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vosh-rakh · 2 years

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When she enters the door, all she sees is blackness, accentuated by dim red candles. His mask she sees first, the gold’s curves bouncing back arcs of crimson light. Then a figure emerges from the shadows, tall and lean, and she recognizes him immediately - she’s been dreaming of him ever since she returned to Morrowind.

Dagoth Ur’s arms are outstretched as if expecting a running embrace, his hands punctuated by red-black claws that were ambiguously either his nails or his exposed phalanges. His body has the same too-perfect physique that Vivec had had, but perhaps even more ethereally beautiful. And whereas Vivec was outrageously perfumed, a rotten smell wafts off of Dagoth Ur in gusts of pungent corruption.

“Greetings, Nerevar, my old friend,” says the Sharmat, his voice booming just like it had while he taunted her throughout this facility. “Please, take off that ridiculous helmet. I want to see your beautiful face.”

Ku-vastei, unsure how to respond, hesitates. But gradually she obliges, removing the dreugh helmet and obscuring her sight-line on the fallen god for but a second. In that second he has crossed the room to be mere feet from her. Her tail stiffens behind her.

“Ah,” says Dagoth Ur, surprise in his voice, “haven’t we met before? I don’t mean all those years ago when we were allies. More recently than that.”

Suddenly Ku-vastei remembers. “You were the one…and this was the place. The Staff of Chaos.”

“A paltry artifact compared to what you now carry with you,” answers Dagoth Ur. “I trust you have brought the tools? Keening, Sunder…” He stares at Ku-vastei’s begloved right hand. “Wraithguard.”

Ku-vastei drops the helmet and readies her spear.

“Do not be so quick to fight, Nerevar. Or do you call yourself by some new name?”

Ku’s lips are dry as she mutters, “Ku-vastei.”

“Tell me, Ku-vastei: are you truly Nerevar reborn?” The Sharmat’s sharp fingers dance at his sides.

Again, Ku hesitates. “What does it matter?”

Dagoth Ur places his hands on his hips and utters a hearty laugh. “It matters the world, my old friend.”

“I don’t know,” Ku-vastei whispers.

“Is that Moon-and-Star I espy on your other hand?” he inquires, shifting his gaze. “Then at least Azura hearkens to your claim.”

Ku-vastei removes her left hand from her spear’s shaft briefly to glance at the ring, with its entwined star and crescent. But quickly she returns to her fighting stance, keeping her eyes on Dagoth Ur.

“Another question, then: What are your plans for the heart if you manage to defeat me?” He grips the chin of his mask and tilts his head back, as if in deep thought. “Will you follow the Tribunal’s example, and establish a new thearchy? Or perhaps you will complete my divine mission, finishing Akulakhan and driving the mongrel dogs from Morrowind.”

Ku-vastei shakes her head furiously. “No. I have my own plans.”

Dagoth Ur waits for her to elaborate, but eventually nods when she doesn’t. “Very well,” he says. “Perhaps you may surprise me yet, Nerevar. Or perhaps you obscure your ambitions on principle.” He levels the three eyes of his mask with hers. “Or perhaps you are an instinctive bluffer. No matter.

“I have one final question for you to entertain,” he continues. “If I had offered to let you join me, would you have surrendered the tools to me to seal your oath?”

“No,” Ku-vastei says immediately. “I would never join you.”

“Thank you for the forthright response,” Dagoth Ur acknowledges. “Here I allow you to ask any questions of your own. Otherwise, you are the challenger. I grant you the opportunity of first blow.”

Ku-vastei pauses for a moment, trying to come up with suitable questions. She thinks suddenly of the Archmage Trebonius, and asks one question. “What happened to the Dwemer?”

“I have no idea what happened to the Dwemer,” Dagoth Ur answers plainly. “I have been denied the opportunity to study Wraithguard, and I am not sure how much of Kagrenac's lore was invested in her tools, and how much in her own sorcery and mastery. I have long studied Kagrenac, and have come to admire her wisdom and craft. Someday, after the campaigns of the Sixth House are secure, I hope to have time to dedicate to this mystery.”

