12: Dreams of Blood, Wells of Death

I awoke to sunlight and chirping birds. It was wonderful. The last time I had slept in a bed (if you could call that a bed) I was awakened by guards in the Imperial Prison. I just laid there for a while, feeling the soft sheets envelope me and pull me in and out of light sleep. Finally, I remembered that I had work to do, and managed to pull myself out of the bed.

I stretched my arms out and saw the wounds. They were still there! The spells had closed them, but I could feel them still. It was an interesting sensation, like worms wriggling their way out of my skin, and I couldn’t help but giggle. As I watched them, they started to blister and open before my very eyes. I kept giggling and watched as they spread across my whole body and I collapsed back onto the bed, laughing and rolling in my own blood.

I nearly jumped out of the bed when I truly awoke. I felt my skin and saw that the wounds were closed, and there were very few scars. I breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed back onto the pillow. I then decided that I didn’t want to fall asleep again and have that dream once more, so I got up and headed downstairs.

It was early yet, and most of the guild was still asleep. I picked through the cabinets and found some apples and bread, which I gobbled down. They were delicious, and I found myself digging through barrels full of apples to eat. When I was finished, I realized that I had just eaten 7 apples and two whole loaves of bread. I almost gagged at this extraordinary amount of food, but held it down. I smiled and walked out to get some fresh air.

The sun was low on the horizon still, and I breathed in the early morning air. It was moist and wonderful, and smelled faintly of the mountains. I strolled around Cheydinhal for an hour or so, taking in the beautiful city and enjoying the freedom. The sunlight reflected off of the chapel’s stained-glass, and the grass swished about in the mountain breeze. I stopped and washed my face and arms in the river, but suddenly I was overcome by a feeling of extreme dread.

I jumped back from the river and searched in all directions, looking for the source of this dread, but found nothing. I realized how insane I must look, kicking around in the rushes and frantically peeking into shadows. I shuddered and controlled myself. Obviously the dream I had had was still affecting me; that’s the only explanation.

I returned to the guild hall and found that most of the members had awakened, but Deetsan was still asleep, so my work on a recommendation was postponed. I decided that I might as well practice my magic skills, and went down into the basement to see what training areas it had to offer.

A single training dummy was chained to the ceiling and floor in one corner of the basement, but it was enough for my purposes. I started warming up with some simple Flare spells, and then moved on to Alteration and some light Conjuration. The memory of my accident was still fresh in my mind, so I didn’t try any Daedra, just a simple skeleton. Some might consider this Necromancy, but there is a difference between the two of them.

Conjuration is the opening of gateways to other realms in order to bring forth Daedra or Undead. The Undead are simply pulled from their plane of existence for a short period of time, and no bones or bodies are required to conjure them. Necromancy, on the other hand, is the sustained reanimation of dead bodies, whether they are zombies or skeletons. Necromancy requires a supply of corpses to bind souls to and maintain. Necromancy can create skeletons that last for a very long time, even years, whereas Conjuration of the Undead is restricted to short periods of time. The processes between the two of them are extremely different, and almost mages have come to accept this.

When I had depleted my magicka, I decided to go see Deetsan again. She was awake this time, and when I approached her she seemed fairly happy to see me. Happy until I asked her about the key to the well.

“What?! Oh no, not again. Listen, I have the key, but I'm not going to give it to you until we’ve talked about it.”

“Well, let’s talk now.”

“Not now! I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel comfortable speaking about it while Falcar is within earshot. Later, we will talk.”

I wondered what she was talking about, but agreed and went off to see what spells I could learn. My repertoire of spells was weakened by my time in prison, and I needed to get back up to practice. Spells aren’t cheap though, and I only had enough Septims for one weak Telekinesis spell. I decided that I should sell some of the miscellaneous loot I had come across and see what I could get after that.

I was about to leave the guild hall, but Falcar stepped outside just before I left. I decided this was as good a time as any to speak with Deetsan, so I found her near the alchemy sets and proceeded to ask about the well key.

“Hmm, yes. Falcar is gone now, isn’t he? Good. Listen, the task he assigned you is not an original one. He’s been using it lately to put off people from joining the guild. Who wants to go diving into a well to look for some old piece of jewelry? I thought nothing of it, until poor Vidkun came along. He was the first one to accept the task, and went off to take care of it. He never came back! That was a couple of weeks ago, and I only just got over worrying about Vidkun. Anyway, I’m going to give you the key and something extra. I don’t know how much it will help, but I hope it will be enough.” With that she taught me a spell that not only gave me the ability to breathe underwater, but also lightened my load slightly. Once I had it committed to memory she gave me the key, and as I was leaving she said “Oh, and if you find out anything about Vidkun, I’d be happy to know.”

I walked outside and proceeded around behind the Guild Hall. Right in the middle of the garden behind the hall was the well, and the key fit easily into the huge padlock. The lock seemed unnecessarily large for keeping a well shut, but I thought no more of it. I didn’t want my clothes to get all wet, so I stripped down to my skivvies and laid my clothes on the well. I cast the spell of Buoyancy that Deetsan had taught me, and climbed down the ladder and into the cold waters of the well.

It was dark, and so I cast a simple spell of light to illuminate the darkness. I swam down the well and emerged into a small underwater cavern. The Light spell I had cast an eerie green glow, and when I saw the corpse I tried to scream. The water stopped the sounds of my terror, but it took me a bit of time to recover. There was a bloated corpse floating in the waters of the well, and one of its hands was dragging it downward. I took it to be Vidkun, and I knew immediately what was dragging his hand downwards. I wrenched open his bloated hand and pulled the Ring of Burden from his fingers. It was extremely heavy, and I had to use both hands to support its weight! I started dragging it towards the well exit, but at this point my Light spell went out.

I started to panic, but noticed that there was still an eerie green glow in the room. I looked around and found a very interesting, three-frond plant growing in the soil underwater! It was glowing and humming faintly, and I knew it must be fairly rare, so I carefully harvested the whole plant and attached it to my waist. It provided enough light for me to swim out of the well with the ring in both hands, and I was soon back on dry land. I dropped the ring and dried off with my shirt. I then pulled on my pants, hefted the ring up and carried it into the guild hall.

I went inside and dropped the ring on the first table I came to. I swear that it creaked when the ring landed on it. I then went upstairs and put on a dry shirt. My arms were extremely tired from carrying the ring, and my legs were also tired from swimming with it. I fell onto the bed and took a quick nap.

I woke up 7 hours later. Turns out I was more tired than I realized!