They at least landed somewhere? Gav blinks the afterimage away to see where they landed.

They seem to be inside a... jail cell? A jail cell in a dungeon? It's dark and cold and damp, the wall and floor are bare stone with moss growing from the cracks, there is a bedroll next to a wall with a skeleton lying on it, and the door to their cell is a heavy metal gate embedded into the stone.

Also, they're naked.

Naked in a jail cell? That brings back some pleasant memories, but the skeleton is creepy.

Unarmed in a jail cell in a dungeon. Could this have been the goal? Imprison them somewhere unknown? Actually, Herod opens his magic sense to see if anything in the room is magical.

Nothing in the room, no, nor in the hallway beyond.

Any chance that the door is actually unlocked? Alternatively, can they force it open? Gav casts improve strength on himself first.

The door doesn't have a lock, per se; it's a portcullis, and the only way to open it is by pulling it up and into the wall. Which Gav can pretty handily do.

Well, if someone brought them here on purpose, they would have done a better job at security. Probably. They might still be shot by someone, if they go gallivanting naked about the unfamiliar place, but beats keeping the skeleton company.

Herod crosses the portcullis, hurdling his wings closer to his body.

Gav waves the skeleton goodbye and follows suit.

The hallway has more cells, not all of whose doors are closed, not all of which contain skeletons. The meagre light that's the only thing letting them see comes from a single wall torch at the other end of said hallway, and from there and to the left there is a ramp gently sloping up.

They give the other cells a cursory glance, mostly to make sure there isn't anyone else in need. Is the torch removable from the wall?

With some super strength it can be yanked free.

A meager source of light: acquired.

They then proceed to the ramp to the left.

Their footsteps don't echo because they're barefoot but it feels like they should be. The place feels the kind of cold that deep underground places often do, a humid breezeless cold that seeps into your bones and leaves your teeth chittering. The lit torches are sufficiently far from each other that there are occasionally stretches of actual darkness. It's unclear why anyone would go through the trouble of only lighting some of these torches, if they already went as deep as this holding area seems to be.

After some walking they reach a pair of stone doors. One of them is cracked but still standing, while the other has crumbled to pieces and allows them to squeeze through. On the other side they can see a large circular chamber with three more doors similar to that one on the "ground floor", all of them mostly-intact. The center of the room is dominated by a thick cyllindrical pillar around which a set of spiral stairs leads up to a metal grate door on the ceiling, and from that direction they can hear voices, faint enough their sources are probably pretty far away.

For once, even Gav thinks this is a bad time to be naked. Is there enough room to fly?

They can take the stairs otherwise. Herod whispers to Gav about the distant voices. "Let's try approaching silently, first. Just in case they are our captors."

The ceiling isn't high enough to permit flight, no. Getting to the door doesn't really let them discern what the people are saying very well, but it does let them pick out two different voices. They seem to be walking away from wherever Gav and Herod are, though.

Are they capable of discerning anything that is being said? At least emotional tone?

No and yes: it seems like those two are just having a calm conversation, perhaps a bit dry with short sentences but not otherwise remarkable.

Not a lot to go on.

Okay, what if he and Gav worked together to slowly open the metal gate without making too much noise?

It... still makes a fair amount of noise. They can certainly reduce it from what it would have otherwise been, but it's still a probably-centuries-old grate sliding into stone, there's not much they can do, there.

That said, it does not seem like it grabs the attention of those two people; their voices continue to fade away into the distance.

Cool, Gav is a big guy (in more ways than one), but he tries to be careful. Maybe they can close in the distance enough to hear whatever the two voices are saying?

The room they step into is another circular room of the same diameter as the one they just left, but much less empty, with old rotten furniture and books strewn about here and there. There is a single, large opening on the wall leading into another hallway, and that's where the voices are coming from. If they follow the voices they'll find themselves going through a maze of corridors in what is increasingly obviously ancient buried ruins of some kind.

Eventually they do get close enough to be able to make out words.

"...on the floor over there," says one of the voices. "My guess is... fire? I think it's fire."

    "I'll defer to your judgment," says the other voice. "'Tis not my area of expertise."

"Nor mine but I suppose it's probably more mine than yours."

Herod briefly considers looking around the rotten furniture for a source of modesty, but decides against it.

"That doesn't sound like prison guards?" Gav whispers. "They sound like... nerds discussing something. I would know."

"...Let us hear just a bit more before approaching?"

