A/N: It's late... but it's a big one. ^_^; With that said, let's get into it!
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12
Nightclubber Temple
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“Watch your step,” Eran warns as soon as we step in the door. “I don’t know if the – er, that is. Be careful.”
I’m lookin at a small tidy alter in an otherwise ruined antechamber. I slide m’eyes sideways to Eran. “You sure thain’t nothin you want to tell me?”
“Quite sure,” he nods. Then his sombre expression becomes wonner wretchedness. “Oh, damn it all. Skole, this isn’t the first time the Nightclubber Temple has caused nightmares. Years ago the same thing happened to a band of Orcs. The Orcs realised Vaermina was the cause and attacked the Temple. Sensing the situation was helpless, the priests here, well. You’ll see.”
He heads for the gloomy rear wall. I stand my ground near the door. Dread prickles the back’a me neck. I dun like this, not one tiny bit.
“Erandur. Either tell me what’s goin on, or I’m out.”
I see him stop. He dun speak. Nor does he look at me.
“I mean it, man. You can’t just send me in there blind.”
Eran mutters somethin, lookin rigoddamndiculous in his lairy shirt n short pants. He glances over his shoulder, as if t’check I’m still here. I am, so he turns, looks at his sandals, finally meets my eyes. It’d be more effective if there weren’t an alter blockin two thirds of his head.
“There’s a type of... miasma... in the Temple beyond this wall.” Eran thumps the rear wall. It sounds solid enough, no doors or ninja tubes. “Everyone was in here, y’see, everyone fighting, so to stop it we – they – cut the power, but that exploded the transformer on the atmospheric mist machine, killing the overdrive switch, and ...” His red eyes search my face, for what I dunno. “The Temple filled up with miasma. They weren’t killed, but they were forced into hibernation. And the miasma, it can rot your brain after a while. I’m afraid when we open up the Temple, the fog will dissipate, and the priests and Orcs will awaken as brain-dead zombies.”
Oh. My. Holy. Goat.
I sidled t’wards the door. “Yeah, see, I’s not so keen on brain-dead zombies. Or any other sort of zombies.”
“Well they won’t be literally zombies,” says Erandur, as if he spects this makes it any better. “They’re still alive, they’re just totally mindless and violent. Look, hold on. I’ll open the Temple and we’ll find out.”
He casts a fire ward over the rear wall. It shimmies out of existence, leaving a big ugly purple swirling eye in its wake. Eran steps right through. Moment later he ducks his head back into the antechamber. “Looks like the atmosphewic mist is still awound. Wow! It’s weally vewy atmosphewic!”
Reluctantly, I follow him. Through the purple eye which feels like nothin more than a slight warmth against me skin. The antechamber opens onto another small room, than a hall. It’s very dark. Purple mist like cloud tangled on mountain peaks roams across the floor.
I have my suspicions about ole Erandur. “How d’you know so much bout what happened here?”
He’s leadin the way now, through the stone tunnels, across the large, dimly lit rooms. “I was a priest of Vaermina meself once. I was young and stupid. Not that that excuses it. There was just somethin about their ideas – like we all had long fringes and composed emotional poetry – somethin which appealed to me.
“And then there was their music. They called it mid-80’s hardcore electro punk. Whatever that means. I never weally understood it, cept fer the music. That’s what kept me in the shadower Vaermina.” Eran catches the look on me face and hurriedly adds, “Of course I’ve spent decades living in wegwet of that vewy lifestyle. Bein a pweist of such an evil cweature; I’ll never forgive myself.”
While this sounds impressive, I know there are Dunmer out there who live in penance for eating breakfast fifteen minutes early, or not likin their aunt’s new salon tan.
I’s could hold it against him, I guess. But the same I dun hold a woman’s breedin gainst her I dun hold a man accountable to his past decisions. Only one man can blame hisself for somethin much as he can, and that’s him.
“Eran,” I says, “Get the damnation on up the path.”
Erandur hesitates, and smiles. “Maybe Lady Mara did help me.”
We keeps on goin til there we see in the murk and atmospheric mist this figure, and there another one beside it, both staggerin to sort out they heads from they asses. Couple Orcs, the looker em.
Eran has a torch pinched from the antechamber; he leans forward with it, callin, “Er, hello?”
Wonner the Orcs makes a weird noise and Erandur yells and jumps forward and smacks it over the head with his mace. The other one turns to him and he gives it a faceful of magic fire. Both Orcs collapse, one whimperin, the other in a gently smoulderin heap.
