Simon’s eyes opened to an inverted sky of swirling colours interspersed with numerous points of darkness. A larger black spot hung directly above him. He stared at it for a moment, wondering why it reminded him of the sun, until a thunderous cough interrupted his thoughts.
His eyes widened as he finally registered that he was not, in fact, dead. He frowned, or rather he intended to frown and then didn’t. Given what had just happened he should have been distraught or horrified or at least confused. Instead, he felt calm.
Climbing to his feet, he looked over in the direction of the cough and froze.
An immensely tall woman, holding aloft a blinding sun and glimmering moon, stood on a flat white plain that stretched off in every direction until it met with the shifting lights of the sky. In his state of forced calm Simon instantly recognised her as Azura, the Daedric Prince of Dawn and Dusk.
To her right stood a group of nine more human-like people, only several metres tall as opposed to hundreds. The shortest of them bore great resemblance to the statues of Talos that he’d seen in Skyrim so he assumed that they were the Nine Divines.
To the left floated a tentacular mass that could only be Hermeus Mora; another immense woman bearing two ravens, Nocturnal; a giant dog that might have been Barbas; a cloud of smoke filled with faces that he couldn’t identify; and a hole in reality leading to an empty… bottomless…
Simon dragged his eyes away from the void. Forced calm or not, he preferred not to be reminded of that harrowing experience.
So, he’d fallen into a freezing void, died, and then woken up surrounded by video game characters. He quickly glanced down. And he was still in just his underwear. The odds of this being a dream had dramatically increased. It felt very real though. Maybe he’d just gone insane.
“Mortal,” the booming voice of Azura drew him out of his thoughts. “You have been summoned here…”
“Excuse me,” Simon interrupted, “but by summoned, do you mean murdered and then dragged between worlds?”
The assembled gods stared at him with various mixes of incredulity and amazement. Except for the cloud of faces, which giggled in a rather disturbing chorus.
“Yes,” she replied in a tone that promised unspeakable torments should he interrupt her again. “The world of Mundus is in grave…”
“Let me guess,” Simon said, “you want me to slay Alduin.”
One of Azura’s massive eyelids twitched.
“Oh,” he continued, “and I bet you want me to kill Harken and Mirak too.”
“Mortal,”
“Yes?” Simon smirked as he looked up at the infuriated goddess.
“Shut up.”
He chuckled quietly but stopped talking. On the off chance that this wasn’t a dream he was probably better off not pushing his luck too far. Though, survival instincts and forced calm didn’t seem to be mixing very well.
“Mundus faces various threats,” Azura finally continued, “the blessing of the Chosen, a being selected by the Aedra to face those threats, has been damaged. In accordance with the ancient compact, all those present have come together to summon and bless an otherworldly champion.”
Simon opened his mouth.
“Save your questions until the end,” Azura said before he could speak.
He closed his mouth.
“You will be granted a task by each of those present. Should you fail to fulfill any task, you will die. To aid you in your tasks we will collectively provide the power for a blessing of your choosing. Should your chosen blessing be impossible or impermissible you will receive a weakened facsimile of your request. Additionally, your blessing will naturally include an understanding of Tamrielic as well as protection from pain, fear and the madness brought by trauma.”
There was a cacophonous harumph from the many faced cloud of smoke.
Azura glared at the cloud. “Shut it, Sheogorath. We need him to stay functional and you know how soft other-worlders are.”
The many faces of the god, who Simon now knew to be the Prince of Madness, pouted.
Simon waited a moment to be sure that no one else was going to speak before starting. “Is the nature of the blessing determined by your understanding or my intent?”
“Hermaeus Mora will design a blessing that fulfills your intentions without exceeding the power we are willing to commit.”
“So if I asked for immortality, for example, I would get something like extreme regenerative abilities and a long lifespan? Or vampirism, I guess.”
The Lady of Dawn and Dusk looked towards the squirming mass that was the Prince of Knowledge. “That is…
“...
“...
“...
“...correct,” the insufferably slow being answered.
“And I’m assuming that refusing you is not an option.”
Azura just glared at him.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Right.”
Simon closed his eyes to think. The ‘immortality’ request would have been a nice idea without the tasks he’d have to complete. As it was, he would need strength to deal with all of the fighting he’d have to do. Hmm… Actually, skill was probably a more important concern.
OK. So he needed the power to kill demi-gods, the survivability to not die and the skill to successfully use the first two. Skill… Skills… Oh… The Skyrim system! He may not have known how to fight, but he was a master at levelling in Skyrim. His brain was crammed full of experience formulas and extrapolation tables. If he could master combat by levelling up one-handed, Alduin wouldn’t know what hit him. All he’d need was a little time to prepare.
“How long will I have to complete your tasks?”
Azura raised a titanic eyebrow. “Alduin will destroy Mundus within two months of this day.”
A massive grin spread on Simon’s face as he opened his eyes. “Perfect. I request to be given a version of the Skyrim levelling system which allows me to gain health, magicka and stamina while raising my power and competence in each of the game's skills. I request that the experience mechanics be changed as little as is needed to align them with the real Mundus. And,” he added, his grin twisting into something a little more sardonic, “I request some better perks. The default ones are pretty rubbish and most of them wouldn’t make sense in a real world.”
