Chapter Text
The other trick that Violet showed off was being able to teleport them. She moved them within viewing distance of the big tree high above them at the edge of town, then used a potion to open a large oval of light that appeared both in front of them, and another just barely visible from the cliff angle.
“Now what’s your horse going to do?” Kaidan asked.
“Tiku still has a job. This is just to show you how it works. You don’t need to hold onto me, but you'll have to go first and get out of the way so I can safely pass through and close it after myself.”
He nodded to her and put his hand into the distortion of light; it didn't feel like anything except for a small step down and a strange flash of the world. He had a quick look around and moved away from the portal as he checked to make sure he was all there. A few seconds later, Starfall appeared where he had just been standing, then turned and dispelled the lights.
“And a lot of saved time instead of climbing all the way back up from the beach,” she said.
“Hmm. Hope this shortcut isn’t one of those little things you’re not actually supposed to be doing.”
“It is.”
He shook his head. “Of course.”
They made their way over to the Frozen Hearth, and as usual, Violet had to make sure that Tiku was faring alright in such a miserable frozen place, and while he was, he was also angry about having been left alone for so long. Kaidan went inside to bring out treats so she could spoil him. Inside, Nelacar was still there and arguing with Dagur over some experiment gone wrong. Ah, they were just in time, then. Hopefully, he was better at fixing soul gems than whatever had led him to ‘turn things inside-out and explode them’.
“Oi, Nelacar. You have time tonight? Starfall ran your little errand.” Kaidan said as he went up to the counter.
“She found it?!” Nelacar almost shouted, then lowered his voice. “Yes. Yes, alright. Just meet me in the back when you’re ready.”
“Hm.” He nodded then went back outside with a bowl of things horses liked. “Nelacar agreed to take care of that thing for us. I think we need to be careful about this, though. I really mean it about anything to do with Daedra.”
Violet had hung up a magelight to see, and was brushing and spoiling Tiku who was glad for the attention. She helped herself to his carrots to get out of trying to calm Kaidan’s fears. “Just let me pet my horse for a bit, please.”
Kaidan leaned on a post and watched her sit with Tiku. Just how much had Starfall learned about the various Princes that she either seemed confident about her dealings, or more likely, was too driven to care? He had to admit that he didn’t know much more than her about Azura as her worship was still not widely accepted outside of Dark Elven spaces. But it couldn’t be all sunshine and roses since her artifact was designed to steal souls endlessly without cost.
And Starfall was already trying her best not to lose herself, while it seemed everyone and everything around her wanted to see what would break her, or how fast they could do it. Her Hunger was alive somehow, and seemingly woke up at random to prod her. Sanguine took about a week. Azura was probably going to backstab her, somehow. The Divines were behind the Eye of Magnus, but they were supposed to be benevolent. Ancano couldn’t possibly be powerful enough to corrupt it, could he?
But then, here they were, going through Oblivion for another ‘holy’ artifact because some fool mortal managed to abuse it. Kaidan did know through Mehrunes Dagon that some of the Princes were specifically forbidden from directly interfering with mortal affairs or even coming to Tamriel, but that meant absolutely nothing, evidently. Especially with plenty of suckers on this side willing to do their dirty work for them.
After casting a few refreshing spells on Tiku and leaving him the basket of food, Violet got up and stretched. “I think I like the formula I came up with today with Sleeps-in-Blossoms. But it’s expensive and rare. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.”
“It worked well from what I saw. Might take some getting used to you not being…”
“Upset? Angry? Frantic?” she sighed.
“Constantly over-stressed,” he said.
Instead of going right to Nelacar, they waited for Starfall to get some of her energy back with food, and she wrote down all of the knowledge that the Augur of Dunlain had shared with her. Kaidan read over her shoulder and (tried to) understand Starfall’s explanations. Most of it actually made sense despite the complexity of the topic and Starfall’s strange way of explaining things, sometimes.
