Neilious's Dream

[Caligula Superfly]

I updated the story with the version I intend to use for the quest. It contains additional text on the beginning and end which transforms it into a letter sent to a husband at war. I also sent it to Raggedman, who did alot of editing. (very good editing BTW!)

______________________________________________

Dear Tebucius,

It was hard this week. I could hardly tend to my saltrice I was worrying about you so much! You?ve been off on that Legion business for too long! I just wish you were home again. Don?t you remember why we moved to Morrowind? To get away from all of that Imperial rubbish? Though I suppose you need to feel at peace with yourself, your family?s history in the service and all. Just don?t get yourself killed out there.

I wrote you another story, the main character reminds me of you. Mara thinks it?s good, thinks I should get it published. I don?t know, you know how shy I am with strangers. I don?t think I could ever stand being famous. Anyway, I hope you like it. Think of me when you read it my dear?and my heart will always be fighting beside yours,
Your Love,
Sarinia Hercio

The Dream

It was a lazy evening in Steadhelm. Most of the townspeople were in their homes enjoying dinner, and the sun was just setting as the night watch manned their posts. The house was quiet, my statue of Zenithar collecting dust on the windowsill. Sitting in a squeaky old chair at my kitchen table, I stared down at a half eaten hunk of deer meat swimming in a shallow pool of its own juices as I mulled over the day?s events.

?I mean, how could this happen?? I asked myself. ?We specifically stated we needed twenty orders of beer? BEER! Now the entire staff is stuck with about three weeks worth of DEER.?

I tried reasoning with myself, thinking that: ?It was but a simple error, nothing more than a miscomunication at the shipping yard. Just a?? Unfortunately, my stomach had to interrupt and forced from my thoughts I realized that I was actually quite queasy. With a hefty sigh I dumped out the remnants of my dinner, having lost my appetite.

As the evening dragged on my upset stomach took a turn for the worse. I walked into my bedroom, dreading the upcoming night. Whenever I was sick such as this, my mind always became a whirling mess after fuzzily drifting into unconsciousness, my vague and mixed up dreams rushing past at such a rapid pace, I wished the world would end.

?Well, none of that tonight,? I told myself, and passed out face down in my pillow.

~~~

At first I was sleeping peacefully, but slowly, ever so faintly, I began to hear the sounds of war around me. Armor clinking, swords clashing, orders being barked out left and right!

Before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of a large, round, torch lit hall. In front of me, two armies were locked in a heated battle.

At my end was a troop of stoic Imperial Guard, clad in shining Legion armor, reflections of the torchlight dancing on the polished surfaces.

The other end was aswarm with a hoard of sinister looking Dremora charging down from a spiral staircase, each ghastly visage seething with rage and bloodlust. Their jet-black weaponry was all but invisible in the dimness of the room, but for the faint red glimmer of the tortured souls trapped within.

?Sir! Sir!?

?Me?? I asked, surprised at being called a Sir of any kind

?Yes Sir, where have you been? Someone let the foul attackers in earlier today! It's been a downhill battle; we thought you would never come!?

The soldier's uniform suggested he was a Champion, or possibly even a Knight of some kind; he looked as though he was waiting for me to say something.

?Uh.., where did all of these Dremora come from??

The man?s tone became angry: ?We think they may have come from Oblivion sir! You know what?s been going on I?m sure, though I wouldn?t have ever expected to see a gate open up in a place such as this!?

I was quite confused: ?Very well, shall I grab a sword and shield??

?No Sir, that is our job! You must summon the flow of soldiers from around the castle to our location, quickly!?

?Right.? I began to turn and run out of the room, but the man stopped me. ?Not like that Sir, you must summon them with your mind!?

?Excuse me? And how exactly am I to do that??

The officer was looking thoroughly agitated ?Just do it! Will them to us!? And with that, he ran back into battle.

I was a bit confused about how exactly my mind was supposed to summon reinforcements, but I tried my best to think about other soldiers that might be around the castle and willed them to come into the room. Almost instantly reinforcements started arriving from all sides pitching into the struggle, forcing the Daedra back.

As the battle raged on, I noticed that whenever I saw an area in which the Daedra were gaining an advantage, more soldiers would leap in with swords ready and fill in the gap. It was as if they responded to my very thoughts.

The infiltrating forces were not making things easy. Though more and more soldiers marched bravely into the room, casualties were mounting quickly. For every soldier killed, a Daedra seemed to pop up out of nowhere, perpetuating the fighting. The sinister hoard was quickly gaining ground, pushing the soldiers back. The captain came running up to me, his face caked with blood.

?Sir, we can?t keep our positions, the Daedra are gaining strength! We must fall back!?

Things were indeed looking grim; the Daedra had since grown in numbers, the sight of the slain soldiers feeding their bloodlust. I could see the predicament.

?Well, what do we do!??

The man thought it over for a moment, ?Our only hope is to retreat to the bowels of the castle and open the flood gates to flush them out. Then we can come back to slaughter any stragglers.?

?Alright then, let?s do it.? I announced.

The captain opened a squeaky old hatch on the floor near us and began to usher the soldiers down a staircase into a damp, dark tunnel. Just as the last of the soldiers went in, he directed me to enter and locked the hatch shut behind us, the impact of the heavily rusted iron bar creating clouds of dust that burned the eyes. You could hear the Daedra pounding on the other side of the door, the ragged claws of a Clannfear gouging at the dry wood.

A few of the soldiers had lit torches, and soon enough we were all off down the dark, twisting tunnel. The walls were overgrown with vines and tinged with soot.

?Where does this lead Captain?? I asked

?You, of all people, should know that Sir, this is where the servants go to dump uneaten food into the river! Do you know nothing of your own castle??

?Um, oh yes, silly me, how could I have forgotten!? I felt a little foolish.

Just then, we came upon a large wooden lever on the wall, and the captain stopped. ?Halt! We have made it!? He quickly pulled the lever. ?Now all we can do is wait?. Ropes and pulleys creaked behind the walls, and I could hear the sound of rushing water over my head.