They're quiet for a few more minutes but eventually the first voice says, "Just how many traps can a place have?"

    "It makes one wonder."

"Did these people just tiptoe around all of these traps all the time? Did the traps just get set up after everyone left? This actually makes no sense."

The other voice doesn't respond to that.

Traps?

Gav reads the expression.

"Do you want me to make first contact, so you can keep your self-image of the responsible one?"

Snort. Herod reaches to pet Gav's hair. "You always spoil me."

He grins. Then he turns in the direction of the voices and speaks loud enough to be heard. "Hey, is anyone willing to help a pair of naked angel dudes here?"

"That wasn't anyone from the College," says the first voice, probably to their companion. Then, more loudly: "Who and where are you?"

"Can you follow our voices? Or should we approach?"

"We are Gav and Herod. We are very lost!" Gav says cheerfully.

"We'll come over to you."

    "Are you sure this is wise?" asks the other voice.

"Not at all."

They can nevertheless hear the sounds of approaching steps.

Herod and - after a look - Gav cover themselves with their wings for modesty. This might turn out very bad, but probably better than trying to find their way out through traps that involve fire.

The two of them are tall, but are hard to distinguish from humans. Except for the long wings, Herod's are brown with gold and black markings.

Gav's are white-gray. They also have a slightly metallic sheen to their skin, but that is hard to notice most of the time, and definitely not in a dungeon.

It turns out they probably didn't really need to cover themselves at all; the three men that turn around the corner are also nude, and not themselves bothering to cover up.

...well, kind of.

One of them is a human with bronze skin and shoulder-length hair, holding in one hand a gnarly staff whose tip resembles a rose nearly as tall as he is. An orb of light floats lazily above his head, serving as a much better light source than the torches and braziers around. His skin glimmers with a faintly unearthly red sheen plus something that looks almost like a thin sheet of some mostly-transparent dark liquid that flows unpredictably all over his body.

The second one is a grey-skinned grey-haired bearded elf, his forehead covered by white tattoos. His skin also has the same magical coating.

And the third man, dark skinned with red tattoos covering his face, long pointed ears, and horns, is the reason for the "kind of"—he is not entirely naked, but he's wearing what can only be described as fetish gear: his legs are encased up to the thighs in long metal greaves, his arms are covered up to the biceps by spiky metal gauntlets, his shoulder and upper chest are covered by an elaborate metal set of pauldrons, but his torso is mostly exposed, covered only by a thin strip of metal that goes from the center of his crotch up to his chest, opening into a cleavage window. There are two bands of thin metal wire encircling his waist and connecting the different pieces of the "armour" to each other and to a... cock ring? Cock sleeve? A metal cyllinder surrounding the man's shaft, leaving the head of his penis exposed. A two-handed broadsword is attached to his back, completing the kinky dark knight look.

"Huh," says the owner of the first voice. "This is new."

"Indeed! Love the fashion style."

"You won't get much of a response out of it," the first guy warns. "I'm Ruby, by the way."

"Erandur." The elf looks a lot more suspicious and seems about ready for a fight.

"Have you been... trapped here this whole time?"

"Dunno what you mean by 'whole time'. Less than an hour? Maybe. I am shit at figuring out time even with the sun angle for reference."

"Where is here?"

Blink blink.

"We are in the ruins of Saarthal. Were you summoned?"

"No. No? The opposite. I mean, we were teleported away during an attack. Then we found ourselves here."

"Away from Oblivion?—wait no you probably were already in Mundus. ...right?"

Head tilt, trying to mentally see those words from another angle in his head. "I don't think so. We are angels, but we left Elysium years ago, and had been living in Prime."

"Those aren't names I'm familiar with," Ruby says, but the tilt of his head suggests he's asking Erandur and not them.

"Nor me."

Ruby turns to look at them again. "And I... assume those aren't realms in Oblivion. Aetherius, maybe? Or... farther?"

"Oh, I see. The magic crossfire caused us to appear in an entirely different world outside the set that we know of."

"That is impossible."

"That should be impossible," Erandur agrees, looking even more suspicious.

"'Less than an hour, maybe'," Ruby repeats, suddenly. "Oh, that motherfucker."

"—you believe this to be the work of Sanguine?"

"Of course it's her, who else would do this?"

"It is... concerning... if a Daedric Prince has this sort of power."

