Never Rest Never Stop

Firstly this is a story based in the fantasy world of Skyrim a game by Bethesda Softworks with some liberal reinterpretation by myself, it is not a very good story and only covers a part of a passage like a snip from the characters life during a quest she has embarked upon.
I typed this two days ago on my NEXUS mod's account so shall also provide a direct url to that for varification that I am the Author, it is free to use by any and all as they see fit and has nothing really good or anything at all original to offer but that said here it is.
www.nexusmods.com...



The wind at last died down and Sparrow in high branches as the old shaman had named her pulled the snow mask off her face letting the cold air bite at her exposed flesh, she squinted as it's icy embrace touched her cheek's and bit at the soft moist tissue of her eye's her tears freezing almost instantly on her eye lashes.

The sky was darkening and overcast so there was not much danger of snow blindness and it was good to be able to see properly instead of peering through tiny slit's at the white world beyond, it was still snowing though and the feather like flakes drifted lazily from the unnaturally still air.

The silence of the moment broken only by her quiet footsteps and heavy breathing as her thick fur wrapped feet crushed and plowed through the dry powdery snow, forcing her way through drift after drift, she knew were to walk though after living with the Ice Man tribe for the past ten years.

Ten years it seemed so long ago but she would never stop until she had tracked every last one of the Reavers down, they had murdered her husband on her wedding night and left her for dead as well after taking what they wanted from her.

She had forsaken her birth name, that girl who she used to be had died on her wedding night when the reavers had raided the small farmstead on solstheim that she and her beloved were to have called home.

She stopped for a moment, gritted her teeth and then forced herself onward telling herself that she could not stop up here and could only rest when she got back down to the tree line, oh she knew that she could have dug out a snow hole and sheltered in it, the thought was tempting as the siren call of her weariness tried to lull her to do so but she knew also that up here if she slept she would probably never wake up again as the air was far so thin she was gasping for breath all the time.

She felt light headed from the thin air alone with only the fortification that the stamina potion and the sacred herbs the shaman had tought her to prepare for the journey keeping her from collapsing as they both numbed the pain of the cold and provoked her body into a hot blooded fever to stave off the ever looming hypothermia, the herb though was never meant to be used this much and she would likely be ill when she got back to lower and warmer ground but she had little choice and dared not stop now after coming so very far with the end she kept on telling herself always just a little further ahead of her.

Eventually the snow fall thinned as she continued down the valley as it descended out of the cloud's but it was also far more treacherous since she was now on the glacer itself and she could see the crevaces and grikes in the ice flows ahead of her.

The glacier had scoured the rock like a frozen slow moving river but as it flexed and bant over the underlying stone it had opened up in places in massive rift's and those rift's, those crevaces were dangerous as the snow had buried many of them with a thin layer concealing the deep fall beneath and it would have been so easy to slip through that concealing snow to her doom even though she was as careful as she could be making her way over the Glacier.

Oh how she lamented the loss of the long thin staff she had began the passage with and that she had used to probe though the thick snow in front of her, she had lost it climbing a frozen cliff face when her pack had slipped and she had been barely able to save that without falling herself as she had made her ascent to the forgotten pass, the staff had fallen hundreds of feet back down the mountain side behind her and now without it her movement over the snow covered glacier was far slower than it could have been.

At long Last she finally saw it in the distance barely visible through the shifting cloud that obscurred them from moment to moment, it was the strange ruin's that the old Shaman had told her about, they seemed to be hanging oddely on a tongue of rock that overhung the glacier as if the ice had cut into the rock beneath them and so carefully she made her way toward them thinking how it would be good to finally get off the treacherous ice with it's hidden traps and hazzard's, ice whose bitter cold had pierced right through the thick furs on her feet and ached numbed them so that she could no longer feel her toes and worried if frost bite had set in.

Perhaps the empire was not the first empire and perhaps tamriel had known many empires dating back to long before the merythic era.

The old Shaman had told her of the Snow man legends,.

Long ago Chimera the ancestors of both the Chimer and the beast races alike had been created during an ancient war by the blending of the lost first race of man whom had once ruled the entire world by the mixing of there blood with that of other being's or creatures, this had been done for long forgotten purposes of war and perhaps at the same time as the builders of those strange ruins had lived in that same age, ruin's that now silently crumbled away up here were no one ever saw them for he told her that the ancient first men had ruled over all thing's including the very sky itself.