~~~

I sat up with a start, forehead covered in beads of sweat, stomach feeling like it was going to explode...I barely made it out of bed and outside before a stream of vomit poured out of my mouth.

After I was done, I sat there for a moment looking at the little chunks of my dinner painted across the dirt, then I dragged myself to the water pitcher in a semi futile effort to clear the taste from my mouth, and stumbled back to bed. ?By the gods!? I mumbled, and went back to sleep.

~~~

There were roars of triumph coming from all around the room; the soldiers had been victorious! Some were complimenting each other on a job well done, while others kicked the corpses around, laughing and taunting them. The man came up to me, his body visibly aching, but with a smile on his face. ?Well done Sir, we are victorious! The
Daedra have been vanquished!?

As I surveyed the room, I felt as if a heavy burden within me had been lifted and the victory had brought me some form of inner peace. ?Excellent job everyone, let us celebrate!? And with that everyone had a great feast, with much singing, dancing, and drinking for the rest of the night.

~~~

I woke up bright and early the next morning. My food poisoning had passed, but I was still getting over the events of the previous night. I vaguely remembered something about a battle and getting up to vomit, but it was all strange and fuzzy. Though there was one thing that I had learned from the ordeal. ?I guess the staff needn?t eat that deer after all.?

---

ps. I seem to have had the same sort of dream every morning for the past few weeks...but otherwise we are feeling absolutely wonderful.

_________________________________________

Here is a fun little allegorical story I wrote a while back. It wasn't origionally meant to be fan fic, but I figured it would be cool to modify it to work in The Elder Scrolls universe. I think i caught everything, but let me know if you find any inconsistencies. One thing I wasn't so sure about was an appropriate rank for the head imperial soldier. Would "champion" be adequate?


Neilious?s Dream

It was a lazy evening in Steadhelm. Most of the townspeople were in their homes enjoying dinner, and the sun was just setting as the night watch manned their posts. The house was quiet, my statue of Zenithar collecting dust on the windowsill. Sitting in a squeaky old chair at my kitchen table, I stared down at a half eaten hunk of deer meat swimming in a shallow pool of its own juices as I mulled over the day?s events. ?I mean, how could this happen?? I said to myself. ?We specifically stated we needed twenty orders of beer? BEER! Now the entire staff is stuck with about three weeks worth of DEER.? I tried reasoning with myself, thinking that ?It was but a simple error, nothing more than a miscommunication at the shipping yard. Just a?? Unfortunately, my stomach had to interrupt. After forced from my thoughts I realized that I was actually quite queasy. With a hefty sigh I dumped out the remnants of my dinner, having lost my appetite.

