Young Writers Society

I stared down the bandit chief’s prying eyes with a stern look that could even send a werewolf running with his tail between his legs. They captured me, caught me off guard when I was thieving valuables from the vast dwarven ruin they called their fort. I had stolen some jewelled necklaces I had found around their loot room, and even pickpocketed one from the guard, before silently slitting his throat with my Blade of Woe.

I felt the rush of his raw energy seep into mine, laughing manically, my mind clouded with bloodlust. Then I saw another chest, hidden in a little alcove behind a dwarven puzzle-lock, a devious smile came across my lips, I had found a masterkey hidden under a some moss, saving me from the frustration of using all my lockpicks. These bandits were stupid and ignorant, even a skeever could take them.

Oh, I was wrong, so, so wrong. They had rigged the room with dwarven traps, and I made one false step on what looked like an ordinary looking pavestone. The sent of rotten eggs filled my nose instantly, my mind seemed to stop thinking, and my senses were slowly shutting down. It felt much like when I was gifted Namira’s ring, been that close to a divinity nearly made me faint, or maybe it was that first taste of human flesh trickling down my throat.

The next thing I know, I’m tied and bound, imprisoned in a cell with vampires, of all things divine, why vampires? I could see the hints of red flash in their eyes, hinting at their curse, or what they see as a blessing. Vampires are my only fear, although I hate to admit it and I’m certainly not going to show my weakness in front of these…abominations.

They all seem weak, thin and like they haven’t had a good meal in a long time, I gulp nervously and pull my hood over my head, shielding my neck. Then the leader of those who imprisoned me comes into my view, I look him over, and the first thing I notice is his eyes. His eyes portrayed a warrior, with a hint of blood-lust such as my own. Our eyes meet and I divert them instantly, to look back and see a wolfish grin curl up on his lips, I gasp for a second and look for the signs that would identify him for the beast he was. I was correct, more so than I thought.

This man was not only a werewolf, he had the daedric artefact of Hircine in his possession. Hircine’s blessed ring, to grant those with the blood of the werewolf to have unlimited transformations; without the disadvantage of having to wait another day for his wolf spirit to return to it’s full power, ready for another transformation.

“You, the Dark Elf.” He looked upon me with a glint in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but shudder at his voice. The power he had over these people made me think twice about trying to escape. I didn’t have time to ask why he addressed me, because the next thing I know I’m being hauled by two bandits towards a ring, adapted from one of the dwemer’s great round halls.

Bandits surrounded the ring, some with the tell-tale signs of a werewolf, some not seemingly to have any trace of the wolf-blood bestowed upon them. I estimated around 8 werewolves in total. Although none of them had the eyes of their chief, those eyes that still burned into my mind even when he had taken up his place on a grand pedestal and proclaimed that the battle had begun.

I spun round wildly, scared to death that I would have to fight a werewolf, even I am not that strong. Then I saw my opponent, eyes red with the fury only a master vampire can wield, I screamed a short, high scream and tried to make a run for it, but I was frozen by fear, all I could do is see the vampire get closer and closer. His fangs extending the closer he came, until they were three times the size of his normal teeth.

Then I heard something unlike anything I’ve heard before, the clicking started out quiet, but one by one all heads turned to the pipe protruding from the side of the wall, even the vampire stopped and began to listen, to my relief.

Then we laid eyes upon what the creature were, they had giant chomping mandibles that clicked and chomped through the weakest of the bandits, spitting clumps of venom at the stronger bandits, weakening them considerably until the remnants of what was the Snow Elves crawled through the pipe, the sophisticated race that originally inhabited Skyrim before the Nords came and forced them into the arms of the dwarves, who treated the Elves like slaves and fed them far from mundane foods, which in turn rendered them blind and weak, preventing them from overthrowing the dwarven masters, and becoming what they are known to be today as the Falmer. That is, until the Dwarves mysteriously disappeared over 2 Era’s ago.

When the Falmer came in their hundreds, it all went to hell. The Falmer has farmed the Charus’ (what I later found to be the venom-spitting pets of the Falmer) venom into a potent paralysis poison. I tried to run, but I was immobilized from neck-down, and a familiar absence of the senses takes me, I fall unconscious on the floor with one last look of the werewolf chief’s fighting eyes.