Ku-vastei nods, disappointed.

“Have you no other questions?” Dagoth Ur asks. “I had assumed you would be more curious about your past life.”

“I don’t really care,” Ku-vastei says. Then she leaps forward, her tail spiraling behind her as she thrusts with all her might, piercing Dagoth Ur’s bare chest all the way through with uncanny ease.

“Oh!” Dagoth Ur exclaims, the sound accompanied by a burst of blood. “I did not expect to be so…easily bested.” He wraps his hands around the spear’s shaft, pushing back against Ku-vastei until the bloody tip reemerges from his chest. She tries to resist his force, and attempts to launch a new attack, but before she can, the Sharmat’s grip on the spear fails and he crumples to the floor.

There is a long silence in that room, where a devil has been vanquished. Ku-vastei keeps her breath held for a very long time. Finally she exhales, her lips blowing open. She tries to summon a feeling of victory, but fails.

She takes in a breath through her nostrils, but is again assaulted by the smell of rot. She takes a deep breath and holds it again as she approaches the corpse. Shakily she extends a hand towards the mask, and tries to remove it. She finds an incredible resistance, as if the mask were melded to his face. She sets aside her spear for a brief moment and commits both hands to the effort. Finally she tears the mask away, and -

She sees the face of God for only a brief moment before the body collapses into gorey ephemera, like the implication of rabid maggots feasting at heightened pace. Then all that’s left is the mask, dropped clattering to the floor in her shock, and a bloody stain in the shape of a man.

She does not let go of her breath until she is on the other side of the room, retrieving her discarded helmet. She dons it and turns back towards the fleeting remains of the body. For a moment, she fears that grace cannot truly exist in such a world as this. But then she resolves herself to finishing her task. She opens the door on the far side of the room.

Again she is confronted by the face of God, this time enormous and brass, staring down at her sparklessly. Its face takes a similar shape as the Sharmat’s mask, but more imposing. This, she remembers, is her true goal - to deny this God its terrible birth.

Then she looks away from the massive face, and down. Before her is the Sharmat, hands on his hips, laughing.

“What a fool you are,” Dagoth Ur bellows. “I'm a god. How can you kill a god? What a grand and intoxicating innocence. How could you be so naive? There is no escape. No Recall or Intervention can work in this place. Come. Lay down your weapons. It is not too late for my mercy.”

Ku-vastei sighs and brandishes her spear once more.

“Very well, Nerevar.” Dagoth Ur sprints towards Ku-vastei, giving her barely time to react, and lashes out with his accursed claws. She manages to put up a weak parry, but the force of the blow pushes her back. She glances at the new scars in the shaft of her spear - not just any spear, but an artifact of a god - and momentarily panics. In her fear she swings wildly, hoping to knock Dagoth Ur aside, remembering the ease with which she impaled him before. But the spear nearly bends around the Sharmat before bouncing back to shape, rattling Ku-vastei’s entire body. God laughs at her impudence.

Ku-vastei realizes there is only one option: run.

She jumps to the side, narrowly dodging another slash from Dagoth Ur, and sprints down the stone path ringing this massive chamber.

Dagoth Ur laughs, his voice filling the space and Ku-vastei’s ears, as though he were right behind her. “Hah-hah-hah-hah. Oh, dear me. Forgive me, but I am enjoying this.”

Something wizzes past Ku-vastei’s ear. She leaps to the side, fearing another shot, but lands right in its path. Her entire body burns without fire, her muscles and bones screaming out in pain, and she falls to her knees for the briefest of moments.

“Omnipotent,” the Sharmat’s voice echoes, “Omniscient. Sovereign. Immutable. How sweet it is to be a god!”

The feeling evokes the sensation of the Corprus spreading throughout her body; the memory triggers an association, and Malcius’ bloated face flashes before her eyes. Her aggrieved determination refreshed, she quickly climbs to her feet and keeps running, making sure to zigzag out of Dagoth Ur’s line of fire.

She clutches at her waist, where she has the tools fastened. As she fumbles for Sunder, she almost runs headlong into one of Dagoth Ur’s minions. Without thinking she crushes its skull with the enchanted hammer, leaving behind a horrifying dent in its head as it falls to the ground.