“Gee whiz, Eran. Blokes din even have a chance ter speak!”
“Ah. Sorry. Guess I’m just a little jumpy.” Erandur chews his lip. He shrugs. “Well, shall we continue.”
“Yeah, just remind me not to sneak up on you.”
On we go. Past Orcs – you wouldn’t believe these Orcs, got their little leather armour n spikes n their hair all done up – and these priests what ain’t much better what with their mopey long tunics and black hair all in their eyes. Each time one rises, Erandur thumps them over the head n then apologises to me.
Kinda a funny tower, too. Obviously it goes real deep. The passages sort of wind around a central chamber, but are meshed off, and there’s this pulsing light comin from the bottom and this throb like music without the music, if you get what I mean.
Soon we come to another ugly purple eye. Here Eran stops dead, his shoulders slumped, arms dangling by his sides. It takes him a while to work up the nous to say, “We need to break through this seal to get to the main chamber. I can’t do it from this side – or perhaps even this space-time instance. We may need the dream-stride.”
I’ve knocked out a few Orcs meself by this stage and frankly I can see why Erandur is so jumpy. “Oh yeah?” I glance around. “What’s that?”
“Dream-stride is a secret alchemical recipe created by followers of Vaermina who wish to follow her into dreams, more commonly known as methamphetamine. If one of us takes it, we may be able to move through the final minutes of those who inhabited the Temple, and remove this seal.”
Do meth, move through time. Got it.
“Are you mad?” I demand. “At the very least, won’t that muck up the thing, the space-time thing? Continuum?”
Erandur shakes his head. “This Temple has wemained untouched since it was sealed. It was an act of impulse to cast this seal – nothing will be impacted by its wemoval, except you and me will be able to move forward.”
“You seem to know a lot about this seal. How do you know the Temple weren’t touched, anyway? How many others survived?”
“No one. No one survived.”
I jab Eran in the ribs. He grunts. “You survived,” I accuse, “Yain’t no ghost.”
“Sorry, Skole?” He says loudly, turnin away, “I didn’t catch that.”
“I said-”
“NOT A SINGLE SURVIVOR. WHAT A TEWIBLE THING TO BEFALL US. OH LOOK, MORE ORCS.”
There’s a boom from the hallway right of the seal as Erandur sets someone else on fire. I come after him, stabbin where stabbin was needed.
“Hey, you’re at least gonna be the one to take this dream-stride stuff, ain’t ya?”
Turns out he wasn’t. Half an hour of searchin through books n brainin priests later, we find ourselves a battered book with the recipe for crystal meth, and the kind of alchemy lab which would’a had Margeth reachin for his silver spoon in excitement.
Erandur is no less melancholic fer our success. He stands sombrely over the alchemy lab, perhaps caught up in the past, perhaps lamentin not doin his laundry beforehand.
“Right,” he says at length, while I stand there excavatin my nostrils, “That’s the last of the moon sugar. It only needs simmer a while. Do you want to go over the plan again?”
“I take the dream-stride, you sit here composin poetry, I go see the bosses in the main chamber and then go up and cut the power, and then I take the soul gem to keep the ward goin up. That’s if I dun go instantly mad or wind up in the wrong memories entirely.”
“Fingers crossed.” Erandur hands me a dish fuller spitting brackish liquid. “Now don’t be frightened if you find yourself doing and saying things you never usually would. The point of this is to follow as close as possible in the footsteps of the dreamer.”
“Wait. How d’you know I’ll follow the right person?”
Erandur frowns. “I’m sure.”
“What if that person dies? Will I die?”
“They won’t die.”
“How do you know? You just told me there were no survivors!” I can think of protests all day long, or at least until the crystal meth has eaten through the dish. “What did you look like so I know not to hit you? How do I get back out of the dream? Wait – what-”
Erandur puts one hand on me arm and another on the backer me neck and jams the bowl into my face. The fumes of the dream-stride hit me before the liquid. The fumes, then the taste of too much sweetness, then...
Music...
Electricity...
Squirming bodies...
Dance.
Holy shit. I stop runnin and grab my face. Gaunt. Big pointy ears. Shit. I’m dressed in purple like some dumb dorky dark priest. I rip off a glove to show a thin grey-blue hand. I knew it! I’m bloody Erandur!
All around me is this pulsin energy, this light and electricity. People are... fighting? No. The music is loud and clear. It sounds like the Rapture played by storm atronachs. The light strobes green, purple, yellow, red, black, illuminating the figures on the dance floor. The Orcish musicians with their war drums bangin rawhide for their lives. The Vaermina worshippers stampin n shoutin to the song of the storm.