That forgotten race of man had lived in great city's of crystal towers that reached to the heaven's and which were illuminated by light's that never dimmed and turned night into day, they had even learned to fly and had flown across the sky in great flying metal chariots that had carried them to any place in the world they had wanted to go.

But then a terrible and ancient war had come upon the world as brother grew jealous of brother and instead of sharing as brothers should each brother had tried to kill the other until all the world had been lain to waste in fire and anger, then a night of a hundred years had blotted out the very sky as the god's had turned there back's upon there unruly and selfish children.

That ancient war had ended the world of the old man, it had been a war that had rent the very heaven's themselves and cast all thing's assunder though now it was long forgotten by all but the Ice Man tribe whose knowledge had been passed down from generation to generation uncounted.

But like a seed of bitterness it had planted the many races whom now lived and they would fight one another until they destroyed the world again or only one race remained.

The ice man tribe themselves were a strange people who stood alone from all other races though they looked and seemed in most ways just like the other races of man except that they seemed at home in the coldest of places, places even the Nord's would not live, they were a small broad people with dark skin and deep slanted eye's, there eye's though usually brown were also sometimes blue or green.

The Shaman of the Ice Man tribe had found her tied up and left to die while he had been out hunting for horker, She had been left on an ice flow by Reavers as a sacrifice to the bear spirit they worshipped after there captain had tired of using her, she was already half dead from week's of beating's and far worse that she had suffered at his and his crew's hand's so had actually welcomed her death.

The old mystic had waited just long enough for them to turn there back's before rescuing her and carrying her off still bound back into the concealment of a snow storm and he had saved her life though healing her body had been only half the battle with her spirit and mind taking longer to come back.

The Ice Man tribe seldom shared there village of white domed houses made from the very ice itself with any strangers mainly because they seldom met anyone else that far north in the bitter islands and only the reavers whom had used the partially forrested southern most island for some time with whom they had no dealing's except to watch the brigand's for there own safety avoiding any direct contact with them.

Being superb hunters and natural warriors even if they chose to live as pacifist's if that conflict had come the Ice Men would have probably won such a fight but there lives were few enough already and each life of there clan's was precious.

Now ten years had passed but her pain had never gone away, never diminished and she had longed for revenge, lived for it as if it was her breath even her life itself, the very beat of her heart and the old Shaman whom felt responsible for her life having saved her could not bring her to his people's pacifist way to thinking and had sadly bidden her farewell after granting his adopted daughter a gift, not a thing but a vision, going into a trance like state he had peered into her future and tried to see what she must do to heal her spirit, upon coming back to himself he had imparted all he could remember upon her and she had memorised it having seen how accurate his visions were, that was six month's ago now further to the north.



As she climbed up the steep rocky valley side finding a precarious path that finally brought her to the ruins she saw that parts of them decayed and destroyed structures looked almost but not quite like Dwemer construction's and as she made her way past them she saw how the land had tilted over the ages, how the walls that had not collapsed from the force of the ice and the weathering of the elements were beaten down and now leaning over at odd angles but at last she found the road the old man had told her of from his quest vision's.

It was cracked and in most places mostly unrecognisable exept for were it stopped abruptly at the edge of the mighty glacier which flowed past below it in the valley, that edge elevated on a overhang of ancient land above the side of the glacier whose wareing motion had undercut the stone beneath leaving the ancient ruins on borrowed time as they could collapse onto the glacier below at any instant or so it seemed.

She followed the ruined road to a massive cave and inside after she forced her way past the hanging icicles that nearly blocked it she entered the frigid darkness.

Lighting a torch with some difficulty her hand's aching from the cold even in there thick fur mit's and she at last had some small amount of warmth and light, she looked around at the strange cave.

It travelled deeper into the mountain side just as the shaman had told her it would and here and there rock falls had nearly blocked the passage but there was always a way to get past and she pushed onward into the very heart of the mountain.

Strangely she noticed how were the textureless grey stone which looked like grey sand turned to rock had fallen that there were rusting black metal bars embedded into the walls of the tunnel, fourty nord's could have walked abreast the tunnel was so wide and it was shaped like a half barrel arching over her head to maybe ten times her height, if her eyes had not been so good though her torch would hardly have illuminated enough.

She at last found something that looked flammable, some old wooden, or at least what looked almost like wood but seemed waxy to the touch, latice's with what may have once been metal crates of some kind now rusted into piles of reddish dust on top of them so freeing some of the ancient waxy wood like material by hacking it with her small axe she gathered enough together to get a small proper camp fire going, it was warmer here than outside but still icy cold and the heat of the camp fire was welcome.

