Skyrim: A Sorcerer's Tale
Chapter 498 - CXIV: The Battle Of Apocrypha

Chapter 498: Chapter CXIV: The Battle Of Apocrypha

(Reyvin’s POV, Minutes Earlier)

The entire realm around me shook, the force of the tremors feeling somewhat detached as I went about my work carving glyphs and runes into the stone surrounding Ithelia’s prison.

The small fact I couldn’t simply wish the necessary ritual into existence would have probably irritated me but one did not paint an entire movie equivalent without developing just a bit of patience.

Besides, using geomancy to do my carving for me would be too... anticlimactic for a situation such as this one.

There was also the tiny fact I’d get my ass discovered in mere moments but no need to use actual arguments for my behavior. That’d be quite drab of me.

Shedding a bit of ash on the newest rune (blood had become... logistically challenging to apply in recent months) I began whistling that one specific tavern tune I couldn’t name, and allowed myself to once more descend into the fugue of artistry.

The emaciated vampire followed after me like a lost puppy, the man, some mix of Breton and Redguard in life I noted absently, looked increasingly frightened by the distant explosions but was no doubt too dazzled by my work to interrupt me.

"...What are you doing?"

Or maybe not.

Finishing a connector rune drawing power into a good thirteen unmakers, I looked him dead in the eyes "War crimes."

Instead of the usual reaction, the man tilts his head "War... crimes?"

"Well" I offered a nonchalant shrug "Not technically, but it sure is going to look like one once I am done." Uncaring for his confusion I get back to work "Since we are killing time" I tilted my head "An you decided to bother a mage hard at work" He winced "You might as well share your story. How did you get yourself imprisoned by the mollusk supreme?"

He looks down at my carvings with obvious worry in his eyes but as he sees me make not one mistake he clears his throat "Not much to tell I am afraid, the temptation of treasure drew me like many others, and even the Scourge of Iliac Bay is not immune to the schemes of the Daedra."

"Scourge of the Iliac Bay, eh?" I drawl "Never heard of you."

He chuckles bitterly at the quip "Something tells me I may have been here longer than intended."

I feel the distinct echoes of the thu’um in the relative distance and speed up with my work, still maintaining absolute precision even as I had to let my brain work at speeds I was less than comfortable with to achieve it.

Continuing the conversation at the same time was almost effortless, and so I indulged "And what clan are you from, oh Scourge?"

He didn’t answer immediately, adopting a falsely confused look before speaking "The isles of the Bay have no concept of clans."

"I literally fed you a blood potion." I deadpan, even if I had to pause work for a moment to illustrate my disdain "And I let you live even after you were no longer useful, so kindly don’t play the dumbass."

Silence settles between us as he hesitates to answer, and only after I near the end of my work does he speak up "Volkihar. It is not a proud memory, but I am of the bloodline no matter how much I’ve come to regret it."

He must have expected some kind of insult at the admission, but all I did in response was raise an eyebrow and mutter "Small world, huh?" Before getting back to work.

Minutes later, once the echoes of distant thu’um became loud enough for even the vampire to perceive, the final rune clicked into place and I felt the power I concentrated within the ritual begin releasing a periodic hum, akin to a heartbeat that grew louder with each strike.

As I return to the same spot upon which I first communed with Ithelia, I do not bother warning the vampire about what is coming, cruel as the truth was he would either live or he would not and I wasn’t about to invest myself in his survival.

More than I already had anyway.

The imprisoned Daedra immediately focused in on me, her voice no longer a whisper on my mind "Are you prepared?"

"Indeed I am, my lady" I bob my head "All I need from you now is to join my efforts and attack your prison from within as I do from without. Do this and you will be free before you know it." I allow a bit of my divinity to leak out, the strand of grey touching the great carved gate in the metaphysical equivalent of an offered hand.

There is but one moment of utter silence as she hesitates, before grabbing onto my power with so much force I felt like I was getting dragged in with her.

Not that she could actually fuck me over like that, but the feeling was there.

