[h1]Investigating Nightcaller Temple[/h1]

[sub]A collaboration of [@Peik] & MiddleEarthRoze[/sub]

[hr][hr]

Deeper into the hallway, with nothing but his lantern lighting a path forward through the almost impenetrable darkness, Marcel could not help but feel a tinge of caution. He had walked through the illusory wall with his silver sword in hand, expecting threats from supernatural elements rather than anything human, but as he walked further, this expectation blurred. They were here to find assassins after all, and if anything, they had walked straight into their element. Marcel’s normal job was not much different than this, but then again, most beasts, due to their nature, often recoiled in irritation from his presence, and he himself was so much used to scanning the environment for elements that he’d often forget to focus and use his ability honed by his master to detect the inherent magic laying in living beings, which betrayed their position, no matter where they were.

It suddenly dawned upon him, as the hallway gave way to a large chamber, that he had forgotten that this time around as well.

''Hold on, Rhasha,'' Marcel advised to the Khajiit trailing behind him, and closed his eyes for a moment, welcoming a mostly unnoticed sense beyond the five that he normally used, feeling the presence of his large, furred comrade.

And others, too.

''Back!'' was all that Marcel was able to say as a warning, before instinctively lunging away from the edge of the oversized blade that had come swinging with the intention of lodging itself inbetween his shoulder blades. The rays of the sole source of illumination in the chamber danced weakly across the walls as the lantern in Marcel’s off hand shook with his swift movement, and the glaive meant for the Breton found itself striking the stone floor of the chamber with a sharp [i]clang[/i]. He could not see much with his eyes, aside from the lantern light glimmering off the blade. He thrust his blade forward instinctively in the general direction of the magick he felt as to sway his foe from a follow-up strike and earn himself a moment to gather his senses.

''To your left!'' Marcel shouted to Rhasha'Dar in that moment, in hopes that his words could guide the Khajiit's strike through the darkness.

Despite Marcel's warning, and Rhasha's own natural skill of seeing things in the dark others normally wouldn't, the Khajiit did not act quickly enough to deal with his hidden foe. The thought of two attackers was for some reason shocking to him, simply because he hadn't even considered it an option during his excitement of finding a hiding place for their serial killer - he had assumed a lone wolf, a single psychopath bent on hurting others. But of course, there was more than one... of course there was some kind of motive. 

His attacker lashed out before Rhasha could properly react, and the Dunmer's blades made contact with his uncovered face. One nicked the side of his cheek, while the other raked down his face, thankfully missing his eyes, but carving a ridge on the flesh above and below to his jawline. Falling to the floor with a painful hiss, Rhasha rolled backwards as he avoided another speedy attack from his opponent. Now, Rhasha had some advantage. The Dunmer had lost all elements of surprise, and the Khajiit's night vision could pick out his outline clearly in the darkness. Replacing his spear with war-axes hanging by his side, Rhasha charged his foe, cleaving in a brutal upwards strike with his axe and clipping the Dunmer on his shoulder.

A hollow shriek added to the cacophany of fighting sounds in the dark room, accompanied by various Dunmeri insults such as "S'wit" and "Fetcher", amongst other foul words. As Rhasha raised his axes to land a second blow, a wave of fatigure suddenly washed over him, and he staggered to his knees. Blood dripping into his right eye, he wiped it away with a now shaking hand. While he had never suffered this before, Rhasha knew well what these symptoms were down to after years of research in alchemy. The bastard had used poisoned blades.

Not knowing how virulent the poison was - or how long he may have left - Rhasha got back to his feet and swung his axes again, with as much strength as he could manage. They landed with a dull squelching noise into the chest of the injured Dunmer, and after gasping a moment, he fell to the floor. Whether the blow had killed him or not, Rhasha didn't particularly care. The wound would be fatal in a few moments, and there was another foe to be dealing with. Peering now with blurry eyes towards Marcel and the other Dunmer, Rhasha scrambled sluggishly to find his discarded spear on the shadowed floor.

In the meantime, things had not gone as well for the witch hunter. Despite having some innate advantage against the assassin in the darkened light, Marcel had not been able to properly gain initiative, and the Dunmer’s lengthy weapon, combined with his skilled usage, had made it almost impossible for the Breton to get closer than the weapon’s reach and put in a strike strong or well-aimed enough to get through or bypass his would-be killer’s armor.
 