Is it a storm, or is it reality being shredded like a paper napkin?
BAM BAM BAM!
I cut a path through the writhing figures. I’m needed elsewhere. Through a hall where the dance-off continues, then into a high-roofed vault which must be the annexe to the central chamber. Two priests are waiting fer me.
“Brother Casimir,” one greets me. Behind him in the central chamber there’s this thing, this unbelievable thing, throwin out light and music and this electric sensation of chaos. “This has gone too far. We hafta stop the Gre’a Zurs.”
The other draws in t’wards us. “Indeed. Brother Casimir, you must cut the power. This madness will not end until you do.”
I stutter. I say, “B-but how will we ever best the Gre’a Zurs if we don’t stand and fight?”
One, I know his name is Veren Duleri, sneers at me impatiently. “You fool, don’t you see there is no way we can best them? The Gre’a Zurs have trained too well. The nightmares our mid-80’s hardcore electro punk induced has immuned them to it. Even on our home turf, their fierce drum solos and gnarly rifts have us against the wall.”
The other brother, Thorek, reaches out and grabs me by the shoulders. “Understand us well, Brother.” He takes a deep breath, looks me in the eye, and blurts, “You know those wankers are all up in our business. You’ve got to take them down, blood. You’ve got to take them down even if it kills you and you die or whatever, because if you don’t then we’ve got them in here at our pad or whatever, you know, the place where we’re at right now and all that and where our stuff is and that, and if you don’t take them down then they’re going to get in here, isn’t they, they’re going to get in here and turf us out on account of we isn’t as cool as they is, and they know that know on account of they’ve got our pad now man and we don’t, because we lost.”
“Nor must they lay hand on the Skull of Corruption,” Brother Duleri says with a sweeping backwards glance at the thing on the alter behind him. “Do you understand, Brother Casimir? Do you know what would happen if they were to capture this, our greatest treasure, the artefact of Vaermina?”
I shrug. “Th-”
“They would bloody mix their musical genre with ours, that’s what they’d do,” Thorek rattles at the speed of a laden mine cart rolling down a 15 degree slope. “If them with their meaty beats and their sick enrapturing hip hop tunes were to ever shake cocktails with our hardcore electro rock, because that’s what would happen if them, the Orcs, was ever to come in here and see our Skull of Corruption which they will because they’re winning the dance-off and next thing they’ll be in here mixing what they do with what Vaermina does and we won’t have any say in it because SHIT, blood, we’ll be out in the snow by then, we’ll be all dead and tired and shit, and all of Tamriel will be doomed and it will be all YOUR fault, Casimir, because here just listening to me like some pop-listening sissy when you could be up there potentially having poetry written about your heroic deeds although that won’t happen anyway on account of we’ll all be dead when it happens, like not dead-dead, but at least asleep forever which is just as bad but at least Tamriel will be saved, so that’s in the Orcs’ faces or something or whatever.”
Duleri nods. “Yes, you’re quite right, Brother Thorek. The Orcs would either bring about the death of all Tamriel, or its unification. Either way it’s against the will of Vaermina. So go, Casimir! Cut the power to our sick hardcore amplifiers, while there is still time!”
“Innit though,” says Thorek to Duleri, “He cuts the power and the Orcs won’t have nothing to dance to.”
“Innit it,” Duleri agrees.
“Classic,” I say. There is a bang and a groan from the crowd. They dun sound like Orchish groans. My fellow brothers are alarmed. Duleri spins me round and shoves me t’wards the hall.
“Go! We’ll start writing haiku about your heroic death!”
I run, if only because if I dun build up speed then I’ll never get through the crowd. Brother Casimir is a good deal skinnier’n I’m use to bein. We run though room after room of strobin lights and walls thumpin with bass, rooms full of dancin figures forming tight knots around competitors. The priests were totally outclassed by the Orcs, that much was obvious even to a fiddle-tinkerer like me. The music from either side clashes and jams and breaks my ears and at long last starts to sound as sweet as the rivers of Sovngarde.
I find the power switch without too many ladies attemptin to dance with me, and throw it. Sparks shower from the wall. Vaermina be damned! There are grates in the walls where the atmospheric mist rolls out, but as the sparks rain down the mist begins to billow from the grates. Soon it’s swarming around my hips, my chest. The music is growin drowsy n I can’t think why I’m here.
