Flameheart.... Monster Hunter

Eirikir

Erik entered his house in mid-afternoon. Despite the stress of his labors at the forge he was cold, this time of the year it was always cold. He removed his apron and hung it on the nail inside the door and removed his work boots. He replaced them with his cleaner house boots. He moved to the galley and poured a mug of warm cider, he needed his wits more then ale tonight. Tonight he had work to see to.


He moved to the back of his home, the large table he had carved for himself taking most of the space, all but from a shelf of books on the north wall. A sleeping Markarth Bear-Dog laid in front of the case, stirring and standing to meet his master. The happy panting hiding the trained guard's ferocity at his task. "Vahlok, that's my boy. He been quiet today?" he asked the dog as it sought his approval and love. Erik petted the animal, showing the dog far more animation and feelings then most got out of him in a year, "There's my good boy." he said as he finished petting the dog and tossed a roasted skeever into the corner of the room as the dog leapt on it. Touching the only rare tome he kept in plain sight, "Immortal Blood", the bookcase slid away to show a door framed and plated with silver. Taking the key from around his neck he opened the door and followed the stairs to the basement below, being sure to lock the door behind him.


At the bottom of the stairs stretched a long room, stoned and sealed off from the rest of the basement cellar that could be accessed from the main house. The chamber was sealed by both masonry and magic, and was rowed by tables, chests, and chains hanging from the wall, with a desk near the stairs facing the room. In the center was a table and and a man chained on it with silver shackles. A mid-sized Bosmer, he struggled and seemed on the brink of death, protesting that he was no undead and should be released. "You think me simple bloodsucker?" said Erik as he walked to the, by all accounts, normal looking wood elf. Holding a lit candle to the creatures face showed his true form. The Bonsamu hissed and bit in vain at the Slayer, "You lot may look like a wood elves, but candle light always gives you away." He sat the candle on the desk and dragged a chair to the exhausted looking vampire, "You must be tired, can't sleep? Yeah, that's that marking on that wall over there, keeps you from nodding off in the daytime hours so you and I can chat a bit. Tell me what I want to hear and I may even let you go with all your body parts."


The miserable creature was panting as if he had labored all the day long, "What do you want to know?" Erik turned the chair and sat in it backwards, leaning in, "When I saw you in the Sober Nord, there were two others, one became mist outside the city gate so that was a Keerilth I am betting. I already dealt with her, a few en-flamed arrows brings them right back to a solid form and my blade did the rest. And you were no challenge, almost embarrassing really. But the third concerns me, he was looking at the tavern owner's little girl, and since you two are both native of Valenwood, chances are so is the the third. An eye for children, that would be a Telboth I am thinking, a child-eater. Pointing me toward a troublesome one like that would put me in a generous mood." The vampire growled at the insult but brightened at the offer of release, "South of town My Lord, 15 miles or so there is a cave, straight south. We were to meet there if we found trouble..... there to eat.... Now release me as you have promised."


Before leaving, Erik did as he promised and released the vampire, using a Flameheart dagger to stab the creature in the heart, only moments later there was only ash and he was released to Oblivion. There were two reports early before sunrise of missing children, they would be alive at least until tonight, the Telboth would gorge itself before its long journey home, very fortunate it was mid afternoon. He changed his boots, took up his weapons and walked out the door, petting Vahlok as he left.


Soon before sunset he returned again, a smile playing on his stone face. He changed his boots, and petted his dog, and down to his secret room. Sitting at the desk he opened his journal for this year, each one was organized by year, his father had taught him that....

~Research Journal Entry; Turdas, 17th of First Seed~

Found the Telboth in the cave, the Bonsamu's information was solid.

The children were returned to their homes and sworn to secrecy, they will tell their parents they were taken by bandits, escaped and got lost, and that I found them while looking for ore.

I will need to go back to the cave tomorrow and ward it, it was far to perfect for the needs of the undead. Can't leave such a place usable.

I found a cash of Belladonna leaves, more then enough to down several lycans, very strange.