She’d said before that the Eye of Magnus wasn’t alive. But it was more like some of the things the Dwemer made. It was like a machine; but not even that, really. He’d seen them fixed up; it was a spider or mudcrab-looking contraption that moved on metal legs and poked with its front pincers. Why the missing Dwarves needed brass mudcrab-spiders was beyond him at that point in time, because it was also spitting lightning and trying to kill him. The thing at the college looked far, far beyond anything the Dwemer made, and their stuff was almost impossible to figure out.
*
Nelacar was reading and making notes when the two of them walked into his room.
“You really found it?”
Violet looked at him and bit her lip. “Yes.”
“I don’t like that look.” Nelacar was already bracing himself.
She fished around in her bag, then put the Star and several cracked black crystals on the counter. “You said it couldn’t be broken.”
Nelacar covered his mouth and stared at the pile. “Stendarr's mercy… Malyn, what have you done ?”
“Can you fix it?” Kaidan asked.
“I… think… Yes. It’ll take some work, but this is my chance to make all this right and finish it.” He picked up the artifact and turned it around and over in examination. “…This isn’t encouraging. Look at these fissures. It looks like someone tried to use tools on it in desperation. And there’s obviously still a soul inside.”
“He had a whole cult going and they were kidnapping people around Riverwood and the lake to feed this thing,” Violet said.
“Gods.” Kaidan shook his head.
“That certainly wouldn’t help. We’ve got to get him out of there. I can’t do anything while it’s still full.” Nelacar said. “But there’s wards up. We can’t even use it to enchant something to get him out.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell whether it’s a funnel or if he can still sense us out here and can raise and lower the wards at will? Because all the way up until I picked it up a few days ago, it was still actually working and was accepting souls into it.”
He hummed in concentration as he felt out the enchantments. “It’s a funnel. Souls are allowed in, but nothing can be allowed out. Only thing I can think of is if I can get someone’s soul in there and they’d be able to overpower his remnant.”
Violet squinted at him. “You want to drop yet another person in there. There’s already been who knows how many people fed into this thing. If no one’s been able to evict him by now…”
“I doubt that anyone who’s been fed to the Star has even had the chance to fight back. I mean for someone capable and prepared, and hasn’t been ritually sacrificed.” Nelacar said, looking directly at Violet.
“No.” Kaidan stepped up to the counter beside Starfall and grabbed her shoulder. “I know you.”
“I didn’t even get the chance to say no myself, yet. Damn. Why can’t you do it?” she asked Nelacar.
“Because I’m a scholar, not a fighter. He’d tear me apart. And I can’t split up my own soul. It’d be like trying to draw myself without a mirror.”
Violet scoffed. “Ha! I used to try and get out of shit by saying I was a scholar. It stopped working when the dragons came.”
“Well, unless you’re a master at soul manipulation, there needs to be someone out here to monitor if things get out of control. I have to pull you out when you’re done, plus I’ll also be keeping your body alive and soul linked.”
Kaidan raised an eyebrow. “Soul manipulation can do all that? Like pull a soul back out of a gem and move them around outside of a person’s body?”
“Yes. Malyn’s work went very deep into finding himself suitable containers after he realized there was no cure for his affliction. And then it all became twisted when the Star came into play. He needs to be put to rest.”
“He was nothing but a skeleton when I found him, and not even a necromantically animated one,” Violet frowned.
Nelacar became very grim, then opened one of his books and started calculating. “Then it’s definitely past time. I’ll give you time to decide, but we need to work quickly. Just removing Malyn won’t purify the Star, and it will stay Black once I’m done. If I simply leave it in this state, it’ll fall apart and likely wind up leaving this plane altogether to return to Oblivion on its own. Then we’ll have done all this for nothing. Whatever Azura promised you, or more likely threatened you with, will be forfeit.”
Violet turned to Kaidan. “I need you to not do that thing where you dodge the truth because you’re either trying to keep me safe, or think I’ll overreact. Is Azura still bothering you about this?”
He looked into her eyes and could see either way she was going to do it. “But you do overreact. And then put everyone in danger. Just let Azura take it back on her own.”
“And then all of his victims get no resolution or justice,” Nelacar said bitterly.
