(Penny and Poo Colab)

Some instinct made Granuaile turn and look back into the mist. Perhaps it was the recent murders, or perhaps it was merely an old soldier’s sense for standing a watch in the moments before a night attack. There seemed to be something in the fog, a faint shimmer, almost a reddish hue. Granuaile watched it, fascinated in spite of herself, her eyes following the shimmer of color. Instinctively she took a step forward to the light, her mind growing empty and calm. Then the Nord drew his sword. Granuaile’s left hand snapped up and a blue shimmer blossomed from  left hand as her mind screamed at her that Hakon was about to attack her. Red light swirled and eddied against her shield and she recognised the enchantment for what it was. Her right hand came up, magicka surging, but before she could unleash her power, a pair of boots crashed through her shield and smashed into her hip, sending her spinning off her feet with a cry. She hit the side of the building with a bone jolting crack as her attacker rolled to his feet. The enemy was tall, a mer of some sort, with skin a pale unhealthy gray and burning red eyes. It’s face was bestial, as though a snarling animal skull were crammed beneath a Mer’s musculature. Hakon let out a Nord warcy and leaped forward, his sword arcing down like a meat cleaver. The Mer clapped his hands together, catching the flat of the blade between them and twisting so hard that Hakon was flung sideways like a rag doll, somehow retaining his grip on the blade. The Mer-thing reached down and seized Granuaile by the neck, lifting her into the air. The smell of saltwater, mold, and grave-dust burned in her nostrils, stinging her sinus. A strong hand grabbed her hair and wrenched her head sideways exposing her neck. With a snarl of hunger the creature drove its fangs down at her exposed jugular. There was a crunching sound, like porcelain hitting mail, and the Mer-thing reeled back in shock. Granuaile staggered to her feet, the shimmer of iron on her neck, and blood running from a gash on her arm. The Mer-thing screamed in rage and lurched towards her. Granuaile lifted her hand and summoned her shield. Rather than face the power of the charge head on she turned with it, smashing the magikal barrier into her attacker, swatting him sideways as her right hand came up. Her eyes gleamed with an excitement she hadn’t felt in months. A beam of flame as hot and white as the heart of a forge roared into existence, she whipped her hand around towards the staggering Mer thing, the beam of heat raking across the field stone of a building. Stone screamed and cracked, running red hot. Mortar exploded from the joints and lit in a low order explosion, the same way hair oil burned when it met the flame. Trash and detritus flashed into fire, adding the stink of burning organic matter to the sharp sting of burning lime. The Mer dropped, a moment before the spell would have cut him in half, and  turned the momentum of its fall into a spinning kick that took Granuaile’s legs out from under her. The spell flickered out as she hit the ground, the impact driving the breath from her lungs. The Mer-think rolled atop her and pinned both her hands with its clawed talons, it’s mouth opening wide to show razor sharp fangs that glinted red in the light of the fire’s Granuaile had just kindled. It lunged down to rip out her throat, eyes filled with hatred and terrible hunger. 

Hakon’s boot caught it in the side of the head with a crack that sent the thing spinning across the alley and into the wall Granuaile had partially immolated. The rock was so hot that the ancient salt crusted clothing the thing wore began to smolder and peel like burned skin as it pulled itself to its feet and launched itself at the Nord. Hakon barreled towards the pale Mer, unsheathing his steel sword and realigning his footing, putting his right foot forward and left foot back as he led with a thrust that merely kissed the neck of the vampire, who dodged with preternatural speed.The vampire spun, arms out and claws extended in a movement that looked little more than a blur, but Hakon managed to dance back from the assault and defend himself while continuing his offensive, cleaving his sword through the Mer-thing’s center mass. The steel cut cloth and nicked the clammy, cold flesh of the accursed creature, but it moved with the fluidity of a fish in water. The beast pivoted and dodged, and the next thing Hakon knew, a claw had raked through his fur clad shoulder and shed his blood on the flagstones beneath his feet. He did not stop to think of the wound, roaring a warcry and barreling forward. The sound was hoarse and unfamiliar. He hadn’t called to the spirit of Talos in nearly a decade, but it lent strength to his limb and set a fire in his breast. His steel sword chopped at the spawn of Molag Bal from every angle, and even as the beast continued to give him small cuts, the blood did not stall him. The vampire, quick and deadly as it was, had expected the attack to stagger Hakon rather than send the nord in a berserker rage. Soon it felt the bite of steel on its arm and a ferocity that matched its own. It hissed when Hakon’s pommel struck it across the face, sundering its nose in a sickening crunch. The thing riposted impossibly fast, hitting Hakon in the chest so hard it lifted the nord off the ground to land on his hands and knees, his breath expelled from his lungs. As Hakon wheezed, the vampire moved in for the kill. 


