Jump #1029: Elder Scrolls Online, daedra drama island

[Jump #1029: Elder Scrolls Online]

Drawbacks: L50 CP160 +200, Wormfather's Ire, Circular Logic (1600)

Rolled Davon's Watch, Stonefall

Altmer, Templar, Psijic Order, age 17

Mace Etiquette: Two-Handed (Free)
Clerical Work (Free)
Stendarr's Chosen (1500)
Bona Fide Sanctified: Auri-El (1300)
False Dawn (1000)
Arcanex Annulations (400)
Meditation (Free)
Adjunct Ritemaster (300)
Temporal Master (150)
Charmed Crystal Decanter (Free)
Baelborn Signet Ring (Free)
Psijic Robes (Free)
Psijic Ambrosia Recipe (50)
Twelve Moons Sweet-Box (0)

You know, the funny thing is? I thought this was going to be a nice, restful decade. But as I headed into town, I came upon my 3 favorite Daedric Princes in a huddle.

>Meridia: "Tell him!"
>Nocturnal: "NO! He's going to hate it!"
>Azura: "If YOU don't tell him, I WILL. We all want to get into that damned tower, but working at cross purposes won't help!"
>Meridia: "Hey, leave me out of this! I just want to defeat Molag Bal for justice andbecausehecooptedoneofmyfollowers"
>Nocturnal: "I've been planning for this for too long, I can't just give up now!"

And then, Nocturnal jumped out of the huddle and shouted "FOOLISH JUMPER, MY TIME COMES ANEW! I SHALL ASCEND THE TOWER CRYSTAL-LIKE-LAW WITH A DARK SPELL I just figured out the true potential of AND USE IT TO CONSUME ALL EXISTENCE!"

And I was like, "Kay"

And she was like "Really? I...thought you'd be more upset. You were more upset about Slenderman Columbine"

And I was like "I feel like you're really underselling Slenderman Columbine here. Listen, this is a thousand years from before when I first came here right? Do you know what that means? It means that /I can invent the sweetroll before anyone else does/"

"...I think someone already has"

"Oh"

"..."

"..."

"Want some mana for the road?"

"I! You! We're in public! And this is a deadly serious apocalypse that is completely in accord with my goals and values, and not an impulsive, poorly thought out act of pique! I-i-I don't have to stand here and have my master scheme not be taken seriously! HMPH!". As she bolted for the horizon, Azura followed hot on her heels.

"Anon, wait!" shouted Meridia, hurrying to catch up. "Molag Bal's going to invade, be my champion and stop him!"

"The sweetroll thing is more important. Trust me on this"

"Why? Why sweetrolls?! You're a cosmic tyrant! You should be cosmically tyrannizing the land! Which is marginally closer to what I want you to do than baking!"

"Meridia, if I've learned anything about being royalty, it's that no true ruler would cling to proper form if that wasn't what they wanted to do"

...I ended up going back in time to make sure I invented the sweetroll first. But it's the thought that counts.

(Cont'd)

And Azura? Azura was just wringing her hands as she realised her prophecies were now a mess. She commandeered the nearest cartographer's guild, and then the sounds of magical scribbling were heard for 30 days and 30 nights, and then the sound of sobbing was heard while temples of Azura were found mysteriously plastered with post-it notes.

Months past. The Daedric invasion was delayed by two other Daedric Princes colliding into and around it. A small town bakery became an unofficial Psijic Order sanctum became a chain franchise became the first business on Nirn to colonise the moon with really, really drugged out Khajits. I had to quash rumors that one of our cookbooks held the power of an Elder Scroll, because the sweetrolls were too delicious to be real. Such allegations were UNTRUE.

"You are clearly up to something. I only wish that something was defeating Molag Bal" said Meridia to me one day.

"I'm trying to monopolize the sweetroll" I replied.

"You're not disagreeing. And I suppose the modified Evangelion unit you've hidden under your bakery is there to help you make sweetrolls? Why can't you just find the Amulet of Kings, and battle Molag Bal like a normal person?!"

"You mean this thing?"

"...right, I keep forgetting about your stupid fortune geas arsenal. I had a whole bit set up, you know. I was going to dress up as, as a mysterious gravedigger or something, and give you quests to unite the world, and then you'd meet this guy I'd know, and he'd do this Super Saiyan God ritual and IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE STUFF OF LEGENDS BUT NO. NO, you just had to go and bake sweet rolls-"

"Did you know Abnur Tharn is a fuck who's going to try to make himself into a Dragonborn?"

"HOW DARE HE DEFY ME. Fine! Fine, I'll help you do it your way, stupid Abnur, having ulterior motives..." she grumbled,

It was said later that one of my sponsors was The Veiled Queen herself, as the Veiled Heritance suddenly started pushing for sweetrolls to be the Altmer national dish. But the truth of such a rumor was FORBIDDEN.