As the evening dragged on my upset stomach took a turn for the worse. I walked into my bedroom, dreading the upcoming night. Whenever I was sick such as this, my mind always became a whirling mess after drifting into unconsciousness, my dreams being filled with vague fussiness that went by at such a rapid pace, I wished the world would end. ?Well, none of that tonight? I told myself, and passed out face down in my pillow.

At first I was sleeping peacefully, but slowly, ever so faintly at first, I began to hear the sounds of war around me. Armor clinking, swords clashing, orders being barked out left and right! Before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of a large, round, torch lit hall. In front of me, two armies were locked in a heated battle. On my end was a troop of Imperial Guard, clad in shining Legion armor, reflections of the torchlight dancing on their polished surface. On the other end was a hoard of sinister looking Daedra, each with a face teeming of rage and bloodlust. The Dremora's jet-black weaponry were all but invisible in the dimness of the room, but for the faint, red glint, of tortured souls. They seemed to be swarming in from a spiral staircase that led up to the ceiling.

?Sir! Sir!? ?Me?? I asked, surprised at being called a Sir of any kind ?Yes Sir, where have you been? Someone let the foul attackers in earlier today! It has been a downhill battle; we thought you would never come!? From the look of the man, he seemed to be a Champion, or possibly even a Knight of some kind; he looked as though he was waiting for me to say something. ?Uh.., where did all of these Dremora come from?? The man?s tone turned hateful ?We think they may have come from Oblivion sir! You know what?s been going on I?m sure, though I wouldn?t have ever expected to see a gate open up in a place such as this!? I was quite confused ?Very well, shall I grab a sword and shield?? ?No Sir, that is our job! You must summon the flow of soldiers from around the castle to our location, quickly!? ?Right.? I began to turn and run out of the room, but the man stopped me. ?Not like that Sir, you must summon them with your mind!? ?Excuse me? And how exactly am I to do that?? the man was looking thoroughly agitated ?Just do it! Will them to us!? And with that, he ran back into battle.

I was a bit confused about how exactly my mind was supposed to summon reinforcements, but I tried my best to think about other soldiers that might be around the castle and willed them to come into the room. Almost instantly there seemed to be more soldiers coming from all sides to aid in the fight, forcing the Daedra back.

As the battle raged on, I noticed that whenever I saw an area in which the Daedra were gaining an advantage, more soldiers would leap in with swords ready and fill in the gap. It was as if they responded to my very thoughts. The infiltrating forces were not making things easy though. More and more soldiers kept marching bravely into the room, but casualties were mounting quickly. For every soldier killed, a Daedra seemed to pop up out of nowhere, perpetuating the fighting. The sinister hoard was quickly gaining ground, pushing the soldiers back. The captain came running up to me, his face caked with blood.

?Sir, we can?t keep our positions, the Daedra are gaining strength! We must fall back!? Things were indeed looking grim; the Daedra had since grown in numbers, the sight of the slain soldiers only feeding their rage. I could see the predicament. ?Well, what do we do!?? The man thought it over for a moment, ?Our only hope is to retreat to the bowels of the castle and open the flood gates to flush them out. Then we can come back to slaughter any stragglers.? ?Alright then, let?s do it.? I announced. The captain opened a squeaky old hatch on the floor near us and began to usher the soldiers down a staircase into a damp, dark tunnel. Just as the last of the soldiers went in, he directed me to enter and locked the hatch shut behind us, the impact of the heavily rusted iron bar creating clouds of dust that burned the eyes. You could hear the Daedra pounding on the other side of the door, the ragged claws of a Clannfear gouging at the dry wood.

A few of the soldiers had lit torches, and soon enough we were all off down the dark, twisting tunnel. The walls had been overgrown with vines and were tinted with soot. ?Where does this lead Captain?? I asked ?You, of all people, should know that Sir, this is where the servants go to dump uneaten food into the river! Do you know nothing of your own castle?? ?Um, oh yes, silly me, how could I have forgotten!? I felt a little foolish. Just then, we came upon a generously sized wooden lever on the wall, and the captain stopped. ?Halt! We have made it!? He quickly pulled the lever. ?Now all we can do is wait?. Ropes and pulleys creaked behind the walls, and I could hear the sound of rushing water over my head.