Her feet thankfully were not frostbitten but they did not look healthy either she noted as she massaged them, at last tired she lay on the strangely flat and smooth black surfaced floor and soon she fell into a deep exausted sleep lying on her side curled up near the fire and only woke several hours later her feet pure agony so that she almost could not stand on them and her limb's aching from the cold and her long trek into the uncharted mountain pass that led from northern Morrowind back over the high mountains to skyrim, the fire now mere ashes and embers clinging to life.

According to the old shaman this ancient ruin was haunted but the ghosts were only memory's and so long as she did not interfere or hinder them they would simply go about reliving there last moment's from long ago unaware of her presence, so long as she did not hinger them that is.

This tunnel would lead her to a much younger dwemer ruin and through that she would find passage into the foothill's on the skyrim side of the mountain's.

She ventured onward footsore and aching but at least the air seemed to not be as thin or as cold and she realized that she had been walking downward for quite some time, the gradient was so subtle though that she had not noticed it.

The great door's stood partially ajar looking like an impenetrable wall except for the small space between them, she must have taken over two days to get here and though tired she studied them for a moment in utter disbelieving amazement, the great door's were larger than any she had ever seen and seemed to be made of solid metal maybe twenty of more feet thick yet despite there huge size the builders of this place had made them so that they would have slid back into the sides of the tunnel which once they had guarded, they seemed to be made of some kind of steel that still glinted as if rust could not gain purchase on it, massive cylindrical bars connected the two sliding doors as they slid into one another almost like teeth and she had to crawl pushing her pack ahead of her while holding her torch to one side to get under them.

After about twenty feet of crawling she passed through the door's and into the most massive cave she had ever seen illuminated only in the distance by a single feint light that seemed to come from a half moon shaped opening now festooned by huge icicles that were hanging down from it, as she got closer she could see that the half moon opening was really one half of another set of massive doors in the roof of the cavern that had once formed a circular opening to a vertical shaft leading up through the rock but only one side was open while the other was closed blocking that upward shaft that seemed to continue upward to a distant opening far above.

Beneath the opening there was a massive circular hole or well like space filled with ice and snow that had somehow fallen down from above and other than this pool of light the chamber was in too much darkness for her guage it's true size, it gelt immense though and as she looked around she could see another well like the one she was standing by with the open door in the cavern roof above in the distance just catching the edge of the illumination and she could just make out as she peered into the gloom that above it was another door in the cavern roof like the one the light was coming through but this time it was sealed closed.

She walked past the light and into the darkness beyond passing the second massive cylindrical shaft in the floor, this one not filled by ice and snow so she cast a spell the shaman had tought her and an aetheric ball of light shot from her fingers illuminating the area for a moment.

Below unlike the ice filled space of the first well this one was clear and fell many times her height into the depth's, there in the centre of it stood a strange metal cylinder a little like a tower it's base far below and it's top still far below pointed like a tower roof or a spire upwards accusingly like a finger at the closed metal doors above, as she looked at it she could just make out strange symbols that ran down it's side with a banner of some kind emblazoned onto it's side, it seemed like a representation of a white five pointed star with wing's, the colours of the wind's were faded but she guessed they may once have been blue, red and white, just another puzzle from a forgotten age and so she continued onward passing more massive cylindrical wells some with similar sunken towers standing in them, there seemed to be many dozens of them.

After what felt like an age she reached the far side of the great chamber but It took far longer to find the way out of it though eventually she did.

The passage was far more human sized and square, maybe three or four men abreast and only just about twice her height with strange doors mostly closed but some seeming to have been blowin inward to the darkness beyond them at regular intervals, remembering what the old shaman had told her she walked on ignoring several side passages were identical corridors crosses this one, he had told her the would lead only to madness and death trapping her in a labarynth of passages peopled only by the spirit's of the long dead whom had build this city beneath the mountains long before the dwemer had even been born.

At last she had to rest and so finding a slight recess at one side of the corridor she huddled down and pulled her furs around herself saving the small bundle of wood she had carried for cooking, soon she was asleep but not for long.

She woke to strange light, the whole corridore seemed to be illuminated by strange glowing strip's of light set into it's ceiling and she shivered seeing that the ghostly light did not illuminate her own hand's but that rather it was spirit memory and she was seeing the past just like the shaman had warned her of, do not get in there way, do not interfere and they will ignore you never knowing you are even there.