(Cont'd)

And sometime after the Lady of Infinite Energies was seen personally defeating a renegade necromancer, I received a letter from the Clockwork City. From Sotha himself. As he said, according to his instruments we weren't due to meet for about a thousand years in a history that would never come, and he wanted to ask where exactly I stood, and as the Nerevarine what my relationship was to the all-consuming waves of darkness and twilight sweeping across the planes of oblivion. I said it sounded like Azura and Nocturnal were bumping into each other a lot trying to engulf all things.

As I told Sotha though, I'd long figured revenge for a sucker's game and I liked that he'd done something worthwhile with his godhood. And that's why I let him talk me into letting him in into my grand bakery scheme. Unlike the other two.

>Ayem: "False god! Heretic! Baker! By what right do we suffer your presence?!"
>*turning back, sets up Element X tuning fork"
>Ayem: "You may pretend to be a purveyor of sweetrolls, but I see through your machinations! What dread design have you brought into these hallowed halls?"
>*engages in lengthy philosophical debate with Sotha on the role of the Daedra in the cosmos, and tonal architectural applications in a Beyond manifold"
>Ayem: "Such hubris to shun divinity! The favor of your gods won't save you here!"
>*feeds Kirby Alpha energy so he can spit it into an amplifier made of hopes and dreams*
>Ayem: "NOTICE ME"
>"Begone, thot"

>Vehk: "So. Are we cool?"
>"Eh"
>Vehk: "I mean, what's a little poisoning between friends?"
>"Were we, Vivec? Were we ever friends?"
>Vehk: "Well, perhaps we were and perhaps we weren't"
>"Then perhaps I'll spoil your victory lap in due time, and do something you'll never be able to here"
>Vehk: "...it really is you, isn't it. Nerevar, this was supposed to be MY turn!"
>"Tell me. Is your House safe now?"

(Cont'd)

>A giant robot descends upon the Crystal Tower
>The sky ripples, and shimmers, like the innards of a great machine
>It's siren promise of order draws the radical Altmer to it
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiygsIFPtUk
>And so the most hateful of Mer were reforged as Walk-Eva's skin

The fighting in the Planes of Oblivion was reaching equilibrium. Meridia had improvised, leaping off the Crystal Tower herself to bodyslam Azura and Nocturnal as a rival all-the-things-subsumer, giving Molag Bal the opening he needed to finally slam Coldharbour into Nirn. Only to find a giant robot storming into Coldharbour.

"You seem familiar. Look at my mace" he purred, whipping out his hard, throbbing weapon. "So near my place of power, how can you even compete with such a HARD, ROUGH endowment? I almost feel sorry for you"

"Sorry for what?" I retorted, whipping out the Horsecock of +1 Devourlord Slaying and +3 Demonbinding. He let out a surprised, appreciative "Mmm!". "My Benefactor taught me never to be ashamed of my weapons. Especially when they're such a good size and all. And this, it gets bigger when I pull on it. Sometimes I pull on it so hard, I rip the skin"

"Finally! Finally, someone GETS IT! Well, I could reach you a few tricks. Like how not to rip the skin by using your opponent's mouth to store your milk finger"

"Oh? Care to show me?"

"Why, I'd be right happy to!"

The battle to save Nirn was intense. Passionate. One might even say...intimate. Molag Bal stood proud and shameless, trying to pound me with his throbbing length while growling sweet nothings. Yet each and every time, the flickering of my greasy handle snake around his defenses and he would rear back, shivering in anticipation as a stray flick brought the tip near sweaty Daedric lips. Or thighs. Or even armpits. The mace crashed at last against the entrance of my cockpit like a desperate man fracking for oil, and struck again from the pommel as Bal decided aft to aft action was the only way forward. His brutish, rough treatment quickly abated once he felt the perfect strength in my ego-thews, the ease with which I lifted and manhandled his bulk, the perfect escape of his embrace and the bitter frustration as the weight of my glory forced him into prostration. So true to his nature, he brought strife and discord, and clad in disgust clung to my mien while promising a night of unfamiliar appetites, pulsating with all the abstracted nightmares of Coldharbour. Yet anticipating this, the Style I'd prepared made it so it was never my god-machine's real entrance and as he snarled in confusion instead I took the God of Schemes from behind, striking him off balance into the gulf between worlds.

Again, and again we rolled through those uncharted planes, clasped in each other's embrace. My plasmic breath scorching his nape, his face twisted in an ecstatic snarl even as my firm hands forced his horns downward. Claws rent wounds in hide and metal, the beating of flesh on god-metal, on what may have been a dune we came upon someone filming the proceedings. It was Kiara. Thumbs up, grinning in approval, legs akimbo while making sure everything was on camera. Just as planned.