I sat up with a start, my forehead covered in beads of sweat, my stomach feeling like it was going to explode. I barely made it out of bed and outside before a stream of vomit poured out of my mouth. After I was done, I sat there for a moment looking at the little chunks of my dinner painted across the dirt, then got up and dragged myself back to bed. ?By the gods!? I mumbled, and went back to sleep.

There were roars of triumph coming from all around the room; the soldiers had been victorious! Some were complimenting each other on a job well done, while others kicked the corpses around, laughing and taunting them. The man came up to me, his body visibly aching, but with a smile on his face. ?Well done Sir, we are victorious! The
Daedra have been vanquished!? As I surveyed the room, I felt as if a heavy burden within me had been lifted, as if the victory brought me some form of inner peace. ?Excellent job everyone, let us celebrate!? And with that everyone had a great feast, with much singing, dancing, and drinking for the rest of the night.

I woke up bright and early the next morning. My food poisoning had passed, but I was still getting over the events of the previous night. I vaguely remembered something about a battle and getting up to vomit, but it was all strange and fuzzy. Though there was one thing that I had learned from the ordeal. ?I guess the staff needn?t eat that deer after all.?

[noremorse]

Wow! Very good Caligula! Great read! I thouroughly enjoyed it. :goodjob:

You are very good with descriptions. Everything that you wrote down was vividly painted in my mind. I could feel everything come to life. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that the entire company would have to be "eating nothing but deer meat for the next three weeks." Why would the leader order beer for his soldiers to live off of? That confused me a bit. Otherwise, it was outstanding.

I think this would make a very good book to add to the collection for ST OB. :yes:

-NR

[Caligula Superfly]

Very true. That was one of the things I had modified from the original, Ill try and put a little more logic into it.

[Razorwing]

Caligula Superfly: Excellent novel, I really enjoyed reading it and it definetely felt like I was there in the cramped hallways of the Imperial castle :yes: A grippling, first-hand account of an unnamed soldier who shows his mettle. I hope there's a part 2 in your plans for the future?

I have a few humble suggestions to your excellent story, though. First I think the start of the novel would be even better if you could squeeze in a thorough description of the surroundings, i.e., the narrator's room, so the reader has a chance of "landing" in the story and get a sense of where he is before the action starts? My second suggestion is that I think the reader is left wondering where the story took place. Is it in Cyrodiil, or in Morrowind, or somewhere else? Does the castle guard something, like a town for instance? I know it's highly subjective, and you by no means have to take me up on it, but I personally think it would add another dimension of coolness if the story took place somewhere on Morrowind's western mainland

noremorse: Perhaps they already had food, and food that tasted better than deer, but they had to switch to deer now otherwise it would get spoiled and the Empire lose money? I dunno

[Caligula Superfly]

Hmm. I would like to keep the locations within the dream vague, since the whole thing is in fact a metaphor for the food poisoning his body is fighting, and I wouldn't want to risk screwing that all up. Though I can see why it might feel a bit off not to have much of a locational description in the beginning. I kind of imagined him living in some smaller imperial town, something like Caldera. Got anything from within ST that I could use for that?

[noremorse]

Reich Parkeep! Not a very small town, but not really that big either. :goodjob:

[Razorwing]

Oh! I didn't pick up on that, sorry. :dunce: With the game's main quest I just assumed the Imperials fighting Daedra really happened. Then again, maybe he dreamt the fight took place where he was stationed ?(

Reich Parkeep could work, as noremorse suggests; it's a large Redoran town but dominated by two lumbering Imperial keeps connected with a bridge (over a small valley). We also have a town called Steadhelm which is Imperial through-and-through and which resembles Caldera, though Steadhelm has a heavy focus on military, with a Legion fort as well as an Imperial order of Knights right outside of town.

[Caligula Superfly]

The beginning has been modified to give a clearer intro. I went with Steadhelm, it had a better ring to it.

Oh, and thx for all of the input guys! :bananarock:

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Caligula Superfly
The beginning has been modified to give a clearer intro. I went with Steadhelm, it had a better ring to it.

Wonderful! :applause:

I'll be sure to find a specialized model for just your book, so it catches the eyes of our Oblivion players and raises the chances of them experiencing your excellent novel

[Caligula Superfly]

Ooo! That would we great! Perhaps we could also have a Neilious somewhere in Steadhelm?