There was a pause as all of the gods turned to look at Hermaeus, confusion at his request apparent on the faces of those who actually had faces.
“It…
“...
“...
“...”
Suddenly, time seemed to slow to a crawl, and not just because Hermaeus was speaking. The movement of the gods stilled, and the undulating tentacles of the Prince of Knowledge paused.
A tendril of grey smoke stretched out from Sheogorath towards the mass of eyes. As they touched, every one of Hermaeus’ many pupils dilated. The tendril dissipated and time resumed, but Simon found himself unable to speak or even move. None of the gods seemed to notice what had happened.
“is…
“...
“...
“...
“...acceptable.”
The gods turned back to Simon and Azura began to speak.
“The request is made, assessed and accepted. Your tasks will now be assigned, mortal.”
Simon’s eyes, the only part of him that could still move, darted between Sheogorath, Hermaeus Mora and the other gods. They seemed oblivious to the fact that something was wrong. For one thing, he hadn’t been snarky for over thirty seconds.
One of the Aedra stepped forwards. “I, Akatosh, command you to slay Alduin before he consumes Mundus.”
Then another. “I, Arkay, command you to prevent the return of Potema.”
And another. “I, Julianos, command you to prevent the Eye of Magnus from unmaking Mundus.”
“I, Dibella, command you to cleanse the necromancer Malkoran from the temple of Meridia.”
“I, Stendarr, command you to slay Mirak.”
There was an annoyed cough from Hermaeus Mora. Nobody acknowledged it.
“I, Talos, command you to end the civil war in an Imperial victory.”
“I, Kynareth, command you to preserve the rule of the sun.”
“I, Zenithar, command you to slay the Blackbriar family.”
The other gods turned to look incredulously at him. The god of fair commerce shrugged. “All the important tasks were already taken.”
The gods collectively rolled their eyes.
“I, Sithis, command you to restore the Dark Brotherhood to glory,” came the grating voice of the void.
“I, Azura, command you to cleanse the Twilight Star.”
“I, Barbus,” spoke the giant dog, “command you to return me to Clavicus Vile’s side.”
“I, Hermaeus Mora, command you to unleash the Oghma Infinium.”
“I, Nocturnal, command you to restore the Twilight Sepulchre.”
“I, Sheogorath, command you to sell 5000 wheels of eidar cheese to Bartrand Verlune on a dark and stormy night.”
The Prince of Madness howled with laughter as the other gods looked at him with barely veiled disdain. When he finally calmed down, the last of the Aedra, the only god yet to speak, stepped forwards. As she began, the rest of the nine divines spoke with her. Their voices overlapped in a symphony of power and fury which seemed to shake the very space which contained them.
“I, Mara, command you to slay Shana Elsinor!”
As the final syllable faded, an assortment of tendrils made from light, shadow, vines, metal and smoke stretched out from each of the gods towards Hermaeus Mora. The Prince of Knowledge sent out a tentacle to rest on Simon’s forehead.
Had he been able to move, he might have grimaced. As it was, Simon simply stood, frozen, while lights of myriad colours began to flow through the Lovecraftian daedra’s slimy appendage and into his body.
At first, everything seemed fine. For a very loose definition of fine. Then Azura frowned at the mass of tentacles.
“That’s enough, Hermaeus.”
A thousand deranged, disembodied eyes flicked briefly to the Prince of Dawn and Dusk before turning their engorged pupils back to Simon. The flow of light continued.
Concern, rapidly shifting to panic, spread through the gods.
“This was not the compact!” grated the void.
The varied tendrils that linked the gods began to writhe and jerk, attempting to break free from Hermaeus Mora. But tentacles snapped out and engulfed them.
The Aedra began to scream, golden blood flowing from their eyes, noses and ears. After a few moments, their connections were released. The divines collapsed gracelessly to the ground, each having lost at least a metre of height.
The many tentacles and eyes of the Prince of Knowledge withered and decayed as his power was expended. Azura’s sun and moon began to lose their lustre, the feathers of Nocturnal’s ravens fluttered away, Barbus’ fur became patched and mangy and Sheogorath’s faces warped one by one into metallic theatre masks before clattering to the ground. Every one of them began to shrink, inch by inch. Only the void seemed unaffected, though it still complained.
“Cease, Hermaeus. What madness has gripped you?”
There was a moment of silence, even as droplets of blood as black as pitch started to fall from the eyes of the assembled daedra. With the exception of Hermaeus Mora, who remained fixated on Simon, they all turned to glare at Sheogorath.
A thousand mouths unleashed a thousand high-pitched giggles. “Whoopsy.”
With a final burst of light the Prince of Knowledge disconnected his tentacle from Simon. His many eyes blinked as the madness within them faded.
“What…
“...
“...
“...
Simon missed the rest of Hermaeus’ question. Between one blink and the next he went from the infinite white void to the middle of a snow-clad forest.
In a fraction of a second, he registered the frigid wind on his still near-naked flesh, the sounds of clashing blades that surrounded him, the corpses and blood splatters that littered the ground before him and the sharp, sudden pain that bloomed on the back of his head.
Then the world went black.
Again.