EliteCommander

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

I think you accidentally listed one of your headers in your post as Meirin instead of Myrn, @Ryonara

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Although she could not move from her position, Ahnasha still had plenty of options. Spotting Fendros' target, she loosed an arrow immediately after him. Fendros' arrow damaged the sphere's crossbow arm, while her arrow staggered it back. Seconds later, Saras landed an arrow on one of the struts that served as part of its "legs." Still, the sphere remained functional, so the three continued their volley. They stopped any progress the machine could make towards their frontline, and eventually, one of their arrows struck the automaton's "head." Evidently, the impact knocked something important loose, because it collapsed backwards, completely disabled.

Following the destruction of the sphere, Ahnasha conjured a flame atronach in front of their shield wall. It was summoned into the oil fire, but that was obviously not an issue for that particular kind of atronach. Upon Ahnasha's instruction, it focused its fireballs on their left flank. Overall, despite the fact that they were facing quite a few automatons at once, the threat was still not that great. There were several dozen warriors holding that room alone, with many more behind them. The only major injury which had come so far was the bolt that found its way into a warrior's leg, and Sabine was already treating that. In all likelihood, this fight would end soon with only a few shocks from Dwemer spiders.

---

Peiter still felt nervous leaving the caverns through the inn. He knew that the clan had devised a clever system for hiding themselves, but he still could not help but to be tense being around non-lycans so close to the clan. Still, once they headed out into the forest, he became more comfortable. He took a dagger and made his first throw towards the tree, which, of course, missed terribly. He was far less accurate with his left hand than he had ever been with his right. Granted, he had been improving on many tasks with his non-dominant hand, but accuracy was not one of them. "I'm glad we have somewhere to stay now. Moving everyone over from Cyrodiil was tense. It's almost hard to believe that we had to give up our home. That Ayleid ruin housed us for years, and now it's probably almost completely empty. I know we were taking everything valuable."

Taking another throw, Peiter did actually manage to hit the tree, but the dagger spun too far and hit with the handle. "So what's this Dwarven place going to be like?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Once the oil caught fire, it spread through the room ahead of them quickly. Although the automatons did not have too much of a sense of self-preservation, whatever the Dwemer used to animate them gave them at least enough sense not to stroll directly through a wall of flames. Most had to move towards the edges of the room to go around, but a sphere and a spider had been caught in the middle of the oil before Sabine spell. The spider's components melted and exploded into a ball of lightning before it could even escape the fire, and the sphere did not fare too much better. The intense heat had caused it to quickly begin overheating, so while its metal exterior was only barely damaged, several of its pipes burst from the steam pressure, causing it to almost fall apart before them.

With flames engulfing the center of the room, the automatons were pushed to the left and right flanks, led by Ri'vashi and Hjergir. The warband was now facing more automatons than they had before, but the concepts were still the same. They still outnumbered the machines severely, so they maintained their formations behind their shield walls. Hjergir was targeted by one of the spheres, and while the machine's blade delivered more of an impact to his shield than he had been expecting, he was able to hold up his guard and allow a soldier beside him to deliver a blow on the machine's sword arm with the spike on his axe.

In the center of the formation, Meesei's pack could not do much to reposition and help their flanks. Their formation was too tight to move to the sides, and the space ahead of them was blocked by fire. However, they had to be calm, as this kind of fighting was all about patience and opportunity. The automatons would only be a threat to the warband if they made mistakes, so it was better to wait until they had openings instead of trying to make the openings themselves. The center group could not move effectively to help in melee, but those with range could still be perfectly helpful. Meesei stepped forward into the frontline and targeted one of the spheres off to the left. She let off a few, quick thunderbolts one after another, stalling the machine completely in its tracks.

---

Peiter, all things considered, was in an average mood. It has been over a week since Sabine and the others had left for the ruin, so he was starting to settle into mundane tasks around the clan. There were more ways than he had been expecting that he could help around the clan, and he did his best to avoid focusing on the things he could not do. For the last few weeks, he had stopped drinking as much as he had in the Bruma clan, not out of a lack of desire to do so, but for the mere fact that he had a hard time finding alcohol. Although, now that he was settled into the Riften clan, that could change.

