Gregor – the necromancer who escaped in the nick of time.
A bright flash, and instead of the gray stone of the dungeon beneath my feet, bright, green grass, and the stifling, musty air is replaced by a fresh breeze. The chase was over, which I was very happy about, because I soberly estimated my chances in a direct confrontation with the Dominion hunters as nothing: "the difference in numbers and combat experience is too great. They were trained specifically as assassins of all sorts of renegade demonologists, daedra worshippers, necromancers, and similar renegades of the magical community.
I was, in fact, mostly a researcher, and even though I had been trained in combat by Master Meradach (may his soul rest in the halls of Julianos), it wasn't enough for open combat with the Thalmor punishers. Although I can safely claim to be a master wizard in enchantment or restoration, and even compete with an Archmage as a sorcerer, I strongly doubt that this will help against a firestorm at point-blank range and an excess of enchanted steel in the skull. Although healing magic could heal almost any wound, the Altmer wouldn't wait. As the teacher used to say: you can't win " run, then you'll ambush the enemy in a dark alley.
At the mention of this vicious old man, I recalled our first acquaintance.
You could say I was lucky twice: the first time was when my teacher found me on the streets of Wayrest. Well, how to say, I found it, I tried to steal his wallet " life in the commercial capital of the province is not sugar, and a seven-year-old child at that time survived as best he could.
The theft had not gone unnoticed. I immediately started to run, pushing through the crowd, but the old man, despite his age, not only kept up, but also managed to close the distance between us. I ran harder than I had ever run in my life, shoving people and throwing barrels of food onto the pavement in the hope of detaining this elderly athlete, but it was all in vain. People he scattered, not slowing down, and a barrel of cabbage (author: MY CABBAGE!!!) he simply smashed his palms with a blow. It was only later that I learned that he was a master of the schools of Restoration and Change, and that he had strengthened his body beyond belief.
Back then, this Akaviri monk chased me all over the market to the laughter of the guards who arrived. After all, Wayrest was a trading city, and security was fast.
Eventually I came to a dead end, and the wizard was already sauntering up behind me, playing with a head of cabbage in his hands. And at that moment, I could see in his eyes how much he didn't like thieves and where he was going to put this cabbage for me.
Getting ready to sell my life (and honor) at a higher price, I did the only thing I knew how to do at that time: I created small electrical discharges in my hands and rushed at him, hoping that if I didn't hit him, the old man would get scared and run away.
A quick movement of Meradach's hand and the sharp contact of my face with the pavement dispelled my hopes. And just as I was preparing for a shameful and painful death, a voice rang out above me:
"What's your name, puppy?
When I looked up, I found a gaze studying me intently, but most importantly, the cabbage was no longer in his hands.
"Greg ... Gregor, master.
"Why did a mage become a thief, Gregor?
"I'm not a mage, master. Sparks " everything I can do. And the reason for the theft is simple: there is little work in this city, and there are many employees.
The words were jerky, but for a street urchin to be caught stealing was almost a sentence, and I was very much afraid.
The old man just grinned at this and said in a tone that brooked no argument:
"Come with me.
I didn't have much choice but to go after him, or he would kill me right there and then. " The city's laws allowed this, and thieves were terribly disliked here. For a merchant, a thief is " worse than a murderer. After all, a murderer will only take your life, but a thief will take the meaning of any merchant's life " money. And even if he lets me go, the guards watching this scene will definitely drag me to their casemates, and I will have to spend the rest of my life in the mine.
Thus began my training with Meradach Steely Will. The old man was a very tough teacher, but very generous with his knowledge. And he was extremely averse to magicians doing anything other than their own work, which was the reason for my apprenticeship. And although the wizards who knew him personally described him as a fanatic, to me, as a teacher, he was excellent.
Especially in terms of consolidating practical skills.
If you want to find out the recipe for the healing potion " here's a list for you, go to the nearest forest, collect everything there. He didn't care that the list included four goblin hearts, a lion's liver, and a corus egg that was the size of a good horse.
"If you want to be a good magician," said the old wizard, " you must get all the ingredients yourself, so that you can fully understand the whole process of creating something new.
