J'zargo still wasn't speaking to her as they entered Dimhollow tomb and descended into the cold, dank depths. The snow outside had been churned up by dozens of elvish boots, and had been tracked further into the spider-web strewn lair by the nasty, villainous elves. Here and there were a few faded carvings that, in mortal societies, were what passed for art.

  According to the cat the Thalmor had entered the dark subterranean entrance while Caprifexia had been burying the mortals who had… unfortunately perished at the bony fingers of a Lich. A Lich who Caprifexia might have been somewhat responsible for unleashing out into the world, and about which she was still feeling a little bit bad. Well, actually more than a little bit bad. Her chest still hurt, and her mind kept on dragging itself unbidden back to the image of Vigilant's glassy eyed corpses.

  The fact that the Thalmor were ostensibly looking for the same Elder Scroll as the organised vampires was, apparently, very bad news. Caprifexia didn't really see why it was that surprising, of course two groups of villains would work together, they were villains; but it seemed to have come as quite the shocked to her small-minded and hopelessly fumbling mortal companions.

  Unlike many of the other disgusting caves and caverns that Caprifexia had been dragged into by her apparently arachnophilic mortal charges, Dimhollow was, true to its name, dimly lit by green-blue bio-luminescent fungus, which grew over the poorly crafted mortal masonry and cast light over the winding tunnel. This was good, in that she didn't need to waste magic conjuring a light, and bad, because sometimes she missed a stray spider's web in the gloom and had to calmly and methodically burn it off her body while quietly and very reasonably vocalising her disgust.

  They came across the first elven body after less than ten minute of descent, where the tunnel opened up into a long room covered with large stone tiles and with a single exit across from them. The nasty elf's gaudy golden armour was charred and twisted, and tiny vents beneath them were still spewing fire over the blackened cadaver.

  "A trap," said Einar, re-establishing his role in the group as the person who stated the obvious. "There are patterns-"

  Whatever inane observation he was about to make was cut off by set of a three incredibly loud chimes, followed by a few indistinct whispers.

  "…no too early… scroll… not going to work."

  "Ugh," said Caprifexia, rubbing her silly looking pointed mortal ears as the sound slowly faded as she looked around for the source of the voices.

  "What's wrong?" asked Einar.

  "That noise," she said irritably. "The chimes and the voices. Obviously."

  "I didn't hear any noise," said Einar in a fussy voice. "Are you OK Capri?"

  "What do you mean, 'you didn't hear a noise?'" said Caprifexia. "Of course there was a noise! Are you deaf?"

  "Oh kay…" said Einar, holding up his hands. "Well, I didn't hear anything. But as I was saying, there are patterns on the tiles – maybe they tell us which are safe?"

  "Who cares about the tiles – there are apparently noises neither of you can hear!" she said, glancing around. She hadn't been able to determine the direction, which was odd, but she was sure it hadn't been a telepathic projection, those felt very different…

  "Capri you've been through a lot of stress today," said Einar, squeezing her on the shoulder in some bizarre mortal gesture she didn't really understand. "Sometimes our minds play tricks on us. Yeah? I'm sure I didn't hear anything loud that sounded like a chime."

  "Don't presume to lecture me on psychology, you uneducated ape," she snapped, pushing his hand off her shoulder. "And there was a noise!"

  J'zargo looked like he was about to say something suitably idiotic, before sniffing and looking away.

  She cast a few diagnostic charms, but beyond telling her just how filthy the cavern she was in one, revealed little. She didn't think she'd misheard, but maybe auditory hallucinations was another facet of this 'regret' she hadn't experienced before.

  "Well… 'chimes' or not, we need to figure out a way past the tiles – don't want to end up like that poor bastard over there," said Einar, nodding toward the burning elf. "I wonder if there is a hint around here…"

  "Or," said Caprifexia, shaking herself from her ruminations and stepping out onto one of the tiles in-front of her at random. "We could do this."

  The tile beneath her depressed, and a moment later fire billowed from jets in the floor, roaring around her in a pleasant inferno. Einar gave one of his typically wailing mortal cries of alarm, before trailing off slowly as the fire licked harmlessly around her.

  "Oh right," he said. "Fireproof."

  Thanks to Caprifexia's magnificence it was a simple matter to brute force their way through the 'puzzle,' and less than a minute later they reached the other side of the room safely. Normally Caprifexia would have made sure that her mortal companions were reminded of just how amazing she was, but the uncomfortable constricting feeling in her chest she'd acquired after the unfortunate incident with the not-friendly-Lich remained, and for once in her life she didn't really feel like basking in her innate objective superiority.

  The tunnel sloped downward for another twenty meters, before reaching a junction with three options, and no obvious indication of which way the horrible elves had gone.

  "So… which way?" asked Einar after a moment. "Can either of you, I don't know, do some kind of magic to tell us the way to go?"

