FLESH ATRONACH | Breton merchants trekking the path from Daggerfall had warned us not to stray on the moors. This barren plateau of stunted bush and windswept grass was the domain of bandits… and worse. Thick fog could descend and steal our sense of direction. Craggy fissures could appear underfoot, twisting ankles and lengthening our travels. But none of this hindered our weathered crowd. Our only bewilderment occurred as a huge, hunched shape appeared across the heather: Roaming on the Rivenspire moors, a giant, sewn together from the skin and pelts of man and mer.

Jaundiced hues of yellows and grays over a rough bones structure, taller than an ogre, and almost the height of a giant, were its shoulder not so hunched and misshapen. Strange runes carved into the hide, perhaps to help seal the rather rudimentary stitchwork. The head was almost an afterthought, a chinless tapestry of skin draped over an old skull, eyes fastened shut, tongue lolling out of a jawless mouth. Thick spines covered the back, and shackled ankles told the story of servitude. Strange, glowing spots of red, pulsing behind the taut skin (glands of some sort?), added further blemishes to an already disfigured body. But the most startling mutilation was the atrocity’s arms, sculpted into primitive tools of bloodshed—one armed fused into a huge, four-pronged claw, the other into an elongated and bulging club of spikes and skin. A revolting carbuncle of dead flesh, an affront to the natural order, and to Kyne.

Bashnag’s bravery was not in question as he felt the brunt of the flesh atronach. He managed a couple of strong connections to the beast’s knee, hobbling it slightly as the atronach finished its lumbering turn to face him. A dodge more deft than the Orc’s usual dexterity allowed meant the atronach’s twisting, stabbing claw was caught in Bashnag’s mace and thrust back at the horror. It was the atronach’s second attack that did the damage; Bashnag was cut, and quickly set alight as a throbbing in the beast’s claw hand manifested into a blast of magical fire. The Orc staggered back, clutching his face. This gave the flesh atronach an opening, raising its unyielding mace above its head, tendons flexing as the skin grew tight around the arm weapon; before it was brought down with such savagery, we believed the Orc was split apart.

Bashnag’s breast plate was torn off, and a deep ditch gashed into his chest. Perhaps it was the first time the Orc had felt a strike so similar to his own destructive methods. But he didn’t like it. Blood frothing from the mouth and wounds, Bashnag brought his own mace into the fray with a retaliatory strike for the ages. It caught the atronach squarely in the face, pushing the skull so far into the beast’s body, Fenrig swore he saw it bulge out of its back. Although menial, the head still controlled the mechanism of this foe, and it had been crushed into a pulpy mash (with such ferocity that it caused astonishment among the others). The atronach lurched and dropped into the heather, its Daedric spirit banished.

Perhaps only Molag Bal’s own maxe was capable of bettering Bashnag’s.