There was nothing to say about training in combat magic:
"Here's a scroll with a description of the protective amulet, I'll give you until noon" then we will fix it in practice.
Of course, I couldn't do it right away, I was barely able to crawl away from the frost spider that was enraged by my ice spike in the belly, and more than once the weak lightning of Meredach broke through my pathetic attempts at protective charms, forcing me to convulsively perform the dance of a Khajiit shaman drunk on boredom. And how many times I broke my fingers trying to forge a simple sickle for collecting herbs is not worth remembering. But all this I successfully overcame with the help of perseverance, brains in my head and the heavy stick of the teacher, driving knowledge into this very head, until I hit a barrier that could not be overcome this way.
Reserve.
Woe betide the magician who was born with it small. And I was one of them " was exhausted after three or four fire arrows, lay unconscious trying to create chain lightning, almost burned channels in a fruitless attempt to create an ice storm. It was all in vain " I simply didn't have the strength for serious combat magic.
After a month of self-torture, the teacher called me to his office:
"Stop torturing yourself! Meradah snapped as soon as I appeared on his doorstep, " Don't you want to be a fighter when you know that?!
I had no choice but to stare at the floor in silence. The teacher was right, " I'll just burn myself trying to achieve what I can't. But how stifling was the anger " at myself for being born weak, at my own insignificance, at the charms that require so much energy. I knew mentally that being angry wasn't going to help me, but I wanted to learn how to create a firestorm with a snap of my fingers. And for the old man to say with pride: "This is my disciple."
"I understand you, master," I thought grimly, " this won't happen again.
"FOOL!!! The old mage roared, " I'm not telling you to lower your hands! Just focus your energy on getting around the problem, instead of banging your head against it like a ram! Small reserve? "Illusions don't require much effort! Not enough stamina? "The school of change will strengthen your body! Weak control? "Rituals, runes, and practice will correct this flaw! Don't get hung up on action movies! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!
"Yes, master," I felt a little better when the old man pointed out my mistakes and showed me how to overcome my weakness. "Will a small mana pool make it easier to work with subtle structures? "to this, he just snorted:
" Well, at least you didn't miss some of my lessons...
After this beating, the training went much faster. I didn't waste time trying to harness a large amount of energy, instead focusing on areas of magic that were more demanding in terms of skills than the amount of power " alchemy, enchantment, and recovery school.
And it took me by surprise. How many first-class poisons I created back then "I can't say, but the teacher sometimes grunted with a grin:
" You won't become a magician " go to the Dark Brotherhood, there your creations will be appreciated.
To master enchantment, I had to master blacksmithing "the old man in an ultimatum form set the requirement:
" You will only enchant your crafts, period! "So I had to wave the blacksmith's hammer as well. But then I forged my first heavy armor " in the future, he saved my life more than once.
It was possible to write an epic story about how I began to learn healing magic, mostly consisting of selected swearing, but in short, " Meradakh dragged a thief bought from the guards, broke his limbs and told him to heal. I can't handle it " will bring more. Fail again " will become my own next patient.
The experience was a full-flowing river…
The second time I was lucky, Meradach agreed to teach me "by that time already a full-fledged magician" witchcraft, because it was in it that I found my vocation. A school of magic that was built on precise rituals and precise enchantments, as if it had been created for me.
And when combining basic necromancy, although extensive, thanks to the study of the school of restoration, knowledge of anatomy, it turned out to create a whole new branch of it. I called my triumph in this field the magic of the bone. The idea was to create various constructs in and out of bones: blades, chains, needles " it was all about control and imagination. And adding to this enchantment with alchemy, it turned out to create extremely clever murder weapons.
Pure necromancy, in contrast to this mixture of schools, was difficult for me, it depended too much on materials: it required corpses to create undead and a considerable amount of energy to summon daedra from their planes. So I didn't have much success here, limiting myself to summoning small spirits and creating a crowd of cannon fodder. Well, or if you need to gather one strong creature on your knee, like a flesh golem or a wight. By the standards of necromancy masters, " children's fun.