  "Does Einar have a lock of the elves' hair, or a scrap of their cloak?" asked J'zargo snootily.

  "No…" said Einar.

  "Then no, J'zargo cannot 'do some kind of magic,'" said J'zargo, the terrible wizard.

  "Then what do we do?" said Einar.

  "J'zargo has read about these tombs. Traditionally there are multiple paths to the central burial cavern," said J'zargo. "Usually there is one safe path, and other, less safe paths."

  "What sort of people would design mazes like that?" said Caprifexia. "That's the silliest thing I've ever- oh right, mortals."

  J'zargo turned away, apparently still not talking to her – that, or unwilling to confront the reality of his death-prone people's innate ridiculousness.

  His scorn shouldn't have bothered her as much as it did, but her throat tightened up as the cat turned aside. Which was absurd – she didn't care what the cat thought of her? Did she?

  *

  It was almost three hours later that they emerged from the leftmost path, her mortal companion's slightly singed, and all of them covered in some particularly putrid smelling water that had flooded a room the when cat had insisted he knew the correct solution to a mathematics puzzle and refused to listen to Caprifexia because she was, allegedly, 'extremely incompetent.'

  Luckily for them, Caprifexia, and admittedly the cat, knew a cantrip for breathing underwater, so they had eventually been able to make it into the next room by cutting their way through a heavy rune reinforced metal door.

  The central chamber of the complex was a large circular amphitheatre. A large section of the room to their right had fallen away into a ravine, and some kind of subterranean waterfall emerged from the darkness above and plummeted down into the gloom below, a very faint roar the only indication that it hit bottom at all.

  At the centre of the room was a large flat area, covered in some kind of groove based puzzle. Caprifexia wasn't really sure why anyone would create puzzles that could be solved in order to lock things away – if it had been her, she'd have just installed passwords or combination locks without hints. That, or 'puzzles' where every answer, including the right one, killed whoever was trying to get in.

  But, as ever, mortals were disappointments, and even as they squatted down behind one of the stone benches near the top of the room the nasty elves – who were significantly fewer than they had been when they'd entered the tomb, and significantly more charred – solved the puzzle with a loud click.

  "Finally!" said the lead nasty elf wizard Caprifeixa had met earlier, and hadn't liked, throwing up her hands as with a grinding sound a metal sarcophagus rose from the ground.

  "Now do we kill them?" asked Caprifexia.

  "There are still a lot of them," whispered Einar as the elves began trying to open the large metal box. "If that letter was right, there might be a vampire in there – one not too pleased to see them. We should ambush them once they've opened it and are dealing with the vampire."

  "You know Einar, that isn't actually a totally terrible idea for once – I'm impressed," said Caprifexia kindly.

  "Gee, thanks," said Einar, carefully drawing his enchanted sword. "So what's the plan of attack?"

  "We-" began Caprifexia.

  "The small dragon is not allowed to make plans," said J'zargo firmly. "Not after that last disaster. Or the one before that. Or the one before that."

  "Oh, so the cat is finally talking again?" asked Caprifexia, trying to ignore the pang of pain that accompanied the memory of the nasty-and-not-nice-at-all-Lich. "How novel. Have fun getting wet when you failed the puzzle?"

  "J'zargo is not a cat!"

  "Enough!" hissed Einar. "J'zargo, the plan?"

  "The angry and racist dragon should focus on keeping the troops busy," said the cat, who was the real angry dragon-hating racist. "J'zargo will deal with the wizard and then assist her."

  "No, I should fight the wizard, I'm better at magic and you're just a squishy mortal – you'll get hurt," said Caprifexia. "You deal with the minions."

  "The small dragon is deluded," said the delusional feline. "J'zargo is the greatest wizard in Skyrim-"

  "-if everyone else were dead, maybe – and even then, I'm not sure," said Caprifexia. "Remind me, which one of us can channel the most destructive force in the multiverse without going insane, and which one of us is on overgrown furball?"

  "And is rendered nearly comatose every time she does it," countered the cat. Wrongly.

  "Capri, just listen to him," said Einar in a pained voice. "You're record isn't exactly that rosy right now, is it?"

  Caprifexia felt another stab of shame as she was reminded of her minor and totally understandable error with the not-friendly-Lich, and looked at the ground.

  "Fine," she said, rubbing above her heart to try and stop the ache.

  "When vampire attacks, J'zargo will launch an attack upon the wizard," said J'zargo. "The small dragon will then attack the soldiers from above; in that order. Einar, you will stay here with J'zargo and fight off any elves that get close. Simple, yes?"

  "That's what I was going to say anyway," muttered Caprifexia, shifting into her true form and flapping high into the shadows above the elves, watching as the elves beneath began prying the metal box apart with the hafts of their glaives.

