Dragonborn Saga

Chapter 724: The Temple of Miraak

I know it is late but Ramadan Kareem! I've been way under the weather lately and fasting took a toll on me for the first time in many years. Either way, may this holy month bless you for the rest of your days. Amen!

Enjoy!

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The Temple of Miraak was a fair riding distance from Frostmoth Fort. To Jon and Wulfur, they teleported instantly down the hill where the temple was.

As they landed, the scene they saw baffled Wulfur quite a bit. As for Jon, he narrowed his eyes and started counting.

"Sky above!" Wulfur exclaimed at the sight of a Dragon Graveyard, "One man did all that?"

"Aye!" Jon nodded.

The words "Dragon" and "Graveyard" were so unimaginable together to the point where Wulfur was suffering to comprehend the might of what one man can do.

"And they call us mortals?" Wulfur asked.

"You know, it is not much different from our dragon materials warehouse. We only clean the dragon skeletons, dismantle them to pieces, and put them neatly in crates." Jon said, "I bet we have more skulls than whatever in this graveyard."

"This is not just another pissing contest to you, is it?" Wulfur asked.

"That's why I brought 500 guys with me." Jon laughed, "Imagine 500 people drinking mead all night and pissing at Miraak. We'd overwhelm him."

Not that Jon was planning on doing that or anything.

"No wonder the Snow Elves went extinct." Wulfur mumbled.

As the two climbed up the hill road that had dragon skeletons left and right, they arrived at an incomplete structure with an alien style that is neither Dunmeri nor Nordic. There, Jon and Wulfur could feel the strong pull of the mind manipulation magic that attracted a lot of innocent people here.

There was also a bloody scene of three individuals lying on the ground of that structure with their limbs crushed or slashed off.

"Miraak Cultists, brutally killed." Wulfur said.

"More of them?" Jon frowned.

He wasn't sure there are more cultists than the one that attacked him in Winterhold but he was sure there were more than the two mere cultists that appear in the game, especially down at the Temple. Maybe there is more backstory to those Cultists that he never knew of.

"Interesting." Jon said, "Let's search this place."

The place, which is the incomplete Temple of Miraak, was a circular structure surrounding the Tree Stone, the closest All-Maker stone to the Skaal Village.

There were many Humans and Dunmer working in the temple with their minds completely absent. They were chanting the same chant the people at the Earth Stone were chanting and they were climbing the scaffoldings around the temple to work on its high pillars.

So far, the structure had no roof and it only looked like a circular Arena. Thanks to that, it didn't take Jon and Wulfur a few seconds to follow the blood trail and find the killer of those Cultists.

"You two! Identify yourselves." Facing them was a shield-maiden clad in heavy nordic armor and carrying her axe and shield.

"I recognize that face." Wulfur spoke and proceeded to remove his helm.

Jon also used the top of his staff to take off his large hood.

"Sir Wulfur… and you… Sir Jon!" The shieldmaiden recognized.

"Lady Frea." Wulfur spoke in a tone that carried a hint of excitement.

Jon merely smirked and decided to capture this moment later in order to use it as leverage when needed. As for the current situation…

"It is good to see the two of you." Frea of the Skaal approached Jon and Wulfur, "I haven't known of your arrival."

"We just arrived a few hours ago." Wulfur replied.

Frea of the Skaal was the daughter of the Skaal's Head Shaman. She is also the junior Shaman of her people. Jon and the group met her a few years back when they visited Solstheim for the first time, she was still young back then just as they were and she developed an obvious crush on Wulfur, one that annoyed Bjorna Firemane, Wulfur's wife and Jon's cousin.

"Lady Frea, I see that your people are being used by something evil here." Jon interrupted the moment and spoke to Frea.

"I'm afraid so, Bloodskal." Frea replied, "I asked a few of my relatives to get to Winterhold and ask for your aid but I found them all here."

"Alfhild and Fengrim reached Winterhold and delivered your message." Jon said.

"Who?" Frea frowned.

"Alfhild and Fengrim." Jon repeated the names, "Two young ones, a little special."

"Two Skaal kids made it to Winterhold alone?" Frea laughed, "Some people in the group had kids but I am not aware of every child, this fills me with pride somehow."

"Strange! I thought people from small clans know each other well." Wulfur wondered.

"We do but not to that extent. Our village is as big as a town. I may know them by appearance but not by name." She said.

"Enough with that." Jon said while still feeling strange about the situation yet he had to suppress his curiosity for now, "The Temple of Miraak, what do you know?"

"I am not sure." She said, "All I was thinking when I stood here was either rescue my people or avenge them."

