Nameless: The Lyre

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

Florin's quick reflexes had saved Romila and Jann, as the air elemental's lightning blast flew past overhead. The mage sisters were not so lucky, catching the brunt of the attack with one screaming as she was thrown off the mountain while her sibling was pinned against a large rock by the force of the magic and electrocuted to death.

After a brief pause, it fired again but this time the lightning arced around Jann's outstreched hand - tracing the invisible barrier he had conjured. Beside him, Romila was whispering to herself silently as all her focus remained on the air elemental. With a sudden, dramatic gesture, the air elemental suddenly dissipated like a clearing fog.

"Dispelled," Romila sighed as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

Florin nodded and cautiously advanced up the path the elemental had been guarding which led to a small plateau. There stood a plain stone altar.

"This should be the place, yet its not here," muttered Jann disappointedly.
"Maybe it's some sort of puzzle," mused Florin as he examined the altar. "I don't think someone could have climbed the sheer cliff face to sneak past the elemental guardian..."

"Unless they had wings," corrected Romila as she pointed to a nearby cliff side that clearly supported some form of nest.

**********

It took almost an hour for the trio to find their way up to the nest, and it was far larger than Florin had imagined. All sorts of shiny trinkets of various sizes lay scattered within, as well as a few man-sized eggs and the bones of various creatures. He definitely did not want to find out what lived here.

"There it is," said Romila as she pointed to a strange looking harp which fortuitously was at the edge nearest them. Without missing a beat, Florin gingerly climbed into the nest and retrieved the artifact. Upon turning around however, he saw a hint of steel at Romila's throat, followed by a spray of blood. As she collapsed with a surprise look to the floor, he could see Jann grinning behind her with a bloody knife in hand.

"Traitor!" Florin roared, but as he climbed out of the nest, his leg suddenly bent in a way it shouldn't, thanks to Jann's magic - immobilizing him on the spot and causing him to drop the harp.

"No hard feelings," sneered Jann as he snatched the artifact from the ground, while using his magic to dislocate each of Florin's arms. "I just prefer to ally myself with winners, you see."
With a final wave, Florin was sent painfully screaming and tumbling into the middle of the nest a broken and helpless man.

As if on queue, the shadow of a gigantic winged creature passed overhead, accompanied by the loud flapping of wings. Jann made a quick escape, leaving the panicked and screaming Florin as bird food.

Nameless: Forest of Spears

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

Tabitha yelled as her great sword was deflected by her opponent's shield, which was enough of a distraction for Fayina to plunge two daggers into the lizardman's back. Behind them, Silvain unleashed a spell with a clap of thunder that threw four more lizard man captors off their feet.

Tabitha made the most of this opening, rushing the four downed opponents and finishing them with brutal elegance before they could fully recover. Meanwhile, Magnolia was busily freeing her bound people and directing them away from the melee. She had freed about a third of the captives when the tip of javelin exploded out of her chest, and with a wide-eyed expression collapsed into the remaining prisoners, drenching them in her blood.

Silvain spun to face the new threat, throwing two magical balls of fire at the enemy squad. One missed entirely and exploded against a tree, but the second found its mark - talking half their number out and wounding a few more before a sharp pain hit her side and knocked her over.

A look of horror came over her face as she saw the long spear haft rising up to the sky. A lizardman soon appeared beside it, jagged blade in hand but before it could strike Tabitha's great sword cleaved his head from his shoulders. Silvain could feel her damp hands begin to shake as she tried to stop her blood from spilling out to no avail. Everything went black.

***

Tabitha had no time to tend to her downed companion as the lizard people drew closer. Fayina was doing her best to flank them but Tabitha could see that the thief was tiring quickly and could not get through their defenses.

Without wasting time she charged into the fray, brutally cutting down more of their reptilian adversaries and exchanging blood for blood as their more and more of their spears cut into her. A blow to the back of her knee unbalanced her, causing her to collapse onto all fours.

The nearest lizardman would have finished her off right there had Fayina not lunged into his side, shoving one dagger into the creature's head and another into its side. Unfortunately this wasn't enough to save Tabitha as the final lizardman attacked from behind her, shoving the length of his spear through her rear and piercing all the way through to her mouth - giving her a most undignified death.

Screaming with rage, Fayina charged the now weaponless lizardman head on, slicing and dodging, dodging and slicing, slicing and slicing... slicing and slicing... slicing and slicing. It took a few moments before she regained her mind, and found herself covered from head to toe and sitting in the entrails of what was left of her foe. The battle was won.

TESO: Unfriendly Terrain

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Malabal Tor is perhaps my least favorite zone in the game so far. The cliffs and forest make the zone bloody annoying to navigate, exacerbated with the amount of back and forth travel required by the local quests. While there was a Redguard incursion, the main foes along the shore consist of pirates, some of whom are in talks of alliance with the Worm Cult and the Imperial Empire.

Which also includes bad breath Daedroths.

More troublesome are the orcs already in league with the Worm Cult, who are trying to summon Malacath to Nirn - a plan I obviously put to an end with some assistance from Malacath's nemesis, Boethiah. The overall bad dude here is "the hound", and his houndsmen of Hircine.