  The two elven soldiers beat a swift retreat as the hinges finally gave, and a pale looking mortal in fancy clothes stumbled forward, a large scroll cylinder strapped to her back and a sword that looked very similar to Einar's new one at her hip.

  "Ugh," said the vampire, opening her blood red eyes and looking over the elves as she rubbed her forehead. "You're not my mother."

  "Thankfully," sneered the wizard elf, conjuring a fireball. "The Lady says you're not needed for her ritual, so we happily don't need to listen to your prattling father's pitiful requests to 'spare you.' It will be so good when we're finally rid of you disgusting lampreys; working with you has been revolting."

  The elf wizard might have been a villain, but Caprifexia had to admit she was right – undead were disgusting. Creepy, duplicitous, pallid, maggot infested monsters that tricked good hearted and immensely intelligent and heroic dragons into accidentally doing bad things.

  "I have no idea who you are dealing with," said the vampire, drawing her blade and summoning a ball of entropic crimson energy to her fist. "But you've made a mistake if you think I'll go down easy."

  The elven troops levelled their glaives at the undead, and was just about to charge her when Caprifexia swooped downward, spewing dragonfire and hurling lightning from her talons, injuring three of the elves before they realised they were under attack.

  The vampire may have probably had a rotten brain, but apparently she wasn't stupid, and capitalised on Caprifexia's distraction, her vampiric form almost blurring as she streaked across the room, inside the guard of a reeling elf, and cut one of the pointy eared mortals clean in half.

  Of course, if there was a tally to be kept of villainous foes slain, that was clearly one of Caprifexia's, since she had created the opportunity with her magnificent ambush.

  Unfortunately J'zargo was, as usual, the weak link in the chain, and the elven wizard – that he had insisted was his responsibility – launched a huge blast of telekinesis at Caprifexia that even with a hasty shield sent the small, heroic dragon careening across the room and smashing into the hard stone steps across from where she had entered.

  Caprifexia's world swam as she rolled over, shaking her head and gasping for breath as she tried to regain her focus. Across the room she heard the cat attack with some kind of feline war-cry as more elves screamed and died beneath the blade and spells of the quite worryingly powerful vampire.

  Caprifexia flared her wins, and tried to take back to the air, but her right wing wasn't moving properly, and all she managed was a brief wobbly glide before the pain forced her back to the ground.

  Cursing she shifted into her elven form, which was battered but functional, hurling a bolt of lightning at an elf who was trying to flank the vampire. The elf managed to shield, although her spellwork was pretty shoddy, and she still got zapped a bit. Unfortunately, Caprifexia drew her attention, and that of two of her fellows, who narrowed their yellow eyes at her small horned elven form and broke off from the others, advancing with weapons crackling with fire, frost, and lightning.

  Caprifexia gulped as she realised that her go-to response in such a situation, flying away and bombarding the mortals from the air, wasn't going to work, and that she was going to have to fight like… like a pathetic biped.

  Normally, of course, she wouldn't find have found the prospect of facing three silly little elves with sharp sticks daunting, but the foolish cat had gotten her injured by not playing his part of his equally foolish plan, and she was, totally understandably, still feeling a little rattled by her titanic battle against the Lich, and the tangential role she had played in the death of all those innocent mortals.

  She also hadn't slept that well, thanks to Einar's snoring. Her breakfast might also not have agreed with her. Yes, normally she wouldn't have been daunted at all to simply obliterate them…

  Oh, and of course as a black dragon she knew that brute force was seldom the most efficient way to win. Yes, she would be clever, not act like the overgrown house pet currently duelling the wizard and doing a much worse job of it than she would have. Really, even if she'd been at full capacity she'd have done the same thing.

  Caprifexia threw a blast of fire, designed to be obscuring and smokey rather than destructive, before turning and tactically retreating further up the amphitheatre at a quick hobble, limping from where her injuries had transferred over, and letting out a dragonly roar that certainly sounded nothing like a frightened scream.

  The elves, who unfortunately seemed to have taken her lightning bolt personally gave chase as the smoke cleared, throwing their own far less elegant and well crafted magic at her. Fire and ice and lightning crashed around her as she ducked behind a stone bench and hurriedly put her hand to the ground, sending out a pulse of lithomancy through the masonry that altered the stairs she had been running up into a steep ramp.

  "Hah!" she declared triumphantly as the elves slipped and fell, tumbling back down to the bottom level of the amphitheatre, one of them landing awkwardly and breaking their leg with an audible snap and a pathetic mortal scream. "You are no match for-"

  She was cut off as bolt of lightning blew up the bench she was using as a shield, opening several deep cuts on her right cheek. Her blood hissed and spluttered as it fell to the cold, dirty rock, and she let out another heroic roar as she crawled away and staggered to her feet, throwing a fireball more or less at random at the two remaining irritatingly persistent elves, who were already scrabbling their way up after her.

