Chapter Text
And, like it was natural, the Khajiit woman answered, “S’harra Moonscar.”
How did I know that? S’harra wondered, still wondering where her memories were.
“You with one of the trade caravans, S’harra? Your kind always seems to find trouble, even when not looking for it, huh?” the soldier said. “Captain, what should we do? She’s not on the list.”
“Forget the list, she goes to the block,” the Imperial captain ordered, glaring at the Khajiit woman.
“But Captain… we can’t legally execute her without knowing her crimes,” the soldier said.
“Corporal Hadvar, I am ordering you to send her to the block!”
Suddenly, the quest screen updated yet again.
{...increased reputation with Ralof, increased reputation with Hadvar…}
Ah, so he’s the other person I escape with… does he free me and Ralof, then?
“...by your orders, Captain. I’m sorry, S’harra. I’ll make sure your remains are returned to Elsweyr. Follow the captain,” Hadvar said, a somber tone in his voice.
S’harra, knowing running would result in her death, followed the path the others took, standing next to Ralof and another Stormcloak soldier.
“Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn’t use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne,” General Tullius said. Due to Ulfric’s mouth being covered, the only thing he could do was grunt in rage towards Tullius. “You started this war. Plunged Skyrim into chaos! And now the Empire is going to put you down, and restore the peace!”
S’harra noticed Hadvar going right up to Tullius and whispering something into his ear, though even she couldn’t hear it.
Hadvar quickly went back to his post, but before they could continue, the roar came again, but this time, everyone definitely heard it.
“What was that?” Hadvar asked, slight fear in his voice.
“It was nothing. Carry on,” General Tullius said, strictly.
“Yes, General Tullius!” the captain responded. “Give them their last rites.”
It was right then that S’harra noticed a priestess, presumably of Arkay how do I know what god she’s a priestess of , standing in the area.
“As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you, for you are the salt and earth of Nirn, our beloved-” the priestess says, before being interrupted by the other Stormcloak soldier next to her.
“For the love of Talos, shut up, and let’s get this over with!” he says, walking straight up to the block.
“...As you wish,” the priestess says, a little miffed at getting interrupted.
“Come on, I haven’t got all morning!” he says. The captain forces him to kneel over the block, and the executioner quickly removes his head.
One Stormcloak soldier insults the Empire, while two Helgen residents call for the deaths of more Stormcloaks.
“As fearless in death, as he was in life…” Ralof comments from next to S’harra.
“Next, the cat!” the captain calls. However, before she had the chance to move, Tullius put up his hand.
“I think not. From here, I’m taking control of the executions, Captain. Well, no, there’s something in that sentence that is not true. You, miss, are labeled as a traitor to the Empire. There are laws in place for a reason. We cannot legally execute someone without knowing their crimes, and cannot execute someone on suspicion alone. That person you called on the archers to kill. Hadvar had me look into his crimes real quick. He was a horse thief, but was public in his hatred of Stormcloaks. That’s one death you caused for no reason. As for the Khajiit, she isn’t even on the list. Therefore, it’s even less legal to execute her. So, as for who’s next, it’s-” General Tullius was interrupted by another roar, this one louder, suggesting the source is getting closer.
“There it is again! Did you hear that?” Hadvar asked, fear still in his tone.
“As for who’s next, it is, in fact, you, ex-Captain,” Tullius finally finishes. The captain has a shocked look on her face.
“But Sir, he was trying to cross the border into Cyrodiil without authorization! He was caught by our troops! He’s clearly a Stormcloak! As for the cat, how couldn’t she be a Stormcloak!? She was also trying to cross the border!” The ex-captain yelled. “She should be executed like the rest of her li-”
“We’d gladly accept her after this farce of an execution, Captain, but I’ll have you know, she was not one of ours!” Ulfric had somehow managed to get his gag out of his mouth. Tullius quickly went to put it back on, when a third(technically fourth) roar sounded, and a huge monster flew over the ridge.
“Shit! Dragon!” Ralof yelled, fear so evident in his voice that even Tullius looked in its direction.
The dragon did a couple of loops around the settlement before landing on the tower.
One Imperial soldier quickly cut the binds of all of the Stormcloak rebels, knowing they’d need all the help they could get, but died before he could get to S’harra’s binds.
{Quest Updated: Survival of the Fittest!
Objective Complete: Find a way to survive the execution happening in Helgen!
Objective: Work with the Imperials and Stormcloaks to escape Helgen! Bring as many as you can! Get Ralof to cut your binds, so you can help better!}
“Ralof! Cut S’harra’s binds!” S’harra yelled, getting Ralof to do just that.
