HP: Sacred Gear Chat Group (2) - Chapter 44 (Patreon)

Chapter 44 - Stalkers

— Alistair Davis POV —

Taking the short track back into Winterhold, we soon arrived at the edge of the dilapidated little township.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like we would be able to return peacefully to the College without something happening along the way.

Right at the edge of Winterhold, two people stepped out from behind one of the ruined buildings and positioned themselves directly in our path.

Today was just one of those days.

If anything happened, it was everything at once.

The two wore brown robes, accompanied by matching brown gloves and boots. One appeared to be female, the other male, though that was mostly an educated guess based on their builds. What really stood out, however, were the masks covering their faces.

Bone-white masks with grotesque, Cthulhu-like features. Tentacles, unnatural curves, and the general appearance of something that should have stayed at the bottom of a very deep ocean. Both wore identical ones, making them look less like intimidating warriors and more like members of a particularly questionable theater group.

I immediately recognized them as some of Miraak's Cultists.

A bit brainless, those two.

Unlike our previous encounter with the Thalmor earlier, we were quite clearly outnumbering them. There were only two of them standing against our little group, yet they approached us with the confidence of people who had already won.

They weren't even particularly subtle about it. No attempt to hide, no clever ambush, no consideration for the fact that they were walking directly toward a group containing several people who could make their lives very unpleasant.

Not even staying behind their cover in the first place!

Honestly not the smartest approach they could have taken.

Then again, they probably weren't in their right minds to begin with. From what I knew, Miraak's followers had a nasty habit of being influenced, manipulated, or outright controlled by their master. Whatever remained of their free will, was lost to their lack of braincells.

What else would you expect from cultists?

“You there! You're the one they call Dragonborn?” confirming with a demanding voice that the slimmer one was female, pointing directly at me.

Apparently, the existence of everyone else in our group was of no particular interest to her. Her attention was fixed entirely on me, as though the rest were merely decorative accessories.

“Well, some people have been calling me Dragonborn, I guess,” I admitted easily.

I had little reason to deny it. Not that it would have made any difference.

I could already tell that whatever I said would fall on deaf ears. These people had their truth burned into their Minds, and they would cling to it until the bitter end. You couldn't exactly reason with someone whose entire worldview had been built around worshipping a long-dead Dragon Priest who had apparently decided that mind enslaving people was perfectly reasonable.

Still, their appearance told me something important.

Miraak had begun moving.

Or, more accurately, he had started setting his grand scheme in motion. The plan to escape Apocrypha, break free from Hermaeus Mora's grasp, and return to the world he had been forced to abandon so long ago.

And his followers were already searching for me.

Just what I needed.

And shouldn't it be Agnar who had to deal with this shit? He was the real Dragonborn! I am just a copycat!

Honestly, I wanted to stay the fuck away from anything involving Hermaeus Mora. Sure, the Black Books were interesting. Forbidden knowledge had an undeniable appeal, especially when you were the sort of person who could spend an entire afternoon studying Magic without even being able to use it while being a Squib.

But the books came with a rather significant drawback.

They were connected to Hermaeus Mora.

And I had absolutely no desire to find out what the tentacled bastard considered a reasonable price for sharing his knowledge.

I already played with fire with the Oghma Infinium.

Who knew what their true purpose was or how they really work? Perhaps the boons they would grant were genuine gifts. Perhaps they were bait. Perhaps every bit of forbidden knowledge I gained brought me one step closer to becoming an unwilling addition to Mora's collection.

The problem was that forbidden knowledge sounded so damn enticing.

Yeah, I could absolutely imagine myself falling straight into Hermaeus Mora's clutches.

Mom probably would, too.

Fortunately, between the two of us, we had accumulated enough knowledge in this World and me in Mushoku Tensei too, to keep ourselves occupied for a very long time. We could always distract ourselves with something else before our curiosity convinced us to do something spectacularly stupid.

At least, that was the theory.

A theory that could be tested pretty soon…

“Your lies fall on deaf ears, deceiver!” the female cultist declared angrily from beneath her mask. “The true Dragonborn comes! You are but his shadow! You shall not stand in the way of the true Dragonborn's return. He comes soon, and we shall offer him your heart. When Lord Miraak appears, all shall bear witness! None shall stand to oppose him!”

