A Tribute Becomes A Jumper

I creep deeper into the eerie catacombs which I have been sent to with a curious look on my face, as this place is rife with undeath. The second after I step past the amateurish kitchen I can feel a wave of necromantic energy permeate the air around me. 

Had I been as weak as a regular mortal and stepped into this place it’d feel oppressive and heavy. I am not weak, nor am I a regular mortal, and away from the corpses of such beings I can feel the air in this tomb filling my lungs with unholy energy. 

When I reach the end of the kitchen I am presented with a number of opportunities. The wall directly in front of me is made of solid stone and there is a door made of ebony in the middle of it. Behind it I can hear soft footfalls, multiple, at the same time. I can tell they belong to draugr just using common sense mixed with what I know thanks to my ability to see into the past. 

To my right lies a door that I can tell with a glance won’t be opened even by force, though since I can become incorporeal at will that can’t stop me. To my left lies a small hallway that ends with with a closed door. Behind it lurks a single draugr waiting to ambush any unwary travelers, and from what I can loosely smell… Probably some chickens or something, strung up and waiting to be devoured by hungry travelers. 

I ponder what to do for a second. Draugr are dangerous creatures, but they don’t have to be. Not to me anyway. I am both an incredibly powerful undead being and one of the dovah that they worshiped in the ancient past. I don’t have to view draugr as enemies I am fated to slay, I could even relax and view them as future allies if I am careful and thoughtful here. 

As part of my preparations for the future I scroll through my list of perks. It is an extensive list, one that is filled with ambitious perks that I have yet to fully leverage, but for now I focus, mostly, on ones that could be helpful in my desire to make these creatures into my allies, or better yet, my servants. And then I begin to come across a few that could be handy here. 

The first one is dubbed “A Stranger” and it has a mysterious effect. It gives me a “Second identity” that is fiat-backed to be perceived as a wholly different being from my first identity that I can use to live a different live than the life given to me by my native identity. In my first identity I am Urumar. In my second identity I could be… someone else. With a single mote of intent I try to “activate” this second identity and I realize, with a start, that it has worked. 

I look at myself and am unsurprised that I look the same but I know that if I were to be perceived by someone else they’d see… SOMETHING that separates me, wholly, from “Urumar”, in their minds at least. This perk is quite powerful, if used creatively, which is why I have resisted using it until now. With it I can do a lot, I just have to be creative. 

Another perk that comes to mind is the capstone-boosted version of “Et’Ada” I possess. “Et’Ada” means “Original Spirits”, which refers to the mighty divinities that played pivotal roles in the history of Tamriel, ranging from partaking in its creation to… attempting to tear it apart, in the case of Mehrunes Dagon and Molag Bal. But according to the perk, the power lurking within me is not just equal to those eerie spirits but actually surpasses their power. 

According to the version of “Et’Ada” that I possess I am the “Strongest” “Daedric Lord”. Nevertheless this weird power has yet to confer to me any real benefits, it simply tells me that I am strong, which sans context is… not helpful. The only sort of practical power I can tell I possess is that the barrier that bars other daedric lords from Tamriel does not seem to bother me in the slightest, somehow. Perhaps my nature as other things gives me immunity to it? 

I have a quest that is tied to my nature as a daedric god that I have been ignoring for now, in much the same vein as I have ignored my quest to recover the items that are “Mine” according to Ghriza. I only just arrived, so the quest seems unnecessary, but it tells me to gain worshipers. I can intuitively tell that it is tied to my nature as a daedric prince, but I did not want to come here and immediately delve into that… power-set. Not right away. But this might well present me with an opportunity to go ahead and slowly cement my influence. 

I steel myself for the weirdness to come, and fully transform into one of my alt-forms for the very first time. I have a healthy number of alt-forms already but the one I am thinking of here is thankfully very specific to the draugr and their strange culture… I feel my body shift and begin to ascend from the ground as my flesh greys, thickens, and a thick metal mask is reality-warped into existence. The dense thing slides into position on my face, protecting my head but not obstructing my view in anyway. I have become a dragon-priest! 

I begin to slowly hover forward, deciding first to delve into the depths of this strange crypt. I place a hand on this door in front of me and with a single push watch it rocket open. Behind it lies a number of draugr, grey-skinned, tall once-humans whose flesh has aged significantly and who now serve the whims of the potent lich-like entities they were buried with. 

The creatures turn and face me, and when they see a creature with a form almost identical to the one assumed by their eerie master they look at me in confusion. They do not immediately take hostile, or even defensive stances, instead they are effectively dumbstruck by my appearance. From behind the mask on my face I begin to speak, uttering words in the ancient language of the dovah, dovahzul. 

“I am here. Surrender and submit.” I proclaim, in the otherworldly words of the dovah, as my voice thunders out of my eerie undead form. The draugr listen to me and their eyes widen, something I did not know that draugr eyes were capable of. I can feel fear radiating out of them, and none of them dare to raise a hand against me. 

