Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-25828117-20200130020211/@comment-5583506-20200130184450

The howling winds echoed through the frozen caves, bringing forth a raging, hollow roar, reminiscent to that of some gigantic, ancient, cave-dwelling monster of yore. Even after having been turned into this ... thing, Didrik feared to enter the dark pits of Dystergrav. The darkness down here seemed ominously thick and unnatural. Not even their eyes, adapted to a life in recluse and to the shadows were of any use to them down here, and attempts to pave their path and light the way with torches had yielded in little results.

More than one hapless Ghoul had stumbled over the edge and fallen into the caverns and chasms below, measureless to man. It was almost as if the spirit of whatever they had unearthed down there kept them at bay.

Didrik passed two Ghoul guards in full armor, their red eyes glowing through the visor in their helmet in the vague light of the torches. Though they didn't even seem to be aware of him, he knew in fact that they were. The saw and they listened, with little individual mind of their own. They were mere vessels, absorbing information from the environment around them. And they owed it all to him.

They were guarding the passage to a wooden gantry, leading further and further down into the darkness. Didrik swallowed hard. Even as a vampire he both hated and dreaded this place. It felt ... out of this world. As if it didn't belong, and yet still it was there. He descended the rickety scaffoldings with his fear all pent up in a straight face. But whenever he heard the icy walls crack or move about, he descended just a little faster, as if he feared that the entire mountain would spring to life and specifically crush him.

Once he was down at steady ground again he observed the work with curiousity. The Ghouls were steady on their hand, swinging pickaxes and hammers daily and nightly as they mined their way through Dystergrav. They would not stop unless he ordered them to do so.

Two heavily armored guards stood at a passage leading into a side-cavern. They observed Didrik with little interest as he passed, but he knew that they were just as aware as the Ghouls even if they didn't show. The black veins protruding from their pale neck, as well as the red eyes that gleamed in the darkness, spoke lengths of their superiority. Yet they were all inferior to him.

He who had been around for eras upon eras, observing the world around him unfold. The vampire lord stood deep within the side-cavern, leaned over a table as he inspected the current digging plans. "What is the situation on the surface?" he asked, his voice hoarse and cold like breaking ice.

"A sole rider arrived from Cyrodiil", Didrik informed. "They failed to retrieve the package on the path to Cheydinhal."

The vampire lord shrugged. "Do you think I did not already know that? I see everything my subjects do from down here. Tell me something I don't know."

Didrik swallowed hard, cutting his lips on his own fangs. "Some of our diggers on the surface ..."

The vampire lord sighed and turned around. Lord Glamr Myrknár was an old being, probably one of the oldest living, if not the oldest vampire to date. He had supposedly been one of Ysgramor's Five Hundred Companions during the Return and committed acts so depraved and bloodthirsty in nature that even when slain by the Snow Elves, he had not been at peace or rest. He had instead risen as one of the undead with a near insatiable hunger for the blood of the living and tormented the nightmares of Nords for centuries.

He was a tall and broad-shouldered man with a face like chiseled out of a block of marble. He had a pair watered-down, pale grey eyes, unlike his vampire brood and brethren who all had the archetypical red. Didrik did not know why that was the case. Maybe he was just a different being altogether and not a true vampire at all? Or maybe they were not the true vampires? Maybe they were all just bastardizations of the real deal. The man did not seem to be particularly affected by direct sunlight, and he possessed the ability to "observe" the world through the eyes of his subjects, bending their feeble minds to his will like a puppeteer manipulating his creations.

Glamr observed Didrik with little care. "What are they saying?"

"They fear that the mage might be back", Didrik said. "Our last reinforcement of workers and supplies did not arrive according to schedule. They believe that she might have ..."

"She is of little concern", Glamr interrupted. "Though a nuisance to be sure, she will not make me change my plans. The workers will simply have to double their shifts to make up for the lost forces. I will schedule for new ones and then send a couple of knights to escort them. That ought to dissuade that conniving witch from meddling in my affairs again."

"Understood, my lord", Didrik said with a dignified bow.

"Nevertheless, it is a mere frustration", Glamr said. "First the failure of claiming the package in Cyrodiil. The witch has struck again. And I can no longer sense lord Svilnar's presence in Bramwood."

"Lord Svilnar?"

Glamr's haunting gaze pierced through Didrik like spear tips through flesh. "An accomplice. Let us leave it at that. Come", he beckoned as they headed out of the side-cavern. "How much have you observed the progress since your last visit down here?"

Didrik did not want to lie to his liege. Not that it mattered. Even if Lord Glamr could not directly see into Didrik's mind due to the fact that he was not of Glamr's bloodline, the vampire overlord was very observant in exposing liars. The truth was that Didrik tried to stay away from the dig site as much as possible, rather spending time on the surface than down in some frozen chasm where light never shone. He did not feel like this was a place for anyone: whether they were living or undead. A place lost to time.