The Skull of Corruption, the haiku, the seal.
The seal.
The seal.
Almost by accident I reach out and snatch the soul gem from its bracket. The purple eye fades into non-existence. The lights are dim. I see Erandur standin across the doorway, and I have to pat my face to convince me I’m I again.
“Thank Mawa you’re all wight.” Erandur steps through the doorway. He grabs my hand and shakes it vigorously. “You did well, Skole, better than well. I can’t believe the dweam-stwide worked so perfectly! Come on, shall we finish this off? All we need do now is banish the Skull of Cowuption.”
I dun feel right just yet. Too much moon sugar still buzzing round in my head. I stagger after Erandur as he hurries back the way I’d come. “That music – the dance-off with the Gre’a Zurs. That chav, Brother Thorek. I was you, wasn’t I?”
“No,” says Erandur. I just look at him. Even with his back turned my bemusement drills through his skull. “Oh, awwight. I’m Casimir. Or I was. I haven’t used that name since I left the Temple that day. Nor have I held faith in Vaermina.”
“What- what happened, but? Why aren’t you stuck down here with the rest of the hardcore electro rockers and the hip hoppers?”
Erandur throws me a hasty glance. “If you must know the twuth, I can’t dance. My duties as a pwiest of Vaermina were pwetty mild – mainly killing and maiming. It’s just how I am; I was born with a deficiency in expwessing myself thwough whythmic motion. That’s why I was sent to cut the power.”
“Then you ran away?”
Eran nods. “I was fwightened what the elders would say to me when they found out I’d bwoken the atmosphewic mist machine. Skole, they may have forced me to dance. Even – even thinking about it now, I still get the shivers. I wegwet evewy day what happened here, but the twuth of it is, I still can’t dance.”
“Have you ever really tried?” We’re deep down now, almost back to Duleri and Thorek. We’re constantly steppin over bodies of slumberin dancers. Yet the atmospheric mist is still thick here, and none attempt to rise.
“I did. After leaving here, I joined the Bard’s College in Solitude. They kicked me out when I attempted to introduce electwo wock jamming sessions. Oh, there was that other minor incident where they tole me I wasn’t allowed to sacwifice me fellow students and use their blood to write poetry.” Erandur sighs. “It was more than that. They just didn’t understand hardcore electwo wock can be so much more than obnoxious noise; it can become the key to an individual’s fweedom!”
Such as runnin the fuck away from a bunch’a weirdo purple dancers.
But Eran seems so glum that I’m encouraged to cheer him. “Hey, man. How about you make up your own dance? Fuck the rhythm. To Oblivion with what everybody else thinks – you’re a free elf now. Well, nearly.”
“Yeah.” Erandur glances at me, nearly trips over an Orc, “Maybe if we get out of here, I’ll do that.”
It ain’t until the hall into the main chamber the bodies on the floor thin out. Fact there’s only two in here. I recognise one handsome head as belongin to Veren Duleri. The other? Thorek, the chav, of course. They appear to be embracing. There dun seem to be as much atmospheric mist in this room as the others.
“Close the door,” Erandur says in a hoarse whisper. I do. Wouldn’t want the miasma dissipating from that lotta pumped-up freaks out there.
There’s movement from Station Duleri. I draw Erandur to a halt. He’s seen, but unlike me he ain’t none too bothered. Fact is he’s positively overjoyed.
“Bwother!” he cries, rushin fer Duleri. He helps the brother to stand. Duleri comes up wiping his mouth and scowlin like he’s hopin we dun figure out what he was doin down there on the floor when the miasma set in. Before long Thorek is up as well, both’a em wobbly-kneed and holdin their heads. Eran helps em get their bearings. His charity convinces me to come a little closer. You can bet my hand dun leave my sword fer a second.
“Bwothers, how have you been?” Erandur is sayin, flittin back n forth tween em. “Don’t answer that. Oh, it’s so good to see you again!”
But the brothers in their purple dresses aren’t half as happy to see Eran as he is them.
“What... has happened?” Duleri wonders, clutchin onto Eran for support. “Why are you back here, Brother Casimir? Didn’t you cut the power? That music...”
We can still hear the throb of bass from the next room, the central chamber where the Skull of Corruption is throwin a party all for itself.
Thorek narrows his eyes. He shoves me lightly. “Who’s this, blood? And what’s the deal then with you, yeah, Casimir, what with you being all like older than you were when I just saw you – and those clothes you got on like some old geezer or whatever! I know what you did!” he roars, “You broke the atmospheric mist machine and ran away, blood!”