She took her own book out and found her notes. “She said I have to take his soul. Somehow. So, I think I have to do this, anyway.”
Kaidan sighed in resignation, then turned to Nelacar. “Explain to me how this works. In mundane terms.”
“Well, first I cast a sort of Soul Trap on her, but instead of taking her whole soul, it’s only a part. There still needs to be something left in her body to keep it alive. I’m also putting a sort of tether on her soul so I can keep track of her and know when to bring her back. Then, she will go in and subdue… kill Malyn. Hopefully, since you say the Star was guarded by an entire cult worshipping him and you got rid of them, he shouldn’t be much more trouble. Once his soul is gone, all of the enchantments and barriers he set up should come down.”
“Should.” Kaidan scoffed.
“These are the sorts of spells that need to be kept active and maintained. Without him, the enchantments aren’t being fed the souls and magicka they need, and they fail. Then I can remove her soul from the Star, put it back in her body, and get to work on the empty gem to restore it. I know it probably doesn’t make you feel any better, but as a Master Enchanter, I’ve done this before. But after that, it’s all her. You absolutely must not die in there, or else I won’t have anything to put back.”
Kaidan suddenly remembered and tapped her shoulder. “Will you being inside the soul gem and not in your body affect… all the other ones?”
Violet covered her mouth. “I honestly have no idea. Huh.”
“Ah. The dragons.” Nelacar rubbed his chin. “Yes, I know you’re a bit of an anomaly. Don’t worry, I have no interest in getting into any of that ever again, after this. I should hope that the part of you that is keeping you alive is also strong enough to keep them from doing anything.”
“This better be worth it.” Violet grumbled under her breath, then set her bag down. “What do I need to do?”
He pointed to his bed in the corner. “Lie down and brace yourself. Soul severing has a slightly painful physical reaction.”
She took the time to groan, whine, and pace for a few seconds before looking between him and Kaidan. Instead of lying down, she sat up against the wall with her legs crossed over each other. Nelacar came over and held his hand over her forehead while the Star was in his other hand. All Violet saw was a small flash and the feeling of pins and needles all over. Kaidan watched as Starfall seemingly dropped off into a deep sleep, and then Nelacar set the Star back on the counter.
“How are we supposed to tell what’s going on in there?” Kaidan asked.
“We can’t. We’ll only know if in a little while, the physical properties of the Star start to change.”
*
Violet never really thought about what was on the inside of soul gems, as she didn’t need them before all this . She supposed that since they were clear until filled, that they were like tiny jars that bugs were kept in. So the bright blue, spacious, sparkling, and very precarious inside of a geode was completely disorienting, but at the same time so incredibly beautiful that she sort of understood why Malyn didn’t want to leave. Or maybe that’s just what Azura’s Star looked like. It was peaceful, too. …And there was no pain. She was completely distracted until a loud voice pierced through her thoughts.
“Finally, a fresh soul. Good. I was starting to worry…” An incredibly old and sickly Dunmer man in black robes strode up, using his soul gem topped staff as a walking stick. His eyes and mouth dripped with blood, even though his body technically wasn’t real. He still tried to see her with blind eyes though, and used the head of the staff to point at her. “Wait… you’re different. Your soul… Who are you?”
Violet got a good look up into his face. Nelacar said that Azura had driven him insane to curse him for stealing the Star. She could tell by looking at him that there wasn’t anything she could say that would get him to finally end this foolishness, but it couldn’t hurt to try. “Azura sent me, Malyn. I don’t know if you can tell what’s going on out there, but the Star is broken and falling apart. Even if you were to stay here, it would eventually break, and then your plan is done. Please, just… stop trying to hide. I can free you from this and Azura’s wrath.”
The much older man hissed at her and tried to hit her over the head with the staff for her impertinence. “Azura? Hah! Blasted Daedra is mad I’ve beaten her at her own game and taken her realm for myself! Just what do you think you’re going to do about it?!”
