Chapter 100: The sun shines but I don't

I had a dream just before I returned. Like most of my dreams, it was muddled, and I can't remember much - but I know that it was a dream of unspeakable horror: more terrible than any I had had before.

When I awoke I thought I was dead. I felt cold and I could see nothing: all was blackness. I was not breathing. Slowly though, sensations and realisations began to creep into my mind: I could see - what I was looking at was a stone surface in a pitch-black room - somehow I could see, even in the absence of light. I could feel too: more than cold - I felt that I was lying on my back, and that I was still in my armour.

I felt magicka flowing through my veins as never before - like it had replaced the blood in my body. I felt almost as if I could do anything with the power of my mind alone: the power of my mind over magicka. I could almost see it - the magicka surrounding me - like millions of tiny motes of light, floating in the air before me. I was reminded of how it had felt to touch the Mantle of Woe...

I tried moving - and successfully sat up on what turned out to be a stone slab in a crypt. As I sat up I brushed something with my hand, which then fell to the floor with a clatter. Absent-mindedly, I slid off the slab and bent over to pick the item up: it was the Daedric katana I had found, and had been carrying at my waist when I... died.

It was obvious that I was believed to be dead, and had been interred in a crypt, as a warrior might: with my armour and my sword. I had been placed in a crypt, and I was cold, and devoid of breath - and yet I could still move, think, see and feel.

I was alive.

Well, no - I was dead... but not gone. I had done it: come back after death - to "persist" as Sirilonwe had put it. I was a vampire.

My heart, though it no longer beat, still lurched painfully in my chest at the thought of Sirilonwe, and our last conversation. Sirilonwe... how could I even speak to her - to anyone - any longer? There would, I thought as I gingerly ran my tongue over the long, sharp fangs where my canine teeth once were, be no doubt in anyone's mind as to what I had become. They need only look at me to see that I was a predator. People would run at the mere sight of me - or maybe even attack me simply for my presence. I did not want that for myself. But how could I overcome those prejudices towards vampires - the ones I myself had shared up until a few short days earlier?

The main obstacle to such a peace made itself known immediately. I was famished - absolutely starved - and instinctively I knew - I felt - that there was only one thing I wanted; that could satisfy me: blood. I needed it: it was essential - I needed to feed to survive. Feeding on a... a mortal would be a violent act... and if it ended in the death of that mortal, there would be no way I could ever be among my friends and... my loved ones - ever again.

"But does it need to end in death?" I wondered as I began to look for a way out of the crypt. Since coming to Vvardenfell I had become a powerful mage - through study, practice, the various magical items and artefacts that had come into my possession... And now this new blood - this vampiric... strength - was empowering me further still. My experience healing the soldiers of Fort Frostmoth after the werewolf attack was proof enough of my ability as a magical healer... and I knew for a fact that healing spells restored lost blood, so...


Realising as I made my way down the cramped corridors of the crypt that I had no idea what the hour of day was, I felt at my waist for a pouch I kept there - and within it, my pocketwatch. Fortunately it was still there, and still actively ticking away, its white face marking out the time. The spring in the watch needed to be wound tight roughly once a day for the device to keep running: this meant that I could not have been 'dead' for all that long. The watch marked the time as being around one o'clock in the early morning, which was ideal for my needs. Putting the pocketwatch away, I tried not to think about what might have happened had I tried to leave the crypt without checking the time first - if it had been daylight outside.

Pushing my way through the heavy wooden door at the crypt's entrance, I found myself on the outskirts of Vivec. Stretching away into the gloom of the bay were the gigantic cantons of the holy city. My need for blood was dire - I felt empty, like a hollow, echoing shell - so being that close to the largest city on Vvardenfell was perfect. I just had to find someone... and then I could feed. Maybe then I would be able to think clearly enough to decide what I should do next...


The only people I expected to be out at such a late hour were the Ordinators, the holy warriors and guardsmen of Vivec. They should be patrolling the terraces that ringed the massive cantons - spread out to cover more ground... alone.

I raced about the terraces looking for one of the gold-armoured warriors, discovering that I could now run at an extraordinary pace. It was as if when I was still alive, my breath - and the beating of my heart - had always interfered with the swinging of my arms and legs; hampering my proper movement. As a vampire I was cold - cold as a dead body - but it felt like the warmth of my mortal body had only ever made me lazy and sluggish.

Rounding a corner on one of the upper terraces of the Foreign Quarter canton, I saw him: my first... The Ordinator paused, staring at my face. His golden, masked helmet hid his expression, but I heard him snarl before flying at me - a spiked ebony mace in his hand.

I could move so fast! I smoothly caught the guardsman and threw him bodily against the canton wall with an almighty crash. His helmet came off and bounced away, and the Ordinator slid back to the terrace floor - dazed and barely able to stand. With one hand I held his mace-arm safely away from me, while pressing him against the wall with the other. The Dunmer had suffered a heavy blow to the head, and barely knew what was happening, I think... and there was his neck...

It was like eating a grand meal when starving, drinking from a mountain stream when parched, and savouring a warm, brandy-laced drink after coming in from the freezing night - all at the same time. In fact I felt warm - and almost alive again - the hot mortal blood spreading through my body. From the moment I sank my teeth into his neck, I had let healing magic seep gradually from my hands into the Dunmer's body. His blood was replenished as fast as I could drink it. I drank, and drank; until I was filled completely - and felt almost as if I was glowing.

As I let the guardsman go, I sent my 'Calming Touch' spell into him, so that he would forget entirely that he wanted to destroy me. Sure enough, he tottered unsteadily away to retrieve his helmet, before giving me a polite wave as he left to continue his patrol.

I felt a surge of confidence - almost happiness - as I watched him go. It seemed then that I might really be able to do it; live among mortals, I mean. I could feed without killing - without even seriously hurting anyone - if I was careful. Would it be enough?


Feeling much better (and even stronger and faster than before now that I was no longer starving), I headed for home - really, I was at a loss for what else I should do. The Wolfen ring was no longer around my neck, so I had to go on foot along the peninsula, racing through cool and dark sea air. Falorn probably had the ring, since I had told him that the castle went to him if I died. I needed to speak to him anyway - and I definitely needed that ring back.

I reached Wolfen castle in a few short minutes, and leapt over the castle walls, having first made myself invisible. I had found that I could now leap amazing heights and distances with my new vampiric strength, but I still needed the Tinur's Hoptoad spell to clear the walls.

None of my guards saw or heard a thing - and I came to land lightly in the castle yard; on the mossy, paved surface in front of Falorn's hut. Slipping inside, I soon found the Bosmer groundskeeper, fast asleep in his small bed. On the bedside table was the Wolfen ring, still threaded on the chain I always used to hang it from my neck. I caught it up - and it was then that Falorn awoke, and looked directly at me.


Stepping closer, so that the moonlight filtering through the open window fell on my face, I held up the ring and said:

"My apologies Falorn, but I'll be needing the castle for some time yet."

The Bosmer, a look of absolute horror on his face, opened his mouth and screamed.