"Do you have Daedra and Aedra wherever you come from?" Ruby asks the two. "—I suppose if you're from beyond the Void there's no reason to believe your spiritual situation would be similar. Actually, how are the two of you speaking Cyrodilic?"

"We are not speaking Cyrodilic. We have a permanent translation effect cast on us. And neither Daedra nor Aedra are translating properly. I can get a sense of spirit or divinity and... ancestry? Or lack of ancestry from Daedra?"

"We were, like, attacked by what I think were just people from our world? Anyway, who is Sanguine?"

"Aedra is the name given to the spirits that participated in the creation of this world, and Daedra is the name given to those that didn't," Ruby explains. "And yeah, the word 'Aedra' means 'our ancestors' in Aldmeri while 'Daedra" means 'not our ancestors'.

"Anywho, Sanguine is a Daedra Lord, meaning he's one of the most powerful. His domains are revelry, pleasure, hedonism, debauchery, and all that jazz, but most relevantly she likes, uh... playing pranks on people. Just for fun. And kidnapping someone from beyond the Void just to see what happens sounds just like her, especially given that you two appeared around me."

"Daedra are still meant to be confined to our local surroundings," Erandur protests. "They should not be able to reach into the Void."

"But if anyone could, it would be her. He has more realms than any other Daedric Prince, no? It wouldn't surprise me if one of those realms happened to stretch into the Void."

To the newcomers: "Come with us? I'll explain more as we go but we're kinda doing a thing here."

"If his pranks involve the meeting of hot naked guys, I can't dislike the dude."

"I would very much like to come with you. We don't have anything to our name in this world, and would like... help with that. We can work to repay you."

"Fifty percent chance your clothes will be wherever our clothes are," Ruby says, turning around and starting to walk the way he came. "Sanguine... has taken a liking to me, and occasionally she expresses that liking by stealing the clothes of everyone around me and stashing them somewhere nearby." He wiggles the staff he's been holding. "He's the one who gave me this staff, and while some people have advised me against using it to avoid drawing Sanguine's attention..."

Erandur harrumphs.

"...nothing really bad has happened to me so far. The staff is what summoned the Dremora," he adds, hiking a thumb in the direction of the demonic dude who hasn't said a word so far. "Dremora don't really consider themselves to have individuality until they've gotten powerful enough to become military leaders. The ones I can summon prefer to be treated as entirely interchangeable and to be referred to using the pronoun 'it'."

Gav pats Herod's back.

"Sorry, that is a lot to process. I want to ask why??"

"I was going to ask where it got its fashionable attire."

"Why to which bit? And I assume the Dremora's outfit was personally selected by Sanguine. It's mildly scandalous even by the standards of wizards."

"Why in the name of Our Creator All-Mother Lady Curiosity is my life being like this? Which I don't reasonably expect you to know. I guess you already mentioned Sanguine likes pulling pranks. Hm, I am not sure if I should feel concerned about its situation too," he indicates the Dremora with a glance. "Or yours," he tells Ruby. "Oh, why are you in here again?"

Sigh. "Is the Dremora fuckable? Gav, wait until we at least have some pants before dropping them at the first opportunity."

"I don't think the Dremora is fuckable," says Ruby with a half-smile. The Dremora itself seems content to completely ignore this conversation. "I have never gotten any words out of it that have not been taunts or battle cries.

"I'm with the Wizard College of Winterhold, and they've been working on excavating these ruins for archaeological purposes and to study ancient magic. Erandur here isn't with the College, he's just been following me around because he believes himself to owe me a debt of blood."

"I do owe you a debt of blood," he says. "But most importantly, I follow Mara wheresoever she should send me, and I believe she desires that I aid you."

"Mara is the goddess of love, fertility, compassion, and agriculture. Don't ask me why there are multiple divine spirits interested in me personally, I don't know."

Gav pouts. "Now, that is just cruel." He shakes his head. "Anyway, that sounds nerdy, but we can tag along?"

"Yeah... we overheard you guys before approaching and the words 'trap' and 'fire' were mentioned? Uh, sorry for the overhearing you two."

"Trying to gauge the risks when teleported to an unknown location by listening in to what the locals are saying sounds eminently sensible to me. And yes there are magic traps—and nonmagic ones. If you see a faintly glowing rune on the floor or an elevated slab of stone do not walk on it, you will have a bad time."

He bows his head. "Relevantly, I can enhance my senses and detect magic, though that comes with... the side effect of an aura of admiration. I can also dispel most temporary effects, but I doubt it will work on magic traps that have lasted however long this place has."