  The fireball missed the elves, but managed to hit one of the benches, shattering it and felling another of the elves as the razor-sharp shards of stone tore into their face and neck.

  Which had been what she'd planned. Obviously.

  The last elf, however, was more devious than the rest, and they reached the same level of the tiered amphitheatre as Caprifexia a few moments later, shielding Caprifexia's follow up blast of magic.

  "I'll enjoy gutting you, traitor," said the female soldier, grinning and running a thumb over the blade of her weapon. "I'll- hey, come back here!"

  Caprifexia didn't listen to the nasty-elf, and was already running, pausing only to pick up one of the benches with her draconically strengthened muscles and throw it at the elf.

  Unfortunately, while Caprifexia was many things, practised at throwing things around manually – like a primitive mortal – was not one of them, and it went several meters wide, hurtling down into the central area and hitting the vampire it the back, sending them tumbling toward the edge of the ravine.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Caprifexia felt a moment of unease at having accidentally, if totally understandably, hit one of her allies, before remembering that despite their temporary alliance the vampire woman was an undead monster, and the 'Friendly Lich Rule' needed to be remembered and respected and enforced ruthlessly to avoid another unfortunate 'Vigilants incident.' Yes, once she dealt with the armoured elf, then she'd deal with the vampire. She'd thrown the bench to set things up to be easier in the future. It was forward planning. Clearly.

  Caprifexia was wrenched from her heroic machinations by the closing elf, and gave a third fearsome yelp as a shard of ice shattered above her head and coated her in sharp, freezing crystals, which opened more cuts on her face and neck. She turned back to the elf, just in time to duck under the blade of the elves weapon, which whistled through the air and cut deep into the masonry above her head.

  The young dragon didn't really know much about mortal pointy stick fighting, but she knew the basics: you hit the villain until they died, and didn't get hit yourself. Easy. To that end, Caprifexia grabbed the haft of the stuck glaive and pulled it from the elves' grasp, surprising the pale faced villain with her sudden strength.

  Caprifexia shifted her grip to the end of the weapon, where her mathematical genius told her she'd have the best leverage, rather than copying the elf's silly centralised grip, and swung the incredibly unweildy and poorly designed weapon at the elf. The mortal danced back out of range, drawing out a dagger from their boot and narrowing their eyes, but not moving to immediately attack.

  She swung again, but the elf did some kind of strange block thing, which was clearly cheating, and the weapon slipped from the Caprifexia's grasp and clattered down toward the centre of the amphitheatre.

  "Time to die, traitor," said the elf, lunging straight for Caprifex'a heart with her dagger.

  Caprifexia yelped and managed to catch the elf's hands, locking the dagger against the pointy eared mortal's gaudy armour as they fell to the ground together. They rolled a few times, before the elf managed to get on top. The position didn't really help her move the dagger, however, since even with her leverage and more experience in pathetically embarrassing forms of mortal fighting, Caprifexia was still stronger.

  Unfortunately for the elf, while Caprifexia might have been injured from the cat's irresponsible deviation from the plan, and might have not really known the sharp end of a dagger from the hilt, there was one other major advantage that dragons in mortal guises had apart from their strength in such a situation.

  She hadn't been able to manage it when she was smaller, but she'd grown significantly since becoming a Planeswalker, and her inner furnace burned far hotter.

  The elf froze as Caprifexia opened her mouth, sparks dancing at the back of her throat, and had just enough time to scream before dragonfire roared past Caprifexia's unusually sharp mortal-like teeth and straight into the elf's ugly villainous face.

  The elf slumped against her moments later, and Caprifexia wrinkled her nose as she pushed the heavy armoured and smoking mortal off her. Standing, Caprifexia brushed herself off triumphantly, taking a moment to bask in her heroic, flawless victory.

  Back toward the centre of the amphitheatre the other nasty elves had been dealt with, which was good, but unfortunately her noodle brained companion's were standing impassively a few meters from the vampire, which was very bad. It was too far away to clearly make out the words, but she was an expert on mortal behaviours, and could tell from their body language that something was wrong – that they were clearly enthralled by the villainous undead.

  A brief stab of panic raced through Caprifexia as the vampire laughed and shook Einar's hand. Caprifexia cursed herself for having got so far away from her gullible mortal companions. She had failed the Viglants of Standing, but she wouldn't fail her friend, or, she supposed, the mean and grumpy and horrible and mean cat.

  Caprifexia summoned up her will and power as the vampire let go of Einar and turned toward the ravine, stooping down toward where the Elder Scroll had fallen – probably when the vampire had clumsily been knocked down for totally un-Caprifexia related reasons.

  Blinking was the magical art of bending space-time and moving between two points more or less instantaneously. It was related to teleportation, but limited to line of sight, and far easier. Although it was still not something Caprifexia was especially familiar with, since usually she more than manoeuvrable enough in her true form to avoid wasting so much power on compensating for a mortal's inferior ability to move around a battlefield.

