NUL Entry 04 {Apocrypha}
EXT. Vvardelfell(?) – Night
It is the time of Merhunes Dagons’ invasion of Tamriel. A bloodily scoured camp lay in the middle of desolate wasteland. The sky is touched with purple. Devil faces glow in the night with sick grins adorning their faces, some of which are still stained with viscera. A grim mannered Markynaz, YNADDATH, stalks through the crowd. He stops at a bonfire where a scarred Catiff, BHATYNGA, addresses two of his fellows.
BHATYNGA
You moan and whine like the thrice damned Kynaz of Coldharbour. Those traitors still lament the failure of the planemeld even now. Crying like unfed babes.
CHURL #1
(brimming with anger)
If these dust crawlers would put up a decent fight, perhaps we’d be more content! Our brothers clash again the Redoran and we live off the scraps!
BHATYNGA
You will do as commanded. The will of our lord is absolute! All who inhabit these lands will perish. The changing gears turn, brothers and sisters. They will not be denied!
CHURL #2
Empty words, Catiff. We are wasted here. There are none who can oppose us.
YNADDATH
Wrong.
YNADDATH emerges from the shadows, grim face illuminated by dancing flame. Without provocation, he seizes CHURL #2 and tosses him to the ground. There is laughter from assembled host that is immediately hushed when YNADDATH brings his boot down on the Churl’s skull. He turns to face his kin.
YNADDATH
This is the fate of those who do not take this land seriously. For I have seen with my own eyes a foe that can claim you all!
BHATYNGA
Markynaz. If such an enemy exists, they would fight us!
YNADDATH
And so they have. The Bone Towers are destroyed. A piece of the Deadlands undone. A great gate sealed. By one man.
BHATYNGA
Absurd! You lie.
YNADDATH
Hold your tongue or you will lose it! Listen up, you useless lot! Perk up your ears and hear of the death of Valkynaz Ulzschanach and the fall of the Bone Towers…
INT. BONE TOWER
The scene changes to the Deadlands. We are now inside of a warped tower constructed entirely of bone sewn together with sinew and flesh. All is tinged with red light. We find ourselves in a vile room, filed with instruments of torture that defy all logic. Tools meant for literally twisting souls, machine that stretch the mind paper thin. The only sensible thing about the room is a dangling hook which holds a naked Ash Ghoul. It is NULL. He sways back and forth as ULZSCHANACH, the grand dremora lord, stands before him. NULL raises his head.
NULL
It is time again?
ULZSCHANACH
You know it is. How many times have you asked that question?
NULL
For at least six times six days. You are a stubborn one, dremora. Why not just kill me?
ULZSCHANACH
I will hear you scream before you die, worm face.
NULL
You rend my flesh each day. Grind my bones. Shatter my mind. Have I given you the satisfaction of a scream? No, I think I know why you are actually here today.
ULZSCHANACH
Do you now? And why am I here?
NULL
To listen to the truth. To understand why you have not received your wish.
ULZSCHANACH
I cannot break you. It shames me. Something sustains you and I would know of it.
NULL
It is the UR.
ULZSCHANACH
And what is that?
NULL
The UR is all things. Or rather, we are all the UR. You think there are planes. Different tiers of existence. That is a lie. There is only the UR.
ULZSCHANACH
ENOUGH! Spare me your vagaries!
ULZSCHANACH raises his blade and presses it to NULL’s chest, slowly he flays away a portion of skin and tosses it away in frustration.
NULL
Feel better?
ULZSCHANACH
Each time you fail to answer my question, I will remove more! Begin: what is this Ur?
NULL
Not Ur. UR. Is is the Aurbis. It is you and me and everything you see. We are part of a single creature.
ULZSCHANACH
Spare me, grey one. I know the word. Even in the realms of Oblivion, we know of Dagoth Ur. He was a man, nothing more.
NULL
That was the Sharmat. That was the UR made physical. A dream of life from a dead god. The UR is a corpse.
ULZSCHANACH
A corpse?
NULL
Indeed. And we are merely the bugs crawling on the carcass.
ULZSCHANACH
Explain.
NULL
Once, the UR lived. Then it died. All things are a part of its body. Nirn, the realm your master aims to conquer, is UR’s heart. The moons that gaze on it are the UR’s eyes. The waters of Oblivion are the UR’s blood. This place? The realms of the so called princes? They are mounds of decayed flesh. The princes themselves are little more than viruses.
ULZSCHANACH
If my master is a virus, worm face, then he ravages your god’s corpse. It seems I stand behind the greater being. Mehrunes Dagon lives. Your Ur does not.
NULL
How little you understand, dreadfiend. Even god contracts disease. Your princes? You and I? We are the anti, we are the pseudo that constructs the real. What is unfit, we purge. What is actual, we preserve. Consider the sun.