"'Aura of admiration'?"

"Hallowed vows - the angelic magic - give you a suppressible halo that causes people to think you're virtuous and admirable for a specific reason, mine for being a scholar that cares about learning and teaching."

"If it's suppressible then it shouldn't be a problem?"

"I need it active if I want to use the sensory part, and didn't want to spring it on you by surprise."

"I see. Well, fine by me."

"Thank you for the warning. I am also fine with it."

"What can you two do?"

"Broad question with a broad answer. We're mages, Erandur is a priest of Mara on top of that."

"I made a vow to never use destructive magics or commune with Daedra again."

"I assume you two don't have 'mage' as a category wherever you're from, what with how different your magic is."

"Not really, no. It is translating as a term for magic person."

"You are not a fan of pranks?" Gav asks Erandur.

"No," he replies dryly.

"Giving a full overview of all a mage can do would be one hell of a large undertaking. The five main schools of magic are Restoration, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, and Illusion, then you have Alchemy, Enchanting, and Engraving as subschools that apply magic to mundane objects, and Mysticism is the school of magic that is about doing magic to magic itself. That might help guide more specific questions?"

"It does help. I just wanted to know the more practical applications to get out of here."

"Warning: he will try to drain all the knowledge out of you as soon as we are out of here."

"Good thing we're near the foremost institution on magic on the continent, then."

"Oooh. How much would it cost to have access to their library?"

"Nothing. The College is committed to free exchange of knowledge." Then he points at a glyph on the floor up ahead where the hallway turns right. Its glow is faint enough that it's very hard to make out under the light of his magical light source. "Trap."

Free. That is sure a departure. "Do you want to see if I can dispel it or do you prefer testing magical interactions in better controlled circumstances?"

"Nah go ahead, I know next to nothing about Mysticism and don't know how to disarm them myself."

"Alright, I am going to bring up some of my halo to see anything interesting going on. You may look away from me if you'd rather."

For a moment, it appears that Herod's head gains a faint circular glow, but it is dark enough that the light is obviously false. It doesn't bring brightness into the shadows around them. The halo just makes Herod brighter.

And looks like someone that cares about studying and knowing the true nature of things, that embodies a bit the virtues of someone who seeks truth just for the sake of truth itself. The effect isn't overwhelming, but it is definitely there.

Then he speaks, in a voice that sounds overlaid in multiple languages, yet each language comes out clearly and distinct.

"Riskless Dispel!" Nothing overtly magical happens. "Lesser Dispel! Disarming Dispel! Oh, interesting. I am pretty sure that last one made the magic flicker."

"Are the phrases causally potent?"

"Yes. Spellwords - the human magic. Mine started with just Dispel, and then I grew variants. I think I know how to deal with the trap. Disenchanting Dispel!"

The glyph's light immediately fades and disappears, leaving only a lightly charred shape on the floor where it used to be.

"Human magic?"

"Yes. Back in our worlds, you can reincarnate once per world. And each has a native species with their own magic. You can keep the magics you acquire in each life."

"Strength Push!" Gavriel demonstrates.

He is already fairly muscular, but his muscles bulge and expand even further, not to the point of the anatomically impossible, but definitely getting there. It lasts just a moment, but it's enough for Gav to flex.

"It comes in a lot of varieties." Herod squeezes Gav's ass. It looks oddly affectionate. "If this place is really not part of our immediate cosmology, you probably can't use them, humans and former humans can write down and share their words with books. But you only get one use before needing to memorize them again." Barely perceptible pause. "We have more spellwords, but no tomes, so... if we use them here we might lose them forever."

Gav is happy with the butt squeeze. "Yeah, and, like, writing them down and having to reread them each time is such a bore. The up side of being attacked is that we have fewer words now. Because we used them to defend ourselves."

"Should you not have used those words just now, then? Or would it work for me to write them down for you?—wait, you used to be human?"

"Those are our spellwords." Pause. "Our innate spellwords. We can use them as many times as we want."

"And, yeah, used to be human. In our first lives, then we died. Then we had our tragic backstory, but eventually got back to the human world. Then here."

"'The human world'."

"Where the humans live. Also known as Prime."

"What is the local cosmological and spiritual situation?"