If you thought "werewolves" then you are right. Lots of them. Of course it is more difficult chasing the scum down than it actually is killing him, but I am elated regardless afterwards because it means I can finally leave this annoyingly designed zone. Side note: How is it that giant wasps make zero noise despite constantly flying? Stealth magic?

Nameless: Time to Rumble

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

"What brings you here, manlings?" hissed Rhone in what Nessa assumed was her version of a friendly tone. "Wait, let me guess - you are here for the seal of fire?".

"How did you know?" Ladel blurted out like a buffoon, causing Nessa to grimace.

Rhone simply laughed. "That is the same reason those soldiers have laid seige to our home. They too tried diplomacy at first. Our answer to them is the same we must give you. Please understand, the Fire Ruby keeps our god, calm. There is simply nothing you can say or do that..."

A sudden, deep rumbling interrupted the captain's speech as the whole mountain shook briefly.

"Does that happen often?" asked Nessa as she steadied herself against a nearby wall.

Before Rhone could reply the rumbling returned, more intense than before. The other lizard folk began screaming and running past in terror.

"It can't be..." Rhone hissed angrily as she began to march deeper into the mountain. Ladel and Nessa followed close behind. "What's happening?" asked Nessa in a more demanding tone as a few more soldiers joined their group.

Turning the corner to an opulent staircase that spiraled further down the depths she got her answer. The bodies of dead lizard warriors and a few Shadowstar soldiers ley strewn lifeless on the floor. They had breached the walls.

Nameless: Worms

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

Dariya frowned as the little ball of light she had conjured slowly fell to the ground. "It's not here," she said to no one in particular.

"Looks that way ere too," quipped Arslan as he held a lantern closer to the spot she was staring. "So some taffer just gone and nicked it, yeah? Whaddaya think Buster?"

Buster wasn't looking at them though, he was looking back towards the mine cart they had used to descend to this deep and seemingly lifeless level. Then he saw it again, the shadows moving in the distance yet closing in.

Wordlessly he put his lantern on the ground and readied his axe. Arlsan understood right away and did the same with his sword and shield, at the same time Dmitri nudged his mother to prepare as well.

After a brief pause, they charged out of the darkness wielding pickaxes and hammers. It was only after Buster killed one that he realized they were just miners, only there was something off about them.

A bright flash of illumination lit up the chamber as Dmitri's fire ball set a good number of the attackers on fire, making it easy for Buster and Arslan to land fatal blows while their targets were distracted.

The last of them happened to collapse beside one of the lanterns on the floor, and from his mouth crawled out a hideous worm with tentacles. Dariya wasted no time to squash it with the end of her staff as the others recoiled in horror.

"Kill the worms!" she ordered as more began emerging from the corpses of the miners, too many to squash one at a time. Dmitri finally stepped forward with another fire ball, setting both the corpses and the parasites alight.

"You've seen these before, mother?" asked Dmitri. Dariya could only nod silently as a cold shiver ran down her spine. Wordlessly she turned towards a nearby wall and cast a variation of the revealing spell she did earlier.

With a silvery shimmer, a strange, purple door decorated with alien looking membranes materialized before them. "I think I know who took the artifact," she whispered.

Nameless: Summit

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

Florin pressed himself against the cave wall as much as he could as the massive red-coil mountain snake slithered past, not paying him or his team mates any mind. Once it was out of view, he signaled the rest of his squad to continue onward into the cold, howling wind and towards the bright opening ahead.

Despite the cold it felt good to stand on open ground once more, and they all paused a moment to catch their breath as well as make the most of the spectacular vantage point they now stood at, being able to see for miles to the horizon. Florin smiled at the rest of his team and noticed Romila looking the other way.

Following her gaze up the path, there looked to be a dense and compact cloud the size of a horse blocking the way. A cloud that wasn't being affected by the gusty wind. His eyes widened with sudden realization of what they were looking at as electricity began to spark violently from the innocuous looking air elemental.

"GET DOWN!" Florin yelled as he grabbed those nearest him and dove to the ground.

Nameless: Ruined

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

The village of the tree folk was in tatters, littered with debris, damaged surroundings and recent blood splatters. Most worryingly, it was deserted. There were no survivors hiding among the ruins, no bodies left lying in the mud. Silvain tried to comfort Magnolia, who was beside herself in tears.

"What lies to the North of here?" asked Fayina as she and Tabitha returned from scouting the nearby area.

"Some forgotten, ruined temple," replied Magnolia between sobs. "Why?"

"There are a lot of tracks going in that direction, it's possible some of your people are alive," explained Tabitha. "We're going after them."

Hearing this Magnolia recomposed herself as best she could and nodded.

*****

The old stone temple, now covered in vines, sat in a steep valley, giving the girls a good view from the edge of the treeline. Sure enough, a small band of tree folk, bound together at the wrists, were being led into the main plaza by reptilian-like humanoids each carrying a spear and shield.

"What are those?" whispered Fayina. Magnolia could only shrug as she too had never seen them before.

"Doesn't matter what they are," growled Tabitha as she unsheathed her blade. "Not after we're through with them."