Hearing the thu’um outside grow in excitement, I allow my true form to appear, shedding the facsimile that was my mortal body and growing from a tiny elfling into a giant of ash, shadow, and light.

My maximum size was something to behold, standing tall enough to look down on the monolithic stone gate carved into the tree and overshadowing the many arches surrounding us.

I rose Blasphemy, its power thrumming with Aedric Magicka, and felt the connection to Ithelia grab onto it, the sword flawlessly intertwining our powers even as I felt he alien energies of the Prince of Paths trying to invade me like a ravenous beast.

The Daedra, as irritated by my games as she was, was not so foolish as to fight me and swiftly followed the pattern I formed with the aid of the runic circle, allowing her power to flow through me without rending me apart.

The heartbeat of energy greedily drank the fuel we offered and rapidly increased in both speed and intensity.

Ten beats passed and the platform began to shake.

Twenty beats and the structures around us, elaborate arches and grand chambers all, began collapsing on themselves.

Thirty beats passed and a cacophonous earthquake rent Mora’s inner sanctum apart.

Finally, the fortieth heartbeat came and I felt the barrier surrounding us burst like an egg under too much pressure, twisting space back into its original configuration faster than even I could reasonably perceive.

The entire section of Apocrypha translocated smack dab into the middle of the realm, or as I quickly realized, it would be far more accurate to say that it merely returned to its rightful place.

Space in Oblivion was whacky like that.

Sadly, my musings would have to wait as something far more important happened alongside our arrival, a delectable noise that was both a curse and blessing to the ears echoing out in a beautiful haunted "No!" As Mora realized what I had just done.

That beautiful noise only made my divinity pulse with even more power as multiple domains were fed into, the physical feeling of fear radiating from my enemy only serving to embolden me as I gripped Blasphemy, brought it down, and unleashed the Prince of Paths upon his molluscoid ass.

(General POV)

Hermaeus Mora could only watch uselessly as the prison he had spent centuries crafting and perfecting, his masterpiece meant to induce ego death to its prisoner, fell apart under a grand explosion, unleashing an oddly mushroom-shaped cloud of debris and caustic Magicka.

That it felt both Aedric and Daedric was something he made sure to take note of, even in his rage.

Now focused on the true enemy, he outright ignored Akatosh’s opportunistic child as she tried drowning him in even more divine flame, his massive form blurring into his skies as he readied himself for what would no doubt be the berserk assault of a mindless god.

When the dust cleared, and revealed to him the great crater that now stood in place of the prison, he found not a raging crystalline abomination, but a duo of rather large figures.

One was the elf’s greater form, the same he had no doubt hoped to hide from Mora. And the other was Ithelia.

A very pissed off, practically vibrating with apoplectic rage, but still very coherent Ithelia.

The dark skinned woman with crystalline wings glared at him with such intensity he could very well feel that her own hatred surpassed his current fury by far.

He expected screams, accusations of treachery, all manner of the usual prattle directed at one’s tormentor before she inevitably threw her feeble power away in an attempt to rend him asunder before the inevitable failure that would follow.

Sadly for him, the woman chose not to play into his hands, and instead turned to her once-prison, the same place now thoroughly subsumed in her own power, and grasped at the air.

And then she began to pull.

Understanding dawned into Mora’s mind and he bothered not with preparations as he lashed out with all the power he could spare under the increasingly violent assault of his other enemies, but even a blink was already too long.

The elf rose its accursed blade once again, and in a wave of grey and gold, the rift Ithelia was trying to open did so nearly on its own, a veritable legion, weakened as it was, of crystalline beasts bursting forth and joining the other invaders of his realm.

His attack that should have taken the grasper of fate apart also failed as the weakened Daedra was violently kicked aside by the elf, the wave of corruptive destruction searing through thousands of her crystalline insects that were swiftly replaced as the portal widened further.

He knew taking her out quickly would be nearly impossible now that she was fully focused on the fight, so instead he summoned the few remaining legions he held in reserve, had them fall upon the horde of green crystal, and swiftly changed targets to the very orchestrator of his current predicament, the damned elf standing beside her-

Mora’s eyes blinked and flickered about as he felt something scratching at his perception, having to apply thrice the focus on all of his sights as he finally noticed that the elf had somehow managed to pierce his control over his realm and appear before him.