ULZSCHANACH
What of it? It is a mere ball of fire.
NULL
It is wellspring of divinity. The UR’s divinity outlasts even the UR. It is found in the stars and sun. It is the bindings of Aetherius, which is little more than the UR’s mind. The misnamed Aedra? They are the UR’s thoughts, pulled from the wellspring.
ULZSCHANACH
You still are left with a dead god.
NULL
Dead by choice. Life bored him. So he chose death. Yet, an aspect of him remained. The previously mentioned Sharmat. He experienced betrayal in his first afterlife.
ULZSCHANACH
A god would not suffer such a thing.
NULL
If life bored the UR, why should his afterlife be peaceful? You serve a prince of change, do you not? Would Mehrunes suffer stagnation over betrayal?
ULZSCHANACH
He would suffer nothing. All is his to conquer.
NULL
And yet, he has not conquered the UR’s heart yet. Why is that?
ULZSCHANACH
Silence! Our conquest progresses. You know nothing.
NULL
I know enough. You have conquered nothing. And you will conquer nothing. If the Sharmat, the UR made temporarily real again, could not conquer, how can Mehrunes Dagoth?
ULZSCHANACH
Dagon.
NULL
Answer the question.
ULZSCHANACH
By your logic, he could not if god could not. Yet we are back to the issue of your god. He failed too!
NULL
He made an enemy strong enough to defeat himself. Re-Nerevar. But this was not a failure. Having seen the decay of the UR, the Sharmat decided to indulge in conquest in order to facilitate change. But conquest without a proper foe is meaningless. Thus, the UR gave the Sharmat such a foe.
ULZSCHANACH
How is this possible? To create when already dead.
NULL
Remember the sun. Divinity clings to the corpse of a god. Aurals made keen can do little else.
ULZSCHANACH
And this is how you survive my torture? You call upon this divinity?
NULL
I do not need to call upon it. I am the UR. We are all the UR. Once you understand this…
BHATYNGA
You bore us, Markynaz! This is all talk and no action!
EXT. Vvardelfell(?) – Night
We return to the dremora camp with haste as BHATYNGA rises from his spot by the fire to stare down YNADDATH. The two dremora seem poised to tear each other’s heart out.
BHATYNGA
Your story makes no sense. This prisoner rambles about nothing.
CHURL #1
How can you even know all this? You’re making it up. How do you know what was said if you were not there?!
BHATYNGA
This whole tale is full of holes!
YNADDATH
Let me finish! We are nearly done.
INT. BONE TOWER
We snap back to the Deadlands and the Bone Tower. A considerable amount of time has passed. By now, NULL has been released from his hook and sits down, talking casually with ULZSCHANACH.
NULL
I AM AND YOU ARE ALL ME, speaks the UR. Do you understand?
ULZSCHANACH
I am and you are all me.
NULL
No. I AM AND YOU ARE ALL ME.
ULZSCHANACH
I understand. You do not need to repeat it.
NULL
You know. You do not understand.
ULZSCHANACH
Help me, then. Help me understand.
NULL leans in and whispers into ULZSCHANACH’s ear for a moment. The dremora’s eyes grow wide as he nods in apprehension.
ULZSCHANACH
I AM AND YOU ARE ALL ME.
NULL
Yes.
ULZSCHANACH seems to shimmer for a moment and then, without any warning, blinks out of existence. NULL stands up and walks out of the room. He steps into the adjacent room, a long spiraling tower that leads up to the Sigillum Sanguis. He strides slowly upwards. Dremora run at him as he ascends but he does little more than whisper numbers that destroy when with a thunderclap and a flash. These are the anathamathmatics of Dagoth Endus, known to all members of the Sixth House, pseudo or not, now wielded by NULL, formerly Dagoth Soler, formerly Amar-sin. NULL reaches the Siggillum Sanguis without impedement and faces one final Dremora. It is Ynaddath, who charges wildly, only to explode in a brilliant burst of purple. Reaching the Sigil Stone, NULL digs his hands into his chest and rips it open, his still beating heart exposed to the air. Without hesitation, he tears it out, seizing the Sigil Stone and thrusting it in his chest as a replacement. All fades to white.
EXT. Vvardelfell(?) – Night
Again, we return to the dremora camp, where all look at YNADDATH in silence. All except BHATYNGA.
BHATYNGA
This is stupid! He kills with math? He killed you?! Was that supposed to be some type of twist? If he killed you, how would you be here to tell the tale?
There is a chorus of agreement from the other dremora. YNADDATH chuckles.
YNADDATH
The better question is how are you all here to listen to it.
The Markynaz walks off, leaving his troops by the fire. Suddenly, the sky seems a bit more purple than before.