 Granuaile pushed herself to her feet, tasting blood, smelling gravedust, thrilled with the touch of destructive magicka. The nord who had saved her was on his knees as the vampire closed. His cry to Talos, so often whispered in Legion camps and screamed in Stormcloak infested defiles, steeled her resolve. Lifting both hands she called on her magicka and screamed a single word. Burn. The fires she had kindled with her spell, the heat she had blasted into the cracked and smoking stones, the latent heat of burning trash was sucked into a magicka fueled vortex beneath the things feet. The entropic effect was strong enough that it coated the alley for a dozen feet with a rhyme of ice. Wind rushed down the alley from all directions as air sought to supply the flames that nature alone could not have created, sucking a backwash of swirling mist into a flaming shroud that glowed like dawn in the fog of Elsweyr. Fire, pure and white hot spurted upwards in a column around the vampire. Granuaile heard its eyes explode and flash to steam as it screamed in unearthly rage. It staggered back away from Hakon, flame dripping from it’d body as it shed burning fingers and teeth burst from its shock compressed skull. Still, somehow, the thing kept its feet howling with fury and filling the alley with the quick lime scent of subliming calcium. 

His rasping inhalation audible, Hakon clutched at his chest as he rose to his feet. His world spun, but he kept the grip on his sword. The nord’s eyes watery from the pain, he felt he had gone to Sovngarde when all he saw was the white hot of Granuille’s flames. Hahon blinked, suddenly realizing she had set the vampire aflame like a funeral pyre. Its unearthly screech filled the street, but it’s piercing wail cleared his senses and he cried out once more in battlelust. The nord hefted his sword and charged headlong toward the stumbling thing, raising his blade and hacking into the putrid creature’s neck. The steel buried itself to the fuller, striking bone with the sensation of striking a gong. The vampire wheezed as pitifully as he had done, the flames licking away its flesh as it weakly turned to regard him. Hakon did not curse it or spit on the thing, he simply drew his sword back and aimed at its neck again. His sword sliced through the flesh and cracked what little bone there was left, lopping the head off to spin onto the ground. The body lazily staggered as if still animated, and Hakon wasn’t sure if it was truly dead. However, a moment later its loathsome form collapsed onto the stones, its flames a dull beacon in the midst of the wretched fog. Granuaile pulled herself to her feet and shook smoke from her fingertips where the nearest hint of keratin had burned away, the odor unable to add anything to the unforgettable aroma of burned corpse. Of the vampire all that remained were a few blackened teeth whose dentin was too tough even for spell fire and savage steel to completely discoperate. The fire gutted and died, all natural fuel combusted so completely that hardly an ember blew on the guttering wind.

Hakon took the hem of his cloak and wiped his blade, looking at the smoldering ruin of the thing with distaste. “Wretched thing. Nearly took my head,” He said, and then finally looked over to Granuille. “You’re skillful with that fire. Thanks for that.” 

“Just a little trick I picked up,” Granuaile replied modestly, brushing the ash from her fingernails.

“He’d have had me for sure if you hadn’t been so quick with the sword,” she admitted by way of reciprocity.  “I wonder if this was our killer?” 

Before they could speak further a scream echoed from the night, the fog making its direction uncertain and pain and despair robbing it even of gender.

“Dibella’s Tits, are there more of these things out there?” she demanded. 

“Well if there is, better to take the fight to them.” Hakon said, a fierce gleam in his eyes. He gave a practice swing with his sword, making sure the blade hadn’t been loosened from the pommel. Ironically enough, he hadn’t made this sword himself. Hopefully it would keep. “Tsun figures I’d leave my shield the night we’re invaded by the Legions of Coldharbor.” 

He took his father’s pendant and gave it a small kiss, before dropping it back into his furs. “Let’s go. We’ll get our answers if we make it through the night.”