"A bit complicated. In addition to the mortal realm, Mundus, we have Oblivion surrounding it, where most of the Daedra live; Aetherius surrounding Oblivion, where most souls go upon death and remain forevermore; and the Void surrounding that, where all creation came from. My best guess is that your world is also in the Void, somewhere."

"Interesting. And physical travel between those realms is possible?"

"To a limited extent. It is possible but extremely difficult to open two-way portals to Oblivion with magic but most of the time that is a terrible idea, because many Daedra have no regard for the lives of others. It is possible and much easier to create a conjured body for a Daedra to inhabit and then summon their spirit into it, in a contractual fashion; that's what I'm doing with the Dremora, here. Portals to Aetherius are also possible but nearly unheard-of. It's easier to open portals to Oblivion from Mundus than vice-versa, and easier to open portals from Aetherius to Mundus than vice-versa.

"Daedric Princes can mostly travel between Oblivion and Mundus at will, with some caveats, but they mostly can't bring other Daedra with them when they do."

"I see. Do the departed souls have... a pleasant forevermore?"

"By all accounts most afterlives are alright, to the kinds of people who go to them. Unless you follow some evil Daedra or get cursed by one, that is, then you go to their realm in Oblivion and those tend to be... less nice."

"Some practitioners of the Necromantic Arts can affect souls, too."

"—ah, yes, there's also that. We're probably going to run into draugr in a bit, they're animated corpses with their owners' souls trapped within."

"Ew."

"Ew, but trapped souls?"

"I believe it to be one of Mara's missions for me, to release those souls so they may move on."

"Your goddess has my support in that. I don't think I can do anything to souls. Or at least I don't expect that I will be able to dispel whatever magic is doing that."

"How dangerous are draugr anyway?"

"Varies wildly, pretty much as much as mortals do. On the bright side, all you need to do to free the souls is sufficiently thoroughly destroy their mortal vessels, no specialised magic needed."

"Oh, cool. Then, can I help you do-gooders by punching?"

"Can you do ripping of limbs? That would work better than just punching."

"I would be delighted to!"

"Wouldn't breaking their bones be enough? Or are they the kind of animated construct that moves through localized telekinesis? When you described them, I assumed they were just taking over the biology of the body as a shortcut for making a body."

"The magic prevents their bodies from fully decaying and the soul is linked to its integrity. Without specialised magic, the kind of thing that tends to suffice to ensure they can't be reanimated later is ripping their limbs off, setting them on fire, turning them to dust, or crushing multiple vital organs necessarily including the brain."

"Cool? I hope there is a bath at the end of this, but I can manage various forms of ripping and crushing."

"A bath can probably be arranged."

"Cool, onwards them!"

"What are the goals here, again?"

"The College is interested in the magical seals placed on the tombs, here, which seem to be very unlike those found elsewhere, so we're doing some preliminary exploration. We're to, basically, look around for anything of particular interest—especially magical seals—and return to the entrance by sundown to share what we found." He pauses then casts a spell that summons a minor illusion in front of his eyes. "It's two hours 'til sundown."

"Interesting. We should get moving then. I would like to have a look myself then."

It doesn't really take very long at all for them to find their first draugr. Four of them, in fact, emerging from four alcoves on the walls of a hallway.

They look like... desiccated corpses. The skin is still there, which is surprising given how ancient the whole place is, and their eyes glow with animating fire, but either their clothes have rotted off or Sanguine's prank has also affected them. They're carrying weapons, though, two of them swords, one an axe, and one a dagger.

And unlike zombies from other media, they are not slow, and they are not shambling.

Gav thinks it's pretty straightforward that you'd remove all the clothes from a place if you are pranking people with forced nudity.

"Battle Strength! Battle Strength!" He casts twice, first affecting himself and then - with a touch - affecting Henry.

The effect is slower to take than the previous demonstration, but Gav jumps into action feinting a rush towards the zombies, that turns into a wing sweep to knock the creature off balance.

Herod, in turn, takes the opportunity to try to knock off one of the unbalanced zombies' weapons. His halo is up too.

Ruby and Erandur both cast spells that just look like bolts of light, but wherever they hit the draugr they cause deep wounds.

It's not very hard at all to defeat the zombies. They seem to mostly have hitpoints, in that they keep going and going until they're sufficiently damaged, at which point they just crumble and stop moving altogether.

The two angels fight with trained efficiency, aside from the part where Gav does take the opportunity to rip off a zombie's arm.

Herod is sure giving mixed signals when he stabs a zombie while emanating scholarliness about it.