When Gallus approached, Peiter did not bother arguing. He had little else he could be doing, so he actually appreciated the chance for a diversion. "Eh, sure. I'm not really doing anything else."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Sure.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei practically growled at the Dwemer spider when it jumped into the middle of the group. Baring her teeth, she responded with a bolt of lightning that caused it to temporarily lose its balance, and left it an easy target for Sabine's flames. The small machine overheated fairly quickly, leading to a few pops from the pipes bursting within it. Both Meesei and Sabine quickly put up their wards, protecting them, and everyone behind them, from the shock burst the spider released upon its destruction. Although, Kaleeth was standing off to the side and ended up taking another shock.

Kaleeth shouted briefly from the pain, then kicked the remains of the automaton. "Stupid machine. I don't feel bad for them anymore."

Ri'vashi curled her lips as she looked down at the spider. "Danger seems to lurk everywhere in this place. Fendros is correct that this next room would be the perfect place for an ambush with traps. Granted, these automatons obviously do not seem capable of strategic thought. Regardless, we should approach cautiously. Ri'vashi, Meesei, and Hjergir can take the lead to divide us into three flanks once we are inside. This one will go left, Hjergir can go right, and the Champion can take the center. Each of us can watch for traps as we move forward, so as long as we are alert, and no one advances beyond us, we should be safe."

Meesei nodded. "Agreed. Let us form up, and get these doors open."

With no further hesitation or distractions, the warband got into position behind Ri'vashi, Meesei, and Hjergir. They stood spaced apart from one another on their appropriate flanks, one step ahead of the formation. Two warriors moved to the doors and pulled them open as quickly as they could for the warband to move through. With the size of the doors, however, it still took long enough that anything in the room was alerted to their presence before they could rush inside. Meesei moved straight forward with her ward raised, and her eyes to the ground ahead of her. There were no traps exactly, but she spotted what seemed to be pools of oil on the floor ahead of them. If her memory served her correctly, Dwarven oil could be quite flammable in the right conditions. Just like Meesei, Ri'vashi and Hjergir encountered no traps on their flanks, so the warband was free to form the frontline around them. However, the automatons within the room were already responding.

At first, all that was in the chamber were two Dwemer spheres and four spiders. They unpacked themselves and started rushing towards the frontline. However, the intrusion also caused a series of pipes along the walls to open up. They were pipes that allowed automatons to move quickly through the ruin, and evidently, several of the machines had simply been waiting within. Four more spheres, and three more spiders emerged from the pipes. Most of the spiders began with electric attacks, while five of the six spheres raised their crossbows towards the formation.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei had no intention of lowering the warriors' morale, but there were aspects of the automaton that worried her. Namely, the fact that it had been so durable. They had destroyed it easily enough, but that did not diminish the fact that it had survived a volley of arrows and several seconds of sustained arrows before Ri'vashi's mace finally disabled it. Alone, they were little threat, but if they were surprised by a larger number of the machines, then they could prove difficult to destroy. Ri'vashi was, physically, one of the strongest people present, so a single blow might not be enough for others to deal with the atomatons.

"Just be careful. These machines are durable, and may be difficult in numbers." Meesei commented as they formed up to move on. Since Dwemer structures tended to place more important rooms deeper underground, Meesei decided to focus on the path that Saras had unlocked. Although, she did send one team to investigate the other path. For at least a few minutes, the pathway down was mostly empty. Some of the walls had partially collapsed, but the structure seemed sound overall. They did run into a few automatons, but only the smaller, less dangerous Dwemer spiders. They did not take near as much damage to destroy, and overall did not seem built for combat. Both of the spiders they encountered, they destroyed at range, so they were able to witness at a safe distance that the spiders exploded into a burst of electricity upon "death." It was helpful information, if they had to fight one up close. For Meesei, she was also looking around for anything that might make use of the attunement sphere. She knew it would be needed to access their new home, and had assumed that it would be needed to access the ruin itself. But, so far, that had not proven true.

Eventually, the warband came across a more open chamber. It was not large enough to accommodate the entire warband comfortably, but after checking for automatons, they spread out somewhat to check the room for exits. There was an obvious exit through a door on the other side of a gate to their left, but there was enough rubble in the chamber that other options might have been hidden. There were stairs leading up to a pathway above, but it quickly became obvious where it led when the team she sent to investigate the other path before emerged from that path. Personally, Meesei wondered what the point was of two paths that led to the exact same room.

