Karp
patreon
D101 Chapter 194
🕑 Added 2025-03-21 17:46:39 +0000 UTCVarrus's eyes widened in panicked surprise as Omen skidded across a dozen Fire Runes, he almost had a heart attack.
Thankfully, as they were spells from Skyrim, they did not activate when he, or a companion walked over them.
“Man, that almost gave me a heart attack.” Varrus clutched at his chest, and exclaimed aloud to himself.
“Ruff!” Omen cheerfully barked.
“Yeah, yeah, don't go playing dumb ya wise guy.” Varrus said, then reached down from Omen's back to scratch him in between his eyes.
“Heh heh heh.” Omen panted, and leaned into the scratch.
“Alright, now let's get going. Yip yip!”
Omen whiffed the air once more, and took a few mighty breaths.
While he was doing so, a random piece of webbing that hadn't been melted by Varrus's Incendiary Flow came down from the ceiling, and lodged itself in Omen's nose.
A second later, and the giant golden retriever blew out a wet snort.
Along with that sneeze, the small ball of webbing went along for the ride, and collided with a Fire Rune.
This time, it did explode!
And with it came a chain reaction so sudden, so fierce and fiery hot, it was as if Varrus could see the center of the sun at that moment.
“Go! Go to mom, go Omen, go!” Varrus commanded, and channeled Thundering Hooves for all his worth.
“Awoo!” Omen howled, and took off at his top speed.
Throwing an Acceleration Rune under the dog's paw, Varrus began to spam the spell in an effort to outrun the blast.
He could feel the heat on his neck, and did not want to test his shields against this pyroclastic cataclysm!
Feeling a sense of nervous excitement, Varrus gripped tightly onto the scruff of Omen's neck, and held on for dear life as their speed went beyond supersonic.
‘I'm never going into a cave again!’ Varrus swore to himself as they just barely kept ahead of certain death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Slightly earlier)
Nightsong had recognized the silken domain for what it was before she had even cut into it.
As a Shard of Akatosh, and experienced Arcane Warrior, she had understood that the best way to combat such creations was to advance without fear, and counter with a domain of your own.
“Ven. Mui. Riik!” Nightsong shouted, and conjured a never ending sea of clouds.
From her point at the epicenter, the clouds exploded outward, and carried with them concepts of moisture, obscurity, static electricity, and most importantly, the fluffy permeability that all clouds were known for.
Her domain spell took effect immediately, and began to infiltrate the webbing near her, making it droopy, and lose its stickiness.
Taking a deep breath, Nightsong entered a type of meditative calm. In this state, she was one with the clouds, and could feel any movement within them. At the same time, her outward appearance transfigured to that of a cloud, making her indistinguishable from the rest of her spell.
Nightsong heard some near-yet somewhat distant-rumbling, and internally smiled to herself.
Her son might consider himself a gentile intellectual, but he was as brutish as they came when it came to fighting. As a warrior, she wouldn't have it any other way.
Leave perfection to the duelists and showrunners. Her boy was a conqueror, just like his mom. What did it matter if the victory was a little ugly? All that mattered was the result.
Feeling the pride of a mother within her heart, Nightsong scanned her surroundings, wanting to end this threat fast. She was familiar with the way Daedric Princes operated, and knew that the Goddess wanted to test Varrus.
Upon completion of this test, Maphela would doubtlessly send her little Var Var on some perilous quest, or tempt him with forbidden knowledge.
There was always a price for these things, and with how curious her child was, she knew he would be weak to the Ancient's whispers.
So it was up to her to take this burden away from Varrus, and ease his journey however she could.
If that meant combating a fellow demigod by herself, then that's what she would do!
As Nightsong was actively infiltrating, and soaking the cocoon domain in search of Eli, she was effectively making it worthless. Her search drastically limited the Daedric Demigod's hiding places, and it would only be a matter of time before Nightsong found her.