“S’harra! Take the armor of the guy who was cutting the Stormcloak binds! He had the right idea, freeing you all, but since he’s dead, his armor’s not gonna do him any favors just wasting away on his corpse!” Hadvar yelled.
S’harra quickly, yet carefully, took the armor off of the poor soldier, also taking his iron sword. She then quickly got changed, not caring much about modesty since, in a dragon attack, she needed all the armor she could get.
It was clear that the armor was built with a male in mind, and didn’t have the slot needed for her tail, but safety was more important than comfort. “Anyone know a way for us to get out of here!?” S’harra yelled.
“The keep!” General Tullius yelled. “There’s an old tunnel, leads right out of the town! It hasn’t been used in a long time, though, so be careful! Could be some new animals in there!”
S’harra started gathering everyone she could, including both Ralof and Hadvar, and started guiding them through town into the keep. Any soldiers armed with bows were firing on the dragon from a distance, trying to keep its attention off of the group of people.
Soon enough, though, everyone made it to the keep. Though, once everyone was inside, minus a few soldiers who had been killed by the dragon, S’harra got a new message.
{Quest updated: Survival of the fittest!
Objective Complete: Work with the Imperials and Stormcloaks to escape Helgen! Bring as many as you can! Get Ralof to cut your binds, so you can help better!
Objective: Draugr have awoken, and crawled their way into the Keep! They are loyal to the dragon! Defeat them!}
“Don’t think we’re safe just because we made it inside! The dragon can probably bring this tower down on our heads!” Ulfric yelled.
“Update, everyone! It seems there’s undead loyal to that dragon in here!” an Imperial battlemage yelled.
S’harra, somehow knowing she was a skilled mage, prepared an onslaught of spells to defeat the undead now plaguing the keep. General Tullius, meanwhile, took to the front of the group.
“Anyone who is currently unarmed or unarmored, grab any weapons or armor you can find! Normally, I wouldn’t allow anyone who isn’t an Imperial soldier use this gear, but I’ll make an exception today!” he yelled. Once he got confirmation that the twelve people who had made it, including himself, S’harra, Hadvar, Ralof, and Ulfric, were fully prepared for battle, he began to lead the group forward.
The first few rooms, that being the armory and the hallways leading to the center chamber, were clear of undead, but approaching the gate that separated the second hallway from the center chamber revealed quite a few undead, as well as two Stormcloak soldiers.
“Spellcasters at the front!” S’harra yelled, moving up to the front herself. All of the spellcasters besides her, which means two total spellcasters, moved up with her. Tullius, meanwhile, went over to the lever controlling the gate and flipped it.
The gate slowly opened, and the spellcasters all unleashed spells upon the undead.
S’harra herself sent numerous Firebolts flying at them, with each one impacting a Draugr and catching it on fire, burning it. The spellcaster to her left sent out a chain lighting spell, catching numerous Draugr off guard as what remained of their nervous systems were fried, allowing the two in the room to finish them off.
Meanwhile, the spellcaster to her right slowed down as many as he could using the Frostbite spell, trapping them where they were.
Once the group had all sent out their spells, the melee soldiers went forward and began destroying the Draugr as quickly as they could, which was very quickly. However, getting into the room revealed that the two Stormcloak soldiers had been killed right as they were getting into the room, though they had gone down fighting.
They quickly made their way further into the keep, coming across a storage room, which had a few draugr in it that were quickly dispatched.
Continuing through, they reached the torture room, which Hadvar commented saying he wished they didn’t need them, before the sounds of fighting reached S’harra’s ears. There were four people in there; the torturer himself, his assistant, and two Stormcloak soldiers.
S’harra quickly sent two separate Chain Lightning spells at the undead horde, disabling a good amount of them, allowing the four people remaining to try to kill more of them.
The one archer who had survived the ordeal quickly began picking the draugr off from distance, which was easier now, since he had stairs he could stand on, while S’harra continued zapping them with Chain Lightning.
Soon enough, all of the undead were once more dead, but quite a few members of the survivor group had died, including the torturer.
Tullius guided the group through the prison cells and into the storage room for the torture chamber, which itself had a couple of draugr, though those were quickly dispatched. The group watched as Tullius pressed a hidden button and the wall opened up.
“Normally, this exit would stay secret, but the city’s gonna become unusable for quite a while, and by the time we can safely take it back, we’ll probably be renovating it with new stuff, and sealing off this passageway anyway,” Tullius said before beginning to lead the group through the passage. “Now, this passage has gone unused for a long time, so it may have naturally changed, so stay close.” They continued through the small cave into a much bigger cave, where there was a whole horde of undead.