They are petrified by fear, which reveals to me something I did not know: draugr, despite being relatively simple undead, can feel complex emotions. I adjust my assessment of them, which I had made based on the historical and cultural knowledge I possessed the moment I arrived in Winterpeak Inn.

When none of the draugr attempt to stop me from advancing I hover forward and past them. I can sense a mixture of fear and other emotions coming off of them as I creep past them. 

The next hour, roughly an hour and a half are spent casually exploring this ancient and decrepit tomb. I slink past several groups of draugr, who do not attempt to intimidate or attack me, sensing my power and hearing my voice whenever they manage to muster the will needed to step towards me. My potent voice dashes any of their attempts to resist my influence and they bend their knees before me, understanding on a deep, almost genetic level that I embody power. 

Before long I find myself staring at a wide, largely empty chamber in the bowels of the tomb. It can be measured in the hundreds of feet, and it is as tall and as wide. In the distance I can see a large stone wall standing by itself that is made of lighter stone than naturally dark stones that constitute the walls of the crypt, including the wall behind the stone wall I am peering at. 

Pillars that are artistically designed to resemble Tamrielic dragons exist at the edges of the chamber. As does a single ornate coffin in the distance, which I presume the singular other figure in the room came out of sometime ago. Another, even grander coffin, is visible in front of the word wall, but behind the strange figure peering at the expertly made work of art.

A single draugr dressed in ornate, nordic armor stands in front of the wall and appears to be reading the faint markings I can see on it. The draugr is enormous, standing almost as tall as I do in my “base” human form, and is actually taller than me in my dragon-priest form. Not that someone else could tell, since I am hovering slightly above the floor. He wields a deadly looking greataxe and is focused on what I learn is a “Word wall” when I use “Sherlock Scan” on the room. 

It also reveals to me the presence of a chest, tucked away almost out of view, partially hidden by the word wall. I can sense numerous treasures in that chest, my powerful instincts as a dragon urging me to claim it as my own and I walk to approach it, but I also know that in order to do so I will have to deal with what my “Sherlock Scan” dubbed a “Draugr Death Overlord”. I take a quiet breath to steel my nerves, step past the room I am in, and into the wide chamber.

As soon as I do the draugr turns and faces me. I am unsure of how it knows I am here, but if I had to guess it probably possesses some sort of arcane awareness of the conditions of its peers. The draugr is an intimidating figure and despite possessing no glimmering sleeve of light informing me that it has “plot armor” it is clearly a powerful opponent. 

The draugr regards me for a moment, and then it opens its mouth to speak. I raise a single hand and point a lone digit at it. This causes the creature to pause fully, but it steels itself a second later and I can see its throat swelling up with potent energies right as I cast a single spell. 

A purple projectile shoots out of my fingertip and snakes towards the draugr. The draugr then manages to utter three potent words of power. 

“Fus… Ro… Dah!” The draugr roars, and a potent wall of force explodes out of its mouth. The wall quickly hurls towards me, but not as fast as my own spell and when the two collide my purple projectile lances through the wall. The dovah energies unleashed by the draugr dissipate harmlessly and the potent spell I have just cast continues to dash towards the leader of this crypt. 

The draugr’s eyes widen and he attempts to dash out of the way but it is too late and my projectile is too fast. It hits him in the chest and I watch a darkening, arcane aura spread over his body. He attempts to let out a roar, and while I see his jaws move in anger no sound escapes him. I smile cruelly at him and roar some words of my own in the same potent language he just spoke in. 

“Submit!” I roar, my voice thundering out of my body and striking everything around me. I can feel reality itself be somewhat damaged by my oral assault on the undead leader before me.

“Weaken!” I howl, my voice filling with the reality-warping power of a dovah. I then surge forward and leap, truly rather than just hovering, into the air, thankful for the wide confines of the massive chamber. As I am in the air I transform once more, taking on something akin to a “true form” for myself. 

In mid-air my body widens and scales begin to cover my monstrous form. I feel myself grow in majesty as my fingers and toes turn into claws, my hands and legs turn into paws, and as gigantic wings unfurl from my back. 

“Kneel!” I bark, my voice assailing reality itself. The death overlord stares at me and there is a mixture of emotions visible in his pale eyes, glowing faintly with the mighty necromatic energies that infuse his form and allow him to persist thousands of years after he should have died of natural causes. 

The draugr stares at me, unsure of what to do and barely managing to stay standing, but that changes a split second later when the other coffin in the room explodes open. Inside of the coffin lurks a figure whose superficial appearance is eerily reminiscent of the form I had just had… The other occupant of the chamber is none other than a dragon priest, whose face is hidden behind a weird mask, just like my other form possessed innately.