Are the weapons any good? Or do they crumble as well?

The weapons are steel, and they're reasonably sharp for all that they've been buried for five thousand years.

Cool, they can divide the weapons among them if the others want to? Either way, it would be nice to use sharp objects to hit.

Gav is already testing the axe's balance.

Erandur and Ruby don't particularly want weapons; Erandur has magic, and Ruby has magic and a Dremora.

Cool. Each angel gets a sword. Herod keeps the dagger. Gav keeps his new axe. Onwards?

Onwards!

The ruins have sufficiently deteriorated over the years that most distinguishing features of different rooms and hallways are no longer there, which turns the place into a veritable maze. They continue to run into draugr, and the fights continue to not be extremely challenging.

And then they get to a larger room that has four alcoves in it. Each of the alcoves has a metal three-sided pyramid of sorts, on a metal base, and each side has a depiction of an animal in bas-relief: a fish, an eagle, and a snake. Above and behind each of the pyramids, engraved into the wall, are the same depictions again, one per alcove: bird, snake, fish, snake.

Herod takes a closer look. "Are those...? I don't know, family crests or something?"

Can you move the pyramids? Gav wants to see if he can match pyramids with the wall symbol.

They can be rotated! Takes some doing, the hinges are kind of rusted, but it doesn't even require super strength.

"Not as far as I know. They're puzzles, extremely easy ones that are nevertheless impossible for draugr to solve. Lots of old Nord tombs have these, to make sure draugr can't get to some areas."

"Oh, cool. It's nice to know I am smarter than a walking corpse."

"I think that there is probably an easier way to keep draugr out, but the thing is still working after all this time."

Ruby walks over to the metal gate across the room from where they walked in and takes note of a hand-sized metal ring hanging from a chain that goes into the ceiling. Once he's made sure that the four pyramids are reflecting the correct animals he pulls on the chain, and that does indeed open the gate. "I think ancient Nords also liked the aesthetic."

And that's when four people walk into the room from the same place they did, all of them also naked. The one in the lead is the kind of old you'd associate with being a wizard, a medium length beard hanging from his chin. The other three look younger, though they are not all human so it's not obvious: one of them is a human man, one is an elf woman, and one is... a... cat man? His face is that of a feline of some kind, his feet are digitigrade and his hands have claws, and that very much is a sheathed cat dick.

"Ah, Ruby, there you are. And... did you summon these?"

"Nope! They're visitors from beyond the Void who got here by accident, my best guess is because of Sanguine. They're Herod and Gav though now that I'm introducing them I realise I don't actually know which of them is which."

"...visitors from beyond the Void," repeats the young man. "Why does this kind of thing keep happening to you?"

"My guess is as good as yours."

"Herod. Gavriel, or just Gav." He says pointing.

He makes an effort to only look the elf woman in the face, whilel trying to not be too obvious about it.

"Hello." He says, mostly in the direction of Onmund, but he does spare a glance at the cat man.

...why does Onmund feel like Gavriel just undressed him with his eyes, even though he's already naked.

The elf woman herself does not seem to give a damn.

"I'm Brelyna Maryon."

"This one is called J'zargo."

"Onmund," he says, resolutely not looking at Gav.

"And the two of you are from beyond the Void, you say? That's fascinating," says the old man.

("That's Tolfdir, Master Wizard of Alteration," Ruby whispers to Herod and Gav.)

Smile.

Herod nods minutely at Ruby. "Yes, Sir. Or at least that sounds like the case, Gav and I got hit by a teleportation accident, which landed us here."

"Truly fascinating..."

Ruby clears his throat. "Any particular reason you guys are all here, now?"

"—ah, yes, indeed. Brelyna detected a powerful seal deep in the ruins and we have been following its signature. It should be beyond that hallway."

"I hope it's okay if we come along and take a look as well?"

"Of course, of course, having more eyes on whatever phenomenon we are about to witness can only help."

Safety conscious, Tolfdir is not.

Ruby's explanation that the silly puzzle was probably to keep draugr out from wherever they're going is borne out by how there are no more draugr from that point on.

Until, that is, they reach the obvious destination.

The platform they find themselves on overlooks a truly enormous chamber, standing a good four stories tall. In the center, a sphere that almost screams "magic" at them floats above a glowing platform, standing twice as tall as a man, both of them covered in blue runes. A faint blue light barrier surrounds them, and in front of it is a throne made of stone.

