User blog:Psychomantis108/The Fall of the Aubeanic Reign (The unused chapters): Chapter VI - The Land of the Dead (Part 2)

Cyrus Would've bet smart money on the cities being dangerous. The 'minded zombies' or 'Fallen' reside there. From what he had heard, he was better off taking his chances with the Risen.

They were both dangerous but at least he was smarter and faster than the Risen. From what he understood, Landyt had control over all of the Risen and Fallen but it took a lot of effort to make them all intelligent and fully functioning. Apparently, most of the walking corpses were just let loose in the wilderness, a number of them were given more strength and in telligence and others had totally retained their humanity, though they had their brains rewritten, so it were, so that they would serve Landyt and his cause.

The Redguard put it to the back of his mind as a building came into view. He almost walked into the blighted thing, barely stopping himself as he raised his hand and prevented himself from smashing his face into the wall.

The building was a quite tall wooden structure, that loomed over him, he soon discovered that it was an inn of some sort as he looked up and saw its unfortunate name 'the rising cock.'

Cyrus smirked and shook his head, wondering if that was deliberate or not. The sign had a picture of a cockrel flying upwards, in front of a rising sun. In this bleak, cold, depressing and barren place it was the closest thing that he had ever seen to light hearted or fun.

He slowl began to approach the building and saw that a grey skinned Nord sat on his porch, seemingly minding his own business as he rocked back and too on his rocking chair. It was obvious that he was one of the Fallen but it was even more obvious that he had no intentions of attacking the Redguard, he just sat, peacefully minding his own business.

I swear these thingsare either playin' dead or playin' livin'... The Redguard thought as he placed his foot on the step, placing his scratched arm on his knee.

"S'cuse me, sir?"

"Yeah?" The Nord asked as he if gets a lot of visitors, to the point that a living Redguard in a sand covered Hammerfell, Sleeveless duster was a triviality.

"Is this place open?"

The backwards Nord, with a balding head and a huge hoarker mustache just stared into the distance, he eventually built up a huge wad of spit and gozzed it out, the loogie flew past Cyrus, flying over the fence and landing, splat, on the floor behind him.

"Look around you son... What use is an inn here? Out there, you're dinner, people just shit on the ground and there's nothing to even spend gold on...

Well, unless you took it to one of those cities but... Good luck getting there in one piece, your risen corpse might just make it far enough into the city to be shot by the archers." Despite the bleak topic of conversation, the owner's face didn't change that much as he spoke, he just kept up his depressed mumble, throughout his response.

Cyrus didn't know what to do with that as it didn't exactly answer his question but he assumed that his answer was 'no.'

Still, this didn't exactly discourage him as he had only asked whether or not they were still operating as an inn, not whether or not he was allowed to stay there...

"You got any vacancies?" He asked, placing his hands in his pockets and grinning at him, hoping to win him over with his 'charms.'

The Nord looked back at him, in disbelief, practically gawking at him at this point.

"Did you hear a word of what I just said boy? No living, no inn!"

"Well, I'm a livin'..." Cyrus pointed out, folding his arms and tilting to the side.

"Good for you, get out of Skyrim if you want to stay that way."

Cyrus frowned, glancing away as he did so, he couldn't help butget the feeling that this wasn't going so well.

"C'mon, you have an inn, with beds, all I need is a bed!" The Redguard replied, almost pleading as this place was like an answered prayer, there was no way in Oblivion that he would find another place as perfect as this.

The Nord sensed this and considered his proposal, scratching his head as he did so.

"Well, it has been years since we actually used this place as an Inn..." He sighed, almost longingly, as if life as a lifeless, near souless vessel wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

"F-Fine... Third door on your right."

Cyrus gave the Old Nord a smile and an appreciative nod as he stepped inside, hoping to reward the Nord by getting out of his sight.

Cyrus took no precautions, the second that he entered his room, he propped the chair from the dressing table against it, weding the back underneath the door handle, keeping any intruders at bay.

The Redguard fell back, onto his bed. Undressing wasn't a luxure he could afford. He did get to experience the bliss of having his tattered, walking boots removed. He looked into his boots and immediately noticed that he could see light through them.

He sighed and lowered the boot to his knee, swiftly looking around the room as if he was looking for a solution. Unfortunately, there wasn't one...

He dropped the boot to the floor, where it jumped off of the sole for a split second before coming back to Nirn. The Redguard soon found himself rollingo n his back and looking up at the ceiling, folding his arms as he did so.

The moons were the only thing that illuminated the room; he had a candle, that his guests probably wanted him to use but he wasnt willing to do anything that risked drawing in the Risen or hell, even more Fallen.

The truth was that Cyrus didn't trust his hosts, which was enough to make him feel uncomfortable himself as he hated the idea of judging people, based on things that they didn't choose. Variation should not be what a human being should be judged on, judgement should be based on a person's actions or who they choose to be.

Cyrus knew this better than anyone.

Still, the Fallen aren't exactly renouned for being great hosts, in fact it can be safely said that the Fallen posess little to no good qualities, what so ever. Even these people...

There was something off, even though he wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms, this still felt like a set up or a trap...

Still.... He had a room, a roof over his head and a place to sleep, that was hopefully safe. He wouldn't have to worry about the Fallen, the Risen or Landyt for another eight or nine hours...

He was beginning to feel spoiled...

"C-Cyrus?"

"Just...h-hang on! It ain't as bad as it looks, j-just...

Hold still, k-keep your eyes open.

Ar-Arik's comin'...

...

Ch-Chelll?

...

''N-No! D-Don't do this to me!! Please!''

Arik!?

Arik!

Cyrus' eyes slowly slid open, his dull lifeless face shifted to a look of sorrow as he came back around...

Something had woken him, he couldn't remember what. He tried to recall as he drunkenly fumbled around for the source of the disturbance.

THUD

The Hell?

THUD

Cyrus reached for his crossbow, slipping his foot into his boot as he began to look around, he didn't want to jump to any conclusions, hopefully a dog was just trying to relieve itself on the wall outside or that Old Man got up in the night to take a leadk.

CREAK

What the...?

"Argh!"

Cyrus looked down to see an open trap door, jutting out of the ground was a grey hand, its cold fingers were wrapped around his ankle, pulling him towards it.

"D-Dammit, get off of me!" He demanded, getting the most predictable response, which was none at all.

He spun around as he heard a knocking, this time it was at the door.

"Everything alright in there?"

Cyrus was tempted to be sarcastic with him but his life dependended on the Old Man's help.

"H-Help, I'm bein' - Woah!"

Cyrus was cut off as he was pulled to the ground, with a thud, noticing that he was huriedly being dragged to the trap door as more hands emerged and began to wrap around his boot.

"What's going on in there!?" The Nord napped, beating on the door as Cyrus felt himself losing the fight, being pulled in.