But working with souls was easy for me: even if it was the most demanding to control, but it was less expensive in terms of energy. But the prospects opened up extremely extensive: one opportunity to imprison the spirit in an item and use it as a backup source of mana paid for all the costs of studying it. So for the first time, my permanent attribute was a bird's skull with a soul stone on a chain inserted inside. Then the people who sold the Meradach of the condemned came in handy: "no one would even talk to me, or they would have handed me over to the guards as a novice Daedric worshipper. And so, after creating the amulet, they looked askance. But despite the reputation damaged by this attribute, I was satisfied: "this was my first real artifact.
The old man, on the other hand, never liked necromancy, considering it the preserve of the weak, which always resulted in scandals: he did not like the ease with which I resorted to this art, losing, in his opinion, the last remnants of morality.
He might not be a conservative himself, who was terrified of anything connected with other plans, but he was afraid to work with the dead and tried to discourage me from doing so.
One of our arguments, which became more and more numerous in the field of raising the dead by the end of my apprenticeship, put an end to this question:
"Teacher," I ran into his office with a stack of scrolls in my hands and a big smile on my face, " I found evidence that spirit and soul are different phenomena, and that the former is the shell of the latter!
"Gregor! His gaze didn't bode well, " What did I tell you about this research?! Don't touch the souls of the dead! Leave it alone! Necromancy will give you nothing but war with the whole world!
"But the same Mannimarco…
The "King of Hearts" is a renegade who has betrayed his order! the teacher slapped the table furiously, " and not a role model at all!
"But, master," my voice was calm and my face was a voluptuous mask, even though the storm was raging inside, " didn't you say that any enchantment can be used as the magician wants? And that even healing spells can become weapons in the right hands?
The elderly wizard lowered his head, and seemed to grow even older. We were both silent, each thinking about something different. The pause dragged on.
Meradah looked up at me, the anger completely gone from his eyes. Finally, he said nervously:
"Understand, I know what you want to say and I don't go back on my words. But necromancy is feared and hated for a reason, it hides too many dark secrets, it is too easy a path for the weak of will.
"But if you don't follow this road, how do you know what awaits at the end?
"Is this road worth the price you'll pay?
The old man looked at my face carefully, trying to find any doubt in it. But I didn't find it. In the end, he made up his mind.
"Gregory... you should be on your way.
"Are you kicking me out, Master? "such a choice was, to put it mildly, a shock. The teacher was a conservative about death magic, of course, but kicking out the only student he'd invested so much in?
"No," the old man forced a smile. "But you're not going to continue practicing this art in the city, are you?
There was no limit to my joy, because no matter what I thought at the time, my teacher was the closest (and only) person to me, and his support meant a lot to me. Quickly closing the distance, I impulsively hugged the magician, who was wide-eyed at this turn of events. He clearly didn't expect any emotion from an adult student, who was usually emotionally like a log.
A month later, while I was setting up a laboratory on the desert border with High Rock, I received a letter from one of the people who supplied me with "live goods" with the news that the old man was executed on suspicion of practicing necromancy and summoning a daedric.
But how? Even though he approved of my path, he didn't even touch the dark side of it.
It took me a week to get back to Wayrest. Two more " to find the right people and extract information. At that moment, only the emotion suppression potions helped me keep my mind clear.
The reason turned out to be typical for High Rock " intrigue. Meradah had always had an inflexible character in his youth, a trait that only grew stronger as he grew older. Of course, with such a temper, he made a lot of enemies. Here are a couple of nobles close to the head of the city, and used the rumors that I dabble in forbidden arts to incite panic among the moneybags. After all, if the student is so busy, then the teacher has gone even further. Merchants, panicked by the almost coven of Daedric acolytes at hand, began to demand the execution of the dark wizard.
The teacher was a powerful wizard, and he had many surprises for uninvited guests in his house, but this did not save him. To capture the quarrelsome old man, almost the entire local guild of magicians came in full force: he trampled on the feet of many people in his stubbornness. And the next day, after a farce by a misunderstanding called the court, it was burned in the main square of the city.
I was there. Meradach's charred body still stood on the dais, slowly being devoured by scavengers.