Well, that was charming.

I had expected something along those lines, but I still found it mildly irritating that she hadn't even given me the chance to explain that I wasn’t really the Dragonborn.

Not that I had expected a productive conversation, mind you.

There was, of course, the possibility that they already knew there was another Dragonborn. Perhaps Miraak could feel it or something. Or they gathered all the information from the Rumors. Perhaps they had simply decided that the first Dragonborn they encountered had to be the fake they were ordered to hunt down in the name of their Master. Or they would just visit Agnar later.

Either way, I wasn't particularly interested in debating the finer points of Dragonborn legitimacy with two masked lunatics.

They were completely nuts.

“Time to die!”

And with those words from them, the fight broke out.

Here we go again.

At least they had the decency to skip the rest of the dramatic speeches.

Being Conjurers, the two immediately summoned a pair of Flame Atronachs from Oblivion. The creatures materialized in bursts of heat and shimmering light, their vaguely feminine forms flickering like living bonfires. Flames danced across their bodies, and the air around them distorted from the sudden increase in temperature.

The first Atronach barely had time to raise its arm before a fireball began forming in its palm.

I reacted almost instinctively.

A quick pulse of magic left my hand, and my Disrupt Magic spell struck the forming fireball. The spell collapsed before it could fully stabilize, scattering its magical structure into harmless wisps of energy.

One down.

Well, technically, one fireball down. I wasn't going to start celebrating before the actual fight was over.

The second Atronach had already launched its own projectile.

But I had already reached into my expanded bag and pulled out the Staff of Magnus, bringing it up just in time to intercept the incoming fireball.

The moment the projectile struck the staff, its flames twisted inward. Rather than exploding against an invisible barrier, the fireball seemed to unravel, its magical structure breaking apart as the staff absorbed the released energy.

I watched the process with my Magic Power Eye, carefully observing the flow of energy as it disappeared into the artifact.

At their core, the two processes were actually quite similar. My Disrupt Magic spell dismantled the structure of an incoming spell, scattering its magical energy back into the surroundings. The Staff of Magnus, on the other hand, appeared to perform a comparable process before directing that freed energy toward itself.

Instead of merely dispersing the magic, it collected it.

A rather significant difference, if you asked me. Maybe I could replicate it, since I already got the first part of the process down?

I could even feel my own magical reserves beginning to refill slightly as the staff absorbed the energy. The sensation was subtle at first, like a trickle of water filling an empty cup, but it quickly became more noticeable.

I made a mental note to examine the mechanism more closely when we weren't in the middle of a fight.

Preferably somewhere that wasn't covered in snow, inhabited by cultists, or actively trying to kill me. Maybe a cozy room in the College with a nice Fire? Or in my own Room at home?

Of course, the fight wasn't going to stop at two fireballs.

With the incoming projectile absorbed, I immediately shifted my attention to the Atronach itself. I extended Staff towards the creature and began draining its magicka, carefully siphoning away the energy that sustained its fiery form.

The Atronach flickered. I could see how the unique deadric form of Magicka keeping it in thi World began to fade into the Staff.

Its flames dimmed, then flared again as it struggled to maintain its shape. It tried to gather enough magical energy to retaliate, but there was very little it could do when I was actively stealing the very resource it needed to remain in this world.

Honestly, I almost felt bad for it. Only almost.

The Atronach was a summoned creature from Oblivion, and I wasn't exactly going to feel guilty about sending it home early. Especially since it would just reform in it’s own realm after a while.

Within moments, its magical reserves were depleted. Its body began to unravel, the flames shrinking inward as the energy holding it together disappeared. A final flicker of fire was all that remained before the creature vanished, banished back to whatever plane of Oblivion it had been dragged from.

One Flame Atronach dealt with.

Simultaneously, Ghislaine had made her move.

My Amazonian catwoman and knight had little patience for magical theatrics when a perfectly good sword was available. She closed the distance with that terrifying combination of speed, strength, and absolute confidence that made watching her fight both impressive and slightly concerning for anyone standing on the receiving end.

The second Atronach launched another fireball at her.

Ghislaine simply cut through it. Her tail flicking trough the Air together with her Sword.