The mixing of three different types of vampires from a foreign land.... very strange. I will make inquiries with Marcus tomorrow.


E

Eirikir

"Foolish legends..." he muttered to himself as he lit the forge. Vahlok took his place near the door on a pile of hay and blankets Erik had left out for the dog. The animal seemed to listen to Erik as he grumbled on. Erik drew out his sword, it was a few months old was all, "You know that foolishness always irritates me. People go on about legendary blades, eras old, nonsense. Swords ware out." he said as the fires of his primary furnace began to smolder. He broke the handle rivets with a small hammer and cut the leather from the handle. Once finished he drove the sword into the fire and turned his attention to the scrap metal about the shop and started it melting in a large pot on the secondary furnace. Then with that going he turned to his prime source of steal and silver and started a smelting pot for each metal on the third furnace.

As the metals heated Erik sat at the hide station near his hound and worked the old sword's handle strap into a dozen smaller leather threads, heating and stretching and oiling them. This was where he did his best thinking. He thought on much and nothing all at once. He glanced at the second fire, noting the lack of smoke from the scrap metal. He thought on Shimmer-Scales and her little daughter, the hatching, Silver-Tongue it was. Such good people were moving to the city these days. They had lost some of their possessions in their move from Shadowfen. Most of their cookware gone, her mate was weeks away and had most of their money. He could not let a child like that eat cold in a land already to cold for them. He thought himself to soft at times, but the scraps were going to sit there and rust. They were not suited to weapons or armor, but pots and plates, that would do.

The scrap melted fast and he soon stood over the fire again and with thick gloves and tongs he lifted the melter and poured the metal over the molds he used for small chestplates. It was quick work after that to hammer, shape and polished the plates, pots, a fryer.... that would need a handle. He dug through his scraps and materials, finding a thick short bone of some form. He set to boil a small pot of giant's fat and dunked the bone in it. He returned to his leather.

This was again, the place to think, and his mind wandered as it did sometimes as he worked his forge, to his time with the Greybeards. His time there as a child taught him much, and even now he would find himself meditating on what they had passed to him. Most thought the Greybeards only taught men the Thu'um, which they did, but for people like Erik, their more powerful lesson was silence, the wisdom that can be taken from silence. The "true need" could apply to all parts of life, not just the Voice. He thought it humorous that he never learned the monks' names. None would speak directly to him. It had frustrated him so much those first few weeks, how they would point, gesture, smile, it drove him mad.... The oil was rolling in its boil now. He reached in with oil grabbers and drew out the bone and set on the dry rack. He then returned to set the oil down to a lower temperature.

He sat at the leather table again with the still warm bone and started polishing it with a cotton and pig-leather cloth. He let his mind wander to those early days in the Temple, no clue why he was there. The monks did not seem to be, or have interest in monster hunting. Nor did they seem to be blacksmiths. Their power he soon realized was their books. Did his father intend him to live there years to be sure he read everything? Why would he need to know "Theories of Hist" or "Imperial Manners", or any other of the tomes in the temple...... the bone was finished. He placed it in the pot, in a spot he had shaped for it. Once he had it in place he hammered the hole for it tight and ran a rivet through it, polishing it more so the metal seemed to flow into the bone seamlessly.

The sword was red hot and glowing. Laying it over his anvil he swung his hammer and shattered the blade into large glowing chunks. Using the tongs he picked them up and placed them in the pot he was heating on the third furnace. He then returned to the leather, finishing the last of the work on the strips.

Once the chunks quickly melted, and with a stir, he was ready and poured the first of the metal into the large blade mold. The liquid metal flowed into the mold like syrup and soon cooled into a long hard shape. He began to hammer the piece on his anvil. For an hour he hammered, folded, hammered again. He cooled the crude blade in oil, then reinserted the blade into the fire and worked it more. After four hours of this he came to the last of the folds, taking a long thick pure silver rod and laying it into the blade, folding the steel over it as he worked a file and his hammer, leaving a straight strip of silver down the middle of the blade on both sides.