Sitting on the throne is a draugr, one who also looks painfully magical to anyone with the tiniest amount of sensitivity. And once the group's walked in, his eyes start glowing blue and he looks up at them, rictus grin all the more macabre under those eyes.

Tolfdir is Gav's kind of guy! The chamber is not exactly pretty, but he can appreciate the aesthetics.

He can also wave at the creepy zombie dude, macabre or not. No point in letting your enemies get in the way of your good spirits.

Herod puts Gav's hand down. He is looking at the entire thing with a fraction of his halo up, but doesn't expect to understand the extremely foreign magic at a glance. Hopefully, killing the draugr won't somehow destroy the thing. Since, he is obviously some kind of guardian? Maybe even the owner? And Herod thinks they will likely have to kill him a second time.

"Oh, dear," says Tolfdir as the draugr pulls himself up and starts slowly making his way towards the stairs up to them.

"I don't suppose we could resolve our differences with conversation and diplomacy?" Ruby suggests.

The draugr looks up at him...

...takes a deep breath...

"Fuus... ro DAH!" he yells, and from his mouth comes a wall of unrelenting force in their direction, knocking the five mages clear off their feet.

The angels manage to leap before the wave hits. "Quick-Dispel!" Herod shouts back. It doesn't stop the wave, but it dulls the impact.

They get knocked to the wall, and would almost fall, but Gav holds Herod and exclaims. "Strong Grip!" His hands bulge and vein, to hold tight to the stone.

The mages are quickly jumping back to their feet and almost in unison summoning semi-visible Wards to try to prevent this unreasonably powerful draugr from advancing too much.

It... slows him down, kind of.

But, well, he's a zombie, and if there's one thing Onmund can do to zombies it is burn them.

Which... does jack shit, actually. He's not even shrugging it off, he's just not being at all damaged by the fire, or by Brelyna and Ruby's anti-undead magic, or by J'zargo's Conjured arrows.

    "He is connected to the sphere!" Tolfdir realises, out loud. "We must sever the connection."

"Does it mean it's safe to hit?" Gav says already leaping towards the thing.

Herod's halo flares into existence. Noticeably stronger than before, and for a moment it's hard to believe he is in battle rather than in the middle of a study trying to work out a complicated theoretical problem.

Well, he is trying to work out the flows of magic between the Boss Zombie and the magical sphere, and if there is a weak point to directly aim his anti-magic.

The magic doesn't seem to have any weak points; it's solid throughout.

Tolfdir dodges the draugr and rushes past him, down the stairs and towards the huge sphere. "Keep him occupied! I'll sever his connection!"

Ruby looks at Herod and says, "Help him, your magic can probably speed that up!"

"On it." He joins the older wizard. "Can you give me a general sense of what you are doing so we don't stay in each other's way?" Herod asks the wizard. "I should be able to help out either way."

Gav, meanwhile, is figuring out if the Boss Zombie is weak to steel, or at least if it can be pushed around.

Boss Zombie is weak to, uh, literally nothing. Like we're talking actually game-mechanically invincible, here, he's not immune to knockback but he can absolutely not be damaged in any way.

"I need to weaken the link between this artefact and the draugr," Tolfdir explains, before launching into a much more technical and in-depth explanation of how, exactly, he wishes to accomplish this.

Being game-mechanically invincible is... an issue. It's an issue. If the best they can do is buy time then buy time they will: the mages have Telekinesis and Wards as ways to prevent the draugr from going places too much, and that... helps.

But the problem is that the draugr knows it's invincible, and is either too dumb to realise that Tolfdir is working on it or has full confidence that it won't work, which would be terrifying. And what this means in practice is that he just keeps picking himself up and resuming his advance. Which would be bad enough in itself, but actually it turns out this draugr is also a mage, in addition to whatever... shouty... thing... it did, and can summon elemental Atronachs and cast destructive spells.

Ugh. Magical fights look great and epic, but this is a pain. Can Gav pick a loose rock, sneak behind the draugr and shove it in his mouth?

Herod tries to listen carefully to the explanation, though the theory is unfamiliar. That said, he can at least make educated guesses as to where he should aim his dispels to speed up the process. He will also use his anti-magic defensively.

Gavriel cannot, actually, do that. The draugr isn't particularly distracted, what with how he's literally immune to all of the attacks so he doesn't even have to pay attention to them, so if Gavriel tries he'll learn that actually the draugr is, possibly, as strong as he is.