The soldiers all began attacking them, with the archers and spellcasters destroying them from range.
A couple of soldiers on both sides fell to the undead, but they ultimately won the battle. However, their group now only consisted of Hadvar, Ralof, Ulfric, Tullius, S’harra, and a couple of other soldiers who had yet to introduce themselves.
Tullius guided them to a lever, with a bridge behind it, and flipped the lever, causing the bridge to go down.
S’harra quickly ran across the bridge, Hadvar and Ralof following. Ulfric and Tullius were close behind as well, though when one of the soldiers tried to follow, he was crushed by a falling piece of stone, as was the bridge. The collapse of the bridge triggered another collapse, too, which killed the rest of the soldiers, besides the group who were on the other side of the bridge.
“Dammit!” Ulfric yelled, upset at the loss of some of his soldiers. The rest of the group continued, until Tullius spotted something at the end of the tunnel.
“Damn. Some of the tunnel shifted here; this rock isn’t supposed to almost be touching the ground, and this path to our side shouldn’t exist. Let’s go, everyone! Let’s try the new path!” Tullius commanded, guiding the last remaining members of the group through it.
A few Frostbite Spiders were in the room, but there was another path out.
The spiders were quickly killed, and Tullius led the group down through the other part of the cave, into the last cave.
However, this is where they encountered trouble.
A mysterious ancient Nord coffin was in the cave, nestled right at the end of it. The issue is, it looked like one used for the highest-ranking members of the old Dragon Court… the Dragon Priests themselves.
“Alright, everyone. This one suspects that things are about to go to Oblivion!” S’harra said.
{Quest Updated: Survival of the Fittest!
Objective Complete: Draugr have awoken, and crawled their way into the Keep! They are loyal to the dragon! Defeat them!
Objective: Eliminate the Dragon Priest Alok
Additional Reward: Dragon Priest Mask: Alok}
“Everyone, prepare for a fight!” S’harra yelled. S’harra, being the only mage, stayed back, while everyone else prepared for a proper fight.
When some of them got close enough, the lid to the coffin suddenly launched off, landing right next to it, while an undead figure rose out of the coffin.
“Hi fent pah aav zu'u ahrk aam Alduin!” the dragon priest yelled. “Rok los het!” Then, using its staff, the dragon priest began attacking the group.
The four melee people tried to keep the focus on them, Ulfric even throwing in the Unrelenting Force shout, while S’harra attacked from a distance, dealing heavy damage.
Sword slash after sword slash, firebolt after firebolt, yet it still didn’t go down. It was healing itself quickly, too quickly.
Shit! S’harra thought, realizing something. “Keep it distracted! It’s being healed by something, this one will figure out what!” she yelled. She quickly began running around, trying to find the source of the healing, and eventually, she succeeded. A gem, embedded into the ground. A soul gem by the looks of it. Taking it would only result in it getting closer to the priest, meaning a stronger healing effect.
So instead, S’harra tried to shape her magicka into something new…
{Skill Created: Magicka Shaping!
Shaping Magicka is what created all modern spells. Surely, with enough effort, you can create a new one!}
{Spell Created: Soul Liberator!
Using this spell on a Soul Gem with a soul in it will free the soul, without damning them to the Soul Plane, or destroying the gem!}
It worked! S’harra thought, aiming her new spell at the soul gem.
Sure enough, the moment the spell hit the gem, the priest screamed in rage. “Hi kren dii haas wahl! Hi dir nu!” the priest yelled, before charging a strangely strong spell and aiming it a S’harra.
She quickly used Magicka Shaping to create a shield much stronger than any ward could do.
The spell was stopped entirely, well before it could hit her.
Hadvar drew his bow and shot the priest in the eye, damaging its sight, while Ralof quickly chopped off its staff hand using his war ax. Ulfric used Unrelenting Force to send the priest flying into the back wall of the cave, while Tullius was waiting there.
The end result was Alok being stabbed right through upon Tullius’ sword.
The dragon priest wound up disintegrating, but its mask just fell on top of the pile of ash.
{Quest complete: Survival of the Fittest!
Rewards: Life, increased reputation with Ralof, increased reputation with Hadvar, Iron Sword, Long Bow, Light Imperial Armor, Light Imperial Gauntlets, Light Imperial Boots, Light Imperial Helmet, Dragon Priest Mask: Alok}