In any case, the chamber contained the remnants of a larger camp than before. There were more worn bedrolls and bags of rotten supplies. In the room behind the gate on the left side of the chamber, there was a sort of counter with various Dwemer objects spread out on the top. Although, most were fairly mundane pots, pans, gears, and other objects. Anything worthwhile must have been taken when the previous inhabitants of the ruins departed. Although, there was another gate in the side room behind which one could plainly see a few valuable treasures. An unopened Dwemer chest, a few ingots of Dwarven metal, a dusty, but otherwise pristine Dwemer helmet, and even a few ingots of what appeared to be gold. However, the gate was locked, and since the contents of the room had not been taken, one could guess that it had a robust lock. They could likely open it, particularly if Saras was as skilled as Meesei thought, but she decided that it was not a priority. Once they cleared the ruin, then they could search it for valuables.

There only seemed to be one exit to the chamber that led anywhere new, so the warband once more started to gather into formation. As Meesei's pack and the other leaders regrouped at the front, Ahnasha grabbed their attention. "I tried listening in through the door. It sounds like there's a lot of machinery on the other side. I guess these ruins are filled with machines, but I think I might have heard rolling too. Could be more of those spheres. If so, there's definitely more than one."

Ri'vashi nodded. "Then we must be careful. Make sure we stay in formation through the door, and if they try to surround us, make sure we have shields on all sides. The door is a chokepoint, so make sure to push up just enough that our warriors can fan out into the room, if possible. If it's a hallway, then we just need to make sure our shield wall stretches from one side to the other."

As they were conferring together, there was a sound to their left among a pile of rubble from a partially collapsed wall. However, it did not leave them with much time to react. Suddenly, a Dwemer spider jumped out from the rubble and landed among the group, close to Meesei and Sabine. While not the most threatening of atomatons, their front legs were sharp, and this one let out a burst of electricity all around it. The shock was far from being lethal, but it was painful.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Among the ranks of the warriors, there was some initial confusion upon seeing the automaton. Dwemer ruins had a reputation for being deadly places, so most had likely expected an ambush from a small army of Dwarven machines. Seeing a lone automaton rolling headlong into a formation of warriors seemed almost laughable. Saras was ahead of the formation when he opened the gate, so once he heard the sphere rolling towards them, he conjured his bow once more and started stepping back. He nocked his arrow as the automaton was raising its crossbow, but he was the first to fire. Saras' arrow hit the machine's shoulder, though being made of Dwarven metal, the arrow did not even come close to penetrating. The impact of the arrow did, however, exert enough force onto the sphere to cause it to stagger back and to its left as it rolled up the ramp. It caused its crossbow bolt to fire aimlessly off into the wall beside it, and slowed its approach. Once Saras stepped back into formation, other archers, Ahnasha included, loosed their arrows as well. Most of the volley hit stopping its progress entirely, and even knocking it down. Although, it was quick to right itself and resume its charge towards the group. Notably, it was now emitting a harsh grinding sound, suggesting that the impacts had caused some damage to its internal components.

Seeing as the volley did not destroy the machine, Meesei stepped into position and let loose a storm of lightning into the sphere, lasting a few seconds. It was visibly affected by the onslaught of energy, as it nearly seemed to lose its balance. Steam started to escape from the machine's joints and it gave off a constant, high-pitched hiss from the pressurized gas escaping its pipes. Even so, it continued to roll forward. Once it was upon the formation, it took a swing towards its nearest foe, which Kaleeth readily blocked with her shield. Even damaged, the automaton could hit with impressive force, though Kaleeth could handle blocking it without issue.

Following the machine's fruitless attack, Ri'vashi swung her mace directly into the sphere's "head." The Cathay werebear's strike, in addition to being startlingly loud, was enough to cause the automaton to entirely collapse to the side, in front of Janius. It even put a sizable dent into the plate she had struck. There was still hissing from the escaping steam, but it looked like the machine had finally been destroyed. It had multiple forms of visible damage, but it was still in-tact enough that they could get a good, up-close look at it.