The work then moved the blade into the brazer, one hour.... he then moved to pour the rest of the melted metal into the two dozen molds he had set out, molds for arrowheads. Each liquid arrowhead had a single small nugget of silver dripped into the middle and left to cool. He then sat and began to drink the water he had brought, then started polishing the kitchenware he had made.

As he set to it he drifted to the only day a Greybeard ever spoke to him. It was a few weeks before he was set to leave. He had heard them before of course, the sang sometimes, ancient songs in the language of dragons..... ancient tribes of men, and in words even they had forgotten the origins of. But this was the first and only time one spoke directly to him. He was beckoned to the courtyard of the Temple, to a pile of swords set in a roaring fire. The Greybeard pointed to the fire and the weapons and spoke to him..... "Speak." the old nord rumbled, nearly knocking Erik to the ground in the process. Erik righted himself and tried to understand the old man's request. The Greybeard pointed again at the pile, no sign of frustration on his face, again he said, a bit louder, "SPEAK..." This time Erik did come off his feet as the very mountain seemed to shake. Erik realized, the Greybeard wanted to hear a Thu'um from him. But he knew no words of the Voice. He had learned some of the words of the dragons, but not as a Tongue, as a student. He could read and even speak back the words he knew, but he could not "say" them as a Tongue could. But regardless..... "Yol?" The Greybeard smiled and nodded. Waving his hand at the fire, despite nothing happening. Erik became confused, the old man pointed at the fire again, stoking it with one of the blades at the edge. The fire raged, Erik looked again, "Inferno? Toor?" The old man smiled wide and then pointed up, pointing to the sun itself. Erik looked, "Shul?" The Greybeard clapped his hands and returned to the temple. As Erik began to follow, then the Greybeard turned and smiled, "No." he said, shaking the ground again, causing the fire to go out. "Speak."

The sword was finished as Erik removed it from the brazer, he set it on the anvil and saw to the arrowheads. With oil and rags he polished the sword and each arrow until they all shined. He set to work riveting the handle to the blade, wrapping it with a fresh leather strap. He then took the leather cords he made from the old handle-straps and bound the arrowheads to oak shafts, adding hawk feathers as he did. He then pulled out bottles of his special poison treating oil, polishing into the metal of the sword and the arrows, the scent of belladonna, wolfsbane, and garlic spreading over the still warm metal.

"Speak he said." muttered Erik as the boy looked at the dead fire. He had inspected the swords, they were all finished. Forged, treated, and polished, the light glow was out of place. There was no need for the swords to be heated, not that such a small fire would effect them at all. He thought on the words of the old man. "Yol!" he shouted, then felt foolish as nothing happened. All day and night he tried, the Greybeards had locked him out, he had tried every way in but could not enter. The cold of the mountain was harsh. He tried to restart the fire, an ample supply of wood was left for him. The cold was just to much, the fire would not start. As the night moved on Erik shivered, shouting the words over and over with no effect. He began to feel as if he would die soon. He wanted the fire to light, wanted to feel the heat on his face, the light.... howling. He turned to see coming up the mount a few wolves, they had heard him, and with no fire to keep them at bay... no hope, no comfort, only one thing filled his mind's eye as he shouted, "YOL!". As he shouted the fire lit of its own accord. Again he focused, the image of his mind of a great flame, "TOOR! The fire raged from the small fire that it had started, Greybeards began to slip into the courtyard. The wolves however were just as focused on the boy as they had been. Erik turned to the Greybeards and smiled. He turned with confidence and shouted, "YOL TOOR!" at the wolves and nothing happened. Erik shouted and shouted again and again but nothing happened. He panicked, he had lit the fire by a fluke, the fire was set by the dry wood and a moment of luck. He grabbed a sword from the fire, its handle was hot as he shook it at the wolves. The beast growled and moved in slow, then he saw it. The faint words on the metal of the blade, they had not been there, but he had seen them before, his father's forge. The way the farm would shake when he forged Flameheart weapons. The way they caused undead to burn.... like the sun. He turned to the fire, shoving the blade in, "SHUL!!!" Flamehearts are no Tongues, they could not Shout down an enemies, they could not summon forces in combat.... but the forge. That was their tradition, where their name came from. A Flameheart could Shout life into their forges, the power of light into their work. This was why Flameheart children were sent here, this was the secret of their craft. He drew the blade from the fire and it shined like the sun. The wolves seemed to fill with terror.....