"And the cultists?" Wulfur asked.

"Today is my first time encountering them." She replied.

Wulfur explained what happened in Winterhold to her and then asked her about the details of the situation.

"I am unsure. Something has taken control of most of the people in all of Solstheim. It makes them forget themselves, and work on these horrible creations that corrupt the Stones, the very land itself. My father says Miraak has returned to Solstheim just like what you keep saying, but that is impossible."

"Miraak tried to have Jon killed." Wulfur said.

"Then we have reason to see what lies beneath this temple. Let us go. There is nothing more I can do here. The Tree Stone and my friends are beyond my help for now. We need to find a way into the temple below." Frea said as she urged Jon and Wulfur to follow her while rushing down the temple.

"Wait." Jon called, "Before you go, I'd like to seek your wisdom about Miraak. Do you know anything more than what we know of him?"

"His story is as old as Solstheim itself. He served the dragons before their fall from power, as most did. A priest in their order. But unlike most, he turned against them. He made his own path, and his actions cost him dearly. The stories say he sought to claim Solstheim for himself, and the dragons destroyed him for it"

"We already know that much." Jon said.

"And how do you keep yourself from the sway of Miraak's power?" Wulfur asked.

"I have an amulet but it is one of its kind. How do you do it?" She asked.

"We're enough to tank against it with our bare minds." Wulfur said, "But it feels like we're having a nasty buzz at our ears."

"Speak for yourself. This level of control works on the weak of mind." Jon said while retorting Wulfur who was acting tough in front of Frea.

"Fine. Will we go inside?" Frea asked.

"After them." Wulfur replied.

"Them?" She asked.

"Jon." Wulfur turned to Jon.

"Yeah yeah, working on it."

Jon started waving his staff in circles a few times and the Magicka was siphoning above him in a sphere as it slowly until it reached the size he wanted then he suddenly stopped waving and put the crystal of the staff in the middle of the Magicka cloud.

As soon as he did that, the Magicka cloud exploded and blinded everyone around. As the cloud settled, around 50 Dremora were spawned around Jon with their menacing faces, armor, and weapons.

"All-Maker!" Frea exclaimed.

"They will clear the way inside, we will go after them."

And that's how Jon was raiding dungeons nowadays.

***

As the raid was over, Jon, Wulfur, and Frea entered the crypt beneath the Temple of Miraak and they could see the atrocities that were committed by the Dremora.

"You sent those demons blindly? What if they killed any of the Skaal inside?" Frea asked.

"There are no Skaal inside." Jon said, "By the way, collect all the resources you can find and prepare to go to the deepest part of the temple. If my information is correct, this one goes deep… way too deep."

The Temple of Miraak was one of the largest dungeons in the game. It had multiple layers and was diving inside the hill deeply through a network of tunnels that were built upon a cave system that existed long ago. The ancient architecture of the place rivals anything found on the mainland of Skyrim.

Jon could also feel that the Elite Dremora he summoned were dying gradually at certain points. This was mostly because of the traps that the temple was riddled with. Miraak had many enemies in the past and so he was obsessed with security.

"Those Dragon skeletons out there. Were they always here?" Meanwhile, Wulfur was cracking some conversation with Frea.

"To be honest, the scene of those dead beasts bewildered me for days and it was the reason I couldn't approach this place for long. It has to be that whatever killed such mighty beasts is even mightier than they are. I couldn't gather the courage to come here until today." Frea said.

"What changed things?"

"Well, I thought that if that thing was truly this mighty, why would it keep attacking our minds rather than using the power it used to slay those many dragons and make us submit? We Skaal are nothing special when it comes to fighting. So I took my axe and came to see."

Frea seemed sad as she said so but then continued.

"As for your question, the Dragon bones seem to have been here for ages. Only when the disappearances started with the ash storms were they revealed." She said.

"So not only can Miraak control the mind but he can also use the ash storms to cover his Cultists." Jon concluded, "But what about the Cultists? Do you recognize any of them?"

"They aren't mind controlled, I know at least that. Still, I have no clue where they came from. I suspect they are from the mainland though." Frea answered.

"I could tell most Islanders had no clue who the Cultists were and so I prepared another method." Jon said as he started deviating from the course of the crypt to a secondary room.

"What method?" Frea asked.

Wulfur sighed and offered Frea to walk in first. In the room, two of the Dremora Jon summoned were standing guard over a cultist that was left alive.

"Enhanced Interrogation." Jon said with a sly smile.

"It means Torture." Wulfur explained.

With some of his nastiest spells, Jon was ready to make the captured cultist sing.

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