Yet he decided to be honest. "Not much at all, my lord", he confessed.

Glamr scoffed. "You are uncomfortable here, I take it."

"Pardon me for not having your courage, my lord."

"Why are you apologizing?" Glamr's voice was hard, but rang resonated with the walls of ice surrounding them, making it seem like there was an underlying power to it. The power to control the will of weaker men. "This place makes me uncomfortable too."

Didrik found that surprising. There was nothing that scared lord Glamr. But then again Didrik did not actually know what they were digging for. Lord Glamr Myrknár had been very secretive about it to keep the news from reaching other vampire clans. All he had revealed was that it was a most powerful weapon that would make the whole world bow to their whim and cower in fear. A tribute to the King of Strife and Rape himself, Molag Bal.

Lord Glamr led him further down into the shafts, only guided by a lantern in his right hand. The scaffoldings scaled the walls in a downwards spiral all the way down in what appeared to be a gigantic dome, far far below the very foundations of Dystergrav. Miles below the mountain range itself. This was simply a place not meant for the beings of Nirn to ever traverse, yet here they were.

"If you do not mind, my lord, what exactly are we looking for down here? I know that you do not want to spill any information regarding this place, but ... I think I would feel more inclined to walk here if I know just what this weapon of yours is."

Lord Glamr observed his subordinate under a heavy silence before continuing their descent, occasionally passing a mindless Ghoul on guard. "This world is old, Didrik. Very old. Far older than accounted for in any records or oral tales ever told by Men, Mer, and Beastfolk. I doubt even the Daedric Princes knows its full meaning. But know that far below the foundations of Nirn, the world is gnawed by nameless things; forgotten by time."

Didrik raised an eyebrow.

Glamr just smiled and stepped out onto an outjutting wooden platform that overlooked the great dome. He grabbed a torch from its holdings and waved it about into the impenetrable darkness. Soon enough there responses as the cave was piece by piece lit up by braziers, revealing the monstrosity that laid before them.

Didrik stumbled backwards and almost collapsed to the ground at the sheer sight and size of it. It was grotesque and hauntingly beautiful at the same time. Far taller than any giants in Skyrim, there laid the fossilized remains of a titanic creature curled up against the side of the cave wall. Almost as if it had sought refuge from the sunlight ... or something far more dangerous than itself. It could best be described as ... indescribable. Long, clawed fingers, a hideous snout, two gaping sockets, a large skeletal grin of a mouth with a set of protruding and familiar fangs. It was all covered in layers upon layers of ice and icicles. Didrik did not like the look of it. He stared into its slumped over skull, trying to visualize just what it might have looked like, had it been alive.

"We reckon it has been here since the Dawn Era", Glamr said coldly. "Probably came here to hide ... or to die, whichever the case."

"Th-this is what we have been digging for?" Didrik shuddered. Never in his wildest nightmares could he have imagined that something so foul existed upon the surface of Nirn. "Whatever for? It is hideous ... and it's a giant corpse."

"Not quite", Glamr said. "It is alive."

Didrik would have felt his heart stop if it already hadn't. "Alive?! How the hell can that thing be alive?!"

"Not alive in that sense, you fool", Glamr replied. "There is some sort of magical power resonating from within. A power which we have managed to extract since years back."

"Wh-what?"

Glamr smirked, his eyes gleaming with fascination. "While I do not know what kind of creature this once was, or what its origins were, our experiments with the residue found within its icy prison have yielded results beyond our imagination."

Didrik swallowed again, his frozen lips trembling. "What kind of results?"

"You have already seen some of them", Glamr smiled. "The new order among others. While the experiments were incomplete those were just an example of in the direction we are headed for."

Didrik recalled. The vampiric knights and Ghouls they had sent to Cyrodiil. They were special, yet he couldn't tell how until it had been demonstrated. They were near immortal for as long as their hearts and heads remained intact. Even if they lost a limb or got themselves cleaved in two, they would continue fighting. It was as amazing as it was terrible to behold. And now he knew the source from which they had stemmed.

"That is not all", Glamr said and then glanced down over the edge of the scaffolding.

Didrik crawled forward, intimidated by the size of the frozen titan before them as he peered over the ledge. Far far below even further into the cold earth there were something moving about in the light of the braziers' fires. Hundreds upon thousands of them. An army capable of overrunning an entire nation if set loose.

Didrik looked up at the vampire overlord. "Wh-what is this?"

"The results of our secondary experiments", Glamr instructed. "Behold the new generation."