The sound of the waves lapping on the shore kept Ahnaressu sane. It was a soothing, almost magical sound. It was Ahnaressu's indulgence in this magic that allowed a mubcrab to pass by undetected by the normally-alert hunter. Ahnaressu knew that he had to get to civilization if he was to survive. His only problem was mustering the courage to make such a difficult decision. He had no idea what to expect or even how to act. He scooped up his pack and his weapons, then cradled his brother as he began his journey to Ald'ruhn.
He went in through the main gate, where he was taken aback by the hustle and bustle of the people. He quickly went behind a house and curled up with Relgar. In mere moments, Ahnaressu was fast asleep.
He was shaken violently. Ahnaressu sprung into action. He spun out of the gaurd's reach and kicked the gaurd in the crotch. Ahnaressu only kicked bonemold greaves, hurting his foot more than the guard. The Redoran gaurd grabbed the boy ruoghly by the shirt collar, and threw the boy to the ground. The guard asked "Where are your parents, boy?" Before Ahnaressu could answer, Relgar began to cry, having ended up on the hard ground from the skirmish between Ahnaressu and the guard. The guard put poor Ahnaressu down on the ground and replaced him with Relgar. "This is no place for a boy, much less a baby. Go back home and sleep in a bed. Sleeping in the streets is illegal." the guard explained in a rather gruff tone. "There are laws saying where I can and can't sleep?" Ahnaressu asked incredulously. The guard calmly put Relgan back into Ahnaressu's arms and said "Just go home. Don't sleep on the streets again, and this incident will not repeat itself."
Ahnaressu was still shaken up from his interesting dilemma with a guard, but was glad nothing more serious happened other than a nagging bruise on his foot. He calmly walked up to a Breton passerby and asked where he could find a bed. "Sure," answered the man. "Try the Ald Skar Inn." He said as he pointed it out for Ahnaressu. The young dunmer nodded his thanks.
He walked in to the Ald Skar Inn and asked for a room. "that will be ten gold per night." the barkeep said. "Could I offer you potions in exchange for a room?" Ahnaressu asked while holding the potions made by his mother. The bartender laughed in his face. "No only gold will do. But you could try selling them to someone for gold. The mages guild always buys things like that." Ahnaressu got directions to the mages guild and headed that way. The skinny dunmer made his way through the streets of Ald'ruhn, while playing with a ring in his pocket. He walked into the Mages Guildhall seeking someone to buy some potions. He found a tall altmer. The high elf would buy potions, and as he reached for some money in a small chest, Ahnaressu spotted a tanto. Dismissing the thought of stealing that weapon, he thanked the alchemist and moved on, all the while fiddling with the ring in his pocket. The ring! he thought. Having no clue what the enchantment on the ring was, he asked a breton woman by the name of Edwinna to identify it. As edwinna took the ring from the boy's open hand, she was shaking with emotion. "This ring is powerful, but it is only of use to a mage like myself." Ahnaressu was young, but not dumb. "What does it do?" he asked. "Really, it would be of no use to a boy like yo-" Ahnaressu seemed to Edwinna to get six feet taller as he asked forcefully, "What is the enchantment on the ring?" Edwinna answered, "This ring, when activated, shoots a stream of flame wherever it is aimed." It seemed useful to Ahnaressu but not nearly as useful as gold, so he sold it to Edwinna for one hundred gold.
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"They have fled, Sir!" Nyph reported to Valnor. After a two day standstill, niether side had gained nor lost ground. Valnor clenched his fist and ordered "I want all of them killed, spare none. CHASE THEM TO THE DEPTHS OF OBLIVION!" Cheers from the rogues erupted all around Valnor as he led the chase.
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The score or so Urshilaku that survived the raid ran through the night. The men and older boys occasionally stopped only to rain a blanket of arrows over their attackers. The twenty ahslanders only had seven men able to fight. The rest were women and children. But one woman stood alone against the night sky, raining flame, lightning and frost over the rogues. The Urshilaku wise woman sought revenge.
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Relgar was crying. Ahnaressu slowly got out of his bed in the Ald Skar Inn to tend to his brother. His sleep was not exactly restful. When no exhaustion took him over, his sleep was filled with images of his mother dying....the screams.....the blood..... As hard as he tried, he could never shake the images from his head.
Recently, Ahnaressu had been brushing up on his alchemy using Zaldin's notes. They had almost every property of almost every possible ingredient. It was his temporary "job" so to speak. He made potions and sold them to Anaren, the high elf in the mages guild. Instead of falling into horrible images, the tired boy began to make more potions. He spent hours using the heavy concentration to take his mind off of the horrors of his life. Even more than that, however, he used the potions to keep him sleeping in the inn. Ten drakes a day got expensive, along with the added expenses of food and keeping a baby alive. He picked up Relgan and walked into the Mages' Guildhall to sell more potions. It was before dawn, but Ahnaressu knew that Anaren was usually awake working on potions until the wee hours of the morning. Ahnaressu loved working with the high elf, because he always taught Ahnaressu alchemy techniques whenever the dunmer visited him.
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The Urshilaku wise-woman, Nibani Maesa, was exhausted, having launched a fierce barrage of magic upon their foes. She fell into her guiding and often prophetic dreams and visions. In her trance-like state, she looked for a way to save her kin. She wanted desperately to crush these attackers, the slayers of her kin, but she would let her pride go and very quickly accept and escape route. She searched the images and sounds of these dreams, looking, searching, scouring every single thought that came into her head. Often the thought was her own, often that of the spirits. She searched both for any answer she could find.
The Urshilaku survivors watched in utter confusion at the antics of the wise woman. She was sitting with her legs crossed, shaking as if he was being hit by a lightning spell. She uttered a word, it was hard for them to understand. She uttered it again and again, each time it was getting louder, more clear. "Ahnaressu."
The wise woman knew it was the answer, but was the boy not dead? She was hard-pressed to believe it, but she had no other option, the boy had to be contacted. The wise woman fell deeper into the trance, embracing the images and all the other feelings that were imparted by these dreams. She saw the boy sorting saltrice with a high elf. She knew it was in a city, nowhere a typical ashlander would be! She turned her "spirit eyes" back in her own direction and flew back to where she could see herself sitting, she then turned back to where she had found Zaldin's son. She soon enough traced the boy to Ald'ruhn.
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Valnor watched as an attack was formed. Not by them, but by the Urshilaku! What are they doing? He thought to himself. They have no chance of winning like that! They would win eventually by using the tactic of running to more defendable places and firing arrows from a distance! Nyph watched the look of confusion on his leaders face and said flatly, "A diversion."
(c)2005 Dantrag
On to the next chapter