ritual of combat. And the tool would need to be directly associated with the ritual in some way..”

“... Make it a weapon, maybe. A blade.”

“A weapon. Quaint,” he sighed. “I can’t simply turn a morpholith into a weapon. Wielding one directly would mean it would sap at the soul of its wielder, and it would be vulnerable to damage.”

I considered it. I frowned for a moment.

Then, with a start, I realized another tool that had a crystal blade. A tuning fork, designed to flense and separate. Beyond that… It was a tool created to affect the Aedra specifically.

I opened my Sea of Maybe, and pulled out a handful of books.

“What is this?” He asked, as I started peeling them open and spreading them out over the table.

“Kagrenac’s Tools,” I said, and pointed at the notes. “... Look at Keening.”

He stared. His finger trailed down the symbols, and he muttered as he translated to himself.

“... Yes. This will work,” he said, looking up at me. “I’ll need pieces of a dragon’s body. Scale would work, and bone would be better. But blood would be best- it’s easiest to infuse into a morpholith.”

“Do you think the Emperor’s blood will do?” I said. “He is metaphorically dragonborn, and I know for a fact he has the soul of one.”

“... It should do. Especially when dealing with the metaphorical as literal. I can make it work,” Mannimarco said. “If you were anyone else, I’d assume you’re talking about slaying him. But no, you’re going to simply approach Martin Septim and ask him to bleed for you.”

“Exactly. Since he’s an actual literal ruler as well, that should enhance the authority of domination, right?”

“It makes it possible,” he says. “I also don’t know much about this dwemer magic. I’ll need an expert.”

“I know some,” I said. “I’m not an expert, but I know who is.”

Mannimarco’s skull grinned up at me.

“Oh? Who?”

I told him, and his grin grew.

Tel Fyr was a bit of a chaotic mess. Two of Divayth’s daughters were running along the same water I’d fought an argonian on once, their waterwalking spells kept them from falling in, and they were blasting one another with spells. They held ward spells in one hand as they did, and the Maken- Caretaker- perched on one of the rocks with a desperate gaze, flickering from one side to the other. Blasts of lightning and fire raged across the battlefield, though the fire and lightning absorbed most of it. One blast of fire hit the tower itself, and the fire didn’t seem to catch.

I made my way over to a third of the girls, sitting on the shore next to Caretaker, cradling a twitching larva the size of a dinner plate, gently feeding it mashed mucksponge. It quivered, and its legs hugged her wrist happily, holding her in place for its mandibles to grab chunks of mucksponge.

“Hello, Uupse.”

The dunmer yelped, not expecting me. The larva gave a low, angry screech. She turned, blushing. “Oh. Hello, auntie. Tiktak, meet my auntie Maria!”

She held the larva up to me, and I gently patted it on the head twice. It purred and quivered for a moment, before she cradled it again.

“She should be pupating soon, so I’m making sure she’s all fed for it,” Uupse said. 

She casually leaned as a blast of fire roared over her shoulder. I opened my Sea of Maybe, catching it. The two girls didn’t even seem to notice me- too busy laughing and chattering as they kept at it.

“If Alfe and Gemma are practicing battlemagery this close to the tower, I assume your father isn’t home?” I asked.

“No, he’s dealing with something in Mournhold. Political business,” She frowned. “He should have returned by now. But it’s not as if father can’t return home in a moment, so I suspect he’s simply become distracted. Or, more likely, pulled into the Hortator’s business.”

My lips tightened. Kirat would be useful for this. “He’s with Kirat?”

“That’s my supposition, yes.”

“Then I’ll have to find them later. Is Yagrum here?”

“Oh, yes. He’s turned the Corpusarium into a brand new dwemer fortress. He’s been in there struggling with some new project.”

“Think it’s the kind of struggling where he’d love a distraction?”

“I suppose you’ll have to find out,” she said. “I’d offer to join you, but I’ve got to take care of Tiktak. I’ll make sure she grows up to be the biggest, fiercest shalk in all of Morrowind.”

“I’m sure she will, Uupse. If I don’t talk to your father before I do, give him my love, okay?”

“Course, auntie,” she smiled.I flickered forward, stepping toward the hillside where the corpusarium’s entrance used to be. It had been replaced with new, smooth dwemer brass. It wasn’t the good quality stuff- just the transmuted stone they tended to make the majority of their structures out of. 

The harsh, angular lines of dwemeris text lay in front of the sealed entrance, and I brushed my finger across them.

“Heh.” Despite myself, I smiled. 

As Yagrum’s words instructed, I whistled in two high tones, and one low one. Together, through some cultural morass that even I barely understood, declared I was a friend.

The doors chimed, and slid open.