Maybe it was then that I realized " there are no prohibitions in the world, except for those that we set ourselves. The old man died a painful death just for his own will. For insubordination. My passion for "just a reason, if it weren't for him" there would have been another reason for the verdict. It was at that moment, standing in front of the remains of my closest person, that I realized that the end always justifies the means...
I probably should have left the city at that moment, because I might have been recognized, but there was one unfinished business here.
Revenge.
There are so many feelings in this word. The implementation plan was created immediately.
Two clans were involved: Tairind and Drathrin. Warriors and mages.
I had to act quickly and hit both names at once: if they suspected that they were in danger, I couldn't get them. Both families would have had the resources and influence to surround themselves with an army of guards and then search the entire city for me.
But after the death of the old man, they calmed down, and did not pay attention to the loss of the disciple at all: what can they, the owners of the city, do one half-educated person, and not even a combat orientation? Which, and not the fact that he was aware of the death of the master.
So I had an advantage in the form of the first move.
The Midwinter Festival was approaching, " the time when all the noble families of the city gather at the manor of one of these two families. This year, this right fell to the Tairind clan, which relies on its soldiers and their training. This was their undoing.
I spent the rest of the holiday season cleaning out Wayrest's dark spots, gathering material for my creations and information on the estate, its security and vulnerabilities. How funny that the dirt from the bottom of this city became a means of destroying the dirt at the top, and the former den of various thieves became my lair for this time.
The shadow part of the city was surprisingly numerous and knowledgeable about sneaking in, so I managed to get the blueprints for the Tairind mansion almost the next day, and there were enough bodies to create almost a hundred cadavers. I didn't have to cut out the apartment buildings, which was just as well: it might have alerted my victims, not to mention the actions of the guards, which could have ruined the whole plan in the bud.
Cold, thanks to potions, the mind quickly picked up the type of undead needed for the plan:
Zombies are slow, and the estate's security was made up of experienced warriors who had clearly encountered self-raised dead more than once. And the tactic of filling up with meat is simply useless: "the guests will run away faster than I can build a cordon ring.
Yes, and they are stupid.
There is no energy or time to create wights.
Ghosts are good at scouting, but they aren't much use in battle: there will be mages at the feast, and they can mow them down in packs.
After going through a dozen options, I decided to stop at the ghouls " fast, agile creatures easily compensated for their lack of strength with speed and ferocity. One of the disadvantages was that they needed to be fed, but they would survive until the holiday, and hunger would only add to their rage.
And now came the moment of celebration " for whom winter, for whom retribution. It's almost midnight, and most of the guests are gathered in the courtyard, enjoying the best wines and delicacies set out on the table by the hospitable hosts.
My horse, which used to serve as a transport for the head of the thieves ' guild, stopped at the front entrance.
"Your invitation? a couple of guards immediately jumped up to me, their hands on the hilts of their swords with suspicious looks. Of course, who among the guests will show up for the holiday so late?
Without looking, I wave my hand in their direction: bone needles shoot out from the tips of my fingers, which, once in the body, begin to fuse the bones in the body, forcing them to freeze in place.
"Alert..." another warrior at the entrance tries to give a signal, but a bone stake crawls out from under his feet and ends his quest along with his life.
Quietly. Only the distant sounds of festivities can be heard from behind the door, and the impaled man's blood drips on the snow.
I give a mental signal to the ghouls hiding in the sewers, and the nearest trapdoor blows out, and bloodthirsty monsters spread across the estate.
Screams of merriment turn to screams of terror. Ignoring the bloodstained floor and a couple of creatures gnawing at the maid, I hurry to the courtyard, where all my targets are gathered.
Meanwhile, the festival was in chaos, with the guests huddled together, frantically trying to fend off the ghouls that circled around them and periodically tried to break through the thin line of warriors who were desperately protecting them.
It seemed that the creatures were about to crush the guards, but the one-eyed magician in a rich robe, who was standing right behind them, instantly reacted to any threat of a lightning breakthrough , " and another ghoul fell into the snow, convulsively twitching its paws.