With his candle lantern having almost consumed its air supply in the constant flinging, Marcel found it harder and harder to parry or dodge the Dunmer’s strikes, with the glaive’s weighty blade putting too much strain against his blade. Too busy with his attempted murderer to notice how his Khajiit comrade had been doing, Marcel could only find the strength to gain initiative in himself after noticing the faint glow of somebody’s life force seep down and form a puddle on the ground. Fearing that the Khajiit had been fatally wounded, Marcel let out an unexpectedly aggressive cry and lunged forward, swinging his silver blade downward.
 
His cry was cut short by the sudden pricking feeling of something biting into his windpipe and a sudden feeling of breathlessness. The Dunmer had managed to strike true; Marcel choked, almost vomiting because of a pool of blood forming in his throat, and his knees gave after a couple of clumsy retreating steps, and convulsing moments of attempted gasps for air. Had it not been for his gorget, the strike would have most likely cloven through his neck, perhaps decapitated him. It was debilitating, and almost fatal; nonetheless, this was a preferable alternative to certain death.
 
Despite desperately trying to get back on his feet and continue with the fight, Marcel found it increasingly harder to attempt as the shock of the wound passed and the adrenaline rush lost its immediate effect. Blood was pouring out of his neck like rainwater would from a roof gutter; his lungs were crying for air, his face had gone purple from being unable to breathe, and his eyes felt like they were on the verge of popping out of his skull. His skull felt like it could explode any time from the sheer pressure. It seemed like a definite, if not fatal, defeat.
 
Slumping onto the ground, he weakly tried to at least get back on his knees, attempting to push himself up with his arms, yet they felt more like a burden than support. He weakly turned his head, and felt someone’s life force closing the distance. No doubt, he thought, it was the Dunmer, coming in to finish what he had started. He opened his mouth in a subconscious attempt to make noise; whether shout, curse or yelp for air, Marcel himself did not know, but the result was no more than a gargle and a mouthful of blood spat onto the ground.

There was nothing Rhasha wanted to do more than to fly at Marcel's attacker, cleaving him down before he could harm the Breton further, and to then heal the poor man. But unfortunately for the intrepid pair, Rhasha's strength had all but ebbed away. Shadows seemed to flicker at his periphery as the world began to swim around him, and the cut on his face seemed to burn stronger than the wildfires he had escaped from only a week ago. In his dying sight, he could see the stumbling Marcel, and the Dunmer bearing down on him. A low, rumbling noise filled Rhasha's ears as the poison numbed his senses, but thankfully, the cat still had his sense of touch. Probing fingers along the floor finally fell upon a familiar wood, and his hands grasped the smooth shaft of his spear.

Walking seemed to be an impossibility, but with the length of his weapon, Rhasha had a slight advantage. The second dunmer - seemingly uncaring about his still dying fellow on the floor - had either forgotten about Rhasha, or dismissed him as a threat entirely. A foolish mistake, especially when one had the upper hand in a fight.

Propping himself up with the last vestiges of strength, Rhasha launched himself towards his foe from a crouching position, allowing his own weight to carry him forward and put enough force behind his spear thrust. While his mark wasn't true - he had been aiming for the Dunmer's heart - the point of his spear pierced flesh, and the man let out a bellow of pain. Both of them fell to the floor; Rhasha in utter exhaustion, and the attacker in agony. While his heart and lungs were quite safe, Rhasha's spear had been driven almost entirely through the attacker's midriff - gut wounds were rarely immideately fatal, but they were quite agonising. If the Dunmer didn't find medical aid soon, he was sure to die from blood loss... or septic shock. The latter was painful beyond words, but it was to be expected when one's digestive juices suddenly poured free amongst your organs and blood.

As the dunmer wrenched the spear from his back and staggered out of the room, Rhasha weakly tugged on Marcel's sleeve. In his hand was a healing potion - several more were in his bag, but he was barely in any state to blink, let alone stand up and go rummaging amongst his possessions. 

"Ta...ke..." Was all the Khajiit managed to utter before totally succumbing to the fatigue poison. It had been pointless him drinking it anyhow - whatever poison had been used on him was fast - much faster than a simple health potion, that was for sure. As unconsciousness began to take hold, Rhasha wearily scolded himself for not making a cure poison potion earlier. 

