The Calamity of Blood

4E 201 | Late Sun's Dusk | Eighty-Six Days Since Arrival

The mountain trail opened into an abandoned camp covered in maps, ritual diagrams, and scrolls.

The Forsworn had received the dragon-binding spell from a stranger wearing a white porcelain mask veined with crimson. Hidden inside the spell was a cipher none of them understood.

Noctis identified binding points. Katana found notes stating that the visible ritual was simplified and that the governing structure had been concealed inside the chant.

Tsukihana packed the pages. "We need a scholar of magic."

"Calcelmo," Katana said. "He likes old scripts and being correct."

They continued toward a house and mine built against the cliff.

The Forsworn who occupied it were already dead.

Bodies lay twisted beyond anatomy. Blood formed deliberate lines across the dirt. Some corpses had been drained into leather and bone. Others were pinned to walls by hardened crimson spears.

Noctis stopped. "Prepare yourselves."

A shockwave burst from the mine.

They held their ground.

A tall figure stepped from the darkness, silver hair flowing over black and crimson clothing. A porcelain mask concealed his face. Blood orbited his bare hands in delicate ribbons, blades, hooks, and flowering constructs.

He held a journal and wrote with a stylus formed from blood.

Then he bowed.

"Eryx," he said. "The Calamity of Blood."

His masked attention settled on Tsukihana. "Mei had so much to say about you."

Tsukihana drew. "What do you want?"

Eryx waved elegantly. "Do not worry. I am not after you today. I was recording the results of my experiments before I sensed a foul presence."

He turned toward Noctis.

"A Dovahkiin wearing stolen souls like perfume. Offensive."

Noctis placed a hand on his sword. "You wear corpses as tools."

"A necessary distinction."

Eryx explained that blood carried memory, fear, lineage, and potential. The dead Forsworn had been material: altered by ritual magic, then tested to see how their blood responded to pressure.

"You murdered them for notes," Tsukihana said.

"No. I murdered them for knowledge. Notes merely prevent knowledge from becoming wasteful."

Blood rose from every corpse.

The bodies stood on broken limbs.

Eryx closed his journal.