All-Flag Rangers: Part VI, In the Murdered House
.
.
.
.
Morrowind, 4E 97
"It's here somewhere, I know it is. Look for it. Look!"
The dark elf stumbled through the laboratory, knocking dusty old tubes and vials to shatter on the rotting floor. Furioso gestured at his blindfold and shrugged. He sat on the floor to wait.
Alessandros and Iszir were still staring at the walls that seemed to pulse slightly, bleeding a clear viscous liquid. Aurelius was unimpressed, he'd been in Morrowind before, and Lagerta wore a disgusted sneer. The Captain rifled through creaking wooden drawers while the nord looked around behind cabinets. If someone saw a painting of her face and was asked to identify what she was looking through from that alone, they might have said piles of vomit, or coffins. Aurelius cleared his throat and curtly gestured for Iszir and Alessandros to help.
"Ouch," Alessandros said, having banged his head on the hanging metal lantern. Something rattled inside it. The dark elf, who was clutching his chest dramatically, lunged at the minotaur, stumbling into him with a racking cough. Alessandros caught him and gently patted his back.
"Stop," he wheezed, "the lantern, it's magic, nothing to...," he was interrupted by another hacking cough, "...to rattle, look," he jumped and tore down the lantern with one hand, the other one still clutching his chest.
The dark elf threw the lantern to the floor, where it landed with a soft wet thud.
"Shitfuckdamnpaperlanterns," he said so rapidly it seemed only a single word, "Been away too long, forget it ain't glass." He bent down to pick it up and ripped the paper off the metal frame, reaching in and tearing out a small brass-like tube.
"Up, upstairs. The laboratory," the dark elf stumbled forward, almost falling to the floor but Alessandros caught him with one wide palm, gently pulling him up and cradling the dark elf in his arms.
"We go," he said, then set off at a run leaving the rest of the rangers to catch up. Iszir hung back to help Furioso to his feet and guide him up the tower's stem.
When Aurelius and Lagerta caught up to the minotaur and dark elf Alessandros had his arms down, his hands laced together palms up at about crotch level, the dark elf standing unsteadily on them. Alessandros looked very uncertain.
"I said DO IT," yelled the dark elf, and Alessandros lifted his arms straight up, launching the dark elf up into a hole they hadn't previously noticed.
"Minotaur!" Aurelius said sternly as he reached him, "You take orders from me, not the dark elf. Who knows where he's gone now.
"Boy!" came the elf's raspy voice, "Send up one of your companions now, I need help," then, after a moment of thought, "...Not the nord."
Iszir looked at Aurelius and shrugged before stepping forward.
"Send only one!" came the dark elf's voice.
"I will go," said Iszir, "I am faster than the wounded old elf. He can not harm me."
Aurelius shook his head and stepped up to Alessandros, "Send me up, then Iszir right after." He took out a dagger and held it between his teeth.
For once Alessandros followed the Captain's orders without question.
Aurelius flew up, passing a ledge and seeing a room open directly in front of him. He barely caught a ledge on the descent, gripping for dear life.
Ahead of him the elf was tinkering with some sort of half-dwemer machine, several pieces seemed to have been replacing with living mushroom-like contraptions. The elf turned,
"Shit I shoulda specified the redguard, that one looked like ze could hold a blade straight," he let out a hacking cough Aurelius only partway through realized was a laugh, "yer supposed to use your hand to grip it cyrodiil, not yer mouth. Still at least your ready. Get up here."
Aurelius clambered up into the tiny room, taking the dagger into his hand warily. He heard Iszir land on the path behind him.
"I said one damn all," the elf wheezed, "There ain't room for you both. Ugh whatever, Redguard! Take this scalpel here," the elf had removed his netch leather cuirass and was now unbuttoning his shirt.
"What's this about?" said Aurelius, gesturing for Iszir to stay where ze was, "You said you'd work with us if we brought you here. We got you here, now explain."
The elf finished the buttons, and then tore the undershirt he had open revealing his ash-grey chest. Well most of it - the skin where his heart was was glowing with a pulsing red glow.
"What?" said Iszir.
"You, Redguard, ever gut a fish?" the elf was pouring sweat, and fell back against the table, "I need you to cut me open. Pull out me heart, right now. No more time, no more talk. Do it. Or I'll die."
"It seems less effort to just let you die then, rather than waste the energy killing you." Aurelius said dryly.
"Damn you imperials and your efficiency," replied the elf, "You do this for me, and I'll join your initiative, no questions asked."
The two rangers looked unimpressed.
"Trust me."
Aurelius sighed, then nodded. Iszir squeezed past and took the scalpel the elf handed him.
"There now, just cut right over the scar tissue, keep it straight, not too deep no- aaaAARRRRRGH," the elf clutched the table with white knuckles, screaming and wheezing, every vein in his body bulging out fit to burst. Iszir worked, face impassive, quickly but carefully slicing the flesh.
"Good job men!" came Lagerta's amused call from below, "Sounds like you are being very persuasive!"
Iszir finised the incision and peeled the skin back, revealing the source of the beating light.
"Uughhh garrlll ug hooooorrrrrrrr," said the elf, or something very much like that. He shoved Iszir away - or tried, the sword-singer rocked slightly back on his heels but stayed otherwise firm. The elf ignored hir and then drunkenly plunged his hands into his own chest, swaying where he leaned he gently pulled a black rock that glowed red at each side out of the hole. He collapsed then, halfway to the floor, holding the hand gripping the stone above his head. He seemed to be trying to place it into the ancient machine, in a jury-rigged looking contraption of brass and mushroom that looked an awful lot like a tray with a plunger sticking out of the middle, but all made of mycelium. Iszir glanced at Aurelius, who shrugged. Iszir pushed the elf's hand into place, where, with his dying breath, the elf released the stone. It landed on the tray with a wet thud, and the elf crumpled into the floor. Iszir gently toed him, then reared back and kicked him. There was no response, so ze bent over and checked a pulse. Ze stood, turned to Aurelius and shook hir head. The captain sighed.
"Well lets go find Furioso and tell him this Dram fellow's a dead end."
As they turned, wondering how they were going to get down without breaking a leg, the plunger like tendril sticking from the pan attached to the stone and began contracting. There was a sound like gurgling, and both rangers turned, hands going to weapons. They almost expected the elf to rise up like a wraith, but instead the machine was shivering and shaking, the red stone flashing wildly.
Then they became aware of the wall behind the machine, which was covered in the same sludgy mucus the rest of the ancient tower was coated in. As they stared, it seemed the wall behind the mucus was getting thinner, and something was inside that was moving nearer. It soon resolved into a manshape, and they watched as the wall oozed out a youngish dark elf male. He bled through the wall, then fell out of the mucus membrane with a plop, crashing into the machinery and falling through it where he collapsed onto Dram's corpse.
Iszir gently toed him, then reared back and kicked him. The new elf shook and let out a grunt. He was shaking and put his hands out, trying to stand. He settled for staggering to his knees, sitting on the corpse. He looked, Aurelius decided, like the old elf's son. Spitting image really.
Some of the blood from the corpse's gaping chest wound got onto the new elf's legs. He looked at it and sighed.
"I ain't a fan of seeing my own blood," said the new elf, "but this is a bit real even for me," he reached into one of the corpses pockets, pulled out a couple strips of tobacco and popped it into his mouth, chewed a bit as he wiped out some mucus that was sticking to his bald scalp.
"Right well, time to hold up me part of the bargain. What's this initiative I'm joinin' then?"
.
.
.
.