Start of Act 5
…
4E 202, Soul Cairn
Valerica Volkihar
The Soul Cairn was such a dreadful place.
Valerica stood before the narrow window of the fortress she now called home—no, prison—and gazed out upon a horizon that never changed.
An endless wasteland of cracked stone and drifting ash stretched beneath a sky split by sickly violet lightning, its thunder silent and distant, like an echo from a world that no longer remembered sound.
To those who visited the realm briefly, the Soul Cairn could appear wondrous.
It was rich with strange life and stranger death. Alchemical reagents grew here that did not exist anywhere in Mundus. Soul husks steeped in raw necromantic energy, crystalline growths formed by tortured spirits, spectral flora that thrived only where life had already been stripped away.
The storms themselves were marvels, arcs of purple lightning threading through the sky like veins, bathing the land in an unholy glow.
But to an immortal who had spent millennia here, the sight had long lost its lustre and beauty.
Valerica exhaled slowly, the sound hollow in the stillness. She had long since lost the ability to be impressed by eternity.
The only reason she had not succumbed to madness, not unlike those wailing husks that wandered the wastes below, was the being charged with watching her.
Durnehviir.
He was… unusual, for one of his kind.
Dragons were creatures of overwhelming pride, their very existence tied to domination. Alduin most of all believed the Thu'um to be the supreme force of creation, a language that bent reality itself to draconic will. To most dragons, other forms of magic were inferior, unnecessary.
Durnehviir had disagreed.
He had learned.
His fascination with necromancy went beyond curiosity and into obsession. Even after mastering the Thu'um to heights few dragons ever achieved, earning the title Kruziik of the Soul, he had not been satisfied.
He sought mastery not just over the living world, but over death itself.
That hunger had led him to the Ideal Masters.
And like so many before him, it had damned him.
Valerica remembered the pact well. Durnehviir had spoken of it once, his voice heavy with a bitterness that time had not dulled. He was to serve as the keeper of the Soul Cairn, granted access to its undead legions in exchange for guarding a single woman until her death.
He had agreed without hesitation.
The deception lay in the fine print.
Valerica herself was a vampire, an immortal.
And so the great Kruziik was bound forever, doomed to a duty without end.
They had spoken many times over the centuries. Conversations stretched across decades, then centuries, until time itself lost meaning.
Yet even so, Valerica could never call him a friend. Their circumstances prevented such bonds from forming. They respected each other, but their roles did not change.
She was the prisoner, and he was the keeper.
Valerica turned away from the window and allowed her gaze to wander across the interior of the fortress. Shelves upon shelves lined the stone walls, heavy with glass bottles, crystalline vials, and sealed urns.
Potions of every imaginable hue rested in careful order. Some were glowing softly, others made of dark and viscous liquid, many etched with runes of her own meticulous design, enchantments meant to preserve the potions so they don't go bad.
Alchemy had become her one and only refuge.
The Ideal Masters' barrier prevented her from stepping beyond the castle gates, but within the walls she had been given… allowances. A garden thrived in the courtyard, shielded from the worst of the realm's corruption.
Rare plants grew under her careful hand, their seeds harvested, replanted, and refined over centuries of patient work.
The first thing she had done upon realizing the permanence of her imprisonment was to document everything.
Every ingredient. Every reaction. Every failure.
A millennium later, her notes filled entire chambers. Thousands of recipes. Thousands of potions. Knowledge distilled not from passion, but from necessity.
The only reason there wasn't more was due to the limited amount of resources. With her meticulously growing her own ingredients from the garden, she had to be careful not to use too much and waste them.
It was work without end, just like her sentence.
Valerica paused, fingers brushing the edge of a nearby worktable. The stone was cool, familiar. She had worn a shallow groove into it over centuries of use.
The only true disturbance to her solitude had come when she felt him.
Harkon, her dear old husband.
The moment his presence brushed the edges of her senses, fear unlike any she had known since her turning had gripped her heart.
'How…how did he follow me here?'
She had hid the portal to the Soul Cairn very carefully, yet he arrived here all the same.
For a brief, terrible moment, she had believed that it was the end. That the sanctuary she had sacrificed everything to reach had failed.
Then he was gone.
Vanished as abruptly as he had appeared.
Valerica did not know whether the Ideal Masters themselves had cast him out, or if something else had intervened. She did not care.
Only relief remained.
She had fled to the Soul Cairn to escape him. To deny him the Elder Scrolls he so desperately needed to enact his Tyranny of the Sun.
But there had been another Scroll.
Her hand tightened into a fist.
Serana.
Valerica closed her eyes, allowing herself the indulgence of a single, fragile hope.
She prayed—quietly, futilely—that her daughter was safe.
That she was still herself.
And that, somehow, she had escaped the fate Valerica had condemned her to by running away.
…
4E 202, Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary
Babette
"Is the plan truly still a go?"
Gabriella's voice cut cleanly through the sanctuary as they started the discussion, the seven of them crowded around the scarred wooden table.
Babette leaned back in her chair, small boots dangling uselessly above the floor, arms folded as she watched the supposed adults argue like children.
"We have to," Nazir said firmly. The Redguard stood at the head of the table now, a position that still felt strange without Astrid occupying it. "This isn't a contract we can just ignore."
Arnbjorn's fist slammed down hard enough to rattle the table and make the candles jump.