  She did, however, of course, know how to do it, and as the vampire came to a stop and stooped for the scroll the world bent around Caprifexia, who disappeared from where she was standing and emerged in a shimmer of light behind the villainous undead a moment later.

  Her foot lashed out as soon as she materialised, catching the bloodsucker in the small of the back and sending her flying out over the subterranean ravine.

  The vampire managed to turn as their sideways momentum gave way to downward, and Caprifexia had just enough time to see a look of incredulity turning to fury before the undead vanished from view, a howl of outrage echoing upward a moment later. The scream was cut off almost five seconds later by a loud splash, and was then followed by a lot of faint swearing.

  Apparently vampire's could survive very long falls.

  "Hah! Take that villain!" grinned Caprifexia, propping a foot against a boulder and grinning down into the darkness triumphantly. "Bet you wish you could fly, but you can't, because you're just a silly walking corpse! Whereas I, Caprifexia the Amazing-"

  "What. The. Fuck!?" yelled Einar, interrupting her heroic monologue and rushing to the edge of the ravine and looking down. "Why did you do that!?"

  Caprifexia blinked at him in confusion, even her brilliant mind taking a few moments to process the sheer madness of Einar telling her off for saving him from a vampire. Again.

  "You mortals are infuriating! I just saved you, and what thanks do I get? None!" yelled Caprifexia, reaching down and grabbing the Elder Scroll.

  As soon as her fingers closed on the casing a crackle of static electricity zapped her hand, the amphitheatre rang with three chimes once more – louder this time.

  "I've got it… try the third form…"

  "There! The chimes again! And voices!" she said, whirring around to where she heard the noise. "Did you hear that? Even you must have-"

  "For the last time, there's nothing there! Stop changing the subject!" yelled Einar, jabbing a finger at the ravine and ignoring Caprifexia's clearly more important concerns. "She was going to be on our side! She helped us defeat the Thalmor! She didn't want them or her father to get the Scroll! You just kicked her off a cliff for literally no reason! Why do you keep doing this!?"

  "Huh?" said Caprifexia, turning her attention back to him. "No, she's a vampire, and therefore an evil villain. Look, that doesn't matter, the chimes-"

  "A vampire literally saved your life on that other Plane," shouted Einar. "You've been reading the books Soren-"

  "-Sorbet-"

  "-that Soren lent you for the past two weeks!"

  "But she was a vampire," repeated Caprifexia, stamping her foot as anger began to bubble up in her breast. "A vampire!"

  She was getting sick of the rules constantly changing: don't burn that person Caprifexia, burn that person Caprifexia; don't steal that woman's handbag Caprifexia, help me steal this ridiculous axe Caprifexia; don't call J'zargo a cat Caprifexia, even though he clearly is a cat Caprifexia; don't set Liches free so they can murder people, don't kick this vampire off a cliff because I say so Caprifexia.

  "Fucking hell Capri," said Einar, taking a deep breath before leaning over the edge and calling down. "Serana? Caprifexia's really sorry for kicking you off the edge – are you OK?"

  "I'll kill you, you duplicitous horned elven harlot!" came the faint voice of the allegedly 'not evil,' but very, very angry vampire.

  "How was I supposed to know she was an exception to the Friendly Lich rule!?" said Caprifexia throwing up her hands in disgust. "You can't keep on making up new criteria for heroism whenever you like; I know you mortals are cognitively challenged, but consistency is a core component of being rational."

  "What in Oblivion is the 'Friendly Lich rule?'" said Einar in an equally exasperated, but far less justified, voice.

  "That undead monsters are villains even if they're acting nice," she explained. "I thought she was tricking you – your noodly mortal brains are terribly susceptible to mind magic after all."

  "I know what that feels like now, she wasn't doing it," said Einar.

  "J'zargo's mind is not noodly either," said the cat, denying objective fact as he peered over the edge. "J'zargo thinks, however, that since the vampire is now very angry, we should leave before she climbs back up."

  "I'll rip out your heart, and shove it down your throat!" came the voice of the still angry vampire.

  "Good idea. Maybe another Plane?" suggested Einar with a half-laugh.

  Despite the fact that Caprifexia could obviously defeat the vampire again as easily as she had the first time, that would be tedious, so with a nod she raised a slightly battered hand, her body beginning to glow gold as she drew on her Spark and used it to will apart reality.

  There was a keening sound, and a few hairline cracks of golden light appeared in front of her. Before a portal could fully form, however, the Elder Scroll in her grasp screamed in protest and unleashed another sharp zap of energy, destabilising Caprifexia's spell and knocking her over with the magical backlash.

  Once again, the three chimes rang out, this time almost deafeningly, and for the first time accompanied by clear voices.

  "There. That's the point!" said an unseen woman. "The energy spike, can you use it as an anchor?"