Nightsong felt amusement when she saw tens of thousands of fingernail sized spiders crawl out of the webbing, and begin to jump through every bit of cloud that they could.
Evidently her enemy had realized that Nightsong had hidden in the clouds, and was trying to suss her out.
The little spiders dropped down from the ceilings, and spooled great sheets of silk. It was so sticky, and so numerous, that it slowed down the cloud domains' advance.
Not only that, but the water that made up the clouds was being accumulated into this fresh webbing, and then wrung out into a drain.
This maneuver preserved the cocoon domain, and saved it from the conceptual moisture from the clouds.
Honestly speaking, Nightsong was impressed by the mind behind this technique. Few opponents across her millenias of existence had been capable of reading her ability, much less being able to counter it!
Nightsong was tempted to really let loose, and go all out, to show this brilliant mind what she was capable of. However, if she did that, it would jeopardize this entire region, and she didn't want to harm her precious boy. It was with great reluctance that she settled for a more measured approach.
Altering the way her psyche interacted with her domain, Nightsong mentally intoned a phrase that acted as a geas, and altered the entirety of her spell:
‘Pressure Conductor!’
By exciting the infinitesimally tiny motes of mana within the clouds, Nightsong created a supreme amount of friction.
This resulted in a magnificent generation of static electricity, creating a never ending sea of lightning!
Where once, the cloud domain had been heavy, and weighed the webbing down with moisture, now, it had transformed into a raging dynamo!
Pure white plasma cackled, and the dark realm locked away within the cocoon became brighter than the mid afternoon sun.
All that webbing that had even an ounce of water dripped onto it now acted as conductors for phase two of Nightsong's spell.
Every single tiny spider that had been hard at work in an effort to discover Nightsong instantly seized, spasmed, and then turned to dust as the power behind the cloudy domain was too great to bear!
As Nightsong pressed forward, the fabric of the cocoon began to diminish, and turn into crisped, blackened strips.
“You're more inventive than I had imagined, Shard of Akatosh.” Eli's smooth voice echoed from everywhere.
Nightsong remained silent as she focused her efforts on completely obliterating the spider's domain.
“The silent type, hm? The last two children of the Time Dragon I faced wouldn't stop yapping. Honestly, dear, I hate what I'm about to do, you're unique, interesting. Somebody worth playing with. I hate to do this, but mother is bearing down on me right now~” Eli continued to speak in a semi flirtatious, semi threatening manner.
A second later, the cocoon domain began to tighten and constrict. Like the chain of an anchor being retracted, most of the threading that covered miles of terrain zipped back to form a pile. As a result, the cavernous interior of the mountain mine-and the statue of Maphela-once more became visible.
That pile of fine silk then wriggled about, creating a wide open canvas. Emerging from this silken blanket, Eli began carving a rune on it by using the blood from her fingertip. Upon taking Eli's essence, a glowing Daedric rune began to take shape.
“I know you're in there somewhere, Shard. I don't consider myself much of a braggart, but I am quite proud of this. Behold, my Weave of Fate!”
Nightsong recognized that the potency of Eli's domain was several times greater in magnitude now that it had been condensed.
Her intuition was telling her she had to stop this from continuing. That if the canvas fully formed a rune-or multiple runes-on it, she might even lose.
Breaking from her cloaked form, Nightsong discarded the appearance of a cloud, and pulled the electrical field to cover her body from head to toe as the ultimate offensive weapon.
Tanking a grievous amount of lightning attuned mana, Nightsong allowed a small smile on her face as she silently thanked Varrus.
Before, when the Sunwell was only Arcane, this technique would bring her great pain. However, since Varrus had attuned the Sunwell to various powers, this Elemental Lightning not only did nothing to her, but it empowered her more than ever before!
Crackling with malefic power, and radiating plasma from her pores, Nightsong drew her adamantine blade, and charged at the tapestry with supreme speed.
Following in her wake, the storm clouds of her domain hugged her coattails, and brought along the sea of electricity that had decimated the tiny spiders from earlier.