She sat there terrified as she watched hundreds of angry strange looking men carrying strange weapon that spat fire form there end and looked like some form of crossbow but without the bow as they went running past her down the corridor shooting there weapons at someone else she could not see.

She noticed that they had some kind insignia on there arm's near there shoulders very different to the odd marking on that strange tower in the well she had seen, this one looked like a red banner with a small golden star and what looked like a redguard scimitar and a war hammer crossed on it.

Suddenly the ghostly lights flickered and then heard an immense booming as if some giant monster was pounding again and again at the ground above, the strange soldiers seemed suddenly to panick, some dropping there weapons and just sitting down, some with there faces buried in there hands as if they knew they could not escape what was coming and some began to run the other way as the echo of mighty blows from above reverberated into this corridor like thunder growing louder and louder.

then she saw it coming down the passagway, a great wall of fire billowing down the corridor and she screamed as it passed over her harmlessly realising it was another ghost memory.

The ghost fire consumed all in it's path as if somehow the entire undergound city had been incinerated from within and she watched as the strange soldiers and in the distance illuminated by the fire other soldiers that they had been fighting all seemed to almost instantly turn to ash as there ghostly screams cut off suddenly but still echoed in her mind and then mercifully the darkness came back and it was silent again except for her terrified breathing.

She was about to get up and run when it happened again, the same event replaying of the past like it must have for thousands of years untold, a replaying of there deaths that the restless soul's were condemned to continue reliving again and again, some terrible battle in which both sides lost but this time she was ready when the darkness returned she ran as soon as it did and she darted into one of the side room's which had an intact door and pushed it against it's protesting hinges shut as the light came once again.

Oh no she thought as the light came through the door as if it was not there but this was far different and as the light came into this room it took on a different appearance, there were men and woman in strange clothing seeming to be plotting and planning and there was an image almost like a window on one wall that showed a moon as something slammed into it, the light blurred as if time passed and she watched as the image showed the moon breaking it into two peices, one large and the other small, then it changed and there was an image of a blue, yellow and green globe that must have been a representation of Nirn, the smaller pieces of the moon slammed into it creating fire and tidal waves that washed over the world destroying all in there path.

She feinted her senses overwhelmed by terror and a strange sense of deja vu the shock far too much for her but when at last she came too again the place was once more dark and silent.

She realized only then that in her panic to escape the ghostly vision's she had left her bundle of fire wood and far more importantly her pack back there along the corridor where she had snuggled down so steeling herself she got back up and crept back retrieving them, the piles of ash that littered the floor taking on a whole new meaning to her now so she walked with more respect trying not to stand in them as she made her way carefully onward until at long last she eventually came to the corridors premature end.

Here where the the corridor simply ended in a dark void that she had to use the same tiring spell magic to illuminate, it was as if the earth had simply shifted away taking the rest of the ancient passage with it, below the edge it dropped into darkness down a steep slope were a huge chasm had opened up sealed over by a mountain had been slammed down on top of it to close it off from the sky by the shaking of the world.

Carefully she slid and scrambled down into the darkness on the loose rubble strewn slope and finally came to the bottom, there she found an underground stream and following it led her eventually into all too familiar, ancient but much younger than the ruins she had just left, dwemer tunnels which she realised by the absence of totems the Falmer also avoided, perhaps they too realised that this place was under some terrible curse that bound the souls to there last actions so only the Dwemer themselves ever had been foolhardy enough to actually dwell here.

The Dwemer city she found was smaller than most and really just an ancient research outpost of long ago with laboraties and strange Dwemer structurs whose use only there long vanished masters could fathom, perhaps they had studied the strange ruin's to learn there forgotten secret's but for whatever reason the ruin's remained unlooted and left just as they had been on the day the Dwemer had vanished.

At last she came to the end of the dwemer ruins' and found a passage upward that eventually brought her up out of one of the typical dwemer entrances disguised as a cave in the western reach, she had to hack at root's that had clogged it and shift a little soil but soon she wriggled our on her belly into the fresh, rich lowland air.

a reply to: LABTECH767

There's plenty of originality and lots to like in your story. You write in a breathless style, which fits the pace too. It's easy to visualise the scenes you create, and nice to forget the world for 5 minutes and enter your world instead.

S&F&

B x

Wow, Haven't had time to read it all, but loved what I read so far!!!!! I shall return.

Some great writing here!!!

a reply to: LABTECH767

Really enjoyed that! Thanks.

Made me want to play Skyrim again, what a fantastic world to have your story in.