  "Capri? You OK? What's going on?" asked Einar.

  "I can't… I can't do it," said Caprifexia, alarmed. "It's like when we were in those disgusting ruins, next to that orb! I'm being blocked! The Chimes are blocking me!"

  "It isn't the dragon's hallucinations, it is the Scroll," said J'zargo, pointing at the rolled object grasped in Caprifexia's hands. "It is a fundamental part of Nirn – it must be reinforcing reality around it, preventing the ridiculous dragon opening a portal into the Void."

  Caprifexia had to admit that sometimes the cat wasn't entirely foolish – for a mortal. Although he was the ridiculous one, clearly.

  "I'll rip off your horns and skin you with them!" came the vampire's voice, closer this time. "I'll make regret ever being-"

  Whatever vicious and villainous thing the allegedly-not-evil vampire had been about to say was cut off, however, as colour suddenly bled from the world and the roar of the waterfall which had been omnipresent since they'd entered the cavern suddenly cut off, leaving an eerie silence.

  Caprifexia pushed herself up off the ground, frowning at J'zargo and Einar, who appeared as slightly coloured, slightly blurry objects. Her own form looked normal, with all the proper colours and movement it should have had, naturally, although she didn't really know why the Elder Scroll was glowing a strange iridescent colour.

  "This is futile, there's nothing here," came a male voice from behind her. "You know we can't directly affect the Fractures – it's been tried!"

  Caprifexia whirred around, growling at two figures who had suddenly appeared, male and female mortals dressed in cream coloured robes trimmed in a red and white pattern. The man looked somewhat like the nasty Thalmor elves (Antmer, maybe?) while the woman was shorter and human-looking, with two long braids extending outward from either side of her hood. Einar would probably have known where she was from, although there were far too many inconsequential mortal races on Nirn for Caprifexia to be sure of exactly what sub category she was part of.

  "No – I heard something," said the woman, peering around from under her hood. "The Lesser Fracture is here. I'm sure of it."

  "Lesser Fracture?" said Caprifexia. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"

  "See! I told you Tandil!" said the woman, staring straight through where Caprifexia was. "The Fractures are para-causal, but still affect the world around them! We can hear them!"

  "I demand you answer me!" spat Caprifexia, conjuring fire. "Who are you! What have you done to my friends?"

  "You friends?" said the woman, looking at J'zargo and Einar. "Oh, look at that – they're partially out of sync. Fascinating, I wonder why-"

  "This isn't the time to indulge in your excessive curiosity Lomeria, we have limited time," snapped Tandil, looking vaguely toward where Caprifexia was. "Fracture – I don't know who or what you are, but you need to stop what you're doing."

  "'Fracture?'" said Caprifexia. "I am not a 'Fracture.' My name is Caprifexia, Saviour of the Multiverse-"

  "Saviour!?" said the man in disbelief. "You're destroying Nirn! You somehow removed the Dragonborn from the Kalpa! You were there when the Eye of Magnus vanished! When Windhelm was erased! How can you possibly think yourself a saviour!?"

  "The proto-drake born died in a tragic Void related accident that I was only tangentially related to, and honestly, they put their fingers under my boots," explained Caprifexia. "And I have no idea what you're talking about – Windhelm was already under attack by Void creatures when I arrived. That's very unfair for you to accuse me of such things. You're mean. I don't like you."

  "What is a proto-drake?" asked the woman.

  "The so-called dragons of this world," said Caprifexia. "Which is ridiculous, since they have only two legs. Real dragons have four."

  "Wait, what-"

  "Lomeria! Focus!" said the man.

  "What about the 'Void Creatures,'" asked the woman, ignoring her gibbering companion – who reminded Caprifexia somewhat of Einar; a certain whingy tenor to his voice…

  "The Faceless that attacked Windhelm – the Void Tear was open when I arrived," said Caprifexia. "I certainly didn't cause it."

  "So you know what these creatures are?" asked Lomeria. "These 'Faceless?'"

  "Of course," said Caprifexia. "Abominations from the Void between worlds."

  "Like you?" asked Lomeria.

  "What? No – if I were a Faceless, you'd be insane by now," said Caprifexia. "I am a mighty dragon of Azeroth, Queen of the Black Dragonflight even! A real dragon. I have four legs, like a proper-"

  "So if she didn't open this 'Void Tear,' then it must have been the other fracture," said the woman, cutting off Caprifexia's attempt to educate her. "Caprifexia, yes? Do you know who it was? The one who opened the Tear?"

  "What?" said Caprifexia irritably. Now she'd lost her train of thought about proto-drakes and dragons. "Of course not, no – if I knew that I would have killed them. Heroically. That's what I do. I'm a hero."

  "So you're opposed to whoever is opening these tears?" asked Lomaria.

  "Tears?" said Caprifexia. "There are more?"