"I'm in luck today," I said dispassionately over the hoarse growls of the undead and the breathless breathing of the warriors, " I thought I'd have to drag you out of the imperial palace.
Valdur Drathrin "the head of the Drathrin family, the main culprit of the teacher's death," convulsively tried to inhale air: he recognized me.
"You won't be forgiven for this," he finally fixed me with his one eye, " call off your creatures and get out, and then maybe we'll forget about you.
My loud laughter was the answer, and in the silence after that only one word rang out:
"Fas.
Outside the mansion, I looked up at the moon that lit up the blood-soaked porch: after all the bones were mended, the needles began to grow inwards, tearing the person apart.
Instead of the paralyzed guards, I saw two flesh-and-blood flowers open.
The ghouls were in no hurry to attack the enemy themselves, even if hunger and my will drove them forward, but they could not go against a direct order. Five of these creatures jumped on the magician at once, and, knocking him to the ground, tore him to pieces. After that, the others couldn't resist the fierce onslaught of the undead for long.
Only the feasting monsters were left in the manor.
I walked along the pavement, idly watching the guards running towards the manor. Everything went as planned, the main entrance was the weakest guarded, and the guards mostly patrolled the perimeter and did not have time to come to the rescue. But still, it wasn't a victory. Farius Tairind "head of the Tairind clan" didn't even show up for the feast. Apparently, the old warrior sensed something or was alerted by the sudden loss of half of the city's criminal contingent. And what to do now was unclear.
The undead left in the manor would be slaughtered, and there weren't enough left to compete with the entire Wayrest Guard. And there is simply nowhere to find new material for its creation: after cleaning the shadow part of the city, it began to hide much deeper. And the same guards who raised the high after the loss of the lured thugs and the massacre at the festival of one of the strongest families of the city will not allow to cut the citizens.
A blizzard was blowing snowflakes in my face, and I couldn't see anything more than a few steps away. I was wondering what to do now. A raid on the eve of the festival was a risky undertaking, and the second time such a plan did not work, the enemy would be ready. And who would celebrate something right after such a massacre? Breton nobles don't care about the dead, but they'll keep up appearances just for the sake of their reputation.
I couldn't go back to the former hangout that had become my headquarters. The guards may have been lazy, but their terrified superiors would skin them three times over, forcing their subordinates to move. Yes, and the guild of magicians will connect, and they are happy to try. Yet they also had a hand in the death of my master. I wouldn't forget to ruin their lives if I survived.
Another gust threw a handful of snow at me. How do you find shelter in a city where every second person is ready to hand you over to the guards, and every third is ready to drag you to the stake? The sewer system disappears immediately, and I lit it up when I was dragging my small army of undead to the manor. The old teacher's house? They will search there first. I've never been anywhere else, just sitting around doing scrolls and experiments.
I can't remember how I found a working inn in such a blizzard. I stumbled inside, tossed a couple of septims to the waitress who ran up, and after ordering, I huddled in a corner, pulling my gray raincoat closer around me. In the morning, you will need to move on, the guards will definitely start checking inns and pubs for night guests. Hide in the portside area? The thugs there will hand over the necromancer themselves after my campaign, without even asking for a reward.
The situation was difficult, but by no means critical. I have a head start until dawn: there's no point in chasing people in this weather, and the snowfall has long since covered my tracks.
A girl arrived and placed a bowl of sweet-smelling stew in front of me. I gave her another couple of gold pieces and ordered some wine. It was necessary to warm up after a short walk, and it would have looked strange for a Breton who had not tasted alcohol on a winter evening. You can't get out of the city, everyone will be searched. You can't stay in the city either, they'll just go through it with a fine comb. Wayrest threatened to become a place of execution not only for the teacher, but also for the student. I had to think of something.
I suddenly had the idea, " what if we give the bloodhounds what they crave? Play a small performance in front of an unsophisticated audience. Not only would it throw their tail off the trail, but it would also lull Tairind's vigilance. But it was worth playing it naturally, so that even a hardened soldier would have no doubt that I was dead.
A grin came out on his face, and the wine and stew tasted much better. The goal was set, it remains only to get out of the trap…