To a daedric prince like meridia putting a mortal soul together was about as easy as assembling a jigsaw puzzle. alastair could only say that malkoran brought this upon himself when meridia mentioned this. funnily enough meridia tried to get alastair to work for her after she retrieved her artifact since as a god she had seen the fight between him and the transformed malkoran. the reason she wanted him according to her was that his powers made him the embodiment of the natural facet of existence known as death , meaning he was the bane to any necromancer in tamriel.
This didn't surprise alastair since meridias hatred for the undead and those who create them was well known. alastair stated that he had no intention of placing himself under the service of a daedra which meridia said was a shame. after finishing up with meridia alastairs group walked the relatively short distance to the nearby city of solitude to sightsee. the city was far larger than it was in the game which was a pleasant surprise for alastair. the architecture was the same as in the game though with many thick stone buildings with wooden facets.
The sheer amount of people going about their business truly made the city feel alive unlike in the game. asking the locals for any interesting things to see while they were in the city didn't disappoint as a few helpful folks recommended a few places. alastair vaguely remembered one of his coworkers talking about the events of one of the expansions of the elder scrolls online were there was apparently a passage to blackreach under the city somewhere. separating from the rest of the group who went off on their own alastair probed under the city for any traces of this passage with magic.
He found a few large spaces but none that seemed to lead deeper underground so he probed even deeper into the earth until he finally found what he was looking for nearly two hundred meters below the surface. 'that makes sense if the city was truly invaded through this passage.' he thought seriously. the people walking near the bench alastair was sitting on all paused when they heard a loud popping sound only to find an empty bench when they looked. the stagnant air greeted alastair when he teleported into the passages stairwell and he couldn't help but get excited.
Sending a mental message to the members of his group that he would be back in a few hours alastair began to move the air with magic to freshen it up. after making sure he won't drop dead from lack of oxygen alastair began his descent. alastair was surprised at how well the structure of this passage had held up till now from the second era since it was only a little crumbly. after checking the entire passage with magic to see if there were any branching rooms alastair teleported past the passage that went on for a ridiculously long time.
Surprisingly when alastair looked around at his surrounding he found that the area was extremely bright thanks to the rivers of lave flowing through it. near the exit of the passage alastair saw a massive fortress that was in a serious state of disrepair with walls barely hold up the structure. with a careful application of magic alastair fortifies the walls and ceiling enough to not need to worry about the fortress collapsing on him when he explores it. the massive gothic building had obviously been abandoned for a very long time so he didn't feel like he might find any of the remaining members of the grey army inside.
What alastair forgot to consider is that vampires tend to ignore their surrounding when they enter a sealed sleep. this lead to an awkward situation when he entered the fortress to look for forgotten knowledge and relics. deep in the decrepit halls laid a single stone chest the size of a person that looked like it had once been covered in carvings and chains. the thick ebony chains remained strong despite the time they had been there and as a result alastair made the mistake of arrogantly thinking he could handle whatever was in the box.
This was proven wrong when he finished "looting" the chains and the inhabitant of the box stirred from their long slumber. the lid to the box flew off as the one inside struck it violently making alastair dodge the projectile lid hastily. a dainty pale hand gripped the edge of the box before lifting the body attached to it up. alastair saw a pale naked woman with smooth black hair and red bloodshot eyes raise her self from the box and yawn revealing long fangs.