Ku-vastei sprints and dodges her way down to the ribcage of the nascent God, clobbering Dagoth Ur’s workers as she goes. Finally she glimpses the Heart, a red crystalline stone suspended amidst the ribs on the other side of a bridge. She nearly trips as she begins to cross it, and clambers her way to the Heart. Sunder nearly falls upon the Heart by accident before Ku-vastei can properly strike it.

Upon Sunder’s contact with the Heart, an enormous sound floods the chamber - not identifiable as any particular noise, but pure tone, fundamental and absolute. Knowledge forcibly enters Ku-vastei’s brain as if by telepathy from some unknown source: The God-tone.

Suddenly, Dagoth Ur’s laughter stops, drowned out by the sound.

Ku-vastei reaches now for Keening, returning Sunder to its place on her belt. She strikes the Heart again, slicing into the stone like through scrib jelly.

“What are you doing?” Dagoth Ur asks calmly.

Ku-vastei strikes the Heart a second time, and she feels the power reverberating around her, and she feels a tingle in Wraithguard.

“What are you doing?” Dagoth Ur shouts.

Ku-vastei strikes the Heart a third time, and the feeling in her hand becomes more pronounced, almost identifiable as pain.

“Fool!”

Ku-vastei strikes the Heart a fourth time, and her hand is suddenly aflame with agony. It takes all of her remaining willpower to maintain her grip on Keening.

“Stop!”

Ku-vastei hears Dagoth Ur on the wooden boards of the bridge behind her as she strikes the Heart a fifth time, her hand clenched by pained spasms around Keening’s grip. Just as soon as the sound completely evaporates, so does the Heart, completely vanishing from its hold within Akulakhan.

“This is the end,” Dagoth Ur mutters in the newfound silence just behind her, “the bitter, bitter end…”

Suddenly the sound of crumbling stone fills Ku-vastei’s ears, and she knows she must go. Tears in her eyes, she turns around, barreling past the now powerless Dagoth Ur. Just as she finishes crossing the bridge, it collapses, the rest of Akulakhan soon following, crashing into the lava below, its master along with it.

From her knees, Ku-vastei watches the spectacle in wonder until the dust has settled, and she remembers the pain in her hand. She attempts to remove Wraithguard, but all she earns for her efforts is more pain.

Slowly she rises and climbs back up the spiral pathway to the room where she first met Dagoth Ur, so as to escape the facility completely. Once she opens the door, she encounters God yet again.

She speaks: “You no longer bear the burden of prophecy. You have achieved your destiny. You are freed. The doomed Dwemer's folly. Lord Dagoth's temptation. The Tribunal's seduction. The God's heart freed. The prophecy fulfilled. All fates sealed and sins redeemed. If you have pity, mourn the lost. But let the weeping cease. The blight is gone, and the sun's golden honey gilds the land. Hail savior, Hortator and Nerevarine. Your people look to you for protection. Monsters and villains great and small still threaten the people of Vvardenfell. Enemies and evils abound, yet indomitable will might rid Morrowind of all its ills. For you, our thanks and blessing, our gift and token given. Come, take this thing from the hand of God.”

Her hands are outstretched, and between them floats a ring. Ku-vastei stares blankly.

Azura sighs. “Must I always repeat myself?”

Ku-vastei reaches with her Wraithguarded right hand, but winces.

“Ah,” Azura says, glancing at Wraithguard. “This I did not foresee. I am afraid this legacy of the Dwemer architect Kagrenac will be bound to you until you perish. The powers at play with the Heart were too much for your mortal shell to withstand.”

Ku-vastei opens her mouth to complain, but closes her eyes and takes the Ring of Azura with her left claw.

“Very well,” Azura says with a smile. “Be at peace, Nerevar.”

#ends kinda weird but i can't be bothered to fix it #oc: ku-vastei #nerevarine #nerevar #dagoth ur #sharmat #azura #kagrenac #akulakhan #morrowind #tes #tesblr #argonian #dunmer #chimer #dwemer

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