It was time. A thunderous climax was building, and the only question was who would bow out first. Bal had once again taken the high ground, but it was clear to all that for all his stamina was wanting. His demeanor noticeably flustered, impotent, impaled on the girthy tip I'd thrusted through him, his attempts to play it cool evaporating by the second.

"Say it" I said, still insatiable and collected in my purpose.

"I, I will not! Y-you think such an effort is w-w-worthy of a Daedric Prince's notice?! Many have come before me, and all must submit before the threshold of ultimate dominance! UGH!" he grunted, squirming uncomfortably.

"You'll get no release until you say it, you know" I said, enforcing gravity such that once again I was squatting upon him.

"NO!" he squeaked. "NO, I WANT YOU TO MAKE ME SAY IT! It's the least you can do if I never got to put it in!"

I understood. Adjusting me grip, I thrust one last time. He gasped, short and sharp. "Yes, that's the way. Even, even in compassion there's a...seed of domination. Never forget that. Now you. Are. Royalty"

With Nirn's invader gone, the moment of Amaranth was nigh. I reached out, and thought back to-

(thousands of years ago, when a friend called Emmett realized the power of both the Master Builder and the Master Breaker in a loop of fixed time. To a world made of Legos. To a world where everything was awesome)

(And not too long after, when a gravity warping girl met the sleeping creator of the world)

And much, much later three very confused Daedric Princes noticed that while engulfing Oblivion someone had built another plane of existence with the quality of LEGOs guarding Mundus and reaching into Aetherius. Hesitantly, they touched the barrier and noticed it's foreign glyphs permitted entrance but not violence. It was a realm of perfect order, and it's only inhabitants were some confused, happy former terrorist elf spirits, Sotha and myself making sure the gears turned on time.

"I never thought the solution would come so far outside my expertise" he confessed.

"Well, as you know Mundus is ultimately built on betrayal, usurpation and punishment yet the principle creative power is love" I explained. "So it stands to reason what's really missing from the chaos of Nirn, is a little unconditional love. Tell me, do you know why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?"

"No"

"Because there are sugary swirls in every bite. As beyond, so within. Every word in my cookbooks has a glyph in Old Realm that is a prayer for salvation, every sweetroll I've commissioned is an act of selfless generosity, every bakery I've opened a haven for the starving in a time of turmult-all to create a new dream without demolishing the old one. I even made sure to give the woman who would have invented the sweetroll a controlling interest in the Bakery of Worlds. Vivec thinks you should reach heaven through violence, but the thing is-the real violence is the friends you made along the way"

"It all makes sense now. I suppose it's only fair I see to showing the old world the merits of this one. Only the most violent Altmer chose our perfect machine, to them it's but a vast and unknowable omen"

"And it does have to be a choice. That's just how the mechanics of love works"

There was silence. Punctuated by the bickering of Daedric goddesses arguing over who among them obviously won by letting this happen now there was nothing left to engulf. "So why did you do it, anyway? Come now, let's not pretend this is like you" Meridia was saying, in a brief truce.

"Oh you're one to talk! You've always been good at the retribution game!" snapped Nocturnal. "Well if you have to know i-it's, it's because I'm tired of getting my stuff stolen! Mortals are always walking off with it, and my own followers never ever have it when they need it, and I have to pretend to be the mean tiger mom kind of Daedric Prince when I just want people to celebrate mysteries and do rogueish things! And nobody was there to help me, because I didn't know there were any interdimensional travellers at the time! WELL, LOOK WHOSE LAUGHING NOW. Oh. Oh no, hold my hair, I think I'm getting plane indigestion" she moaned.

"There, there" said Aqua soothingly, doing that. "We've all been there. Look on the bright side! Your puke's probably harder to see than mine!"

"Well, all's well that ends well! Come on, let's look on the bright side!" said Azura brightly, throwing away a pile of parchment. "Technically my prophecies can't be wrong as long as Nerevarine shows the Dunmer they made a mistake in the end, and taking up the role of a new impossibly coexistent godhead counts in my book! So I was right! I was right all along! I will always BE right!"

"I'm sorry" said Sotha.

"Eh?"

"I never did get to tell you. I always forget these things. Vehk never will because he's too proud of choosing his own destiny to begin with and Ayem never will because she needs love almost as much as he, but whether you're Nerevar yet or not I just wanted you to know I did what I did because I saw an opportunity to complete my work I knew I would never find again in my lifetime. And that I had to weigh your life against the salvation of Nirn. I won't ask for forgiveness, but I want you to know. If there had been any other way. And that...I am grateful you see it was worth it in the end"

"I've done worse in my time, Sotha. We've all changed. All we can do now, is make it worthwhile"

>FIN