Erik stood as the sword and arrows lay across a long table before the forge. He smiled as memories of his "enlightenment" filled him,. He looked on his work and smiled as he whispered the words, "Yol.... Toor... Shul..." As the fire of the forge flashed for a moment, the metal of his work took on a glow, draconic words appearing on each piece item. As the glow faded the words faded with them.....

Outside the forge, people thought they had felt a rumble for a moment, then carried on with their business. They did not notice the man leaving his workshop, a dog in tow, a smile on his lips.

Eirikir

Writer's Note: This story is not a day by day story so at times there will be as like now a time skip of a few weeks. These next few posts however will be a multiple part story. Please enjoy it.

It was far to early when the courier rapped on Erik's door. Through the dazed wakefulness and the madness Vahlok's never-ending barking, the smith managed to reach his door. Swinging the door hard he hoped he managed to hit whoever was on the other side, "By the Eight! What do you want!?!" The small Bosmer seemed to shrink more so at the sight of the large and angry man, "S..s..ir, I... um.... I have a letter.... sir." Erik snatched the note, not paying mind as he almost took the wood elf's hand off with it. He read the note slowly, an odd look taking his eyes. Never looking up from the letter he dropped some coins in the courier's hands and shut the door, barring it as he did.

He sat the letter down and set a pot of water to boil, coffee would be needed today, the day was starting out so well. He sat and read the letter carefully again....

wrote:

Centurion,

If you are reading this letter I implore you to not take it lightly or as some plot. I am Tribune Valuek Statiulonus, formerly of the Imperial Army, and with the blessings of the Divines I may be again. As you are no doubt aware, the Empire has fallen into ruin. The Emperor was betrayed and in turn so were we. Many of our brothers and sisters at arms have not only died due to this treachery, but I am sad to inform you the rumors are true and they have further been defiled necromancy.

There is no shame in leaving the Empire in this state, you and I even are not the only one to take refuge in the outer provinces, but many who have done so have lent their strength to the various alliances in their attempt to scavenge the corpse of the Empire for their own greed and glory, ignoring the well being of Tamriel as a whole for their own ambitions.

Many of us whom have served the Empire in the recent past have begun to consider that it is our duty to see to the good of the Empire, Emperor or no. So it is with this in mind that I pen this letter to you and to every former soldier who now hides away from their past. We seek to have you join our cause, your expertise in unholy abominations such as the undead could be vital to our cause. As former keeper and Centurion of the Crimson Watch, I implore you to seek out my agent so that we may arrange talk in person. I will be sending one to Windhelm on the 11th, at the Sober Nord. Find him, then come to me and let us speak as brothers.

Tribune Valuek Statiulonus

Erik closed the note and looked around his house. It was a warm place, really all he had ever wanted. The stable in the back was built into the house by masonry, the wall between it and the main house cleverly housing the hearth. The smell of the stable carried from the living part of the house by the heat of the fire, while that same heat kept his animals safe and warm. The upstairs was roomy, artifacts from his adventures, His secret room was well hidden and convenient to his needs. And the main living area, with its grand table and space to spare. He loved this house.... he sighed as he wadded the letter and through it to the fire. "Upon my honor I do swear undying loyalty...." he muttered as he stood and set the coffee. There was frustration in his eyes, he had his own mission, but he could not walk away. Not without meeting this man. Today was the 11th, Erik set about readying himself.