Violet gave a heavy sigh and changed her skin into iron. She sort of wondered if wearing her enchanted robes would have transferred into the gem, even though here she was putting armor on not really her body. “Malyn, you’ve murdered dozens of innocents and so many more have suffered because you and Azura are in a pissing match. And it’s not even much of a match if you’re stuck in here with nothing to do but wait for someone outside to feed your greed. There isn’t even anything to do in here. By the way, I’ve stolen the Star from your cult. No more souls will be coming in here, and you’re leaving.”
“You lie!” Malyn shouted and slammed his staff down on the ground. A Dremora appeared from a black ward to cover his escape down the crystal path.
“Hmph! Tiny, weak mortal!” The Daedra chuckled at her and drew his sword. The sword was a lot more intimidating in its full physical form instead of a summon.
‘Well, now I know how he was able to keep this up for so long!’ She swore heavily and wished her bag of potions had made the trip as well. But they had armor and weapons! She thought she was just wearing her dress because that’s what she looked like before Nelacar fractured her soul. Godsdamnit! None of this made any sense and now was not the time to start her head hurting. Fine. If conjuring was allowed…
Her two familiars appeared from her own black circles. “Kill the Dremora!”
The two bird creatures clattered their beaks angrily and jumped into the Daedra’s face, leaving her a few seconds to figure something out. She knew her familiars wouldn’t last long, so she decided to test out all of the horrible new tricks the Augur of Dunlain had just given her.
Ice lances erupted from each hand and the tips sparked with lightning as they wedged into the Dremora’s throat. This wasn’t nearly enough to stop him, but stunning and slowing him down was absolutely crucial. Fucking Dremora are built like walking fortresses. The last time she had to deal with one, she nearly got her heart torn out. She swiped her hand in a line in front of her and a wall of lances blocked his way to her. Stupid Malyn wasn’t even on her radar; he’d run off to cower somewhere, and even if she did manage to kill him first, the Dremora wouldn’t be banished and would tear her apart before Nelacar could get her out of there.
Nelacar. “GODSDAMN IT, YOU DIDN’T SAY HE WAS A MASTER SUMMONER AND I COULD BRING THINGS IN HERE! GET ME MY EMPTY BLACK GEM AND — Well, shit.”
She realized she didn’t really pack much of anything else. Just money, her journals, a few of her medicinal potions and some things she didn’t want to leave alone, because she was only supposed to sit in the library today and maybe buy a few things. The Star was only meant to be dropped off, not all this shit. How did this keep happening?!
*
Another crack went down one of the Star’s arms, and Nelacar suddenly looked over to Violet’s body. Her head straightened up woodenly and started swearing at him. It shouldn’t have been able to move without her in there! Kaidan was even more disturbed because he knew that without her in there, that meant one of the other half dozen things invading her body was probably doing it.
“Why is she still able to move?” Nelacar was starting to get nervous, but kept his voice even.
“You’re the soul warlock, not me!” Kaidan narrowed his eyes at ‘Starfall’. “Losei?”
The body rolled its eyes, slipped from the bed, and started rooting through her pack. “It’s me. I need a Black gem for this jackass and I should have brought my robes, or waited ‘til tomorrow. Thanks, Nelacar.”
Kaidan looked over towards him. “Wait a minute, you said you were taking enough of her that there’d only be enough left to keep her body alive.”
“The damn Eye’s keeping me connected. Sort of. Kind of disorienting. Also, I don’t think he really understands just how much of ‘me’ there is.” Violet mumbled. She drank most of her potions, went over and put her Black gem next to Azura’s, then sat back on the bed.
“So, you’re telling me you’ve greatly complicated matters.” Nelacar frowned. He picked up her soul gem, passed another entrapment spell on it, and it disappeared from his hand.
“That’s what I do,” she and Kaidan sighed together. “That’s what she does.”
*
Violet’s familiars were trying their best, but they weren’t able to get past the Daedra’s nearly indestructible armor. It was only some consolation that his face was completely shredded. But she was still in a lot better shape than the first attempt. She’d even passed lightning through the spear in its throat, but that only slowed it down and shut it up for a few seconds.
