Breach Report CCCLXVI [One Night in the Velothiid]

He leaned forward, one hand on the balustrade, gazing out over the city as it glittered in the night. Night and day were illusions, he knew, cast by the pseudosun as it wound through the great cavern in its twelve hour arc. It didn’t matter to him one way or the other, but he knew a lot of folks still liked to pretend they lived in the old world. Even if they’d been born here in the Below.

Whatever. He cast his eyes over towards the Thalmor Memorial, although it gave him a headache to watch it flicker in and out of existence. One breach we couldn’t fix, he thought. Thank fuck it doesn’t matter too much. He took another drag on his bittergreen cigarette, then cast it away into the light-flecked void below. He felt that familiar tingle behind his eyes, the one that meant one of Them was trying to contact him. Ah crap, what now?

LOCAL NARROWBAND MEMOGRAPH MERIDIAN NETWORK TARGET ALANDRO SUL PLEASE RESPOND WITH EGO SYMBOL PLEASE RESPOND

He thought about sparking another cigarette, but didn’t. It might be important. “Here I am”, he vocalised. “Alandro Sul”. He visualised his first kill, a bright-eyed dwemer in an oscillator suit, humming an immortality harmonic as she fell.

EGO SYMBOL CONFIRMED ALANDRO SUL STOP BE ADVISED BREACH IN PROGRESS IN MIDDLE FANE DISTRICT STOP PROCEED AT ONCE STOP HIS DIVINITY LORD SEHT WILL ACCOMPANY IN THIS INSTANCE STOP BLESSED ARE THE WATCHERS STOP MEMOGRAPH OUT.

Shit. Partnered with that damn coghead. He grabbed his speargun and his khanmail, and leaped from the balcony. Into the world again.

He found Seht on the Street of a Hundred Rags, idly folding and unfolding the local architecture until he found an arrangement that seemed to satisfy him. He had nothing useful to add beyond what Sul had already gleaned from the whisperfeed en route- that a spontaneous mass suicide had taken place in the Middle Fane, and the local pylons were broadcasting inverted doctrines and long streams of what probably wasn’t gibberish at all. Everyone who heard it was getting messed up.

Sul lit another cigarette and offered one to Seht, who to his mild surprise accepted. He took the proffered bittergreen, inhaled it in one go and exhaled a stream of glowing elemental notations and psychic formulae. Sul shook his head. “This is why they never let you address the adoring masses”.

The street seemed quiet. Deserted, in fact. This was to be expected. The good folk of the Velothiid knew the drill when it came to these breaches in mandated reality. Get to the thot-shelters or hightail it out of the area. A great system, if the breach allowed civilians the time to escape. These mass suicide victims must have never had a chance.

“Let’s take a walk, partner” Sul said to his companion. No sense in sneaking around. The two strode purposefully toward the Middle Fane Plaza, Sul fingering the trigger of his speargun and Seht whistling a jaunty tune that Sul recognised from the First Era.

A grim sight met them on the plaza. Dunmer lay dead everywhere, murdered by their own hand. Khajiit too, and Tang Mo in smaller numbers. The great triolith in the centre had been toppled, evidently by a group of the now deceased.

Sul took a close look at a corpse. An old Dunmer, white beard and Hlaalu tattoos, unremarkable. “No physical alterations, looks like. Must be something psychological. Something’s royally fucked with their heads”. Seht didn’t respond. He often seemed to exist in his own solitary reality, but deep down he must give a shit or he wouldn’t have stuck around to help. He’d said that the others were unavailable tonight, Ayem having gone through a fracture to help her past self fend off a legion of False Skars. Vehk was paying homage to the Chancellor of Scamps and the Ur was on vacation, recuperating from a particularly nasty breach within the safe confines of the Continuous House. Sul would rather any of the others were here.

He was stirred from his resentful thoughts by a commotion across the way. Something living emerged from the shadow of the shattered triolith. Before Sul even fully registered what was happening Seht had thrown a comprehension net between them and the creature. I wish I had your confidence in these things, Sul thought.

It was a daedra. At first Sul thought it was a kind he hadn’t seen before, but then it came into focus and he realised what he was looking at. A Golden Saint, seemingly split in half down the middle and fused together with a similarly bisected Dark Seducer. It made Sul want to vomit, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Seht was chuckling, the bastard.

What a beautiful night to be out, the chimera said. Its words were slightly slurred as it was speaking from two mouths stitched together. I was told this city looks its best in the dark, and I can believe it! It drifted toward them, unconcerned. It could breach that net without effort, Sul thought.

Sul raised his speargun. “So you’re with the new Sheogorath, I take it? He did us a big favour when he threw up that wax shell around Masser. Deflected the Twilight migration, maybe saved the world”.

Yes, my master was proud of that one. All the candles they ever burned in his honour, you know. The creature drew its finger across the net, which fizzed and crackled at its touch. Sul’s eyes flickered to his right, but Seht had disappeared.

“But judging by your appearance here, and the sorry state of these honest citizens, I’m guessing he’s changed his mind about helping us”

You guess wrong! My master has taken an interest in your great undertaking, and wishes to help. Can’t you tell who I’m supposed to be?

“You’re half and half, like a certain very old pain in my butt” Sul replied. “If it’s Vehk you want, he’s not here”.

We’re not here for Vehk, although we mock his visage and his doctrine.

“Then why are you here?”

Why, to mock his visage and his doctrine! The gospel of love has already deeply moved the people here, as you can see. Their will was under my love only, haha.

Sul reached inward, mustering a shard of alpha radiation. Destruction magic was of limited use here, he knew. Even if I can kill this one, the bastard’ll send others. We have to be sure he’ll never try this schtick again.

Seht sidled into view. The chimera now stood between him and Sul, with its back to the god. Seht made strange motions with his arms. Restoration magic?

“My question for you, and by you I mean the boss, who I know is listening… why bother? What’s the damn point? Spreading the madness? The whole fucking universe has gone insane, or hadn’t you noticed?

I…

“Yeah yeah, capricious gods. Wooooo. I had breakfast with two of those this morning. Face it Sheo, you’re redundant. We’ve all moved on. You’re just a tedious old man who couldn’t keep up with the times. Now FUCK OFF”

Sul fired his speargun. The F-amber tip, itself the legacy of an obsolete civilisation, struck the creature square between the eyes. Not enough to hurt it of course, but enough to knock it back…

…into the healing matrix Seht had woven. Expecting a fight, the chimera hadn’t bothered to scan for Restoration magicka. Bathed in silver light, it writhed hideously as the two halves of the daedra began to heal into separate beings, tearing it apart at the seams. In a matter of moments, a fully healed Golden Saint and a Dark Seducer sat on the ground, looking dazed. Not even worth working up a sweat over, Sul thought, as he banished them with a flick of his wrist.

Seht strode over, a big shit-eating grin on his face. The Restoration field had been so powerful that he’d regrown the legs he normally went without— one of his creepy little affectations. Sul lit a cigarette. He didn’t offer one to his partner this time.

“Sheogorath eh? I think I hurt the old fucker’s feelings. I hope so anyway”

The pair walked slowly back into the shadows, as Seht cracked a joke about Sul being good for bait and not much else.

“Asshole”