Eirikir

It was mid-afternoon when he slipped into the Sober Nord. He noticed the days were getting longer, last week the sun was setting at this time. He moved without notice to his usual table, in a dark corner, his back to the wall, with a full view of all that came and went in the tavern. He watched for the man, he knew most who came to this place from observing, a new face would stand out. And then he saw him, fine cloak and hood, clean boots, he stood out like a skeever in a chicken pen. He kept eyes on him but not directly, Erik did not want to give away himself, he wanted to see if this man knew what he looked like. Erik snorted as the man looked directly at him and smiled, walking over. The blacksmith was not happy with this.


"Master Flameheart, hail to you." said the suspicious Imperial. Erik nodded and motioned to the other chair at his table. The Cyrodilic sat but seemed uncomfortable all at once, Erik could tell this man was use to finer things, made him distrust him all the more. "Well then, shall we get down to bu..." he stopped as a look of pure rage took Erik's eyes, his voice calm and slight but clear in its power, "Shut up you fool!" The Imperial was taken aback by this, "Excuse me?" Erik reached across the table and grabbed the man by the cloak, pulling him partway to him. The other patrons ignored what was a common activity in many a tavern in Skyrim. "I have gone to great lengths to settle and blend in here. No one knows me here, knows of my past, my rank, any of it. I am a blacksmith who moved here a few years ago. I keep to myself, if anyone remembers me they remember I lived here as a child for six months...." his voice had been low but was rising steadily.... "Now how is it a man I never knew knows so much of me? Knows what I look like even?" The Imperial choked and struggled against the blacksmith's grip... "Records.... we used them to find several of you who left before the fall of the Emperor.... used scouts to find you all." Erik threw the man back into his seat, nearly causing him to tip backwards. The man adjusted his collar as he regained himself, "You have spirit." Erik snorted again, considering if he should kill the man and find these scouts tomorrow.


The Imperial began once some time had passed. The wench had brought over some bread and ale, "A rather simple life you have made for yourself Centurion." Erik growled, "Quiet!" The man nodded, "Forgive me, now then why I have come. My commander has requested that I find promising former members of the Legion to fill our ranks." Erik grinned, "Need more bodies to ransack villages and burn down farms? Maybe just execute civilians?" Now the Imperial seemed angered, "We are not rebel soldiers taking advantage of the Empire's strife!" Erik smiled wider, "I told you, keep quiet, they think you're Legion, they will hang you from the Keep tower. I have no desire to help you in whatever you are doing. The Empire is dead." The man seemed sad at this, "You are wrong, what is called the Empire now, the roaming bandits who were once soldiers, the necromancy, the evil, the squabbling provinces all jockeying for power, that is not the Empire. The Empire is unity of this land against all who would harm us." Erik once believed this as well, he still did, but the world had changed, "So if you are not just part of the problem, then who are you?"


The man looked up, "We were of the Third Legion, an exploration cohort. Our Tribune was leading us on a mission in the far north, in the land where the Nords are fabled to come from, Atmora. We were away when the Emperor died, and the Empire began to fall. We returned to a nightmare. It is true was are not "Legion" as it is today, but me and all the others if asked answer that we are all Legion, Legion from a better time. While nations and alliances struggle to rule, we seek to follow our mission as it has always been. To serve the Empire and her people. We move as we once did, from town to town, seeking aid of food and supplies and in return helping rebuild, dealing with attackers, and trying to rebuild the Empire one place at a time. If no others will we must." Erik leaned back and thought on this, "Fairly lofty goals there." The Imperial nodded, "We have in honesty only saved a few small villages and farms. But six months ago we managed to find a caravan transporting records from a provincial office to the Capitol. The records held the discharge papers of thousands of Legion members who left before the dark times. Our cohort is only that, a cohort, three hundred at most with those who have joined us along the way. Those papers showed us a ready list of recruits to seek in the various alliances who might be willing to help in our cause. Everyone is concerned with the Throne, but none with the Empire itself. Will you not help us?"