Kaleeth looked down and prodded the automaton with her mace. "I know it's not alive or anything, but...I almost feel bad for it."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei's personal preference would have been for the ruin to already be mostly clear to start, but, in all likelihood, Raldbthar would probably contain something against which Meesei's pack could prove themselves. In all honesty, Meesei had a difficult time reading whether or not Hjergir's skepticism was serious, or sarcastic banter. However, Meesei could not help but to be annoyed at the fact that there would always be those who would doubt her capability to be in her position. If times were more peaceful, it would just help to keep her skills sharp. but in their current situation, she could not help but to feel that it created pointless distractions.

Regardless, there was no more reason for delay, so the formation headed up the stairs and pushed open the large double doors leading into the ruin. The first hallway it led into sloped downwards, and was reasonably wide, so Hjergir moved himself into the frontline as well, along with a few other warriors that took positions on the sides. The rest of the warriors would continue to follow behind them until given other orders. At about the same time, both Ahnasha and Saras conjured up bound bows. Just like Fendros, Ahnasha was not sure what kind of effect her bow could have on an automaton, but Saras seemed knowledgeable, and since he was bothering with a bow at all, she figured there must have been some point to it.

One of the first things that the warband was greeted with was the relief of warm air from the steam-powered ruin. It was quite comfortable, especially compared to the freezing cold of the mountain outside. Many of the warriors took the time to discard their cloaks on the edges of the hall, to be retrieved later. Meesei did the same, though under her cloak, she wore fur breaches and a shirt which were thicker, and covered more of her than usual. Aside from the air, the sounds of Dwarven machinery seemed to be a constant. For those near the stone walls, they could hear the steam flowing through pipes behind them. For the most part, the sounds of machinery were faint for now, but they were growing slowly louder the deeper they walked.

In the first few halls, there were no signs of any automatons. Instead, there were the remnants of people who had once occupied the ruin, perhaps adventurers or bandits. There were worn bedrolls, old fire pits, and the remains of fruits and other produce that had, for the most part rotted away. There were no corpses or skeletons, however, so whoever had made it had left behind the supplies had likely abandoned them all in a hurry, for one reason or another. That, or there were survivors who buried the bodies.

After another few minutes, the warband came across a split in the path. One led upwards to their left, while there was a large gate blocking another path leading downwards. Ri'vashi stepped up to open the gate, but it would not budge. "Hmm, it looks like there is a sturdy Dwemer lock on this one. And this gate is Dwemer metal, so this one does not think we have anything that could tear it down."

Saras did not wait for so much as another word before stepping out of formation and towards the gate. He dispelled his bow and reached into his pouch to produce a small piece of curved metal, along with drawing his dagger. When he started to pick the lock, Meesei expected that they could be waiting for a while. Internally, she debated whether or not she should join a group of warriors to investigate the left path, but in under a minute, Saras had the lock picked, and the gate opened. Evidently, he had some skill in the trade.

As soon as the gate opened, the group heard a sound coming from the path below, like metal rolling on stone. However, between the Dwemer lights lining the halls and their lycan eyes, it was easy to see the Dwemer sphere rolling towards them. A single Dwemer sphere. It had a crossbow mounted on one arm, and a blade which extended from the other. It was made from tough, Dwemer metal and could roll rather quickly on the parts of the sphere that served as its legs. However, it was still only a single automaton against an entire formation of soldiers. The Dwarven machines had no sense of self-preservation or strategy, so they would be willing to attack head-on regardless of how terrible their odds of "survival".

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Saras did not answer immediately, instead giving a quick look towards the commander of his warriors. He did not seem to be doing anything differently at first glance, but Saras evidently noticed that something had changed. "It looks like the warriors are ready to move. We should form up on the entrance and head inside. We will leave a small contingency here to guard our supplies, and send a runner to us if there is trouble. Otherwise, we may need all of our soldiers."