The sea of eyes, mouths, and tentacles contracted upon itself as a torrent of mystical acid burst from within its center, drowning the shadowy form in pure volume and sizzling entire layers of its surface but failing to stop the glaive from reaching its target.

Something within Mora’s immense mind ceased as he felt his skin be pierced, the attacks of Akatosh’s child were powerful, unwieldy and unpracticed but still capable of damaging him with enough effort.

This however...

The power flowing through the glaive hungered for his life, ripping into his very being as its very antithesis.

For the first time in uncountable eons, Hermaeus Mora felt genuine agony as he felt multiple curses spread through the metaphysical equivalent of his blood, rearing back in pain long enough for the elf to follow through with a second strike.

But to the confusion of the small part of Mora that was still coherent even with the pain, he did not attack with his accursed weapon, but with a tiny almost inconsequential looking dagger.

The triangular stiletto sunk into the flesh of one of Mora’s eyes with no resistance whatsoever, and the Daedra swiftly realized that yes, things could still get worse.

His mind completely blanked, and his power lashed out like a wounded beast, shaking Apocrypha to its core as he tried to throw his attacker off.

(Reyvin’s POV)

’Emphasis on try’ I grinned even as I was caught by one of the fucker’s flailing tentacles, blasting into the ground of one of Apocrypha’s still standing libraries with enough force to break the damned thing.

The moment my back hit the ground, I teleported away, escaping a wave of corrosive magic so potent it quite literally melted through the ashes of Red Mountain that made up my true form.

Stung like a bitch too.

Mora’s rampant attempts to swat me like a fly did not stop after the first one, his partial omniscience allowing him to know my exact location so long as I drew upon the smallest fragment of my power, or so long as I had traces of his own stuck to my face.

And I wouldn’t be getting rid of his own curse for a while yet.

Escaping the site of yet another shattered library, I appeared right next to Minthara just as she was about to be crushed by another far too large appendage, teleporting the both of us away without slowing down just before the trap was sprung and the entire area was shattered by a pure psychic wail.

Her eyes brightened with genuine excitement as she saw me, swiftly replaced by confusion at my current form as she visibly forced her questions down and allowed me to drag her with me and yeet us both upwards, directly above the still raging Mora.

His faculties returned far too quickly for my gambit to work however, and I was forced to once more burrow through his dominion over space as the spot we were previously in simply disappeared and was then replaced by a small flock of very disturbing looking daedroths.

Tentacle wings were not a grand fashion statement, I can tell you that.

Sadly for my current survival strategy, dragging someone through so many spatial jumps was not an easy act even in the best of circumstances, and I swiftly began feeling my Magicka draining away as I couldn’t simply absorbed the power of the environment like I would on Nirn.

Mora may have gotten startled by my first attack but he was already back to using his most powerful weapon, that being his brain, and was not about to let me close in without making it cost far too much.

But killing him on my own was never the point of all this, now was it?

"Hermaeus!" A voice filled with enough vitriol to fill a sea whipped through Apocrypha.

The mediocre mollusk rounded all his attention back towards the rift to Mirrormoor (Ithelia’s realm) but not before overpowering my divinity and locking us both in space, swinging out with one of his larger appendages and deploying a small army below us just for good measure.

Minthara barely managed a "TIID!" Before the blow landed.

(General POV)

Hermaeus Mora ignored the pain in his limb as it was shredded to pieces, what remained sending the two lesser immortals sprawling into the distant grasp of his puppets.

Their true deaths would buy him the seconds necessary.

He turned the majority of his gaze to his old foe, finding Ithelia garbed in full crystalline armor and with a great spear in her hands, currently holding a twitching Unknowable atop it.

His numerous eyes narrowed at the hatred in her gaze, as if it would somehow allow the fool to defeat him where she failed so many times before. Fate was his to command and no usurper would be allowed to claim the title, no matter how much they were willing to compromise their own abilities over it!