  "Another was opened in Riften," said Tandil, glancing down at something she couldn't see. "From your perspective… three days ago. Another will be opened in a few hours in Whiterun."

  "'Perspective?'" said Caprifexia with a frown as she went back over the mortal's yapping in the mind, throwing up her hands in disgust as she realised what was going on. "Oh don't tell me you fools are messing with time! Honestly, why is it that mortals always think they can just dip in and out of the time-stream without repercussions? Your tiny minds are not designed to understand non-linear causality!"

  "That isn't the issue," said Lomaria. "Listen, if you're not trying to destroy the world, we need your help-"

  "Lomaria, she's part of the reason we're in this mess!" said Tandil.

  "And unless we change something Akatosh dies," said Lomaria, anger entering her voice for the first time. "We've tried everything else, and we know she isn't bound by Fate."

  "We still can implement the Master's plan," said Tandil. "Intervene directly."

  "The Psijic order have never been fighters, and whatever the Major Fracture is, it is unlike anything this world has ever known – you know as well as I do that it is almost certainly suicide," said Lomaria. "We need her help."

  Tandil huffed, before shrugging. "Fine," he said.

  "Listen Caprifexia, we don't have a lot of time-" said Lomaria.

  "You shouldn't have any!" yelled Caprifexia, stomping her feet. "Time travel is dangerous-"

  "Whatever it is you are, there is another like you on Nirn," said Lomaria, interrupting her and demonstrating the depressingly common lack of manners so characteristic of mortals. "We can't see them properly, and neither can the Gods – it's like you're… invisible, moving from place to place, upsetting the delicate balance of the tapestry of Time.

  "The other one has been here a lot longer than you have, years and years, and the damage they've caused in the Kalpa, the cycle of time, has been getting worse and worse, and it leads to a point of total collapse – the death of Akatosh and Magnus."

  "And for those of us who don't pay attention to such meaningless minutia… what's an Akatosh?" asked Caprifexia.

  "The Dragon-god of Time!" said Tandil, pressing the balls of his palms into his face.

  "Ah yes, Einar's mentioned them; you mean the proto-drake SABIGISMF," said Caprifexia, correcting his silly superstition. "Well they probably deserve to die – messing with time is incredibly foolish. You'll be better off without them."

  "The Sabig-what?" asked Lomaria.

  "A 'Sufficiently Advanced Being that is Indistinguishable from a God to Idiotic and Superstitious Mortal Fools,'" explained Caprifexia. "It's a dragonym. Gods don't exist."

  The two time-wrecking mortals looked at each other with confusion for a moment, before the elven mad made some kind of strangled cry and walked away, disappearing a moment later.

  "I see…" said Lomaria, glancing after her departed companion. "Look, what you call them isn't important, but what is is that they are essential to the continuing existence of not only Mundus, but Aetherias and Oblivion as well. We don't know precisely how, and we don't know why, but whoever or whatever the Major Fracture is, they kill Akatosh and Magnus a month and a half from when you are, at High Hrothgar, at the time-rift atop the Throat of the World. Beyond that? We don't know for sure. Time begins to unravel, the Cycle breaks, and all we can see is fire and death and emptiness."

  "Time isn't something you can just 'read,'" said Caprifexia, crossing her arms. "You're probably wrong; or causing it with your totally irresponsible use of magic."

  "The Psijic Order, that's us, is mobilising to try and stop them directly, but I don't know if we'll succeed," continued Lomaria, rudely ignoring Caprifexia once again. "Listen, you're in Dimhollow Crypt, yes? Have you met Serana?"

  "Serana?" said Caprifexia, scratching her horn and trying to recall all the annoyingly non-standardised and complicated mortal names she was constantly bombarded with and then expected to remember. "No, I don't think so."

  "She's a vampire-"

  "Oh, yes – I just kicked her into a ravine," nodded Caprifexia. "Filthy Villainous Vampire. Don't worry, I've dealt with them, they shan't threaten any of you feeble mortals anymore! My friends weren't happy with my amazing heroism – but then again, they never are."

  Lomaria put her head in her hands and said several very crude things very loudly.

  "Serana is very important!" said the woman in an angry voice once she had recovered somewhat from her tantrum, balling her hands into fists. "In the normal timeline, before you Fractures came along and fucked it up, she finds the Bow of Auriel with the Dragonborn – who you somehow annihilated – and together they stop the Black Sun."

  "The what Sun?" asked Caprifexia.

  "The Volkihar Vampire's plot to blind Akatosh and usher in eternal night!" said Lomaria in an exasperated voice, as if Caprifexia was somehow supposed to know every ridiculous little villainous plot on their ridiculous little world.