Without another word, Saras stepped away to confer with his military commander, and Meesei's pack was not far behind. There was never a question from Meesei that her pack would be leading from the front, particularly after what happened in Elsweyr. While their mission had not been a failure exactly, it had not been a resounding success by any means. The details of what had happened to Meesei specifically had not yet reached all of the clans, but regardless, she wanted to make sure every clan she encountered had a certain impression of her. It was part of the culture of the Nords to distrust magic, so there was little she could do to combat that, but she could at least demonstrate her strength. The warriors of the clan quickly began to head up the stairs to get into formation upon the order of their commander, so Meesei's pack made their way to the front. And of course, Ri'vashi was on the very front line as well, being a heavily armored shield-bearer. Meesei did not know if she felt the need to prove anything about herself, but she doubted that it would hurt to make the attempt. Outside Elsweyr, Khajiit had a tendency to be seen as thieves and rogues, so their warriors often went overlooked. No doubt, Ri'vashi had already surprised more than a few members of the Riften clan with her stature and strength alone. This far from Elsweyr, most people did not even know there was more than one kind of Khajiit, as the Suthay-raht was by far the most common type of Khajiit outside their homeland.

Meesei's pack was met by the commander as soon as they reached the front of their growing formation. His name was Hjergir Steel-Heart, and he was very much a traditional Nord warrior. He valued strength and skill in battle, and almost seemed happy to head into danger. While he was not a political man, he was proud of his time in the Stormcloaks for the sheer fact that it gave him an actual war in which to fight. All of these things Meesei knew about him, not because Saras had given her any sort of description of him, but because he made it abundantly clear to anyone who spoke to him.

Meesei took a position just behind the shield-bearers, alongside her pack. Lorag was to her left, fully armored and bearing his hammer. He would be moving between using the shields in front of him for cover, and stepping into the front to deal damage when appropriate. Sabine was to Meesei's right, while Ahnasha and Fendros were just behind them with a row of archers, which included Saras. Kaleeth was in the very front, just beside Ri'vashi. Once they got inside the ruin, Meesei expected that their forces to explore different pathways, so they had already divided their forces into teams that would stay together as units during their explorations.

As the formation was gathering, Hjergir approached Meesei and her pack directly. He was wearing thickly wrapped furs and leather, with a hood made from a saber cat's head and a cloak made from its hide, and wielded a standard nordic mace and shield, with a nordic sword at his side. "Champion, good to see you at the front. I've heard about what you and your pack can apparently do. Look forward to seeing it for myself. Hopefully, this ruin gives us a challenge worthy of all this effort." He commented. From his tone, he might have been skeptical of the stories he had heard about Meesei.

Lorag huffed. "After what we've done? A few machines are just goin' to be an annoyance."

Ahnasha did not say anything, but she did give a curious look to Hjergir. He had not yet spoken much to Meesei, or the rest of the pack, and she did not really know if they would end up getting along. He had not yet said anything directly against Meesei, but he just seemed skeptical overall. In particular, she was not sure how he would get long with Lorag. Granted, they actually did seem rather similar, but they had fought on opposing sides of the same war.

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Ssarak Dyreackthanose

---

Ssarak rested his elbows on the table in front of him, and leaned forward with his hands clasped together. Meirin brought up points he had not previously considered, and he could not think of a way in which he disagreed with her. "Good points, on all accounts. I understand you want to do everything you can for your homeland. Even in exile, I would do the same for my people. I cannot say I have been on a diplomatic mission before, but your reasoning is sound. We cannot present ourselves in a manner that suggests we are servants of the barons. The College is among the most powerful organizations in Tien, and we will need to uphold that image. To that end, we may want to avoid making it seem as if we are putting on a show. We still may need to demonstrate our abilities, but we may need to determine a way to present them that seems more...respectable, I suppose? A competition, perhaps?"

Ssarak thought for a moment on how viable any sort of competition would be if they were pressed to demonstrate their abilities. It would make them seem less like court jesters, but by the nature of it being a competition, there was also the chance that they could lose. Of course, the College was the preeminent center of magical learning in Tien. They had some of the best teachers across every time of blood, and for him at least, he had been training diligently. It might have been arrogant for him to admit, but he doubted there were many psychomancers with the same number of years of experience who could best his abilities, particularly without the same caliber of instruction. "Regardless, you are right that a varied group would probably be best-suited for the task. Different bloods, different backgrounds. Not to mention, we will still need to be concerned about more mundane dangers. Our task may not be specifically hazardous, but traveling the roads over such a long distance is never completely safe. I wish everyone could fly like us; it would make traveling much simpler."