The projectile split apart around her blade, its flames scattering into the cold air. Before the creature could react, she followed through with a second swing, removing its burning head in one clean motion.

The Atronach staggered.

For a brief moment, the headless creature remained upright, its flames sputtering as though it were trying to comprehend what had just happened.

Then its form collapsed into fading embers.

And that was that.

In front of King Level Swordswoman like Ghislaine, a measly Flame Atronach simply didn't stand a chance.

Naturally, while Ghislaine and I had been busy dealing with the summoned creatures, the rest of the battle hadn't exactly remained idle.

I turned toward the two cultists, expecting to find them preparing another spell or desperately attempting to flee. Or maybe even a fight with Mom and the Girls.

Instead, I was greeted by a rather curious sight.

The two cultists were beating the absolute shit out of each other.

One had the other pinned in the snow, swinging wildly at his masked head, while his companion attempted to return the favor with all the coordination of a drunk mudcrab. Brown robes flailed, boots kicked up snow, and their bone-white masks bobbed around in a thoroughly undignified fashion.

Standing a short distance away was Astoria.

She had apparently decided that this was an excellent opportunity for some entertainment with Illusion Magic once again.

“Get him! Hit him again!” she cheered enthusiastically, practically bouncing on her feet as she watched the two cultists pummel each other.

I stopped and I blinked.

Then I looked again, just to make sure my eyes hadn't decided to betray me.

But no this was really happening. The two cultists were still fighting each other, and Astoria was still cheering them on like an enthusiastic spectator at a particularly questionable sporting event.

Once again, I was forced to confront the limits of my understanding of reality.

What the hell had they been teaching her?

More importantly, why did she seem to be enjoying herself so much?

I had several questions, and I suspected that the answers to most of them would only make things worse.

Still, I had to give her credit. Whatever spell she had done to the cultists, it was certainly effective. Maybe another combination Spell? Seems very likely. There was something deeply satisfying about watching two people who had confidently declared their intention to kill me proceed to beat each other senseless instead.

It was also considerably less dangerous than the alternative.

So, for the moment, I decided to let her enjoy herself.

After all, who was I to interrupt a perfectly good demonstration of tactical superiority?

Of course, the scene wasn't quite as private as I might have hoped.

It seemed that our little altercation had attracted some attention from some of the inhabitants of Winterhold. Or rather a single one.

The beautiful telvanni dark elf, Brelyna Maryon, stood only a few feet away from the ongoing spectacle.

Her eyes moved between the two cultists fighting in the snow, Astoria cheering them on, and the rest of us standing nearby as though this were a perfectly ordinary afternoon.

The expression on her face was one I had come to recognize rather well.

Confusion and Disbelief.

And the dawning suspicion that reality was, perhaps, not quite as reliable as she had previously assumed.

In other words, she was probably experiencing the exact same crisis of understanding I had suffered just moments earlier.

To her credit, however, Brelyna recovered remarkably quickly.

Perhaps it was a Dunmer thing. Perhaps it was simply the result of studying magic at the College of Winterhold, where the distinction between a normal day and a minor magical catastrophe was often little more than a matter of perspective.

Or perhaps she had simply decided that asking questions would only make things worse.

Whatever the reason, she adapted to the situation in true Telvanni fashion. Using every opening to her advantage.

With a smooth movement of her hands, magical energy gathered around her fingers. The temperature in the immediate vicinity dropped, and the air shimmered as frost condensed around her palms. A moment later, two sharp spikes of ice had formed, their crystalline surfaces catching the pale winter light.

The cultists, still far too busy trying to beat each other into submission, never noticed her approach.

Brelyna didn't hesitate.

She released both spells in quick succession.

The ice spikes shot forward with frightening precision, piercing the cultists' heads before either had the chance to react. Their brawling came to an abrupt end as both bodies went limp, collapsing into the snow with little more than a dull thud.

Two dead cultists lay in the snow, their blood slowly staining the pristine white ground a dark crimson.

Astoria's cheering stopped a pout forming on her face.

Brelyna lowered her hands, her expression settling into something considerably more composed than the situation warranted.

“Oh, come on! Again?” Astoria complained to nobody in particular.

[-- End of Chapter --]