  Caprifexia snorted. "Well that's absurd – the filthy, disgusting, revolting, bloodsuckers need mortal blood to live, how would the mortals grow crops to survive themselves? They really do have rotten brains-"

  "Will you shut up and listen!?" said Lomaria, pulling at the braids under her hood. "Serana is vital, we know that the Major Fracture gets the bow at some point. I don't know if that's what they use to kill Akatosh – although it might be, since They created it… Look, if you really want to help us, help this world, you need to get that bow and keep it away from the Major Fracture any way you can. For that you need Serana. Probably."

  "Err?" said Caprifexia, glancing down the ravine and pulling on her coat's collar. "Are you… sure we need the horrible, nasty, probably-villainous, vampire?"

  "Yes," said Lomaria., "Well, no, not sure – your very existence on Nirn changes everything around you. But normally she is key to finding the bow somewhere just to the west of Haafingar Peak."

  Caprifexia cleared her throat. "She may not be… entirely amenable to working with me."

  "What? Oh, right, of course, you kicked her off…" said Lomaria, glaring over to the ravine as she massaged her temples. "OK, OK – I can fix this. You're para-causal, and you have an Elder Scroll, which means that I can use it as an anchor, which I can then use to and move time back in this area, and because you're a Fracture, you won't be affected, and you'll retain your memories…"

  "Absolutely not. Mortals shouldn't mess with time," said Caprifexia, crossing her arms. "You're not capable of the cognitive reasoning required to do it correctly. No, I forbid it!"

  "Time is already messed with!" yelled Lomaria insolently. "I'm moving things back. Just don't kick her off again, for the love of Mara…"

  "Don't you listen!? I said this is a very bad idea," repeated Caprifexia, stomping her foot. "Mortals shouldn't-"

  Before Caprifexia could finish explaining in detail to the silly mortal that time wasn't something to be played with, again, the world around her shifted. Behind her the roar of the waterfall played back in reverse, the water rushing back up the way it had came as colour bled back into the world. A few moment's later the very angry, and then very surprised vampire soared out of the ravine and landed on the edge in front of Caprifexia, moving backwards until they were stooping down where the Elder Scroll had been.

  There was a brief moment of stillness and quiet as the reversal slowed back down, and the three Chimes sounded as time suddenly resumed it's usual flow.

  "Argh!" said Einar and J'zargo, simultaneously doubling over and cradling their heads.

  "What the?" said the vampire, blinking down at where the Elder Scroll had been before turning to Caprifexia and frowning. "How did…"

  "Idiots!" spat Caprifexia, throwing the Elder Scroll at the 'apparently-not-evil' vampire who she apparently wasn't allowed to kick into the ravine.

  "What's going on?" demanded the stroppy vampire as she caught the Scroll. "How did you get across the room? Why are Einar and J'zargo in different places?"

  "Because stupid mortals are playing with time!" shouted Caprifexia, jabbing a finger at where Lomaria had been. "You hear me, you stupid mortals!? You're stupid! You're primitive monkeys playing with forces you don't understand! You know, the blues were really onto something with the whole Nexus War, mortals shouldn't be allowed to wield-"

  "Capri, what's going on – why does my head feel like it's been run over by a horse?" asked Einar from where he was doubled over, massaging his temples.

  "I told you, you stupid mortal; there are stupid mortals are playing with time!" raged Caprifexia, blowing up a particularly impudent looking rock with a blast of angry lightning. "That's what the chimes were! Stupid, loud, ante-causal… time-chimes!"

  "'Time… chimes?'" asked the vampire, looking at Einar.

  "Don't look at me," said Einar with a shrug. "Capri is sometimes, err, 'hard to follow.'"

  "'Oh look at me, I'm a mortal, let's play with time magic even though my tiny mortal brain is too small to comprehend non-linear causality! Oops I broke it!'" said Caprifexia, ignoring their inane twitter. "Ugh, and they've probably created a paradox! Perfect."

  "Is she… always like this?" asked Serana, looking askance at Einar and J'zargo.

  "Yes," groaned J'zargo, cradling his furry head between his paws. "Always."

  "Capri, please tell us what's going on," said Einar. "Why are you ranting about time magic?"

  "Because some fools meddled with time to tell me a bunch of nonsense," huffed Caprifexia. "They undid me kicking the vampire off the ravine! Do you realise how irresponsible that is? No – of course you don't, you're just a mortal! Like them!"

  "Hold on, undid what?" said Serana.

  "What 'nonsense?'" asked Einar. "Capri, remember how we talked about the need to be specific?"

  "Something about the world ending in a month and a half. Allegedly, anyway," said Caprifexia, waving her hand. "Amanosh and Mangoes dying. I don't know, it doesn't matter, what matters is that mortals are meddling with time; they're probably the ones who caused the whole alleged problem in the first place-"

  "The 'world ending in a month and a half!?'" said Einar in his hysterical high pitched voice. "You didn't lead with that!? No, stop. Start at the beginning, and explain everything."