It would not be too extreme to say that the Breton was far too heavily debilitated by his wound to realize what the Khajiit had done for him; despite the fact that the cat-man had saved his life, Marcel was too concerned with his throat and his friend's apparent paralysis to actually appreciate that fact. He could feel beads of sweat gathering on his forehead from the pressure, although things were painful enough for him that he might as well have been sweating blood. He barely heard the Khajiit say something, and felt something tug on his arm, trying to push himself back before reflexively before understanding it was his comrade. Marcel propped himself onto his knees and hobbled forward on them and his hands like a baby's attempts at walking, occasionally slipping up on blood. A few moments later, Marcel's hand eventually stumbled onto the Khajiit's palm, and in it a wooden bottle. 

Marcel was far too gone to try and think what it could be. The pain had overridden his mind to a point of animal instinct; he didn't even have the mental capacity to hope that it was a potion, he just simply grabbed it, sloppily opened it and then poured it down his mouth, some of it pouring down his mouth and onto his neck. He felt the liquid pool in his throat for a moment, barely fighting an urge to vomit, before feeling his throat clear up from the liquid pressure and twitching with rejuvenation and a relaxing sensation. While he still did not have the strength to do anything aside from crawling around on his knees, he felt that his muscles and brain weren't losing any further capacity. It was a relief, although there wasn't really much time to feel relieved, considering how they were now confirmed (harshly) to be in hostile territory, and how the Khajiit seemed to be... losing strength?

Marcel crawled over to the fellow, tracing his wounds with his finger, deducing that they weren't really all that deep, compared to the fluctuations in his comrade's life force. For a moment he thought that the Khajiit just had very low pain tolerance, but then it dawned upon him that their opposition, being assassins, could've likely poisoned their weaponry, as Marcel himself often did when hunting. Suddenly feeling a panicked concern, he quickly began going over his belt, touching the satchels to recognize what material they were made of (Marcel used containers made of different materials to be able to recognize his potions in a pinch or when in darkness). Feeling the smoothness of a lacquered bottle, he immediately pulled it from its spot and popped it open, pouring its poison-eating liquid down the Khajiit's throat, hoping it would be effective, and that it was indeed poison and not something else that was eating away at the cat-man.  

With how the poison was affecting him, Rhasha wasn't entirely sure as to whether or not he had truly lost consciousness at any point. The darkness of the room they laid in, paired with his swiftly numbing senses, easily gave one the impression that they were knocked out. Whatever the case, the first sensation to come back to Rhasha was one of a cool liquid, running down his throat and settling in his stomach. It seemed icy-cold to his body, already running a dangerously high temperature - but wherever the liquid went, it seemed to douse the fires within. Eyes that had been half-closed opened fully now, with Rhasha's lucidity rushing back to him, alongside a good dose of aches, pains and thankfully, his night vision.

The concerned face of Marcel was the first thing he could make out amongst the fuzziness of the darkness above, and the Khajiit's first thought was that of relief - clearly the health potion had done his comrade some good. Otherwise, the pair of them might be dead.

The remnants of the poison's effects still clung to Rhasha'Dar; he felt weak and shivery, like someone who had only just fought off a particularly bad flu and was taking the first steps of getting better. Slowly propping himself up on one elbow, then sitting up all the way, Rhasha faced Marcel.

"This one... thinks we should leave." He managed to pant out quietly through laboured breaths. Marcel didn't seem too incapacitated at the moment, but the pair of them likely couldn't track down and fight their surviving attacker. The threat of more assassins in the fort was entirely possible, and besides, Rhasha didn't feel up to fighting a cold, let alone an angry, weapon-wielding Dunmer. He could always drink a few stamina potions, but who knew if that would be enough?

"Unless... you have... other plans?" He asked the Breton man, wondering if he had a few more tricks up his sleeve alongside a cure poison potion.

Marcel's reply was no more than a simple nod of rejection. "...Enough," he managed to spurt out in pain, "We... know enough. Out." He eyed the entrances nervously, hoping that there wouldn't be any other surprises, as he offered a hand to the Khajiit. 

Rhasha'Dar couldn't agree more. Taking Marcel's hand gratefully, he unsteadily got to his feet. Pausing only momentarily to retrieve his weapons (His axe took a bit of tugging to remove from the dead Dunmer's torso, but Rhasha had no intention of leaving any part of his brother's parting gift behind in this wretched place.), he followed Marcel out of the fort and they began their descent down the snowy bank of the hill. Hopefully there would be a guard or two near the border of Dawnstar to deal with this newly found threat - Rhasha and Marcel were certainly in no state to do so.