"Are you joking?!" the werewolf growled. "Skyrim's tearing itself apart out there! Astrid would've told us to lay low!"
Babette suppressed a sigh. 'Astrid would've told you lots of things. Didn't stop her from getting herself killed.'
Festus Krex answered before Nazir could, his voice calm, acidic, and deliberately provoking.
"Well, Astrid isn't here, is she?" he said mildly. "Her rather reckless method of recruitment is what killed her in the first place."
Arnbjorn surged forward, hands clawing into the table's edge. "You—!"
"That's enough," Nazir snapped, steel cutting through the tension. "We have enough problems without tearing each other apart."
Arnbjorn scoffed, baring teeth more wolf than man, before turning away. He stalked toward the wall and leaned against it, arms crossed, shoulders tight with barely contained fury.
Babette wasn't surprised. None of this was new.
Since Astrid's death, the Brotherhood had been unraveling thread by thread. Arnbjorn had taken it the hardest—no surprise there. Love did that to people. Made them sloppy. Made them angry.
He'd wanted blood immediately. Revenge without direction. Nazir had stopped him, insisting they needed leads, patience, and sense.
It was one of the flaws of Astrid's rather unorthodox recruitment process. Her habit of hinting at recruits without telling anyone outright had finally come back to bite them.
Everyone knew they had a "potential recruit". Especially after Grelod the Kind conveniently died before the contract could even be fulfilled. But nobody except Astrid actually knew who it was.
Nazir's rise to leadership had been effortless by comparison. He already handled the gold, the contacts, the logistics. The others followed because there was no one else who could.
Then there was him.
"Oh, how delightful!"
Babette resisted the urge to bare her fangs.
Cicero's voice echoed through the sanctuary like a cracked bell as he pranced in, bells jingling, smile wide and unchanging. The Night Mother's Keeper looked as unbothered as ever, as though the Brotherhood hadn't nearly collapsed around him.
Nazir's face tightened almost imperceptibly. Everyone else tensed.
Despite their recent argument, Babette noted how Arnbjorn's hand drifted closer to his axe the moment Cicero approached Nazir. Veezara mirrored the motion, clawed fingers brushing the hilt of his blade.
Say what you want about his gruff demeanor, but Arnbjorn was loyal to a fault.
Babette was the only one who stayed relatively still. Three hundred years as a vampire gave her confidence in her strength.
But even so, something about the bumbling Jester sent warning bells into her mind.
Cicero wasn't weak and neither was he stupid, despite his outward demeanor. He was unpredictable enough to be dangerous.
"What meeting is everyone having?" Cicero asked brightly. "And why was poor Cicero not invited?"
"Cicero," Nazir greeted him with forced calm, giving the Keeper the respect his position demanded. "We're discussing whether to proceed with the contract on Vittoria Vici."
"Oh?" Cicero tilted his head, hands on his hips. "And why the hesitation?"
"You know the situation out there as well as anyone else," Nazir replied. "With Dragons and vampires, the Civil War being put on hold…the Stormcloaks and the Empire are working together for Oblivion's sake."
"Hmmm," Cicero hummed, tapping his chin theatrically. "That is a conundrum."
Babette decided she'd had enough of the dancing around.
"If I may," she said, cutting in.
Every eye turned to her. She smiled sweetly.
"The chaos of the outside may work in our favor. Dragons everywhere mean guards and legion patrols are stretched thin." She leaned forward, "Which means Solitude itself might not be as protected as it should be."
Nazir's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "True," he admitted. "But Vittoria Vici is the Emperor's cousin. Her security won't be ordinary guards."
"Risk has always been part of the job," Babette shrugged.
Nazir exhaled slowly. "Fair enough." He turned to Festus. "Could it be done?"
"If Arnbjorn and Veezara provide muscle," Festus replied, steepling his fingers, "Gabriella and I can find the gap to which Vittoria Vici would be vulnerable."
"Oh, how wonderful!" Cicero clapped. "Mother will be thrilled."
Everyone expertly ignored the man, as Nazir continued talking.
"Good, then I'll prepare the contingencies. While it is unlikely, all of Skyrim is currently in an alliance. There's a real chance someone significant will attend the wedding. The Dragonborn, the Dragonslayer, maybe even Ulfric Stormcloak."
"I can help with that," Babette said lightly, already considering poisons, disguises, and escape routes.
As far as she knew, the Dragonslayer and Ulfric Stormcloak were just regular humans. A classic deadly poison might be enough to kill those two. The Dragonborn however…
The room fell into discussions as maps were pulled closer and candles were adjusted.
The assassination of Vittoria Vici will not be easy, but Babette was determined to make it work. They needed this, because they needed a win.
Morale in the Dark Brotherhood was at an all time low. Astrid's sudden death had ruined their plans and rhythm. But if they could pull this off, a target as high-ranking as the cousin of the Emperor in the current capital city of Skyrim?
For the first time in months, Babette felt anticipation stir in her chest.
…
AN: Here we go! Act 5!
Some of the events that shall take place in this act should properly be teased in this chapter as we always start off an act with an interlude chapter.
I highly doubt Valerica or Babette will get any more POV's, this is merely a sneak peek as to what shall come in the coming act.
Anyways, I hope this serves as a proper fun hook. I'll see you guys in act 5 soon.
Cheers!