“What is this scandal?” Duleri pulls away from Erandur. I feel a lot like a fourth wheel, and not in the standard good way. The way Veren looks, I dun even want to be part of this tricycle. “You – you betrayed us! After we took you in and gave you free dancing lessons: is this how you repay us?!”
Erandur is stricken. “Brother Vewen, no! I was only worried-”
“Enough!” Duleri draws back an arm seems long as the horizon and swipes his hand over Eran’s face in a ringing slap. Erandur stumbles into me. I push him back behind me. Duleri sneers at me. “You. Don’t tell me you’re one of these pro-rockers. Abandoning the teachings of the old gods in favour of Nirn-shattering beats and epic electrolute solos.”
Electrowhatnow? “Hey! I ain’t nonna that. I be the Dovahjun, brother, and I dun hafta put up with yo trash-talking!” And I slap Duleri with the back of me hand.
Thorek leaps on me. Next thing I know we’re rollin on the stones, Duleri eggin us on from the sidelines. I taste blood as Thorek punches me. I drive my knee into his guts and manage to throw him off. I look around. Eran is nowhere to be seen. The door into the roomful of bodies is open.
Thorek notices me lookin n smirks. He wipes his swelling jaw. “Bitch gotcha, huh? Casimir is a coward, blood, y’all should know that.”
Duleri agrees. “We never should have trusted him to help us.”
Now that right there gets my back up. “He did help you!” I tell em, not sure exactly why I was so mad aside from I was there and I know how scairt Casimir’d been. Well it’s all very merry to have sympathy, but it also stands that if this had been His Jarlness insteader Duleri shoutin at me, this is what I would’ve said if I weren’t too much of a coward to stand up for myself. “He was scairt, damn you, and maybe he weren’t comfortable with what you was askin him to do, and maybe he knew his life wasn’t worth disagreein, and if he stuffed up or if he did his duty it would all end up with him dead and runnin was the only chance he could see! So shut yer bloody stupid fat mouth, ya old hack!”
For a long minute, Thorek and Duleri just stand there, gawkin at me.
“And what’s more,” I jab a finger at em, “Fuck you.”
“Why I oughta-”
With a WHUMPH the lights go out. In darkness we stand stock still with the bass like a mother’s pulse booming all around us. I’m sweatin. It feels too hot on my cold body.
Then the music starts. Electric. Like electric dragons fightin, that’s just how it sounds. I can hear movement in the room behind us, many groans and shufflin bodies. Green light casts a sudden, deathly pall over the chamber.
There is a squeal which makes us all moan. Erandur’s voice crashes through the long stone hallways. “Er, how do I turn this thing on? That should be wight. Can eveweybody hear me?”
A chorus of groans goes up behind us. The electric dragons pause their deathmatch while Erandur speaks. I glance over me shoulder at the next room, the one with the bodies, which are now fully vertically-enabled Orcs and priests. Oh shi-
“Awwight! Let’s get this party started!”
A squeal as Erandur leaves. The bass throbs and the dragons explode into battle. The floor rattles beneath our feet. Shoutin voices from the next room; everybody dancin, everybody fightin. Brothers Duleri and Thorek demand my attention.
“So, friend of Casimir the Betrayer,” Duleri sneers, “What will you do now? Trapped beneath the earth with a hundred enemies?”
“It’s a walk in the park fer me,” I tell him.
There’s something odd about the way the brothers are movin. Sorta swayin. Movement starts from the hips, tangles the legs, loosens the shoulders. It ain’t quite a dance, but it sure ain’t standin still neither. They’re still stumblin a bit and quite groggy from the mist, but for a couple buffoons prob’ly half-slaughtered on methamphetamines, they’re doin a brilliant impersonation of the waltz.
“What’s up with you blokes, then?” I say, cause I’m a mean bastard sometimes and the brothers’ faces are twitchin.
“Urg,” Thorek grunts, “Haf...ta... dance.”
It’s hard to hear him over the thrummin bass. The Orcs’ve taken up their drums. People are shoutin n stampin their feet. I back away. Duleri and Thorek are jivin menacingly t’wards me. Summin touches my shoulder and I nearly go through the roof.
“It’s me.” Erandur swaggers up on me right. “Thank you, Skole.”
One eye on Thorek, the other on Duleri, I says, “Watch yourself. These chavs are dangerous and ready to dance.”
Erandur rolls up his short sleeves, and steps up to meet his destiny.