Then she wondered why she was playing ‘by the rules’ where no one was watching, except maybe Nelacar, who didn’t have any say on the matter or room to judge. She grabbed her spear and took it back to start the Dremora’s blood flowing. Just as she started casting her own spell, he grabbed the two familiars by their throats and crushed them.
“Weak mortal using your pets to stall for time…” he gurgled and spat blood at her.
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Violet said as she latched onto the flowing blood and watched it hiss and bubble. She nearly lost herself in her own pain and placed her other hand full of healing fire over her heart.
The Dremora lunged for her with the last of his quickly draining strength, but she dodged out of the way and watched as he fell to his knees. She quickly ran behind him and put her lightning spear through the back of his skull. ‘Big, brutish, overconfident, and highly susceptible to magic.’ Pointing at him, Violet made the corpse decompose all at once and the magicka both used to summon it and kill it flowed back into her as healing light.
“Interesting. Not pleasant, but interesting.”
Violet looked up from her observations to see another Dremora racing towards her with iron skin and hands full of fire. She knew what a Valkynaz was, but she’d never dealt with one before, so she wasn’t sure how good they were as mages. She was thinking about simply killing Malyn without the soul gem so he might go on to Aetherius. But if he was just going to keep bringing Daedra in here to try and dodge this, he could wait in her other soul gem for someone to turn him into a boot. When she thought about it, she reached into her pocket, and there it was. “Huh. It worked.”
A fire ward on the ground to push it backward and a wall of ice spears to stall it again. She could see linking and cursing blood being extremely useful, but not something to be used often. A few of the spears bouncing off of the Dremora’s aetheric shield made her groan, and the fireballs bouncing off of hers only made the Daedra angrier. No elemental magic, then.
Instead, Violet summoned her Daedric bow and enchanted it with fire; the physical arrow would allow the fire to pass through the shield. Several shots lodged all throughout his armor while she carefully backed up to stay out of range. Instead, the crystals around her making up the ceiling and floor started cracking and either falling into the abyss (or wherever; she wasn’t going to look down), or cracking loose from the ‘ceiling’ and nearly coming down on top of her. Violet shrieked curses and ran somewhere safer, realizing too late that she’d shown weakness in front of a damn Daedra and now it was going to be even more difficult. ‘Godsdamn it!’
She was trapped now on the initial platform and it was starting to come apart. “Oh fuck, I have to stop it before it breaks and I’m trapped in here shit shit shit shit!”
*
“What in Oblivion is she doing in there?!” Nelacar watched as one of the Star’s tips cracked and fell off. “Oh no. I can try and hold it together from out here, but if it continues, I won’t be able to repair a pile of crumbs.”
“He’s got a bunch of godsdamned Dremora in here!” Violet’s body pulled on her hair. “They’re tearing the place apart and it’s all cliffs in here, damn it!”
“Damn.” Kaidan covered his mouth. “And you can’t get her out of there until the others are all dead.”
“Well, I didn’t know about the Daedra!” He ran over to his bookshelf to find something that might cover this completely unprecedented situation.
“You were his colleague, weren’t you?!” Kaidan asked.
Malyn shook his head. “That doesn’t mean we just casually throw Daedra around in front of each other! There’s so many facets to each school of magic and I’m surprised you haven’t learned this from her.”
*
“Stop it, you blasted demon!” Malyn yelped from far down the path.
The Valkynaz scoffed at his ‘master’, then did the same thing in the other direction towards him. “Or what, pathetic spirit?! I’ll simply go back to Oblivion. You two are the ones in trouble!”
Violet focused everything on suppressing the urge to scream, then switched from her bow to a Daedric greataxe. She was terrible at using two-handed weapons in any capacity and she could just barely lift the thing, but since the Dremora was distracted, maybe that wouldn’t matter. She kept her eyes fixed on the back of the Dremora’s head and on silently getting within range, swung the far too heavy weapon back over her head, then brought it back up, over, and down to cleave the Dremora’s head in two. The Daedra finally stopped pulling the place apart and collapsed.
Violet stood there panting and glaring at Malyn instead of down at the corpse and risking going back into a panic. “Try that again, and they’ll hear you screaming on the outside of this thing.”