“There she is! You know I don't just do this for anyone. Burning essence isn't exactly good for keeping skin taut and fresh” Eli teased as she put the finishing touches on her spell.
“The first rune, Entropy!” Eli gloriously declared.
A moment later, an invisible wave spread all throughout the cavern that impacted everything with the concept of entropy.
Rocks disintegrated, stray vegetation such as moss turned black and moldy as if someone had set it to 500x speed, and any stray drip of water-including that from Nightsong's clouds-dried up like a shallow pond under a hot summer sun.
As for Nightsong, her relentless advance was caught up too. The unerring plasma coursing in and around her began to act out of control. Plasma by nature was only there, and gone in a flash. Lightning when witnessed outside was often visible for a fraction of a second. By the laws of the world, it already was weak to the forces of entropy. Eli's domain only served to weaken it that much further, creating a significant reversal.
Nightsong felt her plasma almost entirely disappear from her system, and her entire body convulsed due to the act of entropy and the immortality granting powers of the Sunwell dueling over her body.
Momentum shifted with the loss of speed, Eli moved to carve another rune onto her Weave of Fate.
“You know, it's too bad, sweetheart, we really could've been friends. It's a shame it had to end this way.” Eli said conversationally.
Eli's wicked finger tip drenched in her own blood moved to finish up the next word.
Coughing up blood, Nightsong eyed Eli carefully for the right moment to strike.
Taking note that the air in the room was growing stale and old, that it too was breaking down due to entropy, making it near impossible to breathe, Nightsong knew that this fight was over.
Standing tall, she pointed her sword at Eli as a declaration of intent. Gathering up the remainder of her domain, clouds surged around her, and formed a small barrier from the constant decay.
“Your final words won't be some heroic declaration, will they? Oh, please don't disappoint me with something as trite as a Dragon Shout, it'll just fall apart before it reaches me.” Eli said with a pout.
“Did you know that sound travels through air?”
“...those are your final words? How droll. Perhaps it is best we were not friends after all. Goodbye, Shard.” Eli said, then moved to finish her next word: “Hazard!”
Nightsong converted all of her clouds into electricity, and created a mesmerizing, explosive beam directly towards Eli.
“A beam attack? How unoriginal.” Eli scoffed.
The overwhelming amount of power fizzled out a foot before it could reach the Daedric Demigod.
However, for an infinitely small amount of time, a fresh current of air had been created by the cloud domain between Nightsong and Eli. All other spaces in between them were possessed by a dead atmosphere.
This was the only corridor through which sound could travel. Taking the concept of thunder traveling through air, Nightsong had realized her plan through this simple trick.
Naturally, Nightsong released the signature Dragon Shout next.
“FUS ROH DAH!!!”
The Dragon Shout which could break apart mountainsides when unleashed as an area attack was now condensed into a field as narrow as a man was tall!
“I already told you, no Dragon Shout can—-!!!!!!!!!!” Eli got out, and then took an impossible amount of pure, unadulterated force straight to the chest.
Her body broke then and there, splattered into a thousand thousand pieces.
The mountain shook, and a series of extreme earthquakes rocked the entire continent.
A constantly expanding hole began to take shape, showing signs of a massive impending cave in, and cratering of the area.
Nightsong glanced at the silent statue of Maphela, then turned to go.
However, she didn't expect that hers was not the only terrain altering spell.
For as soon as she had turned around, she played witness to a super speeding dog, and her son outrunning an extremely dangerous explosion.
“Mom, get aboard!” Varrus yelled, and pulled her aboard Omen's back with a swift application of telekinesis.
Nightsong let herself up, and sat behind Varrus.
Hugging him from behind, Nightsong was satisfied with what she had done, glad that she had held back and not endangered her son.
Yes, all was as it should be.
~~~~~~~
Little did Nightsong notice, or Varrus for that matter, a small silken kerchief tucked into his pocket during their escape.
The Mistress of Hidden Murder had delivered her message.