"This is bullshit," Ruby grunts after being thrown at a wall again.

"Please tell me that the old wizard dude is almost done?"

He is, in fact, done. There's a big flash, and the connection between him and the sphere is suddenly severed, which means that he can finally be hit again...

...but also means he's a lot less content to just patiently grind them to paste. He goes on the offensive, summoning three elementals (fire, frost, and storm) and starting to actually try to kill them.

Yay! The reward for competence: harder work!

At least Herod can join the fray.

Even without the connection to the mysterious magical artefact the draugr is still unreasonably powerful. He has a magic barrier that makes him immune to elemental damage, and which element it is at any given time changes quickly.

He's still just one person, though, and with the combined assault of four mages, one priest, and two angels, he eventually goes down.

"Yay!" Gav says breathlessly. "We did it!"

"How is everyone? And relatedly, any serious injuries?"

"We have rather a lot of healing," says Ruby.

And amongst the rather a lot of healing that they have is also the healing Erandur can throw in the direction of the angels, to cover any damage they took.

...also, uh, they might notice a separate effect. In fact it seems to have started as soon as they killed the draugr, and has been getting more noticeable over these past few seconds.

"Interesting," says Tolfdir. "Is this also your Prince?"

"Sanguine is not my Prince," Ruby sighs. "—but yes, probably."

It seems like everyone is getting these effects, actually. Even the Dremora.

"I was wondering if that was a bizarre side effect of healing. Just when I was getting used to the lack of support."

He does require a lot of support, especially now. It can't be comfortable flying naked with that much dangling.

"I like the not your Prince. He knows how people should celebrate their victories."

He glances around, checking everyone out.

Onmund shuffles uncomfortably.

Turns out he's a grower.

Neither Ruby nor Erandur look particularly surprised, though, compared to everyone else. Seems like they were both kind of half-expecting it. But between the two of them it's only Ruby who looks like he appreciates it.

"What a fascinating effect. I can barely see the magic! It's ingenious."

"He is a god."

"I feel a little bit put upon."

"Yeah."

"To me, it sounds like a welcoming gift."

"Is it obligatory to metaphorically accept the gift?"

"I don't see a compulsion component to the effect but one could be cleverly hidden."

"...it would really not be her style. Sanguine is all about personal freedom and stuff, he wouldn't want to force you to have any fun you don't want to have. She might roll his eyes at you for it and she might decide you're actually mistaken about what you want and a little bit more mead will change your mind but he wouldn't force anything.

"I think."

"J'zargo once again feels like he is missing context."

"Most people—at least humans and elves—usually don't want to suddenly be very horny in an uncontrolled environment."

("Skill issue.")

"...J'zargo does not understand but he will accept the explanation."

"That is... more reassuring than it could be. Uh, what taboos regarding sex should we be aware of? Or, more importantly, personal preferences?"

"Mages have basically none and are fuckrabbits."

"I resent that."

"Okay not everyone is fuckrabbits. Also." He starts pointing at people, starting with himself. "Bi," J'zargo, "Bi," Onmund, "Gay," Brelyna, "Straight," Erandur, "Bi," Tolfdir, "No idea actually."

"I am not particularly interested," says Tolfdir, not looking back at them from where he's staring back up at the huge sphere.

"Herod is bi. I am gay. The gayest."

Herod respects Tolfdir immensely, but despite all his protests to Gav he is not not interested. Also it's good to keep an eye on Gav's activities.

Onmund shuffles awkwardly again but he is completely failing to disguise his interest in the angels.

So is Brelyna.

J'zargo isn't even trying.

"Right, then, since everyone is too awkward to make good on my word that there are no sex taboos, Onmund, on your knees, I want you pleasuring Herod."

"—um???"

"Come on, you heard me."

...he, uh, looks at Herod and his cock is standing at such tall attention it looks fit to burst.

"You have my permission to approach."

"Can I get my orders, sir?"

Onmund shivers but walks towards Herod and... does as instructed.

Sir, is it? Interesting.

"You," he says, looking at Gav, "should come here like a good boy and kiss me."

J'zargo decides that he will also come over to where Ruby is.

Erandur and Brelyna look at each other, shrug, and start making out.

"Do I get punished if I am not a good boy?"

As instructed, he approaches and kisses Ruby.

"Good," Herod decides to start by being gentle. He caresses Onmund's hair, while helping the man taking it in.