This one strange woman just killed two Dremora and now had her sights on him. His staff was depleted and he didn’t have any souls on hand. It'd been so long between sacrifices that his hunger had depleted his own magicka and strength. He was now at the lowest platform of the crystal and there was nowhere else to go. Malyn’s voice cracked as he shouted. “No! Not like this! Get out of here and leave me alone!”
“You’re the one who wanted to make this difficult, asshole.” Violet didn’t dare fool with his diseased and corrupted blood and soul. Instead, she stalked down the path towards him with her own Power driving her. “But hey, at least Azura will finally be out of our hair.”
She brought out her ice spear and cursed it with Soul Trap, then launched it across the platforms and impaled him to one of the fallen crystals. Several more followed so it would give her time to over-carefully navigate the mess that the stupid Valkynaz had created. About halfway towards reaching him, Malyn’s body slumped over, and the soul gem in her pocket briefly flashed.
“Fuck you, Malyn. I hope it’s extra cramped in there.”
*
Nelacar and Kaidan watched as Azura’s Star seemed to clear up just a little and stop pulsing miasma.
“I… I think she did it!” Nelacar was still afraid to touch it though; it now looked as if a good bump would make it crumble.
“Yes, he’s dead. Fucker. I need a few minutes to collect myself. It’s kind of a mess in here. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to stay. Even though it’s so nice and quiet… and safe… and painless…” the Violet beside them sighed.
“I guess today was a lot, then,” Kaidan said.
“Too much.” She went back into her half-sleeping state.
Nelacar waited until Starfall had finished whatever business she had inside the Star, then held his hand over the gem and pointed back at her body.
She twitched, stretched, and groaned; with her movements looking more natural now. “Eugh. Senses. Noise. Pain. Hunger…”
Kaidan looked over to her. “You alright?”
Violet patted herself all over, then pulled two frozen, dark red hearts from her smock’s front pocket. “Yes.”
He instantly recognized them and shuddered. “Did you really need those that badly?”
She scoffed. “Kai, these damn things are a couple hundred gold a pop and they’re rare as an oasis. I killed them, they’re mine, I’m not wasting ‘em.”
“Could you not drip them on my bed, then?” Nelacar grimaced.
“Sorry.” She added another layer of ice and put them in her pack.
“Well, provided I can get this fixed up, you've done it.”
Violet pulled the normal Black soul gem from her pocket and set it next to Azura’s Star. “He summoned a bunch of Daedra that nearly destroyed the Star and got me killed. Turn him into a boot and send his ass to the Soul Cairn.”
“You really moved him from one gem to another?”
“And he can’t get out of this one.”
‘I wish it hadn’t ended like this, Malyn. You could have had a better peace ages ago.’ The enchanter bowed his head in a moment of silence, then turned to her. “Anyway, you’ve done your part, Starfall. It shouldn’t take too long to fix. Come back tomorrow. But I also need an item and what enchantment you want on it.”
“Do you have anything he can enchant right now?” she asked Kaidan.
“No. My boots are already enchanted, not that I’d hand them over right now anyway, and I used nearly everything you’ve collected recently on my project. I’ll figure something out later. It’s getting late.”
Violet slid off of Nelacar’s bed, then took a few wobbly steps. “Being taken apart and put back together is very draining. And fighting Daedra. And getting cut up by a giant wisp, attaining demi-divinity, bestowing blessings, and teleporting. I did far too much today. Damn.”
Kaidan could hear it in her voice. “I’m not carrying you.” Instead, he grabbed their bags.
“If you were blackout drunk, I’d… uh… probably teleport you,” she mumbled.
“It’s barely a whole mile, Star. You’ll make it.” He shook his head.
“Wait, divinity?” Nelacar looked up from his work.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Neither of them noticed as they were leaving that Nelacar was waving a spell at them. He realized that he never actually looked at either of their souls; he just instinctively took and moved hers. He cast Detect Life and quickly covered his mouth to keep from drawing their attention back. No. This thing was getting fixed, and then he was done. Nothing in the world would be worth approaching that.