Without bothering to answer her idiotic challenge, millions of eyes combined into one and with a gurgling roar he unleashed a lance of corrosive power at her, channeling enough energies through it to disintegrate her on the spot.

Except the instant direct attack that struck at the speed of light... missed.

Parts of Ithelia’s skin cracked as Mora felt her domain take over for but a second, the Prince of Paths not faltering even as she felt her being rearing back at the pain. She flew high into the sickly green skies, and called for her own answer to his blow.

Thousands upon thousands of crystalline shards formed around her, her own Daedric aura locally overpowering Mora’s as she pointed at him with hatred in her eyes.

Even if he knew he would not be able to evade, Hermaeus still did his utmost to do so, forcing Ithelia to overdraw on her domain far beyond her current means as he felt his massive form be pelted with numerous cursed bolts.

A small part of his mind not currently focused on vengeance noted how the elf’s ability to wound him still surpassed a fellow Daedra’s by a massive margin, even if he attributed it to Ithelia’s weakness.

Still, he had shared his domain for long enough, and once more he struck out with his power, grasping both space and time and locking Ithelia in place, intent on ending her now that he knew he would never be capable of fully usurping her.

One beam of baleful light was joined by dozens of others but once more every single one of them failed to connect as Ithelia just happened to be hit by a flying daedroth, one not locked by Mora’s power and simmering with the elf’s cursed aura as it was launched away by the Voice.

With a pained groan, Ithelia sent herself flying higher and higher, evading one last attack before she appeared just above Mora who was growing more frantic with each passing second.

He went to speak but she too would not allow herself to be distracted, channeling her more mundane capabilities as she descended upon him with spear in hand.

Another crack spread along her arm.

Mora went to strike her down but he was struck from the side, the shout of "SHUL KUN RONAAZ!" echoing gloriously as each and every one of his eyes was momentarily blinded, the arrow of sunlight paradoxically failing to so much as scratch him as it circled him from all sides at once.

But it did not need to do so in the first place, as Ithelia finally reached him, her spear completely ignoring the layered tentacles he tried interposing between them as she somehow found the exact center of his mass and unleashed an explosion of crystalline spikes.

The vein-like attack burrowed deep into Mora’s flesh, destroying much of his physical form even as he struck at Ithelia, removing one of her arms and wings before he finally managed to throw her away and rip out her weapon, ravaging himself further as he pulled at his own flesh.

"Like so many years ago, your flailing fails to achieve anything." Mora growled as he punted the child of Akatosh, making the attack purposefully harmless so her instincts wouldn’t warn her. He glared down at Ithelia’s battered form "But do not fear, usurper of fate, for you will not be imprisoned again."

The wounded Daedra looked distinctly unworried about his threat, and merely smiled serenely as he prepared to rend her asunder. Except he saw one more crack spread across her form, her left eye dimming as she forced more power than she could manage while so weakened.

Seeing no attack coming at him, Mora focused on the rest of the battlefield, the warning her nonchalance gave far more than sufficient to tip him off. Except, of course, that this was exactly what his foe was counting on.

Momentarily distracted, Mora noticed Ithelia, or no, something behind Ithelia glowing far too brightly. He blinked his eyes rapidly and glared at her, revealing a familiar form standing behind her like a mischievous infant.

But it was not the person standing behind her that made Mora worried, but the weapon he held. Anu’s aura at full display surging through a vaguely familiar bow, Azura’s trinket siphoning power into the glowing arrow nocked at it string, and a very familiar dagger currently aimed straight at Mora’s center.

And to make things even worse, the feeling around the Ehlnofey carried the distinct aura of Magnus, making the creature that was meant to be inconsequential feel like a small star instead.

Mora’s attempt at teleporting was interrupted as Akatosh’s child appeared above him, time returning to its normal flow as she blasted him with unrelenting force potent enough to shatter the Throat of the World.

Reyvin grinned.

Ithelia’s other eye dimmed.

Mora’s soul sighed in resignation.

And the Ehlnofey loosed his arrow "Taste the sun motherfucker."

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Pile thine stone upon the tentacle fucker!

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